Matches from AJPW 11/25/90: WALKING TALL DORY~! NO RESPECT DYNAMITE~! KIDNEY PUNISHING HANSEN/KAWADA~!

The Funks vs. Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith AJPW 11/25/90

ER:  A pretty amazing match that I had never seen, with four standout performances. It's so hard hitting, and these new All Japan Classics episodes showcase that in the best way. The sound on these episodes is incredible, and it puts you right in the middle of this high impact style. I can't imagine what it was like sitting front row for such a physical style as All Japan - let alone be a participant in it! -  but this video makes it feel like I was there 35 years ago. It's one of five Tag League matches smack in the middle of the show, and they kill each other and treat it like a match with actual stakes. It's an awesome Dory match and more evidence that Dynamite Kid's Winter 1990 is him at one of his highest levels. Dory comes off like the tougher, harder hitting Funk, an actual Cool Dory match. The match peaks with the Bulldogs working over Terry's Not As Damaged 46 year old legs in ways that contributed to Terry's Old Knees while Terry scrambles in half a dozen of the greatest attempts at making a hot tag, a face in peril to his big brother's ass kicking tough guy. 

Johnny Smith is at his absolute beefiest; Dynamite is at his most bitter and dangerous, a little guy starting the most violent fights at the bar. It's a great team. Dynamite looks angry the entire match, on the apron, in the ring, and treats Terry like an old man to be put to pasture. Terry works lighter to come off as vulnerable to loss as possible, and is at perhaps his most sexy. Sexy Terry working as Pretty Ricky. Ponytail Terry with his little mustache and the best body of his career. I love Hot Ponytail Terry in his Body Glove tights, and here's Dory in his blue trunks working stiffer than anyone in the match,  maybe anyone on the show (Eric's Note: Kawada and Hansen kick each other so hard in the kidneys later on the card that Dory Funk would have died so let's leave it to saying he worked stiffer than anyone in this match). It adds up to a middle of the card tag match that was worked as a small show main event. 

Listen to how hard they're all smacking each other! Dory's contact on his collar and elbow tie-ups with Johnny were the sound of bodies used to taking hits. When Dory is in against Dynamite, he hits him with uppercuts that are so hard that I don't think Kid had to sell his limbs all going numb. He looked shocked that Dory was hitting him so hard. He tees off hard on Smith and really looks like a mat expert going after Smith's knee and ankle. Everyone worked this super honestly, but Dory's work was the most honest and well executed of all. And here's Dynamite, the by far smallest man in the match and the guy who I'd least want to confront about anything. He goes after Terry with no respect. Maybe my favorite spot in the match, is when Terry is hitting Johnny with headbutt after headbutt before they both go down. Johnny goes down, Terry spirals down after, and the second Terry hits the mat Dynamite's eyes go wide and he scrambles up to the top rope to hit a headbutt to Terry's stomach. He pulls it off so hastily, making it look like a snap impulse, and his knees land full weight one inch from Terry's face. It looked so dangerous and was only one of the things that made this match play so tough. Dynamite is so geared up when he's in against Terry, that they even do a spot where Dynamite presses Terry off him on a kickout and Terry flies several feet from it, like Dynamite was Yokozuna. Dynamite kills Terry with clotheslines to the back of the head, throws him to the floor with a back body drop, and - most incredibly - drags him into a standing stretch muffler that blew me away. Dynamite's body had to be in constant agony and as he locked in the muffler and stood to his feet, clasping his hands while the much larger Terry was hanging upside down in a headstand, his pain was as palpable as any I've seen.  

The Bulldogs working over Terry's knee was some excellent third act cutting off the ring. Dynamite wanted that knee all match, and when he got it he was like a dog with a chew toy. He was slamming Terry's calf over his knee and it looked like one of the most violent pieces of work I've seen. Terry's selling was incredible, crawling and leaping towards Dory while Smith and Dynamite had to keep tackling and blocking. There were some nearfalls that got the big crowd to bite, like one of the most well-used and well-executed rolling inside cradles. Dory pulled the cradle and Smith rolled it over and the movement was so good that Yokohama bought in. Terry's win over Smith was so well done, as Dynamite had totally drained Terry and suddenly one of the biggest stars in wrestling history looked like he could be beaten by Johnny Smith. He has to resort to scrambling on top of Smith during a pinfall exchange and just weigh his body down. The Bulldogs looked like a tough vital team against two legends, and The Funks looked legitimately at the top of their abilities. 

Andre the Giant/Giant Baba vs. The Land of Giants AJPW 11/25/90

ER: Phil and I wrote about this match 7 years ago and I don't think I appreciated it enough then. It seems funny to say that I didn't appreciate an Old Andre match enough, as I think every single review of any Old Andre match I've ever written is me appreciating and analyzing every step he takes. I love the 1990 Tag League old broken but still proud Giants, and we should all be thankful that we got to see them against the worst Fake Road Warriors team ever assembled in a respected promotion. I cannot and will not say it is a great match, because it is not. The Land of Giants - Skywalker Nitron especially, specifically - are total cornballs. Nitron is the goofiest of all, almost surely the goofiest wrestler All Japan used in 1990. You're off the hook Richard Charland and David Sammartino. But part of what makes the match great, is that Andre and Baba know that these two are cornballs, and the gift that brings us is a very active Andre match. 

Andre is old but not nearly as old as he'd look in 1992. He was in the ring a lot against both cornballs and had a bunch of great ideas and ways to attack both of them. He looked really strong, even if Nitron sold some of his offense with the goofy acting only seen from people reading stories to small children in libraries. Andre looked like he had a lot of fun beating these two goofs up. He had two different cantaloupe fist punches, one while holding Nitron in a headlock and the other just thrown to the face and followed up with a NOAH worthy headbutt. He grabbed Masters in a knuckle lock and made it look like he was crushing his hand. The camera had a zoom in on Andre interlacing his fingers with Butch and his fingers were so big they looked like they were forcing Masters' fingers to break apart. It looks like something that would and did drop Masters to a knee. The best part is when he broke the knuckle lock by rearing back and punching Masters in the fingers. 

This match has Andre the fucking Giant holding Rob Zombie's Michael Myers in a bearhug. Freddy vs. Jason is my least favorite Nightmare on Elm Street movie and my least favorite Friday the 13th movie, but Andre the Giant vs. Michael Myers is a horror movie showdown we needed to see and I would have paid money to. There's no way I would have gone into that movie and gotten Andre keeping his bearhug locked in by pulling on The Shape's rattail. Moustapha Akkad wouldn't have had the guts. 

Stan Hansen/Danny Spivey vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Mitsuharu Misawa AJPW 11/25/90

ER: The Funks vs. New Bulldogs was a hard hitting match. Every open hand on chest and back landed with a loud crack and Dory Funk threw in a last hurrah before his 50s with a great Walking Tall badass role. It's great. But then two matches later Kawada and Hansen took such righteous anger out of each other's kidneys that it made me think *I* was going to piss blood. This is some of the toughest wrestling you'll ever see. Hansen is in full force of nature mode and he hits Kawada like a kid in training camp. Every chair, every shoulder, every godforsaken kick, was felt thoroughly. Hansen is such a force of nature, that you're not expecting Kawada to take such a force so head on. Kawada kicks Hansen back even harder and cracks baseball bat shots off the old cowboy's torso. Kawada makes such wicked contact that Hansen's pancreas selling looks like the man is learning how to sell a bruised pancreas in real time. Hansen is the best Train Running Off the Rails impacter in wrestling and it was amazing to see Kawada throw his whole body at a moving train. The finish is incredible and features one of the greatest low bridges I've ever seen. Misawa flies over the top rope with such speed that I jumped in the same way I do in the movies when a car gets unexpectedly T-boned. Spivey's team with Hansen took his timing to a really high level. Misawa is there one second and gone the next and as he's flying one direction, Hansen runs the other and knocks Kawada into the sky with a western lariat. Later, Doc and Gordy try to hit harder clotheslines on Taue in the main event and make fine cases. Later still, Jumbo and Taue outdo them all with their clotheslines to Gordy. It's show-long clothesline oneupmanship I can support. And then Jumbo gives Gordy another. 

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: R'N'R VS FOOTLOOSE~! BENITO GARDINI~! FALK~! HOUSTON~!

Benito Gardini/Al Williams vs. Cyclone Anaya/Walter Palmer NWA Chicago 5/26/50

MD: This was a delightful 27 minutes, with some clipping, but you get so much of it, you hardly care. My buddy Ohtani's Jacket got here first and said I'd love Gardini, and guess what, I do. He likened him to a 1950s Porky, and I can see that on appearance and over the top antics, but, of course, with a deep Italians stereotype. He was great at getting driven down on his face (at one point the commentary said his nose would soon be like a wet donut), at getting caught up in the ropes and on top of the ropes, jiggling along with them, at making faces, and most of all, at getting caught in crowd-pleasing heel miscommunication spots. Meanwhile, he's one of the only US based workers I've ever seen do the headspin escape out of a headscissors. Legitimately funny, great left handed body shots so he could lean on his opponent when he needed to, big bumps. Definitely a fan.

Williams was instantly credible, if only because he had tons of tattoos (commentary said he was a member of Rough and Ready, Inc. or Grief, Inc., just a real nasty character). He was game for feeding into all of the babyface offense and playing into all of the comedy spots, while still keeping a mean disposition and hitting hard, especially with forearms in the ropes. Palmer looked good with his escapes and a big forearm off the ropes but we probably saw more of Anaya who was flashy and fiery and had an abdominal stretch/cobra twist with a few variations that he'd use as a finish. This moved quickly and never wore out its welcome and I'm eager to see more Gardini.

Ricky Morton/Robert Gibson vs. Samson Fuyuki/Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 10/28/88

MD: Pretty sure that the match that has been out there previously was the 5/24/88 one that ends in a count out. This is not that. This is pretty hilarious. We've heard stories of what happened backstage between these two and I don't know about that one way or another. What I do know instead is that Morton and Gibson used their powers for evil on this night. They worked this thing like they were Jr. Versions of Brody with a little 92 Freebirds built in (the former eats the match; the latter eats the crowd). They took and they took and they took.

