Owen Edwards

Tenryu is decent from 1981/1982, and excellent from (say) 1985-2002; Kawada is decent from 1987, and excellent from (say) 1989-2005. Kawada probably has really, really good matches post-peak later than Tenryu (the Misawa memorial match, which is about 60% Kawada, is 4 years post-peak; does Tenryu have a similarly excellent match from 2006?). Tenryu might be argued to have a slightly longer peak/extended peak. I think Kawada's volume of great work and range of opponents with which we had it is stronger/deeper/wider. I probably prefer Kawada's acting but wouldn't want to undersell Tenryu. Kawada is top 10 for me, Tenryu might be.

Series Outline Part 1: Three Crows and One Heir 1972-1982 Part 2: Atsushi Onita, Junior Heavyweight Ace 1982-1983 (You Are Here) Part 3: Rise of the Tiger 1983-1984 Part 4: Young Lion Invasion 1985-1986 Part 5: The Glorious Summer of Fuchi 1987-1999 Part 6: Single Man Rising Sun Tights Army 1990-1993 Part 7: Transition 1994-1996 Part 8: Signs of Spring 1997-2000 Rise of the Juniors The first number in this series was really a long preamble, attempting to explain why All Japan introduced a Junior Heavyweight division in 1982, and how Atsushi Onita, particularly, rose to the role of Junior Heavyweight Ace. A short recap of the reasoning is in order, but with a new emphasis on what was going on in All Japan in 1982. All Japan’s great strength in 1972 – or perhaps, better, 1973 – was that it had one or two fantastic native heavyweights (Baba and then, from 1973, Jumbo) and in simple terms won the war for foreign talent. Aside from an early big name run from El Santo in 1973, and the acquisition of Andre the Giant’s services, New Japan had few big name or high skill foreign talents. All Japan had access to the NWA Champion, plus long-term arrangements with the Funks, The Destroyer, Fritz von Erich, Mil Mascaras, and – early on – Bruno Sammartino. Through the ‘70s it added Bill Robinson (after Inoki decided he couldn’t afford to keep him on), the Sheik, and Abdullah the Butcher. Whatever else might be said about Abby, he was a draw. By 1980, Baba had slowed down a lot. In the native midcard, AJPW had Motoshi Okuma and Great Kojika, Rocky Hata, Tiger Toguchi, and the relatively young Takashi Ishikawa. Okuma and Kojika were really reaching the end of their competitive shelf lives, and Toguchi would soon enough move on to greener peastures. Many of the same foreigners remained, with added regular work from Harley Race, Dos Caras, the younger von Erichs, and Nick Bockwinkel, but cracks were beginning to show. Abdullah and the Sheik’s runs were coming to an end, and the work they were involved in was pretty worn out; Robinson still had a good couple of years in him, but his uppercard work was increasingly limited; Mascaras had reached the “no yob” era of his career. Basically, the card was stale and somewhat thin. The network enforced changes from 1981, sidelining Baba in booking, with the new AJPW President Matsune even publicly saying (in 1982) that he thought Baba should retire. A roster refreshment was in order; the sports analogy is better here, I think, than the TV network analogy, because it is a case of finding which individual players you can bring in and what they can do in combination with the other pieces. There are three key acquisitions in the early ‘80s, before Onita’s return from excursion, which are worth noting: Bruiser Brody first, then the return of Genichiro Tenryu from his long excursion, and then the transfer of Stan Hansen over from New Japan. Another foreigner – Ricky Steamboat – also has a very important run in this period, touring four out of five years from 1980 to 1984, and having a bucket of good matches. The other key foreign signings are Tiger Jeet Singh, functionally replacing Abdullah, and Dick Slater, who has several important tours in this period too. Domestically, the first Japanese heel, Umanosuke Ueda, comes over, and the collapse of IWE brings former Heavyweight Champion Mighty Inoue and former Junior Heavyweight Champion Ashura Hara into the fold, with the balance of the IWE roster joining NJPW. Baba, Jumbo, Hata (initially), the Funks, Robinson, and Mascaras all stay in place in different roles. This is how the heavyweight division begins to get refreshed, with a long-running Hansen feud giving new life to Baba (he will end up getting, for my money, two Five Star matches facing Hansen, running as late as 1989; after The Destroyer, Hansen was probably Baba’s best opponent). The most interesting foreign acquisition for us, though, is Chavo Guerrero (Senior). Having worked in New Japan and having faced off against Tatsumi Fujinami, he went over to All Japan from 1981-1985, comfortably his longest Japanese run. (He jobbed in AJPW in 1975, was in NJPW 1978-1980 and for two matches in 1996, and then in SWS/WAR 1992-1993, plus a few random appearances elsewhere.) Chavo held plenty of NWA singles belts in the ‘70s and ‘80s, notably 16 reigns as the NWA Americas Heavyweight Champion in Hollywood Wrestling, plus 6 reigns in lighter NWA weight categories (World Light Heavyweight, World Junior Heavyweight, International Junior Heavyweight). His move to All Japan overruns his first International Junior title run, and that is probably significant. Whatever the background politicking that produced it, what it practically means is that the NWA International Junior Heavyweight Title becomes an All Japan belt. There is a prize and centrepiece for a new division. Initially, that division is very thin. The returning Onita will be the native ace, with native (oversized) rookie Shiro Koshinaka sometimes in support. Chavo and Dos Caras are the foreign stars in the weight category. Ashura Hara will not work that weight category, nor – initially – will Mighty Inoue. Mitsuo Momota stays curtain jerking, as, generally, do Junior rookies Mitsuharu Misawa (debuted in 1981) and Toshiaki Kawada (to debut in October 1982). Masanobu Fuchi and Magic Dragon remain on excursion. With that, let us consider the work itself. Year of Glory: 1982 North Carolina and Mexico The key moment that – with a slight delay – brings Junior Heavyweight wrestling to All Japan does not happen in Japan, but in North Carolina. Some deal has been done, and Onita gets a title shot against Chavo Guerrero. It’s really a JCP/AJPW supershow at the Charlotte Coliseum, with a roster chiefly of Baba’s natives, his favoured foreigenrs, and a few Crockett and Graham talents to round out the card. (For context, two of the other three title matches on the card are AJPW titles – Dory Funk’s NWA International Heavyweight and Jumbo’s NWA United National belts. Baba, Tenryu, Billy Robinson, the Briscoes, and Stan Hansen not long before his AJPW debut help fill out the card.) This is the beginning of an important rivalry, though it’s merely a solid match playing to a quiet crowd. It starts really nicely with matwork used to press for position, it has a good endrun – and a pretty pointless, if well-executed, middle, where the men take turns doing minor things without lots of emphasis or developmental purpose. The highlight here is that Terry Funk and Giant Baba are at ringside, and Terry goes mad with delight and Baba is briefly caught smiling emotionally as his adoptive son makes his bones. It’s a positive and distinct kind of work from Onita, compared to his Memphis (and probably his Florida) runs. Crockett didn’t simply run foreigners as heels, though he could do; he had a half-Japanese white meat babyface in Ricky Steamboat, and Fuchi ended up having a good MACW match against him too, very much in this serious wrestling vein. Chavo was also an astute recruit both in political terms but also in wrestling terms. He had Magic Dragon’s best excursion match in WCCW, and also had a solid little match against Fuchi in SWCW. He could work serious material, and escalate well to emotion. The latter is not so much on show here, but we get the former. Onita now went on the final leg of his excursion, to Mexico and EMLL. I don’t think any of this survives on tape – typical ‘80s Lucha in that respect. He worked ten matches on record, but as that is over about two months I give leave to suspect that there were more, maybe even many more. Five of those recorded are six-mans, one is an eight-man, and four are singles. In the multi-mans he works some big and/or interesting names: Gran Hamada, Mascara Ano 2000, Baby Face, El Farao, Perro Aguayo, El Rayo de Jalisco Jr, and Gran Hamada, notably. There is the intriguingly-named “El Nazi”, whose gimmick I think we can guess. In the eight-man, he rather unusually teams up with two NJPW men on tour: Kuniaki Kobayashi and George Takano. Both will end up in All Japan at some stage in the Ishin Gundan Era. The singles matches feature two notable names who also worked the multi-mans, Sangre Chicana and Halcon Ortiz (i.e., El Halcon, who had toured All Japan in the late ‘70s). Chicana is actually Onita’s first fully-developed feud as a Junior champ: they work several multi-mans before Chicana takes the title in Onita’s first defence. In a non-title rematch, Chicana wins by Countout, before Onita regains the title in his stipulatory rematch. I rather imagine these matches are good, knowing that Chicana’s best run on tape is about to start (in 1983-1986). They’ll be fiery, scrappy affairs, unless tightly channelled into the lucha title match format, which wouldn’t really suit Chicana; however, Onita’s happiness to brawl and bleed may have been allowed some play here. Hopefully! The last recorded match of this quasi-excursion was against Halcon Ortiz, ending in an Onita retention. In kayfabe, this feels like a really solid run: he goes to Mexico, grapples with some of the best, loses his title but wins it back against an up-and-comer, and finishes with a retention against a solid hand known to his home audience. He has wrestled and won in a credible context. AJPW Excites Series 1982 Coming home at the end of May, matters stand a little different. The only native Juniors, or quasi-Juniors, are the semi-rookie Shiro Koshinaka and the 1981 debutant Mitsuharu Misawa. Baba works to fill out the nascent division: ex-IWE man Masahiko Takasugi, who has been in EMLL, comes in full-time as spaceman gimmick Ultra Seven. Mighty Inoue will sometimes be seconded to work in Junior-ish tags. Regular guest Dos Caras – smaller than his brother and with experience working the rookie Juniors a few years before – will do the same. Some effort will be made to bring in new guests to give Onita opponents (and partners). Most importantly, though, the man whose title Onita took is brought in. Chavo Guerrero