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Matt Watches 1989 AJPW/1986 NJPW on a Treadmill


Matt D

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9/1/90: Jumbo vs Misawa II: Misawa is even more confident now. Jumbo's even grumpier. They collide. There's a bit earlier on that plays on the previous match's test of strength/surfboard fest. Last time, Jumbo kept overcoming only to get kicked in the face. This time, he's more on the defensive. It's one thing for Misawa to outquick him. It's another entirely for him to beat Jumbo at his own game and he's doing it more and more in this match. That's not to say Jumbo doesn't get mule kicked for his trouble. Misawa even makes headway slugging it out, but Jumbo's too much for him there. After some clever stuff early where Jumbo went low instead of high like Misawa was expecting and those strength spots, the match meanders just a little with some of the holds. There's yet another belly to back attempt where, this time, Misawa turns it into a pin attempt and Jumbo turns it around for two. We're in the land of callback spots now. Misawa really starts to fire back after hitting the top rope forearm smash that knocked out Fuchi, for instance. That finally pushes Jumbo over the edge though and he just beats the hell out of a prone Misawa. Eventually Misawa finds his strength and fires back and beats down Jumbo in the corner and it's ephemeral as he can't keep that pressure on like Jumbo can, but it's also striking since it would have been impossible to imagine a few months before. The finishing stretch is pretty good but Misawa is able to hit a German but not the frog splash or a Tiger Driver and Jumbo just hits too hard. Misawa survives a good deal but eventually succumbs to a bridging belly to back and it's pretty definitive if you just look at the finishing stretch. That would be a mistake as Misawa asserted himself even more here and there was a sense of a tide shifting even more. Post match, Jumbo cuts an awesome promo where he says he wants to see Misawa continue to develop and face him again and that everyone in Japan knows that Jumbo Tsuruta is the true ace of All Japan. Awesome stuff, though I don't think this match was overall as good as their last one maybe (or even the recent Kobashi one but I bet people might disagree with me on that?).

Edited by Matt D
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9/1/90: Fantastics vs Kikuchi/J. Malenko: Someone asked me the other day who I thought the best pillar was at this point in 90 and the answer might well be Kikuchi. They're all playing roles (except for Kobashi who is making his own role), but Kikuchi (a huge Dynamite Kid fan)'s role is closer to Terry Funk than anyone else. Basically, he plays face-in-peril in a country/style where that's just not really done. He marries the idea of fighting spirit and toughness and resilience with classic working from underneath sympathy. He's not just "playing a role" because that role didn't exist over the last year. You might argue that it sort of did in December 88/January 89 with Kawada slipping into Hara's spot, but it was still different for various reasons. Fantastics have been eating guys up? Here it worked because Kikuchi was such a great face working from underneath (and before him, Malenko was so credible at making the struggle effective and everything look good). When they take over on Kikuchi, it's kind of nuts actually. They bully him over the top rope with a huge slam with him fighting the whole way and then he rushes back in to fire back. Fantastics just have so much stuff that they're able to chop him down pretty quickly and then it's about him surviving and surviving until he can't anymore.

9/1/90: Hansen vs Williams: Of the things no one told me about 1990 AJPW, the existence is a "hoss" division around the Triple Crown is one of the more surprising. From the time Tenyru leaves until at least this point, they're promoting the Super Generation Army, sure, but what tends to be even above them on the card is the Jumbo/Gordy/Doc/Hansen (and for a big Bigelow) hoss battles around the title. It's not just normal matches with bigger guys either. They tend to be shorter. They tend to be hard hitting and action packed. They tend to have some semblance of finisher spamming. It feels almost like the late 2010s WWE super heavyweight style but it doesn't suck nearly as much. Hansen trying to avoid the stampede (after Doc avoided the lariat) here was pretty awesome. Then he got a roll through pin out of nowhere after finally eating a power slam. Someone could make a really fun comp with these matches.

Edited by Matt D
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Had to take a few days off but I'm back to the grind.

9/7/90: Kobashi/Ace vs Fantastics: Part of why I'm doing what I'm doing is to get a real 360 understanding of absolutely everything we have on tape. That said, my enjoyment does matter to a degree. That's why I tried not to watch many Dynamite Kid matches in 89. He's just so frustrating and depressing. If I were to do it all again with my own personal enjoyment in mind, I'd just jettison off the entire All-Asia Tag Division. The tags are almost always just noise. I know eventually we get Kikuchi/Kobashi vs Can-Ams, but I don't think Kroffat had fully worked out the pacing yet in 89-90. I'm also sure action junkies love these tags and Dave probably loved them at the time, but they're pretty wretched over all. While this had a number of interesting individual exchanges, I didn't like it much overall. It's interesting to see just how much Ace absolutely towered over Fulton. Anyway, not much to say here. Kobashi/Ace win the titles. Hurray.

