Friday, April 29, 2022

Random Lucha

El Golpeador/Gremlin/Dr. Cerebro vs Mastadonte/Tony Rivera/El Oriental, AAA 5/11/1996

I‘m guessing this is from an AAA show where they aired the match with the local guys. It‘s funny how you can watch a random lucha local guy opener and find a bunch of really good wrestlers you don‘t hear much of. Mastadonte is a big fat guy and Golpeador a scuzzy rudo who stooges for the fat guys fatness in really amusing ways, the part where he got scared of one technico and then ran right into a belly attack was an amazing bit of stooging. Along with that you had some really great workrate sections, Oriental looks just spectacular matching up with Gremlin and Dr. Cerebro here. It was nice to see a young Dr. Cerebro, who at this point looked like the much better Dr. Wagner Jr., acting like a jerk, stooging extremely well and making everything look seemless. He had very cool chemistry with Tony Rivera where they did more solid moves like snug clotheslines and missile dropkicks as opposed to the crazy headscissors and armdrags of Oriental. Another highlight was Orientals inside arm suplex which was a really Honda move for a 90s luchador to bust out. Nice unpredictable structure where they play with your expectations of a classic trios structure so when you expect a rudo beatdown to start, it doesn‘t. Interesting finish too as Mastadonte turns on his technico partners and they lay waste to the technicos in a 4 on 2 beatdown before another luchador in zubaz pants makes the safe. Great tag overall though.

1996

Really great match which may very well be an overlooked classic. Just 6 really great wrestlers with charisma working 3 stretched out falls, which is about all you need to produce a great lucha trios. Just one great exchange after another. I really liked how Mini Frisbee started out working some more grounded but cool armdrag variation, but things soon went into overdrive when Baby Rabbit tagged in. That guy had some truely amazing movements, it's gotta be hard diving through the ropes when you are barely the height of the middle ropes but he had no problem. Technicos start busting out dives in the first fall so the rudos had to move. Great extended rudo beatdown with numerous cut offs and a gradual technico comeback. Lucha beatdowns can be trite but that wasn't the case here, the rudos booted people in the face, hit powerbombs on that unforgiving ring and generally strew the faces bodies all over the places. There was a cool moment where Frisbee and somebody blew a sequence but recovered seamlessly, and a dance off between Munequito and La Parkita. Gotta say this Super Munequito has to be a way better wrestler than the big version. The celebration after the 3rd fall felt truely earned, not only because the match felt like a struggle but because they absolutely nailed everything.

Mini Vader & Mini Mankind vs. La Parkita & Mascarita Sagrada Jr., AAA 1/10/1997

MINI VADER. MINI MANKIND. The ref is Mini Tirantes! They have a Mini Paul Bearer! But Mini Paul Bearer is taller than either of them, so I guess the scale was off. This was some good stuff. Mascarita Sagrada Jr. is of course ultra spectacular (apparently he's Baby Rabbit), but Parkita is a really good technico also. Swag dance moves and fast arm drags. He had a really nice moment where he got some real pop on a pop-up rana into a spinning headscissor thing that may have been the most spectacular moment of the match. I dug Mini Vader a lot here, as he was hitting punches but also really booting peoples heads off with thrust kicks and hitting gnarly power bombs while also being an excellent base. Apparently he's Espectrito who had lost his mask, being Mini Vader a bit longer could've produced some cool match ups but he went back to being Espectrito soon. Weak finish but everything up to that point was all kinds of fun, sometimes you wanna watch a match like this.

