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[1988-10-26-AJPW] Stan Hansen & Dan Kroffat vs Rock & Roll Express


JKWebb

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Well, Holy Hell, this is awesome. Stan Hansen in a match with Ricky Morton... There's nothing else you'd need to say. Why wouldn't this be entertaining? This starts out with Morton getting in some quick offense on Kroffat, but damn ... You can see Hansen bouncing on the outside with anticipation... he's hungry... then... watch the fuck out Ricky Morton! Hansen hops the ropes after Ricky Morton like he just heard Ricky's been sleeping with his daughter or something... it's nuts! Hansen is ready to murder him! All four guys get into the ring, and lucky for Morton it gets broken up and Hansen is back in the corner. I can't understand what he is saying, but it looks like Hansen is yelling at Morton from corner. Morton continues to get the upper hand on Kroffat. Hansen and Morton finally are legal at the same time, and Hansen is a heat-seeking missile. He wants him too bad, he misses an early lariat on the outside wrapping his arm around the ringpost. Morton and Gibson try to work it over, but he overpowers them. Then you get your Ricky Morton FIP segment of the match. I think the match lost a little bit of it's suspense from this point on, but it was still entertaining. Morton eventually eats a lariat from Hansen. I wouldn't say this is a great match, but I was stoked to see the Rock n' Rolls in AJ, and specifically the Morton/Hansen dynamic. It's definitely a good match.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I didn't like the match itself as much as you did, but Hansen's murderous rage at the very idea of Ricky Morton was one of the best things on the set. The Korakuen crowd didn't quite get R&R's bit, and only really popped for Kroffat's hot moves. I feel cheated we never got a full-fledged Hansen/Morton feud in Crockett or WCW.

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  • 2 months later...

When Hansen tags in and starts trying to catch Morton, who's buzzing around him like some annoying little fly annoying an elephant. . .Well, it's just perfection. You know Stan will eventually catch him and murderize him. But for just a moment, you think maybe, just maybe he won't.

 

And it allows for a delightful mix of humor and drama.

 

I love this match so hard.

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  • 10 months later...

This is the worst Rock 'n' Roll express match of all time. What if you take everything that makes the R'n'R work, everything that makes them great, and then you put them in an environment where none of that matters, against an opponent who won't allow any of it? That's what you get here. Look, the match has a few things going for it. One, if you want to see Stan Hansen destroying people, this is a match for you. He has smaller opponents but is still in the AJPW setting, close enough to his physical prime that he has the wind and the dexterity to hit stuff cleanly. There's one point of the match where he has a face-vice on Morton, just literally has his hands over Morton's face, and that's basically the whole match. Kroffat stands out as the most exciting wrestler of 1988 offensively. He hits a ton of interesting things, none of which seem contrived. By 1992, he'd be the total package, with an almost memphis-like ability to work the crowd and his opponents and the ref as a heel yet still making it seem 100% to fit in AJPW. Here he just has spatterings of that, but he's still fascinating to watch. You get the feeling like he could have a Meltzerian six star match with 1988 Owen Hart or whatever. It's also immensely cool to hear the crowd chant "rock and roll" at the start.

 

But this is a hot mess, a hot, hot mess. The Southern tag formula is the greatest gift god ever gave to us through pro wrestling. The Express are heavenly angels of that style. And Stan Hansen is basically the devil sent to tear it all to shreds. It starts off well enough with Kroffat eating the R'n'R fast offense. The fans are into it. They're chanting. Kroffat's game. It's a shine and it's working, at least right up until the point where Hansen storms in for no reason and starts to kill both guys. It's pretty much all downhill from there, with Morton looking as lost as I've ever seen him. He repeats spots (dropkicking Kroffat twice into the corner which comes off as very weird), has just weird comeback attempts (he does a small package 2-3 times, including once on Hansen and it's absolutely NOT what the fans want to see; at another point, his big comeback move is an armdrag on Hansen, which basically just lets Hansen get enough distance to destroy him again), and basically is put in a position by Hansen's relentlessness where he can't breathe enough to sell. If the guy is constantly hitting you, you can't sell.

 

Hansen doesn't let anything breathe at all. Let's say Morton gets a kick in on a back body drop attempt. Ricky would normally drop to the ground, sell, and move to get another shot in, to really build up tension for the eventual cut off. The second he turns, Hansen's back on him again. Nothing. Just a guzzling. Probably the worst thing was when Hansen missed a Lariat on the outside early on and hit the post. In a normal match, that would have been a big moment and would have set up a very believable shine and built into the overall flow of the match. Here? Well, Hansen lets them double team him for about twenty seconds and that's that. It's basically their only offense on him all match. If wrestling is about moments and making them matter, this is just so much noise. It's vaguely amusing to watch Hansen kill these guys, sure. It's novel. I don't think it's good though, not at all.

 

There's no comeback. There's no hot tag. How do you do a R'n'R match with no hot tag? Even in Japan. There was still room for it. Instead of a comeback and Gibson coming in to at least try to clean house, there's a cutesy spot with a missed shoulder block and a trip by Morton and a Flying Body Press by Gibson and both R'n'Rs trying to pin Hansen. It's a mercy to all of us when Hansen follows this up by turning around after a missed kick to hit the lariat on Morton.

