Posted September 29, 200817 yr comment_5434925 Disc 22 September 28th & October 05th 1984: First three matches also on Classics 174 1. Honaga/Hoshino vs. Strong Machines - Basically a squash for the Machines in which they got to show off their offense on the painfully thin Honaga. 2. Kobayashi/Teranishi vs. Tony St. Clair/Greg Valentine - Action-packed midcard tag. St. Clair and Valentine flowed better as a team than St. Clair and Murdoch, and they controlled most of the way. Valentine's basic offense -- elbows, reverse atomic drop, you know the drill -- always looked pretty brutal, and St. Clair hit a beautiful dropkick. Kobayashi and Teranishi got in their flashes of offense to keep it interesting. I could easily nominate it, but it didn't feature any knockout performances or suggest any great stakes. So I'll chalk it off as a near-miss. 3. Kimura/Fujinami/Antonio Inoki vs. Riki Choshu/Yatsu/Hamaguchi - This was the last televised match for Ishin Gundan before they jumped, and it was cruising to a nomination before being cut off in favor of a press conference. I don't know if that was an intentional fuck you to Choshu or what. But the match is on Classics, so I guess we can judge it in full there. 4. Shunji Takano vs. Bret Hart - Bret was typically solid but not that interesting during his control segment. Takano was a lanky guy trying to work as a high-flyer, and his offense looked a tad awkward. OK match, nothing too noteworthy. 5. Cobra/Hoshino vs. Strong Machines - Another showcase match for the Machines, who botched a few moves early but wrestled more cleanly as the match progressed. They had some decent looking double teams, and I guess they were trying to heat up a feud with Cobra. This never built into much of a match on its own terms. 6. Kimura/Fujinami/Antonio Inoki vs. Brian Blair/Bob Orton/Masked Superstar - I was shocked how much I enjoyed this, and a lot of the credit goes to Orton, who held together a team that didn't make much sense on paper. Superstar kind of sucked on his earlier tour, but as the violent thug in the trio, he did just fine. Blair handled the mat segments and took abuse from Inoki and crew. Orton bumped around and coordinated his squad's double teams with aplomb. I'm sorry he was stuck working in the WWF for much of the decade, because Orton has been a ton of fun when he he's popped up in NJ. Great tag worker. Anyway, Fujinami and Inoki gave energetic performances as well, and I'll nominate this, because they pulled me into a match that looked utterly skippable in the listings.
