Matt Watches 1989 AJPW/1986 NJPW on a Treadmill

[DJ Hero Morganti]

Also.  Much like reposts on reddit.. sometimes people won't see it the first time... Or at the location it was at. 

 

So thanks Matt!

[Matt D]

9/15/89: Jumbo/Yatsu vs Kobashi/Kabuki: Watching the hierarchy shift in real time is pretty fascinating. This one starts with Yatsu bullying Kobashi in the ropes only for Kobashi to turn it upon him and take a real advantage and Yatsu having to fight hard to make it back to his corner. Throughout the match, Kobashi's able to hold his own and have legitimate moments of control against Yatsu and even Jumbo in a way that simply wouldn't have been possible a month earlier. Here it stretches credulity but in a way that elevates Kobashi. He still makes a couple of desperate rolling tags and he still gets jammed by Jumbo a few times. To me, this isn't yet full on grumpy Jumbo. It's still big boot Jumbo but he's almost more a gladiator that's gotten lost in the adulation of the crowd. Here's how over Kobashi was at this point: when he has an advantage mid-match and tags in Kabuki, the Kobashi chants transfer over into Kabuki ones, even against Jumbo and Yatsu. Kabuki's not in here for long but when he is, it's a lot of great striking like you'd expect. Despite Kobashi's immediate elevation, this ends pretty much how you'd expect, Jumbo bombs either kicked out of or broken up by Kabuki with the exclamation point of the belly-to-back to quash resistance.

[Matt D]

9/30/89 - Kroffat/Furnas/"THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS MAN" Ken Shamrock vs Kobashi/Joe Malenko/Nakano: So you see this and you obviously want to know about Shamrock, right? He was pretty bulky here with a singlet with a USA/Olympic theme. He was primarily in there against Joe Malenko and could do a pretty solid two minute exchange with him with some chain wrestling and a couple of big powerful reversals. When he was in against Kobashi and had to do a little less of an even exchange and a little more flowing pro wrestling, it didn't go as well. There was a moment towards the end where the ref was obviously directing traffic to get guys to run in which is not something you usually see at this level but I imagine the language barrier and Shamrock's relative inexperince had something to do with that. It was nice to see Malenko in this role and there were a couple of good double teams (like a bow and arrow/elbow drop with Kobashi if I'm not mistaken) but it was hard to not just wait for Shamrock to get back in to see what he'd do next.

9/30/89 - Tenryu/Hansen vs Jumbo/Kabuki: Little shorter than usual here. First half was sprint-like and back and forth. Tenryu with Hansen meant he was heeling it up a little more overtly than usual. Hansen vs Kabuki remains fun to watch as Kabuki just throws all of his strikes at him head on. Eventually, they became too much for Kabuki and leaned on him for a few minutes. The match didn't really look back from there. He was able to mount enough of a comeback to get Jumbo back in but one side was healthy enough to make saves and the other wasn't, so they started to dominate Jumbo too. Finish was good stuff with a feint setting up a Hansen lariat out of nowhere. Having Kabuki in there switched things up a bit from the usual Yatsu pairing. Nice variation.

[Curt McGirt]

Shamrock was really good in this. Also, check that perm! 

[KinchStalker]

Seeing him billed under his middle name is only making it harder not to mentally conflate Kenneth Wayne Shamrock with Kenny Wayne Shepherd.

[AxB]

You know the Australian Muay Thai fighter, John Wayne Parr? His real name was Wayne Parr. Only the first time he was booked outside of Australia, it was on the King's Birthday Tournament in Thailand. And Wayne sounds exactly like the Thai word for Bastard, and they couldn't have a guy called Bastard on a tournament to honour the King of Thailand. So they gave him a middle name as a new first name... and then he got booked in Japan and all over the World on the basis on appearing in that tournament, so he's just John everywhere now.

[Matt D]

9/30/89: Yatsu/Takano vs Footloose: Yeah, it's been a few days since I saw this one. It's interesting how Takano moves differently from other people we've seen. He leapt off the apron with a a loose axehandle in a way that a guy like Yatsu would never do. More of throwing himself at his opponents. Footloose took most of this with superior teamwork, but the progression of these matches is that stuff like that doesn't always matter when hierarchy is at stake. Kawada seems a half step behind where he was in September, probably because Tenryu has Hansen to team with now. Really, though Yatsu/Takano got lucky here but that let Yatsu pick up the incredibly rare win with his leglock which is always good in making the thing seem credible.

