Koshinaka Can't Put Back Together What You Sever

Masashi Aoyagi/Akitoshi Saito vs. Shiro Koshinaka/Kuniaki Kobayashi NJPW 3/9/92 - EPIC

PAS: This is pitched at the speed and violence of all of the other matches in this feud, a pair of guys in Gi's barreling full speed ahead throwing wild punches and kicks, while a pair of guys in long wrestling tights try to subdue them with the art of pro-wrestling. Koshinaka is a revelation in these matches. He isn't a guy I have ever been super high on, but put him in an invasion scenario and he is a stone cold killer. That hip attack, which can look silly, is just awesome in these matches. He looks like he is landing KO blows to the temple and jaw with his hip bones. Finish of this match was really iconic, with Saito getting his eye opened up, and both Koshinaka and Kobayashi making a real solid attempt to blind him for life. The match eventually gets stopped as Saito is crying blood, and we get a wild New Japan versus Karate Guys pull apart post match. AEW should just get a bunch of guys from Bart Vale's Florida Karate dojo and just redo this whole feud, I mean how incredible would Dustin Rhodes fighting Karate Guys be?

ER: This is great. We were just able to watch a fight that happened a few weeks before this match, with Koshinaka and Kobayashi really trying to push Aoyagi over the line in some pretty hellish ways. I thought it was such a fascinating way to present the home promotion boys come off looking like real assholes, intentionally or not. This is a tornado tag, and absolute shoot fight craziness because of it. The phrase "this is a shoot" got really overused the last few years on some pretty shitty wrestling, and you see something like this and you see multiple moments where these guys are clearly shooting on each other and you get that sense of actual danger and unprofessionalism. 

Koshinaka and Kobayashi are monsters, and Koshinaka is especially a prick here, kicking Saito multiple times in the cheekbone when you could tell he was not expecting to be kicked in his face. It takes a certain kind of man to kick a man in the face when the owner of the face is not expecting it, and Koshinaka shows he is definitely that kind of man. Around those kicks were all four men throwing knees as hard as they could into each other's chest and throw as many hard elbows and palms at each other's heads as possible. Every move to submission or strike is doused in hate, and some more unprofessional shots open Saito wide open and lead to a stoppage. Koshinaka took things too far, and I was dying for the karate guys to split his head open with an axe kick. There is a weird/cool restart with a new karate guy replacing Saito (whose head won't stop bleeding) and this man is smaller, and gets tossed around like a prison bitch by Kobayashi. Kobayashi drills him into the mat with a couple capture suplexes, rips at his gi, then flattens him with his body to lock in a choke, just the cruel kind of way a vet would treat a guy first day of camp to see if he can accidentally murder him. Koshinaka and Kobayashi really put me on the side of Team Karate here, can only imagine how I would feel as a Japanese teenager in 1992. 

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New Footage Friday: Different Style!!

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Aleksey Tyurin NJPW 7/22/90 - GREAT

PAS: Tyurin is an enormous Judoka, he looked like he might be 6'7 360, spent much of the match with some great looking Judo throws on Hashimoto. It is always fun to watch Hash try to solve a puzzle in these different style fights. The puzzle here was Tyurin's strength and technique and eventually Hash just tries to dirty it up, stunning Tyurin with two nasty short headbutts, dazing the bear enough to get him over with a side suplex and choke him out. Really fun visuals in this match, and while it wasn't tremendously action packed I really found it compelling. 

MD: Tyurin is massive, absolutely massive and he has a lurching way of moving at you with his arms up. The best way that I can explain this is that it's like when a little kid family member comes charging at you because they watched too much wrestling or something, when you're an adult and you have to do everything you can not to lose your balance and fall on them and break them. Tyurin is gingerly not trying to absolutely crush tiny child Hashimoto here. Which is bizarre and surreal. It means that just a headlock takedown seems like it could demolish Hash's kidney and break his ribs though. The flip side was that every movement (and every bit of restraint, I guess) tired Tyurin down more, so all Hashimoto had to do was stay alive long enough. Which he did. The suplex at the end barely works but is still worth seeing, though I'm not sure the choke out works because Tyurin was so large that he'd always be in the ropes. Always.

ER: Yes yes yes, this match is exactly my kind of thing. I adore that we are still finding new weird Russians that Inoki brought in, and I had no clue there were ever any GIANTS wrestling in New Japan Different Style fights. Hashimoto is a large man, and Tyurin absolutely dwarfs him. Tyurin looks like the largest possible Glenn Fleshler, a mammoth judoka who just walks through Hashimoto's strikes and flattens him with what come off like normal judo moves, like a headlock take over or an STO. He's so huge that he makes a headlock takeover look finisher worthy, and it's amazing. At one point he literally approaches Hashimoto and raises both of his arms over his head, and I swear to god he looked exactly like the grizzly bear on the poster of Grizzly. Just a giant man about to bear attack Hashimoto, so Hash kicks him right in the knee and keeps his distance. Tyurin doesn't pretend he is a bear any longer. Hash keeps getting better and better at evading Tyurin's takedowns, slipping out and landing on top, and I thought the build to the final choke was good. Hashimoto powers Tyurin over with a Saito suplex, and it while it was far from the prettiest suplex you've seen, it looks like Hash is moving a damn mountain. I bought the choke as it really looked like Hash was smothering the giant, using Tyurin's size and meaty neck against him. Great stuff. 

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Ramzin Shbiev NJPW 6/12/91 - GREAT

PAS: Shbiev comes out in boxing gloves and shorts, although he doesn't have a Box Rec record. He had decent form, but it didn't really look professional to me. Hashimoto however really knows how to work a match around a Russian guy with Boxing gloves. Hashimoto and Shbiev circle each other for the first couple of rounds, with Shbiev landing some nice body shots. That leads up to an all timer of last minute, with Shbiev dropping Hashimoto with a really nice multi punch combo. Hash realizes he can't stand in the pocket with him, hits two sick looking leg sweeps, and puts his lights all the way out with a sick high kick to the face, Shbiev didn't block it at all, and I wouldn't be surprised if he forgot all of the math he learned in middle school. 

MD: Two rounds of build up leading to one quick round of payoff, but what around it was. The build was measured and disciplined. Shbiev had a pretty clear advantage for the first two rounds, a straight up puncher. Hashimoto was able to slow the torrent with kicks, but whenever he tried to cut the distance and use his size to grab Shbiev, he ate a bunch of blows and the size and momentum necessary for the attempt brought them into the ropes. Towards the end of the second round, Hashimoto seemed to realize that just keeping Shbiev at bay wasn't going to work out and he started going for it with more wild kicks, landing one and knocking him flat. In the third, likewise, Shbiev realized that if Hash was going to do that, he better do something else and he rushed in with a really nasty flurry. They kept one-upping one another as Hash used his reach advantage with sweeping kicks, throwing Shbiev off his game enough that he could get a brutal headlock takeover and then finish it all off with a homerun hitting kick to the face. Just a hugely satisfying last round.

ER: Different Style is the most perfect pro wrestling. The looseness of a fight with the artistry of a performer, Hashimoto was really the true master of the Different Style. Inoki was the pioneer, but Hashimoto was getting these superstar reactions to his theme song because of his incredible Different Style wars. Shbiev comes out wearing long shorts and looks like someone Louis Gossett Jr. had to take down in the latter half of Diggstown, and Hashimoto is an expert at selling all of his strikes. Shbiev is a real interesting puncher, good at mixing up his shots, and Hashimoto is so captivating as someone struggling to find his distance. Shbiev drops him with this hard left to the body, and the longer this goes the more risks both guys take, both elevating their aggression. The final flurry is incredible, always amazing to me how well these non-wrestlers fall when it's time for them to take their wrestling beating. Hashimoto starts brutalizing Shbiev with legsweeps, just giving this poor guy knee problems for life, before finishing everything with a sweeping high kick that just drops him. Different Style God Hashimoto. Get me the t-shirt. 

Akitoshi Saito vs. Michiyoshi Ohara NJPW 2/8/92

MD: Crazy ten minutes of pro wrestling here. Ohara rushes Saito at the start, but Saito's about to outstrike him for most of the match. The great equalizer is that Ohara's better able to take him down and hook him, using the gi, yes, but especially with an absolutely monster capture suplex. He can't put Saito away, though, or even capitalize enough, so this builds to Saito kicking the crap out of him towards the edge of the ring, the two warring sides going at it on the floor, and a massively bloody Ohara trying desperately to get his revenge with a thousand red-streaked headbutts, changing the color of the gi. It's all for naught as Saito puts him down for good, with the post-match swarming of the ring being just as crazy as everything else we've seen here in this ten minutes of violence.

PAS: This was incredible, one of the best matches we have unearthed since we have done this. This is part of the Karate dojo versus New Japan feud, and I clearly need to find every second of this. Easily Ohara's career match, he was working as an amateur in a singlet and has some nice wild throws and takedowns, and Saito is hurling punches and kicks at him the whole time. Ohara also throws some really great looking headbutts, which are especially awesome after he is opened up and spraying blood around the ring. The whole match felt on the precipice of a riot and then it just exploded at the end. Totally awesome.

ER: Incredible, the exact kind of bloodlust you want from a NJPW/Karate Guys war. This is the most charisma I have ever seen Ohara possess, and I love young handsome normal hair Saito. You got a ringside area filled with New Japan tracksuits and karate gi's, and you know that's literally always an oil/water scenario. Ohara was super aggressive here, running down to the ring like he was Ultimate Warrior in a freestyle wrestling singlet and hits a double leg without slowing down, and then it's just several minutes of Ohara throwing Saito with STOs and other takedowns while Saito throws downward blow karate strikes and damaging kicks. Saito's kicks are really starting to slow Ohara, as they are relentless, and both guys seem to be playing VERY fast and loose with rope break rules. There were two different moments where each guy made it to the ropes to break a hold, and the rope break did not slow down the man applying the submission, merely giving them an opening to drag their opponent away from the ropes and continue choking or ripping at an arm. 

