Masanori Nakamura vs. ???
Yuki Nishino & Asian Cougar & Phantom Funakoshi vs. Takashi Uwano & Yuji Kito & Tortuga
Akinori Tsukioka & Kyohei Mikami vs. The Great Takeru & Makoto Saito
Miho Wakizawa & Sachie Nishibori vs. Emi Motokawa & Kayo Noumi
Shigeo Okumura & Keizo Matsuda vs. Masao Orihara & Takeshi
Ono - GREAT
Tarzan Goto & Freddy Krueger vs. Katsumi Hirano & Yoshiya
Yamashita - FUN
Barbed Wire Baseball Bat Thumbtack Death Match: Mr. Pogo & Shoji Nakamaki vs. Keisuke Yamada & Takeshi Sato
Another super fun IWA Japan card. The first 4 matches were pretty clipped, but they gave you pretty much what you want, all the fun juniors in those matches busting out sometimes inventive and often crushing offense. My boy Yuki Nishino looked good stomping the crap out of the IWA Japan boys in the 6 man tag, and the other juniors tag was also really fun. Mikami got a bloody nose from a Saito kick, and Tsukioka would potatoe guys with chairs. Junior wrestling really is better when the guys look like they are actually trying to do damage to each other and not run through a routine of elaborate sequences to get brownie points from an audience.
The last 3 matches all had blood - IWA Japan rules, baby. Really liked the Tonpachi Guns, as they have a knack for mixing in unpredictable sequences while keeping the sleaze level high. Takeshi Ono is a treasure in that match kicking and punching people in the face and sometimes in the nuts. Okamura and Matsuda are good enough as thick guys pasting their scrawny opponents with lariats and it ends up a fun match that sadly doesn’t have a finish.
The Goto match was 23 minutes clipped down to about 10. Probably a wise decision, but what was shown looked very good as it was a total slaughter of Hirano and Yamashita. Both guys got busted open and I imagine all their offense was clipped out. Freddy Krueger did almost nothing in that match, which is a good thing as Tarzan Goto is just great as a monster punching and stabbing the shit out of people.
The main event was also really fun, although nearly a squash. Pogo & Nakamaki are like the Road Warriors in that – here to beat the fuck out of the young guys, and not selling shit. It ends up being a really fun match due to the underdog charisma of Yamada & Sato and the character work of Nakamaki and Pogo. At one point Nakamaki stuck his own face in the thumbtacks to prove that he doesn’t give a shit, and later Yamada took a nasty suplex into the tax, coming up looking like a christmas tree. But the story was how long would Yamada and Sato last, and the answer is not very long.
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