Genichiro Tenryu/George Takano vs. King Haku/Yoshiaki Yatsu, SWS (7/9/1991)

Again, simpler is better.

Tenryu and Yatsu have another one of their build up tags, once again lasting less than fifteen minutes (under twelve minutes this time), featuring no real large developments and clearly not aiming for the stars exactly, and it winds up, once more, being great less because of any conscious effort, and more because four great wrestlers are having it.

No match is ever entirely the same, and of course, there are differences.

Firstly, the pace is a lot faster.

Nobody is ever really taken down and cut off one one side of the ring long term in a way that other big SWS tags have shown. Tenryu and Nakano both get beaten up for a few minutes each, but everything moves so fast that to call any tag in this a hot tag would be a mistake. It’s not always the sort of thing I love, as few things in wrestling are as thrilling as a well done hot tag and a pace like this denies that, but wrestlers like these manage to preserve the intensity and fire along with the pace, so it never loses the overall frantic feeling. It’s not my favorite thing, but in a shorter match with wrestlers like these who are very good at never blowing up that more genuine feeling and spirit, it still works really really well.

Secondly, our two leads get into it a lot more here than they have in their other SWS tags against each other so far, and it’s a big part of why the performances are again responsible for elevating a match without such lofty ambitions.

There is no finishing run stuff to speak of, nor are they exactly giving the game away in terms of the content of the eventual singles meeting, but there i more of it now, at the exact right time to finally deliver more of it. They’ve lost roughly zero percent of the chemistry that they had together for most of the previous six years, and both as a result of that and how it’s been teased out and rarely delivered upon over the previous nine months, the Tenryu and Yatsu sections in this are especially electric.

Haku and George Takano are also both fantastic.

George is the perfect combination of the sort of underdog that Yatsu needs and also the kind of wrestler who can beat ass against two bigger guys, with neither function seeming at all out of place. Haku is a brilliant foil and backup, and for all the expected joy that there is in he and Tenryu wailing on each other with chops or him breaking out some less common offense like a huge leaping sidekick off the ropes, it’s also real fun to see him cheat more and get dirty in a way he often didn’t in America. Like the other great SWS tags, each of the two supporting players has great chemistry with the leader on the other side too, guaranteeing that zero percent of this match suffers as a result of any weaker combinations.

Every moment of it is great.

They also, again, nail the larger parts of the thing, the narrative work and the build to Tenryu and Yatsu eventually finally getting at each other. This time, rather than Yatsu snap, it’s Tenryu who loses it at the end, losing focus after yet another cheap shot to Takano and going after Haku exclusively on the floor, both with a chair and simply with his hands. It’s not only enough to matter, but in a match that had seen so so so many nearfall saves from both sides and every man in the match, it’s a classically great ending idea built up real well in the match itself.

Left alone, Yatsu is just better enough than Takano for it to matter. He has a hard time immediately putting our favorite to rest despite the cheap shot of Haku setting him up, but after a flicker of a comeback, evil Yatsu blocks something into a cradle to just barely eek it out while the big hero is a little too distracted by beating the ass of his henchman.

To repeat, even if it is not as great as the match two weeks prior, this is the sort of wrestling that I turn the matches on to see.

Villains transgressing and our heroes beating the shit out of them for it, the delay once more of the payoff while still moving things forward enough to satisfy, violence, energy, an unbelievable respect for my time, and a victory for the bad guys that walks a line perfectly between a little luck, a little bullshit, and enough strategic design to be both impressive and upsetting. Real pro wrestling stuff.

One of the bigger secrets of 1991 so far, less because it is among the year’s best or anything like that, and far more because it is so much fun and I have never once heard or read a word about it elsewhere.

***1/4

Revolution (Genichiro Tenryu/Samson Fuyuki) vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu/Shinichi Nakano, SWS The Battle Hall IV (6/26/1991)

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.

