One of the craziest, greatest, most legendary figures in wrestling history passed away this weekend. Pretty much the god of spectacle in Japanese wrestling, Antonio Inoki was one of one in about a hundred different ways. A whole bunch of people much smarter than me will write many words on the man over the next few days, so I won't mess around and try to do some kind of biography on him. Instead I'll write about some matches, and it just so happens that I've been watching a lot of 1986 New Japan lately. It was a great year for wrestling and New Japan were maybe producing the best wrestling of all, centred around Inoki leading the company he founded in the war against the returning UWF defectors.
So for the next few days we're watching Inoki.
Antonio Inoki & Keiichi Yamada v Nobuhiko Takada & Osamu Kido (New Japan, 2/5/86)
Maaaan early Yamada was so good. It's wild how easily we (or, quite simply, I) forget that. He was mostly here to take a shit-kicking and bring some fire when given the rare chance to and my goodness did he take a shit-kicking and bring some fire when given the rare chance to. Takada was a wrecking ball and wellied him with kicks while Kido was utterly determined to rip the wee fella's arm off with a kimura. Like, Kido went back to this kimura about seven times. He was relentless with it. Inoki kind of gobbled up Takada and Kido when he was in there, although I must admit it led to some amazing moments, one of which being him juuuust about catching a Takada spin kick and ripping him into a leglock. When Takada landed one on him properly, like when he came in and smashed Inoki in the ribs while he was grappling with Kido, it felt huge, but those moments were few and far between. Inoki would set up the field for Yamada who'd come in red hot, but it wouldn't last and inevitably he found himself getting wasted in short order, like when he came flying off the top and Takada caught him with a kick. The huge German suplex at the end was spectacular, enough so that Inoki offered a handshake to the UWF guys. Real recognise real.
Antonio Inoki, Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Kengo Kimura v Jimmy Snuka, Tonga Kid & The Wild Samoan (New Japan, 11/14/86)
Wait, what the fuck? There's a match with Fujiwara and the Tonga Kid on opposite sides and this is the first I'm hearing about it?! You'd look at those names and think this couldn't be as fun as it promises, and I mean sure, things could always be MORE fun, but life is like that sometimes and this was still very fun. Perhaps the perfect amount of fun for a10-minute midcard trios that happened to involve one of the biggest stars in the history of wrestling. I loved all of the parts with the Samoans encountering someone with a harder head than them. First the Wild Samoan rams Fujiwara into the post and is perplexed when Fujiwara shrugs it off. Then he elbows Fujiwara in the head, hurts his arm, and Fujiwara clonks him with a headbutt. Our future Tama tries his luck, throws a headbutt as the foolishness of youth blinds him to what he'd just witnessed, and his jelly-legged selling was frankly impeccable. Snuka isn't in long but does his double leapfrog bit and it looked cool enough. Wild Samoan kind of flubs jumping into the ring and bumps into Fujiwara's leg and I love how Fujiwara sold it like it'd been hyperextended. After that he's happy to chill on the apron and convalesce, and when Kimura tries to tag him back in Fujiwara points at his knee like "I'm not getting back in, I'm hurt" and basically tells Kimura to fuck off. He'll tag in for Inoki, though. Obviously that grates with Kimura and before long he and Fujiwara are scrapping and in the confusion the Samoans jump Inoki. Which...well why wouldn't you, ya know?
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