7/11/89: Fuyuki vs Kobashi: I had covered the last couple of minutes of this previously, but thanks to the new run of AJPW classics, we get the full thing now. There's a lot to see as this was a very long match (a 30 minute draw) at a key time in Kobashi's development (right when he was getting his first win). It's also a rare long Fuyuki singles match. He was a bully of sorts early on, grinding Kobashi down and then harshly kicking him off whenever he tried to get an advantage. They moved into a Kobashi leg-work control segment next which utilized time well, before escalating into a back and forth period and a finishing stretch that maybe had just a little too much as they worked towards the time limit draw (but a clear sense of Kobashi surviving as he ate the Superplex, a rare move for the year, right at the end). This had old man Kobashi commentary and it was fun to hear them shouting out the names of moves. I'd say this, while not perfect, was an accomplishment for both wrestlers at this stage of Kobashi's career.

[Matt D]

10/1/89: Shamrock/Kroffat vs Joe Malenko/Kobashi: Hey, I really enjoyed this one. Feels a little like an overlooked gem, though not the greatest match in the world or anything. First and foremost, here's a moment I've been waiting for in 89. We've seen Kroffat super aggressive, especially against Kawada, but this is the first time that he's so actively come off as an asshole.

Check this out (NSFW, I guess?) - I'm also sticking the match in here for you guys.

Spoiler

 

So yeah, and when he goes for his first engagement with Kobashi, he swings a kick for no reason and then lays in some super huge chops and he somehow even leaned in with the spin wheel kick. Just a jerk and thus one of my favorites. Shamrock looked fairly good here with a nice chain wrestling segment with Malenko, some great Belly to Belly suplexes, and some solid bridging. He definitely had an attraction feel to him at this point, a strongman phenom with some wrestling, but he was also fairly limited if you look too close. They had a long control segment on Kobashi's leg (solid selling from Kobashi) and a fairly hot tag, though the crowd was only so into this, which probably takes it down a notch. Finish was a little abrupt too, hinging around Shamrock missing a moonsault, though Kobashi hit a pretty cool Northern Lights with the leg hooked almost like a Fisherman's Suplex.

10/1/89: Hansen/Fuyuki vs Yatsu/Taue: Fun and unique pairing. Yatsu took it right to Hansen at the start, as one must, but a few choice headbutts meant he couldn't hold him down, even if he did take him down, and he was all but running from Hansen on the outside afterwards, which while understandable, wasn't a good look. Hansen and Fuyuki made a really fun unit here, as it was sort of like Hansen teaming with Jannetty or mid 80s Bret, a tag team specialist. Lots of quick tags and controlling the ring and setting Taue up for him. That sort of thing. Eventually, Yatsu and Taue took over and hit bomb after bomb on Fuyuki, but Hansen was never far away from breaking things up and had that tendency of just hanging around and laying in a few more stomps. Eventually, Fuyuki half earned and was half given by Hansen a collapsing tag into the corner and Yatsu made the tactical mistake of tripping his own partner to stop him from eating the lariat instead of letting Hansen hit him with it and then breaking it up. That just pissed Hansen off, causing him to roll out and crush Yatsu, leaving Taue friendless when the lariat did come. Post match, Yatsu got a smattering of heat back by charging the ring but it didn't do him much good.

Urgh, I already wanted to go back to fill in some TV to see a Jive Tones match or two but I just realized I missed some of the 7/18/89 handheld:

- Shunji Takano & John Tenta vs. The Destroyer & The Terminator (7/18/89)

- Mighty Inoue & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Joe & Dean Malenko (7/18/89)

- Giant Baba, The Great Kabuki, & Rusher Kimura vs. Masanobu Fuchi, Motoshi Okuma, & Haruka Eigen (7/18/89)

....and the rest of the 7/11/89 show...

- Giant Baba, Rusher Kimura, & The Great Kabuki vs. Masanobu Fuchi, Motoshi Okuma, & Haruka Eigen (7/11/89)

- Shunji Takano vs. Toshiaki Kawada (7/11/89)

- The Fantastics vs. Jim Brunzell & Tom Zenk (7/11/89)

I have to get that stuff too.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Matt D

[Matt D]

Was a little under the weather the other night so I needed something easy.

