[1990-12-07-AJPW-Real World Tag League] Stan Hansen & Dan Spivey vs Steve Williams & Terry Gordy

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

The final match -- not the finals -- (see jdw, I'm learning ) of the tag league. I suspect this match is still going on. God, this was long. It was an okay match, but I don't think Doc ever really had the stuff to go this long, much less in 1990, and Hansen, Spivey and Gordy would have benefitted from a shorter match too. This didn't do much for me, but might have had it not just kept going and going.

[soup23]

I loved the idea of the previous match being sort of a sprint but I hope it wasn't at the expense of making this match overly long. Just heatless work, too many momentum shifts, and around 15 minutes too long. Only part I really enjoyed was some of the work on hansen at the halfway point and the ending was pretty good. Disappointing last match for All Japan in 1990.

[PeteF3]

I dug Hansen & Spivey's tag title win from '91, but other than that this is not a match-up that I've ever found to be all that compelling or something to really look forward to. So, seeing the comments here I cheated and skipped to Williams throwing rapidfire dropkicks at people. There isn't a whole lot to this even during the closing stretch. The finish is a very clever idea but isn't executed very well, between Hansen's half-assed lariat that's practically no-sold to the bell ringing early. Benoit and Scorpio would pull off the pinfall-with-one-second-left thing better.

[Childs]

It was particularly rough to have this follow the heatfest that was the natives tag. Everybody here worked and hit hard, but it's tough to argue that the match built to much. The fans reacted that way as well. They wanted to get into the last five minutes, but they hadn't been taken on the ride. As others have said, these teams traded control too often without developing specific plans of attack. And though the finish was a decent idea for making Doc look good, they executed it terribly. Lots of three-minute stretches of this would look good in isolation, but the result was far less than the sum of the parts.

[Kevin Ridge]

Seems tough to have to follow the previous match and there were not able to succeed. This just keeps going. That was a three count? Looked like the bell rang before the three. Big win by Williams though.

[Zenjo]

Watchable enough for about 10m and then ill advisedly drags on for another 20m. Finish was horribly botched by both the wrestlers in the lead up and then the timekeeper. According to my timer it was at 29:40, on the screen it was 29:59 and according to the bell it was a little past 30:00. Benoit vs Scorpio was a legit 19:59 and really well executed.

[CaptCabana]

Watched this for the first time tonight. Match definitely meanders in portions, but never felt interminable like some other matches of this length can. Finish was screwy, though. I echo those who say Benoit-Scorpio pulled the last second pin way better.

[garretta]

This actually was the championship match of the tournament; Hansen and Spivey were leading, with Doc and Bamm Bamm one point behind and needing a pinfall (worth two points) to win. Hansen and Spivey could escape with a draw and still win the tournament, so it made sense that they'd drag this out as long as they could and keep their game plan conservative as far as they were able. There was stil plenty of hard-hitting action both inside and outside the ring, and while the finish could certainly have been executed more crisply, it was still a huge deal for Doc to get the winning fall over Hansen.

 

I expected a long, slow, kind of plodding match once I found out where the tournament stood before I sat down to watch this one, so the pace and even the lack of crowd involvement didn't bother me much. They'd already seen their "main event", as it were, in the last bout and probably wouldn't have reacted much to anything anyway. They were into this by the end, as evidenced by the American flags waving for Doc and Bamm Bamm in the postmatch. Nice humble interview from both men, although I heard Doc's last remark as "Giftwrap Baba!"

 

Is this the five-star classic most of us expected? No, but it did its job as prescribed, which was to put over the Miracle Violence Connection as All-Japan's new team to beat. On that basis, I liked it just fine.

[drew wardlaw]

Tough match to follow. Lots of back and forth, but not especially heated. I continue to enjoy Spivey's work though, I think he's been pretty good. When he was in the outside, and faked out Doc a couple times before pulling him out and really gong to town on him, I thought it looked good. Then later in was in some leg hold thing with one of the two (?) and I like his kicks to the back, I think of Gordy?

[Superstar Sleeze]

Ya'll are crazy! This match was badass. Insane pace these guys cut. Action-packed, never a dull moment and wicked physical. Great sense of urgency. I love shit like Gordy and Spivey are the legal men, but Doc comes in and just starts clashing with Hansen like two rams. Or the sequence where Hansen rams into the railing as Doc follows in Hansen moves and Doc slams into the railing. The whole finish sequence is insane and hot. Ill have to watch again because I was eating lunch, but I loved this!