PRO WRESTLING FUJIWARA-GUMI SHOW #23 1/24/94

Katsumi Usuda v. Shoichi Funaki:

TKG: I've seen Funaki job in lots of short matches and never thought he took finishes in particularly compelling way. Here he's uninteresting for the bulk of the match but then eats a nasty kick from Usuda, sells it really great and then sells the finishing submission really great. This was nothing till the finish.

PAS: Yeah he is a way better shootstyle jobber then a Velocity jobber. This wasn't very good though. Funaki never really was particularly good, he was a fine fifth member of KDX when Hanzo Nakajima wasn't around. Hanzo Nakajimi v. Usuda might have been better.

Mark Ashford-Smith v. Minoru Tanaka

TKG: This started with a staredown. May have been the most homoerotic staredown in all of wrestling. I've seen HHH v. HBK matches. I've seen some homoerotic staredowns. Still if not number one at least top five. Really a nothing match. One neat spot where Mark Starr dodges a kick by dropping Tanaka on his head and Starr does a nice takedown to get the submission. Submission itself wasn't as cool as the takedown.

PAS: Short and underinspiring, Tanaka was really short, as Ashford-Smith dwarfed him almost as much as Kane dwarfed Ishikawa. Smith doesn't work as a giant though and he kind of needed to for this match to work.

Jack Birthrider v. Daisuke Ikeda

TKG: I don't think any match has gone over 8 minutes on this show but this was first that was actually semi-compelling. Birthrider looks like an even more roided Dan Devine. He also spends a lot of the match reaching into his trunks and adjusting his junk. When not playing with himself he works like an amateur guy with nice throws and mat stuff.Ikeda has nice kicks and submission attempts although Devines almost comedy selling kind of hurts it. Pretty much a five minute competitive squash. Best thing on show thus far.

PAS: Birthrider looked facially like Mario Cantone if he was a gym queen instead of a fashion queen. He had a nice set of takedowns, but this never got going really.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Diuseul Berto

TKG: So I was looking for this to save the show and well it didn't. They mostly exchange standup till someone is in position for takedown and submission attempt. Fujiwara needs to go for rope break first, Deusuel goes for rope break after second exchange, and Fujiwara gets the take down in the middle of the ring after third exchange. Deuseul with nowhere to go taps out. Really the most primitive of shootstyle formulas. Enjoyed it but nothing really memorable.

PAS: This was the least of the recent Diuseul Berto matches, which is kind of ridiculous. I mean its Fujiwara, your Fujiwara match shouldn't be smoked by your Jerry Flynn match, but this really was. Fujiwara normally can find more interesting things to do with a guy below him, but this was worked the way Meada would work it.

Glen Jacobs v. Yuki Ishikawa

TKG: Glen Jacons looks huge next to ishikawa. Like Khali vs. Rey. Glen Jacobs is working as big guy with lots of knee strikes and giant throws vs. Ishikawa as guy who dominates on the ground. Jacobs throws aren't that spectacular but the real hole in Jacobs work is that he's either on offense or he isn't. When he's not on offense he just seems to be waiting for Ishikawa to run through his stuff before Jacobs can escape to the rope. Doesn't fight any of the offense. Just waits for Ishikawa to finish so they can be stood up. I like Ishikawa alot more than I like Takada but this was nowhere near as good as Takada vs. Mark Lewin. Most of that has to do with the falling quality of Evil wrestling monsters ( Purple Haze vis a vis Kane). Did Tamura get to work Ron Reiss?

PAS: Glen Jacobs really stinks and always has, but I may have like him more as gangly amateur wrestler, then as masked evil guy. Now that Undertaker and Kane are on the same brand again, they are clearly going to go back to that match up. I get the sense it might be fun as a Randy Couture amateur guy v. Chuck Lidell pure striker, see if Taker's sprawl can counter Kane's shoot.