3/24/94: Nick Bockwinkel vs Jumbo (c): Jumbo was the AWA champ here but this was in an AJPW ring so I don't think it was on the AWA set. I'm sure i've seen it but I have a much better understanding of Jumbo now. It was the sort of title match style encounter that you wouldn't see a few years later, at least in the first half, with the usual headlock stuff. Bock is always so in the moment that it was fine but nothing memorable. Back half had Bockwinkel really go after the legs though, which he could get away with from a narrative satisfaction standpoint as he was a challenger here. After a brief king of the mountain, Jumbo fires back and Bock draws a DQ, whichvery much came off as him trying for something and not getting away with it. Some good brawling post match with Jumbo standing tall.

And now some catch up:

4/89: Jumbo/Takano vs Gordy/Hansen: Our (2021) friend in Japan (https://youtu.be/gmcfuIfHiZ4) has been posting a lot of very rare NJPW that then goes away very quickly. The AJPW tends not to be as rare but stays up. This one wasn't on any list I've seen though. It's a good little 10 minute match with Takano being the x factor. He has a lot less of a chip on his shoulder than Yatsu and a little more size. It means he's less aggressive, but also that they're able to hold Hansen down for about five minutes as he's much more inclined to make tags instead of toughing it out. Five minutes of controlling Hansen is quite good but obviously it's not going to last. Eventually they get Jumbo out of the ring and that's that. Post-match, Jumbo kills everyone with a chair and then Yatsu (maybe with a neck brace) comes out to brawl with Hansen.

7/11/89: Giant Baba, Rusher Kimura, & The Great Kabuki vs. Masanobu Fuchi, Motoshi Okuma, & Haruka Eigen: No real comedy here in the old-timers match. Baba was extremely like 89 Andre, though a little more mobile with one nice go behind trip/toehold that he used a couple of times. He had respect and presence that meant people bounced off him and acted in awe and so long as the wrestlers acted that way, the fans would respond accordingly. Kimura sold a lot more and did a lot more than a few years later; that's a constant. I think the comedy of the 90s was more of a necessity than a goal, reactive instead of proactive, but I could be wrong. Fuchi had more zing than his partners but everyone was fine. Kabuki's strikes were great as usual. I would have liked Momota in here somewhere, but what can you do? This was ok.

[Matt D]

7/11/89: Takano vs Kawada: I'm not really going to do this one justice as my head is so full of other wrestling I've seen but I liked it a lot. I'd call it a gem. Kawada got to seem a bit more dangerous than usual as he's generally in there to beat on someone until he gets caught and crushed in the bigger tags and the Footloose ones tend to have more back and forth noise. Takano still caught a kick and gave him a huge exploder, mind you. There was a little bit of legwork by Kawada early but it turned into a sprint shortly thereafter, including Kawada doing multiple baseball slides followed by a missed dive leading to a Takano dive. Good stuff all around.

7/11/89: Fantastics vs Zenk/Brunzell: This is ALSO not the great missing heel Zenk performance. It was fine. Fantastics were smooth as silk with their double teams. Brunzell and Zenk had the dropkicks but they were really just there. The good thing is that they were willing to take all sort of stuff from the Fantastics so it was a good offensive showcase for them. 

[Matt D]

I had a Tenta/Takano vs Destroyer/Terminator match ahead of me and decided i wanted to watch an actual Destroyer match so...

Bonus match: 12/2/63: Destroyer vs Rikidozan: This one was super interesting. Rikidozan reminded me of a Lawler or a Lothario in that he held the center of the ring and Destroyer brought almost all the motion. There was a headscissors where Destroyer based for him and held his weight, but past that, it was mainly that central rooting. He didn't really have the same sort of presence or charisma as the others though. That doesn't mean that the crowd didn't go nuts when he finally had enough and chopped Destroyer's head off, mind you, and no matter how awesome Destroyer was in jawing and grinding and stooging, I don't believe for the second that the crowd reaction had nothing to do with Rikidozan, but it was hard to see why in the actual work. He had patience and timing, but he certainly wasn't electric. You could take your eye off him, which was good because it was a hell of a lot more interesting to watch Beyer do his thing.

Bonus match: 5/5/94: Tenryu vs Onita Exploding Barbed Wire Cage Match: Careful and measured, worked very smart. They spend the first few minutes sliding and dropping down and doing everything they can to avoid the cage, while still trying to work headlock spots and what not. Just a very interesting limitation that adds an element of dangerous and organic uniqueness. It feels a lot like a normal match, just with that limitation. Onita gets tossed into it first, though, and that lets Tenryu take over. He can't put him away immediately and goes for the clothesline only for Onita to duck... From there it's mostly back and forth. Onita will get a lucky ddt but he just can't make full use of the environment. That felt like his only way to win too. He was scrappy and persistent but he was up against someone who could out-resilience him. Take away that major advantage from Onita and it was just a matter of time. Finish had maybe one too many power bomb but what are you going to do?

