UNSINKABLE BATTLESHIP: The Triple Crown Reigns of Stan Hansen

Stan Hansen was already one of the greatest foreigners in Japanese wrestling history by the start of the 1990’s, but his four AJPW Triple Crown reigns and battles with the New Generation of Misawa, Kawada and Kobashi would cement his legacy even further. Enjoy this big look back on The Lariat!

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0:00 Introduction
2:16 Early Years: Bruno Sammartino, NJPW, Arrival to AJPW and 80’s Singles + Tag Success
9:59 Reign #1: Terry Gordy tries to become AJPW’s new Top Foreigner
19:59 Reign #2: Hansen Juggles the Triple Crown with WCW and Famous Vader + Hogan Bouts
32:58 The Brilliance of Hansen: Iconic Entrance, Unpredictability, and feud with Kobashi
42:48 Reign #3: Hansen Defeats Tsuruta and Takes on the Four Pillars: Misawa, Kawada, Taue
55:59 Reign #4: Teaming with Baba Leads to Surprise Reign, possible Torch Passing to Williams
1:06:33 Final Years, Passing the Torch to Vader, 2001 Retirement and Conclusion

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[Music] yep it’s Lariat time this is pretty clearly the most requested video I’ve had since starting up this Channel and it would be silly not to do something based on Stan Hansen he is after all one of the most successful and greatest foreign talents ever to hit Japanese wrestling as with other Legends such as the original Destroyer Steve Williams and Vader Stan Hansen was so popular that he eventually all but abandoned wrestling in America becoming a full-time worker in Japan one of wrestling’s great hory Outlaws fiercely independent a legend in both tags and singles the only person ever to pin both Antonio inoi and giant Bubba cleanly Hansen’s achievements are so vast it’s hard to know where to even begin to pick something that will do him justice but at least for now I’ve gone for the time period in which unsurprisingly I’m most familiar with Stan son’s work that being all Japan back in the ’90s Hansen’s obviously featured in various fits before now but finally we get his perspective through looking at his multiple reigns with the old Japan triple crown we get to see the man in operation through 1990 to 1995 where naturally he’ll be taking on the four pillars a great deal now by this time Stan Hansen was a pretty hardened veteran considering that he’d been wrestling since 1973 and was 40 years of age some might have thought that he’d have been thinking about winding fins down a little bit but no Hansen in a time of major change for all Japan would continue to be in and around the main event for most of the decade the top foreign talent and just as important in giant buers eyes as the top home wrestlers and that status was more than warranted with his performances we are going to in the main be seeing some serious rivalries with the four pillars as well as answering some other questions such as if there were was anyone else during that time who could have unseated him as all Japan’s top foreign star but in the main we are going to be seeing an awful lot of stiff hard-hitting and thoroughly awesome wrestling so let’s get going obviously first for those who may be a bit less familiar with Stan Hansen we should go into a bit of background at first to see just how he got here after all the years that recovering wouldn’t necessarily be called his prime as good as they were he started wrestling in 1973 under the tutelage of the funks after not making it in pro football mostly for NWA Hansen actually had his first tour with all Japan in the Autumn of 1975 before he really started to come to prominence in America going up against more established foreigners like Le destroyer and Anton GN however Hansen would break through in the US as part of the wwwf hired by Vince mcmah senior in 196 76 and very quickly put into a feud with the living legend and long-standing heavyweight champion Bruno sartino who’d basically given the thumbs up for Hansen to come in for a feud it was the pair’s first match together on April the 26th that would be quite pivotal for both guys a miscommunication on a scoop slam led to a botch that would break Bruno’s neck coming within a Miller of paralyzing him from the neck down it was a terrible moment for the still relatively green Hansen who came pretty close to quitting the whole business afterwards not to mention the backstage heat he got for it as it was sartino was only out for two months and left Feud would continue with a particularly heated match on June 25th at sha stadium and a famous steel cage bout later in the year Hansen left the wwwf not long after the end of the feud but he would be booked in New Japan from 1977 onwards through Vince senior complete with Le madeup but effective angle that he’d broken Bruno stino’s neck with his signature Lariat which would soon be called the Western Lariat in Japan and considering that sartino himself was just as much of a legend in Japan as he was in New York this went over pretty damn well Hansen would continue to be booked very well in New Japan for the next few years defeating Antonio en noi for the nwf title in February of 1980 occasionally teaming with a certain popular American youngster by the name of Hulk Hogan having an absolutely incredible match with Andre Le Giant in 1981 that seriously helped cement him as a star in Japan and return into Le fed in 1981 for a few months where he would Feud with sartino again Pedro Morales and Len heavyweight champ Bob backland however everything would change in the middle of 1981 when Hansen was head hunted by Baba at a secret meeting in Dallas complete with Terry Funk Baba’s wife MCO and a nipon TV at executive Hansen signed a three-year deal with all Japan Pro Wrestling that would allow him to keep the uncompromising physical style that he’d cultivated and take him straight to all Japan’s main event with Hansen always having a love for the action in Lin and for the buzz of it all this was absolutely up the lariat Street and he found all Japan’s atmosphere one where there was a lot more mixing between the foreign talent and the natives much preferable to the atmosphere in New Japan where talents were mostly kept separated after several months of avoiding any new Japan executive who wanted him to sign a new contract with Lim he would debut for ajpw in historical fashion accompanying his close friend Bruiser bro and Jimmy snooker to Lin for their December the 13th Real World Tag League final against the Funk Brothers the crowd wared him on as soon as they figured out who the big guy in a cowboy hat and street clothes was and he helped Le Brody snucker team get the win with the help of arrest and Larry to Terry on the outside Hanson crossing the floor to all Japan was a huge moment for the company something comparable to Scott Hall’s shock appearance on WCW Nitro only 15 years earlier and it presented a change towards a much more BR focused style of main event and in the figure of Hansen all Japan had led dominant Foreigner for the rest of the decade someone who had helped redress the balance of power between Japan’s two major companies to be much more in all Japan’s favor amazingly the initial three-year contract that Hansen signed in that Dallas hotel room with Baba was the only piece of paper he ever signed in the company the rest of his 20 years as an active wrestler in the company was entirely based on trust and a handshake with babba over the rest of the decade Hansen’s accomplishments in all Japan would be just about unmatched in singles he won the pwf heavyweight championship the main precursor to the Triple Crown a total of 4 four times on several occasions defeating giant Bubba for it as a tag wrestler too his record is staggering a four-time winner of the real world tag League over the course of the decade with four different partners Bruce bro Ted debiasi Terry Gordy and gicho ten Ru he held the main tag titles five times in a decade too the pwf World Tag Team Championship and the ajpw championship including an unbroken three-year run with pwf titles that consisted of his team with bro and then switched over to Ted debiasi after Brody made his own jump over to New Japan you could easily make a whole other video a massive one all about Hansen and his tag teams to be honest