As Predicted, Tenryu's Persistence got His Name on All the Lists. Had a Brick Before a Rack, Like that Dope Boy from Memphis

Genichiro Tenryu & Hiromichi Fuyuki v Akira Nogami & Takayuki Iizuka (New Japan, 9/24/93) - EPIC

Pretty much the perfect WAR v New Japan midcard match. One of the very coolest things about this feud is how nobody ever takes an off night, whether it's a packed out Dome show, a spot show in a thousand-seater venue, or an untelevised house show. Whenever it's WAR v New Japan everybody brings the violence. This was a G1 Climax show headlined by Mutoh v Hase, so it was a card of some relevance. I can only assume the event was taped for television even if the version I watched was a handheld. That said, this was like the fourth match from the top and they had thirteen minutes to work with. Nogami and Iizuka were not a top level team in the company. Tenryu was 44 working middle of the card for the evening and a star of his calibre easily could've coasted at half- or even quarter-pace. The match would've landed regardless, because it's Tenryu bringing one of his pot-bellied wee bastard mates into New Japan to cause a ruckus. But not a single one of them reined anything in and we wound up with something awesome. For not the first time on this here nonsense of a thing I would like to note that Tenryu was the best wrestler on the planet in 1993. Again, this feud always lit a fire under everyone involved in it, but no matter who he was working against, no matter where on the card he was placed, Tenryu was going balls out every match. He was in an absolute STINKER of a mood and good grief did Nogami and Iizuka bear the brunt of it. I'm not sure I've ever seen Tenryu throw more blatant kicks to the eye in one match than he did here. There must've been a thousand, or at least thirty. He would sporadically come in illegally while one of them was crawling around the mat and he'd punt them clean in the face, sometimes twice or thrice. There was an amazing part where Fuyuki had a bloody and battered Iizuka in a camel clutch while Tenryu was laying into Nogami in the corner. You can guess how the last part went and after Tenryu punted him in the spine enough times that Nogami rolled to the floor, Tenryu turned around, noticed Iizuka right there, and casually booted him in the face like "oh it's you again." Nogami and Iizuka were great playing off of it all. They refused to take any of Tenryu's shit and even less of Fuyuki's, the crowd got totally behind them and that spurred them on even more. The heat segment on Iizuka ruled as well, even getting himself a bit of colour for good measure. At one point Nogami could stand no more and came in swinging a chair, and the moment he fully snapped by chopping and kicking and biting Tenryu to the mat was incredible. Fuyuki working as slovenly sidekick in this feud is always great because crowds hate his guts no matter what he does. Iizuka was dead in the water, struggling to even get up to a kneeling position, and Fuyuki dancing around him shadowboxing had that entire building irate. Just the absolute best feud. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu