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Yearbook - NJPW - 1995 - Part 3

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Hi wrestling fans! This time we're taking a brief look at the  1995 G1 Climax ! While I don't have the 1995 G1 Climax tournament in full, I do have some footage from a commercial set which should give me a sense of the matches and the best stuff in digest/joined in progress form. Something is better than nothing! I did find a few of the better reviewed matches available with some digging so I'll do full reviews of those and will mention if they're complete. Otherwise, assume they are digest form. From 08/11: Shinya Hashimoto vs Scott Norton - Fun stuff with Norton man handling Hash and Hash lighting Norton up with kicks. Keiji Muto vs. Shiro Koshinaka - I actually started the full version of it but Muto started doing his legwork routine. Koshinaka was going along so I switched to the digest version. I enjoyed that version better with one really killer move! From 08/12: Keiji Muto vs. Masahiro Chono - Oh boy, I think this is a great match! Nice story internally and bi...
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Yearbook - NJPW - 1995 - Part 2

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Hi folks! I'm back with the second installment of the 1995 New Japan Yearbook. There's a good mix of Junior and Heavyweight action this time. The Junior matches are ones that haven't gotten much positive attention in the past. I thought they were worth another look. There's a bunch of quality NJPW wrestling this time. Take a look! April through June Gran Hamada & Koji Kanemoto vs. Shinjiro Otani & Wild Pegasus (04/13) Haha we're off to a brilliant start. Koji steps to Otani during introductions. Otani responds by slapping Koji. This was a heck of a tag match. A nice mix of lucha & puro along with a bit of nastiness too. Pegasus/Benoit & Hamada were more neutral but the animus between Koji & Otani was ever present. It had the right tone exemplified by the hard chops everyone was throwing. I thought this was a near classic junior tag match. With its flawless execution, move complexity and story, it could be on TV or PPV today...the closest style it...
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Yearbook - NJPW - 1995

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Hi folks! I thought that 1990's New Japan wrestling was only about the Junior wrestlers - Jushin Liger, Pegasus Kid, Black Tiger II (Eddie Guerrero), Koji Kanemoto et al. I've come to understand that the heavyweight wrestlers had a lot to offer too. The reason for this misunderstanding was due to how highly rated the Juniors matches were rated by Dave Meltzer and folks in the internet wrestling community. These matches and shows seemed to be the equivalent of AJPW's amazing heavyweight bouts. Battles between Ultimo Dragon and Shinjiro Otani were getting as many stars & accolades as Misawa vs Kawada. Therefore, I (and many others) wanted to watch that! And I'm really glad that I did. I also think WCW's cruiserweight division contributed to this viewing bias. A person can easily find that Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, Ultimo Dragon all had significant matches over in NJPW. On top of that, they can find that their matches were against Liger Kanemoto, Otani, and others...
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Battle Guide - Misawa vs Kobashi

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Hello wrestling fans!  Mitsuharu Misawa vs Kenta Kobashi was the ultimate rivalry when I got into Japanese wrestling. Dave Meltzer gave their matches all kinds of stars (back when it meant something). Their matches for AJPW in the late 90's pushed the boundaries of what pro wrestling could be. I definitely think their matches are worth seeing to this day. If you haven't seen their work against each other then, I have a guide for you! Now let me preface this by saying this isn't an exhaustive list of all of their encounters. These are the BIG ones. These are the MUST SEE ones. Absolutely feel free to fill in the gaps. Any additional matches that you see during King's Road AJPW, the richer your experience will be. That said, don't feel obligated. If you just want to dive right in - go for it! So a little back story: Misawa and Kobashi had been allies since the Jumbo vs. Misawa feud of 1990. Generally speaking, this was a feud of old guard vs the new stars (Akira Taue ...
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Welcome!

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Hi folks! G. Badger here! This is my new blog: Wrestling Dream Battles. It's a blog focusing on classic wrestling in Japan. It will be centered on puroresu from the 1980's, 1990's and 2000's. I'm sure we'll dabble in the 1970's & 2010's down the road. In addition to puro, we'll look at classic joshi puroresu (Japanese Women's Wrestling) and classic Ring of Honor wrestling.  You might know me from Pro Wrestling Only where I've been a member since 2016. I've had two blogs there. "G. Badger's Puro + More" as well as "The Further Adventures of Puro + More" as TheBean. Wrestling Dream Battles is an evolution of those blogs. In addition to my multi-post projects, I want to provide watch guides and recommendation lists for new fans of classic Japanese wrestling. Additionally, I'd like to get into the "what-if's" of old-school wrestling - what if things were booked differently? What if a certain wrest...
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