September 1989

Is Great Muta's TV Title victory from the Omni on 9/3 available? Sting vs The Great Muta NWA Power Hour 9/1/89 Vacant TV Championship (Taped 8/15/89 Cleveland, OH) Muta has not been looking good in these matches. I came around on him watching some early 90s New Japan where he had a really cool monster vibe to him. Here he just seems to be sandbagging. Sting's shine is quick pinfall attempts and a top rope crossbody. It looks the Stinger is about to run away with this. This draws Terry Funk out and he proves to be enough of distraction for Muta to jump Sting. Besides Gary Hart doing some choking with the towel, I thought this was a pretty pedestrian heat s…

All Asia Tag Team Champions Dan Kroffat & Doug Furnas vs Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki - AJPW 9/2/89 All Japan was quite the tag team promotion in 1989. The first match had a huge rep and underwhelmed me. I have an open mind going into the rematch. I am on the tail end of my night shift and I am starting to think it is a fool's errand to try to keep up with late 80s All Japan so we will do this stream of consciousness style: Furnas does some really impressive splits to limber up during the ring introductions. Strong boos for Footloose in the introduction as Japanese crowd reactions continue to bewilder me. Kroffat continue their heat from the previous m…

Maybe a little disappointing given who they are, but they never really went for epic. It was a wee bit more understated than that and in some ways it actually felt more like WAR Tenryu than All Japan Tenryu, where they laid it in and it was built around that laying it in more than the bomb-throwing. The powerbomb was the one bomb that was thrown and they certainly made use of it. Just after the intros while they're still in the process of clearing the streamers out the ring, Tenryu, totally unprompted, powerbombs one of Gordy's crew. I don't know who it was, but there didn't seem to be any reason for it. There was a person there to be powerbombed and so he powerbombed him…

Jumbo Tsuruta vs Yoshiaki Yatsu - AJPW 9/2/1989 The Olympians EXPLODE~! This match intrigued me for two reasons: 1. Not many Yatsu singles matches made the AJPW DVDVR Set and I wanted to see him in a singles setting. 2. It is a singles match between the current tag team champions. I really liked this match because they kept it simple and memorable. With both men being former Olympians it is not surprising the first five minutes is on the mat. I would say it is even but a slight edge to Yatsu. Kayfabe, I can say that is explained that Yatsu is more keen and eager to prove himself and Jumbo could be taking him lightly. In a non-Kayfabe sense, everyone knows Jumbo…

USWA World Heavyweight Champion Jerry Lawler vs Eric Embry - World Class 9/8/89 Honestly, I'll confused about Texas' status at this point. I don't know if Jarrett/Lawler owns Dallas yet or if they are just aligned. This definitely takes place in Texas as Mark Lowrance is on commentary. Eric Embry comes out with Percy Pringle to Loverboy's Turn Me Loose looking like the biggest 80s, tubby sleazeball jabroni of all time but is over huge as a babyface. What!?! You can get over anyone as a face. This is like the most pro wrestling pro wrestling match ever. I feel like when non-fans think of wrestling they think of this and that's what gives Vince McMahon night…

Ric Flair & Sting vs The Great Muta & Dick Slater - Clash of the Champions VIII Ric Flair is the MVP of this unheralded NWA tag team classic. After watching this, I think this would have been the best way to extend Flair's career in a productive manner in the 90s. He was a beast on the apron. High-fiving Sting and exhorting when he was selling. He was keeping the crowd in it all through this apron work. I loved the part where he just booked it over to Muta and started slugging him when Muta was trying to beat up Sting on the outside. Then every time he was in the ring, he was just pure fire. The shine rocked. By far, the best Sting & Muta sequences. Flair…

Every wrestler here fit their role perfectly. The standouts were Baba with decades of skill and experience, Fuchi with smarts and skill and Tenryu, the god of grump. No one is better than Tenryu in showing strength and weakness simultaneously...other than Kawada and Terry Funk IMO. One really felt that the Triple Crown champ was on the ropes when 1000 year old Rusher Kimura was head butting him but, seamlessly, Tenryu would chop Kimura in the fucking throat and change the momentum. Brilliantly, Fuchi would storm in like Jr. Tenryu that he is and get brutal even on the bully champ. Fuyuki and Kawada were perfect lackeys in this match and kept their schtick simple. This ben…

IWGP Heavyweight Champion Vader vs Bam Bam Bigelow -NJPW 9/20/89 These two have zero chemistry together. Totally heatless match. Inoki is the special guest ref and does nothing of note. Bam Bam might be the original super heavyweight who tries way too hard to be a cruiser weight. He does that silly somersault evasion. He executes a very nice drop toehold but do I really want to see Bigelow. He runs through an enziguiri (teachers pet!), bodyslam drop kick to send Vader out. Bigelow works a boring hold. Vader comes up swinging no transition. He is just like fuck it we are boring them and he beats the shit outta him and shows him how to do a proper super heavyweight dro…

This felt more like a "greatest hits" montage, with some neat callbacks to their previous two matches, but never really finding its rhythm or structure. They go in and out of the junior prom stuff, working the mat in between, but the groundwork isn't nearly as important as their August match and serves more to fill in the gaps. There's a little bit of testiness from Liger early on with some of his kicks but it goes away and the final half is mostly exhibition, with tons of piledrivers, including an awesome jumping tombstone from Liger. Liger also suplexes Sano to the floor and hits that gnarly diving senton from the top rope to the outside! They tease the double dropkick …

Excellent apeustas brawl. Difficult to execute that type of match in a tag setting but they made it work superbly. Satanico's selling/body language after the first fall beatdown is about as good as wrestling gets. Violence, intensity and drama. ****1/4

Giant Baba, Rusher Kimura & Masa Fuchi vs Genichiro Tenryu, Toshiaki Kawada, Ricky Fuyuki - AJPW 9/24/89 I have seen both 9/15 and 9/24 as dates. Please choose which ever is most correct. Revolution in full force! Tenryu & Footloose Six-Man Tag! I have not seen Giant Baba in forever! I have only seen clips of Rusher Kimura, who would have been 48 years old at the time. Fuchi has been great in all the random ass singles matches he has had. So I am looking forward to this one. Stream of consciousness because I can never keep up with 1989 All Japan tags. TENRYU VS BABA~! You can really tell how big Baba is because he dwarfs Tenryu who is a big dude. T…

Greg Valentine vs Ronnie Garvin - WWF MSG 9/30/89 If you love the sound of flesh on flesh then this match is for you! It helps a lot that Tony is here to call the action with the Southern drawl of Hillbilly Jim to add to this Mid-Atlantic fight feel. Absolute war of attrition. We all know that these two are going to hit each other hard and I mean double hard. The selling was off the charts great here too. I loved Valentine TIMMMBBBBAAAAAHHHH bump only when he tried to get up he flopped back down to the ground. I loved Garvin bouncing off the ropes trying to keep himself off as the Hammer rocked him with heavy chops. Just really awesome stand up exchanges. Tony nailed …