Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

Matt Watches 1989 AJPW/1986 NJPW on a Treadmill


Matt D

Recommended Posts

7/7/90: Spivey vs Taue: Another step forward for Taue. He legitimately controlled for a bit and you even thought he might win at one point towards the end after he hit a Samoan Drop, Russian Leg Sweep, elbow drop, etc. He just didn't have enough to put Spivey away though and Spivey hit the Spike DDT out of nowhere for the win. Remember, Spivey was treated as a quasi-Brody replacement in 89 and was Hansen's partner before Tenryu. With Williams and Gordy in, he was bumped down a bit, but he was still pretty credible with the fans and pretty protected, so Taue doing so well was something at least. (oh! Taue hit a pretty good chairshot on the outside too. More aggression).

7/7/90: Hansen vs Kobashi. Last time we really saw Kobashi lock horns with Hansen, he was in crazy beast mode in some random tags. That was a few months earlier back when Tenryu was still around and before Hansen was champ and when such things could occur. This match really restored things more to the natural order. That didn't mean that Kobashi didn't take it to him at times or that he didn't doggedly keep grabbing for an arm after getting shrugged off of a pin or that he didn't even, eventually, knock down Hansen with a spin kick and hit the frog splash (Borrowed from Misawa) for a credible 2, but this was him getting swatted down and getting back up. Until he ate the lariat and didn't get up any more. It was ok but it felt like a reset and something to build upon in the future. For some reason the change in perspective made me wonder if it wouldn't have made more sense to have Doc beat Hansen back in May/June during their singles match and then build to a big card where Jumbo got his win back on Gordy and (vulnerable) champ Hansen overcame Doc and got his win back too. Ah well. I'm sure they did fine without my time-displaced help.

7/12/90: Hansen/Spivey/Deaton vs Williams/Gordy/Ace: This was thirteen minutes of pure chaos. There was about thrity seconds to a minute of Gordy catching Ace on the way in with a drop toehold and locking in a hold, but everything else was hossfight chaos. It's not even worth writing up in any meaningful way. Let me put it this way. This is JIP and it comes in on Spivey powerbombing someone. That's the start of the footage and it goes 13 after that. My favorite part was when Deaton hit a big lariat and had a moment and got a chant! Good for Deaton. Hansen was all over the place as you can imagine, just fighting everyone. Ace really was only a factor when he ran across the ring a couple of times to break up a Hansen hold (it took that much momentum) and keeping both Hansen and Spivey busy on the outside for the finish which was a heroic effort. Finish was awesome as it was the assisted Stampede on Deaton with Gordy pressing Williams back the whole way. Look, there's more fun stuff in here but you try to keep track of it all.

Spoiler

 

 

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was wrong. There's a new HH from a few years ago which is Yatsu's ACTUAL last match. VQ is tough but again with these guys you can always tell. I didn't watch on the treadmill though. Basically, no one's seen this one as we never did anything with it due to the VQ.

7/8/90 Jumbo/Yatsu vs Misawa/Taue: Yatsu could be whatever he had to be, like I noted above. This starts with him having big a hulking shoulder block off with Taue and immediately switching to some matwork with Misawa. Crowd pops for Jumbo coming in and Misawa gets the advantage (say what you will about Jumbo being unhappy about putting Misawa over clean on 6/9; he was very willing to have him win an exchange out of a greco-roman knucklelock). Hierarchy is hierarchy but you groan a bit when Taue tags in; come on, dude, you're a big guy! Don't immediately lose control of Jumbo. One jumping knee later and they're working over freaking Taue. But then, after a double chop, Taue comes back against Yatsu! What a guy, July 90 Taue, never doubted you. They go back and forth a bit from there (great Misawa dropkick on Jumbo) until Jumbo hits Taue with the big boot. He then takes a couple of chair shots on the outside that probably made him miss Tenryu. Taue does eventually get a foot up and make a tag but then things get pretty funny as the guys filming this and I converge. They start riding Taue hard, first to stop interference from the outside or to do something when Jumbo has Misawa in a crab. When Misawa comes back and gets the tag there's a huge groan out of them and they start yelling at Taue some more, especially after he loses offense. He comes back and I THINK they're a little proud of him but then he doesn't stop pin break-ups and they start yelling all over again. It's pretty hilarious. Poor guy. This is it for Yatsu and at least he gets to hit ALL of stuff on Taue (Powerslam, bulldog, butterfly suplex, shinbreaker) before it gets broken up when the camera goes out for twenty seconds and we go into the finishing stretch. That gets pretty exciting too as Misawa breaks up the first back drop driver by Jumbo (and then Taue drops him with his proto chokeslam). Then Taue gets a nearfall on a Thesz press, but Jumbo gets his foot up and hit the belly to back this time and Yatsu grabs Misawa at the last second to stop the cut off and that's that. Post match, Jumbo and Yatsu do their high five thing one last time and we say farewell to Yatsu. This was fun even if the VQ was rough.

What's also fun is how, when this match dropped in 2018, I'm sure I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but now it feels special because of the journey I've been on and how much I've seen with Yatsu and how it's one of the rare matches we have with Yatsu up against this era of Misawa and Taue and where it falls almost a month after Misawa's win, etc. This is all stuff I understand now that I didn't before so I can see the value in this other than a random HH match out of many with dubious VQ.

Spoiler

 

 

  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7/12/90: Fuchi vs Kikuchi! This feels like two pieces of tape pieced together as the sound comes up at times. It's the whole match though and it's good we have it and not just the finish. We don't often get the Jr. Heavyweight Title matches and they're Fuchi so.... well, they're good. Here, Kikuchi was immediately working from underneath as Fuchi could really tie him up in knots. The match turned relatively early as Kikuchi just hit a burst of forearms/elbows in the corner and then a second burst. Fans were going nuts for this as Kikuchi is the sort of lad you can just get behind. He went for a third, just diving across the ring to try to get an elbow in but Fuchi ducked away. This wasn't Kikuchi hitting the corner hard or anything but it didn't have to be. He had a moment and his moment was over. Fuchi started on him after that. He'd come back in the end, even getting a tortured German suplex for a tantalizing near-fall, but Fuchi strung together some moves (each with a big pop kickout) to put him away. Good stuff.

