Posted February 6, 200817 yr comment_5427876 Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Stan Hansen & Toshiaki Kawada (6/8/89) (20:12) - Early on, Kawada and Hansen use Yatsu as their personal punching bag. Yatsu is non-descript but Kawada and Hansen have enough exciting offense to more than make up for it. When Yatsu and Jumbo take over, the match isn’t nearly as exciting. Still, young Kawada takes an ass-beating about as well as anyone including a nice powerbomb and a spike piledriver. Once again, we get a pretty hot ending in a tag match where Jumbo puts Kawada away. This isn’t a great tag but more than worthy of a nomination. (AJC 184)
April 27, 201015 yr comment_5450097 I liked this a lot. They ended up working Southern tag with Kawada as the fiery underdog and Hansen as the hot tag. Kawada ate and sold his beating perfectly, but he brought more impressive offense than your average face-in-peril so his teased comebacks carried more credibility. And shit, if you were getting your ass kicked, who would you rather tag than fucking Stan Hansen? Jumbo also had his elder statesman character down cold at this point. He could be really generous with lower-ranked guys but then pick the perefct moment to shut them down with a few emphatic moves. Yatsu was the least interesting guy in the match but did a fine job of abusing Kawada and distracting Hansen at the end. This wasn't a super-epic, but they did such a good job of executing what they were going for that it will do well on my ballot.
July 12, 201015 yr comment_5453029 AJPW World Tag Titles: Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu © vs. Stan "The Lariat" Hansen & Toshiaki Kawada (6/8/89) Yatsu is getting huge here looking like a fuckin Samoan from the waist down. This was fun as you had Kawada bringing the fire and the other guys being the big brawny tough heavyweights pounding on each other. This did have a southern tag feel to it as Yatsu was dominated early but Kawada would eventually get caught and worked over by the Olympic team. Before that though there was some fun action involving Hansen who took the combo bulldog/running knee like a champ. Kawada like I said took quite a beating taking powerbombs in succession by Yatsu & Jumbo then a spike piledriver but he kept fighting back before getting the hot tag to Hansen who started kicking ass but tagged back in Kawada so he could get the nearfalls on Jumbo but that didn't last long as Jumbo would drop him hard with a backdrop suplex to win. This was a solid match with everyone working hard and I think it's a nomination.
