guidedbyrocketscomp

 Daioh QUALLT vs Takehiro Murahama, Osaka Pro 3/17/2000

This was when Murahama was doing his unstoppable shoot boxer act in Osaka Pro, which has to be one of the craziest single runs of a rookie anywhere ever. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Daioh QUALLT singles match, but after seeing this, fuck I need more of this Daioh QUALLT in my life. Basically QUALLT is a monster with caveman like strength and serious force in anything he did. He was just mauling Murahama, and Murahama was fighting back with some monster punch combos and knees of his own. This was just two guys putting insane violence into everything they threw at each other. Eventually Murahama starts getting the advantage, leading to a distraction, and then QUALLT blowing mist and trying to strangle Murahama with a rope. Totally crazy, and there’s a crazy post match too with an angry Murahama punching Delfin in the face really hard. God does this make all current wrestling look lame as hell.

Kenichiro Arai & Taku Iwasa vs Ryo Saito & Susumu Yokosuka, Dragon Gate 8/9/2008

No-ring Dragon Gate!! I love no-ring wrestling, and in this case removing the ring and just wrestling on a mat in Korakuen Hall adds exactly what a Dragon Gate match needs to be actually compelling. Any bumps look hard as fuck, and as such the wrestlers here were desperate to avoid even a bodyslam or suplex. This makes the stakes feel higher, and adds that little something that Dragon Gate normally often lacks: urgency, struggle, meaning… the crowd for this was molten hot too, so they were feeling the vibe as well. That said, Arai and Iwasa are awesome here. Really great unit of a tag team. Their team moves were awesome, and they did a great job cutting off the mat. We all know Arai as the crafty master, and he is crafty here, taking some hard as fuck and awesome looking back body drops on the mat, locking in slick sleepers and abdominal stretches – but he is also awesome as a lanky guy throwing bombs and cracking people with headbutts. Iwasa also looked quite good – he was hitting damn hard, and he almost ripped a guy apart with a cool submission at one point. Some awesome sequences and double team stuff here. Saito and Yokosuka aren’t much to write home about, but their offense is solid enough and I appreciate a guy like Saito just bringing hard lariats and spiking people with suplexes instead of doing something overly cute. Just a lot of good, brutal, heated action here.

The Moondogs vs The Warrior & Spirit of America (USWA 1991)

Somebody tells me to watch the Moondogs, I watch the Moondogs. The Warrior and Spirit of America are such a sight. They look just goofy and rip-off enough to be complete jobbers but also have good bodies and could plausible something of a deal in a small league like USWA. There is no question to what goes down here. Moondogs lay a savage pounding on these goofballs. Punching them in the face, throwing them around the ring, even bringing out chairs. There’s such an uncaring savage aura about the Moondogs that makes them awesome. They are not there to impress, they are there to kick ass, and that makes everything more impressive because it doesn’t come across as tryhard. The finish – something of a diving elbow while the opponent is held in a backbreaker position – looks like a total decapitation. And then they bust out a hurty looking big splash too for good measure. Great studio TV squash match.

Cactus Jack vs Arachnaman, WCW 1991(?)

I’ve never actually seen an Arachnaman match before. I’ve only ever just seen grainy stills of him. So here he is against Cactus Jack too of all people! Arachnaman – who I think is Brad Armstrong – actually tries to go all scientific on Jack. He hits some rollups and works the arm, even trying to snap it over the rope like he’s a spidery Regal. Armstrong tries to add a bit of flavour with his stances etc. I could see him being in a fun match against Great Muta as long as there’s blood and mask ripping, but that could be said about nearly everyone. Jack actually takes a back body drop on the floor in this nothing match against a guy saddled with a shit gimmick. Arachnamans finish is the ground abdominal stretch pin. I appreciate the Inokiism, but he is a bit sloppy in his application, and Jack quickly takes it home with a shitty jumping facebuster and holding Arachnamans costume for the pin. Well, know I can say that I know about Arachnaman.

