Oriental Pro 12/3/1992

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

Wellington Wilkins Jr. vs. Katsumi Hirano

Hirano is a low level guy who likes to play shooter, and he is almost completely useless. Wilkins Jr. though gets an entertaining match out of him by eating him up completely. Wilkins looked like the total package here roughing up Hirano with submissions, cool suplexes and judo throws aswell as those nasty ground headbutts he does. The sole moment where Hirano gets to do something is when Wilkins temporarily loses balance allowing Hirano to lock in a lucky submission, which doesn't last long as Wilkins soon taps him out with a basic side headlock.

Akihiro Mikada vs. Nobutaka Araya 

I liked this more on rewatch. It's a slow paced match with a lot of holds, but there was some escalation to the holds, Mikada would try the same hold twice and Araya would reverse in cool fashion. Mikada peppering Araya with stiff kicks was a lot of fun. Match went a little too long for their own good and pro style Araya didn't show me as much at this stage, but this was solid enough for rookie undercard action.

Brian Lee vs. Masahiko Takasugi

The next bout was veteran Takasugi vs. An ultra generic blonde Brian Lee. Takasugi was still pretty spry and they worked an IWE type match with Lee roughing up his opponent and then Takasugi fighting fire with fire. Basic stuff again, and they ended the match just as it seemed to get hot. 

Yukihiro Kanemura & Masayoshi Motegi vs.Kazuhiko Matsuzaki & Hiroshi Itakura 

Fun juniors match with some piss and vinegar. I really liked Matsuzaki here, who was cracking everyone with hard headbutts and kicks, aswell as Itakura who can do both slick junior flips aswell as spin kick someone in the throat. I liked the flaring tempers, the dive sequence and the finish. I thought Kanemura went to the well too often with his STF. That was a hot move in 1992 and while it initially increased the tension, by the 3rd time he locked the move in it was reduced to a resthold. Bad psychology.

Ryuma Go & Jesse Barr vs. Ron & Don Harris (Texas Deathmatch in a cage~!) 

Good clobbering brawl with lots of blood. This kind of match would look really good-great in front of a hot US crowd but with this kind of subdued japanese crowd the whole thing felt a little dry, despite plenty of juice and fire. I liked how the crowd got into Jesse's toughness as he absorbed all of the Harris Bros high end tag team offense and the finish was a fun outsmarting the rules moment.

THE LIBRARY

IWA Japan 8/8/1997

Keizo Matsuda vs. Keisuke Yamada

Keisuke Yamada comes in with a shaved head. Maybe this match was to apologize for their weirdly blundered main event 2 months before? This match was a lot better though and a great opener. Started fun with some tight grappling before both guys start smacking the shit out of each other. Yamada was certainly starting to look really good at this point. Although they clipped a 19 minute match in half, but what we got was really fun.

Yuji Kito vs. Hidetomo Egawa

Great 7 minute match of two black trunks rookies slugging the hell out of each other. Really not holding back on their slaps and elbows, both guys uncorking some big suplexes. Egawa looks like the real deal here and I'm sad he disappeared early. Kito is non-descript but he hits back and gets dropped on his head with the best of them. Finish was great as Kito hits a big knee drop to Egawas spine, Egawa makes the rope on the boston crab attempt but Kito just pulls back and nearly bends him in half.

The Great Takeru & Tortuga vs. Hiroyoshi Kotsubo & Kamikaze

They pretty much clipped this down to the highspots, which I'm okay with, since Kotsubo is useless. Kamikaze looked good here hitting an awesome tubby guy asai moonsault, Takeru didn't embarass himself, and Tortuga may have been the funnest guy in the match. He hit a cool springboard back senton (that Kotsubo completely failed to catch), some nice flying clotheslines and a great splash that looked more hurty than anything sloppy ass Takeru hit.

Akinori Tsukioka vs. Masao Orihara 

Great start to this as Orihara kicks Tsukioka in the face hard before going Steve Austin on him with chairs. Unfortunately a video glitch happens and the rest of the match remains a mystery. Shame shame shame, I hope Samurai TV will reair this card in the next 40 years because this was looking great.

 
CULT HEROINE MAJOR CHALLENGE: Emi Motokawa vs. Aja Kong

Half of this was also eaten up by that glitch. We do get to see Motokawa getting some token nearfalls before Kong crushes her with neck spiking suplexes and a big splash. Too bad because I as looking forward to this.

BRAND NEW HERO BIG CHALLENGE: Takeshi Sato vs. Kodo Fuyuki

Man, I could watch Fuyuki do high pitched yelling and beating the crud off of a sucker all day long. Really fun match with Sato hitting hard kicks from odd angles and Fuyuki just creaming him.

Jado & Gedo vs. The Black Hearts

It's the Black Hearts!! The masked guys did okay, but on a card where every match has been stiff and exciting so far this really didn't stand up to the level. It just kind of went along, and while Jado and Gedo probably got a kick out of working a pair of gaijins they deserved more exciting opponents.

