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Matt Watches 1989 AJPW/1986 NJPW on a Treadmill


Matt D

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I can't speak in context (look, I had to start somewhere), but the match, to me played less about Tenryu throwing Kawada to the wolves as much as tolerantly giving him what he wanted, such as when he let him back in so soon after the first imperiled tag. Tenryu always looks kind of bemused but he seemed especially bemused there. I am looking forward to the February match, which I should get to sometime in the next week or two because we have less footage than I thought we did. 

That some of these matches placed on the DVDVR 80s set makes me think it's a good we've gotten more HHs and TV from earlier in the decade in the meantime:

93.) Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada vs. John Tenta & Shunji Takano (1/5/89 TV) - 2780 points

 

103.) Yoshiaki Yatsu & Jumbo Tsuruta vs Toshiaki Kawada & Genichiro Tenryu (1/22/89 TV) - 2587 points

 

116.) Joe & Dean Malenko vs. Masa Fuchi & Great Kabuki (1/5/89 TV) - 2228 points

 

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1/27/89 - Tenryu/Kawada vs Spivey/Leo Burke: This was formless mush. Mush. It's Burke's fault. I really like Burke. Obviously, everything he did looked good. He had great timing, and a good presence. He seemed eager to get into things at the start, but he worked like a stooging heel and gave up the game anytime he was in. He let Kawada walk all over him and most of his offense was pin attempts. They continued to treat Spivey like a threat and he worked out better in a tag setting, but Burke was an anchor dragging him down. 

1/27/89 - Jumbo/Yatsu/Kabuki vs Tiger Mask/Nakano/Takano: JIP which is tough on a six man, but the action was good. I loved all of the tandem offense from Tiger Mask's team, including the first triple dropkick (though less so the second which showed how difficult the first was to time right). It was nice to see Jumbo and Yatsu do their thing and at least Kabuki got to kick someone in the skull this time. Solid finish set up by Grumpy Jumbo just shoving Takano (?) out of the corner meanly. Good action. What else can you say?

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Bonus match I did NOT watch on a treadmill:

12/16/88: Hansen/Gordy vs Tenryu/Kawada: This is such a heavily touted match that I thought I should double back and give it a look. I find 80s Hansen absolutely exhausting and it's not that he wasn't here, but a lot of this was Gordy (as opposed to let's say Brody) and I thought he was actually very giving here, more so than he'd be a couple of years earlier or a couple of years later. In fact, the biggest moment of him giving was when Kawada fights his way back early on and makes that first big tag to Tenryu and Hansen and Gordy clear the ring and look incredibly apprehensive to get in there with Tenryu. It's not like they had to put over Tenryu at this stage of AJPW, but that absolutely did. Weirdly, I thought that Kawada felt further along here as a force than he would against Jumbo and Yatsu a few weeks later. I guess that could be because it's more important to show deference to the Japanese natives maybe? Of course that still means that he can do six fancy kicks on Hansen and then Hansen can kick him once in the gut and take back over, because Hansen. Things are very back and forth in believable ways in the first half culminating with Kawada's big German on Gordy, but after the massive Hansen attack in the corner (which Tenryu, as giving as Hansen, bumps himself off the apron and then over the rail for), everything shifts. The back half of the match has Kawada's leg devastated on the floor, and the numbers game just goozling Tenryu. My favorite bit of this (and I assume everyone's, though some people probably just like seeing Hansen stomp Tenryu in the face repeatedly), is when we get the visual of Hansen walking over to whack Kawada, on the floor, with a chair, only for Kawada to burst into the ring as if emboldened by that and to go after Gordy, giving Tenryu his first real hope spot of the extended beatdown. It's almost lucha-esque in its broadness, in its symbolism, a momentum/mandate of heaven shifting moment. But it's all Kawada had left, and the numbers game is the numbers game and one double suplex later, they're back in charge. You have to love the sheer impact that Gordy and Hansen, especially working together, bring to this, and also Gordy's timing on cut offs. He can be so amazingly casual or just get himself in the right place for a clothesline out of nowhere. The inevitability of the finish is beautiful too. Tenryu is able to somehow powerbomb Hansen, but Gordy (again, just casually) walks over and powerbombs him and at the point of impact, Hansen raises his hand to signal for the lariat. Nothing cute or contrived after that. A simplicity and narrative purity that would never have been allowed a few years later. 

