Tuesday 27 September 2022

Tarzan Goto and the Kaientai Boys!

Tarzan Goto, Masashi Aoyagi & Azteca v Dick Togo, MEN'S Teioh & Sho Funaki (Indy World, 7/22/98)

Imagine being one of the lucky attendees in Korakuen Hall on this night. Getting to see Kaientai roll into town before single-handedly drawing 21,000 to Madison Square Garden a few weeks later. Getting to see Tarzan Goto deliver a tour de force of disgracefulness. Getting to see the mythical Azteca. How we envy each and every spectator. Kaientai are all wearing different WWF t-shirts of the era, Togo's with the RAW is WAR logo, Teioh with the classic Attitude Era shirt, and Funaki wearing the smoking skull Austin shirt that all my friends and I wanted when we were 10 years old. They even brought some iconic WWF offence with them, Togo doing the Stunner, Funaki hitting the X-Factor and Teioh doing a full blown People's Elbow! Yamaguchi-San is even with them and I guess he'd done something to earn Goto's ire, as before the bell Goto has a hold of him by the shirt collar like he's ready to throttle the wee fella. Togo saving his boss by hitting Goto with an absolute screwball dive was really the perfect start. You can flip a coin over who the star of this was, but whichever side you land on we got one of the best Dick Togo performances ever AND one of the best Tarzan Goto performances ever. Goto was a demented freak of a bastard here and he loved every second of being able to work his disgusting magic. He was throwing all of the Kaientai boys around the place but he took most pleasure in trying to maim Dick Togo. After Togo's early dive Goto was chucking him into groups of people, whomping him with reckless chair shots, throwing a whole table clean off his head, using umbrellas he'd taken from fans as weapons, carving Togo's forehead up with a fork. Goto must've gone through half a dozen umbrellas in this, or at least two, because he'd smash them over Togo's head and use the broken pieces to either choke Togo or stab him in the face. There was one chair shot that probably knocked six years off Togo's life. He'd wait until Togo would juuuuust about crawl over to his corner and make the tag, then he'd cut him off and mockingly hold Togo's hand out, far enough away that Teioh and Funaki couldn't reach while laughing in their faces at the futility of it all. Togo was a mess after a few minutes and he spent the bulk of the match in a significant amount of distress. Just getting the absolute shit kicked out of him. It wasn't even like it was only Goto beating on him either, Masashi Aoyagi was in this match which means many crowbar roundhouse kicks were thrown right to Togo's chest and neck and head. In the majority of the peak M-Pro matches Togo was the bruiser heel so you never really got to see him garner sympathy like this, but it shouldn't be a surprise that a guy that good was a spectacular face in peril. In fact he'd garnered so much sympathy that in the end one of his opponents was turned to his cause. Goto steals the ref's belt and ties Togo to the ring post by the neck, then smashes a bottle and I guess intends to mutilate Togo with a piece of it. At that point Aoyagi decides this hideous pervert has caused enough carnage and comes flying out of nowhere to spin kick his own partner in the face! All hell breaks loose and as fortune would have it this Azteca person that I've never seen before is susceptible to being senton'd right in the guts from eight feet in the air. This was every bit as good as any of the classic M-Pro matches, only ten times seedier and thus possibly better? 

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