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MY FRIENDS WOULD YOU NOT AGREE THAT IT IS WEIRD AND INDEED ALMOST MESSED that we have not properly attended to a JOSH BARNETT's (previously, fleetingly Matt Riddle's) BLOODSPORT within these electronic pages (of which there have been so many [it's not like we haven't had room {to}]) in literally five years? For real! It's been that long! JOSH BARNETT'S BLOODSPORT 2 was the last time, and, indeed, in a very real sense, also literally the only time ever so far (I'm pretty sure). I have seen several of the shows in between, and found them pleasant! And yet, somewhat unaccountably, I have not engaged with them here. But all that changes today, as together we encounter BLOODSPORT BUSHIDO from 両国国技館 RYО̄GOKU NATIONAL SPORTS HALL of all places! An ambitious venue to book for one's Tokyo début! Though an undeniably sikk move, the risks of so bold a venture will be known well to players of ファイナルファイヤープロレスリング～夢の団体運営 (Final Fire Pro Wrestling: Yume no Dantai Unei! [Final Fire Pro Wrestling: Organization of Dreams {Final Fire Pro Wrestling: Dream Organization Management}]), a game with which I assume (by virtue of the ongoing interest in The Long UWF [words Tadashi Tanaka never wrote, and indeed might well find incorrect {or, worse still, silly}] that your presence here strongly implies) you are intimately familiar. Actually, let us simply address that quickly, and move on in fellowship and enjoyment: at first glance (and confirmed by all subsequent glances), it looks likes we've got a 後楽園ホール Kōrakuen Hōru-sized crowd here at Sumo Hall (plenty of good seats still available!), but deeply dim house-lighting and excellent production by the アベマ ABEMA streaming service means we are good to go (æsthetically). I would also like to mention, before we properly begin, that photographer/very nice fellow Ryan Loco has made a number of excellent photos of the event available at his Twitter; I must also note that the engaging live results post by Justin Knipper (his Twitter is here) that appeared at the WON/F4W site is an enormously helpful one if you, like me, know some things (perhaps even several things?) about some of the older people on this show, but nothing (or near enough) about anyone who is at all young. He did a great job! It got me even more stoked!
We begin with a genuinely excellent video package assuring us that this event welcomes VICTORIES BY KNOCKOUT OR SUBMISSION ONLY and rejects all others. The kind of techniques chosen for this brief introduction are illustrative of just what we're after here, stylistically: an Akira-Maeadesque spinning heel kick; a powerbomb (the hugging high lift of 抱上 daki-age?) that is met with indifference and an immediate escape into 腕挫腋固 ude-hishigi-waki-gatame (the famed Fujiwara armbar); a more-or-less flying 腕挫十字固 ude-hishigi-juji-gatame; a pretty gnarly knee to the head of a kneeling guy; an inside heel-hook; a 逆腕緘 gyaku-ude-garami with a particularly charismatic stepover; an 裏投 ura-nage that was probably conceptualized as a "release German suplex"; a whole bunch of pro-wrestling stompity-stomping; and striking exchanges more or less in the contemporary NJPW/AEW mode. This is mostly what we're in for. I think that there have been enough of these shows, and that these shows have been consistent enough (or consistently inconsistent, kind of? [charmingly so, I hasten to add]) in their presentation, that there isn't much utility (if there was ever any at all; I am open to that possibility, too) in trying to pin down (hey man: no pinfalls) the particular understanding of "shoot style" that motivates what we have before us. Is it UWF? UWFi? PWFG? Kingdom? BattlARTS? RINGS? Inoki's World Martial Arts Heavyweight Championship matches, sort of? Probably all of these, plus all the others (talk about your splintered legions!), and also none of them, in any precise sense. The resulting BLOODSPORTstyle is almost certainly too "shoot" for the enjoyment of some (not me!) while being insufficiently "shoot" for the enjoyment of others (sometimes maybe me, a little!), but is on the whole really very pleasant, and always a welcome encounter wherever it falls on the liturgical calendar (Bloodsport is a moveable feast).
