Matt Watches 1989 AJPW/1986 NJPW on a Treadmill

[Matt D]

Alright, here we go.

I don't think we need a lot of rationale for why 1986. I had to get my bearings somewhere with NJPW, wanting to do a chronological look over a set period of time instead of cherry picking the 80s set. I was thinking 86 or 87 and the advice I was given was to go with 86 as that was a beginning while 87 was a continuation. Thanks to Loss getting me up to speed, I have the general idea of it, why Choshu and the UWF guys left due to Inoki scandal, Fujinami staying, Brody coming in to give them a boost in 85 and then leaving right at the end of the year, Fujinami going over Inoki as a make good because of it, UWF folding and that group coming back in. I don't think I'll have every bit of TV here but I have around 20 matches for January 86, I think, and even if not all encompassing, that feels like a good number.

1/3/86: Mad Maxx/Super Maxx vs Fujinami/Kimura: Fun fact, I still struggle to tell Fujinami and Kimura apart on a tiny screen in 86. I'll get there. I spent a bunch of this match thinking one was the other until Kimura hit his jumping kick to the chest and I realized I had it backwards. Pro wrestling expert I am. The bigger surprise is that the Maxx team was actually pretty decent. They controlled the ring well and about 65% of their offense was credible. Lots of slams and clubbering and double clotheslines but it worked. Lots of one guy coming in to stop Fujinami and Kimura from making a comeback. There was one really ridiculous elbow drop off the top to a guy being held in the ropes where the elbow just slid down him that was laugh out loud funny. Otherwise, generally ok. Fujinami and Kimura got ambushed at the start and they spent most of the match, save a few comebacks and a couple of holds on the defensive. Maybe not the most educational match for me, but it was perfectly fine. Finish was wonky as the heel manager came in to interfere while his team was in control. It did let them hit a Hart Attack off the top so I guess maybe it was about doing the damage and not going to the pay window? Who knows.

1/3/86: Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs Inoki: I was very excited that the first match i was going to see in my grand NJPW journey had Hacksaw. This was dynamic heel Hacksaw too. I haven't seen a ton of post-turn heel Hacksaw (see: "post-turn" for why). We got some footage of him in 82 which wasn't necessarily great, but was fascinating to watch. He really caught the eye with his big energy and big bumping and general enthusiasm. Game if not great. Here he was a few more years in and more seasoned and he made a great foil for Inoki here, charging in with a huge shoulder tackle at the start and just having a lot of really big stuff. Inoki came back by schooling him on the mat or with superior chain wrestling. They ran out of TV time around 6-7 minutes in so who knows how it went in the end (I think we all know how it went) but it was fun while it lasted.

Edited February 9, 2022 by Matt D

[Curt McGirt]

It's easy: Kimura always has the pad over his left (I think) shin/lower leg. It's the only discernable difference in his gear to the others. 

[Matt D]

1/3/86: Maeda vs Takada: Right into it with these guys. And right into it with Maeda. He catches a Takada kick for a capture suplex almost immediately. That'll be a throughline story for the match as he ties to catch a kick and repeat it throughout, and when he can't, he still drives Takada down for some hold or another. Maeda just eats guys alive when he can, huh? It was a credit to Takada that he was in it as much as he was, but even when he could string a few kicks together or whatever, he couldn't transition it into a hold before Maeda would catch the leg. This style is exciting because it feels like it could end at any moment but the flipside is that the moments that don't end it don't always feel like they mean something to the greater whole. You look for patterns and momentum shifts within a match but sometimes this stuff walks a line between everything mattering, anything mattering, and nothing mattering. Takada was competent but Maeda was just a force.

1/3/86: Cobra vs Black Tiger: Black Tiger was Rocco and this was a pretty fun 8 minutes. Cobra had some tricked out offense, a big jumping clothesline, a dive that ended up like a flying forearm where he landed on his feet, etc. Rocco was more than happy to bump huge for him. When Black Tiger took over, he had some super compelling legwork, including a mare where he mared him right into the ropes. Cobra rather egregiously dropped it for the finishing stretch, including the finish which was a kneeling front pile driver which would have been far more palatable if he just sat down with it. Ah well.

1/10/86: Duggan vs Fujinami: Big exciting Duggan match where he just rand through Fujinami. His jumping double sledge that he did here is not something I remember him doing in Mid-South. He just leaned all over Fujinami bullying him about. Fujinami would get a couple of comebacks and they meant something because of how one-sided this ended up and he survived the first 3 point stance shoulder block. The second one (after a final comeback and cut off) took him out of the ring and Duggan decided that he'd rather have the double count out than let either of them back in. Does anyone know if the 1-4 Kimura match or the 1-5 trios with Duggan/St. Clair/Johnny Mantell vs Inoki/Kimura/Fujinami exist? Cagematch said those were tv tapings. I really like Duggan on this tour.

