Pro Wrestling in 2025 Week 25

 Wolf Ozawa & Aesop vs Super Shimizu & Merman Masakazu, 666 6/6

Old ama-pro guys getting together in Korakuen Hall and worshipping Showa era wrestling. Pretty fun stuff. Super Shimizu is pretty rough, very much a skinny old man trying to move and struggling, but it's kinda fun. Aesop and Masakazu both look good, they actually get nice height on their jumping kicks and execute the technical stuff well, Masakazu even hit an enzuigiri into the steel pole. Wolf Ozawa doesn't do much in this match and its probably for the better.

Kenichiro Arai vs Nobutaka Moribe, Yoshino Aid 6/22

Haven't seen much of Moribe, let alone recent Moribe, but he looked pretty good here. As far as I know he's a Dick Togo guy who used to worship Eddie Guerrero. He looked pretty comfortable grappling with Arai here, never lost, adding a few neat touches. The grappling portion felt very lucharesu-tinged with small details like Moribes reversal of the reverse hammerlock or Arai using a leg grapevine to set up a headlock being the highlights. After that they morph into an old studio scientific match, like Pat OConnor vs Mike Graham. They did headlocks into hip tosses, flying headscissors, everything. If you like Kenichiro Arais work you will like this. I wouldn't mind seeing Moribe grappling with the other Mutoha guys after this because he lookde capable. Pretty short match though but sometimes short and sweet is cool, not every Arai match needs to be 60 minutes.

Yasushi Sato & Taro Yamada vs Akira Jo & Hideya Iso, Yoshino Aid 6/22

This was the raw Mutoha style action that your brain craves. 4 great grapplers squaring off and just having a bunch of great mat exchanges, and then a bunch of ridiculously awesome stuff in the 2nd half. Yamada vs Iso is known quality and they seemed pretty spry here, with Iso really not letting up for such an old seemingly outmatched guy, I really like his use of the Fujiwara Armbar and there were a few nifty moments that Iso has a knack for such as his reversal of a dragon sleeper. At this point I've seen a bunch of great Iso matches so I know the guy is really capable yet he keeps surprising me. I don't think we've seen Yasushi Sato and Akira Jo really match up, but my god they are a good match up for each other. We've seen Jo tap people out with a side headlock so when he cinches in just a basic cravate or wristlock its pretty intense. Sato trying to catch the more physically forceful Jo was really cool to watch and Jo had this grin on him all the time, you could tell he loved grappling with an old master. As always with Sato we get a bunch of nifty stuff centered around Russian Legsweeps and him tying someones legs up in a cool way. First half was pretty mat based but they really drop bombs in the second half with some sick headbutts, nifty team work and unexpected high spots. Sato busting out a perfect springboard dive looks pretty epic at his age, I also loved how they couldn't tag out, Isos out of nowhere enzuigiri and they made me flip out for the sleeper hold. Really really good stuff, once again affirming the greatness of the Mutoha guys there are few wrestlers in the world who can even hold a candle to this crew.

Chihiro Hashimoto & Mika Iwata vs Saouri Anou & Natsupoi, Stardom 5/31

Really entertaining, borderline excellent tag that felt big time. Basically like a warped version of Rockers vs Twin Towers. Anou and Natsupoi are two girly, dainty, skinny models, it's crazy how over the top they look even compared to the Takako Inoues of the past, and Hashimoto and Iwata look starkly like real fighters in comparison to them. The match is basically Iwata and Hashimoto kicking their asses and looking pretty impressive in doing so, Iwata has lots of spectacular kicks and Hashimotos juggernaut-like power is in full bloom. Loved all the moments where Hashimoto came in to clear house and blow people away with her charges. Loved when Hashimoto said 'fuck your flippy bullshit' and did a cartwheel. Anou and Poi have minimal offense in this, a surprising choice considering this is their produce show, but they work pretty well as overmatched faces. When they get on offense it's well done, and they do display good skills, Anou at one point hit a really stiff forearm smash, and Natsupois cartwheels are fun. Thought this was shaping up to be one of the best matches of the year, until they kinda overreached with the kick sequence between Poi and Iwata. 

 

2025 Wrestling Roundup 

It's a MEN's World

MEN´s Teioh, Makoto Oishi & Shinobu vs. Onryo, Milanito Collection a.t. & Fantastik, BJW 8/20/2007

When I saw that Fantastik had a few TV matches in BJW in 2007, I was wondering if he still had it. He looks lumpier here than he did in the 90s… but as soon as he steps in the ring, it becomes clear that he still has it. Still has ridiculously beautiful execution, still works really pretty lucha sequences and he still hits that fucking senton to the floor he always does and it looks magnificient. Leave it to a lumpy old luchador to smoke a bunch of slender Japanese juniors with the biggest dive in a match. But, even aside from Fantastik being really good, this was super fun match. I remember these MENS Club matches being kind of last hurrah for Japanese lucharesu. I guess we can pin those matches being good on Men’s Teioh bringing his Michinoku Pro experience and some authority into them. He has fun dynamic hitting all those twinks with cool clotheslines and elbows. They do fun character multiman spots, everyone has some brief neat sequences worked out together, the pace is fast, they move through comedy briefly and with ease, and it doesn’t go into overkill. Onryo looked cool here doing his zombie shtick and ripping out cool flying ranas, including a flying reverse rana which was pretty insane. Nevermind all that shit. FANTASTIK~!

