Matt D

I think we had a HH of Inoki vs Smothers but it’s no longer online. We covered it on SC in 19. I think it went four minutes but was fun. I may recover it later though. I hope to write up Inoki vs Fujinami tomorrow but for now I made a massive thread of clips. https://bsky.app/profile/mattd-sc.bsky.social/post/3llqttdfjlc2x

Now imagine him as a heel getting chopped by Eddie Kingston.

I wrote about Fletcher vs King (also the Athena/Diamante tag): https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/03/aew-five-fingers-of-death-and-friends_31.html?m=1

I'm really glad that Omega's dance card is full through All In (with things leading to Okada), because a feud with Fletcher would be terrible. I really think Omega doesn't like working against stooging heels. The hierarchy was perfect with Christian but the fact he started out with some chain wrestling and then built to Christian being a weird stooge instead of just leading with it and leaning into it was a huge waste if you're just going to do five minutes with him. Fletcher needs to stay as far away as possible from Ospreay/Omega for the rest of the year so he can continue to develop and lean into what he's doing. His every reaction is great and keeps the fans from getting behind him. Just the way he flails about and kicks his feet and takes bumps on top of bumps and lets things set in. He's the most natural young heel in wrestling in years, maybe decades.

I thought Saraya brought something unique in her active last year or so. She was willing to stooge and look the fool like almost no other heel on the roster (Taya will do it too). She was basically the only heel that wrestled like a heel and she was pretty important in getting Harley over. The bit where Harley shouted from the outside to hit her with the RamPaige and then Saraya started arguing back that her move hadn't been called that for years was legitimately hilarious. I honestly think she's a bit of a loss since there were ~3 feuds left on the table (full Timeless Toni for the Outcasts stuff as we just got a hint of it as she was changing into a babyface, Mercedes for the injury, and Harley considering their connection). But at the same time, she's not someone I'm going to go out of my way to defend for personal reasons. But I think people really overlook what she still had to bring to the table in 2025.

Seeing people grumbling about this online and again, the big issue is just that it’s three years too late.

Realities colliding. That’s the plot, so…..

Real curious how Omega vs Christian will go. I don't get the sense Omega likes wrestling stooges and Christian is way over the top with his stooging lately (even if he rushes from bit to bit). He might force him into a more action-oriented box.

Just some clips on the last few matches. Check out the Vader smoke one!

Christian does a ton of stooging now and it’s all entertaining but he doesn’t let any of it settle on. He just rushes to the next bit of shtick. He’s a stooge monkey.

I have a ton to catch up on since I didn't realize 7/25 had 3 matches. Totally missed them as I rushed to 7/29 so I had to go back. 7/25/88: Inoki vs Kimura: Not sure if Inoki was just not ready or what but this was pretty dreadful. Loooooong sleeper/chinlock. At one point they cut to Fujinami on commentary and he waved them off like he was seriously watching as basically nothing was happening. They were barely working it. When they got free, Kimura kicked and whacked a prone Inoki until he got pissed and they got scrappy and that was pretty good. They went back and forth with the uncooperative scrappiness until Kimura got the Inazuma leg lariat. Inoki recovered and dropped him with a Shibata style instant sleeper. Kimura jumped up to meet him when he was about to come off the top with the kneedrop though and we got this great visual image of Inoki punching down on him. he then landed the knee and followed it up with the Octopus for the win. Post match Choshu (who had come down to ringside) had words for him. 7/25/88: Fujinami/Koshinaka vs Southern Boys: We lose some of this but it was fun to see Steve and Tracy in this setting. Lots of dropkicks. They controlled on Koshinaka til he came back with the Butt Butt. Fujinami called him in for the double dropkick. Southern Boys took back over and hit a top rope hart attack style dropkick but it was broken up on the pin. They did their own double dropkick. Eventually, Fujinami got one isolated and hit his "Dragon Backbreaker." Always good to establish it. 7/25/88: Vader vs Choshu: This was pretty awesome like you'd imagine. It started so well too, with Vader rushing through the smoke from his helmet to ambush Choshu. Choshu came back early with some lariats (One thing I see about NJPW in 88 is that you do see finishers right up front and then that defines the match and it's interesting). Vader took back over and dominated for most of the match. There was an awesome strength spot in the corner where Choshu basically caught him in a Samoan drop and fired back for a bit, including trying for the Scorpion. Finish was very good as Vader hit a Vader attack off the apron for the countout win. 7/29/88: Inoki vs Vader: This was the league finals. If Inoki lost, he said he'd retire. Similar start to the Choshu match but THIS time, Inoki charged forth and hit the back brain kick to start as the smoke was going. Great visual. Before that, Vader had destroyed his own skull staff (I miss it already; amusingly, he had poked Choshu with it). Afterwards they went tumbling out and Vader stretched Inoki's back over the guardrail. Back in the ring, Inoki kept trying to pry the arm off since he had luck with that. Vader hit Vader Attacks. Inoki kept going to the arm. Vader did a double arm stretch and then started really laying shots in (the most I've seen him do up until now). Inoki fired back and pounded on him in the corner (this part was good). Inoki survived the power slam. Vader survived the knee drop off the top. Vader finally missed the charge to the post on the outside and his arm just opened up with a deep wound. Inoki tried for the octopus. Vader powered out. Vader tried for his top rope Vader Attack again (that just beat Choshu), and Inoki turned it into an armbar guiding him down and the ref called the match. huge win for Inoki. Huge bloody gash for Vader. 7/29/88: Fujinami/Kimura/Koshinaka vs Hashimoto/Chono/Muto: So I also had a Muto vs Hash match on the date but it was from 90. Oops. That was really good though. This was interesting since you had the tag champs, the jr. champ and the world champ against a bunch of punks. They ambushed the vets right at the start too and they had Hashimoto hit the spin wheel kick on Fujinami. They stayed on him til Chono got nailed by a belly to back and the vets took over. Chono was pretty skinny here. Muto had a totally different look with short hair and a goatee. Hash was the great equalizer. AT one point he did this crazy hefting tilt a whirl gutbuster onto Koshinaka. They built first to Fujinami and Hashimoto scrapping and then to everything breaking down with Fujinami destroying Muto in the tree of woe until the ref called it. Felt like it might set up things for years to come. 7/29/88: Fujiwara vs Nielsen: Pretty shocking outcome here as Fujiawara gets knocked out of the ring and can't get back in after Nielsen dominated. I can only assume Fujiawara was on his way out and they wanted to do this to build him for Inoki or something. The match itself was interesting with Fujiwara just absorbing stuff and getting rocked into a corner until he could get a limb and pull Nielsen down. The sort of stuff you can only do if you have total confidence like he did. I wouldn't say it was as entertaining as the Yamada fight but it was certainly unique. Some great comebacks by Fujiwara but too little too late. I don't know. It sure felt shocking to me.

