If you are looking for another 45 pages of dull as sawdust, GAEA reviews or LOTS OF CAPITAL LETTERS FOR NO REASON wait till next week. This is FOGHAT patna and were the straw the broke the camels back. The Man who's index finger smells like Mrs. Duffy, Phil Schneider, takes on some Empress Mundial Lucha Libre  and some Jumborific All Japan. The Man who Gorilla Pimped you 85 year old Grandma, Phil Rippa, is taking on the Ladies Legend Pro Wrestling and the days of blood and roses in All Japan. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Mike Naimark, takes on some Judo Gene LeBell shoot crappyness. So sit back and enjoy the ride.
 

EMLL TV (2/6/99)
(by PHIL SCHEINDER)

ASTRO REY JR./LA PANTERA/BRAZO DE ORO vs. ARCHANGEL DE LA MUERTE/KARLOFF LAGARDE JR/ULTIMO GUERRERO
These are a bunch of the midcarders in EMLL, all of whom rule (well Oro doesn't rule, but he is married to the super hot Lady Apache, and thus is an inspiration to fat guys everywhere). The main focus of this match was the hate between Archangel and Astro Rey, but it had some Funky Fresh moments from the other participants. Ultimo took the big Psicosis ringpost bump, except he hit the top of the ringpost before flying to the floor. Plus Brazo was moving around pretty good for such a fat ass. However it was La Pantera that stole the show on this night. Pantera has always been one of the smoothest luchadores in the world, a tendency which actual detracts from some of his matches, as his moves looked so effortless that they just look like interpretive dance or something. The truly great luchadores combine this
effortlessness with real force and intensity. This match had the normal Pantera awesomeness, but he seemed to have that little extra, as he hit a spectacular Super Frankensteiner to win the first fall, and hit the bossiest highspot of the show with the running somersault senton to Karloff Largarde who is lying face first on the floor. Pretty neat although a little deficient in mat wrestling.

SUPER KENDO/OLYMPUS/KID GUZMAN vs. CHICAGO EXPRESS/RENCOR LATINO/MOGUR
Latino and Guzman are the jewels in this match, as they both are flashy Luchadores with a future, who are  currently in the dregs of the undercard. I am unsure whether Super Kendo is the same as original irritating Kendo of Hamada's UWF and Michinoku fame, but he wrestles the same loose comedy intensive style, Olympus is so not Olympico. Mogur is about as underwhelming as it gets and Chicago Express is almost lazy and suckass enough to be headlining. Guzman is about 15, with a 1992 Shawn Michaels mullet and really bad salmon pants. He does hit a nice tope and a sweet backflip headscissors thingy to the floor. Rencor Latino bumps like a true young rudo, and hits a beautiful tope-con-hilo with his body fully extended, although he needs a cooler mask to truly contend with Violencia and Black Warrior. This match was very hit and miss until the end. Latino hits the aformentioned tope-con-hilo, then Chicago, who has never done anything in his whole crappy career, decides, in a fit of dementia, to try a tope suicida, the suicida part fits as his big fat gut catches on the top rope and he falls to the floor landing back first on the concrete. They go quickly to the finish, as EMLL Theismanns the replay a good half a dozen times. Quite an unnecessary match, but the death of Chicago Express is worth seeing.

UNIVERSO 2000/MASCARA ANO 2000/BESTIA SALVAJE vs. BRAZO DE PLATA/SOLOMON GRUNDY/MR. NIEBLA
Mr. Niebla is one of the most impressive luchadores in the world, but El Hijo Del Jesus Christ couldn't save the bacon of this match. Speaking of bacon this was my first chance to see the legendary Solomon Grundy, who looked a lot like Jerry Blackwell and Uncle Elmer's hellspawn. Grundy and Plata are really fat. Their fatness befuddles the comically inept rudos, those rudos mail it in. Fatties win, Phil is unamused.

SHOCKER/LIZMARK/RINGO MENDOZA vs. VIOLENCIA/REY BUCCANARO/APOLLO DANTES
Kind of short match with the highlight being the SUPER CHOICE Canary Yellow Violencia mask. Dantes hit a nice Black Tiger Bomb. Rey and Vio killed themselves. Lizmark was graceful for an oldster. Ringo looked a little less embalmed then usual. Way too short to be really good though.