Hey look, it's 組太鼓 / くみだいこ / kumidaiko / ensemble taiko drumming! It is pretty hard not to like ensemble taiko drumming. A graphic indicates that English-language commentary will be provided (ably, no doubt) by Stewart Fulton and Mark Pickering, whilst Japanese-language commentary is offered by a team consisting of two gentleman whose names I do not recognize the kanji of, and one who is totally 中井祐樹 Nakai Yūki, of whom we have spoken more than once. He's a neat guy! In a nicely produced (but not too nicely produced) video package, Josh Barnett explains his vision for these events, and I am pleased that while he does so, an extended clip of Frank Mir vs. Dan Severn plays for kind of a while. I recall loving that match, as it was by far the shootmost of the various shootstyle matches fake-fought on that particular Bloodsport, but I recall that this was not at all a widely held view. It is time to reclaim that match from the haters, however, and that work starts here; that work starts now. A decent parade of fighters voiced by the incomparable Lenne Hardt has taken shape in those moments we have spent just now in consideration of the haters, and of the work that lies before us because of them: things fall out of sync a little between Hardt's readings and the actual grappler walk-outs, which I am experiencing as lightly stressful, but I can appreciate that there's a lot to keep track of organizationally (this is perhaps why I am experiencing it as I am). I would say that the star of the parade of fighters is probably John Moxley's NJPW track jacket (have I mentioned that for the better part of a year I have arrived to the gym almost exclusively in a black Adidas tracksuit atop the grappling tights I wear beneath my 道着 / どうぎ / dо̄gi? and that this has been a massive upgrade over all previous things I have ever worn to the gym? I totally recommend this practice—indeed, this solution—and submit it for your consideration, my friends).
Our first contest, between GLEAT(グレイト)'s IIZUKA YU and ABE FUMINORI, has me leaning immediately and hard[ly] on Justin Knipper's excellent notes: "Iizuka is a very talented young wrestler from the GLEAT company and trained sambo with Volk Han in the past. Abe is a regular freelancer and actually appeared on the most recent Bloodsport event back in April. He’s one half of the tag team Astronauts; the other half being Takuya Nomura of BJW who will appear later on the show tonight." That's all pretty interesting, and totally useful! And I knew none of it. Oh wow, okay, let's go: Abe throws early with 横分 yoko-wakare and transitions seamlessly into the scarf hold of 袈裟固 kesa-gatame, only to be countered by a tidy 腕挫十字固 ude-hishigi-juji-gatame and I find myself, much like this small but serious and attentive crowd, delighted in the early going. This spirited exchange takes the fighters back to their feet, in time, a situation Abe finds intolerable, and rectifies with a dragon-screw leg-whip in the deeply pro-wres mode of Tatsumi Fujinami or Hiroshi Tanahashi, a technique that does much to establish a tone, and mark out the bounds of just what it is we'll be up to. An octopus hold soon follows, which I also find interesting tonally. After a series of not-so-hot mounted strikes from Iizuka, Abe takes the win with a deft little kata-ashi-hishigi/single-leg-crush/Achilles lock in an opening match that was served us well.
