Eight hundred! Who'd have thought after even a month of this nonsense, way back in the simpler times of 2010 when the big Rona-19 was unfathomable, that I'd still be doing it over ten years later (not bloody me, I'll tell you)? What a madness. Like Whiskey and Wrestling seven hundred I watched a few matches I've been saving (for whatever stupid reason) watching for a while. What better occasion than now, I ask. Here are some words. Read them if you think yourself enough of a fool.
Atsushi Onita v Tarzan Goto (FMW, 2/26/91)
The skeezy indie filth snuff film is one of the best things in wrestling and this was pretty much a masterpiece of the genre. It was awesome right from the jump as they tried to dent each other's skull with headbutts even the FUTEN boys would wince at. Pretty soon they end up on the floor and Onita hits a tope, Goto jabs him in the eye with the back of a chair and chucks a full table at him, and naturally they're both bleeding profusely. The headbutts were the constant and they kept circling back to them. At one point Goto slapped on an STF but I don't think Onita even had to reach the ropes before they were back up on their feet conking heads. Goto was so great in this. He's the scummiest irresistible force and would not stop going at Onita no matter what was thrown at him. I suppose you can criticise the spot where he gets piledriven through a table - one of those indestructible Korakuen Hall tables, no less - and is back up moving forward seconds later, but he's Tarzan Goto and made of solid BEEF so why should we expect a mere table to fell him? He controlled most of the match offensively and I thought it was great how he progressively sold each of Onita's bombs towards the end. Kicking out of a finisher after a 1 count is a goofy fighting spirit nonsense of a spot today but this worked within the context of their grimy little horror story. One powerbomb is never going to be enough to put away this blood-coated fridge of a man, with his repulsive forehead and attitude to match. So Onita goes back to the well because why wouldn't he, I guess? From that piledriver on the table earlier to the DDTs and powerbombs you could see Goto being chipped away at, and I loved how they showed that simply enough through how long it took Goto to kick out each time. The piledriver had little effect, the first powerbomb only kept him down for a 1, but the second was a genuine nearfall! I suppose getting dropped on your neck repeatedly will make it difficult for anyone to get up, even the hideous goblin in the leopard-print singlet.
Naoki Sano v Kiyoshi Tamura (UWFi, 5/6/94)
Maybe not a stone cold classic, but look at who's in it and tell me how it couldn't be good. They worked real tentative to begin with, like two guys who knew the other could kick it up a few gears in an instant. There was a hesitancy because either one could rip off a counter from nowhere and put the thing to bed. The strikes were mostly probing and it led to an awesome moment with Tamura getting caught a little more forcefully in the midsection. As Sano went to press on with a high kick Tamura had to dodge back so far he wound up on the canvas, but before Sano could even think of following up again Tamura immediately gave us the old HBK kip up and walked away cool as you like. The longer it went the more they settled into a nice rhythm and about halfway in things got pretty great. Sano might be the best of all time at believably incorporating pro style moves into shoot style bouts (I may have said this in the past. It feels like something I've said in the past) and this time it was a fisherman buster. On the flipside Tamura might be the best of all time at countering his way out of a shitty situation at the blink of an eye so that particular sequence ended in a stalemate. Sano has his moments of brilliance, like when he grabs a super awkward armbar and Tamura is left smarting even after the break, but Tamura keeps growing into the fight and soon evens up the score by forcing Sano to the ropes a couple times himself. When Sano whips him over with the German suplex you think it could be the set up to him closing out the fight, except there's that thing about Tamura being able to counter anything you throw at him. When he grabbed that wrist and went for the kimura you sort of knew he wasn't for letting go.
Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata v Masa Chono & Hiroyoshi Tenzan (New Japan, 6/12/95)
I thought this was good for about ten minutes and then REALLY good for six-seven minutes. And for the whole seventeen minutes Hashimoto was awesome. Tenzan and Chono are in full shithead mode and this is about the most I've enjoyed both of them in ages, especially Tenzan who's usually woeful. He has an extremely punchable face and demeanor in this, shit talks Hashimoto on the mic before the match starts, and Hashimoto stomping him to bits was just perfect. The brainbuster Hashimoto gave him was on a whole other level of ridiculous compared to most brainbusters you've ever seen. This might be my favourite period of Chono's career because he wouldn't dick around on the mat with boring matwork for three hours and instead leaned all the way into being a bastard, letting his charisma do a lot of the work. That first ten minutes was mostly back and forth, nothing really sticking too long, no stretch where someone was properly isolated. It meant there was plenty of Hashimoto coming in grumpy and squashing someone's spleen but I wanted something to really dig my teeth into. I was a bit worried they were going to work the whole match even until Hirata seemed to injure his leg and end up in PERIL. That didn't last too long either and so we never got a vintage Hashimoto hot tag, but it did lead to the best stretch of the match. As soon as Hash comes in he casually sweeps aside Tenzan's attempt at a wheel kick, and at that point you're thinking someone's getting their chest caved in. Except Chono jumps him and pretty soon Hashimoto is fighting both of them while Hirata is out on the floor with his bad leg. Every time Hirata tries to climb back in he'll be dragged out again by Chono's enforcer Hiro Saito, so Chono and Tenzan have an open lane to pile on Hash. So rather than getting the Hashimoto hot tag we get Hashimoto as face in peril, and wouldn't you believe it he was amazing at it. He fights back bloody-nosed, just whomping motherfuckers with overhand chops and roundhouse kicks. The last couple minutes feel more like All Japan than New Japan to an extent, with Hirata trying to fight his way to his partner's side before he's overwhelmed completely, only All Japan probably would've eschewed the low blow so maybe Chono > Misawa after all. And Hashimoto > everybody, which we already knew.
Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda v Yuki Ishikawa & Takeshi Ono (Battlarts, 1/21/97)
Geez Louise what a match. This was off the charts premium Battlarts that gave you everything you could want in such a thing. It might be my favourite kind of wrestling. The matwork was air tight without surrendering any of that Battlarts roughness, the striking was god tier violent, the partner saves were sheer madness and it had the cool wrinkle of Ikeda and Ono being on opposite sides for a change, which is a bit of a rarity but something we know always delivers. The first minute or so was absolute perfection as we opened with some amazing scrambling from Ono and Usuda, Ikeda coming in unprompted and punting his usual partner in the head, and Ishikawa following suit by dropping a headbutt on an unawares Usuda. Ono and Usuda had several exchanges during this that wouldn't have looked out of place in RINGS, only here there was that ever-present danger of rolling too close to a corner and getting your face stomped on mid-kneebar. Another ever-present is that Ikeda/Ishikawa rivalry and this had some of the all-time greatest Ikeda/Ishikawa exchanges. There was one part where Ikeda was absolutely hammering Ishikawa with kicks and Ishikawa refused to give him the satisfaction of winning even a single exchange, and I about lost it when he managed to get up and just throw his head clean into Ikeda's face. These two have thrown some truly disgusting headbutts at each other over the years and I honestly don't recall seeing one as reckless as that. Ishikawa and Ono paint a bullseye on Ikeda's leg and Ono tries to kick it apart at the knee while Ishikawa bends it at all angles. Ono is just teeing off on him at one point, leg kicks, kicks to the midsection, the back of the head, everything. Ikeda is stumbling around like a man who has no clue where he is and I loved that he eventually tagged out by just collapsing, maybe through luck and nothing more, into the general vicinity of his own corner. Also loved Ono saving his payback for that first Ikeda interjection by waiting until Ishikawa was trying to apply an armbar, casually coming in and kicking Ikeda's hands apart. If I was being hyper-critical I'd say the finish was maybe a touch anticlimactic, and I guess it lacked the drama of your absolute gold standard Battlarts finishing runs, but this was tremendous and stands out as one of the best matches in a ridiculously stacked year for good wrestling matches.
Kenta Kobashi & Jun Akiyama v Stan Hansen & Vader (All Japan, 12/5/98)
This was very un-90s All Japan-like, with a very un-90s All Japan-like finish, and I mean both of those things in the best way possible. It ruled, of course. Who knew a 19-minute borderline squash in the world of 40-minute epics would've been this much fun. There's no point going on about how I wish All Japan did this sort of thing more throughout the decade. The 90s All Japan target audience are more than happy with how that stuff went, but man, it might've just worked. Hansen and Vader are the ultimate pair of wrecking ball bastards and they pretty much annihilate Kobashi and Akiyama the entire time. Hansen is broken down yet always dangerous because he's the angriest human being to ever live, but even after a disappointing couple years in the WWF Vader feels like the most menacing presence imaginable. The way he just walks around is sort of terrifying. He's probably the more dangerous of the two at this stage of the game but he'll defer to Hansen because it's Stan Hansen and there can only be one sheriff in town. Kobashi was so great in this, from the way he takes and sells the beatings (there were many), the way he fires back, his general charisma, it was awesome. His first exchange with Vader was incredible and his KO sell for being clubbed across the ear was just perfect. Hansen holding him in place so Vader could punch him dead in the throat and nose was also perfect. Akiyama gets killed repeatedly. He tries a northern lights suplex on Vader and the way Vader just went dead weight and about crushed Akiyama's neck was insane. I don't even know how many times someone got clubbed ridiculously in the face but these were some of the ultimate Vader soup bones. Towards the end it looks like Kobashi and Akiyama might've found an inroad by going after Vader's leg, then Akiyama gets tossed outside and Vader hobbles over and squashes Kobashi's lungs with a splash. Loved how Hansen looked up at Vader after one Kobashi kickout and pointed like "okay, you can finish this motherfucker." In your more traditional All Japan fashion the last few minutes have one guy going it alone while his partner tries to crawl back into the fight, but they curveball us with the finish itself, which fucking ruled. Akiyama has been booted to the floor so many times you think there's no chance he can actually recover. Kobashi is just about dead so he has even less chance and when Vader holds him in place as Hansen adjusts the elbow pad you know it's curtains. Akiyama making his last ditch crawl up the turnbuckle and leaping off with a blind knee on Hansen was the perfect save, and it gives Kobashi the chance to follow up with the ugliest lariat to the ear you ever did see. Akiyama flings himself at Vader in his ultimate sacrifice as Kobashi seals the comeback of all comebacks, snatching victory from the jaws of murder. Vader obliterating everyone post-match feels fitting. All Japan should've done more of this.
So there we have it. Eight hunner bastarding whiskey and wrestlings. As always, here's to eight hunner more.
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