[Matt D]

1/10/86: Fujiwara vs Maeda: This was #29 on the set and I just can't imagine that if the set happened today that this would be so high. Which isn't to say that both of these guys aren't great (they have two matches higher on the set, I think), but I just don't think there'd be the same appetite for this exactly, at least not relative to other things. I've seen enough of Maeda now to make some early observations. What he brings to the table is aggression and theatricality. He drives the action more that his contemporaries, always pushing forward, never working from underneath for long, and taking advantage of his opponent's desperation, whether it be turning a grounded front facelock meant to contain him into a double wristlock or capturing desperate kicks out of the corner into a throw or takedown. He reminds me a little of Hansen actually, just exhausting in how he's always pushing forward. The theatricality is probably what made him a star though. When he's in a hold, he sells far more emotively than you'd expect. His big stuff has a certain flash to it. Takada's come off as competent and dangerous and professional and businesslike so far. Maeda's not flashy compared to Randy Savage, but he's definitely flashy compared to Takada, all while seeming just as dangerous if not more so. Fujiwara, on the other hand, is the sea. He'll endure and endure and endure and then peel off a limb and suddenly be right back into it. For much of this, however, you get the sense that Maeda is a bottomless well of energy and aggression. You keep waiting for Fujiwara to turn the tide, and at times, you see hints of it, the way he'll turn a hold around and drop right into a leglock, when he gets the headbutt and so on, but Maeda keeps dominating, even launching a headbutt of his own. He keeps pushing and pushing and Fujiwara bends and you wonder if he'll break, but he doesn't. He bides his time and bides his time and launches one sole elbow out of a suplex attempt and drops down upon the arm to win. It's credible, but I really wonder how satisfying it is. In a bubble, not hugely. My guess is that this is better with the knowledge of what is to come. I'll double back after those other matches in 86.

1/10/86: Koshinaka vs Black Tiger (JIP): This is just the last few minutes. Koshinaka misses a top rope move. Rocco hits an overshot elbow drop off the top. That would have been a viable finish. Koshinaka kicks out and Rocco hits him with this nasty angle pile driver. That would have been a viable finish. Koshinaka comes back but both go sailing over the top. Rocco hits him with a pile driver on the floor. That would have been a viable finish. Koshinaka comes back and they end up both counted out. That was kind of BS.

1/10/86: Mad Maxx 1+2 (Mad Maxx/Super Maxx) vs Inoki/Kimura: One of the Maxx guys is better than the other by a good degree. The bad one has the higher hair and you can see more of his facepaint. He's prone to jump off the second rope with an elbow to a standing opponent and then fall down. The other one hits stuff pretty cleanly and moves around much better. We lose the end of it but it was all pretty back and forth. There was a good transition where a Maxx hangs on to the ropes causing Kimura to wipe out on his jumping kick (I should look up the name for that). Inoki is good at working big lugs. Not much else to say since we didn't get the finish.

[Matt D]

A little behind due to V day and some other things, but...

Bonus Match: 12/10/81: Inoki/Fujinami vs Andre/Goulet: This was the finals of the tag league and it was on dailymotion, so I took a look. It was interesting to see Fujinami try to escape Andre. That was the matchup I was most looking forward to here. Through the legs and off the ropes. Anything he could do. Mobile heel Andre was pretty amazing, but we knew that. This all built to Inoki slamming Andre, but Fujinami ending up in the ring alone with him and running into a boot. The best part of it was Goulet celebrating what had to be the biggest win of his career after the match. The guy was so happy! And heel Andre celebrating earnestly and honestly with other heels is one of the very best things in wrestling.

Bonus Match: 11/19/82: Inoki/Hogan vs Andre/Goulet: Vince Sr. (and wife) was in the crowd and he got a real good look at the crowd getting behind babyface Hogan here. Hogan was awesome on the outside cheerleading for the big Inoki chants but he got his own chants too. That said, a lot of the brunt of Hogan vs Andre was a bearhug spot that really didn't quite work. Just arms in places that didn't make sense and Hogan having no chance of getting those arms around Andre. Goulet brought so little to these matches but it's not like it was his fault. Just as good as Andre celebrating with his heel buddies was him getting pissed off when his heel buddies lost the match.

[Matt D]

1/17/86: Duggan vs Kendo Nagasaki: My first look at Nagasaki in this setting and while he was generally ok in about half of the post match brawling, we're not talking 89 Kabuki here. The story of this match, as much as anything else, was Duggan having to deadlift slam him as he wasn't going up at all. That said, this would have been pretty good in 86 Houston. Just not here where Duggan was positioned as a heel and who knows what Nagasaki was. If they wanted to book this, they should have done it early in the tour and have Duggan go over clean to set up his matches later on. Instead it's the opposite and they can't even give Duggan a clean win.