his loyalty to all Japan was such that in the mid 80s when he was working with AWA back in the States he refused to lose their heavyweight title to Nick bowinkle because Bubba had already made bookings for him to defend said title back in Japan he went back to to all Japan without losing it defended that belt regardless of bowinkle being recognized as the champion in America and when AWA threatened legal action he sent the belt back to them after running it over with his truck it’s this sort of thing that makes me think of Hansen as giant bubbers Luca bratzi the toughest of all enforcers so utterly loyal that no New Deal ever needed to be made and absolutely committed to all Japan for life it’s around where we should start looking at those Triple Crown Reigns in Earnest but before we do well just what is the Triple Crown anyway now that may sound basic to some but it is important and relevant so it’s worth briefly recapping for those who don’t know the all Japan triple crown is the result of the unification of three titles and it happened in 1989 we’ve got the pwf heavyweight title which was all Japan’s top singles belt since the early days of the promotion in 1973 and then we have two two NWA titles the United National Title which had been part of all Japan since 1976 and the international title a belt famously held by Ricky dozan which had largely been a part of all Japan since 1981 why should this be reca well Stan Hansen was a part of the match that unified the three belts on April the 14th 1989 ad La Buddakan Len pwf and United national champs Stan Hansen faced International Champion J V Sera in a winner take all bout these two naturally faced each other many times over the course of the decade with Hansen being the top Foreigner and serut being the native top Ace and on this night cuta won perhaps the most important of all Air bouts the one that would give all Japan what Still Remains their main Championship to this day even if it is now just represented by a single title as opposed to three of them now let’s get to those rigns so we head into the summer of 1990 we’ve kind of been here before already as it’s a very important time it was a day that would see the crowning of a new Triple Crown Champion not Stan Hansen but Terry Bambam Gordy Gordy had been working tours with all Japan since 1983 and well particularly in that era of all Japan a worker of gy style was exactly what the doctor had ordered Vis W almost unhinged in Lin huge in a way that intimidated fans and opponents with uncompromising physical burlin certainly not the bodies carved out of gret that were the norm in the WWF and what have you and almost certainly one of the most natural talents ever to step foot in a wrestling RN his all Japan run started out pretty big being handpicked as Stan Hansen’s partner against the funs in Terry’s original August 31st 1983 retirement match yes the forever one and gy was soon over pretty huge with the all Japan crowd and on top of that he was a young guy a very hard living man for sure but despite seemingly having such a long career already in 1990 gordi was still in his late 20s much like Stan Hansen his loyalty to babba and all Japan wasn’t even a thing to be questioned after bruer Brody had jumped ship to New Japan in 1985 Hanson and gardi were unquestionably the company’s top two foreigners speaking of Hansen Gordy had had plenty of success in the 1980s teaming with Lariat two tag team title Reigns and The Real World Tag league in 1988 when gordian Hansen defeated ganito tenu and toshiaki kada in what was surely at that point the best tag match that had ever occurred in an all Japan RN we covered it a fair bit back in part one of the misar kada video the ending stretch of the match is one of the great all Japan moments and one of the first signs of the future to come gordi and Hansen were two guys who would certainly go to war with each other when those moments came along and they had some bloody bws even from before the time they were partnered up but when they were together as a team well they were a scary Prospect and no mistake but in 1990 fins would change for gordi in a way that positioned him for the very top the team with Stan Hansen something that could be seen as a master and pupil sort of thing ended with gardy finding a new partner in the shape of Dr de Steve Williams the miracle violence connection as they became known would quickly win the tag titles defeating the team of Hansen and gonitro ten Ru for them and setting the former partners on course for a rivalry and then on June the 5th Gordy reached the very top in 16 or so minutes gordi pinned jumbo serut with his DDT winning the Triple Crown in highly emotional scenes Williams lifting him up to the skies as Freebird Echoes around the chba park gymnasium but this first train was very shortlived the superow tour was not yet over and gordi would face his former tag partner on the final night at the nipon Buddakan on June the 8th with the titles on the line and yes this was the very same night that the newly unmasked mitah Haru msar pinned jumbo truta well and truly exploding out of the blocks and declaring himself for the main event at this point it’s probably a good idea to also talk about nicknames over in the west we largely know Hansen and gordi as Lariat and Bambam respectively but their Japanese ones were different and much better based on his longevity at the top his sheer power and the difficulty of knocking him off his perch Stan Hansen was known as fuin Kan which means Unsinkable Battleship Terry Gordy at this time acquired a nickname that was very appropriate for this F he was ningen gorai or human torpedo and one of his favorite moves also L Lariat was now known as the torpedo Lariat the torpedo Lariat versus the Western Lariat the torpedo versus the battleship wrestling symbolism may not exactly be subtle when it comes but it certainly sets the scene frustratingly this title match is cut somewhat we only get the last eight or so minutes of the bout gordi moves out of Hansen’s way in the corner but almost like a cat he quickly turns around and blindsides gordi with Lariat G is only saved by going outside this will be a common theme in lvid by the way we’ll be seeing a lot of Western lariats and talking about what a great move it is one of if not the greatest single finishing move ever one reason why to kick fin off well it’s the ultimate out of nowhere finisher forget about the RKO whenever Hansen’s in the ring even if he’s on the back foot he only needs the slightest opportunity to hit this death blow out of seemingly nothing and we’ll see plenty of that in many different yet uniformally brutal ways Hansen eventually gets gy back in and prepares for a final Lariat but the time allows gardi to recover somewhat reverse and hit his DDT Hansen is only just able to kick out and from there basically has to save himself by clining onto the ropes for dear life even while gordi batters him and Referee Joe higuchi tries in vain to get the match in order gordi tries for the Power Bomb Hansen tries to reverse but is unable to lift up gordi who practically lands his whole body weight on poor Stan’s head that looks damn cool it must be said Hansen kicks out low gordi again gets Hansen in the corner to battle on him but going for an Irish rip proves to be fatal Hansen reverses and again seemingly out of nothing hits the Western Lariat and it’s enough for the free count the Western Lariat is as we will see one of the most lethal and protected moves in all of wrestling you may possibly be lucky enough to kick out of it once but you sure as hell won’t kick out of it twice the postmatch sees a Victorious Hansen spit quar at Gordy and Williams in the corner presumably trash talking Gordy over him having any thoughts of taking the lariat spot at the top of the tree and the result of this is a big old fight between the MVC and Hansen so yeah needless to say this isn’t over not by a launch chw if gordi wants to take that top spot as all Japan’s main foreign Talent he’s got to make it past Stan Hansen once and for all the rematch will occur on July 17th 1990 at the ishiara exhibition Hall once again we are actually in the middle of a tour the first summer action program and the final night at