Nobody will ever throw a better suplex than Gary Albright
One of the most underrated wrestlers of all time quietly put together one of the best collections of matches in Japan in the '90s.
I don’t think there is any pro wrestler who is more similar to a grizzly bear than Gary Albright.
What I mean by that is, aside from obvious physical similarities — Albright is huge and thick and wide, particularly so when matched up against most Japanese workers — wrestlers face Albright as if they’re facing a grizzly bear. That is, they know that once he gets his paws on them, they’re fucked.
It didn’t matter how strong or how fast or how big the opponent was, if Albright got his hands on them, they were going for a fucking ride. And what makes Albright’s matches so unique is, his opponents knew this, and would actively try as hard as possible to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Few things in wrestling are as satisfying as watching Gary Albright lock his hands around someone, lift them up, and throw them right on their fucking head. There was a beauty to it, a majesty. It was as if he was acting like a geometrical compass, sending his opponent in an arc so perfect you could trace a perfect curved line from beginning to end. I see a Gary Albright suplex and it makes me want to start calculating the velocity upon impact, the torque, the acceleration.
Albright, if not made obvious by his gear and his style, had an amateur wrestling background from the University of Nebraska. He would take this style and for the most part leave it unaltered for his wrestling career. It’s what made his matches so different. He had his style, and the opponents would have to find a way to work with it or they would be destroyed.
Trained by classical technicians like Billy Robinson, Danny Hodge and Lou Thesz, Albright started his career at Stampede Wrestling in 1988 as Vokhan Singh, the right-hand man of Makhan Singh (the future Norman the Lunatic and Bastion Booger). Albright was still green at this point and was using a more traditional style as compared to the style he would adopt in Japan. But the core was there, he always had that suplex.
After a sip of coffee in Memphis, Albright would begin his Japanese career in UWF-I, acting as a rival for the ace of the promotion, Nobuhiko Takada.
What made his matches great in UWF-I weren’t just his suplexes, but the anticipation of the suplexes. Just listen to the crowd in any big match Gary Albright had in the promotion. As soon as he locked his hands around his opponents waist, the crowd would scream their heads off. The move hadn’t even happened yet. It was the fact they knew the guy was fucked, just because Albright finally got a hold of him.
Albright would act as a thorn in Takada’s side at the beginning of the promotion, someone he could never get one over on for a lengthy time. Takada had to figure out Albright, how to avoid his suplexes, and what to do if Albright got a hold of him. This made him even more over to the crowd when he became the first guy to actually stop the suplex, and ultimately defeat Albright.
In 1995, Albright would depart UWF-I for All Japan Pro Wrestling. He would have a series of great matches here, but in my opinion, he was never used to his fullest potential. His singles matches would rarely make tape and he spent much of his time there relegated to multi-man and tag team matches.
That said, what footage there is of Albright in AJPW is still tremendous. The man managed to have a series of great matches with Toshiaki Kawada, a criminally underrated Triple Crown championship match with Mitsuharu Misawa, and a number of other great performances in tag teams with the likes of Stan Hansen and Steve Williams.
Tragically, Albright died from a heart attack in January 2000. I can’t help but think Albright would have had a tremendous future in wrestling had he lived on, whether he had stayed with AJPW post-Noah split or had gone along with the roster to Noah himself. Either way, he almost certainly would have received a push with Noah making major adjustments in its roster hierarchy, pushing wrestlers like Tamon Honda and Yoshinari Ogawa higher up the card, or in AJPW where they were desperate for any name talent.
I can only imagine the great matches he could have had with Genichiro Tenryu or Keiji Muto in AJPW, or with an improved Yoshihiro Takayama or Jun Akiyama. Hell, he probably would have had a GHC title shot against Kenta Kobashi. And just imagine what he and KENTA could have done together.
I’m going to dive deeper on some specific Albright matches I love later on. If you’d like a head start, here’s a list of some of my favorite matches from his career:
Gary Albright vs Nobuhiko Takada - 5/8/92
Gary Albright vs Vader - 1/16/95
Gary Albright vs Toshiaki Kawada - 10/25/95
Gary Albright vs Mitsuharu Misawa - 3/2/96
Gary Albright & Sabu vs Kenta Kobashi & The Patriot - 11/29/96
Gary Albright & Steve Williams vs Yoshihiro Takayama & Masahito Kakihara - 5/1/98