2001 Match of the Year

Shinya Hashimoto/Tadao Yasuda v. Tamon Honda/Masao Inoue Zero One 4/18/01

PAS: Nothing I love more then a inter promotional Japanese brawl. Team NOAH is undermanned and are awesome fighting from below. Serious Inoue is great, he is such a shlub, and I love it when he steps it up and goes to war. The Yasuda experiment was a pretty huge turn of the century failure, but this was his crowning achievement, he is a great bully smacking around Inoue with sumo thrusts and chucking him to the ground. In one of the cooler moments Yasuda has Inoue mounted and Honda runs in and chucks him with his awesome german suplex. Finish was totally boss, Hashimoto is a serial killer in this, he comes in a demolishes Inoue with these brutal looking over hand chops, they have to stop the match because his shoulder is so damaged. Has everything you want in this kind of match, bad feelings, great character work and  big time violence.


ER: Yeah these type of matches are bread and butter for me. All time asskicker, former sumo, former Olympian, chubby little loser. That's a winning combination for me. There's a lot to love in a short amount of time here, and I loved it all. Inoue gets his own ring entrance and he really soaks it up, but Hashimoto's entrance is just charisma beyond compare. A top 10 favorite of mine at the peak of his all time badass powers, sideburns with the Paul Weller shag, truly The Jam of assbeating. I'm a big fan of former sumos in pro wrestling, even the ones that aren't too great. The crowd seems to get extra electric for them, their sumo spots always get a big reaction, and they bring a "legit athlete" credibility to matches. So I'm excited right off the bat as Yasuda rushes Honda and bullies him into the corner, and then does it again with Honda catching him in a choke, followed by Honda tossing the ref aside so the can grapple. They keep coming to stalemate but the intensity burned. And then Inoue - like a 13 yr old boy trying to kiss a girl way out of his league- rushes Hash and begins blasting him with elbows, even dropping Hash down to a knee. Inoue staggering Hash is an all time great moment, but Hash has to spoil the glee by standing up and throwing the meanest overhand chops to Inoue's neck and trap and shoulder. Yasuda gets to pick on Inoue, chucks him with his underhook suplex and rolls right into mount, blasting Inoue several times. Honda breaks up the punches by coming up behind Yasuda and lifting him up and over with his great great great German suplex. We get a wonderful Honda/Hash throwdown, with Hash getting overzealous and headbutting Tamon Honda, the way a fool might. You don't tug on Superman's cape, you don't open attachments from parties you don't know, and you don't try to headbutt a man with a noggin like Tamon Honda. Honda smirks at Hashimoto's headbutt and then drops Hashi to the mat with his gigantic sledgehammer of a dome. But we knew who the weak link was before we even saw a visual of the match, and before long Hash has Inoue all to himself, kicking and chopping, and Inoue's shoulder - to this day - probably sounds like a rock grinder every time he moves it. And on rainy days he is reminded of Shinya Hashimoto.


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