***1/2

Tarzan Goto vs. The Gladiator, FMW Kitakami Decisive Battle! Day One (6/15/1991)

This was a Texas Bull Rope Death Match.

Although for how much they used it — yet again for a match on an FMW smaller show fan-captured recording (although this one holding up much better in terms of audio and video quality, desync, actually seeing the match) — it could have easily been a chain or a dog collar match, or nothing could have even existed for how rarely it was used, outside of the simple utility of binding them together.

None of that matters.

Goto has had a bunch of these hyper-dramatic big FMW matches by this point that blend his propensity for realistic feeling violence and high-level energy that makes everything he does cool as hell with a narrative utility, and the result has been some of the best and most memorable matches of the era. This is not one of those matches. There is no such narrative function, longer-term work either continued nor culminated, and there is very little in the way of character work.

Instead of all that, sometimes shit just rocks.

Handed a young but vaguely promising Mike Awesome in a six a half minute brawl, Goto creates maybe not quite a miracle, but something more than anyone else with Awesome so far, either in tags or singles. It’s not a complex matter though, despite what phrasing like that might suggest, so much as that Goto only lets Awesome do a few things, like his powerbombs and clotheslines, and fills the rest up with delightful nonsense. Hard shots of his own, cutting Mike up, and most of all, spending half of the match outside where both men hurl tables at each other’s face and smack each other in the head with chairs as hard as possible, all before coming back in to do a few more sick power moves.

The thrills are simple, but still so great and so satisfying.

Goto plants him with a real motherfucking pancake proto Neutralizer on his face and a bunch of the rope, and given that such a thing makes Goto’s splash off the top a lot more improbable than usual, that’s the end.

I am not going to tell anyone that they have to see this, but the joy of being an absolute psycho with projects like this is finding dumb little chunks of fun like this, and six minutes and change of Tarzan Goto and a young Mike Awesome hurling each other and pummeling each other with all types of objects makes a whole lot of things worthwhile.

hell yeah dude

Kazuo Yamazaki vs. Yuko Miyato, UWFi Moving On 2nd (6/6/1991)

Following a surprise tag team win over the peoples’ heroes superteam of Yamazaki and Tatsuo Nakano, alongside Yoji Anjoh, on the first UWFi show, little Miyato now has to try that shit again on his own.

It doesn’t work, and there inlies the joy of this fight.

Put in the hands of a lot of other wrestlers, this sort of a thing — a deliberately non-flashy, eleven minute midcard shoot-style match where half the match is a not especially great wrestler — would probably not be all that interesting, let alone even good. However, in the hands of Kazuo Yamazaki, there is exactly enough meat on this bone for him to make something out of it.

That’s not to say this is some physical marvel, because it isn’t.

Miyato is not useless, being able to function on the ground and throw some solid kicks, and so they have a fine little mechanical match when Yamazaki can just kind of have a Yamazaki match around him without changing too much in the raw material.

It’s the other stuff that elevates a match like this though, even in a style that constantly attempts to trick people (and largely succeeds, even to this day) into thinking these things aren’t a part of this sort of thing. That stuff, in this case and in most cases around these parts now that Fujiwara is gone, is Yamazaki being one of the great character guys in the history of the style, with a real gift for making it clear why nearly every single thing in the match is happening, and thus putting a greater emphasis on strikes, holds, and overall moments than most others at this point can.

This is one of the better small examples of that.

Coming off an upset, Miyato is super cautious in the first half. Yamazaki checks almost every kick and pretty much blocks everything of note on the match, while also constantly backing him down and making these harsh but also sort of bored faces at it all. It all feels like an extended show of him daring the kid to do something already, and when Miyato finally does and gets him with something, there’s this great great little nod after being knocked to a knee. Expression get harsher, but that’s not all this has to offer narratively, because after easing off a knee once, when Miyato repeatedly kick Yamazaki across the stomach for downs (either to try to even up the score on points or because it’s the first thing that really worked), Yamazaki finally gets real mean and petty in response to teach the boy a lesson.

