Found Footage Friday: EIGEN SIX MAN~! PARK~! BANDA~! ESTRADA~! REYNA~! MIGHTY ATOM~!

Harry Monte/Farmer Spatts vs. Billy Curtis/Cowboy Clatt NWA Hollywood 5/23/53

MD: This was a midget's match that goes about 25 minute. It was announced at the start as "the miniature mastodons of the mat, the mighty midgets." These guys all had gimmicks upon gimmicks. On one side was Farmer Georgie Spots from Hogwash, Arkansas, and "The Mighty Atom" Mr. Harry Monte. The other side had Cowboy "Pee Wee" Paul Clatt and Hollywood Billy Curtis. And of course, the Kansas Whirlwind, Olympic Champion (1932) Pete Mehringer was the ref. This was a little bit a tale of two matches. When Clatt and Spatts were in there, there was more comedy. Spatts was barefoot, for instance, and that came into play with stomps. There were bits where they ended up on top of the ref or accidentally on his back giving him a chinlock. While not exclusive, when Monte was in there, it did feel a little different. He was the champion apparently and seemed pretty skilled. Look, I'm never going to say no to an old midgets match. 

A lot of the time the comedy hits and they show a ton of commitment. I've seen a lot. This looked different than most. I'd almost explain it like with this analogy: when Monte was in there, more so than any US midget match I've ever seen, it felt like a minis match relative to the lucha of the day. That is to say, it was faster, sprintier, sprawlier. When it was Monte and Curtis in there, it had a wild energy of them going for holds and advantages. It lacked the precise technique of shootstyle, maybe, but had the same feel of jockeying for openings. There were moments of levity but in practice they were presented with more dignity than you'd expect, especially given the slew of gimmick names that started the match. Even the post-match interviews were more like what you'd expect from any of the other names of the time, talking about issues with the ref and recovering from injury and vying for the title. I like comedy spots as much as the next guy but much like some of the women's matches from this era show us a potentially different path, this did as well. There's some alternate reality out there where guys like these paved the way for a division even snappier and more exciting than junior heavyweights. 

Kenta Kobashi/Mitsuo Momota/Rusher Kimura vs. Haruka Eigen/Isamu Teranishi/Motoshi Okuma AJPW 10/20/89

MD: All of the Eigen/Okuma stuff is fun but it's especially fun when Rusher's in there. You end up seeing this dynamic so many times that you cherish the familiar and appreciate the variation. This had both being a six man with Teranishi hanging out with the shitheels. I've seen Teranishi on the other side as someone who would put Eigen in his place, but it was nice to see him as part of the problem, not part of the solution. And of course, you have Kobashi, one who's ever closer to finding himself, on the other side. That said, there was plenty of familiar here. It started with Eigen shaking Teranishi and Kobashi's hand but refusing to shake Rusher's. Then when Rusher took offense, he pushed him. They locked up, immediately got in the ropes, and Eigen slapped him before taking him back to his corner and getting out of there. Being an AJPW six-man, there was the usual cycling. You'd rarely see a guy get tagged in before everyone else on his side had their turn. 

The pairings were more situational than hierarchical. Rusher eventually tagged out but Okuma could take back over at a moment's notice with a headbutt. There was plenty of headbutt fun in general, whether it be Eigen running someone in to Okuma's head or all the bad guys recoiling in fear as Rusher's indomitable head overcame them. My favorite bit was when they kept laying them on until Okuma finally got him from behind and knocked him down and did a little dance in victory. Eigen's crew were very good at pulling things back into their corner and they even pulled out the triple clubber at times. When Kobashi got in there, he came in hot and got to do a bunch of things before Teranishi got to smack him down enjoyably. Teranishi is a guy who just hits a little harder despite his relative spot on the card. Eigen got to hit the spit spot shots on Kobashi and never got comeuppance along those lines, though Kobashi did toss him off the top and then set the stage for Rusher to come in and mow him down for the win. This is just some of the most watchable wrestling imaginable, guys who were credible and dangerous and could go but that were just having fun out there with themselves, each other, the crowd, us thirty-five years later.

ER: I knew how much I really truly loved wrestling when I consciously noticed how much I love old man All Japan matches. I love them. I've always loved them. I loved the first old man match I ever saw, a concept I had never heard of before but understood and fell in love with instantly. I was a teenager buying All Japan tapes in the mail within my first two months On The Internet because Mitsuharu Misawa was #3 on the PWI 500 that year behind Steve Austin and Goldberg, and I owned Steve Austin and Goldberg shirts that I purchased from Millers Outpost, but had never heard of Mitsuharu Misawa. Or Kenta Kobashi, who was just a couple spots behind Misawa. I clearly needed to see All Japan Pro Wrestling, without actually knowing how to see it or what specific matches to seek. But I found someone selling AJPW Comm Tapes - whatever those were - and sent them an honest to damn god money order for them. I went to the post office to get a money order to buy Acclaimed Japanese Wrestling over the internet. The first All Japan tape had clips of old men spitting at the crowd while people covered themselves with newspapers, and then all of those old men headbutting each other. This was not the wrestling that I expected, but I was so surprised by All Japan old men that I loved all of them, and there has not been a time since that my love for them stopped growing. 

I call them old men, but they seemed a lot older when I was a teenager. Now I am the same age as Haruka Eigen in this match, and only a few years younger than Rusher Kimura and Motoshi Okuma. These are much younger versions of the old men that I saw, but the Old Man All Japan match is a style as much as it is a literal description of a match. This was men, peers of mine now, working a match in the style of Old Tough Men and it just always looks like a 4 star match to me. The pace goes quick, there's never any kind of slow down in the action, the pairings cycle through constantly (outside of an extended beatdown of Kimura, when you think the entire match might be building around cutting him off from his team, as many of these matches went), and you have the cool element of a 22 year old Kenta Kobashi who was nowhere near who he would be in just a few years. 

As these things tend to, it all just broke down into old men headbutting each other harder than you or I could handle. Okuma has been a real revelation for me over the last couple years, here at the end of his career and never cooler. He brings the headbutt thunder to Rusher and doesn't let up, headbutting him from the apron and then running back to his corner to tag in so that he can continue headbutting Legally. Everybody headbutts in this match. Eigen comes in to sneak attack guys with headbutts and keep momentum on his team's side, Okuma headbutts any time he gets the chance, Teranishi and Momota throw headbutts of their own to keep with the spirit, and eventually everyone gets silent when Okuma headbutts Kobashi right in the nose and mouth. Momota as a fired up babyface is beautiful, tagging in and going nuts on the heels with open hand chops. "You want to headbutt my fucking friends? You want to hit people? I'll fucking hit people. I'll hit all of you!" Eigen bends Kobashi back over the ropes and hammers away at his chest, setting up his own spit spot before the spit spot existed. Men headbutt each other in the back of the head, Okuma runs harder into clotheslines than he runs his own head into other skulls, and Haruka Eigen might be the greatest shit stirrer in wrestling. Another low card old man classic. 

