2002 MOTY Project #23

 

Black Buffalo vs. El Samurai, Osaka Pro 11/2/2002

Boy am I glad we got this in full. And this was damn great. Word was that El Samurai was over the hill in the 2000s, but he was pretty great here roughing up Buffalo with punches and stretching him. It also helps that the Osaka Pro crowd really hates him. Samurai is someone where you buy his basic submissions as really dangerous and the bit of tumbling on the mat to start was really cool. Samurai tearing up Buffalos leg was great, and we get Samurai bumping like crazy for Buffalos lariats, spiking himself hard on his necka nd shoulders, and he even taking some big bumps on the floor that you totally don‘t expect him to take. Buffalo is really effective as a local underdog who can dish out an asskicking, and his comebacks are awesome in completely unexpected ways. HUGE finish. This was absolutely banging.

Kenta Kobashi & Kentaro Shiga vs. Jun Akiyama & Akitoshi Saito, NOAH 10/19/2002

A great match. They stretched out and had an epic. Shiga hit some fun Tornado DDT variations and then they beat the shit out of him. Those swinging moves into the guardrails were pretty inventive and nasty. He got his nose bloodied and then punched and kicked in the face a bunch. Kobashi and Akiyama were the workhorses in this, it’s amazing the kind of exchanges Kobashi could still have with his knees glued together. I also loved how he straight up went for the Burning Hammer to put Akiyama away, no time killing bullshit. Even though the Kings Road guys have a rep for doing SO MUCH, it was amazing to see the mileage he and Akiyama got out of basic moves like a DDT or vertical suplex. The ending run was good as hell and basically a prelude to what they would do with Honda a year later. Shiga is no Honda but he can lock in some nifty submissions and do a cool pin combo when you don’t expect it and the crowd is absolutely on fire for him. Good shit that felt refreshing as they towned down they big move overkill and focussed on excellently timed cutoffs and making the submissions look dangerous. I can see why some people don’t rank this super high compared to the classics of the genre, but I thought it was a really tremendous match.

Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Yoshihiro Takayama, NOAH 9/23/2002

This was NOAH meets PRIDE and it was awesome. Misawa going for takedowns, mount and leg kicks is awesome. But he ran into a monster in the form of Takayama here who kept catching him with his out of nowhere kicks and superior striking. But Misawa adjusted his game and figured him out. Tons of ridiculously smart spots. Misawa anticipating a Takayama kick to hit his leg is why Misawas such a genius. I also loved how Misawa connected a running elbow, but Takayama didn’t go down, allowing Takayama to catch a surprised Misawa with a kick to the brain. Takayama interrupting Misawas routine with a killer knee strike was also great. Takayama was just a beast and seemed to overwhelm him, but Misawa came back and outboxed the monster. Totally awesome stuff, these two could have gone braindead and just done a bunch of freak violence and hard hitting and kickouts but they gave us something much smarter and cooler. For strike based big matches in pro style it doesn’t get much better if you ask me.

2002 MOTY Master List

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #21

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Poison Sawada & HARASHIMA, DDT King of DDT 2008 - FUN

 

HARASHIMA was in snakeman facepaint and doing charms here. Sawada and Shima won’t blow you away here but they are a charismatic heel unit  and there are some fun charming spots including MIKAMI getting hypnotized while standing on top of the ladder. SUICIDE BOYZ were about as good as you ever see them here, MIKAMI can make any random move like a springboard back elbow look totally awesome and Toba was kicking and punching people as hard as ever. TOBA even broke out of the snake charms twice and hit one of his stiffest backfists I’ve ever seen. I also appreciate that Sawada looks old and like he doesn’t train anymore but still takes a full force Toba kick to his head. This needed another Toba tag in to push into GREAT territory but for what it is it is an immensely fun little match.

