|
|
SUPER GRADE TAG LEAGUE VII
Koshikileaguesen (championship league match) Genichiru Tenryu & Shiro Koshinaka vs. Kensuke Sasaki & Kazuo Yamazaki |
|
|
The typical NJ sprint with good, solid work although not a lot of hot moves. The thing that makes the Tenryu & Koshinaka team so good is that between the two of them, they can do all the styles you'd see in NJ heavyweight matches and at least the one whose style the match is predominantly being worked in will show up motivated. Koshinaka doesn't have much of a move set, but he has the ability and the fire to move you even if his hot sequences mainly have a lot of hip attacks. He is getting older, but since he was finally healthy again in 1998, we saw a lot of glimpses of why he may be the most underrated wrestler of the decade. The guy could still carry a broom to a good match if he was up for the task. Tenryu, on the other hand, can really only do stiff matches, but this is one aspect where I wouldn't say Shiro excels in, so that's why they work so well as a team. This was Tenryu's match, which made since because Yamazaki has to work stiff and Sasaki may as well because his offense is pathetic otherwise. Tenryu was taking all kinds of punishment here to mask the limitations old age has inflicted on him. You can see how old and slow Tenryu is once in a while, for instance when he does a running or jumping move. In this case, he did an enzuigiri that looked particularly pathetic, but most of the match he looked very good because he was playing a role he's capable not only of playing, but excelling in. Since they beat the hell out of him, Sasaki's lariats for instance didn't seem as boring. That this was the best match on the tape even though Koshinaka didn't play much of a role, for that matter even the finishing sequence he worked was short, definitely says something for Tenryu's willingness to do what it takes to have a good match. The finish saw Sasaki counter Koshinaka's hip attack with an enzui lariat and then use his better half's finisher, the northern lights bomb, for the win. 13:38 (8:57 shown)
|
|