Remo Banda/Rudy Reyna/Mano Negra vs Principe Island/Meztizo/Jerry Estrada CMLL 1989/1990

MD: The opening interview mentions Christmas just happening and there's some mention of 1990 so I wonder if this was just in January maybe? Again, there are some great guys in here. This is Park pre-Park teaming with Jerry Estrada in all of his glory against Super Parka/Volador pre-those things, exotico-turned-tecnico Reyna (who remains awesome in all of this footage) and they get a ton of time to have a very complete match. My biggest complaint is that it was just a little unfocused, but it was a lot of great things that maybe never came together; there was still plenty to like. For instance, the opening pairing (and posturing beforehand) was Remo Banda vs Estrada, which made a lot of sense given they had similar teased out hair and style. They worked well together. The other pairings were good, though I would have rather seen Reyna and Principe matched up. Mano Negra was just sort of there and I don't have a good sense of Meztizo even after watching this. 

The second round of pairings gave us Principe vs. Remo Banda which is a rematch from Panama and just like there, they came off like sparring partners who trained so hard against each other they could to an extra gear with wilder stuff. Even just for a minute or two it was great to see them do their thing against each other again. Likewise, the bit we got of Estrada vs Reyna was very good and full of motion and shtick. The segunda started with some really wonderful, imaginative work where Remo Banda fought off all the rudos, full of a bunch of clever spots you don't see all that often. The beatdown, once we got there, was gnarly stuff, with Principe dragging Remo Banda around the ring or stepping on his hair and pulling his arms up, and Estrada just beating Reyna around ringside with great punches. That made it all the better when Reyna started to come back with the best punches that you'll see this week. It devolved into chaos, leading to Estrada exiting the ring with one of his insane signature bumps and the tecnicos finishing off the remaining rudos. This didn't become a bloody war but as fairly conventional matches go, it had a lot of what I usually look for.

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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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Celebrating All Japan Veterans on Veterans Day

Haruka Eigen/Masa Fuchi/Motoshi Okuma vs. Giant Baba/Mitsuo Momota/Rusher Kimura AJPW 2/26/90

ER: We don't always appreciate every blessing that life hands us, but it is a real gift that someone used nearly 30 minutes of camcorder battery to film an old man match curtain to curtain, entrances and exits. If the man recording this had children then you can guarantee he never accidentally missed a recital. He almost surely did not have children because he wouldn't be filming entire All Japan house shows if he knew the touch of a woman, but we thank his life choices for giving the Battery Life knowledge to get this gem. We've been going through a big batch of All Japan handhelds - which are my favorite thing - and when Matt saw there was a 20+ minute old man match he let me know that it was "an Eric kind of match". Not something that we would do for Found Footage Friday, but an Eric match. And so, I oblige.  

Because the thing is, 1990 was an incredible year for old man All Japan matches, mostly because they weren't all that old yet. Being an old man in these matches was more of a vibe than an actual number, because everyone except Baba was still in their 40s. Masa Fuchi was only 36, but he was someone who was always facially a 60 year old Salary Man with the crotchetiness of an 80 year old. Momota was my age, Eigen a bit older, and Rusher Kimura only 48. These men are my peers at this stage of the Old Man Match, but I don't think anyone would ever mistake Rusher Kimura for my peer as he was already spiritually an old man. 

Everyone in this match could still go. All of them were actual workers and the comedy was a bonus that was perfectly integrated into the stiffness instead of leaned on as a crutch to avoid taking too many bumps.  Their bodies may have been more stiff, but they could all still kick ass and lean into strikes. And this match had a lot of stiff strikes. 

Okuma, Fuchi, and Eigen come out in matching black tank tops, and the black tank crew starts the match by putting the damn boots to Rusher. Fuchi chokes Rusher over the ropes and goes after his ribs with a Bob Barker-like run of 20 straight hard kicks. Okuma comes in for some kicks, then Eigen comes in and adds 15 or so, then Fuchi comes back and starts it all over. Kimura does this amazing bit the entire time he's getting beaten to death, as he keeps slumping slightly farther and farther over with each kick until he was completely slouched in the ropes. That's the key to a lot of the comedy in this era of Old Men, where the joke is the result of actual stiffness and violence, their old man reaction to a real ass kicking. It's the way Baba would break up pins or submissions by walking slowly across the ring to throw a hard kick into someone's spine. It plays as physical comedy the entire time while also delivering a size 34 boot into Fuchi or Okuma's shoulder blades. Baba gets laughs by selling Okuma and Eigen's headbutts with exaggerated grimaces, rubbing his head like a bear who ran into a tree branch. His physical selling is very funny, but also very accurate, and also he is taking real headbutts from two guys who can throw headbutts. 

There is a headbutt exchange between Rusher and Okuma that starts out getting laughs, with Kimura doing silly little bunny hops into hands-free headbutts, but keeps progressing until it ends with Okuma headbutting him in the teeth three straight times. Eigen and Rusher might make funny faces while chopping each other, but Eigen is chopping the hell out of Rusher. You can see how hard Eigen's chops are landing thanks to the nice framing by our childless bachelor cameraman. Eigen isn't swinging through Rusher, he is swinging into Rusher, and since Rusher never moves at all while taking strikes he is just absorbing all of the impact. 

Speaking of good camera angles, we get a head-on view of Eigen when he inevitably spits onto the fine people and derelicts of Kashihara, right towards our lonely but fulfilled cameraman. Isn't it interesting that almost all the handhelds we have show the side view of Haruka Eigen spitting into the 2nd row. We don't get one head on nearly as often, and we almost never get one facing away from the camera. This gives us a new data point to add to our Eigen Spit pie chart, which is heavily dominated by stage left spitting. 

Momota and Okuma really up the speed, going at an unexpected juniors pace through some spirited quick exchanges, kind of quickly running through some bigger offense that you don't get in Old Man matches even just two years later. We're talking an Okuma piledriver leading into Momota doing a back suplex just a moment later, and all of that coming in the middle of other hard quick bumps. Momota was still a spry 42 - a young guy exactly the same age as me, a very young guy in his prime - but even I was surprised by some of his agility. He had a really smooth sunset flip out of the corner, and then an incredibly slick backslide to reverse a hiptoss. Wrestling in 2023 is all about athletic guys doing the same offense in athletic ways, but I don't think even the best of the modern quick Athletic Guy wrestlers (Ricochet, Mustafa Ali, any of the 40 AEW guys who work that style) could have made this backslide look as good as Momota did. Mitsuo Momota had a finisher worthy backslide that looked cool enough that I watched it back several times just to see his body physics. 

