This is joined in progress by a few minutes, which ordinarily would be annoying, but we are perhaps ASSUAGED somewhat by being dropped in right at the point where Tenryu and Hara take it upon themselves to try and crack open Hiroshi Wajima's skull. I've got no idea why those two were especially ornery on the night. I've seen both of them match up against our former sumo a number of times and don't recall either of them dishing out this sort of punishment. Maybe they'd been reading the dirtsheets around this time and decided to make an example of Wajima on behalf of Big Davey Meltz. They split Wajima open and I love when Tenryu wallops someone so hard with a folding chair he almost sends himself flying over the barricade. Hara even whomps him with the ring bell but in fairness that probably would've hurt less than the headbutts, of which a goodly amount were thrown and Hara really does have some of the best headbutts in wrestling. You can tell the falling headbutt off the middle rope connected sweetly as it left a bloody smear across Hara's own forehead. The Tenryu/Hara double lariat where they each hit opposite ropes can be an ugly thing, often brutal, rarely pretty, the sort of move execution-junkies would scoff at and now and then rough enough that even those on the other side of the fence might look at and think "perhaps that didn't land as cleanly as they intended." It looked like they'd gotten the timing of it all wrong here and maybe actually had, but in the end they just switched it up and decided to club Wajima in the head and face - simultaneously, with venom - instead. Despite being older than Tenryu and nearly as old as his gruesome menace of a partner, Wajima shows his wrestling inexperience when Tenryu misses a top rope elbow and Wajima, rather than tag in his fresh partner, tries to apply a figure-4 leglock. Hara stomping him in the head was a lesson hard learned but a necessary one all the same. Kabuki was an absolute fucking demon here and honest to god these might've been the best thrust kicks of his career. He ruled coming in off the hot tag - the SCORCHING tag, more like - and the place was nuclear for him. There was an amazing moment where Tenryu hit the ropes like he was about to uncork a lariat only for Kabuki to annihilate him with a kick under the chin. He legitimately might be one of the best ever at reeling off those shots just as it looks like he's about to take a bullet, where you think there's no way he won't get hit this time and then sure enough he draws his own shotgun from nowhere. There's such a deflation from the crowd when it looks like he actually has Tenryu pinned only for Hara to come in and casually drop a leg across his neck. I loved the part as well where he tells Wajima to go and exact some by god revenge so Wajima chucks Tenryu to the floor and pays him back for those chair shots earlier. The finish is so good. Hara charges Kabuki in the corner and once again Kabuki halts him with a kick, but as he then goes to flip Hara over into a pin Tenryu seizes his moment and hoists him into a powerbomb. In the end Tenryu and Hara are inevitable. This is the way of things.
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