Best Opponents for Inoki and Baba?

[JerryvonKramer]

"You could make an argument that [stan Hansen] is the greatest opponent for both Inoki AND Baba" - Dylan, 2011, Wrestling Culture #2

 

My immediate thought here is that while you COULD make an argument, in both cases it's probably someone else. But then it got me thinkinig ... well who are the greatest opponents of each?

 

For Baba, I think you can make arguments for:

 

1. The Destroyer

2. Jack Brisco

3. Billy Robinson

4. Dory Funk Jr.

5. Abdullah the Butcher

6. Harley Race

7. Bruno?

 

For Inoki ...

 

1. The Destroyer

2. Dory Funk Jr.

3. Andre

4. Abdullah the Butcher

5. Billy Robinson?

6. Johnny Powers?

7. Riki Choshu?

8. Vader?

 

Anyone glaring missing? How would people assess the cases of each?

[elliott]

I do think Hansen was the best rival for both Inoki and Baba. The absolute best matches for those two came against different opponents. But for long running rivalries/series, I think Hansen was the best opponent for consistently good-great matches. But the Inoki feud is probably my least favorite Hansen feud while the Baba feud is one of my favorites.

 

Easily the best Inoki singles match I've seen was against Fujiwara from 2/86 and I would nominate Fujiwara based on the strength of that one match. I know jdw will point out that Backlund was a great Inoki opponent but I'll let him talk about those matches since I haven't watched them in 15 years.

 

Hansen has to be Baba's best opponent. I absolutely love the Hansen/Baba matches from 82-84ish. The Destroyer draw is one of my 5 favorite matches ever though.

 

I would argue Hansen was the best opponent for Inoki, Baba, Colon, Kobashi and Terry Funk.

[Childs]

If I had to pick the guy who wrestled them both and had the best pair of single matches, I'd take Robinson, Brisco and then Hansen (need to rewatch Destroyer-Inoki, which I haven't seen in at least 10 years).

 

But I agree with Elliott that Hansen can claim more substantial rivalries with both, and I'd also rate Hansen easily the best opponent for older Baba. Also agree with him that Fujiwara was a great opponent for Inoki.

 

Dick Murdoch and Masa Saito might belong on the Inoki list as well. He and Choshu never did anything great together.

[Death From Above]

Having seen a fair amount of 70's/first half of the 80's Baba one thing I like about him is how he's actually pretty good in crazy brawls even if most people probably think about him more in that old school technical wrestling sense. I really do enjoy Hansen vs. Baba, and yes by extention Hansen/Brody vs. Baba/Jumbo.

 

I would argue that Abby's best AJPW opponent was actually Terry Funk, based mainly off the strength of both the 1977 and 1979 Real World Tag League finals. Those two Abby/Shiek vs Funk Brothers matches are probably my two favourite brawls, like... ever.

 

Baba/Destroyer is an all time classic, I just wish we had more of them working against each other on tape other than the one big epic. The thing Hansen has going for him is a much bigger sample.

[ohtani's jacket]

Considering Baba's best work was in the 60s and 70s, I have a hard time buying that Hansen was his best opponent. And as far as I recall, there wasn't really anyone who liked the entire Hansen/Inoki series. It seemed more a case of guys having one clear cut pick from the series. Best 80s opponent makes sense, but not best opponent overall. .

[JerryvonKramer]

I wish people would think of Funks vs. Abby / Sheik as a trilogy rather than 77/79, I really believe that 78 one is the diamond there.

 

My problem with trying to assess this is that I just hate Inoki. I don't even have Destroyer match with him all that high. Preferred Baba bouts with Brisco, Dory and Robinson to any of their matches with Inoki. Inoki is one of my least fave ever.

 

I'd probably pick Hansen just because he has one of the few Inoki matches I've ever rated highly with him.

 

I don't think of Hansen when I think of Baba rivals though.

[Jingus]

Considering Baba's best work was in the 60s and 70s, I have a hard time buying that Hansen was his best opponent. And as far as I recall, there wasn't really anyone who liked the entire Hansen/Inoki series.