9/29/90: Misawa/Kawada vs Kobashi/Ace: How to get over your new champions? Have them job immediately in a non title match. That's not entirely fair, but come on. They didn't have to book this thing. It's interesting of course, to see Kobashi against Misawa and Kawada. This started off as noise but then became gold as Kobashi and Kawada really started to go at it, culminating in a slam on the outside and Kobashi playing face-in-peril. This was the first time in a long time that Kawada really got to be a bully to someone and he reveled in the role. Misawa was pretty good at it too. Eventually, Ace came in on a hot tag (after an awesome second power bomb attempt by Kawada where Kobashi just fell backwards landing on Kawada) and they had quite an extended finishing stretch. It felt a little too much of the match but I also wanted maybe one more move at the end, especially after Kawada survived the doomsday device. That said, Misawa's top rope forearm was being sold as death around this time, so it's valid, even if the lift by Kawada to make it a tandem move didn't fully work. I may have certain misgivings about Kawada as an overall worker working a complete match, but he can be absolutely excellent in the moment.

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9/29/90: Jumbo/Taue vs Hansen/Spivey: Yup, I think Taue's leveled up, friends! Here, he and Jumbo controlled Hansen's arm early. Some pretty good stuff, but the most important thing to note here is that Taue was able to believable control Hansen inside and outside of the ring. That's no small thing and it really wouldn't have been possible six months ago; maybe not even six weeks ago. It all builds to a moment where Hansen somehow grabs a chair from over the rail and just chucks it sideways and backwards at Taue while he has his arm. The physics are impossible; the effect was amazing. He clocks him again with it and Taue bleeds buckets. From there, Hansen and Spivey beat the crap out of him until he's able to reverse a suplex and tag Jumbo. Jumbo fights them both off until he doesn't and it's a usual AJPW 2 on 1 sort of tag advantage until Taue can recover. Once he does, he's a star, bloody and battered and battling both of them off. Unfortunately, he's kind of new at this and gets distracted by having to armdrag a charging Spivey and turns right around into the lariat. Still, hell of a showing in all accounts. Let me try to gif the cool bit.

I can't but here's the whole match:

Spoiler

 

9/30/90: Malenkos vs Dynamite/J. Smith: The cool thing about Joe Malenko is that if Dynamite tries to give him crap, he just drives him down with a Fujiwara armbar. I don't have a lot to say about this. Dean remains super sprightly and charismatic and I like how the Malenkos work together. Dynamite is immobile but still has to bump and it kind of gives it this stilted sort of realism where he's not bumping like a wrestler would but just sort of stiffly crumbling about. Overall this was fine, back and forth. I don't think it ever came together but it never fell apart either.

Edited by Matt D
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9/30/90: Jumbo/Taue vs Misawa/Kawada: I had a few minutes to kill before running so I did this one before the Baba tag even though it was longer. So 15 minutes without running (jotting notes) and 30 on the treadmill. The announcers were trying to explain how Misawa was a full of himself upstart like Al Pacino in the Godfather, so make sense of that.

Here are my notes of the first 15:

Spoiler

Misawa hits first. Jumbo slaps. they slugfest. Misawa dodges knee and hits elbow. Misawa as Pacino? Kawada in. Controls with headlock. Belly to back. Taue in to kill him.

Headscissors. To ropes. Kawada slips right out and kicks him. Misawa attacks on outside. Taue fires back. Hell yes. big shot. But posts him. Kawada beats him in corner including jumping kick. Stomps. He's bleeding.

Misawa in with elbows. Taue fires back! big back elbow in corner! JT in, hits knee on Misawa. Sleeper. Jumbo goes low. gut shiots. Into corner, but Misawa leaps back with headbutt tope. Kawada in. Kicks until he gets tossed off in corner.

Taue in. Ab stretch. Backbreaker. Crab. Misawa breaks up. Jumbo in with toehold. Kawada forearms Jumbot o hell but gets tossed out. Gut shots, running gut knee. Kawada sells on floor. Rolls in as Jumbo Towers over him

Overall, they had even exchanges to start, the opening up of Taue, a beatdown on Kawada, and then an extended beatdown on Taue. I would have liked both to last a little longer as things do get a little formless and back and forth before they go into the finishing stretch. It's always going to be hard for me to do justice to a 45 minute match given that I'm watching on a treadmill so it's hard to keep track and remember everything I want to talk about. The parts of the match that worked, really worked. There's still the sense that Taue had evolved: how he could dominate with a few holds and moves when in control, the way he fired back against Misawa on the floor even as he was getting bloodied, how he occasionally thundered forth down the stretch. There was one moment where he hits a dive through the ropes and Jumbo's reaction is amazing. He's completely aghast that Taue did that. It's also so great whenever Jumbo cuts of Misawa's second back tope attempt by just driving him down to the mat. I loved the discipline going into the finishing five or six minutes. They hadn't escalated moves before that. And the bombs come big and fast. I also love how Jumbo loves to combine his knee with things like Yatsu's bulldog, or here, the atomic drop/belly to back Taue special. When Taue goes for it again, Misawa flips over to his feet; shortly thereafter, he was able to flip Taue around so quickly into a double underhook and the tiger driver off the ropes but Jumbo was looming over him with a stomp. There was an amazingly believable Tiger Suplex nearfall that got Taue a lot of credit for surviving. To be fair, Kawada just not getting pinned by Jumbo in those last few minutes was also a testament to him. Kawada hits a kneedrop at the bell but it's not quite that big worked to the draw drama that you might want, but then you don't really get that in Japan anyway. A draw was so rare at this point that it really did work for what they were trying to accomplish. Misawa, Kawada, and Taue all came out of this better than they came in and Jumbo got to cut the post match promo in the back thanking Baba for 30 years.