 

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Cho-un Shiryu & KUDO, DDT 4/1/2009 - GREAT

This was from a weird theme show where they had all the wrestlers dress up as different nationalities. So Toba and MIKAMI represent Thailand with MIKAMI dressed like a thaiboxer and KUDO doing his New Beijing Pro Wrestling Dragon Achoooo gimmick. So this is thai boxing vs. hong kong movie kung fu match we all were looking for all of our lifes and it’s totally awesome. It works because Shiryu and KUDO are really slick and there are still a ton of stiff strikes in the match. I think the joke was that MIKAMI isn’t skilled enough to be a thaiboxer because he was mostly doing body shots early on, but he hit a pretty brutal jumping knee later. Of course Toba rules coming in and punching and kicking people really hard. Also, nice showcase match for Choun Shiryu, who is also awesome. This was only a slightly bigger finish away from an EPIC rating.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. MIKAMI, DDT 12/29/2006 - GREAT

This was for the Extreme Title and had a rounds ruleset where one round be pro wrestling rules, the next round would be martial arts rule and so on. Pretty smart match that was also brutally stiff. Even during the pro wrestling sections MIKAMI was absolutely leathering Toba with his clotheslines and kicks, for a skinny short guy he can really hit like Tenryu. MIKAMI was really trying to finish the match during the Pro Wrestling Rules section going for flash pins. MIKAMI was more cautious during the Kakutogi sections, trying to contain Toba with takedowns and groundwork. Eventually MIKAMI eats a knee to the face when shooting for a takedown and after that it’s time for Toba to kick his ass. The sections where Toba was blasting MIKAMI with his kicks and fists really felt like a fight to the death as MIKAMI barely survived. There was this great moment where MIKAMI went for a desperate schoolboy but Toba landed on top and rained punches on him from mount, you could just see MIKAMIS body going limp as Toba punched the soul out of him, if it had been martial arts rules it would have been a KO but because it was pro wres rules Toba had to go for a pin. Other neat moments include MIKAMI going for a 619 and getting punched in the face, as well as Toba countering a codebreaker attempt with a nasty elbow. Finish was great too as MIKAMI hit this really uncooperative shoulder dislocating armbreaker move before locking in an Octopus Hold, Mikami knows no martial artist can resist an Octopus Hold. Great match that had top notch selling from Mikami, brutal stiffness and a really well told story.

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Project

Even more AJW

 

Toshiyo Yamada vs. Sakie Hasegawa, AJW 3/3/1994

ANOTHER incredibly sick UWF rules match from AJW in 1994. This was an absolute monster match and I honestly thought it was up there with the very best of Futen/BattlARTS singles. Once again, they did some Irish Whips here, but because they kept the action so intense I didn’t mind. The violence was certified insane with a ton of sick kicks and suplexes, but a big part of why the match is so great is how hard they were going for such a long match. They basically started going hard at about 5 minutes into this – with Hasegawa going nearly KO on a Yamada choke and Yamada then trying to turn her lights out – and I was thinking “They are doing too much too early, there is no way they can keep this up”. But they keep it up! Holy fuck did they ever. There was a stretch in the middle of this that I thought was as good as any violent FUTEN end run, and they escalated the violence even more towards the end. And it wasn’t just moves-moves-moves stuff, they worked so many compelling transitions, teases, control segments etc into this, with a constant sense of going for the kill.

Hasegawa is once again the story in this. She’s not quite a shooter type but man does she ever establish herself here. She did a nice job stretching Yamadas leg in interesting ways, and her suplexes and kicks would have done anyone from the BattlARTS roster proud. The build to her uranages was great and when she finally got one on Yamada she absolutely spiked her. I also thought it was remarkable how they kept destroying each other and finding believable ways to comeback but also cut each other off. Like Yamada was getting killed until she was able to slip underneath and brain Hasegawa with one of her crazy jumping kicks, then she tried building up to her big kick off the top with Hasegawa desperately trying to prevent her, really great sense of struggle. I also really liked the bit where Yamada started suplexing Hasegawa, with Hasegawa barely preventing another suplex and Hasegawa then doing this “I don’t know where I am or what’s going” selling. Just a really good back and forth and despite all the violent exchanges they had me to the point where I was flipping out when Hasegawa locked in a sleeper. At that point I was already thinking that this match was on an insanely high level, and then they went even harder for an incredible last 5 minutes that saw Yamada trying to punt Hasegawas life out, a crazy palm strike exchange that was straight out of the best Tamura/Yamamoto RINGS matches, Hasegawa taking maybe the sickest bump on a suplex I’ve ever seen etc. There is some repetiveness and the referee was weirdly hesitant to start KO counts sometimes, but other than that I thought this was up there with any Misawa/Kawada, Ikeda/Ishikawa, Fujiwara/Maeda or whatever other incredibly great and violent match up in wrestling history you wanna come up with.

