JPWA 4/14/2000

 

1. Billy Scott vs. Mamoru Okamoto

2. Tomohiko Hashimoto vs. Tom Burton

3. Retsu Maekawa vs. James Woodin

4. Kohei Sato vs. KC Geyer (KC Thunder)

5. Koichiro Kimura vs. Shawn Hernandez (Hotstuff Hernandez)

 

The card looks interesting, but unfortunately, they clipped all the matches. Quite unecessesarily, because most of these were around the 7 minute mark except the main event and opener. Billy Scott looked quite good in the first match, doing some nifty wrestling, and his opponent, former BattlARTS undercarder Okamoto bringing the punishment. The 2nd match was wrestler vs. judoka that looked fun from the glimpses. Tom Burton looked old as dirt, but still like a credible asskicker, so it's obvious that I love him. Maekawa/Woodin was barely shown. Woodin had funny bleach blond hair and was not in great shape, so kinda looked like a garbage worker. Sato/KC looked like a fun power vs. skill matchup, with Sato looking especially good, and KC (a huge musclehead) looking nervous.

 

Then the main event - this was 28 minutes clipped down to 17 minutes. And Shawn Hernandez is Hotstuff Hernandez in a singlet, looking like an absolute tank. This match was a match of two sides - 1. Hernandez was absolutely killing Kimura for the entire duration, launching him around with some of the most beastly throws I've ever seen and exploding his nose with a stiff palm strike. 2. the absolute stupidity of putting Kimura, a guy who's not all that good, and Hernandez, a guy with very little experience especially not at shootstyle wrestling in a match this long. Hernandez didn't seem to know any submissions, Kimura added very little, and for some reason they did not allow rope breaks at this show, so even with the clipping, a lot of this was two guys lying on the mat, one of them being very unsure. Thankfully, Tom Burton was at ringside to tell Hernandez what to do step by step: "Take the ankle! Good, now slap him once!" Now that's a veteran, carrying a green guy when he's not even in the match! God bless you, Tom Burton. Fujiwara also was at ringside, and at one point was convinced Hernandez was throwing fists, so he took offense and took his jacket off, ready to go at him. So, Fujiwara and Tom Burton did more to add to this match than Kimura. Kimura eventually got to pick up the win after he KO'd Shawn with a lucky kick after absolutely getting his shit pushed in for 28 minutes, and admittedly this got a pretty excited reaction from the crowd. So I guess the match did work after all! Kinda funny to watch, and makes you wonder if with a little more help from Tom Burton Hernandez could turn into the next Shamrock or a great tag partner for Lesnar.

 

THE LIBRARY

Takeshi Ono Documentation #5

Takeshi Ono vs. Carl Greco, BattlARTS 11/5/1997 - GREAT

1997 was probably the period where you could take almost any random BattlARTS match and it would be the #1 best match to happen in 2020 for months. Carl Greco was a barefoot machine here, lord in heaven what a great grappler he was. This is all about Ono trying to out-slick the beast. Some absolutely fantastic grappling and holds here, and Ono throwing strikes feels like he's trying to equalize the situation in order to not get steamrolled. Great nearfalls here, including an absolutely awesome Octopus Stretch that Ono sunk in like he wanted the tap out more than anything else in his life. This was a second match on the card and went eleven minutes, you get the sense if they had gone for a slightly more grandiose finishing stretch with some big strike exchanges and near KO this would've moved into serious MOTYC territory, but for that type of second 11 minute match on the card this was damn great.

Takeshi Ono & Manabu Hara & White Moriyama vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Brahman Shu & Brahman Kei (FUTEN 4/24/2010) - EPIC

FUTEN baby. Ultra-stiff fast paced basically shootstyle brawl where everyone lays into each other with the stiffest punches, headbutts and lariats pro wrestling has ever seen. This is not even remembered as one of the greater matches from that brief but sweet run of FUTEN actually making tape in 2010, but it’s chock full of fantastic and violent exchanges. Just the opening exchange with Ikeda and Hara trying to pulverize each other was fantastic. I have seen some people object to the Brahmans in Futen before, but they are fine here, working stiff and their comedy spot was over quickly and didn’t derail the match. One of them also had this sick leaping headbutt. Hara looks great coming in for his hot tag crushing everyone, and Moriyama is really good in his fired up youngster role. Ono isn’t in the match a ton but he looks great lighting up dudes with punches and kicks and stretching them with nasty submissions. His exchange with Ikeda was insane and the highlight of the match by far. Ikeda was working this match like an injured but still super tough and dangerous beast. His chemistry with Ono is really no worse than his chemistry with Yuki Ishikawa, except Ono is in more of an aggressor role. The finish is between Ikeda and Moriyama and basically about Moriyama trying to slowly chop the boss down and getting met with brutal punts kicks and straight rights. Absolutely dope material, it’s too sad FUTEN only started regularily releasing DVDs in 2010.

 

Takeshi Ono & Junji.com vs. Azteca & Daiyu Kawauchi (BattlARTS 2/12/1999) - SKIPPABLE

I would’ve liked to see how the KAGEKI boys would mesh with the BattlARTS crew, but they only showed about 30 seconds of this. Seemed like a pro style match with the only Ono content being a nasty double stomp and him octopus stretching young nondescript Kawauchi for the finish.

 Takeshi Ono & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda, BattlARTS 1/21/1997 - EPIC

This was some truely high end BattlARTS tag team action. The first thing you notice is how on point all 4 guys on the mat were. The opening exchanges felt slick like U-Style matwork and always highly competitive, with the violence upgraded to BattlARTS standards. The brutality was of the charts here. The "tag team partners running in to make the save from a submission" where some of the must vicious I've seen and felt like PRIDE ground stomping, Ikeda at one point started throwing mule kicks on the ground, and Usuda and Ono threw some kicks that looked like nobody would get up from them. Man I don't even care whether there was a story or anything this match because the work was so frantic, hard fought and believable and sold so, so well I was 100% engrossed the entire time. The match also felt like it could end at anytime: at one point, Ikeda got his leg worked over with a few kicks from Ono and nice holds by Ishikawa (note the teamwork there), then Ono landed a series of skull crushing kicks on him. Ikeda believably beat the count, but his entire body language was such that you could see he was moments away from being finished, so he did the only reasonable thing and quietly slipped to his corner to tag out before collapsing like a broken man. That may have been my favourite moment of the match and it made the finish feel even sweeter where it feels like Ishikawa and Ono have the match in the bag and Ikeda just comes in and turns Ono's lights out to set up the finish. All 4 guys had career highlight performances, Ono did some stuff on the mat only he could do, Usuda stepped up big time and Ishikawa and Ikeda had some incredible exchanges together. Great, great match and a really compelling fusion of top notch shootstyle matwork, brawling and top level stiffness.

TAKESHI ONO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

More Japanese YouTube Channel Explorations

 

Rikiya Fudo vs. Raito Shimitsu (?? 12/22/2019)

When I watched Raito Shimitsu vs. Yuki Ishikawa, I was hoping he would get more interesting stuff like this to do. Well, I don’t know if “getting the bricks beat out off of you by Fudo in a chain ring match” technically counts, but it sure is something. This goes 5 minutes and is basically the worlds greatest WCWSN squash. Fudo is a great stiffer Finlay in this, just beating the life out of Raito with sick vader hammers, lariats and chops. His ground moves may be even more devastating as he just drops his entire body weight into an elbow drop or senton. His big splash that left Raito gasping for air looked absolutely sick. Raito gets 1 or 2 brief moments of offense, including a nice judo throw, but his Karelin Lift gets denied and Fudo just finishes him like he owed him money. Very short, very violent. It was a good bout. 