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On 2/28/2023 at 5:46 PM, Matt D said:

The announcers were trying to explain how Misawa was a full of himself upstart like Al Pacino in the Godfather, so make sense of that.

 

Ever since Matt told me this the other day I've been imagining Kawada as Fredo. Like he's in the booking meeting when Baba makes him drop the Triple Crown to Kobashi in 98 for his first defense, going "It ain't the way I wanted it! I CAN HANDLE THINGS, I'M voice crack OVER!"

Edited by KinchStalker
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5 hours ago, KinchStalker said:

Ever since Matt told me this the other day I've been imagining Kawada as Fredo. Like he's in the booking meeting when Baba makes him drop the Triple Crown to Kobashi in 98 for his first defense, going "It ain't the way I wanted it! I CAN HANDLE THINGS, I'M voice crack OVER!"

Is Jumbo Sonny in this analogy?

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10 hours ago, Hamhock said:

Is Jumbo Sonny in this analogy?

Somehow that would still make this analogy way less dumb than the one I was spitballing to a friend in 2020, where the Super Generation Army were the Trailer Park Boys and Jumbo and Taue were Mr. Lacey and Randy. (We all had to find ways to process COVID trauma, okay?)

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I always liked that scene at the end of All-Japan TV where Misawa and the gang are sitting around eating a meal and laughing as the credits roll; I can’t find it but I know it exists.

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9/30/90: Baba/Abdullah vs Andre/Hansen: The 30th anniversary match! Anyway for some reason I thought this was Andre/Baba vs Singh/Abby coming in so I was definitely surprised. Pre-match, in the back, Hansen cut a fun promo about the anniversary and Abdullah just talked like he was any guy which was weird. There wasn't anything particularly brilliant about this. The fans popped for the first Baba vs Andre encounter. It was fun to watch the crowd get behind Abby with the Butcher chants. Hansen vs Abby was fun as you can imagine. Lots of fun. Eventually Baba started getting annoyed with Abby going to the throat because it was his party and Abby ought to act civil since he was Baba's guest or something. So Baba kept stopping him and it broke down from there. The finish was Andre and Hansen working together (which was fun to see) to whip Abby into Baba in the corner and Baba just saying Fuck It, I'm almost 50 and putting his foot up so that Abby could eat the elbow from Andre and do the job.

10/7/90: Jumbo/Taue vs Kobashi/Ace: I came into this annoyed that they kept Kobashi/Ace against guys who were going to beat them after putting the All Asia titles on them, but this was actually quite the piece of business. We only get about ten minutes of it but the ten minutes we get are almost all Kobashi and Ace using superior teamwork (as well as Ace's relative size) to beat the crap out of Taue. They hit him with a ton of things. At one point, Kobashi has the crab on and Jumbo just hits him again and again to break it and he won't break. Eventually, Taue gets a foot up or something and rolls over to Jumbo for the tag but Ace is right on him like a bastard and they keep the advantage hitting Jumbo with double teams (and the Ace Crusher) until Taue recovers enough to reverse a whip on the outside and catch Ace on the top so Jumbo can toss him off. That's called a "Victory Driver" by the way, basically the spot where they toss Flair off the top. Anyway, after that Ace survives a Thesz press to a huge pop and the finishing stretch is kind of fun with him surviving things and even getting something of an advantage again until Taue's able to nail him from out of nowhere so Jumbo can hit the backdrop. So maybe I wouldn't have booked this and maybe I wouldn't have booked Taue to get so thoroughly beat up but it all worked out in the end I guess?

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10/4/90: Jumbo/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kawada: We come in JIP with Kawada getting swept under quickly. A lot of what makes this stuff work at this stage of the game is that they're taking the format from 1989 and starting to invert it at times to throw people off. For instance, here you expect Kawada to get beat on by Jumbo and then eventually fight back against Fuchi. And he does! But then Jumbo rushes in as the illegal man and clotheslines him right off the top rope and he jams his leg on the way down. From there the rest of the match is them dismantling Kawada's leg with Misawa eventually getting frustrated enough to interfere. Finally, Kawada makes the hot tag and Misawa struggles a bit against Misawa before hitting a tiger suplex on Fuchi. Jumbo makes an amazing dive across the ring to make the save. They go back and forth on a finishing stretch for a bit with Kawada barely kicking out of a Thesz press before beating Fuchi with a powerbomb. Fun stuff.

