How Good/Bad was Post Exodus All-Japan in 2000?

[Ma Stump Puller]

Other Deep Dive stuff

Introduction

This is a kinda/sorta continuation of my AJPW series from 1995 all the way to the start of 2000, mostly covering the weird/interesting matches that others may have overlooked or simply not known about from surface viewing. I was comfortable with ranking that stuff because I had pretty good experience watching and grading that material, but AJPW in 2000 was WAY different in scope so I really wanted to just watch every single thing possible from those extremely rough 6 months when nearly all of the roster had left and guys like Wolf Hawkfield and Giant Kimala were left to keep the boat floating. This is a era that historically has been spoken of as the company's lowest ever point and one which almost killed it stone dead. Money-wise this is true, but was it really THAT bad in terms of match quality? I'm going to try to find out the answer.

This will involve reviews for pretty much every All-Japan match between the first event (the first Super Power Series, which took place on the first of July) to the end of the year. Some have so little footage on them (like legit sub-30 seconds) that reviewing them would be a waste of time, but I'll try to fit in as much as humanly possible regardless. 

I'll be generally ranking them like this: 

1. Great (MOTYC/highlight of project)

2. Good (worth watching)

3. Decent (average quality generally, not a must-watch)

4. Forgettable (don't watch)

This is more of a formality so anyone who's skimming these can get a quick synopsis of what to watch and not to watch without having to read through paragraphs. Like with any ranking system this isn't really anything refined, so always try to make your own mind up on a match if you are really that curious about it.

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Giant Kimala v Scorpio (01.07.2000)

At least 2 Cold Scorpio is still getting paychecks while AJPW burns, lol. This match really isn't that interesting for what's left of it, which is only a couple of minutes. It's a bit of a shame given Kimala did have a legitimately really fun match with Rob Van Dam a couple of years back and this could've been close to that had this been given more attention. It didn't, so erm, this is what it is. Scorpio hits the moonsault but Kimala gets out of the way and hits a running splash for the three count. Impossible to tell if this was good or not, so I'm just going to leave it as inconclusive. 

RANK: ???
 

Maunakea Mossman v Yuto Aijima (same day) 

Kea is the real winner out of everyone on this first event. He's the only fairly big name alongside Kawada/Fuchi to stay loyal and as such, he's gonna be rewarded with a huge push moving forward. This match really isn't a indicator of that though as it's against Yuto Aijima, a really quite crappy worker who inexplicably will end up working pretty much everywhere until getting a retirement match against the likes of Jun Akiyama, Akitoshi Saito, etc. I don't know how he got to that from this, but credit to him for grinding out a career from pretty much nothing. This was essentially a semi-squash as it went three minutes and Yuto more or less got some weak offence in before Mossman ate his lariat and finished him with some kicks + Hawaiian Crunch. Pretty nothing match.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Jinsei Shinzaki & Johnny Smith v Shigeo Okumura & Yoshiaki Fujiwara (same day)

Oof the growing pains hurt in this one. This is one of the first shows without the Pillars or basically 98% of the roster, who erm, these are who's left, a bunch of freelancers and some occasional AJPW guys. We only get around about four to five minutes of this on tape and what we do end up seeing is pretty standard. Shinzaki still does all of his spots bit for bit like you'd expect as Okumura jobs his heart out for everyone, eventually falling to the Gokuraku-Gatame submission after two powerbombs off Shinzaki to boot. Nothing to really rank here beyond the footage left over, not enough for a proper rating sadly. Smith and Fujiwara not even getting a look-in bar some occasional brawling is rather unfortunate.

RANK: ???

 

 Masanobu Fuchi v Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

Kawada comes into this one with a "Fight for Tomorrow" shirt on, so you know shit is real. I always seen this as a middle finger to what NOAH were promising. NOAH was offering this huge, high-budget high-production wrestling, a continuation of the excesses of Kings Road that Misawa had spearheaded during the 90's. In response, these two went out and wrestled a minimalistic, hard-hitting yet simple wrestling match all about Fuchi as the only remaining core from the Baba-era 70's against the next generation. Fuchi is obviously never going to win this and I think he knows he can't, so he drags this down to the only place where that might change: the mat. In a way this is them showing that the days of old (Fuchi's 70's style mat-wangling) simply will not cut it anymore in this new AJPW: they've moved on from the past, they don't need what the Pillars were building at this point. Fuchi tries to invoke the past further more by throwing cheap shots and trying to bully the guy like in those early 90's Tsuruta tags; Kawada's not that guy anymore though. He's not the punching bag that had to struggle in New Gen tags, he's THE guy now and he's not taking any shit from this asshole, so any attempt to skirt the rules gets answered with some pretty good aggression by Kawada.

You really feel like Fuchi's whole gameplan has been utterly exposed in the first five minutes and now all he can really do is take the beating that he's had coming to him for a good while. Now as much as I like Fuchi, he never quite is able to get those peak reactions: maybe that's to do with the crowd, exposed to him mostly though his status as a undercarder/Baba six-man tag guy in the mid to late 90's, maybe that's just Fuchi's ring work. Either way, he's not quite got the chops to get this to a fever pitch, something the match really needed. Both men are still great; but there's that missing X-factor to this that just bugs me out when I'm trying to get into it. Kawada's shoot-style flirtations continue with lots of cross-armbreakers, rear naked chokes, etc. It makes for a more fleshed out Dangerous K as opposed to the more generic kick-happy version he can at times snooze into being. The two wanted to show that AJPW's hierarchy of talent was still a thing post-Pillar era and, well, they accomplished that pretty well I'd say. Wild Kawada is put over THIS much yet will only hold the Triple Crown once proper three years later. This is by far one of the better matches of the year and pretty much a must-watch for the era despite lacking that crowd heat to really make it special. Regardless of how weird it seems, this match was essential to establish Dangerous K as the ace and to redefine Fuchi from his earlier work.

RANK: Good

 

Masanobu Fuchi v Shigeo Okumura (02.07.2000)

Shigeo Okumura! More known for his politicking in CMLL as a agent and talent these days, back here Okumura's just a undercarder that'll do not a whole lot but job in his years in AJPW. Fuchi's chest is still red raw from the beating yesterday by Mr K but he's all up to get the new guys over anyway, what a nice chap. We only get a few minutes of this though so it's mostly Okumura in control until Fuchi manages to impressively counter the guy by catching his arm for a inverted double wrist lock, making him tap-out pretty easily. Not much to say about this bar it being a enjoyable Fuchi opener. 

RANK: Decent

 

Giant Kimala v Wolf Hawkfield (same day)

Clipped slightly: we only see five minutes of this bout in action. Hawkfield scores a top rope shoulder press and works over Kimala until he counters with a running neckbreaker and a rolling senton. He tries to go for the three but Hawkfield is able to kick out, and then counters him when he tries to go to the top rope for some reason. Another top rope move in the form of a generic splash finishes things off. Not the most eventful and barely a match in of itself, complete filler. Kimala's just not cooking with much by this point. 

RANK: Forgettable

 

Jinsei Shinzaki v Scorpio (same day)

Now HERE'S a match worth talking about, and we thankfully get a few minutes to showcase the two. Scorpio looks pretty damn young when you consider what he'll look like in just a few years, but his apparent biggest vice (crack cocaine!) probably had something to do with that. As much as you might want to see a Shinzaki/Scorpio matchup as this really cool matchup between two guys with very innovative high-spots and tricks, sadly this was not it. Scorpio was overshooting on his big spots and Shinzaki was making him look like shit by kicking out of his moonsault at 1 and generally not being very cooperative. Scorpio immediately makes him take a proper 2-count right after for that as a dig. They also botched what I think was supposed to be a Frankensteiner counter to Scorpio's own powerbomb as Shinzaki shifts his weight wrong and they end up badly crumpling as a result. Shinzaki basically just says "fuck that" and rather than repeating the spot he just does his finish for the win. This was....pretty bad, which is crazy to say when you have two typically really reliable workers going at it. Maybe it was the fact they'd never faced off before, maybe it's a language barrier, maybe it was just bad luck. Either way, this wasn't good, sadly.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Johnny Smith v Steve Williams (same day)

Clipped to be about nine minutes long. Smith has always been known as a fairly mediocre to decent worker as a guy trying to cash in on the British boom in Japan with Davey Boy and Dynamite Kid: he's not exactly amazing, especially now that he's getting on a bit and isn't far from retirement, even if he is fairly reliable in his role. Williams is a few steps from what he was at the start of the 90's and with Gordy. Smith does turn on the gas a bit with a top rope dropkick and a tornado DDT but a sloppy neckbreaker botch doesn't help any. Williams takes over and does a bunch of power moves that look fairly fine. Smith blocks the big Oklahoma Stampede and smartly holds on to his opponent's leg to evade the Doctor Bomb, but Williams just smacks him across the head and smashes him with a backdrop driver anyway for the three. These guys don't work the best together and there are some noticeable botches but this was perfectly suitable for a regular bout, no real complaints.

RANK: Decent

 

George Hines & Mike Barton v Maunakea Mossman & Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

Cut to around about 6 minutes. Tenryu has been allowed back into All Japan after more than a decade of Baba-induced exile. The seal has been opened, the curse has been lifted. Sadly the negative Karma for this is massive: having George Hines and Mike Barton be a threat to the ace of the company...maybe not worth it in that case. This is also cursed in other ways that we'll talk about very soon here. The action for this was mostly by the numbers, with Kawada being the big dog that Hines and co have to double team to put down, namely with fairly decent work on their part as a powerhouse duo with some tricks in their bag, Hines is quick on his feet and all that. Anyway, the pace is solid, everyone is moving around well, Mossman is slowly getting better and better with every match....and then the finish goes wrong.

Kawada goes for his typical Gamengiri to the back of the head and this gets the three count on Hines: it's a bit stiff but hey, that's generally how he does it. Kawada seems a bit surprised by the fact that this is a three count, and even slaps him on the chest afterwards, almost to see if he's awake or not. He's not. Kawada immediately knows Hines is out and the guys come in to make sure he's ok. Kawada even stays long after until Hines gets dragged out by about three guys holding him. So yeah, AJPW is in the pits AND they keep messing up matches! Not a great start. Anyway, from what I seen this was relatively solid for a main event, even if Hines and Barton being at this level is very forced and not at all natural. It's the best they can do without guys like Tenryu, and yeah, they REALLY needed that to change because this was not gonna be enough.

RANK: Decent

 

Scorpio v SHINOBI (09.07.2000)

Scorpio fights SHINOBI, known for..... well nothing really, he's basically just a indie/lucha undercarder with some random appearances here and there. His match is so forgettable that we skip everything up to the end, which is Scorpio hitting a moonsault and 450 splash for the win. Nothing to say about this one: too short to judge, especially with only a minute of footage.

RANK: ???

 

Jinsei Shinzaki v Yuto Aijima (same day)

Shinzaki goes up against Aijima, who was hyped up in prior showcases as a big deal. I think management legitimately did think he'd be a get for them in the long-run with his rugged appearance and admittedly decent lariat, but he just seems like a bit of a bad prospect here. Shinzaki dominates Aijima for the most part, gives him no room to do anything, gets all of his spots in, and then makes him tap out with a modified Red Ink submission. Basically just a squash match but Shinzaki looked great here so I'll give it a bonus based on that alone.

RANK: Decent

 

Johnny Smith & Yuki Ishikawa v Masanobu Fuchi & Shigeo Okumura (same day)

We miss out on nearly 15 minutes of potential awesome Ishikawa/Fuchi action due to clipping, ugh. We still get a fragment of that in what's left though, with the two battling on the mat as Fuchi mostly can't handle the snappiness and speed of his younger opponent. Johnny Smith does his typical dropkick/kip-up/lariat, but gets caught with a back suplex by Fuchi in a fun alternation of his usual routine. It was cool that they were trying to at least semi-push Okumura as he beat up on Smith for a minute or so with some generic but completely competent offence. He tries for his own top rope dropkick but Smith's been spamming that move for 10+ years now so he definitely knows how to dodge it as well. He beats on Oku with a impressive piledriver into his typically weird bad British Fall: takes way, way too long to do and generally doesn't look that impressive (especially when guys like CM Punk were doing it where it looked even worse somehow) but that's the finish, amazingly. This seemed to be solid but with so much cut, it's hard to judge as anything more than average despite having some pretty nice changes in the formula for these kind of undercard matchups. 

RANK: Decent

 

Maunakea Mossman & Toshiaki Kawada v Mohammed Yone & Yoshiaki Fujiwara (same day)

PWFG vs AJPW? Sort of? It's a bit late for that. We got about 10 minutes of this left and hey, it's actually pretty good! Fujiwara and Kawada do some pseudo-shoot style grappling (alongside Fuji just laughing off K's kicks while sticking on a double wrist lock and socking him in the face with a punch, which was funny) we get some good heat between the two as well that's pretty solid, with Fuji managing to pull Kawada from his usual comfort zone in places. Yone is mostly the whipping boy as the AJPW faithful focus on him and.....yeah it's pretty much just that with some minor Fujiwara interactions as Mossman just goes though all of his spots, hits the Hawaiian Crusher and wins, basically. It's a clear and focused attempt to get Mossman as over as humanly possible as a new star going forward, something that will become very obvious as the year goes forward. Again, the clipping is pretty harsh here and we do miss out on a lot of the interactions that I think would've made this a little bit better than what we seen. I mean even Yone, who I historically just super dislike looked fine here with his leaner look and focus on strikes instead of mindless lariats and bad heavyweight shtick. It's a knowing look into AJPW barely staying afloat and what they were trying to do to fix that; even if it wasn't perfect, these sort of slapdash matches could at times be real solid when you had the proper pieces in place.

RANK: Good

 

Ryuji Hijikata v Shigeo Okumura (11.07.2000)

Cut down massively to a few minutes! What we see isn't that interesting; just pretty generic opener-level stuff between the two until Okumura slaps on a Octopus Stretch and finishes things off. Man, Ryuji has fell off a fair bit from his Battlarts days if this is anything to go by lol. Not much to say.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Giant Kimala & Scorpio v Mike Barton & Wolf Hawkfield (same day)

20 minutes of these four in action? Hmm. Thankfully we only get a couple of minutes left over from the official VHS copy. Kimala is no longer wearing his tribal gear, instead having a pair of shorts that say "K" on them. Dangerous K? Is that what the K means there after all these years? Amazing stuff. Anyway this is just here to get over the impending Barton/Steele duo that'll have some pretty good matches in the future. Now? Not so much. Scorpio bumps like a trooper for the two as they throw in some double team offence; Barton finishes things solo with sloppy stuff, Scorpio flopping after a right hand, few quick Scorpio counters until Barton throws the dude in the air for a big Ace Crusher for the pin. This wasn't really anything super remarkable (especially with the fact that this went on for 20 MINUTES and 80% of that got chopped) but it was fairly enjoyable for what it was and Scorpio is always a treat, even when he's stuck with all of these lumpy heavyweights.

