FUJIWARASMIRK

Billy Travis & Jeff Jarrett vs. Chico Torres & Sweet Daddy Falcone (USWA Dallas Sportatorium, 7/5/90)

I haven’t really taken the opportunity to write about 1990 USWA so far because, quite simply, there hasn’t been a whole lot to write about. The product is decent, sure, but I’ve been disappointed by stuff like the Lawler/Snowman feud (it’s solid!) and the Chris Adams/Steve Austin matches. This match, though, gets an easy recommendation from me, just simple work based predominantly on stooging from the heels and right hands from the babyfaces. It’s especially interesting to see a young Jeff Jarrett here, at this point well known for being the son of promoter Jerry Jarrett rather than the BREE WOO guy, and how he takes naturally to the white meat babyface role. He’s incensed at hot sauce being thrown in his eyes on last week’s show, and he throws punches at Torres and Falcone with righteous fury. Surprisingly, though, it’s Travis who’s throwing the real heaters here, these beautiful pistons cocked back with dangerous intent. All the while, there’s a recurring theme of attacking the eyes from both teams that puts across the heated nature of the bout, even with how ridiculous the premise of the feud is on its face. Really good Memphis-style brawl that stands out amongst most everything on these USWA shows this year.

Rating: ***1/2

The Midnight Express vs. The Southern Boys (NWA The Great American Bash 1990, 7/7/90)

Hell yeah, man. Confederate gear notwithstanding (even in 1990, this feels pretty insane, no?), the Southern Boys are a really good pairing of babyfaces, with the youngest Armstrong serving as the more traditional athletic good guy while Smothers is more comfortable throwing what Jim Ross calls “savate kicks” and enacting kung-fu exchanges with Stan Lane. Neither man is as special as Ricky Morton in there against Midnight Express (who is?), but they both work quite well with the big bumping, bomb-throwing blonde pricks with the loudmouth manager, and they’re certainly worlds ahead of the likes of Tom Zenk. What makes this match memorable to me is how, unlike the RnR’s, the Southern Boys really fight and fight to stop MX from gaining an advantage, always being one step ahead and hitting an armdrag or a superkick in response to a quick tag. Even with MX being the far more established team at this point, it takes a WHILE for them to gain real momentum in there against the challengers, but when they do eventually take over after all the begging off and powdering, it’s such a treat to watch Lane and Eaton work as a well-oiled machine. Their double-teams are once again creative and look fantastic, but the highlight of the match for me comes from Lane first throwing Tracy Smothers into the steel barricades on the outside, then launching him from the apron to the barricade back-first in a real lunatic bump. I think this could have served with a sharper, less jumbled finish, but as is it’s still a really great southern tag and another hit for Midnight Express who’ve anchored the tag division all year to this point.

Rating: ***3/4

Ric Flair vs. Sting (NWA The Great American Bash 1990, 7/7/90)

Great in spite of itself.

I struggle with this one, not because I disliked it, but because it’s such an obvious kind of thing. Obvious, of course, in the sense that this is Sting’s big moment, Flair’s passing of the torch going into the new decade, but also just obvious in the way that most people reading this can probably intuit…it’s Flair and Sting, you know? For two guys I really like, this pairing has always left me a little cold, in spite of the obvious chemistry the two men have with each other. It always feels just a little less creative than you would hope, and it’s sort of a bummer as you could tell they loved working with each other.

What’s more, this is Sting’s big return following his knee injury in February. That same month, Flair would go on to have a great match with Lex Luger for the world title that went 38 minutes. By contrast, this is only 16 minutes, shorter even than the Luger cage match in May, an understandable but disappointing outcome given the result at the end.

With all that being said, Flair’s still near the peak of his powers here, and he works hard to get the match and his bombastic young opponent over. He stooges well for the Stinger in the opening moments, looking for space away from him whenever the face-painted powerhouse clobbers him. Of course, given such an obvious target, it’s not long before the Dirtiest Player in the Game zeroes in on Sting’s hurt knee. It’s not the most deranged attack Flair’s ever put on a hurt limb, but it works here, especially with Sting’s genuinely admirable effort in selling it, limping back in pain whilst trying to keep a fighter’s stance.

For someone just coming off injury, Sting is pretty damn good here in general. He looks to be in damn good shape, and the energy is there for him as it usually is. I’ve never really cared for his no-selling spots in this series; it feels generic and, at times, forced, but it’s kept to a relative mininum here, and I think is even utilized to great effect down the stretch. When he absorbs those chops in the corner, it feels more like a statement that he’s through with Flair’s punishment and less like he’s nonverbally shouting about how invincible he is, and the crowd is super into it like they should be.

There’s also the finish. Sting goes for a flying knee attack into a prone Flair in the corner, but Flair moves out the way. Flair looks to put it away with his patented figure four leglock, but, in a callback to last year’s Great American Bash, Sting reverses into an inside cradle for the three count and to finally win the NWA World Heavyweight Title as all the babyfaces in the company rush to the ring to hoist them on their shoulders. It’s a great finish, and even if I wish it were attached to a longer, more traditional title match for Sting’s big moment, there’s no denying the moment here.

