February 17th, 1994:
Shinya Hashimoto vs. Genichiro Tenryu
-OR-
Full Tank of Gas, Half Pack of Cigarettes, It's Dark and We're Wearing Hachimakis.
Understanding the King of Destruction through early SNL. Also: What do Shinya Hashimoto and Fugazi have in common? They both slap.
WHO?: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Genichiro Tenryu
WHEN?: NJPW Fighting Spirit '94, 2/17/1994
WHERE?: Ryogoku Sumo Hall, Tokyo
SHOULD I WATCH IT TOO?: Meltzer gave it four stars. It's one of my favorite matches ever.
The Three Musketeers of New Japan Pro Wrestling have been a partial blind spot for me. I knew Chono from his time in WCW and a biker-adjacent aesthetic that’s difficult to forget. Keiji Mutoh is the most accessible - his influence is everywhere today, he still gets in the ring from time to time and his alter-ego’s bladework is the foundation of the Muta Scale we reference to this day. The two were also opponents in the first G1 Climax Final in 1991, a classic match by any measure.
I’m not alone in creating rock music analogs for Hashimoto. In multiple episodes of WH Park’s Cruel Summer podcast series for POST Wrestling, he says late-era Elvis Presley ("Karate Elvis") was pretty much Hashimoto’s gimmick, citing the sideburns, headband, bellbottoms and gut. I can see that and I can appreciate it, but I think he’s a little off the mark. It seems obvious to me that Shinya Hashimoto is John Belushi.
It runs deeper than the obvious similarities in appearance. Belushi had a recurring character on Saturday Night Live named Samurai Futaba. In each sketch, a katana-wielding Belushi in full samurai garb takes on a different profession (bellhop, optometrist, baker, etc.) opposite Buck Henry as his patron. He screams, destroys property with a sword, threatens seppuku, and in the end does each job with competence and precision. This is Hashimoto. In the grand Japanese wrestling tradition of two people hitting each other as hard as they can, he is a titan. His reputation for delivering kicks to foreigners so stiff they'd scurry back home earned him the moniker of The King of Destruction. Around the ten minute mark of this match, he serves up a mid-kick with all the grace and swiftness of Bluto Blutarsky breaking a beer bottle over his own head; the sound it produces makes a crowd of 11,500 in Sumo Hall gasp. He looks like he just swung by to fix your garbage disposal - he is the King of fucking Destruction.
Genichiro Tenryu’s most famous match might be a June 5th, 1989 AJPW Triple Crown match against Jumbo Tsuruta. Meltzer gave it five stars, and it’s deserved. It’s an epic that some credit with setting the tone for the Misawa-era main event style to come. My main takeaway though, is the way Tenryu and Tsuruta are slapping the shit out of each other even on the most inconsequential transition strikes. You know that double axehandle to a guy’s back as he stands up that you hardly even notice? Half the time the recipient doesn’t even bother to sell it. In that match Tenryu lays a few in so hard I almost called the cops thirty years later. Naturally, when I found out about his series of matches with Hashimoto I came running - to top off the myriad of titles held over his career, perhaps Tenryu was also my Smallpox Champion.
By this point, five years later, Tenryu has transitioned from hungry-underdog-in-wait to the grumpy old man he’d come to be recognized as. When he performs his signature slap rush he seems more annoyed than inspired. The two wail on each other for fifteen minutes at a pace that belies their waistlines. The only reprieve is actually my favorite spot in the match: referee Tiger Hattori pulls Tenryu off of Hashimoto in the corner, only for Shinya to get up and throw a belligerent leaping kick over the official, essentially throwing his body at Tenryu like a weapon. Actually, that's how I’d describe most of the offense here, like Tenryu’s signature enziguri that somehow benefits from his diminishing ability to get off the ground and land it. On the rare occasion they do implement a more traditional wrestling hold, it’s delivered haphazardly at best; an approximation of the physical manifestation of telling someone to get the fuck off of you.
In a 1977 SNL sketch, Belushi stars as a decathlon gold medalist in a parody of the old Wheaties commercials. Marv Albert does the voiceover while Belushi completes the high jump (a very funny edit) and breaks a world record on the track. The punchline is that he’s promoting Little Chocolate Donuts. “Little Chocolate Donuts have been on my training table since I was a kid,” he says to the camera before grabbing one and taking a bite with the same hand he’s holding a cigarette in. This is also Hashimoto. Belushi’s issues with substance abuse are well documented. In a 2009 shoot interview with Sean Oliver, Big Van Vader himself says he had a hard time respecting Hashimoto because of how much he would smoke and drink. To put this in perspective, this is the same Vader who had to be babysat by Harley Race and once got rung up for public intoxication after threatening to fight the K-9 unit dogs. As a former smoker and newly disciplined drinker, this strikes a chord with me far more resonant than prayers, vitamins and 27-inch pythons ever did. Do we not live vicariously through our heroes? This is starting to sound bad, I should explain:
There’s a band I love very much called the Drive By Truckers that I go and see whenever they’re in town. From time to time, mid-set, they’ll pass a bottle of whiskey or tequila around the stage, taking swigs to loud applause - I often take part in this applause almost involuntarily. I can’t help it. In 2014 the Replacements (or half of them at least) reunited for a run of well received shows, their first in twenty three years. The Replacements mean the world to me and existed mostly before my time. I went to the date in Forest Hills, NY and was surprised at the composure I kept while they faithfully recreated some of my favorite tunes of all time as if they’d never stopped. Then, it happens: Tommy Stinson introduces a song and turns around to find the band not kicking in, but rather all lighting cigarettes, and I feel a hot tear run down my cheek.
I know as a full grown adult that this is stupid; I know it in the same objective part of my brain that understands that two dudes flopping around simulating a bar fight with spin kicks isn’t some sort of high art no matter how many words I type about it. In either case we reach the same conclusion: regardless of age, experience, or any degree of posturing, at my core I’m still a slack-jawed idiot, and I can’t help what I love. And I love this match. I love that the finish comes when Hashimoto finally decides to duck out of the way of a Tenryu slap, freeing himself up for a clean overhead belly-to-belly followed by a jumping DDT he barely stumbles into. I get it now. History rears up to spit in your face.
Unfortunately, you can’t really live that way forever. The other parallel between Belushi and Hashimoto is how much of their work we missed out on. They both died young, Belushi at 33 and Shinya at 40. Of course, there’s no real positive to a life ended early, but that sort of figure passes away there is the small silver lining of frozen legacy. They’re forever crystallized as the memory of what they were in their respective primes, and they were fantastic. Neither had the opportunity to age into a Jim Belushi for example, growing a goatee and hanging around as long as humanly possible. You know, like Mutoh.
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WH Park’s Cruel Summer is a fantastic pod that covers each G1 Final match. It’s a partial inspiration for this blog. The episodes I’m referencing are #5: Hashimoto v. Mutoh w/ Martin Bushby and #8: Hashimoto v. Yamazaki w/ Dylan Fox.
Maybe my favorite Samurai Futaba sketch, Samurai Optometrist: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4umkge
Little Chocolate Donuts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxCUHjx7U7Y
"Smallpox Champion" by Fugazi, still a banger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C75Aw9-BsTc
The first Hashimoto v. Tenryu match, in Tenryu’s WAR promotion. Good match, too many crappy looking enziguris for my taste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taL0No0rJ90&t=989s
6/5/89 Tenryu v. Jumbo Tsuruta (c) (WON: *****): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfJyL-dJf_M
If you’ve somehow found this, please feel free to comment and let me know what you think of the match, the blog and any suggestions/requests for matches in future entries.
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