will, from 1982 to 1985, be a staple in All Japan and a reliably enjoyable presence. His best work, though, will come in and around his feud against Atsushi Onita. First, though, before they reunite in the ring, Onita has five matches on tape to consider (there are not any other taped Junior-style matches to consider in the summer of 1982, to my knowledge). Onita’s homecoming re-debut is on the 28th May, halfway through the Excite tour of the year, and there is a particular constellation of workers who he will nearly exclusively work with: he works multiple times against Ron Miller, Jay Youngblood, Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell (The High Flyers), and Dick Slater; Akio Sato is a regular tag partner; he works both with and against Ricky Steamboat, that rather delightful feature of early ‘80s All Japan foreigner recruitment; and he tags once each with Giant Baba, Rocky Hata, and Takashi Ishikawa and once against Ric Flair. The first of these to survive to tape is his first Japanese defence of the NWA International Junior Heavyweight Title, against Jay Youngblood. Youngblood can just about work a Junior match and style, and this one has a couple of really great moments – we are introduced to Onita’s Suicida, and it’s one of the best – but is just a little flat, with Onita naturally retaining. The next taped match is Onita’s tag with his adoptive father Baba against Slater and Flair, and it’s a good step up. There is clear character work, crisp work, Onita gets some shine but also gets brutalized, and without ever stepping up a gear it’s a decent companion to his high flying against Youngblood. The final Excite Series match is the best of the three. Onita teams with fan favourite Steamboat to challenge for the AWA World Tag Team Title, held by The High Flyers. Greg Gagne is a badly underrated tag worker; resentment over nepotism haunts him, even forty years on! The High Flyers work heel, and the faces have distinct roles with a slight Southern tag vibe. For two thirds of the match, this is pretty near perfect, before slightly spinning its wheels and offering up a strange ending. Onita whiffs on a BIIIG Plancha outside, which looks amazing, but seems to have actually rung his own bell: Greg is visibly speaking to him for several seconds before he comes up to the apron and has a Suplex attempt reversed into a slightly botched Bodyslam and pin by Greg. I suspect this is a hurried-up ending. Summer Action Series 1982 We again have three surviving matches from this series, culminating in Onita’s first rematch with Chavo. Onita tags regularly with Takashi Ishikawa, Shiro Koshinaka, and Mighty Inoue, and once each with Mitsuharu Misawa and Rocky Hata. We see here the gradual movement of Inoue over to the Junior division, whilst Ishikawa and Hata are really just performing quotidian midcard duties due to how thin the division is. Onita works against Chavo, Steve Regal (no, not that one), and native rival Ultra Seven, and tags once against Mil Mascaras and Dos Caras. This is a slightly smaller group for Onita to work than the previous tour, and the relationships are pretty fixed – he tags with natives, he works against foreigners plus Ultra Seven. The matches we have are variable in quality. A tour opening tag with Ishikawa against Chavo and Ultra Seven is fine, and certainly demonstrates that Onita and Chavo are good, crisp, and have chemistry, but is also a little flat and has some obvious botches. This is where we see for the first time Ultra Seven’s habit of not quite knowing what’s going on: he’s badly out of position on an Onita suicida. The second surviving match is against the Mexican brothers, and is really very good. The tag dynamic feels “modern”, with rapid and engaging tags and interruptions that don’t strain patience. The most interesting thing, though, is the ill-tempered, uncooperative vibe. I don’t know if there is an actual issue here, but at one point Onita pulls a legit-looking single leg take down on Mil, who has basically not given him any moves thus far in the match. It feels contested and spicy and serious and could have been a model for work in the division as a whole. The final match we have from the tour is the title rematch against Chavo…and it’s not very good. It starts fine, then there’s some work outside which is – and I am loth to use the term but it’s appropriate – no sold completely, and there’s a ref bump to set up a replacement ref run-in (funny how you only get a replacement when you have a bad finish spot set up), and then there’s a double pin with each ref counting a different guy. It’s not played for laughs, but it does look silly. As a result, the title is vacated. One match we lack is the prior title defence, against Ultra Seven, which Onita won. We do have a clip of a later singles match between the two so will touch on this pairing then. Super Power Series 1982 No footage survives to my knowledge from the Super Power series. Onita worked singles against Ultra Seven and Frank Dusek, twice each. (I note that Dusek – who I’m not familiar with – was 6’1” and 257lbs. Ron Miller was 6’ and 238lbs. Jay Youngblood was 6’ and 242lbs. Yankee Steve Regal was 6’ and 222lbs. At 5’11” – the same height as Chavo – Onita is not a total dwarf in comparison, but a trend has emerged here. Foreign competitors brought over will usually outsize and outweigh Onita, often by a significant margin.) In tags, Onita will work with Mighty Inoue, Akio Sato, Genichiro Tenryu, Takashi Ishikawa, Terry Funk, and Ashura Hara. Sato, Hara, and Tenryu are his most common partners. He will work against The Destroyer, Ultra Seven, Hara, Inoue, Dusek, Kojika & Okuma, Rufus Jones, Koshinaka, and Ishikawa. There is a lot more variety in the tags than the four singles matches, and I think we’re probably really much the poorer for none of those Destroyer matches making tape. Giant Series 1982 Onita’s Giant Series is all about his rivalry with Chavo. He wrestles Guerrero 20 out of the 28 dates on the tour. They wrestle in singles three times. They even wrestle two six-mans (Onita teams once with Baba and Jumbo against Chavo, Dream Machine, and Gypsy Joe, whilst in the other he’s with Dory Funk Jr and Tenryu against Chavo, JimmySnuka, and Nikolai Volkoff). He also works singles against Larry Zbysko and Gypsy Joe, once each, and five times against Victor Rivera, who is his bunny for the tour to give him credibility-enhancing wins. Those opponents mentioned also makes up all the standard tags, where Onita teams with Tenryu, Sato, Hara, Ishikawa, and Koshinaka. Hara and Tenryu, it should be said, usually work midcard heavyweight bouts, and team with those senior to them as well; they must be seen here as filling out and varying the card. Four matches survive, one of which I have not seen (a handheld of Onita & Tenryu against Chavo & Rivera). Our one surviving non-Chavo match is a clip of the singles match against Zbyszko, which is as reliable and solid as you’d expect. Onita has great babyface energy here and a connection with the audience, especially the younger – and sometimes female – segments. There’s an element of early ‘90s Kobashi here. Onita is over, but not on Baba levels, nor on ‘70s Jumbo levels. Two Chavo singles matches survive. Unfortunately we do not have the 20/10/82 match, which Chavo wins – this seems like an important step in the rivalry! Their first match of the series is on the 1st October, and like the second is not for the title. This is much better than their first Japan-side rematch. This is pacey, high-flying – fluffy, perhaps, but with some intensity. We finish with a reversal into a slightly sloppy Blockbuster by Onita, also used against Zbyszko. One imagines that, given time, a better finisher would have emerged. As they come to the Title Vacancy match on the 4th November, they are 1-1 in their Japanese series, plus the double pin. This is winner takes all. They have proven they are an even matchup. This is a very strong match to end this portion of the rivalry on. To best appreciate it, it’s best to look at it as a lucha title match from the period, rather than a Tiger Mask I title match. The dynamic is of the lucha title style; positional, working for advantage, big (and flying) moves for emphasis rather than acrobatic fluidity. There is a strong, if carefully paced, opening lucharesu mat section, and then things pace up and never really slow down. The crowd is hot – the young and female segments for Onita, the older male segment for Chavo…if in crowd terms Onita is Kobashi, Chavo is Fuchi, even down to torturous holds being booed and cheered simultaneously. They work into a final flying and bomb section, and then Onita wins off a backslide. A clear victory, but leaving things open. Chavo initially takes all this with good grace and congratulates Onita…BUT THEN GOES CRAZY! Chavo does a better number on the trophy than Brody or Hansen ever did, properly smashing it, and cutting Onita up hardway with a shard (!!!). Forget your Brody/Funk rivalries; this is blood-crazed lucha action. Onita stretchered out, past a concerned Baba in the corridor. World’s Strongest Tag Determination League 1982 In the year’s final tour, Onita works the last six dates only. I’m unsure, but he may have been kayfabed out with the title match injury – he takes over a month off. He works with Sato, Misawa, Dory, and Inoue in tags, against Jay Youngblood, Steamboat, Sato, Inoue, hara, Jumbo, and Tenryu. In singles he beats Misawa and draws with Steamboat on the tour-closer. The Sato/Inoue vs Onita/Misawa match survives on handheld, but I haven’t seen it. The Steamboat match – a midcard 20 minute match, a convenient length to justify a draw – is very good. They work the TLD format without descending into any really slow sections. The matwork is crisp, and we see how Onita has the tools to do different types of match – this is much more American than the excellent Chavo match from November. It closes with stiff chop exchanges, and then – and this must have impacted at the time, as Onita’s next match after Chavo – Onita nearly gets the win off a Backslide. We end with Steamboat slightly on top, but honours even. Year-End Review The Junior division mostly exists on paper, it’s clear. IWE Middleweights/Junior Heavyweights – Inoue, Hara, and Ultra Seven – fill out of the matches (and Hara and Inoue are good). Misawa and Koshinaka are the younger homegrown men. The foreigners involved depend, I guess, on who was in Terry’s phonebook at the time – sometimes it’s guys who can work the style (Youngblood), sometimes it’s no-names, sometimes it’s respectable workers who simply aren’t Juniors (Zbyszko). Mil and Dos are the key foreign workers, naturally, though we are at a stage where Mil is no longer quite so good a dance partner. Onita, though, is good nearly throughout. For me, a “Four Star” match is really very good, and he’s involved in four of them: the tags against the High Flyers and the Mexican brothers, and the November match against Chavo and the closing singles match against Steamboat. We could argue a different way – perhaps Onita isn’t great but he can work up to the level of good opponents. However, he’s comfortably one of the best workers in the High Flyers match, and it’s his bolshy aggression which makes the Mascaras/Caras match so good. His intensely sympathetic work from underneath is a massive part of both good Chavo matches, and he has excellent chemistry with his rival. Year of Disaster: 1983 New Year Giant Series 1983 Onita works a very different slate of men in the opening tour of 1982, and it’s not for the better. His title defence for the tour is against Rocky Jones, and he also works singles against ex-IWE man Goro Tsurumi and Ultra Seven. He tags with Ishikawa, Inoue, Hara, and Tenryu – all good workers – against Tsurumi, Gypsy Joe, Ultra Seven, Jones, Dream Machine, Hercules Hernandez, Tiger Jeet Singh, Tor Kamata, and Steve Bolus. Thankfully no footage against Singh or Kamata survives. Three matches from Onita survive, plus a non-Onita Junior tag (!!). The title defence against Jones is fine, but Jones isn’t a Junior. He’s 6’, 240lbs, and though athletic – he does some flips – his perfectly decent matwork and his offence aren’t Junior-flavoured. We have 3 minutes of an Ultra Seven singles match, and whilst not exactly bad – it’s perfectly well executed, the time passes fine – it’s not great. Onita works well from underneath, he works well flying; Ultra Seven shows little credible offence over his surviving footage (including here), and Onita hits, I think, one flying move here. Onita wins on a rollthrough, which protects a potential native rival, but feels weak. The tag with Tenryu against Dream Machine and Jones, at the end of the tour, is much better. Dream Machine is a pro, and maybe my favourite moment of the match involves him – Onita sizing up a dive on to Jones on the floor, only for Machine to bodyblock him in the ring. It’s just unteachable dramatic instinct. Jones works better here in the different dynamic, and Tenryu, though not crisp, has been finding his persona now for 18 months and is working like his mature self. This ends with interference from Gypsy Joe, who cuts Onita open with his kukri; we get a brilliantly furious Onita promo to camera after this, leading to a match down the line. We also have Mil Mascaras and Ultra Seven against Mighty Inoue and Takashi Ishikawa – a fairly early appearance for that latter tag team, which is one of the best midcard acts of the ‘80s in All Japan. Inoue and Mil work beautifully together, naturally, though Mil refuses to really give Inoue anything. Inoue carries this, I think, into “good” – he sells well, he gets off characterful offence against Ultra Seven, he’s just as neat and fluid as Mascaras on the mat. Excite Series 1983 The ever-revolving door turns again. Onita will fight two title defences – against Mike Davis and Dos Caras – and otherwise work tags. He teams with Ultra Seven, Inoue, Hara, Great Kabuki, Ishikawa, and Misawa, plus Tenryu and Tsuruta in six-mans. He works against a less actively distressing but still pretty anonymous cast in the tags – Caras, Victor Jovica, Jim Dillon, Mike Davis, Ishikawa, Ultra Seven, Goro Tsurumi, and Umanosuke Ueda. Tiger Jeet Singh turns up in a six-man. Three Onita and two non-Onita matches survive. For Onita, we start with Ultra Seven against Dos Caras and Victor Jovica. Jovica doesn’t tag in during the surviving 2 minute clip, and Ultra Seven doesn’t do much other than get stiffed and pinned by Dos, but the two senior men work a beautiful mat section. On the same date, Mike Davis beats Koshinaka; we have the back half of the match, and it’s really just a fun rookie-style bout. Davis is better sized for the division than Jones, but still looks more like a respectable Middleweight. Onita and Davis match up a few days later for the title, and this is very bland stuff in the remaining clip. It’s slow, and Onita never really gets going to anything very exciting. The Koshinaka clip is probably better! On the same day, Caras and Jovica team up again, this time against Ishikawa and Misawa. The actual surviving 2 minute clip only has Caras and Misawa as the legal men, and actually – seen as a mini-singles match – this is pretty fun. Misawa gets off a bit of offence and gets to absorb a lot of punishment, including a beautiful Caras dive, before giving up the pin. Onita’s final match of the tour is his second title defence, against Dos Caras. This should be one of his career matches, but it’s actually pretty disappointing. It’s ambitious, actually, which is to its credit; you can see they want to play with some of the furious lucha elements as in the aftermath of the Chavo match, you can see they want to mix in more brawl elements. Nonetheless, the good part of this match is the opening lucharesu matwork, with great Onita facials when working from underneath. Things fall apart when we get outside, though: Onita hits a piledrive but visibly overprotects Caras, who gets up and rolls into the ring with the advantage straight away. They are soon enough back outside and counted out, but in a way that breaks the established use of the rule in AJPW at this time – both men are under the ropes when the 10 sounds. Then they brawl a bit more, for some reason, and Onita tries to unmask Caras. All this seems unjustified, and the back half of the match is badly executed and confusing. It’s a bizarre misstep from two good workers. Grand Champion Carnival I 1983 Onita will work this tour, but his AJPW Junior Ace career will end with a dramatic shoot injury after his final match. He works non-title singles against Misawa, Ultra Seven, Chic Donovan (twice), and Koshinaka. He fights three title defences, against Donovan, Gypsy Joe, and Hector Guerrero. In tags, he teams with Mighty Inoue, Ultra Seven, Hara, Giant Baba, Rocky Hata, and Tenryu; he works against teams including Hata, Ultra Seven, Misawa, Koshinaka, ex-IWE rookie Nobuyoshi Sugawara, Ted DiBiase, Terry Funk, Alexis Smirnoff, Donovan, Hara, Inoue, Kerry von Erich, Gypsy Joe, Ishikawa, and Hector Guerrero. There is one six-man including a selection of this cast. Only one Onita match from this tour survives – that final, pivotal match against Hector – but we do have a partial fancam, in a couple short clips, of Mitsuo Momota vs Toshiaki Kawada in a curtain-jerker. This is quotidian rookie match action, but we should be reminded at Momota’s early qualities: he’s fiery and the crowd love him, with the kids rather startlingly giving a “MO-MO-TA!” chant. Those kids will one day be the adults who thunderously cheer Momota on against Fuchi, Nakano, Joe Malenko, and Liger. Kawada is a mere slip of a boy here, not too long from debut, and shows athletic promise. The title match against Hector is good. It’s less careful, more flashy than the Chavo series. Hector is presentationally very different – his ring gear is even more colourful, he struts and poses and trills – and his work is different, with more emphasis on agility and brawl than Chavo’s careful strategic breakdown. Hector is good, though, and these guys match well, with a simple rudo against a whitemeat babyface. No “Hector!” chants from the crowd here! They progress in a fairly intelligent if direct manner, hitting a nice nearfall sequence before Onita grabs an underdog victory. Then, celebrating on the apron, Onita slips and shatters his leg in a freak accident. “Year-End” Review Onita puts together two pretty good matches. The Jones/Dream Machine tag shows an ability to work a different style effectively, and the Hector match – though simple and fluffy and limited by that – is a good contrast to the mat-based Chavo bouts and the decently-executed “upright fights” with Youngblood and Jones. Very little of what we see this year is bad, but several matches are merely middling. The talent pool is shallow, and the botching of the potentially great Dos Caras match is a real shame. On the other hand, we finally see more coverage given to the expanded division via the decent Davis-Koshinaka “pre-Title Match warmup” match, the fun Misawa-Caras minimatch at the end of a tag match, and the handheld of Momota-Kawada. Momota, I think, could have genuinely added something to the “main division” at this point; his work is good, he has a crowd connection. His job opening the show is valuable, but he’s miles better than Ultra Seven, who basically never does anything memorable on tape. (…Maybe he was great on the “house shows”!) Conclusion Onita worked as the “Junior Ace” for a year, more or less, from his title win in North Carolina to his accident in April 1983. There is a sense that he wasn’t quite the finished product; he was ambitious and tried new things, and was willing to hit big daring moves, but his experiments didn’t always work. His fire, his athleticism, and his mat knowhow form a solid base to this period, but there is not much else to mark. His native rival – Ultra Seven – just isn’t very good. The elite rookies are still on the rise, not yet serious contenders, though by his final tour they are more engaged (albeit we have no serious footage to test their quality). The foreign guests were often inappropriate matches: Jones, Davis, and likely Gypsy Joe and Donovan. The best luchadors were still all shipping to NJPW, and AJPW had yet to recruit British talent except for the America-based Robinson. On the other hand, when the right talent is involved, you get some really good material, with excellent singles matches against Steamboat and Chavo and a great tag match against the High Flyers, and subsidiary strong matches against Chavo and Hector and a similar-quality tag against Machine/Jones. One can imagine the near-future, with Koshinaka and Misawa rising in the division, Fuchi and then Magic Dragon returning from excursion, and more involvement from Mighty Inoue. Onita, with this wider context and the benefit of more time and experience, continues to round out as a top star. It’s a strong division, already several steps up from the nascent first year of Onita’s Acedom; with an ongoing rivalry with Chavo and Hector, and a better rematch against Dos Caras, and that second year really could have been something. Alas, it was not to be. Click here for full matchguide and links.

