Found Footage Friday: 1989 NJPW~!

2/8/89

George Takano vs. Hiro Saito

MD: Pretty solid match. Takano was being pushed more at the start of 89 (with his team with Super Strong Machine) than at any point since he dropped the Cobra gimmick. He looked good here in a singles against a very game opponent. He did take most of the match. Saito would try to get him in a hold and he had an interesting technical escape to everything (be it stepping through to set up a takedown or a headstand to get out of a headscissors). Saito had a nice escape or two of his own. Things really picked up down the stretch as they absolutely paintbrushed each other for thirty seconds. That led to a nearfall off of Saito's senton and Takano catching him out of nowhere with the spin wheel kick and then finishing him off with a suplex and top rope splash. You'll be glad to know they shook hands post-match.  

ER: This was good. Tight grappling, real force applied during submissions and lock ups and knuckle locks, real physics used in takedowns and near misses. Takano had some great stuff to steal, including a cool low kip up out of an armbar (going straight into leaning his weight down into Saito's legs to maneuver out) and a cool pendulum swing spinebuster takedown, shifting Saito's weight back and forth before slamming him. Saito's figure 4 headscissors is impossibly snug, and all of Takano's eventual escape looked well earned. Once he escapes he locks Saito into a disgusting leg-grapevined camel clutch that would have played as the finish. You know maybe someone shouldn't steal any of this Takano stuff as I don't know who would be able to apply it as well as he does. They work these holds until the 10 minute announcement and then get right up and go into the finishing stretch. I was getting used to these snug holds and suddenly we're getting suplexes, Takano going up for a high backdrop, Saito hitting his senton famously full weight. I think Takano is much more interesting working holds than he is doing actual running offense. All of his holds looked like he was stretching Saito, but his top rope splash finish looked like he was trying to avoid full contact at all costs. 

Bello Greco/Sergio El Hermoso vs. Hirokazu Hata/Naoki Sano

MD: When Hata and Sano came back from Mexico, they brought their sparring partners with them. There's a Fujiwara match with them that people should seek out. As best as I can tell, Greco was the real base and worker and Sergio was the flash and lead for the comedy. He kissed the announcer before the match and blew one to the ref, causing all sorts of havoc. Hata and Sano had some big climb up armdrags on Greco. And the kiss spot where Sano went flying the first time but Hata blocked it to tweak the nose/lips the second worked about as well as it could. Sano had a bit more style to what he was doing maybe, whereas Hata just played into what he was given more, but both looked good. Finish had Hata hit a dive to the floor off the top and Sano hit a German (but not able to hold the bridge) for the win. In context, a lot of these spots were repeated from the TV matches they were having, but they were all crowd-pleasers for the house show crowd.

ER: The exoticos' music is incredible. It's like someone doing a muted trumpet sound with their mouth doing a sexy Peter Gunn theme. They have a great act. You can tell it's a great act, because they got constant laughs for the full 14 minute runtime, while tons of wrestlers on this card couldn't buy a reaction. Matt Borne and Italian Stallion can't buy a single sound from the people of Sapporo, but they love every single thing Greco and Sergio do, with good cause. The fans love the silly rope running, they love the butt stuff (I wonder if Rick Rude ever saw Bello Greco and lifted an entire career of selling atomic drops), they love the accidents and the misdirection, just involved in every single movement both do. Their timing is great throughout, the absolute best bit being Greco running down the length of the apron to just miss Hata, running his own face into the turnbuckle. Sano looked like a guy clearly in the middle of his breakout year whenever he was in (his stepover armdrag early in the match was so fast and clean) and Hata looked like a guy who was not that, and I loved how they worked with the exotico tandem. They weren't guys being worked around, they were integrating nicely. I would have loved to see Greco and Sergio stick around longer than these few weeks of '89 and work with more opponents, see what the act could do in singles, but all the footage we have is so good in the way that I'm happy it never burnt out. 

Seiji Sakaguchi/Kengo Kimura vs. Matt Borne/Italian Stallion 

ER: This doesn't add up to anything big but has plenty of fun working parts. I have not seen much of Italian Stallion's 1989 New Japan run, and it's crazy how much time he spent there that year and only that year. Sakaguchi makes chopped liver out of him, swallowing him up whole and chaining judo throws while never letting go of his arm, which he caught when Stallion tried to throw one punch. One punch that doesn't land and Sakaguchi treats him like he's Seiji Sakaguchi fighting The Italian Stallion. Stallion isn't bad at all, but he is much better when he wrestles like a poor man's Matt Borne rather than his usual rich man's Joey Maggs. His dropkick hits like a truck and he throws Kimura with a cool belly to belly, but needs a better clothesline. 

I love how Matt Borne moves. He's just as unpredictable as Buzz Sawyer but keeps things more compact. He's a bulldog, goes hard after Sakaguchi and gets hit hard by the large man. I loved a double leg trip Kimura and Sakaguchi pulled on him, like they were actually trying to pull him apart like a wishbone. Borne really smothers Kimura whenever he's in with him, riding him on the mat and not letting him land anything until the finish. He even pulls some bullshit when the ref misses Sakaguchi's tag and Borne goes back to picking on Kimura, shutting down a hot tag. Crowd doesn't react in any way to his bombs away which is just cold. He eventually takes the pin when Kimura gets a piledriver, and I like how he sells the piledriver with confusion instead of neck pain. 

MD: Little bit of a weird one to me. Stallion (and Borne to a lesser degree) gave a bit to Kimura but mostly ate him up on the mat. Stallion would just roll around on top of him. As you can imagine, they'd give more for Sakaguchi though. Kimura did get the win with the leg lariat/pile driver combo so maybe he felt giving but it did seem like Stallion was going to assert himself as much as possible when given the chance (just not with one of the bosses). Maybe that's why he stayed around so much in 89? 

Super Strong Machine vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 

ER: This doesn't rise to levels of Fujiwara singles match greatness, but it is a Fujiwara singles match against one of my favorite New Japan 80s natives so it's obviously a great 12 minutes. Fujiwara is in house show antagonist mode and just trolls Strong Machine with annoying stuff all match. He breaks every lock up with a slap, in a way that's not meant to hurt but meant to rile up Machine into making mistakes. It's all mischievousness where he retains plausible deniability over being a troll but it's all there. Look at Machine finally make his first inroads and throw Fujiwara to the floor, only to see the insanely aggravating way Fujiwara casually walks back around the ring after hitting the floor. Fujiwara gets his head bounced off the turnbuckle bolt and just strolls away adjusting his trunks. I don't think there was a wink thrown to the crowd, but it was implied. Just a cool fucking guy catching eyes with a girl in a car while crossing the street. 

Things open up when Machine starts going after Fujiwara's taped up knee with an ankle lock, and you can tell it's getting to Fujiwara because he starts throwing backfists from his back into Machine's neck. Machine wisely maneuvers things into a single leg crab, much harder to throw backfists from that position. Fujiwara breaks free from it by fishhooking Strong Machine's mask with one hand and throwing punches with the other, gripping a handful of the bottom edge of his mask with his left while punching him straight in the jaw with his right. When he gets to his feet he throws half a dozen headbutts, still holding Machine by the mask, hopping on his bad knee while throwing them. There's a great moment where Machine fires up after Fujiwara kneels on his face, and demands Fujiwara punch him some more, like a man. Fujiwara happily obliges and buckles Strong Machine's legs. 

The finish sequence is hot as hell. Fujiwara catches a clothesline and puts his weight behind an armbar in one motion, but Machine rolls through, so Fujiwara tries to take him down again with a Fujiwara but Machine blocks it, so Fujiwara pulls an inside cradle. Fujiwara's greatest successes come from never wanting to finish a match a specific way, always willing to pivot to whatever might be available. 

MD:  Not top tier-Fujiwara, sure, but it was definitely chippy and snippy. They leaned on each other. Battering in the corner, etc. I'd say SSM had the advantage until he tried slamming Fujiwara's head into the post. Then he tried to stop the headbutts that would come (self aware in a very good way) but couldn't. He did pull Fujiwara out and post his leg and Fujiwara had to fight from underneath for a bit. Fujiwara came back with huge headbutts though and ultimately after two arm bar attempts (first rolled through) locked in a small package. Nice little self-aware bits in this, the sort of thing you'd be more likely to get from Super Strong Machine than a lot of his contemporaries.

Hiroshi Hase vs. Shiro Koshinaka

MD: This was really good. Super high on it. There's a rule for 1987-1989 NJPW Juniors matches: The best ones start with an immediate ambush/advantage, and Koshinaka got that, nailing Hase in the ropes on the first exchange and going after his taped knee. Lots of nasty little shots and bigger submissions. At one point he went for a suplex, and Hase's leg went out and his head just crushed into the mat. Koshinaka hit the butt butt, the top rope knee drop and even the power bomb. Then he shoved Hase out. The ref got in his face and that let Hase pull Shiro out to take over. 

