New Footage Friday: SABU~! PSICOSIS ~! REY JR! KANEMOTO! SAMURAI~! DEVIL'S REJECTS! CASKET!

Psicosis/Sabu vs. Rey Mysterio Jr./Konnan IWAS 7/1/95 - FUN

PAS: This is from John Arezzi's Patreon and a cool chance to see Psic and Rey at their young peak. This is JIP which is a shame because Psicosis and Rey opening sections are usually huge highlights. This was them doing a lot of TJ/ECW stuff, like cookie sheets and chair shots. That isn't what you want really out of 1995 Rey Jr., although there were some real moments, including a nasty springboard rolling senton. Sabu absolutely eats shit through a ringside table, and sometimes you forget about Sabu, but you shouldn't. Konnan had some nice clotheslines, but was Konnan. Fun little snapshot of a time. 

MD: We come in somewhere in the segunda here and it's impossible to say that what we haven't isn't a lot of fun, even if it's not at all complete. Right at the get go, the rudos take over, and Sabu is beautifully cast as a rudo, with Rey as a perfect receptacle for his body thrashing assault. He hits all the classics, contorting off a springboard, using a non-folding plastic chair as a launching pad, twice, and hitting the Arabian Facebuster with some sort of metal tray. You have to applaud Psicosis' restraint, as I've seen him do some crazy things, but here he didn't follow any of Sabu's antics and try to outdo him (he might have been able to but at the expense of a year or two of his lifespan), though he did hit a pretty nice moonsault. When the tecnicos come back in the tercera, it's by whacking skulls with said metal tray. All of this builds to Sabu absolutely wiping out through a table as Konnan moves. It was definitely a shame that we lost the opening exchanges but Konnan wasn't exactly zooming about in the bits of offense he got in late, so maybe it's not the end of the world. What we got was more or less what you'd imagine it to be, so long as you imagined slightly more Sabu than Rey.


Koji Kanemoto vs. El Samurai NJPW 3/17/96

SR: Crazy stiff match that builds to a huge finish. A nice reminder of how good the NJPW juniors could be in the 90s. Samura is fired up to begin, slapping the taste out of Kanemotos mouth before hitting a big dive. Samurai is this weird guy who is often dull but when he‘s on he‘s pretty great. He was on here working like Fit Finlay, dropping elbows across Kanemotos face, even headbutting him in the nose. Of course Kanemoto is a right fucker too and when he comes back he cracks Samurai with nasty stomps to the skull and kicks to the ribs. The whole match was pretty much all guys stubbornly sinking into submissions, not cooperating on basic moves and brutalizing each other. It builds to a pretty big crescendo, Kanemoto is slapping around Samurai, pulling him up spitting on him. He goes for a big German Suplex off the apron (you know, this was before moves like that were thrown out 10 times a month) but hits his own head weakening himself, his hatred got the better off him. Samurai in desperation mode trying to inch out a win after being beaten to a pulp was great, hell this whole thing was pretty great. Apaprently before there was only an 8 minute TV version of this available before so praise the lord for handhelds like this so we can get the full undistilled brutality.

PAS: This was killer stuff, a lot more based around stiffness and grappling then I remember from this period. 70% of the match was hard nasty grappling and forceful stiff shots. I loved those short elbows which Samurai was throwing across the bridge of Kanemoto's nose and his cheeks and Koji of course is going to respond in kind. The Kanemoto kimura counter of Samurai's German Suplex was incredible looking and the big spot section at the end had appropriately big spots. Spots on the apron are an overused thing in wrestling today, but not in 1996 and the German on the Apron was incredible stuff. Very cool this showed up in a more full format. 

MD: Liger vs Otani from the same show has been out there and talked about but this didn't get released in full apparently, which is a shame as it's both a title change and a hell of a battle. They get time on this and work it that way, mixing holds and hard shots and then escalating into bombs. Samurai's great early on after an match-starting tope, just bullying Kanemoto all over the ring, switching holds anytime Kanemoto starts to come back. It's all both perfectly smooth while still being accented by nasty shots. While Samurai had an advantage early and Kanemoto has an advantage late, a lot of this feels very even, full of gamesmanship, even if no one can chip away at a specific body part. It's a theme throughout with them going for similar moves and managing similar counters. The bombs, when they come, are outright huge, a reversed suplex to the floor, a kick off the top to a head dangling on the ropes, the German onto the apron that crushes both guys. This leads to Kanemoto's advantage and a great finishing stretch with the sort of parallels we've seen all match where it could have gone either way. Exciting stuff.

Devil's Rejects (Dominus/Iceberg/Azriel/Rev. Dan Wilson) vs. Team Anarchy (Jerry Palmer/Jason Justice/Micky Free/Abyss) NWA Anarchy 11/4/06

PAS: Dan Wilson talked about this match on my podcast it was the end of the Team Anarchy vs. Devil's Rejects feud and the start of Reject's vs. NWA Elite. It wasn't the bloodbath brawl I was expecting, this was worked mainly as a straight main event six man tag. Lots of big showdowns and some booking but mostly a traditional match. Abyss was fun as a guy getting hyped for a hot tag, but Abyss vs. Dominus punch exchanges are no bueno. Iceberg was a fun momentum eraser, just killing folks with big splashes. They really put over Palmer, as he is suplexing and spearing the heels, gets the dramatic stretcher to the back only to return, and finishes off Rev. Dan by stabbing him. Definitely left the crowd satisfied, especially with the AJ Styles cameo. 

MD: If we've learned anything from all of this Anarchy footage it's that they knew how to lay out these big matches. Here, Abyss was the special attraction on the side of NWA Anarchy's team, with fireman owner Palmer involved on one side and satanic emissary Wilson on the other. They went out of their way to shine up Palmer early on knowing he'd get taken out by Iceberg and it was a tricky balance. Azrael was in there to take his stuff and outside of a back body drop and some of the moments where Palmer just threw himself at him, it didn't look all that great. Obviously, it wouldn't have worked against Dominus or Iceberg but you didn't want him getting his hands on Wilson before he came back from being stretchered out either. If I was laying this out, I would have had him get a few more assists from his partners as he was hitting his stuff. Punching Azrael in the corner so he could hit a big shot from Justice or Free or Abyss and then Palmer could hit something. That's a nitpick though.

Abyss was a great cheerleader on the apron and it was fun when he was in there working with Justice Served. Once Palmer got taken out, Wilson served as just enough of an irritant to rationalize the heel advantage. It all built to the implement of destruction being unleashed and Palmer's return before things got cute (but in a crowd-pleasing way) with Tempers interfering and AJ Styles making a surprise appearance. I would have liked to see the Casket play into things a bit more before the finish. That's my only other nitpick. Even if it was just a few more shots in there. In general, it's no surprise the promotion lasted so long if it was giving fans moments like this and the others we've seen so often though.

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New Footage Friday: ALL EDDIE!! ALL THE TIME!!

Eddy Guerrero vs. Jushin Liger NJPW 12/9/92

MD: I'm not a huge proponent of one or two spots/elements making a match must-see. That said, this match has those one or two elements. First, there's Liger's leg selling. It's such a great balance of him allowing Eddy to stay in control and peppering in comebacks. It colors his decisions whether to dive or not to dive. It forces a post-offense hesitation that lets Eddy take back over. Even when Liger's hitting stuff cleanly, it doesn't feel dropped, just pushed past and there's always a cost, down to when he's leaving the ring after the (stolen) win. When Liger finally hits the dive late-match it feels like a huge deal, but it's also not something he can capitalize on.

The second big thing is the Eddy crowd dive. It was amazing and everyone should see it. There's nothing else to say about that really.

They had a match earlier in the year and it was far less of a complete Eddy performance and much more of a novelty minor Liger match. This is something people should go out of their way for.

