Found Footage Friday: AJPW HANDHELDS~! TIGER MASK II~! FURNAS~! SNUKA~! TAKANO~! TENTA~! SPIVEY~! ACE~! RICH~! SLATER~!

Tiger Mask II vs. Doug Furnas AJPW 10/28/88

MD: This was a sprint that went just a little over five minutes, but if I was Baba, I would have come out of this wondering if I hadn't found the Dynamite Kid for my Tiger Mask. They'd teamed against each other during the tour (with Furnas teaming with Kroffat and an Oates trainee "Greg/Craig Brown"), but this was their first singles match. I'm not saying that the same sort of chemistry was there because Misawa just didn't exactly have a ton with anyone while under the mask, and Furnas was more dropkicks and backflips than anything else, but he had that explosiveness when he landed on his feet that made me wonder if there might not have been some money in the pairing as they were at this point. In Furnas, Misawa had someone to bounce off of who could also keep up with him. After this (and partially due to Misawa's injury in 89) they wouldn't face off again until 90. By that point, fate had them moving in very different directions.

John Tenta/Shunji Takano vs. Tiger Mask II/Jimmy Snuka AJPW 12/16/88

MD: They told a little story here by having Tenta take out both TM and Snuka with dropkicks only to errantly hit Takano at the end, which led to a neat moment of Tenta catching Snuka off the top (no small feat!) and Misawa following it up with a missile dropkick to knock him over for the win. Takano looked sharp in there. I think he'd have a better sense on how to use his size against varying opponents a year later, but he was big and lanky and agile with a nice dropkick and superkick. He took the Snuka leapfrog/chop shot with a skidding bump across the ring too. Tenta was further along sooner than I remembered too, having a couple of surprising agility spots but generally just asserting himself like you'd want him to and he had the elbow drop already. The best bit by Misawa here was a stubborn assault on Takano, knocking him out of the ring with a baseball slide, doing another, and then not quite hitting a tope but just charging at him between the ropes headfirst never leaving the ring. Snuka didn't do much, but then he never does at this stage of his career, just his signature spot, grinding things down with a hold, and then whatever's necessary for the finish. He did get a run of throat shots on Tenta followed up by a bodyslam but it didn't have the build you'd want for such a momentous spot. This was more of a novelty than anything else, but it was a fun one.

ER: I liked everyone here and even though it was overall inconsequential, everyone had cool moments, and there was one incredible spot that I don't think I have ever seen before. Tiger Mask is my least favorite Misawa era, but it's cool seeing him as more of a big bump guy than a shutdown strike guy, and the way he leans into a takes Tenta and Takano's great dropkicks here is just a perfect take of a dropkick. I like how he sticks and moves, and the way he finally goes after Takano gave us the match's incredible moment: he hits a baseball slide to roll Takano to the floor, a harder baseball slide to knock him into the guardrail, and when Takano makes it back to the apron Misawa just hits him with a Pete Rose slide. I don't think I've ever seen someone do a baseball slide headbutt before. It wasn't a tope, it was clearly intentional, just diving into a head first into Takano's face. Snuka took two big bumps to the floor, including a really fast one over the top, and he absorbed several nasty swinging strikes from Tenta. Takano feels like a man out of place in All Japan, but in a cool way. He's a New Japan style worker crowbarred into All Japan and he feels like if Nobuhiko Takada if he got into pro style instead of shoot style. I don't know. I liked all of these guys in this. I'm glad some guy recorded it and immortalized the baseball slide headbutt. 

Dan Spivey/Johnny Ace vs. Tommy Rich/Dick Slater AJPW 12/16/88

MD: RWTL action. That's where you got some of the most hierarchy bending and most interesting match-ups, many of which only survive today due to handhelds. I'm getting flagged that Spivey and Ace came out to a song from Bubblegum Crisis which amuses me for some reason. I don't think it was anything associated with either of them in general. Ace was like a leaner, more fiery version of Spivey here, just a force of mullets between them. This morphs into a southern tag where they work over Ace's arm pretty well and cut off the ring through hope spots but it resets once Spivey gets in there. I'm not used to Spivey working as so pure a babyface in Japan so it's a bit off-putting. Spivey grinding down on de facto heel Rich's arm isn't as interesting and would have worked better as a shine instead of a mid-match reset. At least 88 Rich isn't afraid to headbutt Ace right in the face. Once Rich starts stretching for Slater, Dick wakes up from his tuned out slumber and decides that they'll be babyfaces too for a while, so I guess that was funny. That only lasts long enough for them to start punching Ace in the face again, but then who can blame them. It has a pretty solid finishing stretch though. Rich and Slater could still turn it on when they had to. Unfortunately a lot of the rest of the match was all over the place given how much time they had to kill. 

ER: This tag and the Tenta tag was on the same card as the legendary Hansen/Gordy vs. Tenryu/Kawada RWTL final, a match that is literally the greatest match of 1988. This was a throwaway RWTL match on the same card as the RWTL Finals, and that probably didn't help this match feel like much more than filler. The one story the match had going for it (other than Match With Four White Guys) was this was Tommy and Dick's last chance to win one Tag League match. Crusher Blackwell & Phil Hickerson also finished with 0 points in 1988, which is pretty fucking stupid, and no other year of the Tag League ended with two 0 point teams. So Dick & Tommy knew that a win would keep them out of the basement, which makes them the underdog babyfaces, but Spivey & Ace are the more popular team so that's how we kind of wound up with a time killing tag with constantly shifting roles. But I also happen to find time killing Kings Road matches to be calming comfort food. Not every one of these things needs to build to something. I wish we got to see Tommy Rich kill more time in Japan. Tommy Rich takes a backdrop bump and hits two different great middle buckle fistdrops: one late in the match after he and Dick did a tandem clothesline to Johnny Ace's neck that caused Ace to drop straight to his knees, and actually hot tagging into the match with one on Spivey. Rich gets one excellent nearfall down the home stretch, taking abuse from Spivey and nearly getting to 2 points with a tight backslide, and it was the loudest the crowd got all match.