[1994-01-04-NJPW-Battlefield] Hulk Hogan vs Tatsumi Fujinami

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Last couple of minutes. Hogan looks pretty thin by his standards. He gets a win over Fujinami. I'm sure Fujinami had no problem putting him over, considering that he had to shoot on him while defending the WWF title in Japan once.

[Kevin Ridge]

Hogan's post match pose down doesn't look all that impressive with those skinny arms.

[Exposer]

My God Hogan was thin during this period. It's amazing really. I noticed the elbows he threw in the corner on Fujinami were incredibly stiff. I never recall Hogan's offense being stiff before now. It was amusing to watch Hogan do his signature posing while "Real American" plays to a Japanese audience. They loved it though.

[soup23]

Even reading the comments I was still alarmed at how small Hogan looked. I have always like Fujinami/Hogan's chemistry. This show seems pretty loaded and I wonder how the other big matches are. Chono/Hash going 28 minutes seems problematic but could still be good, and Choshu/Fujiwara seems really intriguing at this point of their careers to see how much they had left.

[Zenjo]

I guess that Hogan took a few months off the juice* as he wasn't wrestling. No need to worry, the Pythons would be restored to their 24" glory.

 

* Juice = Weightlifting

[PeteF3]

Too little seen to properly evaluate as a match. I actually thought Hogan looked more jarringly skinny at the KOTR.

[El-P]

Bad match, unless your idea of a good match is Hogan dominating Fujinami with matwrestling for a while then this ending stretch, which really isn't good either. Fuji has one burst of energy during a good minute and a half at the beginning, then delivers the typical 90's Fuji performance of not doing shit until he slaps on the sleeper. Yeah, Hogan looks ridiculously thin here. He also found a way to give his favourite croonie a Tokyo Dome spot. And I'm not talking about Jimmy Hart, who's useless as usual, but Brutus Beefcake who gets to grace the Tokyo audience with a single match of his own on the undercard, and winning no less. Ah, Hogan...

 

This show seems pretty loaded and I wonder how the other big matches are. Chono/Hash going 28 minutes seems problematic but could still be good, and Choshu/Fujiwara seems really intriguing at this point of their careers to see how much they had left.

 

Chono vs Hash was a good ten minutes too long, but the last half was very good, although it's obvious Chono wasn't the same guy he was from 90 to 92. Still showing some signs of smart work though, since that's how he got by later in his career.

 

Choshu vs Fujiwara couldn't have done less, really. For what it was, I guess you could say there were seeds of a good match, but it just ended when it was getting started, so. At least they did something, as opposed to Fuji, but this kind of show really speaks poorly of the NJ guys in the 90's : lots of jacked up boring gaijins (Jurassik Powers in a terrible match against the Hellraisers, the Steiners being somewhat fun but not really good either, Beefcake for goodness sake, and Hogan who at least worked a big harder but still had a bad, boring match), a bunch of bad matches in the undercard invovling Heisei Ishingun, an underwhelming junior match which didn't get over in the Dome setting, the veterans of the 80's totally mailing it (although I haven't watched Tenryu vs Inoki which I'm sure was much better) and a decent main event that was just not on the same planet as what AJ was doing at the same time (or the women for that matter).

[garretta]

Will should have put more of the match on the set and less of the posing. Hogan really feels like he's reaching when he does his postmatch routine in Japan, like he practically has to beg for cheers. The Japanese delivered, but not with very much gusto.

 

I'm the opposite of El-P; I can see why Hogan asked for (or maybe demanded) a spot on the card for Beefcake, whether he sucked or not. But at least he's an actual wrestler. There was no earthly reason for Jimmy to be there except that he's Hogan's chief bootlicker of the moment. I'll be interested to see how or if this changes once they hit WCW, but so far they've been about as incongruous a manager-wrestler pair as I've ever seen. Jimmy hasn't even developed a convincing set of spots to use at ringside, since all of his heel stuff has gone out the window, megaphone included. He's just shown up and jumped around like a nutcase because he's got his hooks in Hogan's legit out-of-the-ring business. I'd have much rather seen Heenan turn face and pair up with him, at least at ringside. Maybe I'd regret that statement if that had ever happened, but I would have loved to find out.

 

One thing Hogan should have done before leaving Vince: Buy the rights to "Real American". He had to use a knockoff when he was a face in WCW anyway (which surprisingly wasn't bad, although the lyrics didn't fit his 1994 character at all), and using it when he was in the NWO might have drawn more real heat than that porno-influenced mishmash they came down to ringside with every single time.