All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2004: Kawada vs. Hashimoto VS. Necro vs. Klein

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 2/22/04 

ER: This is the definition of Dream Match wrestling with actual, real purpose and incredible execution. Beyond being one of the biggest one-off dream matches in wrestling history, the fact that both men worked the exact brutal match that everyone viewing it as a dream match would want to see just cements its legendary status. Hashimoto beat Great Muta for the Triple Crown Title almost exactly a year before this match, but badly injured his shoulder in a July 2003 tag match opposite Kawada, and wound up vacating the Triple Crown due to that ongoing shoulder issue. Kawada never actually beat Hashimoto for the Triple Crown - he beat Mike Awesome and Shinjiro Ohtani in a tournament - so this match was the showdown every single fan wanted to see happen the second Hash won the Triple Crown. Since vacating that title due to his shoulder, Hashimoto continued working through the injury until it got so bad that it inadvertently lead to his death, when the necessary surgery required him to stop taking his heart medication. But now, nearly 8 months after first injuring it and much worse for wear, that shoulder is wrapped up with a trainer's room worth of KT tape, and in classic puro tradition would be targeted in the most sadistic ways. 

Hashimoto takes a logically sound wrestling psychology approach to the match by targeting Kawada's knee, whereas Kawada opts for a straight ahead vicious approach by aiming to destroy Hashimoto's shoulder and set the snowball rolling fast down the hill towards his death. While it's entirely unfair to say that Toshiaki Kawada murdered Shinya Hashimoto, Toshiaki Kawada murdered Shinya Hashimoto. The selling from both is incredible from stoic beginning to white towel finish, starting with Hash selling Kawada's first kick with the same disinterest as a man scrolling his phone while eating a half sandwich in his work break room, and while he's wobbled down to a knee after walking into a Kawada crescent kick, it's not before he cups Kawada's ear with a slap so hard that Kawada's ear starts leaking blood. When someone's ear is bleeding a couple minutes in, you'd think that would be the most violent thing you were going to see, and they spend 15 minutes trying to top it. 

There is a hamstring-knotting kick exchange so hard that after a half dozen of them their plant legs and kicking legs are both stiffening up, and we get one of those unparalleled Kawada leg wobbles, which Hash stops short with a leg sweep that looked like it would explode any mortal man's achilles. Hashimoto's dissection of Kawada's knee is done with the confidence of a man who is not advertising to the world that his shoulder is currently constructed of milk-soaked graham crackers, as he stomps on it, sits on it, jumps on it, and kicks at his tendons. The best part about Hashimoto's stomps is that he's not stomping on Kawada's knee the way a pro wrestler would, he's stomping on that knee like it's the biggest cockroach he's ever seen on his kitchen floor. Except Hashimoto does not fear this cockroach, he loathes this cockroach, and wants nothing more than to splatter its viscera across his tile. Also, he is in somebody else's house acting like a total asshole, and you can only get away with that for so long. 

Hashimoto gets away with it until he tries for an o goshi hip throw, and realizes what he's done when Kawada plants and pulls. Hash is now fighting to not get backdropped onto his shoulder - the way a man with a debilitating shoulder injury who is desperately trying to avoid surgery would - before being deadlifted completely against his will, his shoulder taking the entire brunt of the fall. You know when you try so hard to avoid a pothole that you end up driving right through it? Brother, Hashimoto's shoulder hit that pothole dead on. Kawada is now the mechanic who recognizes how fucked Hashimoto's suspension is, and he's gonna price gouge him hard. Now it's his turn, and he yanks on that shoulder, leaps onto it with his knees, kicks at it like a heavy bag. His knee is still shaky but not perilously so, and he runs the length of the ring to jam a boot as hard as he can into that shoulder, then whips his boot across the back of Hash's head with an enziguiri so strong that it sends Hash into a staggering Sean Salmon plunge, a reference almost as old as this match. 

Kawada's Stretch Plum with Hashimoto's shoulder as the focal point of all the pressure looks like one of the most painful holds ever applied. The wounded, anguished face of Hash as Kawada kicks his shoulder around the ring, is gutting. He looks like a mastodon who knows he's dying but merely attempting to stay on his feet due to animal survival instinct. That flame in his eyes as he finally catches one of those legs and slashes downward on Kawada's knee, and how he takes immense aggrieved pleasure in sizing up a huge roundhouse left to Kawada's chest after, is a reminder that even dying mastodon's have those lethal tusks. His brainbuster has incredible lift and spike, and is capped off by Hashimoto screaming like a railroad spike got driven into his shoulder on landing. That scream is the scream of a mortally wounded man and you can see him hit the pedal from there, going hard with high lefts to Kawada's chest and high rights to the back of his head, Kawada doing a full wobble legged teetering sell, cross-footed across the ring, the vacant expression of a man whose upper torso just weathered the hardest kicks of a 22 year career. 

But when Kawada manages to pull the Stretch Plum again, you know it's over. Hashimoto knows it's over but pride won't allow him to actually say so, a man who stood until he couldn't, towel thrown in as Zero-1's literal meal ticket takes years off his career by refusing to submit. We know one man did irreparable damage to his body in this match, but the selling is so next level that it feels like a match neither man would ever recover from. To that point, this was the last elite performance of either man's career. We didn't know that Hashimoto had only 60 matches left and that his last singles matches would be against King Dabada and UPW owner Rick Bassman. Kawada became more of a 2000s Taue who would turn it up in one big match or two every year, but never endured anything else like he did here. 

PAS: These two spent the 90s on parallel paths, a pair of killers slicing their way through the rosters of their respective promotions with vicious kicks. I was an active fan of Japanese wrestling during the primes of both wrestlers. I started getting video tapes from a local Japanese video store and quickly dove into the world of tape trading. This was the dream match I most wanted to see in 1994, a pair of threshing machines aimed at each other to see who would get chopped up. By the time we finally saw it 10 years later, they had mostly been threshed. Hashimoto's shoulder is cooked, Kawada's knees are toast; they are much closer to the end of it all than the beginning, which is what made this match so compelling. 

These aren't the two baddest dogs in the yard anymore. Their bodies don't work, but in their hearts and minds they can still deliver at that level, and they are going to rip each other into tiny pieces to prove it. The selling in this match is incredible, although I am not sure how much of it is selling. Kawada sells as if his knee is being destroyed, but his knee actually is being destroyed; Hashimoto's stoic demeanor is broken as he howls in pain, but I think he might actually just be howling in pain. One of the things which made the Thrilla in Manila such an iconic fight is that Ali and Frazier weren't at the peak of their powers anymore. Frazier was a year away from retirement, Ali never really reached those heights again. This was wrestling's Thrilla in Manila: two all time greats hanging by a string and falling together into the abyss. 

Necro Butcher vs. Toby Klein

Verdict: 

ER: I think we both knew that Hashimoto/Kawada was going to be our 2004 champ when we started this project a decade ago, but Necro/Klein is so damn good that we got a kick out of seeing it represented among the other All Time Classics. That match deserved its long reign, but the King has returned from battle, taking his rightful place on the throne. 

Our Full All Time MOTY List

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New Footage Friday: HASH~! LIGER~! CHONO~! SANO~! SLIM J~! BARBED WIRE~! MATT BORNE WILL PLAY SUN CITY~!

Maniac Matt Bourne vs. Daniel "The Hulk" Voges South Africa ??

MD: A bunch of this South African footage dropped and we're playing it safe by going with the sure thing, Maniac Matt Borne. I tried to figure out when this probably was, but only found a story about Borne losing his passport on the way to South Africa and some guy stealing his identity and ODing years later. Here he was facing Danie "the Hulk" Voges, who was obviously a beloved local folk hero, at least from the reaction he got. It felt a little like an Otto Wanz match along those lines. This was a round system, seems like the best of five with some weird production quirks between the Dutch (?) commentary and long shots of crowd reactions of the same few people, a pair of twins, a couple that was very into it, and one guy who seemed to be sleeping. Borne was great here though, laying it in, stooging, getting heat, taking big shots. I'm not sure if Voges' straight on chops would look good against anyone else but they looked great here. It was mostly these two throwing shots but Voges won a fall in the second round with a power slam that was nasty as he barely got Borne over and Borne evened it up with a knee off the top in the fourth. Voges bled pretty heavily in the last round and it ended with both guys still scrapping and the fans left wanting more.

PAS: The Otto Wanz comparison is right on, the match also had sort of a Carlos Colon feel. This was basically all punches, but both guys had great looking punches, with Borne throwing hands, and Voges having this chops to the neck and chin. We get some really dramatic blood a big almost fatal powerslam and some glam looking ladies in the crowd horrified at the violence being laid out on their hero. I wan't to check out some more Voges, I like a big time local hero and he had some big star timing. 

ER: I love the aesthetics of this, feeling like our big German CWA rounds matches. We all separately got the local legend Otto Wanz vibes off Voges, except he's like the Iron Mike Sharpe of Otto Wanz's. Borne doesn't work his Buzz Sawyer lite style here and instead works as Kevin Sullivan. Kevin Sullivan/Mike Sharpe is a fight I'd want to watch, and it was good here. I like big heavyweight matches where they fill a lot of time by throwing downward clubbing forearms across chests and throw right hands and slaps to the jaw that land with thud. Borne throws punches at Voges' hairline and busts him open, and a regional hero fighting and swinging through a bloody forehead is a simple classic recipe that we've now seen get the same rabid reactions on every continent but Antarctica. This is the first broadcast in wrestling history that I've seen let a camera linger on a man who fell asleep in the crowd, capturing that moment where he wakes up with a snort and immediately begins acting as if he hadn't been asleep. It also captures a woman outright screaming in support of Voges, and that kind of regional passion plays to every part of my wrestling heart. That Voges delayed powerslam on Borne was well worthy of winning a fall, and I love the brawl it devolved into. 

