Matt D

AJPW Interludes con't

Yeah, look. Can I just watch the women’s match or should I watch the Kingdom match too?

Ok, AJPW interlude. These are a bit on the hush for now, but you know how to reach me just in case (and there's one later on that you might need to reach me on).

Was a near thing at times in the last two months, but ultimately made the call not to head up. We had some family stuff in February that I didn't know how it'd fall and it fell just bad enough that we made the decision to treat the kids on Spring Break with a trip. Just got back from that (and they had a blast) but the time off work and expense and some lingering stuff pushed the needle far enough that it doesn't make sense for me to take off two more days from work and miss a couple of extra days with the kids and burden the wife. I hope everyone has a great time though and I'll catch the show on IWTV and hopefully write it up on SC as Phil and Eric will be busy creating history as the modern day Toots Mondt and Jack Pfefer.

Sometimes he gets a little too “we’re performers!” in his promos but he’s getting better.

We’ve been in Perryville for a couple of days and have to go through Baltimore to get home today so it’ll set us back and extra thirty maybe but we’ll deal with that in a few hours.

Lots to catch up on. There's some exciting secret news about new 89 AJPW footage so I want to get to a point where I can hopefully slot that back in quietly. 6/29/87: Inoki/Sakaguchi/Saito vs Bigelow/Bad News/Mike Moore: Mike Moore is Man Mountain Mike/Motor City Madman. He's big but he has no idea how to keep the offense. He has Hansen's coat and Brody's shoes. Bigelow starts with a press slam. 87 Inoki loved to be press slammed at the start of match. This has a lot of Moore losing the offense for his team and Bigelow getting it back, with Bad News somewhere in the middle Sakaguchi has his usually good fiery corner work. Saito is a tank, as always. Bigelow and Inoki match up a couple of times.The most interesting stuff is at the end when Saito and Sakaguchi work together as NOW leaders, with a double suplex on Bad News and then Sakaguchi tossing him into Saito's lariat. 6/29/87: Fujiwara vs Choshu: The NOW leaders getting it all out of their system as the reboot is happening. This time they make it all the way into the ring before Fujiwara takes over with the headbutts. He controls for most of this really, early on with the headbutt and punches and holds. Choshu tosses him out to reset and gets an advantage with killer elbows in the corner but Fujiwara eventually fires back with the headbutts. Choshu hits a lariat out of nowhere though and follows with just nasty kicks before trying for a belly to back but Fujiwara jams it and goes for the armbar. That sends the outside and Choshu gets whipped into the rail and then comes back with a lariat and Fujiwara can't answer the count. Very nice subten minute match but not as gripping as their last one. 6/29/87: Muto vs Johnny Smith: Smith has to be 12 here. They definitely thought they had a star in Muto. This feels very different than almost anything we've seen in a while. Smith is, of course, Calgary made, explosive and gritty and he hangs. He also seems to bring something else out of Muto, who is a little more explosive himself in matching. In a different world these two might have a longtime rivalry. Maybe they go a little too back and forth, working up from matwork, to chain wrestling, to rope running (Muto's great dropkick) to bombs, to top rope move attempts. Smith misses his and that means he eats the backbreaker and moonsault for the loss. 6/29/87: Fujinami vs The Warlord: He's billed as the VIOLENT WARLORD, and is a super rookie having just debuted the previous year. He's huge, of course, and Fujinami has him press him right at the start and hit a bunch of his other big offense. When Fujinami comes back with low kicks he sells them like he's facing Dusty, maybe too big while still more stunned than anything else. There's some fun bits where Warlord is just too big to deal with. Fujinami can't get all the way over on a shoolboy for instance. This ends on the outside with Warlord sailing over the guardrail as Fujinami ducks and back body drops him. He wasn't nearly as advanced as Barbarian but this wasn't a bad debut overall. 7/7/87: Inoki/Saito/Hoshino vs Maeda/Kimura/Kido: NOW vs NEW. Not sure why Kido is no NEW. I guess i could look up his age but I can't be bothered right now. Obviously the new pairings are interesting as is a refocusing on Maeda vs Inoki which they tease a lot in this and pay off just a little. I think the deal is that neither guy would agree to lose to the other which is why we never got that big singles match. I'm sure Inoki was self conscious about Maeda's combo of size, presence, and skill too, and Maeda had his own issues. But the crowd is supper into the two going at it at all. Hoshino and Kido obviously match up well but we knew that though we don't get nearly enough Hoshino in 86-early 87. He's a guy we'd benefit from having HHs on. Some great stuff between them with rope running but not enough of it. Saito and Kimura matched up well. They had that match earlier and it really does make Kimura seem just a little elevated. Honestly, Saito vs Maeda just felt more gripping to me in general than Saito vs Inoki. One cool thing was how Saito was able to utilize the Ishin Gundan strategies of double teaming with Hoshino. Inoki really didn't buy into it but Hoshino was totally on board for a spike pile driver or whatever. That gave them a longish advantage on Kido. Until Maeda came in to kick the crap out of Hoshino. Kimura tried the same but got his leg caught and he was crushed by Saito. It all built to a crazy finish where Saito had the scorpion on Kido and everyone rushed in. In the chaos, Saito got a saito suplex on Kido for the win. Good start to all of this. A slight realignment makes everything feel fresh but I still could have lived with months of Choshu's army vs the world.