I think what they meant was that Hansen had the best overall matches with both guys, more consistently than any other wrestlers did with both Baba and Inoki. Plenty of other guys had great matches with one or the other, but few wrestlers managed to achieve it with both.

 

And I doubt anyone else would throw his name in, but truthfully: Bruiser Brody had plenty of matches with both men which I thought were damn fine. When he was in the ring with the bosses, Brody would scale back a bit on his whole "eat your opponent alive and never sell jack shit" philosophy and actually have some really fun give-and-take brawling. (They still never had a clean finish, of course; eh, 80s Japan matches with brawly gaijins, whaddya gonna do?) Neither Baba nor Inoki were gonna sit there and let Brody dictate the terms of the match, so for once you'd see Bruiser being forced to work with someone who would only allow him to go so far, and no further. Of course Inoki would spend more time down selling Brody's beatdown (to make the eventual fiery comeback all the more climactic, natch) while Baba tended to be on his feet, grinning from ear to ear and doing even-steven strike exchanges; but that's just how those two guys worked differently from each other.

[JerryvonKramer]

I know people will sigh but Dory did legit have very good matches with both. Although in the case of Baba, mostly tags (but many great ones).

[Childs]

Considering Baba's best work was in the 60s and 70s, I have a hard time buying that Hansen was his best opponent. And as far as I recall, there wasn't really anyone who liked the entire Hansen/Inoki series. It seemed more a case of guys having one clear cut pick from the series. Best 80s opponent makes sense, but not best opponent overall. .

Hansen probably wasn't his best opponent but we don't have an equivalent chunk of prime Baba vs. a single opponent. So it's a hard comparison. But yeah, I'd rank Baba-Robinson or Baba-Destroyer way ahead of any single Baba-Hansen.

 

Parv, I recall you being lower than average on the Baba-Hansen series in general.

[JerryvonKramer]

Correct Childs, I honestly think Harley Race was a better consistent opponent for Baba. In fact, he might be my pick thinking about it.

[Childs]

I quite liked Harley's '70s matches with Baba and he's a fine pick. Don't recall liking their '80s stuff as much but don't remember it that clearly.

[JerryvonKramer]

10/31/79 is the stand out, a lot better than the two 1980 matches that made the AJ set.

 

There seems to be one from 1975 that wasn't on my Harley comp so I might have to review that soon. 12/9/75

[DR Ackermann]

I enjoyed the Choshu/Inoki matches that made the NJPW set more than the Hansen/Inoki ones. I thought the match where Choshu finally beat Inoki was really good.

[Childs]

I enjoyed the Choshu/Inoki matches that made the NJPW set more than the Hansen/Inoki ones. I thought the match where Choshu finally beat Inoki was really good.

 

Yeah, I actually forgot about their '89 match. Had that 44th on my ballot, below two Inoki-Hansen matches but still well within the excellent range (it finished 40th in the final voting, better than all but one of the Hansen matches). I guess Choshu-Fujinami was such a signature rivalry for the promotion that it overshadowed Choshu-Inoki in my memory.

 

Edit: Inoki-Hasen matches finished 37, 42, 67, 78 and 109 in the voting, so a consensus solid rivalry but not one that produced classics.

[jdw]

As Elliott guessed, I prefer Backlund's matches with Inoki more on a consistent basis than any other opponent of Inoki's.

 

Their first draw is clunky, but the month after they went 60 again and had the best Inoki match that I've seen.

 

The trio of re-matches in 1978 & 1979 all good, with them comfortable with each other and able to boil down what they did in the 60 minute matches to less than half the time. Those didn't have as satisfying of finishes as the second draw, which oddly was one of the more fitting/satisfying "time runs out" matches there is. On the other hand, it was cool to see Inoki win a real World Title from Bob, even with the post match goofiness. The Tiger Jeet nonsense on the switch back took away from what was a pretty damn good match.

 

I love the 1980 rematch in Miami: the two took their match on the road to a neutral site where Bob wasn't even the regular World Champ (Harley was), worked their asses off and got good response from the Florida fans. They work really well together.