1/17/86: Black Tiger vs Keiichi Yamada: A very complete match for the proto-Liger. I thought it stank. It's not Yamada's fault. It's all Rocco. He was obviously in complete control here, without someone to counterbalance him at all and the moves felt all out of order and there was no build or payoff to anything. It's not that they weren't working hard and there were cool moves (I continue to love his weird angle pile driver and Yamada had a great headlock suplex). But you'd get stuff like Tiger missing a knee drop off the top and Yamada going after him only to eat a random backslide. And Rocco always got up too soon after ever big move so there was never a momentum shift and nothing resonated. It was just right to the next thing. Rocco was an amazing talent but he needed someone to rein him in and it wasn't 21 year old Yamada. He looked fairly sharp here from an execution standpoint however.

1/17/86: Yamazaki vs Takada: We get the last few minutes. Bet the most interesting part would be the beginning when Yamazaki was fresh to see how he'd go after Takada. By this point, he was behind the 8-ball. It's night and day between this and the juniors matches. Here, the guy getting beat down is obviously hurting and it makes him more vulnerable for other things and more prone to getting caught when desperately fighting back. Both matches could potentially have narrative issues but here, it's based in almost too much reality where with the juniors match, it was none at all. This felt inevitable. With Fujiwara, you could see him maybe getting a hold out of nowhere, but by the time Yamazaki started in on the kicks again, they were wild and easily dealt with and Takada dropped him hard with a submission. It was academic.

[Matt D]

1/17/86: Super Mad Maxx 1+2 vs Inoki/Fujinami: Henceforth we will rename Maxx 1 and 2 as Good Maxx and Badd Maxx. Good Maxx cuts off the ring on tags. Badd Maxx clumsily drapes Inoki's head over the top rope and sends him back towards his own corner. Badd Maxx managed his dopey top rope elbow strike without falling on his butt this time. Good Maxx has almost credible strikes. Oh man, I badly want to know which one is Super Maxx who trained Christopher Daniels. Let me try to figure this out. Yeah, I have no idea. Look, we're going to assume that Good Maxx is Super Maxx. One big difference between 89 AJPW and 86 NJPW is that there's a lot more ribbon throwing in 86 NJPW. Another difference is that Good Maxx and Bad Maxx aren't in 89 AJPW. This ended in a dumb DQ (manger foot grab on the outside), building to.. well something. Some nice Inoki-with-a-chair stuff after the match though.

1/24/86: Kevin von Erich vs Fujinami: You know what I can't stand? Not a preference thing, but more like an allergy? The Von Erichs in Dallas. I'm not at all wired to be able to put up with that crowd fawning over them. Kevin's brash jock confidence, his obvious sense of entitlement, his matter-of-fact understanding that he was one of god's gifts to wrestling and mankind, all the traits that made him worshiped by the... fine folk of Texas made him into an amazing de facto heel here. Just the way he moved, the way he'd bound to the top rope as if he owned the ring, it was all great. He was such a natural heel in this environment and while he didn't overtly cheat, he was an aggressive jerk to Fujinami and they matched up really well. All of this built to an amazing moment where Von Erich got on the claw but had to release it on the outside to beat the count. Then he went for it again and missed and Fujinami worked on his arm. They eventually got to a double count out anyway but it was a really nice journey and I'm surprised this didn't make the set.

Bonus match: 3/30/82: Murdoch/Rhodes (THE TEXAS OUTLAWS~!) vs Tiger Togachi (Kim Duk)/Killer Khan: So, I kind of sort of think I'm going to Bonus Match my way through every Dick Murdoch in Japan match on tape, at least in the 80s. This was false advertising though. The file said it was Inoki/Fujinami vs the Outlaws. I like Killer Khan as much as the next guy and Kim Duk is fine and all, but this wasn't what I thought I was getting. Not a ton to say here. Murdoch and Rhodes worked well. Murdoch's hair was weirdly curly and it was offputting. Best parts were Dusty doing a cool thing where he put his elbow on Duk's head and then jammed one hand into the other; I'd never seen him do that before but it's such a Dusty thing; and Murdoch taking the Mongolian chop by Khan with this dramatic aftersell. He took another one awesomely in the post match brawling too.

Edited February 18, 2022 by Matt D

[KinchStalker]

19 minutes ago, Matt D said:

Bonus match: 3/30/82: Murdoch/Rhodes (THE TEXAS OUTLAWS~!) vs Tiger Togachi (Kim Duk)/Killer Khan: So, I kind of sort of thing I'm going to Bonus Match my way through every Dick Murdoch in Japan match on tape, at least in the 80s.