The oil and water of course mix on the floor, and New Japan guys start flying into karate guys, and it's one of those things that's always fun for me to go back and rewatch over and over, finding new guys to focus on each time. I think my favorite was a karate guy getting in Shiro Koshinaka's face, while Koshinaka completely brushes him off with stoicism and an elbow. Ohara is busted open and it only makes him madder, and he runs into the ring dripping blood and throwing nothing but smashing machine headbutts at Saito. Saito just tries to keep his cool and throw as many kicks as he can, all while Ohara is trying to smash him with his body and skull. Saito's gi gets covered in Ohara's blood splatter, making Saito look like he went to the Spirit Store and bought a "crime scene" costume. Ohara eventually cannot answer the bell, and then the oil and water mixes again as the karate guys are trying to swarm around Saito while the New Japan guys want to go at it. Again, another moment where I go back and rewatch multiple times, focusing on a different NJ guy each time. Look at the absolute babyface FIRE that Satoshi Kojima shows by repeatedly flying into karate guys to shove them out of the ring, total megastar charisma. Look at the veteran boldness of Osamu Kido as he casually wipes blood off his track suit! There is no wrong guy to look at here, in this best of all wrestling feuds. 

Akitoshi Saito vs. Shiro Koshinaka NJPW 2/12/92

MD: Impossible not to compare it to the Saito/Ohara match. This was longer, with less urgency. The blood wasn't as good. The suplexes (except for Koshinaka's last capture off a kick) were more cooperative. Once he really started to unload midway through, Saito had some great strikes, especially a jumping spin kick towards the end. Koshinaka was simply more of a showman than Ohara and he milked the ten counts and other moments better, but that's not always what you want in a match like this. The post match was a bit more meandering, with guys throwing shadow spin kicks at each other. It felt a little more like West Side Story than a war at times.

PAS: I thought this was also pretty great, although it was obviously hurt by watching it after the Ohara masterpiece. This had a lot of the wild brawling you love from this match up, with Saito being a crazed killer, and Koshinaka landing some really stiff hip attacks and big punches. This was a bit longer and wasn't turned up to 11 the whole match, but it definitely had it's frenzied moments, and I am loving Saito blooding up his Gi with the New Japan roster. Clearly I need to find and watch every released match in this feud, I love an out of control Puro gang fight. 

ER: This was more of a slow burner than Saito's fight against Ohara a few days earlier, but it was really no less good. Koshinaka brings a totally different vibe than Ohara brought, and stretches it into a more interesting story and longer payoff. I think almost all of us would pick the Ohara match if we wanted to just show one of these to someone, but this match had a great feel and strong build in a totally different way. I honestly have no idea how Saito didn't go on to become an even bigger star. He's someone we've seen in major Japanese feds for 30 years now, always a positive presence on cards but never the top guy. It's almost crazier that he didn't become Naoya Ogawa before Ogawa or Maeda after Maeda. 

The match is a long scrap that looked like it hit as hard in minute one as it did in the final minute. Koshinaka's sliding knees and hip attacks looked great, Saito's front kicks looked great, and this Koshinaka is really my most favorite Koshinaka. He had this calm cool to his attacks and took a hard kick beating in stride. At one point he caught a very fast Saito high kick, and he had this awesome measured facial reaction to it, like he knew exactly the three things he should do next. The way he casually stretches Saito into a single leg crab was like a Dojo Terminator firing up its mission. Saito comes back and starts wearing him down, and we get a cool fiery restart after it looked like Koshinaka wouldn't be able to continue. It's cool seeing guys like 2 Cold Scorpio rooting Koshinaka on from the apron, and he had a super memorable babyface dying on his sword run to the finish. Saito bloodies up the knee of his gi from trying to flatten Koshinaka's nose several times (by the end of the match Koshinaka has visible bruising under both eyes and his forehead), and I loved the shots Koshinaka was still able to fit in. His final stand was perfectly timed, getting to his feet right as he was counted down, and remaining on his feet in defeat. 

The post-match was of course another memorable fight between dojos, with Kuniaki Kobayashi leading the charge into punching a ton of karate guys in the face, and what I loved the most about it was New Japan Dojo basically heeling themselves during the beatdown. The crowd wasn't reacting to them as "their guys" by the end of this, and Koshinaka and Kobayashi were left looking at each other with the kind of sheepish looks of men who know they were the ones who pushed things too far. Koshinaka drags Aoyagi into the ring and Kobayashi comes in and jumps him from behind, none of the other karate guys are in there, it's just Koshinaka and Kobayashi hitting cheap shots, and Aoyagi is just like "guys come on, this doesn't need to happen like this". It was great, a different vibe from a familiarly excellent cast. 

Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Richard Byrne NJPW 7/8/92

MD: Compared to the other matches we watched this week, this was pretty ridiculous, but it also told the most complete story and it was sort of serene as well. For the first half, Byrne had the clear advantage on strikes, with Fujinami's selling getting them over, especially the spin kick to the gut. He had a few good moments of grappling, including almost getting the dragon sleeper on, but it was, at best even. Then, midway, Fujinami stops everything, demands gloves of his own, and comes out firing blows to the crowd's delight. Byrne, suddenly losing the striking game, has to come back with big kicks, but overstretches with it and goes tumbling over the top rope. They start fighting on the floor and he kicks the post, and it's all but over from there. This had an almost anime-esque mid-match power up with the gloves. But, since it was Fujinami, and the crowd was so into it, and he just rushed into it with so much earnest abandon, it pretty much worked.

ER: I love wrestling after the fact stories like Richard Byrne, a Massachusetts indy guy who ran a dojo in the same building as Killer Kowalski's school, who got this random match as a martial arts guy on a New Japan show, and also was a cult star in South Africa of all places. That's a cool as hell person and there's never been a better more interesting time in wrestling than these New Japan Different Style fights. Imagine if WWF was bringing in random MMA or weightlifting or decathlete guys, like they just kept the spirit of the Yokozuna bodyslam challenge and carried it through the 90s with all their biggest stars. WWF could have believably made Different Style fights the biggest focus of their 90s, and I think it would have been a more successful direction. Byrne was totally new to me here, and he's like Garry Shandling doing a Jerry Flynn character. It's great, the perfect early 90s strip mall dojo vibes. 

Byrne is such a sneering punk, with this big comical cartoon expression on his face that made him feel like a Punch Out! character. Fujinami was brilliant at selling his kicks, and honestly Byrne was great at selling for Fujinami's big late match strikes. There are great moments like Fujinami locking in the dragon sleeper around Byrne's huge head, or Byrne angrily tearing off his gloves and throwing them to the mat, then Fujinami demanding he be put INTO gloves before the 3rd round starts. Fujinami comes out with his fighter gloves and starts peppering Byrne, frustrating him with quickness, and it became a whole different Different Fight at that point. I thought Fujinami was going to end it with his great rear naked choke, but Byrne convincingly back elbows his way out of it. I LOVED Byrne's two bumps over the top to the floor, one a silly "Macho Man getting press over the top by a Yokozuna kickout" bump off a Fujinami uppercut, the other a missed kick momentum sending him down. Byrne adds some of those fun pro wrestling elements to this early 90s New Japan fight feel, including hanging from the bottom rope by one leg after eating a Fujinami enziguiri while trying to get back into the ring. The finish feels downright Memphis, with Fujinami getting a heel hook and Byrne stuck with nowhere to go, ripping his gloves off and throwing each of them at Fujinami, that felt like a glimpse of how Austin Idol would have worked one of these matches. 

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Matches from NOAH Mohammed Yone 25th Anniversary 10/18/20

 

Alexander Otsuka/Mohammed Yone vs. Akitoshi Saito/Masao Inoue

ER: It's 2020 and these boys have all beefed up to the degree that Akitoshi Saito might be the smallest man in the match. Otsuka especially needs to just sport Butcher singlets at this point. He looks like best possible Dana White. Inoue brings his failson charisma to this early, attacking Yone at the bell and having it immediately blow up in his face when Saito ducks out of the way of a clothesline that Inoue doesn't. So Inoue spends the next several moments taking legdrops and axe handles all while holding his stomach as if he just won a hot dog eating contest and his friends keep trying to hit his belly. The tone changes noticeably when Saito finally tags in, as Yone starts throwing big impact lariats to counter the heavy leather Saito comes in swinging. Saito/Otsuka is a dream pairing that's hardly happened, and we get only a taste here (ending with a great Otsuka German suplex). There's funny Inoue stuff, like Saito dropping Yone before tagging out and Inoue getting into the ring and stretching his back before just running and covering Yone. Inoue does some eye rakes, he and Saito run at Yone with some slow back elbows and lariats, and Inoue does more selling where it looks like he accidentally walked into a screen door. I was shocked to see Otsuka break out the giant swing on Inoue, but happy to see it. Everyone is a little sluggish here (they're old and meatier, it happens), but I laughed all throughout Inoue shaky legs falling to the mat every time Yone tried running at him. This is the kind of match that would have been a 2004 list match, but still makes me smile in 2020. 

PAS: This is more an Eric thing then a Phil thing. I am here to see Otsuka and we don't get enough of him to make it worth my time. I appreciate Inoue comedy, although conversely it works better in a more serious atmosphere then in a match with other people up for the yuks.  I thought Yone unable to hit a move on Inoue because Inoue is too old, but he is also too old to successfully execute a roll up, so it goes both ways.  

Daisuke Ikeda/Ikuto Hidaka/Mohammed Yone vs. Yuki Ishikawa/Naomichi Marufuji/Junji Tanaka

ER: This was great, and could have been even greater had it been worked more like a WAR or Kings Road or Futen trios. The ingredients were there but it doesn't take advantage of some of the built up drama and instead pays it off in more of a feelgood anniversary show finish than heat, but the highs are way way up there. We get this awesome surprising big babyface performance from Junji Tanaka all throughout this tag that really plays as the unexpected highlight, but the people you went in hoping to see perform, all performed. The Yone/Ishikawa opening was cool, with Yone coming in like an aggressive Batt guy and popping Ishikawa, leading to Ishikawa doing a cool sweep to cause Yone to miss a punt and slip, with Ishikawa going in for the kill with a Fujiwara. But once we get into Ikeda/Junji stretch the match really opens up into something special. Ikeda dishes out one of those cruel beatings he's known for, instantly turning Junji into a huge fighting babyface. It's a sadistic old dude punishing a tough but weaker old dude, and it came off like Kurisu kicking Mitsuo Momota's ass. Junji is out here in his mawashi, trying to put both cheeks into everything, and Ikeda would just punch, kick and lariat him back to the mat. It was feeling like the same kind of Kantaro Hoshino performance we'd see in those 80s New Japan elimination tags, all clearly building to Ishikawa and Marufuji absolutely wasting the guys across the ring from them. Ikeda's beat down on Junji goes on long enough that it gets uncomfortable, like those old AJPW beatings of Kikuchi, but I loved how Ikeda sold for all of Junji's little comebacks, including a nice headbutt and an elbow that puts Ikeda down on his butt, holding his eye. Finally Junji makes the hot tag, leading to a crowd wildly on his side as Marufuji charges in and Hidaka, Ikeda, and Yone all trip over themselves to bump wildly for this molten lava tag.

I'm just kidding, Marufuji completely tanks any of the actual built up heat, stood idly by watching his teammate get his body and limbs kicked in, and actively decides to turn this into a more standard Anniversary show main event. He just somberly strolls in, then proceeds to chop Hidaka in the corner for the next 4 minutes. Yeah, yeah, Hidaka's chest is raw and bright red when it's over, but it was literally Hidaka with his arms hooked over the top rope and Marufuji just throwing chops, slowly. It felt like more of a gym hazing than anything that would make an actual match interesting, and lo! When it comes to actual sequences, Marufuji isn't very interesting in those either. Hidaka has this evergreen goodwill with me just from showing up as a then unknown (to me) in ECW over 20 years ago. I always like when he shows up in something I'm watching, even though I wished he had worked more Batt and less juniors wrestling here.

The Ikeda/Ishikawa sequence is worth the price of admission. If you weren't as captivated by the Junji performance as I was, you're still guaranteed to love Ishikawa sharp elbows and hooking punches to the curve of Ikeda's jaw, and of course Ikeda's straight fully body right hands to Ishikawa's ailing face. A low key best moment of the match happens right after Ikeda decks Ishikawa: the camera cuts to Yone, standing on the apron with a huge grin on his face. It did not seem like the kind of grin Ikeda's partner would be flashing, instead it looked like the grin of a big fan. In that moment you really got the sense that Yone wanted Ishikawa and Ikeda in this match because he's a tremendous fan of their specific thing, and wanted the best seat in the house to view that thing. I can't blame him, as their exchanges here were as good as any of the dozens of great Ikeda/Ishikawa exchanges we've seen for decades. What amazes me most about their pairing is that there is no "home base". There isn't a comfortable set of spots that they can hit every time, branching off from those spots depending on how long they each want to solo. This is a new song every time, played in the same key, but totally different arrangement. You're going to get punches to the face, but there are never any sequences that are repeated in the same way. The greatest pairings in wrestling history (Santo vs. Casas, Rey vs. Psicosis, Flair vs. Steamboat) all have spots and elements in common with their prior matches. Ikeda and Ishikawa just go out there and play free jazz with it, every time, and I've never seen them sound like they're using different different Fake Books. 

PAS: This is a hard match to rank, as there is nothing in any of the matches on our MOTY list as bad as that Marufuji hot tag, not only the endless comedy spot chops but then the interpretive dance step superkick misses with Hidaka. Just dreadful. But there are also few things on our list as sublime as another redux of the horrific dance between Ikeda and Ishikawa. As disgusting and gorgeous as it always is, the punches and headbutts landing with that hollow sound you really only get with these guys. Yone and Ishikawa had a killer opening section, Tanaka gets massacred by Ikeda in a very Ikeda way, but we also had a finish based around a Junji Tanaka comedy spot. I dunno, color me confused.  Ikeda vs. Ishikawa is the best wrestling gets, and I think the highs are higher then the lows are lower. 

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Matches from NOAH 1/30/20

Akitoshi Saito/Masao Inoue vs. Mohammed Yone/Quiet Storm

ER: Silly little tag match, made sillier by the hilarious presence of Quiet Storm. At this point he looks  like he's playing the Danzig role in the Misfats, except he is somehow even shorter than Glenn Danzig. And it took me the entire match to figure out that unlike Masao Inoue's comedy offense, Quiet Storm's offense was actually supposed to look good. NOAH has always had comedy guys filling out their cards, but their comedy guys used to do some actual interesting stuff. Quiet Storm just does a bunch of weird smoker's cough "Come on baby!" as if gaijin warming up a Japanese crowd hasn't evolved one second past Jericho working WAR 25 years ago. His shoulderblocks don't look like they would budge a guy like Saito, he does one of the absolute worst drop toeholds I've ever seen, and he has all of these stupid flatliner variations (with the worst being a sliding one he delivers to a kneeling Inoue). Yone was a Batt guy but hasn't worked as a stiff Batt guy for years. Saito had some nice moments, with my favorite him buckling QS with a savage leg kick, and I always get a kick out of Inoue's foot stomps and sad sack persona. It took Inoue 18 seconds to get out of his t-shirt before the bell, and he's one of the few guys who can pull off Super Porky "cry while being hit" comedy without it being derivative. QS hit one very nice lariat down the stretch, but there was a lot of lame offense in this one.

Daisuke Harada vs. Hajime Ohara

ER: This is our first semifinal of the Global Junior League (I am more excited for the other semifinal) is a juniors main event epic with several matches to go until the main event. Harada was already doing dramatic swoons and holding his back 5 minutes into this match. I am not excited to see him in the main event, jerking and throwing his head back in a howl while selling like he's Kate Bush's Hounds of Love dance partner. Ohara doesn't throw great strikes, but I loved the way he attacked Harada's back. You want backbreaker variations? Ohara will give you backbreaker variations, all of them good. He rolls Harada from a fireman's carry into one, hits a pumphandle one, tilt a whirl, reverses a headscissors into one, drops a couple classic style in (while holding and pressing down on Harada's chin!), all cool. The problem is that Harada sells the first one exactly the same as he sells the 5th one, exactly the same as he sells the 10th one. He's already in agony, Ooooooooooomy baccccccckkkkkkkkkk, as he goes on to be not slowed down for one second in his offensive comebacks. Any of his offense that would have been done with a hunky dory back got done here, only here we had to put up with him showing all of his teeth after every move. Oooooooooit hurts my back when I do moooooooooooves! But I MUST do MOOOOOOVES! His has a lot of fruity cute  offense, stupid indy offense that needs to die, like making Ohara bunny hop into a fake armdrag that is actually a kneelift. When Harada isn't trying out for Godspell, he had a hard lariat that wrecked Ohara, and his running double knees looked like it should have absolutely shattered Ohara's jaw. That kind of brutality instead of bad acting would have really put the match ahead, but I thought the Harada drama was really bad.

Dick Togo vs. Yoshinari Ogawa

ER: This felt like a hot 1st act that segued directly into a hot final act. Both acts are really awesome, but it felt like a section was trimmed out of the middle. There pace was fast as hell throughout, so it didn't look like either was hurt or had an empty gas tank. It started with a bunch of snug fast arm twisting go behinds spun into headlock takeovers. Both guys rolling up bodies to jump from limbs to heads and back. I could have watched them work 15 minutes of just that kind of expert mat scrambling, felt more like tight World of Sport than the floaty mat stuff that started off Harada/Ohara earlier in the night. Togo works a nice surfboard and Ogawa works a killer figure 4 variation. Togo's selling in the figure 4 is really strong, as is Ogawa's in applying it. Ogawa was tightening it, occasionally kicking at it with his free boot, and when Togo finally reversed it he turned it into a nasty modified calf crusher. This is where the 2nd act should have been, but they quickly go into an energetic finishing sequence, with Togo's perfect standing dropkick, a missed senton, several close nearfalls on sunset flips and majistrals, and a battle over Togo's painful crossface. I was thinking the crossface would make a cool finish for the match, Ogawa working roll up counters to it while Togo rolled back to center them, but I was surprised the finish came relatively quickly. Maybe I was just loving this unseen pairing too much, two favorites matching up in the best way, and I just wanted even more. It's probably that.

PAS: The matwork in this was really cool, you don't see this kind of lucha maestros stuff much in Japan. This really felt like a good Primera Caida of an awesome match, but we never really get the other two falls. Both guys are killer on the mat, loved all of the work around the Indian deathlock, love that hold, it has always been a weak sister to the figure four, but it looks awesome and has a bunch of stuff you can do around it. I also loved the rolling around with the crossface, again just a nasty move with a bunch of opportunities to adjust and twist in and out. Still this felt like a bit of a tease, I wanted this to be longer and hit a couple of different notes, great appetizer, but I am still hungry.

28. Hideki Suzuki/Kazuyuki Fujita/Takashi Sugiura vs. Go Shiozaki/Katsuhiko Nakajima/Shuhei Taniguchi

ER: Take a look at Sugiura-gun! What a collection of goons, doing all of their pre-match stretching as  AXIZ is making their way out. These guys mean business, and this match was all about dishing out that business. Fujita is nearly 50, hasn't been fully involved in pro wrestling for two decades, and I like the old spry shooter for hire vibe he brings. He's lumpy, he's got that famous cinderblock dome, and he still has surprising speed. He also has no problem welting up every member of AXIZ. There is a lot of stand and trade in this match, and while that style isn't really my favorite, it's hard not to like a lot of what we get. Fujita throws deadly elbow strikes, and if you think his right hand slap hits hard, just wait until you feel the left directly after it. Shiozaki winds up with big red marks on his neck, looked like his head had been surgically reattached at the jawline. He stands with Fujita, but Fujita is pretty monstrous and just comes back with more elbows, more slaps, and gutbusting kneelifts. Down the stretch Sugiura-gun separates Taniguchi from the pack and treats him like they're jumping him into (or out of) their gang. I think it's tough to make the "guy being pinballed between strikes" look good, but I got really into watching these goons take turns trying to be the one to knock Taniguchi down. Taniguchi gets a great showdown with Fujita, where he throws some killer headbutts right into Fujita's collarbones. Taniguchi wasn't trained by any of the NOAH headbutters, but he keeps a favorite part of NOAH alive. My favorite section of the match was Suzuki vs. Nakajima, as Nakajima was the stiffest member of AXIZ, and I dug how he actually punished Suzuki. Suzuki is tough as hell, but Nakajima looked like a total badass kicking away at him, standing on his neck in the corner, and I dug the story that Suzuki was a killer in stacked attacks but kept getting wasted when separated from his pack (is the Suzuki/Nakajima TL draw a couple weeks later worth watching?). I thought this match did a great job setting up future singles matches and tags, all of which I am now interested in seeing.

PAS: This was a bunch of fun, a solid approximation of a 90s WAR six man tag. Suzuki wrestles primarily in slow burn matches with lots of matwork, but he is also great in these kind of wild brawls. Suzuki wasting Taniguchi with a spinning neckbreaker on the floor was the biggest spot of the match, as much of this was nasty kicks and punches. Shiozaki takes a big beating here, Fujita really tries to murder him, but he really needed to land something nastier then B- chops. Nakajima gets his head nearly kicked off at the finish and I love that Fujita has fully embraced crowbarhood in his old age.


7. Dick Togo vs. Daisuke Harada

ER: A fitting junior league final, and thankfully worked in a bubble. I was kind of dreading seeing Harada drama queen sell his way through his prior match back injury, but thankfully he went in as if nothing had been done to his back all evening. They work a cool juniors style, and Harada guided by Togo is so much better than Harada left to his own. Togo works a completely different match than he worked against Ogawa, and Harada really dominates him early. I like the idea that Togo and Ogawa went really aggressively at each other, and Harada runs at Dick right at the bell, nailing him with a dropkick and a fine German suplex, then crushing him into the guardrail with a great tope. Togo's selling really made it look like he pulled something in his back, just the difficulty in being dragged back to his feet alone made me feel for him, and then Harada puts an exclamation point on it with a double stomp as Togo is getting to his feet.

Togo is on the ropes for the first several minutes, and that's when we get DICK out of mothballs, opportunistically hiptossing Harada over the top (and I love how it wasn't a clean spot. Togo wasn't overtly selling the back, but it wasn't a clean leap over the top, Togo almost not having enough strength to get him over), then wraps Harada's leg around a guardrail with a dragon screw, then continues to pick apart Harada's leg. Harada not putting full weight on a leg is much more palatable than Harada selling his back, and heel DICK really starts being mean with him, throwing punches (and I don't think a single punch was thrown in his match with Ogawa), then challenging Harada to hit him back, dodging, and kicking his leg out. He kicks his leg out at a couple of convenient spots, then uses submission work on the injured leg to set up strong attempts at the crossface. We get a fantastic DICK tope con hilo, and he starts splatting Harada with pedigrees on the floor and off the middle buckle.

Togo made me buy into Harada'a comeback, eats knees on a missed senton, and Harada gets to use a weapon that I like: his fakeout punch into a hard shoulder strike to the gut that takes Togo's wind. Harada builds to a couple of big German suplexes, not always able to bridge because of his leg (and impressively not being such a baby about his knee), and I loved the sequence of Togo flipping out of one, missing a lariat but getting run into the ropes chest first, and Harada using that momentum to absolutely toss DICK on his neck and shoulders. The nearfalls down the stretch were strong, and made this come off like a real torch passing match (even though Harada has somehow wrestled way more matches than Togo), and plays as a shining example of Dick Togo not having lost a single step into his 50s.

PAS: This was really good. Togo is obviously a master, but I thought Harada brought some cool stuff to the match. All of the Togo legwork was super nasty, reminded of the period right before Sasuke had knee surgery, where every match Kaientai would tear his leg apart. After Togo smashes him with the Shiryu flip dive (a nice shout out to his KDX homeboy) Dick takes over, and crushes him with a Pepsi plunge and a pedigree. I loved how Harada desperately clutched at Togo's ankle, delaying Dick enough for him to get his knees up on the Senton. A nice bit of strategy and selling. I also really dug how he kept countering those big windup Togo punches by forearming him in the ribs and guts, Harada's body shot forearms were way nastier then his forearms to the head and I loved how he kept going back to them to slow Togo down. Harada hits some pretty solid snap Germans and you can just see Togo's age catching up to him. Easily the best Togo I have seen since his return from retirement and up there with his great retirement tour stuff.


2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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New Footage Friday: Rudge, Kido, Fujiwara, Choshu, Mutoh

Terry Rudge vs. Osamu Kido NJPW 5/20/77

ER: A cool snack, with Kido really impressing me with his speed and toughness against a noted tough guy like Rudge. The first 75% of the match really could have been worked the exact same if both men were tethered by a 2' rope. A lot of action is started just from establishing wrist control and we get a lot of cool minimalism, like Rudge on his back looking for the right time to kick out Kido's ankle, or Rudge trying to bridge out of a chinlock before eating a hard hammerfist blow to his stomach. Kido really gets to show off his speed when things get off the mat, and I absolutely loved him whipping Rudge into the ropes only to completely halt his momentum with a big headbutt to the stomach. Rudge sold it like me running into a bollard stomach first (it was at the park and I didn't see it). This match didn't aim for epic status, but who needs epic status?

MD: This worked out really well. These two went at it with absolutely nothing given for free but a whole lot ultimately earned, though never for long. Rudge worked this like he was in England, making sure to chain together knockdowns with holds (which is a necessity there because if you try to put something on too late after you take your opponent down, the ref will break it and call for a reset). In this environment, it made everything seem all the more visceral and unrelenting. Kido, on the other hand, was a master of just not letting go, no matter what Rudge might try to do. My favorite bit of that was probably a nasty hammer blow to the mid-section as Rudge was trying to bridge up out of a chinlock, but there was a long, dynamic wristlock spot early on too. Oh yeah, they beat the heck out of each other with forearms and European uppercuts too, really just at every opportunity. This kept a good pace, never wore out its welcome, used whips liberally to bridge things. I really dug how Kido both entered and exited the match with the backbreaker too. I'm not sure what that said narratively, but it was novel and interesting yet still totally believable.

PAS: I loved this, Rudge is one of my favorite Euro guys, definitely in the same phylum as guys like Regal and Finlay, and he worked this in his tough man style, Yanking and twisting at limbs. Kido can be a bit passive sometimes, but Rudge forced him into his style of match, and they really laced each other with tight looking elbows and uppercuts. No wasted moments, no flab, just a tight corners punch out.


Riki Choshu/Osamu Kido vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Kengo Kimura NJPW 10/22/77

MD: One thing that stood out immediately was how little 28 year old Fujiwara stood out visually. That was true to a degree with Choshu as well, especially considering his later look, but Fujiwara always seemed to have a look that matched his style be it the mustache or what. We've seen him so old for so long that it's a bit offputting to see him young. He was still himself, however, able to manipulate limbs and space and grind down on everything he did. The strikes were great and varied in this one, with Kimura especially having great jabs. Choshu got to sell a little (and better than Kido who was more than happy shrugging off legwork) but spent most of his time just tossing people around with these dynamic, over-the-top slams. Honestly, that last bit, along with the repetition of some spots (like a knee drop on the way in after a tag) made some of this felt weirdly experimental. It was a fun snapshot.

PAS: This was an undercard tag and thus not really shooting for anything too big, but it was a chance to see two all time greats in Choshu and Fujiwara in their relative youth (also two pretty cool dudes in Kido and Kimura.) Fujiwara has a perm which is truly bizzare, he still is Fujiwara though, he throws some really great looping body shots to the kidneys, and does some nifty arm and leg work. I also really liked Kimura throwing hands too. Choshu did seem a bit washed out, he is such a great minimalist wrestler but back then he hadn't yet figure out how to project his personality into his work.

Keiji Mutoh/Michiyoshi Ohara vs Shiro Koshinaka/Akitoshi Saito NJPW 7/18/93

MD:In digging through this footage, you never know what's going to jump out. Yeah, something like Diamond vs Liger is going to get flagged immediately just for the oddball nature of the pairing, but a third or fourth from the top match like this tag, you can't really know one way or the other with unless you watch.

I ended up really liking this. It was straightforward but still dynamic, maybe more down my alley than Phil or Eric's. It had three or four distinct bits of heat, with Koshinaka and Saito playing the part well (Koshinaka is particularly punchable) and ultimately getting a satisfying but never-for-certain comeuppance. I loved the initial tease of Koshinaka getting in, only to drive the action right to his corner and get his butt shot in to start off the first bit of heat. Mutoh was pure charisma. Ohara was the world's best Taz, with all sort of great suplexes and throws, both in reversals out of nowhere and coming in after a big tag. Everyone was more than happy to lay their shots and kicks in. The finishing stretch had just enough wrinkles to put things in question without ever stretching credulity. This was just good wrestling.

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New Footage Friday: WE DECLARE WAR!!! 6/25/93

WAR 6/25/93

This is a six match series with WAR vs. Heisei Ishingun. Sort of a border skirmish in the WAR vs. NJ conflict, with Koshinaka's band of outsiders taking on a group of WAR defenders. Weird show, having a WAR card in 93 with no Tenryu, but tubby interpromotional asskicking is about the best thing in wrestling and this had it in spades

Show starts with sort of a drawing of straws to set up the match ups


Koki Kitahara vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi

PAS: This was the longest of the matches on the show, and goes into several different phases, all of them pretty great. It opens with both guys throwing taters at each other, they spill to the floor and wildly fling chairs. One of the things that made this match so great is the raggedness of it. There isn't very many smooth exchanges, and lots of the time they are just grabbing each other by the hair and sneaking in punches and headbutts. Large parts of this feel  bar fight, where both guys are a little unskilled and a little unsteady. I loved Kobayashi just throwing multiple fisherman's suplexes and not going for the pin and Kitahara's dickish little kicks to the head. Finish was cool with Kitahara DDTing Kobayashi on the floor, rolling him in and locking in a bodyscissors sleeper for a but until Kobayashi passes out, it wasn't really a dramatic pass out, and it almost felt like a questionable UFC stoppage, I loved the shoving and the "hold me back" from both camps. Thought it worked really well for the opening of a series like this.

MD: I love the dissonance of a tug of war rolling right into this match. It's a twenty minute match that's almost entirely uncooperative all the way through, which feels pretty long for this sort of thing. It's brutal and it's great. Kitahara took the brunt of this, coming off like an absolute killer, with nasty headbutts, chair shots, and kicks, but throughout most of it, he couldn't really lock in a hold. Midway through Kobayashi comes back with these amazing running headbutts, really just a momentum-laden collision and then finally locks in a leglock which feels like a big deal given the struggle up to there. They roll into the finishing stretch not long after with Kitahara hitting a German, Northern Lights, and Backdrop Driver all in a row. It felt like a clear moment of escalation which means Kobayashi popping up almost immediately thereafter to hit three fisherman's suplexes of his own felt a little unearned. It was somewhat forgivable due to the unclear death match rules but it did take me out of the match a bit. Thankfully, it set up the further escalation with the three DDTs on the floor and the rear naked choke to close it all out so it more or less worked out in the end. Anyway, the sheer brutality more than makes up for that. What a way to start a show.

