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'88 Sekai Saikyo Tag Kettei
League Koshikisen: Genichiru Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy 12/16/88 Tokyo Nippon Budokan From AJ Chogei Memorial Fight Collection Sekai Saikyo Tag Retsuden 1986~88 |
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These guys had a classic match because they only did what they do well and were consistent in telling a story that made sense based on the setting and the roles the characters were playing at that time. You are never going to get smoothness, fluidity, or grace from Hansen. However, when his opponents are good and over enough, the match is structured so all he has to do offensively is beat the shit out of you, and the match is timed so that his few big spots are saved for the moments they'll be most dramatic and perhaps the end of the match, then Hansen is likely to have a great match because the build, psychology, and stiffness will be there and, due to the first two, there will never even be reason to consider what he can't do. The setting was the final match in the annual tag league. This was before they had the top two finishers in the league portion meet in the final, so, barring a tie, the team with the most points at the end of the league was crowned victorious. The defending champions Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu were in first place with 16 points. Hansen & Gordy had 15 points coming into this match, so a win would give them the league and a tie would force a decision match against Tsuruta & Yatsu to follow. Tenryu & Kawada were hanging on by a thread, as they could tie with a win here. With the outcome of the tag league hanging in the balance because both teams were still in contention, this was a very intense match. The fans were into, which gave it the aura of being a special match, and special it was. Even though they were going to try like hell, it wasn't very likely that Tenryu & Kawada would take the whole thing because Kawada was such a weak link, which brings us to roles. Tenryu was a great wrestler that just couldn't take over Jumbo's top spot no matter how hard he tried, and he was set up for another failure here. His regular tag partner, Ashura Hara, had retired earlier in the year, so he wound up teaming with Kawada, who was just a kid at this time and only on Asia Tag level. Kawada was a tough and fiery kid that was driven to improve, but it didn't look good for him coming into a match where he was badly outranked with a weakened knee. With the blood of Bruiser Brody on Jose Gonzales' knife, Hansen was more clearly the top gaijin now than ever before and Gordy was bruising his way up the ranks, although still behind Abdullah The Butcher. Hansen & Gordy were the heels, and they certainly weren't going to get cute here. They were going to do whatever it took to win this match, not that Tenryu & Kawada were going to lay down for them, but even though Tenryu was normally a heel, he always drew the line somewhere. The nasty gaijins like Hansen, Abdullah, Gordy, & Tiger Jeet Singh, "just didn't care." The difference between them and Tenryu was Tenryu was more concerned with the bottom line, winning. They liked to win too, but had more of a temper and loved to inflict punishment just as much if not more than to win, so they got away with whatever they could and if the ref decided he wasn't going to let them get away with any more or a specific act and DQ'd them, they could live with it. With this being a best wrestler in the match and worst wrestler in the match against the second and third best wrestlers in the match, a typical strategy would be to try to pin the weak link, Kawada. This certainly would have worked, but what Hansen & Gordy did was a lot more fun. It took a while for their plan to be revealed, which was good in this instance because the first 10 minutes were so even and none of the time was wasted. Kawada started the match, which was clearly a mistake because they were always at least one step ahead of him. It was funny because his only offensive move to Hansen during this stretch was a sunset flip. Hansen was just like what is this bullshit, and if he hadn't already decided he was going to teach the young punk a lesson, this was probably the point where he made up his mind. A kneel kick to Gordy was the only move that Kawada did before tagging Tenryu that did any damage, and the point he hit it was the point he rolled over to the corner and tagged Tenryu. Only a few minutes had gone by, so it's not like Kawada was destroyed for 10 minutes, and Tenryu didn't fair a whole lot better