RANK: Decent

 

Masanobu Fuchi v Yoshiaki Fujiwara (same day)

This was aired with a couple of minutes, was caught in full via camcorder. Fuchi and Fujiwara for 30 minutes of technical work.... in the 2000's doesn't sound like the GOAT match of all time, but this wasn't actually bad at all, outside of some stalling at the start and unnecessary ring work. I love the intensity that goes on here: Fuchi tries to play it cheeky with some toying around but Fujiwara immediately grabs on multiple armbars despite Fuchi's best technical attempts to escape and this plays into the rest of the match, as Fuchi now has to wrestle with one good arm while Fujiwara does some vicious limb work to it. Fujiwara is pretty brutal as well during this, wrapping Fuchi's arm up in the ropes and just not letting go, stomping on it, kicking it, basically anytime he can get his hands on Fuchi, he's working the arm in some manner with some cool stuff. Fujiwara's aggression allows Fuchi to get openings as well: both men struggle with a cross armbreaker but Fuchi is able to roll him up and get some stiff slaps in with his other arm, and manages to get a free leg to grind his face in as well.

Not withstanding later when Fuchi's just booting the dude in the face multiple times for the sake of it. Second half has Fuchi slap on a very long STF/leg vine submission, as well as using his free arm to also make sure Fujiwara can't get to the ropes, and when he does, he manages to escape a second attempt with a very good ground to standing transition via a monkey flip as per Fujiwara spots tend to include. Not to be outdone, Fuchi focuses in on Fujiwara's leg, using the ring post multiple times to damage it further. From then on in, Fujiwara limps through proceedings. Latter half has Fuchi and Fujiwara exchange leg and arm holds, with Fuchi getting a really good leg vice wrapped in, even arching for the move itself. Fuchi has his opponent on the ropes a few times but Fujiwara uses closed fists to take back any lost ground, as well as choking the life out of him. Dude nails him with like at least 10 headbutts in a row yet Fuchi won't quit and nails some big slaps. He pulls through a few attempts to make him tap as well as expertly reversing a Fujiwara Armbar into a sleeper hold until the bell sounds for the time limit draw before he could've potentially got the win. This is a pretty well hidden gem: it's not just two old guys beating the crap out of each other, it's also a super basic, albeit very well done technical showcase by two masters of the game really grinding things down into a simplistic rhythm. Solid showcase that you could only really get out of this weird age of All Japan. 

RANK: Good

 

Steve Williams v Mohammed Yone (same day)

Steve Williams could still bring the goods and this further shows that as the case despite no longer being the more workrate/smark favourite from the 90's. Yone still bumps big for the guy, but Steve's got a good niche as being a slower heavyweight that just throws people around, even if it means he has to eat a few shots in return to get his hands on someone. Him hitting Yone with a Dangerous Backdrop on the turnbuckle was a surprisingly safe spot for how impactful it looked, especially with Yone selling it like he just lost consciousness right afterwards. There's some good struggle between the two as Yone tries using a lot of speed to counter and escape, yet he's still pretty much helpless to deal with Williams just running him over until he can finally put the spirited lad down. Good sprint of a match; you have to wonder what Yone would've looked like if he hadn't went to NOAH. Would he have been a bigger deal? I'm not sure, but these sort of matches were way more engaging than what they had him doing. 

RANK: Decent

 

Jinsei Shinzaki & Yuki Ishikawa vs Maunakea Mossman & Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

Reviewed this already.

 

RANK: Good

 

Masanobu Fuchi v Shigeo Okumura II (23.07.2000)

Few minutes left on this (namely the beginning and most of the middle) but for what it's worth I thought it was better than expected. Mileage for Fuchi can vary but I thought he did a decent job working the opener as a experienced and confident vet, easily countering a German suplex into a double wrist lock transition and generally keeping control over the match. Despite Okumura getting over with some spirited resistance he's eventually put out with a limp flying kick and big backdrop.....or so you think, but nope! He kicks out of that as well. Few limp dropkicks into a second huge backdrop finally finishes things off proper. Real nothing match that was mostly a Fuchi squash, but hey Fuchi's pretty good at those after about two decades or so, who knew? Okumura bumps super well for the guy and it gets to the point where even Fuchi was checking up on him post-match to see if he was alright, which says a lot all things considered.

RANK: Decent

 

SHIIBA v SHINOBI (same day)

Clipped to about 2 or so minutes. I'm gonna be honest I have no fucking idea what was going on here, it's just a cut into SHIIBA doing a big elaborate drum routine while SHINOBI looks at him and kicks the drum over like a uber heel. It felt like a weird DDT skit where you just have to go with it because it's all meta-jokes that you'd only know if you were Japanese, it's silly. Cut to SHI doing a weird leaping headbutt off the top rope and things seem interesting...but then the two just have really sloppy exchanges that pull you right out again. Things finish quick with a snappy SHI modified German suplex, pin-fall and we're done. This would be SHINOBI's last proper match as this German suplex was seemingly botched/he got injured earlier, suffering from what appears to be a shoulder injury which pretty much ended his career bar a final battle royal appearance he'd do next year before vanishing. I'm not going to pretend like he was any good, but no one likes to see that in a wrestling ring. Pretty sad and weird end to All Japan's original experimentation with lucharesu (though Ryota Chikuzen will do a 2001 tour of the company with the SHIIBA gimmick, it's the last we'll see of it). Can't really rate this knowing what was going on here. 

RANK: ???

 

Giant Kimala v Yuto Aijima (same day)

...yeah this stunk. I'm not going to pretend like these two actually had a five star classic, that's just insulting your intelligence. They still showed about 4 or so minutes of it though for some reason. Kimala is gassed up but still bumps and jumps for Aijima's stuff fairly reliably until he lands a flying clothesline. Kimala lets loose with shitty forearms before hitting a splash into his signature rolling senton. Also not enough, he then gets the crowd hyped for a classic Kimala splash that gets the fall and the match. I mean it wasn't terrible or anything but good lord it's sad seeing what used to be one of the most acclaimed companies in the world stick matches like this up for paying crowds, rough times.

RANK: Forgettable

 

George Hines & Scorpio v Mike Barton & Wolf Hawkfield (same day)

5 minutes left on this one and it's the first actual decent outing of this entire card, who knew? Scorpio is doing sick spots as per standard and the beefy Barton/Wolf pair are starting to get a grove on together as a unit with some custom double-team moves for the occasion. Hines almost fucks up bumping for a double flapjack as he doesn't keep his back straight, almost going headfirst into the mat, yikes! Nice double top rope move as we get a Wolf splash into Barton elbow for another broken up near fall. Hines and co decide "nah we can do a cooler version" and we then get a Hines diving headbutt into a Scorpio 450, which was pretty damn flush and way too cool for a All-Japan undercard. Finish is amazing: Scorpio is out on the apron, Bart misses a lariat and gets hit with a forearm to the back of the head. Scorpio flings himself off and gets hit with a Barton Ace Cutter out of nowhere! Actually amazing to see a Orton-tier spot involving a cutter before he was even a wrestler lol. That's the finish of course, and wow, this was quite good. Granted there's next to no selling and it's almost all spots, but shit I would've liked to have seen a bit more of this given how well everything was going here. Solid stuff.

RANK: Good

 

Johnny Smith v Yoshiaki Fujiwara (same day)

We only get a few minutes of this and my god it was probably the best Johnny Smith has looked in years if ever. I mean it's Fujiwara, expected, but these two just clicked in the footage I seen of this, it was unreal. Smith struggling for the back to snap on some brutal German suplexes, Fuji furiously trying to get on a submission or even to slip away onto the ropes....like it was super well done just to build up a simple move, the levels of struggle involved were really well produced. Fuji had zero escape as Smith shifted weight and used his legs to make sure the leverage never went Fuji's way, so he was kinda stuck and had to turtle for his life. It's understandable why Smith would be so relentless given his opponent could snap him in any other angle, just wish we got the build-up for this so it would mean more. Smith hits a second German and shoves his forearm in the face of Fuji for the near fall. He tries for a top rope dropkick and hits it for the usual kip-up, but Smith's a dummy so instead of going right into more suplexes he tries for a lariat, because that's how his routine usually goes, right? Big mistake. Fuji grabs his swinging arm for a easy namesake armbar and a equally easy tapout. Fujiwara is such a dick post match, smiling like he was never in any trouble. Anyway this was a few minutes of some solid wrestling. Do you know these two ALSO had a 30 minute time-limit draw next year....and that it wasn't filmed at all? Sigh. If Smith had these matches properly recorded by anyone he'd probably be a top 200 wrestler by now.

RANK: Good

 

Jinsei Shinzaki v Steve Williams (same day) 

Super rare match here, and it shows: this is just seven minutes of what was a 15+ minute bout, pretty severe clipping there. Both guys start with stiffing each other with some pretty hard strikes, and then Williams dumps Shinzaki outside with a gorilla press, which looked pretty nasty as he'd slam on his side on a nearby table. Match later picks up with Shinzaki knocking Williams down with a few Enzuigiri attempts. He tries to fall up with a shoulder press from the top rope but it's pretty obvious that Williams isn't going to be tagged by it by how long it takes for the setup lol, and he dodges and gets a Doctor Bomb off for a close two. A powerslam doesn't get the job done either. Shinzaki reverses a Backdrop attempt into a close pin, but Williams overpowers and goes for another: Shinzaki gets up almost at once afterwards but flops to the ground, which looked pretty silly. I get this spot is supposed to be dramatic and one based on someone essentially pushing their body with raw fighting spirit, it's just that the actual application of the spot has almost always looked really stupid, and Shinzaki doing it here was pretty much just as if not worse given how he was doing it. A last Backdrop and a scary looking bump into Shinzaki's neck ends the match. From what I've seen, both guys were pretty gassed throughout the match that was shown, which seems to imply that the cut footage was probably a lot of downtime and rest spots. Either way, it's near impossible to grade this with how little we do see, but the action of what was shown was fine, so I can't really grade it beyond a average rating. Table spot was crazy though.

RANK: Decent

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada v Maunakea Mossman & Stan Hansen (same day)

Mossman still comes out to his old theme but with a new hairdo and all black gear it's clear his impending push is coming in more than one way. The people want to see Tenryu...so we get Kawada and Mossman doing amateur wrestling for a few minutes, of course. It's not bad actually but definitely not what the fans want, though a fairly fiery striking exchange gets the crowd a bit more interested. Hansen even at this point has these great little tendencies: when Tenryu matches in and starts throwing shots to him on the apron he doesn't just sell a bit and then reset, he gets in there and starts just throwing hands back like you would in a actual fight. We even get Hansen headbutting, which he sells wonderfully afterwards because, you know, headbutts hurt on both sides in a actual fight. As I said, Hansen's just a supreme little things worker, even with his back wrecked beyond belief and a near incapable ability to bump he's still able to play with the crowd here as both a hard-hitter but also a old cowboy riding with little left in the tank, spending most of this on the backend of beatings and having to use every little scrappy trick, dirty or otherwise, to survive. Tenryu comes in to beat up Mossman during a fairly awkward sequence with Kawada and they do quite well; Kea has talked about how Tenryu was one of his best opponents and teachers, showing him about how to pace himself during wrestling matches, intensity, etc. 

You really get that from here as Tenryu eats lots of hard shots from the younger opponent but always answers back with his own, really dragging any advantage out and hooking the crowd big when it does happen, rather than just going tit for tat over and over ad nauseam while the crowd just sits and watches. Hansen gets his signature outside brawl and throws sick punches, always a treat. The middle is mostly a control segment with Kawada doing all of the selling, so as you can imagine this was quite solid! Mossman even gets some good fire scrapping with him on the mat, though can't get a win despite even hitting his greatest hits. Tenryu runs in for some nasty shots, Mossman does the spit sell for some chops in particular that just look rough as anything. Brutal German suplex from him thanks to some Hansen assistance, he teases another Smasher on Tenryu before getting double-teamed. Road to finish has Hansen interrupt a 53-Sai but get wrecked off a great double team kick combo but just manages to recover to tag Tenryu off a Western Lariat, which balances the books and more or less leaves Mossman by himself. A fresh Kawada comes in to pick off Mossman and despite some spirited exchanges the latter is just way too fatigued to do much about it; he has no strength left bar kicking out and no selling a few times before a powerbomb firmly stops him for the pin. This is a great tag match that firmly puts over Mossman as a rising star, but also showcases everyone else in their respective roles, with Hansen still being a threat alongside Kawada as ace and Tenryu as his biggest challenge to date. The pace is kept strong despite some messy moments and all in all it works for what it tries to do. It's not a match you could stick tons of GIF's on, but it is one that you can watch a few times over and appreciate the amount of detail that the four try to work in. 

RANK: Good

 

Masanobu Fuchi v Yuto Aijima (20.08.2000)

Oh boy my favourite, Aijima matches. Sigh. This was Fuchi trying to carry this lump to something and succeeding somewhat, even if that something was rather boring. Fuchi dominates with basic unimpactful work (AKA stuff this guy can't botch or muck up) Aijima gets up to do a powerslam and a lariat before Fuchi slams some great backdrops to make the dude look like ass before tapping him out with the vintage rookie-killer, AKA the single leg Boston Crab. Nothing opener that was mostly there to showcase Fuchi in his new role as rookie stretcher.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Damien 666 & Halloween v Super Calo & Super Parka (same day)

This is shown in a dramatic and super edited way, so the amount of actual match we get out of the whole slice is pretty small; just a few cool spots and that's around about it for anything worth mentioning from myself. 666 does a cool double springboard arm drag, Halloween lands a big double dropkick, but Calo is able to steal a win with a top rope Frankensteiner on Hallo to get the fall. Post-match has M2K show up to talk trash to build for their mini-feud to come, thus starting the beginning of more lucha stuff being involved with All-Japan cards. Nothing much else to add, it's more or less a competent lucha spotfest for what was shown.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Sabu v Shigeo Okumura (same day)

Basically a typical Sabu match, so tolerance varies depending on how much you like watching those. Sabu was also working this at half-speed as well, kinda just waiting to do his spots. He smashes his neck off the guardrail when he misses a chair-assisted plancha to the outside and Okumura takes over with headlocks and lumpy WAR-style offence, so forearms and slams mostly. There's a cool (ish) spot where Sabu dodges a chair swing by sliding his legs between Okumura to trip him up before then doing a shitty Arabian Skullcrusher that he fell basically ass first on; you can hear him groan afterwards if you don't believe me. Good Triple Jump Moonsault gets a near fall, Sabu is too occupied with chair arrangement to notice Okumura recovering and trying for a superplex, but failing. Sabu grabs the chair for a fucking vicious shot to the back of Okumura's head before finishing things with a Arabian Facebuster for the finish. As I said, if you love Sabu shit then this'll work, but even then it's a fairly low-end Sabu performance with a generic baby-blue Okumura, so you know he's getting jobbed out and...yep, he does. 