 

In isolation, there are a lot of cool little bits here. Something as simple as Hansen dropping the kneepad to flatten Morton as Kroffat holds him down is innately cool. The match is full of stuff like that but none of it adds up. The crowd started the match by chanting Rock 'n' Roll but there wasn't a single thing in there that made them want to chant when Morton was in that facevice late on. Gibson was standing on the second turnbuckle on the outside. Morton was waiting for the crowd to fire him up, but the crowd didn't care. The fire never came. Not even the greatest babyface tag team of all time could survive Stan Hansen stomping out the flame of pro wrestling beauty.

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  • GSR changed the title to [1988-10-26-AJPW] Stan Hansen & Dan Kroffat vs Rock & Roll Express
  • 3 years later...

Matt, if the match went down the way you wanted it to go down then it would just be Rock N Rolls vs Joe Blow & His Midnights Wannabe Partner. You would rob us of the uniqueness of HANSEN VS MORTON~! I think you point to a lot of valid criticisms of why this match is only very good as opposed to excellent, but you far oversell the negatives like you are a mid-match Kenny Omega wrestling in the Dome. To say the Rock N Rolls should only do Southern tag style formula is ridiculous. They should be allowed to experiment and adapt to their opponent. Your well-known anti-Japan bias can be a little bit much and is very excessive here("an environment where none of that matters" got an eye-roll so deep from me I am surprised my eyes came back down). I think what smacks me most bizarre about your criticisms is Hansen kill these guys. If it anything I didnt think Hansen was violent enough. I was expecting more of a shitkicking. The problem was Hansen was too giving. "It's a shine and it's working, at least right up until the point where Hansen storms in for no reason and starts to kill both guys." This didnt even happen! He played one of the most entertaining cat & mouse games with Morton that climaxed with Morton punting him on a back body drop attempt. He did not kill anyone! The match was herky-jerky and lacked a coherent, linear narrative, which I know is important to you and thats important to me too. The Lariat to the post leading nowhere is a glaringly obvious fault. To pin this all on Stan Hansen is ham-fisted. How the hell are you blaming Hansen for Morton hitting a dropkick twice on Kroffat. Hell one of the most egregious errors is Gibson WALKS KROFFAT OVER TO HANSEN TO LET HIM TAG IN! ZERO STRUGGLE! HE ACTIVELY PULLED HIM TO STAN! Cmon Matt, call a spade a spade, brutha. He wasnt even in the ring! Is the match underwhelming to lofty expectations? Yes. Do I thank the Wrestling Gods for blessing me with HANSEN VS MORTON~! OH HELL YEAH! 

Rock N Roll Express vs Stan Hansen & Dan Kroffat - AJPW 10/26/88

The Japanese vociferously chants "Rock N Roll" three separate times at the beginning. Making me even more depressed that my hometown of Boston is seemingly the only place that didnt get the Rock N Rolls. 

This is the closest we ever got Hansen & Bobby Eaton vs Rock N Rolls. As Kroffat is a great stand-in for the Midnights with a ton of stooging and nifty offense. Morton drop toe holds Kroffat to start and he sells like he faceplants. Dropkick by Morton. Here comes Stan! You gotta love Stan! He doesnt take anything lying down. What ensues is the greatest game of cat & mouse you'd ever see! In a shocking moment, Morton gets one up on ol Stan, punting him on a back body drop. People say Stan is selfish. In fact, I thought he was far too giving in this match. He let Morton small package him, buck him off with an armdrag and even sold a dropkick. We never got the true Hansen shitkicking of Morton I wanted. Kroffat takes over for a hot second but ends landing balls first on the knees. Anyone who seen a RnRs or Midnights match could see the spot from a mile away, but it doesnt make it any less pleasant. Morton hits a suicide dive, which I got see in person at a New Japan show in Lowell in 2019 which is forever seared in my memory. I feel so lucky. Then comes a string of disappointing moments from otherwise great wrestlers. Gibson walks Kroffat over so Hansen can tag him in. That's kinda generous, he pulls him over to Hansen is more like. That's just sloppy as shit. Where's the struggle. Hansen comes in and you ready for the mutha of all heat segments to commence and a curious thing happens. He wraps his arm around the post with a lariat. It would be an interesting wrinkle if the rest of the match is worked around it, but it is not. He sells it for a bit and then just powers out after 30-60 seconds. It kinda grinded the match to a halt. Hansen gets control of the match for his team and Kroffat does hit some nifty Midnight-y offense. Hansen and Morton have a back & forth. Lots of Morton hope spots like I described before, but because Hansen never really kicked his shit in it came off too frequent I would say. It just didnt feel that dramatic. I love Stan's full court press, but they never really built it to the next level. The finish was an oldie but goodie from Hansen he misses the first attempt at the Lariat but boomerangs annihilates Morton for the win. 

Underwhelming but still very entertaining, the Hansen & Morton cat & mouse is worth seeing. Hearing the "Rock & Roll" chants in Japan and the Rock & Rolls do their thing in Japan is worth the price of admission. Plus it is fucking Hansen & Morton wrestling that's cool no matter what. ***1/4

 

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I was at the end of a night shift and it was 1:30am, I may have been a little cranky when I wrote the response to you. Eek. I agree with your last sentence. I agree with the majority of your points. It is Hansen vs Morton and frankly it should have been better, but I enjoyed it for what it was. As ol Stone Cold would say it  was what it was. Swig of an Arnold Palmer for the working man. 

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