MEN’s Teioh & Mototsugu Shimizu & Hercules Oosenga & Wolf Ozawa vs. Kota Ibushi & Makoto Oishi & Milanito Collection AT, BJW 11/26/2007

Another really good little match from the MEN’s Club crew, this stuff definitely ages better than most other spotty stuff from the era. Big part of that is the ongoing story and character of these matches, with Shinobu playing underdog, the weird kamehameha comedy bit and all the twinks bickering at each other while Teioh looks kind of embarassed to be there and just comes in to hit stiff elbows and european uppercuts. Plus, the match had excellent structure and just the right pace, so compared to how spotty current wrestling is this looks like a fucking Bret Hart match in comparison. Everybody tags in and out fast enough to do something cool and not get exposed, you have a cool Teioh vs. Ibushi face off, Onryo doing his Wolf Ozawa persona (I think there was an angle in 2007 where Onryo came back to life and became Wolf Ozawa but later died again to transform back into Onryo), there’s a good Shinobu FIP section where Oosenga hits a cool second rope elbow (yeah, I remember the second rope elbow in a spotfest! I liked that), several cool synchro dives. And the whole thing doesn’t overstay its welcome. Yeah I’m gonna go on record to say this stuff ruled.

MEN’s Teioh & Onryo & Shinobu vs. Shiori Asahi & Makoto Oishi & Hiroyuki Kondo, BJW 5/26/2006

This was one of the earliest matches of this crew, I am not sure they were going by MEN’s Club at this point but the theme of Shinobu disappointing Teioh was already present. Teioh was great here, doing a bunch of totally awesome maestro exchanges with Oishi hooking him with neat holds and sweet reversals. 3 of the guys in this were really green so they were struggling to draw reactions from the crowd (then again it was Katsura Studio), but it moved into a really good ending section that didn’t feel like overkill. I enjoyed Asahi a lot, cool underrated indy guy who has a number of unique spinning wheel kicks and enzuigiri that look painful, and Kondo is always cool to see.

2022 MOTY Project #4

 

Konaka Pale One vs. ONRYO, 666 1/10/2022

It‘s the spooky ghost vs. The spooky yoga master. No way on earth I wasn‘t gonna love this match. Onryo looked rough as hell, seemingly gassing and flubbing things, but thanks to Konaka the match still ended up being good. Indy guys like him deserve a ton of credit for mixing their more esoteric inventive offense with super solid old school wrestling. He can do both elaborate fancy stuff like the absolutely insane Asai DDT into the sukhasana pose as well as hit a really great basic knee drop, set himself up for a posting in a fun way and work a snug sleeper. Not to mention his throat chops. All in all Konakas stuff feels like the best possible cross of modern day juniors wrestling and an old US territory TV match. Konaka also did a good job selling Onryos filler legwork and making things like the figure 4 look like a struggle. Things pick up in a big way for the finishing stretch thanks to Onryo uncorking his big bombs, with Konaka getting absolutely spiked on a Tiger Driver. The ending mix of impact moves, Konakas cleverness (using a surprise corner choke to set up a springboard move was really great) plus Onryos propensity to end matches with pin combos and/or blasting his opponenent with radiation dust was super cool. And Konaka countering the Onryo clutch has to be the spot of the year. This was a bit sluggish here and there due to Onryo but if Konaka has a few more performances like this he might make a run for sleeper wrestler of the year.

Yujiro Yamamoto vs. 801 Kenichi & Yu Shimizu, Sportiva 3/9/2022

I am counting this as a handicap gauntlet match, because Yamamoto faces both opponents in matches with a 10 minute time limit right after another, and he has a pretty great performance here going 20 minutes against these scrubs. Kenichi had a lot of grappling with Kenichi not being very useful but Yamamoto being good enough to carry things. Surprisingly Kenichi had some nice suplexes and Yamamoto built some good stuff around that. Really dug Yamamotos shoulder dislocating armbars from underneath. Kenichis vader hammers were really ugly but he got tagged hard by Yamamotos kicks and open hands. Shimizu match was just a rush. I thought Shimizu was gonna suck from his flabby look and shitty opening dropkick, but he had some solid submission work, and he was game to get hit really hard. Yamamoto just bludgeons him with nasty stabbing elbows and kicks. There was this great moment where Shimizu went for an abdominal stretch and Yamamoto battered his way out of it. Great Yamamoto performance.

 

GENTARO vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa, FREEDOMS 7/9/2022

Why they had to JIP this one? What we saw was damn good. Basically Takaiwa braining Gentaro with disgusting elbows and lariats and Gentaro trying to contain him with some excellent arm attack work. Gentaro looked really good like the hair to a Nishimura type but doing his own thing. Loved all the submission attempts and his beautiful suplexes. Takaiwas selling wasn't super expressive but he sold that he was pushed to the limit and his arm was bothering him which is more than you can expect form Takaiwa. The ending turned into a Takaiwa bombfest but the actual finish was memorable with Takaiwas arm going limp on a lariat and Gentaro getting punched in the face in really nasty fashion. Last counter was a thing of beauty.