Shinya Hashimoto/Naoki Sano vs. Masa Chono/Jushin Liger NJPW 1/6/90 - EPIC

MD: Unique match up where they weren't afraid to mix the pairings. It starts out with Liger vs Hashimoto with a nice bit of Liger crashing against him and Hash giving just what he should until Liger's able to zoom past him and finally get him down. Later on, it's interesting as he almost has a hard time getting Liger up, despite the fact Liger's smaller than Chono, giving everything a grittier, uncooperative feeling that makes every impact all the worse. A chunk of this was Chono leaning on Sano and while that was fine, you were kind of waiting for the other guy on each side to get back in. As per the norm for 1990, the STF was both over and protected. The eventual payoff was Chono and Liger dropping Hashimoto with a spike pile driver and then Hashimoto trying one crushing shot after the next to finally put Liger down. Good match that gave us just enough of the Liger/Hashimoto pairing and never wore out its welcome.

PAS: I love the Liger vs. Hashimoto match up. Unlike most junior versus heavyweight matches Liger always tries to go toe to toe with Hashimoto. It isn't David vs. Goliath, Liger is more like Mike Tyson: he may be short, but he hits just as hard. I loved him using momentum to drop Hashimoto with a shoulder block and a flip kick to the temple. Chono versus Sano was really cool too. Sano was such a smooth and violent wrestler, and I love the solebutt to the stomach as an equalizer. Hashimoto really went after Liger at the end, hitting almost a half powerslam half brainbuster and Liger kept coming and getting in his face. Great stuff, really fun discovery.

ER: I thought this was excellent, with my love for it growing with every moment I reminded myself that this match would have - if not for a man with a camcorder - gone undocumented. Watching how hard these four legends beat the shit out of each other for 2,200 fans in Korakuen early in the new year and nobody else, and yet a 40 year old guy in California is able to see these fully beatings 30 years later. It makes me emotional. It's crazy to see this level of commitment on a house show, with strikes thrown full force in spots and tons of offense that missed, but was thrown to hit. The true greats, men like Hashimoto and Liger, bring that suspension of disbelief into their matches with their full commitment to offense, and to see it worked to maximum effectiveness on a small but hot Korakuen handheld just makes me love them more. 

These guys come off like the toughest wrestlers on earth in matches like these. The Hashimoto/Liger segments were my favorite and they were complemented perfectly by Sano running traffic like a madman and Chono leaning into and bumping big for Sano made him feel like a real force. But Hashimoto and Liger looked like fucking pro wrestlers. Everything landed and every landing felt real. There's an early Liger hook kick that catches Hashimoto behind the ear and Hashimoto crumbles perfectly. The misses were incredible, so violently executed that you buy the idea that Hashimoto threw a spinning heel kick that was supposed to take Liger's head off until Liger moved when he wasn't supposed to. Now, these men are pros, and the reality is that Hashimoto merely threw a spinning heel kick so hard that it would have seriously injured Liger had it not been ducked, and Hashimoto is such an ideal version of what a professional wrestler should be that he makes every miss look like he expected a bullseye. 

Hashimoto drills Liger into the ring with a running brainbuster that is an insane spot for an untaped show, and when Hash hits that spinning heel kick he sends the full weight of his hip crashing into Liger. Sano is a barefoot psychopath, hitting a gorgeous pescado (later to be completely outshone by Liger's gorgeous tope con giro but hey) and throwing a bananas running dropkick to knock Chono off the apron. When Hashimoto gets the pin on Liger, he's a man really holding his opponent's shoulders to the mat, with Liger being pinned because he was the weakened man. It's that attention to detail when they aren't thinking about how many people are going to ever witness it. It's a special thing when you find a match that only exists because of some guy and his camcorder, and the match raises the stock of all four guys involved. 

Slim J vs. Azrael NWA Anarchy 4/9/11 - EPIC

PAS: This was a barbed wire massacre match, and a real great chance for these two sickos to poke little holes in each other. Both guys are really great traditional brawlers, and they had some cool violent moments in a match which was mostly about getting stuck. I loved the insanity of both guys swinging barbed wire baseball bats super hard into each other, I mean just imagine how much their wrists hurt. Azrael driving his forearm into a barbed wire chair on a missed slam was sick stuff on top of it all. Slim J amps it up in the closing moments of the match, wrapping himself in barbed wire and using his body as a pokey weapon. Azrael hits a sick ace crusher on him, but can't cover because him arm got punctured. The announcers mention all the brawls these two have had in this feud and I want to see all of them. 

MD: They delivered on what was advertised here. There was barbed wire everywhere throughout. While it was pretty gratuitous, everything was done with consequence, which is what you hope for out of a match like this. Early on, the basic layout of the ring, with weapons everywhere and Wilson on the outside put Slim J at a disadvantage as he had to get things out of the way whenever he wanted to try to hit one of his moves. I liked how they built up the wire early, as the wrestlers themselves were tasked to put it on the ropes. That was a gradual process but it built up tension for the first few shots into it, and did have the very clever moment of Azrael using the Staff of Righteousness to do it at one point. In a match like this (like an exploding cage match or anything else along those lines), one whip can completely change momentum, so long as the wrestlers put it over, and they absolutely did here, and that makes for different sort of narrative opportunities. Mid-match, Slim J, to create the great equalizer, wrapped himself up in the wire and tried to use his body as a weapon to varying effects. It meant that every impact in the finishing stretch was pushed even further over the top. I probably won't revisit this one anytime soon, but they treated everything in this match with fear and respect and consequence and it elevated it into something that was more than simple blood and guts.

ER: Slim J's legend grows with every month of footage from the past 20 years. He's one of the great babyfaces from that era, as talented as but somehow not even as heralded as The Amazing Red. Slim J has been knocking out Rey Mysterio level matches for years now to a fraction of the acclaim, and it's crazy. Here's another to add to his legend, a violent insane spotfest from the great Anarchy. There's great carny shit like Reverend Dan at ringside, and the early match looked like old school bullshit with classic Dusty Rhodes teased barbed wire spots. But when Slim J dodged and Azrael hammer-fisted a chair covered in barbed wire full force, the tone of this all changed. Slim J took a full force tennis racket shot to the head, and from then on full force was the name of the game. 

Azrael's beating looked vicious, and Slim's selling of the beating made it look even more lethal. Slim J might be the greatest selling babyface of the entire 2000s indy scene, it's not even a contentious statement. Here you get great high level cruiserweight spots from Slim J, like his fine Santo roll, but you get violent additions like Azrael subsequently getting flapjacked face first onto a chair. But soon Slim is wrapping himself entirely in barbed wire like a sexy boy band Sabu and they're swinging - again, full force - barbed wire bat shots like they were wrestling in the ugliest dirt lot lucha. And, as someone who has had their hands stung by many different aluminum bats, Slim straightening his wrists and shaking his hands was a familiar pain. 

Slim's missed corner avalanche while wrapped in barbed wire was like Zona 1-2-3 Kid, and that Azrael ace crusher is one of the greatest ever iterations of that move. Let's get Azrael into the online discussion for best ever stunner/crusher. Slim J takes a kind of whipping slam into a thick garbage can like a true garbage match legend, always combining big impact with a folded body, and Azrael's sitout driver off the rope rope through a table was an incredible finish. It's the kind of finish that even Shane McMahon might not consider to win his father's love. The chemistry here is incredible and it feels like it will play out like a legendary bloody lucha feud the more matches are uncovered. If this is the only one we ever get? We were lucky., 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SHINYA HASHIMOTO

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SLIM J

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New Footage Friday: HASH~! VADER~! DR. DEATH~! KOKINA~! KURISU~! CHONO~! MUTOH~!

New Japan HH 7/8/90

Black Cat vs. Takayuki Tizuka

MD: Iizuka is Takashi Iizuka, in his mid 20s here. This was a nice opener, with Cat leaning on him with holds and clever little whacks to keep control (an elbow out of a straightjacket choke, an elbow drop to reverse a drop down, a senton near fall towards the end, swatting away some dropkicks) with Iizuka fiery and aggressive. I loved the way he stalked around the ring when Iizuka was trying to get back in, for instance, and how he went right to the attack the moment that he did. Cat played to the crowd a couple of times and they were appreciative and up for it which bodes well for the rest of the show. Good finishing stretch with a couple of near-falls you could predict as spots (like the sunset flip reversal to the second shoulder charge into the corner) but couldn't predict the kick-out 100% as it was an opener and it takes less to end it. There's a certain freedom in opening up a show and they took advantage of it well.

Osamu Matsuda vs. Kantaro Hoshino 

MD: Matsuda is a year away from being El Samurai. He was spry and energetic here but I don't think this quite had the rhythm as the opener. In fact, it felt a little more what I thought an opener would feel like, with longer holds moved in and out of, without entirely coming together as a greater whole. Hoshino vs Momota in 89-90 would be an interpromotional match I would have liked to see. I liked all of his neck crunching offense and his power bomb to finish it was pretty nasty.

 

Osamu Kido vs. Apollo Sugawara 

MD: Solid match up. The brunt of it was Sugawara working over Kido's legs and then Kido returning the favor. A little extended selling, especially from Kido, might have given it all a bit more weight and stakes and made the revenge mean something more. The finish sort of came out of nowhere, but that was the joy of Kido's wakigatame.

Strong Machine/Pegasus Kid vs. Hiro Hase/Kensuke Sasaki 

MD: Very much what you'd want this match-up to be. They hit hard, leaned into things, kept it moving. Visually, Pegasus Kid and Super Strong Machine made a good pairing, at least given the HH quality. They looked almost like blue and purple variations on the same theme. Hase and Sasaki worked well together early but got a little too cute trying to get masks off. That led to a hearty beatdown on Hase, until he was able to roll through or power away on a brainbuster (it was a little hard to tell but I didn't love it as a transition regardless). After that, it was more back and forth with some nice parallels towards the end with partners breaking up bridges by kicking the legs out and a nice, definitive finish.

Jushin Liger/Shiro Koshinaka/Kuniaki Kobayashi vs. Tatsutoshi Gotoh/Hiro Saito/Norio Honaga 

MD: This was a pretty satisfying example of delayed gratification with a trio of gritty bastard bases holding down your flying, technical guys. They cut off the ring well and were relentless in the beatdown and when comebacks started, they were quick to cut them off with cheapshots, low blows, and interference, so that when the butt butts, babyface doubleteams, and Liger's big stuff got to finally happen, it felt like a big payoff.

