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Matt Watches 1989 AJPW/1986 NJPW on a Treadmill


Matt D

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On 4/8/2023 at 5:49 PM, odessasteps said:

It's not 1990, but Kris P tweeted out a great clip from sometime in the 70s where Abby was teaming with Carlos Colon and someone else (maybe Rufus) and gave Baba a triple headbutt. 

There was definitely a double headbutt in the Abby/Kimala II match.

11/19/90: Jumbo/Taue vs Deaton/Slater: This went about ten minutes and was the main event. It was somewhat back and forth with Deaton and Slater working well together. Deaton almost always looked like he belonged and could credibly partner with Hansen, for instance, but Slater looked surprisingly good for 1990 here. Taue has come quite a ways in the last few months of 1990, able to assert himself far more and not get bullied around. He was still moving better than he would a few years later too, so he was capable of the occasional bit of surprising athleticism. It was a good balance, but I'd take 10% less athleticism if it meant 10% more assertiveness, and that'll come. This felt inevitable as Jumbo was a force but it was never uninteresting so that was good.

11/20/90: Teranishi/Kikuchi vs Fuchi/Ogawa: Past the Andre match later on, this card is entirely new to me, and probably new to everyone. I don't think anyone reviewed this one when we got the second dump a few years ago. So I'm excited to dig in. This was a fun opener. Kikuchi was funny, mat wrestling with Ogawa to start but then showing a massive attitude the second he was in there against Fuchi. Ogawa had a few interesting bits no one else was doing like a headtwist with his feet, but he certainly wasn't developed otherwise. This took a turn when he hit Kikuchi with a snap suplex on the outside though. Fuchi tossed Kikuchi into the rail and they took over from there with a lot of stomping. Kikuchi was very 1989 instead of 1990 when he came back, refusing to tag on his comeback until he hit a bunch of stuff even if it almost cost him. Finishing stretch was fun and back and forth but you knew Ogawa was eating this fall. A better showing for Ogawa than the last time I saw him certainly.

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11/20/90: Eigen/Okuma vs Rusher/Inoue: Ok, I've seen a bit more Eigen now and you know something? He was a little shit! I mean that in the best way too. This got around fifteen minutes and started with him accepting Rusher's handshake and immediately slapping him and running away. It's not the first time I've seen him pull crap like that either, but it's usually drowned out in the comedy six mans as they're all getting squashed about by Rusher and Baba. Everything becomes a little bit interchangeable and all you remember is whatever Fuchi did and if you remember Eigen, it's usually for the spit spot. But this whole match felt built around Rusher getting his hands on Eigen and he doesn't until towards the end (after various permeations including a bit beatdown and Inoue and Inoue fighting back a bit). Once he does, it's not quite as satisfying as you'd like but it was still fun over all. People should read Kinch's bio on him.

11/20/90: Deaton/Slater vs Santana/Furnas: Santana is fine, quick, sympathetic to a degree when he's getting beaten on but he's not Kroffat, you know? The chemistry isn't really there Deaton and Slater are 100% fake Hansen and fake Terry in this though. Deaton's a little more athletic than Hansen with less size and less presence and Slater flails about and bumps himself over the ropes for no reason like Funk might but isn't on every second of the match in the same way Funk is. Slater predictably reacts like you think Funk might but the deal with Terry is that he was always just a little unpredictable. It was him being genuine in a way that Slater can't really ape. They stooged and fed and then leaned on Santana and it was all ok if anti-climactic. I liked the Eigen/Okuma match a lot more.

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11/20/90: Funks vs Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith: It's really a joy to get to watch Terry in a new match. The same sort of joy of getting to watch Negro Casas. You never know quite what he'll do. This had a lot of Dory on the mat early, but it was good. He elevated Smith just by being in the ring with him and letting him hang. Dynamite hit the mat hard against Dory and his lock ups extra hard against Terry. Midway through, Terry tossed Dynamite out and beat him on the floor a bit which let the Funks take over. Smith was in shortly thereafter but the momentum was firmly in Terry and Dory's favor. Then they decided to just pile drive Smith 20 times. It wasn't twenty but it was definitely more than three. It felt like a lot. Eventually, Dynamite broke up a pin and they went into a comeback but there was one ridiculous kickout by Smith before that. He shouldn't have had a neck left at that point. Finish was fun with Dynamite breaking up the spinning toehold, Smith getting a quick roll up out of it and then Dory turning it over at the last second. The good stuff was good and the not so good stuff was just weird.