SUZUKI HIDEKI and SATO HIKARU are next, and again Justin Knipper's notes prove vital: "Hikaru Sato wrestled the day before this—in his backyard, against Sanshiro Takagi et al. On the grass, in the sun. This is a rather different vibe. Sato sharpened his craft first with Pancrase before he became a regular freelance pro wrestler around Japan. Hideki Suzuki has been active this year in AJPW." Sato comes out in a dо̄gi, which I naturally support, but also with his BJJ purple belt. This is not the first time someone has come to the Bloodsport ring with a BJJ purple belt, and therefore not the first time that I have felt this to be a mistake. In the straight shoot of the human heart, I hope that Sato is enormously proud of the intermediate rank that he has attained, but in the worked environment of a shoot-style pro wrestling card, it is a shoot admission that he is neither particular experienced nor accomplished in this field of endeavour. Although I do not believe any of my current judo students hold this particular BJJ rank at the moment (some are below it, others above), I have enjoyed the company of BJJ purple belts previously, and hope to again in the future! I do not say any of this to slight them! They should be congratulated on the work they have done, and encouraged to pursue their study further! But I would argue the BJJ purple belt is a hindrance to the suspension of disbelief in this context. Or maybe it is all part of a deeper work, by which I myself have been worked, and am continuing to be worked right now, as Sato is felled by a stepover-toehold-facelock in what I have learned, belatedly, is a tournament match. It was pretty good!
Okay here's another tournament match (I am getting ahead of it this time): ERIK HAMMER and NOMURA TAKUYA. The invaluable Justin Knipper once more: "Nomura is Fuminori Abe’s tag team partner in Astronauts, as mentioned earlier. Nomura is so perfect for Bloodsport and should probably be on every one he can make. Erik Hammer is a Bloodsport stalwart and Josh Barnett’s training partner." I would like to add that in addition to being enormously useful and informative, Justin Knipper's notes are written in an open and generous spirit that I admire; they are an absolute best-case-scenario for an as-it-happened, live event recap(itulation). This match begins with the most striking we've seen so far (and it looks pretty good! to me! who to be fair knows nothing about striking!), and then almost a back-body-drop from Hammer? And a missed Dan Henderson flying right hand? Uh oh, things have spilled to the outside! Guys this isn't the way! Why is there an out-of-ring count instead of just having them get back inside! Just try going outside of the ring in a STOIC STYLE Fire Pro match and see how that goes over! These guys are doing great though, honestly, and their brief match ends in a knockout from an Erik Hammer powerbomb (ah, the hugging high lift of 抱上 daki-age!). This really good little match perfectly exemplifies (to me!) the point that I was trying to make earlier, however clumsily, that although Bloodsport does not present perhaps the purest vision of shoot-style wrestling, it has nevertheless cultivated its own æsthetic and pursues it satisfyingly. Just like we expected!
Next we have KONAMI (just one name), accompanied by 鈴木みのる SUZUKI MINORU, against FUKUDA MAYA, who is seconded by TAMURA KIYOSHI (hey we know that guy!), and who performs several karate 基本 kihon upon her arrival (this is an excellent choice). I do not need to tell you, and yet find myself telling you, that Kiyoshi Tamura's Puma tracksuit is fantastic.
"This will be the first time a lot people will get to see Maya Fukuda," Knipper writes. "She’s a Kiyoshi Tamura project and trained her, though she has a previous martial arts experience. She’s been with GLEAT since the launch of that promotion, and has grown and improved a lot in a short amount of time. Fukuda also has more experience working this Bloodsport style in Lidet’s UWF." Some strange "selling" choices in this one, maybe, as Fukuda shrieks throughout Konami's application of any number of leglocks (that's a verbal submission! careful!), but she does some really great stuff too, like a smooth juji-gatame and omote-sankaku-jime and also oh no she has been German-suplexed so hard and also kneed in the face. Another big German suplex and one more Achilles-lock ends this one in Konami's favour but young Fukuda (just twenty-three!) was impressive. Her kicks, in particular, were really neat, and I would say that her striking is already better than, for example, that of 飯伏幸太 Ibushi Kōta, to choose someone who is widely accepted as having good strikes (also he's just a likeable character).
