Independent World World Heavyweight Title & World Brass Knuckles Title Double Title Match:
From FMW Over The Legend Kawasaki Commercial Tape
These two have always delivered when they wrestled each other, but they turned it up a notch here. This had great spots and big bumps, as the match was a strong combination of ring work and gimmick spots. The main problem with the match was that the selling was rather weak, but that was expected given the league. There were also a number of spots that weren't executed to perfection.
Every time these two wrestle, Gladiator kicks Tanaka's ass. This works toward making the match quality because Tanaka is such a great bump boy that he makes Gladiator, who isn't that good, look Awesome. The story of this match was that Tanaka was finally able to take all Gladiator had and comeback for the dramatic win ala Atsushi Onita. The problem was that there wasn't a thunderous pre-retirement Onita-like ovation when Tanaka got this big win, or anything even marginally resembling one.
After Gladiator taunted Tanaka, they opened
with a stiff exchange of chops and it stayed hard hitting throughout. Neither
man was going to back down, but they would get crossed up only 40 seconds into
the match. Tanaka got the early advantage, highlighted by a Misawa-esque elbow
suicida. Gladiator came back with a slingshot shoulder attack, and soon hit
his impressive version of the plancha where he dives over the top rope to the
floor.
Tanaka made his comeback at 5:00, including his swinging DDT and a nadare shiki no brainbuster. Gladiator ducked Tanaka's second running elbow and dropped him on his head with a released German suplex. However, Tanaka summoned all of his energy and put Gladiator down with a lariat. Both sold this, though not nearly as long as the AJ greats they lifted the spot from would have.
The gimmicks kicked in as Gladiator springboarded off a chair like our good friend Sabu and clocked Tanaka in the head with a chair. Tanaka basically no-sold this and the subsequent chair shot, which was questionable judgement at best, and tried to come back with an elbow. However, Gladiator released German suplexed him. Gladiator draped Tanaka on the top and German suplexed him for a near fall. Tanaka was forced to sell this spot forever because Gladiator went to the floor and set two tables up. Gladiator Ligerbombed Tanaka off the apron through two adjacent tables. After both sold, Gladiator dragged Tanaka back into the ring and broke a piece of one of the broken tables over Tanaka's head then Ligerbombed him for a near fall.
Gladiator set another table up outside the ring at 12:00 and tried to powerbomb his favorite bump boy over the top rope through the table. Tanaka slipped out though and gave Gladiator a dose of his own medicine by thunder fire powerbombing him over the top rope through the table!
Back in the ring, Tanaka got two hot near falls with his thunder fire powerbomb, but neither looked good because they didn't have any impact (so actually they were more reminiscent of Onita than they were supposed to be). Tanaka used some elbows that Gladiator didn't really sell, but the sequence culminated with Tanaka KO'ing Gladiator with his roaring elbow for the win. Tanaka became the 12th World Brass Knuckles champ & 3rd Independent World World champ.
This match has been overrated a little bit, but I can see why because you have to put things in perspective. Certainly it was from perfect, and even the finish was weak due to the powerbombs and bad selling. However, outside of All Japan, this may have been the best Japanese heavyweight match of 1997. I guess that says more about how bad New Japan heavyweights were in 1997, despite all those "**** calibre" matches Chono always delivers. 15:18. ****
"To compare Gladiator/Tanaka from Kawasaki and Gladiator/Tanaka from ECW is like comparing a thoroughbred to a pony. The two levels reached are very different. The main reason for this is indeed simple; ECW. ECW is a cesspool of contamination. The no-selling of what once could've been Jun's rival is absolutely miserable. They no sell chairshots like they were mosquito bites. Why? Because it sells to a bunch of uneducated drunks? One word: Pathetic. It's a bad business decision by the FMW boys to associate themselves with a person as crooked and shady as Heyman. There is permanently no hope for Tanaka now. Due to ECW, he has become complete shit," wrote Hadi.