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Tiger Mask 2/Kawada vs. Yatsu/Fuyuki 5/14/90 This is joined in progress with Yatsu headbutting TM2 in the corner. A lot. Kawada distracts Yatsu and TM2 kneelkicks him in the back of the head. Kawada unties the mask and, surprise of surprises, it's Misawa under there!! The crowd chants. Misawa hops to the floor and kicks the crap out of Yatsu and Fuyuki. Kawada joins in the fun. Kawada hits a nice missile dropkick back in the ring. Kawada hits a late 80s low lift powerbomb on Yatsu, who kicks out and sells it like death for 5 minutes or more. Fuyuki hits a nice spinkick on Miawa. Kawada and Misawa work decent together on teamwork stuff, Kawada with one of his sweet kneelkicks. Yatsu breaks up a nearfall, but he gets tagged in to eat a dropkick by misawa before...tagging right back out and never coming back into the match. Kawada hits a suplex to set up the frog splash for a nearfall. Misawa with the German for the win. Looked to me like Yatsu/Fuyuki were given the job of putting Misawa/Kawada over in the big reveal match and helping build Misawa up for the match that comes next. Neither Kawada nor Misawa was in any real danger of losing here. They both looked good coming out of the match, so it served it's purpose. Misawa vs. Tsuruta 6/8/90 Wow, the crowd is hot for this one. Misawa is in very familiar gear and has Kawada and Kobashi as seconds. Both Misawa and Jumbo get chants coming out. Jumbo has a very clear power advantage and is in no way bashful about showing it. Misawa has speed and elbows, but the speed is quickly shown as a double-edged sword as he runs into a big boot after a dropkick. Jumbo follows with a huge lariat for an early 2, making quite the statement in the process. Jumbo is in charge, but he tried the backdrop suplex too early and gets a Misawa crossbody as punishment for the mistake. Two count and Misawa is kicking Jumbo outside, hits an apron missile dropkick after faking him out. A running elbow sends Jumbo over the guard rail. Misawa elbows Jumbo off the apron and hits a running plancha. Misawa is really trying to press the advantage here, makes sense after eating that lariat. Misawa tries a front facelock to wear Jumbo down, but Jumbo is soon out and gets Misawa in a standing surfboard. Misawa reverses, then uses Jumbo's momentum to stop his reversal back into the original predicament. Jumbo reverses, Misawa hits a backwards dropkick and then puts on a hammerlock. Jumbo makes the ropes, but Misawa slaps him across the face on the break! Another slap and you can see Jumbo getting angry. Jumbo starts to beat Misawa down, puts on an abdominal stretch, but Misawa reverse. Jumbo powers out and tosses Misawa to the floor before whipping him into the rail. Misawa makes a comeback, hits a missile dropkick for 2 and follows with a gutwrench suplex. After a slam, Misawa goes up top for a frog splash nearfall. Jumbo catches Misawa mid cross-body and drops him throat-first across the ropes for a nearfall. The speed again proves to be a double-edged sword. Jumbo hits a series of nasty stuff for nearfalls. Jumbo takes off the kneepad after climbing the ropes! Misawa cuts him off, but Jumbo just knees him in the face as he's climbing, knees him again as he gets up and slams him before climbing again. Misawa gets to the top with Jumbo this time, but ends up back on the mat, and stans up into a padless top rope jump knee for a big nearfall! Jumbo hits a MASSIVE powerbomb for a nearfall that the crowd eats up. Misawa finesses out of a double arm suplex with a backslide for 2. Misawa hits a big elbow to keep Jumbo down, Jumbo rolls to the floor and eats a sweet top rope plancha halfway across the ring from Misawa! They extend this already good finishing rush with a series of counter sequences and big move teases, Jumbo hitting some seriously vicious lariats, and increasingly loud pops for a Misawa German and Tigerdriver attempt (which goes nowhere). This was an amazing match with incredible heat and really well-done all-around. Jumbo as the powerhouse who refuses to let the youngster get the better of him is great. Misawa as the upstart speedster who just won't stay down and capitalizes on every mistake as fully as he can is spot on. The ratcheting up of the intensity by both as the match went on works so well. Misawa and Jumbo both show disbelief after the finish, which makes perfect sense. I can see where Misawa was a made man after this match, as he endures a beating and a half from Jumbo to squeak out a win. Kobashi vs. Kawada 6/30/90 Kawada has kick pads now. And he has more of the later core Kawada style going on here. Both guys got streamers before the match, that was cool. Kobashi hits a lefty lariat early. Kawada misses a plancha and Kobashi kneelkicks him over the guardrail. Kobashi dropkicks Kawada off the apron and hits a big plancha. Kobashi is working over Kawada's neck back in the ring, Kawada tries different counters but none of them stick. Kawada starts slapping Kobashi in the corner and they brawl to the mat, where they brawl some more. It goes to the corner, where Kawada hits his second rope head kick on Kobashi. Kawada steps on Kobashi's head to get a sharpshooter, then kicks him outside off the rope break. He drags Kobashi over to the gym floor outside the railing and bodyslams him out there. They brawl a bit more in the ring and Kawada misses a second rope knee drop as Kobashi moves. Kobashi blocks a kneelkick and goes into his sweet cloverleaf. Kobashi again works over the leg, his single leg crabs are really nice. Kawada turns over a figure four, but Kobashi goes right back into the leg work with a stretch muffler after a rope break. Kawada hits an enzuigiri coming off the ground, then a nice abisegiri before selling the leg a bit. Then he forgets about it for a while, as he hits a nice lariat for 2. A little rope-running leads to Kobashi backdropping Kawada to the floor and kawada going facefirst into the rail. Ouch. Another Kobashi plancha follows, and Kobashi hits a gutwrench powerbomb in the ring for a near-fall. Kawada is back to selling the leg, floats over on a suplex and gets a bodyscissors sleeper that forces Kobashi to the ropes. Kobashi goes outside and Kawada hits a springboard tope con hilo. That was unexpected and nice. Kawada is moving a bit slow in the ring after that, may be leg selling. Kobashi counters out of powerbombs a few different ways. They do a nice run to the finish with a Kawada crucifix roll-up in there somewhere. Some good counters, especially in the intricate finish counter sequence. Again, it was kinda juniory, but less spotty than a year earlier. Kobashi's leg work was a treat in both matches.

