SAMS

I'm might be a little overzealous with my praise for Fuji and Saito. I'm not sure whether it's because I'd only ever come across Fuji as a manager in the 90s and I expected him to be terrible, so in contrast he seems like a super worker. Or that the other heel teams in WWF were actually pretty terrible, so again in contrast they look amazing. Either way I'm sticking by what I said: best tag team in the world for '81! haha Anyway, the match above really resonated with me, both because it came out of nowhere and because it sort of achieves everything I would want out of a match between these two teams. Add in the Spectrum, fast becoming my favourite wrestling venue, and of course Kal, and it all just works for me personally.

Cribbed from my 1981 thread. I would listen to an argument for any of these five. My personal vote would go to Andre. Andre the Giant Andre was nothing short of a force of nature. I liked his US work, mostly in the comedic tags where he could leverage his size to wreak havoc on the dimensions of the ring, but it was in Japan where he was really let off the leash, unburdened from the shackles of being a face, Andre was able to let loose and become an unbridled monster among men. Nobody elicited as much of a response merely from hinting that they were weakening. A little stumble to one knee akin to someone else having their head kicked off with a superkick. His huge mass worked against him at times, especially Stateside, where I felt like the complete improbability of Andre losing could suck the intrigue out of any given match, but a few missteps aside nobody was more consistently impactful in such a wide variety of settings as Andre this year. Recommended matches: 1981-03-16 - WWF - Sgt. Slaughter vs. Andre The Giant 1981-04-18 - WWF - Moondog Rex & Sgt. Slaughter vs. Andre The Giant & Tony Garea 1981-09-04 - NJPW - Andre The Giant, Bad News Allen & Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki, Riki Choshu & Tiger Toguchi 1981-09-17 - NJPW - Andre The Giant vs. Antonio Inoki 1981-09-23 - NJPW - Stan Hansen vs. Andre The Giant Mark Rocco In the somewhat limited confines of World of Sport, it takes a special man to generate such impassioned heat, and that man was Mark Rocco. I’ll admit I’m a sucker for his particular brand of gamesmanship, a subset of the British workers who used the system of public warnings in their favour, pushing the limits and their knowledge that the referees were hesitant to blow the whistle too quickly, thus racking up a huge advantage against their opponents and keeping their foot to their throats the whole way. Rocco was plainly - a dick. He could wrestle, he could compete, but he wanted, no he NEEDED, to needle everyone around him just because that was the way he was. I love the unrelenting pace at which he worked, constantly pushing his opponents to keep up, but he gave enough when required to not let it go too far into farce. He had the greatest hit rate of any wrestler in the year, granted that may also be because of the footage disparity, but literally every single time he showed up on tape, he delivered a killer performance, without fail. Recommended matches: 1981-02-11 - JP - Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones 1981-06-18 - JP - Mark Rocco vs. Mal Sanders 1981-07-15 - JP - Mark Rocco. vs. King Benn 1981-09-29 - JP - Mark Rocco vs. Chris Adams 1981-11-18 - JP - Dynamite Kid vs. Mark Rocco Sgt. Slaughter Had the inside track to be the best wrestler in the world for the first half of the year before dropping off the map when he moved to Mid-Atlantic. His WWF work was stratospheric to say the least. Two top of the line feuds against Backlund and the Patterson, spanning both the New York and Philadelphia markets and delivering satisfying narrative arcs in both. The best bumper, especially for a big man. Great woozy selling. But when it came time to tighten the screws and dish it out he could do that too, just ask Rick McGraw. There was nobody remotely close when it came to bleeding, obviously the Alley Fight was an all-timer but he had others too. His best trait though was his ability to bump and bump big for his opponents and not lose his credibility. All the way until the conclusion of all his feuds you still got the sense that he was a threat that needed to be put down. Recommended matches: 1981-01-10 - WWF - Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter 1981-02-14 - WWF - Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter 1981-05-04 - WWF - Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter 1981-06-20 - WWF - Sgt. Slaughter vs. Rick McGraw 1981-08-01 - WWF - Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter Stan Hansen I’ll admit I was a little cold on Hansen coming off ‘80. He had some good matches against Inoki, but also some others that were somewhat off. The elements were there but his brand of chaos wasn’t truly clicking yet. That was well and truly resolved by the time we came to a close on this calendar year. He proved he could have a successful run in the States, carving out a great run against Backlund that holds up against what other great heels did in that territory throughout the year. However his bread and butter was always going to be in Japan, and in Japan is where he levelled up to night in and night out bringing a presence that only Hansen can bring. Even in run of the mill tag matches in a small town Hansen had figured out how to put his imprint on a match regardless of circumstance. The highs are oh so high - the Andre match in particular - but he’d thoroughly earned the reaction he got when he emerged with Brody & Snuka for the Tag League Final. Hansen had jumped ship and it was a big fucking deal. 12 months earlier and I’m not so sure I would have thought so. Recommended matches: 1981-02-16 - WWF - Bob Backlund vs. Stan Hansen 1981-06-04 - NJPW - Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki 1981-06-24 - NJPW - Abdullah The Butcher & Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki & Yoshiaki Yatsu 1981-09-23 - NJPW - Stan Hansen vs. Andre The Giant 1981-12-10 - NJPW - Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Dick Murdoch & Stan Hansen Terry Funk Funk makes this grade on the strength of his outlandishly good performances in Memphis earlier in the year and a strong finish back in Japan. In each tier the wrestlers are listed in alphabetical order, but Terry was the last one to slot in here and would be my fifth ranked of these five. The biggest knock on him is a gaping vacuum in the middle of the year where for 6 months is completely awol. But ultimately I just couldn’t overlook the fact that what he was able to deliver, especially at the top end, was just undeniably great. 1980 was all about Terry Funk the babyface in Japan, however 1981 showed that he was equally adept as a heel, which feels like an understatement to even type out, as he clearly had the goods to step up and be the best, most terrifying heel on the planet when needed. I don’t think there were two performances that surpassed the two he put in against Lawler, all time classics that have been documented ad nauseum, but Terry really shines in the little matches, sprinkling in fun shit that just nobody else even thinks about. Recommended matches: 1981-03-23 - CWA - Terry Funk vs. Jerry Lawler 1981-04-06 - CWA - Terry Funk vs. Jerry Lawler 1981-11-30 - AJPW - Terry Funk vs. Bruiser Brody 1981-12-03 - AJPW - Terry Funk vs. Ashura Hara 1981-12-13 - AJPW - Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka vs. The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk)