BLUE PANTHER/BLACK WARRIOR/DR. WAGNER JR. vs. ATLANTIS/FELINO/EMILIO CHARLES JR.
This match was for the rudos six-man titles and was the best match on the show. The first two falls were real good but didn't have the extended Panther matwork or insane Warrior bumps to push it to the next level. The third fall was all that and the proverbial bag of chips however. They had a bunch of broken lucha submission holds for near falls, then it really kicks in with Black Warrior hitting his awesome out of control tope. The ending is great as Atlantis makes Blue Panther submit to the lucha torture rack, and as he is celebrating Wagner hits him with the Wagner Driver for the pin and the win (Atlantis was the captain and it Lucha Libre you have to tap out or pin either the captain or the two other wrestlers, IT'S LUCHA, IT AIN'T WHAT YOU ARE USED TO!) Really cool match, the ending was a lot more heated then most Lucha matches which belied the importance of the titles.Warrior, Wagner and Panther are the best rudo trio in wrestling and I want to see lots more title matches.
 

ALL JAPAN CLASSICS #49 
(by PHIL RIPPA)

TERRY & DORY FUNK vs. BRUISER BRODIE/STAN HANSEN (4/20/83)
Take a moment to bask in the goodness that these four names bring. Everyone is young and spunky, well except Dory, who is still old but at least he has some hair in this match. A really choice thing is that everyone decides to have a straight up wrestling match just because they can. Stiffness rules the day as no body part is safe. Dory absolutely mauls Brodie with some European uppercuts. A little training manual should be made with clips of Brodie and Hansen delivering kneedrops, legdrops, elbows and boots the proper way. Right across the throat and right in the face, respectively. Hansen and Brodie play
the roles of the heels even though all four are wildly over with the crowd. Dory Morton Jr gets worked over as Hansen and Brodie trade off applying a bear hug. Quote from match: "SQUEEZE!" Bruiser Brodie. Terry is fairly sane on this day. Only once does the bizarre Funk overselling rear its head as Funk punches the air a couple of times after Hansen knocks him woozy. The Funks gain control by attacking Brodie with his own boot. Cheap ending as Brodie and Hansen double team Terry as Dory gets distracted by the ref. A spike piledriver is all Dory can bear witness too as he gets fired up (well
as fired up as Dory ever gets), and shoves the ref across the ring earning himself a DQ. The two teams brawl for a little and then Hansen and Brodie hightail it back to the dressing room. Terry rants in the ring for at least five minutes just yelling "HAN-SEN! BRO-DIE! SONNAVABITCH!" The ending was weird but what was even weirder was that there was: no double kneedrop, no lariat, no spinning toehold and no blood. It was like going to a Bad Company concert and were they don't play "Bad Company" or going to a Gladys Knight concert and not hearing "Midnight Train to Georgia" (which actually happened to me.)

TERRY & DORY FUNK vs. BRUISER BRODIE/STAN HANSEN (4/22/83)
The rematch from four days later. It's good to see that everyone is still surly and wanting to beat the hell out of each other. The whole first half of the match is like some bizzaro street fight as everyone stops brawling so they can switch and beat on the other guy. There were moments where you could see Hansen thinking, "Terry, I'm tired off beating your carcass. I want Dory. Out of my way little man." I really dug it since it played up the hatred between the four, as no one cared about winning, they just wanted to waffle each other. Of course, the best moment was when Ultimo Hansen stands Dory up and starts plastering the back of the elder Funks' knee. The second part of the match begins as Terry gets his back introduced to the ring post three times. Brodie and Hansen smell blood and start crushing Terry's back and yelling at him to give. Terry refuses and eventually gets off a backdrop driver to allow the tag. Dory and Hansen go at it the ring while Terry and Brodie pair off on the outside. That led to Brodie getting posted a minimum of six times which in turns led to Brodie carving himself up. Terry keeps selling the back which slows his progress back into the ring which is key. Bruiser grabs his chain and hits the ring. The ref tries to stop him which earns him a boot in the stomach. It also earns Brodie a DQ but he doesn't care as he has Dory in his crosshairs. Unfortunately, Brodie has to fight through a swarm of ring attendants who want to stop the carnage. That allows Dory to defend himself but soon it is a two-on-one. Dory gets set up for the lariat but Terry makes the save at the last minute by tackling Hansen. So more brawling takes place before everyone is separated. I am little disappointed in the fact that neither match had a clean ending but the matches were still enjoyable.
 