Tossing this here because it's by Square Enix, has some similar names ("Soul of Thasma" anyone), and has a FFV/X-2 job system, but I'm playing Bravely Default for the first time. I'm right at the end of Chapter 4 and enjoyed it a lot so far. You spend the first half of the game with a fairly conventional battle system but I can already see that the back half is going to be all about turn manipulation and counters. I imagine only a handful of people here played it but I made it to Vampire Castle and had to take a bit of a break because the mobs there are ridiculous in their countering. But you can turn encounters to none and I'm overleveled anyway so I'll just have to face that boss and then move on sometime in the next few days.

Here's my Danielson vs Shibata review, plus Darby vs White and an attempt at another Bucks match (It did not go well): http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/03/aew-five-fingers-of-death-311-317.html

With the way this month has been going, I’m lucky I didn’t think it was Killer Khan

It’s Kevin. Kerry had the crash and was out. Kerry is also a crummy heel generally.

You got a match waiting for you in the thread, you ne’er-do-well.

Hits keep rolling: 6/12/87: Chono/Kimura vs Von Erich/St. Clair: Great heel performance by Kerry here. This comes in 2 mins JIP Or so. They swarm Kimura in the corner. Chono's able to come in and St. Clair feeds all over the place for him on armdrags and what not, but then Von Erich really starts on Kimura's damaged leg. Some great heel stuff here as he walks over to slap Chono on the apron to draw the ref so St. Clair can post the knee on the outside. Then Von Erich puts the claw on the knee! Chono finally makes the save but gets nailed by a top rope St. Clair knee drop as he has a hold on Von Erich and he eats the face claw. In the end, though, Chono's able to hit a big samoan drop on St. Clair and Kimura comes back with the Inazuma Leg Lariat for the win on St. Clair. 6/12/87: Saito vs Inoki III: This is a lot. So Maeda is on commentary. It's the end of the IWGP League. Inoki won group A. (Fujiwara was second and Barbarian third if you're keeping count). Saito won group B and I think Maeda didn't win because of that match where Super Strong Machine bodied him? They're already talking about NOW vs NEW on commentary which is a bit confusing since the post match seems to sort of set it up. It really does kind of feel like a corporate mandate. Or something. The two leaders of what NOW is supposed to be are wrestling here for the Cup. Inoki gets him out of nowhere with a spin wheel kick (accidentally getting the ref first because Inoki legitimately can't pull off the move right) and the back brain kick but Saito retreats to the floor. That gives Inoki a bit of an early advantage until Saito gets him down and slaps on a slightly modified Prison Lock (which usually is a kneeling deathlock on the side, that is with a twist; this is more straight deathlock). He holds it forever as the crowd rallies behind Inoki but Inoki punches out eventually. He's able to fire some shots back as Saito takes it like only he can (iconic stuff, this), but Saito gets him in it again. Inoki gets out, but saito gets him over with a suplex and puts it on for the third time. Inoki's limping around big here and Saito has a big advantage. Saito hits the Saito suplex. Something awesome here happens when he does. The second Inoki goes over with it, the fans start chanting huge for him. They wanted him to fight through it that badly. Usually the chant just comes at a different time, after it's earned or midway through a hold, but with Inoki it's always at the start of the hold or the point of impact because they believe in him so much. It's the damndest connection to a crowd I've seen in forever. Inoki survives another Saito suplex (and this is all methodological and weighty, since this is Saito after all. And this time Saito breaks. He is so stoic and calm and controlled and he just loses it with the ref. He goes for a third and Inoki falls over on him into a thesz press or so and gets the win. Post match, Saito's beside himself and Choshu rushes in and the three of them sort of posture as everyone else starts coming in too. It almost felt like post-match lucha with challenges. Until Inoki hugs Sakaguchi and Saito big. Fujiwara is with them. There's a weird sense of "Well, if we're going to do this, we're going to do it with all of our heart and we're going to come together and see who is the strongest!" Saito and Inoki clasping hands is a pretty cool image. You have Choshu, Maeda, and Fujinami on the other side. I think we could have gotten months out of Choshu's team vs UWF/NJPW with a couple of defectors to Choshu's side like Kimura and Muto and Yamazaki, but I guess they just didn't have faith in what they were doing or something? They must have been that desperate. I'm going to ask @KinchStalker about it all.

I love that you two are just off watching W.O.W. It's like you guys live in a different reality than the rest of us and we get correspondences from you once in a while.

6/10/87: Inoki vs Barbarian: watched this OFF the treadmill due to Youtube. If nothing else, it shows how Barbarian had come by this point in his career relative to what he'd been like even a year before. He had much more presence and focus. He press slammed Inoki right from the get go (which drew the Inoki chants from the crowd). He'd go down into the JYD all fours position to menace him. Inoki would try to pry away by kicking at a leg or pumphandling an arm. Things got heated on the outside as Brooks tried to get involved. Whenever Inoki got too close to the ropes, Brooks would be there with the chain and would help Barbarian temporarily turn the tide. Inoki had some longish holds; he'd tend to escape Barbarian's. My favorite was the leg nelson where he whacked the leg over the head. Barbarian even picked him up out of it which was a great visual. Finish had Brooks get involved and try to do a running chain shot, but Inoki got out of the way so it hit Barb. That let him knock Brooks out and hit the back brain kick. Solid Inoki vs foreign monster fare.

I was doing ok until the Keith/Kyle strike exchanges which were the third of such on the show.

I thought that Saraya’s brother looked fairly charismatic and engaging in his ROH squashes. Currently, however, he comes off like Colt Cabana with roid rage.

The spinning side slam is so great.

Is Election a thing?

I hate even mentioning these but American Pie and Superbad? American Pie hit right when I was the right age. Breakfast Club was my preference though. That and maybe Rushmore.

Wrestling doesn’t have to follow the laws of physics but it does have to follow the norms of wrestling physics. That did not.