Aja Kong & Reggie Bennett vs. Lioness Asuka & Bison Kimura, AJW 5/7/1995

Badass match. This easily could have been throwaway mid card stuff, but leave it to Aja to make things ultra heated and unpredictable. Basically Kimura is out for Ajas blood here due to their history together, and Aja just doesn’t care for her and mauls her. Also, Asuka wasn’t super settled into her routine yet, so she makes a good opponent for Aja in a shooter vs. monster way. I was also surprised by how fun Reggie was in this, I mean Reggie is always cool but her power moves were just great and she also did a pretty good job stretching Bison. Bison getting frustrated and going for Reggies leg was great. I also loved her busting out the nightstick. So yeah, violence escalating in interesting ways, fun big vs. little spots, Aja mauling people, fast pace, this was really sweet.

E-Cosmos: Kansai vs. Style-E 2/21/2010

Yosuke Takii & Kabuki Kid vs. Yutaka & Dyna-Mido

Fun indy opener. Takii is always cool to see and he really palmed and kicked the hell out of Dyna-Mido. Dyna was fun as a plucky young guy with a simple moveset, and Yutaka had a cool hot tag busting out a big headscissor and nasty face dropkick. Kabuki Kid wasn’t much at all but didn’t drag things down. This was short enough and had a good pace to leave you with just enough before you got tired.

Yuki Tanaka vs. Kyosuke Sasaki

Sasaki was doing a face painted gimmick with one glove on his hand and part of a heel faction. A cool match in theory as both these guys have kickpads and aren’t afraid to hit hard, but it was pretty short and to add to that the match had a run in, even though Tanaka quickly unmasked the guy and threw him out. It felt like wasted potential.

Masato Shibata vs. Shigehiro Irie

Young Irie is so low on the totem pole he gets almost squashed Shibata. This had some good chunky boys forearming each other hard and crashing into each other with their blubber stuff and Shibata has some nice gnarly offense, stiff Vader Hammers and huge suplex that Irie bumps big for, but I wanted a bit more. As a 6 minute big boy sprint it was pretty good though.

Kazuhiro Tamura & Masashi Takeda vs. Masanori Ishikura & Takaku Fuke

This was more like it. A slick shooty indy tag with plenty of fun smooth mat scrambles. It’s too bad we don’t see Ishikura much because the guy is really good and can hang with a pair of Tamura trainees on the mat no problem. I’m usually down on Fuke but he had his working boots on and let his opponents look really good. Takeda looked really good here, it’s regrettable he didn’t do clean wrestling more often because his knee strikes and suplexes are fantastic. The ending with Ishikura and Tamura wailing away at each other with Ishikura clocking Tamura with nasty headbutts was hard as all hell. Really enjoyable fast paced match, absolutely worth watching.

Tadanobu Fujisawa & Shoichi Uchida vs. Choun Shiryu & Ken Ohka

This had a lot of zany heel stuff and run ins from heel faction on Shiryu/Ohkas side. It was effective but it prevented much wrestling from happening. Heel antics aside Shiryu was awesome here as usual and probably salvaged the match with his brilliant kicks. The guy is just too cool flying into the scene to Kung Fu kick people in the face and hit odd 619s. His brief exchange with Uchida was really cool and I bet a 7 minute match between the two would be absolutely dynamite. Uchida brings some cool touches, I really liked his Oklahoma Stampede where he cleared the other guy off the apron, his big emerald fusion and dropkick to the back of the head etc. I was hoping to see Fujisawa kick some ass but he barely got to do anything although he did hit his awesome looking knee at one point. Ohka was pretty much a big nothing aside from his kooky getup. It was still a good match with Uchida and Shiryu being absolutely worth seeing.

