All Japan Motherload - Stan Hansen/Ron Bass vs. Terry Funk/Genichiro Tenryu - AJPW 4/1/83

ER: Another match with my favorite pairing, Funk vs. Hansen. These two are alway magic with each other and this is no different. I challenge you to find me a better elbow drop than Hansen's. After Hansen caves in Funk's sternum with one in the first 30 seconds it didn't even matter what else happened, this was going to be guaranteed gold. Then you see Hansen's sky high knee drop and you know you've never seen shit better than this in your life. Bass throws nice short uppercuts and does a good poor man's Hansen throughout all of this (very possible Bass would be a guy whose stock would go up if we had more non-WWF footage of him) and Hansen/Funk just keep building and seething and eventually coming to a head with Funk throwing wild windmill punches as Hansen clobbers him with rights, Funk fighting for the spinning toehold while Hansen kicks his face. Tenryu slaps Hansen and then scrambles to tag Funk, scared like you've never seen Tenryu before. Finish is cool as Hansen nails the Western Lariat on Tenryu, who KICKS OUT but cannot get to his feet after the kickout, just had enough muscle memory for the kickout. Hansen punishes him by dragging his lifeless corpse up for a piledriver before kicking his limp body to the floor. This was 10 minutes of the best kind of wrestling.

PAS: I have never seen Ron Bass do much worth in a match, but he was a fine Dan Hansen (Stan Hansen's fake little brother in a regional fed I made up). Hansen v. Funk is one of the best match ups in wrestling history and every time they are in the ring together is gold, Funk take a couple of crazy high Pat Tanaka backdrops which isn't something I think as a Terry Funk thing. Tenryu isn't Tenryu yet, it is weird to see him as young boy, but I loved the Flair flip into the Hansen cheap shot. Young Tenryu also had some neat looking enzigiri's as opposed to what ever old Tenryu did. Count out finish was normal AJ 80s BS but it was at least clever. Fun shit.