>>19385752>>19385798King's Road is defined not in a single match but over time, and through rivalries, grudges and strategy.
Yes, the obvious end result is head drop city but the King's Road was the journey more than the destination. It's in the name... "road." AJPW had a relatively small roster and the top guys fought pretty much on rotation. Baba had booked like southern rasslin' companies in the 70's and 80's where nobody ever wins clean. No match ever ends decisively. Every match is a dusty finish or a time limit draw. NJPW changed the game with its constant focus of strong style leading to decisive wins and losses. Baba changed his company's style but while Inoki could constantly pull in weird shooters from USSR, WCW (occasionally WWF) and rando foreigners whenever things got slow, Baba had 3 or 4 homegrown top guys and 2 or 3 foreigners at any given time. He had leaned hard on the NWA for years and as they started to fail he couldn't pull anyone in. He had to develop a style that would have clear wins/losses but also work on heavy rotation.
King's Road matches focused on repeat battles leading to new counters, reversals and ever increasingly dangerous attacks. The more matches you watched, the more you'd be rewarded. Imagine if Hogan beat everybody with the atomic legdrop... until everybody came up with counter attacks and effective defenses. He'd have to come up with a new move then.
The reason this style never took up with indies is that there is no consistent audience, venue or exposure. Every match had to be balls out get-your-shit-in because that builds hype and gets you booked in the next town.