Elimination Match, Super Extreme Monster Rumble: The Great Kabuki & Benkei Daikokubo & Katsumi Hirano vs. King Kong Bundy & Leatherface & Freddy Krueger

This was a fun gimmick where the team members come into the match after a certain time. This needed a bit less guys leaning onto eachother doing choking and more crazy brawling and blood, although I did love King Kong Bundy who was super fired up. He even picked up the win with an Argentine Hold on poor useless Hirano. That was about the most memorable thing to happen in this match. IWA Japan was in kind of a weird state at this point as the undercard matches are always more fun than the main events, but I'm sure they'll get out of the rut as soon as they figure out  Hirano and Benkei are useless.

THE LIBRARY

NSPW 9/24/1994

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

NSPW (or maybe: NFPW) was a shootstyle indy that went for serious fighting ala UWFi. Now that's something you don't see everyday. Actually, TV Tropes of all places has a bit of info on this, describing it as "regional UWF". Now, how cool is that? The japanese wiki says the promotion folded after all the fighters got their asses kicked in Shooto, and we mourn the loss of an obscure micro-shootstyle indy. But at least, we still have this tape.

Hiroshi Osuma vs. Katsumi Hirano

Yukimasa Yokota vs. Shingo Shigeta

Takashi Hara vs. Masamitsu Kochi

Yoshiro Ito vs. Keisuke Yamada

Koichiro Kimura vs. Fumio Akiyama

Ricky Fuyuki/Jado/Gedo vs. Hiroshi Itakura/Hideo Takayama/Ichiro Yaguchi

 

Most of the fights were too clipped up to be assessed, but the fighters looked polished and worked plenty stiff, with Shigeta taking a pretty brutal beating in the second match but refusing to give up. Osuma vs. Hirano was a boxer vs. Wrestler match that was actually pretty good, which is a rare accomplishment. I assume most of these guys are from SAW given that Koichiro Kimura is also on this card, but that's pure speculation as I can't find any info at all on this fed.

Ito vs. Yamada was shown in full and was a pretty cool little clash, like a poor man's Vader/Tamura. Lots of potatoe shots, and Ito, who could still move well at this point, was slamming the fuck out of Yamada with pro style powerbombs and suplexes. Yamada is the future Black Buffalo (of all people) and had some cool judo throws on Ito's roided ass. Yamada looked the most talented of anyone on the card and it feels like a waste that he went on to do garbage wrestling for the rest of the 90s. 

Fumio Akiyama seemed to be embarassing himself in the semi main event. Not sure what was up with that.

The main event was a typical Fuyuki/Jado/Gedo affair where they beat the shit out of the NSPW guys, bloodying and triple teaming them and waffling them with chairs. The NSPW all had kickpads (future face painted garbage brawler Yaguchi was doing a sambo gimmick at this point) and liked to kick hard, the future Badboy HIDO also doing a kickboxer gimmick, Itakura had a really nice dive aswell, but it seems most of their offense was clipped out which is a weird decision. They just got destroyed and the Fuyuki trio hit all their huge triple team moves including a powerbomb off the top and a huge assisted butt drop from Fuyuki. Fun stuff and Fuyuki is such a bastard in the match.

THE LIBRARY

Oriental Pro 8/2/1992

 Oriental Pro was the follow-up fed to Pioneer Senshi. It wasn't quite as delightfully shootstylish as Pioneer, but there was still some fun to be had with this fed.

Kazuhiko Matsuzaki vs. Katsumi Hirano

 I love that every Oriental Pro card opens with a shootstyle match. Only problem here was that half the action was blocked by the audience with their umbrellas. Looked like a good 10 minute opening draw though. Matsuzaki is thick and will get aggressive to push the pace.

 

 Mike Winner vs. Nobutaka Araya

A brief squash altough Winner looked good controlling the very young Araya on the ground twith amateur style grappling.
 

Harris Brothers vs. Korean Kim & Korean Lee

One of the koreans is a skinny martial artist who will do spin kicks and high pitched yelling like a hong kong movie. The other is an elderly guy with a mustache who does elaborate flips (for 1992 standards). The Harris Bros make the best of it and this ends up being pretty entertaining.

Ryuma Go vs. Sumito the Samoan

Some crowdbrawling here which the camera doesn’t catch at all. Match didn’t look like anything special, anyways. Sumito gets to headbutt Go a bit but is defeated quite easily. No wonder Go would move on to battling aliens soon after.

 Hiroshi Itakura vs. Jesse Barr

In a world where junior wrestling is a fucking flea circus the simplicity of Oriental Pro Wrestling is a breath of fresh air. This was a solid house show main with Barr letting Itakura look good. Barr isn't exactly a maestro but there was something cool about his technical moves. Itakura seemed green here stringing his moves together. Really liked Barrs nasty modified chickenwing crossface (he basically grounds the opponent and twists clockwise) aswell as him doing the Backlund lift in a way that made sense. Barr catches Itakura when he tries a handspring moves and then wins following a kneedrop off the second rope. You kind of have to love it.