11/20/90: Misawa/Kawada vs LAND OF THE GIANTS: Oh boy. This felt a lot like Inoki/Fujinami vs Mad Maxx and Super Maxx or something. Very NJPW in its own way. You'd almost want Wakamatsu at ringside. So Misawa and Kawada always made sure to keep fighting. They took a lot of the Giants' stuff and while they always came back and hit hard and nailed the in the corner, it just took one bit of interference for the Giants to take back over. That lasted through the big double team assisted legdrop and until Kawada jumped on Misawa's comeback and rushed in to hit the other giant. They protected the Giants, having it be a ton of work to even knock one down (Misawa missile dropkick, which also protected HIS top rope forearm of death). Finally, Misawa hit one with a super impressive German with a bridge for the win. Quite the spectacle.

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On 4/13/2023 at 9:24 PM, DJ Hero Morganti said:

I don't know why, but you saying 

Made me burst into laughter 

I'll isolate the match at some point. It was pretty crazy to watch.

11/20/90: Kobashi/Ace vs Hansen/Spivey: Kobashi coming out to Kickstart my Heart is a thing which happens now and again, yes it is. Spivey and Hansen dominated early (after Spivey caught Ace off the ropes and hit him with a great fallaway slam). Kobashi was good at swiping back to make him seem like a star. Eventually, Hansen got Ace on the outside and just brutalized him into a random table that he put up against the side of the ring, until he missed the lariat in it. Then they started on Hansen's arm, as Hansen opponents are want to do and dominated him pretty soundly, even with Spivey getting pissy and coming in a few times. This built to Kobashi just taking absolute liberties with Hansen and Hansen getting really pissed off and it was a fun minute or so there. Then they beat the crap out of Kobashi until he dodged a double charge and then hit a dive on Spivey. Things got pretty spirited by the end with Ace asserting his size and slamming Hansen before Hansen just got pissed again and lariated one of them and then other in a five second period.

11/20/90: Andre/Baba vs Jumbo/Taue: We covered this at SC here: https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2022/06/found-footage-friday-ki-necro-lawler.html and yeah, it's pretty great. For one thing, it's one of those matches you just knew were special to the fans. We don't see Jumbo vs Baba every day. We certainly don't see Andre vs Jumbo every day, but Baba vs Taue (especially this Taue who is coming along) and Andre vs Taue were even more rare and novel. So there's a buzz just to see Baba and Taue lock up to start. Taue making inroads against Baba or Andre really helps his credibility, just like Dory being on the mat with someone helps theirs. Then there's a different buzz to see the rare but familiar and revered Jumbo vs Baba. And then Andre comes in against Jumbo and there's just electricity in the air. Jumbo 100% gets it here. Sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't, but with 1990 immobile Andre, he absolutely does. Jumbo's a guy who will run over Abdullah, but he's going to bounce off of Andre and flail his arms about as if he hit a mountain. Andre had such symbolic value. He was larger than life. If you just treated him like that, he was worth his massive weight in gold, and if the guy who is a mighty warrior like Jumbo did it, all the better. That made Taue staggering him with a leaping kick or the two of them knocking him back into the ropes with a double jumping knee mean all the more. (they couldn't double suplex him though, but they did knock him down in the attempt) As the match went on, Baba and Andre started to weaken and would fall more, but Taue ran into a boot and Andre dropped an elbow to close it out. Andre's last great match maybe?

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11/20/90: Abdullah/Kamala II vs MVC: Face in peril Abby! I'll give this a proper review later. I watched this a while ago. Check it out. It's fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1JtJLNdRgY

11/21/90: Eigen/Okuma vs Rusher/Inoue: Different camera angle (worse). Nearly exact same match as the 11/20 one. That was a little disappointing but not too surprising. It had the same entry point with the handshake/slap, the subsequent slap on the apron before the lock up, etc. Some specifics later on were a little different but not by much. The post match banter WAS different with Eigen getting the mic too. If it's not broken, don't fix it, I guess.

11/21/90: Ricky Santana/Furnas vs Teranishi/Momota: Spirited match. Teranishi and Momota didn't look it but they could bound about at key moments. Fairly back and forth. Furnas got to do some strength escapes and got a power slam out of nowhere for the win. Solid undercard stuff.

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I'm falling a bit behind on these write-ups. Usually if I don't do them shortly after I watch, it's static. But let's give it a go.