Everybody bumps big for Baba, of course. You're an incurable idiot if you do not run as fast as you can into Baba's giant boot and every member of the black tank crew knows this. We get some great moments around that boot, like Fuchi dramatically holding onto the ropes to avoid running into one, or Eigen doing the exact opposite and getting a full head of steam to run directly into it with seemingly no other plan. But nobody bumps bigger than Rusher Kimura, who absorbs a real impressive beating over the course of a long match which saw him involved more than anyone. Okuma and Fuchi and Eigen all hit him hard the whole match, but Okuma takes it up a level when he throws him through the ropes to the floor - a big bump for anyone but a bump Rusher shouldn't have been taking - and then throws him into and over the guardrail and beats his ass in the crowd. My boy Rusher eventually hobbles back to the ring holding his shoulder, and his body had to have been bruised up like a running back's. 

This was the best era of Old Men: the perfect mix of actual funny comedy and actual good wrestling, and when we get over 20 minutes of that it needs to be celebrated. These veterans are the true heroes. 

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New Footage Friday: All Japan 12/2/96 Handheld

 AJPW 12/2/96

PAS: This was the tail end of the 1996 RWTL, and only a couple of days before the apex of All Japan Tag Wrestling. We saw two pretty great warm up matches for our finalists.

Masao Inoue vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru 

MD: Spirited opener that played up the size difference and highlighted Kanemaru's athleticism. Inoue based well early, as Kanemaru stayed on his arm, did some tricked out chain wrestling, and flew at him from every direction. You were really just waiting for Inoue to catch him and he did, selling the arm still for a bit before really putting the oomph into his mauling. Kanemaru was so spry that he could land on his feet at any moment and he had some hope towards the end, including a well-worked for slam before missing a leap off the top and getting crushed. They made the most of this.

ER: AJ openers were always so much more interesting than NJ openers, as you really got a sense of these guys growing, and the fans were always ready to get excited at the slightest hint of an upset. Kanemaru was someone who really got to show a lot in openers (for a few years) and I really dig the AJ slow burn hierarchy. Kanemaru surprised Inoue with a lot of flash, including really sending him flying into a guardrail on a dropkick. He doesn't skimp on his missed offense, always missing as if he thought there was water in that pool, and I like the little victories that fans react loudly to. Like here, Inoue hits his falling clothesline and then rudely palms Kanemaru's face on the cover, then gets launched off when Kanemaru throws all of his remaining strength into a kickout. It was like Yokozuna kicking out of a Macho Man pin and the crowd was into it, sensing a Kanemaru surprise. Inoue acts incredulous to the ref, but then folds Kanemaru with a hard back suplex and pins each of Kanemaru's arms to the mat, not taking cocky chances this time. 

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Satoru Asako/Maunakea Mossman 

MD: This was a fun quasi-juniors tag. Mossman definitey shined here with a lot of dynamic stuff, but it was almost too much or too varied. He had the kickpads and the kicks, a bunch of holds, a couple of throws, and a splash off the top. You wanted to see him focus in more on one thing, maybe. Kikuchi continued his run in this footage as a class A cruiserweight bully. When he finally got fed up and intervened to save Ogawa, he just laid in a beating and refused to leave the ring as if he was Hansen or something. Asako and Ogawa were fine though Ogawa, despite working from underneath and having a good connection with the crowd, didn't show signs of being fully developed as of yet.

ER: This felt like two different matches, and I liked both matches, but I wish we could have seen either the last half of the first match, or the first half of the second match. The first half is really neat, with Asako and Mossman working over Ogawa's knee. Asako especially goes off on that knee, really wailing on it with stomps, elbow drops, knee drops, just landing on Ogawa's knee with his body. Asako and Mossman were making quick tags and I was really getting into this AJ juniors southern tag. But once Ogawa rolled to the floor, Kikuchi came in and just beat the shit out of Asako, and then never really left (even though I don't think he ever tagged in at any point). From there, there was nothing more acknowledged about Ogawa's leg, and this became Kikuchi as Hansen, always kicking someone's ass. Ogawa was the afterthought of the match, getting his knee worked on and then stepping aside for Kikuchi, but I thought Ogawa was really great at taking offense. He was whipping himself into the mat on little things like drop toeholds, and his ability to take offense made Asako/Mossman look like a real team. Mossman had a lot of cool stuff, loved how his long kicks always found their mark under chins, and his top rope splash was awesome. His splash focused less on hang time, and was more like a low line drive, getting to the landing point quick and painfully. I also really loved his moonsault feint, as he head fakes a moonsault to get Ogawa to roll out of the way, then nails a Vader bomb instead. Ever since seeing that Zero-1 match where Kikuchi spends 10 minutes literally pretending Hoshikawa's hard strikes weren't bothering him in the least, I've been scared of Kikuchi, looked at him in a whole new light. He comes off like a real bully and feels like he would have no problem taking several Mossman kicks if it lets him land one brutal elbow smash. Also, I really like the Kikuchi/Ogawa finish of a Kikuchi elbow smash into an Ogawa inside cradle, very aesthetically pleasing and Ogawa was right there to catch Mossman as he was falling from the elbow. 

Tamon Honda/Johnny Smith vs. Giant Kimala/Jun Izumida 

MD: Another good, but slightly weird showing from the Kimala/Izumida team. They had great offense, including that same side tandem double elbow drop, a torture rack drop, and an assisted tree fall headbutt, but I swear they worked towards a quasi-hot tag again. Honda knew exactly what he was and how to make the most of it. He was formidable but also hugely entertaining in his exchanges with Izumina. The crowd was into Smith but he was too quick to rush to the next thing. It was a big deal that he suplexed Kimala and he diminished it by not milking the moment at all. That was just the way he was working this one.

ER: A little aimless, but aimless in that fun way where I can just zone out and enjoy these dudes for 15 minutes. I love the Kimala/Izumida team, always love the big hot Kimala tags they build to. The start of the match is really great, with Honda throwing a side headbutt to Izumida's stomach as he was coming off the ropes, then going right into the two of them using their oversized melons to clonk each other. Honda throws a great spinning heel kick (on one leg, Booker T style) that I don't recall him using that often, and I liked how he and Izumida kept going back to different headbutt attacks throughout the match. I liked Honda's never-give-up falling headbutts, where he'll just keep faceplanting until one finally lands, juxtaposed with the super violent Kimala/Izu team headbutts, Kimala throwing Izumida down into some hard landings. I agree with Matt that Smith is from that Dynamite Kid school of hit your awesome looking offense and move right along to your next big of awesome offense. It doesn't make the offense look less cool, but it sure makes the offense mean less. The snap suplex on Kimala should have been the big spot of the entire match, but he was already moving on to a nice elbow smash and cool top rope elbowdrop less than 10 seconds after. The All Japan roster had so many different guys at this point who knew how to properly lead up to their biggest offense that you'd think someone would take him aside and tell him to let things breathe a little. Kimala's hot tag was as awesome as ever, and I think his avalanche is one of the greatest in wrestling history. He doesn't leap into it, it's just this super impactful sudden stop. I love the same side tandem elbow, love his rolling senton and heavy splash. I'm so happy we've gotten so much more Kimala/Izumida footage, since they were frequently edited off TV. 

Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura/Mitsuo Momota vs. Masanobu Fuchi/Mighty Inoue/Haruka Eigen 

MD: First, you'll be glad to know they didn't work this one exactly the same as the last. They did repeat a dive tease but who cares as it was funny both times. That's not to say Momota didn't carry things for his side, because he absolutely did, and whenever he was in there it felt like a real match. You watched this and there was no reason to to think a singles match between him and any of his opponents wouldn't have been very good. Kimura, at this point, has to hold the record for getting the most out of the least, right? He occasionally sold his shin and ambled around the ring no-selling mostly everything else and the fans ate it up. I wish I knew what Kimura said post match for any of these.

ER: I really loved the old man trios we reviewed a couple weeks ago (same teams, from the 8/20/96 show), and while this was fun I don't think it was nearly as good as that match. The comedy hit better in that match, and there was an actual cool story thread throughout of the rudos working over Rusher's leg. This didn't have any real threads, and was much more of a time killer, but I like watching these guys fill time. Rusher looked like he was getting legitimate laughs out of his teammates by shaking his head in silly ways to show Fuchi how impervious to pain he was. Baba looked like he was laughing into the turnbuckle and Momota had to lean over the ropes to hide his face. I don't know if I've ever seen any of the old man competitors actually break, but this looked like they were actually having a hard time holding it together for Rusher's antics. I liked Fuchi's fearful selling and him getting backed up in the corner by the crazy Kimura, only to find that Inoue and Eigen had walked to the other side of the ring to avoid tagging in. 

I'd really love to see a serious Momota/Eigen singles from this era. We have evidence that Momota could still go as late as 2009, but Eigen is a guy who seemed like he was a super spry 50 year old still (loved his rolling before the initial lock up with Momota) but purposely played things down. He's a guy who has a lot of genuinely great shtick so I get why he took things easy, but looked at the nice knife edge chops he was throwing to Baba and a few other sequences, I with we got an actual serious old man Eigen run. Fuchi is a bastard as always, throwing a few kicks at Rusher's face and later breaking up a pin by scraping his boot on Rusher's ear. We got the Eigen spit take spots, including my favorite where he and Momota exchange hard overhand chops and Eigen hits Rusher on the apron with his spit. Also, for a 47 year old just a few months away from retirement, Mighty Inoue's rolling senton literally looks better than any modern wrestler's rolling senton. His form and aim on that move are pure elegance. 

Stan Hansen/Takao Omori vs. Dr. Death/Johnny Ace 

MD: Perfectly ok match hurt by my expectations. A lot of this was Hansen or Williams coming in and breaking up holds and it felt like it kept building to a real encounter between the two of them but never quite got there. Williams had his usual mid-90s manic energy and Hansen could still turn it up, including hitting a double dropkick with Omori at the end, and he certainly cut off and leaned on Ace well. But when you see this match on paper and come out of it realizing that most of the heavy hitting (and it was good heavy hitting) came from Omori vs Ace exchanges, something probably went wrong. Both Williams and Hansen had great presence though, of course, especially in the little moments like Ace, on the top rope, having to punch Hansen, on the floor, in order to clear enough space for the double team finish.

ER: I'm with Matt in that the match feels like it's building to that big Hansen/Doc showdown, and that doesn't happen in the match, and the match is lesser for it. The confrontation comes to a head AFTER the match, which is probably their best interaction of the match (though I do love Doc breaking up a pin by yanking Hansen by the hair out to the apron to elbow his throat). After the match Hansen is leaving, then turns around to swing his bull rope at Doc, which leads to both egging the other on, before Hansen decides to leave again. Doc gets up on the turnbuckles closest to Hansen's exit aisle to raise his arms, and Hansen cannot abide. He runs back and knocks Doc off the ropes, Doc gets tangled, Hansen swings at photographers and ring boys, and the crowd reacts louder to this than anything in the match proper. I don't think we are alone in thinking the match didn't live up to expectations, as the crowd is much quieter during this match than during any of the prior matches on the card. They only really woke up during the finishing stretch. But that's not to say the whole thing wasn't enjoyable. Omori and Ace did hit hard, and Hansen made his pinfall breaks count (nobody breaks up a pin better than Stan Hansen). I loved Omori's heavy as hell elbowdrop off the top, and was wowed at the speed Hansen and Omori shot Ace into the ropes for a tandem shoulderblock. Ace had that speed where you could tell he wasn't fully in control of his body, Hansen using that Andre pulling strength on him. Plus, the Doomsday Device finish looked like it came a couple inches away from killing Omori on a house show. So while we didn't get a big batch of dynamite like I wanted, if this match established the floor, it's a nice high floor. 

Mitsuharu Misawa/Jun Akiyama vs. Gary Albright/Sabu  

MD: Peak Sabu doing peak Sabu stuff in AJPW against Misawa and Akiyama. The match turns on a dime a few times, going from a mostly grounded affair into Sabu flying all over the place or Albright tossing people around. The stuff you're going to remember here is Sabu leaping off of Albright's back, poetry in motion style. Sometimes it works, like a huge kick to the face in the corner. Sometimes it doesn't, like the missed moonsault that set up the finish. Sometimes it really, really doesn't, like when Sabu flies out of the ring and lands hard on the guardrail. The fans knew what they were getting and they were happy to get it. It never really comes together as a match, but is that actually what you're looking for when you watch this one?

PAS: Sabu and Albright are such a legendary oddball team, what a way for Misawa and Akyama to warm up for the RWTL finals, face these two weirdos. No chairs for Sabu to use in AJPW so he just keeps using Albright's back as a launching pad, including one springboard dive where he landed ribs first on the guard rail with a crunch. Misawa and Akyama kind of took a backseat to the wackiness, although I loved the Freestyle takedown and ride exchanges between Jun and Albright. We get a couple of sick Albright suplexes including one which dropped Misawa right on his head (always a bit tough to watch with hindsight). More of a spectacle than a match, I almost would rather see Albright and Sabu against a team with a bit more color. Misawa and Akiyama are great, but I bet I would have dug their Hansen and Omori match more. 

ER: Sabu is as incongruous to Kings Road style as anyone, and throwing a wrench into their style is always fun (for the hits and misses). My only gripe is that I wish Sabu had thought of some more interesting ways to insert his offense into things, but I also liked how Akiyama wasn't someone who was going to wait around during overly long spot set-ups. Kings Road worked so well because of the impeccable timing of its best wrestlers, and some of these Sabu spots require a lot of stand still time. Stand still time is not something we typically see in this era of All Japan, and it's weird! Akiyama treating them realistically made these spots work within the framework, and lead to some of the best moments of the match. I loved Gary Albright getting into tabletop position several times during the match, using his refrigerator shaped torso to boost Sabu. I'm honestly shocked they didn't incorporate Albright's unreal throwing strength and have him launching Sabu like a projectile. Sabu takes some rough spills, no more rough than landing stomach first on the guardrail after Akiyama casually walks out of the way of his triple jump plancha. The missed triple jump moonsault (again off Albright) to set up the finish was just as nuts, and it easily could have lead to an even worse landing. Albright is so cool, nobody else in wrestling like him. I loved him and Akiyama working the mat, ending with Akiyama throwing 8 or so nasty elbows right to the face. They build throughout the match to Albright throwing Misawa, Misawa wisely scrambling for the ropes every time Albright tries to get the underhooks in, and it's an awesome moment when Sabu hits poetry in motion on Misawa and Misawa stumbles out of the corner into that Albright belly to belly. They tease that Misawa is going to get dumped with a dragon suplex (on a house show!) but compromise by merely getting dropped vertically with a German suplex. I agree with Phil that Misawa/Akiyama were a bit too stoic for the oddball gaijin team, and I'm positive I would have loved their match against Kimala/Izumida even more. That's the true handheld gem. 