He's a lovely either, doubt he'll make my top 100, but seeing his name is giving me Sad Ladder PTSD

Joe is not currently on my top 100, though Dean is flirting with it. Need to expand just a little on both to make final judgements. Joe is good, though. Baffling to think people don't see it. Some of this has to be footage and access, what people had watched once upon a time. His 1989 Junior and semi-Junior Tag work is just fantastic, and the tag element stretches back to '88 and forward to '92. He's fun in the Double Malenko team as the shooter and ground guy, and he's fun in the Kikuchi team as the big brother (that is a neglected team). His work for PWFG/UWFi is good, too, on the whole, and a nice stepchange.

I think that's not an unfair argument.

I think Dynamite is an obvious case for "hurt by short peak" - she's beginning to look slow at points even by 1994!! - but she's so good in that peak, and as as Stump Puller says, she still works hard after that. She may make my 100.

Summer Break Kyushu Pro took a little break after the Mentai retirement show, was active in June, but then pretty quiet through July and early August. Japanese companies, of course, have often run shorter schedules over the year than their traditional American equivalents – though talent safety concerns now affect the big American companies, too. The recap batch today wraps up the end of June, the only show in July (an untelevised community show), and the first show of August. Kyushu Pro Kamigoto O Genki Ni Suru Bai! 29/06/2025 Held at Shin Uonome General Gymnasium, Shinkamigoto, Nagasaki Prefecture. An attendance of 458, on the smaller side for this type of show. The show has two guests, making it a twelve-man roster, which is usually the set for a larger show, but here the guests are Koreans from PWS who also worked the 22/06 and 23/06 dates, so it might be reasonably guessed that they had trained and worked through the week and this wasn’t a major extra commitment for them. Having two guests does always allow a slightly better mix of matches for what is basically a ten-man permanent roster, so here we get rookie Koyo Ume working singles, the comedy tag giving Jet Wei and STAR LIGHT NARU a chance to get a bit more exposure, and the main event trios involving everyone else. Asosan vs Koyo Ume In my short experience of watching QPro, there are two distinct eras: before and after Mentai’s retirement. In this period after, with the debut of a new rookie, a lot of opportunity and attention is being given to Koyo Ume, albeit in the context of a classic rookie run of losses. One is struck that, with a New Ring Boy helping out, Kyushu Pro could debut another guy next year and have four workers under 30. The old guard of the promotion (Chikuzen, Mentai, Asosan, Batten, and, joining a little later, Genkai) are aging out, and the retirement tour guys (TAJIRI, Shima) are obviously here to serve the promotion, not drive it froward. Sasaki is 46, and he’s the main title contender. Sakurajima is 40, still very good, and really still counts as the “head” of the younger group…! So I’m all for these rookie matches. This one, though, isn’t very strong. Asosan can still drive himself to bouts of mobility, but he’s very much in the final leg of his career by any normal measure (of course, Great Kojika says different). Ume isn’t really stiff enough or high-flying enough to make up for the limited bumping Asosan is up for. This match isn’t overlong at all, they both work hard enough, but this is functionally just a five minute build to Asosan hitting a finisher. Asosan defeats Koyo Ume in 5:53. Batten Blabla & Jet Wei vs STAR LIGHT NARU & TAJIRI The comedy matchup for the show, and this is pretty fun. TAJIRI plays a fairly minor role here beating up Batten a bit, and everyone else can work. There are two real sellers here: first, Batten is being Jet’s Senpai, and what that practically means is bullying him and telling him to do strategically stupid stuff, like forego a finisher to tag Batten in; second, NARU and Jet work most of the match, and the means you get a promising PWS rookie against one of the young guns of Kyushu Pro. Jet continues to develop and demonstrate his offence now he is no longer the most junior guy in the organization, and he looks great here. There’s a fun moment where NARU knocks him out of the ring, starts to do a silly influencer dance, only to be knocked over by Jet, who has returned to the ring behind him and briefly looms threateningly ala the Undertaker. We conclude with Batten going too far in his bullying of his trainee, and Jet joins the other team to knock him out and achieve a triple pin. NARU is the technical winner, which means he ends his tour on a win. He was a little loose and soft here, but still fun to watch. Enormous promise. STAR LIGHT NARU & TAJIRI defeat Batten Blabla & Jet Wei in 11:10. Genkai & Ha Da On & Super Strong Kishan vs Hitamaru Sasaki & Kodai Nozaki & Naoki Sakurajima SS Kishan is Shigeno Shima here. I think it might be a rotating role. A problem with these six-mans CAN be that you cover up low effort work by being able to maintain a constant visual jamboree by sheer numbers. I think we get that here. This is perfectly passable, an amiable enough way to spend some time, and it’s going to have worked better in-person than on screen because there is a certain frisson to some of the work – otherwise fairly soft brawling through the crowd, for instance – that will always be cooler in-person, as you see the stars up close and personal. Shima does not give an inspired, freaky, weirdo performance as SS Kishan, more’s the pity. He’s just solid as always. Sasaki takes a backseat, having gotten some recent shine for his upcoming title match. Sakurajima naturally works hard, elevating the whole. Nozaki gets the pin on SS Kishan, giving him just a bit of shine. Indifferent stuff. Hitamaru Sasaki & Kodai Nozaki & Naoki Sakurajima defeat Genkai & Ha Da On & Super Strong Kishan in 13:31. Event Summary An odd show. No booking here towards the larger potential “angles” – that is, the titles – and no rivalries really worked on. We’re pursuing Rookie Ume’s march through the roster, which doesn’t work as well here as in previous shows. It’s nice to see Jet Wei given a chance to shine, and you definitely sense that he should be in the Tag Title picture soon. Not a must-see, on the whole. Kyushu Pro 20/07/2025 The promotion’s only show in July, held at AEON Mall Kagoshima 1F Water Plaza Special Ring. This will have been outdoors, I guess nextdoor to a fountain or pool or splash pad or something. Kyushu Pro do these community shows regularly – sometimes there are decent photos up online afterwards. They’re obviously part of the deal for charitable funding from local government and corporations. Unusually, Batten isn’t in ring here, though he was probably at ringside. Hitamaru Sasaki vs Koyo Ume A rematch from June, and probably decent fun, with Sasaki kicking and putting on holds, and Ume trying to tough out and get a few dropkicks and a Camel Clutch back in return. I’d guess Sasaki forces Ume to submit. Hitamaru Sasaki defeats Koyo Ume in 9:21. Genkai & Jet Wei vs Naoki Sakurajima & Shigeno Shima I bet the Naoki/Jet stuff here was fun, and the match was probably built around their exchanges, to give Genkai and Shima reasonably easy days. I presume the pin was Naoki over Jet, as Shima doesn’t get pins and Genkai doesn’t take them. Naoki Sakurajima & Shigeno Shima defeat Genkai & Jet Wei in 10:45. Event Summary The rookie angle gets more time, and Jet gets a better slot. Kyushu Pro Itoshima Ba Genki Ni Suru Bai 13/08/2025 Held at Itoshima Sports Park Multipurpose Gymnasium Main Arena, in Itoshima in Fukuoka Prefecture, with an attendance of 608. Decent crowd for this type of event, and they use the upper deck seating which makes the crowd look