For as much fun as the months of SWS/WWF crossovers and guest appearance matches have been, something like this, a return to the normal programming of the later month of 1990 when the promotion first began putting shows on, is long overdue.
Which is to say that, finally, the SWS gets back to the hatred and hostility upon which it was founded.
Tenryu and company again make it seem so easy and so natural that, if you had never seen another wrestling match, you might just assume it’s always like this (rather than simply that it all should be like this).
It’s not all that complex.
Yatsu and Tenryu are your main players, and once more, for around fifteen minutes, they have another stellar build up tag. We only get a few minor chunks with the main stars against each other, working more with the supporting players, and it’s all kept fairly simple. Overzealous Fuyuki gets caught, Tenryu hot tag, some chaos, and then the Ace eventually brings it home. It succeeds because everyone in the match is good enough to get the most out of these things, not really needing the runway of a Great Match, instead having a normal match that is elevated to greatness through outright skill.
More than that though, every moment of this match is just so mean-spirited that, once more, performances significantly elevate the material.
Sometimes, it is in small ways like one of those slight but powerful Tenryu looks, where he raises his eyebrows just enough and/or tilts his head in such a way to convey any one of a million things, or an extra petty parting shot, which all four partake in at different points. Other times, it’s something bigger and more obvious, like Yatsu dragging Nakano just out of the way of the classic Tenryu backwards elbow so Tenryu looks like an asshole, or the constant cheap shots to whomever is on the apron. It’s even there in all the basic stuff. Slams — in the ring or out on Korakuen’s wood floor — feel more emphatic. Every chop, even beyond those of Tenryu who is among the best ever at modifying them based on the situation, is harder. Basic pin breakup saves even feel meaner than usual.
Everything culminates in the last minute or two in the sort of run that I would show to someone to not only explain why the SWS (and later WAR) is one of the promotions I enjoy watching most, but why wrestling rules to begin with.
Finally having enough, both of his inability to fuck Tenryu over against Nakano and Fuyuki refusing to be embarrassed and bullied outside, Yatsu snaps and gets a chair. He not only wails on Fuyuki’s head outside, as well as several officials, but gets Tenryu in the ring too, leading to the best moment of the match when Fuyuki, yet again, prevents Yatsu from doing what he wants.
Samson Fuyuki covers Tenryu up on some real hero shit, again feeling so much more admirable in this moment than the most famous version of this, because (a) with the way Yoshiaki Yatsu is swinging that thing, the threat is so much nastier, and (b) with the rush to fall as a shield and it not lasting forever, it seems so
That’s the key.
Not just to this match, but to the entire enterprise.
It works best when it feels the most genuine. Not always the most purely realistic, but when you feel all of it down in your bones like this.
With Fuyuki absorbing the beating for his man, Tenryu has enough left to recover and totally obliterate Nakano once Yatsu is sent out of there. A mother fucker of a lariat connects, and this time with Yatsu not close enough to save, the Powerbomb gives our heroes in Revolution the win.
This is the great stuff. Real hoops, pro wrestling ass wrestling, pure graps, my shit, the sort of wrestling that’s why I love to watch wrestling.
Initial anger that blossoms into a deeper hostility and more severe violence, exciting and real physical fighting in a tight package, bad guys doing vile things before getting their ass beaten by people it feels good to root for, and most of all, the promise that not only is this not over and that the worst guy of them all is still yet to truly pay for his crimes, but that he’s to going to pay a lot more when the time comes.
My favorite 1980s All Japan tag of 1991.
HANDWERK 