1994: UWF-I'll Make Love to You, Vader

Super Vader/John Tenta vs. Gary Albright/Kazuo Yamazaki  UWF-I 10/8/94

ER: Crowd was intensely hot for Albright vs. Vader, and they know exactly how to tease them, starting with a big pull apart to start and then not seeing those two actually square off until we're 2/3 through this thing. It's fun seeing Tenta on the mat, as it's a total fish out of water situation. He doesn't look like he can really do a whole lot there, but he's enormous, so it creates a ton of fun visuals. At one point he's clasping his hands around nothing, and keeping his hands together for reasons I couldn't figure out, and Albright is maneuvering around him having no clue how to move him. Albright has amazing throwing strength and there's a moment where he moves in to deadlift Tenta, which...that's just not going to happen. Vader and Tenta are fun bullying Yamazaki, and Yamazaki gets a nice backpack choke on Tenta at one point, which is how I assume this will end. After all, Vader isn't going to lose, right? This whole match was basically a nice slow burn and build to get to a Vader/Albright showdown, and my god do they pay it off. Tenta and Albright come to another stand off and Vader starts excitedly waving his arms from the apron, wanting that HOT TAG and the fans go from murmuring to chattering to yelling after seeing how excited Vader is to clash with Albright. Outside of that pull apart before the bell, they were not in the ring together until this moment, and it totally explodes.

Vader bullies him with strikes and Albright, beaten down, roars out of the corner with elbows and freaking THROWS Vader with a gorgeous belly to belly. The form on Albright's belly to belly is second to no man, but performing it on a 400 lb. man without losing any of the form is just astounding. We really need to go back and reevaluate Albright. The book for years on Albright was "Kawada carried him to a great match once" and considering I've never not loved an Albright performance I've seen, I don't think that is anywhere close to accurate. I need to find the Albright gems. And IZU. Nobody gave a shit about lumpy 90s AJ dudes. They need a modern voice. Anyway, now Yamazaki tags in and has renewed confidence against Vader, throwing big KO kicks and working an armbar, frustrating Vader so much that he pops Yamazaki in the mouth illegally, and this makes the fans want Yamazaki MORE. It's a great moment. Tenta squashes him a bit, hits a great uranage and his powerslam with the specific powerslam grip that only Tenta uses. You are picturing it now. But you know this is gonna come down to Vader/Albright, and it comes down with a brutal sudden downpour. Vader gets tossed with another gorgeous belly to belly, then Albright - being an absolute man beast - tries to drag a belly flopping Vader to his feet with a rear waistlock, just trying to deadlift drag freaking VADER back to his feet, like nobody at all can do, but Albright drags him there and bounces Vader across the ring with an amazing German suplex. Vader almost rolls through it and is back to his feet throwing bombs, but Albright throws him again and taps him with an armbar. Albright's selling on his celebration felt like an actual sports victory, very excited and emotional. The suplexes were outstanding, and he threw them with the same violent grace he would a guy half Vader's size. What a way to start this feud.

Super Vader/John Tenta vs. Gary Albright/Kazuo Yamazaki UWF-I 10/14/94

ER: This is a real treat as Vader mostly came in to work one shots every few months for UWF, so a rematch happening barely a week later feels like a big deal. This is slightly diminishing returns from the first match, as the first is longer and this loses some of the freshness of the match-ups, but this still has the electricity of the first match, especially since you know it's building to a big Vader/Albright blow off. A lot of the dynamics from the first match are repeated here: Yamazaki starts with Vader, Tenta comes in to work Albright, we build to Vader working Albright, and then this time Vader and Tenta finish off Yamazaki, escaping Albright's wrath. Yamazaki/Vader is a fun match-up with Yamazaki peppering Vader with leg kicks, and Vader is always great at showing the right amount of vulnerability with him, stumbling in the right ways and always building to a great moment where he falls into the ropes as his legs knot up. This era of Tenta is one of my favorite looks in wrestling history. He's absolutely monstrous, looking like the most menacing cross between Ricky Jay and the guy who chases Pee Wee around the Cabazon Dinosaurs. He laughs his way through Yamazaki's leg kicks and shoves him into the ropes, and is again flustered on the mat by Albright, lying one his stomach and basically refusing to move, effectively blocking a choke and refusing to budge. His presence alone is cool, and it feels big when he powerslams Albright and wrenches him into a Boston crab. Of course we get the big Vader/Albright showdown with Albright calling for Vader to tag in, and seeing Albright throw Vader with Germans is just one of the more impressive things in wrestling, Vader gets bounced hard by Albright, and Albright is great and selling the energy it took to pull off the throw, and Vader was great at selling the impact of the throws, slowly rolling over like someone who threw their back out. When it came down to striking Vader threw some awesome combos to overwhelm Albright, knocking him silly and sending him falling through the ropes to the apron, practically landing on his head. Tenta squishes Yamazaki with a powerslam and Vader polishes him off with a powerbomb that no mortal could get up from, and in just 3 long months we get to see Albright and Vader mano y mano, the two wildest bulls in UWF-I.


MINI COMPLETE AND ACCURATE VADER IN UWF-I

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1993: UWF-I, Vader Ain't Got No Alibi

Super Vader vs. Kazuo Yamazaki UWF-I 8/13/93

ER: I love the energy for these matches, love how the Japanese workers act like they loathe Vader coming onto their turf, love how the fans seem resigned to the fact that Vader is going to smoosh their favorites, and so they absolutely lose it whenever their guys are aggressive or gain a momentary advantage. Something as little as Yamazaki going for a go behind, even though there was not even a tease of him being able to throw Vader, gets a major reaction. So when Yamazaki actually starts landing on Vader the crowd is going absolutely bonkers. And the stuff with Vader landing shots is just fantastic. Yamazaki keeps throwing kicks that are too catchable, and Vader starts off almost too nice, just kind of working a catch and release program with the kicks. But things change when Yamazaki somehow picks a leg and Vader ends up on his back. It doesn't feel totally honorable but I fully understand Yamazaki kicking at Vader's head while Vader is grounded. The fans don't care either as any advantage is an advantage. 

