Found Footage Friday: 1990 FMW~!

FMW 3/10/90

Kumiko Matsuda vs. Crusher Maedomari 

MD: Crusher isn't Crusher yet. This was pre-show and you could tell they were working things out, but they had good aggression, Matsuda with strikes and Maedomari with throws and holds. Lots of shoot pin escapes. Matsuda could be pretty relentless with the kicks and knees. At one point, they had a funny bit where she missed on a spin kick in the corner and got the ref. Maedomari wanted in on the fun and turned to nail the ref too. It was funny but added to the sense of wild aggression from these two. Matsuda finally got a series of dropkick in the corner which let her hit a double underhook suplex and follow with a jackknife pin for the win. This was rough around the edges but had good energy for what FMW was trying to be at this point, which was definitely a little bit of everything.

ER: Strong Opener, great energy. Matsuda does her leveraged throws and kicks with intent and can believably back Maedomari up with palm strikes. I loved the bit with her spin kicks in the corner swinging wide into the referee's ribs. Her dropkicks down the finishing stretch could use some steam but I also like the raggedness of someone 10 matches into her career guiding someone through their first ever match. Actually that feels like the exact situation where you'd expect someone to be murdered by dropkicks. 

Miwa Sato vs. Drake Morimatsu 

MD: DVDVR stalwart Gordi had been at a party recently with Morimatsu, so I was hoping to get this match back out there after seeing the listing, but it's a non match. Thanks to BAHU's history of FMW, I know this was the debut of Kudo with two fellow non-active AJW Class of 86 alums (Reibun Amada and Noriyo Toyoda) as the The Outbreakers. They come out of nowhere and destroy Miwa (including with a spike kneeling pile driver), setting up a tag and then singles match later in the month (we have the 3/30 singles and Kudo dominates). There is a clear sense of chaos to all of this though and it helps the overall feel compared to what else is happening in Japan at the time. Like any other unexpected surprise, this had a big buzz from the crowd.

ER: This angle made me so excited for tag matches we're never going to see. Miwa Sato takes a great beating at the hands of the AJW veterans. The kneeling stuff piledriver was disgusting, just a full head drop. Sato comes off like an underdog babyface star and it sucks to hear a Kudo singles match was one sided. 1997 Kudo would have had the most memorable match on the card with her. 

MD: After this, they played Final Countdown and had everyone come down to the ring. I've seen enough AJPW and NJPW house shows to think they didn't do that for those in this era, but they did for UWF in a big ceremony. This sort of aped that but you have such a misfit bunch of people out here that it has a completely different effect. 

Yukihide Ueno vs. Shooter #1 

MD: Shooter 1 is sort of credible, I guess. He had debuted earlier in the year as a "discipline of Tiger Mask" and had been over enough for it. This is all over the place at times, but Shooter has just enough presence to press an advantage and he has solid strikes and can bully Ueno around on size alone. He's constantly fixing his mask which is not something that usually bugs me, so that gives you a sense of how often he does it. He hits big stuff but can't always follow up because it's all a bit too disjointed. Ueno has the crowd (who are primarily happy to be there I think). He gets one big comeback with a gutshot, a German, and a kick out of the ring (and does get one big dive) but Shooter takes back over with a great press slam where he takes him off the top but slams him out of the ring instead of into it. Beautiful visual. It meanders a bit to the finish and there are a few times where the thing probably had an offramp to end and they should have taken it, but I'd say the trainwreck feel adds more than diminishes given the setting.

ER: Ueno would go on to be Choden Senshi Battle Ranger, one of those sick undercard FMW guys who didn't get as much acclaim as the more violent guys he shared rosters with. He became a gifted flier with great glue, and seeing him work a Different Style match like this you can see where all his stickiest glue came from. He debuted earlier in 1990 and is quickly tasked with working a long shootstyle fight against a guy who seems less familiar with the concept. Ueno is much smaller but had great purpose on offense, in a way I could have seen him controlling the whole match. His rolling kick that knocked Shooter to the floor was awesome, the follow up plancha a beautiful one within the crowed pool of wild 90s Japanese indie planchas. 

Ueno looks like he going to dominate with kicks and armbar takedowns, when he gets gorilla press slammed to the floor and spends a long back stretch fighting to get back to his feet. Shooter kind of sprang to life as a worker after this, turning into a kick combo machine while trying pro wrestling clotheslines and rope running for the first time. He wasn't great at peaking his knockdown kicks, mostly throwing left-right body combos and trying weighty kneelifts. He needed a big finish instead of a long wear down. Ueno fighting through the knockdowns was impressive, but he's someone who got so good at chaining big runs of cool offense that I wanted to see more of what he could do when he was a rookie menace.  

