WAR Wrestle And Romance – All Star Tag Wars 07/10/94
By Maffew Gregg on 11 February 2024
Wrestle And Romance
Sumo Hall
Attendance: 11,020
WAR have gone all-out for their 2nd Anniversary. Probably because they don’t think they’re going to make it to a 3rd.
Not much in the way of news, just Tenryu beating Onita in front of 52,000 fans at Kawasaki Stadium.
The match sadly wasn’t much as neither man is good at the other’s style but still: 52 thousand fucking fans.
SUPER BATTLE of 6 MEN 1st Round
Ashura Hara & Earthquake John Tenta & Jinsei Shinzaki (Michinoku Pro) vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki & Jado & Gedo (Fuyuki-gun)
Fuyuki-Gun won the newly established WAR World Six Man Tag Team Titles the month before, in an event that was recorded for a TV special but is so heavily clipped there’s no point in typing about it for this lovely blog.
Fuyuki-Gun were the surprise winners after the man himself twatted Tenryu with a fire extinguisher, establishing the new stable from the get-go. Their titles are not on the line title tonight, WAR just felt like having back-to-back six-man tag tournaments and then wonder why they were losing so much money.
Fuyuki-Gun get the biggest reaction so they send their opponents out the ring with belt shots and start the match with Jado delivering a rolling swanton off the apron and Gedo landing the ORIHARA MOONSAULT. Fuyuki revs up his charging corner charge on Hara with the rest of team following him, setting up Hara for an elevated butt drop off the top but Shinzaki saves and the crowd bought that as a potential finish! It’s been thirty seconds!
Fuyuki dodges Shinzaki’s dropkick easily before going back to Hara, with Jado & Gedo spiking Hara with a spike piledriver off the apron. Fuyuki-Gun then Super Powerbomb Hara but the ancient one somehow kicks out. I would have loved that being the finish. Fuyuki powerbombs him directly onto the back of his head for good measure but that still doesn’t put him away as he lost his sense years ago when he signed with SWS.
Shinzaki tries to save Hara but gets dunked outside again, so Tenta stops being dead long enough to slowly make the save with clubbering blows. Hara is still legal so he laughs off some Jado offence to tag in Shinzaki. Pump Splash gets two as Jado is able to deliver a Super Frankensteiner and allow Gedo to tag in and land his moonsault-based offence that got him booked for Super J Cup. Tenta tags in to ignore lariats and shake his head to the crowd’s love. Fuyuki gets smothered but he’s feeling it tonight so he delivers a backdrop suplex to Tenta to resume the triple-teaming, and then follows THAT with a casual suplex on Tenta. Fuyuki’s had his Weetabix.
Fuyuki-Gun attempt a Superbomb on Tenta and my God that would have been something, but Tenta’s Mates (not Hogan) spoil it by interfering. A Stretch Plumb looks to end it instead but Hara runs in to deliver 500 headbutts to eventually release the hold. Tenta isn’t free from Fuyuki as Jado & Gedo continue to keep the others at bay. Sadly Tenta slams a diving Gedo and ends it after the Earthquake Stomp at 9:06
I’ve seen negative reviews for this match but THEY’RE WRONG, FUYUKI-GUN RULED using the same tactics and high-spots we’d see from guys like The Shield decades later. Crowd were losing it for every near-fall, even the ones seconds into the bell. Everyone else played their roles well with the biggest negative being Fuyuki-Gun not winning. What’s supposed to follow that?
Koki Kitahara & Takashi Ishikawa & Koji Ishinriki vs. Koji Kitao & Akio Kobayashi & Masaaki Mochizuki (Kitao Dojo)
Can’t have an All-Star tournament without Kitao, because he’s a large gaseous object. Ishikawa starts by taking Kitao’s woeful strikes but at least here in a large arena they’re less obvious to the crowd. Still sucks for Ishikawa & Ishinriki having to do the necessary over-selling before Koki puts up a bit of a fight cos he’s the only one sticking around after this show. Mochizuki tags in so Kitao can hibernate, and his exchanges with Koki are like Badr Hari vs. Semmy Schilt by comparison. Ishin tries his daft sumo strike charge but Mochizuki treats it as a joke before slapping the once-bright prospect around. Then Akio tags in and absolutely wails on Ishinriki before the ex-UWA champ mercifully tags out. Christ those were some rough shots, no wonder he ran away. Koki tags in to calm down Akio who is still throwing full-on shots everywhere. A German suplex doesn’t shut him up but a rolling schoolboy does and it’s apparently good enough to end the match too at 6:37, with Akio attacking Koki immediately afterwards and everyone looking a bit confused.