They really dominated for the first half, quick tags, winning rope running exchanges 80% of the time, constant appealing to the crowd with claps (which worked; the crowd was into them, Rock and Roll chants and all). More than that though, whenever Footlose did get something in, they were quick to fire back. In the second half it was somehow worse even though it should have been better. There was some nominal heat on Morton; he was always so good at using roll ups for his hope spots. He'd eat some offense, some beat down, and then give you hope of a win out of nowhere. Here, however, he used those roll ups but after every single spot done to him. It broke the flow completely in a way that made it seem like it was 50-50 and that he was never in any real trouble. The finishing stretch had some nice nearfalls but the finish itself was a bit of a banana peel with Fuyuki getting a hand up from the outside and one of the R'n'R basically running into it. They were ahead ten to one on points. Just a masterfully selfish performance. 

ER: This is the Rock n Rolls last ever match from the only Japan tours they did in the 80s. I thought this match was clean, man. I watched this match in a Portland Air BnB basement on a TV that had motion smoothing turned on (or off, whatever the bad one is that every single girl in her 30s has on the TV at her place, so when you go over and they're watching Heat or Below Deck: Australia it looks like a fucking soap opera) and I don't know if I've ever watched wrestling this way but it just might make handhelds even better. My sister watching Mandalorian and it looking like people wearing cosplay gear hanging out in a western saloon TV set didn't work for me, but feeling like I'm smack dab in the middle of this crowd on a hot tour closing night of wrestling. It's crazy that the Rock n Rolls hardly went to Japan. For a team I love more than almost any team in history, I guess I assumed Ricky was a guy working Japan more than a couple AJPW tours here, a couple FMW show there kind of guy. Because they seem perfect for Japan and now I understand why the Youngbloods and Fantastics had such sustained (and good!) runs as AJPW gaijin. 

Also, I had no idea what kind of backstage altercation there was between these teams until Matt told me something happened on one of these tours and Robert Gibson kicked Fuyuki in the face, so I thought this match was going to be worked in Bad Blood...but instead I thought this match was most notable for Robert Gibson working the entire match visibly using only one leg. Is Robert Gibson okay? Robert Gibson looked like he got roughed up and forced to wrestle one legged as humiliation, because every time he moved he was dragging his left leg straight behind him while hopping on his right. I remember seeing a 2000s AAA match where Pimpinela drug his leg the entire time and wondering if these guys are just psychos or they're the greatest salesmen in the world giving themselves a Jorgen Leth/Lars Von Trier  Five Obstructions Dogme 95 task of working a match within a personal challenge. Whatever was happening, this handheld, motion the smoothest it has ever been, had me feeling every shoulderblock and every bump, every kick, every perfectly downward angled Ricky Morton punch, the fucking 11/10 suicide dive Ricky does where his body truly feels like a weapon, this handheld had real live impact. And there was Robert Gibson, shaking his leg on the apron and trying his best not to put weight on it during his (much briefer than Ricky) in-ring interactions. That it was so exaggerated and not gone after in any way by Footloose makes it all the more jarring. Was his leg hurt and they were instructed to stay away from it? Kings Road is a style famous for exploiting shoot injuries of opponents. Years later in 2002 NOAH it felt expected that Kenta Kobashi made a big comeback after his knee injury only to have Jun Akiyama go after his knees so hard that Kobashi missed several more months with knee injuries. Is Gibson doing some kind of Teddy Hart phantom knee injury? To what gain and for what cause? Whatever, he kept it believably up for entire match without seemingly anyone else talking about it, and the match was still somehow the perfect 9 minutes of constant hard contact and no stopping for breath. The heat was up bell to bell with stiff work free from Bad Blood. Handheld wrestling is our greatest treasure. The purest presentation of the best eras of wrestling. 

Tony Falk vs. Barry Houston NWA Worldwide 5/11/00

MD: I came into this expecting Houston to bump all over the ring for Falk. We've seen enough of this Worldwide stuff to know that they didn't give away a ton on TV because they wanted people to come to the shows. Most matches didn't end in a finish. This went around ten minutes though with a commercial in the middle, and it was really Falk bumping around the ring for Houston. He'd rope run with him, would take armdrags and mares and back body drops. Of course, it was Tony Falk, so after every bump, he'd milk it, hang out with his manager, whine to the ref or the crowd, stall, and it was all highly entertaining stuff.

He'd complain about hairpulling too, which was heat-garnering since that was most of his offense through the match. Post-commercial he was in charge with a top wristlock, going to Houston's ponytail again and again. Eventually, after a Falk DDT (again nothing with a big bump), Houston started to fire back and hit one of his own. That set up a frog splash where he almost hit the ceiling. "Basket Case", being Mark Jindrak came in to take out the ref. I thought Houston was saving his bumps for Jindrak to get him over, which would have made sense, but he really only take a press up pancake before Falk leaped off the second rope at him. This had all the Falk I was expecting and more, really, but not nearly as much of those Houston bumps. From the bit of 2000 Houston I've seen, I do wonder if he wasn't working quite like he had a few years earlier.

ER: We have limited amounts of post-'99 Houston available so every match is a gift, and while I thought Houston looked like Barry Houston in this match, this was a Tony Falk show. Houston looked his most professional: His gear and body were the best he'd looked, but the window was already shut for whatever reason. He should have been given some kind of real TV role in 98/99 but it never happened to the degree we wanted, and here he is in Tennessee getting shown up by a Tony Falk who is in his early 40s, looks like he is in his late 50s, and moves like he's in his late 20s. Houston looks good, but it's also one of the few matches we have where he works "on top". We grew so accustomed to Houston bumping bigger than Kidman and leaning into beatings, that he's like a whole new wrestler when we see him work dominant. It's not bad, it's just different. 

But Tony Falk is the one who looks like a star. Well, let me rephrase that, because he looks like absolute shit. He looks like Eddie Marlin in the Cowboy Boot match had Eddie Marlin showed up really out of shape. Falk is wearing a singlet and you can tell he has just an awful body under that singlet. And yet, I was consistently surprised and impressed by how quickly he got up for everything. Falk was a real bumper here, body as bad as I've seen but speed undiminished. He took armdrags the way 1995 Barry Houston would take armdrags, went up for a backdrop, and sold punches perfectly. Houston has nice punches and Falk would bump every one of them as a one shot kill. I loved this great telegraphed missed punch Falk threw, holding up his fist, kissing it, and then of course sending it right past Houston's head. His begging off was great because it was less heel and more Tired Man. Gypsy Joe was at ringside for Houston and when Joe got involved we got our meanest punches of the match. Time to find more fat big bumping Tony Falk I guess. 

Read more!

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

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: TSURUTA-GUN~! VS~! SUPER~! GENERATION~! ARMY~! BARR~! DANDY~! PANTHER~! CHARLES~! ESTRADA~! RAYO~! HERMANOS DINOMITA~!

Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue/Masa Fuchi vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada/Kenta Kobashi NJPW 3/3/91 

MD: Oops, this one's on me guys, sorry. There was a big dump of handhelds that came into the community back in 2018 and it was a lot to parse through. Over the years, we've covered a lot here, and I'd had reached out to all the usual tape trading subjects from years past to see what was really new (albeit with little interest from them who have all moved on) but sometimes something I thought had already been out there actually wasn't. And this wasn't. So, as best as I can tell, it's going to be a brand new Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs. Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi match that almost none of you (if not absolutely none of you) have ever seen. And it holds up with some of the best stuff of this period, quite frankly.

The whole thing is good but it probably peaks in the first couple of minutes. The match starts with Kobashi and Fuchi on the mat for a minute, including Kobashi's rolling cradle. Kawada comes in. They'd heated up Kawada and Taue pretty fierce in January and it was still going strong here, so Taue wants in (and Jumbo wants him in), Kawada immediately tags back to Kobashi like a true heatseeker and Taue sneaks in a cheap shot onto Kawada on the apron the first chance he gets. The crowd has come to like Taue by this point but there are no good guys here, just pure animosity, as shown by Kawada rolling back in, ignoring the fact that Kobashi and starting a massive early-match brawl with Taue that everyone has to break up. It's a hell of a way to start a match.

After that it settles down into the beats you'd expect: more Taue vs. Kawada, Misawa eating a beatdown and coming back with the forearm, Kobashi with the superman house afire hot tag until Jumbo shuts him down, both sides getting and advantage and comebacks as the cycle through the pairings, until they finally isolate Kobashi and crush him on an outside table (or in this case, on a chair that they put on a table). The heat on Kobashi is great after they start on the leg, with a Jumbo elevated half cab, a Fuchi STF, and a Taue Scorpion Deathlock, the fans chanting "Kobashi" the whole time. When he's finally able to get a hot tag of his own, there's this cool bit of stuttering alternating structure where they start on Taue only to cycle back to Kobashi (after a rocket launcher off the top to the floor) only for Fuchi to clip his leg out illegally back in the ring, only to do another comeback and cycle back to Taue. This all leads to the sort of high octane, extended finishing stretch you'd expect, including, maybe, the first time they do the combo Jumbo/Taue belly to back/top rope driving clothesline. Put simply, if this is something you like, and this feud is as universally liked as anything I can think of, there's a hell of a lot to like here.

ER: I was saving this one for my Saturday morning. Waking up, making some coffee, settling down to watch an unseen All Japan trios classic, and baby it was everything. This was an untaped Korakuen main event smack dab in the middle of a tour and these guys go so hard that any reasonable person would think this was an end of tour big show main. Everybody goes hard in this and the dynamics are incredible. 1991 Jumbo was my favorite Jumbo, Kawada and Taue fucking hate each other and are at each other's throats the whole match, Misawa was incredibly fast and aggressive and already knew how to carry himself as a superstar, every single person still had a vendetta against Kobashi's knees, it's all incredible. There isn't a single lull in the action at any point, it's all go go go with quick tags and constant oneupmanship. 

The way Tsuruta-Gun went after Kobashi's knees it's a damn miracle the man made it nearly a decade before the knee surgeries started piling up. They're all real dickheads about it, but the best is when Fuchi runs in with a dropkick right to the knee pit...or was it when Jumbo buckled it with a mule kick to the ACL...or was it when Jumbo was holding Kobashi damn vertically in a single leg crab? A real Dickhead's Choice. Taue threw some of the hardest clotheslines of his career, really shutting down some bullshit, and I flipped my lid when he leveled Misawa with a tope suicida after Misawa had leapt off the apron with an elbow into Jumbo's jaw. I don't think I've ever seen Kobashi get thrown with a Rocket Launcher to the floor, just one other thing that's nuts to see on an untaped house show. It's cool that Misawa was a better kicker than Kawada in 1991. Kawada had the same kick routine here that he would continue to hone and improve as the decade went on, but the variety and impact of Misawa's kicks made this look like his peak attack level, setting everything up with kicks and then sealing the deal with elbows. Jumbo's kitchen sink knees looked organ-rearranging, and he threw Misawa with a bodyslam that looked and sounded so painful that all 2,100 people in Korakuen made the exact same pinched face "oooooooooof" reaction. Six legends bringing real emotion and high energy and hate-filled stiffness for 30 minutes in my favorite wrestling style of all time? It's all I wanted. 

