Great Muta vs Hiroshi Hase (NJPW - 9/14/90)

I am seconding this. Man, I feel like we dropped the ball on a lot of famous matches. I guess I really only focused on nominating matches I would vote for and forgot that I really should nominate everything that is great so that it makes people aware of the matches. This is still a famous match and I think I watched this one first because this was the one online for a long time and the '92 match was harder to find. I like both a lot but do prefer the '92 match.

The Great Muta vs Hiroshi Hase - NJPW 9/14/90

The match that makes the case that it should actually be named the Hase Scale not the Muta Scale as this predates the more famous rematch by two years. Even though, I prefer the rematch, this match is great in its own right. After re-watching a ton of Great Muta in New Japan last year, I became quite a Muta mark. He is this Horror Movie Monster come to life that stalks his prey, bloodies them and does not sell shit. I think Muta was still crafting the character and we did not get as much as bizarre and violent we would later, but this is still great. I thought everything pre-bladejob was perfectly fine, but nothing stellar. Hase hit a couple big spots. Muta hit his back handspring elbow and used his deathlock, but then Muta rammed Hase's head into the ring post after Hase slapped the paint right off Muta's face, which pissed Muta off. Hase comes up and OH MY GOD! It is a fucking murder scene on his chest. Muta is just in his element as the Slasher movie villain. Biting the cut, slamming it into hard object, power Muta elbow, piledriver all that good stuff. Hase is great at selling all this. He is on jelly legs stumbling and bumbling. I loved Hase's primal roar that preceded his big comeback. What a comeback it was! Hits an excellent backdrop driver, splash from the top, his patented Northern Lights Suplex, some great work outside to get some payback, a BIG TIME Urnage, but when he went up for the coup d'grace Muta sprayed Green Mist in his eyes! Muta attacked the ref with some metal scaffolding triggering the DQ, but he hits the backbreaker and then moonsaults Hase on top of the scaffolding to put over this hot, new heel wildman charatcer.

I would definitely check this out before the '92 match as it will enhance an already excellent match and make you cheer Hase harder to get his revenge. Muta had not quite reached the peak of his heel powers, but he was close. This match is much more than epic bladejob by Hase it featured strong work on top by Muta and an impassioned comeback from Hase. ****