7/18/89: Destroyer/Terminator vs Takano/Tenta: Perfectly fine match really. Some fun headlock stuff early with the Destroyer and Takano. Then some cheap tag work to keep control. It'd go more back and forth after that. Terminator looked fine. He was big and could clubber well. The main issue here was that Tenta had developed so much over the previous year that he was just too much for anyone to handle. He had to stay out of the ring most of the match because he'd just eat these guys up. That's true for most of the roster. Kawada was a threat, sure, but he'd be a threat with diminishing returns against Tenta. You really couldn't buy anyone outside of Hansen, Jumbo, or Tenryu hurting him, but he wasn't pushed at that level. They probably should have just kept him teaming with Baba and teasing dives if they weren't going to push him on top.

[worldcupfever]

On 2/15/2021 at 8:17 PM, Matt D said:

Check this out (NSFW, I guess?) - I'm also sticking the match in here for you guys.

  Hide contents

 

 

 

Baba on commentary really is an ASMR dream.

[Matt D]

I always wonder what the hell he's talking about. Once I put on youtube's automatic translation which works quite well for me in the French matches and it just seemed like they were talking about local places to eat or something.

7/18/89: Mighty Inoue/Yoshinari Ogawa vs Joe and Dean Malenko:  This was pretty good. Best Ogawa's looked so far, certainly, both in how he just leaped gut first into dropkicks and things like a rolling short arm scissors, though you get the sense he was just following the leader, but he was able to do it well, so I'm not going to complain. I will complain that you wanted to see the Malenko's just wreck him and that didn't happen, though. Inoue had real snap to his stuff. I come out impressed by him almost every time I see him. He did sit in a fujiwara armbar for a little too long without much happening, but that was just one small issue. Joe and Dean looked good as always. This remains my favorite version of Dean.

7/18/89: Baba/Rusher/Kabuki vs Fuchi/Eigen/Okuma: Yeah, ok, this wasn't great. Look, here's the deal. Baba's side can unquestionably do more than they'd be able to do a few years later. Kimura does stuff. He took a slam off the top! Baba can come in easily to break up a pin. Everyone on Fuchi's side is pretty solid. Fuchi and Kabuki had a good little fiery exchange, but none of that makes up for the fact it's just not fun to watch. The comedy matches a few years later are endlessly more entertaining. They serve more of a purpose. They get more of a reaction. They create memories. No one's going to remember anything from this. There were a couple of tiny moments, some cowering from Baba as Rusher held him back to start. A little spot where Rusher fell down after taking a headbutt from both sides. But nothing like what you'd get a few years later when they fully committed to their role on the card.

[Matt D]

Ok, I still need to double back for some Jive Tones at some point, but I'm back to October 89.

10/1/89: Jumbo/Takano vs Tenryu/Kawada: Good sprint. I hadn't seen Jumbo vs Tenryu for a few weeks so the first minute or two of them just charging at each other was more enjoyable than when I'm seeing it all the time. Takano is always a fun addition to these. I like Yatsu plenty but it's nice to see Kabuki or Takano or someone else in there sometimes: he just moves differently. He has some different offense including a bunch of kicks and the knee off the second rope/top while still having size but being more vulnerable than Jumbo. Tenryu feels like more of a face with Kawada and more of a heel with Hansen and it's just an interesting dynamic. Here, for instance, Kawada got beat on a lot and got a legitimately hot tag to Tenryu. Kawada kept coming back in too early and losing the advantage. That was more due to the beating than anything implied about him though. He still did plenty of damage of his own that he wouldn't have a year previous. There was one funny moment where Tenryu holds Jumbo for a missile dropkick and Jumbo gets free and Tenryu just walks away too as Kawada whiffs. Starting mid-match they cycled into hitting a big move, having the partner break up the pin, and then cycle back down into more back and forth stuff. Finish was fun as Tenryu does this nasty pick up double leg bomb thing on Takano that you never see but still looked fairly nasty. before hitting him with the real bomb. Let me grab that.