Yamazaki is so good at being right on top of it, as the second Vader gets to his feet he lands a huge spin kick that sends Vader crashing into the ropes. Vader is so great at falling into ropes, through the ropes, getting backed into a corner with precision kicks to the face, and the way he's staggering and falling makes it immediately look like Yamazaki has a legit chance. We get an absolutely nuts moment where both men tie each other up and fall into the ropes, tumbling fast and violent over the top to the floor. You don't often see someone fall through the ropes in a fight, but when you do it always feels like a big moment, and this felt like the biggest, pro wrestling version of that moment. But all it takes is Vader catching one kick for Kaz to accept that Vader is not messing around. He decks him with a huge punch, flings him with a slam, locks on a huge standing choke (imagine one of those arms hooked under your chin!!) and just buries him with a uranage. Vader is an absolute tidal wave in this environment.

Super Vader vs. Naoki Sano UWF-I 10/4/93

ER: Definitely the strikiest of the UWF-I Vader matches we've seen so far. Vader catches a kick early and Sano slaps Vader while Vader is HOLDING HIS LEG! Then Sano falls back into the ropes for the break. The balls on this man. But we get a ton of punch and kick flurries the entire match, from both men. Vader is less about catching a leg and landing a huge bomb, and more about throwing hard palm strikes to the head and body. At one point he fakes a downward righthand strike, Sano takes the bait and Vader hooks him in the ribs with a left. So awesome. Sano is not bashful about trading, and the fans get way into it, and when he knocks Vader down the fans are still thirsty for that big first Vader loss. Vader just starts crushing him though, dropping him with a couple of big Samoan drops (I would have bet money that Sano was going to grab some kind of choke when Vader went for the second one, shocked it didn't happen), and Vader's chokeslam is really becoming quite the finisher. Sano's opening was really great in this, as he low bridges Vader over the top to the floor, and Vader takes a mammoth (wooly mammoth?) bump to the floor. The buzz in the crowd whenever Vader goes down is super exciting, but Sano will not be the one to vanquish the Mastodon.

Super Vader vs. Nobuhiko Takada UWF-I 12/5/93

ER: A huge main event to cap off a huge stadium show. Takada was wildly over and hadn't lost a singles match in over a year and a half. Vader looked mostly unstoppable and was one of the biggest wrestling stars in the world. I love how Vader came into UWF-I and worked like Vader. There was no shootstyle here, it's just his style - that of a 400 pound mastodon - being dumped right in the middle of shootstyle workers. And he was such a giant boulder standing in the way of the native stars' success that it was the perfect style clash. Vader was a megastar and was treated as such, and there was electricity throughout this entire match because the fans saw Takada as unbeatable, yet also saw Vader as unbeatable, and they were having a hard time reconciling those two conflicting results in real time, so they were just vocally excited the entire time. Takada is vicious with leg kicks here, and Vader is so phenomenal at selling those leg kicks that - whether he was or not - I fully bought that every muscle in his thigh was getting completely knotted up. Vader had used a pretty successful tactic in his other UWF-I matches where he would walk through offense and just land big strikes, work to catch a kick and then throw a haymaker. But Takada's leg kicks are too strong. 

Vader works a more aggressive mat game than in his prior matches, here actively trying to land on Takada and working vicious grounded palm strikes and trying to pop Takada's head off with awful headlocks. He even rushes Takada with a takedown at one point, which he hasn't done so far in UWF-I. And his leg is getting so knotted up that he can barely stand, and does great theatrical things like pushing himself back to his feet off his good leg, and at one point he even gets himself to his feet by using the referee to push off of. Vader wisely abandons the tactic of trying to catch Takada's kicks, and starts immediately closing gaps during stand up, not giving Takada space to fire off kicks. Vader runs in close and just muscles him into slams, any one of which feels like Takada won't get up from. Vader attempts to fight Takada at his own game, wrestles him to the ground with an armbar, but Takada is slippery on the mat and Vader's size is more exploitable there, and getting Vader to tap was a monumental moment in wrestling history. Takada didn't get there easy, and he even fought a little dirty down the stretch, kicking Vader while he was down, kicking him in the chest and gut, really sadistically picking him apart before going after the arm. He didn't set out to win this way, but it was what he had to do to win. Two unbeatable men, doing what they had to do. Vader's arm gets a fucking  stretcher job, and it's the greatest. There are two men, holding Vader's injured arm in a stretcher, one walking in front of him and one behind, his injured arm nestled on a tiny stretcher.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE VADER IN UWF-I

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New Footage Friday: Dandy, Shu, Takada, Kobyashi, Armstrongs and Horsemen

Bob Armstrong/Brad Armstrong vs. Tully Blanchard/Lex Luger NWA 4/11/87

PAS: This is pro-shot, with commentary uncut from the 1987 Crockett Cup. Really fun match structure with a long heel in peril section opening up with the Armstrongs working over Tully. You get a bunch of a close call missed tags, and cheating, much like you would if Tully was a face. Here though Tully is so loathsome that the crowd is enjoying watching him get screwed. Tully was so awesome here, I loved his fake test of strength, wild cheap shot swing, and he was great getting hoisted on his own petard. Really dug the Bullet of course, he has a ton of 70s babyface flourishes, knowing just how to egg on the crowd as he twists a wrist or throws a punch. His K-RATAY hot tag near the end of the match was class stuff. Loved JJ cheating too, what a smarmy prick he was, one of my all time favorite guys on the outside. He has the charisma of an ex-congressman turned pharmaceutical lobbyist.

