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Post by elliott on Oct 4, 2019 15:21:55 GMT -5
Riki Choshu, Kantaro Hoshino, Kuniaki Kobayashi, Kensuke Sasaki & Shiro Koshinaka vs Animal Hamaguchi, Super Strong Machine, Tatsutoshi Goto & Hiro Saitu & Masanobu Kurisu (NJPW - 6/26/90)
New Japan 10 Man Tag matches are always awesome. Always. And this is no different. It is 2/3 falls so is kind of a unique take on these matches. This is just under 30 minutes and worked at a fast pace, but everyone gets plenty of time to shine. Crowd is super hot (no surprise) and this is about as easy viewing as anything gets.
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Post by nintendologic on Feb 8, 2021 20:20:59 GMT -5
Second. By the way, the Goto in this match is Tatsutoshi, not Tarzan.
I was prepared for a letdown after the February 1993 NJPW/WAR ten-man didn't do much for me, but this was everything I hoped it would be and more. This manages to be amazing despite the almost complete lack of star power. One side at least has a superstar in Choshu and a future star in Sasaki, but the other side consists entirely of sleazy midcarders. They compensate for the dearth of stars by serving up bucketloads of hatred. If you like 5-on-1 gang beatdowns and pre-CTE awareness headbutts, this'll be right up your alley. Another curveball comes in the form of this being 2/3 falls rather than elimination rules. The lack of ring-out eliminations opens the door to brawling on the floor, and they exploit it to the hilt. Kurisu in particular is a massive prick throughout, taking seemingly every opportunity to land a cheap shot or exploit an unfair advantage. He goes on the warpath with a chair in the first fall, and it's an awesome moment when he gets a taste of his own medicine in the third fall. But this is far from a one-man show, as the breakneck pace means everybody gets a chance to shine. Hamaguchi has some of the best elbow drops I've ever seen, Sasaki nearly breaks Goto's neck with a Rick Steiner-tier bulldog, Hoshino runs around punching people in the face like a pint-sized martial arts master in a 70s kung fu film, and Saito repeatedly flings himself into the guardrail like he's trying to cash in on a Lloyd's of London policy. A lot of 2/3 falls tags go awry by treating each fall as a self-contained mini-match with its own FIP section, hot tag, and finishing run. This is worked more like a high-end lucha apuestas match in that the falls are treated as part of an interconnected narrative. In the first fall, Koshinaka ends up falling victim to the numbers game and gets pinned without even coming close to making a tag. The massacre continues into the second fall, but he eventually tags out and even gets the pin for his side. He manages an additional receipt in the third fall when he headbutts Saito in the groin. More than anything, this is the kind of match that makes you appreciate wrestlers who can tell a story in the ring without needing the viewer to have an encyclopedic knowledge of context or backstory. I have absolutely no idea why these two groups are beefing with each other, but the way they go at it tooth and nail tells me everything I need to know. For my money, this is the second-best New Japan gang warfare match, behind only the August 1987 elimination match.
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Post by makaiclub on Apr 8, 2021 4:57:22 GMT -5
The energy and pacing was off the charts. Hoshino was fantastic in this match. By far the smallest on the roster but the spunk he brought to the match, the fiery punches he’d let off, everything he did was tremendous. His bumping for the heel team was great as well. Koshinaka was great as the face in peril, taking the brunt of the punishment and selling great. Him against Kurisu was particularly outstanding. His butt attacks were done to great effect. Hamaguchi was a rugged beast in this as well. Running down everyone he could see, except for Choshu who was a total star in this with his bursts of explosive offence. Everyone got tons of shine in some way. The pins are really well done with the added touch of everyone running in to either stop the pin or the other team from doing so. Tremendous match. ****1/2
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Post by KB8 on Apr 24, 2021 11:09:01 GMT -5
Man, this was the business. I've said it before but these multi-man tags (or gang warfare matches, as NL puts it) might be my favourite kind of wrestling match, and New Japan knew how to do them better than anyone. While I'm not entirely sure if this had any inter-promotional slant to it like the WAR/NJ or UWF/NJ feuds (to be honest I don't really know anything of the backstory here), it did have the buckets of heat and hate and piss and vinegar that made those matches so special. It never slowed down for a minute and every single person involved got to look good; those in minor roles, those in major roles, those in any role in between. Sasaki looked like a prodigy and the heir to Masa Saito, Hoshino was over like crazy and punched everybody in the face, Koshinaka ruled as your underdog babyface cracking people in the jaw with hip attacks, Choshu was an amazing big man on campus, Hamaguchi was the perfect ringleader of his lumpy scuzzball circus, literally every person involved brought the goods. And then you had Masa Kurisu, who never just stole the show -- he stole it, set it on fire, pissed over its remains and put the head in anybody who tried to stop him. By christ what a performance. His side were the heels to begin with so you expect them to get heat anyway, but he started as someone being booed by association and by the end people were baying for his blood, even when he came in legally. It might be his career performance. Like, I can see Kurisu not being for everyone. A lot of what he does looks messy and uncooperative. "He makes his opponents earn it" probably won't fly for everyone and so his selling might just look like he's not actually selling at all. But all of that gave this an extra edge, where everything he did looked like it was on the verge of breaking down, like he really wanted to throttle whoever he grabbed by the throat or headbutted in the cheek, and he grabbed literally everyone by the throat and headbutted everyone in the cheek. He'd drag someone to the floor and hammer them with chairs, he'd randomly come in and stomp someone in the neck, he'd slap people as hard as humanly possible and potato the fuck out of everybody. But all of those things had amazing payoffs, like when Koshinaka smashed a full row of chairs over his head or when Hoshino punched him in the nose. The best payoff of them all came right at the end. Kurisu pretty much bullied Sasaki for large parts of the match and revelled greatly in how much people hated him for it. He gave the kid nothing and treated him like a scrub. Then at the end Kurisu tries to stick his nose in again, Sasaki sprints over from his own corner and about takes the wee fella's head off with a dropkick. That Kurisu sold it like he'd been hit by a truck made it look like Sasaki had actually overcome something, and Choshu putting the nail in his coffin with a lariat gave the people the exact result they wanted. Kurisu needed to eat shit for his conduct and they couldn't have delivered on that any better with the finish. Just an awesome match, and like the best of these multi-man tags I could re-watch it in a week and find ten new things to love about it. After the bell Kurisu has to be pulled off his own teammate and staggers around the ring like a drunkard cussing out fans and kicking the ring ropes. Just in case you were wondering.
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