Matt D

I've been avoiding big Ospreay matches lately (skipped Hangman and Swerve) and it's increased my overall happiness level I think. I've really enjoyed just about everything else lately.

I'm not going to write a lot about 88, I think. Just a few thoughts. First and foremost, 88 either starts in November, December, or February depending on how you look at it. November had the Choshu/Maeda incident which would have heated up the entire territory when it needed it most if only it was a work and not a shoot. December had the Sumo Hall riot with them trying to junk the biggest match they had (Choshu vs Inoki) and toss sports entertainment at everything which didn't really catch. And then February has the Takada incident which means that by March Maeda/Yamazaki/Takada are all gone. I wouldn't necessarily say anyone takes their place on the cards in a meaningful way though. Fujinami/Inoki/Choshu: Fujinami's the guy in 88, leveraging his contract situation to high benefit. He has great matches against Choshu, Vader, and the 60 minute match with Inoki. He is an elevated presence with the new Dragon Backbreaker/Sleeper combo. He shows more aggression. He has a fairly triumphant tour late in the year. Inoki is somewhat diminished, first by the Vader loss (and the fact he doesn't really win the title all year after that) and then by being out with another injury middle of the year. He comes back strong and then comes back from a "tour" even stronger with the series against a lot of key opponents. As we start 89, the Russians are his big hope to get back on top and he even declares he wants Jumbo/Yatsu/Maeda/Takada to come in to help face them which is nuts. Choshu seemingly starts off diminished as well after the Maeda incident but you don't see it from reactions. He's injured briefly and misses a big hometown win for the tag belts but they get them later in the year. He's essential to the promotion, always over, bulletproof, able to put people over. He makes peace with Inoki after the draw with Fujinami and then teams with him as a super team towards the end of the year. Saito is just about as essential to put guys over and look credible throughout the year, btw. Vader/Pirates/Bigelow/Murdoch/Buzz Sawyer: Vader takes a little while to really get it but by mid year he does. The crowd loves the Saito/Vader vs Pirates matches because it gives them a chance to cheer for him as he crushes people. That does more for him than the handicap matches, I think. The pirates are a huge part of the first half of the year honestly and Orton holds his own in that role even if he seems stronger as himself at the end of the year. Murdoch isn't as big a player in 88 as he was in 87 but he's always entertaining and interesting and has a connection with the crowd. Bigelow comes in and the big deal is the series with Vader but it's never conclusive and then he just loses like nothing to Inoki later on after they had protected him so well. I really enjoyed Buzz in here as well. Just came off like a total star. Other foreigners (like Kerry and even Hall who was in the tag league at least) didn't make much of a splash though. Brief note here that if Adonis hadn't died, I think he'd make a mark, as the Adonis/Murdoch we have is such a blast. Juniors: The division starts strong in 88 with Hase coming in and freshening everything up. Takada and Koshinaka kind of figure out a code where so long as someone ambushes and starts hot they can then build to a comeback and THEN do the hot back and forth instead of just starting with it annoyingly. Then Owen comes in and stinks everything up because nothing he does matters in the least. Just as he goes Hase gets injured which is a shame. Yamada is awesome throughout and he could have stayed Yamada and never become Liger and still been a big star. Koshinaka is one of the biggest beneficiaries of everyone leaving as he fits in well against heavyweights with his hulking up and attitude. Kobayashi remains a beast and he or Hiro Saito are always enjoyable to see. An obvious highlight was the 5x5 with Choshu's guys against the NJPW guys. Hashimoto/Chono: They come in from excursion in fall and make an impact quickly. There are a lot of stories about Hashimoto flexing and taking some liberties given his size and skill, but I think it was just to get him some buzz and they were just stories. Chono still needs to grow into his own frame but he has a lot of confidence even early. Others (Sakaguchi/Kido/Takano/Kimura/Fujiwara/Super Strong Machine): These guys get lost in the mix. I thought Takano was out injured but nope. Sometimes they're just fodder for Vader. Kimura gets to hold his own at times but he's back in the team with Fujinami and it's disappointing relative to what could have been. I don't have a lot to say about Fujiwara but he's still always a joy to see when he pops up but I do think there was some weirdness with him since UWF was in existence. Trios series: I enjoyed this. It doesn't have the rep of some other tag leagues and I wish we had some more footage from it and a few handhelds but it really stood out as fun and different with some weird pairings and partnerships and some great individual eliminations. Goto came off as a great plucky underdog here and it was a really solid way to end the year.

