WAR Wrestle And Romance ~South to North~ 09/29/94 -10/03/94

Wrestle And Romance

Previously In WAR…

Meltzer reports that Takashi Ishikawa (whose contract expired in July and had been working on a per nightly deal) has left to -YOU GUESSED IT- set up a new wrestling promotion. The Great Kojika (who had been getting venues booked for WAR) will be leaving with him which makes the start of Tokyo Pro Wrestling, a company that made Network Of Wrestling look like Bill Watts’ UWF.

Apparently WAR is in a bad financial condition and Meltzer sees the vultures circling because Tenryu’s switched the ownership of the company to his brother-in-law. Dave explains that in Japan, if someone runs a company that declares bankruptcy, that person can’t start a company in the same business for a certain number of years meaning Tenryu can create a new company if this one dies.

Problem is everyone considers WAR now as the haven for washed-up Japanese wrestlers

Hey that’s not true! Ishinriki just retired!

09/29/94 Hotel East 21 Tokyo

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki

This tape highlights the best bits of their recent tour across Japan. In theory. Match is shown in such an edited form that I’d have ignored it if it wasn’t for this note from the Observer:

The main event was Genichiro Tenryu vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki. If Fuyuki lost, then his one of his six-man title partners, either Gedo or Jado, would have to get their head shaved or Fuyuki would have to ride down the Sumida River. Nagasaki jumped Tenryu before the bell and cut him up, but Tenryu made the comeback during the match and got the pin with a power bomb. After the match Tenryu grabbed the mic and said that Gedo or Jado would have to get their hair cut or Fuyuki would have to go down the river and left for the dressing room.

Fuyuki then went back to the locker room. The crowd at this point went nuts over what they believed to be a stipulation screw-job and were chanting for a refund in unison and started to riot. Finally about 20 minutes later to quell the bad scene, Fuyuki, Gedo and Jado came out and Fuyuki had scissors and attempted to cut both men’s hair, however they didn’t have the razor ready or anything as I guess they planned to just screw the fans (doesn’t anyone ever learn anything that promotes this business) so they did about as much as they could with scissors.

Sadly none of this is shown on tape.

10/03/94 Nagasaki-ken Sogo Taiikukan

Koki Kitahara vs. Masao Orihara

Masao has changed his hair again to be even more punk. Masao lands a twisting body splash before flying over the ref to deliver a diving swanton to Koki on the outside. Frankensteiners are exchanged (because it’s nearly Christmas) until Koki establishes the pecking order by winning with a piledriver.

Ultimo Dragon vs. Dos Caras

Oh hell yeah this…is sadly shown in highlight form. What we get looks wonderful though and the crowd clearly love it. Ultimo has the Purple and Silver gear tonight and is clearly proud of himself as he lands the Asai Moonsault to the outside before putting away Caras with La Mahistral. Looked great.

Animal Hamaguchi & Bob Backlund vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo

More digest here with Gedo throwing a bunch of moves at Animal to zero reaction, followed by Animal landing a standing elbow to a big pop. Backlund’s delayed Atomic Drop sends Gedo outside so he can do the Crazy Old Man Dance with Animal. Judging by the clips of the match, this lasted half a day as Animal bumps weird for everything until Fuyuki lands a backdop suplex to end it after 12 hours.

10/11/94 Sapporo Nakajima Taiiku Center

Ultimo Dragon & Ultimo Dragoncito vs. Pierroth Jr. & Pierroth Jr. Cito

Oh hey it’s the rematch to their other wonderful match that we only got the edited highlights of! Thankfully we’re only JIP this time. Dragoncito gets tossed into the first few rows and I honestly thought it was Dragon because there’s barely any difference in height. Pierroth Jr. Cito shows off his high-flying until he misses Dragoncito (in fairness, he’s small) leading to Dragon getting the hot tag and many Frankensteiners and sexy dances. Pierroth Jr. Cito tries to come back with a high angle crossbody to the outside but Dragoncito takes him out with the same move. Pierroth Jr. gets a crazily awful roll-up that doesn’t even get Dragon’s shoulders to the mat. Thankfully the Dragons take over and start stretching both pirates at the same time in that hold that looks like a game of duck duck goose. Dragoncito takes out this rival with a smooth tope. Pieroth Jr. slows the match to a halt again as his role seems to be the cooler, before Dragon lands the always-beautiful Asai Moonsault. Pieroth Jr. Cito misses a charge in the corner but instead of taking the bump on his head like Psychosis, he takes a back bump instead and it looks way cooler. This starts to drag as we’ve seen all the cool moves and now the lads are using their B-level stuff. However, Dragoncito then lands a lovely Orihara Moonsault (yeah get fucked Orihara!) before Pierroth Jr. takes a slow bump off a top rope Frankensteiner and puts away the lads with a Spiral Tap at 19:44!

