Axel Dieter vs Moose Morowski (Hannover - 10/5/1980)

3rd. A unique classic.

Full review:

The ruleset for this match is a little complicated - there's No DQ, no pinfalls, but you can win via knockout, submission and ref stop. There's 7 rounds, the first 5 being 4 minutes each, the 6th 10 minutes and the 7th and last round being endless. Moose Morowski is a guy who was a midcarder in Canada, but for some reason he turned into a Super Heel in germany. Axel Dieter was the local hero whose quest it was to rid this town of the Moose. The match is 35 minutes and one big, grueling war. In my opinion, it's exactly how a No DQ match should be done - it's not used as an excuse for the wrestlers to bluntly bash eachother with weapons or do bullshit run-ins, but instead they are free to mess eachother up with all the tactics you'd actually use in a bar fight - hair pulling, eye rakes and low blows. A real fight without honour or humanity. Dieter isn't exactly a clean pretty babyface, but he had a reputation as a more traditional wrestler who could kick ass if necessary, while Morowski was just a big bad bruisin bar room brawler, and there's several moments in this match where Dieter is visibly acquiring Morowski's tactics, as he kept trying to wrestle the big guy down but always found his eyes gouged or hair pulled. It's a really neat roughhouse vs wrestling story and it adds a ton to the match. There's a number of great struggling matwork sequences as a result of it, including the greatest sleeper spot of all time that is just indescribably awesome - Moose tries to choke out Dieter, who breaks the sleeper hold but is still entangled in the bodyscissor, and they do this great struggle punching and clawing at eachother, until Dieter finally gets the upper hand and crushes Morowski's face with these double axe handle blows. Another moment has Dieter desperately trying to stand slugging with Morowski and gets this great takedown that I won't spoil, only to get immediately punched in the face again.

Hey, speaking of that, the punches - that's the real money in this match. Morowski just slays Axel with about a hundred of them, bashes him in the head when standing, knocks him down when he tries to crawl back up, punches him away from his back when he gets a takedown... this ain't Memphis or Mexico, and the match is recorded with one fancam, so there's not much flash, just a bunch of blows that connect and make you feel like you're watching a boxing match. There is some great selling, Dieter just looks completely punch drunk at times and does the greatest heart punch sell I've seen, while Morowski has this really cool selling that he's losing steam. Often, you will see a match where the heel only needs one blow to cut the face off, but this Dieter guy is a really tough bugger, so Morowski has to connect flurries that he keeps coming back from, and when he finally knocks Axel off his feet he does this great exhaustion sell "fuck I'm glad I get a break from hitting this bum". There's even a few moments where he visibly has to adjust his fingers after all the punching. Dieter himself has great varied offense aswell, hellacious elbow smashes and these sick looking boots that he just nails from a standing position, and at one point he has this awesome comeback just punting Moose in the head while hanging in the ropes, but the real story are Morowski's punches. Aside from the wrestling and brawling there's a few whack bumps, including one guy crushing to the hall floor after eating a punch standing on the top rope, which is a pretty shocking bump for germany in 1980, and a couple of heavy looking wrestling moves. The finish is just great and does a nice job wrapping the story of the match up. I might be overrating this a little, as I feel it's dangling between **** 1/2 and **** 3/4, and there's a few moments that some people might find dull when they are wrestling on the mat, but for such a long match it's extremely captivating, and I just love this sort of dirty boxing brawl. It's quite unlike anything else I've ever seen, and it feels like a suitable comparison to matches like Chicana/MS-1 or Lawler/Bill Dundee for Euro stuff.