Kenta Kobashi/The Patriot vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue

MD: I really enjoyed this. It caught me off guard as Kobashi caught Kawada almost instantly with a Tiger Suplex and followed up with a power bomb on the floor. That set the stage for a control-driven match as opposed to a back and forth one, with three clear segments before they went into an extended finishing stretch (though one where the Holy Demon Army controlled for the most part, building off of Taue's presence and what went before including the fact he was the one guy not to take an extended beating) about 2/3rds the way through. Kawada did fight back for the hot tag and they immediately crushed Kobashi basically the same way Kawada was crushed (huge suplex + move on the floor). It also meant just a minute or two apart were Kobashi's chops in the corner on Kawada and Kawada's rapid kicks on Kobashi which just felt paralleled and correct. I would have liked to see Patriot more involved in the early beatdown on Kawada, but when he did get a hot tag from Kobashi he came in fiery until Taue targeted his injured arm. Solid selling for the rest of the match from him, especially down the stretch where he was fighting valiantly with one arm. The stretch itself was pretty measured with a couple of big break-ups and one big kickout but nothing that took me out of the match. Taue targeting the arm once again to open Patriot up for the killing blows was good stuff. One Taue and Kawada got full advantage, they were just amazing spoilers. Nothing could kill a wrestler's forward momentum than Taue imposing himself upon him. Just a good focused, lost main event.

PAS: Interesting variation on a classic main event tag. Mitsuhara Misawa to the Patriot is about the biggest talent downgrade I can imagine, but Patriot was fine here, especially for a guy who was a focus of the finish run. Really liked the Kawada vs. Kobashi sections, it is a different vibe then Kawada versus Misawa, but Kobashi's flourishes work well as a foil for Kawada's grimacing ass kicking. I loved the exchange they had when Kobashi came into to try to break the Kawada arm bar, with Kawada waving off the two initial chops, only to cut Kobashi off with a big kick when he tried for more momentum. I also enjoyed Taue taking Patriot apart at the end. He is like a slow moving avalanche, it isn't going to hit you fast, but you will end up buried underneath it all.

ER: I really really liked this match, and it really felt like the best Patriot performance I've seen. Now, while it's true that there were 27 or so guys I was more excited to see on this show than The Patriot, a good performance is a good performance. We don't get many limb work matches in All Japan, and I thought Patriot got his arm tore up nicely and sold it the entire way through. The match started very surprisingly, with Kawada nearly convincingly 2 minutes in after a tiger suplex and powerbomb on the floor, and for almost the first 10 minutes of the match the only offense Kawada gets is throwing some kicks at Kobashi from his back (classic Kawada, selling being only on muscle memory fumes, still annoying the fuck out of Kobashi by kicking him in the eye and back of the knee). Kawada gets to pay Kobashi back with a ruthless as hell backdrop driverWhen Taue makes it in they eventually single out Patriot, and begin coldly and methodically wrecking his protected arm. Taue is wrapping the arm around the ropes and kicking at it, and Kawada is really mean to it. 

My favorite part of the match is Kawada so fixed on taking apart Patriot's arm, that while Taue and Kobashi are fighting on the floor, and somebody gets thrown HARD into the guardrail off camera, Kawada doesn't even bother glancing over to see who hit the rail, he's too busy kicking Patriot's arm as hard as he can, ripping off the protective brace, and stomping on it (Taue casually walking back into frame confirming it was Kobashi hitting the rail was a fantastic moment caught by our cameraman). I was really impressed with Patriot's arm selling, especially when he was making his comebacks, never once slipping and doing a move that required both arms. He was also a super strong presence throughout the match on the apron, and I love a great apron performance. He's great at getting tied up by the ref as Kobashi is getting double teamed, and he has a few fired up moments where he is dying to get in that ring and you can hear the fans buying into it. Taue looked as great as ever, playing into Kobashi's quirks (I hate those Kobashi equalizer spots where he takes a snake eyes to the buckle, powers up, takes a chokeslam into the buckle, powers out, gets dumped with a German suplex, powers up, but then Taue has to sell a lariat for longer than Kobashi sold anything), and Taue's destruction of Patriot for the finish was violent as hell. There are a couple really great nearfalls, like Patriot getting saved after a backdrop/nodowa otoshi combo, and barely kickout out of a hard Taue nodowa otoshi while Kobashi was nowhere close to save him. Loved Patriot trying to punch Taue afterwards and Taue just pump kicking right through it, before slamming the door shut with a final nodowa otoshi. 

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New Footage Friday: All Japan Handheld 8/20/96

Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Kentaro Shiga 

ER: I really liked this, and was excited to see it. I saw a bunch of young lions matches on NJPW tapes, an endless series of 8-10 minute matches of black trunks rookies doing headlocks, dropkicks, and Boston crabs. But AJPW young boy matches never made tape, so you would rarely see some of these guys (at most you would see them do one move in a clipped trios). This was Kanemaru's 10th match and that's a cool thing to see. They do some cool matwork to start, the kind of matwork you didn't really get to see in AJPW, with nice hammerlocks and headscissors. Kanemaru gets to try a lot of fun things for a guy 10 matches into his career, hitting a Super Calo headscissors out of the corner, and a cool Vader bomb senton. He had a neat way of squirming out of Shiga bodyslams, twice slipping out of a bodyslam and winding up on Shiga's shoulders in a way that seemed 100% plausible. I rewound both instances he did this, as I'm not sure I've ever seen someone slip into an electric chair position to reverse a bodyslam. One time Kanemaru turned it into a headscissors, the other time a victory roll that actually made me think a guy was getting a win in his 10th match. Shiga was great at framing Kanemaru's showy moments and was really good at selling individual moves. I especially liked Shiga taking a dropkick on the chin and getting to his feet holding his mouth while still going back on the attack. I wish we had more AJPW young boys matches, because this was the kind of low key low frills gem I dig. 

MD: Perfectly enjoyable opening match, including working in and out of a headlock for a bit. They were very focused on their selling (Kanemaru his back, Shiga his face post dropkick) in a sort of academic way. Nothing really flubbed, with some high difficulty spots. I liked the way Shiga lifted his foot on the fisherman's suplex bridge to give an extra bit of weight for the three count. Good outing for these two.

