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.

Tokyo Pro 8/25/1996

 

TWA World Tag Challenger Team Decision Match: Yoji Anjo & Tiger Mask vs. Takashi Ishikawa & Yoshihiro Takayama

This was a fun match with everyone dishing out stiff shots and Anjoh making jokes. Takayama was wearing biker gloves for some reason, but other than that his exchanges with Anjoh and Tiger Mask were the highlight of the match. Tiger Mask works best against heavyweights because it adds some restraint to his work and Takayama forces him out of his usual spiel by not going along and making him actually hit the mat and work exchanges instead of just hitting his spots.

 

Sabu vs. Black Wazuma (2 Cold Scorpio)

Really good match which may be the best I've seen between the two. They start slow with a lot of matwork and cool rope running exchanges which added a ton to the build of the match. These two have wrestled each other many times especially on this tour but they did a good job making everything come together organically and not making the match look like an exhibition. Sabu hits a really nice low dropkick into a spin kick transition and I'm wondering when the hell did Sabu turn into a graceful junior wrestler but then he goes for a dive and Scorpio just hurls a chair into him and the match goes awry. They move into the spots and reversals you expect from a Sabu/Scorpio match. All the spots still look cool and everything made sense, the only minor upfuck was Sabu's slightly delayed bump on a headscissor. Sabu using the chair to crotch Scorp when he tried his extra flippy legdrop was a really smart spot to allow himself extra breathing space. I dug them going back to some cool mat stuff for a bit in the middle. Match went the right length. Feels weird how out of style Sabu worship is with the indy wrestlers of the last few years, I enjoyed this a lot.

 

NWA Light Heavyweight Title Match: El Dandy vs. Masao Orihara

Looking at this matchup taking place in a sleaze indy fed I was expecting a wild brawl but instead they stick to working a WCW Worldwide match. These are two guys with some fun snappy offense though and they trade some big suplexes, powerbombs and dives. They end up working some bullshit non-finish so they can do a restart with a few minutes overtime and then work a time limit draw. Lazy tricksters.

 

TWA Tag Title Match: Abdullah The Butcher & Daikokubo Benkei vs. Yoji Anjo & Tiger Mask

 Way too fun. This was about the best match you can possibly get out of two dudes as limited as Abby & Benkei. First Anjo and Tiger take turns laying into pudgy old sumowrestler Benkei before Abby comes in for the old stab & chop. Anjo ends up bloodied and playing a really good Ricky Morton for such a natural dipshit heel before coming back by beating the shit out of Abby and bloodying him in return. Undeterred by the potential Hep infection Tiger Mask comes in and beats the shit out of a bloody Abby aswell. Tiger can't really do highspots against these fat dudes so he just throws a bunch of kicks to the face and kneedrops and it's awesome. Abby trapping Anjo with his blob physique was a great spot too. Tiger Mask & Anjo looked super here and Abby selling and coming back with a last ditch throat chop was genuinely exciting stuff.

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