[2000-03-11-Rikidozan Memorial] Genichiro Tenryu & B.B. Jones vs Shinya Hashimoto & Naoya Ogawa

[soup23]

No idea what the heck happened but Hashimoto is busted open walking out to the ring. I don’t really know or like him and Ogawa as buddies teaming here either. BB Jones or the Yetay jumps him at the bell. Inside the ring, Tenryu and Ogawa have a fun sequence and I would like to see them mix it up more. The stuff in the ring here is really heated as Tenryu goes after Hashimoto’s cut once he enters in. Reese is hanging out on the apron which is a good thing. Jones does come in and the match grinds to a halt for me with him not doing a whole lot of evil moves to a wounded Hashimoto. Hashimoto is a complete mess with the blade job and the injured arm. Reese elbows the arm twice in awkward fashion and gets the pin. WHAT THE FUCK????? **1/2

[Loss]

Looks like Hashimoto and Ogawa are Tag Team Partners Who Hate Each Other based on Hashimoto's pre-match, blood-soaked promo that he cut. I guess we missed an angle earlier on the show. Tenryu and Ogawa start out, which is an interesting matchup in itself, but it shockingly has no heat until Ogawa starts getting cocky. Hashimoto finally says fuck this match and goes off on his own partner, which turns this into less of a match and more of an angle, although the Tenryu-Hashimoto strike battle that follows is nothing short of spectacular. Hashimoto gives an amazing selling performance in a match that isn't designed to be much, but does a great job putting some heat on the 4/7 Hash-Ogawa match. BB Jones is in for the last couple of minutes and gets the win, which I could do without, but it didn't bother me too much. I've just never been crazy about the WWE booking where guys cost each other matches to build a feud, and that's sort of what Hash's loss here was. Absolutely worth seeing for Hashimoto looking incredible, but not much of a match at all.

[Moonsault Marvin]

Hashimoto comes out with red down his face, which at first, I wasn't sure if he was busted open or wearing some kind of face paint. Hashimoto and Ogawa hate each other, so there is no way they can coexist. My favorite part of the match was the Ogawa-Tenryu exchange with Tenryu doing a nice job of selling his head after a back suplex. Hashimoto finally attacks Ogawa, and then starts gushing blood. He gets a stiff beating from Tenryu, which leads to the huge BB Jones winning after some elbows that looked too far away from Hashimoto. This match was strange, but it was definitely interesting.

[Tim Evans]

Hashimoto does his best Onita impersonation by bleeding walking to the ring and crying after the match. Tenyru's look of disgust teaming with BB Jones was hilarious. He and Hash beat the hell out of each other. I continue not to be impressed with Ogawa. He's just so awkward it's like watching a pre Women's revolution Divas match. BB and Tiger steele are neck and neck for the worst wrestler I've ever seen. Weird match especially on a Rikidozan memorial show.

[Edwin]

OK... For some reason Hashimoto is already bleeding during his walkout and he also has a huge Mitsubishi sponsor on the back of his walkout robe... As the match evolves we also find out Hashimoto has a heavily taped arm which Tenryu and Jones go after of course.

 

Everyone here is great, except for Jones who's a huge guy dressed like Super Delfin and he can barely move.

 

The early exchanges between Ogawa and Tenryu are great. Cocky Ogawa starts slapping around the older guy before Tenryu can turn the roles around and stars slapping Ogawa back and he starts using his past sumo experience to corner and somewhat beatdown Tenryu.

 

Ogawa tagging in Hashimoto who berates Ogawa for some reason before he and Tenryu have a manly chop interchange. Tenryu's chops are brutal as he aims for the throat and not the chest as everyone else.

 

Jones' interactions here were the worst as he just comes in and goes after Hashimoto's arm and gets the pin relatively fast which ends this abruptly.

 

Unfortunately this was way shorter than it should have been and didn't really get the time to properly develop, but from what we did get to see, it had potential of being good had it gone on.

[Stiva]

Hash bleeding as he walks to the ring is a fantastic visual and he is ready to lay a beating in on any fool that comes into contact with him which includes his partner, Ogawa. BB Jones is The Yeti dressed as some CHIKARA offshoot and he manages to drag this down pretty badly whenever he's involved which is actually a shame as I enjoyed any pairing of the other three guys (as you'd expect). Tenryu is pretty subdued but it's all a backdrop to the heated Hash/Ogawa feud which boils over here in a nice, violent exchange. More of a heated angle than anything else but I still dug it.