Matt D

At this point, the card for the New Years Eve USSR show is... Inoki/Chochishvili vs Saito/Rheingans Berkovich vs Bigelow Liger vs Black Tiger Choshu vs Zangiev Hashimikov vs Manny Hashimoto vs Sulsaev Iizuka vs Kobayashi Chono vs Eveloev Hase vs Victashev in a Sambo match. 12/6/89: Riki Choshu vs Masahiro Chono: The other semi final. On the one hand, they've been allies. On the other, they're both spirited jerks. That means Chono slaps him on a break early and then Choshu makes him really pay for it. After getting beaten up a bit, Chono comes back in and pulls back the turnbuckle pad. That lets Chono beat the crap out of Choshu, honing in on the forehead until Chono gets under him for a Saito suplex. Choshu's bleeding so he takes Chono out and posts him head first. Now Chono's bleeding. He comes back with a back brain kick. He hits a neckbreaker, gets the flying shoulder tackle, an inverted atomic drop and the STF(!) but can't put Choshu away; he gets to the ropes. Chono presses including a dubious octopus but then messes up on a charge and goes tumbling through the ropes, hurting his leg. Choshu capitalizes including with this outside in walking suplex that's great, and finishes him off with a Scorpion for the tap. Hashimoto was watching from the crowd. Felt like a big bloody match that maybe needed a couple more minutes in the middle. 12/6/89: Iizuka vs Habeli Victashev: They're debuting Victashev here and he wears a sambo jacket even though Iizuka doesn't. We're coming in at the 3rd round here and I have to assume Victashev dominated the first two because Iizuka takes all of the rest. He's able to scramble away from things and use the jacket for leverage for some truly great takeovers and holds, and even drive Victashev out. In the fourth round he almost wins it with a choke, but Victashev is saved by the bell. In the fifth round he's hefted over and Victashev gets a cross arm breaker over for a tap. The suddenness of the win helped to put Victashev over but Iizuka looked like a killer here. 12/7/89: Chono vs Manny: Manny controlled a lot of this. He was a canny worker, a guy who was very good at going into business for himself though given his options in the business at this point, it's not like he wasn't going to play ball. That meant he lost after Chono finally came back with the Samoan drop, got cut off going for the shoulder, dodged a top rope move, hit the shoulder block, and then put on the STF. But before that, Manny ground him down and hit his back elbow and basically whatever else he wanted to do to Chono. For his training and his push, I do get the sense Chono was still a bit of smoke and mirrors in there, though he was coming along more and more every week. 12/7/89: Williams/Rheingans vs Hashimikov/Zangiev: On paper this looked amazing. They were hyping this as a big end of tour match and a clash of cultures, going on about Russian classical music vs Prince and different foods, etc. Doc works these guys on the mat differently than almost anyone I've seen him work. Really reveling in it and that's saying a lot given his usual energy. Here, though, we start with Brad and Zangiev and they do a great job scrambling, getting under one another for throws and takedowns, bridging out of things, really strong matwork. Doc comes in and they hit a double suplex on Zangiev but Hashimikov is able to reset things against Doc. They're like two bulls going head to head and pushing each other around. Again, great matwork that feels a bit different than Zangiev/Rheingans in its rawness. Doc almost breaks his back straining Hashimikov over with little gain and then he gets under him and just dumps him. It's gripping stuff. The struggle for holds continues as Rheingans comes in and tries (and fails) for a German, but Hashimikov gets ones and we get Zangiev. He really can't even do his bridging tricks here because they're going so hard. Eventually he and Hashimikov get a revenge double suplex on Brad. But Doc keeps breaking up pins which allows Brad to hit a german and get Doc in for top rope Hart Attack and the stampede. they stay chippy post match. 12/7/89: Hase vs Victashev: This time Hase has the jacket too. We come in JIP again and Hase is dogwalking Victashev, including using the coat to drag him down and putting on a figure four. Victashev comes back in pissed, loses the coat, and the fans go nuts for it. Hase eventually loses his too and they go at it. They trade suplexes (great ones) until Hase gets on a very nice Octopus for the win. Victashev can get his win back in the USSR.

FFXII has grown on me. I have almost zero memory of the part of the game I'm on (Salikawood) from when the game first came out, so that's refreshing. I basically play it like Gauntlet where I just ram my character into enemies as the autofighting does its thing. The Zodiac Age job deal helps because it means you differentiate your characters. I almost wish I could get three classes now because I'm out of interesting things to buy. It's my own fault for grinding a bit at one point.