Yasushi Sato vs. Masamune (Mumejuku 6/3/2018)

Unexpectedly, a pretty great match. Masamune is a masked indy guy who was trained in Mexico. I have no idea what got into them here, but they hit the mat and had an outstanding match. Starts with a bunch of cool amateur matwork and cradles and then develops really well into this intense battle that felt like it could have taken place in Coliseo Coacalco. I know Yasushi Sato is a Mumejuku regular so probably used to doing matwork heavy matches, but I was surprised by how well Masamune did here. Both guys had some brilliant holds, especially dug the whacky leglocks which were set up really well, and there were a number of nifty spots. Really loved Masamune catching Sato on the knee drop and him braining Sato hard with an out of nowhere Tiger Feint Kick after a rope break, aswell as the crazy rolling pin he broke out. Also loved both guys randomly going into escrima pummeling like 15 minutes into the match, which lead to Sato hitting his awesome deadlift belly to belly suplex. Finishing stretch was built around Sato trying to lock in his grapevine/straight jacket hold signature move and Masamune fighting it off in different ways. Sato further establishes himself as the king of the Russian Leg Sweep by hitting another awesome one. Really really compelling stuff, I’ve no idea how these guys bothered to put this much intellligence and technical skill in a non-mainstream match for a small audience but I’m glad we got to watch.

Mr. Gannosuke vs. Manabu Hara (Batos Cafe 4/3/2018)

Awesome match, which may actually be the best Gannosuke singles I’ve seen, which is crazy to say about a match that happened in 2018. I guess random uploads from Japanese micro indy related YouTube channels are the new gold. I think this was during Gannosukes retirement run so he was bringing the goods. First half of the match is all matwork. Suruga is obviously younger and more athletic and pushing the pace, so Gannosuke breaks out a bunch of awesome Fujiwaraesque counters. Totally didn’t know he had that in him. Second half Suruga continues to dominate by laying into Gannosuke with kicks and palms, I also did not expect a 48 year old has-been-coasting-for-years Gannosuke to eat that kind of stiff punishment. It’s really all about whether Gannosuke is tough enough to survive and break out a counter or whether the younger wrestler will blow him away. Gannosuke is of course a really fun tricky pro wrestler, he can always turn a match around by just kicking someone in the balls or busting out his awesome Gannosuke Clutch, and he fires back with some crowbar lariats and big bombs of his own. No idea what’s been going on lately with so many awesome unexpected Japan indy matches popping up but I love it.

2002 MOTY List Update #6

Low Ki vs. Bryan Danielson (RoH  3/30/2002)

  Not as great as the JAPW match, but still insanely tightly worked, stiff pro wrestling that blows away all the current wannabe shooters (and everyone else too). They mostly struggle over holds while pounding the daylights out of eachother. Kis stiffness was just crazy as he would rough up Danielsons already bruised face with out of nowhere kicks. At one point he just grabbed Bryans head and went loose with Kawada kicks sending him to the outside. Most of this match was both guys fighting over holds or working eachother over with stiff kicks and chops. Ki blocking a Dragon Suplex only to be thrown with a back suplex was like something out of 80s NJPW. I also loved how Ki, after choking the air out of Danielsons lung would immediately follow up with double stomps to the stomach. Unfortunately Danielson made an easy comeback soon after that and the finishing stretch was not as great as the body of the match as they mostly stick to throwing big old bombs back and forth for like 10 minutes. Still, match felt like a classic in large parts. 

Jushin Liger & Minoru Tanaka vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (NOAH 4/7/2002)

NOAH vs. NJ part two. Everyone is on fire! Liger is a no selling douche! Kikuchi is a mad old bugger who will take a chunk out of you without blinking! Clever nutshot spots! Mask ripping! Submissions are important! This match did a great job milking and amplifying the heat of the feud. Lean and strong pace with an emphasis on masks ripped open and nasty elbows from mount, this is the direction japanese wrestling should've kept going. Watch the backstage footage too! 

Shinya Hashimoto & Naoya Ogawa vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Scott Norton (NJPW 5/2/2002)

  This is one of those feel good matches you can just back and enjoy every second of it. Basically Hashimoto & Ogawa waltz in and just destroy everything in their path. STOs, nasty kicks and chops and various cool combination moves abound. Norton & Tenzan don‘t stand much of a chance but they try. You get a great little Norton performance as he sells all the nasty chops and kicks he takes to his shoulder in a big way. There is an art to selling in such a way that everyone can emphatize with you even when you‘re a giant muscled up dude like Norton and he had it down. Tenzan also doesn‘t suck! 

Antifaz/La Fiera/Safari vs. Averno/Mephisto/Zumbido (CMLL 1/11/2002)

his was given plenty of time. Cool 10 minute opening fall with Safari looking especially slick, nice rudo beatdown with plenty of elaborate double times and some more heated than usual exchanges between Safari and Mephisto, culminating in Safari hitting a sick dive that Mephisto failed to catch properly, which only increased the intensity. The main reason I'm adding this though was La Fieras awesome performance. I didn't know he was even still around by 2002, but he looked like he had aged just right here. Basically acting like Tenryu, working as "I've been doing this for 30 years and I'm hurting in place I didn't even know existed, but I'm still gonna kick the shit out of you". He hits all these graceful kicks and takes some big bumps. Finish was charming and the crowd went wild for it.

 2002 MOTY Project MASTER LIST

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #4

Tanomusaku Toba & Super Rider & Neo Winger vs. Phantom Funakoshi & Exciting Yoshida & Yuki Nishino (DDT 12/22/1999) - GREAT

Wonderful matchup, the kind that exemplifies the charm of 90s indy sleaze. Everyone here is a unique character with their own style, and they mesh really well. Rider was in his goofy Seikendo suit and working a mix between highflyer and submission wrestler while almost knocking himself out on dives, Funakoshi a mysterious MUGAesque technician, Exciting Yoshida a goofy IWE tribute heel, and of course our boxing gloved hero Toba. Toba really is the MVP in this match potatoeing everybody and always getting the best out of everyone, when you are facing Toba you are guaranteed to get punched in the face, so everyone fires back with unusual piss and vinegar. I especially loved Nishino crushing him with sick running headbutts. Phantom Funakoshi always looks like a real worker in these matches, working fun MUGA vs. Seikendo exchanges against Super Rider and channeling Fujiwara when he was facing Toba, I’d love to see more of him. Exciting Yoshida was a bit weird, he kept trying to no-sell Toba and getting punched and spin kicked in the face, and also did a bunch of banana peel heel spots, then again he also worked a sick headbutt exchange at one point so I can’t hate the guy. There’s also more shootstyle floor brawling involving Toba and a crafty finish between Super Rider and Funakoshi. Neo Winger blew, but wasn’t in the match much. Really everything you can ask for from a match up full of random indy dudes from forgotten sleaze feds (how often do you get Nihei Gumi, Seikendo, DDT and SPWF representatives in one match?).

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI & Kengo Takai vs. Masahiko Orihara & Neo Iceman & Onryo (DDT 1/30/2000) - FUN

This had some shady guys typical of DDT at the time. Masahiko Orihara is a Masao Orihara clone in a goofy mask, and kind of wrestles like a poor mans Masao Orihara, while Neo Iceman looks like a guy who forgot his wrestling gear so he enters the ring in street clothes and a random mask they had lying around. Both guys were okay though, aside from one funny moment where Orihara went for an RVD move and fell on his head. Takai was in the rookie underdog role and kind of rough, he blew his clothesline and dropkick, how the hell can you not hit your clothesline and dropkick when you’re a japanese rookie? That said Toba had an awesome moment where he came in and worked over Neo Iceman with stiff blows, and I continue to leave young MIKAMI, he gets good exchanges out of everyone and when he’s throwing out highspots he’s just crushing dudes. Onryo was good but these two carried the show. Kind of an undercard tag with some rough and some nice moments, but I had fun.

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. GENTARO & YOSHIYA (DDT 11/30/2001) - EPIC

Great great match, a true hidden hidden gem. Even knowing that Toba can be really great, MIKAMI being pretty good around this time and GENTARO very talented, this far exceeded expectations. Mostly because the psychology in the match was super, and everyone played their role to perfection. MIKAMI comes into this with a cast on his wrist, and he does a really great almost Misawa-ish wounded ace performance here. He really sold that shit to absolute perfection, being wary of it the entire match, being unable to follow up his own moves etc. Toba is great here throwing wild strikes, and then GENTARO & YOSHIYA swoop in with a fantastic Anderson Brothersesque performance isolating Toba. These guys were really zoning in on Tobas leg, and while the legwork wasn’t sold in a major way (the main story was Mikamis wrist) it was really good and Toba got ragdolled hard, he is so tiny that even something like a Shinbreaker can be made to look brutal. Thought Gentaro looked just amazing here, and Yoshiya was fun as a Taue-ish big dude booting peoples heads off and acting like a dick. Toba punching Yoshiyas lights out was really fun, and then we get to the awesome finish. Really tremendous stuff, it’s insane how things like this fell under the rug when this kind of smart+brutal pro wrestling is a direction Japanese wrestling should’ve kept going in.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Shinjuku Shark (Apache Pro 12/30/2007) - GREAT

Shinjuku Shark is a boxer who has been working sleaze indy shows since forever. With his shaggy hair and lanky frame, he looks kinda like Tobas dad. But he never had a big run in any promotion, mostly doing sleazy shit in promotions like FMW, while Toba at least has a series of DDT main events to his name, not to mention that Shark can’t use his feet. Shark is essentially the underdog here and Toba dominates him early until Shark is able to down with him with a big surprise punch. After that it’s like the last 5 minutes of an epic FUTEN match with both guys trading big combos and Shark mostly coming back using his toughness and puncher’s chance. You don’t really expect much from a match involving two boxing gloved guys but I actually ended up wanting this to go longer.

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Assorted Rare NJPW TV

 This channel is uploading old AJPW and NJPW TV material, most of which is pretty rare. It seems that he takes all NJPW videos offline after a few hours, so download everything as soon as you can.

Antonio Inoki vs. Bearcat Wright, NJPW 10/31/1975

The legendary Bearcat Wright was quite old and past his prime here, although he still was able to look like a menacing dude. He had great looking headbutts, and his choking actually looked really vicious. This felt more like an introduction to the character of Bearcat which sets up a bigger rematch - the brawling after the bell may have been more exciting than anything in the match. Still, footage of Bearcat Wright is a treasure.

Steve Wright vs. Kengo Kimura 12/5/1977

Only about 4 minutes show, but lots of fun, tight wrestling in those 4 minutes. You get the sense Wright had no problem going even against opponents who weren’t familiar with European style wrestling. Wright wins with a super cool kip up into a pin combo.

Tatsumi Fujinami & Osamu Kido vs. Tony Rocco & Chavo Guerrero NJPW 10/13/1978

Real gem of a match. +20 minutes of high end 70s junior wrestling. The 70s style really was awesome, basically a mix of carny matwork, cool suplexes and occasional neat highspots. Really loved Tony Rocco in this, who is such a great carny grappler. Also really dug young spry Chavo, and the Japanese guys are super solid too. We start with about 10 minutes of cool grappling, basically a lot of cool armwhips and pin attempts with some neat scrambling takedowns and blocked moves. Fujinami looks sharp as hell here and throws some great dropkicks. This is 2/3 falls and every fall has a good finish. Loved the crazy 70s dives and big bump at the end. This pretty much rocked.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Antonio Inoki NJPW 3/16/1989

Didn’t even know this match happened in 1989. It wasn’t an epic, but a nice slice of super enjoyable pro wrestling as you expect from these two. Inoki has great chemistry with Fujiwara on the mat, and he has such a great aura and feel of danger to him, even compared to a guy like Fujiwara. Some very nice matwork here before Fujiwara decides to punch Inoki in the face. These guys continue to throw hands, and when these guys do it it’s way compelling because they actually look like they don’t want to get hit. Fujiwara ends up trying to cut down Inoki using some rough tactics and his hard head, only for Inoki to destroy him very quickly in Inoki-like fashion. Inokis Worlds Biggest Badass shtick matches up really well against Fujiwaras tricky counter artist act.

NSPW 9/24/1994

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUlfpTENhaA

NSPW (or maybe: NFPW) was a shootstyle indy that went for serious fighting ala UWFi. Now that's something you don't see everyday. Actually, TV Tropes of all places has a bit of info on this, describing it as "regional UWF". Now, how cool is that? The japanese wiki says the promotion folded after all the fighters got their asses kicked in Shooto, and we mourn the loss of an obscure micro-shootstyle indy. But at least, we still have this tape.

Hiroshi Osuma vs. Katsumi Hirano

Yukimasa Yokota vs. Shingo Shigeta

Takashi Hara vs. Masamitsu Kochi

Yoshiro Ito vs. Keisuke Yamada

Koichiro Kimura vs. Fumio Akiyama

Ricky Fuyuki/Jado/Gedo vs. Hiroshi Itakura/Hideo Takayama/Ichiro Yaguchi

 

Most of the fights were too clipped up to be assessed, but the fighters looked polished and worked plenty stiff, with Shigeta taking a pretty brutal beating in the second match but refusing to give up. Osuma vs. Hirano was a boxer vs. Wrestler match that was actually pretty good, which is a rare accomplishment. I assume most of these guys are from SAW given that Koichiro Kimura is also on this card, but that's pure speculation as I can't find any info at all on this fed.

Ito vs. Yamada was shown in full and was a pretty cool little clash, like a poor man's Vader/Tamura. Lots of potatoe shots, and Ito, who could still move well at this point, was slamming the fuck out of Yamada with pro style powerbombs and suplexes. Yamada is the future Black Buffalo (of all people) and had some cool judo throws on Ito's roided ass. Yamada looked the most talented of anyone on the card and it feels like a waste that he went on to do garbage wrestling for the rest of the 90s. 

Fumio Akiyama seemed to be embarassing himself in the semi main event. Not sure what was up with that.

The main event was a typical Fuyuki/Jado/Gedo affair where they beat the shit out of the NSPW guys, bloodying and triple teaming them and waffling them with chairs. The NSPW all had kickpads (future face painted garbage brawler Yaguchi was doing a sambo gimmick at this point) and liked to kick hard, the future Badboy HIDO also doing a kickboxer gimmick, Itakura had a really nice dive aswell, but it seems most of their offense was clipped out which is a weird decision. They just got destroyed and the Fuyuki trio hit all their huge triple team moves including a powerbomb off the top and a huge assisted butt drop from Fuyuki. Fun stuff and Fuyuki is such a bastard in the match.

THE LIBRARY

Koki Kitahara Documentation #4

 Koki Kitahara & Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Jado & Gedo, WAR 12/8/1995 - GREAT

The kind of stuff that made WAR undercards so awesome. Kitahara is a walking terror in this, just treating Jado & Gedo like garbage. They don't even do anything in particular to upset him, he's just out for blood from the go, throwing hellacious kicks, chairs and bitch slaps like only he can. Then, after absolutely kicking Jados ass, he turns around and spits on Gedo for no reason. Just about the most "I've contempt for these guys" performance I've seen from a wrestler. Mochizuki was all reckless kicks at this point, and he is a super fun reckless kicker with a few fancy kick variations, few wrestler do this kind of minimalistic "I am really good thing" these days but it makes for a fun match up against a pair of juniors. For a pair of cheating scummy heels, Jado & Gedo know how to play a Rock'n'Roll express. They get their ass kicked a bunch until they are able to kick someone in the balls or poke their eye. Anytime they seemed on the verge of winning, Kitahara would roll in like a wall of doom to fuck them up even more. It made the eventual finish very satisfying.

Koki Kitahara vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi, NJPW 6/25/1993 - EPIC

A nice reminder why the NJPW vs. WAR feud was one of the greatest things in history. A mix of great heat and messy out of control violence. This is really pro wrestling vale tudo, two guys trying to fuck eachother up, they would go to the ground, but there would be eye gouging there and as soon as they got up they would throw kicks and headbutts again. Kitahara was just killing Kobayashi here with brutal kicks to the eye and Kobayashi holds up his own just running into Kitahara with headbutts repeatedly. The "deathmatch" rules in this were a little weird, there doesn't seem to be pinfalls and Tiger Hattori is watching from ringside like a super libre match. At the end one guy takes a series of brutal DDTs and is choked out and after lying motionlessly for what felt like an eternity they decide to stop the match. Pretty unique and stands out as one of the most brutal match endings in the feud which covers a loooooot of ground. It definitely suits something labelled a death match.