7/12/90: Taue vs Terry Taylor: I had to clip this one, but there's not a ton to see here. Real heavy workrate stuff to start, actually, with Taylor just unloading in the corner and both of them going. It made me think there was probably an enjoyable Taylor vs Kawada match possible, maybe. Really, though, it was Taue letting Taylor push him around too much, right until he didn't. It's a pattern in what I've been watching lately (some NJ HHs in 90 for FFF) but Taylor tried to let him come up out of a chinlock and the fans were cheering for it but Taue just ended up pressed into the corner, not quite sure what to do in that moment. Taylor hit the FIVEARM which I was glad to see but Taue caught him with the atomic drop/belly to back combo for the win. Maybe this wasn't the best pairing, but it was a lot better than the Sting vs Taue match from the year before for instance.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have the ENTIRE 7/20 show, including old man Destroyer vs young boy Richard Slinger, which I'm pretty excited for, let me tell you. So I have to clean everything up before that.

Today is Terry Taylor day apparently. BUT FIRST

7/12/90: Tsuruta/Kabuki/Inoue vs Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi: Awesome bit to start here. We come in on The Youth Army beating up Inoue because of of size and hierarchy with good tag team continuity. At some point, Kawada comes in and then for no discernible reason, walks across the ring to knock Kabuki off the apron. Kabuki (sans make up apparently, btw) sell it like death on the floor as Jumbo checks on him. They keep beating on Inoue and once Kabuki finally makes it back on the apron a minute or so later, he's able to slip away and make the tag. Kawada's in the ring. The crowd goes nuts because they know violence is before them. It's lovely stuff with Kabuki throwing uppercuts and "Kawada style kicks". Then Kawada comes back with a slew of knees before finally getting outkicked by Kabuki and DDTed. Great stuff. We get a Jumbo vs Misawa exchange with Jumbo absolutely mauling Misawa in the corner and Misawa coming back. You have to give it to Jumbo here. Every time Misawa hits him, he really throws himself back selling it. It's very different than how they sell for Kobashi and Kawada and it makes Misawa seem like a huge deal, even if his stuff obviously looks good otherwise. We get a hint of Kobashi vs Inoue and I bet that would have been good and is in the bit we lost out on due to the JIP. Finish has Kobashi almost beating Inoue a few times, including with the moonsault after Misawa leaps in with the frog splash, but Jumbo keeps breaking it up. In the end, he tries to hit a clothesline but Kobashi ducks it, only to run right into a headscissors takeover into a small package of sorts by Inoue for the win. Kobashi really could have used that pin off the moonsault, but I get it. Yatsu's gone (and Kabuki's gone by the end of the month!) so they have to at least temporarily build up Inoue a bit.

Spoiler

 

7/17/90 Steve Williams/Johnny Ace vs Dan Spivey/Terry Taylor: Big takeaway here is that given the amount Taylor flew around for Doc and even took a bunch of Ace's stuff, it's ridiculous that Taue couldn't press back against him better in their singles match. Get with the program, Taue! Spivey had a good little beat down on Ace but this was really about Terry Taylor being roadkill for Doc.

7/19/90: Misawa/Kobashi vs Hansen/Taylor: Jumping around a bit to fit matches in my run. What was interesting here was that because Taylor was so weak a partner in the front half, Misawa and Kobashi really got to beat down Hansen in a way that these kids have never been able to before. They were doing quick tags and really keeping him down. Obviously they dominated Taylor too but he got in a lucky shinbreaker on Misawa and they really tore the leg apart. Taylor looked actively good here. I mean it's not like he wasn't good bumping all over the place for Doc in the previous match but there's good and then there's functionally useful in an All Japan setting, and if you're a foreigner who's going to get run over, you're only going to be so useful. I'm looking at you Harley Race. Still love seeing Taylor's five arm though. I'm not convinced Taylor had any idea how to take the tiger driver either. This is technically Misawa/Kobashi getting a win over Hansen, albeit in a tag setting, so that's no small thing either.

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7/17/90: Hansen (c) vs Gordy: Different sort of hoss fight here. Less all out action and more measured with a bit more of a title match feel maybe. Hansen had the early advantage. Gordy came back with an amazing flurry of punches. Hansen came back with an amazing burst of headbutts. Gordy took over on the leg. That went pretty well for him until he hurt himself on a back elbow and Hansen took over on the arm. One unique thing about Hansen is that he doesn't always wrench a hold or have certain set spots he'd do when working a body part like anyone else would. You know how Flair or Bret will work over a leg for instance. He just sort of inflicts violence from any angle on the limp. Weird chops and grinding and smacking and whatever. It certainly looks painful. Gordy tries to come back a couple of times but misses a lariat on the post outside. Tide turns when Doc comes up to WRAP UP THE ARM. Gordy steals a brace/armguard from Hansen, dodges a lariat, hits one of his own and wins back the title. I don't think anything over the previous few weeks matches the sheer wild intensity of Doc vs Hansen, but this was good.