Masanobu Kurisu vs. Shooter #2 

MD: Shooter #2 is not nearly as credible. He tries for an ambush but obviously that's a terrible idea. There are no good ideas against Kurisu, except for maybe to run. Kurisu headbutts him out of the corner and doesn't really look back. He headbutts him again, stomps and kicks him, hits him with a chair on the outside, and it's all top 5% ever pro wrestling brutality. Just another day in the office for Kurisu. Shooter gets a miracle clothesline and tries to get a hold out of it. Kurisu reverses the hold and kicks and headbutts and slams and clotheslines and chicken wings this poor jerk. Shooter doesn't quit (he should). Instead he gets a miracle belly to belly but Kurisu just rolls him over and gets the double wristlock for the win. Almost a mercy.

ER: A 5 minute classic, something for every fan of wrestling violence and all Kurisu heads. The full Korakuen crowd is in LOVE with Kurisu and actually laughs with glee as he stomped the skull plates apart of the future Ryo Miyake. Miyake by the mid 90s was a WAR/Yume Guy I Liked, here he is a game sacrificial lamb who takes the worst of Kurisu's head kicks and bone breaking submissions. He gets to kick Kurisu in the head a couple times and bounce him with a pretty nasty suplex, but mostly he was in there to test a 1990 theory about how many unprotected kicks a rookie could take to the cranium. 

We think of Masa Fuchi as evil, sometimes. It's because of his eyes. He is a businessman who double crosses you on a deal, but will also step on a guy's face. But Fuchi was never evil, he was a dickhead. Masanobu Kurisu is Evil Fuchi. Kurisu unleashed on the 90s All Japan Old Men division would have been Hell on earth. He would have been the reason everyone traded for All Japan tapes. He throws a short fast overhead chair shot that lands with such impact it's like seeing someone get hit with a chair for the first time. His submissions always look like we're getting a glimpse into dojo torture, a live bone density test on a Saturday. Miyake making the ropes more than once felt like huge moments, as they felt like they actually pissed Kurisu off. Bad news for Miyake, but he came out of this looking likWhen e a guy. 

Tarzan Goto vs. Satoshi Imaizumi

MD: Not sure why Goto had back to back gimmick matches but here we go. This was more of a judo gi mixed styles deal (Goto did have a gi too). FMW was still transitioning towards death matches as more the norm and there was still so much of the early martial arts feel here. I think it worked better in the main event than it did here though. At least the people around the camera were into all the judo throws. Goto would try some more pro wrestling, things like kicks and clotheslines. Imaizumi got his knees up on a Vader Bomb attempt and almost won it with a cross arm breaker but Goto came back for a choke. Not a ton here but it's fun to see him go from one gimmick to the other in subsequent matches. 

ER: I saw Imaizumi standing around during the extended Europe introduction ceremony and I wanted to see him more than anyone. He looks like Kurisu's large son with the exact same hairline but a young  branching out from his tough father mustache. Goto looks trim in his gi and ponytail. This started like a kind of dry judo throw exhibition and slowly grew into an aggressive sparring dojo war. Imaizumi started going for broke and using his strongest throws on Goto, working hard for a head and arm submission like he was really trying to end this fight while he had a gas tank. When he pulled an armbar after getting his knees up on a Goto Vader bomb I thought he had it. There's this weird FMW guy trend of shoehorning a dropkick into their Different Style fight. None of them have had dropkicks good enough to work in a shootstyle/Different Style setting, Goto included. Goto's headbutts were welcome but Imaizumi came across as the more intriguing figure. Goto is such a good pro wrestler that I thought he would have been more of a dynamic tough guy fit in a Different Style division. 

Tarzan Goto vs. Beast the Barbarian

MD: This was far more interesting than the judo jacket match. I always joke that Beast could be a time traveling Mad Dog Connelly, by looks and gimmick but he didn't have the intensity or presence. He was set up to succeed with this match gimmick though and this was a perfectly acceptable dog collar match. He's able to use the chain as a weapon and clubber Goto down and he laid it in. Goto would come back hitting just as hard. There were a few transitions with one or the other getting a little tangled up with the rope and the chain and I do wonder if this wouldn't have been better with a slightly shorter chain which kept them a little closer together without some of those apron bits. Goto bled. Beast asserted himself pretty well overall especially relative to his Onita match a couple of months before. And cleverly enough, after each man meted out a sufficient amount of punishment, Goto won with a backslide of all things. Beast didn't think his shoulders were down which led to a post-match fit.

ER: If Matt is saying he has a regular routine about Beast the Barbarian, I can confidently say that I have never seen nor written about a Beast the Barbarian match in my life. I don't know a thing about this guy but on sight he's like Damien Demento working a balding shorter Bruiser Brody gimmick. 

Atsushi Onita & Sambo Asako vs. Kim Sung Ho & Lee Gak Soo

MD: The story of this one was that Asako or Onita would get one of the taekwondo guys down and in a hold and again and again and again, the other would come in to break it up. That lasted until Onita finally got fed up and hit his deadly over the shoulder power bomb. Even that wasn't good enough but then Asako got the message and cut off the ring for so he could hit a second one. That was the basic story but the devil's in the details and Lee Gak Soo is one of the most dynamic pro wrestling kickers I've ever seen. 

He somehow manages to throw kicks from every angle, sometimes flying around with them, and obviously Asako is a great canvas, but Onita would get knocked out of the ring like it was nothing too and the fans loved it. Kim had some fun charging ones too. Basically Onita would run at people with lariats or trips, cutting the distance however he could, and Asako had all these cool throws if people got close enough to him, but then the subsequent holds would get broken up and Kim and Lee would just take right over with the meanest stomps and kicks imaginable. 

Right until Asako (also fed up) dragged Lee over to the corner and the power bombs happened. Crazy, enjoyable stuff.

Battle Royal

MD: This was all about the taekwondo guys just throwing flying kicks everywhere in the middle of a battle royal. Even more fun than that sounds. What you need to know is that Onita and Kurisu were working together but Onita accidentally chopped Kurisu which went about as well as you'd expect. Onita eliminated him but Lee and Asako immediately eliminated Onita afterwards. I imagine he and Kurisu are still fighting to the back today. This is one of those battle royals were people get pinned by everyone in the ring piling on them. I think that was Imaizumi's fate. It ended up Asako, Shooter, and Lee and then was an entertaining mess of guys kicking and then immediately falling over. Asako shoved Lee into the ropes and he came right off on him for the pin. Then he followed up with a kick off the top on Shooter. Stupid amounts of fun. 

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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: Tarzan Goto, Sabu, Mr. Hughes, Steiners, Goldust, Curry Man

Big Titan/The Gladiator/Dr. Hannibal/Ricky Fuji/Attila the Hun vs. Tarzan Goto/Grigory Verichev/Sambo Asako/Sabu FMW 2/19/93

MD: This is part of a ten disc FMW HH set that's recently been unearthed by everyone's pal Pete F. Of it, only one disc seems to have been out there before. We put our heads together quickly and this was the first match that jumped out.

After watching it, I told Phil that we definitely needed to share it with the world but that I wasn't sure we could find anything intelligent to say about it. That said, if anyone can, it's probably Eric.

It's chaos. Given the angle the quality, you don't quite get the blood you'd expect, but you do get the violence. In a lot of ways, this is a Goto and Sabu showcase with Titan and Gladiator throwing everyone around dangerously and that's absolutely, 100% what you want it to be. I have no idea who some of the others even are. Attila the Hun, for instance, comes in solely to get gloriously demolished by Goto at the start of the match. The most horrifying and breathtaking moment of all of this isn't the wire at all but Sabu barely getting around on a Titan powerbomb, turning it into a rana at the last moment.

Post match goes on and on with meandering violence, only some of which caught on tape. Sabu had turned on Goto and everyone pretty much ends up fighting everyone else. There is a Sabu vs Goto match that follows this (I assume) on tape, and I definitely feel a need to check that out. I imagine we're going to get a ton of great Goto moments out of this footage.

ER: Oh man this match owns. It's quite possibly the most of every single thing you could possibly want in pro wrestling: A dangerous stipulation, a crowded ring, fat guys, tall guys with bad hair, a Russian judo medalist in a gi, a phony medical practitioner, a descendant of a tribal leader who invaded Italy (and now he's invading Japan!), stiff moves, dangerous moves, basically everything. This whole match is like the Royal Rumbles my childhood friend Eric O. and I used to have, where we would do separate entrances as every single guy, the match constantly being interrupted so one of us could run down the stairs and back up, constantly entering as someone new. This is one of the greatest Tarzan Goto performances ever. How were all of us tape traders so obsessed with unwatchable quality Sabu comps, while we took 20 years to realize that we should have been making and distributing Tarzan Goto comps? I counted 22 of the stiffest lariats you've ever seen, many of them coming from Goto (Goto threw so many brutal southpaw lariats that my left rotator cuff was sore after watching this), but several from Titan and Gladiator that would typically wind up with Sabu getting dumped on his head. Goto was a Tazmanian Devil throughout the briskly paced and chaotic match, always being in the center of something, throwing almost nothing more than those brutal lariats and his jaw breaking right hands.

