Joseph and Colette Discuss Antonio Inoki vs. Big Van Vader

Vader should have stayed in Japan, man.

BIG EGG’s stay in the Big Egg kicked off this week with the final encounter between Antonio Inoki and Big Van Vader, whose rivalry is a touchstone of late-80s NJPW and the subject of much legend and fascination. Even without all of that, this match is an absolute banger. Seek it out on NJPW World if, like me, you keep forgetting to cancel your account. Or you can, uh, find it elsewhere.

Plenty of new stuff from Joseph and I elsewhere this week. Joseph has a new video up where he reviews every single one of CM Punk’s 2023 matches! His commission slate is, at this moment, still open! He’s on Twitch! Me? Well, I just put out a new issue of my zine, You Have to Deal With Me Breathing. It’s a wrestling/poetry hybrid project, it’s very fun, it has a sick cover, it costs $5. I also put a bunch of old zines back in print and made some stickers. With the shilling out of the way, let’s get to the violence.

Up Next: In the war between UWF-i and NJPW, Nobuhiko Takada has captured the prize goose: the IWGP Heavyweight Championship. As an outside invader, he's become the first ever wrestler to hold all three of New Japan's top titles. Tasked with bringing the gold home is none other than one of the Musketeers, chasing his first ever taste of IWGP Heavyweight gold: Shinya Hashimoto. Titles and interpromotional pride are on the line in the Tokyo Dome!

---

Joseph Montecillo
I think I should probably start by saying that for the most part I consider Inoki's work a major blindspot. I've seen some of the big hits (Andre, 8/8/88, Saito, etc.) but I wouldn't call it comprehensive by any means. That being said, I think that in this match in the Tokyo Dome, he puts in one of my favorite performances from him ever. Something a little less intricate and a little more primal, a more straightforward version of say the handcuff match against Saito. How does this stack up against the other Inoki stuff you've seen?

Colette Arrand
Gosh. It feels entirely different from most of it, due to the circumstances at hand, both in terms of it being a retirement tour match and it echoing back to Vader’s big debut against Inoki, but also due to the grandure of the Tokyo Dome, if that makes any sense? Despite the fact that I like Inoki a great deal, this and the Don Frye match are the only Inoki Dome matches I’ve seen, and both of them feel HUGE, as if the space was built for him. I think you’re right about this being more straightforward, not in the sense that it’s barebones or anything, but in a kind of Rocky movie sense, where everyone, even Vader, wants to see a flash of the old Inoki. The difference, I guess, is that older Inoki matches are special because he is special, and this is special because he is phasing out of a world of his own construction.

Joseph Montecillo
Yeah, in the earlier work of Inoki's, there's a lot more of taking the time to build around mat work and sort of bringing his opponents into his world. One might chalk up the change here to being against a larger opponent but Inoki made that kind of thing work with the likes of Andre in the past. I really do think it's Vader and his particularly violent brand of pro wrestling, and the history they have of course, that brings out what we get from Inoki here.

Colette Arrand
I think there’s some of that, as well as Inoki’s budding enthusiasm for shoot style and MMA wrestling happening to coincide with Vader’s time spent in the UWF-I — the violence of Vader cannot be understated, but there’s also that moment where he rightly decides that he needs to slow Inoki down and grabs a rear naked choke, which would have been a new wrinkle to Vader’s game since the last time the two fought. The fans buying into it was sick, too, even if Vader was basically using it to take a breather — he’s changed, evolved, gotten better, and now he’s here crashing Inoki’s party, more dangerous than ever, and he batters the man like he’s owed money for the first half of it. There is no time for Inoki to build something — he gets the win because Vader gives him an inch or two in spots where he shouldn’t, which is also his downfall against another of his big baby face rivals, Sting.