7/17/90: Jumbo/Fuchi/Kabuki vs Misawa/Taue/Kobashi: Fuchi is so great with the small things. JIP starts with he and Jumbo doing the double jumping knee on Taue but then he can't get him up for a suplex so he hammers him in the ribs five times. He still can't get him up and it's reversed but that little bit of hammering makes everything so much better. Misawa comes in and crushes him with a senton but then after he kicks out, he hangs on to Misawa's head and grinds his foot against his face so he can make the tag. So fluid. Stuff no one else is doing. Misawa and Kobashi beat on Kabuki a bit (Misawa his superior, Kobashi now his equal). Taue misses an elbow drop and they take over on him. Awesome bit here as he tries the hundred hand slap across the ring, Jumbo forearms him to cut it off, he keeps going, and then Jumbo kicks him in the face to really cut it off. So far, that's the only shame about Taue turning soon: they could have kept building that spot to be more and more elaborate over the next year or two. Hot tag leads to Jumbo vs Misawa (all the hits: spin kick, Jumbo beating him down, Misawa doing the leaping back headbutt off the second ropes, Misawa going for the Tiger driver but getting punched by Kabuki and then kicked in the face; Misawa reversing a gutwrench to end it). Everyone gets to charge into the corner on Jumbo. But he's grumpy and he kicks Kobashi in the face. Kobashi's able to get the better of Kabuki and gets him in the rolling cradle and goes for the moonsault but gets cut off by Jumbo leading to a huge belly to back with him on the top. Finishing stretch had Kobashi vs Fuchi and then Taue vs Fuchi with a bunch of nearfalls and pins getting broken up until Taue hits the Atomic Drop/Belly to back combo for a much needed win. Fun 10 minutes.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7/19/90: MVC vs Jumbo/Kabuki: Title match. We get most of it but miss the beginning which is a shame as the beginning of MVC matches tend to be interesting. Some awesome stuff early on where Kabuki starts on Doc's arm and then Jumbo just hammers on it repeatedly and Doc finally gets pissed and jumps up and just stares Jumbo down and unloads on him. MVC take most of this with superior teamwork, first on Jumbo and then, after he's able to make a short comeback, onto Kabuki. Crowd gets way behind him as he survives and survives and survives like a face-painted cockroach. Some of this stuff is pretty huge, most of all being the double squisher in the corner. He survives the Stampede thanks to Jumbo and then during the second one Hansen comes out to grab Doc's legs. Doc manages to kick out of a Jumbo belly to back and then sort of jumps up again, but Hansen makes his presence felt again and Jumbo gets a second out of the corner for the title switch. There were moments in this where I kind of missed the kids (Misawa/Kawada/Kobashi/Taue) but the fans were completely into Kabuki's selling. They had called Gordy something along the lines of a quadruple crowd holder before he lost the tag belts. It's crazy to me that Kabuki wins the title so soon before he's gone. @KinchStalker you might have written this up somewhere previously, but isn't that nuts? They announced his SWS signing on August 2nd, just two weeks and two days after this title change. They must have been sure that Kabuki was staying or did this to keep him but he couldn't say no to the booker job?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7/20/90: Kikuchi vs Momota: This is a handheld we just never looked at closely when it showed up a few years ago. This one is a little JIP and we've got some rowdy fans filming. There's one point in the finishing stretch where they're so into chanting names that they forget to aim the camera. Kikuchi takes most of this with hard shots in the corner and just staying on the arm like a pitbull. I hadn't realized Momota's heritage at the start of my project, but he really was beloved by the crowd. Finishing stretch seemed exciting but we missed a chunk of it, of course. Just guys hitting stuff cleanly with high energy and engagement. Momota banana peeled his way to a win but Kikuchi looked better coming out even in loss.

7/20/90: Teranishi vs Inoue: Just the finishing stretch here but it was good. Teranishi hit a Robinson backbreaker for a nearfall. Inoue hit a press up gutbuster, but missed the flipping senton. Teranishi went for the backbreaker again but Inoue turned it into the big AJPW finish of 90 and body prese countered his way into the win. I bet this would have been good if we got all of it.

7/20/90: Richard Slinger vs Destroyer: The fans filming were going nuts for the Destroyer and he points right at the camera so that was nice for everyone. They were smartasses, but so is his character to a degree. He looked very good here, leading Slinger into putting him into all sorts of holds. You could tell he was driving, but it was basically every trick in the book. He could have had an amazing Baba singles in this period. They did have a tag on the same side on 7/17. He took a ton of Slinger's stuff too.

Spoiler

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7/20/90: Baba/Rusher vs Eigen/Okuma: Not a ton to say here. A theme for the rest of the show (I imagine) is the goofballs filming are going to chant for Eigen instead of Baba or whatever. My favorite part about this one is that it was a straight up tag instead of a six man. We saw a bit of that in the RWTL back at the end of 89 but this was more of a comedy match still, just without a Momota or Fuchi (who they needed in other parts of the card with everyone gone) to do the brunt of the work. Rusher was in there a lot then and he had to do stuff. Eigen and Okuma controlled when they could keep things in their corner including the tandem headbutt spot on Baba but they're the Washington Generals here.

7/20/90: Kenta Kobashi vs Pete Roberts: Unique match up with a bit more mat wrestling, where Kobashi looked good against Roberts. This was a bit on the short side, but Roberts was very credible. It could have gone five more minutes and would have been all the better for it. Roberts generally took over on the floor. Again, the goofs kept chanting for him. Kobashi got the win after the moonsault which was sorely needed if it's going to be a false finish in tags.

7/20/90: Misawa/Kawada vs Joel Deaton/Terry Taylor: "Joel! Joel! Joel!" What a bunch of cards filming this, let me tell you. I think one of them wanted to chant for Misawa though. Deaton looked like a killer on the floor with chairs. He really sold the Tiger Feint too (right before getting kicked in the face). Taylor was fine, I'm sure, but I can't remember a single thing he did (no fivearm). Deaton hit this really killer high high cross body off the top on Kawada, but the finish was a little uninspired with Kawada just slipping behind on a suplex attempt and hitting a spin kick and power bomb. Still, it's good to establish stuff against a credible guy like Deaton, I suppose.