I've wanted to make the Continational joke for a week but it's very bad. They should just call it the Super International Title. Super makes everything better.

12/22/88 UWF: Takada vs Backlund: This has a great rep and it is a really good trainwreck with some excellent moments. And I think there might have been an amazing ten minute match in the 20+ minutes they got. Having watched UWF 2.0 from the beginning and complete, though, I don't think this worked. It was Backlund's first match in a few years and first match in Japan in even longer and the fans were into it. I did get the sense that Maeda let Takada beat him to face Backlund because he didn't want to deal with it maybe. It starts amazingly, as I said, with Backlund just eating Takada's kicks, catching one, taking him down, and doing his little hype taunt dance like a crazy man as the fans stomped (and Japanese fans never stomp, though they did for Goto vs Murdoch!). Then he went right in and took him down with amateur stuff and it really felt like a different styles sort of fight. It wasn't as tight as the UWF style but you got the sense this incredibly strong madman could just charge in a dominate. The problem was maybe three fold. The first is that when he did start to sell strikes and kicks, he did it in such a goofy recoiling manner. The second is that when he got a hold on, like a Fujiwara armbar, his technique just seemed weird. Just weird hand positionings, etc. And the third is that he insisted on doing some pro wrestling stuff like a seated chinlock, that the fans seemed to hate. You had maybe 30% of the fans really turning on it with 20% unsure. Because of that, 70% or so were really going for Takada, some because he was working from underneath and some because it'd somehow validate the realness of it all. If Takada beat this kind of fake looking guy, then UWF was real and legitimate and worth following. There were two moments where I thought there'd be a riot. The first is when they started into the short arm scissors, and I thought they were going to do the gotch lift, but Takada immediately let it go. The second was when Backlund got him up for a long time before dropping for a belly to back and I thought he was going to hit an atomic drop in a UWF match. What's crazy is that Backlund got opened up in a huge way on his nose/face and Takada got totally bruised up by forearms but it was worthless really. In some ways it's the opposite of what you want. It was a shoot style match where the only things that worked wasn't the working but the shooting and that's all wrong on some level. But it's not boring certainly. I get why people like it. I just think, in context, they're probably wrong. I don't often like something because it didn't work. (Observer only cared to talk about Backlund leaving post-match and not coming back because he said he got screwed somehow; he had been supposed to fight Maeda in January). 12/9/88: Koshinaka (c) vs Yamada: Yamada's a beast here. He just slaps the taste out of Koshinaka's mouth early. Koshinaka meets him halfway but Yamada's able to take back over turning a headscissors into a mutalock and then has this series of kicks and a kappo kick and a tombstone that is just brutal, before locking in a dragon sleeper. From there they moved on to dives, some nice. Koshinaka hit a power bomb which is still jarring since they are very new to NJPW. Yamada came back but finally fell to the dragon suplex and then graciously put the belt on Koshinaka. Yamada's off to Germany and I really should try to track down that footage. Some year end thoughts coming later.

