SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!! 2/8/97

 

1. Ryo Miyake vs. Tomohiro Ishii

ER: Miyake is representing Tarzan Goto, and Sensei Goto is lurking in the crowd just waiting to invade. Goto is sitting alone in Korakuen wearing a purple suit and a white collared shirt with the top buttons unbuttoned. He appears to have an entire row to himself and looks smug, and powerful. They cut to him a lot during the match and they're right to do so. Where can I get Miyake's yellow Tarzan Goto shirt? I would pay very good money for it. Miyake is representing W*ING and Tokyo Pro and Japanese sleaze in general and the Goto shirt is firing up Shinichi Nakano at ringside. Ishii has neon green tights, and a neck. 

It gets good when Miyake starts toe kicking Ishii in the back and side of the head as the latter was getting up. There hadn't been any kind of Kurisu energy and that sparked something. When they go into an elbow exchange, Ishii works his a little and Miyake just runs through him with extra pounce on impact. Ishii kind of tenaciously goes after a hammerlock and that's a cool Ishii I don't know. Ryo Miyake looks like Satanico crossed with Akitoshi Saito but in a fucked up way and not a cool way. Ishii lays out for a Dynamite Kid diving headbutt 2/3 of the way across the ring and this Ishii is so much better. Miyake throws a WAR level lariat running out of the corner. His single leg crab and Texas Cloverleaf looked back backbreaking. I don't think Dean Malenko had a better application and execution of the Cloverleaf any time in '97. I've seen fucking all of them. 

Miyake invites Tarzan Goto into the ring and he takes his time walking from the 15th row of Korakuen, carrying an attaché. Nakano and now Arashi get hot and riled up at the sight of Tarzan Goto in a perfect suit jacket looking The Most Dapper Tarzan Goto Can Look, meaning his stubble is only 6 days old. Koji Kitao comes down, Goto just leaves and holds court outside the building, taking questions on the street as he's hailing a cab. You ever seen a god? 

2. Onryo vs. Choden Senshi Battle Ranger

ER: This is going to be an exciting mess with more crashes than hits and I love it. Onryo's pescado sends him crashing to the ground in front of Battle Ranger, who is still wearing his cape because Onryo hid under the ring and jumped him. Ranger takes a great ringpost bump that looks greater because he's still wearing his big cape. Onryo is remembered for his bumps and risks but his worked punches are a lot better than you remember. He throws an excellent dropkick and is good at leaning into kicks, including Battle Ranger's missile dropkick to the floor, springing off the middle rope. Battle Ranger takes a fucking Jerry bump (!) and Onryo runs up the buckles and dives into him with a Jerry bump AS OFFENSE! It all looks great. 

All of Onryo's offense is tighter than I remembered, and Battle Ranger does little things like kick Onryo in the face hard before hitting an Asai moonsault, not just focusing on hitting the move but actually thinking about believably neutralizing his opponent before hitting it. There's an unexpected and fantastic fight over a rear waistlock, where Onryo keeps trying to kick back - hard - at Battle Ranger's legs but Ranger keeps dodging while holding the waistlock, before suplexing Onryo onto the back of his head. Battle Ranger looks like he damn near snaps Onryo's neck with a muscle buster and this whole thing started cool and kept getting better. We used to seek out WAR tapes for Ultimo Dragon matches and here are two better WAR undercard juniors in the post-Ultimo Dragon era. I don't think anyone was ever getting tapes for the Onryo or Choden Senshi Battle Ranger matches, because we didn't know anything then. Now we can change. 

3. Kamikaze vs. Atsushi Kikuchi

ER: Yume Factory mentioned. Kikuchi is a black trunks white boots no kneepads guy like Riki Choshu but with Tenzan's head. Their matwork is strong and tough, locked in, forearms across jaws. Kamikaze's moonsault has impact like 2 Cold Scorpio's. Kikuchi throws a lot of weight behind lunging elbow smashes and a dropkick, and jumps off the apron with a clothesline the way someone who wasn't totally thinking it through would do. He throws a butterfly suplex with real physics and hits a lariat even harder than Riki's. Kikuchi is one of our great post-peak lost WAR guys; a guy who was only around a few years during the WAR era with less available TV. We need the 1999 Atsushi Kikuchi handhelds. Every suplex thrown is stiff: vertical suplex with brainbuster drop, a German that snaps Kamikaze's legs over his body, a Kamikaze back suplex that was clearly meant to drop Kikuchi on his neck, with intent. Kamikaze returns the lariat from earlier and these lariats are Made in WAR, for WAR. A great lariat is the best roster prerequisite of any wrestling company in history. Kikuchi has no human idea how to take a tornado DDT but that's great because instead it just folds and crumples his body in a painful way. Kamikaze kicks him in the head a bunch after the match, after dropping him on his head with a fisherman's buster. Kamikaze knew WAR so well for a guy who didn't wrestle there very often. He was a natural fit who should have been a regular.  

4. Miho Watabe/Michiko Omukai vs. Sayuri Okino/Michiko Nagashima

ER: I don't know these women. I wasn't watching LLPW tapes in the 90s and I only know a few who have since. I know Watabe I guess. She's the one who looks like a small child. Watabe gets whipped around all over the ring by her hair and it's one of those women's wrestling spots from the 50s that can look so violent when done to a woman who is 90 pounds. Okino's snapmares are more violent but Nagashima's were quicker. Omukai has strong pinfall saves, always taking advantage of the situation and kicking Okino in the back of the head a few times, and Okino bumps nicely for Omukai's hot tag. Watabe can't get any weight behind her dropkick because she has no weight but she does it 20 or so times, spamming quantity, which is important. Omukai's dropkick hits like a joshi dropkick should, and she is very good at small things. Watabe has one good neck bridge spot that's very effective, and Nagashima is really good at hot girl dead eyed interference. She's like one of the Heathers, only with a kendo stick instead of a croquet mallet. 

5. Osamu Taitoko vs. Masakazu Fukuda

ER: WAR show giving us a sumo vs. freestyle match, which is why you watch WAR shows. Fukuda is listed as having a sumo background but wrestles with amateur single legs and pins like Takashi Sugiura or Chad Gable when he did that stuff a decade ago. Fukuda died tragically during the start of his New Japan career. Taitoko - the future Tachihikari - wants to treat him like a punk and Fukuda keeps fighting back against the charges. Fukuda tries to bulldog Taitoko and pretty soon (and pretty easily) gets him in mount with an elbow held across this throat. When they start hitting each other it's one of those great exchanges you get so consistently in WAR, as the much smaller Fukuda is fighting with speed while Taitoko punches him in the nose. Fukuda is small Sugiura, Taitoko is large Kamikaze. Taitoko hits harder and has a great standing sleeper, but Fukuda is relentless and hits a cool uranage on a very heavy man. Why do sumo guys always have such good kicks to the face? Were they all bullied and kicked in the face so much in training that they know how to deliver them naturally and pay them pay gleefully? Powerbombs are real in WAR. They are never faked. They are sincere. Fukuda keeps refusing to stay down for Taitoko's back suplex and powerbomb and chokeslam, all of which were delivered with intent, so Taitoko just clotheslines him in the back of the head and Gedo clutch's that wrestler of inferior style. 

6. Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Nobutaka Araya 

ER: 1997 Araya is still trying to do trunks and this boy is too beefy for these orange crush trunks to contain. Everybody's pants look a size too small in WAR and it's one of the best unsung features of WAR. Mochizuki throws six kicks to six different parts of Araya and they all make loud contact. Sumo vs. Kicker is going to be so damn good. It always is. The matwork is rugged, Araya is like Greg Valentine on the mat but his half crab moves into classic WAR torture. Araya is a real prick and he's so good when he wrestles as sadistic sumo Valentine. It's not enough to lock in a crunching STF, he starts pulling at the side of Mochizuki's eye with his fingers for leverage. Araya can really take - and sell - good kicks. He flies back into the ropes so convincingly and takes more than one cool bump to the floor. He also has a WAR level clothesline, per the prerequisite. His corner clothesline hits like Dr. Death, big impact. 

Araya drags Mochizuki's body through a good Korakuen brawl, throwing him down so hard on a bodyslam in the stands that some people around it reacted in real shock. His piledriver is perfect, and Mochizuki is bleeding, and bleeds even more when Araya starts throwing full force headbutts. Araya can absorb all of Mochizuki's good kicks, because he punches back so much harder. Araya starts suplexing him around like a corpse, then hits this killer running lariat and pounces into the cover, an excellent example of a man Trying to Put This Away. Araya even does a Valentine timberrrrrr bump after taking a kick to the face, and when he leans head and neck first into a springboard spinning heel kick it's an incredibly done nearfall. All the nearfalls down the stretch are great nearfalls because Araya starts spamming clotheslines and powerbombs until Mochizuki stays down. It genuinely felt like the real finish was Mochizuki taking as many of them as possible until physically incapable of lifting his body. This rocked in all ways, a near 20 minute match that kept getting stronger the longer Mochizuki persevered. 

7. Arashi/Shinichi Nakano vs. Yuji Yasuraoka/Lance Storm 

Storm and Yasuraoka are dressed like Fruit Stripe gum and they are one of the worst fucking teams of the 90s. Neither man looks like they belong in WAR and this match confirms that repeatedly. It's a minor miracle that Arashi and Nakano were able to make anything about this work, as Storm/Yasuraoka never looked like they belonged in the same ring as them. This is lavender tights/mullet era Arashi. Not to be fucked with. Lance Storm opts to fuck with him all match by hitting the worst offense in WAR history which leaves Arashi and Nakano wondering how to even acknowledge it. Imagine you're Lance Storm, coming into WAR, hitting your cartwheel clothesline and dropkicks that wouldn't budge a soul. Storm's matwork with Nakano is more interesting than watching him attempt any other offense. Are there any good mat-based Lance matches? The man was trained by one Hart brother for one day, there must be some matwork Lance out there. 

The match peaks when it's time for Storm and Yasuraoka's big comeback, where they manage to string together several pieces of offense that either miss entirely or land but wouldn't hurt a fly. It all starts when Lance slingshots himself to the floor with a cannonball...and launches himself far over Arashi's head, landing on his ass on the floor without making contact with a human body. Perhaps he was paying tribute to his partner, who tagged in early in the match with a slingshot senton that completely overshot Nakano. The two of them set up a kind of Total Elimination on Arashi that sees them both throw spinning heel kicks (Storm to the back of Arashi's head, Yasuraoka to the face) and both kicks mostly miss their target, so Arashi is left just standing there while they crash around him. Panicking, Lance follows it up with a dropkick that mostly misses and Yasuraoka has to hit a clothesline just so something finally connects with the largest man in the match who has been standing perfectly still this entire time waiting for anything to make contact with his body. 