Koki Kitahara & Shinichi Nakano vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara, SWS 2/14/1992) - EPIC

Tubby japanese guys slap the shit out of eachother for 20 minutes. Love this because it's a really good example of how to build a lengthy match around a handful of strikes. Nakano and Kitahara are not over at all due to the SWS midcard being almost meaningless, but they give their all taking on these tanks and get the everliving crap kicked out of them.  You can tell why both these guys said "Fuck it, I'm starting my own promotion" after the nasty asskicking they receive here. Hara & Tenryu deserve some credit for selling a good deal for these middleweights while outgunning them completely. Lots of neat spots and there are some good examples on how to make basic strikes interesting by SELLING. See: Tenryu getting caught in the ear by an enzuigiri or selling Nakanos corner dropkick. Hara is also really good at taking kicks to various body parts and refusing to bump. By the end Kitahara and Nakano are basically beaten half to death. There is one great sequence where Nakano is giving everything he has hitting several dropkicks and enzuigiris only to be forced to tag back in and run on empty. Tenryu just powerbombing him is an example of no selling that works because it was done in context of the match with a set up and purpose. Kitaharas leg selling was also cool and added some direction. This is a rare match where one side never comes close to winning but still ends up being great in my book.

KOKI KITAHARA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Brief thoughts on IWU 4/28/1995

 IWU 4/28/1995

1. Mitsunobu Kikuzawa vs. Shigeo Okumura
2. Katsunari Toi & Black Hole vs. Kazuhiko Matsuzaki & Masahiko Kochi
3. Apollo Sugawara vs. Iron Hercules
4. Goro Tsurumi & Takeshi Miyamoto vs. Masahiko Takasugi & Kei Tsukuda
5. Takashi Ishikawa & Hiroshi Hatanaka vs. Kishin Kawabata & Dunk Tani
6. Barbedwire: Poison Sawada & Ryo Miyake vs. White Mummie & Black Mummie

Another pretty watchable 90s indy card. You had the future Kikutaro doing a decent job carrying Okumura in the opening match, and then of course, BLACK HOLE. If you ask me Black Hole should have taken center stage in these promotions, he is the coolest of the space monsters. And he doesn't do anything but judo throw people and it rules. SPWF jobber boy Kochi got to look good in that match too, bleeding and dishing out some stiff kicks. Then Toi drops him on his neck with a ganso bomb for no reason. Toi truely doesn't give a fuck.

The best match by far was Tsurumi/Miyamoto vs. Takasugi/Tsukuda. If you've seen Miyamoto/Tsukuda before, you know these two randoms love killing eachother, and that they did here, just a flurry of sick punches and kicks. Then we even get some fun Tsukuda/Tsurumi exchanges. Turns out the trick to getting something good out of Tsurumi is to punch him in the face. Really need sleazy veteran boxer performance from Tsurumi. Takasugi doesn't add much but I always like his crowbar dropkick. With a better finish that match would've been a surefire nomination.

You don't really need to see the rest of the card. Gotta say, the Mummies have to be on the shortlist of the worst brawlers ever. I have no idea what they were thinking with that shit.

 

THE LIBRARY

2002 MOTY List Update #5

 Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Yoshinari Ogawa (NOAH 9/7/2002)

IT SAYS GHC CHAMP ON OGAWA'S SHORTS!!! This is about the quintessential Ogawa match, as swamp monster Takayama is coming after him and Rat Boy has to weasel his way out of this without getting murdered. Ogawa is so great in the opening, throwing punches and eye pokes like a ratty, sleazy heel mini Jerry Lawler. Takayama puts a fulls sized ass beating on his undersized ass and about 5 minutes in the match, it seems like Ogawa is done already. Ogawa makes great use of the TREE OF WOE~! does a mighty great control segment on Takayama. My favourite thing about Ogawa here was that everything he was able to do was capitalizing on something else, he was never merely running through his offense. Takayama gets in a SINGLE BLOW which is enough to almost put Ogawa on the shelf and we get a brief but awesome finishing run built around Takayama throwing bombs and Ogawa throwing Rat Boy'isms. Ogawa's bumping was great here as he was just flying around for Takayama and Takayama himself did a great job putting over the champ as a champ.

Jushin Liger & Minoru Tanaka vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (NJPW 8/29/2002)

NOAH vs. NJPW! Everyone acts like a heel! Liger is a disdainful prick! Kikuchi gives a top level performance! Tanaka and Kanemaru actually add to the match! I dunno, this was very enjoyable. Liger pummels the hell out of the NOAH guys and acts like a bastard, while Kikuchi is equally fired up and takes some murderous bumps and hits. The most amazing thing about the match is probably that it works while Minoru Tanaka and Kanemaru are in it. Those guy tend to be lousy, but they are effective here. Don't be fooled Kanemaru is still Kanemaru and has no presence whatsoever, while Tanaka falls into get-this-shit in territory at times, but Kanemaru hits his moves well and Tanaka heels it up nicely, so their stuff comes across as less dull than usual. The heel moves and chippiness aswell as some really fun, borderline Monterrey-like sequences keep it entertaining the whole way and they end the thing at the right time. I dunno if all that is merriting of all-time classic status but it's one of the better 2 vs. 2 junior tags I've seen in japanese wrestling that's for sure.

Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya vs Kazushi Miyamoto & Taiyo Kea (AJPW 4/27/2002)

These WAR revival in AJPW Tenryu performance are always a highlight when it comes to 2000s puro. No dumb shit, just a lot of fire and disdain at play. Miyamoto wants to stand up to his much tubbier, bigger opponents and as a result gets his nose busted and kicked in the face a bunch. Bully Tenryu is always great, but Miyamoto looked seriously good here aswell. His selling was pretty nuanced – I mean he was probably legit taking a lot of pain, but he even made glancing individual blows look really hurty. His comebacks looked good, and he was able to pull off a parkour spot that actually looked cool. Kea is someone who just never reaches greatness, but he was energetic and always there to put a thudding kick on Tenryu when it counted. Tenryus facial expressions and selling were out of this world as usual, anytime he took a blow that knocked him off balance he would look like a teacher in a high school comedy that just got pie faced. Tenryu casually strolling over to teach Kea a lesson while Araya and Miyamoto were fighting is why he's special. I found it almost comical how cooled down Araya was compared to everyone else here like this was just another tuesday. He looked good raking Miyamotos bloody nose a bunch and taking a massive bump on a german suplex for a fat aging guy.
  

Shinya Hashimoto vs Masato Tanaka (ZERO1 3/2/2002)

Tanaka disrespects the belt, and Hashimoto makes an example of him. This is among the greatest squash matches of all time, as Hashimoto looks like an unstoppable killing machine, and Tanaka looks like the gutsiest dude on earth for surviving. Tanaka is „deathmatch tough“ so you buy him surviving all the punishing blows and maybe decking Hashimoto with a potatoe of his own. Him being unable to hold on to a sleeper simply because he took a beating to every part of his body was pretty great aswell. Still this was all about Hashimoto destroying a poor fella. He may be the best ever at utilizing a basic karate chop to look like a badass. 

 

2002 MOTY MASTER LIST

The Show Library

 This post will collect links to every full show review on this blog. Obviously, we will be mostly focussing on Japanese indy shows. The goal is to build an extensive library so people can check when they come across an obscure show whether it is worth watching.