Mike Naimark's World o Shootin'
(by MIKE NAIMARK)
Why hello dere shootofightin fans!  Today's episode of professional beatings originates from the heart of the good ol' US-of-A, but before we hop on that bus to Birmingham Alabama (and remember, you
DVD-Hollandaise fans have to sit in the back), I need to mention that the ‘Melissa' email virus has capsized the University of Tennessee's mail server, and ambushed my account.  As of today, I do not know if I will be able to recover my undeleted email, which includes all of the submissions from the last DVD-Foghat MMA Trivia contest.  The answer to, "Who was the largest man to ever compete in MMA" was, of course, the bulbous Emmanuel Yarborough, the 660 lb sumo from UFC3.  Until such time as I can resolve this mishap, the trivia contest is suspended, because unlike some OTHER DVD pretenders out there, we here at DVD- Foghat believe that "Taking Care of Business" means more than just tipping the pizza delivery boy.

WORLD FIGHTING FEDERATION
If you go around some ‘old school' circles in pro-wrestling, you might hear the codgers mention the name ‘Gene LeBell' in hushed tones, with the quiet reverence one usually associates with the way they discuss Elvis in Memphis, or George Michael in the men's room of the Rusty Nail.  HEY!  I'm JUST KIDDING!  Nobody cares about Elvis in Memphis anymore! Gene LeBell, or ‘Judo Gene', carried the banner of submissions grappling in America back when ‘real tough guys' duked it out like ‘men', rather than roll on the ground like a bunch of sissies.  Judo Gene taught American armed forced, palled around with Bruce Lee, and even had time to write ‘The Professional Wrestling Submissions Bible', a book of actually shoot-style pro- wrestling submissions holds, including the Boston Crab, chicken-wing crossface, and notorious figure-four leglock!

[Note - Go to the library NOW and see if they have it!  The Memphis Public Library has a dog-eared soft-cover copy from 1975; its hilarious, totally serious, and will inspire me to soaring plateaus of brilliance when I devise a scheme to defeat the library security and own this precious literary gem!]

‘Judo Gene' occupies the ‘resident legend' position in American groundfighting pantheon today, and runs a school which has attracted some of the best-known students in fighting.  The World Fighting Federation was an ill-fated attempt by LeBell to market mixed-martial-arts (MMA) competition after the financial successes of the early UFCs.  The event took place in a boxing ring and featured an enormous amount of in-ring talent, but sadly, at no time do TWO talented fighters occupy the SAME ring.  The event flopped as a PPV when several cable companies pulled out in the final weeks.  Even the crowd in Birmingham, Alabama stayed home in record droves, resulting in a eerie televised effect which reminded me of the house shows in the dying days of the USWA.  Still, the show has this certain enchanting quality to it, due in no small part to the Goldberg-esque appeal of watching fighters with enormous international reputation steamroll over hapless jobrones. Every match features a fighter who is either a student of LeBell's, an instructor in LeBell's dojo, or one of LeBell's "private baby-oil wrestling" buddies.

WARNING - This event features what I believe to be the first and only MMA event officiated by a man named David Hales.  Described by the announcers as a Tae-Kwon-Do black belt, Hales is easily the WORST MMA REFEREE that I've ever seen captured on videotape.  Even Andy ‘Try the Tittyburgers' Anderson puts this stooge to shame.

KARO DAUTYAN (5'10 180lb, Sambo, judo) v MATT GLAVINE (5'9 175)
I may have gotten Glavine's name wrong here, as my copy of the tape has no sound until midway through this match, and the tattooed tough guy (who looks suspiciously like the DJ from House of Pain) doesn't get an onscreen statistics graphic.  Karo hails from Armenia and wears these skimpy stripey bicycle shorts.  Glavine shoots and eats a right hook, shoots and eats a right uppercut, and then shoots and grabs a single-leg to take Karo to the ground.  Karo works from the guard to reverse his position and grabs an arm for a straight armlock, but Matt wiggles free.  Karo regroups and makes another play for the arm, but is again rebuked.  Glavine uses a burst of energy to work his way high into Karo's guard and pepper his face with reasonably good punches, then manages to leave the guard and gain the side-mount as Karo tries to cover up.  A few knees to the ribs (and you can imagine how much THAT hurts from a side-mount), and Glavine starts wailing away with winging punches, most of which whiz harmlessly past Karo's head or off his shooto gloves.  BUT WAIT!  Here's our referee David Hales!  He steps in and stops the fight!  Did Karo tap?  No?  Is he hurt?  No?  The announcers hastily try and devise an explanation; corner threw in the towel?  Tapped with his foot?  Tapped with an ear?  After some off-camera bitchslapping from Gene LeBell, Hales re-starts the match. Glavine shoots and drives Karo into the ropes, where they exchange dueling front facelocks until Karo gets pushed out of the ring, forcing a restart.  Boxing rings are a bad choice for MMA - the cage is the proper environment.  On the restart, Glavine eats a right uppercut/left cross combo on his way to a single-leg takedown, but as Karo goes to the ground, he seems to scoot his ass across the mat to tumble out of the ring again!  What the heck?  Another restart!  Glavine takes a weak shoot, Karo counters with a weak punch, and we're seeing some weak fighting.  Another takedown by Glavine, another butt-scootin' boogie from Karo.  UGH.  ANOTHER restart, with Karo missing some arm-weary punches before falling prey to a waistlock takedown.  He takes Glavine into the guard and absorbs a handful of headbutts before Glavine floats
over into the side mount, and then....THE BELL RINGS?  WHAT THE FUDGE? Referee Dave ‘My eyes atrophied from growing up in a cave' Hales stops the fight and awards it to Matt Glavine!  Did Karo tap?  No?  Did he....ah hell, who cares, this fight sucked.
Winner by default, Matt Glavine.

