On Brand Segunda Caida: Shootstyle All Japan!

Tamon Honda vs. Gary Albright AJPW 12/16/95

PAS: Not a completely put together match, but it was fun to watch two badass amateur wrestlers chuck each other around the ring. Albright was such a great suplexer he would pop his hips and send Honda flying. Albright was so big that Honda couldn't hurl him but he got off a couple of throws as well. There was a cool spot with Honda struggling to take Albright's back and finally riding him down with a choke. I wanted this to be some hidden classic, and it wasn't that, but it was fun stuff overall.

ER: I thought this kicked ass. The whole thing was two absolute tendon strength beasts throwing each other in impossible arcs, and filling all of the in between time with headbutts and limb ripping. The whole match was both guys trying to finish, and not bothering with any kind of plan other than "set him up to finish him". Both go for takedowns, but the headbutts start early, and less than two minutes in Honda drops Albright with a back suplex and Albright throws Honda with two belly to belly suplexes that have the most gorgeous arc to them. Albright is the greatest suplex thrower in wrestling, never looking like he needs an ounce of help from his opponent, just throwing around 250 lb. bags of sand. Honda scrambles for armbars, Albright locks in his always great heel hook (my favorite heel hook in wrestling, the way he would cross his arms around the ankle and lean his weight into it like a calf crusher), and there are hardly any strikes, just headbutts! Honda wasn't really winning singles matches at this point in his career, he was the guy putting in 8 minute losses to that tour's new gaijin and/or being competitive with Satoru Asako or Kentaro Shiga.

But the more he hammers away at Albright the more the fans start getting behind him, and when he locks in a great sleeper choke you had a loud and full Budokan crowd thinking they were seeing Honda's first big win. He really looked like he exhausted Albright with that sleeper, and after Albright gets to the ropes and gathers himself he really starts going in for the kill, getting the crowd buzzing by maneuvering into a dragon suplex that Honda barely escapes, then tossing him with a heavy head and arm suplex. Honda senses he's losing it and keeps going for hastier and hastier armbar attempts, leading to Albright breaking one and raining down a nasty downward palm strike on a prone Honda. The nearfall after that big head and arm suplex was great, totally looked like Honda was done for, while the two low angle Germans made sure of it. This is a rare singles pairing, the kind of showdown I would have loved to see run back. Shoot, I wish we got a team of these two, unassuming yet freakishly strong, just suplexing and headbutting everything in sight. They had to go out there and do their thing directly before the big 4 Pillars RWTL Finals, and they did that thing.


Tamon Honda vs. Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 1/12/96

PAS: This was a minor key mid 90s Kawada singles match, but it was really joyful. I loved the opening with Honda tooling Kawada on the mat, and Kawada responding by offering par terre position. Honda smashes him in the back with headbutts and tosses him with a German suplex. There was a basic story of Kawada winning the striking exchanges and Honda taking him down, until finally Kawada just grabbed a heel hook from the mat to tap him. Honda wasn't fully developed yet as a wrestler, but it was really fun to see him as this takedown machine.

ER: This was cool in a totally different way, a match that really didn't feel like an All Japan match in many ways. I can't recall too many All Japan matches with this much submission work that actually ends with a submission. The match also starts with very non-All Japan matwork, with Honda muscling Kawada to the mat and really tries to grind him into the mat, tying up limbs and trying to jam his head down. Kawada getting into par terre is such a colossal dick swing to do to a literal THREE TIME OLYMPIC WRESTLER. "Oh, you want to wrestle? Sure, let me give you the first shot, man who represented his entire country in front of the world for over a decade." Kawada knows this clearly - obviously - needles Honda, and does it a second time, and I loved Honda dropping a headbutt into Kawada's back and then hoisting him into a Dead End, the only suplex and really the only bump of the match, with Kawada able to hit a kick before slumping into the corner. And then this whole thing becomes a weird and neat battle of Honda spamming all kinds of headbutts and all parts of Kawada's body while Kawada tries to kick him away. Seriously, Honda headbutts Kawada in the legs, stomach, back, head, even goes up to the top rope for a diving headbutt (I don't think I've ever seen Honda go off the top and it's weird!). Kawada ate a real sick flash dragon screw (Kawada took dragon screws better than any wrestler ever, always went down with those bent ass Reggie Jackson legs) and that slowed him down for awhile, but he kept dragging at Honda and picking away, turning this into a real cool competitive oddball match.