Ashura Hara vs. Akitoshi Saito

ER: Tenryu may not be on this show (which is weird for a WAR show, but I see Tenryu worked a Hashimoto singles match a week before this show and then didn't work again for a month, so taking a month off work after 20 minutes opposite Hash does make sense) but Hara is clearly the Tenryu proxy as he works this match almost exactly like I think Tenryu would have, and even has a bunch of great Tenryu selling moments. It's almost as if Hara was ALSO great or something. This is the kind of match you want out of a WAR/NJ showdown, Hara roughing up the relative newbie, beating him down with chairshots on the floor and lariats to the neck, and there's a great moment where you hear the buzz of the crowd building as they anticipate Saito finally hitting his first big spinkick of the match. Hara is running to set up a killshot lariat, and the crowd knows exactly the mistake he's making, and Saito hits that spinning heel kick that is arguably the best spinning heel kick of anyone who does a spinning heel kick, and that sets up the next several minutes of Saito kicking Hara a TON. Hara's selling of Saito's kicks is downright lordly. He leans into brutal baseball bat shots to the chest, Saito comes off the ropes with a punch right to the guy that sends Hara staggering beautifully into the ropes. Saito stops him in his tracks with a couple high kicks, throws a couple of crescent kicks that glance off Hara's temple (loved Hara's selling of a glancing blow) and Hara gets literally moved back on his feet like a tackling dummy by a couple of Saito lariats. We get a couple great moments of Hara eating kicks and occasionally catching one, only able to toss Saito away to get a couple seconds or reprieve before eating more kicks. And the longer Saito kicked him I knew Hara wasn't just going to just keep getting kicked and NOT pay him back for it, and when we got to the Hara payback it delivered. Hara throws the three meanest kicks of the entire match, one to Saito's ribs and two more right to the face - the kind of thing that would make Futen main eventers blush - and then gets to show off a couple more lariats of his own. This is the match I want to see when I sit down to watch WAR.

MD: Great, straightforward nine minute match. Hara's initial demolishing of Saito was great, straight up to the nonchalance in his nasty clotheslines and chairshots. I liked how he kept tossing him out of the ring. There was just so much personality to the violence. Saito's comeback spin kick was a thing of beauty. I'm a sucker for matches that can turn on a dime on one big move like that. Speaking of personality, Saito losing the gi and then posing before every kick like he was charging up was definitely memorable and seemed to work for the crowd. Hara willfully absorbing kicks (gritting through) is a much preferred method of selling than just eating three suplexes with no real effect and the finishing flurry of clotheslines felt like the inevitable destination the match had to go.

PAS: This was pretty much a poor man's Tenryu vs. a poor man's Hashimoto, but you can match up poor man's versions of those two and have it still be fucking incredible. I loved Hara hurling Saito to the floor and plastering him with chairs, Saito's big spin kick was incredible, and he really leaned into those body kicks, those are the kind of things which would turn ribs into popcorn. Hara just grumping his way out and chucking lariats was great stuff too, I love a larait to the back of the head and Hara was just cracking Saito with them. WAR as fuck.

Masashi Aoyagi vs. Super Strong Machine

ER: I both liked this, and was disappointed by this. I didn't love the layout, there were a couple dodgy moments from Aoyagi, and the finish is literally the exact same finish as the Hara/Saito match that happened right before this match. What I liked, is further evidence that Super Strong Machine may be one of the more under discussed ass kickers of this era. He is not flashy, his offense is simple, but he executes the offense with a Finlayesque reasonable recklessness, hitting his body slams hard, sitting down fast on his piledriver, throwing running and standing lariats with a full arm, the kind of guy with a vertical suplex you can set your watch to. He's a real bully in this, beating Aoyagi through the crowd and battering him with a chair. Now that I think about it maybe the entire layout of this match is a lesser executed version of Hara/Saito. But SSM is a fun smotherer, I can really get into a guy with a nice headlock or chinlock, and he really looks like he's hooking that arm to suffocate Aoyagi. Aoyagi throwing fast kicks over his head to escape was a great touch. Aoyagi's kick section isn't as nice as Saito's, he even whiffs a kick over SSM's head by several inches, but he hits a couple really nice rolling kicks and I always love his out of control corner spinkick that ends him spilling to the apron. The leaping knee to the back of Strong Machine's head is just icing. It is strange to me that Machine finishes this in the exact same way as Hara, even bouncing off the same ropes in the same order. And the match had flaws, but really played as a nice Super Strong Machine showcase for me, made me want to dive into some more.

MD: Context has an impact on this one. As a standalone match, it was definitely good, but following the two matches that it followed, it came up a bit lacking. I liked the opening exchange with Aoyagi rushing SSM and the paralleled violence on the outside, though the punctuation of the DDT on concrete felt like it came a bit early, especially considering how it was used to end the first match. I suppose it did set the stage for Aoyagi working from underneath for most of the rest of the match, though with no particular focused selling. I like SSM because he stands out relatively with the clubbering and power moves and presence, but I don't necessarily want to see Aoyagi fighting from underneath because his stuff is so good (like that knee to the back of the skull off the ropes!). The best parts of this was when they were going toe-to-toe and there just wasn't enough of that. At least Aoyagi got to take it out on the ref after the match. Again, still good, just not "this card" great.

PAS: I agree with Matt and Eric, this basically felt like the same match we just saw, just not as great. I dug chunks of this, Aoyagi is a C+A guy, one of our all time favorites, and had a bunch of fun athletic spin kicks and I loved his early bum rush. There was a great heads up section with both guys throwing bombs at each other, but man was that finish hurt by comparing it to the previous match. Hara is looking to decapitate with his clotheslines, and SSM just didn't deliver that. This was solid WAR undercard stuff, but we are getting bigger and better then solid on this show.

Tatsutoshi Goto vs The Great Kabuki

MD: Whereas the SSM vs Aoyagi was more of the same as the first two matches, just not as good, I thought this was a nice palette cleanser on the card. Goto rushed in early (though instead of a killer knee to rush in on, it was more hugging and rolling) and took an early advantage on the outside. He pressed that into the armwork that would take up the entirety of the match. There was a great consequence-laden hope spot early into this where Kabuki punches with the bad hand/arm and immediately drops down selling it. Past that, Goto working on the arm wasn't super varied but it was focused and mean with Kabuki selling well. When he finally was able to fire back, late in the match, the crowd was definitely into, but then things sort of meandered to an out-of-nowhere finish. If they had tightened this up by a couple of minutes or let Kabuki get a more sustained comeback at the end, it would have been better. I liked most of it for what it was though.

PAS: Very different match with this being mostly just Goto working over the arm of Kabuki and Kabuki selling. The arm work was fine, and Kabuki's selling was great, the moment where he finally hits his uppercut only to collapse in pain was awesome. Still Kabuki is a so much more dynamic offensive wrestler then Goto, it was a bit of a bummer to see him smothered for most of the match. I liked the surprise roll up pin, but I just felt a little robbed of a big Kabuki explosion. 

Hiro Saito vs Kengo Kimura

MD: Another very solid match. This one felt just as violent as the others (especially everything that happened on the outside), but at the same time, somehow more cooperative, or at least conventional. I think that says more about the rest of the card than about this match in and of itself. The first third of the match was focused around chairs, beatings on the outside, one brutal whip into a tiny table, and the setpiece of the exposed corner buckle (Kimura's attempt to expose it partially lets Saito come back, Kimura cements one transition by tossing Saito into it, etc.). The exposed buckle is a non-factor for the rest of the match, which is a shame. The finish is set up by Saito missing a top rope senton out of that exact corner. Kimura diving to crotch him on it to set up the exact same finish would have been more rewarding. Small thing. Also, this was probably a good spot on the show for color with Saito's head rammed into the buckle a few times. (Note after the fact: PWO's Jetlag got to these before we did and I went to check his review on this and he had the exact same notion. That makes me feel less monstrous). Some of Kimura's jumping knee offense looked muddy with the fancam, but I really love his double axe-handle clubber. He throws himself into it more than anyone I've seen. This was a good mix of brawling and more conventional moves and transitions.

PAS: I dug this, there is something very appropriate about sitting in the front row of a WAR show and having fat ass Hiro Saito flying over the railing and landing on top of you. No reason to think that this feud should respect the fans anymore then the wrestlers respect each other. Hiro Saito doesn't do a lot of different things, but does the things he does exceedingly well. His senton is honestly one of the greatest looking individual wrestling moves ever, just pulverisingly beautiful, the standing one looked bad enough, but that second rope one was like an anvil hitting Wile E. Coyote. If Kimura didn't move out of the way of the tope rope attempt he would have looked like spilled condiments. I do think this was the match that could have used blood, but otherwise this show keeps delivering. 

Shiro Koshinaka vs Takashi Ishikawa

MD: This was one-third a really good match and two thirds an excellent one. I loved how Koshinaka took it right to Ishikawa to start, but that first third got dragged down a bit by holds that lacked struggle (though, once the armwork started, not necessarily direction). What it did manage to have, however was Koshinaka being the only guy on the card really to play to the crowd and just enough brutality to keep things somewhat interesting. They get way more interesting when Ishikawa takes over. Everything he does here is great. He can't transition from one piece of offense to another without making sure to pepper in a stomp on Koshinaka's face. In the middle here, it breaks down to a lumberjack match of sorts with both camps going at it. We only see bits and pieces of this as the camera stays with Koshinaka's selling. That's ok, I think, because that was another strong part of the match. He's definitely a guy who could get the crowd behind him and they pop big when he hits his comeback butt bump (and as goofy a move as that always is, it has a symbolic power with the crowd so it absolutely works). His offense on the back half was a lot better with nothing seeming meandering in the least. Instead we get some nice knee drops and an unforgiving double stomp off the top.

I liked how smart the end of the match was too, with clever use of repetition and payoff. As much as anything else, the key moments of the match were the transition points: Ishikawa armdragging his way out of an armbar (followed by a huge stomp, of course), Koshinaka countering a three point stance clothesline attempt with a butt bump, and then late, when Ishikawa turned the third butt bump attempt in the match into a snap clotheslining on the top rope which allowed him to set up a series of chokeslams and the second three point stance attempt clothesline (this time successful for the win; I need to work in how great his rapid fire clotheslines to the front and back of the head were earlier in the match so I'm sticking that here). A match like this didn't need that sort of narrative cleverness. It could have just been these two guys killing one another. It's a testament how good this was and how well it closed out the show that they went a step beyond.

PAS: Takashi Ishikawa's WAR run was one of the great short term wrestling runs of all time. He was there from 92-94 and was uniformly excellent including several all-time level matches. This was a step below that level, but not a huge step and his performance was excellent. Koshinaka was really great as a underdog babyface (which is weird because this was a WAR show) and takes a big time bloody beating from Ishikawa and really rallies the crowd behind him. Matt is right about how awesome that butt but is as a momentum shifter. I loved all of Ishikawa's nasty stomps, he really looked like he was trying to extinguish a brush fire on Koshinaka's head. The spot were Ishikawa blocks a hip toss, lands a judo throw and just stomps Koshinaka in the eye was good stuff. Loved the die on his sword performance by Koshinaka at the end, as he is able to string some big stuff together before getting absolutely smashed by a big clothesline.

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One of the Soldiers Pierced Yoshiaki Fujiwara's side with a Spear and Blood and Water Came Out

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Akitoshi Saito NJ 8/3/93 - EPIC

PAS: Holy hell was this awesome. Fujiwara attacks Saito at the bell and starts choking him with his black belt and it was on. Fujiwara versus a kicker is always the best, and Saito wasn't afraid to throw huge kicks especially to Fujiwara's belly. Fujiwara is the greatest body shot seller in wrestling history, he always sells them like he is about to throw up, but is keeping it down to fight through a Crossfit workout. Saito gets Fujiwara down and opens him up with knuckle punches to the head. Then a pissed off Fujiwara fires back with big headbutts as blood is running down his face. Finish was great Fujiwara crumple to the ground after a couple of nasty body kicks and Saito comes into finish him off, Fujiwara though grabs the next body kick and turns it into a nasty ankle lock for the tap. He then does this awesome strut around the ring with a shit eating grin on his face. He jaws a bit with Aoyagi who was seconding Saito and then offers his hand. Saito throws a kick at him, and Fujiwara has this great "look at the tough guy" smirk and struts out of the ring. I saw this on Ditch's site and got excited, but it totally exceeded my pretty high expectations.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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All Time MOTY List HEAD to HEAD Honda v. Kobashi V. Honda v. Saito

Tamon Honda v. Akitoshi Saito NOAH 3/30/03

ER: This is a match to determine the #1 contender to Kobashi's GHC title, and it's a killer game of Saito unloading more offense than he's probably ever unloaded in a match, while Honda was desperately trying to survive. Both men went hard, harder than usual. Honda isn't really a guy known for his strikes, more for his grappling and freaky tendon strength. But here Honda lobbed stiff elbows and stiff arm lariats in a way I've never really seen from him. They start with some nasty-as-expected shoulderblocks and from there Saito mostly takes over, ripping into Honda's knee with kicks, going after him with elbows and chops, cutting him to the mat with an axe kick, even getting to hit the Dead End before Honda even attempts it. Honda fires back with occasional headbutts, lariats and elbows but his knee keeps getting kicked (and him propping Honda's leg on the ropes and kicking it looked brutal), and Honda makes that knee injury look great. So as Saito keeps dishing a beating, Honda's muscle memory kicks in, and he just starts grounding Saito with the Olympic Hell. He turns pinfalls into it, tosses in his rolling version, even throws in an Olympic Hell suplex that I don't recall seeing (and thanks to the doofus camera work we didn't even see Honda hit his Dead End, as the director chose to cut to a 10 second shot of bored ass Kobashi at commentary. Thanks guys!), and Saito starts to wilt. After everything else fell short, Honda just spammed the Olympic Hell and wore Saito out. And while the finish does kind of come out of nowhere, and somewhat feels like Saito controlled 75% of the match, Saito passing out unexpectedly nicely put over the OH as a submission that should not be taken lightly, and one that could make for an immediate comeback.

PAS:  I really loved this when it happened and loved it again each time on rewatch. I didn't remember Saito using Honda's moves, but early in this he hits both a Dead End and an Olympic Hell, which was odd but kind of cool, you didn't really see that kind of thing in early 2000s NOAH. Saito was also really brutal with his kicks to the knee, Honda has these big lumpy looking knee braces under his tights and Saito was teeing off on them. I loved Honda's run of Olympic Hell variations, he feels like a anaconda who just tightens and tightens his grip, he can hit that move out of anywhere no matter how hurt he is, and if he locks it tight, you will be blowing spit bubbles. Though that it kind of came out of nowhere made it even better. Great match, career match from Saito and a notch in Honda's belt.


Honda v. Kobashi review

Verdict:

ER: I really loved this match, but it has nowhere near the drama of the title match a couple weeks later. And not just the crowd really getting behind Honda, but the build itself within the match felt larger. Kobashi's star power combined with the fans finally viewing Honda as a threat, and the drama that comes with a title bout, makes the champ an easy winner for me.

PAS: I think I might have liked the actual work in this a little better, I really loved Saito as a crowbar and Honda fighting through the asskicking to grab a choke was cool stuff, plus the right guy went over. Still the big match feel of the Kobashi match has to win in a MOTY battle.

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! NJPW 10/23/92

This card was the beginning of the WAR v. NJ feud and had the frantic riot feel that you would want an inter-promotional blood feud to have.

Akitoshi Saito v. Masao Orihara

PAS: This is a young gun v. young gun match to open the feud and was a total barnburner. Saito will always be known as the guy who killed Misawa, which is a shame because he has had a great under the radar resume of matches. The crowd is a GOP Debate audience (pro-WAR..yeah daddy I gots the jokes), and they want the heads of the karate army. It is worked kicker vs. grappler and both guys do an amazing job of getting that across. Orihara is desperately grabbing for leglocks and suplexes, while Saito is kicking his lungs out. They never seem to be fulling cooperating with each other which adds to the match, I don't want good execution, I want this to feel like the end fight of a kung fu movie. Great in ring acting from both guys, Orihara comes off desperate and bought in, this is life and death for him, while Saito is great as the emotionless killing machine. Wrestling rarely has this kind of intense sentiment from a crowd anymore and it can make an average match great, and a good match epic. The same match hold for hold would have been a nifty undercard match on a WAR card. You put it in this Korakuen, on this night and it is a truly memorable piece of history.

ER: Damn Saito has just always been this size, hasn't he. He probably weighed 240 as a 12 year old. Both men are shaved head punks here, Saito yet to grow out his bleach blonde mullet and Orihara yet to disgrace his family by becoming a yakuza button man. And I love this type of match, where some shots miss, and then other shots hit so hard and so awkwardly that you swear it's real. The crowd is crazy hot for this, at one point cutting to a tiny man angrily flipping off the ring, which is not something you really see in Japan. I love these types of matches, they feel like they could end at any time. Every time Orihara leaps on Saito with a sleeper, or Saito plants his heel into Orihara's dome feels like a potential ending with legions of jogging suits and karate gis waiting to swarm. Inter-promotional stuff with karate guys always seems to add even more of an edge, as you already have wrestling promotions feuding, but then it adds this whole new level of wrestling vs. "real" fighting and the fans always seem to get up in an electric lather for all of it.

SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR

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Fujiwara Will Restore You The Years the Swarming Locust Has Eaten, The Hopper, The Destroyer and The Cutter

Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Akitoshi Saito vs. Alexander Otsuka & Daisuke Sekimoto, Dradition 11/19/13 - EPIC

PAS: WARish slugfest which was one of the more enjoyable Puro matches of 2013 (which is admittedly a low bar with FUTEN being MIA). We open up with Fujiwara and Otsuka ripping it up on the mat, with Fujiwara doing some very cool arm escapes. After that they get up and try to bust each others eardrums with slaps. Saito and Sekimoto pretty much spend the match exchanging crowbarish forearms and clotheslines. Sekimoto has some selling issues as usual, but was mostly fine and he and Saito pounded on each other into my heart. Otuska did a dope snap german suplex on Saito and every time he and Fujiwara were in the ring together was great. Could have used a better finish, but this was a blast to watch.

ER: I'll be honest, two minutes in and I kinda already knew I was going EPIC on this one. It would have to have royally fallen apart, but it didn't, and ended up being one of my absolute favorite matches of the last year plus. Fujiwara is 64 here (and really looks older, visually) but he sure doesn't work like he's elderly. The mat tradeoffs between he and Otsuka looked as fast and prime as anything he did 30 years ago. Otsuka is really fun on the mat when he gets caught in something as he always rolls and thrashes around wildly, and Fujiwara is always so good at holding onto somebody's limb for dear life, knowing it may be his way out of the match. Once they got into a punch/slap exchange I was off my rocker! Fujiwara was really dishing some blows, and when Otsuka reared back to slug him Fujiwara stopped his momentum with a battering ram headbutt right to the stomach. Such a great momentum killer that somebody needs to steal (now that Spike Dudley hardly works anymore). He gave Sekimoto one later in the match that was maybe even better.

 We all knew Sekimoto was the likely reason if this match ended up being a letdown, but he doesn't gum up the works too bad. He had a couple eyeroll-y "pop right up screaming after taking offense" moments, but most of the time he was tossing off stiff clotheslines, deadlift suplexes and getting chopped in the neck by Saito so for the most part he was fine. Saito looks just as good as his NOAH prime over a decade ago. His spin kicks are sharp and on point, and really deliver so much more force than any other wrestler's spinkkick. He and Sekimoto have some beastly exchanges including an extended stiff shoulderblock sequence. My favorite exchange between them was Sekimoto going for a big clothesline and Saito blocking it with a single overhand right chop, like he was aiming to just cut that arm off. Then he delivers two open-handed chops to the side of Sekimoto's neck to bring him to his knees. So badass. It looked like he was breaking down and dismantling him with one arm. Fujiwara at one point comes in with the coolest block I've seen, as Otsuka was aiming to break up a pinfall and Fujiwara flies into him, taking him down by the arm into an armbar. I've never seen anything from Legend The Pro-Wrestling so this is the first I've seen of Fujiwara opposite Otsuka and it was magnetic. Two guys that matched up perfectly together. That the rest of the match stands up quality-wise is just a sweet bonus. Go watch this now.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! 4/2/93

So one of the crazier things we did here at Segunda Caida is get a bulk buy of all the WAR ever. So over the course of the next decade we will be reviewing WAR for you. This is one of WAR's first big shows in their feud with New Japan, and is pretty spectacular from start to finish.

