NJPW Starrcade 1991 in Tokyo Dome (3.21.91) review 

 

March 21, 1991 

 

We’re in Tokyo, Japan at the Big Egg. This is a joint production between New Japan and WCW. The idea was that the WWF had been trying to get a foothold in Japan and had partnered up with SWS. They had a supershow planned for March 1991. So, here’s the other buddies; WCW and New Japan. They’ve paired up in an attempt to counterbalance this new evil WWF project and to try and fix the NWA title situation. 64,500 people showed up for this, making it one of the biggest shows of the year. Keeping in mind Wrestlemania that year did roughly 15,000. The WWF/SWS show? 36,000. Score another one for the good guys.  

 

We start the show with a solid 10 minutes of interviews. The New Japan talent are all wearing fancy blazers. Tom Zenk out here in joggers and a sweatshirt like a real athlete. Both Steiners are so incoherent. It’s amazing. Rick is so bad that Scott starts breaking behind him. I appreciate Vader rocking up in a suit. Bigelow is best dressed though. Black shirt, black slacks, black blazer, huge cross hanging round his neck. He looks like an evil preacher. Ron Simmons is rocking a brown leather jacket.  

 

“I PAY MY OWN FUCKING AIR FARE. I PAY MY OWN FUCKING HOTEL” – Tiger Jeet Singh, getting hot about his expenditure on this trip. “I FUCKING WILL KILL CHOSHU”.  

 

 

Graphically, no expense is spared here.  

 

Blond Outlaws & Super Strong Machine vs. Animal Hamaguchi, Kantaro Hoshino, Kengo Kimura & Osamu Kido 

Look, I’m sorry lads, but nobody gives a fuck. You’re in this match, but nobody cares. You can see loads of empty seats as it starts because people are still buying merch, taking a piss or grabbing a snack. Nobody cares. Sorry. It’s executed by eight people who are fully aware no one cares. They’ve got their chance to wrestle in the Tokyo Dome, so they’re going to run through some basics and have a nice time. VQ improves dramatically after shaky quality on the interviews. It looks excellent.  

 

The execution in this is way better than most American undercard matches from the same year. It gets a little loose in places, but the tempo is good, considering the unimportance of the match. Things get a little heated towards the end with some nice near falls. Super Strong Machine accidentally lariats his partner, Goto, and Kimura pins for the win. This was fine. It was sloppy in parts, but I appreciate the effort and attempts to get personalities over. ** 

 

Equalizer vs. Scott Norton 

Norton was an arm wrestler but got over as a powerhouse in Japan. Equalizer is Kevin Sullivan’s dipshit brother. His bumps are hilariously bad. So bad that I’m surprised they don’t get more laughs from a Japanese crowd who appreciate a good chuckle. They do get a good laugh out of him falling over attempting a big boot. He looks so uncoordinated. Dave, perhaps predictably, sandbags Scott on the finish, and it looks like shit. -* 

 

If I was booking, either promotion, the name David Sullivan would be unwelcome in the future. I would make it abundantly clear that he was never getting booked again. And if that weird little midget Kevin came and complained about it, I’d stop booking him too. 

 

Arn Anderson & Barry Windham vs. Masa Saito & Masahiro Chono 

Saito is definitely starting to wind down his career at this point, and Chono carries the workrate. Windham looks jetlagged, or hungover, or something. He’s not good here. Chono vs. Arn is very solid though. They put together a tidy finish where Arn ducks and an unsuspecting Saito eats a Windham lariat for the pin. This was ok in places. Another ** affair though. 

 

There is a notable difference in the pacing of these matches compared to North American wrestling at the same time. There is a greater sense of urgency. Speaking of which the intermission is included here as Antonio Inoki is out to talk to the fans. People are jumping and punching the air.  