 

2022 MOTY List

WMF Marvelous Days 7th 12/27/2003

 GENTARO & Yuko Miyamoto vs. Junji Tanaka & Mineo Fujita

Junior opening match! This was JIP and I really would‘ve liked the whole thing. Junji is such a fun technician to throw into a match worked at a fast pace, really mixes it up nicely with all these athletic juniors. GENTARO is just super sharp, and he will also turn around and throw nice punches. Miyamoto was in young lion trunks here and already looking really polished and athletic. He hit a springboard diving headbutt with crazy distance and later almost killed Fujita with a brutal lariat. Fujita also looked good busting out cool flying armbars and triangle chokes. Everything looked good and they never lost a step, this gets the full indy point for these kind of fun little matches.

Yoji Anjoh & Koichiro Kimura & Ricky Fuji vs. Mr. Gannosuke & Chocoball Mukai & GOEMON

What a match up. Pretty fun stuff for the WAR 6 man-like randomness of it all. Anjoh was fun mugging and throwing punches, Kimura was stiff, Fuji and GOEMON did some cool ratboy exchanges together (did either of them ever face Yoshinari Ogawa?), and Mukai was cool trying to stand up to the shooters and putting his weird finishing hold on people. Gannosuke was basically Choshu here, just hard lariats and sharpshooters and it was cool. I was hoping for a Gannosuke vs. Anjoh faceoff but the Anjoh/Mukai finish was also pretty nice. Everything you can ask for from a random undercard 6 man.

MIKAMI & ONRYO vs. Asian Cougar & Tomoya Adachi

Spot after spot, but if you want spots, these guys will deliver pretty much the best you can get. Cougar had switched his stuff up a lot since the 90s, and he still had a bunch of crazy moves out of nowhere. Sleaze lucharesu boy Tomoya Adachi is a cool addition too and he looks good, really liked his reverse wheelbarrow hold which lead to Cougar once again flying in with a leg drop. MIKAMIs athleticism is crazy during this time, his dive looked like he just jumped from the ceiling, he also busts out a huge moonsault elbow drop, and a big swanton bomb from the top of a ladder. Ladder stuff was fun as they didn‘t take too long setting everything up and they pulled everything off. Loved all the Onryo character moments during the finishing stretch. This was a lot of fun.

GARUDA vs. Tsubasa

Garuda already had suffered a bad neck injury at this point that would cut off his career, but for a guy with a neck injury, he was pretty good in this. Very solid match. Tsubasa showed a lot of spunk, bitchslapping Garuda, taking him out with a spectacular dive, hitting a flip senton and then kicking Garuda in the face etc. He even targeted Garudas bad neck. Pretty good match although it suffered a bit from too many junior matches on this card.

Dick Togo & Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs. Kazuya Yuasa & Seiji Ikeda

Solid if a bit by the numbers heel performance by Togo & Kuroda, cutting off the two young lions. Ikeda was this pudgy guy that they were trying to turn into something, and he had pretty good fire. Kurodas stuff doesn‘t annoy me as much as usual because he is supposed to be an annoying heel here, and he even sets up stuff for Togo in nice ways here and there. Togo was the best guy in the match getting fire out of these schlubby youngsters and hitting really high end sentons. Given a bit more tenure Togo could‘ve done the impossible and amde Kuroda matches watchable on a regular basis. Young guys were kinda bland so it doesn‘t amount to anything more than a solid formula match.

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Mammoth Sasaki

This is what you buy the show for. Tenryu lowers himself to filthy WMF to teach their boy Mammoth a leason. I think I liked this more than Tenryu/Kojima, as from memory this had more awesome Tenryu moments, a bigger asskicking and young Mammoth trying to take down the legend. The opening moments had some fun tubby guys rolling on the mat moment before Sasaki decides to really go for it to which Tenryu responds by simply taking him down and torturing his bad leg a bit. However Sasaki won't let up and soon both guys are throwing punches. Mammoth decides to start the garbage brawling by taking the match to the outside to which Tenryu responds „Sure, you can have it“ and smashes a fucking bottle on his head. Tenryu keeps flinging stuff at Mammoth and really puts a WAR sized assbeating on him just kicking him in the face and pasting him with lariats over and over while Mammoth is selling all big and sympathetic. I wish the 2^nd half were a little less one sided altough Mammoth gets in a good one on Tenryu when he smashes him with the chairs (to a befuddled „He's doing this to ME?“ reaction) and he gets over big just for the amount of punishment he is able to survive before going down. 

The Library

BATOS CAFE 2/23/2020

 Manabu Hara vs. Onryo

It's BattlARTS vs. WYF baby! Just 20 years late! Onryo in his broken down old age has become a good little worker and this was a ton of fun. Opening grappling where Onryos radiation dust kept annoying Hara was really fun, and Onryo produced a nice highlight when he caught Hara in a neat pin combo. They made it clear the ghost wasn't on Haras level as a grappler but he could do hang on and maybe do something ghostly to catch the shooter. Onryo controlling by working Haras leg was a bit trite and didn't mean much. The finishin stretch on the other hand was made fun by Onryo busting out some surprisingly slick moves while Hara just tried to armbar the zombie. Satisfying match up.

