[1999-04-10-NJPW-Strong Style Symphony] Masa Chono vs Atsushi Onita (Explosive Barbed Wire)

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Chono isn't bad at working this type of match. He tries to go personality for personality with Onita, which is a pretty noble mission. They actually work comedy into this, which is hilarious. Chono even poses at one point to celebrate his ability to avoid hitting the barbed wire. I have to give props to him for bringing the Memphis heeling to this. In one awesome moment - my absolute favorite of the match - he tosses a chair across the ring without thinking out of frustration and the chair accidentally hits the barbed wire. There’s a huge explosion and he panics, ducking for cover and everything. This reminds me a lot of the Tenryu/Onita match in how they worked it. Chono doesn’t have Tenryu’s natural presence, but he went overboard here in the right ways. This is painfully slow at times and it’s not really a good match, but it’s still a fun watch overall. Kind of an anti-climatic finish though.

[tim]

Aw man, the best part of this whole thing got left out! The entrances are really something else. The match itself, eh, it was bad. There were a couple moments where this worked as a spectacle but overall I didn't even enjoy watching this as a whole on those terms. The missed chair throw spot was pretty great though.

[Tim Evans]

Yeah I agree, the best part was the entrance. Onita walking down the ramp smoking a cigarette while fans are throwing trash at him. Chono showing up in a TANK. I'm a huge Onita fan so I enjoyed this. The explosions were nice and even the ref takes a bump. Onita bleeds from the arm. It's crazy that this took place in New Japan. The same ring that Okada and Tanahashi wrestle in.

[soup23]

Fun spectacle type match that was executed better than i would have imagined. The spots with the exploding wire was great and Chono's reaction. Onita has a great aura to him of someone that has been in too many wars over the years and is unhinged. A really compelling loose cannon type character that alludes a lot of charisma. The headbutt sequence was also great. This felt like a fitting match on the big dome stage. ***

[PeteF3]

A second straight WTF Dome main event with another oddly muted crowd, though they do react well to a few isolated spots. The thrown chair is great and a fine way to establish the severity of the exploding wire, but while Chono and Onita do a fine job of selling how vital it is to avoid the impact at all costs, neither do a very good job of selling the long-term effects of actually getting caught. This really goes off the rails with an eye-rollingly contrived spot where both wrestlers and the referee all get caught in an explosion, and Chono gets a visual fall while backup ref Tiger Hattori is tending to the other ref instead of counting, defeating the purpose of even having a second referee. That shit barely holds up in the U.S. where gaga is to be expected--in New Japan it looks especially bad. Then a horrible, horrible finish: since these two couldn't sell the explosions for longer than ten seconds, this doesn't feel like two guys leaving everything in their bodies out in the ring with nothing left to give, it feels like two guys going to sleep because this is where the finish is supposed to happen. Chono and Onita make nice or something after the match in an angle I give less of a shit about than the stuff with Roddy Piper and the U.S. title earlier in the year. A monumentally disappointing match considering I was genuinely intrigued by the build to all of this. WCW's derailment is going to overshadow everything, but New Japan really is starting to appear lost in the woods at this point, even moreso than All-Japan and their upheaval.