Matt Watches 1989 AJPW/1986 NJPW on a Treadmill

[Matt D]

13 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

So I have to watch others health decline while mine improves? 

The Portrait of Jun Kasai

[Matt D]

2/28/87: Masakatsu Funaki/Akira Nogami vs Tatsuo Nakano/Yoji Anjo: I have real limitations while on the treadmill. I'm watching Monterrey lucha that Roy posted for SC every other Friday right now and I can pop onto luchawiki while watching it and try to figure out who, let's say Huracan, Jr was (he was Huracan Ramirez' nephew who had a run in UWA in the early 90s but then disappeared). I'm not super familiar with the young version of these guys though and this is a HH that's clipped exactly in the right way that we miss the ring introductions. We've got a kickpad guy teaming with a long boot guy and I assume those are Funaki and Nogami. Then we have shitty little boots guys who I assume are Nakano and Anjo. But maybe I have it backwards. These are all guys who end up with really distinctive looks moving forward, but not yet and the VQ is what it is and I'm watching on my phone. Let me speak in generalities. If this was an AJPW young boys match, they'd work holds and up into spots and back into holds, right? These guys just grapple like madmen the whole time, interspersed with some double team stompings and beatings and the occasional suplex from team kickpad. Everyone was just game enough that it was fun to watch. I don't know if it was twenty minutes fun to watch. It might have been more fun to watch if I had more familiarity but I'll get that in time.

3/2/87: Inoki/Fujinami vs Williams/Steiner: This was fun. Doc remains larger in life in a way that he both would and woudln't be a few years later. He had figured out his act more by 90. In 87, there's still this raw air of unpredictability. He could do anything at any moment. He and Steiner (wearing Zubaz type gear) ambush our heroes to start with Doc going so far as to press slam Inoki right off the bat. Throughout the match, they're able to assert themselves with teamwork, strength, and interference, but Inoki and Fujinami are explosive with dropkicks (and kick kicks and back brain kicks) and are always able to come back. At one point, Fujinami makes a diving RnR style tag to Inoki which is cool and something you so rarely see in Japan. My favorite part here was Doc getting froggy and dropping down to a wrestling position, giving Inoki a grappling attempt. Inoki actually got him around into the cobra before Steiner came in to interfere. Great stuff. Finish was busy, with a ref bump and Inoki moving out of the way so that Doc crashed into Steiner. Fun, larger than life stuff. Steiner was definitely lesser but still felt like he belonged by Doc's side.

[Matt D]

3/2/87: Maeda/Takada vs Pogo/Nagasaki: So there's the World's Strongest Determination Tag League going on and I couldn't begin to tell you how anyone's doing even if they explain it to me. But it does give us kind of weirdo matches like this. The deal here was that Pogo and Nagasaki couldn't outwrestle the UWF guys any better than anyone else could. Maeda would just take them down at will. Takada kicked Nagasaki so hard in the head. So hard. But they'd just kind of get taken down and disengage instead of trying to wrestle and would just try something else. The announcers called Pogo zombie like in how he just wasn't register what the UWF guys were doing. It didn't make for a good match but it did make for a different match at least. They'd take over on Takada various ways like him missing the jumping back kick in the corner or by using tape to choke him or a chairshot but it was never really for long. Finish had Maeda clock Pogo from behind with the spin wheel kick and lock in the crossface chicken wing while Takada sailed over the top with Kendo. Post match they attacked Maeda with a chair after he went after Wakamatsu but Maeda didn't really feel like selling. Bless him.

3/2/87: Mutoh vs Jerry Grey: They billed Grey from Florida and that this was kind of an old rivalry. I forgot to mention it before but they had been talking up Kimura coming back with NEW BOXING SKILLS previously and here I think they threw to a chair reserved for Choshu so things are churning. This was very straightforward. Mutoh would do something explosive (see: dropkick) and Grey would cut him off, and repeat and repeat. It's the sort of match I feel like you wouldn't see in All Japan because things are always just too even or too one sided and not worked in the hope spots/cut offs sort of way. Mutoh was going over the top by hitting a German when some Jason the Terrible type dude ran in and I couldn't make sense of what was going on. I'm sure it'll make sense soon enough. Though looking at upcoming matches, I'm not sure when because everything's so caught up in the tag league.

