superkix

This sets the stages for two of the biggest feuds in early UWF between Tiger/Fujiwara and Takada/Maeda. Fujiwara is the man here and he makes everyone look money, between his grappling and bridging dance off with Takada or his headbutt barrage to Tiger. Super Tiger is motivated and angsty with kicks. There’s a great spot where he’s laying into Maeda with kicks and goes for the kneedrop, shifting gears midair when Maeda rolls through to his feet to land a solebutt. Maeda is not the standout here for obvious reasons but he does hit a powerbomb! The second half picks up on the offensive front with piledrivers, headbutts (diving and otherwise), and suplexes galore. Takada brings the fire out of Fujiwara after paintbrushing him with slaps and Fujiwara carries that flame through to the finish, pinning Takada with the low bridging German suplex hold.

Holy shit, this match…if you can even call it that. It was the Texas Chainsaw Massacre without the chainsaws. Hansen is a relentless killer, beating the pulp out of Terry with his nasty knees, hard chops, and clobbering punches. The way he repeatedly bashes Terry’s face into the corner turnbuckle or those kneedrops where he just sits on Funk’s head. Terry put on the performance of a lifetime putting Hansen over as a monster. Even when he gets in little bits of offense, like that bodyslam, he sells the immensity of Hansen. He works in this almost despairing way, chopping at Hansen’s knee, trying to get him on the ground so he can work the leg and set up the spinning toehold. But with each attempt, Hansen boots his way out of it, at one point busting Terry open with clubbing shot. Once Terry’s bleeding like a stuck pig, the match transitions into a gritty horror film, with Hansen looming blood-spattered over Terry. There’s a final glimmer of hope as Funk tries once more for the spinning toehold but Hansen proves to be too much to contain and atomic drops Funk onto the ropes. The finish…or lack thereof is scary. Hansen follows Terry out of the ring with the turnbuckle cord in hand and drags Terry back to the ring with the cord round his throat, only to continue beating the shit out of him. The Japanese fans are freaking out as their beloved Amarillo son appears near death the way he’s strung up by the turnbuckle cord. Hansen doesn’t let up, despite the referee throwing out the match, until Dory Funk Jr. makes the save looking like an Enterprise Rental Car manager. A fantastically brutal beat down and one of Terry’s career-high performances.

This was fun, although I think I preferred Nakanoue's performance in the title match more...but Daichi definitely looked more like a champion here. Still don't really care for him though. Nakanoue is super over right now and I can't wait to see the semi-final against Hideki Suzuki, considering their heated feud from summer 2016.

I think I enjoyed their match from the 2016 CC more but this one was probably the best match in the tournament so far. Kind of losing interest in Miyahara though, and I'm enjoying the Strong Climb way more.

This was fine. I liked the opening mat exchanges between Katsumi/Hijikata and Ishikawa/Malenko before it settles into a house show tag. Usuda and Malenko threw some hard kicks, Ishikawa got his usuals in, and the finish was pretty cool, with Malenko using a double arm facebreaker to set up the facelock submission on Ishikawa.

An all-time memorable performance from the “retiring” Terry Funk, with a molten hot Japanese crowd firmly behind him and his brother. The teams start brawling before the young boys can even clear the ring of streamers and there’s a great lariat tease from Hansen with Terry hanging onto the ropes like a squirrel or something. Dory goes a good job playing the FIP early on, trying in vain to punch his way to freedom only to get beaten down by Hansen and Gordy. Quick tags in and out as they wear down the elder Funk brother and at one point, Terry chooses to attack Gordy in the ring, costing him the opportunity to tag in. But when Terry’s in there, that's when the magic happens, with his drunken staggering about and shuffling jabs. Hansen chomps down on his forehead, busting him open, and then he starts destroying Terry’s knee with assistance from Gordy. Terry’s despondent selling is incredible, whether it’s hopping around on one leg, jabbing at Gordy or grabbing Gordy’s hair to avoid the spinning toehold, crawling away toward his corner. Loved the finish, with Terry trying to stand up to get away from Gordy’s top rope splash, managing to just barely roll out of the way before connecting with the sunset flip from the top for the victory. Post-match, a pissed off Hansen continues attacking Terry and lariating young boys before they’re able to finally subdue him.