Rating: ***3/4

Masanobu Fuchi vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW Summer Action Series 1990 – Day 5, 7/12/90)

Fuchi vs. Kikuchi is one of my favorite matchups from 90s All Japan because it always feels like Fuchi takes pleasure in finding new avenues to torture that would make Method Man and Raekwon wince. Unfortunately, this is not that (yet), but it’s still a damn good match all the same. Fuchi isn’t nearly as relentless as he would be in this series in the years to come, but he’s still plenty aggressive and mean; he casually grinds his elbow into Kikuchi’s face while controlling his leg on the mat, slams him on the hard floor outside, and stomps the back of his head in over and over when he gets a chance. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, as you might know, is one of the best junior babyfaces of all time, so all this punishment looks especially painful and cruel on him when he’s selling it as well as he does, screaming in agony while Fuchi wrenches on a half Boston Crab. Even when he reaches the ropes, it looks like it took all the energy in the world for him to pull even that off, but he finds a hidden reserve with a flurry of strikes. All of Kikuchi’s offense in this is so great, from the elbows near the start that rock his bigger opponent to the half crabs he himself is able to apply near the end. By the end, despite this not being an especially long bout, the exhaustion between both men is palpable, and they milk those closing exchanges and nearfalls for all they’re worth before a german suplex gets Fuchi the win. Not the transcendentally cruel bouts these two would go on to demonstrate down the line, but just simple, effective, hard hitting pro wrestling that’s enough to win me over in the end.

Rating: ***3/4

Harley Saito vs. Shinobu Kandori (JWP, 7/19/90)

On first watch, I thought this was stunningly great, one of the best matches of the year seemingly that came out of seemingly nowhere. On revisit, I can see the flaws of this a little clearer; this is worked a little too back-and-forth for my tastes, and the restart near the end awkwardly disrupts the flow the two built up.

With that being said, yeah, this match is still real fucking great.

I’m most familiar with Kandori through her interpromotional dream matches in AJW a few years after this, where the ideological divide between wrestler and shooter is firmly established in matches vs. the likes of Akira Hokuto, which isn’t dissimilar to how this match is worked, but it’s a bit of a culture shock to see Harley Saito take it to the judoka on the mat the way she does here. It would be a stretch to say that she matches Kandori in the grappling exchanges, but for someone to be so clearly in an underdog role, Saito is more than willing to play her opponent’s game if it can provide her an advantage. When Kandori traps her in a leg lock, she’s patient enough to endure the pain and wrench on a leg of her own, and this is only complimented when she pulls back on a half boston crab with all her might less than a minute later. Her mentality in the groundwork matches the tone of the match as a whole: gritty, uncooperative and unwilling to give an inch.

To that point, Saito’s best moments are when she lays into Kandori with her strikes. At one point, she’s just straight up punt kicking Kandori repeatedly in the face, then the back, then the back of the neck, eventually forcing her opponent to roll out of the ring in pain. Again, I’m going into this cold given the lack of JWP footage, but just watching these two stiff the shit out of each other you’d be given the impression that there was real disdain between them, worked or otherwise.

Kandori steals the show for me, though.

For as great as she’ll be in 2-3 years, she already looks shockingly close to the finished product, even moreso than some of her joshi contemporaries both in JWP and beyond. The smugness is there, the effortless brilliance of her grappling is already there, the aggression is certainly there. Most of what makes her such a compelling figure to watch at her peak is already present, if not quite refined, so it’s impossible to not light up when she pulls a flash armbar out of midair or rushes Saito in the corner with a flurry of strikes following the restart. Saito’s damn good, maybe even a bit of a revelation here, but Kandori’s growing into one of the best wrestlers ever, let alone alive, and it’s thrilling to watch her tackle a challenge such as what her opponent presents her here.

And the finishing stretch rules, too, with both women trading nearfalls to give the illusion that Harley Saito could pull off the upset (an illusion already broken by her getting the pinfall and getting screwed out of the win by the ref, mind you). Saito does get a moral victory to go along with her phantom one, not tapping to a Kandori leglock, but the judoka still had enough in the tank to hit a short-arm lariat and a killer tiger driver to get the win. Flaws and all, this is still one of my favorite discoveries of the project, and an easy recommendation to anyone that likes a little grit and disdainful grappling in their joshi viewing.

Rating: ****

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Akira Maeda (UWF Mind, 7/20/90)

Speaking of striker vs. grappler matchups.

Ok, it’s not entirely fair to put Maeda in a box as a striker. He’s shown himself repeatedly to be adept on the mat over the past 5 years since, but when he’s in there with the best shooter on the entire roster, his immense striking ability is going to take precedent in one’s mind. The way that he incorporates leg and body kicks into the mix in-between the lock-ups and takedowns makes the stand-up consistently engaging, especially with the viewer’s esoteric knowledge that Fujiwara’s gonna catch one of those motherfuckers eventually and make him pay for it. Again, though, even when it gets down to the mat, Maeda’s not a fish out of water, and he holds his own well enough to force resets and even take control in brief moments.

