More from Cosmo Soldiers YouTube channel

     Cosmo Soldier & Tadahiro Fujisaki vs. Takeshi Sato & Yuji Kito, WYF 1998/3/15

Wrestle Yume Factory is one of my favourite promotions ever. WYF undercard matches like this are like pro wrestling in a lawless wasteland. There is a hearty dose of BattlARTS/WARish violence, general anarchy and an infusion of raw spirit that you don’t find like this often. It’s chaotic and glorious. This goes 15 minutes so they have some time. The first half of this was a lot of tight headlocks and groundwork, guys trying to ground each other but explosions did happen. Takeshi Sato who is IWA Japan scum is the first to really start the shenanigans as he lays with kicks hard as a brick into people. He goes for something like a dropkick or a high knee that lands awkwardly and his first instinct is to kick the other guy really hard again. Pro wrestling is a struggle against yourself as much as your opponent. Cosmo Soldier is likely here to just kick someone in the ear to get out of a hold, or dropkick them flush in the face. His dropkicks looked amazing and he is spirited trying to grapple it out with a kickpadded adversary. There’s hardly any rope running here and it makes the whole thing resemble a more serious wrestling match in the vein of BattlARTS. What these guys lack in polish they make up tenfold for by sheer willingness to bring the fight. Takeshi Sato continued to be a fiend here, randomly hitting one of the hardest enzuigiris I’ve ever seen to Fujisakis skull. Later Cosmos leg randomly gives out on him (element of chaos) and Sato would swiftly punish him by just landing this immensely beautiful and cruel high kick to his head. Fujisaki was pretty surely and great here too, working really solid early on, cinching headlocks, grabbing half crabs and leaning back hard, later uncorking his trademark hard headbutts, uncontained open hand strikes and lariating Sato straight in the face for all his sins. His turnbuckle headbutt spot looks so brutal, literally every member in the front row had their mouths open from amazement with how he drove into his skull into another persons face. Cosmo also had one of his finer days besides his leg giving out. I loved how he just absolutely spiked Sato with a uranage. Sato, of course, rolled out the ring to clutch his aching neck, and Soldier immediately followed up with a big dive. Nice and spontaneous, everyone here was living in the moment. Kito was sticking to fairly basic stuff at this point and he’s solid, his big spot was a double knee drop off the top that looked pretty hurty, and took a back-hitting headbutt from Fujisaki and got spiked on his neck by his big suplexes like a champ. Second half of this match is just a frenzy with guys trying to knock the soul out of each other, everything having maximum force and violence. Random spin kick from Takeshi Sato? Yeah, looked like it made the other guy reconsider his life choices immediately after taking it. Soldier going for his big cancun tornado? Yeah, this might as well kill the guy. At one point Fujisaki, when breaking up a submission made sure to really dig his foot into the other guys face before stomping like he was trying to crack a particularily tough walnut. Nothing held back, just for this small gym audience and a lone camera filming this to end up in storage and somehow on YouTube 28 years later. Comparing a match like this to something like Flair/Steamboat would be like comparing Cannibal Corpses A Skull Full of Maggots to the Moonlight Sonata. But sometimes I wanna listen to Cannibal Corpse. I love my Wrestle Yume Factory and this delivered hard.

Kishimen vs. Kuraudo Kondo, KAGEKI 2009/2/15

Who is this mysterious Kishimen? Perhaps Cosmo Soldiers cousin from another dimension. Online sources tell me Kuraudo Kondo is a student of Masashi Aoyagi. That might mean that he took a karate class of Aoyagi once when he was a teenager, or it might be the truth. Kondo looks like a UWF fighter, and he actually fights like a student of Aoyagi, e.g. he kicks a lot and he kicks really really hard. This is also in a kickboxing ring so you know any fall in that ring hurts like hell. Kishimen takes him down to hit a really hard elbow to his face. A not-clean break later Kishimen waffles Kondo some more with open hand hits and then absolutely spikes him with a shootstyle-DDT on his head in that unforgiving kickboxing ring. This causes Kondo to have enough of Kishimen and just starts kicking the absolute shit out of him, absolutely not holding back on any of his kicks, and slamming him right in the middle of that unforgiving ring. Kishimen takes back over with a damn abdominal stretch and it’s all awkward violence from here on. Kondo continues to hold absolutely nothing back on his kicks and I’d like to see more of his short career. Kishimen flies ass-first into Kondos face twice in this match, at first it seemed like an accident, but the second time you fully understand this man was trying to break his opponents face with his ass. Kishimen ends up cranking the nastiest chickenwing crossface I’ve ever seen for the tap. If the previous match was A Skull Full of Maggots then this is like Last Days of Humanity or Rompeprop, or your little brothers band sloppily covering Carcass or Autopsy where the singer loses his voice halfway into the song and just starts screeching… eitherways, still pretty enjoyable violent chaos.

