Tarzan Goto Documentation #15

 Tarzan Goto & Mr Gannosuke vs Jado & Gedo, WAR 7/7/1995 - EPIC

Molten heat for this match, you think the FMW guys must have killed someone to be this hated while scumbags Jado and Gedo are treated as gods by the WAR loyalist. The match begins hot with Goto kicking ass and punching people in the face, then it settles down into a fun segment of Jado and Gedo shining with their array of double team moves and the crowd amusingly cheering every dirty move they do. Then it gets hot again, as Jado eats a nasty surprise powerbomb, which he sells as an awkward landing on his shoulder, and Goto immediately capitalizes by attacking the shoulder. Goto is pretty great destroying a guys shoulder while acting like a scumbag. Just the way he would casually crush Jado with a big splash and then mockingly bitchslap him was amazing. The last third of the match sees Jado and Gedo getting destroyed and trying to protect each other while making desperate pin attempts. Gedo getting bloodied and then looking like the life was going out of him while Goto rained punches on his head was some great simplistic brutal pro wrestling. It was clearly inspired by the famous AJPW tag from the month before but the drama worked really well and the desperation was palpable. Great match with a ton of violence heat and drama with Goto looking like an evil monster as usual and Gedo and Jado doing a great job playing the more sympathetic bastards.

Tarzan Goto & Grigory Verichev vs Sabu & Horace Boulder, FMW 5/24/1992 - GREAT

What a certified crazy match up. The match ended up being pretty damn great too, really the kind of wild chaotic spectacle you only get in the 90s. It delivers everything you want basically being an all out brawl from the get go with a breathless pace and no time. Goto was absolutely killing Sabu here, launching tables or chairs at his head, there was tons of blood, Verichev in his gi launching dudes around with huge suplexes. Horace Hogan is perfectly fine as a big sleazy dude that will flatten the smaller guys with lariats and occasionally something odd like a stiff missile dropkick. At one point the Sheik does a run in to stab Goto in the face. Goto was great as usual both taking a big beating, bleeding, kicking ass, and coming back lariating peoples heads off. Also you get Sabu and Goto throwing punches and that's really cool. Gritty finish too.

Tarzan Goto & Shinigami vs Yuiga & Drake Morimatsu, Yuiga Produce 10/30/2004 - FUN


A match that is, thankfully, centered around Yuiga vs Tarzan Goto. Yuiga is a Kurisu trainee so she is really tough, and she looks credible going all out to try and take down the big man. Goto of course delivers a hellish bloody beatdown. Shinigami doesn't drag down the match much, and Morimatsu is fine though she does little. The story of the match is Yuiga as she engages in a bloody battle with Goto. The barbedwire boards actually make this feel like a warzone rather than a standard deathmatch and Yuigas judo throws were great. Goto delivers his usual beatdown, nothing mindblowing if you have watched him a lot but it always delivers. A GREAT match from Yuigas standpoint and a FUN entry into Tarzan Gotos resume.

Tarzan Goto Documentation Project

BATOS CAFE 2/23/2020

 Manabu Hara vs. Onryo

It's BattlARTS vs. WYF baby! Just 20 years late! Onryo in his broken down old age has become a good little worker and this was a ton of fun. Opening grappling where Onryos radiation dust kept annoying Hara was really fun, and Onryo produced a nice highlight when he caught Hara in a neat pin combo. They made it clear the ghost wasn't on Haras level as a grappler but he could do hang on and maybe do something ghostly to catch the shooter. Onryo controlling by working Haras leg was a bit trite and didn't mean much. The finishin stretch on the other hand was made fun by Onryo busting out some surprisingly slick moves while Hara just tried to armbar the zombie. Satisfying match up.

SUSHI vs. Kagura

Kagura is some sleaze junior in a cheap skull mask. He seems to be decently athletic. This was a slow junior match and kind of trite. They really needed to work some decent basic opening exchanges or something. SUSHI I think has worked AJPW but he really doesn't show much at all here, and he was supposed to be the face, Kagura did all the somewhat cool things. Crap finish too.

