Ryan Navigates '90 - #22 (4/1-4/11)
From the pomp and pageantry of WrestleMania to grimy brawls in Japanese indies.
Good day!
We have a milestone to celebrate, as this is article #100 for Ryan’s Reviews! In one hundred posts, I’ve gone over pretty much the entirety of the wrestling scene in 1995, the complete run of Wrestling Society X (both the TV broadcasts and the bonus webisodes), wrote a single issue of “Ryan’s One-Offs” that utterly tanked, and plowed through the first quarter of 1990.
To celebrate, we have a small, yet interesting slate. Hogan vs. Warrior wasn’t the only Wrestling Observer top ten match to happen on April 1st, as April Fool’s Day also saw a highly lauded tag team brawl from FMW. Plus, we dive into the just plain odd with Japanese independent promotion Pioneer Senshi, see Warrior’s first major program for the WWF title being set up, and a few promos from the States round things out.
SUNDAY, APRIL 1st
FMW Texas Street Fight
Texas Street Fight: Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto vs. Masanobu Kurisu & Dragon Master - We’ve seen three of these guys before! Kurisu and Onita had that nasty barbed wire match from Part #11, and Dragon Master was part of the J-Tex Corporation in the NWA for some matches against the Four Horsemen.
After breaking in through All-Japan Pro Wrestling, Tarzan Goto was a longtime fixture of the Japanese indie scene. He worked in FMW until 1995, then shifted to IWA Japan until 1999, where he was most famous for being Dan Severn’s NWA title challenger in the legendary Kawaski Dream show from 1995. Stateside, he worked in several southern territories during his excursion in the 1980s and made a couple of appearances in ECW in 1996. Nintendo 64 players may remember him as Blackheart in WCW vs. nWo: World Tour and Ming Chee in WCW/nWo Revenge. Goto passed away from liver cancer in May 2022.
This match appears to work like a standard Texas Death Match, which means that if a competitor is pinned, they have until the count of ten to return to their feet.
Everyone’s in street clothes for this one. Goto’s rocking sweatpants and generally looks like someone's dad playing in a recreational basketball league at the Y. It kind of rocks.
Kurisu is definitely looking the most “Texas” out there, like he just came back from a round of line dancing at the local honky tonk. Onita suicide dives at Dragon Master as he makes his way to the ring, and it’s ON! Onita and Dragon brawl in the crowd, with Master nearly hitting fans while swinging chairs at Onita! Master pairs up with Goto while Kurisu and Onita go at it, with everyone fighting in the stands. This is already completely bonkers.
We make it back to ringside, where DM pounds away at Goto with a chair like he was a railroad spike that owed him money. It’s an absolute mess of furniture on the floor. We hit the ring where Goto fires back on Dragon with chops while the crowd goes batshit insane. Goto assaults Dragon with a chair until Kurisu blasts him with one. Onita smashes both guys with his favorite sitting apparatus, then Onita starts hurling chairs at Dragon! Goto catches Kurisu on the apron and clobbers away, then him and Onita DDT Dragon!
That gets a pin on Dragon, but he answers the ten-count. Thankfully, the ten-count is quick and there’s no 30-second rest period beforehand, so it doesn’t drag like other matches of this ilk. Dragon quickly beats up and piledrives a lacerated Goto. Tarzan catches a Kurisu kick, so Kurisu headbutts him into oblivion until he lets go, then blisters him with chops. Kurisu, also bloody, stomps Goto into jelly until Tarzan gets a hook kick. Onita heads in and goes for a powerbomb, but Kurisu collapses, removes his cowboy boot and absolutely PLASTERS Atsushi with it!
Kurisu continues smashing Onita with the boot while the other two brawl all over the floor. Onita snatches the boot and blasts both guys with it, then he takes off his belt for some good ol’ fashioned country WHIPPIN’! Goto lays out Kurisu with pancake, but he kicks out. We seem to settle into normal tag rules, but only for a few seconds. Kurisu pummels Goto with hard kicks, then Master comes in for some chairing. Onita comes in and lays on top of Goto, taking a chairshot in his place! What a noble fellow.
