Found Footage Friday: R2W!? TARZAN~! FUJIWARA~! ORIHARA~! KURISU~! GORO~! AOYAGI~! NOSAWA~!

R2W True Winner 1/28/98

Akira Kawabata vs. Kenji Fukimoto

MD: Hey, it's an opening match. These guys hit the mat hard. My lasting memory of it will be the sound of them doing so again and again and again. Constant noise in this one. You weren't going to get much crowd noise as this place was either sparsely attended or people just hadn't filed in yet (we'll see on later matches). But for this crowd and this spot on the card, they worked hard. I will admit it was a little "your move, my move" or in this case "your earnest offense ending with a half crab, my earnest offense ending with a half crab" as they went to that well again and again. Cross arm breakers too, but mostly half crabs. And the transitions weren't much to write home about, a couple of caught kicks, a couple of opportunistic shots. Lots of rope breaks. After one, Kawabata hit a waterwheel drop and locked in a cross armbreaker of his own for a quick tap. 

ER: It's weird that Akira Raijin was just in TNA for a couple years. What a stupid promotion. Here he is young and has baby fat, working a young lions match with another Kurisu guy. Kurisu Young Lions sound like they should create some horrific violence, and while we didn't get there I felt it rose to something prickly by the finish. I found the matwork scrambles engaging and could have seen a lot more before we moved into the half crabs. Fukimoto had this charming thing where he would stumble over his own feet no matter what he tried, but not in a clumsy way? It looked more like he was putting his whole body into everything, overly committing his weight, and would lose his footing if Akira shifted. They don't budge on a stiff shoulderblock, Akira has a wicked spinning heel kick, and the submission trading at the end felt like Fukimoto was seriously trying to make Akira tap by putting his full weight into half crabs. No prior limb work was necessary, he was trying to fuck up Akira's knee and lower back. When Akira made the ropes and put a hand on his love handle, I don't doubt that lower back was sore. Fukimoto's quick armbar looked like it might get the tap as Akira kept missing the ropes with his swiping boot, but once he got there and earned the break he had much better ring placement with his armbar. 

Chihiro Nakano vs. Misa Okada

MD: Can't say I'm too familiar here. Okada had facepaint and crosses on her gear and a size advantage. Nakano was pretty spry and had a clear technical advantage. Lots of great struggle early on be it over a headlock or Nakano trying to hit a slam or just getting her legs up to block kicks. Okada was able to impose with her size but Nakano was quick to come back with kicks or a flash takeover. At one point Nakano stopped and screamed at Okada only to get run over anyway. When Nakano finally did hit the slam she could have made a slightly bigger deal out of it before hitting the kneedrop. There were a couple of bits of weird positioning where Okada wasn't quite where she wanted her to be and moving her took away just a little snappiness/plausibility maybe. The stretch had some very tricked out stuff though, including some nice roll throughs into leglocks by Nakano and a great go behind into a bent-in-half German by Okada. Eventually though, one of those leglocks did Okada in. Not the smoothest thing at times but great effort overall.

ER: Nakano is a Tarzan Goto trainee and looked confident, while Okada looked much less trained and much less confident. Okada had no idea how to sell offense, she only knew how to take one specific kind of back bump. Any strike that landed, and offense that landed, she froze; but if it was something where she could do her one kind of back bump - a measured, disconnected from impact, wrestling school back bump - then brother you know she was falling to her back. Nakano had to actually slow down her work because Okada kept freezing and not blocking anything. I appreciated how sound Nakano's snapmares were, how she cast a long arc and actually looked like she was flinging Okada onto her back. Nakano was, at times, moving around a corpse and it's a miracle the match looked as much like a match as it did. Okada really gave Nakano nothing to work off, even though Nakano was the one almost always in control. Hilariously, Okada breaks out two gorgeous suplexes during the finishing stretch, a German and a high bridge northern lights, and they were so unexpected because nothing else she did looked anywhere near as good as those suplexes. We needed more of her folding Nakano rather than being mystified by what a kick is supposed to be doing. 

Kazushige Nosawa vs. Masashi Aoyagi

MD: Oh hey, these guys I know. This went pretty much like you'd expect. Aoyagi came out striking, knocking Nosawa all over the place with kicks and throat shots. Lots of variety, with a spin wheel kick, spinning kicks, roundhouses, axe kicks, etc. Nosawa got a few leglocks and even caught a kick and slammed an elbow down on the knee which let him take over for a minute or two, but when Aoyagi had enough he took over with a corner charge that sent him out of the ring, coming back in with a overhand chop off the top. When he lost the gi jacket, you knew it was over, and one kick later, it was. He was quite nice to Nosawa after the fact though, so I guess despite the beating, he could be glad he didn't draw Kurisu instead.

ER: Nosawa is in a green and orange singlet with yellow fringe down the sides, and with his faded red kneepads he looks like he's wearing the fringed singlet version of Tito Santana's El Matador gear. Aoyagi is in a black karate gi and shows no emotion. It's so cool Aoyagi became a NOAH lifer after the first decade plus of his career spent as a karate guy whose style often didn't fit into other feds (in a way I liked). Misawa had such a great eye for talent, all the Japanese veterans and indy scum guys he brought in fit the style so well. He had that vision that led to karate guys like Aoyagi and Akitoshi Saito, BattlArts guys, the kind of mixed fight/background guys that Baba didn't want in Kings Road. 

But what surprised me about this, is that I appreciated what Nosawa brought more than what Aoyagi brought. Aoyagi, a decade into his career, looked like the guy less aware of how to put together a wrestling match. The crowd was rightly into him because of his aura and gave the first somewhat noisy reaction of the night to his big spinning heel kick, but this got good when Nosawa took over and made it a fight. When Nosawa caught a kick and turned it into a hyperextended kneebar, it looked like something that could have actually gotten a quick tap from Aoyagi. Nosawa stood up and knocked Aoyagi around much more than I expected. The way he hammered Aoyagi's leg and threw a dropkick to the kneecap was fired up tough stuff, and his running dropkick to Aoyagi's chest was 0.7 on the Joshi Dojo scale, knocking him dangerously back into the ropes. Fans had been reacting to Aoyagi from his first kicks, but Nosawa had to win them over by establishing toughness. 

Aoyagi removes his gi (!) before delivering his match winning roundhouse to the chest. Nosawa was recovering from a near fall spin kick that could have hit better, and the gi removal was the right call. I've never seen anyone remove their gi as a Lawler strap spot, let alone the stoic Aoyagi, who for all the expression he was showing may have just been removing it because he was hot. 

Yuka Shiina vs. Kiyoko Ichiki

MD: Kiyoko Ichiki came out to Heaven is a Place on Earth, so that's how we're starting this one. She did great to start too, ambushing Shiina and tossing her into the (empty, so, so empty) chairs and then grabbing a chair and hitting a triple jump plancha to the floor like she was Sabu! Then she wiped out completely on an inner springboard attempt and Shiina took over. Ok, ok, I had to stop to watch the rest of the match and Ichiki is pretty great actually. She's definitely someone who went under the radar as best as I can tell. She had mean, mean shots, would step on both hands at once to jump on them, would do a mare and then hang on to the hair to bridge to the next move. Speaking of bridges she had one really clutch bridge out of a pinfall late that was a killer moment too.

But they also did a ton of STUFF down the stretch. This had a sunset flip power bomb and a top rope armdrag. Shiina won it with a series of missile dropkicks including one that was like a sniper rifle to the back of the head. Definitely an ambitious match but they hit the mark more often than not and kept things chippy and mean-spirited the whole way through. I'd like to seek out some more of her stuff.

ER: I instantly fell in love with Ichiki when she came out to "Heaven is a Place on Earth" because you can tell she really loves the song. She waits to enter so the song can build, she takes a circuitous route to the ring so the song can play longer, and at the bell she ambushes Shiina and drives a knee into her hip. I don't know where cagematch got the 1,200 attendance number, but I think these Tarzan Goto indies were cooking some books, as was Japanese tradition. The bulk of this match focused on meanness and had great energy, and that was the stuff that carried this. I liked it less when they went into a few pin sequences that felt out of place for the match they had been working. Despite the pin sequences looking fine, you can tell the crowd also thought they were unnecessary, as they were some of the only parts that got meek reactions. 

No, you wanted Ichiki jamming the sole of her boot into Shiina's face and both stomping and stretching the other's knees. Ichiki's triple jump plancha looked awesome, whatever joshi trainee did a great job of making it look like she was actually checking on Shiina while getting into position to help catch the dive. Shiina's dropkicks all looked really good, punctuated by how quickly she was able to get to an elevated position before delivering them. She gets quickly to the middle buckle before jumping around with the kicks, all in one fast motion, and later delivers the same from the top. There was one moment where Shiina slipped climbing the ropes, that would have been a good time to acknowledge the work done on her knee, but instead she just looked frustrated and climbed back up. No matter, the crowd bought into this because it was good, and the loud ring made every impact of the top sound huge. 

Masanobu Kurisu vs. Goro Tsurumi

MD: Tsurumi was around 50 here. Kurisu was a couple of years older. Kurisu held out a hand. Tsurumi didn't shake it. Kurisu gave him the middle finger. Why would you antagonize Kurisu? Why would you antagonize Tsurumi? This was a war and is, as much as anything else, why we go back and watch these things. Sometimes something is everything you'd want from a pairing. This was probably more.

Kurisu was the early aggressor, brutal shots interspersed with insulting slaps. For the most part though, it was like attacking a giant tree trunk. Tsurumi absorbed everything, even stomps, and then, to Kurisu's misery, the tree trunk started to hammer back with headbutts and shots of his own. Eventually, Kurisu finally opened things up by grinding is foot in Tsurumi's face, getting him to the floor, and burying him in blue plastic chairs. 

Tsurumi decided to get back at Kurisu by prying off an arm, working it int he ropes and then bending it on itself to step on the elbow once or twice. Kurisu returned favor by prying off a leg and forcing Tsurumi into the craziest split imaginable, something you wouldn't imagine this big fro-clad older warrior would be able to manage. Kurisu stayed on the leg, putting it on top and working it. There were little moments of whimsy among the violence here, Tsurumi grabbing at the ref for not breaking it, for instance. Then when Goro took back over and slammed a chair repeatedly into a prone Kurisu and then knocked him off the apron, Kurisu tried to toss a chair into the ring, failed, and then walked right over and sat down in one of those blue chairs, making a scene of it. 

Things devolved into both men working king of the mountain or pulling each other out and walking to a far wall to slam each other's head into it, or trying to use the post, only for the ref to intervene one too many times and get manhandled for his trouble, calling for the DQ. It should have been unsatisfying but it was pretty much the only way this thing was ending. Our last image is of Kurisu bringing in a trash can to try to cause a bit more chaos but finally just giving up on it all. Hell of a thing, this one.

ER: The exact kind of fun, disrespectful old man fight you would want when you see a Kurisu match, with the great twist that old man Goro is actually the one being disrespectful! Kurisu was out here working a regular (i.e. Great) stiff old guy match with sharp chops, forearms that actually look good, headbutts to the jaw and face...and then Goro is the one who turns up the heat with chops to the damn neck and the kind of punches that can only lead to bad things. Tsurumi has the kind of short stiff punches - several variations, lefts and rights, right to the chin and mouth - that fucking KURISU has to sell. Kurisu is an expressive, loud seller, letting out multiple loud yells after getting dropped to his knees with stomach punches. Kurisu, forced unexpectedly to scream his own screams, is forced to make Goro scream.  

Kurisu does this by bending Tsurumi in a way I've never seen Tsurumi bend. Kurisu steps on Goro's instep and forces him into a splits, and the way Goro screams when Kurisu gets him in a wishbone...you never could have convinced me that 50 year old Goro Tsurumi could do the splits. Kurisu stands on the man's back and neck AFTER forcing him into a splits and brother, I don't think I've never seen anything like it in a wrestling ring. Old man Tsurumi is somehow so flexible that I don't think a stump puller would even work as a submission on him. Their fighting is so good, trading shots that all feel like direct reactions to the strike that just landed. Kurisu kicks him in the knee, Goro back chops him in the neck, Kurisu slaps him across the face, it all feels like escalation and a response that says, "Oh yeah, you old fuck? How about this?" 

Kurisu starts throwing chairs into the ring and it builds to a great moment where Kurisu angrily drags a chair to the ring just to use it as a step up to the apron, a hilarious moment in a fight just before the fight is thrown out. 

Mitsunobu Kikuzawa/Shigeo Okumura vs. Crusher Takahashi/Masao Orihara

MD: This could have been a super indie tag five years later (maybe without quite as many low blows?). Really, this is 18 minutes of Orihara (and to a somewhat lesser extent Takahashi) being an absolute jerk. Pure cruiserweight bully stuff. It starts with him chucking the flowers out of the ring. It ends with him killing Kikuzawa (Ebessan/Kikutaro) with a sit out power bomb for the win and leaving the ring with a backlip just because he can.

In the middle, it's just one nasty piece of offense after another. On a lockup, he kicks the leg out brutally. He hits Kikuzawa with a pile driver where he turns to face all four sides of the ring before dropping him. He jams a rana off the top with the meanest sheer drop power bomb. And in between there's all the connective tissue of headbutts, kawada kicks, raking the eyes, that you'd want. Takhashi has a killer brainbuster and one of the meanest snap suplex you'll see too. And then to their credit, Kikuzawa was scrappy, headbutts, throwing himself at his opponents, and a nice leaping tornado DDT.

There was a completely absurd bit in the middle where Orihara would pile driver Okumura, Okumura would snap back up, Orihara would hit a low blow, do it again, and he'd pop up. He'd get one of his own before Orihara finally kept him down with the third. It was entertaining at least. It knew it was absurd and leaned into it. Nothing boring about this match even though it was pretty much a one sided mauling with a bit of hope/retribution here or there. 

ER: Awesome tag with a ton of pride and ego and bad attitude. It's a given that a match with Orihara would have bad attitude, you just never know who exactly he's going to take it out on. Before their opponents are even entering, Orihara shoves the ref with one palm to the chest. Orihara shoves the ref not in the way a heel would, but in the way a bully who does this to someone every single day of their life would. He is one of the most watchable wrestlers and seems like the most unpleasant prick. Crusher does not match Orihara's asshole energy but he understands his mission. He's the one who goes after Okumura's taped up shoulder. Orihara does not target existing injuries, he just focuses on finding how many ways he can kick Okumura in the face. 

Everyone is catching strays. Kikuzawa almost gets his nose busted when Okumura tags out while throwing Crusher into the corner, as the throw whips Crusher's elbow back into Kikuzawa's face. There's some great face in peril work as they isolate Kikuzawa. Orihara throws punishing corner clotheslines, drops Kikuzawa with a brainbuster, the spikes him with a piledriver after showing it off to people on every side of the ring. I get excited for such a great piledriver, and I had no idea we were yet to see several of the most disgusting piledrivers ever to be publicly inflicted on a man. There's a real nasty double team when Crusher locks on a Boston crab so Orihara can come off the top with a double stomp to Kikuzawa's back. 

There's a great bit where we learn that Kikuzawa has the head strength of a Tongan, where Orihara starts dishing out headbutts and does more damage to himself. Orihara is always unprofessional, always a punk, but he's also a gifted salesman with great ideas. I love the way he staggered and dropped himself to his knees after repeatedly, stubbornly headbutting Kikuzawa Fifita. It leads to us witnessing some horrific neck and spine trauma as Orihara and Okumura refuse to sell each other's piledrivers, several times, even though you can see how badly their heads are connecting with the mat on each one. These are some of the most disgusting piledrivers I've ever seen, just intentionally stuffing head and neck into the mat. The way Okumura's legs whip forward on each one just focuses more of the impact and I have no idea how they kept getting up. To add perfect insult to certain injury, Orihara swiftly kicks Okumura in the face before delivering his final one. Imagine already knowing you're going to be dropped full weight onto your head, ducking down to wait for it, and getting a fast kick to the nose and teeth before it happens. That's Orihara, baby. 

Ichiro Yaguchi vs. Rikio Ito

MD: I don't know. Do you guys know about Ichiro Yaguchi? We've only done one match of his ever on SC. He's a big guy, dressed in sort of blue scrubs with holy crosses on them, in red. He has a phantom of the opera deal and long bleached blonde hair. He comes out to Hell's Bells and has Kiyoko Ichiki with him. He's a character and is bombastic, over the top. Plays to the crowd, the ref, his opponent, though not quite as consistently as I'd like. Anyway, they sort of hit each other hard, I guess. My favorite part of this was Yaguchi making a huge deal out of turning Ito over for a Scorpion Deathlock like he was Choshu, arm up in the air, wide stance. Ito immediately forced his way out and stepped on Yaguchi's throat. I got a kick out of that. This ended in a double countout after which Yaguchi chucked out the ref and raised Ito's hand. I don't regret watching it. Yaguchi could have had a pretty fun Onita match at this point but he spends a few years later fighting Nise Onita instead (though he's with him a lot in the 2010s and I don't really want to know this honestly. I just want to get to the Fujiwara vs Goto tag).

ER: Yaguchi has undeniable presence, a big dude with black metal face paint and crosses on his gear. Had he come out to King Diamond rather than "Hells Bells" I would have considered doing a full Yaguchi deep dive with Matt. Black Metal Mr. Gannosuke sounds like one of the coolest Japanese wrestlers of the 90s, even if this dude doesn't wrestled anywhere near as well as Gannosuke. Ito might be the better worker, Yaguchi feels like kind of deadweight (but not in a way that's fully detrimental to the match). Yaguchi is so-so Gannosuke, Ito is so-so Arashi, and honestly I wish a lot more wrestlers now were so-so versions of 90s Japanese scum guys. I really wanted Ito to go through with his press slam, because it looked insane that he was even attempting it from a deadlift. It was used only so Yaguchi could slip out, but I appreciated the ambition. Ito had better clotheslines, but if Yaguchi learned to do Kabuki-level throat thrusts he could have been a legend. Crowd loudly boos the count out finish, as they should. I suppose we need to keep Yaguchi and Ito strong for the next weird empty show in a giant convention center. 

Keisuke Yamada/Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Katsutoshi Niiyama/Tarzan Goto

MD: Best as I can tell this was the first encounter between Goto and Fujiwara. They both toss the flowers out into the crowd to start. Yamada wants to start but Fujiwara doesn't let him and that means Niiyama leaves the ring so Goto can come in as well. This is still a sparsely attended crowed relative to the single level rows of chairs around the ring but they do realize that they're about to see something entirely novel.

It's a game of inches to start, Goto prying an arm off. Fujiwara works him into the corner and batters him though. Then he starts with headbutts with dramatic hairpulls to keep it when Goto tries to shove him off like they were working in the WWWF or something. Fujiwara tagged Yamada (who would be Black Buffalo) in. Yamada was incredibly game in this match. That didn't mean he didn't run right into Goto's crashing weight and go down though. I'd say Niiyama was much more of a weak link, but that primarily meant Fujiwara and Yamada would take back over on him as opposed to letting him hit dubious offense. That let them control for a few minutes before Goto finally took over on Yamada.

The rest of the match wasn't the direct Goto vs Fujiwara match up we might want but it was indirectly wonderful. Goto took it all out on Yamada instead, taunting Fujiwara, rubbing it in his face. At times Yamada would heroically fight back, showing wild fire, only for Goto to cut him off like only he could. At one point, Fujiwara had enough and dragged Niiyama into the ring, punishing him, but Goto didn't care one bit, not like Fujiwara seemed to care about Yamada. 

