Assorted EAGLE Pro

 

Shoji Ohno vs Hiroyuki Kondo, EAGLE Pro 2/28/2021

This was from the plague era, so they wrestled in the empty EAGLE Pro dojo. I love Shoji Ohno now, I am not super familiar with Hiroyuki Kondo since he is another very elusive guy, but I thought Kondo was cool when he was in BJW 20 years ago. And oh my god this is a great match! They start with 10 minutes of ground wrestling like a classic NJPW match from the 90s and these two are really interesting to watch twist each other up on the ground. Kondo is really cool here – at one point he tried to snap Ohnos wrist with a headbutt that looked really good. Eventually it devolves into Kondo damaging Ohnos arm and Ohno damaging Kondos leg. This makes things further interesting both guys would try to go for their signature moves but couldn’t hit them because of the limb damage. Rarely do you see the logical conclusion of limb damage drawn to the end, and it really paid off in making this match more exciting. Kondo even hit a an arm-breaking piledriver on Shoji Ohno, which was amazing. Ohno is as straight forward as we know him from Mutoha. He doesn’t have the palm rushes yet, but he throws a lot of closed fist punches, and he is already really cool, he had this awesome reversal of an attempted russian legsweep. This was just the kind of minimalist, technical pro wrestling I really like, really it’s a gem considering what a small stage it was put on for.

Shoji Ohno vs Hiroyuki Kondo, EAGLE Pro 9/24/2023

Another match between them, and this one is in front of an audience. It’s also great! It’s also a pretty different beast from the 2021 match. Here, Shoji Ohno is a dirty heel bastard, and he has learned how to palm strike. So Ohno spends the whole match pummeling the hell out of Kondo with his hard as stone palms, even mocking a little girl in the audience. Crusher Takahashi is also with Ohno, ready to beat on Kondo with a kendo stock. Kondos only chance is to dismantle Ohnos arm and lock in the Scorpion Armlock. We get to see some great arm attacks from Kondo, including him busting out the arm breaking piledriver again, and there were a few great moments. The one problem was that I thought Kondo should’ve been slowed down more by Ohnos assault to his leg, but it wasn’t a huge problem. Kondo also busts out a great senton to Ohnos arm. Another really unique, cool as hell match from Shoji Ohno.

Hiroyuki Kondo & Kazunori Yoshida vs Leo Isaka & Takahiro Katori, EAGLE 2018/12/16

Another cool match from EAGLE Pro, based on what I see the promotion seems really cool. From what I gather Kondo and Yoshida are the veteran stalwarts of the promotion, with Yoshida being the founder of the company and Kondo its long time ace. Isaka and Katori are SHOCK DA HEROES, the budding young hotness of EAGLE, and they are trying to upset the veterans. This is a really good sprint, lots of spectacular moves but it’s really made by the veterans vs rising stars story. Kondo once again looked like the king of unorthodox arm attacks here, busting out an awesome Russian Legsweep targeting the arm. Yoshida may be some kind of best kept secret of the japanese indies, he has all these amazing looking rope climbing springboard moves, and also brings a trampolin for assisted springboard moves, he’s really graceful and awesome to watch. Isaka and Katori are mostly outgunned but I liked the few bits of offense they got in this too. Check this out if you want to spend 10 minutes watching some fresh wrestling.