JOE ‘Ghetto Man' CHARLES (6'1 255 Judo/JJ) v DAN BOBISH (6'1 290 shootfighting)
You GOTTA love Joe Charles!  In the early days of the UFC, Charles delivered some of the most surreal moments in the history of American MMA!  He gave his first UFC interview wearing a gold turban, flowing robes, and curly-toed Iron Sheik-style boots, and then demonstrated a mystical technique that apparently involved juggling ONE cannon ball.  I CAN'T MAKE THIS STUFF UP!  Then Dan Severn kicked his heiney and he went on to lose a pathetic grappling farce against Vitor Belfort in Japan.  I think he sweeps up at LeBell's dojo.  Bobish could pass for Goldberg's younger brother, and is a 3-time All-American freestyle wrestler. During the in-ring introductions, Charles inexplicably starts doing splits in his corner; perhaps to demonstrate the resiliency of his testicles, or looseness of his blue gi pants.  Bobish opens the fight with a ponderous jab, which Charles ducks in the single greatest burst of speed in his torpid life!  He actually takes Bobish down and ends up in the FULL MOUNT!  Charles just about shits himself - he's seen other guys in this position before, quick, think!  Uh, armlo- no, um, er I could pun...no...uh.....Too late, Ghetto Man!  Bobish rolls on his stomach and literally walks himself to his feet, where they stand and grapple, Greco-Roman style.  Bobish rolls over Charles and ends up in the half-guard.  He plants a beefy forearm into Charles' throat, wrestling-style, and grinds him down for a while.  A few headbutts and Charles is bleeding from the nose and mouth.  Gene LeBell, who is commentating for the matches, says that "headbutts and referees should be outlawed".  Then he goes back to drinking lukewarm ‘Mister Beer'  and the fight continues.  More headbutts from Bobish, the finally a facing neck crank/sleeper that causes The Ghetto Man to tap out.  And tap out. AND TAP OUT!  AND TAP OUT!  AND THE REFEREE IS JUST SITTING THERE!!!!! I'm amazed that LeBell didn't jump straight into full-blown ‘Joe Pesci Mode' and start smacking the fuck out of this bozo right then and there!  FINALLY this TKD dipshit stops the fight.  Better late then never, right, you moron?
Winner, DAN BOBISH!

STEVE SEDDON (5'10 220 Muay-Thai) v HUGO DURATE (6'2 240 Luta Livre)
Hugo Duarte is a freakin' stud of a fighter from Brazil.  He's fought the best in the biz, and is fearless and confident to the extreme. ‘Luta Livre' means ‘free fighting' in Portuguese; the Spanish equivalent would be ‘Lucha Libre', but unless you can call Durate caving in a chump's face with his forehead a ‘tope' the two styles have little in common.  Seddon looks suspiciously similar to Rob Van Dam, but sports an
absolutely bizarre tattoo that covers his entire back with some outlandish futuresque image.  And incredibly enough, I recognize the image, though I can't place from where.  I think it was the cover of a
VoiVod album or something; perhaps that egg- sucking Hollandaise-drenched muffin Rassmussen can enlighten us with his extensive knowledge of crappy headbanging bands and their artistic whims.  LeBell says the Las Vegas odds on this match are 17-1 for Durate.  LeBell probably thinks he's IN Vegas right now, from the way he's yammering.  Duarte shoots immediately and grabs Seddon with a waistlock, quickly dragging him to the mat.  Side mount, easily into the full-mount, and the muay-thai fighter is in a world of shit and Duarte unloads a couple of strikes.  Seddon flips over like a flapjack and gets choked out in a mere 28 seconds.  The referee actually saw the tap-out the FIRST TIME.
Winner - HUGO DUARTE!

OLEG TAKTAROV (6' 220 Sambo) v CHUCK KIM (5'8 180 wrestling, karate)
You all remember Oleg, of course, from his storied history in the UFC. Oleg won UFC 6 by outlasting Tank Abbott in Abbott's MMA debut, and went on to have a lengthy draw with Ken Shamrock at UFC7.  Oleg's historical problem has been that he loves to stand and box (a fact he re-enforces during his prefight interview where he claims to work almost exclusively on striking in his current training, as John Snowden correctly said in a response to an earlier DVDVR review of mine), leading to spectacular knockouts at the hands of stronger fighters like Gary Goodridge in Japan.  But on the ground, Oleg is elite.  He's got sambo moves I've never seen before, and pulled off an absolutely picture-perfect Tartarkin roll (Goldberg's rolling kneelock thingy) into a kneebar to defeat Dave Bennetau in the UFC.  Chuck Kim is, uh, Chuck Kim, so there you go.  Chuck shoots for a double-leg, Oleg neatly sprawls, grabs a guillotine choke, and obstructs Kim's breathing until he taps.  Yep, thats it.  The announcers amazingly claim that the match lasted an entire 22 seconds, which I find hard to believe.  This match is so short is should be used as a measuring stick for premature ejaculation.  Hey Chuck Kim!  That ain't egg on your face!
Winner by submission, OLEG TAKTAROV!

Gene LeBell claims that he threatened to cut off Oleg's vodka supply if he didn't dispense of Kim quickly.  He's so tickled by that remark that he runs over to ringside where Oleg is being interviewed, and barges in to repeat the ‘joke' again on-camera!  Oleg stands next to Frank Shamrock (with his old nose) and Gene LeBell, and talks about his movie career.

TOM ERIKSON (6'4 290 Freestyle wrestling) v DAVIN WRIGHT (6' 340 ‘American Freeform')
Tom Erikson is one of the top superheavyweight freestyle wrestlers on the planet.  He's also a well-seasoned veteran of MMA competition, having clubbed down suckers on three continents, including Japan and Brazil.  As an alternate in the 1996 Olympics, Erikson is truly worthy of respect as a fighter and an athlete.  So that's why the putz doing the prefight interviewing asks the former World Games freestyle wrestling Gold-medalist to explain the differences between freestyle, college, and pro-wrestling.  I'M NOT MAKING THIS UP!  Erikson, to his credit, doesn't twist the clueless nimrod into a knot, and I notice that he actually does look sort of like ‘Bruiser' Bob Swetan.  Davin Wright is a big fat butterball with a bogus martial art.  The announcers mention that his job is "collecting money"; so you've got one of the most feared fighters in the world on your card, and you match him up with some local-yokel thug?  Some amateur legbreaker goon?  Have another shot of Schnapps, Judo Gene, I'm buying.  Wright has the balls to say that he doesn't think Erikson will be able to take him down.  So Erikson shoots after 5 seconds and easily takes Wright down with a single-leg before clubbing his skull with some thunderous punches.  Rather than go for a choke as Wright turns, Erikson just keeps hammering away with thudding blows until the referee finds his contact lens and stops the fight at the 42 scond mark.
WINNER BY TKO - TOM ERIKSON!

After the fight Erikson is joined in the post-match interview by Mark Coleman; at the time, Coleman was the defending 2-time UFC champ, and so he quickly went into his usual spiel about the greatness of wrestlers and how freestyle wrestlers have proven to be the best fighters in the world, yadda yadda yadda.  Soon after, Coleman would lose to a *kickboxer* with no groundfighting experience, Maurice Smith, and then get knocked out by Shamrock rookie Pete Williams.  Having seen these fights makes Coleman's boasting much more tolerable.

The MAAAAAAIN EVENT!  Folks, we got a LEGEND in the ring tonight!

