NJPW vs. UWF Handheld Matches

 

Yoji Anjoh & Tatsuo Nakano vs. Masakatsu Funaki & Akira Nogami, NJPW 2/28/1987

What a sick upload. This was 4 young guys going close to 20 minutes doing awesome grappling and kicking the shit out of each other. My god do all these guys look great hitting the mat, just hitting awesome throws and super tight submissions left and right. Anjoh and Nakano already show shades of their later shitkicker personae and Funaki even in his black trunks and on a grainy handheld looks like a star in the making. The second half was really great because black trunks rookie factor is at play, so dropkicks and boston crabs become edge-of-your-seat stuff. Funaki running in to break up submissions by blasting people with dropkicks felt epic and while they largely kept the action basic they mixed in some sweet highlights, for example there was an awesome armbar counter to a backslide, Anjoh getting thrown to the outside by a dropkick, a New Japan guy running into a surprise high kick etc. The scrappy moments where guys would kick or slap the shit out of each other were fantastic and super heated. Great great stuff, this period where you saw New Japan guys mix it up with UWF guys regularily may have been the peak of the promotion.

Yoji Anjoh & Tatsuo Nakano vs. Masakatsu Funaki & Akira Nogami, NJPW 3/26/1987

Very good rematch in the same way as the first one. Anjo and Nakano were really a pair of pricks here brutalizing Nogami with knees and kicks. They did the same things as in the first match in some parts but the general scrappiness and improvized-feeling structure made it still feel different enough. Great heated finish and I dig how the UWF guys keep refusing to run the ropes.

The World of World Japan

 

Masahiko Kochi vs. Takashi Uwano, WJ 7/20/2003

This was a black trunks rookie match and a really nice one. I think Kochi has been wrestling since 1994 and Uwano since 1998, so both of them having to be black trunks rookies in WJ is kind of funny, but these two could put on one hell of a match. Really nice arm control stuff early on before they settle into punishing each other. Kochi was awesome here, absolutely lighting up Uwano with stiff kicks, he had this huge spinning wheel kick that felt bigger and cooler than probably anything else on this card. I also loved his big bulldog. Uwano had some great big lanky guy STOs and I loved the build towards the German Suplex and half crab in the last couple minutes. Matches like this really remind you how important slower more measured matches are, really makes you appreciate each basic move and the sense of both guys beating the shit out of each other was there without turning into some kind of exhibition.

Tomohiro Ishii vs. Takashi Uwano, WJ 3/1/2003

 

Basic opening match upgraded with insane stiffness, both these guys were just swinging hard at each other. You know Ishii can bring it in a stiff fest, but Uwano looked really good kneeing him in the face and stomping on his head. Uwanos big STO and German Suplex were great once again. Absolutely sick punch-out finish with both guys bleeding hardway from the blows. Sometimes, you want to watch something like this. Hey, why didn't they make Ishii wear black trunks?

Yoji Anjoh vs. Tomohiro Ishii, WJ 3/15/2003

Two guys with odd charisma who are great at wailing on guys, wailing on each other hard. This was a great 8 minutes. Anjoh has a shaven head and goatee here and looks kind of schlubby, but man he could just destroy a guy. A lot of wrestlers struggle to have 2 or 3 good looking hits but Anjoh just does so much different stuff, knees to the face, elbows, punches, fist drops, from so many different angles and it all looks like he’s destroying Ishii. Ishii is of course really game to get hit, bump big and potatoe Anjoh with strikes of his own including flush punching him in the face. The finish was a flash but it looked fucking brutal. I can get that ending may have come quickly, but why have I not heard about this matchup before? Super warm recommendation for this one.

Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Yoji Anjoh, WJ 3/1/2003

Cool match between two old guys who still had a lot in the tank in 2003. Anjohs punches and strikes just look awesome and Yatsu is so fun and spry here, really explosive throws and dropkicks and not afraid to hit Anjoh in the face.. There is some cool arm attack stuff by Anjoh and I loved the finish. I wish some promotion had done more with these two than just give them undercard stuff because their stuff still looked better than almost everyone elses.