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Brad Rheingans - FUN

PAS: This was pretty short, but any Hashimoto match is going to have cool stuff in it. My favorite section was the first minute with Rhiengans and Hash locked up in a Greco clinch and doing some standing switches. Both guys have such strong bases and I enjoyed the struggle. Hash hits some nice body kicks and DDT to win, but I never got much of a sense of Brad outside of that first section. 

MD: You always wish these Brad in Japan matches went a little bit longer. This had some good close up grappling for position and some really nice suplexes though. Brad stooged just a little, in as he sold broadly for Hashimoto when he did get shots in, but he made him earn those shots too. Obviously the best part of this was when Brad jammed him off the ropes and hit a big belly to belly and then a belly to back. It ended abruptly, but believably so.

Masa Saito/Kengo Kimura vs. Steve Williams/Masanobu Kurisu 

MD: Kimura refusing to spend even a second on the floor with Kurisu at the start was the most sympathetic bit of wrestling I've seen in a while. Thankfully, Kurisu got to show everyone exactly why Kimura felt that way later in the match by being an absolute maniac with a chair. Saito vs Williams was a larger than life pairing. It had Williams wild energy and Saito's heft and presence but they still let it breathe. This was going at a real good pace with everyone bringing exactly what you'd want out of them (Saito firing back with a chair and clotheslines, Williams with the stampede, Kurisu's headbutts, etc.) until Kimura got in a flying kick out of nowhere onto Kurisu's skull and Saito came in with his suplex for the win. Like the Brad match, I wish it had another couple of minutes but this was a more complete and satisfying unit and you can't fault what we got.

PAS: You have to give it to Kurisu. I mean if there is anyone he might not pull his shit on, it's Masa Saito, an olympic wrestler who is crazy enough to fist fight 10 cops. Kurisu doesn't give a shit though, he is out there throwing those gross headbutts to Saito's cheek and those chair shots with the edges. He pays for it a bit, it looks like he gets a stinger when Saito and Kimura hit a pretty unsafe looking spiked piledriver, and Saito hits him with a great looking version of his titular suplex. Williams and Saito are always a fun match up too, and I love the idea of a Williams/Kurisu tag team. That is a Miracle Violence Connection I can get behind. 

Riki Choshu/Keiji Mutoh/Masa Chono vs. Van Vader/Kokina/Samu

MD: Kokina and Vader were such an imposing pair and it was obvious they knew it, with double charges in the corner and teamwork on the outside. Vader used himself as a wall with his short clothesline and Kokina was happy to use him that way too. Every bump Vader took meant something and was earned. Kokina's meant something too, though he maybe took too many and too big, though that was part of the attraction. Samu was there to lose the offensive for his team and ultimately lose the match. Choshu got to clothesline people. Mutoh brought the flash. Young Chono was in there the most though, holding his own at first but ultimately playing a face in peril.

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Shinya Hashimoto Saw Me Standing Alone Without A Dream in My Heart

Shinya Hashimoto/Masa Saito/Koji Kitao vs. Bam Bam Bigelow/Steve Williams/Big Van Vader NJPW 5/24/90 - EPIC

PAS: Look at this absolutely murderers row of badasses. I mean who is the softest dude in this match, Bigelow? Maybe Kitao? This is worked like you wanted it to be worked, just big beast dudes throwing escalating hard shots at each other. I loved Saito in this. He seemed to inch up the intensity with every interaction, and the gaijin seemed shocked at how hard this little teapot looking guy was hitting them, and there is nothing Steve Williams loves more than escalation. Kitao is green but legit, and was right there looking like he belonged in this fight. There were a couple of great Williams and Hash exchanges, including Shinya hitting a weird high bodypress and Williams breaking up a pin with a headscissors. Post match has a big Vader vs. Kitao face off, which really makes me want to search for that singles match. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SHINYA HASHIMOTO

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New Footage Friday: Different Style!!

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Aleksey Tyurin NJPW 7/22/90 - GREAT

PAS: Tyurin is an enormous Judoka, he looked like he might be 6'7 360, spent much of the match with some great looking Judo throws on Hashimoto. It is always fun to watch Hash try to solve a puzzle in these different style fights. The puzzle here was Tyurin's strength and technique and eventually Hash just tries to dirty it up, stunning Tyurin with two nasty short headbutts, dazing the bear enough to get him over with a side suplex and choke him out. Really fun visuals in this match, and while it wasn't tremendously action packed I really found it compelling. 

MD: Tyurin is massive, absolutely massive and he has a lurching way of moving at you with his arms up. The best way that I can explain this is that it's like when a little kid family member comes charging at you because they watched too much wrestling or something, when you're an adult and you have to do everything you can not to lose your balance and fall on them and break them. Tyurin is gingerly not trying to absolutely crush tiny child Hashimoto here. Which is bizarre and surreal. It means that just a headlock takedown seems like it could demolish Hash's kidney and break his ribs though. The flip side was that every movement (and every bit of restraint, I guess) tired Tyurin down more, so all Hashimoto had to do was stay alive long enough. Which he did. The suplex at the end barely works but is still worth seeing, though I'm not sure the choke out works because Tyurin was so large that he'd always be in the ropes. Always.

ER: Yes yes yes, this match is exactly my kind of thing. I adore that we are still finding new weird Russians that Inoki brought in, and I had no clue there were ever any GIANTS wrestling in New Japan Different Style fights. Hashimoto is a large man, and Tyurin absolutely dwarfs him. Tyurin looks like the largest possible Glenn Fleshler, a mammoth judoka who just walks through Hashimoto's strikes and flattens him with what come off like normal judo moves, like a headlock take over or an STO. He's so huge that he makes a headlock takeover look finisher worthy, and it's amazing. At one point he literally approaches Hashimoto and raises both of his arms over his head, and I swear to god he looked exactly like the grizzly bear on the poster of Grizzly. Just a giant man about to bear attack Hashimoto, so Hash kicks him right in the knee and keeps his distance. Tyurin doesn't pretend he is a bear any longer. Hash keeps getting better and better at evading Tyurin's takedowns, slipping out and landing on top, and I thought the build to the final choke was good. Hashimoto powers Tyurin over with a Saito suplex, and it while it was far from the prettiest suplex you've seen, it looks like Hash is moving a damn mountain. I bought the choke as it really looked like Hash was smothering the giant, using Tyurin's size and meaty neck against him. Great stuff. 

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Ramzin Shbiev NJPW 6/12/91 - GREAT

PAS: Shbiev comes out in boxing gloves and shorts, although he doesn't have a Box Rec record. He had decent form, but it didn't really look professional to me. Hashimoto however really knows how to work a match around a Russian guy with Boxing gloves. Hashimoto and Shbiev circle each other for the first couple of rounds, with Shbiev landing some nice body shots. That leads up to an all timer of last minute, with Shbiev dropping Hashimoto with a really nice multi punch combo. Hash realizes he can't stand in the pocket with him, hits two sick looking leg sweeps, and puts his lights all the way out with a sick high kick to the face, Shbiev didn't block it at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if he forgot all of the math he learned in middle school. 

MD: Two rounds of build up leading to one quick round of payoff, but what around it was. The build was measured and disciplined. Shbiev had a pretty clear advantage for the first two rounds, a straight up puncher. Hashimoto was able to slow the torrent with kicks, but whenever he tried to cut the distance and use his size to grab Shbiev, he ate a bunch of blows and the size and momentum necessary for the attempt brought them into the ropes. Towards the end of the second round, Hashimoto seemed to realize that just keeping Shbiev at bay wasn't going to work out and he started going for it with more wild kicks, landing one and knocking him flat. In the third, likewise, Shbiev realized that if Hash was going to do that, he better do something else and he rushed in with a really nasty flurry. They kept one-upping one another as Hash used his reach advantage with sweeping kicks, throwing Shbiev off his game enough that he could get a brutal headlock takeover and then finish it all off with a homerun hitting kick to the face. Just a hugely satisfying last round.

ER: Different Style is the most perfect pro wrestling. The looseness of a fight with the artistry of a performer, Hashimoto was really the true master of the Different Style. Inoki was the pioneer, but Hashimoto was getting these superstar reactions to his theme song because of his incredible Different Style wars. Shbiev comes out wearing long shorts and looks like someone Louis Gossett Jr. had to take down in the latter half of Diggstown, and Hashimoto is an expert at selling all of his strikes. Shbiev is a real interesting puncher, good at mixing up his shots, and Hashimoto is so captivating as someone struggling to find his distance. Shbiev drops him with this hard left to the body, and the longer this goes the more risks both guys take, both elevating their aggression. The final flurry is incredible, always amazing to me how well these non-wrestlers fall when it's time for them to take their wrestling beating. Hashimoto starts brutalizing Shbiev with legsweeps, just giving this poor guy knee problems for life, before finishing everything with a sweeping high kick that just drops him. Different Style God Hashimoto. Get me the t-shirt. 

Akitoshi Saito vs. Michiyoshi Ohara NJPW 2/8/92

MD: Crazy ten minutes of pro wrestling here. Ohara rushes Saito at the start, but Saito's about to outstrike him for most of the match. The great equalizer is that Ohara's better able to take him down and hook him, using the gi, yes, but especially with an absolutely monster capture suplex. He can't put Saito away, though, or even capitalize enough, so this builds to Saito kicking the crap out of him towards the edge of the ring, the two warring sides going at it on the floor, and a massively bloody Ohara trying desperately to get his revenge with a thousand red-streaked headbutts, changing the color of the gi. It's all for naught as Saito puts him down for good, with the post-match swarming of the ring being just as crazy as everything else we've seen here in this ten minutes of violence.

PAS: This was incredible, one of the best matches we have unearthed since we have done this. This is part of the Karate dojo versus New Japan feud, and I clearly need to find every second of this. Easily Ohara's career match, he was working as an amateur in a singlet and has some nice wild throws and takedowns, and Saito is hurling punches and kicks at him the whole time. Ohara also throws some really great looking headbutts, which are especially awesome after he is opened up and spraying blood around the ring. The whole match felt on the precipice of a riot and then it just exploded at the end. Totally awesome.

