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1989


Phil Schneider

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Great, great match. Just as that is so good for its length this, on the other hand, is one of the best short matches ever: 

I still think this was at least halfway a shoot. Inoki brings in barely-trained Soviet amateurs, feeds them to Hashimoto. They don't know how to work and go way hard on him so he has to basically cripple them in-ring. Don't remember the Salmon Hashnikov (or whatever) match was but this is so heated. The look in Victor's eyes when Hash spits at him says it all. 

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'89 was an extremely loaded year, btw. You got the Steamboat/Flair trilogy, Jumbo/Tenryu, Flair/Funk, Vader's big run in NJPW with the awesome match against Choshu, Muta in WCW, a shitload of All Japan tags, los Brazos and a couple of great hair matches in Mexico, more Fujiwara, a fairly stacked WWF roster (Savage, Brainbusters, Rude)... this one could go on for awhile haha

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The most frustrating thing about 1989 is the total lack of Mid-South Coliseum footage, look at this list of matches!! MOTY is probably one of these

1/30/89  Jerry Lawler v. Ricky Morton

2/13/89 Jerry Lawler/Robert Gibson v. Ricky Morton/The Master of Pain

2/20/89 Jerry Lawler/Bill Dundee v. The Rock-n-Roll Express 

3/6/89 Jerry Lawler v. Tommy Rich

4/24/89 Jerry Lawler v. Shogun (Shinya Hashimoto)

8/7/89 Jerry Lawler v.  Bam Bam Bigelow in a "coward waves the flag" match.

9/4/89 Jerry Lawler v.  Buddy Landel in a "title vs. limousine" match

10/30/89 Ricky Morton/Bill Dundee v. The Fantastics

11/19/89 Jerry Lawler v. Dutch Mantel in a Texas Death Match

12/4/89 Jerry Lawler v. Bill Dundee

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Yeah, 1989 is a total murderer's row. Matches like Flair/Steamboat and Jumbo/Tenryu are no-brainers, so here's something a bit more obscure. For my money, this is Vader's first great match. Do you want to see two fat guys club the shit out of each other? Do you want to see Vader do a sunset flip? Do you want to hear random 80s pop songs in between rounds? Of course you do. Drop what you're doing and check this out.

 

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1 hour ago, NintendoLogic said:

Do you want to see two fat guys club the shit out of each other? Do you want to see Vader do a sunset flip? Do you want to hear random 80s pop songs in between rounds? Of course you do. Drop what you're doing and check this out.

 

I'm honestly checking out this match only because of that write up.

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Watched Fujiwara/Yamazaki for the first time in a long time just now. It wasn't the match I thought it was (they have a couple others on the external and one that I recall being better) but this is, again, great. Couple things:

1. I forgot UWFi had pinfalls so the desperation German was pretty cool to throw in there (pardon the pun). 

2. Yamazaki gets overlooked as one of the first "kicker" wrestlers with Sayama being his only predecessor to my recollection and Takada and Maeda as his peers and this match is all about that. 

3. Fujiwara is such an endearing clown that can turn on a dime. Who knows why the old DVDVRs are filled with disparaging comments about him. Usually his matches have a lot of him selling for body shots as his Achilles heel more than dishing them out but they flipped it around here. Unlike watching Volk Han throw crappy palmstrikes in RINGS, though, he knows how to work mean strikes into the shootstyle. Everything looks like a cheap shot and looks like it hurts.

4. Speaking of which, this might be a challenge for some if they aren't used to said style, and it really doesn't fully pick up until halfway through, and Yamazaki's exhaustion might take a notch or two off your rating but it's still more than deserving of a watch, and the praise Phil and Eric gave it. Also, and this is more true for RINGS where the crowd is seemingly more drunk or Yakuza affiliated and laughter is more redolent, but I still dig the nearly dead silent crowd with people yelling at random after too much beer and sake. "YAMAZAKI, KILL!" was a good one. 

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1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

3. Fujiwara is such an endearing clown that can turn on a dime. Who knows why the old DVDVRs are filled with disparaging comments about him.

It depends on who the comments are coming from

If it is Dean - well his wild changes in opinions are what make it great

If it is Phil - I am going to laugh and laugh and laugh

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I think Phil based a lot of Fujiwara work on that Kawada match. As in, who the hell is this old guy dragging down peak Kawada?? The same as Dean always talking about what a load Tamon Honda was. I think Fujiwara really was a genuine revelation when the nominating for the Other Japan 80s set started. 

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Okay - back to 89 specifically and since I have a feeling you two are ignoring the Flair matches (Steamboat and Funk) then I will fight UWF with UWF

Yamazaki/Takada

Per Dean

Quote

“The best thing so far has been the GREAT, GREAT, GREAT, GREAT, GREAT, GREAT, GREAT Yamazaki vs Takada match where Yamazaki is as amazing as Takada and Takada is as amazing as he has ever been… Yamazaki is so stiff and awesome by the end of this, when he is really kicking the fuck out of Takada, that I’m amazed he wasn’t instantly summoned to wrestling Hercules at Mt Olympus. Takada, who has already achieved wrestling godhood, is more than up for the challenge. It really gets no better than this. This is just a great match.”

 

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'89 was so good it was the first time Eddy was nationally televised. Bless Terry Funk for trying to get him a spot and failing... for the time being. 

EDIT: Note, I'm not nominating this match, just wanted to remind everybody about it. Funk got Eddy the spot and WCW in their great wisdom sent him back to El Paso. 

Also, it's relevant because it was a great lead-in to the Funk/Flair I Quit which when the guys get around to it is gonna be a hard one to beat.

PS Eddy bumps like a maniac in this. 

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20 hours ago, EricR said:

I think Luger is one of the lost great workers. Even through 1996 TV stuff he looked really good. Luger is a guy who needs a proper reconsideration. 

I think people say pre-WWF Luger is good, it's WWF Luger and beyond who wasn't as good.

 

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