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Episode 66: WCW/New Japan Supershow I
63 Plays1 year ago
It's time for a new series, and this time, we're going international! We've gotten an occasional glimpse of WCW's partnership with New Japan Pro Wrestling before, when New Japan wrestlers visited WCW, but now it's time to take a look at when WCW wrestlers visited New Japan - in the WCW / New Japan Supershow series! First up - 1991's Supershow I, hacked together by WCW from New Japan's "91 Starrcade in Tokyo Dome." WCW's cut an 11 match show down to 7, but did they leave the fun intact? Sting vs. the Great Muta! The Steiners vs. Sasaki and Hase in a prematch from Collision in Korea! The Four Horsemen enjoy shopping! And can Ric Flair defeat the Dragon (not that one)? For all this and more, let's go to the ring!
Music by Michael Gary Brewer at https://www.instantmusicnow.com/
Follow us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/LetsGo2theRing/
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Transcript
Introduction to Let's Go to the Ring Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
JR works the knees. Sorry. JR works the knees. JR with a run-in to help player, yeah.
00:00:37
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Let's Go to the Ring, where we take a look at the good old days and not so good old days of World Championship Wrestling Series by Series. I'm your host, Bob Moore, and I'm joined by a man who is still reeling from the revelation that he's the son of an AWA wrestling referee, Alec Bridget. I don't know what to say. I'm just still reeling, you know? How's it going tonight, Al? It's going well. How about yourself?
00:01:00
Speaker
I am I'm doing all right. I'm it's reports week at work. So pretty tired out. So I'm glad that tonight I get to come on with you and discuss honestly, no spoilers, but or I guess slight spoilers, but a really good show. Yeah, sure. This one was a ton of fun to watch. I'm very glad that we've done this series. But if I say anymore, I'll have to cut the episode short. So I think I'll move on to the intro.
WCW New Japan Super Shows Series Begins
00:01:25
Speaker
Fair enough.
00:01:26
Speaker
So, as noted, it's time to start our newest series. It is always fun starting a new set of shows, but this time is particularly exciting, as we are looking at the WCW New Japan Super Shows, starting with 1991's Super Show 1, known in Japan as Starrcade in Tokyo Dome. We have always enjoyed the little touches of New Japan Pro Wrestling on WCW's shows, so seeing three whole shows focused exclusively on their partnership should be a load of fun.
1991 Tokyo Dome Event Overview
00:01:57
Speaker
Absolutely. WCW New Japan Super Show 1 was held on March 21, 1991 at the Tokyo Dome, also referred to as the Big Egg, which is awesome. It is, yeah. In Tokyo, Japan, in front of 54,500 fans per ProWrestlingHistory.com. Wikipedia lists 64,500, but the Tokyo Dome seating is only listed as up to 55,000.
00:02:24
Speaker
Either way, given that we can't really count collision in Korea for attendance records due to the likelihood that people weren't attending by choice, that makes this the largest crowd for a show that we have yet covered by
WCW Attendance Records and Comparisons
00:02:36
Speaker
far. Yeah, I guess so.
00:02:38
Speaker
Prior to this, our largest single arena crowd has been Slamboree 1999 at the TWA Dome with 20,516. Though that was outdone twice if we count double arena shows, Starrcade 1986 got 30,000 across two arenas, and Starrcade 1985 got 32,000 across two arenas. Super Show 1 smashed all of those.
00:03:03
Speaker
I know there is the question of how you count the outdoor venues. True. Yes. Watching the 1995 bash of the beach, they were claiming some outlandish numbers. They were saying more like 100,000 people were there and were like, I don't think so. Those numbers are just bonkers out there. Yeah.
00:03:22
Speaker
Yeah. And even if you're counting people that like walked up, they get literally walked up. So it's not paid attendance. Right. It's, hey, let me go to the beach. What's this? What's the big crowd for us to walk over and see? Boom, you counted now. Yeah. So at the very least, we can say it's the largest paid attendance crowd that was going there by their own choice. Yes, correct.
00:03:44
Speaker
It's possible, depending on who you believe, that there might be a larger crowd in attendance at a WCW show, depending on how you count the beach one and everything, but I don't think so. Looking at the size of the crowd on that show versus the size of the crowd on this show, I feel like this is loads bigger. Now, maybe with the road wild and hog wild shows, if you count the bikes separately. All the ones that are going by. Oh, no, as you know, the actual motorcycles. Yeah, the actual bikes.
00:04:11
Speaker
They all have names, you know, there are Harleys. There's a lot of Harleys there, that's all. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Yeah.
Significance of Tokyo Dome in Wrestling
00:04:19
Speaker
Since 1992, the year after this show, the Tokyo Dome has been home to annual New Japan Pro Wrestling events every January 4th. Since 2007, those events have been known as Wrestle Kingdom because Japan gets all the cool names.
Preview of Future Super Shows
00:04:35
Speaker
They really do, yeah.
00:04:36
Speaker
Incidentally, we will actually be seeing two of those shows later in this series as 1992's Super Warriors in the Tokyo Dome and 1993's Fantastic Story in Tokyo Dome. Again, Japan has the best names for things. Mm hmm. We're brought over here as Super Show two and three, respectively.
Heavily Edited WCW Pay-Per-View Version
00:04:55
Speaker
OK. Well, Super Show one was aired on pay-per-view over in America in April 1991. I was unable to find the actual pay-per-view numbers.
00:05:05
Speaker
Notably, today we're going to be watching the WCW version of the show. Why does this matter, you ask? Well, because the WCW version of the show is chopped down quite heavily, taking an 11-match show down to only seven matches, a pattern that will continue for the rest of the series. We're not just talking about dark matches before the show, either. We lose matches from throughout the show. Still, it felt most legit to us with us being a WCW show to watch the WCW version. Yeah.
00:05:34
Speaker
So what do we lose? Well, we have Animal Hamaguchi, Kengo Kimura, Osamu Kido, and Kantarล Hoshino versus Hiro Sayito, Tatsugoshi Goto, Norio Honaga, and Super Strong Machine, see again, read Japan in names. Well, this sounds fun. I'll admit I'm not sad. I get to avoid recapping an eight man tag. Yeah. Incidentally, that is the actual opening match of the show. So we're actually going to be starting with match two.
00:06:06
Speaker
We also lose Scott Norton versus the Equalizer, which I'm not sorry about either. No. I like Norton, but I can't imagine that he replicated DDP's success from Bash of the Beach 1995. Next up, and this one does make me sad, we lose Big Van Vader and Crusher Bam Bam Bigelow versus Doom. That sounds fun. It was actually. You found it? Oh yeah. Oh my gosh. Jealous.
00:06:35
Speaker
Now, so I think there's a reason for this. Okay. At a show we covered a while back, Russell War. They really started the whole Doom breakup angle. Ah, gotcha. And that's in February. This show when it was recorded, originally it was in late March, and Doom was just kind of back together.
00:06:56
Speaker
It's a little weird that they're just kind of back together. Like nothing happened. Cause they literally, they lost their tag titles and fought each other to break up the team. It's not like, Oh, we might split up later. They were literally being the crap of each other. But Japan, we was like, we really like these guys bring them over and like, Oh, okay. Fortunately, this version is available online. I'm guessing from the original Japanese one, I found it separately, uh, which means there's no weakest commentary because they didn't record it.
00:07:25
Speaker
It also means the video quality is even worse than the actual show we're watching, unfortunately. It's down to around 240p. That said, it is Vader and Bigelow. You can see him. Oh, yeah. I can talk about it briefly if you want, because I did actually watch the match. Feel free, and definitely you're giving me that link afterwards, right? Oh, yeah, of course. That's right. You did track it down yourself.
00:07:51
Speaker
Basically the way the match plays out is Vader and Bigelow Bulls are really strong, but then they get double teamed by doom. Again, not playing the, we're a broke up tag team thing, which is tension. They play a hundred percent straight throughout the match. There's no like thing
Greatest 18 Club and Championship Discussion
00:08:07
Speaker
where they, you know, start losing advantage because they start fighting each other or arguing. It's like they didn't break up at all. So again, I could see why they kind of cut this as sadly I'm for people missing out in this match.
00:08:17
Speaker
What's really interesting about this match is that the faces in this match are Vader and Bigelow. Oh. Well, everyone in this match is an outsider. They are much more known in Japan, Bigelow and Vader. Vader, I believe, is a two or three time IWGP champion at this point. Yeah, I know Tony mentions that at some point on the show that Vader has held the title that Fujinami holds. Yeah, he was actually the man Fujinami beat for the title. Oh, OK. Cool. That sounds like a great match. Again, I'll have to track that one as well. Yeah.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah. So it's an interesting match because after a first few minutes of it, it really is doom controlling face and peril. Bam, bam. Bigelow building up to the hot tag on Vader. What? Oh my gosh. That sounds amazing. Yeah, it's quite good. All the stuff you'd expect is there. Bigelow does cartwheel during his entrance. Uh, we get a tickerly nasty looking falling fridge, AKA Vader's sort of jumping through my whole body at you move.
00:09:12
Speaker
He basically throws himself at I believe it's Butch Reed and it looks very impulsive for poor Butch. And actually even the finish of the match isn't some like big super strong comeback for the team of Vader and Bigelow.
00:09:26
Speaker
Basically build a hot tag, Vader controls for a bit, but then they hit control again. Ultimately, butchery goes for a top rope diving shoulder block. Vader moves out of the way. And you can kind of picture how that landing felt. Cause you're just throwing your whole body with your shoulder forward and just landing flat. As he dives, Vader moves out of the way, hits a big splash and they win. Okay. Oh, and post-match because they lose. Dube start fighting again. So.
00:09:55
Speaker
I guess they didn't forget the story. They just forgot it for the match itself. That's funny. We will definitely see into the Lincoln. It's not great quality and not English commentary, but still quite enjoyable. Sounds fascinating to watch. Yeah. Mm hmm. And the final match that we're missing is Ricky Choshu versus Tiger Jeet Singh for Choshu's greatest 18 club championship, because again, Japan names. Mm hmm.
00:10:22
Speaker
This is probably off because originally it was supposed to be Lex Luger facing Choshu, but apparently Luger's contract didn't require him to perform in Japan. Yeah. And he's like, I don't want to go to Japan, Russell. Yeah. I'm curious like, yeah. If that match had changed and had been Luger for it. For one thing, given the context of what the belt is, which I'll discuss, it's still interesting to see what would happen with that. Yeah.
00:10:47
Speaker
So in 1990, New Japan established the Greatest 18 Club. It's a list of 18 people that they serve to be great wrestlers and performers. Basically it is their Hall of Fame before there's an actual New Japan Hall of Fame, which I think is a thing now, at least in some way, shape, or form. At very least there's Japanese Wrestling Hall of Fame, so there's something that meets that same need. So the competitive list I got for Wikipedia.
00:11:15
Speaker
There's many obvious names you'd expect to be on the greatest 18 club. Hulk Hogan, Antonio Anoki, Bob Backlund, Lou Thes, Carl Gotch, Dusty Rhodes, Stan Hansen, Andre the Giant, Vern Gagne. Go back to last episode. Nice. And also going back to last episode, Nick Bockwinkle. Hey.
00:11:36
Speaker
Now there's some here, the goal that at least two American wrestling fans, at least of a certain age are a little less obvious. So you have Billy Robinson, Johnny Valentine. And then we have Muhammad Ali is there because he just really like Muhammad Ali. He's not a human wrestler, but they just like him in Japan. I guess he did have the enoki match, right? Oh yeah, that's true. And there's a, there's a whole thing where him and grillman soon have an altercation in American wrestling as well.
00:12:04
Speaker
There are also some people that are very civic to this that, okay, bear in mind that I'm obsessed with details and I coast a wrestling podcast. I had to look these people up to get the exact details on them. So this just for reference, there's a guy named Johnny Powers. He was a wrestler in the fifties and he later was a promoter for wrestling companies in Japan. So that's the connection there. He wrestled there as well. Uh, villain Ruska, who was an Olympian who wrestled in Japan as well. She can tell he's from Europe. Okay.
00:12:34
Speaker
There's also a wrestler for Japan called strong Kobayashi, which is a great name. It's not like a dish you get at a, at a really like high end Japanese restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. It's probably spicy. Yeah. I'd say a little bit, a little bit of spice. It's a fennel on top. Maybe. Yeah. He wrestled for the WWF, WWF, excuse me, three W's, not two W's.
00:12:58
Speaker
It's just so hard to add the W instinctively. You have to force yourself, don't you? Yeah. The WWF. Yeah, there you go. And New Japan, of course. There's also a man named CG Sakaguchi who rested in New Japan for decades.
00:13:13
Speaker
Now you'll notice that there's 18 there. However, apparently Tiger Jeet Singh was originally on that list, which is probably related to him wrestling this match. And we're at some point during the brief run of this title, they unofficially take him off the list and add a dusty road. So he's not part of the original. Ah, okay.
00:13:34
Speaker
In February of 991, so just before the show, they created this title, the Grace 18 club championship. It was been a by Luthas to Ricky Choshu. So that sure is a big honor for them. I think that's actually related to a match they referenced in later with Luthas wrestling this final match. I bet that's probably from the same event because the timing sounds about right. Might be. Or very close together.
00:13:59
Speaker
This somehow connects to the WWF karate championship that Tony Onoki was given. If you count that lineage, he held that towel for like 12 years. He lost it briefly to a Russian wrestler, like legit, like Olympian wrestler in a big shoot fight. He then went it back and held it for a while.
00:14:21
Speaker
He gave that belt when he gets, he got tired of having a belt that didn't really matter. He gave that belt to the same wrestler who beat him a few years earlier. This was like right around the cold war ending, you know, it was like 89. So it's like, Hey, what's the branch relation between Japan and Russia? Somehow between then and this show, it came back to new Japan because the belt that the greatest 18 club championship is a fact that same belt. Oh, okay. Interesting.
00:14:50
Speaker
Yeah. So Tony Onoki's WVF karate championship then becomes the Antonio no keys, basically the hall of fame belt for a while.