Next up for me is a 10/8 handheld match between Tenryu and Kawada. Anyone have any idea what's up with that? Did he just give him a title shot and it didn't air or something?

[KinchStalker]

No title shot, it was just a unique main event for a Korakuen show that wasn't a TV taping.

[Matt D]

And now I've watched it.

10/8/89: Tenryu vs Kawada: The attitude here is interesting. Nothing different pre-match, nothing different post. No handshakes or embraces or any overt sign that these two are part of the same unit. I think there's something more subtle in the attitude and the body language though. They slowly lean into it, until Tenryu gives him a wake-up call chop and Kawada burst forth with the kicks. I love the early sequence where Tenryu dodges a dive but Kawada then ducks the chop on the floor and hits a killer spin kick that lets him take over for a couple of minutes. Tenryu is certainly giving here, but he almost always is, as resilient comebacks are kind of his thing. The body control Tenryu has with his jumping kick (enziguri/back brain kick) is just amazing. He's able to sort of bring it down and make it seem like a slow arc but absolutely painful. I don't note that enough. It's one of the best moves in wrestling history. This was a little more measured than Jumbo vs Yatsu because, as a character, Tenryu might be stoic and unyielding in the end, but he's not a total freaking madman like gladiator Jumbo. It ends like you expect it to, with Kawada not being able to put Tenryu away but still avoiding some of the biggest bombs, only to fall prey to a power bomb. Note here that he did, for the second week in a row, that double leg pick up power bomb. I'd never seen him do it at any other point in 89 and now he's done it twice in a week. Curious if it'll be part of his toolbox moving forward.

[Matt D]

10/11/89: Jumbo vs Tenryu (c): This was awesome. I get that people like the Tenryu title win more but part of me wonders how much of that was Jumbo falling out of favor and people rooting for Tenryu. This was just great. The opening exchange was the usual, a dodge of the knee, a hit of the knee, a Tenryu chop, Jumbo selling for a second and then shrugging it off with a king kong Tarzan chest beat causing the crowd to go nuts and chant his name. It settled down a bit with Jumbo wanting to wrestle because it was a title match and the skeletal ruin of who he had once been before Choshu still lingered in his soul. Tenryu's response after getting out of a couple of holds? A chop to the face. This absolutely enrages Jumbo. He goes nuts, shoves the ref, dropkicks Tenryu in the face, and wails on him with a chair on the outside. That's Tenryu's game though. He got into Jumbo's head and no one can take a little bit of horrendous damage now to control the match later quite like Tenryu. And take over he does, culminating with his brand new, used just in two matches, double leg lift up power bomb. That would have ended a normal man, but of course Jumbo isn't normal, and they start moving into big shots. Jumbo hits a belly to belly and the knee off the top. Tenryu tries to escalate with a flying body press but it's reversed. Neither guy can get the power bomb though. Tenryu comes the closest, so close, by rolling through a Jumbo attempt and standing up to try to get one of his own. It's equal force against equal force, though. Neither can seize an advantage. It'd go on forever, but Tenryu's got his new move, and he tries it again, hefting Jumbo's legs and lifting him up, and that would be it, except for Jumbo's felt this once before, and in the least-Jumbo Tsuruta thing imaginable, he uses the hefting momentum and high angle to wrap his head around Tenryu's head and throws all of his weight back into a rana and the pin. Brilliant, obviously thought out and premeditated, such a natural evolution to everything that's come before that really so clearly defines these two characters, with a finish that absolutely floored me and took me by complete surprise. MOTY so far.

[Matt D]

That last one doesn't seem to be on youtube, so here's the match in case anyone wants to see it:

 

[Curt McGirt]

Cool, I was gonna ask you for that one.

[Matt D]

10/11/89: Can-Ams vs Joe Malenko/Kenta Kobashi: Fun one with good action throughout. The red tights team was pretty unique. This is Kobashi's first ever title shot. It's the first time I've seen him tagging with Joe in a 2x2 tag. Most notable thing, however, easily, was Kroffat's attitude to start, coming out and spitting at Kobashi before the match. He's been showing slightly more overt heel tendencies throughout the year and that's one of the things that really makes him stand out in the years to come. Yes, he can do all of the spots and is super athletic but he's a shining heel star in a sea of the AJPW style. He then ducks Kobashi for a bit which just makes it better. That distinction carried over throughout the match, where Furnas and Kroffat did more helping each other out and double teams and Kobashi especially had to fight back against the odds.