Koki Kitahara Documentation Project #15

 Koki Kitahara vs. Akira Katayama, SWS 10/29/1991 - GREAT

Classic gritty SWS undercard action. Katayama rushes Kitahara to start, hitting a big tope where he connects his head to Kitaharas face and then goes to choke Kitahara with his shirt. Kitahara makes him pay dearly though. Every thing Kitahara executes on Katayama here looks like it was intended to murder. Katayama is a bit pedestrian but Kitahara kicks him in the mouth causing him to gush blood and bring some fight. Unbelievably gritty shit. The junior stuff was well executed too, but you want this for that kick and the visual of Katayamas bloody teeth.

 

Koki Kitahara & Yoshihiro Asai vs. Masao Orihara & Bestia Salvaje, SWS 10/30/1991 - GREAT

Basically 2 great pairings doing their thing. Salvaje was great here carrying Asai like mad and working some beautiful exchanges, and then you had young Kitahara and Orihara engaging in some super violent, scrappy exchanges. Orihara was almost unrecognizable and kickpadded here, aside from one nifty kip up he works like a crazy kickboxer trying to match Kitahara blistering him with kicks. The match escalated when Orihara walked over and kicked Kitahara in the face causing Kitahara in turn to almost crush Oriharas skull and spit on him. Just the kind of uncalled for violence only Kitahara can bring to a random junior undercard pairing. I also enjoyed Asai briefly putting a beating on Orihara. Orihara in turn totally smoke Asai with a massive moonsault to the outside. And man Salvaje looks tremendous here. Wrestling can be so simply and brilliant sometimes.

 

Koki Kitahara & Mitsuya Nagai vs. Naomichi Marufuji & Super Tiger 2, Fortune Dream 6/11/2018 - FUN

The non-Kitahara guys in this match are quite pedestrian, but Kitahara single handedly makes this a fun match. He's quite old and not as thick as in his prime anymore, but still a formidable bastard. He kicks people in the face and acts like a bastard. He even busts out a Shiranui to psych out Marufuji. All the Kitahara/Tiger exchanges were genuinely cool wrestling too and I wish we had some old man Kitahara in CAPTURE. He still hit that sweep kick with near perfect timing.

Koki Kitahara Documentation Project

Karateka vs. Pro Wrestler matches!

 

Iori Sugawara vs. Ninja Lee, Kazushi-Gumi 1/19/2018

Great little match, exactly what we are looking for on this blog. Ninja Lee is  a masked guy doing some mortal kombat stuff and Sugawara is this veteran karateka who can work a really solid pro wrestling match, and they are fighting each other in a chain ring. Lee can really throw out of nowhere axe kicks and fast hands, and Sugawara is like a Finlay with karate kicks here, working snug holds, using the chain ropes, trying to rip the mask, but also working the guy over with nasty kicks. I love a match where two sleazy guys give their all and they gave their all, stiff work, unpulled kicks, hard suplexes and STO on the not very giving ring mat, this ruled.

Hideaki Sumi vs. A-Z, FU*CK 8/22/2021

I don‘t know why we have to watch FU*CK now to get good shootstyle but here we are. Sumi is older here and has silver dyed hair like an anime character and you can see he‘s developed into a really cool worker. A-Z is some kick padded skinny guy who I assume is young (who knows, he might be 40) and Sumi really punishes him, really thudding kicks and bare knuckle punches. Sumi knows how to beat on a guy and then hit a huge kick for accentuation. His Tenryu-style enzuigir where he barely leaves the ground is great and his spinning wheel kick landed flush in A-Zs face. There is some decent groundwork (Sumi can put on holds) and it‘s just a way better match than it had any right to be in a promotion as sleazy as FU*CK worked for a Twitcast that maybe 20 people bought. A-Z looked alright but Sumi looked like a Katsumi Usuda type worker who can have a good little match against anyone.