00:15:01
Speaker
So technically if that match had been on this show, we would have actually had a WSW performer, assuming Lex Luger had been in the match. Sure. Yeah. A WSW performer would have been fighting for a WWF title. That's true. Yeah. Something that would not happen until I think Starrcade 1996. Yes. Was when, uh, Ultimo Dragon came out with his massive ray of belts, one of which was the WWF one. Yeah. Yeah. Weirdly as a WWF belt, they sent to Mexico and kind of forgot about until it was one of this big tournament Japan. Yeah.
00:15:33
Speaker
So, we're missing four of them, but we've still got seven matches to watch. So, let's go to the ring.
Event Introduction and First Match Dynamics
00:15:42
Speaker
We kick things off with a song that I am almost sure has been used for Japanese wrestler entrances in WSW on other shows, as shots of several of tonight's competitors scroll by, including the Steiners, the Four Horsemen, the Great Muda, Sting, Ric Flair, and Tatsumi Fujinami, before we cut to some nice shots of the exterior of the Tokyo Dome, then the interior where holy crap that's a lot of people. Yeah, yeah.
00:16:07
Speaker
As noted before, this show has around three times as many people as the next largest non-North Korean single arena show that we've seen, and boy does it show.
00:16:16
Speaker
Host Jim Ross welcomes us to the show alongside co-host Tony Schiavone. Now that is an unusual team. It is, yeah. J.R. calls the show a monumental event, and Tony notes most of the matches they'll be showing will pit WSW stars against New Japan stars, particularly highlighting the final two matches. Sting vs. The Great Muda, and The Nature Boy Rick Flair vs. Tatsumi Dragon Fujinami.
00:16:42
Speaker
Rick Flair just has bad luck with the guys with the dragon nickname, doesn't he? He really does, yeah. JR throws to a short video package of WSW stars arriving at their hotel. Notably, Sting's idea of casual dress is his awesome Captain Stingmerica jacket, just with only partial face paint. Just under one eye. Yeah. He still looks awesome.
00:17:03
Speaker
We also see Fujinami and Flair signing the contract for their title versus title match, as JR and Tony discuss the hybrid rules the match will be under. Titles will not change hands on a disqualification, which is a WCW rule, but count outs will be 20 counts, which is a New Japan rule. We cut to a very nice looking banquet, and why yes, Sting is still wearing his sparkly getup, why do you ask? Notable.
00:17:29
Speaker
is the Mitsuroko symbol on a nice banner behind one server at one of the food stations. That's a symbol of the Hojo clan of Japan, composed of three triangles that happens to be the likely inspiration for the Triforce from The Legend of Zelda, immediately making this the greatest WCW show that I have ever seen. Well, there you go. Every match on this show could be utter crap and it would still be the one with the Triforce.
00:17:58
Speaker
We follow that with something almost as good, the Four Horsemen on a shopping trip in Japan, featuring Arne Anderson trying on Japanese clothing. I didn't know that I needed that in my life, but now I would pay to watch an entire show of the Four Horsemen touring Japan. That would be pretty sweet, yeah. Sadly, we only get a few seconds here and have to go watch excellent wrestling instead. Yeah.
First Match Analysis: American vs. Japanese Teams
00:18:20
Speaker
Back to JR and Tony, and JR gives us our title as he throws to our first match.
00:18:29
Speaker
And I'm going to apologize in advance if I get any of the names wrong on this show because I have only seen some of these people on this one program. Our first match is Shiro Koshinaka.
00:18:46
Speaker
Kuniyaki Kobayashi and Takayuki Izuka versus Tim Horner, Brian Pillman, and the Z-Man in a six-man tag match. The referee for this is Nick Patrick. Kind of an interesting connection I found here. Koshin Naka was the first man to fight the Great Muda. That is Kijimudo under his gimmick where he has the crazy face pain it's missed. So it's kind of interesting that historically. However, there's also another connection here.
00:19:14
Speaker
Mr. Kobayashi was the first man to fight Jushin Thunder Liger under his Thunder Liger gimmick. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Like, statistically, there's so many Japanese wrestlers and so many matches that take place, but yet two people with notable first appearances bid upon a six-man tag match on the same team. That's very interesting, yeah. Yeah. I was like, oh, that's weird. The music for the Japanese team's entrance is somewhat grating, I think.
00:19:43
Speaker
Yeah. Their shiny silver jackets are cool as heck, though. That's true, yeah. The Japanese ring announcer is in a robe, which definitely gives this a different feel. Tony notes that the WSW team all has experience wrestling against Japanese pro wrestlers. JR notes Kobayashi's extremely prominent sideburns, drawing a chuckle from Tony.
00:20:06
Speaker
JR notes that this is taking place under New Japan Pro Wrestling rules, meaning a countout at 20, and no disqualification for throwing someone over the top rope. On the ring, they've got a nice setup. They have both company logos, framing a big star, on which is printed 91 Starrcade in Tokyo Dome. It took us a while to figure out what it actually said though, as the spacing is weird, so the 91 looks like it's extra letters on the front of Starrcade, rather than a separate number. Yeah, exactly.
00:20:35
Speaker
Just like a little bit too close. Yeah, it's a space thing and they'll close the other proximity area. They just really squish together, yeah. Kobayashi versus Z-Man goes poorly for Z-Man, but Pillman and Horner trade off against Koshinaka, earning two with a Pillman spin kick and again with a cool one-arm scoop backdrop by Horner. Horner holds Koshinaka's arm for a Pillman top rope double axe handle, and if the AWA has any guide, Pillman should have pinned as he would have won for sure.
00:21:02
Speaker
tags to Z-Man and Izuka, and Izuka walks right into a Z-Man knee strike. Pillman, Z-Man, and Horner trade off beating poor Izuka up, earning multiple two counts. Z-Man, of course, lands a dropkick off the top rope, once again proving himself a master evaluator of dropkick possibility, as Starrcade 1991's claimed. Mm-hmm, that's true. Nice double teams by the WSW team, but some surprisingly crappy Pillman kicks. They're a little wispy for parts of this match.
00:21:33
Speaker
Izuka finally manages to fight back with some dropkicks to Pillman, but Pillman just spin-kicks him in the head. That one was better. It was, yeah. That was good. Izuka manages to double clothesline and double dropkick, Pillman and Horner, and Koshinaka charges in to butt-bump Z-Man. JR notes it's probably called something else in Japanese, which gets Tony laughing.
00:21:53
Speaker
Kobayashi tagged him for a bridging suplex for one, as Pillman and Z-Man both save, but Koshinaka disposes of them, and Kobayashi tags Izuka and holds Horner for an Izuka top rope dropkick. Izuka hits the dragon suplex to Horner for the three count and the win. Thoughts on this one?
00:22:11
Speaker
I thought it was a pretty solid opener. There's no like absolutely amazing moves here. And we're still not quite at the, I would say mid to late nineties cruiserweight sort of status that we're going to get for solid match openers. Well, you know, I knew Japan shows any for this one. That said, I did like the story they told. It's pretty simple, but effective that the American faces, once they sort of can get control, they double team very well. They have all these double team moves in there.
00:22:41
Speaker
The Japanese team, you know, it's the underdogs here because they're playing to the hometown crowd like a classic face in peril. They're fighting from underneath and
Liger vs. Nagami Match Analysis
00:22:50
Speaker
ultimately they become the odds. Not with some cool double team with like a heart attack or, you know, duped advice, but with a series of moved by the single wrestlers. So ultimately the skill and power of the singles wrestlers overcomes the disadvantage they're at by facing an actual team.
00:23:08
Speaker
I think this might be the first time we've seen Tim Horner on a show. It is nice to actually see him wrestle because he's quite good. Yeah, I agree. I can't think of like, Oh, here's this great Tim Horner movie. You got to really see, but he's very, very reliable. He's very good in this match. He's a good solid addition to it. It's also nice to see more Tom Zink as well. Cause he kind of underrated cause he never really got that high in the card, but all the matches we've seen him on, he's been quite good.
00:23:34
Speaker
Yeah, I fondly remember. I believe it was him versus Pillman from Wrestle War series, wasn't it? Yeah. That we really, really liked. Yes. They turned the sort of friendly rivalry into a serious one and everything in that match quite well. Yeah. Yeah. In spite of a few of his kicks looking not so great, I thought Pillman did really well here as well. Obviously, commentary is really, really building him up.
00:23:57
Speaker
J.R. keeps calling him the hottest guy in the match, which sounds weird out of context, but I think I know what he means. And, uh, yeah, it was a good showcase for everyone involved and nothing amazing. I don't know if there's gonna be a must see match, but it was enjoyable and it set a nice pace for the opener, even if it was actually a second match. Yeah. Bizarre opener.
00:24:20
Speaker
Yeah, as six-man tag matches tend to be, this was an excellent showcase of what everyone could do. They took great advantage of having so many people to keep the match constantly moving, and everyone got their chance to show their stuff. Pillman, Z-Man, and Horner had a lot of good double-team spots I particularly enjoyed, especially Pillman and Z-Man, which makes sense that they had spent time as a tag team, as we've documented in prior series. Yeah, former U.S. tag team, as you mentioned in commentary, yeah.
00:24:46
Speaker
Izuka, the youngest of the Japanese team, got a lot of focus, though mostly his face in peril. He did get to showcase a few moves, but oddly, despite Tony and JR spending quite a lot of time talking up his Sambo training and specialization in locks and holds, he didn't really get time to do those in the match. His closing dragon suplex looked awesome though. Great arc and bridge. Everyone came out of this looking great, and it gave us a fast-paced and fun opener, even if, as you said, it wasn't the opener of the actual Japanese show.
00:25:18
Speaker
Obviously there would be lots of history with Pillman and New Japan in the future, specifically with him and Liger. They would battle over the WSW light heavyweight title. And in fact, they will later be the opening match on the very first WSW Monday Nitro. That's right. 95. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Also worth noting that, uh, Izuka was the young partner in the match that we saw wrestler in 1992 with that should be for Janami. Oh, that was him.
00:25:46
Speaker
against the Stiders, where he got his poor, unfortunately this poor man got his face all brutalized. It's the nicest way to put it. Okay, I thought that name sounded familiar. I'd forgotten that was him. Poor, poor guy on that one. That was, that was a, that was a rough match for him. I remember that's the one where you and I both heavily compliment Fujinami and kind of holding the match together after it appears as Izuka potentially gets injured.
00:26:10
Speaker
Yeah, it was some sort of double team over the Steiners where they're supposed to be like landing over a drop to the chest. I think while one of them's holding him, but they clearly fall more on his face and upper chest than in the middle of the chest. And it just, yeah, his, his nose is not, not well in that match. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And understandably days from having a Steiner fall on it, fair play for getting through it and getting fair play to Fuznami for keeping that match together as well. Yeah.
00:26:37
Speaker
We cut to Tony and JR, and JR praises the effort of all the competitors and builds up the IWGP Junior Heavyweight match. Tony absolutely butchers Jushin Thunder Liger's name. Yeah. It's gonna be Jushin Thunder Liger. At some point you're amazed you got Thunder correctly. I mean, in fairness to Tony, I'm sure that no one told him how to say it.
00:27:01
Speaker
Yeah, you would hope they'd give him like a cheat of like, you know, like they have the match layout and like the show layout and like, especially with the Japanese names, have like the name written and then like the fanatics. Yeah. And the fanatics. Exactly. Yeah. Just put it next to it. To that note, remember poor JR at Starrcade 1990 calling Ray Mysterio three or four different names because they keep telling him a different one.
00:27:24
Speaker
It's true. Yeah. These are the Gray Mysteric at one point and like Ray Mysteric, Ray Mysterioso. Those are two. I remember for sure. Yeah. Those are the ones I remember as well. Yeah. Tony notes that Liger's opponent Akira no Gami had once been champion and has not wrestled in Japan since he lost the title. JR almost gives us a title again with let's go back to the ring.
00:27:46
Speaker
That'll be the show we do in like 20 years where we rewatch our old episodes and talk over them. Yeah. Cause people want to listen to our show twice.
00:27:58
Speaker
The lighting is considerably different in these segments than when we're watching a match. I think it's just that the WSW version is so cut down so we don't see the lighting change between matches like we normally would. We just kind of smash cut to them. Yeah. But it makes it sometimes feel like they're recording these in post instead of live. I don't think that's the case. No, I don't. I don't think they are. No, just it has an awkward feel.
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah, I'm curious to see how that would play out on the actual show. Obviously the opening match isn't effective because they just aren't out there for it. But like, did they just like sit in silence or like discuss the rest of the show, you know, between themselves during the matches they don't cover? Like, yeah, don't worry. We're not filming this. Don't worry.
00:28:37
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. Or maybe I kind of wonder if they just had them do commentary for all the matches and just in case they ended up using because they obviously are producing the WSW version afterwards. So they may have not yet decided which ones they were going to keep. So you're saying there's a chance that there's the Vader Bigelow match with English commentary out there somewhere somewhere in a vault, maybe in like Stanford, Connecticut. Yeah, that seems potentially possible. Yeah, but can't argue with that.
00:29:05
Speaker
Get to it, WWF, hidden gems. Yeah, right. I think I still exist. Our second match is Jushin Thunder Liger versus Akira Nagami for Liger's IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship. I was not able to identify the referee for this match. I couldn't find a point where they actually spoke his name. Yeah, I didn't get to that either.
00:29:29
Speaker
slight correction on the story they tell, and that's what they say. So as far as I could tell, there is a match where Akira Nagami challenges Liger for the same title, but he's the challenger, not the champion. Oh, okay. So unless there's a match, I went through cage matches. It's pretty thorough listing for these.
00:29:49
Speaker
Like early, early 1990 ends a match between him and Liger. And then there's a bunch of matches where he goes to the CWA, which is based in Austria. That was, um, Otto von's promotion in, over in Europe. He wrestles there and then suddenly he has this one match back.
00:30:04
Speaker
So again, it might be pool feeding the wrong details. I can't imagine Darr is really following the story of to cure Nagami and Liger. And then she was like, Hey, it makes a very story. If they say that, you know, he lost the title and retreated into hiding, but it's not really what happened. But the whole a year away thing is it's real thing. So at the, at the very least it is still a title match.
