Welcome to DEATH VALLEY DRIVER VIDEO REVIEW #70!

Okay, so we're gonna do ONE more regular dvdvr before the Lucha Libre Super EXPO and Car Show since I still have to wait until Rev Ray gets the tapes and Phil had reviewed the Funks in All Japan bloodbath tape and I had more tapes than the law allows laying around the house so here it is- Clearinghouse number THREE- the FINAL CONFLICT! But first a word from the young and irrepressible Phil Schneider...

!@!@!@!@!@!@!@! ALL JAPAN REAL WORLD TAG TOURNAMENT COMMERCIAL TAPE - 1977-1979
(by Phil Schneider)
Terry Funk/Dory Funk, Jr. vs. Abdullah the Butcher/The Sheik - 1977 Real World Tag Final
If you are expecting tons of psychology, movesets and all the crap that makes the All Japan dorks bust one out, you got the wrong motherfreaking Tag Final. This baby is about blood, blood and more blood and did I mention blood. When you got Abdullah and The Sheik you know you're not going to have a bunch of cross armbreakers and Tiger Driver 91's - what you got here is a Pencil-Jammed-Into-Your-Arm '79 baby, and it is a beautiful thing. It is kind of cool to see these wrestlers 20 years ago- Terry has a crew cut and looks sort of young, Dory actually has hair and looks like a middle manager in the mortgage company, as opposed to now where he looks like the owner of the mortgage company; The Shiek is only is his late forties, and Abdullah is only morbidly obese as opposed to grotesquely obese. The Funks are super over as babyfaces, while Shiek and Da Butcha are the epitome of evil. The basic storyline of this match is the heels carving up Terry like a summer sausage. All those jackasses who talk about Terry prostituting his legend by doing garbage matches need to check this baby out. It's 1977- the height of the Funk legend- and he is participating in a match so violent and horrific, it would make Onita piss his new pink tights. The Sheik and Abdullah jab a pencil and fork into Terry's head and arm (including taking him into the corner and doing a stab in stereo), slicing his forearm open (It looks like a cut from the object not a blade) this turns his arm completely red. Dory gushes too and the Sheik and Abdullah bleed when they sneeze so it was a quad red. Terry and Dory win in the typical 70's/80's AJ screwjob as the Sheik gets DQ'ed for stabbing the ref. Really gory and real great, I am beginning to love the classic Abdullah. He is nothing fancy, just a fat psychopath who is going to jab this Number 2 Pencil in you head and there ain't shit you can do about it. Plus he had the best elbowdrop ever, point of the elbow right into the throat.

Terry Funk/Dory Funk, Jr. vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Giant Baba - 1978 Real World Tag Final
This match was very 70's. A lot of working from the headlock and the abdominal stretch- where the big spot you worked up to wasn't a released tiger suplex or a balcony dive, but a plain vanilla vertical suplex. I still dug it though- Jumbo was all spunky and young, and Baba was younger and could actually work. He did a nice dropkick and was very passable on the mat stuff. Dory Funk was the real king on the mat, kind of like a less flashy (if that is possible) Dean Malenko, no dropkicks here, just taking you down to the mat and wrestling the shit out of you. It started real deliberate but built to a hot finish, with a bunch of near falls, and Terry doing his punch thing when it meant something and wasn't just a shtick. It ended in a 30 minute time limit draw, giving Baba/Tsuruta the win via points. I liked it but it was kind of long. Definitely something you can watch once and- if you get into the spirit of it- really like, but I don't think I am going to watch it again.

