Tarzan Goto vs Atsushi Onita, FMW 1/6/1993 - EPIC
BattlARTS level violence contained in a barbedwire ring, with both guys taking dangerous spills into the wire and getting sliced repeatedly. Right at the go they are mauling each other with shoot headbutts. Onita stops Goto with a punch to the face and goes for a sleeper, but gets pushed back into the wire. One lariat later and Onitas arms are cut. That about sums this match up, just two guys wreaking destruction on each other almost without pause. There is some filler figure 4 work which is a minor point deduction, but other than that this is just gritty insanity. Goto is a force of nature here pounding Onita to a bloody pulp, and also not afraid to fly into the wire, and Onitas aura is so insane that he can make almost any kind of beatdown work, let alone the kinda beatdown that Goto puts on him here. The barbedwire actually feels dangerous and people react with horro at the spills which is another plus of these early deathmatches. Another thing is that it’s 93 so they were excuting moves like a bulldog or DDT with maximum snap. Gotos facebuster moves also looked like an execution. At one point Goto goes for a German Suplex and I’m not sure I’ve seen him hit a german suplex in another match but holy fuck his German Suplex was beautiful here. Lots of epic exchanges here and the finish feels about as big as it gets without relying on some ridiculously big bump or anything, just visceral carnage done in a skillful way. You don’t quite get spectacles like this anymore.
Raw
injection of pro wrestling at it’s seediest. This is in Shin Kiba,
it looks like there’s about 30 people intendance. They still go all
out, but the emptiness of the building and the lack of crowd
enthusiasm adds to the ghoulish atmosphere. We get Goto punching
Kanemura in the face and them both hitting each other with shoot
headbutts, some brawling that actually feels spirited. Mr. Pogo,
around 37 years into his career and 10 years from having a broken
neck feels like an ancient ghoul in this match. Oddly enough he takes
more offense than I’ve often seen him take, eating one of Motegis
nasty shotais. Motegi takes his boot off to beat on Motegi, but ends
up still taking a sickle to the face. Nothing like Pogo taking the
sickle to hapless fools in a dark nearly empty building. Nakata is a
complete sleazeball and I like how Motegi completely no-sold his
dive. Obata, being chiseled and young, looks like the one guy here
who has a future still, and so Goto carves him up with a broken beer
bottle and does some gritty Abby/Sheikh vs Funk Bros arm stabbing. A
weird thing happens where it seems Goto and Pogo are gonna fight but
they make up and do a double team move that involves Pogo doing a
drop down which feels like some wild athleticism from him. Eventually
it devolves to Goto vs Obata with Goto making Obata earn some
offense. Obata hitting a basic suplex is made to feel like a big deal
and he has a cool sliding leg lariat, though he ends up running into
Gotos face and getting mauled by more punches and headbutts to the
face. Everybody was working oddly hard here, but what you will mainly
remember is the creepy vibe.
Tarzan Goto vs Shoji
Nakamaki, IWA Japan 8/9/1995 - GREAT
Insane level of aura here. Normally these IWA Japan main event brawls have 6 or so guys in them. Here it’s just the two of them, but boy do they make up for it with action. Right at the go they are at each other with Nakamaki landing some hatefilled chairshots to Goto and Goto kicking him right back in the face. Nakamaki takes an insane bump where he falls through the barbedwire ropes to the floor and the crowd is just melting down at this. Goto proceeds to kick Nakamakis bleeding ass all over the place. You know Goto is great at dishing out punishment, and taking punishment is the one thing Nakamaki is famous for, so you can imagine the kind of asskicking that goes down. Nakamaki is quite great just firing up, hitting a headbutt, and then getting baredwire shoved in his face. Nakamakis only chance here is that the referee, Gypsy Joe is on his side. It doesn’t make a huge difference but it’s fun because clearly Nakamaki needs to hit Goto with just 1 good move and Joe will count the 3. Gotos response to this problem is to just kill Nakamaki dead. The finish in this is just absolutely heinous. It doesn’t even feel like a deathmatch freakshow exhibition spot it’s just a killing. After the match Goto beats the shit out of Joe too, knocking him over with a lariat (can you imagine how hard you have to hit Gypsy Joe that he will actually sell for you?). Joe eats some chair shots and gets shoved into the wire. A big GOTO chant breaks out and he just looks like the coldest dude on earth. This won’t win any workrate awards but it’s just an awesome heat filled spectacle in it’s glorious blood drenched and barbed wire wrapped way.
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