PAS: I thought this was really fun, it reminded me of the Eddie vs. Ultimo Dragon WCW house show match I saw back in 97. Built slowly but really solidly with some early mat work, including some nasty leg work by Eddie, where he just cranked every hold. It built to some bigger spots, including a great Tapita by Liger and a huge springboard plancha into the crowd by Eddie which was a monster highspot in 1992. I loved the finish, Eddie just spikes Liger with one of the better superplexes I can remember seeing, it almost felt like a superplex version of the Dynamite Kid snap suplex, and the when he goes for a top rope back suplex Liger twists, lands on top, and gets the flash victory. Eddie comes out looking like a killer, and Liger is protected, great bit of business.

ER: These two hand at least a dozen singles matches together, with only one happening before this one, and that is very exciting. It has the 90s NJ juniors match structure, with matwork dominating the first half and leading to a big rope running exchange leading to some unexpectedly larger things. I say unexpectedly only because this was a house show, and they broke out some pretty big stuff for a house show, no doubt a long running habit of both men. The mat stuff was fun and engaging, both going after legs but Eddy getting the advantage and I thought they had some cool stuff. We all kind of know at this point that NJ junior matwork is more about filling time and establishing control, and they did a good job at that. I liked Eddy rolling Liger into tough pins, crucifixes and grapevined leg pins, forcing Liger's shoulder down (and then calling that back later in the match when he tried it again on a weaker opponent), wrenching Liger's knee (with Liger taking time to stretch it and pay it some lip service when Eddy was on the floor), and we finally opened things up nicely with two killer Liger armdrags, rolling off Eddy's back with a gorgeous Tim Horner style armdrag and whipping Eddy over with a Japanese armdrag, then just blasting him with a hard southpaw lariat. Great sequence. Eddy is one of the greatest armdrag takers of all time, a guy who whips over so fast and compact (and later shows off his  amazing variation where he slides out of the ring under the bottom rope and slams into the guardrail off a similar move, a bump he takes arguably the best of anyone ever). 

They drop some really big things here, suplexes, big exchanges, and the excitement really builds as it feels like the match perfectly ramps up. Nothing really feels out of place, each thing feels bigger than the last, each attack feels like it's advancing everything. We get a dive apiece from each guy, and they are both absolute doozies: Liger hits a crossbody off the top to the floor with Eddy literally standing 80% across the ring. I was looking at how far away Eddy was standing as Liger was climbing to the top, and assumed Liger was just going up there to taunt him, as there was NO way he was going to be able to ever touch Eddy...and I was wrong. That man FLEW. Eddy's dive was spectacular, hitting a springboard off the top and into the crowd, totally nuts to be doing on a show that nobody (except one secret man) was taping. The finish is satisfying, with Eddy setting up a beastly back suplex from the top only to see Liger shift his weight and land hard on Eddy on the way down. This was two absolute legends doing nothing but adding to their legacy. We live in blessed wrestling times. (Also I'm convinced that Phil brings up seeing that Eddie/Ultimo house show match more often than Al Bundy brought up his 4 touchdown game, so I'll just say that this reminded me of when I saw Eddie vs. Rey at a house show in 2005)

Black Tiger/Dean Malenko vs. El Samurai/Shinjiro Otani NJPW 9/24/93

MD: I'm pretty sure this one hasn't been out there. Even if it was, it's well worth watching, even in a sea of classic NJ Juniors matches. I love how mean and focused Eddy and Dean are here. Eddy is pretty much fully developed as mid 90s heel Eddy (which isn't as developed as 97 heel Eddy or 2000s heel Eddy but is still a great thing). Dean's not quite grown out of being a human being yet. There's a charm to the iceman thing, but this unfinished middle ground makes for better, more engaging matches. He actually acknowledged that there's a crowd out there a few times. I really liked the ebb and flow of this. There were constant stomps to break up pins and submissions instead of kickouts. Whenever Samurai and Otani started to fight back, they got double teamed or cut off. Anytime Eddy and Dean focus in on a limb, it's really dynamic and beautiful, just a constant machine gun assault to keep control of the match. It ends up just building and building until the chaos of the blind tag finish.

Sometimes I overcomplicate things, but there are a few easy crutches that can make wrestling narratives immediately better. Otani absolutely gets the value of paralleled spots. The crowd pops big every time he does immediately what he just got hit with, whether it be the heel twist on the face or following up a missed Dean falling headbutt with one of his own.

PAS: This was a great performance by Eddie and Dean, they look like they could have been a classic heel team if they had a longer run together. Just a master class of working heat on Otani, great cut offs, cool double teams and some real great timed comebacks. Loved Eddie jumping Samurai on the apron to keep Otani from making the tag. Malenko had some really smooth takedowns and roll ups and Eddie was really lining up some cool cheapshots. Unfortunately we get some real HH issues and we miss some big spots near the end, although what we saw had some nice near falls, and a great looking spinning DDT by Eddie.

ER: I thought this was mostly awesome, with only an obnoxious juniors tag habit and some unfortunate handheld issues holding it back a bit. Eddy and Dean were absolute damn machines. Otani and Samurai may as well have been up against Stan Hansen and Vader. Dean and Eddy just eat them for lunch, spending much of the match cutting off the ring and absolutely eating Otani for lunch. Seriously it felt like Samurai was in this match a total of maybe 2 minutes. Dean looked fantastic here, breaking out some cool things that he abandoned not long after (that headscissors out of a knucklelock looked like something Hijo del Santo would break out, and Dean hit it just as gracefully as Santito would have). Eddy and Dean both throw several suplexes on Otani, Dean hitting an early and mean jackhammer, Eddy interrupting and Otani spinkick to rudely drop him with a German, and there are tons of rude things throughout by these two, really in everything they do. 

Eddy scrapes his boots across Otani's face, Dean drops him with a gnarly backbreaker that sends Otani recoiling onto his head. Otani would get flashes and comebacks, all delivered explosively. His pescado to the floor was incredible, landing was major impact and smashing Eddy into the guardrail, and the late match moment where he finally hits the spinkick and the scrapes his boot across Eddy's face was an awesome moment. My gripe is that when Otani finally makes the triumphant tag to Samurai, Samurai is in the match barely 1 minute before tagging back out, and Otani had been eating a beating for literally the entire match. Otani had been desperate to tag out for 10 minutes, getting blocked at every turn by Dean and Eddy, then Samurai misses one headbutt and Otani is totally fine to get back in. I hate that. Sadly the end stretch sees a real jerk of a fan stand up directly in front of our heroic cameraman *just* as Otani is about to hit a surely spectacular springboard attack. Doesn't this asshole know a bunch of white people were going to be writing about this match 25 years later? What a POS. I hate those fans who have no forward thinking whatsoever. What about the bloggers, dickhead?

This whole thing ruled, stupid miracle Otani comeback aside. These guys are 4 all time faves of mine, and this was an all time performance from Dean and Eddy. Would have liked to see more Samurai, but thought he had nice moments saving his boy from certain doom. You like these 4 guys - I mean obviously you do - and you will no doubt love all of this.

Eddy Guerrero/Fuerza Guerrera/Jerry Estrada vs. Blue Panther/El Mexicano/Mascara Sagrada AAA 11/13/93

ER: This one really starts as a fairly genial house show style trios, before pivoting suddenly to some wild floor brawling and then turning into a messy (in a good way) assault on the tecnicos. There is no matwork, but we get a lot of time and they clearly knew what the fans wanted to see. I never realized there was so much lucha tecnico offense that revolved around grabbing a rudo's head and just kind of throwing it to the ground, but a ton of the tecnicos' early offense is just that! Estrada is a great stooge, and while he doesn't break out much of his trademark crippling bump style, he knows how to do a goofy duck walk after getting hit, or mugging to the crowd to give his opponent an opening, and any time he gets yanked to the mat by his hair it looks spectacular (as he is the most tasseled wrestler in history). Eddy is part stooge/part lightning fast superworker, taking a fantastic delayed sell faceplant one moment, and then moments later breaking out one of the greatest looking fallaway slams you've seen (the kind where he turns it into an almost physics breaking bridging throw) and working faster than anyone in the match. Fuerza is the smallest man in the match, but he also reads as the total don, the guy who can stroll in and immediately shut down a tecnico, doing not much more throughout the match other than throw great punches and use his mere presence to intimidate. Mascara breaks out his fun "ear boxing" headscissors, Panther breaks out a couple quick headscissors of his own, the whole thing is a very fun house show lucha trios.

