Genichiro Tenryu & Tatsumi Fujinami v Shiro Koshinaka & Kensuke Sasaki (New Japan, 4/10/99) - GOOD
This had some decent stuff, but was kind of low key overall and felt like they were actively shooting for fun midcard bout with big names rather than epic. It's a heavyweight scrap but not a heavy watch. Which I mean, that's fine. I don't need HEAVY in the All Japan sense every time and instead I can work with HEAVY in the sense you've got four beefy dudes clobbering each other. Tenryu and Sasaki brought the best clobbering and it made for an awesome precursor to their Dome match a year later, which coincidentally was also awesome. It had the same dynamic as that, with Tenryu trying to be Tenryu and Sasaki not letting him get away with it. Chops to the throat and punches to the cheekbone were paid in kind and the part where Sasaki just went bonkers on him ruled. As did Tenryu slumping in the corner afterwards like "what the fuck was that about?" Fujinami wasn't washed in '99 because he has that amazing Hashimoto match in his locker from a few months earlier, but he looked a step off here, a few things understandably being slower and less coordinated than they'd be if this was 1989 rather than 1999. Koshinaka v Tenryu is always a fun match-up. I'm not sure how they came to be on opposite sides here because I'm pretty sure they were regular partners around this time, but Koshinaka is old and ugly and tries to jab his hip bone into Tenryu's eye and Tenryu wallops him in the throat.
Tenryu v young lion is pretty much always going to be at least fun. It's hard to fuck something like that up when you're one of the very best ever at that sort of match, so if the young lion in question can bring some FIRE and maybe some mean mugging and is willing to get his throat kicked you'll be in for a fun 10 minutes. Miyamoto brought all of those things so this was a fun 10 minutes (for us, the gentle viewer; not him). He throws big overhands to the chest and Tenryu looks on unfazed. Tenryu even breaks clean and doesn't seem to be in a mood for assaulting someone. Of course you know that'll only last so long as Miyamoto is determined to prove a point. He throws a punch and Tenryu looks at him like "that's quite enough of that" and chops him in the throat. He absolutely clobbers the kid with two disgusting face punts and Miyamoto spends the rest of the match with a bloody nose, trying to come at the king with his adorable heavyweight swanton bombs and standing moonsaults. You know how it ends, but Tenryu sells like he might actually be in danger once or twice and gives the kid his moments to shine. You can't really go wrong with this.
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