Tarzan
Goto & Ryo Miyake vs. Shinichi Nakano & Arashi, WYF 3/20/1997 - GREAT
Nice to see the beginnings of the WYF vs. Shin FMW feud. This wasn’t even a bloodbath like the later matches, it was a cool grumpy heavyweight clash which is also good enough. There’s even a point where Goto teases using a chair on Nakano but puts it down because Goto fights fair now~! Opening Goto vs. Nakano matwork was super fun, just two thicc guys looking awesome taking each other down and rolling around, Goto has a nice bridge and really swift movements for a heavyweight, both guys do a competition of who can hit the coolest wrist arm salto among other cool things. Miyake is the whipping boy in this match as he basically gets bullied a bunch by Arashi and Nakano, Nakano is really good at fucking people at and Arashi who normally sucks looked good here by acting like an asshole, taunting Miyake and even being the first guy to use a chair. Also really enjoyed Goto running over to slap some fighting spirit into his boy and sending him at people like an attack dog. I didn’t expect either Nakano or Arashi to take much punishment so Goto beating the fuck out of Arashi in the second half felt cool and unexpected. Miyake is kind of pathetic but it doesn’t stick out super bad here. Very good mean bastards fighting each other type match and always nice to see Goto putting in a good night of work doing his thing
Tarzan
Goto & Jun Kikuzawa vs. Ryuji Yamakawa & Shoji Nakamaki, BJW 5/29/1997 - FUN
This was a double hell barbedwire deathmatch with some thumbtacks. That kind of stipulation means that not much wrestling will happen, so the match lives and dies on brawling. Goto is a really good brawler, his punches and boots look great and he really knows how to hit people with plunder in interesting ways, like driving the pointy end of an umbrella into peoples heads, threatening to throw a table at the audience etc. The other guys in the match are less interesting but they are willing to bleed take painful bumps into baredwire and tacks and do stupid shit. Kikuzawas dive through the wire was definitely the highlight. The match was pretty short and almost a squash with Goto largely fucking people up save for one bump he took into the tacks, but it was fun for what it was. We get some more crazy brawling after the match with Goto dragging bleeding people through the building.
El Hijo
Del Santo & Atsushi Onita & Mil Mascaras vs. Negro Casas &
Tarzan Goto & Nitron (Tijuana, 5/15/92) - FUN
Now this is a fever dream match up. Onita and Goto enter the ring and immediately start ramming each others heads against each other and brawling on the floor, with both guys coming up bleeding. That’s the first 2 minutes of the match. Oddly enough the Onita/Goto match up kind of takes center stage with both guys always beating the shit out of each other. The luchadores make mostly fun cameos, with Santo vs. Casas being obviously pretty damn good. It was fascinating what Casas could do with Mascaras who refuses to bump and sticks to the same stuff he’s probably been doing for 25 years at this point. Nitron is some comically large guy who’s not very good but him getting bowled around by the force of something like Mascaras flying chops or Santos flying headbutt is fun enough. And Onita and Goto are always there, bleeding and beating the shit out of each other. It was kind of awesome to see that in Tijuana, but the rest of the match was mostly just an oddity.
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