GAEA 2/16/1997

 

Sonoko Kato & Sakura Hirota & Hiromi Kato vs. Toshie Uematsu & Kyoko Ichiki & Rina Ishi

We get about 8 minutes of a 21 minute match. Hiromi Kato was playing underdog, and she is quite fun taking a beating and then randomly grabbing a torture rack. Thought Ichiki looked quite impressive acting like a gang leader for her team but also showing vulnerability after Kato had her in the rack. And the rest of the girls just have insane workrate. Wish we had more of this

WCW Women's Cruiserweight Championship Tournament Semifinals

Chihiro Nakano vs. Sugar Sato

Makie Numao vs. Meiko Satomura

We get about 1 minute each of these. Numao vs. Satomura looked cool as both just grabbed crazy submissions and counters left and right.

WCW Women's Cruiserweight Championship Tournament Finals: Sugar Sato vs. Meiko Satomura

Yes yes, the WCW Womens Cruiserweight title. I liked this a lot. Satomura outgrapples Sato early, so Sato takes a chair to her. Sato is kind of the stepchild of the GAEA rookie crew, as she‘s not a cool shooter and not really a tremendous athlete, but she always does things that stick. They settle into this really cool finishing run with both them busting out crazy submissions and pin counters. Sato won the previous match with a kneebar and Satomura won hers with an armbar, so the fans were rabid for all the submission attempts. Really good shit, unfortunately only 7 of 11 minutes were shown.

KAORU & Maiko Matsumoto vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Akira Hokuto

Damn great match. I‘m a fan of all 4 of these wrestlers, and I STILL didn‘t expect this to be so great. Virtually flawlessly worked underdog story match. Matsumoto has a knife in this gunfight of a match, and KAORU basically spends the first 5 minutes of the match saving Matsumoto from getting killed. Hokuto and Nagayo are pretty great launching an Anderson brothers like assault on Matsumoto here, cutting off the ring and acting all high and mighty. It‘s weird how joshi has this reputation for this go-go style with random moves and transitions happening by the minute and then you get hit with these ladies doing an expert job cutting off the ring and building to a momentum shift. Nagayo is established that she can end a match with any hold, so her putting all these shoot holds on Matsumoto garnered tremendous heat. Nagayo and Hokuto were treating KAORU like shit too initially, Matsumoto doesn‘t even get a hot tag, Hokuto just throws her to the corner and signals KAORU to come in, like she‘s tired of KAORU coming in to save Maiko, so she wants her to come in and kick her ass. Matsumoto helping out KAORU in turn was really great. I was also really impressed by Hokuto and Nagayo knowing exactly how much offense to give to their opponent. It can come across as dull when in Japanese wrestling a higher ranked wrestler no sells all of his opponents stuff, but in this case, when they acted unphased by Matsumoto it felt earned, and when Matsumoto was able to crack them it felt earned and accordingly great. Those Atomic Drops were great. Should also say KAORU looked great as an athletic, precise main player and had some great exchanges with Hokuto. It transitions to a finishing run where suddenly KAORU is getting destroyed and Matsumoto has to save her before the inevitable happens. Tremendous match that executed its story perfectly while delivering plenty of violence and heat.

 THE LIBRARY

Going through Shodates Best Matches of the 90s List Part 3

  The List

232. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Masahiro Chono, NJPW 5/31/1991 

Damn, I didn't expect to like this so much. Any Fujinami big match is guaranteed to have a ton of wrestling, and there was a lot of that here, but there was also a ton of disdain right from the opening which has Chono spitting Fujinami in the face. Chono is far from a great matworker, but he was game here, busting out an awesome calf slicer and a flying clothesline that was like something Necro Butcher would do. He also wasn't afraid to get into stiff slap battles and I liked his headbutts and mafia kicks he would use to combat Fujinami's mat prowess. Fujinami on his side had one of the most brutal dropkicks I've ever seen and an epic dive. This was a very typical NJPW style match, there was no grand finishing run with a ton of big moves to be kicked out of or something, instead it was about avoiding the other guy's finisher when push came to shove. That and the fact both guys sold a ton of exhaustion made the second half of this pretty great. Little bit of a lucha title match influence here with some dramatic bumps for momentum shifts and that sick guardrail dive from Fujinami. Great stuff, glad that this was brought up as the 232nd best match of the 90s

241. Meiko Satomura vs. Sugar Sato, GAEA 10/11/1998

Leave it to a pair of 18 year old girls to have an excellent lengthy match in 1998. The cool thing about the mat stuff they did here was that it wasn't shootstyle stuff, but closer to NWA-ish legbars and kneedrops, executed in really vicious fashion. Sugar doesn't have the high end offense of Satomura, but I thought she did well enough to mix it up and keep the match going. Everything made sense and built really well to their respective finishers (Death Valley Driver vs. Liger Bomb), and while there wasn't any super-focussed extended selling they worked hard to put eachother's offense over as devastating. Plenty of neat spots, including Sato finding ways to counter Satomura's arm attack stuff. Best GAEA match of 1998?

246. Bull Nakano vs. Shinobu Kandori, LLPW 7/14/1994

I was disappointed to see this not holding up quite well. I remember feeling there was something fishy about this when I first watched it years ago and now I remember why. This had the lamest crowd brawl in the middle. I enjoyed them punishing eachother with the chain and there were some great visuals here, but this could have been so much more. Outside distraction was crap, so was Kandori's armbar. I liked Nakano avoiding Kandori's feeble punches and just kicking her in the face. Finish makes up for the dragging parts. Good match.

Takeshi Ono Documentation Project #10

 Takeshi Ono vs. White Moriyama, FUTEN 1/30/2011 - EPIC

I loved this, a real testament to the greatness of Ono. This was Moriyamas (initial) retirement and while he has never shown much, he was game to engage in a FUTEN level war. Normally you‘d associate retirement matches with feel good moments and the retiree getting their shit in, but that wasn‘t the case here as Ono was incredibly vicious throughout and just trying to turn Moriyama into a pulp. Just a super competitive match even outside the violence, really dug the opening grappling with Ono stuffing Moriyamas takedown attempts and doing some excellent guardwork. Onos relentlesness however may have been at its peak here as he caught Moriyama with a nasty stomp during a scramble in the ropes and then just demolished him with sick punches and kicks and ungodly knees. Ending run felt shockingly epic for a Moriyama match as he uncorked some gnarly head spiking suplexes while maintaining a sense of struggle, Moriyama getting a bloody nose and trying not to get punched out, refusing to die on his sword while getting his face perforated by Onos kicks etc. It works because of how bad Ono was stomping Moriyama earlier, that Moriyama reaching deep and trying to hang on actually feels epic. Strong contender for the greatest retirement match I've ever seen, and its all Ono.

Takeshi Ono & Junji.com vs. Ikuto Hidaka & Tiger Mask IV, BattlARTS 2/14/1999 - FUN

Fun match which may have been BattlARTS hybrid style at its most experimental. These guys were going back and forth from working lucharesu exchanges to shootstyle mat scrambles. Hidaka and Tiger Mask IV tore it up. Ono looked great too, but he spent too much time on the apron. When he was in the ring he went from kicking and punching people really hard, to working cool submissions, to stooging like an expert rudo. Junji was in most of the time and he is the weakest guy in the match, although still decent when he wasn’t hitting sloppy dropkicks. Cool match which felt hard fought, but I wanted more Ono content.

Takeshi Ono & Masao Orihara vs. junji.com & Ricky Banderas, BattlARTS 4/26/1999 - FUN

We only got about 5 minutes of this, which is too bad because it looked like a really good match. Junji cleaning house was fun, and Orihara and Ono are real fuckers beating the piss out of him. Banderas seems really out of place in this but does fine dropping some bombs. Finish is spectacular with Ono hitting a spider german, Orihara moonsaulting over him before Ono dives outside and Orihara gets the win with an abdominal stretch of all things. Tonpachi Machine Guns rule, man.