RANK: Decent

 

Genichiro Tenryu, Nobutaka Araya & Toshiaki Kawada v Johnny Smith, Mike Barton & Stan Hansen (same day)

This almost felt like a cool 90's All Japan main event bar Araya and Tenryu being here. Also cool to see more of Hansen's last months working, even if he doesn't do a whole lot. Araya is cool with his moonsaults and fat-guy work, even if he's by far the weakest link here. I don't get Smith no-selling a full on lariat to do a German suplex though, seemed awkward looking back at it. Hansen can't work for longer than maybe two minutes or so by this point and most assuredly can't bump big, but he uses that smartly to lead into the other big guys as this huge old vet that can knock people around and takes a lot to properly put down. Him and Tenryu bring the hate with scrappy stuff, but it's arguably Barton with his sharp strikes that gets more out of the same exchange, putting him over by having Kawada need to assist to allow Tenryu to get the advantage against the big puncher. Him and Kawada do this awesome double Enzuigiri and Kawada leads with his usual mannerisms, inevitably having to eat the bumps when Barton digs out of the hole with a cutter and forcing everyone to get in as a result. Hansen strolls in to deliver a sneaky Western Lariat to Kawada during the commotion, allowing Barton the upset with his gut punch and powerbomb to steal the win over the guy in one of his first big victories. Not bad! Everyone here mostly is on B-show mode, so we got sneak peaks at feuds and matches but not a lot of substance, especially with Kawada barely showing up until the very end. I definitely think this is one of the weaker main events at the time, namely because of how many people are here who are either limited, out of their prime, or just not capable of a great showing at this point and time. Heat was definitely solid, it just didn't translate into much worth talking about.

RANK: Decent

 

==========

end of part 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[William Bologna]

15 hours ago, Ma Stump Puller said:

Johnny Smith v Yoshiaki Fujiwara (same day)

Of all the stuff I watched for the Johnny Smith Project, this was absolutely the best. But how does one rate a two minute clip? The rest of the match can't have been this good, right?

The tag league should be interesting if you get that far. I skipped around, but I remember being impressed with Fujiwara and Fuchi in the clips I saw.

[Ma Stump Puller]

part the second

==============

Ryuji Hijikata v Sabu (25.08.2000)

Actually a half decent match. Sabu isn't exactly amazing without hardcore stipulations but he does the technical work fine and keeps focusing on Hijikata's leg, and he still does get a few good spots in without botching/adding tension by pretending to botch. He mostly dominates the match outside of a small comeback from Hijikata where he awesomely kicks a chair into Sabu's face. Otherwise it's all him, and he quickly puts him away with a chair-assisted moonsault. Fun showcase and the crowd were into Sabu from the start from what footage was intact.

RANK: Decent

 

Johnny Smith v The Cedman (same day)

Wanna see Johnny Smith carry a rubbish Steve Williams-scouting hire? No? I mean....I don't blame you. As much as I can hate on some of the lesser guys in AJPW during the Pillars era of the 90's (and especially the one-time hires that they were bringing in the downturn years) this is a far, far cry from any of that. Ced is in decent shape but he's about as useful as the lumps Michinoku Pro used to randomly hire to job for them, just green, basic, botches every third move, ugh. Smith is here to work a house-show match so he's doing the basics, and even then Ced is not in time to Smith's usual big sequences so even those are awkward. Match mostly just happens, moves are done sloppily. Smith finishes things with a good German suplex followed by a sloppy British Fall for the finish as fans laugh and enjoy themselves watching this big lump finally stop wrestling. Simply bad, Smith isn't really in much of a mood to do a whole lot aside from the basics of his routine and Ced is pretty unseasoned. He has some atheticism but he needed at least 2 years of extra experience before even getting a look in.

RANK: Forgettable 

 

Genichiro Tenryu, Jinsei Shinzaki & Stan Hansen v Taiyo Kea, Toshiaki Kawada & Yoshiaki Fujiwara (same day) 

We get 7 minutes of this on the clock and yeah, it's pretty good; you can just look at the two teams here and judge that as such for yourself without anything else said by me. The Kawada/Tenryu build is mounting incredibly well with the two beating the shit out of each other with chops and boots with some strong exchanges. Tenryu's punches even don't get much use as Kawada is still able to truck along and hurl his own signature spots right back. Fujiwara/Hansen is incredible; just the way Hansen sells the Fuji headbutts by just slumping over and not even trying to back-bump, seeing the two scrap and brawl for every inch of advantage possible is great. Hansen sells everything as laboured and earned, probably because it was very laboured and very earned due to his back injuries making him almost incapable of doing much of anything. Shinzaki's ok. I'm never a huge fan of the guy and his role here seemed to be mostly the fall guy given Hansen and Tenryu DEFINITELY aren't taking a fall here, so he has to endure a beating from Kea, then Kawada, then a few kicks and powerbomb later and the match is all up and done. This match never broke any ground for me, but it's full of some top-notch action and everyone being at the top of their game....well Hansen wasn't, but even a no-back 50+ Hansen delivers well for what this needed. Kea looked smooth as butter and really seems to be getting up there in stature and popularity as his push and name-change are all in near full force. All in all, a solid enough showing.

RANK: Good

 

Masanobu Fuchi v Nobutaka Araya (26.08.2000)

Fuchi is the undercarder from hell and he definitely wants you to know it given this current streak of matches where he's dominating and getting win streaks. I would've actually liked to have seen this match in full given this is Araya's first appearance on-camera and he's a reasonably sound worker, sadly we get yet another highlight reel of Fuchi jobbing out the WAR dude with his signature spots and big meaty backdrop. It is what it is, I suppose.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Damien 666, Halloween & Super Parka v Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki & Yasushi Kanda (same day)

Super short match that's also cut up into a few minutes of footage. The M2K guys come down on their very menacing scooters and seem to work the traditional rudo style of the time, lots of double/triple team antics and dirty tactics to keep control. Even when 666 tries to do stuff the trio are just way too organised and brutal for any momentum to be built up for the lucha lads so they mostly get isolated and controlled. The finish is a bit wonky as Damien is pinned off a clearly sandbagged brainbuster (he provides zero give for the move and as such, it purposely looks like shit) while Parka just stands in the background doing absolutely fuck-all to break the pin apart from a half hearted leap to the apron. Not much to judge this on, but it seemed to be pretty by the numbers all things considered.

RANK: Decent

 

Shigeo Okumura & The Cedman v Taiyo Kea & Yuto Aijima (same day)

Nothing says great booking like getting over your next potential big main eventer by pairing him up with your opener punching bag, Cedman, and the second worst wrestler of the roster. Thankfully the gods smiled because this was NOT shown in full, far from it, they just show some of the highlights from the match like Kea getting in a strike exchange with Okumura and kicking Ced's ass around the block. We finish up with a typical Kea Hawaiian Crusher for the pin and it's all over. 

RANK: ???

 

Johnny Smith v Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

This was seemingly unfilmed despite being a Korakuen Hall show, so all we get are scant highlights from a ringside camera; a shame because a match between these two could've been pretty good all things considered had they went all out like Smith did with the Kobashi match. All we really get ultimately is Smith kicking out of a big Kawada powerbomb for no real reason before Smith taps out to what is pretty much just a meaner-looking Misawa face-crank (but noticeably not his Stretch Plum?) probably innovated from Fujiwara given he would snap this one up for matches and training videos. A shame it's cut but hey, what can you do?

RANK: ???

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen v Mike Barton & Steve Williams (same day)

This also got scant footage with about a few instances left for the end and some struggling, ultimately having Barton job out to not even a definitive big finish, but instead a regular Tenryu lariat. I know, a Tenryu lariat is hardly "regular" but still this was pretty extreme lol. Poor guy. 

RANK: ???

 

Damien 666, Halloween & Super Calo v Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki & Yasushi Kanda (29.08.2000)

Yet another match between these six and it's basically a house show anyway so this was half-assed to hell and back. The start is cool with M2K's scooters getting stolen and used by the lucha guys (well "used" is a nice term because man did they struggle). We cut to Calo doing a fancy top rope scissor takedown that almost takes Suzumu's head off because he rolls for it incorrectly before we get a cool spot where Calo teases a dive, opponent moves away, and then Calo hits them from the apron instead lol. Damien hits a nice Kinniku Buster and attempts a pin, but everyone gets inside the ring for a huge brawl to break that up. M2K take over with some heel antics by having the ref distracted to bonk 666 with a chair, stunning him for a M Mochizuki running Pele kick off the ropes and a diving elbow by Kanda to steal yet another win. This seemed solid enough for a match despite the obvious conditions making it hard to judge, I think I'll say it's still pretty average for a spotshow though.

RANK: Decent

 

Genichiro Tenryu, Jinsei Shinzaki & Toshiaki Kawada v Johnny Smith, Stan Hansen & Taiyo Kea (same day)

This was cut to around about a few instances of definitive footage, mostly highlights and whatever. This is intended to build up Kawada/Williams against Hansen/Tenryu for the impending main event showing, so what is left is more or less Hansen battling against the two and their stiff strikes, Kea also getting some action in against Kawada, and Shinzaki doing a amazing flip-bump for a Hansen Western Lariat, easily the best I've seen all year out of the guy so far. It's a shame that Shinzaki is once again drawn up to job for the natives but hey, I'd take this over 20 minute Cedman/Barton showings.

RANK: ???

 

Masanobu Fuchi vs. Shigeo Okumura III (01.09.2000)

A rematch between these two could've been cool, but it's cut up again into a few bits that sadly just isn't enough to put any sort of rating on it. It was cool to see some brawling on the outside as Fuchi brought the aggression by throwing Okumura out of the ring, with the opponent bumping pretty well all things considered. Fuchi catches the guy with a backdrop, and it's all over before you can blink. 

RANK: ???

 

Damien 666, Halloween & Super Parka v Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki & Yasushi Kanda II (same day)

Another six-man? Yep, this feud keeps on trucking. It's fun enough to have just a small tiny bit of footage committed to it in the first place. Susumu does some cool stuff on Damien before we get the combined M2K and finish out of Kanda via the elbow drop, not very original compared to the last match shown smh. Still, it's a match, it's apart of the build, so you can't really diss it.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen v Johnny Smith & Nobutaka Araya (same day)

As a final build for the impending Kawada/Williams vs Tenryu/Hansen match, we get the older pair jobbing out some fairly hapless victims for a fairly short semi-main match all things considered, only clocking in at around about 10 minutes. The match is cut much less than that, so you can imagine this isn't much worth discussing. Araya is a great bumper and seller so he gets the blunt of the beatings to the powerhouse duo, ending after Hansen hits a uncharacteristically weak Western Lariat to finish. Not much to judge, but seemed to be pretty by the numbers by the reactions. It's a house-show, so this is very much expected.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Jinsei Shinzaki, Taiyo Kea & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mike Barton, Steve Williams & The Cedman (same day)

Oh god Cedman for 20 minutes lol, thank the lord this is 99% cut down to mostly Kawada/Williams highlights to build to the big main event. Poor Barton does more bumping around with Kawada kicks (don't they know he's going to be in the finals of a Champion Carnival with Muto in the next year and a half???) and then Kea takes his sweet time setting up a Hawaiian Crusher to job the dude out. I mean comparing the two matches, I think beating Barton is a tad more impressive than a random WAR indie guy, but sure I guess.

RANK: ???

 

Halloween v Super Calo v Super Parka (02.09.2000)

All Japan's flirtation with lucha stuff continues with a fairly enjoyable if hollow showing. The crowd was into it though, so I guess that's at least something done. Halloween and Parka teamed up for a good portion before Hallo tried to sneak a win with a small package, and then it was a free for all basically. Super Parka was quite old here, but he held up well despite some slip-ups. For a nothing lucha spot-show with zero real work it was decent, with the three keeping a good pace as they all worked together on spots happily and/or stood around until the next bit to happen. The only real spots that got me was OG Parka doing a dive to the outside near 50 years old, and the finish, which had Calo's top rope frankensteiner get turned into a powerbomb mid-air by Halloween for the pin. If you like these kind of spotshows, great! I don't really care for them though, so bar the spots mentioned this was just something to turn your brain off at. 

RANK: Decent

 

Damien 666 v Sabu (same day)

This was pretty bleh. In all fairness the two have a fun Sabu-paced match, with Damien trying to do his copying shtick and getting wrecked for it. Sabu does a cool jumping Frankensteiner off the top ropes, but bar that you could tell he was hurt here: he had tape around his jawline (like his entire jaw, not sure what happened there) and he seemingly hurts his arm (or hurt it pre-match) as he neglects to use it for most of the duration and seems to have issues with it. There's zero psychology: Damien takes a tornado DDT into a pair of chairs and not only kicks out sharp at the count of one but then almost immediately beats up Sabu with forearms seconds later: so this was another spotshow basically. Sabu seemed grumpy and he didn't really think much of Damien as he barely sold for the guy, him botching a Muto-style moonsault by smashing into his back probably definitely didn't help either. The finish seems to be improvised as Sabu does a regular Triple Jump into leg-drop, but then complains about his back hurting and then quickly pins Damien to end things quick. All in all a pretty nothing match, if you like Damien's shtick then this might be worth watching for the sheer novelty value. 

RANK: Decent

 

CIMA, Sumo Dandy Fuji & SUWA v Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki & Yasushi Kanda (same day)

This is a typical crazy Toryumon trios pace, so a ton of spots at a fast pace. Don Fuji doing his silly sumo shtick was pretty funny though, easily one of the highlights of this entire thing. But yeah, lots of spots and....lots of spots indeed. Describing it in detail would've taken ten years given there's so much shit flying by there's really no time to describe it before there's at least been five more sequences done, so that's a losing battle. M2K were established as being heels and not as impressive as the other trio, having to use cheating antics to get their way more often than not. It's quite funny though because despite them being heels we've also got SUWA just being a huge scumbag despite being paired with the babyfaces, so it's super jarring. Some stuff is a little bit too contrived for my liking where it's basically just in your face spot set-up without even trying to disguise that fact, however for the most part they managed to pace this well and most of what we ended up seeing was executed to near perfection once they managed to set it up. The finish with Fuji going nuts with his Jr-Sumo spots was great and put him over really well before M2K bonk him with the infamous scooter and he gets dropped with a slick axe kick and Dragon Suplex by Mas Mochizuki for the pin. Probably the best match of the night action-wise, you really couldn't top this if you tried. Pure fun.

RANK: Good

 

Jinsei Shinzaki, Mohammed Yone & Taiyo Kea v Johnny Smith, Mike Barton & The Cedman (same day)

Yep, this is just bleh. The only big pointers were Yone showing up (which is weird because he'd be a NOAH guy very soon) and Cedman stinking stuff up some more. He looks like Yoshinari Ogawa but taller and on roids, sadly without much of the talent though and you quickly realise he's pretty hopeless here. This felt average for the most part bar a fun Smith/Shinzaki exchange: Kea with his new moniker looked real sharp and worked smoothly in the ring; he is able to weather the storm that Barton and co put him under with a good few near falls, and gets a fiery chop exchange over with the crowd, being a sturdy piece of the match. Yone comes in to essentially job, but lands some good knee drops and a top rope leg drop for a near fall before Barton catches one of his kicks, answers with a gut punch, and finishes with his powerbomb. All in all, a fairly average six-man with the only highlights being Shinzaki, Smith, and Kea. Everyone else is on the side and not really doing a whole lot as a result, so what we get is a fairly so-so showing with occasional good bits, but mostly drifting away into mediocrity. 

RANK: Forgettable

 

Masahiro Chono v Masanobu Fuchi (same day)

Chono coming in to wrestle this in casual shirt and clothes might bug some out, but I liked the touch: he's has been looking down at Fuchi all this time with this little NJPW/AJPW feud, you really think he's coming in here to wrestle seriously by going down to Fuchi's level? Dude is here to disrespect this old timer first and foremost, and that's how he gets caught with a early backdrop and very big cheers as he tries to rake the eyes and pays for it with a Misawa-style headcrank to torment the guy further. Now, that's a great start, yet sadly the match suffers from a few issues, namely that Chono wrestling-wise is shoddy and so they keep away from that as much as possible with a 4-minute (yes, 4 whole minutes and all) stalling sequence of him teasing leaving the match altogether before then returning and throwing cheap shots; this already deflates the crowd slightly. This then leads to a long and boring punch/kick control segment where they brawl, the ref moans at the rule bending, Chono gets in his face and cheats more, repeat etc. It was rather dull and not really much happens to warrant this going as long as it does. The crowd does get loud for the occasional Fuchi strike or comeback, but then Chono just takes back control and it's back to the boring pace again.

The occasional big moment when Fuchi got stuff in was fun, and seeing Chono in danger was definitely something that the match needed to be done to work, everything still feels like it's moving fairly slow. There's no real moment where you feel like the guy will tangibly lose the match and as a result Fuchi's work seems more or less supercilious. It's cool to see Fuchi work as a underdog babyface; he does a fairly solid job at it as well, rather surprisingly given his prior decade of not really doing so. The finish has Chono inevitably go over with a low blow and despite two STF attempts he can't make Fuchi submit and so has to break him down with Kenka Kicks instead until he finally gets the pin. This could've been a great sub-10 scrap, but sadly I had to instead endure a boring Chono control sequence where nothing of worth happened in-between the good Fuchi bursts of action. Way, way too long, which combined with the inevitability of the winner just drags this way down for me. I don't think it's a issue of Fuchi doing any aspect of this wrong, it's more an issue of not being able to build proper off the mountain these two dug up; maybe that's just Chono being his usual lazy self. I do also feel like this and the Kawada match do show that while Fuchi is a solid workhouse, there is a.....limit to how good he can be, especially when trying to step to levels of big star charisma lads. This seemed a tad out of his ballpark. 

RANK: Decent

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen v Steve Williams & Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

Stan's final main event outing is a symbolic outing with his old pal Tenryu against their new incarnations in Steve Williams (the man who took over for Hansen) and Kawada (who took over stylistically for Tenryu). The first half has some spirited moments, but veers too much into aimless Hansen "work the lariat arm" filler and rest holds, though Tenryu and Kawada especially try to make these seem as epic as possible as a task. Williams bumps like a trooper for Hansen starting off, but Hansen himself spends most of this on the backend to then put over Kawada. Hansen is pretty much done at this point physically; even his usual limited routine from the late 90's is something he clearly struggles to do due to the discomfort his back issues were giving him by this point, so Tenryu has to carry the workrate for the pair in terms of actual moves and whatnot. Him and Kawada have a predictably fun routine as they hit each other hard, battle over who can throw bombs, and generally have a good pace between the two. Tenryu does a apron brainbuster that was messy as shit. Williams butts in to let Kawada take back control, as well as landing a smooth Doctor Bomb of his own. Kawada felt super confident as he ran over Tenryu with his usual assortment of bombs, even being able to brave though his punches to get in more kicks. Hansen starts to sneak in when Williams is trying to finish the job, eating up strikes to allow Tenryu time to recover. We also get probably the worst lariat in All-Japan history as Williams (THE Steve Williams in case you've forgot) meekly runs to Tenryu and basically taps him with his arm to knock him down. Dead serious, this looked terrible lol. They then repeat this shortly after with Tenryu somehow winning out with a equally shitty one?

Wtf? How are these two sucking so badly at this? Something was definitely in the water there. Hansen primes the arm for the Western Lariat but the two do sloppy strikes until Williams summons the last of his energy to do a huge Doctor Bomb on his opponent. Tenryu does his classic sumo-slaps to get him out of the ring so him and Hansen can double team and take out Kawada, namely with a lethargic Western Lariat. Williams gets bullied with a good few signature spots (including a second-rope elbow and a crappy Hansen powerbomb) before a combo of the Tenryu Enzuigiri and another Western Lariat get the win. Here's the main issue: Williams and Hansen gas out hard by the halfway mark (Hansen so badly he was still huffing and puffing post-match to the point that he couldn't even make words) and so the two get super sloppy because, well, they just aren't really built for these kind of long-style bouts All Japan were known for. Hansen can't do a whole lot anyway and him being pushed here to the forefront means he just didn't look good most of the time despite his selling and general experience aiding him massively. Kawada and Tenryu do better, but we don't get anything remarkably unique that you can't see in more detail and frankly miles better elsewhere. While this does have some enjoyable moments (alongside the general coolness factor of the four of them just slugging it out) there's also a lot of frankly sub-par stuff that dragged this down, mostly due to poor conditioning. This drew big numbers as a event; it, however, was easy to see that the AJPW crew were hurting, and this was merely the beginning of a downturn they'd never truly recover from.

RANK: Decent

 

Giant Kimala, Gran Naniwa & TARU v Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki & Yasushi Kanda (14.10.2000)

This has to be the most 2000's AJPW 6-man I've ever seen lol. TARU, Kimala, Naniwa, and a bunch of Toryumon lads all just thrown into a pot in Korakuen and made to wrestle. Kimala is wearing his singlet he used with Gary Albright back in 98 so you know he means business, throwing on headbutts, chops, and a Dragon Sleeper? Fu-Ten Kimala when? Sadly never. TARU has looked and worked the same since forever, though he's a bit more agile than usual. This was a weird one because whenever TARU or Naniwa were in this was basically just business as usual where everyone just went from sequence to sequence with no real attempt to articulate any sort of psychology or selling beyond rudos and good guys, but then Kimala would enter and then this would just change pace into him doing 80's nerve pinches and throwing around everyone. To be fair to the guy he still landed his signature spots well and did his job pretty well, so you can't truly complain a whole lot about him just chilling here. All in all a decent showing; nothing really that interesting match-wise beyond a big old spotfest, but it's a fucking Giant Kimala/Toryumon crossover, logic isn't on the table here.

RANK: Good

 

Johnny Smith v Shiro Koshinaka (same day)

Contender for the worst match out of this entire Deep Dive? I'd sure say so. We're now at the point where I have to talk about Shiro Koshinaka's All-Japan run, and this is the point where I also have to warn you to not do what I did because all of his matches suck ass. I'm not sure how given Koshi will do just fine afterwards, it's just for some strange reason he just had zero effort in the tank for anything to do with AJPW in the slightest. Perhaps he thought the promotion was going to die anyway and just wanted to get it over with. These two are also contending for the chance to get the Triple Crown, which has been vacated since Kobashi left the company; yep, Johnny Smith was a contender for a Triple Crown once against a guy who hadn't even wrestled in the company since the mid 80's. Rough times. The other matches included around this time will mostly be of this same tournament as well.

Both men exchange a lot of rest holds and basically wrestle like they'd do in the 70's for the most part, only this isn't the good 70's stuff where it seems like there's a tangible struggle or a pace made with these, it just feels like they have absolutely zero ideas and just want to hang around on the mat. This only changes right at the end with a elbow drop by Smith and a diving hip attack by Koshinaka, followed up by a another hip attack and a powerbomb for the three. Painfully boring and slow: I'd give the technical work a pass if it meant anything or went anywhere but it didn't, it's just all rest holds to follow rest holds. Maybe there's a dramatic plot I didn't see in the clipped 3 or 4 minutes missing, but this was rough to get through in the first place. Koshinaka looks terrible, Smith wasn't exactly doing much to aid with that given he basically just acted like a complete ragdoll for Koshi to bang his ass into until he lost. I mean I wouldn't be happy jobbing after a decade+ of loyalty while some random Jr gets to beat me purely off his name-value alone, but still.....

RANK: Forgettable

 

Steve Williams v Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

Five or so years ago this would've been a wonder of a match. Things have changed, however, and these two simply aren't the same as they once were. These two have some good intensity from the start: Williams slaps Kawada very early on and they stare daggers into each other before going into a slap fight which Kawada edges out thanks to his kicks. Williams recognises the threat and immediately starts to work over said legs to take away his advantage. When Kawada tries to get up, he gets blasted with closed fist strikes and chops to cut him down. The gameplan is to obviously keep Kawada down and work him on the mat not allowing him to pull out any of his signature bombastic offence, something Williams sticks to until he's confident he can hit his big plays. This is remarkably smart from a guy who's best matches were known for just being him steamrolling people and dropping them on his head, and it does show; ever so slightly; that he's threatened by Kawada's reputation.

There's a great selling bit as per standard by Kawada that has him just crumble to the mat after getting socked in the face: looked brutal. He also gets over the danger of the Backdrop Driver by doing anything to get out of it, trying rope breaks and back-elbows as soon as it gets attempted and refusing to give him any headroom to measure it up. Eventually Kawada escapes out of one too many of these attempts and lands multiple Gamengiri shots to take him out of the tournament with a three count, not even needing a powerbomb to finish the job. By far not the best match these two have had together: it was obvious that both men had gone down a couple of levels since they last met: but it's a intense affair that has some close calls and some great strikes and played perfectly with the fact that these two knew the other so very well. Kawada really gets over some close calls and is in general a super solid talent here with his strikes. Williams is a lot slower now and can't really do a ton beyond strikes and his big power moves, as I've said before that's not really a bad thing given it just makes his more lumbering presence something to really pay attention to as opposed to him flinging himself all over the place.

RANK: Good

 

Jinsei Shinzaki v Stan Hansen (16.10.2000)

Clipped a decent chunk: this shows maybe 3 minutes of the original 14 minute bout. Hansen gets his lariat arm worked over (because EVERY Hansen match is paced around this since the 70's) and while Hansen tries to get one of those off at points, Shinzaki is determined to keep him from landing it as he knows it'll end the match and keeps throwing him in armbars. As you can imagine, this is not exactly the most engaging format for a match and certainly wasn't very good either. Finish has Hansen block a Pele kick by Shinzaki and hit a surprise lariat for the three count. Barely a match to talk about here, and Hansen as we'd see in the Tenryu bout was struggling to do a lot in the ring by this point (even more so than the Baba/Tsuruta nostalgia tag Hansen of the late 90's) so I'm not really annoyed about not seeing the rest of the match as it was probably a lot of rest holds and heatless arm work. Not very good beyond the lariat at the end.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Mike Barton (18.10.2000)

Clipped drastically. Barton scores a gut punch and goes for a weird knee drop, but he lands on Tenryu like a regular splash? Idk. Tenryu would eventually score the win with a lariat to next to zero heat, basically just silence. Maybe it's better that this wasn't shown as the crowd were super not into it, even for the finish, probably because they clearly know that Mike Barton vs Genichiro Tenryu is not as interesting as Tenryu vs Kawada, making the winner painfully obvious. Maybe just a hunch. 

RANK: ???

 

==========

end of part 2

13 hours ago, William Bologna said:

Of all the stuff I watched for the Johnny Smith Project, this was absolutely the best. But how does one rate a two minute clip? The rest of the match can't have been this good, right?

The tag league should be interesting if you get that far. I skipped around, but I remember being impressed with Fujiwara and Fuchi in the clips I saw.

It probably wasn't, but those two minutes were so epic that I had to give Smith his due, especially given he wasn't exactly doing a whole lot else in 2000 that was that outstanding. 

Tag League stuff from my first watch was mostly clipped bad, but there's some real entertaining gems in there including some amazing Tenryu/Fujiwara antics alongside Araya getting his first big moments in the company, so it's definitely worth the trouble

 

 

 

 

[Ma Stump Puller]

part 3

===========

Johnny Smith v Michiyoshi Ohara (21.10.2000)

Shown in full. It's the match of a lifetime! Johnny Smith, eternal midcarder, vs Michiyoshi Ohara, terrible MMA fighter! The starting exchanges have a lot of generic grappling, but I do like how Smith takes no shit from Ohara when he tries to cheap shot him and runs in to smack him up with forearms. This has that unique feeling of being more like a NJPW rush of action than a typically slow AJPW undercard experience; the crowd as a result are quite into this from the get-go uncharacteristically and the two work on that despite a relatively slow start. Smith does cool Cravat variations, Ohara rips at his nose before the two just go back to hitting each other hard lol. I mean Ohara's heel work is generic, but it gets the job done. Smith isn't very good at articulating emotion (or much, really) however he does bring some fire into this when needed, so the dynamic works enough to make the match interesting. Ohara brawls on the outside, he sinks in a awesome armbar after a German suplex for no real reason, it's just a cool spot. They get a big reaction out of Smith hooking in a double wrist lock as a counter so clearly they had some sort of plan to work with. There's definitely that element of interpromotional heat that gives this a bit more shine as opposed to a generic match. It helps a lot to making this more than just a grapplefest, which this was to a extent. Smith stealing that one Kendo Kashin spot where the two trade snapmare takeovers before Johnny slaps on a flash British Fall out of nowhere to steal the match was a fun ending to a fairly energised bout full of submissions and Ohara sleaze-heat. One of Smith's better showings. 

RANK: Good

 

Nobutaka Araya & Steve Williams v Satoshi Kojima & Tatsutoshi Goto (same day)

MR BD is based beyond any words that I could muster and it was cool seeing Kojima in a AJPW ring as a invading force knowing what's to come in the next year. He really does carry this a fair degree as him and Williams immediately get into a shouting match and generic starting sequences like shoulder tackles, chops, etc etc. Koji doesn't seem fully formed yet but you can tell he's getting some real flash to his routines and the crowd are liking his antics. Araya and Goto just do generic WAR-style tubby guy striking stuff, getting the crowd hyped for a long chop exchange (later STOLEN by Kobashi/Sasaki smh) before also doing even more shoulder tackle exchanges. BD does a low blow and we get some brawling to let you know that these guys are the heels, though that's already obvious. Like a conventional NWA 80's tag the heel duo hone in and cut off the ring around Araya, which gives Williams most of the match off to rally and wait in the corner. BD has some solid stuff like a piledriver and stiff lariat. Koji did his usual sthick while jawjacking with the crowd and getting some really good heat out of them as they milked the control stuff as much as possible. He also hits Williams with a little chop in the back that he just oversells by throwing himself into the guardrail from the apron lol. Koji misses a lariat and Williams looks proper rough stumbling around hitting sloppy lariats on the two despite nailing a Doctor Bomb.

Last two minutes are all mostly near falls and brawling as Kojima survives the pushback from the two long enough to dodge a Araya moonsault, doing Muto moves like the low dropkick and Dragon Screw....one wonders about these random inclusions at times, especially knowing where he'd be going soon enough. BD hits a awesome backdrop on Araya and that's basically the end as Koji quickly hits a cutter and lariat to finish him off for the pin. This wasn't anything super impactful and with Williams being all taped-up for this, it was obvious that he was being used sparingly to keep him as fresh as possible; bar the start and finish he doesn't do anything bar apron work, so mostly nothing, essentially. Araya bumps well and this is again another good showing for him, even if I still think these were way too big shoes for him to fit at this stage in his career. Kojima looked like a star in the making and Goto did Goto things. All in all, solid stuff. It's a bit of a shame we never get that Steve Williams/Kojima singles matchup through, these two were cooking good with what little they had here.

RANK: Good

 

Genichiro Tenryu v Stan Hansen (same day)

The semi-finals of the Triple Crown Tournament start off with these old friends/rivals having one final standoff. Honestly? This kicked ass way more than anything else on the show. First off for historical reasons this is a pretty damn huge deal: it's the second last match that Stan Hansen would ever have, and it's the last singles bout ever, against his old friend Tenryu, for the chance to get the top belt in the company. Hansen is, well, at the end of the road: broken down, 50+, and obviously isn't the same man he was even in the Super Generation Era in the early 90's, but that doesn't mean he ain't dragging his knuckles every step of the way and fighting Tenryu as best as he can. He naturally knows this already and ambushes Hansen mid entrance with a big dive to the outside: a clever call-back to their infamous tag match against Baba in which the same move was used to that effect, only Hansen is the vet who is victim to it this time. He does this twice over just to make sure he's properly hurt as well. Hansen is now properly in the red, and needs to use his bullrope to throw Tenryu around and keep some space, as well as use stuff like eye poking to equal things out. His selling here is great: properly balancing between a broken down man with his body betraying him and the viciousness that he still has bubbling inside, cussing Tenryu out when he can and answering with slaps, chops, basically anything he can throw out.

There's a sense of.... vulnerability here that we don't usually ever see from Hansen, a personal weakness that Tenryu exploits to great effect, answering with every stiff strike he can go for including some genuinely disgusting full force chops and targeting Hansen's back multiple times. It's hard to watch at times as Hansen is barely able to do much with his physical limitations but seeing him pull comeback after comeback using his experience, a final Western Lariat attempt that ALMOST gets him the three, seeing him get beat down over and over to near pins is nerve-racking as he keeps getting up  and dusting himself off despite the abuse stacking up. Ultimately, there could only be one winner. Despite this being less than stellar in terms of pure ring work, I thought this was legitimately a fantastic outing. Tenryu was pulling his weight hugely and Hansen's selling is legendary, trying every single thing he can to stay in the game until he just couldn't go. Some may not like the ending being essentially a throwback to the unclean finishes of 80's All Japan, but I thought it was fitting to see Hansen's volatile career habits finally catch up to him hard here. Absolutely go search this out if a fan of either man.

RANK: Great

 

Hiro Saito, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono v Masanobu Fuchi, Shiro Koshinaka & Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

Chono's goons having invaded for most of this card, it now fittingly ends with him in the main against AJPW's brightest and most loyal (ignore Koshi) defenders. Of course the final match on here is the big Chono six-man to work off the Fuchi match a month or so ago, as well as being a ultra rare showing of Chono and Kawada sharing the same ring something that only happened once or twice more surprisingly. As you can imagine this was the typical house show match that you'd expect from something like this, though there are *some* good moments. Tenzan as the knucklehead enforcer is SO much better than trying to make him a main event dude; I get he has his defenders but I just never seen him as being good enough for that task and this used him perfectly. Fuchi gets good reactions as he has to work from the bottom of TEAM 2000 via Saito; it means we get a meaningful buildup, and we also get to see Saito and Fuchi do MUGA sequences which is also sweet. We also get some generic "big match" stuff between Chono and Kawada as they do the typical "knock each other over and taunt/standoff" stuff alongside trading and dodging signature moves. It's ok, but it felt so painfully predictable that it wasn't even trying to be different or play it slightly unsafe. Koshinaka of course got in danger as the trio did heel stuff alongside Kojima and co who'd came out for the match. Lots of interference on the outside, lots of selling. I'm glad of this because seeing Koshinaka do stuff here just bores me to tears.

He's so undynamic and unfitting of this amazing Fuchi/Kawada duo, consistently dragging things down with lame hip-attack spam or just the most bare-bones offence you'd ever see. No fire, nothing. He sucks. Saito is actually quite good for the bits he's in for, using lots of 70's style grappling to keep the bigger players down while also going full caveman mode with wild strikes when it mattered. Anyway, most of this is generic heel control stuff with occasional exciting brawls or little spots to engage interest. Fuchi works like a trooper to get the crowd engaged and gets in some fun bits where he's mangling the trio with holds. The big highlight is Chono and Kawada at the end squaring off proper before this turns into a chaotic brawl with Saito getting jobbed out after his senton splash is more or less ignored as Dangerous K just rolls away from a Tenzan flying headbutt right after and got the pin with signature spot spam. This basically met expectations; occasionally would be good, but most of it was really house showy generic shit that you've seen a million times before. Play the greatest hits and all that if you know what I mean. Very much a match stuck in its time and by the restrictions that this multi-promotional feud provides on top, making for a fairly weak bout that never really kicked off proper. Probably should've moved this to the semi-main. 

RANK: Decent

 

Shiro Koshinaka vs. Toshiaki Kawada (22.10.2000)

Semi Final of the Triple Crown tourney, and it's painfully obvious who's winning: the supreme Baba Loyalist, or the random aging outsider who's been with NJPW the last decade or so? Koshinaka tries to ground Kawada with rest holds and then tries to take him out with strikes: Kawada tries his best to make Koshinaka legitimately believable as a threat but his strikes aren't the best and his stalling doesn't help things so no one is falling for it. He hits a good looking German Suplex and top rope knee to the head into powerbomb for a close 2 count. Koshi also tries sneaking a win out with a small package, doesn't get the pin either. Kawada explodes at this point with stiff Pele Kicks and lariats, responding with his own powerbomb for the three. I can't really give this a big rating because of the lack of action until the end, but Koshinaka is fine when not stalling this out and gets some nice offence near the end, even if it's a little too late to make this anything worth talking about. Kawada is good as always despite general disinterest. Filler bout ultimately.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Gran Naniwa, Ryuji Hijikata & TARU v Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki & Yasushi Kanda (28.10.2000)

Typical undercard Toryumon + friends showcase with not a whole lot else going on. We see about seven minutes of this in action and it's mostly lots of cheating from both teams, some goofy comedy spots, etc etc. Seeing TARU actually be able to work a match is crazy given even in 2005/2006 he seemed really out of it in terms of his capabilities inside the ring. I mean he still isn't fantastic; his strikes are a bit weak-looking and he does flub the occasional move; but for what this was that didn't matter too much. He hits a pretty dodgy moonsault on Susumu Mochizuki for a near fall before some sneaky cheating and a awesome Mas Mochizuki flying corner Pele Kick/German suplex ends things conclusively. Seemed enjoyable enough even if this style of wrestling isn't really something I openly engage with that much. 

RANK: Decent

 

George Hines & Mike Barton v Nobutaka Araya & Shiro Koshinaka (same day)

Koshi continues to be really quite dull working the cards. Lots of slow control work on Hines, who is about as sympathetic as rustling toilet paper being used to flush. Koshi has these terrible slap-punches where he makes no effort to hide the slap, and he ends up bumping for Hines and co as they do moves to a almost silent crowd. Absolutely no heat for this one. Araya is a fairly solid worker even if he isn't really equipped to handle himself at this level given his limited range of offence. He sells and bumps well, but his actual work has been so far quite lackluster. The crowd does start to come alive near the end as we get a good few near falls driven by Barton always breaking them up at the last second with great timing. Araya gets the clean win with a second moonsault to finish this off. This was good near the end but man even the clipped match dragged, would've not liked to have seen the establishing work beforehand knowing the pace they were going at. Koshi is surely a name-value guy, is bad. All of the credit goes to Araya and everyone else at least trying to get this off the ground.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Johnny Smith, Masanobu Fuchi & Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Stan Hansen, Steve Williams & Wolf Hawkfield (same day)

Hansen's final match after nearly 30 years of wrestling doesn't come with a showcase of legends or a big retirement card, but instead a fairly abrupt and random six-man. This is understandable given this wasn't even intended to be his final match. Hansen's decline even over the last few months has been clear; he really can't do a whole lot anymore, and he's pretty much immobile in this match. Anyway this was a fine enough midcard bout that had a lot of very slow wrestling as expected. Even Steve Williams as energised as he normally is can't really make this go much quicker. Hansen yelling random English at the ref in protest was fun, I suppose, even if his back problems were at their peak and he could barely bend it anymore, let alone take any sort of bump. Fuchi takes most of the beatings until a cold Johnny Smith hot tag (with no top rope dropkick, but he does remember to do it later thankfully) as they seem to be dragging this forward to more feature Hawkfield as he hits his cool power moves. Fujiwara sadly doesn't do a whole lot in this apart from throw punches to mock Williams and lots of interference, though he gets his ass kicked near the end as everyone gets fed up with his cranky uncle antics. Smith is taken out with a Turbo Drop, but everyone runs in for a predictable pre-finish brawl before Johnny Smith once again ends up with a flubbed British Fall finish for the win over Hawkfield. Yeah, this was pretty much nothing. For some reason all of the main core All-Japan guys of the 70's (Baba/Tsuruta/Hansen/Abdullah/Dory/Terry) all have random and fairly nothing final matches, who knew? 

RANK: Forgettable

 

Jinsei Shinzaki & Masahito Kakihara v Mohammed Yone & Taiyo Kea (same day)

Kea's getting the big push for the eventual Tenryu title bout around the corner but first he has to fight a debuting Kakihara who had been away prior to NOAH. Kakihara was a favourite of Misawa (he even wanted Kaki over Yoshinari Ogawa for the Untouchables team all the way back in the late 90's) and probably would've been pushed super strong as a Jr heavyweight within the company had he kept going with it, however problems with Takao Omori being a dickhead and potential PRIDE aspirations meant it wasn't meant to be. He's back in the company and gets a pretty nice semi-main event spot with Kea and co. Kakihara is still doing the MMA gloves shtick from the NOAH match and this seems to be a new thing for him, probably taken from his Kingdom days where he was punching dudes all the time with said gloves on. I'm not the biggest fan of it given it means he's doing less slick grappling/Jr spots and more stand-up and rabbit punches, and said punches usually can't be sold properly so they look really phony most of the time. Yone is still doing his kicks and Jumbo knee, so we get a really awkward half shoot/half pro-style match that doesn't really blend well to the pacing overall. I mean Kea trying to do shoot-style is a interesting visual (especially given his legit amateur wrestling credentials so he could grapple quite well when needed) however it just translates to a headlock takeover and some generic holds, lame.

Kea also has tons of tape over his lower stomach and back, and he really seems in pain after taking a bump on it, even if he is, obviously, playing it up slightly to get the match some more stakes behind it. Shinzaki....does his usual thing, like he works over Kea's midsection with ho-hum material. That's really it, he was kinda featureless in this match. I don't know if that's the clipping just taking out his spots or what, either way it was weird. Second clip removes the Yone hot-tag bar him trying for a a top rope Kinniku Buster but getting kicked for his troubles. Kaki gets over his striking by landing obvious wiffed punches before resorting to far better looking roundhouse kicks to KO Yone for the pinfall. Yeah this was a really weird match that has elements that COULD have been great (Kakihara's epic return, Kea injured) however there just wasn't much connecting involved by the four to try to make this actually worthwhile. Kakihara is a good worker! This PRIDE-lite gimmick isn't doing much for him though. Combined with relatively ok to featureless performances overall and you get a fairly wet fart for a match. 

RANK: Forgettable

 

Genichiro Tenryu v Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

Fantastic stuff and very easily the best match of the post-Pillar chunk of 2000. Tenryu's old, he's grumpy, he still hits hard and he's still giving Kawada a hard time here. The starting sequences are admittedly a bit slow, but they establish well that Tenryu's working this pretty clean as opposed to the two other matches in the tournament, breaking off from the ropes without going too crazy; he throws a little jab at one point, basically shaken off to do more normal grappling. Kawada wants to show he's the big boss, so when he gets the chance to fire back he goes crazy with his kicks. Tenryu's disappointed; he looks like a sad dad who doesn't want to sully his hands to go at K's level. He relents though with a forearm exchange and a big first chop that sends his opponent flying before kicking him in the back! There's a great general feeling of uncooperativeness off from Kawada: he eats shots but always pushes for his own, even if they aren't the most graceful or come out of the blue. He's just so scrappy, even when getting chopped in the throat by his opponent he just wants to burst back into things with shots equally as rough. The two just want to out-petty the other throughout and as expected, it's a super entertaining dynamic.

