1970 Match of the Year

Gene Kiniski/Johnny Valentine vs. Giant Baba/Antonio Inoki JWA 2/1/70

PAS: I thought this was delightful, just an absolute banger of a match, with all four guys just unloading on each other. We don't have much Valentine footage, but every time he shows up, he looks like an all time great. He and Baba especially just go to war. Baba is so fast moving in this match, it is really jarring, and he goes toe to toe with Valentine and matches his stiffness. I loved his little chops to the neck, chest and head, total rapid fire and nasty. Valentine really knows how to make it hurt, the series of elbow drops he finished the second fall with felt trachea smushing, especially the second rope one. Kiniski is a great sneaky cheap shotter too, with some great looking body shots. One of the stiffer 70s matches I can remember seeing, Johnny Valentine was working on a whole different frequency of nasty.

ER: At some point - literal decades ago, by this point - I assumed all wrestling pre-80s was just one guy holding a headlock for 45 minutes before getting a pin with a bodyslam. Time has, again and again, proven me wrong, in more ways than just my teenage pro wrestling opinions. This is a special tag that is nothing but 4 tough guys smacking each other around the ring, and that's always going to be my favorite thing. I love Baba, but I have never seen Baba move like this. This is maybe the most "larger than life" I've ever seen Baba, as he moves as quickly as a normal size human and hits as hard (harder?) than anybody in the match. Baba feels like a boss battle in this match, and you've never seen Baba chops more violent than this. Johnny Valentine isn't someone I've seen a ton of, but to me he feels like one of the greatest strike salesmen in history. He's known for his legendary toughness, but watching him put over strikes this whole match was maybe my favorite thing about it. Baba's chops had enough mustard that you wouldn't really have much of a choice to sell them, but Valentine had a ton of different ways to whip his head around, squint his eyes, grit his teeth, absorb shots quietly or dramatically, really a guy who felt like he knew exactly how strong to put over his opponent with just his mannerisms. I wouldn't have thought Valentine vs. Baba was a war made in heaven, but here we have 30 minutes of proof (with sadly 20 minutes lopped off the front).

Gene Kiniski is a legend, and a guy I've barely seen in his prime. Here he is in his early 40s and he has a genuine claim to being the best guy in the match. The fireworks were Baba and Valentine trading shots, but Kiniski was the generator powering this whole facility. He had a real workmanlike attention to details, no half routes from him, the difference between practical effects and CGI. There are men who approximate pro wrestling, and then there are guys like Finlay who show you exactly how and why every move works. Kiniski is obviously in that camp. He's got hunched shoulders and a mug that looks like it's changed shape over the years from fighting, and the man understands how to make a move mean something. He does a drop toehold in this match that looked like it could fell a tree. He also whips up the crowd into such a lather with his bullshit, that fans throw actual garbage at him. Have you ever seen fans throwing garbage during a match of a major promotion IN JAPAN?? Kiniski and Valentine have big reputations as asskickers and tough guys, and they deliver on that, but their ability to work a crowd and be MORE than tough guys was amazing to see.

I loved the babyface hero team of Baba and Inoki. We get to see Inoki the charismatic hero before he made the most cocky and important decision of his life. You watch him with those eyes, and he looks like a megastar. It's also alarming that Baba felt like so much more of a star in the match than Inoki did. Baba looked stronger, faster, AND like a bigger star than Inoki in this match. The first one isn't as surprising, the second one is very surprising, and the third of those might be most surprising of all. Seeing these two teaming together during such a formative year of their lives was special. No wonder people love pro wrestling.


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