A pretty good back-and-forth contest and the most dominant Murahama has looked against, not only Delphin, but in general. The opening mat exchange was neat before Murahama takes over on offense and works the arm for a spell. It's a wash as they flip-flop on offense, Murahama fucks up a dive attempt and has to rewind and repeat, and then they bust out the big signatures for some nearfalls. Murahama tries attacking the arm again late in the match but Delphin blows it off, hits a few DDTs and the Delphin Special for the pinfall. Definitely preferred their "shoot" match to this. This was fine but just a exhibition-y match with Murahama getting more control.

Miyahara/Nomura always have good chemistry together. James Rydeen still sucks though.

In many ways, the final title match between Fujinami and Choshu mirrored their very first contest. Fujinami is once again the proud company champion and Choshu the unpredictable outsider. However, at this chapter in their rivalry, the bigger story arc has already been told and the in-ring work now feels run down and uninspired, and unfortunately, the chapter ends with a shit double countout. Choshu and his Ishingun boys take care of Inoki before the bell and at times, the camera seems more interested in what’s happening to Inoki then what Choshu and Fujinami are doing in the ring. It’s the same well-tread structure, with the two working the mat for dominance, the old heat ups and cool downs, the frenzied interactions during offensive runs. I liked Fujinami’s armwork in execution but it was merely filler as the sasori-gatame once again becomes the hold of holds. When Choshu’s finally able to put it on in the end, it’s poorly applied and unconvincing as a possible means to Fujinami’s end. Instead, the match and the feud over the WWF International Heavyweight title ends on account of a weak double count out finish.

This, in my opinion, is the most complete match of the series. While the line of tension threading these matches has been strained throughout, it finally snaps in what was perhaps the most heated and evenly-contested encounter. Fujinami’s sense of purpose was a constant source of strength as he tries to overwhelm the slower, more prone to frustration champion. The sooner Choshu can end this, the better, but when he tries to open with a lariat, Fujinami hangs on the ropes in avoidance. He’s finally got Choshu’s number. Fujinami’s able to counter and reverse a lot of the champ’s early offense, once again trying to find a way to beat Choshu with the same sasori-gatame that cost him the previous match. When that doesn’t work, Fujinami tries to end it with the figure-four leglock but Choshu is able to once again fight through the submission attempt, the action spilling it to the outside and chaos ensuing. One of the recurring themes of this series has been the chaotic nature of their exchanges, and that’s once again prevalent here as they rebound off one another like pinballs. Fujinami emerges crimson-masked only for Choshu to suplex him back into the ring. Here, overcome with exhaustion, Fujinami gives his strongest selling performance of the entire series. After Choshu inadvertently takes out the ref, Fujinami hooks him with a nasty-looking lariat but doesn’t have the gas in the tank to follow up. The finishing stretch is red-hot and full of great dramatic moments -- stuff like Choshu pointing at his foot on the rope after a suplex and the aggravation that follows as Fujinami peppers him with slaps. Or Fujinami dumping Choshu to the outside on a lariat attempt only to get himself tangled in the ropes, unable to capitalize. But from the start, Fujinami has wanted it more and in the end, he’s able to thwart Choshu’s finishing blow, sending him into the ring post and hitting that crowd-popping enziguri. I loved the countout victory for the frustrated Fujinami, backdropping Choshu on the floor after having been unable to pin him or submit him in the ring.

Having grown accustomed to one another’s style and offense, the fourth match in their series feels more like a game of strategy. There are little things that occur to add depth to the bigger story, like Fujinami now hooking his leg to prevent Choshu’s habitual backdrop counter, or the way Choshu is able to slip out of the bow-and-arrow attempt. While Choshu wrestles seemingly off the cuff, Fujinami primarily targets Choshu’s leg with the figure-four leglock and rolling legbars. Fujinami goes all out here to regain his title, suplexing Choshu from the top rope and even utilizing Riki’s own signature offense. When he hits that lariat and puts on the sasori-gatame, the crowd goes bananas but Fujinami’s ego won’t let up, even after Choshu has made it to the ropes. Fujinami’s attitude costs him the match as the referee disqualifies him but he’s still not releasing Choshu’s hold. Meanwhile, all hell breaks loose in the ring around them as shirts come off and lion cubs get mauled.