Terry Funk/Dory Funk, Jr. vs. Abdullah the Butcher/The Sheik - 1979 Real World Tag Final
Hey enough of that mat wrestling shit, ME WANT FORK. Abdullah and The Sheik are back in the finals and they brought the blood with them. This match may have been the better wrestling match, but it is a little lower on the plasma donation, which is how you have to rate Sheik/Abdullah matches. Terry's hair is looking more Terry like and Dory has lost more on top. Dory does a butterfly suplex on Abdullah which was neat cause Abby is such a fat boy. It is the slice and dice Terry show again. This time they stab him in the ear, which makes a real great blood flow from said ear. Terry has started to do the Funk freakout sell, which he really didn't do much of in the 77 final. At one point Abby grabs the forks and just blatantly stabs Terry in the hand with it harkening back to the psych they used in the 1977 tag finals where he stabbed him in the arm. Dory, makes the hot save with a bunch of forearms before getting stabbed himself, he then kicks the Sheik, and grabs the fork and does some stabbing of his own. At this point everybody is covered in blood. The end comes when the Sheik is holding Terry and Abby goes for the fingers to the throat move. Terry moves, Abby hits Sheik and Terry gets the pin. The Sheik then throws fire at Abby, starting a feud that I am sure was so gory that it turns my stomach to think about it. About as great as something like that can be. It is so weird that something this bloody and heated evolved into the modern-day Misawa v. Kawada stoicism fests. It's like finding out that RINGS used to be a lucha fed or something

$#$#$#$#$#$#$ NATIONAL WRESTLING ALLIANCE- Mid-Atlantic- USA All Star Wrestling Commercial Tape. (1983ish?)
(by Dean Rasmussen)
The Amazing Fabiano sent me this baby and I love these kind of tapes because you can only find them in Super-Redneck Video Palaces- ones with Porno-Huts in the back and a Fishing Videos section larger than the International Cinema section. We have one here in Richmond on Staples Mill Rd right down the street from where I work and it has one of these tapes and I feared that it would be the same one as the one that's there, but luckily it's different and better. Being an old Mid-Atlantic fan from my childhood, I was into this. WHIP ASS!

Dusty Rhodes/Dick Slater/ Ricky Steamboat vs. Tully Blanchard/Black Bart/Ron Bass
This is a bunkhouse match and so these guys were pretty into it. Steamboat and Tully do all the heavy lifting- with Tully selling and bumping in anything cool looking for the heels and Steamboat selling, bumping and high-flying in almost anything cool looking for the faces. Dusty- being a load- goes the whole match without taking a single bump- the fat sack of crap. I had forgotten that Dick Slater was actually GOOD at one point in his career and he's pretty great in this, throwing in some mat wrestling and Mid-South-style ass-kicking into the proceedings. Steamboat gets beautifully melodramatic and takes the world's first Jerry Estrada bump to the floor over the toprope. Being a bunkhouse match with all of THESE BLOODMASTERS in it, there is, of course, a Race To Blade First and- for some fucking reason- it cuts to the next match right as Black Bart is about to spray the hemoglobin like a man that's been there. Worse yet, they play Kenny Loggins most annoying hit ("Theme to FOOTLOOSE" which beats "I'm Allright" from Caddyshack by a nose. If you gotta beef about slagging on Loggins, take it to another newsgroup, bubby.) between the matches. So I felt used, betrayed and annoyed all at once. Sorta like every Monday night. HAHAHAAHHAHA!

Ragin' Bull Manny Fernandez/"Avalanche" Buzz Tyler vs. Dory Funk, Jr./Black Bart
Hey! Manny Fernandez was all highflying and shit. He may have been something more than what he ended up being remembered as if he didn't spend all his career in endless feuds with Wahoo McDaniel- which were basically blood-drenched brawls as opposed to anything that would make Fernandez stick out as a really good worker. I dunno. Dory is all forearm intensive and looks like my mother's insurance agent. My fave is when, at one point, Manny starts no-selling Dory's offense and I was figuring that Dory was gonna shoot on him and cripple him or something. Maybe Ragin Bull really is a Viet Nam vet and maybe that gave reason to Dory to let it slide. Or something. Basic NWA tag-match but the difference is that there is nothing more pathetic than a Hot Tag to Avalanche Buzz Tyler. DQ. More "Footloose"

Ric Flair vs. Karl Von Hess
HORROR OF HORRORS! Johnny Weaver on Play-by-Play! ARRGGGGHHHH! It's good to see Flair as the machine after he has worn down my memory of him as the Best Wrestler On Earth At One Point with his saggy, half-assed efforts of recent years. He always had the absolutely BOSS AWA elbow and the one in this is truly trachea breaking. Von Hess looks like Baron Von Raschke's younger brother since he only looks to be 59 or 60. Flair- being in his prime and the greatest ever- sells Kurt's comical offense like a true pro. Flair with the Figure Four back when it was protected and meant something.

