DEEP Saeki Matsuri 12/9/2004

That time the DEEP MMA promotion ran a bunch of weird as hell pro wrestling matchups. 

Street Fight Barbed Wire Board Match: Hidetaka Irie & Toshiyuki Moriya vs. Anthony Netzler & Saeki "Boo" Shigeru

Saeki is the boss of DEEP. Netzler is an MMA fighter and also, apparently ended up being a druglord? Saeki is pretty fat and he tumbles around in amusing untrained person ways. Even though this match had barbedwire boards, Moriya and Irie didn‘t seem intent on working hard. Netzler didn‘t do anything but hit an insanely bad clothesline at one point. All that said, the match was kind of fun and had amusing moments like Irie hitting a giant swing on the president.

TURBO vs. Genki Yamaguchi

Short kickboxing match that didn‘t have anything interesting in it except a guy named TURBO.

Hiroyuki Ito & IRO-Seki vs. Max Miyazawa & Antonio Koinoki

I kind of like Koinoki. He is pretty agile, executes his Inoki spots very well and isn‘t afraid to get hit. I bet him vs. Riki Senshu would rule. IRO-SEKI is a big sumo with some fun fat guy spots. Ito vs. NIHAO is kind of a dream match and even though they didn‘t go full bore because this was just a semi-comedic undercard match, they were pretty fun together. The finish seemed blown. That‘s about all I can say.

Alexander Otsuka & TAISHO & Satoko Shinaishi vs. Jun Ishii & Yoshinori Oniki & Masakazu Imanari

Another very light hearted match. Imanari acts like a creep towards Shinaishi, everyone is scared of Otsuka, sleazy shenanigans ensue etc. The few serious bits were fun in that MMA guys try pro wrestling way. Dug Imanari ripping out all his awesome leglocks against Otsuka. This could have been much more, but I guess nobody was really welling to break a leg on a card like this I guess.

Yasuhito Namekawa vs. Omiya No Matsu

Well, this was a pleasant surprise. I think Omiya is an actor. He pretty much works a straight shootstyle match against Namekawa. Namekawa is much bigger and would crush Matsu with vicious kicks. Matsu had some impressive throws and takedowns and a nice punch combo at one point. Namekawa was mostly surprised by Matsus skill, but when he had to kick he was crushing Matsu. Pretty good.

Seichi Ikemoto vs. Danshoko Dino

Even in a Dino match, Ikemoto looks like an incredible wrestler. He had a ton of slick counters to Dinos crotch grabbing attacks, and hit some big kicks and throws of his own on offense. Dino can handle himself surprisingly well just doing regular grappling, but he quickly went to his molestation spots. One of the better Dino matches I can remember, I guess?

Masanori Suda & Tomohiko Hashimoto & Dokonjonosuke*Mishima vs. Shoichi Ichimiya & Riki Senshu & Tsubo Genjin

Pretty fun trios. Despite Genjin doing some hick comedy, everyone gave a spirited performance. I even enjoyed Ichimiyas act, as he just did a Keiji Mutoh impression played straight, and he meshed well with Mishima hitting Shining Wizards and eating shootkicks. Senshu was the workhorse of the match as he looked like a damn hero working good segments against everyone, eating everyones offense and dishing out some big backdrops and lariats of his own. Even Hashimoto looked inspired. The highlight of the match was when they did a Choshu/Maeda spot where Suda came in and blasted Senshu in the face with a kick that shocked the audience. A lot can be said how unfair it is that a wrestler as talented as Senshu would never make it beyond Z-level indy recognition due to his size, but he certainly made the most of his raw ability.

Makoto Ohe Retirement Match: Makoto Ohe vs. Kozo Takeda

I can‘t find much information on Ohe online, but apparently he was a UWFi guy and their prized kickboxing fighter. This was just 2 rounds and may be a work but it was a good fight. Ohe went down in the first round due to Takedas nasty leg kicks but gutted it out and got in lots of hits in the second. Maybe interesting to kickboxing fans.

The Library

JWP 9/3/2000

 

Yuki Miyazaki vs. Acute Sa

Fun JIP opening match. Miyazaki is game and Sae is a cull mulleted grappler with fun throws and nasty double stomps. The start working the mat and move on to work some pretty cool standing exchanges before ending the match early. I really liked Miyazakis tight neckbreaker drop, such a cool move that a lot of girls don‘t make look good.

Capture International 5 Minute Exhibition Match: Nihao vs. Yuki Kubota

Kubota is a female MMA fighter who trained with Koki Kitahara a bit. This was a cool bonus match to have, Kubota is in a gi and she basically spars grappling with Nihao for 5 minutes. Some nice sweeps and such and probably the only pro wrestling footage of Kubota on film until we steal Kitaharas hard drive which we really need to do.