And then Panther reveals himself to be a rudo agent, Eddy runs Mexicano the length of the ring and launches him into the crowd (and what a great looking bump into the blackness from Mexicano), and this whole thing becomes Mexicano and Sagrada outnumbered and fighting for their life. Panther spends the rest of the match on the apron selling a phantom leg or ball pain, always about to tag in and help but just never being able to do so, due to his pain. Panther is hilarious in the ways he blocks Mascara and Mexicano from doing anything, my favorite moments include Panther casually grabbing Sagrada's leg when Sagrada is on the top rope, or Sagrada landing a punch and then Panther grabbing his arm to hold Sagrado prone for some shots, all while Panther is mildly scolding him and then appearing to tell Tirantes "he was using a closed fist, you don't want to win by cheating with a closed fist!" Panther is a wonderfully aloof rudo, and it makes the fans even more rabid for any peppered in comebacks the two remaining tecnicos get. Mexicano has several moments where he shines during this two man advantage, really firing up people and throwing nice punch combos, even getting his guardrail revenge back on Eddy. It's all obviously too much for them to handle, but this played out much more interestingly than most other snake in the grass lucha matches I've seen, and it unexpectedly made me want to see Mexicano singles against all the rudos.

MD: This was just constant good stuff. The level of talent here was incredible and while it played out fairly traditionally (exchanges with escalation for a tecnico win, rudos swarm to take the segunda, goozling until the comeback until the weirdness at the end) everything was so fun and full of personality and skill that you can't help but love it if you love lucha.

The initial pairings were great and crowd seemed to just ignite the second Fuerza got in there. And they never really slowed down after that. It was just a constant buzz. Eddy, by this point, was so good at looping in little flourishes like pointing to his head after dodging one move so he could walk right into another (and subsequently flopping). Everything he did seemed to have an interesting little twist. The rudo side here was wildly expressive. You've surely seen Fuerza do the handshake/hug/cheapshot deal a thousand times and it's still as good as the first time you ever saw it. Between the dancing and playing to the crowd, bumping over the rail and coming back with a chair, Mexicano could match. Sagrada kept the quebradas coming at least. It almost felt like the tecnicos were basing for the rudos antics, if that makes any sense.

Panther was in the midst of a turn and that was probably more of a distraction than a plus in how it played into the finish, though the post-match was fun. There were a few spots that didn't quite work out and the tercera meandered a bit maybe in part due to a fight in the crowd, but everything generally flowed well despite all that and you just couldn't argue with the level of talent and charisma that was in the ring.

PAS: Eddie/Estrada and Fuerza are such a dope rudos trio, and I like all the technicos too. Before it succumbed to heel red stuff and turns, there was some really sweet exchanges. Mexicano looked great, not a guy I had searched out before, but man this makes you want to see what hidden Halcon 78 is floating around. Eddie has such explosive execution which makes him stand out even amongst a group as talented as this. Match was there to get heat on the rudos with the crowd and cement the Panther turn, and it does all that business effectively. I would have rather just seen a clean trios, but they certainly riled up the crowd and solidly executed all of the angle stuff.

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Finlay is Walking Home Three Parts Pissed

Fit Finlay vs. El Samurai NJPW 4/23/92 - FUN

ER: Finlay was a regular fly-in for the early 90s Juniors tournaments, but his matches always were clipped to shreds if they saw tape at all. So it's satisfying to finally see an actual Finlay singles match, albeit one worked a little more house show style. I'm about as cool as can be with Finlay working a house show style, though. When everything you do looks that good, flash isn't necessary. Instead he just drops 12-6 elbows on Samurai's noggin, pastes him with standing elbows, strangles him in a grisly straightjacket choke (with a kick to the spine for good measure), collides into Samurai with a couple short arm clotheslines, the kind of thing you'd expect, getting his shots in while Samurai works over his leg. The stuff on the floor was cool, with Finlay attacking him with nasty chairshots and Samurai eventually getting fed up and attacking back. Finlay hits this lighting fast clothesline off the apron, and I never recall him doing that before. He drifted out of view from the camera and then suddenly in the background he just launches himself at Samurai. Back in he drops the most precise and quick knee right between Samurai's eyes. The finish felt like a house show finish, with Finlay hitting a leaping tombstone, missing a splash or headbutt off the top, and getting rolled up. It was weird seeing Finlay attempt some flying move off the top, that's not a thing that happens.

PAS: I thought Samurai was close to a non-entity in this, which kept it from being anything more then a fun Finlay showcase match. Finlay looked great though, very WCW era Finlay, smash mouthed, nasty and hard hitting. I love watching Finlay do simple things, he has the best bodyslam in wrestling history, and his elbows and knees are just perfection. The brawling on the outside was great too, Finlay's selling on the edge of the chair chairshots was great. It looked like it smashed him square in the face, and I am sure it barely touched him at all. I pretty much hated the finish, that Tombstone was the nastiest move of the match, and Samurai winning on a banana peel spot, right after eating that move was dumb.

ER: New Japan juniors routinely told tombstone piledrivers to go fuck themselves.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FINLAY

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! 11/9/96

1. Gokuaku Umibozu vs. Jun Kikuchi

ER: Awwww yeah! What a killer little start to a WAR show! Umibozu is a sleaze fed karate guy with cool face paint, and Kikuchi is a guy that nobody has ever heard of who probably deserves to be heard of. Kikuchi looks transported straight out of a black and white 60s JWA match, like a Rikidozan partner. He's got the same thick build, old puro moveset (butterfly suplex, back suplex, those kneedrops where your shin lands flat over a guy's chest) and a Johnny Unitas flat top. Umibozu breaks out a nasty axe kick and follows it up with a straight kick to Kikuchi's chest, then levels him with a chair shot. Umibozu throws some headbutts and I love Kikuchi's classic strong style comeback. Seriously, this guy is right out of a time machine. Umibozu dumps him on his head with a folding powerbomb and then lands rough on a moonsault that sees Kikuchi kicking out right at 3 and then yelling at the ref. These guys were both awesome and both mostly unknown, and totally delivered in a 6 minute opener. Worth it.

2. Masayoshi Motegi vs. Battle Ranger

ER: Man this undercard is delivering unexpectedly. Motegi looks like a cross between Kawada and Rusher Kimura here, and delivers a great ass beating. He hits some stiff as hell lariats and works with a heft that I don't remember seeing from him. WAR apparently brings out the badass in everyone! Battle Ranger is here to get beaten, getting in only a brief run with a rana, German suplex and a smooth headscissors, but when he goes to follow up with a plancha to the floor he runs right into a waiting chair. Then Motegi mocks his battle ready stance and hits him more with a chair. Motegi hits a stiff Dr. Bomb and then absolutely crushes the finish, initially going for a superplex only to see Ranger squirt out, so - back facing the ring - Motegi grabs him in a gutwrench and hits an awesome twisting Dr. Bomb off the top. Killer finisher. The masses can finally stop harassing me, for a Battle Ranger match has finally been reviewed on Segunda Caida.

