Saturday, January 2, 2021

Oriental Pro 8/2/1992

 Oriental Pro was the follow-up fed to Pioneer Senshi. It wasn't quite as delightfully shootstylish as Pioneer, but there was still some fun to be had with this fed.


Kazuhiko Matsuzaki vs. Katsumi Hirano

 I love that every Oriental Pro card opens with a shootstyle match. Only problem here was that half the action was blocked by the audience with their umbrellas. Looked like a good 10 minute opening draw though. Matsuzaki is thick and will get aggressive to push the pace.

 

 Mike Winner vs. Nobutaka Araya

A brief squash altough Winner looked good controlling the very young Araya on the ground twith amateur style grappling.
 

Harris Brothers vs. Korean Kim & Korean Lee

One of the koreans is a skinny martial artist who will do spin kicks and high pitched yelling like a hong kong movie. The other is an elderly guy with a mustache who does elaborate flips (for 1992 standards). The Harris Bros make the best of it and this ends up being pretty entertaining.

Ryuma Go vs. Sumito the Samoan

Some crowdbrawling here which the camera doesn’t catch at all. Match didn’t look like anything special, anyways. Sumito gets to headbutt Go a bit but is defeated quite easily. No wonder Go would move on to battling aliens soon after.

 Hiroshi Itakura vs. Jesse Barr


In a world where junior wrestling is a fucking flea circus the simplicity of Oriental Pro Wrestling is a breath of fresh air. This was a solid house show main with Barr letting Itakura look good. Barr isn't exactly a maestro but there was something cool about his technical moves. Itakura seemed green here stringing his moves together. Really liked Barrs nasty modified chickenwing crossface (he basically grounds the opponent and twists clockwise) aswell as him doing the Backlund lift in a way that made sense. Barr catches Itakura when he tries a handspring moves and then wins following a kneedrop off the second rope. You kind of have to love it.

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