AJPW 10/20/91 - JUMBO TSURUTA/AKIRA TAUE/MASA FUCHI VS. TOSHIAKI KAWADA/KENTA KOBASHI/TSUYOSHI KIKUCHI
In the annals of great AJPW 6-mans from when the New Generation was going up against Jumbo and his team of hitmen, this might as well be known as the "Nose-Break Match". I gather beforehand in the back it went something like this.
Jumbo: "Well, we need to get some good heat on you tonight, and there's only so many times I can beat on Kikuchi." *winks knowingly at him* "So how about this: let's go for a body part... Hey Kenta, let's go for your nose! Let Fuchi do it, he's best at that kind of thing." *belly laughs* *Fuchi grins sadistically*
And that's pretty much what happens. Everybody gets a moment to shine and build the heat up, then Fuchi steps on Kobashi's face and when he stands up punches him right in it, which ends up with everyone on Jumbo's side doing their best to make him not breathe right for a month. Everybody gets their licks in but Fuchi is the master of torture and there are closeups of him just blasting Kobashi directly in the nose until it bleeds while Kawada stands on the apron with his face of stoic disapproval, awaiting the hot tag so he can maul Jumbo. The crowd HATES Taue by the way. Any time he does anything they boo the shit out of him like he's a traitor to his kin. Of course Kikuchi shows a ton of heart and Jumbo has complete disdain for this, basically treating him like a rag doll and dumping him from six feet in the air at will. Kawada callously enzui-lariatos Jumbo at one point and after selling it for a while he comes back in in a complete rage to brawl with Kawada and shit gets serious. End is kind of a cluster but it emphasizes that this fight ain't over and there will be hell to pay no matter who won. This is the kind of wrestling I love best: guys showing no daylight in feuds that need to be settled. The All Japan Six-Man was great at doing that as much as any interpromotional feud in WAR, NJPW, FMW, etc. and it's a beauty to watch.
JACK BRISCO VS. DORY FUNK JR. (1/29/74) ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING
Yeeeeeah, I SAID this shit was old. So sit down and getchoself a chair, and a strong drink and a long attention span because you're gonna need it. But it's still some of the best shit you'll ever see and you should be happy it's not in black and white... actually not, cause it would be cooler.
(Speaking of which, if you feel that arcane and awesome, THIS https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWXxP_rvXryBPpjIw7Dl9Tg just showed up on YouTube. All the old Dumont Network-aired Chicago [AWA] wrestling from the '50s, before anyone decided to ever decide to dig it up and re-air it for, you know, 65 years plus. Despite the fact that it was some of the first televised film shown and recorded for posterity period. Haha... the wonders of both ancient and modern technology.)
Anyway! For someone expecting something fast-paced or having anything close to a modern highspot, this isn't for you. If you want a great match with a slow build in the NWA '70s Broadway style, it is however. Nothing but nagging tension until sudden explosions of offense by one guy who could be a cool Hemicuda-driving, half-Indian ladies man and another who looks like a supermarket middle-manager with the worse receding hairline + comb-over of all time. And it's long, and you'll fuckin' like it if you know what's good for you.
Halfway through these guys look to be working with as much as they could, though absolutely NOTHING really interesting was possible. (Sam Muchnick, the short fat man with the glasses sitting ringside, is the NWA President that is basically like the Al Capone of wrestling at this point who couldn't stand for anything to get too, well, interesting because it might "expose" the business.) These guys are working every headlock and reversal perfectly to create something the Japanese fans will silently, as always, dig right into, and please the boss at the same time. And it will to you to hopefully as they cruelly grind then suddenly, violently throw into each headlock. Every sudden burst of overhead takedowns or roll-ups feels frenzied before both men wearily peel back to size each other up. Eventually Brisco works into a series of deathlock submissions that look as legit as anything in current MMA (or in UWFi/RINGS/etc. from the early '90s) before Dory sloooooooowly retreats back to the knuckle-lock. He doesn't sell in Jack's body-scissors and I start to wonder about his ability in big matches from this period. Good offense at least with him fighting for the Boston Crab with Brisco until the unwarranted bear-hug that they quickly see needs to be left for bigger and more capable guys. We get several more clean breaks until Dory decides to start the stretching contest again. Him giving up on a butterfly suplex is pretty funny. Then we're back to working the arm from Jerry and I think we are on the second fall? This is hard to watch even for me at time (esp. between drinks).
Well nevermind, because Dory gets caught in a brutal abdominal stretch and it looks to be almost a lucha-style second fall with a sudden submission but Jr. tosses Brisco the fuck out of it looking like the ultimate TJ Maxx security guard of all times. He then fends off the 10 SUPERMOVES OF BRISCO DOOM -- basically every '70s highspot possible in a row until Dory suddenly busts his ass with the Butterfly Suplex (such a classic these days) so Jack can convulse for a minute and Mr. Middle Management can celebrate.
(Goddamn, this is a long match.)
Okay, fuck, this file just added in some insanely creepy Mexican cartoon commercial then apparently one of those "Support Our Troops" things we see every damn day on TV. I am baffled. Please, more wrestling from before I was born?
DOS CAIDA (really? I thought it was Tercera): Dory and Jack both say "C'MERE!" Scorpion style to whop the shit out of each other.
I lost part at this track with them going pseudo-Lucha for a minute in their work and then getting stiff with the uppercuts. It ends with probably the best way anyone's ever made one of the weakest looking submissions in wrestling ever go.
Goddamn this is strange and I don't like to write anything about a wrestling match this long, but this one is, so, fuck it. Enjoy. Or not. If you give any kind of a shit about the history of this weird and beautiful style of physical expression and cheap carny art, then it's essential.
Monday, August 4, 2014
The Lariat Rides Again, Part II
STAN HANSEN VS. TOSHIAKI KAWADA -- ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING -- 6/21/92
I hadn't seen this in quite some time but was alone at my friend Greg's house with his endless net-time and YouTube available on the TV, so I went diving for puroresu and came up with this gem in short order. If you want to see two guys absolutely destroy each other, this is it. By the end of the match both men are at their lowest ebb and are selling like maniacs (something you could never get 100% from out of Misawa or Kobashi; Kobashi may have had the Hansen match of a lifetime the next year but he could never play it like Kawada). Hansen looks to be ready for the ambo ride after this is over. What's so cool about it is everything is so even-steven, Hansen may have the three belts but the shoe could have easily been on the other foot the way they play it. I mean Stan is ALWAYS gonna be a mountain to climb but his selling for Kawada and the abuse he takes makes the match perfectly balanced. Somebody needs to put this and the aforementioned Kobashi barn-burner back to back and do the Pepsi Challenge because I swear this just might be better.
I titled this one that because it is pretty representative of how things have been going, despite the fact that of course it is the title of a Darkthrone song I love and I think the same thing about the summer every damn year for that fact alone. This one has really been a doozy... actually the whole year, but with the coming of the summer it seems to be at its apex so far. Within the last month I've taken a fall which resulted in a compression fracture of the T-12 vertebrae in my spine, which means no work, (probably) no more job, and a reversion back to Unemployment Mode for old Curt here (sleeping nine hours +, random eating, too much damn laying around in front of a screen). This seems to have made similar parallels with friends having discs slip in their dog's back, moving to shitholes where they can't find work and not being able to tour, losing their partners and homes, etc. So basically everything has not been so peachy, and I could go further back into the horror of the rest of the year but there's no point in that. This is me being Mr. PMA, and everyone who knows me knows that that ain't me, but I am gonna digress from my usual nihilism (TM name redacted) pessimism (TM Schopenhauer) and cynicism (TM myself) for some reviews of some cool, interesting shit. Get with the love! It's all you got. If you aren't a sewer-dweller like me (or are!), get with some Al Green, some James Brown, some Marvin Gaye and some Smokey Robinson and live it up. But if you need some of the hard stuff, follow on...