3. Masaaki Mochizuki/Takashi Okamura vs. Kamikaze/Masakazu Fukuda

ER:  This was clipped to half the running time, but it was in highlight form, and looked good enough from the highlights. 1996 was a year where WAR brought in a bunch of rookies and young guys, and a lot of them acted like real punks (to our benefit). Mochizuki is a guy who has looked good pretty much since his debut, and he's one of the more tireless guys in wrestling. It seems like his name never stops showing up in results. Okamura was clumsy in an amusing way and has been involved in the Dragon Gate office for years now. Kamikaze is another guy who is still somehow steadily working, and Fukuda died tragically from an in ring accident just a few years later. And all brought young rookie fire here. Fukuda is tall and lanky, and Mochizuki attacks him the whole match with nasty whip crack leg kicks, but goes down like a shot for a nice Fukuda elbow smash. Mochizuki and Okamura are both wearing their baggy mid 90s karate gear (with the short cropped shirts with short yet super baggy sleeves), and apparently everybody in WAR that year was instructed to use chairshots whenever a match went to the floor. Chairshots with those thin but no doubt painful Japanese metal chairs are to WAR what being thrown into the guardrail is to NOAH. Mochizuki beats Fukuda's ass on the floor, and Okamura comes flying out of nowhere with an elbow drop off the apron that mostly misses. That was a theme of Okamura's, although in an amusing way: He was kind of clumsy but had some wild asshole energy, so he would awkwardly take a bump or whiff on a move, but always with gusto. Kamikaze hits a great space flying tiger drop, Mochizuki continues to show he's one of the best kickers in pro wrestling history, and we get a fun pull apart after the match that spills to the back (and sees Kamikaze put an exclamation point on things with a big DDT on the floor on Mochizuki).

4. Doink the Clown vs. Onryo

ER: This is a weirdly infamous match among a niche circle of wrestling fans, as it was the only major promotion match to be included on Scott Mailman's Japanese Indy Sleaze comp tape. And yes, I understand that many words in that sentence I just wrote read like "Yahoo Serious Film Festival". I don't know any of the legal ramifications of Borne continuing to use the Doink gimmick several years after his awesome WWF stint, but it's really weird he showed up on just a couple WAR shows in full Doink gimmick. He's even on this show with Bam Bam Bigelow, the man he blamed for his WWF firing. So that's all weird. The match itself is incredibly fun, with Borne working really stiff and Onryo setting up a bunch of stuff for him. It's all built around Doink suckering Onryo into attacks, and then almost all of the attacks backfiring on Onryo. Doink throws some stiff shoulderblocks, catches a leaping Onryo and turns it into a nasty backbreaker, and then does two of the best drop toeholds I've seen, with Onryo rushing at him like he didn't realize he was going to eat a drop toehold. If someone could make a drop toehold look like a shoot, it was Doink, in WAR, naturally. Onryo hits some nice forearms and does a wild tope con giro to take out Doink and his own undead buddy, really a spectacular dive (which Onryo was always good for). Back in and Doink finishes things off pretty easy with a nice belly to belly and crushing Onryo's ghost chest with the whoopee cushion. Borne looked so awesome here, it really made me want to go back and watch all of his 1993 Doink run.

5. Bam Bam Bigelow/Nobukazu Hirai vs. Arashi/Osamu Tachihikari

ER: Kind of a big meaty mess of a match, but not without its charms. Early on Bigelow sells big for Arashi, bumping backwards to the floor off a shoulderblock, then smacking the drink out of the hand of a ringside fan. He smacked it from underneath, too, so the drink flew really high, straight up into the air. Hirai is a guy with tons of energy with mostly nice looking stuff, but in this match he is also responsible for one of the funniest and dumbest moments in wrestling. He and Tachihikari spill to the floor, and Hirai just wastes him with chairshots: throwing him into the ringside chairs, beating him with the chairs, burying him in the chairs. He then climbs into the crowd and runs up the stairs of Korakuen, then runs back down them, leaps onto the guardrail, slips, and falls right onto his face in all the chairs, not touching Tachihikari with whatever the hell it was he was meaning to do. But he is committed. So he suplexes Tachihikari into the chairs, gets back into the crowd, and walks up those stairs again. He doesn't walk up as high as the first time, and he goes slower, then he comes back down the stairs, slowly, gets back on the guardrail....and almost completely whiffs on a leaping clothesline. And he appears to actually injure his knee doing all of that, as he keeps going back to it the rest of the match while everyone else avoids it. Amazing. The rest of the match isn't much. We get a nice double team powerbomb from BBB/Hirai, and Hirai finishes things with a nice elbow drop off the middle rope. The sumo guys are a fun team, but this probably should have been better.

6. Kazuo Yamazaki/Takashi Iizuka vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Nobutaka Araya

ER: Yeah baby, this is all about Tenryu and Araya working as dickhead heels in their own promotion, openly taunting the fans with their assholery. Yamazaki starts the match lacing into Tenryu with kicks, and I always loved how Yamazaki still threw kicks like a kickpad guy, while just wearing tights and boots at this stage of his career. But you knew eventually that Tenryu would get his mitts on Iizuka, and when that happens then things get real. It happens in an unexpectedly awesome way, as Araya/Iizuka are in the ring, and suddenly the camera man gets knocked on his ass, and it;s like we're suddenly watching Cloverfield and have no idea what's going on, until the Tenryu pops into view as the cameraman is filming from his back. Turns out the cameraman was focused on the ring action and got blindsided as Tenryu did a sneak attack on Yamazaki. Tenryu beats Yamazaki down with a chair, and now we officially get Iizuka alone. You knew it was coming. Iizuka is always so game for taking a beating, and he's a great babyface as I always just want him to stand up for himself. They were such great jerks, laying in a beating with stiff chops and punches, nothing fancy, but the pure joy comes when Iizuka would make a miniscule comeback, because then Araya would come rushing in to immediately break it up. And every time they did that they would triumphantly raise their arms while soaking in the jeers. Tenryu and Araya are expert ring cutter offers, and we build to a big moment where Yamazaki finally comes back and breaks up a pin, kicking Tenryu right in the eye (and few are better at selling a kick to the eye than Tenryu). We get a great moment of Iizuka grabbing a desperation kneebar, but eventually Araya and his pudginess are two much for him, squishing him with two big moonsaults. This never hit peak WAR violence, but delivered at least as much as all Tenryu WAR tags. Tenryu and Araya are a total superstar heel team, making this easily must see.

7. Jushin Liger/El Samurai vs. Lance Storm/Yuji Yasuraoka

ER:  Liger and Samurai were such a cool team around this time, no way a team like Storm/Yasuraoka could come off even half as interesting. They both seem so light compared to the expresionless asskicking of Liger and Samurai. And luckily most of the match is a Liger/Samurai beatdown, so we didn't have to see extended runs of 1996 Lance Storm offense. First half of the match is Liger and Samurai cutting off the ring and picking apart Yasuraoka. Storm gets off kinda easy this match, as most of the damage that happens to him is due to his own poor landings on flying moves. Yasuraoka is the one in there getting powerbombed roughly (like 4 times!) and getting stomped by two of the better stompers in wrestling. We get a big dive spot, with Samurai plastering Storm with a tope (sending Storm crashing back hard into chairs), Yasuraoka hits a flying...something? (knee? axe handle?) that appears to not hit anyone, and Liger wastes him with a crossbody off the top. Samurai is one of the more generous bumpers ever, making all of Yasuraoka's stuff look brutal, when it does not in fact look very brutal (also, does anyone take a German suplex more annoying than Yasuraoka? He always takes them like he's doing a standing moonsault, always landing light), and Storm has some really awesome saves, really timing them so he's flying into frame at the last second. Storm and Yasuraoka win the junior titles, even though it felt like they really didn't do enough in the match to win them. Most of the match felt like a nice Liger/Samurai beatdown, with a Storm/Yasuraoka flurry at the end. Storm hits a huge flip dive to the floor that sends Liger sprawling through chairs (and sees Storm mostly do a huge Hamrick bump onto his back. Storm also took a great bump through the ropes earlier, basically flying through the ropes no hands and splatting on his back). I'm not really excited for the Storm/Yasuraoka babyface run, but it was nice seeing Samurai waste them. Samurai is always so lean and mean, I love his stomps and wrenched in holds, his reverse DDT always lands, and his left arm lariat (both standing and running variation) is a favorite of mine. I'd love to see Liger/Samurai against Tenryu/Araya

ER: Fun show that didn't look like much on paper. Nothing here was blowaway great, but it was a top to bottom fun show, a nice way to spend a couple hours. WAR felt like more of a "normal" fed at this point, but it had tons of charm and still brought the surliness.


