Best Of The Velocity Matches #4

 

Tajiri vs. Chavo Guerrero, Jr., WWE 8/4/2002

One of only two singles matches between them! It‘s really good! The other match between them was also on Velocity a year later! These two mesh insanely well, busting out some slick as hell fast junior exchanges before Chavo goes to town on Tajiris leg. Velocity is really the show you want to check out if you want to see guys working limbs in interesting ways in throwaway matches. I loved Chavo attacking Tajiris leg from the Tarantula (while still selling the effects of the Tarantula!), and all the different Tajiri leg selling bits were great. Tajiri also had a cool spot where he slickly rolled out of the ring to elbow Chavo in the face. I actually liked the ending DQ, as it felt Tajiri was out of options so he opted for a prick move by misting Chavo in the face.

Hardcore Holly vs. Albert, WWE 8/4/2002

These two are sure on an unlikely hot streak of good 4-5 minute matches. This was also cool because they just waffle each other hard. Albert starts with a huge lariat and Holly just chops the hell out of his mammoth chest. Albert drops some HUGE bombs including a massive backbreaker on Holly just comes back chopping him and hitting his amazing dropkick. No matter the match, Holly IS gonna chop you really hard and dropkick you in the face, the guy only had one mode. We get a choice nearfall and fiery stoic babyface Holly too, so yes this match is a real winner in my book!

John Cena vs. D-Von Dudley, WWE 8/13/2002

JOHN CENA ROOKIE BEATDOWN!! Rookie Cena just does so many things that feel like him but also unlike him. Like he wasn‘t quite there yet when he hit a big crossbody and followed with a huge leaping forearm, it felt a bit like watching the GAEA version of Meiko Satomura (just.. you know… not quite as intense). And Devon really leathers Cena with right hands and super snug clotheslines. Cena has an absurdly athletic dropkick and leap from the corner. HUGE moment where Devon hits a 2nd rope neckbreaker and drags Cena way into the middle of the ring. Rating for this match: FASCINATING.

Mike Awesome vs. Mark Henry, WWE 8/20/2002

 

Yeah, Mike Awesome vs. Mark Henry! Awesome was looking rough in 2002, but he wasn‘t afraid to trade bombs with a monster. This was just two huge guys crushing each other for 3-4 minutes with both of them taking some huge bumps and spots. Awesome gets press slammed straight to the ceiling, Henry does his awesome leapfrog, absolutely gigantic big splash from the top from Awesome etc. This had it all.

Tajiri vs. Funaki, WWE 8/20/2002

This was also 3 or 4 minutes and absolutely ruled. The crowd is iffy on these two since they don‘t really want to boo Tajiri against Funaki, so they just hit a bunch of cool shit while Tajiri does amusing high pitched yelling and stereotypical jokes (he gets Funaki to bow so he can kick him in the face!) to add some character. The cool shit was really fucking cool, usually 3 minute spotfest means guys hitting a bunch of dives and big moves, but these two do a bunch of slick arm drags and cool technical reversals and its awesome. LOVED Funaki countering the Tarantula and then teasing to put Tajiri himself in the hold. That alone would have made this an awesome match but everything else was cool as hell too.

Assorted 2003 AJPW

 Yuki Ishikawa & Tomoaki Honma vs. Ryuji Hijikata & Shigeo Okumura, AJPW 2/16/2003

This has to be one of the most criminal examples of clipping I‘ve ever seen of a Japanese match. We get 10 minutes of a 20 minute draw, but what we get is completely awesome. Ishikawa vs. Hijikata was as brutal as you expect, but the Okumura/Honma WAR sections completely blew me away. I should probably check out more Okumura from this time period as he looked awesome mauling Honma with WAR-like slaps and elbows. Okumura was in crush mode and it ruled. Honma kicking him in the back of the neck was the kind of unprofessional violence you want from a random Japanese undercard tag. Where‘s the rest of this, GAORA TV?

 

 Rikiya Fudo & Hideki Hosaka vs. Kohei Sato & Hirotaka Yokoi, AJPW 7/19/2003

This is one for the enjoyers of FUDO. Sato and Yokoi have absolutely no heat with the AJPW crowd at this point, but they can throw some fun punches and head kicks, and Fudo is great mauling them. He is way less fat in 2003 than 2022 but he still looks convincing crushing much bigger guys. He was a lot faster too so his lariats and jumping kicks really hit the shooters like a train, just trying to take peoples heads off. Hosaka is average but he doesn't suck and you have to admire how he tried to polish his look for his big AJPW run with some really nice tights, a cool belt and slicked back black hair.