SUSHI vs. Kagura

Kagura is some sleaze junior in a cheap skull mask. He seems to be decently athletic. This was a slow junior match and kind of trite. They really needed to work some decent basic opening exchanges or something. SUSHI I think has worked AJPW but he really doesn't show much at all here, and he was supposed to be the face, Kagura did all the somewhat cool things. Crap finish too.

Yasu Urano vs. Hiroshi Yamato

Wow! Surprisingly fun match. Is matwork becoming trendy on the Japanese indies now or something? I'm here for it. They honest to god did some pretty good matwork here. Urano had these neat leg stretches and takeovers and looked like he should be with the Mumejuku crew. There was also a sequence of duelling strait jacket holds that was straight out of WoS. Yamamoto looked pretty decent. They also went into a sequence of armdrags at one point that felt honest to god spontaneous and cool. The finish wasn't as exciting as they went for comedy for some reason. Still, I probably should watch more of these guys.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. GENTARO

This was all grappling, if you can get into match that is all matwork you will like this. Honestly thought the grappling here was up there with Yuki Ishikawa vs. Carl Greco. Ishikawa is a bonafide master at this stage, and GENTARO is really tenacious and matches him. They make no secret that Ishikawa is dictating things with all the awesome and unusual stuff he was doing, which makes the match. GENTARO doesn’t get to grapple often but he’s really good at it. He kept locking in hammerlocks and short arm scissors from odd angles and it made it feel like Ishikawa was facing a 50s grappler. Several amazing moments (the painful leglock battle, all the choke attempts including GENTAROs sleeper, the leglock/head and arm choke battle, the ending) and Ishikawa honestly looked like the GOAT.

Yuiga vs. Rion Mizuki vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa vs. Minoru Tanaka

On a show full of serious undercard matches, they do a weird 4 way dance where they break every other minute to drink shots. Some solid individual exchanges here, especially dig Yuiga who's such a crowbar, but everyone just did their bread and butter and you can imagine there wasn't much depth with the stipulation. I would've rather seen this run as a tag as I imagine Yuiga and pretty boy Mizuki vs. the junior vets would've been pretty cool.

THE LIBRARY

WYF Endless Shout 1/8/1998

 Watch

Shigeo Kato vs. Raging Bull

Raging Bull is some foreigner who somehow ended up working a few WYF shows around this time. This was almost like a TV studio squash with Kato working over Bulls arm for 7 minutes before tapping him out with a carny hold. Bull only clubbed his way out of Katos holds a few times and went down pretty easily. I think Kato did his job well here so I thought it was a cool little match but nothing must watch.

 

Tadahiro Fujisaki vs. Makoto Saito

Really good match which leaves you with a few realisations: 1. these two kids were insanely talented to have a random indy sleaze undercard match this good 2. damn, that's actually Fugofugo Yumeji and some dork from Dragon Gate before he went to Dragon Gate? 3. These two totally could have and should have been the Yuki Ishikawa and Daisuke Ikeda of sleazy King's Road style, but it just ended up not happening. AAAAAHHHHH it's maddening!! All that squandered potential!!! It's even worse than watching the kids in GAEA!! But, atleast I can watch this match and fantasy book an ideal fed centered around these guy propagating their own vision of brutal & intricate junior wrestling.

This match is a lot like two NOAH heavies having a really fun undercard bombfest. It's not flawless, but the potential for this to grow into something beautiful was there. Fujisaki has the cool wrist clutch suplexes and submissions and Saito brings the stiff spin kicks and hurty looking junior offense. The build to the finish was especially cool as it was like a mix of an AJPW "super finisher" and NJPW "You keep blocking this move, so I will use that to set up another move" moment.

 

Masashi Aoyagi & Cosmo*Soldier vs. Masayoshi Motegi & Azteca

Solid long match. The thing with these guys is you want them to bust out reckless highspots and have scrappy exchanges, so when they churn out a more polished match you‘re almost a little disappointed. That said Motegi proved himself an intelligent worker here. While his initial exchange with Aoyagi was not as heated as it would‘ve been in a 1993 W*ING vs. NJPW match, it was clear Motegi was trying to give Aoyagi as little space as possible to unleash his dangerous striking. Later, he decided to do some really solid backwork on Soldier to set up some cool submission holds. Everyone else was solid here but the match wasn‘t crazy or weird enough for a WYF undercard bout. Soldier had 2 good dives but he really needed to botch some moves.

Shinichi Shino vs. The Wolf

This is the Wolfs retirement match (although he would come back to work for WWS a few years later), which adds some emotional connection and heat. Shino isn‘t very good, but he can work a hard hitting match, and The Wolf gets in some nice kick barrages on him. Frantic pace and the crowd was really into it. I liked Shinos spinning Dragon Sleeper and his big powerbombs.

