High hopes of Hase in aj, aj/nj tv 6/96-9/96, my infamous laughable attempt at picking the top 10 wrestlers in the world

Fuchi was the man in singles. His matches might not provide the fireworks associated with the junior division, but they were some of the finest crafted technical matches of their day. He was a very smart and efficient wrestler. He wasn’t physically gifted or spectacular, but he developed the matches with a formula that made this irrelevant. At that time he had no peer in Japan when it came to developing the counters and making lesser moves important.

We know Jumbo is the best, but based o­n a surprisingly small sample size this didn’t appear to be o­ne of his standout years in singles. He did have, among other should be winners, two big Budokan matches against Tenryu that didn’t show up. What did show up were good matches with Flair, Hansen, & Tommy Rich. All these matches should be good and were, but the Flair and Hansen matches also should have been at least excellent and weren’t. Tsuruta’s plentiful tag matches proved him to be in excellent form, even though he’d soon get much better despite being at an age that he had no right to.

Yatsu’s singles resume is essentially the same as Jumbo’s. He had three matches, all good, against Flair, Roberts, & Hansen. Yatsu is not a guy that’s going to blow you away, but in his heyday he’s a guy you almost had to appreciate. He tried so hard that it’s difficult not to like him, but unlike a lot of guys that try hard he did have the ability to back it up. He’s not a world beater, but the effect of his effort grows and by the end of the match you really appreciate what he gave you.

I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be writing that Tiger Jeet Singh was the better of the two, but it came when he was programmed with this pile. Wajima is technically the more capable wrestler, but he gave so many negative efforts. It seemed he was just o­n a big ego trip, showing he could force even the incredibly selfish Singh to sell for him. Granted it’s hard to blame someone for not showing up to wrestling Singh, but even legends Ric Flair and Stan Hansen had title matches with him that were beyond poor.

Singh is king…of no skill brawling. This was before the days when he hit his opponent with the butt of his sword for the entire match, but this guy still had about the dullest most tedious "offense" ever and he did his best to ensure that was the entire "match". Not o­ne of his singles debacles was worthy of a whole star.

Tsuruta excelled regardless of his partner. Whether it was Tenryu, Tiger, or Yatsu, Jumbo found his way o­nto the top list. Jumbo excellent regardless of the opposition, even getting a standout match out of the Road Warriors. What stood out to me though was how little time he took off. Today the stars are often carried by their partner, saving themselves for the key moments and the singles matches. Jumbo would often work 2/3 of his tag matches, even when he teamed with Yatsu, a guy whose trademark was his willingness to put out.

Yatsu had a very impressive year, appearing in 2/3 of the top tag matches with three different partners. The earlier portion was by far the best because he was the star of the team, so the matches were more suited to his strengths. His team with Jumbo was actually disappointing because Yatsu didn’t really have a role; he mainly stood o­n the apron which really negates his strength since he’s the type that the whole is much greater than the sum of the parts.

Hara got off to a slow start teaming with nondescript partners, but from June o­n he was always with Tenryu. He carried this team through many intense hard hitting matches, doing all the little things and getting Tenryu to be stiffer and nastier in the process.

Nakano is the o­ne guy that matched Yatsu for effort. He didn’t have Yatsu’s ability, but you always cared about him because he hung in with better more experienced wrestlers through sheer willpower.

Tenryu is something of an enigma. His resume is always going to be too impressive to ignore, but never as impressive as it could be if he gave his all. Effort wise he was o­n much better behavior than in later years. Talent wise, he was about as good a they come. The thing with Tenryu is he’s a glory hound. You want to praise him because he’s impressive in almost every match, but you have to realize that the match is set up for him to impress, which means he’s impressive at the expense of others, particularly his partner.

DiBiase’s brand of solid well-developed technical wrestling made many a match good, but what stood out about him was his attitude. He might have been Hansen’s #2, but his high profile matches were more for the benefit of the opposition. He really helped make Tiger look good, and even put him over in singles.

Gordy had something of an odd year in that he was a standout in virtually ever tag match and he generally had good partners, mainly top gaijin Stan Hansen, but his matches were really nothing special. I thought Gordy made a slightly more impressive showing than DiBiase did with Hansen, but his matches just don’t stack up to DiBiase’s. Gordy was o­ne big man that made moves look better than they should, but more importantly he didn’t use his size as a reason not to put over his opposition. Instead, he was o­ne of the most willing and able big men ever at taking bumps and putting over his opponents.

Tiger was the first native to introduce the aerial style to heavyweight matches. Keiji Muto was coming up at this time as well, but he was more a top athlete that had o­ne great flying move than a true high flyer. In that regard, Tiger was limited by his opposition. These guys weren’t going to work junior or Lucha sequences, but Tiger was able to be highly impressive without his full arsenal. He used o­nly moves that essentially anyone could take, basically stuff where he jumped at them, but the execution was right o­n and no o­ne was doing these moves in the division at the time so he brought a whole new exciting element to his matches.

Hansen had such impeccable timing. If o­ne move was going to make the match, Hansen was the guy you wanted to set it up. If Dan Kroffat is the master at crafting finishing sequences, Hansen is his opposite. No o­ne could find so many clever and effective ways to win with the same hold as Stan.

Wajima’s o­nly efforts were in tag, but at best he was the lesser of two evils, and even those occasions were rare. Even though Baba was terrible, at least he was capable of something interesting o­n the few nights a year he picked to deliver. Wajima was just an awful selfish wrestler that, at best, could look passable for a minute stretch but those were usually when he pulled a quick comeback.

You get less of him in tag, but he was never involved with anyone good, which is just as well because no o­ne is capable of carrying him. I’m still looking for o­ne decent thing to say about his wrestling.

Sheik was Singh’s toady, interfering in his singles matches against Wajima so we would then be stuck with awful tag matches instead. He was better than Singh, basically by default, but luckily his reign of terror was short lived.

There were worse wrestlers, but this guy might have been the o­ne with the least business o­n the card. He was a nothing that should have been there to carry Abdullah, but he was so bad Abdullah actually felt obligated to step it up to keep the matches from becoming a total embarrassment.

Butcher had energy and charisma, but he’s not capable of doing anything well. At least in these days he tried and wasn’t a complete cliché. His style wasn’t suited to the league, even though they used the blade in these days, and his unwillingness and inability to sell killed the matches because it meant a whole lotta forking.

I’m sure Baba picked a few spots, but the o­nly time I saw him show up was in a match with Tiger against Tenryu & Hara. There Baba was the focus, even though Tiger carried the team, and he helped Tenryu & Hara get over by allowing them to beat the crap out of him. The rest of the year he was his usual awful self, slow as molasses rolling up a hill, awkward as all hell, and generally doing everything in such a pathetic and inept looking way.

This was a team you didn’t want to meet. Their style was very straightforward and simplistic, they just beat the crap out of you and enjoyed every minute of it. They had the toughest most intense matches in the league.

The ultimate effort team. It’s almost amazing these guys worked so well together because they’d both prefer to work the whole match. Young Nakano was usually overmatched, but he’d fight and fight with Yatsu finding ways to stick up for him and bail him out.

This was really the perfect team. Sure, you had two great talents, but their preferences were totally in alignment. You had Jumbo who wanted to work and Tenryu who wanted to look great when he was in. Jumbo carried the load, allowing Tenryu to work brief stints where he showed off his impressive (for the time) offense. It’s really a shame the o­nly way to push Tenryu was to break this team up, and more of a shame that Yatsu was put in Tenryu’s spot because everything that made Jumbo & Tenryu a perfect match made Jumbo & Yatsu a lousy o­ne.

Similar to Jumbo & Tenryu, these guys were meant to work together. DiBiase could work with anyone in any style, and would carry the bulk of the match and put the opposition over. Hansen would make certain points important, and the finish meaningful.

Wajima was selfish and lazy except when he teamed with Baba. Then he was just a bad wrestler that did mostly all the work. Baba never showed up when he teamed with Wajima. This team was never in a match I rated better than 1 star.

These guys apparently thought they were the masters of the punch, kick, and choke. Well, all their offense was in that vein, but they couldn’t even make those difficult things look decent.

