Assorted NEO

 

Kyoko Inoue vs Shinobu Kandori, NEO 4/3/2003

Kyoko was pretty much a clown at this point, but Kandori is so dangerous that she gets a serious match out of her. It's too bad there's not much Kandori footage from this time period because she was still an absolute beast through and through. Initially Kyoko wasn't being serious, so Kandori quickly starts beating her around the ring with awesome headbutts, stomps and palm strikes. Inoue gets serious  and starts giving it back to Kandori with cool out of nowhere crowbar lariats. All of Kandoris submissions still feel dangerous and they are extremely well timed. There was this amazing bit where Inoue tried to put an armbar on Kandori and Kandori reversed out of it, then gave Inoue this scolding bitchslap to teach her a lesson. Inoues reckless powerbombs also work for this kind of match. They worked this in a dingy little club and it's a testament to Kandori that she was able to make this feel like a big fight.

Mima Shimoda vs Azumi Hyuga, NEO 4/9/2003

Shimoda was drifting into irrelevancy at this point, but she could still go when she wanted to, and she was willing it here. Obviously credit goes to Hyuga too who was really pushing her opponent, but Shimoda made the match by adding a healthy dose of violence and pissed-offness to it. Hyuga did her usual stuff, but they made it insanely scrappy with tons of nasty face stomps and kicks. Even the usual stretching portion looked brutal and hate filled as they both tried to bend each other in half. Shimodas offense is great, her axe kicks land flush in Hyugas face and the rolling kicks were amazing. I also loved her just hurling a chair at Hyugas head in frustration. That chair/brawling stuff can often come across as rote in late period LCO matches but here it felt like Shimoda meant it. Hyugas jumping knees were plenty brutal as always and thanks to her the pace never slowed down. Loved her stomping on Shimodas face. It's weird how Hyugas act is kind of predictable but she keeps having great matches. Real sleeper match considering it's dark period joshi, but the sheer hatred makes this.

 

Momoe Nakanishi vs Misae Genki, NEO 8/14/2004

Very fun big vs little match. Genki is often sloppy but does a pretty great job here being a lumbering monster swinging at her faster opponent. Nakanishi was such a talented wrestler, she does a great job trying to outmaneuver her bigger opponent and coming from odd and unexpected angles. She was also quite hard hitting when it came to kicking some ass. Dug all her slick pin combos. Also lots of Genki absolutely ragdolling Nakanishi with suplexes and throws. Finishing run was all kinds of tricked out and fun, Nakanishi always makes things a bit more complex than your standard joshi match. Her suplexes on Genki were also amazing.

Titanes del Ring

 Recently discovered this amazing wrestling show from Chile. They have all these comic book style gimmicks on the show, with this amazing presentation as the studio looks like a coloseum and a live band does all the entrance themes. And the matches are worked kind of like I imagine an 80s version of WCW lucha to be. Short, to the point, a mix of cool rudo beatdowns and neat technico spots. These guys clearly know what they are doing and everyone takes amazing bumps, I wonder if this was an attempt to breathe some life into a dying wrestling territory.

Dracula vs Robin

This has to be 1981 or 1982, not exactly sure. They do a bunch of awesome stuff with Dracula being amazingly committed to his character with a bunch of evil choking and biting. They even find a way to make the old arm drag off the top rope spot make sense. Robin busts out a suicide dive and some amazingly swank headmare variations. Robin also does the same re-entry flip into the ring 3 times. There's also an attempted  suicide dive which is promptly no-sold. At one point Dracula gets thrown out and rightly goes to bite a kid in the crowd. Robin takes this with a proto-code red and we are off to a hot start here.

Dracula vs Gladiador Romano

This seems to be from the very first episode of the show. Great little match - Dracula is clearly an amazing wrestler. His beatdowns look really painful - the little kicks, the splashes and elbow drop to the legs etc, all great stuff. He also keeps busting out neat moves. We get a better look at the weird back rolling takedown into a senton thing he does, and he also has a really slick take over into a double leg lock. Gladiador Romano looked like a pretty decent wrestler too with lots of swank technico spots such as a cool headscissor where he climbs up his opponent. Finish was something to behold. I wouldn't mind seeing Dracula go at it with Negro Casa.

Dragon Chino vs Spiderman

This seems to be from a later episode, they now have a live band jamming and playing random movie themes through the matches. Dragon Chino is a guy doing a martial artist gimmick, and his stuff actually looks pretty great. His hip throws have amazing pop and he hits a pretty devastating thrust kick and has other cool stuff he can do with his kicks. Spiderman looks oddly fuzzy and has a sexy valet in an amazingly bad looking costume, I guess because of the economic Crisis hitting Chile in 1982 or something. Spiderman does a nice job moving spider-like around the ring and he has some cool shit too. Spiderman, overwhelmed with his opponents kicks starts grappling and this pisses Chino off and he goes for the mask. I can tell these two are amazing wrestlers simply by the way they work a basic knuckle lock pin. Spiderman comes back folding his opponent up and I wouldn't have minded to see these two going longe.

 

Rayo de Jalisco vs El Zorro

HOLY SHIT they have Rayo de Jalisco on this show? He bumps like a luchador and does lucha stuff so that might be really him, or maybe its Rayo Jr. This is technico vs technico and while it's nothing substantial it's a neat display of both guys doing their cool stuff for 5 minutes. Zorro also does the cool tilt a whirl headmare, I wonder if that was a Chile special. The both go KO when they go for flying headbutts at the same time which looked really nasty. Rayos second comes in drags him on top of Zorro and the ref counts the 3. Rayos second is also a luchador and I wonder if they were getting on a Chile vs Mexico feud. Nevermind, Batman runs in and saves the day.

Rayo de Jalisco & Rayo Azteca vs Batman & Robin

I guess this followed from the previous altercation? It's a bit weird to see the classical masks of the two Rayos opposite the comic hero looks of Batman & Robin. This is 2/3 falls, too. Wild match with everyone bumping around and never slowing down. Looks like a clip from an old lucha movie. R. de Jalisco (they call him Rayo Mexicano in this match so I guess it's the real guy) dives from the top to the floor. The Rayos take it 2:0, once with a cool 2 on 2 submission and then with a cool 2 on 2 pin. What a trip.

Gladiador Romano vs El Faraon

This was the most athletic of these matches I've seen so far. They did a bunch of flips and kip ups, and cool headscissors and armdrags. As a showcase of the more athletic spots of this style this was very cool. They also showed good prowress working some holds but there wasn't much of that. The match ends in a Romero Special that leads to a double pin which has to be the earliest instance I've seen of that.

Gladiador Romano vs El Gitano

Also highly athletic match with lots of cool flips and throws. Maybe better than the previous one since this had slightly better structure. Gitano brought some cool stuff to the table, including some wild bumps into the ropes. It also had a double pin finish, though from a different move that was pretty interesting. I'm not sure if we are just catching glimpses of what these guys did in longer more fleshed out matches on houseshows or if this is the peak of the style, but I am enjoying it.