Imagine being a tape trader in 1996 and you hear they're running this match on PPV. Tenay as the voice of the wrestling nerds tells it true when he calls it a dream match and I can only guess how crazy people went when it was announced. It's cool to see Liger work as a base and get to bully a much smaller guy, even if he never truly mauls Rey like he might've if he were INVADING. Maybe there wasn't enough enmity between New Japan and WCW for that. I loved the early moment where Rey tried to take him to the mat with an ankle pick and Liger just looked down at him like no. If you're taking him down you're earning it and I guess Rey never earned it, although he never got stomped on the back of the head like Gran Naniwa would've. Liger hits Rey with a crazy suplex off the apron and then a powerbomb on the floor, sort of working the back for a little bit. Liger putting the clamps on someone in their own house is usually fun and I wish they played it up a bit more. They don't go for crazy epic here, probably due to card placement, but Rey still gets to hit some spectacular stuff, the springboard moonsault looking amazing as always. I think that finish might've been mistimed so I'm sure the 1996 internet wrestling community would've had a word or two to say about that. You know, probably.
Jushin Liger v Chris Hero (PWG Battle of Los Angeles, 9/2/16)
This might be the most recent Liger match I've seen, four years shy of his eventual retirement. It was pretty minimalist, first round match of a tournament and all that, but also pretty awesome! It's ageing junior heavyweight legend versus peak beefboy heavyweight and Hero is extremely BEEFY here, looking almost Takayama-ish. He throws lots of really nice elbows and kicks, nice stomps and knees, some great running variations and rolling variations of everything. I usually cannot be arsed with most most modern strikes, all thigh-slapping for the audial effect, but these ones looked good and some were great. He's obviously substantially bigger than Liger and plays up the size difference in amusing ways, patting Liger on the head condescendingly before the bell, then challenging him to a shoulderblock contest, mockingly searching for Liger afterwards because he's a little guy and whatnot. When he got mean he got mean and there was one snap piledriver that looked brutal. Liger mostly played the hits when he got the chance to play anything at all, but the hits were probably what this crowd wanted out of a 51-year-old Liger at this stage of the game and of course he played them well. He also threw a number of palm thrust and koppu kicks and those still looked as great as always. I like that he couldn't hit the Liger Bomb due to the THICKNESS of Hero, so instead he used his veteran smarts and waited for Hero to climb the turnbuckles before catching him and hitting a regular powerbomb from there. In the end Hero was too much for someone at the tail end of their career, finishing the old man with a flurry of elbows that even prime Liger might've gone down to. I liked this a lot and I will endeavour to watch more old man Liger.
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