Koki Kitahara Documentation Project #15

 Koki Kitahara vs. Akira Katayama, SWS 10/29/1991 - GREAT

Classic gritty SWS undercard action. Katayama rushes Kitahara to start, hitting a big tope where he connects his head to Kitaharas face and then goes to choke Kitahara with his shirt. Kitahara makes him pay dearly though. Every thing Kitahara executes on Katayama here looks like it was intended to murder. Katayama is a bit pedestrian but Kitahara kicks him in the mouth causing him to gush blood and bring some fight. Unbelievably gritty shit. The junior stuff was well executed too, but you want this for that kick and the visual of Katayamas bloody teeth.

 

Koki Kitahara & Yoshihiro Asai vs. Masao Orihara & Bestia Salvaje, SWS 10/30/1991 - GREAT

Basically 2 great pairings doing their thing. Salvaje was great here carrying Asai like mad and working some beautiful exchanges, and then you had young Kitahara and Orihara engaging in some super violent, scrappy exchanges. Orihara was almost unrecognizable and kickpadded here, aside from one nifty kip up he works like a crazy kickboxer trying to match Kitahara blistering him with kicks. The match escalated when Orihara walked over and kicked Kitahara in the face causing Kitahara in turn to almost crush Oriharas skull and spit on him. Just the kind of uncalled for violence only Kitahara can bring to a random junior undercard pairing. I also enjoyed Asai briefly putting a beating on Orihara. Orihara in turn totally smoke Asai with a massive moonsault to the outside. And man Salvaje looks tremendous here. Wrestling can be so simply and brilliant sometimes.

 

Koki Kitahara & Mitsuya Nagai vs. Naomichi Marufuji & Super Tiger 2, Fortune Dream 6/11/2018 - FUN

The non-Kitahara guys in this match are quite pedestrian, but Kitahara single handedly makes this a fun match. He's quite old and not as thick as in his prime anymore, but still a formidable bastard. He kicks people in the face and acts like a bastard. He even busts out a Shiranui to psych out Marufuji. All the Kitahara/Tiger exchanges were genuinely cool wrestling too and I wish we had some old man Kitahara in CAPTURE. He still hit that sweep kick with near perfect timing.

Koki Kitahara Documentation Project

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.

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Assorted AJPW and SWS

 

Genichiro Tenryu & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Shunji Takano & Earthquake, AJPW 1989

Absolute slobberknocker of a match, just 4 guys going all out for 10+ minutes. It pisses me off so bad that heavyweight wrestling now is just guys shoulderblocking and back and forth hitting each other a lit, because there was none of that here, and it was supremely more entertaining to watch these guys suplex and kick the hell out of each other. Shunji Takano was basically a more unpredictable, psycho version of Jumbo here, trying to cave Tenryus face in with a dropkick, suplexing Kawada across the ring, randomly busting out stiff kicks. Earthquake always looks great, and he has some brief but killer interactions with Tenryu as well as acting like a brickwall towards Kawada to add some structure points. Kawada is fun laying into the heavyweights with his kicks and taking beatings, and Tenryu is of course great in these kinda matches. Super enjoyable 15 minutes, and I appreciate that no finishers were kicked out of.

Fumihiro Niikura vs. Masakatsu Funaki, SWS 4/23/1991

I had no idea this match happened, let alone that it was filmed! And I care!! Y’know, I’m a Fumihiro Niikura fan. He was a good grappler, he had cool punches, and he had a similar scuzzy charisma to Yuki Ishikawa. Funaki completely destroys him here, though. I mean, it’s kinda what you expect, but damn. Funaki does all kinda neat stuff to turn and twist Niikura, and he hits him with some hard strikes. Niikura tries to fight back but has no answer. A german suplex, and a nifty crook headscissor/armbar combo, and Niikura is out. Fumihiro Niikura, at least you tried.

 

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Toshiaki Kawada, AJPW 10/8/1989

This was apparently the first Kawada/Tenryu singles. Pretty great rookie vs. established star match, basically the whole match was Kawada just kicking the living shit out of Tenryu and Tenryu coming back with increasingly violent retaliations. Tenryu was really great at putting over Kawadas kicks early on, flying over the guardrail and generally looking like he got his bell rung. Really liked how he broke out of a leglock and just stomped on Kawadas face before trying to break his jaw with a lariat. Kawada retaliated with some jaw loosening kicks of his own until a classic “Tenryu has had enough” moment where he kicked him in the face and folded him with a lazy but hurty looking powerbomb.

Koki Kitahara Documentation #5

 Koki Kitahara & Shinichi Nakano vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Ishinriki, SWS 4/18/1992 - GREAT

SWS style tag with Fujiwara thrown in the mix. So you have tubby juniors exchanging brutal spin kicks and lariats at a fast pace and Fujiwara throwing in some lightning fast counters and hitting the mat. The 3 young guys are really good and Fujiwaras presence adds just what this kind of undercard match needs. Ishinriki is a former sumo who works like a junior and junior who used to be a sumo is much better than junior who used to be a gymnast. He hits some big dive and also nice palm rushes and lariats. Kitahara and Nakano look good hitting the mat with Fujiwara. Highlights include Fujiwara hitting a huge Bas Rutten style body punch for a near KO aswell as trading some brutal battering ram headbutts with Nakano. Fujiwara fits really well with these energetic dudes. Apparently this match got **** from Meltzer proving he had some taste at one point. It has a few big moves and nearfalls too. 

