Tenryu Woke Up Feelin' Dangerous, Put Some Bullets in His Gun, Brown Liquor in His Coffee and He Called the Boss's Son

Genichiro Tenryu & Motoshi Okuma v Riki Choshu & Animal Hamaguchi (All Japan, 1/3/85) - GREAT

Motoshi Okuma! Until probably two months ago I don't think I'd ever seen a Motoshi Okuma match. If you'd previously asked me for my thoughts on Motoshi Okuma I wouldn't have known who he was. Is that a tennis player? One of those video game developers? A random person off the street? Yet I've now seen a handful of Motoshi Okuma matches and I've spent every waking moment of my existence since that first glorious experience asking myself how in the fuck he never became a megastar. He wrestled for 30 years, debuting in 1962, before retiring in June of 1992, passing away later that year at 51 years old. It's fitting that he was Tenryu's partner here because he was pretty much the perfect WAR wrestler. Short, lumpy, awful haircut, looks like one of the Dingles from Emmerdale, spends the whole time clonking people on the head. He's the sort of wrestler you look at and think, "I bet this guy's entire offensive repertoire is headbutts," and then you watch him and you're right! He just headbutts fuckin everybody and it rules! He threw like eight corkers in this, two of which landing right on Hamaguchi's nose. The first time he did it I thought it might've been an accident and Hamaguchi sold it - or reacted to it - like he was not expecting to be headbutted in the nose. You could tell it hurt like a bastard. But then Okuma just grabbed him and did it again straight away! He wanted to step to Choshu every chance he could and headbutted him several times, then later he split Hamaguchi's head open like a melon. The payback later with Hamaguchi hitting a top rope elbow while Choshu applies the Scorpion Deathlock looked like it took Okuma's head off like a guillotine. This is the earliest Choshu in All Japan match I've seen, which makes it the earliest Choshu v Tenryu match I've seen, and maybe it's the earliest Choshu v Tenryu this crowd have seen because they are ridiculous for everything. Tenryu wants him a piece and Choshu antagonises him constantly, then Okuma will walk in and headbutt someone and this was basically the origin story of WAR. Not for a single second do you doubt who's taking the fall, but you better believe he's going out on his shield. 

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