Going through Shodates Best Matches of the 90s List Part 6

 The List

223. Akira Taue vs. Toshiaki Kawada, AJPW 6/7/1996

This has the rep of being „disappointing“ because it went a mere 18 minutes. That shows what kind of grandeur 90s AJPW was. This is one heck of a really good match though. I really liked the opening where Kawada seemed to be the superior striker, until Taue just casually shut him down by nuking him with big boots and a German suplex. Taue continued his assault until Kawada was able to snap a Fujiwara Armbar and work his arm. Taue getting fired up and Kawada frantically trying to cut him off was really great. The armwork also led to a fun spot where Taue tried blocking the gamengiri but ended up damaging his shoulder further in the process. Kawada got so pissed at Taue he chopped him in the face. Kawada destroying Taue with kicks to the face in the corner only to get blown away by a Taue shoulderblock and neckbreaker was also fantastic. These two are just a really fun match up with Kawadas vicious kicks vs. Taues lanky powerhouse style. Taue also hit this really great jumping big boot flush in Kawadas face. Punch drunk Taue hitting a weak chokeslam was also great. You know what are getting from these two in 1996, everything made sense and was sensible, and on top of that you get a bunch of neat moments and kicks to the face. I can see this may have been disappointing to the hardcore workrate AJPW fans considering there wasn‘t even a dive or an apron move, but by itself it was a great match.

137. Yoji Anjoh vs. Masakatsu Funaki, UWF 5/28/1990

Funaki was in peak physical condition here and looking like a movie star. Anjoh is a bit flabby and wears these ridiculous purple leopard print tights. And the crowd is absolutely on fire to see Anjoh taking down Funaki! They just came unglued whenever Anjoh was threatening Funaki in the standup. Funaki has some really nice punch combos and does his ducking and diving thing, but man, this is the Anjoh show. For a guy who is famous for being a fantastic prick heel, he is one hell of a tenacious babyface standing up to a bigger wrestler. The mat work is nice as it was that mix of slow lulls with faster, slicker movements, and the whole match had a great build. Really cool moment where Anjoh has Funaki in a cross heel hold and Funaki has to slap him to break out, Funaki had this facial expression as if he really didn't want to continue fighting. Later Anjo lands an insane near KO where Funaki barely makes the 9, and Funaki has a nice desperation  moment where he keeps kicking at a downed Anjoh. Crafty finish. A nice reminder of how great peak level shootstyle can be.

GWE Watching #6: Tsuyoshi Kikuchi

 

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa, NOAH 11/25/2001

Man, NOAH missed out not giving Kikuchi a big singles run. It would’ve made me care about NOAHs junior title much more than all that shit involving guys like Marufuji and Kanemaru. This was super raw, hard hitting pro wrestling. There was some no selling because Takaiwa is who he is, but they make up for it by trying to kill eachother. At one point Kikuchi was getting into his machoism asking Takaiwa to hit him harder and Takaiwa almost caved his face in with a sick dropkick. Kikuchi repaid him later with an insane headbutt. I enjoyed the leg work Kikuchi did, even if Takaiwa pretty much ignored it. Takaiwa kind of redeemed himself taking a really great corner bump and then almost dying on a spider german suplex. Finishing run had plenty of brutality, including Takaiwa swatting Kikuchi off the ropes and Kikuchi countering the endless Powerbomb in a really cool spot.

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Jushin Liger, NOAH 5/21/2004

A match I‘ve never heard of until I decided to YouTube search Kikuchi today. I‘m surprised by that, because this was pretty excellent. I guess it didn‘t fit the kind of nearfall-ladden fast paced junior epic mold that was en vogue with fans at the time. But, this delivers the kind of scrappy, uncooperative exchanges you want from this. Kikuchi looks great here opening with an awesome sliding enzuigiri and big, microphone enhanced headbutts. There‘s some great dueling armwork, with both guys selling fantastically. I really liked Kikuchi playing hard ass shrugging off Ligers basic throws and Liger then gleefully tearing apart his bandaged shoulder. It‘s a great mixture of looking tough as hell and vulnerable which Kikuchi does extremely well. Loved the spot where Kikuchi went in turn to choke Liger with his bandage and Liger headbutting his bad shoulder. The match was full of gritty struggle like that, such as Kikuchi manhandling Liger by the mask, or trying to shrug off his palm strikes. Ref spots were fun and didn‘t hurt the match, and the match ended on two perfect nearfalls. Very refreshing stuff.