Misae Genki vs. Tanny Mouse

Another JIP match, they clip the pro style matches but show the grappling exhibition in full? Tanny Mouse has a rep as a terrible worker but she is actually pretty cool when she‘s serious. This was about Genki trying to finish off the little Mouse fast and Genki reversing her chokeslams into cool armbars which is a story I can get into. I loved the reversel of the top rope chokeslam into the Fujiwara armbar and Tannys flying armbar, does anyone even do tope rope chokeslams anymore? Really fun stuff and Genkis emerald frosion was nasty as fuck.

JWP Jr. Title Match: Kayoko Haruyama vs. Tsubasa Kuragaki

There was a pitiful small crowd at this show, but everyone here is working hard. This was an exciting match between two workers who should have gone on to become stars but just ended up cult favourites. Really stiffing each other up with nasty elbows and open palms. Kuragaki was a monster here, bruising Haruyama with shoot headbutts including one to the back of her head, and trying to break her back. Really great finish. This is the kinda shit why joshi undercards are often better than the main events.

Azumi Hyuga & Command Bolshoi vs. Reggie Bennett & Kana Mizaki

Workrate main event with the addition of Bennett and Bolshoi to spice things up. It‘s a shame Bennett didn‘t have much of a career because she always looks pretty great whenever I see her. She meshes really well with the workrate queens while retaining her swagger and looking like a monster. There‘s something a bout a beast who can grapple and drop bombs and strike funny taunts and she could do all that. Mizaki is also someone people never bring up who is pretty good. This didn‘t have some kind of epic story or selling but they worked a bunch of rad exchanges and it was all high energy and cool.

THE LIBRARY

WAR 6/20/1999

 Masao Orihara vs. Tomohiro Ishii

Both these guys were pretty great in the late 90s, so I was pretty salty about this being clipped down just a couple minutes. Ishii was a wreckingball during this period, but Orihara easily outstiffes him trying to crack his jaw with lariats. We also get Ishii working Orihara over with chairs and whiping him out with a crazy rolling senton to the outside. Fun stuff but I wanted at least 3/4ths of the thing.

Nihao vs. Koki Kitahara

This was a CAPTURE showcase match and holy fuck after this I‘d kill to get the entire CAPTURE back catalogue. Brutal brutal match, just the most primitive grimy shootstyle you can imagine, two guys with gloves trying to pummel each other into oblivion. Nihao takes Kitahara down and bloodies him with punches and headbutts, but the boss comes back just trying to crush his face with punches and teeth loosening kicks. There was one spinkick that would‘ve made Daisuke Ikeda wince, and also at one point Kitahara reverses a takedown into an armlock that looked to almost tear Nihaos shoulder. They showed 4 out of 6 minutes, and really would it have killed them to include those 2 minutes? Still 80 % of a sick spectacle is better than most, and those 4 minutes were some of the most insane of the year.

Ryuma Go vs. Thunder Warrior Alpha

I respect Tenryus tendency to bring in Go to squish random aliens. This was clipped to almost nothing but we got to see Go acting crazy and destroying the alien.

Genichiro Tenryu & Magnum TOKYO vs. Nobutaka Araya & Sumo Fuji

The boss is involved, so we got the full match here. Didn‘t know what to expect from this, but it ends up a really entertaining match thanks to Tenryuisms. Basically Sumo Fuji acts like a big shot and annoys Tenryu some and ends up paying for it. Also really liked Araya as a scuzzy guy potatoeing Magnum TOKYO. Toryumon guys also looked solid in their sections against each other, and TOKYO hit a pretty great top rope asai moonsault amongst other things. Loved Tenryu here, I think he didn‘t even take a back bump but pretty much carried the match by being a prick, as he usually does.

Osamu Tachihikari & Arashi vs. Daikokubo Benkei & Ichiro Yaguchi

We get about 30 seconds of this and I am not bummed at all about that. I liked Tachihikari busting out random moves like an STO and a Magistral.

Yuji Yasuraoka & Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Super Delfin & Naohiro Hoshikawa

This was 4 solid pro wrestlers doings lots of solid pro wrestling, building to a pretty exciting second half. WAR reckless kicker Mochizuki ruled, I am just going to pretend he retired after WAR folded. He had some pretty great exchanges with Hoshikawa here, and I loved him flying into the scenery out of nowhere to take out people with spin kicks. Delfin & Hoshikawa worked well together and it was cool to see them acting as a crew. For some reason, juniors getting dumped on their heads or diving around the place was a lot more satisfying to watch in the 90s.