 

TAKESHI ONO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

IWA Japan SPRING BREEZE 3/13/1998

 

Takeshi Sato & Tortuga vs. Cosmo*Soldier & The Great Takeru

Masao Orihara & Hidetomo Egawa vs. Perseus & Akinori Tsukioka

Benkei Daikokubo & Katsumi Hirano vs. Nuruka & Shinigami

Sumie Sakai vs. Emi Motokawa

Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda & Shigeo Okumura vs. The Great Kabuki & Ryuma Go & Tarzan Goto

 

Well I'll be damned, because this was a damn cool little card where every match delivered something worthwhile. Well, except that tag with Benkei and Shinigami maybe - aaaahhh let's not talk about it! The opener was a cool little junior's match which they totally should not have clipped. Cosmo Soldier always adds a sense of unpredictability even to standard opening exchanges. He will hit a stiff dropkick and then start working mount and then hit an insane tope con hilo, all in the span of 90 seconds. Same for the 2nd match, which had some nice hate filled exchanges and sleaziness. The semi main event was like the perfect 90s match to put on a VHS comp - just one nifty move after another. Also, impeccable fashion sense that both girls displayed! Color combinations like this will never come back. Wrestling in 1998 was a blast.

 

Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda & Shigeo Okumura vs. The Great Kabuki & Ryuma Go & Tarzan Goto - EPIC

Leave it to a bunch of sleazy dudes and old geezers to have one of the funnest bomb throwing sprints of the year. You know any match with Tarzan Goto & Ryuma Go in it is pure money. If you don't, I hereby decree it. I was expecting a wild brawl, but they mostly stay in the ring and stick to the all star team of Tarzan/Go/Kabuki waffling the shit out of the sleaze greenhorns. Matsuda & Okumura aren't all that great, but that DOES NOT MATTER because they were here to get punched in the face and kicked in the throat a whole LOT. The exchanges between Goto & Yamada were insanely gory and easily the highlight of the match. I also unexpectedly loved Kabuki, who is supposed to be way over the hill and corpse-like at this pound but still BRINGS it - by doing what he always did: throwing punches and thrust kicking dudes really hard. I can't believe people widely don't like this dude - even his nerve hold was awesome! He was KILLING the poor guy with that nerve hold. I imagine if this had a grand stand exchange between Goto & Yamada at the end or something this would have been near all time level, but as it stands it was basically 3 badass vets waltzing in to kick the shit out of anyone and it kind of ruled. Also, do not watch this match if you dislike lariats, because this had about 30 of em.

THE LIBRARY

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

Assorted Japanese Indy Wrestling

 

Yujiro Yamamoto vs. KATSUO, Dounan Pro Wrestling(?) 3/31/2019

These two had a very good main event in Yamamotos BATTLE And ARTS promotion, so I was delighted to find another match between the two! The BAP match was a match built around Katsuo being a monster and demolishing Yamamoto. This was about Yamamoto picking apart Katsuo with shoot strikes and nasty arm stretches and Katsuo being a tough guy absorbing punishment and firing back with KO worthy potatoe lariats and headbutts of his own. One thing was constant: these two potatoed the daylights out of each other. Yamamoto is quite the offensive tank combining cool arm submissions with a variety of kicks, knees, elbows and open hand strikes. He even mixes in a cool Kido Clutch at one point. And Katsuo is really solid in his role. Fun fun match.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Kyosuke Sasaki, Kyushu Pro 12/2016

For a 66 year old man, Fujiwara could still go. This match blows a lot of shootstyle attempts between younger guys away. Fun beginning with guys shoving each other to the ropes and trading stiff cheapshots, and then we a get a bunch of really good matwork. Fujiwara was stretching the hell out of Sasaki and doing some nasty as hell ankle grinding. There was also a great leg lock exchange. Sasaki is really cool here, not holding back with the kicks, and doing things like going for a Gotch style piledriver on the old man. Great finish where Fujiwara baits Sasaki into finally throwing a hand and catching him.

White Moriyamas Return to Pro Wrestling Part 2

 

White Moriyama & Takafumi Ito vs. Raito Shimitsu & Tetsuya Ido, Heat-Up 2/19/2021

This was probably the best Heat-Up match I’ve seen so far. It had the smooth matwork and stiffness of the previous matches, plus a story, and they worked a breathless pace. Moriyama and Shimitsu have heat now, and all their exchanges felt heated, even tho there was no crowd. We start right with Moriyama taking Shimitsu down and going for the kill with an armbar, before Shimitsu throws him off. We get a cool slick Ito/Ido matwork section  before they move into Shimitsu and Ido working over Moriyama mostly involving Shimitsu throwing Moriyama around. Really good comeback tease spot where Moriyama takes out Shimitsus bad leg. His actual comeback ends up being great too as he just catches Ido flush in the face with a spin kick. Extended finishing stretch built around Shimitsu uncorking all of his great looking throws and Moriyama rolling out a dozen submission reversals (with Shimitsu once again doing a really good job selling those submissions) was really good. At one point, Shimitsu got out of a triangle choke by just spinning Moriyama around, which was something I had never seen before. Heat Up is looking really promising right now putting out some of the best neo-shootstyle work.

White Moriyama vs. Takafumi Ito, HEAT-UP 10/22/2020

Man, promotions really missed the boat not giving Takafumi Ito more to do in the 10s. I really liked this match, they did some cagey defensive work early trying to crack each other, before Moriyama cranked up the pace just trying to catch a hold later. Ito looks crafty and the finish with him trapping both of Moriyamas arms before sinking in a choke was great.

White Moriyama vs. Hiroshi Watanabe, Heat-Up 12/24/2020

Ridiculously fun match built around Moriyama trying to use his shootstyle and Watanabe catching him in side headlocks, abdominal stretches and O’Connor roles. Great finish with Moriyama spinning around and into a heel hook that nearly twisted Watanabes foot off. I wish it had gone longer. It seems Watanabe considers himself over the hill at this point which is said because I love the guy.

GAEA WAR CRY 1/19/1997

Rina Ishii & Maiko Matsumoto vs. Chihiro Nakano & Makie Numao

 

Only in GAEA will you see a bunch of rookies having an opening match this long and complex. This went about 17 minutes and they never slowed down, never let things get repetitive, and worked in a bunch of ridiculously fun transitions while displaying good sense of timing. Nakano and Numao continue to work very well as a team of kickpadded asskickers, and Ishii and Matsumoto look very good too. I love how something like Matsumotos Atomic Drop is still a hot nearfall. The match didn’t have much story, but I could see a lot of people watching this and be blown away. To say the raw talent GAEA had was amazing would be an understatement.

Hiromi Kato vs. Bomber Hikari

Fun debut match for Hiromi Kato, who would retire just the next year. She showed plenty of fire and caught Hikari in a damn argentine backbreaker of all things. Hikari didn’t do anything out of the ordinary but she was hitting her bodychecks and leg drops with extra oomph, and shut down Kato as needed.

Chigusa Nagayo & Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato vs. Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima

This was pretty great. Nagayo and Ozaki held the match together and added the character moments, while the young girls were all fired up and fighting like mad. All the Nagayo/Ozaki exchanges felt akin to the Tenryu/Hashimoto interactions in a WAR/NJ tag. Plenty of violence with all the girls throwing huge kicks and stomps. They lost focus a bit in the second half, as they did some stuff like bringing in a bunch of tables, plus Ozaki kicked out of virtually everything that was thrown at here. Still, it was a pretty loaded match. Satomura almost pinning Ozaki worked and kept the fans on the edge of their seats. The finish was a bit unusual as there were a ton of big bombs thrown and then one wrestler succumbs to a basic submission, but I guess that was the GAEA philosophy.

Sakura Hirota vs. Devil Masami

Pretty insane squash. Basically Hirota can’t do anything to harm Devil, but she tries her hardest, and Devil just nukes her. One of the powerbombs seems to KO Hirota and Nagayo comes in, slaps Hirota, drags her up and throws her at Devil again only for her to immediately hit another nasty bomb. Harrowing shit.

Akira Hokuto & Toshie Uematsu vs. KAORU & Kyoko Ichiki 

This was fantastic and instantly became one of my favourite joshi matches of the year. Lots of cool uncooperative exchanges throughout, and the match told a good story. You had Hokuto being two classes above both opponents (and making that very clear), Uematsu refusing to back down and wrestling a class above hers, and Kaoru and Ichiki trying everything to gain the advantage and topple their opponents. There were some basic spots such as biting, stomping eye rake or hair pulling toss which felt really violent here. There was also plenty of awesome receipt spots, especially whenever Hokuto felt disrespected, she would step up and show who's boss usually by booting someone in the face. There was also plenty of head droppin death moves and crushing diving attacks. Despite that the match didn't feel like overkill and ended at just the perfect spot. Little weak transitions here maybe, but yeah all things considered I enjoyed the hell out of this.  