[Matt D]

3/7/87: Maeda/Takada vs Fujiwara/Kido: This was a HH and we're lucky to have it. Just really cool action for the most part, especially whenever Fujiawara and Maeda are in there. Just top, top notch grappling out of the two of them. Each pairing gives you something a little bit different too. Takada throws a bunch of kicks and Fujiwara works him into the corner to beat the crap out of him. Maeda will get throws on Fujiwara and when Takada tries them, they get blocked. That sort of thing. A lot of anticipation and payoff with exchanges. Kido wasn't spectacular, but he was never an easy opponent. He could take either guy down out of nowhere and certainly hang with Maeda on the mat. The finish is awesome as Takada's doing his kick thing and Fujiwara just catches the leg and blows his knee out with a kick right to it. Beautiful violence.

3/7/87: Fujinami vs Jerry Grey: What's fun about this is that it was very hold/mat based but entirely different from the UWF match. It was all methodological holds and counters, working in and out of holds, headlock takeovers and armdrags, wristlocks, etc. It was no less effective, not really. It was just different. It was Fujinami in his element against a game opponent. On some level it's all the more impressive he can wrestle someone like Maeda or Fujiwara and then come back and do a match like this and have both be compelling and coherent. I mean, Grey didn't actually have a chance. This was even whereas Grey took most of the Muto match, but he still succumbed to the Scorpion Deathlock.

[Matt D]

@Curt McGirt Taking my channel in my hands here but NJPW HHs are usually pretty safe.

 

[Curt McGirt]

Not bad. Kido is kind of wallpaper as a wrestler but what can you do; Fujiwara is there to spice things up. Best part is when he catches Takada's leg and just slaps the piss out of him. He also held onto that heel hook for awhile there. That couldn't have been pleasant.

[Matt D]

On 12/13/2023 at 1:46 PM, Curt McGirt said:

Not bad. Kido is kind of wallpaper as a wrestler but what can you do; Fujiwara is there to spice things up. Best part is when he catches Takada's leg and just slaps the piss out of him. He also held onto that heel hook for awhile there. That couldn't have been pleasant.

Bad timing for poor Kido.

[Curt McGirt]

Always thought it was weird how he ended up the last wrestler against Inoki in that classic 5-on-5 match. There is really nothing wrong with him except you can't think of anything of note either. He looks like a bigger Gran Hamada? (Note: This just led me to Gran Hamada vs. Blue Panther on Youtube so I will give him that, too)

[Curt McGirt]

20 hours ago, Matt D said:

Bad timing for poor Kido.

...And I just saw the RIP thread. Damn.

[Matt D]

2 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

...And I just saw the RIP thread. Damn.

The way I’d describe him in 86-87 is that he’s the fourth for a 2x2 pick up game that the stars would pick to round out the game. You need that steady baseline to protect the higher spots or else it’d be all noise. And someone like Maeda couldn’t wrestle small enough ever. 

Plus he could take anyone down with a double leg. 

[Curt McGirt]

I just watched him in Big Mouth Loud against Kurisu and Fujiwara. The Fujiwara match was pretty much an exhibition with a time limit draw (though Fujiwara busted himself open on a headbutt), and the Kurisu was basically a comedy match with Kurisu throwing chairs in the ring and making snide comments to the crowd. However, the latter showed me that Kido's big finish was... a Boston crab? Well, that's pretty in character for him. 

[Matt D]

3/7/87: Inoki/Sakaguchi/Muto vs Williams/Nagasaki/Pogo: I've been caught up in the holidays and keeping on top of current stuff, but I did catch this last night. Still HH. That means we get entrances which means we get to hear Kendo Nagasaki and Mr. Pogo come out to Born in the USA. Wakamatsu was really making a scene for some reason. More over the top than usual and the fancam guy liked to zoom in on it. Nagasaki started and it's kind of neat to see him against Muto considering what Muto will become. He was surprisingly giving right at the start too, taking handspring elbows and letting Sakaguchi bully him about but some of that was to set the hierarchy by having Doc come in and crush people, including Inoki. It was very back and forth, probably too much so, with Wakamatsu's guys taking it 65/35 or so but never for long enough. My favorite bits were Doc vs Muto because he'd just manhandle him. He did one belly to belly where he just lifted him straight up vertically off the ropes and then caught him mid air and turned him. It seemed effortless. Then he press slammed him. Finish had Inoki sidestepping Doc's charge as Pogo was holding him, putting on the cobra twist, tossing Pogo into Wakamatsu as he went up on the apron and then hitting the back brain kick out of nowhere. Nice to see Sakaguchi mixed in with these guys I guess, but i wish it had a little more form.

