10 Most Criminally Underrated Wrestlers In History
4. The Can-Am Express
The 1990s tandem of Doug Furnas and Phil LaFon are never remembered as a highlight of the last great decade of tag team wrestling.
It's understandable; they were at their best in All Japan Pro Wrestling, the preserve of the hardcore tape trader. Their status as diehard favourites was reinforced with a great stint in ECW, but as journeymen they weren't there long enough to become synonymous with it. Their subsequent run in the WWF was so insipid - blighted by injury and a lack of creative attention - that they were despatched back to ECW to help season Brakkus and Droz, two acts who never stood a chance of reaching their awesome level. The wider perception of Furnas and LaFon was one of a team who weren't cut out for the big time, and it's a damn shame. At their mercurial peak, they were as over in Japan as even the most despised of famed foreign menaces.
Exhibit A: Their match opposite Kenta Kobashi and Tsuyoshi Kikuchi on May 25, 1992 is among the greatest ever held anywhere. The heat was absolutely off the charts. Kikuchi took such a sympathetic battering that it's impossible to believe he never became a major star.
Perhaps that was more an appraisal of LaFon's heel work than Kikuchi's fire. When he trapped Kikiuchi in a deep Boston Crab, he turned to Kobashi with a sh*t-eating grin and almost dared him to make the save. It was his nuanced body language that elevated the match from something thrilling to something totally emotive. He (and Furnas) were rarely utilised correctly in the west.