THE LIBRARY

2002 MOTY List Update #11

 Osamu Nishimura vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (NJPW 8/10/2002)

I may be in the complete minority here, but I thought this wasn't as good a Nishimura/Rutten in some aspects, particularily because Takayama came across as holding back. This was still some pretty great character driven pro wrestling with a technical edge. Takayama doing those bridge up spots is wonderous. I wish he had sold the legwork a little more. Nishimuras throwback spots for massive reactions ruled as usual. Nishimura can actually set up a move or hit a pin combo that decides the match, so he never comes across as exhibitiony. Liked Takayama just kicking him like a dog, but this is largely the Nishimura show aside from the novelty of Takayama doing technical wrestling.

Osamu Nishimura vs. Takashi Iizuka (NJPW/MUGA 10/6/2002)

  Iizuka returns to wrestling. And he gets to fight Nishimura in a long technical battle! Is this the longest singles match Iizuka has ever been in? Does anyone even remember any significantly long Iizuka singles matches?? As far as lesser known 2002 Nishimura singles matches go, I'd say this was better than Nishimura/Shiga. Iizuka was much less luggage than Shiga, instead he was actively trying to crack the stoic grappler, while Nishimura seemed to have an answer to everything. Iizuka finally found what he was looking for when he got Nish in one of his sambo leg locks. An awesome battle of leg entanglements ensued that left both guys struggling to get up. Couple brilliant nearfalls down the stretch that I bit on. Nishimura was the man in 2002 and Iizuka more than held up.

 

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Shinjiro Ohtani (ZERO1 4/27/2002)

YO! This match is two sided. First of all, they level some epic beatings on eachother here. No doubt about it. Ohtani goes at Ishikawa like he just caught him with his daughter. Just punishing him with kicks, slaps, bloodying him, some nasty as hell face grinding, and he slaps the ring boys too for good measure. Ishikawa makes one or two epic comebacks, including one where he just punches Ohtani square in the face and another where he hits one of his stiffest enzuigiris ever and then tries to break Otanis arm in several places. So you feel like you are watching an epic fight, but then the match seemed to be lacking in well thought out transitions or some kind of twist and also it's all over in less than 9 minutes. For that there is plenty of asskicking going on here, but other than that – I guess I just expect deeper material from Ishikawa who is a master of the neat touch even in a short wild brawl. Then again this was largely the Otani show. But – if you want to tune out and watch two surely elderly japanese men throw the kitchen sink, this is your stuff.

 Masayuki Naruse vs. Takehiro Murahama (NJPW 8/29/2002)

  Naruse has to be in the running for most under utilized Japanese worker ever (you know, excluding guys who only worked Z-indies and only made tape a few times in 10 years). He didn't have a problem at all hitting the mat and trading nasty strikes for 20 minutes. This was some cool modern shootstyle action. There was a big size difference, but Murahama more than held his own with some lightning quick strikes. There was some slick U-Style matwork as well as plenty of manly kicks and suplexes. I thought the match was hurt a bit by NJPW being undecided whether it wanted to be a shootstyle or pro style company at this time and there were some slightly melodramatic touches towards the end.

 

2002 MOTY MASTER LIST

Assorted HUSTLE

 

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Naoya Ogawa, HUSTLE 3/18/2005

HUSTLE doesn’t get explored much due to the comical nature of the promotion. But this… this was a seriously good match! Kawada wears this Bruce Lee outfit and Ogawa has “I’m chicken” written all over his attire. I was expecting them to break out into a musical number or something, but they wrestle this completely straight and with effort! It’s not on the level of their epic 2003 encounter, but they work plenty stiff, there are some fun payback spots centered around both guys working headlocks and then dismissively kicking the other guy, and I loved Kawada here, desperately avoiding Ogawas STO and mount punches, and doing fun stuff like breaking out a random spinning choke and even stealing Ogawas STO! Really fun, maybe even great match.

Naoya Ogawa vs. Tadao Yasuda, HUSTLE 7/13/2005

This went like 8 minutes, with a like 1/4th of that spent in a Figure 4 leglock that had no consequent. That said, I had watching Yasuda act sleazy and Ogawa bruising him up with kicks and judo throws. There is also an AWESOME spot where Yasuda blocks an STO and sumo rushes Ogawa.

Yoji Anjoh vs. Zeus, HUSTLE 9/17/2008

Absolutely great match. Well, if you can get into something that could as well show up on Superstars as a “great match” – but this is great. Like the worlds greatest Finlay vs. Chris Masters match. Young Zeus with the cornrows has tons of cool power spots. I loved how he would throw off Anjohs initial attempts at grappling him, until Anjoh started wristlocking and fingerbending him a bunch. Anjoh looks pretty great like Regal, his performance here made me wonder if I should do a deep dive on his HUSTLE run. Zeus arm selling had a few nifty moments – including a cool attempted gorilla press and the match ended in just the picture perfect moment.

PWC BORN AGAIN 5/9/1996

 Motherfucking Pro Wrestling Crusaders. Full show is here

Sanshiro Takagi vs. Hiroshi Watanabe

Unto all things… a beginning! Takagi would go on to conquer Japanese wrestling in the next 2 decades. Watanabe remained hidden in the underworld. They are both mere black trunks wearing rookies here, although they have a solid black trunks rookie match. Watanabe has kickpads and both guys crack each other hard with some shots and Watanabe hits a really nice dropkick. Single leg crab ends it because that is how these things go.

Super Judist vs. Raioh

I think Super Judist may be Black Hole. He is a tubby guy in a judo gi with a mask. What gives? Raioh has the cool “singlet and taped feet” look and sumo rushes the Judist at one point. This was a fun if inconsequential big boy tumbling match that lasted about 6 minutes. Raioh hits an Ace Crusher of all things but Judist completely no sells it. Judist was putting on cool submissions on Raioh the whole match and he wins with a really cool facelock and armlock move.

Kazushige Nozawa vs. Masakazu Nagase

A singlet wearing Nozawa completely steamrolls Nagase, choking him out within seconds. TAMA mastermind Kancho Nagase deserved better.

Uchu Power X vs. Super Rider

It’s alien shootstyle, baby. I think this is Koichiro Kimura under the Uchu Power mask. This was a completely straight grappling match. They didn’t even do any floor brawling like I’ve seen them do in West Japan and DDT, and there were only one or two vicious strikes from the alien. Other than that, this was all guys in poncho and freaky masks scrambling for chokes and heel hooks. Rider looked good tenaciously grappling with his bigger opponent. Cool match and I wish we had more alien shootstyle.

Blue Panther & Fuerza Guerrera vs. Hijo del Santo & El Sharak

El Sharak was a guy in a ninja costume. I am guessing he was a Japanese guy that PWC was going to push, because he was the focus of this match, although he looked a bit amateurish here and there and blew some spots. The other guys could have a good match in their sleep though and all their stuff was super on point. No matwork sadly but they were there to pop the crowd, and that they did.

Hiroshi Shimada vs. Shogun KY Wakamatsu

Weird match. Wakamatsu is the guy with the hat who managed the Strong Machines in NJPW and various monsters on the indy scene. He was an IWE guy who came back to pro wrestling in SWS and then just kind of stuck around in these sleaze indies. He would hit lots of eccentric offense, chokes, throat jabs etc. He controlled basically the entire match and it really wasn’t very good. There was also some chaos around Uchu Power X being Wakamatsus second at ringside and more random guys interferring. I guess it upholds the sleaze factor but I I thought Shimada, who apparently was the PWC World Champion at this point (raising even more questions about PWC than I had before) deserved better.

Shunji Takano & BATMAN (Great Sasuke) vs. Great Zebra & Gran Naniwa

I have no idea who this Great Zebra guy is. Maybe George Takano? This was a pretty fun match where everyone had their working boots on. We start with a cool 5 minute stretch of matwork which was neat. Sasuke and Naniwa worked hard for their paychecks here. Sasuke in the 90s is such a guy where even when he is kind of mailing it in he looks like a high end pro wrestler. Takano didn’t brutalize anyone, but he showed he could go. You can say a lot about the whackiness of sleaze companies like PWC, but there was lots of good serious pro wrestling on this card.