GOKAR CHIVICHYAN (5'10 185, Sambo, submissions) v Mr. Maeda (6'2 240 Judo, Muay- Thai)
Mr. Maeda is announced as being a Japanese judo champion and an international Muay-Thai champion, claiming a MMA record of 200-0.  Yeah right.  The REAL boss of the ring here is Gokar, the closest thing America has to its own Gracie.  Besides, how can you NOT like a guy with a name like ‘Gokar'?  "Beware, puny mortal!  You cannot resist the power of GOKAR!"  Gokar is an Armenian fighter who gained an enormous reputation in both grappling/judo/sambo tournaments and in the underground fighting world as a submissions grappler without peer. Although I've only seen him fight twice, he's been brilliant both times, and I've yet to hear anybody disparage his reputation or knock his claim of being undefeated over 15 years.  Gokar fights so rarely these days, preferring to devote most of him time to training and teaching grappling at Gene LeBell's dojo, that this is a unique opportunity for fight fans.  Maeda, er, ‘Mister' Maeda, is 240lbs of totally ripped-to-shreds muscle, and claims before the fight to be too quick for a grappler to defeat.  This seems to be a trend in these fights tonight.  Gokar rushes in and clinches, quickly gets hand control over the larger Maeda, and skillfully drags the rube over his hip and to the ground.  After a moment of silent laughter, Gokar whirls from the side mount into the full mount, and around into a cross-armbreaker.  Maeda locks his mighty muscled arms together to prevent Goakr from locking out his arm, but Gokar's wirely 5'9 180lb frame has too much power for Maeda to resist. In a flash, his arm is being wrenched hideously against the elbow and Gene LeBell is engaging in some sort of primal autoerotic howling in full public view.  This match took all of 40 seconds.
WINNER BY SUBMISSION, GOKAR CHIVICYAN!

And there ya go!  6 fights, total in-ring time of under 10 minutes, and more than half of that was in the first fight.  Gene LeBell staggered back to his dojo, and the various fighters continued their careers with
varying degrees of success.  The WFF folded before it even got off the ground, Gokar went back to teaching (this was, I believe, his last public match), and the referee David Hales faded into well-deserved
obscurity until today, when we kind souls at Death Valley Driver- Foghat finally gave him a single relevant hit on a search engine somewhere. So ya'll come on back next time for another heapin' helpin' of homestyle shootostyle ass- whoopin' goodness!  Remember at DVD-Foghat, "Takin Care of Business" ain't just the chorus from the greatest song ever to be written in 4/4 time, its our way of life!
 

LLPW LIVE BATTLE '97 Commercial Tape (3/6 & 3/8/97)
(by PHIL RIPPA)

SHINOBU KANDORI vs. EAGLE SAWAI
Coming from Tokyo's Kitazawa Town Hall, it's a battle for the LLPW World Singles Title. And Eagle Sawai still is fat. All the stuff I have watched recently is from 1997, so I can just imagine how fucking huge Sawai is now. Oh well. Kandori grabs the STICK but has no time to shit talk as Sawai attacks right away. The run-ins come early and often in this match and become quite annoying. Neither lady provides anything outstanding in the way of offense. Kandori works over the arm quite a bit while Sawai's offensive contribution is a chinlock. Kandori has numerous opportunities to get the win but Sawai's
cronies prevent it. It gets pretty chaotic on the outside as each faction of girls brawls a whole lot. Meanwhile, Sawai must have been smoking some of that good stuff as she suddenly thinks she can fly. First she tries a splash off  the ring apron. That didn't work out so well. Then she splashes Kandori through a table. I miss how Kandori gets handcuffed but she does which allows Sawai to work her over. Eventually, Kandori gets cut free but she can't fight free from a triple team powerbomb. She barely kicks out at two. So when Sawai drops another powerbomb on her, she can't kick out. Afterwards, Sawai talks about needing to find someplace to eat while Kandori says something along the lines of that she would have challenged the play but was out of timeouts.

The rest of the matches all take place on 3/8/97 from Korakuen Hall

SAYORI OKINO vs. MIHO WATABE
Hey, big girl beats up little girl. What a surprise. Okino dominated most of the match on the little, little, little youngster but Watabe kept kicking out which enabled her to get a couple of spurts of offense in. Nothing to write home about though. Okino wins with a modified Texas Cloverleaf.

MISS MONGOL vs. KEIKO AONO
Mongol was trying to carry the walking head of lettuce to something watchable and when Mongol is doing the carrying that is not a good sign. Mongol really frightens me by channeling BOTH Kimala (using double chops) and Road Warrior Hawk (top rope shoulder block). There were just do many factors to prevent me from wanting to have an interest in this match.

EMI MOTOKAWA vs. MIKIKO FUTAGAMI
This match was a lot better than I thought it would be. That doesn't mean it was great or anything but it surely was more entertaining than I thought. Motokawa got a decent amount of offense in and Futagami was willing to sell so it made Motokawa look even better. My favorite moment was the first thing that happened as Motokawa tries to jump Futagami before the bell but Futagami turns around and greets the pumpkin prom queen with a boot smack damn in the middle of her face. Motokawa keeps herself in the match by using her quickness to stave off Futagami's power advantage. There was a big pop for a Motokawa surfboard. I was happier with her top rope plancha to the floor which took out all sorts of things. There was a big whopping number of two counts to keep me interested. Finally, Futagami stops playing around and just runs over Motokawa with a clothesline. It was textbook. Caught her right under the chin. Oh, poor Emi. All dressed up and no one to dance with.