Cosmo Soldier & Raging Bull vs. Tadahiro Fujisaki & Shigeo Kato, WYF 1/23/1998

The WYF streak continues. This starts with all these guys working holds and hitting the mat, and it has the vibe of something like a MUGA match but with that rugged WYF charm. Looking at this match is like looking at a wrestling fractal, you see deeper and deeper flourishes and details even in usually mundane things as all these guys have a unique way of doing things, and sometimes will bust out things that no one else would think of doing such as the slick entry into a stepover armbar Cosmo does here to get out of a sleeper hold. There’s some genuinely slick stuff going on between Fujisaki and Cosmo, but a big part of the fascination is that these guys might just pop each other in the mouth in totally uncalled for ways or suddenly kick someone in the face to get out of a hold. Really exploring how you can break submissions in painful ways, either by driving our own foot in someones face or having your partner come in and dropkick them right in the skull. Kato is all about ratty old school ways to hurt opponents, and doing things like randomly squeezing a cravate really hard. Raging Bull is this odd guy from Texas who somehow ended up getting trained at the WYF dojo, he’s unspectacular in the sense that he will tag in and just hit some elbow drops, but he’s kind of likable as he realizes he needs to make this stuff look urgent, so he doesn’t dull things. As always with these matches the first half is ground-based and solid peppered with guys potatoeing each other in uncalled and unpredictable ways. There are some hard Fujisaki headbutts, but things really start kicking when Cosmo breaks out of a hold by kicking Kato in the head, following with a sick enzuigiri also to the head and then absolutely spiking him with sick uranage before stubbornly trying to snap his arm. Things really get cooking in the last 7 minutes or so with all kinds of awesome scrappy action and details. You get chaotic and wild, such as Cosmo eating some reckless face stomps from Fujisaki only to grab onto his wrist and slingshot him across the ring, really making the absolute most of ‘I need to get this guy to my corner’ in an unconventional way. There are more violent submission breaks, Kato wincing in pain after taking a basic double axe handle to his bad shoulder and deciding to absolutely spike Cosmo with some mean piledrivers. The finishing run ends up being Cosmo vs. Fujisaki and it’s pretty much 3 minutes of gold. Loved how Fujisaki would stop a charging Soldier by just grabbing on to his face then headbutting him right between the eyes, then almost knock his head off with one of the hardest lariats I’ve ever seen. There’s also this amazing moment where Cosmo tried to reverse into a Fujiwara armbar, Fujisaki would stomp on his ankle really hard and Kato came in at the same time just obliterating him with superkick to the face, then Fujisaki would dump him with these awesome Otsuka-esque deadlift suplexes. Just a multitude of awesome things happening at once, and it made for a really exciting finishing run built on the solid build up of this match. Also gotta love Cosmo for being able to pull off something genuinely impressive like a big leaping rana or cool jumping kick despite all his flaws. He ended up pulling off something chaotic for the finish too and that rules. Another chapter in the book called Why Wrestle Yume Factory Was Awesome And I might Name My Three Children Cosmo Soldier, Tadahiro Fujisaki and Raging Bull

Cosmo Soldier vs. Koji Niizumi, KAGEKI 7/22/2017

I am always interested in Koji Niizumi. From what I’ve seen, he’s just this crazy hard hitter who makes people cry for their momma. To my surprise though, Cosmo Soldier was the unhinged one here. He was laying into Niizumi full force constantly, smacking him in the face, bending his legs at nasty angles with cool and unusual submissions and landing some of the hardest stomps you’ll ever see. Cosmo Soldier was so hellbent on trying every evil idea he could come up with here it made me long to see Niizumi tee off a bit more, so when he does it’s really satisfying. When it was time to give the beating back Niizumi was hitting Soldier with elbows and lariats that looked like they would take years off someones life. It built to some fine fine moments of really violent and fun pro wrestling. It seems Cosmo had overreached at the end and gassed himself out leaving him open for Niizumi to kill him off with an elbow that looked harder than the one Misawa knocked out Hansen with. A well earned victory in this title match that deserved that name. I really wish I could see more of Niizumi but until then these rare appearances of him are gems.

IWA Japan NEW YEAR LEGEND 1/17/1999

 Masanori Nakamura vs. ???

