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 

Assorted Early FMW

Atsushi Onita & Lee Gak Soo vs. Mitsuteru Tokuda & Sambo Asako, FMW 6/2/1990

Early FMW was a pretty interesting promotion, like a seedier, more garbage brawling heavy BattlARTS. Here Onita tags with a crazy Korean Taekwondo(?) guy against two gi clad grapplers. Lee Gak Soo honestly looked amazing in this, his kicks were super violent and he was hitting so many pretty variations, landing his soles right in peoples faces. It felt like a fight to the death whenever he was in the ring. My boy Sambo Asako is a damn champion here once again taking violent assbeatings from Gak Soo and nasty headbutts from Onita, bleeding and getting fired up. Tokuda is a bit non descript but he does some solid throws and grappling and at one point busts out a god damn Cattle Mutilation. This thing was pretty one sided with Gak Soo and Onita mostly kicking the snot out of their opponents, so it felt like a big moment when Asako was able to hit a basic suplex. Also, the heat was off the charts. Really violent, crazy spectacle feeling, no down time, pretty much exactly what you want.

 

Atusshi Onita vs. Lee Gak Soo, FMW 5/19/1990

Not quite as violent as the above tag, but still Gak Soo axe kicks Onita in the face a bunch. Onita hits some violent throws in retaliation including a backedrop that spiked Gak Soo. All time brutal finish where Onita drops Gak Soo with an insane thunder fire bomb but the bell saves Gak Soo so Onita drops him with another in the next round.

Lee Gak Soo vs. Yukihide Ueno, FMW 5/12/1990

I expected this to be a complete squash, but Ueno (who is the future Battle Ranger) smacks Gak Soo at the bell and then downs him with some big kicks! Gak Soo comes back with a rage though and beats the tar out of Ueno with crazy punches and kicks, while doing his amusing high pitched yelling. Ueno becomes more cautious and does more grappling, including hitting some really nice throws before Soo takes off his jacket and finishes him off. Fun stuff, and impressive for even a rookie like Ueno at the time to be so proficient.

Masanobu Kurisu vs. Shooter #2 (FMW 3/10/90)

 Kurisu beats the life out of this poor sap. Shooter won't go down without a fight and gets in a nice stiff lariat and a big suplex, but Kurisu just brutalizes him. Nasty stomps galore. Kurisu nearly sprained the Shooters ankle with a nasty toe hold. Kurisu was an asskicking machine in 1990 and it was awesome.

Tarzan Goto Documentation Project #7

 

Tarzan Goto vs. Leon Spinks, FMW 3/25/1992 - EPIC

Awesome, awesome Goto performance getting a great spectacle out of the in a pro wrestling context very limited ex boxing champ Leon Spinks. First round is just Goto as an offense juggernaut, he opens by flattening Spinks with a punch to the face and then just moves in for the cool, constantly pressuring, landing headbutts to the eye, fast takedowns including an awesome plausible drop toe hold. He even hits a great dropkick and enzuigiri all while the crowd is having a meltdown for Goto. I also really dug Gotos and stance and head movement. Second round Goto continues to pressure until Spinks finally catches him with a punch. Spinks wasn‘t exactly hitting hard but him punching a grounded Goto in the face looked gritty. Goto, of course, bleeds and from then on it‘s all drama with Goto eating punches and near Kos and trying to survive. After the match Onita immediately jumps Spinks and we get a big pull apart (with Mike Awesome and Dr. Luther amongst others seconding Spinks). This was kind of a Goto as Onitas right hand man goes down to put over how dangerous Spinks is match to pave way for the bigger Spinks/Onita showdown but on it‘s own it was pretty damn great.

Tarzan Goto & Sambo Asako vs. Masanobu Kurisu & The Shooter #1, FMW 5/14/1990 - EPIC

Classic unexpectedly violent indy sleaze fest, really the best kind of match to discover when going through a bunch of random handhelds. This was really all about Kurisu and Goto trying to outdo each other by putting an even more sickening beating on the other guys partner, with both guys doing comically little to protect their own partner. Goto starts the fun by immediately opening with a headbutt to Shooters eye, then later we get Kurisu putting his trademark sickening beatdown on Asako. At one point both guys run in to the ring to stomp on the other guys partners head, later they do the same with chairs while eyeing each other. The brief Kurisu/Goto interactions are great (and probably braincell killing, these guys were maniacs with the headbutts), but the rest holds up too. Sambo Asako is a fat kid who can take some insane punishment and has fun sambo submissions and throws, and Shooter is a sleazeball shooter who doesn‘t seem to be able to control his kicks much so when he goes for a kick combo it seems more reckless. Once again Goto‘s offense was insane, he busted out an awesome German suplex, Capture suplex and even a gnarly super kick when interacting with Shooter, inbetween trying to kill guys with brutal headbutts and occasionally trying to shatter Shooters ear with a slap. Would‘ve pushed into MOTYC territory for me if there had been another Kurisu/Goto standoff down the stretch.

Tarzan Goto & Ricky Fuji vs. Atsushi Onita & Mr. Gannosuke, FMW 11/4/1991 - GREAT

Classic Goto tag where he puts a graphic beatdown on a clear underdog. In this case that is young boy Mr. Gannosuke. Even though this was presumably a houseshow, Goto beat the shit out of the kid, full on stiff lariats and chair edges to the face, and Gannosuke bled a good deal. I enjoyed Ricky Fuji here too, as he hit some nice worked punches and elbow drops to the cut. Onitas hot tags are of course super over, and I really liked the ending run with Gannosuke getting to shine a bit with some basic dropkicks and suplexes. Facebuster finish looked brutal as hell, too.

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION