Tanonmusaku Toba Documentation #24

 Tanomusaku Toba vs Hikaru Sato, Evolution 12/17/2023 - GREAT

I'm enjoying old man Toba. He is not as athletic or conditioned, but he will still brutally punch people in the face. And that is pretty much the selling point of this match. After some cautious exchanges early on where neither guy wanted to make a mistake, Sato made the mistake of trying to follow a regrouping Toba outside the ring and immediately ate some brutal street fight punches on the floor. A seemingly pissed off Sato was then bent on outstriking Toba, only for Toba to block, dodge and punch him in the face some more. Sato catching himself and figuring out to weather the storm was cool and the finish with Toba trying to kick and punch his way out of a submission was gnarly. Nice story and Satos willingness to get punched in the face hard is commendable.

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs Sanshiro Takagi & GENTARO, DDT 8/26/2007 - GREAT

First half of this was solid but not blowaway stuff. Everybody here has good execution and is fun to watch, even doing basic stuff like hitting elbow drops or dropkicks. Takagi getting tagged by Tobas punches and having to try a little harder than usual is always entertaining. In the second half they started busting out the fireworks, and they were big dman fireworks. A ladder comes into play and they do a bunch of crazy highspots. It's kind of amazing that in a match like this Toba may have had the biggest highspots, he hit this sick double stomp off the ladder, as well as taking a stunner from Takagi off the ladder which was pretty insane. In between the spots you have Toba tagging people with punches which is pretty cool in a match against two WWF worshipping guys. Toba repeatedly blocking GENTAROS super kick attempts and wrecking him with punches was really cool. It made me think I would really enjoy an X-Division 4 way or a Young Bucks tag if Toba was involved.

 

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Master List

Speed of Sounds Produce 10/18/2009

Taro Nohashi vs Yuki Sato

This was a no-ring show in a cool disco-like environment. Not having a ring often brings the best out of talented wrestlers because they are forced to break out of their formula, and it makes things just feel a bit more reckless. And these two are pretty talented. They do a nice job working a basic indy undercard match with some good matwork, plausible no-ring lucharesu exchanges and Nohashi doing an 80s NWA studio match style working over Satos arm. Because there's only a tin mat even basic moves like a body slam or drop toe hold look devastating. Sato having to improvize in order to do high flying is a lot of fun and them clocking each other with stiffffff headbutts is what you sickos want out of a match like this. Nohashi at one point hit a jumping kick that was pretty amazing. This was exactly what you want your odd no ring indy show opening match to be.

Koryuki vs CHANGO vs Jumping Kid Okimoto

This was not what you want to see. Koryuki is some character who can't wrestle because of his super elaborate mask, then his elaborate mask gets partially removed but he still can't wrestle. The comedy was ass and the attempts at wrestling were lazy and uninspired. You want no second of this.

Gota Ihashi & HARASHIMA vs Masato Inaba & Toru Owashi

Standard light hearted DDT undercard tag that wasn't any good, really. For a no ring match to be good you need to bring some good matwork and/or striking and maybe a willingness to be insane and nobody here was delivering that. Gota Ihashi was the one guy who seemed to care a little and laid it, and he's supposed to be a joke.

Takuya Sugawara vs Kinya Oyanagi

 Kinya Oyanagi was a mighty decent wrestler and him being in a singles match is always a reason to check out a show. Sugawara was a pretty decent wrestler too, which along with guys like Nohashi and Minamino being there makes me wonder if the later Toryumon generations were actually better. This match was lots of groundwork, nice mix of basic stuff and the cool shit that Oyanagi does, so exactly what you want. Some swank counters and Sugawara while clearly less skillful had a few neat moves of his own, and stuck to a gameplan of attacking Oyanagis legs which lead to Oyanagi in counter attacking his arm and neat moments insure, such as Sugawara taking a painful looking kick to the shoulder while trying to lock in a figure 4. Aside from the matwork Oyanagi busted out this awesome jumping enzuigiri to a seated Sugawara. Smart match and a testament to how good wrestling can be without ropes and buckles.