The leg work being Dragon Screws and figure fours is pretty remarkable given the impending Muto-era (I wonder if they knew something about it through the grapevine?) even if it's pretty non-descript and mostly here to pace the match down. Kawada sold it well, mind you, it's not particularly interesting given you know it's not going to play much of a factor into how this match plays out. It does add into Tenryu's role of controlling things up to a point, even if Kawada has the speed and youth on his side. The last 10 minutes are just consistent great moments built between the two. They establish the powerbomb as the BIG move that Kawada needs to use to win; it's his historically best move result-wise, after all: yet he just can't get the guy up for the move despite everything he can throw out. Even two Dangerous backdrops aren't able to net him the opportunity to do so. Blood comes in right at the end after a stiff Kawada boot on the apron causes Tenryu's nose to gush with the stuff, really making Tenryu the sympathetic guy here as Kawada gets more and more violent to finish things off. That alongside the actual solid fatigue selling made things feel urgent and not at all drawn-out, leading to a pretty sudden and impactful finish where Tenryu rides out the storm and ultimately wins out with his signature punches + brainbuster to drag out the win here. One wonders if Kawada would've been a better choice for champ, but knowing what's to come I think Tenryu winning this made a lot more sense. Not as good as the 2001 Muto series, regardless this was still super solid and tense. They never overexposed the big bombs in terms of usage and while Kawada's selling can be super overdramatic at points, I think he keeps it to a consistent enough level here to where the match still keeps its tension intact without going overboard into melodramatics. 

RANK: Great

 

Mike Rotundo & Steve Williams v Danny Kroffat & Yoshiaki Fujiwara (19.11.2000)

Varsity Club are back and they're pretty much as good as you would imagine for two 80's NWA/Mid-South guys who peaked in the early 90's. Thankfully this was a one minute squash over arguably the weakest team in this literation of the RWTL, so I wasn't complaining. Not much else to say though, because, again, this was a minute long squash. Road Warriors these two aren't. 

RANK: Forgettable

 

Jim Steele & Mike Barton v Masahito Kakihara & Mitsuya Nagai (same day)

Wolf Hawkfield is DEAD. The awesomeness is over. Enter Jim Steele. Now these two will actually become a legitimately solid team for the time (getting good enough that NJPW will snap them up alongside WWE even using them for some tryouts as a pair) but this is definitely still the start of that being a thing. Barton and Steele are generic Gaijin babyfaces, with Barton literally shaking the hand of a baby just to show he is indeed a babyface here. Nagai and Kakihara are the shoot style-nostalgia duo and start this off with a prematch beatdown via a goofy double spinning wheel kick lol. The match from then on in felt really non-descript: both teams got their shtick in, but there was no real point of the match where things got interesting, mostly because Jim Steele is at best a very very mediocre power-wrestler with one or two tricks in his pocket and nothing else. The guy is as bland as white bread, no real other way to put it. Some of the Barton work was decent at best, and the double teaming could get funny, especially with a weird slingshot into boot special on display here. There was no real position of the match wherein you felt like the two teams were clicking. 

Nagai spent most of this feeding to the two as they slammed him a lot until he got a shoulder charge in and Kakihara did his hot tag, which admittedly was cool to see if only for the kicks and high-angle STO always looking flush. The finishing stretch was entertaining enough as Steele and Barton helped each other out against the duo, with Steele being pushed hard as he handles the two and manages to get his top rope splash and Turbo Drop on Nagai for the win. Nothing special about this, yet I will also say that it's well-put together and about as good a match Steele was going to have bar the 2002 TenKoji showing and it shows. The dude was trying hard and getting a mediocre result. Barton was fine, Kakihara and Nagai are obviously just here to mostly eat pins but Kakihara still looks solid in the ring while Nagai barely did anything worth noting here, sadly. It's a so-so starting match for both pairings, generally due to a lack of definitive chemistry. 

RANK: Decent

 

Barry Windham & Kendall Windham v Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya (same day)

I reviewed this already. Pretty sturdy for what it's trying to be. 

RANK: Good

 

Johnny Smith & Taiyo Kea v Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

Clipped by about 10 minutes. This had a solid dynamic going for it, even if I think guys like Smith at this point felt rather washed by comparison to the other individuals here. Fuchi worked his usual tag-formula of being a reliable sidekick with sticky technical work while also taking the fair share of beatings when it came down to it. Kawada has settled well into being the big mean ace of the brand, using his kicks and dominant Stretch Plum to grind down Smith in particular for a while, making sure to establish his lead alongside the usual kicks and big bombs. Kea is the young upstart they really want to push, so him and Dangerous K get into it a lot here with kick exchanges and showcasing his more frantic pace by eating shots and pushing though. He's not as good as Kawada is, but he's reliant enough to occasionally push though his stuff to get in some nifty offence of his own. Of course Kea's main problem is that he's a bit featureless personality-wise and doesn't have a lot of charisma to go along with his not remarkably impressive range, yet with with Kawada here to squeeze aggression out of the guy they do end up working well and get good life into their respective showings. Those bits are pretty much the best features of the match in terms of out and out workrate. 

The crowd gets loud for those two in particular, and they work the finish into Kea's favour by him landing his big Hawaiian Crusher for a near fall, having Fuchi interrupt and the bell ringing for the draw before Kawada takes any more potential match-ending damage; saving him from a potential upset. Sure, this is generic for a top guy/challenger format match and definitely below standards for any 90's quality for a big main event, but Kawada and Fuchi are a sturdy pair and Kea and Smith try their best to keep up, even if I think Smith was never really believable in these big high-stakes matches. I mean just for reference Kea and Smith were having trouble with bloody Masao Inoue/Tamon Honda just a year ago: those guys were life-long midcard dudes: how can they magically be giving the top guys trouble now? Not seeing it.

RANK: Decent

=================

end of part 3. Next time we'll see Tenryu/Fujiwara interact and Danny Kroffat dipping his foot into shoot-style? Maybe? What a strange time

 

 

 

 

[Ma Stump Puller]

partie 4

We are now right in the midst of the Real World Tag League, meaning lots of matches that will be even MORE clipped with some remarkably left intact enough to actually review. Some have little enough that it wouldn't be worth me even giving them the time of day.

===========

Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya vs. Mike Rotundo & Steve Williams (20.11.2000)

WAR-style match cut down to a couple of minutes. This was mostly to continue getting over the new-era Varsity Club as a dominant force after they beat Fujiwara and co in less than 2 minutes. Tenryu and Williams have some super sloppy exchanges as they stumble over each other, Araya lands a big moonsault as per standard but gets interrupted by Williams and co getting in the way so he can't get any conclusive finish. Araya then eats a Doctor Bomb but Tenryu runs in for a sliding clothesline, but can't stop a impending Dangerous Backdrop which ultimately puts down Araya for the count. Nothing really stood out with what was left on the table, and the two teams mostly seemingly played it safe. Williams felt a bit more wonky here than usual, but it wasn't anything significant to the point of impacting the quality of the match, which was very bleh. 

RANK: Decent

 

Barry Windham & Kendall Windham v Danny Kroffat & Yoshiaki Fujiwara (same day)

We get this massively cut to about a few minutes. The Kroffat/Fujiwara team is one of those "what were they thinking? " goofy moments when it comes to phoned-in RWTL duos, because while Fujiwara could still work fairly well despite his age, Kroffat by this point was beyond washed and just couldn't really do a whole lot anymore by this stage of his career, generally blinding you with his bright red long pants in a attempt to distract you from his wrestling. He stumbles around trying to do a weird leg-trip thing while Fuji just pushes through and it takes him forever to get to the top rope and then stay there after Kendall groins him on the post for Barry to sneak in for a impressive superplex; which is the big finish for the match, believe it or not. There's obviously not enough to rank this on and frankly what they did have going looked really low-quality, so I'm kinda thankful I didn't have to see Kroffat struggle to finish a match.

RANK: ???
 

Danny Kroffat & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya (21.11.2000)

I'm gutted that the actual footage of Tenryu and Fujiwara having another scrap bar their one and only encounter in WAR is a clipped up RWTL highlight tape. They looked real good as well as the two exchanged intense blows with Tenryu going for his powerful chops and Fuji defaulting to his nasty headbutts. Fuji seemed to spend a good bit of this in control as he freely tries to snap Araya's arm with a namesake armbar, but he is just able to crawl to the ropes to escape. Kroffat of course took another job as Araya finished him off with a superplex and moonsault....why does Kroffat suck so much against superplexes? Rough stuff for him. Another no-showing from a RWTL house show, so no real way to rate this.

RANK: ???
 

Barry Windham & Kendall Windham v Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

This was another partly filmed RWTL house show match, so not a ton was shown. The Windham brothers were hanging around beating up Fuchi for much of what was shown and basically bully the poor uncle with general old heel antics until Kawada runs them off with kicks and the usual spots. We get a good look at the finish which has Fuchi finally snap a win with a tricky backslide on Kendall when he tries to push for a win. 

RANK: ???

 

Barry Windham & Kendall Windham v Mike Rotundo & Steve Williams (22.11.2000)

Also partly filmed for the RWTL, and from what is shown this looked pretty sloppy. They try for a big fancy tower of doom spot where everyone goes up for a superplex bit, but they kinda fumble and instead we just get a second rope back suplex from Rotundo. Windham and Rotundo do some very slow wrestling until Rotundo gets caught with a sneaky small package when attempting a suplex, thus giving the Windham brothers the upset win and robbing Varsity Club winning streak. Everyone does some half-hearted brawling post-match and...yeah that's it, basically. Enjoyable if you wanna see vets just struggle around for a bit to pace out a match. It's real funny that they give the rub not to any of the native dudes but will happily provide the no-name Windham with a win over IRS lol. 

RANK: Decent

 

Jim Steele & Mike Barton v Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

Good lord they LOVED to give Barton and Steele draws in this RWTL lol, first with the Kea/Smith guys and now here. This was another cutty house-show outing as we had Fuchi in danger from the two generic babyfaces teaming on him, but Fuchi got in a few rollups to try to end things near the end. Barton seemingly has him down and out after a gut punch, but the bell rings and Barton looks shocked like he was totally going to go over with that even though he's so far pinned virtually no one with that same move. Amazing psychology there.

RANK: ???

 

Masahito Kakihara & Mitsuya Nagai v Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada (25.11.2000)

They show a bit more than the usual highlight reel for house-shows, namely about a few minutes worth of footage; I'm happy about that because this was a fairly good matchup between the shoot-style lads against the strongest duo in this workrate wise. Nagai is on the backend as Kawada beats him down with chops and even tries some brief flirtations with UWF-lite stuff as he uses the bait of a double wrist lock attempt to get Nagai's arms in a position where he can snap on a armbar instead. Kawada continuing his attempt to play by their rulebook has a kick exchange with Kakihara that he then loses, allowing Kakihara to throw knees in the clinch and throw into a sweet STO/cross armbreaker combo. Fuchi interrupts before then getting sent flying out of the ring from a Nagai kick, which was funny as anything. The two shoot-style lads get a double cross armbreaker before Fuchi runs in again to do Kawada's cool knee drop spot to Nagai's head. They then cut to the finish, which has Dangerous K actually tapping out Kakihara with the Stretch Plum in shocking fashion. Looked enjoyable for what it was: even though Kawada isn't a very good shooter he's at least competent enough to carry this along with more experienced guys. Fuchi continues to be a entertaining second to everything going on, definitely some of his better work this year.

RANK: Decent

 

Danny Kroffat & Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Johnny Smith & Taiyo Kea (same day)

The only thing really worth mentioning here was the really quite solid Smith/Fujiwara technical sequence, predictively. Fuji's little touches to escape Smith's stuff are fantastic as well and really worth watching slowly to see every bit of detail he puts into making his stuff look as good as it does as Smith desperately tries to hook Fujiwara's arm for dear life until he is forced to relent after his advantages are peeled away and Fuji snaps on a armbar out of the position. Once again, it's a huge shame we don't get to see more of these two in action with each other, especially for Smith given he normally never gets to really flex his mat-wrestling unless it's here or working with fellow GOAT's like Yoshinari Ogawa. Kea has to face the immensely crappy and washed-up Kroffat (though he does throw in a half-decent Tiger Driver, mind you) but Kea easily takes over the match and the finish comes in the form of a weird backdrop/second rope dropkick combo by the pair for the finish. Apart from that, nothing worth mentioning here, it's another house-show formatted showing from what I seen of this VHS edition.

RANK: ???

 

Johnny Smith & Taiyo Kea v Masahito Kakihara & Mitsuya Nagai (27.11.2000)
 

Another RWTL house-show so this was merely a highlights package. Smith works on the arm against Nagai with some cool arm cranks and armbars, Kakihara and Smith go back and forth for a bit before Kakihara eats the clean job to Smith's always dodgy British Fall for the pin. Again this is a clipshow so I can't really rank it as it is.

RANK: ???

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya vs. Jim Steele & Mike Barton (same day)

The Steele/Barton connection continue their overpush with a clean win over Team WAR. We get to see some of the action as Barton leads the way with a powerslam on Araya for a near fall while Steele does his usual goofy nonsense on the outside with Tenryu who tries his damn hardest to make it seem worthwhile watching. Barton and co scrap until he wins out with his goofy gut punch and Ace Cutter finish on Araya for the win. Poor Araya; man went from punching bag in WAR to punching bag in All Japan with barely a difference at all in how he's getting shown off.

RANK: ???

 

Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada v Mike Rotundo & Steve Williams (same day)

They actually showed a bit more than usual with this highlight package, probably because these are the two main teams to look out for in this entire thing. Kawada gets to beat down on a T-shirt wearing Williams (seriously, was the guy just really self-conscious at the time and/or off-cycle? I'm fine with it, it's just a bit weird) with a fancy Gamengiri shot, and Fuchi gets to yuck it up with a Misawa-style neckcrank right afterwards to work the head more until the hold is broken and Varsity Club got control. Fuchi gets beat up by the two as Rotundo lands his usual Samoan Drop and Williams uses the very rarely-used (at least at this point) second rope Stampede powerslam on Fuchi: seemed a bit shaky but mostly looked fine enough, at least to get the pin anyway.

Doctor D looked super gassed afterwards as he just spent a long time kneeling down and not really moving: not in a "selling" way but in a "I'm blown up" way as he wasn't even trying to get over what was happening. All in all, it's still not enough for a ranking but I can at least say this looked enjoyable, though the fact Rotundo only showed up for one move here in the total footage is really telling.

RANK: ???