Let's finish 1988...Might take me a while to go through. 12/9/88: Murdoch/Orton vs Inoki/Choshu: Not a lot to say about these end of year matches. I half thought things would fall apart here and lead to another Inoki vs Choshu match and I have no idea what's coming in 89. Murdoch took some great punches and sold all over the place here. They beat on Choshu for a while. Inoki and Choshu are always a little funny because it should be Lariat > Top Rope Knee Drop but the guy is never in proper position and Inoki always has to leap down and do something else (enzi) and then hit it. We did come in JIP but I could have used just a couple more minutes here. Orton feels like he belongs, pirate mask or no and this is not a part of his career that's much talked about. I wonder if he's around in 89. Let me take a look. He's still there until March when he joins JCP/NWA. Murdoch's great. He really is. 12/9/88: Fujinami vs Kerry Von Erich (Title vs Title): This was clunky. Fujinami dominated early until Kerry put on the stomach claw. They rolled out and got counted out. They restarted the match anyway. It was still kind of clunky. Kerry ended up bleeding huge. Fujinami won with dragon sleepers and it became a contested title or something? Or both sides could claim victory. The WCCW title really didn't matter at this point anyway (like the PNW title). But I guess for a day or two until Grappler got it back (we just have the first few minutes of that on tape before they cut to a Carl Styles interview...) Fujinami was a belt collector. This had some spectacle but wasn't good. 12/9/88: Koshinaka (c) vs Yamada: Need to edit this in later as I couldn't post it at all, but it had lots and lots of bombs, Yamada looking like an absolute killer, and a hot finishing stretch where Koshinaka won. Yamada put the belt on him post match. 12/22/88 UWF: Takano vs Anjo: Takano is generally bigger/stronger/more massive than his opponents and he just needs one opportunity to do big damage. Anjo is no one's favorite shoot guy (though I do like his facial expressions when he's getting stretched/stretching someone) but he was relatively tall and lanky and had reach. I'm used to seeing Takano wrestle Miyato who was much smaller and while he maybe didn't need to worry about getting gassed as much here against Anjo, he also really couldn't get any major advantage. Anjo was just able to push back against him or use the reach to stay alive. He took most of the fight against Takano honestly, and when he finally did get him with a German down the stretch, he tried a chicken wing, only to be able to not lock it in due to the lankiness of Anjo. When he tried again, Anjo dropped him into a Fujiwara and that was it. 12/22/88 UWF: Yamazaki vs Miyato: Miyato wasn't going to rope-a-dope Yamazaki. He was going to get his head kicked in and that's exactly what happened here. He survived admirably but all he could do was survive, until he couldn't. 12/22/88 UWF: Maeda vs Smiley: This honestly might be one of my favorite 88 UWF 2.0 fights. IT was sub ten minutes but they were matched up quite well, constantly getting out of things and scrambling for position. Maeda would get on a hold and Smiley would have an answer. When Smiley wrenched on a half crab, he really wrenched. Some gnarly stuff from both guys, but once the Maeda kicks started coming, the tide turned and he took it home. Very fun while it lasted though. 12/22/88: UWF: Takada vs Backlund: More later on this, it's fascinating.

They should have just done a one night trios tournament or something. Something weird. Battle Bowl: the Deadly Draw. Just something.

This is a worthwhile project.