11/21/90: Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs Abdullah the Butcher/Kimala II: Oh yeah, this was actually pretty good, but also completely ridiculous. Bulldogs start by just leaping over the top rope at the monsters so they control for a bit early. Dynamite, absurd lout that he is, makes sure to slam Abby (and later hit a snap suplex! Come on!). It doesn't last. At one point, Abby just hits Smith in the throat over and over and over. Poor Smith on this tour! First the endless pile drivers. Then the endless throat shots. This gives way to a lot of in and out offense from Abby and Kimala on a bloodied up Dynamite. Definitely some positive elements here, but Dynamite was too up his own butt by this point.

11/21/90: Dory/Terry vs LAND OF THE GIANTS: Just a joy to see Terry Funk be Terry Funk with these guys. He spends the whole beginning in his trickster god guise, just hitting and running and going into the crowd and driving them nuts. They build to a leg trip and a spinning toehold and it gets a huge pop. They do a pretty good job of protecting them and giving them some rub, but Nitron and Giant Warrior are so green that it's almost impossible not to see what's going on here. I wouldn't hold it against the Funks. That this was entertaining at all was a huge testament to them.

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Closing out the 11/21 show, mostly a HH but we do have some of the bigger matches proshot as well.

11/21/90: Misawa/Kawada vs Kobashi/Ace: I had to rewatch this since it'd been a bit. Fans were jazzed to see most of these pairings for the first time. Kobashi and Kawada have a special energy even though it can be annoying at times. You'll have a deal where Kobashi will knee Kawada in the gut a million times and then Kawada will fire back with a bunch of forearms. Kobashi is gutsy to the point of being irritating really. They took 3 big trips to the outside (including a gnarly draping over the guardrail into a suplex by Kawada) to let them really take over on him. He kept fighting back. Obviously he knew what he needed to do to get over but matches suffer a bit maybe? Ace and Kobashi had superior teamwork from the get go and worked over Kawada's leg, not that it mattered. They had a fun finishing stretch with a ton of tandem offense and a quite good finish where Kawada hit the tiger suplex on Kobashi, Ace broke it up, Misawa just jumped in like a jerk with a frog splash, and then took out Ace, and Kawada hit the power bomb. Post match everyone hugged. 

11/21/90: MVC vs Andre/Baba: I don't have a ton to say about this. It was a lot of fun and so much of that was because Williams saw the inherent possibilities in the match and just gave himself fully to his opponents. Hugely giving performance by him in making them look beastly. At one point he lets Andre just swallow him up with a bearhug (and later he puts a lifting one on Baba!). They had built up Williams and Gordy to be absolute monsters all year so for them to give so much to Andre and Baba it really protected them on the finish. You don't necessarily need protection from losing to Baba and Andre but when you're top of the card monsters, it doesn't hurt. Great fun.

11/21/90: Jumbo/Taue vs Hansen/Spivey: Another real hossfight. There was a moment early where Jumbo was just bouncing off of Spivey and he overcame by leaping up and forearming him and raising the hand and it was great. This felt like another step along the road of Taue's development. He didn't dominate here (but you believed he could, for a time),but he was always in the fight, always swiping back, always a threat. A lot of the time, Spivey and Hansen had to make a tag to contain him. That's no small thing and it's not something he would have been believably capable of or confident enough to manifest six months earlier. It took him a bit to get there but it's great to see how development play out. Eventually, they countered the superior teamwork by going after Hansen's arm and that went well for a bit until Hansen just screamed like a wild animal and bullcharged through Taue. They controlled him for a bit until Jumbo could assert himself again. Finish had another big Taue moment as he basically took himself out to the floor to take Hansen out of the match too. That left Spivey open for the Jumbo knee off the top. 

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Let's hit the rest of the 11/25 show.

11/25/90: Jumbo/Taue vs MVC: This is JIP and it's a shame because it's awesome. They lay it in so hard. Just Gordy crashing into Jumbo in the corner with a clothesline shakes the whole building. It starts with Gordy working over Jumbo but he comes back with the jumping knee and Taue just dropping a row of chairs on the outside. Jumbo is awesome when he works over a guy's midsection. It doesn't happen often but it's one of my favorite bits of his. He does it to Doc and it sets up the double jumping knee. Then Doc just hefts Taue onto his shoulders like an absolute beast and drops him with a Samoan drop. This isn't the old Taue though and he's constantly in it and constantly fighting, able to dodge a Gordy charge and just drop him with a belly to back. They go back and forth a bit, with Jumbo and Gordy really teeing off on each other and then do a lot of trading of abdominal stretches with guys coming in to break it off and Taue ultimately missing a top rope elbow drop. That lets MVC lay in on him for a bit (high impact clotheslines and dropkick from Doc). Taue just fights and fights back though and it takes both of them to slow him down. It's all brutal and awesome and Taue emergent. He never quits and it feels like the hugest moment when Jumbo gets back in. Then they got to just a massive bomb fest heavyweight finish where Taue is in it and it could really go either way. Just great stuff all around. Pure Clash of the Titans stuff. Taue has arrived.

