Rusher Kimura

[Grimmas]

Reel said: 

I'm mostly nominating Rusher Kimura because he seems like the sort of person who should be nominated and I'm interested in what the general feeling around him is. Obviously, he has a rep as a talker, and that really isn't in GWE purview, per se, but he was the ace of a major promotion and had a big run in New Japan after IWE closed, plus the run as Baba's partner, including the all-time great Old Man tag from 89. 

vs Jumbo Tsuruta - IWE 3/28/1976

with Giant Baba vs Genichiro Tenryu/Jumbo Tsuruta - AJPW 12/8/1984

with Giant Baba vs Stan Hansen/Genichiro Tenryu - AJPW 11/29/1989

[Jetlag]

I remember him being incredibly dull when I went through all the IWE footage years ago. Really had me tearing my hair out watching badass legends like Vachon face this dullard. Even in his marquee matches like the Jumbo bout he doesn't add much. His old man run also produced about a solid decade of skip material. I know we shouldn't judge that stuff, but other guys like Aoyagi actually managed to add to those matches. He has his moments here and there but then, who doesn't?

[strobogo]

I agree with Jetlag. I was through 1986 or so in the AJPW Archive and I think I saw all of 2 matches with Rusher that weren't either terribly boring or just terrible. 

[Ma Stump Puller]

I love the guy in AJPW undercard 6-man tags with his delayed selling and grumpy uncle vibes but I've seen nothing of his prime work that suggests he's a top 100 recommendation at all. Even at his peak, he was always limited as to what he could and couldn't do and usually needed someone a lot more competent to lead him to a good match. He was a good prototypical brawler type but exactly HOW good he was will never probably be known fully because all of his early nasty cage stuff that got him his rep never made it to tape. Sure, he was a ace, but he wasn't a particularly interesting one.

Frankly, Elgin and Momota have way better track records (especially Elgin, who is deservingly more solid than you think he is from his comedy stuff) to work with, but that's another topic for another day.

 

 

[Robert S]

2 hours ago, Ma Stump Puller said:

Frankly, Elgin and Momota have way better track records (especially Elgin, who is deservingly more solid than you think he is from his comedy stuff) to work with, but that's another topic for another day.

It took me a couple of seconds to realize that you mean Haruka Eigen and not Michael Elgin. When talking about Family Gun members, you probably should also add Mighty Inoue, who in the couple of IWE matches I have seen of his (the ones that made the DVDVR 80ies "Other Japan" set) always looked good.