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

2022 MOTY Project Update #1

Hitamaru Sasaki & Kodai Nozaki vs. Minoru Tanaka & Soma Watanabe, Kyushu Pro 4/23/2022

Once again, Kyushu Pro produces a really fun shootstyle match. This was all about my boy Kodai Nozaki who has the thickest legs in the world and is a machine here with his vader hammers and big throws. He really forces the GLEAT boys to get competitive, and he can grapple too. I love that his scarf hold is a credible nearfall simply because Nozaki is so massive. Sasaki did some slick grappling in the first half. This is all about the last 4 minutes or so, though. Watanabe showed good instinct going for Nozakis leg, but Nozai caught him and then proceeded to absolutely nuke him like it was a BattlARTS match. Awesome stuff. Tanaka is the blandest wrestler of all time doing the same stuff for the last 25 years, but he was okay here and got out of the way when Sasaki and Watanabe did a hot finish. Good shit and my man Nozaki deserves more.

Masahiro Takanashi vs. Chon Shiryu, Choco Pro 1/22/2022

I'll start by talking about the problems with this match. It was a bit silly, a bit too long, and there was some sloppiness mostly caused by them wrestling on this pillow mat where you probably don't have good footing. Aside from all that, it was a really good match and another case for Takanashi being the one good big match worker in Japan. Starts with some nice grappling, but they soon move to the meat of the match. Takanashis vicious matwork vs. Shiryus awesome Jackie Chan moves. Shiryu really knew how to bounce around that little room and those windows. The back roll handspring through the window was just awesome and so were all the diving kicks and stomps, and the bounce of the ceiling into a reckless headbutt has to be among the most insane things I've seen in a while. Takanashis style is a mix of sadistic Fuchi leg stretches and innovative stuff that works like using the stool on the leg. As I said there is some sloppiness and the match goes a bit long, but they both sold their butts off, built really well to some big spots and kept me enthralled in the match the whole way, there was never a moment where I said "fuck this" which is quite rare for 2022 wrestling.

2022 MOTY List

2022 MOTY Project

THE LIST:

Monday, April 25, 2022

Karateka vs. Pro Wrestler matches!

Iori Sugawara vs. Ninja Lee, Kazushi-Gumi 1/19/2018

Great little match, exactly what we are looking for on this blog. Ninja Lee is a masked guy doing some mortal kombat stuff and Sugawara is this veteran karateka who can work a really solid pro wrestling match, and they are fighting each other in a chain ring. Lee can really throw out of nowhere axe kicks and fast hands, and Sugawara is like a Finlay with karate kicks here, working snug holds, using the chain ropes, trying to rip the mask, but also working the guy over with nasty kicks. I love a match where two sleazy guys give their all and they gave their all, stiff work, unpulled kicks, hard suplexes and STO on the not very giving ring mat, this ruled.

Hideaki Sumi vs. A-Z, FU*CK 8/22/2021

I don‘t know why we have to watch FU*CK now to get good shootstyle but here we are. Sumi is older here and has silver dyed hair like an anime character and you can see he‘s developed into a really cool worker. A-Z is some kick padded skinny guy who I assume is young (who knows, he might be 40) and Sumi really punishes him, really thudding kicks and bare knuckle punches. Sumi knows how to beat on a guy and then hit a huge kick for accentuation. His Tenryu-style enzuigir where he barely leaves the ground is great and his spinning wheel kick landed flush in A-Zs face. There is some decent groundwork (Sumi can put on holds) and it‘s just a way better match than it had any right to be in a promotion as sleazy as FU*CK worked for a Twitcast that maybe 20 people bought. A-Z looked alright but Sumi looked like a Katsumi Usuda type worker who can have a good little match against anyone.

Akitoshi Saito vs. Juyong Kim, Seishin Kaikan 7/13/1991

At this point, wrestler vs. Karateka is pretty much the only kind of pro wrestling I‘ll accept. This was violent, out of control, just perfect, Saito is an Aoyagi protege and he did his master proud here. Kim is a thickly built Korean pro wrestler (I assume), and while he looks strong he looks like was not ready for the punishment Saito would give him here. This is young nimble Saito and he just tries to crush this guy, it looks like one of his spin kicks bloodied Kims nose or lip. Kim hits some nice suplex including a really gritty butterfly suplex where he just muscles Saito over, the kind of suplexes where it looked like the other guy wasn‘t going along at all but still flew. At the second round Kim just grabs a chair and demolishes Saito, which is what you should do after you got uncessarily brutalized by a karateka in a foreign country, why did nobody ever run Steve Austin vs. A karateka? Saito comes back guns blazing though and the ending is awesome, as Saito takes off his jacket throws it in Kims face and then knees blinded Kim in the head until he stays down. Gotta love pro wrestling.