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Yuji Yasuraoka

I guess Mochizuki wasn‘t happy with Yasuraokas performance in that tag, so he gets on the mic to challenge Yasuraoka to a singles. Yasuraoka then proceeds to hit his awesome dive, getting insane height, and we get a fun short explosion of them throwing bombs at each other. Wouldn‘t have minded if this went longer, but they just did a 17 minute long match before so it made sense for this to be short and intense.

 

Shigeo Okumura, Sambo Asako & Atsushi Onita vs. Nobutaka Araya, Genichiro Tenryu & Shoji Nakamaki

Exactly what it looks like on paper. 6 tubby asskickers brawling all over the place, bleeding and pasting each other with chairs and lariats. That plus the megastar charisma of Tenryu and Onita. Tenryu is such an awesome menace here, punching people in the face and chucking chairs at them. Him vs. Terry Funk would’ve been one hell of a program. Then again, Tenryu was pretty much untouchable at this point in his career. Onita & Asako looked pretty much like regular guys at this point, which made Asako getting abused by Tenryu feel all the more violent. Okumura was in charge with bringing a slight bit of workrate to the match and he did fine, hitting a pretty stiff dropkick. Very predictable match but all too fun.

THE LIBRARY

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Project #14

 Tanomusaku Toba vs. Masashi Takeda, Hard Hit 7/20/2008 - FUN

Deathmatch boy Takeda wasn't half bad at shootstyle at this point. Fun grappler vs. striker match. Takeda hits some explosive takedowns and suplexes and Toba hits some brutal counterpunches. It seemed to be hitting at something bigger, but it as a fun little match. Especially dug that sick deadlift suplex Takeda hit on Toba.

Tanomusaku Toba & Seiya Morohashi vs. Tomohiko Hashimoto & Nobutaka Moribe, DDT 3/27/2005 - SKIPPABLE

Seems the quality of DDT was nosediving by this time. I didn't really care for 3/4 of the guys here. Hashimoto is a guy who has worked FUTEN so he can hit and get hit and had one or two fun exchanges, but doesn't really do anything outstanding. Toba was Toba, he had a few fun moments where punched and kicked guys hard and also ate the fuck out of a Moribe Complete Shot at one point, he also played a pretty decent Ricky Morton to a boring control segment from Hashimoto and Moribe. That sad it wasn't anything that would justify enduring the mediocre guys in this.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Keisuke Ishii, DDT 5/23/2010 - FUN

This was Toba punishing a rookie, which he does pretty well. Mostly Toba punching and kicking young Ishii really hard, while Ishii makes some scrappy young boy comebacks. Toba actually puts Ishiis boy offense over as dangerous and there was quite a high level of violence, for example Toba kicking Ishii in the face to escape a half crab. Fun 5 minutes.

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION

Koki Kitahara Documentation Project #11

 Koki Kitahara & Takashi Ishikawa vs. Masao Orihara & Naoki Sano, SWS 6/26/1991 - GREAT

Man, I love SWS tags. This had juniory touches - Orihara and Kitahara do a battle of kip ups of all things to start with, but there was a strong base of guys being chippy and stiffing the hell out of each other. Orihara gets over in a huge way by busting out a bunch of crazy dives and getting brutalized by Kitahara. These two beating the snot out of each other was awesome. Sano as in insane shape here, looking like a superhero, and he does all kinds of fun hybrid junior/shootstyle exchanges throughout. He also clocks Ishikawa with probably the stiffest thrust kick I've ever seen. I wanted a bit more of that shootstyle action - perhaps a Shooto vs. PWFG exchange between Kitahara and Sano - but we got here was damn tasty. Just great action with everyone bringing it and the crowd eating the whole thing up.

 

Koki Kitahara vs. Nihao, WAR 6/20/1999 - EPIC

This was a CAPTURE showcase match and holy fuck after this I‘d kill to get the entire CAPTURE back catalogue. Brutal brutal match, just the most primitive grimy shootstyle you can imagine, two guys with gloves trying to pummel each other into oblivion. Nihao takes Kitahara down and bloodies him with punches and headbutts, but the boss comes back just trying to crush his face with punches and teeth loosening kicks. There was one spinkick that would‘ve made Daisuke Ikeda wince, and also at one point Kitahara reverses a takedown into an armlock that looked to almost tear Nihaos shoulder. They showed 4 out of 6 minutes, and really would it have killed them to include those 2 minutes? Still 80 % of a sick spectacle is better than most, and those 4 minutes were some of the most insane of the year.