1987

JWP 3/4/1987

1989

Pioneer Senshi 10/26/1989

1990

EMLL 1/5/1990 

EMLL 1/12/1990 

EMLL 1/19/1990 

EMLL 1/26/1990

EMLL 2/4/1990

 EMLL 2/9/1990 

EMLL 2/16/1990

JWP / Pioneer Senshi Joint Show 4/28/1990 

1992

FULL 6/21/1992

Oriental Pro 8/2/1992

NOW 8/9/1992 

LLPW 8/29/1992 

JWA Tokai 8/30/1992

LLPW 9/24/1992

Oriental Pro 12/3/1992 

1993

LLPW 1/4/1993 

LLPW 2/13/1993

NOW 2/14/1993

PWC 3/22/1993 

LLPW 5/11/1993

Oriental Pro 8/15/1993 

LLPW 8/29/1993

1994

W*ING 1/2/1994 

AJW 1/4/1994

WAR 1/5/1994 

WAR 4/27/1994 

IWA Japan 5/23/1994

LLPW 5/29/1994

Kitao Pro 6/14/1994 

WAR 6/30/1994 Part 1 

WAR 6/30/1994 Part 2

LLPW 10/9/1994

NSPW 10/24/1994

1995

LLPW 1/15/1995

Kitao Pro 2/21/1995

IWU 4/28/1995 

LLPW 5/23/1995

SPWF 6/14/1995

West Japan 6/21/1995 

LLPW 11/5/1995

1996

FMW 1/10/1996

Wrestle Yume Factory 1/28/1996

Pro Wrestling Crusaders 5/9/1996 

Tokyo Pro 8/25/1996

1997

GAEA 1/12/1997 

IWA Japan 1/14/1997

GAEA 1/19/1997

IWA Japan 2/8/1997

GAEA 2/16/1997 

GAEA 2/23/1997 

GAEA 3/15/1997

IWA Japan 4/4/1997 

JWP 4/8/1997

GAEA 4/12/1997 

GAEA 4/21/1997 

GAEA 4/29/1997 

JWP 5/10/1997

GAEA 5/10 + 5/25/1997 

GAEA 6/13 + 6/22/1997 

Shin-FMW 6/17/1997

GAEA 6/29/1997

IWA Japan 6/25/1997 & 7/5 & 7/6 

GAEA 7/2/1997

GAEA 7/6/1997

GAEA 7/21/1997

IWA Japan 8/8/1997 

LLPW 8/15/1997

RINGS 10/14/1997

IWA Japan 10/27/1997

1998

BJW 1/2/1998 

WYF 1/8/1998

IWA Japan 3/13/1998 

IWA Japan 4/29 & 5/18/1998

Indy World 5/21/1998 

IWA Japan 6/24/1998 

IWA Japan 7/20/1998

Indy World 7/22/1998

 U-DREAMS 11/12/1998

1999

IWA Japan 1/17/1999

CMLL Japan 2/24/1999

SPWC 3/29/1999

WAR 6/20/1999

2000

JPWA 4/14/2000

KINGDOM EHRGEIZ 9/2/2000

2002

Onita Pro 5/4/2002

WMF 8/28/2002 

JWP 9/3/2000

NEO 9/16/2002

2003

WMF 12/27/2003

2004

Ricky Fuji Produce 3/20/2004 

DEEP 12/9/2004 

2005

BJW 1/9/2005

2006

Kings Road 1/15/2006

2007

STYLE-E 7/22/2007 

2008

JWP 7/27/2008

 2009

Secret Base 10/20/2009

2010

E-Cosmos: Kansai vs. Style-E 2/21/2010 

Aggressive Pro 3/25/2010

EXIT 9/12/2010 

K-WEST 10/29/2010

2011

BattlARTS vs. Team DERA, 2/20/2011 

2012

EXIT 1/29/2012

2016

Dradition 3/29/2016

Bukotu 9/25/2016

2020

Batos Cafe 2/23/2020

2021

Battle and Arts Pro 1/24/2021

2022

Kotaru Nasu Produce 3/6/2022

CAPTURE International 3/23/2022

CAPTURE International 5/8/2022 Day Show 

CAPTURE International 5/8/2022 Night Show 

Masamune Produce 6/19/2022 

CAPTURE 7/29/2022

REAL BLOOD 10/3/2022

Tenryu Project 11/13/2022 Part 1

Tenryu Project 11/13/2022 Part 2

REAL BLOOD 12/26/2022

Takeshi Ono Documentation #4

 Takeshi Ono vs. Yuki Ishikawa, BattlARTS 6/18/2000 - EPIC

From what I've gathered, Ono in these days was relegated to lower carder status whose single matches were either clipped, or against total scrubs, which is a shame. This is a rare chance to see a proper match, and it seems Ono at this point was not much less good than he was in 2010. They make the most out of an 8 minute match, Ishikawa is bigger and much higher ranked, but he takes a bit of a backseat and lets Ono go all out. Match has some pretty spectacular matwork, Ono is amazing at diving for submissions at lightning speed, which gives Ishikawa a good opportunity to show off his mat skills against a highly skilled opponent. To supplement the matwork Ono beats Ishikawa full force, including pounding on his head with fists and knees on the ground. The last couple minutes are especially off the charts, a proper main event between the two would've been amazing.

Takeshi Ono & Daisuke Ikeda vs. Mohammed Yone & Masao Orihara, BattlARTS 6/25/1999 - EPIC

This is an awesome match; it's not very BattlARTS-alike as it's more pro-styled with no real matwork and not a lot of impact moves, but instead everyone in the match straight up dishes out the punishment left and right. Battle of shitheads pretty much sums it up as neither team is playing nice, Ikeda tries to claw Yone's face off a few times, while Orihara and Ono are at their sleazy best. You wouldn't think Orihara fits well into BattlARTS but he adjusts nicely, including an awesome one inch punch to Ono's face and a truely Usuda-styled breakup of a pinfall. I recall thinking Yone kind of sucked back then, but he was impressive as a tank just taking it to Ikeda, and his goofy leg drop was deadly looking. Ono was a little different then, less of a boxer more of a wrestler, but he was punching and kicking people in their faces as good as 11 years later, and his flying around and ballsily eating of an Orihara dropkick was cool. Ikeda was the Ikeda we all know and love. You will want to watch this.

Takeshi Ono vs. Mohammed Yone (BattlARTS 10/26/2001) - GREAT

This was one of the last regular BattlARTS shows of the first period and they are wrestling in a really rickety ring with a ton of sponsorship logos, end days BattlARTS was weird. This was peak Takeshi Ono, ultra precise, vicious strikes, lightning fast transitions and grappling. He was the worlds most spidery William Regal here trying to take out Yones arms and legs. Yone is pretty worthless as he doesn’t sell shit, but he was working a bit stiffer than normal and didn’t run the ropes as much due to the ring, he also took a nasty bump for an Ono suplex and got kicked in the face. This stuff why you have to watch everyone Takeshi Ono has done, just single-handedly salvaging throwaway matches like it’s nothing.

Takeshi Ono & Daisuke Ikeda vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa, AJPW 6/29/1997 - FUN

Ikeda and Ono come in and get a really nice reaction, then Kikuchi and Ogawa kind of eat their lunch. Kikuchi was uncooperative to the max and didn't sell a thing. Ogawa just did his usual spiel. There were some stiff as hell moves here, including Ikeda dishing out some of his stiffest shots I've ever seen on Kikuchi, Kikuchi firing back like a madman and Ono responding to Ogawa's pro style punches with shoot strikes, aswell as a brutal series of german suplexes to Ono. Fun match, but I would've liked a real match and not something borderline unprofessional.

This was about the only match of Ikeda in AJPW where he was treated as anything special. I wonder if this was some sort of test as lot of AJPW guys were watching from the side.

 

TAKESHI ONO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

 

IWA Japan 2/8/1997

 Tortuga vs. Akihiko Masuda

Akihiko Masuda is the future Great Takeru. He wasn’t much more exciting here than as Great Takeru, although he was able to string some decent move sequences together including a pretty nutty double jump spaceman dive. This was a perfectly acceptable lucharesu opener. Could’ve been a little shorter since these guys don’t have enough material yet, but Tortuga is my boy, and I always enjoy him no matter what.

Hiroyoshi Kotsubo vs. Takeshi Sato

Fun 7 minute BattlARTS-style match. Kotsubo can be pretty bad but he was fine here, there were some heated moments where they slapped the shit out of each other. Unfortunately Sato blows his springboard move and Kotsubo just finishes him. Could’ve been better, although I ended up happy.

Akinori Tsukioka vs. The Wolf

It’s the motherfucking Wolf. A kickpaddded WYF undercarder with very little matches on tape. This was the funnest of the undercard junior matches so far, just two guys with a cool variety of strikes pasting each other. Tsukioka was in his Onryo-getup again and he wipes The Wolf out with a big dive. The Wolf is a complete random but he had few cool kicks and nice suplexes. You know indy wrestling was good then when every other guy was some esoteric semi-shootstylist.

Leatherface vs. Kishin Kawabata

I was surprised to see Kawabata looking energetic as he went to beat on Leatherface to start this, but then he reminded me what a load he usually is by immediately following up with a chinlock. This was low tier houseshow stuff. I am giving Leatherface the benefit of the doubt as he was doing double duty on this card.

