New Footage Friday: Rey, Eddie, Bossman, Dr. Death, Misawa, Kobashi, Kikuchi, Taue, Fuchi

Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue/Mighty Inoue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi AJPW 3/31/91

ER: These matches are nearly impossible to mess up, just the breeziest way to throw a bunch of fun guys together and have 20 minutes of gold. You really only need one decent guy on each team to make a trios work, guys can be hidden, kickouts can be at a minimum due to saves, more ways to build drama and sustain the peak run. So a match like this is just about always gonna be gravy. We get a bunch of great fireworks, the first good one being Jumbo literally tripping and falling while getting into the ring for the first time and immediately being swarmed by orange piranha Kobashi. I really dug Mighty Inoue in this. He's not a guy I seek out, but he's a guy right in the middle of one of my favorite promotions during the best times, and here he's Jumbo's little pitbull hitman who targets Kikuchi. Inoue drops a bunch of knees into Kikuchi's stomach, hits a slick as hell gourdbuster, roughs him up on the floor, really doing the bidding by taking out the weakest member of SGA. Also loved how big Inoue then bumped around whenever he was in with Misawa and Kobashi. Hierarchy is such an integral part to Kings Road, really adds so much substance to any of these matches. I really liked Jumbo's non-physical interactions with Misawa, like continually yelling at him to get back to his corner while Taue and Inoue are throwing Kikuchi around ringside, tattling on Misawa to the ref, or when he locks Kikuchi into an extremely high angle Boston crab while FACING Misawa, then casually breaking the hold when Misawa finally gets in the ring. Internet troll Jumbo is the best. Obviously you knew when Jumbo and Misawa eventually threw down it was going to slay, and it did,  but I love how the other guys were the focal point here. You could see the Misawa/Jumbo tension from the apron, while the other 4 guys were having a nicely spirited match. Finishing stretch was cool, loved that tandem Jumbo backdrop/Taue top rope nodowa otoshi (god why do I still remember that's what it's called), and dug that it got a fairly shocking kickout. BUT, I also love that right after Jumbo just drops Kobashi with another backdrop, and holds him down with that full body pin. This match had me at "90s All Japan Trios Match".

MD: I'm much more of an early-90s AJPW than mid-90s AJPW guy. The excess hadn't quite calcified yet. I'm pretty sure this match is new, but I'm no expert on this. It wasn't first pick for us in two ways. We'd intended to do one of the matches that we'll do next week and I just had the wrong card, and then this was listed as Fuchi instead of Inoue. There are variations of this six man with Fuchi or Kawada instead.

This was as good as you'd expect for a 20 minute house show variation with these guys. They started with armwork on Inoue, containing and controlling him as he was the weak-link of his team size wise. Even though everyone on the other side was potentially a force, I thought this opening bit still built up anticipation. You had a sense that things would shift if Inoue could just get Jumbo or Taue in there.

Then Jumbo DOES get in, only to trip through the ropes comedically, immediately getting pounced on by Kobashi as the fans laugh. I watched this a second time and it's a little over the top not to be a spot but one great thing about a match like this is that it all feels totally organic and natural. People pounce on openings, intended or accidental and Jumbo has to go around the circle of getting beat on a bit until he can force and opening and take back over.

There's a similar moment later on where they'd been working on Kikuchi's gut for a bit (which is a natural for Jumbo's offense but Inoue hit a mean gutbuster too), and Taue comes in and oafishly goes straight for big power gestures instead, almost immediately missing a back elbow in the corner (he'd hit that later on to turn the tide though, which is the sort of attention of detail I love in this stuff). Was the intended thought really supposed to be that Kikuchi was able to escape because Taue made a mistake and left the gut? Maybe? Probably? Probably not? But organically it worked. Because of the fact they never, ever let up, they give you a ton of dots to craft narratives out of if you are so inclined.

There were a couple of pin attempts after huge bombs (top rope Kobashi DDT, assisted top rope Belly to Back by Jumbo and Taue) where I wish there'd been a break-up instead of a kick-out, but partners were menacing and that presence might be enough to justify a distraction and the kick-out. Otherwise, this was really good, just the sort of solid six man they were doing night in and night out.

PAS: Great Kikuchi performance as he takes one of his traditional huge beatings (Jumbo especially seems gleeful if he has a chance to beat on Kikuchi), Kikuchi gets popped in the stomach a bunch of times and a lot of elbows dropped on hist throat, he has some great moments of fire fighting back, including some big elbows that even looked good in a match with Misawa in it. Jumbo tripping on the ropes was either an accident, or Jumbo trying to humanize himself to become a Hollywood star. I could watch AJPW six mans all day and it is exciting that they keep showing up.

Dr. Death Steve Willams/Big Bossman vs. Kenta Kobashi/Mitsuharu Misawa AJPW 11/24/93

ER: WOW. This match has been out there and aired on TV, but I'm not sure I've ever seen it complete. It starts with cool Dr. Death matwork, nabbing a cool single leg on Misawa and a rad forced drop toehold on Kobashi that I don't remember. I have a lousy memory, so it's possible I just forgot the early stretches, but who cares. This match rules and I will volunteer to write about it yearly no matter its availability. Plus we get a really great handheld of it which really puts you there in there in the crowd, the difference between a quality Dead soundboard or a middle of the crowd taper's recording. Both versions offer different value. And this was a crowd you wanted to be in the middle of because this was a fucking molten crowd, one of those crowds who is losing their minds for the whole last half of the match. Which is the appropriate reaction for this. Bossman and Doc are a great team, that only teamed during this Tag League, and they're a great complementary team. Both are big bullies but find really impressive ways to combine signature offense into weird double teams, like Bossman doing his big windup uppercut under Kobashi's chin before Doc drops Kobashi directly on his head with a vertical backdrop driver. Kobashi lies on his stomach with limbs fanned out for long enough afterward that you buy that something has gone terribly wrong; or Doc hitting the Oklahoma Stampede but with Bossman kind of backpacking Doc so they both their weight lands on Kobashi.

