2018 Ongoing MOTY List: MAMMOTH!

30. Mammoth Sasaki/Toru Sugiura vs. Mr. Gannosuke/Yuko Miyamoto FREEDOMS 3/22

ER: Ah Mammoth Sasaki, guy I would possibly be 5th or 8th most excited about on an early 2000s FMW card. Why are you so good in this match that I will now have to go watch a bunch of 2018 FREEDOMS!? I have a different wrestling watching life than I did in 2001. I had a LOT more free time then, and a lot less responsibility. Now that wrestling is the most accessible it's ever been, and I am the busiest I've ever been, it's very easy for me to lose track of any given Japanese indie worker for 15+ years. I don't remember the last Tatsuhito Takaiwa match I watched, but you know he's still out there doing his thing. And then a match like this floats along and suddenly Mammoth is filling all of those Tenryu/Morishima gaps and it gives me this weird nostalgia feeling of a time when Japanese wrestling was my favorite wrestling. Mammoth is MAMMOTH in this, throwing painful as hell shoulderblocks with Gannosuke, throwing big chops with a perfect surprise jab to Miyamoto, nice snap powerslam, and then going on this kickass finishing stretch with big lariats, a gorgeous brainbuster, huge deadlift gutwrench powerbomb, and a finish worthy Falcon Arrow. The guy looked awesome, and the nice pacing and great use of partner saves made up for some dodgy Miyamoto/Sugiura stuff. Miyamoto wears pants like an early 2000s east coast indie worker, but doesn't seem as good as Dewey Cheatum.  Sugiura is a Mammoth trainee and looks decent-ish at times, his elbow drops are okay (and I like that he's at least attempting classic elbow drops) and his back bump missile dropkick hits hard, but really this match doesn't bump up until Mammoth starts using Sugiura's corpse as a weapon. Mammoth gets a hot tag and throws Sugiura's tagged out tired body into a nasty corner lariat, then gives his partner a huge front suplex into a pinfall attempt. The saves down the stretch are all awesome. Gannosuke cares not about what happened to garbage fed stars like Misawa and Kobashi, he is 50 and will still take a huge suplex on his neck. Gannosuke gets a great nearfall of his wonderful leg trip backlside that somebody needs to steal, and I loved Mammoth reversing it into a powerbomb when Gann tries it again. Mammoth strung together finishing stretch killshots like a classic Kings Road main eventer, just smartly laid out shots and great finish teases. Mammoth!

PAS: I remember Mammoth having a moment as the next hotness around the turn of the century. There was a Tenryu singles match I remember loving in 2003, and then I don't think I heard hide nor hair of him for 15 years, and here he is rocking it out. For tubby sons of Tenryu, I like him way better then Ishii. I agree that the Sugiura vs. Miyamoto stuff wasn't great, but I liked Sugiura vs. Gannosuke a fair amount, I thought his one two elbow smash combos looked cool, and he had a nice bodypress. Gannoseke vs. Mammoth was the main event though and that was great. Big thick clothesline, and big backdrops it felt like a real throwback Puro heavyweight battle. I loved that Gannoseke backslide, what a cool move, and the doctor bomb counter was nifty. It really takes some mining to find cool Puro these days, but this was a little nugget of gold.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Folks Rush In, 3 Letters try to Stop It. D-I-C-K-T-O-G-O, One Letter Short but Motherfuck the D.A.

Dick Togo/GENTARO vs. Takashi Sasaki/Masashi Takeda FREEDOMS 10/28/10 - GREAT

This was a workrate tag match, kind of the indy Japan version of a ROH Briscoes tag. That isn't my type of wrestling at all, but Dick Togo is the great style equalizer. This kind of match is normally judged on the coolness of moves and the amount of overkill, however Togo's little spots were cool enough that he added and extra dimension. It did well on the two normally criteria though. I thought the end of this match felt like the end, with GENTARO hitting a sweet looking bridged Saito suplex while Togo slapped on a crossface. There was a bunch of cool moves too, Sasaki countered a flying clothesline with a kick to the stomach, Takeda hitting a top rope northern lights suplex. Could have used a dive train, and maybe some cool double teams. Also there was one spot where GENTARO was on the top rope and Sasaki kept spanking his ass, I guess he was trying to knock him off the top but it was weird. Wouldn't be the best match on a PWG show, but would probably be in the top 3.

Dick Togo vs. Antonio Honda DDT 1/30/11 - EPIC

The Dick Togo singles match train continues. Gem after gem, his last six months have been incredible. Honda is a comedy guy an used to be Togo's partner in the DDT Italian Horseman. This is clearly the match of his life, and I give him a ton of credit for stepping up and bringing it to Togo like he did. Early part of the match had Honda working over Togo's arm. Togo did a really nice job selling, and it makes total sense to give him a ding to make Honda's offense credible, still Honda's attack was a little pedestrian. Match really kicks it into gear when Honda hits a nice tope and comes up bloody. After that, the match morphs into a Mid South Coliseum main event, with Togo working over the bloody babyface and Honda making awesome valiant comebacks. Togo has him in the corner, smashing his head into the turnbuckle and punching him, and Honda does a full on Lawler 1986 TX Death Match comeback, dropped strap, 17 punch combo ending in a huge uppercut for a near fall. Such a neat moment, which Togo sold perfectly. We get a big near fall run, which is really something that Dick Togo does better then anyone in the world, and then take a trip back to TN with an awesome punch Lawler v. Mantel style toe to toe punch exchange. Hell of match, the kind of thing only Dick Togo can deliver in 2011. If he really retires in June it will be at the height of his game, like Jordan leaving in 93, lets hope Togo does a season of minor league baseball and returns to the game

Dick Togo/Great Sasuke/Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Mike Quackenbush/Jigsaw/Manami Toyota CHIKARA 4/16/11 - FUN

The Chikara trios matches continue to be disappointing. Everyone in this match it as least a solid wrestler, but it never felt like they got on the same page. Togo was the best guy in the match, although it may have been the least spectacular Togo match I have seen in this project. He was a bunch of fun smacking around Toyota, making great asshole faces. I enjoyed Jigsaw here too, as he hit a pretty tope and moved around well. Everyone else was pretty MIA. You kept wanting this match to explode in a crazy run, and it never really did. The finish especially felt really flat. This didn't have as many things to hate as the opening round match, but it didn't have a ton to love either.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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