Antonio Inoki & Koji Kitao vs Genichiro Tenryu & Riki Choshu - NJPW Fukuoka Dome 5/3/95

 

Koji Kitao has a really interesting career. He is a former disgraced yokozuna. Dude is fucking gigantic, made Choshu look like a shrimp. Anyways, he quasi-sucked, never won a tournament and had a huge attitude problem so he got banished from sumo. Only yokozuna to ever be exiled in such a way. He turns to pro wrestling, which sees logical and trains with Inoki. He gets fired because he calls Riki Choshu a slur because he is Korean. There were some heated exchanges and nobody was selling shit for the other person. Then he links up with Tenryu but had a fucking shootfight with John Tenta and screams pro wrestling is fake. So fired again. Goes to UWFi and before he can double cross Takada, Takada shoots KOs him in a match. Crazy. Eventually he settles into WAR and has a boring career, but that is some insane stuff.

 

I watched this match because Tenryu only had nine matches from 1995. Was he injured? What was with all the time off? This match sucked. Inoki, Kitao and Choshu were having a competition who could sell the least. At the end, when Choshu was blasting Kitao with clotheslines it dawned on me maybe it was not that Kitao was not trying intentionally to not sell it is just that he totally sucks at selling. Tenryu try as he might could not carry these three loads. This is during Inoki retirement tour. Inoki chokes Choshu for like two seconds drags him down for a two count, but the bell rings. What the fuck ever. Don't bother.

Kitao didn't suck at sumo.

 

His promotion in reality isn't that questionable either since he forced a playoff on his last tournament before he became a Yokozuna, and that's considered equivalent to a win in sumo. This followed a 2nd place jun-yusho.

 

He also had to deal with 4 people who either were or eventually became Yokozuna. Had he stayed, there would have been 5 Yokozuna which would have been a record.