Jumbo Tsuruta, Masanobu Fuchi & Great Kabuki vs. Mitsuharu Misawa, Akira Taue & Kenta Kobashi (AJPW, 5/26/90)

And so it begins...again. The "Golden Age of AJPW" and my introduction to Japanese 'pure wrestle' 15+ years ago.  I watched WWF as a kid in the early 90', rooting for Tatanka with my dad and Max Moon because he looked like Mega Man. At the very same time, unbeknownst to 8-year old me, Misawa, Kobashi, Kawada, and Taue were shaking the pillars of heaven over in Japan. I stopped watching WWF when Tatanka joined the Million Dollar Corporation and grew out of wrestling. It wasn't until I was a freshman in college that I found myself watching a handful of borrowed DVD-R's. Over the course of "Best of Japan" volumes one through four, I re-discovered my love of pro-wrestling and discovered a newfound appreciation for the beauty and chaos in it .

A lot of this stuff, I haven't revisited since college, and some of it, including this match, I've yet to witness. As expected, this was a total blast, with everyone playing their respective roles so well. On team Jumbo, you had the cantankerous Captain Tsuruta himself, Grampa Fuchi destroying limbs, and crazy Uncle Kabuki doing...uh, a little bit of everything. On the other side, the young gate-rattlers: the babyface fire of young Kobashi, the "too cool for school" 'tude of middle child Misawa, and the gangly big brother power of Taue. When Kobashi comes in, he's red-hot, blasting Fuchi with a beautiful top rope dropkick and getting antsy Jumbo. Jumbo lays him out with the jumping knee and takes out all the kids on the apron, pissing off middle child Misawa, who wants in there so bad and when he does, he gets lariated the fuck down. The stern dad vs. disrespectful teen dynamic between Misawa and Jumbo was terrific, and even when they were quarreling somewhere the ring, I liked that the other guys were still trying to wrestle the match.

Kobashi's arm gets bullied for awhile, with Fuchi being especially relentless and awesome, targeting arms and legs both, wrecking Kenta's knee on the timekeeper's table. Love Jumbo waving off Kobashi's dropkick to pummel him with knees and boots. Misawa and Taue take over after teaming up on Tsuruta with a double dropkick. Misawa gets to show off his Tiger Mask offense with Taue knocking bodies around. Kobashi gets a little revenge on gramps the end, picking up a great nearfall off a German suplex hold on Fuchi. When Misawa tries to finish Fuchi off with the Tiger Driver, Jumbo creams him with a lariat. But, alas, youth prevails and Misawa's able to pin Fuchi with the tiger suplex hold. A great start to what is perhaps the greatest decade in Japanese pro-wrestling.

But the 1980's were pretty great.