Koki Kitahara & Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Jado & Gedo, WAR 12/8/1995 - GREAT
The kind of stuff that made WAR undercards so awesome. Kitahara is a walking terror in this, just treating Jado & Gedo like garbage. They don't even do anything in particular to upset him, he's just out for blood from the go, throwing hellacious kicks, chairs and bitch slaps like only he can. Then, after absolutely kicking Jados ass, he turns around and spits on Gedo for no reason. Just about the most "I've contempt for these guys" performance I've seen from a wrestler. Mochizuki was all reckless kicks at this point, and he is a super fun reckless kicker with a few fancy kick variations, few wrestler do this kind of minimalistic "I am really good thing" these days but it makes for a fun match up against a pair of juniors. For a pair of cheating scummy heels, Jado & Gedo know how to play a Rock'n'Roll express. They get their ass kicked a bunch until they are able to kick someone in the balls or poke their eye. Anytime they seemed on the verge of winning, Kitahara would roll in like a wall of doom to fuck them up even more. It made the eventual finish very satisfying.
Koki Kitahara vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi, NJPW 6/25/1993 - EPIC
A nice reminder why the NJPW vs. WAR feud was one of the greatest
things in history. A mix of great heat and messy out of control
violence. This is really pro wrestling vale tudo, two guys trying to
fuck eachother up, they would go to the ground, but there would be eye
gouging there and as soon as they got up they would throw kicks and
headbutts again. Kitahara was just killing Kobayashi here with brutal
kicks to the eye and Kobayashi holds up his own just running into
Kitahara with headbutts repeatedly. The "deathmatch" rules in this were a little
weird, there doesn't seem to be pinfalls and Tiger Hattori is watching
from ringside like a super libre match. At the end one guy takes a
series of brutal DDTs and is choked out and after lying motionlessly for
what felt like an eternity they decide to stop the match. Pretty unique
and stands out as one of the most brutal match endings in the feud
which covers a loooooot of ground. It definitely suits something labelled a death match.
Koki Kitahara & Shinichi Nakano vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara, SWS 2/14/1992) - EPIC
Tubby japanese guys slap the shit out of eachother for 20 minutes. Love
this because it's a really good example of how to build a lengthy match
around a handful of strikes. Nakano and Kitahara are not over at all due
to the SWS midcard being almost meaningless, but they give their all
taking on these tanks and get the everliving crap kicked out of them. You can tell why both these guys said "Fuck it, I'm starting my own promotion" after the nasty asskicking they receive here.
Hara & Tenryu deserve some credit for selling a good deal for these
middleweights while outgunning them completely. Lots of neat spots and
there are some good examples on how to make basic strikes interesting by
SELLING. See: Tenryu getting caught in the ear by an enzuigiri or
selling Nakanos corner dropkick. Hara is also really good at taking
kicks to various body parts and refusing to bump. By the end Kitahara
and Nakano are basically beaten half to death. There is one great
sequence where Nakano is giving everything he has hitting several
dropkicks and enzuigiris only to be forced to tag back in and run on
empty. Tenryu just powerbombing him is an example of no selling that
works because it was done in context of the match with a set up and
purpose. Kitaharas leg selling was also cool and added some direction.
This is a rare match where one side never comes close to winning but
still ends up being great in my book.
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