Choshu now parades that champion’s confidence and immediately tries to hammer home the nail in the coffin but Fujinami avoids the lariat and cools Riki off with a figure-four leglock. At one point, Fujinami gets cheeky and tries to apply Choshu’s sasori-gatame but Riki smacks him in the face as if to bring him back down to earth. The selling here by Choshu is great as he hangs close to the ropes, limping about and forcing the referee’s hand. The pace of the match downshifts as they jockey for position on the mat but business picks up again when the hot-tempered Choshu starts putting the boots to Fujinami’s leg. Fujinami’s able to catch a foot and take him down with the dragon screw legwhip, transitioning into a front mount and slapping away. There’s an unintentionally laughable spot where Fujinami misses the dropkick and Choshu calmly walks over and suplexes him. He alternates between attempting the sasori-gatame and suplexing Fujinami, the two rivals more or less throwing themselves at each other in a blue collar ballet. Choshu counters the sleeper with a backdrop suplex and he’s able to lock in the sasori-gatame, hitting a couple of lariats before re-applying it. Again, that frustration over Fujinami not submitting rears its ugly head and Choshu slams Tatsumi on the guardrail, tying him up and retaining the title via countout. Fujinami tries going after Choshu after the match but the champ is able to skid by. Really good stuff.

Energetically, Choshu is at his peak in the series, knowing full well if he wants to beat Fujinami, he has to keep a little fire burning through the match. He explodes at the sound of the bell and collides with Fujinami on a lariat attempt. The two take a bit to gather themselves but even after that initial contact, Fujinami is still working with that champion’s air, goading Riki on with slaps as if discrediting him as a threat, a mistake that comes back to haunt him. Choshu has some good takedowns early on as he tries to keep Fujinami under control, working to set up the sasori-gatame. Fujinami plays defense to avoid the hold but once Riki hits the backdrop suplex, he’s got the champion in a tough spot, pulling him back to the middle of the ring after a rope break and re-applying the deathlock hold. Choshu’s aggravation is obvious here over Fujinami refusing to submit and the action becomes a little more desperate, the crowd fully invested at this point. Riki’s able to hit the lariat on the outside but Fujinami delivers the German suplex hold back in the ring for a nearfall. They seem to have each other scouted heading toward the finish but Choshu nails Fujinami with another lariat out of nowhere to score the victory and the title! Fujinami’s in disbelief at the result and having underestimated Choshu.

In their first match-up, Fujinami is the assertive champion, rushing Choshu out of the gate with strikes and tossing him out of the ring, as if dismissing the challenge and Choshu’s credibility. He still maintains that spitfire energy that made him such an exciting junior heavyweight and Choshu is a bit more hesitant and methodical. What this match represents is a long feeling out process, as the two fight over holds, at times almost bumbling along with little to no selling and that lack of familiarity seen in subsequent contests. The end result is a double count out but Choshu continues attacking Fujinami’s leg after the match, setting the stage for their rematch the following year.

Not a classic per say, nor the most violent of their series, but a fitting swansong to their story. At this point, Ikeda doesn’t even want to shake hands, he just dropkicks Ishikawa and hits the lariat. It’s mostly a struggle on the ground early on, with Ikeda sometimes doing these nasty headbutts and Ishikawa completely no selling them. Then Ishikawa starts fighting for suplexes with Ikeda bat-batting his way out getting suplexed. A much more sluggish match, slower than anything before, which comes with age and brain smashing. Ikeda's still uber-stiff with some of his headbutts. He'll walk up to Ishikawa, kick him in the face or head, before they go through some of their usual spots. But in the end, Ishikawa takes the series, dumping him with a pair of backdrops and submitting him with the rear naked choke.