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Kenta Kobashi 7/01/89 Kawada's gear is just weird pre-black and gold. Both these guys are pretty good on the juniors style rope-running and slick transtitions from standing to the mat. Kobashi starts picking apart Kawada's leg early. He has a really good legdrop from the start it looks like. Kawada gives the match a sense of struggle when working from below, always trying to find a way to kick at Kobashi during the submissions. Kobashi is really good at switching up submissions and stomping the leg in between transitions. Kawada gets to his feet and completely no-sells the leg, kicking Kobashi a few times with no visible effects before Kobashi grabs a kick and goes right back to work on the leg. Kawada gets back in control, in no way sells the leg again (having a hard time believing it myself), hits a nice plancha on Kobashi. They run a NJ juniors-esque finishing sequence featuring stuff that you almost have to see to believe. Kawada uses a bow & arrow hold, hits a massive standing senton, and a fisherman's suplex on Kobashi. Kobashi uses a blockbuster hold and German with seriously amazing bridges. Kawada rolls through a Kobashi second rope twisting cross-body that came off a Kawada corner whip somewhere in there. Kawada hits a nasty lariat and follows with a dragon suplex for the win. You can see that these two are very good at the in-ring stuff physically at this point. Almost everything is well-executed with a lot of things you don't see from them later on. They are missing some big elements of what made their later work great at this point though. A lot of what they did seemed to just be almost spot-fu towards the end. Tiger Mask 2 vs. Kenta Kobashi 3/6/90 Kobashi hits some seriously awesome armdrags early on. He is in control early, but Misawa hits this really sweet lucha-style second rope backwards jumping headbutt. Kobashi falls waaaay too early on a Misawa shoulder neckbreaker. Misawa works over the neck some, Kobashi hits some nice Kawada-esque corner kicks before Misawa hits a crossbody and works the neck some more. Misawa's matwork is really not that great. He just puts the hold on and...leaves it there. That is really highlighted by what happened in the previous match and later in this one. Kobashi has a nice kneelkick. Kobashi gets control and works over Misawa's leg on the mat with a variety of holds and kicks. Kobashi is really, really great and dynamic on the mat. It's a shame that the style moved away from mat stuff because Kobashi was awesome at it. Kobashi sends Misawa to the floor and hits a massive plancha from the top turnbuckle. Kobashi goes back to the legwork in the ring and puts on a cloverleaf that makes Dean Malenko's look second rate. They fight over a Kobashi figure four (Misawa holding the leg up0, but Kobashi gets it anyway. Misawa is even a little lacking working from below on the mat. He doesn't do enough once the hold is on. Misawa hits a nice running plancha off his over the ropes fake, then sells the leg outside and in the ring. Kobashi gets back in control and hits a sweet backdrop suplex for a nearfall. He follows with a Canadian backbreaker and drops Misawa down off of that to set up a big moonsault nearfall. Misawa hits a German with a nice bridge after some back switches for a nearfall. At this point the leg is forgotten. Kobashi backdrops a TD attempt, but is stifled by Misawa dropkicking him in the hamstring on a missile dropkick attempt (which looked nasty). Misawa counters a backdrop suplex with a crossbody for a near-fall, follows with a Tigerdriver for the 3. This was again, shades of things to come. Both had some really nice moments, but the match played away from Misawa's strengths by being so mat-based. The finishing sequence was nice, but Misawa needed a little more of it I thought. The methodical, never-say-die Misawa comeback was here in very early form. Both of these matches are examples, to me, of 3 great workers cutting their teeth. The quality of the work is really good, but it's not up to the huge standards they later set for themselves. I really enjoy getting to see some of the stuff (some of it really, really awesome stuff that any pro wrestler would be happy to have in their arsenal) that ended up on the cutting room floor in the long run.