In general, this match stays relatively even throughout most of its runtime. These two are incredibly familiar with one another, and they practically know every trick the other’s gonna throw out; for instance, Fujiwara knows when he has control of Maeda’s right leg that he’s just gonna try to upkick him in the face with his left, so he shifts his body to avoid it. Likewise, after getting downed with a headbutt, Maeda recognizes Fujiwara’s flurry of punches in the corner and blocks them before unleashing some of his own. No one really gains a significant advantage throughout this, and it feels like it’ll be a while before something breaks through for one of the two.

Unfortunately for Akira Maeda and very fortunately for Yoshiaki Fujiwara, it only really takes 12 for this opening to show, and once it peeks through it seals the former’s fate.

Maeda prematurely goes for the kill here where Fujiwara didn’t after the earlier headbutt. Maeda thinks that he’s rocked the old man with a body kick, and all the feeling out that made up the previous minutes of the match evaporates into excitement and impatience. He gets baited into throwing body kicks in succession, which Fujiwara exploits. The man’s hand-eye coordination are just way too fast to keep giving him opportunities to grab a leg out of the air, and Maeda’s desperate flurry of strikes are not enough to stop Fujiwara from taking him down by the arm and locking in an armbar that Maeda almost immediately taps to before pounding the mat in anger at himself. Patience is absolutely a virtue, and maybe no wrestler has ever been more calm and collected when all else is equal than Yoshiaki Fujiwara in spots like these.

Rating: ****

Stan Hansen vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW Summer Action Series 1990 – Day 17, 7/27/90)

This was for the vacant Triple Crown title, after recently crowned champion Terry Gordy suffered an unfortunate overdose.

For a pairing that’s been historically maligned relative to their talent levels, I think this match really flies in the face of that narrative. I can’t speak for where this series goes as Misawa grows into the unstoppable ace role, but these two show a much better chemistry here as the cowboy still near the peak of his powers and the ascendant young babyface than I expected.

You can immediately tell this to be the case when he rushes Hansen right as the bell rings, grabs his bullrope and whips him with it, and then attacks the Texan with a chair.

This is maybe the closest Misawa has come to an actual brawl, and it’s AWESOME. I don’t doubt that Hansen leading the match led to this unusual scenario, but Misawa’s still a revelation in this setting regardless. The crowd is loudly chanting his name, so it’s not like he’s a heel here against his foreign counterpart, but he is uber aggressive here in a way you rarely see from him. He targets Hansen’s left arm early and goes to town on it, wrenching on it on the mat and inside the ropes to neutralize the lariat. A series of headbutts gives Hansen a brief respite, but it’s not long at all before Misawa’s right back on the attack. It’s some of the most focused control work of the man’s career, remarkably impressive given both how great he’ll become and how relatively aimless he felt under the Tiger Mask gimmick earlier in the year. It’s as if he saw a brief opening in the door with the Jumbo upset last month and is trying to crack it open, a frantic and desperate attempt to strike while the iron is hot and win the title right here and now.

In a theme of this year for the man with the golden Lariat, Hansen’s once again tasked with playing a sympathetic role underneath, and he again knocks it out of the park. Clearly in a little shock at the kid’s tactics, he can’t shake Misawa off him no matter what he does, and his arm is screaming in pain as a result. When he is able to get a little separation, the arm lays at his side, clearly a weak link that he can’t hide, a constant target to be exploited. It’s the right arm that Hansen has to use to get any sort of credible offense in, utilizing chops along with his usual headbutts to little effect.

Even still, he’s far from out of the fight.

Hansen knows that Misawa’s never really been in this position before, and he knows if he can weather this frenzied storm that he can regain the title he lost 10 days prior, so he endures. He waits for his spots, and when given the first opportunity he knees the little pest right in the face. Realizing Misawa’s gas tank is likely spent from going 100 miles an hour for like 10 minutes straight, he takes a risk and uses the hurt arm to hit an elbow. It may hurt him in the short-term, but it’ll help him win in the long run. When Misawa gets him outside and tries to hit him with a chair, the shock has worn off; he’s now playing Hansen’s game, and Hansen’s been in brawls longer than this green-tighted little wunderkind has been wrestling.

When Misawa tries to revert back to his own style, Hansen has that scouted too. He absorbs the frog splash from the top rope and kicks out at two, and he smartly moves out of the way of a dive to the outside, leaving Misawa to crash and burn. It’s telling that it’s when Misawa gets away from a winning strategy, targeting the lariat arm, that Hansen’s able to recover enough to hit a god-damner of a Western Lariat to win the title; Misawa’s great, but he’s not battle-tested enough to hold this belt yet. He might have pinned Jumbo Tsuruta, but he is not quite the big dog yet, and who better than Stan Hansen to make him aware of that fact?

Rating: ****1/4