Thursday, August 31, 2017

Genichiro Tenryu vs. George Takano (SWS, 10/11/90)

Oh man, George Takano is like the perfect grunty worker here, with his quasi-shoot shotei strikes and wakigatame takedowns. He does a number on Tenryu at the outset, dropkicking him out of the ring and hitting a pretty sweet baseball slide through the ropes. But when he whiffs on the plancha, Tenryu takes over on offense and he's not happy about it, stomping and kneeing away at George's gut. They manage to condense a lot of big moves into a short period of time, and between George's tenacity and Tenryu's grumpy presence, this ticks quite a few boxes. Plus, you've got random English commentary sprinkled throughout. Takano keeps cutting off Tenryu's momentum, German suplexing or landing a big crossbody from the top rope to the floor. And of course, Tenryu delivers the goods on the powerbomb front, including an awesome counter to George's 'rana attempt. He tweaks his ankle on one of the attempts, giving Takano a glimmer of hope, but Tenryu ultimately puts him away with a final big boy powerbomb. Super solid match.

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