More of the 12/6/89 card. We don't have the opener so I still don't get to see Hiroshi Dairi. Ah well. Hiroshi Hase & Kuniaki Kobayashi vs. George Takano & Super Strong Machine: We haven't seen Takano and SSM tag all that much in the back third of the year. SSM starts this out by just clocking Kobayashi for no reason. Hase and Kobayashi are feisty thought and fight back. SSM makes it hard with a headbutt out of the corner but he does get swept under for a bit. Just for a bit as he and Takano get Kobayashi in the corner. These SSM/Takano matches are always extremely back and forth, and it's not long before Hase is suplexing Takano. They do a deal where where Hase controls with a fireman's carry into different things. Here he hits Takano with a gutbuster using Kobayashi's knee from the apron and it looks great. Before he had done it to SSM with his throat over the top rope. It pays off down the line as Takano is able to turn a fireman's carry attempt into a roll up which lets him tag SSM and set up the hot finishing stretch. It's full of bombs as you'd expect before Takano jams a Kobayashi roll up to win. As far as SSM/Takano tags go, this one was pretty good. Kantaro Hoshino & Shiro Koshinaka vs. Blond Outlaws (Norio Honaga & Tatsutoshi Goto): First third of this was all Outlaws. Whenever Hoshino would scramble to make a tag or get a flurry in, the Outlaws would either double team from behind, drive him into the corner, or rake the eyes and then just grind down on Hoshino or Koshinaka. It looked like Shiro was going to take over with a grab but Goto walked right in and kicked him and then tossed things outside for more of a beating. They really milked the comeback. They tossed Shiro into the corner, Goto missed, but Shiro ran right into Honaga's knee to the gut. He made the tag but they still made Hoshino really fight to battle back. Then they got some solid revenge on Honaga including a spike pile driver and crotching him on the post at least. Everything went crazy with the stretch as you imagine and it ended with the ref distracted and an assisted foul atomic drop (which looked brutal) on Hoshino. Fun stuff, more of the same of the Outlaws run but Hoshino always adds aa lot. Brad Rheingans vs. Salman Hashimikov: Rheingans has looked very good in all of 89 to be honest, and comes off as credible. They announced the main event of the USSR show at the end of the month and It's Inoki/Shota Chochishvili vs Saito/Rheingans and Dave got pissy about it like Rheingans wasn't going to do his part in ring. They hit the mat hard here, going hold for hold, counter for counter, constantly getting little bits of leverage to escape. Midway through Brad opened things up with shots, but Hashimikov came back with a belly to belly. He followed it up with the waterwheel drop but Brad got a foot on the rope. Most people do not survive that even that way. Brad came back with a German and a small package, but Hashimikov was able to turn it over for the win. Osamu Kido vs. Victor Zangiev: Very scrappy on the mat. These two match up well. For a lot a match they teased the swivel Zangiev escape but Kido shut it down. Zangiev finally got it and escaped a headscissors but Kdio stayed on him. Eventually Zangiev got him off the rope with a belly to belly, but when he went for a gutwrench, Kido got his signature reversal pin on for 3. Remember, Kido was pushed enough in the midcard in Fall 89 that he was #2 in his block. Steve Williams vs. Shinya Hashimoto: This aired and was a semi-final match. Big clash of the titans as you'd expect. First third was pretty even with them trading holds on the mat. Then things opened up and got chippy. Doc started slapping but Hashimoto won the exchange with kicks. Doc was riled up and reset and then got a press slam and posed big. He posted Hashimoto on the outside and tried some weird sort of step over inverted crab on back on the inside. He was firmly in control here. He picked him up dropped him in a sort of spinebuster slam, used a rear chinlock and a bearhug. But then doc jawed with the ref and Hashimoto came back with a DDT and kicks and the spin wheel kick. Doc fought back, hitting a stampede but Hashimot got his feet on the ropes. Doc set things up to hit a football charge but knocked him out. He hit a sloppy German on the floor, just tossing him about. Then he missed a clothesline into the post, Hash missed the spin wheel kick into the post, and Hash avoided the running stampede into the post to sneak in for a countout win and to go on to the finals. Another big countout win for him.

They need the lyrics on screen with a bouncing Místico head. Been saying this for months.

I am not going to follow the results of the round robin tournament too closely, but it's important to know that the matches below are the quarterfinals, and here were the final standings (no idea if this will format ok). Block A Block B Block C Block D Riki Choshu 8 Masahiro Chono 8 Salman Hashimikov 8 Steve Williams 8 Victor Zangiev 6 Shinya Hashimoto 6 Brad Rheingans 6 Osamu Kido 6 Kengo Kimura 4 Manny Fernandez 4 Hiroshi Hase 0 Shiro Koshinaka 2 Wayne Bloom 2 Timur Zalasov 2 George Takano 4 Super Strong Machine 2 Buzz Sawyer 0 Andrei Sulsaev 0 Tatsutoshi Goto 2 Vladimir Berkovich 2 12/5/89: Hashimoto vs Hashimikov: Super heavyweight war. They were fairly even early. Hashimoto got the first takedown/armbar, but then Hashimikov hefted him over bigger for one of his own. It opened up when Hashimikov did a rolling legpick to get a head under his leg and just forcing him up and down. He followed it up with a few suplexes including an exploder power slam and beating him on the outside. Hashimoto got a hope spot by jamming a belly to belly on the ropes and getting a punch in but Hashimikov got him down with a spinning waterwheel front slam (only for 2 though). He went for the waterwheel drop again and Hashimoto punched out of it to get a DDT, the spin wheel kick and a strong small package for the win. Big win for Hashimoto. Another elevation. 12/5/89: Choshu vs Kido: Kind of crazy that Kido came second in his Block too. Blond Outlaws with batman shirts are out to challenge Choshu some more to start. This is a good TV Choshu match. Kido drives him down twice early with Fujiwara armbars. Choshu comes back by picking up the pace and putting on a headscissors of his own. Kido is able to fire back keeping things fairly even. Choshu is just too much though hits a suplex and goes for the Scorpion Deathlock but Kido turns it into a pretty swank leglock. He can't put Choshu away and Choshu drops him with a lariat (doesn't get the win with it) and a second to finally win. Kido looked good and that just made Choshu look better in the win. 12/5/89: Chono vs Rheingans: We get this JIP after a commercial. Rheingans came in second in his Block and was built up big and legitimate so for Chono to go so even on him was a big deal. This was half and half really. Chono got a dropkick early but they traded suplexes and holds for much of this. Chono hit a top rope kneedrop and later on the flying shoulder tackle. He chose to go for an octopus rather than the STF, but Rheingans came back with his tilt-a-whirl off the ropes and a German. Chono survived it to roll through a slam for a small package of his own to move on. Not quite the emotional oomph of the Hash vs Hash match but Chono came out of this looking credible. 12/5/89: Williams vs Zangiev: An awesome 8 minutes. Just really taking it to the mat. Pure wrestling. You have to figure they were shooting a bit. At one point, Doc actually rides him with his arms out which you never see in pro wrestling. Zangiev gets a leg in to try to jam a belly to belly and Doc muscles him over anyway. But Zangiev also gets a great armbar and lifts him up by one leg and spins him around before dropping him. So this was very even but they wrestle it as hard as possible. They fight over every inch. Later in the match, Doc locks in a great over the shoulder backbreaker, but Zangiev flips out and Doc misses a dropkick. Then they're right back into the scrapping. Things spill to the floor and Doc struggles and struglges but suplexes Zangiev over the rail from the outside in. Then, back in the ring. Zangiev slams him and goes to the top! What the hell was he doing up there. Regardless, he missed a flip senton and a minute later Doc survived a belly belly and hit a lariat and the stampede and that was it. I really enjoyed this. 12/6/89: Sano vs Nogami: Very rare handheld. We had three of the big matches but not the rest of the card, so no one's gone through this undercard. This didn't have the wild animosity of their last encounters from summer, but it was good with the sort of action-packed stretch you'd expect. They're a little hard to tell apart as both of them have red tights, but Nogami has a white stripe and Sano a black one. Good chain wrestling to start with a lot of the usual junior heavyweight stuff like bridges into monkey flips. They really traded holds. You'd get a Nogami camel clutch and half crab then Sano using a spin kick and a Boston Crab and going for the tapitia. He opened things up a bit with a pile driver. but eventually, Nogami foght back with another half crab. That led to the extended finishing stretch. Nogami charged in with an awesome running jumping knee, but sano did a backflip when he tried another whip. He went for a German but Nogami landed on him. Nogami went for a tombstone but Sano reversed it. Sano missile dropkicked him out and hit a plancha.Nogami was able to suplex him from the mat tot he floor and hit a dive of his own. Then he got a German. Sano got a nearfall on a victory roll. Then they both cut each other off in rope rnning with dropkicks to the gut before Sano cut nogami off when he went off the top rope with a dropkick to the gut and followed it up with a double stomp for the win. Crazy stretch like usual really. 12/6/89: Kimura vs Manny Fernandez: Kimura really feels like 89 Tito Santana, a solid midcard guy who will hit his flying forearm (Inazuma leg lariat) but not win the match with it and probably not win at all. Good rope running early with Kimura keeping advantage and Manny disengaging. That leg lariat comes quite early and drives Manny out. Manny comes back and takes over and controls most of the rest with a lot of brisk, stark attacks like a short back elbow and draping Kimura back over the top rope on the apron and whacking him. Eventually, Kimura floats over on a second suplex attempt and gets a backslide to win. Not a bad match but pretty much just a match.