Friday, April 22, 2022

Assorted NOAH

Makoto Hashi vs. Takeshi Rikioh, NOAH 3/3/2001

Really good little match. What made it good was that both guys did some actual neat wrestling and not just stiffing each other and doing shoulderblocks all the time. That would‘ve been good, but we got something more complex here. Hashi is outgunned at the beginning, so he decides to wrestle Rikioh down. Normally the wrestling in these heavyweight matches is insanely simplistic, but Hashi did a neat job working over Rikiohs, hitting neat headbutts and locking in a cool rolling neck crank. Rikioh also had this nasty move where he dragged Hashi over his shoulder. When Rikioh was clearly wobbly from Hashis chokes, he came back by almost shattering Hashis eardrum with a big slap. He then tried ripping Hashi in half with a boston crab that would‘ve ended most rookies. The crowd sensed this and got behind Hashi big time. Some actually neat bearhug work ensues, and Hashi makes a really good comeback gradually working his way back in while selling the back work. Last few minutes were on fire with Rikioh trying to shut down Hashi with brutal sumo rushes and lariats. Also, there were some ungodly slaps throughout.

Takashi Sugiura & Tamon Honda vs. Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Ohmori, NOAH 1/18/2001

Sugiura was less than 10 matches into his career at this point, so he was in his singlet and using a more amaresuish style. And damn you wish he had kept working like that his whole career because he was awesome in this, really taking it to No Fear and twisting them in knots while not backing down. The ending with him throwing Takayama around before getting caught with a nasty kitchen sink was awesome too. Everyone else was kind of doing their thing, but I was surprised that Ohmori looked pretty good. He was working in almost a heel technician way to isolate Sugiura and hit a really nice dropkick and thrust kick. Takayama didn‘t and Honda didn‘t do a ton but they were solid and Sugiura was the real story of the match, anyways.

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

Over the Future 4: Kotaru Nasus Return Match 3/6/2022

Raito Shimizu vs. Super Macho Monkey

I've enjoyed these two before. I was hoping they would do a quasi shootstyle match since that is where Monkey seems most comfortable, but they just kind of did a very basic undercard indy match. I would've liked this with some matwork, I still enjoy Shimizu doing his thing, any guy with a nice gutwrench suplex and torture rack is on my good side in 2022, but Monkey isn't that kind of pro wrestler yet.

Keisuke Goto vs. Gabai-jichan

I was hoping to see Goto do more serious stuff after his CAPTURE outing, but he is stuck with Gabai-jichan here. Gabai-jichan is doing an old man with a walking cane gmmick. Amazing how much silly shit you can do with a walking cane in a wrestling match, but the joke gets old fast. I would've preferred them to run Goto vs. Shimizu instead and put Monkey in the skippable match.

Rikiya Fudo vs. Daisaku Shimoda

Fudo is must watch in 2022 as far as I'm concerned simply for working every match in insanely violent fashion. And Shimoda is his twin brother. This was pretty much the sleazier 2022 version of a WAR heavyweight match, two lumpy dudes cracking each other with really violent shots. Once again Fudos ground attacks were brutal as hell, just chest crushing elbow drops and splashes. The pace was slow and both these guys are clearly really beaten up but they had their working boots on. I like how they never resorted to stupid I hit you-you hit me stuff but also kept cracking each other. The missed vader hammer into backslide was also a surprisingly nice spot. The ending was just them standing on the floor stubbornly cracking each other while the ref counted them out and you have to respect this kind of brotherly rivalry. I enjoyed this a lot.

