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.
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