The Global Wars intro was the worst thing I've heard in a while. "They come from different borders, not to coexist but to collide. For one night, the world steps into the same arena. Legacies carried across oceans. Rivalries forged in different rings. Pride written in different languages, but understood the same way. Where lucha meets strong-style. Where technical mastery meets raw power. Where champions don't represent brands; they represent where they come from. Because on this night, every match is a statement. This is global wars, and when the dust settles. When the flags fall. When the world thinks the story is finished. That's when it begins. Because night one isn't the ending. It's the spark. Uprising isn't about introductions. It's about repercussions. Every alliance will be tested. Every rivalry is intensified. Every victory from night one comes with a price. This is where momentum will turn into movement. Where unfinished business becomes unavoidable. Two nights. One battlefield. When these worlds collide, nothing will stay the same." And Mauro is terrible. I couldn't have told you why I disliked him yesterday because I blocked it out but listening now... he just takes up all the air. Callis would set Ian up for something and Mauro would shout over them to call a missile dropkick. There's no sense of storytelling to the way he commentates. Either he gets whatever's happening completely wrong or he's so focused on calling moves that you almost can't even pay attention to what's happening in the ring. I just muted it because I couldn't focus on whatever was happening. And I'll keep those thoughts here because I know the guy has had mental health issues and i'm not going to post it anywhere he can see it, but it was that bad to me.