The Library

Young Shinya

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Masahiro Chono, NJPW 3/20/1987

My god did these two look like legends from the very beginning. I mean, Chono less so, but Hashimoto is pretty much as good as you’ve ever seen him here. They do some really cool matwork, really fast takedowns and tight hold for hold work while moving through everything smoothly, Hashimoto absolutely pelts Chono with kicks, they slap the shit out of each other, the crowd is hot, Chono hits an AWESOME out of nowhere backdrop suplex, Hash works a great sleeper… just great energy in this. Hashimotos suplexes were awesome although I can see why he stopped doing bridging suplexes with his frame. This would be a great match for any two wrestlers, for two young lions this was amazing.

Shinya Hashimoto & Masahiro Chono & Keiji Muto vs. Tatsumi Fujinami & Kengo Kimura & Shiro Koshinaka, NJPW 7/29/1988

The Three Musketeers unite. Maybe for the first time? This was super heated and action packed because all three young guys basically want to take a chunk out of Fujinami. Fujinami throwing punch combos in retaliation was awesome. And my god does Hashimoto look like a walking badass already. Karate pants, spin kicking people, just being a mean old tank. It's also fun to see these future stars doing some different things from later. Hashimoto hits a crazy spinning gutbuster, Chono does a spin kick. Mutoh was already himself, grinding the match to a halt with a meaningless Figure 4. Aside from that this was a house of fire. Really awesome to check out.

AJW 1/4/1994

 Bull Nakano vs. Kaoru Ito

This easily could have been a bullshit rookie squash but instead we get Kaoru Ito throwing the motherfucking kitchen sink at Nakano, dropkicking her in the face and landing her trademark ultraviolent double stomps and throwing chairs like a lunatic. Nakano gets fired up and in turn tries to lariat Itos brains out. Fun, painful match. I liked that they worked this at such a length that it just broke out of squash territory but you couldn’t quite tell when it would end. Props to Nakano for making Ito look great.

Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita vs. Saeki Hasegawa & Yumiko Hotta

What we saw of this was great. That said, they only showed 12 out of 22 minutes, so you have to wonder if there was some serious cutting magic at play here. But what we saw was pretty great. When Hasegawa is in the ring, the match is solid LCO heel stuff. When Hotta steps in, the match basically turns into a fight to the death. A wrestler like 1994 Yumiko Hotta could not exist in this modern world and that’s awfully sad. Loved Shimoda desperately trying to hit her in the face. I loved LCO plausibly putting Hotta away, with Shimoda hitting a huge and spectacular dive, and LCO unloading their neck crunching finishers on Hasegawa. Blessed.

Aja Kong vs. Suzuka Minami

I thought Minami was on her way out here and that’s why Aja destroys her, but apparently she kept wrestling until the following year. Holy LORD Aja absolutely destroys her, this was a Necro level asskicking. Aja punches her in the face, drops tables and steel barricades on her head, some hellish kicks. Minami has some neat technical moves but this was almost all a hellacious asskicking with Minami getting a few well chosen token moves at the end. Proof of Minamis toughness, I guess?

Manami Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue

I enjoyed this fine, but then, I didn’t expect much selling or a story. They actually worked some neat stuff into this, at this point these 4 were well familiar with each other so they could bust out some cool transitions like Manami going for the Manami Roll on Inoue only to be caught in a Thunder Fire Bomb etc. At one point Toyota botched her springboard dive so they improvized Toyota hitting a big splash to the floor on both Inoues, only in 90s AJW. I liked Takako punching Toyota and then kneeing her in the face before dumping her with nasty piledrivers. Yamada kicked ass as she usually does but I wanted more of her. There was no point where Toyota went on a rampage hitting 400 dropkicks or suplexes, so that was good too, and the match went under 20 minutes so they could work a strong pace without down parts.. That said, there was so little selling it all felt inconsequential, so you know what you are getting into.

