KB8

So is this THAT Fuji/Strongbow match? The one I recall Parv pointing to as some kind of roundabout advocation for Strongbow being good/smart despite the fact he hates him? Watching it I figured it might’ve been, but I kind of hoped I was wrong and there was another awesome Fuji/Strongbow match out there.

This was like 70% carny horse shit and 30% nipple cripple. It was very Memphis, like something you'd expect to see in the Mid-South Coliseum rather than Madison Square Garden. Fuji takes his time early on and does his pre-match ritual, throwing salt around while some old lady comes up to the apron and hurriedly sweeps it away (in case he tries to use some of the residue later?). Strongbow is unmoved, stern faced and statuesque in the corner. They do a criss-cross rope running sequence and Fuji keeps going out to the apron for powders, but he only ends up being humiliated every time when Strongbow headscissors him back in the ring. Fuji then teases the foreign object, reaching into his tights, shifting his body away from the ref', taking it out before quickly having to hide it again. When he eventually uses it the crowd react exactly how the wrestlers would want them to. Then Strongbow steals it, uses it himself and everyone just loses it for Fuji stooging around the ring throwing blind punches and falling on his face. At this point Fuji goes to the pectoral nerve hold and for a hold that basically consists of you grabbing your opponent's nipples this was worked about as well as you'd want. Strongbow teases his comebacks, comes closer and closer to escaping, but Fuji keeps finding ways to clamp nipple. Then he makes a mistake and gets slammed off the top as the crowd hoot and holler for Strongbow lacing into him with kneelifts. This was two guys who knew their audience to a tee, who knew their audience knew THEM to a tee, working the exact match that audience wanted to see. And for what it was I kind of loved it.

I never got around to participating in this because I guess I'm about the only remaining person on the planet without a Facebook, but I've been slowly going through the countdown on PTBN and it really is tremendously fun stuff. It's also convinced me to check out some 70s/early 80s Mr. Fuji and I'm not the least bit sorry I did. One of the Titans should come up with a comprehensive list of the 100 (or like, 10) best Mr. Fuji matches one must check out...

I'm basically echoing most people, but the feel of hatred - communicated especially through those hellish chair shots - really stood out to me in this. It's hard to look back almost twenty years and find something new and unique about this considering how often the ground has been retrodden, but that sense of violence definitely elevated it to a point where I think I'd enjoy it more than just about everything that followed on from it (at least in the Hardyz/Dudleyz/Edge & Christian series). Where those later matches and TLCs escalated things through the scope of the highspots, I don't remember getting that feeling of escalated hatred. That this was fairly short and they mostly kept away from setting up overly convoluted scenarios certainly helped. I wouldn't call it a great match, but for better or worse it's an influential one and something that held up better than I'd have expected.

I thought it might've been a bad idea to watch this as the first wrestling I've given eyeballs to in months. I usually find it hard to jump back into joshi and get acclimated to the shifts in momentum and rhythm without a bit of a teething problem. This was a breeze, though. Jackie Sato is a treasure. She carried herself like a Fujinami level ace, cool and confident while selling the danger of Aoyama. I'd never seen Aoyama before but she was all about the dropkicks early and there were two moments where she went for broke only for Sato to calmly walk out of dodge (and on the first occasion Aoyama crashed and burned). This had some cool tricked out matwork, though most of it was built around Aoyama working the leg and going to the figure-four. Sato would repeatedly roll out or manage to block it, so at one point Aoyama grabbed an Indian deathlock type thing and started stomping on Sato's back. She also went to the shin breaker a handful of times and man did that crowd live and die with Jackie Sato. When Sato took over she rolled out a bunch of neat offence. Her backdrops looked killer - super high angle and impactful - and she did a sort of hair-pull Slingblade that ruled. Finish might be a touch anticlimactic, but it certainly looked plausible. Whole match pretty much flew by as well. Feels like way more people should be talking about Jackie Sato. I mean, I know WHY she isn't brought up as often as Ozaki and Kansai and so on, but I guess what I'm saying is someone should do a deep dive on her and chronicle their findings in the Microscope and I nominate Jetlag.