AUTOPSY - TOURNIQUETS, HACKSAWS AND GRAVES
Well, what can I say. It's Autopsy. The greatest, dingiest, most completely stoned, doomiest, and most incredibly repulsive and disgusting death metal band of all time -- the one that all other greats bow their heads to in reverence. If you know a death metal band that either A. doesn't like them, or B. doesn't know who they are, then you are probably well out of the league of anyone with taste or talent, and should treat them as such. This isn't as good as their last dive into the maggot-pool, The Headless Ritual (which contained several stone-classics like "She Is A Funeral" and "Coffincrawlers", the latter of which would send anyone who played Splatterhouse on Turbografix-16 or Sega Genesis back in the day into paroxysms of nostalgia) but it's still pretty strong and heavy on the doom influence. I wasn't quite sure about their reformation initially because Abscess had been going well sounding like an Autopsy-that-wasn't-Autopsy but after the last album they convinced me to stick around, and this one does the same. I really can't reiterate it any better: THIS IS DEATH METAL. Give up your 'gravity blasts', your 'slam parts', all the shit that constitutes most modern death metal. These songs have actual atmosphere and I will give that for a thousand other shitty bands and their polished, mosh-it-up material. It may not be as good as Mental Funeral (or even the last album) but it's better than most anything else bearing the name right now. Bow down, Chris Reifert is speaking.
KILLER MIKE - R.A.P. MUSIC
From one extreme to another... I'm not making any apologies to anyone for loving hip hop. You don't like it, FUCK OFF.
Anyway, this album is flat-out awesome. This is the first collaboration, far as I know, between Mike and DJ El-P, mixmaster of great renown. Their collab last year Run the Jewels was quite possibly the best new album I heard all year. That might speak to my burn-out on metal and punk (or the lack of talent screaming through thereof... or both), but they put together something great that built off this album which starts fairly basic and by midway dumps its lyrical politics and social opinions on you in great force, combined with absurd lyrical gangsterism and beats that are at once intricate and dumb as fucking shit. If you listen to the record without a subwoofer you get all the small bits; with, the ridiculous Bass 305 thump of El-P will numb you like a gummy of coke. Smart work and a flag held high for Mike himself, a standard to say what's to come in the future. Which is probably some sick shit to bump in your ride without feeling like an idiot.
Over at Ye Olde Death Valley Driver Board we have been discussing the greatness of Stan "The Lariat" Hansen, my favorite wrestler and once upon a time the most destructive force in the history of the sport, so I watched this tonight.
TERRY FUNK VS. STAN HANSEN -- ALL JAPAN PRO WRESTLING -- 9/11/82
This match is absolutely fucking electric. The crowd is rabid from the jump for Terry. He gets in the ring and the look on his face is one of fear and defiance. When Hansen gets in the ring I thought of Clarence Boddicker in Robocop saying "bitches, leave"... then one of the ring girls immediately got bowled over by the two and the serendipity was seamless. Of course they just start beating the hell out of each other and Hansen eventually gets to play "King of the Mountain" as Terry keeps bailing under the onslaught. At one point Hansen kneedrops him a couple times on the back of the head and he gets to do his spastic seizure sell. Eventually control is regained, momentarily, but Hansen is just too much. He snapmares Terry, reels back, and the camera catches this split second moment where Stan's eyes BUG THE FUCK OUT as he launches down into a chinlock. It's priceless. Everything is so tense and chippy in this, with Terry grinding into Stan's face, grabbing the kneepad to trip him, Stan daring him to get into HIS ring and play. Terry falls out of the ring on his face and wildly tosses a chair over the ropes which Stan catches and launches right back at him. After this Joe Higuchi gets knocked down, another ref takes his place and of course the poor dude takes the Lariat which they get a great shot of the guy making this face like someone just hit him in the gut with a 2X4 (which in reality, he just got hit in the clavicle with the human version of a piece of rebar). In the chaos one of the gaijin wrestlers helps hold Terry so Stan can nuke him with the Lariat, Joe recovers and starts counting Terry out on the floor, then realizes what went down and refuses the pinfall, at which point Stan loses it and we get Baba and Jumbo running in after the army of young boys gets mowed down. Stan sneaks out of the ring only to come in and nutshot Jumbo from behind before finally tossing chairs and skulking away while Terry has a stroke on the mat. If you don't like this match, just go find another hobby, take up badminton or something. Also of note is the great banner for Terry: "BITTER ENDER TERRY FUNK TEXAS BRONCO". Judging by his face in much of the match, this felt like the bitter end...
