[1980-05-23-NJPW] Stan Hansen & Dusty Rhodes vs Bob Backlund & Tatsumi Fujinami

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[SAMS]

1980-05-23
NJPW
Dusty Rhodes & Stan Hansen vs. Bob Backlund & Tatsumi Fujinami
Civic Gymnasium, Hasama, Miyagi, Japan
Card
★★

The US invasion continued with the WWF crew arriving as well. Dusty and Hansen were the odd couple considering their match opposing each other only a week prior and this was worked around their complete lack of compatibility as a team. 
Backlund, due to his incredibly unique style, sticks out in this setting, even among a majority US collection, but within the New Japan setting it feels fresh and the crowd certainly seem keen to see more of him. His matchups with Hansen were interesting and mostly had him befuddling Hansen with escapes from any of his hold attempts. My main issue with Backlund here is that I don’t think he’s as good a technical wrestler as he thinks he is, and he mostly just moves his limbs around real fast and then spins out the way. My favourite matchup amongst these four guys was Hansen and Fujinami and that’s certainly a match I would be keenly interested to see. The size disparity works really well and Hansen was just pounding on him. Fujinami would do a great job working from underneath against this monster.
Before long the cracks began to show as Hansen accidentally nailed Dusty with a Lariat on the apron then, in turn, Dusty accidentally hit an elbow drop on Stan. Things eventually boiled over and they ended up going all out with Hansen posting Dusty. Backlund and Fujinami looked on bemused before Hogan and Andre, sporting a stylish man bun I must say, followed suit and started attacking Backlund and Hansen respectively. It must have been a sight to see for a Japanese audience in 1980 to see this many gigantic foreign wrestlers in the ring at once, and these are some big dudes no doubt.
Ultimately this ended in a no contest. The match didn’t have a lot of substance, but was an interesting spectacle for how long it lasted and the post match logically leads into a few upcoming bouts.