 

I haven't watched the 1980 rematch in Japan in ages. I don't recall it popping me as much as the second draw in 1978 or the 1980 Miami match, but I also don't remember it being disappointing like say the 1980 Backlund-Slaughter match or the Backlund-Hansen cage match.

 

As far as working together, they matched up well. Inoki was an opponent where Backland could work a more technical style than against a standard US heel, someone who was quickly on the same page with him. For the era, they worked pretty high tech rather than the more limited stuff you'd see Bob do in the US. In turn, Inoki could go and answer most anything Bob threw at him, and return it in kind in tossing Bob into Bob In Peril sequences and be on that same page. Just a lot of fun to watch when they were clicking.

[jdw]

On Baba-Race, I think they were still having interesting matches into the 80s. I don't have as clear of a recollection of Harley's PWF win in 1982 as Baba winning it back the following year. For years we'd read about the two having a stinker in St. Louis. It's actually well laid out match similar to the 1979 Baba NWA Title win, with them throwing bombs down the stretch and actually getting crowd response. It's methodical, Baba is another three years older than in 1979, but if one accepts Baba and his limitations then it's a entertaining and watchable match.

 

I'm not super high on the 1975 match, and probably a broken record on it at this point. It's a 30 minute draw with quite a bit of pedestrian stuff on the mat / in holds where Harley just isn't as interesting as other people Baba could work holds with. It's lower tech than their later matches, and frankly if there's anything that the 1979 Baba title win showed it's that they match up best when throwing bombs at each other, Harley bumping big, and maybe mixing in some juice. Low tech just isn't the type of match Harley worked well, in contrast to Baba's work with The Destroyer in 1969 which was low tech love.

[jdw]

I think Baba worked quite well with both Funks. We're a bit "robbed" though in regards to their matches. Inoki's draws with Dory in 1969-70 are out there available, but Baba's draw the night after Inoki's 1969 one isn't available, nor his 52+ minute match with Dory a few nights before Inoki's second draw in 1970. There's zero doubt both were taped, and several years back on Youtube there popped up a pretty decent quality clip of the 1969 match that I was never able to find out where it came from. One of those has to be in the vault.

 

In addition, Baba had several big matches with Terry that have never seen the light of day:

 

12/12/71 NWA Int'l Title: Giant Baba vs Terry Funk (9:57, 7:18, 6:52) at Tokyo Metropolitan Gym

10/30/72 PWF Title Challenge: Giant Baba vs Terry Funk (19:15, 4:24, 5:00) at Nagoya Aichi Prefectural Gym

08/09/74 PWF Title: Giant Baba vs Terry Funk (12:18, 6:40, 1:44) at Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo

 

The middle one might have been before they got the NTV deal. It is one of the two big card and matches on the first series, with the only bigger one the Baba-Bruno at Nippon University Auditorium.

 

The other two had to have been taped given the buildings and the titles being defended.

 

If we had those matches, we'd have an even better idea of how he worked with them in his prime in singles settings.

[Childs]

Fujinami could go on Inoki's list as well, depending on how you feel about their '88 broadway. One of my few real regrets about the DVDVR selection process is our decision not to put that match on the set. It would have been interesting to see how people reacted to it. I could see many being bored to tears because they spent a lot of time working holds. But others would probably appreciate the intensity and the old-school build. I've felt both ways about the match. Enjoyed it when I watched it recently, though they lost their way a bit in the last 10 minutes. Anyway, it's worth checking out if you're interested in either guy.

[DGinnetty]

I think the 8/8/88 broadway has more appeal if folks watch their prior matchups, at least the 1985 match.

After their lockerroom altercation in April 88, Inoki gets "injured", Fujinami wins the belt, then defends against the prior champ (Inoki) who returns from injury.

Inoki can't get the win, thereby passing the torch, or at least taking himself out of the running as a title contender for a while.

 

The post match stuff certainly made it look like the end of the competetive Inoki phase, moving into the figurehead phase.

 

Without any of the buildup, the broadway might be seen as a bit pedestrian compared to other broadways.

 

Dan