Love Machine/El Dandy/Panterita del Ring vs. Blue Panther/Emilio Charles Jr./Jerry Estrada CMLL  5/3/92?

MD: Some great stuff in here even though it was a twenty minute video that went more like fifteen instead of the thirty that went twenty-two and gave us the pairings that I really wanted. Obviously it was a perfect rudo side. My experience with Panther and Love Machine is more the mask match and what followed elsewhere, so it surprised me that Barr was more over with the crowd. The announcers noted that the dynamic had been different in Mexico City for the mask match and tried to explain it.

This had an ambush/comeback/beatdown/comeback sort of structure which was fitting a lot into the time and it never quite settled down. We got glimpses of great things though, Panther running from a fiery Love Machine, Dandy's awesome, awesome cracking punch and the not equal but still great and very different thudding punches of Charles and Estrada. When Barr finally got his hands on Panther, he was really able to tear into him (and tear off the mask). Estrada hit the usual ridiculous dive into the crowd. The ref was the same one we've been seeing who was very hard on the tecnicos and missed the cheating. Charles and Panterita really only got to pair up after the dives and that looked fine, with Charles faking a foul (he'd previously done one of his own). Post match, when Panterita was beside himself at the unfair loss, Estrada walked right over and yanked his mask off hilariously. I wish it had a little more to it but you can't fault any of the action here.

ER: I love that this was the standard for a throwaway weekly trios match in 1992. This adds a new layer to the Blue Panther/Love Machine feud and I don't think I've ever heard a weekly crowd respond so positively to Love Machine before this. Blue Panther as a cheapshot artist who can also wrench you on the mat was probably my favorite era of Panther (even those I do love old man tecnico Panther) but it was eye opening seeing how big the tecnico reactions were any time Love Machine started to wail on Panther, culminating in a tremendous tope suicida that flattens a few people in the front row. Dandy and Estrada worked magic any time they crossed paths, but somehow Panther and Love Machine outpunched them here. I wish we could have seen more Panterita Del Ring. The man worked differently as Safari and then evolved into Ephesto, but as Panterita he could really cut loose and we only got a little taste of that here, as he was the clear 6th banana of the match, and Estrada's perfect unmasking of him after the match only made that status more concrete. This was the perfect kind of unearthed lucha match to just devour like junk food. 

Rayo de Jalisco Jr/Mascara Sagrada/Black Magic vs. Los Hermanos Dinamita (Cien Caras, Mascara Ano 2000, Universo 2000) CMLL 5/17/92

MD: A weird moment in time as a chunk of these guys were main eventing the AAA debut show right around (maybe even two days before) this match. This immediately followed a tribute to Rene Guajuardo, who, among all of his other accolades had trained and promoted in this area, and had just passed away. The match itself made me wish for the tecnicos from the last match.

When they got to the beatdown in the segunda and the tercera comeback that followed, it was pretty good. You can count on the Dinamitas to beat people around the ring and Cien Caras to be a charismatic ass about it. That played into the comeback as well where Rayo could play the other half of that song well enough. The primera exchanges and the crowd-pleasing spots in the end to led up to the foul on Rayo and the DQ, though? Not so great. Again, you can count on the rudos here to get some good shots in (like Cien Caras' hopping knee to the gut) and there was one fairly decent Mascara Ano 2000 and Mascara Sagrada exchange. Black Magic looked best on the tecnico side, charging into things and asserting himself. This late in the game and after all of the animosity of the beatdown and coemback, I wasn't really feeling the multiple headlocks/la estrella/flip-flop submissions like I might have otherwise. Maybe it really was time for the change that was coming. Maybe it was just that some of these guys were focused on the next thing.

Read more!

Five Years of Found Footage Friday: EARLIEST KOBASHI~! KAWADA~! A SAWYER~! A MICHAELS~! ARAI~! SATO~!

MD: We started this on May 25, 2018 given the weekly footage we were getting from the WWE Network and the wellspring of handhelds that were popping up from Japan ebay. Somehow, amazingly, we've kept it up for five whole years, at least three matches a week. It went from being New to being Found, but that's more for the alliteration than to smooth the possibility that some of this stuff had been out there before. While yes, some had, there's no downplaying just how amazing it is that we have been able to find three new matches a week, without fail, for five years. And that's with us first consolidating French Catch and now the Panamanian Lucha to Tuesdays. Let's face it, we live in remarkable times. In some ways, while getting all the way through the French footage was an accomplishment, us being able to find things to watch that have been outside of our broader community week in and week out for five whole years is more of a challenge. It's not all in one place. Someone posts it. We find it. We vet it. We expand the  knowledge of what's been out there. It represents the ethos of the blog as much as anything; digging in the crates, leaving no stone unturned, watching matches that might not pass some sort of old conventional wisdom test to ascertain their quality, spreading the news far and wide. The master list is mostly updated. We plan on foraging on so long as there is still footage to be found. Hopefully people have enjoyed this. Hopefully people find it useful and interesting. 

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi AJPW 8/30/88

MD:  It's just the first encounter between Kobashi and Kawada. It's just the earliest full match on tape of Kobashi. Totally outside our circle until the last year or two. No big deal right? And hey, it's good. Or at least, it's good for the experience level at play. There's a certain pluckiness to Kobashi here, a certain creativity towards the finishing stretch, certainly a willingness to lean into Kawada's kicks. Most of his offense is the sort of inexperienced technical stuff you'd expect: dropkicks, cross-bodies, a very fun short arm scissors. Kawada, meanwhile, was more fully developed, quick to throw kicks or just take Kobashi's head off with a back elbow or the clothesline that ended it. They played with the spin kicks, with Kawada missing as many as he hit. They worked in a missed body press and senton. Kobashi tried to contain Kawada by working his arm but it didn't help him against the kicks. Raw talent but full of potential. You get the sense watching this that these two were outright refusing to work the typical undercard match and that, as time would go on, they would absolutely refuse to be constrained. Kobashi had been a fan who refused to take no for an answer and in Kawada he had a game partner to stretch the rules. Even this early, there was an inkling of what was to come. 

ER: Nothing like a Kobashi vs. Kawada match as we all remember them: Kobashi in his classic blue trunks, Kawada in his classic red tights, just the classic Kobashi Blue vs. Kawada Red. As Matt said, this is the earliest Kobashi match we have in full on tape. And I love these early matches of favorites, because we get to see them working completely different from any era where people know them. Kobashi works like a full on young boy, with painful arm work and a snug short arm scissors, some crossbody blocks, and a super impactful back bump missile dropkick. Kawada was my favorite worker in the world for a stretch, but I do not and have not ever liked Footloose Kawada. Here, Kawada works literally exactly like young Misawa, like they were just trying to make a Misawa clone and Kawada was like 0.7 Misawa. Kawada threw sidekicks and a leaping solebutt almost exactly like Tiger Mask Misawa, hit a full weight senton exactly like him (which lead to a great moment later when he ducks a middle buckle Kobashi crossbody and then barely misses him with a senton which he had hit earlier). 

Kobashi works over Kawada's arm for 2/3 of the runtime - you know, all those matches where guys target Kawada's infamously lethal left arm and not his legs - and the arm work is painful enough that I don't really care that it has nothing whatsoever to do with the finishing "moves" stretch. Kobashi is someone I think had kind of middling stomach kicks, so it was cool seeing an 80-matches-in Kobashi just haul off on Kawada's arms with kicks thrown exactly like his stomach kicks, only really good. Kobashi's crossbodies land heavy and he leans into and bumps for offense differently than he would just a few years later. His bumping is faster and more upended, exciting. When Kawada lands a couple of his spinkicks (the ones thrown like Misawa spinkicks, not Kawada spinkicks) Kobashi gets just rocked with them, flying out with his heels in the air. Kawada's back elbow kind of whiffs (which could have been due to Kobashi bumping big and slightly early for it) but his clothesline is a 100% finisher level clothesline. Kobashi worked that left arm all match, forgetting that Kawada can hook that man's neck with impressive force with the right. What a clothesline. 

Bart Sawyer vs. Chris Michaels (Dog Collar) USA Pro 2001

MD:  So much of this worked for what I was looking for that I'm going to lead with what didn't work: 1.) While Sawyer bled plenty, Michaels didn't bleed despite the violence probably warranting it. There was a spot towards the middle where he went soaring into the ringpost. While I would have preferred the chain to open him up, I would have gladly accepted that doing it and then the chain serving as a focal point to woundwork. We got neither. 2.) The chain was too long. That had its pros and cons. It allowed for a few nice spots, including Sawyer pulling Michaels off the top to the floor into a dive. It meant that there was a ton of slack for hanging attempts or wrapping it around the fist or elbow and it allowed for crotchings in key moments. On the other hand, it took away from that intimate sense of desperation where the two parties just can't get away from one another that you expect in a dog collar match. This lacked that sort of close-quarters atmosphere. 3.) There was no finish; the New South came out to hang both wrestlers instead. But that's TN wrestling for you. It had to lead to the next thing. Between this and the Wildside channel we get bits and pieces of the Sawyer/Michaels feud and never all at once, so I'm not entirely sure what led up to this and where it was going, but this definitely would have made me want to buy a ticket to see what happened next. It just didn't make for the most compelling ending twenty years later.

As for what absolutely worked, the transitions were all great. Whenever there was a shift in momentum, it stemmed from either a mistake, an opportunistic moment, or just Michaels powering through and fighting back. They were varied and creative and used the chain well. They kept it moving. They kept it violent. The chain added to the match but it wasn't the entirety of it and sometimes, trying to utilize it too much backfired. It was a living, existent entity within the match just like you'd want it to be, and the hate and disdain between Michaels and Sawyer bled through, and not just through Sawyer's lacerated forehead. So not a perfect dog collar match, but certainly one with a lot going for it.

