On Brand Segunda Caida: Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki '77, Pt. 1

ER: So in all the hoards of new and new to us footage that we've recently come across, we found several Stan Hansen/Antonio Inoki matches from 1977. I can count the wrestlers I like more than Stan Hansen on one hand, and still have some fingers left, but I haven't seen a ton of pre-1978 Stan. Matt thought it would be a great idea to review their series of 1977 singles matches, I needed no convincing, and so here is Part 1 of our look at Hansen-Inoki '77!

Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki NJPW 1/7/77

MD: It's legitimately crazy to think Stan Hansen was ever 27, but here we are. We have five matches between Inoki and Hansen from 77 and we're going to go through them all.

This is the first of what is apparently a three match series. It was a really meaty ten minute match, as you'd expect from Hansen, ten minutes that felt like longer. He was a constant bull charge even this young, though maybe not as inexorable as he would be ten years later. Everything has extra snap and oomph, every headlock, every kneedrop (knee drive?), every slam onto the mat.

I've only seen a few 77 Inoki matches at this point, but what I love the most about him is that in every match he has this one electric moment. A lot of the time (though not always) it's about him coming back into the ring after he was thrown out or was being kept out. It's not always something that's built to. It's a switch that flips and suddenly the whole world changes. Here, he's back in the ring so quickly that Hansen actually begs off and it's believable.

You get the sense that Hansen hadn't fully come into his power yet. When he's knocked out of the ring, it's like the bull ended up in a china shop, the way he stumbles about. Inoki's able to get things on him that no one in the world would a decade later. Still, it's Hansen and he has this element of unpredictability. On his way back in the second time, he almost takes the mic (and its wire) with him.

The second electric moment is even more beautiful than the first. Hansen headstands out of a headscissors (which is an insane visual in and of itself) but when he does the lunge for a headlock, Inoki immediately rolls, making it to his feet like pure lightning and firing away. This leads to the visual fall (an indian deathlock) and interference. This had a small period of Hansen controlling the arm that was pretty dull, but everything else felt sufficiently larger than life. A not-yet-fully-developed Hansen was a really game opponent for Inoki to mount comebacks on.

ER: What a cool start to this little project, a 10 minute slice of familiar yet different action from these two. This was the opening night of the tour - Hansen's first show with NJPW - and he's in the main event against the god of New Japan. What immediately surprised me about this is that Hansen - unbelievably 27 years old, as Matt stated - already felt practically fully formed. The only thing that really seemed absent was his mythos. He still moved the same (that shocked me, since his moveset and movements seemed so mature by the time we got into the Hansen eras I've seen the most, starting 5 years after this), but didn't have that same legend, that same aura, that sent the crowd buzzing every time he threatened to get involved. So here he just looked like a really great big man, not yet swallowing people whole, but a guy you could by being dominated by Inoki just as much as you could buy him dominating Inoki.

Hansen comes off a little inexperienced (which is what gives Inoki openings) and yet still clearly knew his way around the ring. I loved all the moments where Hansen would bail to the floor, especially when he fell into the timekeeper's table, storming around the ring, coming back in with the mic and bullying the ref into the corner. He moved a little more like a giant, which I thought was awesome, Hansen the Giant. You can see it early in the way he misses a chop in the ropes, Inoki ducking out of the way and Hansen flying into the ropes with all his weight, leaving us with the impression that had the chop landed Inoki would have wound up in the front row. Hansen's misses are as big as his hits, which is probably the first thing that drew me to him, a guy who was always going to swing big. He lands his great elbow drops and drops (drives, as Matt accurately put it) knees, but also feels like a big dog running into a room without accounting for how slippery the floor was, leading to moments of him crashing into the wall (or, getting both of his legs drawn and quartered by a cool Inoki grapevine). Tiger Ali Singh and THE BRUTUS run in to beat down Inoki, with cool as hell shirtless and headband adorned Seiji Sakaguchi coming in for the save, letting us know this won't be settled for another week.