There's a lot to love on with this match for sure, especially Tenryu's grizzled performance as he absorbs most of what Kawada's dishing out and serves it back twice as spicy. Loved all the stand up exchanges early on the match before Tenryu catches a foot and dragon screw legwhips Kawada down to set-up the legwork. The legwork was fine but ultimately meaningless -- but it did provide us with that awesome face punch sold perfectly by Kawada. Tenryu's such a big boss here, standing up to Kawada's peskiness, refusing to lay down, and Kawada's really struggling to get anything effective going, from the stretch plum to the back-to-back backdrops. The selling of exhaustion in this match is terrific, with Tenryu tumbling out of the ring and into the cameraman. Then he takes that nasty boot to the nose when he's on the apron. I thought the finishing stretch, with Kawada trying to take down Tenryu with kick after kick after kick before Tenryu explodes with the lariat, was pretty great, and the result is Kawada nearly KO'd from the blow, which allows Tenryu to put him away with the Northern Lights Bomb. One of the best matches of 2000 for sure.

Yeah, this was a pretty fun match and Frye was bumping all over the place for Liger while still dishing out some good ground-and-pound offense. Frye has such a great look -- cutting the hair was the best decision -- and he comes off like the bully against Liger, drawing heat from the fans for not letting go of the arm in the ropes.

I don't know about album artwork but isn't it just the demon from the Exorcist?

Ishikawa and Ikeda look like they’ve seen some hell, and they're about to put each other through hell in a match all about the violence of the strikes. Ikeda's man enough to shake Ishikawa's hand and then immediately punches him at the sound of the bell. Tons of sick punches, elbows, kicks, with some queasy camerawork trying to capture the action. Built around the struggle, there's still some neat little things, like Ishikawa kicking out Ikeda's arms when he tries to push for for leverage during a leglock. But when it hits, it hits hard. Ishiakwa gets busted open with a gross punt kick to the face, Ishikawa folds Ikeda up with backdrop drivers, and then they're punching each other in the face and headbutting, finally scrambling around for a final submission hold in a cool departure from the brutality of the match. In the end, Ishikwa finally catches him in the rear naked choke for the submission.

Khan’s the cockroach that won’t stay dead. After he tries to bodyslam the Giant and fails, Andre is dumbfounded that Khan is still alive after having nearly squashed him. When Andre’s in control of Khan, Khan keeps telling the ref he’s being choked, which only further irks the big man as he keeps defending his actions to the referee. “It’s not a choke!” – for some reason, I gave Andre Arnold Schwarzenegger’s voice. Such a strong performance from Andre, with Khan playing the dirty heel much to the delight of the Japanese fans. He comes at Andre with Mongolian chops but the Giant traps the arms and hits a double arm suplex. Khan goes for the eyes, poking and raking, and then he begins chopping the Giant down at the ankle. Some of Andre’s best selling here as Khan takes advantage of the situation, with Giant re-injuring himself and Khan attacking the leg. One of Andre's better in-ring performances with Khan working as the bothersome babyface heel.

It’s ridiculous how over Funk is with the fans as they’re trying to tear the jacket from his back. Hansen doesn’t give a flip about any flowers and only wants to get his hands on Terry. Funk does such a terrific job selling the unsinkable battleship that is Hansen, staggering round like a drunken hillbilly and bailing from the ring when things get too rough. Love the spasmodic way he takes Stan’s knee drops. Terry conveys a great sense of anxiety throughout, the way he’s shoving around the young boys at ringside or snatching Hansen’s nose to break a hold. In probably the best moment of the match, he blindly throws a chair over his head into the ring and #1 Boss Hoss Stan Hansen catches the chair one handed and chunks it back at Terry. The end is chaos as Hansen knocks out one ref and lariats the replacement. Ron Bass or somebody interferes on Stan’s behalf, allowing Stan to hit the lariat before he starts kicking the shit out of everyone, including Jumbo and Baba.