I wouldn't have minded if Hase sold just a little more but I was generally ok with it. Most of his offense wasn't hefting Koshinaka up but slamming his head into the exposed post instead (the best kind of offense). Koshinaka bled. Hase stayed on the wound. The ref tried to stop him at one point and Hase pointed out that Shiro had been unsportsmanlike in going after his leg and this was warranted. 

Eventually he did hit the Northern Lights but couldn't keep the bridge given his leg. He ended up choking Koshinaka for the DQ, which is way better than it sounds on paper, trust me. Post match Hiro Saito came in and they beat on Koshinaka and anyone that tried to stop them. Honestly, as a finish, it's not something we saw much during this era in New Japan and it was grisly and effective for me. Really good match.  

ER: This was really good. There was a different Koshinaka/Hase match on the New Japan DVDVR 80s set that happened the next month, from 3/16/89. I was higher on that match than the consensus (I had it 25 spots higher than the final results) and I think this is the better match. Koshinaka goes after Hase's leg like a heel and works the first third of this match as Junior Heavyweight Tenryu. Hase's comeback goes on so much longer and is equally violent, so much so that it turns Koshinaka into a bigger babyface by virtue of Hase being such an asshole. Hase pays merely lip service to Koshinaka's knee work - had the knee come back in any meaningful way, instead of Hase occasionally shaking it out while otherwise not acknowledging - it would have been one of the best New Japan juniors matches of the late decade. Koshinaka throws sharp kicks at Hase's knee that do not look pulled, so much so that it seems absurd when Hase goes on offense for 10 straight minutes with no sign of slowing down. 

Until Hase just flipped the switch, his knee selling was great. There was this almost third wall breaking spot where Koshinaka went for a snap suplex and Hase couldn't make it over on his bad leg, so instead whips nose first into the mat in one of the more disgusting DDT bumps I've ever seen. It's such a fucked up looking bump that it looked like a blown spot or miscommunication. It hits this meta level of "Hase's leg is so bad that he can't take moves the way you all expect guys to take moves" and it was something that could have made this match legendary. But Hase messes that up to and actually treats the spot like a fuck up, not acknowledging the bump he took at all and kind of quickly getting to his feet. 

But he went so hard on Koshinaka that I think he overcame the lack of selling. I've never thought of Hase as a kicker, but he unleashes some hellish kicks on Koshinaka. At one point, Koshinaka on his knees, Hase is just kicking him right across the bridge of the nose and Koshinaka hangs in for more, so Hase kicks him in the back of the head. He's really merciless, and Koshinaka turns into this fired up screaming babyface while taking everything Hase brought. Hase's torso and legs wound up smeared with Koshinaka's blood and he looked like a deranged animal biting at Koshinaka's head. The DQ finish looked great as there really was nothing the referee could do to separate Hase's mouth from Koshinaka's head. That man looked like he was pulling with all his might to pull him off and it was not happening. I'm curious what the consensus would have been on this match. Enough DVDVR voters would have hated Hase's selling, but I think more would have loved the violence. 

Antonio Inoki/Riki Choshu/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Big Van Vader/Bam Bam Bigelow/Rip Morgan 

ER: A great house show main event that never quite settles into a structure but has the two biggest gaijin taking tons of big bumps for the freaking powerhouse native team. That's a star studded lineup and Vader/Bigelow treat them as size/power equals for long stretches. Bigelow takes a full flip for Riki's second lariat one minute in. Just a full backflip like he's Jeff Hardy. Fujinami isn't taking a flipping bump for Vader's clothesline, he's blocking it and getting a sick backslide instead. This is Riki's lariat though, so even Vader is taking a big leaping bump for it late in the match. Vader and Bigelow get rocked by suplexes and clotheslines all match, from all of them. Choshu even suplexes Vader in from the apron! Everybody was taking suplexes man.  

There isn't even really any hierarchy in this match, it's kind of strange. Going into it Rip Morgan feels like the most obvious Guy Taking Pin in Main possible but he's in there working big exchanges with Inoki and Choshu. He hits a kitchen sink knee to Choshu that Riki takes so well that it made my stomach hurt. Riki leans into his Scorpion Deathlock like he's applying it to Morgan as a shoot submission. Nobody felt like a bigger start than anyone else, it was just six stars working a main event that nobody outside of this sports center will ever see.

Bigelow was the one who worked this with joy. Everybody works with energy but Bam Bam was having fun. He's not a monster, he's the guy working with some color, a little whimsy. He shakes his fist out after punching Riki, bodyslams Inoki with force, breaks up a pin with a falling headbutt to Inoki's face. He's doing light axe handles off the top and throwing headbutts, but also looks like he's giving Vader ideas on how to wreak havoc. Vader had this amazing press slam hoist of Choshu, super impressive, made him look weightless. Bam Bam gets in the ring and directs Vader to throw Riki onto his knee in a gutbuster. It rules.  There's an awesome 1-2 where Bigelow breaks Inoki's octopus hold on Morgan by leveling him with a clothesline, and right when he hits it he gets wasted by a Riki lariat, great bookend to him getting flipped by one early. There are some little clips in this so we don't get a full feel for the finish, but this is six guys I loved watching run around each other. 

MD: 1989 starts with the Power Elite of Inoki/Choshu/Fujinami coming together against Vader and Bigelow. They do a bunch of these matches in January and the start of February, so it's a little overdone by this point, but the plus side is that they've been practicing and honing the match. That meant some spots like the Inoki kicking off out of the over the shoulder double team worked quite well. 

I really enjoyed the start of this one, with the heels ambushing and then Choshu ducking a Bigelow clothesline, hitting a lariat that just staggered him and then hitting the real one that Bigelow took a flip bump for (very rare for 89 in general and especially a guy Bigelow's size). In order to keep things fresh and prep for the Russians coming in, they had Rheingans join Vader/Bigelow as their American player/coach and he was at the margins of this one. 

This was fairly back and forth. You feel bad for Fujinami here. He's fine but he doesn't come off as the ace/champ when teaming with two of the most charismatic wrestlers ever. Vader was there to basically get control again. It boiled over (with a clip, and during that clip Inoki may have actually won it) to either the DQ or the post-match where heels controlled in the corner wouldn't stop double teaming and charging in. 

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All Japan Battle Royal 1/2/97

As part of my continued look at the All Japan New Years battle royals, here is 1997.

1/2/97

ER: This didn't have a ton of comedy, but it found ways to dispose of every single one of the most threatening guys all in a row. Dr. Death goes right after Taue at the bell, batters him, and slams him into the buckles to set up the Stampede. BUT, as Doc is running back towards the center of the ring to slam Taue, Kawada runs in and just shoves Taue over onto Doc. Doc cannot believe it. This suffered a bit from poor choice of camera angle, as we mostly miss Bobby Duncum Jr. getting eliminated at the same time as Doc (a simple DDT from Izumida put him down), and we also miss how Gary Albright ends up on the bottom of a pile. But the biggest possible crime is the camera missing Stan Hansen's elimination. Hansen is always such an unstoppable force in these matches (um, well, any matches he's in, I suppose that would be true), and to completely miss what happened to actually take him out of the match? Shameful. He did get dogpiled by 10 people, but I wanted to know how the clear favorite got taken off his feet to begin with. And perhaps an even bigger disappointment was that he left with no ill will. After he got pinned I assumed he would crush whomever wronged him with the inside of his left arm, but he just casually exited the ring.

Hansen's elimination sent us on a string of big name eliminations, all in a row. Kawada was a real asskicker the entire time he was in, and he was always going after big names. I love the moments in these battle royals where two guys square off in the middle, and everyone else hangs back on the ropes, like it's a big dance off. Kawada and Kobashi fight over suplexes, and just as Kawada gets a vertical suplex, Kobashi shifts his weight and lands on him, resulting in a dogpile to eliminate Kawada. But then Taue hilariously takes the opportunity to grab Kobashi in a Boston crab while Kobashi is still pinning Kawada! However, everyone just rolls Kobashi through and he pins Taue with a sunset flip type cradle, and of course they then roll Taue over to pin Kobashi. Misawa and Akiyama are the next gone, and the ring separates into Gaijin vs. Native. So we get Eigen, Izumida, Hase, Honda, and Omori in one corner, and The Eagle, The Lacrosse, and Johnny Ace in the other corner.

Hase fires up his troops (while clearly using all of them as human shields) against the gaijin, but then shoves Eigen to the wolves. It was the only way. Hase keeps playing guys on his own side, even coming to an alliance with Lacrosse before naturally turning on him once he eliminated Honda. Hase was great at being the manipulative ringleader, because you knew it was all going to blow up in his face. By the time Omori hit him with a nice spinning heel kick and Izumida flew down with his big round head, the crowd was losing it. Omori vs. Izumida is not the final two I expected, but that's a major part of the joy with these matches. I'm not a big Omori fan, probably would have him towards the bottom of my Kings Road Power Rankings, and he doesn't endear himself any further here. He and IZU work a couple brief singles match spots, throw in a couple decent nearfalls, but Omori sucks all the drama out of the finish. After IZU misses a big falling meteor headbutt, Omori plants him with a German suplex. However, Omori loses the bridge, and the ref stops counting the pinfall. At that point it becomes a struggle for Izumida to keep his shoulders to the mat, while Omori awkwardly scrambles to hold a cradle. Time really stood still as it became clear this was the finish, and Omori couldn't get out of his own way. After Omori wins, he runs to the turnbuckles to celebrate, and actually slips and falls off the ropes. Rough ending, but at least Omori was finally able to put his weird Royal Rumble appearance behind him and win the big one.

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It's Reached Top Speed and I'm Getting Inside of Tony Halme

Tony Halme vs. Masahiro Chono  NJPW 8/6/92 - VERY GOOD

ER: Unique layout for a big singles match, and this was a big singles. This was the main event of the very first night of the '92 G1, the 4th and final G1 match of that night. 1992 was one of the years they did a single elimination tournament for G1, which is kind of a shame as it left a lot of killer matches on the table, but also gave us matches we hadn't seen at that point like Arn Anderson vs. Steve Austin, or this match. I put myself in the shoes of the fans, and the single elimination style really adds to the drama of some of these matches. Imagine being so excited for Masahiro Chono to attempt a repeat G1 victory after taking '91, and then being met with him taking a complete one sided 10 minute drubbing to start off his '92 bid. The bulk of this match looked like Chono had no actual shot at beating Halme, OR getting any kind of offense. Halme was landing body shots at will, and Chono was selling the way I would be selling after taking one shot from Tony Halme. The match was in danger of being stopped several times, with Halme punching Chono's guts into the mat and then waiting for him to get back up before doing it all over again. At one point it appears the ref even throws out his own rulebook, giving Chono a 10 count that Chono clearly will not beat, so the ref just stops the count while Chono rolls to the floor! *I* know the end result of the '92 G1, but I'd never seen this match and I actually thought they were going to have Chono get decimated, then think of some reason to DQ Halme after the fact so that Chono could continue. And that's where our story finally turns, as Halme goes out after him and ends up accidentally throwing a lariat to the ringpost, leading to Chono working over his arm and shoulder until he gets the win. Halme sold well and apparently likes to swear in English, as he was dropping Effs and Son-of-a-Bitches all over the place while Chono went after the arm. The structure of this was so cool and odd, you can see a Lesnar match worked this same way. Halme absolutely owned Chono for the first 8-10, and then the last few minutes were entirely Chono working for the same sub, Halme basically slowly drowning with no hope for survival. I loved how Chono slowly set up the STF, the way he slowly worked into it made it seem like a huge deal once he had it locked in. And I love that Halme basically wasn't going to tap to the STF, so Chono shifted quickly to an armbar. Weird layout, but it definitely worked off the charisma and character of these two.


Tony Halme/Brad Armstrong vs. Hiroshi Hase/Keiji Muto  NJPW 2/13/93 - VERY GOOD

ER: The Halme/Armstrong team is like the Kane/Danielson tag with an actual great Kane. And really this whole match would have been better with nearly anybody else in there other than Muto. And, thankfully, Hase does the lion's share of the work, and the match only benefits from it. Armstrong and Muto start, and it's all headlocks baby! Muto works a couple so loose that he keeps losing them, but it's all headlock takeovers and lying on the mat in a headlock. There's a chance this match had a clip, and brother I have no clue what could have been clipped because we got Muto lying on his side aplenty. Thankfully Halme and Hase got in there, because their long section was great. Halme had real charisma at this point, beyond being "imposing Aryan man", as he was really great at building to big parts and milking small parts. He knows when to throw big body blows and how many to throw, and can work a compelling match based wholly around wrecking Hase's spleen. Seeing Hase in action against the much larger Halme was cool, as after getting pummeled by fists the size of his head he uses his amateur grappling and muscles Halme down to the mat, and Halme is smart to not go down right away for the takedown, so we really got to see Hase dragging him down. But most of this was Halme pummeling, and then Brad comes in and the Brad/Hase stuff is great! Hase aims to rip Brad's leg off with a beautiful drop toehold, but after getting cut off from Muto for too long with some big Halme moments (a lariat off the middle with Brad holding Hase, a massive powerslam) we get a big hot tag.....and Muto hilariously comes in and starts working more headlock takeovers. This fucking guy. It all builds to him hitting an okay handspring elbow on Brad, except Halme totally steals his thunder by running the length of the apron to lariat him right after. The breakdown is cool with Hase catching Brad up top and hitting a superplex (both men on the top rope) and Halme getting run into the ringpost hard on the floor after trying to catch a Muto pescado that falls short (great ringpost bump, believable enough to keep him out for the finish), and Hase makes quick work of brad with the uranage (back bump edition) and northern lights. This was overall really good, but literally any other native would have turned in a more interesting performance than Muto.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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New Footage Friday: SANTO! CASAS! ANDRE! SPOILER! RUDE! HASE! LIGER! B. BRIAN BLAIR?

Andre The Giant vs. The Spoiler Houston Wrestling 6/29/79

MD: This is one that was NOT on the NWA Houston channel. I had pushed Sharpe to find it but he never did. Thankfully, it's been out there anyway, just rare. Pretty fascinating match to watch because of the size differentials. Spoiler is a guy that would use his size and the ring as a weapon and just crush smaller guys and most guys were smaller. Here, it was his chisel to pick at the giant and I thought those moments were very effective. He was a big man but one that could and really would move around for Andre, so maybe the usual disdain Andre had for other giants didn't shine through. You really can't do a match between these two (or Mulligan and Andre, for instance, where it worked better) where the claw doesn't come into play as the great equalizer, and as much as that stuff seems larger than life, the bearhug bit here went on a bit long. This was especially true in a match where Spoiler was divebombing him all over the place, and because the finish was going to be Andre catching him hesitant on one of those attempts and tossing him off the top. Still, this was novel, a great look at both Andre working from underneath and the Spoiler having to chop down a bigger foe.

ER: Loved this. Minimalist, sure, but Andre is a guy who knows how important every little movement can be and he's someone I can't help but engage with. This is Spoiler's claw vs. Andre's bearhug, and we get a couple of great moments before we dive into that part of the match (with my favorite being Andre's armdrag takeover, holy cow!), but I dug how Spoiler decided early that the Claw was his only chance and he was going to play that record until the needle skipped. Spoiler grinds in the claw and the first time we see an Andre bearhug it's actually out of desperation. The Andre desperation bearhug is a fun treat, it's a giant wounded boar from the forest trying to use his strength, and it makes Spoiler come off like a legend that he had Andre desperate. Andre fights to his feet, Spoiler bets on the claw, and the eventual visual of Andre's buckling and going down, Spoiler essentially riding him down to the mat, Claw besting Bearhug, were wrestling movements I've not seen before. The visuals in any Andre match always seem to defy reality, in the ways he's able to appear both larger and smaller than he actually was, in the way he recoils into the ropes or moves in a way that nobody else has ever moved. I'm watching him here, driven down to one knee by Spoiler's claw, and Andre appears to be as large on one knee as Spoiler is standing over him. I know it's not true, but in feels that way, and in every Andre match you glimpse at least one visual angle that just seems impossible. I like the way the strategy and the attempts play out, like when Andre knew a claw attempt was coming so ducked under the arm to perfectly settle into a bodyslam; or Andre looking to pop Spoiler's head off his neck with a great headscissors to reverse out of another claw. We even get Andre "flattening the head" of Spoiler with a seated piledriver as Spoiler tried to get out of that headscissors. The finish is a great play on the match story, as Spoiler went right back to the claw, climbing the ropes to gain more leverage on the hold (a frequent Spoiler trick), but he gets too high chasing that Claw victory, and Andre simply slams him off the top. The simplicity of the match played to the strengths of both men, and I was hooked the whole way through. 

PAS: Really nifty match, I loved the dying animal aspect of Andre falling slowly to the claw, one of the cooler wrestling sells I can remember seeing. Andre was amazing at portraying invulnerability and vulnerability in the same match. Spoiler is one of the guys I want to see more of, he has been in some real classics, and has this unique style. He is one of the densest high flyers ever, all of his attacks land with so much thump and thud, Andre is a great landing platform too.

Hiroshi Hase/Jushin Liger vs Rick Rude/Brian Blair NJPW 3/20/94

MD: As a sharp wrestling analyst, I'd like to point out that this match is all about Rude being pretty racist in his pre-match promo, about Liger, Hase, and then, at the end, Liger AND Hase together, doing Rude's pose back at him, and then Hase mocking him on the mic post match. I guess there's also B. Brian Blair doing all the bee mannerisms in 1994. That's commitment.

I mean the wrestling was good too, but let's keep things in perspective. So, as long as he didn't try to overachieve, which didn't happen often, Blair looked sharp and crisp in most things he did. He could have still had a useful run somewhere at this point (like SMW, maybe?). You got the sense that Hase loved how riled Rude got the crowd because he ate it up, both in tossing people around, but also just in standing on the top rope and basking in it, or launching a 20+ rotation giant swing before stumbling about and doing Rude's pose. Rude was just completely iconic. I think my favorite moment in this might have been him hitting a top rope axe handle and then getting caught on the second one. You knew it was coming. Everyone knew it was coming. But Rude's timing and presence were just perfect. There's probably no one in wrestling history that was better at getting "caught" in that manner than Rude.

Really, the only thing that would have made this one more enjoyably over the top was if Liger had a mustache too.

ER: Rude bookends our match with some casual as hell racism, which undoubtedly leads to a hot crowd and some playful personality that we don't always get to see from Hase. Liger doesn't always need much coaxing to be playful so it was a treat to see Hase really rub in all of his comebacks, and Hase/Liger each doing a few variations on Rude's hip swivel is the kind of taunt that kept getting the crowd louder. I really liked the Rude/Blair team, and came away missing the kind of in-ring professionalism both of them brought Blair had the awesome bald spot ponytail, buzzed his wings like a bee during rope runs, hit a fantastic standing lariat, works fast juniors spots with Liger (with a real fast bump to the floor to cap it off), and was great on the apron. Watch Blair's reactions during Hase's long giant swing as he is unable to get in there to save Rude. Rude was heel perfection, and my favorite thing from him might have come early, as he locks in an insanely tight looking headlock on Liger, then gives him two punches to the kidneys as he's tagging in Blair. Sure, his overall meathead antics are what gave everything heat, and that spectacular top rope knee is the best, and I guess what I'm trying to say is that Rick Rude was too real to be real, a guy whose stock rises nearly every time I see him. Seeing the kind of work that he was putting out on house shows really cements him.

El Hijo Del Santo vs. Negro Casas CMLL Japan 2/6/97

MD: This has been out there but clipped on a commercial tape, apparently. Here we have it in full. We're into Santo's rudo phase, but not too deep into it, in front of an audience that only seemed half aware. This isn't a huge crowd. They're quiet for the most part. Midway through, Casas works to engage them and they sort of split the chants. This sort of felt like an abbreviated title match, or maybe one on fast-forward. Memorable was some really good matwork to start which led to the escalation into rope running and a crazy flipping senton through the ropes by Santo. Santo wasn't over the top with his rudo-ness. He oversold heavily a Scorpion Deathlock attempt (not even the hold) by Casas but that was to lure him in. He also threw a really nasty chairshot towards the finish, but ultimately missed a top rope splash and lost to the Casita. It was a good digest, with the right sort of intensity at times, and these two can do no wrong, ever, but would have been better in a different environment.

PAS: Really cool to watch these guys a 10 minute version of their match. It was a 97 Santo versus Casas match too, not just an exhibition of cool spots (although there was some very cool spots) but a nice capsulation of the brutality that these guys could and did bring on a regular basis. We get pretty spinning headscissors and dives to the floor, but some really cool struggling mat work and Santo kicking Casas directly to the back of his head.  I loved the early counter work out of the headscissors and I loved Santo smashing Casas with a chair, we really get everything we love about this feud boiled down to it's marrow.  Great, great stuff.

ER: No big deal, just the two GOATs working a hot Nitro lucha sprint lightning match in front of a largely apathetic Japanese crowd. CMLL Japan crowds tend to be small from what I've seen, but they are usually hot and appreciative. This match oddly came with the atmosphere of people sitting through a lucha show to get a free 2 week timeshare rental. But it's a perfect 10 minute synopsis on what was going on with these two in 1997. It was a highlights match (as much as any match with these two, as obviously they are highlight reel machines) with something to say, a match where the biggest spots shone just as brightly as their transitions. The big spills play well, like Santo surprising Casas with his gorgeous rolling tope senton too the floor. I've grown so used to Santo hitting that rolling senton in ring as a lead up to his tope past the turnbuckle, that seeing him take the opportunity to hit it to the floor - in a way that didn't seem like part of the plan or even something that had been fully thought through - made the moment even bigger. But the small moments played as big for me, like the way Santo held on to a waistlock as Casas tried to violently shake him, or the way Santo lost the camel clutch but gave up one of Negro's arms to yank his head back by the hair as a way to salvage things.

All of the scrambling was real snug, and honest. If they didn't fully have the other, nobody was pretending they were stuck. They rolled with the exchanges and reevaluated where the other was during the brief periods of pause, and I got the sense that they could have woven their way through similar sequences and ended up somewhere different entirely (and no doubt, they have done exactly this during their careers). Santo has the best stomps in wrestling history, just give me a match where Santo only stomps at Negro's body and cerebellum. Show me someone in wrestling who has a better boot to the back of the head/neck, and I'll show you someone who wrecked brain cells. Santo's stomps feel perfectly worked, for maximum visual. The knee work was all cool, Santo kicking at Negro's thigh and Negro going down hard for a fast dropkick to his patella. Everything felt like it happened because of something else they had done earlier. Were Santo's shots to Negro's knee meaner because earlier Santo had gone for a knucklelock and Casas just opted to lurch in and punch Santo in the face? It felt like that to me.  I loved the mean ways they kept the distant crowd guesses, like when Casas gets booed for ripping at Santo's mask, then eats an insane fast head over heels bump to the floor off a Santo dropkick. After getting the loudest heat of the match with that mask rip, Santo follows him to the floor and pastes him with a chairshot, not caring that they had booed Casas for something less severe, more concerned with wrecking Casas. These two give me life force whenever I watch them, and this was no different.

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New Footage Friday: Spoiler, Jose Lothario, El Halcon, Mark Lewin, Baba, Robley, Kawada, Misawa, Hase, Sasaki

Spoiler/Mark Lewin vs. El Halcon/Jose Lothario Houston Wrestling 6/1/79

ER: A decent minimalist punch and kick affair that is short, but takes awhile to get rolling, and ends with a bunch of great mayhem. The low point comes fairly early as Halcon does just about the world's slowest hot tag somersault I've ever seen to get to Lothario. It was a comically slow somersault. When Ricky Morton eventually hot tag somersaults into the grave, it will be faster than this one. I'm sure Phil has seen his kid do a faster somersault at baby gymnastics. I think he may have been doing it purposely slow because someone may have been out of position...but the effect was not great. The match never ramps up to high from there, but it chugs along nicely. Spoiler and Lewin both acted afraid of hot babyface Lothario, who bleeds and punches away to loud reaction. There's a great moment where Spoiler keeps running into fists from Lothario while Lothario is on the apron. Spoiler feels like one of the great stooges, which is amusing due to his size. But he and Lewin are a fun sneaky punch tag team, and the finish is a blast as Lewin starts twisting the turnbuckle loose on the top rope, freeing it to use as a weapon, leading to the top rope going limp as more bodies flood the ring.

PAS: I was excited to see Halcon, who is a lucha legend we don't have much footage on, but this wasn't much of a showcase for him. This was really Lothario doing his awesome Lothario thing, he comes in with a pressure bandage on his head which is alway exciting to see, and he takes a big time walloping from Lewin and Spoiler. I love Lewin's overhand chops to the head, he looks like he is breaking boards in a Tae Kwon Do class, and Spoiler has really cool forearms. We get to see Lothario, sell, bleed and fire back and he is great at all of it. Finish was a lot of fun with Lewin unscrewing the top rope and trying to use the buckle bolt, but Halcon getting it from him and swinging it like a club. This never hit the levels of the all time great Lothario matches, but it was a good showcase of what he does well.