Yuki Nishino & Asian Cougar & Phantom Funakoshi vs. Takashi Uwano & Yuji Kito & Tortuga

Akinori Tsukioka & Kyohei Mikami vs. The Great Takeru & Makoto Saito

Miho Wakizawa & Sachie Nishibori vs. Emi Motokawa & Kayo Noumi

Shigeo Okumura & Keizo Matsuda vs. Masao Orihara & Takeshi Ono - GREAT

Tarzan Goto & Freddy Krueger vs. Katsumi Hirano & Yoshiya Yamashita - FUN

Barbed Wire Baseball Bat Thumbtack Death Match: Mr. Pogo & Shoji Nakamaki vs. Keisuke Yamada & Takeshi Sato

Another super fun IWA Japan card. The first 4 matches were pretty clipped, but they gave you pretty much what you want, all the fun juniors in those matches busting out sometimes inventive and often crushing offense. My boy Yuki Nishino looked good stomping the crap out of the IWA Japan boys in the 6 man tag, and the other juniors tag was also really fun. Mikami got a bloody nose from a Saito kick, and Tsukioka would potatoe guys with chairs. Junior wrestling really is better when the guys look like they are actually trying to do damage to each other and not run through a routine of elaborate sequences to get brownie points from an audience.

The last 3 matches all had blood - IWA Japan rules, baby. Really liked the Tonpachi Guns, as they have a knack for mixing in unpredictable sequences while keeping the sleaze level high. Takeshi Ono is a treasure in that match kicking and punching people in the face and sometimes in the nuts. Okamura and Matsuda are good enough as thick guys pasting their scrawny opponents with lariats and it ends up a fun match that sadly doesn’t have a finish.

The Goto match was 23 minutes clipped down to about 10. Probably a wise decision, but what was shown looked very good as it was a total slaughter of Hirano and Yamashita. Both guys got busted open and I imagine all their offense was clipped out. Freddy Krueger did almost nothing in that match, which is a good thing as Tarzan Goto is just great as a monster punching and stabbing the shit out of people.

The main event was also really fun, although nearly a squash. Pogo & Nakamaki are like the Road Warriors in that – here to beat the fuck out of the young guys, and not selling shit. It ends up being a really fun match due to the underdog charisma of Yamada & Sato and the character work of Nakamaki and Pogo. At one point Nakamaki stuck his own face in the thumbtacks to prove that he doesn’t give a shit, and later Yamada took a nasty suplex into the tax, coming up looking like a christmas tree. But the story was how long would Yamada and Sato last, and the answer is not very long.

THE LIBRARY

IWA Japan CRAZY CIRCUS 6/24/1998

 Yoshiya Yamashita & Yuji Kito vs. Hidetomo Egawa & Hiroki Araiwa

About 2 minutes of a bunch of black trunks rookies punishing each other with slaps and tight holds. Yamashita is the most experienced so he gets to wear green trunks and pick up the victory with a northern lights suplex.

Chikaru vs. Sachie Nishibori

10 minute match clipped down to about 3 minutes of spots. Chiharu is an SPWF idol girl and always looks pretty untrained. Her form is really off. Nishibori looks good and picks up the win with a completely botched pin combo.

Akinori Tsukioka & Takeshi Sato vs. Asian Cougar & Tortuga

The IWA Japan equivalent of a WCWSN lucha matches. Just these guys rolling out highspots for 7 or so minutes, with enough stiffness sprinkled in to make me give a shit. Tsukioka hits a moonsault to the floor on a prone Asian Cougar who is covered with chairs. Cougar hits all his brutal leg drops and takes the cake with an absurd tope con hilo. Sato kicks hard and dumps people with suplexes. And even Tortuga potatoed somebody with a stiff low kick at one point. All was right in the world.

Masao Orihara vs. Great Takeru

This was an utterly insane, blood drenched spectacle. Orihara looked really great here, taking one of the craziest bumps I've ever seen, and ripping Takeru's mask and kicking him in the face, and generally doing a massive feat holding this together. His selling was fucking crazy too as he was selling the blood in a way that you fought someone was really about to die here. Match also had a bunch of awkward painful high end junior offense, stiff powerbombs and neck compressing suplexes and all that.

Keizo Matsuda & Katsumi Hirano vs. Freddy Krueger & Ichiro Yaguchi

This was very clipped down. There was blood and some brawling. My one complaint is they didn't clip it down enough.

Sayuri Okino vs. Emi Motokawa

I don‘t think I‘ve seen Okino in a singles match before. Judging by her perfomance in this match, she is a pretty limited and sloppy worker. This had some moments but was probably the weakest Emi singles match so far.

Great Kabuki & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Shigeo Okumura & Keisuke Yamada

Yatsu and Kabuki join forces! This was 19 minutes clipped down to 10. As a result the match felt fast paced but a little lacking in calories, if you catch my drift. Yatsu did his thing and Yamada and Kabuki beating on each other was fun. Okumura was involved in the finish and he isn‘t as cool, although I loved Kabuki thrust kicking his jaw out.