Watch the two Jumbo matches from 1980 if you're willing to jump back across the aisle: 2/23 and 3/5. Both are on YouTube as of posting. Solid stuff.

[Matt D]

1/24/86: Inoki/Kimura vs Mad Maxx 1+2: It's hard to keep finding new things to say about these. Good Maxx remained pretty good. Badd Maxx remained egregiously bad. He's the worst wrestler I've seen in either 89-90 AJPW or 86 NJPW so far. He didn't fall over on his second rope elbow here (mainly because he could lean into people afterwards), but he was terrible at controlling the ring and had some of the worst stomps I've ever seen. It honestly looked like he was just putting his foot on people with no impact. Sometimes he'd do something so clumsy that it looked kind of cool, like a choke takeover on Kimura. Kimura had good fire here, but these matches really didn't tell me much about Inoki or how he partnered with guys like Fujinami or Kimura. I will say that they seemed to work well together, at least compared to their opponents but that's not saying much. This had a pretty goofy ending with manger interference not leading to a DQ but to a Inoki sunset flip instead. There's a single match on 1/31 with Inoki and a Maxx and I really hope it's Good Maxx.

1/24/86: Sakaguchi/Hoshino vs Fujiwara/Kido: There was such a buzz to this one. You got the sense that after a few weeks of just seeing the UWF guys up against one another, the fans really wanted to see them scrap against some of the home team. It wasn't quite there for Kido vs Hoshino which we come in on JIP (but early), but the second Sakaguchi tagged in there was buzz and the second Kido tagged Fujiwara, it got bigger. The deal with Sakaguchi is that he could go. He had a ton of technical skill, or at least it sure seems that way, but he has size, and strength, and most especially reach. He was able to press Fujiwara right into the corner and wail on him. Then Fujiwara maneuvered him around and tossed in a slap, but it wasn't just an insult like usual. It was meant to hurt. Mind games but also, weirdly enough, a sign of respect. When Sakaguchi tagged in Hoshino, you saw less of that, as he went right after the leg with a few kicks and tagged in Kido. Hoshino, pissed off, wanted Fujiwara still, but that meant that he underlooked Kido, which is a fool's game. That's what makes Fujiwara matches so great. There's always this undercurrent of personality and gamesmanship and a sort of narrative tension, but you have to look for it and pull at it. He's just fascinating to watch because he feels so much and he takes up so much space and he has this aura of imminent victory about him no matter what's happening, like he's the most dangerous man in the world. Anyway, despite all that, Sakaguchi and Hoshino fared well, a lot of that on Sakaguchi's aforementioned reach, actually. There were some dramatic leglocks and lots of fighting for the most dangerous move of the 80s in Japan, the Scorpion Deathlock. It all ended when Fujiwara had enough and headbutted Hoshino until he'd release a hold. Kido came back but went sailing through the ropes and everyone got counted out because it's far too early for anything like this to end clean.

[Curt McGirt]

16 minutes ago, Matt D said:

the most dangerous move of the 80s in Japan, the Scorpion Deathlock

Hansen's Lariat would like a word with you

[Matt D]

18 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Hansen's Lariat would like a word with you

Lariat is #3. Scorpion Deathlock is #1. Powerbomb is #2, since it doesn't show up until later in the decade. These are the super finishers that any main eventer seemed to be able to do. Sort of shared super moves. The Scorpion Deathlock feels teased more than actually hit.

[Matt D]

1/31/86: Kimura/Fujinami vs Kevin Von Erich/Tony St. Clair: Not as fun as the last KVE match but still fun. I'd say it was a solid 3 star affair but I don't do star ratings. I'm in it to learn what I can and you'll be glad to know I was able to tell Fujinami and Kimura apart this time around, so I'm learning. In this one, Fujinami moved with more explosiveness, more star power, more of an it factor, but Kimura was competent and had an aura of resilience and could bring some fire when he was supposed to. St. Clair was absolutely competent but he came off as Von Erich's goon for the most part. I love the claw so much. Do you guys not love the claw? I know people don't, but it's such a great narrative device. You could build to it, build a sequence around it, have it totally turn a match on its head. Kevin as a heel was great with it and even after the victory Kimura and Fujinami were selling the effects of it, and Fujinami even locked one on St. Clair for good measure.

1/31/86: Kido vs Maeda: I'm getting a better picture of Maeda too. What I missed in the previous matches with him was this: he has the aggression, that forward pushing locomotion, the kicks, the throws, that extra bit of theatricality, but what he had here more than anything else was size. He was physically imposing. I'm not sure how much of that was Kido being a little bit smaller or me just not noticing it before, but it was crystal clear here. The kicks hit harder. The holds had more leverage and torque. The throw (I think there was just one) had more oomph. To his credit, Kido was absolutely dangerous. Fujiwara emitted this aura of being able to BEAT you at any moment and Kido didn't quite have that but he could lock you up at any moment, 100%. Speaking of Fujiwara, he was watching this from the door and I got a sense of him being a head coach prepping his team to go into battle as they'd primarily been sparring against one another so far. Though this got heated at the end as Maeda didn't like the finish (either a draw or the ref stopping it because Maeda wouldn't listen to him as he kept beating on Kido). Anyway, we came in after this had already started but we had seven minutes or so of very good action.