RUMI KAZAMA/MIZUKI ENDO vs. YASHA KURENAI/CAROL MIDORI
I really dig the team of Kurenai and Midori. Midori is one of the best wrestlers of the LLPW crop while Kurenai gives me that wonderful warm feeling inside so I am all for her. Endo still looks like she lost a bet with God because NO ONE can have hair that bad by their own free will. This is pretty much a condensed match as the teams have to work in a bunch of stuff before the goofy run-in soils the match (I'll get back to that.) The tempo was fast which has it good and bad points. It made for more entertainment but the number of blown spots went up proportionally. They try a cool spot where Kurenai tries to slingshot Midori over the ref and into Endo but the ref didn't move in time so Midori had to correct which turned it into some weird double jump axehandle. The match is so condensed that Kurenai doesn't have time to grab her ever present stick. About four minutes in or so, Eagle Sawai's posse hits the ring and attacks all four combatants. Hey! I don't like it when the NWO does it on Nitro so I am not going to like it now. After laying out everyone, the match starts back up with just enough time for Endo to block a Midori top rope Frankensteiner and turn it into a powerbomb for the win. Afterwards, Endo cries to Kazama that she needs a curfew later than 10 pm. (or something like that. My Japanese is a little rusty.)

EAGLE SAWAI/LIONESS ASUKA/SHARK TSUCHIYA/MICHIKO NAGASHIMA vs. SHINOBU KANDORI/NORIYO TATENO/HARLEY SAITO/MICHIKO OMUKAI
This a three out of five falls match and it is a TRAIN WRECK! I want to know who has Paul Heyman whispering in their ear. From the word go, it is an out of control brawl with about 27 girls involved. It was all about typically ECW overbooking. It took me a couple of minutes to make sure that everyone on my match list was actually wrestling in the match. So as per usual every time Sawai et al takes on Kandori et al, everyone and their mother gets involved which is really disappointing since their is enough talent in the ring to make for a really good match. That obviously does not count Sawai or Tsuchiya because you they still stink. I will do my best to hit on the highpoints of the match. After the big brawl to start, Omukai gets singled out by the heels and gets completely destroyed. Asuka brings all the pain with assorted kicks while Nagashima introduces Omukai's face to her kendo stick. Numerous times mind you. Omukai get crushed with a powerbomb and with all of her friends distracted on the outside, the heels get the first fall. Tateno comes in and does nothing and gets pinned in under minute, so just like that Kandori's crew is down two falls to none. Saito is the next to start getting worked over including being put through a table but she rallies for her team. I will admit that I have a soft spot for Saito as she has grown on me every time I have seen her. So I got a little more pumped up as she started firing back to get her team back into the match. Anyhoo, Saito catches Nagashima with something and gets the pin. My favorite sequence comes towards the end of the match. Kandori and Sawai have finally gotten their hands on each other. Kandori manages to stun Sawai and get the pin. Kandori starts to celebrate and gets dropped right on top of her head by Asuka with a backdrop driver. A little while later Sawai  rolls on top of Omukai and that is all she wrote. The match wasn't horrible. There was a lot of action - it wasn't necessarily good - but it was a lot of heated action. Still there was nothing on  this tape that was a must see.
 

Jumbo's Weekend of Wrestling (8/31/90-9/1/90)
(by PHIL SCHNEIDER)
Two days, two ****+ matches, welcome to the world of the great Jumbo Tsuruta. This is from the LOTS O' JUMBO tape which the mysterious benefactor of the FOGHAT revolution BostonIdol sent me, along with the amazing Japanese federations book that gave me a rundown of all the wrestlers for Social Progress (and If you haven't seen The Murderer's mask, you haven't lived the life of 21st Century wrestling fan)