Onryo & Shinigami & Hirofumi Miura vs. Masakazu Fukuda & Hiroyoshi Kotsubo & Kamikaze, WYF 1/8/1998

Up to a point this was a really good 6 man tag. Everyone here is not super polished, but willing to take and dish out some punishment, so you got a bunch of fun scrappy exchanges. For example, Onryo sandbacked a Fukuda suplex early, so Fukuda just dropped him on his head. I also enjoy these hybrid wrestlers taking on these whacky zombies. Even Shinigami was entertaining as you got moments like KAMIKAZE turning his Iron Claw into a Fujiwara Armbar and then Shinigami would work over his stomach to set up the stomach claw. Even the Kotsubo/Miura section was good as Miura punched him in the face and Kotsubo would spit on him and hit a stiff spinning backhand. Control section on KAMIKAZE was really good, he got a table thrown on his head, bled a bunch, ate chain punches etc. The segment where he backdropped Onryo on top of Shinigami and then hit his spectacular Spaceman Moonsault while bleeding was incredible and like something out of a high level CMLL trios. Unfortunately the match fell apart a little when they had Kotsubo and Onryo engage in a long segment, they really needed to tag in Fukuda instead. KAMIKAZE looked great though spiking Onryo on his head and the ghoul outgrappling the guy in the singlet was funny.

The Library

The Call of the Underground #2: Underground Wrestling EXIT 9/12/2010

 Watch

 

 Kazuhiko Ogasawara vs. Kenji Takeshima

Pretty cool opening match due to both guys not holding back. Ogasawara has really violent punches and kicks, and Takeshima would eat them, take him down and pepper him with stiff elbows of his own. It's a super simple match formula but they make it work by waffling the hell out of each other and working some cool Lawler/Mantell exhausted exchanges from their knees. Dug how Ogasawara would kick Takeshima in the face to break out of submissions. Almost felt too epic for an opener.

Knight King Jully & Bomber Iwata vs. Johta & Nichiryu

Bomber Iwata has boxing gloves and I goes does a thaiboxing thing. Jully is another thick guy with MMA shorts. Nichiryu is lumpy and balding. This was pretty fun when Jota was in the ring as he was energetically trading beatings with the two guys on the opposite team. The parts where Nichiryu were okay but nothing memorable. Unfortunately he ended up being in for most of the match. Still decent amount of stiffness and no stupid ideas in their wrestling.

Mohan Dragon vs. Nyudo

Mohan Dragon is a foreigner with boxing gloves. Nyudo is a pudgy guy who wears a Fugofugo style singlet. I wonder if he has Fugos boy? This was 3 minutes of guys doing stand up and hitting each other. Dragon clearly had the feel of a guy who couldn't make his punches and kicks look all that good as he wasn't used to throwing them in worked matches. Nothing to see here really.

Toshiya Kurenai vs. Sanshu Tsubakichi

Apparently Kurenai is the EXIT Underground champion. He has MMA gloves and seems to be doing an aggressive striker thing. Aside from some fun moments of said aggressive striking this was also forgettable. Things got a bit more intense towards the end but mediocre old Tsubakichi, after falling out of the ring which could have heated the match up just fizzled out.

Tatsuhito Takaiwa vs. Kana

Fun discovery. This was worked extremely logical, basically a near squash with Takaiwa dominating most of the way and Kana only getting in desperation stuff. Some really good matwork, and Kana is really good at working this kind of match as she knows exactly how to pick her spots. Takaiwa was devastating her, even something like an elbow drop he did looked super violent, and her one big comeback where she teed off with kicks and a big punch was cool before she got her lights put out.

Fugofugo Yumeji & Jaguar Rogovski vs. Kikujiro Umezawa & Onryo

It‘s pretty cool to see Onryo in this environment. He gave a really good performance, blowing radiation dust at people and then really laying in kicks and elbows. Rogovski was a fun guy in a mask with MMA gloves who liked to throw hard punches and spin kicks, kind of working like a Toba and stand in. And Umezawa and Yumeji mauled each other something fierce once again. Goodness gracious. EXIT Umezawa continues to impress me, as he is really credible as a tough monster and he also had some fun Sumo vs. MMA feeling exchanges against Rogovski. But the thing that will stay in your mind is that horrifying headbutt Fugo lands on Umezawa. Fun main event all around.

The Library

WMF 8/28/2002

WMF was Hayabusas promotion after FMW folded. I wonder why it's not talked about more, since a promotion with lots of cool juniors, sleazy ex-FMW guys and centered around Mammoth Sasaki as heavyweight star sounds  badass, so it's time to find out by watching some shows.

Ricky Fuji vs. Curry Man vs. Seiji Ikeda

I am normally opposed to 3 way matches, however this ended up short and fun enough to be inoffensive. Seiji Ikeda was doing a super fanboy gimmick and was mostly bystanding trying to snatch fotos and autographs from the wrestlers which was pretty amusing and protected the match from the typical nonsense of 3 way matches.

Kaori Nakayama vs. Miss Mongol

We only get about 80 seconds of this as they JIP straight to the bomb throwing section of the match. Suplexes were nice, but they ended the match on a kind of crummy looking unprettier.

Flying Kid Ichihara vs. Soldier

We once again JIP to both these guy hitting their spots. This is a 2 hour show, what's with all the matches being clipped? Nothing here stood out, but I kind of dug Soldier who felt like a junior very influenced by WWF style wrestling. And Flying Kid Ichihara is a legend.

