[1997-07-06-WAR] Genichiro Tenryu vs Tarzan Goto

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Goto having a ringside second cut off Tenryu's boot with a pair of scissors so he can beat Tenryu over the head with it and attack Tenryu's bare ankle? Then, we can watch Tenryu make a half barefoot comeback? Sign me up!

 

I'm not sure what the other weapon is. Is it a lint roller? I hope it's a lint roller, that would be awesome. I'll pretend it's a lint roller. Is the referee wearing a lei? Or is that seriously just blood splashed in the shape of a lei on his shirt? Either way it's awesome. This is a match with no wrong answers. Everyone is right. Everyone wins the prize.

 

Tenryu goes all Jerry Lawler on the microphone mid-match, then gets back in the ring and is ready to throw down! But he's met with a barrage of headbutts. He tries fighting back with chops, but not so much. The ref puts his ref t-shirt on another guy at ringside who comes in and starts officiating the match. There's nothing more ostensibly Late 90s Pro Wrestling than a t-shirt that gives the wearer referee superpowers. This is illogical, sloppy as hell and weirdly paced. And Tenryu nearly kills poor Goto with a nasty elbow drop from the top. All for taking his shoe? Holy overreaction. This was a blast, though.

[Childs]

I loved all the shenanigans around this match, especially the bit with Goto's second cutting Tenryu's boot and Tenryu kicking the shit out of Goto with his bare foot. What I've always liked about Goto is his ability to come off as a straight-up, ass-kicking tank in the middle of all the spectacle that comes with FMW. He certainly did that here. He's one of the last people I'd want splashing me from the top. And Tenryu was great selling the beating, then finding a new level of nastiness with his comeback. This was all I wanted from the pairing.

[Kevin Ridge]

Loved Goto taking off Tenryu’s boot to use as a weapon on him. They must have been watching some old time hockey of Mike Milbury going into the stands and beating a fan with his own shoe. All the other referees could learn a thing or two from this referee. He gets bloodied up and returns to referee the match with his head all wrapped up! But’s he is dealing with blood loss and you see him selling being dizzy after each pin count he attempts.

[soup23]

I have no fucking clue whether this was good, but it was really fun to watch. The visual of one barefoot Tenryu giving enzurguri's was something else. Him and Goto are kind of the master of this thematic dynamic and they really felt like they reached exactly what they wanted to accomplish here.

[ohtani's jacket]

I thought this got off to a decent start even if their takedowns were super slow and it was more about gamesmanship than the awesome physical confrontation it could have been, but then the bullshit started. If you ever wanted to see Tenryu's foot then this is the match for you, I guess. Taking off his boot and working over his foot wasn't a bad visual motif considering how often Tenryu kicks guys, but it didn't fit the mood of the opening few minutes, and there was nothing to really trigger it or set it up as for the most part Goto had gotten the better of the early exchanges. The switch from Goto using his surprising speed and agility to play a little mind games with Tenryu to ripping off his boot was disjointed. Tenryu doing his "soccer ball kicks" with only one boot on was pretty cool, however. And then all of the rubbish began with Goto wandering off into the crowd to beat up WAR wrestlers, the bottle, Goto taking out the ref, Tenryu hobbling about on one foot and throwing the bell to the ground to demand a restart, and a wrestler stepping in to ref the match until the original ref returned all bandaged up. Clearly they were going for a spectacle, but Goto was a good enough worker that they could have had a regular Tenryu style main event and it would have been fine. Once the ref returned, they settled into a more traditional build, but they repeated a lot of the same moves and by then I didn't care and wanted the match to end. Tenryu did hit a particularly nasty jumping back elbow that made a loud clunking sound when it connected, but even then there was a moment of awkwardness where he looked at the ref like "are you gonna check on him?" before taking the bout home. Not one of the better Tenryu matches.

[PeteF3]

I actually thought Goto totally outworked Tenryu here. The scientific opening was actually a lot of fun considering it was so incongruous with the two participants, and while Goto's decision to all garbage and take the boot off was arbitrary, it led to some really fun work. The ref gets temporarily taken out and does a gory blade job as Goto clobbers him with a bottle, so then Animal Hamaguchi (??!!) leaps in to temporarily take control...only for him to defer to the original ref, who has half his t-shirt torn off and is wearing a gigantic bandage over his head. Then we sort of peter to a conclusion as Tenryu slowly and methodically takes Goto apart with all his signature offense before pinning him rather anticlimactically. Like Chad said I don't know if this was "good" or not, but the Japanese indy promotions are definitely not short on providing, "Well, I'm glad I saw it" spectacles in '97.