MD: In 2018, every new Houston match is a treasure. Every new Lothario match is a treasure. Look, we have context with this. This was the night Gran Markus came in to be Gino's heater. We have these matches. We have the two of them breaking up. We have some of the Americas Tag Title matches before and after this. This isn't just some random throwaway minimalist match, it's one more piece of a puzzle where NWAonDemand had already given us parts of it.

The match itself was generally good. I thought Halcon was a step slow, which only matters because he was doing things that you can't be a step slow for. Spoiler is always amazing, twenty years before his time, the mix of size and just sheer oppression off the second ropes. Lewin serves his purpose (woundwork is down his alley) and Jose is that center of gravity, bleeding and building up glorious anticipation for when his fist will hit someone's skull. I agree that this doesn't hit the peaks of certain other matches, but watch the crowd at the end. They'd disagree with us, certainly.

So thanks to Roy Lucier for posting these best of Houston Wrestling episodes. RIGHT after this match is an amazing PSA by Boesch about what to do if someone is following you on the highway. It's so great. Roy, I have no way of contacting you otherwise, so hopefully someone tosses this your way. It's nice you're uploading the NWAonDemand stuff now, but most of that is already elsewhere on youtube between a couple of accounts. Out of the 8-9 Best of Houston Wrestling shows you posted we came out with 2-3 new matches that we didn't get on the service, some older clipped footage, some promos, some commercials, some great Paul Boesch moments. All of that is way more valuable to the community than reposting the NWAonDemand matches again. If you have more of these episodes, please go back to posting them instead. Even if we come out with just a few more Houston matches we didn't have before, that's a boon. Thanks.

Giant Baba vs. Buck Robley AJPW 3/19/82

ER: I LOVED THIS!! This is the most WCW Saturday Night match in the history of King's Road. Buck Robley showing up in Japan and facing Giant Baba on his first day in town is like Bull Pain showing up on a taping facing Lex Luger on a sunny afternoon in front of vacationing Florida families wearing No Fear shirts, Big Johnson shirts, fanny packs, elastic waist band shorts, and square frame glasses. It is an indisputably perfect 150 seconds of professional wrestling and there's literally no argument you can make against that fact. Nobody within shouting distance of Korakuen thought Buck Robley had a snowball's chance against Baba that night, but Robley comes out of this whole thing looking like a total badass who beat the shit out of Baba before losing. Baba gives up offense to Robley as if Robley were Hansen, and Robley hits I think every part of Baba's head and neck with a strike: downward strike elbow to the head, chop to the Adam's apple, elbow to the cheekbone, punch to the underside of the chin, Robley was just putting a strike clinic on Baba's long dome. Baba was the best here, I fucking love fired up Baba, love him putting some mustard on his Baba chops, raining down on Robley's head and chest, and I thought it was cool how we got a show of Baba strength with his Irish whips. Robley was good at properly bumping for Baba, not overdoing it on the chops but stooging around great for all of them. Baba's Russian leg sweep looked like an impossible tangle of limbs, and Baba executes it really fast, then really slugs Buck with that big Baba boot. I would always love when Flair would show up on Worldwide and have a competitive match with Joey Maggs, and this felt like the best version of that.

PAS: This was a hell of a sprint, Robley came out knowing he had four minutes and was going to make it count. He comes in with his awesome "Nobody Calls Me Yellow" shirt looking like a backwoods hillbilly trying to gut someone with a rusty can lid. He unloads on Baba with these big forearm smashes to the head and neck, Baba looks simultaneously powerful and fragile, Robley's shots look like they are going to smash his bones and every Baba shot propels Robley back. That big boot feels like a finish and the post match Brody run in was appropriately chaotic (Brody is at his best in chaotic run-ins, then you don't have to watch him wrestle.)

MD: Robley in the states is always sort of hit or miss for me. In Japan, there's something outlandish and out of place to him that really works. Baba doesn't get nearly enough credit for how much he gives. I don't think he gets enough credit in general. He's Andre-like in that his very touch can destroy an opponent but also incredible capable of garnering sympathy, almost from his appearance alone. He could easily swallow the entirety of the space in any match he was in like an Inoki or Verne often does, but instead he understands how to reach the hearts of his audience, even while submerged in an environment where there's a real risk/fear to selling.

He gave Robley space to shine and Robley used it to the fullest, coming at him like an ornery honey badger. I've been watching a ton of these 1982 matches, but the image of Baba hanging upside down between the ropes and Robley battering him is going to stay with me even among all the noise. I bet it stayed with that crowd for a long time too.

Genichiro Tenryu/Hiroshi Hase vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Kensuke Sasaki AJPW 1/28/01

PAS: This is from the 2001 AJPW Dome show, and was only recently available outside of clips. AJPW post Misawa and pre-Muto was basically WAR, and this was a WAR style slugfest. It was four big stars beating the bricks off of each other, Sasaki blistering chests with chops, Tenryu punching people square in the jaw and toe kicking folks in the eye, Kawada throwing thick thudding kicks to the chest and Hase hitting as hard as I have ever seen him hit. It feels a little like a super violent exhibition then a match with a ton of build and story. We never really had anyone take an extended beating or a super progression to the end, but man it is hard not to enjoy Kawada and Tenryu trying to cave each others face in, or Sasaki slapping his good buddy Hase hard directly in the ear.

MD: We all have the things we go for. While I can meet certain matches half way, this wasn't for me. There's a period in the middle where Kawada and Sasaki have an extended period of control on Hase. I'd call it a real peril or heat segment, though there wasn't really that sort of face/heel divide. Hase's comeback attempts mainly consist of attempting the same sort of strike exchanges that litter the match, but losing each one because he's increasingly hurt and beat down. I thought the way he portrayed that, with increasing desperation and pride, but also decreasing levels of success, was actually pretty excellent and easily the best part of this match. Otherwise, this was just guys beating on each other without rhyme or reason. I'm a lot happier watching that for ten minutes than twenty-five.

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New Footage Friday: Aoyagi, Kurisu, Kobayashi, Hoshino, Regal, Brookside

Masashi Aoyagi/Masanobu Kurisu vs. Kantaro Hoshino/Kuniaki Kobayashi NJPW 1/4/91

PAS: In a better and more benevolent universe Kurisu and Aoyagi would have had a long worldwide run as a tag team, brawling with the Moondogs in USWA, pounding on the Rock and Rolls in SMW, bleeding with the Infernales in CMLL. We didn't get that run, but we do get to see them against a fun undercard NJ team. I really dug Aoyagi in this, he really ran off some fun kick and punch combos and threw some great spin kicks. Kurisu actually spent a lot of the match selling which was a different look for him, we did get some awkward chair shots and I loved his hulking up when Kobyashi started headbutting him. Ending fell a bit flat, but I did like the post match brawl a bunch.

MD: I liked the change of pace here. This was pretty structurally sound, actually. It was strange to see Kurisu in something straightforward. Hoshino and Kobayashi attacked from the get go. They controlled using the numbers game. When he could isolate, Kurisu would fight back with his toughness and meanness. He'd get quasi-hot tags to Aoyagi who would then be one and only one thing (kick-based karate guy) but as much of that one thing as humanly possible in demolishing his opponents. I like it when he sneaks in the insult to injury kick to the butt. I'm easily amused. Then the numbers game would allow Hoshino and Kobayashi to take back over. Honestly, I think my favorite part of this, even more than the kicks and chair shots and headbutts and chaos as it all broke down at the end was the glimpse of camaraderie between Kurisu and Aoyagi after we've seen them kill each other in the past.

ER: This was not the match I was expecting, and I like that. As Matt said it's a more straight forward tag match, although we do get a Kurisu chair beating (that leads to a nice moment with Hoshino using the chair back on him), but the thing that surprised me most was the aggression from Hoshino and Kobayashi. Hoshino is always a fun ball of energy, but usually his job is to come in, pump his arms a bit, and then get wrecked. Here he's fired up the entire time and really fights back, and I was just expecting him to be demolished by Kurisu, not Kurisu selling for two juniors. I love how Kurisu no sells chairshots to the head as if he was Samoan, and I absolutely loved Aoyagi in this. Aoyagi had to have kicked Kobayashi in the back of the head in at least three different times throughout the match, hitting a cool spin kick, and even better axe kick, and I love how it all built up to Kobayashi catching a big spin kick in a great looking spot. I loved this new look at Kurisu, him stomping around, kicking in the guardrail, selling, really these handhelds have dramatically increased the amount of Kurisu we have out there. The finish is bizarre and pretty stupid, with Kobayashi breaking up the pinfall literally the entire 3 count, and the ref just counting 3 anyway. But the post match was great with a fired up Kobayashi ripping off Aoyagi's gi, and both teams showing nice camaraderie. I love that little tiny Hoshino is the person we've now seen Kurisu be perhaps the most generous in the ring with. Something we'd not have known without some guy recording wrestling with a no doubt giant camcorder.

