There Ain't No Better Way of Killing Time Than Loving Tony Halme

Tony Halme vs. Shinya Hashimoto NJPW 12/26/90 - GREAT

ER: Upload King Roy Lucier just helped me fill in a gap in my Halme viewing, but giving us the very first Hashimoto/Halme "Different Style Fight". We still (to my knowledge) don't have his Soul Taker fight, but having the first Hash fight is great. And this is a match that relies mostly on Hashimoto's facial selling, his body selling, and his powerful charisma. Halme was mostly in there as stoic Ivan Drago, immediately battering Hashimoto's body with huge hooking shots. Hashimoto was really theatrical here, going down from shots in big twisting twirling tumbles, holding his body while crying out in anguish, yelling out to ring boys for help when needed. Halme wasn't great at selling Hashimoto's shots, leaning back on the ropes while absorbing kicks, getting pushed across the ring by kicks before coming back with a haymaker; but with a charisma fireball like Hash doing the emotional work, Halme didn't need to be great at selling. He needed to come off like a T-800, a guy who was going to keep coming forward until his mission was complete. 

Hashimoto was great at peppering in big moments, keeping the crowd riled by throwing nothing but big kicks, including a great moment where he hits his rolling spin kick that bounces Halme off the ropes and tumbling back over Hash, but Hash can't capitalize due to tweaking his knee. And that knee becomes the great story of the rest of the fight, as Hashimoto gets more aggressive with takedowns (a big judo takedown starts the 3rd, and we get a terrific bit of physics involving Hash kicking Halme into the ropes, Halme rebounding back, and Hash staying low to use Halme's momentum to throw him. We got several strong visuals down the stretch, of Chono hurriedly taping up Hashimoto's knee during the round break, the sad final shots of Hashimoto unable to put weight on his leg so just absorbing shots while taking a knee, still trying to figure out a way to win before the stoppage. Had I been in the crowd, I would be dying to see the return fight. You know Hashimoto wouldn't be the type to blame the loss on his knee, but every fan there was thinking "If he didn't come up limping after that one kick, Halme would have had no chance". Their Different Style rematch wouldn't happen for another 9 months.

Tony Halme/Bad News Allen/Scott Norton vs. Shinya Hashimoto/Riki Choshu/Keiji Muto  NJPW 4/16/92 - GREAT

ER: I could watch trios matches like this on an endless loop and never be bored with pro wrestling ever. Throw together 6 guys of various talent levels, let them do their thing for 10-15 minutes, it's a pretty tough formula for pros to screw up. And this is a match filled with cool pairing possibilities, I like seeing every one of these nine potential match-ups, and they all ruled. They all know exactly what they're doing (well, maybe except Muto, who flips into the ring pre-bell and almost falls on his face, but saves it by continuing the bit and purposely stumbling while throwing his shirt to the crowd), and before the ring intros Halme starts slowly making his way over to the babyface side of things, trying to silently intimidate, and Choshu is having none of it and slaps him the second he gets too close. And again, all the pairings in this are cool. It starts with Norton and Choshu, and Norton is already such a clear star that the crowd is chanting for HIM instead of Choshu! They run into each other with hard lariats (as you'd want) and Norton drops a heavy ass elbow. Bad News and Muto do some really fun hip toss exchanges, and the crowd is already buzzing when it's clear Hash and Halme are going to throw down. 

They do their whole thing: Halme throwing big hooks to the body, Hash flying back with kicks, and I love the violent grace that Hashimoto's spinning heel kick whips through opponents, like a scythe through a wheat field. I really loved Bad News in this. He's the best kind of glue here and, at nearly 50 years old, that's appropriate as he will make fine glue at the factory. He's the dude breaking up submissions with multiple headbutts, he's the guy running distraction on the floor, he's the guy directing his two mammoth white goons to destroy the NJ favorites. Oh, and Allen's fistdrop off the middle rope was sublime. This was all about the gaijin separating Muto from his boys, and it was a great formula. The match honestly could have kept going this same was for another 20 minutes, there were still plenty of untapped match-ups. The abrupt go home ending is the only thing holding this back from being EPIC, as the in-ring was as much constant fun as it looks on paper. But, it was one of those "okay everyone suddenly swarm into the ring and pair off immediately, and don't save your partner in that sharpshooter 2 feet away from you" finishes that tend to happen in these matches. "Hey why did 4 of the 6 guys suddenly jump to the floor to brawl? Oh." Still, this was awesome.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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New Footage Friday: Johnny Smith, Miracle Violence, Bossman, Bad News, TA, Ladd

Magnum TA vs. Ernie Ladd Houston Wrestling 11/9/84

PAS: This is a matchup we have seen before, but a new match. Really dug fired up babyface Magnum, and dirty tricks Ladd. The opening was great with Magnum jumping Ladd at the bell and throwing these lighting face overhand rights in succession, with Ladd flopping into the ropes horizontally.  Ladd was all cheap shots and foreign objects and broad pantomimes which made the crowd rabid. Ladd kind of worked like a heel late period Baba, two old and arthritic to move fast, but the size and timing makes up for a lot. Would have liked to see a real finish, but this was a pair of great role players, playing their role.