Steve Williams/Gary Albright vs. Yoshihiro Takayama/Masahito Kakihara AJPW 5/1/98

PAS: This was really fun, sort of a chance to see how Dr. Death would have looked as a shootstyle wrestler, he feels like he would have been the world's best Billy Scott. The match was focused on Williams vs. Takayama which seemed like an all time rivalry that never happened. They open up going nose to nose and start pounding on each other. Takayama hits a dropkick to the orbital bone and Williams pops up, smashes him with a shoulder block, then Takayama tries to throw him and Williams sandbags him so they just roll around on the ground punching each other. Williams is bad ass in this match, at one point Kakihara thows his fast slaps and Williams just drops him with a potato right hand.  We get a fun finishing run with Williams hitting a nasty backdrop suplex to beat Takayama. Those two just had amazing chemistry, too bad they never had a singles match.

ER: This match was on one of the very first All Japan tapes I bought, that 5/1/98 Tokyo Dome show. I read about Misawa vs. Kawada in PWI and it sounded like something I needed to see. I'm sure I still have that tape somewhere. And I actually remembered a couple things about this match, even though I'm sure I haven't seen it in 20+ years. What a kickass piece of - not really uncooperative, more uncommunicative - business. Takayama and Kakihara had barely worked All Japan at this point, so they come off like an unknown shootstyle invading team who come out to Mannish Boy like total badass weirdos. Albright and Doc look stoic and massive, and the table is set. This was a massive All Japan show, just a huge crowd, and I cannot imagine how bizarre it would be to be standing opposite two native shootstyle workers with nearly 60,000 fans buzzing. Doc clearly wants to put on a show and decides to take a ton of stiff strikes from both men to show how Not Bothered he is by any of them, ends up completely sandbagging Takayama on a belly to belly and has a straight up Frye/Takayama exchange 4 years before that was a thing. Doc also opts to take a ton of nasty leg kicks from Kakihara (man's thighs must have been seriously knotted up from all that Dome Toughness) and then run into both with some brutal shoulderblocks. Doc hoists Kakihara up for a spinebuster, and lets Kakihara bump it without going down, then just muscles him up hardway and runs over to set him on the top turnbuckle. Seriously Doc is just showing off here and it's always wild to see a gaijin getting springy in front of a massive crowd. And you can bet that he later plants Kakihara with that spinebuster.

Albright is a UWFI guy as much as an All Japan guy, and I like him bridging the gap here and working a little more respectfully, working some UWFI style takedowns and strike exchanges with both. Later on in All Japan the three of them would form a cool UWFI ex-pat team. I love Albright so much. He's such a force, but has a body that doesn't look like he'd be able to do specifically what he's a master at. He has smaller arms that guys his size and his legs don't look as big as they should, and he's got that big granite boulder of a stomach. He doesn't look to me like someone with crazy throwing strength, but his throws are majestic and violent. You've never seen a quicker belly to belly than the one he surprises Kakihara with, whipping him at a 3/4 angle into the mat. I dug how Takayama baited him into catching a leg kick so he could pop him with a straight knee to the forehead, and loved Albright's selling of that knee. The miscommunications in this one played strong, because these are all hard hitters with legit backgrounds, so when a guy wouldn't quite go up for something it just made it look extremely hard fought, like Albright lifting Takayama up for a powerbomb that it didn't even look like the huge Takayama could have stopped. Loved Doc's big superfly splash on Takayama, and that match ending backdrop driver was sick. Sadly, I didn't get to find out what the hell Albright would have done off the top, as Kakihara intercepted him as Doc was hitting his splash. I needed to see that big ol' Galapagos tortoise up on the top rope, no idea how it got there and no idea what to do now that he was there. Thanks a lot Kakihara.