GWE Roundup I shared my process in approaching the GWE 2026 project here. But below is my roundup of all the wrestlers who I thought warranted discussion from a GWE perspective from 1981. Within each tier wrestlers are listed in alphabetical order. World Class Andre the Giant Andre was nothing short of a force of nature. I liked his US work, mostly in the comedic tags where he could leverage his size to wreak havoc on the dimensions of the ring, but it was in Japan where he was really let off the leash, unburdened from the shackles of being a face, Andre was able to let loose and become an unbridled monster among men. Nobody elicited as much of a response merely from hinting that they were weakening. A little stumble to one knee akin to someone else having their head kicked off with a superkick. His huge mass worked against him at times, especially Stateside, where I felt like the complete improbability of Andre losing could suck the intrigue out of any given match, but a few missteps aside nobody was more consistently impactful in such a wide variety of settings as Andre this year. Recommended matches: 1981-03-16 - WWF - Sgt. Slaughter vs. Andre The Giant 1981-04-18 - WWF - Moondog Rex & Sgt. Slaughter vs. Andre The Giant & Tony Garea 1981-09-04 - NJPW - Andre The Giant, Bad News Allen & Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki, Riki Choshu & Tiger Toguchi 1981-09-17 - NJPW - Andre The Giant vs. Antonio Inoki 1981-09-23 - NJPW - Stan Hansen vs. Andre The Giant Mark Rocco In the somewhat limited confines of World of Sport, it takes a special man to generate such impassioned heat, and that man was Mark Rocco. I’ll admit I’m a sucker for his particular brand of gamesmanship, a subset of the British workers who used the system of public warnings in their favour, pushing the limits and their knowledge that the referees were hesitant to blow the whistle too quickly, thus racking up a huge advantage against their opponents and keeping their foot to their throats the whole way. Rocco was plainly - a dick. He could wrestle, he could compete, but he wanted, no he NEEDED, to needle everyone around him just because that was the way he was. I love the unrelenting pace at which he worked, constantly pushing his opponents to keep up, but he gave enough when required to not let it go too far into farce. He had the greatest hit rate of any wrestler in the year, granted that may also be because of the footage disparity, but literally every single time he showed up on tape, he delivered a killer performance, without fail. Recommended matches: 1981-02-11 - JP - Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones 1981-06-18 - JP - Mark Rocco vs. Mal Sanders 1981-07-15 - JP - Mark Rocco. vs. King Benn 1981-09-29 - JP - Mark Rocco vs. Chris Adams 1981-11-18 - JP - Dynamite Kid vs. Mark Rocco Sgt. Slaughter Had the inside track to be the best wrestler in the world for the first half of the year before dropping off the map when he moved to Mid-Atlantic. His WWF work was stratospheric to say the least. Two top of the line feuds against Backlund and the Patterson, spanning both the New York and Philadelphia markets and delivering satisfying narrative arcs in both. The best bumper, especially for a big man. Great woozy selling. But when it came time to tighten the screws and dish it out he could do that too, just ask Rick McGraw. There was nobody remotely close when it came to bleeding, obviously the Alley Fight was an all-timer but he had others too. His best trait though was his ability to bump and bump big for his opponents and not lose his credibility. All the way until the conclusion of all his feuds you still got the sense that he was a threat that needed to be put down. Recommended matches: 1981-01-10 - WWF - Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter 1981-02-14 - WWF - Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter 1981-05-04 - WWF - Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter 1981-06-20 - WWF - Sgt. Slaughter vs. Rick McGraw 1981-08-01 - WWF - Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter Stan Hansen I’ll admit I was a little cold on Hansen coming off ‘80. He had some good matches against Inoki, but also some others that were somewhat off. The elements were there but his brand of chaos wasn’t truly clicking yet. That was well and truly resolved by the time we came to a close on this calendar year. He proved he could have a successful run in the States, carving out a great run against Backlund that holds up against what other great heels did in that territory throughout the year. However his bread and butter was always going to be in Japan, and in Japan is where he levelled up to night in and night out bringing a presence that only Hansen can bring. Even in run of the mill tag matches in a small town Hansen had figured out how to put his imprint on a match regardless of circumstance. The highs are oh so high - the Andre match in particular - but he’d thoroughly earned the reaction he got when he emerged with Brody & Snuka for the Tag League Final. Hansen had jumped ship and it was a big fucking deal. 12 months earlier and I’m not so sure I would have thought so. Recommended matches: 1981-02-16 - WWF - Bob Backlund vs. Stan Hansen 1981-06-04 - NJPW - Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki 1981-06-24 - NJPW - Abdullah The Butcher & Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki & Yoshiaki Yatsu 1981-09-23 - NJPW - Stan Hansen vs. Andre The Giant 1981-12-10 - NJPW - Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Dick Murdoch & Stan Hansen Terry Funk Funk makes this grade on the strength of his outlandishly good performances in Memphis earlier in the year and a strong finish back in Japan. In each tier the wrestlers are listed in alphabetical order, but Terry was the last one to slot in here and would be my fifth ranked of these five. The biggest knock on him is a gaping vacuum in the middle of the year where for 6 months is completely awol. But ultimately I just couldn’t overlook the fact that what he was able to deliver, especially at the top end, was just undeniably great. 1980 was all about Terry Funk the babyface in Japan, however 1981 showed that he was equally adept as a heel, which feels like an understatement to even type out, as he clearly had the goods to step up and be the best, most terrifying heel on the planet when needed. I don’t think there were two performances that surpassed the two he put in against Lawler, all time classics that have been documented ad nauseum, but Terry really shines in the little matches, sprinkling in fun shit that just nobody else even thinks about. Recommended matches: 1981-03-23 - CWA - Terry Funk vs. Jerry Lawler 1981-04-06 - CWA - Terry Funk vs. Jerry Lawler 1981-11-30 - AJPW - Terry Funk vs. Bruiser Brody 1981-12-03 - AJPW - Terry Funk vs. Ashura Hara 1981-12-13 - AJPW - Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka vs. The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) Great Worker Bill Dundee I love how Dundee throws a punch. I love his selling styles, how he just crumples to the mat when the heels finally manage to apply the heat, turning his biggest weakness, his size, into his biggest advantage. He can control all aspects of a match, whipping the crowd into a frenzy, make the heels look completely foolish, then in a heartbeat make them look like the toughest dudes in the world. He was the in-ring MVP for his promotion, holding down the fort on TV for the whole calendar year. When given the opportunity (however minimal) he showed he could deliver on the bigger stage as well. Much like with Funk, he has two of my favourite performances of the year, both times trying to survive, working against the clock. Recommended matches: 1981 - 03-07 - CWA - Bill Dundee vs. Tojo Yamamoto & Wayne Ferris 1981 - 03-12 - CWA - Austin Idol & Dutch Mantell vs. Bill Dundee & Tommy Rich 1981 - 12-21 - CWA - Bill Dundee vs. The Super Destroyer Billy Robinson I intuitively think of Robinson footage as coming out of Japan, but here his entire case is based on his North American work. He was situated in the AWA for most of the year, but had a stint in Memphis and a one shot (as far as I know) in Houston. Memphis declined to show more than clips of his matches, but from what we have his feud with Tony Charles appeared to be really interesting, subtly undermining the smaller man for weeks before getting utterly humiliated in defeat at the Mid-South Coliseum. His Houston match was a year standout, he and Dory putting on an absolute clinic that came out of nowhere for me. What stood out to me the most was how he blended his completely unique grappling style with a more rugged, cantankerous personality that for whatever reason I didn’t know existed. It meant that all of his matches had that technical flair but were never elegant, there was always an edge. Recommended matches: 1981-01-16 - Houston Wrestling - Dory Funk Jr. vs. Billy Robinson 1981-11-05 - AWA - Bobby Duncum vs. Billy Robinson 1981-12-03 - AWA - Jerry Blackwell vs. Billy Robinson Buddy Rose Rose is someone I feel that I should like, someone I want to like, more than I do. There are moments, when I’m really keyed in, that I notice all these brilliant details about how he’s subtly guiding a match and orchestrating events and I can see the best in the world praise, and there are other times where a match of his will come and go and he’ll left me a little underwhelmed. He really suffers from a far shallower talent pool than his contemporaries, and just from glancing through his matches, he doesn’t feel like someone who is a lock for this tier. But, as I drilled down into my notes, it became clear that he was a standout, if not THE deciding factor, in a number of tag matches being as good as they were, matches that could have been one or two star affairs were elevated to roughly three star level purely on his back alone. I would have preferred for him to have some more standout singles matches, but his general consistency is hard to argue against. Putting him in this tier is definitely a head over the heart decision though. Recommended matches: 1981-01-03 - PNW - Buddy Rose vs. Jay Youngblood 1981-04-11 - PNW - Buddy Rose vs. Jay Youngblood 1981-12-05 - PNW - Buddy Rose & Matt Borne vs. King Parsons & Rocky Johnson Greg Valentine A worker who had a great shot at the top tier if he’d popped up at all before he made the switch from Mid-Atlantic to the WWF. Such an excellent series against Backlund, again successful in both New York and Philly, and a should never have been as good as it was singles match against Tony Garea of all people. We all know Valentine was a hard hitting, no nonsense worker. He had great psychology, working over the leg to set up his figure four and he could sell in spades in return too. His TV work is a bit uninspiring, but I don’t hold that against him as WWF TV is essentially skippable for the most part in this era, but the worst portion of the year did coincide with him turning up, just a little note to consider. Recommended matches: 1981-10-19 - WWF - Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine 1981-11-14 - WWF - Greg Valentine vs. Tony Garea 1981-11-23 - WWF - Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine Jerry Lawler Considering that he was the other half in those two Terry Funk matches I’ve been drooling over, it might seem weird that he’d be bumped down a tier in comparison. There’s no doubt that Lawler played his part, but to me they feel more like Funk showcases, than examples of amazing Lawler performances. The good news for Jerry is that he’s got enough other stuff on his resume to comfortably slot into the “Great” category for this year, and I have no doubt that he’ll be a best in the world contender moving forwards. While it would have been nice to get more of the arena footage from the first part of the year, we at least get a good chunk to showcase Lawler’s return from injury and his triumphant run through all of Hart’s challengers. The full(ish) matches we have include great turns against Dory and Blackwell, as well as the aforementioned Terry Funk, and show him to be an excellent arena worker. His magnum opus for the year though might very well be his match against Jimmy Hart. Hart did fantastically but that match doesn’t work if not for Lawler. His ability to legitimately sell for Hart made that match what it was, and what it was was one of the most entertaining matches of the year. Recommended matches: 1981-03-23 - CWA - Terry Funk vs. Jerry Lawler 1981-03-30 - CWA - Dory Funk Jr. vs. Jerry Lawler 1981-06-29 - CWA - Jimmy Hart vs. Jerry Lawler Nick Bockwinkel Bockwinkel is a candidate that I felt would have popped the more you watch him in a week to week setting, the same way people talk about Buddy Rose. He does all these little things that seem tailor made for that kind of viewing experience. So far though, in these kinds of run of the mill house shows, Bockwinkel, while not disappointing per se, hasn’t crackled in the way I was expecting. Unfortunately AWA footage in particular is pretty sparse for this period so I can’t say whether it’s a quirk of the footage available. BUT, and this is a big but, he knocked it out of the park in the big showcase matches we do have, enough to paint a picture of a great wrestler, who with more footage would only be viewed in an even better light. The things that made his long(ish) great matches what they are, were those small details, which he seemed to be a master of. Recommended matches: 1981-06-11 - AWA - Jim Brunzell vs. Nick Bockwinkel 1981-07-16 - AWA - Nick Bockwinkel vs. Jim Brunzell 1981-11-20 - Houston Wrestling - Tito Santana vs. Nick Bockwinkel Tully Blanchard Houston as a whole improved a great deal from ‘80, but the biggest factor was Tully being more heavily featured. He managed to take matches against average guys like Mike Graham and Tiger Conway Jr. and put together something really good just on his performance alone. He played perfectly to his character, a good technician but not the best, but perhaps a master tactician, constantly looking for openings and opportunities. His working style would best be described as “Hyena-esque”. When it came time to show ass Tully did it with the best of them, fantastic stooging and bumping but always giving off the sense that he was a wounded animal, still dangerous till the last. A good, if not great, tag team with Gino that I feel has plenty room for growth in the time to come. Recommended matches: 1981-01-09 - Houston - Tully Blanchard vs. Tiger Conway Jr. 1981-01-16 - Houston Wrestling - Scott Casey & Tiger Conway Jr. vs. The Dynamic Duo (Gino Hernandez & Tully Blanchard) 1981-07-24 - Houston Wrestling - Mike Graham vs. Tully Blanchard Flashes of Great Adrian Adonis I’m an unabashed Adonis fan, so I’ll admit that there’s every chance I could be overrating him here, but for my money he was just a can’t miss. Every match he’s in he was the best guy, or somebody showed out and put in a monster performance, and even then they only managed to reach Adonis’ level. Awesomely savage offense, especially for a heel and one of my favourite bumpers of all time. In fact Adonis would be on my shortlist for best “movers” around the ring of all time, guys who just feel at one with the ring and have a unique way of doing things like diving in and out of the ropes (other candidates would be Buddy Rose and Terry Funk). For some reason that always resonated with me. He was the star in his tag team with Ventura but also had fun singles matches with the likes of Jim Brunzell. Hell the clipped match with Larry Hennig is an absolute blast just to watch him get pummelled for 6 minutes. Recommended matches: 1981-03-01 - AWA - The East-West Connection (Adrian Adonis & Jesse Ventura) vs. The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) 1981-03-22 - AWA - The East-West Connection (Adrian Adonis & Jesse Ventura) vs. The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) 1981-06-27 - AWA - Jim Brunzell vs. Adrian Adonis Antonio Inoki Inoki pairs unparalleled aura and charisma, an ability to elevate a moment and make it really meaningful, with supreme inconsistency. He might be a victim of over exposure, only Backlund and some other New Japan guys made tape more often, but there are so many matches where he’s just there. He’s not particularly good on the mat, and when he’s dragged into a match where that is the focal point, he really suffers, but those spectacular moments occurred enough that he stays in this tier for now. Some of the more interesting Inoki moments happened when facing up against really limited workers like Tiger Jeet Singh or Rusher Kimura. The two against Kimura are almost miracle jobs considering how good they ended up being. Andre was the star in their singles match but Inoki wasn’t one to be overshadowed and he completely held up his end, employing a great strategy to chop the big man down. Enhancing others strengths and propping up others is also something he proved he was able to do when motivated, going the extra mile to make Abdullah look a million bucks on his arrival in New Japan and joining in the fun when he and Fujinami made Andre look like a beast during their tag matches. It was such a shame that so often he spent his time during other tag matches chilling on the apron and letting his partner do all the work. Recommended matches: 1981-06-24 - NJPW - Abdullah The Butcher & Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki & Yoshiaki Yatsu 1981-09-17 - NJPW - Andre The Giant vs. Antonio Inoki 1981-10-08 - NJPW - Antonio Inoki vs. Rusher Kimura Bob Backlund Backlund benefits from being one half of a slew of great matches, something he proved he was able to do throughout his WWF title reign, but seemingly only when his dance partner is of a certain standard. In ‘81 he had good stuff with Hansen, Slaughter and Valentine, but all three of these men had as good, if not better, matches against other wrestlers this year, and in most cases against guys a solid rung below them. Backlund wasn’t able to pull anything good, let alone great, out of Muraco, Mosca, Steele or Killer Khan. In the matches I think are good, I rarely come away thinking that he was the driving force that made the match what it was, but there comes a certain point where it’s undeniable that he must be doing something right. He obviously has the outrageous power spots in his favour, but I also love how at certain points in a series he’ll have previous events inform his approach, like a disputed, contentious finish to the last match gets under his skin so at the bell of the next one he charges in like a wild man, attacking with blind fury. Recommended matches: 1981-02-14 - WWF - Bob Backlund vs. Sgt. Slaughter 1981-10-19 - WWF - Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine 1981-11-23 - WWF - Bob Backlund vs. Greg Valentine Bobby Barnes I love Barnes’ spin on the British rule breaker archetype. He’s dead eyed and relatively emotionless, but he’s always working for an illegal advantage. Great performances against a variety of guys, including some much lower down the card, and he thoroughly held his own in the maelstrom that is a Royal Brothers tag as well. Unlike some of the other British guys, who I think with more footage available their ceiling might actually push them into a higher tier, this feels like the limit for someone like Barnes. But after Rocco and Breaks, Barnes has a very strong shout for being the third best heel in the country and I’m not sure who else is really in the discussion. Recommended matches: 1981-01-13 - JP - Bobby Barnes vs. Pat Patton 1981-03-31 - JP - Jon Cortez vs. Bobby Barnes 1981-06-18 - JP - The Royal Brothers (Bert Royal & Vic Faulkner) vs. Bobby Barnes & Sid Cooper Jim Breaks A victim of footage. In his two stellar matches against Cortez and Grey, yes he was facing two wrestlers everyone and their grandma knows are good, but it was Breaks who popped in those matchups. The cheating British heel character type is a particular favourite of mine, and Breaks was one of the best, I just wish we got to see more of him. Recommended matches: 1981-02-02 - JP - Jim Breaks vs. Jon Cortez 1981-05-12 - JP - Jim Breaks vs. Steve Grey Jim Brunzell Clearly the superior of the two between him and Greg Gagne in the High Flyers. He was a great apron worker, a great hot tag, credible offense and a wonder of a dropkick. His tag work alone may have pushed him up into this tier but his singles performances, in particular THAT one against Bockwinkel, showed that given the opportunity, he was able to step up into the main event scene and not look out of place one bit. He certainly lacked that little bit of magic that the best workers had, but he would have been a supremely reliable worker for any promotion to have on their roster at this point. Recommended matches: 1981-03-01 - AWA - The East-West Connection (Adrian Adonis & Jesse Ventura) (c) vs. The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) 1981-07-16 - AWA - Nick Bockwinkel vs. Jim Brunzell 1981-08-09 - AWA - The East-West Connection (Adrian Adonis & Jesse Ventura) vs. The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) Jon Cortez So smooth, so organic. He could go technically like few others, really play up the sympathetic selling when required, but also proved in his match with Grey and Barnes that he could dial up the aggression and play the (very subtle) heel as well. He only featured in three matches, but he shone in all three. If we had more from him there’s no doubt in my mind that he would have been in the tiers above. Recommended matches: 1981-02-02 - JP - Jim Breaks vs. Jon Cortez 1981-03-31 - JP - Jon Cortez vs. Bobby Barnes 1981-07-27 - JP - Jon Cortez vs. Steve Grey Marty Jones Jones to me comes across like a salt of the Earth guy you really feel like you can root for. He’s not flashy, he’s not pretty, but he’s skilled and he’s rugged. He has an edge and he’s not scared of mixing it up. He went toe to toe with Rocco and brought about his best match of the year in a real barnburner. But he showed he could slow things down and hit the right notes in a technical contest too. I’ve waxed lyrical about his prowess on the mat, but I really did think that he displayed the best defensive wrestling skills of the year, his match against South highlighting how to work underneath in a truly compelling way. Much like the rest of his WoS brethren, it would have been nice to just see more of him in action. Recommended matches: 1981-02-11 - JP - Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones 1981-10-07 - JP - Marty Jones vs. Johnny South Pat Patterson Pat’s only output this year was his series with Slaughter, which certainly reached a high zenith, but wasn’t without its warts. Reviewing my notes I perhaps was underselling in my mind Patterson’s contribution to these matches, as instinctively I’d pegged it that Slaughter had done most of the heavy lifting. While I give the bulk of the credit for the MSG Alley Fight to Slaughter, Patterson probably edges it for the Spectrum companion piece, which is almost as good. I have to give Patterson credit for his babyface fire, and in those brutal heat stretches he dug deep to give some of those most naturalistically morbid selling of the year, spittle foaming from his mouth being the standout image. I can’t help but feel that as his body was winding down from its prime it unsurprisingly hurt his work a bit, as his shines in particular had a tendency to run out of steam leading to a lull. If he’d had the exact same matches but 5-7 years earlier, I could see him jumping a tier or two. Recommended matches: 1981-04-18 - WWF - Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter 1981-05-04 - WWF - Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter 1981-08-01 - WWF - Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter Rick Martel Criminally underutilised in WWF’s tag division. Top tier seller, absolutely love his selling of the back. A real firebrand and emotive worker. I still believe that he would have succeeded in Pedro’s place as the number two babyface and IC champion. However, even in the limited role and context he found himself in, he was still able to put his imprint all over any match he was in. The more I think about it the more I’m considering whether he might be a tier too low. He had a better opportunity to showcase himself in Portland last year, but I definitely feel like he’d improved this calendar year. Recommended matches: 1981-02-14 - WWF - Rick Martel & Tony Garea vs. The Moondogs (Moondog King & Moondog Rex) 1981-10-17 - WWF - Rick Martel & Tony Garea vs. Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito 1981-10-19 - WWF - Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito vs. Rick Martel & Tony Garea Steve Grey Could sell with the best of them, could hang on the mat without a doubt, his match against Cortez proved that he could easily be placed in the argument for best in the world, and if somebody wanted to present that argument I would listen. For me though his two matches against Saint were a tad disappointing, allowing Saint to dictate it too much and leaning into his tendency for exhibition rather than a true contest. I feel like a broken record but as with many other wrestlers we don’t have a lot of him, but he came up more often than Cortez, Breaks and Jones and I’m not necessarily sure those extra matches helped his case in comparison. Recommended matches: 1981-01-13 - JP - Johnny Saint vs. Steve Grey 1981-05-12 - JP - Jim Breaks vs. Steve Grey 1981-07-27 - JP - Jon Cortez vs. Steve Grey Tiger Mask The definition of high peaks and low valleys, even if his peaks weren’t all THAT high. He showed enough improvement over the year and racked up enough good, exciting performances, that it felt disingenuine to place him lower. At times it felt like he was the most over wrestler in the company for large portions of the year and when he and his opponent were able to click he was able to generate fireworks. The problem was that they crashed and burned almost as often, with some truly terrible blown spots and awkward, bad matches. I’m trying to lean into the positive though, so his singles match against Gran Hamada works almost as a proof of concept match for what’s possible when he was able to harness all of his strengths and use them for good. Strong contributions in some excellent tag bouts as well work in his favour. Recommended matches: 1981-09-17 - NJPW - Tiger Mask vs. Brazo de Plata 1981-10-30 - NJPW - Kengo Kimura & Tiger Mask vs. Los Misioneros de la Muerte (El Signo & Negro Navarro) 1981-11-05 - NJPW - Tiger Mask vs. Gran Hamada Notable Abdullah the Butcher Lost some of his shine in All Japan before finding his verve again after making the switch to New Japan. Inoki and his crew made the effort to present him as a big deal, building him up in his first few appearances, but they kind of put him on the back burner for the rest of the year as they pivoted to the Hansen/Andre feud and the tag league to finish the year. However, we do get a sneak peak of him in Houston and Puerto Rico that boost his case for the year in my opinion. Recommended matches: 1981-07-03 - NJPW - Abdullah The Butcher & Bad News Allen vs. Antonio Inoki & Seiji Sakaguchi 1981-08-02 - NJPW - Abdullah The Butcher vs. Tatsumi Fujinami 1981-08-11 - WWC - Carlos Colon vs. Abdullah The Butcher Animal Hamaguchi Overshadowed by his tag partner last year, he perhaps was the better of the two during their time in the dying days of the IWE but there wasn’t a lot to rave about from that promotion in general. Once he made the switch to New Japan he seemed to burst with more energy. Limited exposure due to footage issues and the NJ undercard not appearing that much, but from what we’ve got he looked good at worst. Recommended matches: 1981-10-23 - NJPW - Osamu Kido & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Animal Hamaguchi & Isamu Teranishi 1981-11-05 - NJPW - Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Animal Hamaguchi Ashura Hara Part of the best thing to come out of IWE before it collapsed, a wild clusterfuck of a tag team cage match teaming with Inoue against Paul Ellering of all people, and then slotted neatly into the mid card of All Japan when he made the switch. He didn’t set the world alight once he arrived, but he didn’t feel out of place being positioned relatively equal with Tenryu and below Jumbo, even if it was a pretty down year for all things AJPW. Recommended matches: 1981-05-16 - IWE - Paul Ellering & Terry Lathan vs. Ashura Hara & Mighty Inoue 1981-11-30 - AJPW - Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Ashura Hara & Genichiro Tenryu 1981-12-03 - AJPW - Terry Funk vs. Ashura Hara Bruiser Brody Juuust sneaks in here on the back of what he was able to deliver at the end of the year in All Japan. His brief appearance in Houston going against Patera helps his case but otherwise the justification for him even making it is due to what he did opposite Terry Funk. The two Snuka/Brody vs Funks tags were excellent and their singles match together, while not a classic, did the job. At the minimum he showed that when motivated he could come across like a credible menace. The arguments against him are clear and obvious: he’s incredibly awkward and stiff moving around the ring, to the point of being a caricature, this greatly impacts his ability to bump, which veers between bad and non-existent, and was he reliant on having all time greats like Terry Funk to bring the best out of him? I’m splitting the difference and putting him here but it feels like unless he makes GREAT strides moving forwards this tier is the highest he’ll ever get. Recommended matches: 1981-09-04 - Houston Wrestling - Ken Patera, Tank Patton & Tully Blanchard vs. Bobby Duncum, Bruiser Brody & Manny Fernandez 1981-11-30 - AJPW - Terry Funk vs. Bruiser Brody 1981-12-13 - AJPW - Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka vs. The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) Chris Adams Held his own, even if he didn’t wow, during his Japanese tour, then returned to the UK, looked markedly bigger than the last time he showed up, and had two absolutely fantastic matches against Finlay and Rocco where he deserves equal credit for both. The previous year he was perhaps the closest anybody came to a spot monkey, but it seems like that tendency has worn off here and his work has rounded out nicely, leaving him with an incredible offensive arsenal that doesn’t overstay its welcome. Recommended matches: 1981-05-12 - NJPW - Tiger Mask vs. Chris Adams 1981-09-09 - JP - Chris Adams vs. Fit Finlay 1981-09-29 - JP - Mark Rocco vs. Chris Adams Clive Myers I hate the martial arts gimmick. In a lot of ways I think it actively hurt most of his matches this year. I’ve plopped him on solely due to his absolute banger against Haward, my vote for technical match of the year. I was down on Myers, and in my mind rightfully so, but if that match proves what he’s capable I’m now very eager to go and check out his 70s work before he changed gimmicks. Recommended matches: 1981-07-15 - JP - Clive Myers vs. Keith Haward Devil Masami Ferocious on offense and supremely expressive on defence. Most likely my vote for MVP in a transitional year for AJW. The company as a whole doesn’t feel like it’s truly found its groove but Masami, finally taking on the Devil moniker full time, has found her lane and leaned into it hard for solid, if not spectacular, results. Recommended matches: 1981-05-09 - AJW - Devil Masami vs. Tomoko Kitamura 1981-06-XX - AJW - Devil Masami & Leilani Kai vs. Mimi Hagiwara & Nancy Kumi 1981-11-09 - AJW - Devil Masami vs. Princess Mohawk Dick Murdoch When Murdoch hit, he really hit, showing off his tremendous punches and generally just “getting” it. Far too patchy though for my liking, coming across disinterested during a few of his NJ tags, his tag team with Hansen which I would have expected to be awesome just fell flat, and he laid a complete dud in his main event match with Race in All Japan before moving over. Recommended matches: 1981-08-21 - NJPW - Dick Murdoch vs. Tiger Toguchi 1981-08-28 -NJPW - Antonio Inoki vs. Dick Murdoch 981-12-04 - NJPW - Kengo Kimura & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. The Texas Outlaws (Dick Murdoch & Dusty Rhodes) Dory Funk Jr. His cold, almost detached demeanour is simultaneously his biggest strength and his biggest weakness. I love how it at times can project this strong, silent killer vibe, which works as both a face and a heel, and of course he has fantastic, absolutely fantastic uppercuts. But he doesn’t have a changeup, a different speed or tact to add variety. There were times where his understated selling gave him this sense of steely determination, a man humbly fighting against the odds, like in the tag league final, but other times it just reeks of an inability to react. I also far prefer him in more rough and wild matches than slower technical bouts. For a former NWA champion well versed in that type of long form match, I don’t think he was particularly adept at it. Recommended matches: 1981-01-16 - Houston Wrestling - Dory Funk Jr. vs. Billy Robinson 1981-03-30 - CWA - Dory Funk Jr. vs. Jerry Lawler 1981-04-27 - AJPW - Abdullah The Butcher vs. Dory Funk Jr. Gino Hernandez Great synergy with Tully after forming their Dynamic Duo tag team. Being relieved of his duty as top heel in the promotion, he felt less overstretched and could lean more heavily into his strengths and hide some of his weaknesses. Excellent chickenshit heel, good bleeder, his timing was significantly improved, and just generally more rounded than the year before. Recommended matches: 1981-01-16 - Houston Wrestling - Scott Casey & Tiger Conway Jr. vs. The Dynamic Duo (Gino Hernandez & Tully Blanchard) 1981-02-06 - Houston Wrestling - Wahoo McDaniel vs. Gino Hernandez 1981-12-11 - Houston Wrestling - Dick Slater & Tommy Rich vs. The Dynamic Duo (Gino Hernandez & Tully Blanchard) Greg Gagne The lesser of the High Flyers with no question in my mind, but he was suited to playing face in peril, a role he did very well indeed, and I think he had an excellent understanding of what to do at the right time. I’m not a “body” guy, but I’d be remiss not to mention that he suffered from having a lanky, rail thin physique which starkly contrasted with those he was in the ring with and his credibility was knocked because of it. He also, unlike his tag partner, wasn’t afforded any singles opportunities to show what he could do outside of a tag team setting. Recommended matches: 1981-02-20 - AWA - Jerry Blackwell & John Studd vs. The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) 1981-12-25 - AWA - Jerry Blackwell & Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie vs. The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) Jackie Sato Her year was unfortunately cut short due to her retirement, but she still managed to pop up several times before she disappeared. I’m certain she could have placed in a higher tier if she’d stuck around. As much as any other wrestler globally, Jackie came across like the ace of her promotion, in the true sense of the word. When given the time to breathe and not bogged down by the booking style of AJW she might have had the best offense of any wrestler in the world as well. Somebody I feel the fans found no trouble truly getting behind but still displayed that nasty dimension required to grit through the difficult spots she often found herself in up against the likes of the Black Pair. Recommended matches: 1981-01-04 - AJW - Rimi Yokota, Jackie Sato & Mimi Hagiwara vs. Mami Kumano, Yumi Ikeshita & Leilani Kai 1981-02-XX - AJW - Rimi Yokota & Jackie Sato vs. Ayumi Hori & Nancy Kumi 1981-02-25 - AJW - Jackie Sato vs. Rimi Yokota Jaguar Yokota The most athletically gifted of the AJW crew, she always showed flashes of her potential, every once in a while doing something that made me do a double take and rewind just to check I’d seen what I thought I’d seen, but she wasn’t yet quite able to channel her abilities into driving up the quality of a match, taking it by the scruff of the neck and making it good based on her performance alone. She also really suffered from booking, which wasn’t an outlier in AJW to be fair, but she was the champion for most of the year and too often she came across like a complete afterthought. Recommended matches: 1981-01-04 - AJW - Rimi Yokota, Jackie Sato & Mimi Hagiwara vs. Mami Kumano, Yumi Ikeshita & Leilani Kai 1981-02-XX - AJW - Rimi Yokota & Jackie Sato vs. Ayumi Hori & Nancy Kumi 1981-02-25 - AJW - Jackie Sato vs. Rimi Yokota Jay Youngblood Youngblood is such a quintessential babyface performer. His strengths lie in his energy and his selling abilities. He showed he was able to hold up his end during his matches with Rose, but Rose was driving those matches and his entire Portland run highlighted some flaws in his game. Going back to JCP meant that he dropped off the footage radar until the end of the year, so like a lot of guys he has massive gaps, but his standout performance was a barnburner TV match against Piper where they both brought their A-game. Ultimately he wasn’t able to show off his strengths as much as he did last year, where he really shone in a tag setting, and given the platform to go it alone as a singles star he didn’t quite make the grade. Recommended matches: 1981-01-03 - PNW - Buddy Rose vs. Jay Youngblood 1981-04-11 - PNW - Buddy Rose vs. Jay Youngblood 1981-10-17 - MACW - Roddy Piper vs. Jay Youngblood Jerry Blackwell We got to see more of Blackwell this year, but I still feel like I expected a little more from what we did see. The proof of concept of Blackwell as a uniquely great wrestler was his appearance in Memphis, demonstrating things that no man his size or shape has any business doing. He was a part of a number of good tag matches, but he wasn’t often the driving factor behind why they were actually good. No doubt he’s a specimen, able to move and execute in ways that bely his size, but he kind of still feels like a work in progress or a TBD in my mind. Will have to wait for next year to form a more informed opinion. Recommended matches: 1981-05-04 - CWA - Jerry Lawler vs. Jerry Blackwell 1981-11-08 - AWA - Andre The Giant & Hulk Hogan vs. Jerry Blackwell & The East-West Connection (Adrian Adonis & Jesse Ventura) 1981-12-03 - AWA - Jerry Blackwell vs. Billy Robinson Jimmy Snuka Fun part of a number of tag team matches, including THE tag team match of the year, great high flyer with the most over aerial move in all of wrestling, but an incredibly underwhelming singles performer, granted Steamboat didn’t come out of their series looking any good either. When forced to pick up the pace and not work like early-90s Undertaker, he could show off his awesome athleticism and mix it up with the likes of the Funks. Recommended matches: 1981-07-18 - GCW - Jimmy Snuka & Terry Gordy vs. Steve O & Ted DiBiase 1981-11-04 - AJPW - Giant Series 1981 - Day 28 - Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka vs. The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) 1981-12-13 - AJPW - Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka vs. The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) Jumbo Tsuruta After a pretty drab start to the year he finally came along by the end of it, morphing in real time into the promotional ace type that he would eventually become. It had less to do with any improvement in technical skills, but more about establishing that certain aura, that particular attitude, being able to consistently resonate with the crowd and elevate a match just with his presence. Despite having a strong 70s run I guess he was always positioned as Baba’s protege, but as Baba dialled it back it was time for Jumbo to grow up and be the man. It’s not quite there yet, as there was plenty of pure average coming from him here, but we got enough that I’d say he’s on the right track. Recommended matches: 1981-09-04 - AJPW - Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Gypsy Joe 1981-10-09 - AJPW - Ric Flair vs. Jumbo Tsuruta 1981-11-30 - AJPW - Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Ashura Hara & Genichiro Tenryu Keith Haward Much like Myers, he makes the list due to their match together and the rest of his output isn’t of the same standard. Unlike Myers, who often I actively disliked due to his Kung Fu gimmick, Haward felt more like an unfinished project in his other work, a mechanically excellent wrestler, supremely proficient, but lacking in the areas of charisma and psychology. It felt like he had the tools but just needed to figure out the right way to deploy them, then bam, that Myers match happened and it all fell into place. Definitely one to look out for in the future. Recommended matches: 1981-07-15 - JP - Clive Myers vs. Keith Haward Kevin Sullivan I absolutely loved Kevin Sullivan, both inside the ring and out of it, in both Georgia and Memphis, but his work peaked during his TV title run in Georgia without a doubt, as his best Memphis stuff mostly was via promos and commentary than actual matches. He showed that he could hang with the likes of Les Thornton and Steve Keirn on the mat, giving himself legitimacy within their feuds, but he worked perfectly to his character at all times in a way that not many wrestlers could claim. His character was multidimensional and he managed to hit all the notes at different times during his matches to keep them from feeling rote, all within the confines of a TV studio environment. Truly impressive stuff. I really wanted to place him in the tier above but there wasn’t enough to point to to justify it. Recommended matches: 1981-01-03 - GCW - Les Thornton vs. Kevin Sullivan 1981-01-17 - GCW - Steve O vs. Kevin Sullivan 1981-02-28 - GCW - Kevin Sullivan vs. Steve Keirn Masa Saito On half of the great Fuji and Saito tag team. Mentally Fuji feels more prominent, the leader of that team, but if I think really hard Saito essentially could do everything Fuji could do: stooging, bumping, good timing, working heat sequences, just perhaps with slightly less charisma or overtly in your face characterisation. Recommended matches: 1981-10-19 - WWF - Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito vs. Rick Martel & Tony Garea 1981-11-14 - WWF - Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito vs. SD Jones & Tony Atlas 1981-11-29 - WWF - Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito vs. Rick Martel & Tony Garea Mimi Hagiwara Like a few others here, Mimi made great strides from the beginning of the calendar year to the end of it. As Lucy Kayama disappeared from the company Mimi was able to slot into her role as the ultimate underdog, the least physically imposing woman on the roster, but possessing great determination and never-say-die attitude which clearly resonates with the fans. She still relied on the correct opponents, as anybody lacking in the ability to apply a real beating failed to get the best out of her, but the times where that was the case she was really able to shine. Recommended matches: 1981-06-XX - AJW - Devil Masami & Leilani Kai vs. Mimi Hagiwara & Nancy Kumi 1981-08-XX - AJW - Nancy Kumi vs. Mimi Hagiwara 1981-08-25 - AJW - Mimi Hagiwara vs. Leilani Kai Mr. Fuji Basically take everything I said for Saito and repeat, except it was exponentially more surprising. I at least had some concept of Fuji previously, but as the manager of Yokozuna in the early 90s, the concept of him being a competent, let alone a good wrestler, a decade earlier would have felt absurd. But he played up his role as the detestable heel in WWF and he did it expertly. As I mentioned, he and Saito worked amazingly well together and eked the most out of all their marquee matches to finish the year. I’m interested to see how they progress moving forwards but also I'm particularly interested in seeking out Fuji’s 70s work as well. Recommended matches: 1981-10-19 - WWF - Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito vs. Rick Martel & Tony Garea 1981-11-14 - WWF - Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito vs. SD Jones & Tony Atlas 1981-11-29 - WWF - Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito vs. Rick Martel & Tony Garea Nancy Kumi Almost the spiritual successor to Jackie Sato after her retirement. The one on the roster they looked to for those “underdog babyface overcomes insurmountable odds” kind of matches. She was completely up to the task as well, almost transcending some downright abhorrent booking decisions to carve out a pretty successful year. The fact that she was able to play the foil to a very good Mimi Hagiwara match as well demonstrated her versatility, able to play both the bullied and the bully. Recommended matches: 1981-02-25 - AJW - Nancy Kumi & Ayumi Hori vs. Devil Masami & Mami Kumano 1981-07-XX - AJW - Nancy Kumi vs. Devil Masami 1981-08-XX - AJW - Nancy Kumi vs. Mimi Hagiwara Ric Flair Relatively light on footage, despite spending a good chunk of the year as NWA champion. I think he had an adjustment period after winning the belt, but whenever he made tape during his run as challenger he popped off the screen with the pure energy he exhibited. Recommended matches: 1981-05-04 - MLW - Jimmy Snuka & Roddy Piper vs. Dewey Robertson & Ric Flair 1981-05-10 - NWA St. Louis - Ric Flair vs. Pat O'Connor 1981-10-07 - AJPW - Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk Roddy Piper Places on the back to two wild TV studio brawls. Much like Flair, Piper’s greatest strength was the electricity he brought to proceedings. ‘81 was a year of Piper the heel, a stark contrast to his time in Portland, but he hadn’t lost his edge. The match with Youngblood, really showed him with his working boots on, proving that he didn’t have to rely on his charisma. Recommended matches: 1981-05-04 - MLW - Jimmy Snuka & Roddy Piper vs. Dewey Robertson & Ric Flair 1981-10-17 - MACW - Roddy Piper vs. Jay Youngblood Steve Keirn Part of the great stretch of TV title matches Georgia put on to start the year, including his excellent feud with Sullivan, then went over to Memphis and immediately established his credibility, demonstrating his amateur credentials and carving out his niche as the straight man among the chaos that was the CWA. Recommended matches: 1981-02-07 - GCW - Bobby Eaton vs. Steve Keirn 1981-02-28 - GCW - Kevin Sullivan vs. Steve Keirn Tatsumi Fujinami After a stormer of a year in ‘80, with an incredible run of junior title defence after title defence, ‘81 felt like a major step back. The Junior title seemed like it was a significant afterthought in New Japan’s booking decisions. He was paired with Tiger Mask in tags for the majority of the year and it seemed like he made a concerted effort to recede into the background and allow his partner to take the limelight. Finally as the IWE vs NJPW got into full swing and the tag league came around he had more opportunities to shine and we got the first inklings of his shift from junior to heavyweight, which involved him getting his head battered in by Stan Hansen. Recommended matches: 1981-10-08 - NJPW - Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Isamu Teranishi 1981-12-10 - NJPW - Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Dick Murdoch & Stan Hansen 1981-12-10 - NJPW - Andre The Giant & Rene Goulet vs. Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami Tommy Rich Another guy who fits under the quintessential babyface category. Sympathetic selling: check. Big fiery offense: check. Too often we were stuck with just run of the mill TV matches for him and others in Georgia and Memphis, but when he did pop up on tape for arena shows, he brought the goods. He’s not the best in class for his archetype, as the likes of Martel, Dundee and Terry Funk in Japan all had him beat, but it was nice to see he warranted his overwhelming popularity. Recommended matches: 1981-03-12 - CWA - Austin Idol & Dutch Mantell vs. Bill Dundee & Tommy Rich 1981-11-04 - GCW - Tommy Rich vs. Austin Idol 1981-12-11 - Houston Wrestling - Dick Slater & Tommy Rich vs. The Dynamic Duo (Gino Hernandez & Tully Blanchard)

