2026 Matchguide #2

Yuki Ishikawa & Fuminori Abe & Shuji Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Ali Najima & Kazunari Murakami, Kakuto Tanteidan 7/1

Impossible not to love this match. Chaotic and frenzied with everyone potatoeing each other a ton, which is probably the best possible approach they could have taken. While there wasn't much refined shootstyle going on I really liked that Abe armlock early on that nearly dislocated Najimas shoulder. Najima was pretty much a whipping boy here, eating punishment from all 3 opponents early on. Shuji Ishikawas a pretty effective crowbar as almost everything he does looks downright murderous.  It's also pretty cool that we got a little Yuki Ishikawa/Najima section. Ishikawa crowned him with a pretty sick headbutt too. I was also pleased that there was no stupid Abe comedy, instead he and Najima developed a really amusing hatred for each other throughout this with Najima going at him aggressively constantly. Really hope they can face each other at Sportiva sometime soon or something. Floor brawling section wasn't amazing but we got to see chairs being used and Abe knuckle punching Najima in the crowd. Ishikawa/Murakami exchange was fun and nostalgic with Murakamis mugging and Ishikawa still being willing to take some punishment. Match went to the next level with the Ikeda shoot headbutt section. Shuji Ishikawa seemingly trying to drill through Ishikawas face with his head may have been the moment of the match. I did not think they would be able to keep up that level of violence, but the Abe/Murakami section surprisingly delivered thanks to Abes punches causing hardway blood and the violence of Murakamis face kicks and punches. There was also an attempted eyerake that looked like Murakami was really about to rip Abes eye out, so just the right kind of grizzly violent little thing. Abe also may have had the most violent save of the match with his flying face stomp. Great match, delivering plenty of sick violence without overstaying its welcome, and a bunch of these guys pretty much had their best performance in forever here.

Kosuke Sato/Ryuma Sekimo vs. Ali Najima/Hinata Kasai, Fuminori Abe & Takuya Nomura Produce 7/1 

 
Pretty great hard hitting  high adrenaline opening  match like a Fu-Ten or WAR match. Basically they tried to put some scrappy violence into every exchange, along with a few unexpected moments and succeeded. I've not seen Sekimo and Kasai before, but they knew what they had to deliver here. Sekimo seemed a little goofy but he was throwing really violent hands and working a camel clutch like he really wanted to torture the guy. Also liked how he just rammed into Najima with his head. I also really enjoyed Kasais throat jumping outburst towards the end. I like how guys were really trying to crank necks with their headlocks so the way Kosuke Sato snatched a surprise front headlock was pretty great. Nomura was quite the bruiser here also and Kosukes dropkick on the armbar was another great moment. Other highlights include some brain-scrambling headbutts and a straight face punch as well as Najimas face stomping. 

 

 Hideki Suzuki vs. Go Shiozaki, AJPW 5/17

 
I haven't cared about Shiozaki since he adopted the embarassing Fake Okada look, but his banged up performance was pretty good here. The gritty out of nowhere lariat was great. What followed was the usual tour around the ring, made a little better by Suzuki resisting some of Shiozakis attacks. After some mediocre minutes the match got back on track when Suzuki would use the guardrails to hurt Shiozakis taped up ribs. What followed was some nice violent work in which Suzuki took some pages out of the playbooks of Terry Rudge and Johnny Smith. I was even somewhat okay with Shiozakis no-selling comebacks as he looked like such a zombie, and him coming up with a bloody nose and actually starting to put some spirit into his Baba chops was a cool moment. The finishing stretch wasn't super interesting aside from Suzukis comical pedigree, but I did like how Suzuki went back to smashing the fuck out of Shiozakis rib section. I'm a bit lukewarm on this overall as it suffered from typical modern day Japanese big match problems but there was some fun violence here.

 

HII vs. The Wolf, fight of the ring 1/18/2026

The Wolf's return to pro wrestling is something I have glossed over a bit and I probably need to cover it more. I mostly remember him as a reckless kicker from his WYF days, but he was quite good doing maestros style technical work here, busting out a cool peterson roll amongst other things, and generally looking pretty adept. HII has also become a pretty interesting worker at this point. This didn't really shift into next gear with its intensity, but it was two old technicians doing some fun pro wrestling and that's always right up my ally. 

Chon Shiryu vs. Rina Yamashita, Choco Pro 2/25

 I'm a shameless sucker for Chon Shiryu, the representative of the 2 coolest martial arts in the world, pro wrestling and kung fu. Yamashita is not super interesting but she is big enough that she can credibly fight against Shiryu, and she has some good power offense including a nice harai goshi. That said the bulk of the match was carried by Shiryus crazy kung fu antics and unique spots. Early minutes had some good hard fought hold for hold wrestling, including Shiryu making sure to put extra torque into a basic wristlock like Pai Mei torturing Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. Shiryu is able to make even a fairly rote strike exchange look interesting with his kung fu poses, he also makes even his basic kung fu strikes look pretty hard hitting. Most of the early parts of the match is the Shiryu show with him busting out crazy transitions and set ups for odd 619s, including a few things I've never seen him do before, he's always coming up with new tricks. He does take a pretty reckless looking bump when Yamashita catches him on an attempted springboard, and later he hits his springboard rider kick to the floor which is a crazy spot from a 47 year old guy. Finishing run had both of them selling damage to their legs when they got their knees up on flying moves and some crazy rollups, which was a lot more interesting than the usual bombfest, and Yamashita coming alive a bit. 

  

2026 Matchguide 

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

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

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.