Kohei Sato & Hirotaka Yokoi vs. Tomoaki Honma & Kazushi Miyamoto, AJPW 7/19/2003

Tumeric Storm, what a team! Coming into this the ring is already covered in Honmas blood from the previous match, and immediately Honma gets busted again and bleeds like crazy. Talk about loving the taste of your own blood. Yokoi and Sato finally get over with the AJPW fans by being nasty pricks kicking and punching a bloody Honma in the face, and Honma is a really great underdog. Especially loved all the bits where Sato kicked Honma in the skull really hard. Miyamoto is perfectly good as an athletic guy who tags in quick to hit some snappy offense and Honmas underdog performance is impeccable as always.

Nobutaka Araya vs. Arashi, AJPW 7/13/2003

How do you get a good match out of Arashi in 2003? By making it really short, really bloody, and chock full of violent strikes of course! Araya rules so hard here, busting a toolbox over Arashis head and then bleeding like crazy and eating really vicious strikes. Those jaw punches were awesome and sick. Arashi is pretty good as a phlegmatic Tenryu here destroying Araya with brutal punches and face kicks. He even surprised me by almost crushing Arayas face with a crazy fat guy dropkick. If you want to watch two fat ex sumos bleed and destroy each other for 5 minutes check this out.

TAKA in CMLL

 

Negro Casas & TAKA & Shocker vs. Black Warrior & Arkangel & Violencia, CMLL 7/4/1997

Man, CMLL in 1997 has such an amazing „this is wrestling at its absolute peak“ vibe. Even a random match like this ends up being pretty great and unpredictable. The heart of the match was Casas vs. Black Warrior. These two were out for blood. Their first exchange was already really scrappy, with an uncooperative suplex being thrown and then Casas spin kicks Warrior under the chin. The other guys were mostly there to spice things up with big spots and fast exchanges, and boy did they do that. Arkangel was really great here, throwing cool punches and clotheslines and generally making TAKA and Shocker look amazing. TAKA was mostly just in for brief bits but he did hit some fairly difficult stuff. Shocker and Violencia were also really good with Violencia bumping big. The Casas/Warrior feud segues nicely into an intense rudo beatdown before we get a quick and exciting 3rd fall with TAKA busting out his insane spaceman rope switching dive. He knew it takes a lot to really impress a mexican crowd so he basically just went for the craziest thing he knew, and he nailed it. Great stuff.

TAKA & La Fiera & Atlantis vs. Headhunters & Apolo Dantes, CMLL 5/16/1997

TAKA, Fiera and Headhunters in one match, this has a lot going for it! And this was ultra heated and absolutely on fire, really spectacular match if you love monster spots and heat. Starts great with the Headhunters rampaging and TAKA taking every crazy bump you can think of. By 1997 TAKA probably didn‘t have many functional nerves left in his back so he was bumping in that stiff as hell Mexican ring like a maniac, press slams, really whipping himself back hard when bumping for shoulder blocks, getting thrown into the turnbuckles, it was wild. Old man Fiera as usual is pretty great at picking his spots, we get him working a sweet comeback, hitting some gnarly kicks including a ridiculously great superkick and taking out Dantes with a cool surprise tope. Headhunters are so great as usual, the thing about them is they are tremendous crushing their opponents, but they are also really great at stooging and milking every bump they took to the absolute maximum, setting themselves up for big vs. Little offense in fun ways and always being ridiculously perfect in place for a pair of guys you‘d expect to be slow moving. They really made the „arch back and wobble your arms to tease falling over“ into an art form. The sequence where TAKA takes down a Headhunter with really fast dropkicks is so great, TAKA in general is a real star here with the crowd loving him and all his stuff looking so perfect. Tremendous finish too. Dantes is also in the match and while he isn‘t as outstanding as everyone else he is a pretty solid prick. This was a bit like a Twin Towers vs. Rockers match worked as a sprint with two really great Twin Towers and two way cooler and unlikely Rockers.