ER: Incredible, the exact kind of bloodlust you want from a NJPW/Karate Guys war. This is the most charisma I have ever seen Ohara possess, and I love young handsome normal hair Saito. You got a ringside area filled with New Japan tracksuits and karate gi's, and you know that's literally always an oil/water scenario. Ohara was super aggressive here, running down to the ring like he was Ultimate Warrior in a freestyle wrestling singlet and hits a double leg without slowing down, and then it's just several minutes of Ohara throwing Saito with STOs and other takedowns while Saito throws downward blow karate strikes and damaging kicks. Saito's kicks are really starting to slow Ohara, as they are relentless, and both guys seem to be playing VERY fast and loose with rope break rules. There were two different moments where each guy made it to the ropes to break a hold, and the rope break did not slow down the man applying the submission, merely giving them an opening to drag their opponent away from the ropes and continue choking or ripping at an arm. 

The oil and water of course mix on the floor, and New Japan guys start flying into karate guys, and it's one of those things that's always fun for me to go back and rewatch over and over, finding new guys to focus on each time. I think my favorite was a karate guy getting in Shiro Koshinaka's face, while Koshinaka completely brushes him off with stoicism and an elbow. Ohara is busted open and it only makes him madder, and he runs into the ring dripping blood and throwing nothing but smashing machine headbutts at Saito. Saito just tries to keep his cool and throw as many kicks as he can, all while Ohara is trying to smash him with his body and skull. Saito's gi gets covered in Ohara's blood splatter, making Saito look like he went to the Spirit Store and bought a "crime scene" costume. Ohara eventually cannot answer the bell, and then the oil and water mixes again as the karate guys are trying to swarm around Saito while the New Japan guys want to go at it. Again, another moment where I go back and rewatch multiple times, focusing on a different NJ guy each time. Look at the absolute babyface FIRE that Satoshi Kojima shows by repeatedly flying into karate guys to shove them out of the ring, total megastar charisma. Look at the veteran boldness of Osamu Kido as he casually wipes blood off his track suit! There is no wrong guy to look at here, in this best of all wrestling feuds. 

Akitoshi Saito vs. Shiro Koshinaka NJPW 2/12/92

MD: Impossible not to compare it to the Saito/Ohara match. This was longer, with less urgency. The blood wasn't as good. The suplexes (except for Koshinaka's last capture off a kick) were more cooperative. Once he really started to unload midway through, Saito had some great strikes, especially a jumping spin kick towards the end. Koshinaka was simply more of a showman than Ohara and he milked the ten counts and other moments better, but that's not always what you want in a match like this. The post match was a bit more meandering, with guys throwing shadow spin kicks at each other. It felt a little more like West Side Story than a war at times.

PAS: I thought this was also pretty great, although it was obviously hurt by watching it after the Ohara masterpiece. This had a lot of the wild brawling you love from this match up, with Saito being a crazed killer, and Koshinaka landing some really stiff hip attacks and big punches. This was a bit longer and wasn't turned up to 11 the whole match, but it definitely had it's frenzied moments, and I am loving Saito blooding up his Gi with the New Japan roster. Clearly I need to find and watch every released match in this feud, I love an out of control Puro gang fight. 

ER: This was more of a slow burner than Saito's fight against Ohara a few days earlier, but it was really no less good. Koshinaka brings a totally different vibe than Ohara brought, and stretches it into a more interesting story and longer payoff. I think almost all of us would pick the Ohara match if we wanted to just show one of these to someone, but this match had a great feel and strong build in a totally different way. I honestly have no idea how Saito didn't go on to become an even bigger star. He's someone we've seen in major Japanese feds for 30 years now, always a positive presence on cards but never the top guy. It's almost crazier that he didn't become Naoya Ogawa before Ogawa or Maeda after Maeda. 

The match is a long scrap that looked like it hit as hard in minute one as it did in the final minute. Koshinaka's sliding knees and hip attacks looked great, Saito's front kicks looked great, and this Koshinaka is really my most favorite Koshinaka. He had this calm cool to his attacks and took a hard kick beating in stride. At one point he caught a very fast Saito high kick, and he had this awesome measured facial reaction to it, like he knew exactly the three things he should do next. The way he casually stretches Saito into a single leg crab was like a Dojo Terminator firing up its mission. Saito comes back and starts wearing him down, and we get a cool fiery restart after it looked like Koshinaka wouldn't be able to continue. It's cool seeing guys like 2 Cold Scorpio rooting Koshinaka on from the apron, and he had a super memorable babyface dying on his sword run to the finish. Saito bloodies up the knee of his gi from trying to flatten Koshinaka's nose several times (by the end of the match Koshinaka has visible bruising under both eyes and his forehead), and I loved the shots Koshinaka was still able to fit in. His final stand was perfectly timed, getting to his feet right as he was counted down, and remaining on his feet in defeat. 

The post-match was of course another memorable fight between dojos, with Kuniaki Kobayashi leading the charge into punching a ton of karate guys in the face, and what I loved the most about it was New Japan Dojo basically heeling themselves during the beatdown. The crowd wasn't reacting to them as "their guys" by the end of this, and Koshinaka and Kobayashi were left looking at each other with the kind of sheepish looks of men who know they were the ones who pushed things too far. Koshinaka drags Aoyagi into the ring and Kobayashi comes in and jumps him from behind, none of the other karate guys are in there, it's just Koshinaka and Kobayashi hitting cheap shots, and Aoyagi is just like "guys come on, this doesn't need to happen like this". It was great, a different vibe from a familiarly excellent cast. 

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Richard Byrne NJPW 7/8/92

MD: Compared to the other matches we watched this week, this was pretty ridiculous, but it also told the most complete story and it was sort of serene as well. For the first half, Byrne had the clear advantage on strikes, with Fujinami's selling getting them over, especially the spin kick to the gut. He had a few good moments of grappling, including almost getting the dragon sleeper on, but it was, at best even. Then, midway, Fujinami stops everything, demands gloves of his own, and comes out firing blows to the crowd's delight. Byrne, suddenly losing the striking game, has to come back with big kicks, but overstretches with it and goes tumbling over the top rope. They start fighting on the floor and he kicks the post, and it's all but over from there. This had an almost anime-esque mid-match power up with the gloves. But, since it was Fujinami, and the crowd was so into it, and he just rushed into it with so much earnest abandon, it pretty much worked.

ER: I love wrestling after the fact stories like Richard Byrne, a Massachusetts indy guy who ran a dojo in the same building as Killer Kowalski's school, who got this random match as a martial arts guy on a New Japan show, and also was a cult star in South Africa of all places. That's a cool as hell person and there's never been a better more interesting time in wrestling than these New Japan Different Style fights. Imagine if WWF was bringing in random MMA or weightlifting or decathlete guys, like they just kept the spirit of the Yokozuna bodyslam challenge and carried it through the 90s with all their biggest stars. WWF could have believably made Different Style fights the biggest focus of their 90s, and I think it would have been a more successful direction. Byrne was totally new to me here, and he's like Garry Shandling doing a Jerry Flynn character. It's great, the perfect early 90s strip mall dojo vibes. 

Byrne is such a sneering punk, with this big comical cartoon expression on his face that made him feel like a Punch Out! character. Fujinami was brilliant at selling his kicks, and honestly Byrne was great at selling for Fujinami's big late match strikes. There are great moments like Fujinami locking in the dragon sleeper around Byrne's huge head, or Byrne angrily tearing off his gloves and throwing them to the mat, then Fujinami demanding he be put INTO gloves before the 3rd round starts. Fujinami comes out with his fighter gloves and starts peppering Byrne, frustrating him with quickness, and it became a whole different Different Fight at that point. I thought Fujinami was going to end it with his great rear naked choke, but Byrne convincingly back elbows his way out of it. I LOVED Byrne's two bumps over the top to the floor, one a silly "Macho Man getting press over the top by a Yokozuna kickout" bump off a Fujinami uppercut, the other a missed kick momentum sending him down. Byrne adds some of those fun pro wrestling elements to this early 90s New Japan fight feel, including hanging from the bottom rope by one leg after eating a Fujinami enziguiri while trying to get back into the ring. The finish feels downright Memphis, with Fujinami getting a heel hook and Byrne stuck with nowhere to go, ripping his gloves off and throwing each of them at Fujinami, that felt like a glimpse of how Austin Idol would have worked one of these matches. 

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2001: Hashimoto/Otsuka vs. Misawa/Ogawa VS. Santo vs. Parka

Mitsuharu Misawa/Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Shinya Hashimoto/Alexander Otsuka NOAH 1/13/01

ER: Interpromotional Japanese wrestling has always been a source of gold, with the WAR vs. NJPW and Onita vs. Karate Guys being genre standouts. Pro Wrestling NOAH rarely utilized the interpromotional feud, but did so for a scant number of memorable matches opposing Hashimoto's Zero1 in 2001 (maybe some day we'll cover the WEW feud?). One of these matches, Hashimoto/Yasuda vs. Honda/Inoue, was our inaugural 2001 champ, and that was on Zero1's ground. This tag is from three months before that match, on NOAH's ground, and had the pairing that every fan of either promotion wanted to see. The month before, Hashimoto had his NOAH debut in Tokyo, against Takao Omori. The crowd was super hot for Omori, and super excited to see Hashimoto in a NOAH ring. Hashimoto knew exactly how to work one of these Invading Big Star matches, and worked to a clearly uncooperative finish that was to plant the seed of Hashimoto being unprofessional with Misawa in this match, three weeks later. I'm surprised that the first showdown ever between two legends like Misawa and Hash was only run in Osaka, as I'm sure this could have drawn 15-20K people in Tokyo. Perhaps they established rules where Hashimoto would agree to work a smaller Osaka show if Misawa would work a larger Tokyo show, I don't know. And really, I don't care, because this match is everything I wanted.