Jushin Liger/El Samurai v Ultimo Dragon/Masao Orihara

There was a time where people used to get WAR tapes for the juniors matches, I am pretty sure that this project will be all about rediscovering the great Heavyweight slugfest and less about Lance Storm tags. Still an interpromotinal tag with Liger acting like a fucker is a good way to start the juniors. Samurai is rocking the awesome baby blue tarheel gear, which I don't remember seeing before. Ultimo and Orihara had a classic at the end of 1992 with Liger and Kanemoto, and this wasn't at that level. Still some fun stuff thought. Match kind of went back and forth at the beginning, it had some nice character moments from Liger and Orihara, but it felt a bit like time killing. They moved into a really great looking criss cross dive train, Orihara's moonsault to the floor is still breathtaking even in 1992. After that they had a nice finish run with Orihara eating a nasty little beating, it felt like it ended a bit flat though, Orihara had a dramatic kickout, makes a comeback but then just gets rana'd and pinned. Good match, but not a great one.

Haku v Dick Slater

This is the kind of match which puts the Romance in Wrestle and Romance. Unfortunately this didn't live up to its awesome promise. They spent the first part of this match working holds, and that is not what you want to see out of Haku and Dick Slater. They break it down and chop and punch each other, and Haku throws Slater into some chairs, and I started to get into it, but then Slater works a leg for a bit, and it ends with a Haku belly to belly. It wasn't terrible or anything but the match in my mind was awesome, this was mediocre.

John Tenta v. Rio Lord of the Jungle

Surprisingly entertaining short match. Tenta hits really hard, and all of his sledges looked like they knocked the wind out Rio aka The Renegade. I liked Rio running from turnbuckle to turnbuckle to hit flying axehandles, and Tenta did a great weeble wobble sell. Full Worldwide point.

Shiro Koshinaka/Kengo Kimura/Michiyoshi Ohara/Akitoshi Saito v Super Strong Machine/Ricky Fuyuki/Ashura Hara/Koki Kitahara

THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE. THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE, THIS SHIT RIGHT HERE IS WAR!! Eight lumpy dudes potato shotting each other, crazy crowd heat, great pace, lots of violence. This is what makes WAR great. The crowd seemed really behind the Heisei Ishingun team, which was weird for invaders. I imagine lots of NJ fans showed up. The WAR team was a total murders row of WARish dudes, Hara is great with his pedo mustache and awkward crowbar clotheslines, fat Fuyuki has a ton of charisma and great timing, we all know how great SSM can be from New Japan Set, and Kitahara is one of the great mulleted face kickers in Puroresu history. Akitoshi Saito is pre-mullet, but those two just go off on each other and their match ups are the highlight of a match with lots of highlights. There are no lulls like in the juniors tag, this thing is pretty much a semi-riot from the first bell, until Kitihara gets a chair chucked at him while he is going to the top, falls off and gets planted by a Koshinaka power bomb.

Tatsumi Fujinami vs Great Kabuki

This was a bunch of fun too, with the Texas set and the upcoming All Japan set Kabuki is ripe for a critical revaluation, and he was damn fun in this match. Fujinami comes in gun blazing, but gets cut off with the red mist to the eyes. Kabuki controls a lot of the middle part of the match, throwing his weird hunched over uppercuts, and landing a nasty superkick. They do a bunch of nice stuff around Kabuki working an armbar, this was a much more deliberate match then the matches preceding and following it, but both guys are so charismatic that it worked well. Finish was awesome as Fujinami is working for a sleeper and when he finally gets in locked, Kabuki sprays green mist as he loses consciousness. Just a beautiful visual.

Riki Choshu/Shinya Hashimoto vs Genichiro Tenryu/Takashi Ishikawa

Tremendous, tremendous match. Three of the all time great asskickers in professional wrestling history kicking major ass, and Ishikawa desperately trying to hold up his end. Really spectacular performance by Ishikawa, he was excellent as the burly, lumpy overmatched guy who was going to jump right into the fray. He was constantly cheap shotting the NJPW team from the apron, running in a stomping then in pin, clubbering them for behind. He both absorbed and delivered a beating worthy of the other three guys in the match. We get an awesome opening Tenryu v. Hashimoto scramble with both guys working crazy fast to grab and arm or leg. The match hits another gear when Choshu gets posted and starts bleeding, Tenryu may be the greatest "blood in the water" wrestler of all time, he just lasers in on the cut, punching and kicking Choshu right in his bloody head. Then we get a spectacular Hashimoto hot tag where he just splits guys in half with kicks, ending in a super hot finish run. I honestly though this was par with your high end All Japan tags of this period. Same level of heat and drama, just replacing the headrops with lariats and kicks to the eye and throat. Highest recommendation, WAR MOTHERFUCKER WAR!!!

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Embrace of the Backstroke: NOAH “Great Voyage in Tokyo ‘09″, 9/27/09

Consistency, uncertainty remain in Misawa's wake

I find NOAH to be one of the easiest promotions to watch: there’s a predictability to their format and booking that’s approachable (if frustrating to some), and their roster is deep. This may prove less the case in the months to come: it’s been speculated that without their flagship television, talent will be cut. Conspicuously absent from the card were Takuma Sano, Masao Inoue, and Ippei Ota. Solid hands Tamon Honda, Junji Izumida, Kentaro Shiga, and Kishin Kawabata were reduced to an untaped tag opener. In what some are calling the last time NOAH will ever sell out Budokan Hall, this first in a pair of Misawa memorial cards proved a mixed bag that signaled neither certain doom nor a turning point for the company. It was largely the same familiar NOAH that always goes down smooth. What can I tell you: sometimes grits are all you’re hungry for.

Akihiko Ito vs. Genba Hirayanagi

Genba is a sometimes fun version of Dick Togo still in search of motivation, not likely to ever find Togo’s breakneck pace or precision. Ito works so light that dropkicks which connect perfectly well still look like they’re rolling over Genba’s form like waves in Bermuda. They try the rudo spot of Genba grabbing the ref to avoid being taken to the mat before being bridged for a pin. It ended up looking like Ito playing hopscotch, which for those of you under 25 is kinda like Dance Dance Revolution on pavement. This is the first boring Hirayanagi match I can recall, one where his heel act of not giving a damn felt like legit apathy or laziness.

Atsushi Aoki vs. NOSAWA Rongai

Nosawa’s a hooligan character. When reading his name here I thought of him being dragged into an interrogation room.

“Who are you?”
“Rongai.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

Aoki’s entrance music is a Japanese pop-punk cover of “Hotel California”. The point of this match is to make Aoki look great by jobbing out a known, overconfident outsider. Preferably by tapping him with an armbar, which Aoki has successfully made NOAH’s first over submission. Instead this was worked as competitive, with a stilted momentum stemming from Nosawa’s comedy and lack of fluidity. Aoki gives Rongai most of the match, coughing up a lung when kicked and writhing in pain when “caught” in limp crossfaces. The inevitable deadweight section of modern Japanese juniors wrestling, in which two men play Triple H and hit a series of Irish whips that go nowhere, was here followed by something far better: believable nearfalls which did hype Aoki’s armbar as instant death. In a match against a guy who takes himself too seriously but is engaging to watch vs. a cad getting polite applause out of crowds, I’ll take Gary Sinise over Drew Carey. And I will stand by that half-baked analogy considering how much Rongai’s mugging resembles Carey’s.

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Ricky Marvin/Taiji Ishimori

Kikuchi has always had stubby crooked arms, but his entire physique has now become a knotted slab. His trot around the ring and perpetual shaking of cobwebs are reminiscent of Rick Steiner, his face equally canine. Ishimori hit several flashy psych-out non-moves that clearly weren't really going to be executed and thus psyched out no one but his opponent. Marvin in contrast is far better at telegraphing one move, and surprising a crowd by delaying, biding time, then hitting something different and more impactful, as he does with a tope to Kanemaru. What I said about juniors sharing Hunter’s Irish whip overkill does not apply to Marvin, who should be throwing them all the time after killing Kanemaru with one into the guardrail. The Kikuchi-as-dog phenomenon continues when he bites Marvin’s hand and is reprimanded by being swatted on the snout. This being a Sunday, any section of the paper would have fared better rapping against Kikuchi’s skull. Marvin’s rope running and flips were great as ever: he is too agile and precise in movement to have a bad match right now. I’m a sometime defender of Kanemaru, but he was the weak link throughout, hitting cross-bodies that looked like curtsies and no-selling so as to sneak in bad lariats. This was the first match on the card to feel like an actual Misawa tribute, or proxy tribute to King’s Road, as the story told was that of Kikuchi’s resilience, and willingness to take offense as stiff as Ishimori’s brainbuster. The vaudeville finish of dudes beating on each other while they literally ran offstage and crashed into the company logo worked.

Bison Smith vs. Shuhei Tanaguchi

Smith is a fine photocopy of a boardwalk caricature of Vader. He’ll likely never have a match as good as Misawa’s GHC defense against him. Tanaguchi is a petrified goober, Mike Graham with a bleached mushroom cut. Bison quickly press slams him from the ring to the ramp, powerbombing him back into it, on and on in a series of moderately impressive displays. Watching Smith, this seems a new world order, in which the monster gaijin is no longer the menacing foreign invader: this audience’s grandparents are dead, and this Coloradan Caucasian wears both the American and Japanese flag on his trunks. In fact, Smith gets the biggest round of applause thus far off his running shoulder tackle tope from ramp to ring. They go through the motions of a comeback, but all we learn is that Tanaguchi is presently a third-rate Sugiura who can lift heavyweights up for timid backdrops. Smith tires of this and hits an impressive lariat from his knees. That he then wins with a Styles Clash feels meager and out of place, like Sherlock Holmes ruminating over a bubble gum cigarette.

Jun Akiyama/Minoru Suzuki/Takashi Sugiura vs. KENTA/Takeshi Rikio/Mohammed Yone

If you’ve seen Sugiura and/or Yone wrestle tags in the last few years, you know how this starts: rope running from both, leg drops from Yone, and frenzied swing-and-miss Yakuza kicks from Sugiura. This doesn’t get going until several minutes in when Suzuki and KENTA square off. Both fake hatred well: Suzuki in particular has built this autumn of his career on getting into a Sheriff of Nottingham-level quantity of slap fights. The story told throughout the match of Suzuki taking the piss out of Akiyama fizzles, even if Akiyama gets that someone has to play the rube for the bit to succeed. Rikio has gotten an unfairly bad rap in the past, but his face is too soft to play ringleader of the motocross gang, or whatever gimmick they’ve got him penciled in for. Your heel Cena can’t look like Lou Albano. His ring work is equally uninspired and brings the match to a halt. KENTA on the other hand shines no brighter than in tags, this one no exception. Even Suzuki and Akiyama failed to match his viciousness. Were Marufuji a better face-in-peril, the two would today make a premier team. This slogged to the finish line, with everyone killing time and looking out of position, none moreso than the ref who glaringly ignored Rikio’s rope break, presumably thinking they were going to the Sugiura tap out victory earlier than they were.

