Jushin Liger vs. Black Tiger (Rollerball Rocco), Bob Backlund vs. Dusty Rhodes (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week, I have stuff from all over (mostly New Japan), but it’s some great rarities! First off, it’s ROLLERBALL ROCCO as Black Tiger in New Japan, as he does one of his final matches in the gimmick, taking on a young Jushin Liger in *1989* for the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title! Next up is a weapons-heavy brawl in ECW as New Jack gets his one and only shot against the ECW World Title, taking on champion Mike Awesome in a match where New Jack clearly doesn’t wanna take any of Mike’s signature stuff, haha. Then it’s back to New Japan for a WWF Title defense, as Bob Backlund defends against DUSTY RHODES in 1984!

Then it’s a rare JEAN-PIERRE LAFITTE match, as PCO’s pirate gimmick that only lasted a few months sees him in his only star vs. star match that wasn’t against Bret Hart, facing Adam Bomb on WWF TV! And finally, our PWI 500 guy of the week is Foxx Vinyer, now an occasional AEW jobber, as he takes on Jimmy Limits in some theatre show!

IWGP JUNIOR HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE:
3 MINUTE ROUNDS:
JUSHIN LIGER vs. BLACK TIGER:
(New Japan, July 12th 1989)
* It’s ROLLERBALL ROCCO as Black Tiger! I didn’t realize he’d made it all the way to the Liger era. This is also a MUCH earlier Jushin Liger than I’m used to seeing, with gold trim instead of white, a more bestial golden mask, and a blue scarab thingie on his stomach. Rocco looks softer and doughier than I’ve seen him before- not as ripped as he was in the early ’80s World of Sport. His gear is pretty simple- a sleeveless black shirt and tights over grey trunks, with a black & grey tiger mask. The two wrestled in World of Sport, with Liger as “Fuji Yamada”.

Liger’s early gear is way more “Ultraman”, but also more bestial.

Round 1: Black Tiger takes down Liger to start, but quickly gets dropkicked down and gripes about it, but hits a ripcord shoulderblock and they trade armbars until BT just boots him in the gut and hits THE PEDIGREE of all things for two- grabbed the tights instead of hooked the arms but still. Jaguar Yokota still did a variant first but that was cool. Black Tiger keeps dropping knees and other stuff to make him look mean and nasty, and they trade cradles and grapple on the mat as commentary talks about how well they know each other, namedroping Keiichi Yamada & Mark Rocco as their identities. Liger butt-bumps out of a full nelson but gets drilled with a clothesline as BT growls and stomps on him in a way that’s illegal in WoS. But a flying nothingburger misses and Liger cranks on the injured knee- Rocco ends up axehandling him, provoking Liger to just hammer away with punches and put his fists up and the round is over (3:00).

Round 2: Black Tiger, like a total asshole, uses the towel/water break to hang onto his towel and immediately throttle Liger with it, strangling him off the ropes twice in a row to little reaction. He dumps Liger and hits an elbow from the apron and knocks him against the post, but Liger ducks the second punch, smashes his hand into the apron, then whacks him with a bottle, totally pissed off. Now the fans are responding! Black Tiger complains for the bottle, but quickly starts punching Liger in the face and front suplexes him onto the ropes, then hits his flying back elbow (huh- I think I only ever see him miss that and do the same rollover on the landing). That gets two, but he tries a tombstone and Liger cartwheels over and does one himself, then goes up and absolutely PLANTS a somersault senton, just bouncing right off of him. OW that did not look fun to take. Black Tiger weakly kicks out and Liger chinlocks him, then slaps on a headscissors until Tiger bails, at which point Liger smokes him with a baseball slide and hits a giant plancha that has ALL the fans standing up. You can tell moves like THAT were still a novelty. Time’s up, but they brawl on the floor, Tiger whipping Liger to the guardrail but flying and crotching himself on it.

Round 4: We clip to the 4th round as Black Tiger visually shows us a string hidden in his tights and begins to strangle Liger with it, but he misses a kneedrop and now LIGER is strangling him, smashes his face into the mat and nearly stomps on his balls. Attaboy. Black Tiger begs off, clutching his nuts in fear, but manages an armbar and starts biting the hand, then cranking on it more and hitting a back body drop into an elbow. A dazed Liger manages a backslide, but BT drags him to the corner for a Superduperplex, floating over for a nearfall as the round ends. lol commentary was rambling about women wanting luxury goods and marrying into wealth before the fall- what was THAT about?