Yamada finally got free from Niiyama and made a big hot tag. They were able to play the numbers game for a minute but Fujiwara was too much and got the armbar on Niiyama. People streamed from the back to interfere, taking Fujiwara out of the match and leaving things Goto vs Yamada. You'd think that'd be the end of it, but Yamada had one last huge heroic moment, reversing a whip into a barbed wire board. Goto survived that and slammed him down upon it for the win. Things completely broke down after that but as best as I can tell, this never led to anything. Still, so much of what we did get here was iconic.

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Found Footage Friday: WRESTLE YUME FACTORY~! KITA KANTOU GROUP CUP TAG TOURNAMENT~! ABSOLUTE KILLERS~!

4/29/97

This show is available from @itako18jp on Twitter who is really doing incredible stuff making this incredible rare footage available. Send him some money.

Azteca/Basara vs Tadahiro Fujisaki/Wolf

PAS: I am going to forgive a lot of sins if you just lay it in violently, and all four of these guys are wrestling like 90s indy puro guys. Fujisaki is the young Fugo Fugo and he brings the violence even as a pup. Real thump on all the forearms and kicks from all four guys. There was one bad looking whiffed Azteca kick which The Wolf sold anyone, hope Fujiwara cussed him out backstage for that, but otherwise everything looked good, and Basara especially had a sick run of nasty offense near the end of the match. The way you want to start out a tag tourney for sure. 

MD: You do sort of spend the whole match waiting for Basara to get back in and then when you do, you're rewarded for it. He's basically Super Strong Machine with a beard on his mask and slightly different, but just as impactful offense. He came in, absolutely trucked Fujisaki with three of four huge and nasty power moves like a waterwheel slam and power bomb before crushing him with a frog splash only to get rolled up quickly to end it.

Before that, you had a long stretch of Azteca vs Wolf and they were matched up well, taking it up and down with gritty matwork, pretty nasty kicks (some that hit far better than others) and just enough flash, Azteca's somersault senton and Wolf's spin wheel kick in the corner, for instance. Pretty fun way to start this thing off, even if I miss Basara already.

ER: The first thing you notice about Basara is his excellent mask, with long mustache and billy goat's beard like he's the Lorax, or a shabby Pei Mei. Then you notice that he's wearing capri tights, and has an upper body that looks like baby Masa Saito. Any Japanese wrestler who opts for the capri tights is automatically one of the most dangerous men in the room, but add in a budding Masa Saito body and you know they're a menace. I liked everyone here, thought each person brought something. Azteca and Wolf were near style mirrors, throwing kicks with similar speed and style and each having their own way to work a headscissor. Azteca threw a KO kick a foot over Wolf's head, which was really the only misstep, but I also liked how Azteca sold Wolf's kicks more than Wolf sold Azteca's. Wolf had a spinning heel kick in the corner that landed with real thump, and his high bridge fisherman's suplex looked so good and had such a tight grip that I bought it as a nearfall. But this match was all about Basara's hot tag, where he simply entered the ring and forced his will on Fujisaki. Headbutts, a sidewalk slam that looked like he was aiming to concuss, a senton that aimed to land as heavy as possible, and a frog splash that was big enough that it felt like a finish. I liked the real finish, where Fujisaki reversed a vertical suplex into an inside cradle, because Basara looked like he was really straining to complete his suplex while Fujisaki was weighting him down into a cradle, believably dragging him down into a loss. 

Kamikaze/Masakazu Fukuda vs. Hiroyoshi Kotsubo/Masayoshi Motegi

PAS: Another fun WAR tag with really stiff guys working stiff. Kamikaze is just a super fun wrestler to watch, and he especially turns it up at the end, with a really nasty stiff clothesline and a bunch of tubby highspots which landed hard. The Motegi and Kotsubu team is a bit generic, but work and land hard. They definitely put the right team over though. 

MD: This was good from bell to bell. I thought Kotsubo and Fukada worked especially well together, lots of tricked out reversals including one great fight over the arm at one point. Motegi asserted himself the most, taking over pretty much every time he came in, though they were able to isolate his leg and tear it apart a bit mid-match. There was one slap fight between him and (I think) Fukuda and I could have used more of that, especially since the only match with him. Fukuda and Kamikaze opened things up with basically the first real double team flurry of the match to pick up the win on Kotsubo.

ER: I'm kind of used to Motegi being one of the guaranteed worst guys in any given match, which isn't even so much a diss to Motegi, but more that he is often in matches with more interesting guys. Here he looked like young aggressive Rusher Kimura and was teamed with a real punk in Kotsubo. Kotsubo was super aggressive on the mat and worked holds like a bully, flattening guys out just to punish. This got real good when Kamikaze stopped being a pushover and started throwing Kawada kicks at Motegi's forehead then kicking him straight in the kneecap to drop him. He was really bending Motegi's leg on a kneebar, and that knee work came back spectacularly late in the match when Kamikaze broke up a bridging German with a sweeping kick to take out the bridge and make Motegi yell. Motegi made this great one legged tag out, throwing a knee and pushing off his good leg to leap toward Kotsubo, and Kotsubo came in and immediately threw a backfist at Kamikaze's cheekbone, demanding the weaker Fukuda tag in. Kotsubo's victory roll triangle on Fukuda felt like something he really should have been reserving as a finisher, but it was no doubt cool as hell. Motegi takes a Kamikaze clothesline the way Rusher would have, and him getting blown up by that clothesline makes his crucifix reversal of Kamikaze's next clothesline even better. I bit at that nearfall for sure. The ending was tight, real smooth, with a Kamikaze corkscrew senton straight into a Fukuda top rope double stomp, straight into a Kamikaze moonsault. Each of the three hit flush, and Kamikaze's sitout powerbomb was strong. 

Ryo Miyake/Tarzan Goto vs Shigeo Kato/Shinigami - EPIC

PAS: This match was really awesome, pretty classic Japanese tag structure with a veteran teaming with a younger protege. Goto is the perfect guy to be a  veteran mauling a younger guy, and Kato shows a lot of fire, including a great looking dive over the top rope. Goto also does some fun work stomping and punching Shinigami's claw hand.  Miyake has a generic look, but puts some really thump behind everything he threw. Great greasy diner version of an All Japan tag.

MD: This was everything I wanted from this match up. Kato and Shinigami were the world's best Kane and X-Pac basically. Kato was scrappy as hell, fighting great odds against Goto and Miyake. They had such a size advantage, could put so much more into their strikes, and then when they really went to town on him, it was with chairs and the bell hammer. He still flung himself headlong at them though, including literally with a huge flip dive.

Goto knew what he had in Shinigami though. They built to the two facing off (though Kato tried to run at Goto again before reluctantly making the tag). Of course Shinigami went right for the claw, but Goto was ready, stomping on the hand and then dragging the fingers over the ropes. That just built the anticipation for when he got it later reaching up from underneath to lock it in. He hit his claw slam on Goto and even the top rope one on Miyake but Kato wanted back in there and did well with a frog splash and pile driver, but Goto isolated him and mercilessly crushed him to eliminate he and Shinigami from the tournament. Goto and Miyake are basically not fair here.

ER: Remember when we, as tape traders, thought Tarzan Goto was "a fat load"? I know we weren't seeing the breadth of Goto's career when those comments were made, but he is one of the all time "everyone was initially wrong about him" guys in our circle. Were we all turned off by his sloppy appearance? The very thing that would make him stand out as an instantly unique presence in 2026? Whatever I first thought of Goto after seeing him on my first wrestling tape, a 9th gen 8 hr deathmatch comp, he now obviously looks like an ideal pro wrestler. Like Hashimoto. We got Tarzan vs. Tenryu (it rules) but we never got Tarzan vs. Hashimoto, but it's Goto performances like this that make it so clear that he was a sloppy man's Hashimoto. Goto had the perfect mix of Kurisu shoot stiffness and incredible worked offense. He is capable of headbutting a man hard enough to scramble both brains, or working one of the tightest safest worked headbutts possible. He will kick you in your spine as hard as possible or throw one of the more ungodly chokeslams I've seen, but he also has perfect worked punches, as if he worked Memphis in the mid 80s or something. Every clothesline he throws is the best clothesline on the entire show. He has such a fantastic left hook delivery, unlike anyone else's clothesline. His brainbuster was 100% the kind of move that should finish a match, but several things he did were the kinds of things that should finish matches. He is a presence. 

Kato and Shinigami - a man who seems like he is working an Alabama Onryo gimmick - are so small that you know they're going to be massacred, but I like how drawn out the massacre was. The ending was never in doubt, but this was not a 7 minute mauling, this was a match that gave Kato time to fight. Yes, it also gave Goto more time to fight, and that's what gives us Tarzan literally breaking a folding chair over Kato's face, giving him a wicked atomic drop on a table that did not budge even slightly (so he just slammed Kato as hard as he could ass first on a table), even smashing his head with the ring bell hammer! The match going nearly 20 minutes made Kato looks stronger just because of how much violence he withstood. Miyake is a Goto protege and is shaped exactly like Greg Valentine and throws elbows almost as hard as Valentine. He even walks like Valentine! Well, like a 5'7 Valentine, but still I had to go check when Valentine's first Japan tour was (five years after Miyake's birth, sadly). Kato shows constant fire and gets a great late match run against Miyake, hitting a frog splash with real impact (for his small size) and shockingly piledriving the much heavier Valentine Son. He spikes him good, too, so I guess his murder by Goto brainbuster was justified. 

Shinichi Nakano/Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Rikio Ito/Shinichi Shino - FUN

MD: Cleverly done but not too much of a match. Ito and Shino attacked right as Fujiwara and Nakano were entering the ring and they controlled on Nakano for a while. This included a half crab and an over the shoulder backbreaker. Both were broken up by Fujiwara, the latter with an awesome punch to the ribs.

