I enjoyed Diamond's fire early, landing on his feet on the floor toss and coming back in to throw punches. Tanaka works his old head scissors/hair pulling after escapes bit here that he seemed to use as a go to. It's effective enough but he really milks it too much. The build to the rope running spot was fun and Tanaka running the ropes is always god like. Lee Marshall freaks the fuck out for the bulldog Diamond hits as a pay off which is probably a result of the rest of the match being really slow up to that point. Hey, another rope running spot this one ending with an awesome super kick from Tanaka. Diamonds strikes look really good here and Marshall flips the fuck out again when Diamond crotches himself on a corner charge. Then Tanaka hits a diving headbutt to his nuts as a follow up and I'm reminded that working over the balls is one of the sounder wrestling strategies if you can get away with it. Tanaka locks in a Scorpion and is using the ropes for leverage, then goes to a Camel clutch. Diamond's leg is out of the ring but the asshole ref won't break it up. Tanaka with a crazy body press counter off a Diamond offensive attempt for a near fall. Tanaka does his great floatover escape on a back body drop attempt and hits a sick German for a near fall but misses on a diving headbutt follow up. They go into a really good slugfest spot that ends with Tanaka in begging off mode. Tanaka with a lunatic bump on a back body drop that Bock almost has a stroke for, followed up with an insane bump off of a clothesline that Bock nearly dies over also. Diamond hits a really good superkick in the corner and then his gordbuster for a near fall but Sato runs in and breaks it up. man FUCK Sato for running in I wanted a clean finish. Last few minutes of this were fucking AWESOME shit from Tanaka. As a whole match this is lacking in parts, but even though I can't give it super high marks I'd like to see it on the set.

Paul Diamond vs. Pat Tanaka (11/18/89)

 

The Battle of Badd Company is finally here and these two have faced each other in the past in Memphis. The action was good to start but there wasn't the intensity you wanted to see between former partners as they were working a more basic style match which irked me a little bit. This isn't to say these guys weren't working hard because when they were working upright they were movin and groovin with some nice spots as Tanaka was solid at bumping for Diamond but Paul did a good job of making Pat look good also. Tanaka hit some nice superkicks before Diamond crotched himself on the turnbuckle with Tanaka following up with a big diving headbutt to the balls. The match has fully picked up now and now we are getting the intensity we need here. Tanaka was on fire here with counters and big spots like a great German Suplex hold but Diamond would comeback and this led to some really fun offense with Tanaka selling like crazy and Bockwinkel on commentary going nuts for. This is really getting great before fucking Akio Sato runs in for the DQ to ruin this shit. The early part was slow and the finish sucked cock but damn this had some awesome shit in it and I think this is still a fairly easy nomination.