船木 誠勝 FUNAKI MASAKATSU, who we probably have not spoken of in earnest since RINGS BLOG SUPPLEMENTAL: 5/26/00: COLOSSEUM 2000 (C2K), is next up against Davey Boy Smith Jr. (Harry Smith), whose deeply Albertan accent makes total sense but which always catches me off guard (it could be said to generate 崩し kuzushi). That Funaki, an original PANCRASist, is now fifty-five, surprises no one, I'm sure, but would you believe that Smith is thirty-nine? Decent stuff here for a couple of old guys (I am right in between them so I say this with great sympathy), and a nice finish where Funaki escapes a sharpshooter (what else?) to finish with a heel hook, but this one had some weird parts as regards intensity: are you looking to finish that 逆腕緘 gyaku-ude-garami, or just connect the grip and chill? Are we really elbowing from 胸固 mune-gatame, or what? With a total combined age of ninety-four, you might expect this one to be a struggle athletically, but it was totally fine in that respect; in some other ways, though, it was maybe lightly odd?
Here's something pretty nice: IBUSHI KО̄TA 飯伏幸太 (aforementioned!) and 前田 日明 MAEDA AKIRA (whose name goes strangely unchanted) make a nice in-ring presentation to the great 藤原 喜明 FUJIWARA YOSHIAKI, who I have just now learned (through checking) was, amongst his many other achievements, the first graduate of the NJPW dо̄jо̄. Everybody is attired spiffily.
An intermission follows, and I will partake of it as well, as one of my most longstanding judo pals recently dropped off a generous gift of truly beautiful fresh-caught mackerel, and I believe the time has come for me to really get into it. When next we speak, I will be a changed man; a man changed by mackerel.
UPDATE: I am born again.
Next up we have QUINTON "RAMPAGE" JACKSON whose name katakanas exceedingly well: クィントン・"ランページ"・ジャクソン. Looks pretty good, right? Jackson notes that, although he is not psychic, his firm expectation is that he will hurt Hideki "Shrek" Sekine's feelings, and fuck him up. Could be! I have not been keeping up with Jackson but a quick perusal of the "Controversies" and "Legal Issues" sections of his Wikipedia page suggests he hasn't been nearly as gross to people in recent years, a reminder that growth is always possible. He is looking well. This match was totally fine, and ended in Jackson's favour with a scoop slam (in the mode of 手車 te-guruma) into really any number of stomps.
In something of a TK Scissors dream match, here comes 桜庭 和志 SAKURABA KAZUSHI to face SANTINO MARELLA (Anthony Carelli), for whom I got super excited when last we Bloodsported, at which time we wrote:
"AND NOW FOR THE MAIN EVENT IF NOT OF THE ACTUAL SHOW THAN VERY MUCH OF MY DUMB HEART as Santino Marella, cherished poet-clown of fairly-recent fascist-adjacent disingenuous græppling, casts aside that persona to which he probably holds no legal title (although there he was in DDT in that unmistakable mode on a recent Tokyo jaunt [more on that in a moment]) and dons instead the cloak of 柔道 JUDO (it is a double-weave cloak that you should probably wash separately) as ANTHONY CARELLI and I don't know what all to even say; there is just so much. I'm quite certain I watched Anthony Carelli's Santino début as one rising from the many in an Italian crowd (like they were actually in Italy) on an episode of Monday Night Raw I took in at O'Grady's, a pub I assume is still on College Street in Toronto, at an evening hosted by the Live Audio Wrestling guys, all of them nice: Dan Lovranksi (who I think named The MMA Encyclopedia his book of the year the year of its year, thank you Dan Lovranski/I am sorry, Dan Lovranski) and Jason Agnew (both of whom, I understand are back on Sunday night Toronto sports radio after a troubling but brief [brief but troubling] interregnum) and John Pollock, who is currently a man of crowd-funding, but who was previously of The Fight Network for I believe many years (a former subscriber, I have had zero non-free