Transition had Fujiwara break up a top rope move from the outside setting up a Nakano superplex. Then they tried to put Fujiwara into a crab, never a good idea. Finish had Nakano go for a Fujiwara Armbar and then both partners coming in for tandem stomps when Ito tried to break it up. Nakano got another Armbar in there to take it. They'd be working again so they kept this one straight and to the point.

PAS: This was a pretty nifty opening match, with Ito and Shino trying to turn it into a brawl, and then got dragged into Fujiwara's world. I really liked how Nakano kept going for the Fujiwara armbar, like he was trying to show his mentor what he had learned. Fujiwara is of course my favorite, but I liked how little he was in this match, he was like the shark in Jaws, and this was the first act of the movie, he is coming, but right now he is lurking. 

Tadahiro Fujisaki/Wolf vs. Gokuaku Umibozu/Masashi Aoyagi - GREAT

MD: I guess Umibozu and Aoyagi had a bye of some sort. Umibozu is Hirofumi Miura and this is an absolute mauling. Wonderful stuff. Aoyagi, of course, hits like a truck, or a tree trunk. He hits very, very hard.

Umibozu is fascinating though. There's this casualness to how he lays shots in, just slaps out of nowhere and sort of effortless kicks. Occasionally, Fujisaki and Wolf get some hope. Wolf tries about six different leglocks or twists in a row and Umibozu just casually snaps a kick over to knock him off. There's no real relief for them. If you're not getting the taste slapped out of your mouth by Umibozu, Aoyagi is cratering your chest in. In the end, Fujisaki managed a dragon sleeper, but Umibozu just brought up a couple of knees, rolled him over, hit a Scorpion Death Drop and then put his skull through the mat with a fisherman's buster. Serene violence, this one.

PAS: This owned, it is fun to see Fujisaki who would go on to be one of the all time great Puro crowbars as Fugo Fugo under the learning tree with a pair of all timer asskickers like Aoyagi and Umibozu. Aoyagi just put so much sauce on every shot, he throws chest punches like he is trying to defibrillate a flatline patient. Umibozu is like a hyper violent Orange Cassidy, he doesn't seem to be giving a huge fuck about the match, but everything he lands is horrifying.  

Takashi Okamura/Yoshikazu Taru vs. Kamikaze/Masakazu Fukuda

MD: And Okamura and Taru would be the other recipients of the bye I guess. First few minutes of this made me think it was going to be a mauling but it had one of the hottest finishing stretches I've seen in a while. Gripping stuff. They started hot too with Taru almost KOing Kamikaze with a high kick and then Kamikaze returning the favor with some straight punches that dropped Taru.

Once it got going and Taru came back and got the tag, Taru and Okamura did a pretty damn good job dismantling Fukuda and Kamikaze though. Okamura's shots were just nasty and varied. Honestly, Fukuda and Kamikaze did stay in it more than I thought they would, with Fukuda fighting out of the corner and Kamikaze hitting big offense on Taru and the two of them unleashing their combo in the corner that won them the first round match. It's just that whenever Okamura came back in he mowed through the opposition.

Stretch had them unloading on Taru. Tons of great offense including a deep deep exploder by Fukada. When Okamura came in, Fukada caught a foot and jammed an elbow down on the knee. But Okamura came back with the craziest jumping spin kick. Neither side could put the other away though. Finally, Okamura hit a Northern Lights but Fukada shifted somehow into a cross arm breaker breathtakingly and Okamura rolled him up for three. Hell of a finish.

PAS: This was really a hidden classic, just an incredible match between four guys most people haven't heard of. I love a Gi guys vs. Wrestlers match, with our Gi guys beating chunks off of the wrestlers and the wrestlers responding with big suplexes and Kamikaze's fat boy flying. Matt is right about the finishing run, it was as cool a back and forth spot fest finishing run as I can ever remember seeing, As intricate as your MPRO matches, but with everything given a chance to breath and the shots landed with brutal force. It feels like something which would have an incredible reputation if we had it in April 1997, as opposed to it showing up like magic nearly 30 years later. 

Ryo Miyake/Tarzan Goto vs. Gokuaku Umibozu/Masashi Aoyagi-GREAT

MD: I don't think it was until this match that I really appreciated just how many styles were represented here. Miyake and Goto were over the top and wild, downright hardcore while also being big and beefy and hard hitting. They ambushed Umibozu and Aoyagi to start. Aoyagi was able to fire back in the ring but Miyake held his own and hit a dive on him. That did some damage to his leg though and Umibozu was able to dig down on it right until Goto had enough and broke a chair over his head.

After that they leaned in hard on opening Umibozu up. He'd fight back a bit but get shut down by a Goto headbutt. He finally fought his way back against Miyake, hitting a DDT and unleashing Aoyagi on him. Lots of brutal offense especially in the corner until Goto had enough and started swinging a chair again, this time getting fed up and nailing the ref too. Things devolved into chaos (and a DQ) and chairs flying in and out of the ring. I can't say I didn't want to see Goto and Miyake up against Fujiwara but there really are no wrong answers at this point.

PAS: What a tournament this was, just great styles clash after great styles clash. Really a throwback to early days FMW here, with a pair of karate guys against wild brawlers.  This is the first time Cagematch listed Goto and Aoyagi against each other, but it feels like they have years of history. Just a pair of awesome characters whose differences work well in tandem. Both guys seem like unstoppable forces in different ways, and it just makes sense that everything broke down into a DQ, I was able to snatch a singles match between them in the same bulk buy and I can't wait to check it out. 

Shinichi Nakano/Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Takashi Okamura/Yoshikazu Taru-GREAT

MD: It's telling that Okamura and Taru were absolute killers in their last match and Nakano and Fujiwara really had their number here. They got their pound of flesh on Nakano with some nasty shots but it wasn't nearly the same. Also interesting is that this was more of a "moves" match from Fujiwara than most, and he's not really known for that. 

Okamura pressed him in the corner to start but he got underneath him and hit sort of a slightly exploding belly to belly. He followed it up with a headbutt and this driving body slam where he sort of lost him and sort of choke him down (Nakano actually hit one similar later so it might have just been an Okamura thing, but it worked for me). After Nakano's comeback (just a single strike out of the ropes but it was a nasty one), he hit another belly to belly on Taru followed by a pile driver. They had some nice kicks (but then so did Nakano) but they never really had a chance here.

PAS: I love when Fujiwara has contempt for someone, he spent much of this match sneering at Taru and Okamura, parrying their kicks and just showing contempt. It is such a great pro-wrestling vibe, and it always makes any comeuppance he gets so satisfying. Fujiwara and Nakano run the table here, but every shot Okamura and Taru land is awesome because it so visibly pisses off Fujiwara. 

Shinichi Nakano/Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Gokuaku Umibozu/Masashi Aoyagi-GREAT

MD: Despite being the finals, things go along pretty much how you'd expect early on. Fujiwara and Aoyagi match up very well. Fujiwara gets one very good sweeping takedown. No real advantage. Likewise Nakano and Umibozu. Nakano has more of a meat and potatoes style honestly, and he does take over with that. But then something happens right at the edge of the camera. Fujiwara takes off his boots. When Nakano gets that advantage and tags, Fujiwara enters barefoot. This cannot be a good thing.

And it is not. He immediately kicks Umibozu a few times and starts punching him in the face. Then he punches him some more, headsbutts him, and tags in Nakano who rolls him out and smacks him in the skull with a chair. Fujiwara makes it back in not long after and punches Umibozu more in the face. This is not going well for Umibozu. He fires back on Nakano finally, but Nakano hits one of the best recoiling shots I've ever seen to floor him. Umibozu finally is able to get a sweeping shot and redirect Nakano into his own corner but that was a hell of a mauling for a few minutes there. Barefoot Fujiwara, my god.

They fight even (including Fujiwara matching kicks with Aoyagi) until they catch Nakano laying by the apron and take over on him. They get a modicum of revenge on him until he's able to hit an enziguiri out of nowhere and tag Fujiwara in. Umibozu and Aoyagi still have the advantage though, right until we enter the Fujiwara headbutt comedy hour. I'll be honest, as entertaining as this was and as much as I would have loved it in a vacuum, this feels like the sort of thing that should have been in an earlier round. It does lead right to the finishing stretch where Fujiwara holds Aoyagi at bay while Nakano finishes Umibozu off with a power slam and Northern Lights to win the tournament. Lots of good stuff here. I just had that one nitpick.  

PAS: This match was so close to an all-timer level. Fujiwara taking off his boots to show Aoyagi "I can kickbox too Motherfucker" was one of the coolest wrestling moments I can remember. I have watched so much Fujiwara in the last 15 years, so great that he still haws songs I haven't heard before. Umibozu and Aoyagi are such asskickers, that they met barefoot Fujiwara shot for shot, and really laid an asskicking on Nakano. I agree with Matt that the Fujiwara ringpost hard head comedy spot kind of cuts off the momentum of the match a bit, and it never really gets back up to the violence inferno of the first 14 minutes. Despite the third act problems, I really loved this match, and this tournament was truly incredible stuff. Well worth the 10 bucks or so.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TARZAN GOTO

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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Found Footage Friday: 1989 NJPW~!

2/8/89

George Takano vs. Hiro Saito

MD: Pretty solid match. Takano was being pushed more at the start of 89 (with his team with Super Strong Machine) than at any point since he dropped the Cobra gimmick. He looked good here in a singles against a very game opponent. He did take most of the match. Saito would try to get him in a hold and he had an interesting technical escape to everything (be it stepping through to set up a takedown or a headstand to get out of a headscissors). Saito had a nice escape or two of his own. Things really picked up down the stretch as they absolutely paintbrushed each other for thirty seconds. That led to a nearfall off of Saito's senton and Takano catching him out of nowhere with the spin wheel kick and then finishing him off with a suplex and top rope splash. You'll be glad to know they shook hands post-match.  