Yamazaki drops him and hurts him with a kick to the right leg, and this time, activated by Miyato also being a cheap little asshole, Yamazaki does what he probably wouldn’t do otherwise, and repeatedly kicks the little fucker’s leg out until he loses the match by TKO, before raising his arms right in eyeline of Miyato, unable to stand.

As a finish it’s the sort of thing I’ve complained in the past about when Nobuhiko Takada would use it to beat Fujiwara, but like everything else, context matters. As a main event face of the company, it’s a bad way to beat a main antagonist, but here, as punishment for similar behavior by a younger wrestler, it works. In other settings, it felt like some bullshit that everyone tried to pretend was fair and just, but here, it comes with this mental caption, based on the match and the body language of Yamazaki that, yes, he knows this is cheap, but he has nothing to prove and also, fuck him, he deserves it.

These things matter, they’re why Yamazaki is one of my favorite wrestlers ever, and why this was of any note at all.

Borderline great midcard shoot-style that takes one of the two available routes — packed full of remarkably sick and new ideas or character-driven piece — to put a thing like that on the right side of the border.

It’s not quite the route I prefer of the two, but given Miyato, the most likely to succeed.

three boy

Grigory Verichev vs. Atsushi Onita, FMW Shogeki Day Eleven (5/29/1991)

This was for Verichev’s WWA Brass Knuckle Heavyweight Title.

Assuming you’ve gone into this having seen their first match (and why wouldn’t you? Wrestling is almost always better in context!), this is essentially just that again, and it’s great for mostly the same reasons. Onita’s energy, the way Verichev carries himself and moves around the ring to casually feel like a gigantic killer, huge bumps, simple backdrop throws that though a combination of said bumps individually and the flow of the match to those points, and a typically dramatic ten count finish.

Granted, there differences.

First, in the fact that this time, like one expects in this sort of a cycle when the leader of the company has his rematch with the monster who previously pummelled him into oblivion, Onita wins and regains his title. It makes this match a little less interesting on a conceptual level, as at least for me, the disruption will always be more engaging than the return to the usual order, even with the sense of triumph that Onita puts behind it.

The other difference is how they get to that point, which is I think what makes sure it’s still interesting.

Rather than something like the Onita/Aoyagi matches over eighteen months earlier, where Onita perseveres at the end in roughly the same match, this is a lot different in terms of what they choose to do. Onita adapts Goto’s plan of rushing at the start into something more sustainable, both making better decisions after that initial shock and also changing his offense a lot, like breaking out an ahead-of-its-time dropkick off the apron. He gets a little lucky too, like when a judo throw takes Verichev over the top and he seems to bang his arm up some on the landing, later giving him openings that nobody else has had against the big man. Not only in the holds he has a chance at, but primarily in giving Verichev moments of pause after his gigantic throws, which allows Onita the chance for the one big match-altering lariat to break the sequence up that he never had in February, and that makes such a difference now.

Are these differences enough?

Sure.

Generally, the match lasts around the same length and has the same feel in terms of mechanics and construction. As a result, these narrative shifts and the change in what they do within the same type of match matter, and make sure this isn’t solely a retread, even if by the nature of what it seeks to do, the ceiling is lower.

Mostly though, I like it for the same reasons I liked the original, and I imagine that a lot of people would as well.

It’s big event wrestling where — although you can trim stuff out that doesn’t matter long term (this is why Goto/Verichev is the best of the bunch) — everything that happens feels like a huge swing, and every part of the match feels more desperate and valuable and important as a result.

Verichev finally gets dropped on his head one time too many by the second or third Thunder Fire Powerbomb, and Onita gets his belt back.

Not one for permanent tape, nor anyone after just the absolute best stuff, but that has never once been the province of this endeavor. For people wanting to find the joy in the regular strength great things, like the other non-all-time Onita vs. Legitimate Fighter matches or all of the other Verichev stuff, it is so so easy to enjoy, and I am valuing that sort of a thing more and more lately.

