Tarzan Goto Documentation Project #5

 Tarzan Goto & Mikan vs. Musashi Oyama & Lemon, Goto-Ippa 5/10/2009 - GREAT

Goto-Ippa is basically Gotos little wrestling school project. Just tiny shows held so his boys can get some experience and so Goto can carve them up. Musashi Oyama is another unknown sleaze god. He's older than dirt and sports this seedy slicked back long hair look, looking like Gran Hamadas granddad. He's awesome. Mikan and Lemon are two girl wrestlers and they look really untrained. Like "can't take a back bump" level untrained. They don't show up on any other Goto-Ippa cards so I assume they aren't affiliated to Goto. Mikan likes to kick hard so I guess I liked her. Lemon was basically constantly on the verge of killing herself. And this goes 36 MINUTES? What in the hell? It feels amazingly short though and still pushes into borderline GREAT territory, because we are evaluating Tarzan Goto performances, and the man did it all here. He's really old (he retired in the late 80s, for christs sake), but he still comfortably does his thing and never looks out of step or even fatigued. Opening Goto/Oyama sections were pretty great. Goto grappling rules, and Oyama even kicks him in the face pretty hard. Then we get Goto doing about the best job humanly possible to carry Lemon through an FIP section. Really doing the most you can with a girl who can't back bump, only throwing her to the corner and throwing safe but good looking punches and headbutts. When Lemon makes her comeback Goto takes these great bumps for her DDTs. We also get some fun sections with Oyama trying to protect Lemon from evil Goto, and of course Oyama ends up getting carved up. The latter match Goto/Oyama sections are so great as Goto is just brutalizing him with punches, headbutts and lariats as he's bleeding all over the ring in front of probably 30 people. Check this out, fast forward through the girl sections, and enjoy Goto being the man.

Tarzan Goto & Mr. Gannosuke vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Bruiser Okamoto, Big Japan 7/25/1995 - EPIC

This was another one of those stretched out tags from the era where it starts with lots of quality wrestling and then turns into a bloodbath. Goto and Gannosuke are one hell of a unit here. Okamoto is a big, non-descript young guy who works kind of like a shooter, so he‘s a very good dude to slot intot his match. Starts with a great section where he and Gannosuke grapple it out doing kneebars like this is a BattlARTS match, followed by another great section where he tries to grapple Tarzan Goto and Goto just outclassing him. I especially loved how Goto stuffed an Okamoto takedown and just yanked his face with a nasty facelock, it was like something Fujiwara would do. If course this is just a warmup for the inevitable as referee Great Kojika acts shady and this causes Goto and Gannosuke to go to town on Okamoto with chairs and what have. I liked how Nagasaki, when Goto took the match to the floor also started floor brawling and crowbarring Mr. Gannosuke. Nagasaki was in full on pissed off dad mode here and swinging chairs and tables at people. It builds to a great second half with Nagasaki beating the piss out of Mr. Gannosuke while Goto breaks a bottle. The whole matchs was building to a Goto/Nagasaki interaction and when it happens it‘s just Goto coming in to break up a Nagasaki pinfall by cutting his face open. It was such a psycho move and so beautifully well timed. I also liked how Okamoto challenged Gannosuke to another wrestling face off only for Gannosuke to take him down and immediately start clawing at his cut. Beautiful tag psychology crossed with some serious street fighting violence, you can‘t tell me these guys weren‘t masters at this.

Tarzan Goto & Damian 666 vs. Goro Tsurumi & Hisakatsu Oya, FMW 6/19/1994 - FUN

The very definition of a FUN match. Starts out as just an offensive slaughter from Damian, as Goto wails on people with hard lariats and Damian does cool lucha spots and impressions of other wrestlers. You wouldn‘t think these two would work well together but damn they acted like best buddies here. Oya got his ass beaten – taking some tailbone breaking bumps into a table and getting walloped by Goto. Even during the brief section where Damian was in peril Goto came over to kick Oyas ass. Tsurumi looked decent and there was a cool section where he and Goto wailed on each other, I would‘ve liked that to go longer than 20 seconds. Brief but an all around good time.

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

2002 MOTY List Update #3 - Lucha worth watching

Shocker vs. Ultimo Guerrero (CMLL 12/13/2002)

Ah, 2002, when Shocker was a great worker. I really liked the brief opening matwork, with Shocker flipping around and Guerrero catching him in a great flash Fujiwara Armbar. 2^nd fall was short but had UG working Shockers arm over with hurty wristlocks and takedowns. Then Shocker made this great comeback and trying to boot his head off. Shocker looked damn good here, even throwing a great punch combo. The 3^rd fall was your typical UG end run where they exchange big dramatic kickouts. Not my favourite thing but it was awesome to watch these two crush eachother with huge chunky guy highspots.  

Vampiro Canadiense vs. Rey Bucanero (CMLL 12/13/2002) 

Psycho bomb throwing war which has to go down as the carryjob of the year. Vampiro was basically a stiff trying to be a video game wrestler here. However, his recklessness may have added to the match as he seemed to be self destructive hitting moves (e.g. knocking himself loopy with his own suplex, injuring his leg hitting a spin kick etc). It really adds to the suspense when you think this washed up drug fiend is going to blow his knees out any moment. Whenever Vampiro was in danger of getting lost, Bucanero engaged in some vicious brawling. I especially loved the segment on the ramp that started with Bucanero just clocking Vampiro in the back of the neck. He also had some really great brief work on the shoulder. The whole match made sense and was never boring as they just kept doing bumps and dives. The one weak point was Vampiros superman comeback which knocked the place down about 15 places in the list.

 Rey Bucanero & Ultimo Guerrero vs. Damian 666 & Halloween (CMLL 7/5/2002)

Unfortunately, CMLL for some reason decided to have their matches be rather short and fast paced around this time. That feeling was present here, but everyone had their working boots on and there were plenty of good exchanges and some neat spots throughout. Damian 666 is someone you wouldn't associate with this kind of workrate match, but he may have been the coolest dude in the matchs imply due to being middle aged and tubby and still doing all those leaps and getting dropped on his head. Hot finish.

Torneo Cibernetico (CMLL 3/22/2002)

This went 20 minutes and not 50, so it's not a classic. Still, you had some guys with insane highspots rolling out those highspots in a string of well executed, quick exchanges. It's pretty much crazy from the get go with Halloween eating the tope to the back of the head and Nicho getting dumped on his head from a German suplex. Felino turning on the rudos and Casas getting DQ'd was weird, but the old guys were a ton of fun in this otherwise. Also, we got to see Satanico and Casas trading punches. Nice ending with an unexpected guy picking up the win against a legend.

 

2002 MOTY PROJECT MASTER LIST