COMPLETE SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!!

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Dick Togo is O-Dog in the Courtyard

Dick Togo/Hanzo Nakajima/Koji Kanemoto/MEN's Teiho/Shinjiro Ohtani vs. Norio Honaga/El Samurai/Great Sasuke/Super Delfin/Gran Hamada NJPW 3/5/97 - GREAT

This is a fun MPRO ten man which nicely mixes in a bunch of NJ guys. KDX adding peak dickishness Kanemoto and Ohtani is a wonderful fit, they were running around slapping people, face washing folks, sneering looked like that is where they always belonged. Togo and MEN's run through there stuff, with Togo breaking out some super fast exchanges with Delfin that really stood out.  On the face side, we got some fun crazy Sasuke, and Hamada and Delfin did what they do in these matches. I did think Samurai and Honaga didn't add much, this could have used Yakashiji throwing crazy arm drags. That and the two straight falls is what kept this a little below the classic ten man matches of this period. Still the MPRO KDX ten man is one of the great things in wrestling history, they didn't run that many of them, so even a slightly less awesome one is still a treat.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! 2/12/93

WE DECLARE WAR

ER: This is a handheld, and I can't think of a much nerdier way to spend a Saturday morning than watching a camcorder-documented recording of a small Japanese wrestling promotion from 20 years ago.

PAS: People have been going nuts over New Japan slugfests lately, but Ishii v. Shibata would be the third stiffest match on an average WAR show, so we are bringing back WAR Wednesdays!!

1. Yuji Yasuroka vs. Bestia Salvaje

ER: This match is joined in progress so we only get 3 minutes or so, but even in 3 minutes of matwork, a lightning fast majistral and a big dive you could tell how amazing Salvaje was in the 90s.

PAS: This would have been a fine CMLL tourney lucha match, but hard to get much of a sense of a 2 minute finish

2. Yoshiro Ito vs. Koki Kitihara

ER: This is also joined in progress and then we also get the back of an Asian man's head in the way of the camera for the first couple minutes. He was in the way of all the punches, and then moved in time for the chinlock sequence. Good gag, dude. But we still get a few awesome minutes of no-cooperation suplexes and hard kicks to the face and chest. Felt like something if we got even 7 minutes of it uninterrupted, could have been a lost 90s gem.

PAS: I am not sure about a gem, as Ito has never shown me much, but Kitihara is perfectly willing and able to face kick and clothesline and I enjoyed it.

3. Chavo Guerrero/Masao Orihara vs. Kodo Fuyuki/Nobukazu Hirai

ER: Fuyuki and Hirai beat the piss out of Orihara which is what you wanted out of this because Fuyuki and Hirai can dish a beating and Orihara can die. But then it grows into something much more and gets GREAT. Once Chavo tags in Hirai starts bumping all around and we get all sorts of great sequences with Orihara tagging in and getting beaten up in between trying death defying stupid moves to the floor. Orihara is obviously a bump machine but also has really great offense, dishing out a brutal clothesline and piledriver and a mad senton. Hirai dishes out the chubby frankensteiner and holy shit this gets goooooood. I really liked the team of Fuyuki and Hirai (Fuyuki especially is really awesome in this, as even though he was a part of some awesome Footloose tags a few years earlier I really love tubby Fuyuki the best), and Chavo works stiffer here than I recall him working in any of the 80s sets (though not a shocking thing to see happen in WAR). The dead lift suplex that Chavo ends the match with would impress Karelin.

PAS: Yeah this was totally badass. Total treat to see Chavo do his thing, he was still really agile and impressive at this later part of his career, the finish run was pretty intricate and fast and he worked it perfectly, in between wandering in and slapping dudes in the mouth. Orihara takes some nutty bumps and unloads quite a bit, Hirai hit all of his stuff which he doesn't always do, and fat pissed off Fuyuki was great. I loved him running in to break up a pin and just smashing Orihara's head into the mat like he was trying to break a coconut. Very good match

4. El Samurai vs. Ultimo Dragon

ER: This right here would have been the reason I bought this show if it were 1998. Now I'm far more interested in watching the barrel chested guys punch each other in the neck. This ends up going full 30 minute draw and it's pretty damn good and more proof that Samurai was the most underrated junior of the 90s. The opening matwork is really engaging as they trade submissions and reverse holds in cool ways. It never really felt like they were just filling time. Samurai goes full on dick city and Garvin stomps every inch of Ultimo's arm, then wraps him up in all sorts of triangle variations that probably seemed pretty far out 20 years ago (and still look cool today). Dragon eventually don't give no damn about it, but you all expected that so oh well. Ultimo still does some cool and unexpected things, like muay thai knees from the clinch and a sweet dive past the turnbuckles, so I can't hate too much. Crowd goes nuts for the home stretch, and this didn't feel anywhere close to its 30+ minute run time. FAR exceeded my expectations.

PAS: Yeah I was dreading watching these guys go 30, but this was pretty good. It reminded me of the really great Eddie v. Dragon WCW houseshow match I saw back in the day. All the matwork early looked good, and they had some fine midrange stuff too. I thought the end run was pretty great as both guys showed a ton of desperation trying to get the win.  You don't normally see juniors go this long, but they filled the time.

5. Takashi Ishikawa vs. Curtis Iaukea Jr.

ER: Dull match format is dull as Iaukea controls with chinlocks and stomps, before Ishikawa takes it home by getting all his fun old sumo man offense in, with cool falling clotheslines and uppercuts. There may be a good match here if you switch up some move order and control segments. This wasn't it. I hate 50/50 move trading matches, but one guy taking his 50 up front, when the other guy takes his 50 on home is pretty pointless.

PAS: Some OK Ishikawa stuff, but this was a waste of that awesome dude

6. Ashura Hara vs. Masashi Aoyagi

ER: This was really cool and was probably the match I was most looking forward to on paper. Aoyagi brings an "invader" vibe to a pro wrestling ring and the fans are amped for him as he kicks at guys wearing WAR track suits. Hara comes out to Van Hagar and the fans are down. And then we get 10 awesome minutes of a karate guy kicking Hara around the ring while Hara worked in comebacks. Hara worked this match as a cool fusion of Fujiwara and Tenryu, really taking a beating and selling like Fujiwara, just trying to avoid kicks and stumbling all around before launching back with headbutts. But then carried himself like Tenryu, throwing nice clotheslines and attempting to bully Aoyagi. Aoyagi showed tons of charisma and the fans were way into him, throwing a chair at Hara and launching all sorts of kicks and strikes at him. He built up to an awesome spot where he tore off his gi, a really cool strap lowering spot...but then followed it up with backing away from Hara. Huh. Needed some work on his timing there. I like the gi tearing in theory, then. Aoyagi was good at showing shortcomings in his style, as he would go for big kicks and miss, which would always allow Hara to get back in the game. Ending felt like it needed one more big move, but overall this delivered big.

PAS: This is a match which on paper could go one of two ways, it could be a lumpy violent enjoyable potato fest, or it could reach that next level of transcendent brutality which makes WAR, WAR. This was closer to the first then the second. I love the awkward recklessness of Aoyagi's style, every kick doesn't land clean, but when it does it lands with an explosion. I did also think this ended a bit abruptly, it didn't need an endless finish run, but a couple more exchanges might have pushed it.