Keiji Mutoh/Sting vs. Akira Nogami/Hiroshi Hase NJPW 9/21/91

MD: I see this as sort of a palette cleanser for us, a good counterbalance to the other two matches this week. It felt like a modern WWE dark match after Raw where the top babyfaces team up against some game heels. You have to love the commitment from Muta, who is 110% engaged with everything going on, and even from Sting who has a sort of over the top hero-in-a-world-he-did-not-make vibe. What'll stick with me the most are the two big spots though, Muta getting absolutely crunched due to the recoil on a powerplex and then Sting flying high on a splash with Muta actually rocket launching him out of the corner. If you don't love the ridiculous rapid-fire facebuster bulldogs or the serene handspring elbow followed by the Stinger Splash to set up the finish, I'm not even sure what to tell you. Sometimes wrestling is Kurisu jabbing a chair in your face and sometimes it's this, but it can all be great.

PAS: Really fun nicely paced tag match. Teaming with Sting seemed to light a fire under the ass of a sometimes lethargic Mutoh (who was rocking the orange Mutoh tights with Sting facepaint.) I loved the double dropkicks and Sting pressing and throwing Mutoh at their opponents. Sting is a guy who got tarred with the 90s smart fan bias against muscle dudes, but he is a super entertaining wrestler who nearly always brings something special to matches he is in. There was a bit of sloppiness, but energy can overcome a lot of flaws. Enjoyed Hase a bunch in this, I always love when he shows off his greco throws, Sting is a big guy and he gets tossed around with suplexes, by a guy 50 pounds lighter then him, and it is all core strength.

Lord Steven Regal vs. Robbie Brookside WCW 1993

PAS: What a fascinating bit of footage to bubble up on youtube. This is an hour long Powerplant sparring session worked almost completely on the mat. It is pretty unique because it isn't a match meant for an audience (unless it's Dave Sullivan and briefly Tony Schiavone), it is instead a test of endurance and technique. They decide to grapple for an hour in 90+ degree heat to see if they can, and it is pretty cool that we get a chance to see it 15 years later. Regal is such a joy to watch on the mat, I especially loved his constant limb control, in headlocks, headscissiors, pin attempts, he was constantly grabbing an arm to tighten control, he would also really attack limbs when he was countering out of Brookside's attacks. Brookside was a bit flashier, you could see the WOS inspired fast counters, to Regals more grinding approach. I especially loved all of the work they did out of Brookside's bodyscissors, just both guys having a bunch of different ways to add spice to a basic spot. While there was a bit of quick roll ups near the end of the match (counted by guest ref DDP, who just jumps in the ring at about the 15 minute mark and starts reffing), this didn't really have any sort of build, it was just two master grapplers, grappling for an hour. The most unique match that has shown up since we started New Footage Fridays for sure, and a really great bit of errata to be able to see.

MD: Regal occasionally tells the story of arriving to the US in 93 and having no idea how to work a 6 minute TV match, not even fully understanding the concept of what was being asked, because they used to go an hour every night. It's hyperbole on both ends, but that doesn't make it any less of a joy to watch him fill time for an hour.

There's a lack of build towards climax but I was never bored throughout. Here Regal really holds advantage for a good chunk of it, moving in and out of holds, always grabbing for the next limb to reestablish control but never quite focusing long enough on any one part for Brookside to rationalize long-form selling. He, on the other hand, has flashy counters and what ultimate end up as hope escapes, before finally taking over about 35 minutes in. Regal sells as loudly and emotively as if there were thousands of people out there and not just six or seven. Occasionally it picks up with forearms and uppercuts or whips, but it always goes back to the competent but theatrical grinding.

The long period of pseudo-heel control followed by a revenge-laden limb manipulation comeback reminded me a little of the long Bockwinkel matches we have. The difference is the stakes. Everything feels earned but nothing matters to an iota of the level of, let's say the Bockwinkel-Brunzell broadway we have. I think it gives a very good picture of what a genuine 60 minute Regal performance might have looked like, though. I didn't have much doubt before and I have even less now.

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All Japan/New Japan Handheld Cherry Picking: Tom Prichard? Kimala II?

Hiroshi Hase vs. Tom Prichard  NJPW 10/18/89

ER: Almost 30 years ago some weirdo took time out of his Wednesday to record a Tom Prichard match. And he utilized the zoom, so you know he wasn't just letting the camera run. He took that time out of his evening, kept that footage like a secret, and so now I will write a hundred or so words to join this loop. The match is fun, with Prichard - hair flowing like David Coverdale - working over Hase's leg by stomping his hamstring, locking in half crabs and spinning toe holds, taking a surprising majority of this match. I really liked Prichard here. He didn't do anything overly fancy, but he worked with tons of confidence and acted like a bigger deal than he probably was. That takes some stones to go into a match with the plan of outmuscling an Olympic wrestler. And to his credit, it totally works. I was hoping for more out of the Hase comeback, though. Hase's mid-match comeback was really cool, him limping around on that bum wheel but still hoisting Prichard up with a neat deadweight Karelin lift and dropping him with a sick gutbuster. But his end of match comeback to win felt like they got the sudden call to go home, as all knee selling goes out the window and he kind of mechanically grabs the northern lights suplex. We had fleeting moments before that, like Prichard's snug sunset flip, and really I got what I wanted out of the match: A good Tom Prichard performance in a match nobody knew existed. (But sorry, the Heavenly Bodies Complete & Accurate is still in line behind the Beverly Bros/Destruction Crew C&A)

Kenta Kobashi/Kimala II vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Gary Albright  AJPW 6/3/96

ER: This immediately jumped out to me from the matchlist, as I'm a goof who likes Kimala II, and he's not a guy usually put into matches high up the card with stars, he's the guy working low on the card hitting splashes in Abby matches, slapping bellies with IZU, or somewhere in a Baba trios. Seeing him 2nd from the top with some big name guys is a super exciting find for me. This is a cool tag to start because it's a native/gaijin vs. native/gaijin, I always think that's kind of cool. Kimala is a unique guy to see as a face in peril, and the match got really good when Kawada and Albright started picking away at him. Before that it was kind of Kawada vs. Kobashi by the numbers, and their by the numbers is cooler than most, but it feels like the big two getting some stuff out of the way to lengthen a match. Kimala/Albright was a more fun match up, as it was far more common to see them teaming, they rarely were on opposite sides of a match. Crowd is immediately behind Kimala, getting a kick out of his Baba chops and digging when he lit Albright up with a headlock. Albright is really fun and a guy I need to go watch more from. He's really underwritten about considering his fun career. The talking point for the longest time was that Kawada carried him to one great match, but I can't think of a match where I haven't enjoyed him. Seeing him do a snap suplex on someone as beefy as Kobashi is a great visual, and the fans are familiar with his throwing strength, so it's great hearing all the excited oooooohs when he teases giving Kimala a dragon suplex. The match really picks up once Kawada and Albright start to isolate Kimala, and the fans start responding to him as the underdog. Kawada is kicking at his leg and throwing big kicks to his belly (which leads to a great moment where Kimala finally catches a kick and fires back a chop to the head). Both do uncharacteristic double stomps to Kimala's stomach, and Albright starts tearing at the arm, dropping a knee on it, digging into it with his elbow point, throwing him into the guardrail, working an armbar. When Kimala finally makes space the fans want the Kobashi hot tag so bad! Kawada was a great jerk, kicking people in the forehead all match and finally separating Kobashi from Kimala, allowing Albright to get the armbar. This match was real fun, with a fun FIP you don't get to often see.

