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.
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