Found Footage Friday: 1989 AJPW~! MALENKO~! FUCHI~! ABBY~! BABA~! KAMALA~! MIGHTY~! RUSHER~!

Mighty Inoue vs. Shinichi Nakano AJPW 2/23/89

MD: Another set of Classics drops as we go down the list of new footage. This one is probably one I wouldn't have gone out of my way for in general, but it was good overall. A Jr. Heavyweight Title match. We've gotten pieces filled in for this lineage and defenses and the matches hold up quite well against late 80s NJPW title matches really. You have guys like Fuchi, Inoue, and Momota carrying the division with people like Joe Malenko popping in.

I don't have a lot of time for Nakano in general, but this was set up to be almost impossible to fail. For one, he ambushed right from the start, giving things early direction and not forcing them into feeling out matwork he might not excel at. He slapped Inoue out of nowhere and then hit his signature power slam before tossing him to the floor and destroying him on the rails. Back in the ring, it was a seated chinlock. He at times had a sense that he wasn't sure how to best capitalize on the moment. 

None of that from Inoue. First chance he got (grabbing the head out of a Nakano toehold) he focused right in and chained three or four things together perfectly. As the match went on and they went back and forth, he wouldn't let things meander much either. At one point, Nakano was hitting shoulder thrusts in the corner with not enough pepper behind them, so Inoue asserted himself and started shin kicking him in the face. 

They had an exciting finishing stretch where Inoue got him down for the flipping sentons but missed the second. That allowed Nakano to hit his fisherman's suplex but Inoue got out to win with a very cool headscissors roll up out of a side slam. This overachieved, but it was entirely because Inoue is so good.

ER: I love Matt's specific, targeted dislike of Nakano, but I'm not sure I agree. I thought this match was great, but because of both men, and how easy they made it to buy in to an All Japan juniors match based around stiff work and snug holds. When I first started trading tapes, traders were not fans of the All Japan juniors division. If you wanted "Juniors Wrestling" there were so many other options: Michinoku Pro, New Japan, WAR, lucha, all filled with small guys working fast and flying, building to big highspots. All Japan's juniors division had none of that. It was permanently understocked with talent, AJPW never used it to showcase a future star, gaijin imports mostly focused on heavyweights (meaning you might get at best Rex King in a juniors match), and the matches were mostly worked like Kings Road undercard matches. It was not the style people associated with juniors wrestling, and now I'm far enough removed from that, that I can see the style for what it is and love it. 

Nakano tried to get the drop on Inoue and wear him down with holds, but since he is just a lesser version of Inoue it only worked until Inoue got fired enough to put him back in his place. Nakano came out hot, staggering Inoue good with a slap across the face and trying to secure a quick surprise title win with an awesome powerslam, knowing Inoue would be favored the longer the match went. When he moved into wearing down Inoue with holds, I bought all of them, because every submission felt like Nakano was working it to specifically finish the match. He believed in this firmly held submissions, and it made each one matter. His camel clutch, late match Boston crab, his single leg crab, all felt like something he was locking in to force a submission, never just to kill time. I bought into the struggle on every hold, and especially got into Inoue's long escape pulling a chinlock out of a deathlock, stretching Nakano until breaking. It all led to organic advances. Inoue's grounded headlock was snugly pulled into a swinging neckbreaker, the way he fanned Nakano's legs while locking in a butterfly stretch looked punishing, and when he locked in the tightest headscissors possible it was nice foreshadowing for the headscissor cradle he used to retain his title. 

If I'm talking about guys pulling snug submissions that look like they could get a tap, none looks better than Nakano pulling Inoue into a bow and arrow and holding it firm. How many bow and arrows subs have you seen fall apart at the seams? The legs come uncrossed, the knees aren't pressed firmly into the back to hold the sub taut, it's almost as common to see someone inadvertently slip out of the hold while rolling onto their back than it is to see a firm successfully applied lock, and Nakano puts the work in on every part of the sub. He put in the visual work of digging his knee into Inoue's back while securing the deathlock, worked through every bit of securing the hold at both ends of Inoue's body, leaving no wriggle room when he rolls to his back with Inoue stretched. 