Going through Shodates Best Matches of the 90s List Part 6

 The List

223. Akira Taue vs. Toshiaki Kawada, AJPW 6/7/1996

This has the rep of being „disappointing“ because it went a mere 18 minutes. That shows what kind of grandeur 90s AJPW was. This is one heck of a really good match though. I really liked the opening where Kawada seemed to be the superior striker, until Taue just casually shut him down by nuking him with big boots and a German suplex. Taue continued his assault until Kawada was able to snap a Fujiwara Armbar and work his arm. Taue getting fired up and Kawada frantically trying to cut him off was really great. The armwork also led to a fun spot where Taue tried blocking the gamengiri but ended up damaging his shoulder further in the process. Kawada got so pissed at Taue he chopped him in the face. Kawada destroying Taue with kicks to the face in the corner only to get blown away by a Taue shoulderblock and neckbreaker was also fantastic. These two are just a really fun match up with Kawadas vicious kicks vs. Taues lanky powerhouse style. Taue also hit this really great jumping big boot flush in Kawadas face. Punch drunk Taue hitting a weak chokeslam was also great. You know what are getting from these two in 1996, everything made sense and was sensible, and on top of that you get a bunch of neat moments and kicks to the face. I can see this may have been disappointing to the hardcore workrate AJPW fans considering there wasn‘t even a dive or an apron move, but by itself it was a great match.

137. Yoji Anjoh vs. Masakatsu Funaki, UWF 5/28/1990

Funaki was in peak physical condition here and looking like a movie star. Anjoh is a bit flabby and wears these ridiculous purple leopard print tights. And the crowd is absolutely on fire to see Anjoh taking down Funaki! They just came unglued whenever Anjoh was threatening Funaki in the standup. Funaki has some really nice punch combos and does his ducking and diving thing, but man, this is the Anjoh show. For a guy who is famous for being a fantastic prick heel, he is one hell of a tenacious babyface standing up to a bigger wrestler. The mat work is nice as it was that mix of slow lulls with faster, slicker movements, and the whole match had a great build. Really cool moment where Anjoh has Funaki in a cross heel hold and Funaki has to slap him to break out, Funaki had this facial expression as if he really didn't want to continue fighting. Later Anjo lands an insane near KO where Funaki barely makes the 9, and Funaki has a nice desperation  moment where he keeps kicking at a downed Anjoh. Crafty finish. A nice reminder of how great peak level shootstyle can be.

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.

THE LIBRARY

Assorted HUSTLE

 

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Naoya Ogawa, HUSTLE 3/18/2005

HUSTLE doesn’t get explored much due to the comical nature of the promotion. But this… this was a seriously good match! Kawada wears this Bruce Lee outfit and Ogawa has “I’m chicken” written all over his attire. I was expecting them to break out into a musical number or something, but they wrestle this completely straight and with effort! It’s not on the level of their epic 2003 encounter, but they work plenty stiff, there are some fun payback spots centered around both guys working headlocks and then dismissively kicking the other guy, and I loved Kawada here, desperately avoiding Ogawas STO and mount punches, and doing fun stuff like breaking out a random spinning choke and even stealing Ogawas STO! Really fun, maybe even great match.

Naoya Ogawa vs. Tadao Yasuda, HUSTLE 7/13/2005

This went like 8 minutes, with a like 1/4th of that spent in a Figure 4 leglock that had no consequent. That said, I had watching Yasuda act sleazy and Ogawa bruising him up with kicks and judo throws. There is also an AWESOME spot where Yasuda blocks an STO and sumo rushes Ogawa.

Yoji Anjoh vs. Zeus, HUSTLE 9/17/2008

Absolutely great match. Well, if you can get into something that could as well show up on Superstars as a “great match” – but this is great. Like the worlds greatest Finlay vs. Chris Masters match. Young Zeus with the cornrows has tons of cool power spots. I loved how he would throw off Anjohs initial attempts at grappling him, until Anjoh started wristlocking and fingerbending him a bunch. Anjoh looks pretty great like Regal, his performance here made me wonder if I should do a deep dive on his HUSTLE run. Zeus arm selling had a few nifty moments – including a cool attempted gorilla press and the match ended in just the picture perfect moment.