I cannot fit a Wednesday show into my life, but the one thing that would get me to potentially go to the Baltimore Dynamite is someone like Atlantis or Blue Panther booked for a ROH match.

I’d like to see what Knight can do as a heel against a less stylized opponent. Some of his bluster was pretty natural. If you were giving Ricochet a couple of guys, he could fit right in.

I had a mislabeled Hashimoto vs Muto match from 90 and it was pretty cool and I was amazed they had advanced so much in the few months off TV and ... nope. Mislabeled. ANYWAY 7/22/88: Inoki vs Choshu: I'm never spoiled on these guys but this one I was and that's a shame as I would have been really up for the finish. These two match up so well obviously. Choshu wasn't letting Inoki into the ring to start. It's little bitter things like that. Inoki had to fight his way in. This had both a lot of Inoki grabbing a limb in a way that was not good pro wrestling and also him serenely putting on his deathlock in a way that is the best pro wrestling ever. That's Inoki for you. At one point, Choshu deadlifted him out of an armbar and it was awesome. Finish was amazing. Inoki hit a German but for two. He argued with the ref and Choshu nailed him with the lariat from behind and got the win. Huge shock. 7/22/88: Fujinami/Kimura vs Sawyer/Fernandez: Buzz is so cool in these. He just comes out and causes havoc. We have almost no 87-88 Sawyer footage (and none outside of NJ) but he's totally on, just big larger than life reactions after winning an exchange (like ducking a cross body on rope running at one point). Just a good back and forth in general with Buzz and Manny working well together and Fujinami and Kimura fighting from underneath. Finish had Sawyer accidentally hitting Manny and then Fujinami finishing things with the Robinson backbreaker. 7/29/88: Choshu vs Saito: Tremendous hossfight here. They labeled Saito as the gatekeeper of hell and all sorts of other cool stuff and Choshu as a Revolutionary. Fans were really looking forward to this one and they just hit bombs. Saito hit his suplex right from the start and there were multiple lariats to go around. He locked in the Prison lock a couple of times too and Choshu went for the Scorpion. At one point Choshu dumped Saito over the rail but it wasn't a DQ (probably to protect Saito). Finish was the two of them crashing into each other with a lairat on the apron (Saito out, Choshu in) and Choshu winning by countout in a manner he didn't like. good stuff though. I put it up for now. Catch it while you can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?si=ae2JiZr2EfV7eUSO&v=c4db_KZOXc4&feature=youtu.be

There was a period where he was losing handicap matches vs Andre or whatever which was his lowest. But when he got stale, they did the El Matador thing to freshen him up too.

When I started watching in 90, he was immediately one of my favorites. Him being one of the survivors in Survivor Series 90, who made it to the final match, might have went a long way towards that.

From watching the footage, the answer seems to be yes.

I wrote up this match for an audience of basically two. BUT were I to have written it for an audience of three, you'd be #3. http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/03/aew-five-fingers-of-death-and-friends_17.html

Tito had a lot of value as a name babyface with a connection to the crowd who could put over up and coming heels. They turned Valentine at the start of 91 to basically do the same. It would have obviously been better for Valentine’s career to jump to Crockett a couple of years earlier.

I’d laugh if it was Max Caster

7/15/88: Kimura vs Choshu: IWGP League match. Choshu cut him off three times in the match with the knee to the gut (kitchen sink but I hate calling it that). Kimura had an awesome comeback in the middle with strikes. Great stuff. Choshu was a bastard. Kimura got the Inazuma Leg Lariat once but when he went for it the second time, Choshu caught the leg, put him in the Scorpion and when he got to the ropes, hit the lariat for the win. A win Choshu really needed on TV, I think. But they match up very well together, both on the mat and standing up. Post match is Choshu ripping Inoki's shirt off and teasing a big brawl with him to build heat for their match the next week. I think we're missing a bunch of this tournament, which is a shame. I need to look at some results. The WON around this time is spotty since a whole issue got taken up by Bruiser Brody's obit. Oh this isn't just a tournament. It's the 88 IWGP League. I'm missing so many singles matches because what didn't make tape. Ok, so Inoki returns on 7/16, but not televised (WON said he was very rusty/not ready) in a trios against Buzz/Manny/Cuban Assassin. That's the card with Saito/Honaga vs Brazos. Then 7/18 has Inoki/Koshinaka vs Saito/Choshu which sounds neat. And a league match where Saito beats Kimura. Vader's been doing two-on-ones here. Southern Boys vs Kido/Fujiwara sounds kind of awesome, as does Hoshino/Yamada vs Brazos. Ah well. I shouldn't be doing this to myself. Ok 7/21. Vader beats poor Kimura in the league (they sent him out to die in three straight matches to start the thing!) An Inoki six man in the main. Southern boys vs Hoshino/Kido this time. 7/22 this was TV. Hoshino/Yamada vs Brazos again. Kobayashi/SSM vs Southern boys (sounds great). Koshinaka vs Hiro Saito fo rthe title. And then on to the ones we have on TV. So I've just missed Kimura losing to Saito and Vader so far I guess? 7/22/88: Saito vs Vader: Another league match. They really don't show any sign of being a team here. they just go at it. Big hossfight. After Vader pounded him in the corner, saito got underneath him and really worked for the Saito suplex and then was super hyped up because he knew how to work a spot like like and the aftermath like a big American babyface. Saito took a bunch of this actually, just having an answer for him. Vader did absolutely kill him with a vader attack at one point (which they called the "Vader Killer Attack"). Eventually things sprawled to the outside and Vader missed the corner killer vader attack, recovered, and went for a charge to the rail. Saito got out of the way and Vader went flying over on his own power and lost due to "ring out". I've never actually seen that. I've seen DQs and DDQs when people either toss someone over or both go sprawling over. So Vader was protected to a degree but Saito still won.

Hechicero vs Orange Cassidy sounds like a great deal of fun. Wildcard is probably Bailey and I'm said to see Mortos fall to him but that should also be big dumb fun. I very much look forward to Ricochet's reactions to Shibata no selling something he does too. And yeah, sure, Briscoe vs Davis sounds like a fun time too. So all of this is good. It seems like it'll be a four way after that, which is a shame as a lot of the potential second/third round matches would have been fun.

It’s actually a hammerlock/dragon sleeper entry point, which is pretty unique.

I’m so high on Fletcher’s development. He has incredible instincts all things considered and he goes for real heat. The cage match wasn’t at all grounded but where it did resonate emotionally was on Fletcher’s mannerisms, antics, and reactions as he got his comeuppance.

I'm dreading the Omega match honestly. I get Ospreay. I 100% get him and why people like him. It's clear as day to me. With Omega, I have such a massive disconnect. He's the most disingenuous, disconnected, unimmersive wrestler to me. Breaks my suspension of disbelief more than almost any wrestler I've ever encountered. I feel nothing watching his matches but disdain and frustration and mild intellectual admiration for what he's TRYING to do. Yet people are very clear that he makes them feel more than any other wrestler. Not with the people here, but with a lot of people online, he's the wrestler that most people associate with being "smart." He's their Flair (for people in the 80s-early 90s) or Benoit (for people in the late 90s-early 00s), etc. He defines what is "great" and it's hard to even dispute it with them.