[Matt D]

3/7/87: Hashimoto vs Akira Nogami: Is this my first look at Nogami? At least Hashimoto's a big dude so I can tell them apart. Nogami does well when he focuses on one body part, but when he starts to stray or try to take advantage, it doesn't go well for him. Hashimoto can hang on the mat even if he's not the more skilled of the two in at area (at least as they portrayed it), but he also had this extra gear at the end. He just started unloading kicks onto Nogami like he was Maeda or something and then absolutely crushed him with Maeda's spin wheel kick. That move only looks halfway decent when Maeda hits it in the corner and it's one of the more frustrating things about him because everything else he does is more credible, but when Hash does it... credible would be a good word, yes.

3/7/87: Yoji Anjo vs Tatsuo Nakano: This is a HH. These guys have black tights. One has a more square haircut. The other has little triangle things on his boots. They're both good on the mat. I can't find a real pattern that differentiates them. At times boot traingles guy (Nakano) is scrappier and strikes more. At times square hair guy (Anjo?) is slicker. But then at other times they reverse roles, like the finish which is a ducked enziguiri right into a half crab for a submission. This was solid low card stuff with guys who were obviously well trained but I couldn't make much sense of it, not yet at least.

[Matt D]

3/9/87: Fujiawara/Kido vs..... the SHEEPHEDERS? Uh, where did this come from? It's the weirdest match. The Sheepherders do, you know, Sheepherder stuff. Lots of quick tags, lots of stomping, the Bushwhacker battering ram, a clunky double clothesline, a bunch of kicks to the gut. Sheepherder stuff. Obviously they get outwrestled, but they just sort of break up holds and roll around a bunch to muscle out of things. The best part of this is when Fujiwara does fun stuff with his head, of course, and Kido hits one awesome dropkick at one point but you're just gawking at how awkward and surreal this all is. I completely believe that 86 Sheephereders could have had an awesome match with Fujinami/Kimura or in 87, with Fujinami/Muto, but this was just a total mismatch. The commentary was treating it like a Nitro undercard match, talking about what was going on with Kimura and the mysterious "PIrate Man" who assaulted Muto or the tag league and standings. At one point they called Butch and Luke "Sausage like" and they couldn't tell them apart at all. The best part was talking about the places they'd been and saying they were "nomadic tribal warriors." Fujiwara charged Butch out of the ring when he had enough and Kido locked a Scorpion on Luke for the win.

3/9/87: Williams/Steiner vs Fujinami/Takano: They kept calling the Williams/Steiner team human killing tank or something. Somehow Pogo and Nagasaki beat Williams/Steiner to get more points in the tag league. This just starts with Doc and Steiner pressing their opponents. At one point Steiner hit a killer German too. And a crazy Steiner line. I mean they were just beasts. I love the thing Doc does where he just lifts a guy up and turns him with a quasi belly to belly like he's nothing at all. They had one run where they were just tossing Takano around but then Steiner slipped on the ropes before hitting a clunky top rope hart attack like clothesline and killed the magic. I guess being clumsy oafs who will just kill you is a different sort of magic. This was a little too back and forth. I appreciated it when Takano was cheating like a maniac. At one point he just went to the eye over and over again on Steiner to get a tag. At another he faked a tag with a clap to sneak in behind the ref's back get a leglock in, but you can hardly blame him. Fujinami was more stiff upper lip and held his own. This devolved into a double countout with Fujinami almost making it in. Doc and Steiner beat them up a bit post match. I get 90s Steiner was a monster in his own right but there's a world where he never became lovable and just became a monster monster heel world champion by 90-91.

[odessasteps]

Maybe if he stayed as Buzz’s partner instead of being in the varsity club?

[Matt D]

Pff, two sessions behind and I watched three matches tonight. Let's play catch up.

3/9/87 Inoki/Muto vs Nagasaki/Pogo: A lot of the next span of matches involve me trying to keep track of everyone's score in the Tag League. Note that Kimura and Fujinami vacated the belts due to their feud so the league is for the belts too, I think. Confusing things, I think Inoki/Sakaguchi and Muto/Koshinaka are the teams and this is just a non tournament match, but who knows. This starts awesome with Nagasaki and Pogo charging in with their weapons and choking with the ribbon that got thrown in. Muto has a goatee now, so that's a thing. I don't think it matches his look. Nagasaki is a guy who is way better than what I thought his rep to be. Sometimes he eats people up but he has really credible offense. Inoki coming in and just hitting the ropes like a maniac is always awesome. Anyway, after that initial hot tag by Muto to Inoki, this went sort of back and forth. Finish was the heels trying to use their weapons again and Inoki forcing Nagasaki into Wakamatsu and getting the decisive pin.