the nipon Buddakan on July 27th will actually see the winner of this match take on maharu msar who is naturally the number one Contender for the belt following his victory against cuta surprisingly this match starts out pretty methodically there’s a lot of groundwork in the beginning something that seems to hark back to even older times and fins only really get going when Hansen’s able to block gord’s arm with his head hurting bamb Bam’s Limb and letting him work on it in serious fashion some of God’s attempts at coming back only make matters worse such as when he tries to take Hansen out with a torpedo Lariat on the outside only for Hansen to dodge and Gordy to hit the post fins continue to look Bleak for gy until Dr de comes down to strap him up a bit and he’s able to hit the DDT for a near fall eventually Williams comes rushing in again with an elbow pad to really give gordi the armor he needs but while he’s able to get that pad on Hansen still got the drop on him however as he goes for the Western Lariat William trips Gordy up saving him Hansen gets distracted Gordy locks and loads for his own torpedo larat just in the style that Hansen does it and he Nails it 1 two three and gy reclaims the Triple Crown it may not have been the cleanest win ever but it is that big victory over Stan Hansen after all he defeated him with his own version of the move that had made Hansen so dominant this isn’t necessarily the best gy Hansen match and may be a bit too slow going for some especially in the beginning but it does finish with a powerful statement one that suggests Terry Gordy is now the guy to beat it does in many ways feel like a passing of the torch but as was seemingly often the case in this era of all Japan fate had other ideas the stories of gord’s hard partying and living had already become the stuff of Legend but this combined with substances came to something of a head on the eve of his first Triple Crown tile defense when he collapsed during a night out partying in wongi and was for a few moments clinically dead while gardi would recover from this first major scare returning to the old Japan RN just a month later the Triple Crown would be vacated and Bubba came very close to firing him Lan this first incident sadly didn’t end up changing his lifestyle while there would be continued success teaming with Steve Williams and some other great singles matches over the next couple of years gordi would never get close to the Triple Crown again even though he’d been on the verge of becoming well than truly the company’s top foreign star and then of course sadly his second overdose on a plane in 1993 would essentially change him forever wrestling as ever is full of sad stories but in the immediate aftermath of Gordy’s first brush with death it’s not surprising to see who all Japan would quickly turn to for the Triple CR Brown 1990 and 1991 are quite interesting years for Hansen it’s not exactly a surprise to say that we are about to see him claim the triple crown for a second time and that he’s going to hold on to those belts for the rest of the year but this is also a time when Hansen would be pretty much for the final time majorly exposed to American audiences as well as also having a couple of very notable matches over on the other side as part of some major combination shows in February of 1990 just before the Big Ten rued SWS Exodus caused all Japan to essentially become a wall Garden Hansen would have possibly his most famous ever match the New Japan super fight in Tokyo Dome a dream match pitting him against IWGP heavyweight champion Vader yes it’s the match where Vader damn near lost and I 15 of the very stiffest minutes in wrestling’s history in front of an exceptionally hot crowd just through this match alone Hansen and Vader became synonymous with each other even though it would be years until they actually fully shared the same promotion two months after this spout Stan Hansen would be a headliner again in the big egg the main event of the WWF old Japan New Japan Summit saw Hansen take on brother brother himself Hulk Hogan interestingly Hansen hadn’t been the first pick for this bout Terry Gordy was initially picked as Hogan’s opponent that night but he figured that a loss to Hogan would do him more harm than good particularly in Japan and so he refused Hansen had no trouble agreeing to about and to put in over the hulkster and to be honest considering the pair’s early history in New Japan the match which ends up being perfectly fine ends up making more sense with Hogan taking on Hansen I don’t really need to tell you that Hogan ended up winning in 12 minutes the Western Lariat couldn’t quite overcome Le axi bom according to Stan Hansen’s 2017 back to the territories interview with Jim cornette Vince McMahon did pull Hansen aside after the match and said that he would always have a place ready for him in the WWF if he ever decided he’d had enough of Japan although obviously Hansen never took fince up on this offer now before we get to the other half of Hansen’s worldwide escapades around this time we do have the old Japan business to attend to on July 27th Stan Hansen faces maharu misar in the Buddakan at the end of the first summer action tour for the now vacant Triple Crown misar is obviously white hot considering what he’s been doing lately with that dramatic unmasking and pinning serut and everything clearly he’s the future of this company and there’s already little doubt about that and yet you would surely think that defeating Hansen here tonight and claiming the Triple Crown is a bridge too far too much for Baba to pull a trigger on and of course you would be right Misawa and Hansen matches as we’ll see aren’t necessarily as popular as some bouts they tend to lack the sheer explosiveness of the matches that Hansen had with kabashi and kada perhaps they don’t quite have the right chemistry but still the young misar is certainly able to show a lot on this night really rocking Lariat at several points and damn well trying desperately to rip Hansen’s arm off with his mat work right from the start of the match he knows exact where he needs to hit and he’ll do it by any means necessary even still just through attrition Hansen creeps up on Misawa starts to take advantage almost takes his head off once but is dodged Misawa tries to redress the balance with a kick however he gets intercepted on the ropes andand chucked off followed by a Whopper of a tackle Hansen wastes no further time positioning himself cocking it back and taking lean mis’s head off with L Lariat in a pretty damn decent match overall Hansen becomes the Triple Crown Champion again and of course in doing so he begins a whole new rivalry one that’s going to become a main feature of the next few years Hansen only has one successful title defense in this rign but it’s another one that heavily points towards the future he takes on Steve Williams on September the 1st at lab Buddakan it’s perhaps unsurprising given the events that happened earlier on that Williams would be positioned for a bout against with the Terry Gordy experiment going south Dr de benefits greatly as his tag partner and this match is a major part of him being set up as the big Foreigner for the future annoyingly the bout is cut a little once again but what’s here is 8 minutes of goodness and largely it’s 8 minutes where Williams is very much in control try as he might handerson hasn’t been able to get any kind of Edge on him and now Williams is all over him like a rabid dog he boom as soon as the he out of Hansen with three-point stances and Hansen’s only just able to get a break by reversing the third and driving the dock down into the canvas but Williams continues to battle the battleship with strikes and suplexes and Hansen is literally reduced to cleaning on for dear life grabbing onto lotes in desperation to try and block the Oklahoma Stampede Dr de does eventually hit it but Hansen just kicks out not long after Williams positions Hansen for another Power slam but this time Hansen is able to reverse and roll Dr de up getting the freak out this is most certainly a different match to Len Norm Williams showing his frustrations by aiming a good few kicks at the still prone Hansen’s back after leel in short Stan Hansen