Kenichiro Arai vs. Yasushi Sato Mutoha Wrestling 11/3/20

MD: Grappling worked about as hard as grappling can be worked interspersed with larger than life yet entirely stoic character flourishes out of Arai. Sato had the intensity advantage, the striking advantage, probably the grappling advantage, but Arai's developed into a tricky bastard. Early on that'd just be a refusal to engage. By the middle, he'd be missing knee drops off the top and selling his knee to lure Sato into a figure-four so he could immediately turn it over and gloat. And then, towards the end, he'd just outright go for a eye. For most of it, though, he was cool, calm, and collected, biding his time, patiently waiting for a mistake or an opening, while goading Sato forward into either. Despite that, by the end of this, he was a sweaty mess, just a testament to how hard they were going and how much work, torque, and struggle was put into each and every hold. This was a Sebastian special but it was a great middle ground between pure technique and pure shtick.

ER: Kenichiro Arai is one of many criminally underwritten-about wrestlers in Segunda Caida's history. For a guy I've liked throughout his whole career, you wouldn't really know that by reading us. But he's great, and he's wrestled constantly with no kind of break since my teens, and no matter what fed he's spent time in he has always come across as someone wrestling and moving completely unlike anyone else in that fed. From his beginnings as weird headbutt offense guy in Toryumon, to his current vibe of grease monkey who moonlights as a carnival wrestler, he's stood out in unique ways the whole time. He moves and reacts differently. Moving differently is cool. Remember when all of us saw Johnny Saint for the first time and instantly knew that the reactions and timing was different? Kenichiro Arai moves different, and so, does offense differently than anyone. He works a busy yet simple style, acting calm while pushing the match in his direction; stylish, without style. He can grab a wrist or foot and not necessarily work a hold like Fujiwara, but just kind of twist and grip without letting up. Strong Grip based wrestling. 

The feeling out process is cool and has cool little things that you don't see, like Arai catching a dropkick to the ribs while sliding into a dropdown, or the way he just kind of knocks Sato down with a close shove and trip, like messy shootstyle. In fact, a lot of this match is pro wrestling style as theatrical shootstyle. They never treat it like shootstyle, but there's a sincerity in selling the pro wrestling holds that makes this come off as important. Sato is Mutoha's ace and in Arai he's up against a guy who's blowing into town for the first time and already working as the established ace. That gives things a cool energy. There are a lot of convincing cradled pins, and things jump up a level when Arai misses - intentionally or not - a kneedrop off the top. His missed kneedrop leads to an actual dramatic and painful looking figure 4 exchange, where he suckers Sato into doing one that he instantly reverses (complete with finger pointed to temple), before Sato reverses it back and it leads to a series of painful submissions. Grapevined legs, rolling heel hooks, a nicely leveraged trailer hitch, all of them looking like straight pro wrestling but with a BattlArts sensibility. Also, an excellent standing sub into a fought-for back suplex plainly shows that there is absolutely NO give in this ring, as Arai drops Sato in a way that makes it look like he was suplexed in a parking lot. How was this the first Arai match we've written about? Guess we need to keep watching wrestling. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: MISAWA~! KAWADA~! THE LAND OF GIANTS~! CHRISTIAN~! JOE~! DYING DAYS IWE~!

Rusher Kimura vs. Carl Fergie IWE 6/6/81

MD: It's always fun to see a journeyman overachieve in another country. You can think of Jim Dillon in the Maritimes (not that we have that footage) or the Rock 'n' Roll RPMs in Puerto Rico (that we do have and it's fun). Here, it's Carl Fergie - fresh off a midcard run putting guys over in Mid-South and on his way to do the same in Crockett - in a main event with Rusher Kimura. I was going to say that he was well prepared for this one by wrestling Lawler, but he doesn't wrestle Lawler until 1982, so it was somehow the other way around.

You need somewhat similar skill sets against both, mainly being able to snap your head back at the sight of a great worked punch and take a back body drop. With Rusher, however, you also had to deal with nasty chops in the corner and headbutts.  That gave the match a more visceral feel; when Fergie snuck in a kick out of the corner and tried to assert himself, he was probably forcing a break for the sake of his forehead and poor chest. Rusher was in a hybrid phase here: not the wrestler he'd been in the 70s, not the comedy statesman he'd be a few years later. It meant he'd try for things like a stretch out of a Russian Leg Sweep or the bearhug into a butterfly submission he won with, but no longer had the flexibility he once did. This set up other matches on the tour as much as anything else, with Gypsy Joe interfering to mercifully (as he was trying out that first submission) cause the first fall. I thought Fergie looked like he belonged, for the most part. Some of that was the state of IWE, but enough of it was Fergie himself.

ER: King Carl Fergie the Wicked, wearing a Nazi helmet for his dying days IWE main event. King Carl Fergie, conqueror of Goro Tsurumi and Atsushi Onita, partner of Gypsy Joe. Rusher Kimura's takedowns look so impossible to stop. Rusher had lost some speed but this man moved and manipulated the larger Fergie like a real shooter. When he pins Fergie's arm and grapevines the leg, you can see him using all of his weight to effortlessly drop Fergie to the mat. It's the way Fergie keeps trying to push Rusher off him from his back, but Rusher won't let go of that boot for anything. The shoulderblocks hit hard and Fergie gets tossed immaculately by a backdrop, then gets punched directly in the face, taking a tremendous floundering back bump with windmilling arms that almost catches the back of his neck on the ropes. Fergie took that punch like he was a heavy getting knocked out by Rick Simon. This is really fucking good. Fergie walks right up to Rusher Kimura because he's the man, and he punches Rusher in the face and shakes his fist out angrily after punching him, and every man in Korakuen knows that Fergie is the man. His elbow strikes to Kimura's collarbones only reinforces that feeling.  

I loved every headlock in this match. 

Carl Fergie takes an even higher backdrop than he did earlier and Rusher locks him into a killer butterfly mid-squat bearhug like he was a Negro Navarro T-1000 sent back to send Carl Fergie back to Memphis. Who was the human (?) who, over 40 years ago, knew how important it would be to document the time crimes that were happening in the final three months of the 4th most popular wrestling promotion in Japan. 

Mitsuharu Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada vs. The Land of Giants AJPW 11/20/90

MD: Eric already covered the hugely entertaining 11/21/90 Land of the Giants vs Dory/Terry match (amazing Terry performance) so I'm poking at the guts of this thing instead. And on paper, it's kind of interesting. Misawa and Kawada had spent most of the last many months against Jumbo, Taue, Inoue, Fuchi, Doc, Gordy, Hansen and even occasionally stablemate Kobashi and Ace. Those are all guys you can do a lot against. Here, they were up against the sort of challenge rare to AJPW, two absolute lugs with size, no mobility, terrible clubbering strikes, little presence. That's the sort of thing you expect out of post-WWF talent 80s NJPW maybe, where they'd just trot out Mad Maxx and Super Maxx managed by Wakamatsu to face Fujinami and Kimura, but it's a lot less of an AJPW thing.

And, yeah, it goes ok. The real testament to Misawa, Kawada, and the crowd, was that there was a legitimately hot tag to Misawa towards the end and the crowd went up for it; I don't think it was entirely warranted, but they went with it anyway. After that, there was a great American tag moment of Misawa and Kawada whipping the giants into each other too. Otherwise, the big appeal here would be the Super Generation Army throwing really high kicks at really tall guys. Nitron took them pretty well too. That's about the nicest thing I'm going to say about Land of the Giants here, unfortunately. The blows didn't look great, crummy knees in the ropes, weak sweeping clubbering forearms, a couple of slams that didn't have much mustard behind them. There was stuff that worked in theory but not execution, like Nitron catching Kawada with a cheapshot clothesline from his spot on the apron to cut off a flurry. Their finish at this point was an assisted legdrop (from an atomic drop position) and Masters pumping his arm before going up with it was sort of entertaining. The finish worked too, with Kawada getting Nitron out of the ring so Misawa could throw some magic forearms and duck a clothesline to hit a pretty beautiful bridging German on a giant of a man. But like I said, that they got the crowd back was the most impressive thing here.

ER: Yeah, this wasn't great. It merely existed, and was worked surprisingly straight forward for being a couple of Faux Warriors vs. the two hottest young studs in the company. Misawa and Kawada didn't go after them any differently than they would have gone after Dynamite Kid and Johnny Smith, so that was kind of disappointing. I either wanted to see two giants with bad offense hold down two elites, or two elites absolutely lace into two bad giants, and we got something much less risky and much less interesting. What *is* important to note, is that the team of SKYWALKER NITRON and Butch Masters is not "Land of the Giants", which I suppose makes more sense than their actual name. No, their name is THE Land of Giants. Their team name makes sure to place the focus on the Land rather than the Giants who inhabit this Land, much like hit the hit Sid & Marty Krofft series The Land of Lost. 

In This Land of Giants, the Giants do not hit very hard. Of all the future X-Men, I imagine Misawa or Kawada could have worked a more compelling match with Kelsey Grammer or Alan Cumming. SKYWALKER NITRON throws two of the piddliest clotheslines, even though Kawada mostly saved one of them by just running neck first into it. Running into an actual clothesline in the backyard would have provided far more resistance that NITRON's long noodle of an arm. I do like how Misawa came in and kicked at him, actually liked his kicks more than Kawada's here. Lighter on form, harder on impact. Butch Masters is really good at stepping over the top rope, which is not a thing that every tall wrestler can say. SKYWALKER NITRON can't say it. But Butch steps over it straight, an optical illusion that makes it look like he's just stepping up onto a curb while he's actually clearing three ropes. NITRON meanwhile looks like he's trying to get into a ski boat from the water. Each man who hails from The Land of Giants did their own bearhug, and Misawa broke up SKYWALKER's by walking in and just elbowing him straight in the kidneys. Kawada hits a cool pescado into NITRON, and I do like the finisher of the team who hails from The Land of Giants, a man-assisted legdrop. What other Giants come from this Land? Were they sending their biggest and best Giants to the Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium? Was this merely a work placement program, or a study abroad kind of situation? What is the Giant Exchange Program in The Land? Are these two as good as Tall Rick or Thomas Big Boots? 

Christian vs. Samoa Joe NEW 4/21/07

MD: I love Christian's WWECW work. He was an amazing week to week TV wrestler, someone who could work his own spots and his opponent's spots into a match in clever, believable, varied, and interesting ways to deal with the grind of televised match after match after match. A sort of neo-Bret Hart for a different era with different demands. I've never really had any indication that he worked it out much before that though. Some of that is on me in that I didn't chase down his TNA run. Unfortunately, I do think some of it might be on him too.