2/3 Falls: Manabu Hara & Hayato Mashita vs. Kotaru Nasu & Tatsuhito Takaiwa

Takaiwa is almost 50 and still doing these kind of hard hitting matches, god bless him. This was a lot of fun, had a good pace and everyone was hitting hard. I wanted some shootstyle exchanges but you can't have it all I guess. Still really enjoyed all these guys kicking the snot out of each other. Hara is ever solid, and Nasu and Mashita looked pretty decent too for two guys who never impressed me much in their youth, but they are older and lumpier now and really lay in their kicks. 2/3 falls rule made for some fun psychology and in-peril sections. Someone really needs to restart BattlARTS and consistently book all these indy shooters so they can find their groove again and do matches like this on the regular.

The Library

Monday, April 18, 2022

Enter the Riki Sensyu Office

Riki Senshu vs. Osamu Kido, Riki Office 2/11/2007

Choshu imitaro Riki Senshu is questionable, but him booking himself against puro legends provides entertainment. Kido is really old here but quite the maestro, he has some really fun and spry armwork and a cool reversal of Senshus Fake Scorpion Deathlock. Senshu clocks him with a pretty hard lariat but falls to the Kido clutch. I think this went 7 minutes or so but it was a cool match for Old Man Kido.

Riki Senshu & Tatsumi Fujinami vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Yuki Ishikawa, Riki Office 9/25/2011

Another entertaining Senshu match. Fujiwara and Fujinami were definitely collecting paychecks here, but their sections are still fun. And Senshu came across like an eccentric guy who was far weaker than Choshu but using his style effectively. He also took a beating from Fujiwara. Ishikawa had some decent sections against him but the match was a bit too short to make room for another transcendent Ishikawa performance. Still fun to see.

Riki Senshu vs. Kenji Fukimoto, Riki Office 1/14/2008

These two are Kurisu trainees and they produce a really great, serious sleaze brawl with old school psychology, the first real gem of this last footage motherload. Opening was a lot of fun with Senshu smacking sleazeball Fukimoto around and hitting cool neck chops, establishing him as the more dominant force. As soon as they spilt to the floor they went to town with absolutely hideous chairshots on each other. Fukimoto was able to brutalize and bloody Senshu but because of Senshus bomb dropping style Fukimoto quickly became the underdog. I have to say Senshu looked great here, his mixture of head trauma and slowly bleeding out selling kept things interesting and made him look vulnerable, and his out of nowhere backdrops and lariats ruled. It builds to a hard fought bomb dropping war with some neat learned psychology that was done right and leads to an absolutely crazy bump that was sold perfectly and added to the match. Also have to say Senshus slow, half dead kickout was one of the best I've ever seen. I really have to give these two a ton of credit here, for two indy sleazeballs they really went all out to create their masterpiece here, it easily could have been a cringy mark show but it ended up violent and engrossing, they nailed it.

Friday, April 15, 2022

Bukotu 9/25/2016

Kaoru Nemoto vs. Takeshi Michibata

For a low level regional indy opening match, this was pretty fun. Nemoto is this cool thickly built old dude with a suck mullet and cool skull trunks design, who wrestles like kind of a tribute to a Hiro Saito being a troll with a nice backdrop suplex. I enjoy that kind of heel act and he did a decent job punishing Michibata who is as generic an indy junior as they come.

Michio Kageyama vs. KB

Kageyama is the next nice surprise on this show. He looks like a mini-Gannosuke but was really good working over his opponents arm here and picking him apart with kicks. KB looked quite pathetic and untrained, like a middle aged businessman randomly decided to get in the ring and got booked by paying the ring rent, but his offense was restricted to a minimum. I want to see more of this Kageyama guy.

