Matt Watches 1989 AJPW/1986 NJPW on a Treadmill

[Matt D]

7/3/89: Jumbo/Yatsu/Kabuki vs Tenryu/Hansen/Fuyuki: For the most part this was all action with little bits of time where Fuyuki or Kabuki would get beaten on for the sake of hierarchy. Key moment was Tenryu goading Jumbo so much that Jumbo kept on battering him in the corner even when he wasn't the legal man until Kabuki had to SHOVE him to get him off and Jumbo did not like that. I think this was not two far from the seminal Jumbo vs Yatsu match and this felt like more along those lines. Tenryu ended up nice and bloody after that. Fuyuki had a good run of spin kicks and what not at one point but he didn't get to show a ton. They were running this sort of thing multiple time a month and it was always worth watching and spirited.

4/19/90: Jumbo vs Tenryu one last time. The deal here is that Hansen comes out and crushes Tenryu before the match. Post match, Jumbo will ignore the trophy and hop on the mic and call out Hansen and they'll brawl. For the match itself, however, Tenryu started off hurt and Jumbo (who got Hansen to leave by coming out) tried to check on him but of course Tenryu would have none of it. More than that, he was able to sneak in a quick brain kick and power bomb, but it was too early to put Jumbo away. It was a big equalizer though, albeit not so big that Jumbo wasn't able to take over with a big boot. The interesting thing here is that they started with the bombs so they had nowhere to go. It meant that Jumbo kept going up to the top, with a knee drop (that looked more like a stomp to me) and the jumping knee to a standing Tenryu. He went up one too many times though and Tenryu nailed him with a jumping kick and was able to come back. Good finishing stretch with Tenryu turning a Thesz Press into a hot shot, really trying for the power bomb, and kicking out of the first back drop driver. The second one had the bridge though and that's a super move for Jumbo if there ever was one. Big energy match that started in an interesting way but I don't think it's what I would have wanted their last encounter to be. I'll have more to say about this and everything else over the next few days.

[Matt D]

When I finished other big projects, like Portland and Houston, I wrote big essays. Buddy Rose in 79 or Gino's early days in Houston, but this has been a more casual project and I'm not going to do that here. No big essays, but maybe some bullets probably in a few parts. Maybe with some overlap so bear with me.

Spoiler

https://winterpalacepodcast.squarespace.com/articles/gino-houston

What I did and why: I'm not sure how many matches I watched, but it was everything we had footage of, TV and handheld, between January 1989 and April 1990 with a few earlier matches to get a sense of certain things. It didn't matter if we had 3 minutes of a match or the whole things. If we had both a HH or TV version, I tended to pick TV. This is stuff sourced from TV, from Classics, from handhelds that only popped up a year or two ago. I skipped some of the Bulldogs matches because watching post-87 Dynamite tends to just be frustrating. I hit ones I thought were particularly interesting though. I chose to start with 89 as it was post Brody (I do not like Brody in AJPW) yet before the pillars were the pillars. Tenryu (and everyone else who leaves in 1990) was still around but I didn't really even know that would be a big deal for me. It's less covered ground but still had the DVDVR set voting to give me some context. From what I've seen of the pillars, even by 92-93 their matches start to feel a little bloated to me; I know I'm an outlier there and most people don't feel that until a few years later.

The overall style: I'd say this is true for singles and tags, juniors and heavies. It's sports-based more than storytelling based. It's generally very logical. What would realistically happen in any situation is what ultimately happens. When it comes to momentum, there's forward motion at every point. It's a constantly driving style and it's up to the wrestler on defense to be able to overcome it. That means that even the least interesting matches will still be exciting because there's that constant push forward and constant hard work. If someone takes a breath, they're liable to lose the advantage or get swept under. When the style shines, however, is those times where there's a hook. That hook could be a difference in hierarchy. It could be a targeted limb. It could be superior teamwork. It could be Hansen swallowing people up. It could be Tenryu goading Jumbo. It could be blood. It could be Takagi or Hansen attacking Tenryu before a match. It could be Yatsu wearing the headgear. Etc. Not every match has something like this. The ones that do stand out because then that engine of forward motion is refracted through the light of actual storytelling and narrative beats and suddenly all of that potential energy that's just swirling around the air gets cashed in upon. You see this much less in juniors tags, for instance, where there's more of a sense of everyone being equal and things tend to resonate less and to mean less, even if the workrate is always great.

Tenryu and Jumbo: And the place where that shows up the most is with Tenryu and Jumbo. By 89, they're polar opposites (with Hansen as a catalyzing force between them). Jumbo is the fallen hero who doesn't realize he's fallen. After years of fighting off the monsters with a sportsman's honor, he became a monster as well. As a character, he only seemed alive when he was being pushed into cathartic moments of violence. When he hit the big boot and raised his hand in the air and felt the adulation of the crowd, he was akin to a gladiator of old turning a thumbs down and taking off the head of his opponent. When he looked in the mirror, however, he saw the hero of years prior, the Olympian, the distinguished gentleman athlete. Tenryu had fallen perhaps farther, but he had done so with open eyes. He saw Jumbo for the hypocrite he was and was the only man in the world that could rub his face in it. On some level, I think Jumbo just wanted Tenryu to come back into the fold, to live the lie with him, to bend the knee, where Tenryu just wanted to burn it all down, to foster a revolution, to bring to light and ultimately destroy the false civility of all of those around him. Without the ability to understand the few scant promos we have, this is what I got out of their ringwork, the litany of matches where they share a ring over this period. What a testament to these two that they inspired so clear and thorough a picture just from their matches alone.

So who's better? Good question. Jumbo is fascinating in this period. But you wrap your head around him pretty quickly. Ultimately, he serves more as a foil for whoever he's up against or a cog in the machine in a tag. Jumbo is a promise, a prophecy. Eventually, no matter how well you do against Yatsu or Kabuki, against Nakano or Kobashi or Takano, Jumbo will return and you're going to have to deal with him, going to have to get him out of the way somehow, because you sure as hell aren't going to defeat him. Eventually, he'll get fed up and storm into the ring. That arm is going up. That knee is going to crash into your face. You're going to feel the back drop driver. Tenryu, on the other hand, tends to be far more complex. He's better at anyone in wrestling history at turning the tide in the moment with a nasty strike. He's much better at giving and knowing when to give. Just know that whatever he gives, he'll take back later on. The strength of Jumbo is that he means so much. Just to be in the ring with Jumbo felt important. Jumbo is great for what he was and what he represented as much as who he was and what he did. He and everyone around him knew how to milk that for all it was worth. Tenryu, on the other hand, seemed to be able to make every interacting as interesting as possible. With Jumbo, you knew the answers to the questions already but the ritual was what drew the eye and kept you coming back. You wanted to witness it. With Tenryu, the answers might take you upon a weaving path and quite often to an unexpected destination. Jumbo was monolithic. Tenryu was an exploratory journey. Tenryu being the only one that could shatter the monolith and truly unleash the mysteries of an inner Jumbo was what made their collisions so fascinating.