MD: So we had this from out in the crowd with far worse VQ and we had a five minute clipped version that was on the official Crockett Cup video. This is pro-shot, with Tony announcing, and complete with great VQ, so we're covering it.

Generally, I'm wary of tag matches that lean too heavily towards heel-in-peril, but there are a number of things going on here that serve as mitigating factors. For one, this was part of a two day tag tournament, so there needed to be some variation in style and tone between the matches. Them doing a fun, face-heavy quarterfinal match here meant that they could lean further into the heat in other matches. Frankly, the crowd probably should have been burnt out and that they weren't was a real testament to the match. A lot of it is about the participants and the execution though. Bob and Brad are the folksy trickster family come up from the mountains, pure Americana. There's a charm to them that you wouldn't see in your mid-80s WWF face tag teams doing a lot of the same things. Tully is the king of stooges, who tries to cheat first and then deserves everything he gets. Luger's just oafish enough to fall for their tricks on the apron. JJ's always gold as the stuffy manager getting more and more infuriated and flustered on the outside. Of course, the heels are going over, not just here but in the next match too, so they don't need to be protected as much, while the guys coming in from outside in Bob and Brad likely do.

The execution being great helps. Tully is constantly trying to worm his way to the corner. There's nothing valiant about his fighting (even if it's still a little tough). Bob's 100% committed, charming in his cheating and crowd interaction. Brad's picture perfect, always exactly where he should be, including with a great shoulder spear cut off to a Tully tag attempt. When Luger finally gets in and shows off his strength, Brad shines with finesse in dodging and weaving and firing back, and the crowd comes unglued when Tully tries to take advantage only to eat a lightning quick missile dropkick. The heat is brief but the transition is good (JJ pulling down the ropes), Brad fights well from underneath, with a hot tag and awesome JJ-assisted double clothesline for the screwy finish.

Not brand new, not my ideal tag structure, but crystal clear VQ for a charming match with everyone playing their parts and a hot crowd. I'll take this over a Kane OVW match anyday.

Kuniaki Kobyashi/Norio Honaga vs. Nobuhiko Takada/Kazuo Yamazaki NJPW 3/19/88

PAS: Really heated interpromotional battle with Yamazaki and Kobyashi especially trying to rip and tear at each other. It opens with a stare down between both guys, leading to a Yamazki high kick and some very sharp ground and pound leading to both partners and a bunch of seconds separating both guys. Very well done subtle worked shoot, no wrestling reason to have seconds run in, so it conveyed the possible unprofessionalism without shouting it from the rafters. Takada then tags in and slaps on a kneebar, sometimes that guy is a dunce. Match has a bunch of those mini explosions between Yamazaki and Kobyashi, and by the end you really want to see those guys unload on each other (they don't appear to have a singles match after this, so sort of a weird tease which went nowhere).

MD: Going through these NJPW handhelds is a archaeological experience. As most of these matches have not been watched by the community as a whole, there's no telling what you'll get. We came across this one because it was adjacent to a Fujiwara tag vs Ron Starr and Scott Hall. Unfortunately, we only had a minute or two of that. In finding the match, however, I stumbled into this.

A house show/handheld match with three or four intercessions from the seconds in order to keep competitors apart raises red flags immediately. This was a boiling pot of a match, one that in another setting might have frustrated me because it never quite boiled over, even after Yamazaki and Kobyashi finally got their hands on one another. As an unearthed handheld though, the anticipation is palatable and satisfying. It's a shame we don't have another match full of payoff though.

El Dandy vs. Shu El Guerrero IWA Japan 6/23/94

PAS: Rob Bihari continues his killer upload streak with this IWA Japan HH from 1994. El Dandy is an all time great, and like most luchadores has a pretty limited number of on tape singles matches. Shu El Guerrero is a guy who worked most of his career in the UWA so his tape footprint is pretty small, very cool that this showed up. It is more of a nifty discovery then a great match however. It feels like Dandy and Shu trying to work a Puro Juniors match then importing a lucha match. The opening matwork could have used some more llave, I have seen both guys work maestros matches and they can be electric, this was more armbar/kneebar stuff and sort of dull. There were some very cool suplexes by Dandy, and a nice tope, but I wanted this to be more. Still who would have thought this was something we would ever get to see?

MD: Hyper-competent mat-driven exhibition lucha in Japan with guys we're always glad to get more footage of. I don't think we have more than a handful of Shu singles matches. I question the logic of working ten minutes of primera caida title match matwork in front of a crowd that's come to see Yukihiro Kanemura and Shoji Nakamaki in a barbed wire barricade chain match, but (I pause here wondering if Phil will let me get away with the "who am I to doubt" line? I decide against it) the crowd was quiet but appreciative, especially once the pace picked up towards the end.

ER: I didn't actually know before this that Dandy had worked Japan, so it's cool seeing him in that environment, even if this environment felt pretty icy. And this never felt like more than an exhibition of moves, but it was a 21 minute exhibition of moves and both guys showed a pretty deep offense pool. But moves - no matter how nice - done deep in the vacuum of space, and I'm pretty sure Matt is right about people watching these two do a series of sunset flip variations while silently waiting for barbed wire. Also, the crowd had just watched a Joe Gomez match. I can't think of many WCW workers I care less about than Gomez. But IWA and those other early 90s death feds were always a cool variety bag, you'd get young American indy goofs, a couple old American guys, shamed native guys ousted from their original fed, just a cool mix. On paper if you knew you were watching a card with Dandy, Dick Murdoch, Headhunters, and a barbed wire chain match, you'd probably be pretty stoked.