Big thank you to fxnj for the tip. Loved the two Baba matches! Giant Baba vs. Bruno Sammartino 7/3/67 2/3 Falls First 20 minutes of the match or so is all weardown holds and none of it is boring or lacks meaning. Baba is clearly in charge from the get-go working his finesse armwork. Sammartino has some offense here, but baba's counters are more effective and he ends up really dominating the opening minutes. Bruno tends to have less graceful counters than a (surprisingly) agile and smooth Baba. Bruno starts to turn things around when he goes to the power wear-down submissions, holding onto a full nelson for a while before returning to the standing armbar/hammerlock, short arm scissors stuff Baba has been doing. This time, though, Bruno has him worn down enough to make a lot more stick and really starts pulling ahead. Baba gets a sudden rush of energy, and backdrops Bruno off of the ropes, with Bruno making a late grab at Baba's head and missing. Baba hits a big chop, drops a knee and takes fall 1. Baba has really surprising quickness for a guy his size, he's very entertaining to watch when he's younger. He goes right back to the arm, but Bruno turns that around and really starts grinding Baba down with some painful looking armwork. Baba looks to be in real trouble before he struggles to his feet and turns the armlock into a side headlock that gets a massive pop. They work the same sequence, but with Bruno putting him back on the ground, Baba coming back up and Bruno really fighting before baba can get the headlock. Great stuff there. Baba looks like he may be able to put it away with another rush on Bruno, but a second slam is countered with a nice cross-body. Baba is struggling to kick out, but it looks like all that arm work paid off as Bruno holds him down for the 3 and takes fall 2. We star fall 3 out with brawling, as Bruno is hitting closed fists and knees with baba backed against the ropes. Baba is all smiles when it breaks and starts brawling right back. Love how Baba does that. I really wish that at some point when those photographers are sticking their cameras right into the ring to get a shot, they would get it elbowed out of their hand and broken. Leave the ring to the wrestlers. There is a great double shoulderblock spot, standing 10 count with some kneeling strikes exchanged. Bruno starts stomping on baba's throat, standing on it and choking him with his knee on the ropes. Baba gets a little more vicious with his strikes in return. Bruno is working a bearhug, but Baba chops the top of his head out of it a few times. Sammartino switches it up and keeps his head under baba's arm, which has him eating knees instead. Then he goes back to the other way and baba goes right back to the chop. Meanwhile, they keep getting a little more chippy with the strikes, Bruno leading the way. Baba hits an open hand to the throat, which Bruno sells perfectly. Baba finally has to go to the ropes on a bearhug and Bruno is smelling blood. Baba is backed against the ropes and taking a beating again, but smiles and comes right back. Bruno tries a bearhug on the ground, Baba chops out and we have the bell as time expires. They shake hands after. So many things about this were awesome. The way it slowly builds up, always ramping up a little bit even if the same move/strike/hold is used is amazing and something that came into play in future matches for sure. The way they were using simple things, but went out of their way to make them look as mean and hurtful as possible was great. Baba starting out as the clear favorite and Sammartino finding a way to make himself a threat, then forcing Baba to bring his heavy hitting stuff to even things back up was incredible. The really good "sense of struggle" stuff from the 70s wrestling was here in spades too. I liked how it wasn't just "go to the ropes" when in trouble, but you were expected to try to work your way out of the hold into your offense for the most part. I am starting to think that some things got lost in the transition from young Baba to early Jumbo and had to be put back into the style. I've read about Hiroshi Hase coming over affecting Tenryu's style a lot, and I've seen the effect Hansen had on Jumbo's in-ring work. I'm starting to wonder if Baba didn't bring those two (and probably Gordy as well) in to teach his big name guys a little about the old school rugged brawling/matwork style (that Baba himself used to do so well) in order to book a match like Tenryu vs. Tsuruta. It wouldn't in any way surprise me. Giant Baba vs. Billy Robinson 7/24/76 2/3 Falls Baba is again working strong with his weardown holds in this one. Robinson settles for kicking Baba in the leg, knowing he's losing the battle on the mat. Robinson wants a gutwrench suplex, but Baba won't give it up. Robinson with some nice leg work before Baba hits a big boot and a backdrop suplex for fall 1. Baba's strikes look good, his open hand straight to the collarbone/throat is vicious looking. Robinson comes back with some big running elbows. Robinson starts working over Baba's leg again, then tries setting him up for a double-arm suplex, but Baba fights it off. Robinson isn't giving up on that suplex, but Baba just won't have it. Robinson goes back to the leg and takes fall 2 with a single leg crab. Robinson goes right back to the injured leg. Baba is threatening with overhead chops to keep Robinson off the leg, but Robinson is ready for them and tenacious on getting to the leg. Robinson is trying to go back to that single leg crab, but Baba won't let him have it and kicks him in the face, sending him to the floor. baba and Robinson brawl, Robinson for the first time with closed fists. Baba hits chops and those mean throat slaps. Robinson sets Baba's leg on the middle rope and runs into it, sending both outside. Baba tries another backdrop suplex, but Robinson kicks off the turnbuckle (I've seen that somewhere before, oh the Tenryu vs. Jumbo match) to counter. Robinson hits a sweet backdrop suplex pickup to backbreaker for a big near-fall. Robinson is looking in charge again, but Baba catches him off the ropes with a running neckbreaker drop for 3! Another awesome match, and you see some more aspects of the later AJPW style. Baba looks to be pretty in charge for 80% plus of this match, with Robinson doing great work from below. Even when Robinson is working on him, Baba always seems to be looking for his openings pretty calmly and finding them before he's in too much trouble. This is something Misawa really took and ran with. Where Jumbo was really more of a "get fired up" guy, who would have massive, impactful comebacks, Baba and Misawa worked them as gradual, never panicking or getting too excited. The sense of struggle was also a big part of this match, which I think is something that is missing from a lot of current wrestling. The way striking and rope-running was used as transitions and teases here was also a big part of later All Japan stuff.

Still have to watch Panther v. Casas and find the full WWE matches. The Mascara/Rush/Titan v. Terrible/Vangelis Virus stands out so far. I liked the "big man" stuff with Titan in caida 1 when the rudos had to double and triple team to keep him down. The sudden surge to finish caida 2 was nice, and then the Titan v. Terrible stuff in caida 3 was excellent. Some good dives, and the rudos did really good work I thought. Hoping Panther vs. Casas approaches this kind of goodness.

Hijo del Santo, Casas, Blue Panther, Felino, Mr. Niebla, Octagon were all major guys in the 90s. Haven't watched any current lucha besides these TV matches, so I can't say who is really big now. Black Warrior, Shocker, Guerreros del Infierno, Dr. Wagner, don't remember if I liked Psicosis after he lost the mask, those are who I can come up with off the top of my head as far as what I watched.

For one, in tag matches, whenever somebody ends up leaving the ring, another member of their team is "automatically" tagged in. So there doesn't have to be a tag for the legal man to change (and they are pretty lenient about double/triple teams). Also, each team has a captain, if you pin/submit the captain, you win the fall. If you pin/submit the other two in a trios, you win the fall. Lucha spots usually have a lot of cooperation. It's something you have to get used to or just not watch lucha really. The in between falls stuff is supposed to be recovery time, but the bad guys in lucha, much like the bad guys everywhere, cheat. Since it's not technically time that counts, I doubt the ref can do much besides yell at the rudos for their prickishness or physically pull them off. Lucha selling can be odd. Hell, everything about lucha has a chance of being just a little strange. They have dance spots where the heel is confused by the face dancing, sometimes multiple heels at once. Every style has idiosyncrasies that you have to get used to or get over or just not like watching the style. Try to keep in mind that lucha striking is (usually) very not stiff and in fact often stops short of hitting. There are lots of roll-ups and weird submissions it would be hard to do to somebody actively trying to stop you from doing it. But if you can suspend disbelief, the really good luchadores are a joy to watch. If you want to see more hard-hitting lucha, find a mask vs. mask/hair vs. hair/mask vs. hair match. Those usually become bloody brawls. The women are just a bonus, man. They are essentially like UFC ring girls who escort the wrestlers to the ring in addition to holding up cards. Find some Casas vs. Santo (the mask vs. hair match is awesome), or any work by either, some older Blue Panther, and if you want to see the goofier yet badass side of things Felino is good. Dr. Wagner, Jr. is an awesome ass-kicker rudo (heel) who can do comedy and make the tecnicos (faces) look awesome.

