Watch (and you want to watch)
JWA Tokai baby. This is one of the original "working mens" promotions in Japan which means that it was meant for regular people to wrestler without going pro. They use just a thin amateur wrestling mat and some weird mini scaffolds for diving moves and it's awesome.
Hideo Mizoguchi vs Kiyonori Matsutake
I thought this was gonna be a slow paced opening match because both guys start out doing some pretty nice armdrags and groundwork, but it soon turns into the greatest bad match you’ve ever seen. One of these guys is wearing Tenryu boots and early on he doesn’t really wrestle like Tenryu, in fact he hits some spin kicks and even a big dive into the crowd from the scaffolding. There is some semblance of psychology with Fake Tenryu being grounded by some submission work that wasn’t bad, however soon both guys just start killing each other. At one point Fake Tenryu goes for an elbow drop that misses completely and he lands with the most ungodly splat sound, just absolutely wasted himself. There’s also an incredibly gnarly folding powerbomb, more whacky kicks and a flip senton that has the guy landing headfirst in the other guys ribs. Total spectacle that was quite the mess but insanely fun to watch.
Yasu
Kubota vs Negro Samurai
Absolutely crazy 9 minute match. Starts charming enough with both guys doing some fun attempts at lucharesu exchanges without ropes. Then Kubota drops the Samurai with a nasty Ganso Bomb and its on. Both guys fly in the crowd with crazy dives, there’s a no ring Sasuke Special, absolutely brutal suplexes and bombs are uncorked regardless of the thing mat they are using etc. There’s some pretty cool submission work and a neat transition into a German suplex attempt at one point. But this is just an absolutely unique wtf crazy match that rules.
Buffalo
Sakata & Yoshiyuki Watanabe vs ASKA
& Fumitake Nakano
This was an attempt at a more ground based, almost shooty match I guess. It was a bit clunky and long here and there, but also really good in parts. ASKA and Nakano are a really good team, Nakano is just a beast with sick judo throws and suplexes, and ASKA is a cool masked guy with shooter kickpads and UWF pants who wrestles accordingly. I liked Buffalo Sakata who has a bit more of a classic wrestling penchant with backbreaker moves and such, and while Watanabe was probably the clunkiest guy in the match he had his moments. Everyone here was totally ready to get killed and it was awesome, there were lots of painful submissions and insane suplexes on that thin mat. Seeing someone take a dragon suplex on an amateur wrestling mat is just pure craziness. ASKA also probably had some of the sickest uranages I’ve ever seen, they looked like an execution. Really would like to see more of the ASKA/Nakano duo as they looked like your ultimate hobbyist ersatz UWF duo.
Stungun Takamura vs Koichi Wakikaido
This show had a bit of everything, here we get a wild out of control brawl. Stungun Takamura carries a saber and is clearly a Tiger Jeet Singh/Umanosuke Ueda worshipper, though he is probably a far more energetic wrestler. Lots of fun brawling early on with Takamura bowling Wakikaido into chairs, making him bleed, hitting him with a foreign objects, biting the cut, just doing everything you want a sleazy brawler to do. Wakikaido who apparently is the man behind this whole JWA Tokai lunacy is a very convincing hero getting a table flung in his face. He takes some insane punishment, hits some big comeback moves then takes even more punishment. Highlight was by far the absolutely insane piledriver on the table that wouldn't break, as well as Wakikaidos big bump when he missed a missile dropkick that looked Manami Toyota level insane. Gnarly shit, exactly what you want to see checking out grimy obscure old VHS wrestling.
Hide Kubota vs Hitoshi Toyoda
Certified sicko match. These two weren’t afraid to absolutely kill each other on that thin mat. Kubota was a monster here, way way better than he was later in his career. He absolutely tossed the fuck out of Toyoda with some crazy suplexes. He was doing it all here, throwing stiff kicks, cool punch combos, gnarly looking pro style offense like a huge neckbreaker and building, an all time level fist drop. It really made me think Hide Kubota should have been wrestling Shinjiro Otani. There’s some intense matwork too, with the highlight being Kubota headbutting Toyoda in the back of the head while trying a surfboard hold. The one thing Kubota couldn’t do was hit proper huracanranas, but it kind of adds to the charm. Toyoda is a bit more subdued though he also brings some good stiff including a sick leaping headbutt. His use of the sharpshooter also added some psychology to the match. The bumps and flying moves off those launch things they used were pretty brutal as well. Structurally the match was a bit of a mess but the hold for hold stuff was good and both guys were really trying to rip each other apart with submissions. But you watch this type of match for the craziness of it.
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