channels for many years, and no tv upstairs, even, except for special events like the Olympics or CBC federal election night coverage, so we are on four-years cycles of bringing the tv upstairs now), and if I am not mistaken which I for sure could be John Pollock was perhaps involved in the Fight Network's borderline-exquisite two-part Anthony "Santino" Carelli Retrospective, which goes deep. (I have just checked the credits and in fact did not find John Pollock's name there, although his crowd-funding pal Wai Ting was the director of photography for it, and it is looks great, so nice job, Wai). Though I invite you to taste and see of it yourself, I can tell you that no small part of what you will learn (should you not already be so learnèd) is of his judo, and of his junior national championship in that probably noblest of sports (it's at least up there). You will learn, too, of his Battle Arts Academy (he brought Yuki Ishikawa to Mississauga to teach! like in an on-going role! he had been driving truck in Japan!), a wildly nice-looking gym where, it would seem, you can train a lot of different things (guess who teaches the judo). He has also just in the last year or so become a commentator for IJF World Tour events, and he is by far the pleasantmost voice to hear calling these matches (followed, in order, I would say, by: Loretta, then Sheldon, then the Dutch guy who largely just tells old stories about guys he used to do judo with, and then I guess Neil Adams). They even had him in Tokyo recently for the World Championships (at the日本武道館 Nippon Budōkan, a test event for Tokyo 2020, and it was GREAT), where he acquitted himself well once more, and also took the DDTプロレスリング DDT Puroresuringu booking outlined above. AND while he was there, he showed up in the facebook feed (I am not on facebook; my pal Nick showed me) of the man under whom I recently completed my NCCP Level 2 Coaching Certification (please hold your applause until the end of the blog post or at the very least the end of this sentence; please everybody; please), a former national team member (and current all-kinds-of-judo-things, including excellent sports photographer, which is what he was up to in Tokyo) who was in Montréal the same years Carelli was, and so there they were, old friends catching up in Tokyo at Worlds and posting about it on facebook, as one very well might (should one be of facebook). I have said 'Carelli' a bunch of times here so far and it has seemed weird each time; I really want to be saying Santino. I don't think there is anything else I wanted to say about Santino (see now that felt way better) by why of preamble other than that there is a really good Steve Austin podcast with him [. . .]." For more on his actual (strong!) match at that fine event, you may wish to click here, though I would also understand if you elected to not.
This is a full-on Santino Marella (rather than Anthony Carelli) presentation, right down to the graphic emphasizing his WWE tag, intercontinental and United States championships as credentials. It is noted that Sakuraba, who enters to Tetsuya Komuro's "Speed 2 TK Remix" (just as one would expect), is both the winner of the UFC Japan heavyweight tournament (remember? it was complicated!), and the fifty-fourth NOAH GHC tag team champion alongside 杉浦 貴 Sugiura Takashi, who is of course known to us also. Oh wow, okay: we're looking at a "Santino" singlet and everything. Five years is a long time, but the last time around, I remember Carelli making much of his desire to distance himself from that whole deal, and present "Anthony Carelli" as something quite different. I guess he feels otherwise about it now. Whatever works! And good for him to have secured the rights to the name, which is a rare feat. (Oh I see: I am reading just now that Carelli has been performing under the Santino Marella name in Impact Wrestling/TNA for quite some time now; please forgive me my ignorance in this matter.)
