This was pretty sensational whenever Tenryu was in there with one of Kabuki or Baba. Tenryu/Baba was always a blast around this period, Baba the broken down warrior passing through his old haunts, Tenryu with no respect for anything, the latter out to make the former's life a misery for as long as their paths are crossed. Many times Baba would be minding his own business only for the surly man with the jheri curl to stomp on his neck or chop him in the throat. I say this after nearly every Kabuki match now but I really do mean it this time when I say these were the best Kabuki uppercuts ever thrown. Right to the jaw and cheekbone, just a perfect pro wrestling strike. Fuyuki was really fun again, especially stepping to Baba and Kabuki. Maybe it's just hindsight but Kawada already feels like he's being shaped for big things, so even in those scrappy moments there's still a sense that he can hang. With Fuyuki he does everything with a little desperation, which strangely enough makes those exchanges that he probably won't ever win more compelling.
Genichiro Tenryu & Takashi Ishikawa v Yoshiaki Yatsu & Isao Takagi (SWS, 9/29/90) - GREAT
It's kind of strange that the main event of the first ever SWS show would be joined in progress. Then again the first ever show from Tenryu's next promotion wasn't even taped (praise be to whoever snuck that camera in) so I suppose this is better than nothing. It starts in about the best way possible with Yatsu dropping a full table on Tenryu's head and opening up a cut above his eye. JIP wrestling infuriates me but I guess that's a halfway acceptable way of parachuting into a match if you're set on going the JIP route. Ishikawa was man possessed here and it's one of my favourite performances from him. He comes in off the hot tag and immediately destroys someone with a lariat, then the beatdown on Takagi is almost disturbing at points. I would've liked to see how and why he earned such ire from Tenryu and Ishikawa, but either way more than half of the 17 minutes shown are essentially of him literally being kicked in the face repeatedly. By the end he's bloody-nosed and his face is swollen like he's been stung by ten thousand bees. Yatsu comes in a couple times like "what is the meaning of this?! Are you trying to end this man's existence for having a mere table dropped on your head?!" If you're going to do a stoppage in a Tenryu fed then you need to make it look PROPER and this was a very plausible stoppage. I always felt as though Tenryu would have some more easy-going nights in SWS, which isn't my favourite Tenryu as you really want him annoyed at something and taking that out on whoever's across the ring from him. This was the complete opposite of easy-going so it's hard not to conclude that we are lucky to have such footage available to us.
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