Masao Inoue vs. Johnny Smith 

ER: This was dryer than the opener, but I enjoyed where it wound up going. It was slower and more methodical, snug headlocks reversed into snug hammerlocks, nice clubbing shots from Inoue, simple things done well. It builds to some nice offense for both, a great vertical suplex and powerslam from Smith, nice falling lariat from Inoue. I've seen plenty of Smith matches where he really dials up the stiffness, and that wasn't the Smith we got here (he can really cave in chests with his back bump missile dropkick and he's much kinder here), and while I still liked the pairing I have a feeling a singles match a year or two later would have been better. 

MD: Still in the range of perfectly acceptable house show undercard stuff here. They kept it mostly on the mat for the first half, with Smith pulling out some fun arm whips. Everything stayed close to the center of the ring with fairly limited motion, but it was gritty and hard hitting enough. As things escalated towards the finish, the fans got fairly well into it. Smith's big stuff (like his floatover suplex and powerslam) all looked good but it's nothing you'll remember tomorrow.

Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura/Mitsuo Momota vs. Masanobu Fuchi/Mighty Inoue/Haruka Eigen 

ER: Bless this man for recording the full legends trios. When old men matches would up on TV it was always clipped down to crowd spitting and the finish, you rarely got to see them working pre-bell shtick or the smaller comedy moments where guys like Eigen shone. So god bless this sicko for recording TWENTY FULL MINUTES of these glorious old dudes. Before the bell they work a fun gag around shaking or not shaking each other's hands, then a spot where Baba's team is throwing goodies to the crowd and Eigen steals Rusher's treat to throw to a different part of the crowd. Eigen's specific brand of ham played in full to a house show crowd is the exact kind of butter my bread needs. Gimme that bullshit where he gets sad about Momota getting a bigger cheer after getting up on the turnbuckles, but also give me Eigen throwing several headbutts and nice short uppercuts to Momota. Fuchi and Inoue are real dickheads to Rusher, with Fuchi kicking him in the knees and Inoue throwing strikes (Mighty Inoue still weirdly had some of the nastiest open hand chops in the company) and kicking him in the head after slumping him in the corner, and then Eigen laces into him with chops!

You don't typically get FIP sections in these matches and it's great seeing the heels really gang up on Rusher as Baba gets pissed on the apron. Fuchi fucks with Rusher by continuing to kick at his knees, then run away, making Rusher limp after him, before kicking his knees again. Fuchi keeps going back to the knee and it leads to a great moment where Rusher stops selling Fuchi's strikes, just walking forward while Fuchi is punching him right in the head, Rusher unfazed as Fuchi shakes out his fist (later, Fuchi pays him back stepping on Rusher's face to break up a pin). When Inoue tags in Rusher throws two genuinely crushing open hand chops right to Inoue's throat and hits an awesome old man bulldog. This was among the hardest chops and strikes I've seen thrown in a Kings Road old man trios, and probably more headbutts than I've seen thrown, and of course it boils down to Baba coming in and hitting a Russian legsweep for the pin. I love that this exists, and I would happily review all of the handheld old man matches. 

MD: Old man comedy. Momota anchored this, being the only guy on his team that could still move, while still being as charismatic as ever, garnering sympathy and having the fans clap along to his chops in the corner. There was a weird, and I suppose sort of funny bit of Kimura just eating a ton of shots from everyone on the other side and barely registering them, causing everyone to run from him in fear. There's a limit to how much you can do that without devaluing all offense on the card maybe? There was one moment where Kimura slinked into a drop down and I was legitimately worried about what would happen, because there was no way he was getting up in time for the next spot, but Baba got a shot in from the outside so it was okay. Baba not being able to get his leg up for the kick without hanging out in the ropes is always a little sad to watch (even relatively to just a few years earlier), but he still hit the leg sweep and seemed to be enjoying himself otherwise.

Jun Akiyama/Takao Omori vs. Giant Kimala II/Jun Izumida

MD: Weird reverse structure here where Kimala and Izumida got a shine of sorts, where Izumida was dominated in the middle building to a quasi-hot tag to Kimala, and then a long finishing stretch. Obviously that's not exactly what happened, but it's kind of what it felt like. Kimala and Izumida controlled things well when they were on top. They did a double elbow drop from the same side which I'm not sure I've seen much before but that people should steal. Again, the work was all fine but the structure was baffling. You want a monster heel team to take way more of the match than this.

ER: I'm a big fan of the Kimala II/Izumida team, but this tag was still even better than I hoped it would be. Kimala was a real (Botswana) beast here, loved all his strikes (his overhand chops and axe handles to Omori looked real nasty), loved his big legdrops and screaming flying elbows, his great avalanche, and will always be a fan of he and IZU's tag team offense that is basically "both men jump and fall onto their opponent and squish him". Omori is usually one of my least favorite AJ guys, but he was on fire here, great uppercuts and running kicks, really looked like a force on the same level as Akiyama, and Akiyama was throwing knees and elbows as hard as you'd expect. Izumida is always good as a guy eating a beating, because he's a real sicko and seemingly has no problem absorbing stiff shots with his massive head. Due to the handheld we don't see Izumida or Kimala getting thrown into the rail, but the landings sounded huge. And I just don't think it's possible for me to find more joy than in a Kimala II hot tag, and I was really impressed with how hard he worked on a smaller house show. He never got much of a chance to work actual tags like this when he teamed with Abby, as the matches were usually shorter and more dominated by Abby, so here you could really see his ability. There were a couple good saves down the stretch, and I liked Kimala knocking Akiyama to the floor to take him out of action. Izumida misses a big moonsault but plops down hard on Omori's chest when Omori goes for a sunset flip, and I was not expecting IZU and Kimala to get the win. Wonderful. 

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Satoru Asako 

PAS: All Japan juniors matches were not a focus of either the TV or of discourse, but they had some very talented wrestlers. Asako always seemed like the blandest of the 90s AJ crew, but I enjoyed him a bunch here. He had some big spots including a nasty dropkick through the ropes and flip dive, and landed some stuff with real pop and violence. At one point he blasts Kikuchi in the throat with a spin kick, and smashes him with back elbows. It feels like the kind of performance you see an undercard luchador give if he gets a mask match. Kikuchi is just as nuts as you would expect, apparently missing a diving headbutt on the floor (it is a handheld and you can't see the landing, which actually makes it more harrowing). We get a good nearfall section, and this felt like a match which would have been a bigger deal in a different context.

MD: Kikuchi oscillated between being a vulnerable champ and a juniors heel bully here and he was good in both roles. Past the finishing stretch, which really had the fans buying into Asako's hopes, the best part of this was when he was in charge and that bit didn't go quite long enough. Things meandered at times when Asako was in control after his comeback, with the match being most compelling when they kept it moving. A good number of dives and action on the floor. I was ok with Asako's kickouts during the stretch because he had ultimately taken so much of the match but it's good it didn't go much longer.