[KinchStalker]

On 1/15/2022 at 5:52 PM, Matt D said:

4/19/90: Jumbo vs Tenryu one last time. The deal here is that Hansen comes out and crushes Tenryu before the match. Post match, Jumbo will ignore the trophy and hop on the mic and call out Hansen and they'll brawl. For the match itself, however, Tenryu started off hurt and Jumbo (who got Hansen to leave by coming out) tried to check on him but of course Tenryu would have none of it. More than that, he was able to sneak in a quick brain kick and power bomb, but it was too early to put Jumbo away. It was a big equalizer though, albeit not so big that Jumbo wasn't able to take over with a big boot. The interesting thing here is that they started with the bombs so they had nowhere to go. It meant that Jumbo kept going up to the top, with a knee drop (that looked more like a stomp to me) and the jumping knee to a standing Tenryu. He went up one too many times though and Tenryu nailed him with a jumping kick and was able to come back. Good finishing stretch with Tenryu turning a Thesz Press into a hot shot, really trying for the power bomb, and kicking out of the first back drop driver. The second one had the bridge though and that's a super move for Jumbo if there ever was one. Big energy match that started in an interesting way but I don't think it's what I would have wanted their last encounter to be. I'll have more to say about this and everything else over the next few days.

For those who may not have seen my rundown of the 2020 Jumbo biography on PWO, Tenryu claims that this match influenced his decision to leave. He was frustrated with the staleness of the Jumbo feud and wanted to make this match actually escalate things by bringing blood into it. Of course, Tsuruta had a perfectly valid reason not to want to go that route, but he had not disclosed his condition to anyone other than Baba. So he told Wada to tell "Gen-chan" to take it easy on him that night.

[Matt D]

17 minutes ago, KinchStalker said:

For those who may not have seen my rundown of the 2020 Jumbo biography on PWO, Tenryu claims that this match influenced his decision to leave. He was frustrated with the staleness of the Jumbo feud and wanted to make this match actually escalate things by bringing blood into it. Of course, Tsuruta had a perfectly valid reason not to want to go that route, but he had not disclosed his condition to anyone other than Baba. So he told Wada to tell "Gen-chan" to take it easy on him that night.

That was on my mind and it stood out even more because the juxtaposition of the trios (Which was the year prior of course but I saw them on the same night) where Tenryu bled.

[Matt D]

More ground to cover:

The Pillars: At the start of 89, none of them were positioned in a way, looking at the text alone, that would make you think that they were inevitable. Taue and Kobashi were non factors, rarely, if ever, on televised cards. Kobashi was in the midst of his losing streak. Tiger Mask was injured a few months into 89 but nothing about him in those first few months of the year made him stand out. Kawada had replaced Hara as Tenryu's regular partner and had some very gutsy performances in tags around the start of the year. He still teamed with Fuyuki on the side. He was definitely presented as the lowest person, hierarchy-wise, in tags with Jumbo and Friends, but scraped together a little more offense as the matches went on. Unfortunately, Tenryu started teaming with Hansen and he got demoted back to Footloose. While he competently portrayed toughness and had mean shots, I wouldn't say he particularly stood out more than even Fuyuki. Tiger Mask looked much sharper when he came back in early 90, and the match-ups with Tenryu in tags really give us a hint of what we lost out on there. I'd say he wasn't hurt by the Takagi injury but Inoue first seemed to benefit more and then Kobashi. As for Kobashi, he spent the back half in 89 on the rise but still developing. Into 90, with the best of 7 series and onward, he started to take more and more in his matches (I'd argue too much at times) but also showed some creative flourishes in junior tags. Taue slugs along showing nothing until right at the very end when Tenryu seems to finally wake him up (though at a painful cost). Tiger Mask would have been more on someone's radar for the first 3 months in 90 than 89 but still didn't feel like a sure thing. Kobashi was veering wildly into a frustrating place. Kawada could always be counted for a certain level of quality but there was nowhere for him to go. Taue was just beginning to emerge. Not sure things by April 1990, not any of them. Again, if I had to bet on who'd be a star, I'd potentially bet on Takano over any of them.

Junior Heavyweight Title: As much as I get frustrated by the Juniors tags, I really loved the handful of Junior Heavyweight Title matches we've gotten. Just in 89, it goes from Fuchi (who had held it since 87) to Joe Malenko to Inoue to Fuchi to Nakano to Momota to Malenko to Fuchi. Almost all of the title changes are really strong, with long matwork to begin and escalating suplexes and holds and usually a clever finish. Very different from anything else the promotion was doing and very different from what we think of NJPW Juniors style (which isn't to say you wouldn't get the occasional dive). Nakano was the weakest of the bunch but could be carried. Everyone else brought a ton to the table. Momota is a guy I wasn't familiar at all but he's incredibly likable and had a great connection with the crowd. Inoue might have been the best person in AJPW not named Tenryu or Jumbo. Great timing. Great execution. Could build up a ton of momentum. Could work the mat. Had some big bombs, especially the flip sentons. I really enjoyed 89 Dean Malenko, and the energy he brought that he wouldn't have later, but Joe was a real workhorse with cool suplexes and able to chain one hold to the next on the mat, and Fuchi could basically do absolutely anything at this point. I wish we had twenty more matches with these guys.

Baba: Here's where we do often see Fuchi otherwise, holding the fort and doing the work in the Baba/Rusher/Momota(or Kabuki) vs Fuchi/Eigen/Okuma tags, being able to make things look credible but still hit all the necessary comedy spots. I prefer these a few years later when they just give up on the wrestling and lean harder into the comedy. I wouldn't say that those matches are necessarily better than these from a sheer quality standpoint (they're not) but they're a lot more fun for the lack of trying. Here, you might even get Rusher trying, which doesn't particularly go well. In 89/90, when Baba wanted to, he could still create genuine emotion. They built up Abby/Baba into a match that felt like a huge deal. Baba/Rusher vs Tenryu/Hansen was the biggest shock of the entire project for me. (And Rusher getting his revenge on Tenryu with the mist months later was also striking and pretty wonderful). It always felt like a big deal if he was in a six man against Jumbo or Tenryu. And yes, at the end, it was great to see him with Andre. I do wish we had gotten a big build to a Tenta match in 89 too though.

