This was the final of a tournament to determine inaugural SWS Tag Team Champions, although despite this having a clear winner, that wound up not actually happening for another eighteen months for reasons I cannot immediately find and that don’t actually matter all that much.
What matters way more than that is how much ass this whips.
(A lot. It whips a lot of ass.)
The thing about the greats, and I mean the real high level greats in pretty much any field, is that they don’t ever seem to need a lot to get where they need to go.
For example, this match has less than twelve minutes to its name, is the second match of the night for both teams on top of being the first show of a double shot, confines itself to a remarkably simple and time-tested story of less accomplished wrestlers overcoming stern hardened veterans, and withholds the major late match fireworks to an extent that, all of those things combined, it would be very easy to imagine thousands of other matches falling a little short under those circumstances. Most under any of these circumstances have fallen understandably short, let alone those under any combination of them.
It’s not just that this succeeds that’s so impressive though, it’s how naturally it does so, not only coming together perfectly by making the most of every moment, but by doing so in a way that feels stunningly effortless.
Start to finish, it’s one of those matches that just seems to organize itself into being without a single push from the outside world.
The way it goes feels like the easiest thing in the world too. Kabuki and Tenryu bully midcarders who, although not nobodies, feel a little out of their element here in their attempts to wildly overachieve, and Shunji Takano comes in with a taped up knee underneath his knee pad as well. It’s the perfect set up for arguably pro wrestling’s all-time greatest bully in Tenryu and a more than capable enforcer in Kabuki, even if this isn’t exactly the height of mean Tenryu. It’s easy because Tenryu’s done this so many times before, has a better grip on this sort of match than arguably anyone ever, and because every other piece of the match is perfectly designed to fit into his vision.
Having said that, there’s also a skill to it.
Everything might be as it ought to be, narratively speaking, but each of the four is individually stellar as well.
Kabuki is, as he often was around this time, so much more enjoyable to me as a surly old bully than as the famous gimmick. He’s full of mean mean mean punches, to the extent that in a Genichiro Tenryu match about the other side overcoming adversity, Kabuki is probably the nastiest puncher and wrestler in the match. Our Heroes, the two Takanos, are wonderful underdogs making good. They’re full of fire, always attack in a way to where there’s a “I can’t believe this is working!” element baked into all of their imperfect offense, and Shunji’s selling of a hurt leg in the second half sends the match to another level as well. There is then also Genichiro Tenryu, very possibly the greatest wrestler of all time, turning in yet another pitch perfect performance. The dirty work is for Kabuki, he carries himself with a little more dignity, his cruelty coming more as a casual matter of fact statement, which not only makes the match more interesting by giving the opposition two different roles, but makes the climax that much more satisfying.
Nuts and bolts wise, it’s also put together so well.
Shunji Takano’s knee is a problem and one that’s focused on, especially by Kabuki when he can’t shut him down any other way, but either by design or just as a byproduct of the shorter runtime, it’s never such a long-term focal point that it demands more from than he can offer. A stutter step before or after things, slight trouble moving, it’s enough to communicate it and respect the time invested, while also working towards the larger goal, underdogs now suffering under more than just the gap in achievement and talent. The meanness innate in the structure of the match works to the same goal, as denying any long term comeback and breaking up pin attempts sometimes before even the one count works to create the same feeling, just as much as any individual performance.
There’s something beautiful about a situation like this, once again showing that the best wrestling comes when all parts of a match — performance, construction, narrative — work towards the same goal.
Even more so in a case like this, when that goal is met.
Following yet another cut off of the hurt Shunji, Tenryu commences beating George Takano’s ass, only for Shunji to dropkick him back, setting up George for a bridging German Suplex, resulting in one of the great upset wins of the time.
Like everything else about this match, it’s handled just about perfectly. It feels like a surprise, not only that it works, but that they pull it together like that at all. It feels like not just exactly enough to beat a caught-off-guard Tenryu, but also the exact end this match ought to have. After all the near immediate cut-offs following big offense from either Takano, something sudden just feels right. On top of that
In the end, everything goes like it ought to.
Kabuki and Tenryu pay for all their crimes in a sudden moment, and in the best choice of all, it’s one that feels like an even greater insult in return than any prolonged or more epic-friendly bigger offensive move could. Midcard players rise up and beat a little ass, but way more importantly, survive and achieve and wipe those fucking looks off of everyone’s faces at the end of a match that also happens to be really really great too, elevating it that much further.
To me, this is pro wrestling.
Sensational violence, a meanness of spirit, and above all, yet again the sort of result that makes this all worthwhile, and that just feels good. It is far from perfect, these are not all the mot mechanically brilliant pro wrestlers ever, but sometimes it doesn’t matter, and this is sometimes. Once more, it’s the sort of thing pro wrestling ought to aspire towards, the result and feeling that real sports almost never lets you have, outside of the 2004 NBA Finals. Role players and non-superstars rarely get to take down The Man like this, no matter how much we often want them to, but Takano and Takano got to take down Tenryu on a major event, and that’s beautiful.
It’s everything I want out of wrestling, and why I watch the matches in the first place.
HANDWERK 