[1998-01-14-WAR] Genichiro Tenryu vs Nobutaka Araya

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[soup23]

This may be the tubbiest I have seen Tenryu look. He wastes no time and pounds away with Araya from the onset. A big dive to the outside and some splash and chair shots. Tenryu climbs to the top again but gets hit with a dropkick from Araya with a chair to the face. An awkward moonsault is hit for a nearfall and Tenryu is bleeding. A kendo stick comes ina nd we get an almost exact replica attack of the one Gannosuke gave Tanaka a week earlier. Tenryu makes his comeback by throwing chairs and then climbs the top rope again for another dive. I don't know when Tenryu decided he was Hayabusa but this match has been fucking weird so far. Tenryu punches Araya some, sends him to the outside and does a crossbody from the ramp. Finally, back inside we are seeing the grumpy asshole Tenryu we love with peppering punches, short kicks, and stiff chops. Araya has been bloodied up what looks like hardway as a result of this dismantling. Araya musters up a bit of a comeback but it is shortlived as Tenryu hits a back suplex. Araya then wont back down and goes strike for strike with Tenryu before Tenryu gives an extremely stiff clothesline that Araya bumps oddly off of. After a clothesline battle, Tenryu hits one more and finishes Araya off. What a weird ass match with awkward spots abound, some straight lifting from the FMW match a week earlier, and Tenryu thinking he is a cruiserweight. (**)

[Kevin Ridge]

Araya was completely dominating Tenryu to start the match. Tenryu does some chair throwing to help turn things around. Then he gets in his trademark stiff strikes. Okay match but Tenryu did not seem himself for good parts of it. The title around Tenryu’s waste looks tiny compared to his big tights.

[Loss]

I agree that Tenryu was off his game here. If I didn't know that he still had many great years ahead of him, I would watch it and think he was finally winding down. It's unlike him to try for a bunch of highspots that are beyond his capabilities. Of course, it's Tenryu, so even below his best Tenryu still provides some value, and his facial expressions are unrivaled. They worked hard, but they also did too much.

[FLIK]

I don't know when Tenryu decided he was Hayabusa

 

2000

 

[bradhindsight]

Not much to add on top of Chad. Watching older Tenryu in this vein reminded me of Flair in ECW in '06. Pretty stiff stuff to wrap things up after they cycle through the basic hardcore match tenants of 1998. **

[Childs]

I always get a kick out of Tenryu and enjoyed watching him inexplicably take to the sky. Then he brought the requisite viciousness to put down Araya's challenge. I didn't get the washed-up vibe; Tenryu was never graceful or crisp, even at his peak. I can't defend this as a great match, but I enjoyed it more than the Teioh-Funaki from the same day.

[PeteF3]

This was okay-ish, but one of those Tenryu WAR matches where he tries to put the result in doubt and it doesn't work, because there's just no other native on his level in the promotion. Both guys work hard and do their best to put on a good match, but it tops out at about average. Tenryu's a little thicker but is pretty much the same as he ever was, but WAR as a promotion sort of feels like it's running on fumes.

[TravJ1979]

Fat Tenryu with a weightlifting belt on, visibly blading his arm on camera is not the Tenryu I like watching. All of the actual wrestling in this match was sloppy as hell and the brawling lackluster. A couple of good spots like the dropkick to the chair off the top and, well, maybe that is it.

 

RATING: Tenryu won a belt for this match. That's a good thing. He needs all of them he can get.

[Jetlag]

Just an awesome tubby guy fight & insane car crash sprint. They LAY INTO eachother and less than 30 seconds into the match Tenryu has kicked Araya in the nose! They do a bunch of ECW spots and bring weapons into it except this feels like a fight because these guys are mauling eachother something fierce and not making this overly cooperative. The big guy dives fucking rule because they feel so reckless – Araya almost compressing Tenryu's spine „I don't give a damn if you are in position or not“, and Tenryu later trying to climb the turnbuckle, but then going „Ah, I haven't thought this through – fuck it, I'll just do a forward roll“ and he nukes Araya. Araya grabs a kendo stick and goes MAD waffling the shit out of Tenryu and breaking the stick to stab him further. Araya argueing with the ref works because with all that has gone down you buy into the possibility that he might just beat the shit out of him too. Araya goes for one dive too many and gets wasted by flying chairs. It's such a perfect barfight move – you see a fat mulleted japanese guy getting ready to jump you, you start throwing chairs. By the end punches & kicks with serious contempt have been thrown, both guys bleeding from multiple places and just stubbornly ramming into eachother with stiff old lariats like bulls. Ehh ain't exactly Baba/Destroyer, but you know what you're getting from this. Wrestle and Romance.

[Superstar Sleeze]

I fucking loved this and cant believe people thought Tenryu was off his game, this is A-Grade Tenryu insanity! Thank you Jetlag for nominating this because I wouldnt have watched in a million years if you didnt nominate. 

