Perseus vs. Hidetomo Egawa
We join this 6 minute match 90 seconds in progress. Perseus is a scummy indy junior with a cool look, and Egawa is Masao Oriharas boy, although he was a flavourless rookie here. This goes straight to both guys uncorking their big moves, which look good. Egawa kicks out of Perseus triple powerbomb, but takes the pin after a superplex, which rules.
Mach Junji vs. Ryuji Hijikata
This was similiar to the previous match, JIP to them hitting their big moves, but had the extra level of BattlARTS stiffness. Hijikata clocks Junji in the back of the head with a lariat and works him over with kicks, Junji fires back with massive open hand strikes. Really nice shoulder-popping armbar sequence here. This goes to a time limit draw and I wouldn't mind if a handheld showed up to give us the whole thing.
Chihiro Nakano & Miyuki Fujii vs. Kyoko Ichiki & Chiharu
We only get about 5 minutes of a 16 minute match, but what was shown was full of swank moves and counters. Rolling armbars and legbars were hot shit in 1998 so everyone here was doing them, inbetween Chihiro Nakano clocking people with high kicks. Chiharu is an SPWF girl who looked pretty bad in SPWF matches I've seen but was fine here, she had a cool reversal from a samoan drop lift into a rolling armbar and a nice suplex. Ichiki also looked good here, hitting a Sabu chair dive, cool victory roll into legbar move, cool flying knee attacks and a nasty finish where she crushed Nakano with a rolling senton.
Yumiko Hotta & Kumiko Maekawa vs. Manami Toyota & Takako Inoue
We get 8 of 17 minutes. I didn't like this as much as the previous joshi match, I don't care much for what Toyota and Inoue bring to the table, although the match was savaged somewhat by Hottas and Maekawas cool kick variations.
TAKA Michinoku & Asian Cougar vs. Masao Orihara & Palomino
What do you think happens here? They nuke eachother with highspots nonstop, fuck all rhyme or reason, but the match stays short enough to not piss you off. The first 2 minutes of the match have 5 Michinoku Drivers – with TAKA eating 3 of them in a row and laughing about it a minute later. If you can get over that kind of idiocy, there was some fun to be had here. Cougar and Palomino bring the highspots, Cougar hits about half a dozen guillotine legdrop variations, and Palomino has nice height on a standing huracanrana and a great tope. TAKA and Orihara add some character work – meaning middle fingers and low blows. Taka also flops his dive and ricochets into a bunch of teenage girls. The most important thing is that this didn't overstay it's welcome and didn't do a bloated, tryhard finishing run.
Tarzan Goto & Masashi Aoyagi & Azteca vs. Dick Togo & Shoichi Funaki & MENs Teioh
Big badass brawl pitting Goto against Kaientai (who are all in WWF gear and have Yamaguchi-San with them), but mainly Goto against Togo. I loved the opening, which has Goto attacking Yamaguchi only to be hit by big Togo diving senton. Then chaos ensues and Togo is recklessly flying into chairs. Easily one of the better „opening brawling“ segments I can remember from a match in Korakuen Hall. Togo ends up busted open and has his cut worked over. Togo gives a really great performance here, and Goto and Aoyagi are great working the cut (Azteca is decent too).Goto uses foreign objects, while Aoyagi throws punches and kicks at Togo's face. Goto is so great here as a grotesque lumbering psycho destroying the little dudes, and Aoyagi working exchanges with Kaientai and laying into them with kicks is all kinds of fun too. It gets to the point where Goto gets ready to carve people up with a broken beer bottle and you wonder how Kaientai are gonna get out of this alive. I actually loved the sports entertainment twist right before the finish too as it resulted in a badass character moment from Aoyagi. Match probably needed a big dive train or something, but as it was it was a spectacular fight.
Ryuma Go & Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Tatsuo Nakano vs. Hiroshi Itakura & Yoshiaki Yatsu & Shigeo Okumura
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