10/20/89: Malenko vs Fuchi: We get the last couple of minutes of this and it's suplex-heavy and exciting. Fuchi wins but it could have gone either way. Hopefully we get the whole thing on classics this year.

Bonus match: 1/29/82: Nick Bockwinkel/Pat O'Connor vs Jumbo/Baba: I'm sure I saw this years ago but I'm much more familiar with Jumbo now. Here he looked far younger than what I'm used to even though it was just seven years. I liked him in this structure, where O'Connor and Bock really tried to grind down and he was able to come back by unveiling his different suplexes throughout the match. My favorite bit in the whole match was O'Connor trying to headlock takeover Baba, being unable to, and muttering "Ah, you try it." to Bock before tagging him in. Baba was a force here but they did a good job, by using holds and takedowns of never quite letting him be unleashed until it was time for it. Between that and the bullying of Jumbo, it was measured and meticulous, but all in a good, smart way. It was less "your turn, my turn" than a lot of early-mid AJPW tags.

[Matt D]

10/14/89: Jumbo/Kobashi/Kabuki vs Tenryu/Footloose: Again, a lot of the novelty here is having Kobashi in there to freshen things up. He's at a point where he can do some damage but he just can't hold the offense for long. This had the usual fun Jumbo vs Tenryu opening and an ice exchange later where Tenryu hotshots Jumbo on the top rope to counter the knee. Lots of fighting over suplexes here, including Jumbo trying to hit his butterfly which I don't think I've seen him use for a while. Tenryu beating on Kobashi remains interesting and there was a nice nearfall towards the end where Tenryu goes for his new pick up powerbomb only to get shoved over into Kobashi landing on him with a Thesz press of sorts. Kobashi even getting that close to a pin on Tenryu felt like it meant something.

10/14/89: Hansen vs Takano: This is JIP. I don't think I wrote this one up but it's definitely the second time I've been through it. Takano got over the feeling that we've seen from Taue and others that wrestling Hansen is almost like having a title shot. It's an opportunity to make your name by slaying the dragon. He wrestled with that sort of desperation and abandon, really throwing himself at Hansen as if he was Randy Savage with a bunch of axe handles. This is the match where, when he, himself, was in a headlock, Hansen asks the ref if Takano wants to quit, which is pretty awesome when you think about it. Ultimately, Takano makes a mistake on the outside and pays for it dearly. From there, it's just a matter of Hansen getting enough distance to run through him and hit the lariat.

I'm going to catch up on some TV matches I missed too:

5/7/89 TV: Momota (c) vs Nakano: This reminds me of Virus' Lightweight champion run in CMLL. There's no way we would be getting long Momota matches unless he had this short run as champ. Opportunity is one of the trickiest things to factor in when weighing how good someone is as a wrestler. And the answer is that Momota is pretty good. He has the fans. He has his big dives. He can grind someone down on the mat. Nakano gets a ton of time here and the match sort of puts him through his paces. There's a relatively early pile driver that's kind of ridiculous and a lot of his matwork is simple and basic. The match gets stronger once Momota starts working over the hand/arm, with my favorite moment probably Nakano selling it big during a double knucklelock test of strength and immediately losing. He goes after Momota's leg a bit after that but it's just transitory. The finish had some exciting nearfalls, before Momota gets a solid banana peel win. Nakano always comes off as a perfectly acceptable cog in 89, but he's not someone you'd want in this spot over Fuchi, Inoue, or either Malenko obviously.

5/21/89 TV: Spivey vs Takagi: Spivey gives him way too much. So much that it probably hurts his cred a bit. At first, I thought it was nice he gave him some stand up striking and a slip off shot into the post on the floor, and then that maybe it was a bit much to give him some arm control after that. The universe righted itself as Spivey took over back on the floor again, including a chair shot, but then Takagi came back with his spin kick and a frog splash and it was just too much. It doesn't really help that Spivey's finisher was the Spivey Spike DDT which just doesn't espouse power, even if Takagi took it well. This didn't help Spivey's cause and it obviously didn't do a ton for Takagi longterm.

