Wrestling's victims lose again after botched APPGW report (April 23, 2021)
On My Reading List This Week
The above photograph, used to publicise the formation of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Wrestling, was just about the worst start the group could’ve had. That was nothing to do with the quality of the image taken by industry specialist Oli Sandler, but because it immediately sent the message that despite the seriousness of the Speaking Out allegations, pro wrestling was just big kids playing with their toy belts.
The APPGW report itself was released this month in a 103-page PDF document that was typically unfocused on the problems of a lack of regulation of pro wrestling, falling as it does in between sport and theatre. In its foreward, for example, there’s a desperate need to justify the enjoyment of pro wrestling rather than sum up how dangerous it is both in and out of the ring.
Former Fighting Spirit Magazine writer Will Cooling has been at the forefront of online discussion regarding Speaking Out and the APPGW, and has written a fine piece to explain what the document had hoped to achieve, where it has found success and failure, and what should be the group’s next move. This article should be your first port of call unless you specifically want to suffer through the superfluous material in the document, which includes details on who won the Summerslam 1992 main event and numerous plugs for the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame for Scotland. Even though the official Wrestling APPG page states that it was created to “promote, support, and raise awareness of professional wrestling; to work with the industry to improve it and to build confidence; to celebrate British success in professional wrestling”, bogging down the document in details of the effects of COVID-19 on the industry delays getting to the vital information.
Like many people, I am most concerned with how the APPGW wishes to proceed in stamping out abuse in pro wrestling, whether that be during training or local and national events. Certainly, what pro wrestling needs is to be recognised as an industry on its own, as it contains too much theatre for sport and too much sport for theatre.
In terms of training, at least, the closest comparison to pro wrestling is gymnastics, which is also practised primarily at a local level, and is dangerous both in a physical sense, and in terms of a student’s proximity to his/her coach. Even if pro wrestling is not a sport, it is my belief that it should near-duplicate British Gymnastics’ commitment to safeguarding and compliance and then go about campaigning for a proportionate level of similar regulation, publicly naming decision-makers who refuse to take a stand against abuse.
This is the only way in which the matter will be taken seriously. Evidently, this includes by the APPGW who, much like in the video below, got the tone and emphasis of this document entirely wrong.
On My Screen This Week
La Fiera vs Tiger Mask (AJPW; August 26, 1984)
Tiger Mask clearly means business at the start of this bout with La Fiera, in part because it’s Mitsuharu Misawa’s first contest under the mask after his return from excursion to Fiera’s homeland of Mexico. It’s easy to forget what a smooth, rapid athlete Misawa was in his youth, but there’s reminders all over this encounter, including in some early lucha spots, and when he takes a beautiful Japanese arm-drag from "The Wild Beast". (By the way, the crowd know exactly who Tiger Mask is, briefly chanting “Misawa!” at the outset.)
Fiera is an interesting wrestler; he’s clunky but can bump, and at the very least, he can keep up with Misawa’s pace, which he proves on a slingshot splash attempt, a death-defying crossbody from the top rope to the floor, and eventually a frog splash back in the ring. Naturally, the babyface Tiger Mask has to top those feats, and does enough when he backdrops Fiera over the top rope and then hits a topé that causes his opponent to take a nasty crash into both the barricade and an adjacent table.
Still, it’s not the last big bump of the match for Fiera, who endures a missed somersault splash from the top rope, before eating a beautiful Tiger suplex for the pinfall.
There were better things ahead for Tiger Mask II, but this was a pleasing start. (***1/2)
Unfortunately, this match is not online officially or otherwise, so if you want to see it, you’ll have to pick up the Unreleased Matches Of Roddy Piper set from 2019. In particular, there’s some interesting stuff on the first of the two DVDs, including this bout opposite Mr. Perfect from Syracuse, New York in November 1990.
Piper’s popularity is enormous here, even more so than one would expect, which is of particular note since he hadn’t wrestled since May. Here, he and Curt Hennig (who had won the Intercontinental title from Kerry Von Erich the night before, a month before it would be acknowledged on television) go for a house show-style match that’s big on pops, the first of which is Hennig getting knocked out when he tries to engage Piper in a fist fight.