Great Sasuke & Tiger Mask IV & Dragon Kid vs Onryo & Goemon & Darkness Dragon

Really fun match which had juniors from Michinoku Pro, FMW and Dragon Gate mixing it up. These guys aren't used to eachother so they were working a more solid, less intricate match, but it was good and everyone brought something worthwhile to the table. There were also several huge dives and Dragon Kid looked good hitting all his freaky stuff. I also liked the spot Dragon unmasked himself in an Eddie Guerrero style attempt to get Kid DQ'd. The next moment they both unmasked eachother and were forced to wear their opponents hood. This kind of stuff won't win you workrate awards but it's what keeps the love for pro wrestling flowing. Sasuke looked sharp, TMIV hit some stiff blows and GOEMON & Onryo looked like good bases as well with Onryo hitting particularily huge bumps and dives. FEAR THE ONRYO CLUTCH! 

Mr. Gannosuke & Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Hisakatsu Oya & Tetsuhiro Kuroda

Most of this was these guys doing their stuff, but everyone had their working boots on so it ended up fun. Well, everyone except Kuroda, who should've been quarantined to undercard comedy tags the second he first decided to make a scene around smashing his opponents leg into the buckle. I dug Oya in this, who has such a cool sleazy grappling pseudomaster vibe. This ended up being merely an excuse for a Matsunaga run in, who came in with a barbedwire bat, then gave GOEMON a high five and stared down Hayabusa in his wheelchair. I wanted a bit more out of this but ended up being reminded of how badass Mr. Danger is.

Mammoth Sasaki vs. Garuda

Unexpectedly great indy main event. It's pretty cool to see two underexposed guys who can work step up and deliver their idea of a big match. Both guys were bumping big to get this match over, not just taking big dangerous bumps, but also bumping big for basic moves like a shoulder block. Garuda looked like he just got hit by a truck during the opening exchange and the crowd response underlines that. Meanwhile Sasaki was flying around to put Garudas dropkicks over. Between the big slams and flying they were working a pretty solid groundbased match. Mammoth has really good looking basics, really awesome body slam, huge leg drop, kicking Garuda in the spine between moves etc, while Garuda actually looked like the legit succesor to Hayabusa, hitting thudding kicks, cool submissions and flying around. The finishing stretch was probably better than the stuff many bigger name workers would do that decade. While they did a lot of big moves, there were some really cool cut offs, everything was built to, and they had people believing in a powerslam or schoolboy. Loved Mammoth powering out of a backslide too. The only sour thing about this match is the clipping which was really unnecessary on a TV show that had a 2 hour timeslot. 

 

THE LIBRARY

2002 MOTY MASTER LIST

 

Wrestle Yume Factory 1/28/1996

This was very much a  mid 90s high school gym scum indy show.

Madness vs. The Wolf 

 THE MADNESS emanates the kind of terrible fascination typical of sleaze indy wrestling. He's just a big guy with a skull mask and a green flanel shirt. His entrance theme is just gurgling swamp sounds. The match was better than you'd expect. It was pretty basic, but The Wolf will kick you really hard and THE MADNESS has a nice powerslam. Being able to do 1 or 2 moves well will get you far enough in my book and this was decent like an approximation of a  good WWF Superstars match in a japanese high school gym.

Cosmo*Soldier vs. Azteca

Azteca is the most mediocre junior in all of Japanese wrestling history, but I'd say he was decent in WYF as opposed to KAGEKI where he just got really into being the poorest mans Liger. Cosmo*Soldier  had yet to reach his peak as a botchtastic wannabe hybrid shooter junior that he would become in 1997, but he flies way into my heart in this match by hitting hilariously miscalculated dive into nothing. This really wasn't good or anything but it made me laugh.

Hiroyoshi Kotsubo vs. Hirofumi Miura

This was Hiroyoshi Kotsubo actually being pretty good. Lord knows that guy sucks working BattlARTS and Futen, but will have a good performance on the most niche shows. This was like a scrappy BattlARTS match with Kotsubo being aggressive and working takedowns on suplexes. Miura is some karate gi wearing scum who tries kicking hard but Kotsubo just eats him. This ended up just a squash, although the finish with the GI choke was badass.
  

Onryo vs. Shinichi Shino

 Shinichi Shino is a W*ING guy who it seems was struggling to find his identity at this point. He looked like a mix of several different wrestlers. Onryo at this stage is really pretty useless outside of dives and taking nasty bumps. This was mostly Shino in control and only allowing Onryo to hit his spots which is how you carry Onryo. I wouldn't say Shino was particularily good here, but he kept things moving and the match ended up short enough to be alright.

Masayoshi Motegi vs. Shinigami

Bless our lord and saviour Motegi. He tries so, so hard to get a watchable match out of Shinigami. On the other hand, he is likely responsible for letting guys as shitty as Shinigami into the business. I will respect him for shouldering the burden, though. Shinigami is terrible, but there was one nifty moment where Motegi was working over his leg and put a Figure 4 on him. Shinigami then got up, seemingly no-selling the leg work but then his leg gave right out. It was a pretty cool bit of convincing zombie-like selling. Motegi ends the match with a cool submission that was like an STF without the face lock and Motegi leaning all the way on the zombies injured leg. Also Onryo hit a dive off the balconies during this, setting the Onryo dive count on this show to 4. The match still blew, though.

