Onita Pro 5/4/2002

 Gentaro vs. Ichiro Yaguchi vs. Fake Onita

This is one of those matches where you look at it and know it probably won’t be good but you still want to watch, at least if you are deranged like I am. This was kind of fun, there was some amusing bullshit with Fake Onita in Great Nitta getup threatening to use a sickle and misting people a bunch. Yaguchi also got to show off his offense, hitting a cool spinning wheel kick and crucifix bomb, and eating the mist like a champ. Gentaro had a really pretty springboard splash. So that was pretty enjoyable for a bullshit 5 minute opening match.

GAMI & noki-A vs. Kaori Nakayama & Shark Tsuchiya

JIP match where I actually would’ve liked to see more because they stayed in the ring and didn’t do any walk and brawl stuff. Or maybe they clipped that out. Tsuchiya can throw bombs and it was cool to see brawler Nakayama trying to hold her own in straight wrestling exchanges against a pair of top flight wrestlers. Yeah GAMI is a top flight wrestler to me, I love her and she’s awesome. She had a really great trust kick in this. Nakayama isn’t as smooth but he had some good stuff so I enjoyed this fine.

Chocoball Mukai vs. Katsuji Ueda

Now we are getting the compelling matchups with this card. Different style fight where Mukai kind of does well for himself taking the boxer down but then gets punched in the face. Ueda soon gets Dqd for low blowing Mukai repeatedly. Actually would have liked to see a real finish for this. Face punches looked good, why not give tough old man Ueda a win over the pornstar?

ONRYO & Sun Paul vs. The Shooter #1 & The Shooter #2

I am pretty sure one of the Shooters is Masaru Toi. He hits a nice spinkick, and then his crazy double stomp to the floor. Why put a mask on him, he’s motherfucking Toi?! Sun Paul is some white guy who for some reason worked a few 20 minute draws in his few matches in Japan, those must have been something to see. He executed basic stuff fine but there was nothing spectacular or impressive about him. The match was fun when Toi was doing stuff such as throwing a cool punch combo or hitting a slick Fujiwara Armbar. Other than that the biggest curiosity here was seeing a mystery name like Sun Paul do stuff.

Masanobu Kurisu vs. Shoji Nakamaki

Hell yeah. Kurisu mauls Nakamaki with some sick headbutts. Kurisu then grabs a chair and beats the fuck out of some ring boys. He then headbutts Nakamaki some more. Nakamaki tries to mount of offense but Kurisu headbutts him in the face and keeps brutalizing him with the chair. There is a bump into a barbedwire board which looks nowhere near as violent as those chairshots and headbutts. Nakamaki tries throwing powder at Kurisu but Kurisu completely no sells it and instead throws the powder in Nakamakis face. Kurisu is a force that can’t be contained and he wins with a sloppy pin combo after a 7 minute extremely one sided but perversely brutal match. After the match Nakamaki throws himself into the barbedwire to show he’s tough, or an idiot. I don’t know. Who doesn’t love a violent Kurisu asskicking though.

Mr. Pogo vs. Ricky Fuji

Genuinely a pretty fun Pogo match. Fuji is faster so he wins the race into the ring to get the barbedwire bat, but one of Pogos seconds hits him so he drops the bat. We get Fuji swinging chairs into Pogos barbedwire bat, before Fuji takes a good beating taking some nasty bat swings, kicks to the face and Pogos knifes and sickles while things keep moving. Pogo hits his “I’m crippled” bulldog where he kinds of lands on his side which I always get a kick out of, and a pretty nasty rope hanging DDT onto the chain and sickle. There is a crazy moment where Fuji kicks the knife out of Pogos hand and it just flies into the crowd. Fuji needs better punches but he is so excitable and bleeds well so I like him. Fun match where both guys played their role well.

Mitsuhiro Matsunaga vs. HIDO

Demented spectacle deathmatch that had thumbtacks, barbedwire and live scorpions. They pour the tacks all over the mat right at the beginning and we get a bunch of side headlock takeovers and suplexes into the tacks. Craziest spot comes soon when HIDO puts a bunch of scorpions into a baseball cap, puts the cap on Matsunagas head and crushes them with a chairshot. Poor scorps :( I was rooting the most for the one scorpion that was scurrying away to safety. The match was plenty sick and violent but definitely felt like an exhibition. At several points Matsunaga was just sitting there watching Hido build up the next spot. The psychology of the match is that both guys keep hurting themselves. At the end they take off their boots to wrestle barefoot in the thumbtacks, I guess to show that they are tough. Matsunaga puts a torture rack on Hido and walks barefoot into the barbedwire, but surprisingly enough he can’t handle the pain and submits, making Hido the winner. All-time level finish for sure.

