Takeshi Ono Documentation #6

Takeshi Ono & Katsumi Usuda vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Alexander Otsuka, BattlARTS 12/25/1996 - EPIC

 Man, BattlARTS wasn't afraid to bring the badass shootstyle in 1996. The rhythm of this wasn't exactly great, but the pace was frantic and the match felt like it could end at any moment, which is exactly what you want from a shootstyle brawl. The Ono/Usuda team constantly going back to heel moves despite being able to hold their own doing pure wrestling was a nice touch, as was Team Taco EXPLODING and the AJPW flavour that some of the interference/double teams had. The first half had lot of great mat moves, while second half was intense as hell with stiff shots raining down. Everything after Ono tanged Otsuka up in the ropes was just fantastic, intensely violent pro wrestling and the finish was a finish. Easily one of the better 90s BattlARTS tags.

Takeshi Ono vs. Ikuto Hidaka (BattlARTS 2/28/1997) - FUN

This was when Hidaka had just debuted and he was introduced to the world of BattlARTS the hard way. Ono just destroys him here, punches, kicks with abadon, Hidaka is able to take him down and immediately Ono elbows him in the back of the head and tries twisting his leg off. Hidaka is able to score a single go behind, with Ono frantically selling the threat of a German suplex for a moment before Hidaka hits a scrappy Mysterious Rana in a super cool moment. Shortly after Ono puts his lights out though. For under 3 minute rookie squashes this was really cool.

Takeshi Ono vs. Alexander Otsuka (BattlARTS 3/13/1997) - FUN

Fun undercard match between two BattlARTS kingpins (not many Takeshi Ono main event singles in the 90s, sadly). Lots of slick grappling, and the whole match built to either Ono brutalizing Otsuka with kicks and punches or Otsuka trying to break Ono in half with suplexes. I liked how Ono got pissed off after Otsukas giant swing. Hanging armbar finish was great. These two faced each other quite a bit in the 90s so I will try to find a better match between them.

Takeshi Ono & Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa & Naohiro Hoshikawa, BattlARTS 3/14/1997 - EPIC

Man, are BattlARTS tags the greatest thing in wrestling or what? This was just amazing, I can't praise this match enough. Ono & Ikeda look like the greatest rudo team in the world here (but they always do), just swarming all over their opponents. They even had Sho Funaki at ringside to assist in the beatdown. First half was basically built around Ono & Ikeda kicking their opponents to a pulp. Ishikawa vs. Ikeda is always the main attraction when it comes to violence, but don't underestimate Ono mixing in slick grappling exchanges in between kicking people in the face. The 2nd half had some great retaliation as Ikeda came in with a bandaged abdomen and Ishikawa and Hoshikawa just destroy him. Ikeda really looks like the toughest son of a bitch alive selling that shit like he's getting eviscerated and coming back with big desperation suplexes and lifts. Hoshikawa/Ono section was great as Hoshikawa was seemingly wrecking Ono with neck spiking suplexes and brainbuster type moves (while Ono nails him with some vicious strikes, including a sick jumping knee that sent Hoshikawa over the rope) until he got too cute by going to the top rope and ended up eating a sick double team move in an epic spot. I've had some problems with Hoshikawa in BattlARTS before and while he did look a bit green here he looked perfectly good doing some grappling and getting kicked in really painful looking ways. Ikeda also tries crushing his face with a lariat at one point and that rules. This whole match was just them going all out for 16 minutes, nothing held back and everybody looks great. It really made me think Japanese wrestling peaked with this stuff.

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Indy World 5/21/1998

 The show starts with a bunch of rookie exhibition matches involving IWA Japan guys, with most matches ending in time limit draws. And then we move right on to...

Tarzan Goto vs. Chainsaw Charlie

What a matchup, and it ends up delivering exactly as it promises. Incredibly gory, violent and chaotic brawl. I am not super well versed in Terry Funks 90s output but from what I’ve seen this is easily among his greatest matches of the decade. The Chainsaw Charlie character is so fun, and Goto holds nothing back just tearing him up. I want nothing more from a brawl than two crazy characters throwing punches and sometimes guardrails at each other and taking crazy out of nowhere bumps, and this delivered that in spades. Terry throwing chairs across the arena and then getting a barbedwire board in his face was pretty damn crazy, same for the further barbedwire spots. Goto mockingly putting a spinning toe hold on Terry only to end up eating the barbedwire himself was also a really fun character spot. Then, after getting buried underneath a bunch of plunder, Goto suddenly emerged with a broken battle to carve up Terry further. I mean, the broken bottle is pretty much a regular spot in Goto matches, but it really felt like an escalating barfight move in this. Just as Tarzan decided to reprise the 1977 Funks/Arabs match and stab the shit out of Terrys arm and I was thinking the match was moving into MOTY territory, all hell broke loose with a bunch of Kai En Tai dudes running in to attack Goto on behalf of WWF. Still we gut more props thrown around, Victor Quinones getting walloped and Wally Yamaguchi taking a nasty powerbomb from Goto. Even with the non finish, this was everything you hope for and more. I’m kinda shocked this match is not legendary as it’s just incredibly bloody and also a well worked match. If it happened on a WCW PPV people would be talking about it to this day.

Masashi Aoyagi vs. Katsutoshi Niiyama

We get like 2 minutes of this and what was shown looked rather forgettable.

Gran Hamada & Ringo Mendoza & Akinori Tsukioka vs. Great Takeru & Asian Cougar & La Ning

Mendoza and Hamada are very fun additions to the indy scum juniors. Mendoza was basically working like a maestro here and just locking in cool submissions. Wish he had been in the match more, I guess he had a great match against Cougar on a ZIPANG houseshow the following night. Tsukioka was a hard worker at this point and dutifully ate all of Asian Cougars sick offense. I haven’t seen La Ning before, but he had a cool twisting dive and then a funny moment where he completely overshot on a moonsault. The match was basically a spotfest with everyone rolling out their offense, but everything made sense and looked good, so I had fun.

The Great Kabuki vs. Shinigami

How bad is Shinigami? Bad enough he couldn’t have a decent match against Kabuki. This was clipped down and still pretty bad.

Goro Tsurumi & Apollo Sugawara vs. Devil #2 & The Bulldog(?)

Devil #2 is some weird indy scum monster in a skeleton suit. He has multiple doppelgänger at ringside and sometimes they switch places by doing a thimble rig switching motion. The Bulldog is a big tough looking foreigner and actually seemed like a decent worker, but with the rest of the guys here this was never going to be anything more than a bullshit match.

Dick Togo & Shoichi Funaki & MENs Teioh vs. GEKKO & Palomino & ZAP

Classic Kai En Tai rudo performance. What made this unique was Masao Orihara in his goofy GEKKO costume doing his best to outscum them, spitting on people and kicking everyone in the balls. Palomino is Ikuto Hidaka and it was nice to see him work some cool sequences against his trainer Funaki and hit a big dive. Togo also had some cool exchanges with Orihara in this, including one where he hits this awesome spin kick. Finish was pretty great too, Orihara goes for his Spider German Suplex and Togo nails him with a dropkick while he’s in the tree of woe, then Teioh jumps on him to kick at Orihara some more while Togo hits the big senton for the easy victory. ZAP is tubby dude in a goofy costume and perfectly average. This was lacking in structure (people were just constantly punching eachother in the nuts to transition to offense) but it was a cool slice of pro wrestling.

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More Assorted Rare NJPW TV

 Riki Choshu vs. Antonio Inoki (NJPW 5/18/1984)

One of my favourite matchups in all of Japanese wrestling, and this is another good one in their series. Choshu blitzes Inoki with a big lariat followed by an oklahoma stampede and the match is blazing hot right from the go. Choshu is decimating Inoki and going for the sharpshooter while Inoki is just trying to hang on and regain his senses. Choshu is a bulldozer in this constantly pressing on, and we get several neat Inoki comebacks including one where he just clocks Choshu with a random kick that Choshu sells huge because Inoki is that much of a badass. When Inoki finally gets something going he goes berserk throwing punches and open hands and trying to pull Choshus scalp off. Love how heated the crowd gets when Inoki merely teases his armbreaker. Finishing run is pretty great and extremely well put together with an unexpectedly big bump, a typically 80s finish being test, Inoki seemingly getting destroyed etc. Great little match.

Antonio Inoki & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Akira Maeda & Osamu Kido (NJPW 12/11/1986)

Great tag between 4 badass wrestlers that have no problem snapping limbs. The heat was all about Maeda/Inoki, but Fujiwara stole the show. Him vs. Kido is a proven great match up, and there were several cool moments. Kido tossed the fuck out of Fujiwara after he tried getting cute with punches, later Fujiwara repaid him by making him eat a desperation punch to the face. Inoki was being a fucker, cheapshotting Maeda in the ropes and then tagging in Fujiwara, who promptly ate an asskicking, then Inoki again sneakily came in to clock enzuigiri Kido with an enzuigiri only for Kido to tag in Maeda who promptly proceeded to stomp Inokis ass. Last couple minutes were great as Kido and Maeda kept tagging in and out trying to swarm Inoki who kept coming up with counters like a dick.

Seiji Sakaguchi vs. Akira Maeda (NJPW 11/24/1986)

Really cool little scrap where they do some cool grappling and then slap the shit out of eachother. Sakaguchi is Mr. Judo so he wasn’t having Maedas crappy UWF leglocks. Maeda responds in kind by kicking Sakaguchi in the face like a punk. Sakaguchi gets mad and the match is thrown out over a triviality but they keep beating on eachother. Sakaguchi even looks like he’s had enough but Maeda just keeps hitting him, unphased by oodles of ring boys in jumpsuits coming in to separate the two.

RIP Hacksaw Butch Reed

 

Butch Reed vs. Junkyard Dog (Mid-South 7/29/1983)

Really epic, insanely heated match and a total battle of superstars, like a blue collar working mans version of Rock/Hogan if that was an actually great match. If you ask me, US wrestling never got better than two guys just trading great punch combos with the heel bumping all over the place. Junkyard Dog opens this match coming forward like an offensive truck, hitting a bunch of great punches (yup). Loved how he made a basic hip toss exciting by immediattely following up with a punch in the face. Butch Reed is just perfect in that section, trying to fire back but being overwhelmed, really great escalating bumping from him. Reeds comeback looks really violent as he basically just punches JYD in the throat and then follows up with knees and boots to the throat. Instead of a standard heat segment/comeback they do this great battle of attrition segment with Reed going for a choke and JYD coming back punching him in the face from mount and gouging his eye. Normally chokes are pretty trite in wrestling matches but these two make it look like two men really trying to strangle each other to death. 5 minutes in and this feels like an epic battle. I didn’t even have a problem with the chinlock, as it didn’t go long, and JYD had seemingly punched himself out setting up another Butch Reed comeback. Down the stretch we get JYD headbutting Reeds bandage off, bloodying him, more great punch exchanges including a really great Lawler/Dundee one on their knees and another great barfight attempted strangulation. The finish was great as the referee gets bumped, initially it didn’t seem to affect thee match as they just continue beating on each other, but then another ref bump happens. King Kong Bundy comes in but JYD takes him out (because JYD was god that night), only to get caught with a beautiful Reed dropkick to the back of the head. Reed then lands a clothesline off the tope (were top rope moves illegal at this time?) for the 3 count. Really a way cooler finish than some serious of crazy death moves and a great way to cap off a great great match.

Butch Reed vs. Junkyard Dog (Mid-South 11/4/1983)

I love me a seedy dog collar match. Reed is great here putting over how he really doesn’t like the gimmick before the bell. This was short but good. Dog opens by catching Reed in the kidney with punches, but when he goes for a headbutt Reed catches him flush with a punch in the face. Really nice Reed control segment where he goes to town whipping the hell out of JYD and looking really smug and self satisfied when he was dropping chain wrapped elbows. JYD hits some great punches to come back before a bunch of run ins happen. Steve Williams comes in to hit a 3 Point Stance charge against the intruder just as Reed misses his flying clothesline in another cool moment.

Butch Reed vs. Master G (Mid-South 11/9/1984)

This was JIP, which I’m salty about because this looked like another great match. This is a “Ghetto Street Fight” which means both guys are in their street clothes and you get the cool visual of a bleeding Butch Reed limping around the ring with torn clothes like he had been through a war, really cool violent blaxploitation vibe. Master G is all kinds of fired up here and beats the shit out of Reed with chairs and a belt. Reed is able to dump G over the top rope (a dangerous move in Watts UWF) and tries to hit G with some powder, but G is able to kick the powder out of his hand in a cool spot. Reed has some powder left though and is able to stun G before absolutely nailing him with a massive piledriver.