3/16/87: Fujinami/Takano vs Muto/Koshinaka: This was actually pretty awesome for the first half. Pre-match, lights go out and RED PIRATE GUY shows up. Everyone assume it's to attack Muto. But he goes after Fujinami instead, damaging his arm. The announcers say he might be a different height than normal and I'm left wondering if it's not Kimura in disguise, but I have no idea. Then, like total jerks, Muto and Koshinaka go right after the arm! In my experience, there are three different Koshinakas. The best is absolutely jerk Koshinaka. The second best is a Shiro that's getting beaten up for hierarchy reasons, and then after that is all the other versions, so him being a dick here is good stuff. They just stay on the arm, even through some pretty great hope spots, usually using the numbers game to cut Fujinami off, but he eventually just powers through it. I'd say they have a slight advantage for a bit but Fujinami finally recovers enough to make it even and then the show ends so I have no idea who wins. Cagematch says that Fujinami's team wins.

3/16/87: Inoki/Sakaguchi vs Pogo/Nagasaki: Heels try for the pre-match assault again but Inoki and Seiji are ready, using their jackets/towels to block the sticks. Great stuff. Then they move the corner guard out of the way and slam Pogo's head into the metal connector. There's some very fun Nagasaki/Inoki matwork here that moves into the heels making cheaty exchanges while the ref isn't looking to control Inoki. They come back and it's fairly back and forth until the finish which has Inoki put the cobra twist on Pogo and things break down with the kendo stick. It's never a DQ when Inoki's going to win clean though and he does by dodging enough to get a suplex in and pin Pogo. Post match, they really destroy Inoki (Jamming the stick into his throat while in the tree of woe) which builds to a Nagasaki match later. 

3/16/87: Williams vs Maeda: We only get a few minutes of this but it's pretty cool as you'd expect. Maeda can outwrestle him but Doc keeps shutting him down with big powermoves until Maeda hits the spinkick out of nowhere. Doc follows it up by rolling out of the ring, picking Maeda up, and slamming him into the post repeatedly until they get counted out. Basically just a tease but a fun one.

3/19/87: Williams/Steiner vs Maeda/Takada: This was the more substantial match and it was much the same as the singles. Very back and forth as the UWF guys could take Williams and Steiner down and then press the issue with kicks, but the Americans could come back with one big power move and then press the advantage by cheating. Things build to a huge top rope power slam by Doc onto Takada (assisted by Steiner for the set up) but then, after Maeda breaks up the pin, instead of just following up on Takada, Doc rushes Maeda and they tumble out. The match eventually comes back down but it always has a chaotic feel. Eventually they really press the double teams on Maeda until he's able to hit a weird leg lariat (he messed up the spin kick but it still looked gnarly) on Steiner as Takada charges in to block Doc, allowing for the pin. These two teams were the only ones who really felt like they were worthy of winning the belts in this. (Apparently, I'm just about to hit the finals and somehow Muto/Koshinaka are the ones against Maeda/Takada?)

[Matt D]

Ended up having some unexpected dental work and then the power went out the next night and we've been scrambling a bit.

3/20/87: Maeda/Takada vs Koshinaka/Muto: This was the finals of the tag league for the belts. I could be wrong but the commentary made it seem like they were annoyed this was the finals. They wanted Williams or Fujinami or Inoki in there instead of Koshinaka and Muto and they groused about the points. The match itself really was excellent though. You had the sense that even though they were rivals in 1986, that Takada had been leveling up a bit and had surpassed Koshinaka again. Early going was fairly even even when Maeda was in there. Things started to turn when Koshinaka ducked the spin wheel kick but got caught on the butt butt into a German. He fought back hard to avoid getting swept under and made the tag but Takada was able to get Muto in the ropes and hit his jumping spinning kick to knock him to the floor and for the rest of the match, Koshinaka and Muto were really playing defense. They'd have a moment, like when Maeda missed the spin wheel kick in the corner and Koshinaka almost got a crab on, but the UWF guys were too fresh (in that case, Takada came in and just clobbered Koshinaka with the spin kick). Eventually, miraculously, Koshinaka and Muto were able to isolate Takada and it really did feel like their last chance as they strung together offense. Takada was able to avoid a dropkick and make it to the corner and the bottom dropped out from everyone once Maeda came in. He leaned on Koshinaka a bit with Muto breaking it up and then Takada leaned on him, with Muto breaking it up. Finally, as he was going for the Scorpion, Muto came in again and Takada, instead of letting Maeda deal with him, tossed him out himself. He went right back for the Scorpion only for Koshinaka to roll him up for the surprise 3 as the crowd went nuts. Pretty exciting stuff (even if it was just 53 on the 80s set).