didn’t beat Steve Williams he survived Steve Williams this is a pretty strong match that makes the doctor look like a million bucks as aoy and chaotic as he might be Hansen can certainly sell pain and panic and he did so here to a much more critical degree than he did in the first gy bout of the year a fine match although it is overshadowed by the main event on this card jumbo surut and mahara M’s rematch that’s quite possibly even better than they’re about in June now Hansen only having one defense in this rign does of course have a lot to do with how all Japan’s year is structured the title was defended a lot less backl and a big chunk of the end of the year is taken up by The Real World Tag League a tournament that the miracle violence connection will win after defeating Stan Hansen and Danny Spivey in the final notably the MVC get the victory through Williams pin in Hansen after a power slam he couldn’t survive Williams this time now you may have possibly expected Williams to get a rematch with Lariat after this but that doesn’t happen instead and perhaps appropriately 1991’s year opening new year giant series features a much older and much more familiar opponent jumbo Sera jumbo hasn’t really been in the title picture a whole lot since initially losing the crown to Terry gordian June seeing as he’s been busy leading surut gun against the super generation Army but it’s obviously not too hard for him to get back into s scene because well he’s bloody jumbo Sera and he’s been the aack onel place for most of the last decade suo and Hansen have been on the other side of that blue and red all Japan win countless times and once again they do it here on January 19th at the Matsumoto City gymnasium with the big straps on the line now personally I think this match is bloody great although I don’t suppose it would be for everyone this is after all absolutely not kin’s road that we’re looking at here serut and Hansen largely wrestle a methodical bout with plenty of working in holds and the like we’re going right back to shower proes score here that said that doesn’t mean nothing’s happening because there’s plenty of working and struggle in all of these HS it’s not as if they’re just resting when the pair do strike at each other well make no mistake they go majorly hard laying everything in there it does mean that so many of the big moves really matter a hell of a lot whether it’s a backdrop or a fez press or even Stan Hansen coming off the ropes to deliver some back elbows I mean look he’s delivering springboard moves here what more do you want Stan Thunder Hansen continues to try and pressle Advantage but jumbo counters body slams and delivers a big flying move of his own a thunderous knee he hits a Lariat off the ropes but Hansen counters straight away with the rest and Lariat and jumbo sells it like absolute death however higuchi notices that Jumbo’s foot is under the ropes so he survives Hansen continues to press hits his short brainbuster DDT type move and a shoulder breaker for another near fall a shoulder BGE and Hansen prepares for the full-on rest and larat once again but jumbo reverses and in a big nostalgic twist hits the northern drop and that’s enough for the free count Hansen is furious after the loss continuing to beat up on jumbo and even hitting Akira with a chair but yeah he’s lost the title jumbo is victorious in a 15 or so minute match that again I deeply enjoy for all of its old school old Japan prowess although again your mileage may vary a little some may wonder why the bout finished with the northern drop as opposed to a jumbo move such as the backdrop or indeed the larat and well this is the new year giant series it’s giant Bubba series coinciding with his birthday which would be 4 days after this match and with appropriate celebrations I think it’s also worth noting that this is the first time that all Japan’s main championship whether it be the triple crown or the pwf heavyweight title changed hands during this year opening tour meaning that Jumbo’s win may have been a little bit of a surprise however it brins the big straps into the company’s top Feud at the time and defenses against the likes of Misawa toshiaki kada and Steve Williams would make up the majority of what would be jumbo souta’s final championship Reign a couple of months after this serut would defeat Hansen again in another big match the final of the Champion Carnival all Japan’s big sprin round wobin singles tournament that hadn’t been held for nearly a decade with his signature flying knee there is another little loose ends to tie up during this second Reign during said rain Stan Hansen was spending quite a bit of time in WCW not that this particularly affected his all Japan schedule that much this was Hansen’s final extensive run in an American company and it largely featured Hansen playing the same character as ever the double hard Bastard with a big old bull whip a mouthful of tobacco and a very bad attitude but while Hansen spent a year working for WCW largely it seems that they didn’t really know what to do with him this was a pretty chaotic and generally bad time for WCW after all what with Jim herd being the head of the company and all that but even if Hanson tended to mostly work House shows with the odd pay-per-view appearance here and there it wasn’t all low lights he did have a pretty good Feud with Lex Luger and there was a typically stiff rematch against fader at wrestle War 1991 in about that would have surely been a lot more memorable if they’d been given more than a mere 6 minutes on the card however Hansen’s one is perhaps most memorable for something that he dearly didn’t want to be involved with the Desperados the trio of Dutch mantel blackbart and dead eyy dick who debuted in June 1991 going around an old Wild West f amusement park in desperately unfunny vignettes where they attempted to meet Stan Hansen now people probably think that this was a gy herd idea it was actually a Dusty W’s one in any case Hansen found lolin absolutely stupid beyond belief and pretty soon after the Desperados were introduced he made the decision to leave WCW for good and go back to Japan a big chunk of this had to do with the bad gimmick and protecting his image for the Japanese audience allthough the constant travel for full programs of WCW shows in between all Japan tours likely also factored in here might have been a bit much in the end Hansen had to make a choice and naturally he was always going to go with all Japan Hansen only worked a few more times in the states after this during a few dates for the nent Eastern championship wrestling when they were still with the NWA in 1993 along with a special event in Amarillo organized by the funks where he faced Big Boss Man the third Stan Hansen rign is in many ways where the meat of this video lies this is where we largely get to see the unsinkable Battleship truly take on the new generation hell there’s even a match I want to look at quickly before this rain along with his performances in the champion Carnival this is where we see a lot of what truly made Hansen a mustsee attraction in this incredible era of all Japan a big part of it was because more than ever he was in a role at he with vin The Outsider who doesn’t quite fit in anywhere who likes absolutely nobody who’s mainly here to find the guy who thinks that he’s the toughest bastard on the Block and kick him Square in the teeth Hansen just loves to fight this was all of course somewhat different to L Hansen who was by all accounts as professional as it gets in the locker room while keeping most of his life outside of the r private but of course all that went out the window in Lin where Hansen would basically never not pull out all the stops pushing the other team even in the most minor of matches it’s also gloriously bigger still the general opinion of Hanson lenon now is of someone who was actually quite laid-back and humble outside of lurin and on shoot interviews he doesn’t really have much bad to say about anyone still maybe you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry we’re rewinding a little but I have to quickly talk about one of those great IWC Clips a classic of botania the match where Stan Hansen absolutely did his nut it’s March the 5th 