(This was an anonymous commission over at my Ko-fi page. There, you can request a review of any match you’d like for $5 a pop, although I’d recommend looking first to see if I’ve covered or thinking ahead about whether or not I’m going to cover it, as with most great wrestling matches in the 2010s (if you want to pay me to watch a bad match or one you think I won’t cover, hey, go for it). You can also just drop in a tip there if you feel like being particularly cool. It’s much appreciated. That link again is https://ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon.)
This was for Takada’s IWGP Heavyweight Title.
For the unacquainted, this is the climax of the big New Japan vs. UWFi feud of 1995-96. I don’t like it quite as much as an interpromotional feud as New Japan vs. WAR in 1992-94 or, famously, the first version of this with New Japan vs. UWF in 1986. Still, the same conflict resides here that lives in all the successful version of this thing. Not only a clear contrast in style, but also in the fans and wrestlers of each promotion being unbelievably fired up for the entire thing. However, it is clearly the most successful interpromotional feud of all time, drawing three (3) different Tokyo Dome houses of over 60,000 people each time out. The first two saw a Mutoh/Takada series over the title, split 1-1, with shoot-style invader Takada claiming the title in the main event of New Japan’s flagship January 4th show.
This time, Shinya Hashimoto steps forward. Less as the “last” hope for New Japan as is often hyperbolically claimed, but certainly as its best hope and the one best suited for the job, himself being a great kicker and adept on the ground.
As a match, it’s great.
I don’t think it’s one of the best matches ever and I think that sort of hyperbole is a little ridiculous when both men have greater matches than this that one can promote instead, but I understand the impulse. Because, truly, this is an incredibly fun thing, and feels like the biggest match there is. Beyond the hot angle and the hot crowd, both Hashimoto and Takada (primarily Hashimoto though) wrestle this match BIG. Through their actions and the way they carry themselves from start to finish, and most importantly with the absolute urgency that both men put behind every single movement in this thing.
A few weeks ago for a Halloween special, I wrote about the Goldberg vs. Diamond Dallas Page match from Halloween Havoc 1998, and referenced this match (I imagine this is where our benefactor got the idea from, although Goldberg/DDP is a better match). What I found so striking about that match was a specific kind of heavyweight wrestling, best personified by that match, and the matches each man also had with Sting in 1998. It’s the sort of match with very little waste, with a near perfect economy of movement, and where it always feels like someone is trying to not only win, but to win immediately. They’re matches that feel like monumental and titanic struggles and that often have a flow different from what you usually see in professional wrestling, something closer to a real fight. Guys trying to find an opening, parrying away, and sudden flurries that emerge as if out of thin air that feel capable of ending the fight in an instant. It isn’t something you see all the time, and on top of how appealing and fascinating it is, it’s one of my favorite subgrenres of wrestling out there.
This is another such match, and it’s always a delight.
What this does better than most other matches of its time and in history is that, at all times, it feels like a legitimate fight between people of different disciplines.
Takada spends the first half of the match seemingly intent on the cross armbreaker. He tries it whenever possible, only to get just barely shoved off or blocked every time. He gets it on fully at one point, but Hashimoto gets out of it because Takada doesn’t cross his legs to try and block the free arm from coming back over and locking the hands to break the hold. Takada also rocks the big fella once or twice with combinations of kicks, and feels like a guy slowly turning the fight into one he’s comfortable with.
Part of the beauty of a match like this is that a match like this can more believably hinge on just one thing going horrible wrong, and that’s exactly what happens. Takada lets Hashimoto up a time too many, and while Takada is all kicks and holds, Hashimoto has more than that to offer the fight. Takada’s blocking isn’t what it should be and Hashimoto completely fucks his shit up with one of those glorious windmall slaps and then three or four more until Takada goes down.
In the last few moments, the match then turns into a truly glorious ass beating.
Takada’s plan entirely evaporates the moment he goes down, and he’s on the ropes for the rest of the match. His survival instincts aren’t nearly as strong as Hashimoto’s and he feels like every bit the pampered fighter to Hashimoto’s man of the people ass kicker. Without the advantage of a plan and with his confidence shaken, Takada grabs wildly whenever possible and tries to take Hashimoto back down. He’s able to do it, but never again with the same success of the first match. Hashimoto’s slap flurry leads to these wild round kicks to the stomach that feel equally as hateful as they do painful. The striking that puts Takada on rollerskates also has the benefit of opening him up for the pro-style offense that he’s avoided from Takada all match before now. The big man DDT leads to the most impactful looking Brainbuster of Hashimoto’s career, and Takada is cooked. It’s a wonderful story on the micro level as much as it is the macro, and feels as much about shoot vs. pro as it does about a more white collar vs. blue collar ethic. One can adapt when things don’t go exactly right, and the other absolutely can not.
After he’s clearly won with the absolute god damner of a vertical drop Brainbuster, Hashimoto adds in a Triangle Armbar to also force Takada to suffer the indignity of a submission loss as well on top of it all.
Sixty five thousand people erupt in the Tokyo Dome, as if it was the liberation of Paris (this might work better if he beat Takada in HUSTLE). The castle (belt) has been taken back from the invaders, and The Man begins his longest title reign, having finally established that for good by standing up here and now, when he was needed most. The perfect end to the story, and truly, the ideal scenario for an interpromotional story like this.
If not one of the greatest matches of all time, one of the all-time great complete packages in wrestling history.
HANDWERK 
