WMF Marvelous Days 7th 12/27/2003

 GENTARO & Yuko Miyamoto vs. Junji Tanaka & Mineo Fujita

Junior opening match! This was JIP and I really would‘ve liked the whole thing. Junji is such a fun technician to throw into a match worked at a fast pace, really mixes it up nicely with all these athletic juniors. GENTARO is just super sharp, and he will also turn around and throw nice punches. Miyamoto was in young lion trunks here and already looking really polished and athletic. He hit a springboard diving headbutt with crazy distance and later almost killed Fujita with a brutal lariat. Fujita also looked good busting out cool flying armbars and triangle chokes. Everything looked good and they never lost a step, this gets the full indy point for these kind of fun little matches.

Yoji Anjoh & Koichiro Kimura & Ricky Fuji vs. Mr. Gannosuke & Chocoball Mukai & GOEMON

What a match up. Pretty fun stuff for the WAR 6 man-like randomness of it all. Anjoh was fun mugging and throwing punches, Kimura was stiff, Fuji and GOEMON did some cool ratboy exchanges together (did either of them ever face Yoshinari Ogawa?), and Mukai was cool trying to stand up to the shooters and putting his weird finishing hold on people. Gannosuke was basically Choshu here, just hard lariats and sharpshooters and it was cool. I was hoping for a Gannosuke vs. Anjoh faceoff but the Anjoh/Mukai finish was also pretty nice. Everything you can ask for from a random undercard 6 man.

MIKAMI & ONRYO vs. Asian Cougar & Tomoya Adachi

Spot after spot, but if you want spots, these guys will deliver pretty much the best you can get. Cougar had switched his stuff up a lot since the 90s, and he still had a bunch of crazy moves out of nowhere. Sleaze lucharesu boy Tomoya Adachi is a cool addition too and he looks good, really liked his reverse wheelbarrow hold which lead to Cougar once again flying in with a leg drop. MIKAMIs athleticism is crazy during this time, his dive looked like he just jumped from the ceiling, he also busts out a huge moonsault elbow drop, and a big swanton bomb from the top of a ladder. Ladder stuff was fun as they didn‘t take too long setting everything up and they pulled everything off. Loved all the Onryo character moments during the finishing stretch. This was a lot of fun.

GARUDA vs. Tsubasa

Garuda already had suffered a bad neck injury at this point that would cut off his career, but for a guy with a neck injury, he was pretty good in this. Very solid match. Tsubasa showed a lot of spunk, bitchslapping Garuda, taking him out with a spectacular dive, hitting a flip senton and then kicking Garuda in the face etc. He even targeted Garudas bad neck. Pretty good match although it suffered a bit from too many junior matches on this card.

Dick Togo & Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs. Kazuya Yuasa & Seiji Ikeda

Solid if a bit by the numbers heel performance by Togo & Kuroda, cutting off the two young lions. Ikeda was this pudgy guy that they were trying to turn into something, and he had pretty good fire. Kurodas stuff doesn‘t annoy me as much as usual because he is supposed to be an annoying heel here, and he even sets up stuff for Togo in nice ways here and there. Togo was the best guy in the match getting fire out of these schlubby youngsters and hitting really high end sentons. Given a bit more tenure Togo could‘ve done the impossible and amde Kuroda matches watchable on a regular basis. Young guys were kinda bland so it doesn‘t amount to anything more than a solid formula match.

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Mammoth Sasaki

This is what you buy the show for. Tenryu lowers himself to filthy WMF to teach their boy Mammoth a leason. I think I liked this more than Tenryu/Kojima, as from memory this had more awesome Tenryu moments, a bigger asskicking and young Mammoth trying to take down the legend. The opening moments had some fun tubby guys rolling on the mat moment before Sasaki decides to really go for it to which Tenryu responds by simply taking him down and torturing his bad leg a bit. However Sasaki won't let up and soon both guys are throwing punches. Mammoth decides to start the garbage brawling by taking the match to the outside to which Tenryu responds „Sure, you can have it“ and smashes a fucking bottle on his head. Tenryu keeps flinging stuff at Mammoth and really puts a WAR sized assbeating on him just kicking him in the face and pasting him with lariats over and over while Mammoth is selling all big and sympathetic. I wish the 2^nd half were a little less one sided altough Mammoth gets in a good one on Tenryu when he smashes him with the chairs (to a befuddled „He's doing this to ME?“ reaction) and he gets over big just for the amount of punishment he is able to survive before going down. 

The Library

Assorted Onita Pro

 So someone put up a boatload of Onita Pro shows from 1999-2002 up on the internet archive. While I don't care a ton for Onitas late career work (although it is solid in the sense that you always get a fast paced brawl with a bunch of dudes bleeding, flying through tables and Onita doing almost nothing but hitting powerbombs and DDTs) the man was booking all kinds of weird and cool matchups on his cards using DDT guys, random luchadores and various indy scum, so that is excellent blog material.

MIKAMI & Sanshiro Takagi vs. Takashi Sasaki & DAISAKU (Onita Pro 12/26/1999)

 I see matches like this as the equivalent of a great WCW syndicated match. 6 minutes in length, and all these guys roll out their cool stuff, while maintaining a tight pace and a good level of stiffness. Lotsa stealworthy speats, my favourite being the running spin kick from Sasaki that really bent MIKAMIs spine across the ring apron. DAISAKU is a CAPTURE regular with a cool style largely based around kicking his opponents really hard. MIKAMI looked really good here as well, a guy who was comfortable both hitting slick ranas and slapping the shit out of his opponents. All his exchanges with Sasaki were really good, he hit a great dive and got turned inside out by a nasty Sasaki lariat for his troubles. Takagi is the least guy in the match but manages not to fumble anything. Full japan indy point.

Tomoya Adachi & Asian Cougar & Starman vs. NOSAWA & Heaven & Arkangel De La Muerte (Onita Pro 7/20/2000)

Bless Onita for bringing in these random luchadores. This was like a slightly sleazier approximation to an M-Pro tag. I dug Adachi here, cool dude who could both do smooth matwork and hit big dives. NOSAWA was already comfortable in his stooging role. Asian Cougar also looks good without even hitting his crazy highspots, mostly doing swank lucha armdrags instead. I was expecting them to have Arkangel and Starman married to each other, but instead they shuffle through all kinds of possible matchups, and everything went smoothly.

Takashi Sasaki vs. GENTARO (Onita Pro 3/14/2000)

Cool 8 minute match where they showcase their stuff. Starts with some cool matwork before both guys go through their bread and butter. GENTARO has some fantastic athleticism and Sasaki mostly just smacks him hard with kicks and lariats. GENTARO blows a Space Tiger dive but redeems himself immediately by hitting a springboard senton with amazing height. Full japan indy point.

Tomoya Adachi & Asian Cougar & El Matematico vs. Babe Richard & Heaven & NOSAWA, Onita Pro 5/21/2000)

 Ahhh what the hell, they flew in Matematico and Richard for one match? I assume they went on an extensive tour with ZIPANG that month in Japan. To be honest, Matematico is old as hell here and his exchanges with Richard weren’t great, but I loved his big plancha to the outside and him picking up the victory with the Muscle Hold. They also clipped this in half (whole thing went 18!!! minutes), probably for the wiser.

Masanobu Kurisu vs. Kengo Takai (Onita Pro 6/27/1999)

Kurisu beats the dogshit out of this DDT boy with the most violent headbutts, stomps and chair shots you’ve ever seen. Takai retired to Osaka Pro shortly after.