Riki Choshu vs Tatsutoshi Goto - NJPW New Spring Gold Series 1990 Day 7 18/01/1990
A small basic match where the heel gets a short turn on top with Goto attacking Choshu whilst he back is turned, throwing Choshu into the guard rail and posts hard. And then the face mounting a quick comeback. Goto goes all dirty and slams Choshu’s head into an exposed turnbuckle, which is already fairly injured judging from the plaster and splits him open. Choshu mounted a quick comeback shortly after and returned the favour which was fun. Then the match turns into an angle with Choshu attacking Hiro Saito and then Super Strong Machine attacks Choshu and the Blond Outlaws. Then Animal Hamaguchi shows up (I admittedly didn’t recognise him without his baby blue singlet.) and attacks Choshu. So the match is thrown out. Choshu is the brunt on everyone’s attacks. New Japan not gotten out of the 80s I see. The match didn’t last long enough to turn into anything good. **1/4
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title #1 Contendership Tournament Match: Black Tiger vs. Owen Hart - NJPW New Spring Gold Series 1990 Day 13 25/01/1990
In case you were wondering, no, this isn’t Eddie Guerrero. This is Rollerboy Rocco under the mask. He’ll shortly retire in about a years time. Black Tiger was perfectly fine as the more heelish of the two, was the more aggressive one of the match, more willing to use cheap tactics in order to gain the advantage. Owen Hart was solid as the underdog athletic wrestler but he seemed rather dry with no much emotion or energy to him. None that I nor the crowd picked up on. His kip-up out of the headscissors locked on by Black Tiger was nice at the start and pull off a nice moonsault to get out of a wrist lock to polite applause but lacked that extra oomph imo. The match dragged on for the middle part, mostly being stuck to a chin lock but the match picked up when they started hitting some big offence before Hart put Black Tiger away with a back suplex. Basic but boring match **
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title #1 Contendership Tournament Match: Akira Nogami vs. Jushin Thunder Liger - NJPW New Spring Gold Series 1990 Day 13 25/01/1990
A rather pedestrian match with very few holds, which don’t interest me at all. The match is basically Liger attacks Nogami, Nogami gets a single leg boston crab on for ages, Liger comeback. Nothing to the match. Liger didn’t even try selling the leg. *1/2
Big Van Vader vs. Masahiro Chono - NJPW New Spring Gold Series 1990 Day 13 25/01/1990
A slow match at first but once it got into second gear and Chono got on offence more and more, this got better. ***
IWGP Junior Heavyweight Title Match: Naoki Sano (c) vs. Jushin Thunder Liger - NJPW New Spring Gold Series 1990 Day 17 31/01/1990
This was very heated. Liger opened up the match with a big slap followed by a flurry of strikes. Sano responded by ripping Liger’s mask. Liger bled heavily and Sano going for the cut on his exposed face was awesome. The crowd rallied behind Liger no problem, which made the parts when Liger was selling and struggle to get to his feet even better. Sano was brutal on top, totally zoning in on the head on Liger, laying in kicks, stomps and knees. When Liger shined signs of a comeback, the crowd came alive for him. The crowd even let out an audible gasp for his beautiful somersault plancha. Most of Liger’s offence was him doing something crazy but Sano showed he was just as athletic many times in the match. His high flying offence arguably had better form to it. His moonsault where he landed on his feet, for example. Loved the spot where Sano saw the rolling heel kick by Liger coming and hit the deck, avoiding the move. Liger really excelled as a guy who got his asskicked coming back. A bloody Liger suit is a great visual. ****1/2
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