THE LIBRARY

Going through Shodates Best Matches of the 90s List Part 2

The List

33. Volk Han vs. Gennady Gigant (RINGS 3/5/1992)

The 33^th best match of the 90s as told by Shotaro of Date. With a name like Gennady Gigant you expect this to be some Raja Lion freakshow, but he is just a slightly bigger version of your kickpadded russian shooter. I wouldn't call him a Giant as he seems slightly less than Maeda sized but you can't not watch Han vs. A Giant. Volk Han is like Marcelo Garcia in this making short work of a bigger more massive dude. Gigant gets to have his moments, such as bodyslamming Han around or powering out of an armbar. But largely the point here is that even if you are a giant, you are not safe from HAN. Really the Han show, and that is something I tend to enjoy. Han wristlocking a poor fellow really never gets old. At this point it begs the question whether Volk ever had a bad match in his whole career.

34. Volk Han vs. Akira Maeda (4/3/1992)

This was #34 on our majesty Shoda T's list of the greatest matches of the 90s. And well that feels like a slight underestimation as this is really pretty great. This is how you do clash of the titans. I think it's weird Maedas RINGS work doesn't get brought up near as strongly as his 80s stuff... surely people would want to analyze and nitpick in depth? I thought he was just a great ace here. He would prevent most of Hans submission attempts and show he's the boss, but slowly came crashing down with his vulnerability. Han wasn't super dominant early on as he can't ragdoll Maeda around, but he can always pull off some freak move. And the points keep running out, with the formerly so confident Maeda getting some unexpected downs... then it seems he can finally take the russian down only to fall right into his trap. Matwork was very good, and the story of the match was wonderfully executed. Great match.

29. Volk Han vs. Grom Zaza (RINGS 5/16/1992)

This was #29 on our man Sheau D'Ahatays list of the greatest matches of the 90s. And this was really fun because Zaza is using mostly amateur wrestling, so against Volk Hans sambo you had a neat dynamic. Zaza hits all these awesome throws and works half nelsons and it rules. Han retaliates by almost knocking him out twice. This had that feel a lot of Volk Han matches have where the result feels inevitable but it was edge of your seat stuff the whole way through, and nice to see Volk against someone who puts up a little more resistance than the japanese guys and even puts him through the wringer a little.

30. Volk Han vs. Mitsuya Nagai (RINGS 4/24/1993)

CRAZY CRAZY HOT SHOOTSTYLE SPECTACLE!!! Nagai makes one (1) desperate rush at Han right at the start and immediately gets his legs tangled up. Han proceeds to envelope Nagai in one ridiculous hold after another while Nagai is running for the ropes like a choir boy. When Nagai is able to grab a basic headlock or half crab the crowd explodes like he just cured cancer. Han mostly slips underneath for weird takeovers into leglocks but eventually just lets Nagai take him down and then picks a kimura which was like taking candy from a children. No real „exchanges“ in this match but it's pretty much Hans formula match.

5. Volk Han vs. Andrei Kopilov (RINGS 11/16/1995)

The 5^th best match of the 90s according to the one and only Show Da Tay. Battle of the Sambo maestros. Kopilov is just the right amount of clumsy to be really awesome here. Watching him refuse to be utterly dominated like everyone else was great. I love the maudlin look he has anytime Han makes the ropes. This really feels like Kopilov can beat Han and there are some incredible escapes and holds down the stretch. Superb finish. This was slower and less athletic then your highly rated RINGS bouts but I didn't mind at all.

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #9

 

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Naomi Yoshimura & Yuki Ueno (DDT 8/15/2020) - GREAT

2020 pro wrestling always feels like a soulless husk of what it used to be. But there will always be Toba, punching people in the face. Toba was working this like a broken down old fighter. Well, he was probably for real, considering he has been doing hard hitting matches for 20+ years now. It added some character to his, sections though. When he came in to work over Yoshimura with punches it felt like a great moment. I dug MIKAMI a lot in this, he doesn’t have the crazy dives and athletic high flying anymore, but he was busting out cool transitions and flash submissions left and right. Yoshimura was also a fun guy, who felt like a poor mans Rikiya Fudo, throwing vader hammers and jaw cracking lariats. Ueno is some Ibushi clone and while he offers nothing in terms of personality, he doesn’t do anything stupid either. The ending section is between him and Toba and really made by Toba punching him in the face and taking some way bigger bumps than you’d expect from a broken down aging guy. This def. felt slow in parts and was lacking in snap compared to how Japanese wrestling used to be, but I was happy to see the Suicide Boyz still riding high in 2020 and having a good match.

 

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Takashi Sasaki & Yuki Nishino (DDT 12/14/2000) - GREAT

12 minute sprint where everyone of these guys arguably in their primes hits all the cool shit. I would’ve liked a bit more depth, preferably an in-peril section or something, but all these guys were so fun to watch at this point. Naturally I liked all of Tobas sections the most as all he does is throw hands hard and fast. Sasaki may have been his best opponent, Sasakis asskicking ability really increases tenfold when he faces Toba. Their exchanges weren’t as violent as their singles match earlier in the year, but still pretty damn stiff and make basically all current (2020) pro wrestling outside of Ishikawa/Ikeda matches look like a trained monkey show. They also took to the floor in another nasty street brawling section. MIKAMI did a lengthy nearfall section and I was expecting the finish to involve him, but thankfully Toba tagged in again and we got two more great sections between him and Sasaki/Nishino. Nishino looks good here again throwing these running headbutts. Aside from 1-2 botched spots, this delivered in spades.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Takashi Sasaki (DDT 9/30/2004) - FUN

These two had some great matches earlier in the decade. This wasn’t as great, but it was still these two beating each other to a pulp. This was Takashi Sasakis farewell match so it had the kind of emotional feeling those matches have. Neither guy was willing to go down and they were daring each other to hit each other harder and harder for the last time. I usually dislike the exhibitiony feeling Japanese stiff fests have sometimes but at least it made sense here. Also, they clipped this down to 5 minutes, which feels like a massive dick move.

Tanomusaku Toba & Seiya Morohashi vs. HERO! & KUDO (DDT 11/2/2004) - SKIPPABLE

Pretty missable match. This was a title change but felt like an undercard match. HERO! Had some cool highspots, but definitely looked green between the highspots. And KUDO felt a bit like a spotmonkey with a martial artist gimmick here. Worst of all, there was no Toba asskicking section. He did this weird Final Cut style move that looked weak. I’m glad he stopped that. It wasn’t a terrible match, but it just felt sloppy.

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

IWA Japan WELCOME THE WORLD CHAMPION TOUR '97 10/27/1997

 Yuji Kito vs. Yoshiya Yamashita 

Emi Motokawa vs. Sachie Nishibori 

Tigre Oriental vs. Tortuga
Freddy Krueger vs. Katsumi Hirano

Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda & Takeshi Sato vs. Akinori Tsukioka & The Great Takeru & Perseus

Leatherface vs. The Great Kabuki

Another strong late 90s IWA Japan card. Opener was solid, girl match was pretty fun. I think I prefer IWA Japan girl undercard matches over AJW undercard matches at this point since they don‘t do things like hitting three dropkicks in a row for no reaosn. Nishibori looked good in that match hitting swank ranas and whatnot. Tigre Oriental is a guy who is listed as only working Japanese indies like KAGEKI and watching the match I couldn‘t tell if he‘s a backyarder, a Japanese guy who attended a training camp in Mexico, or just a really shitty luchador. He takes about 80 % of the offense in the match but Tortuga still gets the biggest pops with his rope walk comedy spot and a way too sick flip dive to the floor for a semi-comedy guy in a goofy costume.

The 6 man tag was really good. Mostly basic, but tight and fast paced action. Takeshi Sato and Tsukioka were the best guys in the match, Sato hitting stiff kicks and working fun semi-shootstyle exchanges, including dropping Perseus on his head with an out of nowhere Capture Suplex, and Tsukioka being really energetic kicking dudes in the eye. The match went 22 minutes with no letdown and they didn‘t clip once which I appreciated. Kabuki/Leatherface was also really fun, just two big long haired dudes flying into the furniture and pasting each other with punches.