Our high hopes for this match are immediately proven extremely correct, when, seconds in, Santino hits the back-carrying drop of 背負落 seoi-otoshi from an 大外刈 osoto-gari feint, in what is immediately the throw of the night so far. It doesn't end there, though, as far as throws go: the valley drop of 谷落 tani-otoshi ("tani-otoshi! jūdō waza!" is the enthusiastic call); the major-inner reap of 大内刈 ouchi-gari to the wonderfully named dead-tree drop of 朽木倒 kuchiki-taoshi; a front face-lock 払腰 harai-goshi in a manner I associate most closely with Def Jam: Fight for NY (it is Ice-T's "light grapple one", as seen here) that rightly earns a call of "OMOSHIROI TAKEDOWN"; a 肩車 kata-guruma / shoulder-wheel that transitions beautifully into 十字固 juji-gatame; it's really all here. And this is to say nothing (or at least very little, so far), of the calibre of his 寝技 newaza: 腕緘 ude-garami entangled armlocks to far-side juji-gatame; juji-gatame to 表三角絞 omote-sankaku-jime (the kind of triangle choke that probably comes first to mind); an especially dank 肩固 kata-gatame shoulder-hold/arm-triangle; and just an overall heaviness and intensity to every movement, whether it be a foot-on-the-seat knee-bar escape or a double-under guard pass that are, in their robust character, distinct from everything everyone else has done so far tonight: it's all realer, for the simple reason that he is really doing it, as there is absolutely no reason not to really do it (and the reluctance of others to not really do these things in this context does remain perplexing to me). Sakuraba—who is fifty-five, and a hard fifty-five at that—is not called upon to do all that much, for his part, other than to get thoroughly and compellingly worked over (he is an unsurprisingly first-rate 受け uke), to briefly threaten a COBRA (would not Santino possess resistance to its venom?), and to grab a slick 逆腕緘 gyaku-ude-garami / reverse-arm-entanglement / double-wrist-lock /Kimura for a totally solid finish, but he does all of that every bit as charmingly as you'd expect. Could it be that the fifty-year-old Anthony Carelli, performing as Santino Marella, is the best shoot-style professional wrestler in the world? I have seen literally no evidence to the contrary, but would be delighted to be proven totally and embarrassingly wrong in this assessment, because I would be beyond stoked to see shoot-style work in this the year of our lord 2024 that is even close to this good, let alone work that might surpass it. Anthony Carelli's performance here is not only self-evidently leagues beyond everything else we've seen on this card so far, but I honestly do not hesitate to say that it is considerably better than most of the work you will find elsewhere in the genre at all, past or present, up to and including much of what we treasure in the Fighting Network we have long called RINGS. I really can't recommend this match highly enough. I am seriously considering texting about it to judo pals; that's how real this has gotten for me.
Sticking with guys who are really very old indeed (a group from which, again, I do not exclude myself), we have 鈴木みのる SUZUKI MINORU, who has done everything forever, and who, at fifty-six (and honestly for the last ten years), sometimes has good matches, and sometimes has okay ones that he just gets sheer aura, and either way, it's totally fine. His opponent is Timothy Thatcher, who I have probably seen wrestle fewer than a dozen times, but whose work I have enjoyed. Thatcher's name came up recently in a Sports Illustrated profile of Walter Hahn, who I understand is a current WWE champion performing as Gunther; he had this to say: "I think Tim would be on a bigger stage right now if he would divert away from some of his core values and accept professional wrestling for what it is on the big stage. As much as I enjoyed that gritty, catch-as-catch-can shoot-style wrestling with no smoke and mirrors, the reality is that it isn’t going to draw the attention of a lot and a lot of people in 2024. At the end of the day, what we do is a business. But I respect that he does what makes him happy. You can have all the money in the world, but if you’re not happy, then that’s pretty useless.” I think that Walter comes out of this sounding eminently reasonable, but that Timothy Thatcher comes out of this sounding like a pitiless æsthete, which is one of the leading kinds. Perhaps Walter would be pleased to see that, given the context, Thatcher actually engages in no small measure of smoke and mirrors throughout this particular match, with chairs held aloft and dastardly thumbs to the eye and a Gotch-style piledriver, going along with all of the decidedly unshoot things Minoru Suzuki needs to get through this. It's not at all a bad match, and one through which Thatcher has maybe attained a kind of Hegelian synthesis, which has to be worth at least an extra quarter-star.