But the crowd was silent until towards the end, and as great as some of the stuff looked here there really wasn't much of an interesting story to the match. It was pretty much Dandy breaking out a bunch of great looking pin attempt rollups, and Shu doing his cast canon of power offense. There were a couple clunky moments and a re-done spot, but also a lot of truly great looking stuff. The main problem with the match was that they essentially worked the same level the whole match, which is impressive, but you need peaks and valleys. This was move trading without much rhyme or reason given to moves after the kickouts. Dandy hits 7 or 8 awesome roll up variations, including one of the absolute fastest wheelbarrow rollups I've ever seen (I rewound that spot three times) and the smoothest possible crucifix roll through, but he was doing them from beginning to end with all of them getting the same exact 2 count until one got a 3. Dandy hits a fantastic lawn dart dive over the top, and I absolutely loved a spot with Shu doing a big surfboard and Dandy upside down in the surfboard reaching out both of his hands for the ropes. Shu always comes off as heavy and impossibly solid, like a guy who doesn't look cut but looks like he's made out of stone, like Masa Saito, and alot of his power offense lands with a big thud. Dandy was young and lithe here and his roll ups are among my favorite of any wrestler. They are always so economical and look entirely physically sound, love how snug he keeps his legs to his opponent, love the aesthetics of his legs locking perfectly into place over his opponent's arms. Really I can only think of Hijo Del Santo as someone with tighter roll-ups, but Dandy's could be better. So we get 16 minutes of a 21 minute match, and if you had seen some of this in GIF form I bet it looked like a banger, and while it was never boring at all, it just didn't play out. Still couldn't be happier that it got uploaded.

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara Died to Those Chains That Imprisoned Him

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Antonio Inoki/Nobuhiko Takada Inoki Festival 12/30/95 - GREAT

Nifty discovery, basically a UWFI tag with Inoki and Fujiwara on opposite sides. This was 2/3 falls and mostly focused on Yamazaki v. Inoki, which is an odd on paper match up. We open with a long Fujiwara v. Inoki grappling section which was the highlight of the match for me, those two have such good charisma, and while Inoki isn't on Fujiwara's level he has the credibility to stay with him. Fujiwara tags in Yamazaki and he Inoki kid of bull rushes him for the pin. Second fall has some Takada v. Yamazaki stuff, which is well executed but not my thing, and they have another Inoki v. Yamazaki showdown which ends with a Yamazaki kick to the face and him pinning Inoki. During the break between rounds Hashimoto comes out and yells at Takada. I kept waiting for the third fall to kick it up a notch, but the second Inoki v. Fujiwara face off wasn't as cool as the first, and Inoki sits in a Fujiwara armbar a bit too long before reversing it into an Octopus for the win. Overall a nifty match which feels a bit out of time in 1995.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara is God's Field, God's Building

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Keichi Yamada/Umanosuke Ueda NJPW 5/16/87 - EPIC

PAS: The first real unearthed classic from the batch of NJ handhelds. I loved every second of this. Ueda is surprisingly adept at shootstyle matwork as he has some very fun exchanges with both Yamazaki and Fujiwara where he uses his size to counter their skill. At one point there seems to be a bit of chippiness between him and Yamazaki and he puts on this nasty hammerlock that looked like he was teaching the kid a lesson. There was a similar vibe with the Fujiwara and Yamada exchanges. Yamada is a bulldog, moving forward super aggressively and Fujiwara taking advantage of the kid's aggressiveness to counter him and punish him on the mat. We also get some very cool youngster battles with Yamada and Yamazaki moving at warp speed against each other. Finish was another Fujiwara symphony. Yamada catches him with a tombstone, but is only able to get two, Fujiwara fights back with some headbutts, hits a nasty piledriver, but pulls him up at two, hits this lightning fast judo throw, and spins quickly into a nasty Fujiwara armbar. Just a spectacular show of craft, such a nifty discovery. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! 11/9/96

1. Gokuaku Umibozu vs. Jun Kikuchi

ER: Awwww yeah! What a killer little start to a WAR show! Umibozu is a sleaze fed karate guy with cool face paint, and Kikuchi is a guy that nobody has ever heard of who probably deserves to be heard of. Kikuchi looks transported straight out of a black and white 60s JWA match, like a Rikidozan partner. He's got the same thick build, old puro moveset (butterfly suplex, back suplex, those kneedrops where your shin lands flat over a guy's chest) and a Johnny Unitas flat top. Umibozu breaks out a nasty axe kick and follows it up with a straight kick to Kikuchi's chest, then levels him with a chair shot. Umibozu throws some headbutts and I love Kikuchi's classic strong style comeback. Seriously, this guy is right out of a time machine. Umibozu dumps him on his head with a folding powerbomb and then lands rough on a moonsault that sees Kikuchi kicking out right at 3 and then yelling at the ref. These guys were both awesome and both mostly unknown, and totally delivered in a 6 minute opener. Worth it.

2. Masayoshi Motegi vs. Battle Ranger

ER: Man this undercard is delivering unexpectedly. Motegi looks like a cross between Kawada and Rusher Kimura here, and delivers a great ass beating. He hits some stiff as hell lariats and works with a heft that I don't remember seeing from him. WAR apparently brings out the badass in everyone! Battle Ranger is here to get beaten, getting in only a brief run with a rana, German suplex and a smooth headscissors, but when he goes to follow up with a plancha to the floor he runs right into a waiting chair. Then Motegi mocks his battle ready stance and hits him more with a chair. Motegi hits a stiff Dr. Bomb and then absolutely crushes the finish, initially going for a superplex only to see Ranger squirt out, so - back facing the ring - Motegi grabs him in a gutwrench and hits an awesome twisting Dr. Bomb off the top. Killer finisher. The masses can finally stop harassing me, for a Battle Ranger match has finally been reviewed on Segunda Caida.

