WAR Wrestle Association-R – Super Heavy WAR 12/08/95
By Maffew Gregg on 28 April 2024
Wrestle Association-R
Ota Ward Gymnasium
Attendance: 4,200
No real news apart from Meltzer claiming WAR is about to go under which he’s been reporting since 1993. Calm down Chicken Little.
SUPER HEAVY-WAR Quarter Finals
Arashi & Osamu Tachihikari vs. Nobutaka Araya & Nobukazu Hirai
Oh what a thrilling bunch of unexciting guys to start things off. Arashi was game but everyone else was so limited and stiff you’d Lexis King had cloned himself. Arashi accidentally crossbodies his green partner leading to Osamu kicking out of an APA-style double powerbomb, but then Araya moonsaults directly onto Osamu’s face to end this at 10:07. Don’t feel bad for him, he’s so crap I call him Osamu Bin Laden.
Jado & Gedo vs. Koki Kitahara & Masaaki Mochizuki
Fuyuki-Gun are at their best being silly sods and dominating their matches, so of course Team Kitao Dojo spend the majority of this match kicking and armbar-ing so they can’t do any of it. Fuyuki-Gun are aware their opponents are too limited for anything interesting so they respond with kicks too. Koki throws Jado into the front row which isn’t a good look due to the awful lighting. I mean the show is already AEW-ish because they’ve booked one woman, there’s no need to copy everything they do. Koki tries to act like he’s tough but he couldn’t win a game of hook-a-duck if the prize was his mother’s love so I don’t know who he’s kidding. It picks up near the end as Masaaki is already looking promising, including hitting Gedo so hard he starts cursing in English. After a few dozen kicks and Jacknife powerbombs from the Dojo lads, Fuyuki-Gun land the Steiner Bulldog off the top rope and Masaaki taps to the WAR Special at 11:06. Not bad but way longer than it needed to be considering the limitations of the Dojo Lads in a non-Kitao style match.
Typhoon & The Great Shinja vs. Koji Kitao & El Gigante
Mary Mother Of God would you look at that line up. Jabroniville couldn’t book a bigger disaster with a chipped copy of Fire Pro. Ref has to stand on the ropes to check that Gigante isn’t trying to smuggle anything. Shinja is able to sneak attack Gigante while he’s holding the ropes and Gigante is content to stay there and hold on to them to help his poor joints.
We clip ahead immediately out of respect as Typhoon and Kitao go at it. You’d think there’d be something there given Ottman’s friendship with Tenta but nah. Typhoon is no sumo and wrestles like a big fat American so we clip ahead some more as the editor realises Kitao may be the veteran in this match and starts panicking. Typhoon messes up a clothesline which doesn’t seem possible before missing a splash so appalling the crowd laugh at it. Shinja saves things by kicking Kitao in the balls. A pained Kitao then tags in Gigante, but Shinja blasts him with a chair while he’s hanging on the apron leading to Gigante getting counted out while still hanging onto the apron in a finish right out of Wrestlemania IV at 7:40.
Crowd is in disbelief at the awfulness of the finish (and the rest of the match) but Gigante literally couldn’t move without holding onto the ropes so I’m in disbelief he was even booked. This may be the worst on-paper tag match I’ve ever seen and I’m curious if anyone has any worse.
Genichiro Tenryu & Ultimo Dragon vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki & Shinobu Kandori
This is legendary wrestler/fighter/politician Shinobu Kandori’s first WAR match to make tape. Major heat for Fuyuki vs. Tenryu to start, with Shinobu helping to beat down Mr Wrestling like a drum. Dragon uses his skills to dazzle Fuyuki but he ends up getting dropped quickly and then Shinobu tags in for the biggest reaction of the entire show. Ultimo takes a back suplex and receives a low blow which blows the roof off. Ultimo blocks a takedown with a kick to boos, before trying a low-blow on Shinobu which she no-sells to more pop.
Then Tenryu tags in, looking reluctant. Shinobu is not reluctant at all to start slapping Tenryu around, but the big boss ignores all of it until Fuyuki lariats him into a Shinobu Judo Throw. Tenryu takes double armbars which still doesn’t motivate him into fighting back as he merely places Shinobu on the top rope and condescendingly leaves her there. Man, Tenryu is not treating this match the way the fans are wanting. Fuyuki comes in as we settle down with stiff slaps and Fuyuki somehow taking a German Suplex from Ultimo. Fuyuki gets lit up with more chops but crowd has switched off, waiting for Shinobu to come back in. Even an Ultimo moonsault can’t get a rise out of them. Fuyuki takes such an extended beatdown you’d think he was turning face, with Shinobu applying an armbar on Tenryu to prevent a Blind Elbow.
Shinobu finally tags in to nearly win with a small package on Ultimo before trying to start more stuff with Tenryu. Crowd go absolutely nuts for everything she does, which is beat up Ultimo. Then she turns into a defence guard to prevent Tenryu from stopping Fuyuki trying to get the win. Then Fuyuki gets distracted by OF ALL PEOPLE Mr. Pogo sat at ringside, allowing Tenryu to enziguri Fuyuki into La Magistral at 12:21. Huh.
Eh? What we got was fun and Fuyuki vs. Tenryu is always good for stiffness but I don’t know why they bothered booking Shinobu vs. Tenryu if they weren’t going to give us Shinobu vs. Tenryu.
Tenryu would wrestle Shinobu Kandori in 2000 for LLPW in an insanely brutal match resulting in a disgustingly swollen eye for Shinobu. Photos can be found online but for whatever reason, the match wasn’t recorded or released. I won’t link the photos because Scott needs the ad rev so he can go on holiday and kill more wrestlers.
SUPER HEAVY-WAR Semi Finals
Jado & Gedo vs. Nobutaka Araya & Nobukazu Hirai
You know your tournament lacks depth when Hirai is in the semis. Gedo & Jado save their strength for the main event and work over Hirai, limiting his already limited limitations. Araya gets the hot tag to deliver his default CAW offence before Hirai chimes in with his unlicensed Tiger Handheld moves. Hirai counters a Superbomb into a Frankensteiner so Araya can land a moonsault (not hitting anyone in the face this time) and now that they’ve had their hope spots, Hirai can take a Superbomb to end this 11:12. Acceptable dullness.
Genichiro Tenryu & Ultimo Dragon vs. Typhoon & The Great Shinja
Tenryu must have loved WWF 1993 more than OSW Review to book Typhoon AND Gonzalez for the same show. Shinja dares to chop Tenryu so he gets demolished. Ottman tags in to be big and fat, which is how Tenryu likes his Yanks. Ultimo bounces off Typhoon as he does the Tugobat horn. Ultimo backflips and dances instead to play the mind games with the human boat. Ultimo goes to the top rope so he can do a test of strength but Tuggers doesn’t like that and throws him off instead. Ultimo tricks Typhoon into heading outside in the same way you can trick a dog into thinking you’ve thrown a ball, but Tug catches him on a dive anyway. Ultimo has enough and dropkicks Shinja to Tenryu lariat Tugboat’s poop deck. We clip ahead to Typhoon using Ultimo for lateral raises while cursing at Tenryu.
Ultimo takes the lion share of offence until Shinja runs into a Tenryu knee on the apron and falls right into a Frankensteiner pin at 12:09.
Typhoon was more game than Tenryu here which really shouldn’t be happening at any point in human history.
Lion Heart Chris Jericho vs. Lance Storm
It’s WAR’s debut of good ol’ rat-tail himself. We’re JIP to Jericho busting out a Tully Blanchard-style bouncing backdrop suplex off the ropes. Lance comes back with a beautiful tope to the great darkness outside. Both men fight over one suplex with Lance winning so he can land his Handspring Avalanche. I never thought that move looked as effective as Lance thought it did. Lance can’t put away with Jericho with a second rope leg drop as these two are getting all their moves in as quick as possible. Lance gives us the STUNNED DISBELIEF off a kick out of a powerslam, he truly was ahead of his time. Jericho screeches and wheezes to help his friend, before dropkicking Lance off the top rope while Jericho is perched up there too. That set-up is ridiculously dangerous but Jericho could pull that off just fine in 1995.
We clip ahead to Lance kicking out of a top rope splash and Jericho moaning about it. Crowd are enthralled with Jericho’s yelling and Underhook Suplexes. Lance keeps kicking out of Jericho’s biggest moves and coming back with his own and the crowd are pulsing in their hands. Lance’s giant jump to the top rope elbow gets “oooos” as does Lance’s kick out of the Lionsault. Lance then rolls up Jericho out of nowhere at 17:10 to get the sneaky win and to get him booked for a few years.
Lovely stuff here with Jericho’s campiness really striking a chord with the crowd and helping his buddy looking amazing in the process, who in fairness was crisp in his execution of everything.
SUPER HEAVY-WAR Finals
Genichiro Tenryu & Ultimo Dragon vs. Jado & Gedo
Fuyuki-Gun have no chance here but they finally bring their best stuff to the table by sucker-punching Ultimo and removing the turnbuckle pad before the bell has even rung. Ultimo gets turned into glue for a while, nearly losing to a Superbomb as Tenryu is conserving his energy for a game of bridge later on. Ultimo finally comes back and grumpy Tenryu brawls with Jado outside for a bit. He must be injured to be bringing this kind of laziness to his own company’s main event. Jado bleeds to make up for it and does his best to oversell Tenryu, but it’s not needed as no-one thinks they’re winning. Ultimo lands the ASAI MOONSAULT to Jado and then Tenryu pins Gedo after two Dirty Powerbombs at 8:13.
Nice of Fuyuki-Gun to show up, it’s a shame Tenryu didn’t.
Overall: They called it SUPER HEAVY because they couldn’t call it FAT LOAD OF NOTHING. Jericho vs. Storm was worth a view, and there’s the curiosity factor of Shinobu and I guess if you want to see El Gigante physically incapable of moving, but outside of that this was a house show with an injured Tenryu. Strong recommendation to avoid.