 

THE LIBRARY

IWA Japan GET THE GLORY & FUTURE TRIAL 4/29 & 5/18/1998

 4/29

Perseus & Hidetomo Egawa vs. The Great Takeru & Akinori Tsukioka

Emi Motokawa vs. Chihiro Nakano

The Great Kabuki & Arashi vs. Keisuke Yamada & Shigeo Okamura

I'm an IWA Japan fan now, because every IWA Japan card is great in it's own unique way which can not be expressed in conventional measures of quality, this being an outdoor show in front of a picturesque setting just being the icing on the cake. This was a nice three-piece, as you had the junior opener, which was basically all these guys throwing a slew of big moves and occasional BattlARTSian intermission touches from Egawa including hitting some huge belly to bellys which you do not expect from a tiny insignificant guy like him. Perseus (a guy the internet knows nothing about), for a guy who is all about Dragon Suplexes and Triple Powerbombs and all that also hits a really great powerslam. It's all pretty senseless and really fun.

Motokawa/Nakano was a shockingly good match, everything you can hope for from sleaze indy undercard girl wrestling. Nakano is former GAEA and a kickpadded alternate universe Satomura. She almost KO's Motokawa with her opening barrage and from then on it's on. Everything she does is either a nasty kick or a cool shoot submission. She rules, and why have I never heard of her? Motokawa likes to indulge in silly spots but straightens herself out her after getting kicked in the face 3 or 4 times and starts dropping Nakano with suplexes that would do Otsuka proud. They don't indulge in too many nearfalls and I am left thinking the world needs more of this mysterious Chiharu Nakano.

The main event was a stupidly good sleazy WAR battle with Arashi basically walloping everyone with stiff lariats all the time and not bumping ever and crusty old Kabuki ruling it doing you know exactly what, hitting the worlds greatest punches and superkicks. Yamada basically gets the shit beaten out of him and eats the fuck out of every lariat and superkick he gets, just drilling himself into the mat with enthusiasm. Okamura is pretty blah but he and Yamada are EAGER and Kabuki is totally carrying this by bumping like a motherfucker and getting chairs chucked in his face and making me give a shit for his nerve hold AGAIN. He teases the fist drop and eats a flying lariat in a sequence that wasn't athletically impressive or anything but awesome in context of the match. I was totally a Kabuki fan before getting into IWA Japan, but seeing him crusty, old and broken down as an improbable but determined company ace who throws fists and gets spin kicked in the face is an enlightenment.

 

5/18

The Great Takeru vs. Perseus

Keisuke Yamada & Takeshi Sato vs. Shoichi Ichinomiya & Tomohiro Ishii

The Great Kabuki & Gran Hamada vs. Keizo Matsuda & Takashi Okamura

Not as good as the 4/29 card, but still really fun indy action. Takeru/Perseus was the same deal as usual, hit all your big spots for pops and be done with it, but they actually seem to be gaining a bit in polish. The Ishii match was a motherfucking Ishii match, as Tomohiro Ishii – dressed in improbable 90s colors – throws down chucking chairs and kicking the lowly IWA Japan punks in their faces. All the Ishii interactions were gold as he gets the boys to show some piss and vinegar, nasty headbutt exchanges and kicks to the spine ensue. Some gritty legwork is there aswell, with using the old Jumbo kneebreaker over a table/chair and it's all great. Ichinomiya is a future comedy character and you can tell he is not very good at the pro wrestling. Funny moment where Ishii tries the spot from his future Shibata matches where he puffs his chest after getting kicked by Sato and Sato just flattens him. Atta boy! Now I need more 1998 Ishii too, god dammit.

The main event was as fun as it sounds on paper, with Hamada working fun sequences and hitting big high spots, and Kabuki again in the sleaze Tenryu role. Matsuda & Okamura are quite suck ass and bland, but they do a decent job ripping up Kabuki's leg and isolating the vets hitting some double teams. Match went quite long and they kept it interesting and I would've liked to see the thing in full. Best moment of the match was easily Kabuki kicking Matsuda in the face and decking him with punches from let and right.