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Masashi Aoyagi Don't Read that Daily News

Masashi Aoyagi/Kengo Kimura/Great Kabuki/Shiro Koshinaka vs. Hiroshi Hase/Kenji Muto/Masahiro Chono/Tatsumi Fujinami NJ 8/2/93s-sGREAT

I pretty much universally enjoy a Heisei Ishingun multi man match. You get a lot of moving parts, doing things, some gang beatdowns and a dope Kabuki uppercut or two. Aoyagi was really fun in this, he gets his eye bruised up at one point, at seems to be adding some mustard to his shots afterward, he really brain kicks Chono at one point. He also ends up eating all of the big moves to lead up to the Dragon Sleeper submission. Hase had a couple of big throws, Koshinaki hit some guys with his butt, the crowd got into it, overall some fun stuff.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara Cannot Carry All The People Because It is Too Burdensome For Him

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Tatsumi Fujinami/Riki Choshu/Keiji Muto/Hiroshi Hase vs. Great Kabuki/Kengo Kimura/Shiro Koshinaka/Tatsutoshi Goto/Michiyoshi Ohara NJPW 3/21/94 - GREAT

This is a 10 man 2/3 falls gang fight, with Heisei Ishingun facing off with the New Japan boys. The NJ 10 man matches are always great (at least the 20th Century version, fuck if I am going to watch some Bullet Club mess). Really enjoyed Muto in this, this is a match with a lot a clubbing brawlers, so having an infusion of high level athleticism really brings something different. Of course I love some clubbing brawlers and there was a lot of great clubbing here. Our boy Fujiwara is great in these matches, you aren't going to see any of the high level mat work, but you are going to see him choking Koshinaka with a rope and headbutting him in the temple. I think this needed the heat of the Fujiwara v. Saito singles match, that most of this was more wrestling match then blood war. Still the wrestling was good, and I was really surprised at HI going over like that, with Goto hurling Muto off the top rope with a nasty uranage.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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2017 Honorable Mention: 1993 in 2017?

Great Kabuki/TNT/Great Muta v. Tatsumi Fujinami/Riki Choshu/Hiroshi Hase Keiji Muto Produce 7/26

ER: Without knowing who was involved in the match, someone could have said to me "Hey, a trios match just happened in Japan where the average age of the participants was literally 60 years old..." and that really all the information I would have needed to convince me. Vega is the youngster in this one, clocking in at 53 and looking like he's working a Headhunter C gimmick. Kabuki is the oldest at 69, and it honestly wouldn't shock me if he was older. Everybody in this is probably better than expected, especially Hase who to my knowledge hasn't even wrestled in a decade. He's still got a crazy muscular chest and Hitler mustache, and while he adorably couldn't quite stick a kip up, he did a freaking 17 rotation giant swing on Kabuki. After the swing he stumbles around, does his old hip swivel taunt at Muta, and then staggers right into a great TNT lariat. TNT was super chunky here but can still go, and I'd really like to see him in a match with younger guys. His spinning heel kick still looks exactly the same. Hase gets thrown into chairs, scattering poor elderly wrestling fans; we get several instances of mist, with Riki getting sprayed by Muta, Kabuki accidentally spraying TNT, Muta, Muta accidentally spraying Kabuki; We get a Riki lariat, Muta still moves fairly spry and lands a coupld Shining Wizards on Hase (including a brutal one in the corner), and Hase impressively finishes off the match with a flat out awesome uranage and an even better northern lights. He did them on freaking TNT, the biggest dude in the match, and really hoisted him up and over. This was 16 minutes of smiles and good feelings.

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Be Joyful in Hope, Patient in Affliction, Faithful in Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Yuki Ishikawa vs. Hiroshi Hase/Yuji Nagata NJ 9/20/93 - EPIC

Hase is one of Fujiwara's all time great opponents, especially considering they didn't match up that much. There are two awesome singles matches and this superb veteran/rookie tag. Baby Ishikawa and baby Nagata were both great in this, but the highlight was really Hase and Fujiwara's brilliant grappling. Hase was a world class amateur and his matwork with Fujiwara always has this wrestler versus submission fighter feel. I love how fast Hase's takedowns are, and how you can see Fujiwara's brain working to find openings to counter. Ishikawa versus Hase was also really fun, as it was worked less equal, but Ishikawa was still capable of finding moments to shine. We get another classic Fujiwara finish here, Nagata comes in and is rolling, throwing kicks to Fujiwara stomach, and dumping him with german suplexes. However at this point whenever I see a young boy getting on a roll against Fujiwara I am just waiting for the floor to fall out, and Fujiwara spins out of german suplex and locks on a painful looking kneebar for the tap.

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Cast Your Cares on Yoshiaki Fujiwara, He Will Never Let The Righteous Fail

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Haruka Eigen NJ 7/16/83-GREAT

This is another chance to see early Fujiwara off the random tiny Japanese HH site. This was structured as basic undercard NJ match, but a nice step above the norm with Fujiwara bringing another level to the opening matwork. I haven't seen a ton of non comedy Eigen, but he was perfectly comfortable working legs and arms. Fujiwara was rocking some great judo throws and knuckle locks. The later part of the match is off the mat and a bit more pedestrian, but it was really neat to get a chance to see these guys early in their careers.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Hiroshi Hase NJ 8/8/93-EPIC

I just love the way these two match up, Hase is one of Fujiwara's better dance partners. The match starts out with both guys scrambling to establish wrist control, it is one of those little moments that make wrestling cool, and the kind of thing Fujiwara matches are loaded with. We get another one when Fujiwara gets taken down and actually calls time out, like he was Arn Anderson. Hase responds with a Sumo dance. It starts to get chippy with Fujiwara responding to getting out grappled by throwing a nasty left hook, and Hase doing the bolt spot so hard that it busts Fujiwara open. We ended with a great finishing run, including a spectacular Fujiwara armbar counter of a german suplex, and Hase reversing a standing armbar with a nasty Dragon suplex. Great discovery, well worth checking out.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Riki Choshu/Tomohiro Ishii v. Shinya Hashimoto/Naoya Ogawa/Tatsuhito Takaiwa Zero One 3/14/04-GREAT

This had a really ragged interpromotional feel. There were multiple parts of the match where guys would just square off and slap each other in the mouth. I especially enjoyed watching Fujiwara and Hashimoto crack each other in the chops. I could watch those two guys pound on each other all day. The match seemed to be setting up Choshu v. Ogawa and we got to see the expected amount of STO's and lariats. Match could have used some more Hashimoto and Takiawa did some things that annoyed me, still these kinds of uncooperative awkward violent matches are what Japanese wrestling does best, and even a minor version of that is going to be well worth checking out.

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! NJ 2/5 + 2/16 + 6/14/93

WE DECLARE WAR

Genichiro Tenryu/Ashura Hara/Takashi Ishikawa v. Kenji Mutoh/Akira Nogami/Shinya Hashimoto NJ 2/5/93

Pretty much exactly what you want out of this match up on paper. Hashimoto and Tenryu have a couple of nasty little scuffles building up their big singles matches, while the lumpy pissed off duo of Hara and Ishikawa mug the fuck out of Nogami. One thing we definitely got out of the 80's New Japan set is that Akira Nogami will take as big an asswhipping as anyone in wrestling history. After we go back and forth for a while, the WAR team kick his ass up and down the ring. Hashimoto isn't in this match a ton, but after Nogami gets pinned he attacks Tenryu and looks like he tries to take his eye out. More of a teaser then a great match, but a nice teaser.

Genichiro Tenryu/Ashura Hara/Takashi Ishikawa/Koki Kitahara/Ricky Fuyuki vs. Riki Choshu/Tatsumi Fujinami/Osamu Kido/Hiro Hase/Takashi Iizuka 2/16/93

These kind of Puro gang fight 10 man are one my favorite types of wrestling matches. This is 2/3 falls rather then elimination style and goes nice and long so each guy gets to stretch out a bit. We know what the WAR guys bring to the table, they are going to try to kick, stomp and punch divots in your skull. Tenryu is probably the greatest all time at throwing cheap shots, and he is constantly cracking folks from behind.The NJ guys really shine here as well. Fujinami and Iizuka probably take the biggest beating and both are masterful at receiving and firing back. Kido isn't in as much, but he pulls off some awesome flash armbars, really putting over his suddeness. Hase has a weird cool way of eating offense, I loved his sell of Fuyuki's clotheslines, and is great at catching people in sudden suplexes. Choshu is the BMOC, and he is as good an Ace as there has ever been. He gets the pins in both falls, as is so great at coming in and cleaning house.

Genichiro Tenryu/Takashi Ishikawa v. Shinya Hashimoto/Michiyoshi Ohara 6/14/93

Unlikely but true, in a match with Hashimoto, Tenryu and Takashi Ishikawa the star was Michiyoshi Ohara. He start out by spitting at both WAR guys and is totally great as the firery underdog getting the shit smashed out of him. There is a great moment early in the match where Hashimoto is getting worked over, and Ohara reaches out, gets the hot tag, comes in like a house of fire, only to get obliterated by an Ishikawa elbow. We get some more tastes of nasty Tenryu v. Hashimoto, inlcuding a great fight for a brainbuster, which includes Hashimoto just popping Tenryu with a Cro Cop high kick. Ishikawa and Tenryu are guys who will beat on someone, Hashimoto is a great hot tag, and Ohara is very good here taking a beating. We have all of the elements for an excellent traditional tag wrestling match, add the additional juice of interpromotional distaste, and you get something truly excellent.

