Posted July 8, 201015 yr comment_5452880 DVD #22 10/10/87 1. Tiger Mask/Shinnichi Nakano/Isao Takagi vs. Bruiser Brody/Moondogs (8:02 complete) - This came off as a Brody squash in which he happened to have partners. 2. Genichiro Tenryu vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (21:14 complete) - Another brutal match between these two. Jumbo knocked Tenryu back on his heels early, but Tenryu got back in the match by wrenching on a headlock for a few minutes. They slapped the shit out of each other in several toe-to-toe exchanges and then, Jumbo went after Tenryu's neck with his power offense. Tenryu returned the favor after Jumbo missed a shoulder block into the corner, popping the crowd with a nearfall off a German suplex. For the finishing run, they played off their previous match, trying to knock each other out on the apron to win by countout. I loved the spot where Jumbo dodged a shoulder block, leaving Tenryu to launch a tope to nowhere. Their execution could have been better on the key spot where Jumbo tried a flying knee and Tenryu caught him with a lariat. That led to some bitching by the seconds about the way the ref handled the count, which I didn't quite get. But they ended up back in the ring, where Jumbo just pounded the shit out of Tenryu in the corner and got DQed for body slamming the ref. It was a fine finish that showed Jumbo's furious will to get back at his ex-partner. I don't know why Brody had to run in and attack Jumbo after the bell, but whatever. Given the small bits of iffy execution down the stretch, I have this as their fifth best singles match from 1987-1989. Nonetheless, it has to be on the set. 10/17/87 1. John Tenta/Giant Baba vs. Tiger Jeet Singh/? (4:35 of 7:03 shown) - I enjoyed Tenta's shoulder block from the second rope on Singh's mystery partner. Otherwise, nothing memorable. 2. Tiger Mask/Great Kabuki vs. Moondogs (4:48 of 10:33 shown) - The Moondogs clubbed on Kabuki. The Misawa, tagged in, hit a flurry of offense and took the pin. Blah. 3. Genichiro Tenryu/Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Hiroshi Wajima (27:19 complete) - I really enjoyed parts of this, including the heated early segments between Jumbo and Tenryu and Wajima's spunk in trying to fight off Tenryu's attacks on his leg. But goddamn it dragged on and on without any clear sense of where the whole thing was headed. They lost the crowd, and me, long before the shitty countout ending.