***

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Wellington Wilkins Jr., PWFG Hataage Dainissen 2 (5/16/1991)

Another wonderful midcard Fujiwara outing from the spring of 1991.

Wellington Wilkins Jr. is another one of those types of guys who are always there on these shows, not really achieving much, but with a general skill level both on the ground and on their feet that always makes them sneaky contenders to find their way into a great match, as well as one just exactly there — in between being a world beater and being a complete and total loser — enough to slot into just about anything on the right night and under the right circumstances.

Which is to say he is ideal for Fujiwara.

He is the exact sort of guy that one of the best wrestlers of all time can see the gifts of — functional on the mat, good to great striker on all levels, capable of some anger — and plug exactly into his sort of a match.

The difference between this and something like the Fujiwara/Niikura match six weeks prior is that, instead of like one transgression early on that Fujiwara takes super seriously because the opponent has no right to come at him like this, Wilkins is instead someone Fujiwara at least has a healthy respect for. The magic there lies in that, rather than spend the match on an extended trap so as to humiliate him in the end, Fujiwara simply retaliates in the same coin every time, only for things to constantly get meaner and meaner and allowing the match to become increasingly tense as it does so.

So much great pro wrestling is created by these vicious circles, and Fujiwara operates a compass better than most.

***

Willie Peeters vs. Marcel Haarmans, RINGS Astral Step 1st ~ Spirit-U (5/11/1991)

Peeters’ Dutch judo and karate, and really everything, meets Haarmans’ more specialized Dutch freestyle/Sambo and some shit explodes.

It is not the opener, like another great match from a post-UWF 2.0 shoot-style start up show this very same weekend, but it is something like the best possible introduction to Fighting Network RINGS.

First, it’s a great stylistic introduction.

RINGS is familiar at this point, enough like other shoot-style companies that most with a basic knowledge of the style will find it familiar, but it’s also different in a very important way. While the UWFi debut show emphasized a speed and style, RINGS feels realer than everything else, taking on Maeda’s philosophy and then some. Matches can replicate the rhythms and beats of a real fight if done well enough, and the second UWF was unparalleled at adding in the smaller details to make it feel like a sporting event (weird flukes, bad referee calls, upsets falling apart when the less experienced lose their nerve at a crucial moment, etc.), but this match feels like more of an actual fight than anything like that. Repeated attempts at a specialty, Peeters’ forward shots to the chest that never seem to show up in other shoot-style, checked kicks, and most of all, repeated throw attempts that are blocked in ways that are not at all pretty.

So much wrestling in this style attempts to create this smooth and crisp version of the “what if wrestling was as realistic as possible?” approach, getting the big things right like removing a lot of hokey pro wrestling standards, but it forgets the important part that a whole lot of real fights do not go perfectly. This match — and RINGS at large — remembers that aspect, making it all feel a little more genuine, while also still functioning in a pro wrestling way, offering up a clear and simple narrative and functioning within a system of setups and payoffs. It comes close than almost any other attempts to completely remove the seams on this thing.

The second very important part is that everyone gets a look at absolute superstar Willie Peeters for the first time.

Willie Peeters is the man in the crew cut in a black, neon green, and hot pink singlet, and he immediately has all of the things that cannot, seemingly, be taught, or at least that other rookies take years to develop. A comfort in everything he does, unique strikes (again, those forward shots to the chest, but also TONS of genuinely gruesome body blows), awesome throws, a kind of not-obvious-until-you-see-him charisma that’s hard to look away from, and most of all, a believability beyond so many others. Throughout this match, I am never totally sure to what extent Peeter knows this is a work at all. His punches and few kicks land with such visible, and more importantly, audible impact that I might believe he thought this was real or something.

Peeters was so impressive in this match that, about halfway through when I began freaking out about how great this guy was, I went on Cagematch to look through a list of his thirty two other career pro wrestling matches to see just what’s yet to come.