Blasphemy are one of many bands that people take an abject obsession to, going so far as to make embroidered bomber jackets with their art on them. I can't say I disagree with them. I bought the original Die Hard version of their reunion live set from NWN! Prod. (#33/666) when I was a kid. There's something nasty, evil, rudimentary, crude, and inherently foul about the sound of Blasphemy that you can't wash out of your mind. Maybe it's the military drum fills, the gross vocals, the fact that they held black masses in the catacombs of the probably haunted Ross Bay Cemetary up in Canada... they just have a vibe that hits the "repulsive metal" bone in people and makes them go apeshit over them. Currently I'm on a run of listening to them almost nonstop and I figured I'd talk about 'em. Fallen Angel of Doom is their least adept release, with some serious mistakes and a sense of looseness that somehow makes the feel of it even more insane. It's like Reek of Putrefaction by Carcass made by Satanic alcoholics, basically. The intros are a rare instance in metal: THEY ACTUALLY WORK! Providing lots of atmosphere and quite well done, they kind of sew the album together between tracks.
...and here we have the follow-up, the slightly tighter, more coherent Gods of War. The barbaric relentlessness is still in full effect but we lose the muddy production and (some of) the sloppy playing from the previous album. They skipped labels from the extremely dubious Wild Rags to the slightly less dubious JL America (they were based in Indianapolis, what do you expect) but with funding from the great Osmose Productions, who continue to pump out the greatest metal and, on occasion, hardcore punk ever. That pretty much sets the tone for the album really -- a step up, but more horizontal than vertical in nature, with songs recycled from their Blood Upon the Altar demo, which funny enough ended up being bonus tracks on most copies of the album, including this Youtube file. The demo is produced better than the debut (!) but the feel of the disgusting vocals and bass-heavy crunch is missing. Plus "Ritual" is slower. Take your pick.
Anyway, despite the fact that 300,000,000 bands have directly ripped them off, Blasphemy still has the ability to warm the cockles of an underground metal fan's heart years after their grave was raided. There really isn't any exception when it comes to an originator. And your band doesn't have members named Ace Gustapo Necrosleezer and Vaginal Commands or 3 Black Hearts of Damnation and Impurity either, or a black guitarist in a horribly racist scene who knocked out some asshole from Destroyer 666 when the guy asked "what's with the nigger". Blasphemy fuckin rules.
Since I posted Black Hole just now I would be remiss to not post some links to the god of Italian doom metal PAUL CHAIN. He was in the band Death SS (meaning In Death of Steve Sylvester, who was the singer) back in the late '70s and eventually quit to go solo, taking several members, after he cut his eye out in a Satanic ritual (!). After that he reportedly went Jehovah's Witness (!!!) but continued to make the darkest and weirdest doom metal of all time, singing in his own self-created phonetic language when other members weren't singing for him. The earliest stuff here is thee darkest and creepiest and very, very foreign... not just to Americans but probably anyone who hasn't experienced the grave itself. Later on he did a lot of LSD-drenched improv guitar stuff, some noise, some organ material and some great doom/stoner rock with members of Cathedral. Check this out first and see what you think. Like the Black Hole there are moments of sheer '80s metal (especially "Electroshock" where he actually gets thrashy) but the great deal of it is grim as hell. "I remember a black mass..."