This was what you wanted in a Maeda main event. It's fine seeing him fight guys like Hans Nyman and Willie Williams if for no reason other than to see how he'll approach them, but this was against a guy closer to his skill level and more like something you'd see from peak UWF Maeda. Fight itself felt more like a UWF fight than a RINGS fight, actually. The matwork was pretty deliberate, lots of shifting for position, not too many "highspots," and the parts where Maeda let loose with strikes were straight out of Maeda/Fujiwara when Fujiwara would get too dominant on the ground. Kopylov is for real. He doesn't quite have Han's ability to pull out a submission from the most unexpected of situations, but he's a dynamo and everything looked great. The crowd being completely bonkers did not hurt one bit. Really good stuff, possibly my favourite Maeda RINGS fight to date.

I signed up and I'll hopefully get a list together by the end. I'll step away for a few months at some point as I always do and I won't watch a single thing in that time, but then I'll pick it back up for the home stretch and come up with something I'm happy with, yet not as happy as I could be because I'd never be able to watch everything I want to even if this was a decade-long project. So, similar to the GWE, basically.

I'm not sure if it's on youtube or the likes, but this is one of the yearbook threads for a '93 promo that people loved. I thought it was maybe the best Lawler promo I'd seen and it's still the one I remember most when talking about Lawler on the mic.

Yoshihisa Yamamoto v Nobuaki Kakuta (12/19/92) Well this was sort of a miracle. For starters, I think it might've been a shoot, and so far there haven't really been any of those that've been good. Secondly, it's Kakuta, and history tells us you don't really want to be watching Kakuta in a shoot for 20+ minutes (or an anything for 20+ minutes). And yet this actually kind of ruled! It's the earliest version of the Yamamoto we know and love (I assume we all love Yamamoto). Those bouts with Naruse offered glimpses of what he could do, but they were very much about the young guys finding their feet. This was him turned loose and just all over an opponent. He gave Kakuta no reprieve and thoroughly dominated him on the ground through the first three rounds. Then Kakuta started swinging with the leg kicks and body shots, managing to narrowly avoid being submitted, always being in with a striker's chance. Crowd were crazy into the last couple rounds and I found myself all the way behind Yamamoto pulling off the upset. Just as the final round was coming to a close we got some controversy, as Kakuta seemed to maybe catch Yamamoto low with a knee, and the ref' apparently called for the TKO as the time limit expired. Yamamoto was having none of it and eventually they - the judges at ringside, I guess? - decided it wasn't a knockdown and the fight would continue into a sixth round. It only lasted another fourteen seconds, but man were the people all in on those fourteen seconds. Best thing Kakuta's done by a pretty significant margin and our first real look at the Yamamoto we'd come to adore. Mitsuya Nagai v Sergei Susserov (12/19/92) This was pretty good stuff as well. Susserov looked like a machine at points with the way he'd toss Nagai around, plus he had some flashy stand-up and a couple neat moments on the mat (fitting, as Han is his cornerman/possible trainer). A few of those throws were awesome -- he'd really snap into them, all hips and torque. You look at him initially and wonder if he's maybe going to be another kickboxer, but he was much more along the lines of your Eastern European grappler. Nagai had his moments and looked pretty solid as well. He was never full blown manhandled or anything, and on the "if this was a real fight" scale it looked like he could've held his own okay. His final flurry of strikes certainly looked brutal enough that you could buy it as a stoppage. Susserov's name is familiar to me so I'm guessing he shows up again later down the road, and I'm more than okay with that. Rudy Ewoldt v Georgi Keandelaki (12/19/92) If I were to guess, based on Keandelaki LAYING IT IN with the body punches, I'd maybe venture that this was a shoot. It would be a ropey guess at best, however. This was a round and a half and they kept it moving along, no real pissing about, but after the scintillating five and a bit rounds of Nobuaki Kakuta that you never thought you'd ever live to see, this was always going to struggle to pop.