In one match, the guy vaulted himself onto the list of people in this project for whom I intend on seeing everything available. It’s not a star making performance in a traditional sense, so much as that Peeters was simply that great, but it’s a great enough performance to take someone from an unknown into one of my favorites. Assuming anyone out there in 1991 felt the same way I did, I think that on a debut show where one might not be familiar with most of the fighters, that feels so important.

The match also just rules.

For all the reasons above, that it was full of these great ideas and how genuine it felt and how immense Peeters was — although Haarmans has a few great shots to dole out as well — but also because it’s kind of just classic pro wrestling. It feels different, but let it in and really look at it, and it feels undeniable. Two men with a clear grudge, real violence, and a series of near-misses and attempts setting up moments when everything works. Peeters works all match for a takedown that Haarmans doesn’t counter, and near the end, he gets it. Likewise, Peeters spends all match going to his body attacks, his gross (gross gross gross gross) punches to the stomach and jabs and palms to the chest with kicks seemingly in there as feints, only to reveal at the end in SUCH a pro wrestling ass way, that he always had more than that in him.

Marcel Haarmans leaves his hands low, not even near his head, to try and catch or block the body attacks, only for Peeters to completely level him with a head kick, in a truly beautiful show.

Haarmans never even gets close to making it up by ten, and Peeters wins.

I loved this.

Willie Peeters vs. Marcel Haarmans is maybe not EVERYTHING that I want from wrestling, but it ticks off enough boxes for me to love. Violent and interesting, a wrestler I cannot look away from, genuine feeling, and efficient as hell.

This is RINGS, mother fucker.

***

 

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Masahito Kakihara, UWFi Moving On (5/10/1991)

With the death of the second UWF, the UWFi rises in its place.

It’s not exactly the same.

The rules of the UWFi differ from those of its predecessor by giving each man 15 points to start (21 for tag team matches) and losing them for things like rope breaks and knockdowns and the like, as well as formalizing finishes into submission, knockout, or points-based victories, finally doing away with the pinfalls that were technically still allowed under the old banner.

Kiyoshi Tamura vs. Masahito Kakihara is the first ever match under the UWFi banner, and although these newer rules do not come in to play much at all (which I imagine is the point of rocketing it up to 15), the first match in a new promotion is always an important one.

It’s a mission statement, and in this case, a display of a faster and more energetic evolution of the older style, with more shots thrown at a higher clip, and with some transitions and escapes that aren’t at all common.

Kakihara and Tamura do a fantastic job with that.

That is absolutely not to say it’s perfect, as I think it’s far from that, especially if you actually watch a lot in this style, but that’s less the fault of either man and simply the result of how inexperienced they still are.

Shoot-style feels like the hardest style for a young wrestler to immediately be great in, and throughout history, it shows. The more pared down style cuts off young wrestlers from what they could do in other styles to circumvent a lack of mechanical brilliance, and the flourishes that do come into the style tend to come from a sort of personality that many young wrestlers in this style — or young wrestlers in general — do not have immediately. These matches are typically more about the basics, across any style, and here, it means a lot of slaps and kicks and basic holds, causing a lot of the underneath matches with newer wrestlers to blend together. In other words, the 10,000 hours idea might be bullshit, but shoot-style wrestling is one of those rare pursuits that makes it feel real.

It’s why matches like this — the ones that manage to overcome it or that are fun enough to move past it in some way — stand out like they do.

Nothing all that fancy happens. Kakihara has under a year in the ring, and Tamura has less than two under his belt. The advanced techniques are not there yet. What they have is a frenetic pace and blistering hand and foot speed. There’s a handful of remarkable dodges here that are even more impressive than moments when they connect, which they also make feel like bigger victories than one might imagine. The holds are not exceptional, either in design or in small details, but they’re put on and yanked at with such an urgency that it’s also a little less routine than usual.