 THE LIBRARY

IWA Japan SPRING BREEZE 3/13/1998

 

Takeshi Sato & Tortuga vs. Cosmo*Soldier & The Great Takeru

Masao Orihara & Hidetomo Egawa vs. Perseus & Akinori Tsukioka

Benkei Daikokubo & Katsumi Hirano vs. Nuruka & Shinigami

Sumie Sakai vs. Emi Motokawa

Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda & Shigeo Okumura vs. The Great Kabuki & Ryuma Go & Tarzan Goto

 

Well I'll be damned, because this was a damn cool little card where every match delivered something worthwhile. Well, except that tag with Benkei and Shinigami maybe - aaaahhh let's not talk about it! The opener was a cool little junior's match which they totally should not have clipped. Cosmo Soldier always adds a sense of unpredictability even to standard opening exchanges. He will hit a stiff dropkick and then start working mount and then hit an insane tope con hilo, all in the span of 90 seconds. Same for the 2nd match, which had some nice hate filled exchanges and sleaziness. The semi main event was like the perfect 90s match to put on a VHS comp - just one nifty move after another. Also, impeccable fashion sense that both girls displayed! Color combinations like this will never come back. Wrestling in 1998 was a blast.

 

Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda & Shigeo Okumura vs. The Great Kabuki & Ryuma Go & Tarzan Goto - EPIC

Leave it to a bunch of sleazy dudes and old geezers to have one of the funnest bomb throwing sprints of the year. You know any match with Tarzan Goto & Ryuma Go in it is pure money. If you don't, I hereby decree it. I was expecting a wild brawl, but they mostly stay in the ring and stick to the all star team of Tarzan/Go/Kabuki waffling the shit out of the sleaze greenhorns. Matsuda & Okumura aren't all that great, but that DOES NOT MATTER because they were here to get punched in the face and kicked in the throat a whole LOT. The exchanges between Goto & Yamada were insanely gory and easily the highlight of the match. I also unexpectedly loved Kabuki, who is supposed to be way over the hill and corpse-like at this pound but still BRINGS it - by doing what he always did: throwing punches and thrust kicking dudes really hard. I can't believe people widely don't like this dude - even his nerve hold was awesome! He was KILLING the poor guy with that nerve hold. I imagine if this had a grand stand exchange between Goto & Yamada at the end or something this would have been near all time level, but as it stands it was basically 3 badass vets waltzing in to kick the shit out of anyone and it kind of ruled. Also, do not watch this match if you dislike lariats, because this had about 30 of em.

THE LIBRARY

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

IWA Japan WELCOME THE WORLD CHAMPION TOUR '97 10/27/1997

 Yuji Kito vs. Yoshiya Yamashita 

Emi Motokawa vs. Sachie Nishibori 

Tigre Oriental vs. Tortuga
Freddy Krueger vs. Katsumi Hirano

Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda & Takeshi Sato vs. Akinori Tsukioka & The Great Takeru & Perseus

Leatherface vs. The Great Kabuki

Another strong late 90s IWA Japan card. Opener was solid, girl match was pretty fun. I think I prefer IWA Japan girl undercard matches over AJW undercard matches at this point since they don‘t do things like hitting three dropkicks in a row for no reaosn. Nishibori looked good in that match hitting swank ranas and whatnot. Tigre Oriental is a guy who is listed as only working Japanese indies like KAGEKI and watching the match I couldn‘t tell if he‘s a backyarder, a Japanese guy who attended a training camp in Mexico, or just a really shitty luchador. He takes about 80 % of the offense in the match but Tortuga still gets the biggest pops with his rope walk comedy spot and a way too sick flip dive to the floor for a semi-comedy guy in a goofy costume.

The 6 man tag was really good. Mostly basic, but tight and fast paced action. Takeshi Sato and Tsukioka were the best guys in the match, Sato hitting stiff kicks and working fun semi-shootstyle exchanges, including dropping Perseus on his head with an out of nowhere Capture Suplex, and Tsukioka being really energetic kicking dudes in the eye. The match went 22 minutes with no letdown and they didn‘t clip once which I appreciated. Kabuki/Leatherface was also really fun, just two big long haired dudes flying into the furniture and pasting each other with punches.

Daikokubo Benkei vs. Dan Severn

What a weird main event. Benkai is big and can push Severn into the ropes, but looks completely out of his depth. Severn mauls him, bloodying Benkais eye, and about 5 minutes into this Benkai taps out. Severn is really good at these savage fights, but even knowing how shitty Benkai is I was hoping he would take it to Severn at least a little. 

 

THE LIBRARY 

IWA Japan 8/8/1997

Keizo Matsuda vs. Keisuke Yamada

Keisuke Yamada comes in with a shaved head. Maybe this match was to apologize for their weirdly blundered main event 2 months before? This match was a lot better though and a great opener. Started fun with some tight grappling before both guys start smacking the shit out of each other. Yamada was certainly starting to look really good at this point. Although they clipped a 19 minute match in half, but what we got was really fun.

Yuji Kito vs. Hidetomo Egawa

Great 7 minute match of two black trunks rookies slugging the hell out of each other. Really not holding back on their slaps and elbows, both guys uncorking some big suplexes. Egawa looks like the real deal here and I'm sad he disappeared early. Kito is non-descript but he hits back and gets dropped on his head with the best of them. Finish was great as Kito hits a big knee drop to Egawas spine, Egawa makes the rope on the boston crab attempt but Kito just pulls back and nearly bends him in half.