Kota Ibushi & Hercules Senga & Tsutomu Oosugi vs Shu Sato & Kei Sato & Ken 45

Brahman Brothers are a really good pair of rudos in this environment. They will kick people in the face, act unhinged and stooge very well. That along with the Speed of Sounds smooth lucharesu stuff makes this a really fun match. Add in Ibushi and his tendency to lunatic stuff when placed in unusal environment and you get something good. Busting out a kendostick was unexpected and all the double team moves looked great and coupled with the brawling made the match feel more chaotic. And Ibushi bouncing around and doing crazy stuff was off the charts. This was the kinda shit you could put on a mixtape to showcase how cool pro wrestling can be, just a lot of cool shit per minute, very clear face and heel roles and with a unique twist to it. They really should have kept running shows in that disco.

The Library

Digging into a mysterious library of obscure Japanese handheld footage

 
Headhunters vs. Shinichi Nakano & Hirofumi Miura, WYF 8/30/1995
 

The people behind the promotion known was Mutoha have also started putting up various old handhelds on their YouTube channel. Years ago WYF was the first obscure Japanese indy promotion that I fell in love with and I wished to see more of this unique fed, so I am stoked to see this stuff unveiled after decades. And this match was pretty beastly. Headhunters are awesome and extremely underrated. There's nothing like watching two face painted monsters waltz into Korakuen Hall throwing chairs around while March of the S.O.D. blares. This was almost a squash, as Headhunters dominated nearly the entire action. They have great offense so it was cool. Highlights include a brutal powerbomb that almost broke Nakanos neck, and a completely unexpected slow motion German Suplex. I loved the moment where Nakano crawled to his corner trying to make the hot tag only to find his partner was being butchered outside the ring by another Headhunter. It's such a logical thing to happen in a one sided, out of control massacre. Nakano only got in a desperation enzuigiri and some potatoe blows. Miuras brief run on offense was okay but he quickly got destroyed with the moonsault to end all moonsaults. The crowd was super hot for this and lived and died with their WYF heroes. I wish we had gotten to see a bit more of Nakano though it is remarkable that he did not die by that powerbomb. The Headhunters wreaking havoc was absolutely awesome, though.

Masaaki Mochizuki/TARU/Takashi Okamura vs Masakazu Fukuda/Kamikaze/Hiroyoshi Kotsubo WYF 3/20/1997
 

This was the first match between these 6 guys. All their matches are great, and this is in Korakuen Hall and feels especially wild because WYF fans hate the karate guys at this stage, so it feels ultra heated.  Match was pretty much the perfect mix of shootstyle and WAR-esque potatoes/scrappiness with that trademark WYF levels of unpolished, dirty fighting. Early goings were really good as WYF guys kept their opponents grounded in scrappy fashion. Even Kotsubo looked really good as he kept taking downs with explosive shooting takedowns, at one point even leading to both guys tumbling outside and brawling on the floor.  Kamikaze is impeccable in these matches, kicking people in the face, hammering a guy with punches and taunting the karatekas further. Fukuda also looked great - just hurling dudes with suplex that looked insanely forceful, and trying to crush peoples face with dropkicks and stomps. Buko Dojo guys started breaking out their kicks later and it's everything you can ask for. There's a pretty great dive sequence, Mochizuki flying at people with kicks, Buko guys breaking up pins and submissions with nasty kicks etc. Even the Kotsubo vs Taru matchup which is really shit on paper ends up being good. WYF was striking gold with  this feud in 1997, and I'm so happy we get the beginning of the feud, really heated and violent from the get go.

 

Hiroshi Watanabe & Hiroyuki Kondo vs. Crusher Takahashi & Hideya Iso (Bungee Takada Produce 11/6/2003)

Apparently this is from a show produced by Bungee Takada. It's not something I knew about or dreamed that I would see it but it's a strange and cool surprise. We love all these guys when they are old men, and they were still youngish here, so they moved a bit faster and smoother than later. They went 24 minutes without really slowing down, with lots of trying to stay on a guy, and it was a cool match. Lotta matwork, cool submissions and pin combos. Hideya Iso was looking quite unrecognizable here and did some athletic moves including a Kota Ibushi style backflip into a moonsault. Watanabe had a wild beard making him look like a Mad Dog and he was as slick and technically sound as in any other match you'll see him in. The star of the match was Crusher Takahashi, though. The man was on fire doing it all here, throwing really beautiful bridging suplex moves, his amazing Terry Funk punch combo and doing other odd stuff like busting out the Gibson leglock. You can tell he was stoked to be in a long match with a bunch of capable opponents and show off what he can do. It was one of those matches that show off what you can do even while wrestling a rather conservative wrestling style in front of a small audience. Must-watch if you are a fan of Crusher Takahashi, a really solid wrestlers-wrestler type match for everyone else too.