Dick Togo Drive You Crazy, He Done Drove Shyne Jew. Mazaltov, Now He's Hotter Then A Molotov

Dick Togo vs. TAKA Michinoku WWF Raw 5/25/98 - FUN 

PAS: This was a RAW match for TAKA's WWF Light Heavyweight belt, and the kind of fun sprint you would expect these guys to do in five minutes. Later in his run Togo was pretty much the world's greatest Joel Hartgood, but here he was in the middle of an undercard feud so we got to see more of his stuff. They saved the senton bomb for the post match beatdown, but Dick did hit a beautiful Buzz powerslam and a rolling senton off the ring apron. It is fun watching these guys rip off spot after spot, it wasn't huge stuff, so there wasn't any no-selling, but they wanted to show off in their nickel. TAKA was so quick and charismatic you could totally see why he ended up with the contract, still clear that they dropped the ball with him. No reason he couldn't have been Rey Jr. 

ER: This was Togo's first WWF singles match, and it was basically worked like a short tryout match for both guys (it obviously wasn't a tryout match, but had that same vibe as one). Even though I didn't actually know who Kaientai was when they debuted in WWF, Togo was always my favorite, namely because of the beefiness and the Iron Maiden fandom. Here he bumps fast for Taka's great offense and doesn't give Taka a choice in bumping for his. Togo bumps on his shoulders for Taka's great missile dropkick, and absorbs Taka's always incredible no hands springboard crossbody. He pays him back with a hard elbow while Taka was on the apron, sending him flying into the guardrail, then hits a nice cannonball off the apron. He buries his boots into Taka's gut to block a crossbody, and hits a fantastic snap powerslam. They set things up in a very same-y WWF way, like they keep going back to Togo missing clotheslines to set up offense, but I liked the suddenness of the finish, Taka surprising him with a tight hurricanrana, and we still get to see Togo's huge senton when Kaientai dished out a postmatch beatdown. 

Dick Togo/Daio QUALLT/Black Buffalo vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa/Masato Yakushiji/Tsubasa Osaka Pro 11/6/00 - EPIC 

PAS: This was a classic mid 90s MPRO six man, everything we love about that style match was present here in spades. One of the impressive things about this match was how they pulled that off even with some lesser replacements. Tsubasa, Buffalo and QUALLT are no Sasuke, TAKA and Teioh but they are in the mix and hit all of their stuff well, Tsubaba for example did his best Sasuke impression by flying into the seats with a quebrada. Your MPRO veterans were your stand outs, Togo v. Yakushiji is one of my favorite match ups in wrestling history and it was great here too, but Yakushiji was shining with everyone. Just such a spectacular wrestler, he hits all of his crazy headscissors variations at a million miles an hour and takes one of the cooler, crazier out of the ring clothesline bumps I have seen in years. This kind of match is a little hard to review, without just cursing and listing cool spots, it is basically the wrestling equivalent of doing two lines of bathtub crank and stealing a car, it is everything that people who talk up Dragons Gate claim that is, even though it isn't. Great stuff, and discovering things like this is why I wanted to do a Togo project. 

Dick Togo/"Brother" YASSHI/Jumping Kid Okimoto vs. Takuya Sugawara/Brahman Shu/Brahman Kei El Dorado 12/29/07 - GREAT 

PAS: One of the more preposterous enjoyable train wreck matches I have seen in a while. This was a ladder match for some El Dorado title, and pulled off what all of the overbooked TNA spotfests fail at. I have been really digging the Brahman's in FUTEN and they are pretty great in this context too, Togo isn't the focus of this match, but he looks good. There was an especially insane looking spot where he leaps off the top rope onto a ladder while a Brahman is climbing, and the whole thing explodes. There is also this giant barrell, which they do some random cool spots with, including Okimoto taking a nasty bump on the side. The finish is totally lunatic with one of the Braham's climbing to the balcony and hooking up a carabiner to the cable holding the belt and shimmying down the cable, Okimoto starts climbing the cable too, and headbutts the Brahman, before getting knocked off. So then end of the match has everyone hitting spots with one Brahman hanging above the ring like a scarecrow. He eventually regains his barrings and grabs the belt. Not a match that makes a ton of sense if you think about much, but turn your brain off and you will dig it. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO