Bart Gunn Matches

 Bart Gunn & Johnny Ace vs. Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama, AJPW 6/9/1999

I imagine the 20 or so diehard traders of Japanese tapes who existed at this time scoffed at MOVEMENT, the team of Johnny Ace and Bart Gunn/Mike Barton. Even today some people scoff at Aces AJPW work, saying he was carried. But fuck that because Johnny Ace ruled and he was hanging and banging with Kobashi and Akiyama and post-Brawl 4 All Bart is such a great character and nothing to scoff at. The opening of this is really solid and full of cool little moments with real emphasis placed on solid moves like a Kobashi hitting a stalling vertical suplex on chunky Johnny Ace, or Barts really high jumping dropkick. The fun begins when Ace hits a surprise Ace Crusher to Akiyama on a chair outside the ring. We get a really solid control segment with Ace and Gunn really stretching Akiyamas rattled head and neck, building to Kobashi getting the hot tag only for Ace to catch him with a surprise Ace Crusher after an awesome sequence that was like a fast junior sequence except done by chunky heavyweights. They build to Akiyama getting another nice hot tag and it sets up this really awesome second half of the match with Ace busting out his awesome Ace Crushers left and right to crack people and Bart threatening to KO Kobashi with his dreaded punch. Bart looks absolutely massive so when he gets dropped on his neck with a half nelson suplex or Exploder it's double awesome. The nearfalls towards the end of this are real edge of the seat stuff, you get awesome moments like Gunn & Ace busting out a fucking Splash Mountain into a Neckbreaker, Akiyama getting absolutel spiked on Aces Cobra Clutch suplex, Kobashi being saved from a dangerous move at the last moment etc. Great shit and felt like MOVEMENT were putting it all together and working their absolute A-game to contain the power of BURNING.

Bart Gunn vs. Hardcore Holly, WWF 2/16/1999

The two sides of wrestling in 1999! This is Barts only WWF match besides the Butterbean fight in 1999, and he wouldn't come back until 2003 when he did 2 dark matches teaming with Jim Steele. This is a hardcore title match. While the hardcore title was mostly supposed to be comedic I guess, but these two work it without any humor at all, Holly hits hard as fuck, boots to the face and hard punches and they keep bringing out more and more  ridiculous props to smash over each others heads. Both guys take hard as fuck bumps on the steel ramp and then they just keep killing each other with the ring bell, a crate of bananas, water melons, a bag of flour etc. Finish has some guy in a weird mask doing a run in on Bart and throwing him off the stage with Bart taking this sick as fuck shoulder bump through a table. Brutal and comical stuff.