I'm cautiously optimistic that it'll end up being as entertaining as you're making it out to be. While I'm wary of some of the longer, old-school NWA style matches, I already know that the decade holds some of my favourite matches and workers already, so I'm hoping there are plenty more gems that I've yet to stumble across. The relative lack of footage feels like the main obstacle for most people, and that's totally fair. In my case it actually works in my favour as I feel like it'll allow me to cover more ground in a shorter period of time. By 1978 things are almost comparable to 80-81. Also, if I end up with a GWE list that over-indexes on 70s workers I'm totally fine with that. At the very least it might prompt folk to seek out somebody they may not have done otherwise.

Just chucking this little update out there for anybody who's interested. My previous approaches felt like they leaned way too hard into output, and when trying to compile any kind of list, I resorted to just looking at my match star ratings. I just felt like that too often resulted in me attributing credit in the wrong places. Just because somebody was involved in a 4* match for example, doesn't mean that they delivered a 4* performance. Likewise, somebody could give a 5* performance in a match that only ended up being in the 3* range due to a myriad of factors (booking decisions being the obvious one). I want my rankings to be based on the performances a wrestler delivers, or their input, over anything else. Also, anybody familiar with Thinking Basketball and Ben Taylor's work, especially his top 40 best careers list, will know that his system works on a player accumulating championship value over the years. I'm sort of continuing in the same vein with my approach, with wrestlers accruing in-ring value instead. For each year project I complete, I plan on categorising wrestlers into 4 tiers. Those are "World Class", "Great Worker", "Flashes of Greatness", and "Notable". The titles of the tiers don't really matter, but essentially it works to organise those who made tape for that year in a pyramid style structure. Each tier has a weighted value, which gets applied to each wrestler within that tier, then simply I'll add up the total for each year of a wrestler's career to get their final score. Ideally this will give me a general baseline and a strong idea of which brackets I want to place each person, but I want to be open enough to move people around as I see fit for the final rankings. I think it was in the GWE launch party podcast, but Grimmas raised the point of how to balance somebody who was say, a 7/10 for a long time, against somebody who was 10/10 but for only a few years. I guess my way to address this is weighing the higher levels to a degree that the results don't over index on longevity, while also still rewarding those who are able to carve out long productive careers. In my case the bottom tier "Notable", is worth a single point, then the next tiers are worth 5, 10 and 15 in order. In my case the "Flashes of Greatness" tier is probably closest to 7/10. Somebody would have to have 15 years of this quality to equal 5 years as "World Class", which intuitively feels fair to me. My system is likely hugely flawed, and I'll almost certainly tweak it as I move forwards, but I like to think it'll allow me to have some sort of consistency as I assess different wrestlers over different years. Ultimately this project is supposed to be fun and I love lists, I love numbers and I love spreadsheets, so it kind of allows me to combine them all at once.

Cheers for that, the kind words are much appreciated. I'm really glad there's folk out there who get some value out of them. I think I started these threads mostly as a way to keep myself accountable and hopefully to push me to keep going. So far it's been working. This project has also effectively become my approach to watching footage for GWE, so in an attempt to cover as much ground as possible before the deadline, I'm going to change tact slightly and head back in time, try and cover (hopefully all) of the 70s, before continuing on from '82 after that.

1981 End of Year Awards Wrestler of the year Original Winner Wrestler of the Year: Harley Race Original Winner Most Outstanding: N/A Andre the Giant Sgt. Slaughter Stan Hansen Terry Funk Mark Rocco Whereas 1980 had three wrestlers who clearly separated themselves from the pack, with Terry Funk in particular the runaway WOTY in my mind, this year was far more bunched at the top with all five of these guys with a solid argument for the number one spot. Mark Rocco was the most consistent, lacking a single throwaway performance at all, but he also had the fewest total matches by far out of the group. Terry Funk essentially had two distinct chapters this year, madman heel in Memphis and continuing to be babyface supreme in All Japan. The fact that he credibly could be argued as the best in the world for either category is a testament to the man. His showings against Lawler in both their No DQ and Empty Arena matches are, for my money, the best two performances a wrestler had all year, and while I thought he was fantastic in the RWTL Final, he kind of fell off the map in the middle of the year and lacked enough meat on the bone to compete with the top three. Both Hansen and Slaughter had series against Backlund to start the year. While Hansen’s matches topped out at very good, Slaughter had a couple where he really popped off the screen. He then followed that up with an all-time series against Patterson which included not one, but two incredible alley fights. Even with a drop-off in the second half of the year due to footage issues in the Carolinas, throw in a final standout performance against Rick McGraw of all people, and Slaughter had an unbelievable year. Hansen surely had the better of it from the year's start until its finish, but the Andre match aside, the consistency of his New Japan work wasn’t quite able to nudge out the peaks that Slaughter was able to achieve earlier on. Which brings us to the number one, Andre. Andre is by no means an unimpeachable choice, he was actually the most likely among the whole top five to deliver a clanger, the Killer Khan matches being a great case in point, but when he was on and being utilised correctly, which was a hell of a lot of the time in ‘81, he was incredible. He had the aura and an inimitable force of nature quality that separated him from everyone else on the planet. I loved him in tag matches, especially when teamed with a smaller man like Goulet, as it would allow him to lean into being as dominant as possible while not making his team look invincible. Nobody was a better apron worker and nobody was a better clean house hot tag. Then on the singles side he proved, on both sides of the Pacific, that he could bring the goods with an GME candidate against Hansen, a banger against Inoki, and a really great slugfest against Hogan, who I feel was still nowhere near the finished article at that point. Best Babyface Original Winner: Tommy Rich Rick Martel Bill Dundee Tommy Rich HM: Jerry Lawler, Terry Funk, Steve Grey Lawler made his triumphant return from almost a year out with a broken leg, honed his patented “pull the strap down and annihilate” comeback, and generally was the King, pun intended, of the Mid-South Coliseum. The problem is we don’t get a ton of arena footage, especially for the latter portion of the year and he’s essentially absent from the weekly TV show, and when he does show up he comes across more like a well liked jock than a sympathetic babyface. For Terry, it’s almost as if his heel work works against him here, overshadowing what he did in Japan. He was still great but his best work was in the US this time around and he didn’t have enough on the other side of the Pacific. Steve Grey, even matched up against another nominal face like Jon Cortez, feels like the classic babyface of all babyfaces. He really only gets dinged here because he only had one opportunity to lean into the heel/face dynamic, albeit in a fantastic match against Jim Breaks, but I want a little bit more fire in this category. In a weird year for Georgia, Rich was their number one guy. Another victim of a lack of arena footage, but he showed his chops in three different territories. Beyond Georgia, we saw him showcase his long term selling of the hand in Memphis against Mantell and Idol and in Houston we saw him really take the fight to the Dynamic Duo. Dundee was the workhorse of Memphis for the entire calendar year. He didn’t often get a strong showcase at the Coliseum, but he was on TV, seemingly every week, delivering entertaining match after entertaining match. His size, or lack of it, plays so well when it’s time for him to just die when matched up against the heels, and I’m not sure there’s anybody, in 1981 at least, that I’d rather watch uncork haymaker punch after haymaker punch. He probably has the two defining babyface performances of the year as well, both times desperately trying to buy time and survive to the time limit rather than actually win the match. One was an almost miracle match against Yamamoto and Farris, the second being a rare Coliseum singles match against Jimmy Hart’s Super Destroyer. However, in the babyface stakes, this was Martel’s prize to lose. He was the best apron worker of the bunch, able to up the drama just by the desperation he showed at wanting to get in there and help his partner. An incredible hot tag, maybe not as pleasing on the eye as Dundee’s strikes, but every bit as kinetic. And finally the selling. Pick a body part, but specifically the back, Martel was able to put on a face in peril masterclass seemingly every time out. When I think of babyface, Martel is what springs to mind. Best Heel Original Winner: Don Muraco Terry Funk Mark Rocco Kevin Sullivan HM: Sgt. Slaughter, Buddy Rose, Bobby Barnes, Jim Breaks All respect to Muraco, who delivered as a character upon his arrival into the WWF, but he wasn’t even the best heel in his own promotion, with Slaughter sweeping up that accolade with the two killer feuds he had to start the year. Funk, Rocco and Sullivan all had one thing in common, they encapsulated the sinister, mean and cutthroat aspects of what being a good heel is all about. Sullivan was in his own world while working Georgia, completely oblivious to his own heeldom despite stabbing his friend Steve Keirn in the back and walking all over him to obtain the TV Title. He then moved over to Memphis and joined Hart’s First Family and kept the gravy train rolling. It didn’t hurt that he was given ample opportunities to give interviews and promos, even guest commentary spots, where he could espouse his own unique brand of delusion. Rocco was just a dick. Plain and simple. He was a talented wrestler, ultimately finishing the year as the World Middleweight Champion, but he always, and I mean ALWAYS, took the most devious, underhanded, cheating route to achieve his goals. Nobody made doing the wrong thing come across like the most natural thing in the world as Rocco did. Ultimately they all fell short of Terry Funk. As I said, he was in the running for best face as well, always delivering on that front in All Japan, but the brief run he had in Memphis just blew everyone else out of the water when it came to being deranged, unhinged and sadistic. The No DQ match with Lawler was just the start, the image of him gleefully spitting Lawler’s blood into the air still imprinted into my brain, but while I don’t think it’s quite as good a match, Terry during the Empty Arena match is just something else. He took things to a place I’m not sure any other wrestler on the planet could have taken things. Feud of the Year Original Winner: Andre the Giant vs. Killer Khan Jerry Lawler vs. Jimmy Hart Sgt. Slaughter vs. Pat Patterson Kevin Sullivan vs. Steve Keirn HM: Rick Martel & Garea vs. Lou Albano (Moondogs & Mr. Fuji & Masa Saito) Andre vs Killer Khan had one memorable angle and a slew of subpar, disappointing matches. I’m not sure how that could have been the feud of the year in anyone’s mind. Much like with the heel category, there was a much better feud sitting right there within the same promotion. Slaughter and Patterson kicked things off with the culmination to the best thing WWF were doing on a week by week basis on TV, paying off Slaughter’s Cobra Clutch challenge, which they then successfully pivoted into a great series of matches at both MSG and the Spectrum. Andre and Khan just couldn’t compete with that. I really enjoyed Sullivan vs. Keirn, including all the twists and turns. Sullivan originally double crossed his friend during a gentlemanly contest then slowly descended into madness as the heat continued to build on the feud. We missed out on their Boston Street Fights at the Omni, but they were able to have stellar showings on TV, which at the time was no mean feat. Keirn was a very good technician and you could essentially pair him up with anybody and he’d have a watchable match, but it was Sullivan’s derangement that made this so memorable. Lawler and Hart did have a match, and a pretty excellent one at that, but this feud is built on the endless string of challengers that he brought into the territory to try and take Lawler out. LeDuc, Ron Bass, Austin Idol, Dutch Mantell, Dream Machine, Terry Funk, Dory Funk Jr., Jerry Blackwell, Hulk Hogan! The back and forth went on for months on end, run ins on TV had wrestlers getting tarred and feathered, it was the backbone of the territory and a key tenant of what made Memphis Championship Wrestling such an entertaining weekly show. Tag Team of the Year Original Winner: Jimmy Snuka & Terry Gordy Mr. Fuji & Masa Saito The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) The Dynamic Duo (Gino Hernandez & Tully Blanchard) HM: Rick Martel & Tony Garea, East-West Connection If we had gotten to see their matches from the Omni and other arenas within the Georgia territory throughout the year, then maybe Snuka and Gordy would be in contention here. I’m limited to judging their TV output, which was the very definition of fine, but nothing to really write home about from a match quality standpoint. The Dynamic Duo repackaged Gino and placed him within a tag team structure that worked wonders for him. Being the lead heel in Houston felt like it was stretching him beyond his capabilities, but paired with Tully he was able to just focus on what he was good at and I think that they worked really well as a duo. Of course having Tully Blanchard in the team was never gonna hurt either. The High Flyers have a strong argument for the number one spot based on their run against the East-West Connection alone, plus they had the good match against Blackwell and Sheik Adnan. My hesitation is that while I liked Brunzell, Gagne was much more hit and miss. He had moments where I thought he was a solid sympathetic babyface and even moments where he had good fire, but comparatively he still feels like Bambi on ice a bit, with a body that still looks like it needs to fill out. Fuji and Saito take first place here due to the fact that they turned up at the end of the year, slotted in seamlessly and had a barnburner of a series against Martel and Garea, then did the miraculous in delivering such a fantastic match against Atlas and SD Jones of all teams. Most Improved I’m treating this as most improved over the calendar year rather than any improvement from previous years. Original Winner: Adrian Adonis Tiger Mask MImi Hagiwara I wasn’t really a big fan of Hagiwara from the year before, her boxing gimmick felt odd and out of place, and I got the sense she was being pushed due to her idol-esque looks rather than her skill. The beginning of ‘81 followed in the same vein, however as she kept plugging away she seemed to find her groove and with Lucy Kayama leaving the company in the middle of the year, she took on that role of being the gutsy but physically overmatched underdog and became somebody you’d really actually want to root for. Sayama started the year working as Samy Lee in the UK, being pushed hard, but basically being a show pony. He transitioned into the Tiger Mask gimmick in New Japan, showing flashes of something new, and unique and exciting, but when he bombed he bombed hard. By the time we hit October or November, those valleys appeared less and less and he was delivering good performances on a much more consistent basis. I would argue that the Tiger Mask gimmick was one of the harder one’s asked of any performer in the year, due to the fact that he was likely pushed to try athletic feats that he, and maybe no other wrestler, could do on a nightly basis without messing up from time to time. The fact that the crowd bought into him so much despite his growing pains is actually a testament to him and his growth throughout the year. Best Interview Original Winner: Lou Albano/Roddy Piper (tie) Jimmy Hart Kevin Sullivan Masked Superstar/Ken Patera HM: Dream Machine, Michael Hayes, Ric Flair, Don Muraco The honourable mentions are all guys that will feature heavily in the most charismatic category. Not a lot of substance necessarily to what they were saying but they all sounded cool when they said it. This category is reserved for those who put thought into their words and were always working to progress their character or a feud. Superstar and Patera get lumped together for me due to the fact that they were so similar in how they approached their mic work. They were measured, so very precise in their delivery, but made you take them seriously due to what they said. These two rarely resorted to ranting and raving but nobody, especially in Georgia, were as reliable to chuck into multiple segments of TV and generate such good content at will as these two guys. Sullivan spread out his work across Georgia and Memphis, and worked his deluded heel gimmick in both. I loved his ring work in Georgia, but the mic work was fire as well. When he jumped to Memphis he hooked up with Jimmy Hart to form that First Family stable and they trusted his talking skills so much that he would regularly moonlight as a colour commentator, and knocked that role out of the park as well. His ability to talk complete bullshit to justify heel antics was pure G-O-L-D. Top spot goes to Jimmy Hart though. He was the true MVP of Memphis wrestling for ‘81 and there’s no doubt whatsoever about that. Week after week, segment after segment, Hart could do slapstick, he could do comedy, he could tug at your heartstrings if really needed, he really ran the whole gamut. The First Family ran through multiple iterations but at the heart of it, their North Star, was always Jimmy Hart. He wasn’t called the Mouth of the South for nothing. Most Charismatic Original Winner: Michael Hayes Michael Hayes Ric Flair Dream Machine As I mentioned in the previous category, these guys were all in contention for best interview, but they relied on their natural charisma, the brash delivery of one liners or outlandish rants, rather than crafting substantive promos. Dream Machine was probably the most free-wheeling of the bunch, but when he got on a roll there were few better. Flair came in HOT into Georgia, jumping off the screen with his presence, but once he won the NWA Title I thought he wobbled a bit as he shifted from challenger to champion mode. He righted the ship by the end of the year and at minimum it always felt like an event when Flair appeared on TV. The king of this category though, at least for this year, was Michael Hayes. At times he shifted too far into the juvenile, his really personal feud with Gordy resorted to lame name calling and even a baby bib match of all things, but Hayes switched to being a face, lost absolutely zero steam in the process and has to be commended for being so over while wearing the the most outrageous attire on the whole circuit. So, so many stupid scarves. Best Technical Wrestler I’m treating this as best on the mat. Original Winner: Ted DiBiase Jon Cortez Billy Robinson Marty Jones HM: Keith Haward, Jim Breaks, Steve Grey Haward would have been a shoe in if he’d had more showings like his match against Clive Myers. Breaks and Grey, while excellent technically, felt like what made them them, had more to do with other aspects of their game. In contrast, Robinson’s entire gimmick revolved around being a technical wrestler, and a fantastic technical wrestler he was. Clearly there were quite a few lightweight or middleweight wrestlers showing off their technical wizardry, but I can’t think of many who were doing the same things he was in the heavyweight bracket. The contrast of Robinson versus his opponent in regards to ability always made for an interesting dynamic and Robinson consistently awed with the array of tricks at his disposal. Marty Jones takes third due to how impressed I was with his defensive wrestling ability. When the other man would apply a hold he was never content to give a slight grimace and bide his time before trying a counter, he was working, immediately, on frustrating his opponent, throwing him off his game, carving out an opportunity proactively to escape or counter. This kind of approach made the rhythms of his matwork feel so much more organic than most of his peers. Cortez takes top spot because I feel like he did the best to blend the showy style that Johnny Saint brought to the table but grounded it in believability. I don’t think anybody was as crisp or did a better job to conceal the artifice while working a technical style. Best Brawler Original Winner: Bruiser Brody Stan Hansen Terry Funk Jerry Lawler HM: Abdullah the Butcher This is Hansen’s award, and very well might remain that way for the foreseeable future. I was just trying to make up the numbers here with the positions below him. Funk and Lawler had their brawls with each other and had enough other brawls to fill out their respective resumes where I don’t think they look out of place on this list, but Hansen embodies, wholly and truly, what being a brawler is all about. Even when he’s trying to work a hold or do something somewhat scientific, it still feels bruising. Then when he lets loose and really goes hell for leather there are none who are in the same stratosphere. Just think, even in street clothes turning up to that Tag League final, he still felt like the baddest man on the planet, then promptly Lariated Terry Funk out of his skin. Then followed that up with some of the wildest action post match scuffling with Jumbo and Baba before retreating to the back face bloodied and shirt torn. Best Flyer Original Winner: Jimmy Snuka Jimmy Snuka Tiger Mask Mark Rocco Another sort of winner by default result here. High flying still wasn’t as prevalent in ‘81, but you can tell that the tide is turning. Rocco leveraged the illegality of moves from the top in such exciting ways in his matches that he had to get a mention on this list. Tiger Mask’s whole style was predicated on lightning quick actions and he threw his body around the ring enough that he certainly qualifies. But Snuka takes it here due to the fact that his tope rope splash was built so well as THE defining top rope move in wrestling, to the point that when Kevin von Erich kicked out of it on Georgia TV, Gordon Solie acted as if an honest to God miracle had truly occurred in the WTBS Studios. Most Overrated Treating this as the most overpushed wrestler. Original Winner: Pedro Morales Pedro Morales Mongolian Stomper Mil Mascaras HM: Giant Baba, Rusher Kimura Mil Mascaras made appearances in Japan, in Houston, and even in the WWF, yet he was boring in every single one. Houston was probably his best work, but even then his brother Dos Caras outshone him. I can’t believe All Japan ran an entire tour called the Super idol Series, that revolved around showcasing Mascaras and his IWA World Heavyweight Title. The Mongolian Stomper took the spot that Mark Lewin held the year before. The wild, crazy man with an annoying manager who was shoved to the top of the card and seemingly offered minimal, and in this case no, in-ring value. Georgia handed him the National Championship and ran with him for months. A far cry from Masked Superstar and Tommy Rich feuding over the very same title months later. Morales takes the cake though, he held that IC belt for what felt like aeons, finally lost it to Muraco, they feuded some, then he won it back. This next title reign will last for over a whole year! The horrors never end. Morales, when motivated, could still show some fire and deliver a nice babyface comeback, but odds on any match he’s in was going to be a snooze fest. It’s so strange that WWF had such an array of heel talent: Hansen, Slaughter, Valentine, Adonis, Muraco, but so lacked on the face side that he ended up being the #2 guy. Most Underrated Original Winner: Buzz Sawyer Bill Dundee Rick Martel Kevin Sullivan HM: Steve Keirn By now it should be clear that I loved Sullivan in ‘81. I wasn’t sure coming out of the previous year what he could do in the ring, but this year showed that he had the chops when called upon. It was a shame that he was relegated to the mid-card, with the tag, junior, or TV titles being his ceiling. He was a small guy though, albeit incredibly shredded at this point of his career, so given the era I guess that was to be expected. Martel was great in his tag team with Garea but if they’d been bold enough they could have launched him into Pedro’s position and I’m sure he would have absolutely flourished. If Jimmy Hart was the outside of the ring and overall MVP for Memphis, Dundee was undoubtedly the in-ring MVP. I’m not sure he ever had a TV showing that wasn’t at least fun, and he had some of the most memorable performances of the year. ‘81 was the year of Lawler’s return, so perhaps it was always on the cards that Dundee was going to be shunted to the backburner, but while Lawler was mostly reserved for the arena shows, Dundee was a workhorse who I believe could have been leaned on harder to be involved in more feuds than he was. Best Promotion Original Winner: N/A JP NJPW WWF HM: CWA WWF benefited from having two of the best venues in wrestling (MSG and the Spectrum) and a host of great heels to throw at Backlund. The main event picture was mostly great, but further down the card things got a bit choppy. Martel and Garea held down the tag division until Fuji and Saito arrived, but it was by no means an embarrassment of riches and the IC belt was chained to a series of lacklustre feuds involving Morales or Muraco. In New Japan, I find it a bit strange that after retiring the NWF Title in April there was no prominent heavyweight title for those at the top of the card to compete over, in fact after Fujinami vacated the WWF Junior Title, there were no titles at all in the company of note. The Fujinami junior showcase wound down this year as well, leaving NJ without two of their key focal points from the previous year. To make up for this shortfall they set off a rocket under Sayama with the Tiger Mask gimmick, for better and worse, upgraded the monster brawling Gaijin spot on the roster when they switched Tiger Jeet Singh for Abdullah the Butcher, executed the pretty good IWE vs NJ feud, and leaned heavily on Andre in both singles and in the year-end tag league. The tag league in particular was miles better than the previous year’s iteration and I thought the teams of Inoki/Fujinami, Hansen/Murdoch and Andre/Goulet were all solid to great entrants into the tournament, I just wish we’d seen more of Choshu and Yatsu. Joint Promotions sneaks this though. While it suffered from the presentation, cherry picked matches from seemingly random shows around the country, and rarely do we get a nice consistent continuation of any feuds, it hangs its hat on the quality of the matches themselves, and in this facet it mostly delivered in spades. The abundance of talent is their real strength though, relying on Cortez, Grey, Breaks, Jones, Rocco, Roach, Roberts, Faulkner, Royal, Haward, Myers, Barnes, Sanders, Saint etc. That’s a pretty exhaustive list of good to great wrestlers they could wheel out any week on TV. It doesn’t have the visceral highs of some other promotions, but they consistently hit the high notes within the constraints of their style more often than anybody else. Best Week to Week Original Winner: N/A CWA GCW HM: PNW, WWF WWF TV for the early portion of the year was actually fairly watchable. They had the Cobra Clutch angle, Backund turning up and going insane a couple times, and Khan attacking Andre with crutches. But as the year wound down it turned into a complete skip-a-thon with little to nothing of worth beyond the tag title switch. Portland was so choppy in terms of footage that it was just too difficult to keep track of how feuds were progressing. The Rose v Borne odyssey that spanned most of the year would surely have come across better if there weren’t large swathes of it that were missing. Georgia fell off somewhat from last year, where it felt like anybody who was anybody could just show up out of the blue. Here the roster was relatively paired down, or at least more codified. They had their fair share of angles and big moments, the biggest of all being the Freebirds annihilating DiBiase’s neck with piledriver after piledriver, but compared to my number 1, there were weeks where it felt like they were spinning their wheels and killing time until the Omni show came around. Memphis had no such problems. I think I would have fingers left over if I counted on one hand how many episodes were completely skippable. Each week SOMETHING would happen, and most often that something would revolve around Jimmy Hart. They kept their roster fresh, getting Lawler back from injury, bringing in a slew of challengers in the Spring, then forming the First Family, then once Mantell defected, Wayne Ferris and Kevin Sullivan disappeared, they retooled by turning Koko Ware heel and brought in Stan Lane. If you want your TV wrestling to be akin to comfort food then look no further than what was happening in Memphis, Tennessee. Best Angle Original Winner: N/A Slaughter and Patterson Cobra Clutch challenge DiBiase gets four piledrivers from the Freebirds Killer Khan attacks Andre with his own crutch HM: Austin Idol as El Diamante Negro in Memphis Khan attacking Andre and DiBiase’s beating at the hands of the Freebirds were both incredible one-time events. What pushes Slaughter/Patterson above is that it triggered a meaningful feud that ran in both New York and Philly, that are all on tape, but also was the culmination of Slaughter’s long running Cobra Clutch Challenge they’d been running on television since even before the New Year. Week after week the tension would build as the challengers would get closer and closer to breaking loose and Slaughter would resort to increasingly cunning tactics to throw them off their game. Ultimately Patterson was pushed to breaking point and he threw his hat into the ring and it was he who broke the hold and won the challenge, not that Slaughter would recognise that fact. This was a masterclass in paying off well laid groundwork and was immensely satisfying. Khan’s attack on Andre was a great way to push that feud once Andre returned but the slow escalation of the DiBiase piledriver angle pips that for in the moment impact thanks to an unbelievable DiBiase performance and an out of this world call from Solie on commentary, really putting over the severity of the situation and the danger DiBiase found himself in. They were note perfect in how they executed this one, making DiBiase come across as the babyface to conquer all babyfaces with his determination to not let the Freebirds do him in. Match of the Year Original Winner: Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter (WWF, Alley Fight, 1981-05-01) CWA - 1981-03-23 - Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk - ★★★★ ¾ NJPW - 1981-09-23 - Andre the Giant vs. Stan Hansen - ★★★★ ¾ JP - 1981-07-27 - Jon Cortez vs. Steve Grey - ★★★★ ½ AJPW - 1981-12-13 - Jimmy Snuka & Bruiser Brody vs. The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) - ★★★★ ½ CWA - 1981-04-06 - Jerry Lawler vs. Terry Funk (Empty Arena) - ★★★★ ½ I like the Alley Fight, I really do, but it would slot in that next rung of matches just below these five. The Empty Arena match in particular is just a tour de force performance from Terry Funk, buoyed by an equally pitch perfect delivery from Lance Russell. The Real World Tag League final was probably the only great match All Japan had all year, but what a match it ended up being. Hansen turning up out of the blue set the tone but all four of these men tore the house down and things ended with a wild out of control brawl with even Jumbo and Baba descending on the ring to get in on the action. Cortez/Grey probably has the least notoriety out of these five matches, but holds its own in this third place. A momentous match between two enduring babyfaces, but with Cortez switching up his tact just slightly to give this the edge it needed to shoot it into the stratosphere. Two of the absolute best talents to come out of the UK on the top of their game. For the longest time I was low on Hansen/Andre, but no longer. As my opinion of Andre has changed, so has my feelings on this match. I still wish that Andre had managed to nail Hansen with a Lariat at the end instead of just sending the referee into the afterlife, but that’s a minor criticism for a truly epic match. What I would have pegged as number 1 before I started the year ended up being the number 1 at the end. Lawler’s slap bang in the middle of his triumphant return tour after injury and he’d been wiping the floor with all the obstacles Jimmy Hart had been putting in his way, but Funk is another animal entirely and the pure chaos that he brings to the table is hard to ignore. We get a classic Lawler comeback, strap down and all, plus the final flurry with him splattering Funk into submission with a chair while the fans in the front row recoiled in horror, but Terry in control and applying the heat was one of the best things in wrestling ever. Him spitting Lawler’s blood and perhaps bits of his forehead flesh into the air is an image seared onto my brain. Manager of the Year Original Winner: N/A Jimmy Hart Gary Hart Lou Albano Lou had the Moondogs and he had Fuji and Saito, and boy did he like to go full method and get into character. I’m not as enamoured as the WON voting community seemed to be with his talking skills, awarding him best on interviews, but he was a character and he was easy to root against, and in turn so were his charges. Gary Hart snuck onto this very late, essentially being non-existent for most of the year until he and the Great Kabuki showed up in Georgia. Much like the Masked Superstar and Ken Patera, Gary Hart didn’t need to shout to get his point across. His tone and delivery were unique to him and him alone and even when he was being courteous to Solie, there was always that thread of sinister violence bubbling beneath the surface that made him, and by extension the Great Kabuki, feel dangerous and threatening. This was always Jimmy Hart’s award to lose though. As I’ve already mentioned, everything in Memphis revolved around Jimmy Hart. He was surprisingly versatile in what he could do, not just relying on being funny or annoying. He had an emotional range that I honestly didn’t see coming and it helped to keep him fresh from January to December despite being on the screen every week. He also had a couple matches to his name, the one against Lawler in particular where he really held his own, which gives him extra credit. Best TV Announcer Original Winner: Gordon Solie Kal Rudman Gordon Solie Kevin Sullivan HM: Kent Walton I wish I could slip Kent Walton onto this list. He’s so integral to WoS and how they presented wrestling that it feels off to not list him. Hearing him commentate does give me nostalgia, as he conjures childhood memories of watching snooker on the BBC, but at the same time, snooker isn’t wrestling, and at times I wish Walton was a bit more of a character to match the sport he covered. It was never to be, as Walton is exactly who I would expect to be doing commentary at that time, but he just misses out because of it. It’s not really a problem with Walton but a problem within myself. I feel like I’m shooting myself in the foot by having a wrestler instead of a commentator in the number 3 slot here, especially over a legend like Walton, but hey, I thought Sullivan was superb during his stint on commentary. It was only for a short time but I honestly could listen to him warping reality in the favour of heels until the end of time. Gordon Solie was a solid mainstay on Georgia TV and had perhaps the single best match commentary moment of the year covering DiBiase getting his head caved in by the Freebirds. He was as instrumental to that angle getting across as well as it did as any of the men in the ring. Solie misses out though because Kal Rudman is a national treasure. There’s just enough footage from the Spectrum that I feel comfortable putting him this high. I know Rudman and Graham were a commentary team, but Rudman was the main character and just oozed charm. I’m not sure either men had any interest in really understanding wrestling from a behind the scenes perspective, but they came across as huge fans just happy to be at the show and that bleeds through the screen in buckets. I’m not sure he had anything as bombastic as his calls for some of the Putski or Zbyszko matches from ‘80, but there were still some absolute bangers, the line that’s stuck in my head is him screaming “He’s gonna kill him. It’s death, it’s DEATH!” during one of the Backlund/Slaughter contests