The Library

NJPW vs. UWF Handheld Matches

 

Yoji Anjoh & Tatsuo Nakano vs. Masakatsu Funaki & Akira Nogami, NJPW 2/28/1987

What a sick upload. This was 4 young guys going close to 20 minutes doing awesome grappling and kicking the shit out of each other. My god do all these guys look great hitting the mat, just hitting awesome throws and super tight submissions left and right. Anjoh and Nakano already show shades of their later shitkicker personae and Funaki even in his black trunks and on a grainy handheld looks like a star in the making. The second half was really great because black trunks rookie factor is at play, so dropkicks and boston crabs become edge-of-your-seat stuff. Funaki running in to break up submissions by blasting people with dropkicks felt epic and while they largely kept the action basic they mixed in some sweet highlights, for example there was an awesome armbar counter to a backslide, Anjoh getting thrown to the outside by a dropkick, a New Japan guy running into a surprise high kick etc. The scrappy moments where guys would kick or slap the shit out of each other were fantastic and super heated. Great great stuff, this period where you saw New Japan guys mix it up with UWF guys regularily may have been the peak of the promotion.

Yoji Anjoh & Tatsuo Nakano vs. Masakatsu Funaki & Akira Nogami, NJPW 3/26/1987

Very good rematch in the same way as the first one. Anjo and Nakano were really a pair of pricks here brutalizing Nogami with knees and kicks. They did the same things as in the first match in some parts but the general scrappiness and improvized-feeling structure made it still feel different enough. Great heated finish and I dig how the UWF guys keep refusing to run the ropes.

The World of World Japan

 

Masahiko Kochi vs. Takashi Uwano, WJ 7/20/2003

This was a black trunks rookie match and a really nice one. I think Kochi has been wrestling since 1994 and Uwano since 1998, so both of them having to be black trunks rookies in WJ is kind of funny, but these two could put on one hell of a match. Really nice arm control stuff early on before they settle into punishing each other. Kochi was awesome here, absolutely lighting up Uwano with stiff kicks, he had this huge spinning wheel kick that felt bigger and cooler than probably anything else on this card. I also loved his big bulldog. Uwano had some great big lanky guy STOs and I loved the build towards the German Suplex and half crab in the last couple minutes. Matches like this really remind you how important slower more measured matches are, really makes you appreciate each basic move and the sense of both guys beating the shit out of each other was there without turning into some kind of exhibition.

Tomohiro Ishii vs. Takashi Uwano, WJ 3/1/2003

 

Basic opening match upgraded with insane stiffness, both these guys were just swinging hard at each other. You know Ishii can bring it in a stiff fest, but Uwano looked really good kneeing him in the face and stomping on his head. Uwanos big STO and German Suplex were great once again. Absolutely sick punch-out finish with both guys bleeding hardway from the blows. Sometimes, you want to watch something like this. Hey, why didn't they make Ishii wear black trunks?

Yoji Anjoh vs. Tomohiro Ishii, WJ 3/15/2003

Two guys with odd charisma who are great at wailing on guys, wailing on each other hard. This was a great 8 minutes. Anjoh has a shaven head and goatee here and looks kind of schlubby, but man he could just destroy a guy. A lot of wrestlers struggle to have 2 or 3 good looking hits but Anjoh just does so much different stuff, knees to the face, elbows, punches, fist drops, from so many different angles and it all looks like he’s destroying Ishii. Ishii is of course really game to get hit, bump big and potatoe Anjoh with strikes of his own including flush punching him in the face. The finish was a flash but it looked fucking brutal. I can get that ending may have come quickly, but why have I not heard about this matchup before? Super warm recommendation for this one.

Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Yoji Anjoh, WJ 3/1/2003

Cool match between two old guys who still had a lot in the tank in 2003. Anjohs punches and strikes just look awesome and Yatsu is so fun and spry here, really explosive throws and dropkicks and not afraid to hit Anjoh in the face.. There is some cool arm attack stuff by Anjoh and I loved the finish. I wish some promotion had done more with these two than just give them undercard stuff because their stuff still looked better than almost everyone elses.

Hiromi Yagi Matches

 

Hiromi Yagi vs. Aja Kong, JWP 6/16/1996

 

Considering Yagi was just barely 18 months in wrestling at this point, it’s pretty sick that they gave her a Korakuen Hall main event against Aja. And this match was pretty sick too and a really great big vs. little match. You know Yagi can’t really do a mat based match against Aja here, so they just go for maximum effect and have Aja beat the living shit out of Yagi. It’s funny how you can watch a ton of Aja beating the heck out of people and still see her coming up with new stuff, in this she throws Yagi onto the turnbuckle, smashing her head into a trashcan, throwing really stiff out of nowhere kicks etc. All of Yagis hope spots were great because she was just constantly trying to grab a limb and force a submission, with Aja swatting her away before she could lock anything in. It made the match feel like it could all turn around if Yagi got in just one armbar or legbar and that made it really exciting. I also loved how they built up Ajas splash as a big deal. Yagis brief comebacks including kicking Aja in the face were great. Aja also nuked Yagi with a huge deadlift German at one point which is not something I can recall her doing in other matches. Simple, to the point, stiff, super intense, hot crowd, this was great.

Hiromi Yagi vs. Jaguar Yokota, JWP 9/8/1996

Oh man what a sweet match up, we are on an all time level stretch of great womens wrestling on this blog right now. Yagi is pretty much the Yagi we all know and love here and they do an ARSION match before ARSION. The story is that Yagi is a beast with the submissions and rips up Yokota with a bunch of neat flash legbars and Yokota does a bunch of classy wrestling to put this fiery grappler away, 80s joshi technician vs. modern day shooto/MMA submission artist is not something you see a lot in wrestling, Yokota is so much faster and more agile than any old Tatsumi Fujinami type. Yokota is great here, she really lets Yagi shine and puts her over as this beastly grappler, while having some nice subtle holy shit spots of her own, early on she hits a really fast judo throw on Yagi to mock the judoka, later she catches her with this awesome legsweep, she also proves she still has incredible athleticism and litheness with her handsprings and bridge ups. Yokota busts out her insane double underhook piledriver, absolutely spiking Yagi and then struggles to continue in a nice nod to Yagis leg submissions, great moment. This went 15 minutes and they never slowed down, without going all spot-spot-spot, just a great duel between two great wrestlers.

JWP LIFE IN THE BATTLE 4/8/1997

Watch

Cutie Suzuki vs. Kanako Motoya

Oddly ornery technical match. Suzuki stretches Motoya a bunch, and then Motoya stretches Suzuki and hits these cool headbutts that felt like something a bald european technician would do. Motoya once again had really nasty sentons. The match didn’t seem to come together as a whole but it there were some fun bits.

Mayumi Ozaki & Carlos Amano vs. Megumi Kudo & RIE

This was a street fight with everyone dressed up in their grungy street clothes and it was just an absolute house of fire as they went full throttle over like 25 minutes. Amano and RIE bled like crazy and Oz and Kudo held up looking like absolute superstars throughout this match. They could’ve just done brawling and weapon shots and it would have been good as they worked in some really cool key transitions, but then they went all out in the second half delivering so much cool stuff and false finishes out the ass. They convince you that Oz and Kudo could end the match, then they introduce the more plausible possibility of one of the underlings getting pinned, then it’s underling vs. underling, then suddenly Oz and Kudo again… they did a great job mixing the weapons and chains with the 90s style puro big moves and something like a tiger bomb or half nelson suplex looks double cool in a bloody brawl with weapons strewn about the ring. Amano looked brave as fuck diving in to save Ozaki and while RIE had a shitty moment where she blew a move, she also had a really cool moment where she taped a bat to her knee and delivered a gross looking jumping knee to the head. The chain stuff was engrossing, remember chain chokes often end brawls in Japan either by ref stop or submission. Ozakis out of nowhere backfists were really cool. Tremendous stuff at a crazy pace that would light a fire if you ran it anywhere today.

