This was just about exactly what I'd have wanted from a Nasty Boys match in All Japan. For years I read about folks saying American wrestlers needed to tone down their act when they went for tours of Japan. We have enough footage of guys doing just that, and I guess I get why they did, but I'm calling bullshit on the idea that they NEEDED to. In all the footage we have of Randy Savage working Japan he never toned his act down once and people went bonkers for it every time. Why in the christ would you want a dialled back Macho Man anyway?! People were going ballistic for Abdullah and the Sheik stabbing everyone with forks for decades, why would anybody think they need to maintain some air of "respectable decorum" working Japan for it to resonate? Thankfully Knobbs and Sags were not about that whatsoever and they chose to approach this the same as I'd have expected them to approach it if they were in Florida or Memphis or anywhere else in America. And hey, the crowd got on board with it and they booed the Nasty Boys when they cheated and gouged eyes and they popped huge when Tenryu and Hansen kicked fuck out them. They never let Hansen eat them alive and instead they tried to swarm him, tried to drag him to the floor, tried to double up and take apart the lariat arm. They tried to claw Tenryu's eyes out and told everybody to shut up when they didn't like it. And obviously Hansen threw Knobbs into the second row and Tenryu gave them an enziguri to the neck.
Genichiro Tenryu, Ashura Hara, Takashi Ishikawa, Tatsuhito Goto & Strong Machine v Riki Choshu, Shinya Hashimoto, Tatsumi Fujinami, Masa Chono & Hiroshi Hase (Elimination Match) (New Japan, 6/15/93) - GREAT
Two days before the first ever Tenryu v Hashimoto singles match, Tenryu rocks up to New Japan with his coterie of lumpy, dumpy and downright grumpy potato merchants. For about 20 minutes this was amazing and as good as you'll get with WAR v New Japan, which is a stupidly high bar. Tenryu/Hashimoto is the main focus and everything they do together is out of this world. The first exchange lasts about four minutes and half of it is them just staring a hole through each other and wrestling has never been as good since. Take your Okadas and Omegas and seven star classics and ram them because they're nothing on this. I mean nobody can do a staredown like Hashimoto. He has a glare that would pin you to the floor and everyone in attendance knows where it'll lead. Nobody does unveiled contempt like Tenryu and everyone in attendance knows where it'll lead, so obviously this was some great anticipation-building. They hate each other's guts, the mere sight of the other induces apoplexy, then it boils over and it's chops and kicks everywhere. Then it settles down a bit, they throw a few shots just to retest the water, Hashimoto wags a finger because he knows how the game works, Tenryu flashes a grin because he'll probably get his way in the end anyhow, and then it's back to limbs everywhere. It was a perfect opening between two guys who were just made to wrestle each other. Some other awesome things that happened in the first half: team WAR trying to take Fujinami's bandaged arm home in a sack, Tenryu blowing a gasket when Hashimoto knocks him off the apron unprompted, Hase doing a giant swing on Goto only to turn around and get obliterated with a lariat, Hase responding by putting Tenryu on his head with a uranage, Choshu visibly raging when all of the ugly WAR bastards took turns stealing his submission move, team New Japan dropping Tenryu in their corner and quintuple stomping him into a coma. Hase might've been my favourite of the New Japan guys other than Hashimoto and his exchange with Tenryu was great. Tenryu is super generous so Hase gets to look like a killer, but ultimately Tenryu is who he is and Hase ends up on the floor clutching his throat. The problematic part of the match comes at the midpoint. On the one hand doing a Tenryu elimination there made for an amazing moment, especially with the way Fujinami - who'd been battered up and down the place - rolls him up with his one good arm for some sweet revenge. They went for some unpredictability and in that specific moment it worked. The issue is that it sort of killed the unpredictability of everything after it. I love Ishikawa and Hara but nobody was buying those two and Super Strong Machine outlasting a murderer's row of New Japan heavyweights. They were thrown a bone by eliminating Fujinami, but that damage had already been done and he only had one arm to begin with. By the end you could argue they even babyface'd Ishikawa, who basically spent the last five minutes getting absolutely molly wopped as New Japan took turns practicing their signature moves on him (while he stood defiant and refused to quit). Maybe Ishikawa scoring a flash elimination would've created the tiniest bit of doubt, and it would've been a spectacular moment, but in the end this was New Japan letting everybody know that they were the biggest game in town. Still, it's WAR v New Japan in a multi-man elimination match. The first half is a blitz and the second half is good. Obviously you will watch it.
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