gordi

How about Hennig's partner from the AWA? 6'7", 280 pounds, muscular and 80s-style handsome... He was even pushed by Gagne to work something of a Hogan-esque style in the AWA in the mid-80s... I honestly think that there is a decent chance Vince would have been tempted to roll the dice on the young and promising "Magnum" Scott Hall in this scenario.

Nice job writing up goofy, over-excited young Double J on commentary! Looking forward to Iceman vs Kimura

Road Warriors vs Blackwell and Patera should be great. Freebirds vs Rat Pack is heating up. Might wanna do a little proofreading: RUSKHR KIMURA MOUNTANI LINK VS TIGER CONWAY MATCH: MAN JR.

Classic angle with The Bullet. Surprising to see Brody get the strap. Wonder who will be able to take it off him.

I wonder what's next for Don Kernodle.

And adding Kamala to that list... Awesome heel stable there.

... but is the Giant Machine Andre or Baba? The world may never know. Really entertaining SNME and you can bet I'll be tuning in for the next one to see Hogan & Hillbilly vs The Russians..

Love how you are using Takashi Ishikawa & Masahiro Chono here. Paul Orndorff & Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude & One Man Gang is a great mid-80s ESPN/TSN Main Event. Would have loved to have seen that back in the day.

Bruno! I did not see that coming at all.

Huge upset. Very interested to see what happens next. I like the way the Andersons vs Armstrong feud seems to be heading, as well.

JWA Revival Second Chapter: Sapporo, Nakajima Center, May 24th Funaki and Yamazaki vs Hamada and Yamada vs Los Guerreros del Universo vs Mighty Animals Sting and Hashimoto vs Bigelow and Atisanoe The Tiger Masks vs Fujinami and Mutoh The North-South Connection vs Yatsu and Hara Inoki, Maeda, Fujinami, and Sakaguchi vs Choshu, Ueda, Muraco, and Allen ***BREAK*** Jumbo Tsuruta vs Bruiser Brody JWA Middleweight Champion Black Tiger vs Fuchi vs Kobayashi vs The Cobra JWA Tag Team Champions The Giants vs Mil Mascaras and Dos Caras JWA Champion Tenryu vs Stan Hansen