Kensuke Sasaki/Takeshi Morishima/Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Yoshinari Ogawa/Kotaro Suzuki

From the outset Sasaki surprises: he asserts his size advantage over Suzuki on the mat and throws a series of quality chops. Tenryu takes some bumps from Morishima, drawing less crowd sympathy and humor from his begging off than expected. But the interplay of Tenryu as Nakajima’s drunk, berating uncle pays off: when they finally tussle, Tenryu’s chops and lariats blister. Nakajima sells Tenryu’s double chicken wing for lack of anything else to do: he is stuck. Later, Ogawa’s eccentricity is apparent in a shot of Tenryu on the apron that pans shortly to Ogawa chewing tape off his fist. Sasaki and Tenryu have a chop battle here that can stand toe-to-toe or higher (ankle-to-ankle) with every other time that bit’s been done in NOAH. The difference is Tenryu’s expressive bracing of himself with each chop, the tense willing of himself to press on. He hulks up at least three times here, each better than the last. The finish is disengaged routine, but the Tenryu vs. KO clashes are too deep to not name this fight of the night.

Kenta Kobashi/Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Keiji Mutoh/Akira Taue

Kobashi sporting a shiner was weird, as if one’s senile grandfather took a spill. This isn’t much until Kobashi and Mutoh lock up, and even then the awe isn’t there. Mutoh’s offense is too loose and sloppy for this setting, especially considering he dwarfs Kobashi in height and mass, a surprise even when considering Kobashi’s cancer. Kobashi’s selling of these moves is admirable, but can’t hide Mutoh hitting shining wizards and bulldogs with the wobbly tentativeness of a modern Mick Foley. The timing of tags throughout feels arbitrary. Takayama and Mutoh have had two exciting, violent singles this year. Yet when they lock up here, Mutoh settles for sitting in a weak STF. The crowd is up for this match but is given little to applaud: these are broken men performing an act too hobbled to be drama, and too humorless to be comedy. The highlight is Kobashi’s selling while stuck in Mutoh’s figure four: a testament to his expressiveness that’s been at times lost or taken for granted in recent years, but which now seems his greatest asset entering this pseudo-Baba phase of his career. The hold is broken in an illogical moment of Kobashi reversing the figure-four, and Mutoh reversing a second time, yet for some reason going for a rope break, even though it should be he who then has the leverage over Kobashi. Taue improves as the match progresses, getting a huge pop for his Shining Wizard and taking an insane Kobashi rana from the top rope perfectly. Like Kobashi, his selling made this all that it was. The ending is weak and too sudden, ironic given how overwrought NOAH finishes can be. While it may seem naïve to expect more from four wrecked workers, an excess of workrate or brutal head drops is not what’s missing, but a lack of storytelling, as if it was thought that simply putting these cogs together several years too late would suffice.

Go Shiozaki vs. Akitoshi Saito (GHC Title)

It’d be easy to give this one high marks for sentiment, but initially it really does click on several unexpected cylinders. Saito’s kicks are very stiff, and the backdrop driver is teased appropriately as a big deal. Even the test of strength works well. Shiozaki’s execution is still lacking, and for a presumed ace his size, his strikes still lack fire. The story early on is of Saito working over Shiozaki’s arm for several minutes. When Saito is on offense, Go sells. When Go is on offense, he does not.

One misunderstanding in the ongoing debate regarding selling in Japanese wrestling is the idea that if someone sells, they’re doing all that can be asked of them. Yet like any aspect of any emotive performance, selling can be convincing or unconvincing, effective or ineffective. Shiozaki recognizes that he is supposed to be selling, and makes a sporadic effort to do so, but like a goon actor whose crocodile tears we don’t buy in a romantic comedy, continues to chop with the right arm at full blast. If anything the strikes are stronger after the arm has taken a thorough mauling. The logistical flaws to such un-selling are often dismissed with the false ideas that a) Japanese audiences don’t care about selling, b) because they don’t, neither should anyone else watching and/or critiquing the match, and c) that wrestling is like a sport, and in sports, athletes play through pain thanks to grand intangibles such as “heart” and “adrenaline”. Option C is not a terrible story to tell in professional wrestling. Yet it seems obvious that the telling of that story would be more engaging were the worker persevering through pain visibly express that anguish, as Kobashi, Tenryu, and Kikuchi all did earlier on this card. It would ring false for me to criticize any of them for making will-powered comebacks given that all expressed how brutal the ass kicking they had taken was. For Shiozaki to use the arm as if nothing has happened negates the work Saito has put into clobbering it: from a kayfabe perspective, Shiozaki’s weapon is his right arm, and Saito aims to neutralize it. Good selling achieves two apparent, crucial goals: it gets over the offense of one’s opponent, and in turn gets over one’s self for being able to endure what is being dramatized as devastating. The issue isn’t that Shiozaki uses his arm to win with a proverbial Hail Mary: it’s that he uses the arm crucially in nearly every single move he hits through the remainder of the match, and after a minute or so of selling gives no indication that the arm has been damaged.

That said, Shiozaki does take a true beating, and the middle section of this isn’t bad. Modern Japanese wrestling is often dragged down by the compulsion to have a long-as-fuck epic, and in doing so fill the middle of the match with a bunch of wind sucking and lollygagging. Saito is capable enough to know that if you’re gonna catch your breath, it helps to break up the monotony with a vicious lariat or two. In what can be taken as a tribute to Misawa in itself, Shiozaki’s elbow smashes are the best strike he throws, something he should add to his arsenal. Using your destroyed arm to hit a handful of quick, nicely executed elbows also seems less glaring than using it to hit a half dozen lariats in succession. And while the victor of the match is never in doubt, Saito’s last stand is well executed, hitting a great suplex and as stiff a scissor kick as I’ve ever seen. His performance was not merely one those sympathetic to woe he’s expressed over hitting Misawa’s deathblow could pat him on the back for. This was an inspired performance by one who NOAH would do well to depend on as a maestro guiding the next generation for whatever time the promotion has left.

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PRO WRESTLING FUJIWARA-GUMI SHOW #27 6/18/95

Takeshi Ono v. Carl Greco

PAS: Ono still hasn't morphed into a dick yet, but this was a bunch of fun as Greco twists Ono like he was Jack Evans. Making his toe touch his face, the back of his neck touch the inner part of his knee. There were a bunch of submissions that could ever only be used on Ono, it was like Greco was inventing shit mid move.

TKG: Greco has bulked up a bunch since we last saw him, Ono is the same size. Outside of the nasty twisting, Greco also threw some nasty hard throws.

Minoru Tanaka v. Yasunori Okuda

PAS: Okuda was an Akido guy with Shinjuku Shark's hair, who wasn't very good. The did a bit of cooperative matwork where it was clear that Tanaka was letting him apply stuff, and then Tanaka gets an ankle lock. Short and bad.

TKG: I don't think this would have been any better if Tanaka was working actual Shinjuku Shark. Okudo didn't do any slow motion Aikido spots.

Michiyoshi Ohara v. Shoichi Funaki

PAS: The story was that the spunky young guy was trying to take down the big veteran and getting punished for it. Problem was Funaki's execution was so loose and shitty looking, that not only did you buy Ohara's initial no-sell, but you didn't buy it when he started selling later. Ohara had some nice slaps, and a great looking scissors kick, but Funaki needs to be putting some mustard on stuff, if he wants to hang in PWFG. He looks like a guy born to be a Velocity jobber.

TKG: Ohara grapevines Funakis legs to take Funaki down in a really pretty spot. but yeah I would have preferred to see Ohara work someone who can throw. Funaki's suplex also seemed semi-unbelievable, although Ohara was willing to take it right on top of his head busting his mouth open. Post match Funaki attacks Ohara which leads to Ohara pasting Funaki with a chair.

Daisuke Ikeda v. Takanari Tateno

TKG: This is another mixed match with Tateno in a gi wearing boxing gloves. Ikeda just bulldozes through Tateno taking him down and beating him from the mount. Nothing Tateno does looks that good but mostly he gets to move his hands fast like hes throwing flurries in defense. Doesn't really matter as this is just a one sided beating. Post match Ikeda calls out Ishikawa.

PAS: Yeah this was a slaughter, Ikeda does come off like a bad motherfucker, and where is the Ikeda v. Ishikawa PWFG match this pull apart is setting up?

Ryuji Murakami v. Katsumi Usuda

TKG: So when you work these wrestlers vs. karate guys shows one of your wrestlers needs to job. here that task falls on Usuda. unlike alot of the wrestling v. karate guys matches ou see, Murakami's stuff has a lot of force behind it and you actually buy that he's beating the shit out of his opponent. Usuda gets his mouth busted open and is saved by the bell in the first round. Usuda doesn't make it through the second. You leave this wanting to see more Murakami.

PAS: Yeah most of these mixed matches suck, mainly because the martial arts guys pull their stuff so it looks weak. Murakami ain't pulling shit, and he was dropping Usuda with really nice looping punches. This sets up Fujiwara vs. Murakami later in 95 which is a match I really excited to see now.

Yuki Ishikawa v. Akitoshi Saito

TKG: Saito starts this match by blasting Ishikawa with a leg lariat and just spends most of the match kicking the dog shit out of Ishikawa. I'm kind of used to Ishikawa as guy who stands toe to toe exchanging stiff strikes so odd seeing him work guy who eats a walloping and can only counter with submission attempts. Other odd thing is that Saito also has really good looking submissions. I mean I don't think of Saito as a guy with a lot of submissions in his arsenal but he thows on some nasty looking stuff here. Finish is pretty great as Saito goes for leg lariat and Ishikawa does "elusive wrestler" slip to catch leg in half crab.

PAS: Saito may even be hitting harder here then he does now in NOAH. I mean it is Ishikawa, you can hit Ishikawa full force. The finish was so totally spectacular, and actually looked like the kind of tricky defensive wrestling counter that Fujiwara is the master of. I still like asskicker Ishikawa better then counter wrestler Ishikawa, but he is really great as a counter wrestler.

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