Butch Reed & Ernie Ladd vs. Brickhouse Brown & Master G (Mid-South 10/21/1984)

Really, really fun houseshow tag. God, promotions today would kill to have this kind of heat on their biggest shows (pandemy or not). We start with Brown & G hitting really slick armdrags and dropkicks for a shine segment before Ladd & Reed take over to kick some ass. Ladd is so great here, he is pretty over the hill but still really fun as an old guy throwing punches and dropping legs across guys backs. Reed was in kind of a supporting role to the amazing charisma of The Big Cat, but he does hit some big offense including an absolute beauty of a back suplex to Brickhouse. I am not sure why I’ve never heard of Master G, because he looks damn good in these matches. The finish is really fun with G putting this funky RINGS style sambo leglock on Ladd and Reed just hitting a fistdrop for Ladd to get the pin. Super basic but such a cool match, old school is the best.

Butch Reed vs. Magnum TA (Mid-South 8/31/1984)

Really good US style title match. This was worked like how these matches should be worked. The stakes are high, so however gets an armlock or a shoulderblock is important, and they really work it that way. Really good hold for hold wrestling to start, executed with a sense of attrition. I love watching these guys running the ropes and doing leapfrogs. Reed takes over when he is able to catch Magnum with a really great jumping knee out of nowhere. Magnum is loopy after that and Reed follows up with further head/neck trauma moves like a hotshot, neckbreaker etc. TA comes back through a standard chinlock segment and starts pinballing Reed all over the ring to the crowds delight before Reed is able to clock him with a foreign object given from Ernie Ladd and score the upset win. Really good postmatch here with Jose Lothario throwing punches and a bunch of policemen having to be at ringside cause the crowd was getting quite unruly, really shows how ballsy you had to be to be a heel in that era.

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #5

 

Tanomusaku Toba & Tsunehito Naito vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Tomohiko Hashimoto (DDT 5/26/2001) - EPIC

More good shit from the early DDT shootstyle division. This was a crazy thaiboxer teaming with an a UWF trained grappler against a straight judoka and a killing machine, you have to love it. Toba/Ishii exchanges were once again so fucking violent and great. Initially Ishii was blowing off Tobas strikes and just mauling him. This whole match Toba really works like a guy who is too small to have enough hitting power to KO the big guys right away, but he will absolutely pummel guys with shots until he is able to land a big one. I dug Naito here, having some cool judo vs. UWF style grappling exchanges against Hashimoto, throwing some great neck-spiking suplexes and reversing an STO into a backdrop in a pretty great spot. I also loved his little floor browling section with Ishii where he threw a reckless dropkick with Ishii launching a chair right back at him. I continue to enjoy Tomohiko Hashimoto as a guy with nothing but cool judo throws, and he was ragdolling the shit out of Toba with his throws and suplexes and even a cloverleaf giant swing at one point. TOBA was great as he usually is in the matches, throwing crazy kicks and punches while absorbing said massive beatings and bumps on his own. I probably would’ve preferred a Toba vs. Ishii ending run, as you could tell Hashimoto is limited and pretty green here (not sure if his early judoka phase wasn’t actually his peak as he spent the rest of his career as a crummy garbage brawler), but the Toba vs. Hashimoto end run was about was well put together as you can do thai boxer vs. judoka, with Hashimoto throwing out crazy suplex and Toba backhanding the shit out of his face.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Tomohiko Hashimoto (DDT 5/21/2002) - FUN

Talk about a contrast. Hashimoto has no strikes and is a judoka, Toba has no grapples and is a thaiboxer. It could have been a pretty esoteric match, but they made it digestible for their mainstream audience. Toba punches really hard and hits big dives, and Hashimoto tosses the fuck out of him. Really good example of Tobas ragdoll bumping as Hashimoto just threw him around like a child. It was like a 5 minute match (probably for the better) and I would think this is what US TV matches could look like in a cool parallel universe.

Tanomusaku Toba & Kota Ibushi vs. Munenori Sawa & Yuta Yoshikawa, DDT 4/1/2007 - GREAT

4 youngins beating the soul out of eachother. Ibushi was wild here, he really should've kept working like a slap-happy kickboxer instead of turning into a flip machine. Even in a match where everyone is throwing potatoes Toba stands out, he throws his combos a little faster than everyone else, really understands how to anticipate his opponents strikes, and he lands his big punches with a slightler bigger thud than everyone else. Whenever he gets put in a submission, the intensity increases drastically. I remember Yoshikawa being pretty hit and miss in his BattlARTS days, but he looked good here putting some stretches on Toba early on and giving Ibushi a nasty facewash later. His section with Toba was an easy career highlight. And then you had that bare knuckle boxing finish. Great stuff.