8/2/89 TV: Tenta vs Yatsu: Super compelling 5 minutes JIP. I'm glad I doubled back for this. Yatsu totally gets it, of course, and Tenta's pretty close to figuring it all out. Some great moments from Tenta that would be different if done by almost any other big man. We come in with Yatsu trying to slam him and the way Tenta puts his hand on Yatsu's head and shoves him off is great. Likewise, later on when he just tosses him halfway across the ring to jam a bulldog attempt. I really liked the little sequence where Yatsu was dodging all over the place too. The crowd's up for this 100% and when Yatsu hits a suplex they go nuts. Finish makes a lot of logical sense, first with Yatsu hitting a top roe elbow drop which he never does (but the need is greater here!) and then locking in the leglock. Tenta gets to the ropes once, but the second time, he just can't sit up to get out given his size. Good stuff and it's a shame they didn't do more with Tenta in 89.

8/20/89 TV: Johnny Ace vs Abby: This was 3/4ths of something really good. Ace is super over as it he just takes it right to Abby, sort of mixing wild abandon with goofy clapping in the ring and the fans are all about it. It serves his well until he runs into a perfectly time Abby shot. From there it's brutal. This was to put over Abby for the upcoming Baba match so it's academic at that point, but if they had given Ace just one little comeback, the crowd would have went nuts and it would have helped to make Ace all the more.

Ok, maybe more tomorrow. I still have some Todd Champion and Tiger Conway, Jr. ahead of me.

[Matt D]

Think the following catches me up on TV:

8/20/89 TV: Yoshani Yatsu & Great Kabuki vs Terry Gordy & Todd Champion: We get maybe six minutes of this, mostly Yatsu up against these two with a little of Kabuki (primarily Gordy running into his foot in the corner). There's a fun tit-for-tat belly to back exchange between Yatsu and Gordy, who generally match up well. Champion looks better than the last time I saw him, with a huge top rope shoulder block and some nice headbutts. Yatsu takes it with a roll up out of nowhere. Ok stuff. I'm curious how they started it.

8/27/89 TV: Yoshakai Yatsu, Great Kabuki & John Tenta vs Abullah the Butcher, Pez Whatley & Tiger Conway Jr: Really entertaining for what we got. It was pretty funny watching Kabuki and Yatsu trying to deal with the Jive Tones antics. Conway, Jr. is someone I spent a lot of time with ten years before in Houston and I think he was an underlooked regional star there. We get more Pez here but they both keep it constantly entertaining. It all builds to Yatsu hitting a huge punch on Pez and things transitioning to Abby vs Tenta, which is pretty great for the minute of it we get. This was ultimately all about the Abby vs Baba build, but man, they would have been so much better suited to space it out an additional month and build to an Abby vs Tenta match first.
            
9/3/89 TV: Terry Gordy & Todd Champion vs Abullah the Butcher & Tiger Conway Jr: JIP here. The first image is basically Gordy tossing Conway into some poor guy around ringside. The fans were definitely into Gordy vs Abby and they went at it. The second Gordy tags Champion, Abby kind of hilariously trips him. Both here and in the last match, Conway's timing was off at one point in a way that you almost never see, sort of a false start before going into a start. It was very offputting. Anyway, this ended abruptly with Gordy going over on Conway with a fairly nasty power bomb and then went right into build to Abby vs Baba. I remember enjoying that match but I probably would have paid it a bit more attention if I had seen all the build.

10/1/89 TV: Isamu Teranishi vs Mighty Inoue: JIP as well. This was ok. The holds were long and sold actively in the moment but without a lot of major struggle to escape. When they moved into the finishing stretch it had some good moments and near-falls but probably needed to go around one more time. Occasional bursts of athleticism you wouldn't expect from them by looking at them (like Teranishi landing on his feet on a back body drop and, of course, Inoue's somersault sentons).

I'll do another sweep at the end of the year just to make sure. I have some HHs and the RWTL between then and now.

[Matt D]

10/20/89: Jumbo/Yatsu vs Hansen/Tenryu: I liked this one a lot too. Hansen came in with a giant bandage on his back. Tenryu seemed to be compensating for the fact his partner was vulnerable but he might have just had a chip on his shoulder after losing to Jumbo too. Yatsu wanted to start out but he just walked over and slapped Jumbo like it was still 87. Jumbo shoved through Tenryu to get to him. Gladiator Jumbo had some temper. This was as hard hitting as you'd expect, with Tenryu and Hansen vulnerable but so prone to just come in and interfere that while they were constantly in trouble, they were never in THAT much trouble. This included Hansen taking Yatsu's head off as he went for the bulldog. Finishing stretch was one of those bits of attrition where Yatsu survives either due to Jumbo's interference or his own might but once the tide turned that far, it was just a matter of time. There's an awesome big boot exchange I'll gif later for the imagery thread.

