[1993-02-14-WAR-Great History] Genichiro Tenryu & Takashi Ishikawa vs Tatsumi Fujinami & Hiroshi Hase

[PeteF3]

One of the best matches of the series that i've been able to find, in a really stacked year not quite sure how high this would be but it's easily top 50 & possibly top 30 or higher material.

[PeteF3]

This is definitely up there with any other NJPW/WAR bout you'd care to name--from work, pace, heat, and drama standpoints. Tenryu and Hase absolutely beat the shit out of each other and Fujinami is pretty feisty himself. Meanwhile Ishikawa works most of this like a '70s style babyface until the end, when he's put in the unusual position of savior, as the NJPW team isolates Tenryu and absolutely brutalizes the shit out of him. Tenryu gets leveled with double-teams and most of Hase's big moves and I really thought he was going down. It takes two Ishikawa saves and every effort to neutralize Fujinami for Tenryu to land a power bomb to escape with a win. One of the most breathless finishing stretches of any match this year, right now sitting as a top 10 bout.

[WingedEagle]

Super hot finishing stretch to another strong entry from the feud of the year. I felt that way about it at this stage of the year, and that didn't change having been through the entire year. Tenryu goes over another New Japan star while Hase is absolutely crazed sticking up for his squad afterwards, even going after the ref. Tenryu fed Fujinami & Hase so much down the stretch you were sure he was taking the fall here, even though you knew it was too early for it. I can't say that this rises to the level of the elite stuff happening in All Japan at the time, but I could probably watch 6 straight hours of this with much greater ease.

 

***3/4

[garretta]

YouTube this, please!

[Mr JMML]

Genichiro Tenryu & Takashi Ishikawa vs. Hiroshi Hase & Tatsumi Fujinami
WAR Great History 02.14.1993

We start Fujinami’s 1993 with a banger the kind of match you’d expect out of these four, they delivered an amazing bombfest but I have to say that the match lacks a clear structure instead we got a lot of violent exchanges between these four, I don’t think it balances out, Tenryu is made for these kind of matches and his performance alone makes the match a lot more enjoyable but everyone else while not being bad they weren’t convincing either, I still appreciate Fujinami’s effort to keep his character fresh, he’s still a technical wizard but in matches like this one he proved he is way more than that, the role of Ishikawa and Hase during the match was very simple it’s a master and apprentice relationship with their partners and it works, Fujinami and Tenryu were always the focus of the action with the other two trying to steal the show, it’s clear that both WAR and NJPW were slowly preparing for a passing of the torch, their rivalry during this time is legendary and a lot of people love it and this match is one of the greatest the whole feud had to offer, the other great contest its known for is the elimination match two days later I’ll probably write about tomorrow, as I said before this match doesn’t have a clear structure, if you’ve read my Rock ‘n’ Roll Express reviews you’ll know that for me the most important part of a tag team match is its structure so I’m not the biggest fan of this match, it just isn’t for me, if you are into japanese indy bombfests you’ll enjoy it, everyone did their job pretty well, I don’t have any problems with the individual performances but the result was disappointing.

Fujinami proved he could keep up with the best wrestlers in the world once again.