Posted July 13, 201015 yr comment_5453092 DVD #12 5/29/99 (taped 5/24/88 ) Footloose vs. Rock and Roll Express (9:31 complete) - Reviewed on Classics. Yoshikai Yatsu/Hiroshi Wajima vs. Tiger Jeet Singh/Jesse Barr (9:43 complete) - Yatsu was the only guy worth watching in this. Genichiro Tenryu/Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Great Kabuki (13:24 complete) - About halfway into the match, Jumbo drove Tenryu off the apron with a high knee, and Tenryu came up bloody. Jumbo and Kabuki worked the cut a bit until Jumbo missed another knee into the corner, setting up Tenryu to work over his leg. I liked them building the match around the competing vulnerabilities of the top guys. But they didn't do a good job of integrating Hara or Kabuki, and they didn't use the main theme to produce a compelling finish. So I'm going to write this off as an entertaining TV match that never quite built into soemthing for the set. 6/5/88 (taped 6/4/88 ) 1. Hiroshi Wajima vs. Tiger Jeet Singh (10:51 complete) - Reviewed on Classics. Jumbo Tusruta/Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Ashura Hara (22:53 complete) - Jumbo started out trying to wrench Tenryu's head off. But once Tenryu came up for air, he went after Jumbo's right knee, which he had attacked in the previous week's match. Yatsu looked great after he took Jumbo's hot tag, but the match sagged a bit when he slapped his leg hold on Hara. Things didn't pick up again until the stretch run, when Jumbo kept hitting high knees and then hobbling around on his leg. At first, I thought he was blowing off Tenryu's work. But really, he was building a story about fighting through it. His sellling was good enough that it worked. He set up the finish by hitting a big knee of Hara, thus giving Yatsu an opening to hit his German suplex for the pin. Strikes against the match include the sluggish middle and a blah crowd. Pluses include the followthrough on the leg story and the generally exciting finish. I'll call it a low-level nomination, but if their August matches blow it away, I won't fight for it.
