Superstar Sleeze

PWF World Heavyweight Champion Giant Baba vs Stan Hansen - AJPW 2/4/82 Huge fight feel to this one! Hansen had just debuted for the company about two months ago in one of the all-time great angles and instantly was the biggest gaijin star in the company. This is just the natural progression. I still have to mention Baba's body. It is so weird. The giant head and boxy torso with those weirdly skinny arms. He looks so fragile and I was scared with him going up against Hansen. This was a more reserved Hansen. But Hansen at 75% is still going to hit you fucking hard he is just not flying all over the place. He was also more willing to bump for Baba. The story of the match was simple: Baba wanted to take out the Lariat arm of Hansen and Hansen wanted to ground the Giant and set up for The Lariat. Opening Shine was great with Baba nailing some big boots and then a Russian Legsweep. Hansen did a great job making Baba feel like a Giant and so he kept him on the ground. He was working the leg in hopes of taking out his base. Baba was fucking awesome working the arm. He got Hansen into his really nasty predicaments. Baba also loved using the big overhand chop as the equalizer. Loved the finish run with them running all over the place with Hansen finally nailing the Lariat. Baba just gets steamrolled. The crowd lets out an audible gasp. The crowd was super into this. Baba was so over. They were popping for him. The brawl outside the ring post-Lariat was great as Hansen first overwhelms Baba and they go to double countout. He is nailing young boys with Lariats and then Baba sends him packing. Just a huge Clash of the Titans feel that does not overstay its welcome. Really sensible story with two huge, larger than life characters. I loved the tension of the Lariat. It was this cloud of impending doom that loomed over the match. When would it happen? BAM! He nails it. Really great big time match. ****1/4

I had him 41st. I just like messing with you about him. Great run in Mid-South, really have not explored all that much of his WWF run, just know the hits. There is a certain blandness to him that I really cant get past. He lacks the emotion and energy that I really crave especially when you look at people I think highly of like Kobashi, Flair and Martel.

Do you think Shane Douglas knows who Hoshino is? Do you think Hoshino knows who Shane Douglas is? I fucking love this project!

Monster ratings for Junior & Ray Stevens! So disappointed that Pete went with DiBiase over Valentine. Even though you explained it to me and the reasoning is sound. Just sad.

The beginning is kinda dull, but once they turn up in the last half of the first fall, this is great! Wow, Parv not liking this is pretty shocking. Great character work and championship bout from two of the best of all time. I can see if you really hold the first ten minutes or so against them.

Bubba already, seems kinda low to me. I really enjoyed Bully Ray in TNA, but I guess nobody watches TNA so that renders that moot. Still, he seems better than being in the middle 300s. Has Devon come up already or was he not nominated? There is no way on Earth, Devon is better than Bubba. I'll defend Murakami along with GOTNW even though I did not vote for him, but I think I nominated him. Crazy fucking energy in every match and awesome facial expressions. The Nagata match is an all-time classic. Oh and I need to change my pic to Fujita Jr. Big Sexy finally jobs.