cool. It’s a warm and engaged crowd (as usual). One guest this time: Shuji Ishikawa, former Triple Crown and current Kyushu Pro Champion. He’s setting up a title challenge from Hitamaru Sasaki on the 24th August. Ishikawa is aging out, as with many of the Kyushu Pro roster, but he’s still mobile and capable and he adds some valuable credibility to the title and promotion by guesting here. Koyo Ume vs Naoki Sakurajima This was pretty fun within the format. Ume has now wrestled Sasaki twice and Asosan once, but a match with Sakurajima gives the advantage that Sakurajima is a strong bumper and seller. If you want the rookie to be plausible, he has to be sold for. Ume is marvellously expressive, with a rubbery face and strong physical mannerisms. He does well here, and his offence – rookie offence though it is – looks the best I’ve seen it, albeit in a small sample of three matches. Partly I think this is because Sakurajima bothers to sell his strikes, and bumps pretty nicely for his Missile Dropkick. Sakurajima actually has a tonne of offensive options – more than many on the roster – and you do see him roll out a few things here. Sakurajima wins via pinfall. Good opener. Naoki Sakurajima defeats Koyo Ume in 7:36. Batten Blabla vs Genkai vs Kodai Nozaki Failure. Batten works hard, his Enzuigiri is great as ever, and there are one or two funny moments, but there is a strong sense that Genkai and Nozaki sees this, at best, as a nice day off. Jet threw himself into the comedy format; Shima usually gives it a cheerful go. Genkai and Nozaki, perhaps because they are two of the stronger-booked workers, simply do not engage very much. Batten is close to wrestling a broom here, and he salvages what he can. The best moment: Nozaki helping Batten and letting him have a pin attempt unmolested, knowing it can’t possibly work. Genkai defeats Batten Blabla and Kodai Nozaki in 7:06. Asosan & Hitamaru Sasaki & Jet Wei vs Shigeno Shima & Shuji Ishikawa & TAJIRI This includes some bad Kyushu Pro habits – the idiot ref keeps being distracted, allowing the heels to bully our hero (Sasaki) in the corner. The actual heat is poor and slow. My best defence of this is that there is a lot of theatre here for the kids present. There is a pantomime element. Perhaps we should grant the motifs as part of the style of theatre – Early Modern English in Shakespeare, religious symbology in the Mystery Plays, masks in kabuki, etc. Nonetheless, it’s hard to enjoy or engage with, because it’s boring. The match as a whole, though, moves past this, because it has too many good workers and too many interesting things it wants to do. Again, Jet – here working, rarely, on the face team in the trios – gets another little breakout, building some shine against Ishikawa. Sasaki is challenging Ishikawa on the 24th, and they have a few really good exchanges. Sasaki is horrendously outsized, but relies on his kicks and size-negating holds, including the Crucifix/Octopus combination Misawa used. Ishikawa just hosses around everywhere and everyone and it’s great. Gigantic, strong guy, physical charisma through the roof (almost literally). Asosan and TAJIRI are largely along for the ride, and Shima does his usual solid work letting others get their stuff off. Eventually, there is enough cheating to ensure the heels win. This is pretty entertaining without excelling. It helps set up the title challenge just fine, though the whole framing is more Sports Entertainment than I’d like. Event Summary Booking-wise, we have the current champion winning going into the challenge, which sets up surprising booking expectations. We are left, whatever the title match result, not quite knowing the company’s route forward in the main event. The company’s best workers are Sakurajima, Nozaki, and Jet – Ishikawa has beaten Nozaki twice, Jet is too junior, and Sakurajima isn’t in the picture at all. Sasaki is solid if not very charismatic, and offers something different. The undercard in a small company can cause problems, especially in a company which regularly provides trios for its main event. If you can handle rookie matches, the Koyo Ume stuff is pretty good and a way of building out that card. On the other hand, you need some people in the comedy match who want to be there, not just Batten, and the necessities round booking the main event this time meant they had the wrong two people. Post-Mentai, who could do everything, the company needs more regular guests or full-timers, but of course money is the barrier. For full matchguide and more essays, click here.

There are many exceptions to the rule (and none prove the rule). I might rank something like 20 "pure faces" on my list. It's a misleading rule. It has its strongest salience in America, and much less importance in plenty of historic Japanese contexts. It essentially has no applicability in the WoS British era. It's a useful way of showing a great American wrestler's range, basically.

Steamboat will rank high for me. Along with a couple others, the perfect proof you don't have to work both sides of the mat to be one of the best ever. An unrelenting peak more or less from his first title win to initial retirement, and then a glorious nostalgia tour in 2009.

Doubt she'll make my list but a really reliable, charismatic hand.

Yes. I think old saws and truisms haunt "Smarks" as much as anyone else, and I remember even 20 years ago people were saying the Sayama stuff was overrated and they weren't really proper matches etc - it's an old saw by this point. The fact Dynamite is just the perfect heel to play off Sayama's character and half-makes Tiger mask, the fact that his execution was nearly always at least "good" and often beautiful, the fact that his British work and his work against the Harts are just perfect within their genre - they're not relevant to the old saw. But yes, you just have to watch him from the late 70s through to 91 (or even, just about, 93) and you'll see a consistently intense, aggressive, charismatic guy. Watch him headbutt Jumbo half to death in RWTL91, or put in one last truly great performance against Kobashi and Kikuchi, or use his smarts to compete with Hansen on multiple occasons - he never lost the aura, the will, the basic ability, even as his body started rebelling against him.

I also don't even think his work has aged badly, as if it was just reliant on new spots we've now all seen. Partly the Sayama series was innovative BECAUSE of the way it is still so fun and exciting.

I love his aura and sometimes his acting, I love his weird little athletic moments in the '70s, but I don't buy into his heat segments except against an exceptional opponent. Given the rest of his stuff is bad, he's nowhere near for me. I grant a little taste may intrude here, but I'm more like Elliott 25 years ago.

You know what's neglected? His beat-up injured midcard Bruisers run. He's better, less hurt, more motivated than in his last four Bulldogs tours. He works really hard and is putting other guys over hard on random houseshows. He puts in sterling individual performances. He has great dynamics over a series of matches with Hansen and Kikuchi. He even has a genuine classic. Especially commend; Vs Kikuchi 01/90 (fancam) Vs Malenko/Malenko 09/90 Vs Momota/Kikuchi 09/90 (fancam) Vs Spivey/Hansen 10/90 Vs Gordy/Williams 11/90 Vs Kawada/Kikuchi 03/91 Vs Kobashi/Kikuchi 04/91 (fancam) Vs Hansen 04/91 Vs Tsuruta/Taue 11/91

I'll be putting down my 100 favourite wrestlers and the aggregate of my 100 and everyone else's lists will give a fair approximation, with footage caveats, of the 100 "best ever". If enough people like Schnitzel, he'll make it. This isn't rendering the whole exercise moot or meaninglessly subjective; the very process determines, in hindsight, the most common criteria. I trust the aggregate and don't think it needs overcomplicating.