Inoki effectively retired in 1990. His last match was in September of that year. 1991 would end up being a rare year for Inoki where he never wrestled at all. He’s currently in the Japanese House of Councillors and will be reelected to that post in 1992. However, he will also return to pro-wrestling at the January 1 Dome Show. Inoki would continue in politics until being hit by scandals and returning to wrestling for his “Final Countdown” series of matches between 1994-1998. He then turned New Japan into a weird shootstyle promotion. When that failed and Inoki had to sell up he went on to create the Inoki Genome Federation. A weird mixture of shoot matches and worked shoots. Pure Inokism.  

 

IWGP Tag Team Championship 

Kensuke Sasaki & Hiroshi Hase (c) vs. Steiner Brothers 

Hase is a former junior champion and is set to face Inoki in the 1992 Dome show. It’s fair to say, he’s a pretty big star. Sasaki is still quite young and babyfaced. He doesn’t have the bulk that he’d have when he won his bigger titles. The Steiners show up and treat them like a couple of bitches. To be fair, Scott sells like a maniac for Hase in the early going, but he looks hot about it and Hase thinks better of hitting a dive onto him.  

 

If that’s a slap in the face for the Steiners, then Rick taking a HUGE stiff as hell lariat off Sasaki is when things change. Rick stops cooperating and Hase tags in….into a world of pain. A world of pain, smokey. Scotty pops off Rolling Thunder. I don’t think I’ve seen him hit that before this match. Hase gets a little hope spot clothesline and Rick proceeds to kill him with a release German suplex. Everyone takes sick bumps in this; fair fucking play all round.  

 

Doomsday Bulldog floors Sasaki and Scott finishes with the Frankensteiner. This was very good with great pacing and lots of big bombs. I don’t think it’s aged as well as I thought it would though. ***¾. Keep in mind, I gave this 4.5 back in the day. It’s not THAT good. It’s just good. It made the Steiners in Japan though and they’d frequently return during this WCW run and again after WWF. They’d hold these belts for most of the year too.  

 

Doom vs. Vader & Bam Bam Bigelow 

Seeing as Doom already split up, and the only reason for them tagging here is that it was ‘signed before the breakup’, there’s no prizes for guessing the winning team. However, the running time is less obvious. If it was taking place in WCW, it would probably go about 6 minutes and end in Doom fighting each other. Also, Butch Reed probably wouldn’t tag in. He starts here. Simmons gets a lot more joy and is blatantly the better worker. Bigelow is brilliant in this match. He could easily have been hidden in Vader’s shadow but, if anything, he looks like the star of his team.  

 

Bigelow’s career continually confuses me because when motivated he was a top 5 in the world guy. Yet he never quite got a big push in the USA. The only time he was the top guy in a promotion was in ECW when he won their world title in 1997. He does everything here, including taking the heat segment. Sadly, the heat segment is painfully long. Butch Reed does a phenomenal job of making Vader look like a total JAG in a miserable sequence after the hot tag. Vader hits a big splash for the pin. Boy, did this ever fly like a lead balloon. Take away the cool Bigelow sequences where he cleaned house by himself and this fucking sucked. Doom would never team again. *¾  

 

Greatest 18 Club Championship 

Riki Choshu (c) vs. Tiger Jeet Singh 

This title is the old WWF Martial Arts belt, but Choshu doesn’t have it here. It’s supposed to represent the Hall of Fame and was handed to Choshu during Inoki’s 30th Anniversary celebrations. Tiger Jeet Singh, Tiger Ali Singh’s dad, was an unreal character. He generated incredible heat and scared the shit out of the fans. He would charge into arenas and go after the fans with his sword, sending them for cover. In the ring though….he was rotten. He’s already about 25 years into his career at this point and didn’t do much to start with. Lots of choking and gouging.  

Riki gets a little colour. He gets salty about it, gets Tiger’s sword, beats him with it, and Singh also gets colour. The match has no DQs but it also has no referee. Choshu wins on a knock out after hitting Tiger with a lariat to the back of the head. He refuses to take that victory and tries to break Singh’s arm instead. I got a perverse sense of entertainment out of this, and it was way better than I remember. Choshu bled like a champ. 