The Great Takeru & Tortuga vs. Hiroyoshi Kotsubo & Kamikaze

They pretty much clipped this down to the highspots, which I'm okay with, since Kotsubo is useless. Kamikaze looked good here hitting an awesome tubby guy asai moonsault, Takeru didn't embarass himself, and Tortuga may have been the funnest guy in the match. He hit a cool springboard back senton (that Kotsubo completely failed to catch), some nice flying clotheslines and a great splash that looked more hurty than anything sloppy ass Takeru hit.

Akinori Tsukioka vs. Masao Orihara 

Great start to this as Orihara kicks Tsukioka in the face hard before going Steve Austin on him with chairs. Unfortunately a video glitch happens and the rest of the match remains a mystery. Shame shame shame, I hope Samurai TV will reair this card in the next 40 years because this was looking great.

 
CULT HEROINE MAJOR CHALLENGE: Emi Motokawa vs. Aja Kong

Half of this was also eaten up by that glitch. We do get to see Motokawa getting some token nearfalls before Kong crushes her with neck spiking suplexes and a big splash. Too bad because I as looking forward to this.

BRAND NEW HERO BIG CHALLENGE: Takeshi Sato vs. Kodo Fuyuki

Man, I could watch Fuyuki do high pitched yelling and beating the crud off of a sucker all day long. Really fun match with Sato hitting hard kicks from odd angles and Fuyuki just creaming him.

Jado & Gedo vs. The Black Hearts

It's the Black Hearts!! The masked guys did okay, but on a card where every match has been stiff and exciting so far this really didn't stand up to the level. It just kind of went along, and while Jado and Gedo probably got a kick out of working a pair of gaijins they deserved more exciting opponents.

Elimination Match, Super Extreme Monster Rumble: The Great Kabuki & Benkei Daikokubo & Katsumi Hirano vs. King Kong Bundy & Leatherface & Freddy Krueger

This was a fun gimmick where the team members come into the match after a certain time. This needed a bit less guys leaning onto eachother doing choking and more crazy brawling and blood, although I did love King Kong Bundy who was super fired up. He even picked up the win with an Argentine Hold on poor useless Hirano. That was about the most memorable thing to happen in this match. IWA Japan was in kind of a weird state at this point as the undercard matches are always more fun than the main events, but I'm sure they'll get out of the rut as soon as they figure out  Hirano and Benkei are useless.

THE LIBRARY

IWA Japan CRAZY CIRCUS & AGGRESSIVE WARRIORS

 6/25/1997

Tortuga vs. Yuji Kito

 Kito debuts with the Yuki Ishikawa wrestling shoes and white socks look. This was decent and mostly the turtle doing his thing. Tortuga hit some nice kicks. The referee also continues to amuse by doing a Tiger Feint Kick and a very pretty flying headscissor.

Emi Motokawa vs. Sachie Nishibori

Motokawa gives Nishibori the business with stiff dropkicks and thrust kicks. This was clipped down and made to look pretty much like a Motokawa squash although Nishibori hits one smooth rana.

The Great Takeru & Akinori Tsukioka vs. Masao Orihara & Hidetomo Egawa 

Another clipped match mostly narrowing it down to their highspots. These guys have cool highspots though, especially enjoy Tsukiokas Cancun Tornado. The best spot was Tsukioka going for a diving headbutt only to land face first on Oriharas outstretched legs. Egawa always looks impressive in these matches for a guy with very little experience.

Benkei Daikokubo & Katsumi Hirano vs. Takeshi Sato & Kamikaze

This was clipped down to almost nothing and I'm completely fine with that. Benkei  and Hirano blow.

Leatherface vs. Freddy Krueger

Freddy Krueger debuts, along with the mysterious whip-carrying lady! They engage in some baffling scientific wrestling to start with Leatherface hitting a Dragon Screw on Freddy. This doesn't last long as the match is taken to outside the ring with some rather standard brawling before Krueger wins the match in rather bafflingly easy fashion. Well, this wasn't exactly an epic clash of legendary horror monsters.

The Great Kabuki & Tommy Rich & Terry Gordy vs. Kodo Fuyuki & Jado & Gedo

I would have liked to see more of this. The Kabuki/Rich/Gordy team is super lumpy and old, but Rich still looks spry here. He throws some nice punches, bleeds big and even flings himself over the top rope. He was also wearing these really amazing colorful tights. The only thing we saw Gordy do in this was hit a stiff lariat. And Fuyuki Gun is Fuyuki Gun. They really brought in these guys just to clip the match down to 4 minutes!?

