New Footage Friday: All Japan 11/19/90

Masa Fuchi/Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Ricky Santana/Doug Furnas

MD: In general, it's astounding that these AJPW Handhelds are as well-shot as they are. Occasionally you're bound to get a match like this where there's just nothing the poor guy shooting can do to capture the action. We got glimpses of Furnas powering people about, maybe the tiniest hints that Ogawa was starting to put a few things together, a buzz for Fuchi doing awesome Fuchi things, and some energetic stuff (stooging? flying? who knows!) from Santana, but mostly, we're looking at the back of people's heads. Ah well.

ER: Matches like these remind me how often I take handhelds for granted. For all the amazing handheld footage we have of various territories and eras, we don't really have a ton where 75% of the match is blocked by someone's head. What we do see are some moments that make Doug Furnas come off like a monster heel, Fuchi like a VERY relevant 36 year old (that man was prematurely shunted to openers and old man trios), and Ogawa like a guy that big crowds are really getting behind. Furnas had this kickass muscular athlete spot where he hit a press slam and then did a back handspring into a running shoulderblock that sent Ogawa flying. Fuchi works super fast exchanges and comes in at the end to hit a sick kneedrop off the top rope. Fans went nuts thinking they were seeing Ogawa pin Furnas with a nice bridging German, but Furnas knows just how to egg them on and rubs their faces in a strong belly to belly. 


Mitsuo Momota/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith

MD: This one we could see clearly and it was fairly good stuff. Johnny Smith didn't have Davey's likability and oafish charisma, but he was a physical force and very athletic. In some ways, his edge synced better with Dynamite's. Kikuchi already had a lot going for him in 1990: His stuff snapped, he could draw sympathy, and he had fire in his comebacks. Momota was fine here but he worked best as an underdog and Kikuchi was there to play that role. Good finish, getting him out of the way for the bodyslam tombstone and headbutt.

ER: I really like the Dynamite/Smith team. Smith is a sound wrestler but pretty colorless, and Dynamite is a broken down 32. But the team dynamic is stronger than the Bulldogs dynamic would have been at this point, as Dynamite doesn't have to provide nearly as much flash and instead can rely on his strengths as an asshole. Here he's mostly utilized as a guy stopping Kikuchi's momentum and saving Smith, and it works really well. Dynamite looks and acts like a real tough guy piece of shit, with his slicked back hair and sideburns, and I loved every instance of him breaking up a pin with a boot to the back of someone's head, stopping a Kikuchi Boston Crab with the hardest chop of the match, and coming in late to smack Kikuchi off the top rope. We missed the first couple minutes of this, and that's likely where most of the Dynamite/Momota exchanges happened. The little bit we got looked great, with Momota working some fast juniors exchanges and then stopping Kid short with a straight kneelift. Dynamite's finishing 1-2 was really nasty, deadlifting Kikuchi into a scoop tombstone (that had to be hell on his back) and hitting a crippled (but still crazy) version of his top rope headbutt that inadvertently adds a forearm across Kikuchi's throat. This was a different Dynamite Kid than his uninjured heyday, but this iteration of him sees him picking and choosing how to use his fading athleticism, while increasing the emotional heft of his selling (the way he sells a falling headbutt looks like he rung his own bell). It's a different way of doing things, but I always get engaged seeing a wrestler operating at his base muscle memory. 


Haruka Eigen/Motoshi Okuma vs. The Land of Giants (Skywalker Nitron/Butch Masters)

MD: Eigen and Okuma get a solid B- for effort in trying to fend off Masters and Nitron, including chaining some strikes together to finally get one of them down, but the finish was inevitable from the start. Land of the Giants had presence due to their size and worked best when hammering down on their opponents or lifting them up. Their other strikes, including the kicks in the corner? Less so. This was still effective enough in presenting an attraction and making fans wonder how a more accomplished team might fare against them.