Hennig’s generosity is quite inspiring, as he gives Piper everything he could ask for in the early going, with big bumps to match, until things change temporarily with a double-clothesline spot and a tall, gorgeous dropkick from Hennig. By the time Piper is ready to make a comeback, the crowd are itching for it, so much so that Bobby Heenan taking a bump on the outside literally has fans jumping out of their seats.
And then comes the finish which, quite fittingly, is not what you expect: Piper going down for the three-count after a Perfect Plex. This is stunning on first viewing, as Piper defeated Hennig via disqualification on dozens of house shows in late-1990 and early-1991, and it had become lore than his only pinfall loss as a babyface in the WWF was to Bret Hart at Wrestlemania VIII.
Indeed, with an added handshake thereafter, one has to question if this was something that Piper and Hennig had cleared with management, or even if Hennig was entirely aware of what Piper was going to do.
If I had to guess, I’d say someone - guess who? - was out to make a point. (**)
There could never be enough Shawn Michaels and Marty Jannetty matches on the WWE Network, whether those were as a team or as enemies, but this bout has an even greater context, as Jannetty plays subtle heel against the babyface Michaels in 1996. Ironically, it is Michaels who is by far the more arrogant personality here, which is why he had a love/hate relationship with the WWF audience at this time, culminating in an embarrassingly negative response to him at Survivor Series in Madison Square Garden.
Interestingly, the timing is a little off between the former Rockers at the beginning of the bout, as Jannetty hangs back while Michaels gets to show off his speed. A early superkick attempt is also off by approximately 10 feet.
Bizarrely, the match comes back from an ad break to go straight into a chinlock by Jannetty, although at least it’s short-lived, as the story continues to play out that Jannetty has his old partner well-scouted. What that actually means for the match, though, is that Jannetty is working at about 30% of his capacity, so as to give Michaels all the love when he eventually makes his comeback.
Things do kick into a higher gear in the last quarter of the clash, with a big flying forearm from Michaels, a powerbomb that’s reversed into a ‘rana and then a sunset flip, a Jannetty Rocker Dropper, and Michaels’ big elbow from the top rope. After that, “The Heartbreak Kid” wraps up the win with a superkick, and gets an extra pop by dispatching Jannetty’s cohorts Leif Cassidy and Jim Cornette, the latter of whom was conspicuously quiet on the outside. (**3/4)
Tyler Black vs. KENTA (ROH; June 27, 2009)
There’s a lot I could write about the Colby “Seth Rollins” Lopez of 2021, but one of the most notable things is that while the training he received under the auspices of WWE made him more polished, his worst traits were far less annoying when he was plying his trade as Tyler Black in Ring of Honor, where his flair for the unnecessarily elaborate rather fit with the scene.
Kenta is somewhat of an opposite to him, as he simply prefers to leave an impression by kicking his opponents as hard as possible. The sight and sound of these strikes really cuts to the heart of what made Ring of Honor so critically successful in the 2000s: it’s reliance on sheer talent and in-ring competition.
That said, there’s a notable lack of flow to much of this bout, even if the strikes and suplexes do make it appear that the wrestlers are deep in combat. In terms of drama, the clash really kicks off after two big superkicks and then a double-down, which is used to this day to elicit a “This is awesome!” or similar chant from the audience. It achieves its goal here.
There’s a lovely reversal of a running kick into an STF by Kenta, before Black slams him over the top rope and strikes with nice topé con hilo. Kenta counters a beautiful Tiger suplex, but unfortunately they then conspire to make a mess of a GTS that’s supposed to be countered into a DDT. The air rather goes out of the room at this point, although they get the crowd back to some extent by hitting the GTS hard on the next attempt, with an even bigger pop for the kickout.
The GTS would eventually precipitate the end of the bout, but only after Kenta rather no-sold a buckle bomb, cementing the idea that this match was really just a collection of ever-increasing spots, albeit in front of an audience that was glad to see them. (***)
Walking The King’s Road: The Rise Of The Holy Demon Army
Joseph Montecillo is a Filipino stand-up comedian, but he takes his love for pro wrestling seriously. His Walking The King’s Road series is an invaluable guide to All Japan Pro Wrestling for those just beginning to delve into it. and a love letter to the style for those who’ve seen the big matches before.
This latest “video essay” covers the formation and early success of the Holy Demon Army, the tag team of Toshiaki Kawada and Akira Taue that grew out of Kawada abandoning the Super Generation Army for the opportunity to replace Jumbo Tsuruta in what was once known as Tsuruta-gun.