3/20/87: Inoki vs Nagasaki: Hot opening with Inoki ambushing him, sick of all the times Nagasaki ambushed him. Wakamatsu got on the apron and Inoki went for him which let Nagasaki come back and choke Inoki with his own towel. After that, it kind of quieted down into holds before Inoki got the back brain kick and locked on a cool double arm stretcher deal that the commentators called a "Rare joint lock." You get the sense that there was a bigger match planned and it fell through or something.

[Matt D]

3/20/87: Chono vs Hashimoto: This was for the Young Lion's Cup.I don't have a great sense of Chono except for his look and the Yakuza Kick, but I'll learn. That's the point. It might just take a bit. he already had the goatee here. First third of this was him trying to ground Hashimoto out of desperation. That worked until it didn't. Hashimoto's kicks were like nothing else in the promotion, just so impactful and compacting. And I swear, when he locked a hold in, it almost wasn't fair to his opponent. It felt like cheating that the guy this big and this strong could also choke you out. Chono held his own but he was playing defense (preemptive or otherwise) for a lot of this. He hit some big moves like a samoan drop, but then hashimoto would answer with a bridging fallaway slam. It was pretty clear that Hashimoto was the stronger, better of the two but Chono still got a roll up out of nowhere. Felt a little too much like the finish to the tag match really, but that might have been on purpose. Oh and Fujinami was the ref here. Not that you'd know it.

 

[Matt D]

3/26/87: Inoki vs Saito: Man, Saito is such a breath of fresh air. Don't get me wrong, I love the UWF guys, I do, but Saito is such a worker instead of a shooter. There were very cool things about Inoki vs Maeda (in tags) or vs Fujiwara, and in 86 we saw him against Kimura and Sakaguchi and Murdoch and Andre and others and that's all great too, but Saito was just perfect for him. Just a thick, grindy old school worker. Nothing at all tricked out but the Saito suplex. They just took it to the mat and there was none of that fancy UWF technique. Everything was worked for. Everything was agonized. Look, this was not for everyone. They'd escalate to headbutts (with Inoki throwing them too) and go back down to holds. Inoki would hit an early back brain kick but Saito would answer with the Saito suplex. They jockeyed for position. Inoki could fight out of the corner but Saito could hit a clothesline out of nowhere. They were so equally matched. Inoki was lithe and sinewy and Saito squat and wide. You got the sense they might fight forever, even here, in the middle of the ring.

But then the MYSTERIOUS PIRATE GUY came down in his Jason mask and handcuffed Saito instead of Inoki and it got super weird. He semed to want Inoki to hit Saito and Inoki wanted nothing to do with it. Kinch says that this is because he handcuffed the wrong guy but it kind of tracks with him targeting Muto and then Muto's opponent (Fujinami) and just the sheer weird chaos he had brought to New Japan in the month or so he was around, so I don't know. But the post match got wild with Saito coming back with the handcuff broken but on his hand and starting to clobber Inoki with it and defiant beloved officials too. Inoki got opened up and then took apart the ring and had a pole for a while. They just kept going at it and it all ended with Inoki bellowing on the mic the most manly man that had ever manned up. I can't wait to see the April match between these two.

[Curt McGirt]

There was a clip I remember from the intro to the Island match where Saito was leaking all over the place; I wonder what that match was.