  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7/20/90: Taue vs Hansen: I didn't love this. I think I would have liked it more pro-shot. The most important thing is that Taue stayed in there. I don't think he ever had Hansen in particular danger, but Hansen didn't completely crush him either. That's a big change from the last time they fought. He's getting there. It was a little too holds based for the vantage point we had. And the holds didn't have a lot of meaning behind them. It seemed like Taue was working the leg and Hansen just leaned in and snatched a leg it seemed. That sort of thing. He was able to just work from underneath whenever Taue had an advantage with gutshots or knees. Finish was very straightforward too. Hansen got some distance, hit a shoulder to take over, hit the lariat. There's a story about a match a week or so prior that we don't have where Taylor was teaming with Hansen and Spivey where Hansen apparently slapped the hell out of Taylor because he was doing too much "American stuff" even though he was his own partner. It's a shame we don't have that instead of this.

7/20/90: Jumbo/Kabuki/Fuchi vs Gordy/Williams/Ace: This followed up the title change, the day prior, of course. I absolutely love our goofball filming fans who go nuts and sing along to the riff at the start of "I Love it Loud" and then they don't know the words so they just sort of hum/scream along to the beginning and then they just start singing something in Japanese. So all good stuff there. They were super into Fuchi in this one. I'm glad someone was because he played FIP for 80% of this. I think I wanted to see him try to outwrestle Doc (and lose, but...) but instead his deal here was slapping Doc and Gordy or trying to outpunch them in the corner and it was ballsy but not really what I want out of Fuchi. I want Fuchi stretching youngsters, but he was certainly good at this as well. Still big buzz for Jumbo and Gordy facing off. Jumbo got the hot tag and just destroyed everyone and it was pretty awesome. But eventually Fuchi got the tag back in and it's just hard watching these handhelds because the fans know the finish is coming. They shouted "Sayonara Fuchi!" and "Arigato Fuchi!" but then Fuchi actually kicked out of a delayed pin (due to interference) on the first power bomb and everyone went nuts. He ate an ugly second one and that was that though. You wouldn't want this every day but it's fun to see such a standard sort of tag with a face in peril in Japan now and again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7/21/90: Momota vs Kikuchi: This was some outdoor venue. It was still light out but it'd get darker as the show went on. Handheld, of course. An interesting look. Also interesting is heel Kikuchi. He played that role as cruiserweight bully later into the 90s but that's years ahead of him now and he's got at least one of the more inspiring babyface performances ever ahead of him. Momota wanted to wrestle and take it to the mat and Kikuchi hung for a while, but eventually he pressed him up to the corner and started tearing the arm apart. He had a decent amount of stuff and Momota would sell big and get hope spots out of roll ups. Banana peel finish let him get the win though. You really got the sense Kikuchi was getting the chance to learn to play heel here.

7/21/90: Kobashi vs Joel Deaton and Kawada vs Terry Taylor: Doing these two together for compare/contrast. You watch these and Kobashi kind of/sort of seems light years ahead of Kawada. Some of that was just his ambition and his imagination, maybe? Obviously, he wasn't. Kawada had the head start, had the big match exposure, had the seasoning. Maybe had the execution, but you watch him sit around in Taylor's holds and you watch Kobashi smack his fist as hard as he can into Deaton's ribs when Deaton had him down and it it's night and day. In both matches, the American needed an extracurricular bit of activity on the outside with a chair to take over, but Kobashi fired back more. Kawada took and took. I think maybe Kawada vs Taylor had a slightly (slightly) more interesting stretch but neither was all that interesting. Taylor and Kawada went back and forth a little bit more but it was about both Deaton and Taylor missing a move and their opponents capitalizing. For Kobashi it was dodging a corner elbow, hitting a slam and the moonsault, for Kawada, it was dodging, hitting the clothesline and the spin kick only for Taylor to go around once more before he put his head down and got powerbombed.

Spoiler

 

 

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

7/27/90: Kawada vs Steve Williams: This was excellent. We come in a couple of minutes late but you wouldn't really know it. Kawada's trying to hang on to headlocks and Williams being an absolute beast tries to shrug him off but Kawada hangs on twice and the overdramatic grinding as he somehow manages is amazing and his expression is amazing and the fans love it and then Doc just bodies him with a belly to back. But Kawada is all heart in this. And he powers back up to get Doc out of the ring and then tragically, so tragically, misses a plancha. Doc starts destroying him from there (including almost immediately thereafter dropkicking him off the apron to the barricade because Doc is a monster). Kawada will get flashes, bits of hope, a reversal of a whip, a dodge, some kicks, something, and Doc will just beat him down. At one point, Kawada goes for a cross body and Doc just charges through sending Kawada flying it and it's amazing. Later on, Kawada is able to turn another move into one. Kawada has a way here of turning a whip around into the barricade and then just crumbling selling the effort. It's so good, the best thing I've ever seen him do probably. Doc eventually comes back with an absolutely dangerous back drop driver, the first one that we've seen in 89 or 90 like this I think, but Kawada some how survives it and turns the stampede into a roll up only to get caught off the top with a powerslam. Really good stuff!