Spoiler

 

10/4/90: Hansen vs Taue: Not Taue's best showing. We come in JIP 7 mins or so and get around 7 minutes and Taue just desperately tries to headlock Hansen so Hansen doesn't kill him. Hansen kills him anyway marching him around the outside area. Taue's only real hope is dodging Hansen and then hitting some stuff, like a bunch of elbow drops. The finish is Taue getting some steam and going for the three point stance clothesline only for Hansen to just take his head off with a lariat as he charges in.

Edited by Matt D
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10/7/90: MVC vs Misawa/Kawada. We come in JIP with Misawa taking a beating. He eventually gets a tag to Kawada and Kawada beats on Gordy like a jerk for a minute with stomps mainly, but Gordy obviously fires back and starts dominating (including a power bomb on the outside). Kawada manages to fire back himself though, and it's pretty valiant and super over. He goes up to the top though and just gets knocked completely off. That's the spot of the month apparently. After a long beatdown, Misawa comes in, avoids the Stampede, fires back, gets Kawada back in there and Kawada gets a bunch of big nearfalls on Gordy (German, Power Bomb), but all it takes is one Power Bomb from Gordy to end it. Post match, They try to beat down Misawa but Kawada comes back in with a chair and they were doing a great job building him finally, let me tell you. These matches matter.

10/7/90: Hansen/Spivey vs Dynamite/J. Smith: A lot of Spivey here early. This worked better than a lot of other post-prime Dynamite matches because they weren't going to just bully these two. They had to use superior teamwork to keep Spivey down and staggered. Eventually they got swept over though, and the best comeback they could manage was Dynamite grabbing Smith's leg so that he'd avoid the lariat only for him to eat the Spivey Spike anyway.

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10/10/90: Jumbo/Taue/Inoue vs Misawa/Kobashi/Kawada: First half of this was very back and forth. We come in on them beating on Kobashi, to the point that Jumbo just tosses Kobashi to the corner so Misawa can tag in, which is not something I've seen much of post-Tenryu. From there, it really is back and forth (with beating down in between, of course). Misawa takes over on Jumbo. Jumbo catches Kawada's foot and slams him down. Kawada reverses a whip and knocks Inoue out so he can dive on him. Inoue slips around on a whip to get a belly to back on Kobashi. Kobashi rolls out of the way of an elbow off the turnbuckles from Taue. They finally get to all beat on Taue for a while (and maybe this should have been Inoue?), including holds, and credit to Kawada but he was really wrenching and also hit a big slam on the outside, until he gets a foot up on Kobashi and rolls to Jumbo. Then Jumbo's side destroyed Kobashi for a while. Kobashi survives and survives and survives until he ends up close enough in the corner that they're able to stomp Taue and he gets a belly to back. I kind of hate when guys just randomly break up Taue's hundred hand slap out of the corner. I feel like Kawada does it the most? If it's a big moment it's one thing. Anyway, they go into an exciting finishing stretch after that, a good Kobashi showcase where he survives a lot against Jumbo and then matches up well with Inoue, missing the moonsault once but hitting it the second time. Felt like a big win for the kids.

10/19/90: MVC vs Spivey/Furnas: We just get five minutes of this. Fans are really into the idea of Furnas standing up against these guys. Gordy hits a DDT on Spivey and Furnas makes the save and the crowd goes nuts. He takes it to Gordy in the corner and Doc comes in to even things up and the fans give him tons of heat for it. Hot tag to Furnas has everyone, again, popping big for the dropkicks but he runs in to a nasty Doc boot. Spivey breaks up the stampede pin but it's all but over here as he eats an assisted powerbomb and a clothesline kills Furnas. I have other matches from 10/19 to watch and this one bodes well for the crowd.

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10/19/90: Jumbo/Taue/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kobashi/Kawada: I'm kind of cheating with these big six-men. This video is just over 30 mins. Some of that is the credits at the end (with Thomas Dolby's Field Work from 1985 playing over it!). But I at least want to hit the transition points and it's hard to keep track of all that, so I'm scanning through again as I write this. Most important thing to note and maybe the most important difference between 89 and 90 is the way that they invert norms. In 1989, it was very straightforward. Momentum shifts happened for a few reasons like someone coming in and interfering or the partner recovering enough to even the odds once again. By this point in 90, they play with those expectations a bit more. Likewise finishing stretches. If you're down to the stretch and have Jumbo vs Kobashi or Misawa vs Fuchi, you figure there's only one way it can really go, and it usually ends there, but they play with it a bit more first, including with tags you don't expect, one more rotation around the sun. 