11/25/90: Misawa/Kawada vs Hansen/Spivey: Another one of my favorite bits is when someone in Japan (Jumbo/Hansen) has someone in a Scorpion Deathlock or half-crab and instead of waiting for the partner of the person they have in it to come in, they meet them half way and just crush them. Hansen does it here and it's awesome. Clear difference between Taue vs the MBC and these guys against Hansen/Spivey. Much more working from underneath and trying to come. That meant that when Misawa did slam Hansen and hit the frogsplash Spivey would get massive massive heat for breaking the pin up. There was a great suplex reversal from Hansen on Kawada where he just chucked him over his head (and early on Spivey caught Misawa off a body press and hit a fall away slam; the match was full of that). Fans went nuts whenever Kawada turned things around with a kick or a spin wheel kick. Finish was great with Misawa disrupting the Lariat set up with a forearm but then getting shrugged off and falling out of the ring as Spivey pulled the rope down leaving Kawada to get clocked by the subsequent lariat.

11/25/90: Funks vs New Bulldogs: Just the finish. I'm glad we have the HH. Nice stretch muffler from Dynamite on Terry and good Terry/Smith roll up finishing stretch. But we don't get much.

11/25/90: Furnas/Santana vs Kobashi/Ace: We get even less here. Really just a doomsday device by Kobashi/Ace on Santana and the moonsault after Furnas breaks it up.

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On 5/6/2023 at 11:22 AM, Matt D said:

11/25/90 Jumbo/Taue vs MVC

If any match was gonna make me start again it's this one. Absolutely brutal, and both hot as LOUD (strikes and crowd) as hell. The corner camera was especially neat. Since it was JIP I just pretended it was like a '90s NJ Juniors match with nothing but perfunctory matwork that meant nothing. I also finally figured out the difference between the Cobra Twist and the Octopus Hold and feel like a total goof. 

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12/1/90: MVC vs Misawa/Kawada: This will be a little weird to explain. For the most part, Misawa and Kawada are holding their own against Jumbo/Partner, and of course Misawa defeated Jumbo once. That was a shocker though, and there are always caveats when it comes to Jumbo/Partners vs Super Generation Army, like Inoue or Fuchi are good, but it's not like Jumbo's teamed with Baba or even Yatsu. Taue is big and strong but he's still finding his way and is prone to mistakes. Jumbo, for all of his might, is human. Williams and Gordy were presented as something else, creatures of Hansen's ilk, but younger and more energetic, with Doc's wrestling skill to boot. Plus, there were two of them and they worked like a well-oiled machine. Jumbo was a champion, a paragon, even if one twisted by his own purity. Doc and Gordy were absolute monsters and they had been positioned that way in the back half of 90, against everyone, including Jumbo and Hansen. Basically, they're Brock, down to the selling (when appropriate), big sweeping bumps by Gordy and more giving/stooging selling by Doc. After trying to contain them and failing and getting tossed around, they open up on Doc with kicks and they hold the advantage for quite a while, switching off and staying persistent. They lose it after Gordy storms in (to big boos) and Misawa plays Robert Gibson on the apron as Doc and Gordy double team. It builds to a pretty exciting finishing stretch with Misawa and Kawada getting some shots in and some hope but Gordy and Doc just flying around to break up tags (and clip Misawa's leg on a German bridge, big selling there), until Gordy finally jams Kawada on a kick and shove powerbombs him down. They continue to level up though, that's the point.

12/1/90: Jumbo/Taue vs Kobashi/Ace: We just get the last few minutes of this and it has Kobashi and Ace throwing everything they have (including a terrible Ace Crusher bump on Taue who seemed to have no idea what it even was). The key moment, however, was one break up where I can't remember/tell you if it was Taue or Jumbo who rushed in full-intensity to make the save. Why is that important? Because just a few months earlier it would have been absolutely impossible to get the two confused in your mind. The experiment is working for them. More on that as I hit the end of the year in a few matches.

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12/1/90: Terry Funk/Dory Funk Jr./Andre the Giant vs Hansen/Spivey/Deaton: I saw this a few days ago and don't remember much. There was a fun triple crunch spot with the Funks assisting in the corner. Terry was great here, as always. Deaton got rocket launched and it sure didn't work the second time. This was definitely fun.

