Jushin Liger and The Great Sasuke Steal the Show at Super J Cup

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This time, let’s start with the finish.

It’s one of wrestling’s greatest karmic moments. Sasuke slips on an attempted springboard of the top rope, drawing a smug bout of mocking applause from Liger. Immediately paying for this show of arrogance, Liger gets caught off guard with a flash hurricanrana for the three-count and the victory. Even devoid of context, it’s one of the easiest things in the world to understand. The New Japan hotshot, clearly one of the favorites to win the entire Super J Cup, gets caught sleeping and loses to an indie stalwart.

It fits even better in the context of the tournament as a whole. Liger’s on top of the junior heavyweight world, already having become a superstar for New Japan at this point. His first two matches of the night, against Hayabusa and Ricky Fuji, don’t pose too much of a challenge to Liger.

More importantly, even beyond just the result of the matches, Liger leaves both bouts looking like the unquestionably better wrestler. Hayabusa’s reckless approach to high flying leads to multiple whiffed spots barely held together by Liger’s attempts to base and compensate, and Fuji doesn’t present much of a threat offensively at all. Liger’s had to work two outside wrestlers for the tournament so far, and he’s blown both out of the water from both a kayfabe and a quality standpoint.

It’s no wonder then that he’s so full of himself when Sasuke slips. He’s spent the night working against indie wrestlers who haven’t been able to keep up, and in the semis it happens yet again. There’s an extra smugness from Liger here though, which might hint at something a little more happening beneath the surface. Of any of the outsiders in the tournament, Sasuke arguably has the highest profile. There’s arrogance behind Liger’s mocking, but perhaps the slightest bit of insecurity too, especially when he bore his other opponents’ mistakes with relative grace. All the more satisfying then, for him to be forced to eat shit to one of these outsiders in quick order.

This isn’t a one-spot match though, and there’s a lot of great here. As fun as Sasuke is, it’s Liger that really stands out to me coming out of this. He’s just so damn crisp mechanically throughout the whole match, and that’s bolstered by his famed effusive charisma.

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What I liked best about Liger’s performance though was how he controlled Sasuke. There’s a lengthy bout of armwork from Liger that he does extremely well. He’s cranking hard on wristlocks and armbars, making a great show of the struggle of each hold. All that combined too with some really vicious striking and there’s a strong bit of limbwork from Liger here.

Sasuke’s decent enough selling the arm work in the moment but, as can be expected of him, he drops that thread almost instantly as soon as it’s time to come back. It’s not nearly so bad as his second round match against El Samurai when all thought of Samurai’s leg work vanishes in the blink of an eye for Sasuke. At least having his arm worked over in this match doesn’t interfere with much else they do down the line.

What both men excel at through the finishing stretch though is bumping. There are some delightful bumps in this, more than I even expected. Some real high angle suplexes to rival what the All Japan heavyweights were doing at this time, along with some real forceful powerbombs too. The kind of impact that makes the bones rattle in the viewer.

It’s not the most airtight construction in the world. It suffers in the ways a lot of 90s junior stuff does, where it ends up becoming just an exchange of moves towards the end regardless of what got built beforehand. Given Sasuke’s work in Michinoku Pro at the time, this probably also could have done with Liger leaning a little heavier into being an out and out heel, but structurally it’s about the same in terms of Sasuke taking a beating and then coming back.

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Flaws aside, it’s still a great showcase for the two, and it’s clear why it’s lingered in the memory after all these years. It’s spectacular to see unfold, and the big dives do still hold up after all this time. It’s easily the best of Liger’s matches on a fairly iconic card, and it does have a big fight feel with this junior ace taking on a king of the independent scene. It all comes across very major, and the work supports that bombastic feeling.

It’s a match strong enough that the echoes of it still ring out to this very day.

Rating: ****