Tenryu Used to Hit the Kitchen Lights, Cockroaches Everywhere. Hit the Kitchen Lights now, it's Marble Floors Everywhere

Genichiro Tenryu & Arashi v Toshiaki Kawada & Mitsuya Nagai (All Japan, 1/2/02) - GREAT

A blistering 10 minutes. Any time a Tenryu tag match starts with him or his partner jumping an opponent before they get in the ring it tends to turn out beautifully, so when Arashi dropkicked Nagai off the apron as he was stepping through the ropes I knew we were set for something great. Nagai has an EXTREMELY punchable mugging face and Arashi dropping him with a forearm was amazing. I don't know if it was all selling or his bell got rung legit, but Nagai's KO sell was truly perfection, going down like a ton of bricks, one leg folding under him at a putrid angle, the kind of faraway stare you get if you're Nate Quarry and Rich Franklin has just landed one on your chin. He actually had three or four absolutely brilliant bits of selling throughout, all of them off of strikes, and considering his partner is often talked about as the best ever at selling a knockout shot...well, maybe Kawada could've learned a thing or two from Mitsuya Nagai is all I'm saying. We actually get an extended run of Tenryu in peril, coming after a 30-second exchange with Kawada where they light each other up. It spills to the floor and as soon as Tenryu is within touching distance of a table he picks it up to swing it. This was like my dog when there's a chew toy close by and he can't help himself. Instinct or whatever, that table was there to be flung at someone. Kawada immediately taking it from him and throwing it away before going back to clobbering him was a total "no you will not be doing that tonight, thank you very much" moment from someone who knows exactly what Tenryu will do if given enough rope. I wish there was a little more weight behind the Tenryu hot tag, but I did like how he gave Nagai a boot in the face before he actually got out of there. It was a very Tenryu move and those are usually the best ones.  

Genichiro Tenryu v Hiroshi Hase (All Japan, 8/30/02) - GOOD

I always somehow forget that Hase was still around in 2002. In my head I just have it that he disappeared from wrestling after 1998 or something. Went to congress and all that. He's a bit chunkier in 2002 but I guess that extra BEEF meant he could hang and bang a little with old man Tenryu. They did a fair amount of hanging and banging and in the end it was a fun greatest hits sort of contest. Hase's uranage was a corker and Tenryu taking the thing like he did at 52 years old is bonkers, then Hase teased the giant swing and I figured there was no way but then there absolutely was a fucking way and I'm surprised Tenryu's head never flew off. Every one of Tenryu's strikes were world class; the chops, the punches, the lariats, all of them. There was one lariat in particular that he used to cut off a leaping Hase and I think he hit him so hard he nearly dislocated his own elbow. The finish was maybe a touch flat, but I find it hard to complain about a match ending on only the fourth big move and not the fourteenth. A top rope brainbuster is still a top rope brainbuster, right?

Complete & Accurate Tenryu