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So, yeah, it’s one of those KENTA-on-the-cusp beatings against an older heavyweight.
This is not the best version of this you could maybe ever conjure up. It’s pretty simple, KENTA is largely eaten up as he was throughout the trial series, and Tenryu is not bumping his ass off all that much for anyone at this point period, let alone a junior heavyweight. You wish KENTA debuted five years earlier and they could have met a few years prior once KENTA’s slow transition to the heavyweight ranks had begun, and it looked like that second KENTA vs. Takayama match, where he got in a lot more offense before getting destroyed by the bigger guy.
All that being said, time is linear, some things simply did not line up perfectly, and seeing as this happens around the time Tenryu singles matches begin to stop turning up quite so frequently, it’s very easy to be happy with what this was, because what this was whips a whole lot of ass.
While wrestling is more art than science, sometimes, it does just come down to math.
For example, this match.
One of the best match types of all time is Genichiro Tenryu being a bully and terrorizing a younger and/or smaller wrestler. He is one of the greatest bullies in the history of wrestling, not only for how mean he can be and how convincing he is as this cruel old man, but also because he is also better than most on the other end too. Beyond the punches and the table throwing (and this is no small feat, Tenryu has maybe the best cut off snap jab in wrestling history ever, and nobody has made table throwing feel like more of an artform than Tenryu either), the greatest things about a Tenryu bully performance are the moments where he’s not on offense. It’s the moment where he first gets hit hard after making a show of brushing off shots earlier, before he gets even meaner as a result. It’s the moment after that especially, when the facade breaks, when Tenryu gets in trouble and he can’t even shut the guy down and pretend he’s not anymore. Above all, the Tenryu bully match works because Tenryu gets better than most ever what it requires on both ends. Not only whipping ass in an ultra-entertaining fashion, and not only getting your ass beat on the other end, but doing it in a way where he never loses anything and it feels like the other half of the match rising up to his level, rather than diminishing himself by playing a phony-feeling stooge.
During any point from the early 90s when he first started to really perfect the role through, really, the very end (even though it mostly turned into tags), a Tenryu bully match presents one of the higher floors per formula in pro wrestling history, to say nothing of the height of those ceilings.
While not as prodigious long term as the Tenryu Bully Match, KENTA against bigger guys in the 2000s and early 2010s was another can’t miss idea.
KENTA, during his peak, was a rare combination of things. A world class striker with an insane motor, someone with the sort of pure character instincts it seems like nobody can ever teach, mean enough to push guys believably to crossing a line in retaliation, but also small and sympathetic and enough of a bump freak to work perfectly in matches like these despite how great he was at the complete opposite approach. It’s not a complex a system as the Tenryu routine, he gets destroyed before having one of the most intense and energetic and frantic feeling comebacks in all of wrestling, but it works so so well.
Throw them together, maybe the best bully routine in wrestling history and the best underdog fighter in the country at the moment, these two things that fit perfectly together, and the magic happens.
Both physically unable to show respect or deference for any other living person, things immediately become hostile. Tenryu plays the hits with nearly as much skill as ever. The table throwing has a lovely new addition where Tenryu politely puts it back in front of the ring announcer, only to then take his hammer and hit KENTA in the head with it. As Tenryu is throwing more punches than what feels like usual at this point to cut off all these slap flurries, he also displays a handful of great little shake sells of the hand, before selling his annoyance to an even greater degreee, in one of the great old man bits ever. The escalation of selling leading to Tenryu getting his ass kicked for a few minutes at the end lands better than usual, because of how great all of KENTA’s striking is, and also how enthusiastic and animated he is while hurling everything he can at the old man. Tenryu shuts him down all the same, but the last time he does it, it feels like a thing he really had to fight for, and that’s where the match succeeds the most.
KENTA kicks out of one of the grossest Northern Lights Bombs of all time, seeming to genuinely shock Tenryu in the moment that really gains something for KENTA even in defeat, only for Tenryu to collapse his throat for the third or fourth time with a Lariat for the win.
Nothing unexpected, and at the same time, absolutely nothing that didn’t rule.
The sort of match that proves these formulas correct.
***1/4
HANDWERK 