11/29/89: Blonde Outlaws (Honaga/H.Saito/Goto) vs Kobayashi/Hase/Koshinaka: I can't even begin to express how the Outlaws (now called that as well as the Wild Trio or "Saito's Joker Gang") have changed the midcard. Just an entirely different feel of out of control and underhanded violence. We get the entrances and they ambush to start but then the TV goes to commercial. When we come back, Hase is an absolute bloody mess. Dripping with blood. Hase is so good fighting back with fire (even if it fails), and with the wind up before the clotheslines before the stretch. He learned from Choshu and Hase. When things spill to the outside they take out Kobayashi and Koshinaka with chairs too. They cycle through the beatings until Kobayashi can come back big with the baseball slide. They all beat on Goto for a bit but Koshinaka gets swept back over until Saito misses a senton off the second rope and Hase comes in hot and things ultimately break down. They've almost been overexposed because already the low blow (this time Honaga) finish has to be tweaked and added on to. And they go a few more rotations after it due to people breaking pins before Honaga tries a wind up lariat on his own and gets rolled up by Hase. 11/29/89: Choshu/Chono vs Hashimoto/Super Strong Machine: Pre-match, the Outlaws come out (all wearing Batman movie logo shirts because it's 1989 of course) and give Choshu some sort of note of challenge. More about this when I hit the end of the year but Choshu is really getting it from every side. In some ways he's gotten what he's always wanted and is in the Inoki role, but at such a cost, and so much of it is the world he made. More later. Here, Chono and Hash went right at it. Hash got the best of it and he and SSM started in on him. When Chono started to fight back, Hash cut him off including with a big headbutt and sent him into the corner so that Choshu could come out. Fans popped big and Choshu immediately got one over on him. SSM came in and they stayed on him. He got some hope spots but they cut him off (including with Chono's top rope shoulder block). Eventually he got Choshu to the corner and they stomped him until Hash could take over. Lots of fight though. they beat on him a bit and then Chono once he got in. Lots of one holding their opponent down (they kept moving through Chono and Choshu) so the other could attack or cutting off hope spots with double teaming. Hash hit the DDT on Choshu but didn't go for a pin. Chono cycled in again and ate a belly to back and then a DDT for him too, followed by a Spike piledriver. Honestly, this match is a little off the rails at this point. But without the chaos of SSM/Takano matches. Eventually Choshu comes in hot and holds off Hashimoto long enough for Chono to recover and hit his samoan drop. After that both he and then Choshu try to choke him out only for SSM to come flying in with a top rope headbutt. This is a bit of a mess now. SSM holds Chono for the spin wheel kick. They shove the ref down as they try to beat on Choshu and this thing is over. Good animosity but a kind of dubious match. 11/29/89: Williams vs Kido: They show us a 1990 calendar here to start and the most interesting thing is that Muto is there. Doc's out to Born in the USA. Doc ambushed to start but Kido slipped out on a charge into the post on the floor and worked the arm a bit. They shot a bit on the mat with Kido containing him but it didn't quite have the zing I'd expect. Kido sidestepped on rope running to get a body block but then ran into a knee to the gut and Doc won with the stampede. Kind of subdued all things considered. 11/29/89: Takano vs Hashimikov: Fun ten minute match. It was basically your move/my move with no major transitions but the moves were so different that it worked. They tried to mat wrestle to start (Takano had no chance). He was able to pull Hashimikov out and toss him to the rail though. Back in the ring, Hashimikov took over with meaty shots that Takano sold like death. Then they cycled. Takano would hit a kick (spin wheel, enziguiri, spinning heelbutt), but then Hashimikov would come back with a brutish throw (fisherman's, gutwrench, etc.). And finally he just hefted him up for the waterwheel drop, just bruting him over. There was something raw and uncooperative to this that worked even if it's basically just a fun tv match. PIONEER SENSHI 10/26/89: I just wanted to take a quick look what Ryuma Go was up to. Very quick. We have two matches handheld from this show. There was a match between his trainees: Hiroshi Itakura and Hideki Kawauchi. They go for 20 with a ton of very fun matwork actually, where they go up to every suplex under the sun, some of which executed well and some of which just wild (like a butterfly suplex that's an atomic drop basically), and then back to matwork. No rhyme or reason. One guy with black boots and one with white but otherwise hard to tell the difference, with plenty of strikes. There's struggle. They do a lot of strikes to unlock suplexes and just wild kicks, but it's just ...stuff. But still neat I guess to see what two kids sent out there would do. And the main event was Go vs Fumihiro Niikura who was one of the Viet Cong with Hase. He suffered a heart attack in 86 when he was just around 30 and while he has a comeback here, he must have felt like the odd man out who was missing out on what everyone else was doing. He came in with a bandaged leg and this was fairly conservative for most of the match. Go would go after it but that let Niikura catch him with other holds. He did get at it a few times. You kind of kept waiting for this to open up and it did mid way with niikura having this weird demonstrative kind of over the top and dramatic offense. Big sweeping stuff, very theatrical and offputting. Like an uppercut that came at a weird angle or just kind of a weird looking pile driver or neckbreaker drop or later on a dropkick that sent Go out of the ring. Go did come back and constrain things again with holds and later on kicks. Later on Niikura hit a crazy powerbomb where the body just contracted in all sorts of weird ways but Go came back with a belly to back and then took the leg out, though things just kind of kept rolling. This felt kind of formless and experimental to me over all. Not quite exhibition-y, but more that it didn't know what it wanted to be. They did a lot of cool stuff as it went on but it didn't have the sort of weight or consequence I would have wanted. While still not being a bomb fest since they went back down to holds.Just... Indie wrestling, you know? even in 1989 Japan. Finish had Niikura get a Fujiwara off a belly to back attempt by Go. I'll check back in now and again but only now and again. Anyway, on to December.

I loved Christian in the Sabian/Luchasaurus tag. Less so in the FTR tag which made no sense structurally. But Christian was such a shitty tag team partner in that match and it was super entertaining. I wish we had seen ten matches with them teaming so far since this started instead of just one or two. Very "love to hate" type character in a way that's rarely been done in wrestling.

The writing was on the wall (though we didn't realize it at the time) as things were headed into Infinite Crisis or even a while before. There was going to be a nostalgic pushback against the changes wrought in the 90s (Wally, Kyle, etc). People who grew up with something (Johns especially but not only) were desperate to reclaim it. It meant a further splintering and shattering of narrative coherency (which while fabricated, was also part of the draw of the entire notion of a shared fictional universe), which ultimately weakened the entire architectural structure and allowed for everything to just be torn down. Short term gains with long-term costs. If the planning was perfect, if the creative was perfect, maybe it would have still worked and grown into something strong, but we've heard horror story after horror story about how the launch was run. And here we are now in a world of temporary unsustainable success with the Absolute line once again. They'll have to come up with something else in a few years, so on and so forth. Maybe that's for the best. Maybe the weight of time shifting and legacy characters would have caused it all to implode ten years later like Marvel has to a degree. But it does feel like the end of the "sure thing."