TNT had exactly zero offense, and just got beat o­n the entire match. Abdullah was a big star, but the tag league has too many good teams for a team with a green DUD to be any threat. Abdullah at least got some reactions, though mainly for a silly martial arts pose I could have done with, while his nondescript partner basically just put everyone to sleep.

Hara is a guy I thought of as an old barrel chested slug that had a role because he was Tenryu’s buddy. Little did I know that in the old days Tenryu was as impressive as he was in tag because he had Hara to do most of the dirty work for him, leaving Tenryu the best parts. Hara had been a member of Choshu’s Ishingun, and the influence was extremely apparent. He didn’t have the charisma of Riki, but I found his simple but effective stuff to be a lot more interesting to watch.

I knew Nakano was good in the program against Footloose, but I didn’t realize he was an earlier version of Kikuchi. He wasn’t the wrestler that Kikuchi was, but he had the same kind of fire and unbending determination. He believed that he belonged in there with anyone, and no amount of punishment could change his mind. His career quickly derailed after jumping to SWS, but in his days as an up and coming wrestler he was as fun to watch as anyone in the promotion.

I was familiar with the Tiger that wasn’t really cut out to be a Tiger Mask in the junior division. Misawa was a very good athlete, but he was taking over the gimmick of the guy that was probably the best athlete the sport has ever seen. Plus he was forced to be the star of a division even though he was an inexperienced guy that would have had enough trouble simply learning. Putting him in the heavyweight division freed of the burdens and many of the Sayama level expectations. It also made up the difference in athleticism and impressive spots. This year Tiger was impressive in every match. He was carried in singles and very much protected in every match, but whatever his weaknesses were at that point (I’m sure there were plenty) weren’t apparent because he was used so well. The closest he came to being exposed was when Jumbo, Tenryu, & Hara were beating the crap out of each other, but this wound up being the best match he was in. Instead of being a mindless follower, he brought diversity to that match and he used his athleticism in his strikes to help make up for what he lacked in sheer impact.

A guy I really knew nothing about that wasn’t o­n much, but o­nly had good matches. A good technician that could mix it up as well.

This guy never showed me anything in the WWF. Granted that’s hardly uncommon, but I didn’t realize he was o­nce a promising wrestler. That shouldn’t be confused with good, but he was consistently effective because he knew how to use his size to his advantage and to get reaction from the crowd.

I always enjoyed Brody in the earlier days, but upon his October return to All Japan he was more of a side show attraction. The fans loved him and were extremely glad to have him back, but that just made things worse because it allowed for him to totally distract from the match. Snuka would be trying to wrestle, but all anyone cared about was Brody "husking" o­n the apron. Brody showed flashes of still being a good wrestler, but mostly he just wasted time and basked in his own glory and adulation.

Flair made three appearances, putting his NWA title up for grabs. I can forgive him his match with Wajima because Wajima never did anything decent, but matches against a very willing and able Yatsu and the real best wrestler in the world Jumbo that should have been at least excellent were merely good. Flair was far from a failure, but given his reputation of having a good match every night regardless of the opponent, at best o­ne could say we got the bare minimum.

Hansen was in his formative years with a top role, two different excellent partners, and plenty of matches to choose from. He didn’t have a bad year by any means, but his opportunity greatly exceeded his productivity. Time and time again his stuff was average to good. We didn’t see much story or any examples of his famous psychological gems. There were plenty of good bits here and there, examples of great timing like how he incorporated his western lariat and made certain spots important, but these were in place of fully realized matches. Without the psychology, his many weaknesses as a worker are apparent and he’s a middle of the pack guy. Now, Hansen did have the year’s best tag match and a few other candidates, but they were with major contributions from others rather than being matches whose greatness you could really attribute to him like in other years. His top singles match was a mere *** match against Yatsu.

Note: Overall ranking in parenthesis if included in top 8 of the year

Masa Fuchi vs. Pete Roberts 4/5/87

Masa Fuchi vs. Toshiaki Kawada 9/15/87 (#4)

Masa Fuchi vs. Shinichi Nakano 10/31/87 (#6)

Best Tag Matches

Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiru Tenryu vs. The Road Warriors 3/12/87 (#7)

Jumbo Tsuruta & Genichiru Tenryu vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & Shinichi Nakano 4/23/87

Genichiru Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & Shinichi Nakano 6/9/87 (#5)

Jumbo Tsuruta & Tiger Mask vs. Genichiru Tenryu & Ashura Hara 6/11/87 (#3)

Stan Hansen & Ted DiBiase vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & Shinichi Nakano 7/17/87 (#1)

Stan Hansen & Ted DiBiase vs. Genichiru Tenryu & Ashura Hara 7/23/87 (#8)

Yoshiaki Yatsu & Haru Sonada vs. Genichiru Tenryu & Ashura Hara 10/31/87

Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy 11/26/87

Genichiru Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu 12/9/87 (#2)

It takes a special match to have the potential to be the AJ match of the year. I’m not talking about o­n paper, but actually having the personnel and displaying the ideas and quality in the ring that could lead to greatness. I felt like this match had that, which is what makes it a disappointment, at least to the extent that a top 10 All Japan match can be.

It’s possible to have too many things working in your favor. This match came just 6 days after my #1 match, where DiBiase & Hansen found a way to successfully defend despite both injuring their knees. Tenryu & Hara attacked Hansen’s knee early as a carry over, but they didn’t show near the ability to keep him in the ring that Yatsu & Nakano did. DiBiase was soon in, but for whatever reason they attacked his arm. This attack was extremely successful, in fact o­nce he tagged out at 8:45 he was o­n the floor or apron writhing in pain, never able to return to the match or even muster up a save.

Hansen quickly took Tenryu to the floor, which just gave Hara free reign to begin the double teaming. Hara ate a chair shot, but soon he was jumping off the apron to spike Tenryu’s piledriver. This busted Hansen open, which again shifted Tenryu & Hara’s focus. Instead of going back to Hansen’s bad knee, it was forgotten about in favor of opening Hansen up further. Again, this strategy was successful, as Hansen was soon bleeding pretty heavy.

This was a very rough match, the kind Tenryu & Hara were known for, and they managed to give Hansen the beating of the year. They double teamed him regularly, using all their signature moves, but in typical Hansen fashion he found a way to survive.

There are very few screw job finishes that I would call great. This match has as well thought out of o­ne as you’ll find. The result was a double count out, but they earned it by eliminating every wrestler. DiBiase was already out of the picture, so the question was how to get rid of the other three. It actually o­nly took two moves, back to back, which makes o­ne wonder why so many count outs are done so ineptly. Well, actually that’s no mystery, what this finish really entails is four guys that are willing to put their egos aside and allow themselves to be "out" for 10 seconds.

Hara held a near defeated Hansen o­n the floor and Tenryu charged with an ax bomber. Hansen avoided, eliminating Hara, then unleashed his western lariat o­n Tenryu, collapsing o­n top of him. What was also good about this finish is the ref had barely started counting when it occurred, so there was some real drama in wondering if anyone was ever going to get up, and if so could they get back in or break the refs count.

Since Hansen compromised his gimmick some in taking such a beating, he went wild after the match walking through the crowd and throwing things out of his way. He eventually returned to the ring, breaking the end off a broom in hopes of using it o­n Tenryu & Hara, but they wisely called it a day. 14:26. ***3/4

I wouldn’t have guessed the Warriors had this in them, but I’ve learned to never bet against Jumbo. He figured out how to get the most out of the Warriors. They don’t sell and have little stamina, but do have some impressive moves and can excite the crowd, so a sprint was the way to maximize them. This was to Tenryu’s liking as well since tagging in, doing some nice moves, and leaving the rest to his partner was his m.o. anyway.

They tagged frequently so Animal & Hawk could take some moves without having to show the accumulation of damage. In this match they did take moves and they didn’t pop up, really their o­nly shenanigans was Animal pressing Tenryu off at 1 o­nce. The Warriors kept attacking their opponents’ necks with reverse chinlocks and the like. This was really just to allow them to rest, but since they kept going after the same body part it could deceive the audience into thinking they had focus.

I was more impressed with this match the first time. Of the eight matches I went back and reexamined to review, this was the o­nly o­ne whose rating dropped. That was actually a blessing because it forced me to look for a #5 match, and in doing so I discovered how badly I underestimated Jumbo & Yatsu vs. Tenryu & Hara. This Warriors match was the first top match of the year, which made it the hardest to rate because you have to try to reimmerse yourself in the mindset and time period to set accurate levels, but I don’t think that was it. The shock of the Warriors being in such a good match was pretty major, but now that it’s worn off the match’s weaknesses are clearer. There isn’t as much here as I thought, and Jumbo is the o­nly wrestler that’s particularly impressive. Jumbo is at his best here though, bringing so much energy and looking to take whatever high impact or power move the Warriors could throw at him.

The best spot was when Tenryu whipped Hawk off the ropes and bounced off the rope close to him to get more momentum for his lariat. It was too late to do anything by the time Tenryu realized Animal had prevented Hawk from hitting the rope and was press slamming him into Tenryu for a kind of rocket launcher. Tenryu was soon counted out after being spike piledriven o­n the floor. 11:17. ***3/4

1987 All Japan #6

Sekai Junior Heavykyu Senshuken Jiai: Masa Fuchi vs. Shinichi Nakano

10/31/87 Tokyo Korakuen Hall

from AJ Chogei Selection #155 11/20/99

Fuchi employed the same formula as he did in his previous title defense against Kawada. At times the match looked identical, which was especially obvious since they showed them back to back here. I think it caused me to underrate this match initially, but it actually tells quite a different story and is probably a better realized match considering the dropoff from Kawada to Nakano. As always, the match started off rather calmly with a nice technical display. Nakano started working o­n Fuchi’s left leg, which pissed Fuchi off. Fuchi doesn’t show much emotion in these junior title matches, but he started slapping Nakano and tossed him to the floor, where he would have followed him had the ref failed to restrain him.

Slowly the match took shape with Nakano employing an arm attack. Fuchi picked it up at about the same time and in about the same way as the Kawada match, but instead of exploding Nakano soon brought the arm attack back. This helped conceal the real story, which was centered o­n the double knockout.

Nakano back body dropped his way out of a piledriver o­n the floor, but Fuchi was backdropping his way out of Nakano’s subsequent bulldog so Nakano kicked off the post. This could have been a count out, but they were able to get back in because the ref gave them a ton of leeway. A few counters later, there was a second double KO when they collided with each other both going for a shoulderblock.

The excitement in these Fuchi matches is not so much from the moves themselves, but from the way they are incorporated. Anyone could do some nasty driver and have it mean nothing, but it takes real ability to make someone shifting their weight o­n a bodyslam exciting. That’s what Fuchi is able to do though, right after the collision Nakano got a near fall by doing this, and because Fuchi had nearly been KO’d twice in a minute it was a credible near fall. Another example of the way Fuchi makes basic holds exciting and credible near falls was an earlier sequence where Fuchi slipped out of a cobra twist. Two more go behinds later Fuchi did rolling clutch hold, which is nothing by itself, but off all these counters it had a chance.

A real back and forth struggle took place in the final minutes. The main goal was simply to get o­n top of the opponent because at this point any pin attempt might get the job done. Fuchi ducked a punch and back body dropped Nakano to the floor. This set up the third and final double KO with Fuchi doing his enzuigiri, but Nakano going over the top o­n the body slam and German suplexing him. AJ did way too many screw jobs this year, but this was o­ne of the least of the evils because they built to the finish enough that they earned it.

The main downside was inconsistent selling. It’s very difficult to mix scrambles and fast sequences with the idea both guys are nearly out of it. You can sell an arm or a leg by favoring it, not using it, or adjusting your posture, but speed pretty much undermines the idea you’ve about had it. At times they were effective, but there was a sudden recovery between the first and second double KO’s that didn’t work at all. Fuchi’s arm injury was also forgotten about. The final problem was the crowd, while appreciative, didn’t get into the final minutes like you’d hope. I found the match to be very dramatic, but the audience wasn’t backing that up so it felt like there was something missing. 18:31. ***3/4