Takeshi Sato & Tortuga vs. Cosmo*Soldier & The Great Takeru
Masao Orihara & Hidetomo Egawa vs. Perseus & Akinori Tsukioka
Benkei Daikokubo & Katsumi Hirano vs. Nuruka & Shinigami
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.
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