12/7/90: Jumbo/Taue vs Misawa/Kawada: As always, the way they start these these matches is probably the most interesting part. Here it was Taue and Misawa, and Taue was leaning into his strength. Kawada, from the outside, nailed Taue as he got close. Taue crushed Kawada off the apron and Misawa was able to take advantage a bit. This gave the match a pretty unique feel that they leaned into throughout. The fans were chanting for Taue after he got vengeance on Kawada there. It'd be true the whole match. Usually, Jumbo and co. were de facto heels but here it was Misawa and Kawada. The fans loved it when Kawada and Taue got in there and Taue wrestled like he had something to prove. He'd been at it longer. He'd been through hell with Tenryu, but Taue was bigger... just that at this point. Well, he had a chip on his shoulder. Jumbo made it in and crushed people. Taue came back in and debuted (I think) his awesome corner flying knee, but missed the second. And Misawa and Kawada took over and didn't look back. They took out Jumbo and his nagging ear injury started back up. That made it two on one and they really leaned hard on Taue. Jumbo tried to assert himself once but he was too weakened. Eventually he powered back and Taue got the hot tag and they started towards a fun finish where Jumbo and Taue were both a big diminished. These are always full of near misses and cut offs. At one point Jumbo rushed in and knocked Misawa off the apron to set up a lariat on a power bomb position Kawada and I thought that would be it but he they went around another rotation with Misawa getting Jumbo out of it just long enough for Kawada to actually pull it off. Good for him. Very interesting inversion in this one.

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12/7/90: Williams/Gordy vs Hansen/Spivey: This was the finals of the RWTL. Basically, the winner was going to win this. I'm pretty sure that if it was a 30 minute draw, Hansen/Spivey would win the tournament. This was also for the tag title that went vacant when Kabuki left suddenly (oops). It's hugely striking and really a testament to the strategy after the talent bleed that the last four guys were all Americans. There was a giant American flag being waved in the crowd. The fans were into it. These guys were absolutely not the Funks. They was the other part of the strategy on top. While they were building up the pillars, it was hossing holding up the promotion. Spivey wasn't quite as big or quite as forceful but he was still pretty damn big. I'd argue that he almost had a pointy way of attacking while everyone else charged through, but that might have been his weirdo mullet? There were definite beats here back and forth. There was a sense of hierarchy. It took both Williams and Doc to really hurt Hansen but Spivey could get overwhelmed by either Williams or Doc after holding his own for a while. That sort of thing. At one point, they took out Hansen long enough to damage Spivey's leg and had an advantage on him for a bit. While Hansen had a tendency to run through errant or missed shots and just keeping charging forward, they did keep him down for a bit. Everything was earned. Even if one side would get an opening or a tag, they would still have to fight their way back. Nothing was given. That's how they filled thirty minutes. Everything took extra effort. The key turning point was Hansen slumping in the corner and Gordy charging over him to the floor. Spivey got in a table shot after that and they had the advantage as they lumbered towards a finish. As this was Hansen and Spivey and MVC and not ... let's say Kobashi, the kickouts were all pretty measured down the stretch. If someone hit a DDT (Spivey Spike) or Power Bomb or lariat that should have ended the match, the partner broke it up. Something lesser might have been a kick out. There was also a thing that if Hansen hit a big move (spike piledriver) but Spivey was the legal man and went for the pin, the fans knew that probably wouldn't end it. These fans were very smart and conditioned to when finishes could really occur, the length of time between a tag in the stretch or if someone was knocked off the apron or out of the ring or if Hansen was tagged back in after they thought it was going to be his last appearance in the ring. It's the same instincts as fans who knew when to look towards the back while watching a 98 Nitro, but more savvy, more enthuastic, less jaded, less annoying. The finish was at the very last second with Hansen having to double pump on a lariat as Doc reversed a Spivey whip and therefore not getting all of it. When he went again, Doc got him up, just barely for a power slam and the pin happened right as the bell rang. The ref called it for MVC (maybe because Gordy and Spivey were errantly in his way and slowed down his second count and they won the match and the trophies and the check and the titles. Post match they did an interview with a translator in the ring and all Gordy said was "It's great to be alive and #1 in Japan" and the fans ate it all up.

That brings me to the end of 1989. I think I'm supposed to go until something big happens in April but I'll still do some mid-journey notes over the next few days summing certain things up.

Match is below for anyone curious.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited by Matt D
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I don't think I have a ton to say, not really. Let's talk about some wrestlers.