Couple of notes. Saito is training Kitao which is why SSM is teaming with Hashimoto. Buzz Sawyer signed with WCW and Wayne Bloom is in instead. Not sure if he's in the tourney. Liger is in Mexico. Vader is in both Mexico and Germany. According to Snowden, the 11/29 UWF show is mostly considered shoots. At the time, Dave said there were two matches that were (the Anjo one and likely the Suzuki one). It got almost 60K people and was the third largest crowd of the modern era basically. 11/26/89: This was a handheld, and it's rough to be honest. Most of the HHs we have for NJPW in this period are filmed very clearly even if from a far vantage point. This one is in between people and you lose the action at times, especially when things go to the floor. That said, this was an excellent single show for the five matches we have and in some ways an important one, so what are you going to do? 11/26/89: Hashimoto vs Chono (Block B): Here's the big grudge match and we just have it on blurry obscured fancam. This goes pretty long and does feel weighty. To me the comparison point here remains 1991 Kawada vs Taue. They had a slap fest early. Hash got an advantage, but Chono caught the kick and got a very early dragon screw into STF. Hash made it to the ropes though. Big, big start. They reset to a double wristlock jousting and each person having advantage with holds, with them going even at times. Very methodical. You more or less bought Chono being technical enough (trained by Thesz after all) to hang even if it meant Hash didn't seem like quite a beast as usual. Chono ran into a super kick which let Hash take over. He had these powerslams he did where he'd run around the ring to it and then just push Chono off of him. Pretty brutal looking even if it was less of an impact than usual. Just showed control. Chono would come back but would mostly control Hash with chinlocks and what not. Hash pried off a leg to get free and hit a huge running forearm. Chono was able to catch him for the samoan drop (which looks more painful than any ever), followed by the shoulder block off the top and another STF. Hash made it to the ropes, but Chono hit an enziguiri and dropkick only to miss a spin wheel kick. Hash followed with that rolling arm whip and Chono seemed out. Hash kicked hi to the floor. He beat the count but seemed dead to the world as Hash slammed him and tossed him off the ropes for the spin wheel kick; Chono just fell out of the ring as he hit the ropes though. He was being heavily protected here. Hash put him against the ropes and hit the spin wheel kick off of them but Chono kicked out somehow. So Hash hefted him up to the second rope and hit a second rope DDT (for the first time). Chono kicked out of THAT too and this is getting a little ridiculous. Then Chono got right behind him and hit a shock belly to back for a banana peel win. Hashimoto was pissed. But it was a big elevation for Chono. 11/26/89: H.Saito/Honaga vs Kobyashi/Koshinaka: I love this Kobayashi vs Wild Trio mini feud as the juniors of Choshu's army explode. There are people keeping them apart to start but that just lets Honaga and Saito ambush. We roll into woundwork on a bloody Kobayashi almost instantly, and if we had this one proshot I think it'd be a big deal in our circles honestly. Maybe there's an object, maybe there's not. Mabye it's just Saito with these big hamhock overhand punches as Honaga holds him. But it's brutal nonetheless. Lots of hammering down and biting. Koshinaka gets in but gets swept under immediately. Honaga chokes him with wrist tape after a double team. He tries to fire back but gets taken out by a gut shot by Saito and then an eyerake by Honaga, but Koshinaka is finally able to drive Honaga into the corner and Kobayashi comes in furious. He hits the baseball slide and things become chaotic on the outside. Saito takes over with a slam but misses the senton and Kobayashi tags in Koshinaka who hits the butt butt on both guys, to set up the stretch. It gets wild as Goto tries to intervene but Kobayashi is able to avoid a double team; Honaga dropkicks Saito by accident and Kobayashi rolls him up. Feels like a huge win against the Trio even if it was not taped. 11/26/89: Hase vs Goto (Block C): In some ways, the least of the matches we have here, but at the same time the Wild Trio/Blonde Outlaws were so wild and this was Goto stretching as a singles. Chaotic to start as it Hase tosses him, but it calms down with Goto in charge, using eyerakes and headbutts to keep Hase from fighting back. Goto tries for a belly to back but Hase turns it into a headlock and then rolls with the arm to take over. He's very demonstrative as usual. Big shots. Big playing to the crowd. Goto comes back with a gut shot, but Hase wrestles his way back into it. He does a big wind up Lariat, hits a very nice German, and then the exploder but can't win. He slaps the mat afterwards which is way better than shocked face. Goto tries for a grab but Hase almost gets the Fujiwara reversal. Goto jams it however, and hits his back drop driver for the win. Feels like an upset but I guess we're just in a new world (plus guys have to lose in the Blocks). 11/26/89: Choshu/Kimura/Hashimikov vs Williams/Bloom/Rheingans: The last tour ended with Choshu and Hashimikov teaming as a new sort of Super Powers. Doc being back in is a shot in the arm as this immediately has an huge over the top feel. I feel like we haven't seen a ton of Doc and Choshu up against each other but they go right at it. Tons of intensity. Choshu hits a Lariat but doc eats it, falling out of the ring but coming right back in. He drives Choshu to the corner and Brad takes over until Choshu can get a back elbow. Then we get Hashimikov and he hits one suplex and a cross arm breaker before Doc breaks it up. That lets Brad hit a suplex of his own. and Doc to hit a power slam (Bloom hits a leg drop right after but who cares). Kimura makes it in and works Bloom for a bit before everything spills out. Choshu comes in hot before everything breaks down and becomes chaos. After Choshu/Hashimikov hit a double suplex on Bloom, the ref gets control and things settled down to Brad vs Choshu. Brad hits his cool gutwrench and Bloom comes in vs Kimura again. Kimura hits the leg lariat. Choshu gets the Scorpion on but its broken up. Hashimikov gets to hit the waterwheel drop however, and that's the match. Less than 9 minutes and basically a bombfest sprint. 11/26/89: Sano vs Hata: There's a stretch in the middle here which is just insane. Twenty years before its time insane, for good and bad. Before that, Hata controlled most of this with holds. He'd vary it, but did a camel clutch and inverted surfboard (Sano went out through the ropes to escape). He worked the back more than anything else, including a nice legdrop onto it and a bodyscissors. Sano took over by getting a leg out of that body scissors and hit a tombstone. Hata came back with a pile driver. Then things went nuts. Sano dropkicked Hata out. Sano missed a dive (tope) into the rail. Hata hit a flipping senton splash off the apron as Sano got up. He dropkicked Sano off the apron as he tried to come in but Sano came in the second time with a springboard dropkick. He went for a top rope move but Hata pushed him off and hit a missile dropkick, knocking him out. Hata then missed a plancha. Sano followed it up with a top rope dive to the floor. Just nuts. Hata tried to get on his Gory special finish but Sano escape. they went into a hot finishing stretch. Sano hit a sort of Jeff Hardy flipping reverse enziguiri which I haven't seen before chronologically, off a caught kick. And then the Tiger Suplex for the win. Wild match.

UWF 2.0 U-COSMOS~! 11/29/89: This was the big swing by the UWF who sold a bazillion tickets in the Tokyo dome and shamed NJPW to try to do just as good in February (we shall see). The premise here were all the main UWF guys vs different kickboxers and wrestlers and fighters, etc. and I have no idea if these are shoots or not but my gut says yes for some and I'll talk about those as I go. Tatsuo Nakano vs. Shigeo Miyato: This was the dark match to the show, as best as I can tell, in as it shows up before the opening ceremony and it's the only fight without outsiders. It's very good though. I love this rivalry. This was worked like a normal UWF 2.0 match in my estimation. They went hard right from the start and Nakano got an early advantage with his heft hitting an early German. I like the idea that he's been leveling up/training so between that and the incentive to go harder than usual given the crowd, Miyato wasn't going to be able to rope-a-dope him like usual. Miyato went harder than usual himself and got an advantage chaining a few things (including a belly to belly and a brisk belly to back followed by a sharp punch for the second down and his spin kick for a third), but Nakano was able to survive a half crab. I get the sense Miyato was really feeling it here and for once he made a rare mistake allowing Nakano to capture him on a kick and hit a suplex, followed by a cross face chicken wing before finally winning with a rear naked choke. He'd come a long way. Great rivalry. Fun fight. Different Style Fight Yoji Anjo vs. Changpuek Kiatsongrit: I admit that I came in wanting to see this Thai kickboxer absolutely demolish Anjo's face, but that is not at all what happened. This, to me, felt like a shoot, in the worst, most boring ways. Basically, He'd do low kicks, Anjo would charge in, and he'd go right to the ropes, forcing a break. Anjo got more and more frustrated but didn't make mistakes. There were rounds of this. At one point, Anjo went to the middle of the ring and flexed his fingers to try to beckon him in and he got a huge pop for that. He was fearless, just charging in again and again, and would start to try to drag Kiatsongrit's face across the ropes, just anything he could to open this up. He got a front face lock in the ropes, even in a disadvanteous positon and tried to hang on just because it'd be something, but it was broken up and this went to a draw. I do think Anjo came out of it looking very good though. Different Style Fight Minoru Suzuki vs. Maurice Smith: Another one that looked like a shoot to me but in a far more brutal way. Smith hit very, very hard and he bloodied Suzuki early. Suzuki would try for double legs but he'd get squashed on the mat and have to retreat. He'd just get bloodier and bloodier as Smith got shots in, going down but fighting his way back up to a huge pop (though using up his downs). Eventually, he did get him over once or twice and it felt like a huge victory when he did, but he ultimately took one shot too many and couldn't beat the count. He did come off as brave and tough, but pretty ineffectual too. Different Style Fight Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Dick Leon Vrij: Another one that looked like a shoot. Fujiwara could do almost nothing against Vrij's reach advantage but he kept trying to catch the leg and take him down. He took a ton of shots in the process and looked pretty battered (and kind of old) but he kept on trying. Vrij would scramble away if he did get him down. But in the second round, he caught a foot and twisted and there was an instant tap, one that almost discredited the way leglocks usually worked in a way that could have been dangerous to UWF's credability actually. He then refused to let go and the corner guys had to shove him off, and things got heated for a minute. He looked shaken up after the fact but this was like the NWO losing for the first time. The Japanese really needed a win here and it felt like a big deal. Different Style Fight Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Chris Dolman: This was a judo jacket match, more or less. I'm less confident about this one, but I think by the end, I was convinced it was a shoot, I think. Dolman was an absolute beast here. Yamazaki would try kicks and he'd just close the distance and grab onto the gi and toss him around. Yamazaki's best stuff was a couple of times where he rode it down and got a choke with the gi itself but he couldn't put him away. It was a testament that he lasted a few rounds obviously. Dolman looked like the only person in the world who had a chance against him was Maeda. Even when Yamazaki shot in, Dolman's size was just too much. A few rounds in, he got in a triangle/armbar and that was it. Different Style Fight Nobuhiko Takada vs. Duane Koslowski: Koslowski was a 1988 US greco-roman olympian. THIS felt like a work to me. Things like the UWF style legbars (even from Koslowski!) and a half crab. Takada threw kicks and got a knockdown early with one to the gut but not nearly as many as he would have won with. While Koslowski could own him on the mat if he got his arms around him, I just don't think he'd have an answer for those kicks if Takada really went in on them. It was nice to hear the corner guy go on and on the whole time for him. If Koslowski had decided to go to NJPW and debut alongside Kitao he could have been huge for them. He had the look and obvious skills. Anyway, I just wasn't buying this the same way. The kicks did keep coming, even if I thought Takada could have won earlier with them. After 4 knockdowns, Koslowski got a great German, but Takada worked it arond into a cross armbreaker. This was interesting but it didn't have the same zing as the rest of the card. I think it would have been more gripping on another card though. Different Style Fight Akira Maeda vs. Willy Wilhelm: This actually felt a bit like the NJPW vs the World series and now it was 2-2-1 with this match being the tie breaker. Wilhelm was a dutch judoka who was an Olympian and world champ. I see Vrij and Barrett at ringside watching among the camera people. I'm leaning work on this one too, but it was fun. Just a scrappy round and a half where both guys were constantly cutting off one another as they tried things and working the mat. At one point, Wilhelm got up and put his hands up and grunted and it was time to start the striking (that's in part why I'm leaning work past just the whole feel of it). Second round had them scrapping again until Maeda started in on the legs, and then got one of those criss-cross leg scissors type takedowns into a legbar. Wilhelm screamed and tried to hold out but tapped. Interesting show and obviously a huge success.