It's a little off-putting how much of this match is rote heel champion vs. local dominant attraction house show fare, actually. It's not that the stalling isn't fun and the antics with the ref aren't good and the cheating isn't effective. It just doesn't stand out as special like you'd expect a Christian vs. Samoa Joe match to be. In fact, even though he hits some of his big offensive moves, it's the least "Joe" match I've ever seen. He's so submerged in the formula that he comes off as just another guy lacking his usual aura. Because it's such an aberration, I'm leaning towards Christian not quite being there yet and my gut says that this would have been a lot better a couple of years later or even right now. Again, there was nothing bad or wrong about it and the stuff that was good was very good; it just was less than the sum of its parts should have been. That's all.

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: TOSHIAKI~! TARZAN~! KAWADA~! GOTO~! FUNK~! GILBERT~!

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Tarzan Goto AJPW 1/14/84

MD: This was Kawada's first win ever, after losing over two hundred matches. It's also one of the earliest All Japan handhelds that have ever popped up. It's a really good Goto performance on top of that, which is important as we want to celebrate the guy, even if this is an on-brand but off-key way to do so. He gave Kawada a little escape shine early, with Kawada bridging back and forth out of a headscissors and turning a fireman's carry into a victory roll before eating a back elbow off the ropes. After that, Goto really zones in on the arm, hanging on throughout escape attempts and then locking in a number of varied holds. He goes the extra mile too, flipping over to put on more torque, crashing down onto the arm with different elbow drops or body drops, running across the ring with an arm driver. I don't think a single person in the audience thought that Kawada was going to somehow pull out a win, banana peel or otherwise, right down to the finish where Goto lawn darts him across the ring only to go for it again and eat a backslide. Kawada hit his stuff cleanly and had fire when it mattered but this was very much Goto's show.

ER: I love our pro wrestling footage finders so much. Even more than them, I love the men who - nearly 40 years ago! - snuck cameras into house shows to document history they couldn't have known would be happening. As Matt pointed out, this was literally Kawada's first victory, coming after over 200 matches 15 months into his career. A hero showed up to a small show in Hokkaido on my 3rd birthday, with a camera that likely took a team of seven men to operate, likely had to be snuck into the building disguised as a large mechanical man, and without realizing the fascinating historical footnote that the opening match of the show would become. I mean, sure, this show ALSO had Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Steve Olsonoski so who's to say this show wouldn't have otherwise been historic. This match is fun, but definitely a house show opener from 1984. 

This was mostly a Tarzan mauling, but the finish they used didn't feel like a banana peel for Kawada. It's fun seeing Kawada get his arm worked over in a match. I mean, there is literally nothing about THIS Kawada that reads as the Kawada we all love. Since the 1984 handheld doesn't afford us a very good look at Kawada's face, for all I know this may as well have been some other guy with the same name, like that other Yuki Ishikawa who briefly tricks me into being excited about a modern Japanese wrestling match every couple of months. Tarzan works over Kawada's arm in fun ways, landing on it with his full weight repeatedly. I'm a big fan of the running Fujiwara takedown, Goto using his size to run and jump to the mat with that arm, and Kawada can't do anything but dive onto his stomach. The best spot of the match, and a move that someone today should definitely steal, is when Goto lifts Kawada up for an atomic drop, and then just throws him forward into a hard flat back landing. I've seen Akira Taue use that and variations of it, but it should make a comeback. It's a great move and played really well into the finish, with Kawada flipping out the back and getting a backslide. Had I just taken that empty pool bump and thought I was about to take another, I'd try to backflip my way out of it too. 

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Tarzan Goto AJPW 11/28/84

MD: Very similar match later in the year. Goto gave Kawada a little more early and he had a more dynamic comeback, including hitting one big leap off the top and the jumping, spinning back kick, but otherwise, it was mainly just night to see a lot of the armwork from the January match in better VQ. Goto threw a few more headbutts here too, and Kawada was more flippy, including an inexplicable flip/self-back bump over a dropdown during a rope-running sequence. He hit a nice senton off the ropes too but missed a second leap back off the top and got squashed by a top rope Goto splash. Again, Goto's known for wild FMW brawls but this was straightforward and sound. He worked with Kawada over 50 times, maybe as many as 70-something between 82 and 85 and watching these two back to back, you can only come to the conclusion that it helped in Kawada's early development.

ER: I was actually surprised how similar their touring match was 10 months along from the match above. It's also hilarious to me that Kawada basically spent 1984 getting his arm demolished every couple nights by Tarzan Goto. Goto doesn't pull his weight on anything. Every one of his falling headbutts looked like him throwing the flat of his forehead as hard as he could onto Kawada, and every time he jumped on or splashed Kawada's arm it looked like a guy landing as hard as he could onto an arm. Kawada really looked like he was aping same-era Misawa here, with very similar movements and some things I've never seen Kawada do, but HAVE seen Misawa do. When he did a front flip to dodge a Goto dropdown, that sealed it. Kawada had added a couple bits of offense in the intervening 10 months, even if the additions didn't actually look that good. After hitting his (Misawa-like) crossbody, he hit a real high leaping elbowdrop (that looked more like a big back bump and not something that would hurt Goto) and a high senton that sure looked like it would land heavy but just kind of lightly bounced right off Tarzan's big torso. If Kawada bounced off of Goto's torso with a light landing, then Goto landed his big splash off the top the exact opposite. As with a lot of his other offense, Goto looked like he was trying to splash Kawada as hard as humanly possible. The All Japan training system during this era is undeniable, but I would have been the guy watching Kawada for his first few years and just Not Seeing It. 

Terry Funk vs. Doug Gilbert SCW 5/14/05

MD: I'd like you to imagine what a Funk vs. Gilbert match would look like in 2005. Done? Hey, you imagined this match! Good job. It's exactly what you'd expect, which is a good thing. Funk wanted the mic to start and that let Gilbert ambush him. Blood came early. The beating happened all around the ringside area. There was a tire tool and a box cutter and the ringside table. Gilbert's punches were good. He hit a piledriver on a chair back in the ring and then got the mic and started proclaiming him king of Nashville. Funk came back. There were revenge bits with the table. Funk got tossed into chairs and chucked them up at Gilbert from the ground in a pretty amazing visual. It all ended up back in the ring with Funk DDTing Gilbert, his crony, the ref, his valet, onto chairs. And it ended with a fireball and a second ref counting the ring. All in about ten minutes. Nothing particularly surprised me though the flying chairs were something and the fireball was quite impressive, but I didn't want to be surprised. I wanted to watch Terry Funk and Doug Gilbert walk, brawl, and bleed for ten minutes and I got my wish.

ER: Yep, this is the exact match you would want to see if you paid money to see Terry Funk vs. Doug Gilbert in 2005. If you were paying for this match, you'd go home thinking you got a better match than you were expecting. Funk worked matches for another 10 years after this, but we're talking about 25 matches over the next 10 years. You can tell Funk's knees are so beyond shot that they look like a road sign on a desolate Canadian highway. But the best parts of this play to both men's strengths, and for Gilbert that meant punches. This was one of the best Dougie punching matches I have seen, as I'm not sure I've seen a match where he's thrown better ones. He stands right on Funk's neck and throws nothing but great right hands, shaking his fist out after the best ones (any wrestler who does that is automatically Top 20 in the world), even gives us a nice fistdrop, sliding in on his knees as Funk is rolling out of the ring. Funk gets busted open from punches and Dougie opens him up further with a fucking BOX CUTTER. Funk clearly has a hard time getting to his feet whenever he is on his back, so most of his bumps are the Terry "fall into the ropes and tilt amusingly onto the apron and then down onto my feet on the floor" variety, but he WILL get cut open with a fucking box cutter. 

When Funk finally takes over, we see the other side of Doug Gilbert, which is that of a man who takes weapons shots like The Miz. Funk was not throwing concussion level chair shots, but Gilbert's arms were positioned so far in front of his face that I can only assume he has a severe folding chair allergy the way he was avoiding them. Gilbert's "I'll Dish It, But Can't/Won't Take It" attitude is a great aspect to his heel persona, and even when Funk is bashing Gilbert's head on a table, I'm not sure Dougie's head came even two feet away from that table. I thought Gilbert was just smacking his hands repeatedly on the table, because his head was so far away from the surface that it didn't even register what move was supposed to be happening. More power to Doug Gilbert for protecting his frontal lobe, but goddamn man you just opened up a 60 year old man, at least make some of his shit look good. The match ending bullshit was excellent, with Funk laying out everyone in sight with really great DDTs before not shielding his face IN THE LEAST from a Gilbert fireball. Terry Funk has to be one of the most selfless wrestlers in history. Can you imagine wrestling a guy who leans away from almost every serious shot you threw, all match, and then still just letting that dude relief you of your eyebrows? Only Terry. 

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: ARQUEROS DEL ESPACIO~! LOS TEMERARIOS~! TENRYU~! HANSEN~! FOOTLOOSE~! PANAMANIAN LUCHA RIOTS~!

Los Temerarios (Black Terry/Jose Luis Feliciano/Shu el Guerrero) vs. Arqueros del Espacio (Lasser/Danny Boy/El Arquero) UWA 1989 - GREAT

MD: Half an hour of pure action and motion here. Just one killer exchange after the next building to a tercera of multi-man spots and dives before honing in on an exciting finish. El Arquero is Robin Hood, generally considered to be a B-Team Alvarado, but this match is a great example how that has nothing to do with him and everything to do with how great his brothers are. He was spectacular here, including a step up moonsault press and an amazing contribution to the dive train. The VQ was a little rough, with a blue tint, so it was hard at times to tell Danny Boy and Lasser apart but they both more then held up their own so it hardly mattered. You could tell Feliciano and Terry apart on the rudo side but they based and kept up on all the exchanges equally well, each outdoing the last with every opportunity. The match started with a very good mat based Shu/Arquero exchange and basically didn't let up for twenty minutes and two caidas until things ultimately escalated even further. There wasn't really a beatdown or a comeback so the momentum shifts were slight and the finishes somewhat sudden but you definitely couldn't fault the action here.

PAS: Outside of a bit of a wonky finish, this is at the level of any classic trios we have on tape. Loved to get a chance to really see Shu El Guerrero do his thing. What a slick mat wrestler, he is so good at using Amateur style takedowns and level shifts. Robin Hood feels like a guy who if we had more footage of would have the rep of the rest of his family. He's so fast, so elegant in his movements, just a treasure of a wrestler to watch. Our boy Terry isn't a focus of this match, but looks like a great business like rudo in his ability to stooge, bump and base. I wish things didn't fall apart at the end, because before that this looked like an all time classic, and while I love unearthing cool oddities, finding an all-timer is really special.

