[1990-04-01-FMW] Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto vs Masanobu Kurisu & Dragon Master (Texas Street Fight)

[RingoPlaysDrums]

This thing was fucking wild. I can't recall having ever seen Kurisu or Dragon Master/Sakurada before so I wasn't sure if they were even the guys in this match at the start. They come down to the ring in street clothes and Onita just flies out of the ring and takes them both out with a crazy tope and I didn't know what was going on. Dragon Master just starts absolutely walloping Onita with chairs, some of the hardest chairshots I've ever seen, as Onita climbs over rows of seats (and members of the public) to try and get away. It doesn't seem as though Dragon Master cares if he takes out an audience member or two as he swings the chair. Goto starts getting pelted as well. Just sick thud after sick thug. All four guys are bleeding after about 5 minutes and that's when the Texas Death match rules start to come into play with the pin for a 3 count followed by a 10 count. They play at tagging in and out like a normal tag match for a bit but that's never on the cards and it's not long before it breaks down again. Kurisu takes off his cowboy boot and starts leathering Onita. Onita takes off his belt and starts leathering everyone. There's a handful of wrestling moves alongside the brawling. A couple of DDTs. A couple of brutal powerbombs. After about 10 minutes Onita hits another powerbomb on Kurisu and he can't get to his feet before the 10 count and it's all over. This whole thing felt like four guys had got into a fight in the bar and decided to settle it in the ring. Crazy Southern US-esque brawl.

[Stiva]

I absolutely love brawls where there’s always a sneaky feeling that at least a few fans went home with grievous injuries because of it and this is right up there. Onita just lashing Dragon Master in the face with his belt is one of the wildest strap/belt spots I’ve seen. Just lashes out with reckless abandon, incredible

[Chess Knight]

I had two main memories from this from my previous viewing. #1 - it was a great first half and then tapered off a bit in the second, and #2 - Kurisu may have the greatest stomps of any wrestler ever. Not in terms on them looking particularly violent, but just, as natural looking as stomping on someone's head can look. It's like he clips the opponent with tip of his boot to make this great visual. It probably helped that here he was dressed like a wannabe country singer and had those flat toe boots. #2 is definitely still true, but #1 I'm less convinced of. There's some questionable selling and sloppy (the bad kind) moments but unless you're super bothered by street fight tags having tag rules, then I can't see why I necessarily thought the quality dropped too much. The rules are similar to a Texas deathmatch where there's a 10 count after a pinfall but that doesn't come in to play very often, and thankfully there's no "rest period." They replace the resting with a hundred and fifty absurdly violent folding chair shots and this one awesome moment where Kurisu escapes Onita by pulling one of his (flat toe!) shoes off and beating him in the head with it. Dragon Master is the same Dragonmaster (sans space apparently, bare with me I'm going on wikipedia) who was in Gary Hart's corporation thing in WCW, and also helped trained Bret Hart, and this made me want to track down some of that WCW work if only to see if he throws the same amazing clubs in the US that he did here. Match does have its down moments for me but is still awesome.