MD: New Houston footage is gold. We have a couple of Ladd vs Magnum matches and they're generally good. This is no exception. Ladd was such a master of creating meaning. He's brilliant, even broken down, at using his size to its full advantage. He just gets it like few others his size have. It's one thing even for a guy like Terry Funk to crash out of the ring and end up with a chair around his head (that enhanced by his credibility), but it's another thing for a guy as lanky and huge as Ladd. You have to love how he needs to resort to illegal objects and chicanery and cheapshots to get over on Magnum too, even given the size and the fact he's champ. That just makes Magnum look all the better and gives Ladd extra heat because it frustrates the (always great Houston) crowd. Magnum holds his own here, just a mean bullying face, the sort that crowds will always love because it's a tough guy wish fulfillment. The finish was BS but it sets up a no DQ match and a cage match after it, so you can't be too down on it.


Bad News Allen vs. Ron Simmons CWF 12/16/86

MD: This is interesting almost solely for Bad News leading Simmons through the match. Lots of standard babyface stuff from a guy who had only been in the business for a few months. You got some sense of Simmons' star power already but he wasn't there with the expressions and the crowd interaction yet. Bad News, on the other hand, was super giving, surprisingly so if you've seen him in other environments. Some of his stooging (like complaining about a hair pull) was just tremendous, and he made sure to do little things to get over Simmons strength (such as doing a test of strength but with two hands to Simmons' one). The belt shot at the end was more of a whip with the strap, but to the face, and just brutal. I'm not sure I've ever quite seen that done with a title belt before and you wonder why not, since it was such a great visual, except for that it probably hurt like hell.

ER: Phil and I were talking a couple days ago about how Bad News was somebody who should be the absolute coolest, has the coolest look and the coolest background, but doesn't have a lot of matches I really like. Feels like he should have cool matches, usually doesn't have cool matches. But he was really popular at my school among my friends in the late 80s, because he looked cool and he rarely lost. I remember him losing to Hogan on SNME, but that was Hogan so none of us faulted him for that, obviously he couldn't beat Hogan. Every other PPV he would either win or go to a double DQ, just a guy who we all saw as way higher up on the hierarchy that he actually was. And he only became more popular due to a lie that I started. So keep in mind that I was 8, and 8 year olds have no clue how the world works or if a lie is plausible or not. Some kid at camp once told me that he found an uzi in "somebody's" house, and took the uzi. He said he had the uzi in his bag, but couldn't show it to me because he also had $10,000 in the bag and didn't want people to see it. All of this seemed perfectly plausible to me, a stupid fucking child. So I *may* have told people that Bad News Brown was...Shel Silverstein. We had a few Shel Silverstein books in our classroom, and to an 8 year old it wasn't too much of a stretch that a black and white photo of Silverstein looked like Bad News Brown (or Sid Haig, but none of us would have known that), and none of us would have known that "Silverstein" isn't a really a common name for black people. Those books were really popular in our class, so Bad News Brown then became even more popular among those of us who watched wrestling. And then years went by and I didn't think about it and I ended up tricking myself into a false memory, as I saw a picture of Shel Silverstein a decade later and thought "wait I thought he was black".


Terry Gordy/Dr. Death Steve Williams vs. Big Bossman/Johnny Smith AJPW 7/18/93

ER: It's so cool seeing Bossman come out to Hard Times in some community center looking building in Osaka. Oh, and remember when Paul Heyman brought Johnny Smith in to work an ECW PPV main event opposite RVD, but got cold feet at the last minute that fans wouldn't accept Smith so replaced him with Balls Mahoney? Wouldn't accept Smith? Here's Smith 6 years prior going toe to toe with Doc and Gordy, and literally knocking both wobbly with shoulder blocks, but yeah probably would have looked overmatched against RVD. There are two kinds of MVC matches, the kinds where they gobble people up and club and smash their way through, and the kind where they hang back a bit and lie in some holds. This is more the latter than the former, but not much to the match's detriment. Gordy hangs on the apron a lot, and Doc seems off a beat in several moments and particularly doesn't seem to know the rhythm and timing of Bossman's spots.