Arashi & Osamu Tachihikari vs. Shinichi Nakano & Kamikaze

Shinichi Nakano has to be like the japanese Black Terry, putting in subtle great performances in the most grimy unexpected places. Problem was that he barely was in the match. He is in a great opening section - where he gets his bandaged shoulder torn up - and a great end section though. Between that, there are way too many segments involving Kamikaze. The parts were Kamikaze was controlling were terrible as he was constantly calling spots in a really obvious manner. Arashi & Tachihikari may be the least of the WAR heavyweights but they are still OK delivering a beatdown. The end was great as Tachihikari ended up bloody. Nakano delivered some nasty as fuck stomps to the cut and a running punch that was Daisuke Ikeda levels of wild. There was also a great spot where Nakano, seemingly beaten, pulled Tachihikari in position for Kamikaze to hit a surprise flying move. Nakano smashing Tachihikari in the face with a chair repeatedly for the 10 count was also way more violent than I expected  for a high school gym main event.

THE LIBRARY

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #4

Tanomusaku Toba & Super Rider & Neo Winger vs. Phantom Funakoshi & Exciting Yoshida & Yuki Nishino (DDT 12/22/1999) - GREAT

Wonderful matchup, the kind that exemplifies the charm of 90s indy sleaze. Everyone here is a unique character with their own style, and they mesh really well. Rider was in his goofy Seikendo suit and working a mix between highflyer and submission wrestler while almost knocking himself out on dives, Funakoshi a mysterious MUGAesque technician, Exciting Yoshida a goofy IWE tribute heel, and of course our boxing gloved hero Toba. Toba really is the MVP in this match potatoeing everybody and always getting the best out of everyone, when you are facing Toba you are guaranteed to get punched in the face, so everyone fires back with unusual piss and vinegar. I especially loved Nishino crushing him with sick running headbutts. Phantom Funakoshi always looks like a real worker in these matches, working fun MUGA vs. Seikendo exchanges against Super Rider and channeling Fujiwara when he was facing Toba, I’d love to see more of him. Exciting Yoshida was a bit weird, he kept trying to no-sell Toba and getting punched and spin kicked in the face, and also did a bunch of banana peel heel spots, then again he also worked a sick headbutt exchange at one point so I can’t hate the guy. There’s also more shootstyle floor brawling involving Toba and a crafty finish between Super Rider and Funakoshi. Neo Winger blew, but wasn’t in the match much. Really everything you can ask for from a match up full of random indy dudes from forgotten sleaze feds (how often do you get Nihei Gumi, Seikendo, DDT and SPWF representatives in one match?).

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI & Kengo Takai vs. Masahiko Orihara & Neo Iceman & Onryo (DDT 1/30/2000) - FUN

This had some shady guys typical of DDT at the time. Masahiko Orihara is a Masao Orihara clone in a goofy mask, and kind of wrestles like a poor mans Masao Orihara, while Neo Iceman looks like a guy who forgot his wrestling gear so he enters the ring in street clothes and a random mask they had lying around. Both guys were okay though, aside from one funny moment where Orihara went for an RVD move and fell on his head. Takai was in the rookie underdog role and kind of rough, he blew his clothesline and dropkick, how the hell can you not hit your clothesline and dropkick when you’re a japanese rookie? That said Toba had an awesome moment where he came in and worked over Neo Iceman with stiff blows, and I continue to leave young MIKAMI, he gets good exchanges out of everyone and when he’s throwing out highspots he’s just crushing dudes. Onryo was good but these two carried the show. Kind of an undercard tag with some rough and some nice moments, but I had fun.

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. GENTARO & YOSHIYA (DDT 11/30/2001) - EPIC

Great great match, a true hidden hidden gem. Even knowing that Toba can be really great, MIKAMI being pretty good around this time and GENTARO very talented, this far exceeded expectations. Mostly because the psychology in the match was super, and everyone played their role to perfection. MIKAMI comes into this with a cast on his wrist, and he does a really great almost Misawa-ish wounded ace performance here. He really sold that shit to absolute perfection, being wary of it the entire match, being unable to follow up his own moves etc. Toba is great here throwing wild strikes, and then GENTARO & YOSHIYA swoop in with a fantastic Anderson Brothersesque performance isolating Toba. These guys were really zoning in on Tobas leg, and while the legwork wasn’t sold in a major way (the main story was Mikamis wrist) it was really good and Toba got ragdolled hard, he is so tiny that even something like a Shinbreaker can be made to look brutal. Thought Gentaro looked just amazing here, and Yoshiya was fun as a Taue-ish big dude booting peoples heads off and acting like a dick. Toba punching Yoshiyas lights out was really fun, and then we get to the awesome finish. Really tremendous stuff, it’s insane how things like this fell under the rug when this kind of smart+brutal pro wrestling is a direction Japanese wrestling should’ve kept going in.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Shinjuku Shark (Apache Pro 12/30/2007) - GREAT

Shinjuku Shark is a boxer who has been working sleaze indy shows since forever. With his shaggy hair and lanky frame, he looks kinda like Tobas dad. But he never had a big run in any promotion, mostly doing sleazy shit in promotions like FMW, while Toba at least has a series of DDT main events to his name, not to mention that Shark can’t use his feet. Shark is essentially the underdog here and Toba dominates him early until Shark is able to down with him with a big surprise punch. After that it’s like the last 5 minutes of an epic FUTEN match with both guys trading big combos and Shark mostly coming back using his toughness and puncher’s chance. You don’t really expect much from a match involving two boxing gloved guys but I actually ended up wanting this to go longer.

