Posted May 15, 200916 yr comment_5439523 DVD #1 1/5/85 (taped 1/3) Giant Baba/Akio Sato vs. Killer Khan/Haruka Eigen - JIP and not much of interest. Genichiro Tenryu/Motoshi Okuma vs. Riki Choshu/Animal Hamaguchi - Sort of an establishing match for the newly arrived Choshu's Army and a good one. Okuma and Hamaguchi took most of the punishment, with Choshu and Tenryu mostly teasing interactions rather than going at each other full bore. The crowd was way into the teases and seemed hyped about Choshu in general. Between that and Animal bleeding, this carried a lot more intensity than your usual non-main tag on the first show of the year. I don't have a good sense yet of how many good Choshu matches we'll see from '85 and '86, but I'll toss this one a low-end nomination. Jumbo Tsuruta/Great Kabuki vs. Tiger Jeet Singh/Gypsy Joe - It's easy to see how Jumbo's interest waxed and waned when he was thrown into crapfests like this. 1/12/85 (taped 1/6) British Bulldogs vs. Tiger Mask/Mighty Inoue - JIP. Nice to see Misawa trade a few big moves with the Bulldogs but it wasn't much of a match. Baba/Kabuki/Masa Fuchi vs. Singh/Joe/Goro Tsurumi - I enjoyed watching Fuchi abuse Tsurumi, but there weren't too many intriguing match-ups here. Baba was kind of wasted. He wasn't old enough to be a nostalgia act, but he wasn't strong enough to play the veteran superstar role that Jumbo perfected in the early '90s trios matches. Watching him work in meaningless matches against shitty heels just isn't fun. Jumbo/Tenryu/Takashi Ishikawa vs. Choshu/Yoshiaki Yatsu/Isamu Teranishi - Jumbo and Choshu started off and the crowd was hot for the match-up. It was mostly a tease as neither guy worked much in the match. Tenryu produced one nice moment when he slammed Yatsu directly at Choshu's feet as a sort of invitation to duel. Cool ending too as Choshu drilled Tenryu with a lariat and then Jumbo swooped in to knock Riki out of the ring with a lariat. Between the moments I've noted, however, the match wasn't too exciting. It was more about hinting at what was to come. So no nomination.
September 27, 201015 yr comment_5456321 One thing that was omitted here is that this starts with the Onita retirement ceremony which probably should be an extra just because it's Onita.