This is easily my favorite wrestling style of all, based on the maybe 20-25 matches I have seen between guys like Misawa, Kawada, Kobashi, Taue, Williams, Gordy and Hansen. I decided I would go back and watch, in chronological order, how this progressed from late 80s onward. Also, lately I've been noticing that when I take notes and write about the matches after, I tend to pick up on a lot more stuff. Not to mention that other people far more knowledgable than I can point out some things I miss. So here goes. Tenryu/Kawada vs. Hansen/Gordy 12/16/88 Kawada's tights are...zubaz, wow. Kawada is so far over his head here against the two big gaijin. Also, he's all junior-y and flippy. It's strange to watch but fun. Kawada has to work his way clear of a double gaijin beatdown, and Tenryu comes in feisty, throwing big, stiff chops. Kawada hits a nice lariat and Kawada/Tenryu hit a nifty enzuigiri/kneelkick combo. Kawada doesn't get a ton off offense, but it comes in flurries between the beatings. Hansen lariats Tenryu off the apron into the crowd and then Hansen/Gordy get to work. They take out Kawada's knee and start double teaming Tenryu for quite a few near-falls. Kawada keeps trying to grab whoever is on the apron, but gets kicked into the rail every time. And then the gaijin on the apron will get a "what are you still doing here?" look on his face before jumping down and shredding Kawada's knee again. Hansen tosses a chair at Kawada right as Gordy hits that late 80s really low lift powerbomb he used to finish. Kawada mans up and sprints into the ring for the save, which earns him more beating from Hansen. Gordy gets caught with a Tenryu inside cradle for 2, but Tenryu can't get any momentum going off of it. Tenryu puts a submission on Hansen in the ring just in time to keep Gordy from attacking Kawada outside, but this just means Tenryu is at the mercy of the 2 big gaijin for a bit more. Gordy finally really gets tired of Kawada's refusal to quit coming back and drapes his leg over the guard rail to finish it off. Tenryu hits some nice chops on Hansen, but Gordy hits a massive lariat to cover his partner. Tenryu catches fire and fights off both before landing his back elbow off the top turnbuckle, but Gordy breaks that cover up as well. Tenryu uses a very similar powerbomb to Gordy's on Hansen, but Gordy hits his own powerbomb after breaking it up, setting up the LARIATOOOOO for the win. This is an awesome match and I see where it had some influence on a later tag match. Hansen vs. Jumbo 4/16/89 Jumbo immediately starts brawling with Hansen and it seems like he surprises him with the willingness to brawl and the intensity. Much stiffer chops than Jumbo had been throwing even a month before. Jumbo takes it outside after Stan and grabs a chair, beating Hansen to that particular punch. Jumbo slams Stan, crouches down and starts hitting him. Jumbo is just mercilessly beating Hansen a la...Hansen. Hansen makes a small comeback and tries a piledriver, which sees him dumped on his back and eating more elbows from Jumbo in pseudo-mount. More brawling and Jumbo puts on an abdominal stretch, the 3rd wrestling move besides pinfalls in the match. Jumbo rolls to the floor following a lariat by Hansen and kicks out after being rolled back in. Stan with the 4th and final wrestling move of the match, a bodyslam, then gets in pseudo-mount and starts hammering away with punches. Hansen beats on jumbo a bit, they spill to the floor a few times, Hansen and Jumbo both use chairs. Jumbo gets booed a few times, once while choking a downed Hansen with a chair on the outside. Could have been "DOOOOOOOO" I guess, but it seemed like boos. Jumbo hits some Hansen-esque elbow drops and again they go to the floor. Hansen is up against the post and eating stiff elbows, Jumbo gives the Hansen lariat signal (but with his right) and lariats the post. They brawl into the crowd, nobody is bothering to listen to the ref at all, just punching and kicking each other over and over again. Draw is called but they keep throwing whatever will reach, Gordy and Yatsu have to come out and peel them off of each other. This to me had a lot of significance. Up to this point, Jumbo had tried to use a lot of technique and outwrestle Stan's brawling. Here, he had just had enough and was going to prove to Hansen that two could play that game. This is something I think became a big part of the AJPW style, the giving back what you get. Also, the stiffness was cranked up a few notches and there is a match that I think was heavily based off of this one later on. Jumbo vs. Tenryu 6/15/89 We start out brawling, Jumbo tries the jumping high knee, but Tenryu sidesteps and hits a German for a quick 2. Jumbo starts working in the weardown holds on Tenryu's neck, getting booed in the process. Tenryu turns things around with some chops, follows Jumbo to the floor with a cartwheel to the apron and a running apron dive!! Young, agile Tenryu is fun. Tenryu works a leg submission, alternately using Jumbo's other leg to roll him onto his shoulders and punching Jumboo right in the knee. Tenryu's chops and Jumbo's elbows are mean, and they both elbow the crap out of each other on the ground. Jumbo works a cobra clutch at least twice, I think 3 times as a weardown hold, once bending Tenryu over his knee to add to it. Tenryu powers out of a powerbomb attempt, but can't keep control as Jumbo continues beating the crap out of him. Jumbo puts on an abdominal stretch and gets booed...again. Jumbo working heel is odd, but it totally works. Jumbo starts laying a massive beatdown on Tenryu, building up the big near-falls (for the time). Tenryu gets a roll-up and reverses a backdrop by kicking off the turnbuckle and driving Jumbo down in this stretch, but it barely slows Jumbo down. Jumbo finally hits the backdrop for a massive near-fall the crowd eats up. This is partially because Tenryu kicked out at the very last possible moment. Tenryu gets another comeback attempt cut off, but it's not long before he hits the powerbomb after a short struggle for a nuclear crowd-reaction near-fall. Tenryu's not done yet, gets Jumbo up for a second powerbomb that gets the 3. Wow, yeah, so many things here that were built on for future singles matches. The strike exchanges, the fights over big moves, the way strikes became far more important to the story being told in relation to submissions, all of these things and the uses of them were really established here. The pacing of the match seemed pretty similar as well, if not the heavy use of submissions early. The buildup to the big moves and the way you could see that Jumbo was clearly in charge of things (a la Misawa in the 90s) through the way the match moved forward was good. Tenryu finding chinks in the armor in order to get to his offense (but just as often getting cut off) was something that seems pretty similar as well. Really amazing match that was far ahead of it's time.

We all have styles we don't get/care for. For me, I just try to mix those matches in with stuff I'll know I like if it comes down to watching them. And I try to see what the style is going for (as well as if the workers are accomplishing that). Doesn't always work. Hell, it only really works if I watch some stuff I know I am going to like beforehand.

Current WWE seems slightly different than 3-4 years ago. Maybe it's just that wrestlers in general are more athletic, but it seems like a lot more of the WWE guys have a good amount of athleticism than a lot of the people they had in the past. Or maybe Vince felt they needed to move in that direction, can't tell.

