231. Tatsuhito Takaiwa & Shinjiro Ohtani vs. Koji Kanemoto & Minoru Tanaka, NJPW 10/11/1999
This has to be among the stiffest matches I‘ve ever seen the NJPW juniors division produce. Seriously, they went out of their way to make every second of this as unpleasant as possible. Kicks, smacks, Otani facescrapes, Takaiwas level, everything was executed at maximum violence. Even something like a Takaiwa elbow drop landed with a smack. Loved the pissed off exchanges involving Otani and Kanemoto. Everyone here was catching hands, though. You know it‘s great when even Tanaka is laying it in and taking beatings. The match didn‘t have some kind of arc or story, it was just one violent exchange after another. It builds to some huge sequences before the finish, though. Takaiwa looked great pounding dudes into paste with his multiple powerbombs and death valley drivers. Greatest junior match in the Dome ever? It was certainly the loudest.
234. Mayumi Ozaki & Cutie Suzuki vs. Dynamite Kansai & Sumiko Saito, JWP 8/9/1992
Ah let‘s see… fast pace, hot crowd, insanely stiff, simple moves…? It‘s the early 90s baby~! Seriously pro wrestling just doesn‘t feel like this anymore and it‘s sad. This was hard working and exciting. Sumiko Saito was a rookie who didn‘t stay around for long, but she looked tenacious here. She was paired with Kansai who as usual acted as a super asskicker, so you got a match built around Kansai kicking ass when she was tagged in, and Saito getting her ass kicked when she was tagged out. As usual Ozaki looks good working against Kansai, and Cutie throws some beautiful suplexes. The stretching holds actually felt meaningful in this due to Saito fighting hard and trying to evade the rookie beatdown. Couple really good moments here. Notice how epic the superplex reversal felt due to both womens selling. This was 2 Count Rules for some reason and while it didn‘t really factor into the psychology much it made their athleticism more impressive I guess.
31. Yoshihisa Yamamoto vs. Georgi Kandarahki, RINGS 7/13/1993
Young Yoshihisa Yamamoto takes on Georgi Kandarahki… Kandealaki… Keandelaki..?? Ahh to hell with it! Kandarahki has boxing gloves, a singlet and boxer trunks. He looks like a basketball player decided to be a boxer. Yamamoto doesn‘t have gloves. If you can get over the silliness of that, this was pretty fun. Kandarahki throws lots of nice combinations and this had some heated moments where he came close to punching out Yamamoto who fired back with spirit. Obviously Yamamoto was gonna dominate on the ground but they do a pretty decent job making it not too obvious or drab. This went 5 rounds (OF COURSE!!!) and didn‘t drag and was pretty fun overall. So… the 31.th best match of all of the 90s? Probably not but I enjoyed discovering this for Yamamotos fire and Kandarahkis cool punches.
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