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1994: Ooh Vader, UWF-I Love Your Way

Super Vader vs. Masahito Kakihara  UWF-I 5/6/94

ER: This was shaping up to be maybe the squashiest of the Vader UWF-I matches, until suddenly it was filled to the brim with joy and became epic. Vader rushes and repeatedly crushes Kakihara into the corner, just traps him and mauls him. After the first pouncing the ref is almost surprised to see Kakihara not getting up, but Vader smells blood and keeps going to that well. Kakihara is very quickly down 15-6. This seems literally 30 seconds away from being a points TKO, but Vader misses a huge lariat and Kakihara goes for broke with a spinning heel kick that surprises Vader, and Kakihara is unleashed!! He starts kicking at Vader, drops him to all fours with a kick to the gut, kicks him while he's down, and grabs that arm. Vader, you recall, got his arm ripped apart when he finally tapped out against Takada, full arm stretcher job and everything. Here we are 6 months later and he still has that arm bandaged up! Tapping to Takada gave the monster an actual, exploitable weakness! Fans saw it work before, Vader still clearly has a hurt arm, though he didn't have a heavily bandaged arm during these same 6 months in WCW. Yes, Vader is working a UWF-I-only injury, just telling all his friends that he really DOES have a girlfriend, but you see she lives in Canada. Kakihara doesn't get shutout, as Vader needs the rope break, but you can't knock away 14 more points 1 point at a time. He dances with the spinning heel kick that brung him to the dance, Vader ducks low having seen it coming a mile away, and then proceeds to see if he has the strength to propel a human body through a ring. He hits his mammoth chokeslam and then rolls through Kakihara with a snapmare, just so he could roll him back into his face smasher. Kakihara's face bounces disgustingly off the mat and that is all. Many people attend to him. A human-sized stretcher is brought in, and Vader babyfaces himself by telling the crowd that the West could learn a lot from Japanese culture, and that win or lose he will always put on a good fight. I would have loved it had he said that, then gone and totally upended Kakihara on the stretcher.

Super Vader vs. Kiyoshi Tamura  UWF-I 6/10/94

ER: One of the hottest under 10 minute matches in history. I'd like to think Vince McMahon would have billed it as "Seven Minutes...IN HELL!" We open on Vader wearing the largest wraparound Oakleys you've seen, and Vader's entrance theme is a glorious 16 bit 4-bar junkyard bop, like you're about to face a boss comprised of scrap metal and car parts. Tamura opts to slap face instead of shake hand, and the crowd recognizes that their lives will not ever be the same again. Tamura knows his chances of winning lie in the mat, and how do you get a boulder with legs to the mat? You kick those legs right out from under the boulder. Tamura unleashes those leg kicks and Vader sells them perfectly. Tamura figures out just how far away he can be from him to land them and not get crushed. It's a mostly sound strategy. Tamura kicks low a few times and finishes high, knocks Vader into the ropes, low again and then high, starts working for a heel hook. It's an awesome sight to see a beast like Vader scrambling for ropes. At one point Tamura grabs what looks like the nastiest stump puller I've ever seen and I have no clue how Vader was able to stand afterwards. Vader immediately just starts going for KO blows, trying to muscle through the leg kicks to land one big shot. One shot does land, knocking Tamura to the mat, and the second the ref checks in on Tamura, Vader drops to a knee in pain. My god what a great moment. Another great moment comes when Vader swings wild and falls on his face, leading to Tamura pouncing. But once Vader lands a shot, then another, then a hard slam, Tamura's points just start falling far too quickly. I loved Tamura rolling back to his feet after a fallaway slam, so he wouldn't get dinged 3 points for getting knocked down, and love how he gamely tries to spring to his feet after a powerbomb, but...it's a Vader powerbomb. That's a match ender, that.

