Shinya Hashimoto Has the Longest Blackest Hair and the Greenest Eyes Anywhere

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Randy Thornton NJPW 5/13/91 - GREAT

PAS: Thornton is the future Swoll of No Limit Soldiers fame, years before his legendary WCW run. This is in the midst of the Hashimoto vs Tony Halme feud, and is clearly a warm up for Hashimoto. It's worked rounds style and Thornton is wearing kickboxing gloves, and while he was working as a kickboxer, it was pretty clear that he didn't have a ton of training (or couldn't translate it to wrestling) as he was throwing this weak looping punches and awkward off balance kicks. Hash is great at working these kind of matches, but future Swoll wasn't giving him much to work with. At some point Hash just snaps and beats the shit out of this dude, hitting a big forearm to the head, spin kick to the temple and a suplex where he pretty rudely drops him. Not great, but I would still be into seeing Hashimoto vs 4x4.

ER: Counterpoint to Phil: TOTALLY GREAT. If this isn't a holy grail for you then you might not be a person that I would invite into my house to watch professional wrestling with. We all remember the legendary run of the No Limit Soldiers in WCW, having recently celebrated their 19th anniversary as a team/stable/phenomenon. And you obviously remember Swoll during this run. Sometime last year I realized that he had worked two matches for New Japan 8 years before his celebrated WCW run. I didn't realize this because in New Japan he was working under a pseudonym - Kevin Thornton - instead of using his birth name of Swoll (ne Swoll Novak) as he would in WCW. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during any of Swoll's conversations with other WCW wrestlers. "Yeah, I've wrestled before. In Japan, 8 or so years ago. The company? I think it was something like New Japan? Oh yeah, ask Scott Norton. My match was after his. Or ask Steiner." I guarantee you Brad Armstrong thought he was being ribbed. And this match rules. Thornton is a kickboxer and very tall, Hashimoto has a big beard and a big scowl. Thornton throws a bunch of nice shots to the back of Hash's head, Hash rushes him to break up the rhythm of his kicks, and Thornton starts wisely going to the ropes whenever Hash tries to grab him. At a certain point Hashimoto clearly gets tired of getting punched in the back of the head, and just burst out of the corner and blasts Thornton with a nasty forearm that sends him down hard. Hash hits a big spinkick, and starts throwing his big roundhouse kicks before deadlifting him and just planting him with a hardway Saito suplex, setting up an armbar. This was the best, and everything you wanted, if you wanted Hashimoto versus PROTO SWOLL. Which you did.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SHINYA HASHIMOTO