1981-12-19 Mid-South - Mid-South Wrestling TV #119 Bob Roop vs. Mike George Irish McNeil's Boys Club, Shreveport, Louisiana, USA Card ★★ Two big ol’ farm boys going at it. This made it onto the Mid South set but I’m not certain it’s that much better, if at all, than the DiBiase/Orndorff match from the week before. Once George got run into the ringpost though I did love how he switched things up so he only attacked with his left arm, even though it was awkward for him to do so. Roop wheeled around and nailed him with a clumsy but brutal looking knee, driving him into the corner before getting the pin. 1981-12-21 CWA Jimmy Hart vs. Bill Dundee Bill Dundee vs. The Super Destroyer Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee, USA Card ★★★ Essentially two matches in one. Dundee faced up against Hart to start, playing a cat and mouse game as Hart desperately scrambled to escape. He dived under the ring before surprising Dundee with some white powder. Steve Keirn, Dundee’s current tag partner, went to help, but Hart had backup for days. First the Assassins (Cuban and Iranian) took out Keirn. Then we got Stan Lane and Dream Machine chiming in for good measure. Hart obviously got the DQ but he didn’t care. His main aim was to incapacitate Dundee for what would follow. In the second bout Dundee was matched up against Super Destroyer. I’m not sure what the stakes were, but the stipulation was that Destroyer had to pin Dundee twice within 10 minutes. Dundee was opened up by this point and basically dead to the world. This was a fight for survival on his part, scrambling to buy some time on the outside and occasionally he’d get a burst of energy and try and go toe to toe with the bigger man. At the three minute mark Destroyer got that first fall. A huge powerslam left Dundee motionless. After the 30 second rest period it was do or die for him and he tapped into all his reserves to stave off the Destroyer’s advances for the next 7 minutes. Really compelling stuff and just as good as the handicap match he had several months earlier against Yamamoto and Farris. They timed his hope spots perfectly. He was never actually going to make a big hero’s comeback and win the match, but he got enough in to last the time he needed to and that moment where time expired was as big a triumph as any win would have been. 1981-12-25 AWA Jerry Blackwell & Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie vs. The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA Card ★★★ I thought the High Flyers were both really great here. Brunzell has been solid throughout the year, but Greg has lagged behind a bit. This time though he was every bit as responsible for how good this was, if not the standout performer among all four men. I think it would be best to say that on offense Greg is “enthusiastic”. He’s not as well put together physically or coordinated as his partner, but he hits the right beats to spur on the crowd and make it feel like the faces have the upswing in momentum. The heels had to resort to dumping Greg to the outside and taking chunks out of him while running interference on the referee, but once he finally managed to claw his way back into the ring Blackwell and Adnan were in firm control. With Blackwell’s size, anything he delivers is going to look crushing, but Greg continued his excellent run with some great FIP work. More so than his actual selling, I think the best part was how he projected the desperation to get to his corner and tag in Brunzell. He had moments where he’d let things breathe, but when it came time to make that push for his corner he was putting a real shift in which I really appreciated. Hot tag came and Brunzell is fantastic at delivering a few punches with intensity. He locked the figure four on Adnan but the heels had their wiles and they managed to divert the referee’s attention away again, allowing Blackwell to splash Brunzell through the mat. Greg got dumped to the outside once again and Adnan, whether he was fully aware of it or not, was able to get the pin. 1981-12-25 AWA Hulk Hogan vs. Jesse Ventura St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA Card ★ Jesse worked over Hulk’s arm. Hogan showed off an early version of his Hulk up before going after Ventura’s arm in return. A brawl on the outside triggered the double countout finish. The idea was okay, but the execution was lacking and there was no dynamism at all from either man. Just incredibly drab. 1981-12-25 AWA Nick Bockwinkel (c) vs. Billy Robinson AWA World Heavyweight Title Match St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA Card ★★ I was hoping this was going to be significantly better than it was. A really slow pace with both men finding themselves struggling over holds, but with none of the verve that you often see from either of these two. Robinson injured his arm during a routine roll through and Bockwinkel had a target to hone in on. I think they milked Robinson’s time on the outside trying to recuperate for too long. When he came in he tried to throw a few strikes with it but clearly it was hurting, then Bockwinkel was allowed to really sink his teeth into him, but the pacing all felt off and Bockwinkel’s heat was nowhere near long enough before they settled back into the more relaxed rhythm of working those static holds again. Considering how badly his arm was hurt early on, Robinson's arm miraculously healed to seemingly full strength by the time we reached the finish. He uncorked his patented moves for the most energetic sequence of the match. A bungled attack sent him over the ropes onto the apron and Bockwinkel pounced with a sleeper. Robinson managed to kick off the ropes and the referee counted the pin with both men down. I thought it would be a double pin, which would allow Bockwinkel to retain anyway, but they declared that Bockwinkel had got his shoulder up at the last minute and therefore won the match. This felt like the cheapest of cheap finishes. It wasn’t a great match, but at least it had a few fleeting moments, but this finish was a slap in the face to the fans.

1981-12-13 AJPW - Real World Tag League 1981 - Day 16 Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Tiger Jeet Singh & Umanosuke Ueda Real World Tag League 1981 Match Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★ I don’t have much time for Singh’s antics. The way he breathes so heavily when he works is so extremely off putting. And here he spent a lot of time either digging around for a bottle, using a bottle, or kind of applying some static hold. All of which were pretty boring. On the plus side Jumbo was a ball of fire and he wasn’t willing to take much of Singh and Ueda’s shit. We never got a run of him completely wiping the floor with the two heels, which would have been awesome, so his best moments were sprinkled in here and there rather than being on show for the whole match, but I have a feeling that he’s turning a corner and I’m eager to see what ‘82 brings for him. In other news Ueda gave Baba a low blow and we got to see him writhing around on the floor, which was hilarious. This ended up being a double countout with the usual brawling bullshit. Things really hit the fan though when The Sheik arrived. Still deep in his feud with Singh he arrived already bleeding, wielding a massive metal stick and just started whacking at whatever moved, but mostly at Singh. I guess with Jumbo and Baba missing out on victory it is winner take all in the follow up match between Brody & Snuka and The Funks. 1981-12-13 AJPW - Real World Tag League 1981 - Day 16 Bruiser Brody & Jimmy Snuka vs. The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) Real World Tag League 1981 Match Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★★ ½ Brody and Snuka, two guys who have a penchant for being slightly disappointing, have never looked better than they did here. This is a grade A example of the power of motivation. These two were locked in and ready from the jump and showed what they could produce when their heads were in the right place. Brody finally displayed some of that brawling ability he’s renowned for. His strikes were really stiff and snug. Snuka was at his acrobatic best, at one point hitting a bloody springboard splash that blew my mind a little bit. The story of the match though was Hansen appearing alongside Brody and Snuka. Him jumping ship was a massive deal and it was played up that way on commentary. Both Funks looked like they’d been thrown a massive curveball and acted accordingly, being extra urgent in going for pins early, knowing it may cost them down the line. Terry had moments where it looked like he was going to boil over. The showdown between him and Brody was amazing. Brody ripping off his armband and chucking it into the crowd, then they teed off on each other with bone crunching punch after bone crunching punch. Things reached another level of insanity when Terry hit a flying crossbody off the top rope to the outside in a truly WTF moment. But nothing topped Brody setting Terry up for the Lariat of his life. Hansen in street clothes donned the armband and absolutely guillotined Terry right out of his boots. Dory, back in the ring, realised his brother wasn’t on the apron and went to go check on him. Realising he was in a real bad way he channelled his inner John Wayne and went it alone, facing the long odds against these two demons. Unfortunately for him the numbers advantage worked against him and Snuka and Brody were able to wear him down with Brody eventually securing the win with the knee drop. Things weren’t over though. Not by a long shot. Dory wasn’t satisfied and even as they were handing out the trophies he was still clawing at Snuka and Brody, who dismissively kicked him away. Hansen upped the ante though when he really started to put the boots to Dory and things escalated to the point that Jumbo and Baba had to make the save. When Baba and Hansen started going at it the place was becoming unhinged. I’ve never seen Baba with so much intensity either. No idea when but Hansen ended up with a massive cut on his forehead and he was gushing blood before long and he made the business decision to hightail it before Jumbo could round on him and join Baba in the fight. Legitimately a bonkers match that just kept going higher and higher. Fantastic angle to start it and a fantastic angle to finish it, sandwiching an absolute peach of a match. All Japan and Baba couldn’t have hoped for things to go as well as they did and they look pretty well set up for the following year.

1981-12-11 Houston Wrestling Dick Slater & Tommy Rich vs. The Dynamic Duo (Gino Hernandez & Tully Blanchard) Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA Card ★★★ Really hot first fall which essentially operated as the shine for Rich and Slater. It really is fantastic to finally get some substantial footage of Rich. He’s such a big star in Georgia but Omni footage is scarce so we can’t get an accurate representation of what he’d be like in a non-TV setting. Well, we got a really good look here. He lived up to his wildfire moniker no doubt, with an intensity that we haven’t seen from many babyfaces this year, if it all. Both he and Slater were great at going out of their way to show up the heels, but not because they are blowhards or showoffs, but because they really detest these heels. THESE particular heels deserve to be shown up. A wild flurry of energy and Rich hit his body press for the pin. Gino works really well in these settings as well. I liked his slightly goofy, exaggerated selling of things like an Atomic Drop. Tully was good, but this was a relatively low key match for him. The heels, like they’ve done in the past against Slater, targeted his injured shoulder to gain a foothold in the match. Once they’d managed to stem the tide, they were able to pile the odds in their favour, Gino in particular was constantly looking for an opportunity to lay in a cheap shot when he wasn’t the legal man. A comeback from Rich was cut off and in the melee they were able to hot shot him onto the ropes to get the second fall. As great as Rich was as a fired up babyface in the first fall, he was equally as good as a face in peril in the third. He has quite remarkably dynamic selling that I really like and the heels momentum was building. Gino got his hand caught in the cookie jar one too often on his forays around the ring for those cheap shots and Rich cut him off with a crisp forearm and continued to beat on him on the outside. Back in the ring Slater reversed a Tully backdrop and grabbed the pin. Slater and Tully did their parts no doubt. But the stars were Gino and especially Rich. Rich showed that he can inject energy into an arena like few others and I’d love to see him pop up in footage more often. 1981-12-12 WWF - PRISM Network Bob Backlund (c) vs. Greg Valentine WWF Heavyweight Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Card ★★★ Despite a pretty wishy washy finish and trying too hard to milk Backlund bleeding on the outside, this was still a banger. A tale of two halves, Valentine worked over Backlund’s leg early on. Backlund didn’t even get a shine, they had a back and forth for the opening minute or so and then Greg took over by posting Backlund’s leg against the ringpost, which is really unusual for a Backlund match. Bob didn’t hold back on the selling though, he committed 100%. The work itself from Valentine was great as you would expect, then we reached the point where Backlund had dug into his reserves and he was spoiling for a comeback and he returned all the damage Greg had delivered unto him and we had a complete role reversal. Backlund’s work on the leg was very good, if not quite the level of Valentine’s, but it was effective. And Valentine was every bit his equal in selling that leg. The final third of the match saw Backlund busted open and lolly gag around the ring for what seemed like an age. Valentine played king of the mountain, which got old real quick, and only when the Philly fans were getting really tetchy did Backlund finally make the push to get back into the ring. Valentine saw the writing on the wall and was desperate to get out of dodge but Backlund was in hot pursuit. Valentine would dive in the ring then escape then loop around it and repeat. Eventually they finagled it so Valentine dived in at just the right moment to avoid the count but Backlund didn’t and we got the countout finish and a Valentine victory. Just felt a bit like a copout really. Super heated, for two thirds of this there wasn’t a dull moment. Both guys showed their chops at working a limb and selling a limb. I wish they’d cut the fat in that final stanza and got Backlund back in for his final comeback earlier and this could have been on the level of their previous matchups. 1981-12-12 WWF - PRISM Network Andre The Giant & Tony Atlas vs. Captain Lou Albano, Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito Three On Two Handicap Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Card ★★★ After a mini shine for Atlas the three person team of Albano, Saito and Mr Fuji were able to take advantage of him and work the heat. Lots of great Andre apron work, reaching over and plucking Fuji from the centre of the ring when he was about to deliver a move. Other times he’d make his presence felt by charging across the ring, mostly to get his hands on Albano in the other corner. But the whole time the heels had control over Atlas. Finally Atlas was able to make that hot tag, and just like a snooker player clearing the table, Andre cleared house. One after the other like dominos his opponents fell until it was just Mr. Fuji remaining and there was no escape for him. Just a really fun, well executed, comedy match that delivered on EXACTLY what it set out to do. Honestly, I feel you could just chuck Andre on the apron and have a partner who’s able to sell just a little bit, and you could generate a good match at will.

1981-12-05 PNW Buddy Rose & Matt Borne vs. King Parsons & Rocky Johnson Non Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA Card ★★★ Rocky Johnson certainly has charisma, and the partnership with Parsons generated a pretty decent reaction from the crowd. But beyond their styling and profiling, I’m not sure how much they brought to the table. Considering how good I thought this was, an awful lot of credit needs to go to the heels. Borne was really good, but Rose was excellent. I’m not sure I often think Rose jumps off the screen for me, but when you are able to really focus and catch the little things, he does really impress. The heels seemed to almost be wrestling themselves at times, running three or four different mix-up sequences where it seemed we might get the patented Rose’s Army blowup. But they both quelled any discontent quickly and continued on, but the range and variety of these spots were really fun. Rose had his hand in literally everything that was going on and you could see he was in complete control throughout. I liked that this time around he wasn’t over indexing on steering clear of Johnson and actually tried to match up 1v1 more often. Double team duty on Johnson’s leg got the submission in the first fall. The middle turnbuckle broke in the second and Johnson clobbered Rose in the head with the exposed metal to capitalise in the second. The faces looked to be on the verge of victory with Rose locked in a Johnson sleeper, but Masters came down to break things up, prompting Sawyer to follow hot in pursuit. After order had been restored Sandy Barr gave the decision to Johnson and Parsons, a DQ on Masters. 1981-12-08 NJPW - 2nd Madison Square Garden Tag League - Day 19 Tiger Mask vs. El Canek Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★ Well this wasn’t good at all for the most part. I liked their dynamic in the most recent tag match involving the two, but Canek appeared to have dispensed with all of the power moves he had demonstrated and they didn’t work a kind of speed vs power dynamic that I thought would have worked quite well. It kind of came across like both men saw themselves as the hero of the story and they ended up bumping into each other over and over again with no give and take. This was saved, very slightly, by a legitimately heated finish with Tiger Mask showing off his skills, faking a tope and then hitting a plancha from the top. He went for a second plancha, only to be caught and sickeningly power slammed onto the floor. They then duked it out to seal the double countout finish but that whole stretch felt like it came straight out of the 21st century. Shame it only lasted about 30 seconds. 1981-12-08 NJPW - 2nd Madison Square Garden Tag League - Day 19 Roland Bock & Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★ Just like how Goulet is the weak link in the Andre team, Fujinami is actually the weak link in his team with Inoki, at least from a kayfabe perspective. This is around the time Fujinami was making the shift towards the heavyweight division, or at least he was going to challenge Backlund for the WWF title the following month, and it was clear from this match that in the land of the giants there were going to be a few growing pains for little old Tatsumi. Roland Bock just gave off psychopath vibes here and I was all for it. Despite the deadpan expression, he was clearly taking advantage of the opportunity to really lay the shots in stiff on Fujinami and he really did get manhandled. Inoki kind of took a step back here and let Fujinami take his lumps, which I think was the correct decision. If Fujinami is going to develop, he'll need to learn on the fly. He was able to avoid Bock’s deadly double arm suplex a couple times. It clearly was a pretty over move for some reason, cause both commentary and the crowd had incredibly strong reactions to it just being teased. There was a moment where Fujinami’s fight or flight trigger kicked in, and he made the decision to fight when Hansen stepped through the ropes against him. He ate two standing Lariat’s, but somehow still managed to uncork a dropkick at the end of it all. Hansen was clearly none too impressed with Fujinami essentially no selling his big move so he in return completely no-sold any of Fujinami’s follow up dropkick attempts, dismissively grabbing him, flinging him into the ropes for a killer elbow. Bock tagged in and this time he was able to deliver that fabled suplex and Fujinami just had no reserves left to kick out. 1981-12-10 NJPW - 2nd Madison Square Garden Tag League - Day 21 Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Dick Murdoch & Stan Hansen MSG Tag League 1981 Semi Final Match Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card ★★★ This was the match that Fujinami became a man. Murdoch was just small enough that Fujinami’s speed advantage allowed him to evade and strike and make an impact. Murdoch had enough bombs in his arsenal that he was dangerous not only to Fujinami but to Inoki as well, but at least he’s kind of normal sized. When Hansen was thrown into the mix it was almost laughable by how outmatched Fujinami was every single time. The Texans gained a strong advantage early, bruising their way through the first 5-10 minutes. Inoki actually had to struggle quite a bit to swing things in his favour and he looked to be having some success with a leg hold on Hansen. His mistake was to tag out and immediately Hansen managed to yank back control and Fujinami was once again on the defensive. A double countout finish, that came with a side of Andre and Hansen mixing it up at ringside, wasn’t deemed an acceptable finish so we were going into extra innings. It was here that Fujinami did what he needed to do. He once again tagged in and was standing across the ring with Hansen. Once again he threw caution to the wind and went for it. You know what happened? Hansen lined him up and decked him with a full Lariat to the face. He was too far from the ropes to get a break, so surely this was it, it was all over. BUT NO! Fujinami kicked out. He’d taken the mightiest move in wrestling and he’d gutted his way through it. If he could do that then why can’t he be a heavyweight? Murdoch tagged in and tried to capitalise on Fujinami’s weakened state. He’d kicked out but he was definitely feeling the effects. Murdoch heaved him up for a brainbuster but Inoki came swooping in with a kick that caught Murdoch right in the mush. Like full on connection on the nose. Murdoch recoiled, but stayed the course to try again. Inoki had the same idea and caught Murdoch again, in the back this time. Fujinami covered while Inoki ran interference on Hansen and it was Fujinami and Inoki who would advance to the finals! Once again Inoki was rather understated, allowing his protege to take most of the match. Hansen was a force, at his primordial best, and Murdoch was always ready to back him up and throw a wicked elbow, punch or suplex. I’m not necessarily sure I’d say Fujinami’s performance surpassed Hansens here, but it certainly felt like his story. 1981-12-10 NJPW - 2nd Madison Square Garden Tag League - Day 21 Andre The Giant & Rene Goulet vs. Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami MSG Tag League 1981 Final Match Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card ★★★ For the first half, this played out in a very similar fashion to their previous bout earlier in the tournament. Andre is a force, to the extent that neither Inoki or Fujinami really can do anything with him, but Goulet is the weak point. I guess the difference here was that they actually managed to band together to have far more success getting offense in on Andre than they did previously and the final stretch of the match mostly had Goulet as a spectator on the apron. After they managed a few combos to put Andre on his back foot, Inoki managed a string of solo moves to really get Andre reeling, and at one point he got caught up with his hand in the ropes. When it's earned, getting Andre to the point where him selling feels organic and natural comes across like the biggest deal on the planet. I did wonder which way this would swing as all signs pointed to Inoki and Fujinami sealing the deal, I just assumed they’d have to get Goulet back in there somehow. Goulet broke up a few pin attempts, and then he and Inoki spilled to the outside. The camera cut back to the ring and Fujinami had deemed it a good idea to mount the top turnbuckle, but Andre had caught him and nothing good could ever have come out of that. A slam, a big boot and a splash were dealt out in due course and while Fujinami had been able to ride out a Lariat to the face, there was a bigger and badder dude on the block, and there was nothing Fujinami could have done to survive getting splashed. Inoki brought the hype, Fujinami brought the guts, and Andre brought the spectacle. Very good showings from all three and a solid tag league final match that far surpassed last year’s relative snorefest.