Keizo Matsuda vs. Keisuke Yamada 

Bit of a weird choice for a main event, but these guys were payrolling everyone else, so I guess they get to play big time. Matsuda is questionable but Yamada is really good, and this had some nice stiff exchanges and big bumps for a couple green guys. Matsuda wins with an avalanche spinebuster and that kind of rules, although it seemed Yamada was shoot KO'd taking the bump. The audience was certainly baffled with this being over after a mere 8 minutes.

They also showed highlights of the following on this TV episode:

7/5

Keisuke Yamada & Akinori Tsukioka vs. Masao Orihara & Hidetomo Egawa
Leatherface & Freddy Krueger vs. Benkei Daikokubo & Katsumi Hirano
The Great Kabuki & Keizo Matsuda & The Great Takeru vs. Kodo Fuyuki & Jado & Gedo

7/6

Keisuke Yamada vs. Yuji Kito

Emi Motokawa vs. Sachie Nishibori

Benkei Daikokubo vs. Dr. Luther

The Great Kabuki & Keizo Matsuda vs. Kodo Fuyuki & Gedo 

These were mostly wayyy to clipped down to assess, although Fuyuki Gun once again looked very good in their matches with all their cool cut off spots. Great Takeru blew stuff even in the clips.

THE LIBRARY

IWA Japan 3/3/1997

Emi Motokawa vs. Mima Shimoda

Rookie vs. Veteran match that exceeded expectations, considering it could’ve been just a worthless squash. But they actually managed to construct a logical match that was highly entertaining. I watched a ton of shitty Shimoda matches in ARSION, but this was a nice reminder that she was really good at one point. She really gives Motokawa the business here booting her in the face and waffling her with chairs. Motokawa looks spunky and gets a big rub going 15 minutes against Shimoda in a match with hardly any let down.

Metal Face & Katsumi Hirano vs. Crusher Takahashi & Shigeo Okamura

Metal Face is just a skinnier version of Leatherface with some tinfoil on his mask. Was he a young Japanese guy, or just a boy from the States getting a small break in Japan? His wrestling was quite harmless and un-serial killer like. Then again, he was no Leatherface. He did leapfrogs and powerslams and dropkicks and what not. This was perfectly average wrestling, which only went too long at 16 minutes length. 3 out of 4 of these guys really don’t have the kind of offense needed to make such a long match worthwhile, and even Crusher Takahashi can’t salvage a match by his own when he’s tangling with the likes of Metal Face and Katsumi Hirano.

Tortuga vs. Akihiko Masuda

This was clipped down and almost exactly like their previous match. The ref hit a suicide dive. Masuda doesn’t hit any stiff kicks, making himself even less interesting. He really needed to become the Great Takeru at this point and just be mediocre with a mask instead.

Akinori Tsukioka vs. Onryo

Another very clipped down match. Tsukioka tries hard to make this good, suplexing Onryo into chairs to begin and then hitting a swank Moonsault from the bleachers. Onryo however may have been at his worst here. He blew several spots including the finish, and he is just so awkward when controlling the match. To make things worse he did such a bad dust throwing spot the crowd started laughing.

Jun Kikawada vs. Chotaro Kamoi (Rounds)

Jun Kikawada has kickpads and MMA gloves. Kamoi is a sleazy boxer. This was worked MMA fighter vs. Boxer, went about 1 round + 2 minute and consisted mostly of Kikawada taking down Kamoi with judo sweeps before sitting on him and lightly punching him. Really a nothing match although the finish with the towel being thrown in as Kikawada had Kamoi in the STF and Kamoi acting upset about it like fucking Chotaro Kamoi won’t give away a clean victory was amusing.

Kishin Kawabata vs. Takeshi Sato

Classic Japanese wrestling unprofessionalism, the reason why one watches these sleaze shows. Takeshi Sato comes out trying to stiff Kawabata and Kawabata just delivers him a brutal mauling. It’s just a nasty trashing from there, Sato gets his bell rung with open handed strikes and almost gets his chest crushed by Kawabatas knee drops. He mounts a small comeback hitting another potatoe kick of his own and trying a half crab, but Kawabata just muscles out and nails him with a deadlift piledriver. Short match (6 minutes) that I’m sure Sato wished was shorter.

