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 WMF

 

Mr. Gannosuke & Hisakatsu Oya & GOEMON vs. Soldier & Mineo Fujita & Black Buffalo (WMF 3/3/2006)

Really, really fun SWS style tag where everyone smacks each other hard and works a fast pace. Gannosuke is pretty great here in the Tenryu role of guy everyone wants to take down and who wolds the match together with his charisma and presence. Soldier acts like a spunky dipshit, so Gannosuke decides to break a kendo stick in half and stab the shit out of him. Really good FIP section with Soldier bleeding and all the veterans looking good. Dug Oya, who did little in the match except hit cool throat jabs and sick looking backdrops as Oya always does. There was one lariat/backdrop combo from Gannosuke and Oya on Soldier that looked like a decapitation. Everyone on the junior team looked good also and most importantly, everyone understood their role.

Mr. Gannosuke & Tarzan Goto vs. Mineo Fujita & Soldier, WMF 9/5/2005 - EPIC

Really great match largely thanks to the awesome veteran work of Gannosuke and Goto. These two basically treated their junior opponents like the Anderson Bros would treat a jobber team for large parts of the match. We get a really cool opening segment where they all hit the mat. Goto looks older and fatter here, but he is still so great rolling around, bumping for armdrags, working headlocks and eventually punching his opponent in the face. Soldier was in the role of spunky underdog here, he makes the mistake of challening Goto and ends up getting smacked down. Then, because Goto is Goto, physically besting an opponent isn’t enough for him, so busts out the foreign objects and Soldier is soon a bloody mess. Lord, has there ever been a match where Goto didn’t end up covered in his opponents blood? Soldier on offense isn’t very compelling, but he got in so little offense in this match and was willing to let Goto chuck tables at his head that I am willing to like him. Mineo Fujita is a bit more compelling on offense, as he has really good looking dropkicks, and he has some really fun sections where he mixes it up with Goto, who works surprisingly well against this type of opponent. However, Gannosuke catches him in a Scorpion Deathlock, and following that we get another segment built around Goto and Gannosuke destroying his back with awesome looking suplexes and slams. Lord knows I may be desensetized, but Goto trying to blow out Fujitas spine with a damn Vader Bomb to the back was absolutely sick looking. Then we get a great finishing run largely built around powerbombs and hard lariats. That kinda stuff is bread and butter for FMW workrate tags, but the body of the match here was built so well with Fujita and Soldier looking to be hanging on by a thread that I gave a shit. Also, wonderful nearfall here where Fujita catches Gannosuke in his own Gannosuke Clutch.

Mr. Gannosuke vs. Mineo Fujita, WMF 7/1/2006

Apparently Fujita is Mr. Gannosukes boy, and here they go long in what probably is Fujitas career match. I respect the hell out of Mr. Gannosuke for making a name for himself as a sleazy garbage brawling heel, and riding it out in the twilight of his career in grapple-heavy matches. Again this starts with lots of cool matwork, with Fujita busting out a cool calf slicer, and Gannosuke catching him with a crafty abdominal stretch. Gannosuke ends up working over Fujita and eventually working over his arm with some cool stretches before a grand old finishing run that was well done. Fujita isn’t super special or anything but his arm selling was servicable and he didn’t have any retarded offense, which I appreciate. Brutal brutal finish.

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

WMF 8/28/2002

WMF was Hayabusas promotion after FMW folded. I wonder why it's not talked about more, since a promotion with lots of cool juniors, sleazy ex-FMW guys and centered around Mammoth Sasaki as heavyweight star sounds  badass, so it's time to find out by watching some shows.

Ricky Fuji vs. Curry Man vs. Seiji Ikeda

I am normally opposed to 3 way matches, however this ended up short and fun enough to be inoffensive. Seiji Ikeda was doing a super fanboy gimmick and was mostly bystanding trying to snatch fotos and autographs from the wrestlers which was pretty amusing and protected the match from the typical nonsense of 3 way matches.

Kaori Nakayama vs. Miss Mongol

We only get about 80 seconds of this as they JIP straight to the bomb throwing section of the match. Suplexes were nice, but they ended the match on a kind of crummy looking unprettier.

Flying Kid Ichihara vs. Soldier

We once again JIP to both these guy hitting their spots. This is a 2 hour show, what's with all the matches being clipped? Nothing here stood out, but I kind of dug Soldier who felt like a junior very influenced by WWF style wrestling. And Flying Kid Ichihara is a legend.

Great Sasuke & Tiger Mask IV & Dragon Kid vs Onryo & Goemon & Darkness Dragon

Really fun match which had juniors from Michinoku Pro, FMW and Dragon Gate mixing it up. These guys aren't used to eachother so they were working a more solid, less intricate match, but it was good and everyone brought something worthwhile to the table. There were also several huge dives and Dragon Kid looked good hitting all his freaky stuff. I also liked the spot Dragon unmasked himself in an Eddie Guerrero style attempt to get Kid DQ'd. The next moment they both unmasked eachother and were forced to wear their opponents hood. This kind of stuff won't win you workrate awards but it's what keeps the love for pro wrestling flowing. Sasuke looked sharp, TMIV hit some stiff blows and GOEMON & Onryo looked like good bases as well with Onryo hitting particularily huge bumps and dives. FEAR THE ONRYO CLUTCH! 

Mr. Gannosuke & Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Hisakatsu Oya & Tetsuhiro Kuroda

Most of this was these guys doing their stuff, but everyone had their working boots on so it ended up fun. Well, everyone except Kuroda, who should've been quarantined to undercard comedy tags the second he first decided to make a scene around smashing his opponents leg into the buckle. I dug Oya in this, who has such a cool sleazy grappling pseudomaster vibe. This ended up being merely an excuse for a Matsunaga run in, who came in with a barbedwire bat, then gave GOEMON a high five and stared down Hayabusa in his wheelchair. I wanted a bit more out of this but ended up being reminded of how badass Mr. Danger is.

Mammoth Sasaki vs. Garuda

Unexpectedly great indy main event. It's pretty cool to see two underexposed guys who can work step up and deliver their idea of a big match. Both guys were bumping big to get this match over, not just taking big dangerous bumps, but also bumping big for basic moves like a shoulder block. Garuda looked like he just got hit by a truck during the opening exchange and the crowd response underlines that. Meanwhile Sasaki was flying around to put Garudas dropkicks over. Between the big slams and flying they were working a pretty solid groundbased match. Mammoth has really good looking basics, really awesome body slam, huge leg drop, kicking Garuda in the spine between moves etc, while Garuda actually looked like the legit succesor to Hayabusa, hitting thudding kicks, cool submissions and flying around. The finishing stretch was probably better than the stuff many bigger name workers would do that decade. While they did a lot of big moves, there were some really cool cut offs, everything was built to, and they had people believing in a powerslam or schoolboy. Loved Mammoth powering out of a backslide too. The only sour thing about this match is the clipping which was really unnecessary on a TV show that had a 2 hour timeslot. 

 

THE LIBRARY

2002 MOTY MASTER LIST