[Gordi the former AEW fan]

I know so little about this period of New Japan. 

One thing that strikes me is that Maeda is probably my least favourite of all the obviously Great pro wrestlers. It's not even like with Bockwinkle where what I've seen is obviously great but I am not very hyped to watch a lot more or like Lawler where I get what other people see in him but it just doesn't work for me. (Similar to how I feel about, let's say, King Crimson and Bruce Springsteen, respectively, music-wise).

I actively dislike Maeda. 

Certainly, a lot of that is based on the infamous Andre incident. And also that Maeda got famous for shoot-kicking a guy who.wasn't expecting it. 

In general, the vibe I get with him is that he takes himself very very seriously indeed, in an off-putting way. Similar to Inoki's maximum mark-for-himselfism. (Which I can forgive in Bret because of my specific nostalgia of also taking Bret very seriously as he was climbing the ladder). But Inoki never tried to shoot on Andre (as far as I'm aware) and I think that Inoki would have had the intestinal fortitude to stand toe to toe with Choshu rather than blindsiding him and running away.

So my dislike is maybe based on what I think about Maeda as a dude (puffed up coward) rather than as a wrestler or important innovator or whatever.

Maeda = Ike Turner.

I wonder what my music equivalent for Choshu would be. He has flat-out great matches in New Japan and All Japan, revolutionised pro wrestling, is adored by a lot of my Japanese friends who love wrestling, and will never ever make my top 20 because there are just too many wrestlers I love more than him. Dylan, maybe? Oh! Skynyard! Choshu is my Skynard. Maybe Fujinami is my Dylan.

Alexander Otsuka is my Dinosaur Jr. I know he's not big-g Great like Choshu or Maeda or  Lawler... But I am always in the mood to watch him, and he makes my personal top 20 over them, regardless.

80s AJPW is endlessly fascinating ground for me. The Beatles, Who, Zep, Floyd...

w/r/t 80s NJPW I'm interested in learning more about the background of those famous epic multi-man matches and learning more about the background players and so on, but it's much less my bag than the history of Jumbo, Tenryu, and company (all of whom I respect unequivocally).

I'm glad you've undertaken this project. It's the best possible way for me to fill in these gaps. 

Edited February 23, 2022 by Gordlow

[Matt D]

Thanks Gordi,

I can say that it's always exciting to take something you know so very little about and dive in, because there's the most possible value in what you can learn. There's just a ceiling that goes on forever in what you can pick up. At least for me. It's the case here. Now, that said, I'll admit some hesitation about January so far. I was surprised that it was just the TV that we seemed to have and nothing like Classics. I probably wrote as much about Madd Maxx and Super Maxx than I did about Fujinami or Inoki. What excited me the most was Kevin Von Erich as a natural jock heel. The UWF guys were more or less cordoned off and it was like I was watching UWF when they were in there.

That said, I peeked ahead to February and it all looks pretty compelling: Kerry Von Erich arrives. There's much more interaction between UWF guys and NJPW guys. Inoki vs Fujiwara! Why is Billy Jack Haynes here? Who the heck is the Jackal? What is a Riki Bassan? What can Yamada and Koshinaka do when they don't have Rocco driving traffic like he'll explode if he goes under 55 mph?

See, before I didn't even know the questions. Now I can at least start to ask some.

[KinchStalker]

Maeda is my hero for convincing a nation he was a badass while coming out to Camel, but I'm a little afraid to actually get into him beyond the famous Fujinami match because consensus seems to be he's not even a top-five shoot-style guy and I want to put my best foot forward there.

Edited February 23, 2022 by KinchStalker

[Guest Jimbo_Tsuruta]

8 minutes ago, KinchStalker said:

Maeda is my hero for convincing a nation he was a badass while coming out to Camel, but I'm a little afraid to actually get into him beyond the famous Fujinami match because consensus seems to be he's not even a top-five shoot-style guy and I want to put my best foot forward there.

Give Maeda v Fujiwara 8/13/89 a look. 

[Matt D]

But before I make it to February:

1/31/86: Inoki vs Mad Maxx 1: Good news is that this is Good Maxx! And I can figure out which one is Good Maxx now according to cagematch. It's Eli the Eliminator. It's NOT the Windy City guy. That's fascinating. Apparently, he'd been wrestling since 78 and Badd Maxx (Super Maxx) had been since 81. Wow. Anyway, this was fine. One missed elbow drop off the top rope that shouldn't have been tried. Inoki overcame interference on the outside by brandishing a chair. I thought I'd see more fire and crowd connection from Inoki but I guess it's just hard to channel it when you're up against Team Maxx. I can't say that a Jumbo match from 86 would have been any better for instance. I actually think it would have been very close to the same.

