NJPW Battle Formation '96 4/29/1996 Tokyo Dome

NJPW Battle Formation '96 4/29/1996 Tokyo Dome

This is part 1. Part 2 is here: http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/njpw-battle-formation-96-4291996-tokyo_30.html

This is the 3rd and final installment of the UWFi vs NJPW series and this one is more NJPW vs The World. Tons of stars from WCW, Michinoku Pro, WAR, UWFi and other promotions came to battle in front of a huge crowd.

Tokimitsu Ishizawa and Yuji Nagata vs Koji Kanemoto and Shinjiro Ohtani
Ishizawa would become the masked Kendo Ka Shin and get a win over one of the Gracie's in PRIDE. Nagata would become a multi-time IWGP champion and get his butt handed to him by Mirko Cro Cop and Fedor Emelianenko. Koji Kanemoto would become a legend in the junior's division and Ohtani would move up to heavyweight and start Zero-One after having a great career as a junior.



The finish

Yuji Nagata beat Koji Kanemoto with a top rope belly to belly suplex. Decent opening match here. They had some good parts but also had some flubs here and there. They did show some nice flashes of good stuff though, but maybe that's for another day. Rating:**

Macho Man Randy Savage vs Hiroyoshi Tenzan

Macho Man Randy Savage beat Hiroyoshi Tenzan with 3 top rope elbows and a schoolboy. Good match here. Lots of Macho flying around and some hate with Savage and Tenzan. This was just alot of fun and between the two of them, I think they wore every color in the rainbow between the two of them. Rating:***

"Tenzan's tough but so is the Macho Man. Ichiban! #1." - Macho Man Randy Savage

Lex Luger vs Masahiro Chono

The finish

Masahiro Chono beat Lex Luger with an STF. Not a good one here. Never really liked Chono until his later years and not a big Luger fan. This was long and uninteresting. Rating:*

After the match, Luger was upset and Eric Bischoff had to keep him under control.

NJPW vs WAR - Tatsumi Fujinami vs Genichiro Tenryu
Genichiro Tenryu is a former sumo who was the head of WAR and it's ace. His nickname is Mr. Puroresu and in later years, he developed a suplex called the "53 years old" due to his age. He's one of the biggest names of japanese wrestling and is still going today.

Tatsumi Fujinami gets busted open after a tope

Genichiro Tenryu beat Tatsumi Fujinami with two lariats pretty much out of nowhere to take the match. Good match but not as good as I had remembered it. I think Fujinami bleeding upset their plans and they felt they had to go home sooner than planned. Fujinami bleeding was awesome though and his really fiery opening to the match was alot of fun. Tenryu was good here but Fujinami needed to recover during most of the match due to his broken nose. Rating:***1/4

The Great Muta vs Jinsei Shinzaki
A fun fact about this match is that Muta later played an evil black version of Hakushi's character calling himself, "Kokushi Muso". Shinzaki was at his highest notoriety here just coming off of his WWF stint.

I asked what the meaning of all the tattoo's were before and supposedly they are pieces of really complicated buddhist writings that japanese people can't even understand.

Muta breaks Jinsei's board

Muta paints Jinsei's board with Jinsei's blood!

The Great Muta beat Jinsei Shinzaki with a moonsault. This was good but went way way way too long. There could have been about 10 minutes taken off of this and it would have been so much better. Shinzaki sold for about 5 minutes straight and just laid there. Muta walked around during this and I hit the FF button.  Then Shinzaki just kept selling, seemingly not leaving the floor for an hour. There were many cool moves in this but had they been packed closer together this would have gotten a better rating. Rating:****

This concludes part 1. Part 2 with the Steiners vs the LOD in a 6-man and Hashimoto vs Takada is here: http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/njpw-battle-formation-96-4291996-tokyo_30.html