Goto pounds away at Dragon with the chair, then Onita and Kurisu have a minor scrap on the floor. Back in, Goto and Onita hit a double back suplex on Kurisu, then Onita hits a NASTY Fire Thunder Powerbomb, folding him like a lawn chair. He then holds Kurisu in place for a top rope Goto splash, but Dragon Master swings a chair wildly at Onita, smashing him in the leg. Goto fights him off, then Onita hits another Fire Thunder Powerbomb on Kurisu for three! Kurisu cannot answer the ensuing ten count, so Onita and Goto win!
****1/4 - Holy CRAP, that was an incredible, unhinged brawl. It was chaotic, bloody, exciting, and messy in the best ways. It was also shockingly efficient, clocking in at just under 11 minutes without a second of waste. This really did resemble an old American-style bunkhouse brawl, and it was a lovely sight. All four guys went full tilt, but I truly appreciated Dragon Master’s brand of reckless abandon, like a bald, Japanese Terry Funk.
This match finished 6th in the Wrestling Observer top ten matches of the year, which I went over when I reviewed Jushin Liger vs. Naoki Sano. I can definitely see this getting a ton of love back in the day, and it holds up much better than a few other matches that made the top ten. Honestly, I liked this more than Hogan/Warrior.
THURSDAY, APRIL 5th
Pioneer Senshi Fighter of Battle
Welcome to the Navigation, Pioneer Senshi! Pioneer was founded by Ryuma Go, Apollo Sugawara, and Masahiko Takasugi in 1988, and fizzled out in 1990 after promoting a handful of shows. However, it made history as Japan’s first “independent” promotion, and a couple of somewhat famous wrestlers (Akitoshi Saito and Kintaro Kanemura) worked their first matches for the company.
Honestly, I have never heard of this promotion until this match came up on the agenda, but that’s the beauty of a project like this. As someone who has an insatiable appetite for learning about our favorite pseudo-sport, I love when this kind of stuff shows up.
I really couldn’t find any kind of logo for the company, but I pulled the image above from a newsletter.
Different Style Fight: Ryuma Go vs. Masashi Aoyagi - A “Different Style Fight” is basically an MMA-style match, with 3-minute rounds, knockdowns, and submissions. It’s definitely presented like mixed martial arts, with the pro wrestler Go taking on the kareteka Aoyagi.
Longtime readers may remember Go from that god-awful Alien Deathmatch from the huge Weekly Pro Wrestling Tokyo Dome show. That was the contribution of Go Gundan, another short-lived indie founded by Go.
Aoyagi debuted in 1989 and competed mostly for FMW and Genichiro Tenryu’s WAR promotion. He also had a run in New Japan and even wrestled a few shows for the WWF during one of their Japanese tours, including an 18-man Royal Rumble in Osaka that also saw appearances by Jinsei Shinzaki and Nobokazu Hirai.
This one is filmed via handheld and wavers back and forth between color and black & white. Ryuma Go comes out to “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor.
The fella handing out the flowers (I’m not sure who; a manager? an owner?) slaps Go in the face before shaking his hand.
ROUND ONE: Aoyagi teases some spinkickery, forcing Go into the defensive. Aoyagi lands a kick but Go grounds him into a leglock which is broken up via the ropes. Aoyagi gets some kicks in the corner and lands a good one to put Go to the floor. After a cooling off session, Go grapples Aoyagi on the mat and works a double wristlock as the round ends.
ROUND TWO: The lads circle each other until both guys tumble to the floor, where they BRAWL INTO THE CROWD? What the hell?
Go rams Aoyagi into a metal door, resulting in the kareteka wearing the crimson mask! It’s a doozy, too, as his gi is covered in the red stuff. Go awaits Aoyagi in the ring, then suplexes him in from the apron. Go again attempts the double-wristlock before letting up and stomping Aoyagi until the second round expires.
ROUND THREE: Aoyagi catches Go with a kick, then proceeds to go to town on his ass, knocking him down for an eight-count. We head back to the floor where Aoyagi dishes out some retributive abuse, with Go now bloodied. Go heads back in and takes a kick to the face for another knockdown. He rolls to the floor to break the count, and he looks like a complete mess at this point. Back in, Go takes Aoyagi down, then applies a leglock after the round ends! Go is slow to release the hold before going back to his corner for the rest period.