Steve Wright, father of Das Wunderkind, is a swanky dad on the mat, with his visually-slick matwork and constant fluidity. What he lacks in charisma, Steve makes up for in style. I love his shoot shoulderblocks and his dropkick, and while the submissions were meaningless, they were cool to watch as he wrenches on an abdominal stretch or hanging stretch muffler. I thought Tiger kept up for the most part, his strikes looked great and he had a rad side suplex counter off the ropes. A slick little junior exhibition and a good introduction to Wright.

At the very least, tied with the May 1998 match as my favorite in their series of beatdowns. This is the final of the Young Generations Battle '99 -- and keep in mind that Ikeda had worked a 15:00 match prior to this against Yone to get him to this point. As with many of their matches, it starts in similar fashion with Ikeda trying to hang on the ground and Ishikawa prevailing. But clearly, Ikeda is more worn out here and he doesn’t quite have the same fire. He’s more desperate, wanting to just slug it out with Ishikaw -- and they do and of course, it’s stiff, gritty, and uncompromising. Ishikawa finds some leverage on the ground and starts working him over but Ikeda is too relentless, kicking him against the ropes, Ishikawa doing his best to try and block the brunt of them before he fires back hard with elbows. Ikeda's able to put him in a tired triangle choke and even tries for the crossface chickenwing he lost to in their earlier tournament match – I mean, you get the sense that he really wants to beat Ishikawa and Ishikawa is just trying not to lose. After finally leveling Ishikawa with a lariat on the third try, Ikeda puts him in a pretty badass kimura but Ishikawa makes the ropes. Ishikawa, on the otherhand, is throwing dope suplexes and trying to choke him out but Ikeda won’t die. In the end, he uses whatever energy he has left to drop Ishikawa with the Death Valley Bomb and tap him with the armbar. What a fight!

Yeah, this was a lot of fun, everyone was pulling their weight, the pissy little slap exchange between Saito and Kawada was real good but everything between Kawada/Chono was super hot. A cool dynamic to the classic AJPW six-man structure with Team 2000 being a bunch of dicks.

Quick results. KIMERA "HIGH KICK FANTASIA", 2/25 Ariake Colosseum 12,000 Fans - Super No Vacancy 1. Strong Rules: Shiro Koshinaka, Shinjiro Ohtani & Akira Nogami beat Yuki Ishikawa, Yoshinari Ogawa & Osamu Nishimura (8:12) when Koshinaka used a powerbomb hold on Nishimura. 2. KIMERA Openweight Tag Team Title Tournament - Semi-Final: Masahito Kakihara & Mitsuya Nagai beat Chris Jericho & Lance Storm (10:52) when Kakihara used high kick on Storm. 3. Hybrid Rules: Kiyoshi Tamura beat Yusuke Fuke (7:46) with a kneebar. 4. KIMERA Openweight Tag Team Title Tournament - Semi-Final: Kensuke Sasaki & Yuji Nagata beat Dan Severn & Bart Vale (9:22) when Sasaki used the Northern Lights Bomb on Vale. 5. Catch Rules: Grom Zaza beat Kazuo Takahashi (6:49) with a full nelson hold. 6. Hybrid Rules: Dick Vrij beat Tatsuo Nakano (12:05) by KO (knee strike). 7. Strong Rules: Minoru Suzuki beat Bob Backlund (14:33) with a Gotch-style piledriver. 8. Catch Rules: Masakatu Funaki beat Yoshiaki Fujiwara (10:00) by decision. 9. Hybrid Rules: Akira Maeda beat Kazuo Yamazaki (16:24) with the crossface chickenwing. 10. KIMERA Jr. Heavyweight Title - Strong Rules: Jushin “Thunder” Liger beat Masanobu Fuchi (18:40) with a running Liger Bomb to become the 1st KIMERA Jr. Heavyweight Champion. 11. KIMERA Openweight Tag Team Title Tournament - Final: Masahito Kakihara & Mitsuya Nagai beat Kensuke Sasaki & Yuji Nagata (15:12) when Nagai used a capture suplex hold on Nagata to become the 1st KIMERA Openweight Tag Team champions. 12. KIMERA Heavyweight Title - Strong Rules: Vader beat Hiroshi Hase (24:28) with a spinning backfist (1st defense).