ER: This was good. Tight grappling, real force applied during submissions and lock ups and knuckle locks, real physics used in takedowns and near misses. Takano had some great stuff to steal, including a cool low kip up out of an armbar (going straight into leaning his weight down into Saito's legs to maneuver out) and a cool pendulum swing spinebuster takedown, shifting Saito's weight back and forth before slamming him. Saito's figure 4 headscissors is impossibly snug, and all of Takano's eventual escape looked well earned. Once he escapes he locks Saito into a disgusting leg-grapevined camel clutch that would have played as the finish. You know maybe someone shouldn't steal any of this Takano stuff as I don't know who would be able to apply it as well as he does. They work these holds until the 10 minute announcement and then get right up and go into the finishing stretch. I was getting used to these snug holds and suddenly we're getting suplexes, Takano going up for a high backdrop, Saito hitting his senton famously full weight. I think Takano is much more interesting working holds than he is doing actual running offense. All of his holds looked like he was stretching Saito, but his top rope splash finish looked like he was trying to avoid full contact at all costs. 

Bello Greco/Sergio El Hermoso vs. Hirokazu Hata/Naoki Sano

MD: When Hata and Sano came back from Mexico, they brought their sparring partners with them. There's a Fujiwara match with them that people should seek out. As best as I can tell, Greco was the real base and worker and Sergio was the flash and lead for the comedy. He kissed the announcer before the match and blew one to the ref, causing all sorts of havoc. Hata and Sano had some big climb up armdrags on Greco. And the kiss spot where Sano went flying the first time but Hata blocked it to tweak the nose/lips the second worked about as well as it could. Sano had a bit more style to what he was doing maybe, whereas Hata just played into what he was given more, but both looked good. Finish had Hata hit a dive to the floor off the top and Sano hit a German (but not able to hold the bridge) for the win. In context, a lot of these spots were repeated from the TV matches they were having, but they were all crowd-pleasers for the house show crowd.

ER: The exoticos' music is incredible. It's like someone doing a muted trumpet sound with their mouth doing a sexy Peter Gunn theme. They have a great act. You can tell it's a great act, because they got constant laughs for the full 14 minute runtime, while tons of wrestlers on this card couldn't buy a reaction. Matt Borne and Italian Stallion can't buy a single sound from the people of Sapporo, but they love every single thing Greco and Sergio do, with good cause. The fans love the silly rope running, they love the butt stuff (I wonder if Rick Rude ever saw Bello Greco and lifted an entire career of selling atomic drops), they love the accidents and the misdirection, just involved in every single movement both do. Their timing is great throughout, the absolute best bit being Greco running down the length of the apron to just miss Hata, running his own face into the turnbuckle. Sano looked like a guy clearly in the middle of his breakout year whenever he was in (his stepover armdrag early in the match was so fast and clean) and Hata looked like a guy who was not that, and I loved how they worked with the exotico tandem. They weren't guys being worked around, they were integrating nicely. I would have loved to see Greco and Sergio stick around longer than these few weeks of '89 and work with more opponents, see what the act could do in singles, but all the footage we have is so good in the way that I'm happy it never burnt out. 

Seiji Sakaguchi/Kengo Kimura vs. Matt Borne/Italian Stallion 

ER: This doesn't add up to anything big but has plenty of fun working parts. I have not seen much of Italian Stallion's 1989 New Japan run, and it's crazy how much time he spent there that year and only that year. Sakaguchi makes chopped liver out of him, swallowing him up whole and chaining judo throws while never letting go of his arm, which he caught when Stallion tried to throw one punch. One punch that doesn't land and Sakaguchi treats him like he's Seiji Sakaguchi fighting The Italian Stallion. Stallion isn't bad at all, but he is much better when he wrestles like a poor man's Matt Borne rather than his usual rich man's Joey Maggs. His dropkick hits like a truck and he throws Kimura with a cool belly to belly, but needs a better clothesline. 

I love how Matt Borne moves. He's just as unpredictable as Buzz Sawyer but keeps things more compact. He's a bulldog, goes hard after Sakaguchi and gets hit hard by the large man. I loved a double leg trip Kimura and Sakaguchi pulled on him, like they were actually trying to pull him apart like a wishbone. Borne really smothers Kimura whenever he's in with him, riding him on the mat and not letting him land anything until the finish. He even pulls some bullshit when the ref misses Sakaguchi's tag and Borne goes back to picking on Kimura, shutting down a hot tag. Crowd doesn't react in any way to his bombs away which is just cold. He eventually takes the pin when Kimura gets a piledriver, and I like how he sells the piledriver with confusion instead of neck pain. 

MD: Little bit of a weird one to me. Stallion (and Borne to a lesser degree) gave a bit to Kimura but mostly ate him up on the mat. Stallion would just roll around on top of him. As you can imagine, they'd give more for Sakaguchi though. Kimura did get the win with the leg lariat/pile driver combo so maybe he felt giving but it did seem like Stallion was going to assert himself as much as possible when given the chance (just not with one of the bosses). Maybe that's why he stayed around so much in 89? 

Super Strong Machine vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 

ER: This doesn't rise to levels of Fujiwara singles match greatness, but it is a Fujiwara singles match against one of my favorite New Japan 80s natives so it's obviously a great 12 minutes. Fujiwara is in house show antagonist mode and just trolls Strong Machine with annoying stuff all match. He breaks every lock up with a slap, in a way that's not meant to hurt but meant to rile up Machine into making mistakes. It's all mischievousness where he retains plausible deniability over being a troll but it's all there. Look at Machine finally make his first inroads and throw Fujiwara to the floor, only to see the insanely aggravating way Fujiwara casually walks back around the ring after hitting the floor. Fujiwara gets his head bounced off the turnbuckle bolt and just strolls away adjusting his trunks. I don't think there was a wink thrown to the crowd, but it was implied. Just a cool fucking guy catching eyes with a girl in a car while crossing the street. 

Things open up when Machine starts going after Fujiwara's taped up knee with an ankle lock, and you can tell it's getting to Fujiwara because he starts throwing backfists from his back into Machine's neck. Machine wisely maneuvers things into a single leg crab, much harder to throw backfists from that position. Fujiwara breaks free from it by fishhooking Strong Machine's mask with one hand and throwing punches with the other, gripping a handful of the bottom edge of his mask with his left while punching him straight in the jaw with his right. When he gets to his feet he throws half a dozen headbutts, still holding Machine by the mask, hopping on his bad knee while throwing them. There's a great moment where Machine fires up after Fujiwara kneels on his face, and demands Fujiwara punch him some more, like a man. Fujiwara happily obliges and buckles Strong Machine's legs. 

The finish sequence is hot as hell. Fujiwara catches a clothesline and puts his weight behind an armbar in one motion, but Machine rolls through, so Fujiwara tries to take him down again with a Fujiwara but Machine blocks it, so Fujiwara pulls an inside cradle. Fujiwara's greatest successes come from never wanting to finish a match a specific way, always willing to pivot to whatever might be available. 

MD:  Not top tier-Fujiwara, sure, but it was definitely chippy and snippy. They leaned on each other. Battering in the corner, etc. I'd say SSM had the advantage until he tried slamming Fujiwara's head into the post. Then he tried to stop the headbutts that would come (self aware in a very good way) but couldn't. He did pull Fujiwara out and post his leg and Fujiwara had to fight from underneath for a bit. Fujiwara came back with huge headbutts though and ultimately after two arm bar attempts (first rolled through) locked in a small package. Nice little self-aware bits in this, the sort of thing you'd be more likely to get from Super Strong Machine than a lot of his contemporaries.

Hiroshi Hase vs. Shiro Koshinaka

MD: This was really good. Super high on it. There's a rule for 1987-1989 NJPW Juniors matches: The best ones start with an immediate ambush/advantage, and Koshinaka got that, nailing Hase in the ropes on the first exchange and going after his taped knee. Lots of nasty little shots and bigger submissions. At one point he went for a suplex, and Hase's leg went out and his head just crushed into the mat. Koshinaka hit the butt butt, the top rope knee drop and even the power bomb. Then he shoved Hase out. The ref got in his face and that let Hase pull Shiro out to take over. 

I wouldn't have minded if Hase sold just a little more but I was generally ok with it. Most of his offense wasn't hefting Koshinaka up but slamming his head into the exposed post instead (the best kind of offense). Koshinaka bled. Hase stayed on the wound. The ref tried to stop him at one point and Hase pointed out that Shiro had been unsportsmanlike in going after his leg and this was warranted. 

Eventually he did hit the Northern Lights but couldn't keep the bridge given his leg. He ended up choking Koshinaka for the DQ, which is way better than it sounds on paper, trust me. Post match Hiro Saito came in and they beat on Koshinaka and anyone that tried to stop them. Honestly, as a finish, it's not something we saw much during this era in New Japan and it was grisly and effective for me. Really good match.  

ER: This was really good. There was a different Koshinaka/Hase match on the New Japan DVDVR 80s set that happened the next month, from 3/16/89. I was higher on that match than the consensus (I had it 25 spots higher than the final results) and I think this is the better match. Koshinaka goes after Hase's leg like a heel and works the first third of this match as Junior Heavyweight Tenryu. Hase's comeback goes on so much longer and is equally violent, so much so that it turns Koshinaka into a bigger babyface by virtue of Hase being such an asshole. Hase pays merely lip service to Koshinaka's knee work - had the knee come back in any meaningful way, instead of Hase occasionally shaking it out while otherwise not acknowledging - it would have been one of the best New Japan juniors matches of the late decade. Koshinaka throws sharp kicks at Hase's knee that do not look pulled, so much so that it seems absurd when Hase goes on offense for 10 straight minutes with no sign of slowing down. 

