Hamada UWF #1 3/1/90

Shoju Akiyoshi v. Black Aidoman

PAS: Akiyoshi is future Jado and I am going to guess that Aidoman is future Gedo, and this is way better then rookie Jado v. rookie Gedo should be. Really stiff which is kind of strange for a lucha promotion. Aidoman looked especially great, bumping around big and having an awesome looking five arm.

TKG: I'm not sure how Phil has decided who is who here? And I don't know about them actually being Jado and Gedo as I don't remember Jado and Gedo looking this crisp two years later. The thin guy did look like Jado and was slick on the mat and had a really pretty powerslam. The fatter guy wore green tights that said Japanese Sensation across the crotch and had the great five arm and nice strikes. The match ends with a reversal into a roll up with a comedy heel ref quick count. Followed by ref mugging claiming he was counting slow. Weird way to end an opener.

Monkey Magic Watika v. Masa Michinoku

PAS: This is Delfin (Watika) v. Sasuke (Masa) but at this point Watika is clearly above Michinoku as he just totally squashes him. Kind of lays in a beating, including a really nasty camel clutch. I kind of understand why Sasuke fucked him out of money years later, I would hold a grudge too.

TKG: This was a complete squash.

Xochi Hamada/Micka Takahashi v Bison Kimura/Grizzly Iwamato

TKG: And it is your undercard joshi match and it has all you need in a early nineties undercard joshi match: faces with dives and neck bridging out of your finishes, punk rock heels beating the shit out of the faces, kendo sticking faces while refs back is turned and then faces finally stealing the kendo sticks and going after the faces. This also had the added benefit of faces frustrated with heel cheating also kendo sticking the ref in the balls alot. The real manhandling of the ref gave this an almost US midget feel at points. Weird watching this and realizing how much our society has changed as in 2007 the punk rock girls would be faces and heels would either be the fashion conscious girly girls or goths. Bison is really fun here just absolutely stomping elbowing and beating the shit out of the faces. When she's on the apron and Grizzly is beating the faces, Bison does the distracted blowing on her nails pose which rules. Also I really liked the opening where Bison wearing singlet looked around the ring and put on a T-shirt like a self conscious chunky girl at the local pool. When girls fight at the pool, safe to bet on the girl wearing the shirt over her suit.

PAS: Yeah Bison was queensized in this, as she was beating the shit out of her opponents in a really reckless way, just throwing awkward elbows to the back of Xochi's neck, and stomping on faces. We also had a young Aja Kong at ring side looking punked out and sexy.

Blackman v Black Terry

TKG: This was really short but fun. Black Terry absolutely rules and was surprised by the degree it felt like Blackman was deferring to Black Terry and really letting Terry lay out match. Match builds in odd but really neat way. They start off kind of exchanging slams, arm drags eaten as slams, monkey flip as a throw/slam. Just everything eaten as a slam until Blackman eventually is able to monkey flip and project Terry out of ring. Terry avoids the countout gets back in and they start doing all spots that throw each other big distances. Its like a match built on building up trajectory of throws. Spots that project your opponent across ring section also ends with Terry getting monkey flipped and projected out of ring. This time Blackman follows it up with a great dive and Terry is counted out.

PAS: I kind of have trouble adjusting to these kind of singles matches. Lucha singles matches are usually either title matches or Super Libre brawls. This kind of syndie TV one fall match really isn't done much outside of tourneys. This was longer then a tourney match, but not worked like either a Super Libre brawl or a title match, so it just seemed odd. I imagine I will get used to this kind of stuff the more I watch H-UWF. Black Terry looked really great, he is a guy I always like when I see, but haven't seen enough of.

Super Astro/Kendo/Yoshinari Asai v. Negro Casas/Shu El Guerrero/ Espanto Jr.

PAS: This was what you bought the ticket for. Casas may be the best wrestler of all time, and he looks it here. He has a Eddie x2 monkey flip take, where it looks like he hovers in mid air, they are setting up Casas v. Asai and they look amazing in there interactions with each other, both the wrestling exchanges and the balls out brawling. Astro looked really great as usual, as really everyone did. I really liked the finish of a double countout after the spectacular dive train, the restart part of the match just felt off, and didn't add much to the point of the match which was to get over the Casas v. Asai match.

TKG: Match was paced really nicely with opening matish/ technical exchanges Negro Casas matching up awesomely with Super Astro, Kendo matching up with Espanto Jr and Asai matching up with Shu. Super Astro threw alot more suplexes than I was expecting and really good looking suplexes at that. You don't get as much Shu mat work as you'd want as Shu section is mostly about him trying stuff and Asai always landing on his feet. This builds up into your guys match up put opponents in submissions only to have their partners break the submissions with strikes which builds to your strke section which builds to the toss opponent out of ring and dive section. Everything really nice and moved along well. I haven't seen much Espanto Jr before this and he was fine here. I have seen alot of Shu before this and thought he underperformed but yeah this is all about Negro and Super Astro. The restart did fuck it up.

Perro Aguayo/Jose Luis Feliciano v. Gran Hamada/Lizmark

PAS:Perro Aguayo was amazing here, just a nutcase brawler, kicking people in the face, slamming chairs on folks head, punching people in grills. His mafia kicks were incredible fast and stiff, and both technicos took huge bumps on them. Seriously , fuck a Brody, Aguyao is how you play that role. Hamada was a bump fiend and had some beautiful comebacks too. Lizmark and Feleciano had their moments, but this was the Aguayo v. Hamada show. Hamada may take a posting better then anyone in wrestling history. The finish with the rudos destroying the technicos and challenging the entire crowd was totally awesome. It actually felt like something might break out.

TKG: Lizmark looked like he blew a couple of exchanges but they moved right through that. And well Hamada and Perro remind you why they are superstars. Phil wrote about how good Hamada is at eating stuff and he's really great at that but his offense is also just supergreat. there is this section where Hamada wastes Feliciano with a lariat follows it up with a nasty slam and then does one of the greatest elbow drops I've ever seen as he gets huge height, hangtime and then drops with what looked like the point of his elbow full force into Feliciano's trachia. I was totally expecting Feliciano to come up spitting blood.