Wataru Sakata vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa (ZERO1 12/15)
Brutally stiff fight that blows away pretty much all current (2021) pro wrestling. The opening segment alone where they unload in the corner was just disgusting. The submissions here won't make you forget U-Style, but they did everything with a certain intensity, and you'll be too busy wincing at these two lunatics trying to hit eachother as hard as humanly possible to notice. They did a good job telling the story of the match, which was that Hoshikawa was slowly falling apart as he kept getting destroyed by his super vicious, more precise opponent. I liked how both guys used limb selling to put over the punishment, it makes sense that wyou would pick up injuries after getting kicked a dozen times, even without your opponent specifically targetting a bodypart. Sakata was just a bastard here, Hoshikawa is someone you buy as being really tough, but anytime Hoshikawa started to build momentum Sakata would punch him in the liver or knee him in the face. All the big strikes, including Hoshikawas massive enzuigiris were really well timed. I'm not gonna pretend the match was flawless or some kind of classic as Hoshikawa does a pretty lame no sell and at times the match is just going a long but for this kind of brutal fight it was fairly great. It starts out pretty nasty and you wonder how can they keep this going and have some kind of arc building up, but they pull it off and the last strike that left the loser drooling blood from his mouth really feels like an exclamation point.
Koji Kanemoto vs. Makoto Hashi (NJPW 8/29/2002)
Awesome WAR-like beginning with Kanemoto trying to demolish Hashi with a barrage of strikes only for Hashi
to leap in with a headbutt and trying to pulverize his jaw elbows on
the ground. After that, proceeded to try and put the boot down hard on Hashi,
who came across as the most tenacious, hard hitting underdog on the
planet. Kanemoto was accordingly great in his role of veteran who was
flustered by his heavy handed opponent. When reversing a basic suplex,
Kanemoto immediately went for the kill by dropping Hashi
on his head. He then proceeded to unleash some disgusting strikes in
the corner. Apron bump had a sick moment with Kanemoto hitting the back
of his head on the way down and was a good way for Hashi
to get in some offense. Before the match could turn into a mindless
2.9999 fest, they got back on track with some more nasty strikes and Hashi
desperately fighting his way out of Kanemotos leglocks. Loved Hashis
limping headbutts. This feels like a NJPW junior MOTDC, although I'm not
super eager to rewatch a ton of those matches.
Super Dragon vs. Bobby Quance (GSCW 12/14/2002)
It's crazy to think these two had pretty much perfected the US Indy style so early in the game. This was like a distillate of their 2002 work, and while it wasn't as smartly worked as their epic match in November, it has all the cool matwork, stiffness and crazy bombdropping you can ask for. Super Dragon came across as this menacing asskicker during the opening exchanges, punishing Quance with double stomps when he attempted basic moves and kicking him hard while applying leglocks. He also hit this awesome past the turnbuckle dive. Quance is able to hold his own, countering the usual armbars and hitting a stiff dropkick. After Dragon rams into the turnbuckle (taking his signature bump where he basically suicide dives into nothing) Quance hits this shooting star press to the outside nuking both Dragon and Excalibur which is a pretty insane spot for 2002. After that that it's basically them trading big nearfalls while still maintaining a sense of competitiveness and working a few reversals/cutoffs. While there are lot of big moves it wasn't just a series of trading back and forth. Dragon once again looked great mixing up his stuff and I loved him cranking back at a basic facelock between all the powerbombs and suplexes. They also laced into eachother with hard strikes at one point. Epic finish which feels like a perfect example of how to use a crazy complicated death move like that.
Low Ki vs. Samoa Joe (RoH 10/5/2002)
Two of indy wrestlings greatest asskickers level epic beatings to eachother. Virtually every blow in this match landed with a major thud. The match lacked in transitions, but the sheer assbeating will keep you watching till the end. Ki looked amazing as not only was making minced meat of his bigger, menacing opponent with rapid fire Kawada kicks and flying kicks to the face but also locking in crazy armbars. Joe countering the Dragon Sleeper into his Island Driver was inspired. Pretty great finish.