Super Vader vs. Nobuhiko Takada  UWF-I 8/18/94

ER: I've seen a lot of praise for this match, and it's the most commonly cited "great UWF-I main event" or some iteration of that claim ("best Takada main event", "best Vader match in UWF-I") and I just don't agree. I think overall it's hurt by its length of nearly 20 minutes. 20 minutes doesn't sound like a long time for a main event in front of a packed and enthusiastic Budokan crowd, but it lead to some repetitive stand and trade and knockdown. If this was the only time Vader worked UWF-I then I imagine I would have been flipping out for this. There were still a ton of great moments, and the extra time allowed for a longer story to unfold, as we'd not really had a Vader match where exhaustion set in for both fighters, with both men tired and forced to work in quick bursts and then rest, or go to a hold with no intention of finishing, but knowing it just momentarily stops things and allows the lungs to fill back up.

It's tough to do a long worked shoot match without someone's strikes looking ineffective. Every UWF-I Vader fight we've seen so far have had guys getting put down with strikes, only to struggle to their feet a handful of times until they no longer can (or, if they're using a points system, until they are a big 0). Here we get 20 minutes of Takada valiantly climbing back to his feet, and it's tough to not feel like a major portion of the middle of the match is just these two spinning their wheels. Vader knocks Takada to the mat 3 times in the first minute of the match, one of the times leading to Takada curled up in the fetal position around the ringpost, looking like a sleepy kitten who tired himself out and landed in a cozy sunbeam. And I think there are maybe too many peaks/valleys here, with both set in their ways and both trying to finish the way they know how to finish, and the longer you see it the more other little stories open up, and you're wondering if you're imagining the ref counting down Vader faster, and when Takada goes down he takes a couple seconds to check on him before beginning each count, and your brain starts wondering if Takada is somehow giving off the appearance of cheating in a worked fight.

I wish this was worked with points. I don't know why some UWF-I fights have points, and others don't, but I love the sudden death feeling that points fights have. Imagine how Takada would have reacted had he been down 15-6 one minute into the fight! But I do like the tired struggle we get down the stretch, where Takada keeps getting back to his feet with less and less each time, to the point where he's not even attempting offense and merely getting bulldozed now that it's become a weight battle. Vader hits a HUGE German suplex and a stiff shoot powerbomb (with Takada trying to kick him in the face the whole time). Takada finds himself in worse and worse positions on the mat, at one point ending up with his head wedged between Vader's knees, and on the receiving end of a nasty palm strike when attempting an armbar. So while I like the others more, there is charm to this tired epic. Takada had won 17 straight singles fights dating back over 2 years, so having him die on his feet over and over against the Mastodon is a suitable way for an ace to finally succumb.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE VADER IN UWF-I

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The Bourgeoise Better Watch Out For Daisuke Ikeda

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Masahito Kakihara Inoki Festival 12/30/95 - GREAT

This is basically what it would have looked like if Fujiwara brought his guys to UWFI rather then forming PWFG. This was more technical shootstyle then boundary pushing violence. I always love watching Kakihara throw shots, he has maybe the fastest hands in wrestling history and it can be like watching prime Manny Pacquiao. There was some great struggles here, Ikeda gets put in a nasty heel hook and throws these cool frantic kicks to get out. Ikeda wasn't at Kakihara's level yet, and the hierarchy difference kept this from being an all time classic. Ikeda was pretty much on defense the whole match, and we never got to see him unleash his hell. Still a ton of skill in this match.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE IKEDA

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Do Your Best To Present Yourself to Yoshiaki Fujiwara as a Work With No Need to Be Ashamed Rightly Handling the Word of Truth

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Satoru Sayama Rikidozan Memorial 3/11/00 - GREAT

PAS: This is worked more like a Fujiwara v. Karate guy mixed match, which is always a fun match up. Sayama was basically all tubby spin kicks. Fujiwara was awesome in aggressively taking Sayama down, basically Sayama would throw big kicks and Fujiwara would absorb or dodge the kicks until he could grab a single or double leg and drag Sayama down into a submission. Sayama would drag himself to the ropes and get stood up and we would restart. The match came down to whether Fujiwara could tap him before Sayama knocked him out. The finish was a super brutal ankle pick which felt like a finish. Sayama was a little tubby and rusty, and the match needed a more dramatic ending to put it up there with their classics against each other, but it was a fine addition to the canon.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Dan Kroffat vs. Mitsuya Nagai/Masahito Kakihara AJPW 12/6/00 - GREAT