In short, it’s a match that success primarily through ambition, a super admirable display of raw talent not entirely molded yet, and one that does just enough right to result in a great match.

Tamura counters a heel hold into one of his own to win.

A lovely vision of the future, showcasing very likely the best shoot-style wrestler of the decade, even if that future (thankfully) mostly does not happen in UWFi.

three boy

Atsushi Onita vs. Mr. Pogo, FMW Sennitsu Day Ten (5/6/1991)

(photo courtesy of BAHU’s wonderful FMW site)

This was an exploding barbed wire Double Hell deathmatch.

On that site linked to above, a phenomenal source of both further in-depth information a well as photos that would likely be borderline lost media without it, FMW results are split up into sections. Usually, it is year by year, either beginning or ending with what would become the gigantic spring (usually May 5th or 6th but not always) show, but the first section, comprised of a little more than the first year and a half ends with this show, and effectively, with this match.

It’s purely circumstantial, I think, bringing it to an end on the show whose general date range would become the signature event for the company, but it’s also perfect.

Before I began this, and to be honest even still sometimes now, I had a picture of FMW in my head, as one does. Even if you don’t always give a ton of thought to these things, I have to imagine that with anything one hears a lot about or perhaps also experiences only in small flashes or snippets or through famous photographs or widely praised wrestlers and/or matches, this happens.

This is, even more than the first exploding barbed wire match, the first FMW match to completely fit that vision that decades of loose video clips, pictures, GIFs, and recountings from others created in my head.

An unbelievable atmosphere, lent not just by the constant threat of danger but the beautiful sky and wide open setting with trees off in the distance, and late in the match, some kind of music far far far off in the distance, but just loud enough for the camera to pick up. Atsushi Onita covered in blood. Barbed wire and simple offense and dramatic selling. Above all, of course — as the reputation of FMW to those less familiar, at least at a time, was always a little more than just tables, chairs, wire, and blood, the standard harcore fare — there are explosions, and much bigger ones than the other major experiment with something like this.

Pogo and Onita have all of that in their second meeting, and it is all so cool.

It is not quite as good as their November 1990 match.

To some extent, that’s to what this match is and what it requires, a lot of teases shoving through or under the ropes into Double Hell, but that isn’t all of it. Kurisu and Onita had a great match with those same limitations and without the benefit of gigantic explosions due to Kurisu’s mechanical perfection. A lot of it comes down to that Mr. Pogo is just not great, especially not in the ways that can help a match like this out, and just as much to that this goes on a little long after the climax of Pogo being sent into a gigantic explosion after Onita ate two early on, as well as repeating itself in that last quarter or so when the best had clearly already passed.

What it has going for it does a lot to counteract that though.

First is that this is still a big event Atsushi Onita match.

Onita delivers in the way that Onita always seems to in these singles spectacles. Everything he does feels like something he wrings every drop out of or uses every available part of. Not only in terms of utility in the match, for the most part save some closing moments, but in terms of how much energy seems put into it. Again, he isn’t breaking out this massive arsenal of new attacks, but every punch and clothesline and headbutt and DDT looks like he’s trying to win with the exact thing he’s using in that moment. The selling of the two blasts he takes is also unbelievable. Not over the top, but quieter and so much more genuine feeling, like there’s just as much shock mixed in there as actual pain, which stands out so much more.

There are also those explosions and they are, as tends to be the case, sick as hell.

Particularly — although it is not to say Onita’s two earlier ones are not thrilling — it’s the third one that Pogo takes face-down that feels like goes off the largest. It’s the most fitting, the one the match builds towards and that is effectively the climax, resulting in the loudest sound, widest pyrotechnic outburst, and by far the largest cloud of smoke. Especially considering it’s the first, it’s a beautiful thing.

Pogo’s done after that, and although it takes too long to get there, Onita eventually adapts his off-the-middle DDT to be off the top instead to win.

