Talk about it here.

Masa Chono gets a big upset in a really good match, beating Choshu clean with the STF. Choshu really is the master of making a match seem important. He dominated most of this until Chono mustered a decisive comeback in the last few minutes, which made the victory resonate more, because it felt like Chono had really earned the win. Nice match.

While he had his flaws, Choshu really cared about making stars, more so than the vast majority of big league Japanese bookers.

 

edit: Choshu was on the cover of the program magazine, and but did the worst of anyone in the tournament. Absolutely brilliant booking. Nobody batted an eye when he won the title in January so the losses didn't hurt him, either.

I wouldn't say Choshu dominated the match until the finish. We got plenty of Chono kicking him. It just wasn't that interesting. I wasn't into the first half of the match, but they did build to something compelling. Choshu helped get Chono over as a guy who could compete with the best, which was the point. I liked that Chono didn't win in a fluky way; it felt like a bigger deal for him to submit Choshu.

Man, outside of the upset ending I didn't care for this at all. I thought Choshu looked pretty lethargic, not to mention out of shape, and much of the match was built on striking with strikes that didn't look all that good. Then you get an oddly muted crowd, whether they were just quiet or didn't really buy Chono as having a chance, I don't know. Big disappointment considering Choshu's rep and how good Chono had looked in the tag bouts.

The match wasn't very dynamic and it didn't flow well. It was a bit better when Chono was on offence but still nothing much before the upset finish. It was an exciting moment when he won with the STF and started his G1 legacy.

Just an average match. Choshu seemed off and with him dominating good portion of match it didn't help. Chono wins cleanly with the STF which is nice but wasn't enough to make this one stand out.

I liked this match a good deal. If scoring on points, Choshu would have been ahead going into the finishing stretch but there was enough sprinkling in of key spots for Chono that made his submission look more inevitable and less of a fluke. Really excited to watch the highlights of this tournament.

If it wasn't for the fact that Chono beat Choshu by submission, there wouldn't be anything that made it stand out at all. I didn't see much energy until they started building for the finish. I liked having Chono earn the submission win by making him apply the STF three times; it got him over as plucky and determined while also preserving Choshu's tough guy rep, which is a pretty daunting combination to pull off.

 

Hopefully there were more exciting bouts from the tournament than this, what with the reputation tournaments like this one have among knowledgeable fans everywhere (best meeting best, which rarely, if ever, happened in North America at this time due to the ongoing promotional wars).

I don't see how you can expect this to be best meeting best when it's not interpromotional.

I'm not sure what I meant either, now that I think about it. I guess I was just trying to reference the dirtsheets, who seem to fall all over Japanese tournaments regardless of the promotion and workers involved. I guess that's because they generally last longer and give the fans more potentially good matchups.

North American tournaments are overwhelmingly disappointing and almost never good, whereas Japanese tournaments are taken seriously and usually produce a handful of great matches if not a MOYTC. I don't think their reputation is unfounded.

I also wouldn't equate these 90s tournaments with the coverage that the ones have gotten in the 00s and 10s. Different beasts, and different coverage.

Didn't think much of the early match. They definitely turned it around for the finish, first making it look like Choshu was going to put Chono away after Chono had worked to wear him down. Then Chono gets that second wind and makes it count. I'm guessing that even in 1991, Chono hated being introduced anywhere other than last.