ER: I'm a few days late to the party but was excited to check this one out. It delivered. It's 1989, but between the ref's untucked shirt and the video angle, it feels like a weird modern indy lucha. The main giveaway that it's 1989 is that no wrestler would be caught dead shirt-cocking it the way the Space Archers do. The matwork is modern as hell and showed hardly any light. When you're talking the Carlton Celebrity Room, the quality of your night depends on the luchador. You know, Jose Luis Feliciano, ya got no complaints. Feliciano was so quick, with Terry not too far behind him, both basing impressively for Danny Boy/Lasser. I'm not sure which one of them it was (if you're wondering, Shu has the mask with the white plume, Arquero is Robin Hood and has the bandit mask, Terry is the shortest Temerario), but let's say Lasser had two of the slickest armdrags I've seen, Robin Hood hits one of the sweetest moonsault presses (making contact while perfectly vertical and them landing on his feet like Kerri Strug) and a dive that was just as nice. If you're looking for the Terry highlights, my favorite bit with him was at the very beginning of the tercera. It's not the Black Terry you're used to seeing brawl through gravel, but it's great classic luchador Terry, a treat seeing him work airtight fast exchanges. 

Stan Hansen/Genichiro Tenryu vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Samson Fuyuki AJPW 7/16/89

MD: Just to put this into context, it's just five days after Hansen and Tenryu win the tag titles, on a Brody memorial show. In 89, we see Tenryu against both Fuyuki and Kawada in singles matches, but this tag is new to us. A person might expect all of them to go easy on one another since they were stablemates in Revolution, but that person simply wouldn't know the first thing about Genichiro Tenryu. This was a war, with Hansen and Tenryu working to teach Footloose a lesson and Kawada and Fuyuki fighting to prove a point, sure, but also for their very lives. They did best when they were able to work as a unit, and they shined most individually when Tenryu pushed them to far and they furiously fired back, Kawada with kicks and Fuyuki by punching Tenryu repeatedly in the face. More often than not though, they ended up on the ground having the meanest boots from Hansen and Tenryu crashing into their back or ribs. 

Hansen created emotional opportunity better than any wrestler ever and an Irish whip reversal never looked as real as when Fuyuki managed to reverse Hansen and throw his entire body into him with a back elbow so he could make a tag. Likewise, Kawada hit a front missile dropkick, which rarely looks great because it always just pushes his opponent into his own corner, into Tenryu who leaned into it and not away from it. All four of these guys leaned into everything, except for that tragic moment after Footloose had gotten Hansen on the ropes through staying on him two-on-one where Kawada went for a dive and crashed and burned as Hansen moved. There was a lot of that here, with Footloose knowing they had to take higher risks to stay in it and Hansen or Tenryu simply being able to move, including the finish where Tenryu got a clever cradle out of nowhere after a dodge. It was a clever finish but maybe a slightly anti-climactic one after the violence that preceded it.

ER: I really loved what Matt said about this match, and I love AJPW matches that have all of these little story elements going on that you can really get into, all of these little hierarchy moments where you know when Kawada or Fuyuki are really punching above their weight and the crowd is half getting excited to see how they might test Hansen/Tenryu, and half getting excited to see how Hansen and Tenryu are going to punish their insolence. But I also love AJPW matches like this where you can pay no kind of attention to the stories or relationships and just sit back at 1 AM on a Friday night and have a ball watching all these guys beat the hell out of each other. I love how hard Footloose came out of the gates, fearlessly going for the kill on Tenryu knowing that the punishment will be threefold. I couldn't believe how hard Kawada was throwing lariats in this match, what a murderer. When you are in a match with Stan Hansen and you are the one throwing lariats that make me flinch away from the screen, you are a murderer. I love how Footloose really felt like they were throwing the kitchen sink at the champs, how a lot of their strikes were thrown at odd angles and not just "proper kick exchange" form. It felt like Footloose were just wildly throwing all of their limbs at the larger champs and praying something would land significantly enough for them to capitalize. 

When Hansen tagged in and started going after Fuyuki's arm and shoulder (just to be a dickhead), it's so perfect that Footloose pay all of that back when Hansen misses a charge shoulder first into the corner. Hansen's lariat never even comes into play, but Footloose were so good at capitalizing and changing gears that it was easy to see them somehow getting an upset. The whole thing is wall to wall nasty kicks to the back, Kawada's wild missed running plancha, Hansen's great bump where he builds up a head of steam and crashes headlong between the ropes to the floor, and Footloose throwing their bodies as hard as possible at the champs. I thought the finish really worked, as not only did Tenryu's inside cradle look impossibly snug with no way of escaping, but I loved the visual of Tenryu having to "resort" to just using weight and leverage to win the match. Tenryu was getting beat worse than he expected, and instead of staying in and fighting fire with fire, he saw a quick way out and took advantage of it. I don't know if the finish would have worked as well in other Tenryu/Hansen title defenses, but I thought it worked perfectly here as the champs won but showed how vulnerable they might actually be, a vulnerability that was non-existent 20 minutes earlier. 

Sandoken vs. Rocky Star Panama 1980s

MD: More Panamanian lucha. The primera didn't waste any time. After a bit of jockeying for position, Rocky Star hit three dropkicks, moved Sandoken right into a butterfly suplex flawlessly and then press slamed him and locked in a bow and arrow for the win. The segunda was even more abrupt. Rocky Star pushed the advantage with some shoulder tackles, but ran right into a fairly nasty submission all within a minute. So in that regard, this felt almost like modern CMLL. They had a long tercera and they did a lot. Rocky Star just had a lot of stuff in general. Neckbreakers, goardbusters, drop down No Future style kicks. Sandoken's comeback was big but could have been even bigger, and led to the dives. I loved the finish. Rocky Star made a grab between the legs with the ref trying to talk to Sandoken. In doing so, he made it so Sandoken's leg fouled the ref. That gave him an opening for a foul of his own and the win. The fans, as you can imagine, were not pleased and the last five minutes of this clip are people walking around with chairs over their head threateningly. At first I gave it the benefit of the doubt as there was a lot of potential energy but very little kinetic energy and figured that maybe they were just packing the place up for the night, but nope, it all turned south by the end and became a well-deserved riot scene. 

Read more!

St. Peter Gave Out Medals Declaring Andre the Nicest of the Damned

Andre the Giant/Giant Baba/Dory Funk Jr. vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Kenta Kobashi AJPW 3/4/92 - EPIC

ER: This was excellent, a great match format played to perfection. Any time there's a match where one side of guys is average age 50, and the other side of guys is under 30, I'm going to love it. Andre is somehow the youngest member of his team, but also the oldest. All of the young guys are now legends. This was on a huge Budokan show, 16,000 fans who were very into all six of these men. This was not a "legends match" where the young take it easy on the legends, with maybe a couple saucy shots thrown in to get a crowd ooooohing. No, this was the young guys willing to get hurt just to kick some old guys' asses. But the legends hit back even harder, and they manage to keep a super successful 50-50 pacing that made it feel like either team could pull out the win. The crowd got progressively louder throughout, and they *started* loud. The way they were screaming and filling the ring with streamers for every participant during the introductions made it feel like a match worth caring about, and made it feel like a main event. As excited as I was for it on paper, I don't think I actually expected it to be as great as a typical big 1992 All Japan trios match. But it is. 

It's paced really well, filled with unique pairings and great exchanges, and peaks with an awesome heat segment on Baba were all the young guys beat the shit out of their patriarch. But the legends are no pushovers, and that leads to several great moments of old guys knocking cocky young guys on their asses. Everyone is a strong contributor to this. Dory and Kikuchi start with some firm spry matwork that ends with a nice Kikuchi fireman's carry. The matwork only gets chippier when Dory throws his whole shoulder into a couple uppercuts, and spry old Dory doing matwork with Kikuchi was a thing I didn't know I really enjoyed. Dory turns a Kikuchi hiptoss into a tweaked abdominal stretch and rolls it into a tight pin, and that's when Kawada gets his shot. Kawada always felt like he was going to be an asshole to veterans in matches like these. He's a great guy to fully announce what kind of match this was going to be. Dory/Kikuchi was spirited but mostly professional, but Kawada shows no such reverence to Funk by kicking him as hard in the liver as he would ever kick Misawa. Funk throws really hard uppercuts and I loved him tagging out after tiring his arm out hitting too many jaws. 

Kawada not giving a fuck about who anyone used to be was one of the many continuing highlights of this match. He is great at being disrespectful because he's also great at selling offense and falling on his ass. Baba can still move at this point and holds his own nicely with Kawada, but they kind of neutralize each other, and the second Kobashi tags in Baba starts throwing the stiffest Baba chops off Kobashi's chest. Kobashi absolutely torpedoes him with a shoulderblock and then does probably the most appropriate rolling cradle in the history of him unnecessarily putting that into matches. Kobashi cradling Baba and rolling him around the ring was a crazy visual, with Baba's cool weird body being tumbled dry low for all to see. It worked as a visual and as a cocky young guy spanking the veteran and embarrassing him, and I can't think of a better usage for that move. 

This entire time Andre is looming on the apron like a mythical colossal giant. He looms large in the background like a comic book thug blocking an alley, heavier than any point in his career, rocking the one strap until the day he dies, hair and sideburns shagged out like Muzzy. In 1992 he was mostly presence on the ring apron, and even though he was a presence that had to almost always be leaning on the ring ropes, he was still a major presence. I really love 1992 Andre, the absolute slowest Andre, because he moves like a fairytale giant. He's slow, but he's this big stomping toddler who is also as powerful as five men. I love slow, stomping, vulnerable Andre. You can easily outrun this version of Andre, but he still looks like a guy who lives in the haunted woods and snaps branches off old oak trees to use as toothpicks. He chokes, chops, and headbutts Kobashi before Kobashi knocks him backwards teetering into the ropes, and the crowd is extremely invested in the danger of Andre falling down. Everyone is in awe of Andre but also knows he might break like porcelain if he unexpectedly falls, and the danger of 1992 Andre adds greatly to his in ring drama. He's not going to bump, but the fact that he might accidentally bump is something he knows how to expertly milk. 