Akitoshi Saito vs. Juyong Kim, Seishin Kaikan 7/13/1991

At this point, wrestler vs. Karateka is pretty much the only kind of pro wrestling I‘ll accept. This was violent, out of control, just perfect, Saito is an Aoyagi protege and he did his master proud here. Kim is a thickly built Korean pro wrestler (I assume), and while he looks strong he looks like was not ready for the punishment Saito would give him here. This is young nimble Saito and he just tries to crush this guy, it looks like one of his spin kicks bloodied Kims nose or lip. Kim hits some nice suplex including a really gritty butterfly suplex where he just muscles Saito over, the kind of suplexes where it looked like the other guy wasn‘t going along at all but still flew. At the second round Kim just grabs a chair and demolishes Saito, which is what you should do after you got uncessarily brutalized by a karateka in a foreign country, why did nobody ever run Steve Austin vs. A karateka? Saito comes back guns blazing though and the ending is awesome, as Saito takes off his jacket throws it in Kims face and then knees blinded Kim in the head until he stays down. Gotta love pro wrestling.

90s Era Indy Shootstyle

 Lightning Kid vs. Wellington Wilkins Jr., PWA 6/10/1991

Brutal match where Wilkins stretches the hell out of Waltman for 20 minutes. X-Pac looks like he's 14 Wilkins just ties him in knots in this dingy hall. Waltman had a few slick moments of his own, I really liked the bit where he salvaged a somewhat awry gone Victory Roll by transitioning to a slick Fujiwara armbar. Kid keeps fighting back but Wilkins just keeps wringing the hell out of him with joint popping arm and legbars. Some incredibly nasty boston crab too, and Wilkins at one point hits this crazy flying shoulder that hit Waltman like a bomb. Wilkins really emphasizes weight here, always bridging all over Waltman and really trying to keep him on the mat to tap him. I really liked how Wilkins despite being in the role of delivering a nasty one sided beating still sold big for a Waltman enzuigiri, it felt like despite Kid being outgunned he could still make a comeback and win. Last few minutes were downright torturous.

Mike Winner vs. Karl Pope, Portland Wrestling 12/5/1992

Really awesome weird little match. These are two guys with amateur backgrounds, and they don't do much usual pro wrestling in this match, which is kind of the best kind of pro wrestling. The work a bunch of awesome greco lockups, bridges, cradles and all that and it's really cool. They pro wrestling-ify these things very well and work them with some good struggle. There were also some nice awkwardly hit pro style moves like a crossbody where Pope seemed to knee Winner in the face and a hard clothesline that caught him in the throat. Also really dug the simplistic but really cranked in boston crabs and back elbows. I wish we had more  Mike Winner like this.

Tarzan Goto Documentation #9

 

Grigory Verichev & Koba Krutanize v Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto, FMW 12/9/1991 - GREAT

Classic early 90s soviet shooter spectacle. Krutanize and Verichev are two huge soviet judokas and they are there to toss Onita and Goto around the ring like potatoe sacks. Crazy uranages and suplexes ensue. Onita and Goto fire back in spirit and it‘s all crazy heated and good fun. Our man Goto is a tank in this punching and lariating the judo guys, even hits a big Superfly Splash in a huge moment. Very unpolished and rough looking but all around great pro wrestling.

Tarzan Goto & Mr. Pogo vs. Atsushi Onita & Sambo Asako, FMW 7/25/1990 - FUN

Classic early 90s brawl where they fight all over the place and chuck chairs at each other. Goto and Onita looked great just tearing into each other. It‘s a grainy handheld, with a pro shot this might look like that Dragon Master brawl. Mr. Pogo was slimmer here than later. Asako basically just took a beating. The finish was great as Onita hits a nasty powerbomb to Goto and looks like he has won it, but moments later ate a piledriver to the floor. The post match brawl with Goto and Onita continueing to brawl in uncooperative fashion, slapping each other and bleeding was almost better than the actual match, though.