Edited February 24, 2022 by Matt D

[DangerMark]

Likening Maeda to the sea is about as accurate as it gets. He may not have been the best of the Shoot Style guys, but he was certainly the Ace of them in a way that no-one who followed him could match. There's an IWGP Tag Title match in which he basically dropkicks either Koshinaka or Muto (I can't remember which, me and a friend had been up pretty late watching random matches,) out of their boots, and now my friend remembers him as "Mr. Shoot Dropkick."

[Matt D]

2/2/86: Kimura/Hoshino vs Fujiwara/Kido: We're in business now. There's a lot to follow here and I'm not sure I've got it all, but this felt both special and commonplace, like it was the new normal. The fans didn't go as big for it as they did that first encounter with Sakaguchi, but everything here was very good. It started with Fujiwara and Hoshino and Fujiwara ate him up, but once it became Kimura and Kido, Kimura had such a fire under him. You really got the sense he wanted to prove something. Later on, you'd get the same out of Hoshino, mainly with his shots in the corner (and some late match strikes as well). They're a different sort of strike than you got in the UWF matches and you can almost contrive it that Fujiwara and Kido were so used to dealing with Takada and Maeda kicks that it was hard to transition back to standard New Japan style offense. I'm not sure what else to pick out here: Fujiwara's deep headlocks are super credible and Hoshino trying to suplex out of it was pretty awkward. Hoshino and Kimura worked together well (rapid fire top rope knee drops, a whip into Kimura's kick finisher... let me look up what that's called: Inazuma Leg Lariat? Is that what we're calling it?) with Fujiwara and Kido having more of a sense of danger if you got anywhere near their side of the ring. At one point, Fujiwara just became totally unglued and started killing everyone with headbutts and eventually got DQed for it. Maybe most interesting in all of this was Fujinami getting involved in a big scrum post match which is the first time I've seen the two sides really getting at it.

2/2/86: Kevin Von Erich/Black Tiger/Johnny Mantell vs Fujinami/Inoki/Cobra: This was good but I wanted more Kevin Von Erich and Inoki. We got a tease at the end but that was about it. Inoki spent most of the match on the apron to be honest. It got fairly loose at times, especially with the heels doing things. Black Tiger got beat up the most for his side and they extended a heat segment on Cobra onto Fujinami as well. My favorite bit in all of this was Von Erich and Mantell using Black Tiger as a weapon like he was Serpentico and totally overshooting the target by tossing him too hard. My second favorite part was Kevin cheating in the corner and then being holier than thou when the ref tried to call him on it. My third favorite bit was towards the end when Von Erich interfered to stop a Fujinami submission by locking in the claw only for Inoki to back brain kick him back to Texas. This was probably more fun than great but teased some stuff I definitely wanted to see. Plus it was nice to see Fujinami flex his rusty junior heavyweight muscles in there with Rocco and dropkick him right in the skull.

[Matt D]

2/5/86: Kido/Takada vs Inoki/Yamada: Inoki vs UWF guys! Exciting stuff. I knew Yamada was in there to survive some stuff so that Inoki could save him and he came in game, really trying hard to take Kido down, but I just wasn't prepared for the absolute all-time mauling that he was going to get. Kido stretched him and dropped him and contained him like he was nothing, but then Takada came in and just blistered and battered him with kicks. It was like some guy had come in off the street and insulted Takada's mother. I'd called him serious and workmanlike before, but that was against other UWF guys. Against Yamada, he was a murder machine. Eventually Kido came back in and Yamada had one nice bridge and standing dropkick and got Inoki in. So, I know we're not about to defend Maeda around here, but I get why he refused to wrestle Inoki. Inoki was like a pig in shit wrestling these UWF guys. OUTwrestling these UWF guys, I mean. He caught way too many of Takada's kicks, that's a nice way to put it. He was able to drop into a leglock on Kido like it was nothing. They had the numbers advantage on him and eventually Yamada came back in and got ran over in new and interesting ways, including jumping into a Takada kick when Inoki had left things well in hand for him which led to a the spine-shattering German and the win. But it was all very Inoki Must Pose throughout most of this. Watch it for Yamada dying to the point that he'd want to spend decades in a padded suit though. Post match they shook Inoki's hand to a big pop, which surprised me.