Let me burn through this then. It started with Kobashi vs Taue but Taue sweeps over to kick Kawada in the face early (costing him). They were definitely building a special sort of rivalry between Kawada and Taue in the margins here, so the fans pop big when Kobashi lets him in. He eats the kicks and Misawa comes in, so the opening stretch is not about Kawada vs Taue but instead Taue against all three one after the other, making short work of him really. He stumbles into the corner and Jumbo charges forth. Jumbo goes to the gut (as he is want to do against Misawa) and they cycle through on him until Kawada kicks Fuchi in the back letting Misawa tag Kobashi. Fuchi gets to Taue who squashes Kobashi in the corner and it looks like it's time for an extended beating on Kobashi. They do cycle around on him but he's able to reverse a Taue whip and get Kawada in. Kawada goes for the slam on the floor but Taue reverses it. They cycle on Kawada now and look how they got there. Twists and turns. Again, they cycle through everyone on him, but he's able to reverse it on Taue and suplex him on the floor. Build and payoff. They cycle on Taue (including, and here's the inversion, cutting Jumbo off when he comes into save him) until Kobashi's in and while he hits a cool, belabored power slam, Taue's able to reverse with a DDT and Jumbo comes in to take Kobashi's head off with a clothesline. The last few bits of cycling have gone longer but I would call this the first "extended" one, and it's allowed to be as such by Taue clobbering Kobashi with a chair. As it goes on (and Kobashi takes a bunch of stuff like the atomic drop/belly to back Taue special) he bleeds from the nose. He also eats another Jumbo lariat, the poor bastard. Fans are chanting Kobashi at each kickout. Kobashi finally escapes and gets a clutch belly to back on Taue (really not treated at all like a giant still) and tags Kawada. Taue gets the hundred hand slap all the way across the ring; Kawada fires back with forearms; Taue just shrugs him over (ok, a little like a giant). This builds to Jumbo vs Misawa (after Kawada ducks a clothesline and hits the spin wheel kick); Misawa hits the magic elbow off the top; Jumbo survives and hits the jumping knee, and now we're into an extended finishing stretch. Some of the best stuff here is Kobashi vs Taue and a well placed rolling cradle. Jumbo makes it in though, teases a power bomb, inverts things by nailing Misawa as he comes to save him, but Kobashi kicks out anyway. Kobashi is kicking out all over the place and survives the belly to back, first by turning it into a body press and then second with a kickout even after Jumbo gets him off the top (after Fuchi nails him when he went for the moonsault, which he had hit on Fuchi previously), but he dies on the third one. 

See, it's a lot! Everything made sense. Everything flowed. There was a real sense of build and escalation. It took a long time of switching things around before they ended up with that extended beatdown on Kobashi. I can't do this for every six-man, and it can't be fun to read, but there's a lot put into all these. The short review would have been. "They went back and forth, cycling through each time they isolated an opponent, inverting certain norms by cutting off interference at times. There were some good moments between Taue and Kawada, especially on the floor. After a Fuchi chairshot on the outside, they really took over on Kobashi, who survived and survived. That remained true during the finishing stretch as he got an advantage on Fuchi and did admirably against Jumbo, but eventually ate one belly-to-back too many." But it really doesn't give you the same sense of it, right?

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10/19/90: Funks vs Malenkos: This was kind of a weird one. It was at least the first appearance by Dory in three years. I get that there are great brawls with the Funks in Japan in the late 70s, and I personally love the Martel/Zenk vs Funks AJPW match. This was more exhibtion-y though, and as such, it was just sort of weird. It's so jarring to see Dory's by the books mat style which never seems to deviate from the norm. I wouldn't call it boring, but it's as expected and ordinary as possible. It's competent classic pro wrestling matwork. You could have a robot program it. Then you have Terry taking every moment askew. It's not just moves or selling. It's every reaction. Someone tries to hug him coming down to ring and that becomes a big moment. Dean avoids a drop down monkey flip from Dory with a cartwheel and Terry stops the match to go in the ring and congratulate him with a handshake. Dory's in a hold and Terry's just randomly hanging over the ropes trying to tag him. It's like watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit? or something. Terry's a toon. It meant that even when things started to get a little more heated due to Terry introducing fisticuffs, Dory would anchor it back down again. Instead of feeling structured with high spots and ebbs and flows, it just felt disjointed, but the actual work was fine and compelling. It just never came together. It couldn't possibly.