 

Masahito Kakihara & Mitsuya Nagai v Mike Rotundo & Steve Williams (30.11.2000)

Kakihara and co do some cool double team submissions on Williams as he pretty much just lays down and eats their stuff, Rotundo gets in to boot the two with kicks to stop any actual submission from working and making things automatically a tier lamer. They do the second rope powerslam move again though even sloppier than the last and Williams just awkwardly rolls away to get his partner pin: I get he wasn't legal for the tag, but it looked bizarre to see the dude do a random Dark Souls roll to the corner and laying there prone afterwards lol. Kakihara actually interrupts this when they try for a pinfall but it's all for nothing as he gets clocked with a forearm that he oversells like anything by stumbling out of the ring afterwards and so Rotundo gets the win with his amazingly lame Samoan Drop. Williams keeps doing his Triangle of Power pose afterwards: keen AJPW nerds like me would pick up on the relation as Kakihara was apart of the group alongside Takayama and Albright! That trivia is a lot more interesting than this match. 

RANK: Forgettable

 

Barry Windham & Kendall Windham v Johnny Smith & Taiyo Kea (same day)

The Windham brothers work on Kea for a decent while through the highlights showcased but Smith kept getting in the way while Kendall just stood around and didn't do anything in response. Barry looked decent here as a worker despite being way out of his prime, amazingly enough. The main issue is that it feels like all of his matches just turn into really slow NWA 80's paced formats though because he can't do anything else bar that at this point and time, and if you're not good at that kind of more grounded stuff then you really don't thrive a whole lot with him. Johnny Smith won the match with a really lame reverse DDT because Barry presumably didn't want to take the full British Fall finish (or Johnny couldn't get him up reliably) so it felt really flat and made the guy look like a goof for going down to something so tame. 

RANK: Forgettable

 

Barry Windham & Kendall Windham v Jim Steele & Mike Barton (01.12.2000)

Wow, a RWTL that actually has enough footage to judge it properly! What a shock. Barry does most of the actual good work as per standard out of the two with fairly slow but measured heel offence, though Kendall does showcase a really great flip bump when he misses a splash in the turnbuckle corner and Steele picks him up for a clean back suplex and powerslam for near falls respectfully. Eventually the finish just has Steele job out Kendall with his usual wacky Turbo Drop for the win. This even clipped had enough to rank it, albeit it was pretty much a average B-show outing with nothing worth mentioning bar the above. If you wanna see Barry Windham work a good match post-90's this is one of the few I'd say is worth searching out for that bizarrely specific option. 

RANK: Decent

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya v Masahito Kakihara & Mitsuya Nagai (same day)

Clipped as per most of the other RWTL outings. Tenryu dominates Nagai as per standard and lands a actually impressive powerbomb for once for a near fall on the lad, even if it takes them like three tries to actually get the thing off the ground because the guy doesn't want to jump that much and they keep mistiming. Nagai kicks out of both that and then two kneeling lariat shots to boot, forcing Tenryu to basically go full nuclear with a third one to get the conclusive pin. Good beatdown..... you get the idea by now.

RANK: ???

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya vs. Johnny Smith & Taiyo Kea (02.12.2000)

Tenryu and Kea have some solid chemistry as per before and you can definitely see that student/teacher relationship here as Tenryu bumps big for the guy despite Kea still being pretty young and not quite ironed out for a actual main event push yet, even if conditions will mean he'll be pushed super hard super soon. RWTL clipping means we don't get to see much bar a few minutes, so instead of the whole match we instead have to watch Araya try to ride the wave of scary Smith bombs until some smart Tenryu assistance means he can take the lead, landing his big-guy moonsault for the successful three for a big win over the more established "young" stars. Awesome upset, just a shame there's not really that much to work with all things considered.

RANK: ???

 

Danny Kroffat & Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

I guess this is worth checking out if you want to see small teases for a Fujiwara/Kawada match that sadly never manages to actually be a thing. They get really grumpy with each other and the general vibe is stiff angry violence, but sadly due to typical RWTL clipping this is mostly gone to the tests of time and editorial taping, so instead we have to cope with what little is left alongside the intact finish: Kroffat meekly tapping out to a tame Fuchi facelock. A shame given the matchup. 

RANK: ???

 

Barry Windham, Kendall Windham & Mike Barton v Gran Naniwa, Mohammed Yone & Shigeo Okumura (06.12.2000)

Yep, 2000's AJPW at it again folks! Naniwa is cool and it's absolutely surreal watching him be around guys like Barry Windham and Barton; you'd never reasonably think this was an actual thing until you see it. Naniwa works well with the foreign talent as he's the smaller dude doing his comedy spots but mostly trying to survive the big heavyweights throwing him around here, giving them a easy night in the process. Barry booting the guy right in the face from the tag apron while he's trying to escape a submission absolutely rules, as does the trio's powerhouse stuff as Naniwa eats some solid bumps. Last few minutes had Okumura run around with some fun lucha-work and Yone got his usual kicks + big leg drop spot in so that was decent enough. Barton bumps well for a Naniwa flash-pin and tornado DDT before he takes over with some more power-work, a second rope splash; the finish is him catching Naniwa mid-Frankensteiner attempt for a impactful falling powerbomb for the three. Nothing particularly amazing, but everyone looked pretty energised here; Barry was limited as you'd expect, but Barton and Kendall surprisingly put in the work here and the crowd really appreciated it near the end as things picked up. Native side were fine for their little roles, Naniwa standing out the most obviously, dude is just so much fun to have even in matches like these. It's fine for a B-show tag, above-average given the state of AJPW at the time. Check it out if you want a strange oddity checked off the list.

RANK: Good

 

Danny Kroffat & Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Masahito Kakihara & Mitsuya Nagai (same day)

Shockingly this RWTL match was actually shown...well, some of it, anyway. We get about 6 minutes out of this. I mean listen, this is Fujiwara, it's Fujiwara WITH Kakihara and Nagai, this was always going to be good to some degree. Kroffat is washed as always but they work around this with lots of entertaining shtick and cheating from the two as Fuji does everything he knows about in his vet playbook to keep Kroffat in the game. Lots of silly spots, Fujiwara goofing off, etc. I'm not sure if this could be described as a Fujiwara comedy match.....it is basically what this was for most of it. Great spot near the end where the two modern shooters beat the old man up with kicks, he pretends to be stunned to grab Nagai with a namesake armbar after elbowing him in the face. Nagai keeps kicking the guy until he pulls for a takedown and we get the signature (and always amazing) Fujiwara Sugar Foot counter to a Nagai takedown attempt, nearly snapping his shoulder with the leverage off his legs. If you don't know what a Sugar Foot is, I feel bad because it's a beautiful spot that every technical wrestling fan (or at least someone who says as such) should experience at least once in their wrestling viewing, just incredible looking. That's the finish as well! What a treat. As much as I wanted to really get some heated shoot-style action, I instead got a fun but noticeably hollow tournament match. Fujiwara looked great with these two while Kroffat seemed to be really just going with the motions here as he just is completely deflated and relying on cheap heel shtick. Kinda ruined by that, but if you want a tease for Fuji/Kakihara in 10+ years then I guess this is fine? If you want some more goofy Fujiwara in your life then this is solid, even if it's not the greatest shoot-style comedy match I've seen by a fair degree.

RANK: Decent

 

Johnny Smith & Taiyo Kea v Mike Rotundo & Steve Williams (same day)

This is one of the few RWTL entries that's actually left mostly intact. It's amusing that Smith and co are called "Future Stars" while Johnny Smith is 36. And he's going to retire in the next two years. And he's worse than what he was in the 90's. Pretty on point for Kea though. Anyway, I thought I'd not like this given the Varsity Club 21 consisted of a guy who was great a decade or so ago and a tag specialist who even on his better days wasn't exactly amazing crowds trying to do a longform match. Kea spent most of this selling and bumping for the two older lads as they controlled the pace with very messy brawling and basic iffy offence designed to keep things as simplistic as possible: It felt more or less like a typical 80's Southern tag where the heels just controlled things as much as possible while the traditional underdog babyface fought from under a ton. Kea was solid in that role: his stuff looked good and he generally kept the pace tight despite the slower style here, never completely slowing to a crawl. Smith basically just did his usual shtick with Kea using his assistance to do some alright double team spots on Williams to try to snatch a win. Of course they couldn't, and despite Williams getting gassed up like shit here with all of the bumping and work he had to do Rotunda runs in and gets one of the most tepid "hot" tags I've ever seen, poor guy.

The finish is really quite messy as everyone runs in to try stuff as Rotunda spams his Samoan Drop aplenty. Him and Williams try to setup the second rope Stampede, but the younger lads manage to interfere, allowing Kea to throw Rotunda off the top rope, making him stumble right into a Hawaiian Crusher for the big upset. Of course these guys have only won this match in the RWTL: point-wise both teams are still in contention. With that said, this was pretty dull and mostly carried by Williams running himself to death with big powerhouse bombs and stiff shots, generally showing his age and struggling near the end despite his spirited attempts. Rotunda is amazingly limited and gets zero reaction, namely because he's so shit at doing much of anything at this point that no one really sees him as a threat, nor does he really change up his style to appease the All Japan crowd. This is basically him just doing IRS shtick, take it or leave it. Smith and Kea are a well ironed unit, even if Smith doesn't really try to impress much here. Kea might be the best guy in the match overall: his big bumps and atheticism are clear, and he's massively stepped up from his days as the mostly bland Mossman moniker, the same lad jobbing to Mighty Inoue a couple of years back. All in all, not great, not terrible either.

RANK: Decent

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya v Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

Team WAR have no chance of making it to the finals at this point (they have 6 points, the top guys have either 10 or more and this is the last day of matches before the final) but that doesn't mean they aren't going to try to beat the AJPW home turf lads down enough for a potential upset purely to spite them. The start of this was entertaining enough as Araya got to sell and work from underneath the All Japan royalists, even if him and Fuchi don't work especially well with each other. Fuchi of course was the man in danger here from the two eventually though and of course this turned into the usual violence as we got to see Tenryu and Kawada beat the snot out of each other with stiff shit. Fuchi gets to be a violent asshole as well as he bullies Araya with closed-fist punches, boots, and generally doing whatever he wants. Of course the real attraction is Kawada/Tenryu once again and they have some cool spots together to go along with the stiff stuff. Tenryu lands a rope-hung kick to the head to stun Kawada while he's on the apron and Kawada pays him back with a running boot back later on. When Kawada tries again they boot each other at the same time for a double KO! Love that stuff, a great progression of sheer pettiness there. This was mostly really lean in terms of structure however and focused around Araya getting slowly broken down with the occasional burst of action when he tried for a comeback, dragging the middle out into mostly him bumping + selling.

They really didn't go for many frills here; it was just all about just working that classic 80's vintage isolating tag dynamic (not the best fit given the last match but sure) keeping Tenryu away from the action and throwing Araya into the deep-end. Fuchi looked great barely having control here, having to do cheap shit and more often or not paying the price for it, no longer being the confident ring-general of Tsuruta-Gun and more of a crafty veteran working with his limitations. We get some masterful selling when Araya manages to bounce his legs off the ropes and make Fuchi overshoot with the backdrop; Fuchi has this delayed-sell where he gets up fine before fumbling right back down as soon as the recoil actually gets to him. Tenryu's hot tag was solid and they worked around his stuff well by having the damaged leg be the thing that slows him down and allows the All-Japan lads to crawl back into control as he just can't go full tilt. Ultimately the match does predictively have Araya going down and Tenryu having to take another loss on his record. My main issue with this match is Araya: he's not that good. His moonsault spot is always cool, but I felt like he just didn't give that needed emotive big moment to really get the crowd rooting for him. His selling was solid for what it was, I just think he dragged this down slightly for me. Still quite competent, but when you're in the ring with these guys? Competent isn't enough, simply put. However (and this is a big however) I'd still say this was great stuff. Really hard-hitting action, absolutely worth the watch despite the slow-ish pace around the middle. Anyone who missed the more grindy AJPW tags of the mid to late 80's I could see enjoying this aplenty. 

RANK: Good

========

end of part 4. The final will be focused purely on the last televised event of the year, involving the RWTL, Tenryu/Fujiwara finally getting a proper match, and Danny "long pants" Kroffat doing shoot-style??? See I built it up from the last mention of it, wow

 

[fxnj]

Are you planning on continuing to 2001? I've come around to the unexpected idea that early 2000's AJPW was a better promotion to watch than early 2000's NOAH.

[Ma Stump Puller]

3 hours ago, fxnj said:

Are you planning on continuing to 2001? I've come around to the unexpected idea that early 2000's AJPW was a better promotion to watch than early 2000's NOAH.

My answer to this is a resounding "maybe". There's a lot less comprehensive footage for 2001 than there is in 2000 last I checked, so I'm not sure if that would be worthwhile.

 

[Ma Stump Puller]

part 5

===========

Gran Naniwa v Ryuji Hijikata (09.12.2000)

This is a perfectly fine opener that was hampered by Hijikata's apparent shoulder injury; he had it extensively bandaged up and didn't use the affected arm much. He can still kick hard but Naniwa is no-selling like he's the big final boss or something for some bizarre reason. I liked the stiff exchanges here with some violent slaps and kicks however they didn't really go anywhere, they just stopped doing them to then go into spamming regular moves without much of a logical progression behind them. Naniwa's selling sucks as he just takes lots of kicks over and over to then win off a Falcon Arrow and Michinoku Driver for the snappy three count without much of a struggle being shown out of him. Nothing really that interesting here, there's hints of this being properly great but with Naniwa's weird no-selling and general lack of energy this never reached anything worth talking about for me.

RANK: Forgettable

 

Masahito Kakihara v Danny Kroffat (same day)

Revenge!!! Kroffat wasn't happy about Kakihara going over him and Fuji during the Tag League so he's getting the rematch here tonight in what is essentially a weird UWF throwback. Now this isn't completely out of the blue for Dan Kroffat; he has a extensive background in kickboxing, trained in the Hart Dungeon and some of his earliest televised performances were legitimately him working matches in UWF Original so there's at least something here.

That something wasn't really much though. Dude comes out with baggy pants and bandaged hands like he's a bootleg Tommy Dreamer. It gets worse as Kroffat starts pulling from the Kendo Kashin book of heel stalling as he offers a handshake before attacking his opponent with clubs to the back and really weird, floaty suplexes where Kakihara is doing nearly all of the motion. We get some Yasuda-style pummelling as Kroff tries to trap Kakihara's arm so he can throw punches to the gut freely, but then ends up getting countered when he pushes for a throw and Kaki ends up catching his leg for a nifty kneebar takedown. Kroffat runs to the outside in a funny bit before Kakihara is a nice lad and lets him back in....only to get ambushed again! Shocker. He is shaken with light knees to the body and a terrible punch to the head before Kroffat tries for a Irish Whip, but of course Kakihara being a UWF guy means he's immune to those, so he just blasts him with admittedly good strikes before snapping on a inverted kneebar for the quick win. 