The video does a fine job of explaining where Taue was at in his career, and why he and the former members of Tsuruta-gun needed the leadership qualities of Kawada. No matter how good their matches were - and several of them were great - Taue was never going to be the perennial challenger to Mitsuharu Misawa, and the back story of Kawada and Misawa being real-life friends was perfect, anyway.
The tale of Kawada and Misawa’s 1992 Champion Carnival bout is brilliantly told by Montecillo, and sets up the details of Kawada’s subtle “turn” perfectly, occurring as it does the following year, following a bout with Taue. There’s then a wonderful example of the newfound Holy Demon Army alliance the day before Kawada challenges Misawa for the Triple Crown, as Taue does everything to destroy Misawa’s best weapon, the elbow smash, in a tag team encounter the day before.
The video does get ever-so-slightly off its subject when discussing this Misawa versus Kawada bout, if you don’t wish to accept that the Kawada-Taue alliance was built primarily to win the Triple Crown, as opposed to the Tag Team titles. However, it’s not right to call that a flaw, given that the Misawa versus Kawada rivalry in 1990s’ All Japan bleeds into almost any storyline in the promotion throughout the decade.
Montecillo has a fascinating take-away from the Misawa versus Kawada feud, as the video concludes at the end of 1993. It presents Kawada in a way I had not previously considered, perhaps because I consider him easily in the top five wrestlers of the decade, if not of all-time. It’s a point I’ll now carry into future viewings of previously-seen matches.
I’ll leave you to discover this conclusion by watching the video which, as you can likely tell, gets my highest recommendation.
On My Podcast App This Week
“Our writers are phenomenal.” - WWE president Nick Khan
You probably won’t see The Colin Cowherd Podcast on my playlist history very often, but it’s worth checking out at least a little of this episode, as he interviews WWE president - yes, that’s really his title - Nick Khan. As it happens, Khan was Cowherd’s agent on his way up the entertainment ladder, so the two have a good rapport, although their mutual back-slapping does occasionally induce nausea.
Khan has an impressive voice, and eschews bombast to let you know he’s a serious corporate negotiator, but many of the thoughts he offers about wrestling content are disastrous. For one, he is completely naive to - or outright lying about - how much blame WWE deserves for failing to create stars, and trots out the nonsense line that, “something we’re all paying attention to every day is, what is the audience saying?” He then blames the pandemic for being unable to do so for the last year.
Khan seems to actually believe this bile, which is concerning, and when the topic arises of the WWE Network moving to Peacock, he talks of wanting to “over-deliver” new subscribers for the NBCU service, but neglects to mention how WWE will offer an improved product to fans to achieve that, or even just provide a service that works with a fraction of the efficiency of the old Network. He also inadvertently buries WWE by grouping it with products like Miss Universe that he claims are still popular in the Philippines, but that “no longer necessarily rate here the way they once rated here.”
There’s a hilarious moment in which Cowherd states that the most popular podcaster on his network is Renee Pacquette, who WWE lost last year for a variety of reasons, not least of which being that their poor creative drove her husband to misery. If Cowherd puts two and two together, he’ll then realise his friend is not as clever as the buzzwords he speaks.
I’m going to repeat this for those in the back, and for Nick Khan: WWE will not create new stars until it recognises the flaws in its creative. Make as many new deals as you like: if that is not urgently addressed, WWE viewership will be down again come 2022.
John McAdam and Brent Nicholas approach the WWE Network/Peacock conversation from a slightly different angle, both of them being much more likely to watch the classic content that still may not make it to the new service. In addition to this, they provide some memories of the wrestling landscape before and during the first part of their review of Wrestlemania XVII, on the 20th anniversary of that pay-per-view.
While I didn’t listen to all of this near-four hour show, I did tune in specifically to hear Jim Cornette’s thoughts on the NXT Takeover bout between Walter and Tommaso Ciampa (reviewed here last week), and doing so was certainly worth that effort. Cornette’s podcasts probably ought to be rated 18, and offend people enough to where I’ve had complaints about the mere mention of them here, but he continues to dissect pro wrestling matches with more expertise than anyone.
Another entertaining show from Rich and Joe, with a particularly interesting discussion about the recent WWE cuts and where those wrestlers could make an impact in the near future.
On My Twitter Feed This Week
A Little Bit Of Housekeeping
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