[Matt D]

10/20/89: Footloose vs Can-Ams (c): I was a little hesitant to go for this one as we've seen it a bunch in 89. The action's always good but the narratives aren't always there and it can get a little samey. The intensity is always there though. Footloose had lost the last couple. Furnas and Kroffat had a couple of awesome moments here, one where they pull him out and one where they chase him out later, where they just swarm Fuyuki. Footloose never fully recovers from it as Kawada's able to come back but ultimately falls to the numbers game. We see Kroffat's continued evolution as an American Heel In Japan. He spits again, but this time it's mid match, at Fuyuki as they're working on Kawada and it lets them lean into the double team a bit more. Here's a narrative thread in my head: Fuyuki is able to kick out a bunch of stuff (things like a double second rope DDT and what have you) on his own, and in doing so, Kawada doesn't get drawn in and potentially taken out. Kroffat, on the other hand, gets hit by a bomb which draws Furnas in, allowing him to get taken outside so he can't save Kroffat on the second bomb.

Bonus match: 5/11/05 (or 11/5/05? It's the only one so it doesn't really matter): Misawa vs Tenryu: Not a lot of talk on this online. I read one review where the person thought Misawa was broken down and done and one where someone thought Tenryu was broken down and done. So that's sort of funny. They definitely had a hard time hitting most things here, but there was a lot of good too. Playful Tenryu is pretty amazing, and here he was trolling Misawa hard at the start, screwing around and then finally, cheesily even, asking for the handshake and then clobbering him the second he got it. I have no idea when he introduced the jab into his offense, as he didn't have it in 89, but it's awesome. He's totally dominant on Misawa (clumsy or not) until he decides to just kick him in the face. The crowd goes nuts for this, and it wakes Misawa up in the worst way. Later on, he returned the favor. I love matches where they get a lot of mileage out of things that will be meaningful to the crowd and that have deep resonance and meaning as opposed to moves that are simply damaging, so all of those beats meant a lot. Even the poor execution sort of worked into the narrative of two guys that were super tough but broken down from the wars they were in (It's a little hard to even look at Misawa at age 43), just with one a bit more broken down than the other.

Someone giffed the kick so here it is:

Spoiler

 

 

[Matt D]

Ok, where am I?

10/22/89: Baba/Kobashi vs Goro Tsurumi/Rusher Kimura: This is going to sound a little weird but it's true. Obviously, I'm not spending my time watching a lot of modern indy wrestling right now. I'm not watching a lot of young guys at all. That said, watching 89 Kobashi really taps into that energy for me. He just comes at everything with so much energy and enthusiasm. Here Tsurumi came off as a really solid bully containing Kobashi. It is, I think, my first look at him in 89. I can't imagine he gets to play that role a ton in the months to come, but we'll see. He had a pretty cool second rope throat chop to a prone Kobashi too. Kimura was just there. He worked ok with Tsurumi to contain Baba, ate Kobashi's dropkick with his face, and had his headbutts, but even at this point, he's there for the post-match gabbing. This accomplished what it set out to do and fairly entertainingly at that.

10/28/89: Can-Ams vs Fuchi/Kobashi: we get the last 4:30 of this, and it comes in right during the stretch. The first shot is Kobashi reversing a tombstone (though Furnas reverses it again and they spike it). This was followed by a pretty cool Kroffat pump kick and plenty of the usual Can-Am double-teams. Kobashi showed his resilience and Fuchi kicked people in the back of the skull and it was a pretty exciting last couple of minutes before Furnas wins on a banana peel roll through and the Can-Ams get some of their heat from losing the belts back. Hopefully we get the full thing eventually.

10/22/89: Jumbo/Kabuki vs Tenryu/Fuyuki: Nice to see Fuyuki here but he definitely couldn't do much damage to Jumbo. Best he could do was contain him. This had some good story beats, including Jumbo and Kabuki totally demolishing Fuyuki's leg, including these nasty elevated half crabs by Jumbo. Eventually, Tenryu had enough and drew Kabuki off his game (just like he did earlier with Jumbo by slapping him, provocateur and firebrand that he was), allowing his side to take over. That ultimately gave us hot tag Jumbo which is pretty amazing, throwing knees and boots. Tenryu and Fuyuki would eventually take back over and it could have gone either way towards the end, but they couldn't out away Kabuki when they had Jumbo out of the way and allowed the tide to turn one last time. Pretty good stuff all around.