When we last left New Japan, the ‘80s ended and Big Van Vader began his second reign as IWGP Heavyweight Champion. This era would be marked for its transition from the three way Vader, Riki Choshu, and Tatsumi Fujinami feud over the title to a younger generation on top. Vader dominated for a year, beating mostly Americans but also putting down Shinya Hashimoto. In one defense against Stan Hansen, Vader’s eyeball was knocked from its socket, but he continued working until the match was called a no contest. In an inconsistent but I think wise move, Vader was not stripped of the title. He later defeated Hansen.
August 10, 1990 – Tokyo, Japan
Riki Choshu def. Big Van Vader {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Summer Night Fever II. Every time Choshu punches Vader’s face he holds his eye and I cringe. Vader lost the mask because he couldn’t handle the injury, and from there the writing was basically on the wall. He dominated a lot, but once Choshu got him to a knee once the champ lost his confidence. From there Choshu picked him apart and eventually hit 1,000 or so lariats to win the title at 11:51. ***¾
December 26, 1990 – Hamamatsu, Shizuoka
Tatsumi Fujinami def. Riki Choshu {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From King of Kings. It was cool to see this rivalry renewed, and they definitely turned it up a notch here. Choshu brought the suplexes and Fujinami brought the dropkicks and enziguiris. The crowd ate it all up. Fujinami reclaimed the title at 11:18 with a roll up. Unfortunately for Fujinami his title reign was in immediate jeopardy as the monster Vader was hungry for another title shot. ***½
January 17, 1991 – Yokohama, Kanagawa
Big Van Vader def. Tatsumi Fujinami {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From New Year Dash. I love that title matches were under fifteen minutes in this era. It’s the perfect amount of time for the talent at the top here. Vader has graduated to an early version of what would become his iconic headwear. It seems that it’s original intention was to protect his face from another eye injury, because the crowd reacts in disbelief when he takes it off. It wasn’t hiding much of his face, so I don’t imagine they were gasping at seeing that. Vader was rocking Fujinami here, so the champ tried taking a play from Choshu’s book and targeted the eye. He made the eye bleed, but then made the mistake of trying the Octopus Stretch. Vader was too big and was able to fight back (and kick the doctor who came in to check on his eye out of his boots) and win the title with a lariat in short order at 12:57. Fantastic stuff. ***¾
March 4, 1991 – Hiroshima, Hiroshima
Tatsumi Fujinami def. Big Van Vader {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the Big Fight Series. I was only able to find a 3:39 clip of this 13:14 match, but it looked to be a little less intense than their match in January anyway. Vader was back to his full mask. Fujinami came off the top rope with a crossbody, Vader caught him and went for a slam, but Fujinami countered to a roll up for the win. Fujinami’s ring crew, consisting of Masa Chono, Keiji Mutoh, Jushin Liger, and Hiroshi Hase, all ran into the ring to celebrate with him. Vader stormed up aggressively, but then raised Fujinami’s hand. Vader never won the title again, so that’s a great moment to close out his final run. **¼
January 4, 1992 – Tokyo, Japan
Riki Choshu def. Tatsumi Fujinami {IWGP Heavyweight Championship vs. Greatest 18 Championship Match}
From Super Warriors in the Tokyo Dome. Fujinami had won and lost the NWA title to Ric Flair (according to Japanese wrestling history) during his IWGP reign. This was the final title change to occur between members of this generation, and it happened on the first 1/4 Tokyo Dome show ever. Choshu’s Greatest 18 title was a short lived championship that honored the Greatest 18 Club, a hall of fame for a group of mostly American wrestlers like Lou Thesz, Hulk Hogan, Bob Backlund, Hansen, and Muhammad Ali. Basically guys Antonio Inoki liked (he was also one of the Greatest 18). It was basically a vanity belt for Choshu while Fujinami was IWGP Champ. This match was fine, but didn’t have the excitement of either guy’s matches with Vader or against each other. It was much more on par with the Fujinami vs. Flair matches, but thankfully shorter. Choshu won in 12:11 with a lariat. As the main event for what would become the biggest show of the year in Japan, this has to be considered something of a disappointment. **¾
August 16, 1992 – Fukuoka Fukuoka
The Great Muta def. Riki Choshu {IWGP Heavyweight Championship & Greatest 18 Championship Match}
From the G1 Climax tour, thankfully a few days after the Chono vs. Rick Rude match because this was not going to be able to follow that. This was a big deal because it was a generational transition. Muta was ten years younger than Choshu, Fujiwara, and Vader (still is, technically). This was not good. Muta’s offense was mist, lazy kicks, and walking around ringside. Choshu was covered in green and blood by the end, but an interesting match that does not make. Muta hit two moonsaults at 11:26 for the win. I hope I’m wrong, but this does not seem to bode well for this Three Musketeers (Muta, Chono, Hashimoto) era. *¾
September 20, 1993 – Nagoya, Aichi
Shinya Hashimoto def. The Great Muta {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the G1 Climax tour. During his year-long reign, Muta also defeated Chono for the NWA Championship, but then lost it in an atrocious match to Barry Windham. This took a good long while to get going. Once a chair got involved (it’s weird to see non-folding chairs used in wrestling) the match got more exciting. Hashimoto caught Muta with a giant DDT for the win at 20:30. This would have been a lot better if it were the same length as the title changes that preceded it. ***
April 4, 1994 – Hiroshima, Hiroshima