Pillars: You come into 89 thinking that Takano might have a higher upside than any of them. I came out of the year thinking Kikuchi was my favorite guy in the Super Generation Army. That's probably a me thing. He works the most like a traditional selling babyface and that appeals to me because it really goes against the company style. None of them are exactly what you expect them to be in the back half of 1990. They're all developing. Misawa takes on a ton of responsibility immediately and manages it well enough. He gets a lot of mileage out of the magic forearm. The crowd buzzes whenever he's in there with Jumbo. Kawada was the biggest victim of the Hansen/Tenryu team and floundered a bit from mid 89-mid 90. He's still secondary to Misawa by the end of the year but likely higher on the hierarchy than Fuchi or Inoue and able to do honest damage to anyone in the company. Kobashi is off with Ace a lot of the time, kind of doing his own thing. He doesn't fit into the templates quite as well. I've said he seems a little like a NJPW guy in the midst of AJPW and I stick to that. He's creative in the way the others aren't, and that will probably be good for the next couple of years, right until it isn't. And then there's Taue. it was pretty brutal watching Taue develop at a snail's pace but as we got into the tag league stuff (and a little before it) he started to wake up and assert himself. Some of it was the budding rivalry with Kawada who he could push around but also would get mauled by, but a lot of it was ....

The Hosses: Because it was the American monsters who ruled the back half of 1990, not Jumbo, not Misawa. Doc. Gordy. Hansen. Spivey. Abby (well, North American), Kamala II. These weren't sympathetic technical figures like the Funks. They were absolute beasts, Doc and Gordy coming out to Kiss, Hansen realizing that the world was starting to catch up with him but putting his head down and charging despite that (and even Land of Giants who were fumbling about riding the wave). In the end, it it was the Doc/Gordy/Hansen trio who captured the titles. They brought this bruising style that makes the late 2010s super heavyweight video game finisher spamming WWE scene seem lame in comparison. It's just war after war. Doc especially is a force of nature, unpolished, earnest, given, with just freak strength and intensity at times.

Jumbo and Friends: The crowds tend to be more split than you'd expect at times, sometimes pushing for the underdogs against Jumbo and co, but often respecting them and getting behind them and certainly getting behind them against foreigners (thus the Taue turn, so Jumbo would have a partner). I find Fuchi to be so versatile, able to go from comedy matches to technical junior hevyweight title bouts to big six mans, playing any role imaginable. Inoue carries himself like someone to be respected and can have a believable comeback against anyone from Kikuchi to Hansen. We lost Kabuki early but some of the pairings we have with him before he left were fun. Like wise "Babyface" Fuyuki. I could have used another month of him. In the end, it's a little striking how few people Jumbo has to team with relative to years past. You get to missing Yatsu for instance. And that's coming from someone who is as high on Inoue as anyone and plenty high on Fuchi (but everyone's high on Fuchi). As for Grumpy Jumbo, it's not all that different than Gladiator Jumbo I'd been seeing before, especially because he's valiantly up against those hosses quite often. He sure loves violence by this time, the ultimate victory of Choshu.

Others: Johnny Smith brought a different energy to the bulldogs which was enjoyable. Dynamite was in a literal land of giants relative to years' past and couldn't eat up guys nearly as much. I never like the Fantastics around this time because they're up against smaller guys and DO eat them up. Ace was increasingly good at seeming credible and leaning into his size even if it he was a bit of a dork but I find a lot of the All-Asia tags to be formless and annoying. He was earning his spot and portraying himself the right way though. You wouldn't want Abby in a long match but he brought a ton to the table. Kimala was still working on asserting himself. Spivey was more than credible for his role but you almost always wanted someone else. Deaton was fine. Slater was fine. You'd still rather have Hansen or Terry. Eigen was a shitheel in the comedy matches and a little hero against monsters. Okuma was stoic and credible except for when he wasn't supposed to be in a comedy match. Rusher could do one thing but he did it extremely well. We didn't get a ton of Momota or Teranishi or Ogawa, not enough to really comment on. We just got a bit of them but it was special to see the Funks dropped into this world that missed them so fondly. I wish we had more Malenkos. Bam Bam and Davey Boy really didn't make a mark for their small runs. Scotty the Body did though! Slinger did ok too.

Baba and Andre: They remained legendary and so good at doing what they did. Everyone treated them with such respect and they brought such gravitas to serious matches and mirth to comedy matches. The world rotated around them but they shined warmth as only celestial bodies could. Even immobile they were more valuable then almost any other wrestler and were savvy enough to know exactly what to do when, even if it was hard.

