Naoto Akita vs The Scary Mummy Man
Akita is the super rookie of Tokai Pro Wrestling, I think. The Scary Mummy Man is.. well.. a mummy. There was some undead comedy here, but it still felt like a competitive match, so it was kind of enjoyable. The Mummy reminded me a bit of Shinigami and Akita did a lot of judo based moves, which was kind of cool, tho it was still far from a serious match. I kind of enjoyed it and it was over quickly.
Black Nyantaro vs Hakaru
What I’ve seen from Hakaru before has been good, as he seems like a wrestler with good ground game. Unfortunately there wasn’t any of that here, it was Hakaru doing dirty tactics and brawling, trying to unmask his opponent. Hakarus headlock punches looked very good, aside from that it was kind of boring. I’ve never seen Nyantaro before, and he just did some back scratches early on, which did not make me very interested in him. In the last 3rd both guys came alive and became more energetic. Nyantaro had some cool lucha libre holds and moves, just that made me think a more ground-based match would have been better. Well, not every match can be like that, and this night Hakaru choose to be a straight villain and unmask his opponent.
Yasushi Sato vs Super Taira
A promising match up on paper, that turned out to be an excellent match. Super Taira is a really interesting wrestler – he does some lucha libre, he is skillful on the mat, but he can also hit hard kicks and flying armbars like a shooter. The groundwork here was great, with Taira using his lucha libre llaves to tie up Sato. Sato looked outmatched by his opponents crazy holds, though I loved the one weird submission he busted out to in turn Taira in a knot. Eventually Taira would start to attack Satos arm and shoulder with some vicious kicks, with Sato really being in pain. Sato would lock in a boston crab, but he had to release to hold because his arm was too damaged in a pretty cool bit. The second half was full of great counters and submissions, with Taira having numerous awesome counters to Satos Russian Leg Sweep. The pin combos, Russian Leg Sweep teases and narrow 2 counts were fantastic. Sato busted out a lot of great stuff too, he hit a fantastic out of nowhere belly to belly suplex that hit Taira hard, a Terry Funk punch combo and even flying off the top rope. I love Yasushi Sato as the master of mat wrestling that he is in Mutoha, but the man has an amazingly diverse skillset. He was outwrestled by Taira here and so his one game changer was the Russian Leg Sweep. I also loved Super Tairas cross armhold submission. Great stuff, with both guys looking like great wrestlers.
Koichi Wakikaido & The Ninja & Ultraman Robin vs Shadow #1, #2 & #3
This is my first look at the seemingly never ending match series between Wakikaido, his hero friends and the Shadows. If you look at JWA Tokai results these teams must have faced each other a hundred times. Right away this becomes a surreal trip as they take pro wrestling logic to the absurd. Because wrestlers can’t fight back when being moved around, the Shadows put everyone in a headlock and then just walk around the arena. Wakikaido wrestles slower than Giant Baba, but he still has impeccable timing. Ultraman hits a really nice spinning headscissor somehow. The Ninja is dressed like an imitator of the Great Sasuke and he’s actually really energetic and even hits an Asai Moonsault. Baffling and fascinating stuff.
Cosmo Soldier & Chojin Yusha G-Valion vs Hiroshi Toyoda & Yuki Toyoura
It’s my first time seeing JWA Tokai originals, Hiroshi Toyoda and Yuki Toyoura. Of course, we all know Cosmo Soldier is a legend, and G-Valion is always cool to see. The early goings of this match were basic, but executed with some struggle that made it interesting. Of course Soldier is one of the all-time most interesting wrestlers, you never know what he is going to do next, he is like a force of chaos. In this case things got interesting when Cosmo hit Toyodas leg with something that was between a springboard leg drop and a low dropkick. Immediately Toyoda fired back with a low dropkick that hit Soldiers leg hard. After that, the match turned a lot more aggressive. I really liked the team of Toyoda and Toyoura here. Toyoda seemed like a really cool wrestler, he was this short guy with very explosive powerful moves and a really hard elbow smash. Toyoura was the tallest guy in the match, and while felt a bit awkward (he was only wrestling about 2 years at this point) he also had lots of devastating power offense, and he swung his arms and body with force into his opponent. The fun of watching a bunch of wrestlers you know nothing about is seeing what they can do and not knowing what comes next, and this ended up being an exciting ride for that reason.
To top it off Valion and Soldier also worked hard busting out cool stuff, and the highlight was easily the brutal open hands Soldier started throwing at Toyoura. Long quality main event, which absolutely makes me want to see more of the world of JWA Tokai.