Round 5: Liger is toasted now, still on his knees as the bell signals the start, so Black Tiger just pounces on him, kicking his ass and driving his face into the mat from the top using his knee. Commentary are like “I’ve never seen THAT before” but BT whips Liger to the corner, where he springs right up to the top rope for a crossbody, then blitzes off the kickout and hits a wheel kick into the tombstone as he just starts no-selling to drill him again and again- BT chases him up top but flies off, but gets his knees up on a flying headbutt thing. Both are down, and after some go-behinds Rocco swings his leg back Flair-style to sack Liger, then small packages him for two. Liger ducks a lariat off the ropes and comes back with a monster one for two. He pulls Black Tiger up and smokes him in the side of the head with a “Tornado Kick” (a standing version of his rolling kick) for two, then goes up in one jump… and Tiger leaps up under him and hits a giant Avalanche Electric Chair Drop for a close fall! BT hits a bodyslam-style tombstone into a rolling senton- two! But he whips Liger off the ropes and ducks his head- instant Ligerbomb! And that’s the three at (3:04), Liger, springing off backwards.

Very good, hard-fought match, Rollerball doing some of his best cheating, even as his wild bumping style from the UK is done with. He was a complete prick, using a towel and a string to cheat, using testicle-based offense while begging off on any being used against him, and more. Liger’s early enough in his career where he’ll eat a big move then just spring up to hit 2-3 big moves of his own, which I don’t recall seeing from his prime era. Similarly, the end is him eating move after move after move and just doing full kickouts until he gets a last-ditch move for the win. Matches like this make me have to remind myself that for whatever reason, piledrivers and tombstones don’t mean shit in Japan, as they spam the move relentlessly and it’s just some mid-tier nothing move. Interestingly enough, the fans were mostly into the cheating and Liger’s angry counter-attacks instead of the precision wrestling, but that plancha had them ALL standing on their feet as if that was insane offense for the era. Overall, a very good contest- well-executed and Rocco was a great asshole heel and Liger showed some good fire and great movements, if a bit of a rookie mentality of “all the movez = good” and “eating tons of moves and coming back is the best way”.

Rating: ***1/2 (very good match in an earlier version of the Juniors style)

ECW WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE:
MIKE AWESOME (w/ Judge Jeff Jones) vs. NEW JACK:
(ECW, Oct. 1999)
* Recommended by Manjiimmortal, this features the ECW Title run of Mike Awesome, whose greatness was entirely reliant on others being willing to bump like crazy for his powerbomb-heavy offense. New Jack was a midcard wonder in ECW, mostly used to pop the fans and feud with stupid stables like Da Baldies and not get involved with anything too important because it was iffy if he’d always be around (ie. he was unreliable as shit and crazy). Awesome gets a hype video during his entrance (“The Zoo” by The Scorpions is playing) featuring nothing but him hitting giant Awesome Bombs and leaping over the top rope for his tope suicidas, which… is pretty much all Mike Awesome really does, so it makes it pointless to air that before his matches, haha. But the stylistic clusterfuck here will be interesting, if not good. New Jack comes down to “Natural Born Killers” by the NWA, and has a garbage can full of weapons with him.

New Jack tosses the can into the ring, where Awesome grabs a stick and takes a wild swing that launches it into the fans at ringside, then New Jack hits him with a garbage can lid, a small wooden paddle and a garbage can, then begins to strangle him with a rope while Joey Styles says Awesome can NOT play the weapons game and needs to use power. New Jack bites him in the face to stop a comeback and beats on him, but Awesome slugs back and misses an avalanche. Jack drags him to the floor for another beating as Joel Goddard resopnds with the palpable fear in the company that New Jack could be the company’s flagbearer as World Champion. This is actually a terrific mini-angle, as it plays up that New Jack is SOOOOOOOOOOO crazy (ie. awesome and fun in a rebellious sort of way) and Styles plays up that the fans DEMANDED it despite being “a public relations nightmare”. New Jack crazily runs off the apron with a steel chair and smashes himself into the guardrail when Awesome moves. Awesome wisely beats the crap out of him with the chair and throws him into the ring, obviously attempting his trademark flying splash… which Jack appears to position for, only to randomly stand up. Poor Awesome has to be like “gawd demmit” and hits a flying clothesline instead, Jack taking it on the side of the head and doing a weakass bump off it. Awesome spams paddle-shots to the back and goes for a Vader Bomb, New Jack shittily rolling out of the way the WRONG WAY so Awesome knees him but has to sell it as a miss. New Jack recovers and immediately uses the staple gun, sold huge by Awesome. Jack strums his guitar for the big spot, and plasters Awesome with it, but Mike won’t go down! He wobbles on his knees and has to hold himself up using his fist, but he’s still upright! Jack goes up with a garbage can, promptly drops it, then flies off anyways, Awesome intercepting him with a chair. Awesome is like “YOU WANT TO PLAY IT THAT WAY, HUH!?”, beating the shit out of Jack and throwing him out of the ring and through a table in a powerslam position, and the Flying Splash finishes it in the ring at (6:20). lol seriously- no Awesome Bombs?

You know what? I didn’t hate it! It was messy and it was ugly, but that’s kind of the appeal of New Jack matches- just ugly, energetic weapon attacks while cool music plays. And the story was solid- the World Champion ends up eating all this punishment playing that game, but is just too durable and too strong and can still absorb it and come back, scoring a couple moves for the win. Though it’s funny that New Jack doesn’t take a single powerbomb, considering that’s basically Mike Awesome’s entire THING, and it makes me wonder if he just refused to take any big bumps like that, or they didn’t trust that he wouldn’t roll out the wrong way and look like shit. So you’re still like “aw” in the end, because New Jack didn’t die as gloriously as Awesome’s opponents typically did (Spike Dudley and Masato Tanaka took 1-2 bumps per match that make you marvel they’re still walking).

Rating: **1/2 (about as good as a Mike Awesome vs. New Jack match was ever likely to be- kept short, the weapon shots were sold well, and New Jack’s sloppiness couldn’t really hold it back too bad in 6 minutes)

WWF WORLD HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE:
BOB BACKLUND vs. DUSTY RHODES:
(New Japan, May 27th 1981)
* It’s Backlund vs. Rhodes! But from JAPAN! When Dusty had big floofy robes and big bleached hair (I believe Ric Flair has admitted he swiped a lot of Dusty’s act) and wasn’t a Goodyear blimp, and Bob was WWF’s reliable Champion. Both guys seem pretty over, but they REALLY like Dusty.

They start off grapple, Dusty overshooting into the ropes to establish some parity, then he circles around a bit to “counter” Bob’s arm stuff and poses in a dance move like he’s just stuffed the move, and the fans respond accordingly. Son of a bitch- his charisma even works over there. All the fucker did was turn around and Bob whirled around him to sell it! Bob did EVERYTHING but Dusty gets the credit, lol. They roll around on the mat and even Bob is appreciative. Backlund rolls around to counter a wristlock, switching to a top one, then clutches him and finally powers him into a hiptoss. Repeated pushes to the ropes result in clean breaks, further establishing parity, then a LONG fight in a headlock has an open chat (Dusty not hiding his face) and a shoulderblock, but Bob hiptosses him out of an international and Dusty backs off. Dusty picks an ankle and works the leg by squeezing it and they do a LONG fight off of that, Bob first half-nelsoning one arm, then trying to pull Dusty’s neck back with his leg. Bob tries pins and stuff as the camera zooms in on Dusty’s scarred body, commentary putting over his bloody backstory with the Texas Outlaws. Backlund finally gets enough of Dusty’s limbs he can pull him back into a pin, so Dusty releases and stands there with the leg, beating on it but Bob hopping up to monkey-flip him back as a counter. But Dusty elbows him and right back to the leglock! Bob finally gets out and deathlocks the ankle, cranking on it repeatedly. This goes on so long commentary is like “Are they running out of stamina? I can’t tell?” and talking about how good wrestlers often start fast then slow down.

They fire up with another international, but Bob nastily legscissors him down for more ankle work, lasting a minute or so before Dusty just jabs him in the eyes to break. He limps over to a struggling Bob and just launches two big elbows to the back of the head, then brings him down with a trio of boxing jabs and throws him into the chinlock- they fight in that a WHILE, Bob punching free but getting knocked down into another. FINALLY they get out of that, Bob coming out of the corner and leaping into Dusty’s arms, eventually falling back for two and then crushing Dusty’s tailbone with his HUGE running Atomic Drop. This has Dusty rolling to the ropes and wrapping around them in agony. Bob finally drags him off and a Jumping Piledriver gets two. They bounce off adjacent ropes and collide, Dusty getting one but Bob rolling over for the same and they’re both down. Back up and Dusty tries a suplex, then flings Bob back on his O’Connor roll attempt, and Dusty goes for the leg and is kicked off into the ref. Ah, here’s our fuckery. Bob tries to help the ref out but is dragged to the floor for the Clusterfuck Brawl finish… but wait! Bob goes into the post twice and Dusty drops an overhand elbow into his forehead but ROLLS HIM BACK IN! The fans are so used to the count-out fuck finishes they pop for this… and of course Dusty immediately hangs Bob in the tree of woe and beats the shit out of him until the ref pulls him back, shoves him to the man, and gets Disqualified at (18:52), Bob winning. Dusty raises his arm and Bob stands up all groggy and now bloody as hell… but he snaps! Pounds the mat and stares at his hands, kicks Dusty’s ass and chases him to the floor, beating him bloody then coming back into the ring to catch him with multiple punts to the face. Dusty’s about to leave, but gets popped again and IT’S ON… but Dusty keeps backing off. Bob even lays down the WWWF Title and shouts “COME AND GET IT!” to taunt him, and Dusty nearly takes the bait but leaves.

It’s always gotta be something, haha- they start hot, the match looks great, they play up the psychology of Dusty countering Bob’s stuff and do some solid technical work that has me thinking “hey, Dusty was PRETTY GOOD back in the day!” and then they lie down and fuck around for 10 straight minutes of “hump his leg” and “hold a light chinlock with no technique” and it’s dreary shit. Checking again, it was 4 minutes of Dusty’s leglock, 3 of Bob’s anklelock, a quick flurry, then 2.5 minutes of Dusty’s “chinlock”. Like, they’d do the occasional “fight up from the move but end up in it again” and stuff, but mostly it was sitting in the same hold and it can get to be a bit much in a match that’s only 19 minutes- you gotta do more moving around and fighting than just “lying there” to conserve cardio. So basically it has a great start, a really solid brawl and back & forth to end it, and terrible meat. Like a really shitty sandwich on artisinal bread? METAPHORS!

Rating: **3/4 (ALMOST VERY GOOD. Almost!)

ADAM BOMB vs. JEAN-PIERRE LaFITTE:
(WWF Action Zone, June 11th 1995)
* HELL YES- I went searching for rare Star vs. Star Jean-Pierre LaFitte matches in the WWF, and he has one against Adam Bomb! His literal only televised one not against Bret Hart. LaFitte has so far never been pinned, but gets a jobber-ish entrance with his tooty-toot music playing while he’s already in the ring (did they take that from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride?). JPL is billed as a descendant of the actual pirate Jean LaFitte, selling it like he’s wearing the eyepatch in defiance of the American government, whom he claims unfairly punished his ancestor. Bomb is at this point a babyface, still in his red & yellow singlet. He hasn’t had a program since his feud with Kwang ended two months ago, and LaFitte hasn’t had one yet.

LaFitte attacks from behind while the smiling Bomb is putting away his goggles, and they do a quick international that has LaFitte completely bowl Bomb over (!). Okay Bomb has a LOT of weight on him, however squat PCO is, haha. LaFitte goes up and Bomb sorta hops up and kicks/taps him off. HUGE bump by LaFitte, too. Bomb follows with a PESCADO of all things, then uses his old finisher, the slingshot clothesline (unnamed here), pumping his fists instead of going for the cover. Jim Ross and Stan Lane are NOT cool with that. LaFitte reverses a whip and hits a good powerslam and Bomb is now utterly dead, and a second rope legdrop gets two. He ties Bomb in the ropes and hits two cross-bodies from there (the second one is babied- just a little hop- but the first looks good), boots him to the floor, and hits a huge flying axehandle that has Bomb rolling backwards on the sell. A running elbowdrop gets two and they hit a chinlock to chat it out, Bomb coming back with a crossbody of all things, but LaFitte backdrop suplexes him. Back from break with them brawling after a collision, Bomb winning with clothesline and ten punches in the corner. LaFitte gets his boot up in the other corner but gets crotched on the top rope and a pretty weak floatover superplex gets two. LaFitte pulls him out, but gets punched trying another flying axehandle, but is still able to smash Bomb into the steps. But Bomb reverses another whip and LaFitte gets smashed into the stairs, and that’s the Count-Out at (6:13 shown). Disappointing the fans, who to be fair were never into the match. Bomb complains to the ref after the match, but gets his ass kicked by LaFitte, who does a big “crazy shaking face” taunt, then charges Bomb on the floor and gets back body dropped in the aisle, taking another big bump.