3. Masaaki Mochizuki/Takashi Okamura vs. Kamikaze/Masakazu Fukuda

ER:  This was clipped to half the running time, but it was in highlight form, and looked good enough from the highlights. 1996 was a year where WAR brought in a bunch of rookies and young guys, and a lot of them acted like real punks (to our benefit). Mochizuki is a guy who has looked good pretty much since his debut, and he's one of the more tireless guys in wrestling. It seems like his name never stops showing up in results. Okamura was clumsy in an amusing way and has been involved in the Dragon Gate office for years now. Kamikaze is another guy who is still somehow steadily working, and Fukuda died tragically from an in ring accident just a few years later. And all brought young rookie fire here. Fukuda is tall and lanky, and Mochizuki attacks him the whole match with nasty whip crack leg kicks, but goes down like a shot for a nice Fukuda elbow smash. Mochizuki and Okamura are both wearing their baggy mid 90s karate gear (with the short cropped shirts with short yet super baggy sleeves), and apparently everybody in WAR that year was instructed to use chairshots whenever a match went to the floor. Chairshots with those thin but no doubt painful Japanese metal chairs are to WAR what being thrown into the guardrail is to NOAH. Mochizuki beats Fukuda's ass on the floor, and Okamura comes flying out of nowhere with an elbow drop off the apron that mostly misses. That was a theme of Okamura's, although in an amusing way: He was kind of clumsy but had some wild asshole energy, so he would awkwardly take a bump or whiff on a move, but always with gusto. Kamikaze hits a great space flying tiger drop, Mochizuki continues to show he's one of the best kickers in pro wrestling history, and we get a fun pull apart after the match that spills to the back (and sees Kamikaze put an exclamation point on things with a big DDT on the floor on Mochizuki).

4. Doink the Clown vs. Onryo

ER: This is a weirdly infamous match among a niche circle of wrestling fans, as it was the only major promotion match to be included on Scott Mailman's Japanese Indy Sleaze comp tape. And yes, I understand that many words in that sentence I just wrote read like "Yahoo Serious Film Festival". I don't know any of the legal ramifications of Borne continuing to use the Doink gimmick several years after his awesome WWF stint, but it's really weird he showed up on just a couple WAR shows in full Doink gimmick. He's even on this show with Bam Bam Bigelow, the man he blamed for his WWF firing. So that's all weird. The match itself is incredibly fun, with Borne working really stiff and Onryo setting up a bunch of stuff for him. It's all built around Doink suckering Onryo into attacks, and then almost all of the attacks backfiring on Onryo. Doink throws some stiff shoulderblocks, catches a leaping Onryo and turns it into a nasty backbreaker, and then does two of the best drop toeholds I've seen, with Onryo rushing at him like he didn't realize he was going to eat a drop toehold. If someone could make a drop toehold look like a shoot, it was Doink, in WAR, naturally. Onryo hits some nice forearms and does a wild tope con giro to take out Doink and his own undead buddy, really a spectacular dive (which Onryo was always good for). Back in and Doink finishes things off pretty easy with a nice belly to belly and crushing Onryo's ghost chest with the whoopee cushion. Borne looked so awesome here, it really made me want to go back and watch all of his 1993 Doink run.

5. Bam Bam Bigelow/Nobukazu Hirai vs. Arashi/Osamu Tachihikari

ER: Kind of a big meaty mess of a match, but not without its charms. Early on Bigelow sells big for Arashi, bumping backwards to the floor off a shoulderblock, then smacking the drink out of the hand of a ringside fan. He smacked it from underneath, too, so the drink flew really high, straight up into the air. Hirai is a guy with tons of energy with mostly nice looking stuff, but in this match he is also responsible for one of the funniest and dumbest moments in wrestling. He and Tachihikari spill to the floor, and Hirai just wastes him with chairshots: throwing him into the ringside chairs, beating him with the chairs, burying him in the chairs. He then climbs into the crowd and runs up the stairs of Korakuen, then runs back down them, leaps onto the guardrail, slips, and falls right onto his face in all the chairs, not touching Tachihikari with whatever the hell it was he was meaning to do. But he is committed. So he suplexes Tachihikari into the chairs, gets back into the crowd, and walks up those stairs again. He doesn't walk up as high as the first time, and he goes slower, then he comes back down the stairs, slowly, gets back on the guardrail....and almost completely whiffs on a leaping clothesline. And he appears to actually injure his knee doing all of that, as he keeps going back to it the rest of the match while everyone else avoids it. Amazing. The rest of the match isn't much. We get a nice double team powerbomb from BBB/Hirai, and Hirai finishes things with a nice elbow drop off the middle rope. The sumo guys are a fun team, but this probably should have been better.

6. Kazuo Yamazaki/Takashi Iizuka vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Nobutaka Araya

ER: Yeah baby, this is all about Tenryu and Araya working as dickhead heels in their own promotion, openly taunting the fans with their assholery. Yamazaki starts the match lacing into Tenryu with kicks, and I always loved how Yamazaki still threw kicks like a kickpad guy, while just wearing tights and boots at this stage of his career. But you knew eventually that Tenryu would get his mitts on Iizuka, and when that happens then things get real. It happens in an unexpectedly awesome way, as Araya/Iizuka are in the ring, and suddenly the camera man gets knocked on his ass, and it;s like we're suddenly watching Cloverfield and have no idea what's going on, until the Tenryu pops into view as the cameraman is filming from his back. Turns out the cameraman was focused on the ring action and got blindsided as Tenryu did a sneak attack on Yamazaki. Tenryu beats Yamazaki down with a chair, and now we officially get Iizuka alone. You knew it was coming. Iizuka is always so game for taking a beating, and he's a great babyface as I always just want him to stand up for himself. They were such great jerks, laying in a beating with stiff chops and punches, nothing fancy, but the pure joy comes when Iizuka would make a miniscule comeback, because then Araya would come rushing in to immediately break it up. And every time they did that they would triumphantly raise their arms while soaking in the jeers. Tenryu and Araya are expert ring cutter offers, and we build to a big moment where Yamazaki finally comes back and breaks up a pin, kicking Tenryu right in the eye (and few are better at selling a kick to the eye than Tenryu). We get a great moment of Iizuka grabbing a desperation kneebar, but eventually Araya and his pudginess are two much for him, squishing him with two big moonsaults. This never hit peak WAR violence, but delivered at least as much as all Tenryu WAR tags. Tenryu and Araya are a total superstar heel team, making this easily must see.