ROUND FOUR: The crimson combatants circle a bit, but Aoyagi lands some quick punches and another high kick to fell Ryuma. Go catches a charging Aoyagi and hits a backdrop driver, then muscles him into a back suplex. Both competitors then clothesline each other down for a double-knockdown, and neither man is able to answer the ten-count. This results in a draw.
Both guys are tended to, with Go being escorted to the back. However, the guy who slapped Go earlier drags him back to the ring, smacks him some more, and encourages the combatants to restart the match.
Aoyagi is in no shape to continue, so he’s taken to the back. Blue Shirt Guy grabs the mic and yells at Go. Ryuma then grabs the mic and calls Aoyagi back out, despite himself having issues staying vertical. Go makes HIS way to the backstage area, but Aoyagi finally returns to the ring. Go also heads back to the ring, and both guys fight it out while the bell intermittently rings!
Go headbutts Aoyagi, who hits a rolling solebutt in return. They headbutt each other, then Go grabs a leglock before Aoyagi escapes. Go stops another Aoyagi flurry with a headbutt, then we have Go strangling Aoyagi in the corner.
Officials and other workers come out to separate the two parties and take them to the back. Blue Shirt Guy again rants into the microphone before the footage ends, probably talking about how awesome and tough those guys are. The match was never officially restarted, ending in Round Four after the double-KO.
***1/4 - This was utterly bizarre in several ways. It seemed like it’s going to be a straight-up shoot-style encounter before it took a sharp turn into ECW-style brawling and melodrama. It was a truly clever subversion; I’ll give them that. The action overall was stiff, gritty, and intense, which elevates it above what would be considered indie sleaze. These guys just beat the crap out of each other.
If it happened in a slightly larger promotion, it would be much more renowned. The only issue is that it took forever and a day for all the post-match brawling to get going after the double-knockout. It did add a somewhat realistic touch, but it ground everything to a complete halt that the post-match fighting had a hard time recovering from.
FRIDAY, APRIL 6th
NWA Power Hour
This week on the Louisville Slugger, Jim Cornette brings out Ric Flair and Woman.
After complimenting Woman’s sartorial sensibilities, Cornette asks about the status of the Four Horsemen, whose ranks have diminished due to Arn Anderson’s injury. Flair says Woman is in charge of all future acquisitions for the Horsemen, so Cornette offers to lease the Midnight Express to her in order to bring both entities back to glory. Woman considers it an interesting proposition.
Cornette ends by asking Woman out for a late-night dinner to go over their new business deal. Woman says she’ll call him Monday.
*NBA Jam announcer voice* REJECTED!
Kind of an interesting idea here, but this was yet another angle that got quietly dropped. This era of WCW wasn’t exactly known for their follow-through.
The initial plan was for the Midnights to split so that Bobby Eaton can join the Horsemen, Stan Lane can do something somewhere else, and Cornette could just do TV commentary. However, the booking committee ended up wanting to keep the unit together with a renewed push, with the idea to have them join the Horsemen as the tag team. Arn Anderson would kick them out when he returned, and we’d have Midnight Express vs. Horsemen matches around the horn. However, Jim Herd put a stop to THAT idea for whatever reason, so the angle that started here just stopped without any fanfare.
Have I mention before that 1990 WCW was mostly run by nimrods?
SATURDAY, APRIL 7th
WWF Superstars of Wrestling
We catch a glimpse of Ravishing Rick Rude and Bobby “The Brain” Heenan working up a sweat at the gymnasium. He calls out new WWF Champion The Ultimate Warrior.
Rude brings up the fact that he defeated Warrior previously for a championship, so he issues a PUBLIC CHALLENGE! Heenan says they’re 100% serious, and Warrior is in trouble.
Rude says his training regimen is the hardest the human body can endure, pushing himself beyond PARTS UNKNOWN. There will be no doubt who the ultimate athlete is, and he will once again take what the Warrior believes to be his!
This was a very strong promo from Rude and Heenan. They conveyed the shift in attitude for Rude and built a solid case for him as a challenger because of his prior success against Warrior, having defeated him for the Intercontinental title at WrestleMania V. Plus, Rude was one of the few workers to actually have great chemistry with WARYAH, with their big matches being major highlights of 1989 WWF.