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

IWA Japan 1/14/1997

 IWA Japan started out as basically a rehash of W*ING. Then Quinones left, and a small collective of indy wrestlers led by Keisuke Yamada was left to try and keep the promotion running. What followed was a run of supremely entertaining Japan indy TV from 1997-1999. A kind soul hooked me up with the entire season, so it’s time to watch ‘em all

Tortuga vs. Takeshi Sato

Simple but fun juniors match which would be the most entertaining bout on a random episode of WCW syndicated TV. Takeshi Sato looks like the real deal here, just destroying the poor turtle with nasty kicks, double stomps and suplexes. He also had this really cool Triangle Lancer variation. The turtle was playing a Naniwa-like role of telling some jokes but also doing some neat junior wrestling including an awesome looking flying clothesline, which is fine by me. He still did plant Sato with a nasty piledriver at one point. Full Japan Indy Point.

Chikako Shiratori & Yoko Kosugi vs. Bloody Phoenix & Miyuki Sogabe

These girls are from JD‘ and this was kind of a typical joshi fed offer match to fill up an indy scum card. It mostly was that type of joshi match where they do a bunch of half crabs and camel clutch type moves before one girl will hit 5 dropkicks in a row. They start busting out more varied offense in the second half of the match although the match never won me over, one of the girls really needed to pretend to be a crab or jellyfish for some breathing time between the spots.

Onyro vs. Akinori Tsukioka

Akinori Tsukioka was working really hard during this period. Apparently it got him nowhere so he decided to cruise control the rest of his career by assuming the Kuishinbo Kamen gimmick after leaving IWA Japan. He was rocking an Onryo imitation look which is an amusing bit of mind games. This had some fast lucharesu exchanges but Onryo is really pretty useless here. Onryo is really obviously lost between the spots and really only good for hitting dives at this point. He goes for his crazy 3rd rope dive and slips but ends up salvaging it by bouncing from the apron which was cool. But yeah, Onryo is largely useless. Tsukioka was such a good worker at this point that the match comes out watchable. He really hits a thrust kick harder than most workers would and slaps the shit out of the zombie to make up for the zombies lack of conviction.

Yumi Fukawa vs. Emi Motokawa

Emi Motokawa is Emi Sakurai and the sole girl that IWA Japan built a womens division around in this period. Fukawa wasn‘t yet ARSIONified and working a more generic style here. Fukawa really gives Motokawa the business hard, chucking her around and booting her in the face (seemingly messing up Motokawas eye at one point). Motokawas comebacks actually end up looking like hope spots against the higher ranked opponent and this ended up a really good little match.

Ryuma Go vs. Katsumi Hirano

Go~! Comes in wearing a whacky mask and a bandage on his leg! Hirano goes to town on Gos leg immediately, but Go isn‘t having it and makes Hirano eat shit with a bunch of suplexes and stiff lariats and headbutts. After this short, plain squash Go struts away to do more important things, such as fighting aliens and getting coerced into doing gay porn by the yakuza.

Great Kabuki & Leatherface vs. Daikokubo Benkei & Kishin Kawabata

Fun match with 4 lumpy dudes beating the bricks off of eachother. Kabuki was so awesome during this IWA Japan run pasting dudes with punches and thrust kicks, and he does just that here. I was also surprised by Leatherface. He had no problem getting hit hard and hitting hard and taking some way big bumps for a big man. Benkei is super limited but he can take and give some punishment. Kawabatas crowbar sentons and elbow drops ruled. There wasn‘t much of a story or structure but I will always enjoy a bunch of ex sumos and long haired weirdos trading assbeatings.

Great Kabuki & Keizo Matsuda & Keisuke Yamada vs. Takashi Ishikawa & Shigeo Okamura & Kishin Kawabata (Broken Glass Window Death Match)

This was supposed to be Matsuda/Yamada vs. Ishikawa/Okamura, but Ishikawa gets on the mic challenging Kabuki and it becomes a 6 man tag. This was a wild brawl which was made more entertaining by the tough old guy charisma of Ishikawa and Kabuki. These guys bleeding and punching and booting each other was awesome. Yamada and Okamura were working really hard here, starting with a great exchange that saw Okamura dropkick Yamada in the mouth. The brawling seemed more vicious here than usual in these Korakuen Hall brawls, there was very little of guys wandering around and dragging each other up the stairs and more guys beating on each other and throwing chairs. Yamada ends up taking the insane bump into the glass, cutting up his body, and then eating an insane neck compressing suplex from Okamura, you can tell he really wanted to put his company on the map here with his crazy Honmaesque performance. Really gritty entertaining brawl, exactly the kind of stuff people are looking for when scouring old deathmatch fed tapes. After the match Kodo Fuyuki attacks Kabuki, setting up another really exciting program (sorry, Tokyo Pro wasn't exactly a hot commodity in 1997 anymore).