[1990-01-03-AJPW-New Year Giant Series] The Fantastics vs Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki

[Superstar Sleeze]

All-Asia Tag Team Champions Footloose vs Fantastics - AJPW 01/03/90

 

I had never seen the Fantastics in Japan and after seeing that I wish more late 80s/early 90s Southern workers went to Japan after the death territories. Dirty White Boy vs Hashimoto and Smothers vs Kobashi would have been awesome in its randomness. The Fantastics did not miss a beat in fact I need to see more of their late 80s, I was really shocked by how cutting edge their offense was. Rogers pulls out a Northern Lights Suplex, which I associate with Benoit bringing with him in the mid-90s with him so for a Southern worker to being do it surprised me. Overall, this was a fun exhibition of each team's moves and they just had an all-action, all stuff, not fluff match. I watched the 7 min JIP version (is there a full version) immediately you see Fulton hit a suplex into a Rogers rocket launcher. They established that tone early. I liked Fulton a lot in this anytime Footloose were being pricks he always looked to jump back in their. He had some good open hand strikes. Rogers was so fluid in there, he performed what can basically be described as a Power Fireman's Carry, if that was Cena's finish, nobody would bitch. I thought the story of the match was the Fantastics had the better continuity and were exploiting the double teams more while Kawada & Fuyuki were countering that with cheating and chairs. I love random chair shots in midcard matches. A good example of this was towards the end of the match the Fantastics had Fuyki dead to rites looking for the flip rocket launcher, but Kawada broke it up. Kawada was weird. I have not watched much Footloose Kawada and he is different and the same. The flying plancha caught me off guard. The piledriver spot with Rogers was ridiculously bitchin. Great finish run with Footloose being able to take advantage of chaos to isolate each Fantastic and dispose of them Kawada powerbombs Fulton and Fuyuki German suplexes Rogers. Fun exhibition of moves. ***1/4

[Johnny Guitar]

Slow start, but I got into it and enjoyed the closing stretch.

[drew wardlaw]

I really liked after the Kawada plancha to the outside, Fuyuki was about to get up on the far turnbuckle when he noticed the beatdown on the other side and went to help. The camera doesn't cut to a different angle and captures him realizing his partner needs help and running to the rescue. It's really cinematic and very cool.

[MLD1083]

Young Kawada in Footloose is a blindspot for me. Fuyuki can move for a chubby dude. Fulton has some tragic 80s hair still. There are some awkward miscommunication exchanges but it’s likely this is the first time they wrestled. The Fantastics are much stiffer in Japan and seem to fit in nicely. Match picks up and the finish was solid after some huge drops off the top rope. Fuyuki looked particularly strong here.

[dawho5]

Being a Kawada fanboy (proud to say I am still one) I missed a lot of the Fuyuki hype on earlier watchings of Footloose. He is clearly at least as good as Kawada at this point and I'm wondering when he fell off a cliff. This match is one of those great AJPW midcard workrate matches that didn't necessarily need a lot of psychology to do it's job. Just some guys out there killing themselves to put on a show. Kada, Fuyuki and Fulton killing themselves to add some hate to it was just a bonus.

[Stiva]

I agree with Loss about Fulton bringing some cool touches to this. Little things like reacting to Kawada feigning kicks in a great exaggerated way and then just going wild with forearms to Fuyuki on the apron, giving a nice hint at how the finishing stretch was going to go. All in all, this is a good tag match between two good teams. It took a while to get into the groove but it really trucked toward the end.

[Makai Club #1]

This was an interesting match that seemed to get better as it progressed. The Fantastics were strong as a unit but weak individually, allowing Footloose win most of the exchanges with, mainly, Kawada being a real dick towards them, just coming in and kicking Rogers in the head while he’s in a pinning position. The closing stretch had some great high spots, like Rogers & Kawada reversing tombstones and The Fantastics’s Rocket Launcher spot. This was a good win for Footloose. ***