Toru Sugiura & Dyna-Mido & AK vs. Hideaki Sumi & Takeshi Irei & Naoki Ito

This was also pretty good for a midcard 6 man tag. The trio around Dyna-Mido did a good job playing enforcers and putting a beatdown on young Naoki Ito, who did a decent fired up black trunks youngster performance. I especially enjoyed Sugiura just working people over with kicks. Sumi is this grouchy karateka who doesn't pull his strikes at all and he's great. He hit this cartwheel kick to a guys face and it was awe-inspiring. Really want to see more of that guy. Irei is a thickly built guy with nice suplexes who apparently came from Apache Pro. I remember absolutely nothing about AK but when your name is "AK" I guess you just set up not to be memorable.

Yuji Yoshida vs. Masao Ando

This was a nice surprise. Two tubby guys with kickpads hitting each other hard and basically doing a sleazy WAR match. No stupid back and forth strike exchanges, they just battered each other with kicks and elbows. I wonder about Andos background because he shows up consistently on sleaze undercards and is a cool fatboy shooter. I've never heard of this Yoshida but he's old, very lumpy and takes and gives punishment well. There was a gnarly moment where Ando lifted up Yoshida for a waterwheel throw and just dumped him on his head. Too bad Yoshida just did a shitty looking single leg takedown to comeback. The finish was fun though with Ando getting dumped with some big suplexes, way bigger bumps than you'd expect from a local show in front of 50 people. Not polished but it was fun.

Kenji Fukimoto vs. SATOSHI

Fukimoto is a Kurisu trainee who can be a really great sleaze brawler, but he was paired with a guy who seemed green and brought absolutely nothing to the table. Fukimoto just carefully strung this dude through the match. A waste of Fukimoto, but at least he wore some really cool facepaint.

Tadanobu Fujisawa / Daisuke Masaoka vs. YU-ICHI / KENJI

Fujisawa looked damn good here. Apparently he's another Kurisu trainee and he gave a 100% Kurisu performance. He was punching and kicking people flush in the face and cracking them with grueling headbutts and chairshots. He displayed good timing and selling too, so he wasn't just a crowbar. Brawling around the ring was actually good and closer to IWRG than the lazy shit you usually get on Japanese indy shows. The other people in the match weren't bad, but nothing to write home about either. But the match had a structure where the veteran team of Fujisawa and Masaoka were isolating their opponents and killing them, and I was into that. I lost a bit interest with the trained monkey stuff of Yu-ichi and KENJI, but fortunately Fujisawa was there to run in and tag people with Takaiwa lariats. The finish was great as Fujisawa just kicked the guy in the face hard. No theatrics or setup, just kicked him in the face and pinned him. As far as I'm concerned Fujisawa is another candidate for the list of must see Japanese sleazeballs, but his tape history is extremely limited.

The Library

Tuesday, April 12, 2022

80s Europe #8

Marc Rocco vs. Steve McHoy, Wos 2/17/1982

This was from a Royal Albert Hall show. Rocco was set to face Kung Fu but Kung Fu was working Stampede so Rocco gets on the mic and says Kung Fu is hiding because he knows Rocco would kill him in the ring, and that rules. This was such a brawl it barely resembled a WoS much but the heat was super and it was a really fun fast paced bout. McHoy was this Scottish heavyweight and kind of non descript but Rocco made sure the heat was on him by beating on this man with elbows and stomps to the face. I also really liked that little headbutt he threw on the ground. McHoy has some fun comebacks punishing Rocco and Roccos bumping was superb, he made a simple knee lift look devastating. I also really liked the bit where McHoy bitchslapped Rocco and then armdragged him a bunch when he came charging hotheadedly. Big big bump for the finish too. This was a cool sprint.