Tarzan Goto Documentation Project #1

 Tarzan Goto & Ryo Miyake vs. Masayoshi Motegi & Shinichi Nakano, WYF  7/16/1997 - EPIC

This delivers the promise of an IWA Japan vs. Yume Factory match. Picture 4 sleazy heavyweights potatoeing the shit out of eachother, add a ton of blood and you have this match. You know it's an awesome match! Tarzan Goto is one of the most mean wreckingball wrestler dudes ever, and this match really showcases him both doing some cool actual wrestling, and fucking dudes up in really graphic ways. Motegi is very lovable as this legendary sad sack who tries really hard, and he takes a monster beating from the IWA guys, getting waffled with chairs, punched and bloodied and he fires right back with full force hits. Miyake is perfectly fine as a disdainful shitbag kneedropping and stomping dudes in their bloody face. Nakano fits perfectly in this kind of savage potatoefest as a hot tag with his eardrum shattering slaps and enzuigiris and awesome powerslam, also he comes in with a bandage over his eye resulting in some gross spots where he gets hit in the eye with chairs and headbutts that would make Terry Funk cringe. Finish was not as epic as the body of the match but kind of worked as a payoff. This pretty much ruled.

 

Tarzan Goto vs. Yoji Anjoh, Rikidozan Memorial 3/11/2000 - GREAT

 Wonderful match which delivers in spades what you want from these two in terms of sleazy shootstyle vs. sleazy garbage brawling sections. Anjoh is off the charts here working his shtick and Goto is a great contrast stoically punching and lariating the shit out of him.  There is some cool wrestling going on too with Anjoh using submissions to neutralize Goto, and Goto doing some cool wrestling himself such as stonewalling Anjohs attempts at submissions and takedowns. But in the end, you wanna watch both these guys bleed and waffle the shit out of each other and that's what happens.

TARZAN GOTO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

U-DREAMS 1st Impact 11/12/1998

 I think this was also the only impact of this short lived organization.

Tomoharu Fuse vs. Mark Johnson

More Fuse content, baby. This was a cool opening match. No clue who Mark Johnson is (apparently  have been several MMA fighters named Mark Johnson), but he was good. He had good strikes, and carried the opening section with his cool throws and grappling. Fuse was along for the ride until he got full mount and started raining down punches on Johnon. He really turned it up after being outgrappled the whole time which is exactly what an outmatched fighter would do in that situation. One near KO later and what followed was a cool little run of false finishes including Fuse grapping a really cool spinning leglock. Wish we had gotten more shootstyle with MMA gloves because they utilized them well here.

Hidetada Irie vs. Tsunehito Naito

Naito is my boy, but future KINGDOM EHRGEIZ boss Irie completely squashes him here. Irie hit one or two cool kicks but his punches from mount where extremely lacking and there was no need for him to lazily dominate Naito for 3 minutes straight. It’s shootstyle, kick up the pace or at least brutally potatoe your opponent.

Tatsuo Nakano vs. Tom Burton

This was two tubby mulleted guys with sleazy mustaches basically beating on each other in a phone booth. I won’t pretend there was any genius wrestling going on here but I enjoyed watching these guys do some low distance fighting. Burton should’ve faced Ian Rotten at some point so we could know who the quintessential redneck shooter is.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Billy Scott

Getting to see Fujiwara do a faux PRIDE match is cool because it makes him do some fighting stance and striking work that you normally don’t see him to in typical UWF type matches. And Billy Scott is a really good grappler with fast movements and good tenacity that he matches up very well against Fujiwara. This went 5 minutes and really should have gone longer.

Enson Inoue vs. John Calvo

Two bulky guys tangling on the mat and punching each other for 2 minutes. Punches looked good although there is really no reason to run these kind of pro wrestling matches when real MMA is a thing.

Yoji Anjoh vs. Nicholas Starks

Anjos singlet with sparkly belt getup is just amazing. This ended up being another 2 minute squash. Anjoh just completely eats this poor guy up. Weird booking on this show, as you had a 16 minute opening match leading to a 2 minute main event. Maybe they were building to an epic Yoji Anjo vs. Tomoharu Fuse match on the next show before sponsors backed out or something.

 

THE LIBRARY