00:30:26
Speaker
Oh, yes. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So they mix up challengers and champion, but okay. Yeah. And it is of note that this is his sort of re-debut in New Japan, where he's now no longer Akira Nagami, he's just Akira in all caps. Yes. It's a very, it's a very Japanese thing. There's a number of wrestlers that just wrestle as a single name in all caps. Currently there's Kenta and Evil, just so I know of my passing knowledge of New Japan. So there's more, I'm sure. Uh, again, Japan names.
00:30:58
Speaker
Akira comes out in his cool kabuki face paint and wig. Liger comes out in an awesome green and gold version of his outfit that looks very green power ranger. Yeah, I see that. Nagami throws out long strands of something as he's introduced, but Liger just calmly holds up his belt.
00:31:16
Speaker
Liger lands rapid strikes and a spinwheel kick, and Nagami rolls out, only for Liger to hit a top rope flipping senten to the floor. JR calls it a complete 360, but it's more like 270. Yeah. Liger tries another dive, but Nagami dropkicks him out of the air, and both sell their legs.
00:31:32
Speaker
Back in, Nogami gets two with a victory roll and works the leg after Liger collapses trying a pile driver, but Liger counters a figure four with a roll-up for two, dodges a splash, and hits the Liger bomb for two before finishing Nogami with a top rope DDT for the three count and the win. Tony says Liger based that one on the signers. One note here, according to Wikipedia this match went 16 minutes, so if that's the case it's been considerably shortened here as our version didn't even reach 10.
00:32:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's interesting. I couldn't spot where there might have been a cut, but it feels like this might have been cut down.
00:32:10
Speaker
Right. What we were discussing before recorded that there's some time discrepancy. If someone is counting, Hey, here's where this match starts with entrances. Yeah. And then like the, some post-match stuff on matches, but that still, like I said, you said to me, that still doesn't get you 16 minutes. That gets you like 10, 11, I think maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Cause there's this long walkway really selling how big the egg dome is. Yes.
00:32:37
Speaker
There's definitely some kind in there, but yeah, it's not an obvious point. It's not like they're standing upright, then suddenly they're on the ground selling some big, you know, double down spot. Mm-hmm. Thoughts on this one? I thought this was a decent match, but again, maybe this is just our version we got, but it felt kind of short. Yes.
00:32:55
Speaker
Liger is definitely those guys that had stamina and had endurance for matches. And he'd really go a longer matches with really talented people. You know, we've had him and Ray, we've had him and Conan. I often easily forget because so much time has passed. There is briefly a Liger DDP interaction from the Starrcade. Right.
00:33:16
Speaker
Same, there was no follow up later with like more established like 97 98 DDP against like, or I'd really love to see that. Oh my gosh. I'd love that. Yeah. Yeah. It's really questioned about what happened this match. If they cut noticeable time out of it, like why?
00:33:33
Speaker
Is the thing with the match is all the action is good, but it definitely feels like it's not a normal lager match. I don't know if there is a little injury there or if it's just really good selling. Like they decided, Hey, let's really sell like injury and the shadrill style based on that. If so, that'd be pretty impressive because trick me to thinking that like, or legitimately, you know, hurt his knee or ankle and had to power through a match. So if they tricked me, then more power to them, but I'm not sure on that one.
00:34:03
Speaker
What makes me feel like it probably is selling is that he does go for, I think like a pile driver at some point and collapse during it, which you could argue is proving that it's real. But I think my feeling is if he actually had a leg injury that he was dealing with, they would not go for something like a pile driver. That's too dangerous to be doing with a bum leg.
00:34:23
Speaker
That's, that's fair. Yeah. It's such a day. It just feels different because Liger could definitely do the high spot to get to the cartwheels and the centons. I believe we had him do moonsault or two on shows, but he would never fully the, you know, the main aerial guy. By that said, it's still weird seeing him work this real strong power style. And again, maybe I should think of cutting because he does his big power bomb, doesn't think of the wind that's just another move and then gets the wind.
00:34:52
Speaker
So if this is a blow-off for some story that they built up for like a year, kind of in a weird way, like the Staying Hogan match, Star K-97, it doesn't feel like the big blow-off or big climax of the story. This is good to good, Matt, because I mean, life is involved and it got me for what I've seen as really good, but it just feels different. Not necessarily in a good way, but it's not a bad match either. Mm-hmm.
00:35:20
Speaker
Yeah, as we've noted, it's possible this was pretty heavily trimmed in the version that we got, but it still had good action. It's just very short to the extent of feeling abrupt. Nagami in particular, I think is not well served by the short match. This is being built up as his big return match and a chance to prove that he has what it takes to take on Liger. But aside from the dropkick outside the ring and some leg stomps, all the notable offense here is likers. Yeah.
00:35:47
Speaker
It doesn't take away from the impressive acrobatics, nor from Liger's magnificent power bombs, but while the moves and the outfits were entertaining, the story felt flat, and this came off as more like a squash match than a major feud. It seems like a good solid performance that might have been hurt by some editing, but it was good to see Liger, and I'd be interested in seeing more of Nagami. He seems quite good.
00:36:09
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely don't really like critiques of his performance. It's just the way the match plays out doesn't, because it doesn't really favor him for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we just don't get to see much of what he can do, but what we see of it is good. Yeah. Yeah. It's especially an odd feeling. As you said, it's him kind of not only coming back, but basically like debuting a new gimmick.
Akira's Career and Gimmick Evolution
00:36:34
Speaker
This is not the match that I would expect in that case. I would expect him to have several more minutes of him beating the crap out of Liger before Liger manages to get the win. If Liker is going to win the match, that's where it definitely feels like something was cut out of this. Yeah, it definitely isn't a weird place because I think officially, if we don't count this show, Liger doesn't really come into play in WCW until Stark in 1991.
00:37:03
Speaker
I think that was the first time we saw him anyway. Yeah, for sure. So it's kind of weird position because here we are in March, when they recorded this in April, when they ran it a good seven, eight months before he's really become a known commodity in the company. Even then he's thrown into battle bowl with, you know, what, 40 people. And he really impressive because he's Liger, but he wasn't thrown out there. Hey, here's this big Liger guy you really got to see. Right.
00:37:28
Speaker
He presses because he's so talented. He's not presented as like a sting or a Hulk Hogan like figure that you really need to see. So I'm wondering if, yeah, like I said, maybe they cut like parts where they have a slower, more methodical, like leg based submission offense or like wear down offense. And they're like, yeah, I just cut that for the flips. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I'd be curious to find an uncut version of this. Like maybe if there's a new Japan version and maybe see what's different at some point.
00:37:57
Speaker
Speaking of that battle bull show, um, the guy facing him in that match, I believe is Mike Graham, isn't it? Who was mentioned on, um, last time's AWA show. Yes. Another cool little connection. Yeah. It's amazing how many random things has happened like that. Yeah. With the way we cover shows in the auto to recover them in. Yeah.
00:38:17
Speaker
So here's where it gets a little weird, less than a week or so. It's hard to find the exact date of when this aired. Cause it's weird. We repeat it and have like, it just says April. Nice 91 does have an actual date. You think it would given that ran a pay-per-view, but anyways. So in April 15th, Liger actually vacates the junior heavyweight championship to put it on the line in the top of the super junior tournament. Oh, okay.
00:38:40
Speaker
During that tournament, he would actually end up losing. So he loses his title that way to a man named Norio Hanaga. The title will be traded between the two of them as well as Akira over the next year or so. A little fact I picked up as well. Akira is still wrestling part-time today. He actually wrestled in Great Buddha's retirement show in 2023, but Sting also should have been. Oh, okay. The two people on this show, at least two people, there'll be more that I missed.
00:39:10
Speaker
That being Akira and Sting, as well as obviously Muda himself, wrestling on Muda's final show 22 years after this one airs, almost. That's neat. Yeah. JR praises the performance and he and Tony build up the next match with Tony mentioning that Masahiro Chono was trained by Luth as himself.
00:39:31
Speaker
So our third match is Masahiro Chono and Masa Saito versus the four horsemen, Aaron Anderson and Barry Windham. And again, I was not able to identify this referee. Notably, the horsemen are coming off a big win at Russell War, which is a show we've recovered, so we'll go back and check that out. That's a word, 1991. That's unfortunately the match that goes very poorly for Brian Pillman. Sid Vicious, Power Bombs and... Oh, good gosh, yeah.
00:39:59
Speaker
Basically, we haven't seen it and if you listen to the show, we'll cover it. I don't know who really used to blame for this specifically, but Sid lifts Pillman up for his power bomb. The ceiling, because they're in the cage with the ceiling on it, is a little low. So as he's sort of pulling Pillman up and rotating him, his legs bump into the top of the cage as he's turning him over. So instead of turning him all the way over and then dropping him straight into his back like you're supposed to with the power bomb, he hits that and then drops him.
00:40:29
Speaker
Maybe you should have run through this on your scene. Is it possible to do this move before we actually book it as part of the match? Yeah. Given it's a power bomb and those are very, those are dangerous to do under the best circumstances. It's often forgotten because people really super created that spot. And I, I do as well thinking about it now. Even is it important that the horsemen do win there? It's a big thing for them.
00:40:53
Speaker
Uh, Masasito is a guy we've seen once before that is Starrcade 1995 as part of the big WCW versus New Japan show. It was him and Johnny B. Bad having a match as well. I came across this really weird fact about Masasito. It doesn't really relate to the show, but I don't know how many other times we're going to cover Masasito. And I kind of have to just stare at this now because it's so crazy.
00:41:17
Speaker
On June 12th, Saito faced Antonio Noki in the finals of the IWGP league, 1997, to determine the first ever IWGP heavyweight champion, which was won by Noki. Of course, the guy booking the show when owning the company is world champion first. Kind of a given. No, no, not going to Noki, but it's hard to ignore.
00:41:38
Speaker
However, that of course would not be the end of the feud, society would not take that sitting down. Just out of the feud, the two would compete in a island death match on October 4th, 1987. This is a real thing. Nice. One hand, I absolutely want to see this on time. It'd be hell to cover because they were placed on Generjima Island and wrestled a match that lasted two hours. Wow.
In-Depth Match Analysis and Crowd Interactions
00:42:03
Speaker
And spread across the entire island, which was won by an Oki.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah. You want to, you want to track down and cover a two hour match between Anoki and Saito on an Island. I'm willing to, to watch and cover it. I am not willing to recap it. That's fair enough. Yeah. I was like, wait, it's a shame. That's not a pay-per-view. Cause I weirdly, I wanted to have to cover that, but also dread covering it. Yeah. Yeah. We used to be covering that as the whole show. I imagine pretty much. If I could track down footage of that, even if we're not going to cover it, I will let you know. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
00:42:38
Speaker
The absolutely super Japanese thing. You guys get to settle this fine. Go on now and just fight each other until one of you loses. Nice. The Horsemen come out to a theme that definitely feels like a ripoff of some famous song, but I couldn't quite place it. Wyndham has an epic mustache. J.R. credits Lรบthez with teaching Masahiro Chono his STF hold.
00:43:05
Speaker
Chono and Sayito's music starts slow, but it gets pretty epic. As we get the intros, JR mentions the next pay-per-view will be in St. Petersburg, Florida. Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! He calls Sayito a Japanese version of Rick Steiner and credits him for the Sayito suplex. Tony mentions that Chono actually got to wrestle Lou Thez, which happened in December 1990.
00:43:31
Speaker
As you referenced earlier, Al, this appears to have been Thez's final match. Thez was 74 years old at the time.
00:43:40
Speaker
That match is actually available on Daily Motion at the time of recording and is short, but actually worth a look, especially if you want to see what an absolutely thrilled Masahiro Chono looks like. I bet, yeah. The dude cannot stop smiling at getting to have a match against a legend. I can't blame him, honestly, yeah. It's genuinely one of the most charming things I have ever seen in my life. The guy is just helplessly gritting the entire time. Yeah, I can bet. Match is not bad either.
00:44:07
Speaker
as you can tell, is not in his prime as a wrestler. Sure. But he manages a good match flow still, I think. And it's not like Buckwinkle and Funk on I'm on one of the Slamberries. Yes. Ninety. I think it was a ninety three. I think it was ninety three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's not played at like, you know, quarter speed like that. It's a reasonable pace to it and everything. It's it's short, but it's actually worth the look, I think. I'm sure it's less depressing to watch than Ric Flair's last match.
00:44:38
Speaker
Windom vs. Chono to start, and Chono makes Windom pay for a cheap shot with some heavy strikes of his own. Saito and Anderson prove evenly matched. Back to Chono and Windom, and they really go at it with Windom earning two with a bellied back suplex and slapping Chono hard in the face after escaping a head scissors hold, then DDTing him.
00:44:58
Speaker
Tag to Anderson, but Jono quickly flare Karma's him and goes for the STF, so Windham saves. The crowd boos, so Windham brilliantly, sarcastically poses like they're cheering. Yeah, he's really good in this match, for sure. His reward for that is Jono drop kicking him in the face, diving out onto him when he rolls out, and stomping him flat. That's Karma very quickly, yeah. Yes. Windham later comes back to save Anderson from another hold, again taunting the crowd.
00:45:27
Speaker
The horsemen trade off against Chono, including Wyndham's beautiful float-over suplex for two, and an Anderson abdominal stretch with leverage from Wyndham. But Chono makes the tag and Sayeto charges in, only for Anderson to land multiple blows. Sayeto shakes it off and basically hawks up. Yeah, pretty much.
00:45:46
Speaker
then beats Anderson up and hits Sayito's suplexes to both horsemen, but Windham charges in, drawing Chono in, which distracts the ref. Sayito floats over and Anderson slam, but Windham suddenly just runs past, bounces off the ropes, and lariats Sayito as Anderson ducks just in time. Absolutely beautiful timing there. Anderson pins Sayito for the three count and the win.
00:46:11
Speaker
Chono brawls with Wyndham momentarily, but Anderson and Wyndham quickly escape. As we cut to a quick view of the concession stand, Antonio and JR talk about them having sushi instead of hot dogs. Sudden total shift there? A little bit, yeah. Thoughts on this one?