Until Hase just flipped the switch, his knee selling was great. There was this almost third wall breaking spot where Koshinaka went for a snap suplex and Hase couldn't make it over on his bad leg, so instead whips nose first into the mat in one of the more disgusting DDT bumps I've ever seen. It's such a fucked up looking bump that it looked like a blown spot or miscommunication. It hits this meta level of "Hase's leg is so bad that he can't take moves the way you all expect guys to take moves" and it was something that could have made this match legendary. But Hase messes that up to and actually treats the spot like a fuck up, not acknowledging the bump he took at all and kind of quickly getting to his feet. 

But he went so hard on Koshinaka that I think he overcame the lack of selling. I've never thought of Hase as a kicker, but he unleashes some hellish kicks on Koshinaka. At one point, Koshinaka on his knees, Hase is just kicking him right across the bridge of the nose and Koshinaka hangs in for more, so Hase kicks him in the back of the head. He's really merciless, and Koshinaka turns into this fired up screaming babyface while taking everything Hase brought. Hase's torso and legs wound up smeared with Koshinaka's blood and he looked like a deranged animal biting at Koshinaka's head. The DQ finish looked great as there really was nothing the referee could do to separate Hase's mouth from Koshinaka's head. That man looked like he was pulling with all his might to pull him off and it was not happening. I'm curious what the consensus would have been on this match. Enough DVDVR voters would have hated Hase's selling, but I think more would have loved the violence. 

Antonio Inoki/Riki Choshu/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Big Van Vader/Bam Bam Bigelow/Rip Morgan 

ER: A great house show main event that never quite settles into a structure but has the two biggest gaijin taking tons of big bumps for the freaking powerhouse native team. That's a star studded lineup and Vader/Bigelow treat them as size/power equals for long stretches. Bigelow takes a full flip for Riki's second lariat one minute in. Just a full backflip like he's Jeff Hardy. Fujinami isn't taking a flipping bump for Vader's clothesline, he's blocking it and getting a sick backslide instead. This is Riki's lariat though, so even Vader is taking a big leaping bump for it late in the match. Vader and Bigelow get rocked by suplexes and clotheslines all match, from all of them. Choshu even suplexes Vader in from the apron! Everybody was taking suplexes man.  

There isn't even really any hierarchy in this match, it's kind of strange. Going into it Rip Morgan feels like the most obvious Guy Taking Pin in Main possible but he's in there working big exchanges with Inoki and Choshu. He hits a kitchen sink knee to Choshu that Riki takes so well that it made my stomach hurt. Riki leans into his Scorpion Deathlock like he's applying it to Morgan as a shoot submission. Nobody felt like a bigger start than anyone else, it was just six stars working a main event that nobody outside of this sports center will ever see.

Bigelow was the one who worked this with joy. Everybody works with energy but Bam Bam was having fun. He's not a monster, he's the guy working with some color, a little whimsy. He shakes his fist out after punching Riki, bodyslams Inoki with force, breaks up a pin with a falling headbutt to Inoki's face. He's doing light axe handles off the top and throwing headbutts, but also looks like he's giving Vader ideas on how to wreak havoc. Vader had this amazing press slam hoist of Choshu, super impressive, made him look weightless. Bam Bam gets in the ring and directs Vader to throw Riki onto his knee in a gutbuster. It rules.  There's an awesome 1-2 where Bigelow breaks Inoki's octopus hold on Morgan by leveling him with a clothesline, and right when he hits it he gets wasted by a Riki lariat, great bookend to him getting flipped by one early. There are some little clips in this so we don't get a full feel for the finish, but this is six guys I loved watching run around each other. 

MD: 1989 starts with the Power Elite of Inoki/Choshu/Fujinami coming together against Vader and Bigelow. They do a bunch of these matches in January and the start of February, so it's a little overdone by this point, but the plus side is that they've been practicing and honing the match. That meant some spots like the Inoki kicking off out of the over the shoulder double team worked quite well. 

I really enjoyed the start of this one, with the heels ambushing and then Choshu ducking a Bigelow clothesline, hitting a lariat that just staggered him and then hitting the real one that Bigelow took a flip bump for (very rare for 89 in general and especially a guy Bigelow's size). In order to keep things fresh and prep for the Russians coming in, they had Rheingans join Vader/Bigelow as their American player/coach and he was at the margins of this one. 

This was fairly back and forth. You feel bad for Fujinami here. He's fine but he doesn't come off as the ace/champ when teaming with two of the most charismatic wrestlers ever. Vader was there to basically get control again. It boiled over (with a clip, and during that clip Inoki may have actually won it) to either the DQ or the post-match where heels controlled in the corner wouldn't stop double teaming and charging in. 

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Fujiwara Family: Pro Wrestling Fujiwara-Gumi 6/25/92

PWFG 6/25/92

ER: This show starts with some nice tributes and an in ring 10 bell salute to Masami Soranaka, a Gotch trained shootstyle pioneer who - like Fujiwara -  was a legit martial artist. He and Fujiwara both practiced judo, and Soranaka was a karate guy who began recruiting people for UWF by looking at martial arts tournaments. He was a lower rung wrestler in the first couple years of UWF, a guy who lost 95% of his matches yet owned a win over Fujiwara. He was a trainer, referee, and almost surely a tough guy running buddy of Fujiwara. He feels like a guy who Segunda Caida would at least pretend to like even if he was boring (if there was more footage of him). Bart Vale relates a kind of touching hollow eyed memory of Soranaka, who had recruited him to fight in Japan after meeting him in a Florida mall.


Jerry Flynn vs. Ryushi Yanagisawa

PAS: This was right around the point where Jerry Flynn got really good and he was great in this. Yanagisawa was a replacement level PWFG guy at this point, wasn't going to hurt you, wasn't going to do a ton to help you, so this match was made by Flynn. He throws great looking winging kicks to the stomach, scrambles nicely on the ground and slips neatly into a tight rear naked choke for a rope break and a wrist lock side headlock choke for the win. Flynn probably made a nice living in WCW, but I would have loved to see what he would have done sticking around this group for a bit longer. I imagine he would have made an awesome BattlArts gaijin.

ER: I'm with Phil, as I think Flynn would have put on some genuine classics in RINGS or BattlArts had he stuck around instead of being a very fun WCW Saturday Night surprise. But he looks strong and impressively cool here, expertly wearing down Yanagisawa and finishing the moment he felt remotely threatened. He was great at deflecting Yanagisawa's strikes and controlling the distance with his long legs and straight kicks. He hits a pair of solebutts that knock Yanagisawa far across the ring and almost knocks his lunch far out of his stomach. He is a bulldog on kneebars, hanging on and making it look effortless as Yanagisawa scrambles for ropes. He locks on snug headlocks and side triangles, and gets a nice rear naked choke to convincingly almost finish the rookie. Yanagisawa doesn't show a ton here but he's a tall guy and I remember enjoying him in early 2000s New Japan (a nice deep cut shoot style get for NJ). He fires up after getting up at 9 off that choke, then charges in with kicks to the body and some actual passion. Flynn effectively blocks many of them and at first split second opportunity shoots a double leg, then cranks on a twisting choke while twisting Yanagisawa's arm between his thighs. Flynn would be viewed a lot differently if he had a later shootstyle run in any of the Japanese feds, or had he been paired in WCW with Finlay, Regal, and Dave Taylor instead of Brian Knobbs and Hugh Morrus.  

Minoru Suzuki vs. Yuki Ishikawa 

PAS: This is baby Ishikawa in his third match wearing a flat top, and is basically there to show spunk and get smashed, both of which he does. Suzuki throws some rude elbows to the back of the head and pretty much takes all four minutes of this. Cool chance to see one of the all-time greats when he was in short pants.

ER: I have never seen Yuki Ishikawa so young, and it's great! He has a crewcut and is more muscular than I've ever seen him. He also keeps sticking his hand into the unforgiving razor sharp machinery that is Minoru Suzuki. Suzuki is younger than Ishikawa but has several years of shootstyle experience on him and sets out to successfully steamroll him. Ishikawa is wearing aquamarine tiger stripe trunks, kneepads, kickpads, and boots, and I mourn for him. He could have made the aquamarine tiger stripes iconic, but Ogawa was the only man brave enough to stick with the animal stripes. Suzuki blasts Ishikawa with palm strikes to the back of the head and kicks the hell out of him while downed. Suzuki hits those Kurisu level kicks that make you feel better watching this way into the future, when you know Yuki Ishikawa is still a fine functioning human being. Ishikawa hangs in as gamely as he can, but Suzuki basically takes his lunch money and finishes it right when he wanted to with a nasty choke. Ishikawa got slaughtered here, but there was a wonderful moment in the post match where they're on their knees bowing to each other, and they get up and hug. Yuki Ishikawa has such a huge smile on his face and looks SO EXCITED to be doing what he's doing, even though he just got a major one sided beating (the quickest most one-sided beating of his entire rookie year). At one point Suzuki was standing directly on his face, grinding it into the mat. But look at Ishikawa's face after the match and you can clearly see why he is still in the game, dedicating over half his life to shoot style pro wrestling. He loves it so much.  

Masakatsu Funaki vs. Kazuo Takahashi 

PAS:  This theoretically should have been more competitive. Funaki and Takahashi are closer on the pecking order than Suzuki and Ishikawa are, but this was also a one sided thumping. Funaki really did come off like a star, dancing on the balls of his feet in the striking, landing a couple of short counter shots to looping Takahashi strikes which dropped Takahashi. He actually reminded me a lot of Connor McGregor, killer movement and the ability to beat his opponent to the punch even if his opponent throws first. Takahashi was able to get some takedowns, but even when he took him down Funaki dominated on the ground and was able to twist out his ankle for the tap out. Would have been better if Funaki hadn't eaten him up so much, but you could see why Funaki would become such a big star.

