April 1989

This is one of the most brutal beat downs of tag team I've ever seen. Jumbo/Yatsu destroy Fuyuki/Kawada here. They are both bleeding buckets and just take a pounding. This is pretty amazing. I really wish there was a full version of this encounter, as it seems there was a good bit clipped from the beginning. This is great in the amount that we have, really great. If there is a full version out there these days, somebody let me know.

Steamboat is more cocky than the last (televised) encounter. He slaps Flair twice in the opening feeling out process. They still get a loud gasp from the crowd after Steamboat nearly gets pinfall from a headlock. Crazy. Flair takes apart Steamboat leg throughout the three falls and Steamboat's selling of his injured leg is top-tier stuff. They do a neat callback to their Chi-Town match when Steamboat catches Flair on the apron with a chop after Flair attempts to rush up the top rope after being whipped over the turnbuckle. After claiming the first pinfall, Flair dominates the second fall for over 15 minutes and it never gets boring. Steamboat makes Flair submit, and the …

This was just sad. Big John Studd was the guest referee and he looked like he wishes he was elsewhere and Andre looks mentally spent as well as physically broken. Andre pulls off the turnbuckle cover when Roberts is making his entrance. He immediately drags Robert's head into the buckle to take control. What follows is one of the most slowest and plodding matches in Wrestlemania history. After slapping and choking Roberts at a snail's pace, Roberts tails it out off the ring once Dibiase tries to steal Damien. Roberts gets him back and sets him free in the ring, sending a terrified Andre to the back. DUD

I didn't think the Red Rooster was that bad of a gimmick. He's just a guy with a wacky nickname and even wackier haircut. That was until I saw poor Terry Taylor's hilariously bad clucking pre-match promo. Heenan brings out The Brooklyn Brawler as muscle, but he doesn't do anything of note. Heenan tries to play chickenshit, but Rooster grabs him and pins him in 30 or so seconds after Heenan misses a corner splash. I'm sure Heenan and Taylor could of work a fun and campy wrestler vs non-wrestler bout, but this wasn't that and was just a waste of time. DUD

A quick squash for Bravo to build up some momentum. He still looks the shit in this three minute match by looking incredibly awkward and clumsy. Garvin is able to mount a small comeback after laying in a nice and snug forearm smash, but is eventually cut off and Bravo lands his abysmal side suplex finish. Garvin lays into Frenchy Martin after the bell. Not much to say about this. ★

Even more pointless filler! Jim Duggan calling Bad News Brown a 'son of a bitch' was the only highlight here. Brown works over Duggan's head, but it's useless as Duggan has no brain (Ventura's words, not mine!). Brown misses a Ghetto Blaster and gets nailed with a Duggan charge. Brown grabs a chair, and Duggan grabs his 2 x 4 in defence. They wail on each other as the referee has no choice, but to throw this out. At least this was short. ½★

Hercules is free from Bobby Heenan's family and is working as a face now. He gets a good reaction as he fires away at Haku. Eventually Haku cuts him off and works him down as in a bearhug and the audience loses interest. They get a decent amount of time for an undercard match and the finishing stretch is cool at least. Herc is caught by a superkick as he dives off the top rope, Haku misses a headbutt and Hercules secures the victory with a bridging back suplex. ★★

It's eerie watching Owen rock the Blue Blazer gimmick considering what happened, but he puts in a hell of a shift with Mr. Perfect as both make their Wrestlemania debuts. The action is fast-paced and we see all kinds of suplexes, powerslams and a variety of high-risk moves. Blazer eats some knees in a nasty spot when Perfect counters his top rope splash. Even though it's clear that this is just here to elevate Perfect, they really make the most of the six minutes that they're given. ★★¾

This looked better on paper. I was expecting a smash-face slugfest in front of a hot crowd. What we got was a solid no-frills match with an audience sitting on their hands. Ax gets worked over, and makes the hot tag to Smash once Fuji screws things up by missing a move from the top. Fuji doesn't exactly do too much. He tries to salt his former team, but his plan get foiled and he eats Demolition's finisher to lose the match. ★