I've got slightly more to catch up on than I thought. Almost to the end of the year but there's this 12/9 show I haven't hit yet. 12/5/88: Fujinami vs Grappler: Just odd stuff with Grappler coming to Japan to try to get his PNW belt back. This was a perfectly fine ten minute Fujinami match. Grappler was doing ok until he missed a top rope kneedrop. Fujinami tossed him around a bit including a Scorpion. He came back after getting knocked out of the ring and hit a nice power slam and weirdly an atomic drop. Good gutwrench too. Eventually he went for an over the shoulder backbreaker and Fujinami ended up on the apron and then took his usual great bump to the guardrail. But he was able to rush back up and reverse a suplex into the Dragon Backbreaker/Sleeper combo. Grappler actually made it out only to end up in a grapevined grounded dragon sleeper. Ah well. He'd win it back five days later in Portland. Sadly this didn't open doors for him to come back in 89, but he did work a WING tour in 92! Poor Grappler. Next we have the three match final series for the NJPW Six-Man Elimination Cup. Just from the way the ranking were, there was a playoff match to get to another playoff match (vs Inoki/Choshu/Hoshino) to see who would face Fujinami/Choshu/Hashimoto. 12/7/88: Saito/Sakaguchi/T.Gogo vs Murdoch/Orton/Hall: This is an honestly amazing Murdoch performance. I'll tell you why in a second. Everyone matched up fairly well here. I think Hall was giving too much for his size (especially for Goto, though it's cool to see how fast Goto would get whipped into the corner on him). Meanwhile Orton was the height of confidence. He got dumped after Sakaguchi's atomic drop though (But Murdoch got Sakaguchi from behind at the same time). Orton would try to grab legs and things from the outside afterwards, and the ref would catch him sometimes. Hall eventually got caught by the saito suplex but Murodch immediately pounced on him and grabbed the ropes, leaving it as Goto vs Murdoch. That's when it got really great. Goto obviously had no chance but Murdoch spent five or six minutes giving him one bit of hope after the next with roll ups and slick quick shots and almost falling out. I don't know that Murdoch was really trying to "make" him here but he was raising his stock and getting the fans so behind him. It maybe went a little long or a little around in circles but every time Goto got a bit of hope it was great and the crowd went nuts. And yeah, he survived right until he didn't. 12/7/88: Inoki/Choshu/Hoshino vs Murdoch/Orton/Hall: We come in mid-way here unfortunately but we get all the eliminations. Both Choshu and Murdoch were very good at milking the teases. Hoshino's punches were awesome. He tagged Murdoch at one point and Murdoch walked around with one eye for a bit. Orton and Murdoch had great punches too. Great punches all around (sorry Hall). Hoshino tried to roll up Murdoch but got kicked almost out. Choshu then dumped him right in the moment and ducked under a Hall lariat to hit one himself so that Inoki could pin Hall too (I really like when Choshu and Hall rope run though). Orton did damage to Inoki but no way was he beating both Inoki and Choshu, not even with help from the outside. Lariat > Inoki enziguiri > Inoki kneedrop. The end. 12/7/88: Inoki/Choshu/Hoshino vs Fujinami/Choshu/Hashimoto: This wasn't quite as iconic as some of the other matches. Lots of cycling through. Hashimoto was pretty formed (at least as the wrestler he'd be at this phase of his career) but Chono grew into himself more in this series. It was a big deal when Fujinami faced off against either Inoki or Choshu but Chono got to really press up against Inoki too. There was a little bit of exaggeration to how he took stuff that his peers didn't have. It helped him stand out.Hoshino looked great here. Just running through people and punching them. Great neckbreaker drop too. But he fell to the dragon sleeper with a bit more of an arch than usual. Chono and Hashimoto sort of went into business for themselves by bum rushing both Fujinami and Choshu (who were tied up together) out. that left Inoki to beat both Hash and Chono of course. Hash lost to an enziguiri where he kicked out but they counted it anyway. chono dominated for a bit until he missed a top rope kneedrop and Inoki started on the knee and then locked in the Octopus and rolled it into a grounded version.

Hey guys, Here are my write ups from Segunda Caida: Rhino vs Manders: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/05/dean-2-day-1-manders-vs-rhino.html Arez/Gringo Loco vs Coven of the Goat: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/05/dean-2-day-2-arezgringo-loco-vs-coven.html JD Drake vs Josh Woods: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/05/dean-2-day-2-jd-drake-vs-josh-woods.html Slim J vs Beast Mortos: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/05/dean-2-day-4-slim-j-vs-beast-mortos.html Lee Moriarty vs Matt Mako: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/06/dean-2-day-5-lee-moriarty-vs-matt-mako.html Torneo Cibernetico: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/06/dean-2-day-6-cibernetico.html Mad Dog Connelly vs Adam Priest: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/06/dean-2-day-7-mad-dog-connelly-vs-adam.html

There's a way to give him both CRU and Blake Christian/Lee Johnson honestly. I don't know if it's more useful to keep some of those guys off on their own though.

He's gone on record that he badly wanted to become a babyface with it and steal stuff from the heels and go to hospitals and see kids and what not and he went nuts and quit because Vince wouldn't turn him. But who knows.

There’s no feeling in wrestling quite like seeing Atlantis drop to his knees with it.

UWF 2.0 11/10/88: Yoji Anjo vs Mark Rush: I'd never even heard of Rush before but he's awesome. Like shootstyle Buzz Sawyer or something. Will just heft you over. Lots of fun escapes too. This had that early UFC feel in some ways where maybe the technique wasn't there quite as much but it made it more exciting since the guys were more wild. Anjo had some wild stuff too honestly. He'd fly across the ring with dropkicks that didn't hit aiming for the skull. But really this was about Rush tossing Anjo every which way. He won it by catching a kick and hitting a 'shoot' World's Strongest Slam before locking in a nasty Rear Naked Choke. He hangs around so I can't wait to see him more. UWF 2.0 11/10/88: Kazuo Yamazaki vs Bart Vale: Hey Bart Vale. One of my first shootstyle matches I ever saw was him vs Fujiwara. What was interesting here was that he had really long legs relatively and could use them to smash Yamazaki even when he was in a hold. Yamazaki was able to stay in it with kicks and general technique but Vale was pretty overwhelming. All it takes is one move though and Yamazaki was able to absorb some kicks and knees to get behind him for a German and a deep legbar to win it. UWF 2.0 11/10/88: Akira Maeda vs Nobuhito Takada: Big, big time match. A couple of different rules. Each of them got two rope breaks. They had four knockdowns. On the fifth they lost by TKO. After the two rope breaks, a subsequent rope break would count as a knock down. Got it? Winner has the honor of facing Bob Backlund. We all think of 93 Backlund coming back ten years after he lost the belt but this is more like five years and I can see how it would be different. This was quiet subdued early on as neither seemed to want to make a mistake. Maeda eventually opened it up though (even though Takada tried to swipe at him) and controlled for a while getting rope breaks and knockdowns. Pretty brutal stuff. Takada finally came back with a kick out of nowhere, really a miracle kick and then controlled and they went into a stretch where Maeda used his last rope break and was at 4 knockdowns and finally had to use one last one which counted as a knockdown and TKO. Felt like a huge moment. 12/5/88: Chono/Hashimoto vs Kerry/Kevin Von Erich: Chono and Hashimoto really came in with a chip on their shoulder for this run and it made for some compelling stuff. You wouldn't think they'd fit in with everything going on but they're making themselves fit in. Really fun Kerry vs Hash exchange to start with Hashimoto taking the discus punch really well (Kerry strut afterwards) but then lifting him up and putting him on the top turnbuckle like he was a child. You never see Kerry treated that way. Chono and Kevin wrestled and it was fine but not quite as electric. Then they doubleteamed Kerry including Hashimoto's giant spin wheel kick. That knocked Kerry out but as they were starting on Kevin, he pulled Chono out with the claw and went over the rail. Kevin got the claw on Hash in the ring but it didn't matter. Chono and Kerry brawled into the crowd as this got thrown out. Fun stuff actually. Very weird moment in time. 12/5/88: Inoki/Choshu/Hoshino vs Saito/Sakaguchi/T.Goto: Choshu came in with cupping marks. Always weird to see those in the 80s. This started with Choshu vs Saito which was great. Fans always love to see that. Saito moved so much for each of Choshu's shots and Choshu barely moved for him. Saito always went out of his way to put Choshu over. Saito, like Murdoch, understood how to make the out of the ring teases (even off just an armdrag by Hoshino who he was otherwise squashing) seem dramatic. Eventually Saito did hulk up on Choshu and tagged Sakaguchi. This was Goto's match in a lot of ways though, whether it be Sakaguchi flinging him into a corner clothesline on Choshu, going fairly even with Inoki in chain wrestling, or his big heroic moment: He hefted Inoki up into a fireman's carry and sacrificed himself by flinging both of them over the top. Huge dramatic moment. By that point, Saito had already beaten Hoshino with the prison lock so now it was Choshu vs Sakaguchi and Saito. Choshu survived Sakaguchi's half crab, lured him into the corner where he missed a huge jumping knee, and hit the lariat, but Saito was fresher and after the lariated each other a few times, Saito finally triumphed with his suplex. Pretty fun, iconic stuff overall.