Liger is THE face junior, yes. But if you recall his early-mid 90s work, he had a fairly big vicious streak. Whenever Koji or Ohtani would start slapping Liger around, he would get all fired up and do heel shit right back at em, just maybe a little harder. So it's not hard at all to see him as a heel. 4 more down, having a lot of fun watching these. Tenryu/Fuchi vs. Kawada/Araya 6/30/01 Araya looks to be the guy in line for a serious ass-kicking here. Kawada and Fuchi have a brilliant exchange where Fuchi goes to work on an arm, so Kawada gets to the ropes then gives it right back to Fuchi by going to the arm. After the break, Kawada kicks Fuchi in the stomach, only to walk into a Fuchi kick to the stomach after a pause. Fuchi tags out to Tenryu on that (really well-done) note. Kawada starts to work an arm on Tenryu before they realize that this is Kawada vs. Tenryu and just start hitting each other. Kawada tags out to Araya, who hits a corner lariat then walks into a Tenryu right that busts him open. Tenryu and Fuchi work over Araya in awesome, dickish, grumpy 50-year old man TAG TEAM style. How these two didn't spend at least 5 years touring Japan as the Grumpy Old Ass-Beaters I don't know. Fuchi has some really nice Regal-esque matwork at some point in the match where he does a drop toe hold and just starts rubbing his elbow into the side of Araya's head, then back elbows him a few times. Glorious stuff. Kawada gets a pretty mild hot tag, due to Araya not being in jeopardy near long enough and Fuchi sells his ass off for Kawada. Fuchi finally gets a little offense in and tags out to Tenryu, and Kawada is not one to be slighted in the selling department. The winner in the Fuchi vs. Kawada sell-off: anyone watching. Later on, Araya does this nice spot where he runs into a massive Tenryu lariat after hitting some elbows and tries to "fighting spirit" his way up before...falling on his face. Well done there. This was on the way to a very good finish, with a bit of apron goading, followed by the payback. After the payback, we get a little table-setting action to bring the match home. This match will probably be in my top 30 or just outside. Loved what was here, but it was way too short. Give it ten more minutes to draw out the Araya beatings and let Tenryu and Fuchi alternate stretching and beating the shit out of him with some hope spots AND a few hot near-falls, and this is easily top 15. I can't stress enough how awesome Fuchi/Tenryu is. NJ vs. Osaka Pro 6 man We got some heat going on here, Liger is all fired up even before he hits the ring. He goes right at Murahama (whips him with his cape even) and talks some shit to Delfin before again menacing Murahama. Murahama takes a shot at Liger just after the opening bell while circling with Tanaka. Tanaka and Murahama have an awesome exchange, really need to watch their singles match now. I like how we went with less than full formula here. No meaningless NJ matwork, but we got the tags that showcase wrestler A vs. D, B vs. E, C vs. F to start off. I can live with that. This breaks down into some control segment stuff, with some weird pauses (I understand, cross promotional stuff has some unfamiliarity to it). Finally, a series of dives onto Liger (Murahama's is a must-see) leads us to the finishing sequence. Makabe's German's are freaking awesome. Nice spear, and his powerslam is good, but not DiBiase level good. needs more snap at the end. Some smart armwork by Murahama on Liger (left arm, kill the shotei) starts it off. They do some really smart break-ups on the near-falls (the wrestler breaking up the finish has similar finishers in a few cases), but the finishing sequence wasn't long enough for me. I liked it, probably the best juniors match I have seen on this list so far. Tamura vs. Ito U-Style This was really good, I always liked Tamura vs. Han and this actually came close to rivaling that for me. I liked the dueling submission focus, with Ito attacking an arm and Tamura going for a leg. There was one point where Ito started going after Tamura's leg, but Tamura was all over that shit and turned it around fast on him. All those fights with Volk made Tamura pretty good at countering legwork I guess. Finish was great with Tamura's persistence and focus (both on his attacks and submissions) paying off. I have this below the Tenryu/Fuchi match somewhere. Tanahashi vs. Nagata 4/13/07 Will start off by saying I really have a bias against New Japan Big Main Event (should I put a trademark here?) style matches. Nagata is a New Japan guy I can 3/4 like. I like his wrestling style minus the goofy pose before he kicks a guy in the chest on the ground. I like his fire and he seems like he's willing to sell even for weak Tanahashi strikes. Now to the match. Okay, early match Tanahashi is a mix of things I think are fine and things I hate. WHY the fuck does he always go collar-and-elbow or knuckle lock with guys who have a substantial weight advantage. Also, why does he do a hiptoss/headlock takedown on Nagata of all people? The last place Tanahashi wants to be with Nagata is the mat. But then, the other half of the time, he is scrambling his ass off to get off the mat when taken down and trying to use his speed to get ahead rather than playing to his obvious weakness. It's just such a crazy mix of back and forth smart and stupid wrestling. I can deal with that as the middle of the match is actually pretty damn solid. Nagata is beating the shit out of Tanahashi, Tanhashi tries some elbows and slaps to come back, but Nagata isn't having it. Tanahashi turns things around and his legwork makes a lot of sense here. Nagata has been kneeing and kicking Tanahashi's scrawny ass all over the ring for five minutes, so it's probably a good idea to at least take a little sting off of that. And he does it with a minimum of matwork, which also makes sense. Is it just me, or does he do a little Mutoh homage act with all the dragon screws and using the figure four? Add a low dropkick and he's got a big portion of Mutoh's leg work. We work our way into the hot finishing sequence wiith some of Tanahashi's smaller big moves, but Nagata has other ideas. Momentum swings back the other way and Tanahashi hits that weird spinning running neckbreaker drop deal he does a few times. I'm mixed on that move. It actually doesn't look as contrived as it ought to, which has a lot to do with how smooth Tanahashi does it. It also, unfortunately, looks pretty weak most of the time. Anyway, Tanahashi sets up his frog splash with a dragon suplex, which makes absolutely no sense when Nagata gets the knees up. I understand off of a bodyslam or something similar, but a Dragon suplex? Nagata has been off and on selling the leg, not terrible at all though. Finish is pretty good, and the leg work figures into more than a few things in the finishing run. That makes 2/3 of a really good wrestling match, and I can accept the last 2/3 of the match building nicely to the finish even if the first 1/3 was mostly miss. I'd rank this right about where the Tamura vs. Ito match is. Hoping some of the other Tanahashi matches avoid a lot of the pitfalls of Tanahashi vs. Nakamura 2006 (which in my mind should have had a similar mid-match run to this one).

I can't wait til the Blue Panther v. Casas singles match. I know that won't be on TV, but once it makes it's way to some kind of comp I'll be finding a seller.

