We're joined in progress at about the five-minute mark here, with Tenryu trying to bend Ishikawa in half while Kabuki glares at him from the apron. I'm not sure why I'm shocked at this being badass as fuck. Everybody was particularly ornery on the night and if you know anything about these four then you know what that means. The bulk of it was centred around Kabuki and Ishikawa ripping Fuyuki's arm apart. It was really awesome stuff, nothing especially unique but what they did do had some real INTENT behind it. You bought them trying to rip that arm off and beat the man with it. Kabuki took him down with a couple brutal shoulder-breakers, Ishikawa punted him in the armpit, they were torturing him with armbars, it was great stuff. The cut-offs were almost all focused on the arm as well, minus one Kabuki thrust kick that was fucking spectacular. He also threw several amazing uppercuts, as was his wont. My favourite part of this stretch was when Fuyuki was about an inch away from making the tag and Kabuki just pounced on him and wrestled him back into the middle of the ring, Tenryu almost falling into the ring Marty Jannetty style because he was reaching in so far. It looked like Fuyuki did not expect to be prevented from making that tag, but Kabuki must not have been happy with where the heat was yet and decided more sympathy must first be garnered. Kabuki rules, basically. When Tenryu does get the tag he about takes Ishikawa's head off with a lariat. Those two were throwing some of the best shoulderblocks, just smacking shoulder on shoulder. When Fuyuki comes back in you're maybe wishing he'd try and sell that arm a bit more, but then he wallops Kabuki with a lariat and immediately clutches the arm before tagging out. Last couple minutes are super frantic and the finish is brilliant. Ishikawa was for taking none of Tenryu's shit, but Tenryu was for giving him it whether he wanted it or not. They're both laying into each other in the corner while Fuyuki hits a bridging German on Kabuki, then Ishikawa pushes Tenryu back with sumo thrusts and Tenryu falls right into the bridging Fuyuki. Ishikawa then drags Tenryu to the mat and wraps him up while Kabuki puts Fuyuki on his head with a backdrop. This pretty much ruled.
Genichiro Tenryu, Koki Kitahara, Masao Orihara & Don Fujii v Akitoshi Saito, Masashi Aoyagi, Michiyoshi Ohara & Shiro Koshinaka (WAR, 7/27/06) - GOOD
An ode to the wrestling and the romance! This was your favourite band from back in the day getting together one last time to play Glastonbury or Coachella or T in the Park (IYKYK). Some of the members are old and can't muster the same energy they once could, but they do their familiar signature bits that everyone wants to see. Sumo Fuji plays the role of one of the deceased band members' kids who's taken up the instrument, not there for the band's heyday but a close enough approximation of what he's replacing that he fits in well. I guess he's the Jarod Clemons to Ashura Hara's Clarence. It made sense that he was the one who got beat up for a stretch and perhaps we all wonder how life might've been for the man had he been a Koki Kitahara trainee rather than an Ultimo Dragon one. The beginning was a real fun throwback to some of the WAR/Heisei Ishingun brawls of yesteryear, with everyone whomping each other with chairs and getting thrown into groups of spectators and scrapping around ringside. Saito was still a fairly prominent figure in NOAH around this point so he got to look the most dominant of his team, fittingly taking the mantle of meathead crowbar from his trainer and former king of crowbar maniacs Masashi Aoyagi. Orihara has one of the best knockout sells of being punched in the face I've ever seen here. I thought he'd legit had his bell rung at first the way he was struggling to stand, but he never looked properly out of sorts after that or struggled to run any of the spots and sequences that followed. I've seen wrestlers knocked loopy to the point where they forget they're supposed to duck on a clothesline or how to take a flat back bump and just need to be rolled out the ring for a minute. It didn't look like him being in there was a hazard to his own health so I'm chalking it up to him doing something awesome, which he did frequently throughout his career.
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