11/11/89: Fujinami/Hashimoto/Chono vs George Takano/Steve Armstrong/Tracy Smothers: Chono wrestles like he has a chip on his shoulder but he doesn't have the physique I'm used to with him yet so it's a bit weird watching him. They had a moment early on where they hit a triple dropkick on Hash and ALMOST got him out but Chono blocked it by jumping to the floor and it was such a cheap, cheating move and it almost certainly cost them any chance they had at winning. Takano had an awesome, awesome exchange with Fujinami where he landed on his feet on a back body drop and just hefted him over in a Northern Lights type throw. Then he had this wild exchange with Hash where he got nailed from the outside of the ring and just slapped away at each other, but they were just hitting spots a minute later so I doubt it was really things boiling over (though Dave heard that). Hash just dumped him over the top after a block headscissors takeover attempt anyway. Finish had them 3-on-1 vs a Southern Boy and Fujinami hit his finishing sequence after a spike pile driver. This was fun and occasionally heated. 11/17/89: Fujnami vs Buzz Sawyer: Buzz with an all time performance complaining about getting his arm worked over, begging off, begging the ref, doing anything in his power to let the world know it hurts and he wanted it to stop. And of course Fujinami can work on top with holds as well as anyone in this sort of setting. Midway through Buzz hits him with the great equalizer off the ropes, the best power slam in history. But he's still selling huge. He has some high impact offense but Fujinami can keep going back to the arm and survives it in order to use his finishing sequence. Buzz somehow survives that but Fujinami rolls him up for the win. This was a good ten minute Fujinami match. 11/17/89: Inoki/Choshu/Hoshino vs Murdoch/Orton/Hall: Hoshino is tiny compared to these guys. Looks like a baby in the Orton atomic drop. Kind of weird to have Orton unmasked after he spent all year as a Gaspar. He means a lot as Orton in general but he would have meant more as a Gaspar as he had been built up all year maybe? Hall at least looked like he belonged. Though at one point, Hoshino absolutely took him down with a hammerlock. Good for him. First fall had Hall and Choshu going lightning fast back and forth with dramatic rope running before Choshu nailed the Lariat. Then they destroyed Hoshino and after an assisted gutbuster, Murdoch called it out and brainbustered him. Choshu and Orton went sailing over on a lariat attempt and Inoki and Murdoch were having a really good exchange, including some gripping armwork by Inoki and Murdoch hitting calf branding before Orton got involved. Choshu distracted the ref in annoying and that let Orton drag Inoki out from the outside. Murdoch really knew him to milk elimination teases to high effect. Post match, Choshu and Hashimoto laid out attitude towards Inoki and Choshu had to hold him back which is a funny thought. Very good stuff. Couple of notes: Hase is out with a staph infection. Niikura (who was one of the viet cong express with him) came back as either Tiger or Jaguar but had another heart issue and is back out). Lance Idol no showed so Kendo Nagasaki took his place on his team.

Depends on how you feel about

Tag was pretty good. CRU are starting to feel like Kaientai DX styled buzzing nuisances. I didn’t like the Hobbs match as much as I would have liked. Lots of focused legwork but Yuta wasn’t working the crowd enough. I think he was focusing too hard to make people buy that he was in control. Parts where Hobbs was killing him were good. End of show teased something fun between Willow and Yuta.

On paper this might be the best AEW PPV card for me in ages.

Gregg is a heel manager waiting to happen though.

