Man fuck off. Hashimoto v Tenryu is one of my favourite matchups ever so I'm predisposed to loving most of what they do together, but I hadn't seen this version of it in close to 15 years and I sure didn't expect to come away from it thinking it might be a top 10 match ever wrestled. After the first minute I thought to myself "that was the best opening minute of a match in history," then a minute later I thought "that was the best opening two minutes of a match in wrestling history," then I said it again at the three-minute mark and then they never stopped whomping the living shit out of each other until dead on five minutes and basically it was the greatest five-minute opening of any match ever committed to tape. This is honestly just perfect pro wrestling to me. I would not have changed a single thing about those fist five minutes. It's slugfest wrestling of the highest order, not just in how they're actually hitting each other but in how they sell those strikes and what each shot is doing to them. Seriously, the selling in this incredible. How can anybody watch these two work an extended strike exchange and then go watch any of this modern chest-puffed horse shit and tell me the latter is any good? Tenryu is approaching 50 here and looks it, the way he just slumps in the ropes after Hashimoto tries to hacksaw his clavicle in two, wondering why he's still putting himself through this. There was one amazing bit early on where Tenryu dropped Hash for the first time and he staggered back like he was having a stroke, Hashimoto struggling back to his feet and staring up at him with a face like thunder. The dynamic of Hashimoto v Tenryu is always brilliant because you'll have Tenryu being a grade-A prick and blatantly punching Hashimoto in the face - these were possibly the best punches of his career and think of the SCOPE of that - while Hashimoto will wrestle to his code no matter what, no matter how often he's prodded. There are of course times where he loses his cool, for even the most composed among us will be pushed to the brink by Tenryu. When that happens his temper doesn't just flare, it fully erupts, but he never does anything below the belt. I think the one time it truly got the better of him he chucked the referee out the way for trying to restrain him, and after that I'm pretty sure Tenryu only used the distraction to punch him in the face again. The way they sell the cumulative damage, the way they introduce the DDT and powerbomb and cultivate drama from four or five moves, it's pretty much perfect pacing and match-building. Then Tenryu jumps off the top rope for a shoulder tackle and Hashimoto wheel kicks him dead in the face and I fell out the bed. These two have set an absurdly high bar of quality together over the years. They took everything great about their rivalry, condensed it into just under 15 minutes and worked it in front of a molten crowd that were on strings for all of it.
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