[1998-06-01-NJPW] Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata vs Genichiro Tenryu & Shiro Koshinaka

[Jetlag]

Another night of Hashimoto & Tenryu trying to slice through eachother with chops. It never gets old!! Really you always find something new when these guys are tearing into eachother. Hirata is one of the more non descript japanese guys but he is perfectly fine here getting kicked in the face by Tenryu and getting a nice run of offense near the end until he gets caught by a flying chair cause Tenryu knows no rules. W-A-R!

[MrMoonlight]

Quite clearly it’s those moments with Tenryu and Hashimoto striking each other that make the match. It may be the best "back & forth exchanges" ever. Both men selling there is awesome, you can feel at its most intense the pain, agony and pride on both men’s facial expressions and body language (even better than Ishii at his best), now I can’t wait to rewatch their G1 ’98 match as I’m going through everything I have for NJPW that year. The rest of the fight was is quite good, the end with Tenryu throwing a chair is cool but nothing great. It may not be a top tier match for that year but worth watching for those Tenryu/Hashimoto brilliant moments. 3.5* +