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Come Not Between Yoshiaki Fujiwara and his Wrath

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Mark Rush PWFG 8/15/92-GREAT

PAS: When I got all of this Fujiwara-Gumi I was hoping that the promotion would be like WAR, a fun undercard headlined by a big main event, with Fujiwara in the Tenryu role. Instead for the most part Funaki and Suzuki have been main eventing and Fujiwara has been working mostly fun midcard matches. This however was a midcard match worked like a big main event. Rush is an amateur guy who kind of has a circus strongman look, and this was worked like a match against a circus strongman amateur. Rush could take Fujiwara down at will, and really punish him on the ground with strength holds, chokes, body vices, bear hugs. While Fujiwara would be trying to maneuver him into joint locks and submissions. Very cool story and really well executed, the first time I have seen Rush in a complete wrestling match, and a really hidden gem for Fujiwara fanatics.

TKG: Yeah this had a real main event feel. And I like Phil's mention of carny circus stuff as this was built all around chokes/sleepers/front chanceries like a battle for Weaver lock. There is this one odd section in it where Fujiwara is caught in a choke tries to escape and then just starts to drool, and it's amazingly dramatic and you think that its a finish but for some reason its counted as a down and Fujiwara is given a ten count to get back to his feet. Fujiwara gets back up and its on again. Odd to count passing out in a sleeper as a down but once you get past that, it really works nicely in this.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Riki Choshu/Tatsumi Fujinami v. Hiroshi Hase/Masahiro Chono/Shinya Hashimoto NJ 6/8/94- FUN

Enjoyable six-man match with everyone looking good. Hashimoto was definitely the standout on the 90's stars team, his interactions with Choshu were totally awesome. They are a pair of thick barrel chested dudes beating the snot out of each other. I loved Hash getting cracked by two Riki lariats and then countering the third with a sick superkick. Our man Fujiwara was a supporting player in this match, but he had some nifty moments, a couple of gritty scraps with Hashimoto and a very cool moment where he clocks a dizzy post Giant swing Hase with a headbutt. Match never really reached the crescendo which would separate it from the pack, but despite that it was well worth seeing.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Jushin Liger v. Antonio Inoki/Tiger King NJ 5/3/97-GREAT

This was a Tokyo Dome match, and was basically an opportunity for the four legends to do their signature stuff for a big audience. For that kind of match this is about as good as it gets. Sayama was on fire here, he hadn't fully porked out, but was definitely on his way, he still hit all of his signature stuff with as much speed and even more precision then he did in his prime. He really had great chemistry with Liger, and of course with Fujiwara who his all time greatest opponent. I really enjoyed the Fujiwara v. Inoki match up as well, as they really grappled hard for their initial section, and the finish had Fujiwara doing some awesome selling for Inoki's big moves. Not a long match or a deep match, but a great match.

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara is like a fury to the vicious mind, And turns delight itself to punishment

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Shigeo Miyato UWF 6/21/90 - FUN

PAS: Really fun extended squash with Fujiwara putting on a super impressive squashing a guy performance. This is the most Bernard Hopkinsy I have ever seen Fujiwara look as he was all about using distance to blunt Miyato’s attack. There was this great moment, where Miyato makes his big run off offense, he gets Fujiwara in the corner and Fujiwara dodges and parrys his attack until Miyato punches himself out and gets winded.

TKG: This was completely one sided as Fujiwara worked as guy who completely outclasses his opponent. Your long one sided worked shoot matches can often be dull as higher tiered worker will just work disinterested. Fujiwara instead works guy having fun, and playing around. He gets hit a couple times cleanly in the Miyato’s corner run and does some spit selling but for the most part dodges the shots and puts Miyato away easily.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Hiroshi Hase NJ 5/3/93 - EPIC

Man when you watch handhelds like this it pisses you off that all this stuff happened 17 years ago. Right now we get every show that happens in Japan a day after it happens, but it all sucks. Back in 93 you would wait months, and there was awesome shit like this which was lost forever. This opens with some of the better matwork you are going to see in New Japan, really sweet countering of moves and Hase is really great at using amateur riding and position, while Fujiwara was pulling out really cool ways to escape things. Fujiwara gets the advantage with headbutts and he does this great little dance after popping him, totally cocky dick stuff. Hase gets the advantage with a take down and starts spiking Fujiwara with uranages, and it looks like a matter of time. Fujiwara was so great at selling rubber legged and desperate. Finish was a true Fujiwara classic, with Hase going for his big Choshu clothesline and getting ridden down with a spectacular out of nowhere Fujiwara arm bar. Fujiwara worked flash finishes better then anyone in wrestling history and this is just another example

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga Rainbow Produce 1/20/02 - FUN

Less of a match then a series of funny ideas. Matsunaga comes wrapped in barbed wire with some scorpions on leashes. Fujiwara spends most of the match attempting to defuse the booby traps, grabbing gloves from Usuda before he locks up, getting a pair of wire cutters and even handing his young boys brooms to sweep up the thumbtacks. Matsunaga gets very little offense in the match as it is mostly just Fujiwara beating on him. I would have liked to see this be more of the brawl, but this was amusing for what it was.


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A Soft Answer Turneth Away Wrath: but Grievous Words Stir Up Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Johnny Barrett UWF 5/28/90-GREAT

PAS: Super enjoyable match. Fujiwara almost feels like a master Jazz trumpeter who is just riffing. He tries out a bunch of neat little concepts in this match, but it feels very experimental. He had multiple very cool ankle locks, one where Barrett was in the mount, and Fujiwara locked his ankle with his feet, and another when Barrett had his back and he countered by twisting Baretts foot. They also did a bunch of spots taking advantage of Baretts size, with Fuiwara climbing all over him like a kid on a jungle gym. Barrett is really great in this match too, there are multiple moments where Fujiwara is dancing around enjoying himself, where Barrett responds with a nasty forearm or a knee, he is in a fight and doesn’t want to be treated contemptuously.

TKG: Barrett was smoother on the mat then I remember him and even his standing knees to the head felt organic. I kind of wish Zero 1 brought him in when Matt Gaffari was doing his superheavyweight schtick. I mean there wasn’t this kind of matwork in WAR but he feels like a guy who would have had neat matches in WAR as well. The real problem with him in this match (and the flaw that kept this from being an epic showdown) is that at no point did I feel like he had anything that was going to end the match. All of his matwork, strikes, punishing moves…even his chokes and submissions felt like stuff being used to wear Fujiwara down to build to a pinfall finish and not a sub finish.


Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Riki Choshu/Tatsumi Fujinami v. Hiroshi Hase/Shinya Hashimoto/Keiji Mutoh NJ 7/9/94- GREAT

A big star six man tag which totally delivers. Starts out a bit slow, but it kicks in gear when our man Fujiwara tags in, he has great exchanges with both Hashimoto and Hase. A great strike exchange with Hashimoto, with Fujiwara landing nasty chops to the neck and Hash laying in kicks. Super cool spot with Hase catching a Fujiwara headbutt and turning it into a uranage. Finish is totally awesome, Hase hits his giant swing on Fujinami , but it makes him dizzy so he stumbles into a Riki lariat. From there you have a big run of moves with everyone hitting their signature stuff, until finally the 80’s stars get triple submissions and the win, The old guys team is totally awesome and I need to see more of them.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Yuto Aijima v. Giant Kimala/Jinsei Shinzaki AJPW 6/8/01-SKIPPABLE

Not much of a match, luckily we get very little Aijima because he is one of the worst ever. Mostly just Fujiwara running through his basic comedy spots. I enjoyed him biting Kimala on his titty, and how Shinzaki kept hurting his hand when he chopped him, but nothing that hasn't been done better other places.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Shinya Hashimoto v. Kohei Sato/Hirotaka Yokoi Zero-One 8/15/04-EPIC

Here is the first really spectacular 21st century Fujiwara match I have found. This had the feel of a classic BattlArts match,yuy nothing fancy just all four guys trying to beat the ever living shit out of each other. Fujiwara gets isolated for a part of this match and eats a pretty big beating from the young guys. Yokoi wears MMA gloves and unloads with nasty full strength punches to the face and body. There is this awesome section where he is unloading on Fujiwara and Fujiwara fires back with his jumping shoot headbutt. They also have a great early mat wrestling section, with Fujiwara showing the kind of slick counters that are his forte. Of course Hashimoto is a fucking tank, when he gets tagged in he just murders people, axe like chops to the neck, thudding kicks, big suplexes. There are several points in the match where Sato tries to stand toe to toe with Hashimoto and it is like trying to brawl with late 80s Tyson. I love this kind of gritty violent stuff and this match totally put a smile on my face.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

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