June 1989

Águila Solitaria is an entertaining enough técnico, but Fuerza Guerrera is an amazing rudo, even though this is slightly less over the top than what he used to do/did later on. He gets all but ragdolled in the first fall. Águila still takes most of the second fall, but Fuerza comes back by pushing the rules a little bit. He doesn't brutally target the guy's nuts, he just throws a couple closed fists and throws him against the turnbuckles. It's really neat how Águila Solitaria hits the cleanest backbreaker you've ever seen and Fuerza Guerrera has to struggle to get Águila up. Third fall is a bit long and nearfall-heavy but Fuerza is still very fun in it. Cool match.

Ranger Ross vs Ron Simmons - WCW 6/3/89 So last week wrestling fans, Simmons & Ross were competing in a tournament for the vacant World Tag Team Championship against Samoan Swat Team. At the end of the match, Teddy Long came a hollerin and Simmons was interested in what along had to say. Ross fends off the Samoans but there is no one to tag as Simmons blows him off. Ross ultimately succumbs to the Samoans. Now Ross is out for revenge. Best Ranger Ross match ever! He is nuthin but fire in this. Fists of fury. Opting to pummel Simmons instead of covering. throwing him into hard objects. Simmons gets an eye rake but shoulder tackles into the ring post. Ross beat…

Interesting precursor to the famous matches. I started watching when Bret was champ (summer of '94) so I may be biased, but I have a hard time seeing him as anything other than a main event, especially in early singles matches like this. The way he carries himself is so different than any midcard face. There's a realness to how he does things in the ring and it adds a sense of seriousness to his matches. It's astounding that it took another 2 years for him to really break out as a singles star and then another year to be a main eventer. I don't know who would be comparable to him. Even Shawn was a pure midcard heel in 1992, with exaggerated traits as he tried t…

WWF World Champion Hulk Hogan vs Randy Savage - Boston 6/3/89 Carbon copy of the MLG match. This was the first Boston match. Watch this one because of better camera angles and plus Boston is obviously better than Toronto 😋

This match rules. Yes, it has lots of awesome action, yes the crowd heat is insane but my biggest takeaway from it was how great the transitions were. It seemed like every time there was even the slightest opening for a counter they'd take advantage of it, I could easily see this as being the greatest "learned psychology" match ever. Stars; all five of them.

What a fun match, the best AJPW tag since the 1988 RWTL final. Furnas & Kroffat are over as can be in Budokan, to the point where Footloose (especially Fuyuki) are getting legit heel heat for breaking up pins and such.

AJPW World Tag Team Champions Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs Stan Hansen & Toshiaki Kawada - AJPW 6/8/89 Three days after the historic and amazing title match with Tenryu in the Budokan is back defending his Tag Titles against the oddball dream team of Stan Hansen & Toshiaki Kawada. I dont know if they didnt want to have Tenryu in the match because they didnt want him to be on the losing end (presumably, this preamble is being written before I watched the match) of a Jumbo match this soon after his triumphant victory or if Gordy was not available. While strange, Hansen & Kawada sounds like a badass tag team. I got a lot going on tonight, so lets us…

Starting this thread more to ask a question than to review the match, but here goes... This is Funk's return to an NWA ring after a lengthy absence, essentially challenging number one contender Ricky Steamboat for his spot on the totem pole. At Wrestle War 89', Funk had attacked the newly-crowned World Champion, Ric Flair, which makes the outcome of this match almost ridiculously predictable - and yet, like so many of my favorite Funk matches from the 90s (with shame I'll admit to not having seen most of his work prior to this), he and Steamboat manage to throw in enough odd switch-ups and swerves to have left me puzzled and intrigued as to what would happen next. If …

This was pretty much a shootstyle brawl with plenty of bitchslaps and stomps. So, exactly what it should be. Man, did Funaki just treat everyone like garbage then? It brings out Anjoh's inner dickhead tough to even things up. The grappling was fine enough and they kept things going for the entire 20+ minutes which ain't easy, but the highlight was clearly them kicking the crap out of eachother. Funaki's time in europe had clearly rubbed off on him as he went for stuff like mid section headbutts or cravate holds which he executes like a WoS wrestler. He sure loved his spin kicks, but the thing I most dug were his short low kicks. Really entertaining match.

Vader vs Riki Choshu - NJPW 6/27/1989 Vader had dropped the IWGP Championship to Salman Hashimikov who had not yet dropped it to Choshu so this is NOT for the IWGP Championship. Really awesome bloody brawl here that lives up to the hype of VADER VS CHOSHU! Vader dominates early doing Vader stuff and also busting out a dropkick. Choshu comes back with piss & vinegar pretty much hurls right everything back at Vader including a dropkick and a monster lariat. He sends the Mastodon into the railing, tears the mask and slams him into the post triggering lots of blood of course. Choshu then goes to town with chair shots. Everything I hoped for! Vader is so great as a wo…

Apparently Faraon was a tecnico here but you wouldn't know it. This was a heated (stakeless) mano a mano match. Structure was Satanico taking over in the primera with a beatdown into the segunda, Faraon coming back at the end of that, and then getting his revenge into the tecera until they went towards the finish. Satanico's beatdown was as good as it ever was. He's the best heel in the history of wrestling after all. Faraon wrestled dirty for the most part, trading nasty tactic for nasty tactic with Satanico. Most of the main transitions were due to the ref getting involved which is never ideal. Despite being gritty, this still felt "big" with big whiffs at certain point…