Genichiro Tenryu vs Nobutaka Araya - WAR 1/14/98 J-1 Heavyweight Championship

With WAR on death's doorstep, Tenryu says lets make a Heavyweight Championship. I have seen one other Araya match from All Japan in like 2002. He is a chubba wubba. 

CHAOS! MAYHEM! PANDEMONIUM! I LOVED THIS! Tenryu is picking out shards of the broken Singapore Cane from his arm! THIS IS WAR! This is a fucking street fight. Tenryu just comes out balls to the wall, I am going to decapitate you muthafucka and I am going to hurl my body as a weapon. He just beat the shit out of him. Then when Araya tries to powder, he becomes an Araya-seeking missile of destruction. I love the wipe out of the chairs spots so, so much. No matter who does that is always over with me. Tenryu climbs up on a raised part of the arena and just wipes Araya out. Tenryu has a chair and he is not afraid to use it. He tries to come off the top with it and Araya dropkicks it in his fucking face! Tenryu is bleeding. Araya just moonsaults him. None of this bullshit let me take a fucking minute to make sure Im in position to catch you bullshit, Araya just fucking moonsaults him. Then Araya gets a hold of the Singapore Cane that Tenryu brought. HE FUCKING WAILS ON TENRYU! I am mean WAILS ON HIM! Then he breaks the Cane over the post and WHACKS Tenryu with is and Tenryu is left picking out splinters as his arm is just bleeding. So how the hell can they top this? Well what else do I love...CHAIR THROWS! Tenryu mounts his comeback by throwing a chair at Araya when he is on the top rope about to do a moonsault to the floor! Tenryu just brains him with the chair. TENRYU DOES A SOMERSAULT SENTON FROM THE TOP ROPE TO THE FLOOR! MARK OUT CITY! Back in the ring, there is kick that Tenryu does to Araya's face this is just digusting. As soon as he did I audibly said "Fuck!" Araya was bleeding from pretty much every part of his face. Then they kind of did a Choshu/Hashimoto finish mixed with a little All Japan. They were powerbombing each other and then no selling back drop drivers. Then it was just LARIAOTO CITY! They went full Chishu/Hashimoto and Tenryu hit big, meaty lariats. The final Lariat was a MONSTER TRUCK LARIAT! HE FUCKING SMOKED HIS ASS! 

Hate, violence and chaos! They beat the ever living shit out of each other. It never let up they just kept coming at each other. I cant believe people were giving this **...this is one of the best brawls ever! THIS WAS WAR! ****1/2

[Chess Knight]

Did 1998 Tenryu vs. 2005 Necro Butcher just become my dream match? I don't really know what the deal is here but when Tenryu has no cool and sprints for his opponent then something must have gone down between them previously. There were a lot of moments that, on paper, might read like flashy highlight video package bait, but in execution was just ugly, gritty, hateful violence. Like, Tenryu takes a moonsault while standing, and his spleen might have gotten the worst of it because of the landing. Araya goes ham with a kendo stick (even smashing it against the ring post to loosen the bamboo) and Tenryu blades his own arm to put the whacks over. He starts jamming it into Tenryu's throat too and I half-wondered if Tenryu would start blading his neck. Tenryu getting a moment during an Araya run-up to lift a boot allows him to chop the guy dead in the fucking throat, which looked more violent than any smash with a foreign object possibly could. When I tell you he looked to THROW his arm about as hard as he could, please believe me. I swear if the match had ended here we'd have probably the greatest five minute match of all time on our hands with a 10/10 finish. Tenryu isn't entirely on top following that, but still just finds an opportunity to chuck chairs into Araya's head, and dive on him by also basically just landing on his noggin. He barely looked like he could execute the dives he was doing but the end result definitely came off as a guy with a fat ass throwing all his weight onto somebody to try to win a legit battle. Tenryu mostly has Araya where he wants him (even Araya's nose is bloody by the looks of it) so he brings it back in the ring and starts throwing the usual chops and kicks, but Araya doesn't need weapons to build an offensive again either, so we get a pretty even last few minutes. Tenryu might do one of the best facial sells of a SLAP ever during. What a wild clash of cellulite and muscle.

[squidlad]

This was truly and honestly one of the most beastly matches I have ever seen. Tenryu lays in some of the stiffest kicks and chops of his whole career (and think of the ground that covers) and follows it up with some gnarly chair shots and even dives! And the dives actually look pretty good because they're just this reckless old man throwing his entire bodyweight onto his opponent and hoping the landing doesn't suck. Araya takes a mean kick to the face late in the match and emerges seconds later with a bloody nose, it's such an extreme level of violence. Both guys killed themselves for an end result that probably wasn't worth it but I give them all the kudos in the world. ****1/2.