Johnny Saint vs. Robbie Brookside (4/28/87)

Borderline masterpiece of a British grappling match, maybe the last truely great bout to come out of the country. Not a ton of extended selling or story aside from Brookside being this lanky kid taking it to a master, but there was a ton of really good wrestling. Brookside sure looked sharper than I‘ve ever seen him here. He had some great holds and movements. And Saint cut out the smiles and just wrestled a cutting edge bout. Really liked how Brookside didn‘t let himself get pinned by Saitns signature stuff. The hold for hold stuff was great and there were some fantastic rope running sequences including one where Saint took a really nice missed bump off a crossbody. Also liked how when Brookside had enough of the grappling and started leathering Saint with uppercuts Saint retaliated by dropkicking him flush in the face. Great bout.

80s Euro Compendium

Sunday, April 10, 2022

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Project #18

Takashi Sasaki & Tanomusaku Toba vs Tomohiro Ishii & Issei Fujisawa (DDT 06/09/2001) - GREAT

We only get the last 10 minutes of a 20 minute draw, but what we get looks like a very good match. Toba being used as a human projectile was fun, I loved how Ishii turned the knife against his opponents by gorilla pressing Toba into Sasaki too. Then we get some fun Sasaki/Ishii exchanges and some awesome Toba/Fujisawa exchanges. Fujisawa was doing a Fake Kensuke Sasaki gimmick but he had no problem taking ultra stiff punches and kicks from Toba, getting fired up and dropping him him with reckless power moves. It was better than any comparable Kensuke Sasaki faceoff (maybe against Kazunari Murakami) that I‘ve seen. The build to the time limit draw was cool too and they never slowed down without just doing brainless kickouts left and right.

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI & Sanshiro Takagi vs. Takashi Sasaki & Asian Cougar & Asian Condor, Onita Pro 9/23/2001 - GREAT

Probably the best match I‘ve seen the DDT crew do in Onita Pro so far. They went 13 minutes so stretched out a bit and did some fun opening exchanges before the Asian Cougars in the match whip out their cool highspots for a frenzy in the second half. Toba/Sasaki exchanges were pretty boss as usual, kicks and punches landing with full force, and you also get to see Toba in peril as he gets ragdolled by triple team moves. Toba really is great at timing his more spectacular kicks for comebacks. The finishing stretch with Cougar hitting all his lunatic legdrops and then trying to tap out Toba was pretty exciting and even though Takagi isn‘t the greatest guy in the match he was fun too. A++ undercard material.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Fuminori Abe vs. Shuichiro Katsumura, Ganbare Pro 1/8/2022 - FUN

3 ways are usually gonna be stupid so they can almost never be great matches, but this was one had enough fun action and they seemed to be aware of the stupidity so they just brutalized each other like it was a chaotic fight. Toba is the oldest and most broken guy here but for some reason does the most sections, and he looks pretty good. Made me think he would still be good in NOAH undercards working in the Aoyagi role of old guy who doesn't pull punches. He was really landing some face shattering punches to Abe, who did this amusing psycho laughing. The section where they all beat on each other could have been silly but ended up looking crazy. Even the finish seemed to make fun of the concept of 3 ways. Enjoyable match overall.

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Project

Monday, April 4, 2022

90s Era Indy Shootstyle

Lightning Kid vs. Wellington Wilkins Jr., PWA 6/10/1991

Brutal match where Wilkins stretches the hell out of Waltman for 20 minutes. X-Pac looks like he's 14 Wilkins just ties him in knots in this dingy hall. Waltman had a few slick moments of his own, I really liked the bit where he salvaged a somewhat awry gone Victory Roll by transitioning to a slick Fujiwara armbar. Kid keeps fighting back but Wilkins just keeps wringing the hell out of him with joint popping arm and legbars. Some incredibly nasty boston crab too, and Wilkins at one point hits this crazy flying shoulder that hit Waltman like a bomb. Wilkins really emphasizes weight here, always bridging all over Waltman and really trying to keep him on the mat to tap him. I really liked how Wilkins despite being in the role of delivering a nasty one sided beating still sold big for a Waltman enzuigiri, it felt like despite Kid being outgunned he could still make a comeback and win. Last few minutes were downright torturous.

