Old New Professional Wrestling

 

244 vs Masanori Kaneshima, NPW 12/17/2000

NPW baby. A really old amateur-pro wrestling organization that has been around since 1993. Oh, and they weren’t using a ring, they just put a wrestling mat into what looks like a judo practise hall, and they have those ladder-things for corner posts. That automatically makes it really interesting to me. And through some strange godly blessing, a few match videos of them have survived through the magic of the internet archive. This is a pretty fun 10 minute match. Kaneshima has kickpads and works the faux UWF style with kicks and shootstyle submissions, but blends pretty seamlessly with his opponent. 244 is rocking a CIMA worship look. He does some cool things, like turning a snap suplex right into a cool butterfly necklock. Later he does hit the Mr. Perfect flipping neck snap to set up another neck submission which is pretty cool. This is just a pretty fun match with hard suplexes on that amateur wrestling, both guys hitting the mat, busting out some cool submissions (especially liked Kaneshimas ultra-arm bending kimura) and nuking each other. Something like a missile dropkick always looks double devastating when done on a mat like this, and 244 hits a really hard lariat. Pretty cool.

244 vs Yuji Miyazaki, NPW 12/16/2001

This was worked a bit like a 90s NJPW junior match – meaning they start hitting the mat lots and trying to snap each others arm with super tight armbars, then moving on to some hard as fuck bomb throwing with big powerbombs and hard lariats. It’s serious pro wrestling, focussed on matwork and believable offense and no rope running. You have to love it – how serious these guys were about putting on proper wrestling. There is some cool basic work, like hitting a hip toss and then cranking back hard on an armbar. Miyazaki works as a bit of a heel type, even using the corner platforms to try and hurt 244s arm further. 244 slapping his way out of an attempted Scorpion Deathlock is classic pro wrestling stuff. Miyazaki ends up putting him down pretty hard, though 244 does not go down without crashing on his face in nasty fashion leaping off of the corners trying a Mad Splash. God bless him. Super enjoyable, cool match.

244 vs Kenji Yoshioka, NPW 11/17/2002

Pretty raw match. They were hitting each other hard as fuck here with blistering kicks and chops, diving and slamming each other on the floor. Yoshioka is a pretty fun martial artsy guy who’s not afraid to fly around and hit sick huracanranas into armbars. The match is pretty long and they meander a bit but it’s worthwhile just for both these guys being gutsy and going all out. Some insane slams and throws on the mat too with 244 at point hoisting Yoshioka up to the ceiling and letting him splat face down on the mat from like a 2 meter height, crazy stuff. The no ring aspect adds such grittiness, really wouldn’t mind seeing more NPW especially from the earlier days of the promotion, their archived website lists a lot of DVDs and VHS they used to have for sale, so if any old NPW superfans are reading this, there is someone who is totally interested in seeing more of this stuff in 2025.