Koki Kitahara vs.
BADBOY Hido, Fuyuki Army 2/19/1998 - FUN
Kitahara, in his rainbow star gi, spits at Hido as their names are announced. Hido goes for an armlock and Kitahara headbutts him right in the face. Kitahara kicks Hido in the face some more, then mockingly does the TNR dance. Kitahara then powerbombs Hido on the floor and stomps on his face again. Then Hido gets hit with the ring bell. A few more kicks to the face later and Hido is finally able to catch something and hit a dragon screw. I assume Hido gets some offence, but STV clips it out and we get more Kitahara kicking Hido in the face. Kitahara lands a spin kick that looked like it nearly shattered Hidos face. Hido kicks out of the powerbomb, but Kitahara makes him tap right away with a nasty nasty leg stretch. You‘d assume that this would set up Kitahara as a WAR invader soon to take on Fuyuki or some other bigger name, but seemingly nothing came of it. Guess it just wasn‘t Hidos night.
Koki Kitahara vs.
Shiro Koshinaka, WAR 1/16/1994 - EPIC
This was such a grimy, violent fight. It was also a surprisingly smart match. They go 18 minutes, so obviously there are some holds, but they really come across as being made of pure contempt for each other when going through the motions. So you have Koshinaka really grinding his elbow in Kitaharas face, Kitahara twisting the fuck out of Koshinakas leg while in a basic leglock, and of course, both guys blindsiding each other left and right with some crazy shots. Kicks to the face, sudden headbutt to the jaw, lariat to the throat, there was no safety whatsoever. Koshinaka is impeccable in this kind of brawl. I really liked his flying ass attack which just landed on Kitaharas neck with abadon. We get Kitahara circling Koshinaka and kicking him in the face repeatedly like a shark until blood starts streaming from Koshinakas eye. Ending run had several smart spots and I thought they did a masterful job moving from Kitahara being kind of an underdog getting pushed around by Koshinaka, to Kitahara decimating Koshinaka to the point Koshinaka seemd out of it and hanging on by a thread. This didn‘t have the kind of huge visually impressive bombs you expect from a heavyweight WAR vs. New Japan clash, it was more like a grimey back alley fight as opposed to the big stadium Tenryu boxing matches, and it was really great in its own way.
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