Koji Kanemoto vs Yoshihito Sasaki-ZERO-1 10.10.2005.

Kanemoto is such a great prick invader, it's a joy to watch. He completely overwhelms Sasaki in what is a near squash match just blasting him with slaps, kicks and knees. Sasaki does a pretty great job of someone defiant yet outmatched, like when he reaches for *anything* while he's stuck inbetween the ropes and in his childish facial expressions. Kanemoto is just above everyone here, and doesn't really care about the ref or any of Sasaki's pals that consistently yell at him ringside. My favourite moment may have been when Sasaki hit his first hope spot, started celebrating and Kanemoto quickly and swiftly took him down and trapped him in an Ankle Lock. Kanemoto's (running) knee cut offs ruled and the match had a brutal finish of Kanemoto just face punching Sasaki's lights out in a full mount. ****

Kiyoshi Tamura vs Josh Barnett-U-STYLE 23.11.2005.

I really enjoyed the opening portion with them battling for positions and Barnett attempting a few cool leglocks but the match just went into another dimension once Tamura hit Barnett with a big counter knee. Barnett just unloads on Tamura here, hitting some of the most beautiful suplexes I have ever seen that combined a perfect combination of power and technique. The matwork is exactly what you'd want out of a big Tamura match, there isn't anything I find as beautiful in pro wrestling as Tamura's lightning quick seguences on the mat. Tamura's kicks provided a great means of feeding for Barnett's throws, and even something as nonsensical as them saying to hell with it and starting to kick away at each other with guards down managed to fit in, as just seconds later Barnett attempted a high kick which pointed to high fatal playing around in dick measuring contests could be. Finish was about as perfect as it could've been, as Tamura finally managed to counter Barnett's throws and lock in one final Jujigatame to seal the deal. ****1/2

Stan Hansen & Ted DiBiase vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara-AJPW 23.7.1987.

The body of the match lacked the focus for this to reach greatness, but it's definitely good enough to seek out if you dig this type of match. After the initial Tenryu-Hansen face off and big chop battle there isn't much memorable for a while-the action is good, there's some nice hoss potatoing, but it doesn't go further than that. Dibiase feels like a total utility player, just filling the role of Hansen's partner, which makes the finish that much more fitting, as Hansen is isolated and just nuked by Tenryu and Hara, and you see some signs of what would come from Tenryu later in his career when he hits a beautiful running head stomp. Hansen taking advantage off the chaos and managing to Lariat Tenryu who had just run over Dibiase felt like he'd barely escaped defeat, so it's understandable they wanted him to get some heat back, but it looked quite silly to have Tenryu and Hara running away from him just because he had a broom now. Oh well. ***1/4

Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy-AJPW 5.3.1988.

This match wasn't much, mostly because Terry Gordy's performance was god awful, Memphis TV undercard matches had more intensity than he did in this match. The structure was quite dull too, the foreigners pretty much took the entire match, and it just doesn't make for an interesting experience to see someone get cut off over and over and over again, especially knowing more shitty worked punches await. There were some nice moments of violence when Hansen would get it on, and Hara's comeback punches looked great (unlike his headbutts, which looked terrible, backyard level headbutting your own hand), Tenryu's role was kept to a minimum, he had a couple off stare offs with Hansen's and managed to Lariat him in a throat near the end, but he wasn't the focus off the match. Hansen going on one of his signature rampages at the end and destroying everything in sight is enough for me to call this above average but if you're itching for some 80s All Japan tag action there are better choices out there. **3/4

Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs Yoshiaki Yatsu & Shinichi Nakano-AJPW 9.6.1987.

Quite an odd structure here-the match starts with awesome brawling, as Tenryu and Hara just beat the hell out of Nakano, and light Yatsu up goint toe to toe with him, but then that's broken up by a limbwork section that serves no purpose (from a narrative standpoint, you could argue its use in terms of pacing) and then the match turns into a spotfest. Still, the good prevails-Tenryu and Hara make everything they do vicious, Yatsu has some neat moves like the German Suplex and his cut-off Sliding Lariat was fantastic, and Nakano fired up well and made the crowd buy into him, together with Tenryu's selling and timing on the kick-outs late in the match. ***1/4

Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara vs Takashi Ishikawa & Hiroshi Wajima-AJPW 8.6.1987.

Neat neat neat! Exactly what I had hoped for-Tenryu-Wajima is the biggest match-up, and they smartly tease it, and while they do so Ishikawa carries the workload, not only does he bust out awesome chops and knees, he even makes the sloppy middle kicks seemingly everyone in 80s All Japan did look great. Hara is just so on point here too-really bringing the violence, his Headbutts looked vicious here, and his chops and Lariats are just on another level, he's like a whole smashing into something. Wajima is hardly a super worker, but the crowd buys into him and he has solid offence, that's enough to reach greatness when everyone else is so good. Loved how he and Tenryu provoked each other, how they played mind games by tagging out, when they finally got their hands on each other it was exactly as rough as gritty as you'd expect, they were getting into these awesome positions that are really hard to explain, something between sumo and wrestling, just getting into each other's face, it ruled so much. I also loved the sequence where Wajima just dared Tenryu to chop him and after he'd failed to cut him down Tenryu just sweeped his leg. ****

Jun Akiyama vs Takao Omori-AJPW 26.3.2000.

The infamous seven second match! But this being All Japan nothing is ever as simple as it may seem. Omori attacks Akiyama before the bell, which he actually evades, and hits a big knee knocking Omori down! He then goes for the Exploder, Omori evades it, does an awesome ref shove, blindsights Akiyama with an Axe Bomber and THEN the bell rings, and Omori hits a quick back of the head/regular Axe Bomber combo for the win. Hard to slap a rating on it, but it was an efficient and exciting way of getting someone over, and almost certainly the best executed one in such a short match.