Everyone bar Pierroth Jr. was just wonderful here and even with the match getting stretched longer than possibly needed, this was Dragon at his freakish best with both Citos doing their best to upstage him.

Koki Kitahara vs. Koji Kitao

Oh what was the insistence on shoving these two together during this time? Kitao stomps Koki like Season 1 Nelson Muntz until Koki manages a few back suplexes before slowing it way down with a choke. Koki gets thrown until Kitao lands his unconvincing knees. Koki oversells them like a good trooper but gets a cheeky Tenryu-style kick when Kitao goes to pick him up. I suspect Kitao was not expecting that as he starts throwing the best strikes of his entire career so I’m assuming they’re live rounds.

An axe kick looks to finish because it’s the move that killed Tenryu, but Kitao is so mad he scoops up Koki to deliver a Uranage and then appears to shoot-hold Koki down for the win at 5:00 with Koki still trying to kick out.

I don’t know what the fuck happened there because Kitao isn’t that good an actor to pretend to be that mad but this was dull until it turned into Nia Jax vs. Charlotte.

WAR World 6 Man Tag Titles

Hiromichi Fuyuki & Jado & Gedo vs. Bob Backlund & Dos Caras & Vampiro Casanova

Oh that is a prime Crazy WAR Booking team right there. Bob demands a handshake from Gedo, who gets so scared he backs into his corner while Bob runs outside the ring to shake the front row’s hands instead. Crowd love crazy old Backlund, Bob seems so comfortable in Japan during this time. Vampiro starts and takes down Gedo with a Uranage but then awkwardly takes a standing moonsault from the dude so bad that both men scrap afterwards as it’s unsure who was supposed to sell it. Jado tags in and thankfully crazy Bob also shows up ready to take on everybody, until Fuyuki tags in and Bob runs away and tags Caras in. Caras scares Fuyuki off with a dive tease so Jado & Gedo take all of Caras’ offence which looks suspiciously like Mascaras’ offence. Tilt-a-whirl, headscissors, the lot. Huh. Jado gets a work over before Bob tags in and yells IT’S BOBBIN TIME and Bobs everywhere. This slows way down with Vampiro realising his limitations and lets Fuyuki split his head open with the turnbuckle. Vamp bleeds a LOT and gets sent into the crowd, which sounds a bit risky. Bob doesn’t think it’s risky enough so he chases Fuyuki with a table and comes dangerously close to twatting some kids. They should be at school and avoiding eating marijuana then. Vamp gets Triplebombed onto the table for two as Vamp continues to take abuse while he bleeds everywhere. Hot tag to Bob who Double Underhooks Gedo half-way across the ring.

Fuyuki-Gun smothers Backlund in the corner but he comes back with a side armbar, letting Caras land the Crossbody off the top for two. I don’t know lucha history, why does he do Mil’s moves? (EDIT: they’re brothers). Backlund lands elevated Atomic Drops but Fuyuki sacrifices Gedo to get the sneak attack on Bob with a lariat but this can’t put the crazy bastard away. Gedo’s moonsault gets knees, so Vamp comes in to successfully land a move. Well done Vamp, everyone gets one. Top rope Frankensteiner can’t put away Gedo but the crowd are at least treating Vamp like a trained athlete now so that’s an improvement. Vamp takes two powerbombs but kicks out so Gedo and Jado take out his partners on the apron so Fuyuki can stick the Stretch Plumb in…with Vamp getting the ropes. Blimey. Superbomb finally ends it NO I LIED HERE’S BOB TO BREAK IT UP so Gedo drags the former U.S. President to the outside to prevent him from ruining the Stretch Plumb submission at 17:43.

The thrown-together nature of the challengers meant this couldn’t get as much momentum as you’d want from a Fuyuki-Gun encounter but it was also part of the charm as you (and his partners) had no idea what Bob was going to do next. However the Gun are so great right now that it doesn’t matter who they wrestle and in what order, so this was pretty great if erratic.

Genichiro Tenryu & Animal Hamaguchi vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Kim Duk & Arashi & Hiroshi Itakura

Oh fuck me what a rotten line-up. Tenryu’s team takes a plodding beatdown for a few minutes from the Quartet Of Crap until Tenryu starts shellacking Itakura with chops. And then out of nowhere, DicKKK Murdoch shows up to brawl with Kendo before stopping because it’s too much for him, like Groundskeeper Willie battling the wee turtles. Arashi pretends to wrestle so Animal can Samoan drop him, which is admittedly impressive. Kendo uses a chair on Animal because what else is he going to do, leading to Animal bleeding everywhere. Tenryu has to come in and clean house, which gets the crowd motivated as Kendo lands a gnarly piledriver. A half-dead Animal (well he was half dead coming in to the match, so he’s three-quarter dead now) has to help out, leading to Tenryu lariating Kendo as he’s about to piledrive him. Animal connects with his flying clothesline on Kim while something happens on the outside that looks mysteriously like a smoke bomb that the cameras don’t catch. Those ninjas get sneakier every year. Tenryu lands a Dirty Powerbomb on Kim to end it at 14:44.

This was well-done midness. Everyone in the match was so over that it didn’t matter it was by-the-numbers. Dick challenges Kendo to future matches that would result in his last Japan tour before he went to hell.

10/03/94 Nagasaki-ken Sogo Taiikukan

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Ashura Hara

Hara finally retires. Not a minute too soon. The tape does a lovely job of showing old photos of him & Tenryu in their AJPW prime and it’s given the respect it deserves.

Both men start off slow with hard chops then get faster with hard chops. Hara does the thing he’s been doing for the past year to no response, where he absorbs blows and stands there looking awkward but here in his last match it gets the heroic reaction he was aiming for these past few months. Hara headbutts Tenryu to keep him away but Tenryu’s a chopping machine leading to both men stopping to stare. Kendo decides to show up for a brawl, which seems inappropriate for a retirement match but what do I know. DicKKK shows up to help but not after Hara batters Kendo around, letting Tenryu and Hara bust out their old double teams one last time. Oh that’s why that happened. That was nice then. Tenryu lariats Hara from behind after Kendo’s left to show that he’s not fucking around. Hara keeps taking back suplexes and popping back up to thunderous applause, finally jabbing Tenryu with a quick lariat to get a breather. Hara struggles to suplex Tenryu onto the top rope as you can see the last grains of sand disappearing down the glass in real time. Hara connects with the superplex but Tenryu recovers before he does, leading to more lariats and resting on the ring ropes, until Tenryu runs right into a mega sweaty lariat. Hara stands up and takes a few more, with a really stiff one appearing to require a real rest and standing eight count. Hara won’t stay down and keeps landing his own, with Tenryu having to resort to a Dirty Powerbomb to take his friend down. Hara immediately gets up after the first one but takes a second and despite the pleading from the audience, stays on his back for the last time at 13:55.

In terms of action it was no better or worse than any of their other matches this year as the man’s body had simply given up. The crowd love and support was there and it was a nice moment, even if it couldn’t hold a candle to their previous encounters, this was as good as it was going to be.

Post match, the top good guys give Hara his flowers while parading him on their shoulders while the Jimmy Hart version of Higher by Van Halen plays.

Another retirement announced this week was of Ashura Hara, 47, a one-time major star with All Japan Pro Wrestling who in recent years has worked for WAR. Hara announced on 8/11 at a press conference at Tokyo Hotel East that he’d be retiring with his final match on 10/10 in his hometown of Nagasaki. Hara was a member of the Japanese national rugby team and a legitimate sports figure in Japan when he was recruited by the old IWE promotion in Japan and given a push from his debut in 1978, winning that promotion’s junior heavyweight and tag team titles. He joined All Japan and held the All-Asian tag title with partners Mighty Inoue, Takashi Ishikawa and Super Strong Machine before getting his biggest career break. His hottest period was in the late 1980s as Genichiro Tenryu’s tag team partner when Tenryu broke up his tag team with Jumbo Tsuruta with All Japan. Tenryu & Hara, known as “Revolution,” had a lengthy feud with Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu on top of All Japan cards. Hara was fired by All Japan in 1988 after continually getting into trouble over gambling debts and three years later was brought out of retirement by Tenryu when he was looking for a new drawing card for his failing Super World Sports group. However Hara had gotten too old and didn’t prove to be the answer, but hung around for last several years without having much impact.

Overall: If you skip the clipped stuff and the dull multi-man this was quite the variety pack: a tremendous lucha tag, Hara saying goodbye, Fuyuki-Gun being Fuyuki-Gun, and Kitao shooting again. Yeah I’d recommend this.

I’ve been Maffew and my retirement plan is “marry an eccentric millionaire”