I think a pretty underrated Liger quality is his ability to be a part of obscure match-ups and really thrive, or at the very least make an effort to make those match-ups work. I love Choshu and wouldn't put more than 30 wrestlers in history ahead of him, but he struggled sometimes to make matches with some foreign talent interesting, and I'm not talking about the semi-obscure names like Biff Wellington or, say, Pat Tanaka. With Liger, you could throw out 50 names, from Hulk Hogan to Hillbilly Jim and I'm at least interested in seeing how he approaches every one of those match-ups. One of my favourite New Japan matches of the entire 80s was a six-man tag from earlier on this tour, with Liger on the opposite side of Vader, Buzz Sawyer and Manny Fernandez and each match-up fucking ruled. Liger against Bam Bam Bigelow? Couldn't not be awesome. Liger and Owen Hart? Haven't seen their singles matches in forever but I bet they work well together. Liger and Pat Tanaka??? Take my money. And this was indeed at its best when Liger was in there. A Liger/Bam Bam match would've been great based on this and their exchange early on here was the highlight. Bigelow whips Liger into the ropes and Liger slides under his legs quicker than just about anybody I've ever seen do that spot. Bam Bam barely needed to lift his foot off the ground or spread his base to allow Liger space to fit through; it was seamless and rapid and when he did it successfully you couldn't help but concede that it was the correct decision to make in that moment. Liger drilling Bigelow SQUARE in the face with a koppu kick as Bam Bam turned around further solidified Liger's decision. Liger v Tanaka was brief but culminated with Liger dropping him with a quick flurry of palm strikes to the jaw. Owen looked kind of lost at points honestly, but he's three years into his career at this stage so it's hard to be overly critical. Liger, who'd only been wrestling a couple years longer, was much quicker and more assured and absolutely hammered Owen with a tope into the barricade. Depending on how deep this Jushin Liger rabbit hole I go I should re-watch one of their singles matches. Bigelow was a total blast on the Americans' side. Amazing energy, great bumps, greater headbutts. His exchange with Choshu at the very start was only slightly below his exchange with Liger and I guess I'll take back what I said about Choshu working with foreigners. Tanaka isn't involved a ton and you can guess what his primary role in the match is, but there was one amusing spot where he came in illegally and ran across to the opposite corner, thrust kicked Kimura as he was stepping through the ropes, then bolted all the way back to his own corner. Bigelow's flip bump over the top off a Choshu lariat looked spectacular, then Tanaka tried to one-up him with his signature inside-out bump off another lariat.
Jushin Liger v Dr Wagner Jr. (New Japan, 2/6/99)
The problem with this match is that it lasted like two hours. Or it didn't but by the end it kind of felt like it had. It wasn't terrible or anything and it actually started great, with Wagner doing a backwards roll after giving Liger a clean break in the corner, seeking the crowd's recognition for his act of cordiality, only for Liger to blitz him with a running shotei. The first half and then some was basically Wagner working Liger's leg. It had some decent stuff but it was very...deliberate. Methodical, if you want to be generous, uninteresting if you don't. I did like how Liger was more vocal with his selling the longer it went, a little more desperate with each hold applied, but by the fifth figure-four I was sort of ready for it to be over. The back half wasn't mindblowing. I don't even think people would've been going nuts over it at the time if only the last 10 minutes had been shown on TV. Liger's leg never once came into play after he transitioned out of the heat segment either so I guess that's 15 minutes of my life I'll never get back. And at this point I'm not even stodgy about limbwork always needing to GO SOMEWHERE or whatever. This really did just feel like a perfect example of why some of the 90s New Japan juniors fell out of style, where everything before the finishing stretch felt disconnected, like the wrestlers knew it wasn't going on TV so they chose to sleepwalk their way through that segment of the match, turning something that could've been a tight 13 minutes into a tedious 25. I've also seen Liger shotei a man's nose all the way across his face and the ones he went to as an equaliser down the stretch were nothing to write home about. Wagner hitting the Michinoku Driver on the ramp was at least cool and I thought Liger milked about as much out of the 20 count as he realistically could. Too long for me overall but the less impatient sort might dig it.
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