Dynamite Kansai vs. Hikari Fukuoka

This was compared to Aja vs. Toyota, but honestly, I thought this was probably better. Fukuoka is so much better than Toyota it’s not even funny, her offense and comebacks are varied and way more interesting, and she actually sold her ass off, was struggling to get back on offense and milking things for drama, plus she can pull out some damn graceful moves and the moonsault stomp and rider kick are also cool than anything in a Toyota match. This was just a really good big vs. little match, with Kansai mostly controlling and Fukuoka making some great comebacks with Kansai then cutting her off in brutal fashion. Needless to say Kansais kicks were absolutely vicious. I loved Fukuokas desperation legsweep after Kansai started kicking the shit out of her in the ring. After Kansai hit the splash mountain, Fukuoka seemed extremely done, struggling to move or get to her feet, that’s how you sell after a big move. The final stanza with Kansai hitting super violent punt kicks and Fukuoka trying to pull out desperate counters was really great. Hell of a match, one of the best big matches of 1997.

The Library

 

Black trunks rookie matches

 

Shinjiro Otani vs. Manabu Nakanishi, NJPW 3/23/1994

Man, is 1994 Otani a spectacular black trunks wrestler. He would tear up Nakanishi in the ground, and catch him with surprise spin kicks in the face when they stood up. This was damn good for rookie opening match. Otani pretty much leads the match, which is a bit weird considering Nakanishi is already absolutely massive, but Otani does such a job grounding and stretching Nakanishis leg that you buy it. Nakanishi is a decorated amateur guy so he has no problem doing matwork and throwing big suplexes. Right at the beginning Nakanishi snatches and throws Otani like he weighs nothing. There was this really amusing bit where Otani does a fancy spin escape out of a leglock, later Nakanishi tries the same thing but Otani cuts him off, you ain’t taking Otanis spot! Second half was great as both guys slapped the shit out of each other when they stood up, then you get Nakanishi planting Otanis with some huge power moves resulting in Otani desperately trying to slip underneath and go for leg submissions. Otani countering Nakanishis torture rack with a firemans carry was really rad and like something Tamon Honda would do. Nice finish, too.

Akira Nogami vs. Osamu Matsuda, NJPW 1/6/1990

Matsuda is El Samurai. This was really choice and feels like kind of a hidden gem. Starts really solid with some basic matwork before Matsuda cranks up the intensity trying to pop Nogamis shoulder with a bunch off different armlocks. Awesome moment where Matsuda locks in a chickenwing crossface with Nogami fighting for dear life out of it and then putting on a damn camel clutch. Both guys are at the stage where the crowd buys a camel clutch or boston crab ending the match and that makes the last third of this really awesome. They build to a bunch of cool spots including Matsuda hitting a fucking stunner and Nogami wiping him out with a huge suicide dive that the crowd went bonkers for. “Any move can end the match” was felt strongly here and it made an awesome little juniors match.

A random GOAT contender

 

Aja Kong & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Yumiko Hotta & Sakie Hasegawa, AJW 4/13/1994

It’s weird how 90s Joshi in general and AJW especially is considered the peak of womens wrestling yet you can pull up a ton of random matches that nobody talks about yet they are really great. This was UWF rules and a strong match on paper, but they just kicked it up so many notches. Stylistically it wasn’t exactly shootstyle, there is some rope running etc., but in general they keep it really grounded. This match was up there with the absolute most violent BattlARTS/FUTEN matches, all 4 threw strikes and suplexes on an absolutely hellish level, with several hits that were as violent as anything I’ve ever seen in a wrestling match. They go really long (30ish minutes) and you’d think there is no way they can keep it up, but they keep it up. 

