Hidden Gems Collection #5: The NWA Is The Way
IMG Credit: Pro Wrestling Illustrated
Hidden Gems #5
Date: 1969, 1970, 1971
We’re going very old school here for what will mostly be NWA matches. Part of the beauty of these collections is the range of stuff they cover and that’s what we’re getting here with some nearly fifty year old stuff. I’m having a great time with these things and it’s very cool to get some stuff that I haven’t seen before. Let’s get to it.
We’ll start in Florida with Gordon Solie introducing highlights of Dory Funk Jr. winning the NWA World Title from Gene Kiniski on February 11, 1969 in Tampa.
NWA World Title: Gene Kiniski vs. Dory Funk Jr.
Date: February 11, 1969
Location: Fort Homer Hesterly Armory, Tampa, Florida
Attendance: 6,000
Commentator: Gordon Solie
Funk is challenging and we’re joined in progress with Kiniski on his back and getting forearmed for trying to get up. Serves him right. We’re clipped to both guys getting up and Kiniski snapmaring him down to take over. Dory gets two off a sunset flip but a kick to the face gives Kiniski the same. A belly to back suplex puts both of them down and things slow a bit more. Funk gets a pair of two’s off a pair of slams and Gene can’t hold him up for a backbreaker.
The spinning toehold is broken up and the sequence works so well that they do it again. A fourth slam sets up a third spinning toehold and this time Kiniski taps to make Dory the champion at 3:45 shown. The match ran 27:00 total so I’m not rating this, but it wasn’t the most thrilling stuff. Then again I’ve never been a fan of Kiniski’s work.
Post match Dory is rather calm, until he’s handed the title and it’s time to jump up and down a lot.
Back to Solie, who praises Dory as the new kind of athlete. Dory comes in and is very humble and thanks his father and the promoter for letting him have the chance. Not much to say here, but Dory never was the most charismatic guy.
Bruno Sammartino vs. George Steele
Date: July 29, 1970
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Bruno is defending in a cage with escape only rules but I’m not sure on the date here as I can’t find anything that says there was a show on this date. The cage is put together, which takes a good while in its own right. Steele takes his sweet time getting in and I’m really thinking this is the Philadelphia match from July 25 with the wrong label. Bruno unloads on him in the corner to start and Steele tries to go over the top with as much success as you would guess. A big right hand has Steele down and yeah this is the Philadelphia match. Steele makes a save and chokes in the corner but gets punched away again.
This time it’s Steele getting caught in the ropes so Bruno can kick and punch a lot more. Yeah he didn’t have the most versatile offense in the world but he made it work. Steele gets loose and sends him into the cage but gets his face rubbed against the cage for his efforts. You can see the fired up version of Bruno coming out and he pulls Steele off the cage to keep up the beating. Sammartino stomps away until Steele kicks him into the cage for the double knockdown.
It’s the champ up first though and he actually hits Steele low in a rather hard departure from his norm. More kicks and stomps have Steele in trouble and a running kick to the ribs keeps him down. Steele finally rakes the eyes and rips open a buckle so the stuffing can go into Bruno’s face. That was a thing for Steele and it doesn’t work so well as a heel. The fans lose it on Steele for having their hero in trouble and that’s why Sammartino stayed as champion for so long. NO ONE got that kind of a reaction for so long and the company knew that.
Steele chokes him down in the corner as the audio seems to cut out. You can see the trash the fans have thrown in but Bruno making a comeback is enough to calm them down a bit. Bruno unloads on him and sends Steele into the cage a few times before walking out to retain at 14:41.
Rating: C-. Your mileage on Bruno is going to vary a lot and that’s completely understandable. This is nearly fifty years old and it’s almost impossible to compare the two eras. Bruno beat the heck out of Steele and was the definitive winner, which was exactly what the fans wanted to see here. It’s not a great match, but the fan reaction is more than enough to carry everything as far as it needed to go. I mean, it’s not exactly hidden as it’s been on a few home videos before but Bruno is always worth a look for the fan reactions alone.
WWWF World Title: Pedro Morales vs. Blackjack Mulligan
Date: March 15, 1971
Location: Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York
Pedro is defending and Mulligan is the father of Barry Windham and the grandfather of Bray Wyatt and Bo Dallas. He’s also managed by the Grand Wizard. The referee takes a good while going over the rules and Mulligan isn’t having any of that. On top of that, he’s not happy with the fans booing him before the bell. They circle each other for a good bit to start with the only contact being the boos hitting Mulligan. Morales avoids an early charge so it’s time for Mulligan to mess with his glove. Another missed charge means more stalling as there’s no contact for the first two minutes.
They finally lock up with Pedro snapping off an armdrag. That means more stalling into another lockup and Morales shoves him away without much effort. Mulligan loads up the glove again and a single shot has Morales flailing around on the mat. It’s off to the nerve hold with Pedro being taken down to cut off a comeback attempt. Morales gets in a shot to the face for the break and the comeback is on with the big left hands. There’s no follow up though as Morales goes stupid with a test of strength that takes him down again. Well to be fair he never was the brightest guy in the world.
hat means the power of the glove (which apparently gives you super strength) keeps Morales in trouble until another shot to the head breaks things up. After Mulligan walks around for a bit, Pedro slaps on a headlock (how devastating) and hangs on for a good while. Something like a bulldog (more like a running clothesline to the back of the head) sets up a chinlock on Mulligan but he gloves his way out of it.
That means a wristlock from Mulligan as we’re nearly fourteen minutes in. A good looking backdrop gives Mulligan two but Pedro pops up and makes a very fast comeback, capped off by a top rope seated senton to the back to retain at 14:16, even though Mulligan’s shoulder was up at about 2.4. I guess the referee wanted out too.
