Heavy vs. jr.?

[Guest The Mighty Damaramu]

Ok I was watching Jushin Thunder Lyger Premium Issue and it had a match with Chris Benoit/Lyger vs. Mashiro Chono/Shinya Hashimoto.  

And I was wondering do they usually do Heavy vs. Jr. in NJ? I thought that was like a big no-no because the fans won't buy the Jr's against the heavies. But Lyger and Benoit pulled out a victory and they looked like they were going to sh*t there pants when they won. Lyger leaped into Benoit's arms and they started jumping up and down.

And don't tell me that Chono and Hashimoto were Jr's at the time. How could Hashimoto's fat ass be a Jr?

[Guest Stuart]

It was part of the heavyweight Super Grade Tag League. Liger and Pegasus didn't get many wins, but this win ensured that they left the tournament with something. Heavyweight vs. junior matches were very common in 2000, when Choshu had this weird agenda with the juniors after a decade of letting Liger book the division mostly how he wanted to. There was always a little bit of it (like in 1990's they'd book something like Hirata & Liger vs. Yamazaki & Ka Shin, with a junior *always* taking the fall), since it's the belief over there that heavyweights are superior, they're bigger, stronger, draw better (this much is true). After Choshu quit as booker, things almost instantly changed, because Liger had full reigns again. Now, you see these junior Elimination Matches on tours, an expansive division, it's all good. There are still some examples of heavies pinning juniors, yet for the first time in the last six months, I've seen quite a bit of juniors beating heavyweights. A few recent examples are Liger pinning Kojima in G1 Climax, Liger pinning Tenzan in G1 Tag League, Liger pinning Fujinami(!) in a tag match, Gedo pinning IWGP Heavyweight Champion(!) Nagata in an Elimination Match, and Minoru Tanaka pinning Hiro Saito.