Emission Du Catch 5/17 or 7/15/1978

 Watch (And you want to watch)

Brigitte Borne vs. Lola Garcia

This was a sweet match. It was Borne, who was pretty much the top woman among the French lady wrestlers against Garcia who was the #1 in Spain. Rare you get a high profile match up like that. The wrestling was a real clinic too. It starts great right off the bat with Garcia really throwing Borne hard with her basic headlock takeovers and then basically trying to pop her head off with those side headlocks. The whole match was built around some really great throws and then head crunching headscissors and other tight holds. Not a ton of flash but Borne had some really sweet flashy arm takedowns at one point. The holds and escapes were worked insanely well and both of them fought like mad. Check out Bornes spinning headscissor counter when Garcia tried to go for her leg. Great stuff, the best womens match from the 70s?

 

Angelito & Kader Hassouni vs. Jean Menard & Jackie Richard

 This was another absolutely sick match. Just one breathtaking exchange after another, worked at a crazy pace. It rules that a bunch of balding dudes working in France in the 70s pretty much blow everyone in the world right now away both in terms of athleticism and sheer precision and timing. They just go hard and rip out one crazy exchange after another like it's the easiest thing in the world. Angelito and Hassouni were slick cats climbing around their opponents and hitting ranas and all kinds of surprising stuff. Richard was old and bald but he still bump really hard and really kick the shit out of his opponent. Menard was big and bad and grey and hold and holy lord anyone wrestler who can look half as good as Menard does here at any age can consider himself lucky. Usually rudos tend to cheat a lot in these matches but Menard wrestled like he had something to prove, often getting the better off his opponents by wrestling and it was really compelling. He may have had the cleanest armdrag from a wristlock I've ever seen. At one point he caught a flying Kader Hassouni and just spun him around and slammed him. Later he busted out all these cool throws, huge backbreakers and even a gutwrench bomb because why the hell not. His match up vs. Angelito was the money match up in this bout and they looked awesome together. Highlights include Angelito working some really neat painful looking halfcrabs, and a spot where Menard went for a backslide and then stood up and held him in a canadian backbreaker. At one point they worked a knuckle lock monkey flip exchange that may have been the best of it's kind I've ever seen, and think of the ground that covers! Angelito was absolute dynamite in this match, crazy how good the guy was both at the flashy highspots as well as the technical stuff. He even ended up taking some giant bumps in this match, the spill over the top rope may have been the craziest I've ever seen. It even ended up spelling his eventual doom as he was unable to tag back in and later he took another huge bump that made for one hell of a finish. Hassouni was pretty slick too and nailed all his stuff. Hell everyone here nailed every thing, so you have a 30 minute match full of compelling high difficulty exchanges with some huge bumps and a good plot and they nailed everything, insanely great shit really.

Assorted LLPW

 

Bull Nakano vs. Yasha Kurenai, LLPW 10/25/1993

I‘m willing to bet this is the best 3 minute match you‘ll watch for a while. Kurenai was in a really famous squash against Hokuto, but this may have been even better. Nakano just punts the shit out of her, full on lariats to the face and all and smacking her around. There was especially brutal lariat that turned Kurenai briefly into a stiff. Kurenai gave all she got and got some bigger spots in on Nakano than you‘d expect. Nunchuks and a staff come into play, plus a memorable sick KO finish. Pro wrestling was so on fire in 1993 even a random squash like this could be legendary.

Shinobu Kandori & Mizuki Endo vs. Harley Saito & Miki Hanada, 10/25/1993

As far as „badass teams with underdog matches“ go, this was really good and just felt like a crazy fight. We start hot right off he bat with Endo getting nearly KO‘d by Saitos BattlARTS level kicks. I never thought much of Handa, but her elbowing Kandori in the back of the head and then bowling her into the chairs was just the right thing to do in this kind of frantic battle. Love how Saito is consistently one of the few people who can step up to Kandori. Her throwing Kandori and then just blasting her with a face kick was badass. Endo barely has offense at this point, but she sold like crazy and had good fire. Kandori is so fucking great going from being an absolute menace to selling that she‘s taking danger and staggered. Finishing run looked great as it had a number of neat moments, plus face stomps and hits to the back of the head. Too bad about the clipping but what was shown looked like one of the best joshi matches of 1993.

Rumi Kazama vs. Jenn Yukari, LLPW 1/4/1994

This was UWF rules, but they pretty much worked it like a regular slightly more groundbased LLPW match. These two don‘t have much of a rep but they can sure hit the mat and bust out neat transitions. No pinfall rule made for some surprisingly interesting psychology, and there were some hellish suplexes and kicks thrown. I wish we had the full 10 minutes instead of just 5 but what was shown was a pretty great BattlARTS Velocity match.