You know who is a pretty badass tag team? Arashi and Nakano! They look like two men who should be able to effortlessly hit offense on Lance Storm and Yuji Yasuraoka, and they do! They are especially punishing to Yuji. Arashi lands heavy on elbowdrops, piledrives the man. When Nakano hits him with a brainbuster, Arashi comes in just to stomp him in the head, as it should be. Arashi is such a beast. He hits a big boy frog splash and an awesome nodowa otoshi where he lifts Yasuraoka up by the rear waist of his rights, then slams him forward by the throat. It's brutal having to see Lance Storm try and break up their offense to save Yasuraoka, because we are forced as a viewer to have to pretend a Lance Storm forearm had the power to knock Nakano off the apron. We are forced, as fans of wrestling, to treat Storm's silly leap to top buckle back elbow as a thing that could move a man. It's foolish. I liked how they finished Yasuraoka, him charging straight into a powerslam upon tagging in, Arashi giving him a couple powerbombs on a hard part of the ring, then finishing the job with a twisting frog splash. 

I don't know why WAR fans accepted these Fruit Stripe goofs. 

8. Genichiro Tenryu/Koki Kitahara/Tatsuo Nakano vs. Koji Kitao/Nobukazu Hirai/Hiroshi Hatanaka

ER: Not to the level of the highest of high end WAR trios, but the same kind of memorable as the best WAR trios. What made this match great, is Tenryu working simultaneously as the aace of the promotion babyface AND as a shitheel cheap shot artist. Tenryu is the god king of the promotion, the chairman, yet all match he's taking cheap shots whenever he can, kicking guys in the eye to break up pins, directing his boy Kitahara to do the same shit, that air of unprofessionalism running rampant. It is incredible to see Tenryu both humbled by Kitao, and act as a guy who doesn't want Kitao around. He cheap shots him, and takes liberties with Nobukazu Hirai just because the boy happened to be teaming with Kitao. It leads to the best parts of the match. 

Every Tenryu/Hirai interaction is good. Hirai has the fucking nerve to powerbomb him and Tenryu gets up pissed and starts kicking him in the face, then punching him in the face and eye. Tenryu tells Kitahara to do the same, so Kitahara tags in to kick Hirai in the face, but it's not hard enough so Tenryu comes back to show Kitahara how to kick Hirai in the face while Hirai is downed. Learning from the master, Kitahara tags back in and he throws even harder kicks at Hirai's head and face. This is the kind of wrestling storytelling I can follow and understand. We are all here for Nobukazu Hirai getting kicked in the face any time he steps over the plane of the ropes. It enrages Kitao while offering us nothing but joy. 

This is also a match that makes us ask the question, "Was Koji Kitao getting good at this?" The more he worked, the more his in ring confidence grew, the better he looked in the ring. This is one of those matches that highlighted his upside that was always there. How could there not be upside in a tall, 300+ pound disgraced sumo who can't control his anger? Kitao, in his large yellow pants and large yellow exposed breasts, attempted to mock Tenryu, and I loved all the exchanges between Kitao/Tenryu and Kitao/Kitahara. Kitao actually looked surprised at the fight Kitahara brought to him, as Kitahara came with hard leg kicks, and kept kicking at his legs after Kitao got dropped to a knee. When he has him suitably ripened, he tags Tenryu in, and the fireworks get bigger. Tenryu hits an enziguiri and cannonball, and you know it's good because Tenryu does that thing where he gets to his feet pumping his fist...only to turn around directly into a hard Kitao clothesline, then gets to feel what a fat boy senton really feels like. As Tenryu is recovering on the floor from his flattening, Kitao hits a baseball slide dropkick....and that is when it is officially Okay to ask if Koji Kitao Turned Actually Good in February 1997, and dare yourself to go back deeper to find any earlier moment that compares. 

The breakdown of the finish is excellent stuff, as we knew it was going to come down to Kitao and Tenryu going full unleashed on the other, and they do. Kitao is completely unmoved by two punches to the nose and rocks Tenryu with a right. Kitao walks through Tenryu's punches and throws great jabs, and anything Tenryu tries Kitao just spam blocks with kneelifts. Tenryu, getting nowhere, hilariously tags in sacrificial lamb Nakano, who gets immediately BURIED by a Kitao sitout tombstone. With Kitao distracted by a different body, Cheapshot Babyface Tenryu comes in and starts kicking Kitao in the face to chase him from the ring and bring the weaker members into the fray, because he is great at slapping and clotheslining Hirai and Hatanaka around. Tenryu's whole team is great at kicking and clotheslining and powerbombing Hatanaka. When the clear weak link of the match manages to hit Tenryu with a missile dropkick, all it does it back Tenryu into the ropes, giving him momentum to wreck him with a clothesline. This was a WAR heavyweights main event, driven by complicated relationships and in-fighting that we wouldn't understand but is tangible in all actions. 

THE COMPLETE SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!

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Found Footage Friday: FUCHI~! INOUE~! EIGEN~! OKUMA~! OGAWA~! KIKUCHI~! MOMOTA~! KITAHARA~!

Mitsuo Momota vs. Tatsumi Kitahara AJPW 8/30/88

MD: We've covered a couple of matches on this card (The first Kobashi vs Kawada and THE V~!) but I thought we'd go back to tackle the first three. This was maybe five months into Kitahara's career and he had spent a lot of that time wrestling Momota. Momota is someone who could work comedy or Jr. heavyweight title matches, who had a connection with the crowd with his compact charisma and lineage as the son of Rikidozan. I don't think we have earlier matches between these two, but by this point, there was a lot he could do with Kitahara. They stayed on the mat for the first two thirds or so but Momota let Kitahara control the arm, working himself in and out of an armbar and selling accordingly. When things picked up, Momota was good enough to make it seem like he was in danger. At one point, as Kitahara was going for a moonsault, he did the Samoa Joe walkaway bit only for Kitahara to land on his feet and hit a dropkick. There was always the sense that Momota could put him away at any moment with a chance reversal or hold and that Kitahara might not have had the tools necessary to put Momota away. Things played out that was, as Kitahara went for one too many Irish Whips to set up a move and Momota reversed into a backslide. Still, it was a testament to both Momota and how far Kitahara had come in a relative short time that he was given so much of the match.

ER: Man this was cool. I think every single time I write about any of this All Japan footage my fingers just automatically start typing "Man this was cool". But I am not a liar and it's how I freshly feel every single time I type it. This was cool because it made me actually think about my history with Koki Kitahara. Kitahara was a guy who I really didn't even notice until NOAH, and then he just became another great part of my favorite roster in wrestling as I devoured 2000-2008 NOAH shows. I don't think I was even aware of his existence during his entire All Japan stint, but this match right here is Kitahara before he even had 50 matches under his belt. This does not, to me, play at all like a match from a guy less than 50 matches into his pro career. He's polished and has a cool moveset, but what was most striking is that the match was laid out so that he controlled the entire thing. 

I'm so used to seeing All Japan rookies get completely dominated in openers for the first year+ of their careers that I was fully expecting this to be a Momota control showcase with perhaps 1 minute of Kitahara throwing kicks. Instead, it was 7 minutes of Kitahara throwing kicks and controlling Momota until Momota hits his excellent floatover backslide (the one that I frequently say "I can't believe no modern wrestler has stolen Momota's excellent floatover backslide). Kitahara throws big kicks and works the arm, and brothers I cannot believe Mitsuo Momota of all people does a Samoa Joe walk away spot in 1988. When I saw Samoa Joe do that spot live at a 2004 PWG show, it was a revelation and my friends and I lost our minds. I never thought about where he got the idea from, and while this spot is not something I associate with Momota and I doubt Joe was actively lifting from Momota, I do now want to know where he got the idea to Walk Away. I love how cool Momota looks while walking away, and how he doesn't realize Kitahara lands on his feet, timing it perfectly so that he turns around straight into a dropkick. I swear, every single one of these handheld matches - literally every single one - has an event that feels like some kind of minor-to-major revelation. 

Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi AJPW 8/30/88

MD: It's always striking to me that Ogawa was active as early as '86. He doesn't really start to come into his own until '91 or so. This is more like month 6 of real matches for Kikuchi, however, and he also had been put primarily against Momota (though not exclusively). It's always weird to see him in anything but the Japanese flag trunks. He already had a certain explosiveness in his movement. He took the early parts of this, which was mostly on the mat, though with chippiness - especially in his chops - Ogawa too over. He was the junior member of Revolution and obviously was trying to impress Tenryu as he just chopped Kikuchi's face off. Kikuchi came back, including hitting a massive diving headbutt across the ring that almost had me, but then he missed the dropkick. Finish was one of the world's ugliest small packages by Ogawa though it's hard to say who should get the credit (or lack of such for that). They kept this moving and past the finish, it came together pretty well. Kikuchi was definitely more of a natural than Ogawa, but it's kind of fun to imagine an Ogawa who got to stay a Tenryu disciple for longer.

ER: I love the coincidences that handhelds bring us. Kikuchi is about as young in his career as Kitahara in the match before him and, as Matt said, most of his first six months was in singles matches with Mitsuo Momota, with a handful of Isamu Teranishi and Okuma matches. We don't have most of those matches, but because of some guy most of my lifetime ago in Osaka, we have Tsuyoshi Kikuchi's first singles match with Yoshinari Ogawa. I guess it's not notable that this is the first time Kikuchi ever fought Ogawa, but they had 20 or so singles matches over the next two years and it's cool that some guy was there recording the first one. 

My big takeaways from this match were how incredible a chopper Ogawa was in the 80s, and how the All Japan mat looked so hard and unforgiving that Kikuchi would have been safer taking bumps on a sidewalk. The match wasn't a great match, but I always enjoy seeing wrestlers I'm familiar with in their infancy. Young Tamon Honda works a style I hate, six years later Tamon Honda was working a completely different style that I loved. Young Ogawa is kind of a trip. Ogawa is a guy I love who I could also possibly talk myself into describing as my least favorite wrestler on several different years of AJPW and NOAH rosters. I don't mean that as any kind of dig at Ogawa, and probably more of a statement on how much I loved so many years of those rosters. I don't think it's a secret that I like him and I've written glowingly about his specific role in Kings Road. But you watch enough full NOAH and AJPW cards and you see it's a roster filled with guys who have great execution on most of their offense and sometimes here's Ogawa throwing jabs that wouldn't break wet paper, drop toeholds that shouldn't fell a man, and a jawbreaker that relies too much on the opponent's bump. Masao Inoue is an Ogawa comp, but Inoue works his ineffectiveness into his entire being, whereas Ogawa's ineffectiveness was placed into prominence. 

And I guess it's shocking to me how much better I think Ogawa would have been as a wrestler had he stayed a Tenryu acolyte rather than becoming a Misawa buddy. Ogawa's chops here looked like something Benoit would do to Regal. Even the ones that didn't land under Kikuchi's chin or off his teeth were thrown with more force than I've ever seen Ogawa throw anything. When I think of Ogawa's offense I don't even think of him as someone who throws chops, let alone ones that would have made him the most violent junior on the 90s roster. But I think I probably would have still chosen Ogawa's upwardly angled chops over any of Kikuchi's back bumps. When Kikuchi missed a flat back bump dropkick it looked like he jumped off a Wal-Mart into the parking lot. There was no give of any kind and it boggles my mind how the human body adapts to doing that multiple times a night 150 nights a year. Seeing Kikuchi 6 months in and knowing the abuse he would endure and cause over the next 35 years...it all just makes me realize that I understand even less about wrestling than I thought. 

Also somebody tell me how Kikuchi didn't get his neck broken when Ogawa snapped it over the top rope. I really need to know. 

Masanobu Fuchi/Mighty Inoue vs. Haruka Eigen/Motoshi Okuma AJPW 8/30/88

MD: We're in 88, not 89, so Rusher's tagging with Tsurumi against Baba and Wajima towards the top of the card. That means this Eigen match will deviate from the usual formula. That formula, to refresh your memory, usually had him goading Rusher, dodging him, with Okuma taking over on Rusher's partner, then Rusher, and everything building to a the huge spit-spot moments of comeuppance on Eigen. Not here. For one thing, Inoue and Fuchi weren't going to take his shit. They're two unassuming looking guys, but I would not want to encounter them in a dark alley. They spent the first half of the match beating on Eigen and drawing Okuma away so that a tag couldn't happen. The fans found it pretty funny at first, but I think they earnestly got behind Eigen as time went on. The back half had Okuma come in, headbutt everyone, and then work with Eigen to control. With these four, you had a nice balance of of stuff that looked solid and painful and fun bits where Okuma steps on someone and hits the falling headbutt as Eigen holds them down. It built to a comeback ending with Inoue doing his cool headscissors takeover leg hook cradle. Amazingly, no spit spot. Fun, solid stuff overall though.

ER: Man I'm so in the bag for these matches and these All Japan handhelds, I think I've lost the ability to properly judge them on their merits. I couldn't tell you if this was a great match or a below average match but I tell myself that it has to be great because I love literally everything about this match. I think I say that about every one of these Eigen, Okuma, Fuchi, etc. handhelds but I mean it with all my heart. I love every single step and every single piece of offense in this match. I love every wrestler and think I would reach true nirvana just watching these guys work a 10 minute match in a vacuum as the only wrestling I consume for the rest of my life. 

This is great in different ways than other matches with these guys are great, as I'm so used to seeing Eigen being a little shit that I loved seeing Inoue and Fuchi absolutely refuse to let him be a little shit and instead just isolate him and punish him. They were great at starting with a more comedic build, finding funny ways around Fuchi preventing Okuma from tagging in and at first the spots were funny but they perfectly transitioned into it being an actual southern tag where the fans wanted notorious shit stirrer Eigen to get the tag so Okuma can start mashing frontal lobes with headbutts. The build to this match is so satisfying and I cannot stress enough how I loved every single piece of offense. Every guy lays in their strikes, and it feels like every new All Japan handheld I watch brings forth a new favorite wrestler. Literally every guy on this roster is worth deep diving, but in the last few years I have appreciated Eigen more than ever. Last year late 80s/early 90s Okuma finally clicked with me so deeply that I don't think I can even imagine how much of a badass this guy was in the 60s and 70s. Fuchi has been a known quantity to most of us for years but then a match like this makes me love him as much as ever, seeing his dedication to simple shit without needing to murder Kikuchi. But it was Mighty Inoue who really clicked for me here, a guy who looked so good in this match that he just joined the long list of all my other handheld favorites. Inoue hit like a truck, his cradled headscissors was gorgeous and snug, but it's probably always going to be his super high backdrop bump that reminds me I love Mighty Inoue. I just love these boys.  

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Found Footage Friday: SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! Matches from WAR-ISM 11/11/93

Full Show 11/11/93 Handheld

 

1. Ultimo Dragon vs. Dan Sileo

ER: Is this the same Dan Sileo who was a football player and lame sports talk host on Bay Area's KNBR in the 2000s? I didn't know his football career but I remember him on KNBR, but it can't be the same guy. That guy was a defensive lineman and this guy doesn't look that much larger than Ultimo, but whoever it is, this True Blue Rex Kwon Do practitioner really adapted to pro wrestling almost shockingly well. I thought this was great, and I loved every part of it. Sileo has a gaudy stars and stripes gi and, while I know the Danny McBride strip mall karate guy is an easy and well-used reference at this point, goddamn is this guy just the millionth strip mall karate guy to look exactly like that. 

I loved the way they kept advancing this. The leg work was really cool, with nasty heel hooks off caught kicks, and a cool deathlock where Sileo was applying different kinds of pressure and then even ripped his gi off before rolling through the deathlock (which I don't think I've seen before?). When he got frustrated and threw a chair into the ring, Ultimo did incline push-ups off the chair and then had the ref hold his ankles down while he did a couple sit ups. Everything had nice snap to it, from things like (both men's) chops, to a super impactful version of Dragon's handspring elbow, to all of the kicks everyone threw. Sileo had an impressive command on selling, too. I was really impressed when Dragon whiffed on a spinning heel kick over Sileo's head, and he knew not to bother selling it and instead went right after Dragon. That's not an instinct most heavily trained wrestlers would have. Sileo broke out a majistral that looked as impressive as any I've ever seen Ultimo do, and the two counts down the stretch were all incredibly well done and worked through. This is the first time I've seen Dan Sileo and I am now honestly wondering how Dan Sileo didn't become a bigger star. This man understands pro wrestling, has great instincts, and is incredibly entertaining. This man takes a German suplex high up on his shoulders and somehow has great suplex selling? Who the hell is this guy? 

There is an incredible moment when Sileo is whipped into the buckles and does this awesome cocky flip over the top to the floor, landing on his feet, posing for the crowd, and by the time he turns around thinking he had evaded Ultimo, Dragon was already doing a suicide dive past the ring post into him. I did not think we'd be seeing Ultimo hitting a dive onto a some karate guy, trusting some strip mall karate guy to catch a high speed tope, a high speed tope that is already well in motion when Sileo is facing away from Dragon. This spot was timed so well, it was somehow a great catch, and Sileo was able to be facing away for most of it and turn around just in time to be annihilated. The most seasoned wrestler you know will never look this natural while waiting to catch a blind dive. I am going to need to write about more Dan Sileo matches. Complete & Accurate Bonecrusher Sileo coming soon!

PAS: Rewatching WAR over the years, I have been pretty underwhelmed by the Ultimo Dragon matches, but I guess I just needed to see him working ex-NFL linemen in Gi's rather than juniors matches where he's being outclassed by luchadors. Loved this, an awesome weirdo fight, with Ultimo ruling and Sileo being really fun too. Loved Ultimo doing pushups on the thrown in chair and hitting a wild tope on Sileo while he was celebrating. Sileo's entire shtick was great, he took a German suplex right on his neck and hit a cool jumping La Magistral. I really need to see Sileo work Dave Taylor and Ulf Hermann in Germany, and I really wish that Ultimo got a chance to work Jerry Flynn on a WCW Pro or something. 

2. Nobukazu Hirai vs. Shigekazu Tajiri

ER: This was a rounds match between a gi guy and a pro wrestler, and the best parts of this had the bad blood that we all associate with pro wrestlers vs. gi guys. There were multiple moments, in the first round especially, where it was clear that Tajiri did not want to cooperate, which is a best case scenario for a match like this. A couple of things got crossed up, Hirai grabbed Tajiri aggressively by the gi lapels, and then you had Hirai forcing his way into a shoot northern lights suplex and shoot bodyslam with Tajiri very clearly trying his hardest to sandbag. Hirai had started all this chippiness by throwing a playful kick at Tajiri when the former was entering the ring for the match, and that energy kept coming back, like when one of the rounds ended and Hirai kicked Tajiri in the ass on the latter's trip back to his corner. Not all the kicks land, and that plays to the match's benefit, as one of the best moments is Tajiri suckering Hirai into doing a spinning heel kick and just ducking it, then kicking Hirai in the face. Hirai does some great cocky shit like throwing a couple of German suplexes and then standing on Tajiri's neck, then deciding to let the ref count Tajiri down for a potential KO. I don't think the submission or kicks in this worked as well as the ones in Dragon vs. Sileo, but the 3rd round build was satisfying, and I liked Tajiri increasing the use of spinning heel kicks down the stretch. His (surprise) winning spinning heel kick looked Hashimoto level.

3. Masao Orihara vs. Satoshi Kojima

ER: I have a feeling there are a LOT of unseen or unheralded classics in the WAR vs. NJPW feud and this is ranks with the best of them. This was the only time Orihara and Kojima wrestled each other, and brother, I don't know why that is but based on this match alone they seem to fucking hate each other. These two are total assholes to each other for over 10 minutes, egging each other on into really violent match that stayed within a pro wrestling framework, just a really stiff constantly-verging-on-unprofessional pro wrestling match. The fans chant for Orihara at the bell, but after Kojima refuses a handshake and instead slaps him and German suplexes him on his head before the bell, then throws elbows as hard as possible and dumps him with a powerbomb, and the fans start chanting KOJIMA. 

Every single thing in this match was thrown with the intention to hurt, and there were a ton of great moments that looked like they were luring each other into fully committing to a move only to pull the rug out at the last possible moment. Kojima goes for his elbowdrop and lands teeth first into Orihara's boots, but the elbow was thrown with the confidence of someone who never thought his face would meet boots. Orihara does a pescado into nothing and his body does not look like someone who expected to be diving into an empty pool. They manage to make missed dropkick and sidestepped spinning heel kick spots look good, because every single thing done in this match was thrown with real intent. Orihara's leg work and heel hooks were as violent as anything you'd see in a Fujiwara fed, with the holds really sunk in. You could see how suctioned he was to Kojima's leg when Kojima was trying to yank away like he was in a bear trap but Orihara's grip only tightened, so Kojima had to start throwing legit strikes to desperately try to force some kind of break. 

It's tough to find cool examples of no-sold piledrivers but I'll have to tip my cap to them here, because this was it. Orihara spikes Kojima on the top of his head with a classic Lawler piledriver and Kojima rises to his feet and attempts to cripple Orihara with a Tombstone like he was Undertaker working Hogan in 1973 PRIDE. Orihara responds by spiking Kojima even harder with another Lawler piledriver, and brother, it feels okay to throw selling out the window when your neck is suffering this much real impact. These were piledrivers thrown by men who wanted to just feel something. No move is guaranteed to land, and it doesn't stop either man from throwing everything with full conviction, and yet the whole match maintains a vibe of "worked pro wrestling" while also feeling like both guys are sneaking in offense that the other wasn't expecting. It sure didn't look like Orihara was expected to be dumped on the back of his head by a couple different suplexes, and it sure didn't look like Kojima expected to take two boots up kicked into his chin....and yet it also seems like both guys fully expect it? Let me tell you, *I* did not expect Orihara to hit his insane moonsault over the ringpost to the floor, because I cannot imagine the level of trust it took in Kojima - a man who had not felt trustworthy at any part of this match - to even think about hitting that moonsault. Orihara wins by kicking Kojima in the eye and rolling him up with la majistral, and Kojima is so pissed after that he starts punching Orihara, and Orihara just leaves the ring, no selling all of the punches as he goes. YES!!

4. Arashi vs. Yuji Yasuraoka

ER: Arashi is in his mask and just poured into his bicycle shorts. He looks like a dream scenario where they brought in Giant Brazo as part of Los Brazos. He is humongous, and his tits are spectacular. This was short but entertaining, with Yasuraoka throwing kicks as hard as fast as he can but none of them ever phasing Arashi, so Arashi just lets the man kick him for a bit and then just starts throwing him around the way a large sumo would throw around a smaller man, with years of training and muscle memory behind the throws. The finish is great, as Arashi absorbs kicks and decides to let Yuji know what striking is really like, and so bullies him into the corner with open hand sumo thrusts and I swear, Arashi is just palm striking Yasuraoka's head back and forth between his open hands like he was forming a pizza dough. Arashi wins the match with two headlock takeovers, locking his arm around Yasuraoka's neck so tightly and then rolling over with his own large body with such force that it looks like he's trying to pop Yuji's head off his own body like a Barbie doll. 

5. Great Kabuki vs. Tommy Rich

ER: Tommy Rich still comes out to REO Speedwagon's "Roll With the Changes" in 1993 and it's hard not to think of this song within the context of Tommy Rich's life. 23 years old, making towns around Georgia in his Ford Fairmont, waiting to see if there's another radio single off You Can Tune a Piano But You Can't Tuna Fish before committing to buying the 8-track. Rich and Kabuki go way back and worked each other several times over the preceding decade, but it's hard not to be disappointed with this match. You could not call this a bad match, but on this card it kinda was. I love Tommy Rich kneeling on the inside of Kabuki's leg and throwing worked elbow strikes, complaining to the ref about hair pulls and shit, but this was a show where every match so far has had moments where someone almost got knocked out and moments where guys were actively trying to knock the other out, so the bar had been raised pretty high over the first half of the show. The final stretch of this was great, when Rich blasts Kabuki with a stiff clothesline and a perfect fistdrop off the middle buckle, and Kabuki starts throwing knee trembling thrusts to Rich's throat, but Rich losing to a small package is going to feel like a downer after the violence that had taken place in every match prior. 

6. Black Cat vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki

PAS: Total out of nowhere classic. This was a lumberjack match and part of the WAR vs. NJ feud, with Black Cat coming in as a New Japan stalwart and trainer to take on Fuyuki. Just a pair of barrel chested bruisers clocking each other with clotheslines and hard punishing shots, each one a little further then it was supposed to go. Cat, for example, cracked Fuyuki right in the eye with a short elbow and Fuyuki responded by splitting his head open on a turnbuckle bolt. Cat then proceeds to lose blood at an alarming rate, leaving stains over the mat. Cat fought valiantly, but eventually was felled by a pair of super nasty looking powerbombs. Hard nosed violent WAR style stuff, just an ugly treat to watch.

ER: The WAR/NJPW feud has produced some of the most agreeably great matches ever, an incredible success rate, unparalleled heat, and this show has two more of them that we've never seen. Orihara/Kojima and Black Cat/Fuyuki are completely different matches and completely great additions to the WAR/NJPW legend. The latter has great blood and is much more punch based, the former is two guys doing pro wrestling moves as stiff as possible. It's wild that the one with juniors and without blood is more violent, but even without blood the hate was palpable. This match felt less like hatred, and more like a great bloody pro wrestling dramatic-selling brawl. This was long, nearly 20, and I don't think the holds moved the match along as well as Orihara's leg attacks did, but this was a bloody match between two brick shithouses cracking jaws, and we don't have to choose a favorite. This was also a Lumberjack Death match, and I wish I knew all the things that went into these two needing a Lumberjack Death match. WAR really wasn't a gimmick match fed, choosing instead the superior gimmick pairings. Who needs stipulation matches when you can just team weird guys up against each other? 

Fuyuki looked like the best version of Takeshi Morishima, or perhaps a more accurate comp to Gordy than Morishima was. This felt like the most violent version of a classic Crusher match, two guys with barrel torsos throwing hooking punches across each other's jaws and throwing clotheslines set to smash. Fuyuki's diving clotheslines were engulfing, blowing through Cat with insane closing speed. Black Cat threw short elbows across Fuyuki's temple and Fuyuki threw down right back, and whenever it threatened to spill into the middle of warring WAR vs. New Japan Lumberjacks, it only got better. This feud was so perfect, because everybody involved on both sides of it was a total asskicker, and everybody seemed like they really fucking hated each other. Satoshi Kojima acted like a fucking asshole to Orihara, Tenryu trolled Tatsumi Fujinami so hard earlier in the show that Fujinami got Actually Upset and ripped off his suit jacket while needing neck tendon flaring restraint from Manabu Nakanishi. Tommy Rich and Bonecrusher Dan Sileo are left looking like cornered southerners trying to stay between the WAR gang and New Japan crew whenever Fuyuki got an asshole smirk across his face and threw Cat into the fellers. The blood came midway when Cat got run face first into a turnbuckle bolt, and Fuyuki must have sent the sole of his boot into Cat's cutout least eight times. Black Cat wobbled his legs and fought back and Fuyuki managed to dominate and make Cat bleed out without coming off like a bad guy, instead looking like a man representing his cause. Sometimes a 30 year handheld shows up online and when you're done watching it you can say that you've seen upper echelon Kodo Fuyuki, Satoshi Kojima, Masao Orihara, and Black Cat performances, and everything feels right. 

7. Koki Kitahara/Super Strong Machine vs. Heisei Ishingun (Kengo Kimura/Tatsutoshi Goto)

ER: This is a really cool tag that brings together four guys who I think are almost always universally underrated as workers. Out of these four, I think Kengo Kimura probably gets the most respect as a worker, and when was the last time you saw literally anybody talking about how much they love the career of Kengo Kimura? Super Strong Machine is the best possible Bison Smith, throwing nothing but hard elbows and clotheslines and slams, Vince McMahon's idea of a perfect wrestler in 1977, and I don't think I've ever not been entertained by a SSM match. Koki Kitahara is a WAR punk through and through, and it gave this match a fun dynamic, as he was the one WAR guy in with three NJPW guys, with Strong Machine the guy who's playing both sides without acting passionate allegiance to either side. So This match was all about three of these guys having a tough but professional tag, while Kitahara tried to get under everyone's skin before eventually succeeding in doing just that. Everyone else has no problem throwing spirited elbows and clotheslines but Kitahara's the one kicking people in the eye and throwing kicks at knees, with Kimura's Red Gi crew yelling at him from the floor only causing him to act like more of a pudgy punk. It all escalates when Masashi Aoyagi gets on the apron to try to settle him down, and Kitahara chooses to go after AOYAGI with a chair! Kitahara is enough of a crazed asshole to go after AOYAGI with a chair and you just have to love and appreciate a psycho like that. I love how Kitahara finally gets Kimura to snap, kicking at him mockingly while he's down, and getting the vet all riled up until Super Strong Machine can't save him. I loved Aoyagi sneaking in at the finish to hit Kitahara with a spinning heel kick to set up the finish, and thought the tag unsurprisingly kicked ass. 

8. Genichiro Tenryu vs. Ashura Hara

PAS: This delivered everything you want from this matchup on paper. A pair of guys built like sacks of flour chopping, lariating and headbutting each other in unsafe and violent ways. Not a lot of fancy moves, although Tenryu did hit a enzigiri right to Hara's eye and cheek, but just crazy violent shots. I love how Tenryu just lets his chops float. At one point he catches Hara right in the trachea and the ref looks at him like "c'mon man I am just trying to do my job." Hara doesn't back down at all either, laying in some really meaty clonking headbutts, and sick lariats right into the clavicle. This is WAR as WAR gets.

ER: I always associate Hara with Tenryu. Hara was the longest term Tenryu tag partner in Revolution, left All Japan at first opportunity to join him in SWS and then retired in WAR in 1994. Hara is a Tenryu guy, and that means that we really don't have many Tenryu/Hara singles matches. I think they had less than 5, and I'm sure this is the only one I've actually seen. This is Tenryu VERSUS Hara and that is an incredibly cool thing. And this really is the exact thing you would want from a Tenryu/Hara match, which is two best friends trying to urge the other one to hit them harder and harder, except you've never had a friend who wanted you to hit them harder and harder because we've never done competitive sumo. Tenryu and Hara hit each other so fucking hard in this match and I've never known another person in my life who could hit somebody this hard. WAR Hara is the fattest Hara which makes him the coolest Hara, and he looks even cooler when Tenryu runs into him incredibly hard with a shoulderblock and then drops his shoulder and winces hard and shakes out that limp arm after Hara doesn't budge an inch. 

