[1993-02-05-NJPW-Fighting Spirit] Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara & Takashi Ishikawa vs Keiji Muto & Akira Nogami & Shinya Hashimoto

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Before the action even begins, Tenryu and Hashimoto have a staredown to make it clear that match is the "headline" pairing. The staredown on its own is pretty awesome. The crowd is beside themselves that they're the ones starting out. And Hashimoto immediately kicks Tenryu in the head and knocks him off his feet, leading to the other guys rushing the ring and almost getting into it. You can cut the tension with a knife. Tenryu tags out and the match calms down a little, as Hashimoto follows suit. But a few minutes later, they're back in again. I love this layout. At one point, the entire NJ team isolates Tenryu and triple teams him and the audience goes insane. As the match continues, I start to think this is really a clear MOTYC and an awesome match that I've never heard much about. The heel/face dynamic is strong, and in that regard, it has strong elements of a U.S. match but way better action than the U.S. stuff at the time. What I mean by that is that the match is filled with great stuff to put shine on the New Japan guys, and Tenryu I wouldn't say stooges out, but he is more cautious than he normally would be, which I love. Ishikawa pins Nogami to take the match home for Tenryu's team. Bring on all the other matches with these guys, as this was tremendous!

[Ditch]

This is right there with the AJ July 2nd tag for 6-man of the year, hell it might be better. Hardly any flaws, tons of heat and energy, everyone plays their role to perfection, and plenty of 'peaks'.

 

awesome match that I've never heard much about

Because from what I can tell it only came out on the rare section of NJ Classics.

[benj]

Hash and Tenyru were amazing. The kicks and chops were brutal. Tenyru looking at Hash and Mutoh everytime he would stomp or chop Nogami was super. The crowd was off the chain and the multiple elbow drops spot was fantastic. Post-brawl makes me want more.

[jdw]

This is right there with the AJ July 2nd tag for 6-man of the year, hell it might be better. Hardly any flaws, tons of heat and energy, everyone plays their role to perfection, and plenty of 'peaks'.

 

awesome match that I've never heard much about

Because from what I can tell it only came out on the rare section of NJ Classics.

 

It made NTV. I mentiond it should be on Will's Tenryu comp four years ago:

 

http://www.otherarena.com/phpbb/viewtopic....449&start=0

 

John

[Ditch]

So much for 'what I can tell'!

[Phil Austin]

More Tenryu love from me here. And I loved the crowd reaction. Massive reaction when he was in, booing the hell out of his partners when they entered.

 

Especially liked the triple destruction job that Nogami, Hashimoto and Mutoh did with the elbow drops on Tenryu at one point during the bout.

 

If there is one guy I've completely turned the fence on due entirely to these sets its Tenryu. I've totally gone from 'meh' to 'OMG this guy is incredible!'

[Phil Schneider]

Pretty much exactly what you want out of this match up on paper. Hashimoto and Tenryu have a couple of nasty little scuffles building up their big singles matches, while the lumpy pissed off duo of Hara and Ishikawa mug the fuck out of Nogami. One thing we definitely got out of the 80's New Japan set is that Akira Nogami will take as big an asswhipping as anyone in wrestling history. After we go back and forth for a while, the WAR team kick his ass up and down the ring. Hashimoto isn't in this match a ton, but after Nogami gets pinned he attacks Tenryu and looks like he tries to take his eye out. More of a teaser then a great match, but a nice teaser.

[BackToBionic]

My favourite match of the year so far.

[FLIK]

Didn't like this quite as much as everyone else. A really good match but it had a few weird sloppy moments like the messed up lariat/rana spot Mutoh & Ishikawa were trying to do. Also a little too short and it ended up abruptly just as things were starting to rock so it didn't quite reach the great peak it could have.

[Zenjo]

The NJ team had a good underdog and 2 hot rivals for Tenryu. I want to see both singles matches. Alas, the WAR team comprised of 1 great wrestler and 2 turds. Hara was all washed up and I never liked him anyway. I know I wasn't the only one who found his work to be one of the low points of the AJ 80's set. And then Takashi Ishikawa was horrible. After 20 seconds in the ring he'd applied a rear chinlock. A shame they couldn't have replaced at least 1 of them as this would have been really good then.

[Kevin Ridge]

The big time stare down with Hash and Tenryu was great. Crowd was eating it up when they matched off right away. Tenryu takes one to the head and wisely tags out. Feels like a different Nogami from earlier yearbooks. We got a matching tights battle between everyone. Rock Bottom gets the victory! Hase gets in the ring to be an asshole.