We get one of the best and most unexpected ref bumps, as Goto rears back to slug someone and elbows the referee in the face, the ref taking a spectacular flipping bump backwards near the barbed wire ropes. Titan and Awesome make it their mission to hit increasingly dangerous powerbombs on every single person in the match, and their mission was successful. I thought for sure Sabu was going to get spiked right on the top of his head, the angle he was coming down at was looking murderous, but he rana'd Titan at what had to be the last possible inch to do so. Sambo Asako was wearing his aquamarine singlet/tights, stretched tight over that round build. Nobody wants camo pants Asako, they want this plump little blueberry. In a match with 10 men and no ropes we actually get a powder in the eyes finish and a double cross, then everyone swarms the ring. Far and away the best part of the swarm was Titan and Gladiator getting back in the ring. The video quality being handheld from 1993, we can't really see the barbed wire ropes. So seeing Gladiator and Titan hop to the ring apron and high step over what appears to me nothing just makes them look like they're on their way to interview at the Ministry of Silly Walks. Literally every single thing about this match was perfect.

PAS: This was a batch of fun, goddam is Tarzan Goto a monster in this. I loved him just obliterating Atilla the Hun in the opening fall, just punking this goof out, and he continued to just cracking people with stiff lariats and great punches. I also dug Gladiator and Big Titan as this roided out mulleted team of goofs. Really felt like they should have been ECW's Road Warriors. Poor Verichev. This has to be a bit of a rock bottom moment, big fall from the olympic medal platform to getting punched in the face by Mike Awesome in a some gym in Japan. This was the right kind of barbed wire match, where the wire was part of the crazy brawl rather then the focus of the match, some nice bumps into the wire, but not a lot of carving.. Sabu was fun too, he mostly threw punches and rana's but had that nutso aura which made him such a phenom. Nifty discovery.

Barbarian/Mr. Hughes vs. The Steiners ASW 9/3/96

PAS:  Wow, what a blast this was. Total big boy spotfest. No reason for all four of these guys to work this hard on a random North Carolina indy show. Everyone knows how great the Stieners and the Barbarian are, but Mr. Hughes was a beast in this, just a bump machine. He misses a top rope splash, takes a Pat Tanaka level backdrop, and gets dumped on his head with Steiner suplexes and a the Frankenstiener. His offense looked good too, he had a great Buzz Sawyer style powerslam (as did the Barbarian, weirdly Rick Steiner didn't) and a dope dropkick. Steiners hit a bunch of their big throws, and Rick threw some great clotheslines. Finish was completely bonkers, Barbarian put Scott on a table on the floor, and misses a top rope headbutt to the floor and just splinters the table, completely insane bump, as crazy as any Sabu or Tommy Dreamer table bumps in ECW prime. If this had been on WCWSN or a WCW PPV it would have been a legendary match.

ER: My word what a match! You know who was really great in 1996? Mr. Hughes, apparently! Mr. Hughes is not somebody who I've ever had much of an opinion on, good or bad. I guess my only opinion up until now was "It was kind of weird when he showed up for a month in 1999 WWE." But here he looked like my favorite wrestler. He's still really big here (I remember him being slimmer when he showed up in WWE, in the same way Bossman was slimmer when he came back that year) but incredibly fast and agile. "Am I going to need to go on a Mr. Hughes deep dive?" he asked excitedly. Hughes takes a few armdrags from Scott really fast, does a super fast rope running exchange, bumps huge over the top to the floor, hits a high dropkick, a gorgeous classic clothesline (you know, where the power is in you whipping them into the ropes and let them run neck first into your arm), takes maybe the highest back bump I've ever seen from a man his size, hits a fantastic powerslam on Scott, misses a giant splash off the top...I mean Mr. Hughes was just everything I would want a wrestler to be in this match, with the added bonus being that he looks sharp as hell in his duds and wears sunglasses.

You know who else was great in 1996? Everybody else here. Rick was awesome, throwing Hughes high by the ankles with that big back drop, comes in with this fiery hot tag with mean punches to Barbarian's forehead, runs HARD through Barb/Hughes with a double lariat, really looked like a long haul trucker getting super strength from rest stop crank. Scott throws a couple big suplexes (getting Barbarian dangerously vertical on and overhead throw) and snaps off an all time great Frankensteiner on Hughes down the stretch run (and damn does Hughes take a great fast and tumbling bump off it). Barbarian is great all around here, and takes the most unexpectedly dangerous and spectacular bump of the match, something that nobody attending this show expected they would see, when he flies from the top rope to the floor, through a table, missing a splash as Scott rolls out of the way, and gets pinned. Phil is completely right that if that match had been on any WWF/WCW TV or PPV, it would be a super talked about match in our circles long before now. If this match had happened exactly the same this year, it would rank highly on ours and others' MOTY List. Mr.freaking Hughes baby.