PAS: This is a JIP match from the All Japan tag league, we get about 7 minutes of a 12 minute match. Really fun Fujiwara performance as one might expect. Early part of the match Fujiwara works almost like a heel manager, cheap shotting Nagai and Kakihara from the outside, including doing a figure four on the ringpost while Kroffat distracted the ref. Finish run was pretty great as both Nagai and Kakihara try to KO Fujiwara with kicks, and no one is better at selling and countering big then Fujiwara. Finish was a Fujiwara classic as he caught a Nagai kick and turned it into a leg catch armbar for the tap.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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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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Cry Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Let Slip the Dogs of War

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Steve Wright NJ 10/7/83 - GREAT

Fujiwara spent the first part of the 1980's working in Germany and I imagine this is the closest we will get, to seeing what that stuff looked like. This had tons of very fast juniors style reversals and matwork. Not the kind of thing you normally see Fujiwara do, but man was he awesome at it. This looked as good as the best Eddie Guerrerro and Dean Malenko exchanges, as opposed to all the kind of terrible pastiches of Malenko v. Guerrerro we were stuck watching post ECW. I might contain the best knucklock monkey flip roll up exchange I have seen, and I have seen a million of them. Wright could get down and dirty too, as both guys exchanged some thudding uppercuts. Finish could have used a bit more pop, as this was clearly a slickly worked undercard match, rather then a big time main event.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Genichiro Tenryu WAR 11/24/97 - GREAT

Man there is no one better and working a grim violent seedy match then Genichiro Tenryu. Match starts a little light hearted with Fujiwara complaining about Tenryu having too much grease, but gets violent quick. Tenryu traps Fujiwara in the corner with his sumo slaps, and finishes it off with a kick right between the eyes. Fujiwara gets a smile on his face like "OK motherfucker, you want to call this shit WAR, let's go to war." He drops in some nasty bodyshots and finishes up with a headbutt right on the eyebrow which cuts Tenryu open hardway. From that point on Fujiwara is like a hunting dog bringing down a wounded bear, he alternates between tearing and smashing the cut, and ripping at Tenryu's arm.

Most of the time the Fujiwara armbar is used as a quick counter, very rarely is he this focused on a bodypart through out the match. He drags Tenryu over the top rope and to the floor with an armbar, returning constantly to that arm throughout. Tenryu is pretty dominated, he fires back with nasty jabs and rights, and keeps going for kappo kicks, but a lot of that is shrugged off. One of the few faults with Tenryu as a wrestler is that occasionally his stuff isn't hit cleanly and looks weak. The cool thing about the way Fujiwara sells, is that if you don't land, he isn't going for it. Tenryu hits a crappy powerbomb, Fujiwara transitions slickly into an armbar, he wiffs a kappo kick, Fujiwara punches him in the eye. It isn't no-selling exactly because you never see him shrug off something landed solidly (except in that weird Kawada match), but it adds a realism to his fights. Finish was the only thing that kept this off the Epic list. Tenryu is finally firing back after eating an asskicking, he hits some nasty chops which Fujiwara grits through, until he catches him in the throat which stuns Fujiwara enough to get a flash pin. Kind of conceptually interesting, but it just looked sudden and off here. I get that a chop to the throat will stun you, but I just wanted something bigger.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Masa Fuchi v. Mitsuya Nagai/Masahito Kakihara All Japan 5/20/01- FUN

Fujiwara and Fuchi are an awesome old man team. They basically worked like a pair of prison camp guards from a World War II movie. Fuchi especially was coming up with some really sick ways to stretch the fuck out of both guys. Kakihara was really flexible as his legs were wishboned far apart in a bunch of groin pully ways. Unfortunately the young guys team didn't bring a ton to the table, Kakihara vs. Fujiwara was so awesome in the UWFI match from 1995, here it was a nothing. The finish was on paper cool, after being tortured all match they isolate one guy and take him out, but the execution of it was stinky. I want to see more of Fujiwara and Fuchi, but sort of a disappointing match.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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