Like two completely matches stuck together, with the first half seeing everyone oversell for Kitao like he was 1991 Andre The Giant, followed by the youngsters doing their best to give everyone concussions. Finish sucked.
Kendo Nagasaki (NOW) & Masashi Aoyagi & Arashi vs. Animal Hamaguchi & Nobukazu Hirai & Shoichi Funaki (PWFG)
What an absurd mix of the very good and the very not-good. It’s the WAR debut of Kendo, who is working as many places as he can now that NOW is no more (NOW-more). We’re thankfully clipped to Animal somehow dumping Arashi with a Samoan Drop. To set the scene: Animal looks like a tall dwarf and Arashi is fat. Funaki is then forced to sell for the untrained barm cake, with Hirai having to save. Crowd at least enjoys watching Arashi in pain so there’s that. Aoyagi tags in and he seems a bit confuddled by the variety of styles on display so he tags in Kendo instead. Oh then Kendo locks in a fancy Kimura on Funaki, making sure to lock his legs around his head to prevent Funaki from moving away. Funaki can’t escape Kendo’s cocoon of pain and this is the longest I’ve seen him go without brawling to the outside. Arashi tags in and takes over and that’s enough for Funaki to escape and tag in the mediocre Hirai, who is rewarded with a kick to the head from Aoyagi. Animal takes out Kendo with various dives and kicks as he’s middle-aged and crazy. Everyone teams up to drop a dozen elbows on Kendo to the crowd’s delight. Animal must have been a real star before electricity. Aoyagi ignores Hirai’s mid-card offence to simply kick him for the win at 13:23 and shrugs afterwards as if to say “was that it?”
Just a bunch of stuff with little in the way of chemistry apart from Kendo and Funaki. I usually like a styles clash, but these styles clashed head-first.
Warlord (WWF) & Vampiro (EMLL) & Lion Heart Chris Jericho vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Atsushi Onita (FMW) & Crusher Bam Bam Bigelow (WWF)
Onita’s the most popular non-Forrest Gump thing of 1994 as the crowd are going BANANA at the mere sight of him. Jericho and Tenryu start off, with the unselfish Tenryu allowing Jericho to get plenty of offence in early. Bigelow and Warlord get the expected BIG FAT CLASH POP with Crusher busting out some forward rolls for the hell of it. Warlord poses so Bigelow enziguris him to a big laugh. Bigelow always had loads of attitude in Japan. Everyone tags out to give us the bizarre sight of Vampiro vs. Tenryu, with Tenryu seemingly unimpressed by Vamp’s martial arts prowess. Especially when Vamp falls over mid-kick. Tenryu powerbombs Vamp before him and Onita beat the snot out of the barely-trained rockstar. Vamp is so befuddled he tries to tag in Tenryu which earns him more lashings. Vamp reluctantly tags in Jericho while thinking of lies to spread about him, as Tenryu again lets Jericho get his best stuff in. Jericho gets a rare variation of his springboard-to-the-apron by busting out a springboard-moonsault-to-the-outside. Hell yeah.
Vamp tags in which gives us a wonderful moment where the camera is zoomed in on Tenryu’s face and he has a OH NO, NOT THIS GUY expression. Warlord tags in and Tenryu’s so happy to see him he dives off the apron into his waiting arms, only to get dumped over the guard-rail. Tenryu teases a count-out only to recover and get even more slaps from Jericho. Tenryu’s so great when it comes to timing his comeback, he waits until Jericho’s doing a rudimentary bounce off the ropes and just takes his head off with a lariat. It’s beautiful. Then Onita tags in to give us Jericho vs. Onita and the most famous part of this show:
Kitao helped WAR’s business pick up enough that a Ryoguku show was booked for a six-man tag team tournament that featured the first-time pairing of Tenryu and my old FMW boss, Atsushi Onita.
Interpromotional matches were rare in Japan and it was a huge deal to see the faces of two big companies tagging together. I was the odd man out of the Fuyuki-Gun that night, so I was paired with Vampiro and a huge bodybuilder named the Warlord for the first-round match against Tenryu’s team, which also included Bam Bam Bigelow.
It was weird working with Onita. I still felt screwed over because he owed me money and he’d never treated me with any respect when I worked for him. I talked to him briefly before the match and he claimed to remember me but I got the vibe that he was lying…again.
The finish of the match was booked to have me do the Lionsault onto Onita. But before I could get the win, Tenryu would make the save and Onita would pin me with his shitty Thunder Fire Power Bomb finish.
I went for the Lionsault, which I usually hit 9.9 times out of ten. But this time, I nailed Onita square in the face with my knees. Maybe he was out of position, maybe the ring lights hit me in the eye, or maybe it was a Freudian slip, but the bottom line was I knocked the bastard out cold.
I looked into his glazed eyes and I knew he was in Ra Ra Rand. I was in front of 10,000 fans and I’d just knocked out my former boss with my finishing move. Time stood still and a lil devil Jericho appeared on my shoulder saying, “Pin him! Pin him! If you get the clean win over Atsushi Onita, it will catapult you to superstardom! Plus the son of a bitch still owes you $200.”
A lil angel Jericho appeared on my other shoulder saying, “Christopher! Don’t you even dare. It’s so unprofessional and you’ll get fired. You’ll never work in Japan again!”
In the end I sided with the angel and as the ref counted to 2 I discreetly popped Onita’s shoulder up, making it seem like he’d kicked out of my pin. He was still dazed man walking, so I basically power-bombed myself and told him to pin me.
That’s got to be the first time that someone has been owed money and beaten himself up.
Onita’s still clearly shaken as him and Tenryu immediately botch a powerbomb/neckbreaker combo, but Onita saves it with a powerbomb of his own to end it.
Wait no, Vampiro apparently not knowing that’s the finish breaks it up while Onita does his best to ignore him, resulting in a furious Tenryu smashing Vampiro with a full-force lariat, and Onita ending it for real-real after a second Fire Thunder at 9:38.
Now THIS was the kind of big, dumb fun you’d expect and want from a 6-man All Star night like this! Even Vampiro being annoying lead to him getting a kicking which he took admirably. Great stuff here, but sadly Jericho would break his forearm shortly after this show and be out for a bit and be replaced by GWF’s Scott Putski, of all people.
SUPER BATTLE of 6 MEN Semifinals
Koki Kitahara & Takashi Ishikawa & Koji Ishinriki vs. Ashura Hara & Earthquake John Tenta & Jinsei Shinzaki
Hara and Ishikawa start off and they could be either man’s alternate ring attire on WWF No Mercy. The gammons turn each other into flat iron steaks until Koki comes in and oh my god does Ishinriki look uninterested on the apron. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sadder human in wrestling and I paid money to see Greg Valentine in 2014. It doesn’t help that when he comes in to go sumo-sumo with Tenta, no-one reacts so Tenta doesn’t waste his time doing anything with him and lets Shinzaki strangle him instead. Koki’s kicks are blocked by the cool-looking one before he counters to a beautiful German Suplex. Shinzaki is bleeding from the mouth so Hara comes in for more pounding and the crowd isn’t buying it. There’s only so much you can do with a man disappearing before our very eyes. Hara barely takes Ishinriki’s top rope dropkick before Tenta tries the EARTHQUAKE STOMP which Ishikawa blocks with a well-timed lariat to finally give the crowd something to enjoy. Tenta misses some elbows as this match has absolutely no flow at all. Shinzaki blocks Ishinriki’s dropkick and then lands a Praying Shoulderblock. Praying Powerbomb is blocked to big boos so Hara comes in for the exact same routine he’s already done multiple times tonight. No sell, moan, headbutt, stagger. Ishikawa gets sick of the lack of pop and brutally lariats Hara because it’s the only move Hara can take anymore. Then Hara pops up and lariats Ishikawa for the win anyway and the crowd pops loudly for the match being over. The wrestlers would have been better off going into the crowd and selling ice cream instead.
And that was Ishinriki’s last match for a number of years as he headed off to be with his wife so they could be retired pro wrestlers together. If you watched his SWS matches you’d think he was going to be the next big thing. If you watched his WAR matches you’d hope the next big thing would land on his head.