However, while it’s great to see Rude moved up the card, this would end up being what would often be cited as THE big issue for Warrior’s run on top: the lack of strong heel opposition. This is not a slight on Rude, but on the booking.
I mean, it’s not like Warrior didn’t already beat Rude last year to get the IC title back. If they had Rude beat some more big names on television before being paired with Warrior or given the fans more of a reason to buy into him being a legitimate threat, the feud could have worked better.
USWA Championship Wrestling (Memphis)
It’s been a while since we had some Jerry “The King” Lawler in Memphis. Before a scheduled match, The King walks around and roasts some fans. Well, the first couple of fans actually like Lawler, so they get off easy.
A female fan says “Boo”, so Lawler retorts by saying, “someone with a face like yours should say ‘boo’”. He then calls out a fella in the back row for abusing the right to be ugly, then tells a lady in the front row that if she went to the beach in a bikini, not even the tide would come in. Rude! That earns a raucous “JERRY” chant.
The studio fans really seem to enjoy these roasting segments, and you can sense them clamoring to be the ones to take a verbal shellacking from The King. Not that I blame them; there’s usually at least one quality zinger in there.
International Championship Wrestling
We’re gifted with another Tony Atlas promo from ICW. Tony’s getting SICK of people thinking they can talk to the champ without an appointment!
Everybody is asking him about who his partner will be. He answers with “23, 23, 58”, flexing each arm and his chest, respectively. That’s awesome. He’s his OWN MAN! Short and sweet, Atlas continues to deliver with these promos.
We now jump all the way ahead to April 11th to close things out.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11th
USWA Evansville TV (Memphis)
We get a pre-tape from Jerry “The King” Lawler addressing Mike Awesome, who he again calls an idiot. He repeats the “mindreaders charge this guy half-price” line from the Dallas promo.
He also calls out Chris Champion, with “hair so long that Moses couldn’t part it”. Awesome and Champion are apparently teaming up against Lawler and manager Ronnie P. Gossett, and Lawler pledges to beat both opponents single-handedly. That sure sounded like a match that existed.
THE TUGBOAT TRIBUNE
As always, the news comes courtesy of Dave Meltzer and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.
Fresh off his WrestleMania loss, Hulk Hogan is off filming a movie. That film, which ended up sweeping the Oscars, Golden Globes, and, for some reason, the Genie Awards in Canada, turned out to be SUBURBAN COMMANDO.
Jim Crockett is back in power in the NWA, occupying a spot in the booking committee.
Remember that Chicago house show where Ric Flair was to drop the title to Lex Luger, but the change didn’t end up happening because of WCW’s ineptitude? That one ended up being very costly as they had flown in announcers and various media to film it, losing thousands of dollars in the process.
Kensuke Sasaki, while on international excursion, ended up getting fired from the Canadian National Wrestling Alliance (CNWA) for a stiff kick on opponent Mike Lozanski.
Ed Whalen, who was running the show, stopped the taping and fired the young lion on the spot.
Also, since it’s a new month, here’s some wrestlers who were born in April 1990:
April 2nd - Sawyer Fulton, former member of NXT’s SAnitY stable and current Madman Fulton in TNA.
April 5th - Tucker, Northern Irish indie wrestler who spent some time in WWE’s NXT UK brand.
April 6th - Hektor Invictus, German professional wrestler and former wXw World Tag Team Champion.
April 30th - T-Hawk, #StrongHearts stable member who wrestled for Dragon Gate, Oriental Wrestling Entertainment, and GLEAT.
Also, there were some b-days in February that I somehow missed, so I’ll throw them here:
February 8th - Xyon Quinn, former pro rugby player and NXT prospect, and current TNAer.
February 13th - Mark Coffey, former NXT and NXT UK tag champion, and current member of NXT’s Gallus stable.
February 21st - Ricky Starks, 2023 Owen Hart Cup winner, former FTW World Heavyweight Champion, and ex-AEW World Tag Team Champion.
NEXT TIME: In another full show review, I’ll be looking at the WWF/AJPW/NJPW Wrestling Summit!
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