Wrestling Dream Battles

The Winger vs Fantastik (BJW) : Big Japan Wrestling is becoming one of my favorite promotions because of the variety that they've offered since day one. I was watching my BJW death match tape in 1999 and while I thought that was pretty sweet, I would have loved it had they included great mucha stuff like this! Fantastik lives up to his moniker. The Winger is a guy I knew from some death match stuff but he's a very good wrestler. He gets broken down over the years but late 90's & early 2000's seem to be his prime. This match cooks at just over 9 minutes. It's all lucharesu action with a very nice pace. I am very thankful that BJW included virtually all of this match. They tend to clip things up but even they knew how cool this was for BJW at the time. Solid Recommendation to those interested.  👇👇👇 Check out more stuff you'll dig! Plenty of recommendations for stuff you want to see!

Genichiro Tenryu vs Tatsumi Fujinami (NJPW) : Two of the very best ever. Two guys that are in my personal top 10 ever. Early on the Dragon is breathing fire and Tenryu is getting burnt. Dragon Rocket topes until Genichiro puts an end to that. Tenryu busts Fujinami in the snout and is gushing blood ! This is what he needs. Tenryu feeds on his opponents pain. Oh this is fucking beautiful - blood is spraying off Fujinami's chest with every chop from Tenryu! The Dragon WON'T QUIT. This is classic stuff. Emotionally speaking, this is an All Time Classic to me. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Other ones that I would recommend are: Akira Maeda vs Tatsumi Fujinami from '86, Jim Duggan vs Ted DiBiase or vs Buzz Sawyer from Mid South '85. 👇👇👇Check out the labels for more matches you might be interested in. Thanks for reading!

Tiger Mask & Gran Hamada vs Perro Aguayo & Les Thornton (NJPW) : Yes! This was a lot of fun! Tiger is hurt before the match and the heels prey upon. There's no masked superhero. Instead there's a liability that the bad guys exploit. They wrestle this like a classic tag match with the ref not seeing tags by the baby faces, heels switching out but we get those great hot tags and Gran Hamada really makes use of them like few others can. He's awesome! A definite recommendation for anyone wanting to see prime Hamada as well as anyone thinking Tiger Mask was just all flips & shit. He's an excellent face-in-peril. More great matches coming shortly. Check out the archives on the side of the page or maybe click a label for cool match recommendations in the meantime 👍

Shinjiro Otani vs El Samurai (NJPW) : Wow! These guys hate each other! There's nothing fancy about most of this match. They are slapping, punching and kicking each other in the face for a lot of this bout. Once the action escalates to the "move section," the maneuvers feel like a natural extension of their animosity. These are two grumpy people. Beyond that, I think this battle is a fine snap shot of what a great wrestler Otani was. I find him to be the very best of the classic New Japan Juniors, only behind Liger. Otani's body language, selling, facial expressions are all top notch. If you combine his work in New Japan and Zero One, I probably would put him in the top 25 wrestlers of all time. Click these links to see more great Otani recommendations: Zero One Wrestling 2007 part 1 Zero One Wrestling 2007 part 2 Zero One Wrestling 2007 part 3

Isami Kodaka vs. Ryuji Ito (BJW) : Death Match Survivor 2013 Final. This is a 2 out of 3 Falls Death Match. Each fall has different items. #1 is TLC, #2 is light tubes and concrete blocks & #3 is TLC, light tubes and concrete blocks & bed of nails. 🤘🤕 If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough. This was all about who's tougher because otherwise a lot of this could be dumb. The psychology here is "we're bound to be in pain & bleeding by the end of this - who can tolerate more?" So you get your turn-my turn spots. You get Side Russian leg sweeps onto objects - both guys are getting hurt. But again: who's tougher? Not who's smarter, more skilled, anything. That's not to say everything is this stuff because each guy really doesn't want to get destroyed. It's 2/3 falls and feels like an endurance match. There's no quick fall for instance. Again tough not smart.  I'm not sure if I can rate it but it really is something to see....

NOAH - 04/27/08 I bought this DVD awhile back and this seemed like a great time to watch it! Akira Taue, Kotaro Suzuki & Ricky Marvin vs D'lo Brown, Buchanan & Bobby Fish : This reminded me of a WAR 6 man match with the talent mix they have here. Taue is hitting big moves and watching him & Buchanan tussle is fun. Everyone is working really well with each other. They're not doing anything too complex but this got very good at the end. The near falls were quite believable since there's not a clear pecking order.  Kenta Kobashi, KENTA & Tamon Honda vs Yoshihiro Takayama, Naoki Sano & Go Shiozaki : A lot of the match story & action was Shiozaki challenging his mentor, Kobashi. They damaged each other's chests with vicious chops. Then there's the additional element of Go breaking away from 'Burning' so Honda & KENTA are glad to punish Shiozaki for. Sano & Takayama are a helluva team to have on your side though. Takayama has eterna...