2/5/86: The Von Erich Boys vs Fujinami/Kimura: Kerry isn't as interesting as a heel as Kevin and he was in there a lot, most of the match. He let himself get clowned a little too much too. But it was all worth it for the moment he put the CLAW onto Fujinami's knee while in a hold and then dropped right into a figure four. We came in slightly JIP after the entrances and almost immediately Kevin hits a knee from the apron and they start heeling. Fujinami and Kimura have good tandem leg focus on Kerry. It all breaks down in the end and then it breaks down more and there's a phantom pin with the claw but who knows who the legal man was supposed to be and it's all sort of BS countout stuff where it didn't come off as terribly believable. Seemed like the ref was just trying to get people where they belonged. Still, interesting to see Kerry in this role. 

[KinchStalker]

On 2/25/2022 at 6:02 PM, Matt D said:

 Hoshino and Kimura worked together well (rapid fire top rope knee drops, a whip into Kimura's kick finisher... let me look up what that's called: Inazuma Leg Lariat? Is that what we're calling it?)

Lightning Leg Lariat may roll off your tongue better. I just like saying Inazuma because my Fire Pro self-insert uses the move and yells that out every time.

[Matt D]

2/5/86: Fujiwara vs Maeda: I want to write this out and I don't have a lot of time so bear with me. I struggle a little with shoot-style. When I watch wrestling, it's very often with an eye on narrative choices and then how those choices are executed, how things fit into patterns and how they deviate. Ultimately, the end point of the story is a finish and who wins, but the brunt of storytelling is more about how they get there. With shoot-style (and I know there are wide variations and I'm generalizing but I get to pull that shit on DVDVR that I probably wouldn't try elsewhere because I'm just flowing with this; bear with me), the finish feels like everything. Will it come a minute in? Five minutes in? Twenty? It can come at any point and if a match goes long, you definitely do see some of those patterns and choices, but it leans into the realism of it all more. That is to say, it is far, far more about the destination than the journey, or at least it is to my mind, or it's more about specific wrestling and technique and the simulation of it all (and there are people who absolutely get their kicks from that and good on them; different types make the world go round; I'm jealous of people who can get so into that sometimes). It makes me wonder how well it really works on rewatch, or even watching it when you know who wins. Generally, I can rewatch old matches and really dig into the narrative of it all and how they're accomplishing it and I think I'd struggle a little more going back to this. And the funny part is the better the wrestlers are at simulating the reality of it, the more it becomes about that destination instead of the journey because you need gaps in their game or weaknesses or mistakes or some other major difference to fully capitalize on storytelling opportunities.

Or maybe I just don't fully understand what I'm watching yet? I don't know. I think I get it?

Here, it was Maeda constantly pressing forward and Fujiwara being able to use that momentum (more symbolic than literal) against him. The deal with Fujiwara, what makes him so special, is that he, at this point, as much as any wrestler I've ever seen, puts forward the notion that he can win at any point. Everything he does in a match like this is swinging for the fences, but instead of doing it with a big shot, it's with a submission. He's trying to win at minute one and at minute twenty. Whereas Maeda tries to damage him, tries to wear him down, tries to make it so he doesn't just reverse every damn thing he does. Yet meanwhile, Fujiwara takes the damage, gets opened up more, finds himself unable to counter EVERYTHING and less and less as time goes on, but he knows Maeda's wearing himself down too, a little weaker with every submission he has to survive, and it makes it easier and easier for Fujiwara to hit that home run. Eventually Maeda will tire, will make a mistake, will throw one right down the middle.

Here, after three attempts at the armbar, Maeda locks in a killer choke and he puts everything he has in it and Fujiwara's face is amazing, but his hands are even more amazing as he slowly meticulously, inhumanly pries away the leg, and even as he's going out, even as he's probably inching far closer to a kayfabe death than any wrestler ever should, he gets the torque and the angle he needs and outlasts Maeda for the maddening win.

And it's great. Of course it's great.

But I kind of liked writing about it more than I liked watching it?

[Matt D]

2/6/86: Kimura vs Kevin: I dug this a lot. Kevin is such a confident jock heel. I know I've said that before, but I reiterate it here. There was a moment early on where he put Kimura's hands down out of a double knucklelocked and stomped on them and nothing happened because the goof doesn't wear shoes. I absolutely love the Von Erichs as invading Texas golden boys who come to conquer Japan with the dreaded Von Erich claw. Here it was the stomach claw until Kimura was able to come back. The fan went nuts for the Inazuma leg lariat but then instead of finishing him he hit a pile driver and went up top only to get clawed for his trouble. Then Kevin hung him upside down and kept the claw on kicking the ref away with the shoeless feet.