Our four-man tournament concludes with further strong showings from Erik Hammer and Hideki Suzuki, and I will again draw on the work of Justin Knipper, with many thanks for it: "Collar and elbow tieup between the two to start. Hammer took Suzuki’s back but Suzuki easily Granby rolled out of it. The two were quick in their exchanges and upped the pace a bit compared with their earlier fights tonight. It wasn’t entertaining enough for one of the people at the Japanese announcers table, who was completely passed out while in full focus on the hard cam. This was awful. The production team finally noticed and adjusted the fixed cam position so that you couldn’t see the guy anymore. I can’t think of anything more rude to the fighters and the art. This was a horrible look." I admit that I totally missed this! I think he is referring to the fellow seated to the left of the referee's legs, and to the right of Hideki Suzuki's shiny-underoo'd seat:
As Knipper concludes, "Suzuki eventually tapped Hammer out with a toehold and they shook hands afterwards. Suzuki is the Bloodsport Bushido tournament winner." And there you go.
I AM FAIRLY EXCITED FOR THE MAIN EVENT as Josh Barnett certainly always takes such matters seriously and, for his part, Jon Moxley is just, like, such a cool guy of wrestling to me. It is widely accepted that Jon Moxley, while very much doing his own thing (indeed perhaps because of the extent to which he does his own thing?), is as close to Terry Funk as we are ever likely to have again in this, our fallen, post-Terry Funk world, and it is an idea that is repeated so often that I worry that we are at risk of just thinking it's a normal thing, and not a wildly improbable and excellent thing to which we must hold fast. I was as skeptical as any—and probably more than most!—of newly post-WWE Moxley ahead of his appearance in the 2019 G1, and was immediately proven a fool, as he was incredible in it, bringing to the tournament a wild energy that I hadn't really even noticed had been lacking (why not enjoy a low-res video of his five-star Korakuken Hall main event against the great 石井 智宏 ISHII TOMOHIRO here?). Since then, of course, he has probably been the most consistent main event performer in AEW, its champion several times over (IWGP champ, too!), all the while wrestling just everywhere for everybody, including, for example, in Tokyo for Bloodsport on this very night (more on that soon). "We can learn a lot from Terry Funk," Moxley told SI one time. “He was so giving. He chose to give back in ECW. And he wasn’t the type of guy who’d say the kids today couldn’t work. He was doing moonsaults in his 50s. If he were wrestling today, I fully believe he’d be in AEW and doing shows for Revolver or Bloodsport and doing Canadian Destroyers." I mean, that all sounds right to me. "If Terry Funk’s not the greatest of all time, then who the fuck is?” A fair question, Jon Moxley; could you maybe spin that out a little more for the group, too? "There are so many different criteria that it’s impossible to pick the greatest ever. Look at Bret Hart and Ric Flair. They worked two completely different styles, and they were two completely different artists. It was like one guy played the trumpet and the other guy played a pair of bongos. They made different music. Terry Funk always gets passed over in that discussion. He was often the heel coming into a territory, putting over the babyface, and leaving to do something else. But look at the body of work. It’s pretty clear. You can’t tell me Terry Funk isn’t the fucking greatest of them all." It is possible that I am feeling even a little more sentimental about Terry Funk than usual today because I happened to watch the Darkside of the Ring episode on FMW (Season 3, Episode 10!) while I was doing the dishes earlier and Terry was just lovely in it. ANYWAY HERE WE GO with first a video package reminding us that several Bloodsports (and indeed several years) ago, Barnett defeated a superly duperly bleeding Jon Moxley in Tampa.
