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).