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Akitoshi Saito, NOAH 7/27/2001

Kikuchi is ranked way lower than Saito, but he won‘t go down without a fight! This was two guys mauling each other and it was pretty great. Notice how the match never turned into a predictable „I hit you – you hit me“ slog. There were a few smart moments: Kikuchi rolling outside and the grabbing a streetfight leglock was really great. As was him going down from a single slap from Saito and having to go for the leg again. Really dug his leg stretch in the ropes. Saito doesn‘t really sell the legwork and wins pretty easily to show that he is much stronger, which prevents this from being great, but I really loved Kikuchis performance.

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Akira Taue, AJPW 1/21/1992

Kikuchi vs. Taue, in 1992! What a matchup! And this is just wonderful. Taue gets huge heel reactions. He doesn‘t do much out of the ordinary, except try to rip Kikuchi in half with some mean submissions and just generally act like a jerk, but Kikuchi, man! He was at his best here, bumping big, selling, and being so ferocious when attacking Taue. At point Taue does a neck chop and Kikuchi does this pained collapsing sell. He really makes you believe in a neck chop like few other wrestlers. Last couple minutes had some fantastic and were just lovely. Kikuchi wanted that German Suplex like all hell, and YOU believe in it. Just a short little houseshow match, but an example of what makes Kikuchi so special.

Koki Kitahara Documentation #6

 

Koki Kitahara & Riki Choshu vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Tatsumi Fujinami (Rikidozan Memorial6/30/1996) - EPIC

Match at a big show involving 3 of Japans greatest stars where the standout is somehow, Koki Kitahara. Tenryu and Choshu did their thing, shoving each other, staring, creating some big time heat, and then Kitahara is there on the side eager to get into the fight while Tenryu is ignoring him completely. The opening exchange here really sets the tone, Tenryu and Choshu are the stars, Kitahara gets mauled by Tenryu, but is somehow able to get up and fire back with some hard shots of his own and even blindside Tenryu with a great kick to the back of the head. Kitahara ends up with a bloody mouth, but he never backs down. Tenryu and Choshu were also cracking each other hard here and I enjoyed Fujinami surprise catching Choshu after he got clocked with a lariat. The finish is, of all matchups, Tenryu and Kitahara again and it’s pretty great with Kitahara hitting one of the hardest punches I’ve ever seen in a pro match and Tenryu firing back with punches of his own and trying to chop Kitaharas head off. Really gritty, well executed match with big heat and a cool underdog story.

 

Shinichi Nakano & Shunji Takano & Akira Taue vs. Tatsumi Kitahara & Kenta Kobashi & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 5/14/1990) - GREAT

First match I’ve seen from Kitahara in pre-split All Japan. This was a cool match which feels like a “what could have been” as 3 guys who ended up leaving AJPW soon mix it up with known greats Kobashi, Taue and Kikuchi. This was basicallly a short undercard tag where 6 young guys swing hard at each other. Kitahara is only in briefly, but when he is in he is just throwing brutal kicks with great technique left and right, including wasting Takano in the corner with a sick combo, and launching Nakano over the top rope. Everyone else was laying it in too, I especially enjoyed all the Kikuchi related exchanges as everyone always slaps the shit out of that guy. Kobashi in his baby state is fun doing things like hitting snug european uppercuts and big leg drops, and Taue had some big powermoves. Takano also looked great in his usual role of a tall psycho potatoeing guys.

Koki Kitahara & Arashi vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Mitsuya Nagai (AJPW 11/24/2001) - GREAT

Kitahara vs. Kawada is an obvious dream match, however, they only had one real exchange in this that lasted ca. 30 seconds. They traded some good looking kicks, though. I noticed that Kitahara was going softer than usual on Kawada, so I wondered if he had gotten softer for this AJPW stint, but then Nagai tagged in and immediately Kitahara stomps on his face, spits on him and slaps the taste out of his mouth. I guess it was a thing about ranks. This was short but tremendously heated. The crowd were super into Nagai, who was kind of an underdog in this. Kitahara is mostly there to run in and potatoe Nagai for great heel reactions. This was by far the most fired up I’ve seen Arashi look. I mean, he wasn’t exactly moving fast or anything, but he was taking real punishment and dishing out back. Kawada was just brutalizing guys with kicks, and I think he didn’t take a single bump in this. Lotta promotions in the world now would kill to have this kind of heat.