1988 at the aita city gymnasium and the team of Hansen and gordi are facing ganito tenu and Ashura Hara all goes pretty normally until tenu and Hara throw a double end Ziri at Hansen which knocks him loopy fins continue to fall apart with tenu clutching at his shin as if to say he hit him too hard until Hansen recovers and all hell breaks loose native team Destro destroyed by an apoplectic Cowboy from bourger Texas chairs thrown tables launched officials throttled an enraged Texans shouting on the house Mike clat nobody potatoes me it’s quite the scene when Terry Gordy is the one who’s having to try and calm things down you know that everything’s gone a bit Foo as the text in bamania says you should never ever knock out Stan Hansen it’s brilliant however was it all as real as it seemed well this one was invented by a writer yeah it was all an angle melter picked this one up back in the day all this wildness was a way to further build up the big championship match Hanson was going to have with ten Rio a few days later in Yokohama worked shoots in my late 80s glorious and traditional all Japan it’s likely a len you think but why do such a thing well this was only a few months after Akira maida’s legendary and Infamous shoot kick on Ricky Chu in New Japan all Japan clearly thought l l should try and do it for themselves and hey it worked the Hansen ten Rio title match on March the 9th was a pretty damn hot one as a result and a very intense Clash any who I thought that one was worth covering unsurprisingly larat is sure as hell convincing at acting like a complete Madman speaking of acting like a madman another one of the great things about Hansen we should look at is all that happens before the Bell his legendary entrance has always set the scene so perfectly a wild scene that as Hansen spoke about to Bradshaw and Jerry Brisco in 2021 on their podcast was inspired by the original foreign master of such crazy entrance as in Japan tiger Jeet sin Sunrise one of the great wrestling themes rins out and Len Hansen comes raging through Lo’s doors like he’s just been let out of the holding tank that bull rope flies everywhere and wo betide anyone who gets in his way mind you it’s almost as if the people don’t mind being close to it they almost dare themselves to get in the range of that whip as Hansen Who as a lot of people know is nearsighted to the point of being legally blind without his glasses on flares it around with Reckless abandon as he rushes Lin and of course there’s the big shout the almost indecipherable that Hansen and the crowd Roars as he’s introduced complete with throwing up the lon [Applause] horns what does that mean well as Hansen said in his aforementioned interview with cornette the actual shout was youth it’s something he started doing right from his 1981 arrival in all Japan highlighting the Youth of him and bruer bro in comparison to the older foreign Talent slower facing such as the funks and of course it would continue to be a part of every Hansen match from there on out no matter what with the crowd fully joining in even if Hansen wasn’t exactly youth anymore it is such a great entrance and introduction one of the best parts about old Japan’s old school presentation because well let’s face it it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if Hansen was coming in for a big old entrance ramp Hansen’s angle of being loner raging r neck works even better like this as an anachronism in the days of the Royal Road he adapts through his sheer lack of adaptability adding more Dimensions to his bouts against the four pillars as LEL look to establish the future by this stage more than ever Hansen was an utterly revered part of loster it’s not as if he’d be booed upon Victory or anything like that as a regular old heilwood Stan Hansen was adored utterly by the old Japan crowd not very far from the Dey level of Bubba beyond the ball ropes and Lon horns Hansen was one of the most overacts there was respected by the crowd like few others and also providing some deeply emotional moments beyond the character such as his speech on the second anniversary of brua bro’s murder in 1990 for the new super generation to try and take Stan Hansen off his perch to prove that LEL on his level well that was just as big of a challenge as that of taking jumbo cuta of his now’s a good chance to talk about the man in the four pillars who annoyingly were not seeing much of in the subject of this video and yet he was without a shadow of a doubt Stan Hansen’s perfect inin partner there’s something about Stan Hanson and kenter kabashi that just work so freaking beautifully I think it must be pretty rare for a wrestler to find someone that they have such Flawless chemistry with nearly 20 years into their career but that’s what happened with Le two while Stan Hansen never defended his Triple Crown against Kent kabashi that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look at at least one of their bouts because damn it the video would just feel incomplete without it however Wavin goes straight for their most famous encounter in the summer of 93 I’m instead going to go back a couple of years to when kabashi was still a bit more of a fiery and upcoming Stripling this is their bout from September 4th 1991 at Labuda Khan this isn’t their first ever me but with kashi’s profile constantly Rising it’s easily his biggest date and it’s absolutely incredible right from the off we get another perfect summary of one of the best fins about Hansen [Applause] unpredictability the Rin Bell hasn’t even won yet but kabashi most certainly has he’s out like a light as Hansen blindsides him with the perfect Western Lariat demanding a pinfall from Joe higuchi even though he’s not going to get it easily one of my favorite starts to any match ever this one even if Hansen doesn’t get his immediate pin the match just gets more violent he strips the mat off the Arena floor and power bombs kabashi on the outside Chucks a table at his head freaking body slams him directly into the guard rail it is one vicious beating but makes kashi’s hope spots all a greater the slightest chop is enough for the crowd to Roar behind him kabashi gets even more later on he’s able to return the favor with a DDT on the floor he hits the moon salt and he tries his damnest to put Hansen’s lights out with the sleeper it’s after this however with Hansen still recovering on the outside where kabashi makes the crucial mistake he tries to rush Hansen again only for Hansen to turn and coldcock him with with a second Lariat kabashi still tries in vain with kicks on the apron and a reversal into a pin but Hansen’s loading up lat arm kabashi Ducks the first Lariat but he wasn’t expecting it to come around again just what a match this one is absolutely spectacular I mean it contains at least two of the greatest Western lariats ever for a start the one before Le Bell and the freaking discus Western larat to finish it’s a complete and utter mustat and you know what the best thing is it’s not even the best match that these two would ever have what a combination it is a shame we don’t cover a Hansen kabashi Triple Crown bout here in all honesty but in short this pair deserves a video all on their own I think that will probably happen at some point just over a year after losing the Triple Crown to jumbo Sera Hansen will get another crack at him on January 28th 199 92 at chba Park gymnasium for as much as cutas battled against the future over his year La rain it’s an utterly familiar opponent and again this match is quite the methodical one we start with jumbo trying to work over the larat which is obviously a common Gambit for Hansen’s opponents however Hansen is able to return the favor by working on Jumbo’s leg in quite brutal fashion including some nasty knee Breakers right onto the outside tables we get a fair few spots that build on the previous match such as Hansen being wise to an early jumbo attempter to flying knee but this is still a methodical match where again your mileage may vary depending on what you’re into and just how many times you’ve seen these guys work each other swoa gets a couple of close near Falls with small packages and the like and his arm workor is enough so that he’s able to survive the first