Glad I went back for this.

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1/28/89: Jumbo/Yatsu/Fuchi vs Tenryu/Kawada/Fuyuki: These Six-Mans have all been JIP so far. You get great action but it's hard to fully get a hand on the plot. It's much more about little moments than big themes. Here, it's cool to see Footloose take out Jumbo with team offense; they really are like guided missiles in this match. The familiarity between Jumbo and Tenryu is obvious. There's a moment where Jumbo gets a side slam out of nowhere that's really great. I liked seeing Fuchi in the mix; even just having him hit a crucifix pin attempt on Kawada was a nice bit that made me want to see the two of them one-on-one. I have no idea what's coming so maybe that's in the cards. Fuyuki did get a feature segment including some comebacks but I kind of wonder what's going through his head seeing Kawada getting all of the big matches teaming with Tenryu now that Hara's gone. 

2/2/89: Funks vs Gary Young/Doug Somers: This is AJPW in Kansas City. We just get four minutes of this but Terry Funk, is, of course, the best seller ever. His comeback here is beautiful and brilliant, with wildly swinging fists and so much sympathy. Not much to say past that. I like the idea of Young and Somers as a team but we only have a few minutes.

2/2/89: Tenryu vs Bill Irwin: I have a lot of time for Bill Irwin. He works big, has good stuff, espouses a real attitude, has a great, unique look. Here we just get a few minutes (not missing much, I think, though), with Tenryu taking most of it. I like how the worked in Irwin's pump kick (after a bit missed elbow off the ropes) and then built on it for the finish where Tenryu ducked. 

January down. I don't have any major thoughts except for how jarring it is to see underdog Kawada, but you already knew that. A lot of JIP matches so far, but these are the things I think most people skip, so I'm glad to hit them. 

Edited by Matt D
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2/2/89: Jumbo/Yatsu vs Hansen/Gordy (c): Another Kansas City match. The crowd was a non-factor here. It wasn't big and they were vaguely more into Gordy/Hansen but just vaguely. I think the match might have been built accordingly. Some of the clash of the titans stuff early was fun, with the best moment being Gordy just casually walking out of the way of the double Olympics Jumping Knee. After Hansen crashes on a corner charge, they really take over on his arm, and Hansen more or less lets them. I pin this on a combination of the setting and the laser-honed assault. The second that Yatsu goes for a corner whip instead, Hansen uses that distance to fight back. The finish had a couple of nice little wrinkles with just enough controversy to let Jumbo and Yatsu take the belts back to Japan but without hurting Gordy all that much. Post-match Hansen had a temper tantrum. Different sort of match with Hansen giving a bit more. I bet this would have looked slightly different in Japan. 

I needed to kill some time at the end so I watched El Matador vs Kamala from 92. Kamala was quite good at knowing when to give and when not to, as he had to be given that the match was ultimately built around Tito knocking him down even once. Tito was so good at selling in a bear hug, but we all knew that.

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I may, may watch the Malenkos tag when we get there just because there are only so many chances to see them, but we'll have to see. I don't have a great sense for the density of matches as we get deeper into the year, though I feel like I've zoomed through January and February. I thought this would be much more of a slog, to be honest.

If anyone's wondering, I was able to manage about 2 minutes warm up, 15 minutes at 4.5 MPH at 3.5 incline, and then since I was dying at that point sort of powerwalked the rest at 3.7 MPH. So I mean, I'm building up stamina but it's not very impressive yet.

Ok, ok, 2/23/89: Jumbo/Yatsu vs Tenryu/Kawada: I'll probably give this another look because there's a HH version too and it's a good enough match that it might be interesting to see that way. I also am not sure I 100% got all the nuance so I wouldn't mind another look. We'll see. Obviously though, this was excellent. Kawada was more of a force than in previous matches but there's still a sense he has to kick you seven times to equal one strike from Jumbo or Yatsu, but he's also going to absolutely do so, so it's ok. I'd say this was a little more back and forth. There was a control section on Kawada and they built into some hope spots when the crowd got behind him. Yatsu's bulldogs were really great. There was a bit of a beatdown on a broken open Jumbo which felt like a very big deal. It was just constant action, really, but without seeming like nothing mattered. Even when Jumbo came back after that beat down, you believed he was awoken by the strikes/legitimately fired up. Late in the match, when Kawada hit the missile dropkick on Jumbo but knocked him right towards his own corner so Yatsu could get in, you felt the severity of that moment, how it changed the match. It was a "For want of a nail" type moment. The tag-setting meant that bombs could be broken up and thus preserved. The roll-ups were generally such great near-falls, and I actively got into Kawada's last roll up when it felt like he was doomed. 