Bart Vale vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara - GREAT

PAS: Interesting match which was worked very differently then I was expecting. Vale has an amazing strip mall sensei look: mullet, mustache, American flag short, he looks more like a Danny McBride character than an actual human being. He normally wrestles like that, too, lots of big winging kung fu kicks and such. But this match was mostly grappling, with Vale using his size and power to take Fujiwara down and press on him. Fujiwara was of course able to get some slick counters attacking legs and arms, but Vale would just press on him to take away his openings and use his size. We get some striking, a sneak headbutt by Fujiwara, and some of the big Vale kicks, but this was mostly worked on the ground and mostly dominated by Vale. 

ER: There is no better description of Bart Vale than that of a Strip Mall Sensei. The man was discovered while fighting in a shopping mall martial arts tournament, and nearly every depiction of a white martial arts goof since has been patterned after Vale whether they knew it or not. The Death Punch guy in Regular Show, Rex Kwon Do, and essentially Danny McBride's entire existence. He probably missed out on being in a handful of Cannon films by just a couple years, and he feels like a guy who will one day become a meme once normal people on the internet happen across him. He's a large guy who can bull through Fujiwara's attacks and smother him, and Fujiwara is arguably at his best when he's on the defense. All my favorite moments were centered around Fujiwara catching Vale being a lummox, like when he hit an elbow to stop a charge in its tracks or kept muscling him around the mat working a Fujiwara while grinding an arm across Vale's face. I do wish a couple of the strikes used for knockdown counts looked a little better. One (maybe two) of the high kicks that sent Fujiwara to the mat didn't even make contact, and Fujiwara is someone who you can make contact with. The finish, though, I thought was great, with Vale getting a side choke with all of his weight flattening Fujiwara, not choking him to the point of passing out, but getting him right to the brink and letting him get counted down. Vale's post fight celebration was cute and came off genuine. It had that Windows '95 launch dance caucasianality to it, with handclaps and little celebratory yips, with that feeling of actual accomplishment. 

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ZERO-ONE Truth Century Creation 3/2/02

KENTA vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa

ER: Weird match as it gets almost 20 minutes, but rarely feels like anything more than a Takaiwa squash. KENTA had some mighty ineffective juniors offense and no strikes to go along with his awful frosted tips mushroom 'do. No strikes in a match against Takaiwa means you're going to get beat up. So Takaiwa beat him up, and Takaiwa is just a guy I totally blocked out really really liking, mistakenly mentally lumping him in with guys like Kanemaru and other late 90s/early 00s meh juniors. Wait do I also actually like Kanemaru!? MY MEMORY IS SHOT AND NOTHING MAKES SENSE ANYMORE! But Takaiwa is definitely now a guy I'm correctly re-evaluating. He has a lot of offense and hits it really hard, and KENTA and his dumb haircut is a fun guy to see get clotheslined and powerbombed a bunch. Match structure is all wonky as we basically get Takaiwa beating KENTA up for 15 mintues, then KENTA gets some flimsy roll ups and ranas before inevitably succumbing. KENTA had this annoying habit of kicking out of his every single one of his pinfalls (outside of the schoolboy that opened the match which was a real nice schoolboy). He would get a roll up and then after a 2 count he would act like Takaiwa was suddenly made of hot lava, just scrambling away from him before Takaiwa would kick out. Annoying.

PAS: I remember really digging this period of Takiawa, there is a ton all over the early 20s Schneider Comps. He was basically a juniors Kurisu, a balding little prick who wasn't afraid to be completely unprofessional. This match would have been really good if it had about five minutes shaved off. The idea of a young guy getting mauled, and getting some hope spots is a great match type, but the mauling here dragged. Takiawa is just stomping KENTA in the back of his head and trying to break small bones in his neck with clotheslines, but at some point around the 10 minute moment it stops mattering, I mean if the brainbuster on the floor doesn't end it, why will this suplex. I did like KENTA 's crazy dive into the crowd, and it is really surreal to see a kickless KENTA match.

Kohei Sato vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

ER: The title card actually bills Fujiwara as "The Wrestle Master" which....yep, that math checks out. And this was a match that would fit right in on a modern Evolve show, with the first 8 minutes being mat rolling. And now I'm just drooling at the prospect of Fujiwara as elder Catch Point statesman. There was some good rolling though it could have leaned further one way or the other. There were nice reversals though neither seemed to have an advantage and it didn't always seem spirited. Fujiwara has some sick transitions and I especially loved him planting a forearm on Sato's throat as he moved into mount. On their feet and Fujiwara starts dishing headbutts and getting that gleeful old man gleam in his eye. But he goes down for the count pretty quickly to a soft kick behind the ear. I wasn't expecting him to stay down for a 10 count after it. We've all seen him take far worse strikes, and this was essentially the only strike he took in the match so it really should have looked better if it was meant to be the finish.

PAS: Awesome grappling match, in the style of the classic PWFG and UWF Fujiwara matches. Pretty much all on the mat with both guys desperately fighting for counters and reversals. Sato is very comfortable in this relm and does a lot of cool shit. You don't often see someone who looks comfortable rolling with Fujiwara in this way. Most guys even if the action is worked even, appear carried, while Sato looks like he has his own ideas. Sato uses his height well on the mat, sort in the way someone liked Kendall Grove does in shoots, he has long legs and uses their length to extricate himself and get advantages. Of course no one in wrestling history is as comfortable on the mat as Yoshiaki Fujiwara and all of his attacks are very fluid too. Finish was slightly abrupt, Fujiwara has done good KO finishes in the past, this one didn't feel as much like a finish, the kick didn't land as solidly as it needed to, and I think it dropped the match a bit.

Sean McCully vs. Wataru Sakata

PAS: Ok Sean McCully is the hidden star of this Zero-One revisit. He looks like a Jersey City nightclub bouncer, and has this great "COME AT ME BRO" charisma. Sakata is an ex RINGS and Pride guy who ended up in Zero-One for some reason. This starts out as a shootstyle match, and McCully is surprisingly adept at basic shootstyle mat work. McCully ends up getting flipped to the floor and then they start brawling on the floor with McCully posting Sakata, and it almost turns into a Murakami match. Finish is awesome, McCully is in the ring taunting Sakata "YOU WANT TO RUMBLE BRO, YO THE PULSE IS WHERE I WORK DUDE, YOU DON'T FUCKING DISRESPECT ME A MY CLUB BRO." Sakata gets into the ring, and McCully claps his gloves together in anticipation, and Sakata hits a jumping knee and KO's him. Totally would have been a viral video if it had happened outside of a bar, I wanted to start chanting WORLD STAR.

Samoa Joe/Tom Howard vs. Steve Corino/Gary Steele

PAS: This was a super entertaining NWA v. UPW tag. A nice mix of Corino's horseshit and more indy ROHish tag work. Joe is in full super indy mode, chaining together suplexes, hitting tope con hilos, wasting people with lariats. Meanwhile Corino is hitting hard, but also talking mad loud shit, and doing the MX/Delfin armwringer spot. While a lot of the match was Cornio v. Joe, I think Howard may have been the under the radar star of the match. He hits all these weird takedowns and has these cool punch combos, just a totally unique wrestler. He also had the spot of the match, where he used a Joe suplex bridge to springboard himself into a nasty dropkick on Steele. Whole thing was pretty great, I could easily see this main eventing a alternate universe ROH show and being really well regarded.

Yoko Takahashi vs. Yuki Kubota

PAS: This was either a worked shoot, or a sloppy MMA fight. One of the ladies gets her nose busted open, and they throw pretty recklessly. Sort of entertaining because they eschewed defense, hard to rate something like this though.

Josh Dempsey vs. The Predator

PAS: Man the hits keep coming with this show, this is another killer match. Dempsey is a boxer and Predator is an ex NCAA champion wrestler, but this was a nutso brawl. Dempsey jumps Predator at the bell and throws a bunch of nasty bodyshots. Predator hurls Dempsey out of the ring and he basically falls head first to the floor. Rick Bassman jumps on the Predator and gets thrown. The whole thing is completely out of control, Dempsey is throwing spuds, Predator swings around his Brody chain, and tries to hang Dempsey with it. I honestly thought this was as good as the best Brody brawls, maybe the Predator was an improvement on the original.

Kazuhiko Ogasawara vs. Ryouji Sai

PAS: This was also nuts. Ogasawara is a fun karate guy and Sai is a shootstyle Zero One young guy. First move of the match is Sai going in for a shot and eating a knee square on his nose. It looked for a second like they were going to end the match immediately. Sai passes concussion protocol and comes back and we get another heated brawl, with Sai going for takedowns and submissions and Ogasawara winging hard punches and kicks. At one point Ogasawara tosses off the Gi and busts up Sai's nose. Finishing spin kick I think legit KO's Sai, as you can see his eyes roll up into the back of his head and someone pull out smelling salts.

Naomichi Marufuji vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa

PAS: Marufuji juniors matches aren't really my bag, I am always going to prefer crazy karate guys,  but this one moved along and had enough fun moves that I ended up enjoying it. Hoshikawa throws hard stomach kicks which makes him a perfect junior for a Hashimoto fed. Marufuji doesn't have great offense, but in the age of Okada and Tanahashi it doesn't stand out as much, and he does really connect with his superkicks. I actually liked how he worked his submissions which isn't something I remember him doing. These guys had a pretty well regarded match on the first Zero One show, and they appear to be a pair of guys who worked really well together.

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Masato Tanaka

PAS: One of the all time greatest bear maulings in wrestling history. After this beating I imagine Tanaka wished he was back getting unprotected chairshots and thrown into barbed wire. It is a great kind of semi-squash match because Tanaka is always coming forward and attacking even as he gets mutilated. He even does some pretty nasty knee work, throwing some hard forearms right into the side of Hashimoto's knee, you know that guys knees weren't great. He even gets a great near fall, when he wiggles out of the brainbuster and smashes Hashimoto with a big rolling elbow. Still this was all about Hash as an absolute stalking killer. Not only does he throw those windmill over hand chops to the neck and his baseball bat wheel kicks, but at one point he jumps off the ring apron and lands full weight right on the side of Tanaka's ribs, I have no idea how they didn't crack like wishbones. There is this great spot late in the match where Tanaka backs Hash into the corner and slaps him, Hash gives this great wry grin and just full force punches Tanaka in the jaw. What a fucking rockstar Hashimoto was.