 

The version I’m watching is the double tape version. Where they alternate between matches. So, it’s back to the beginning and the other alternating half of the show.  

 

Brian Pillman, Tim Horner & Z-Man vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi, Shiro Koshinaka & Takayuki Iizuka 

This went on second, after the natives eight man tag. We’re still at the “nobody cares” point of the evening. Generic rookie Iizuka is an odd sight. Horner is a ‘solid hand’. In that he can bump and do the odd flip but has almost no personality. Pillman is game here; bumping the jumping hip attack over the top rope. This isn’t one of his better performances though, and he has awkward moments with Iizuka.  

 

The crowd do enjoy Pillman and Zenk’s teaming. There’s a noticable drop in interest as Horner tags in and does rookie moves. He’s just too beige. His moonsault where he lands on his feet and hands is so, so, so shit. You can hear people laughing at him. Iizuka is the guy picked off for heat, and he’s in there for the bulk of the match, which is not what I want to see. He does, however, dropkick Flyin’ Brian in the face. He also gets the pin, hitting a dragon suplex on Horner. What an odd little match. **¼ 

 

IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship 

Jushin Liger (c) vs. AKIRA 

This is already Liger’s third junior belt. He’s about to lose it…although not in this match. He’s sporting a crazy green away kit here. It looks cool. Liger was an amazing worker. If you watch anything he does in this period and compare it against any other worker, especially juniors, and he’s setting a new standard. He’s the start of the hybrid worker, who can do it all. The strikes, the flying, the mat work. He’s the complete package. In the future workers would make a point of drawing inspiration from a mixture of European grappling, Mexican extravagance and the harder hitting aspects of puroresu. Liger was one of the first to take bits from all the disciplines.  

 

AKIRA is fine. He’s a 6/10 wrestler. Liger blows out his ankle on a house show dive, and I’m not sure if he’s really hurt but seeing as AKIRA targets it, I assume not. Liger’s selling of injuries was so top tier, I was frequently convinced he was really injured. The trouble with this one is that he missed a month after this match with an injury and had to drop the belt. Is it the ankle? Was it all a work? Who knows. I’m very aware it’s his right ankle and that he checks it even after AKIRA has stopped going after it.  

 

He also sells it as part of the match though. Dropping sideways when he has AKIRA set up for a Tombstone. Maybe the whole thing was a work? After AKIRA kicks out of the Ligerbomb, Liger goes to extremes and KILLS HIS ASS with a DDT off the ropes. FUCKKKKK YOOOUUUUUU.  

The referee helpfully checks to see if AKIRA’s head is still attached. ***½. A very good match with Liger slaying his role as the underdog champion who has so much wacky shit in his locker that even if his killshots don’t work, he has bigger ones. Great selling (maybe) too.  

 

El Gigante vs. Big Cat Hughes 

“Mr” “Curtis” Hughes is merely dubbed “Big Cat Hughes” here. He’s been going by “Big Cat” in WCW. El Gigante’s very appearance, the ENORMOUS MOTHERFUCKER, draws gasps from the crowd.  

LOOK AT HIM! 7’7” ladies and gents. A legtimate size freak. The match is a total freak show. Gigante can’t sell, so he just doesn’t bother, and the crowd just laugh. Considering he was a professional basketball player, he’s totally inflexible and his jumping “kick” here is laughable. He finishes with the Claw. If you’re looking for a rating here, don’t bother. I don’t even think this qualifies as a match. Crowd enjoyed the freak show attraction of El Gigante though. HE’S SO TALL!  

 

Great Muta vs. Sting 

Considering how ‘linked’ Sting and Muta are due to their WCW matches and this match, they never really had a banger. Muta jobbed to Sting in the USA so now it’s time for WCW’s (maybe) ace to return the favour. Sting is borderline clumsy here. His selling is all over the place. He can’t keep up with Muta’s pacing. He does launch himself into a dive with reckless abandon though. He is “up for it”.  

