Reel in Place

I've watched 100 matches for this project thus far and figured it would be a good time to check in on where things stand. Ovbiously, I've written about the teams and the matches in the individual posts, so this is just going to be a ranking and a tier system of the 20 teams so far. In 100 more matches, we'll check back again and update.  Great Tag Teams Akira Taue & Jumbo Tsuruta The Funks The Highflyers Very Good Tag Teams Demolition Rey Mysterio Jr. & Billy Kidman Money Inc. AMW Bobby Eaton & Sweet Brown Sugar Pretty Good Tag Teams Faces of Fear Nightmares The Rat Pack Los Brazos Dynamic Duo Marcus Bagwell & 2 Cold Scorpio Good Tag Teams Ricky Steamboat & Shane Douglas Genichiro Tenru & Ashura Hara Brian Pillman & The Z-Man The Lightning Express Teams I Don't Like Sabu and RVD LCO

  vs Blackjack Lanza & Bobby Duncum (AWA 7/7/1977) Greg Gagne is kicking ass to open this match, and then he tags in Brunzell. Already, I gotta say, this seems like a great team, and this is a match from 1977, which I would guess is before they're peak. Brunzell has Duncum in a hammerlock for a good bit, before tagging in Gagne, who goes back to working the arm, this time with an old-school pro wrestling armbar. Brunzell gets back and continues working the arm. Duncum is finally able to get the tag in Lanza, but Brunzell is all over him and works over Blackjack's arm for good measure. Lanza struggles for a bit, but is finally able to whip Brunzell into the corner and tag Duncum back in. Duncum and then Lanza work over Gagne for a bit before Brunzell is able to tag in. Brunzell is game for a bit, but Lanza and Duncum take back control fairly quickly. Things go back forth for a bit. At one point, Greg Gagne is spamming superkicks like this is PWG, but things are still mostly ...

vs Bam Bam Bigelow & Sandman (ECW 1/24/1998) This is supposed to be RVD vs Bam Bam, but Sabu gets involved, and Bam Bam doesn't have a partner. He asks Taz to be his partner, but Taz says fuck a lot and gets attacked by Brakkus. RVD says nobody is dumb enough to team with Bigelow, which brings out Sandman. He comes to the ring, attempts to drink a beer, but gets attacked, and we are off. A lot of brawling, a few weapons shots, then Lance Storm and Chris Candido hit the ring. Shortly after that, Shane Douglas is out there, too. In the melee, Sabu puts Sandman through a table, Bigelow fights off the 3 on 1 assault, and is able enough to powerbomb Sabu, and climbs the rope to hit a flying headbutt on Sabu, but somehow kinda hits Sandman, and in such a way that Sabu gets up, hits Bigelow with a cane, Sandman with a ladder, and Sabu gets the pin. This whole thing is a total mess.  vs Axl Rotten & Balls Mahoney (ECW 7/3/1998) This is just guys doing stuff for 8 minutes. RVD does ...

 vs Hollywood Blondes (Memphis 11/10/1984) This is a pretty good TV tag match. Tim Horner was such a good tag team wrestler; his offense looked good, he could sell, he could fire up. Armstrong is fine, but I'm starting to become a big Tim Horner guy. Nothing about this match really stands out, but it is entertaining. Eventually, Ron Garvin hits the ring, and the whole thing gets thrown out.  vs Ivan Koloff & Krusher Kruschev (JCP 10/26/1986) This is worked exactly how you would draw it up. Horner and Armstrong show promise early, but get cut off by the Russians, who then proceed to isolate and punish Horner for a bit portion of the match. Darsow gets a large portion of that, and despite being able to do it more effectively in Demolition, he really isn't up to it here in a way that makes the match exciting. Ivan carries his end of the load, though. Armstrong finally gets the tag and some in on fire, and it looks like Armstrong is going to pin Ivan for the titles, but nanose...

  vs Abdullah the Butcher & The Sheik (AJPW 12/13/1979) Man, is this violent. Guys are stabbing and getting stabbed. Guys are bleeding, being bled on, punching each other in the head wound.  Even Dory gets dragged into the fray. Somehow, amongst all of that, there is also a pretty standard tag match, where Terry gets worked over and makes a hot tag ot Dory Jr. Spoiler, but this is easily the best match of this set of 5 and a very, very solid match for 1979.  vs Tommy Rogers & El Gran Apollo (Georgia 1/2/1982) This is pretty much a squash. They give a fair bit to Tommy Rogers and a little bit to Apollo, but this is pretty much non-competitive. I don't know what you can really take away from a match like this other than The Funks do a couple of cool things. Terry hits a good elbow drop, the Dory uppercuts look good, as does the butterfly suplex. That's about it.  vs Bruiser Brody & Stan Hansen (AJPW 4/22/1983) Brody and Hansen eat up a lot of this match, as...

vs Brian Pillman & Steve Austin (10/25/1992) This is the marquee matchup for Steamboat and Douglas. They get some time and have a fairly decent match. Steamboat gets a segment in control, then Douglas, then Steamboat takes a beating, then Douglas takes a beating. Things get a bit lawless, and in the chaos, Pillman throws Douglas over the top rope, and the Hollywood Blondes get DQ'd. I think this is actually a bit disappointing. They get plenty of time, and they don't do anything of note, and the finish doesn't do them any favors.  vs Arn Anderson & Bobby Eaton (11/7/1992) Steamboat starts this off, but unlike a lot of the other matches of this team, this isn't about Steamboat selling for big portions of the bout, nor is it about Steamboat having to essentially save Douglas. Things are pretty back and forth. Steamboat does take a bit of a beating toward the end, and Shane is able to get a hot tag and clean house. Brian Pillman hits the ring as it looks like Dougl...