ALL JAPAN ON NTV

March 4, 1990 (taped 2/24/90)

Kenta Kobashi . . . picks up right where he left off in trying to bow up to Stan Hansen.

Terry Gordy . . . bumps and stooges for All Japan’s midcard talent.

Jumbo Tsuruta . . . turns his former partner turned enemy into the one-legged man of the Jim Ross metaphor.

TIGER MASK/KENTA KOBASHI vs. STAN HANSEN/JOEL DEATON

Although only the last couple of minutes are shown, what’s shown is a nice continuation of the Hansen/Kobashi singles from 2/21. Hansen wants to get rough with Misawa and Kobashi, and Kobashi shows that he’s not afraid to get rough back. Kobashi briefly wins the exchange and plants Hansen with a slam and legdrop. And Misawa tags out so that Kobashi can try to press the advantage into a win, only for Deaton to thwart their double team. Deaton keeps Misawa occupied (leading to a post-match brawl in the aisle way) and Hansen lariats Kobashi. When one knows exactly what sort of matches Hansen and Kobashi would have with each other over the next few years then it’s hard to get too excited over this. But, looking at where each of them was in the All Japan hierarchy, it’s more than a bit remarkable to see just how much Hansen is willing to make him look good, and their various interactions in matches like this (as well as seeing Hansen opposite the likes of Misawa, Kawada and Taue) are one more thing to look forward to on these TV shows.

TERRY GORDY/STEVE WILLIAMS vs. YOSHIAKI YATSU/AKIRA TAUE

Considering that neither Jumbo nor Tenryu was on the native team, Gordy and Williams almost seemed to be a little too giving in this match. It starts with Doc and Yatsu doing some quick amateur looking mat work, and then Gordy takes a few overdone bumps (in a good way) for them. Yatsu and Taue working Gordy’s knee makes for some watchable filler, even though they don’t do anything very interesting. Gordy is good for selling the leg while it’s in focus, which is until Yatsu uses some low kicks to stop him from doing his powerbomb.

Once Doc and Gordy get Taue isolated in their corner, the match plays out how you’d probably expect; with the foreigners using their size and power to wear him down. This is the only time that the match tends to drag, as the long bearhug segments and Doc’s obsession with body slamming him gets tiresome quickly. But there are still fun bits here and there, like Taue tagging Yatsu and the referee not seeing it and putting him out. Yatsu shows that he’s not above bending the rules either, interjecting himself to try to help Taue, even if the referee is staring right at him. There’s even a tiny bit of build to the finish, with Yatsu stopping Gordy from doing his powerbomb on two separate occasions, and as soon as Doc can tie him up for a minute, Gordy hits it at the first opportunity for the win. All things considered, Gordy and Doc could have easily treated Yatsu and Taue the same way they treated Takano a few days before, but instead they went out there with the specific intent of putting on a good match.

JUMBO TSURUTA/GREAT KABUKI/MIGHTY INOUE vs. GENICHIRO TENRYU/TOSHIAKI KAWADA/SAMSON FUYUKI

This is a fine trios match overall, but fine is pretty much it. It has its share of fun and surprising moments, like Kawada using a Tequila Sunrise on Inoue, Inoue’s head scissors roll up counter to Fuyuki’s backbreaker, and of course, Tenryu being Tenryu and stiffing the crud out of anyone who looks at him funny. But at the end of the day, outside of the surprising finish (Jumbo over Tenryu by submission), there’s just nothing here that truly seems to matter. Sure, it's fun to watch the Revolution working over Inoue, and even more so to see that Tenryu’s attitude is rubbing off on Kawada and Fuyuki, as well as Jumbo and Kabuki getting to throw it back at Kawada, but all that really amounts to is filler.

In fact, there’s no real build up to anything outside of the finish, and even that winds up being pretty lackluster. Inoue and Tenryu have a scrum on the floor and Inoue takes a chair to Tenryu’s knee, and it’s an Indian deathlock from Jumbo that ends the match. But that’s all there is. There’s no big showdown between the two top natives. In fact, they seemed to be actively avoiding each other until it was time to take it home. After being worked over for a bit, Inoue gets away from Tenryu and tags in Jumbo. They have a quick stare down and Tenryu tags in Kawada so that he can try his hand with Jumbo. Neither of the top guys were very active here, although Tenryu was more involved than Jumbo and that was mostly just for him to smack around Inoue and Kabuki and make the occasional save. When the match finally does feature Jumbo and Tenryu as the legal men, it’s over as soon as it starts. Tenryu throws a few chops and then hurts his leg doing the enzuigiri. He hits the powerbomb on Jumbo, but Kabuki knocks him down and takes a few shots at the leg. The four partners brawl amongst themselves and Jumbo gets on the submission.

It’s certainly a surprise that Tenryu takes a direct loss here, considering this is a mid-tour trios match with no ramifications. But the only thing that makes it stand out is that it’s a surprise. Until his enzuigiri aggravates the bad leg, there’s nothing to suggest that the chair attack did anything other than momentarily hamper him. One would guess that it would have been Kawada or Fuyuki taking the loss, with Tenryu’s bad wheel stopping him from intervening. It’s not bad that they stray from the expected path, but the lack of meaningful build doesn’t make it seem like the big deal that it should.

Conclusion: This is a perfectly watchable and solid TV show, even if there’s nothing that’s especially mind blowing.