Shinjiro Ohtani vs. Naoya Ogawa

PAS: Another super heated scrap, what a fucking show. I guess Murakami was feuding with Ogawa at this point as he consistently needs to be held back from going after him. Murakami is such a superstar, when he throws off his shirt he is like Steve Austin. Ohtani uses Murakami's distraction to get an early edge, hitting his great missile dropkick and german suplex, Ogawa is too much thought and he eventually STO's Ohtani into a ref stoppage, Murakami tries to after him again and we have a great pull apart. Checking Cagematch, Murakami doesn't show up again until 2006, what a dropped ball, Ogawa v. Murakami looked like it would have been awesome

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Segunda Caida Declares PWFG!!

It has been a decade since we reviewed all of the PWFG shows, but through the magic of the internet we have found a trio of shows that we didn't have before. I figured it would be a good idea to create a post with a list of all of the shows we have done to easily search.

1991

3/4/91
5/19/91
7/26/91
8/23/91
9/28/91
10/17/91
11/3/91

1992

1/15/92
3/20/92
5/15/92
7/27/92
8/15/92
9/2/92
10/4/92
12/5/92

1993

6/1/93
7/21/93
9/23/93

1994

2/28/94
9/13/94
10/31/94

1995

5/19/95
6/18/95
8/26/95
11/19/95

1996

5/23/96

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Be Imitators of Me as I am of Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Masahito Kakihara BJW 8/14/17 - FUN

PAS: Kakihara has been retired for a decade and this was the main event of a Kakihara produced show which was sort of a UWF reunion. This was a sparring match, and was basically Fujiwara tapping Kakihara over and over again, it was a complete squash, like a Ju-Jitsu Purple belt sparring with a Gracie. It was pretty awesome to watch Fujiwara spar though, to see all the different ways he has to counter an attack into a submission, he would let Kakihara grab a kneebar, only to reverse it and tap him, he let Kakihara grab his back only to crank his ankle. At one point Fujiwara mimed smoking a cigarette and when he was done smoking he cranked an arm. Really enjoyed watching Fujiwara do his thing, but I have no idea why Kakihara would come out of retirement, stage a show and book himself to be smushed in the main event.

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara's Power is Made Perfect in Weakness

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Masanobu Kurisu v. Kuuga/Magnitude Kishiwada AJPW 12/7/16 - FUN

I love the elderly asskicker team of Kurisu and Fujiwara, they are really in their dotage now but they would have been such a killer team 25 years ago, when they were just really old instead of Octogenarian. Kurisu looks like Wilferd Brimley but will still jab the edge of a chair into someones throat. Fujiwara spends most of the match wandering around and headbutting random masked dudes, but they did have a cool finish with Fujiwara turing a double team into a Fujiwara armbar where he used Kuugas fist to punch Magnitude.

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara is Near to the Brokenhearted and Saves the Crushed in Spirit

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Yankee Rionne WNC 10/31/13-FUN

Hey remember Fujiwara, you love Fujiwara and he is back on the internet. Yankee Rionne is an Australian Karate champion who make martial arts movies in Japan. He kind of wrestles a green indy kicker fake Davey Richards style. However as you can imagine Fujiwara is really fun wrestling a kind of crappy fake Davey Richards. We get a lot of nasty Fujiwara mat couters, including him ankle picking Rionne with his legs to counter an armbar, and catching Rionne in a crucifix when he got too aggressive with a charge. Rionne's kicks didn't look very good, but Fujiwara is a master at selling a kick combo. If Rionne was say Chris Dickenson level this would have been a great match, but he isn't there yet and there was some pretty bad stuff by him including a Lisa Simpson like punch combo in the chairs and some really comical facial selling. He does seem like he has some athleticism and he was apparently adopted and renamed Rionne Fujiwara after this match, and Fujiwara is a pretty fucking amazing trainer, so maybe this guy saves Puro in three years.

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara's Power is Made Perfect in Weakness

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Antonio Inoki NJPW 5/20/87-GREAT

Another previously unseen HH gem from Max Lanicault. These guys have two of my favorite matches of the entire 1980's. This isn't at that level, but it is another example of their great chemistry. The early parts of the match are fun bits of grappling mixed in with bursts of temper. They grapple, and every once in a while pop each other in the face. My favorite example of that is Fujiwara doing a MUGA style headscissors counter and cuffing Inoki hard in the ear. The finish run is pretty neat, it starts with Inoki escaping a knee bar and bounding off the mat into an enzigiri. Fujiwara is stunned but still able to counter a suplex into a Fujiwara armbar. Finish is pretty cool with Inoki hitting a back suplex and then stomping the shit out of the back of Fujiwara's head, add a couple of enzigiri's and Fujiwara gets stunned enough to get pinned. I liked it conceptually, but I was hoping for more of a finish run, it felt a little abrupt especially considering how amazing their finishes usually are. Very happy this showed up though, and very cool to see.


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Your Adversary Yoshiaki Fujiwara Prowls Around Like A Roaring Lion, Seeking Someone to Devour

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Super Tiger UWF 1/16/85-EPIC

This is a previously unavailable HH I picked up from Max Lanicault and it is another classic from this series. I think these two work so well together because of what they do different. Fujiwara is going to take you down and rip at your extremities, Sayama is going to throw fast nasty kicks and punches and knock you silly. Both guys can hang in the others world, Fujiwara throws some very cool punch combos in the corner, Sayama counters some on the mat, still they want to get the match where they need it to be. Sayama tries to punish Fujiwara when he gets it to the ground by slipping out and landing huge jumping knees on his prone body, Fujiwara gets some very nasty throws when he can get inside of Sayama's kicks including a cool shoot piledriver. More then almost any other great wrestling matchup, this is a battle of gameplans. This version has Fujiwara coming out ahead. Sayama comes very close to snoozing him out, but finally Fujiwara is able to grab hold. The finishing submission is awesome, we get to see Fujiwara work through every step of the hold, before finally snapping the elbow which causes Tiger to very quickly tap, the submission was a great combo of fast and slow, much like the whole match.


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Finlay is Going to Make him a Big Sharp Axe, Shining Steel Tempered in Fire

Dave Finlay/Murat Bosporus/Big Boy v. Yoshiaki Fujiwara/TAJIRI/Hajime Ohara SMASH 12/30/11

This really felt like a classic lucha trios match building to a big singles match. The match they were setting up was TAJIRI v. Finlay although this could have easily set up Finlay v. Fujiwara or Finlay v. Ohara as Finlay gets awesome sections with all three. Finlay has said that an early 80's match with Fujiwara is one of his favorites, and three decades later we get a glance of what that might have looked like, and it was awesome. I loved Finlay bullying Fujiwara into the corner and cheap shotting him, just to see Fujiwara fire back with this great "not in my house motherfucker" look on his face. Finlay pummeling Ohara to get under TAJIRI's skin was great, as was Finlay's interactions with TAJIRI. I don't really think of TAJIRI as a matworker, but he hit the mat hard here. The turks were mainly there as window dressing, although TAJIRI's berserker chopping down of Big Boy was one of the cooler finishes of the last half a decade. Great stuff, and one of the better matches of the year

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara Blazes Forth Like Fire and the Mountains Crumble to Dust in his Presence

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Tatsumi Fujinami v. Riki Choshu/Mitsuya Nagai RJPW 10/25/11-FUN

Pretty flat match for most of it. Choshu and Fujinami were kind of mailing it in, and as much as I love both guys, mailed in Choshu and Fujinami is some bad shit. This would have been skippable, but we get a very cool last two minutes between Fujiwara and Nagai. Fujiwara slaps Nagai and when he counters rips on the Fujiwara. That gets broken up, but then as Nagai goes for a slam, Fujiwara slip out into the Fujiwara armbar a second time for the win. You can safely skip to the 16:00 mark and watch everything worth seeing.

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara Cometh, and They Shall Seek Peace, And There Shall Be None

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Kana v. Yuki Ishikawa/Carlos Amano Kana Pro 1/10/11-EPIC

A total out of nowhere awesome match. I have very little interest in current Joshi, I haven't seen Carlos Amano in years and I don't think I had ever seen Kana, but they were just killing it in this match. Their early grappling was very slick, with some really nasty ankle locks and armbar transitions. Very good stuff, as intricate and interesting as that kind of shoot mat work gets. Ishikawa and Fujiwara click together like puzzle pieces. There is a great moment where Fujiwara tags in and slaps Ishikawa in the mouth, and when Ishikawa tries to respond Fujiwara grabs his arm and wrenches in the namesake armbar. After watching and reviewing this many Fujiwara matches it is great that he still breaks out new neat shit. As good as everyone else is, this was the Ishikawa show. Every once in a while Ishikawa shows up on DVD or youtube and reminds you he is the best wrestler in the world. Starting out he is such a nasty fucker, smacking around Kana like Billy Campbell in Enough. However Kana fires back and his selling is so good that by the end we have a full on epic Ishikawa v. Ikeda finish with the role of Daisuke Ikeda played by a 97 pound girl. Kana is throwing bombs and Ishikawa is desperately fighting back. Excellent match as good as the best stuff from 2011.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Yoshikazu Yokoyama Zero-One 8/27/11-FUN

Yokoyama is a young guy testing himself against the wily veteran. This a story we have seen before and Fujiwara is great at working. He does a bunch of very cool counters, including a nice use of a crucifix and an ankle pick reversal out of an armbar. He also uncorked a nasty headbutt. Yokoyama didn't show me a ton although he was a fine guy getting worker over by Fujiwara. Worth your four minutes to watch

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