Takashi Ishikawa & Shunme Matsuzaki vs. Keizo Matsuda & Daikokubo Benkei

This is a rough looking match up on paper, but it way over delivered. Shunme is my boy Kazuhiko Matsuzaki, and almost immediately he brains Matsuda hard with chairs. Matsuda ends up bloody and getting kicked in the face a bunch. Ishikawa had a good night, potatoeing people like it’s 1992 again. Matsuzaki also has great looking stomps. I like how Benkei got the hot tag, then did a splash, a lariat and a boston crab and then tagged in Matsuda who was pretty beat up again, “I did all my moves, now it’s your turn”. Benkei was quite fun here though as a tough big guy absorbing punishment and hitting lariats and splashes. I loved how big of a heel reaction Ishikawa got by clocking Matsuda with a chair. In IWA Japan of all places! After the match Ishikawa and crew continue beating down on Matsuda 5 on 1 and I actually wanna see where this feud goes from here.

The Great Kabuki & Masao Orihara & Keisuke Yamada vs. Hiromichi Fuyuki & Gedo & Jado

This is an awesome looking match up on paper, and it really delivered on it’s promise. The Fuyuki & underlings trio really is one of the most consistently entertaining acts of the 90s in their scummy evilness. And Orihara is a sleazy treasure in this match, flying in and out of the scenery, having heated exchanges with Gedo etc. Kabuki is also awesome just tagging in, hitting awesome punches and superkicks and spraying mist. The juicy part is the heat segment on Yamada, which is really well executed and also really bloody. There was also an unusual intrusion when Yamada’s sister(?) tried to save her brother from Fuyukis nefarious tactics and Fuyuki shakes the shit out of her, it was totally unexpected an really underlines Fuyukis scummyness. Yamada survives a ton of punishment in this, almost too much, but then again he was bankrolling everyone and putting all these awessome IWA Japan shows together, so I guess I am fine with it, and the finish is a good one.

 

THE LIBRARY

IWA Japan 2/8/1997

 Tortuga vs. Akihiko Masuda

Akihiko Masuda is the future Great Takeru. He wasn’t much more exciting here than as Great Takeru, although he was able to string some decent move sequences together including a pretty nutty double jump spaceman dive. This was a perfectly acceptable lucharesu opener. Could’ve been a little shorter since these guys don’t have enough material yet, but Tortuga is my boy, and I always enjoy him no matter what.

Hiroyoshi Kotsubo vs. Takeshi Sato

Fun 7 minute BattlARTS-style match. Kotsubo can be pretty bad but he was fine here, there were some heated moments where they slapped the shit out of each other. Unfortunately Sato blows his springboard move and Kotsubo just finishes him. Could’ve been better, although I ended up happy.

Akinori Tsukioka vs. The Wolf

It’s the motherfucking Wolf. A kickpaddded WYF undercarder with very little matches on tape. This was the funnest of the undercard junior matches so far, just two guys with a cool variety of strikes pasting each other. Tsukioka was in his Onryo-getup again and he wipes The Wolf out with a big dive. The Wolf is a complete random but he had few cool kicks and nice suplexes. You know indy wrestling was good then when every other guy was some esoteric semi-shootstylist.

Leatherface vs. Kishin Kawabata

I was surprised to see Kawabata looking energetic as he went to beat on Leatherface to start this, but then he reminded me what a load he usually is by immediately following up with a chinlock. This was low tier houseshow stuff. I am giving Leatherface the benefit of the doubt as he was doing double duty on this card.

Bison Kimura & Emi Motokawa vs. Esther Moreno & Alda Moreno

This was a match where the ladies were more athletic than all the men on the card. The Morenos made this fun with their athletic lucha stuff and Motokawa had a big asskicker in Bison Kimura for a partner. It was kind of a get your shit-in match as opposed to the underdog stories Motokawa usually works, but you can do worse than this.

Hiromichi Fuyuki & Jado & Gedo vs. Daikokubo Benkei & Leatherface & Katsumi Hirano

There were some shitty wrestlers in this match, but you have to be deaf, blind and lame to have a bad match against Fuyuku Gun. Watching a lot of Fuyuki Gun stuff, I have to wonder if they are among the most underrated trios in wrestling. Sure they do the same stuff in every match, that is eating up their opponents with foul tactics and fun offense in between comical amounts of high pitched Fuyuki yelling, but it always provides an entertaining match. In this they waffle the shit out of Hirano and Benkei with chairs thrust kicks and lariats and good times were had. Leatherface did almost nothing in the match but he hit a nice dropkick at one point which was more impressive than about anything Benkei and Hirano could do.

Great Kabuki & Keizo Matsuda vs. Takashi Ishikawa & Shigeo Okumura (Double Chain Match)

I wanted this to be better, but in the end it was a bit too much choking with the chain and too little beating the shit out of each other. There are some brief awesome moments where Kabuki is bleeding and throwing punches, but far too little in a mud of weak brawling. The post-match brawl where Keisuke Yamada runs in on crutches hopping around on one leg to beat on people while Kabuki was smashing dudes with the crutch was much better than the match itself.

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).