00:46:26
Speaker
I thought this was a quite good match. Everyone involved is quite good. Obviously we haven't seen a lot of Sayido, but I know his, from his history, he's been a long career in Japan. So not surprised he didn't do well. Chono's the same way. We haven't reached a point where Chono has gone like full Yakuza yet with his character. That happened like the mid to late nineties for the whole NWO Japan thing.
00:46:48
Speaker
So it's nice to see sort of straight lace face Chono here. Yes. I'm so used to seeing the leather coat, you know, since your mustache version of him, he does already have very furious strikes though. He does. Yes. But yeah, so imagine self is quite good. I mean, I did really enjoy Saito's, uh, whole cup spot. Yes. I think I took more watching that he's, uh, he's misstering up.
00:47:13
Speaker
He's telling me that Mr. Saito that not as intimidating sounding, but he is a very intimidating looking man. Yes. He's I would say small, but he's he's a more he's very squat. I'd say stocky. Yeah, I think is the yeah.
00:47:26
Speaker
He has the build of a power lifter, which I think he actually was. Yeah. Yeah. He is involved in the infamous McDonald's story with Ken Patera. He's the one that is staying with Patera. And when the cops show up to arrest Patera, they decide, eh, let's just fight the police in our hotel room.
00:47:45
Speaker
It's really a case where you wish they had body cans back then. Yes, they come in and turn them on. And, you know, get in for Tara and let's say, you know, or just just stay in there. I would assume shirtless Gary just fist fight you in the hotel.
00:47:59
Speaker
What I liked about the actual match is Wyndham and Anderson really played to the all American tag wrestling formula, which obviously in America, it's so common that it's a formula that is not quite as exciting, especially when you have matches, if shows with multiple tag matches, because some people are not good at mixing up the formula or diversifying at all. Yes.
00:48:21
Speaker
But on a show like this, where it's really only matched like that, because the other tag matches don't feel like this match. It stands out in kind of an interesting way. It's a nice sort of cultural exchange that you come to Japan, do as much as you can of the classic Anderson formula.
00:48:36
Speaker
I just find it kind of funny too, that they keep trying to do the hand behind the back for extra leverage in the Donald stretch. But Chono, I think it's just him playing the character, but he does kind of mess with the spot in kayfabe because he keeps telling the ref to check. So every time they start to do it, they keep having to pull it away. I don't think they actually get to do the trick hold thing for more than like a couple of seconds because the ref is constantly checking.
00:49:04
Speaker
It's the rare actual smart referee. That's, that's looking for cheating. Yeah. I want how to really love that. A fact that it doesn't work and they get tired of and break the hold. Same time. I kind of miss the rough being distracted. It's interesting too, that they build up to say it as hot tag and he really does make the most of it. He gives, you know, it's finished at both the guys, but then as part of the distraction and that great time and they, they KO him there. It's not the finish you're expecting.
00:49:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's interesting too with that spot. He's tagged in, he charges in, but he's almost immediately actually stopped. But then he does the Hulk a bit, so they kind of like swerve you twice on it. That's true, yeah, yeah. Aha, they got him. Oh, he stopped. Oh, he's okay. Yeah, it's true, I forgot that part, yeah. Well, as you are undoubtedly already aware, I am always up for an Arne Anderson tag match. This was, no surprise, pretty darn good.
00:50:00
Speaker
Both teams worked really hard to make it an intense confrontation, landing heavy strikes on each other and hitting some really big heavy suplexes. And the Horsemen had some excellent tag team tactics, pretty much controlling the flow of the match with ease.
00:50:13
Speaker
As much as I love Arne and I love Arne a lot, the MVP of this one has to be Wyndham, who just has the best sarcastic interactions with the crowd when he repeatedly displeases them by interrupting Chono's submission holds. And he manages that ending spot with terrific timing and velocity. The speed he gets coming off the ropes for that is amazing. Oh, yeah. The whole group was really up for this one, making for an entertaining and surprisingly emotional match.
00:50:42
Speaker
One of the things, just picturing this, like, you know, and this is all KP mostly. So, you know, flair is in the back. He's cause he's got a big match later. Arne and Wyndham are, you know, prepping cause they're part of the same group and Arne, you know, gives us big speech to flair. It's like, we've been teaming together at this point for like three or four years. You know, we know each other in and out. You're picking up stuff from me. I'm picking up for you. Don't worry. I'm taking, I'm taking all the lesson I learned from you and carry them into this match.
00:51:09
Speaker
mealy cut to our Anderson getting caught with the flare karma spot and players like, really? Actually that's, that's all you got from me. You learned the wrong lessons. Yeah. I'm glad you watched my matches, but you also, I think you, you fell asleep during the matches. Cause you missed the part where that always ended horribly for me. Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:32
Speaker
I think it's kind of interesting as well is a lot of people in later wrestling know Wyndham for some of his weirder stench and he would go in and out of wrestling companies. If you'll kind of remember him in a weird way for his old stalker gimmick, uh, which he had in the late nineties. And he has that full on mustache for that. And then later when he's part of the new black jacks.
00:51:52
Speaker
So it's kind of a weird transitional period, seeing that with that same mustache you'd have in like 96. But here is 1991 and like full NWA slash JCP mode, but also that just, he says, yeah, especially looks pretty good. I'll remember this for later. Yeah, quite enjoyable. As I mentioned before, the only other appearance, as far as I could tell in WSW of Basa Sayido is of course, Starrcade 1995, where he wrestled John to be bad.
00:52:23
Speaker
I believe we have two matches we've covered of him so far where he's playing the belt. Maybe we won for sure. I know we have at Starrcade 1992, him versus Muda. Yes, correct. But essentially given this, given the drama that would come about two, three months from now in 1991, involving the individual championship, the whole thing with like flair and how his contract ends up. And I remember the belt that, you know, I remember the belt that, you know, I remember the belt.
00:52:52
Speaker
The NBA championship ends up in Japan for a little while. Our fourth match is Big Cat Hughes versus Eligante.
Windham's Performance and Eligante's Critique
00:53:04
Speaker
The referee for this one is Bill Alfonso. So, uh, so yeah, just to clarify, we didn't get Vader and Bam Bam Bigelow versus Doom, but we did get this. Apparently I've been a very bad person.
00:53:19
Speaker
Well, as long as we only get one El Gigante match in this series, it'd be okay. I have bad news for you, Al. Don't, don't steal my hope away just yet. Incidentally, at least according to Wikipedia, this match took place after the Steiner versus Hase and Sasaki, but we're going to get that match after this match on our version.
00:53:38
Speaker
So not necessarily this match, but a fact that I found kind of surprising. So cage-match.net is a great, great resource for looking at matches a good exact time and everything. So I was giving through L.E. Gante or L.G. Gante, as you were supposed to say it, his match listing. I noticed a name popping up a lot specifically only in house shows, never on televised events. And that being Rick Flair. Okay. Apparently a common feature of the house shows
00:54:07
Speaker
building up to this show. And then sometimes after that would be NWA world title matches, Rick flair and Ellie gante. I counted around a dozen of these testing the broomstick theory. Yeah. Seriously. I, there's at least a dozen matches of various house shows touring, you know, across the country, you know, to a weekend and stuff like you keep going back to this match. What did flair do to you? It's like, is this.
00:54:36
Speaker
Maybe this is where negotiations started. You know, Jim heard families, he wants to cut his hair and becomes Spartacus or some crap. Yeah. Maybe he's like, okay, fine. You, I can't fire you. Here's all I got today for every weekend for three months. Enjoy. That's the only explanation I can think of why this match happened. Let alone once, but a dozen times at least. Wow.
00:55:01
Speaker
Cat's music is another definite ripoff that it can't quite place. Elegante really, really has to duck to get through the entrance. Oh yeah. He's very tall. He does get quite a good reaction from the crowd and gives some very high fives. I'm not a fan of him really, but it's hard to not feel good for him here. He just seems to be enjoying the reaction he's getting from the crowd. Yeah.
00:55:31
Speaker
Noting the robe worn by the Japanese announcer, Tony proposes getting WSW ring announcer Gary Kepeta to wear that instead of a tux. That would be really cool, honestly. A cute spot as Alfonso is doing the pre-fight checks. Eligante holds up his hand and Alfonso presses his own against it to show the massive difference in size. Yeah. That was pretty funny. Eligante actually gives a woo to start. Hughes audibly swears after a slam.
00:56:00
Speaker
But yeah, I mean loud on camera and everything. Yeah. Hughes breaks the eyes, but Eligante no sells his blows, clubs him, and takes roughly two thirds of eternity building to a suplex. Yeah. I kind of enjoy the sense that they really, this is like the big spot of the match. Yes.
00:56:20
Speaker
as sad as that is, that this is what they're building up to. So I can't necessarily fault them. They definitely do take forever. Yeah, he is getting a reaction from the crowd, so I get it. But it wouldn't be so bad if he kept hitting Hughes or something like that before he has to stand there absolutely motionless. Well, this guy is just repeatedly saying, hey, should I suplex him? And like eventually it starts to feel like, OK, he's definitely conscious by now. Yeah, yeah.
00:56:48
Speaker
Soon after, Eligante slaps on the claw for the three count and the win. Eligante blows a kiss to the crowd and Tony says he'll be a worldwide sensation. JR agrees that they're lucky to have him wrestling for WCW. Thoughts on this one? So the snatch is really just their spectacle, nothing more.
00:57:11
Speaker
That said, as a match for a live crowd, I was expecting to hate this a lot more than I did. I'm not going to pretend this is good. I'm not ever saying that. Don't get the wrong impression, but
00:57:24
Speaker
There's basically, there's a few things they know Gigante can do. Some well, some he thinks he can do well and can't. So they build a very short, thankfully match around that. And because the crowd is so into the idea of this big, strange looking man wrestling, it gets a big reaction. So it, it makes it more enjoyable than it is.
00:57:46
Speaker
It's like watching, for instance, a sketch comedy show and you're like, you don't find the sketch funny, but the crowd is constantly laughing at it. You're like, okay, I can't be mad at the sketch because clearly it's working for somebody. I'm not that somebody, but hey, someone's enjoying this.
00:58:03
Speaker
It definitely better than, than wrestling a bad match in Dead Silence. Yes. Yeah. By the way, I think the silence, we evenly talked about that and it comes up obviously in commentary a few times about the show. In general, the Japanese crowd is more of kind of like a movie audience in a lot of sense. Yes. They sit and watch it and they'll react sometimes like they did with Windham and they will definitely react during the couple of tag match we have later and the Rick Flair or Fujianabe match.
00:58:30
Speaker
But in general, they're more like sort of watching things and waiting for the big spot to happen rather than, you know, boo, I hate this guy or yeah, I love this guy.
00:58:39
Speaker
Yeah, there's not this constant hum of noise like you get on an American show. Yeah. Which has to feel weird for the performers if you're not used to that. Yeah. Because you're like, are we actually are we having an impact or is this playing well or not? But but it's not that they're not enjoying the show. It's just a difference in how the crowd behaves like the crowds all goes to the United Methodist Church. There you go.
00:59:06
Speaker
But yeah, it's it's just a different atmosphere and a different feel to it that they're they're much quieter. There are definite moments on the show where you get a big reaction out of them for sure. Oh, yeah. So I was going to say, I think that's what gets Big Cat in trouble because I think he's used to. Yes. The sort of general crowd noise and he can get away with a blank moment without him picking up. But on this show, yeah, it's very audible. It's like he just said to the microphone.
00:59:33
Speaker
Yeah, you definitely, um, throughout the show here, what the wrestlers are doing in the ring much more than on, uh, on other ones. It's at certain points. It's like everyone is Luger selling. That's true. Yeah. And that's two matches because they have people at ringside. You get the ringside attendance or people with the other wrestlers sort of yelling to cheer them on and that kind of stuff as well. So let's just see. By the way, you glossed over the best by the match, Bob. Did I?
01:00:02
Speaker
Yeah, the big boot off the ropes. Oh, God, that thing.
01:00:06
Speaker
So the weird hopping sidekick that I wasn't sure what exactly it was supposed to be. Yeah. So big, tall sort of lanky wrestlers. They love doing big boots. You just run and you you got your leg up as high as you can and boot a guy in the face. You got extension and make a loud sound like test world of the pants. So it would make a like a nice sort of snapping sound. The material. Yes. We need to stretch it. That's probably why that sounds so good. That's what those are supposed to be.
01:00:35
Speaker
Uh, Kelly gontay throws cat off the ropes, gets his foot, uh, foot or two off the ground. Maybe it's really bad around big cat's stomach. Yeah. Maybe lower, lower chest somewhere. I don't know if it's timing or if he just can't get the leg higher than that, but yeah, it's so bad. It's the closest thing we've had to the infamous one-legged drop kick from Starrcade.
01:01:02
Speaker
Yeah. The, the Eric Watts. Yes. Yes. I don't love this match. It's not good, but if you're thinking, Oh, this is going to be the worst thing I've ever seen. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen. It's definitely not a near the best thing I've ever seen, but it's really the crowd and the sort of spectacle of it all their reaction to it that makes it passable at best. Yeah. The best description I've got for it is this existed. Fair.
01:01:30
Speaker
It's nice to see Eligante having fun and enjoying the reaction that he's getting from the crowd, but there's absolutely nothing to this match. No. Gigante's suplex does look fine at least. I will give him that. Yeah. But for me, cut this out and give me another couple of minutes of Liger versus Nogami or the Four Horsemen shopping trip and I'll be a lot happier.
01:01:49
Speaker
So this will probably be on our worst of the series matches because we're a three-show series and at least based on this show, the matches are quite good. So it's really a deep curve. But as far as like when we gone through and here's the worst matches from a series.
01:02:08
Speaker
I'd say most, uh, ways of measuring it. I don't think long-term this is of the worst matches ever seen. Just again, it's purely the crowd and how they sort of enjoy what's happening in front of them. Yeah. This is from a regular American crowd, not the same thing. Right. Yeah. I will remind and remind again, when we get to that point that for the worst awards on that, we can choose up to three. That's true. Yes. So there is the option of choosing zero actually. That's fair. Yeah.