I loved the build to all of this, as we settle into Misawa playing the hardest hitting Ricky Morton, getting worked over by a prison guard and a death doctor, fighting back with elbows but being bull rushed into the corner in an awesome moment by Bossman, eating a tiger suplex and doctor bomb, really making that Kobashi hot tag hot as hell. There's too many fun moments to note, too many great big things and too many perfect little things, all of it structured magnificently. Every Bossman '93 AJPW appearance is really a gem, truly worth of a mini C&A (crushing that we don't have stuff like he and Doc vs. Slinger/Smothers, but alas), and the guy moved with remarkable speed. He's been much fatter in his career, he's been much smaller, but I think this run might be his best combination of size and speed. That sequence where he and Kobashi go back and forth, out of the ring, back in, Bossman eats a dropkick and bounces off the middle rope, firing back and crushing Kobashi. How cool does it look when a huge dude bounces off the middle rope? I mean it's awesome when Negro Casas does it, but a guy who is the size of Casas and Felino and Heavy Metal combined doing it is just going to be way cooler.

Kobashi's hot tag could have been a little more, I mean your boy ate a long beating from two monsters, don't come in and hit your rolling cradle, but you got a cool glimpse of Kobashi as Baba's trainee, making the best use of that hangman's clothesline; the hangman's clothesline is best used as a defense, but too many people use it as an offense. It always looks bad when someone runs at his opponent and does it, but here it looked fantastic as Bossman charged FAST at Kobashi and Kobashi's only option is to leap up with his arm hooked and extended, letting Bossman's speed and size work against him. It looked like Kobashi just roped the biggest meanest bull at the state fair. The match featured at least 8 very convincing nearfalls, all things that could have plausibly ended the match, and it felt like we were right there with them. I genuinely think this ranks up with the best matches of 1993, from anywhere.

MD: Just the coolest match. I'm not even going to try to break this thing down. You don't have to. You're watching this to see Kobashi lock Bossman into a rolling cradle, or for the double Oklahoma Slam, or for the Bossman punch into the German, or for Misawa flipping Bossman around on his second kick-up enziguri into a forearm into the back of the skull. This was just full of cool stuff, especially from Doc and Bossman. Williams could be hit or miss but here he was firing on all cylinders and had an aura of pure energy. Bossman on the other hand wasn't wildly outside what you'd expect. This isn't Hogan-in-Japan doing weird go-behinds or anything. It doesn't need to be. Standard Ray Traylor is pretty awesome and this was just a little more of it than usual with the gamest opponents in the world. Heels took most of this, but the finishing stretch was really good with perfectly time break-ups. This is the most fun you'll have watching wrestling this week, and yeah, I know there's a PPV on Sunday. Speaking of that, and as an aside, we could have done the new AWA tag team battle royal but Phil thinks all battle royals are terrible and no one wants to read Eric and I do a live watch chat exchange on it. We did this instead. Watch it and smile.

PAS: This was classic stuff, Bossman is so good in All Japan you wish that he was a full timer like Hansen or Willams. Bossman is so good at sequences, there will be a regular match going on and then Bossman will break out some intricate rope running exchanges and big counters and attacks, it is almost like watching a great luchadore with a signature rope running spot, like when Santo gets it rolling. I loved it when Bossman just palm stroked Misawa directly in the forehead, it felt like he must have left a palm print right between his eyes. The Bossman uppercut into the Williams backdrop driver felt like an all time great signature spot, which may have never happened before or after. Great finish run,  I loved how the german suplex near fall at the end had the entire audience popping out of their seats like they just witnessed someone getting SportCenter dunked on.

ER: I have a feeling I was intentionally left out of the conversations where the AWA battle royal was even on the table as one of our options.

Eddie Guerrero vs. Rey Mysterio WWE 4/8/05 (Password is watch)

PAS: What a treat to get a chance to watch a new Eddie Guerrero match, he was at his absolute peak in 2005, someone who had just mastered professional wrestling. Rey is an all time great, top 10 all time at a minimum,   and he felt like a passenger here, that is how amazing 2005 Eddie Guerrero was. I am not sure of the time line of this feud, but Eddie wasn't true evil in this match, just a little dirty. The kind of guy who will pose with a girl fighting cancer, but also fake a handshake and poke Rey in the eyes. We get some really solid nifty mat wrestling to start with Eddie working over the arm, and them doing some cool spots out of a short arm scissors. Eddie takes both a back body drop and a monkey flip and no one ever took them better. All of the shtick and matwork leads us perfectly to a super hot finish with them hitting a bunch of their signature spots, leading perfectly to the classic Splash Mountain rana counter. House show HH's of this feud are some of my footage holy grails (apparently they worked bloody brawls on house shows as well) , so I was thrilled that this showed up.

MD: This is magic. Pro wrestling magic. Everything from the beginning with Eddy coming out with the kid, to the disciplined easing into things with deliberate, meaningful wrestling to start, to Eddy nailing Rey with the world's most beautiful eye poke, and the pure fluidity of them hitting their spots. I was frustrated we didn't get the Splash Mountain > Rana spot the first time Rey was sitting backwards on the top so I'm glad they went back to it. The counter exchange in the finishing stretch felt a bit lived in, but in a good way, not a bad one. Eddy, at this point in his career, had all but transcended the limitations of pro wrestling as a character. He was a primal archetype. You couldn't help but love him, no matter what he did. It's always good to go back and see it in real time just once more.