[1999-03-19-FMW] Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs Masato Tanaka & Tetsuhiro Kuroda

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Pretty ground-based tag with Tanaka and Kuroda working over Hayabusa's knee at first. This has the type of slow build I love, escalating from a mat encounter to a bombfest. I like seeing Masato Tanaka in matches like this because it shows he was better than we got from him a lot of the time. This was a total All Japan-style midcard match, and is just a shade better than the Honda-Izumida match from me in January, probably because these guys were so comfortable working each other and had done it so many times. Lots of great double-team moves from both guys near the end. I marked out for Hayabusa busting out a shotei. Both teams should probably have threads in the GWE Tag Teams folder if someone wants to nominate them. Yet another MOTYC in what has been a super year for wrestling.

[FLIK]

Surprised to see you guys didn't like the Hayabusa/Fuyuki vs Kuroda/Tanaka 30 min draw from later in the month as i'd put that on the same level as this one.

[tim]

This felt like an All Japan heavyweight tag in a lot of ways. I liked the sense of escalation in this match, for the first half or so they worked most of it with a lot of chain/mat wrestling and working the FIP segments with lots of holds, but with good action sequences punctuating it every now and then and keeping things interesting. I really liked the sequence toward the beginning where Tanaka and Kuroda get one up on Hayabusa after he tries for a baseball slide. The way the worked the first portion of the match really makes the action toward the end feel like a big deal. There's a really great sequence ending in a big dive from Hayabusa during the ending strecth. The end stretch has really great heavyweight bomb throwing action but I really think this went too long and they got too kickout happy. After that assisted top rope diamond cutter everything was pretty much in "enough already" territory for me. End it around there and it would be mucn more of a MOTYC than it ended up being for me. Still a great match and I liked the double falcon arrow ending.

[Tim Evans]

This is long but enjoyable. I like the double team moves from both teams like the DDT and the diamond dust. Hayabusa works well with Jinsei who I need to see more of post WWF.

[soup23]

Awesome match that took its time and really developed into something special. There were a few spots that were annoying mostly Kuroda delayed selling of the suplexes but overall this was built really well and Hayabusa especially had a great performance from someone I am usually no high on. These Japanese matches are really saving the yearbook for me in the past couple of months time wise. ****1/4

[Zenjo]

I enjoyed this a lot more than I expected to. Which is doubly surprising given it went north of the 30m mark. For the first half they dispensed with the usual trashiness and took things to the mat. Both Shinzaki and Tanaka impressed me with their fundamental skills, keeping the action focused whilst displaying sound technique. Hayabusa was mainly kept on the receiving end early on before being allowed to break free. A smart plan. Kuroda's inexperience was largely made up for by youthful exuberance. The 2nd half was a continual sequence of big moves and near falls with no respite and little selling. It became numbing and I'd have little time for it in a microcosm. Here they had such a strong grounding that I'll let a lot go. Good match overall. See, I do like at least one FMW bout not involving Onita or Kudo!

[PeteF3]

Way better than the match before and I was losing faith in FMW long before I lost mine in Kanemoto. This was laid out beautifully, with good solid fundamental wrestling building to some good solid fundamental crazy-ass high-flying, and a guess-what-can-happen-next type closing stretch where it seemed like anyone could pin anyone else at any time. I could see this making the MOTYC list, certainly.