90s Era Indy Shootstyle

 Lightning Kid vs. Wellington Wilkins Jr., PWA 6/10/1991

Brutal match where Wilkins stretches the hell out of Waltman for 20 minutes. X-Pac looks like he's 14 Wilkins just ties him in knots in this dingy hall. Waltman had a few slick moments of his own, I really liked the bit where he salvaged a somewhat awry gone Victory Roll by transitioning to a slick Fujiwara armbar. Kid keeps fighting back but Wilkins just keeps wringing the hell out of him with joint popping arm and legbars. Some incredibly nasty boston crab too, and Wilkins at one point hits this crazy flying shoulder that hit Waltman like a bomb. Wilkins really emphasizes weight here, always bridging all over Waltman and really trying to keep him on the mat to tap him. I really liked how Wilkins despite being in the role of delivering a nasty one sided beating still sold big for a Waltman enzuigiri, it felt like despite Kid being outgunned he could still make a comeback and win. Last few minutes were downright torturous.

Mike Winner vs. Karl Pope, Portland Wrestling 12/5/1992

Really awesome weird little match. These are two guys with amateur backgrounds, and they don't do much usual pro wrestling in this match, which is kind of the best kind of pro wrestling. The work a bunch of awesome greco lockups, bridges, cradles and all that and it's really cool. They pro wrestling-ify these things very well and work them with some good struggle. There were also some nice awkwardly hit pro style moves like a crossbody where Pope seemed to knee Winner in the face and a hard clothesline that caught him in the throat. Also really dug the simplistic but really cranked in boston crabs and back elbows. I wish we had more  Mike Winner like this.

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.