Tarzan Goto & Atsushi Onita vs. Jerry Flynn & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, FMW 12/10/1989 - EPIC

Insane fucking match, 2 karatekas, 2 crazy unhinged wrestlers locked in a ring surrounded by barbedwire trying to beat each other to death. The opening 2 or 3 minutes have to be up there with the best match openings in history anywhere. Goto pops Matsunaga with a big damn headbutt only to get jumped with a kick assault. Goto tries to suplex his way out ouf the 2 on 1 situation only to get blindsided with a kick to the face. Onita jumps into the fray, and we get to see him pulling Flynns hair, twisting, and punching him in the face. The whole match was worked like that, violent, crazy exchanges punctuated with guys jumping on each other and getting blindsided by kicks. I liked how the barbed wire caused guys standing on the apron waiting to take in to get into dangerous situations, this was before they had done barbedwire to death and they sold it as super dangerous, so the crowd freaked out whenever someone was lightly leaning into it with his arm. Onita takes a nasty thumble through the barbedwire and he comes back with a shredded arm and the rest of the match he tries to punch people out with that shredded arm. Matsunaga is as good here as you need your untrained karateka to be, he throws some crazy kicks including axe kicking Onita in the face and a wild jumping abisegiri. Flynn is the same but a bit bigger and more lumbering. Goto is a fucking monster in the second half of this, bleeding from his eye, headbutting people in the face, trying to stomp Matsunagas head in, hitting a big leaping elbow to Flynns face. Then he‘s getting killed by crazy striking combos. You think he‘s not gonna make it, but then he does and in comes Onita to make himself a legend. It was like a gory surreal western crossed with BattlARTS. 

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT 

Assorted FULL

 Akihiro Yonekawa vs. Mongolian Yuga, FULL 4/12/1993

 

The opening match to this FULL show begins with a bunch of uncooperative amateur matwork… because of course it does! I think Mongolian Yuga is Jinsei Shinzaki, and he looks like the fucking terminator in this. Holy hell. He was squishing poor Yonekawa (future Kesen Numajiro) with painful rides, gutwrench drops and out of nowhere suplexes. This was definitely the baddest showing by a guy who came out to „Dschingis Khan“ as his entrance music ever. Yonekawa doesn‘t get any offense going – when he does put on a side headlock, Yuga just suplexes him hard. A couple hard slaps and dropkicks to the face later it looks like Yonekawa is bleeding from his mouth, GAEA girls like. Yonekawa does get in a DDT and bulldog – causing Yuga to do some nice head spike bumping – but the Mongol is soon no selling his offense. Brutal piledriver, headspiking suplex and one absolutely nasty claw slam later and Yonekawa is dead meat. Yuga struts away as Dschingis Khan blares. Pro wrestling is special and wonderful.

Lasser vs. Felino, FULL 9/12/1991

Some quite beautiful lucha here. These guys will do the standard lucha exchanges at a ridiculously high level, and then add in some nice extra flourishes such as amateur takedowns during matwork etc making this feel like a UWF match. Felino was in his goofy early costume where looked a bit like an ewok, but looked like an awesome matworker. I liked Lasser a lot as part of the Arqueros and he is a very good luchador in his own right. Dug his big hip attacks. This was 7 minutes and it really felt longer because they did so much cool stuff.

Tarzan Goto Documentation Project #7

 

Tarzan Goto vs. Leon Spinks, FMW 3/25/1992 - EPIC

Awesome, awesome Goto performance getting a great spectacle out of the in a pro wrestling context very limited ex boxing champ Leon Spinks. First round is just Goto as an offense juggernaut, he opens by flattening Spinks with a punch to the face and then just moves in for the cool, constantly pressuring, landing headbutts to the eye, fast takedowns including an awesome plausible drop toe hold. He even hits a great dropkick and enzuigiri all while the crowd is having a meltdown for Goto. I also really dug Gotos and stance and head movement. Second round Goto continues to pressure until Spinks finally catches him with a punch. Spinks wasn‘t exactly hitting hard but him punching a grounded Goto in the face looked gritty. Goto, of course, bleeds and from then on it‘s all drama with Goto eating punches and near Kos and trying to survive. After the match Onita immediately jumps Spinks and we get a big pull apart (with Mike Awesome and Dr. Luther amongst others seconding Spinks). This was kind of a Goto as Onitas right hand man goes down to put over how dangerous Spinks is match to pave way for the bigger Spinks/Onita showdown but on it‘s own it was pretty damn great.

Tarzan Goto & Sambo Asako vs. Masanobu Kurisu & The Shooter #1, FMW 5/14/1990 - EPIC

Classic unexpectedly violent indy sleaze fest, really the best kind of match to discover when going through a bunch of random handhelds. This was really all about Kurisu and Goto trying to outdo each other by putting an even more sickening beating on the other guys partner, with both guys doing comically little to protect their own partner. Goto starts the fun by immediately opening with a headbutt to Shooters eye, then later we get Kurisu putting his trademark sickening beatdown on Asako. At one point both guys run in to the ring to stomp on the other guys partners head, later they do the same with chairs while eyeing each other. The brief Kurisu/Goto interactions are great (and probably braincell killing, these guys were maniacs with the headbutts), but the rest holds up too. Sambo Asako is a fat kid who can take some insane punishment and has fun sambo submissions and throws, and Shooter is a sleazeball shooter who doesn‘t seem to be able to control his kicks much so when he goes for a kick combo it seems more reckless. Once again Goto‘s offense was insane, he busted out an awesome German suplex, Capture suplex and even a gnarly super kick when interacting with Shooter, inbetween trying to kill guys with brutal headbutts and occasionally trying to shatter Shooters ear with a slap. Would‘ve pushed into MOTYC territory for me if there had been another Kurisu/Goto standoff down the stretch.

Tarzan Goto & Ricky Fuji vs. Atsushi Onita & Mr. Gannosuke, FMW 11/4/1991 - GREAT

Classic Goto tag where he puts a graphic beatdown on a clear underdog. In this case that is young boy Mr. Gannosuke. Even though this was presumably a houseshow, Goto beat the shit out of the kid, full on stiff lariats and chair edges to the face, and Gannosuke bled a good deal. I enjoyed Ricky Fuji here too, as he hit some nice worked punches and elbow drops to the cut. Onitas hot tags are of course super over, and I really liked the ending run with Gannosuke getting to shine a bit with some basic dropkicks and suplexes. Facebuster finish looked brutal as hell, too.

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION

Assorted Japanese Indy Wrestling

 Mitsuhiro Matsunaga vs. Koichiro Kimura, W*ING 10/26/1991

What a scuzzy dream match. I had no idea this ever happened let alone that it was taped, and now a quality handheld randomly shows up on YouTube! Wrestling can be good sometimes. Matsunaga is blond already but still very much a karateka. This was before he suffered a leg injury so he was much more mobile than later and still capable of throwing crazy kick combos. And Kimura is just a monster with the submissions. A lot of pro wrestlers are taught to not follow up quickly, let the audience register that a guy was slammed before they put on a submission, Kimura ain't like that, he will throw right into the submission in a split second. This was basically just a gritty as hell striker vs. grappler match up. Matsunaga was demolishing Kimura with his kicks and Kimura was landing crazy throws and submissions. Everything was a bit more violent and aggressive than in your standard shootstyle match, these guys would bitchslap each other, there's some nasty headstomping, at one point Kimura refuses to break clean and eye rakes Matsunaga which Matsunaga really sells like a shoot eye rake. There's this intense moment where Kimura goes to par terre while Matsunaga takes off his belt. You sense some serious violence is about to go down. The finish wasn't quite as epic as I wanted, but they made it look hard fought. I'm a huge fan of both these guys, and this overdelivered on my expectations.

Gekko vs. Gosaku Goshogawara, FMW 12/21/1995

Gekko is Masao Orihara wearing this insanely creepy outfit. Gosaku is some FMW trainee and Orihara just completely Kurisus him here. Gosaku has a bandage and Orihara kicks him full force in the face. Soon Gosaku is bleeding and eating brutal clotheslines and stomps from Orihara. Orihara takes the pin in 3 minutes. Brutal and abject.

RIP Hideki Hosaka

 

Hideki Hosaka vs. Hisakatsu Oya, FMW 6/19/1998

Pretty much the scuzziest MUGA match you‘ve ever seen. Hosaka used to be an SAW guy and Koichiro Kimuras sidekick, even had a match in RINGs, but it seems too many multiman garbage brawls have made him lose his submission skills. Basic grappling, but very entertaining due to the struggle and both guys having good instincts. Oya using his spindly form to grab armbars etc. ruled. Hosakas leglocks were simple, but good due to Oya selling desperation. We get a cool finishing run with Hosaka powering out of the Octopus Hold and whipping out cool Frankensteiners, and Oya dropping him hard with those backdrop suplexes as Oya does.

Hideki Hosaka vs. Great Wojo, W*ING 8/7/1991

Hosaka in one of his earliest appearances faces the Great Wojo, a guy with a rich background in olympic wrestling. Wojo pretty much dominates here and looked like a maestro when it comes to amateur matwork. That is, you have to be kind of an amateur matwork geek to appreciate the intricancies of what Wojo was doing, but he was good. And he dropped Hosaka with some big damn suplexes. Hosaka doesn‘t in anything except one desperate kick flurry. A valuable learning experience, I guess, but the Great Wojo was worth seeing.

Hideki Hosaka vs. Masato Tanaka, FMW 10/19/1997

This is foor Tanakas heavyweight title so… the biggest match of Hosakas career? It‘s still co-main event to an Onita tag, but what have you. Really good little match. Tanaka can have a good match against a blind man, but Hosaka adds a lot to the match. Fun AJPW – like opening standing exchange with Tanaka slapping Hosaka hard out of nowhere. Then a cool transition occurs where Tanaka tries his usual elbow to chair spot but because his arm isn‘t 100% he busts himself. Hosaka then does a really fun job working over Tanakas arm using both nasty wristlocks and just going to town with a chair. Tanakas selling was on the money and you actually buy pudgy Hosaka pushing him to the limit. Finishing stretch was really good too with Hosaka going back to Tanakas weak arm busting out cool Fujiwara armbars and other things. I‘ve seen so many Tornado DDT reversals I kind of groan at them but Hosaka turning the move into a big sitout spinebuster was awesome. You also got the usual neck crunching powerbombs etc. Good shit.

Koki Kitahara Documentation Project #11

 Koki Kitahara & Takashi Ishikawa vs. Masao Orihara & Naoki Sano, SWS 6/26/1991 - GREAT

Man, I love SWS tags. This had juniory touches - Orihara and Kitahara do a battle of kip ups of all things to start with, but there was a strong base of guys being chippy and stiffing the hell out of each other. Orihara gets over in a huge way by busting out a bunch of crazy dives and getting brutalized by Kitahara. These two beating the snot out of each other was awesome. Sano as in insane shape here, looking like a superhero, and he does all kinds of fun hybrid junior/shootstyle exchanges throughout. He also clocks Ishikawa with probably the stiffest thrust kick I've ever seen. I wanted a bit more of that shootstyle action - perhaps a Shooto vs. PWFG exchange between Kitahara and Sano - but we got here was damn tasty. Just great action with everyone bringing it and the crowd eating the whole thing up.

 

Koki Kitahara vs. Nihao, WAR 6/20/1999 - EPIC

This was a CAPTURE showcase match and holy fuck after this I‘d kill to get the entire CAPTURE back catalogue. Brutal brutal match, just the most primitive grimy shootstyle you can imagine, two guys with gloves trying to pummel each other into oblivion. Nihao takes Kitahara down and bloodies him with punches and headbutts, but the boss comes back just trying to crush his face with punches and teeth loosening kicks. There was one spinkick that would‘ve made Daisuke Ikeda wince, and also at one point Kitahara reverses a takedown into an armlock that looked to almost tear Nihaos shoulder. They showed 4 out of 6 minutes, and really would it have killed them to include those 2 minutes? Still 80 % of a sick spectacle is better than most, and those 4 minutes were some of the most insane of the year.

KOKI KITAHARA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Tarzan Goto Documentation Project #2

 Atsushi Onita vs. Tarzan Goto (FMW 2/26/1991) - EPIC

Okay, wow. This was brutal as hell. Essentially the world's sleaziest WAR match. Forget about explosions and barbedwire, this was about crazy headbutts, lariats and punches in the face.

 
This was also a total fight. Normally in hardcore type matches there will be some lulls when guys are rummaging around, but here they are just killing eachother the whole way. Right out the gate they are ramming their heads into eachother, Goto's face in a pool of blood immediately, and I love how Goto was selling that he is clearly rattled by Onita's headbutts but still trying to push back. Onita comes out on top and immediately goes for a suicide dive that doesn't go well, and Goto immediately grabs a chair and waffles Onita in the face. Next you know Onita is bleeding and Goto continues to beat the life out of him, just killing him chucking tables and stomping him in the face. When that doesn't do it Goto briefly works Onita's leg to set up an STF, altough he is still laying in a fucking stiff beating kicking Onita in the hamstring.
 
One headbutt exchange later and Onita has proven that he is still tougher, sending Goto outside altough Goto immediately goes for a fucking dropkick there. Neither of these guys will stop attacking, altough Onita gets the advantage again body slamming him into chairs and landing a table-cracking piledriver that looked like a potential KO as much as anything. Back in the ring and both guys are a mess at this point. Goto with the blistering lariats and huge superfly splash again, but Onita catches him with his DDTs and goes on to drill him with the big damn powerbombs. I actually liked the "kick out at 1 spot" here, it's become such a cliche at this point, but Goto's facial expression really gets it across, he's thinking "I know I'm dead on my feet, but I'm not quitting now, fuck you" then punches Onita in the face. Onita just keeps dropping Goto with one nastier powerbomb after another until he stays down, making this almost a Steve Williams Backdrop moment.
 
I dunno. This is probably not as fine as Kawada/Taue, but in way it feels like the ultimate 90s indy sleaze massacre. It's easily the best match of that kind that I can recall seeing. It's gruesome, primitive, savage as hell and unlike many other matches of that kind had me enthralled the whole way through. Yeah maybe it's not a Top 40 match in 1991, who gives a shit. I loved this.

 

Tarzan Goto & Mitsunobu Kikuzawa vs. Masayoshi Motegi & Shinichi Nakano, WYF 8/9/1997 - GREAT

 

This was another piece of fucking great pro wrestling. This was not quite the same chaotic, savage massacre as the previous Goto vs. WDF guys tag, but more of a great southern style tag. Some really fun back and forth wrestling early on which was damn cool to see from such a fat guy as Goto, before Motegi ends up suicide diving right into a Goto chairshot (did I mention Motegi is actually awesome?) which sets up the heat section of Goto again mercilessly fucking up Motegi with various foreign objects, including drilling his face with an umbrella. Motegi screaming for his life while Goto was stubbornly trying to crack a beer bottle over his head before he just breaks it and carves him up gave the whole thing a Hillbilly slasher movie feel. Goto has fucking great punches, too. It all builds very well to Nakano getting the hot tag and in turn messing up everyone with his simple, violent offense. Aside from Goto being awesome you also had the future Kikutaro who at this point was a fun fatboy wrestler that gets messed up by the veterans for being a newbie, at one point Nakano just grabs him and drills his face with knee strikes. Really well worked match that blends southern psychology and japanese hierarchy thinking.

 

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST 

Assorted AJPW and SWS

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Shunji Takano & Earthquake, AJPW 1989

Absolute slobberknocker of a match, just 4 guys going all out for 10+ minutes. It pisses me off so bad that heavyweight wrestling now is just guys shoulderblocking and back and forth hitting each other a lit, because there was none of that here, and it was supremely more entertaining to watch these guys suplex and kick the hell out of each other. Shunji Takano was basically a more unpredictable, psycho version of Jumbo here, trying to cave Tenryus face in with a dropkick, suplexing Kawada across the ring, randomly busting out stiff kicks. Earthquake always looks great, and he has some brief but killer interactions with Tenryu as well as acting like a brickwall towards Kawada to add some structure points. Kawada is fun laying into the heavyweights with his kicks and taking beatings, and Tenryu is of course great in these kinda matches. Super enjoyable 15 minutes, and I appreciate that no finishers were kicked out of.