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Ric Flair vs Jumbo Tsuruta - AJPW 10/9/81 - Two Out Of Three Falls What a difference a year makes! Jumbo looks and feels like The Man here. He needs to because he is going up against The Man. Flair's first tour of Japan as the World's Heavyweight Champion and he does not disappoint. I am naturally inclined to like two out of three Falls matches, but I find the second fall or even third fall is sometimes too short, but I thought they did a terrific job in this making every fall count. The first fall does start a bit slow. Yes, there is red hot opening cross body from Jumbo to get a quick nearfall, but the Jumbo headlock and especially the Flair chinlock ground things to halt. We saw the usual Flair tropes of trying to create movement but only to get caught or lure Jumbo into the corner. Flair took a huge bump off a forearm and Jumbo was fired up and the crowd was pumped. The transition to Flair's heat is pretty weak just some punches and an atomic drop. Once, Flair misses a kneedrop and Jumbo pounces with a inverted Indian Deathlock, the match picks up and never looks back. Flair is so great selling this move and both men are sweating profusely. Harley gets out of his chair to sell the moment that Flair may surrender. Jumbo grabs a toehold is playing to the crowd and then moves to the Boston Crab. Jumbo nails a MASSIVE HIGH KNEE! Butterfly Suplex! MISSILE DROPKICK! WHAT A FINISH RUN! Loved it. Jumbo goes up 1-0. Flair looks worried and tries to go on offense to start the second fall, but that backfires when he cant lift Jumbo into the bodyslam. Flair is concerned. Jumbo wants the German (that finished Slater), great struggle and Jumbo settles for the abdominal stretch. Flair finally finds his opening: Kneecrusher! Jumbo sells this huge by rolling to the outside treating this as a tide-turning event. Flair suplexes him back in and STRUTS! He is feeling it! Jumbo catches Flair with a cradle. Flair rattled by this event pounces with the Figure-4 to finish off Jumbo to knot it up. Great second fall. Jumbo looks good until Flair finally lands a turning point blow. Flair gets cocky, almost caught, but then finishes him off. Great psychology. Tied 1-1. They drag Jumbo to his corner and they try to treat his knee. Jumbo is ripshit and hobbling, a bad combination. Flair is so damn cocky, you want to punch right in the fucking face. Flair dives for the legs. Love it! Flair backs him into the corner and is relentless on his legs. Big elbow to the face, WOOOOOOO, elbow to the face! Jumbo has been lacerated as Flair rapidly punches him in the forehead. JUMBO NAILS A HUGE HIGH KNEE OUTTA NOWHERE! Flair Flip! Tree of Woe! Boston Crab! WHATTA COMEBACK! Jumbo gets the ab stretch and Flair dumps him into referee, Lord James Blears. Awesome deadlift German suplex, but no ref. Piledriver! Flair is toast. Flair manages to get a foot on the ropes. Jumbo crashes into the corner knee first and Flair gets the pin to save his title. Once the finish run kicked in the first fall, this was an excellent thrill ride. Jumbo was the bomb-throwing hometown boy that goes up early, suffers an injury and then makes a great comeback only to come up short. Flair was great vacillating between worried and cocky. Excellent outing by both men. ****1/4

Pete, excellent job making a case for Rey Rey. I wanted to get him, Bock and Lawler in my top ten, but alas there can only be ten. Love me some Rey Rey! I enjoyed Timothy's recommendations. I am excited that I have something to watch in ten years once I get through everything in the 80s and 90s!

NWA United National Champion Jumbo Tsuruta vs Dick Slater - AJPW 5/1/80 That's a HUGE FUCKING TROPHY Jumbo Tsuruta gets for winning this match and the Champions Carnival. This match would not be out of place at all in 2016 as there is a ton of hot nearfalls and I would go as far as to say there is actually too many and they detract from the match. Unlike today's match, there is enough grappling and selling to setup the highspots and bombs. Slater is at a disadvantage right off the bat because his right eye is bandaged. I loved the pro style grappling here. Everything was logical and quick. Slater gets a drop toehold into a deathlock, but Jumbo counters this into a Boston Crab. It is such an excellent counter. I love Slater fights it every bit of the way so that it actually seems reasonable when he breaks out. I loved how quickly he goes after Jumbo's leg so as not to fall behind to Jumbo. Slater does a great job working the leg. The transition to the bomb throwing is A HUGE BUMP by Slater out to the floor off a back drop. Again, Jumbo first does the logical thing focusing on the back with an ab stretch and bearhug before moving to his bombs like the High Knee and piledriver. Slater ties him up in a pin and rolls him out to the floor. Weirdly, Slater suplexes Jumbo back into the ring, which is a move I associate with babyfaces. There is a great Samoan Drop and it is impressive Slater can get him up. Jumbo does a great job selling the Samoan Drop and the pain he is in. Slater gets a piledriver, but only gets two and from there goes for the Spinning Toehold, which he set up earlier. Jumbo does everything he can to kick him off to the floor and when he gets back in hits a flying knee again only for two. Then Slater fires back and hits flying elbow. It is a very tit for tat, symmetry match to establish eveness. Jumbo wins a suplex struggle (this is a spot that continued well into the 21st century in NOAH) and unloads more suplexes. However, he crashes and burns on a dropkick. The perfect chance for Slater to put the Spinning Toehold on and he does! Jumbo flailing kicks him off brutally. It is this grit and Slater's selling that's carrying the match. Slater's is relentless and Jumbo is blasting him in the face until he starts to bleed! Jumbo tries the back suplex, but Slater kicks off the ropes and Jumbo whacks the back of his head so he cant capitalize. Spinning Toe Hold! Kicks off. Love Slater's perseverance. Slater charges into the corner and a PERFECT German Suplex (look at the bridge) wins the match for Jumbo. This felt like two sportmen giving it their all to win the match. It can be dry at times, but I think the opening work is very compelling. After seeing Jericho so obtusely set up the Boston Crab for years it was cool to see Jumbo find a cool, logical way to progress from one hold to a Boston Crab. I thought Slater was great working the leg. Jumbo is an excellent bomb thrower and I think Slater's reliance on the Spinning Toehold was a perfect way to counter that. He was going to live and die by the Spinning Toehold. The nearfalls were excessive and the transition were a bit capricious at times. I wish there was some more long term selling from Jumbo especially the leg. Overall, it was a very entertaining bout and told the story of Jumbo's suplxes against Slater's Spinning Toe Hold. ****