FMW 10/10/89: Onita vs Aoyagi: Doubling back for this. While Onita in some ways feels like a mortal who has inherited some of Inoki's godlike power, this also feels like it taps so much into Choshu vs Maeda. Here, Onita tags Aoyagi right at the start with a straight shot and drives him out. They go back and forth but it's all brutal. The ref gets battered around in the process. Onita grinds him on the mat with a full nelson after battering him the corner. Aoyagi comes back both with kicks and then just elbowing his skull from behind as he almost jumps on Onita's back. The fans are into all of it and chanting (I think for Onita but I can't tell; that would be a change). Aoyagi comes out strong with kicks in the second round but Onita takes him down and Aoyagi sells a dubious armhold huge before putting on an armbar of his own. At the start of the third, Onita thows his towel and screams at Aoyagi. Aoyagi then just takes him down three times with kicks, each set more brutal than the last. The third had Onita fall to his knees and just get pegged right in the face before stumbling out. The whole round is brutal. He hit a senton. He did a rolling kappo kick as Onita tried to get back in. He just stepped on him. Onita's a hot mess by this point but he survives to the bell. In the fourth, he needs something, anything. He gets a Heartpunch right at the start but Aoyagi fires back with kicks. The ref tries to hold him back in the corner and Onita uses that to hit a clothesline. His ear is a bleeding wreck but he gets on a rough belly to back and then a half crab and yanks back with all he has forcing a rope break. This really is compelling stuff even if it's rough around the edges. Very different than UWF too. It's dirtbag UWF. He follows up with a onerous waistlock suplex and another half crab but Aoyagi forces him off at the bell. Fifth round has Aoyagi winning with kicks but Onita just charges in like a madman with a clothesline and forces an over the shoulder driving down power bomb (I'm not sure anyone in the world was doing one quite like that). and Aoyagi beats the count. Fans now love Onita. Crazy how that shifted in a few matches once they realized what they were going to get from him. Place goes nuts for him here though. Wild stuff. Post-match Onita, having finally conquered the mountain, all but falls into Aoyagi embracing him. No wonder the fans loved him. 11/24/89: Wild Trio (Honaga/H.Saito/Goto) vs Kobayashi/Sano/Hoshino: We come in JIP with them working on Sano. He makes it to Kobayashi but Honaga makes it to his corner which sets up another Kobayashi vs Saito showdown. Fans are very into this for good reason. Kobayashi gets the better of him at first but then ends up swarmed in the corner. He takes over on Goto with a headbutt and Sano hits a missile dropkick on him. Then Hoshino beats up on Honaga with armdrags a bit. Sano, back in, wants Saito but that doesn't go so well for him and he gets double and triple teamed, including a pile driver, until Kobayashi breaks up a crab. Hoshino takes over on Saito and Sano and Kobayashi hit a slaughter cannon on him before Goto returns favor by crushing Kobayashi while he had a crab on. Things break down after that and they go back and forth. Hoshino is very entertaining in all of this but eventually he gets his foot grabbed from the outside and then when everyone's complaining, Saito hits his mule kick to the groin to win. Good chaotic stuff. 11/24/89: Choshu/Koshinaka vs Hashimoto/Super Strong Machine: There's a real sense that god is gone now and they're in a new dark age with barbarians and monsters at the gate with the Wild trio and Vader and the heroes (Choshu, Hashimoto) are warring with one another. Super Strong Machine and Hashimoto made for a hugely formidable team. Here Hash and Choshu went at it to start. Choshu got the advantage and Koshinaka hit twenty hip thrusts into Hashimoto's head. He was able to drive Choshu into the corner so SSM could come in. This was pretty back and forth. Koshinaka got dragged down for a while but he did a very nice reversal to a leglock attempt by Hashimoto to make it to the corner. Then Choshu bloodied up Hash a bit but he hulked up on him. Hash/SSM controlled for ab it including a spin wheel kick and headbutt on Koshinaka but he ducked a second one and hit the butt butt. Usual hot finish for a Koshinaka match. He hit the German and got a butt butt on Hash (again) after a Choshu lariat out of nowhere but then SSM came in to do the same to Koshinaka and Hash won with the DDT. 11/24/89: Hase vs Hashimikov: This went less than 6 mins. Clever wrestling by Hase for the first half. He hit an armdrag early and then just switched from one limb to another with holds and trips to keep Hashimikov off balance. Very much a sense that if he caught him once, he'd be in trouble. And he did with an armbar which Hase sold huge on the outside. Hase was able to reverse a leglock into a hammerlock though and even hit an exploder and lock in a crab. Hashimikov got to the ropes though and hit a belly to belly off of them for the win. Good effort by Hase with great fire but he was an underdog here.

I have some pretty positive early feelings for Orange Crush's Produce stuff. Right now they are partnering with wrestlers to book/promote/conceptualize shows in the NY/NJ area. First one is Gresham, second is Moriarty. They've already announced guys as ranged as Abe, Connelly, Erick Stevens, Clancy, Bengston, Shire, Manders, Beastman, Forza, Nixi XS, Rosser, Tracy Williams, Gringo Loco, etc. with Walker Stewart and Filthy Tom commentating. The idea is to push it as as wrestling as art with sports-based trappings, best as I can tell.