Western Lariat but it’s the leg work that proves to be more decisive SW desperately tries to counter a second larat attempt with a flying knee but the effort is blocked he’s staggered by doing it and Hansen hits that second crucial Lariat Hansen overcomes cutu on L night winning the triple crown for the third time as was often the case with these two it just comes down to who’s better on the day it’s not the best match the pair have ever had and I’d say their January 1991 match is definitely better but it’s an important one this is after all the end of the great jumbo sera’s final heavyweight title Reign indeed with Sera going down later in the year due to his hepatitis C diagnosis this is the pe’s final ever singles meeting a yearslong rivalry between two alltime greats that ends here with Hansen on top much like jumbo sua Hansen’s opponents in his third Triple Crown reign will consist of the new generation starting with the guy who most expect to take the belt of him eventually mahara misssara gets another shot at Hansen on the fourth of March at the Buddha Khan and it will be the first of three big matches between the two this year in this bout MSA is a lot more equal to Hansen than he was at his first crack in 1990 he’s certainly cheerwing at that arm once again but he’s making a lot more seriously impactful blows especially with those feared elbows and he’s also taken a page out of the kabashi Playbook by DDT and Hansen on the floor in order to syn the battleship you are going to need to fight after all and it’s not enough just to barely hand with Hansen here you need to defeat him at his own game the crowd is hot for all of this although again this is probably a slower match than people would like as I’ve said before people do tend to care less for the matches between Misawa and Hansen than they do others perhaps they lack the sheer dynamics of Hansen versus kabashi all the hard hitting of Hansen versus kada is it a lack of Chemistry Between the two I’m not sure about that I think of it more as a call back to the past in order to truly become the top guy in all Japan Misawa must overcome Hansen in a classic style all Japan match that’s my feeling on it although I can’t deny that I also prefer watching the kabashi and kada bouts on This Night maawa Comes very close to sinking the battleship there’s moments in the white hot ending stretch where you think Miss has put Hansen out with the face lock or that a big elbow is going to take him down for good but again it comes down to one error miswa tries to go for a second big flying elbow and Hansen blocks it’s the opening and the distance that he needs to uncor a full devastating Western Lariat misawa’s time to defeat Hansen may come soon but it’s not yet just a month later the pair face each other again in the final of the 1992 Champion carnival on April 17th in a very similar match to this one Hansen once again gets the victory despite great damage to his arm faking misaru out with one larat attempt to fully strike on the next the unsinkable Battleship adds yet another trophy to his cabinet with the carnival but Misawa is getting ever closer to him Hansen’s next Triple Crown defense is on June the 5th at lebuda Khan and it finally gives us the chance to talk about another alltime great great handsome opponent not as great an opponent as kabashi but not far behind of course it’s toshiaki kada kada and Hansen had an absolute barn burner over about during the carnival easily the best match of the entire tour and this title shot the first of kad’s career is a pretty fine reward and well what do you think you can expect from these two this is about that’s all about the hard-hitting forget about those regular old tactics like trying to to work Le Ararat and all that Hansen does try to focus on kad’s leg a little but in the main these two just go ahead and take lumps out of each other like a big old Wild West showdown kick after kick punch after punch so many strikes that will make you wince you can’t not love every bit of it especially in the wildest moments such as Hansen leaping straight off the apron at kada for a tackle kada puts in as much of an effort as possible to try and take out Hansen in list manner as said previously if you want to sink the battleship you have to beat him at his own striking game and even if he does fall just short it’s an incredible effort after 20 utterly punishing flyby minutes Hansen finally breaks down all of kad’s defense and even if the man is still somewhat defiant in knowing what’s to come next the sheer execution of kada with a short larat that plants dangerous K directly onto his freaking NE neck is another one of those alltime great shots kada most certainly took that all Mighty stiff L like a champ didn’t how he took most of the ones he got like a champ in fact it’s generally agreed that kad’s front four teeth were lost at some point between 87 and 91 thanks to a rest and Lariat so yeah that goes to show once again how brutal and how all time a finish this move is what a skirmish one that absolutely must be watched the crowd loved every bit of it and the critics did too in fact this bout won Tokyo sports award for the best match of 1992 the rain continues at PACE and we have another Triple Crown defense on the 31st of July there was another hot match between Hansen and kabashi between these bouts but again we have to leave that for another day because the Triple Crown wasn’t on the line in said match here though we introduce the fourth and final pillar Akira Tower gets his first shot at the Gold here at the Athletic Park gymnasium in Chiba tawe has a bit more height and a bit more power going for him so perhaps this could be the combination that’s needed to finally take Hansen out okay well it’s not by and large this is not a bad match however it is definitely the least essential watch of the whole video T does well here doing the usual approach of going after larm and getting the odd fine Sho in but he’s just not quite on this level yet and Hansen’s virtually always in control here one of the main troubles with the bout is that it does fall apart a bit at the end we do get a couple of bad botchers with both guys falling over and a really sketchy miscommunication on a bulldog from T and that can’t help but bring fins down in the Finish T tries to go for the Bulldog again but Hansen pulls out and hits a short enur Western larat followed by a backdrop and from there all is basically set the chamber is loaded and the head is taken off Hansen defeats Akira to without all that much of a fuss and the match is yeah a bit middling in the end probably one that can be skipped over all of this of course is something of a Prelude Hansen has been making his way through the pillars they’ve tried but they failed but one has certainly come closer than anybody Misawa may not have got Hansen earlier in 1992 he may have come up short at the carnival but everybody knows that the rematch for the Triple Crown is where it sat and the stage is finally set for it to happen on August 22nd Misawa has been the molten hot future of the company for a little over two years a time of battle between his super generation Army and the established fixtures of suon and now it may well be time for him to finally take the mantle the match itself hardly needs much building up as we truly get to find out if Misawa can go one step further so what to say about list incredibly historically important match even considering the slower Pace that Hansen and Misawa set in their previous bouts this one is very methodical it’s like a sort of boxing match where there’s a lot of circling Misawa forgets about Liam and is again looking for those openings to deliver those elbows and again hopefully deliver that perfect shot to be honest the first half of this spout can for sure get a little too slow it is often said that misar and Hansen lacked chemistry while I tend to think thatl were going for something a bit different to what Hansen had with kabashi or kada this is the main bout that’s based on and well yeah it can be a bit dull certainly in the beginning business does pick up gradually the strikes start to flow more freely Misawa launches a late assault on the arm that’s greatly centered around L’s elbows and some of those