5-Star Match Reviews: Keiji Muto & Shiro Koshinaka vs. Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada – NJPW Spring Flare Up 1987

No wrestling company has more 5-Star matches (according to Meltzer) than New Japan Pro-Wrestling. As of this writing, he has rated 95 NJPW matches 5-stars-or-higher. Of those 95 matches, 48 took place during the 2010s, 35 took place during this decade, one took place during the 2000s, six took place during the 1990s, and two took place during the 1980s.

Now, Meltzer’s star ratings are very hit or miss and they should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, these ratings do serve, at the very least, as an opportunity for someone to discover otherwise unknown wrestlers and then judge these alleged classic matches for themselves. That’s why we’re going back in time once again to see one of the early Meltzer 5-star classics to see how well it holds up to time.

The story

Tatsumi Fujinami and Kengo Kimura, the previous tag champions, split up while still defending the titles. Since they were no longer in a position to defend the titles, NJPW vacated the titles and announced a tournament to crown new champions.

At the same time, there was a theme to this match: NJPW versus outsiders. Here, local heroes Muto and Koshinaka took on the twin leaders of the UWF invader force Takada and Maeda. Those latter two were also ex-New Japan wrestlers do they were seen as both outside invaders and traitors to Inoki and New Japan. As a result, NJPW’s fans wanted to see two local heroes punish them for their transgressions; winning tag team gold would simply be the cherry on top in that story.

The match

This match took place on March 20, 1987.

Koshinaka and Takada start off. Takada misses some kicks and Koshinaka gets a quick armlock. Takada fights out and after a long stalemate he locks in a Fujiwara armbar. Koshinaka gets ropebreak and then lands an overhead suplex following a Greco-Roman knuckle lock. Muto tags in and we get some amateur-style mat wrestling. Muto escapes a kimura and both men dodge kick attempts. Maeda tags in and starts working over Muto’s arm and wrist. Muto counters with a heel hook and Maeda shifts in kind. Muto escapes and tags Koshinaka and Maeda pummels him with kicks. He lands a shoulderblock but then misses a wheel kick. Koshinaka goes for a wheel kick but Maeda catches him and lands a German suplex for a one-count. Takada tags in and gets into a slap exchange with Koshinaka. Koshinaka wins the exchange, lands a snapmare, and applies a headscissor. Muto tags in while that hold is still applied and lands a top-rope kneedrop. He follows with a hammerlock but Takada counters with a leg sweep into a kimura. Muto escapes and tries an O’Connor roll but Takada holds onto the ropes.

They trade kicks back-and-forth until Muto lands a back suplex which gets a two-count. Takada counters a vertical suplex attempt to send Muto onto the apron and then spinkicks him to the floor. He lands another kick and a side belly-to-belly suplex for another two-count and then tags Maeda, who lands kicks and a span suplex for a two-count of his own. A swinging powerslam gets Maeda another two-count so he applies a chickenwing hold. Muto gets a ropebreak, eats another kick to the face, and tags Koshinaka. He blocks a sharpshooter so Takada tags back in and lands a vertical suplex for a one-count. Koshinaka blocks a chickenwing so Takada switches to a cross armbreaker. Koshinaka gets a ropebreak so Takada lands more kicks and a slam and then tags Maeda.

Koshinaka tries shooting Maeda off the ropes but Maeda maintains his headlock. Maeda switches to kicks and sends Koshinaka into a corner. He goes for a wheel kick but Koshinaka ducks and applies a Boston crab. Takada breaks up the hold so Maeda lands an overhead suplex for another two-count. Takada tags in and applies a heel hook but Koshinaka escapes and tags Muto who gets a one-count off a vertical suplex. Muto misses his corner handspring elbow so Takada kicks him and tags Maeda. They trade kicks, get into a deep lock-up and then struggle around the ring until they get close enough for Koshinaka tags in.

Koshinaka hits a backbreaker and tries another Boston crab but Maeda gets a ropebreak. Maeda escapes and tags Takada who lands a Tombstone for a two-count. Takada locks in a sharpshooter but Koshinaka gets a ropebreak. Takada reapplies the hold and the ref holds Muto back so Koshinaka has to pull himself to the ropes again. Takada lands more spinkicks and tags Maeda, who lands more kicks plus a bridging dragon suplex for a two-count as Muto saves his partner. Muto saves Koshinaka again following a wheel kick so Takada tags back in. a lariat gets Takada a two-count and then Koshinaka counters a slam with cradle for a two-count. Muto tags in and lands his rib breaker/moonsault combo. One, two, Maeda saves his partner. Spike Piledriver by Muto & Koshinaka. Muto lands another vertical suplex and again Maeda makes the save. Takada frees himself from Muto so Koshinaka tags in. Takada dodges a dropkick and tags Maeda. He lands more kicks and throws but then Koshinaka gets backslide for a close two-count.

Takada tags in again and lands a Backdrop for a two-count as Muto makes another save. He sees Muto coming in again and dumps him ringside before trying another sharpshooter. But this time Koshinaka counters with a small package. One, two, and three! There’s the match!

Winners and NEW IWGP Tag Team Champions after 17:04: Keiji Muto & Shiro Koshinaka

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7tnbjz

Review

This match was going great until the sudden and abrupt finish. There was an interesting story of wrestling versus shoots-style at play that made this into a heated and exciting encounter. It was a styles clash with glaring differences yet it wasn’t bad enough for the match to fall apart or for the story to be lost among the action. But that’s because the story was only told by one side: Takada and Maeda. They wrestled like a well-oiled machine compared to Muto and Koshinaka who just survived most encounters and won the match with sheer dumb luck. That finish really put a damper on this because it stopped the match without much of a psychological reason behind it. I get that they were going with the idea that a wrestling hold beat a shoot submission hold, but that idea wasn’t enough to justify an otherwise intense match ending so abruptly and with so little fanfare.

Try as they might, Muto and Koshinaka just weren’t a match for Maeda and Takada, despite having their own amateur pedigrees. The UWF duo hit harder, landed more impressive moves, had more heat, and generally looked more impressive. Muto and Koshinaka spent most of the match either on the defensive or hitting the same moves that weren’t getting then anywhere. It looked like they were stalling or were so out of their depth that they forced themselves to stay in their comfort zones while the UWF guys were trying to pry them out. This created a mismatch in action with the supposed villains in the match wrestling more impressively than the hometown heroes. It almost turned the UWF guys into token NWO ‘cool heel’ characters by accident: the way Maeda and Takada did a better job of both out-wrestling Muto and Maeda and out-doing them at their own style of wrestling basically turned Muto and Koshinaka into warm bodies.

Because of that, the NJPW duo didn’t do much in storyline to deserve a win. The three-count came out of nowhere and they both did very little to really weaken Maeda and Takada enough to get the win. I get it: 1980s and 1990s New Japan treated wrestling more like a genuine sport with all moves being equal instead of creating a sense of build or gradual wearing down. And yet that realism clashed with the story they were going for here:

Final Rating: ***3/4

This was like watching Bret Hart and Chris Benoit wrestle Toshiaki Kawada and a pre-hematoma Katsuyori Shibata in a WWE ring but with the latter basically given free rein to do whatever they wanted and Benoit forcing a sudden pin with a random cradle despite not doing anything to earn that victory. That kind of match would be full of action, to be sure, but it would do more harm than good to the WWE duo. They would be upstaged in their own company and their shortcomings would be exposed by two guys with harder strikes and a better mat game.

This is a fun match if you like technical wrestling displayed for its own sake that doesn’t really go anywhere. Even the hot crowd (at least by NJPW standards), the action and the storytelling don’t justify categorizing this as some kind of historic and industry-changing epic. It was fine for what it was, but there are later matches and rivalries that get so much more out of the outside invader angle, both in Japan and abroad.

Thanks for reading.