In general, I kind of find the spike-piledriver used so early as an issue but moves, a fixed set of big moves (powerbomb, belly to back suplex, German suplex, bit lariat, jumping knee) sort of fit in different ways depending on when they're used and who they're used on. A move like that hit early can wound, as it did with Tenryu. He was able to mount a comeback but then he had to instantly tag. If it was used just a little bit later, it would have served as a transition that would have really let them come back on him. Kawada's German out of the corner is often used as a big comeback move, something that sort of takes him over the top when he hadn't been able to get a lot of offense for a while. If he was able to hit in the first minute, however, it would serve a different purpose. Likewise, if he was able to hit in the last seconds, it could be part of a finishing stretch. I find all of this really fascinating and I don't think there's a major American equivalent, and when there is, a whole match is somehow built around it (like if a finisher was hit in the first minute and then a wrestler would have to spend the rest of the match trying to come back from it). Has anyone written about this? 

Anyway, the biggest takeaway here? After the match ended, the crowd chanted Kawada's name. 

Edited by Matt D
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The 2/89 match was much better. I liked the way they focused more on the Tenryu vs. Jumbo rivalry, and even worked in a bit of niggle between Tenryu and Yatsu. Kawada was a liability every time Tenryu tagged him in, but instead of taking advantage of that weakness, Jumbo and Yatsu were so pissed at Tenryu that they took it out on his partner. I liked that more than the tired old cliches of the previous match. Tenryu and Kawada had a bit more momentum in this as well, I suppose because it was a title match. I do feel like Tenryu tags Kawada in too soon in these matches, but at least he shows faith in his partner. The finish was vintage Jumbo. I loved how he put Kawada away with that vicious backdrop. Jumbo was at his best when he was a bear with a sore head. Tenryu had absolutely no hope of winning this match with Kawada as his partner, but if I know Japanese crowds then that probably endeared him to them more. 

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3/2/89 - Jumbo/Kabuki/Nakano vs Tenryu/Kawada/Fuyuki (Handheld): We get a little less than 30 minutes of this. That's the upside. It's complete. The downside is that it's pretty far off for a handheld. Thankfully, there are some people sitting nearby who are really into Revolution so they'll chant Kawada or Fuyuki whenever they're in. There was just a lot to see here. For the most part (save for some cool brawling with Kabuki that made me want to see more and some of the usual Clash of the Titans stuff, including the side slam out of nowhere, vs Jumbo relatively early) Tenryu was a non-fact until the last couple of minutes. They'd get some real offense on Nakano now and again but otherwise, it was mainly Jumbo and co with control over Footloose, alternating one to the other with brief Revolution advantages. Kabuki really brings a lot more to these than conventional wisdom of twenty years ago would tell you. There was a really fun bit in the back third where they had advantage on Jumbo, triple teaming him until Fuyuki slapped the crap out of him and Jumbo got grumpy in return. The last minute or two were great, primarily Tenryu vs Nakano with a cameo from a huge Jumbo forearm on the apron before Tenryu hit the jumping kick to the back of head out of nowhere and hit a power bomb with everything breaking down and then a second power bomb to end it. I wouldn't have minded Nakano getting one tiny bit of hope between the power bombs, but I get it. Long and certainly watchable, but I'm not sure there's anything they did here that they couldn't have done in a match that was 2/3rds the length. 

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Bonus match (sans Treadmill)
4/16/82: Jumbo vs Tenryu: Obviously, one thing I know is coming my way is 6/5/89, the top vote-getter in the AJPW 80s set. (The Hansen tag from December 88 was #2). While that's weeks away for me, maybe even a few months, I thought it'd make sense to supplement with Jumbo vs Tenryu matches so I get a sense of the in-ring history. While I've seen a decent amount of 80s AJPW, it's almost all been stuff with foreigners in it. I was always quicker to seek out a Phil Hickerson match than a Jumbo vs Tenryu one, you know?

