Fuchi Friday - Masa Fuchi/Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue v. Mitsuhara Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada/Kenta Kobashi 4/20/91

After watching an old man tag from 2014 All Japan I decided I wanted to watch some more Fuchi. It would be kind of crazy to do a Complete and Accurate on a guy with that long of a televised career, but he isn't often brought up as an all time great, and it feels like he belongs in that discussion.

I haven't revisited 90's All Japan in years, so it was fun to revisit guys the old Four Pillars and Jumbo and Fuchi. I cut my teeth on Kawada and Taue as a tag team, so it was pretty novel to watch them as vicious enemies, the first part of the match was built around Taue cheapshotting Kawada, until Kawada flips out and jumps him until they have to be pulled apart. It wasn't a shoot angle, but it got across the idea that this wasn't going to be a sporting contest, it felt a little ragged the way inter promotional matches often feel like WAR v. NJ with everyone in the same fed.

This was a 50 minute match which didn't lose me, I am fully in the camp now of 14-18 minutes being the perfect time for a match, and I really have little desire to watch anything this long, but this didn't drag at all. There were so many little moments which were cool, along with the big story. Taue gets kicked in the ribs by Kobashi and just slumps in pain like he cracked a rib, Kobashi gets rocket launched to the floor. There is a moment where Kobashi puts Taue in a Boston Crab and Jumbo comes in to smash him, like Tenryu always would, but instead of holding the submission and getting cracked, Kobashi wastes Jumbo with a lariat.

Of course this is Fuchi Friday so I need to talk about that old bastard.  Kobashi gets his knee smashed, and the end run is built around working that over, and no one plays sadistic Japanese prison guard better then Fuchi. He is the wrestling version of Colonel Saito from Bridge Over the River Kwai. When he sees a limping Kobashi he pounces on him ripping and stretching  the hell out of his knee while smirking and taunting Misawa and Kawada, such a dick head.

This is often considered the best All Japan trios of the 90's, although I am going to check out a bunch more. Certainly in the discussion as all six guys were at the peak of their power.

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MLJ: Rush vs Negro Casas 4: Máximo, Negro Casas, Volador Jr. vs La Sombra, Rey Escorpión, Rush (relevos increíbles)

Aired 2014-04-20
taped 2014-04-11 @ Arena México
Máximo, Negro Casas, Volador Jr. vs La Sombra, Rey Escorpión, Rush in a relevos increíbles match

Now this was more like it. As much as I disliked the trios with Stuka, Jr. and Herodes, I liked this. I'd say it was even one of my favorite trios from 2014, though I admittedly have a lot of gaps in what I've seen. Much of what I'll be reviewing in this series, moving forward, I haven't yet seen. That said, they have run a lot of relevos increíbles matches this year, which makes a lot of sense given the dubious nature of Los Ingobernales' affiliation. This match felt a bit more like a bridge, though, with good exchanges, fun storytelling, including what felt like Rush crossing yet another line, and quite a lot of heat.

Volador, Jr. and Sombra have a pretty active past, if not necessarily a storied one. I've seen almost none of it. Though Sombra is almost ten years younger than Volador, they had a very long run as tecnico partners and then a lengthy feud with Volador as the rudo, culminating with Sombra taking his mask in the fall of last year. Afterwards, Volador turned tecnico again and Sombra's, of course, been sliding towards the shadows for most of this year. They've had a ton of title matches, both as partners and against each other, and I've seen none of them. I might be lacking a little bit of context here. Sufficed to say, Sombra is more than happy to work with Rush and Escorpion to beat the living hell out of Volador, despite the fact they're both supposed to be tecnicos. Overjoyed, even. On the other hand, Volador and Casas seem to have an uneasy alliance at best. At least, they did for a moment on the rampway before everyone started pounding on each other as the match began.

As I said, the nature of the Ingobernales make these relevos increíbles matches pretty natural and straightforward. For the sake of this match, Rush and Sombra were rudos and Casas was a tecnico. Rush, Sombra, and Escorpion made for a wildly effective rudo side, triple teaming one opponent and then the next, teaming up to hold one opponent for their partner to get free hits on him, ripping off Volador's shirt, etc. This lasted right up to the point that Maximo charged in and the match became all the more interesting. Maximo spent a lot of the last few years in a trio with Marco Corleone and Rush, after all, and instead of continuing the rudo beatdown, Rush hesitated, sort of nodded, and stepped to the outside. It wasn't until Maximo almost put the kiss of death on Escorpion that he decided to intervene, and even then it's half-hearted. All of this was great foreshadowing for the finish of the fall. After some more mauling of tecnicos, including a massive Sombra dropkick to ridiculously half-shirt wearing Volador, who frankly deserved it for looking like the Miz of Mexico, Volador came back with a springboard double back elbow off the ropes. In the chaos, Maximo nailed Rush with the literal kiss of death and Casas hit la casita for the pin.

There are lots of ways to sell getting kissed by an exotico who just happened to be your longtime friend and partner in the middle of a match. You could do it comedically or you could brush it off pridefully or remember your friendship and the fact that you involved yourself with the triple teaming first and take the high ground. You could do any of those things. Or you could completely lose it and beat him to an utter pulp. That's what Rush did here and it was pretty glorious. Between the falls, he just unloaded on Maximo, beating him around the ring and then outside against the guardrail, making the fans all the more angry at him.

Really, from this point, it didn't let up. Almost the entire segunda caida consisted of the
rudos beating the living hell out of the tecnicos. There was a brief reset to start the fall once the chaos of Rush unloading on Maximo got cleared up but it all broke down again quickly. Volador somehow got a new shirt and hit a massive dive off the top of the stage onto Sombra, but it didn't do him much good. Sombra recovered first and rushed into the ring  to help his partners win the numbers game. By the time Volador made it back, the rudos had enough of an advantage that they were able to tape him to the corner, and that was the beginning of the end. This was one of those story devices that if overused would get really tedious, but since they don't use it much, it became super effective here in building heat.

With Volador taped up and unable to leave the corner, the rudos wore down his partners and continued to beat on him. Ultimately, they got in an incredibly believable hope spot, one that you could really get behind where Volador, taped in the corner, hit a superkick and Casas rushed the ring, tossing Rush out, but when Casas went for his seated senton dive to the outside from the apron, Rush turned it into a power bomb. A moment later, Maximo whiffed on a dive as Escorpion side-stepped, and all three rudos came back into the ring to continue the beating on Volador. Tirantes, ever the valiant ref, tried to stop this and call off the fall, but Escorpion pushed him first, and then, crossing maybe his third line in the match, Rush shoved him over, leading to the DQ. The tecnicos won the match but it only got worse after that, as they taped Volador's legs to the ropes as well and continued the beating.

In some ways it was more of a spectacle than a match, which might keep it off best of the year lists, and there really weren't a ton of memorable exchanges, but I liked it a lot. Sombra was incredible effective as a rudo, showing this visceral hate for Volador and destroying him in the corner with elbows and fists and knees. Rush is probably the most interesting wrestler to watch in the world and his character work here was a lot of fun. Just a solid performance all around and a very interesting scenario that left me wanting to see more. We'll see if they overdo these relevos increíbles matches as the year goes on though.

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