Lost the plot on where I am so I have to do some catch up. UWF 2.0 10/25/89: Fujiwara vs Takada: Mastery here is off the charts. In some ways it's conservative because neither wants to make a mistake but they also go so hard at the same time. Fujiwara gets this great takedown earlier where he grapevines the leg and drives down. There some even leglocks and what not. Then Fujiwara is able to jam the arm and drive him down again. Really impossible to capitalize on Takada because he's just too good though. Takada keeps almost getting something but then Fujiwara either jams it or reverses it (like shifting around to get a nasty leglock and the first rope break). Takada gets some headway by kicking low, but Fujiwara jams in and flips him over his leg. Takada reverses it into a cross armbreaker for the first rope break on that side. Both guys try kicks and Fujiwara just headbutts him in the skull and puts him to sleep with a front facelock. Great stuff. That's a down. They're really going back and forth. Takada gets a down off a gut kick, but then Fujiwara does a great legscissors takedown. But instead of capitalizing on it, Takada locks in a nasty half crab and Fujiwara has to go to the ropes. That's a shift in the match as Takada follows it by kicking the knee out for another down followed by surviving Fujiwara reversing things in the corner. Fujiwara is able to reverse holds moving forward but Takada's kicks are just too much. He crushes him in the corner. Fujiwara comes back with another headbutt but the kicks keep coming and when Fujiwara is defending against them, Takada gets him with a slap. Fujiwara knows his back is against the wall and rushes in a couple of times; the first time drops him. The second time Takada is able to reverse but Fujiwara drops him with a headbutt. Then the third, Takada catches him and just barely knocks him down with a kick to the knee, but that's the TKO on Fujiwara. Pretty spirited stuff to end. Masterful all around. 11/3/89: Choshu/Chono vs Kengo Kimura/Shiro Koshinaka: Fun match up here. With these, I'm still getting a sense of Chono. Koshinaka is a great Choshu opponent because he's so fiery even if he's outmatched. He rushes right in here and they scrap. Kimura and Chono are more even (but that in and of itself elevates Chono to a degree). Lots of holds and takedowns leading to more scrapping between Koshinaka and Choshu. Kimura finally takes over with his boxing strikes in the corner and they control on Choshu for a bit til Chono comes off the top with a kneedrop during a hold to let Choshu come back. Chono faces off back and forth with them a bit (Kimura takes over with punches, Chono comes back with a headbutt) with Kimura/Koshinaka having superior teamwork. Eventually they go into a hot finishing stretch (Koshinaka hits the butt butt, but Chono gets his thudding "Blockbuster" Samoan drop (they also call a fall away slam a blockbuster, so....), Koshinaka gets a roll up on Choshu out of the Scorpion, Choshu hits a Saito Suplex, Kimura comes in with the leg lariat as the illegal guy, Chono comes in with his top rope shoulder block, Koshinaka gets a German, Ultimately Kimura gets taken out and Chono locks on the STF. Exciting stuff. 11/3/89: Sano/Kobayashi/Hase vs Wild Trio (H. Saito/Goto/Honaga): They call the Wild Trio "Saito's Evil Joker Gang." And they also mention the "Entire Batman Army of Justice" so who knows what's going on here. It's 1989! They swarm the good guys immediately and it is pure chaos. This feels so different from anything else we've seen in a while. Hase comes back against Honaga and hits a lariat and then pumps his fists, but the Trio cut him off and take over in the corner. Saito tosses Goto super hard at him in the corner. They're very credible just with clubbering. Honaga has a great Abby style "put foot on bottom rope and lift up doing a headbutt." Eventually Hase gets to his corner and Kobayashi comes in. He drags Goto to the corner and demands Saito. They were the two main juniors in Choshu's Army and he obviously does not agree with this. He tosses Saito immediately to the floor but then Goto comes back at him. Kobyashi gets some space and then hits a baseball slide on Saito. They lay in on him until Saito hits a mule kick low blow and starts on Kobayashi again. Everything devolves on the floor once or twice. Then Kobayashi finally rolls to his corner and Sano comes in hot. Finish has things totally out of control with Kobayashi and Hase putting Honaga in the tree of woe and pounding him, allowing Saito to crack Sano with a bat while he had Goto pinned. Goto was able to get on top and win. 11/3/89: Liger vs Iizuka: We come in JIP, so you know this is going to be all bombs. Liger hits a German and a bunch of other stuff, including a dive. Iizuka comes back with his cool rolling leg takeover leglocks. Liger sells the leg big... you know, when he doesn't need to hit offense. Maybe, maybe it lets Iizuka reverse a tombstone, and hit the blizzard suplex, but he couldn't put Liger away and Liger got the better of him on a superplex attempt. He then hit two Liger Bombs for the win. I would have liked to see the whole thing. 11/3/89: Hashimoto vs Vader: This felt liek a big deal. Chono's in the crowd watching. Vader does the helmet ritual. First quarter of this is the two of them trading blows (Vader gets an advantage with a Uraken but Hashimoto punches through him and has the kicks too), with Vader controlling on the arm. Eventually, he gets Hashimoto to the floor and beats him but Hash goes up and over on a suplex attempt back in and locks in chinlock, into headscissors, into armbar. Vader does a great low kick into a drop toehold out of a lock up but Hashimoto makes it up to duck a clothesline for a belly to back and slam. Vader comes back including a vertical suplex and grinds him down, eventually hitting the power slam and big man sunset flip but he can't put Hashimoto away. Hash comes back with a suplex reversal and kicks and they spill to the floor. He's bleeding out of the mouth now but cuts Vader off as he was going to use a chair and he hits the DDT on the floor for a countout win and the biggest win of his career as Chono walks off in disgust. 11/24/89: Chono vs Zalasov: The Russians aren't nearly as big a deal as they had been a few months earlier. Chono is a much bigger deal. This one was about Chono hanging on to things like headlocks or wristlocks early and then surviving and escaping some of Zalasov's more tricked out stuff later. At one point, when he's trying to pry off an arm, Zalasov picks him up into sideslam position out of it and just hefts him over with a suplex. Nutty stuff. Then he just sort of hugs him out of nowhere and suplexes him over and puts on a dragon sleeper. But Chono gets out, pries a leg off, and eventually, slowly, steadily, turns it into a half crab and then a standing half crab, and then finally the STF to win.

The biggest advantage of Twitter over anywhere else is that if I post a clip of Andre the Giant punching Bobby Heenan, there's a non-zero chance Brooklyn Brawler is going to like it (which is a thing that happened today). Not a nazi. He didn't do anything bad, just probably helped cover up bad things............ Anyway, carry on.