The presentation was cool, with Otsuka and Ogawa already waiting in the ring, giving Hashimoto and Misawa their own entrances, and the crowd felt like they were chanting equally for both legends. Misawa is ever the benevolent top gun, as he lets Hashimoto totally come off like the top dog here, as Hash pie faces Ogawa all the way around the ring and refuses to take his offense seriously and keeps trying to get Misawa in the ring. I said Misawa was charitable in how much of a star he treated Hash, but picture this: Sting debuts in WWF in 2001 in a tag opposite HHH, and when Sting immediately calls for HHH to get in the ring, HHH just stares back, Sting yelling and demanding he get in the ring with him this instant, and HHH just keeps staring, whispers to his partner to handle Sting himself, and just continues holding the tag rope while not fighting Sting. Impossible, right? Well Misawa does just that with Hashimoto, and Hashimoto is great at punishing Ogawa as punishment for not getting Misawa right off the bat. I was not expecting Misawa to give that much presence to Hashimoto, and I loved it.

But what I *really* wasn't expecting was Alexander Otsuka - not even a Z1 guy at this point so basically a BattlArts guy teaming with a Z1 guy as a band of outsiders - being the superstar of the match. Hashimoto/Misawa was the entree everyone went to the restaurant for, but Otsuka is the dessert that everybody is raving about as they leave the place. I can't believe Otsuka didn't get some kind of big fed run after this match. Maybe he wanted to stay freelance shootstyle Butcher, but can we just assume that Mohammed Yone got his cushy consistent paycheck undercard BattlArts slot? Yone didn't show up in NOAH until the end of 2001, that job was probably Otsuka's for the duration of the year until they just went with the guy with the afro instead of the bald guy playing hard to get. And after a performance like this, it's no wonder they pursued him the entire year, in this scenario I've almost entirely fabricated. But Otsuka's the guy driving the outsider angle, the guy taunting all the NOAH boys at ringside.

Now, young boy attire is what puts some of these feuds into legendary status, with the genre peaking at Karate Dojo OP Surf Punk in FMW. Biggest complaint of the match is the NOAH young boys, as their emotional thermometer never rose above "Hey guys come on, let's keep things on the level and not take away from the show here", and their gear made them look like a JPOP band, all of them wearing black and red athleisure wear in different styles. Marufuji was clearly the star of the group with his baggy track suit and gelled up hair, but Izumida was the bad boy wearing black capri pants and a teen mustache; Morishima was the baby faced fat guy who is always wearing a muscle tank on the beach when the other group members in the music video are shirtless, and Ikeda is the cool guy with his open jacket and caesar haircut. Meanwhile Z1 just brings Tadao Yasuda as their giant track suit goon, and he has the crazed eyes of the dad from the I Learned it from Watching You commercial as he thrust kicks Ikeda during a post-match melee. And here's Otsuka talking shit to NOAH's resident boy band (their band name would be "NO4H"), egging them on, and then starts bullying Ogawa. But the kicker is when he belts Ogawa with a great elbow, then holds his elbow up to Misawa and points at it. That's the kind of juice I NEED. Otsuka also has a genuine claim to Best European Uppercuts - when we talk about who does what best - as nobody throws an uppercut quite like him (his is the fastest, and slices sharp, getting really fast speed for such close contact). He has a real cool showoff showcase of all his coolest throws and strikes, peaking with a gorgeous bridging German.

Perhaps Otsuka's best gift to this match is his selling, as he puts in one of those Lawler/Finlay performances where you can't imagine seeing anybody take a specific offense any better. One of the real joys of this match is seeing both ways Otsuka sells Ogawa's jawbreaker, the first time really rubbing out his jaw and flexing it side to side while getting back to his feet, and the second taking a backwards bending bump on the recoil. He's a tremendous stooge for Misawa and Ogawa's offense, knowing how to play straight to camera as he sells the drop toehold/Misawa elbowdrop like he was at the proctologist, and the way he staggers and stumbles and flies into the ropes for Misawa's revenge for that earlier taunt. Misawa's two hardest elbow strikes of the match are clearly leveled right at Otsuka's jaw, holding Otsuka's coconut with his left hand while shifting his molars with his right elbow.

The Hash/Misawa sections were fun, while never getting to a real volcanic section, with the best part being Hash stomping him into the corner and refusing to quit, leading to NO4H finally thinking he had gone too far. The match stoppages and stalls were built well into the match, and the visual of Hash stomping and kicking his way through Misawa and Ogawa was like a mad lumberjack razing a forest. Misawa's stoicism played well off Hashimoto's fire, and I loved his casual, subtle communicating with Ogawa, loved the way Ogawa finally got Hashimoto to take him seriously and knocked him down, and how he charged Hash at the finish to keep him away from Otsuka. Look at how Misawa rubs the finish in Hashimoto's face, hitting a tiger driver while facing Hash, staring at him during the whole pin, planting Otsuka just out of reach. It's such a Calmer Than You Are way to handle being the house boss. This match should have been the beginning of 4 months of different NOAH/Z1 matches, and judging how well all four player their role in this one, it would have been fabled.


PAS: I am also a Japanese interpromotinal feud superfan, but I thought this fell well short of the heights these matches usually achieve. I am normally a much bigger Misawa fan than a Kobashi fan, but I thought he looked more annoyed than filled with hate and disgust, which is what you need from a match like this. It feels like Kobashi or Akiyama would have been a better top dog. I normally love stoic Misawa, but this felt more like card filler six-man Misawa, and I needed to feel more desperation and fury from him. I liked how they kept Misawa and Hashimoto apart,  it added more juice to the times they actually went head to head, and Misawa pinning Otuska while staring down Hashimoto was great. I think Otsuka is one of the great wrestlers of the 90s and the 2000s, but he didn't pop for me here, he felt a bit steamrolled and we didn't get to see much of the killer offense which makes him so great. There are ways that the lesser partner in these matches get chances to shine, watch what Ohara or Takashi Ishikawa bring to WAR vs. NJ tags, or even Ogawa in this match, but I felt like Otsuka never got to be Otsuka. This is a great Hashimoto performance, he is an incredible interpromotional wrestler and is eager and willing to try to murder both opponents, all of the seconds, and the front row of the crowd. I totally agree that the NOAH vs. Z1 series was a total lost opportunity, but I got that more from the Z1 tag than from this match.


El Hijo del Santo vs. La Parka Review

Verdict: 

ER: I thought this was great, with a strong Otsuka performance that showcased his full range on offense and defense while highlighting his personality. That is was right next to an amped up Hashimoto performance made this extra special. This was the only time Otsuka and Hashimoto tagged, and it felt like a glimpse at a pairing with all time potential. I thought Misawa played his stoicism into brief desperation, into calm cool, and I thought it was an extremely confident performance from the ace of the company, and I love how it felt like he was disrespecting Hashimoto by insisting on Ogawa staying in longer and fighting. These feds could have had some barn burning interpromotional stuff, and I'm glad we at least got this. That said, I think the Park/Santo bloodbath is going to prove to be a tough to kill champion.

PAS: It's Santo vs. Parka for me pretty easily. This would lose to the other 2001 challengers we have put forward, and I didn't like it nearly as much as the other Z1 vs. NOAH tag. Worth watching especially for the Hashimoto performance, but not a top tier contender.

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If Shinya Hashimoto Plays With Love it Can Bring Tears My Dear

Shinya Hashimoto vs. The Great Oz NJPW 5/17/92 - GREAT

ER: Hash is one of those guys I love so much, that I love seeing him against weird opponents as much or more than seeing him in legendary matches with legendary performers. Funk, Lawler, Hansen, they all have legendary feuds and opponents, but I love seeing those guys opposite weird guys. Hashimoto vs. early career Kevin Nash is weird, and I am here for it. Nash is a guy who got a bad rap from the Scott Keiths of the world, but time has been kind to him. Here he's raw and, well, green [*reminder to come up with funnier Oz joke before posting*], but brings big presence and an early career willingness to try new things. It's fun to see early career offense that gets abandoned, and the Great Oz of 1992 does a couple things that were already distant memories by the time 1993 Diesel rolled around. You get great stuff like two burly guys slamming into each other with shoulderblocks, but I also loved how Oz didn't let himself get picked apart too much by Hash. Oz obviously had size over him, but Hash was remarkably fast (look how quickly he gets to his feet or rolls to the floor) and hit harder. I've seen a lot of Green Giants get eaten alive on Japan tours, suddenly finding themselves in a place where they don't speak the language opposite a guy who smells blood, and they can wind up looking like real doofuses. Here, when Hash throws some hard chops and kicks, Oz responds with possibly the only high kick of his career. Not a big boot mind you, but Oz throws a sweeping high right kick to the left side of Hashimoto's head, total K-1 legend. We get great leaping elbow drops from both men, Oz breaks out a weird bulldog (not traditional style, done more like the way Kelly Kelly would do a bulldog, which is weird to see from a 7' guy), and I loved the double DDT finish. Hashimoto spikes DDTs like few, and the nearfall off the first DDT was a gem, didn't think Oz would kick out of that one. He does not kick out of the one that follows.


Shinya Hashimoto vs. Hubert Numrich NJPW 11/2/97 - FUN

Numrich is a German K1 guy and this was a mixed fight. Hashimoto is my favorite guy to watch in these kind of matches, as he can usually find something interesting to do with a big MMA lug. Numrich was no Gary Goodrich or Tony Halme though, he was really obviously pulling his shots, and it was tough for Hashimoto to go down to pitter pats. I did really like the nasty Judo throw into the stiff side headlock for the tap, but that barely kept it out of Skippable territory for me.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SHINYA HASHIMOTO

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New Footage Friday: HASH! STATE PATROL! BLUE PANTHER! RAY GONZALEZ! JUNJI HIRATA!

Blue Panther/Blackman/Valente Fernandez vs. Lobo Rubio/Ricky Boy/El Indomito UWA 90

MD: This was a nice surprise. It had a buzzing crowd, a pretty perfect crowd-pleasing primera with a lot of fun match-ups where everything had zing, a little bit of heat, and then a comeback with a memorable finish you won't forget anytime soon. Valente is not a guy I'm super familiar with but past his tendency to meander in the wrong place at the wrong time, I thought he had great fire. He threw himself into everything he did. Panther managed to fit a lot into a short period of time, primarily some tricked out holds and this great front facelock drop that he should have been using up and down a few years later when he was a beloved hero against Art Barr. He also threw an axe kick of sorts which was pretty nasty whatever he was going for. The exoticos were good foils in there but didn't necessarily stand out. The finish was wild with Valente getting lawn darted out of the ring, his head disappearing behind a desk at the edge of the crowd.