7. Jushin Liger/El Samurai vs. Lance Storm/Yuji Yasuraoka

ER:  Liger and Samurai were such a cool team around this time, no way a team like Storm/Yasuraoka could come off even half as interesting. They both seem so light compared to the expresionless asskicking of Liger and Samurai. And luckily most of the match is a Liger/Samurai beatdown, so we didn't have to see extended runs of 1996 Lance Storm offense. First half of the match is Liger and Samurai cutting off the ring and picking apart Yasuraoka. Storm gets off kinda easy this match, as most of the damage that happens to him is due to his own poor landings on flying moves. Yasuraoka is the one in there getting powerbombed roughly (like 4 times!) and getting stomped by two of the better stompers in wrestling. We get a big dive spot, with Samurai plastering Storm with a tope (sending Storm crashing back hard into chairs), Yasuraoka hits a flying...something? (knee? axe handle?) that appears to not hit anyone, and Liger wastes him with a crossbody off the top. Samurai is one of the more generous bumpers ever, making all of Yasuraoka's stuff look brutal, when it does not in fact look very brutal (also, does anyone take a German suplex more annoying than Yasuraoka? He always takes them like he's doing a standing moonsault, always landing light), and Storm has some really awesome saves, really timing them so he's flying into frame at the last second. Storm and Yasuraoka win the junior titles, even though it felt like they really didn't do enough in the match to win them. Most of the match felt like a nice Liger/Samurai beatdown, with a Storm/Yasuraoka flurry at the end. Storm hits a huge flip dive to the floor that sends Liger sprawling through chairs (and sees Storm mostly do a huge Hamrick bump onto his back. Storm also took a great bump through the ropes earlier, basically flying through the ropes no hands and splatting on his back). I'm not really excited for the Storm/Yasuraoka babyface run, but it was nice seeing Samurai waste them. Samurai is always so lean and mean, I love his stomps and wrenched in holds, his reverse DDT always lands, and his left arm lariat (both standing and running variation) is a favorite of mine. I'd love to see Liger/Samurai against Tenryu/Araya

ER: Fun show that didn't look like much on paper. Nothing here was blowaway great, but it was a top to bottom fun show, a nice way to spend a couple hours. WAR felt like more of a "normal" fed at this point, but it had tons of charm and still brought the surliness.


COMPLETE SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!!

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1986 Match of the Year

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Osamu Kido/Nobuhiko Takada/Kazuo Yamazaki/Akira Maeda v. Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami/Kengo Kimura/Umanosuke Ueda/Kantaro Hoshino NJPW 3/26/86

PAS: One of the most famous matches in Japanese history this is the first major collision in the New Japan v. UWF feud. It is an elimination tag with to the floor eliminations allowed. Tremendous match, great performances by everyone involved. Our man Fujiwara was great, his section vs. Fujinami was yet another cocktease for the 80’s singles match which never happened, and I loved how he and Hoshino would pot shot each other. Inoki is so over, and comes off like a huge star, any time he tags in the crowd goes bananas, same with Maeda, sort of criminal we never got a big singles between those two as well. Most of the eliminations were really great, including Fujiwara and Fujinami just tearing it up until they both going tumbling over the top. We then get one of my favorite spots in wrestling history as Ueda (who is an ex-garbage guy who barely wrestles at this point) tags in to square off with Maeda, Ueda hadn’t been in the match much at all, and was playing the role of the outclassed older legend. He locks up with Maeda, eats a kick or two, realizes he is out of his league and tackles Maeda to the floor eliminating them both. Just such a cool moment, with Ueda sacrificing himself for New Japan. I could totally see Eddie Marlin in the same role in a big Memphis v. Knoxville 10 man. Finish is the only down part, as Inoki is left with Kido and Takada and I don't really buy him in any trouble, even down 2 to 1.


ER: This was my #2 match on the NJPW 80s ballot, with only Hansen/Andre edging it out. Pretty sure my #3 match will be our 1987 MOTY, and I believe what will be our 1984 MOTY landed in my top 10 of the set. So, you heard it here first, there was some pretty high end stuff in 1980s Japanese pro wrestling. Inter-promotional matches always have a much higher floor than most matches, and this was huge. Imagine if WCW invaded WWF in their prime and how hot the crowds would be as these disrespectful punks invaded (wait, actually don't think about that). If any invasion angle leads to a match half as hot as this, you did something right. Just the before bell drama alone is worth it, with Maeda lobbing air kicks at the NJ guys while trash talking. And their ring work backs up the trash talking.