Busy week but I have a bunch of catch up here. I don't remember as much as I'd like unfortunately, so we'll see how I do. 10/27/89: Fujiwara vs Williams: This was a lot of fun. I don't know if they went quite as hard on the mat as I wanted but Doc was a beast and Fujiwara could meet him. What sticks to me was the extended headbutt bs in the middle. It was a lot of fun and Fujiwara really didn't do it all that often. But Doc kept getting goaded in to slam Fujiwara's head into the post only for Fujiwara to make a big deal out of no selling it and smashing Doc who bumped to the floor. Fit Doc's character perfectly. They eventually went spilling out since this wasn't going to end clean. 10/27/89: Inoki vs Bigelow: This was part of the Inoki series but it was a sub for something else and I'm not going back through the WONs to remember what. It was a big of a make good after the last very short Inoki vs Bigelow match. This time, Bigelow hit a top rope splash pretty early but Inoki's foot was under the ropes.Bigelow controlled for a bit. Inoki clapped up and fired back but missed a couple of Enzis as he was too cocky about all of it and Bigelow dropped him and goozled him. Bigelow tried to suplex him to the floor and I half thought they were going to do it for a second but Inoki dropped down for his sleeper choke. Bigelow was in the ropes. Inoki wouldn't break it. Bigelow passed out and was furious when he woke up. But he won it by DQ. 10/27/89: Choshu/Super Strong Machine vs St. Clair/Casey: The auto translation said a bunch about England as these guys came out, including that Casey and St. Clair could call upon the power of 007 or something. Weirdly, they really controlled SSM. More so than I've seen elsewhere as he was usually a wrecking ball. Maybe he just really respected them or something. Choshu came in for a bit but they took right back over on SSM including a Hart attack. SSM got hope but missed a top rope elbow. When Choshu flinally got in obviously he came in hot and just lariated Casey to hell. 10/27/89: Hiro Saito/Kobayashi/Koshinaka vs Biff Wellington/Canek/Perro: Weird to me to have Koshinaka with Choshu's jrs. Biff had shaved his head to look like Dynamite before this and he moved like a Calgary guy. Almost like Benoit without the baggage in this old footage.Perro matched up well with Hiro Saito as you'd expect. Just two cruiserweight bullies basically. Likewise Perro and Kobayashi as two firebrands. Perro had a great seated senton off the apron on him. It peaked with a crazy chair war between the two before ending up with rope running and Koshinaka and Kobayashi working well together to win it. 11/11/89: Inoki/Choshu/Hoshino vs Fujiwara/Kimura/Kido (Elimination): Apparently they were doing some sort of six man elimination tournament in November of 89 and we have almost none of it. Just two TVs. Big shame. This was a lot of fun. Inoki and Choshu had just teamed on a special Taiwan show so now they wanted to try it here. The announcing billed the three as "The Knowledge Army, the Lightning Fighter, and the Lawyer of Underhanded Technique." Kido charged right in and menaced Choshu but Choshu picked him up brought him to the ropes and put him over so Hoshino could knock him off. Very clever spot/elimination to start the match. That set the tone as it was 3-on-2 for a lot of this. Fujiwara was immediately furious and drove Hoshino down with the armbar but he survived. He started paintbrushing him but Hoshino turned it around and survived and it was 3 on 2 for a while. Fujiwara and Kimura hung in there and Inoki only came in sparingly but it was not easy going for them. The damage they were doing was over more people really. That was it. Some exciting bits as it went on with Kimura almost getting Inoki out and Fujiwara finally driving Hoshino down with another armbar to even it up. But Choshu was just there to support Inoki and vice versa and Fujiwara and Kimura had been too worn down. Fujiwara got cheapshotted with a running-across-the-apron outside in Lariat by Choshu as he was fighting Inoki (and winning with the headbutts). He fell to an Enzi right after that. Finish had Kimura get Inoki with the Inazuma but Choshu was there. He hit a knee on Choshu but Inoki got him from behind with the sleeper. Good stuff. A smaller, less epic version of these with some clever eliminations. Biggest thing in the WON was the Russians getting licensed by the government to come in sooner than later. Here are the six man teams, btw: Inoki/Choshu/Hoshino Fujinami/Hashimoto/Chono Kimura/Fujiwara/Kido Sakaguchi/Saito/T.Goto Koshinaka/Kobayashi/H.Saito SSM/"The Tiger"/"The Jaguar" (will figure out later or not) Murdoch/Orton/Hall Buzz/Manny/Lance Idol Smothers/Steve Armstrong/Takano Originally Inoki was to team with Chono and Hashimoto but Fujinami with Kimura and Kido but Fujinami vetoed that. It's got a real Lethal Lottery feel.

Our old friend Victor was hit hard by everything and asked me to post this piece that he wrote in response.

Like wrestling in the 50s.

Here's the match: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uYpaKOPExxrL7hZPCYDnxwT0D8qXQotX/view?usp=sharing

I’ll post the Inoki vs Choshu match on drive later. That didn’t make the set and it’s iconic.

Is now. https://youtu.be/E1qgLFIEgac?si=Ikhy-CYLVQ1vGvnd

Will put it here instead of the weekly thread, but here was my take on Page vs Fletcher which does tackle the length/structure: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/05/aew-five-fingers-of-death-and-friends.html