against Hansen, although he did most of the damage when he was in the ring with Gordy. Kawada came back in when the weaker Gordy was in, but after one Kawada high cross body, Gordy tagged. Kawada dropkicked Hansen over the top rope and gave him a pescado, but Hansen kicked Kawada when they were both lying on the floor then threw Kawada back into the ring so he could choke him on the bottom rope. Tenryu quickly saw enough of this and started kicking Hansen, which gave Kawada a chance to get a few kicks in before Hansen regained control. Gordy came in and delivered a blockbuster (Samoan drop), so Kawada wound up tagging the first chance he got again, which was after he hit a lariat. This time Kawada did stay in for a cool sandwich double team where he gave Gordy his kneel kick at the same time as Tenryu gave Gordy his enzuigiri before rolling to the apron. Tenryu did a good job in this match of showing that he was hurting, but still getting some offense in to keep it from being too one-sided and sustain the strong crowd heat. The first time he was really hurt was when Gordy lariated him in the corner then tagged Stan. Before Stan could do anything to Tenryu, he lunged forward and lariated Stan as he collapsed. Tenryu got really stiff with Stan, but he wasn't recovering quickly and realized he needed to tag. Kawada came in all fired up with a lariat in the corner and several kicks to Stan before Gordy came up from behind with a lariat. Hansen & Gordy would utilize this tactic for the rest of the match, and it worked perfectly because it showed they were heels that had no respect for the rules, and the faces didn't look weak for not being able to sustain a lead since they kept getting blindsided by a guy that was supposed to be on the ring apron. The faces might look weak today for not doing the same thing, but by the time Hansen & Gordy started making a habit of it, the faces never had the option of doing the same. Kawada gave Gordy a German suplex hold, but Hansen swept his weakened knee, which Kawada sold big, then kicked him in the knee a few times as Kawada was trying to make his way to the corner. This lead to the big spot of the match where Hansen pushed Kawada to the floor just before he reached Tenryu then western lariated Tenryu to the floor. Kawada did tag Tenryu as he was flying by, but a lot of good it did when Tenryu had just taken Hansen's big move. Hansen finally left the ring, not because he didn't want to bend the rules too much, because Tenryu & Kawada were both laid out on the floor and he wanted to inflict some more punishment. Hansen threw Tenryu back in when he was content that he was ready to be taken apart by Gordy. Hansen was actually "nice" to Kawada because he only kicked him in the knee one or two times after throwing Tenryu back in. Kawada made a big mistake though, trying to attack Hansen, who was standing in his own corner for once, instead of getting on his own apron in case Tenryu wanted to tag. Kawada did it because he was so pissed at what Hansen had done to him, but because of that he couldn't stand well and his attack was ineffective. It just annoyed Stan, and Stan isn't the kind of guy you want to annoy. Hansen ripped Kawada's pants around the knee and by the time he was threw with Kawada, Kawada was temporarily unable to walk. To show how grave Kawada's mistake was when it came to his teams chances of winning the match, I should mention that on this day, Kawada was never in corner again. Gordy was kicking Tenryu's ass on his own, but they still double teamed Tenryu because they could. When Tenryu would make a little comeback against one, the other would hop in the ring and squash it. Kawada couldn't do anything to stop them because he was lying on the floor in agony. Kawada was still trying to get up and help his partner, but whenever they saw him making any progress, whichever opponent wasn't the legal man would go over and pound on Kawada's knee some more. The match appeared to be over at 16:00 when Gordy hit his powerbomb at the same time as Hansen started walking back to their corner, content that his chair shots had finished Kawada's knee. We'll never know where he got it from, but somehow Kawada got up and into the ring. By the time Hansen realized Kawada was up, it was too late for him to cut Kawada off. Kawada was pretty much only using his good leg, but he was able to jump off that leg to make the diving save. Kawada couldn't stand up and fight Gordy, but he was okay for the moment because he could punch Gordy before he got up. Of course, Hansen was in the ring before you knew it and he quickly had Kawada right