Digging into a mysterious library of obscure Japanese handheld footage

 
Headhunters vs. Shinichi Nakano & Hirofumi Miura, WYF 8/30/1995
 

The people behind the promotion known was Mutoha have also started putting up various old handhelds on their YouTube channel. Years ago WYF was the first obscure Japanese indy promotion that I fell in love with and I wished to see more of this unique fed, so I am stoked to see this stuff unveiled after decades. And this match was pretty beastly. Headhunters are awesome and extremely underrated. There's nothing like watching two face painted monsters waltz into Korakuen Hall throwing chairs around while March of the S.O.D. blares. This was almost a squash, as Headhunters dominated nearly the entire action. They have great offense so it was cool. Highlights include a brutal powerbomb that almost broke Nakanos neck, and a completely unexpected slow motion German Suplex. I loved the moment where Nakano crawled to his corner trying to make the hot tag only to find his partner was being butchered outside the ring by another Headhunter. It's such a logical thing to happen in a one sided, out of control massacre. Nakano only got in a desperation enzuigiri and some potatoe blows. Miuras brief run on offense was okay but he quickly got destroyed with the moonsault to end all moonsaults. The crowd was super hot for this and lived and died with their WYF heroes. I wish we had gotten to see a bit more of Nakano though it is remarkable that he did not die by that powerbomb. The Headhunters wreaking havoc was absolutely awesome, though.

Masaaki Mochizuki/TARU/Takashi Okamura vs Masakazu Fukuda/Kamikaze/Hiroyoshi Kotsubo WYF 3/20/1997
 

This was the first match between these 6 guys. All their matches are great, and this is in Korakuen Hall and feels especially wild because WYF fans hate the karate guys at this stage, so it feels ultra heated.  Match was pretty much the perfect mix of shootstyle and WAR-esque potatoes/scrappiness with that trademark WYF levels of unpolished, dirty fighting. Early goings were really good as WYF guys kept their opponents grounded in scrappy fashion. Even Kotsubo looked really good as he kept taking downs with explosive shooting takedowns, at one point even leading to both guys tumbling outside and brawling on the floor.  Kamikaze is impeccable in these matches, kicking people in the face, hammering a guy with punches and taunting the karatekas further. Fukuda also looked great - just hurling dudes with suplex that looked insanely forceful, and trying to crush peoples face with dropkicks and stomps. Buko Dojo guys started breaking out their kicks later and it's everything you can ask for. There's a pretty great dive sequence, Mochizuki flying at people with kicks, Buko guys breaking up pins and submissions with nasty kicks etc. Even the Kotsubo vs Taru matchup which is really shit on paper ends up being good. WYF was striking gold with  this feud in 1997, and I'm so happy we get the beginning of the feud, really heated and violent from the get go.

 

Hiroshi Watanabe & Hiroyuki Kondo vs. Crusher Takahashi & Hideya Iso (Bungee Takada Produce 11/6/2003)

Apparently this is from a show produced by Bungee Takada. It's not something I knew about or dreamed that I would see it but it's a strange and cool surprise. We love all these guys when they are old men, and they were still youngish here, so they moved a bit faster and smoother than later. They went 24 minutes without really slowing down, with lots of trying to stay on a guy, and it was a cool match. Lotta matwork, cool submissions and pin combos. Hideya Iso was looking quite unrecognizable here and did some athletic moves including a Kota Ibushi style backflip into a moonsault. Watanabe had a wild beard making him look like a Mad Dog and he was as slick and technically sound as in any other match you'll see him in. The star of the match was Crusher Takahashi, though. The man was on fire doing it all here, throwing really beautiful bridging suplex moves, his amazing Terry Funk punch combo and doing other odd stuff like busting out the Gibson leglock. You can tell he was stoked to be in a long match with a bunch of capable opponents and show off what he can do. It was one of those matches that show off what you can do even while wrestling a rather conservative wrestling style in front of a small audience. Must-watch if you are a fan of Crusher Takahashi, a really solid wrestlers-wrestler type match for everyone else too.

TAKA in CMLL

 

Negro Casas & TAKA & Shocker vs. Black Warrior & Arkangel & Violencia, CMLL 7/4/1997

Man, CMLL in 1997 has such an amazing „this is wrestling at its absolute peak“ vibe. Even a random match like this ends up being pretty great and unpredictable. The heart of the match was Casas vs. Black Warrior. These two were out for blood. Their first exchange was already really scrappy, with an uncooperative suplex being thrown and then Casas spin kicks Warrior under the chin. The other guys were mostly there to spice things up with big spots and fast exchanges, and boy did they do that. Arkangel was really great here, throwing cool punches and clotheslines and generally making TAKA and Shocker look amazing. TAKA was mostly just in for brief bits but he did hit some fairly difficult stuff. Shocker and Violencia were also really good with Violencia bumping big. The Casas/Warrior feud segues nicely into an intense rudo beatdown before we get a quick and exciting 3rd fall with TAKA busting out his insane spaceman rope switching dive. He knew it takes a lot to really impress a mexican crowd so he basically just went for the craziest thing he knew, and he nailed it. Great stuff.

TAKA & La Fiera & Atlantis vs. Headhunters & Apolo Dantes, CMLL 5/16/1997

TAKA, Fiera and Headhunters in one match, this has a lot going for it! And this was ultra heated and absolutely on fire, really spectacular match if you love monster spots and heat. Starts great with the Headhunters rampaging and TAKA taking every crazy bump you can think of. By 1997 TAKA probably didn‘t have many functional nerves left in his back so he was bumping in that stiff as hell Mexican ring like a maniac, press slams, really whipping himself back hard when bumping for shoulder blocks, getting thrown into the turnbuckles, it was wild. Old man Fiera as usual is pretty great at picking his spots, we get him working a sweet comeback, hitting some gnarly kicks including a ridiculously great superkick and taking out Dantes with a cool surprise tope. Headhunters are so great as usual, the thing about them is they are tremendous crushing their opponents, but they are also really great at stooging and milking every bump they took to the absolute maximum, setting themselves up for big vs. Little offense in fun ways and always being ridiculously perfect in place for a pair of guys you‘d expect to be slow moving. They really made the „arch back and wobble your arms to tease falling over“ into an art form. The sequence where TAKA takes down a Headhunter with really fast dropkicks is so great, TAKA in general is a real star here with the crowd loving him and all his stuff looking so perfect. Tremendous finish too. Dantes is also in the match and while he isn‘t as outstanding as everyone else he is a pretty solid prick. This was a bit like a Twin Towers vs. Rockers match worked as a sprint with two really great Twin Towers and two way cooler and unlikely Rockers.

W*ING 1/2/1994

 

Crypt Keeper & Nightmare Freddy vs. Jason the Terrible & Shoji Nakamaki

This was a tornado tag and some of the best stuff I've seen from the horror creatures. That doesn't say much, but the layout was right, as Keeper & Freddy were the heels beating down on the faces, while Jason & Nakamaki were your charismatic babyfaces bleeding, being charismatic and making fun comebacks. Keeper was really spry here, doing a flip entrance to the ring and then landing huge boots to people's faces like he was Kawada or something. I feel like a hypocrite for it, but Jason is really fun to doing his Undertaker stuff and hitting absurd spin kicks.

 

Shinichi Nakano vs. The Winger

Post-SWS Nakano matches are rare as hen's teeth, which is awful because he is such an interesting worker, as his basic technical stuff looks tough as nails, and then he will stand up and kick you in the kidney. This was an extremely basic juniors match (that was half missed by the camera guy) where Winger added nothing, but was still a decent Nakano carryjob. Nakano made Winger struggle for everything, and at one point popped Winger straight in the mouth with a huge punch and then proceeded to stomp and kneedrop the back of his head as if trying to give him brain damage. Japanese sleazy unprofessionality at it's best.

 

 

Head Hunters vs. Jado & Gedo

This was pretty much a sprint and made me think the Headhunters might be one of the most underrated tag teams ever. This was not just funny sleazy pro wrestling, it was basically like a Twin Towers vs. Rockers match, except far seedier, blood-drenched and violent. Headhunters were absolutely pasting the Twins with chairshots, powerbombs and their combined FATNESS, and I loved every second of it. Meanwhile Jado/Gedo were hitting superkicks and flying around, and the Headhunters did a really good job setting themselves up for their offense and bumping around like huge bowling pins. Also, the guy operating the camera finally gets his shit together and we get a full picture of this match. The only bummer was that the camera missed a huge Headhunter dive outside the ring. Watching this grainy footage zooming in on a Headhunter rampaging about in the stands of Korakuen Hall felt kinda like a found footage monster movie. The finish - a giant Headhunter moonsault - was one of the most ridiculous spots I've ever seen as the poor little japanese guy lying in the middle of the ring basically disappeared underneath as this giant fat dude splashed into the ring like free willy. Fantastic match

The Library

IWA Japan Grand Opening Stage Battle States 5/23/1994

 

Watch

Johnny Gomez vs. Hiroshi Ono

IWA Japan was basically W*ING 2 at this point, so we get all kinds of cool random Puerto Ricans working here. Johnny Gomez looked really good here, he had a bunch of good looking offense and did a neat job directing young nondescript future deathmatch bleeder Hiroshi Ono along. Ono didn‘t show much but he hit a nasty back suplex at one point. Gomez had a really nice thrust kick (always loves those) and the finish was really brutal looking with Gomez hitting a dropkick where he basically landed on Hiroshi Onos face. This went a bit under 5 minutes and was just right.

El Oriental & Crash The Terminator vs. Miguel Perez, Jr. & Winger

What amount of drugs could dream up this match up? And – this match ended up being kind of insane and great! Before the match Oriental cuts a promo where he mentions being the brother of the Moreno Sisters, which is kind of cute. Oriental always looks really good when I see him, and he looks really good here getting decent exchanges out of Winger. Then you get Hugh Morrus and Miguel in workrate mode – as both these big guys step up and do a bunch of athletic moves and bumping! Suddenly the match was chock full of memorable moments, such as Crash leaping to the 3rd rope and then hitting a great spinning crossbody – that misses – before Miguel hits an equally great spinning senton of the 2nd rope. Then you get the heavyweights bullying the junior guys around. The section where Crash stooges a bunch for Wingers lucha moves, then catches him on a dive before gently placing him down and getting back into the ring was so out of left field and great. He‘s CRASH THE TERMINATOR, face painted maniac with a skullet, but brawling with a smaller opponent is somehow beneath him, he just wants to wrestle him fair and square in the ring! Perez Jr./Oriental sections where also great. Perez hits a really crazy lariat that drops Oriental on his neck and then Oriental fires back with this awesome front flip kick in his face. Finish was way bigger than you‘d expect too with Miguel busting out a bunch of dives including a crazy huge Asai Moonsault, Winger eating a powerbomb on the floor and Oriental taking a giant chokeslam. For a second match on a card with a bunch of thrown together wrestlers this was about as good as you can ask for.

Dick Murdoch vs. Masayoshi Motegi

Another insane match. Is this Motegis biggest match ever? Bigger than him facing Liger? It definitely felt more meaningful. The first 10 minutes of this were really great and textbook stuff. Both guys were just chain wrestling, but Motegi was going after Murdochs arm like mad and Murdoch did all these neat maestro-ish touches, such as blocking a takedown attempt, sinking in Fujiwara armbars. Despite the size difference they meshed very well. When Murdoch was cutting off Motegi, he always clocked him with a bionic elbow or punch to the face, while selling the arm. Motegi hit these neat punches and kicks to Murdochs arm. Obviously Motegi was a bit limited in terms of what offense he could do to Murdoch, and that held the last couple minutes of this back a bit. Still I was shocked how good this was, as they did a bunch of really good intricate wrestling while keeping it tight.

Shoji Nakamaki vs. Kintaro Kanemura

This was the first match on the card that was entirely within the ordinary. Kanemura gets a barbedwire bat and brutalizes Nakamaki a bunch. Nakamaki makes one fired up comeback and hits a nice diving headbutt. Kanemura takes a nice clothesline bump, but soon goes back to beating on Nakamaki before pinning him quite easily. Good enough to keep things moving and put over Nakamaki as an underdog taking beatings, although I think Nakamaki never really did move on beyond that.

Silver King vs. El Texano

There aren‘t many Texano single matches around that I know of, so this was cool to have. Pretty much a stocky guy workrate match. Both these guys execute all their stuff at a ridiculously high level. Starts great with an amazing looking Texano punch in the ropes before they unroll a bunch of spectacular rope running sequences. All super tight executed. There are some great dives and Texano gets amazing height on a big splash. Not much of a story, but they went out to get pops, and that they did.

Headhunters vs. Nobutaka Araya & El Misterioso

 

Putting Misterioso in the main event?! You better believe it. This was sloppy, but fun. Pretty much a sleazy Twin Towers vs. Rockers match. Headhunters hit a bunch of stiff clotheslines and big body splashes. We get a bunch of cool Big vs. Little interactions between Misterioso, plus a few crazy high spots. Araya hits a huge moonsault to the outside, there‘s a flip dive from a Headhunter. The sloppy/unprepared moments, such as Araya violently lariating an unsuspecting Headhunter over the ropes may have added to the mayhem. The ending is pretty brutal with Araya taking a bunch of Headhunter splashes and a moonsault that seemed to knock him loopy before the doomsday bulldog finish. I always enjoy me some Headhunters and this was a fun main event to cap off this insane card.

 

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