Dave Reviews Wrestling — page 5

Two months ahead now, with one more July episode before we call it a wrap.

Jumping ahead a few weeks with this promotion based on the stuff that’s available, we’re skipping a month and the time slot has doubled from thirty minutes to one hour. The ident at the start of the hour also includes the name of Buddy Lee Attractions, and anyone who’s watched the Fabulous Moolah Dark Side should be familiar with him. They’ve also switched from marching band music on the intro to something a bit more jazzy.

Going forward rather than backward this time, with the Islanders/Samoans featuring in the last one I looked at and for contrast the top heel team, the Interns, in this one.

Been holding this one back until Scott reviewed the famous Mid South episode with Ted Dibiase challenging for the NWA world heavyweight championship. Mid South Moments is a podcast presented by fellow Brit Dan Phillips and after getting Erik Watts on before he managed to get him back with his legendary father Cowboy Bill Watts, who’s 82 and the main man behind the classic angle, to talk about the November 9th of 1985 episode. Review below the line.

(One of these men is not like the others…)

Another one from Lou Thesz’s UWA. Watch out for the bloop at the start again, this time with colour bars!

A little Saturday oddity, as episodes of the short-lived, Nashville-based Lou Thesz promotion the Universal Wrestling Association have turned up on YT. This was a rival group to Nick Gulas’ and prided themselves, as per Thesz’s presence and endorsement, on better wrestling, but ran out of money before the year was out. Here’s an episode from March. You will see some faces that would be a lot more familiar in the future on these shows.

Christmas of ’92 was a washout, so let’s see how two years prior did. This was from the later days of Bobby and Gorilla, so possibly not much better.

I’ll be picking up the WCW show in January more in line with the time of the year it actually fell, but for now here’s one of a handful of Prime Time episodes that were dropped a while back attached to holidays or certain events. This is from the dying days of the show, three episodes away from the end.

Merry Christmas! “Special edition” of the show today. We’ll see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4UPb_iuSDU

This edition of Work & Shoot focuses on Don Muraco, who has a pretty awesome podcast at the moment where he’s willing to tell some pretty good stories. These snippets are mixed in with some matches and angles from his eighties high points.

A new concept today, a mixture of wrestling matches and then shoot interview clips featuring specific wrestlers. Kicking off today with noted loudmouth the Honky Tonk Man and grumpy old man Greg “The Hammer” Valentine, collectively known as Rhythm & Blues!

I wonder if anything happened at the Meadowlands.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rQSF1NAJDg

So, we’re skipping a week due to missing content. But the Z-Man did take the TV title from Arn Anderson in the live broadcast, so the closing moments of that open the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fxDkiYqiAQ

Jumping back from Japan to the US and the very weird year that WCW had in 1991 with their next big thing not getting over as well as they hoped, their real biggest star leaving the company, an old booker returning with new, but not good, ideas, but leading to a very good first half of 1992. I’ll be looking at each week available to me, but it makes sense to start just after Starrcade 1990, so here we are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nX4-XQ14hU8

Thanks to Mike Fitzgerald reviewing the LPWA Super Ladies Showdown, featuring the crowning of the first (and last) LPWA Japanese Champion, it prompted me to think of another time I saw and was flabbergasted by something including female Japanese wrestlers. About twenty years ago, while at uni, I flicked over to BBC2 late one evening and saw Gaea Girls, a documentary produced by two British producers based in Japan. One word to describe it for me: brutal. So, here’s a review of the doc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU4OYP1i82k

Thanks to the comment section for giving a recommendation for my next unusual Japanese wrestling match to review. I present to you, from May 18th, 1995, the IWA House Death Match!

Back to the IWA with another hot match taking place in Japan, as young lions Keisuke Yamada and Shoji Nakamaki take on Tarzan Goto and Mr. Gannosuke in the sauna. Last week, A and B succumbed to the heat, but will these newcomers make up for it with their superior fitness – find out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4nHjQT76O8

Some cool raw footage to share from a WCW house show from back in the day. I know it died a terrible, horrible death, but the wrestling world was so much better with a WCW in it. Some quick thoughts underneath the video:

Back once again with the 1994 WWF steroids trials!

After yesterday’s Rob Black primer, here’s the review of the show on his promotion, Xtreme Pro Wrestling.