[Matt D]

3/26/87: Kengo Kimura vs Kerry Wilson: This was a different styles fight against a kickboxer. I have no idea exactly how Kimura's career shapes up after this. I think he has a tag title run at some point. He wrestles steadily for NJPW until 1999 or 2000 and then has a countdown to retirement deal in 2003 when he was around 50. So it's a good career. I don't even know how his 87 goes after this. He seems all over the place just looking at a few results. I do think there's a world where if they didn't screw this moment up and if Choshu/Saito didn't come back in, that he could have been the lead heel for the back half of 87. He had a lot of heat and buzz just for being away "training." And while won this in the second round with a belly to back and a strike, it sure felt like a disaster to me. Here's the thing. When Inoki "fights" a guy like this, he has a deal where he has the guy use his specialty on him for a bit and then he comes back and triumphs with superior wrestling and heart and whatever. Here, Kimura, positioned as a heel after what he had done back in January, got pressed into the corner with strikes, knocked down twice, with ease, and saved by the bell. It was a mauling. He threw a few strikes and got in a drop toehold. And in the normal Inoki format, that would have been ok, but the whole deal was that Kimura had gone off to train and should have been more dynamic out of the gate. He should have been everything he was before wrestling all of the UWF guys in 86 but leveled up and powered up and he absolutely wasn't. The finish was just him absorbing some shots and getting behind Wilson and getting him over. Maybe it looked worse to me with 2024 eyes detached from the situation, but the "Worked" parts of this were all wrong. It made Kimura look lucky or like he was able to do what any schlub who could hit a belly to back could do, not that he was more dangerous than ever.

EDIT: In retrospect and not seeing where things are going yet, I'd have booked him against Yamazaki instead and had him really bully him, showing off his new boxing or whatever. People seemed to understand that Yamazaki was a UWF guy, even if he was lowest on the totem pole. A really dominant performance against one of them feels like it would have meant more than this fluke win against a legit fighter. It would have also set up matches with Kimura and Kido or Fujiwara.

Edited January 18 by Matt D

[Matt D]

3/26/87: Funaki/Nogami vs Nakano/Anjo: Beats me. Handheld. Fairly far back. Black tights brigade. Everyone kind of wrestling the same. Funaki and Nogami with the same shaggy hair and only one side (theirs) being announced. What can I even say about this? Funaki and Nogami had more of a tendency to break up holds (often with cool shotgun dropkicks or diving stomps out of nowhere) and Nakano and Anjo tended to double team more. Lots of strong work on the mat, hard strikes/kicks (more from the Nakano/Anjo side), a pretty cool finish with kind of a steiner recliner/stretch plum type submission from the Funaki/Nogami side. I got nothing though. If I had a dozen of these matches I could figure these guys out. In one or two, it's just tough.

3/26/87: Koshinaka/Muto (c) vs Maeda/Takada: This whole Muto run is just so weird, isn't it? He's tag champion here but it's such a blip in his career. He'll go and become Super Black Ninja in PR and then The Great Muta and everything will change, but it's not like he's not positioned well here in 86-87, here and in NEW vs NOW that's ahead of me. It feels a little like how great Yamada looked in 86 during a year that's totally forgotten for him relative to what's ahead. I wouldn't say Muto looks quite as good, but he's increasingly better at hanging against these guys. Part of the problem, especially for Koshinaka, is that Takada levelled up during 86-87 too. So they ran this back 6 days after the final and the relatively shocking Koshinaka/Muto win. Muto would hold his own against Takada and Koshinaka even gain ground but then Maeda came in and just crushed Takada with the shove cut off out of the corner, followed by the Shelton benjamin T-Bone Powerslam and a pedigree without the arms hooked. Brutal stuff. It went back and forth from there with Koshinaka/Muto losing ground gradually as the match went on. By the end it felt like a hockey or soccer match where one team controlled the ball/puck for too long and it was all the other team could do to prevent a goal. Last time they had gotten lucky. This time, they did not and the UWF guys won.

 

[Matt D]

I am taking my good time getting through this stuff. It's ok. It just means I'm going to be 60 by the time I make it to NWO Muta or whatever.

4/6/87: Koshinaka/Fujinami vs Murdoch/Borne: Murdoch and Borne is a pretty awesome team. I use the word too much but Murdoch is so credible in NJPW. I'd outright call him a star. This is a guy who gets to the end of tournaments and causes everyone trouble. He's someone who's been there as Fujinami went from being a Junior to being a top guy. Maybe it's just me but there really is a sense that Fujinami shows himself as established as he is by standing next to Murdoch as an equal. Anyway, they beat on Koshinaka whenever he's in and then have trouble with Fujinami whenever he's in. There is hierarchy and Borne is less than Murdoch but he still looks solid. Fujinami opens Murdoch's nose in the corner which, to me, felt like Murdoch wanting to bust his own nose hardway but hard to say overall. Fujinami ends up with Borne in the end and decapitates him with his second best looking lariat of the match. Part of me wonders if there's some magical Fujinami/Hansen interaction from before he jumped which provided Fujinami with the lariat (could be Choshu too!). 