Kikuchi gets in and immediately acts like a smug young punk, high kicking Andre in the face and then getting punched out of the sky when he comes off the opposite ropes. Kikuchi is such a tenacious little prick and the Andre stuff keeps getting better as the giant fights off the pest. Kikuchi leaps up to his feet with elbows and Andre keeps swatting him off, but things get even better when Kawada comes in. Kawada kicks the hell out of Andre and it's some incredible pro wrestling from both. Kawada doesn't hold back and so Andre knees him in the stomach and stands on his hand. Kawada throws a kick to Andre's belly that makes Andre let out a sound like the death moan of a grizzly. Kawada keeps kicking and Andre does these dramatic falls that make it look like he's going to spill over the ropes, and when Kawada kicks Andre right in the fucking knee brace Andre nopes his way the hell out of the match. I talk about Andre's great in-ring acting, and this spot is a perfect example of that. Kawada soccer kicks Andre in his worst knee and Andre angrily waves his arms like a man standing up from a table saying "Fuck it! I'm done!" and in one motion wheels around to tag out. I have no doubts that this was a planned kick, a big moment to show Kawada's impudence, but Andre was able to make it look like a real moment. That carny element of trickery and keeping up appearances, that eye widening gleeful look when he gets Kawada in a chancery and knees him in the stomach, and a moment like this where he convincingly hints at shoot elements. Old Andre is like Old Buster Keaton (or maybe five Buster Keatons stacked up under a large coat), using muscle memory and a wealth of stories in only facials and reactions to entertain regardless of physical health. 

Kawada is really on one and fired up after kicking an old man in the knee, so hits a hooking heel kick under Dory's chin right after Dory takes Andre's tag. Dory gets a nice butterfly suplex on Kobashi, but also takes a lariat to the collarbones from Kawada and gets rolled into a rear naked choke. The heat segments of this are fantastic, filled with Baba makes saves by stomping guys in the back of the head, and a great moment where Dory stomps Kawada in the back of the head and Kawada jumps to his feet to elbow Dory in the face. The boys gang up on Baba and it's so good, with Kobashi hitting a perfect moonsault for a great nearfall (imagine doing a moonsault to your boss, just coming a few inches away from whipping your knee into an old man's face from the top rope), and Kawada kicking Baba's forehead a bunch before crushing him with his top rope Tenryu elbowdrop. Baba takes a legdrop from Kobashi, a Kawada kneedrop across the face, and a stiff tope rope Kikuchi headbutt, and the kickout inspires a crowd roar. 

The finishing stretch is great fun, with Kobashi holding Baba prone for what would have been an insane Kikuchi missile dropkick, only to get caught by a surprisingly Suddenly Right There Andre. Once Andre took that leg kick from Kawada I assumed he would not be getting into the ring for anything else and would work exclusively from the apron. Suddenly he is RIGHT behind Kobashi and chops him right in the fucking cerebellum and it looked like the most murderous strike in the entire match. Baba is freed, Kikuchi dropkicks into an empty pool, and Andre squishes Kobashi into the corner to trap him. The Funk victory with the spinning toehold is set up so well, with Kikuchi throwing fiery elbows (you really got the sense here that Kikuchi could still actually somehow get a pin on Baba or Funk) and coming in hot with a heel kick, only for Dory to catch the heel and lock in the toehold. The old men shut down the young and also no doubt spent the next several day packed in ice. I loved every single part of this, and I loved every single person in this. What a match. 

PAS: Eric did a hell of a job covering this match, and I agree it is a corker. I loved how Kawada especially came right out guns blazing. He wasn't looking to praise his elders, he was looking to slay them, and it was badass. Everyone was great in this, and it's some of the most enjoyment I have ever gotten out of a Dory Jr. performance. Baba was really spry, and Andre was perfect. I am also a huge fan of end of the road Andre, he feels so primordial, like an ancient force risen from the deep. That shriek of pain felt like a real moment, the beast has shown his weakness. His return near the end to nearly decapitate Kobashi almost felt like a jump scare in a horror movie. You though Carrie was dead? Here is her hand pushing out of the grave.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE THE GIANT

Read more!

New Footage Friday: SANTO~! CASAS~! DINAMITAS~! KURISU~! KAWADA~! BAM BAM~! RED BULL ARMY~!

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Masanobu Kurisu 6/11/87

MD: I've seen spatterings of 87 and before Kawada but even up until the end of 88 and Hara leaving, you still tend to see him in the context of Footloose tags. Lots of action, some nasty shots, but more of AJPW Junior Tag affirs. I wasn't quite expecting him to have quite the usual chip on his shoulder here and the first few minutes bore that out with a lot of mat containment by Kurisu. By the halfway point, though, the match opened up and became a real scrapfest. Maybe Kurisu had told Kawada that he was going to hit him as hard as possible and that he wanted Kawada to return favor. Maybe Kurisu just hit Kawada as hard as possible and Kawada knew the only way he was going to stop the beating was to fire back with everything he had. The end result was a pretty brutal few minutes though, with Kawada holding his own to the point where it wasn't at all the one-sided mauling I expected and the finish actually came off as believable.

PAS: If you are in there with Kurisu you are going to fight or die, and even young boy Kawada isn't going to die. Kurisu is his usually crowbarry self, driving his knee really nastily into Kawada's arm and landing hard shooty headbutts, Kawada is game for that, and he really wastes Kurisu with a spin kick and some hard chops. It ends up being a really chippy little fight. These guys matched up a bunch in 1987, and I imagine they were all fun. A 1994 version of this would be an under the radar all timer, but I am glad that they crossed paths at all. 

Bam Bam Bigelow/Darryl Peterson/Steve Williams/Rip Morgan/Italian Stallion vs. Salman Hashimikov/Victor Zangiev/Vladimir Berkovich/Wahka Evloev/Timur Zalasov NJPW 5/17/89

 
MD: This started with Italian Stallion vs. Zalasov and it was like nothing we've seen recently with the Russians. Stallion was goofy, refusing Zalasov's increasingly close-talking attempts at a handshake, complaining about tights and hair pulling, overly celebrating whenever he got an advantage, including with the Fargo Strut, clubbering and throwing a dropkick, jawing with the crowd, pulling Zalasov's ears. It was pretty glorious contrast and Zalasov played along to an admirable degree even as both guys jockeyed for position and throws. Eventually, he got behind him and Stallion ate a German for a much deserved bit of comeuppance. He'd continue to be annoying on the outside for the rest of the match.

Morgan vs. Evloev was quick but interesting. Morgan had a size advantage and Evloev was able to avoid him until he wasn't. Then Morgan had a clear advantage with a cross toehold and even a leg drop right until he punched his way into a nasty armbar takeover and an immediate tap. So far, these have been structured in a way where Russian grappling was superior to over the top American pro wrestling.

Which set up Williams vs. Berkovich perfectly. It was an absolute battle of the titans with real attitude underneath. Doc posed to start only to get immediately taken over. Later on he'd throw a kick during a shake and work to press Berkovich over his head. They kept close contact for the most part, but here, Williams was able to get his advantages with pro wrestling sneak shots, either on that shake or in the corner to set up the Stampede and the pin. I guess American Pro Wrestling works so long as it's Doctor Death, Steve Williams. At least they shook after the bout.

Peterson vs. Zangiev leaned even more into the size differential, though Zangiev had the most pro wrestling instincts of the Russians. For the most part Peterson was able to bully him around the ring until he missed a splash and Zangiev got under him for a huge throw. Weirdly this put the tally to 3-1 already, so you figured something might be going on with the last one.

The opening of Bigelow vs. Hashimikov called back to the cross armbar that got Morgan but Bigelow was able to escape. This generally followed the lines of what we've seen so far, Bigelow's size and tendency to throw in cheapshots against Hashimikov's leverage and tenacity. The crowd popped huge for him taking three tries to get Bigelow over with a double underhook throw for instance. The finish made the structuring make sense. It went full pro wrestling with Stallion distraction and outside tripping to the dismay of the Russians. I don't think this was as gripping as the last 5x5 we saw but it did show the versatility of them as foils as they so smoothly worked into very different structures in interesting ways.

Negro Casas/Universo 2000/Máscara Año 2000 vs. Dos Caras/Hijo Del Santo/Rayo de Jalisco Jr. CMLL 9/22/95 - EPIC

MD: The first half of this was good with a nice opening exchange with Casas and Santo and then an enjoyable beatdown where Casas got to direct traffic for the Dinamitas. That started as a swarm in response to Santo getting a nice back headbutt to Casas in the ropes. The last few minutes, however, had an all time brutal comeback from Santo. It started with Casas missing an assisted kick on the apron and Santo just smacking his head repeatedly into the post and it didn't stop from there. Anytime Santo could get Casas close enough to the post, he'd just machine gun launch his skull into the metal. When they made it back to the center of the ring he layed in big shot after big shot. Meanwhile the other guys were working around them with classic spots and even comedy which created some real dissonance to the violence that occurred whenever Santo could get his hands on Casas. In that, the last few minutes reminded me a little of the Santo/Onita/Goto vs Casas/Boulder/Patterson match to some degree, except for this time around it was Santo and Casas that were bringing the violence instead of the flash.

PAS: What in the hell did I just watch, I mean we are reviewing a Kurisu match this week and by far the most violent unprofessional beating of the week is by El Hijo Del Santo. I mean my god did he try to crack Casas's head open like a casaba melon on the ringposts, and just obliterated him with kicks to the head until the ref had to pull him off.  Last week we reviewed a Santo vs. Casas match which was all grappling, and her we get a trios encounter which is FU-TEN level violence. I have more time for the Dinamitas and Rayo then most, but we came to watch Santo and Casas and man did we get that. Casas is really great of course and feels like he did plenty to rile up Santo, but man alive did he get the full experience and much more. Incredible stuff, all time horror. 

Read more!

New Footage Friday: All Japan 11/19/90

Masa Fuchi/Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Ricky Santana/Doug Furnas

MD: In general, it's astounding that these AJPW Handhelds are as well-shot as they are. Occasionally you're bound to get a match like this where there's just nothing the poor guy shooting can do to capture the action. We got glimpses of Furnas powering people about, maybe the tiniest hints that Ogawa was starting to put a few things together, a buzz for Fuchi doing awesome Fuchi things, and some energetic stuff (stooging? flying? who knows!) from Santana, but mostly, we're looking at the back of people's heads. Ah well.

ER: Matches like these remind me how often I take handhelds for granted. For all the amazing handheld footage we have of various territories and eras, we don't really have a ton where 75% of the match is blocked by someone's head. What we do see are some moments that make Doug Furnas come off like a monster heel, Fuchi like a VERY relevant 36 year old (that man was prematurely shunted to openers and old man trios), and Ogawa like a guy that big crowds are really getting behind. Furnas had this kickass muscular athlete spot where he hit a press slam and then did a back handspring into a running shoulderblock that sent Ogawa flying. Fuchi works super fast exchanges and comes in at the end to hit a sick kneedrop off the top rope. Fans went nuts thinking they were seeing Ogawa pin Furnas with a nice bridging German, but Furnas knows just how to egg them on and rubs their faces in a strong belly to belly. 