01:02:38
Speaker
Um, believe it or not, thanks could be worse and did become worse. At least as far as new Japan goes in 1994, new Japan brought the Dante back post WWE and post WWE, I believe. Oh, gala giant Gonzales. He has post giant Gonzales. I think he just back to like, as they got some self, which now that's an improvement, but at least it's not a naked fursuit. Yes.
01:03:03
Speaker
They brought him back for a singles match against nails. Oh, gawl. Oh, the pain. Yeah. I, I, I literally got a headache immediately. Yeah. There's a match between nails and LG Dante or whatever he's going by at that point.
01:03:23
Speaker
A match between Elegante and one of the few men with the, uh, unenviable distinction of being in a bad sting match. Yeah. I would love to know who booked that and why. Yeah. Yeah. Thankfully that is not in our series though. So we're not covering that. Good. Do not look up that match for me. Well, let me put it this way, Bob. The match was inducted on rustlegrap.com. Oh, wow. Okay. You can read up on it if you want.
01:03:54
Speaker
Our fifth match is the Steiner Brothers, Rick and Scott versus Hiroshi Hase and Kintsuki Sasaki in a title versus title match for the Steiner's WSW Tag Team Championship and Hase and Sasaki's IWGP Tag Team Championship.
Title Match Analysis and Post-Match Sportsmanship
01:04:12
Speaker
The referee for this one is Nick Patrick. Al, incidentally, we have actually seen these exact teams in a match against each other once before, or rather, in the future. It's at 1995's collision in Korea. Oh, yeah. Hopefully, Hasei takes less scary looking bumps this time. Protect your head, ma'am. Oh, yeah. I remember that. No, I didn't say that. I remember that. That was a very good match, but man, he was scaring me in that one. Yeah.
01:04:40
Speaker
Hase and Suzuki won the title about two weeks before this show aired, so about a month before it ran in America. So on one hand, you're like, yay, we're the champions. On their hand, you're like, oh, I have to write the Steiners. That's all we can lose by winning in a very subtle way.
01:04:58
Speaker
Yeah. Thinking what's the Steiner's world tag title reign is notable for being one of the free birds who have a, I love the story. They have a negative six day title reign with the belt. Basically what happens is they pre-taped a bunch of their television shows to air later. So they retaped a match where the phallus free birds come out and lose the tag titles to the Steiner's that was recorded.
01:05:27
Speaker
six days before they actually won a pay-per-view, which probably really confused the live crowd. Here's a tag champion. What? Oh, okay. What's going on now? Yeah. Yeah. That was a weird period of WSW where, yeah, you were just like handed a belt. You hadn't won yet. Yeah. Told to go out and lose that belt. And then, yeah, six days later you go and actually win the belt that you had already lost.
01:05:56
Speaker
I like our odds. It's like, Oh my gosh, what the heck? Also notable that these diners were the WSB United States tech champions when they won those belts and they technically are here, although I don't think they actually have the belts physically with them here. I don't believe so. Um, and those belts are not on the line. Correct. At least from the commentary, it sounds like those are going to be given up. Yes. Just haven't been surrendered yet. So that's allowing the signers to potentially accomplish something rather neat.
01:06:26
Speaker
Correct. Yeah. As the signers enter, J.R. notes that the signers, as you noted, the WSW World Tag Team Champs and U.S. Tag Team Champs pending a tournament to determine new champs can make history by also becoming the IWGP Tag Champs here, a collection of titles no other team has attained at once. The first few notes of Hase and Sasaki's entrance theme had me thinking God bless America was starting up. Yeah, I could hear that. Is that same note pattern? It kind of is, yeah.
01:06:57
Speaker
JR and Tony discuss the Frankensteiner and note that Hase and Sasaki will be working to avoid it. JR notes, if you are a fan of Suplexes, this will be your match. That's fair, yes. Hase vs Scott to start.
01:07:12
Speaker
Hase repeatedly uses his speed to escape and counter Scott, and knocks him out of the ring with a very cool arcing spin kick and a closed line. He considers a dive, but perhaps remembering Rick's failure to catch Rock O'Rock at Starrcade 1990 thinks better of it. It's a good move, man. Yeah. Sasaki versus Rick next, and JR claims Sasaki uses a 360 degree power slam. Wouldn't that just be setting the guy back on his feet? Yes, correct.
01:07:42
Speaker
Sasaki does indeed have a very cool power slam, though, and a great clothesline that JR declares the Sasaki line. Nobody gets to destroy Rick Steiner like that, except Sasaki. Oh, yeah. Remember that from the collision in Korea match as well, that he and he alone gets the right to destroy the Stiners. Mm hmm. That's fair, yeah.
01:08:03
Speaker
Hase back in and he impressively muscles Rick up, but Rick slips free and gets him into the Steiner's corner. Scott and Rick trade off wearing Hase down, and Scott gets agitated, shouting at the crowd as they cheer for Hase. Tony notes that this might be the first time that the Steiners have experienced a crowd cheering against them.
01:08:22
Speaker
They earn multiple two counts, including off of Scott's Steiner line and double underhook powerbomb, but Hase fights free, darn near rock bottoming Scott, and tags Sasaki to an absolutely massive cheer. Sasaki dropkicks both Steiners and power slams Rick for two, carries Rick around with ease and slams him, then suplexes Hase off the top rope onto Rick. Yes.
01:08:50
Speaker
Hase northern lights suplex for two. Stunning Hase as JR notes that nobody gets out of that one normally. Rapid exchanges with varied pairings and they get a tad sloppy on a DDT. Yeah. Scott kind of falls sideways. I think he might've thought it was going to be a neck breaker. Yeah. The slight, slight miscue, I think it's in two of them for sure. Yeah. Rick is slower to attack Hase than Hase expected. So Hase sells surprise well before Rick is there to flare karma him. Yeah.
01:09:19
Speaker
Scott puts Sasaki on his shoulders for a Rick Top Row Bulldog, and then Scott hits the Frankensteiner for the three count and the win. JR says the Stiners have just made history with this win, owning three different tag titles at one time. It's a little unclear whether it's history because they own any three titles or because they own these three specific titles, but still.
01:09:44
Speaker
Tony notes that in Japan, you not only get the belts after a title win, but also winners' trophies. Indeed, the Steiners get four trophies. Yeah. A huge team trophy, two individual trophies, and then another huge team trophy, presumably because they won one belt and defended another. That is a lot of stuff to carry home. Yeah, someone's like, which trophy should we get? Yes. Yeah.
01:10:11
Speaker
It's a cool display, though. It is, yeah. I don't want to be them trying to do the baggage check at the airport on the way back. No, no. The Stiners go over and check on Sasaki and Hase. And Hase shakes hands. Sasaki sells frustration for a bit longer, but finally shakes as well.
Steiner Brothers in Japan
01:10:29
Speaker
And it hugs all around to applause from the crowd. Thoughts on this one? I thought this was a really strong, hard-hitting match.
01:10:37
Speaker
I would say that's kind of a given with the Steiners, but it's neat to see them in this Japanese environment because they really don't have to hold back. And in fairness, the Japanese wrestlers are fighting also do not hold back. Oh, no, they do not. Everyone just goes for it. It's one of the ones where I feel like if they didn't hit them hard, like full force on like, let's say it kicks the chest, the Steiners would be annoyed at them. They'd be like, Oh, I'm not good enough to kick harder than that. You know, that kind of, that kind of mindset they have.
01:11:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's interesting seeing them really like sort of set free in this environment. Cause it's, it's one thing seeing, you know, throw around Jabra tag teams in WCW, but they really, really go for us in these throws in here as well. Credit to Hase and Zaki, they are a really good tag team as well. Yes. It is definitely intriguing to see the, I'm going to superplex my own partner onto you move. I kind of wondering if they have a match for that doesn't go right. Or like I just rolled out of the way.
01:11:37
Speaker
If you do that spot multiple times and you never have that result, I'd be very disappointed. Yeah.
01:11:44
Speaker
This is interesting to talk about the crowd. So yeah, the crowd is definitely not against the Steiners, but they're definitely for Hase and Suzuki. They never really boo the Steiners. They clearly like them too. Yeah. But they are definitely heavily cheering slanted towards the Suzuki and Hase team. Yeah. It's a weird sort of glimpse of the future almost for a number of reasons. For one thing, it's the closest we get for quite a few years until we actually get heel Scott Steiner. Yeah.
01:12:13
Speaker
Like big Papa pumps dot Steiner. The other thing is it's kind of a weird glimpse in the future, as far as the cool heel thing goes with like the interview. Oh.
01:12:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's also I think similar in dynamic to like Hogan Warrior at WrestleMania six where both of them are good guys. But the crowd kind of is like picking which one they want to cheer more. Yeah. The signers never really act like heels. No, but the crowd has just decided that, you know, they're valuing the hometown boys, basically. Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely.
01:12:47
Speaker
I will just have a question for you based on this match as well. Okay. So there's a point in the match where Scott gets, is it Suzuki, I believe open the top rope and then drops him or is it Hase or the guitar say camera call. Okay. Anyway, so he basically does what would be a second rope, similar one drop. Oh, right. Yes. That bit.
01:13:07
Speaker
But obviously Scott Steiner is not Simone. He's there from Michigan, right? The signers, that's like their whole thing. Yes. Yeah. So I was like, what do you call that? My best guess was the, uh, Michigander drop. Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's a fair one. I mean, they are U of M guys, so it could be the Wolverine drop, which sounds cool. Yeah. Or I mean, keeping with the naming convention of everything else they do, it could just be the Steiner drop, which also actually kind of sounds cool. Yeah. I guess that would be accurate. He is falling as well.
01:13:36
Speaker
That is, that's fair. Yeah. Yeah. It's always nice to see the young giver just got here because we get so much in their shows of the full on big Papa pump Scott Steiner, who for a number of reasons, just doesn't wrestle the same way as he does here. Whether it's going out to argue with people in the crowd for let's say half the match.
01:14:00
Speaker
Or just not being able to do certain moves, whether it's from his back injuries or just normal wear and tear, which just happens. So it's nice seeing the sort of hint at like future heels, Scott Steiner, but still wrestling like early nineties, late eighties, Scott Steiner. Yeah. Ray still doing the Frankenstein. As well.
01:14:20
Speaker
Yeah. If he'll Scott Steiner were more like this Scott Steiner, where he just like still wrestling at a decent pace, but just occasionally pauses for just a moment to get agitated at the crowd. I would, I would, I would like he'll Scott center a lot more. Oh yeah, totally. And I guess there's number, there's number of reasons why he changed his style, but it's disappointing, but it's always nice to have these sort of time council moments showing a hint at least what could have been had the stars aligned properly. Yes. Yeah.
01:14:51
Speaker
Dang, this was good. This is the signers at the top of their game versus a team in Sasaki and Hase that can absolutely go at their pace and hit and suplex just as hard. They made me feel every single move in this match, though I did appreciate that Hase at least appears to know to tuck his dang head more at this point in his career than in 1995. Yeah.
01:15:16
Speaker
Sasaki gets to throw around the Steiners like nobody else ever does, and have some terrific, devastating-looking power slams. And Hase is just incredibly sympathetic and charismatic, while also showing off surprising strength for being the smallest guy in the match, and some great kicks and agility besides. Both teams really poured it on, and Quick Tags kept this match constantly changing up, keeping this exciting from start to finish. So a great match and a great achievement for the Steiners. I really loved it.
01:15:45
Speaker
I seem to recall watching the sort of middle point here, the like the, you know, 95, 96 diners where they would regularly do the move where the guy would jump for like a leapfrog and they just grabbed my midair and power same them. Black Sasaki does. Yeah. Sasaki does that to them.
01:16:02
Speaker
Yeah. I'm wondering is it that them going, Oh, this is a good move. We should, we could do something like that. Entirely possible. Yeah. Yeah. That's how a lot of wrestling where she wrestled a guy and like, Oh, that works. People after they wrestle flare a couple of times, start doing chops and you're like, where'd that come from? I wonder what's given their amateur background and so much as suplexing and power slamming is just pivoting and just throwing with your hips. That makes for a sense. They'd be really good at moving like that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is quite good.
01:16:31
Speaker
As far as actual WSW goes, Super Brawl, the next show that they're promoting would give us the very excellent, as I recall, tag team match of Sting and Lex Luger against the Steiners. Oh my gosh. I remember that one. We haven't yet covered it for the show yet, but I'm so excited for when we do. I have fond memories of that as well. Yeah.
01:16:52
Speaker
So here's where it gets a little weird. So, okay. So the Steiner's are the WCP world tag champions, US tag champions technically still, and the IDDP tag champions.
01:17:04
Speaker
So due to their very busy schedule, I think because the answer for this, they're not really in Japan that much as champions. So it's like sort of the Brock Lesnar thing, they'll come over for a big show and defend the titles. So looking through Cade match, assuming again, it's a pretty comprehensive list. They tried to do my best to get this right. It looks like there are headedly three defenses of the tag champion chips total. They're in their run with a caveat on the third one.
01:17:32
Speaker
So in May, they have a rematch against Hase and Suzuki match in Japan, of course. Okay. And then at class of champions 15, there's a IWP tag title match where it's them against Roshi Hase and Masahiro Chono. Oh, that sounds fun. Mm-hmm. However, in America, Scott Steiner would fortunately be injured in June. Oh.
01:17:55
Speaker
That unfortunately leads to a weird situation where they shipped the titles and Rick Steiner would team up with a different wrestler to try and keep the thing going. But, you know, you can't really replace Scott Steiner. It's pretty hard. Again, there's this sort of peak version of Scott Steiner. The duo of Rick Steiner and Scott Norton. Again, not, nothing to knock on Norton, but it said that's a good place and you're probably going to get, especially for Japan. At least you got a Scott.
01:18:22
Speaker
That's true. That's got a big burly Scott. That's all we need. Right. Yeah. Uh, they would show up in new Japan in November of 1991 to lose the titles. Okay. So I was kind of hoping there'd be more, more to that, I guess, like new Japan guys coming over on television or them coming to Japan, but two out of technically three
Sting vs. Muda Match and Rivalry
01:18:45
Speaker
matches. It's still pretty good. Yeah. Yeah.
01:18:48
Speaker
And then again, the achievement of being technically triple champions. And they even ignore in the third title, being dual tag champions and two gaming companies across the world is impressive. It shows the value that both companies saw in the Steiner's.