ER: Man, the fans in Niigata LOVED The Land of Giants. At least during their entrance. When the two giants stormed out and ambushed the natives you'd think the crowd was watching the Road Warriors. Land of the Giants might be the actual worst of the big league Road Warriors knockoffs, but I'll always think a pair of teaming giants has a high floor, no matter how glaring their weaknesses might be. And there are weaknesses. Nitron is very tentative with all of his stuff, almost always double pumping or stuttering a bit before making a move. Masters has a lot more confidence and has better timing, but neither of them have good strikes. It shouldn't be difficult for two legitimately huge guys to just swing their arms and voila, Good Looking Strikes, but pro wrestling doesn't really work that way. The best stuff here came from Okuma and Eigen making inroads and the fans getting excited about the distant prospect of an upset. Okuma especially got them fired up, taking advantage of a (really nice looking) missed Masters avalanche and helping Eigen knock him to the mat. I laughed at Eigen grabbing a single leg and Okuma kicking Master's plant leg out from under him, and Okuma misses his diving headbutt by whipping his forehead down into the mat. I also really loved Okuma's delayed reaction sell of the double big boot, looking up at them as if to say "TWO boots??" before falling to his back. The assisted legdrop is a cool finisher for Land of the Giants, but of course Nitron hesitates twice before finally lifting Masters. 

Rusher Kimura/Mighty Inoue vs. Stan Hansen/Dan Spivey

MD: Mighty Inoue really wrestled like a million bucks, but here he also got exposed as being really tiny. What was striking, however, was that Hansen and Spivey actually made him LOOK like a million bucks here, letting Inoue outmaneuver them. That lasted right til the end where he somehow rode Hansen's attempt to interfere into his somersault senton and took Hansen out (and literally out of the ring) before the distraction had him walk right into the Spivey Spike DDT. Kimura was only in for a little, but but he got to give Hansen a taste of his own medicine with the world's longest eyerake. If Inoue was two or three inches taller, he could have been one of the biggest stars of the 80s. Sometimes you get these bizarre house show performances where Hansen will give a ton to someone, like we saw some months back with Blackwell. Here, though, Inoue made it all seem earned. 

ER: This is a great house show curiosity, a match that looks like a surefire on-paper steamrolling and instead is worked as if the teams were equals. Hansen and Spivey paid a lot of reverence to the two old men (Rusher Kimura here is 8 years older than I presently am), with Spivey selling Rusher's headbutt like a real momentum shifter multiple times. Hansen runs over several audience members on the way to the ring, but he generously sells for Inoue, and the two big men getting knocked around by two smaller/older guys is incredibly entertaining. Spivey was smart about what to sell, not going down for every move but every other move, consistently selling the headbutts as a big move but merely getting knocked on his heels by shoulderblocks and lariats. Rusher has a fun hot tag where he punches Spivey right in the neck, Inoue hits a big bulldog on Spivey and has a great run of flying shoulder tackles (including one that Hansen bumps to the floor), but he misses his beautiful somersault senton right after disposing of Hansen and Spivey pounces with his spike DDT. I always get excited for new All Japan handhelds, because there are always weirdo gems like these where we get glimpses of guys working outside of the established All Japan hierarchy.


Dr. Death/Terry Gordy vs. Kenta Kobashi/Johnny Ace

MD: We get a few really good minutes of footage if you skip past the handheld issues that start this video out. There's a 50% chance that's all you'd get anyway with a match like this if it was filmed for the TV, so I can't complain too much. The clarity comes in right when Williams had Kobashi in a bear hug and the fans were going nuts for him to escape. Instead he ate a belly to belly. From what we could see, everyone looked great. Ace is an underrated apron cheerleader, not that this crowd needed much leading. Kobashi had been in the spotlight for about a year and a half at this point and he definitely already had It here, working from underneath and unleashing his fire when it was his time to get revenge. Unfortunately, the few minutes of clarity we got just made you want to see more since this looked like a great one overall.

ER: This was just the final 5 minute stretch of a 17 minute match, and I'm sure we at least got the best and hottest 5 minute stretch of the match. Sure it would be nice to have full matches on handhelds, and a lot of people would be excited for new Kobashi footage, but I like that we got complete versions of the other matches and just the finish of this one. The crowd is over the moon for Kobashi here, but on this same show I've been way more into babyface performances from Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Motoshi Okuma, Rusher Kimura, and Mighty Inoue. I don't even think Kobashi was the best babyface in his own match, as this felt way more like a great Johnny Ace show. Kobashi had goofy slaps during his big hot tag, and meanwhile Ace is taking big bumps off the top and breaking up pins with his whole body, really knowing when to let Kobashi shine and when to step up. Gordy and Doc looked exactly how you'd expect them to look, and the hot crowd made the match-finishing Gordy powerbombs feel even bigger. 


Andre the Giant/Giant Baba vs. Kimala II/Abdullah the Butcher - GREAT

MD: This was fun for what it was and you knew what it would be coming in. Andre vs. Abby is a rare match-up if not a completely unique one, and both Abby and Kimala II were respectful and willing to put over the grandeur of their opponents. It was interesting to see a 1990 Giant Baba match where he did the brunt of the work. The highlight was the corner battering ram spot but Abby's timing was as good as ever. It was a crowd-pleaser though it was funny that Abby and Kimala got some chants from obvious dissidents before the match started.

PAS: I thought this was awesome. I am an end of the road Andre super fan, and watching him throw hands with 1990 Abby is really thrilling. We don't get a ton of it but it ruled. There is a 2/3 falls Abby vs. Andre match from 1977 in Houston, and it's probably in Billy Corgan's garage. DAMN YOU CORGAN!!. I enjoyed Kimala bringing the athleticism. He just flew into all of Baba's stuff, hit a dropkick, dove off the top, really wrestled around Baba and made his stuff look good. I would have loved to see the crowd brawling between Andre and Abby, but what we got was a blast.


Mitsuhara Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada vs. Terry Funk/Dory Funk Jr.

MD: This went all the way and from what we could see, which admittedly wasn't everything was really good. The crowd was up for it and made it feel like a big deal, a sort of parallel to Tsuruta-gun vs the Super Generation Army, but the latter facing legends in the Funks instead. It had just about everything you'd want: Dory throwing forearms instead of sitting in holds, Terry getting a ton of sympathy as he took all of Misawa and Kawada's stuff, a big comeback with an amazing exchange ending in him ducking a Kawada kick and flooring him, and an incredibly exciting and increasingly wild last ten minutes as they built up to the draw. Dory and Terry rose to the occasion, including tossing out a standing double hip toss which seemed pretty unique from them. I loved the bit where Misawa and Kawada both tried a Scorpion Deathlock since that's a death move in AJPW. And it ended with Kawada surviving the spinning toehold as the clock ran out and a show of respect from the four.

PAS: Terry vs. Misawa is a match up that only happened here (Terry worked with Tiger Mask II in the 80s) and they really had great charisma with each other, Misawa's stoicism blended nicely with Terry's wild shit. We get some fun feeling out stuff with Dory early and it built to a pretty exciting finish run, with Terry hitting his piledriver on Kawada and Misawa and Kawada trying to finish the Funks with scorpion death locks. I liked how the finishing run felt frantic, sometimes draws just finished, but here both teams felt like they were working against each other and the clock. 


Joel Deaton/Dick Slater vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue

MD: This had a sense of inevitability from the start, but it was still pretty good for what it was. Deaton and Slater were able to maintain control when they leaned into their teamwork. Taue wasn't quite there yet but he was closer than he was and could better use his size and presence, though in this match he was there to set up the big tag to Jumbo. Inevitability is the best part about Jumbo, that last minute where his opponent survives but where everyone in the crowd knew the hand would be raised and the backdrop was coming. Slater, despite being past his prime still came off as fairly credible in this setting.