Daikokubo Benkei vs. Dan Severn

What a weird main event. Benkai is big and can push Severn into the ropes, but looks completely out of his depth. Severn mauls him, bloodying Benkais eye, and about 5 minutes into this Benkai taps out. Severn is really good at these savage fights, but even knowing how shitty Benkai is I was hoping he would take it to Severn at least a little. 

 

THE LIBRARY 

White Moriyamas Return to Pro-Wrestling

Man, White Moriyamas return to pro wrestling completely flew under my radar. He was never the 5th best guy in FUTEN or U-Style, but by 2021 standards he's basically Tamura. 

 White Moriyama vs. Tetsuya Ido, Heat-Up 2/28/21

 This was a really fun, unpredictable 10 minute match with a surprising amount of hate. Ido is a kick padded kid who acts all cocky towards veteran Moriyama. Moriyama puts him in his place with some slick, fast grappling, so Ido retaliates with an awesome stomp to Moriyamas face. Ido kicks hard and his spinning choke is a fun false finish, so I am completely fine. Finishing run was really cool with Moriyama giving Ido the business with his kicks, including throwing these cool Tamura style leaping kicks, and some slick U-Style grappling. You can tell Moriyamas grappling is a class above what most guys can do these days the way he would move in and out of submissions. Dug all the slick leg locks.

White Moriyama & Takafumi Ito vs. Raito Shimitsu & Tetsuya Ido, Head-Up 1/29/2021

Really good little match. We get some really good U-STYLE opening grappling to start. Most of the Japanese wrestlers we’ve seen in the last 10 years doing that kind of wrestling have been old veterans, so it was nice to see Shimitsu and Ido step up and show they have no problem doing that kind of wrestling. I haven’t seen Takafumi Ito in a while, but he looked good here. He had some cool leg stretches, and this really cool cravate choke that nearly popped Shimitsus head off. Shimitsus head was turning really blue and pale while in that. Shimitsu came in with a bandage on his leg, and Moriyama and Ito work over it a bit. Really cool spot where Shimitsu tries using his typical idiot strength but fails due to his leg. Shimitsus selling in general down the stretch was really good. The finish was built around Shimitsu trying to hit his power moves with Moriyama countering them. It wasn’t as grand as the stuff we saw in other matches but it was cool. I am pleasantly surprised by Heat-Up delivering the goods with these matches, why is GLEAT not using these boys?

White Moriyama vs. Raito Shimitsu, Heat-Up 2/25/2021

Fun 5 minute sprint built around Shimitsu trying to crush Moriyama with his throws and Moriyama countering him and kicking him in the head. Shimitsu acted a bit like a Sekimoto clone here, but in the end Moriyama put him to sleep, so I wasn’t bothered. Moriyama had some slick counters and surprisingly violent kicks.

White Moriyama vs. Yu Iizuka, Heat-Up 11/26/2020

7 minute sprint where they hit the mat and don’t slow down, grabbing holds left and right. Very nice to see this kind of slick matwork again. At this point I’m used to seeing wrestling where there’s always at least one guy in a match who really sucks, but Iizuka looks like the real deal here and holds up very well. Very promising young wrestler.

Assorted WMF

 

Mr. Gannosuke & Hisakatsu Oya & GOEMON vs. Soldier & Mineo Fujita & Black Buffalo (WMF 3/3/2006)

Really, really fun SWS style tag where everyone smacks each other hard and works a fast pace. Gannosuke is pretty great here in the Tenryu role of guy everyone wants to take down and who wolds the match together with his charisma and presence. Soldier acts like a spunky dipshit, so Gannosuke decides to break a kendo stick in half and stab the shit out of him. Really good FIP section with Soldier bleeding and all the veterans looking good. Dug Oya, who did little in the match except hit cool throat jabs and sick looking backdrops as Oya always does. There was one lariat/backdrop combo from Gannosuke and Oya on Soldier that looked like a decapitation. Everyone on the junior team looked good also and most importantly, everyone understood their role.

Mr. Gannosuke & Tarzan Goto vs. Mineo Fujita & Soldier, WMF 9/5/2005 - EPIC

Really great match largely thanks to the awesome veteran work of Gannosuke and Goto. These two basically treated their junior opponents like the Anderson Bros would treat a jobber team for large parts of the match. We get a really cool opening segment where they all hit the mat. Goto looks older and fatter here, but he is still so great rolling around, bumping for armdrags, working headlocks and eventually punching his opponent in the face. Soldier was in the role of spunky underdog here, he makes the mistake of challening Goto and ends up getting smacked down. Then, because Goto is Goto, physically besting an opponent isn’t enough for him, so busts out the foreign objects and Soldier is soon a bloody mess. Lord, has there ever been a match where Goto didn’t end up covered in his opponents blood? Soldier on offense isn’t very compelling, but he got in so little offense in this match and was willing to let Goto chuck tables at his head that I am willing to like him. Mineo Fujita is a bit more compelling on offense, as he has really good looking dropkicks, and he has some really fun sections where he mixes it up with Goto, who works surprisingly well against this type of opponent. However, Gannosuke catches him in a Scorpion Deathlock, and following that we get another segment built around Goto and Gannosuke destroying his back with awesome looking suplexes and slams. Lord knows I may be desensetized, but Goto trying to blow out Fujitas spine with a damn Vader Bomb to the back was absolutely sick looking. Then we get a great finishing run largely built around powerbombs and hard lariats. That kinda stuff is bread and butter for FMW workrate tags, but the body of the match here was built so well with Fujita and Soldier looking to be hanging on by a thread that I gave a shit. Also, wonderful nearfall here where Fujita catches Gannosuke in his own Gannosuke Clutch.

Mr. Gannosuke vs. Mineo Fujita, WMF 7/1/2006

Apparently Fujita is Mr. Gannosukes boy, and here they go long in what probably is Fujitas career match. I respect the hell out of Mr. Gannosuke for making a name for himself as a sleazy garbage brawling heel, and riding it out in the twilight of his career in grapple-heavy matches. Again this starts with lots of cool matwork, with Fujita busting out a cool calf slicer, and Gannosuke catching him with a crafty abdominal stretch. Gannosuke ends up working over Fujita and eventually working over his arm with some cool stretches before a grand old finishing run that was well done. Fujita isn’t super special or anything but his arm selling was servicable and he didn’t have any retarded offense, which I appreciate. Brutal brutal finish.

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

BJW 1/ 2/1998

 

BJW 1/ 2/1998

Neftaly vs. Miho Kawasaki

Shunme Matsuzaki vs. Shadow VII

Yone Genjin vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa

Kendo Nagasaki & Gennosuke Kobayashi vs. Masayoshi Motegi & Makoto Saito

Katsumi Usuda & Ikuto Hidaka vs. Tomoaki Honma & Minoru Fujita

Gedo & Jado vs. Yoshihiro Tajiri & Ryuji Yamakawa

Jason the Terrible & Shoji Nakamaki & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga vs. Great Pogo & Shadow WX & Shadow Winger

 

Aaaaand of course a 1998 indy show opens with a forgotten japanese girl wrestler and a luchadora working quasi lucha exchanges. This and the other first 3 matches are really clipped so it's mostly just to get a quick laugh, but what they showed of the ladies match wasn't bad. Neftly hits a nasty senton and wins with a nifty powerbomb variation. Matsuzaki is a sad case as he always looks ridiculously polished (for a guy in the second match of your typical sleaze card) and always gets saddled in some non match, in this case against a mexican Mini-Mr. Pogo (sorry Ricky Santana, you're better at lucha than garbage brawling). All these BJW undercard matches quickly devolve into crowd brawling shenanigans. I would've liked to see more of the BJW vs. WYF tag – because Motegi is GOOD and Saito is COOL and I am actually liking Nagasaki with his nice back elbow and quick bursts of wrestling and actually dangerous floor brawling. The unrecognizable rookie Kobayashi is yet another indy guy who doesn't know how to take Saito's springboard moves properly which almost feels like a rib at this point.