Genichiro Tenryu & Atsushi Onita & Crusher Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Masashi Aoyagi & Arashi
Aoyagi and Onita start off as the crowd goes nuts as they’re reminded of the feud that started FMW. Aoyagi throws his hard kicks but Onita has the power of JEANS to absorb the blows before brawling into the crowd. You’d think Onita would have the advantage but the fanny magnet brawls right into the opponent’s corner so Kendo joins in. Tenryu tags in and Kendo wants a piece of him for killing NOW. Tenryu’s like Thulsa Doom when he meets Conan and has no idea what he’s talking about but batters him anyway. Kendo uses the ring bell on Tenryu before launching a dozen tied-together chairs to bury him as the entire crowd shrieks in horror.
They lose their minds when Onita saves the day with a chair to the head. The crowd is making this match. Tenryu and Onita are both bleeding and brawling, meanwhile Bam Bam’s stood on the apron like “yeah not for me thanks.” Tenryu takes a mighty shellacking before countering Karate with chops. Kendo stops his comeback and crowd does not like that at all so Onita tries to save Tenryu but Kendo just wails on him too. Kendo’s really motivated here. Poverty will do that a man. Arashi comes in for his one move (chokeslam) and manages to not mess it up too bad. Everyone’s paying attention to Onita attacking Kendo to notice him anyway. Mr. Wrestling has to fight tooth & nail just to make the hot tag to Bigelow who takes out Aoyagi, before weirdly tagging in Onita seconds later. He’s bleeding Bam Bam! Aoyagi kicks out of the Fire Thunder Powerbomb so Onita tags Tenryu back in and the whole crowd murmurs their disapproval because Tenryu’s practically mincemeat. Bigelow thankfully tags back in to take out the useless lump Arashi with a dropkick and Twisting Moonsault as crowd goes nuts yet again at 10:43.
Not a great match in terms of action but a hell of a showcase of playing with the crowd’s emotions. Also it was Arashi’s last match for WAR for a while so there’s another positive.
UWA World Middleweight Title
Ultimo Dragon vs. The Great Sasuke
Dragon’s got the rare toothed grin variation of his mask.
Both men circle the ring to start in perfect synch. Sasuke delivers a light slap to Dragon who comically flops to the mat before jumping up mad. OH HE’S FEELING IT TONIGHT. After some feeling out, both men flip irrelevantly to show up the other. Crazy thinking when that was a relative new thing. After the INDY STAND OFF, they take it to the mat where both men appear to be hurting the other at the same time so both men roll out the ropes where the ref has to help them be removed from one another. This has ben fantastic so far in terms of emphasising their hate. They trade kicks and frankensteiners and armdrags and we get another INDIE STAND OFF before Sasuke’s tombstone sets up a missed swanton off the top, which Dragon can’t capitalise on as he gets bonked outside so Sasuke can land an ASAI MOONSAULT ONTO ASAI and half the guard-rail some chairs and a baby.
Sasuke tries multiple pins but Dragon won’t stay down. Crowd are in quiet awe at the action. Dragon reverses a Frankensteiner for two but can’t get the momentum yet. He dropkicks Sasuke off the top rope to land his own ASAI MOONSAULT BECAUSE HE IS ASAI and also lands on half the guardrail and chairs.
Dragon slowly recovers and executes a tilt-a-whirl for two. Now it’s Sasuke’s time to take a load of pinfalls and kick out, but this time the crowd are chanting for him. Sasuke’s very good at getting sympathy at wrecking himself. Sasuke luckily manages to set Dragon outside and somehow connects with a top-rope swanton to Dragon through the very small hole in the guard rails.
Sasuke drops Dragon inside the ring but now Sasuke is stepping up the moves to where the match can properly end now. Dragon has to use all his remaining energy to kick out of Sasuke’s javelin-style powerbomb-then-pin-with-him-resting-on-top-of-you. Sasuke’s straight-jacket German Suplex also can’t put away Dragon, with his mask design making it seem like he’s laughing at Sasuke as he side-steps a springboard dropkick. Sasuke instantly turns THAT into a Frankensteiner pin but nope, Dragon kicks out yet again. Dragon lands a Liger Bomb to silence Sasuke long enough to land a Top Rope Frankensteiner…which is rolled into a cheeky Sunset Flip because Dragon is running out of energy, for two. Sasuke tries a springboard moonsault but Dragon dropkicks him down in mid-air, with a Twisting Body Splash finally putting away Sasuke at 22:23
Beautiful stuff here with a really pissy Dragon wanting to show he could hang with the crazy Sasuke move-for-move and flip-for-flip.
SUPER BATTLE of 6 MEN Final
Genichiro Tenryu & Atsushi Onita & Crusher Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Ashura Hara & Earthquake John Tenta & Jinsei Shinzaki
Bam and Tenta start off with the Quake happy to match Bigelow’s quickness cos he’s in SUMO HALL BABYEE. Bigelow can’t slam Tenta but he is able to front suplex him. Huh. Probably some specific body physics there. I’m not a Doctor. Both men double down with Bam Bam finally slamming Tenta but then falling victim to the dreaded Falling Nothing to let Onita and Shinzaki tag in. Onita looks terrified. Not at Shinzaki, but at matching the big fellas work-rate. He makes up for it by mocking Shinzaki’s taunts and the crowd loves that. Onita would last ages on a desert island, he’s the king of getting something out of nothing. Shinzaki tags out of shame.
Hara tags in and he’s visibly red raw with chop marks from earlier. Not a lot of emotion or heat when Tenryu tags in, not helped when the ref has to check the ring mat because it appears to have come loose from the big lads bumping. Crowd are more excited for Onita and Tenta going at it which isn’t great news for WAR. But that’s the danger of having All Stars come in I guess. Tenta smoothers Onita in the corner as Quake wonders why he’s having to do all the work, getting his own back by blocking a DDT by simply not moving. Hulk Killer Leg Drop gets two and Quake follows that by throwing a dropkick at Tenryu. How is Tenta at his size and three matches in out-working everyone else? Tenryu goes for Shinzaki to make him earn his pay, so he busts out the Rope Walk to the joy of the crowd. Tenryu sadly takes a delayed bump off the chop to audible laughter as the commentators mention Shinzaki going to WWF. Maybe that’s why he’s taking it easy, saving his energy for Barry Horowitz.
Bigelow tenderizes Shinzaki before Tenryu tags in and batters him as he’s clearly unhappy about messing up that bump. Onita headbutts Hara around as he does his Grandpa Simpson sell, so Tenryu comes in for the exact same. Crowd doesn’t care. I don’t care. Hara maybe cares, it’s hard to tell. He’s so one dimensional he disappears when he turns around.
Tenryu chops him directly in the throat and the crowd still don’t care. Blind Elbow gets two so thankfully Bigelow tags in to land the Twisting Moonsault for two. It breaks down with Onita dropping Hara with the Fire Thunder for two and now the big moves are coming out the crowd wakes up a bit. Tenryu only just manages to drop him with a powerbomb for two. Hara can’t even die properly. Bigelow runs in to try and make it exciting and it all breaks down with everyone brawling outside with Tenryu powerbombs Hara twice for the win.
Eh. I feel like I typed “and then Tenryu beat up Hara” a dozen times, which as Hara heads towards retirement should have the crowd invested. They weren’t and were clearly more into Onita and Tenta and everybody else because they were way more interesting and not-crap. The fans didn’t want the happy meal, they just wanted to play with the free toy.
Overall: It promised stars and it delivered them, even if those stars weren’t necessarily in the match ratings. If you’re wanting great action then watch Fuyuki-Gun and Light Heavyweights, but if you enjoy the idea of so many interpromotional guys going at it then the show was at least not dull.
This would be the last time Tenryu and Onita would work together for years due to Tenryu feeling he was underpaid for the Kawasaki Stadium. I doubt Onita cared, he was hot so during this period that he wrestled this show then headlined a sold-out Korakuen Hall later the same night. Madness.
So going forward WAR’s going to have to manage without Onita, Arashi, Ishikiwa or Ishinriki.
Or in the long-term: Bigelow, Sasuke, Tenta or Aoyagi.
Which means aside from maybe Kendo, the only headliner left to fight Tenryu is….oh god IT’S KITAO isn’t it?
Fuck’s sake.
Before we get to the inevitable, Tenryu has to end his friend Hara’s career first. Which is a shame as the fans seem to be enjoying the grey haired wonders:
For reasons that may be inexplicable, every WAR show this past week drew sellouts even though it’s largely the same over-the-hill talent with no top foreigners to keep things interesting. Genichiro Tenryu turned over the presidency of the company to Masatomo Takei, who is his brother-in-law.