Yasu Urano vs. Hiroshi Yamato

Wow! Surprisingly fun match. Is matwork becoming trendy on the Japanese indies now or something? I'm here for it. They honest to god did some pretty good matwork here. Urano had these neat leg stretches and takeovers and looked like he should be with the Mumejuku crew. There was also a sequence of duelling strait jacket holds that was straight out of WoS. Yamamoto looked pretty decent. They also went into a sequence of armdrags at one point that felt honest to god spontaneous and cool. The finish wasn't as exciting as they went for comedy for some reason. Still, I probably should watch more of these guys.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. GENTARO

This was all grappling, if you can get into match that is all matwork you will like this. Honestly thought the grappling here was up there with Yuki Ishikawa vs. Carl Greco. Ishikawa is a bonafide master at this stage, and GENTARO is really tenacious and matches him. They make no secret that Ishikawa is dictating things with all the awesome and unusual stuff he was doing, which makes the match. GENTARO doesn’t get to grapple often but he’s really good at it. He kept locking in hammerlocks and short arm scissors from odd angles and it made it feel like Ishikawa was facing a 50s grappler. Several amazing moments (the painful leglock battle, all the choke attempts including GENTAROs sleeper, the leglock/head and arm choke battle, the ending) and Ishikawa honestly looked like the GOAT.

Yuiga vs. Rion Mizuki vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa vs. Minoru Tanaka

On a show full of serious undercard matches, they do a weird 4 way dance where they break every other minute to drink shots. Some solid individual exchanges here, especially dig Yuiga who's such a crowbar, but everyone just did their bread and butter and you can imagine there wasn't much depth with the stipulation. I would've rather seen this run as a tag as I imagine Yuiga and pretty boy Mizuki vs. the junior vets would've been pretty cool.

THE LIBRARY

Assorted Japan Indy Wrestling

 

Keita Yano vs. Taro Yamada (WALLABEE, 6/14/2012)

Damn great match, I imagine if Yano had never stunk up BattlARTS and instead was only known for doing weird technical matches while wearing his joker makeup and clown singlet in a tiny gym we’d all be Yano superfans. Taro Yamada is the last guy in Japan still holding up the T2P style matwork and one of the most underrated grapplers on the independent scene. This was 25 minutes of matwork that was like a great IWRG style title match. It was a mix of Yamadas llave holds with Yano going along and some cool RINGs-like leglock work thrown in, with both guys doing a great job escaping and transitioning between holds. Whole match felt fresh and competitive and never was like a derivative or weird LARP, these guys were trying to pop each others shoulders and/or ankles the whole time. There were one or two geeky moments where Yano did some “rope running” although it was more like a comedy spot with Yano hooting like an owl, and both these moments lead to cool spots, one where Yamada actually trips Keita with a drop down and another where Yano tricks Yamada into his special hold. There wasn’t some kind of story if you are into that but there were a few great nearfalls and I deeply respect these two for just grappling it out for 25 minutes without slowing down, and never throwing a strike or even a body slam, it was all submissions and funky cradle pins (especially loved Yamadas weird Delfin Clutch variation), just really tightly worked stuff that wouldn’t look out of place in a WoS or lucha title match. I did love Yanos dickish knee slide across Yamadas face and the moment where Yano had enough of the llave holds and challenged Yamada to an amateur match was really cool. Finish was great aswell. Best Yano match I’ve seen by far and actively a great match, which is a major shocker. Yamada played a huge part too but I’ll be damned if Yano wasn’t feeling it that night. Apparently there have been a few matches between these two and I look forward to checking them all out but as it stands this is the best I’ve seen from Yano by a mile.

Yu Iizuka vs. ZIMA Yoshida (RAW 9/30/2018)

ZIMA Yoshida makes his return to the blog. This Yu Izuka is a HEAT-UP guy. While Heat-Up is technically the follow promotion to Style-E, it doesn’t really do shootstyle, but Izuka works full shootstyle here, and actually looks like a guy with lineage to Tamura. Really promising performance from Iizuka, throwing wild spin kicks and looking in cool submissions while doing lightning smooth mat transitions. Our man ZIMA is overwhelmed but he manages to lock in a cool leg lock/neck crank submission of his own. Def. Would’ve liked this to go longer.

Hideki Suzuki & MIKAMI vs. UTOMARO & Yuiga (Batos Cafe, ?/?/??)

Not a pleasant match. Yuiga is a NEO-wrestler who has been working scum indies for 20 years. She tries to take it to Hideki Suzuki in this, who responds by punting her in really violent, unpredictable ways. Yuiga is throwing some crowbar shots and sick headbutts but it seems Suzuki is untouchable. He even no-sells UTOMARO completely. Their match up is really intense and it builds to a great moment where Yuiga is finally able to get something in when she counters a sleeper attempt into a judo throw and tries to sink into a desperation armbar. MIKAMI and UTOMARO basically just provide some fluff between the Yuiga vs. Hideki sections. Great sleeper hold finish.