 

So they actually showed the BattlARTS vs. BJW dudes tag in full and it's AWESOME. I am not playing a trick on you here, if that match happened in BattlARTS it would have a good shot at being the tag MOTY. It's not a BattlARTS style match but it has enough cool shootstyle matwork and stiff shots throughout to keep you entertained, and the whole thing is just ridiculously tight, innovative stuff. Hidaka & Fujita are all skinny and young but they join the 98 GAEA crew by looking spunky, inventive and super talented. Pre-bumpfreak Honma is good as your kickpadded guy who sells really well, can work a kneebar or two and gets kicked in the head by Usuda. Usuda looked like a badass black belt tumbling with some purples trying their best to push him. He is a stoic shooter guy with some really spectacular counters and he always works really well with these indy juniors he can just rip apart and this was no exception. I also liked that because Hidaka and Fujita are scrawny 1 year rookies any basic move on them looks like a plausible finish. But the whole thing was just a bonkers match with breathtaking lucha meets shootstyle submissions and counters and nasty double teams and some brutal stand up exchanges (Usuda just dropping bombs) and yeah this is just the kinda gem you hope for when going through this old stuff. Also, great moment where Honma botches a springboard move so Hidaka just pounces on him and they beat the shit out of eachother. That's how you cover up a blown spot.

There was no way in hell that Jado/Gedo vs. Tajiri/Yamakawa could follow up the workrate of the previous tag and they wisely didn't try. They worked more of a US style tag with Gedo and Jado bringing the heel cutoffs and punches and rope stun guns and Figure 4s and what not. Pretty bread and butters stuff but it wasn't a bad match and I always enjoy checking out young Tajiri who is such an ultra sharp wrestler with the kicks and lucha flying moves and so forth.

The main event – well, you know what you're getting. Mostly wandering brawl with 2 guys occasional rolling into the ring to do stuff, then back out. In between that you get shots of Winger putting a headlock on Matsunaga backstage and strolling up the stairs. There were a few cool individual moments, such as the big Nakamaki dive to open the whole thing, Pogo hitting some Tenryu kicks on a bloody Matsunaga, Matsunaga hitting karate kicks and the Undertaker walk on the balcon, Pogo bringing out a barbed wire drill and Jason working Jason spots. This was falls count anywhere so there were also some cool spots where they had multiple referees and fans on the outside would count along when a nearfall happened. Finish is Jason working his „resurrection“ spot a bunch (yeah Shadow WX you loser you're not going over JASON) and winning with a god damn Northern Lights Bomb. Jason The Terrible is indestructable and it rules.

This show top to bottom was not as good as the IWA Japan stuff but it had an absolute killer obscure gem in Usuda/Hidaka vs. Fujita/Honma (I totally expect one of you granddads to tell me how eveerrrryone put that one on their VHS comps back then and talked it up as a **** 3/4 match on random obscure DVDVR offshoot boards). Everything else delivered as you'd expect and I always enjoy checking out a random card like this. 

THE LIBRARY

Tarzan Goto Documentation Project #1

 Tarzan Goto & Ryo Miyake vs. Masayoshi Motegi & Shinichi Nakano, WYF  7/16/1997 - EPIC

This delivers the promise of an IWA Japan vs. Yume Factory match. Picture 4 sleazy heavyweights potatoeing the shit out of eachother, add a ton of blood and you have this match. You know it's an awesome match! Tarzan Goto is one of the most mean wreckingball wrestler dudes ever, and this match really showcases him both doing some cool actual wrestling, and fucking dudes up in really graphic ways. Motegi is very lovable as this legendary sad sack who tries really hard, and he takes a monster beating from the IWA guys, getting waffled with chairs, punched and bloodied and he fires right back with full force hits. Miyake is perfectly fine as a disdainful shitbag kneedropping and stomping dudes in their bloody face. Nakano fits perfectly in this kind of savage potatoefest as a hot tag with his eardrum shattering slaps and enzuigiris and awesome powerslam, also he comes in with a bandage over his eye resulting in some gross spots where he gets hit in the eye with chairs and headbutts that would make Terry Funk cringe. Finish was not as epic as the body of the match but kind of worked as a payoff. This pretty much ruled.

 

Tarzan Goto vs. Yoji Anjoh, Rikidozan Memorial 3/11/2000 - GREAT

 Wonderful match which delivers in spades what you want from these two in terms of sleazy shootstyle vs. sleazy garbage brawling sections. Anjoh is off the charts here working his shtick and Goto is a great contrast stoically punching and lariating the shit out of him.  There is some cool wrestling going on too with Anjoh using submissions to neutralize Goto, and Goto doing some cool wrestling himself such as stonewalling Anjohs attempts at submissions and takedowns. But in the end, you wanna watch both these guys bleed and waffle the shit out of each other and that's what happens.

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

Tarzan Goto Documentation Project

 

 

Tarzan Goto is one of the most recognizable wrestlers ever, and in some ways the sleazy grindhouse version of Tenryu. A lumpy, demented freak in a bumblebee color scheme who is not afraid to break beer bottles and punch hapless dudes in the face. Even though he was in some of the biggest matches ever (such as the earliest explosion death matches, and the official 1994 MOTY teaming with Onita against Tenryu and Hara) he tends to get overlooked as a sleazy vampire, with a chunk of his career spent working grimy offshoot feds, not to mention that the DVDVR crew used to flat out dismiss his work back in the day in one of the more baffling instances of poorly aged wrestling opinions. Despite his singular approach to wrestling he was able to produce some quite great matches in a variety of settings simply by being a master of gory and grimy pro wrestling, so it's time to explore and unearth his work.

1984

vs. Toshiaki Kawada, AJPW 11/28/1984 - FUN

 1989

w Atsushi Onita vs. Jerry Flynn & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, FMW 12/10/1989 - EPIC

1990

w Sambo Asako vs. Masanobu Kurisu & The Shooter #1, FMW 5/14/1990 - EPIC

w Mr. Pogo vs. Atsushi Onita & Sambo Asako, FMW 7/25/1990 - FUN 

vs. Atsushi Onita, FMW 8/4/1990 - GREAT

vs. Katsuji Ueda, FMW 8/25/1990 - GREAT

vs. Gran Mendoza, FM 8/20/1990 - FUN

1991

vs. Atsushi Onita, FMW 2/26/1991 - EPIC 

w Ricky Fuji vs. Atsushi Onita & Mr. Gannosuke, FMW 11/4/1992 - GREAT 

w Atsushi Onita vs. Grigori Verichev & Koba Krutanize, FMW  12/9/1991 - GREAT

1992

vs. Leon Spinks, FMW 3/25/1992 - EPIC 

 w Nitron & Negro Casas vs. Hijo del Santo & Mil Mascaras & Atsushi Onita, Tijuana 5/15/1992 - FUN

w Grigory Verichev vs Sabu & Horace Boulder, FMW 5/24/1992 - GREAT

1993

w The Sheik vs. Tiger Jeet Singh & Tiger Ali Singh, FMW 3/29/1993 - EPIC 

vs. Katsutoshi Niiyama, FMW 9/23/1993 - FUN

w Great Sasuke vs. Mr. Pogo & Masaru Toi, Michinoku Pro 12/10/1993 - EPIC

1994

w Atsushi Onita vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara, WAR 2/3/1994 - EPIC

vs. Masaru Toi, FMW 2/19/1994 - GREAT

w Damian 666 vs. Hisakatsu Oya & Goro Tsurumi, FMW 6/19/1994 - FUN 

vs. Mr. Gannosuke, FMW 6/28/1994 - EPIC

vs. Battle Ranger, FMW 7/31/1994 - EPIC

vs. Hisakatsu Oya, FMW 8/28/1994 - EPIC

 1995

w Mr. Gannosuke & Flying Kid Ichihara vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Giant Korean & Kim Soppo, BJW 6/10/1995 - GREAT 

w Mr. Gannosuke vs Jado & Gedo, WAR 7/7/1995 - EPIC

w Mr. Gannosuke vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Bruiser Okamoto, BJW 7/25/1995 - EPIC

