Posted July 5, 201015 yr comment_5452757 DVD #3 1/31/87 1. Masa Fuchi vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi - JIP and we only got about two minutes before Kobayashi hit the ref with a lariat after Fuchi ducked. The ref DQed him. Bah. 2. Riki Choshu/Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Takashi Ishikawa - Really good sprint in which Ishikawa showed a lot of spirit standing in for Tenryu. Normally, Choshu and Jumbo didn't go at it much in these second-tier tags but that was hardly the case here. In fact, Jumbo might have eaten more punishment than Ishikawa. I liked the finish a lot. Ishikawa had Yatsu in a half crab and Choshu ran in to bust it up with a lariat. But then Jumbo ran in and lariated Riki, carrying them both outside. Ishikawa went to the top to finish Yatsu but Choshu stunned Jumbo on the outside and did one of his great run-down-the-apron ambushes, knocking Ishikawa down with yet another lariat. Yatsu then finished the spunky cruiserweight with a power slam. I try to be discerning with these shorter, lower-card tags but damn, I enjoyed this one enough to throw it on the block. 3. Hiroshi Wajima/Great Kabuki vs. Tiger Jeet Singh/A. Sheik - Reviewed on Classics. 4. Genichiro Tenryu vs. Frankie Lancaster - Basically an extended squash in which Tenryu spent an unfortunate amount of time holding Lancaster in a front facelock. 2/7/87 (taped 2/5) 1. Curt Hennig/Frankie Lancaster vs. Tiger Mask/Great Kabuki (4:18 of 5:24 shown) - Weird to see Kabuki without his face paint. This didn't amount to much. 2. Hiroshi Wajima vs. Tiger Jeet Singh (3:36 complete) - They started out bonking each other on the head with Singh's silly sword and then of course, Singh had to spend half of a three-minute match holding Wajima in headscissors. Then, Jerry Stubbs threw powder in Wajima's eyes after he started a brief rally. God, this was suck and suckier. 3. Jumbo Tsuruta/Genichiro Tenryu vs. Riki Choshu/Yoshiaki Yatsu (17:05 complete) - One last great match before Choshu jumped back to New Japan. Fuck, I don't know what else to say about this series. This one had all the great trademarks -- the intense battles over simple movements, the stiffness, the big swings of momentum, the great saves. I loved all the blocks of signature moves. It was a neat way to convey the depth of the rivalry. And the finish was great, with Tenryu power bombing Yatsu, Choshu trying to bust things up as he so often did and Jumbo wiping Riki out of the ring once and for all. It was the rare case where the book on a rivalry closed perfectly. I was fired up at the end but a little bummed because I knew there wouldn't be any more installments. Anyway, this is another slam dunk and I look forward to rewatching all these for ranking purposes. Will, if you want to have a good day, watch the last four nominated matches between these teams.