Three more down. Hashimoto/Iizuka vs. Ogawa/Murakami was a fucking barnburner! The booking was spot on, as was the work. Hashimoto got a MASSIVE reaction coming out and didn't disappoint at all. Not gonna say too much on this one for those who haven't seen it, but it is well worth a watch. I rank this one pretty high, probably top 20 by the end. KENTA/Ishimori vs. Hulk/Shingo was a fun juniors tag. KENTA and Ishimori work over Hulk for quite a while after the opening sequence, with Hulk's lip busted open when he finally gets the tag. Shingo seems like a good powerhouse junior and has a sweet lariat. Ishimori seems hit and miss, he can be really slick, but some of his late match offense is really contrived. Hulk didn't do a whole lot besides bump around for the middle of the match, but I have a suspicion that may be his actual job description within that tag team. Hulk and Ishimori hit some awesome dives in this. One of my favorite spots early involves Shingo taking a swing at KENTA (who is rope-running over a downed Hulk) and KENTA giving Shingo the business end of his boot on the return trip. Shingo repaying KENTA later on the outside is pretty nice. The finishing run is mostly good, can't say I liked a few of Ishimori's big moves and his counter sequence with Hulk was way overdone. KENTA takes a bit too much of a beating to kick out of a few things to me, but overall a fun match. Kobashi vs. Taue. Yeah, that's my number one for right now. The bad: Kobashi needs to lose that stupid hood he can't see out of prematch. That's about it for me. Taue's chest has these sick welts by 10-15 minutes in that hurt me watching. Kobashi is pretty damn good at chaining holds together on the mat. Taue having to try multiple times to escape the abdominal stretch was nice, especially when he finally did and revisited old times with Kobashi for a while. Both blew me away with their dives. Taue was awesome here. Kobashi was almost as good. The head drops that were there were well-placed. Not one was wasted, even if I found it more than a little amusing and sad that the half nelson got a decent pop but nobody was counting along or surprised at all on the kickout. I guess that would be the other bad part, even if it isn't really a fault in this particular match. Finish was great, can't believe these two are still working at this level in 2004.

So while I was going over some unrelated stuff in my head, I recalled my biggest gripe with modern puro. There are too many damn strike exchanges. I love the majority of 90s All Japan I have seen. Maybe it's just that I've only been exposed to the better workers who knew how to keep their egos and their in-ring stuff in check so they didn't go way too long exchanging elbows and slaps. Anyway, most post-2000 puro I have seen, regardless of if the workers involved could pull off the strike exchanges well, involves at least one. Hell, KENTA vs. Sugiura from 2013 seemed like a 20+ minute strike exchange with a few wrestling moves thrown in for good measure. I always thought it functioned best as a transition or a tease of one. But this was in matches between workers who were known for their stiff strikes and smart use of them. I suppose once it ends up becoming a staple of the majority of Japanese wrestling styles, you get a lot of workers who just don't understand how to use the strike exchange to move the match forward, not just for the sake of having one.

After my first Tanahashi match I had to come see how others reacted to his work. I'm not too far off of OJ and Nintendo's basic idea. He's not as great as all the hype, but neither is he awful. The hot finishing sequence after uninspired early match work was one of the reasons I ended up going away from NJ juniors matches in the first place. It's not that I won't watch that kind of thing, I just find that after a while it all tends to run together for me. The argument that a lot of current puro is overdone on the no-selling of head drops and the overdone "fighting spirit" is one I totally agree with. I think it is almost a requirement now that there is at least one strike exchange in every match. To me that is overkill. Let the workers who are *good* at the stiff striking do that, and if you get a guy like Tanahashi who is clearly not, don't force him into that.

Hit 3 more today. Kawada vs. Vader in 2000 seemed kinda rushed, but I'm used to Kawada going quite a bit longer than 15 minutes. Good match, though. Kawada using the Vader hammers to beat Vader down early was awesome. Vader, of course, gets his revenge before we're done. Kawada's backdrop got way flatter on Vader, but I understand. Vader isn't moving great here, and he seems like he gets tired really fast. Brutal match nonetheless. Vader's powerbomb was lackluster, but the following backdrop made up for it. I liked the finish, good way to cap a match like that. The two Takayama vs. Kobashi matches were an interesting watch. The first one Takayama was either not as sharp as the second or he just wasn't as good, don't know which having only seen those matches he's been in. I did like the strategy he took in both, going after Kobashi's right arm to slow down his striking game and take away the lariat's effectiveness. I was really hoping that Takayama would have some kind of countermove or just deadweight himself or grab the railing or SOMETHING on the floor DDT in the second. Some way of building off of the fact that Kobashi was using the same spot at a pretty similar time in the match would have been really nice there. The crowd was clearly a lot more worried about Takayama beating Kobashi the second time around, which I did like a lot. Takayama's Irish whips seemed kinda lazy to me, like Kobashi had to visibly speed himself up to get any kind of momentum going into the ropes or the guard rail. I also thought that the second time around Kobashi could have taken a page from Takayama's book and worked over the right leg early. Would have made for an interesting duel of who could neutralize the other's big offensive weapons better. Still, I did enjoy the match a lot, even if I am not a huge fan of the way the wrestling style evolved in NOAH.

Cena v. Sandow was surprisingly good. Not the biggest Cena fan, but that match had a lot of good things stuffed into what seemed like less than 8 minutes of televised ring time. As much as I don't care for the current WWE style, I really like how this match was worked. Cena putting Sandow over like he did was pretty cool. The TCW juniors match was the first I've seen of that style. Seems like Japanese juniors mixed with some All Japan style head drops in an American counter-culture atmosphere. The match itself had it's interesting points and was definitely worth seeing. Americos needs to work on his elbows, that weird, looping windup is too damn goofy for me. A few spots actually looked like they came out more dangerous than they were supposed to. Fun match, but can't say I want to see a lot of that style. Had to go with the trios. Current lucha looks quite a bit different than circa 2000 lucha. The Puma/Tiger double teaming was not bad, but I have this feeling it would wear on me (a la CRAZY MAX in Toryumon if you watched multiple matches in too small a time frame). Casas & crew were fun after the second caida. The last fall was sweet with the double dives and the awesome (and completely sensible given who it was) finish.

I would guess so. So many things wrong with it that it gets hard to watch at points.