After Tenryu hurts his shoulder on Hara's torso and Hara didn't even give him the liberty of acting like he had even been touched, Tenryu makes it his match long mission to make Hara lose sensation in at least one of his arms. These two are old ass running buddies and if you are old sumo running buddies that means that sometimes one of you will get chopped over and over in the neck and slapped insanely hard across the face. Hara does his best to not budge whenever Tenryu hits him and is shockingly successful, and none of us can ever comprehend how hard Ashura Hara has been hit in his life, and how hard he has hit people. You have to get hit in the face and neck an absurd number of times to be able to take six straight chops to the neck from Genichiro Tenryu without registering any pain. Hara is able to walk through a shocking amount of pain to repeatedly murder Tenryu with his perfect lariat, but Tenryu drops him to his knees with a chop right to the throat. The only time I even notice the referee in the match, is after that throat chop when he steps up to Tenryu like "hey man that guy is your best friend." Hara can't use one of his arms his whole chest and neck and shoulder is all purple bruising just a few minutes in, so he has to just spam Tenryu with lariats from the arm he can lift. When he keeps hitting Tenryu in the ropes as hard as he can, he gets a full head of steam for a killshot and flies hard through the ropes to the floor when Tenryu just drops to the ground as his only possible defense. Hara's sell of Tenryu's enziguiri is more perfection, taking it to the teeth and crumbling to his chest and knees, butt up in the air. 

Imagine the ways these two could have surpassed Ikeda and Ishikawa if only their friendship was just a little bit different. I'm glad we got them murdering each other a few times over the span of their Revolution. 

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR: WAR 6/20/99

WAR 6/20/1999

Masao Orihara vs. Tomohiro Ishii

SR: Both these guys were pretty great in the late 90s, so I was pretty salty about this being clipped down just a couple minutes. Ishii was a wreckingball during this period, but Orihara easily outstiffes him trying to crack his jaw with lariats. We also get Ishii working Orihara over with chairs and whiping him out with a crazy rolling senton to the outside. Fun stuff but I wanted atleast 3/4ths of the thing.

Nihao vs. Koki Kitahara

SR: This was a CAPTURE showcase match and holy fuck after this I‘d kill to get the entire CAPTURE back catalogue. Brutal brutal match, just the most primitive grimy shootstyle you can imagine, two  guys with gloves trying to pummel each other into oblivion. Nihao takes Kitahara down and bloodies him with punches and headbutts, but the boss comes back just trying to crush his face with punches and teeth loosening kicks. There was one spinkick that would‘ve made Daisuke Ikeda wince, and also at one point Kitahara reverses a takedown into an armlock that looked to almost tear Nihaos shoulder. They showed 4 out of 6 minutes, and really would it have killed them to include those 2 minutes? Still 80 % of a sick spectacle is better than most, and those 4 minutes were some of the most insane of the year.

Ryuma Go vs. Thunder Warrior Alpha

SR: I respect Tenryu's tendency to bring in Go to squish random aliens. This was clipped to almost nothing but we got to see Go acting crazy and destroying the alien.

Genichiro Tenryu/Magnum TOKYO vs. Nobutaka Araya/Sumo Fuji

SR: The boss is involved, so we got the full match here. Didn‘t know what to expect from this, but it ends up a really entertaining match thanks to Tenryuisms. Basically Sumo Fuji acts like a big shot and annoys Tenryu some and ends up paying for it. Also really liked Araya as a scuzzy guy potatoing Magnum TOKYO. Toryumon guys also looked solid in their sections against each other, and TOKYO hit a pretty great top rope asai moonsault amongst other things. Loved Tenryu here, I think he didn‘t even take a back bump but pretty much carried the match by being a prick, as he usually does.

Osamu Tachihikari/Arashi vs. Daikokubo Benkei/Ichiro Yaguchi

SR:We get about 30 seconds of this and I am not bummed at all about that. I liked Tachihikari busting out random move like an STO and a Magistral.

Yuji Yasuraoka/Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Super Delfin/Naohiro Hoshikawa

SR: This was 4 solid pro wrestlers doings lots of solid pro wrestling, building to a pretty exciting second half. WAR reckless kicker Mochizuki ruled, I am just going to pretend he retired after WAR folded. He had some pretty great exchanges with Hoshikawa here, and I loved him flying into the scenery out of nowhere to take out people with spin kicks. Delfin & Hoshikawa worked well together and it was cool to see them acting as a crew. For some reason, juniors getting dumped on their heads or diving around the place was a lot more satisfying to watch in the 90s.

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Yuji Yasuraoka

SR: I guess Mochizuki wasn‘t happy with Yasuraoka's performance in that tag, so he gets on the mic to challenge Yasuraoka to a singles. Yasuraoka then proceeds to hit his awesome dive, getting insane height, and we get a fun short explosion of them throwing bombs at each other. Wouldn‘t have minded if this went longer, but they just did a 17 minute long match before so it made sense for this to be short and intense.

Shigeo Okumura/Sambo Asako/Atsushi Onita vs. Nobutaka Araya/Genichiro Tenryu/Shoji Nakamaki

SR: Exactly what it looks like on paper: Six tubby asskickers brawling all over the place, bleeding and pasting each other with chairs and lariats. That plus the megastar charisma of Tenryu and Onita. Tenryu is such an awesome menace here, punching people in the face and chucking chairs at them. Him vs. Terry Funk would’ve been one hell of a program. Then again, Tenryu  was pretty much untouchable at this point in his career. Onita & Asako looked pretty much like regular guys at this point, which made Asako getting abused by Tenryu feel all the more violent. Okumura was in charge with bringing a slight bit of workrate to the match and he did fine, hitting a pretty stiff dropkick. Very predictable match but all too fun.

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New Footage Friday: WE DECLARE WAR!!! 6/25/93

WAR 6/25/93

This is a six match series with WAR vs. Heisei Ishingun. Sort of a border skirmish in the WAR vs. NJ conflict, with Koshinaka's band of outsiders taking on a group of WAR defenders. Weird show, having a WAR card in 93 with no Tenryu, but tubby interpromotional asskicking is about the best thing in wrestling and this had it in spades

Show starts with sort of a drawing of straws to set up the match ups


Koki Kitahara vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi

PAS: This was the longest of the matches on the show, and goes into several different phases, all of them pretty great. It opens with both guys throwing taters at each other, they spill to the floor and wildly fling chairs. One of the things that made this match so great is the raggedness of it. There isn't very many smooth exchanges, and lots of the time they are just grabbing each other by the hair and sneaking in punches and headbutts. Large parts of this feel  bar fight, where both guys are a little unskilled and a little unsteady. I loved Kobayashi just throwing multiple fisherman's suplexes and not going for the pin and Kitahara's dickish little kicks to the head. Finish was cool with Kitahara DDTing Kobayashi on the floor, rolling him in and locking in a bodyscissors sleeper for a but until Kobayashi passes out, it wasn't really a dramatic pass out, and it almost felt like a questionable UFC stoppage, I loved the shoving and the "hold me back" from both camps. Thought it worked really well for the opening of a series like this.

MD: I love the dissonance of a tug of war rolling right into this match. It's a twenty minute match that's almost entirely uncooperative all the way through, which feels pretty long for this sort of thing. It's brutal and it's great. Kitahara took the brunt of this, coming off like an absolute killer, with nasty headbutts, chair shots, and kicks, but throughout most of it, he couldn't really lock in a hold. Midway through Kobayashi comes back with these amazing running headbutts, really just a momentum-laden collision and then finally locks in a leglock which feels like a big deal given the struggle up to there. They roll into the finishing stretch not long after with Kitahara hitting a German, Northern Lights, and Backdrop Driver all in a row. It felt like a clear moment of escalation which means Kobayashi popping up almost immediately thereafter to hit three fisherman's suplexes of his own felt a little unearned. It was somewhat forgivable due to the unclear death match rules but it did take me out of the match a bit. Thankfully, it set up the further escalation with the three DDTs on the floor and the rear naked choke to close it all out so it more or less worked out in the end. Anyway, the sheer brutality more than makes up for that. What a way to start a show.

Ashura Hara vs. Akitoshi Saito

ER: Tenryu may not be on this show (which is weird for a WAR show, but I see Tenryu worked a Hashimoto singles match a week before this show and then didn't work again for a month, so taking a month off work after 20 minutes opposite Hash does make sense) but Hara is clearly the Tenryu proxy as he works this match almost exactly like I think Tenryu would have, and even has a bunch of great Tenryu selling moments. It's almost as if Hara was ALSO great or something. This is the kind of match you want out of a WAR/NJ showdown, Hara roughing up the relative newbie, beating him down with chairshots on the floor and lariats to the neck, and there's a great moment where you hear the buzz of the crowd building as they anticipate Saito finally hitting his first big spinkick of the match. Hara is running to set up a killshot lariat, and the crowd knows exactly the mistake he's making, and Saito hits that spinning heel kick that is arguably the best spinning heel kick of anyone who does a spinning heel kick, and that sets up the next several minutes of Saito kicking Hara a TON. Hara's selling of Saito's kicks is downright lordly. He leans into brutal baseball bat shots to the chest, Saito comes off the ropes with a punch right to the guy that sends Hara staggering beautifully into the ropes. Saito stops him in his tracks with a couple high kicks, throws a couple of crescent kicks that glance off Hara's temple (loved Hara's selling of a glancing blow) and Hara gets literally moved back on his feet like a tackling dummy by a couple of Saito lariats. We get a couple great moments of Hara eating kicks and occasionally catching one, only able to toss Saito away to get a couple seconds or reprieve before eating more kicks. And the longer Saito kicked him I knew Hara wasn't just going to just keep getting kicked and NOT pay him back for it, and when we got to the Hara payback it delivered. Hara throws the three meanest kicks of the entire match, one to Saito's ribs and two more right to the face - the kind of thing that would make Futen main eventers blush - and then gets to show off a couple more lariats of his own. This is the match I want to see when I sit down to watch WAR.

MD: Great, straightforward nine minute match. Hara's initial demolishing of Saito was great, straight up to the nonchalance in his nasty clotheslines and chairshots. I liked how he kept tossing him out of the ring. There was just so much personality to the violence. Saito's comeback spin kick was a thing of beauty. I'm a sucker for matches that can turn on a dime on one big move like that. Speaking of personality, Saito losing the gi and then posing before every kick like he was charging up was definitely memorable and seemed to work for the crowd. Hara willfully absorbing kicks (gritting through) is a much preferred method of selling than just eating three suplexes with no real effect and the finishing flurry of clotheslines felt like the inevitable destination the match had to go.

