Cruising the 80's: AJPW - 1986 - January & February

I'm trucking along through my All Japan DVD sets. For reference, these are Samurai Classics episodes. I have the first six months of 1986. It's nowhere complete. In fact, they don't show Riki Choshu. So, I did go online for any/all of those. After my DVDs are done, I'm going to wing it with stuff I find online. I'm pretty sure most of this is up on the 'tube. OK enough rambling! You're here to find out about some old school AJPW!

Tiger Mask vs Mil Mascaras (01/02) - Good on paper but bad in reality. That badness is due to Mil. If Misawa had a tell-all book, he would have a story about this match. It reminded me of Mick Foley's recounting of his match with Mil. No it's not the worst thing but it ambles, Mil doesn't seem to know what's up, and he couldn't care less.

Jumbo Tsuruta & Samson Fuyuki vs Barry Windham & Mike Rotunda (01/11) - These four guys in '86? Yes please. This is a really fun all action match. Nothing fancy or complex but they keep the energy up. And that's what you want in a tag match like this. I don't think I'll see anymore Windham or Rotunda looking ahead but this is a good match for a project like this.

Mil Mascaras vs Kuniaki Kobayashi (01/28) - Now this is what I'm talking about! Mil came to wrestle. Really good junior technical wrestling punctuated by Kobayashi & his temper. He turns this into a brawl and The Man of a Thousand Masks is down to fight. Personally I'd prefer the technical wrestling from Mil but it keeps the intensity up and isn't that much of the match (*cough it sets up the finish *cough). Skip the Tiger Mask match and watch this one instead.

Tenryu & Tsuruta vs Choshu & Yatsu  (02/05) - Great, hard fought match! Choshu & Yatsu assault Jumbo at the outset. Tenryu is the guy you want to make a hot tag to! At one point I thought he & Yatsu were going to go at it for real. They get back in the groove. Damn near everyone gets worked over at some point. It's a real physical affair - the stuff you typically associate with Hansen...just violence at every opportunity. There's a helluva a neat finish too! Great match.

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