Does Inoue "look better" as a wrestler? Yes, probably. His fast and weighty crucifix pin was so good I thought it was the finish for sure, and the way he makes cradles and backslide attempts feel threatening in general means there's always a sense he can surprise with a finish, which made his cradled headscissors work so well. He gives weight to opponents' with good selling in holds and fast bumps. His flipping bump through the ropes to the floor is one of my favorite signature bumps. I love how this man exits a ring. But, All Japan Juniors matches were never about crazy bumps or building to big highspots, which was why the division never got acclaim 30 years ago. I'm not even sure what the biggest highspot of this match was - the crucifix pin? Inoue's somersault senton? - and that's why people weren't seeking out this work. Viewing it outside of its Juniors framing you can see how tight the work was. 

Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Giant Kimala AJPW 3/8/89

MD: It would be easy to dismiss this, to just say some fun things about Baba's cool trip on Kamala, how Kamala fought out of the corner, or how great Rusher's strikes against Abby looked. Or we could play into the amusing bits here, the amazing look on Baba's face when Abby got a cheapshot on him on a rope break and then did the whole martial arts hand waving shtick. We could go on about how they were like a married couple having a spat and how delightful that was. And that'd be valid. We could talk about how into this the crowd was, how they buzzed for Kamala's big moments or Abby asserting himself or Rusher making a comeback or whenever Baba came into the ring. 

And on some level, I am going to talk briefly about the sum of all of that. But I just don't think I can do this justice. I'm not even sure I want to do this justice. This match, ten minutes or so until the countout, is its own sort of magic. It's delightful. I was smiling the whole way through, out of delight, and I rode the same wave as the crowd, decades later. I could argue that we were taught and trained and conditioned not to enjoy matches like this and then I'd feel dumb, because of how stupid that sounds, but also because how stupid it makes me feel that at one point in my life many years ago, I would have denied myself this sort of joy, would have tried to hide behind a sort of self-important sense that wrestling had to be something else. 

Sometimes wrestling should be this. Hell, most wrestling should be begging to be this, because this clash of characters, of timing, of conducting a crowd, of heart and humor and misfit, monster, mythic heroism and villainy... it's just so different than we can hope to find out of most other forms of entertainment. There's nothing in the world quite like this. Watch this. It's ten minutes plus some before and after. Let yourself feel what that crowd was feeling. Smile along. Be delighted. It's okay. The world is a dark place, but there's light to be found in the least likely of places.

ER: I get so excited whenever Matt and I get to write about Abdullah the Butcher and Kimala 2 teaming in All Japan, that I went into this having no idea it was actually Abby teaming with the real Kamala. I've seen so many Abby/Kimala 2 matches, several matches where both Kamala's team with Abby in a trios, but I've seen little of Abdullah and original Kamala as a team. I think it only happened on this one tour. Also, it's important to note that I don't think Real Kamala is an upgrade overall, but it does make the team more threatening and less beatable. Kamala in Japan is weird. He looks like he'd be a natural fit, because his size and appearance makes him stand out more than at any time he was in WWF, it's just that his work does not fit in with Kings Road style at all, and at times he comes off like a total first year fat guy who isn't sure how to work with any of the old pros he's in with. He throws his overhand chops somehow worse than he threw them in 1993 WWF, but at least he tried throwing spin kicks like 1986 Kamala. His early match spin kick into Rusher's chest was easily his highlight of the match. 

So, with no Kimala 2 to work the heel in peril role, it is down entirely to Abdullah to create all the match's intrigue, which he is great at doing. His work against Baba and Rusher is always worth seeing, regardless of what current freak is teaming with him. Abby's aura lifts other, differently fat ships, because there is no other situation where Kamala would have grabbed Rusher to headbutt him if he wasn't headbutting him with Abby. I was impressed by Baba's work with Kamala, how all his chops looked like they were moving the large savage, knocking him down to build to the big Abby/Baba showdown that everyone was dying to see. Abdullah looked like he had so much fun working with Baba, just try not to smile as Abby is doing his karate posing. He looks like he's having a ball, and while I think it is very silly that Abby gets busted open by Kamala's tribal mask, it leads to Baba straight kicking Abby in his forehead grooves several times and Rusher opening those cuts with headbutts, so the silliness leads directly to violence. The karate chops and backhands Abby throws at Baba's neck to stop the onslaught are one of the things that make their showdowns worth watching no matter the year. 