7. Genichiro Tenryu/John Tenta vs. Great Kabuki/Haku

ER: Hashimoto shows up at ringside before the match and the fans go apeshit as Tenta holds Tenryu back. They desire Hash's amazing brand of asskicking. This is a 17 minute match that almost seems too short. I would have loved this as a 30 minute draw. You really get a sense of how massive Tenta is when he matches up against Haku and just towers over him. Tenta works a little too soft at first for WAR but soon realizes where he's at and dishes some great elbow drops and knee lifts. Haku and Kabuki more than make up for any early softness by dishing a fierce beating to Tenryu. Kabuki's short left uppercut is a thing of beauty and Tenryu sells every shot to his ear and/or throat great (there is an above average chance that Tenryu was just getting hit in the ear and/or throat). Haku busts out some neat stuff too, just unleashing an insane slap/chop attack on Tenryu at one point, just flying at him with both arms before dealing a great sit out powerbomb. Kinda looked like he may have been pissed at Tenryu for kicking him with the toe of his boot one too many times. Kabuki and Haku make an awesome team of two asskickers, hardly ever using moves, just being vicious ear/nose/throat specialists. Tenryu's comebacks are the best, throwing some of the hardest chops I have EVER seen him throw. The last 5 minutes are just incredibly great with Kabuki decimating Tenryu's ear some more, Tenta tagging in and beating down some dudes (GREAT spot included Tenta setting up the Earthquake splash and the crowd going nuts, but then Kabuki hitting him with the mist after Tenta runs the ropes). This was all awesome stuff and pretty much exactly what you'd want.

PAS: I loved this match, this was that next level shit the previous match didn't get to. Haku is a really hit and miss guy during his career, you get flashes of the psychotic ass kicker you want him to be, but sometimes that guy isn't there. He is the distillation of all your hopes and dreams here, and Haku and  Tenryu just tear into each other and it is glorious. Kabuki is great too, I love his little uppercuts and Tenryu sells them like he had a roll of dimes in his hand. Finish run got really exciting and I loved the Kabuki mist counter of the Earthquake splash, felt like something which would have been a legendary spot if 1989 Muta worked 1990 Earthquake at a Summerslam.

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Wrestle With the Work Dick Togo's Like the Four Horseman, Ric Flair With The Flame He's Motherfucking Gorgeous

Sato/Shiryu/Great Sasuke/TAKA Michinoku vs. Jushin Liger/El Samurai/Shinjiro Otani/Tokimitsu Ishizawa NJPW 6/15/94 - EPIC 

PAS: A hell of match. I was a little hesitant about the NJ Juniors being able to hang in this kind of MPRO sprint, but they totally brought it. Ohtani especially was great, springboarding all over the ring and having a dickhead smirkoff with TAKA. Man alive, the MPRO team were sick athletes, just watching the speed they run the ropes, and the height they get on every move, when Sasuke somersaults through on the dropdown he just floats in the air forever. Of course our boy SATO is at his chubbiest and his fastest, he may have had the prettiest dive of the train with his double jump flip plancha. Liger is also just tailor made for this style, he captains his team so well, he is calling the plays like Jason Kidd. The finish was awesome as we get a triple flying headbutt on Shiryu, before Liger brings him to the top rope and spikes him through the mat with a brainbuster. I don't understand why this style is so bad now, why can't there be guys still doing this? 

Dick Togo vs. Chris Hero IWA-EC 4/5/06 - EPIC 

PAS: It is weird that this match even exists. Togo comes over to US for one show to work Chris Hero in a ladder match for Mad Man Pondo's West Virginia garbage fed, which is just bizarre. It is a hell of match though and the weirdness of it just adds to it. The match starts out with both guys doing some really nice matwork, don't really know the point of putting on submissions in a ladder match, but it was cool. Togo was really working hard, hitting a flip dive onto Hero and a ladder, eating a ladder shot to the mouth and taking a huge backdrop on said ladder. Hero was really good too, bleeding and taking big bumps. This was a before the young KO kid gimmick, but he was unloading with punches and elbows. Finish was pretty cool with Hero springboarding, landing on a ladder and knocking Togo off the other. Easily the best match ever with a Warpig match on the undercard 

Dick Togo vs. Michael Nakazawa DDT 10/24/10 - SKIPPABLE 

PAS: Nakazawa is one of the culturally odd Japanese gimmicks that I do not and don't want to understand. He has facepaint, fishnets and a thong, and mostly wanders around the ring into the crowd. Most of the match is Togo chasing him and hitting him. He does get a bit of offense after kicking the rope into Togo's balls, and proceeds to hit him with a cat o nine tails. Togo does hit a nice senton, but he does that a lot, so nothing to see here. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! 3/7/93

WE DECLARE WAR

Yuji Yasuraoka vs. Yoshiro Ito

This is the best I have seen Ito look as he wrestles more like a rich man's Ice Train then a poor mans Warlord. He actually bumps a little, and works stiff. Yuji unloads on him every time he gets a chance and gets thrown around nicely. He has a really nice run of offense to get near falls, including a great clothesline out of the corner, and a superfly splash. They build to a nice hot finish, including a great looking powerslam by Ito. Not long, but definitely the kind of thing which would standout on an episode of the Pro.

Nobukazu Hirai vs. Rio Lord of The Jungle

Not bad at all for a Renegade match. Rio did a couple of nifty athletic things (including a really fast skin the cat) and Hirai worked over the knee and bumped big for backdrops and slams. I was expecting this to be a total squash, so I was surprised how much of the match Hirai took. Everything didn't look good, Rio has some terrible looking elbow drops, an embarrassing drop kick, and one point they just repeat a sequence which made the crowd crack up, but I am grading on the Renegade scale. I imagine this is what Flair v. Ultimate Warrior would look like if they worked 8 minute Nitro match in 1998.

Ultimo Dragon vs. El Samurai

This was damn good. The fact this was WAR v. NJ added a ton of heat to the match, and gave this much more of story then your usual juniors style exhibition of moves. They added a lot of little dickish touches, like Ultimo punching Samurai in the ear to escape a submission hold. There is this great moment where Samurai dismissively side steps a pescada, the crowd starts booing, only to have the NJ fans start a Samurai chant. Ultimo gets beat on, only to take control again when he gets a receipt by sidestepping Samurai's pescada. The finish run was really exciting including some very slick dives which we didn't catch fully because of the HH. It actually made them look cooler because it looked like they were flying into the abyss. I actually liked they indy roll up section, because it came near the end of the match and felt less like diddling around and more like guys pulling out everything to get a pin. Less Lynn v. Storm and more Steamboat v. Savage. Samurai refusing the post match handshake actually got the heat RF was hoping for back in the day. Easily the best Ultimo performance I have seen so far.

Koki Kikahara v. Kuniaki Kobayashi

Great fired up inter promotional match. Kobayashi jumps Kikihara in the aisle and they keep at that frantic pace throughout. When they get into the ring each guys spits in the other guys face and you palpably feel the seething dislike between the two. I loved how whenever one guy would get the advantage on the other, they would chuck them out of the ring and start flinging chairs. Finish was great with Koki being a brutal bastard and just kicking a bloody Kobayashi into oblivion. Then just to add to the fun we get a pull apart NJ v. WAR brawl.

John Tenta v. Haku

This is just what I like from my WAR Haku, he gets another big guy in front of him and they tee off on each other. Not a ton of selling or moves, just big scary looking guys throwing. Tenta does get pretty impressive height on any move that requires him to get height. Haku chops really hard, and when it get out of control and they both get counted out, you buy it. Because how could something like that stay in control.

Ashura Hara/Kodo Fuyuki vs. Shinya Hashimoto/Michiyoshi Ohara

Tremendous match, another real hidden gem of this WAR project. The whole show had been building to a New Japan v. WAR explosion and we get it here. Fuyuki comes in and cheap shots Hash at the bell, and we get some wild exchanges early. Then Hara and Fuyuki isolate and brutalize Ohara, they rip his bandage off and just spill his blood all over the ring. Hara is such a fucker in this landing nasty clotheslines, vicious headbuts and swaggering taunting. There is a moment where Ohara gets some separation, he is crawling on his hands and knees to the corner, and Hara just casually walks up and kicks him right in the forehead. Hashimoto is one of the great hot tags in wrestling history, and the whole match builds to the moment where he finally gets in and he explodes, finishing off Hara with a enzgiri which looked like it squirted Hara's brains out of his nose. Pretty much a master class on how to work this kind of tag match. I would have liked to see maybe two more minutes of Hashimoto at the end, but it is minor quibble. WAR v. NJ has to be one of the greatest in ring feuds in wrestling history.