Barry Windham/Mike Rotundo vs. Gary Royal/Paul Kelly
Windham was definately showing the raw talent that he parlayed into being the best North American worker form 88 to 90. Rotundo does a couple of dropkicks and takes it to the mat like Mr Wrestling Tim Woods, so he didn't alter my opinion of him. Rotundo ends the Mid-Atlantic "too long and too hotly contested to be called a squash" match with the hilarious Airplane Spin. I had almost forgotten...

Greg Valentine vs. Steve Muzlin
Steve Muzlin was a weird story. Good worker. Erratic career. Tiny pants. I forgot that at one point in his long long long long long long long career, Greg Valenting could actually move at normal speed and could work and take bumps and be interesting. He does his SWANK NWA vetebrae crushing elbow drop and wrestles a whole bunch. THIS is Mid-Atlantic.

Ivan Koloff/Don Kernodle vs. Mark Youngblood/Renegade
Hey! It's the Renegade Youngbloods Warriors! After all that Puerto Rico tapefest and the Funk Wrestlefest tape, I've seen WAAAAAAAAAAY too much of the Romero brothers this year so far. Hell, actually, they could work and all, it's just that they were annoying as heck. Hell, the Youngbloods workrate is quite phenomenal now that I watch this match. Hey, this is really good in an old-school way- Hot Tags, Big Bumps, low impact high-flying tandem moves, that kinda stuff. This was funtabulous. Don Kernodle needed bigger pants- I feared an appearance from the "Pride of the Carolinas." (YES! Oh God! I kill me!) The wornout NWA screwjob involving the immensely ICOpro-enhanced Nikita Koloff and the Ivan Bearhug all sucked, but this match rocked this mutha in an old school way BOY! How did anybody else get to use steriods in the eighties? It looks like Nikita took every last one of them. I dug this here tape a whole bunch.

@#@#@#@@# All Pro Wrestling (California)
( by PHIL SCHNEIDER)
"Leprechaun" Erin O'Grady vs. "Suicide Machine" Donovan Morgan vs. "Superkick" Chris Cole 6/7/98
This was a three way dance between the three big highflyers in this little promotion. The APW arena is a garage and they got about three dozen people packed into that place. Erin O'Grady comes down in a ridiculous metal Leprechaun hat, which he uses to hit people with. The other two are pretty nondescript looking. This was a big spot fest with no real transitions. Morgan hits a pretty good Michinoku Driver II and sort of kills himself (although not nearly enough to earn the asskicking moniker of Suicide Machine), Cole had a nice superkick and seemed like he could do some stuff although he was real green. I was most impressed with O'Grady, as he did some nifty roll-ups and had an awesome looking front flip into a hurricanrana which I hadn't seen before. The main problem with this match is that it was like 15 hours long. I mean there is nothing wrong with a long match, but I have problems watching Misawa and Kawada go 35 minutes much less three shmucks in a garage in Hayward. The spot of the match was a crazy balcony dive by O'Grady, but that was 20 minutes into the match, when some guy dives 30 feat off a balcony you take the puppy home. Alot of this match consisted of these three guys wandering around hitting sloppy spots out of nowhere. The end came when Cole superkicked both guys at the 34 minute mark. These guys have a bunch of potential, but are way too green to try to wrestle for this damn long. I think I would have really dug it, if it was 18 minutes long, but it wasn't so I didn't.

Leprechaun Erin O'Grady vs. Michael Modest (9/19/97)
I dug this match a bunch more. Modest reminds me a lot of Lance Diamond from the Northeast. He is a really solid traditional wrestler who can reign in spot machines into coherent matches. The bulk of this match was O'Grady working on Modest's leg, with some nice dragon screws. Modest breaks up that with some kick ass suplexes, including a released dragon suplex and a Twice As Good As TAZplex. His knee goes out though and O'Grady gets the submission win with a neat kneebar variation where he continued to jerk the knee while he was in the knee bar. I dug this a bunch. I was real impressed with Modest and I dug O'Grady too.