I think Kikuchi makes my list, based on an exceptional 1990-1893, a few really nice matches in the late 90s (an otherwise middling period), his NOAH renaissance, and even a few random old man matches from the late 10s that I like. He is vulnerable over longevity - longevity mattering partly as a way of creating opportunities to have good matches - but aside from SGA/HSA trios (in which he is great,), there is so much to love. *Vs Dynamite Jan 90 *W/ Momota Vs Bruisers 90 *W/ Joe Malenko Vs Fantastics 90 *Vs Fuchi 90, 91x2, 93, 96 *W/ Kobashi Vs Bruisers, Can-Am x 2, Ogawa/Fuchi *Vs Hase *W/ Momota Vs KentaMaru 2002x2 *Vs Liger 2004 There are a few matches involving Kawada I need to watch, and one tag Vs Jumbo.

Top 5 comfortably. I don't believe in making cases against, though.

Series Outline Part 1: Three Crows and One Heir 1972-1982 (You Are Here) Part 2: Atsushi Onita, Junior Heavyweight Ace 1982-1983 Part 3: Experimentation 1983-1986 Part 4: The Glorious Summer of Fuchi 1987-1990 Part 5: Transition 1994-1996 Part 6: Signs of Spring 1997-2000 Introduction Here’s the thing: if you want “the best” high-flying Junior Heavyweight action in the world in the ‘80s, you go to New Japan. It’s drawing on all the best influences – lucha, World of Sport, martial arts – and it produces, after the transitional step of Junior Fujinami, a whole cavalcade of stars: Tiger Mask I, Gran Hamada, Jushin Thunder Liger, Kuniaki Kobayashi, and Naoki Sano as the biggest names amongst the natives, and a glorious selection of foreign grapplers from Dynamite Kid to Babyface to Mark Rocco to Owen Hart. If you want the “best” high-flying Junior Heavyweight work in the ‘90s, well…your options expand! You have New Japan, Michinoku Pro, an increasing amount of crisp and modern work in Mexico, the merger of all these styles in WCW and ECW… But you know what nobody recommends? Watch All Japan Juniors in the ‘80s and ‘90s! Well, I’m here to say: you should. Yes, there is only so much time in the day, but we have the enormous privilege of being able to eat buffet style. We aren’t limited to one or two costly tapes shipped by an intermediary in America; we’re not limited by having to rely solely on very fragmentary TV clips on AJ TV shows. The cost proposition, in time and money and ease, has never been better. And there is a LOT of good Junior work in All Japan during this period. It’s worth saying, though, what is different, and what is often disappointing to people. Let me suggest two main reasons. First, Junior work was nearly always a tertiary proposition in the programming. It simply does not main event. There is a period of years in the ‘90s – still with some great matches – where it may even be a fourth-tier priority, with virtually no-one in the division. Baba liked big hosses, and was forgiving of genuine wrestle-turds like Abdullah and Tiger Jeet Singh because they drew and because he found them easy to work with as he got older; the exciting and industry-changing stuff he put together from the mid-‘80s was based around hard-hitting heavyweights; he ran a smaller company than Inoki and relied more heavily on seasonal foreign talent, hard to build whole programmes around. Second, the Junior work that did emerge in All Japan – from some of the best to ever do it – often looks and feels different to what people find exciting and fresh in New Japan’s Junior division, both those watching then and those watching now. You have far fewer explosive high-speed acrobats, far less innovation. You are rarely experiencing the pure and glorious honey of Sayama vs Dynamite, Liger vs Sasuke. If you divide Heavyweight and Junior Heavyweight by the tags “hard-hitting” and “acrobatic”, you will certainly find the All Japan heavyweights smash-mouth as anyone, but you will find the Juniors very disappointing. To appreciate the best All Japan’s Juniors had to offer, you have to recalibrate your expectations and learn the Junior style actually on offer at different points. On that basis, let us begin. Apprenticeship A little history round All Japan’s talent production pipeline will, I think, help illuminate not so much why a Junior division sprang in to life in 1982 – that’s surely mostly because of the success of Satoru Sayama – but why it looked like it did. The first in-house trainer in All Japan was Masio Koma, Giant Baba’s first valet. We have, I think, only one surviving match of his, the first AJPW match to ever make tape in 1972; it is not well regarded, though this isn’t necessarily Koma’s fault. Koma was, however, seen as a very good trainer. All Japan needed new talent and fast, even though it technically had about the biggest native talent pool amongst the Japanese promotions. It had inherited not just Baba’s own loyalists, but also the JWA remnants led by Kintaro Oki; Baba, however, didn’t really have much trust for this group, and in the short term most were dropped to the undercard til retirement, or subtly encouraged to go their own way. Eventually, one would come back and add green mist to his gimmick and become The Great Kabuki, and Oki himself would be part of the first “native rivalry” in the promotion, but in the short term the pickings were thin. Only likable heavyweight rookie Rocky Hata made the cut. Alongside him, JWA rookie and close Baba ally Mitsuo Momota made up the younger tranche of the promotion. Koma was given the task of running the AJPW dojo, and took part in producing the first four talents the company debuted: Tomomi Tsuruta and the “Three Crows”, Atsushi Onita, Masanobu Fuchi, and Kazuharu Sonoda (better known, perhaps, as Magic Dragon). Sonoda debuted in 1975; Koma died in March 1976 from liver failure. His death leaves a lot of What Ifs – he was influenced by what we would call “shoot” work – but the actual existing situation meant the rookie classes were thin. The next debutant would be Shiro Koshinaka in 1979, followed by Takashi Ishikawa and Genichiro Tenryu. Consider, briefly, those seven names: Jumbo, Tenryu, and Ishikawa are heavyweights; the rest are juniors (and would chiefly wrestle as such in their “earlier careers”). Fuchi is tall, no doubt, but you see him wrestling the shorter Kawada in 2000 and it’s no contest weight-wise, ignoring ages. By the back end of the ‘70s, the first generation of AJPW work and workers was moving on and aging out. Some of the JWA remnants had retired or left and the undercard looked pretty thin. By 1980, what had been the main event is beginning to shift, too: the Funks are still hot but their feud with Abdullah and the Sheik is finishing up, with a new gaijin heel in Bruiser Brody coming in; Jumbo is really at end of his “wakadaisho” period, is working out his new ace persona, and will have a couple quiet years in dead-end feuds with humps, occasionally illuminated by getting to work Flair. Baba is slowing down visibly now. The Destroyer’s contract ended in 1979, though he’ll still return occasionally – but very much as an aged vet. Though NTV seemed to partly blame the booking and the cost of foreign talent for these problems, Koma’s death and the pursuant state of the talent pipeline have more to do with it. In 1982, Baba will debut, or redebut, two men to help solve this problem. Stan Hansen will be brought in to tag with Brody and feud with Baba, changing All Japan forever. For the other new star, we actually need to head back to 1978. In 1978, we get the first footage of three future Junior champions: Masanobu Fuchi, Mitsuo Momota, and Atsushi Onita. Onita had ended up as in essence an adopted son to the Babas, who hadn’t had any of their own for fear of passing on Baba’s gigantism. Momota is Rikidozan’s son, and Fuchi is – at this point – some other guy. Sonoda, the last of the Three Crows, will not have TV time til 1982 or so, and that will be in Texas for WCCW. The 1978 matches are all clipped, but all three men are capable. What they are doing, who they are facing, is important: Momota and Onita wrestle El Halcon (later Halcon Ortiz), whilst Fuchi faces off against Dos Caras. They are all put in to job to Mexican stars on tour. In 1979, Onita will perform the same role for Miguel Perez Sr. (Mascaras tends to get heavyweights jobbing for him – for instance, Rocky Hata, on whom I will write another time soon.) Also in 1979, we see Onita and Fuchi tag for the first time, again against luchadores – those famous luchadores, erm, Robot-R2 and Robot-C3 (yes, you can guess the gimmicks). This match is solid if underdone, with some nice early matwork and a bit of flying. The definitional AJPW foreigner for most people is Stan Hansen; his time is yet to come. Bruiser Brody gives you a foretaste of where we’ll be going, and Terry Gordy, Steve Williams, and Vader are the continuations. In the first decade, you have a very different type of foreigner: you either have the cheating foreign object heel (Abby, Original Sheik), or you have real catch artists of all kinds of backgrounds (Destroyer, Mil Mascaras, Billy Robinson). You can see this in the water. The first lucharesu is visible in All Japan in the late ‘70s – but it’s not high-speed, super-crisp acrobatics, it’s not an insane ten-man tag with co-ordinated tope con hilos. It’s much more like title match lucha as you see it in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, with an even stronger emphasis on careful chain work. We have four short clips, plus some actual luchador-vs-luchador matches (notably, we have a taped Mascaras vs Halcon match from 1978, as well as – seemingly untaped – their Mask vs Mask match later in the year). This is enough of a body of work, though, to see the direction in which a Junior division led by first Onita and eventually Fuchi will go: an emphasis on chain-and-mat work, a careful selection of big dives and big moves, and (only prediction at this point, but they did run an apuesta) the occasional angry lucha-inflected brawl. Interestingly, I think the best of the Japanese juniors clips is actually the one with Fuchi. Onita is perfectly solid against Halcon and Perez, as is Momota against Halcon – though Momota’s clip is much more anonymous – whereas Fuchi works a really nice back end against Caras. This may just be that Dos Caras is better than the other two luchadors – my judgement is that he is – and certainly the fact that we actually get a decent length clip (5 minutes) helps, but it’s non-obvious at this point that Onita will be the first choice for the company. Foreign Climes Excursion was standard in 1970s puroresu. In point of fact, some of Baba’s keystones in the ‘70s were precisely people who had been on long-term excursion when JWA imploded. It was a finishing school in more established wrestling cultures, and part of the way workers stayed fresh and found receptive audiences in a more fragmented media landscape. Indeed, some Japanese workers returned to work overseas long after their finishing excursion – look at Umanosuke Ueda and Kim Duk/Tiger Chung lee. Jumbo worked out in Amarillo. So did Tenryu. Rocky Hata worked Florida, Georgia, Central States, and with Sam Muchnik in St Louis. Momota was sent to Mexico, though alas we have no footage. A