[1993-09-12-WAR] Genichiro Tenryu vs Masa Chono

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Ditch]

I watched this last year and was disappointed by it. Chono's style in general is too soft to fit into Tenryu's usual ass-kickery, whereas he was just fine working '90s strong style against his NJ compatriots. While I'm at it, I dislike the 'Chono's opponent slowly crawls to the ropes while in the STF' spot. I never feel like the hold is particularly dangerous, and it's survived like 90% of the time in his big matches (especially the first application), and he doesn't build to it particularly well. Add in that his other trademark move is a big boot, and he just isn't going to mesh 1/10th as well as Hashimoto in the heavyweight slugfest that is Tenryu-style. And after the June Hashimoto match, you can't say that Tenryu is unable to be part of a match that tells a story with limb work, so it's not as if Tenryu is inflexible.

 

A lot has been said for a long time about Mutoh being overrated. Well, I think the same largely holds for Chono. He's been in tons of high-profile matches with very skilled opponents and there's not even five matches I consider legit MOTYCs.

[jdw]

If we're going by 1993, I suspect that I'm less annoyed by the STF crawl than most other selling of submissions, simply because it does result in finishes.

 

Contrast it with other submissions in pro-style matches in NJPW, AJPW, WCW and the WWF (in a sense, the "peer group" for Chono and NJPW).

 

On one extreme we have Bret's Sharpshooter. While it doesn't work all the time, it pretty much was his only true finisher at that point. Of course he got typical WWF-style schoolboy finishes and Conference Finishes and the like. But by 1993, that pretty much was his finisher when he was going over with one of "his finishers".

 

Choshu's Scorpion would be up there on that level: he doesn't have those annoying schoolboys, but he'd also win matches with the Riki Lariat, so he had at least two signature finishers.

 

In the other extreme, you probably have Flair's Figure Four. It's Ric's signature finisher and in matches that he wins is the finisher... well... did he beat any non-jobber with it at all in 1993? Maybe the Hollywood Blonds match? No, that was a Pin and a DQ.

 

Where does Chono's rank on that list?

 

I suspect pretty high. Looking at just the matches that he wins and he's the one getting the pin/submission, I'd think that the STF gets a good % of those wins. And it's not like Chono doesn't get wins.

 

Misawa's Face Lock? Can't remember any win of note with it in 1993 (or 1994). I don't even recall if he won a tv six-man with one.

 

Kawada's Stretch Plum? Yikes.

 

Any "submissions" that Kobashi, Taue, Hansen, Doc... most anyone in AJPW did were just throwaways.

 

This was NJPW before Mutoh went figure four. Hash didn't use a signature sub. I've blocked a lot of Sasaki out of my mind... I recall at some point he tried to get a submission over (and think his wife riffed on it a time or two)... just don't recall if it as by 1993. Hase? Eh. Fujinami had the Dragon Sleeper, probably up there with the STF. Gaijin? Juniors?

 

STF would be decently high on the list.

 

I can't knock the struggle too much because it's what all the submissions had/have. The difference is that Chono's actually worked enough that there was "drama", especially late in a match where the result was in doubt. People bought it.

 

John

[Ditch]

I'll add the I don't like much of any "crawl to the rope" spots in general. Problem is that Chono didn't have a clear one-or-two-ends-a-match pin finisher to balance out the STF (for my tastes).

[jdw]

That's kind of what Bret evolved into: Sharp Shooter. If one takes away the schoolboys, conferences and other rollups/counters, I don't know if there's a lot there in terms of finishers once he went singles.

 

I know Chono won in ways other than the STF, but confess to drawing a blank at the moment. Yakuza Kick perhaps, though it struck me more as setting up other things, such as the STF.

 

John

[Ditch]

There was the powerbomb and top-rope shoulderblock to win the '91 and '92 G-1s, but those were 1-offs. The butterfly lock for about 5 years or so. STF variants... but that's still the STF. Then finally in the '00s the shining yakuza kick became his trademark 'pin' move... and that's still the yakuza kick.

[Loss]

In the other extreme, you probably have Flair's Figure Four. It's Ric's signature finisher and in matches that he wins is the finisher... well... did he beat any non-jobber with it at all in 1993? Maybe the Hollywood Blonds match? No, that was a Pin and a DQ.

Flair's biggest win of '93 aside from Starrcade was taking the NWA title from Windham. He did that with a figure four in the middle of the ring. That's a pretty forgettable match, though, so I understand the oversight.

 

I liked this match, but I do agree with Ditch's general point about Chono. His style isn't really that much different from the good American heavyweights at the time, and he would have blended well with them. Tenryu's best matches are against guys who can be a little more aggressive. Chono didn't have his mean streak yet. Did heel Chono against Tenryu ever happen? I suspect it would have been awesome.

 

Tenryu's timing is second to none. Cutting off Chono's top rope dive with a chop was awesome. Even if the drama was lacking for the rope reaching stuff, the angles at which he's able to apply the STF are pretty cool. Also, any match where you can't hear Chono doing his weird breathing thing is a nice relief. In terms of their respective places on the card at this point, this seemed to have exactly the right amount of build to a finish that it should have.

 

The post-match stuff with Hase going crazy rocks and helps set up their match later on this disc.

[Ditch]

There was a series of Tenryu vs Chono matches in '04 that were either cheap or had a lot of screwiness. Not sure they ever faced off in the late '90s; I lean towards 'no'.

[PeteF3]

Pretty good match, but Chono was put away with rather easily, I thought. I know he had a nasty neck injury but he seems to have fallen off greatly from '92, both in terms of working ability and push. After the bout, Tenryu locks on the WAR Special and a bunch of guys from both promotions try to break it up. Hase finally takes Tenryu out with the golden arm bomber.

[soup23]

Feel like I am higher on this than most of the comments as I enjoyed it a good deal even though the feud overall doesn't seem to be hitting the extreme highs it was early in the year. Chono can come off as lackadaisical at times and that can make the match suffer overall but I thought he was presented as a nice threat for Tenryu to overcome. The ending was especially wild and made me really anticipate the Hase vs. Tenryu bout. ***1/2

[garretta]

I thought that this was repetitive on both guys' parts. Tenryu was all chops and powerbombs, and Chono kept trying to apply the STF long after it was clear that Tenryu had the move well-scouted. Not only that, but Chono wrestled a dumb match from a kayfabe perspective. He caught Tenryu in the ribs with a chair towards the end, which means he should have worked the ribs until Tenryu could neither move nor breathe. Instead, he kept trying and failing to lock on the STF as if that was the only hold he knew. It was certainly one of the few he demonstrated on this night; ninety percent of his offense was boots to the head, one of which appeared to bust Tenryu's eyebrow area open hardway.

 

I've seen much better performances from each of these two, and hope to do so again in the future. Maybe this interpromotional feud has run its course, much like the WWF-USWA feud is starting to in Memphis.