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AJPW You Might Have Missed - 1984 - Part 2


G. Badger

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Here we are with week # 2 of AJPW from 1984. It's a pretty good one. Let's take a look!

Billy Robinson & Brad Rheingans vs Steve Regal & Kevin Kelly (03/04): Wouldn't it be funny if it was the Steve Regal and Kevin Kelly you thought it was? Its not :( But it's 1984 AWA via AJPW Classics. I thought this might be a boring match but it was quite fun. Regal & Kelly bumped really well for Billy and Brad. I thought they had some good chicken shit moments as well. I don't know if you're going to go out of your way to watch it but if you're doing some kind of AWA/Billy Robinson project - it's fun.

Billy Robinson vs Jumbo Tsuruta (03/11): Very good title fight. Technical like you'd want but Billy gets the crowd riled up pretty well teasing punches. A slower paced match that picks up at the end like the first Bockwinkel match. I would have liked a really strong finish but its clean and definitive which is really more than you can ask for in 1984. I would recommend this one... it's Billy vs Jumbo.

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Jerry Blackwell & Ken Patera vs Jim Brunzell & Greg Gagne (03/11): JIP. What started out as just a fun little match turned out to be a good one. Patera didn't wow me with anything but Blackwell, Brunzell and Greggie Boy had some good stuff going. Greg is kinda like Giant Baba with offense and athleticism. If you can buy what he's selling then you'll have a fun time. Note: 03-15-84 has Blackwell and Patera vs Gagne & The Crusher.This one is shorter and faster paced. One of the Vachons (Mad Dog I believe) comes out later for the post match donnybrook. Pretty fun shit!

Jumbo Tsuruta vs Jim Brunzell (03/15):Beforehand Bobby Heenan chews out Jumbo and Bockwinkel has to escort him away :D This was a very good simple match. It honestly was getting up to somewhere like ***3/4 (being generous) because of how they were building things up...but it ended right as it really started getting somewhere. That said it was an emphatic win and made everyone look good. 

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Yeah that's right! Jumbo doing a headstand!

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God bless the AWA camera men...don't you want to attend an AWA event and sit shoulder to shoulder with these fine upstanding citizens? 

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I'm really not sure what is going on here. But why would they film this man specifically?

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Stan Hansen vs Giant Baba (03/24): Back to Japan. Age old feud here and this might be one of my favorite Hansen vs Baba battle and story-wise maybe the best. Stan nearly kills Baba at the outset. Baba fights back but he knows he can't go toe-to-toe with the Bad Man from Borger. Instead the Giant One employs his wrestling skill and goes on the warpath to destroy Stan's arm. Excellent stuff from bell to bell! If you had someone with a bit more athleticism than Baba (or this was Baba from 10 years before) this would be a no explanation needed great match.

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Jumbo Tsuruta vs Greg Gagne (04/19): Wow, didn't expect this but the title match was great! You could tell Jumbo was excited to work with Greg. This was wrestled as an athletic, almost Junior Heavyweight technical match for the majority of the bout. This got chippy and lead to the heated final portion. We get a finish but is a little 80's to protect Greg and/or give heat to Jumbo back in the States. This might be my favorite defense so far. Technical Junior Heavyweight Greg is way better than spunky baby face Greg Gagne that we see more often in AWA. 

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Brody & Hansen vs Baba & Dory Jr. (04/25): Very good tag title match. Joe Higuchi was sporting his Seattle Supersonics colored ref outfit. I think what held this back from being great is Brody & Hansen seemed on offense most of the time. I mean more than usual to where Baba and Dory never got more than a couple good runs. Also it seemed like Brody (perhaps) was bungling spots with Dory...there were more than a couple rough looking spots. It had it moments and the pace pretty fast in Brody & Stan's style. Plus the fans were digging it.
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Brody catching some air! 

Another really enjoyable bit of wrestling. Any of the matches where I included super grainy/pixelated photos, I'd recommend you check them out! :P

Thanks for reading! Watch some nearly 40 year old wrestling!

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