JWA Revival Second Chapter: Tour Opening Show – Osaka, May 16th Shinya Hashimoto and Keiji Mutoh vs Shunji Takano and Shunichi Nakano This was meant to be yet another showcase for our Young Lions but for whatever reason (and bless them for it) they decided to showcase their bumping and selling, giving the veteran enhancement talent a good eight or nine minutes of shine before ending it in spectacular fashion with a Hashimoto High Roundhouse Kick followed by a Mutoh Moonsault Press. Masa Fuchi vs “Thunder” Yamada This was kind of similar to the opener, except in this case it was the more seasoned Fuchi giving the younger Yamada a chance to show off his amazing technical and aerial skills before Fuchi took the win with a high-impact Pinning Backdrop. The Cobra and Kobayashi vs Black Terry and Babe Face The Japanese team are physically much bigger than the Mexican team and for about ten minutes they simply dominated Black Terry and Babe Face, until Black Terry decided he’d had enough, knocked the The Cobra off of the ring apron, and took him out into the crowd for a wild brawl. As Kobayashi yelled at his partner to get back in the ring, Babe Face snuck up from behind and locked on a complex submission hold. Referee Verne Seibert had a big smile on his face as he awarded the win to Los Guerreros del Universo. Riki Choshu vs Phil Hickerson This was billed as a kind of qualifying match to determine if Hickerson could earn a spot in Choshu’s Army. Apparently, the big American earned a measure of respect from the Japanese veteran heel, as Hickerson was dominated in the action but refused to back down and he really managed to heat up the crowd by repeatedly challenging Choshu to hit him harder. Choshu complied, and ended things with a wicked Riki Lariat. Afterward, though, he shook Hickerson’s hand and welcomed him into the Army. Fujiwara, Yamazaki, and Funaki vs The Tiger Masks and Takada 15 solid minutes of straight-up non-stop ass-kicking. For once, Misawa didn’t have to eat the fall as Yamazaki did the honours this time, falling victim to Sayama’s Tiger Suplex. JWA Middleweight Tag Champions Mighty Animals vs Adams and Hernandez Adams and Hernandez are way taller than Hamaguchi and Inoue. (6’2” and 6’3” vs 5’7” and 5’9”). That immediately established Mighty Animals as underdogs and gave this match a decent amount of heat. Despite their size advantage, Adams and Hernandez had no problems bumping all over for our champs, even taking big flashy bumps out of the ring. The crowd was going crazy for Mighty Animals, but with only a couple of minutes remaining Hamaguchi got caught in the heel corner. Gino held him in a Full Nelson and Adams came in with a Super Kick to Animal’s face leading to a Hernandez Full Nelson German Suplex to end the match and take the titles in spectacular fashion. ***BREAK*** Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody vs. Shunji Kosugi and Hirokazu Hata A straight-up squash. Hansen and Brody got to run through their move sets while Kosugi and Hata bumped and sold and made them look like absolutely unstoppable monsters. JWA Middleweight Champion Black Tiger vs Gran Hamada Another exciting, fast-paced, back-and-forth match that ended with some subtle cheating leading into a Black Tiger Tombstone to win the match and retain the belt. While Black Tiger’s matches have been consistently good, and his heel work has been enjoyable for me to watch, he still isn’t drawing much heat as our middleweight champion. We’ll need to figure out a way to get him more over with our fans, or we’ll need to figure out who will take the strap from him. Tenryu, Tsuruta, and Yatsu vs Muraco, Bad News, and Atisanoe As if they were trying to out-do Rocco and Hamada, these guys just flew around the ring at top speed, pulling off high flying manoeuvre after high flying manoeuvre, throwing in unnecessary but exciting flips and slingshot variations… …Nah, I’m just kidding. This was straight up clubbering all the way. Just elbows, knees, forearms, chops, and shoulder charges for almost 20 minutes before we got our first real wrestling move, then bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb until Tsuruta put Atisanoe away with a very impressive Bridging Belly-to-Back Suplex. Mil Mascaras and Dos Caras vs Fujinami and Koshinaka Unfortunately, Kengo Kimura’s bad shoulder got hurt again in training. Nothing too serious, but to be on the safe side we decided to have Shiro Koshinaka take his place. That took a tiny bit of the lustre off of this match-up for some of the people in the crowd, but Koshinaka played his role really well: Selling for Caras and Mascaras’ offense, fighting from underneath, making hot tags to Fujinami… and eventually eating the pinfall after a series of flying chops from the famous Mexican brothers. After the match, there was an elaborate show of respect among all four participants. JWA Tag Team Champions The Fighting Spirits (Inoki and Maeda) vs The Giants (Baba and Andre) So, to recap, in April’s title matches, Inoki in particular and to a lesser extent Maeda: Roughed up and no-sold Brutus Beefcake, no-sold the North-South Connection’s offense, and got stiff with Mutoh and Hash and no-sold Mutoh. It’s not unreasonable to assume that Inoki is a little put out by working for Giant Baba and no longer being the unquestioned ace of the promotion. It’s absolutely no secret that Inoki is a massive mark for himself, right up there with Hulk Hogan when it comes to taking his own line of bullshit a little too seriously. And, with Inoki as with Hogan, there is an upside and a downside to that. The good news is that their very extreme self-belief makes it easy for the fans to buy into them, too. It goes without saying that both men are enormously popular and arguably the two biggest pro wrestling stars in the world at this point. The downside is that they can be more than a little difficult to work with when it’s time for them to put someone else over. A further complication is that Inoki and Maeda both fancy themselves among the world’s greatest martial arts warriors. Certainly, both men are legitimately tough and both have genuine fighting skills. Both were trained by Karl Gotch, so you know they are for real. They are far from the only legit guys on the JWA roster, though. We’ve got Olympic wrestlers, judo champions, and every manner of martial artist, athlete, and tough guy working for us. Baba himself, while kind of goofy-looking and a bit past his physical prime, is still a damned giant who learned carny-style wrestling from the great Fred Atkins. He’s no pushover. And as Andre himself once told me: It's not my fault being the biggest and the strongest. I don't even exercise. Anyway, the match never devolved into a full-on shoot, but it got pretty nasty at certain points. I think that Andre and Baba got their message across loud and clear: Nobody in JWA is bigger than the business. In the end, Inoki did what was right for business and submitted to Baba’s Cobra Clutch Backbreaker Hold. Hopefully it will be a good long while before Inoki and Maeda try to pull that kind of nonsense again. The Fighting Spirits did not stick around ringside to pay their respects during the ceremony where The Giants were presented with the championship belts.

Buddy Wayne! I legit used to work with him in Vancouver in the mid-80s. Great to see him showing up here.

SNME is going to be hawt! Can't wait to see who is MACHINE WORTHY!

Wow... First we get Hacksaw Duggan joining the Freebirds... Then a JYD/Benoit alliance... Then the return of the MidnightbExpress! ALl on one show. Like I said... Wow.

You really hit the ground running with that TV show. There's something interesting going on in every match.

I love the angle of the local heels teaming up with the local faces to go against an outside invader. You get a nice patriotism angle... but also the ever-present possibility that the local heels will turn around and pull a sneak attack on the faces, as well. Either way, you can draw a lot of heat with this.

Yep. Obviously I'm loving this. Kimura is definitely in line for a nice upper mid card heel push when he comes back to JWA. He might even get a shot at Tenryu's title!

I have to imagine that Fuji's clan and the Hart Brothers are getting *really* good at working together after matching up so often. I love a good long-term mid-card feud.

I'm really excited for this.

That's a good call. What a match-up that could be.

Austin Idol and Ole Anderson as top heels with Bob and Brad Armstrong as top faces feels just right for a mid-80s regional promotion.

Almost forgot about: Vince and Hornswoggle!

Stu and Bret

Three more "Only happened once, for a reason" type matches: Blindfold Cage Match (James Storm and Chris Harris, TNA), Junkyard Invitational (Bash at the Beach in 1999, WCW), Good Housekeeping Match (Jeff Jarrett vs China, WWF, I think 1999)