NOW FIRE ENDLESS BATTLE 2/14/1993

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxxqLxVAjdg

1. Kishin Kawabata vs. An Che Honn

2. The Equalizer vs. Kim Chon Hyon

3. Buddy Landell vs. Rod Price

4. Hisakatsu Oya vs. Alex Porteau

5. Manny Fernandez vs. Apollo Sugawara

6. Ishinriki vs. Hiroshi Hatanaka

7. Atsushi Onita & Kendo Nagasaki vs. Goro Tsurumi & Umanosuke Ueda

  This was another really fun NOW card! We start with 2 singles matches starring obscure korean workers. Korean pro wrestling seems to have a similiar history to japanese pro wrestling only that it kind of died off over the years, but it's such a great unknown on the english speaking internet. In a different universe we are all raving about korean pro wrestling while nobody knows who Rikidozan is. I've only seen glimpses of korean wrestlers and all of them were from japanese promotions pitting them against japanese workers, which I assume is kind of a barrier, assuming there is a language barriere there and these workers come from different backgrounds and styles. Plus, with 1992 undercard indy matches, you mostly check them out for curiousity, especially when such illustrious names as Kishin Kawabata and The Equalizer are in them. And these undercard matches delivered all you can ask for. Kawabata vs. An Che Honn was pretty much a showcase of fun offense – with Kawabata hitting big headbutts, kicks to the spine, biiiiig jumping elbow drops and sentons – and An Che Honn hitting some pretty agile junior offense. The korean was doing standing moonsaults, backflips, flip sentons where he landed with his hip first in really hurty fashion. Dare I say, was this guy an unknown innovator from 25 years ago? Or was he just imitating what he saw on Peruvian wrestling tapes from 20 years prior? Then he hits this cool punch/kick combo and I'm all on board for the Korean Pro Wrestling train. Eitherway, that match didn't have real structure as basically Kawabata went back to offense immediately after An Che had hit his spots, but it was a fun showcase. Kawabata wins with a big leaping elbow drop and that rules. The next match had slightly better structure – I've never seen The Equalizer before and he looks like a fake Kevin Sullivan – google tells me he was a Kevin Sullivan gimmick brother – apparently he was in WCW. If you are a Fake Sullivan superfan you probably need to see this match, because it's like a really fun WCW TV match for a minute. Equalizer works „I'm bigger and you can't knock me over“, and Korakuen Hall pops when the obscure korean finally bodyslams him! Fake Sullivan hits a BIG second rope legdrop! Kim Chon Hyon hits all kinds of fun out of nowhere kicks! Equalizer brawls his way to the countout finish, and because the camera guy filming this is kind of slow you don't really get what's happening. After the match Tsurumi comes out and looks pissed at the koreans!

 

Landell vs. Price – this is what US Indy workers working japanese promotions used to look like!! Tubby blonde dyed white guys who don't care about impressing anybody and instead just work a psychologically sound match! And well I'll be a son of a bitch, because these two go out of their way to work a Southern BattlARTS match! They hit snug elbows, thundering chops and hurty looking punches and toe kicks, and also work fun drop toe holds and fireman carries into leg rides on the ground. It was a slow paced, deliberate match, mind you, but damn! I wanna see more wrestling like this!! You are probably thinking to yourself „Oh you lying german bastard. You spent 4$ on this tape and now you are imagining things to trick yourself into thinking this was good.“ Well bugger off, because this low key ruled. Price absolutely clocks Landell with a stiff clothesline out of nowhere. Landell works snug wristlocks and toeholds (inbetween Wooo!s for the crowd) only for Price to come up and punch him in the cheek. Price blocks a surfboard so Landell goes for a single leg crab instead and kicks Price in the ribs while holding that. Price fights out of an armbar and locks in a UWF leglock which Landell sells like a Figure 4 with his shouders down for the pinfall. Landell comes up limping and Price immediately follows up with more snug lowkicks. What the hell is happening?? Landell dares Price to take him down, who promptly does just that. Landell fights off the Price takedowns – including one by doing an awesome Fujiwara sprawl and now the crowd is really digging all this was we move closer to the 20 minute mark in a match with a 20 minute time limit. They really go broadway here and work nearfalls for sleeper holds and Figure 4s. Prices last move before the draw is a 10 Punch in the corner for a close 2 count. This was such a weird broadway but they really did a pro job working a sound match that won everyone over.

 

After that we get two more matches featuring US guys. IT'S HISAKATSU OYA vs. THE PUG!!! And they hit the mat!! Damn, is NOW scientific wrestling central of the 90s japanese indy scene?! Oya looks better here than he did in both BattlARTS and MUGA. He really wrenches Porteaus t shoulder and arm with some snug holds. Porteau is on the very, very bland side here. He has a nice headlock punch though. But before The Pug can bore you to sleep Oya absolutely KILLS him with the backdrop suplex! Golly!! Nasty Oya submissions and that insane bump are totally enough for me to give this the Full Japan Indy Point. Next up is Thee Manny Fernandez vs. Apollo Sugawara. And that was a fun short match too. Fernandez has the Finlay mullet and his charisma and mannerisms shine through even on a handheld. Match was fun in that short WCW TV match way. Sugawara still has really nice dropkicks and Fernandez takes a really nice backdrop bump for him. Fernandez also hits some really nice slug clotheslines. He also wins with a nasty shootstyle toe hold which is unexpected and rules, like pretty much everthing on this card so far.

 

Ishinriki vs. Hiroshi Hatanaka was, unlike pretty much everything else on this card, something you could've shown to your average juniors loving 90s smark and he would've agree that it was a cool match. Two pudgy juniors go 20 minutes and there are some big nearfalls down the stretch. I really enjoyed the match as they did a good job filling the time, these two guys have really good looking basics, really fast explosive shoulderblocks and armdrags etc. Hatanaka looked especially good, hitting lariats with a ton of snap, big kneedrops and leg drops, really nice powerslam etc. His Fujiwara armbar counter may have been the highlight of the match. He also hit at one point a huge legdrop that looked like it would shoot KO someone and Ishinriki was either legit knocked loopy or Ishinriki is really good at selling „I just had a 280 pound japanese dude drop his weight on my jaw and I don't know where the fuck I am“. It's this kind of match that gets you really over with japanese crowds and they both came out looking like they should've been kings of the indies but instead they just completely fell off the map in the mid 90s. I thought the match could've been really great with a little more stiffness and hatred – they tease flaring tempers in the first minute and never really follow up – or maybe some kind of more pronounced story, but they achived what they were going for without hiccups and this was just a really cool match to see.

 

The main event was all about the superstar charisma of Onita as the crowd is absolutely white hot for him. Unfortunately once again some kind of sports entertainment crept into it as Ueda refused to cooperate with Tsurumi. To be fair, Tsurumi looked good here, and the guys potatoeing eachother sections were fun. Tsurumi was doing the backfists before the were cool and hitting nice punches, also Nagasaki has ridculously great kicks here, just trying to boot dudes heads off, plus Manny Fernandez was at ringside with a kendo stick. But once again the match ended early. The coolest thing to come out of this was a brief Manny Fernandez/Tarzan Goto face off which is the greatest match of the 90s that never happened.

 

So there you have it. Two really good matches, fun undercard, lots of coolness throughout, Tarzan Goto in a funny 90s getup... I'm all on board for the NOW hype train by now.

The Library

West Japan Pro Wrestling 6/21/1995

 West Japan Pro Wrestling was a promotion founded inspired by the success of Michinoku Pro, bringing in some unique masked gimmicks while utilizing the tried and true cast of 90s Japan sleaze characters. They also had a shootstyle division. The promotion was struggling since they had no main draws and the outsider workers they hired (ranging from Shunji Takano to Poison Sawada) kept leaving. Not much of this promotion is around, so the little that is there is worth analysis. And this commercial tape gave us one of my all time favourite indy sleaze matches

Masahiko Kochi vs. Kenichi Kawasaki

Kochi is a thick, kickpadded SPWF boy. Kawasaki is also very thick, mulleted and kickpadded. They work a quasi-shootstyle match which is sadly clipped down to them kicking each other hard before a flash finish occurs.

Guerrero Diablo vs. Toyonari Fujita

Guerrero Diablo went on to become the even less originally named DIABLO, Aztecas longtime arch enemy in the KAGEKI promotion. I think he was trained in Mexico and he was rocking a very cool 90s lock here with a sleazy mask, black T-shirt and shorts. Toyonari Fujita is of course, the man of a thousand masks mostly known as Magnitude Kishiwada. This was also clipped and I really would've liked the whole thing. Fujita gives Diablo the business with chairs, both guys have ridiculous distance on their flying moves, and Fujita hit these cool bridging suplex before the time limit ran out. Yeah, they went broadway~! I love me a sleaze indy broadway. Still hoping out for a handheld of this to appear.

Dokugas Mask vs. Crusher Takahashi

Dokugas Mask is Survival Tobita in a gas mask. He does this awesome entrance where he storms through the crowd with a blowtorch. Eat your heart out, Leatherface! We got about 1 minute of the match but it was 1 minute of Takahashi throwing nice punches and Mask hitting some cool headbutts. Crusher Takahashis Terry Funk worship act is really cool.

Koichiro Kimura & Hopper King vs. Black Hole & Fumio Akiyama

A bunch of legit martial artists and strange masked gimmicks step up to work a more surrealist BattlARTS match. Lots of nasty potatoes and credible shootstyle exchanges. Black Hole was  inspiring - a fat dude with a genuinely cool mask, clubbing Vader like blows and judo throws. Hopper King is Super Rider and doesn't hold back with the kicks. Most importantly this had the kind of chippy fighting that elevates pro wrestling. Loved how Kimura wouldn't accept Akiyama breaking up his submission attempts. Then Kimura tried tooling Black Hole only to get rocked by those swinging fists. Even the crowd brawling was fun and the finish absolutely nasty. This was everything. 

 Masaru Toi & Hiroshi Hatanaka & Mitsunobu Kikuzawa vs. Shigeo Okumura & Kenshiro Yukimura & Hiroshi Shimada

We get about 5 minutes of a 21 minute match :( What was shown looked like a fun SWS tag with lumpy guys potatoeing each other, hitting cool power moves and being generally brawl-happy. Really liked Kikuzawas big wipe-out dive aswell as the gorilla press from tiny Kenshiro Yukimura. Hatanaka is the SWS veteran and he was stiffing everyone in this path. The finish is a crossbody from the top and that rules.

Flag Death Match: Mitsuteru Tokuda vs. Poison Sawada

Flag match means they just had to drape their opponents flag over them to pin them. Poison Sawada was doing his evil facepainted Vietnamese Ho Death (or Des) Minh gimmick here. I've been unsatisfied with much of what I've seen from Sawada in this era but this match hid his problems well. It was just a straight up brawl where Tokuda was juicing immediately and they went to town on each other with chairs and tables. Tokuda had one or two cool martial arts moves which is enough for me to like him. But you can tell their intention was to impress the audience with those table bumps. Ho Death Minh was super over and drawing chants, even though he was playing an evil foreigner gimmick. I guess cool facepainted guy wins over martial arts guy in black pants #48. This was under the 10 minutes but they showed the whole thing and it was a fun way to cap off the show.

THE LIBRARY

Brief thoughts on SPWF 6/14/1995

 
SPWF  6/24/1995

1. Hiroshi Osumi (Shinjuku Shark) vs. Masahiko Kochi
2. Exciting Yoshida vs. Phantom Funakoshi
3. Toyonari Fujita vs. Dangerous Uchida
4. Made in China & ??? vs. Mr. ??? & ??
5. Ichiro Yaguchi & Isamu Teranishi vs. Kishin Kawabata & Hiroshi Hatanaka
6. Kuniaki Kobayashi & Great Kabuki & Kengo Kimura vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & Masa Saito & Riki Choshu

SPWF may be the least of the 90s mud show indies, but SPWF shows are always a nice novelty. I liked Yoshida/Funakoshi, Funakoshi was doing some kind of technical heel gimmick, his technical stuff looked good and I liked how he went to choke his opponent and then hit a knee drop to the throat. Yoshida was doing an Animal Hamaguchi tribute act and then he hit this really reckless tombstone piledriver. Main event was pretty much a greatest hits show that pleased the crowd, with the two novel additions to the usual Choshu tag formula, 1995 Yatsu and Masa Saito not doing anything special. Karate pants guys were more than solid, though. Nothing else stood out really but I prefer this kind of serious pro wrestling over todays joker indies.

Thoughts on NOW 8/9/1992

 

NOW 8/9/1992 

1. Goro Tsurumi vs. Toshimitsu Naoi(?)

2. Don Arakawa vs. Kishin Kawabata

3. Apollo Sugawara vs. Hiroshi Hatanaka

4. Goro Tsurumi vs. Fumihiro Niikura (Boxing)

5. George & Shunji Takano vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Kenichi (Hisakatsu) Oya

NOW was one of half a dozen companies that SWS split into. And well this sure does look like an SWS card without the big stars or foreigners doesn't it? There is some fun stuff to be seen here though. The opener is a 3 minute exhibition with Tsurumi looking the best I've ever seen him as this match was nothing but amateur style grappling. SoTsurumi is not required to do any pro wrestling or match struture and instead is just there credibly putting a nondescript black trunks guy in his place by tapping him repeatedly with nasty crossfaces and toeholds in entertaining fashion.

Arakawa/Kawabata was also unexpectedly great as it was that classic japanese material of two tubby guys trading big fucking beatings. Arakawa is known as a comedy worker and while there are some laughs and exaggerated body language this is competitive. Starts great with Kawabata slapping him and Arakawa dumping him with a huge german suplex. Lots of hurty looking slaps and Arakawa punches ensue. We also get some fun Arakawa matwork aswell as a dive tease. This was the most inspired I've seen Kawabata look as he would really lay into Arakawa with kicks and palms and ram him like a bull. What does it say about Kawabata that his most inspired performance is some fancam undercard match against a comedy wrestler from some long forgotten offshoot company?

Sugawara/Hatanaka was a long, basic match. Both guys could lay in a stiff shot once in a while and had some nice offense (Hatanaka in particular), but I'd be lying if I said if they weren't slightly over their heads going 15+ minutes when these two belong in tags at this point. Tsurumi/Niikura was a boxing gloves match and much less exciting than Tsurumis grappling in the opener. Niikura always throws boxing punch combos in in pro style matches and that is much cooler than fake boxing.  

The main event had little story to it but was a string of cool moments. You had Shunji Takano working as sleazy Jumbo Tsuruta walloping everyone with huge kicks and knees, George Takano & Oya having a great moment trading shotais and Nagasaki in his working boots hitting the mat and dishing out big kicks. Oyas execution was sharper than later in FMW but he didn't seem to have a clue on how to add direction to the match. Just when things started to get heated when Nagasaki said Fuck This and went to blast Shunji Takano with the chairs as Kendo Nagasaki does an Umanosuke Ueda run in happens and the match just ends. Kind of a bullshit thing to end your main event of a Korakuen Hall show like this but I actually want to see more NOW now.