ER: Asako is the 90s AJ guy I basically know the least about, and have seen the least. He was not a guy who made tape in singles, and was typically showing up on AJ TV as the guy definitely taking the pin in a trios match. This match is probably the most memorable performance of his I've seen, with only his 2002 NOAH retirement match coming to mind as a contender (I remember that being a fun trios with him teaming w/ Misawa and Kobashi). Here he is coming after Kikuchi's belt, and he practically works sections of this like badass Kikuchi. This whole match had cool spots throughout, really had a similar feel (in pace, quality, structure, highspots) to heralded early 90s juniors stuff like Liger/Pillman. We got big dives to the floor, with both hitting heavy pescados, Kikuchi slingshotting himself into a flip dive and later hitting a big plancha, and Asako hitting a wicked baseball slide dropkick that sent him through the ropes. 

Both guys laid into each other with nice dropkicks, and then kept expanding to bigger things. Asako hit a wicked jumping spin kick right under Kikuchi's chin, and that really felt like the kind of hard kick to the chin the Kikuchi usually dishes out to younger guys. Kikuchi hit his running calf kick to the back of Asako's head, Asako hit hard back elbows, Kikuchi hit his great running elbow smash, and it all built to a genuinely hot nearfall finishing stretch. Asako got a couple surprise kickouts after two fireball bombs, and got great nearfalls of his own with tight cradles and inside roll ups, and a nice rana off the top. I always loved Kikuchi's form on his rolling Germans, and he finally has enough and whips Asako into the mat with a couple of them and then hits that exclamation fireball bomb. I thought this was really good and a great showing for Asako. It would be really fun if someone like him ends up with a bunch of Stock Rising performances found 25 years later on handhelds. 

Stan Hansen/Gary Albright/The Patriot vs. Dr. Death/Johnny Ace/Dan Kroffat 

MD: Frustratingly, only this and the main end up clipped, though none of it seems major. Unsurprisingly, the best stuff here all had Hansen: the headlock in and out of the ring with Williams to start, Ace and Kroffat trying to contain him (failing but doing better than one would expect), the way he sold walking around the floor after Patroit came in, his body careening across the ring to knock someone out to clear the way for the finish. This had plenty of big guys tossing each other around, but maybe due to the clipping never entirely came together for me.

PAS:: I thought the stand out here was Dr. Death, he crushed Patriot with a clothesline, hit a big spine buster and some great jabs. Finish run focused on Albright and Albright on an offense hot streak is one of the more exciting things in wrestling, you know big throws are coming and he hit a sick judo throw to go into a cross armbreaker. I do feel like there was some stuff on the cutting room floor, and it was a bummer we didn't get to see some of the ass kicking.

ER: I always love these big AJ matches that just literally throw all of the whites into the same match. It's the kind of visual that would stand out visually to someone not familiar with wrestling. It's like WWF throwing six AAA guys out there to open a Raw in Toledo, if they had given the crowd an actual reason to care about any of them. This doesn't live up to the on paper potential and wraps up a little conveniently (and maybe we missed more with clips than we realized), but it totally delivered in the interactions I wanted it to. Dr. Death really was great here, acting like a big general for his team and getting in the face of everyone on the other side. Every Hansen/Death stretch we got kicked the amount of ass that pairing should kick. They were really socking each other with punches (Death had a few sick punch exchanges in this, even his exchange with Patriot looked good) and there was a great moment where he knocked Hansen down to his butt with a hard jab. The match felt a little underbaked (and again, could be the handheld clipping) as Kroffat and Ace don't have a ton to do, and there are weird moments like Hansen breaking up a pin and then selling his save more than Patriot sold the Dr. Bomb he was being saved from. Still, we got to see cool stuff like Doc's spinebuster, and Albright really fucks Doc up with one of his World's Best Suplexes, folding him bad on a snap German. These guys weren't holding back on hitting each other, while also holding back on working too much of a compelling story, so it had a super high floor without coming close to the potential ceiling. Still, give me Hansen and Doc potatoing each other any damn day of the week.  

Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi/Tamon Honda vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Akira Taue/Yoshinari Ogawa

MD: The clipping here is particularly frustrating. You lose less of the match, I think, but what remains feels fairly iconic, and it'd be good to have the whole picture. Honda shines both early and late, tossing his head at people's faces with reckless abandon, though there's one spot with Taue which doesn't quite work (they recover well and then hit it). We come back from that first clip with a fought over nodowa to the floor and roll right into a really long (and like I said, plenty iconic) mauling of Kobashi. I like how he got his hope spots on Ogawa but they were all cut off. Kawada just kicked the ever-loving crap out of him, but he was able to come back against him and got meaningful revenge on Taue later. My guess is that most of what we lost in this was Misawa (probably an opening exchange) but everything else was great.

PAS: This was good stuff, but a little irritating (who the hell clips a HH?). I am happy we got all of the big Honda moments, that is my dude, and I always like to see him get shine. He was very headbutt heavy and not the suplex machine he would become, but we did get a nice throw on Taue. Kobashi gets the crud beat out of him, and few do that better. I love Kawada as this chill guy who will calmly beat the shit out of someone, he really lays into Kobashi. The finish felt a bit abrupt, it didn't have the all time finish run that some of these matches have, but all time greats doing great things is always worth watching.

ER: I thought this was great, seeing it from a partially obscured view with some clips in the action, so you know it would have played hot live. Everybody gets moments to shine and takes them, with a standout no nonsense Taue performance and a great babyface Kobashi run. Kobashi is an all time great at taking a heavyweight beating. There's a lot of small guys who take big beatings, but it's tough to pull off a 260 pound guy getting his ass kicked while still fighting. I also always like revisiting the era where Ogawa was opposite Misawa. We saw them together for the last decade of Misawa's life, it's cool seeing him when he was in the Holy Demon Army, cool seeing him work with Kawada to take down Misawa. Honda got a spirited dying on his sword performance, playing the fired up attention seeker well, dropping a dozen falling headbutts on people over the course of this. 

But I loved Taue the most, and this match got kicked up another level with an amazing spot that felt like something that would happen in a Tag League Final and not at a 2,000 seat Osaka house show. Taue and Kobashi were fighting on the apron, and Taue jammed the sole of his big boot into Kobashi's jaw, then leapt off the apron with a nodowa otoshi, but instead of splatting on the floor he flattens Misawa in a great bit of timing. I'm honestly not sure what happened (the nature of some of the action happening off camera due to the handheld), but either Misawa ran in quick to break Kobashi's fall, or he was whipped that direction by Kawada and the Holy Demon Army timed and incredible double team. Honestly I love either scenario. Holy Demon teamwork is second to none, and it's cool seeing Ogawa integrated into that, like when Kawada booted Kobashi in the face to assists an Ogawa back suplex, or Ogawa hitting Misawa with a left jab to knock him face first into a Kawada enziguiri. The build was great through this whole match, even with the cut footage. I'll never get tired of seeing the way these guys move against each other. 