Foreigners: Hansen was a force. I am a little more sympathetic to him than I was in watching him in the 80s, where he (and Brody who brought out his worst tendencies but also made him look better by comparison) had frustrating match after frustrating match against interesting opponents. I get more now that it was just the style, but he could be so rigid and ungiving that he brought out the worst in the style by cutting off all narrative possibilities. When it worked, though, the energy and narrative payoffs could be through the roof. Completely dependent on his opponents though (unless he was inexplicably giving way too much to Crusher Blackwell or someone which occasionally happened). Spivey developed pretty well in 89/90, trying to take on Brody characteristics but ending up more of quasi-Hansen instead. The Bulldogs frustrated as much as they wowed, but Davey had a natural charisma and strength that the crowd went for. If he stayed and was on his own, he could have been pushed to the top in 90. The Fantastics didn't quite work for me. They had high energy tags but suffered without a heel/face dynamic. Rip Rogers was hugely entertaining and I wish they had put him in the Baba tags. Ivan Koloff could totally hang in January of 90. Dick Slater could the year before. Tom Zenk never showed the heel leanings I wanted from him. Ricky Steamboat was massively disappointing as traveling NWA champ, not sure if he should be working like Flair and giving way too much to guys like Nakano. The Can-Ams could do all the moves and could create solid matches where they leaned on their double teams and the crowd respected them, Kroffat's skill and Furnas' strength and athleticism, but they hadn't quite worked out how to break the mold and build tension and get heat in Japan yet. Abby was super protected, with the best cut off timing in the history of wrestling and the elbow drop that you'd believe could drop anyone. David Sammartino showed solid heel leanings in one match and I wish we had more of that. Shamrock was pretty dynamic in two matches. Tommy Rich wasn't. Williams and Gordy charged into the scene like a runaway train early in 90. Williams had that Brock energy, with the way he'd just roll back to his feet after getting knocked down almost preternatural. Gordy had been an okay Hansen partner but they were electric together in these first few months in Japan.

[KinchStalker]

13 hours ago, Matt D said:

Not sure things by April 1990, not any of them. Again, if I had to bet on who'd be a star, I'd potentially bet on Takano over any of them.

Sure enough, the 5/26 six-man which put Misawa on the map as a serious contender (the one with that elbow) was originally booked with Takano in his place.

Edited January 19, 2022 by KinchStalker

[Matt D]

Ok, on to 86 NJPW for a while at least. I'll explain more of why I want to do this when I hit the actual 86 matches, but first I have to get through my homework. I realized in starting cold in 1/1/89 AJPW that I was missing some context which is why I went back to earlier things at times. Here, I asked my pay Elliott who posts on PWO and elsewhere to give me ~10 matches to watch to warm me up. You can see the reasoning in spoilers.

Spoiler

o there are lots of great things in early 80s NJPW that I'm going to avoid simply because they won't help you necessarily with 1986. For example, Andre vs Hansen & Andre vs Killer Khan are classic must watch matches. There's a lot of fun Fujinami vs random Gaijin (Dynamite Kid, Ron Starr, Steve Keirn, Tony Rocco, Chavo Guerrero etc). Gran Hamada is cool to watch. I have really grown to enjoy the Hansen vs Inoki feud. There's a really awesome Hansen vs Backlund match. I have always really enjoyed early 80s NJPW Hulk Hogan and would recommend that for fun wrestling. But we need to prepare you for 1986. A lot of those guys either weren't around or were doing different things and NJPW in 1986 is really different from NJPW in 1981. 

The other thing we need to talk about is UWF 1.0 YOu can't be prepared for a 1986 NJPW deep dive without being familiar with UWF because 1986 NJPW is all about NJPW vs UWF. So I'm picking 5 NJPW matches & 5 UWF matches. Its the best way to prepare you for 1986. 

I'll explain my match choices because while Im going to pick "great matches" I'm also trying to tell a story and prepare you for 1986, not give you an overall picture of pre 86 NJPW. So I'm not putting any Tiger Mask matches on even though thats a crucial part of early 80s NJPW. And I'm only including one Super Tiger match even though Sayama was was part of UWF 1.0 is actually a really awesome worker in UWF and worth checking out. But Sayama doesn't come back to NJPW with the other UWF guys. So I'm going to try to take the focus off of him for your purposes Same with folks like Hogan, Andre, Abby, Dusty, Backlund and other major gaijin that worked with Inoki. That was a big part of NJPW in the early 80s, but it isn't as important in 1986. 

So here's what I've put together: Its 11 total matches with 7 from NJPW & 4 from UWF 1.0  the very first one a wildcard match that you can feel free to skip for reasons.

Antonio Inoki vs Stan Hansen 4/3/80 - I picked this because I don't know how much Inoki you've seen. So I figured Hansen is a useful control tool that you've seen plenty of which would allow you to get a better gauge of Inoki than against an unfamiliar opponent. If you've already seen a few Inoki matches feel free to skip this one and jump straight to...

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Kengo Kimura (9/25/80) - GIves you a look at Fujinami against someone you'll see in 1986. Mentally prepares you to get ready for guys in black trunks

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Riki Choshu (4/3/83) - First Fujinami & Choshu match together. Gives you a comparison of the difference in a Japanese vs Japanese match in 1980 and in 1983. There's less respect. Less sporting and more intense. 

Tatsumi Fujinami, Akira Maeda & Kengo Kimura vs. Riki Choshu, Yoshiaki Yatsu & Animal Hamaguchi (12/8/83) - Gets you a look at Akira Maeda who will be a big part of 1986. More preparation for guys in black trunks. 

Antonio Inoki, Tatsumi Fujinami, Nobuhiko Takada, Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Kengo Kimura vs Riki Choshu, Yoshiaki Yatsu, Animal Hamaguchi, Isamu Teranishi & Kuniaki Kobayashi 5-on-5 Gauntlet (4/19/84) - So.. you might hate me for this, but its been said if you had only one match to watch that could explain early 80s NJPW, this is match. Its over an hour of wrestling, but it gives you a look at some major players from 1986 and is awesome. Also mentally prepares you  for NJPW gauntlet that you'll get in a deep dive of 1986. Sorry. Not sorry. Everyone should watch this at least once. 