It’s not the greatest match and I know that, but maybe sometimes some things take precedence of pure artistic quality. Given that I’m probably not going to forget about it any time soon, despite all of its flaws, I think it’s worth it, as a match that goes well beyond that sort of a measure.

ratings are bullshit and explosions rule 

 

Grigory Verichev vs. Tarzan Goto, FMW Sennitsu Day Ten (5/6/1991)

This was a Different Style Fight for Verichev’s WWA Brass Knuckles Heavyweight Title.

Following Verichev’s absolutely-not-an-upset victory of the title and conquest of FMW over Atsushi Onita, Tarzan Goto gets his shot, not only to try and take the title back for the home team, but probably just as importantly, to do something that Onita could not.

He comes up short, of course, but he does so in an even better match.

A really significant part of that, and really like ninety percent of that is simply what this match chooses to be, and like so many of the great more “regular” early FMW main events, it’s a match with some phenomenal narrative work. .

Verichev/Onita was the way it was — a slower start before a series of explosions that Onita never found a way past — to further accentuate the value of Verichev as a top level talent and give his victory maximum impact, winning in the exact sort of match that Onita has been using to beat other legitimate fighters for the last eighteen months. It was a great idea resulting in a memorable match, an obvious success, and thankfully, this is a match that goes the complete opposite way.

In this match, Tarzan Goto whips Verichev’s ass.

Not only does it work, and work immediately after a running lariat, giving the match a new dimension than other Verichev matches, but there’s a further utility to it as well. It very much feels like what Onita should have done, as someone with an even more explosive attack than Goto, and because such a thing comes from Goto, there’s also something a little more pointed attached to it, trying again to surpass the king while showing him how he’s better.

Goto being Goto though, perhaps just the first to suffer from a curse on that name, it does not work forever.

Unable to pummel the big guy forever, he briefly goes to the knee, only to go back to pure fighting once it gets hard. His greatest strength — an overzealous and reckless lack of fear — is also his greatest weakness. Goto brains himself on the post, giving Verichev his first window for offense all match, and he rips the thing clean off the hinges. Within a minute, two at the most, Verichev hurls Goto on his head with what feel like even nastier suplexes than against Onita, and the poor guy cannot sustain it. After self-Nigeling himself on his one (1) error, Goto gets blasted with a few backdrop suplexes before, as if to punish him for trying to exist on the mat with him earlier in the fight, Verichev wins with a cross armbreaker.

That’s the good stuff, to me.

An incredibly flawed character taking on a seemingly impossible task, coming closer than anyone, only to be undone by the very thing that got him so far in the first place.

Wrestling isn’t just all narratives, characters, and great stories though.

On some level, this has to also deliver in the ring, or else, we’re only talking about one incredibly well executed piece of the puzzle.

So, does this whip ass?

God yes.

Compounding the moments like those — Goto hurling his body at everything in front of him or the way he lands on those Verichev throws late in the match — that are just objectively cool as hell, it’s also all done with such an energy and a force by both Goto and Verichev, and so expertly put together and executed.

Every swing feels like an attempt to end the fight in that immediate moment, and when he goes to the ground with the champion, Goto walks this perfect tightrope where everything both looks painful and, likely not on purpose, like he is more than a little outside his comfort zone. It’s also SUCH a tight package, the sort of match that’s not only perfectly put together in terms of the order of everything, but also in how vital everything that happens feels both to the match as this narrative arc as well as as this purely physical creature.

Given that it is almost entirely just person-to-person fighting, with slight chair use being the only moment in this match that the structure of a wrestling ring does not already provide, this wonderful energy and the frantic efficiency of the match combines with that clear narrative to create not just the sort of wrestling I love, that best of both worlds situation again from early FMW, but also something that feels like FMW’s closest foray into WCW big match wrestling.

Little feels quite as right.

Wonderful episodic wrestling, getting the next part of a monster reign (although admittedly a shorter one than usual) just as perfect as it got the first part, while also happening to whip a ton of ass.

***1/4