NWA United National Champion Dick Murdoch vs Jumbo Tsuruta - AJPW 3/5/80 Dick Murdoch just gets pro wrestling. He is a total pro in terms of offense and selling. In the first fall, he tortures Jumbo's arm with a ton of armbar variation and grinding his elbows and knees into the arm. He is also great at cutting off Jumbo. He is not just going to let Jumbo throw him in the ropes, he delivers a blow to the midsection and then nails him with an elbow. When it comes time to sell for Jumbo is so incredible. They way sells shots to the face, especially the high knee is great. The grappling in this fall is some of the best, most engaging pro style grappling I have seen. Really liked Jumbo's escape of an armbar to hoist into the airplane spin and then FU. Proves that with right presentation that you get anything over as a finish because nobody really bought the FU as a finish in 1980, but in 2005 it was. Murdoch's verbal selling is so great. He does get a couple more heel hope spots, but eventually succumbs to the gutwrench suplex. Nothing flashy about this fall, but really, really well-worked. I loved the basic, fundamental approach. Jumbo 1-0. Second fall is usually a quick a fall and this is no exception. Jumbo looks to press his advantage with a big atomic drop that Dicky Murdoch sells beautifully. He lures him into the corner by begging off only kick him in the Jumbo Jewels. This is not the transition to heat, which I don't care for. Respect the ballshot! Especially since Murdoch was going over in this fall and in short order. The eventual transition is punches in the corner, just seems weird. Murdoch rides him down from the top with a knee and then his brainbuster to even the score. Tied 1-1. Third fall is way shorter than I expected! For shame. Murdoch is in control riding his wave of momentum with elbows to the throat and then an elbow drop from the top rope. Jumbo is gasping for breath and looks unlikely that he will regain his championship. Until, he actually hotshots Murdoch! Jumbo finally gets it on someone else. I did not watch the match where he lost the title a couple weeks before this, but I wonder if he lost on a hotshot. He cradles him up for the win. I really liked the finish. Murdoch was awesome in this and just an exhibition of why he is an all-time great. Jumbo felt like a wrestler with something to prove. He had not grown into his ace role yet. He needed to regain his title so he came in with a challenger mindset. Plenty of great offense and he sold well. This was a really strong, meat and potatoes match, just disappointing that second and third falls were not longer. ****

PARV, you rule!

Fucking love it, PARV! Oh and sorry for all the swearing. Got fired up at some points last night!

My favorite part of last night was marking out for Kelly's number 8! Kelly's list just wins BABY!

I'll be honest, I was blowed up after that. I don't think anything afterwards comes as close. By far my favorite of my rants, glad you loved it!

First, how the hell did people talk about 100 wrestlers! Just 25 was insane. This was so much fun. I am still wired from this podcast. Really got me going! Probably my favorite podcast that I have ever done besides the BrainBuster with Parv, which was hilarious. Thanks, Woof! Happy not to be the high vote on HBK. Glad you like it too, WIngedEagle. I was afraid that people would be intimidated by the long times, but I guess people have been conditioned here by other wicked long podcast so happy people are listening. Loved the Savage/Liger picture goes well with Kelly's War Against Japan. Just kidding, Kelly, I know you like Japan especially All Star Early 80s All Japan.

NWA World Tag Team Champions Rock N Roll Express vs Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard - NWA Pro 10/3/87 Welp, looks like we never got out classic from these two teams as this is an angle to transition the titles to the Horsemen and move RnRs into a feud with MX. The Midnights jumped RNRs before the match injuring Morton. Gibson gives a "gutty performance" (Johnny Weaver) and honestly it is the best I have seen Gibson looked. I thought he was great during the shine, just a ball of energy overwhelming the Horsemen, but also being cautious given the circumstances. I liked how he went for the standard RNR moves and then was like oh fuck, Ricky aint there. Horsemen beatdown on him was fantastic. Great spinbuster and piledriver. Of course, Morton comes out bandaged the crowd goes apeshit, but the Horsemen zero in on the bad arm. Morton has too much pride to give it up so Gibson gives up for him. A good angle, but kinda feels cheap with the give up from Gibson when then Horsemen could have just gone over plus this was not the start of RNRs getting revenge on Horsemen, but the MX, which is lame that Horsemen get to reap the rewards. Pretty good, but weirdly not remembered or talked about. ***