Tatsumi Fujinami & Antonio Inoki vs. Dick Murdoch & Adrian Adonis (12/7/84) - Murdoch is around in 1986 so you may want a sneak peak of him workign with Fujinami & Inoki. You might be familiar already with the Murdoch & Adonis team from WWF so that will help with seeing new workers. 

Antonio Inoki & Seiji Sakaguchi vs Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura 12/12/85 - Gets you a look at Sakaguchi and all these guys on the eve of 1986. 

 

So now, heres' the thing. We need to pivot. If you're getting ready for 1986 NJPW, you have to have seen some UWF1.0. 1986 NJPW is all about NJPW vs UWF. So  now watch:

Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Akira Maeda vs Super TIger & Nobuhiko Takada UWF 7/23/84 - First big match from UWF with the major players on the UWF side of things in 1986 NJPW. Eases you into UWF style. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Kazuo Yamazaki UWF 1/7/85 - Introduces you to Yamazaki who you'll see in a 1986 NJPW deep dive. Plus the more Fujiwara the better. Established Vet vs Smaller Up & comer is a universal story that might help you continue to familiarize yourself with the style. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Akira Maeda 3/2/85 - Maeda is the major player in 86 NJPW for the UWF side so I wanted another match to highlight him. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Osamu Kido 9/6/85 - Gets you a look at Osamu Kido who will play a role in NJPw vs UWF

I'll double back for Inoki/Hansen (I'd seen them in 76/7 or so but not 80), but I started with:

9/25/80: Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Kengo Kimura: 30 minutes. Two guys in black tights, with similar hairstyles, that I'm not exceptionally familiar with. When some 80 NJPW TV got unearthed a year or two back, I watched a bunch of Fujinami vs foreigners matches that they ran a lot, but I don't have a great sense of Kimura, and I was watching this on my phone while on a treadmill after all. And it was tough.  You watch enough and you learn how guys move, but here, all I had going for me was Fujinami's taped up hand. That said, the match was very, very good, tight matwork with a struggle that would fit well into the French stuff I watch. Though overall, it was less complex than that. The first third had a lot of in and out holds. When they built up to bigger spots, it wasn't the sort of suplexes I'd expect out of 1980 Jumbo but instead moments of scrapping in the corner or just a hold that locked in a bit more. They escalated into longer holds in the middle, just really working them with looks of pain and tight wrenching. I'd say that Fujinami had a real advantage throughout along these lines including the best hold being a simple grounded double wristlock which Kimura was selling like death. Things finally escalated further into some meaningful rope running, hit and missed dropkicks, and a Kimura belly to back out of nowhere before rolling into the stretch with dives and missed dives and blood and chaos, and some exciting nearfalls, both countout-wise and a pin after a Fujinami suplex back into the ring, and ultimately ended in a double KO which was way more satisfying than a time limit draw. Long story short, very good stuff both in the moment and finding a throughline, but I can already tell you that I have a long way to go. With absolutely no context, 26 in the 80s DVDVR set feels too low for this, but I can understand the matwork, both the first phase of it when they were trying a lot of different things and the second where they really grinded down, wouldn't be for everyone. It does bode well for the rest of the decade I guess!

[Matt D]

BONUS MATCH: 8/26/77: Mulligan/Piper vs Choshu/Inoki: Yeah, I'm already doing bonus matches, but I had some time to kill to watch something casually and wanted a look at younger Choshu. We may have done this one for NFF at some point. This was 2/3 falls as 70s tags often were but it never drags. Inoki vs Mulligan to start is sort of fascinating as Inoki tries to outwrestle and just out MMA him with the kicks and Mulligan is a force who can reverse a hold if he has to but just has overwhelming size (he also is athletic enough at this point for a jumping back elbow). The Piper vs Choshu exchange is interesting as Piper's a total bulldog with a chip on his shoulder even as far back as 77. He does a lot of bulldog headlock charges into the corner. Choshu has a certain sort of energy too and is very good at always getting a shot in from underneath as he's taking a beating which is maybe the single most important thing a "star" can do in wrestling, because it gives the crowd a reason to stay invested in you. One difference between 70s Inoki and 70s Jumbo (But not Baba) is that Jumbo would go for the belly to back suplex but Inoki can make the atomic drop totally credible. When Choshu comes back in the second fall, he's an absolute ball of energy beating Piper around the ring: lots of leaps onto the leg and a big spot rope assisted elbow drop. We lose the finish but you sort of get the idea as Piper wasn't able to get Mulligan back in there during the stretch. This had a slightly more American layout than I'm used to with AJPW tags even of a comparable period. Choshu had a lot going for him already, but I'm not going to linger too much in the 70s. I have way too much ground to cover.

4/4/80: Hansen vs Inoki: I think this is the right one. Much more of a Heat/Comeback sort of match than most things I've seen in AJPW. I'd say even more so than the the 77 tag. Two distinct heat segments too as Inoki pulled him down and posted him. Hansen had an absolutely awesome bulldog in this, probably the best I've ever seen him do. In general, he leaned on Inoki but he took a more methodological pace than what I'm used to with him (or what we have in let's say the big Andre match from 80). This ended on the floor (after a pretty crazy suplex to the floor bump by Inoki) but ultimately finished with a clear Inoki advantage. He'd survived the Lariat once in the ring and dodged it on the outside and was working the arm when the countout hit.

4/3/83: Choshu vs Fujinami: Choshu's hair is the great distinction. Anyway, the first 10 or so exchanges in this match were perfect pro wrestling. If they had figured out a way to lean into the lightning they had in a bottle there and make an entire match out of it, it'd be one of the best matches of all time. It's still one of the best starts of a match I can remember. Choshu attacks before the bell but Fujinami gets an arm up and they clothesline each other. From there, the first exchanges are great, with them turning a double knucklelock first into a Choshu through and then into a a stepover to break the knucklelock by Fujinami followed by a dead on slap. They keep building it over the next few exchange with Fujinami pointing towards the ropes after Choshu cheapshots him on a break and Choshu pointing to the mat as he tries to turn a short arm scissors into a pin. There's just such personality and attitude and pride and emotional selling of everything that's happening, which when done well and not overwrought is the most powerful selling there is. The match settles down after that, and by settles down, I mean goes into longer holds that are very well worked and competitive. Fujinami here has such technical precision, the sort of thing Bret Hart made his career on, whereas Choshu can hang but takes it over the top by being out of the box in his angles and movements and attacks about 15% of the time. It's a little bit like chaos vs order but not quite enough to write something poetic about it. In both this and the Inoki match, the Bow and Arrow was treated like a killer equalizer. Just a funny thing. Anyway, Fujinami survived the Scorpion and used that Bow and Arrow to get Choshu outside, but I'm pretty sure that's Choshu's place of power and he was able to hit a lariat out there. Fujinami came back with a German in the ring, but you kind of got the sense that he was trying to win a match when Choshu was more trying to take his head off (which he ultimately did). This was ranked 10 on the 80s set and i can totally see that.

[Matt D]

12/8/83: Choshu/Yatsu/Hamaguchi vs Fujinami/Maeda/Kimura: So I could definitely tell Choshu's side apart. Yatsu had long pants. Hamaguchi actually wore blue and red. It's ok though. Here's what you really need to know. This felt like a long rudo beatdown. Occasionally something would happen, like Yatsu hitting a belly to belly and Maeda (I think!) hitting one of his own to make the tag, but they'd get drawn right back into Choshu's corner and the beating would continue. Choshu's side had a ton of bits of tandem offense where one guy would pick up his opponent and someone else would jump off the top, with the highlights being both Hamaguchi and Yatsu coming off at the same time from the same corner and an actual SLAUGHTER CANNON, which tracks for 83 (I think I saw Rose/Wiskowski do this a couple of years earlier in Portland actually). It was pretty novel. There was electricity when Fujinami and Choshu got in there together early. The whole match seemed to change in a way familiar to watching Jumbo and Tenryu meet up early in a trios (But Choshu hit a gut shot knee which led to the whole match beatdown). Everything spilled to the outside once and I thought that would be the end of it but things calmed down and things ended up back in Choshu's corner again. Yatsu was not fully formed yet but he was energetic and already had a bunch of stuff. Hamaguchi oscillated between all sorts of fun stuff like a samoan drop after the top rope hammer from his partner or a running power slam or multiple elbow drops in a row and then having to take a breather with a chinlock. At least he got value out of that rest. Kimura had suplexes? I think. Maeda had kicks and throws and took a beating well. There were a lot of battles over who was going to get to do the Scorpion, Fujinami or Choshu. It did break out in the end and you even got the sense that Fujinami maybe realized he couldn't win under these terms and was just trying to keep Choshu from getting back in the ring. Maybe. I learn more with each of these matches, right? Eventually I'll be able to tell guys in black trunks apart better. I'll tell you this now. By the end of this, I really want to have a sense of Kengo Kimura at least. (This was #43 on the DVDVR set).

Bonus match: Inoki vs Lou Thesz 1975: It is absolutely hilarious how little older NJPW is on youtube. You get some Hogan, some Andre, and this one six man with Greg Valentine that I'm going to watch at some point just for the sake of nothing else being there. But this is there too, in two parts, and it's pretty great. After all the pomp and circumstance, the match starts with Thesz hitting a belly to back out of nowhere. Out of the first lock up. Inoki headlocks him and BOOM. It turns the whole match on its head. After that, Inoki's struggling to get back into it but also to try to hit his own belly to back because it's a matter of pride too. Thesz really has the slight advantage for most of the rest of it, winning on holds, hitting these clap assisted elbows to the side of the head while keeping a simple leg lace toehold that are just brutal and that I'm not sure I'd ever seen before. Inoki will escape but he's never able to mount much until the end when he finally gets that belly to back and then a bridging fall away slam for a very close win. Felt like more of a Thesz match than an Inoki one to me (not that I fully claim to understand what an Inoki match is yet).

[Curt McGirt]

It's pretty simple: An Inoki match is where he hits the enzui and gets the pin. 

[Matt D]

4/19/84: Gauntlet match: Antonio Inoki, Tatsumi Fujinami, Nobuhiko Takada, Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Kengo Kimura vs Riki Choshu, Yoshiaki Yatsu, Animal Hamaguchi, Isamu Teranishi & Kuniaki Kobayashi: This was #1 on the 80s set and is, and some people I respect call it the best match of all time; so that's saying something. If you've never seen it, it's a gauntlet, five members on each side, where it's not set up like later 5x5 matches in a sort of score system, but whoever wins a fall stays in the match for their team and faces the next singles opponent from the other team. I saw some reviews talking about the MVP here and there really isn't one. Fujinami carries the first quater. Yatsu carries the next quarter, maybe even the next third. Hamaguchi centers the next and it ends with Inoki vs Choshu (more on that in a bit). You can't diminish Takada or Fujiwara or Kimura though, and it's not like Teranishi or Kobayashi don't make the most of the opportunity they have.

I don't want to cover every wrinkle, but it really does tell one big story throughout. It's not 5+ matches but one 90 minute story with smaller stories weaved between falls. Fujinami's hand as a target gets teased vs. Kobayashi and really becomes the focus vs. Teranishi and helps cover his vulnerability against Yatsu and his cheap win. Yatsu's a beast against Takada and Kimura, always keeping close contact, full of manic energy. Hamaguchi's a troll, stalling and picking his spots, and it maybe works against Kimura but Fujiwara's able to shut it down. You get the sense that Hamaguchi was trying to keep himself fresh for Inoki so that he could wear him down as much as possible, but Fujiawara gleefully sacrifices himself to prevent even the possibility of that. And it all leads to Inoki vs Choshu, both men fresh, and may the better man win. Inoki's the superior wrestler, but Choshu is explosive at the right moments. Inoki, however, finds his big comeback and wins the day.

The crowd is up for this the entire way and I certainly didn't do it justice here. Every exchange has character behind it. Every exchange is intense. It's both exhausting and exhilarating because it's a little like one sprint after another, all worked logically, all building to a greater whole. At the end, you feel like the wrestlers to a degree: you survived it and you're all the better off for the effort.

[Curt McGirt]

The 5-on-5 Gauntlet is 1b to Andre/Hansen's 1a, but it's one hell of a 1b.