back on the floor screaming in pain. This time Hansen was trying to twist Kawada's knee right out of the joint. Tenryu finally almost came back at 17:45, but Gordy saw him holding Hansen in a bizarre hizajujigatame (it looked like someone forgot to tell Tenryu that a kneebar doesn't work if the guys knee isn't even close to straight), so he stopped beating on Kawada long enough to kick Tenryu in the back until Hansen was ready to take over. Tenryu started coming back again while Gordy was ramming Kawada's knee into the guard rail, so Gordy came in and flattened him with a lariat. Tenryu still got up before Hansen and hit his enzuigiri, which thrilled the fans, who were all yelling "Ten-ryu, Tenryu" Tenryu did his diving elbow drop, but Gordy broke up the count and whipped Tenryu into the corner. However, Tenryu ducked Gordy's lariat and gave Hansen a thrust kick. Tenryu was still staggered, but he gave Hansen his enzuigiri and powerbomb while Gordy leaned over in the corner and watched. This was really lame because Gordy had not had a move done to him in several minutes and he didn't even crash into the corner when Tenryu ducked his lariat. Aside from this point, although the comebacks were somewhat unrealistic because of all the damage Tenryu & Kawada (not that he came back, but he didn't stay down either) had sustained, they were hardly Rockish and they were what made the match because they made the faces seem like heroes with a ton of heart and were what made the second half of the match being really dramatic instead of really one-sided. Anyway, Gordy stopped watching from the corner in time to break up the pin then gave Tenryu his version of the powerbomb. Referee Joe Higuchi wouldn't count the fall because Gordy wasn't the legal man, but it didn't matter because Hansen was signaling for the western lariat. When Tenryu got up, Hansen really leveled him with it, I mean it was just brutal. You knew Tenryu wasn't getting up from this. Kawada tried to make the save, but his knee was so shot by this point that he lucky to get onto the apron before Higuchi counted 3. Tenryu beat 2-1 odds for more than 10 minutes, but Hansen & Gordy are too strong a unit for any one mortal to beat, especially when they are making their own rules. Jason's review: This match was so great! It's one of my favorites simply because the story of the match, along with the build, all made perfect sense. Kawada was willing to take the stiff shots from Hansen and Gordy to make his role even that much more realistic, while Tenryu played his role to perfection, being slowly beaten down until he couldn't hold his own in the end. The first half of the match was basically Hansen and Gordy dominating Kawada with the occasional slight comeback by Kawada. Tenryu would get tagged in and would get some offense, but Hansen and Gordy still had the advantage. Every time Kawada or Tenryu gained an advantage the heels would quickly turn things around. For instance, early in the match Kawada rolled Hansen up in a sunset flip, but Hansen quickly got up and just tossed Kawada outside the ring to the floor. Near the 10 minute mark, Tenryu and Kawada had Gordy isolated in the middle of the ring and did a cool double kick spot where Tenryu did his enzuigiri and Kawada hit his front face kick. The start of the second half saw the formation of the main building point of the match. Kawada German suplexed Gordy, but Hansen came from behind and injured Kawada's knee. All through the match, every time Gordy was in trouble Hansen managed to save him, and vice versa. Hansen left Gordy in the ring to face Tenryu as he went outside to destroy Kawada's knee so Kawada could not be a factor in the rest of the match. The young Kawada kept trying to fight back, crawling over to Hansen, who was waiting for the tag, and trying to get Hansen to fight him outside. However, this just prompted Hansen to work over his knee again. Kawada did manage to break up a few pin attempts on Tenryu, which the crowd reacted huge to. Tenryu made a comeback with an enzuigiri and a back elbow from the turnbuckle for a near fall before Gordy broke it up. Hansen then hit his western lariat for the win. The build of this match was so simple, but it worked perfect. Any team that can isolate a member from the team so he isn't a factor in the match and then wear the other guy down enough should be able to eventually get the win. I would have to think that this match was influential, look at the the mid 90's Misawa & Kobashi/Akiyama vs. Kawada/Taue matches and you'll see the same strategy. 21:02
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