Watched Yoshiaki Yatsu/Masayoshi Motegi v Isao Takagi/Hirofumi Miura from the 9/5/94 SPWF show. Thought it was really fun. You had the potato shots, the establishment of hierarchy with Yatsu and Takagi being the chunky team leaders, some nice peril segments, even a bit of blood and guys skidding around a grimy gym floor. Canek/Principe Maya v Motegi/Kamikaze from what I think is the first WYF show (3/31/95) is a totally badass little match that I kinda loved. Canek and Maya basically worked as Murdoch and Adonis for stretches, heeling it up and throwing out a bunch of cool offense. Motegi's hot tag ruled, not just because he came in and cleaned house and capped it off with a killer tope, but because the crowd loved him and one possibly-drunk section of fans were popping huge for everything he did. I don't know who Kamikaze is, nor do I know how good he might actually be, but he was fun in this. He took a beating early and when he got to reel off some offense he had some pretty neat stuff, including an enziguri flush under Maya's chin and a springboard moonsault where Motegi was a launch pad of sorts. Maybe a wee bit ragged in parts and it felt like the heat segment on Motegi ended a bit abruptly, but for twelve minutes this ticked all the boxes. It's also one of the better 90s Canek performances.

Willie Williams v Yukihiro Takenami (11/13/92) This was some spectacular carny horseshit and I loved it. The crowd is alllll about Williams and his hobo karate! Takenami is in the mood to fight! It lasted about three minutes and the heat was outrageous! I mean I can't explain why people were so thoroughly losing their mind for this but as a viewer I'm grateful that they were (because rabid crowds make the RINGS even better). Williams isn't good, but man he's fun in this type of short spectacle, with his sloppy palm thrusts and wheel kicks. I have absolutely no problem with him doing this every other show, which is not the stance I expected to take after seeing him for the first time however many shows back. Dick Vrij v Hans Nyman (11/13/92) Nyman is announced as "the one and only Hans Nyman," which is like that time back when I went to rent Devil May Cry from the Blockbuster and it was already taken but the guy behind the desk told me to rent Kabuki Warriors instead. This is a rematch from a previous show that I remember kind of sucking, This one was a wee bit better, but not really something you need to see for six rounds/hours. They at least had spurts of half decent stand-up and some of Nyman's strikes looked like they actually had some impact behind them, as opposed to just looking pretty. I don't know what the finish was all about. I don't think Nyman did either, though he was gracious about it despite being annoyed (with good reason!). Andrei Kopylov v Chris Dolman (11/13/92) Perhaps I was hasty in my assessment that Dolman, after his fight on the previous show, had little left to offer in the twilight of his career. Because this was way better. It probably helped being in there with a gamer like Kopylov. I liked how Dolman would try to control with his judo and use his size advantage on the mat. Kopylov is tricky and we've seen how he can submit guys in plenty of ways, but Dolman was patient and used the extra weight. Excellent finish, too. Pretty fun bout. Akira Maeda v Dimitri Petkov (11/13/92) I like how the booking of this was basically a rocket-fuelled version of Hulk Hogan v whatever member of the Heenan Family was up next for him to feud with. Petkov came in on the last show, looked good, picked up the win, and now he's onto the ace. That they did it as part of a tournament was smart, in that it wasn't completely obvious they were setting Petkov up as the next guy for Maeda to run through. As a standalone bout I also thought this was really good, so it gets thumbs up all around. Petkov was super fun as a sort of shoot style King Kong Bundy, shrugging off Maeda's strikes and telling him to bring it, being pretty damn solid on the ground and tossing Maeda around with some awesome slams. There was one cool bit where he just picked Maeda up like it was nothing and walked around the ring, Maeda helpless, Petkov soaking in the moment before slamming him. He also reeled off a killer headlock takedown that the crowd lost it for. I thought they were kind of obvious in setting up the finish at first, but they threw in a bit of a curve ball and overall I really dug this.

Yeah, I liked this a bunch, and for a match-up I feel like I've seen a hundred times, it never really gets stale. Is it the best match-up in ECW history? Tajiri was really fun again here and I liked how organic the Tarantula spot came across. The mocking of Guido's punch drunk selling was pretty great, too.

Yoshihisa Yamamoto v Masayuki Naruse (11/13/92) This kind of went on forever. I love Yamamoto and I like Naruse fine, but 20+ minutes might've still been a bit beyond them at this point (felt way longer than Han/Maeda from the last show and that was the longer bout). Still, maybe it stood them in good stead going forward. Smooth waters never made for skilled sailors and all that. Neither were shy about smashing the other in the face at least, and it gave us some nice stand up exchanges where they were really swinging. Yamamoto was deliberate in going for the choke at the end and I liked how he eventually set it up. And Naruse snatching the desperation leglock was a really cool - and welcome, it must be said - finish. Naruse with three draws and a victory in his first four fights is a record Tony Pulis would be proud of. Herman Renting v Nobuaki Kakuta (11/13/92) I was about to question why this was a second round fight when only one of them actually won their first round fight (and Kakuta got beat so badly he probably dropped out of NEXT year's Mega Battle), but then I think it was actually a shoot and so...who knows? Renting looked decent at points and Kakuta was mostly outmatched again, especially on the ground. Once Renting went for the choke the first time I think he realised Kakuta couldn't defend against it, so it's no surprise he went back to it. This was largely nothing.

I love that Tenryu/Araya tag. Thought it was a bit of an underrated classic the last time I watched it.

I can't speak for the rest of the UK or Ireland, but in Scotland right now, it's almost certainly Conor if you're asking non-fans who they're more likely to be aware of. My barometer for this sort of thing (it may be a flawed system, admittedly) is my retired uncle, who basically does nothing but fix cars, watch fishing programmes and drink beer, and even he knows who Conor McGregor is. Conor is more recognised by non-MMA/wrestling fans here than pretty much anyone I can think of in my lifetime (beyond the obvious like Hogan, Rock, etc). Or maybe I just associate with too many people who spend their time drinking beer and watching fishing programmes.

How about that for a rudo mugging? That first caida wasn't long, but good grief did the Infernales do a number of the tecnicos or what? The way they lawn darted Olimpico into the fixed seats was unbelievable, especially on the slow-mo replay. Satanico has been outrageous throughout the month and I can't think of a wrestler more suited to gang warfare. He's in his element and Ultimo/Bucanero seem to up their game even higher every time out. Bucanero was absolutely drilling Tony Rivera with body shots at one point and all Rivera could do was meekly curl up on the floor. It's a bummer that we lost the dive train and the tecnico comeback (I'd also like to see how Tarzan Boy extricated himself from whatever the Infernales had tied him to), but Satanico bottling TB was incredible. I never expected him to do him like that. Awesome scrap. I'm glad I held off on watching the Satanico/TB apuestas for so long because the build has been sensational.

It's been said, but the build to Atlantis Villano III has been great and this was more of the same. Of course the Villano family gang beating was on the cards from the jump, but I loved Atlantis, probably knowing full well what was coming, going for the throat straight out the gate. He wasn't messing around and he wouldn't be satisfied until he'd broken at least one chair with Villano's head. Echoing the wishes for a Casas/Fuerza singles match. They weren't matched up for long, but that brief little tussle was certainly a nice appetizer.

Dimitri Petkov v Vladimir Kravchuk (10/29/92) This was alright. Certainly a different sort of opener to the young lion-ish series from the previous few shows. I'd never seen nor heard of either guy before and I didn't have sky high hopes based on the early stand-up, but it got decent enough once they took it to the mat. It was pretty ragged and a far cry from your top tier stuff, but it's interesting seeing how a guy who looks like Hodor will go about submitting someone. Petkov had a few big throws as well -- impressive considering Kravchuk is by no means a slight individual. Petkov is absolutely made up afterwards and high-fives with enough force to leave mere mortals limp-wristed. Han Nyman v Georgi Keandelaki (10/29/92) I've seen several different spelling variations for Keandelaki's name. I don't know which one is correct. This was another rounds contest, fought mostly standing up. Nyman is limited and has almost no ground game, but he has fast feet and some of those kicks are real pretty. Keandelaki threw some nice punch combos to the body but he had even less to offer on the ground than Nyman, to the point Nyman was actively trying to take it there to finish him. Nasty knockout finish, but otherwise this wasn't much of anything. Willie Peeters v Herman Renting (10/29/92) This was a little weird. It went twelve minutes and I guess it was spirited enough. They were active - Peeters especially - and there was no "downtime" in the shoot style sense of lying around in half crabs or the likes (the half crab being very much a staple of the RINGS, obviously). But not a lot of what they did felt like it was of consequence. None of the strikes landed with any real authority. Nobody seemed in danger of being submitted (until the finish when, you know, someone was submitted, though even then it happened so quickly you never had a chance to properly register the danger). Peeters was the aggressor and for large parts Renting absorbed body shots, but he's not very compelling. It's not like Fujiwara getting battered while trying to lure a guy into a mistake. It's just...guy getting popped in the gut while semi-successfully protecting himself. Peeters had a couple nice takedowns, at least. Still a treasure, Peeters. The music accompanying the post-fight highlight package is simply sublime, like something from the opening montage of a mid-90s JRPG. Andrei Kopylov v Sotir Gotchev (10/29/92) This is the kind of thing I started this project for. I haven't a clue who Gotchev is, but straight away he grabs Kopylov and chucks him and you're thinking the Bulgarian Christian Laettner might have something about himself. Then Kopylov forces a few rope breaks and scores a knockdown. It starts looking like a neat wee competitive squash, where Kopylov gets to stretch out a bit (always welcome) against a complete unknown who it turns out can handle himself. Then Gotchev gathers some steam and the score starts to even out a bit. It feels less competitive squash and more flat out competitive. Gotchev is clearly no scrub and the crowd were all in on them rolling around on the mat. It wasn't a lost classic or anything, but it was a really nice, low-key bout between two unassuming guys who could twist your arm off. Which is why we watch the RINGS. Dick Vrij v Nobuaki Kakuta (10/29/92) I think part of me has wanted this fight from the first time I saw Kakuta. I mean, nothing against the guy, but he's not terribly interesting and his other bouts haven't set the world on fire. They tend to follow a similar pattern and he tops out at "okay, he was better in that than I figured." The crowd love him, though, especially when he's up against it. Vrij is about a foot and a half taller than him so that constitutes up against it. It went about how you thought/hoped it would. Vrij's coming off the loss to Han so I guess the slaughtering of some wee fella was just what the doctor ordered. While Kakuta can't do anything on the ground his stand-up is at least competent, and that usually keeps him in his fights. Here he has no chance because Vrij annihilates him whenever he tries to get in close enough to actually connect. At one point Vrij appears to punch Kakuta with a closed fist, probably out of annoyance. The ref' admonishes him and Vrij responds with this "oh I'm sorry, I didn't know that wasn't allowed." He'd only been there for every single show, of course. Kakuta sort of takes Vrij down, or Vrij falls over as Kakuta happens to be clinging to his leg, and Vrij uses up a rope break almost entirely out of pity. He literally points to the rope and smiles like "see, I was in trouble there" *wink wink*. This was like six minutes of what we'd soon, one and all, come to love about PRIDE. Grom Zaza v Chris Dolman (10/29/92) I can't help but think this was kind of a waste of our magnificent Grom Zaza. Dolman has that lovable vet thing going and I find the old lug endearing, but he can't really do much as he inches ever closer to 50 (though, looking back, I apparently liked his last fight). Zaza was fun letting loose with combos, moving in and out, finding ways to take Dolman over. Dolman really just bided his time until he could grab a limb and twist. He's wily and been around the block a time or two. Fine enough for five minutes, but you want Zaza against someone with a bit more to offer. Masaaki Satake v Mitsuya Nagai (10/29/92) This went a minute and a half and I'm not really sure what the deal was. You maybe wonder if it's a shoot, but then you watch the finish where Nagai kind of stands there for a couple seconds before going down for the ten and it's like...well, that happened. What we got was actually okay and probably the only time I can say I'd have been fine with a Satake fight going longer. Mitsuya Nagai: Miracle Worker? Akira Maeda v Volk Han (10/29/92) The rubber match. It probably went too long and it wasn't without its lulls, but of their three bouts this one might've had the coolest individual threads running through it. A lot of elements that had been played up in previous fights came together in this, sometimes in ways we hadn't seen before. We got Han's spinning back fist, but this time he did it before the bell had even rung (which got the crowd on his case for doing it, and the referee's case for counting it as a knockdown). Maeda is still the superior striker and Han is STILL and FOREVER (apparently) susceptible to getting smashed in the gut for a nine count. You can tell guys are always wary of grappling with Han, especially on the ground. They'll roll towards the ropes even if they're the ones with the advantage, just because they know how quickly Han can flip that script. There was one bit where Han casually grabbed a wrist and before you knew it Maeda was on his back, then just as casually he let go of the wrist in favour of an ankle and Maeda was left scrambling for the ropes. Han did all this standing up. Hadn't gone to ground at any point. Eventually Maeda started absolutely drilling Han with leg kicks and any time he so much as grimaced the crowd were right on it. Forcing this mild-mannered Russian to show weakness is a victory unto itself. The longer it went the more visibly gassed Han became, then he'd start favouring the left leg (which had been kicked to smithereens), but then you wonder if it was all a ploy because Maeda would come in close and Han would just leap at him and do something preposterous. That happened like four times, where he'd literally leap into a rolling kneebar or cross armbreaker. At one point he managed to apply an STF and it was unbelievable. Finish was pretty great, too. You could've probably shaved ten minutes off this and it wouldn't have hurt, but at 24 minutes I didn't think it was a slog and would still call it one of the better RINGS fights so far.

I'd be in that boat. If I'm being honest with myself, the stink of TNA probably hurt him in my eyes, at least to some degree. It's unfair, but it is what it is. I'm not an AJ megafan, but he's been exceptional most times I've watched him since he got to WWE and bits of that New Japan run really impressed me (the Suzuki match is tremendous and I liked him a lot against Naito, who I couldn't be bothered with at all). I like a handful of his TNA run fine, but he was never really a guy I cared much about from around 2003-2014. Wouldn't have called him bad, wouldn't have called him great -- he was a guy I just didn't have interest in. I'm certainly higher on him now and I think if I were to go back and watch chunks of the ROH/TNA run I'd be way more into it. I guess back then TNA was so bad I assumed everybody associated with it probably was, too.

Most of these have been mentioned already, and they're more favourite than best, but: Genichiro Tenryu - 1993 Stan Hansen - 1993 Eddie Guerrero - 2004 Virus - 2013 El Dandy - 1990 Yoshiaki Fujiwara - 1990 Rick Rude - 1992 Kiyoshi Tamura - 1998 Mariko Yoshida - 1999 Steve Austin - 2001 Negro Casas - 1996 Toshiaki Kawada - 2000 Buddy Rose - 1979 Takeshi Ono - 2010

I think the first time I saw Hogan work Japan was on the DVDVR New Japan set and I was sort of blown away by him working the mat with Inoki and Fujinami. He was really fun and I'd definitely be up for seeing him do more of that. I've been holding off on watching those Tenryu/Savage matches for ages, because I guess I'm a weirdo and want to save them for something or other, but I love both those guys and the fact they matched up at all just tickles me. Watching some of those early SWS shows I always dug the WWF guys coming in and seeing what they'd bring to things. I'm not saying Warlord working Japan was noticeably different or better compared to Warlord working any US-based WWF show, but it was certainly interesting seeing him opposite a guy like Sano, when Sano would do a reckless plancha and Warlord would take it with Sano's entire torso across his forehead because he absolutely was not expecting to be plancha'd (because, I mean, when would he ever really need to bother taking a plancha under normal circumstances?). You'd get Barbarian working Kendo Nagasaki and they'd just potato the face off each other like Barbarian never really got to do with anyone in 1991 WWF (other than maybe Haku, who was his partner). There was a novelty factor at worst, and at best you had situations like you described with Hogan working the mat or Bret flexing his heel muscles. I miss Tenryu feds is what I'm saying, basically.

Elliot's roster is wild as fuck. I like to think someone would've given it the 32 disc Best Of treatment. Big fan of where superkix is going with the Maeda/Fujiwara/Tamura roster as well. Fujiwara v young chip on his shoulder Tamura would've been spectacular.

Kawada is probably the boring pick, but I would've said it was him even before PWO2K and his case has only been bolstered since. Who's second that year is the interesting question to me at this point. Tajiri was unbelievable as this wild little crackpot kicking guys to death and skimming chairs across tables with no regard for spectators' safety, so if nothing else he's my US WOTY. I'm working my way through 2000 so slowly I'm almost going backwards, but from Mexico I think Satanico had been amazing and I haven't even seen the Tarzan Boy cage match yet. Haven't really dived too deeply into the Battlarts yet either, but Ishikawa looks as good as he ever has and Ono feels like a left field pick on the surface, but then you watch him absolutely slaughter folks in ten minute massacres and it's like, why was this guy not the biggest star in Japan? I'll come up with a proper list later. Takeshi Ono - biggest star in Japan - will be there for at least one of the years.

Tenryu of the Year 1981: Genichiro Tenryu & Giant Baba v The Sheik & Bugsy McGraw (All Japan, 5/29/81) 1982: Genichiro Tenryu v Mil Mascaras (All Japan, 2/4/82) 1983: Genichiro Tenryu v Ted DiBiase (All Japan, 10/23/83) 1984: Genichiro Tenryu v Ricky Steamboat (All Japan, 2/23/84) 1985: Genichiro Tenryu & Jumbo Tsuruta v Riki Choshu & Killer Khan (All Japan, 8/2/85) 1986: Genichiro Tenryu & Jumbo Tsuruta v Riki Choshu & Yoshiaki Yatsu (All Japan, 1/28/86) 1987: Genichiro Tenryu v Jumbo Tsuruta (All Japan, 8/31/87) 1988: Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada v Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy (All Japan, 12/16/88) 1989: Genichiro Tenryu v Jumbo Tsuruta (All Japan, 6/5/89) 1990: Genichiro Tenryu & Tiger Mask II v Riki Choshu & George Takano (New Japan, 2/14/90) 1991: Genichiro Tenryu v Yoshiaki Yatsu (SWS, 10/29/91) 1992: Genichiro Tenryu v Ric Flair (SWS, 9/15/92) 1993: Genichiro Tenryu, Takashi Ishikawa, Ashura Hara, Koki Kitahara & Ricky Fuyuki v Riki Choshu, Tatsumi Fujinami, Hiroshi Hase, Osamu Kido & Takayuki Iizuka (New Japan, 2/16/93) 1994: Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara v Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto (WAR, 3/2/94) 1995: Genichiro Tenryu & Ultimo Dragon v Shinobu Kandori & Kodo Fuyuki (WAR, 12/8/95) 1996: Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya v Kazuo Yamazaki & Takashi Iizuka (WAR, 11/9/96) 1997: Genichiro Tenryu v Tarzan Goto (WAR, 7/6/97) 1998: Genichiro Tenryu v Shinya Hashimoto (New Japan, 8/1/98) 1999: Genichiro Tenryu, Hiroshi Ono, Ichiro Yaguchi & Shoji Nakamaki v Atsushi Onita, Mitsunobu Kikuzawa, Sambo Asako & Shigeo Okumura (Onita Pro, 6/27/99) 2000: Genichiro Tenryu v Toshiaki Kawada (All Japan, 10/28/00) 2001: Genichiro Tenryu & Masa Fuchi v Toshiaki Kawada & Nobutaka Araya (All Japan, 6/30/01) 2002: Genichiro Tenryu v Satoshi Kojima (All Japan, 7/17/02) 2003: Genichiro Tenryu & Masa Fuchi v Nobutaka Araya & Arashi (All Japan, 1/3/03) 2004: Genichiro Tenryu v Hiroshi Tanahashi (New Japan, 8/15/04) 2005: Genichiro Tenryu & Jun Akiyama v Kenta Kobashi & Akira Taue (NOAH, 9/18/05) 2006: Genichiro Tenryu v Don Fuji (Dragon Gate, 10/20/06) 2007: --- 2008: --- 2009: --- 2010: Genichiro Tenryu v Super Tiger (Real Japan Pro Wrestling, 3/18/10) I'll stop at 2010.