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #20

 Tanomusaku Toba vs. Munenori Sawa, DDT 5/4/2007 - GREAT

Okay – the bad first: it‘s JIP. We still get 7 minutes of blistering action between these two, and every second of this was just great. Just Toba having superior striking and cracking Sawa with nasty punches left and right and Sawa trying to soften him up. This version of Sawa was great – he was just fired up, no jokes or theatrics, and giving and taking hard. They make the back and forth hitting actually compelling, and there were some great spots such as Toba getting ragdolled by suplexes or Sawa jumping right into a Toba punch. They really needed to give Toba more matches like this, I can‘t think of much better undercard stuff than two crazy guys beating the snot out of each other in a quick exciting match.

 

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Poison Sawada JULIE & Super Uchu Power, DDT 8/25/2002 - EPIC

This was the finals of a tag league and they went 25 minutes. Pretty much 4 cool indy characters doing a Kings Road style epic and succeeding. We get a quick start and then it's pretty much all action. This may have been the most I've enjoyed Poison Sawada, he doesn't have much athletic ability or stiffness but he displayed great timing, had some genuinely impressive exchanges with MIKAMI and is just a really cool character with his green mist and hypnosis spots. In a 2022 world where most wrestlers feel so fucking dry and generic a guy like Poison Sawada JULIE feels like a real wrestling genius in comparison. TOBA was generally awesome dishing it out and getting ragdolled around, leaping into the scenery to spin backfist people in the head at just the right moments. MIKAMI did his usual huge highspots, timing them really well for some awesome moments, and Uchu was a destructive space force as usual. These 4 deliver exactly what you expect and want from them, and this maybe ended up being even a bit better than expected. The only blight is they clipped about 5 minutes from this, but you don't really notice anyways, and the match had more than enough to enjoy

Tanomusaku Toba Master List

REAL BLOOD Produce 10/3/2022

Hiroshi Yamato vs. Touki Hatano

 Hiroshi Yamato continues to get all the bookings. Hatano was on the last CAPTURE show and I've learned he's a green-ish guy from HEAT-UP. He's really not very interesting and instead of doing shootstyle they just have a rather standard indy match that has the benefit of being a bit faster paced than usual. Not much stood out but there was a nice German suplex spot at one point. Inoffensive and forgettable.

Takahiro Tababa vs. Daisuke Kanehira

This was more like it. Tababa comes in and just brutalizes Kanehira with his violent kicks. Kanehira isn't super interesting but he can take and dish it out. Nice and short at 5 minutes and they build in some cool struggle and moments. loved Tababas big hip throw. Good match!

Super Tiger II vs. Ryo Inoue

Y'know, I would think STII was pretty busted in 2022, but he did a pretty solid job carrying generic AJPW rookie Ryo Inoue to a decent match. He kept things moving, had some nice big kicks and a cool submission finish. That's a lot more than I expected going into this. Worth checking out.

Mitsuki Watase vs. Keisuke Goto

I have goodwill for both of these guys, but going about 15 minutes is too much for them at this stage. There was a will, both guys were stiff and Goto kind of did a job working over Watases mid section, but the match felt like it was done in slow motion and there was so little interesting going on. Even at 2x speed it still felt slow. I can see Goto becoming a decent Hiro Saito for the modern generation but he needs to stick to shorter matches for now.

Naoya Nomura & Super Crafter U vs. Yuma Aoyagi & Atsuki Aoyagi

The Nomura/Yuma sections were just awesome here. Both guys came in with MMA gloves and just threw down and had some fantastic heated sections were they tried to jump and beat the shit out of each other. Fantastic stuff, reminded me of the best of CAPTURE or early 2000s NJPW. The match settled down a bit after their initial exchange, Atsuki Aoyagi is a pretty boy flier and really sticks out like a sore thumb with his predictable shit in a match that started as a violent fight between two badasses. Crafter working the mat felt like Negro Navarro or Fujiwara carrying a scrub which is a very good thing. Still, the more pro-style sections had enough going for the kill and sudden shoot punches that the match stayed worthwhile. I wanted more of Nomura running wild and being crazy but they went the cheap route and had Crafter eat the fall. I really really want to see more Nomura/Aoyagi after this, which was the point of the match I guess. Yuma looked pretty good too as a big bully who will punch you in the back of the head. I assume his regular glove-less work is much less interesting. Still, he was on here, and you really need to see this match for him and Nomura killing each other.

The Library