Aoyagi Drank Enough Whiskey to Float a Battleship Around

Masashi Aoyagi vs. Tony Halme NJPW 10/17/91 - EPIC

PAS: This is another undiscovered Tony Halme masterpiece. I had no idea early 90s Tony Halme was such an awesome killing machine. This was a Karate vs. Boxing mixed match, and Aoyagi is great at these kind of hyrbid fights. First round had both guys working their opponents into corners, with Halme using his pulverizing body shots, and Aoyagi winging head and body kicks.  Aoyagi takes over during the second round, really working over Halme's mid section with knees and kicks, Halme is great at selling fatigue and being winded as he is stumbling around the ring, however he is still able to drop Aoyagi with one body shot. Second round ends with a really cool back and forth exchange. Third round is what pushes this into EPIC territory. Aoyagi gets a quick knockdown with a spin kick, Halme barely beats the 10 count and Aoyagi flies at him to finish him off and leaps right into a huge right hand. Aoyagi beats the count, but a second monster right hand floors him for good.  Great stuff, Halme doesn't have a lot of different songs to sing, but he sings the fuck out of this one song.

ER: There's no way my run through WWF Ludvig Borga matches is going to be anywhere near as fun as these two Tony Halme boxing gems, but I don't care, Tony Halme was awesome. The thing that really put this match over for me was how bonkers the crowd kept getting, the longer it went. These fans were loving it, flipping out for Aoyagi, but at one point chanting for Halme! Halme is hulking in this, really dwarfing Aoyagi, and he throws these huge haymakers all match. Aoyagi is squirmier than Hashimoto so a lot of the shots graze, and Aoyagi's strategy becomes to just throw everything at Halme all at once and hope kicks start to land. Halme's best strategy is to bully Aoyagi into a corner and start throwing blows to Aoyagi's slumping body, and I love how he kept going back to that tactic, and as Aoyagi started landing more and more kicks Halme got more desperate to get him in that corner, finally picking him up and tossing him into the corner (the only non-strike in the match). Aoyagi threw all kinds of wicked kicks right to the gut and liver and spleen. Halme does some of my absolute all time favorite selling, contiually getting buckled at the waist by kicks, stumbling perfectly into position for the next kicks while selling being out of gas, really great stuff. Aoyagi even gets the crowd amped by aping Inoki vs. Ali with a legsweep! At one point Halme gut punches Aoyagi to the mat, and holds himself up by resting glove first on Aoyagi's back. Tremendous moment. Aoyagi gets a big moment at the end of the R2 by hitting a leaping spin kick to floor Halme. Halme has this great staggered dazed walk back to the end of his corner. But just like Hashimoto, Aoyagi smelled blood and aggressively went right back to that well, only to get knocked right out of the sky by a Halme right hand. Not long after that Halme belts him straight across the cheek, perfectly captured by our mystery filmmaker. You can even hear the wind flow out of the filmmaker's sails after that punch, his voice clearly knowing Aoyagi wasn't getting up. Awesome spectacle.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI