Riki Choshu vs Genichiro Tenryu (JPW - 2/21/1985)

I loved Tenryu’s tactics to start. In addition to looking great, Tenryu’s moves made Choshu’s comeback feel like a really big deal. Great sense of struggle as we go to the finish. Fun wrestling match.

I'd somehow never seen this before even though I always assumed I had. Might this be their best match? As a bombfest sprint it's fucking terrific and there's pretty much no down time at all. Tenryu walloping Choshu before the bell ruled and his string of offence after that followed suit. That piledriver was an absolute corker and I thought Choshu sold everything great; like that lariat had completely knocked him for a loop and he was just trying to hang in there. I loved Tenryu putting the boots to him and Choshu's comeback was awesome, Tenryu selling the backdrop by wildly kicking his legs like he had no idea whatsoever that it was coming. Nice struggle over the sharpshooter as well, and you know the crowd came unglued for the big revenge lariat. I was expecting a somewhat deflating double count out when they took it to the floor, but then we got the AWESOME backdrop on the apron and all is right. This was almost worked as a sprint, whereas I remember most of their other matches having more of a tentativeness about them. Red hot crowd, red hot pace, red hot wrestling. Yeah, this might be my favourite of their matches together.

Incredible sub-10 minute bombfest that wastes no time and builds to a classic comeback from Choshu. He might very well be the best ever in these sorts of compact, singles matches. There's a Scorpion Deathlock applied in the first 5 minutes that has the crowd going apeshit, fully buying into a potential submission finish. Also loved the way they lead to a common DCO only for Choshu to pull out a Saito onto the apron and make the victory feel earned and significant.