Rating: F. I’ve seen some good Pedro matches but this was just a boring slog with one hold after another and Mulligan’s glove (it was a thing, but you need more to have a full match) being the focal point of the match. Really boring and flat out bad stuff here, which is all the more annoying as both of them were more than capable of better.
Mulligan goes after him again post match but Pedro clears him off…..or at leas I think he does as we’re looking at the crowd for some reason. Pedro waves a Puerto Rican flag for a long time.
And now for something very unique. From July 30, 1971, a special episode of Championship Wrestling From Florida with the whole show being dedicated to Jack Brisco. It’s billed as This Is Your Life Jack Brisco, which could be rather interesting if done right.
Gordon Solie is sitting at the desk next to the champ and they go over Jack’s athletic background at Oklahoma State, though it’s rather hard to understand what Jack is saying.
We get some highlights of Brisco vs. a bunch of wrestlers, with Jack giving a rather monotone talk about how he loves putting people in holds. We see him against Pak Song (a big North Korean wrestler), Bobby Shane (who was going to be a big deal but died in a plane crash at 29) and Hiro Matsuda (trained Hulk Hogan and Lex Luger among others). There isn’t much to say here as they’re just short clips of matches with Brisco wrestling them down or slugging it out.
Back to the desk after a commercial with Gordon sending us to a package from two years ago with Jack and Gordon looking at some old photos of Jack’s athletic career. He wrestled and played football in high school and then went to Oklahoma State where he wrestled again. There’s also a picture of him working at a gold mine in Colorado before college. The college career is covered in some newspaper clippings with Jack saying what’s going on. Then it was on to professional wrestling with more clippings and Jack talking about his time in Florida. I know this isn’t exactly great reading but it’s just pictures with narration.
We see some clips of Brisco beating Mr. Saito for the Florida Heavyweight Title. I believe this is the first time Brisco won the title (he beat Saito for the first two of his eight reigns with the title) on February 10, 1970 in Tampa.
Dory Funk Jr. vs. Dick Steinborn
No date given and Dory’s NWA World Title isn’t on the line. Steinborn rolls away from him to start and actually sends Dory into the corner. A hammerlock has Dory in more trouble until he throws Steinborn down with ease. Dory can’t get away though as it’s a headlock takeover to put him right back down. This time it’s reversed into a headscissors and a backdrop sets up Dory’s own headlock. It’s way too early for the spinning toehold though and Steinborn is over to the ropes.
As Steinborn fights up from an armbar, we hear a discussion about Dory’s brother Terry, who is the forgotten man of wrestling and much more emotional than Dory (YOU THINK???). Dory gets him into the corner but it’s a clean break because the 60s were a nicer time. Steinborn has to kick away from a leglock and hits a dropkick, followed by a nipup. A flying headscissors gives us another nipup but Dory catches him in a backslide for the pin at 7:45. For some reason the camera went into slow motion on the pin and rolled back a few times, meaning the backslide lasted the better part of twenty seconds.
Rating: C-. Much better than some of the other old school matches I’ve seen on these things, as Dory was moving and working out there with Steinborn getting in a lot of offense of his own. The last big turned up the pace a lot, showing that this generation is perfectly capable of wrestling a faster match. You don’t have to, but it’s nice to see it happen.
Jack talks about getting special coaching from Pat O’Connor on how to defend against the spinning toehold.
And of course we see Jack and Pat working out together, complete with exercising. They work on the toehold as well, with Pat showing him how to counter the hold into a Figure Four. They even work on ways to keep the Figure Four from being countered. This is treated like actual coaching instead of the kind of segment you would see today. It sounds a bit boring but it’s such a different time and is fascinating in a way.
Jack Brisco vs. Hiro Matsuda
No date given again and wrestling coach Jack Heath is on commentator with Solie. They start fast and go to the mat with some rather early near falls. Brisco can’t keep hold of him as Heath talks about the United States Olympic Wrestling Team doing well at the recent (1968) Olympics. Matsuda grabs an STF of all things but Jack switches into an armbar. Back up and Brisco gets two off a suplex and it’s off to a double armbar….for a pin, somehow, as the camera freezes and we’re just told that there’s a pin. No bell either, so we’ll say it was about 4:15.
Rating: C+. This was really entertaining stuff with both guys looking good and working hard on the mat. I could have gone with seeing the finish instead of just a still like that but it must have been a thing at the time as it’s the second match in a row where we haven’t actually seen the finish. Brisco was great as always and Matsuda is a very underrated guy who was awesome in the ring in addition to his famous training resume.
We see some clips of Jack beating Dory Funk Jr. in a non-title match. It’s a very technical match with Jack talking about how wrestling is a human game of chess and all the counters and planning ahead that have to go into it. There’s a lot of clipping here and Jack uses the counter Pat O’Connor taught him to flip the spinning toehold into the Figure Four. That’s straight out of a Rocky montage. Dory finally quits after only a few minutes shown of what would probably have been a rather long match.
Jack talks about studying Dory in the hopes of getting a shot at the title. He would win the title about a year and a half later, but rather from some kid named Harley Race, who took the title from Funk.
No goodbye or anything, but for a mini biography of someone who hadn’t hit the pinnacle of his career yet, this was rather entertaining, especially given how many different styles we saw in some of those matches. You hear about these people so often that it’s cool to see them in action in their primes like this.
Overall Rating: D+. This one didn’t work very well for me with the WWF stuff ranging from bad to horrible while the NWA stuff was rather entertaining. Bruno is a legitimate legend but Pedro is hit or miss at best. Then you have Funk and Brisco, who are some of the most revered named in the history of wrestling. Check out the NWA stuff, but go find something newer from the WWF.
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