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Let My Son Go So He May Serve Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Kensuke Sasaki/Super Tiger 2 vs. Mitsuo Momota/Yoshihiro Takayama/Jun Akiyama Rikidozan Memorial 12/16/13 - FUN

PAS: Nifty match with Rikidozan's son Mitsuo Momota taking himself out of 20 years of comedy matches to come out and battle with the big boys. Momota was the focus of the match, as he takes a beating by Fujiwara teams and firing back. Momota was 65 in this match and looks credible exchanging chops with Sasaki and Fujiwara. Momota gets to fight his way to the ropes on a Fujiwara armbar and even kick out of a Sasaki pin. He eventually goes down to a Northern Lights bomb which is an insane bump for a guy old enough to collect social security to take. There was a couple of fun Takayama v. Fujiwara exchanges, although the match was the Momota show.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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Eric's Working 2009 MOTY List!!

Eric's 2009 MOTY List!!

I'm officially in trouble, as this list keeps growing exponentially larger, and I really didn't think there would be this much wrestling that I love when I started this project. Is 2009 an awesome year for wrestling, or are my standards just really really low?

1. Last Man Standing Match: Sami Callihan vs. Greg Excellent (CZW, 1/10/09)
2. Mitsuharu Misawa/Takashi Suguira vs. Shinsuke Nakamura/Hirooki Goto (NJPW, 1/4/09)
3. Averno/Ephesto/Mephisto vs. Volador Jr./Mistico/La Sombra (CMLL, 1/9/09)
4. Masao Inoue/Mitsuo Momota vs. Jun Izumida/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (NOAH, 1/12/09)
5. Bryan Danielson vs. Scott Lost (PWG, 1/10/09)
6. Osamu Nishimura/Masa Fuchi vs. Minoru Suzuki/NOSAWA (AJPW, 1/3/09)
7. Undertaker vs. Shelton Benjamin (WWE Smackdown, 1/9/09)
8. Necro Butcher vs. Bill the Butcher (IWA-MS, 1/3/09)

1. Last Man Standing Match: Sami Callihan vs. Greg Excellent (CZW, 1/10/09)

Wow. I went into this assuming it would shatter the Sami Callihan myth. All last year Sami Callihan looked great, but he also only faced high-end talent: 2 Cold Scorpio, Necro Butcher, Ian Rotten, Chris Hero, Trik Davis, Jimmy Jacobs. All of those guys rank towards the top of my "favorite workers" list. But Greg Excellent? Never heard of the guy, never seen the guy, have no idea what to expect from the guy. For the record, my guess was he was a Chuck Taylor-type smiling indy goofball whose offense had kitschy names like "Excitebike" or "Final Fantasy" or "Funky Cold Medina" or "Avoid the Noid". I was picturing some bad announcer yelling, "He hits the Final Fantasy ON A CHAIR!!!" But no. Greg Excellent was fat, with thinning hair and a patchy beard. He looked like Chris Hero, if a couple years ago instead of getting in real good shape Hero had instead opted to go the opposite direction and throw on 40 lb. This was going to be the true test of Callihan's mettle.

And holy cow did he deliver. This is a Last Man Standing match, and it was brutal. Both guys took some crazy shots and completely retarded bumps. There were at least 4 moments I had to rewind while jumping off the couch. Sami, slumped against the guardrail takes an awesome cannonball senton from Gregcellent, Sami overshoots a nutty dive that bends him and Greg over the guard rail in really uncomfortable ways, and the finish is the real coup de grace: Sami setting up three chairs back to back, seats facing out, and sunset-flip powerbombing Greg off the top onto them, then just beating the crap out of him with one of the chairs until he can't get up.

This was worked really well, and while Greg didn't always look amazing, he more than held his own and the end result was a really fun, really awesome brawl. I'm not saying to go out and check out a bunch of CZW shows, but you'd be well off checking out the Callihan matches from CZW shows.

4. Masao Inoue/Mitsuo Momota vs. Jun Izumida/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (NOAH, 1/12/09)

I went into this with higher expectations than likely anybody else that has ever watched this match, and it completely exceeded them. My fondness for each of the workers in this match ranges from "like like" all the way up to "completely in love with".

Inoue/Momota have to be the front runners for tag team of the year at this point. I cannot remember a team that was this much fun to watch. Masao Inoue has my favorite gimmick (gimmick?) in all of wrestling: The Chubby Little Loser. He is the ultimate dork. He's chubby, has a dorky haircut, a goofy smile, the least main event offense of anybody ever, and a general sad sack appearance. And I want to watch every second of it. His awesomeness begins before the bell even starts, as when he is introduced and some people throw streamers, one of the streamers hits him in the head and he flinches then kinda flails like you would if you walked through a spiderweb. Throughout the match he is just awesome, hitting all his wimpy offense (eye rakes, rubbing opponents' eyes with his wrist tape, raking opponents' eyes over the top rope, noogies, etc.) and costing his team pinfalls (one great spot where Momota has the likely pinfall ending, and Inoue walks away prematurely celebrating, while IZU casually walks by him and breaks up the pin. The "What the Fuck?" look Momota gives him and the general constant look of shame and regret coloring Inoue's face is just classic.).

Momota is amazing as well. I've always been a big Momota fan, but this is my first glimpse of LEGEND HEEL Momota. He's now shaved his head, still has his old man mustache, and now wears black trunks that say "Legend Heel" across the back. There was a great spot where he's working over Kikuchi with closed fists, and referee Mighty Inoue admonishes him for using the closed fist, and he just points to the "Legend Heel" printed on his tights and shrugs. Like, "This is the life I chose. I'm a legend, and a heel. Of course I'm gonna use closed fists." Momota takes offense nicely for a 61 yr. old man, and every move he takes he elicits the most hilarious "Uuuggggghhhhh" sound.

Kikuchi is still one of the finest salesmen in all of wrestling, really putting over Inoue's eye rakes and noogies. He sold an eye rake like he just found out he was bleeding from the eyes: lots of rubbing, concern, pain. No need to do any Shawn Michaels "sell it too the back row" type of sell, he's doing it all for those with a keen eye. IZU has some really fun offense in this as well, doing these fun throat thrusts to Momota and just kinda...falling on people at awkward angles, like IZU does.

So go watch this. Revel in a match where Inoue is the youngster, a match where the average age of the combatants is 47. You need all of this.


5. Bryan Danielson vs. Scott Lost (PWG, 1/10/09)

Scott Lost is a guy I've enjoyed for quite a while now who nobody outside of L.A. really talks about. He looked really good here, throwing some really nice punches, and a nice spin kick. He and Danielson spend a good amount of time outside the ring, and numerous fun "getting thrown through chairs" spots ensue. Lost hits an awesome super spear that involved diving over a few chairs. Both guys looked good here. I can't wait until Danielson starts unleashing badass 8 minute matches on Superstars or ECW. Like, I'm REALLY excited to see how Danielson's syndicated match structure works out. I was there live when he worked the dark match against Lance Cade, and it went almost exactly 8 minutes and it was awesome. I really love 8-16 minute match Danielson.

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