Spoiler

 

7/27/90: Misawa vs Hansen: And as good as that was, this is better. It's one of the best matches I've seen in 1990 so far, certainly, if not the best AJPW match of the year so far. Gordy had a heart attack or a stroke or something and they had to take the title off of him so this was the top two contenders going at it. Misawa went after Hansen before the bell with the rope and then a chair. He started on Hansen's arm and never looked back. This is an exceptional Hansen performance. I'd put it like this. What Hansen is 90% of the time allows matches like this to occur and be amazing. And he's almost always what he's supposed to be, what Baba needs him to be but that doesn't always lead to him maximizing what his opponent can do. But it unlocks a match like this and that makes it worth it. It doesn't mean he's going to be in my top 20 in my GWE vote next time I do one probably, but that's not the point of wrestling, to get on some jerk's top 10 ballot 35 years later. Those matches where he sells and is vulnerable, he's one of the best ever, buoyed by his wounded animal mannerisms and the fact he's almost always fighting back. Misawa has to do everything he can, use the ropes, use a chair, use the rail on the outside, go from one hold to another, throw the nastiest kicks, to keep him hurt and under control. And he loses him at times too. Because you can't keep Hansen contained. But Misawa is a star and a developing Ace and he's able to overcome and drag Hansen back down (sometimes by dodging a shot in the corner, sometimes with kicks or sheer superiority that would have been unimaginable three months earlier). Dragging him down is different than putting him away though, and while he is dominant and Hansen is a flailing, agonized creature, all it takes is one shot for him to be back in it. There's a late match Tiger feint which felt like a miscalculation from Misawa. He should have went for it, for while he does get the Frog Splash after, he misses the subsequent plancha. There's a ducked lariat late followed by an all time spin kick, but Hansen charges back with a shoulder and finally absolutely takes Misawa's head off to win the belt. I'd call this 75% Hansen and 25% Misawa even though the control of the match was more like 80/20 Misawa. I know for a fact there are other such vulnerable Hansen performances to come, but this one was absolutely top notch.

Spoiler

 

 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8/18/90: Jumbo/Fuchi/Taue vs Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi: Taue switched sides. Nothing is explained. This match doesn't even have automatic subtitles I can automatically translate. Kinch has done awesome work on this period. There's still no kayfabe reason! No one knows. So much happens in these matches that it's so hard to keep track of half an hour later when I'm off the bike and watched one other match and part of Dark. And I'm only in August 1990 here. Kikuchi started. He got chants. He was paired with Fuchi. This was familiar. Fuchi is just excellent at straddling the line between the hierarchy guy who's going to lose the offense and someone who's an actual threat, by the way. Best ever at that maybe? It's a harder job than Jumbo had maybe? Fairly early on Taue came in and the fans were as interested in him as ever. And well should they be for he immediately took Kikuchi's head off with a clothesline. Kawada got in soon after and took Taue's head off with a clothesline and you could A) feel the animosity and B) really wanted Misawa to get some swipes at him. No idea why Taue turned sides but you definitely wanted Misawa to forearm him in the skull for it. They rotated through a bit, including a Misawa and Jumbo having a first go at it (Kawada intervened) and then Kikuchi took another absolute beating. Kikuchi sort of unlocks the "Southern Tag" cheat code for AJPW matches. He had a great little comeback against Taue including a springboard clothesline, but then Taue tripped all over him trying to cut him off from tagging (oops). And Jumbo came in and he got some fire against Jumbo! And then Jumbo took his head off with a clothesline (ow). There was a cool bit in here when he finally got a hot tag and Misawa crushed Jumbo with a dropkick and some other stuff while Kikuchi and Kawada kept the others at bay. When the kids really charge in like this, it's a great minute or two. But Kikuchi got swept under once again and we rolled into Kikuchi vs Taue for the finishing stretch. They sort of cleverly set it up so that Taue had to survive a bunch of stuff and then Kikuchi survived just one or two which helped elevate him, before Taue beat him with the atomic drop/belly to back combo. Fans were very into Taue at the end and Kikuchi in general. If they hadn't gotten the sense things were turning around and would be ok, they had to be getting close.

8/18/90: Fantastics (Fulton/Rogers) vs Richard Charland/Eric Embry: last few minutes of this. Charland had a big lumbering presence in there which logically could have bullied someone but Bobby Fulton wanted nothing to do with any selling, nosirree. Charland was happy to give when he should but then he had to keep on giving when he was trying to beat Fulton down. Embry did a little better since Fulton was going to sell a nasty pile driver but this was weird and annoying and reeked of guys who "know how to work Japan" trying to mark their territory against interlopers when it could have been so much better. 

Edited by Matt D
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What did I even watch tonight? Let's see.

7/27/90: Fuchi vs Pete Roberts: We just get the last five minutes of this but it's pretty awesome. They go hard on the mat to start, just Roberts grinding at the arm. It spills outside and Roberts tosses him into the rail but Fuchi comes back catching him with a belly to back to the floor as he was climbing up the apron. Roberts does a sort of grimy slingshot kick back in and they go on to rope running and suplexes. and slugging, just mean back and forth stuff, including a Roberts gutbuster, until Fuchi's able to avoid a second butterfly suplex and hit one of his own with a bridge. This would be even better if we had more of the matwork but it's a really fun sprint for what we get. I have some pretty strong thoughts about Fuchi and his versatility in a world where very few people were called upon to be versatile but I'll drop them further down the line.

8/18/90: Momota vs Joe Malenko: This is a few minutes of a HH stuck behind people and we don't get to see much, unfortunately. What we do see has Joe being super slick. Do people know Joe Malenko had a 12 match AJPW run in 2010?

8/31/90: Momota vs Teranishi: This was first match stuff. And it was ok. Teranishi had a cool short arm scissors at one point. Momota was charismatic and game but it was low gear mat stuff, which might have been better if we had a pro shot. It escalated accordingly, and Teranishi hit him with a nice Robinson backbreaker out of nowhere for instance. Competent stuff and the nearfalls at the end were good but you spend a big chunk of the match only telling them apart due to Momota's grimier tights.

Edited by Matt D
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Missed one the other day which isn't good as I don't remember it so clearly now, even though we only get around 6 minutes of it.