JUMBO TSURUTA vs. KENTA KOBASHI (8/31/90)
Jumbo gives a little shrug during the ring intros as if to say "Why am I wrestling this goofy punk". Kobashi has a Sha-Na-Na pompadour at this point in his career. Jumbo opens up with some cringe inducing forearms straight to the face, knocking the then svelte Kobashi loopy. Kobashi, after a failed attempt to stand toe to toe with Jumbo, does a really neat Ricky Steamboat headlock spot, with Jumbo trying to break the headlock with a kneebreaker (which Kenta sells while keeping on the headlock) and a back suplex which Kenta blocks with a leg grapevine. Jumbo gets free and gets knocked to the floor were Kobashi hits a monster plancha. Kenta then goes through a leg submissions medley using a Texas Cloverleaf, Figure Four and Indian Deathlock. Misawa is in the ring entrance scouting big Jumbo for his match tomorrow. Tsuruta gets the advantage by decapitating Kenta with a lariat, Kobashi picks his head out from the sashimi box of some guy in the third row and after jamming it back on his severed spinal cord hits his graceful moonsault. In 1990, Kobashi had maybe the best moonsault I have ever seen, it is still cool, but now it is cool in a fat guy out of control kind of way, like when Timber the Lumberjack does one. Jumbo got sick of playing  with funboy Kobashi and decided to take this baby home, he hits the flying knee from the top rope and a big powerbomb both of which shithead Kobashi kicks out of, before hitting a back suplex for the pin. Pretty darn good match, Kobashi had not yet developed his random sell.   Jumbo laid in a pretty great beating, although you can never pummel the Orange Crush enough for me. I do think that Kobashi shouldn't have kicked out of the powerbomb at the end, but that is a minor quibble with a darn good match.

JUMBO TSURUTA vs. MITSUHARU MISAWA (9/1/90)
This is the rematch of Misawa's first win over Tsuruta on 6-8-90 which Pogo Pete reviewed in DVDR #91 (I got no personal problem with Pete, he is a pretty good writer and seems like a nice guy if you can get past the smell). Jumbo starts out pissed off as he wallops Misawa, with Misawa doing some highflying stuff to counter Jumbo's fury, including a second rope headbutt. They then settle into a wrestling sequence as they fight over a bow and arrow, which Misawa does a nice backflip kick out of. Jumbo then does a running forearm which kills Misawa deader then Tammy Stych's arm veins. They do some more wrestling, including Jumbo countering a second headbutt attempt by driver Misawa's pretty face into the mat. Then Misawa hits Jumbo with some forearms, Jumbo flips out and starts pummeling Misawa down to the ground. The end was resplendent with near falls, as Misawa gets 2 and 7/9ths with a German suplex, and Jumbo gets a nearfall with a backdrop driver. The end was choice with Misawa hitting a nasty elbowsmash which Jumbo sells like he was hit with a bag of nickels. Misawa goes for the coup de grace and Jumbo blasts him with a lariat for the pin. Sweet match which was better then the Kobashi one the day before. It wasn't as good as the 6/8/90 match as Misawa's first  win had the crowd insanely hot, and Misawa blew a couple of things near the end. Jumbo was tons of fun to watch in the late 80's and early 90's as he was about the stiffest worker in the world, and truly great at telling a compelling story in a match. I like this era of All Japan better then the current stuff, as the moves mean more and there are well built matches, rather then headdropping contests. Trust me you want every second of this.
 

Death Valley Driver Video Review #10
"Jeff Jarrett rules the f*cking earth. His match on Nitro this week was beautiful. I don't know who is the best in WCW now at getting opponents over - Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho or Jeff Jarrett. The Argument for Jericho would be his recent match against Mike Enos, the houseshow reports of him pulling very good  matches out of Disco Inferno, and the >hell!< miracle match against Steve Armstrong Saturday on WCWSN, which I was amazed at seeing. I actually forgot for a minute that Armstrong was  jobbed into oblivion prior to this match and was just being carried by Jericho with such absolute perfection. Jarrett might have it over Eddie because Eddie couldn't drag a decent match out of Bubba like Jarrett did Monday and Jericho may have it over Eddie because Chris pulled a good match out of Enos, unlike Eddie. Of course, the true proof is when they are in with real, honest to God workers. I'm guessing sooner or later we're gonna get the ass-stomping Benoit/Jarrett feud and then we'll see Double J's true workrate colors.  Benoit/Jericho was great, the elevenish Guerrero/Benoit matches RULED, and I'm guessing  that the heat in a Benoit/Jarrett match may be enough to take to that same level- though Jarrett isn't quite in the other two's league, physical talent-wise- though he does have a flawless grasp  of old-school American selling and psychology, and GOD! can anybody work a match better  in the US?"

Can anybody work a match better in the US Huh? I bet you never knew Dean was such a strut mark.

NEXT TIME!! Fatty should be doing some of the Glenn tape. Boring should be doing some more women's wrestling. And Pogo Pete should really take a bath. Until we meet again.  SLOW RIDE TAKE IT EASY!!