[Matt D]

12/7/84: Inoki/Fujinami vs Adonis/Murdoch: My pal Loss told me to be on the look out for foreigner matches in NJPW and later on answer whether I thought they were innately less than what we got out of AJPW, even when the talent was good. This was not. This was pretty good stuff right here. Adonis and Murdoch took an immediate advantage when they tossed Fujinami out and started to work him over. The next ten minutes or so was focused on controlling his arm with a few hope spots interjected. Not enough hope spots and there was never really a sense of wearing him down or escalation but the general idea was good. I'm not going to say it wasn't compelling and I understand why it was primarily heatseeking containment, but it could have been a few minutes less. Eventually, Fujinami did get away to make a hot tag. Murdoch and Adonis had the numbers game on their side but they couldn't hold back an angry Inoki for long and he spent some time punishing them with holds. Fujinami came back in to get his revenge but they brought a chair into play and cut him down with it. Inoki did get back in but they worked him over with a chair too. During this second heat, they really started to unleash some of their bigger moves, including yet another Slaughter Cannon and CALF BRANDING~! But eventually Fujinami recovered enough to even the odds and Inoki had his big thunderous comeback (Superplex level) and that was that. Really good tag but could have used a little bit of tightening up on the front end. I got the sense they didn't want to wear Fujinami down too much early because they'd be hitting a bunch of bigger stuff on Inoki later. (This was 20 on the NJPW set, btw).

The big difference between AJPW (up to where I stopped in 90) and NJPW so far (admitting I'm comparing between years on top of the relative spattering of early-mid 80s AJPW I've seen) is that NJPW feels much more willing to work the crowd within matches than NJPW. Overt storytelling. Discernible and deliberate ebbs and flows instead of just a logical sports presentation. It's more "what could happen" as opposed to "what would happen." I'd love for someone who knows this stuff to give me a second opinion on that or even tell me if it makes any sense.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Matt D

[Octopus]

56 minutes ago, Matt D said:

NJPW feels much more willing to work the crowd within matches than NJPW.

I knew what you meant, buddy. Typing all that “jpw” it’s bound to happen. 

Edited January 28, 2022 by Octopus

[Matt D]

12/12/1985: Fujinami/Kimura vs Inoki/Sakaguchi: Great ending on this one, but I'm not sure how I felt about the road to get there. I'd actually say it was a great last third, no question about that, even if Inoki was in the figure four forever to sort of kick it off. It's interesting. Over on the PWO nominee thread for GWE for Inoki (which started with posts in 2014 to 2016 or so), people seemed much more excited to examine his 70s work and I can sort of see that so far. When he's mounting a big comeback, he's very compelling. No question there. When he's channeling the fans in surviving something too. Other times? Well, I need to see more of him in this era. I did not think his early matwork with Kimura was very interesting though. For most of this, Fujinami and Kimura really couldn't make much headway. Sakaguchi and Inoki had size and could hang (kayfabe) on the technical work. I thought Sakaguchi looked especially good in that regard. Moreover, Inoki and Sakaguchi were working better as a team for a big chunk of this. Occasionally, Fujinami or Kimura wouln't mount a comeback, get a tag, get some shots in, but they'd get cut down by the fresh man on the other side. When they started really working together and chipping away at Inoki's leg, the match opened up. Then Sakaguchi hurt himself on a grazing jumping knee an it really got interesting, culminating in a great finish where Fujinami turned a desperate cobra twist attempt into a dragon suplex for a win that seemed to shock everyone, Fujinami included. Huge emotion on the end but I wasn't quite feeling that first half.

[Matt D]

Bonus match: 5/14/82: Fujinami/Yatsu vs Hogan/Rose: Rose and Fujinami matched up really well. We didn't get a ton of it here but what we did get was really good. I'd be curious to see more matched up of them on this tour. Yatsu was less defined than he'd be a year later and past one suplex towards the end, was mainly in there to lose the offense. Hogan was clunky but occasionally ambitious, which meant he didn't get over once on a cross armbreaker but instead drove down into a grounded full nelson that sort of worked. He and Rose worked well together, if only sticking limbs out for double teams and doing the occasional double kick or what not. They were building to Abby vs Hogan here and he showed up at the end. I'm not sure I've ever actually seen that.

7/23/84: Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Akira Maeda vs Super Tiger/Nobuhiko Takada: Part of why I'm doing this is to get a better sense of guys like Takda or Maeda. When I started the AJPW watch, I really couldn't speak intelligently about Tenryu or Jumbo. I feel the same way now about a lot of the wrestlers. Maybe not Fujiwara but a lot of the rest. So I'll get there. Takada came off as very workmanlike to me. Hard kicks. A lot of holds. The occasional dropkick or (What?) Missile dropkick. Maeda had more flash, more bombs, a little more flourish to how he kicked or moved. He had a pile driver, a power bomb, the Pedigree type facebuster. Super Tiger still had a lot of style. Fujiwara would manhandle him and he'd come up with some wonderfully contrived way to get out. It just worked, in part to Fujiwara really putting it over, in part to just how quick and athletic Sayama was. The build from Takada and Fujiwara starting on the mat to the eventual brutal showmanship of Fujiwara's token headbutts worked. Later on, Super Tiger blocking the headbutt worked. The finish was abrupt and maybe wasn't following the tenor of the match at that point but part of the point of it all was how this was a fight and it could end at any believable point. Fujiwara's bridge on that final German was so nuts that it looked like he dropped Takada on his own face. I think I made the right call not just watching all the UWF we had but instead going for something that'll be more varied, but it is sure nice to dip into these waters now and again.

[Matt D]

One fun thing about shifting over to NJPW is that it feels like anything in the 70s or 80s is suddenly fair game when I have a few minutes to kill. For instance, I now want to watch the build to the Abby vs Hogan match and the actual match. Does it help me with 1986 NJPW? Probably not except for in a broad sense and to get a bit more color for certain guys who are around, but every little bit helps I guess, right? These fans saw this stuff a few years before, so it'll vaguely help me understand the experience of them? Plus, come on, it's fun.

Bonus Match: 5/21/92: Hogan/Fujinami/Yatsu vs Abby/Bad News Allen/SD Jones: Speaking of fun, this was absolutely fun. Heel SD Jones was a force! He was pulling at faces, attacking wounds, double choking with Bad News, just a mean piece of business. He was the highlight of the first fall, him and Hogan who was just fighting everyone off and felt like a big deal. Later on he'd bump huge for a grazing axe bomber too. They kept Hogan and Abby away from one another for the most part until things spilled to the outside and became chaos. That's when Abby opened up Fujinami with the fork and he became a bloody mess. Second fall had Yatsu show a spark of the fire he'd one day have against Abby and company, but the best stuff was when the recovered Fujinami couldn't get an advantage on the heels and they honed in on the wound. That included the cool double team where Bad News holds up a guy and Abby runs into him. They were setting up for the big elbow when Hogan interfered with an object, taking Abby out in the corner and causing further chaos that allowed Fujinami to get a sunset flip out of nowhere. Post match doubled down on the Abby vs Hogan brawling. Big energy.