Atsushi Onita & Masato Tanaka vs. Kintaro Kanemura & Tetsuhiro Kuroda

A surprising amount of fire makes this a pretty fun main event. Onita was brutalizing people with weapons and hitting sharp DDTs. He didn’t overexercise himself but it was a good performance. Kanemura and Tanaka had their working puts on and brought a lot to the table without being too doozy-doo. It helps that Tanakas normal offense – elbows, spears etc. - looks really violent and they have no problem moving through the tables and chairs stuff fast. Even Tetsu didn’t annoy me too much. Fun main event with a sick punch out finish that didn’t overstay its welcome.

The Library

Tarzan Goto Documentation #9

 

Grigory Verichev & Koba Krutanize v Atsushi Onita & Tarzan Goto, FMW 12/9/1991 - GREAT

Classic early 90s soviet shooter spectacle. Krutanize and Verichev are two huge soviet judokas and they are there to toss Onita and Goto around the ring like potatoe sacks. Crazy uranages and suplexes ensue. Onita and Goto fire back in spirit and it‘s all crazy heated and good fun. Our man Goto is a tank in this punching and lariating the judo guys, even hits a big Superfly Splash in a huge moment. Very unpolished and rough looking but all around great pro wrestling.

Tarzan Goto & Mr. Pogo vs. Atsushi Onita & Sambo Asako, FMW 7/25/1990 - FUN

Classic early 90s brawl where they fight all over the place and chuck chairs at each other. Goto and Onita looked great just tearing into each other. It‘s a grainy handheld, with a pro shot this might look like that Dragon Master brawl. Mr. Pogo was slimmer here than later. Asako basically just took a beating. The finish was great as Onita hits a nasty powerbomb to Goto and looks like he has won it, but moments later ate a piledriver to the floor. The post match brawl with Goto and Onita continueing to brawl in uncooperative fashion, slapping each other and bleeding was almost better than the actual match, though.

Tarzan Goto & Atsushi Onita vs. Jerry Flynn & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga, FMW 12/10/1989 - EPIC

Insane fucking match, 2 karatekas, 2 crazy unhinged wrestlers locked in a ring surrounded by barbedwire trying to beat each other to death. The opening 2 or 3 minutes have to be up there with the best match openings in history anywhere. Goto pops Matsunaga with a big damn headbutt only to get jumped with a kick assault. Goto tries to suplex his way out ouf the 2 on 1 situation only to get blindsided with a kick to the face. Onita jumps into the fray, and we get to see him pulling Flynns hair, twisting, and punching him in the face. The whole match was worked like that, violent, crazy exchanges punctuated with guys jumping on each other and getting blindsided by kicks. I liked how the barbed wire caused guys standing on the apron waiting to take in to get into dangerous situations, this was before they had done barbedwire to death and they sold it as super dangerous, so the crowd freaked out whenever someone was lightly leaning into it with his arm. Onita takes a nasty thumble through the barbedwire and he comes back with a shredded arm and the rest of the match he tries to punch people out with that shredded arm. Matsunaga is as good here as you need your untrained karateka to be, he throws some crazy kicks including axe kicking Onita in the face and a wild jumping abisegiri. Flynn is the same but a bit bigger and more lumbering. Goto is a fucking monster in the second half of this, bleeding from his eye, headbutting people in the face, trying to stomp Matsunagas head in, hitting a big leaping elbow to Flynns face. Then he‘s getting killed by crazy striking combos. You think he‘s not gonna make it, but then he does and in comes Onita to make himself a legend. It was like a gory surreal western crossed with BattlARTS. 

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT 

FMW 1/10/1996

Ricky Fuji vs. Hayato Nanjyo

Two juniors you don‘t see work a lot. They did a RVD/Jerry Lynn like routine of dodging spin kicks and going for ground moves early on. Then they settle into slow, pointless, time killing matwork routine before they whip out their cool highspots. Nanjyos asia moonsault was pretty beautiful and Fuji spiked him hard with Tiger Driver style moves. Crowd popped huge in the last couple minutes. Both guys also had good fashion sense, Fuji rocking some tasteful tights with tassles and his glorious dyed mane and Nanjo a cheap but charming looking silver costume with a red scarv belt.

Bad Nurse Nakamura vs. Yuki Nabeno

A surprisingly heated little match. Nabeno laid a ton of spice into her moves, dropkicking Nakamura in the face. Bad Nurse looked like quite the badass tearing up Nabenos bandaged shoulder and then finishing her with a nasty STF.

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Hisakatsu Oya

This was a truely mouth-watering match up. Ikeda vs. Ishikawa is one of the greatest matchups of all time, and Oya is the sleazy Fake Ishikawa. And they duke it out in a BattlARTS-before-BattlARTS style match here! Mostly gritty matwork in between Ikeda kicking the dogshit out of Oya. Oya took some manly ass kicks and then dropped Ikeda on his head with those big backdrop suplexes of his. 11 minutes of exactly what you want it to be.

Megumi Kudo vs. Chigusa Nagayo

Bomb-dropping sprint with some smartness displayed. I loved how they would put over the sleeper. Kudo was a bit sloppy here and there so I give Nagayo credit. She handled herself like a badass and put Kudos submissions over really strong, in between destroying her with kicks and throws. When she fought out of a sleeper, then collapsed, barely hit a counter move and tried to shake of the cobwebs it was like something that should be hammered into every aspiring wrestlers head on how to sell chokeholds. After a match a pull apart happens between all the girls in FMW and GAEA tracksuits and Nagayo bleeds and jumps on Miwa Sato like she is going to kill her because that‘s what Chiggy does.

Aja Kong vs. Combat Toyoda

Another sick ass match up on this card, what was Arai on when he put all this awesome shit together? These two could have an intricate epic match, but fuck that this is FMW, they chuck tables at each others heads and bleed. Opening brawling with Toyoda smashing things over Ajas head and then suicide diving right into an Aja trashcan shot was just great. Both women bleed, and then we get them both exchanging stiff blows and crushing each other with suplexes. I‘d say the lariat trading here was better than usual in Japanese matches because these two are supposed to be crazy monsters so you buy it more. Excellent build to the finish. This hit all the spots.

 

Hayabusa & Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka vs. BADBOY Hido & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga & Kintaro Kanemura 

This had barbedwire ropes, spider nets and they brought in a ladder among other things. It was like a pretty typical multiman match involving all those things. At first guys try not to get thrown into the barbed wire, then they do get thrown into it, some highspots and a heel control segments happen before the bomb throwing finish. The brawling here wasn't super exciting although technically there was a cool matchup in Hayabusa/Matsunaga. The highspots were pretty good with some big dives over the barbedwire and a splash off the ladder to the outside. Bomb throwing was also gnarly but didn't go long. Overall this was a solid entry to the genre.

The Library

Assorted Japanese Indy Wrestling

 Mitsuhiro Matsunaga vs. Koichiro Kimura, W*ING 10/26/1991

What a scuzzy dream match. I had no idea this ever happened let alone that it was taped, and now a quality handheld randomly shows up on YouTube! Wrestling can be good sometimes. Matsunaga is blond already but still very much a karateka. This was before he suffered a leg injury so he was much more mobile than later and still capable of throwing crazy kick combos. And Kimura is just a monster with the submissions. A lot of pro wrestlers are taught to not follow up quickly, let the audience register that a guy was slammed before they put on a submission, Kimura ain't like that, he will throw right into the submission in a split second. This was basically just a gritty as hell striker vs. grappler match up. Matsunaga was demolishing Kimura with his kicks and Kimura was landing crazy throws and submissions. Everything was a bit more violent and aggressive than in your standard shootstyle match, these guys would bitchslap each other, there's some nasty headstomping, at one point Kimura refuses to break clean and eye rakes Matsunaga which Matsunaga really sells like a shoot eye rake. There's this intense moment where Kimura goes to par terre while Matsunaga takes off his belt. You sense some serious violence is about to go down. The finish wasn't quite as epic as I wanted, but they made it look hard fought. I'm a huge fan of both these guys, and this overdelivered on my expectations.

Gekko vs. Gosaku Goshogawara, FMW 12/21/1995

Gekko is Masao Orihara wearing this insanely creepy outfit. Gosaku is some FMW trainee and Orihara just completely Kurisus him here. Gosaku has a bandage and Orihara kicks him full force in the face. Soon Gosaku is bleeding and eating brutal clotheslines and stomps from Orihara. Orihara takes the pin in 3 minutes. Brutal and abject.