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Munenori Sawa & Sanshiro Takagi, DDT 5/10/2010 - GREAT

Good times. Munenori Sawa was a shot in the arm for DDT at this point. He and Takagi had formed "Team Hentai". This was basically a mindless spotfest, but the spots were cool and unpredictable and there were enough violent Toba exchanges to push this into GREAT territory. Starts with a cool shootstyle floor brawling section between him and Sawa. Sawa could be pretty good at this time as an asskicker, and when he went for his Muto tribute spiel Toba punched him in the face hard, so that was good. MIKAMI did a bit of a weak looking reverse lungblower early on which is the kind of shit I don't want in my wrestling, but he looked good for the rest of the match. He is a bit trickier, a bit slicker than your typical junior and when he brought his ladder into play the spots were cool and unpredictable. Takagi had a bit of a bumbling middle aged cop vibe at this point, but he still had very good chemistry with TOBA.

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Wrestle Yume Factory 1/28/1996

This was very much a  mid 90s high school gym scum indy show.

Madness vs. The Wolf 

 THE MADNESS emanates the kind of terrible fascination typical of sleaze indy wrestling. He's just a big guy with a skull mask and a green flanel shirt. His entrance theme is just gurgling swamp sounds. The match was better than you'd expect. It was pretty basic, but The Wolf will kick you really hard and THE MADNESS has a nice powerslam. Being able to do 1 or 2 moves well will get you far enough in my book and this was decent like an approximation of a  good WWF Superstars match in a japanese high school gym.

Cosmo*Soldier vs. Azteca

Azteca is the most mediocre junior in all of Japanese wrestling history, but I'd say he was decent in WYF as opposed to KAGEKI where he just got really into being the poorest mans Liger. Cosmo*Soldier  had yet to reach his peak as a botchtastic wannabe hybrid shooter junior that he would become in 1997, but he flies way into my heart in this match by hitting hilariously miscalculated dive into nothing. This really wasn't good or anything but it made me laugh.

Hiroyoshi Kotsubo vs. Hirofumi Miura

This was Hiroyoshi Kotsubo actually being pretty good. Lord knows that guy sucks working BattlARTS and Futen, but will have a good performance on the most niche shows. This was like a scrappy BattlARTS match with Kotsubo being aggressive and working takedowns on suplexes. Miura is some karate gi wearing scum who tries kicking hard but Kotsubo just eats him. This ended up just a squash, although the finish with the GI choke was badass.
  

Onryo vs. Shinichi Shino

 Shinichi Shino is a W*ING guy who it seems was struggling to find his identity at this point. He looked like a mix of several different wrestlers. Onryo at this stage is really pretty useless outside of dives and taking nasty bumps. This was mostly Shino in control and only allowing Onryo to hit his spots which is how you carry Onryo. I wouldn't say Shino was particularily good here, but he kept things moving and the match ended up short enough to be alright.

Masayoshi Motegi vs. Shinigami

Bless our lord and saviour Motegi. He tries so, so hard to get a watchable match out of Shinigami. On the other hand, he is likely responsible for letting guys as shitty as Shinigami into the business. I will respect him for shouldering the burden, though. Shinigami is terrible, but there was one nifty moment where Motegi was working over his leg and put a Figure 4 on him. Shinigami then got up, seemingly no-selling the leg work but then his leg gave right out. It was a pretty cool bit of convincing zombie-like selling. Motegi ends the match with a cool submission that was like an STF without the face lock and Motegi leaning all the way on the zombies injured leg. Also Onryo hit a dive off the balconies during this, setting the Onryo dive count on this show to 4. The match still blew, though.

Arashi & Osamu Tachihikari vs. Shinichi Nakano & Kamikaze

Shinichi Nakano has to be like the japanese Black Terry, putting in subtle great performances in the most grimy unexpected places. Problem was that he barely was in the match. He is in a great opening section - where he gets his bandaged shoulder torn up - and a great end section though. Between that, there are way too many segments involving Kamikaze. The parts were Kamikaze was controlling were terrible as he was constantly calling spots in a really obvious manner. Arashi & Tachihikari may be the least of the WAR heavyweights but they are still OK delivering a beatdown. The end was great as Tachihikari ended up bloody. Nakano delivered some nasty as fuck stomps to the cut and a running punch that was Daisuke Ikeda levels of wild. There was also a great spot where Nakano, seemingly beaten, pulled Tachihikari in position for Kamikaze to hit a surprise flying move. Nakano smashing Tachihikari in the face with a chair repeatedly for the 10 count was also way more violent than I expected  for a high school gym main event.

THE LIBRARY

2002 MOTY List Update #7

 Wataru Sakata vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa (ZERO1 12/15)

Brutally stiff fight that blows away pretty much all current (2021) pro wrestling. The opening segment alone where they unload in the corner was just disgusting. The submissions here won't make you forget U-Style, but they did everything with a certain intensity, and you'll be too busy wincing at these two lunatics trying to hit eachother as hard as humanly possible to notice. They did a good job telling the story of the match, which was that Hoshikawa was slowly falling apart as he kept getting destroyed by his super vicious, more precise opponent. I liked how both guys used limb selling to put over the punishment, it makes sense that wyou would pick up injuries after getting kicked a dozen times, even without your opponent specifically targetting a bodypart. Sakata was just a bastard here, Hoshikawa is someone you buy as being really tough, but anytime Hoshikawa started to build momentum Sakata would punch him in the liver or knee him in the face. All the big strikes, including Hoshikawas massive enzuigiris were really well timed. I'm not gonna pretend the match was flawless or some kind of classic as Hoshikawa does a pretty lame no sell and at times the match is just going a long but for this kind of brutal fight it was fairly great. It starts out pretty nasty and you wonder how can they keep this going and have some kind of arc building up, but they pull it off and the last strike that left the loser drooling blood from his mouth really feels like an exclamation point. 

Koji Kanemoto vs. Makoto Hashi (NJPW 8/29/2002)

 
Awesome WAR-like beginning with Kanemoto trying to demolish Hashi with a barrage of strikes only for Hashi to leap in with a headbutt and trying to pulverize his jaw elbows on the ground. After that, proceeded to try and put the boot down hard on Hashi, who came across as the most tenacious, hard hitting underdog on the planet. Kanemoto was accordingly great in his role of veteran who was flustered by his heavy handed opponent. When reversing a basic suplex, Kanemoto immediately went for the kill by dropping Hashi on his head. He then proceeded to unleash some disgusting strikes in the corner. Apron bump had a sick moment with Kanemoto hitting the back of his head on the way down and was a good way for Hashi to get in some offense. Before the match could turn into a mindless 2.9999 fest, they got back on track with some more nasty strikes and Hashi desperately fighting his way out of Kanemotos leglocks. Loved Hashis limping headbutts. This feels like a NJPW junior MOTDC, although I'm not super eager to rewatch a ton of those matches.

Super Dragon vs. Bobby Quance (GSCW 12/14/2002)

It's crazy to think these two had pretty much perfected the US Indy style so early in the game. This was like a distillate of their 2002 work, and while it wasn't as smartly worked as their epic match in November, it has all the cool matwork, stiffness and crazy bombdropping you can ask for. Super Dragon came across as this menacing asskicker during the opening exchanges, punishing Quance with double stomps when he attempted basic moves and kicking him hard while applying leglocks. He also hit this awesome past the turnbuckle dive. Quance is able to hold his own, countering the usual armbars and hitting a stiff dropkick. After Dragon rams into the turnbuckle (taking his signature bump where he basically suicide dives into nothing) Quance hits this shooting star press to the outside nuking both Dragon and Excalibur which is a pretty insane spot for 2002. After that that it's basically them trading big nearfalls while still maintaining a sense of competitiveness and working a few reversals/cutoffs. While there are lot of big moves it wasn't just a series of trading back and forth. Dragon once again looked great mixing up his stuff and I loved him cranking back at a basic facelock between all the powerbombs and suplexes. They also laced into eachother with hard strikes at one point. Epic finish which feels like a perfect example of how to use a crazy complicated death move like that.

Low Ki vs. Samoa Joe (RoH 10/5/2002)

  Two of indy wrestlings greatest asskickers level epic beatings to eachother. Virtually every blow in this match landed with a major thud. The match lacked in transitions, but the sheer assbeating will keep you watching till the end. Ki looked amazing as not only was making minced meat of his bigger, menacing opponent with rapid fire Kawada kicks and flying kicks to the face but also locking in crazy armbars. Joe countering the Dragon Sleeper into his Island Driver was inspired. Pretty great finish.

 2002 MOTY PROJECT MASTER LIST