They do a monkey flip in this where Muta doesn’t flip it at all. He just launches up and comes back down on his face. What on earth were they going for? In my previous review I’ve stated that “it feels like neither man leads the match” and I get what I’m saying there. Both guys feel like the sizzle rather than the steak. This does lead to some interesting work though. Both guys do familiarity selling, where they dodge each other’s attacks based on previous experience of them. Muta side stepping the Stinger Splash. Sting getting his knees up on the moonsault.  

 

The duelling sequences and struggle to overcome or find a new way past someone was ahead of its time. The crowd don’t seem interested though and don’t buy into the clever work. Instead wanting BIG BOMBS and exciting near falls, which the match doesn’t deliver. Great finish here with Sting going after another Stinger Splash and EATING GREEN MIST in mid air. Crossbody finishes as Sting cannot see to kick out. This was sloppy at the start, but I’ll be damned if it’s not an entertaining match. Years ahead of its time. ***¼ 

 

NWA Championship 

IWGP Championship 

Ric Flair (c) vs. Tatsumi Fujinami (c) 

Both titles are on the line but not the WCW title. Will this get more confusing? Oh, you betcha.  

Fujinami seems determined to hurry things up here and Flair doesn’t want to. Which leads to a frustrating, off kilter match up. They don’t seem to want to have the same match. Flair’s performance is one of the most sluggish on the entire card. Proving that New Japan’s propensity to have long boring main events after solidly entertaining undercards is not a new thing.  

 

Fujinami seems frustrated that Flair doesn’t want to have a fight and Flair can’t get his bump, powder, hold style of match over at all. It really feels like the beginning of the end for Ric Flair as a top level star. That might seem a bit dramatic, but WCW were of a similar opinion and wanted the belt off him. It would lead to internal scraps and eventually Flair jumping to the WWF without dropping the strap.  

 

There’s only one segment that really works. And that’s where Fujinami starts accepting he’s in a Ric Flair match and he has to just run through power moves. But when they finally get there. Finally start to connect, Flair drops the ball again with grinding rest holds. The crowd is DEAD btw. To try and pick things up, Flair blades, which is an odd decision. It really didn’t feel like he needed to do that. Merely…try harder? Having cut his forehead open, Flair starts to do comedy. Face bumps. Begging off. What are you doing, Ric?  

 

Flair is even out of position on spots. His punches suck. If he didn’t land the chops, it would be a total disaster. Speaking of total disasters; the finish on this piece of shit is just woeful. Fonzie gets bumped, in a spot I can just about work with. But then Fujinami gets multiple visual pins. Two clear pins where the crowd count to three. Flair is backdropped out of the ring in front of Fonzie. A blatant Dusty Finish spot. Fujinami then rolls Flair up again, and Tiger Hattori, who’s seen enough, jumps in to count the pin. Apparently, the original plan was to declare Flair the winner on DQ and not have Fujinami win. Instead, they just said “fuck it” and let him celebrate.  

 

I hate this match. It’s long, disjointed and simply doesn’t work. They were not on the same page at all here, and it shows. The crowd barely reacted to most of the match because it just wasn’t clicking at all. Flair is incapable of changing so Fujinami had to try and work Flair’s match but that’s not what was getting the early reactions. Flair is just too stubborn to realise he’d fucked this up. *½  

 

The NWA title would be defended against the WCW title at the next PPV, so I’ll go into more detail as to what exactly is happening with the belts but for now; they’re split. Fujinami is the NWA champion. Flair is the WCW champion.  

 

The 411: 

It’s a pretty good show with a wild combination of random tags, oddball freakshow matches and actual good bouts. The Steiners-Hase/Sasaki match is a standout, but Liger-AKIRA is also very good, as is the Sting-Muta match. For 1991, even with the stinko main event, it is a good show. It’ll probably get in my top three for the year.