4/6/87: Inoki vs Bigelow: I wanted to go back and look at this because the announcers called Inoki something really cool like Cosmic Antonio Boar or something. I think it was WIND ANTONIO BOAR. Fine... let me do this. BURNING ANTONIO BOAR. There we go. The announcers love everything about Bigelow. And he gets chants. And he has the cool entrance with Larry Sharpe guiding him through the mist. It really did add to his act. Ok, so this stems right from what came before. Murdoch, bloodied up, is still in the ring. And he gets into it with Sharpe as Inoki just watches! It's a cool, confusing scene. This was another ultimately unsatisfying match hopefully on the road to first a satisfying payoff and second the debut of Vader as the leveling up of what Bigelow represented. Most important thing to know about this one is that Inoki kept going for a single leg and it kept backfiring, first with a Bigelow enziguiri and then, after he hit the rolling Liger (lemme look it up: Koppu!) kick by Bigelow jamming him and hitting the vertical splash drop on him. Finish was Sharpe holding Inoki's leg in the corner so Bigelow could body him with a cross body block in the corner. That was the very disappointing DQ but no one cared because after the match when Bigelow tried to splash Inoki off the top, Murdoch ran out to save him and they cleared the ring. Great "turn" here. I was very into it. Side note: There were a bunch of tv hosts or something there and we kept getting goofy reaction shots. I'm sure this means something to someone at the time but I have no idea.

4/6/87: Maeda/Kido vs Bad News Allen/Ray Candy: Bad News just never translates quite how you'd like in New Japan for some reason. Part of it might be because he tends to be a support player, but I don't know. This had a Maeda training video to start but we only get a few minutes. Kido cannot handle Candy's sheer size. He can take down Bad News though. Bad News, however, catches him with a clothesline out of nowhere for an anticlimactic finish. If we had the other 6 minutes here, there might have been something interesting. 

Edited January 24 by Matt D

[Curt McGirt]

Dick would have certainly been a great spoiler candidate for a G1 run. 

[Matt D]

4/13/87: Maeda vs Koshinaka: This was a good sort of leveling up match for Koshinaka. I'll say this. He could rope run really well with Maeda. Story of the match was that Koshinaka got back in it or got a chance (first with the butt butt and then with the crab) by successfully anticipating the spin wheel kick. But Maeda would grind him down other times. Eventually, Maeda hit one without a warm up, flooring Koshinaka. He finished it with a nasty one and the t-bone power slam.

4/13/87: Fujinami vs Bam Bam: Murdoch was out there to counteract Sharpe but he never quite did. This stemmed from a previous match between them where Sharpe had drawn the DQ almost immediately. They showed Fujinami getting off the train in Hiroshima and getting swarmed by fans and then cutting a promo which was the Japanese version of the "Well, let me tell you something brother..." about how one should try to win and do one's best and please watch and all that stuff. Sharpe threw pins out to the crowd and put one on the announcer. Commentary were gaslighting people by saying Inoki had successfully worked the legs in the match a week prior. He'd tried and failed. Fujinami did much better, throwing a lot of kicks and getting takedowns. They call an avalanche in the corner a "Flying sausage" by the way. I'm not making this up. And Bam Bam's body slam was the deadly driver. Anyway Fujinami almost has a slam and Sharpe interferes but doesn't get DQed.. That lets Bam Bam get a Sunset flip of all things and win it.

4/13/87: Inoki/Kimura vs Bad News/Ray Candy: Urgh. Fine. Let's just give up on the Kimura push before it starts. He was very "Big Daddy's buddy" here. He got a few shots in on Candy now and again (and Candy needed to eye rake to get him off of him) but he got beaten on a lot. Inoki got beat on some too and after making a big tag to Kimura, ol' Kengo got beaten down (including a running charge by Candy to squish him when he was in Bad News' arms for a running power slam) and they ran out of time for the show. Kimura's just another guy again. Ah well. The most interesting thing the commentators said about him (past noting his win vs Wilson) was that he was wearing short pants instead of long pants. That was 30 seconds right there.