[1993-02-14-WAR] Riki Choshu vs Ashura Hara

[GOTNW]

There is so much greatness in this match. I absolutely love that 90% of the moves they do are just Lariats. This is living proof you can have a kickass one move match. "My Lariat is stronger than yours fuck you" is such classic dumb japanese machismo I can't help but love it, but the real difference between how they do it here and how some modern guys do it is in the way they it. There are no weird pauses where they just look at each other-there's clear hyping up and daring the opponent to give you his best shot. Whenever true peril emerges they fight back. The Lariats themselves look great but the "will they or will they not fall down" selling is done about as perfectly and dramatically as it could be. Hara's body language after Choshu knocks him down is AMAZING-not only was it amazing after Lariats, at one point Choshu just viciously stomped him and you see why Hara is such a great pro wrestler-he puts the move over in a way that it easily translates to you, the viewer, the move he was just hit hurt as hell but without milking it out so much it becomes a parody of itself AND he doesn't go overboard with it. That kind of perfectly balanced selling isn't easy to pull off. Show me Sekimoto or Okabayashi doing that. You can't. It doesn't exist. Choshu selling the damage of Hara's Lariats after he'd win a battle was PERFECT-you don't want any portion of the match to feel like time wasting, especially in the tight and compact matches Choshu likes to do and if you don't put over the damage Hara's previous ten Lariats have done to you why should the crowd care about the next ten? Some really good transitions here too-the "wrestler falls from accumulated damage despite hitting the last blow" is one that always works with the right workers, but Hara's amazing bumping stood out. The missed corner lariat was set up in the context of the match AND featured an insane bump-and Hara's bump off the apron after Choshu hit him with his Lariat-which might as well be a shotgun blast-was also mindblowing. Hara's counter Lariat was a perfect comeback tease and made me want to see Choshu take his head off ever further. And also Hara running away from the Lariat battle once he realised he was losing it was also really cool. ***3/4 but philosophically this might be my favourite match of all time.