8/18/90: Kobashi vs Kroffat: There was a suplex on the floor with the mat pulled back. These two match up well as you'd expect. Let me babble on about Kobashi instead. It's not that he's more ahead of the other 3 pillars at this point or even that he's got a more interesting wrestling mind, but I do think he has much more freedom. Kawada felt like he had to be double tough, the scion of Tenryu, grim and gritty, small but resilient, mean; Misawa had to be the ace, had to parallel Jumbo, hierarchy said that he had to be a certain thing even if he had his own flourishes; and Taue had to lean into his size and sumo background and learn to be mean. There had never quite been anything like Kobashi before, or at least that's the impression I get. He feels almost like he could be New Japan's Fujinami, or maybe like Onita if he stayed and was allowed to grow into being a heavyweight? But so far he's leaned into that freedom and his matches are more intriguing for it.

8/19/90: Jumbo/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kawada: This was a handheld. Let me lead with the most important thing. Watching all of this chronologically, this is the moment where I want to say that Gladiator Jumbo becomes Grumpy Jumbo. Things stayed pretty even early including a good Misawa vs Jumbo exchange as they're getting more and more familiar with each other's moves and are able to start layering in more interesting reversals. Most of this, though was a long heat on Kawada including some beating on him on the outside and comebacks and cutoffs and Misawa getting clocked of the apron by Jumbo. Eventually there was a hot tag and Misawa started to clear house including hitting some of the stuff that we've only really seen him do against Jumbo onto Fuchi. Something happens though and we can't see it because the crowd goes nuts and the camera catches the ceiling but my impression is that Jumbo just completely unloads on Misawa with a chair on the outside. Absolutely brutal stuff. And he stays on him back in the ring too, to the point that when Fuchi tries to stop him, Jumbo tosses him out. Things are chaotic from there, with Fuchi tagging himself in as the ref doesn't just throw the match out and there being a kind of wild and loose finishing stretch between Kawada and Fuchi. Jumbo acts completely justified in his bruality and appeals to the crowd; here's the difference though: Tenryu was a revolutionary, a miscreant, a punk, a rebel, a malcontent. He was an anarchist that saw the hypocrisy in the hierarchical order. You respected him, sometimes begrudgingly, might be in awe of him, but you weren't supposed to admire him. Misawa was defiant, was an upstart, but he represented a new page of the old book, dignified, honorable, a valiant warrior. Jumbo stooping to Tenryu's level as he fought him, even if he was blind to it, was one thing. This was something else entirely.

Another small note. I was humming something after heading back upstairs and hitting the shower and couldn't figure out what it was; Misawa's theme. First time it's been in my head. Jumbo's, Tenryu's, Hansen's all happen now and again due to the project, but first time for Misawa.

Edited by Matt D
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8/21/90: Jumbo/Fuchi/Inoue vs Misawa/Kobashi/Kikuchi: These things do progress. Or maybe it's just in my head. Misawa got beaten to a pulp by Jumbo two days earlier so he comes out swinging here. I love the way Jumbo sells his ear for Misawa and only Misawa. I don't remember him doing it for Tenryu or Hansen. That had to put Misawa over with the crowd all the more. Anyway, that means that the kids are able to get an advantage over Fuchi or Inoue. These matches are, quite often, circles within circles, and that meant it was going to circle back to Jumbo. He tried to knock Misawa off the apron and failed, but tagged Kobashi and started on Kikuchi. And Kikuchi took a beating as is his lot. Eventually, though, he managed a hot tag and they went into a fairly chaotic comeback, one that started with Misawa beating down Jumbo, shifted to Kikuchi beating the crap out of him to get his revenge (only to get smacked in the face for his troubles). This was Kikuchi vs the world really, as he went back and forth with Inoue and then Fuchi while Jumbo and Miswa brawled on the floor. Kikuchi's German is always a nice nearfall but he needed a win over Eigen or Okuma or someone to put it over, at least in my daft American brain. But Fuchi just got him over with a Thesz press for the win. Fun stuff that balanced the players fairly well all things considered.

8/21/90: Can-Ams vs Embry/Charland: Embry really needed to team with Hansen as his uppity little stooge buddy. He's going to give up offense and do face first bumps and whatever else. He needs the powerhouse with him. We had 5-6 of this and it was a story of two moves. Charland helped him hoist Kroffat up for a second rope pile driver which was just brutal and then later on after completely demolishing everyone, Furnas helped up to Kroffat for the super/avalanche power slam. It had its moments but this would have been better in Texas. Can-Ams were de facto babyfaces which always feels weird to me.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So we have a handheld from 8/25/90. Three matches from it. It's a tough watch. The guy either had subpar seats or was bad at paying attention and keeping the camera on the action. I'm trying to catch everything but what I was able to see was pretty minimal.

Fantastics vs Kikuchi/Slinger: Fantastics sure eat guys up, huh? Slinger took most of this, almost all of it, and at times I couldn't tell if he was still in there or not. For instance, Kikuchi has his big springboard clothesline but it sure liked like Slinger was the one doing it here. Not much to say from what we could see.

Jumbo/Taue/Inoue vs Williams/Gordy/Scotty the Body: The big difference between me and some of the reviewers of old is that there are various things I look for. One thing I was absolutely looking for was what the hell our pal Johnny Polo was going to do while Gordy and Doc were crashing back and forth in the ring. And while we don't get to see a lot of this, we saw that He was up on the turnbuckles posing and mainly trying not to fall off. He matched up briefly with Inoue but was mainly out of this one. Not much to see so not much to say.

Misawa/Kobashi vs Furnas/THE TROOPER: Pretty sure the Trooper is Del Wilkes/The Patriot but it's weird to see him unmasked and working like a Furnas clone. Again, couldn't see everything (and with this one the view just cut to the floor for long swaths) but I will say that Kobashi and Furnas matched up extremely well to begin. Sharp, sharp stuff. The two of them worked most of this though Furnas positioned Trooper around well enough for double teams. He had presence but was still awkward. Jumbo won it with the frog splash which is a good thing to help get the move over as a nearfall in bigger matches.

8/27/90: Jumbo/Taue/Inoue vs Hansen/Embry/Scotty the Body: What a great team right there! Embry finally had what he needed (Hansen); he almost lost the offense again and again in this one but kept scrapping and scrambling to make it back to his corner with his opponent. Scotty was as game as could be, letting Hansen drive him to just go go go. He had a bunch of stuff early on too and just got the message on laying the stomps in. There was some heat on both Inoue and Taue (comeback in the middle to get the tag). Eventually Jumbo got a hot tag and hit everyone with the jumping knee one after the other to knock them out. Good stuff. Really, everyone got their moments here, though it was funny to see Scotty bully Taue around a bit (Come on, Akira, get with the program). Taue did get the win with a push up clothesline and a samoan drop on Embry, even as Hansen was choking out Jumbo with the rope (he started the match by choking Taue the same way). Fun stuff.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8/25/90: Johnny Ace/Kobashi vs Fantastics: Them Fantastics sure like to eat guys up. here, it was Ace. They just had way more double teams whereas Ace and Kobashi could maybe get one or two. Wait, hold the presses. I stopped to read about the All Asia titles. So they get won by Tiger Mask and Kobashi (beating the Can-Ams) in April. And then vacated in May because Tiger Mask unmasked and wants to be a singles guy. Then they're won by the weirdo team of Taue and Nakano in the margins of what I've been watching. They beat Johnny Smith and Davey Boy. then they're vacated again when Nakano leaves. This is some sort of All Asia Series to see who gets to win them. I wish we had six months of Nakano and Taue. That sounds just goofy enough to work. I don't know. Kobashi had two different sort of spinning/roll kicks at this point. The Fantastics in Japan kind of annoy me. They should be bleeding for the Sheepherders, not eating up Johnny Ace in Japan. Kobashi won this with a cool stalling bulldog and the legdrop of all things. I hope Classics gives us that Nakano/Taue vs Team Smith match when they get to August 90. It's 6/5 so it's not like we don't have four other matches taped from that show.

8/31/90: Jumbo vs Kobashi: The Berlin Wall was defeated but Tsuruta's wall is strong! That's the call after the match. One thing I'm coming to really appreciate about this era of AJPW is how in sync with the fans i am. I'm asking the same question they're asking. Or at least some of the same questions. I half imagine they're thinking about some of the same things I am. Jumbo had lost the Olympics jacket by now and you have to wonder on some level how much of his shift to grumpy was because Yatsu and Kabuki were no longer there to talk sense into him. Of his apprentices, Takano was gone and Tiger Mask and Kobashi had gone rebel. But there was a moment right at the start of this where Jumbo puts out his hand and you wondered if maybe what was unleashed so recently against Misawa would be smoothed over here.

It would not. Kobashi slapped the hand and Jumbo clobbered him almost immediately with a lariat followed by the jumping knee. Kobashi, upon his recovery, went straight for a chinlock and side headlock. Later on, they'd show Misawa watching from the crowd and you could imagine Super Generation Strategy Sessions talking about Jumbo's hurt ear. The announcers honed in that this was Kobashi's target, a way to contain Jumbo, and Baba noted how different Kobashi was from just three months ago; to his credit, Jumbo really sold the ear during this period. He'd fire out but eventually hit the floor and Kobashi launched just a massive plancha on him followed by a huge top rope dive. Jumbo sold the leg and Kobashi switched his focus accordingly. He locked in a modified figure four and then a deathlock and one great thing about Kobashi is just how much stuff he had. He had a lot. There was some great, rousing stuff here as Jumbo kept trying to sit up and Kobashi just started hammering him. I got the sense it was Jumbo luring him in though, getting him to think with his heart and not his head. Kobashi would go back to the leg a couple of times, but he'd lost the moment and Jumbo nailed him with an enziguiri to take back over. I wouldn't call what followed a dropping of selling. To me, here, the ear opened up the leg which then again opened up the ear as Kobashi honed in on it in his comeback. The finishing stretch started with Kobashi hitting about three moves to Jumbo's one, including a diving splash and the rolling kick (to the ear) and a bulldog (onto the ear!) and finally a German, but Jumbo kept pressing forward. Where it got good right at the end was (again I got the sense that) Jumbo (was) not wanting to put him away with the backdrop. He kept going with other things: the Thesz Press, a nasty power bomb, even the jumping knee off the top, but Kobashi kept kicking out and Jumbo, furious, finally put him down with the backdrop. It almost felt like it was on Kobashi's terms and not Jumbo's. This wasn't Kobashi's breakthrough performance, but he was on his way and there is a sense, post Misawa vs Jumbo, that maybe, just maybe, anything could happen. Maybe. But not tonight.

I have other HH matches from 8/31 to watch and I'll get to them later. I wanted to see this one.

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For some reason I thought there was one 8/19 match on the 8/31 HH but nope. So the above Momota/Teranashi match is 8/31.

8/31/90: Slinger vs J. Malenko: Joe's really good. The crowd was quiet on this one but it had a lot of very fun matwork broken up by Slinger's kicks. You get the sense Joe was moving him around a bit but it was hard to care. Joe had a great bridge on a hold and was just super smooth. Slinger had one huge Fujiwara Armbar out of nowhere that the fans bought into but he got double wristlocked to death to tap. They hugged after the match. I like Joe.

8/31/90: Eigen/Okuma vs Trooper/Charland: Charland is best known for being a first match WWF in Canada guy (maybe due to quota rules about Canadian TV? I have no idea), but he could go just a little, just enough. He also knew how to stooge which was helpful against Eigen and Okuma, especially since Trooper didn't. He was all size and awkwardness. There were bits of comedy in here but I wouldn't call this a comedy match. Eigen and Okuma could scrap too when they needed to. They just didn't need to that often. Amazingly, Eigen and Okuma won with the falling headbutt off the ropes.