Tatsumi Fujinami def. Shinya Hashimoto {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Battle Line Kyushu, Night 2: Grand Cross In Hiroshima. This felt like the classic trope of taking the belt off of the popular champion so he can win it back at the big show a few weeks later for a big pop. Like Flair vs. Ronnie Garvin at Starrcade. I guess this match was interesting theoretically. Hashimoto would get Fujinami on the mat with an armbar and keep him there for a while, then control while standing with kicks. Fujinami was totally outclassed at every turn, but refused to stay down. That frustrated Hashimoto, who got caught in a pin off of the Octopus at 14:53, but the pin took place under the bottom rope in full view of the referee. That was pretty annoying, and while technically the match made sense, it was a real drag to watch. **½
May 1, 1994 – Fukuoka, Fukuoka
Shinya Hashimoto def. Tatsumi Fujinami {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Wrestling Dontaku In Fukuoka Dome. Seems appropriate that Hashimoto would get an immediate rematch. Based on the last match, this should have been a squash. Given that they only went six minutes, having Fujinami control half of it on the mat seemed pointless. Hashimoto made his big kicks comeback and then hit the DDT for the win at 6:04. Kind of a nothing match, though it at least had the finish their first match should have. **¼
May 3, 1995 – Fukuoka, Fukuoka
Keiji Mutoh def. Shinya Hashimoto {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Wrestling Dontaku again, one year later. I officially don’t like this Three Musketeers generation as much as I liked the previous one. There’s so much slow, boring mat work in the beginning that doesn’t go anywhere. Even Mutoh’s Bob Vila look wasn’t enough to hook me. How do you like that reference in 2020? That fact that Mutoh won the title here the exact same way that he beat Choshu for it didn’t do much to inspire me either. You’d think a new persona would mean a new tactic. You’d think wrong. He hit two moonsaults for the win at 21:13. **½
January 4, 1996 – Tokyo, Japan
Nobuhiko Takada def. Keiji Mutoh {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Wrestling World. I find it hilarious that New Japan couldn’t settle on a final name for this 1/4 Tokyo Dome series for fifteen years. Though they did call it Wrestling World for nine of the next ten years. New Japan was helping out UWFi with a cross promotional program that reached its apex with this match. NJ had mostly dominated, and Mutoh had won the first meeting between these two on a big interpromotional show that was UWFi win only three matches out of eight. But Takada got a rematch here because the shoot style boys needed something to hang their hat on. There was all kinds of weird drama in this feud, like Lou Thesz (who worked as a trainer at UWFi) basically stealing the title belt from the company when they decided to work with the “gimmicky” New Japan. I get that wrestling is different things to different people, but when you know it’s all a work and you want to make money, I don’t get the point of being a big baby. As for the match, the first ten minutes were a snooze on the mat as per usual, but then they got the crowd engaged with some stiff work on their feet and on their backs. Takada got a cross armbreaker for the win at 17:54. Shiro Koshinaka, Hashimoto, and Kensuke Sasaki all challenged Takada after the match. ***¼
April 29, 1996 – Tokyo, Japan
Shinya Hashimoto def. Nobuhiko Takada {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Battle Formation in Tokyo Dome, another huge show. Takada made one successful defense of the title against Koshinaka in UWFi before dropping the belt here. This followed a similar structure to the match before, though the dull mat wrestling early on took up less time (by necessity, as this was a shorter match) and the second half of the match was far more intense. Takada lost the crowd when he tried to reapply an armbar after Hashimoto had gotten to the ropes. The DDT couldn’t put Takada away, so he hit a gnarly brainbuster and put on a triangle choke for the win at 12:53. Hashimoto held the title for over a year, and was champion when they transitioned from the circle-plated first belt to the crown-style second belt in 1997. ***½
Kensuke Sasaki won the G1 Climax and then challenged Hashimoto for the title at Final Power Hall in Yokohama in late August. For the life of me I can’t find this match anywhere.
April 4, 1998 – Tokyo, Japan
Tatsumi Fujinami def. Kensuke Sasaki {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From the Final Inoki Tournament. You know the story by now. It’s ten minutes of stuff on the mat that leads to nothing followed by some swift and stiff action leading to a surprising finish. In this case it’s Fujinami hitting a German suplex for the win out of nowhere at 21:18. I cannot wait for this era to be over. It’s not even that the matches are bad, it’s just that they’re all the same. I’m ready to see the bottomless pit of mistakes that is the shootstyle era of New Japan main events. ***
August 8, 1998 – Osaka, Osaka
Masahiro Chono def. Tatsumi Fujinami {IWGP Heavyweight Championship Match}
From Rising the Next Generations in Osaka Dome. We finally reach this major changing of the guard, as Fujinami loses his sixth and final IWGP Championship, a feat that wouldn’t be bested for 16 years (though Sasaki came kind of close). Chono’s music sounds kind of like the Final Fantasy 7 boss battle music. There really wasn’t anything to get behind here. It was a ton of mat stuff that I guess technically led to the finish because Chono’s STF targets the leg and neck, which he did attack earlier in the match. But it was a colossal bore. That STF got him the win at 19:53. **½
There’s a reason you hear a ton of praise for Japanese heavyweight-style main event wrestling from the ‘90s… and it’s because it was awesome in All Japan. Here in New Japan the main events were a total drag for most of the decade. If you’re looking for good stuff from this timeframe out of New Japan, check out the junior division. The IWGP Championship stuff is a total pass. When we return, things go from boring to outright bad for Antonio Inoki’s crew.
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai 
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