w Mr. Gannosuke vs. Keisuke Yamada & Shoji Nakamaki, IWA Japan 8/20/1995 - GREAT 

vs. Dan Severn, IWA Japan 8/20/1995 - EPIC 

vs. Cactus Jack, IWA Japan 10/5/1995 - EPIC

1996

vs. Buh Buh Ray Dudley, IWA Japan 8/8/1996 - FUN

vs. Perry Saturn & John Kronus, IWA Japan 8/10/1996 - FUN

1997

w Ryo Miyake vs. Shinichi Nakano & Arashi, WYF 3/20/1997 - GREAT 

w Jun Kikuzawa vs. Ryuji Yamakawa & Shoji Nakamaki, BJW 5/29/1997 - FUN

vs. Katsutoshi Niiyama, Shin-FMW 6/17/1997 - FUN

vs. Takashi Okano, Shin-FMW 6/17/1997 - FUN

w Ryo Miyake vs. Ichiro Yaguchi & Nobukazu Hirai, Shin-FMW 6/17/1997 - FUN

w Ryo Miyake vs. Masaaki Mochizuki & Rikio Ito, Shin-FMW 6/17/1997 - FUN

w Ryo Miyake & Mitsunobu Kikuzawa vs. Kazuhiko Matsuzaki & Kishin Kawabata & Shigeo Okumura, Shin-FMW 6/17/1997 - FUN

vs. Ryo Miyake, Shin-FM 6/17/1997 - FUN

w Ryo Miyake vs. Masayoshi Motegi & Shinichi Nakano, WYF 7/16/1997 - EPIC

w Mitsunobu Kikuzawa vs. Masayoshi Motegi & Shinichi Nakano, WYF 8/9/1997 - GREAT 

w Jun Kikuzawa vs. Basara & Shinichi Nakano, WYF 9/23/1997 - GREAT 

vs. Masashi Aoyagi, Shin-FMW 9/29/1997 - EPIC

1998

w Ryuma Go & Great Kabuki vs. Keizo Matsuda & Keisuke Yamada & Shigeo Okumura, IWA Japan 3/13/1998 - EPIC 

vs. Chainsaw Charlie, Indy World 5/21/1998 - EPIC

Masashi Aoyagi & Azteca vs. Dick Togo & Shoichi Funaki & MENs Teioh, Indy World 7/22/1998 - EPIC

1999

w Freddy Krueger vs. Yoshiya Yamashita & Katsumi Hirano, IWA Japan 1/17/1999 - GREAT

2000

vs. Yoji Anjoh, Rikidozan Memorial 3/11/2000 - GREAT

2001

vs. Viking Taniguchi, Onita Pro 9/23/2001 - FUN

2002

w Tomoaki Honma vs. Terry Funk & Abdullah The Butcher, AJPW 10/27/2002 - GREAT 

2004

w Shinigami vs Yuiga & Drake Morimatsu, Yuiga Produce 10/30/2004 - FUN

2005

w Kazuhiko Matsuzaki & Gran Hamada & Masashi Aoyagi & Masanobu Kurisu vs. Ryuma Go & Shiro Koshinaka & Ishinriki & Arashi & Ryo Miyake, Wrestle Aid Project 5/2/2005 - GREAT

w Mr. Gannosuke vs. Soldier & Mineo Fujita, WMF 9/5/2005 - EPIC 

2009

w Mikan vs. Lemon & Musashi Oyama, Goto-Ippa 5/10/2009 - GREAT

Assorted CMLL

Rey Bucanero vs. Fantastik, CMLL 5/7/1996

This was from a tournament and people always complain about tournament lucha that the matches are super short, but this was a great 5 minute match. Had pretty much everything you can ask for, slick matwork, huge dives, some cool bumps and a cool finish. Fantastik is a luchador who would show up on a lot of BJW undercards and in very little actual stuff from Mexico, but he is a pretty great luchador. Great little moment during the opening grappling where he suplexed Bucanero out of nowhere and then almost crushed his chest with a senton where he landed hip first. Then he whips out his awesome senton to the floor which has to be the nuttiest regular spot any wrestler every had. He takes a super cool bump on a missed kneedrop before Bucanero hits a heavy landing dive of his own and is able to snatch the victory with a cool submission hold.

Tajiri & Fantastik & Ciclon Ramirez vs. Mogur & Halcon Negro & Guerrero de la Muerte (CMLL 12/23/1995)

Sometimes, you just gotta watch a great lucha trios. I think CMLL was having a strong run at best promotion in the world in the late 90s and this was an example of why. Just 6 wrestlers going hard in a very competitive match. You can tell things were on fire when a match involving undercarders is this good. Tajiri was like a fish in water working the Mexican style. He had no problem going hard doing some swank lucha matwork and then hitting some uncharacteristic high kicks. Fantastik vs. Mogur section may have been even better, as both guys work sections around throwing each other hard with judo hip throws. Mogur was in the match to seek heat, which is a totally fine role when there are multiple super athletic wrestlers in the match, and he was hitting good looking uppercuts. Fantastik hits a missile dropkick with such amazing height its ridiculous. Rudo beatdown section was short and fairly violent (I like how they segued into it), including Guerrero de la Muerte hitting a stiff clothesline. 3^rd fall saw Tajiri almost breaking Mogurs jaw with a kick before hitting a great dive and Fantastik once again rolling out the insane senton to he floor. Finish wasn’t epic but Ciclon and Guerrero de la Muerte did some good work before a super blatant foul. I don’t know if this lead to anything (I imagine it was simply an undercard match where they decided to look good before doing a quick finish) but the work was so enjoyable that you won’t be sour about the finish at all.

Bracito de Oro & Orito vs. Felinito & Pierrothito, CMLL 5/24/1996

 Super enjoyable tag that was a preview of the greatness the CMLL minis division would produce in 1997. Seriously everyone here looks like such a high end pro wrestler, just ridiculously smooth matwork, lightning fast rope running, and everything laid out in a pretty complex manner. Felinito was a real fucker in the match too, adding some piss and vinegar, but they make sure to stretch out and let everyone showcase some wrestling. Orito takes one of the highest backdrop bumps I've ever seen, and everyone gets in some great offense, including Pierrothito with a great arm hold suplex and later a beautiful back elbow, and Felinito with a crushing senton. Bracito also busts out some neat chokeslams.

GAEA WRESTLING BIBLE 1/12/1997

Chigusa Nagayo vs. Sakura Hirota

Hirota and Nagayo would later form a comedy team, but at this point Hirota was still a rookie with serious ambitions. I dislike Nagayos big matches, but she is quite impeccable working these rookie squashes. This was pretty great, as it was basically a constant battle of survival for Hirota while she did everything in her power to not get swatted. Loved Nagayos kicks and leg sweeps, and Hirotas spinning backfist as well as attempted Fujiwara were awesome. Great finish, too.

Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima vs. Toshie Uematsu & Kyoko Ichiki

I‘ve enjoyed all these ladies before, but this was a big nothing. No heat and the match had no direction. It got a bit better towards the end as they started busting out some of their better moves, but this was a brutally long 20 minutes.

Bomber Hikari vs. Rina Ishii

Bomber Hikari was this powerhouse type worker. Hikari was working as some kind of monster in this with Ishii trying to hang on. I don‘t know why you would have two matches like this on a show especially when Nagayo is doing the other one. Ishii was quite athletic and interesting to watch. Hikari looked limited.

Bomber Hikari vs. Maiko Matsumoto

Why have Hikari do two matches in a row? This further exposed Hikaris one dimensionality. It could‘ve been good if there was some drama created by the fact Hikari had just done a match, but Hikaris wrestling was completely ignorant of that fact as she basically repeated her stuff. I‘ve liked Matsumoto before but she wasn‘t as interesting as either Ishii or Hirota.

AAAW Junior Tag Title Match: Sonoko Kato & Meiko Satomura vs. Chihiro Nakano & Makie Numao

Loved the opening section here which was basically a BattlARTs tag with all four girls hitting the mat and working really stiff. They move into a pro style match seamlessly, but I wanted a bit more shootstyle action. This also went 20 minutes but the GAEA rookies were so good they had no problem keeping it interesting. The match lacked structure, but they make up with double teams, surprise cutoffs and nearfalls out the ass. In fact there were so many nearfalls that I thought it was getting tiresome, but the crowd had a blast. I loved all of Nakanos knees, Numao for someone who I remember being pretty insignificant looked badass, and Satomura already stood out with her unique Billy Robinson influenced style.

Reina Jubuki (Akira Hokuto) vs. La Infernal (KAORU)

Weirdly subdued match that felt like a houseshow main event. They did their stuff, but there was never any heat, and the work was quite undynamic. Lots of just sitting in holds, and while there were some big moves and bumps there didn‘t seem to be a fight, unusual for a Hokuto match. I guess the point of this was to show the costumes.