Genichiro Tenryu/Takashi Ishikawa/Masao Orihara vs. Great Kabuki/Shiro Koshinaka/Kengo Kimura

This is very similar to the six man two days earlier, but I liked it more. The match was also based around the HI team isolating Orihara, but the beatdown sections were shorter and more dynamic. We got more cool Tenryu chopping and kicking plus some really great Ishikawa asskicking. The coolest thing about this match is how the fuck ups kind of add to the story. Orihara badly blows a couple of spots, but it works well, he just took an ass stomping, why should we expect him to be able to hit a moonsault cleanly? Also the finish run was really great. Ishikawa knocks Kimura loopy with a knee lift, and the ref stop and checking on him lead to a crazy hot finish when he shakes the cobwebs loose. Good match, although probably only the fourth best match on the show, which isn't normally where your Tenryu will end up.

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Dick Togo's Birds Eye View Got Him Channeling His Vision, Turns One to Two Now the Kilo Has A Sibling

Dick Togo/Men's Teioh/Shiryu vs. Gran Hamada/Super Delfin/Great Sasuke MPRO 1/14/97 - EPIC 

PAS: This is it right here. We start out with a more violent vibe then the traditional six man. Sasuke starts the fun by spin kicking Shiryu right in the sternum really fucking hard. KDX responds by taking it to the streets, and folks are getting hung off balconies and chucked into concrete walls. They get back into the ring and we get some truly breathtaking lucha. One beautiful exchange after another, I think Hamada v. Togo stood out for for me (man the arm drag Hamda pulls out was life changing), but all of the matchups were great. It ebbed and flowed, as multiple times they went to the floor and threw each other into chairs, and then went back to flying and flipping. Finish run was great as KDX did their thing, just decimating Sasuke with multiple big moves, ending of course with the portly man with goatee floating through the air 

Dick Togo/Ikuto Hidaka vs. Christopher Daniels/Donovan Morgan ROH 9/21/02 - FUN 

PAS: This is from the ROH tag tournament, in one of the earliest ROH shows. Match started out slowish, with a long heel control section with Daniels and Morgan (who should have been Team Receding Hairline). This was a little dull, although solid, but there was a reason that Morgan didn't have a long ROH run. Pretty much everything after the Togo hot tag was pretty great stuff, as they built a really hot finish. Hidaka looked especially good here, as I loved his spinning DDT into the rope choke. Togo pretty much stuck to his signature stuff, it all looked good, but watching all of this Togo I can tell when he is mixing it up, and he wasn't here. Still good stuff, and definitely got the crowd amped up. 

Dick Togo/Jado/Gedo/Katsushi Takemura vs. Jushin Thunder Liger/El Samurai/Wataru Inoue/American Dragon NJPW 11/30/03 - GREAT 

PAS: This is an elimination match worked with the same rules as all of the awesome elimination tags on the NJ 80's set. This match was cruising along at a mid range level for the first half or so. We got to see a little of Danielson v. Togo which is the most on paper intriguing match up. Danielson was pretty much doing his 3rd generation Dynamite Kid shtick, which really isn't the most interesting use of him. I did really like the Gedo v. Dragon stuff, they had really good chemistry. Still the match didn't pick up until we get some eliminations, and Jushin Liger decides he wants to be Abdullah the Butcher. The heel team removes the ringpad, but predictably it backfires and Gedo gets cut open on the ring bolt. Liger just goes nuts at this point, biting Gedo's bloody head, jabbing him with a spike, all of a sudden this pleasant little juniors match has gotten NSFW. After those two get eliminated we get to see Togo run throw his cool shit with Inoue, although the finish felt a little hackneyed. Still Liger as the Sheik is never going to get too big a complaint out of me. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! 3/5/93

WE DECLARE WAR

Yuji Yasuraoka vs. Ultimo Dragon

Fun competitive squash. Yasuroka gets in some stuff, but it is mostly Ultimo running through his spots. Everything was hit cleanly, and he nukes him with a cross arm powerbomb which looked nasty.

Hiroshi Inomata vs. El Samurai

No idea if Inomata ever did anything after this. Kind of an odd match as Inomata gets a bunch of pretty basic juniors offense, and really dominates the opening part of this match. Then it is was like a switch flipped, and Samurai kicked him in the face a couple times, German suplexed him and pinned him. It felt like Samurai was getting paid either way, and wasn't going to exert himself more then necessary.

Haku vs. Yoshiro Ito

Ito is one of the most roided Japanese guys I have ever seen. He looks 1992 WWF Scott Casey level juiced. He and Haku just stand nose to nose and just crack each other. If you aren't good, at least be stiff, and Ito seems to have that down. This is right in Haku's wheel house as he just whales away at Puroresu Ted Arcidi, and I dug it. Not good or anything, but very WAR.

John Tenta vs. Rio Lord of The Jungle

Very similar to their other match. Tenta is a pretty good wrestler, and every once in a while Renegade will do something physically impressive (he gets crazy ups on a leapfrog). Still there were other moments where Renegade would do something embarrassing, and this match was a little longer so it had more of them, he threw one of the worst clotheslines I have ever seen and he couldn't come back from that.

Masashi Aoyagi/Kuniaki Kobayashi vs. Koki Kitahara/Nobukazu Hirai

Fun match that got really good whenever the kickers were kicking people. Aoyagi was great he laid in a bunch of cool kick variations, including some really nasty shots to the ribs of Hirai when Kobayashi had him in a abdominal stretch. Kikihara was also coming in and laying into people. He kicked Kobyashi's brain out of his nose with an enzigiri. Most of the match was focused on Hirai v. Kobayashi which was much less exciting, although I did like their finishing run. Match had a bunch of heat too, as the interpromotional deal really fired up the crowd.

Takashi Ishikawa/Kodo Fuyuki vs. Shinya Hashimoto/Michiyoshi Ohara

Man was this good. Hashimoto is tremendous in this setting, he is a total berserker in this match. He spits in Ishikawa's face, and chops Fuyuki and Takashi into oblivion every time he tags in, he also makes some brutal saves. However the WAR team smartly focuses on Ohara, busting him open and painting the mat with his blood. Ohara does a real good job of being beaten and bleeding, and Ishikawa is really good at beating the shit out of someone. Hashimoto is kept away, outside of explosions of violent frustration. We don't get the Hashimoto we want, which really makes you want to see him unleashed.

Genichiro Tenryu/Ashura Hara/Masao Orihara vs. Great Kabuki/Shiro Koshinaka/Kengo Kimura

This match was structured a lot like the previous match, with Tenryu being the guy bottled up and frustrated. The HI team isolates Orihara and kicks and stomps the fuck out of his belly. Koshinaka got some grief from folks during the NJ 80's set, but I think he is pretty unimpeachable as a douchebag fucking someone up. This was another great Kabuki performance, as he unload some nice Kabuki uppercuts and a couple of beautiful superkicks. Orihara is at his best getting beaten up, and he gets beaten up here. Still hard to be too high on a Tenryu match with this little Tenryu.

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! 3/3/93

Ultimo Dragon/Nobukazu Hirai v. El Samurai/Rio Lord of the Jungle

TKG: This was joined in progress but still felt longer than it needed to be. I can't decide wether the length allowed for a lot of cool moments in amongst the mess or the if the length caused a lot of the mess. This has a bunch of blown stuff and never really comes together.The El Samurai/Rio team is an amusing team. Rio shockingly doesn't blow up in a match where guys are moving at a fast pace. He does an ok job eating Dragon's stuff, throws more suplexes than you'd expect him too, does a really awful Fuller leg lock and manages to not blow up. Samurai looks pretty great until he falls out of the ring running the ropes.

PAS: Ultimo hits an awesome tope, but otherwise has some moments of awkwardness. Hirai looked pretty bad in parts too. Someone could make the argument that Renegade was the second best guy in this match. I am not going to make that argument, but someone could.

Koki Kitahara/Masao Orihara v. Shiro Koshinaka/Kuniyaki Kobayashi

TKG: When Shiro Koshinaka wants to beat the shit out of someone he will do it. Every punch he throws looks like he's trying to break his opponent's nose or cheek bone. After watching Hirai do a lousy job at this type of larger WAR tag partner in peril, it's really awesome to watch Kitahara sell as stronger partner taking a beating. The point where the smaller Orihara has seen too much and puts his all into throwing strikes at Koshinaka (while Koshinaka is holding Kitahara in a crab) is bad ass.

PAS: I love Koshinika potatoing people, there were multiple moments where I though he smashed the bridge of Kitihara's nose. Which is pretty much WAR in a nutshell, lots of guys potatoing each other. It is worked exactly the way you expect a Tenryu fed to be worked. There was a really cool camera angle for Orihara's Orihara as he just flies out of the corner of your eye.

Ashura Hara/Earthquake v. The Great Kabuki/Haku

TKG: Yeah this is four guys hitting each other as hard as they can, all trying to stay standing. The last match had a section where guys took it to the floor for a streetfight. Here that would have just seen excessive. What could they possibly do on the floor that would look more violent than what they did in the ring? Hara just eats an absolute beating and well he dishes one too. I haven't watched the Texas set yet, or seen the early stuff that people are watching on the All Japan set, so kind of still think of Kabuki as a guy with a great superkick and a bunch of nerve holds. But fuck, Kabuki is way more awesome then I could have imagined. Tenta is great at coming in and looking tough and also doing a slow topple and well Haku will throw a superkick that will make you cringe.

PAS: With the WAR Kabuki, All Japan Kabuki and Texas Kabuki I think that soon it will be time to ask if Kabuki is actually a better wrestler then Muta. I loved Hara in this, his headbutts are super nasty, he always aims for the soft part of his opponents head. This is really the perfect match for Haku, as it a match with tough bad ass guys throwing stuff as hard as they can and limited selling. It is basically Haku teaming with Meng to work King Tonga and his partner Uilii Fifita.

Hiromichi Fuyuki v. Shinya Hashimoto

TKG: They do a big pull apart at the start of this and I was totally expecting a real Choshu style heavyweight sprint. Instead they do a neat slow building match. Starting with some leg work which they sell nicely. You forget once they start laying in the bombs, but the crowd stays heated throughout the mat work as they get excited for the build.. For interpromotional match this had a ton of selling which both of these guys do really well. At one point Fuyuki drops Hashimoto with a nasty DDT and you get giddy with excitement. No one does a nastier DDT than Hashimoto, and Fuyuki has laid down a challenge.

PAS: Yeah this has a lot slower build then most of your WAR matches, the structure of the show is very similar to the April show I already reviewed with a nasty stiff tag, slower paced singles match and crazy hot main event inter-promotional tag. It is a really great way to pace a show, and this was even better then Fujinami v. Kabuki. The pull apart built me up (much like the Kabuki mist in the other singles) and then they did a really nice job slowing it down, only to build it back up to a great finish. Awesome selling by Fuyuki at the end as I really bought that Hashimoto knocked him cold (unless he actually did knock him out, then it wasn't selling)

Genichiro Tenryu/Takashi Ishikawa v. Riki Choshu/Osamu Kido

TK: HOLY SHIT!!! WRESTLING AND ROMANCE!!! WE ARE REVOLUTION! I love big match Kido and this was big match Kido. I don't have any memory of Ishikawa but he and Kido are essentially working guys on same level ( beneath Choshu/Tenryu) but are able to step it up to face the higher ranked guys. Choshu and Tenryu are as amazing as you expect them to be against each other and the sections with the B guys against the A guys on the opposite team rule really hard as well. They do a long finish run with Kido just looking awesome and getting stomped on every time he almost gets a fall. Post match pull apart is also really great with Tenryu running over and kicking Choshu in the eye multiple times with the toe of his boot.

PAS: Yeah this was amazing. Tenryu and Ishikawa are both so great as cheap shotting dicks too, no one stomps a guy from behind as nastily as Ishikawa, and Tenryu short punts are as violent as anything in wrestling history. Choshu is Choshu and I loved all the different ways Choshu set up his lariat, my favorite is when he shifted direction and just blasted Tenryu on the apron. This was really Kido's career performance he is so spectacular in the end run of this match throwing out counter arm bar after counter arm bar, you get the sense that he wants the win more then he ever wanted anything. Another match which really compares to anything being done in your more acclaimed puro promotions.

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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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Hell is Empty and All the Devils are Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Great Sasuke v. TAKA Michinoku/El Samurai MPRO 1/22/95-GREAT

The very first thing I ever did on the internet was a Michinoku Pro fan site, and I still have a pretty big soft spot for mid 90's MPRO. This was a fine version of their signature tag match with Fujiwara doing a nice job slotting in. The TAKA v. Sasuke stuff was a big focus, and man do those guys match up well. Really fast beautiful lucha, mixed in with some really stiff kicks, and some crazy dives. Fujiwara kind of worked this match as a Heavyweight in with juniors as he really chucked around both Samurai and especially TAKA. He was really great as a dismissive guy, who was surprised and pissed off everytime TAKA caught him in something.He also did this spot where he fakes a double tope with Sasuke flying over the top and wiping everyone out. Finish was totally awesome with Sasuke hitting his fourth crazy dive of the match to clear out Samurai while TAKA gets snatched out of mid air with a Fujiwara armbar. I really wish that Fujiwara was around for the KDX period as he would have made an awesome member of some of those 10 man tags.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Shinya Hashimoto Zero-One 9/8/01- GREAT

These are my two favorite Japanese professional wrestlers ever, and this is a hell of a confrontation. A total struggle with both guys exerting tremendous force to even get off the simplest moves. Both guys are masters of intensity, and even a collar and elbow lock up feels like a war. Early in the match Fujiwara works a kneebar and it is totally awesome. the countering of a standing Hashimoto, dragging him to the mat, forcing the ankle until he finally gets a good grip, then the losing the hold when Hashimoto kicks him in the shoulder blades. The first part of the match was like that, both guys going for simple holds with the opponent fighting every attempt. The violence kicks up with a nasty exchange of slaps, with Hash landing his spectacular overhand neck chop. Match was well on the way to truly epic status, but the ending kind of comes abruptly with Hash hitting a dropkick, big elbow, nasty DDT and big kick for the pin. Felt like the match had a missing eight or so minutes, as Fujiwara never really had Hashimoto in any trouble. Still well worth watching, but I am still waiting for the 21st century Fujiwara epic.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Yuki Ishikawa/Katsumi Usuda v. Mr. Pogo/Hidoh/Shoji Nakamki- W*ING 3/02- SKIPPABLE

PAS: I was hoping for more of a clash of styles with the Fujiwara team using shootstyle to counter the garbage wrestling. Instead we get a basic W*ING match with a short arena tour and Pogo winning by choking Fujiwara with a chain. This ties the series at 3 and there is some mike work to set up a big Captain’s Fall elimination with everyone from each team. This was basically a big brawl with some fun Usuda asskicking, and a suprsingly good Gran Sheik v. Ishikawa punch exchange, but it ends pretty quickly with Fujiwara tapping Pogo with the armbar. Pretty disappointing for something that looked awesome on paper.

TKG: The opening six man match was really nothing. I don’t even remember the arena tour. Just Pogo taking off his boot hitting Fujiwara and then hanging him. I was kind of stoked to see captain’s fall just for the chance to see more Shimoda. But that never really broke down into individual match ups. Instead you have this all over the place brawl that has almost a Battle royal feel where there is lots of stuff happening but never any focus. Lots of cool Ishikawa exchanges as the section of him vs Hido looked like something I want to see as an actual match, surprisingly the same is true of the section of him vs Gran Sheik. Fujiwara’s exchanges also were also a blast as he traded with Nakamaki, Hido, Shimoda and Pogo.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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