NWA World Tag Team Champions Rock N Roll Express vs Arn Anderson & Tully Blanchard - NWA World Championship Wrestling 9/19/87 I cant believe I am about to say this and it is almost sacrilege, but this match is way too long and did not need to be this long. They could have shaved 10-15 minutes off this and had a way tighter match. Almost it looked hotter than hell in there. They were sweating profusely within five minutes. The finish did no favors to this match. You invest that much time into the match and no one goes over is pretty lame. Should have just put the RnRs over clean . The babyface shine in this match shows why even a solid, basic one like this goes a long way. It establishes that RNRs are the better team so the fans know they are cheering for champs not chumps and shows why Anderson & Blanchard have to cheat because they are not as good. I like the heel hope spots that fool you into thinking the heat segment is coming like when Morton has sweat in his eyes and Blanchard hits him or Blanchard throws him over the top or when Anderson suckerpunches him in the corner. However each time the Morton has a comeback whether it is grabbing a chair or going for AA's leg. Then we get to Gibson's heat segment and the first one was great. They set up great with two throws over the top rope. Anderson choking with a rope and all the double teaming was great. They were kicking Gibson's ass who was selling well. Then during a break Morton gets the hot tag so we miss that and then he tags right back out and we are right back where we started with a Gibson taking heat. It just felt like the match was moving backwards. The hope spots were fine and the selling was great, but it felt like something we had seen. Morton's hot tag was kinda lukewarm and there was a double dropkick, but he had shoved the ref down. Blanchard blasts with the shoe. You think Horsemen had just won the tag titles, but Earl Hebner calls it off. There is a double DQ. It is a really fundamental Southern Tag, which is great because these four are excellent. However, it is too long and they stuck with the Gibson in heat too long. I think going to Morton in heat would have switched things up or they could have just wrapped up after the first Morton hot tag. I think the heat in the building sapped their energy as they just weren't as energetic as usual. The finished sucked. Very good match, but at that length, probably something I wont watch again. ***1/2

Fun interview! Parv & Kal watching modern wrestling would be something I paid to listen to.

High vote for Fujita Jr. Hayato! Did Alan not vote? That's sad. I based that on about half a dozen matches, but I need to see more, he was so incredible in each of those matches. I am so sad that Abdullah Kobayashi finished ahead of him.

Finished right before Mania last night!

Chad spoke of personal failure. I cant help but commiserate. I am actually most disappointed in myself for not finding time to take part in the threads where such great discussion was being generated. I set forth that I wanted to go really depth in American and Japanese male pro wrestling rather than try to be too broad and found that I still didn't have time to complete those tasks (New Japan 80s was the casualty). It will be down to the wire, but I should have a ballot in on Saturday night.

I was going to come in here and write a full review of this match, but reading the comments above have made me think otherwise. The body of this match may be the greatest body of any match I have ever seen. Kobashi was on fire in the first ten minutes. He wrestled one of the best cautious, but effective opening segments ever. He may have been the champ, but until he can beat Misawa, he won't be the Man and that's he worked. He was confident, but did not want to make any mistakes. He wanted to smother Misawa and slowly build to a victory. Anytime, he was even in remote danger he pounced on Misawa. It was one of the best full court presses I have ever seen. I thought the transitions in and out of control segments were fantastic. Within control segments, everything progressed beautifully. Misawa wrestled in his groove perfectly. He was 3-0 against Kobashi and did not seem to sweat his early disadvantage sticking to his game plan of elbows and facelocks to set up his bigger bombs. The head drops were reasonable at first and made sense given the match flow. Now we come to the reason, I will not be doing a full review. The finish stretch was way, way overkill in my estimation. Nobody should have kicked out of that Tiger Driver '91. He dropped Kobashi right on his friggin' head. However, since a lot of people have argued for context in regards to this match and I have never watch their 10/97 match and have not watched the 10/95 match in forever, 1/20/97 is something I am very familiar and regard in the upper echelon of AJPW matches. I will table a full review until I can watch all four matches properly as deserved. Still, before the finish stretch, WOW! is all I can say. Really well-executed body.

