Assorted Japanese Indy Wrestling

Takashi Ishikawa & Ryo Miyake vs. Yuichi Fukaya & Shigekazu Tajiri, Tokyo Pro 2/23/1995

Is there anything that says 90s sleaze like a pair of sleazy heavyweights taking on a pair of random karatekas? Judging by the way Fukaya and Tajiri try to run the ropes here, it seems neither of them have had any wrestling training, and that rules. Both of them kick hard and they have some cool spinkicks. Miyake is pretty lame but gets his ass kicked and bleeds, and Ishikawa is predictably violent in this kicking the karatekas in the face. Fun times.

Koji Nakagawa vs. Hayabusa, FMW 10/6/1998

I just had to see this match. Nakagawa is like a proto-Ogawa here. Very ratty and sleazy. I love me a good ratboy story and this was a good one. Hayabusa initially dominates the match, hitting a reckless dive and equally reckless kneelift until Nakagawa is able to catch him in a nifty backbreaker. We get a cool Bret Hart like performance from Nakagawa working over Hayabusas back - actually making the audience give a shit about things like a camel clutch. Hayabusa no sells his way back to offense, so Nakagawa says Fuck This and busts out a fork. He stabs the fuck out of Hayabusas arm and we get a full on Funks vs. Abby/Sheikh style end run peppered up with FMW style big moves. To be fair Hayabusa sold the arm work extremely well - dug that desperate tiger driver - and the last minutes of this were really good puro epic material. Seems like an extremely underrated match considering I enjoyed myself more here than during the usual late FMW era bomb throwing.

Kinya Oyanagi vs. Kazuhiro Tamura, Secret Base 3/22/2010

Exciting match on paper, which came out really fun. I was expecting some U-Style vs. T2P matwork, but instead they did more of a junior match. These are two guys who will hit hard and wrench tight holds, so they work a really cool juniors match. Tamura works over Oyanagis arm and Oyanagi works over Tamuras leg after a cool transition. Tamura completely neglects selling the leg, but he does blast Oyanagi with some stiff kicks, so I am ambivalent to his performance here. Lots of really really neat reversals in the finishing run. Especially dug all the teases of Oyanagis Octopus Hold and the flying armbar was extremely well timed. Good stuff, made me long for an extended run of Oyanagi singles matches that never seemed to happen.

Secret Base 10/20/2009

 

Kinya Oyanagi vs. Skayde Jr.

Fun opening match. I‘m guessing this is actually Skaydes kid. He wrestles like the actual Skayde but is way skinnier. Oyanagi has some cool llaves of his own and bases well for Jrs. Stuff. A cool 7 minutes.

Spark Aoki & Go vs. Kazuhiro Tamura & Masashi Takeda

Fun sleazy undercard quasivshootstyle match. Dig Takeda as a deathmatch scarred punk who will kneebar you. Spark Aoki was in the tall awkward kid phase of his career here, and he got the shit slapped out of him. Go didn‘t really impress, but he was smart enough to tag out so Aoki could drop the fall. Not a fan of K. Tamuras thigh slappiness, but his submissions are cool. Overall, a satisfying match due to the abuse of Spark Aoki.

Frank Ohashi & Ferist vs. Kamui & Mineo Fujita

Pretty forgettable indy lucharesu match. These guys aren‘t very athletic, don‘t have much personality and don‘t do anything complex. The match also went far too long at 19 minutes with way too many nearfalls for your midcard match.

Kinya Oyanagi & Satoshi Kajiwara vs. Jun Ogawauchi & Masa Takanashi

Ogawauchi is another ex T2P guy who looked pretty talented but had his career derailed by injury. The opening Oyanagi/Ogawauchi matwork section was really fun. The rest of the match was a let down as Takanashi and Kajiwara had the same syndrome as the guys in the previous match. Once again, there were too many pointless nearfalls. Oyanagi was fun doing his thing though and was the only guy who showed any personality.

Mototsugu Shimizu & Yamada Man Pondo vs. Jun Kasai & Jaki Numazawa

This was your typical plunder brawl made better by the fact that it felt like it was the two deathmatch kingpins invading Secret Base to slaughter their boys. Shimizu & Pondo bleed and showed good fire and Kasai and Numazawa are decent dickhead heels. Finishin run was rather standard but the match felt shorter than the previous one.

Bear Fukuda & Masaki Okimoto vs. CHANGO & Amigo Suzuki vs. Takeshi Minamino & Manjimaru

3 ways are pretty dumb. 3 way tags are even dumber. They realized this too and didn‘t try at all. Apparently Okimoto is RASSE but didn‘t do anything cool.

THE LIBRARY

Assorted Japanese Indy Wrestling

 

Yasushi Sato vs. Hiroshi Watanabe, Mumejuku 4/17/2019

Any new Mumejuku upload is truely a gem. It looked like there were 7 people in the audience but these guys with over 100 years combined age gave it their all. This was worked in 5 minute rounds, and, apparently 2 count rules, because why the hell not. Another really good MUGA-like match. Loved the pop they get when Sato broke Watanabes perfect bridge. Sato is starting to really look like Japans best kept secret in these matches. The is so fun busting out inventive holds, and he continues to be the king of the russian leg sweep. Loved all the old man suplexes, the lock ups, the constant struggle over a basic side suplex, Watanabe flying outside after blocking a grapevine move followed by Sato hitting a damn plancha. The burst of energy in the last round, all the pin attempts being really well done and actually mattering due to the 2 count rules… I loved Watanabes Robinson backbreakers, and the eventual back drops. Him reversing Satos finisher looked so damn awesome, I have no idea how Watanabe, a 48 year old indy worker can make me give a shit about a cool reversal more than all the wrestlers half his age having reversalfests, but he just does it. I loved this.

GENTARO vs. Spark Aoki, Secret Base 1/10/2011

Never seen Spark Aoki before, but based on the „sleazy shooter who looks to go for fancy high kicks“ act he did here, he‘s cool. This was a really fun 11 minute BattlARTS style match. A style of match that this Secret Base crowd apparently did not buy their ticket for, because they sat in silence as these two slapped the shit out of eachother. GENTARO looked like he lost his calling as a BattlARTS guy here as he looked great throwing big suplexes, busting out carny stretches and smacking the shit out of his opponent. Aoki never stood chance, but he blasted GENTARO in the face with some unexpectedly stiff kicks of his own before GENTARO shut him down hard with a series of backdrops and lariats that would've done Choshu proud. Fun times.

GENKAI & ASOSAN vs. Eisa-8 & Shisa-o (Kyushu Pro 1/21/2016)

It‘s Kyushu Pro vs. Okinawa Pro. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Eisa-8 here, for a skinny indy guy that I‘ve never heard of. All of his exchanges were very good, he worked his opponents with a certain sense of respect, avoiding tit-for-tap type exchanges, mounted some neat comebacks and hit a big dive. And GENKAI and ASOSAN basically work this like an indy Steiner brothers suplexing him hard and landing nasty kicks and punches. Shisa-o is GAINA and solid as a beefy fatboy with a nice elbow drop. It was a bit of a baffling choice to work this with the Okinawa Pro guy as FIP in front of a Kyushu Pro crowd but the match was good.