....so yeah, this was a lot of nothing. I guess it's cool to see Kakihara in his element (even if shoot-matches by this point were more or less just nostalgia bait at best) but as a match it doesn't really serve any purpose. Kroffat just isn't good at all and he certainly wasn't going to be any better doing stuff like this. 

RANK: Forgettable

 

Johnny Smith & Taiyo Kea v Mike Rotundo & Steve Williams II (same day)

This was fine enough as a progression from the first match together. Varsity Club don't want the AJPW loyalists to take the win again, so they change tact and go for a pre-match brawl to try to finish this quick. This had some sloppy moments including a badly botched Frankensteiner bump by Williams early on and general moments that reminded you that these two were getting on by this point with a fair bit of fumbling, so this didn't really have that energy that you would typically expect from a Dr Death match from the last decade or so. Kea looked great out here especially given Smith was out of this for a good portion after the outside brawling, so he had to really pick up the slack with big bumps alongside some fairly flush strikes; as a match it felt more of a vehicle to get him over more than anything. It all seems hopeless as Kea goes down for an assisted Doctor Bomb, but then Smith shows up for the big pop and comeback bit. He runs though his usual spots as per standard to a relatively good reaction (which was impressive given this match wasn't exactly the hottest going in) also selling his bad back/mid-section.

This turns out to be his undoing as his consistent delays to tend to them allow the Varsity Club lads to take back control with a Williams spinebuster/Rotundo Samoan Drop and they snap up the upset after Smith goes down for a decent Dangerous Backdrop. I didn't feel this was that interesting as a match, but as a showcase for Kea's competence, he's really stepped up since his 90's stuff because I'd never imagine him doing anything close to this from my prior viewing of him in action. He looked flush, motivated, and bumped well for the two bigger heavyweights while not completely losing face. Varsity Club is always going to be a limited act (especially Rotunda, who is kinda the pits by this point) but they do their roles fine as a formidable powerhouse duo so I can't REALLY complain a whole lot about them, they're doing about as well as they realistically can for what this was. All in all entertaining sure, there's just not much stock to be put here given how short this was alongside the lack of depth. Then again given Varsity would be working again on the same event....maybe that's for the best.

RANK: Decent

 

Jim Steele & Mike Barton v Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada (same day)

This was cut by about 3/4 minutes, nothing noticeable though. I think the main issue is that Barton/Steele are the most vanilla dudes ever and them being paired with each other doesn't change that fact; they just aren't that compelling. It's like if both guys were competing to be the Jannetty of the two, just stinks of that kind of dynamic where neither guy really wants to do much to rock the boat and just coast with the same routines they're used to doing. The Kawada/Fuchi duo are solid, but I can't also deny that they've really only had one formula since the beginning of my Deep Diving; Kawada and Fuchi start off on a tear, Fuchi gets worked over for the middle portions, Kawada gets in for the hot tags and shine, etc etc. It's two typically very sturdy tag workers being essentially trapped into having the same match over and over. I don't really blame them for this because the roster is just so depleted that it's hard to really see any other way of them being presented without it seeming jarring, like are you really gonna convince people that Giant Kimala or Danny Kroffat are threats? Of course not, so why bother?

I will say that Fuchi's sympathetic selling at least helped to get this over to the crowd, though that isn't hard given him and K were the last big Baba-era guys left. This match mostly shows a lot of Barton/Steele in control, so lots of slams and throws. Nothing amazing (bar the relatively cool splash/elbow combo by the two late into proceedings) though there is some good interaction around Kawada getting progressively closer and closer to getting into play despite being cut-off numerous times; first he's knocked off the apron, then he's showing up in the ring and thrown out, etc etc. Fuchi's dramatic hot tag with Funk-lite stumbling and him hurling his body forward just enough to tag in was a nice touch, and Kawada's big push was done about as competently as you'd imagine. The crowd almost believes that the pair could lose as K is dragged down and almost loses to a Turbo Drop before Fuchi fumbles back in for his old tricks. He gets the tights for the roll-up, he hustles for the facelock over and over with a couple of breakups, finally tapping out Steele after Kawada shoos Barton away for a unexpected finish.

I am glad we didn't see the whole thing (this went 21 minutes, tad too long for a match like this in my mind) and the finish could've been cut a bit as it was dragging with the consistent wangling for holds. Bar that, this was competently done, just never really got much interesting. There's no real big interactions, just a standard formula with Steele/Barton not really doing a whole lot to stand out bar their usual spots. If you didn't know this was the semi-finals of a big tournament you'd probably think this was a standard main event match for a house show card.....it probably was in the mid-90's, here it's presented as a lot more than that and this absolutely didn't deserve that mantle.

RANK: Decent

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Mitsuya Nagai v Mohammed Yone & Yoshiaki Fujiwara (same day)

Shown in full. Now THIS is something I can at least get behind. They build off the last match Nagai and Fujiwara had together by having him do the same shoot into Sugar Foot counter real early on but in classic Kings Road style Nagai is able to hold out and reach the ropes. Yone works some decent Bati-ish work with Nagai as they exchange strikes and submissions, with Tenryu he's getting his ass kicked with stiff shots as per standard. Both dynamics are solid and it's impressive to see him actually do work as opposed to showing up as a lumpy useless big dude later in his career. Fujiwara rules obviously, dude just comes out swinging with punches and doing old man shtick, cheating his ass off, very super grumpy. Him and Tenryu have some solid interactions that get you itching for more, but for what we get? Pretty well-organised. The two know how to bounce off each other tremendously easily, so it's mostly a grumpy uncle fest of angry facials and the two laying it in. Nagai stuff is more or less generic shoot-ish offence and not that exciting bar when he's working with Tenryu who gets some actual emotion out of the guy.

Last few minutes were alright, though Yone still feels particularly unseasoned compared to everyone else here. Fujiwara tries his luck and Tenryu slaps the piss out of him, however headbutts save the day for Yone this time. He also does Tsuruta-tributes until Nagai roundhouse kicks his lariat mid-swing (great timing on it as well! ) and hits him with a German that Yone overextends for and almost brains himself on the mat. Tenryu tags in and quickly brushes off the guy by landing all of his signature offence, dodging a spinning kick and landing two stiff lariats to finish things up. This was really weird PWFG/Bati/WAR hybrid mixing here as we had some Fuji-style nonsense, some stiff strikes and shoot-style, as well as lots of interpersonal drama between the four men that at times devolved into tons of awesome strikes thrown. One wonders what AJPW would've became had Tenryu gotten the chairman role instead of Muto. If it was matches like these every show? I'd be way happier. Anyway it's Fujiwara/Tenryu, can't go wrong, great watch, easy stuff. It's about as conclusive to a match between the two as you can get barring their WAR encounter.

RANK: Good

 

Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mike Rotundo & Steve Williams

This was...alright, I guess. I'm not a fan of Varsity Club's 2000 run in general and despite Fuchi and Kawada kicking it as much as possible for two guys who have already worked a 20+ minute match in the same event, we don't really get any big moments until the end. A lot of the first half is slow unimpactful work, not helped by the washed Williams and co who do struggle to keep pace in places. If you want that amazing IRS/Kawada exchange that's always been on the back of your mind within your darkest thoughts then I GUESS this is worth something. Kawada likes working these pseudo-shoot style sequences but he really lacks any agency to his hold-wangling; it never feels like he's actually trying to finish with every submission/transition he's applying here, it just feels ho-hum, match filler. It's like Muto just doing amateur wrestling for most of his matches for a bit before devolving into his usual shtick, it doesn't have any real sting to it to make you care. Things get a bit better with some outside brawling and some 80's style cheesy heel antics as Rotundo uses Williams as leverage on the apron to get extra pain on the abdominal stretch! Another issue however is that this is mainly focused around a Fuchi hot tag as Kawada works the middle mostly.

While the crowd DO get some chants for the guy, his actual hot tag pretty much dies after about 30 seconds, namely because as much as Fuchi is a cool dude, he's, you know, Fuchi. This isn't really his avenue + they did burn out that angle the last match on this event. Long facelock spot has Fuchi communicate a lot of intensity, but the crowd don't really follow and aren't convinced despite the Steele tap-out. Double submission gets a decent reaction but Varsity are able to survive and take back control. Fuchi trying to survive with Nishimura-style roll-ups and counters ruled for the road for the finish as Kawada ran in for the big save, ended up getting punched out by Williams and finished with a Dangerous Backdrop/cutter combo. All hope seems lost as Kawada is out and Fuchi eats a second-rope Stampede, Kawada manages to run interference to delay the pinfall before paying the price with a piledriver on the outside.

Crowd finally seems properly heated as Fuchi refuses to give up with near fall after near fall despite the seemingly impossible conditions. Fuchi eventually falls to a Dangerous backdrop as Kawada gets Samoan dropped for the millionth time. Varsity Club win the RWTL to get them over as the big threats for the new AJPW. This will....mostly be the case in the future, albeit Muto coming in meant they never quite hit these highs again in subsequent years and will inevitably be swallowed up by the better foreign talent coming in when the company starts getting money flowing in. They'll be around occasionally for future matches, but their time as a tag team on this level is conclusively over.

This match HAS something good going for it with the natural drama between the natives and co to battle for the soul of the RWTL, but at the same time it's dragged down by a glacial pace and a lot of just downright bad filler. Fuchi is a trooper and Kawada is still great, Varsity just aren't on that level anymore to deliver Williams is not the main event threat he was in the 90s, no longer the guy you could stick with whoever you wanted in a tag team and get great results. That's not his fault. Rotunda just drags him down enough to where you really can't get into his performances, and that's a real shame because Dr Death would still have awesome matches...albeit they'd be singles matches, I can't judge tho.

RANK: Decent 

 

And with that, we're done! That was the last show of 2000 and as such, this Deep Dive is finally concluded. I'd like to say thanks to anyone reading this far down, much appreciated.

Do we have a answer for the question posed at the very beginning of this thread? Well I'd say so. 2000's AJPW is a mess. It's a compete cluster of freelancers and bottom of the barrel signings showing up randomly and the company's direction can best be described as "all over the place" at this point. Even with Tenryu and his WAR squad settling things a bit, the cards are still pretty much chaotic for the most part. With that said.....it's still very much a enjoyable watch. When I watched 90's All Japan I was definitely super into their product, but there was a feeling close to the end of the 90's and into 2000 that the product was becoming a bit stale and dragging its feet in terms of trying to catch up with the more modern products around the same time. It felt very much like stagnation, not helped by the same rotation of the Four Pillars still on top. NOAH existing and the drama around it essentially forced that change all at once. 

Of course it was messy, yet one that's surprisingly endearing to go through given it feels like those who stayed wanted to prove a point; that point being that the company wasn't dead and they were still relevant enough to keep the boat afloat. Those two things are debatable, but it still resulted in some solid programming in the meantime. I'd seriously give some thought into also checking out this era of the company because while it does have their shaky moments, it's also massively entertaining to the point where I'm debating making similar Projects into the years after in the future. 

All in all, I'd say while it's not a pleasant watch at points it's not the lowest point for the company as a whole. It helped kickstart it to go along with the times and would, eventually, result in a uniquely entertaining approach that endured all of the noughties and then some. In that way, I suppose, this existing as it is can't really be seen as a bad thing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[G. Badger]

Kudos for going through all of these matches especially the ones that even looked bad on paper. I've watched the high end stuff (if you can call it that) for post split 2000 AJPW. 

The tag team landscape is great... perhaps unspectacular compared with the NOAH guys were doing but the match-ups in AJ are fresh... nothing feels set in stone, no outcome seems predictable. It's definitely a company in flux. The tag scene (sans Steele & Barton who I weren't interested in watching) is really where AJPW is thriving post split. I would say the only singles match worth watching is that Kawada vs Tenryu classic from October. But there's plenty of tag stuff that has not gotten the love it deserves especially if you're into late 80's AJPW/SWS/WAR like I am. 

My favorites were:
Satoshi Kojima & Tatsutoshi Goto vs. Steve Williams & Nobutaka Araya (10/21)
Masa Chono, Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Hiro Saito vs. Toshiaki Kawada, Shiro Koshinaka & Masa Fuchi (10/21)
Toshiaki Kawada & Masanobu Fuchi vs Taiyo Kea & Johnny Smith (11/18)
Toshiaki Kawada & Masa Fuchi vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya  (12/06)
Toshiaki Kawada & Masa Fuchi vs. Steve Williams & Mike Rotunda (12/09)

I'm hoping to get a blog post together with reviews shortly. For curious folks, it is definitely worth checking out the top shelf stuff. The under card definitely seems skippable- thank you again for doing the dirty work!
 

[fxnj]

On 11/6/2023 at 7:15 AM, Ma Stump Puller said:

My answer to this is a resounding "maybe". There's a lot less comprehensive footage for 2001 than there is in 2000 last I checked, so I'm not sure if that would be worthwhile.

 

I've started looking through their TV and I kind of get what you mean. So many cool sounding match-ups which get cut for TV to only a few minutes airing. I wouldn't say it's not worthwhile to look for hidden gems, but it's very disheartening.

[G. Badger]

On 4/19/2024 at 1:51 AM, fxnj said:

I've started looking through their TV and I kind of get what you mean. So many cool sounding match-ups which get cut for TV to only a few minutes airing. I wouldn't say it's not worthwhile to look for hidden gems, but it's very disheartening.

I've been watching 2001 as well and that's been my experience too. There's a lot of matches where only half the match has aired. I feel like I've gone through what I wanted with '01 and it's definitely better than 2000. Just glancing at my notes for complete ones I found & enjoyed:

Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Johnny Smith & Taiyo Kea (01/14)

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mitsuya Nagai (03/03)

Dr. Death & George Hines vs Satoshi Kojima & Hiroyoshi Tenzan (04/14)

Nobutaka Araya & Shigeo Okumura vs. Masato Tanaka & Hideki Hosaka (05/20)

Dr. Death & Mike Rotunda (The Varsity Club) vs. Kojima & Hiro Saito (06/08)

Masahito Kakihara & Mitsuya Nagai vs. Yuji Nagata & Shinya Makabe (06/08) Gaora actually has this one

Toshiaki Kawada vs Hiroyoshi Tenzan (06/08) 

Muto vs Dr. Death (07/14)

Kawada vs Fuyuki  (10/27) Gaora has this also and I think it's somewhat well known

Muto vs Chono (10/27) Gaora also

But there's a ton of stuff that's out there where half or less was shown. A fine example is Genichiro Tenryu, Yoji Anjo, Arashi & Koki Kitahara vs. George Hines, Johnny Smith, Nobutaka Araya & Toshiaki Kawada (10/08/01).