common path was working across the American (and sometimes Canadian) territories. Momota, having debuted in 1970, visited Mexico in 1975 (where he worked Blue Demon in singles!) and then Amarillo in 1976 (where he tagged against Santo). Fuchi and Onita started their excursion on Barbados in December 1980, performing as far as we know on a single Capitol Sports Promotions (that is, WWC) card. Above them on the card, the Fabulous Moolah defended the NWA World Women’s Title, and in the main event, Dutch Mantel and the future Honky Tonk Man lost to Carlos Colon and Invader #1. Onita’s first brush with that last individual, though not quite his last. They then spent 1981 working in first Memphis and Florida, and – more as a curiosity than something that can be easily traced in AJPW Junior style – it is worth spending time here, or at least in Memphis, as we have a lot of this on tape and some of it is rather famous. There are basically two “types” of matches that seem to have survived: studio matches and short clips of arena matches. We get the TV matches in full, though a lot of these are basically squashes. They run to one fall or an odd Ironman to Expiration of TV Time, which is usually practically one fall anyway. The arena matches are, as far as I can see, all clipped – I only know of three surviving. They’re cut for inclusion in the TV programme. Usually we get tags (Fuchi and Onita), but sometimes six-mans with Tojo Yamamoto included. The Japanese did wrestle singles (Fuchi won through two rounds to make the phantom “Indiana Title” tournament final), but they were only taped in tags. They get to work some big names in what survives – Lawler, Dundee, Koko, the Gibsons, Dutch, Gilbert, Morton. Nonetheless, the quality of the work is middling to indifferent. That’s the nature of the beast. The TV matches run to formula, usually, though their match against Lawler and Dundee ends in a marvellously entertaining whole roster brawl. The TV formula never allows for much juice – the guys get seven minutes, it’s usually a simple enough hybrid of the squash and a Southern tag, the faces get to do one or two exciting moves. Koko is fun as the Rescue guy in these tags. A major limitation here is that the work the foreign heels can do working as bases is very simple stuff: “Oriental” strikes, cheating moves, a very occasional jumping chop. It’s not heatless but it’s not particularly intense or vigorous. The best matches we may suspect they had were arena tags working as bases against exciting teams like Morton and Gilbert – but precisely what we have of their match against that team is the closing thirty seconds and then the Second Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl. This is intense but faintly silly, and probably the TV whole roster brawl mentioned above is more entertaining. There are three minutes of match and one post-match surviving of a fairly entertaining six-man brawl against Dutch, Dundee, and Dream Machine, which has a great little bit of swirling chaos to it and ends with Dutch getting sick of all the cheating, knocking out Jerry Calhoun, and then taking a chain to the heels for a DQ. The final arena match, and the longest we have, is against Dundee and Dream Machine. We have just under five minutes of this, and as a Southern-inflected tag won by the heels via their cheating manager, it’s pretty solid. The Japanese work the sympathetic Dundee in a slightly-better-than-TV way, cheerfully cheating to keep him in peril, but eventually Dream breaks in and clears house. However, in the midst of heel interference and ref distraction, Dream loses a visible pin and Tojo throws salt or whatever in Dream’s eyes so his team wins. The two then headed to Florida, where they worked Butch Reed, the Brisco Brothers, Jay Youngblood, Steve Keirn, David on Erich, and Jim Garvin. I don’t know of anything that survives from this tour, though it might. Onita then headed to Crockett, Mexico, home, and destiny – the topic of the next in this series. Before we look at that, though, we should consider the rest of Fuchi’s extended excursion, and touch on Sonoda. Fuchi, at least, had made a short trip to Houston and Southwestern Championship Wrestling in 1981. We know this because we have the footage of a short, eminently competent match against Chavo Guerrero Sr. It’s kept simple, but Fuchi is allowed to work as a heelish but serious competitor rather than a foreign villain. It’s a decent insight into the worker he’ll be later, but very much in embryo: a few nasty control moves, a few slightly heelish rules breaches, and the like. Chavo wins. Fuchi stayed in the USA when Onita went to Mexico. We have, I think, two matches surviving from this period. One is actually on Puerto Rico, for CSW/WWC, against Eddie Gilbert; this is similar to the Chavo match, simple, mildly technical, characterful enough, though it ends in a goofy fashion, with Fuchi putting his head down for the backdrop in an absurdly telegraphed fashion, being kneed, and then pinned. Very different to their Concession Stand Brawl! Fuchi would then work in Crockett, and it’s from MACW that we have a really interesting tidbit, from a more or less random NWA World Championship Wrestling TV episode (aired January 1983). It’s against Ricky Steamboat, and it’s lowkey very good. It’s not an all-time classic, but they work a really interesting little layout. They are vying for control on the mat, and Fuchi regularly gets to rip out Steamboat’s arm. Steamboat, though, is not just a high flyer, and keeps up more than adequately, ultimately winning by submission. Sonoda would actually be on excursion even longer than Fuchi, leaving in late 1979 and only returning to AJPW in the new year of 1984. In 1979 he was in Puerto Rico, defending the WWC North American Tag Titles alongside Ishikawa; in 1980 he worked in Central States and Western States, in the latter again defending a local tag title with Ishikawa. In 1981 he worked as Professor Sonoda in Florida and Georgia, and then as Chung Lee in Portland. He did occasionally work “names” – Mil Mascaras and Les Thornton in Florida, Kevin von Erich in Georgia, and a tranche of slightly lower-level but respectable talent like Steve Keirn – but he’s booked weaker here than Fuchi and Onita are being booked in Memphis and Florida in the same year. In 1982 he moves around a little and also enters the video record. He continues in Portland to start, challenging for their Pacific Northwest Heavyweight title. He wrestles a guy called “Dizzy Hogan”, who, uh, is Brutus Beefcake (weird), as well as jobbing to a young Curt Hennig and Tommy Rogers. Aside from layovers in Mid-South and Georgia, he spent most of the rest of the year in WCCW, Fritz von Erich’s Dallas promotion. He’s working under a mask as “Magic Dragon” for the first time, and he’s teaming with another Japanese gimmick (albeit billed from Singapore), “The Great Kabuki”, former JWA lower-midcarder Akihisa Takachiko. We have ten or so taped matches of Magic Dragon in his WCCW run, which lasts to April 1983. He’s a hard one to rate. He was tubby, really – 5’ 10” and a bit, over 220lbs – but surprisingly agile. He’s actually just a little like Jun Izumida later. Sonoda/Dragon works as a heel in WCCW, which limits our all-round view of him, but he is allowed to do some cool flippy stuff occasionally. He works against the von Erichs regularly, feuding over a mirror version of the All Asia Tag Titles and sometimes just feuding in general – it’s obvious he and Kabuki offer another angle for the home town boys other than the Freebirds. The mirror titles, presumably emerge from David and Kevin’s 19 day reign in 1981; I haven’t quite worked this one out, but presumably either they were permitted to promote themselves as still holding them on return, or – more likely – when Kabuki and Dragon arrived in WCCW, it was made clear that they held the titles formerly held by our red-headed heroes. Natural heat. The work is variable with flashes of brilliance. Essentially everything is solid without soaring – there’s a decently fun little singles match against David, for instance, which David wins with a Sleeper despite the distracting machinations of Dragon’s manager. He has a few decent singles against Kevin. The tag matches – he teams with Kabuki, obviously, but also “Checkmate”, a Tony Charles tiger-masked gimmick (hmm) – are von Erich territorial tags. There’s brawling, there’s cheating, and we get some cool flying moves from Kevin and nice wrestling stuff from Kerry. It’s never stepping up much beyond that, of course, but they do sort in some fun gimmick matches: a Penalty Box match with Kerry and Kevin challenging for the titles where Kevin is just on a tear and keeps getting penalized whilst also eventually wrecking the heels, for instance, is really full of character; a 2/3 Falls match with David and Kevin defending is also fun. He does work a 60-year-old Blue Demon in one WCCW match! (This is mostly significant because it’s Demon’s first full surviving match and, uh, he’s incredible.) I actually think the best Sonoda match I’ve seen from his excursion is the surviving end few minutes of a match against Chavo Guerrero in Mid-Atlantic, at the end of 1983 – working face, as in Southwestern. Sonoda is just a great base for Chavo hitting headscissors, a La Magistral, etc, and even a few mini-bombs before winning with a Rolling Cradle. As ever, one ends up regretting what a territory chose to preserve and air in full and what they clipped. Here’s the question to finish with, though: why is Onita heading via Crockett and Mexico to an uppercard spot at home, whilst Momota jerks the curtain and Fuchi and Sonoda are left on excursion for a year or more in each case? It may be sheer favouritism by Baba, but I think there is something to be judged from the spotty records from 1978-1982. Sonoda is physically not impressive, though a fair enough worker; he’s not the face of a division, under a mask or no. It’s pretty clear that the internal sense was that Momota was a lower carder, particularly given the lack of any Junior division prior to 1982; he’s also physically nondescript and a fair clip older than the Crows (Onita born 1957, Fuchi born 1954, Sonoda born 1956; Momota born 1948). Fuchi, I think, misses out to Onita on looks and moves rather than on any obvious skill gap. Their Memphis work is pretty similar to each other, and Fuchi has that good rookie match and Houston match against Chavo – but he’s a groundworker and his broad-planed face and close-cropped hair are those of a severe sports coach rather than of a big-drawing crowd favourite. Onita has those big eyes and fluffy hair. He’s lither, more agile. We’ve seen him fly in his rookie days (and he’s specifically the high-flyer in the one tag match he has with Fuchi in All Japan). The talent pipeline problem is part of what precipitates the turn to a Junior division – but the success of Tiger Mask is what makes it commercially viable, and Onita is a better fit for that role. Next time, we will cover Onita’s years as Junior Ace. Find full matchguide, links, and other articles at Undercard Wonders.