01:19:06
Speaker
That would be somewhat replicated much later in the late 2000s. The Dudley boys in TNA would be a TNA tag champions and IWDP tag champions briefly around 2007, 2008. So it's not an unheard of feat, but it's definitely not a common feat. And again, it's a press a field, all the same. Yeah.
01:19:26
Speaker
And to be fair, I mean, the Dudley boys also quite a storied tag team. Oh, yeah. That's the caliber of of team that you have to be to accomplish that. Oh, yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's saying there's not going to be done to the boys, obviously. No. J.R. again, congratulates the Steiners on their achievement, which this time again, sounds like it's about the three specific titles they've earned rather than just the fact that they have all three at all. J.R. calls the next match Sting versus the Great Buddha a grudge match.
01:19:57
Speaker
So our sixth match is the great Muda versus Sting. The referee for this one is Tiger Hetori. So as mentioned, there is a rivalry between Sting and Muda. Muda would come over to WCW about a year or so before this. He'd have a year long run where he'd be undefeated. In fact, he'd win the TV title off of Sting. That's part of that rivalry. Sting would unfortunately fail to win the title back from him. That's the undefeated part, obviously.
01:20:25
Speaker
As we've covered already, the undefeated streak would come to a very weird and abrupt sudden stop and start K-89 where he'd lose in to Ric Flair in about a minute. I believe. Is that a match goes? It was very, yeah, it was like a minute, minute 30 maybe. And a generous portion of that, as I recall is like the extraneous people brawling at ringside. Yeah. It basically like hit two moves, go for moonsault, miss figure four, tap out.
01:20:53
Speaker
It's, it's very, very strange the way that happens. I mean, as you covered, they're not great at ending big, long stories in this company. This is true. Maybe it should have been foreshadowing for how they'd handled the Stegogan situation. That's yeah. And the Goldberg one. Yeah, that's, that's fair. The pattern of helping here.
01:21:10
Speaker
Uh, but so he's following that. Well, he does some really impressive things. He has, I believe your favorite Luger match probably still. It's, it's definitely right up there. The great Buddha kicks the crap out of Luger's leg for like 15 minutes match. Yes. Yeah. I'm still proud of my Luger selling supercut from that episode. Oh yeah. After that, he would mostly wrestle in Japan, although obviously WSW is coming to him now. So that works out. Okay.
01:21:38
Speaker
Buddha's sparkly outfit game is strong tonight with a cool red and black outfit with ninja style mask and a sword logo on the back. But Sting brings his Captain Sting America outfit. So game set a match to Sting there. Yeah, no one else bangly Sting. He's out by now. Good try though, Buddha. Oh yeah, sure. J.R. notes that Buddha is seeking revenge for a loss to Sting in America.
01:22:02
Speaker
JR notes that Sting is tremendously popular even here in Japan. And I guess that definitely appears to be born out from the reaction he's getting. Okay. Muda removes the mask, revealing deep red face paint tonight, and sprays green mist. Fans throw streamers across the ring in honor of the match.
01:22:21
Speaker
It has to be tough to stay in character as an intimidating wrestler when you've got a brightly colored streamer hanging off of your head. But Muda manages it. Yes. He like barely reacts, it's impressive. Tony points out wrestlers at ringside acting as seconds for each competitor, noting Chono for Muda and the Steiners and Pillman for Sting, among others.
01:22:44
Speaker
Could be a coincidence, but, uh, it's part of this buildup to Sting win the title off of Flair in 1990, I believe that he would perform his own mini faction to counteract the forest men. Yes. And I think that's mostly the same guys. So it might be what they're going for. Could be, um, Z Man's out there at one point as well, I think, but yeah, it could, yeah, it could be happenstance, but it's a lot of the same people like the Steiner's and Pillman as part of that. So yeah. Yeah.
01:23:13
Speaker
Muda hits the handspring elbow right away, but Sting dodges the moonsault and no-sells a spin kick. Muda kicks the crap out of him. So he rolls out, so Muda dives onto him. Both guys are already stained red from Muda's face paint, so he sprays red mist in the air just to be sure it looks like a bloodbath. Yeah.
01:23:32
Speaker
Back in, Sting kicks a diving Buddha out of the air and chucks him out of the ring, and JR points out that that is not a DQ in Japan. Sting dives out onto Buddha. Sting works around a front face lock, taking breaks for a monkey flip, one-handed bulldog, and barricade drop, and goes for the scorpion death lock, but Buddha gets the ropes just as he locks it in, forcing a break.
01:23:55
Speaker
Muda takes over with a devastating spin kick and gets two with the power drive elbow. Yes, please. I love that elbow spot. Oh, so great. They dodge each other's big corner moves and Sting gets his knees up on the moonsault. And I swear that Muda took that right on the chin. It looks painful as heck. Yeah. Sting sells the arm and it gives out on the press for two for Muda.
01:24:21
Speaker
More two counts, with the Sting belly-to-back superplex, Sting backslide, and Muda inside cradle, and Sting locks in the scorpion deathlock, but Muda crawls the ropes to force the break. Stinger splash attempt, but Muda sprays green mist into a mid-air Sting and dodges so that Sting eats turnbuckle. Blinded, Sting is easy prey for a Muda top rope crossbody for the three count and the win.
01:24:47
Speaker
As Muda celebrates, the WCW wrestlers come in to check on Sting. Sting gets up and hurls Muda to the corner, hits the Stinger Splash, and locks on the Scorpion Deathlock. All the other wrestlers at Bringside get in, variously working to pry Sting off of Muda and pushing each other back. Thoughts on this one?
01:25:08
Speaker
I thought this was a very good match. Again, this is Sting and Nuda. So when you get these pairings, unless something really catastrophic happens or just, you know, they just have like 150 degrees fevers, you know, which I know will kill you. Um, it's going to be good. The odds are just a hundred percent in that favor of
Storytelling in Wrestling Matches
01:25:27
Speaker
that happening. They'd be fine now. The face paint is a cooling agent. Oh, okay. Breaks a fever immediately.
01:25:33
Speaker
It's like it's like Vicks Vapora, but just in your face. Yeah, exactly. Oh, OK. I always wondered why he wore that all the time. That's why he had the little bit of face paint on when they show him arriving early on. It was actually for motion sickness for the flight. Oh, OK. It's a wonder drug. Wow, OK. Look into that. Please do not take that as medical advice, people. No, no, obviously.
01:25:59
Speaker
This is a really good match showing their sort of rivalry because they do the, Hey, let's do the big spot, tease it, but not have that as a finish, which you really can only do when you've had three or four big matches. Yeah. Stage like this. They also, so very familiar with each other.
01:26:17
Speaker
Which leads to interesting bits where they try different moves, like staying to that weird top rope elbow, which I'm not sure how much it would have helped him in if he'd landed. He would have landed flat in his back, but also hit Buddha with his elbow. So I don't know. He really would have won that scenario to get him with, but yeah, almost looks more like a sentence than an elbow, but I mean, he's clearly going for an elbow drop, but it has that kind of motion to it.
01:26:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's like talking about forward where there's a case of how you want to take a bump. So you sort of adjust the move for that. Yeah. So you get a message like that where, yeah, he's basically gonna take a flat back bump. We'll mostly turn an elbow, which doesn't quite work, but it's fine. Yeah. I really liked the counter sequences and the fact that Buddha knows that the Scorpio deadlock is bad. Second thing tries to put it on. He's constantly struggling. So sting really puts like the most work.
01:27:10
Speaker
other than a guy like Flair maybe, of trying to put that hold onto him. It's some amazing conflict, yeah. So Buddha's like, his legs are tied around Sting's big, you know, meaty thigh, constantly sort of twisting side to side and ups the directions. Because Sting's got to turn him one way.
01:27:28
Speaker
And so you don't want to turn with him because that's going to help him. So you just constantly keep him off balance. You don't know which way to turn. So he's managed to hold off the hold long enough to get near the ropes. And then later again, when he puts it on, it's kind of, he, he really fights off the hold as much as he can showing that, Hey, I know this is coming. I know he's going to, got to beat me if I let him put it on me.
01:27:48
Speaker
It simultaneously makes Muda look good because he's a candy fighter and he knows how to fight off the hold. Yeah. But it also emphasizes just how powerful and dangerous that hold is. Oh, for sure. That is like, oh, wow, he's desperate.
01:28:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's always a good sign of a hold that second, like a face or heel goes for it. The other person desperately tries to get away because like if I get told is on me, I'm probably going to lose. Yeah, we see that again in the final match, actually, we'll we'll point out, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah. It's also interesting, too, because you see this match, they do an armwork on Sting as opposed to obviously legwork, which is Flair's whole thing. And we'll see the next match.
01:28:32
Speaker
So it's interesting kind of seeing slight variations of like sting flare spots with Muda. Yeah. I know at least one or two matches, they do the sting. It's mad goes for a press land, but his leg gives out spot. So seeing the arm version of that, which gives you the same results, but the slight tweak is kind of nice to see. Yeah. Yeah. Very nice. The only thing I don't give this match is the finish is spraying the missing the guy's face while he's jumping at you. Not as qualification.
01:29:02
Speaker
That is the eternal question with the mist, isn't it? Yeah. I was just thinking like, you had the red mist earlier.
01:29:11
Speaker
If you use that one for it, I could honestly get it because there's so much of like Muta's red face paint rubbed off onto them that you could have easily bought the ref just not noticing the remnants of the mist on Sting because he just would think of it as the red face paint. But because the green one, it stands out. It's extremely obvious what happened, even if the ref didn't see it. And I honestly don't recall them like distracting the ref by any stretch of the imagination either. So.
01:29:36
Speaker
No, yeah, the reference is watching full on. Is that just part of Buddha's body now? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, obviously he doesn't, his body doesn't really create greed. Misty spits out, you know, he's not a, some sort of lizard or snake. So you can't go, Oh, it's just a natural thing. He does.
01:29:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's weird because I feel like that would normally be, hey, let's track the referee, use the mystic advantage and you like put him in like a front chancery or something where you'd hide the face. Right. But yeah, this is full on just using the mist to get a counter. The ref sees the whole thing is like, huh, interesting. It's a cool spot. It is. And it goes well. It's just like, it's a very weird thing that that's not a disqualification. Yeah.
01:30:15
Speaker
Yeah. I would see if you've heard me talk about wrestling matches, you know, I really hate sudden abrupt disqualification finishes. So, and we're, I'm not really asking for that, but at the same time, I'm just not sure how this makes any sense. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe the mist is legal in Japan. Maybe that's the new Japan rule. Yeah, maybe. And I'm torn because I, if that had been finished with, Oh, boom, DQ. I meant, Oh, that sucks. But the way to play that I'm like, wait, huh? I'm confused. I'm not mad. I'm just confused. Yeah.
01:30:46
Speaker
Yeah, no surprise that this was good, though it's a bit oddly constructed to me. There's not a ton of variety to what they do with a lot of repeated spots, but in place of variety, they added oomph.
01:31:00
Speaker
Every spot is performed as big and powerful as they possibly can. Muda's kicks look absolutely vicious. Sting muscles him around and hurls him with gusto. And they both execute huge dives and sell like mad for each other. I didn't mind the lesson variety because it just felt right. These guys are pulling out their biggest guns, aware that nothing but their best will do against their opponent.
01:31:24
Speaker
And yeah, like you, I'm pretty torn on the ending. I love the spot, but I just do not get why it's not a DQ. But yeah, great timing and execution for that and the entire match. And these two are always so much fun. I always love a Sting versus Buddha match.
01:31:41
Speaker
So I was a little surprised by doing this research. So you would think based on this finish, Oh, we're building up to another mood, a sting match. Like let's say super brawl, which is the next pay-per-view where slight spoiler, I guess there's cross-emotional stuff still happening. Uh, no, that's not what's happening. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's weird. This like, Oh, he cheated outright to win instinct is really off. That's why he attacks in post-match. Especially with the promo he cuts later too. Yeah.
01:32:09
Speaker
Yeah, so again, going through Kage's match, which again is pretty good about having all sorts of matches on it.
Flair vs. Fujinami Title Match Highlights
01:32:17
Speaker
I was able to find the next time Muda and Sting interact. There is a tag match with Stan Hansen on Muda's team and PN News, Sting's spot who sticks out of this match, at a house show in June of 1991.
01:32:33
Speaker
And then the next time Sting and Muda cross paths, they were actually partners at September and New Japan shows. Interesting. Yeah, I was really thinking, oh, here's like a, another big sort of blood feud with Sting and Muda, but not that I could find. I was very surprised by that. That's very strange. Yeah. It didn't take away from this match at all, but it's just like, I was really thinking they were building up something else.
01:32:58
Speaker
Maybe there's a story behind that. I don't know, but yeah, it's just weird that their next interaction is that a non televised house show and tag match. And then they guess they're, I guess they're cool by September. Yeah, that's very strange. I mean, if anyone would get talked into teaming with someone who he had a blood feud against, it would be sting. Yes. Moodle would have his big send off pay per view in 2023 and he divides ding there and Darby Allen tag with them as well. That's very neat. Yeah.
01:33:27
Speaker
It's always interesting seeing guys again, like the Kiran Nagami wrestling the 1991 show in here there again, wrestling in 2023. It's quite a distance. Yeah, absolutely. Back to JR and Tony and JR says that they will hope to hear from Sting later. He'll probably want to rematch, they know. Mm hmm. Which, yeah, you would think so. You would, yeah. JR turns to the final match and notes that it could make history.
01:33:57
Speaker
Tony builds up the title versus title nature of the match. So our final match is Tatsumi Dragon Fujinami versus the Nature Boy Rick Flair for Flair's NWA World Heavyweight Championship and Fujinami's IWGP Heavyweight Championship. The referee is Bill Alfonso. Now, from what I understand, there's a lot of complexity to how this was announced to the varying audiences. Yes.
01:34:24
Speaker
So for the live crowd, it was apparently only announced this being for Flair's title and specifically only for Flair's NWA title, not the WCW title, even though at the time those were one and the same in the United States. Correct. Yes. This is in contrast to how Tony and JR presented where this is title versus title. So as we're watching the WCW version, we will use WCW's telling.