10/27/90: Ace/Kobashi vs MVC: PThis had a lot more Ace than Kobashi. It's JIP so maybe there was a good sequence early, but a lot of this was Ace proving he was a man and getting beat upon. At times he'd assert himself (he'd gotten pretty good at that and leveraging his size to make it seem that he belonged) but of course he'd get swept under by the MVC. Really hot crowd though and they did love Kobashi. Early in what we get, Kenta gets Gordy down and starts on the leg and the fans go nuts on that as if it's some sort of colossal victory. Once Doc asserts himself, that's it for Ace for a while though. Eventually Kobashi makes his way back in to set up a finishing stretch but it's inevitable. The crowd still goes nuts when Ace runs into a Gordy kick and power bomb though. Just one match left to go in October and it's Jumbo/Inoue vs Misawa/Kawada so I bet the crowd will be nuts for that. I am missing Kikuchi though.

Editing some notes for myself on missed matches from Sept/Oct:

Spoiler

Taped Sept 29:

1) Andre the Giant/Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura vs Haruka Eigen/Motoshi Okuma/Masa Fuchi 2) Abdullah the Butcher/Giant Kimala II vs Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWxoUHNrrzs&list=PLAj8AkkRklv_9Muq6W_JDtvPdUoUVrBQI&index=34&ab_channel=RoyLucierAllJapan

Taped Oct 10: 1) Abdullah the Butcher/Giant Kimala II vs Stan Hansen/Danny Spivey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C83dE3V1JoQ&list=PLAj8AkkRklv_9Muq6W_JDtvPdUoUVrBQI&index=36&ab_channel=RoyLucierAllJapan

 

Edited by Matt D
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10/27/90: Jumbo/Inoue vs Misawa/Kawada: Last match of the tour. Inoue outwrestled the crap out of Kawada to start so that was fun. Then when Jumbo came in, he just tossed Kawada into the corner so Misawa could come in. That didn't go well for him (ducked clothesline, leaping back elbow), but he took over on Kawada and they beat on him a bit. Kawada reversed a suplex on Inoue eventually and Misawa came in. Kawada had been beaten enough that Misawa didn't immediately come back though. That's one of the joy of this style. Sometimes you get a hot tag in come in hot but a lot of the times, your team is down in points and even after the tag you have to fight back. Here, Jumbo dragged Misawa into a rare Fujiwara Armbar and they worked the arm for a bit. Inoue kept the arm but Misawa just handspringed over and forearmed him in his face and forgot to sell his arm for the rest of the match. Inoue made of fight of it including a cool double dropkick on both guys and the lucha headlock/headscissors tandem combo. He was working a bit too much like a face maybe? Anyway, this kept going back and forth with short periods of advantage. They finally took over on Inoue in a more considerable way (Inoue had Kawada in a hold and Kawada threw knees into his skull repeatedly). After Jumbo hit a bunch of stuff, Kawada leaned into his new signature thing and slammed Inoue on the floor. Some holds later, Inoue came back by turning a move into a headscissors takeover (he was good!). There was some stuff as they went towards the stretch of Inoue slapping a Fujiwara on Kawada, Misawa coming in to make the save and Jumbo coming into stop him and them going at it. That led to tags and a faceoff between the two that was very good (elbows and clotheslines and knees). And then Kawada refusing to stop beating Jumbo in the corner, pushing the ref away, and Jumbo firing back with repeated knees to the skull. All good stuff. Then we got a good final stretch between Inoue/Kawada and Inoue/Misawa with the tiger driver (once stopped by Jumbo but hit the second time) finishing him off. Long story short, this had tons of good moments but overall lacked focus and direct narrative.

9/29/90: Baba/Andre/Rusher vs Fuchi/Okuma/Eigen: Just a few minutes here but it was fun to watch them all try to tackle Andre and get tossed about. At one point they get his legs and Fuchi goes up the middle and it staggers him at least. Second try? Baba rushes in (best he could do at least) and gets a foot up.

9/29/90: Abdullah/Kamala II vs Dynamite/Johnny Smith: Pretty good few minutes of action here. Abby is the perfect late-era Dynamite opponent as he won't take any of his crap and makes him work for everything (which he then does). There's an all time cutoff here as Dynamite is headbutting Abby and mid-headbutt, Abby gets in the throat shot. So good. Kamala's not in long but he's very high energy when he is in. They extend the finish as Dynamite breaks up a Kamala splash with an elbow off the top but then gets knocked out so Abby can hit the elbow.

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10/10/90: Abdullah/Kamala II vs Hansen/Spivey: This is a pretty considerable match right here. We have the whole thing. By the end KII is bleeding all over the place and Abby is jabbing everyone with a fork and taking out refs. There's also a long nerve hold on Spivey that isn't great. Most of it is pretty good though with Hansen trying to assert himself at times but Abby and Kamala being just too much and holding the advantage. It was a very complete match. I'd put it that way. It didn't have any visuals nearly as cool as the headbutt cutoff, BUT when they're working on Spivey and he's starting to fire back, Kamala hits a hell of a neckbreaker drop out of nowhere to cut him off.