This isn't like those UFC hype shows where they build up a violent fight and then work a points fight, this is a loudmouth contingent being loudmouths, and then fighting like asskickers. Every tag in brought new excitement as everyone had goals and the fans were hot for the new match-ups. Maeda and Inoki had an absurd amount of charisma, and Fujiwara looked downright giddy to be a part of it. He always knows how to stand out in these kind of matches and his chuckling thug vibe brought an outlaw quality to the UWF invaders. Every segment hit the right note, with unexpected standouts like Kimura/Yamazaki working a compelling short story that ended with a flash desperation pin from Kimura, followed by him crawling back to the corner and essentially being done for the match. The Ueda moment was amazing, and incredible wrestling moment and one of the all time great moments of psychology (arguably my second favorite piece of wrestling psychology ever, right behind Rude getting DQ'd for coming off the top rope against Steamboat, but immediately getting the pinfall back due to the damage he caused). Ueda was the clear, unspoken weak link on Team NJ, and over the first 30 minutes of the match all he had done was tag in, then tag right back out. It's like the team wanted to thin UWF's herd before they let Ueda in there. The admiration and respect from fans when he walked through the ropes was huge, and it would be hard to not feel sympathy for him as Maeda kicks the hell out of him, with Ueda clearly trying to catch kicks but his reactions being too slow. Him essentially smothering and falling on Maeda is the ultimate desperation tactic, the ultimate example of taking advantage of a weird match stip (and Phil is so right, feels like some weird stip they would have in Memphis), and just the best. My favorite guy in the match was Hoshino. He was a real revelation for me when watching 80s New Japan, and he's possibly my favorite fired up underdog babyface in wrestling. Here he's so good on the apron, a team man until the end, and in the ring he doesn't ever seem to notice that's he's the smallest guy in the match. He's spirited, wild, dangerous, and sympathetic. You get the sense that he's no match for the UWF guys, but HE doesn't get that sense. The ending IS a little anticlimactic, as aside from one good nearfall Inoki didn't seem in much trouble, and no matter how good he looked here I'm not sure there was one person watching who believed Osamu Kido would be the lone survivor. You can roll around different endings, have Maeda survive to end the match with an Inoki showdown, but that would deprive us of the Ueda moment, and it's easier to just appreciate the match for the all time great pro wrestling that it already is.


ALL TIME MOTY MASTER LIST

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1989 Match of the Year

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Kazuo Yamazaki UWF 7/24/89

PAS: This was my number one match in the Other Japan Best of the 90's voting, and truly a beautiful piece of professional wrestling. It is paced differently then any of the other matches in the Top 15, and I am guessing the odd pacing may have been a reason it finished low on some peoples ballots. Fujiwara, especially in the late 80's and 90's does this really stop-start almost Fugazish pacing, where you have big exchanges or moves, and then lulls, where both guys would circle or feint, before the next attack. I really like this kind of pacing, it is the kind of thing you often see in shootfights or boxing matches, really brings drama to the moments of action.

The first part of this match, Fujiwara is really not taking Yamazaki seriously at all. Like he is almost contemptuous, imagine Flair v. Scott McGhee or Ricky Steamboat in their first match. He throws in a cheap shot headbutt, dancing around mugging, puts on a knee bar while reclining with his head resting leisurely in his hand. At one point Yamazaki throws some kicks which miss, and Fujiwara responds with some really assholish thrown kicks of his own. Almost like the Jock Football player taunting the Asian kid with fake Karate. Fujiwara has some of the greatest facial expressions in wrestling history, and he really gets across contemptuous prick.

Yamazaki finally gets some respect when he hits Fujiwara with a nasty kick to the stomach for a down. Yamazaki tends to be kind of hit and miss with his kicks, and Fujiwara only sells the ones that land big, unlike a lot of other guys who will sell intent not result. Fujiwara also is always trying to catch the middle kicks, although even when he does, he will sell the shot if it is solid enough.

The last ten minutes of this match really bring it over the top. Fujiwara has gotten four downs on Yamazaki so he just needs one more knockdown for a technical decision. So Yamazaki has his back against the wall. He gets fed up with the abuse and you almost get the sense he has decided to dish out some receipts even if he is going down. Like many Fujiwara matches ring positioning is very important, Fujiwara had been trapping Yamazaki in the corner and punishing him with bodyshots. Yamazaki kind of bull rushes Fujiwara in the corner, and just unleashes body shots of his own, seemingly aiming right for Fujiwara's sake soaked kidneys. The downs get close to even, and they announce five minutes remaining.

They then go right to the corner with both guys now throwing with abandon and trying to maneuver the other into the corner, Yamazaki gets the final turn and cracks Fujiwara with a knee lift for a nine count. Now UWF2 had booked a ton of 30 minute draws, including one in the opening match of this show. Really the only reason to book so many undercard 30 minute draws is for a main event finish like this.

So we are at 28 minutes and Yamazaki unloads with a nasty headbutt right to Fujiwara's mouth. Now this is a clearly a receipt for the headbutts earlier in the show. Fujiwara comes up with blood dripping from his mouth, and this look on his face "So were throwing headbutts now, Motherfucker," and he just unloads with three nasty headbutts including one right to the eye for the TKO at 29 minutes 30 seconds. Yamazaki was technically fine here, but this was the Fujiwara show. Just an artist at telling a story with smirks and eye rolls and sneers. Every action had a reaction, great great stuff.

ER: I genuinely have no idea what to add to Phil's writing. This is probably the most extensively he's ever written about a match, and he's dead on. This is a beautiful match and showcases the true peak of Fujiwara's powers. This is like watching your favorite musician at the peak of their cool. This is seeing James Brown before he busted his knees or early Suicide gigs or like Mother Teresa in her 30s. I actually had Funaki vs. Nakano from this same show as my OJ #1, and now I'm curious how my opinions have changed on that 10 years later. This feels like a write up where I'm just going to keep saying "Phil is right about..." a lot, but oh well. Phil is right about the pacing of this. It's not a slow build, but the build comes in little waves, little currents. And at times I didn't necessarily think Fujiwara was underestimating Yamazaki, but moreso extremely confident in his own prowess (though at one point he does LITERALLY dust his shoulder off after a Yamazaki kick, soooo). 

This whole match features some of my absolute favorite rolling and grinding. Both guys end up in non-graceful, awkward positions, and the way they work into and out of those positions is wonderful. There was gamesmanship, often very overt by Fujiwara, and it was all great. I loved Fujiwara going down from that first big kick to his stomach, and staying down until the 9 count...and then literally hopping to his feet and walking it off with perfect posture. When you get publicly knocked down a peg in life, you either scramble to make things look totally normal and hope nobody notices (why no, I didn't just trip due to stepping on my own shoe lace...) or you have a little laugh to yourself at how human you are, and recognize that you still got it. 

The strike exchanges in this are beautiful in their imperfections. The timing is off, things don't land clean, and it's so much better for it. There are no turns taken, these are guys punching and kicking for an opening. Phil is so damn right about Fujiwara selling the result and not the intent. That's a beautiful sentence right there. It takes such nanosecond reaction times to be able to sell how good you THINK something looked, and Fujiwara is arguably the best ever at this. Post match is almost worth price of admission, as Fujiwara has gone into such caged animal survival mode that he almost forgets that his knock down of Yamazaki was for the match winning TKO, and his realization of that is so good, the smile of a reluctant fan favorite spreading across his face as he starts almost skipping around the ring. I'm a sucker for good sportsmanship done right, and I loved the moment of Fujiwara clapping Yamazaki on the back, happy in victory but almost relieved that it was over. True respect shown by both men.

ALL TIME MOTY LIST

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara Never Takes a Step Back, Only in the Face of More Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Akira Maeda v. Tatsumi Fujinami/Keji Mutoh NJ 2/5/87- GREAT

The NJ v. UWF feud may have delivered more great matches then any feud in history, and this was another in the series. Mutoh hasn't done a ton for me in the 1980's, but he was pretty great here. He gets abused by the UWF team, and is awesome firing back. He hangs with Fujiwara on the mat, and brawls with Maeda. The finish of this match was great with Mutoh getting fed up and hurls Maeda over the top rope, and then capture suplexes Maeda over the guard rail. Fujiwara wasn't a focus of this match, but he did have an awesome exchange with Fujinami which is always a pure pleasure to watch. They really matched up with tremendous speed, it looked like the kind of fast, intricate lucha exchange you might see Santo and Blue Panther do.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Kazuo Yamazaki UWF 7/24/89 - EPIC
This was my number one match in the Other Japan Best of the 90's voting, and truly a beautiful piece of professional wrestling. It is paced differently then any of the other matches in the Top 15, and I am guessing the odd pacing may have been a reason it finished low on some peoples ballots. Fujiwara, especially in the late 80's and 90's does this really stop-start almost Fugazish pacing, where you have big exchanges or moves, and then lulls, where both guys would circle or feint, before the next attack. I really like this kind of pacing, it is the kind of thing you often see in shootfights or boxing matches, really brings drama to the moments of action.

The first part of this match, Fujiwara is really not taking Yamazaki seriously at all. Like he is almost contemptuous, imagine Flair v. Scott McGhee or Ricky Steamboat in their first match. He throws in a cheap shot headbutt, dancing around mugging, puts on a knee bar while reclining with his head resting leisurely in his hand. At one point Yamazaki throws some kicks which miss, and Fujiwara responds with some really assholish thrown kicks of his own. Almost like the Jock Football player taunting the Asian kid with fake Karate. Fujiwara has some of the greatest facial expressions in wrestling history, and he really gets across contemptuous prick.

Yamazaki finally gets some respect when he hits Fujiwara with a nasty kick to the stomach for a down. Yamazaki tends to be kind of hit and miss with his kicks, and Fujiwara only sells the ones that land big, unlike a lot of other guys who will sell intent not result. Fujiwara also is always trying to catch the middle kicks, although even when he does, he will sell the shot if it is solid enough.

The last ten minutes of this match really bring it over the top. Fujiwara has gotten four downs on Yamazaki so he just needs one more knockdown for a technical decision. So Yamazaki has his back against the wall. He gets fed up with the abuse and you almost get the sense he has decided to dish out some receipts even if he is going down. Like many Fujiwara matches ring positioning is very important, Fujiwara had been trapping Yamazaki in the corner and punishing him with bodyshots. Yamazaki kind of bull rushes Fujiwara in the corner, and just unleashes body shots of his own, seemingly aiming right for Fujiwara's sake soaked kidneys. The downs get close to even, and they announce five minutes remaining.

They then go right to the corner with both guys now throwing with abandon and trying to maneuver the other into the corner, Yamazaki gets the final turn and cracks Fujiwara with a knee lift for a nine count. Now UWF2 had booked a ton of 30 minute draws, including one in the opening match of this show. Really the only reason to book so many undercard 30 minute draws is for a main event finish like this.

So we are at 28 minutes and Yamazaki unloads with nasty headbut right to Fujiwara's mouth. Now this is a clearly a receipt for the headbutts earlier in the show. Fujiwara comes up with blood dripping from his mouth, and this look on his face "So were throwing headbutts now, Motherfucker," and he just unloads with three nasty headbutts including one right to the eye for the TKO at 29 minutes 30 seconds. Yamazaki was technically fine here, but this was the Fujiwara show. Just an artist at telling a story with smirks and eye rolls and sneers. Every action had a reaction, great great stuff.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Yuki Ishikawa vs. Tatsumi Fujinami/Toshimitzu Ishizaka NJ 9/23/93-FUN
Fujiwara and Fujinami are guy who really work well against each other, their lack of a singles match is one of the biggest missed opportunities in wrestling history. This was pretty much a short throwaway tag, but it did have some awesome exchanges between those two guys. I love how Fujiwara is always a step ahead of his opponent, he catches Fujinami a bunch of times in nasty counters. His slickness makes it so cool when Fujinami drops him with a sneaky right hand.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Abdullah The Butcher WAR 7/4/97- GREAT

This is about as awesome a no bump match is going to get. Both guys are so great at being who they are, it is like the Dennis Hopper/Christopher Walken scene in True Romance. Lots of awesome, almost Kung Fu movie strike exchanges, Fujiwara is throwing these nasy bodyshots right to Abby's titty flap, and Abby is doing his awesome block and chop to throat. The end of the match was awesome, Abby hits his spectacular elbow drop for a near fall, he then goes for the fork, but Fujiwara cuts him off and get the fork. He gets this great shit eating grin on his face and just starts carving Abby up. Finish looked a little blown, and the match is slightly clipped up, but this was a total blast and fun as hell to watch.

Complete and Accurate Yoshiaki Fujiwara

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