Savage is the master of mind games and heel psychology, and Hogan is a pro at working the crowd with his hammy theatrics, so this worked a treat. Hogan is able to do a serviceable job keeping up with Savage when they trade holds, but the real meat of this main event is the drama involving Miss Elizabeth. Savage uses her as a human shield and this gets a shocked reaction from the crowd. She was fantastic in this and made this feel like a huge spectacle. Eventually she ejected from ringside and Savage takes control of Hogan. Hogan kicks out of Macho's finish and does his Hulk-up to win back the strap. ★★★½

This is Strike Force's return after Martel spent some time on the shelf. Arn and Tully are masters of isolating Santana from getting a tag, although that should come as no surprise. Tito accidentally hits Martel with a forearm and this causes Martel to eventually walk out on his partner. It's a cool angle and I'm sure it was shocking at the time, but this left me wanting to see a Strike Force vs Brainbusters get a good 15-20 minutes and tear the house down. Instead we get a satisfying heel turn and a one-sided match with some excellent heel tag team psychology peppered in. ★★¾

They keep it simple here. Dibiase sticks to the cowardly heel wrestler playbook by stalling and posturing. Beefcake sticks to only using punches and the most basic on manoeuvres. Both guys are over, so it works even though it's not all that exciting. I'm less keen on the double countout non-finish. Beefcake gets his hands on Virgil during the post-match, until Dibiase grabs his manservant and legs it out of there. ★★

I was going to say that it's good to see that they give the matches on this Wrestlemania more time to breath than the previous show, but that was before I had to sit through a near 10 minute Bushwackers match. Rougeaus are good usually, but they struggle to mesh with their opponents and it leads to a nothing filler bout. The Rougeaus make the mistake of celebrating too early and get hit with the Bushwacker Battering Ram for the embarrassing loss. Dreadfully boring stuff. The only saving grace here is we get to hear the Rougeaus incredible theme song. ½★

More filler, but at least this is an opportunity to see Bret Hart. Honky lands his finisher early, with little fanfare and build-up, but decides to tag Valentine in lock on a Figure 4. Bret counters and tags in Neidhart and he cleans house. Hart Foundation score the win after intercepting Jimmy Hart's megaphone when he was trying to throw it to the heels. The Hart Foundation looked motivated, whilst Honky and Valentine look like they were just out there for another paycheck. Fine for what it was, but this event would be a lot more palatable if they trimmed off the pointless filler matches like this. ★★

Bossman, Michaels and Jannetty all make their Wrestlemania debuts in a hidden gem of a tag match. They play on the big and powerful versus small and quick dynamic well. The Rockers are able to chip away at the unfortunately named Twin Towers by moving around the ring quickly and by using some creative double team moves. Jannetty is hit with a stiff Akeem lariat and they work a brief FIP segment into this frantically-paced match. Bossman catches one of the Rockers flying off the top rope and hits an amazing spinning powerbomb to win. Check this out if you haven't before. ★★★¼

WWF Intercontinental Champion Ultimate Warrior vs Rick Rude - Wrestlemania V If there are two things that go together in wrestling it is Rick Rude and Warrior. I gotta say Warrior ain't the greatest but at least he brings a ton of energy to the ring. Warrior coming in like a whirlwind and Rude kneeing the belt was funny. Rude was a ready and willing bumper. That is what Warrior needs. Warrior just crushed him with whips, tackles and clotheslines. The tackles towards the end looked really good. The bearhug was fine first time second time was pointless. The eyepoke/missile dropkick was a great, great heel hope spot. Warrior splash eats knees and finally slows do…

I've seen a bit of Fuchi in Memphis and some of his work in the mix of larger tag matches into the 90s, but I hadn't seen anything of his Junior stuff before this. According to Jetlag, Nakano was a Fujinami trained outsider that tanked his career by leaving with Tenryu in 90. This was one of many shifts of the title in 89. In the first seven months, it changed hands seven times, which seems wonky for me for an AJPW title but the tag belts changed hands five times in 89 so it's not that strange, I guess. This was absolutely a Fuchi showcase, but one that helped to elevate Nakano as well (it better have, since he was winning it), solely through the fact that he survive…