PAS: Total standout Fernandez performance. He is a guy with a really great kip-up, and he found a bunch of ways to mix in his kip-up, plus he takes a fucking insane bump at the finish getting hurled over the top rope and smashing the back of his head on the concrete. Honestly a top ten lucha bump to the floor, which is a tough list to crack. This is mostly fast moving Panther, which isn't as cool as hard mat wrestling Panther, but still pretty cool. Matt mentioned his combo DDT/Facebuster move, which was cool, something he did a lot in this match, and something I have never seen him do before or since. Really strange, you don't normally see someone break out a signature spot for just one six man tag match in 1990. The rudos were solidly in place to eat the technicos spots which is what they should be there to do. Nifty match with an absolute all time highlight.

State Patrol vs. Ray Gonzalez/Ricky Santana WWC 8/24/91

MD: We've gotten so much Puerto Rico in the last month that it's almost overwhelming. Reviewing the State Patrol in strange places is our oeuvre though. This was really just a glimpse of a TV match but it was good for what it was and it's too bad we don't have more of them there. Puerto Rico could make giants out of the meek. Look at how great the Rock'n'Roll RPMs were there. This was well balanced, with an opening that didn't outlast its welcome, a good hot tag even if I don't know what Parker was going for and a finishing stretch with a good cutoff and a very satisfying ending. Next time I see a State Patrol match I want to pay more attention to Wright on the apron because he was really good here.

PAS: This was fine. It didn't really have the insanity you want from a Puerto Rican match, it was basically the third or fourth best match on an episode of WCW Worldwide. Decent hot tag, solidish heat segment, fun finish. Utterly forgettable stuff, but kind of cool to see the State Patrol on tour.

ER: Puerto Rico is fairly unrepresented on match lists, and so it's always a favorite thing of mine to find out which workers from the States would occasionally show up there. I've watched the existing Rougeaus PR match at least a half dozen times, and probably watched the Jamie Dundee match at least four. The Puerto Rico that shows up is pretty patchy, as it's not like we're getting full runs from any of those guys (and I assume they didn't fly down there just to work one match). But we've been getting more and more PR uploads and it looks like we're slowly filling in some gaps. State Patrol were never presented as a strong tag team on US TV. They did a couple All Japan tours and were weirdly dominant on one of them, getting a bunch of TV matches and winning all of them. It would be like Well Dunn or Disorderly Conduct going on an AJ tour and beating everyone's asses (Well Dunn/Southern Rockers kind of did this, and it was weird). I think the State Patrol gimmick would work even better today, the kind of gimmick that would make them faces or heels depending on what town they were in. House show in Missouri? Babyfaces. House show in Oakland? Heels. There has been a rotating group of at least 2-4 guys working a Border Patrol gimmick in the Bay Area dating back 25+ years. But seeing State Patrol working anywhere but America always strikes me as funny. I'm not sure if Adam-12 played in syndication in Puerto Rico, but it's safe to say that Buddy Lee and James Earl would have been heels by virtue of their whiteness anyway.

The match itself is essentially like most State Patrol WCW matches. When I was younger I thought Buddy Lee was the better half of the team, but I've been moved firmly into the James Earl camp the past few years (seems that's been a lifelong trend with me, originally liking Edge in '98 before quickly moving over to Christian, Jeff before moving over to Matt, Enos before moving over to Bloom, basically I never should have trusted my initial childhood/teen instincts about any tag team, ever). This is all armdrags, dropkicks, and punches, and that's fine. Buddy Lee looked a little off in this, stutter stepping a couple of armdrags and going for a weird move off the top where he just landed on Ricky Santana's knees (Santana was lying and facing the turnbuckles, meaning Parker was jumping directly on him like a mirror, so I have no idea what move I was supposed to think he was even doing). But James Earl was a real stud here, stooging for Gonzalez and Santana, getting infuriated from the apron (watch him take a silly leaping bump to the infield after getting knocked . I loved the spot where Santana was knocking back and forth between them with punches and back elbows, loved teen superstar Ray Gonzalez's little mustache, and loved the "WCW putting over their new Latin tag team" vibe of this match. It's like they saw what State Patrol were doing in Georgia and were like "yeah that will work here!" I can't wait for a Disorderly Conduct match to pop up in this Puerto Rico footage. It will happen.


Shinya Hashimoto/Kensuke Sasaki/Tadao Yasuda/Yuji Nagata/Junji Hirata vs. Shiro Koshinaka/Kengo Kimura/Kuniaki Kobayashi/Michiyoshi Ohara/Akitoshi Saito NJPW 2/11/96

PAS: New Japan 10 man elimination tags have been some of the most consistently excellent match styles in wrestling. This was sort of a lower end version of that but had some really fun moments.  I think some of the steam was out of the Heisei Ishingun feud at this point, but that crew has some fun dudes on it. Anytime you get to see Hashimoto rip shit is going to be cool, and I really enjoyed him coming in a clubbing guys, only to get blindsided by Koshinaka's rock hard tailbone. This had some of the problems that are endemic in elimination matches, where guys get eliminated by weak sauce stuff to keep it moving, but for a longish match it kept me pretty engaged.

MD: Very fun house show ten man elimination that doesn't rise to the level of the classics, with Nagata especially getting a ton of time to shine. They built him up early by having him survive a spike piledriver and have to fight hard out of the corner and then went in on him really hard after Hashimoto and Sasaki were eliminated. After he survived eating a wayward Hirata diving headbutt that was supposed to be a save and the subsequent Kobayashi fisherman's suplex, the fans really got behind him (though he'd fall soon after). Lots of good spots and sequences including a top rope double stomp train in the corner and a pretty elaborate set up for Hashimoto getting eliminated. While Hash was suitably larger than life in this setting, and Koshinaka his usual jerk self with butt butts coming from every direction, the match survived the two of them getting eliminated. The balance was a little off in general as can be the case with big elimination matches (the weight of some moves mattering less or more than they should), but they hit the underlying story well enough with enough peaks that it's hard to care too much.

ER: This was great fun, with a structure that is pretty hard to mess up. It was a little sloppier and loose than these things tend to be, but I like that loose atmosphere in a setting that can be stuffy. These matches always wind up having some unexpected heroes, or big contributions from unexpected sources. I really liked Yasuda here. He's a big lummox with a Mr. Potato Head, but he got given some cool moments to shine. He looked mammoth compared to everyone else, hit his nice big boot, big avalanche, great butterfly suplex, basically got to do his big spots before getting out of there. The double stomp train was awesome, and structured perfectly. They saved the two big dudes for last, so as I'm watching it I'm saying outloud "Oh yeah Hashimoto is doing it!! Wait YASUDA is doing it!?" Junji Hirata looked like a total beast, and he's a guy who ALWAYS looks like a total beast and should be talked about more when we have "what guys are total beasts?" conversations. He throws a ton of great clotheslines here, no sold a nut shot from Ohara (who threw out a couple nut shots here) and it's pretty clear from watching him that this was the guy that Kensuke Sasaki became a few years later. When I looked at these 10 guys I was not expecting Koshinaka and Hashimoto to disappear so early, but I love when these matches let others shine. They gave the stage to Yuji and he's the whipping boy for the first half and then gets to come out on first on the second, throwing exploders and overhead suplexes, his kappo kick is perfect, just lighting up anyone who tests him. Saito was a disappointment, felt like half of his kicks missed, and missed at the worst time. The finish run of a 30 minute match is not the time to be pulling kicks, but Saito whiffed on three straight and the crowd got noticeably restless. Really took the air out of what should have been a fun finish. Still, this was a 30 minute match that did not feel at all like 30 minutes, and there was far too much good to let Saito's iffy kicks mess it up.

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New Footage Friday: TEMPERS! PRIMO! CANDIDO! HASH! TAYLOR!!

Shinya Hashimoto/Col. Brody/Wojtek Polanski vs. Franz Schuhmann/Dave Taylor/"Herkules" Greg Boyd  CWA 7/8/89

MD: This was a lot of fun. It felt looser than a normal tag, like how falls come more easily in a Survivor Series match. I've been veering away a bit from Col. Brody in all of the new footage we've gotten and maybe that's been a mistake. He was pretty engaging and dynamic here. This was a relatively unique setting for Taylor and he was more of an energetic babyface than I'm used to, but he played the role well. I loved the hair-pull/mustache-pull spot at the start especially because I thought the latter would come out of the headlock but they delayed it for just an extra moment. Hashimoto was cartoony in the best way. It's a shame we only had a little bit of him vs Taylor but, for the setting, it was just what you'd expect. The shift in wrestling norms because of how much they were trying to fit into a short period of time was a little jarring, but I'd certainly like to see a few more of these.

PAS: Really fun heel team here, Polanski is a guy I hadn't seen before, but was a big mustachoed bruiser with good clubbing forearms, Brody had good shtick too, and Hashimoto is an all time great. He is hamming it up a bit, but we do get an awesome spin kick to the gut and some big chops. Taylor as a big time babyface tag wrestler was nifty, he was a super versatile wrestler who could do a lot of different things. I loved his double monkey flip, an awesome Tommy Rogerish spot. It felt like they packed a lot in 10 minutes, and could have used some time to stretch out, but I really enjoyed it.