1981-12-04 NJPW - 2nd Madison Square Garden Tag League - Day 15 Kengo Kimura & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. The Texas Outlaws (Dick Murdoch & Dusty Rhodes) General Gymnasium, Koriyama, Fukushima, Japan Card ★★★ I feel like Yatsu could be such a fantastic babyface, literally - because he has the face of a baby. Whenever he’s getting worked over he has this deer in the headlights look of a young child caught doing something he shouldn’t. Then suddenly he’ll flip a switch and be this bruising amateur wrestling beast and the whole combination just really works for me. My favourite part of this match might have been Yatsu getting a bit too over eager with the amateur theatrics and taking Dusty down to the mat when he clearly wasn’t expecting it. Dusty’s face painted a thousand words and he was more than eager to force his way back up and show this young pup his place in the pecking order. Unsurprisingly Dusty and Murdoch had great synergy and seem to work as a tag team far better than Murdoch and Hansen do. They put the boots to Yatsu in due course and then did the same to Kimura as well for good measure. The Japanese team had their moments, including a killer dropkick from Kimura that sent Dusty sprawling to the outside, but some meaty elbows from the American Dream was enough to put Kimura away. Really fun match with all four guys coming out smelling of roses. Dusty had his working boots on, getting bodied to the mat by Yatsu notwithstanding, and this might be my favourite Dusty performance from this entire project so far. 1981-12-04 NJPW - 2nd Madison Square Garden Tag League - Day 15 Andre The Giant & Rene Goulet vs. Killer Khan & Tiger Toguchi MSG Tag League 1981 Match General Gymnasium, Koriyama, Fukushima, Japan Card ★★★ Khan and Toguchi mercilessly beating on Goulet - fantastic. Khan receiving a massive round of applause for double chopping Rene in the face - awesome. Khan going toe to toe against Andre in a futile attempt at challenging him - hilarious. Andre completely obliterating Khan with uncharacteristically stiff chops - out of this world. They really struck gold with the big man/little man dynamic they created with Andre and Goulet and all their tag league matches have been enhanced because of it. Goulet allows his team to get into a hole, and then Andre swoops in (well maybe not swoops) and rights the ship. Killer Khan and Andre up to now didn’t have chemistry one iota as good as they did here. Seems like they may have finally figured out the formula. Toguchi managed to slow Andre down a smidge with a headscissors and Andre found himself caught in his famous “arms trapped in the ropes spot”, but otherwise he was eventually able to steamroll Toguchi and squish him for the win. Post match though Khan and Toguchi were out for the kill and managed to get Andre caught up in the ropes once again, but this time by his leg. Khan was relentless until finally Andre was freed by Rene and some seconds at ringside. Khan then got on the microphone and challenged a now hobbled Andre again. Seems like Khan has found some swagger from somewhere cause he was really feeling himself by the end of this. 1981-12-04 Houston Wrestling Tully Blanchard vs. Manny Fernandez Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA Card ★★★ Tully always struggles when fighting on a level playing field, so he’s constantly looking to work in the margins. Like he’ll begin a breath before the match restarts between falls to catch his opponent unawares, or he’ll use that moment just after a break in the ropes to try and get a cheap shot in. He went for this early and didn’t connect strongly enough and he was pissed at himself for wasting the opportunity. When he tried it a second time, it was this tactic that swung the control his way and marked the end of Manny’s initial shine. Some great punches from Tully connected right in Manny’s face, but while they clearly were doing damage they were also awakening something inside him. Manny’s comeback was far better than his work during the shine, and I did like that he continued the focus on the arm, but this time using vicious strikes and clubbing blows to Tully’s worn down arm rather than the somewhat static arm holds he was using previously. After winning the first fall Manny was perhaps a bit too overzealous in the second. It was a short fall and a missed crossbody allowed Tully to connect with a knee to the head and level things. Manny easily handled the third though, with Tully essentially out on his feet by the end of it, but a Gino interruption signalled a cheap win by the heels was coming. However, Slater, armed with a 2x4, ensured that wouldn’t be the case. The schmozz that ensued saw Tully and Gino accidentally collide, Manny picked up the win and then Slater began battering Gino in the forehead with the wooden stick to draw blood. The match after this was supposed to be Gino vs Slater, but it looks like they switched things up and forced Tully to work back to back duty. A good, if not spectacular, performance from Tully. He always plays to his character so well though and that tactic of waiting for his moment for a sneaky hit was fun to watch. Manny was okay, his shine was disappointing and a bit bland, but once he really let loose he certainly was good for a big haymaker or two. I loved how he really leaned into his punches with his whole upper body giving them some real heft. 1981-12-04 Houston Wrestling Tully Blanchard vs. Dick Slater Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA Card This ended up being more of an angle than a match, but we did get a fall and a half more or less of action before Gino came out, head bandaged up from the 2x4 attack he’d taken earlier, and gave Slater a beating. Tully, having already fought a ⅔ falls match beforehand, was pretty spent and Slater was able to have his way for most of the first fall. Tully’s tactic to try and fight back was excellent though. To start the second he begged off and ended up on the apron. With the referee trying to keep Slater back and give some space all three men ended up bunched together by the ropes. Tully, in his desperation following being thoroughly dominated in the first fall, used his body as a human torpedo and launched himself into Slater’s shoulder. Apparently his arm and shoulder had been injured previously by Gino and Tully down in San Antonio a few weeks prior, so this attack was a callback, and Tully was like a dog with a bone. Slater wouldn’t be taken down so easily though and he rode that storm and came roaring back. It was at this point Gino made his appearance and any illusion that the heels were really interested in the result of the match were thrown out the window as they double teamed Slater in the middle of the ring. The rest of the faces emerged from the back and spilled into the, forcing Gino and Tully to flee.

1981-12-03 AJPW - Real World Tag League 1981 - Day 7 Terry Funk vs. Ashura Hara Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card ★★★ Hara is the type of hard hitting opponent that meshed really well with Terry. They both exchanged some hard hitting chops early on, but Hara was the one out of the two to really lay those strikes in hard and you could see Terry’s chest turning red. Things mellowed out a bit after the hot start, but it got no less interesting. The throughline was Hara working Terry’s arm, and Terry tried everything he could to wrestle free, but Hara was not relinquishing the hold. They went outside the ring, back into the ring, Terry even managed to counter into his Spinning Toe Hold, but at the end of it all, Hara was still left clinging onto that left arm for dear life. I thought this was a really interesting and unique gambit. Perhaps it wasn’t a match winning strategy, but to get 5-10 minutes out of it and keeping it engaging throughout was fantastic. Terry switched to a more direct approach and despite the residual damage it inflicted, he resorted to punching his way out, nailing Hara right in the face several times. From there they switched things up and the go-home stretch began. Both men escalated the affair and Hara once again proved he had quite the arsenal of attacks under his belt. It was Terry though, cheered on by an army of shrieking fans, who managed to deal the deciding blow, using the unassuming backslide to steal the win. But by booking such a finish, it was clear the intention in this match was to elevate Hara in the eyes of the All Japan faithful and I thought that this would have gone a hell of a way towards doing so. He was scrappy and resourceful and came off every bit a worthy challenger to Funk here, and presumably a lot of credit should go to Funk as well for enabling Hara to look so good. 1981-12-03 AWA Jerry Blackwell vs. Billy Robinson Winnipeg Arena, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Card ★★★ A bit on the fence about this one due to the weird and hesitant finish. But I loved the initial run where Blackwell was out-wrestling the wrestling master. And this wasn’t some showmanship stuff either, Blackwell looked incredibly nimble and smooth with his delivery of the moves as well. Robinson decided it was time to show the fans what’s what and slowly gained the upper hand again using his wrestling expertise, only for Blackwell to sidestep the whole friendly sportsmanship vibe they had going on entirely and went straight for the underhanded shots. He leveraged his head, the same head he’d been smashing nails into boards with, and directed it straight into Robinson’s gut, liberally. Robinson got majorly heated from a cheapshot Blackwell dished out in order to escape a leg lock and it seemed like Robinson might just have the momentum to take Blackwell out. But a mixup in the corner allowed Blackwell to use his massive frame to pin Robinson (with the help of the ropes) and Robinson was apoplectic, dishing out a savage beating post match to vent his frustrations. It was an interesting route they took to have Blackwell legitimately outdo Robinson early on. It didn’t escalate into an all out slugfest until much later but here I appreciated the slow burn. The finish was awkward and Blackwell was slow and hesitant to apply the pin so Robinson came across more like a chump than they probably anticipated.

December 1981-12-01 NJPW - 2nd Madison Square Garden Tag League - Day 12 Tatsumi Fujinami & Tiger Mask vs. El Canek & Super Maquina Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan Card ★★ While Fujinami and Super Maquina underwhelmed, Canek and Tiger Mask brought the goods to bring this filler match up into the entertaining category. Tiger Mask solidly looks the star while Fujinami remains in the background. But while Tiger Mask was far more hit and miss earlier in the year, at this point it looks like the rough edges have been smoothed out, the formula has been refined, and here his timing was great and he didn’t put a foot wrong. Super Maquina doesn’t seem to be more than a big body in a faux American football uniform, but Canek at least displayed some character. Emphasising the (admittedly minimal) size difference between he and his opponents, then mimicking rolling Tiger Mask into a tiny ball and kicking him into the stands. On offense as well though he was crisp and showed off some power moves. I thought he was a good foil for Tiger Mask. A flashy little sequence culminating in a Plancha by Tiger Mask onto Canek allowed Fujinami the chance to suplex Super Maquina for the victory. 1981-12-01 NJPW - 2nd Madison Square Garden Tag League - Day 12 Stan Hansen vs. Killer Khan Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan Card ★★ Killer Khan is so much better on offense than defence. He’s got all the tools to really dish it out but I just don’t find him interesting when he’s forced to work from underneath. Maybe a bit harsh to say that Hansen looked like he kind mailed this one in, considering it barely lasted 5-7 minutes, but it did feel like they were trying to kill time until they rolled to the outside, Hansen nailed an admittedly thudding Lariat on Khan, then rolled back in to pick up the countout victory. Fine - was a match - but buried deep in the midcard they weren’t out there to bring the house down. 1981-12-01 NJPW - 2nd Madison Square Garden Tag League - Day 12 Andre The Giant vs. Tiger Toguchi Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan Card ★★ Another short match, but this at least got a little more time to breathe. I wish Toguchi had had more of a go at Andre though, even if it would have just been a futile attempt to challenge him. He did have a little flurry at the end, but 80% of this was Andre ragdolling him around. In the sense that this just reiterated the force Andre was, this completely did the job. During that aforementioned final flurry from Toguchi at the end, his decision to go for a risky second knee from the top was his undoing, but he knew that a single dive wasn’t going to be enough to finish the job. Andre caught him up the top, slammed him, squashed him, and that was all she wrote. 1981-12-01 NJPW - 2nd Madison Square Garden Tag League - Day 12 Hulk Hogan vs. Antonio Inoki Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan Card ★★ They did a great job of giving Hogan a kind of “final boss” aura for this one. Inoki spent more time working from underneath than I think he has at any other point this year. Perhaps at another time Hogan would have struggled given the responsibility of controlling the majority of a match like this, but I think he did an admirable job for the most part. This didn’t have many spectacular fireworks, but was solidly laid out and very well executed. They built up to the eventual comeback from Inoki pretty well, even if the actual finish felt a bit premature. A combo of dropkicks were followed by consecutive Enzuigiris. I wondered what the next move from Inoki could be seeing as he’d emptied the chamber, not once but twice, of his favourite move, but he went with an Octopus Hold, and to my great surprise, Hogan submitted in pretty quick fashion. I guess he’s not a New Japan regular at this point, but it feels like a very un-Hogan thing for him to have done. Easily the best match on a pretty underwhelming card.

1981-11-30 AJPW - Real World Tag League 1981 - Day 4 Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Ashura Hara & Genichiro Tenryu Real World Tag League 1981 Match Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan Card ★★★ More of this please. Jumbo is finally starting to look like “the man”. Yes, he’s still teaming with Baba, but while Baba pops into the ring here and there to get a rise out of the crowd, it’s Jumbo who’s doing the heavy lifting and securing the wins for his team. It helps that he seemed doubly motivated matched up against Tenryu. Ashura Hara, in his first match against either Jumbo or Baba (according to the commentary), was no slouch either, but he and Tenryu both seemed to be on one level, but Jumbo was just that rung above. We got a really hot start with Jumbo and Tenryu going toe to toe and Tenryu catching Jumbo by surprise with an Enzuigiri to the back that forced him to take a powder. Once they’d cycled through all the matchups the fizzle died out and the middle was a drag. But they managed to pull it together at the end, with Jumbo upping the gears and his adversaries just weren’t able to keep up and a backslide put Hara away. The general gist of this was that the team of Tenryu and Hara were able to be competitive, and they weren’t going to be walked over, but Baba and Jumbo were too formidable a duo and it really was only a matter of time until they got the win. Everyone other than Baba, who again just felt like a passenger, seemed to raise their stock with this one. Nothing out of this world and by no means a classic, but a solid tournament match. 1981-11-30 AJPW - Real World Tag League 1981 - Day 4 Terry Funk vs. Bruiser Brody Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan Card ★★★ For a match with this much blood it was interesting that the blood was more incidental than an actual core aspect of the narrative. Both men just sort of, started bleeding? But they both bled buckets. Funk was deep in his bag in regards to his selling. A missed knee attack into the corner took its toll and Brody’s follow up attacks had Terry stumbling all over the ring. Brody was backdropped onto Higuchi, giving Snuka the opportunity to jump in and they proceeded to lay a double team beatdown to just add fuel to the fire of their eventual collision in the tag league. Blood plus Terry Funk basically ensures at minimum a good match, but this would have been better served if they’d switched up speeds more often, as they just kept the same pace from start to finish. Just when Terry was at his most vulnerable, we never got the sheer desperation you’d expect from him to fight off or fight back against Brody, and Brody just doesn’t appear to have that extra gear to ratchet up the intensity when he’s in the ascendancy.