We get a nice babyface performance from Smith carrying this through, with some explosive bursts from Bossman. Smith really gets the crowd behind him by not backing down to MVC, slamming into them like he was the size of Bossman, throwing cool elbows between the eyes, cutting low on clotheslines and landing a couple nice ones to the back of Doc's head. He's the guy clearly taking the pin, but the crowd keeps getting more into him the more he refuses to stay down. Bossman gives him welcome respites, coming in and throwing his in-contention-for-best-ever uppercuts and moving quicker than anyone in the match. We get some awesome moments, like Doc muscling up the HUGE Bossman for a press slam (I thought he was going to quit on it but he kept powering through and even tossed in an extra rep), or Doc catching a Smith crossbody off the top and running him into the buckles for a Stampede, only to turn around and run into a Bossman elbow to get a great nearfall for Smith. Smith runs a big gauntlet down the stretch, taking powerslams, a powerbomb, a chokeslam, and gets a surprising last gasp kickout after a tandem chokeslam/backdrop. Bossman and Smith only teamed a few times, only once making tape, so this match doubling our footage count was a nice treat showing a cool complementary set of bruisers.

PAS: Not at the level of the Bossman tag we reviewed a couple of weeks ago, but this was a fun big boy battle. Smith is built like a block of firewood, and never lets the MVC eat him up, he takes a pretty big thumping, but keeps coming at both guys. I mentioned in the previous Bossman tag match (and will mention over and over again if we do the rumored Bossman in AJPW C+A) how great he is at doing complex sequences. And we get a great one here as he slides out of the ring and slides quickly back in misses a clothesline, gets both feet up and nails Doc with a windup uppercut. He is so smooth with that stuff, that it really makes me wish I saw him work El Hijo Del Santo. The presslam by Doc was an all timer, and although it felt a bit awkward, I dug how hard it was to take out Smith at the end.

MD: Most memorable here will be the two big spots, Doc somehow getting Bossman up with the high effort gorilla press and the awesome blocking of the Oklahoma slam with the forearm. More on the former in a minute. Smith really held his own here, staying in it. I thought it was all a little too headlocky in the end and it certainly wasn't the bombastic affair that the last Bossman match was, but it was still good, and maybe attuned to the crowd. Back to the Press slam spot. Yes, it was a huge effort by Williams, but one thing I loved about it was how they teased it a moment before. Bossman locked in a headlock (a lot of that here) and Doc tried to lift him up and over with the belly to back but couldn't do it. It's a little thing but that tease made the press slam that immediately followed mean all the more. That's the stuff in wrestling I live for.

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The World is a Dangerous Place, not Because of Those Who Do Evil, but Because of Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Kengo Kimura v. Bad News Allen/Dick Murdoch NJ 9/16/83 - FUN

This is one of the earliest Fujiwara matches we have and he is pretty spectacular already. The focus of the match is Bad News's befuddlement at the hardness of Fujiwara's skull. There is a great section where both guys are exchanging headbutts and Fujiwara decides to shift his strategy and aim shots at the side and back of Allen's head rather then the front. Fun stuff, although more a chance to see young Fujiwara rather then a stand alone great match.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Akira Maeda v. Super Tiger/Nobuhiko Takada UWF 7/23/84 - GREAT

This is a classic example of a big star tag match. It isn't a shootstyle match (missile dropkicks, top rope headbutts ect), this is your main eventers matching up. Lots of heat, guys getting off their big moves, and setting up your singles matches. The kind of match that would headline a Smackdown PPV. I enjoy stuff like that, although it isn't a match that was particularly high on my Other Japan ballot. This was a nice table setter for Takada v. Maeda and Fujiwara v. Super Tiger which are the big two feuds in the early part of UWF 1. I could see this match making me want to see those singles matches, especially Fujiwara v. Super Tiger. Super Tiger really comes off great here, as it almost feels like he is more over in early UWF1 then he is later. He is also throwing nastier kicks then either Maeda or Takada. Fujiwara is Fujiwara, and he has the charisma that is really need to pull of this kind of star based match.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Joe Difuria PWFG 10/31/94 - SKIPPABLE

TKG: Difuria is a big roided up US indy guy. i think I may have once seen him and Scott Putski work The Headbangers in King of Prussia. I mean he looks like the kind of guy that you'd see tagged with Putski vs. the Headbangers. He works like he may have been the Shane Twins trainer. I think Fujiwara vs. Putski, or Mosh would have been a much better match. I mean why wasn't DC Drake returning PWFG's calls? Difuria works like barely trained big roided guy and Fujiwara does the type of selling you do when faced with big barely trained roided guy. None of Difuria's stuff looked as good as Jacobs and on some level I think Fujiwara had Difuria control way too much. Not good.