Oh man Jon Moxley is coming out to Hole's "Violet," which is going on my shortlist of low-key hard-as-hekk walkout songs (Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira's "Gimme Shelter" remains undefeated), wearing a black hoodie that reads DEATH JITSU and, beneath a little trashcan, PURE GARBAGE. I love this for him, for me, and for humanity broadly. A faint AEW chant can be heard as Moxley paces his corner in an agitated way that makes him look "shoot nuts." Bryan Alvarez, who has wrestled on shows with Moxley, and is familiar with his backstage demeanour, has reported on several occasions with a sigh of both weariness and wonder, that, as far as he can tell, this whole Jon Moxley character is no gimmick, brother (quoted loosely from fond memory). Moxley, who switches up his gear in different contexts, is wearing loose shorts and wrestling shoes here, and I like this better than when he wears his big shitkicker boots, although I did really really like the time he took a fork out of his big shitkicker boots and stabbed a guy in the head whilst sankaku-jime-ing him (was it Hangman Page? I have searched "Jon Moxley fork" to try to confirm, and the first thing that came up is a reddit post titled "Jon Moxley is INSANE" that reads "This is Mox getting power bombed onto a plate of forks for Pro Wrestling Revolver on a random Thursday Night," and there's video, and it is wild; also I have been able to confirm that it was indeed Hangman Page he stabbed that time [in their tremendous TEXAS DEATH match]).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this one ends up a total bloodbath, but in the early going it's mostly just really nice positional 寝技 newaza, with some crafty (but not too crafty) entries into various 関節技 / kansetsu-waza / joint-locking techniques. That heavyweight submission-fighting ace Josh Barnett is capable of this is obvious, but there is much to said here for Jon Moxley's NAGA Cincinnati Grappling Championships no-gi beginner/super-heavyweight/30+ age-divisionISM as well. He pursues 足三角絡 ashi-sankaku-garami with great avidity! I am ashamed that it has taken me several minutes to notice that Josh Barnett's kick-pads say G E N O M E down the inside. Everything is going very well! The crowd did not seem all that into Josh Barnett's brainbuster (a little too pro-wres?), but were totally okay with the giant swing that giantly swung Moxley into the ring post right after, a reminder that tone is such a complex thing. When Moxley makes his way back into the ring, we are forced to consider where this match might ultimately fall on The Muta Scale ("[Muta] took part in what was generally considered to be one of the bloodiest professional wrestling matches at the time against Hiroshi Hase, leading to the creation of the 'Muta scale', which rates the bloodiness of matches relative to this one's 1.0 value[7]"), as he is bleeding a tonne even before he starts exerting himself in further excellent groundwork exchanges. Oh man it is really coming on now, though. The time-keeper calls thirty seconds to go, Moxley punches his way out of a powerbomb, and, before you know it, we are into a pretty gross overtime period characterized by Moxley's urgency, lest he lose the bout on a blood stoppage. Again, this really is an awful lot of blood, even for Moxley, but I suppose that is the kind of "sport" this is; we can't say we weren't titularly warned. Neither Moxley's "Deathrider" DDT nor his Tiger Driver go over all that well, honestly, but the stomps and elbows that end the bout are more warmly received by a crowd that honestly seemed maybe a little tired for a bit there? They are receptive, finally, this fine little crowd, to a characteristically ramshackle Jon Moxley promo to end the night, as he holds aloft the IWGP title he would lose to 内藤哲也 NAITO TETSUYA at AEW x NJPW FORBIDDEN DOOR 2024 a mere eight days later; there is a "yet-to-be dismantled elms, the geese" quality to this final image (life and the memory of it so compressed / they've turned into each other). But that's what Elizabeth Bishop had to say, when really it is customary that we turn our attention at this point towards WHAT DAVE MELTZER HAD TO SAY:
Sadly, nothing, and I don't just mean sadly for us, but sadly for him, too, in that I recall Dave saying on an episode of Wrestling Observer Radio that he really hoped to watch the Bloodsport show, but that he had fallen behind on other things, and wasn't sure when he was going to have the time. With no mention of it in the newsletter that I have seen, I don't think he ever did. There really has been a big shift in how much weirdo (one might indeed say sicko) stuff Dave chooses to or is able to truly attend to given the huge amount of mainstream domestic American wrestling television he feels compelled to cover. It is a loss to be grieved! But only a little, realistically.
Alright then! Thank you for your time and attention once again. It is my hope and intention to be with you again soon. Join me at that as-yet-unknown time, won't you? It is an asynchronous medium, I suppose. Until then, I hope that you are passing a summer no less summery than that suggested by the photograph of Akira Maeda I append below. Thanks again! Take care!