KOKI KITAHARA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

2002 MOTY List Update #1

Ikuto Hidaka & Tomohiro Ishii vs. Tiger Mask IV & Kazuya Yuasa (Michinoku Pro 2/3/2002)

Tomohiro Ishii comes out in full on Dick Togo worship gear. Amazing. This was a shockingly great indy tag with all 4 guys smacking eachother hard while working complex spots and cutoffs. We get lots of fun heel tactics from Rudo Hidaka and Ishii which was interesting to see these two go back and forth between throwing hard shots and working Stunning Steve Austin/Fuerza Guerrera heel spots. Hidaka likes slapping his thigh but he really does paste guys with his kicks. This was one of the greater Tiger Mask IV performances I've seen too as he looked like a graceful technico while also spin kicking dudes really really hard. Him almost crushing Hidakas ribs with a massive kneedrop and Hidaka coming up bloody was a pretty epic moment. All their brief showdowns really made me want to see a singles match between the two which is not something I would've said from watching their BattlARTS material. Kazuya Yuasa is the future GAINA and he works like a WAR rookie here, hitting as hard as he possibly can on his dropkicks and lariats and hitting awesome bulldogs and elbow drops. He survives a ton of punishment and it builds to him and Ishii trying to crack eachothers jaws with lariats. The finishing run wasn't as brilliantly tricked out as the body of the match but what the hell... it's a great little discovery.

 Kenta Kobashi & Kentaro Shiga & KENTA vs. Akira Taue & Daisuke Ikeda & Bison Smith (NOAH 11/17/2002)

Borderline great NOAH 6 man action. Really fun opening, BURNING try isolating Taue only to eat a bunch of boots to the face and Taue ends up teasing the apron chokeslam on Kobashi with Ikeda helping him. We get some brief exchanges where you can't tell what the layout is going to be and then Taue takes out Kobashi with the big chokeslam on the floor anyways. In 1995 this probably would barely phase Kobashi but in 2002 this takes him out for a long time and we get a long heat segment with KENTA taking a huge beating while Shiga desperately tries to save him. That they were able to get serious heat for something like a Sleeper Hold in Differ Ariake speaks volumes about they excellent job the rudos did here. Ikeda was in top form, hitting hard, constantly running in to cheap shot dudes and almost knocking KENTA out with high kicks and spin kicks. Kobashi ends up coming back altough looks badly wounded. We get a really fun finishing run with Ikeda laying into Kobashi, doing a great job selling a big suplex, Shiga busting out his awesome submissions. Bison manhandling the little dudes etc. Great postmatch too, Taue rules.

Tamon Honda vs. Takashi Sugiura (NOAH 11/17/2002)

One year after their first match, Sugiura looks much more rugged. Can he take down Honda now? He can't, but here's another really fun match. Plenty of grappling, and that is a good thing because Honda rules so much on the mat. His cradles, takeovers etc. are so much cooler than your average UWF matwork. His super tight headlocks etc. also help emphasize how much it must suck to wrestle this guy and they also have significance, he might just lock in a basic front headlock then yank the guy over and crank his neck. Sugiura brings a lot more to the table in this match. Not outstanding and he does look a little awkward at times but he is a fun dance partner for Honda. The finish was pretty fun and unpredictable even if you've seen a lot of Honda as he wasn't doing his usual finishers (yet?) and instead some more experimental things.

Sumie Sakai vs. Megumi Yabushita (JD 1/20/2002)

This match was like a joshi version of Atlantis/Blue Panther. Just what the hell was going on with these two girls? I'll just assume that this is how Jaguar Yokota taught them wrestling is supposed to be like. Just a straight up grappling match with a ton of legit ability in both workers and a strange lucha influence to keep it sweet and graceful. I swear to good some of the sequences here wouldn't look out of place in a 1991 CMLL title match. At one point, Sakai floated into a flying headscissor, which turned into a standing choke, that Yabushita then countered into an ankle pick. Really unlike anything I've seen in a wrestling match before. Same for Sakai's strange huracanrana where she slipped underneath almost as if pulling guard and then gracefully rolled into a pin. That kind of stuff could look cute and contrived, but they had their timing down pat and the rhythm was just right, moving from matwork, to sparringly used rope usage, to hellish suplex moves. Yabushita again went for the arm like a bat out of judo hell, and the selling was top, adding just the right kind of fatigue and desperatin. Some of Yabushita's armlocks were straight out of Negro Navarro's book. Really I've no idea what was going on with these two to have a match like this in a dying promotion. I guess it's just a thing between two workers who trained together and just did the kind of bout they enjoyed.

2002 MOTY MASTER LIST