That drew Fujinami in and that drew Kerry in and we went right to

2/6/86: Fujinami vs Kerry: This started with Fujinami reeling from a doubleteam from both Von Erichs and the claw to the head which was pretty thematic following the last match making this feel like one big thing instead of two separate matches. I thought Kimura was perfectly fine in the last match but Fujinami carries himself more like a star, including just getting up during the grounded stomach claw and firing back. The leg lariat is cool but his clothesline has way more oomph. They also did a bit where both guys had a claw on at the same time which I bet people hated when the NJPW set was put together but I absolutely loved. At times I think Kerry wasn't entirely sure what to do as a heel working from underneath, like he kept expecting the crowd to get behind him (this was during a headscissors that Fujinami worked quite well regardless). They built to a big moment where Fujinami got the figure four on and they rolled out of the ring with it and everything became chaotic once more. Just a fun twenty minutes of TV between the two matches.

2/6/86: Cobra vs Koshinaka for the Jr. Heavyweight title: I liked the first ten minutes of this. Cobra had an early advantage but Koshinaka hit the butt butt and then a dive. Cobra jammed him with a belly to back but Koshinaka came back again with a flying clothesline. Cobra cut him off and started working over the back. Koshinaka came back but got redirected to the floor and Cobra hit a space flying tiger drop dive thing. After that, though, it all sort of went into finishing stretch and it was exciting but a little bit formless. I did like the finish a lot as Cobra crushed Koshinaka with a crazy tombstone, couldn't beat him, went for another and then decided to go up to the top instead of going for the win. Koshinaka got his knees up in a really great visual and then hit a deep German for the win. The fans went nuts for it. Perfectly fine match but I do prefer the mat-based AJPW Jrs style.

Edited March 6, 2022 by Matt D

[Matt D]

2/6/86: Fujiwara vs Inoki: I forgot to upload this the other day which is why I hit the other 2/6 matches first. There are definitely ratios at play here. This is 70% interesting and 30% just Fujiwara dropping onto Inoki's leg with a toehold/kneebar/whatever. That is really just a thing that happens in all of these UWF guys’ matches and they do an ok job at making it compelling but it really signifies a defensive sort of wrestling that's more "I am not going to let you do what you want to do for the next minute or so" than anything else, and it kind of gets a little old. I don't know if that's blasphemy or something. Here's another ratio. 100% of what Fujiwara did felt credible. He could turn an Inoki cross armbreaker into an armbar of his own and it totally felt credible. 80% of what Inoki did felt credible and about 20% felt like he had super powers because he was the boss. At one point he got Fujiwara's back and I didn't buy it at all. Not a bit. Sorry Antonio. The fans did though! The look on Fujiwara's face when he had Inoki in a hold and they were chanting Inoki over and over again was great; pain and bemusement and frustration and aggravation. He just wanted these damn kids in the crowd to get off his lawn. They traded some suplexes here and they were fun because they felt more like takeovers or shocks to the system than normal suplexes. Anyway, this match did work, and it worked because Inoki was giving down the stretch. In as, he sold his arm big when it was time to sell his arm, after Fujiwara really did a number on it. Inoki comes off as someone who more sells a general sense of vulnerability than a specific one and rarely desperation but down the stretch, there was a moment where he was clearly afraid to use the arm, or even where he had an advantage and had Fujiwara's leg, but he let Fujiwara take his own because if he tried to press his advantage, it'd make his arm vulnerable. That's the stuff that makes these matches sing. Eventually that desperation led to headbutts by Inoki, which were pretty awesome even if not super effective. Then they had a finishing stretch that protected everyone as Inoki hit an accidental low blow but let Fujiwara come back with his trademark headbutts by being too honorable to press the advantage, only to get this amazing straight punch out of nowhere to counter the headbutts. That let him get a sleeper on and unlike Maeda, Fujiwara couldn't get a limb and that was that. Oh, the opening was pretty good too, as Fujiwara got an almost immediate slap in on a break in the corner and Inoki just rubbed his cheek and shook his head and carried on because he wasn't going to let Fujiwara throw him. Then he gave Fujiwara a clean break in the ropes but when Fujiwara tried to trap him in the corner again he turned it around and just battered him. I should have put that bit earlier in the review, sorry. This was best when these two were being the larger than life figures they were and when Inoki trusted Fujiwara and let himself be vulnerable in his hands.

2/28/86: Maeda vs Riki Bassen: I don't know who Bassen? Bassan? is and I don't have time to figure it out. Point being, Maeda took a huge amount of this but was kind enough to give him a crab or two before crushing him with what felt like a shoot capture suplex, which should not be a thing that is possible. It's one thing to catch a kick but just to pick a leg is kind of nuts. The most telling moment of this match was when Maeda used an uncooperative kind of hip toss to get out of a hold attempt and somehow contorted Bassan right on to his head.

Edited March 6, 2022 by Matt D

[Gordi the former AEW fan]

He was also Strong Machine #2 (Riki Bassan). I think he's Korean. 

That's all I have got.