Mike Winner vs. Karl Pope, Portland Wrestling 12/5/1992

Really awesome weird little match. These are two guys with amateur backgrounds, and they don't do much usual pro wrestling in this match, which is kind of the best kind of pro wrestling. The work a bunch of awesome greco lockups, bridges, cradles and all that and it's really cool. They pro wrestling-ify these things very well and work them with some good struggle. There were also some nice awkwardly hit pro style moves like a crossbody where Pope seemed to knee Winner in the face and a hard clothesline that caught him in the throat. Also really dug the simplistic but really cranked in boston crabs and back elbows. I wish we had more Mike Winner like this.

Saturday, April 2, 2022

GWE Watching: Tamon Honda

Tamon Honda vs. Daisuke Ikeda, NOAH 3/29/2001

Their KBS hall match is more famous and probably better, but this match was beastly in it's own right. There wasn't much matwork, but Ikeda was landing FUTEN level kicks to Hondas face and Honda hit all these beastly throws and counters. Both guys selling was just great, Ikeda would make a random leglock or Honda falling on top of him look deadly, and Honda sold a chokehold as if he was poisoned. Ikeda limping while getting up after a leglock and then rushing over to kick Hondas big head like a football was awe inspiring. I also loved Hondas reversal of the Russian Legsweep and Ikeda hitting the move later in the match was amazing due to the timing and buildup. The crowd for this was at the beginning so quiet you could hear a pin drop but the match won them over and they were popping big at the end so you know it ruled. Also, NAGAI KILLER and some brutal high kicks for the finish.

Tamon Honda & Masao Inoue vs. Jun Akiyama & Akitoshi Saito, NOAH 9/2/2001

Honda is set to face Akiyama for the title, so the purpose of this match was to make him look like a beast. And well, that they do. Honda does some fun grappling with Akiyama, then catches him in a nasty guillotine. Akiyama seems to make a comeback but then Honda just snatches him and dumps him hard with the Dead End. Saito tags in and Honda chokes him out in 20 seconds. Badass show, which is made more badass by how useless Inoue was in the match. Afterwards Inoue raises Hondas hand like „that‘s my boy!“. Great shit, short, neat, told its story perfectly.

Yoshinari Ogawa & Tamon Honda vs. Yoshihiro Takayama & Takashi Sugiura, NOAH 8/24/2002

Really fun story driven tag. Rare instance of a match where not much special happens early on and it adds to it. Ogawa as this unimpressive champion who keeps ratting his way to victory was just great. All his interactions with Takayama were awe inspiring. Ogawa would rake Sugiuras eye and then taunt Takayama („Clean Fight!!“) only to back off, then try to rush Takayama with punches when he tagged in. Then, he would get isolated and tortured by Takayama and Sugiura. Takayama tagging in Sugiura and then sprinting across the ring to have a go at Ogawa was another really amusing moment. Also, all the olympic grappling exchanges involving Honda where great and the finish between him and Sugiura was awesome.

Tamon Honda & Takeshi Morishima vs. KENTA & Akihiko Ito, NOAH 8/23/2009

Really good undercard tag which was a reminder that NOAH was a pretty fun promotion once upon a time. All of Hondas exchanges were so cool here, he rarely works like a beast but he was a slovenly monster here, really establishing that it‘s hard to get him off his feet. His unorthodox grappling exchanges with young Ito were really cool and his brief sections with KENTA really hinted against a great singles match between them. He Dead Ends KENTA hard, and the bit where he snatches Ito and almost strangles him was grizzly. Morishima is really effective in his role of fat dude who tries to ring peoples bell and crushes them with his fatness. Ito is also a really spry fun guy with really good execution, too bad he retired but I guess he dodged a bullet by dropping out of this promotion. Also KENTA bodyslamming fat Morishima onto Honda was such a fun little spot, totally makes a match like this stand out.

reverseviperhold