Superstar Sleaze's review of Kawada/Fuchi vs. Nagata/Iizuka was spot on for my viewing. Seriously need to find a lot more Fuchi at some point. I'll do a review of the 2007 Sasuke vs. Ultimo Dragon match. Dragon high fives the entire front row all the way around the ring on the way in. Really not kidding here. Ultimo is gentlemanly enough to sit on the middle rope and allow Sasuke easy acces into the ring. Sasuke, despite this, ambushes Ultimo to open the match and there's some dive teasing followed by a lot of brawling. Ultimo finally starts getting some offense in and goes to the lucha-y convoluted submissions, mostly focusing on the leg. They try some kind of weird front flip spot that goes pretty badly and Ultimo ends up just covering for 2. Ultimo sends Sasuke to the floor, but Sasuke sees the plancha coming. Dragon lands on his feet and Sasuke goes into sweet dive sequence number one of the match. Sasuke hits his front flip neckbreaker off the top that actually looks pretty badass. Ultimo flips out of a backdrop and hits the three kick combo with Sasuke overselling like a madman (and he is, or so I think.) Ultimo capitalizes with a kick to the face off the apron and a moonsault with his name on it to the outside. Some brawling floor stuff leads to a batshit crazy Sasuke dive. How he still walks after all the complete and total disregard for his own safety that is his wrestling career is beyond me. The dive sequences in this match are major highlights. One annoying part of all this is how the ref continually stops his countouts to the point where they no longer matter. Sasuke's senton bomb (where he rolls forward into the splits) is pretty sweet. His roundhouse kicks have always looked like crap though, and do not fail to do so here. Occasionally one will hit enough to look good, but not often. New brawler-y Sasuke is weird, but his punches look far better than his kicks a lot of the time. Rollup sequence, Ultimo hits a leg slap kick to Sasuke's chest and locks on that weird lucha-style leglock where the attacker is behind the opponent cranking down on their neck with the shoulders while pulling the leg up. Ultimo blatantly releases the hold and rolls himself up for a Sasuke near-fall. Seriously, somebody explain to me why he did that. Was there some other submission or roll-up he was trying there? Ultimo counters the Sasuke second rope moonsault thing with a dropkick to the knee. Nice spinning side kick by Dragon. Dragon eats a German after telegraphing a lariat, then tries to counter another German with a stunner or that backflip DDT thingy, but gets neither as Sasuke just falls sideways. And after all the spotty goodness and badness, we make our way to the really not great finish. I've only watched I think 3 others on this list, but I can't imagine this making the top 150, much less any top 100 list. The dive sequences, aborted ref outside counts aside, were freaking awesome. Some of the back-and-forth stuff in the ring was pretty good, as was Ultimo's first control segment. There were some really huge botched spots in there that detract a lot from the match though. I still love both of these guys for what it's worth. Just a bad showingon a few key spots.

I think the whole debate over whether the quality of Hansen's American work would take him out of GOAT is a little off. To illusrtrate, I will draw a comparison between another GOAT guy and Hansen. Ric Flair had some very fun Japanese matches. His Kerry von Erich match from AJPW was awesome just to see Flair vs. Kerry in a different setting. In the States, Flair cheated a lot to get to his control segments and generally made it look like Kerry had his number if he didn't go to the eyes, cower away and cheapshot, etc. And that made for awesome heat from the (from what I've seen) pro-Kerry crowds. In Japan, it was more of an even setting with Flair using a lot of technical wrestling to counter and get to his control segments. Just fun stuff to at least see. it was not (as was the case with all of his Japanese work I have seen), however, in any way groundbreaking or very influential. Back home, though, Flair was one of the most influential wrestlers of his generation and rightly so. He made everyone he wrestled look great and knew how to generate crowd heat like few others. Stan Hansen's American work was hit or miss for me. Some of it was very good (the Hennig match was nice, the Funk match where Stan gets mud thrown in his eyes after throwing Funk into the lake is too much fun, need to see some of his Blackwell stuff), but the majority of what I have seen is not on par with his Japanese work. I can understand that, the difference in styles is pretty big as you reach the '90s. His Japanese work is every bit as influential as Flair's American work was, if not always quite at Flair's level. And he put over most, if not all, of the really big names in AJPW while he was there. Personally, Kawada is my GOAT, but both the above mentioned are top 5. Which gives me a thought, take a long, hard look at Kawada and find some major faults as I watch my '90s AJPW. Back to the point, I could never fault anyone for saying either Flair or Hansen was number 1. They are both incredible workers who had a huge impact on the next generation.

I really like the direction this has gone, even if I had no idea it would. I would agree that Koji complaints have been done and are overdone, but that wasn't truly my point. I still love watching him wrestle, at least for a short time before I start seeing too much of the things I dislike. So I adapt and watch 2 or 3 matches then switch it up. Doesn't mean I don't appreciate his skill and efforts as a worker. That's what I'm seeing from a lot of the other things that have come up. People are willing to see the flaws in workers you can tell they love. I saw Jericho mentioned and totally agree. He seemed to me like a guy who was great at his schtick and could go in-ring, but lacked something s far as putting great matches together unless he was up against a Benoit or someone of that caliber.

My criticism of Hansen would be about the way he could really throw off his opponents in bad ways. I read a shoot interview where he said that he liked to just go at his opponents and see how they reacted, then go from there. While as a wrestling fan I find this approach very entertaining, there are only a certain amount of wrestlers who are going to be able to deal with that well. The vast majority of pro wrestlers need more predetermined structure and just to have things laid out beforehand. I can imagine a lot of guys got a little intimidated by the way Hansen did things and the matches would suffer for it. Also, the point of safety has been brought up earlier in the thread. The way he really drove his elbow drops and some of his knee drops in and how close they were to the throat is pretty scary considering the guy was half-blind. Also, that powerbomb on Kawada in the big 93 match, he completely lost him about 2/3 the way up it looked like. If he loses control while Kawada is at a worse angle, that could have gone really badly.

I thought the best Hansen vs. Tsuruta singles match was when Hansen and Tsuruta were brawling for 99.9% of it. Tsuruta came out all fired up and started using Hansen tactics against Hansen. Oddly enough, the only wrestling move in the match besides pin attempts was Hansen trying a piledriver that got reversed. Tsuruta even started grabbing chairs and chucking them at Hansen, which I thought was pretty cool. Then I watched the matches Hansen had with Misawa, Kobashi and Kawada, which blew that one to pieces. Thing is, after watching 1983 All Japan, I can't in any way discount the effect Hansen vs. Tsuruta had. 1983 AJ would have fit in as an American territory with some very small modifications to the style. Then along comes Hansen and 6, 7 years later Tsuruta is working at least 5x stiffer and more intense. I don't know (read something about this guy on here) if Hansen was the only thing that brought Yoshiaki Yatsu around or what happened, but the tags with Hansen/Tenryu facing Jumbo/Yatsu actually got quite a bit more intense. First few tags I saw Yatsu against Stan, he was trying to suplex and use submissions all the way through. Then in the later part of '89, Yatsu starts going after Hansen like a madman with his overhand chops and headbutts (even while he's wearing a head brace). Combine that with the HATE between Jumbo and Tenryu at the time and those are my favorite matches involving Hansen and Tsuruta. I do think that Hansen had a ton to do with 90s AJ wrestling style. His influence is really easy to see in the stiffness of Kawada, Misawa and Kobashi. Jumbo didn't have that stiffness until after he had a lot of time in against Stan. I'm not saying that Jumbo, Tenryu and Baba didn't have any influence over the 4 Pillars, but Hansen made a really big mark on the future wrestling style there.