Very glad I stuck with it. This is great stuff. Go watch the matches down below before reading my stuff. 6/10/87: Masa Saito vs Kengo Kimura: Very, very good. Saito's amazing. He has this thing where he kicks his legs up when he does an armdrag as if he was a junior, and he moves so lithely going in and out of holds. But he's as thick as a wall. Kimura tried to hang with him on the mat early and did well enough. Mid match, he opened things up with the punches and Saito made them seem legit. He did more to get Kimura's new act over here in a few seconds than anything else has so far. He was able to snap a Saito suplex though. The match opened back up from there and went back and forth until Kimura's bandaged knee started giving him trouble and Saito honed in. Kimura survived a crab and hit the leg lariat but couldn't capitalized. He followed up with kicks instead of punches and that was a deadly mistake for Saito caught the third one and hit the dragon screw. He locked in the Scorpion but Kimura valiantly got to the ropes. Kimura ended up outside the ring, fought his way in and had a picture perfect near fall off of a sunset flip in, but he missed the knee off the top and Saito locked in a grisly prison lock. Kimura fought but to no avail. Really good stuff. 6/12/87: Choshu/Kobayashi/Super Strong Machine vs Takada/Fujiwara/Kido: This was fantastic too. One of my favorite matches in this project in forever. These guys were such a breath of fresh air for NJPW at this point and it was so cool to see them up against the UWF team. It felt like such a big deal. A lot of it was shot from ringside aimed up and it gave it this epic feel too. Fujiwara and Choshu were both bandaged up from their previous match and they started to a big buzz and just sort of postured up against one another as two giants could do. Kido came in and immediately asserted himself on Choshu. Kido is the most credible guy in the world. He might not be able to put people way all the time but he can open them up and take them down. Choshu and co have all the big teamwork moves and that helped Kobayashi come in. He, at this point, was this great mix of the old NJ juniors style and some All Japan grime to make it relevant again in 1987, so he was explosive but could back the style up with substance. Kido made it to Takada and the place exploded for the Jr. champ vs a guy who was Tiger Mask's rival. I wasn't expecting them to be so into this but it did make sense. Guys like Cobra (before the switch) and Black Tiger felt like relics after the UWF guys came in but Kobayashi immediately felt relevant. When SSM came in, again, he felt like something that didn't exist in the company except for maybe some outsiders like Masked Superstar or Murdoch. He was just weighty, a low point of gravity, big thudding shots and takedowns. Takada was finally able to get the kicks going against Choshu and Fujiwara came in hot with headbutts as the place came unglued. But Saito got under him and suplexed him over. SSM leaned on him a bit until Kobayashi tried a crab and Fujiwara did his signature crab attempt reversal witht he bridge and the twist and the flip and it's so good. I don't know if I pop for anything in pro wrestling like I pop for that. The match really went back and forth from there. We had Takada and Kobayashi go at it again and SSM and Kido. Choshu's team could take back over with their big double teams (spike piledriver, the belly to back/clothesline off the turnbuckles/a double suplex), but the UWF guys had too many counters and holds and bombs. They had a stretch of just running through Kobayashi (Takada tombstone, Fujiwara headbutts, Takada German, Takada chicken wing) but he made it to Choshu. Choshu ate a bunch of Takada's stuff but jammed him on a dropkick and hit a belly to back. He went for the Scorpion but was positioned to see Fujiwara coming in. He dropped the hold, hit the lariat, turned back around and crushed Takada with it for the definitive pin. Such good stuff. Choshu is so hard to describe. He has this presence that's almost unmatched, this confidence, this matter-of-fact inner strength. It's sort of subdued but somehow entirely different than Tenryu. Tenryu's easy to write about. Sometimes I have trouble explaining what I like about Randy Savage and Choshu sort of hits me that way as well. Don't say I've never given you guys anything: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gqa9DYKEApV6nKZYHaS8QH_vkmsi7ktM/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OqYxDRZQOpOc3TEg1OnRqM40U_hJo8uA/view?usp=sharing

The change is very interesting. I just tried to put into draft form... 6/10/87: Kimura vs Saito 6/10/87: Inoki vs Barbarian 6/12/87: Inoki vs Saito 6/12/87: Chono/Kimura vs Von Erich/St. Clair 6/12/87: Choshu/Kobayashi/SSM vs Takada/Fujiwara/Kido and two were "blocked" despite being in draft from but I can still watch them and the Inoki vs Barb match was just wiped but it wasn't my third copyright strike. I don't know if it's YouTube or NJPW that's coming down harder, but someone definitely is. I'll have to catch that Inoki match on the laptop.

@Casey, I wanted to give you something WWF for March. I didn't want to go to the top of the 80s set though, so I'm giving you something quite similar. The Alley Fight between Sgt. Slaughter and Pat Patterson. https://drive.google.com/file/d/16WunibwWA2PyNsSyoTr-88bYC8zh1MzS/view?usp=sharing

2/3rds through. Loved Mercedes' entrance. There was a moment where the music stopped and the chants continued and then the music hit again with it and that was amazing. Promo was fine. You know what we have to compare it to after all. It felt a little bit too planned and not planned enough all at once. Like she could have gone either way with it and she didn't. I get that she was lost in the emotion and you could feel it. She's naturally confident but she couldn't have fully expected the reaction. There were some very good moments in Joe vs Wardlow but it needed a little more at the end, I think. I would have liked Wardlow to get away the first time and then Joe not jump onto his back until a third attempt maybe. I completely tuned out on the six-man when Red Jackson and PENTA squared off. I did want PENTA's bullshit there and for the Jackson to react to it, not immediate cutters and superkicks. So many superkicks. I liked Okada ducking Kingston at least. I know what I'd do next week (Have the Bucks break the no interference rule and have the match thrown out and then protect themselves from consequence with their titles to get heat). I'll have a lengthy write-up about selling and consequence for White vs Darby on Monday, I think.