Bison Kimura & Emi Motokawa vs. Esther Moreno & Alda Moreno

This was a match where the ladies were more athletic than all the men on the card. The Morenos made this fun with their athletic lucha stuff and Motokawa had a big asskicker in Bison Kimura for a partner. It was kind of a get your shit-in match as opposed to the underdog stories Motokawa usually works, but you can do worse than this.

Hiromichi Fuyuki & Jado & Gedo vs. Daikokubo Benkei & Leatherface & Katsumi Hirano

There were some shitty wrestlers in this match, but you have to be deaf, blind and lame to have a bad match against Fuyuku Gun. Watching a lot of Fuyuki Gun stuff, I have to wonder if they are among the most underrated trios in wrestling. Sure they do the same stuff in every match, that is eating up their opponents with foul tactics and fun offense in between comical amounts of high pitched Fuyuki yelling, but it always provides an entertaining match. In this they waffle the shit out of Hirano and Benkei with chairs thrust kicks and lariats and good times were had. Leatherface did almost nothing in the match but he hit a nice dropkick at one point which was more impressive than about anything Benkei and Hirano could do.

Great Kabuki & Keizo Matsuda vs. Takashi Ishikawa & Shigeo Okumura (Double Chain Match)

I wanted this to be better, but in the end it was a bit too much choking with the chain and too little beating the shit out of each other. There are some brief awesome moments where Kabuki is bleeding and throwing punches, but far too little in a mud of weak brawling. The post-match brawl where Keisuke Yamada runs in on crutches hopping around on one leg to beat on people while Kabuki was smashing dudes with the crutch was much better than the match itself.

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #3

 

  Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI & Takashi Sasaki vs. Great Takeru & Phantom Funakoshi & Asian Cougar (5/25/1998) - GREAT

Good times with the DDT crew. You see, these guys can do some basic matwork and exchanges, put a match with a solid structure together and have no problem crushing each other with big highspots and stiff blows, which is absolutely enough for me to have a good time. I continue to be impressed with Phantom Funakoshi, his arm popping submissions are awesome, and he basically holds his team together, as Asian Cougar is just a highspot freak and the Great Takeru is just pure mediocrity. Funakoshi and Toba have a particularily great exchange where both guys keeping baiting eachother until Funakoshi grabs a series of armbars, Toba gets pissed off and demolishes Funakoshis shoulder with a series of nasty strikes. This was really early into Tobas career but he looks awesome, his punches were a bit less showy than later, he did lots of ducking and stance movements, but he still had such a cool variety of strikes and was willing to get crushed by his opponents spots, he also busts out the springboard wheel kick which is an awesome reckless spot from a guy not wearing shoes. Speaking highspots, Asian Cougar is an absolute psycho in this rolling out dive after dive and crushing dudes faces with the gnarliest leg drops you’ve ever seen. Really you can watch a ton of old japan indy wrestling and always come out with refreshed appreciation for the crazy ways of Asian Cougar. Mikami and Sasaki are in their infancy stage but they do well here and Mikami is over as the DDT homeboy to have an exciting finish with even Takeru. Such cool stuff, checking out Tobas career is an awesome journey.

Tanomusaku Toba & Tomohiko Hashimoto vs. Super Uchu Power & MIKAMI (DDT 7/19/2001) - GREAT

So much fun to be had here, DDT missed the boat big time when they stopped doing hybrid shoot matches like this. Tomohiko Hashimoto is all judo throws at this point, and he and the pure striking based style of Toba make a fun team. MIKAMI for a junior can handle himself with the shooters, he hit an awesome flying armbar counter to one of Hashimotos throws, and generally sticks to offense that requires little cooperation, mostly just hitting cool sentons and open hand strikes. Super Uchu Power is totally awesome in this match, the shooter alien is such a great menacing monster crowbarring dudes with kicks like baseball bat shots, locking in shoulder popping shoot submissions and dropping ridiculous bombs. He also works some really nifty exchanges with Hashimoto, there is a cool moment where the alien goes for a gi choke and Hashimoto reverses into a Fujiwara armbar, and several great spots centered around Super Uchu Power trying to block Hashimotos STOs and other throws. Toba narrowly avoiding destruction and and catching the beast with some hard punches and backfists was great. The finish was between Toba and MIKAMI and while it wasn’t as epic as the best Toba faceoffs it was fun.

Tanomusaku Toba & Ranbo Yoshida Okuntun vs. Kota Ibushi & KUDO (DDT 8/8/2007) - EPIC

This was from a Shin FMW style show where Kota Ibushi was in every match. It was also kickboxing style tag where everyone had gloves and there were rounds. It easily could’ve been bad, but it ended up pretty awesome. We get some slow opening sparring between Toba and KUDO before Ranbo Yoshida (who I assume is a legit kickboxing outsider) tags in and rules the show the with awesome Eddy Gordo style handspring kicks. The 2^nd round begins, Ibushi & KUDO start brawling and now we get kickboxers fighting up the entrance way in their gloves. For some reason floor brawling in Japan with dudes who wear gloves always is way better. The 3^rd round is just an awesome Rocky style frenzy where everyone is throwing down and blocking punches with their face. I thought Toba/Ibushi was gonna be the obvious final pair, but instead Ranbo tagged in, decided to stiff up Ibushi with some hard knees to the gut and we got more chaotic fighting. I can’t believe Japanese wrestling just collectively decided to stop having these kind of crazy spectacles and instead just quietly replace them with slogs of soulless elbow exchanges.

 

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Assorted Japanese Indy Wrestling starring ISAMI

 No, we are not talking about the K-Dojo trainee/Big Japan deathmatch guy Isami Kodaka in this post. This ISAMI is a karateka who seems to be in his 40s or 50s and works scummy underbelly Japan indies. There must have been a hundred guys like that - businessmen with black belts who randomly decided to get into the ring for a few one of matches, as long as they stick to what they know I am going to enjoy them doing their thing. This ISAMI isn't exactly Masashi Aoyagi, but he has uploaded some matches against interesting opponents to his YouTube channel, which is prime fodder for this blog.

ISAMI vs. Gajo, ?? 8/19/2020(?)

This takes place in a ring with chains instead of ropes. That is the signature of Fugo Fugo Yumeji's Underground Wrestling EXIT, but I'm not sure this is that promotion. Gajo is a massive bald dude who works a bit like a sleazy Kaz Fujita and doesn't make tape nearly enough. This was rounds and just two dudes beating on each other, no grappling or throws, just Gajo wailing on this with big open palm strikes and ISAMI firing back with karate offense. The whole thing is over in about 7 minutes and it has a real CAPTURE vibe. For such a minimalist fight there were a few neat things, such as Gajo getting caught when he tried rushing the karateka early, and the big Ikedaesque lariat to the side of the head that downed ISAMI. It's always refreshing to see a stiff Japanese match with no elbow smashes or shoulder blocks.

ISAMI vs. Rikiya Fudo, 3/17/2019

Rikiya Fudo is YUSAKU (Shimoda) who used to work DDT undercards and CAPTURE. So he has experience doing these kind of minimalist crowbarfests, and he looked good crowbarring the fuck out of ISAMI here. Just pummeling the guy with vader hammers and elbow drops. Fudo is a bit more pro-wrestling like than Gajo, but he really does all his pro wrestling things in a crowbar fashion, hitting a really hard legdrop and a big splash that ISAMI sold like he was gonna puke on the mat. Love this kind of abject violent squash.

ISAMI vs. Yuki Ishikawa, 12/25/2018

For some reason, I don't recall many Ishikawa matches where he faces a pure striker like this. Of course, Ishikawa rules, and this ended up being another near squash. ISAMI really beat on Ishikawa nowhere near as hard as you need to beat on Ishikawa. This had the most grappling of any matches so far and is really the Ishikawa show, which I enjoy. Another neat finish.

