Old man Kabuki with his grey beard and red and black face paint is such a cool look. A VIBE, as the youth might say. When I'm old and demented or perhaps MORE old and demented then that's the look I aspire to on an everyday basis. Choshu was out before the bell raving about something or other so I half expected Kabuki to start this by misting Fujinami. Choshu always did have a sense for such things. This wasn't as crazy heated as the majority of WAR v New Japan but it did have a goodly number of Kabuki uppercuts and thrust kicks so how loudly can we complain? Fujinami decides he's had enough of getting peppered off of clean breaks and unloads with a barrage of body shots that leaves Kabuki slumped in the corner. He raised an arm with a roar afterwards and it was almost reminiscent of Jumbo across the way when he'd get fed up being elbowed in the face by Misawa. Fujinami's chinlocks were as tight as ever here and you could imagine Kabuki's true face turning even redder without the face paint. Fujinami locks in the dragon sleeper but someone in a WAR tracksuit - the best of all tracksuits - gets up on the apron to run distraction, a SCUFFLE ensues, and Fujinami turns around into a tidal wave of green mist. I was kind of worried when Fujinami went for the dragon suplex because it might've legit killed Kabuki at this stage.
Jushin Liger v Michiyoshi Ohara (New Japan, 11/20/93)
We really were spoiled by the WAR/New Japan/Heisei Ishingun feud. The hit rate was insane and every night you'd have people elevating their game and bringing the heat, or in this case the thunder. In a lot of ways Liger is the perfect interpromotional feud wrestler. There are very few wrestlers who express searing contempt or even just mild annoyance like him and what is interpromotional wrestling built on if not searing contempt or even just mild annoyance. In the New Japan/NOAH feud I bought that he truly wanted to kill Kikuchi. If you play with fire you'll get burned and Liger is the perfect fire in that scenario. Ohara decided he wanted to play with fire here, for whatever stupid reason. He jumped Liger at the start and tried to rip his mask off, so when Liger made his comeback he tried to dent Ohara's skull with a rolling kick and launched him into the barricade. What was really awesome was the escalation of violence and how they used revenge spots. Liger smashes a chair over Ohara's head and piledrives him on exposed concrete, so later Ohara pays him back with the exact same. After that, Liger takes it a step further, rips up the mats and hits a powerbomb. They fight over a suplex while Liger is on the apron and Ohara is in the ring and I figured they wouldn't have Ohara take a suplex bump from the ring to the floor on a house show, but sure enough they make a fool of me and dial it up a notch into the bargain as Liger tries to break the poor guy's neck with a fucking brainbuster on the apron. Liger throws a couple disgusting dropkicks to the knee, one as he comes flying off the top rope, and I'm left shaking my head wondering why Ohara chose to start the match the way he did. That shotei at the end was as emphatic as you could get. I now want to go back and watch a million Liger matches. For a while there I'd forgotten how good he could be, maybe from 90s New Japan juniors fatigue or whatever, but this Liger is never shy of tremendous.
No comments:
Post a Comment