Bonus Match: 5/25/82: Hogan/Sakaguchi vs Abby/Bad News: I always pictured Sakaguchi as a huge guy so to see Hogan with an inch or two on him (granted, could be due to posture) was striking. Hogan fought giants so much that it's easy to forget how big he was. After some of Abby and Bad News leaning on Sakaguchi with underhanded tactics (and Abby benefited so much from his little flourishes of offense from the first rope that most other people didn't do), Hogan came in and we got the real tease of Hogan vs Abby. This had Hogan lift Abby up in the corner in a crazy feat of strength before Hogan missed a charge and Abby got some shots in. As always, he's got the best cut off strikes in history and this didn't give us too much before everything became chaos out on the floor to build to that singles match. It was interesting to see Sakaguchi as vulnerable despite his size to help Hogan get the big moment. Early impressions are that he was very good at playing sympathetic however. Hogan's dumb Japan go behind (which I haven't seen him do in this 82 tour) is what it is, but I wish he did the jumping (jumbo, even) knee more later in his career.

Bonus Match: 5/26/82: Hogan vs Abby: Love the shine here. After they crash into each other a bit, Hogan hits a great high knee and then goes back to that lifting bearhug (and who puts Abby into a lifting bearhug. He survives getting tossed and actually hits an early axe bomber before leaping  right into Abby's lifted knees to start the fork and blood heavy heat. Abby's offense is so credible here, slamming him into the post, hitting a sheer drop brainbuster (maybe not the intent) and the elbow, but Hogan, a bloody mess, kicks out. They're probably at the six minute mark at this point when he starts the hulk up, but it's been a very eventful six minutes. I'm wondering at this point whether Hogan had Abby blade him. After a comeback where Hogan opens Abby up, they go back and forth first in the ring and then out, finally brawling all around the arena, slamming chairs at each other, locking one another in mutual death chokes, getting a table involved, all while the bell rings and people try to break them up. Pretty excellent sub 10 minute 82 Hogan match with worthwhile post-match bloody brawling even the finish itself wasn't satisfying. But that's it. They'd never wrestle again. Next time Hogan would face a Butcher, it'd be Brother Bruti. Ah well.

[Curt McGirt]

Theres a really fun WAR-esque 6 man from the set with Abby, Tiger Mask, Dynamite, i think Baby Face and two others you should watch.

[Matt D]

6 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Theres a really fun WAR-esque 6 man from the set with Abby, Tiger Mask, Dynamite, i think Baby Face and two others you should watch.

I’ve got this queued:

 

[Matt D]

1/7/85: Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Kazuo Yamazaki: This felt like Fujiwara at the height of his power. Maybe there's something a little earlier or a little later where he's even more the master, but I never really felt like he was in danger here. And it's not that Yamazaki wasn't game. He mounted a few really credible moments of offense, a flurry of kicks in the corner, a targeting of the leg that almost worked, some kicks towards the end that he looped into a German, but Fujiwara, while respecting the offense, was just indomitable. He'd snatch a limb, drive him down, turn every escape by Yamazaki, including a number of rope ones where he had no choice, right into another hold or strike or opportunity. He was incredible at chaining things together here. No headbutts. No comedy. Just leaning upon this poor bastard. One thing I've noticed about this run of Fujiwara's is just how good he was at selling a surprise shot from his opponent. Here it was Yamazaki's spin kick to the gut. He went careening across the ring and keeled over and it really made you pay attention to what was going on. If this was judged on points, Fujiwara would have run up the score but Yamazaki would get honest credit for not getting shut out.

[Matt D]

3/2/85: Fujiwara vs Maeda: Look, I can put together a review and a narrative and it'd look something like this: Big difference from the Yamazaki match here. That was Fujiwara driving things and Yamazaki trying to come back. Here, Maeda could more than assert his own presence. You always got the sense that Fujiwara could out do him on the mat but maybe not put him away and that Maeda had the stronger kicks and throws but couldn't quite finish the job with them, so various things happened to offset things. Fujiwara would goad him with slaps and take advantage. Maeda would take a clear advantage with a series of unrelenting kicks or would get a throw or two and Fujiwara would have to scramble on the mat to try to get a limb and take back over. Fujiwara might be able to unleash the headbuts or even get the armbar in but couldn't quite close the deal. In the end, it seemed like Maeda had more youth and conditioning on his side and he began to chain more things together down the stretch. Fujiwara bid his time though, took some brutal shots and bombs, and then dodged at a key moment so that he could lock in a triangle and win.

And, I mean... maybe? Maybe there's something to that?

But just dropping in and not watching a lot of this style and a lot of these wrestlers, I honestly don't know? That all sounds pretty compelling right? Both as a narrative and as a match, but there were long stretches where they were really fighting for a hold or to turn a crab over or to escape and I'm not sure the narrative held up under the weight of a few too many exchanges like that. It was compelling in minute three but there wasn't necessarily a sense of escalation in minute 18, but it should have always been compelling because the match ended so suddenly on one hold that wasn't really any more or less dangerous than any other hold to me. If Maeda had tapped to the armbar or Fujiwara to the half crab, even though they were five minutes apart, I sort of would have bought it as a wrinkle of the style. I will say that it ended when it felt like it should have, with Fujiwara on his last life, as it was.

I don't know? I think I did okay with the write up in that paragraph, but understand that it's mostly bullshit.

[Octopus]

Beautifully written. Thanks, Matt. It’s been a while since I’ve watched this match and I think I’ll jump back into it. I’ve seen little from this time period NJPW and if I get the chance I’ll try and watch a few of the matches you post.

[Matt D]

9/6/85: Fujiwara vs Kido: Interesting match up. You got the sense that Kido could really hang on the mat with Fujiwara, which meant a lot of real scrambling in between big moments. In theory, there wasn't a ton of difference between this and, let's say, a NWA title headlock sequence where they built to something big and then brought the crowd back down. The difference is that the "down" here was a constant jockeying for positioning with maestro gamesmanship. Narratively, it was very your turn, my turn on who got to bring to those highs. Ultimately, Kido would get a couple of throws or submissions in a row and Fujiwara couldn't answer by stringing together some of his own which set up the finish where it looked like he had an advantage with a suplex only for Fujiwara to eat the impact in order to grab a submission out of nowhere. I remain thinking that UWF is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to set up residence there for any length of time.

