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Showing results for tags 'Kuniaki Kobayashi'.
Found 7 results
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Heated early 90s japanese wrestling is guaranteed quality and this is another goody. Fast pace, everyone runs in to beat the hell out of eachother, Heisei Ishingun are really fun as elderly japanese men in purple pants who will crack your ribs... the superstar charisma of Shinya Hashimoto stands out (as always) as anytime he steps in the ring things get a little more real, a little more intense. Surprisingly Tatsutoshi Goto makes a really effective main antagonist as he knocks people silly with stiff lariats and chucks chairs in Iizukas face. Iizuka & Nogami are fun in their goofy Rockers gear flying around and taking beatings. Match starts fun and it builds to some bigger and bigger moments and nearfalls and surprisingly well timed spots, we also get Aoyagi and Hashimoto facing off for a couple seconds. This is the kind of match that just leaves you wired by the end. -
A nice reminder why the NJPW vs. WAR feud was one of the greatest things in history. A mix of great heat and messy out of control violence. This is really pro wrestling vale tudo, two guys trying to fuck eachother up, they would go to the ground, but there would be eye gouging there and as soon as they got up they would throw kicks and headbutts again. Kitahara was just killing Kobayashi here with brutal kicks to the eye and Kobayashi holds up his own just running into Kitahara with headbutts repeatedly. The rules in this were a little weird, there doesn't seem to be pinfalls and Tiger Hattori is watching from ringside like a super libre match. At the end one guy takes a series of brutal DDTs and is choked out and after lying motionlessly for what felt like an eternity they decide to stop the match. Pretty unique and stands out as one of the most brutal match endings in the feud which covers a loooooot of ground.
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Kobayashi was always one of my favorite juniors and I’m reminded why watching this. He goes move for move with Tiger Mask and has an impressive variety of kicks at his disposal. This is better than the Dynamite Kid match, if only because you get the feeling watching those that fans are just waiting for the next big move. Here, the crowd even got into the submissions, chanting loudly for Tiger Mask when Kobayashi locked in the cross armbreaker. There is some sloppiness from Sayama here yet again, but he’s opposite a guy who seems to have the perfect understanding of how to work opposite him, so it doesn’t detract from the match as much as it does in some other cases. Kobayashi goes all rudo trying to unmask Sayama, which builds the heat in a big way. He even yanks Sayama from the ground by his mask at one point. The match ends when the referee can’t stop the mask ripping and I’m actually really looking forward to their January match. This was pretty great. ****1/4
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