THE LIBRARY

Takeshi Ono Documentation Project #9

 

Takeshi Ono & Ryuji Hijikata vs. Kengo Mashimo & Junji Tanaka (BattlARTS 11/5/2011) - GREAT

Futen crew gets together on the last BattlARTS card. Hijikata and Tanaka were solid in this, working pretty stiff, but not really BattlARTS style. Ono was on another level, however. All of his strikes were ultra vicious and when he was working over Tanakas arm he was trying to crush him. Really good if you want an 11 minute highlight reel of what makes Ono so great. The ending run is him trying to maul Tanaka with punches and kicks while Tanaka is able to make a few well timed comebacks until Ono catches him. Onos punches are so great, most wrestlers when throwing hands will throw some weak hands before a big shot, Ono however is constantly pressuring him tagging Junjis jaw and kidneys. Even when he’s working over Junjis body it looks like he’s perforating him. I’m a fan of Junji but the greatness of those exchanges is a pure testament to Ono.

Takeshi Ono vs. Masaru Toi, Rainbow, Promotion 3/21/2002 - GREAT

 Even though this went only about 7 minutes, I fought this was pretty much the perfect shooter vs. old deathmatch guy match. TakeshiOno, in what is apparently his only match that year, looked great blasting Toi with kicks and punches. Even when Toi grabbed his barbedwire bat, Ono still took him down easily. Toi going for the chairs was great. He looked to crush Onos ribcage with a stiff solebutt and then a massive kneedrop. Ono constantly refusing to let Toi get in his offense easily kept the match unpredictable. Really good little clash.

 SASUKE & Chabinger & Sasuke Performa 346 vs. Sasuke The Great & Masked Tiger & NANIWA (M.Pro  2/3/2002) - GREAT

A bunch of ninjas and sleazy masked dudes fly around in Korakuen Hall! By no means is this a great match, but it is a great bizarre indy spectacle. They bring out a bunch of ladders for this so you know what that means. Match includes: lots of preposterous Sasuke highspots (including the apron tope) and ladder-related awrygoings! Chabinger abusing everyone with his weird wooden mini table! Great Sasuke disappearing and reappearing, changing between his Great Sasuke/Sasuke the Great personae! Takeshi Ono in a mask hitting dudes with high kicks! Orihara looking good! NANIWA doesn't know how to do the Naniwa Elbow! Great Sasuke hitting some REALLY stiff kicks! Sanhshiro Takagi in a mask handing out stunners! After the match everyone sits down and they have a beer. Osamu Tachihikari comes out too. Rating: watch if you can laugh at Sasuke getting a ladder flung at his head.

 

TAKESHI ONO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

2002 MOTY PROJECT MASTER LIST

IWA Japan 8/8/1997

Keizo Matsuda vs. Keisuke Yamada

Keisuke Yamada comes in with a shaved head. Maybe this match was to apologize for their weirdly blundered main event 2 months before? This match was a lot better though and a great opener. Started fun with some tight grappling before both guys start smacking the shit out of each other. Yamada was certainly starting to look really good at this point. Although they clipped a 19 minute match in half, but what we got was really fun.

Yuji Kito vs. Hidetomo Egawa

Great 7 minute match of two black trunks rookies slugging the hell out of each other. Really not holding back on their slaps and elbows, both guys uncorking some big suplexes. Egawa looks like the real deal here and I'm sad he disappeared early. Kito is non-descript but he hits back and gets dropped on his head with the best of them. Finish was great as Kito hits a big knee drop to Egawas spine, Egawa makes the rope on the boston crab attempt but Kito just pulls back and nearly bends him in half.

The Great Takeru & Tortuga vs. Hiroyoshi Kotsubo & Kamikaze

They pretty much clipped this down to the highspots, which I'm okay with, since Kotsubo is useless. Kamikaze looked good here hitting an awesome tubby guy asai moonsault, Takeru didn't embarass himself, and Tortuga may have been the funnest guy in the match. He hit a cool springboard back senton (that Kotsubo completely failed to catch), some nice flying clotheslines and a great splash that looked more hurty than anything sloppy ass Takeru hit.

Akinori Tsukioka vs. Masao Orihara 

Great start to this as Orihara kicks Tsukioka in the face hard before going Steve Austin on him with chairs. Unfortunately a video glitch happens and the rest of the match remains a mystery. Shame shame shame, I hope Samurai TV will reair this card in the next 40 years because this was looking great.

 
CULT HEROINE MAJOR CHALLENGE: Emi Motokawa vs. Aja Kong

Half of this was also eaten up by that glitch. We do get to see Motokawa getting some token nearfalls before Kong crushes her with neck spiking suplexes and a big splash. Too bad because I as looking forward to this.

BRAND NEW HERO BIG CHALLENGE: Takeshi Sato vs. Kodo Fuyuki

Man, I could watch Fuyuki do high pitched yelling and beating the crud off of a sucker all day long. Really fun match with Sato hitting hard kicks from odd angles and Fuyuki just creaming him.

Jado & Gedo vs. The Black Hearts

It's the Black Hearts!! The masked guys did okay, but on a card where every match has been stiff and exciting so far this really didn't stand up to the level. It just kind of went along, and while Jado and Gedo probably got a kick out of working a pair of gaijins they deserved more exciting opponents.

Elimination Match, Super Extreme Monster Rumble: The Great Kabuki & Benkei Daikokubo & Katsumi Hirano vs. King Kong Bundy & Leatherface & Freddy Krueger

This was a fun gimmick where the team members come into the match after a certain time. This needed a bit less guys leaning onto eachother doing choking and more crazy brawling and blood, although I did love King Kong Bundy who was super fired up. He even picked up the win with an Argentine Hold on poor useless Hirano. That was about the most memorable thing to happen in this match. IWA Japan was in kind of a weird state at this point as the undercard matches are always more fun than the main events, but I'm sure they'll get out of the rut as soon as they figure out  Hirano and Benkei are useless.

THE LIBRARY

Assorted Japan Indy Wrestling

 

GENTARO vs. Takaku Fuke, VKF 3/12/2009

GENTARO was on a roll doing weirdo lengthy Bret Hart infused MUGA matches during this time period. Fuke has looked pretty weak post U-STYLE, but he was good here. This was a smartly laid out 2/3 falls match. The first fall had some cool scrambling with GENTARO grappling the shooter in a very pro style manner but doing everything in a snug fashion before Fuke casually taps him with an achilles hold. That hold has to be the most basic of all but GENTARO does a great job putting it over like death. The rest of the match is built around GENTARO trying to take out Fukes leg – including hitting some great chop blocks and the obligatory Turnbuckle Figure 4 with Fuke trying to grab shootstyle holds which GENTARO sells like death. There is a great build to the figure 4 including Fuke busting out some killer reversals. Last couple minutes were pretty great with Fuke trying to KO him and GENTARO desperately trying to grab the leg. The match reminded me a bit of those recent NJPW big matches built around limb work except this was about 40 minutes shorter so less bloated and neither guy looked silly at any point

Billy Scott vs. Daijiro Matsui (KINGDOM 6/20/1997)

Matsui could have had a pretty decent run as a shootstylist judging on his performance here. This was a total grappling sprint, both guys doing some high end slick mat wrestling getting in and out of holds. There was one moment where Scott landed a punch that bloodied Matsuis eye in nasty fashion, but other than that it was all grappling. Scott hit a pretty great belly to belly at one point. Loved Matsui selling the finish, too.

Masao Orihara vs. Original Tiger Mask (RJPW 9/26/2005)

Pretty great match which has to go down as one of Oriharas finest performances ever. The match went 30 minutes, but it was laid out in such a way that Tiger wasn’t required to do any selling, and Tiger didn’t gas out (or at least not in a way that hurt the match), so it worked. So you have Tiger doing all his cool fatman flying and spin kicks and Orihara making scuzzy comebacks, using chairs and taking a big beating. The last 10 minutes ruled as Orihara got his shoulder demolished with kicks and joint popping armlocks but refused to quit and made all these awesome comebacks while getting further demolished by Tigers kicks. When the time limit runs out it feels like a victory for Orihara for gutting it out and lasting against a technically superior opponent. It was a really cool piece of pro wrestling storytelling that felt closer to a real sport than any workratefest and way better than any braindead nearfallfest that usually caps off long matches like these.