01:34:48
Speaker
So Fujinami at this point is a four-time IWGP champion, having just won a title from Vader back on March 4th, so he has very recently returned as champion.
01:34:59
Speaker
Notably, Fujinami was also the first man to win the IWGP title after Antonio Inoki, who in sort of disappointing fashion, breaks his foot and relinquishes the title. Aw. Yeah. Obviously he has a lot more history with that belt, but it's like, that's kind of weird that the disappointing, unfortunately, that the first title, right? Kind of ends that way. But he went to Fujinami and a lot of good happened with it later. So.
01:35:23
Speaker
This is of course Flair's seventh run for the title. Officially, if you don't count the weird one off matches, like how we lost the title to Harley race, like two weeks after winning at a start at eight three that they just don't talk about. Yeah. And they want it back between shows. Going back to a recurring bit in the first run of our shows.
01:35:46
Speaker
uh, flare of course would win the title at a house show in January. So call back to the January curse. Although in this case, it's actually in favor of the person in the match. It's a January blessing. There you go. I guess the January curse for his opponent though. That's true. Yeah. I guess every blessing has a curse some sort of way. Wow. That's depressing. Well, every curse is a blessing too. So, okay. Sure. It evens out.
01:36:15
Speaker
Fujinami unfortunately gets the kind of annoying music used for the opening six-man tag match, but his robe more than makes up for it with an awesome dragon on the back. Oh yeah. He comes out following the Japanese flag, and JR builds up his sincerity and honor. JR says, this is the match Fujinami has prepared for for his entire career. Flare, for his part, has some amazing gladiator movie-sounding music rather than his normal Asosbrox Zarathustra. Mm-hmm.
01:36:44
Speaker
He comes out following a lady carrying the US flag. Sadly, he has only opted for his admittedly nice black and silver robe, rather than pulling a sting and getting a red, white, and blue one. Yeah. JR notes that both of them have dominated the 80s in their respective countries. And Tony says Flair has noted, this may be the largest crowd he's ever wrestled before. JR notes that Flair said he was going to try to get Fujinami to expand too much energy and exhaust himself.
01:37:13
Speaker
as before, we've got other wrestlers as seconds at ringside. Notably, I don't think there's any WCW guys out there, perhaps because of Flair's heal status, but still you'd think that Arn and Barry would be there, but I didn't see them. Yeah, I was surprised by that as well. Yeah. I know Shono's out there because Shono was yelling a lot during the match. Yeah.
01:37:36
Speaker
We get the national anthems of both countries, and Flair looks intense, and Fujinami looks intense. It's a nice presentation of the whole thing, a big upgrade from some of the early Star Cades, as I recall. Oh yeah, for sure. There's a massive amount of formality to this buildup to the match and the ring intros, which serves to make this feel epic. JR notes again that the match will use a 20 count for countouts like in Japan, but notes that throwing someone over the top rope is a disqualification, like in America.
01:38:05
Speaker
One last cool note, Alfonso has two logos on his shirt, styled after the Japanese and American flags, reflecting that he's effectively the referee for both organizations right now.
01:38:24
Speaker
Flair woos at Fujinami, getting in his face. They work around headlocks, but Fujinami suddenly locks on the dragon sleeper, his finisher, and Flair sells like absolute mad, and desperately manages to reach the ropes to force the break. Flair made Fujinami look like a million bucks there. Absolutely, yeah. Fujinami wins a chopfest, and Flair retreats outside. Fujinami clearly thinks about a dive, but reconsiders. They work around headlocks, hip tosses, and chops.
01:38:54
Speaker
A lot of the mat is stained red and there were no matches cut between Buddha versus Sting and this. So was Buddha's face paint seriously that runny? Yeah, I guess so. He really needs to talk to Sting about better face paint. Mm-hmm. Flare chops Fujinami so hard that the noise stops JR mid-sentence. Yes.
01:39:14
Speaker
Flair works the knee with kicks, rope drops, and a shin breaker. Flair knee drop, but the camera angle so clearly shows a miss that JR quickly covers by claiming that Fujinami dodged. He died so quickly and so fast that he looked like he was standing still. It's amazing! Fujinami suddenly locks on the scorpion death lock. Yeah. JR notes that Flair is quite familiar with what that hold feels like. Yes. Yes he is.
01:39:42
Speaker
Flare howls in pain and crawls for the ropes, but Fujinami switches to multiple other holds in succession, until Flare manages to throw him to the mat to escape. Flare goes up top, but actually avoids Flare Karma by dropping to the apron, and repeatedly snaps Fujinami's neck across the ropes. Yeah, the first one didn't look great though. Yeah, true.
01:40:04
Speaker
Flair gets multiple two counts, including a butterfly suplex, installing vertical suplex, and JR does an excellent job of explaining the damage that Flair's chops do, weakening the pictorial muscles and even affecting breathing. It's a great little bit of a move storyline there. Yeah, I don't know if that's actually true, at least the breathing part, but probably not, but you know, it sounds great.
01:40:26
Speaker
It's a great explanation of why wrestlers can sometimes no-sell them, but then they start to get worn down by them too. Yeah, it's fair. Flare up top again, but this time Flare Karma is in full effect. Fujinami sends him to the corner for a flare flip, and Drop kicks him off with the apron before beating the ever-loving crap out of him outside, getting Flare bleeding, and continuing the beating inside with some excellent lunging punches.
01:40:55
Speaker
Flair catches a kick to try the figure four, but Fujinami counters with an enziguri for two, and earns several more with a nice clothesline, a roll-up, and a belly-back suplex in between brawling in and out of the ring. Nice touch on that figure four a bit. Flair, I think you can hear just starting to do the thing he'll do sometimes where he yells like, now we go to school. He gets out now and then gets kicked in the head.
01:41:21
Speaker
Flare charges, but Fujinami ducks and Flare nails Alfonso, who goes full ragdoll and even spills off the apron. Yeah, great referee selling there. Fujinami repeatedly pins Flare, but there's no ref, and he ends up countering a charge by throwing Flare out over the top rope. A dazed Alfonso appears to have seen it, but after a Fujinami suplex and a roll-up, it's replacement ref Tiger Hitori, who lunges him to count the three count and the win.
01:41:50
Speaker
Chono comes in and gives Fujinami a hug as Fujinami realizes that he's at last one. Fujinami celebrates with the big gold belt as Tony notes that Flair is arguing with Alfonso. One of the Japanese wrestlers, I didn't catch which one, carries Fujinami around on his shoulders as Fujinami holds up both title belts. Fujinami is presented with trophies and he gets the big gold belt strapped on. I think that it's Izuka who gets to put it on him. Okay.
01:42:20
Speaker
Tony notes that JR is headed backstage to try to learn more. Thoughts on this one? So this really is the story of this show, right? You go, hey, let's put really talented people in the ring. And then shockingly, the matches are really good. Yes. Who would have thought? Other than a few minor miscues, which I think might be just a general timing thing and maybe slight language barrier aspect.
01:42:45
Speaker
That's a really strong flare performance. He doesn't have like a sting who they have that rapport with. So he, he basically builds this really quick story where he's the overconfident heel and then Phrygianomies the strong face, basically copy pasting in all the best ways, his few with another dragon, of course, which is Ricky Steamboat. I also noted the similarities. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to copy a match, that's the one to do. So I have no complaints about that.
01:43:15
Speaker
There's really not too much to complain about quality of match wise. Like the very first time he does the next step of the rope, he doesn't really seem to drop Fuzhami down with
Controversial Ending and Implications
01:43:25
Speaker
him. He kind of just like taps his head and does a full back bump on the ring apron himself. And then it's like, Oh, okay. I guess that worked. Yeah.
01:43:35
Speaker
It's also a rare time when Flair does the obvious blade spot. And even though you'd know once he's like, Oh, he's outside and his head being bounced off the outside ring berry, he's got a blade. He hides it pretty well. At least the camera work hides his, his blading pretty well. I do like you to mention the, his first time he does a knee drop, he blatantly misses, but you know how many sudden they dare just credit covers for it. So later in the match when they do that spot again, it's against the other camera. Yes.
01:44:04
Speaker
It can cover that much better. Yeah. Cause obviously you don't want to land full on the guy's forehead with your actual, with your knee. No. The point of that is to miss by as low amount as you can. Yeah. A grazing strike, but look like you just knee dropped them directly. Yeah, of course. But the camera angle is such that time that it, it becomes very obvious. Yeah.
01:44:26
Speaker
That said, the match is really good. I feel for Fujinami's chest. Yes. My note was RIP Fujinami's chest, by the way. Yes, it is. It is fun. Early in the match. I forget if it's J.R. or Tony, but one of them says now pay attention to Fujinami's chest over the course of this match, because you'll see the impact of flares repeated chops.
01:44:46
Speaker
And yes, yes, you do. Yeah. If you more of a monosync fan, the best equivalent we have is Gunther, his chops. He can really build up the wear and tear in your body, like especially poor Seamus because of, you know, his ginger complexion. If you look at any footage or pictures of him post Gunther match, he's at three, I believe now it's the horror show. A poor guy. I really do feel for him.
01:45:12
Speaker
So Fujinabe is a guy we haven't seen a whole lot of. As mentioned, we got him on Russell Ward 92. So not having seen a lot of him, but knowing my reputation, you know, he's in WB Hall of Fame. So I expect a lot from him. He definitely delivers here. He's very good. Oh, yeah.
01:45:28
Speaker
get even if he's not going to be a sting and do like, you know, the woos of the crowd or kind of promo, like American wrestler would for us, the American audience, you really get behind him as a non Japanese fan. That was before the crowd being like silent, sometimes stoic observers through certain matches until big spots or they get really annoyed, like with very Wyndham. So seeing the reaction he gets is really impressive. Yes. They are really behind him.
01:45:57
Speaker
To be fair, Flair does a really good job of making himself despicable as he always does.
01:46:04
Speaker
So it's, it's a really to an effort, but we spent so many episodes rightfully praising flares. Nice to give some credit to the guys facing the ring as well. Yeah. And, and Fuzhanami does an excellent job of playing off of flares character. Yeah. When a flare is doing the repeated next snaps, he's stopping Fuzhanami from getting back in the ring by doing those. And Fuzhanami does an amazing job of just looking more and more agitated and frustrated. Yeah.
01:46:31
Speaker
Shouting outside and just like really visibly angry. It's it's it's an excellent performance. Absolutely. Yeah. I'll just say this because we'll cover it more later. The finish there was a choice. Let's put it that way.
01:46:48
Speaker
This was really good. A fierce battle between two champions presented with the level of impact and intensity that it deserves. I really, really like Fujinami. He has very steamboat esque in his attitude and characterization, particularly in how he traded blows with flair, as we've noticed appropriate for someone who shares the nickname, the dragon. Yeah. He has some terrific clothes lines, too. He does this little stumble after them that really sells the force that he puts into them.
01:47:14
Speaker
Yeah, he throws his whole body at them. Even he has to recover from how much he threw himself forward, yeah. Yeah, I really love that. Flare did a great job rattling up the crowd, and I like the special variance on some of his usual spots that we got to see here, like avoiding Flare Karma by going to the apron, or doing the Flare Flip, but ending up hanging upside down. Yeah. It felt a little weird that we never actually got the figure four after the legwork that Flare did, though, fair enough, he did. Go for it. Yeah.
01:47:43
Speaker
And Fujinami, I will say, honestly doesn't do much selling of said legwork, but he makes up for it with his own excellent holds. And overall, the match came together as a great contest that did repeat a few elements over its long run, but did different things with them to keep the match evolving. Yeah. The ending, I think, comes off fine on the show itself. In particular, there's great timing on the ref bump, great selling from Alfonso, and a cool final roll up by Fujinami.
01:48:13
Speaker
Admittedly, though, it is very clear that WSW is going to be overturning this finish if you've seen any WSW booking at all. But on the show itself, it is fine. T-star can 85. Yeah. Yeah. It's a really enjoyable and exciting main event.
Event Evaluation and Future Implications
01:48:28
Speaker
To be clear, I don't think the finish takes away from the match that much. I know it's a new, but advanced for the storyline. For me, I think the issue is I know how the Japanese audience is going to react to it. Yeah. It's disappointing in the sense that they give a really good show to the Japanese audience. They really deliver for this, you know, 50 to 65,000, how many people were here.
01:48:51
Speaker
crowd and for a pay-per-view audience across the world. So it's a shame that the last thing they stick them with is something that they're really not used to. It's called what's famously known for a dusty finish. Yes. Again, the match is really great. It's just disappointing that in a way that they did that.
01:49:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's fair. I mean, again, I think if you if you could ignore the fact that according to the stated rules of the match. So this is a big thing to ignore. But if you could ignore the fact that that is stated to be a spot that should be a disqualification. And you can stop yourself from looking forward to what that will probably mean for the storyline. The spot comes off fine and the performance from everyone involved in it is great.
01:49:38
Speaker
Yeah. It is funny that we, two shows in a row have discussed basically this, this exact spot. Yeah. We got a AWS show in 1983 and then a new Japan dubstep, you show in 1921. Yeah. But yeah, I think in both cases, the way the ending plays out as a match is fine. It's the storyline after the match that is going to be more questionable. Mm-hmm.
01:50:02
Speaker
I will say too, this is more of a thing for the whole show. There's a recurring thing where they talk about the rules, the different new Japan, like the 20 count. And yes, at times there's this sort of, I don't know, they're not mad, but there's a certain level of passive aggressiveness. I think, well, at least with the way Jira talks about it, like we talked about how, you know, over the top of that qualification, he seems like, like he sort of annoyed them that, that they don't have that rule that we do. Yes.
01:50:30
Speaker
Fair or not. That just, that's how it comes off as like they don't leave in that thing, I guess. And he gets agitated, uh, after flair goes over the top rope, then this match is like, now wait a second. That's supposed to be a disqualification. He really starts howling about it, which obviously is going to be kind of a storyline set up. I think it's definitely interesting, especially from Jr. Yeah. Normally the very straightforward play by play announcer hearing him do that kind of setup is interesting.