KOKI KITAHARA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Project #12

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Yukio Sagakuchi (DDT 11/15/2019) - FUN

This was from a martial arts tournament which in style of modern DDT had a lot of silly buggers going on. Toba is an old man now and he moves a little slower. This was just a 2 minute match but there was still a really fun punch exchange and a cool finish with Toba sidestepping his higher ranked opponent and blasting him for the upset win so it’s pushed into FUN territory.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. HARASHIMA (DDT 11/15/2019) - FUN

This was the finals of the tournament. It was just a 6 minute match (probably a good think considering Toba has a gut now and looks alcoholic) with the first 3 minutes being slow anticipating moments, but the last 3 are fun enough with Toba uncorking another nasty load of potatoes in the corner and a cool finish where Harashima somehow springboard dives into a leglock which Toba frantically tries to fight out of so Harashima giant swings into a boston crab for the tap. That kind of struggle is always going to get a match on my good side.

 

Tanomusaku Toba & Takashi Sasaki & Nihao vs. Asian Cougar & Super Rider & Yuki Nishino, DDT 11/25/1999 - GREAT

Another very good early DDT tag. BattlARTS level stiffness mixed with crushing junior highspots. Plenty of brutal spinkicks. Nihao and Rider had some cool exchanges here. Both guys have lineage to Sayama with Rider being a Shooto guy and Nihao being trained by Kitahara who was Sayamas student. Nishino works like a pro wrestling crowbar and he had some really fun exchanges with Toba. He also hulked up during an attempted 3 on 1 section which was a rare macho moment in Japanese wrestling that actually meant something and was cool. Also, as usual, Cougars legdrops were just insane. The match needed more extended Toba sections to push into epic territory, but he was the Toba we all know and love.

 

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Project #10

 

MIKAMI, Super Uchu Power, Tomohiko Hashimoto & Tanomusaku Toba vs Shoichi Ichinomiya, Tomohiro Ishii, GENTARO & YOSHIYA (DDT 10/30/01, Elimination Match) - FUN

This was an Elimination match which kind of showcased the amount of WWF fandom that was going on in DDT. Toba was only in this for a short time, but he looked damn great potatoeing dudes as usual. He also took some big ragdoll bumps during his FIP section. Tomohiro Ishii was kind of working like a regular heel wrestler here, which was a bit underwhelming considering how awesome he was when he was a stiff psycho during this time period, but there was a great moment where Toba woke him up and he started throwing big damn potatoes. The non-Toba portions were good but never reached those early violent heights again. It builds to a WWF style finishing run with Shoichi Ichimiya doing heel run ins, Mikami overcoming a 2 on 1 scenario, all the heels attacking with Stone Cold Uchu Power running in to lay everyone out only for a sudden heel turn to happen. I liked GENTARO a lot in this, such a cool unique wrestler in his early days with his blend of athleticism and WWF New Generation era worship, and MIKAMIs athleticism is also really fun, but I thought it got a little silly down the stretch. Still, someone who’s really into WWF Elimination Matches will probably dig this a lot.

 

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Futoshi Miwa (DDT 5/29/2004) - FUN

Futoshi Miwa is one of those DDT-style wrestlers with a fat nerdy kid gimmick. This was a shockingly decent match, mostly because Miwa knew how to wrestle like a fat kid, and Toba was beating this nerd pretty hard. Initially Miwa would act smug as Tobas kicks were bouncing off of his blubber, so Toba just brutalized him in the corner with punches. It looked like the ref was gonna stop the match but Miwa came back with a triumphant run of fatboy offense, just burying poor Toba under his blubber.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. MIKAMI, DDT 4/4/2010 - GREAT

This was way better. Short and to the point. MIKAMI tries to rush Toba and runs right into a big right hand. After that MIKAMI is eating shit until he is able to spin kick Toba in the face. MIKAMI looks really good here. He doesn’t do any kickboxing, but he has good matwork, highspots landing with a thud. And Toba always comes back punching or kicking him really hard. Apparently this was Tobas return match and he does feel slightly rusty, uncharacteristically whiffing on an axe kick. I hope I can find a match between these two in their peak period.

Tanomusaku Toba & Nihao vs. Takashi Sasaki & Asian Cougar (DDT 11/27/1999) - EPIC

Another excellent match from the DDT crew. Nihao looked very good here. It’s weird that you have to scour the earth for Nihao footage. The boy could go and easily would’ve been a great addition to the BattlARTS undercard scene. Good on the mat, cool suplexes, and perfectly able to engage in a stiff battle. He controlled the early parts of this while Toba would occasionally enter the ring to nail someone with unpredictable kicks and punches. I also really enjoyed Asian Cougar in this. He may seem like a spot monkey who just runs through his shit, but all of his spots where very well timed here and he knew how to fly into the scenery to crush someone at all the right moments. The match also had a great dive sequence. Toba is such a great addition to a hybrid junior tag like this. His springboard kick to the face is so reckless and awesome. The finish is between him and Sasaki and another great entry in their kickass rivalry.

 

 

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT