Thursday, February 2, 2023

Onita Pro 5/4/2002

 Gentaro vs. Ichiro Yaguchi vs. Fake Onita

This is one of those matches where you look at it and know it probably won’t be good but you still want to watch, at least if you are deranged like I am. This was kind of fun, there was some amusing bullshit with Fake Onita in Great Nitta getup threatening to use a sickle and misting people a bunch. Yaguchi also got to show off his offense, hitting a cool spinning wheel kick and crucifix bomb, and eating the mist like a champ. Gentaro had a really pretty springboard splash. So that was pretty enjoyable for a bullshit 5 minute opening match.

GAMI & noki-A vs. Kaori Nakayama & Shark Tsuchiya

JIP match where I actually would’ve liked to see more because they stayed in the ring and didn’t do any walk and brawl stuff. Or maybe they clipped that out. Tsuchiya can throw bombs and it was cool to see brawler Nakayama trying to hold her own in straight wrestling exchanges against a pair of top flight wrestlers. Yeah GAMI is a top flight wrestler to me, I love her and she’s awesome. She had a really great trust kick in this. Nakayama isn’t as smooth but he had some good stuff so I enjoyed this fine.


Chocoball Mukai vs. Katsuji Ueda

Now we are getting the compelling matchups with this card. Different style fight where Mukai kind of does well for himself taking the boxer down but then gets punched in the face. Ueda soon gets Dqd for low blowing Mukai repeatedly. Actually would have liked to see a real finish for this. Face punches looked good, why not give tough old man Ueda a win over the pornstar?


ONRYO & Sun Paul vs. The Shooter #1 & The Shooter #2

I am pretty sure one of the Shooters is Masaru Toi. He hits a nice spinkick, and then his crazy double stomp to the floor. Why put a mask on him, he’s motherfucking Toi?! Sun Paul is some white guy who for some reason worked a few 20 minute draws in his few matches in Japan, those must have been something to see. He executed basic stuff fine but there was nothing spectacular or impressive about him. The match was fun when Toi was doing stuff such as throwing a cool punch combo or hitting a slick Fujiwara Armbar. Other than that the biggest curiosity here was seeing a mystery name like Sun Paul do stuff.


Masanobu Kurisu vs. Shoji Nakamaki

Hell yeah. Kurisu mauls Nakamaki with some sick headbutts. Kurisu then grabs a chair and beats the fuck out of some ring boys. He then headbutts Nakamaki some more. Nakamaki tries to mount of offense but Kurisu headbutts him in the face and keeps brutalizing him with the chair. There is a bump into a barbedwire board which looks nowhere near as violent as those chairshots and headbutts. Nakamaki tries throwing powder at Kurisu but Kurisu completely no sells it and instead throws the powder in Nakamakis face. Kurisu is a force that can’t be contained and he wins with a sloppy pin combo after a 7 minute extremely one sided but perversely brutal match. After the match Nakamaki throws himself into the barbedwire to show he’s tough, or an idiot. I don’t know. Who doesn’t love a violent Kurisu asskicking though.


Mr. Pogo vs. Ricky Fuji

Genuinely a pretty fun Pogo match. Fuji is faster so he wins the race into the ring to get the barbedwire bat, but one of Pogos seconds hits him so he drops the bat. We get Fuji swinging chairs into Pogos barbedwire bat, before Fuji takes a good beating taking some nasty bat swings, kicks to the face and Pogos knifes and sickles while things keep moving. Pogo hits his “I’m crippled” bulldog where he kinds of lands on his side which I always get a kick out of, and a pretty nasty rope hanging DDT onto the chain and sickle. There is a crazy moment where Fuji kicks the knife out of Pogos hand and it just flies into the crowd. Fuji needs better punches but he is so excitable and bleeds well so I like him. Fun match where both guys played their role well.


Mitsuhiro Matsunaga vs. HIDO

Demented spectacle deathmatch that had thumbtacks, barbedwire and live scorpions. They pour the tacks all over the mat right at the beginning and we get a bunch of side headlock takeovers and suplexes into the tacks. Craziest spot comes soon when HIDO puts a bunch of scorpions into a baseball cap, puts the cap on Matsunagas head and crushes them with a chairshot. Poor scorps :( I was rooting the most for the one scorpion that was scurrying away to safety. The match was plenty sick and violent but definitely felt like an exhibition. At several points Matsunaga was just sitting there watching Hido build up the next spot. The psychology of the match is that both guys keep hurting themselves. At the end they take off their boots to wrestle barefoot in the thumbtacks, I guess to show that they are tough. Matsunaga puts a torture rack on Hido and walks barefoot into the barbedwire, but surprisingly enough he can’t handle the pain and submits, making Hido the winner. All-time level finish for sure.


Atsushi Onita & Masato Tanaka vs. Kintaro Kanemura & Tetsuhiro Kuroda

A surprising amount of fire makes this a pretty fun main event. Onita was brutalizing people with weapons and hitting sharp DDTs. He didn’t overexercise himself but it was a good performance. Kanemura and Tanaka had their working puts on and brought a lot to the table without being too doozy-doo. It helps that Tanakas normal offense – elbows, spears etc. - looks really violent and they have no problem moving through the tables and chairs stuff fast. Even Tetsu didn’t annoy me too much. Fun main event with a sick punch out finish that didn’t overstay its welcome.

The Library

No comments:

Post a Comment

Keita Yano Documentation #6

Keita Yano vs Roberto Tanaka, Ice Ribbon 3/10/2008 - GREAT It's very early no-ring Keita. Say what you will about Emi Sakura, but she g...