5x5 Gauntlet (NJPW - 4/19/1984)

Third.

I honestly think I could enjoy just listening to the crowd, without even watching the match. A match that can drive a Japanese crowd bonkers goes a long way with me, as does a long, long match where the time just flies by. Everyone in the match has a role to play, which I also love. Superbly booked and worked.

This is possibly the best crowd ever in terms of sheer sustained heat. People like to moments like title wins or big moves where the crowd exploded, but here they're going nuts from the opening bell and never let up for any of the match's 70+ minute duration. Quite the feat. The booking and work quality and top notch as well. First pairing is Fujinami/Kobayashi, which involved them both working hard and Kobayashi really looking like he wanted to pull off the upset, but I never really bought him having much of a chance. Match gets going into high gear when it's Fujinami against Teranishi, though, with how mercilessly he goes after Fujinami's wrist. After he gets eliminated, it's Yatsu's turn, and I think he might be the MVP of the match. Perfect for him to beat Fujinami with a sleazy foot stuck in rope count-out win. I thought the Yatsu/Takada pairing that followed might have been the highlight. I love how they work the whole thing as one long sprint, which is crazy considering it's coming in the middle of a long gauntlet match. After some blistering paced action, Yatsu hits a backdrop a few minutes in and Takada sells it like he might be about to get pinned. Instead, Yatsu can't keep him down and it just serves as the point where the match reaches a new level of heat. Yatsu wins and goes on to put on a hard effort against Kimura, he's too spent to have much of a shot. After that, Hamaguchi comes in and the match goes in a different but still awesome direction. Initially I questioned why he was doing all kinds of stalling bullshit instead of capitalizing on Kimura's potential fatigue from the prior pairing with Yatsu. I realized, though, that even if he might not have been taking advantage of Kimura's physical fatigue, he was absolutely taking advantage of Kimura's mental fatigue by wearing him psychologically until he found just the right opening. We get some nice action, but Hamaguchi barely manages to keep him down. After that we get another high point of the match as Fujiwara comes out guns blazing against Hamaguchi and seems determined to not let him pull out any of the tricks he did against Kimura. So of course Hamaguchi goes straight for the old cut on Fujiwara's head. They work a really heated bout built around the classic heel vs. face dynamic that culminates Fujiwara forcing a double count-out, which leads to him having this great look of smugness in aftermath.

I've seen people criticize the Inoki/Choshu as a disappointment because of how they focused on matwork and Inoki didn't really give much to Choshu, but I think that sort of thing misunderstood the idea behind Fujiwara's sacrifice. After Hamaguchi and the rest of Choshu's team tried all kinds of shenanigans to steal the match, the forced double countout finish served as the ultimate middle finger to all that by forcing the final match of the gauntlet to be a no-nonsense contest where Inoki could show everyone that he was the better man than Choshu. Anyway, I thought the Choshu/Inoki pairing felt epic and it was exactly what I wanted to see at that point with lots of great struggle but Inoki ultimately having an answer for everything Choshu tried. We get a pretty cool near fall for Choshu as he hits a surprise lariat and goes for the Scorpion Deathlock, but Inoki escaped and hits some big moves en route to finishing Choshu with the manji hold. They did a great job milking the fight to apply the hold and it was cool how Choshu insisted on going out on his shield by refusing to submit. This felt like the perfect feud blow-off overall and really got me wanting to go back and watch the Choshu/Fujinami epics from 1983 as well as some of the wild 6-mans leading up to this. This match encapsulates the peak of Inoki-led NJPW and things would never really be same afterwards with the UWF exodus and Choshu's guys leaving later in the year.

As much as I've praised this match, though, I will admit that it simply feel like the sort of slam-dunk best match of the 80's that I thought it was when I saw it for the DVDVR voting despite not really having any real flaws I could think of. I've come up with a few reasons for why this might be, none of which are related to the quality of the work. Firstly, I probably just wasn't as invested in this feud from watching it cold compared to going through the 80's set and seeing all the lead-ins. Secondly, and more frustrating, the only version that seems to be available is a blurry cap from the original broadcast with only the Choshu/Inoki finale available on NJPW world. After getting used to the pristine quality of the Japanese promotions from this period thanks to DVD releases, classics reairings, and even comm tapes, it caught me off-guard to see such a great and important match in such poor quality. A real shame that NJPW doesn't seem to have put more effort into canonizing their best matches as a similar issue also seems to plague other classics, such as Liger/Sano 8/10/1989, but it doesn't take too much away from what these men did here. ****5/8

This match had a great performance by almost everybody with no downtime and being constantly compelling. it is enhanced by heat and is an example of how crowd heat can make you truely invasted in a match and can make a match compelling. it has great work of what actually happened in the ring but not perfect no match is perfect tho. The overall narrative as well as making the pairings feeling individual and distinct while meshing well and all the mini narratives of the bigger pictures meshing while being narrative of themselves is such a credit to them. The match feels epic. First pair is fujinami kunaki amd we really see the genius of fujinami. He does great selling of kuinakis juniorish offense as well as struggling with him out of all people putting struggle as wellas selling his arm attack long term well was good. Fujinami gets a german out of nowhere to win. Second pair is fujinami vs isamu and isamu immediately targets the injured arm wearing it down making for some good visuals. Fujinami obviously sell it wellhis arm his too damaged but isamu injures his leg while going for some dive fuji capatilize and then gets choshus submission to gain an mental advantage and some revenge i guess. Ishingun gets desperate. And yatsu gets desperate and uses shengains to count fuji out making a violent scrap on fuji as his leg gets struck and he gets countedout. I forget to mention how fujis punches are great and him constantly trying to struggle with his arm while trying to make it recover and even use it in desperation and his general moves trying to make it work was great.so that was third pair. Fourth pair is yatsu and takada. Takadas offence looked fine slaps etc this had the junior vs heavy dynimc with crowd going mental and people begging for takada to pull the upset. Takada dropped off the selling and went full speed so it wasnt consistent or great. Yatsu kick out of takadas moves at one was some good dismissive stuff maybe heelish. Takada bring a bit urgency and the execution and strikes by both as well as nerfalls were good and epic respectively even if i am not a nearfall or crowd heat guy but they enhance a match when done well. Yatsu drops takada on his head. Takada took a risk too many and paid as yatsu does a top rope move then finish em. Too many 2.999s for my tastes but were done well. Poor transtions tho. Fifth pair is kimura kengo vs yatsu and kengo does fine holds as well as taking advantage and outclassing yatsu who shengians work against and loses. Sixth pair is my boy animal vs kimura as animal does genius stalling and shengians to gain a psyhological advantage as well as slow and exhuscate kengo from previous match. Then easily finshes him. The fujiwara armbar by kengo poped my hugely. Then comes by king fujiwara. Hes the defensive style so the stallhng dont affect him and he does awesome strikes great body punches as well as the waraheadbutts. He fusturates animal who wents after his taped head but that doesnt stop fuji from destroying him with headbutts as the crowd is mental behind fuji. The finish with ishingun who uses shengians playing against them works as this super fuck you. Epic performance by wara indeed. Then comes by favourite part as crowd embraces ace inoki. Haters be damned inoki is great. The matwork is great with good tenchique counters by inoki good tenchical work by choshu struggle. As choshu tries to use pure brute to get out of submission and nails riki lariato and then sasori but inoki gets out and purely outclasses choshu on mat. Great tension boiling up good strikes with struggle violent greet stuff. Choshu had a feud with inoki too. He try to replace him but in this match inoki cements him and put him in his place. The ending with inoki using manji hold to get techinical win by making choshu pass was great. It protected both guys and was what the feud needed yes even choshu and fujinami vs choshu wasnt the main narrative and inoki winning clenley outclassing choshu works as the ultimate fuck you and pay off to the wara scarfice spot smirk as well as early sheginagns. Mvps were fujiwara fujinami and animal you know a match is great when yatsu putting a great performance one of the best his carrer is the 4th best guy in it. Legendary match to say the least isnt without faults as it feels samey in middle and the actual work in takada yatsu has faults so again not perfect. My fav part inoki choshu and my least fav part tie between kunaki fujinami kengo yatsu and takada yatstu which are all fine to very good to good which tell you everything about this match that i and words cant do justice maybe the best sustained crowd heat ever just for how sheer long it was and how compelling work and crowd was just for loudness alone of heat.again haters be damned inoki vs choshu was their usual great matwork based stuff. Epic ending 97 percent and lock for top 15 for me easily imo.

An amazingly intricate and complex story told out of a simple concept rules-wise. The interplay with wins and losses had me stoked forty years after the match. I am also probably the high voter on NJ Yatsu over AJ Yatsu and seeing him get so much spotlight was phenomenal for me. Fujinami got the Wargames Workhorse spot as well. And then it all builds to an amazing showdown with Inoki and Choshu. A likely top ten finisher for me.

      Does anyone have a link to this match.? A link would be very much appreciated.  I need some of this 90minute goodness     . Also, are there any other 90- min matches you guys can think of?      

drive.google.com/file/d/19U-z5pNuU_iI2LZEwxGEQ0QOj5oQ_yYf/view?usp=sharing

Not the easiest to find. One of my favourite 80s New Japan matches.