PWF & United National Champion Stan Hansen vs NWA International Champion Jumbo Tsuruta - AJPW 4/16/89 I was had! I thought for sure this was the Triple Crown unification match but turns out that is two days later. This is still a banger. I dont know if it was the finish but this didnt deserve to be outside the Top 100 for the All Japan set at all. This was just two big muthas throwing hands and everything but the kitchen sink at each other and barely bumping. Both dudes laying everything in and there are a ton of stiff shots. Jumbo owned Hansen early. I dont think I have seen Hansen so thoroughly beaten up ever. It was stand & bang to start. Jumbo is th…

This is the match to crown the first Triple Crown Champion. Hansen's entrance is awesome, whole section of the crowd flees from his path lest they get bullroped. Jumbo is on top for most of the open section of the match working holds and just generally having a slight wrestling edge over Hansen who seems to get a bit afraid of going toe to toe with him. This pisses Hansen off and he decides to turn this into a brawl. Jumbo fights back with some really good chop but is not coming out well most of the time. They end up with a brawl on the outside where Hansen wallops Jumbo with a chair busting him open. Hansen just turns into such a bully at this point taking advantage …

Man the opening sequences made this look like it was going to be one of the greatest matches of all time and it was going really great and then Jumbo botched the Powerbomb. That made it feel really incomplete, in a way I rarely find botched finishes to be, usually I'm just amused at the brutality but here it really felt like a sudden stop that shouldn't have been. Thankfully we got a rematch two months later. This was still very good but more three star-ish than what could've (and did eventually) be.

Greg "The Hammer" Valentine vs Blue Blazer - 4/89 Boston WOW! I did not expect this match at all. Pretty much all the pre-94 Owen I have seen has been pretty disappointing as many have pointed out he works too much like a gymnast. He starts off with a backflip off the top turnbuckle and I expected much of the same throughout the match. Instead, we got a hard-hitting, focused and well-paced match. This is the type of match that convinces me that Valentine is the best WWF worker of the 80s. He really wrestles a smart match that makes the Blazer look incredible. The Blazer was a pretty cool gimmick and could have really cashed in on the superhero cra…

WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan vs Randy Savage - MLG 4/23/89 Their usual fun match with each other. Lots of heel chicanery. This like a less over the top version of the Flair Bash At The Beach match. A lot of heat on Sherri who is the lynchpin to any Savage offense: the robe, two distractions, tripping and foreign object. Savage is great in this but much like Flair in 94 takes a backseat to Sherri. His charisma is off the charts wildman throwing chairs to stalling to way he throws himself into every bump and move. Hogan is still a lot of fun and energetic loved the shine once he took of Macho Man robe. 89 WWF is not as gritty as 86 WWF and while this is fun not as good…

What better way to kill time than to watch Inoki fight a Georgian Judo olympic champion? The match mostly consisted of Chochishvili slamming Inoki-and you'll be shocked to find an olympic judo champion has good looking slams. Inoki's comebacks looked goofy as Chochishvili didn't really know how to react to strikes and kicks, but he's charismatic enough that it almost doesn't matter, at least in terms of getting the match over. A one handed Inoki firing up was quite the visual, tailor made for a magazine cover. **3/4

Semi-final of the one-night IWGP Heavyweight Title tournament. This is a pretty good much but Fujinami looks way too overpowered against Vader. I like that Vader is able show off some subtle additions to his power template (the hammerlock takedown, the drop toe hold). Fujinami gets in quite a bit of offense before Vader rocks him with a perfectly sold lariat. Fujinami stays on the arm for most of the match, looking for the armbar, which plays well into the final against Hashimoto. When Fujinami tries rolling him up, Vader squashes him and hits his running splash for the win.

Jushin Liger vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi '24.04.1989 Jushin Liger made his debut in the first Tokyo Dome show in NJPW history, after Go Nagai's anime began on TV Asahi. With remarkable expectations as he was expected to be incarnation of an imaginative super hero, but also the successor of the biggest star in the history of jr. heavyweight wrestling, Tiger Mask. In order to follow in Tiger's footsteps, he changed his style considerably, focusing on speed, and daring aerial manuevers. In the junior divisions UWF dominated era, kicks were a big part of his offense and flying was only one aspect of his well rounded game. Kobayashi was the choose opponent, again to make the link …