Now for a haiku about Stan "The Lariat" Hansen: Western Lariat Fate was sealed before the bell A Mercy Killing

Interesting, if there was someone I thought was popping up a little too quickly it is Tenryu. Watch Hansen's energy level decrease over time, he is a raging bull, but after the Kawada knee injury, he starts to slow down because of the amount of offense he has executed. It is during these slow down periods Tenryu has a chance and Gordy needs to make the save. It is the rope-a-dope story. As for the exact moment you reference, Tenryu hits the powerbomb, Gordy saves hits the powerbomb, the ref has to break up the pinfall attempt by Gordy because he is not the legal man after all this time, Hansen finally gets to one knee to signal for the Lariat. Then he hits a last gasp Lariat to win. I think that was perfectly fine selling.

Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy vs Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada - AJPW Real World Tag League 12/16/88 JBL would cream himself over how many MONSTER LARIATS are in this match. The last half of this match is basically legalized murder of Tenryu by Hansen & Gordy. This match embodies "Think shoot, but work" and is Hansen's definitive statement on pro wrestling. Every single thing is a struggle. If he can throw a wild kick, he will throw a wild kick. He is not going to wait on the apron, he is going to come in and smack the shit out of you to save his partner. Gordy took his cue from Hansen was great as Hansen Jr., but the difference was Hansen was just absolutely wild and merciless. There is a point towards the beginning where Tenryu is just tagged in and Hansen yanks out a prone Gordy to save him from Tenryu gaining an advantage. You truly felt that this match mean the world to all four men. Hansen was so worried about going down an advantage that he pulled out his tag partner. That's Japanese tag wrestling in a nutshell. It is really hard to make comebacks because each tag is essentially trying to make this a handicap match. In the Southern tag formula, there is a face in peril and a hot tag, but there is always that sense of hope. Once a tag team falters in Japan, there is just a sense of impending doom. Young cheetah-print Kawada was massively over and utterly fearless in this match against these bullies. I thought this would be your standard vet/young lion against dick heels, but Kawada more than held his own. Hell, he took it to these tough SOBs. Kawada was throwing massive spinkicks and monster lariats with the best of them. Tenryu trusted Kawada and against these two, he had to! Tenryu is definitely the equal of the gaijin, but suffers from the fact that he constantly has to face them two on one. He can handle them individually, but as soon as Hansen or Gordy feels the other is trouble they will rush to the other's aid. The brutality of this match was something else. The lariats, chops and kicks need to be heard to be appreciated. The yell of agony from Tenryu when Hansen clobbered him in the back was something I have never heard in a Tenryu match or men's wrestling. It was a fucking war out there. There is clothesline from Gordy that hit Tenryu so hard I don't think he even had to sell, it hurt that much. Kawada's big moment is that he goes wild on Hansen and he actually stomps Hansen down and crowd goes wild. Gordy saves, but Hansen is actually hurt and has to tag out. Kawada Germans Gordy and Hansen kicks Kawada's leg out from underneath the bridge. Then in the spot that maybe my favorite spot of all time, Hansen steps on Kawada's foot and rifles his knee with kicks. That is sadism. Hansen lets Kawada go only to push him out of the ring and NAIL Tenryu with a LARIAT! The match goes on, but at this point is when the impending doom sinks in. Kawada's is pretty much finished and for the rest of the match the gaijin takes turns beating shit out of him at ringside. Tenryu blasted by the Lariat so hard that he fell over the railing is in pretty piss poor shape to take on these two bullies two on one. The rest of the match you just get angrier and angrier at how unfair it is that Tenryu is basically being murdered by these two men. The spot where Kawada explodes in a frenzy from the outside to save Tenryu from Gordy powerbomb is great. You do get the sense that Hansen has blown himself up in a worked sense and Tenryu's last gasp is chop the shit out of Hansen. He gets his licks in and perhaps if the match is one on one he could pull it off, but anytime he gets anywhere Gordy interferes, Until Gordy misses wildly with a clothesline and Tenryu POWERBOMBS Hansen! Gordy recovers and powerbombs Tenryu. HANSEN LARIAT!!! Mercy killing. Even though, the last half of the match was full of impending doom, they did a great job working in hope spots. I thought Hansen sold exhaustion fabulously. Gordy was a great dick heel sidekick. Hansen's individual performance in this match is a candidate for greatest performance in a single match. Kawada was great as the fearless rookie and selling the knee is Kawada's bread and butter. Tenryu was perfect in his role as veteran asskicker that's outgunned, but is going to down in a hail of bullets. The best non-90sAJPW tag match in history in my book! *****