ER: This didn't do much for me. All the quick easy pins made it feel like a joyless version of an All Japan battle royal, where if someone fell onto their back they were automatically pinned. In this match it didn't matter what put them on the mat, if anything at all caused them to fall on their back, they were toast. There were small pleasures to be found, sure. I'm not sure I've ever seen Hashimoto work so silly, hitting a great spinkick under Taylor's chin and then giving us some "Look at my Japanese karate" poses after, including a karate crotch chop? Dave Taylor was a fired up babyface and I really wish we could have devoted this time to a Dave Taylor singles match against any one of the heels. Taylor had an awesome moment in the turnbuckles where he tied up Brody with a body vice, Brody breaks it, and Taylor grabs a headscissors and flings Brody over the top to the floor. Brody is a guy I'd like to see more, as he plays - in size and shape - exactly like Col. DeBeers, but without the stooging bumps. He's got a great big mustache and we get a fun bit of Taylor really gripping those handlebars before being scolded by the ref. Wojtek Polanski looked like a gassed Santa and has the most Polish wrestler name possible. Sadly, we don't have much footage of him, as his helicopter crashed when the Polish pilot got hot and decided to turn the fan off.

Eddie Colon vs. Chris Candido WWC 7/03

MD: This was a really good TV match to further the feud and set up Stacy Colon being in Eddie's corner at a bigger show. Despite that and despite the fact that there was a pretty sparse looking crowd which the audio mixing muted even further, they went really big. We're talking early tope, springboard placha, suplex from the apron to the floor that Candido shouldn't have been taking, missed flipping senton off the top big. Big. Primo was 21 and had been wrestling for a couple of years but not everything looked super smooth, but he had the right idea in general. Candido was great, very giving before his cut offs and perfectly sound in weaving in the bigger 2003 spots and stooging just as much as he should against this particular opponent and not a bit more. I love how he worked in a blatant low blow just because he was wrestling in PR and that was the language down there. My favorite spot in this was probably Colon's big moment at the end where he blocked a powerslam off the ropes (which was the move that gave Candido a fairly early advantage) and hit a standing tornado DDT (which is something he got jammed on in the corner earlier) was a nice little callback/payoff. I thought Tammy was excellent here, both in being completely engaged and supportive on the floor and her reaction to finding out Colon's sister was going to be involved in the rematch, but Candido had the best line when he griped that Colon was ruining his "happy, happy home."

PAS: Candido is really the guy you want in 2003 to lead a green highflyer through a match. We get Chris in his Terry Funk pants and he isn't full Funk but does his share of bumbling and bumping. I especially liked the tailbone bump to the floor off the rana, and I imagine much of Primo's big spots would look much worse if there wasn't a consummate pro there to run interference. I think we would have been better off with a little more brawling and shtick and 20% less moves, but 2003 Primo clearly wanted to do ROH.

ER: I love the YouTube thumbnail for this, which looks like someone interrupted Candido and Sunny while they were at lunch. Watching Candido in his final couple years is a real bummer, as he seems kind of on auto pilot but then seeing him in the ring on auto pilot it was clear he had a lot left. He had all of these sequences down pat and clearly lead this from bell to bell. Eddie was really young but had a nice left hand and some fearless lean into spots, and I would have liked to see him utilize that left hand a lot more. Candido bumbling around from that left could fill an entire match, but Candido opted to fill it with a lot of offense. Candido wastes Eddie on an early powerbomb (kinda surprising he'd go to that so early in a match), drops him with a couple Germans, hits a great tope, and Eddie flies into everything. Eddie had some real big misses, including a corkscrew moonsault to nothing and running headlong into a Candido clothesline. Sunny was the one really on fire here, she had every single ringside move nailed, had a perfectly timed spot where she yanked Eddie's legs, jumped into the ring to break up a pin by rubbing the ref's face in her chest (even though it looked like the ref was just expecting her to grab his arm, funny if she opted for face to boobs as an audible), and shrieks advice to Chris. Candido splats nicely on bumps, peaking with a huge bump over the top that lands him right on his ass on the hard ground. This made me curious about what other dad bod era Candido gold might be out there, as I've really only seen him in IWA and TNA, didn't even realize he was working Puerto Rico. Stick around for the Sunny/Chris promo after the match (where that YouTube thumbnail came from) to watch them work an amusing comic heel promo.

Andrew Alexander vs. Shaun Tempers Empire Wrestling 2/10/14

MD: For the most part, this was the sort of chain match that you hope all chain matches are and only about half ever become. There was no corner touching. It was pinfall or submission. The blood came early as Alexander wasn't about to put up with Tempers' antics. The chain was teased with big whips at the start but then used immediately thereafter and used often. They had some clever spots but nothing that took you out of the idea that they were trying to hurt each other, including a chain assisted running plancha which actually made for one of the most believable dives ever, as Tempers had nowhere to go. There couldn't have possibly been a cleaner heel/face divide with both wrestlers acting appropriately, with Tempers getting advantage through a lucky reversal or distraction. Unexpectedly, I didn't love Alexander's punches. They felt pretty out of place in a match where everyone was using the chain as a weapon. Not a big thing in the grand scheme though. The finish was maybe a bit much too, with a ref bump, a couple of phantom pins, and interference that would have made more sense in context, but the chain assisted neckbreaker and Alexander's spastic selling were both picture perfect for the match.

PAS: These GA Indy feds really know how to run gimmick matches, we have reviewed some great War Games from this area and this is an old school dog collar match done right. Alexander takes it to Tempers early and opens him up, with Tempers able to get some advantages through viciousness and dastardliness. They never got too fancy, with a couple of big spots, Alexander doing this great counter of a posting attempt, and the dive Matt mentioned working great. Mostly this was just old fashioned chain assisted violence, and while I agree they probably didn't need the gaga at the finish, that neckbreaker with the chain was a killer finish. At some point I need to just do a giant deep dive into GA indy wrestling.

ER: This was great, and while watching it dawned on me how entirely absent this type of match is from the current wrestling landscape. There is a major absence of matches involving one man hitting another man with fists and choking him with a big chain. We added a great dog collar match to our 2020 MOTY List, but that was very much a blown out 2020 indy epic masquerading as a dog collar match. That match felt more like the multi stipulation Hacksaw/Sawyer match than "merely" just a dog collar match. At the other end of the spectrum we have death match wrestling making a curious head poke into mainstream acceptability, and yet nobody out there is just running a straight up dog collar match. This cuts out all the bullshit, no touching corners, just touching fist to face and wrapping that chain painfully around your opponent. Alexander really felt like a guy working a dog collar match in 1986, as he had great punches (left AND right hands), an awesome kneelift, took a gigantic fast bump over the top (even crazier when compared to Tempers much more sane bump to the apron later), and hits a bonkers no hands dive over the top as a fantastic late match highspot. There were some unnecessary shenanigans at the end, a ref bump and a ball shot and a stopped ref count when he notices Alexander came out of his collar, but the finish itself was excellent. After the ball kick from Tempers, he wraps the chain tight around Alexander's throat, and the panicked selling from Alexander was so good that it made me question just how anybody would have actually known if that chain was too tight or not. Tempers gives him a vicious Rude Awakening, snapping that chain wrapped throat over his shoulder, and Alexander does a great convulsive sell during the pin. This really captured the feeling of classic dog collar matches, the kind of match that looks even better now than when it happened.


2014 MOTY MASTER LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SHINYA HASHIMOTO

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New Footage Friday: LOS TALIBANES!! NICHO!! SANTO!! SATANICO!! HASHIMOTO!! OHARA!!

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Michiyoshi Ohara / Shinya Hashimoto/Masahiro Chono vs. Kengo Kimura/Tatsutoshi Goto NJPW 11/24/93

PAS: Japanese wrestling gang fights are some of my favorite types of wrestling matches and this was a great example. These are technically two matches, but basically one big fight with the pajama clad Heisei Ishingun guys hurling chairs and brawling with New Japan trainees while guys fight in the ring. Hashimoto is awesome in these kind of matches, he is prowling around the ring like a Rottweiler on a chain waiting to go fuck someone up. Goto was really great in this too, walking through Chono's kicks, and then KO Chono with a nasty suplex and staring down Hash while pinning him. Then of course post match all hell breaks loose again, and we get another rumble. I can imagine this stuff would have been incredible to watch live, and is pretty great to watch on a blurry handheld too.

MD: We've had our share of handhelds from this era of NJPW and the Heisei Ishingun stuff is all pretty glorious chaos. You can put yourself in the mindset of being in that crowd, living your life, toiling through the drudgery of your day, and then getting to bathe in this wild abandon at night. We have two matches here with the Fujinami one having been out there; I can't any sign of the tag being previously available. They all stream together like some sort of ECW bedlam, though, so we grouped them. As such, you can't really rate something like this like you would a normal match. What stuck with me afterwards was the swarm of purple gis, Chono getting tossed outside and chaos ensuing, Hashimoto getting held back by the ref, and the litany of kicks to the face, with the crowd fully lost in the turbulence of all of it.

ER: Ohara is already a noted New Footage Friday shit disturber, as last year we checked out a handheld from about a week after this that saw Hashimoto and Ohara going at it on a house show. Ohara's purple gi boys clashed big with Hashimoto's black jumpsuit young boys, and this match was an earlier iteration of Ohara's purple gi gang causing trouble. Hashimoto waging war on Heisei Ishingun is guaranteed Segunda Caida content, a guy who really conveys "man representing his side in war" better than most other legends. I really loved Ohara and Goto throughout this. Ohara is a guy with big strikes and imposing body language, big suplexes, and Goto works as kind of a less dominant version of Ohara. There is always some kind of commotion happening on the floor before, during, and after these two matches, constant pull aparts and chases down aisleways; and while I didn't find it as high end or as intense as some of the other gi guy brawls, the atmosphere for those is still always special.

El Hijo del Santo/Atlantis/Lizmark/Mr. Niebla/Ultraman Jr. vs El Satanico/Pirata Morgan/Black Warrior/Rey Bucanero/Arkangel de la Muerte CMLL Japan 9/24/98

PAS: This is a boatload of the greatest luchadores ever (along with awesome journeymen like Ultraman and Arkangel) given a lot of time to work a cool cibernetico. Like most ciberneticos we open with 8 or 9 really cool individual exchanges, Arkangel and Niebla do a bit of stooges comedy, Santo and Rey Buccanaro do a fast rope running exchange topped off with a great plancha, Black Warrior breaks out his all time great tope. Eventually the rudos take over and we get Atlantis and Lizmark outmatched and having to take on a bunch of rudos. We get some great Satanico vs. Lizmark sections which is an all time great feud we don't have a ton of footage on. The cibernetico format leads to a little more spottiness then an all time great lucha match, but this gets a ton of time to breath and it always great to see more of these guys.