2002 MOTY List Update

 Bryan Danielson vs. Low Ki (JAPW 6/7/2002)

Probably the greatest matwork in a US indy match ever. Both guys were incredibly vicious here: Danielson would crossface Low Ki really hard aswell as drop knees on the ground, not to mention just trying to pull Kis head off when working facelocks. Kis focus was basically to create openings using his knee strikes etc. Ki was pretty outmatched, but still came up with a few brilliant counters. While this was largely uncooperative, they came up with a few great holds such as Ki trying to split Danielsons legs. Bryans using the modified surfboard to set up the Cattle Mutilation is the greatest use of that move aswell. Then Ki is able to get out of that too. Ki picking up Danielson and ramming him into the buckles before collapsing was another great comeback. Danielson slapping Ki only to get clocked with a head kick was another all time moment. Danielson moving to the corner as seen as Ki kneed him was a smart use of ring positioning. Danielson crawling to the apron and just taking a bump to the floor when Ki hit him instead of doing some elaborate apron spot was a brief of fresh air compared to current day apron spot obsessed pro wrestling. The match lost a bit of it's greatness when they were fighting on the floor and I thought they could have done a better job with the finish. By all logic, the whole thing should have ended with the 2^nd Cattle Mutilation. I don't want to nitpick though, because this was a seriously great, inspiring match.

Momoe Nakanishi vs. Kumiko Maekawa (AJW 2/24/2002)

Here's something I never thought I would see: a 40 minute long joshi match that I didn't hate. Initially I thought this was the match that Phil infamously picked apart, but apparently that one went 60 minutes. They seemed to have found a decent middle ground here. There were some problems and you could've shaved off 20 minutes and came out with an amazing match, but this is good in its own right. I'd say this was easily better than the 40 minute long garbage NJPW has been pumping out for years, and pretty much any Toyota sprint. You had the psycho violence of Maekawa kicking Nakanishi around the ring, including a crane kick that left Nakanishi spitting blood for the rest of the match, but also a surprisingly great understanding of the mechanics. For example, Nakanishi was initially avoiding the inevitable Boston Crab, which made Maekawa eventually being able to lock it in feel rewarding. It's a small detail but such things help keeping lengthy matches interesting and it shows they gave a shit about more than just hitting their big spots. Nakanishis gradual comeback from getting her back worked over was great as she was initially struggling to hit her spots. Here dives were smart. Nakanishi also showed a surprising amount of violence, aggressively elbowing Maekawa in the back of the head for example and hitting some nasty dropkicks and headbutts. Maekawa, of course, had a brilliant array of brutal kicks. I also loved her breaking out the green mist. All the control segments were well executed and there were few quite great hope spots/cut offs. There were a lot of nearfalls, but due to Nakanishis offense mostly being rollups I thought it never came into stupid overkill territory. Also, the Momoe Latch is a great spot and Maekawa had a few neat ways to counter it. Leg work was obviously filler, but well executed and didn't go long.

 Ian Rotten vs. Tarek the Great (IWA MS 10/4/2002) 

Two pasty tubby methheads in black shirts work a quasi shootstyle match in front of 30 people. While this was a little clumsy and slow in parts this was probably better than any cafeteria shootstyle I've seen from the current generation of US indy wannabe shooters. And in fact they should study this one as it had a lot of stuff that is missing from their attempts: stiff blows while trading holds to create an opening, holding tight to your holds and pin attempts, trying to prevent the other guy from moving etc. There was a neat moment where Ian would apply an STF and headbutt Tarek in the back of his head. Tarek is really hilarious as his entire idea of selling is pretty much „scream really loudly“ so anytime Ian would do as much as squeeze him he would scream like a japanese female wrestler. All in the same tone mind you. He was okay though and Ian looked very good twisting up his leg etc. The headbutts in this were insane especially the falling headbutts that left the lady in the striped pullover wincing. Memorable finish. This is what indy wrestling should be.

Low Ki vs. Amazing Red (PWF 11/10/2002)

Borderline great match well worth powering through the absolutely awful commentary. They worked a slightly more intricate version of their usual match here, adding some especially cool counters and cut offs to the mix. The main reason the work between these two guys ages well is that instead of building to thigh slapping flying knee strikes or Go 2 Sleep variations they add stiff kicks to the chest and nasty turnbuckle bumps to the mix. Note how violent something like Kis hair pulling toss felt not to mention the headbutts. Could've gone longer but I guess that's a good thing.

2002 MOTY MASTER LIST

Brief thoughts on SPWF 6/14/1995

 
SPWF  6/24/1995

1. Hiroshi Osumi (Shinjuku Shark) vs. Masahiko Kochi
2. Exciting Yoshida vs. Phantom Funakoshi
3. Toyonari Fujita vs. Dangerous Uchida
4. Made in China & ??? vs. Mr. ??? & ??
5. Ichiro Yaguchi & Isamu Teranishi vs. Kishin Kawabata & Hiroshi Hatanaka
6. Kuniaki Kobayashi & Great Kabuki & Kengo Kimura vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & Masa Saito & Riki Choshu

SPWF may be the least of the 90s mud show indies, but SPWF shows are always a nice novelty. I liked Yoshida/Funakoshi, Funakoshi was doing some kind of technical heel gimmick, his technical stuff looked good and I liked how he went to choke his opponent and then hit a knee drop to the throat. Yoshida was doing an Animal Hamaguchi tribute act and then he hit this really reckless tombstone piledriver. Main event was pretty much a greatest hits show that pleased the crowd, with the two novel additions to the usual Choshu tag formula, 1995 Yatsu and Masa Saito not doing anything special. Karate pants guys were more than solid, though. Nothing else stood out really but I prefer this kind of serious pro wrestling over todays joker indies.

Koki Kitahara Documentation #3

 Koki Kitahara & Johta vs. Nobuyuki Kurashima & Masayuki Mineno  (CAPTURE 12/8/2002) - GREAT

Exactly what Capture promises, 4 guys just beating eachother silly in savage ways. The Mineno/Johta sections were really fun with both guys throwing fast hands and kicks, all ultra stiff of course. Then you had the heavyweights – both Kitahara and Kurashima looked like they were twice the size of either Johta or Mineno – bullying the little guys around. Kurashima is a MUGA boy and he mostly sticks to matwork here, altough he does punish opponents with some brutal throws and inventive submissions. At one point he did a Backlund lift from an armbar into almost a One Winged Angel. Kitahara was an absolute bastard once again, stomping on Minenos face and sucker punching him from behind. Match is really good shootstyle in parts but starts breaking down into chaos towards the end with the referee losing control over who is legal and who isn't, so you would get Kurashima tackling Kitahara while Mineno would try to kick him in the face. Still this is what Capture promise and each fall had a great finish.

Koki Kitahara vs. Nobuyuki Kurashima  (CAPTURE 3/8/2003) - GREAT

Nifty little battle considering Kitahara is Sayama trained and a Tenryu disciple while Kurashima is one of Fujinamis MUGA boys. Kurashima is naturally at home on the mat and Kitahara is actually willing to work the mat against him. However Kitahara has the advantage because he is a bastard. Kitahara brutally kicks him in the jaw while exchanging leglocks and follows with more boots to the face. Kurashima makes some desperation takedown attempts until Kitahara catches (captures) him for the tap. 

 Koki Kitahara vs. Daiyu Kawauchi (CAPTURE 3/8/2003) - EPIC

Really gritty violent streetfight, the kind of mix of shootstyle and back alley fight that you don't get anywhere else except maybe FUTEN. Kawauchi was more aggressive and overzealous here so Kitahara just absolutely beat his ass in between taunting him. I've learned that in CAPTURE, each wrestler only has 3 guardrail breaks so the submissions feel much more meaningful. The finish is just a slaughter a suplex on that thin mat that just feels nuts. Good stuff that the fans got really into and I hope this isn't the last I see of Capture International. 

Koki Kitahara & YUSAKU vs. Tomohiro Ishii & DAISAKU (Capture 5/30/2000) - EPIC

Oh but this match is a goodie. You have Tomohiro Ishii pre-Choshuism and CAPTURE boy since the beginning, aswell as the unseen should-have-been-a-star DAISAKU (Shimoda) and his twin brother YUSAKU (Shimoda and half a dozen other names) rocking the gloves and ready to throw down. I'll never understand what motivates these indy guys to get punched in the face in a basement in front of 70 people but I'll always enjoy watching. This goes about 6 minutes and it's basically all 4 guys kicking the crap out of eachother. Really liked the lumpy boys who like to kick hard sections between Ishii and YUSAKU and the attempted fraticide between YUSAKU and DAISAKU was pretty brutal aswell. Daisaku has some huge kicks and thai knees while Yusaku sticks to more traditional pro wrestling stuff punches and knees stuff executed with a CAPTURE sized vicious streak. Also really liked Ishii in his Kawada wannabe tights flying at Kitahara with huge kicks. And Kitahara is just a major asskicker spinkicking dudes in the face here. By no means is this intelligent or well rounded pro wrestling, it's arguably shootstyle in it's most primitive form, and that's why I love it and want to see every single match in this style ever done. So Kitahara if you're reading this there's someone who cares, and Kitahara's neighbours if you are reading this please break into his garage and steal all his VHS tapes for us and don't get spin kicked in the face doing that.