01:50:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think it goes to, we talked, we talked about before is interesting dynamic of this show is that there's not the color guy and the straight commentator, right? Like there's, there's not a heel commentator for the show, basically. Right. So maybe in a way that's kind of what he's, what he's sort of positioned himself to be, at least for the angle itself. Yeah. I think Tony Moore takes on a color commentary role for earlier parts of the show, but definitely feels like Jr is doing it there. Yeah. Yeah.
01:51:25
Speaker
As mentioned, the quote unquote dusty finish was not well received by the Japanese audience. More so people talking about it afterwards, like in the press and, you know, discussing, it's less of like, Oh, the crowd is really upset. I think the live crowd, other than unless they see what we're going to cover, they don't really get the idea that, Oh, this is done be done to screw with us. Let's call it what it is.
01:51:50
Speaker
It's not like, again, going back to the Hogan-Bachwinkle match, where the crowd is super annoyed when they announce a reversal on that same show. Right? I feel like they're about to riot Finn Fence of Hogan. This, of course, is all set up for a Super Brawl rematch between the two. And as you talked about the differences with that,
01:52:11
Speaker
WCW officially counts this as a disqualification victory for Flair. So when Fujinami comes over Super Brawl, they announced that it's Flair defending the title again against Fujinami. Whereas the Japanese press who doesn't like that, that bollocks with the, or the top of the disqualification thing, just basically treats it as Fujinami's going there to defend the WCW title against Flair. The NWA one.
01:52:37
Speaker
Oh, sorry. Yes. The enemy title. It's fusing because there's two belts at the simultaneously like that. Yes. Yeah. Which are nine times out of 10 are actually 99.999 times out of a hundred. Yeah. Are the same thing, but then they suddenly decide, Oh, in this one instance, they're not exactly. Yeah. It's very weird. Uh, a little sad. I picked up a final interesting. So futanami would have a total of four range with the belt is last room to come in 1998.
01:53:06
Speaker
His total time with the belt is 785 days. Okay. So that over two years, yeah, just over two years. Does the IWGP one? IWGP, correct. Yes. Okay. Yeah. The one he is not defending, but maybe defending on this show. It's unclear. Backstage, JR waits for a press conference and notes that he's sure that Alfonso saw the throw over the top rope.
01:53:32
Speaker
He throws to a video of the finish to Muda versus Sting with some comments from Sting. I told everybody in Japan, everybody in Tokyo, I wanted to come here because of the great competition against the great Muda. Great competition in the United States, first time here. I never expected something like this. This is not what great competition is all about. I don't care where it is, the United States or Japan, Muda. I want to get you back. Good quick promo from a very, very green faced Sting.
01:54:02
Speaker
It makes him look badly beaten up, and the remnants of red face paint around one eye make it look swollen shut. I can see that, yeah. It definitely helps highlight his anchor. For sure, yeah. I would definitely be up for more some Buddha versus Sting, so it was good to see this setup, even if it, you know, as you said earlier, doesn't necessarily go anywhere for a bit. Yeah.
01:54:23
Speaker
We cut back to the press conference where J.R. just literally stands off to the side talking while Fujinami is giving a speech in the background, which feels like it would be a tad distracting for everybody there. Yeah. Notably, everybody Fujinami is speaking to is wearing a silvery 91 Starrcade and Tokyo Joan jacket, which makes it at least seem like he's just speaking to show staff rather than to reporters or anything. So maybe put the guys in suits. Yeah, right.
01:54:50
Speaker
JR notes again that Flair was thrown over the top rope and that Alfonso didn't count the pin. JR seems about to say that WSW believes Flair should still be the champ, but he's interrupted by an angry Flair, his head bandaged up, storming in and backed up by Anderson and Wyndham. Flair rips the belt out of Fujinami's hands, declaring it his, and overturns the table.
01:55:13
Speaker
Fujinami, stunned, goes to confront him, but Anderson and Windham hold Flair back as two Japanese wrestlers hold Fujinami back to prevent any fisticuffs. Flair tells Fujinami if he wants to get the belt, he can come to try and take it in America. Hello, Super Brawl. Hey, yeah. Just as Flair is leaving, Tony steps into camera view for a second, gives a whoops look, and steps back.
01:55:41
Speaker
Tony won't look that embarrassed to be on camera again until Bash of the Beach 2000. Ayo. JR notes that this will have international repercussions. JR asks Fujinami for his feelings, and Fujinami says he doesn't know the English, then says, in pretty decent English, that he pinned Flair for the 1-2-3, he's the winner, and Flair has taken his belt. Don't sell yourself short, man. Yeah, if you asked me to say that in Japanese, I would not be able to do it. No, not at all.
01:56:09
Speaker
I can say thank you very much, but, you know, not a big flex there. Good setup segment for the eventual super raw one here, which will feature the rematch between these two. Yeah. As you noted out from WSW's perspective, it's Flair again defending the title he never actually lost, but from New Japan's, is Flair challenging for the belt that Fujinami won and Flair stole. Yes.
01:56:31
Speaker
In a weird way, it kind of works. It's a shame that again, they kind of annoyed certain people like booking the shows and the press about it. But like the way they play off the Angles in here does work as flares. Just a dash to heal. Still the belt as you want it. Got to come get me.
01:56:47
Speaker
100 percent. I have no objection to how this is presented on the actual show. Yeah. It's W. Stevie's treatment of it afterwards that is suspect. But Flair being a jerk, believing he didn't lose the title and stealing the belt. That's fine. That's just a wrestling angle. Of course. Yeah.
01:57:06
Speaker
A more common thing WWE does now, and they got taken from other sports is they'll have these post-show press junkets where they sit at a table with a big backdrop, you have the show and sponsor, and they talk to regular press and wrestling press. So it's kind of a weird proto version of that on this show in that last segment. Even if obviously the bells and whistles used in 2024 to present that are much different than the, let's sort of walk in and see people talking backstage, the position you get on the show. Yeah. Yeah.
01:57:38
Speaker
We fade out on Fujinami still complaining to JR and see the show logo one more time and super show one is done. So overall thoughts on super show one. Oh, it's a very strong show. It's nice to see a big show like this and the shoot arena. It's a very different crowd, which is nice. There's really only one blemish on the show. And obviously you know what that is. Anyway, then.
01:58:04
Speaker
It's not this terrible thing that I think really drags it down, like, you know, a great whole grade point, like from a, you know, A to B or anything. It's a fairly short, silly segment. That's not great. Yeah. Otherwise the show features really interesting match-ups and pairings. It's nice seeing new future setting up, like building up through zombie flare rematch and super brawl.
01:58:28
Speaker
reuniting old rivalries, even if not really committing to them, like Sting and Muda and just other pairings, like seeing Wyndham and Ernest and teaming together here at attack match Japan. Pretty cool.
01:58:42
Speaker
There's definitely a big feel to it. As mentioned, there's definitely some weird edits here and like the, the randomly cuts a DR on them. And you know, they cut around four matches for various reasons. So there's a certain disconnected nature to it. But if you watch this version, I think it's still okay. Especially if you don't know there's four matches missing, I don't think you go away. Where's this? This feels off. No, not really. It's only reading, knowing the full story and knowing it, even then I'm not totally sure where they cut them because it's shuffled around a bit.
01:59:12
Speaker
But yeah, it's definitely, it's a very strong show and it's nice seeing a Japanese show. It's totally fair after getting a one off tease between Circuit 95, even for the little hint of it in 96 with the opening like two or three matches all being New Japan performers as well. I don't really have to be complaint about this show. Yeah, I thought this was terrific.
01:59:34
Speaker
Even as a cut down version of a much longer show, Super Show 1 has a good flow, a generally good to great collection of matches, Eligante vs. Big Cat aside, and a lot of stars that we've rarely and in some cases never seen on other WCW shows. They made it a unique and really fun experience, and I'm very glad that we've decided to do this series. Despite being cut up and in some cases reordered, WCW's version of the show still feels pretty smoothly produced.
02:00:02
Speaker
The emissions aren't jarring and there's not really anything distracting about the structure of the show. I'm really relieved to be saying that. I thought going into this that it would be a hatchet job that would detract from the enjoyment of the show, but it didn't.
02:00:15
Speaker
It's a good job that most of the matches are really good, as there's not much that happens on the show outside of them. We get some good points of ceremony that help the show feel bigger, especially during entrances for the later matches and victories in title matches, but the only promos are Sting's short one and Fujinami's quick interview with JR. Other than that, it's just Match, JR and Tony for a second, Match, and so on. Speaking of JR and Tony, they are actually a really good team.
02:00:40
Speaker
Yeah. I was expecting it to be a bit awkward as they're both play-by-play guys. I was afraid they'd end up both trying to do that and talking over each other or something. But they seem to have worked out a sharing of duties quite well. And Tony seems to slide into color commentary a bit and leave more of the call to JR.
02:00:57
Speaker
They made a good team and had some quite good discussions about match strategy and wrestler personalities and fighting styles. They do lack a little tension, since neither plays heel, but I don't mind hearing something different than the mid to late 90s norm here. That's fair, yeah.
02:01:12
Speaker
Otherwise, presentation was generally strong and the show had a big, important feel, aided by the size of the crowd and the aforementioned ceremony, as well as moments like wrestlers gathering around the ring just to watch the last two matches. I always loved seeing that, like, this is important to the performers as well. Yeah, absolutely. There's a lot that went into making this feel big and it worked.
02:01:35
Speaker
So yes, I really enjoyed this one a lot. It's a good show and it gave me a chance to see some new Japan favorites and familiarize myself with some wrestlers that I'd never seen. It's a really easy recommendation. Here's hoping the remaining shows will be just as good. Yeah. It's just a shame that for whatever issue of rights or idea of rights or however, this has worked out that this isn't more easily available. Yes. That's the thing I'd say. Yeah.
02:02:03
Speaker
Cause I know from rotation, like new Japan is super strict with their footage. Like you use it at all on YouTube. Boom. They go right after you. But same time, I'm really curious. Cause like this aired on paper view by WCW and WWF bought their entire table library, which should include this show. There's gotta be some complicated rights thing stopping it from going on the network. I would love to know what the reason is. I feel like it's probably not a simple answer.
02:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, you and I were genuinely not sure we were ever going to get to do this series until you found where we could get a watch. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm glad we did for sure. Match of the night and MVP. So Al, what is your match of the night? There's a lot of strong matches here. I really liked the Steiner's tag match.
02:02:50
Speaker
quite enjoyed the horseman tag match as well. Secret match was fun, really anything. And again, not to pick on poor guy, but as he's not around anymore. But I think other than the El Digante match with the cat was good. For me, I think the master really stood out if it didn't have the same mobile of Epic story to it. Uh, and nice to see the crowd reaction, but the one that just felt the most visceral and really exciting to watch when I could easily see myself revisiting.
02:03:20
Speaker
with no caveats is the Steiner's versus Ase and Tazaki. I really enjoyed that match. Like you, I would say you could make an argument for every match, but Elegante versus Big Cat. My opinion has changed a number of times over the past few days. But yeah, I'm going to go with the Steiner's versus Sasaki and Ase as well. It's just a great, fast paced, hard hitting battle between two teams at the top of their game. Really, really excellent. Yeah.
02:03:50
Speaker
MVP gets a tricky one because, I mean, so many will really shine like the Steiner's, uh, and the tag matches, you know, Hasezaki again, and their match. A lot of guys shine. Sting especially is really good. Oh yeah. I could easily see a pick for Sting. Muda as well. Flair does quite a good job. He's very minor miscues throughout and they hold that against him.
02:04:14
Speaker
The one that got you shined for me the most here, because I don't get to see him a lot and he does such a good job here in a big high stakes match. I'm going with Fujinami. Okay. Very fair. He was quite good. I, he delivered. He had the most to live up to in this show and he absolutely delivered. Yeah. There's a ton of great performances, including, but not limited to Fujinami, Flair, Hase, Sting, Muda, Windham, Sasaki.
02:04:43
Speaker
I'm going to use a similar explanation, I think, but a different person. Okay. I am giving this one to Hiroshi Hase. Okay. Number one, he is terrific. So quick and agile and charismatic, but also surprisingly strong. And number two, as with you and Fujinami, we just don't get to see this guy very much. So I may not get the chance to give it to him again. Yeah. I've really, really enjoyed his work. He was just fun to watch.
02:05:13
Speaker
Hase is one of two people on the show that is currently in elected office. Does it say yep? Hase is currently the governor of the Ishikawa prefecture in Japan. Okay. Elected in 2022. He served in the Japanese diet and other forms as well, but he's currently there right now. The other person who surprisingly has a high in elected office and as far as I can tell was still there is Tim Horner. Okay. Tim Horner was elected to be county commissioner in Hamblin County, Tennessee.
02:05:42
Speaker
I do my research. I went to Hamplin County, Tennessee's website and I found a picture of him there. He basically looks like you would think he looked like if he watched this show, it's him, you know, 30 years older without the mullet. That is funny. That's the same dude. Oh, that is interesting. Mm hmm.
02:06:06
Speaker
And that wraps up our review of Super Show 1. If you've enjoyed listening to us tonight, you can find us on Facebook as Let's Go to the Ring. A link will be available in the episode description. Follow us for episode announcements and other show details, and share your own thoughts about each show as we go through.
02:06:22
Speaker
You can subscribe to our show on Apple Podcast, YouTube, YouTube Music, Audible, iHeartRadio, Spotify, TuneIn, or Pandora. And please, if you've enjoyed this show, give us a rating or review and show the show through your favorite social media platforms to help others discover us.
02:06:40
Speaker
Many thanks to ProWrestlingHistory.com for attendance figures, and Gina Trujillo for our logo. Next up, WCW New Japan Super Show 2. Or in Japan, Super Warriors in Tokyo Dome. Great title. Seriously, WCW, why did you rename that? Right?
02:07:00
Speaker
This time, it looks like we'll actually get to see Super Strong Machine. Hey. Plus, Lex Luger actually does have to wrestle in Japan. And Vader gets to try his hand at getting a good match out of Allegante. Rooting for you, pal. Doing Lord's work, yeah. This is Bob Moore for Alec Pridgen, signing off. Good night, everybody. Happy wrestling.