11/15/90: Momota/Teranishi vs Ricky Santana/Furnas:  Handheld. Man, Furnas needed Kroffat. I mean he didn't really but Santana wasn't doing it for me in the same way. He was fine and had some fun suplexes and stuff, and took dropkicks well, but it wasn't the same. Momota and Teranishi were able to hold their own against Santana, but less so against Furnas. It still was pretty back and forth since Santana was in there more. Just an opening match but not a bad one. Just kind of lacking drama, though Momota was over as usual. Furnas won with an over the shoulder backbreaker submission out of nowhere. They cheered for Momota after the match.

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11/15/90: Eigen/Okuma vs Rusher/Inoue: A comedy match without Baba! That's pretty novel. Loved Eigen in this. He stared the match by poking Rusher in the eye and running away and went after him on the apron later. He also did a deal where he teased a dive a couple of times and Okuma had to stop him. A decent amount of funny stuff here centered around Okuma's hard head too including him just eating whole a chairshot on the outside and dismantling the chair. It probably could have had a little more build but it was fun while it happened. I wish i knew what Rusher said at the end, but I always do.

11/15/90: Ace/Fuchi vs LAND OF THE GIANTS: In between these two they had all the teams from the tour come into the ring which was pretty cool. This was very short, one of the shortest AJPW matches from this era I've seen. Ace always tries to assert himself because of his size and it, as much as buddying up with Mrs. Baba, helped him feel credible and stay, but it's also a little annoying because you just don't get the sense that this guy can really, truly hang. It was weird seeing him with Fuchi but they were putting LOTG over quick so they didn't want to have a more regular team. I can't say the giants showed me a bunch here unfortunately. They had a little bit of presence but their stuff generally looked lumbering.

Edited by Matt D
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11/15/90: Slater/Deaton vs Baba/Andre: I'll probably note this a few more times but it's because it is sort of noteworthy. One big aspect of these Andre tags is that Baba has to work more than usual. It means you get to see him sell and of course he's really good at that. In general, it's about Andre and Baba being uncooperative enough to make it believable. Whenever Deaton and Slater get an advantage it's because they're working together. Othewrise, it's just a lot of fun to watch Andre throw people into Baba's foot. Deaton was a good bumper for these guys. 1990 Slater is obviously not 1980 Slater, but he could still stooge. There are a lot of other teams in this RWTL that I'm looking forward to seeing Baba/Andre up against though.

11/15/90: Dory/Terry vs Hansen/Spivey: This starts with Spivey just bodyslamming Terry over the top pretty much unprotected. Then Hansen tosses Dory onto the floor and smashes him with a chair. Then Spivey tosses Terry in so he can Flair Flip to the floor and Hansen smashes him with a chair too. That sets the mood. Shortly thereafter, Terry bumps himself into the crowd off of nothing just for the hell of it. It may or may not have been an elaborate lure so Dory could get a revenge shot on Spivey with a chair, not like it matters as Terry rolls back into Hansen stomping him. They're just really beating the crap out of Terry. It's ok though. Hansen puts his head down so Terry can kick him and just headbutt Stan a few times. Great staggering like only Terry can do. Of course once Dory comes in he and Hansen just wrestle, because of course they do. Look, let me just sum up the rest. When Terry's in, it's great whether it's Terry vs Spivey or Hansen. When it's Dory vs Hansen, it's really good and really interesting. Just novel stuff that feels fresh because no one tries to take Hansen out like this, not even Jumbo anymore. When it's Dory vs Spivey, it's really not so great. Finishing stretch is fun with Dory trying and trying and Hansen just getting him with a lucky lariat.

Edited by Matt D
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11/15/90: Misawa/Kikuchi vs Kawada/Kobashi: back to HH. I have no idea what was going on with the music as they came out. It got tagged as copyright for "Up Where We Belong (From "An Officer And A Gentleman")". Why did they come out to this? I have no idea! I had it listed as Misawa/Kawada vs Kobashi/Kikuchi and this grouping was way more interesting. It was more balanced for one as Misawa/Kawada were more main eventers than Kobashi at the time. Plus it was just a more novel pairing all around. Kobashi absolutely reveled in being able to tower over Kikuchi and bully him. Kikuchi was plucky at first and had moments were he just unloaded in the corner but his stuff didn't have enough oomph against Kawada and Kobashi. And of course, Kawada reveled in it all the more, because he really didn't get to bully anyone in 1990. He was always up against guys who were larger or more seasoned than he was. Kobashi had a bunch of power stuff including his over the shoulder bomb that he worked for and worked for and Kikuchi fought and fought until he finally got it for a meaningful two count. And it was follwowed by a super high angle backdrop too. Misawa was leaning into things too, when he had the opportunity. He hit a crazy tope over the top on Kobashi where he was almost doing a headstand in midair. A couple of times Kikuchi made the tag to Misawa and Misawa fought right back but Kikuchi would want in again and would get swept under. They had this cool way of doing the cloverleaf/Scorpion where they just lifted him up into it and wrenched him in half. Anyway, with a Misawa set up, Kikuchi got one last flurry on Kawada, but it really wasn't meant to be. This had some very good FIP stuff but was mainly fun to see Kawada and especially Kobashi assert themselves.