Goldust vs. Curry Man 1PW 10/14/06

ER: This isn't too long after Goldust's 4th WWE stint (that popular stint where he was Snitsky's tag partner), so he was still closer to prime time shape and hadn't yet bulked up to Black Reign superheavyweight status. This was a big event with a large indy crowd, and a lot of indy names scattered throughout the card (including Samoa Joe in a six man for some reason, and Smothers/Hamrick flown over to be in a tag trios), and the crowd is into the act here. I'm not 18 any longer, so Curry Man is no longer my flavor, and we get a lot of comedy including a long bit with everyone (ref included) trying to stomp feet. 

Not really sure I can get past the ref no selling having both of his feet stomped. Mainly because seeing Goldust stomp feet and then limp around after getting his foot stomped, made me want to see someone (Dustin Rhodes-level worker or better) work an entire match around one foot stomp. I know one of these guys can do it. Either stomp someone's foot early and then work over that foot, or get their own foot stomped and then limp through a match. I want a stubbed toe sell; that stubbed toe pain that is the worst pain you can imagine for one 2 second burst. Later the ref gets involved again by leaping in at the last moment to prevent Goldust from hitting Shattered Dreams, taking a leg kick in the process and delivering one as a receipt. If the referee needed to be involved in this, that at least felt like a more organic way to involve him. 

We get a lot of my favorite Dustin spots - one which I feel doesn't get brought up enough - which is his missed crossbody that sends him tumbling to the floor. It always looks fantastic, and isn't something he does in every match so you're never expecting it. Curry Man/Daniels is fine. You know what you're getting with him. His moonsault looked like something that deserved to be a nearfall. But it also felt like Dustin could have had this match with anybody and we have a couple hundred Dustin matches with Anybody.

MD: A year or two back I went out of my way to specifically look for Dustin-in-the-Wilderness matches. Dustin is almost always worth watching because despite the gimmick, he brings such pure pro-wrestling skills. This isn't too far off from the Muta/Tajiri vs. Goldustin/Hakushi match for instance. One thing I came across was a three minute fancam highlight reel of this, posted a week after the match happened.

In a lot of ways it's like trailers today. It had a lot of the "good stuff," some very fun comedy in a setting where you rarely saw Dustin, 00s UK Indy. I'm glad the whole match has showed up but I did get a sense that I'd already seen a lot of that "good stuff." That said, this is still worth seeing for the novelty. Daniels is a guy who's been precision execution but not always precision emotion, but he's unleashed and fully committed and emotive as Curry Man even if he leaves some of that execution at the door. They work the first part of this as a symmetry driven comedy match. Dustin, being Dustin, works the second half from underneath, getting the crowd honestly behind him and buying into his comebacks. He's one of the few people who in 2018 can still get people to do so and this crowd was even more game for it than their decade-later successors. That he was able to work both elements in the same match, in a strange place, with a unique opponent is just more of the gospel of how great he is and was.

PAS: I am with both guys, this was a Dustin showcase against a game but generic opponent. I never bought Curry Man as a character, it was always Daniels signature crisp athleticism with some colorless comedy spots thrown in. Still Goldust working shtick leading into a more serious match is going to work with anyone. Dustin had great uppercuts, hit his awesome missed bodypress spot and worked a fun shtick around the Shattered Dreams with the ref. Basically a fun syndie match, but Dustin is one of the great Syndie match workers off all time.

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For Yoshiaki Fujiwara Weeping May Stay for the Night

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Masa Fuchi v. Tamon Honda/Sambo Asako All Japan 1/96 - FUN

On paper I love the Fujiwara and Fuchi tag team, feels like they should have had a long run as Mr. Fujiwara and Mr. Fuchi managed by Tojo Yamamoto in Memphis. I still haven't seen a great match from them, but I love the concept. This is earliesh Honda, and he is still pretty fun, but I can imagine how awesome he would be matched up with these two in 6 years or so. Not as much matwork as you would hope, we do get a fun Honda v. Fujiwara headbutt battle, and Honda headbutting Fuchi in the teeth. The double Fujiwara armbar finish is cool too, still I was hoping for a hidden gem, and got a fine little match.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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