Fumihiro Niikura vs. Masakatsu Funaki, SWS 4/23/1991

I had no idea this match happened, let alone that it was filmed! And I care!! Y’know, I’m a Fumihiro Niikura fan. He was a good grappler, he had cool punches, and he had a similar scuzzy charisma to Yuki Ishikawa. Funaki completely destroys him here, though. I mean, it’s kinda what you expect, but damn. Funaki does all kinda neat stuff to turn and twist Niikura, and he hits him with some hard strikes. Niikura tries to fight back but has no answer. A german suplex, and a nifty crook headscissor/armbar combo, and Niikura is out. Fumihiro Niikura, at least you tried.

 

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Toshiaki Kawada, AJPW 10/8/1989

This was apparently the first Kawada/Tenryu singles. Pretty great rookie vs. established star match, basically the whole match was Kawada just kicking the living shit out of Tenryu and Tenryu coming back with increasingly violent retaliations. Tenryu was really great at putting over Kawadas kicks early on, flying over the guardrail and generally looking like he got his bell rung. Really liked how he broke out of a leglock and just stomped on Kawadas face before trying to break his jaw with a lariat. Kawada retaliated with some jaw loosening kicks of his own until a classic “Tenryu has had enough” moment where he kicked him in the face and folded him with a lazy but hurty looking powerbomb.

Going through Shodates Best Matches of the 90s List Part 3

  The List

232. Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Masahiro Chono, NJPW 5/31/1991 

Damn, I didn't expect to like this so much. Any Fujinami big match is guaranteed to have a ton of wrestling, and there was a lot of that here, but there was also a ton of disdain right from the opening which has Chono spitting Fujinami in the face. Chono is far from a great matworker, but he was game here, busting out an awesome calf slicer and a flying clothesline that was like something Necro Butcher would do. He also wasn't afraid to get into stiff slap battles and I liked his headbutts and mafia kicks he would use to combat Fujinami's mat prowess. Fujinami on his side had one of the most brutal dropkicks I've ever seen and an epic dive. This was a very typical NJPW style match, there was no grand finishing run with a ton of big moves to be kicked out of or something, instead it was about avoiding the other guy's finisher when push came to shove. That and the fact both guys sold a ton of exhaustion made the second half of this pretty great. Little bit of a lucha title match influence here with some dramatic bumps for momentum shifts and that sick guardrail dive from Fujinami. Great stuff, glad that this was brought up as the 232nd best match of the 90s

241. Meiko Satomura vs. Sugar Sato, GAEA 10/11/1998

Leave it to a pair of 18 year old girls to have an excellent lengthy match in 1998. The cool thing about the mat stuff they did here was that it wasn't shootstyle stuff, but closer to NWA-ish legbars and kneedrops, executed in really vicious fashion. Sugar doesn't have the high end offense of Satomura, but I thought she did well enough to mix it up and keep the match going. Everything made sense and built really well to their respective finishers (Death Valley Driver vs. Liger Bomb), and while there wasn't any super-focussed extended selling they worked hard to put eachother's offense over as devastating. Plenty of neat spots, including Sato finding ways to counter Satomura's arm attack stuff. Best GAEA match of 1998?

246. Bull Nakano vs. Shinobu Kandori, LLPW 7/14/1994

I was disappointed to see this not holding up quite well. I remember feeling there was something fishy about this when I first watched it years ago and now I remember why. This had the lamest crowd brawl in the middle. I enjoyed them punishing eachother with the chain and there were some great visuals here, but this could have been so much more. Outside distraction was crap, so was Kandori's armbar. I liked Nakano avoiding Kandori's feeble punches and just kicking her in the face. Finish makes up for the dragging parts. Good match.