This is from 82. Tenryu's actually a year older than Jumbo but Jumbo has a few years wrestling on him and Jumbo was definitely higher up in the hierarchy here. It was the last day of the Carnival apparently, and this is a 30 minute draw that we get a little more than half of. It's their first singles match, I think, and the early feeling out process had a lot of dodges and winks. Tenryu seemed like the one with something to prove with early slaps. It's hard to fully understand when things happen in the match due to the clipping but they do seem to do a Back Brain Kick/Back Drop Driver/Missed Elbow off the top by Tenryu early which is met by a Back Drop Driver by Jumbo. Another big sequence has Jumbo go for a pile driver but Tenryu back body drop him over the top and follow it up with an actual tope only to be unable to suplex him back in and after a role up, Jumbo hits an assisted back brain kick of his own, so they were both younger, yeah. They do pay off the suplex later, do some more slapping and blocking, and after some low kicks, a long Tenryu figure four. For a lot of the last quarter of this, Tenryu was really taking it to Jumbo, though Jumbo got to come back and at least tease the butterfly suplex as the bell rang. If this was meant to elevate Tenryu, I can't imagine it not working. Jumbo had periods of control and did damage but Tenryu was almost always in it and controlled a big portion towards the end. Jumbo raises his hand after the bell and the crowd takes it in.

There's an 87 and an 88 match that I'll obviously watch as well, but I have to decide just what to do tag-wise. I only have so much time and I don't necessarily want to go down a Choshu rabbit hole right now.

Edited by Matt D
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Bonus Match:

I had some time to kill while watching the kids in the inflatable pool outside so (following @ditch's list) I decided to delve into the 45 minute 1983 RTWL draw with Dory/Baba.

11/29/83: Baba/Dory vs Tenryu/Jumbo: 45 minutes is a long time. I was never really bored by this though, maybe one Dory headlock? I don't know. This was during Terry's retirement so instead of Baba and Jumbo teaming, Baba teamed with Dory and Jumbo teamed with Tenryu. Terry was out there but all he did was hold the ropes open for Dory and Baba on the way in and roll Tenryu (who he trained, if I'm not mistaken) in once. The fans were glad to see him though. Tenryu felt like he belonged for the most part. I liked seeing him against Baba, who was very giving for the most part (including taking a slam and the elbow drop which was more like a twisted bliss). Dory held his weight too, with a nice early leglock exchange, some nice brawling over the top and to the outside, and his share of taking and eating suplexes. Most of the big moments here were Baba vs Jumbo though, which completely made sense. Jumbo won the first exchange with the knee, Baba the second with the boot and they went from there. Jumbo took a huge bump over the top on a course correction back body drop over the top by Dory. I liked seeing Tenryu and Jumbo working together against Baba including a double atomic drop and Russian leg sweep. Probably my favorite moment was when Tenryu locked an Octopus on Dory and Jumbo went to the top rope to cheer him on (only for Baba to do the same for Dory). Baba hit the coolest dropkick out of nowhere at one point. They escalated things somewhat towards the end, including Jumbo finally hitting a teased Belly to Belly on Dory, a glimpse of the spinning toehold, and one of those draw finishes where one side has a clear advantage. In this case, Dory and Jumbo collided but Dory fell towards Baba and Jumbo didn't fall towards Tenryu. That let Baba hit the boot, but Tenryu broke the pin up at the bell. Clear advantage though. I wonder if the fans thought the same at the time? This DIDN'T make the 80s set at all, which I guess I can understand if people didn't want to watch another draw, but it's certainly ok for what it is.

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Ok, back to the grind:

3/2/89: Baba/Taue vs GIANT KIMALA/Abby: This was a handheld, but it was a lot of fun. Abby and Kamala had a real advantage throughout and when Baba and Taue came back it was with Taue doing a bunch of dropkicks (and one back brain kick) and Baba chopping giant people right in the face, which is hugely satisfying. I mean, he just whacks them in the face full on. Abby hit two awesome elbow drops. Kamala was a force. Brutal use of plundah on the outside. They had one cool double team move (Kamala picks up Taue and Abby runs into them). Who's going to bully Baba and Taue? These two, that's who. Pretty much what you'd want for this.

3/3/89: Kawada/Tenryu vs GIANT KIMALA/Abby: Total mauling of poor Kawada. He doesn't even get his jacket off and they're just destroying him in and out of the ring. On the comeback, Kamala is so good at knowing exactly how much to give and when to give it. Eventually, the heels toss the ref out to draw the DQ and Tenryu comes back with a chair. Abby's blade job is serene. Let me see if I can capture it.

Spoiler

81VlX2.gif

 

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On 9/11/2020 at 4:38 PM, Matt D said:

I may, may watch the Malenkos tag when we get there just because there are only so many chances to see them, but we'll have to see. I don't have a great sense for the density of matches as we get deeper into the year, though I feel like I've zoomed through January and February. I thought this would be much more of a slog, to be honest.

Skipping Joe Malenko (or Debbie if you ever went the AJW route)?

Just spit in my face next time

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Just now, RIPPA said:

Skipping Joe Malenko (or Debbie if you ever went the AJW route)?

Just spit in my face next time

You're looking at this from the wrong angle. It's not that I'm skipping Joe. It's that I'm considering making an exception to the one rule I have in this entire endeavor to include Joe. 

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My laptop is shot for now, so I ended up missing 3-3 Jumbo/Yatsu vs Road Warriors. I'll have to double back for that. 

3/3/89 NWA WORLD CHAMPION Ricky Steamboat vs Takano: Yeah, this was problematic. Steamboat in Japan is always a little disappointing, but this was all over the place. Yes, it's very cool on paper to see travelling champ Steamboat, but he didn't know what he was supposed to be here. He worked technical. He let himself get outworked on the map, but he didn't clown or stooge. He got clotheslined over the top right after skinning the cat but he wasn't really heeling enough to make that seem like stooging. He hit the arm drags instead. He heeled in the corner with the chops and let Takano bully him. Then he hit the huge superplex off the top (which dropped Takano on his head because it's not something Steamboat should be doing against a guy that big) and got the oohs for the Flying Body Press. Despite Takano's size, Steamboat gave him way too much, as much as he should have given Tenryu or Jumbo. So lots of little things that were neat but it absolutely didn't come together. I'd call this one a real strike against Ricky, honestly. 

3/4/89 Tenryu/Hawk vs Isao Takagi/Takano: Tenryu sells. Hawk doesn't sell. Takagi is not an offensive dynamo in this match but he does have a cool charge into the corner. He's mainly there to lose the advantage. I am not in love with Tenryu's elbow-that-is-really-a-body-splash. Hawk and Tenryu do a rocket launcher where Hawk plants his skull. Then Takano goes to break it up and Hawk seems absolutely furious and swats at him before gingerly pressing Tenryu onto Takano. Hawk remains surly post match. 

 

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3/3/89 Jumbo/Yatsu vs Road Warriors: Super high on this. It was an absolute clash of the titans, big stars, big forces of nature crashing into one another, hitting power moves, launching double teams. Obviously there wasn't going to be a lot of selling but the tag nature allowed for it. The transitions were just there and it reminded me a little of those formless AJPW matches from earlier in the 80s. The difference here was that it was really only a few minutes in ring and that there was an amazing atmosphere. You even had something akin to a finish, albeit a countout one. They have a longer match back in June 88 which might not work since brevity was the thing here, but I kind of want to go back for that. I haven't been posting matches (but really, reach out if you want to see anything I review), but here's this one:

Spoiler


 


 

3/4/89: Ricky Steamboat vs Shinichi Nakano: This was terrible. Maybe the worst Steamboat match I've ever seen? He gave Nakano something like 95% of the match, which is made all the more terrible because it was ten minutes tops. I'm sure he was trying to be gracious and put him over but Nakano didn't look better for it. Steamboat and the NWA World Heavyweight Championship both looked like jokes. He had some cheapshots and really lame hairpulling to try to escape a hold, but his heart wasn't into it. It was completely unbelievable. I don't know if he was trying to mimic Flair but if so, he only dipped his toes in the water the tiniest bit. No stooging, no engaging with the crowd, no emotion in anything he did, no stakes, no fire, no pride, no grandeur. This was basically a jobber match where Nakano slipped on a banana peel and the jobber somehow won. 

I had a few more minutes to kill and nothing queued (I'll have to fix that by tomorrow somehow) so I watched the first half of the WWF/SWS Natural Disasters vs LOD match. They billed Tenta as Earthquake John Tenta but Typhoon was just Typhoon which was funny. It was very cool to see LOD in full WWF mode come out to Iron Man. I'll catch the second half at some point and talk about the match itself.

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