Mitsuo Momota/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith

MD: This one we could see clearly and it was fairly good stuff. Johnny Smith didn't have Davey's likability and oafish charisma, but he was a physical force and very athletic. In some ways, his edge synced better with Dynamite's. Kikuchi already had a lot going for him in 1990: His stuff snapped, he could draw sympathy, and he had fire in his comebacks. Momota was fine here but he worked best as an underdog and Kikuchi was there to play that role. Good finish, getting him out of the way for the bodyslam tombstone and headbutt.

ER: I really like the Dynamite/Smith team. Smith is a sound wrestler but pretty colorless, and Dynamite is a broken down 32. But the team dynamic is stronger than the Bulldogs dynamic would have been at this point, as Dynamite doesn't have to provide nearly as much flash and instead can rely on his strengths as an asshole. Here he's mostly utilized as a guy stopping Kikuchi's momentum and saving Smith, and it works really well. Dynamite looks and acts like a real tough guy piece of shit, with his slicked back hair and sideburns, and I loved every instance of him breaking up a pin with a boot to the back of someone's head, stopping a Kikuchi Boston Crab with the hardest chop of the match, and coming in late to smack Kikuchi off the top rope. We missed the first couple minutes of this, and that's likely where most of the Dynamite/Momota exchanges happened. The little bit we got looked great, with Momota working some fast juniors exchanges and then stopping Kid short with a straight kneelift. Dynamite's finishing 1-2 was really nasty, deadlifting Kikuchi into a scoop tombstone (that had to be hell on his back) and hitting a crippled (but still crazy) version of his top rope headbutt that inadvertently adds a forearm across Kikuchi's throat. This was a different Dynamite Kid than his uninjured heyday, but this iteration of him sees him picking and choosing how to use his fading athleticism, while increasing the emotional heft of his selling (the way he sells a falling headbutt looks like he rung his own bell). It's a different way of doing things, but I always get engaged seeing a wrestler operating at his base muscle memory. 


Haruka Eigen/Motoshi Okuma vs. The Land of Giants (Skywalker Nitron/Butch Masters)

MD: Eigen and Okuma get a solid B- for effort in trying to fend off Masters and Nitron, including chaining some strikes together to finally get one of them down, but the finish was inevitable from the start. Land of the Giants had presence due to their size and worked best when hammering down on their opponents or lifting them up. Their other strikes, including the kicks in the corner? Less so. This was still effective enough in presenting an attraction and making fans wonder how a more accomplished team might fare against them.

ER: Man, the fans in Niigata LOVED The Land of Giants. At least during their entrance. When the two giants stormed out and ambushed the natives you'd think the crowd was watching the Road Warriors. Land of the Giants might be the actual worst of the big league Road Warriors knockoffs, but I'll always think a pair of teaming giants has a high floor, no matter how glaring their weaknesses might be. And there are weaknesses. Nitron is very tentative with all of his stuff, almost always double pumping or stuttering a bit before making a move. Masters has a lot more confidence and has better timing, but neither of them have good strikes. It shouldn't be difficult for two legitimately huge guys to just swing their arms and voila, Good Looking Strikes, but pro wrestling doesn't really work that way. The best stuff here came from Okuma and Eigen making inroads and the fans getting excited about the distant prospect of an upset. Okuma especially got them fired up, taking advantage of a (really nice looking) missed Masters avalanche and helping Eigen knock him to the mat. I laughed at Eigen grabbing a single leg and Okuma kicking Master's plant leg out from under him, and Okuma misses his diving headbutt by whipping his forehead down into the mat. I also really loved Okuma's delayed reaction sell of the double big boot, looking up at them as if to say "TWO boots??" before falling to his back. The assisted legdrop is a cool finisher for Land of the Giants, but of course Nitron hesitates twice before finally lifting Masters. 

Rusher Kimura/Mighty Inoue vs. Stan Hansen/Dan Spivey

MD: Mighty Inoue really wrestled like a million bucks, but here he also got exposed as being really tiny. What was striking, however, was that Hansen and Spivey actually made him LOOK like a million bucks here, letting Inoue outmaneuver them. That lasted right til the end where he somehow rode Hansen's attempt to interfere into his somersault senton and took Hansen out (and literally out of the ring) before the distraction had him walk right into the Spivey Spike DDT. Kimura was only in for a little, but but he got to give Hansen a taste of his own medicine with the world's longest eyerake. If Inoue was two or three inches taller, he could have been one of the biggest stars of the 80s. Sometimes you get these bizarre house show performances where Hansen will give a ton to someone, like we saw some months back with Blackwell. Here, though, Inoue made it all seem earned. 

ER: This is a great house show curiosity, a match that looks like a surefire on-paper steamrolling and instead is worked as if the teams were equals. Hansen and Spivey paid a lot of reverence to the two old men (Rusher Kimura here is 8 years older than I presently am), with Spivey selling Rusher's headbutt like a real momentum shifter multiple times. Hansen runs over several audience members on the way to the ring, but he generously sells for Inoue, and the two big men getting knocked around by two smaller/older guys is incredibly entertaining. Spivey was smart about what to sell, not going down for every move but every other move, consistently selling the headbutts as a big move but merely getting knocked on his heels by shoulderblocks and lariats. Rusher has a fun hot tag where he punches Spivey right in the neck, Inoue hits a big bulldog on Spivey and has a great run of flying shoulder tackles (including one that Hansen bumps to the floor), but he misses his beautiful somersault senton right after disposing of Hansen and Spivey pounces with his spike DDT. I always get excited for new All Japan handhelds, because there are always weirdo gems like these where we get glimpses of guys working outside of the established All Japan hierarchy.


Dr. Death/Terry Gordy vs. Kenta Kobashi/Johnny Ace

MD: We get a few really good minutes of footage if you skip past the handheld issues that start this video out. There's a 50% chance that's all you'd get anyway with a match like this if it was filmed for the TV, so I can't complain too much. The clarity comes in right when Williams had Kobashi in a bear hug and the fans were going nuts for him to escape. Instead he ate a belly to belly. From what we could see, everyone looked great. Ace is an underrated apron cheerleader, not that this crowd needed much leading. Kobashi had been in the spotlight for about a year and a half at this point and he definitely already had It here, working from underneath and unleashing his fire when it was his time to get revenge. Unfortunately, the few minutes of clarity we got just made you want to see more since this looked like a great one overall.

ER: This was just the final 5 minute stretch of a 17 minute match, and I'm sure we at least got the best and hottest 5 minute stretch of the match. Sure it would be nice to have full matches on handhelds, and a lot of people would be excited for new Kobashi footage, but I like that we got complete versions of the other matches and just the finish of this one. The crowd is over the moon for Kobashi here, but on this same show I've been way more into babyface performances from Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, Motoshi Okuma, Rusher Kimura, and Mighty Inoue. I don't even think Kobashi was the best babyface in his own match, as this felt way more like a great Johnny Ace show. Kobashi had goofy slaps during his big hot tag, and meanwhile Ace is taking big bumps off the top and breaking up pins with his whole body, really knowing when to let Kobashi shine and when to step up. Gordy and Doc looked exactly how you'd expect them to look, and the hot crowd made the match-finishing Gordy powerbombs feel even bigger. 


Andre the Giant/Giant Baba vs. Kimala II/Abdullah the Butcher - GREAT

MD: This was fun for what it was and you knew what it would be coming in. Andre vs. Abby is a rare match-up if not a completely unique one, and both Abby and Kimala II were respectful and willing to put over the grandeur of their opponents. It was interesting to see a 1990 Giant Baba match where he did the brunt of the work. The highlight was the corner battering ram spot but Abby's timing was as good as ever. It was a crowd-pleaser though it was funny that Abby and Kimala got some chants from obvious dissidents before the match started.

PAS: I thought this was awesome. I am an end of the road Andre super fan, and watching him throw hands with 1990 Abby is really thrilling. We don't get a ton of it but it ruled. There is a 2/3 falls Abby vs. Andre match from 1977 in Houston, and it's probably in Billy Corgan's garage. DAMN YOU CORGAN!!. I enjoyed Kimala bringing the athleticism. He just flew into all of Baba's stuff, hit a dropkick, dove off the top, really wrestled around Baba and made his stuff look good. I would have loved to see the crowd brawling between Andre and Abby, but what we got was a blast.


Mitsuhara Misawa/Toshiaki Kawada vs. Terry Funk/Dory Funk Jr.

MD: This went all the way and from what we could see, which admittedly wasn't everything was really good. The crowd was up for it and made it feel like a big deal, a sort of parallel to Tsuruta-gun vs the Super Generation Army, but the latter facing legends in the Funks instead. It had just about everything you'd want: Dory throwing forearms instead of sitting in holds, Terry getting a ton of sympathy as he took all of Misawa and Kawada's stuff, a big comeback with an amazing exchange ending in him ducking a Kawada kick and flooring him, and an incredibly exciting and increasingly wild last ten minutes as they built up to the draw. Dory and Terry rose to the occasion, including tossing out a standing double hip toss which seemed pretty unique from them. I loved the bit where Misawa and Kawada both tried a Scorpion Deathlock since that's a death move in AJPW. And it ended with Kawada surviving the spinning toehold as the clock ran out and a show of respect from the four.

PAS: Terry vs. Misawa is a match up that only happened here (Terry worked with Tiger Mask II in the 80s) and they really had great charisma with each other, Misawa's stoicism blended nicely with Terry's wild shit. We get some fun feeling out stuff with Dory early and it built to a pretty exciting finish run, with Terry hitting his piledriver on Kawada and Misawa and Kawada trying to finish the Funks with scorpion death locks. I liked how the finishing run felt frantic, sometimes draws just finished, but here both teams felt like they were working against each other and the clock. 


Joel Deaton/Dick Slater vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Akira Taue

MD: This had a sense of inevitability from the start, but it was still pretty good for what it was. Deaton and Slater were able to maintain control when they leaned into their teamwork. Taue wasn't quite there yet but he was closer than he was and could better use his size and presence, though in this match he was there to set up the big tag to Jumbo. Inevitability is the best part about Jumbo, that last minute where his opponent survives but where everyone in the crowd knew the hand would be raised and the backdrop was coming. Slater, despite being past his prime still came off as fairly credible in this setting.

Read more!