 KOKI KITAHARA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Assorted World of Sport

 Pete Roberts vs. Caswell Martin (WoS 4/4/1973)

I thought this was a great match. It’s not for the faint of the heart though, being essentially 30 minutes of almost uninterrupted matwork. But these guys are great at what they do, and there is no more wrestling that feels like this, really. Really elegant hold for hold wrestling, and they really wrench in the holds so that you care when someone breaks out of them. They really torque in those basic wristlocks and hammerlocks, and they move into more elaborate spidery holds quite nicely. Roberts was doing a ton of cool shit in this match, at one point Caswell goes into a bridge and Roberts puts on a crucifix neck crank, there’s also some STF work that feels esoteric by the standards of european wrestling. Martin is such a supremely athletic wrestler that he can make stuff like flipping out of a leg grab look fantastic. Really dug all the nearfalls throughout the match. I would’ve liked the match to get a little more rowdy, Roberts was working over Martins shoulders pretty hard at one point and there was never really a serious heating up moment, but that’s not what they were going for. The crowd ate the match up, anyways.

Romany Riley vs. Lenny Hurst (2/13/1980)

Really good, heated little match. Riley is some tough looking barrel chested dude with prison tattoos, after some elegant escapes he catches Hurst with a thudding forearm and then turns to Walton as if to quip. Hurst promptly pins him to score a fall in the 1^st round. That pisses Riley off and he goes to town on Hurst. I really dug the build to the explosion here, Riley is overzealous in trying to get a hold of Hurst, just grabbing holds before Hurst is back on his feet, until he decides he’s had enough of the niceties and just kicks the crap out of his opponent. The great thing about World of Sport matches is how riled up the crowd got for simple things like kicking a guy when he’s down. Riley kicks the hell out of Hurst and throws him to the outside, then he gets a warning and immediately does the same thing while Walton says he’s going berserk, really intense moment. The whole second half was really intense actually, with Riley throwing super stiff european uppercuts and Hurst coming back throwing punches and headbutts. Hurst looked like a really good babyface here, throwing some fantastic dropkicks. He also had some really good selling, at one moment he looked like he seriously had his bell rung, trying to keep it together and the crowd was willing him on to take it to Riley. Really simple, super effective entertaining match.

Steve Veidor vs. Gordon Corbett (11/16/1976)

Gordon Corbett was a boxer turned wrestler and this was his only TV match. Corbett looks like really only a wrestler on world of sport can look, dumpy, balding, totally non-athletic looking guy. But he knew the usual holds and all his stuff looked good, proving posture and well-drilled movements are key to being good at wrestling. He had some fun tricks in his bag here. The crowd was firmly on the side of Veidor, even though there were no foul tactics from Corbett, and you can tell why Veidor was so popular based on the way he wrestled here. Really graceful wrestler for a lanky guy. There was a a really cool extended armwork sequence, and Corbett one-upping Veidor at the end and getting nearfalls felt a bit like Momota trying to pin Liger. Fun match, here’s to you Gordon Corbett.

IWA Japan 1/14/1997

 IWA Japan started out as basically a rehash of W*ING. Then Quinones left, and a small collective of indy wrestlers led by Keisuke Yamada was left to try and keep the promotion running. What followed was a run of supremely entertaining Japan indy TV from 1997-1999. A kind soul hooked me up with the entire season, so it’s time to watch ‘em all

Tortuga vs. Takeshi Sato

Simple but fun juniors match which would be the most entertaining bout on a random episode of WCW syndicated TV. Takeshi Sato looks like the real deal here, just destroying the poor turtle with nasty kicks, double stomps and suplexes. He also had this really cool Triangle Lancer variation. The turtle was playing a Naniwa-like role of telling some jokes but also doing some neat junior wrestling including an awesome looking flying clothesline, which is fine by me. He still did plant Sato with a nasty piledriver at one point. Full Japan Indy Point.

Chikako Shiratori & Yoko Kosugi vs. Bloody Phoenix & Miyuki Sogabe

These girls are from JD‘ and this was kind of a typical joshi fed offer match to fill up an indy scum card. It mostly was that type of joshi match where they do a bunch of half crabs and camel clutch type moves before one girl will hit 5 dropkicks in a row. They start busting out more varied offense in the second half of the match although the match never won me over, one of the girls really needed to pretend to be a crab or jellyfish for some breathing time between the spots.

Onyro vs. Akinori Tsukioka

Akinori Tsukioka was working really hard during this period. Apparently it got him nowhere so he decided to cruise control the rest of his career by assuming the Kuishinbo Kamen gimmick after leaving IWA Japan. He was rocking an Onryo imitation look which is an amusing bit of mind games. This had some fast lucharesu exchanges but Onryo is really pretty useless here. Onryo is really obviously lost between the spots and really only good for hitting dives at this point. He goes for his crazy 3rd rope dive and slips but ends up salvaging it by bouncing from the apron which was cool. But yeah, Onryo is largely useless. Tsukioka was such a good worker at this point that the match comes out watchable. He really hits a thrust kick harder than most workers would and slaps the shit out of the zombie to make up for the zombies lack of conviction.

Yumi Fukawa vs. Emi Motokawa

Emi Motokawa is Emi Sakurai and the sole girl that IWA Japan built a womens division around in this period. Fukawa wasn‘t yet ARSIONified and working a more generic style here. Fukawa really gives Motokawa the business hard, chucking her around and booting her in the face (seemingly messing up Motokawas eye at one point). Motokawas comebacks actually end up looking like hope spots against the higher ranked opponent and this ended up a really good little match.

Ryuma Go vs. Katsumi Hirano

Go~! Comes in wearing a whacky mask and a bandage on his leg! Hirano goes to town on Gos leg immediately, but Go isn‘t having it and makes Hirano eat shit with a bunch of suplexes and stiff lariats and headbutts. After this short, plain squash Go struts away to do more important things, such as fighting aliens and getting coerced into doing gay porn by the yakuza.

Great Kabuki & Leatherface vs. Daikokubo Benkei & Kishin Kawabata

Fun match with 4 lumpy dudes beating the bricks off of eachother. Kabuki was so awesome during this IWA Japan run pasting dudes with punches and thrust kicks, and he does just that here. I was also surprised by Leatherface. He had no problem getting hit hard and hitting hard and taking some way big bumps for a big man. Benkei is super limited but he can take and give some punishment. Kawabatas crowbar sentons and elbow drops ruled. There wasn‘t much of a story or structure but I will always enjoy a bunch of ex sumos and long haired weirdos trading assbeatings.

Great Kabuki & Keizo Matsuda & Keisuke Yamada vs. Takashi Ishikawa & Shigeo Okamura & Kishin Kawabata (Broken Glass Window Death Match)

This was supposed to be Matsuda/Yamada vs. Ishikawa/Okamura, but Ishikawa gets on the mic challenging Kabuki and it becomes a 6 man tag. This was a wild brawl which was made more entertaining by the tough old guy charisma of Ishikawa and Kabuki. These guys bleeding and punching and booting each other was awesome. Yamada and Okamura were working really hard here, starting with a great exchange that saw Okamura dropkick Yamada in the mouth. The brawling seemed more vicious here than usual in these Korakuen Hall brawls, there was very little of guys wandering around and dragging each other up the stairs and more guys beating on each other and throwing chairs. Yamada ends up taking the insane bump into the glass, cutting up his body, and then eating an insane neck compressing suplex from Okamura, you can tell he really wanted to put his company on the map here with his crazy Honmaesque performance. Really gritty entertaining brawl, exactly the kind of stuff people are looking for when scouring old deathmatch fed tapes. After the match Kodo Fuyuki attacks Kabuki, setting up another really exciting program (sorry, Tokyo Pro wasn't exactly a hot commodity in 1997 anymore).