I wouldn't take the criticism of stuff like his laziness or attitude too seriously. Nobody actually believes the one guy who didn't like him. Nobody actually thinks he dogged matches. I do think people don't like his work or his vibes or whatever, and that's everybody's right, of course. He was absurdly adaptable - even within the '70s he has just really beautiful matches against Brisco, Robinson, and Bock, hybrid American stuff that really works with Terry and Baba, and wild brawls with Duk/Oki and Abdullah (yes, the Abdullah stuff is still mediocre, but that's a sign of Jumbo's miracle-working; Abdullah really is utter drizzle). In the '80s he continues to have great work with foreigners, especially Flair, Bock, and the newly-arrived Hansen. (The upgrade from Abby/Sheik to Hansen/Brody is insan, by the way, as far as match quality goes.) Of course things tick up at the start of '85 as the Ishin-gundan feud starts in earnest, though Jumbo's best work in this is in tag matches. He's genuinely brilliant in that, but he's quieter as a singles guy. '87/'88 onwards he moves back into having top quality singles matches and, between those and the tag/trios matches against Revolution and SGA, he is the base for the most concerted period of quality in All Japan history. He's =1 for me.

That result would have been bad for business. The company is in a rock and a hard place situation then: the older generation of foreigners is aging out except for Brody, the native upper midcard is solid but not distinguished, and the company wants to protect its two stars, especially Baba as he begins to noticeably slow down. He's big money, he would have worked his socks off for Jumbo in such a match (see his last title win against Hansen, or doing the job for Tenryu in '89; Baba has five star matches when he can otherwise barely move), but it would have seriously damaged Baba's credibility as one of the two reliable top draws. Of course, it led to a wilderness period for Jumbo in a sense, as he's stuck with Ueda and Singh and other total humps like that to feud with.

Soft necro! Sorry Grimmas. Ted Betley, Harley Race, and Stu Hart are surely the architects, though not "blaming" any of them.

There's a random RAW match for the European title against Davey Boy which is a wild upgrade on their All Japan match. It still falls apart - DBS gasses so they sit in a headlock for literal minutes, with Dustin doing his best to sell it and make it interesting - but it's a sign of just how good Dustin was that he carries the match to pretty fun.

My note: Fuchi has taken the belt off Ogawa in first reign. The old man still has it, just about. One of his two meaningful rivals is back, though, and it’s the one with the most baggage – Kikuchi. They start incredibly slowly. This could be shaved by five minutes and not suffer. It’s strange, and partly reflects Kikuchi slowing down (he will be comfortably better 8 to 10 years later – it’s very peculiar). The middle of the match is good build, though, with Fuchi both stretching Kikuchi out in nasty funky innovated holds and cutting off any attempt to shine. Kikuchi does backdrop him a couple of times, which is plainly a reference to 1993; Fuchi, though, builds up and hits about six backdrops in response, slightly interspersed by breaks and foiled comebacks. Kikuchi does look stronger and smarter, he’s making more tactical decisions, moving to the ropes and the rest, but Fuchi sems to have the advantage. Kikuchi isn’t flying too much, which maybe adds to this. However, a combination of surprising good elbows and Leg Lariats set up what ends up being seven German Suplexes, worked rolling – the crowd pops as, in the final set, Kikuchi turns round for the third. This gets him the win and a gigantic pop. Like the Triple Crown match later in the evening, the context and the payoff add to what is otherwise just a good match. 3.5/5 It is strange that Kikuchi will be obviously better in 2002-2004 and even after than he is here. His following match against RVD is similarly just "pretty good", where Kroffat had put together a really good match in 1995 - partly that's ring smarts, but I do think it's also conditioning and work (Kroffat by 1996 is tubby like Kikuchi and they both are slower and less interesting for this reason).

I think there are two Pete Roberts, both good workers, though one is better than the other. I don't mean The Technician and The Brawler; I mean the younger guy and the older guy. I need to watch more of the younger guy to really finalize my placement on him. That Fujinami/TM vs Roberts/Solitario match. It's fantastic. Is it fantastic because the natives are two of the best ever? No. It's fantastic because Pete Roberts decided that it's going to be a 4*+ match, and even without a functioning tag partner just makes the whole thing sing. Look at every moment that actually carries, everything that seems to matter - it's Roberts executing, selling, moving, reacting. At this point, through the first half of the '80s, he's a very complete and actively interesting worker. Old Man Roberts is certainly less charismatic, but there are some interesting things. He's effortlessly good in the "ITV Wrestling" era (I don't know if I've found any late Reslo of him, will check the cards; it'd be fun to see some 1992 Welsh match). He is incredibly in tune with the crowd and you will never see someone more intentional and thoughtful in terms of mapping a match - interestingly, it's pretty obvious that even as a blue eyes he is often leading the work. In AJPW, he has a distinctive persona that you would have picked up via AJ TV and if you regularly went to the Korakuen during his tours. He doesn't heel even if he's with a heel foreigner; he has this distinctive air of a purist, of a strong but technical guy who outworks his weight. He has a lot of solid Junior matches and "gaijiin tags" in AJ; he essentially is never bad, pace any comment above, but there is a problem that these matches are usually set up as good midcard fodder and not more. Fuchi is a grounded control worker, and so those matches depend much more on Roberts being energetic (which is a trait that fades out by 1990, say), Saito is basically not much good and not very excited by the idea of working with Roberts, etc. He always contributes a lot to the "gaijin tags", but again these are often afterthought matchups - DiBiase/Roberts vs TM2/Kabuki, for instance.

This is how I see it, for sure. Though, to be clear, MJ was great on the Wizards pre-injury...