(taped 4.21.88) 1 - Ricky Fuyuki/Toshiaki Kawada vs. Takashi Ishikawa/Mighty Inoue (All Asian Tag Title) - Ishikawa and Inoue did some neat stuff, but I did not want to watch them work a 12-minute control section on Fuyuki. Worse yet, it led to a non-hot tag to Kawada, and Fuyuki was back in the ring a minute later, acted undamaged. Then, they built to an overdone ending with meaningless chair shot s and ref bumps. You could take the pieces from this match and re-order them into something decent, but as constituted, it was a fucking mess.

 

(taped 3.27.88) 2 - Abdullah the Butcher/Tiger Jeet Singh vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu/John Tenta - This could've been pretty good if Singh didn't suck. Abby had good chemistry with Tenta, and Yatsu worked really hard to sell for the cheating foreigners. He also hit a cool-ass monkey flip on Abby. But fucking Singh worked most of the match for his team and was as pointless as ever. Oh well.

 

(taped 4.4.88) 3 - Bruiser Brody vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu (International Title) - I got the creeping sense that Brody didn't respect Yatsu and wasn't planning to sell for him. But Yatsu worked his ass off and almost forced Brody into a decent performance. Yatsu came in with a wrapped legged and turned it into the tragic flaw in his hero quest. He kept working to set up his leg hold but when he got it on, it hurt him as bad as Brody. To his credit, Brody put over the move, fighting like hell to punch his way out of it and limping around down the stretch. But Yatsu had to break the hold both times and did a great job of selling the frustration. The ending played off the leg as well; Brody flipped Yatsu into the third row and Yatsu simply couldn't drag his leg back to the ring to beat the count. Damn, I ended up liking this a lot more than expected. Nomination.

All-Asian Tag Titles: Footloose (Samson Fuyuki & Toshiaki Kawada) © vs. Mighty Inoue & Takashi Ishikawa (4/21/88)

 

This had some fun action but Korakuen was pretty dead for this and the psychology was all sorts of mixed up at times. The stretch run was good though.

 

John Tenta & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Abdullah the Butcher & Tiger Jeet Singh (3/27/88)

 

This had some fun points as well such as the Abby/Tenta exchanges and Yatsu selling his ass off at times but Tiger Jeet sucked dick and made this a bad match.

 

NWA International Heavyweight Title: Bruiser Brody © vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu (4/4/88)

 

Yatsu has some weird type of wrap around his right foot selling an injury which is interesting plus they broke out a wacky camera angle too from the apron. After some back and forth action, Brody would throw Yatsu to the floor and finally started working over the foot using a steel chair then grabbing a legbar when they got back in the ring. Yatsu would fight through the pain though getting some offense on Brody including a powerslam and a belly-to-belly suplex while on the bad foot. Yatsu would even get the Prison Lock but it would hurt him as much if not more than Brody so he had to release it on his own. Yatsu would comeback though with a backdrop suplex before going for the Prison Lock again but again it weakened him seriously so Brody would get a kneebreaker on him sending him to the floor. Yatsu would fight back though but missed a running attack on Brody and went over the railing allowing Brody to return to the ring to win by countout. Yatsu's selling was fine and this had some good action but I'm not sold on this as a nomination.