[PeteF3]

The dogpiling elbows is possibly the spot of the year for the first month + 2 days. The only thing I hold against this is that it felt like it could have gone another ten minutes, but Nogami goes down relatively quickly. He did take an ass-beating here, with Hara just murdering him with strikes and Tenryu leveling him with probably the stiffest enzuigiri he ever did when Nogami made the mistake of bouncing off the ropes in Team WAR's corner. Another chaotic brawl afterwards, as Tenryu and his side continue to rack up victories. More of this feud, please!

[WingedEagle]

Before the match even starts this feud has more heat than anything else in the world. Hashimoto lays out Tenryu with some stiff kicks early allowing the supporting players to do their thing. Tenryu & Hara hit a sweet front/back lariat combo on Muto. After Muto lays out Tenryu with a facebuster the New Japan team drops a million elbows on him while crowd goes wild in a fantastic spot as the ref holds back the WAR team. I don't rate this quite as highly as the November 6 man which to this point is probably my favorite match in this feud.

 

But this match is very good and does so many little things to further the feud -- the pre-match tension with Tenryu & Hash establishing that as a marquee singles battle to look forward to, then Tenryu playing his outsider heel role perfectly by staring down Hash & Muto while chopping Nogami raw. Even the finishing stretch furthers the story with Muto breaking up a Tenryu pinfall, prompting a response where he spitefully power bombs Nogami and covers him with a boot. I doubt there are a ton of scenarios that find an entire building chanting for Akira Nogami, but this feud pulls that off. The finish felt a bit too sudden for my taste, but it was a clean and convincing win that along with the post-match brawl keeps things going.

 

These matches don't measure up to the high-end All Japan stuff from this year. But the heat is off the charts and its far and away the best feud going. Just amazing to think what the big 2 over there were delivering side by side at this time.

 

****

[soup23]

Awesome match from the staredown to the finish. It went the perfect length and only furthered the personal vendetta of all involved. I was impressed to see Muto be so hateful and show a lot of fire and Hara and Ishikawa as the old, stubborn defenders of Tenryu are playing their role well. I love this feud so far and it feels like it is just gearing up. ****

[DR Ackermann]

A year ago I watched this and thought it was great. I watched it today and thought it was kind of good at best. Idk what changed but this really is a step back from the Tenryu vs NJ undercard stuff from late 92. Tenryu was good. Mostly. Ishikawa did stuff well offensively. Idk. This is both disappointing and an appetizer (which we've already had). I do love this feud so I'm pumped to go through it all again.

[garretta]

I'm not sure if this reaches the level of the All-Japan six-mans, but this was great for what it was. You really get the sense that Tenryu and his guys are Public Enemy #1, but they shrug it off and take the match clean as a sheet after overwhelming Nogami with sheer brute force. Ishikawa may be a midcarder, and Hara may be an old fart who only knows one move (the headbutt), but they're effective henchmen for Tenryu here.

 

Nogami absorbs most of the beating for New Japan, which is fitting is a match like this, as they were saving Hash/Tenryu for singles matches and Muta was too big a star for Tenryu to get his hands on at this point in the feud.

 

Speaking of Keiji, I would have thought that this might have been a big enough match for him to break out the Muta paint. Was there a strict formula as to when he worked as himself and when he worked as Muta in NJPW, or was that Keiji's call?

 

Am I the only one who's wondering what a match between Hara and Fuchi would be like after seeing Hara work here?

 

I'm definitely looking forward to the big ten-man later on the month. I haven't seen as much of this feud as some of you have, but from what I've seen, it's pretty one-sided in WAR's favor. It's not quite to the critical stage for New Japan, but a big win or two would certainly help their cause at this point.

[Makai Club #1]

This was an electric 13 minutes. I assume that this was the start of the Hashimoto v Tenryu feud. It looked like Muto was going to be the big headliner of his team, given he is champion (as Muta which technically is a different person) but Hashimoto calls out Tenryu to kick off the match and the rest is history. Tenryu is very hesitant in this match. After he gets pummeled by Hashimoto’s kicks to kick off the match, he starts to be cautious, tags out more often than he would. He is very keen to go when Nogami is in there, and he dishes out some heavy offence against him, while looking at Hash (which was awesome) but then it’s Muto or Hashimoto in the ring, in comes Hara or Ishikawa. This was played off brialintly when he got trapped ina  barrage of triple team moves that sent the crowd into a frenzy. The other two WAR guys were good and played their parts as the side pieces to Tenryu. Ishikawa got booed any time he was in the ring whereas the other two were cheered, mostly. Good to see his heat out of the Fujinami match is being carried over. Great match. ****1/4