[1981-06-10-AJPW-Super Power Series] Ricky Steamboat vs Jimmy Snuka

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[...TG]

I expect Jimmy Snuka to look like a monster about to burst, but Steamboat was pretty well jacked up here too. I'm really only familiar with the mid-to-late 80s Steamboat, and he's nowhere near as thick and heavy as he's been in 1980-81.

[JKWebb]

Snuka is HUGE. Ricky shaved his mustache from earlier in the year. Some fun back and forth action starts this off, then we get a pretty solid king of the mountain spot from Snuka carried on the shoulders of Ricky's selling. The match slows down a bit after this and then Snuka totally botches a top rope maneuver and basically falls flat on his face. The crowd chuckles. It looked bad. Then, Steamboat blades ... but I'm not sure why...I guess it's selling a headbutt from Snuka. Snuka goes to work on the cut. He's bites it and you can see the blood in his teeth. He makes crazy faces, and his attack is pretty sinister. He misses an attack on Steamboat in the corner allowing Steamboat to take over. A pretty good nearfall from a top rope splash. Steamboat does his babyface thing, bloodied, cries out, unloads some punches and chops at the neck of Snuka. Steamboat gets DQ'd for hitting the ref and not backing off on Snuka. This match definitely had its up and downs. The botch really threw it off for me, but it got pretty fun after recovery. There's a good little brawl at the end. Overall, I'll say it was good.

[paul sosnowski]

JK, there are 2 different matches, 6/3 and 6/10. The first one is the one that you describe where Steamboat bleeds and gets DQ'd. In the second match, Snuka gets DQ'd for choking Steamboat with a chair

[JKWebb]

Nice! I'll have to look for the other one. Thx!