February 1988

I don't know how interested YOU are in a giant fat guy but I had a blast watching this. Loved the spot where Murphy put on an Armlock and Haystacks just pushed him away. Murphy fought back with very good looking punches but spend most of the time bumping (quite nicely!) for Haystacks's stuff and he took a really nice bump for the finish. ***

IWGP Heavyweight Champion Antonio Inoki vs Riki Choshu - NJPW 2/4/88 In 1988, Antonio Inoki turned 45 and he had one of his hottest years of his career. He had long feuds with Riki Choshu & Vader and an hour draw with Tatsumi Fujinami. In 1989, it would be the Soviet invasion and he would be tied to a Georgian judoka. I feel like the early 90s was a short bridge of Fujinami/Vader/Choshu to the Three Musketeers. So 1988 feels like Inoki's swan song. This would be Inoki's last IWGP title defense as Cagematch says the upcoming Vader match was not for the title and he vacated the title due to a foot injury, whether it was kayfabe or not just to get the tile off…

This was part of the '88 BOSJ tournament. Hase gets punished by Takada early on in this match-up, taking some nasty kicks to the face and really struggling to stay on his feet in a terrifically sold performance. But he goes from nearly being KO'd on the mat to firing off a quick German suplex hold at the snap of a finger. The selling, more or less, goes out the window in favor of back-and-forth offense, with Hase managing to pull off his signature Northern Lights suplex hold for a two count. Takada tries to suplex Hase from the top rope but they end up collapsing to the outside and brawling over the barricade, which results in a draw. This had its moments but these two wo…

Possibly the biggest rematch in history. Also one of the most watched matches in history. It's been a little under a year since Hogan and Andre had their encounter at Wrestlemania 3. Since then, Andre and Brain had claimed that Hogan was ducking Andre, refusing to give him a rematch after a match they believe to have fairly won in the early minutes anyway. Hogan would end 1987 losing to King Kong Bundy via count out at SNME, which saw Bobby Heenan hold Hogan's leg so he couldn't make the count. Hogan was incensed and attacked Brain, leaving him too injured to accompany Bundy for his rematch at January's SNME. In his place, Andre The Giant would be in the corner of Bu…

NWA US Champion Dusty Rhodes vs Bobby Eaton - NWA Worldwide 2/6/88 The main feud post-Starrcade, pre-Clash I for Dusty Rhodes was against the Midnight Express, which shows the Eaton/Lane team could be a main event act. It is often said the Condrey-MX was a main event act that Lane team wasn't. I think that is mostly true, but this is an exception. Really good match built around foreign objects. It starts with Dusty blowing a kiss to Corny and turning his backside to him. God Bless Dusty! Dusty was dazing Eaton with those looping lefts, take this opportunity readjust the junk and BAM! Just when it looks like the American Dream was going to run away with this, Corne…

Ricky Steamboat vs Rick Rude - WWF Superstars 2/6/88 I was interested to watch this match because I don't recall reading about an angle between these two so I thought by watching this I might find something. The angle here was the Heenan Family (Race & Hercules) started to interfere after Steamboat was rolling with some top rope moves. So ULTIMATE WARRIOR in black trunks came out. I honest to God didn't even recognize him. He was kinda treated liked a JTTS getting beaten down and it was Hacksaw Duggan who made the real save. So it made sense Rude/Steamboat, Duggan/Race and Warrior/Herc going into WM IV. As for the match, sub-5 minutes, I could watch these two do c…

Antonio Inoki vs Vader - NJPW 2/7/88 Vader has his black mask now and still has the Elephant Steam Helmet that he worships. This coming off the heels of his December debut where he demolished and squashed Inoki in 3 minutes flat. Very tentative match from both. Vader was not as unrelenting and vicious as he would become. Inoki bumped and sold for him. Selling shock at Vader's power on lock ups and powdering a lot. Vader was using the standing arm bar as a base which is fine but not Vader's forte. The real key to this match was to advance how Inoki could beat Vader. It was a match to give fans hope and show them where the opening lay. The opening was Vader could hurt …

Kerry & Kevin Von Erich vs Fabulous Freebirds (Terry Gordy & Buddy Roberts) - WCCW 2/16/88 Badstreet Match Finally, the Von Erichs and the Freebirds have the brawl that I always knew they had in them. I think scaling it back to 2 vs. 2 was a big boon. Another big difference was Gordy was working way bigger in this match. His first instinct was to stand his ground rather than bump. There are two reasons for that. Probably the biggest was his knees were shot as he two giant metal braces on them. I would hazard having worked Japan for at least five years now had rubbed off on him and he definitely seemed more offense-focused which made more a more awesome stand u…

Genichiro Tenryu & Samson Fuyuki vs Great Kabuki & Takashi Ishikawa - AJPW 2/20/1988 With these midcard tags, it is fun to find that hook that got them nominated or made them perform really well. In this case, it is when Tenryu gets the hot tag and it is sort of your normal hot tag. He is not too terribly pissed to start. He is just laying his shit in. He just starts gradually building himself into a lather and next thing you now he is holding Ishikawa down and stiffing him elbows that slice open his forehead. Where the fuck did that come from? He just progressively got hotter and hotter. It is almost like what he started stiffing him, the floodgates exploded…

NWA US Champion Dusty Rhodes vs Bobby Eaton - NWA Worldwide 2/27/88 Cage Match Solid cage match nothing that will change your life, but a fun 12 minutes. There is quite the gap between the ropes and the cage and so Eaton really has to hurl his body over the ropes into the cage. Eaton tries to escape this allows Corny to give him the racquet. He can jab Dusty with it. He has an object in his tights which he can rake Dusty's face. He gets some blood to flow and gets some good punches. Dusty never really feels in peril is my big knock on this. Dusty starts tagging Bobby with some lefts and Bionic Elbow. Liked the finish. Dusty slams Bobby from the top of the cage and fro…