%$%$%$%$%$% GLOBAL WRESTLING FEDERATION TV (some time in 1994)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
The Amazing Fabiano sent me this because I wanted to catch up on all the stuff I missed while I was cableless in Tidewater in the early 90's, wrestlingless while in a drunken bad relationships frenzy in college in the mid-80's and everything in-between. This is from 1994 and this was Global WELL after the fact. Everybody was gone and things had gotten kinda stinky.

Black Assassin vs. Jeep Swensen
I'm usually not one to speak ill of the dead, but Jeep Swensen wasn't good even as roided out stiffs go. A sort of less talented Hercules Hernandez. I wish I were kidding.

Scott Putski vs. "Glamour Boy" Nick Golden
Putski isn't dead, so let's feel free to speak ill of him. HEY! It's like the Ultimate Warrior drank a lot of coffee as a child and then gassed himself to the gills as an adult. This actually wasn't totally horrible. They use tables like in the glory days of the Sportatoium and Putski was still a little mobile. This does sport the worst, total-hackneyed NWA screwjob ending.

Awesome Avenger vs. Moadib
Moadib is Tony Norris who became Ahmed Johnson before WWF wise-up and said, "We'd like our wrestlers to not get concussions from roided-out no-talents who can't even kick properly." Awesome Avenger is the Black Assassin from the Swenson match I'm thinking because it's pretty obvious that this promotion was runing on even less than vapors at this point. If you thought Ahmed was sloppy, you should see this two minute squash- where the soon-to-be Pearl River Plunger wrecklessly endangers the life of the one surviving GWF jobber about six times in the two minute span with his shitty sloppy "wrestling" technique before wrapping this turd up.

Brandon Baxter vs. "Maniac" Mike Davis
Davis wrestles Baxter with the stipulation being that Davis has to have one arm tied behind his back and he has to be on his knees. As amazingly horrible as you can imagine.

Sportatorium Legend Spotlight - Kerry Von Erich vs. The Punisher:
Oof! Legendary Restholds of the Sportatorium! Hey! It's the claw! Swweeeeettt Drugs....

The Fabulous Freebirds vs. The Roughriders:
Hmmmmm. 1994. I don't know how many times Terry Gordy had died by this point. Judging by this, I'm guessing a couple of times. Really truly pathetic as an aging Jimmy Jam Garvin is the one who has the task of trying to carry the match. The Roughriders is the ancient Black Bart and the then only mid-thirties John "Justin Hawk Bradshaw" Hawk. Hawk Lance Storms Jimmy Jam with a chair. Ugh! Jam sells the whole match and tries to make sure Terry Gordy isn't in the ring too long. Gordy gets the hot tag and REALLY looks like death warmed over. REAL sad.

%^%^%% EAST COAST WRESTLING ASSOCIATION- 1/17/98
(by PHIL SCHNEIDER)
Reckless Youth vs. Devon Storm vs. Lance Diamond vs. Ace Darling:
Super duper 4-way dance that smokes the APW effort cold. This is my first chance to see the vaunted Reckless Youth. I had seen the other three before at various high school gyms. This baby started right as Diamond and Storm took it right to the mat, then everyone one else hit the ring and well-organized hell broke loose. I think Lance Diamond was the key to this match- as he seemed to keep this match from spiraling out of control. My favorite Diamond moment when he reversed Storm's swinging DDT into a northern lights suplex. Reckless kicked some major ass too hitting a diving neckbreaker, a beautiful moonsault and winning the highspot fest with a corkscrew somersault dive. Storm and Darling were more impressive than I've seen them before. Darling was very basic and solid, and Storm's Death Valley Driver wasn't as American as I had seen it before. Storm also pulls out a Misawa Driver, and- this is the weird part- he does it on January 17th- a full two weeks before Misawa debuts it against Jun Akiyama . So evidentially Mitsaharu, Akira, Toshiaki, Jun, Kenta and the boys get some sushi and sake and sit around watching Northeastern Indy wrestling to steal moves "Akira, that 911 got some chokeaslam. You should use that." "Hey Jun, nobody do big knee like Jim Powass." But I digress, back to the match, Diamond goes down first as Storm ranas Darling onto him. After the Mistormawa driver, Devon and Darling try the same rana senton combination, Reckless moves (which I thought was weak. That Devsawa Driver should have put his ass out) and rolls up Storm, eliminating him. Reckless then hits the awsome face first Russian leg sweep and gets a three count before the ref notices Darlings foot on the rope. They go at it for another couple of minutes using a bunch of fast mat reversals into roll ups, one of which gets the pin for the Youth. Almost as long as the APW match but didn't drag like that one did. The only flaw was some weak ladder crap and foreign object ECW brawling shit, which this match totally did not need. Leave that nonsense to turds like Sabu who can't work a regular wrestling match. This got me super psyched for the Super 8 tourney next weekend, which the whole posse of dorks is making the trek for. Rock and Roll.

!@!@!@!@ ALL JAPAN TV- 2/15/98 (taped 2/14 from Korakuen Hall)
(by DEAN RASMUSSEN)
Asako/ the young chunky Inoue vs. Kotsubo/Kamikaze:
This is the big chunky heavyweight from WAR Kamikaze and he looked great in this match. Of course, he wasn't in with the A team and he didn't look great in a All Japan heavyweight way. It was more like a great in a WCW TV title scene kinda way. Actually, the limitations and strengths of Kamikaze are a whole lot like the limitations and strengths of WCW TV title holder Booker T- real flashy and all-around decent worker, but the ground game is suspect and his style may or may not work with whoever he's working with and he can't really change his style to accomodate his oponent in the match. His spots can get him over, but there are only a few select types of worker with which he can have a really good match. Inoue, Asako and Kotsubo didn't affect me at all and that helped Kamikaze in this- his Tokyo Dome tryout match since I wasn't distracted by scintillating Asako offense. Hell. Put Kamikaze in against Taue, it would be INFINITELY better than Koji Kitao vs Akira Taue. YEESH!

Mitsuhara Misawa/Jun Akiyama/Milwaukee Mossman vs. Kenta Kobashi/Johnny Ace/Johnny Smith:
Johnny Smith starts this baby off by going all SnakePit British stretchy on Akiyama and I was digging it the most. Smith out-Regals Regal when it comes to British mat wrestling and stretching and he rules the golldamn earth 24-7. Fellow Hawaiian (though I've never been there because my father moved to the mainland in 1960 and never went back, so me and my two brothers kinda stare at each other or the ground when Grandma and Uncle Donnie (Black belt and bone-breaker and makes GREAT Portuguese Sausage) start in with the traditional folk songs at family reunions every August. Remind me to tell you about my aunt who is the head of a cult sometime. Mossman starts kicking the poo out of Kobashi but soon the youngster succumbs and Ace gets in and starts busting him up. Ace stretches Mossman with an overhand Abdominal Stretch (or something) and Misawa comes in to make the save, but he and Ace start pummeling the crap out of each other instead. Misawa loses his stoic cool and Jun has to calm him down- which was pretty frickin weird. Kobashi comes back in, really swings the tide by getting all Dangerous Suplex Happy, killing everybody dead- thus getting the match to the Doomsday Device Ace Crusher that Kobashi sets Misawa up for and Ace delivers the deathblow- killing Misawa deader than dead. Ace then hits a supernasty Cobra Clutch Suplex on Jun to kill that punk dead for the pin. This match accomplished a couple of things:
1) It heated up the Ace/Misawa Triple Crown match- which is on this same Magnificent Glenn tape and I should get to quite soon
2) It finished off Misawa with a weird variation of the Ace Crusher as if to say that if Ace can hit it off the top rope, Misawa can be beaten
3.) They finally had a fucking six-man that didn't suck it Tres Royale for the first time in a while.
GET ALL THIS.

KING OF SPORT~!
- Dean Rasmussen, Cruiserweight Chowderhead~!

"So in this almost empty gin palace-Through a two-way looking glass-You see your Alice. You know she has no sense-For all your jealousy-In a sense she still smiles very sweetly. Charged with insults and flattery-Her body moves with malice-Do you have to be so cruel to be callous"
- Beyond Belief, Elvis Costello.