Randy Savage vs Hiroyoshi Tenzan (NJPW) : Where did this come from?! This was great. They worked surprisingly well together. Savage took a couple insane bumps for his 1996. This was about 9 minutes of wrestling joy. Maybe I'm a Tenzan & Savage fan. Maybe I just love bright colorful pants? Either way RECOMMENDED stuff. 👇👇👇Check out more stuff you might like - click the labels below! 

Andre the Giant vs Killer Khan (NJPW) : Bad ass big boy battle! This a lot of fun. Just two monsters of the square circle clubbering away at each other. It's 1982 so don't expect a big finishing sequence or even a finish but a nice bit of old school wrestling. 

Devil Masami vs Chigusa Nagayo (AJW) : This was a great match with high energy & high intensity. It begins with a technical orientation but escalates into a power battle as Devil takes over. This Crush Gal won't quit and rattles Devil with great suplexes and pinning holds. Masami gets frustrated and brings out the weapons and introduces a bit of anarchy into this April match. At under 15 minutes, I give this a Strong RECOMMENDATION as two of the best ever go at it. 👇👇👇Check out the labels below for more. Also look for more April Anarchy matches to come!

Yuji Nagata & Takashi Iizuka & Osamu Kido vs. Akira Nogami & Tatsutoshi Goto & Shiro Koshinaka (NJPW) : This is puroresu! This is a frenzy! These dudes want to destroy each other. Every move & every strike has extra "umph" behind it. Iizuka gets hard way blood from a headbutt. Kido legitimately elbows Akira in the jaw. It's not all angry punches, kicks and stomps. There's some great moves off the ropes & off the turn buckles as well as devastating suplexes. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - It's Korakuen Hall baby!  Bonus: Satoshi Kojima & Osamu Nishimura vs. Shinya Hashimoto & Junji Hirata : Kojima trying to take on both big boys is great! Nishimura is hitting some fierce drop kicks. You probably can guess the outcome but this is all about the journey and not the destination. Hash & Hirata are helluva team. Check out my New Japan 1995 posts for more.

The Winger vs. Shadow WX (BJW) : Barb wire match. This was smooth or pretty but, dammit! This was fun!! They had some excellent spots with the B-wire boards. That drop toe hold into the wire was especially sick 🤘 Another neat aspect was that strands of the wire was coming loose and staying attached in the wrestlers. So each bump or movement involved getting stuck with metal barbs. Post match, Winger shows that a large piece was entangled in his hair. So, yeah this had good wrestling working with the props, those spots were pretty awesome and this was a hair under 15 minutes. There's nothing to object to - this was a blast. RECOMMENDED 👇👇👇 Check out the labels below for more wrestling you might like!

Abdullah The Butcher vs Bruiser Brody (AJPW) : I'm really glad that Abby started fighting back because early on this looked like Brody was beating up a big cartoon turtle. The Butcher was stuck on his back getting stomped on, helpless but protected by his fat layer. The Mad Man from Sudan got to his feet in the ring & snuck in a thrust to Brody's windpipe. That was the opening he needed. Next thing you know he was pulling his fork or some sharp object from his waistband. It was on! This was a fun and wild as you would hope. I'm sure that you can predict the outcome 😄 But, that doesn't mean you should skip it. All in all it's about 10 minutes of classic wrestling chaos. They really don't do brawling like this anymore. 👇👇👇 Check out more stuff you might like & click the labels below. Also more April Anarchy to come!

Killer Khan & Tiger Toguchi vs Dusty Rhodes & Dick Murdoch (NJPW) : This starts as a good joined in progress tag match. I preferred Tiger & Khan as they were doing some different moves including the under utilized double scoop slam (Strong BJW should have used that one). Where this gets really good is on the floor. Things quickly escalate into a bloody chair swinging brawl. THIS is what you want! If this would have been one of Dusty's Bunkhouse Brawl matches, this was have been awesome. It's only 1982 so we don't get that but savor what we get with this. It's a good time and 8 1/2 minutes. 👇👇👇 Check out the labels below for more wrestling you might like! Use the archive to go back see other wrestling recommendations. March Mayhem had lots of good stuff or Cruise the 80's with me.

Stan Hansen & Ron Bass vs Terry Funk & Genichiro Tenryu (AJPW) : Fuck! This match is off the hook. For instance, Tenryu does a Flair flip, runs the apron and smack the shit out of Stan Hansen. From that point, Stan is on the rampage. Heaven knows Terry & Tenryu are down for a fight. I'm pretty sure Stan & Terry got a couple legit punches in there. I haven't said anything about Ron Bass but he's an excellent #2. Our baby face team gets little respite when he's in the ring. This is 10-12 minutes with a frenzied pace. This is what you want! Check the pic below, that's Stan with a jumping knee drop! Solid recommendation. 👇 👇👇 Check out the labels below for more wrestling you might like!