Actually a decently hard-fought match by both men- Bomb was being given a very poor push at this point and almost never won big matches, but seems to be trying here, doing multiple “roll over” bumps on big moves. LaFitte was also pretty high-tempo, doing multiple dives, big bumps (like the fall right off the top, or the backdrop on the floor), charging attacks and more- a lot of physical effort from both guys, not that the match was over at all. Both were pretty dead-end gimmicks and Bomb in particular had been established as a nothing act for two years or so, plus from what I can see, they did four Action Zone tapings on one night, so the fans might have been wiped out for this one. The match was so full of hot moves and running it badly affected Bomb, who was open-mouthed breathing and slow to get up from everything, but at least put over the arduous nature of the match. Adam Bomb quits a couple months later after mostly squashing guys.

Rating: **1/2 (perfectly good TV match- lots of effort and big bumps, though it was slower that you’d think given the match time)

THIS WEEK’S PWI 500 GUY: FOXX VINYER:
Appearances: #499 in 2019

-Foxx Vinyer has a unique name and a strange appearance- he’s a decent-sized, burly guy with most of his head shaved saved for a tuft on one corner. And facepaint, making for a bit of a “wildman” look. Except he just wrestles like a normal guy. I dunno- he’s about as big as a WWF jobber from the ’90s. He’s used as an AEW jobber these days, and peaked on the PWI 500 way back in 2019.

FOXX VINYER vs. JIMMY LIMITS:
(World of Hurt Wrestling, April 24th, 2026)
* Jimmy Limits is some guy who evidently hates excercise, and has been wrestling since 2015, mostly in Truly Independent Wrestling. He has a long, long scraggly beard, which was the style in the late 2010s, an ECW T-Shirt of Shame and black shorts, with a terrible bald head with long hair and a man-bun. Foxx comes out in a black singlet and seems pretty over to the crowd, going into it to jazz people up, and does comedy bits with the referee (who sells the weight of Vinyer’s gold chains). Vinyer now has the “tough-guy du-rag” that was popular in the 2000s.

Limits flexes to the crowd, but falls on his ass in fear when Vinyer comes at him, jaws with the fans a ton, and the fans suggest his beard be cut off. Foxx knocks him over with a shoulderblock at at least both guys appear to be fully-trained. They counter hip-tosses to put Foxx on the apron (sadly on the worst one, as Jimmy’s arm TOTALLY slipped and he phantom-tossed him), but Limits eats turnbuckle twice and an International ends in Foxx powerslamming him. Limits bails to stall, and Foxx oversells some shoves into the ring apron, all crawling into the ring and holding his guts like those weak shoves crushed him. Limits charges into an elbow but manages a 2nd-rope one, then rushes in for a European uppercut in the corner and holds his arm out so Foxx can “walk into it” for a side slam. Uh, coulda not telegraphed that so much. Limits does the Attitude Era “walk and stomp”, hitting a running senton, but ends up bumping & feeding for Foxx strikes and a Flatliner (Foxx giving himself a rock bottom). The kickout has Foxx DOFF THE DURAG to show seriousness, revealing one side of his head has a blond Hogan skullet thing going. But the two tired wrestlers do-si-do and Limits escapes a double-underhook with a sloppy Falcon Arrow (suplex to sit-out slam) for two. Limits really needs to stop fucking around with his kneepads after every move. And he’s tired enough that he’s no longer playing a character but trying to keep it together. He climbs the ropes, but Foxx catches him with a fisherman’s superplex for a double-down. Foxx hits a running uppercut and a release German, but Limits catches him with one of those physics-defying cutters in mid-run (like, why did Foxx just shoot down for no reason?) for ANOTHER double-down, then they do some dramatics for the final stretch, with Foxx hoisting Limits up, throwing him onto his feet for no reason, then blocking Jimmy’s running scissor kick and hitting him with a Rock Bottom for three (8:38).

A “hey! They’re adequately trained!” match that eventually descends into “uh-oh, despite all the stalling they’re blown up” one, as moves get looser and sloppier and they do some of the trademarks, like openly doing dance spins instead of actually shooting each other to the ropes, loosely executing slams with guys doing phantom bumps, and not reacting emotionally to what’s happened in the ring because they’re focused on their breathing and how tired they are. Then they keep doing double-downs because of being tired and the next spot requiring running, and they do a bunch of “holding arms out so the other guy can leap into you” cooperation stuff. The fans were at least into everything- they clearly liked Foxx, and Limits being a whiner who kept flexing annoyed them enough to make them into the comebacks. But it went from “swimmingly-decent indie match” to “open co-op”. Foxx seems way better and more precise than Limits, at least. He’d have been a decent jobber or pin-eater/low-end guy in the territories or the Big Two.

Rating: *1/2 (FINE for parts of it, then openly co-operating and being tired)