other big gambits are connecting including the flying elbow by the final stretch there’s no doubt that misawa’s throwing everything he can at the lariat but he is still there and most certainly still fighting and even when a face lock seems to have put him out for good he’s still able to move out of the way of a fog Splash and get the advantage again Hanson continuously assault hitting a few vicious slaps a power bomb and then pulling the pad down for a Bruiser Brody style knee drop not enough to defeat misao as he has done so many times he [ __ ] up the armpad and readies himself however Misawa reverses and gets him into crucifix position Hansen holds on but you can see the desperation in his face as he wonders just what on Earth he has to do Hansen May well slam him down in the end but his will is far from imposed Hansen Stomps away and hits the shoulder breaker and then goes through a a cross armbreaker in an attempt to make miswa give up that of course was never going to happen again as Hansen desperately holds on despite Misawa finding the ropes you sense the Panic the alarms going off in the head of the battleship Hansen tries to grab the arm once more but is met with an elbow Misawa goes for the running strike Hansen lifts a boot and it’s the sort of distance where you would definitely expect a larat to come next but instead Miss mwa turns back around and uncorks the elbow from Hell Hansen and misar both utterly slump to the floor Joe higuchi doesn’t quite know what to do and fuss does the ultimate happy higuchi dance because well Misawa found it he landed the perfect shot and after a few seconds of recovery misar turns Hansen over and at L last pins him needless to say the crowd become utterly unglued at Misawa finally winning at last and reaching the top of the mountain his seconds and fellow pillars kada and kabashi come in to present Misawa with his priz even Stan Hansen the Raging Lariat who’s hellbent on nothing but War shows respect and is the first to shake misawa’s hand before leaving the stage to the new ace this match well obviously it’s historically important a clear must watch in that regard in the end it does build into a very good bout one with a incredibly dramatic ending and a clear winner some may well think that Hansen perhaps got up a little too fast from that decisive elbow once the Bell ran mind you it does take a bit of time to get to this stage though a very slow burner and I struggle as much as anybody else with the first half or so of this bout still well it’s the start of a new era and in many ways while we still have quite a bit more Hansen to cover in this video it is the end of Hansen’s one so by any measure Hansen’s decisive Triple Crown lost to Miss Sara would be a good place to finish the video it definitely marks the passage into a whole new period after all but of course it’s not the place to end we do have another Stan Hansen Triple Crown Reign to look at and it happened in 1995 in quite surprising fashion when the lariat was 46 years old and pretty clearly getting near to the end of his career that said it’s not as if Stan Hansen did nothing during all that time between his third and fourth Triple Crown Reign even with that loss to misar in September of 92 he was still able to defeat him again in April of 1993 to claim his second Champion Carnival and he would have two cracks at trying to take that title off of Misawa during his epic 705 day reign as was always the case the quality of these Hansen Misawa matches was pretty mixed the champion Carnival 1993 final between the two is in most people’s estimation by far the best singles match that the pair ever had with each other a different sort of match where Hansen actually ends up being something of an underdog and really has to pull something out of the bag to get a very well- earned win however msa’s second defense against Hansen in October of 1993 well that one was a shocker it starts out defitely slow with more more endless limb work barely increases the pace from Lair Misawa suffers an injury to his breast bone which doesn’t exactly help matters the crowd aren’t particularly responsive to anything that’s going on and then it ends with a really ugly Sunset flip finish that completely deflates and angers the audience who respond with a whole lot of booze this is rightly thought of as one of the very worst main events in the whole of ’90s or Japan to use the observe as a metric big man melts gave this spout one and a half Stars a Mark that was basically unheard of for a main event in the company at that time it is a shame that the combination of Misawa and Hansen produced such a mixed bag of results in the end it’s just one of those fins you can’t exactly accuse either one of not putting in a shift whenever they faced each other certainly not Hansen who basically never took his foot off the gas in Lin no matter what the matches and chemistry between these two just never quite seemed to work out as you would expect they would but of course it’s not all bad there’s a whole lot of other fine singles bouts to be had with other opponents particularly kenter kabashi again that’s a whole other epic Feud one that’s worthy of its own video and of course there’s all a great tag work Hansen’s one of the greatest tag workers of all time and he only cements that further with age certainly in these later years one team that’s particularly worth highlighting is the rather makeshift Duo that competed at the 95 three Real World Tag League Stan Hansen and Giant Baba put together when Hansen’s original partner Ted de biasi suffered neck and back injuries early in the tournament and decided to retire from Lin this pair of old gits would very much exceed expectations well even if Hansen didn’t have to do that Baba certainly did putting his serious working boots on for the first time in a very long while and showing that he could actually still go with the best of them including a particularly memorable 30-minute draw against Misawa and kabashi now of course your mileage obviously may vary depending on how much you dig that glorious signature buba style but it is certainly quite something for him to turn Le burners on in the tag league so late in his career with Hansen almost exclusively competing in tag bouts through 1994 it does seem as though he’s gradually making his way towards the Legends portion of the cart until suddenly he wins a number one contenders match against Akira tawe on the 25th of January 95 putting him next in line for a shot against the Triple Crown Champion toshiaki kada it should be noted as well that Bubba and Hansen teamed again in the 94 Real World Tag League where they came even closer to winning the whole Finn and in their last match they actually defeated the holy demon Army in another quite fantastic encounter indeed so yes that’s the Prelude to hansome getting this shot before we really get into the wise of this fourth triple crowd Reign because yes you can most certainly question it it’s best to just go through the two matches themselves and let them happen Hansen and kada certainly had some alltime Classics especially in 1992 so how does this combination Faire 3 years further down the line on the 4th of March 95 here in the Buddakan well I’m afraid it doesn’t work particularly brilliantly a lot of this match helped nearly all of it consists of strike exchanges between the pair and ordinarily that wouldn’t sound bad at all but the match doesn’t really seem to have much of a drive or push to it or a lot of focus for its runtime which does end up being just over 30 minutes the crowd barely gets into it for a lot of that time around this time the crowd were more and more used to these long Main Event title bouts and sometimes they wouldn’t react much to anything before the 15 or 20 minute Mark even and that’s kind of the case here it seems the match does fall apart a bit in the last stretches kada suddenly decides to start working the arm at this slate stage which feels like an afterthought starts selling a leg injury with little reason to do so we even get pin attempts from seemingly nothing it’s all a bit of a mess the crowd does react pretty strongly for the end when Hansen’s able to win a decisive strike battle get that distance and hit the larat weirdly it then takes an age for Hansen to actually pin koada but they do roll a freak out I think part of the crowd’s general quiet in this match which really does affect fins is that nobody expected Hansen to win here although In fairness we do get plenty of cheers and Hansen chance when he does win starting up a fourth Triple Crown Reign at the age of 46 still I can’t recommend this match at all there’s not a whole lot going on here and for what it is it’s way too freaking long you might not expect a long Reign here and sure enough Hansen only has one defense in this Title reign and once again it’s maharu miswa yep miswa got here through finally winning the champion Carnival in 1995 adding it to his list of achievements with victory in the final against Akira T now after all a rather mixed matches we’ve seen with this pair are we ready for another one do we really want to see another one in 1995 h well we’ll examine that further in a minute for now I will say that this is better than their October 1993 bout although that’s not exactly saying a lot it still has a lot of the very familiar problems that we’ve seen in a lot of these bouts in that they just really seem to lack Pace the combination of misawa’s stoicism and Hansen’s orary Charisma just never seems to compliment each other as well as you think it might and again the buddhan crowd is hugely responsive to a lot of what’s Happening until we get to near the finish with all the rest holds and limb work going out most of which has very much been seen before I did find it hard to keep focus on this one for its 25 minute or so one time the Finish sees a roll up misar gets the ascendancy and hits a frog Splash but Hansen responds to a tiger suplex attempt with strikes and a football tackle he goes for the lariat misar Ducks rushes him and hits again again a kind of ugly crucifix to roll Hansen up and get the pin much to Hansen’s shock even though we have kind of seen this finish to their bouts already and it’s odly never quite as decisive as the big finish they had in August of 1992 Misawa has pinned Hansen once again and in do so begins his second reign with the Triple Crown Hansen is utterly enraged at the rollup finish and barely controllable by the seconds but well LMS the brakes as is often the case with these two I’d really struggle to recommend this one at all right so why did all this happen you would be right to just look at this run of bouts on paper and wonder what on Earth the point was why did Stan Hansen win the Triple Crown once again at 46 years old only for him to lend lose it to mitah Haru Misawa again I mean surely to God Misawa didn’t need to get L rub of defeating Hansen once more he already has beaten him in big matches multiple times and yeah the matches didn’t end up being particularly good either still there is a context here a thing the company was trying to do although it didn’t work out as planned now if you’ve already seen my video on Dr de Steve Williams you can probably figure this one out now we haven’t seen Williams in this video for a long while not since 1990 when he took Hansen to the limit in a Triple Crown match with the rare occurrence of the larat actually having to roll Dr de up himself to just eek out the victory since then Hansen and Williams hadn’t opposed each other much Beyond tags and in the carnival Williams won their 93 Carnival match while Hansen edged him again in 92 and 94 it was clear already from 1990 that Williams was the future top Foreigner something that was continually built over the next few years and culminated with him being the guy to end misawa’s epic first Triple Crown reign but still especially in the old school giant Bubba booking philosophy there is an important loose end that needs resolving and it’s not rocket science Hansen defeats kada for one last Reign just before the champion Carnival Steve Williams wins the champion Carnival and gets the title shot Williams finally defeats Hansen in a big Triple Crown match that marks a full passing of the torch therefore Williams is now indisputably the top Foreigner in all Japan it’s not fully confirmed that that’s how fins were going to play out but considering the rise of Dr Death up to this point is definitely what makes the most sense and then well it all got utterly screwed up when right on the eve of the carnival Steve Williams got busted at Nito airport for possession of drugs and was lucky to get away with a Year’s suspension from all Japan that was basically entirely down to the political of babba so yeah Misawa winning the title from Hansen one once again almost certainly wasn’t what was supposed to happen even though wrestling is wrestling and it’s hardly an exact science with Al so many biases going into play I can’t see any logical reason why that would have always been the plan once again annoyingly Fate has other ideas just as with gardy 5 years previously the plan to have a perfect transition and a true successor to Stan Hansen as the top Foreigner falls apart through outside events it does finally happen a couple of years later when Vader enters all Japan although by that stage with Hansen so close to the end of his career it’s best done with this dream pair of foreign monsters having a big run all the way to the final of the tag League Hansen himself did have a couple of other Triple Crown tilts in the second half of the ’90s in Le main a big one against kabashi in ’96 which ended up working out pretty well and is certainly the last recommended Stan Hansen singles match even though he was basically on the verge of retiring in 2000 when the big all Japan and Noah split happened he stuck around for a couple of months to take part in the Triple Crown tournament in his second to last ever match he lost in the semi-finals against an old and very familiar opponent and partner who was making his big return to the company that being gonitro ten Ru Hanson’s final bout was a six-man tag on October 28th 2000 where he teamed with Steve Williams and wolf hawkfield in a losing effort against Johnny Smith masanobu fui and yoshiaki fujiwara with various snagging injuries becoming a major factor he officially called time on his career on January 28th 2001 at the Giant buber Memorial spectacular a pretty emotional send off where even kad’s holding back the tears although Hansen would remain involved with all Japan for the next few years as a non-air official taking the old Lord James bl’s pwf commissioner role of reading out the big Proclamation before title bouts so lout wraps up a big look at the Triple Crown Reigns of Stan Hansen in the 1990s this is of course a guy you could make so many more videos about whether it’s one about his incredible tag team success the feud with kabashi his partnership with the late great Bruiser bro going a bit deeper into his American exploits there’s a lot here as much as Stan Hansen is an alltime great it’s a bit surprising to look at it all and see that a lot of what happened here wasn’t necessarily as originally designed this is quite a long way into Hansen’s career after all as early as 1990 it looked as though he’d pass that top Foreigner torch to Terry Gordy but then outside events intervened then a few years later outside events again stopped Hansen from passing that torch over to Steve Williams even if the quality of wrestling in all Japan especially in its main event was usually in the stratosphere at this time it was often such a delicate balancing act with a relatively thin roster that didn’t welcome Outsiders and in this period Hansen was one of the company’s greatest assets not just for his experience and his quality but his utter dependability even when fins did go badly on and they did go badly one several times Stan Hansen was always there to fix fins back up again and perhaps most crucially even even if they didn’t always gel well together in the ren he was there to start the company’s Ace of the 1990s time at the very top morand continuing to be the top Foreigner he was utterly essential to all Japan a big link to the history of the company that did a great deal for its future he was well and truly the unsinkable Battleship hopefully you’ve enjoyed this video All About The Almighty Lariat and until the next time bye for [Music] now [Music]