 Koki Kitahara vs. Shinichi Nakano, WAR 5/26/1996 - GREAT

 These two are like the ultimate pair of 90s outlaw sleazebags, so I'm pretty salty about this being clipped. Still, we get a quite great pissed off 6 minute match here. Nakano comes in with a bandaged shoulder and Kitahara is such a spectacular asshole just tearing him up. Really kicking the piss out of him with stomps and kicks that don't feel held back at all. Nakanos selling is great and when he comes back he comes back like a house of fire throwing the greatest punches you've ever seen, maybe because he was trying to punch Kitaharas jaw out legit (a Shinichi Nakano documentation project may be in order). Gritty, simplistic finishing sequence built around Kitahara catching Nakano in nastier and nastier submissions. This was the stuff.

Koki Kitahara vs. Akitoshi Saito, NJPW 2/5/1993 - GREAT

You look at this match up and you go „Well, these are two guys who are not afraid to kick somebody in the face“. And that's what happens in this match. It's also NJPW vs. WAR (or Seishinkaikan vs. WAR?), so it had the kinda heat those matches have. These guys were just crushing eachother, Saito was hitting some really devastating mid kicks aswell as knees to face, and Kitahara in return kicked him in his face and bald head a bunch. Kitahara pouncing on Saito with mount punches, leaving Saito to come out with a big red spot of blood on his bald head is something that only happens in 93. The referee blew the finish a little on this one but for two mean asskickers stepping up and kicking the shit out of eachother this delivered.

Koki Kitahara vs. Tatsuo Nakano, UWFi 5/27/1996 - GREAT

Pudgy mulleted japanese dudes beat the fuck out of each other for your entertainment. Tatsuo Nakano is just the master of this kind of brutal under 10 minutes brawl, and Kitahara is Kitahara. Starts out with a pretty intense scramble to the outside. Nakano of course gets a bloody nose, hard to see where, so he gets up and fucking breaks Kitaharas nose with a knee of his own. I was surprised he may have out-stiffed Kitahara in this one. Kitahara does throw one absolutely disgusting leg kick though which Nakano sold accordingly great. Short and intense but you already knew that.

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Koki Kitahara Documentation #4

 Koki Kitahara & Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Jado & Gedo, WAR 12/8/1995 - GREAT

The kind of stuff that made WAR undercards so awesome. Kitahara is a walking terror in this, just treating Jado & Gedo like garbage. They don't even do anything in particular to upset him, he's just out for blood from the go, throwing hellacious kicks, chairs and bitch slaps like only he can. Then, after absolutely kicking Jados ass, he turns around and spits on Gedo for no reason. Just about the most "I've contempt for these guys" performance I've seen from a wrestler. Mochizuki was all reckless kicks at this point, and he is a super fun reckless kicker with a few fancy kick variations, few wrestler do this kind of minimalistic "I am really good thing" these days but it makes for a fun match up against a pair of juniors. For a pair of cheating scummy heels, Jado & Gedo know how to play a Rock'n'Roll express. They get their ass kicked a bunch until they are able to kick someone in the balls or poke their eye. Anytime they seemed on the verge of winning, Kitahara would roll in like a wall of doom to fuck them up even more. It made the eventual finish very satisfying.

Koki Kitahara vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi, NJPW 6/25/1993 - EPIC

A nice reminder why the NJPW vs. WAR feud was one of the greatest things in history. A mix of great heat and messy out of control violence. This is really pro wrestling vale tudo, two guys trying to fuck eachother up, they would go to the ground, but there would be eye gouging there and as soon as they got up they would throw kicks and headbutts again. Kitahara was just killing Kobayashi here with brutal kicks to the eye and Kobayashi holds up his own just running into Kitahara with headbutts repeatedly. The "deathmatch" rules in this were a little weird, there doesn't seem to be pinfalls and Tiger Hattori is watching from ringside like a super libre match. At the end one guy takes a series of brutal DDTs and is choked out and after lying motionlessly for what felt like an eternity they decide to stop the match. Pretty unique and stands out as one of the most brutal match endings in the feud which covers a loooooot of ground. It definitely suits something labelled a death match.

Koki Kitahara & Shinichi Nakano vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Ashura Hara, SWS 2/14/1992) - EPIC

Tubby japanese guys slap the shit out of eachother for 20 minutes. Love this because it's a really good example of how to build a lengthy match around a handful of strikes. Nakano and Kitahara are not over at all due to the SWS midcard being almost meaningless, but they give their all taking on these tanks and get the everliving crap kicked out of them.  You can tell why both these guys said "Fuck it, I'm starting my own promotion" after the nasty asskicking they receive here. Hara & Tenryu deserve some credit for selling a good deal for these middleweights while outgunning them completely. Lots of neat spots and there are some good examples on how to make basic strikes interesting by SELLING. See: Tenryu getting caught in the ear by an enzuigiri or selling Nakanos corner dropkick. Hara is also really good at taking kicks to various body parts and refusing to bump. By the end Kitahara and Nakano are basically beaten half to death. There is one great sequence where Nakano is giving everything he has hitting several dropkicks and enzuigiris only to be forced to tag back in and run on empty. Tenryu just powerbombing him is an example of no selling that works because it was done in context of the match with a set up and purpose. Kitaharas leg selling was also cool and added some direction. This is a rare match where one side never comes close to winning but still ends up being great in my book.

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