PAS: This was pretty much a poor man's Tenryu vs. a poor man's Hashimoto, but you can match up poor man's versions of those two and have it still be fucking incredible. I loved Hara hurling Saito to the floor and plastering him with chairs, Saito's big spin kick was incredible, and he really leaned into those body kicks, those are the kind of things which would turn ribs into popcorn. Hara just grumping his way out and chucking lariats was great stuff too, I love a larait to the back of the head and Hara was just cracking Saito with them. WAR as fuck.

Masashi Aoyagi vs. Super Strong Machine

ER: I both liked this, and was disappointed by this. I didn't love the layout, there were a couple dodgy moments from Aoyagi, and the finish is literally the exact same finish as the Hara/Saito match that happened right before this match. What I liked, is further evidence that Super Strong Machine may be one of the more under discussed ass kickers of this era. He is not flashy, his offense is simple, but he executes the offense with a Finlayesque reasonable recklessness, hitting his body slams hard, sitting down fast on his piledriver, throwing running and standing lariats with a full arm, the kind of guy with a vertical suplex you can set your watch to. He's a real bully in this, beating Aoyagi through the crowd and battering him with a chair. Now that I think about it maybe the entire layout of this match is a lesser executed version of Hara/Saito. But SSM is a fun smotherer, I can really get into a guy with a nice headlock or chinlock, and he really looks like he's hooking that arm to suffocate Aoyagi. Aoyagi throwing fast kicks over his head to escape was a great touch. Aoyagi's kick section isn't as nice as Saito's, he even whiffs a kick over SSM's head by several inches, but he hits a couple really nice rolling kicks and I always love his out of control corner spinkick that ends him spilling to the apron. The leaping knee to the back of Strong Machine's head is just icing. It is strange to me that Machine finishes this in the exact same way as Hara, even bouncing off the same ropes in the same order. And the match had flaws, but really played as a nice Super Strong Machine showcase for me, made me want to dive into some more.

MD: Context has an impact on this one. As a standalone match, it was definitely good, but following the two matches that it followed, it came up a bit lacking. I liked the opening exchange with Aoyagi rushing SSM and the paralleled violence on the outside, though the punctuation of the DDT on concrete felt like it came a bit early, especially considering how it was used to end the first match. I suppose it did set the stage for Aoyagi working from underneath for most of the rest of the match, though with no particular focused selling. I like SSM because he stands out relatively with the clubbering and power moves and presence, but I don't necessarily want to see Aoyagi fighting from underneath because his stuff is so good (like that knee to the back of the skull off the ropes!). The best parts of this was when they were going toe-to-toe and there just wasn't enough of that. At least Aoyagi got to take it out on the ref after the match. Again, still good, just not "this card" great.

PAS: I agree with Matt and Eric, this basically felt like the same match we just saw, just not as great. I dug chunks of this, Aoyagi is a C+A guy, one of our all time favorites, and had a bunch of fun athletic spin kicks and I loved his early bum rush. There was a great heads up section with both guys throwing bombs at each other, but man was that finish hurt by comparing it to the previous match. Hara is looking to decapitate with his clotheslines, and SSM just didn't deliver that. This was solid WAR undercard stuff, but we are getting bigger and better then solid on this show.

Tatsutoshi Goto vs The Great Kabuki

MD: Whereas the SSM vs Aoyagi was more of the same as the first two matches, just not as good, I thought this was a nice palette cleanser on the card. Goto rushed in early (though instead of a killer knee to rush in on, it was more hugging and rolling) and took an early advantage on the outside. He pressed that into the armwork that would take up the entirety of the match. There was a great consequence-laden hope spot early into this where Kabuki punches with the bad hand/arm and immediately drops down selling it. Past that, Goto working on the arm wasn't super varied but it was focused and mean with Kabuki selling well. When he finally was able to fire back, late in the match, the crowd was definitely into, but then things sort of meandered to an out-of-nowhere finish. If they had tightened this up by a couple of minutes or let Kabuki get a more sustained comeback at the end, it would have been better. I liked most of it for what it was though.

PAS: Very different match with this being mostly just Goto working over the arm of Kabuki and Kabuki selling. The arm work was fine, and Kabuki's selling was great, the moment where he finally hits his uppercut only to collapse in pain was awesome. Still Kabuki is a so much more dynamic offensive wrestler then Goto, it was a bit of a bummer to see him smothered for most of the match. I liked the surprise roll up pin, but I just felt a little robbed of a big Kabuki explosion. 

Hiro Saito vs Kengo Kimura

MD: Another very solid match. This one felt just as violent as the others (especially everything that happened on the outside), but at the same time, somehow more cooperative, or at least conventional. I think that says more about the rest of the card than about this match in and of itself. The first third of the match was focused around chairs, beatings on the outside, one brutal whip into a tiny table, and the setpiece of the exposed corner buckle (Kimura's attempt to expose it partially lets Saito come back, Kimura cements one transition by tossing Saito into it, etc.). The exposed buckle is a non-factor for the rest of the match, which is a shame. The finish is set up by Saito missing a top rope senton out of that exact corner. Kimura diving to crotch him on it to set up the exact same finish would have been more rewarding. Small thing. Also, this was probably a good spot on the show for color with Saito's head rammed into the buckle a few times. (Note after the fact: PWO's Jetlag got to these before we did and I went to check his review on this and he had the exact same notion. That makes me feel less monstrous). Some of Kimura's jumping knee offense looked muddy with the fancam, but I really love his double axe-handle clubber. He throws himself into it more than anyone I've seen. This was a good mix of brawling and more conventional moves and transitions.

PAS: I dug this, there is something very appropriate about sitting in the front row of a WAR show and having fat ass Hiro Saito flying over the railing and landing on top of you. No reason to think that this feud should respect the fans anymore then the wrestlers respect each other. Hiro Saito doesn't do a lot of different things, but does the things he does exceedingly well. His senton is honestly one of the greatest looking individual wrestling moves ever, just pulverisingly beautiful, the standing one looked bad enough, but that second rope one was like an anvil hitting Wile E. Coyote. If Kimura didn't move out of the way of the tope rope attempt he would have looked like spilled condiments. I do think this was the match that could have used blood, but otherwise this show keeps delivering. 

Shiro Koshinaka vs Takashi Ishikawa

MD: This was one-third a really good match and two thirds an excellent one. I loved how Koshinaka took it right to Ishikawa to start, but that first third got dragged down a bit by holds that lacked struggle (though, once the armwork started, not necessarily direction). What it did manage to have, however was Koshinaka being the only guy on the card really to play to the crowd and just enough brutality to keep things somewhat interesting. They get way more interesting when Ishikawa takes over. Everything he does here is great. He can't transition from one piece of offense to another without making sure to pepper in a stomp on Koshinaka's face. In the middle here, it breaks down to a lumberjack match of sorts with both camps going at it. We only see bits and pieces of this as the camera stays with Koshinaka's selling. That's ok, I think, because that was another strong part of the match. He's definitely a guy who could get the crowd behind him and they pop big when he hits his comeback butt bump (and as goofy a move as that always is, it has a symbolic power with the crowd so it absolutely works). His offense on the back half was a lot better with nothing seeming meandering in the least. Instead we get some nice knee drops and an unforgiving double stomp off the top.

I liked how smart the end of the match was too, with clever use of repetition and payoff. As much as anything else, the key moments of the match were the transition points: Ishikawa armdragging his way out of an armbar (followed by a huge stomp, of course), Koshinaka countering a three point stance clothesline attempt with a butt bump, and then late, when Ishikawa turned the third butt bump attempt in the match into a snap clotheslining on the top rope which allowed him to set up a series of chokeslams and the second three point stance attempt clothesline (this time successful for the win; I need to work in how great his rapid fire clotheslines to the front and back of the head were earlier in the match so I'm sticking that here). A match like this didn't need that sort of narrative cleverness. It could have just been these two guys killing one another. It's a testament how good this was and how well it closed out the show that they went a step beyond.

PAS: Takashi Ishikawa's WAR run was one of the great short term wrestling runs of all time. He was there from 92-94 and was uniformly excellent including several all-time level matches. This was a step below that level, but not a huge step and his performance was excellent. Koshinaka was really great as a underdog babyface (which is weird because this was a WAR show) and takes a big time bloody beating from Ishikawa and really rallies the crowd behind him. Matt is right about how awesome that butt but is as a momentum shifter. I loved all of Ishikawa's nasty stomps, he really looked like he was trying to extinguish a brush fire on Koshinaka's head. The spot were Ishikawa blocks a hip toss, lands a judo throw and just stomps Koshinaka in the eye was good stuff. Loved the die on his sword performance by Koshinaka at the end, as he is able to string some big stuff together before getting absolutely smashed by a big clothesline.

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!! SWS 9/17/91

I'm an SWS novice, but 30 seconds in I already love the "Straight and Strong" tagline with a Godzilla T-Rex logo. Just some straight and strong wrestling right here. And also here's a dinosaur.

1. Samson Fuyuki & Shinichi Nakano vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Great Kabuki

ER: Joined in progress which is a shame, as we open on Kabuki and Nagasaki beating the snot out of Fuyuki. Kabuki throws one of the best running knees I've ever seen, and they roll to the floor to dump Fuyuki on a table and throw chairs at him while he flails in his awesome floral tights. Back in the ring and the Kendo/Kabuki double thrust kick is awesome and since both guys know how to hit a thrust kick it really should be a finisher. Fuyuki hits a falling clothesline on Kabuki, but Kabuki laughs it off, smacks him with a superkick and then shows Fuyuki how to REALLY throw a boss running clothesline. Nakano was a furious house of fire here but was really only in for 30 seconds (at least of what was shown of the 7 minutes), and Fuyuki still wrestles like a junior, and is still mostly junior size, winning with a cradle. I like the Kendo/Kabuki team, as well as the Fuyuki/Nakano team, but Fuyuki's comeback came out of nowhere and wasn't really believable at all.

2. Akira Katayama vs. Kenichi Oya

ER: I really liked Hisakatsu Oya during his FMW days, always thought he was a real underrated guy. I am 94% positive that I have never seen an Akira Katayama match in my life. I'm used to seeing Oya wearing his black karate pants and weird balding-down-the-middle 'do so it's weird to see him still balding down the middle, but wearing lime green and apricot shorts. Katayama is wearing tiger striped tights with "Rocket" written down the sides. It's like a couple NJPW trainees got sick of being forced to wear black trunks and do a bunch of boston crabs and dropkicks, so once they joined SWS they rebelled by wearing the shittiest trunks possible. First 7 minutes of the match are a whole bunch of nothing, but then suddenly a switch flips and Katayama starts working over the arm and it gets good. All the arm holds are put over by Oya's yelling and struggling, and Katayama does some cool knee drops to the bum wing. But Oya immediately ignores it all once he transitions back to offense (even using the bad arm for the first two post-armwork moves he does, an inside cradle and a clothesline). Last 5 minutes are fun as both guys just stop pretending to sell and start busting out all the big moves. We get plenty of nasty suplexes and a couple big dives from Katayama. Katayama also breaks out the stiff headbutts and uppercuts. So it was a total mess of a match, with 7 boring minutes leading into 3 ultimately pointless-yet-engaging minutes of decent armwork, leading to a really fun 5 minute sprint. I really wish this was the match joined in progress.

3. Masao Orihara vs. Tatsumi (Koki) Kitahara

ER: Orihara does not look like a disgraced yakuza button man yet and Kitahara is young and mulleted. Orihara does a bunch of poorly planned and reckless flips to the floor to start, seemingly with no regard to where he lands. Kitahara is gracious enough to catch him. Back in and Kitahara does a stiff legsweep and then points to his head to show how smart he is. Awesome. Then he starts kicking Orihara a bunch, and sassily gets the crowd to cheer for Orihara to make a comeback. One big vertical suplex later and Orihara is dumped to the floor, with Kitahara following to deliver one of the nastiest snap suplexes I've ever seen, right on the rampway. Good lord that was fast and painful. Orihara gets some little flying comebacks, until Koki decides to level him with a short arm clothesline to the neck. This sets up one of the coolest spots I've seen in months: So Orihara just got leveled with a clothesline, and he's taken a pretty man-sized beating and struggling to get up, and Kitahara is smugly leaning against the ropes, waiting for Orihara to get up so he can level him with another clothesline. Orihara gets up, Kitahara sprints forward and swings for the fences, only for Orihara to reverse it with a crucifix roll up for a GREAT near fall. What made it work so damn well was the commitment. Kitahara looked like he didn't expect Orihara to reverse it, so he threw the clothesline with full strength, making him off balance for the resulting takedown and roll up. Great spot. It doesn't matter in the end as Kitahara ends up hitting a mean northern lights suplex to win, but a great moment is a great moment. I don't know if I can call the match really good, as my end impression was that this was more Kitahara flexing nuts on a young boy, and the pacing wasn't great, and nobody really sold anything. These things are hard as shit for me to rank or judge or critique. Basically, all the moves looked good, some looked brutal, but I never felt invested in any of it.

4. Greg Valentine vs. Fumihiro Niikura

ER: Valentine comes out to some big brassy burlesque number, like he's working some underground strip club during Prohibition. Niikura was in the Viet Cong Express with Hiroshi Hase in the 80s. Match wasn't special as it was basically an extended Valentine squash, but if you wanted to see The Hammer stiff up a Japanese guy you don't really know, then this would be right up your alley. Valentine looked really good here, throwing some of the best elbow strikes I've seen (the stiffest Dusty elbow you've ever seen, really great back elbows, and ends the match after three straight beautiful elbow drops). Is there anybody with better elbow drops than Valentine? Hansen maybe? Probably definitely Hansen.

5. Davey Boy Smith vs. Takashi Ishikawa

ER: On paper I was pretty excited for this one but Davey gasses WAY early and gets super chinlocky the whole match. Ishikawa tries his damndest to make it interesting but any time the match starts to approach any action, Davey Boy locks on a chinlock and loudly breathes, literally wheezing and gasping all over Ishikawa. Match ends with Davey Boy hitting a body slam and winning with a bad flying clothesline off the top. Those two moves were two of the only moves Davey Boy hit all match. Horrible. Ishikawa threw an awesome dropkick and was not responsible for any of the shittiness here.

6. Naoki Sano & George Takano vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & Haku

ER: Weird match up as it's two large heavyweights against two juniors and you also had the dynamic of the giant guys cheating throughout the match. So the cheating would get booed, but Yatsu is also clearly one of the biggest stars in SWS so many fans still wanted to cheer his team. Sano looked really good here and his comebacks against Haku were really good, and I really liked Haku's powerbomb variations. Match was building to something and then Haku and Yatsu rough up the ref and the match gets thrown out after like 7 minutes. Booooooo. I think we had some clipping as well at some point.

7. Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Demolition (Smash and Crush)

ER: In retrospect Demolition had a horrible look and must have been one of the reasons my parents were filled with shame by my young/current/future wrestling fandom. I know they were supposed to look like Mad Max rogues, but they come off looking more like undercover cops trying too hard to blend in at The Mine Shaft. Barry Darsow is such a weirdo in this. He's still doing his "constant chatter" schtick, but it's so jarring to see and hear a giant leather daddy yelling "Shut your mouth, goofball!" or "I'm gonna beat this stinkin' bum!" Demolition are pretty boring here as their long control segment on Tenryu is just clubbing and chin locks (save for a really awesome and dangerous Smash backdropping Tenryu into a Crush piledriver). Control segment takes a long time, but the fans want Hara. Hara gets the hot tag, and unfortunately the match ends immediately after he comes in and does two clotheslines, and Darsow didn't exactly lean into them so they didn't look like normal match ending WAR type clotheslines.


Soooooo......this card was pretty damn disappointing. The theme of SWS seems to be that any move can end a match, at any time. Which just meant that every match ended out of nowhere on a move that looked like it shouldn't have ended the match. Wish we got the full cut of the Kabuki match.

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! 7/13/00

ER: Hayabusa passed away and it's terrible. I'm sure all of us have similar stories about the first time we saw a Hayabusa match. I started tape trading in high school, and naturally the first things I traded for were death match compilations. I just had to know. I have no clue what I was expecting to see, or if I would be mentally scarred after seeing whatever was on these tapes, but I had to know. We all had to know. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I imagine that 90% of people that got into tape trading had a first trade that included matches from either Sabu, Cactus Jack, or Hayabusa. The first tape I traded for smelled like weed when I took it out of the box. I didn't even know what weed smelled like then but I opened up the box and thought "this is definitely what weed smells like". The tape had Pogo twisting a scythe into a guy's head for 20 minutes, the fire tag match where the ropes go up like styrofoam, matches worked without a ring, Cactus bleeding a lot, and then this crazy satin clad ninja doing ridiculous flips that I had never seen before. The death matches didn't do a whole lot for me, but I certainly wanted more Hayabusa. Hayabusa ended up being a pretty terrific gateway drug into Japanese wrestling for me, and I don't think I was alone in that. R.I.P. you crazy ninja.

1. Nobukazu Hirai vs. Osamu Tachihikari

ER: This wasn't bad. Decent little match. Hirai was a guy I really liked around this time. He always had nice stomps and stiff shoulderblocks and clotheslines. Tachihikari was a meaty Tenryu trainee who got beat really quickly by Gary Goodridge at an early Pride show. Hirai looks really good here, Tachihikari not so much.

2. TARU vs. Stalker Ichikawa

ER: This actually got a lot of time (12 minutes) but that was because apparently Stalker's layered brand of comedy needs a bunch of time to flesh itself out. He's a guy I would probably like a lot if he dialed down the comedy in every single spot. He bumps huge - there was a table spot where he was to do an Asai moonsault through TARU/table and "accidentally" flubs the spot, instead crashing and burning off the apron - and does some nutso spots, like his slingshot senton to the floor. Also dug his moonwalk rope walk. But you gotta take the comedy with it. That's the rub. TARU is always fine in things, and he was fine here. I am not a cold, heartless man. I love a good laugh. I have enjoyed a good laugh while watching a wrestling match. But sometimes I just want some wrestling. If I wanted funny I'd borrow one of Phil's Dave Barry novels.

3. Shoji Nakamaki vs. Mitsunobu Kikuzawa

ER: It's weird seeing Ebessan when he was just a short chubby garbage match worker wearing baggy jorts and bleeding. I liked Nakamaki here as he works real stiff with Kikuzawa and came off way more like an IWA Mid-South guy than a WAR guy, smacking Kikuzawa in the chin with the end of a chair and locking on a real snug STF. Match wasn't much but made me want to go back and watch more Nakamaki.

4. Shinobu Kandori & Keiko Aono vs. Harley Saito & Noriyo Tateno

ER: This was pretty clippy so kinda hard to gauge how good the match actually was. Being a pretty big joshi novice didn't help things. I really liked Harley in this and wish she matched up more with Kandori. Harley threw all sorts of nice spin kicks and had some cool roll-ups. I'm not too familiar with Aono and it's been awhile since I watched a Jumping Bomb Angels match but Tateno seemed fine.

5. Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Tomohiro Ishii

ER: Mochizuki was one of my favorites during this era and he's just a relentless monster during this match, kicking the snot out of Ishii with all sorts of big time front kicks and yakuza kicks and missile dropkicks and flashy flippy kicks. It's pretty one-sided until Ishii gets fed up after getting clotheslined right in the face and blasts Mochizuki in the face with a slap and then levels him with a clothesline of his own. Ishii also takes a couple of big time bumps, taking a DDT on the apron and also taking a suplex from the ring to the floor which Mochizuki turns into a Falcon Arrow from the apron to the floor. Nuts. I had no idea Ishii was even wrestling this early but he looked good here. Real fun match. Both guys dished a nasty beating on the other with Mochizuki's kicking offense holding up great.

PAS: I enjoyed this much more then your current Ishii meta stiff fests. This was plenty stiff, but it was an actually back and forth match with no weird sections where both guys stand there and prove wrestling is fake. Because this doesn't have any of that, the big shots by both guys meant a bunch more. Mochizuki has a bunch of fun ways to kick you, I love his axe kick and jumping knee to the back to Ishii's head, I also loved Ishii's giant slap, looked like it popped Mochizuki's ear drum, and he sold it like it completely dazed him. Really fun, makes me want to watch more Mochizuki.

6. SUWA/CIMA/Sumo Fuji vs. Dragon Kid/SAITO/Genki Horiguchi

ER: Oh man did I seek these kind of matches out in the year 2000. Toryumon/Dragon Gate 6 mans, all those east coast indy 6 mans, all that stuff. Loved spotty 6 mans. I still love spotty 6 mans. This was not a great, or even very good spotty 6 man, but it had value. I'm pretty sure anything with SUWA in it could never be classified as bad. The face team is pretty weak as Dragon Kid had one of his off nights which meant a bunch of twisting headscissors and roll-ups that get flubbed amidst a bunch of spinning. I remember liking Horiguchi more back then, but he looked pretty lousy here and was only really fun when SUWA was kneeing him in the face. SAITO looked best of the bunch, but even then he wasn't as good as any of the rudos. Team Crazy MAX was just as good as I remembered, with SUWA being the clear best (although he and CIMA were perhaps a bit too generous bumping big for wimpy Horiguchi dropkicks), and Fuji being one of the more underrated guys of the late 90s/early 00s. Not one of the higher end versions of this match-up, but seeing SUWA do his thing is always a treat. He had one of the best flying clotheslines I've ever seen (comparable only to Ikeda's), just leveling Horiguchi. Add in all his great elbow drop variations and his refusal to let others' blown spots derail things, and the guy is just awesome.

7. Koki Kitahara vs. Nobutaka Araya

ER: Araya looks like such a skuzz bucket here, with his greasy shag and patchy goatee, karate pants he must have washed with a red shirt, and what appear to be cigar burns on his arms. He also seems loaded. And this match is completely great. There's a real feeling of disrespect that runs throughout, and though it never delves into uncooperation it's always right there, lurking. They spill to the floor early and toss each other through chairs, with Araya choking a ring boy who tries to intervene. Back in the ring and Kitahara boots Araya in the forehead a lot, with Araya laughing like a tubby drunk dude while it's happening. The story of the match is basically two meaty guys who would make me cry with any of the offense done in this match. At some point the match structure kinda breaks down and it becomes more two big guys trying to hit each other as hard as possible while still retaining some sort of worked atmosphere. Kitahara finishes it with a nasty armbar and man I wish I spoke Japanese just to hear what he said to Araya after letting go of said armbar and heel kicking him to the head while walking away. The disgusted glare Kitahara shoots him is something I know I wouldn't want to be on the other end of. This was incredible.

Post show during a press conference Araya has some nice purple bruises on his forehead from all the yakuza kicks. Awesome.

8. Genichiro Tenryu vs. Hayabusa

ER: This is pretty much exactly what you would think this match would be like when seeing it on paper. Tenryu chops Hayabusa's chest raw and hits tons of awesome falling clotheslines (one of my absolute favorite clotheslines in wrestling) and Hayabusa throws in flying when he can. His stuff was pretty on as he hits a beautiful 450, nice springboard spinning heel kick and some nice dives. Tenryu is the man though, and has the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. Every time one of Hayabusa's shots would land a little lighter than they should have, the whole crowd started buzzing because they know Tenryu will be coming back harder. Hayabusa mans up and leans way into every clothesline, the match doesn't overstay its welcome, and Tenryu busts out the lumpy 50 year old man tope. What more would you want? This was two guys who at very different points in my wrestling fandom, were my favorite wrestler.

PAS: I thought this was a great Tenryu performance and a pretty mediocre Hayabusa one. You really want Busa to break out a bunch of crazy highspots, but instead he mostly tries to go toe to toe with Tenryu, and that isn't his game. Tenryu does a nice job of putting over Hayabusa's shots and of course unloads in return. Loved the crazy tope by Tenryu and he will crack someone in the mouth. Still this was a bit underwhelming, I kind of expected this to be a big deal, and it wasn't as frenzied as your normal Tenryu main event.

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! NJPW 10/23/92, Pt. 2

Genichiro Tenryu/Koki Kitahara v. Shiro Koshinaka/Kengo Kimura

PAS: This is your first Tenryu vs. NJ match in this feud and it was a barnburner. Neither Koshinaka or Kimura are super workers, but they are pretty great a being nasty shits and kicking someones ass. The NJ team were clearly the heels in the crowd even though this was a NJ show, and they start out by mauling and double teaming Kitahara. Throwing him into chairs and tables, dropping him on his head. We get an awesome hot tag from Tenryu, who gets so excited he almost falls out the ring on a clothesline, but eventually he gets overwhelmed and busted open. When the WAR team gets the advantage they lay in a beating too, including Tenryu lacing Koshinaka with chops and kicks to the eye. We also get great moments where all of the seconds start brawling with each other. Finish has Tenryu powerbombing Koshinaka, and continuing to powerbomb him after the bell, until Masa Saito gets up from his commentary desk to put a stop to it. Such great stuff, why isn't wrestling still like this.

ER: Holy shit Phil is right. Why isn't wrestling still like this. This is one of those matches I feel like I can show someone with minimal interest in wrestling, and then watch them get instantly hooked. No language barrier, no idea who the combatants are, just soaking up the bitch glares and ass beating and body language and crowd noise. This is probably my favorite performance ever from Koshinaka and Kimura. They are both just spiteful little pricks throughout this, especially Koshinaka. The glances that he shoots Tenryu are frightening in their lack of fear. And then we cut to Tenryu and he is expressionless, no doubt staring off at a middle distance thinking about what horrors he will unleash once he's tagged in. Kitahara is an able babyface throughout this, and Koshinaka/Kimura really lace into him. His hot tag is great and Tenryu just mows down Koshinaka with an all time great lariat (who, as Phil mentioned, hits Koshinaka with such crazy speed and force that he himself almost flies over the top to the floor), but K&K start double teaming him, and soon we get the great visual of Kimura holding Tenryu while Koshinaka busts him open with straight knuckle shots to the forehead and eyebrow. Of course this whole time we have all the opposing ring crews at each others throats, looking like a Slayer mosh pit with a gi dress code. We get a couple of boss showdowns between Tenryu and Masa Saito (who I still think looks like the most unfuckwithable man in wrestling history), who looks impossibly badass in slacks, button down blue shirt and suspenders. This kind of shit is just flawless pro wrestling. The best. 

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All I Want From You Aoyagi Is To Be Satisfied

Masashi Aoyagi v. Jushin Liger NJPW 6/12/90 - EPIC

A real example of the kind of match Aoyagi does as well as anyone in wrestling history. This is worked rounds, but is less like a UWF style shootfight and more like a toughman contest. They build the tension in the first couple of round with Aoyagi throwing kicks and Liger delivering some really powerful double leg takedowns. In the end of the second round Aoyagi rips Ligers mask and Liger comes out maskless in the third round and flips the fuck out. He takes Aoyagi down and splitsis melon with some nasty headbutts and we get a wild awkward brawl, with crazed Liger and Aoyagi with a blood colored Gi. A great spectacle which is what you want it to be

Masashi Aoyagi/Kuniaki Kobayashi vs. Koki Kikahara/Nobukazu Hirai WAR 3/5/93 - FUN

Fun match that got really good whenever the kickers were kicking people. Aoyagi was great he laid in a bunch of cool kick variations, including some really nasty shots to the ribs of Hirai when Kobayashi had him in a abdominal stretch. Kikihara was also coming in and laying into people. He kicked Kobyashi's brain out of his nose with an enzigiri. Most of the match was focused on Hirai v. Kobayashi which was much less exciting, although I did like their finishing run. Match had a bunch of heat too, as the interpromotional deal really fired up the crowd. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI

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Cause Aoyagi is the Finest Picker to Ever Play the Blues

Masashi Aoyagi/Shiro Koshinaka/Kengo Kimura v. Genichiro Tenryu/Takashi Ishikawa/Koki Kitahara NJ 11/23/92-GREAT

TKG: This is kind of oddly constructed. Kengo Kimura is treated as the powerhouse of the New Japan team while Koshinaka is treated as guy in over his head who just gets wrecked by Tenryu. But their are large sections of the match where it really feels like Koshinaka is the captain( to borrow from lucha trios of his team). Koshinaka has a ton of awesome moments of selling, and comes off really sneaky and sadistic when he gets opportunities to take advantage of his opponents. Kimura looks like a powerhouse in everything he does, his flying knee kick which is a pretty weak looking move in the NJ80s set, here is superfast and violent looking. Kimura gets caught with an Ishikawa knee and then the three War guys take turns stomping his head in...essentially eliminating him from a large section of the match where Koshinaka has to take over for the NJ team. there is an awesome moment where Kohinaka gets Kitahara in the NJ corner and invites Kimura (still selling) to come in and give his receipts. And fuck I want to see Aoyagi v Kitahara as a singles match.

PAS: This was really a ton of fun. Tenryu takes a bit of a back seat as he often does in these trios match, and it was focused mainly on Ishikawa and Kitahara beating on the HI guys, and they are a pair of guys who can beat on someone. Kithara is the face in peril and he is way better at it then Orihara who usually plays that role. Koshinaka is awesome when he tees off on someones nose and he cracks Kitahara right on the bridge. Every Tenryu moment in the match was spectacular though and he is such a fucking superstar even standing on the apron. The NJ team was hurt by not having someone of his aura to play off of. 


Masashi Aoyagi vs. Genichiro Tenryu WAR 10/8/83-EPIC

TKG: Tenryu is so amazing at facial selling. This is a hand held and not one of these ringside handhelds either, and you can still make out all of his facial wincing as he gets kicked in the face by Aoyagi. This is another guy in a gi vs. wrestler match but this time there is no feeling out round. Just two guys beating on each other from the first bell. Tenryu stops Aoyagi in first round by yoking him in a nasty choke. Second round ends with Tenryu eating kicks and then getting kicked some more after the bell. They do the big Aoyagi throws gi to crowd moment that always gets the drop the strap pop. And third round ends with a series of disdainful Tenryu powerbombs as Aoyagi's corner gets more and more pissed.

PAS: This was as good as it looks on paper. A pair of guys who don't pull punches not pulling their punches. I loved the spot where Aoyagi kicks Tenryu in the face with the toe of his boot, only for Tenryu to get his revenge the next round by returning the eye kick. I also loved Tenryu saying "fuck the niceties and hurling the corner stool at Aoyagi during the break. Finish was great as Tenryu's "I don't give a fuck" powerbombs were totally brutal looking.

Masashi Aoyagi/Terry Funk/Great Kabuki v. Leatherface/Metalface/Freddie Kruger IWA 1998-GREAT

Cool discovery, this is a HH from IWA and the kind of fun wild brawl you would expect from this group of guys. Not sure who was playing Leatheface but he was the highlight of the Monster team, pinballing around the ring for the babyface team including making Kabuki look like a killer, and taking big bumps into chairs. Aoyagi is a bit of a minor player in the match, but he definitely brings the violence whenever he tags in. Of course Terry Funk was great, it pretty much goes without saying, and if you can't enjoy Terry Funk recklessly throwing chairs at movie monsters, you should probably get a different hobby.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI

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