Genichiro Tenryu v Barry Windham (All Japan, 12/5/83) - FUN
Nice and spirited wee contest. Windham was 23 years old here and as cliche as it is, the line about him being a natural pro wrestler definitely rings true. He just moved around the ring like someone born to do the thing he was doing, super graceful on his flying forearms, big rotation on his leaping clotheslines, athletic bumping that didn't look too showy. Tenryu was still a couple years away from being TENRYU but I always like seeing what he'll do in these earlier bouts, in those years where he was still finding himself, not yet corrupted by the influence of Choshu. This was like eight minutes and you could spend eight minutes watching far worse things.
This had a lot of the good stuff you'd expect from Tenryu v Kawada. It's mostly built around strikes so of course that means we get some world-class hittin'. It wasn't Tenryu v Hashimoto or even Tenryu v Kawada from a few years earlier, some of it a little more standing and shouting while they wail on each other, but these are a couple guys who can do that without it coming off completely rote. At 54 there's an extra layer of belligerence to Tenryu trading strikes. It isn't 1989 anymore and there are only so many times he can absorb getting kicked in the neck, but he'll try it all the same and his old man "why am I actually still doing this?" selling is the best ever. You knew he'd lose the rag at some point and when he did he started launching chairs, Wada getting in his face about it while Kawada stood back like he also knew this would happen. We got a bit of strategy from Tenryu in the back half as well, going after Kawada's famously brittle knee. One of the dragon screws he hit looked pretty disgusting but it ultimately never lasted very long and then Kawada never bothered selling it anyway. They actually had me believing that Tenryu would submit to the stretch plum towards the end, just from the way Kawada was leaning into it and twisting Tenryu's head at mean angles.
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