ALL JAPAN ON NTV

January 21, 1990 (taped 1/14/90)

Randy Rose . . . puts in a much better performance than Dynamite Kid

The Fantastics . . . look like the tag team of the future, while the British Bulldogs look like relics from the past (and no, this wasn’t meant to be a Dynamite Kid bashing session).

Samson Fuyuki . . . plays a major role in an important tag match, even though he appears to be more than a little bit over his head.

KENTA KOBASHI vs. RANDY ROSE

This isn’t anything amazing, but, considering it’s Young Lion Kobashi wrestling the fourth best member of the Midnight Express (and that might even be debatable if you want to count Big Bubba as an official member), it’s a lot better than one would probably expect. Their early mat work looks surprisingly smooth, and then they work a knuckle lock sequence that’s actually pretty engaging, with their fingers staying locked through a couple of different exchanges. It’s also fun to watch Rose bump and stooge around for Kobashi’s offense, especially the Terry Funk-esque way that he ties himself up in the ropes while Kobashi is throwing punches. Other than the running lariat and the moonsault that he ends the match with, Kobashi uses typical young lion offense, things like shoulder tackles and dropkicks. But he’s mostly there to sell whatever Rose dishes out, and Rose actually brings out some impressive stuff for 1990. The full nelson facebuster probably could have been left behind, it gets the biggest reaction of anything they do, and it didn’t even result in a near fall. Rose also does a backdrop (which Kobashi bumps great for), and a pump splash where Kobashi gets up the knees up and leads to the finish. With how good Rose looked here, it’s too bad that Dennis Condrey was out of the business by this point, it’d have been interesting to see the Original Midnights in the All Asia scene and working with teams like Footloose and the Can-Ams.

DYNAMITE KID/DAVEY BOY SMITH vs. TOMMY ROGERS/BOBBY FULTON

There isn’t terribly much of this shown, and in the little bit that we do see, the only one who looks all that good is Rogers. Fulton isn’t really bad, but aside from an early part of the clip where he works a quick mat segment with DK, he’s mostly there to assist with double teams and break up pinfalls. There’s next to nothing from DK, and Davey is somewhere in the middle, doing most of the work but not standing out (which seems to be a trend with the Bulldogs matches on this tour). Rogers shows off some nice offense, especially when Davey tries to whip him into the corner and he does the floatover into a German suplex, and he also surprises him with a crucifix, and gets the most heated near fall of the match when he and Fulton do the Rocket Launcher. But, they go to the finish right afterwards, with Rogers getting slammed off the top by Davey to set up the powerslam and DK’s headbutt. Between how little DK has shown in these matches, as well as how underwhelming he’s looked in them, it’s really not a surprise that Davey bolted to the WWF and that DK decided to hang it up for a bit. It’s a fun little clip of what would have been considered a dream match a few years before, but it’s far from what the Fantastics did with Footloose.

JUMBO TSURUTA/TIGER MASK vs. GENICHIRO TENRYU/SAMSON FUYUKI

It’d be easy to watch this on its own and appreciate how good it is but watching it with the context of the trios match from the previous week’s TV makes it look even better. The only real takeaways from the 1/11 match were Fuyuki’s being ranked so low and the hate between the teams, and both of those carry over to this match. The main story of the match is Fuyuki’s knee. Jumbo and Misawa spend most of the first half of the match working it over, with Jumbo bringing some nasty spots like a knee breaker on the guardrail and Misawa showing some heelish flair and extending Fuyuki’s leg and kicking the knee joint. There’s even a spot where Misawa plants the knee over the ropes and holds it in place for Jumbo to get a running start and drop on it. It seems like Fuyuki has a chance to make a small comeback when he gets whipped to the corner and puts on the breaks and tries a reverse body press, but Misawa sidesteps him, and the impact of the landing only further hurts his knee. Aside from one brief instance when Tenryu tries to make the save and blast Misawa with some stiff shots which leads to Jumbo getting involved, Tenryu doesn’t have much to do for the first half of the match. Tenryu manages to tag in after Misawa grabs Fuyuki’s leg and gets hit with an enzuigiri, but that doesn’t go too well for the Revolution either. Whereas Fuyuki was completely at Misawa and Jumbo’s mercy, Misawa is more than able to hold his own against the top guy of the opposing team. Misawa is right there to meet Tenryu with a few kicks, and then knocks him down with a dropkick, does a baseball slide to send Tenryu to the floor, and then he fakes out Tenryu by seemingly charging to dive and then hitting a slingshot dropkick to send him into the rail. It’s not until Tenryu takes Misawa down and rips at the mask and then starts dropping fists and knees on his head, that Tenryu finally gets control of the match.

The Revolution’s control segment on Misawa is pretty much a complete 180 from Jumbo and Misawa’s. Instead of anything as focused as Fuyuki’s knee, they rely more on stiffness, high impact spots, and some heelish things like more mask ripping and Tenryu using a chair on Misawa. Fuyuki gets in on the fun, joining his partner in riling up the crowd by continuing to try and de-hood Misawa and hitting a few good spots of his own. And even better is that Fuyuki never forgets about his knee getting torn apart. There are a few moments when it seems like he’s doing something questionable, like his German suplex or the running lariat, but he remembers to sell after both spots. It’s also neat to see how quickly Fuyuki’s role changes in these segments. One moment, he’s the plunky underdog trying to hang in there against Jumbo, and then he’s showing that he’s just as much of a jerk as his stablemate.

Outside of the stiffness, there isn’t too much here from Jumbo and Tenryu. They seem content to let their partners do the heavy lifting and have the spotlight. But they can both make their presence felt when their partners need it. Tenryu hits Misawa with his reverse elbow off the second rope and Jumbo comes in and starts stomping away at Tenryu. A bit later, Jumbo has Fuyuki reeling and charges for a lariat, only for Tenryu to hit a kick from the apron that allows Fuyuki to cradle Jumbo for a good near fall. Fuyuki tries to capitalize on the opening, but he gets too lofty when he tries for his German again and Jumbo escapes and looks for the backdrop, which causes Tenryu to intervene with another big slap. Fuyuki goes back up top, but Jumbo cuts him off and does another knee breaker and locks in a half crab. Tenryu runs in and pastes both Misawa and Jumbo with lariats, but Jumbo keeps the hold on and the extra force and leverage from the lariat puts even more pressure on Fuyuki’s knee and causes him to submit. It’s a sequence that plays for comedy nowadays, but it works masterfully here, especially with the bewildered look on Tenryu’s face when he realizes that his attempt to prevent the loss directly caused it. ***1/2

Conclusion: This was much improved over the previous week’s TV, with all three matches having at least something about them to make them worth checking out.