Hasegawa is kind of the odd one here, she isn’t quite a shooter type, although I liked her face dropkicks. She was giving her all and the disparity between her and the two kickpadded beasts on the other team kind of carried the match, because it means Hotta has to fight and uphill battle and Hasegawa has to dig deep in order to not get blown away. There was a really nice mat section where Hasegawa honest to god grappled it out with Aja which was impressive considering what a beast Aja is. I also liked Hasegawas leg selling, she had a bandaged leg, and she did a pretty real job selling it even when there was never a section where it got worked over, she was cautious to avoid an early leg submission and later there is a really tense nearfall where Aja catches her in a leg hold. 

To re-emphasize, this match was absolutely hideously violent with Hasegawa taking some Misawa level crazy suplex bumps and Hotta, Yamada and Aja basically trying to cave heads in with their kicks. Aja was as much of a monster as you expect, mauling people with her hands and feet, while Yamada has the flashier kicks and she was also killing people. Hotta was a lunatic as you expect kneeing and kicking people in the face, there was a moment where she kicked Aja in the back of the head that sounded and looked absolutely abhorrent, and I honestly thought this was just as violent as the famous Hotta/Kong singles, it wasn’t a blood bath but Hotta was spitting blood after getting her face busted by a kick and the grueling onslaught of this 30 minute war was downright psychotic. They also did a really great job working saves and retaliations based around saves, there is a sequence where Hotta is trying to joke out Yamada and you just know what’s coming next. Later Hotta would get up and paste Aja on the apron with a sick thudding blow in retaliation. 

They go really long but they just keep going and going and there is so much fight and grittiness in this and then they really pick it up for the last few minutes where we get multiple epic faceoffs with great edge of your seat near KOs. Hasegawa unleashing her inner ass kicker, kicking people in the face and hitting these winded desperation spin kicks was truly awesome and her big slap that knocked over Aja may have been the highlight in a match full of insane highlights simply because it paid off the story. Then we also get the Aja vs. Hotta finale which is as criminal as you expect and yet they somehow manage to not overdo it!!! Granted this match isn’t flawless, some parts were slightly repetitive, but god damn it the sheer fight in this, the grit, the violence, it even had a great underdog story and somehow it left me wanting more. It’s been a long time since I felt a match I was watching for the first time might be the greatest of all time but this gave me the feeling.

Tarzan Goto Documentation #13

 

Tarzan Goto vs. Great Punk, FMW 9/23/1993 - FUN

Punk is Katsutoshi Niiyama. He rushes Goto at the start but things go awry for him quickly and Goto starts kicking him in the face and dumping tables on his head. Goto delivers a really great beatdown as he has so many different cool ways to kick the shit out of you, headbutts to the face, huge superfly splash off the top, slapping the hell out of Niiyama etc. It's weird though, if this was Tully Blanchard or whoever delivering this kind of bloody beatdown on someone it would be legendary and epic but since Goto has a great beatdown in pretty much every match he's in it feels like it's another match for him. So it depends on what Niyaama brings to the table, and Niyama doesn't bring much except some weak looking uranages and rollups. Still, a solid by the numbers match with Gotos numbers being really damn high.

Tarzan Goto vs. Masashi Aoyagi, Shin FMW 9/29/97 - EPIC

This delivers the kind of freak violence this matchup promises. Basically Goto hacks up Aoyagis face causing him to bleed like crazy almost immediately. Aoyagi in turn busts out a barbedwire kickpad and tees off on Goto, kicking him in the face and just tearing up his leg. The barbed wire kick spots hold up about as violent as anything else in deathmatch wrestling history, I'd rather take a lighttube over the head than get kicked by Aoyagi, the barbedwire just makes it way worse. I would have liked Goto to throw more punches but retaliating against the superior striker by chucking barbed wire boards at him works fine. This didn't have any kind of deep story or great transitions but the gore aswell as a pretty big finish and both guys being willing to take crazy punishment made it really engrossing.

 

Tarzan Goto Master List