8/31/90: Baba/Rusher vs Embry/Rip Morgan: Embry and Rusher matched up quite well, two guys who just got it. They had a nice little exchange but we didn't get enough of Embry bumping and stooging for Baba. Instead he was mostly matched up with Morgan but again, they matched up surprisingly well with Morgan shouting and giving just enough on shoulder blocks. He looked as big and imposing as I'd ever seen him probably and got over accordingly. Still Embry was in there to get beat on and get beat and that's just what happened after the tandem shoulder block/big boot. We never got an Embry vs Baba singles match unfortunately.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8/31/90: Fantastics vs SCOTTY THE BODY/Kroffat: Scotty coming out and dancing about to his music in his 1990 jacket was both funny and over. This was a total spotfest, probably the biggest spotfest I've seen in a year and 2/3rds of AJPW. It starts with them going right at each other and a Rogers plancha and it never really looks back. Levy's totally over the top including one insane "jump over the rail" bump. Lots of guys flying around especially whenever he's in there. Kroffat grounds things a little more. Fantastics (who threw the discs before the match but still worked de facto heel) would have eaten Levy up even more but Rogers wiped out on a springboard clothesline. Finish was a DOUBLE SUPERPLEX on Scotty followed by the big flip off the top. Scotty was clumsy but got an A for effort and hey, you can't say it wasn't entertaining.

8/31/90: Taue/Fuchi/Inoue vs Misawa/Kawada/Kikuchi: So this was cool. We had the last 8-9 minutes pro shot but this was a handheld from the opposite angle. I stuck with it and then watched some select moments from the pro shot later. What I really liked about this is that it's our first trios with these guys without Jumbo anchoring things. Taue got announced last actually. Inoue and Kikuchi match up well, by the way. And I got a sense Kawada saw the previous match and wanted to out do it as he hit an early dive and then let himself get reversed on a suplex on the floor. The kids mostly dominated until it became Taue vs Kikuchi and he got jammed. There was a great moment where Inoue was battering Kikuchi on the outside with a chair and he made it back in and started shouting at him only to get beaten down by Fuchi and Taue (and because pro wrestling is awesome; this drew a Kikuchi chant). There was the usual long beatdown on Kikuchi that works so well. Eventually Kikuchi reversed a suplex of his own and Misawa made it in. There's still a buzz when Taue's in there against his former friends, and especially when it's Misawa. There was a good finishing stretch where they kept cycling. You could feel the groans when Inoue got up when Kikuchi was on the top and just lawn darted him across the ring, but he kept on surviving things he shouldn't have survived and it eventually ended up Fuchi and Kawada which made things a bit more unpredictable. There was actually an earlier moment where Fuchi had broken up a huge Kawada moonsault press into a pin and kept on stomping him. These fans were ok with a save but not with the extracurriculars that followed and he actually got huge heat for it. Anyway, Kawada finally got Misawa in and nailed Fuchi with a clothesline. The finish was Misawa knocking Fuchi out (legit? It felt like legit but sometimes that's working for you!) with a forearm off the top rope. He kicked at him a couple of times and tried to move him after but couldn't budge him so just shrugged and pinned him. A bunch of friendly slaps to the face later, they got Fuchi up and he left to a chant of his own.

I'm isolating the trios match now (I never did that back when we got these apparently). It was a very cool experience to watch the same moves proshot from a different direction after the match and I suggest that. Let me get you the Scotty match now since you guys might enjoy super workrate Young Buck Raven.

Spoiler

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's the trios I owe you guys:

And what I watched tonight:

8/31/90: Hansen/Ace vs MVC: a riproaring good time. We get the first few minutes in the handheld and it's awesome watching Doc and Gordy rush to the ring just bursting everyone out of their way. It's different from Brody or Hansen or Singh menacing the crowd because there's a singular focus of getting to the ring. It's not about scaring fans; it's about showing the Warrior like intensity and woe to anyone (or any American flag) that gets in their way. And then Hansen just met them with the bullrope and things sizzled. We get 2-3 minutes on the HH and then the tv shot comes in a few minutes later so there's no point in piecing this together into a single video unfortunately. There's a funny moment in the HH of Hansen just all but hissing at his opponents and that's lost forever basically. Big story here is just all four throwing themselves at each other with everything they have. Ace holds his own. He loses offense but not nearly enough for it to matter because he's got Hansen on his side. They really sort of dominate for a lot of this until he jumps right into the power slam from the top. Ah well.

9/7/90: Jumbo/Taue vs MVC: This is what we've been waiting for, my friends, the night that Taue first shows the real, true, actual signs of Taueness. He still has a babyface but there's a hot tag deep into this one where he burst into the ring and starts doing the sumo shots to Gordy and Doc and fights them both off at once and it's the first real sign of him being amazing that I've seen. My understanding through Kinch's research is that they turned Taue so that Jumbo would have people to team with against the foreigners and this is a great example of that paying off as the crowd was very much behind Jumbo and Taue even if it'd be different against the Super Generation Army. One thing I love about Gladiator/Grumpy Jumbo is how he appeals to the crowd at sort of inappropriate times. He'd break up a pin and then just throw his hand up to be cheered. And why wouldn't you cheer him. He's Jumbo, right? Finishing stretch has Taue surviving and surviving, including one that was downright shocking when Jumbo breaks up an post-assisted Stampede pin (and that was after he broke up a Stampede attempt beforehand). It was a very different vibe than Jumbo saving Fuchi or Inoue over and over again. You got the sense that Taue might just be able to fire back. He didn't but he sure did survive a lot.

Edited by Matt D
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...