PAS: I liked Fujiwara in this, as I thought he laid out a nice match, as DeFuria shrugged away everything he tried until he finally got the heel hook in. With Glen Jacobs this match would have been good, hell this match would have been good against Van Hammer, DeFuria is worse then both and so it wasn't good. Still I was impressed by Fujiwara.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIKAKI FUJIWARA

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Let Us All Sit and Discuss Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Akira Maeda v. Bad News Allen/Dr. Death Steve Williams NJ 7/24/86- FUN

Nifty little tag match with four of the toughest guys in wrestling pounding on each other. Bad News Allen loves to work hard head comedy spots when he is the ring with Fujiwara, you get the sense he is just happy that a racist US promoter isn't making him do them. So we get all the classics, Fujiwara's head slammed against the ring bolt, Bad News headbutting him and hurting his own head ect. Dr. Death had a pretty underwhelming New Japan run, but he looked great here, throwing dudes around. Finish was cool too, as the Americans dismantle the ring while Maeda was running the ropes and he tumbles to the floor, where all four guys brawl to the back. Needed a bit more pizzaz to really be a high end Fujiwara match, but it was really enjoyable.


Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Bart Vale PWFG/Miami Shootfighting 3/20/92- EPIC

TKG: Bart Vale comes in to a huge local pop. I mean fucking huge pop. Fujiwara comes in with a trophy. Fujiwara taunts Vale offers to shake his hand then pulls away to comb his hair and fuck its Fujiwara as touring Japanese guy vs. your top regional star. Vale and Fujiwara pretty much keep this standing.Mostly Fujiwara bumping around eating kicks and then throwing tight headbutts in the clinch. Headbutts knock Vale down and get the crowd to boo. Fujiwara walks around with great taunting expressions. Vale eventually retaliates for the headbutts by hitting short headbutts while the two are ted up on the ground. Fujiwara goes to the ref to complain about the headbutts. It rules. Crowd is fucking great. Disappointed that there was no rice thrown but outside of that this is what you wanted out of this.

PAS: This owned, Fujiwara is the worlds best Toru Tanaka. It was really fun to watch him work a completely different style, then he works in a normal PWFG show. He isn't the legend that the young guys have to get past, he is the dirty foreigner cheap shotting your local hero. No real Fujiwara matwork or reversals, no cool moves to speak of, but it was great. You get the sense that Fujiwara would have had an amazing career as a Gary Hart managed guy feuding with Dusty or a Tojo managed Akio Sato tag partner.


Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Shinya Hashimoto NJ 6/1/94 -EPIC

Despite being the first ever New Japan trainee, this was Fujiwara’s only IWGP title match. This is a match up of two of my favorite wrestlers of all time, I saw Hashimoto maul Dylan Knight live in a tiny gym in Pennsylvania and caught his bandana when it was thrown to the crowd. I still have the bandana hanging in the hall of my apartment.

I could see a lot of Puro nerds not caring for this match. This isn’t smooth and dramatic like a classic All Japan match from the 1990’s, this was rough and awkward. Both guys would try attacks, which would get countered and then there would be pauses and restarts in action. It was very weirdly paced, in a way I really liked and could see other people hating. Fujiwara really dominates the opening, working on Hashimoto’s shoulder and attempting to really lock in the Fujiwara armbar. The first pause and shift in momentum comes, when Hash bulls Fujiwara into the corner and wraps his bad knee in the ropes. Hash then points to his shoulder in a real “eye for an eye” kind of way.

Nothing was hit really cleanly here, Fujiwara kept trying to catch all of Hash’s kicks. Some he would succeed in blunting, but a lot would go through. The more that landed the less he was able to block, in a way that you could tell he was being worn down. All the blocking and awkwardness was the really the opposite of the big strike exchanges most main event Puro matches have. Everything was a struggle. There is a long fight for the first DDT, with Fujiwara trying a bunch of counter attempts, and Hash laying in the knees. When it finally hits Fujiwara takes an almost Kobashish bump on it . Hash pins him off a second DDT which really was sold the way a tough boxer sells a meaningless second knockdown. The first KO was really enough to win the match, but his heart won’t let him go down. Still there was no fight left in him.

I loved this match, it really felt more shootstyle then Hash’s match against Takada. This didn’t have the drama of that match, but it had the rough edges and awkwardness, which really made it look like a fight.


The Complete and Accurate Yoshiaki Fujiwara

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