[1980-11-28-AJPW-Real World Tag League] Abdullah The Butcher & Tor Kamata vs Dick Slater & Ricky Steamboat

[SAMS]

1980-11-28
AJPW
Abdullah The Butcher & Tor Kamata vs Dick Slater & Ricky Steamboat
Real World Tag League 1980 Match
Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan
★★★
Card

This was never destined to be a five star classic, but as the opening match of the tag league tournament, they clearly looked to begin with a bang. It’s striking how much Kamata feels like a low rent version of Abby when placed right beside him. Considering his whole gimmick was being Japanese, I’m very curious as to his perception in Japan, when he very clearly wasn’t Japanese. In the opposite corner both Steamboat and Slater were incredibly over with the crowd, who for Japan were a rowdy bunch from the get go.
The first half of this was pretty standard. Tie ups, wrestling holds, you know, normal stuff. Steamboat seemed intent on really selling with a capital S here, going to town when eating strikes from both his opponents. He almost went a bit overboard with the spasming thrown in there. It wasn’t long though before Abby had had enough of this standard wrestling malarkey and went for the foreign object. Steamboat got the brunt of it, tied up on the apron, and Joe Higuchi slowly lost control as Kamata joined in for the numbers advantage. From then on it was pretty much bedlam. Slater was throwing himself in there to try and fend them off his partner and eventually Steamboat was able to wrench himself free and get to the floor on the outside. It was interesting that his selling was more measured and realistic when taking a spike to the head than getting punched in the face. The only thing that I could complain about from when the brawl began until the end of the footage was that Steamboat probably didn’t bleed enough. It was more of a trickle than a gush, and considering the attack and the general mayhem going on I think some extra juice would have gone a long way. Either way, he and Slater managed to turn the tables on their opponents, using the foreign objects against them in return. Slater had Kamata absolutely seeping blood back in the ring while Steamboat and Abby stumbled through the crowd to mega reactions. Joe tried again in vain to regain some semblance of control but after getting shoved off by Slater a few times he threw in the towel and awarded the match to Abby and Kamata. Dodgy decision perhaps, as by now it would have been no secret who initially brought the weapons into the fray, but you’ve got to just go with the flow with these things sometimes. The wild frenzy of the brawl was easily enough to say this was an excellent curtain raiser for the tournament.