So I got back into wrestling recently and discovered I have different tastes after 7-8 years of not watching any. One of the big things I noticed was something about a wrestler I really used to enjoy and now find myself unable to watch more than 2 or 3 matches without having to find somebody else to watch. That isn't to say I don't enjoy some of the work, just parts of it I find bothersome, especially when grouped into multiple matches strung together. Koji Kanemoto is somebody I really wish I could call a great wrestler. He has good kicks (I really like his spinning side kick to the ribs, looks brutal), a great dickish sort of charisma, an incredible moonsault and his bridges on German and tiger suplexes are absolutely incredible. However, several things he does tend to annoy me pretty quickly these days. First and foremost, despite how nice it does look, is his belly-to-belly. Almost invariably, when it comes time for a late match turnaround to get to the finishing run, Koji's opponent will start rope-running like a madman. Which leads, not *always* right away, but it always does lead to the suplex. Which is usually not too far from big-nearfall moonsault time, after of course the front slam and the single fist. On that same note, a lot of his '90s matches I have seen (haven't seen much of his work after 2000 but it seems similar) follow a very similar flow. I suppose you could say that about a lot of the NJ juniors stuff at the time. Either way, it seems to me that good wrestlers are the guys who are physically capable of outstanding performances in the ring, but never really got the mental part of wrestling fully. They can put their spots in the right order and do all the things they need to, yes, but they don't adapt mid-match to their opponent. After watching more than a little Stan Hansen, he seems really good at building a match based on what has happened so far and where it is going, not trying to fit it into some pre-conceived structure he had in his head. This to me is what makes great wrestlers great. On a slightly sad note, I have been looking at Ultimo Dragon in a very similar way to how I (before I could truly articulate it) looked at Koji Kanemoto in terms of enjoying his matches. Will have to delve a little deeper into that when I reach a good stopping point on my AJPW. My question to all of you is: Who fits this kind of experience for you? Why?

I am not well-versed enough to really go into a lot of the detail people have in this thread (and likely elsewhere) about this match. However, one thing that really struck me about this match that hasn't been mentioned yet is the Kobashi quest for the moonsault in this match. It's clear that early on Kobashi is not going to stop trying to get that moonsault. Every time he does, that bum wheel is just making him too slow and he ends up eating more damage, but Kobashi being Kobashi, he's not EVER giving that up. Admitting defeat is just not in his nature. So eventually Misawa comes in, seeing the struggle Kobashi is going through, and when Taue/Kawada still resist allowing Kobashi to get his moonsault, Misawa goes to the extreme step (and possibly one of the most selfless things I've ever seen in a wrestling ring) of using his frog splash to set up the moonsault. Not many main event wrestlers will put one of their big spots as support to allow a similar spot by their teammate. I admit, it's not like he used a tiger driver to do it, but it's still a big thing. Then Kobashi FINALLY hits that moonsault and the crowd is all over it. Honestly, I knew that he wasn't getting the win with it but after all that work I had this little glimmer of hope that it might pay off big.

My name is Mike, I live in North Dakota and I am 36 years old. I got into wrestling watching WCW in late 1996 until somewhere near the end of '98. My favorites at the time were Benoit, Eddie, Dean Malenko and the cruiserweight division. This, naturally, led me to the NJ Juniors. Watching that got me hooked on wrestling, but then I stumbled upon my first Misawa vs. Kawada match. Honestly, I don't think I've ever looked back as a wrestling fan. '90s AJPW (anything I have seen involving the 4 Pillars, Akiyama or Stan Hansen anyway) is my favorite wrestling style and has been since I saw that match. After about the 2005-6 time frame I stopped watching wrestling altogether until late 2013. During that downtime, I also threw away an entire box of wrestling tapes. Can't say I don't curse myself for that one daily at this point. I got back into wrestling after playing enough TEW 2013 to kill my brain off by early Sunday one weekend, just started looking up matches on youtube and immediately rekindled my love of '90s AJPW. Then I started to explore some of the old territories wrestling in the States. That to me is something I really have to get into. The way they used such a small amount of wrestling moves to create such emotionally involving matches that could go 20, 30, or in some cases 60 minutes is absolutely incredible. Then I went back to my beloved NJ Juniors and saw (I think) in a new light all the things that drove me away from watching a lot of that stuff back in 2005-6. I could get away with watching a few matches, but by the 3rd or 4th, depending on who it was, I really struggled to not see the pattern that every match seemed to follow, the obvious setups for transitions and (worst of all because I know I hated this back then) the way every match degenerated into going to the top turnbuckle at the very least every third move if not more in most of those matches. In a quick return to obvious transition setups, I am a Koji Kanemoto fan, but I have a hard time not hating how 90% of the time he needs a late match turnaround, the other guy will start rope-running and smacking him around, then comes the miraculous belly-to-belly (that is incredibly nice). It's such a disappointment for me to see that too often now. Also, early Marufuji got a lot of heat from fans for the flash kick turnarounds, but I gotta say that Koji wasn't too far from that kind of abusiveness with the belly-to-belly and was experienced enough to know better. And so (after a bit of rambling) now I am working on beefing up my 90s AJPW stuff from the 4 Pillars and Stan Hansen. Starting a bit on some of the more American stuff from the 80s, but Rudoreels is not exactly a prime source for that. Their 90s AJPW stuff is excellent though, and I am hoping to one day get started on some lucha libre as well. Any suggestions on where to pick up some good Lawler, Terry Funk, Horsemen in NWA, Dusty, Steamboat, Freebirds, etc., just anything from around that time would be welcome. Once I build up my All Japan gonna look into investing into some chronological compilations involving the big feuds, matches and promos from that era.