I've watched a bunch of Hashimoto v Choshu matches over the last few days. It's an awesome match-up, one of the best in New Japan's history, but then we already knew that. It did get me thinking about the New Japan heavyweights in a broader sense, though. I first got into New Japan through Liger and the juniors, as I imagine a great many of us who are now in our 30s did (it's kind of surreal that there's a whole generation of folk out there now who got into New Japan through guys like Tanahashi and Okada and the guys like Liger and Hashimoto and even Muta played no part at all in their interest. I am evidently no longer a young lad). The New Japan heavyweights were never talked about like the All Japan crop were. You bought New Japan tapes (or DVDs, as I started down this road in the 00s) for the juniors, All Japan tapes for the heavies. There were exceptions obviously, but that was generally how it felt to me, at least when I first started getting footage.
Since then I've worked my way through as much of the 90s All Japan stuff as I can really be bothered with. I tried ages ago (like about fifteen years in some cases) with the highly praised stuff from the New Japan heavies, but I never could take to Mutoh or Chono or most of the other prominent heavyweights there outside of Hashimoto (and Tenryu, if you want to throw him in there as he was around New Japan for chunks of time). Now I guess I'm giving them another shot or something? I don't know, I got the itch so I'll see where it takes me. I won't bother including the WAR/New Japan feud in this because I already know that's great and watching more Tenryu isn't really the point of this. I'm also not all that bothered about seeking out any obscure gems or whatever -- I kind of want to revisit the highly pimped stuff I couldn't get into in the past, or the highly pimped stuff I never even got around to, featuring the prominent New Japan heavyweights of the 90s. So there'll be lots of Hashimoto, a decent chunk of Hase, as much Chono and Mutoh as I can stomach, some Choshu, and then wherever else I end up. We'll see how long I go before moving on to something else. I give it six days.
Keiji Mutoh & Masa Chono v Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki (New Japan, 11/1/90)
This was pretty good overall, probably really good by the end, but for a match often talked about as one of the best New Japan tags of the 90s I've never really liked it anywhere close. It's only around seventeen minutes, so even if the first half is sort of back and forth, both teams having little runs of offence before control bounces back across, they at least don't piss around with meandering matwork. I mean I like Hase as a mat worker fine, but I don't have any interest in watching the other three do it so I'm glad they never even went there. I guess you could say they kind of established some roles in the first half as well. Mutoh and Chono are the clear favourites because they're the obvious future stars. They have moments where they work a few double teams and maybe operate better as an actual unit. I guess it felt like they'd tag in and out because it was natural to them, whereas Hase and Sasaki mostly did it when they needed to. Sasaki was my favourite guy in all of this. I don't usually care about him one way or the other, but I thought he was a super fun bruiser intent on clobbering and throwing folk around. He hit a great early powerslam on Chono, smacked him about the mouth, had a few impressive spots where he got to show off his athleticism, etc. The heat segment on him was also probably the strongest part of the match prior to the finishing run, though it was helped by the awesome crowd as the work itself wasn't particularly special. Last few minutes are where things pick up big. It gets super hot when Mutoh hits a dragon suplex on Hase and Chono comes flying off the top with a knee to stop the Sasaki intervention, then it hits boiling point when Hase kicks out of the moonsault. Sasaki blootering Mutoh with a lariat before hitting another huge powerslam on an onrushing Chono was a great little segment, and even if Hase was maybe up and about a little quick after the moonsault the place went straight bonkers for him hitting the northern lights suplex. Everything they did was fairly compact, they never wasted time with dry or perfunctory matwork, the crowd was red hot...I don't know, man. Putting it like that it sounds like I'm underselling it, but there are about ten WAR v New Japan tags alone I like better. Still, this was good. There.
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