MD: Apparently, we only had this in part before, but it's such an amazing array of talent, and structured pretty perfectly. There's some heated Morgan/Satanico frustration before and after (and it gets violent with collateral damage after) but it doesn't really impact the match itself. Early on, Niebla is so dynamic, Bucanero so daring and experimental (to the point that even when it doesn't work you give him full marks for effort), and Ultraman and Arkangel with unique connections to this particular crowd, and the action is all good. Eventually it settles down to 5-on-3, and since you have Santo, Lizmark, and Atlantis as the three surviving tecnicos, it feels like the most iconic thing imaginable. While you sort of wish Santo made it to the end instead, Atlantis' star power and presence was unmistakable here.

Bestia Salvaje/Emilio Charles Jr/Scorpio Jr vs Nicho/Damian 666/Halloween Tijuana 3/16/02

PAS: This match was a wager match with the captains hair being on the line. I am not sure if La Familia de Tijuana were technically rudos at this point in TJ, but this was worked like a rudo vs. rudo brawl with the Los Talibanes being super rudos (we are talking about 6 months after 9/11 here). 2002 Nicho was an all time bump freak, and he takes one of his signature ringpost tackle bumps and a crazy flip dive. Bestia was losing his hair here and was wrestling like it, he does this super cool almost cannonball style tope and spend much of the match covered in blood exchanging nasty slaps with Halloween. There is a little ref bump and interference shenanigans, this is Tijuana, but it is mostly six grizzly brawlers pounding on each other, which is exactly what you hoped this matchup would be.

MD: This was by the books, but with a thousand flourishes. Crotch-chopping, local hero Nicho isn't my favorite career version of Psicosis, but they were so over, so engaged, worked hard, and carried themselves with such star power. The primera was all rudo beatdown, the segunda had the comeback, the tercera was the back and forth, the dives, the finish, and that structure gave the swagger and violence and attitude meaning and depth.

ER: I would have been completely into this match had it been nothing but Bestia Salvaje throwing perfect dramatic back row right hands to Nicho and Halloween. I've been to see Tijuana lucha live several times, the atmosphere and arena are the best, and had I been there that night (I was there for dates right before and not far after this) I would have been jumping up and down watching Bestia 80% of the time. Luckily our camera man had that same level of interest, and nobody could have possibly disagreed. Bestia was a total force here, just slapping people around the entire match. His overhand chops and big shots to the face were making consistent loud contact the entire match, with Halloween especially taking the brunt of his attacks. We even built to a mammoth Bestia tope where he crashes full speed head-and-shoulder first into Halloween, just an absolute bleeding legend. I'm surprised Matt doesn't rate local hero era Nicho, as I'm a big fan of that era. Maybe because I saw him live? I don't think so, because every TJ handheld we have of him during this era shows a man not slowing down and working as hard as ever in front of hot crowds but no cameras. I've seen him take some of his wildest bumps on TJ shows, and you've probably seen Nicho take some bumps before. Here he gets insane distance on his ringpost bump, flying out so far past the post that I assumed he was doing an insane tope. Nope, just Nicho bumping like a lunatic. Scorpio and Charles were really good goons for Bestia's star power asskicking, Scorpio always there with a boot to break up a nearfall and Charles dropping elbows and doing silly buckled knee selling on clotheslines, Scorpio bleeding quality amounts of blood while threatening ringside fans who throw drinks on him. The nearfall sequence between Bestia and Halloween in the tercera was really high end, fast cradles and quick reversals that lead to several believable close pins, including Charles and Scorpio yanking the ref out at the perfect time of a sure pin. I'm not sure why we haven't dove in and reviewed all of these early 2000s TJ handhelds, as this really feels like the hottest era for that territory. 

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There Ain't No Better Way of Killing Time Than Loving Tony Halme

Tony Halme vs. Shinya Hashimoto NJPW 12/26/90 - GREAT

ER: Upload King Roy Lucier just helped me fill in a gap in my Halme viewing, but giving us the very first Hashimoto/Halme "Different Style Fight". We still (to my knowledge) don't have his Soul Taker fight, but having the first Hash fight is great. And this is a match that relies mostly on Hashimoto's facial selling, his body selling, and his powerful charisma. Halme was mostly in there as stoic Ivan Drago, immediately battering Hashimoto's body with huge hooking shots. Hashimoto was really theatrical here, going down from shots in big twisting twirling tumbles, holding his body while crying out in anguish, yelling out to ring boys for help when needed. Halme wasn't great at selling Hashimoto's shots, leaning back on the ropes while absorbing kicks, getting pushed across the ring by kicks before coming back with a haymaker; but with a charisma fireball like Hash doing the emotional work, Halme didn't need to be great at selling. He needed to come off like a T-800, a guy who was going to keep coming forward until his mission was complete. 

Hashimoto was great at peppering in big moments, keeping the crowd riled by throwing nothing but big kicks, including a great moment where he hits his rolling spin kick that bounces Halme off the ropes and tumbling back over Hash, but Hash can't capitalize due to tweaking his knee. And that knee becomes the great story of the rest of the fight, as Hashimoto gets more aggressive with takedowns (a big judo takedown starts the 3rd, and we get a terrific bit of physics involving Hash kicking Halme into the ropes, Halme rebounding back, and Hash staying low to use Halme's momentum to throw him. We got several strong visuals down the stretch, of Chono hurriedly taping up Hashimoto's knee during the round break, the sad final shots of Hashimoto unable to put weight on his leg so just absorbing shots while taking a knee, still trying to figure out a way to win before the stoppage. Had I been in the crowd, I would be dying to see the return fight. You know Hashimoto wouldn't be the type to blame the loss on his knee, but every fan there was thinking "If he didn't come up limping after that one kick, Halme would have had no chance". Their Different Style rematch wouldn't happen for another 9 months.

Tony Halme/Bad News Allen/Scott Norton vs. Shinya Hashimoto/Riki Choshu/Keiji Muto  NJPW 4/16/92 - GREAT

ER: I could watch trios matches like this on an endless loop and never be bored with pro wrestling ever. Throw together 6 guys of various talent levels, let them do their thing for 10-15 minutes, it's a pretty tough formula for pros to screw up. And this is a match filled with cool pairing possibilities, I like seeing every one of these nine potential match-ups, and they all ruled. They all know exactly what they're doing (well, maybe except Muto, who flips into the ring pre-bell and almost falls on his face, but saves it by continuing the bit and purposely stumbling while throwing his shirt to the crowd), and before the ring intros Halme starts slowly making his way over to the babyface side of things, trying to silently intimidate, and Choshu is having none of it and slaps him the second he gets too close. And again, all the pairings in this are cool. It starts with Norton and Choshu, and Norton is already such a clear star that the crowd is chanting for HIM instead of Choshu! They run into each other with hard lariats (as you'd want) and Norton drops a heavy ass elbow. Bad News and Muto do some really fun hip toss exchanges, and the crowd is already buzzing when it's clear Hash and Halme are going to throw down. 

They do their whole thing: Halme throwing big hooks to the body, Hash flying back with kicks, and I love the violent grace that Hashimoto's spinning heel kick whips through opponents, like a scythe through a wheat field. I really loved Bad News in this. He's the best kind of glue here and, at nearly 50 years old, that's appropriate as he will make fine glue at the factory. He's the dude breaking up submissions with multiple headbutts, he's the guy running distraction on the floor, he's the guy directing his two mammoth white goons to destroy the NJ favorites. Oh, and Allen's fistdrop off the middle rope was sublime. This was all about the gaijin separating Muto from his boys, and it was a great formula. The match honestly could have kept going this same was for another 20 minutes, there were still plenty of untapped match-ups. The abrupt go home ending is the only thing holding this back from being EPIC, as the in-ring was as much constant fun as it looks on paper. But, it was one of those "okay everyone suddenly swarm into the ring and pair off immediately, and don't save your partner in that sharpshooter 2 feet away from you" finishes that tend to happen in these matches. "Hey why did 4 of the 6 guys suddenly jump to the floor to brawl? Oh." Still, this was awesome.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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I Jump Into the Bed, Tony Halme's There Already Waiting for Me

Tony Halme vs. Shinya Hashimoto  NJPW 9/23/91 - VERY GOOD

ER: This was not as great as their other Different Style Fight that we have (and not many are), and Halme comes into this fight more bloated than I've ever seen him. It had been several months since his last New Japan appearance and he looked bigger than ever but not in a way that would necessarily benefit him. The gifts in this match definitely come the longer this match goes, as it's a round system and so the early parts have a lot of feeling out, getting distance, nobody overshooting in the first few minutes. We establish fairly early that Hash is going to wear him down with leg kicks, absorb some punches to get in close, and take him to the mat to work submissions. Halme is in boxing gloves and the KO blow is his only shot, but it's an impressive shot. Hash keeps at those leg kicks, throwing short shots to the inside of Halme's lead leg, and I love the way Halme sells them and how they start affecting him the longer the match goes. Distance is not his friend. Halme lands a couple of big shots in the 3rd, a nasty hook to the back of Hash's head, and a cool short jab that Hash didn't see coming. That jab might've been my favorite Halme shot of the match. We get a couple great rope break moments, with it not looking like Halme was guaranteed to get to the ropes either time, especially when Hashimoto sinks in a choke. Hashimoto's leg sweeps were a real highlight, each low kick getting a bit more of a reaction from Halme, with Hash putting him down hard with a short leg kick followed by an immediate sweep. When Hash lands that combo a second time he locks in what I thought was the for sure finish, sinking an Americana with Halme's toe barely finding the bottom rope. But that rope break was Halme's last gasp, as Hash comes up throwing high kicks, nails his spin kick, and then spikes Halme with a DDT, rolling his limp body over for the easy armbar finish. Halme wasn't as active in this one as in their prior fights, but it allowed the match to play out in different ways, making it a worthy entry in their feud.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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