EDIT: I forgot to mention that both Kobashi and Kawada press slammed Kikuchi, one over the top and one over the rail. Come on, guys!

Edited by Matt D
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11/15/90: MVC vs Dynamite/Johnny Smith: I stuck with the handheld as the TV shot of this is clipped. First half was funny as Dynamite hit all the offense and Smith took all the offense. Gordy really went up for too much stuff sometimes. I will say that Dynamite's snap suplex looked great, but a lot of that was on the guys taking it. Dynamite did get his lumps later including some stuff on the outside that was probably unwise. In general, he's best against someone he can't run over and no one is running over these guys. One of the best spots in 1990 AJPW is Doc just powering people into the stampede no matter what gets in his way and what sort of resistance he has to face.

11/19/90: Ricky Santana/Doug Furnas vs Yoshinari Ogawa/Masa Fuchi: I covered this whole show on Segunda Caida: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2021/09/new-footage-friday-all-japan-111990.html so it might be interesting to see what I was thinking a few years ago on this. This is a rough HH, not shot well and you barely got to see anything here, just a bit of Furnas being awesome, Santana throwing himself around, and Ogawa hitting one clutch German out of nowhere. He got the crowd behind him at least.

 

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11/19/90: Mitsuo Momota/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith: Nothing in this made me question the idea that Kikuchi was the best guy in Super Generation Army at this point. I know it's not true and the level of difficulty is different but he definitely speaks to me the most with his chippy fire and big, broad, and consistent selling. It's a little bit fearless to sell as much as he does. It makes him so much more interesting than a guy like Kawada who you know always has that inferiority chip on his shoulder that keeps him from committing entirely, when if he did, it might have taken him all the way over the top. This was maybe the first time where Smith really looked like a physical threat, but when you're in there against Kikuchi, you can do that. The finish was pretty beastly by broken down Dynamite with a scoop tombstone and the diving headbutt all the way across the ring, just grasping to make the landing.

11/19/90: Okuma/Eigen vs LAND OF THE GIANTS: The fun stuff here was about Eigen and Okuma getting little tiny victories on the road to inevitable defeat and especially when they got to show outright defiance and mocking. It didn't end well for them, and it didn't look all that great by the Giants but hey, a few seconds of fun have their own value and it's nice to be able to look back on that 33 years later, something I can't imagine Okuma or Eigen would ever imagine.

11/19/90: Inoue/Rusher vs Hansen/Spivey: Oh yeah! This is the match where Hansen gives Inoue a ton of stuff. Wild. I finally figure out why he gave Blackwell so much in 88. It's because Blackwell saved his life from a guy with a gun back when he'd injured Bruno. No idea what Inoue did for him but here, with no cameras, he made him look like a king.  Rusher got a shot or two in too. Finish was fun with Hansen getting knocked to hell after trying to stop the Inoue flip senton but that being enough for Spivey to sneak in the DDT for a pretty desperate win. You always got one or two inexplicably fun matches like this out of the RWTL.

 

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11/19/90: Doc/Gordy vs Kobashi/Ace: Just the last 5 out of 17 here, spotty on what we can see. Fans were super into Kobashi as he was fighting back. Ace came in hot on a tag and did well until he got knocked off the top by the illegal man (Doc). Finishing stretch was exciting with Kobashi even hitting the moonsault but the MVC just being too powerful.

11/19/90: Baba/Andre vs Kimala II/Abby: What you'd expect from this run, with Baba doing a lot of the work. Unlike other opponents, he had to take a lot here, eating double teams by Abby and the Beast, with Kimala II flying around a bit at times. Eventually he got to the corner and Andre's presence was larger than life, dominating, eating shots from Abby, and then getting both into the corner for the assisted battering ram. As much as everyone knew to respect Andre, Andre knew to put over Abby's shots too. Kimala did his best down the stretch including a crazy dropkick on Baba but ran into a foot and it was all but over from there. A fun nine minutes.

11/19/90: Misawa/Kawada vs Terry/Dory: This goes the full 30 and is worked that way. We get to see at least 2/3rds of it even with the spotty filming and it hits the marks you'd hope for, Dory making Kawada and Misawa look credible on the mat, Terry making them look credible in slugfests (not that they needed as much help there). They don't really lean on the kids like Jumbo does. Instead, they give them a lot. The fact we miss chunks means that it's hard to find the overall narrative here, but the bits that we do get show really fun individual exchanges at least and some excitement as the time was ticking down. I wonder if we might see a pro shot of this on the new classics eventually as it is basically the only Terry vs Misawa (as Misawa) encounter.

These are in this playlist, by the way:

Spoiler

 

 

 

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