Overall, it was a very strange half year and the stuff I expected (the Pillars coming into their own, Grumpy Jumbo) was actually overshadowed by the monsters running amuck.

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1991!

1/2/91: Misawa/Kawada vs Jumbo/Inoue: This is JIP But it comes in awesome with Kawada trying to take liberties with Inoue and Inoue firing back like an absolute bastard. Kawada overcomes. This was another one where the Super Generation Army were almost playing de facto heel. They really beat the crap out of Inoue and even Jumbo a bit. The best part was when Kawada took Inoue to the outside and he ended up seated in the first row. You start to see this black object come down upon Kawada (standing on the other side of the guard rail)'s head again and again and you realize that Inoue is hitting him with an umbrella! Then Kawada gets the umbrella! It's all great stuff especially because it's ended when Taue, in his jacket at ringside, intervenes. More on that later. Jumbo makes it in but they take over on him (forearms and Misawa's back headbutt off the turnbuckles). Inoue has really credible chops and slaps but Jumbo just thuds you when he gets shots in. Night and day. Eventually Inoue gets a hot tag and hits the flipping senton and the fans hate it when Kawada breaks it up. Finish is a flash where Kawada gets Jumbo out of the way for just a second and Misawa hits the tiger driver. If you move quick enough you can avoid an endless finishing sequence. Post match, we don't really see it, but I think Kawada knocks Taue off the apron and causes him to crash into the guardrail. They're definitely building to that rivalry in a clever way. If I had a good way of making gifs right now I'd gif the umbrella. Someone else can try. It's around the 4:40 mark here:

1/2/91: Kobashi vs Hansen: This one's fun, but also starts to show some iffiness with Kobashi for me. Hansen dominates immediately but Kobashi dares smack Hansen across the face. What does ol' Stan do? Go out, get a chair and just hit the meanest shots imaginable, right in the center of the ring, which usually never happens. It's ok to use a chair on the outside but they rarely get brought in. With that in mind, I thought Kobashi recovered a bit too soon even if it was early in the match. He tries to pry off an arm, really just to contain Hansen and it takes a while for him to get any traction with it. In the middle, Stan goes after an arm himself, probably out of spite, which isn't his best move and it lets Kobashi come back with it. I get that they were trying to establish Kobashi but with that start of the match, I think maybe he just ended up taking too much of it with a big superman comeback and a slam and the moonsault, etc. It just didn't feel earned to me. He needed to get deeper into a hole and fight back harder to get to that point. Hansen took his head off anyway with a lariat but this is a time where I would have liked Hansen to pull him up and hit him a few more times for his insolence.

1/2/91: Taue vs Spivey: JIP so we just get the last five. The hierarchy is dodgy here and I probably would have put Taue over, to be honest. He certainly dominates for a time. He can certainly hurt Spivey. Of course, Spivey can also catch him off a cross body and chuck him over his head. This ends with the spike and I kind of think Taue should have kicked out and made Spivey hit it twice or something. Still, Taue had come a long way and he still had to earn his singles momentum I guess.

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Around in 1993 the style of AJPW transforms into 四天王プロレス or してんのうプロレス or Shitennō Puroresu or 4 Heavenly Kings Wrestling. So techniques that exceed the limit and other elements belonging to that style.

Kenta Kobashi and several others wrote books about the style and period.

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1/7/91: Haruka Eigen vs Rusher Kimura: These HHs are tough! You really can't see much but a pole, but you can kind of piece this together. I was excited for it too but after seeing glimpses, I actually think the tag worked better. Eigen started with the disrespect on the handshake and they had some of the same beats (building to the big spit sell) but the fact that Rusher+Partner can't get some shine in on Okuma instead of Eigen, thus delaying gratification, meant that everything was a bit dulled. Rusher got his hands on Eigen way too soon here and while it went back and forth after that, it just wasn't the same.

1/7/91: Taue vs Kawada: Again, just a tough, tough handheld. You get glimpses and you can see that they were PROBABLY trying to work a bunch of stuff out. I do think it's cool that AJPW started 1991 with an angle between the two of them in that previous tag, like they did the year before with the Takagi/Tenryu stuff. I'd be curious if the same thing happens in 1992. I don't think it did in 89 but I was really just starting the journey there.