BONUS MATCH: 2/14/82: Perro/Abby vs Inoki/Fujinami: This was a UWA anniversary show. It's one of those matches you hear about or see on cagematch and you think "Man, I wish this existed," not necessarily because you think it would be amazing but because it sounds so unique and out there. And hey, maybe it would be amazing. Luckily, we do have this one. My biggest takeaway is that the setting very much benefited Perro. He got to come off as a star and not just a guy matched with juniors here relative to Japan. He was a rudo's rudo, goading Inoki early only to immediately tag out to Abby once Inoki came in and then to ambush him from behind once he and Abby locked up. Beautiful stuff. He matched up very well with Fujinami here, swarming him like a madman as Fujinami tried desperately (but futilely) to swipe back. My impression is that in Japan, he wouldn't have been able to dominate so. There was some weird pacing stuff given the finish (whereas Inoki had to have enough and storm the ring to save a bloody Fujinami leading to him taking out the ref as well and some babyface shine, post DQ), where they had the heel miscommunication a little too early for it to pay off right. Overall this was fun and got quite violent, but it does feel more like that oddity we just get to see. I wonder if Abdullah really has the fastest hands in wrestling or if it just feels that way due the dissonance with his size.

[KinchStalker]

5 hours ago, Matt D said:

You got the sense that Kido could really hang on the mat with Fujiwara, which meant a lot of real scrambling in between big moments.

Someone asked Karl Gotch in the 80s whether Maeda or Sayama had more faithfully inherited his style. Gotch said neither, as they had both become "kick boys", and cited Kido instead.

[Matt D]

Got to admit, I'm a little bit enthusiastic on this. It's like a whole new world.

Bonus match: 1/20/85: Super Tiger vs Takada: Figured I'd take another look at Takada and this came up as something online. It's hard sometimes not to start to write reviews while you're watching a match. My head's always going so I'm always thinking of what I might say at any point, but in a match in a style you're not used to with commentary you can't understand, sometimes you miss the mark while a match is going on. Here Takada started out akin to my impression from before, very businesslike with his kicks, competent. I get the sense he's sort of an all arounder. Kicks, matwork, throws. Not the best at any of those things but very good at all. Maybe I'm wrong. Tiger hits back with a desperation I sort of missed at first. It's just a brutal assault. His kicks go high, straight to the head. Or he'll spin with it and just crumble Takada's gut. He flings him back with a snap headlock suplex that's just the nastiest thing. He stays on him, unrelenting. It's all Takada can do to try to shift his body weight and superior mass and size to get advantages on the mat. Tiger's never really in danger. It's just about staying alive for Takada. But as the match goes on, you realize why things played out like they did. Tiger was heavily, heavily taped up. His whole shoulder area was covered, and that comes off early to reveal tape all up and down that side. You realize as the match continues that Tiger really had to put Takada away early, for he came in wounded, and once Takada gets his head straight and recovers from those kicks, he starts to land shots of his own to that shoulder. Tiger can defend, but if he does, it leaves him open to shots in other places and there's nothing he can ultimately do but end up crumpled in the corner as the ref calls the match. It was an amazing flurry of offense when he turned it on early though.

Bonus match: 12/10/85: Bruiser Brody vs Fujinami: There are a string of stars vs foreigners singles to finish out December and I figured I'd go back to them for a last isolated look at Kimura/Fujinami/Inoki vs controls that I'm familiar with. This kind of sucked, but that's Brody for you. I'll say this: Fujinami did everything he could to make the most out of this. Brody would never offer any sort of meaningful resolution. I would say that this match had more meaning and more build than a lot of Brody's. Fujinami chipped away and chipped away and chipped away with offense that would have taken down anyone else in the country, let alone the promotion, and Brody was staggered a bit more and a bit more. Fujinami worked for the belly to back a couple of times in the match, even around running into Brody's foot and whatever else, and when he finally got it, Brody let himself fall down, sit up, fall down, and get pinned. Then he tossed Fujinami off and that was that. He shook it off and hit a running splash and a counter later, they ended up outside and brawling. The fans were completely into it and into Fujinami's journey to damage Brody but no one could make a payoff feel less meaningful than Brody. Like I said, though, Fujinami milked it for all he could with the post match brawl and the image of him dragging Brody around with the chain, and then the promo in the end. But Brody was the worst.

Bonus match: 12/10/85: Kimura vs Jimmy Snuka: First half of this pretty much stunk. Some feeling out, Kimura headlock and Snuka chinlock, worked in and out with high spots that weren't particuarly high. Not a lot of struggle. Not a lot of heat. Kimura opened it up midway with a lot of shots to knock Snuka out of the ring and then Snuka followed suit with a crazy kneeling pile driver on the floor. He missed a fist drop back inside and Kimura came back with a couple of suplexes and his jumping kick to the chest for which Snuka did an awesome Flair flop. Snuka turned back the tide with his trademark rope running sequence, which shouldn't work when he's playing heel, and started leaping off the top (fist drop, knee drop? Hard to say with camera angles). He went for the superfly splash but got dropkicked off and they went tumbling over the rail together for the countout. Definitely a tale of two matches and not a positive mark for Kimura that he wasn't able to drag something more compelling out of Snuka on that first half.

Bonus match: 12/10/85: Inoki vs Murdoch: Night and day from the Snuka match. I thought this was really tremendous and I'm surprised it landed so low on the 80s set. Murdoch and Inoki both worked the early holds so well. Just a headlock had grimacing and personality and character. You could see more room between Murdoch's missing teeth than with the hold. Once he shifted over to the arm it got really good. Incredibly credible offense by Murdoch as he ground Inoki down. He'd do a hammerlock where he'd put his two hands together and drive the knuckles into the shoulder. They built to comebacks and cut offs, and none were big but they were all great, whether it was Inoki getting a back elbow or just a whip into the corner followed up with a punch. Murdoch had a way of spitting that made it look like his eyeball landed in the sixteenth row. He could also cut Inoki off with a punch or knee in the gut that both guys made look like a million bucks. When Inoki did finally get his revenge it was by dismantling the leg as the fans went nuts. The finishing stretch was over the top, with Murdoch starting with an enzuigiri of his own and following it with calf branding, but unable to capitalize due to the leg, then a brainbuster that landed Inoki in the ropes. He went for calf branding again only for Inoki to catch him with a punch (another amazing visual spit) and a toss off the top, followed by a gutwrench and Inoki's enzuigiri (sold like death by Murdoch). Great match. The one they have in 86 was ranked way higher too so I can't wait to get to that one.