1/11/91: Kobashi vs Abby: Yeah this was surreal. Basically, Kobashi absolutely killed Abby here. Abdullah would get in a couple of throat shots here or there but sometimes Kobashi even no sold them. When Abby went for the chair, Kobashi clocked him with it and Abby bled buckets. Kobashi hit him with a belly to back. He slammed him. He suplexed him. Just crazy stuff that made no sense and was so out there that it didn't mean nearly as much as it would have if Kobashi only took half of the match and he worked hard to fight back and get the slam. In the end, he missed the moonsault and Abby elbowed him and that was that. There was a really good imaginative spot in here where Abby went for the elbow early but Kobashi was towards the ropes and forced himself out. Anyway, it was a weird one.

 

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1/11/91: Misawa/Kawada vs Inoue/Fuchi: The translated captioning was awesome to start. It's wonky at best but sometimes we get the start of the match. I'll double back in a minute. Oh there were also these wrestling buddies in the crowd that had Misawa's eyebrows that were pretty funny. I have no idea if they were legit merch or bootleg merch or if these guys just somehow made them. As for the match, it was good. Fuchi and especially Inoue have a way of just using different offense that you're not used to that hits at odd angles. Just violence, you know? But tricked out violence. Match takes a turn midway when Fuchi hits a shinbreaker onto a table on the outside on Kawada. They work over the leg from thereon in. That includes Inoue stealing Yatsu's deathlock figure four and even wrenching with a double underhook with it. Gnarly stuff. Eventually Misawa gets the tag and hits the magic forearm off the top but it all ends on a sneaky roll up win because you got to keep Inoue and Fuchi credible.

Ahem.

"As usual, Kawada looks down and wrinkles between his eyebrows as he enters expressionlessly."

1/11/91: Jumbo/Taue vs Hansen/Spivey: Back and forth hard hitting stuff here. We join JIP (like the other match) with Spivey running into a boot and eating a clothesline from Taue. It still matters that Taue can assert himself like this. I know we picture Taue as a beast but it was a recent, still developing thing here. It could still have gone south. They control on Spivey through Hansen breaking up a half crab but lose the offense after Hansen has had enough and just unloads on Jumbo leading to both of them stomping him on the outside. Eventually Jumbo gets the hot tag but Taue gets clocked with a lariat after an abrupt Hansen no-sell. Right after the pin, Jumbo gets revenge with the jumping knee and lays Hansen out for a bit, but his team still lost.

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1/15/91: Taue vs Kawada: This is a match people have seen, more so than others of this period. There was more to 1/2 than I knew. They also set it up with some crazy out of the ring brawling during the yearly Battle Royal. I should go back to see if Roy posted the TV with that and it just wasn't in my other sources. So this was definitely built up and it was definitely violent. I don't want to break it down move for move. Taue bled early though and I do want to mention a few things. It's hard to explain to people how this stuff is just so different to what we get today, but there were a few moments here which felt so clumsy and awkward, but in a good way. You all but gasp as they go tumbling off the apron, knees buckling, just dragged down. Today, that would be a perfectly executed spot with the impact close to exactly how the wrestlers want to look as big as possible. A real bump. And despite that, it doesn't look half as nasty as this. More technical skill allowing for more flawless motion is not always a good thing. In pro wrestling, often times it isn't, and there are certain people who spent today talking about juggling who could never, ever understand that. Ah well. This was a war. There's another moment where Taue just grasps Kawada's head and slams it down onto the mat like he was trying to burst a watermelon. It's not the sort of move you'd ever see in someone's move set in a video game. It's just sheer, unmitigated violence. There was a bit in the middle where they took the move in the month (that shinbreaker onto a table on the outside), which let Taue work the leg for a chunk of it (oh, there was also an amazing transition where Taue caught Kawada's kicks on the outside and just tossed the leg into the guardrail), but Kawada did overcome in the end. Watch it.

Spoiler

 

1/15/91: Jumbo/Inoue/Fuchi vs Misawa/Kobashi/Kikuchi: I don't have a lot to say about this. They did the shinbreaker spot again! This time onto a chair, by Fuchi onto Kobashi, I think. A lot of the match was actually working over Kobashi, which was weird since Kikuchi was right there. He had some fun moments of coming in and trying to break up holds by Jumbo on Kobashi and it was kind of like asking if a kindergartener could beat up Jumbo (he couldn't, but he could distract him). Finish had Kobashi slam Fuchi and hit him with the moonsault, so it felt like a big moment for him, especially after that ridiculous Abby match.

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This is kind of what I was talking about. This happened in June. They were still running American Hosses on top (primarily against one another) for the entire rest of the year, basically. The back half of 1990 definitely didn't play out the way I was expecting. I'm not saying 1991 might not be different but the conventional wisdom leaves that bit out.

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