I take it back, maybe Kamala's best contribution to this was when Rusher swarmed him with chops and punches, Kamala selling the swarm by backpedaling in fear while flailing his arms to keep hornets away from his face. Kamala feels so out of place in Japan, that there can be awkward moments...but when a moment like that plays into his fish out of water placement, suddenly it all makes sense. 

Joe Malenko vs. Masa Fuchi AJPW 10/20/89

MD: I can't help but think about this match in context. 1989 All Japan is defined by the war between Tenryu and Jumbo, between Hansen teaming with Tenryu and tearing through people, by Footloose having spotfests, Rusher and Eigen and Okuma doing comedy, guys like Shunji Takano and Kabuki scrapping and holding down the midcard against both Revolution and foreign monsters. And yet, here is a an absolute throwback to both the sort of 70s hold-driven matches Jumbo had made his name on and the sort of Junior Heavyweight technical battles we'd expect out of Fujinami at the turn of the 80s before Tiger Mask changed the paradigm in New Japan. It feels like the pinnacle of the Denny Brown/Nelson Royal style of NWA Junior Heavyweight Title matches that riddled the undercards of certain territories for years. 

I also can't help but think of Newborn UWF, a native monster that was threatening all traditional ways of doing business in Japan. To watch Maeda, Takada, Yamazaki, Anjo, and all the others is to feel a constant sense of danger. One mistake could bring a fight to an end or allow for severe punishment. There's a tension that leaves viewers on edge the whole time through. It's exciting but it's also exhausting. There can be narratives. There were always narratives. But they were based on an incessant pressure. This is different. It's a slow unlocking, a game of chess instead of a perilous tug of war. Damage had to be done, joints had to be weakened, effort had to be put in. It required a different sort of investment, both for the wrestlers and for the crowd. The struggle is somehow more simulated but also richer and broader for that simulation. It may not feel quite as real but it feels just as true. The wrestlers struggle for every inch, sell every twist of a joint, and react emotionally to consequences (such as Fuchi retreating from the ring, arm damaged, after it seemed like Malenko had an answer for everything he tried). If UWF was constant sudden death, this was regulation soccer, where the ebb and flow of shots on goal and ball possession would add up over time.

And of course, I couldn't help but think about Fuchi. He's the most versatile wrestler I've ever seen. He could go from comedy, to a title match like this, to mauling younger wrestlers. You see wrestlers manage that over their career, but for him that might all be within the same week. I think about him destroying the knees of the Super Generation Army on tables, brutality on top of brutality. Here though, it was a chess  move. It opened the match up, turned everything on its head, gave him a lever to pry on for the rest of the match, and pry he did. Malenko was constantly off balance and every subsequent move he hit was full of desperation. Fuchi could, would, and did throw little pokey kicks to the knee to take back over whenever the opportunity arose. It was the same move, even the same brutality, but it was used in an entirely different way than those Tsuruta-gun trio matches of a year or two later. 

It all built to a spectacular finishing stretch. Malenko's desperation paid off for him as he caught Fuchi in a bridging blockbuster fallaway slam. He followed it up with a northern lights suplex and then a clutch armbar. With leg damaged, he couldn't put Fuchi away. Fuchi, arm possibly still hurt, went with leaping enziguiris instead, and then was able to jam Malenko's final attempt to slip around him for a bridging butterfly suplex and the title win. So while I thought back, forward, and laterally to 70s Jumbo, to Denny Brown, to 1989 AJPW, to UWF, and to 1991 six-mans, what I thought about most of all was how this match stood on its own, and just how good it all was. History might show these late 80s AJPW Juniors matches to be a last gasp of an older tradition in some ways, but it was a gasp that showed how much vital, vibrant, and worthwhile life might have still been left to be found in the style.

ER: I wrote about the maligned/unregarded All Japan juniors style up above as we were breaking down Mighty Inoue/Shinichi Nakano without realizing that Matt went into different detail on the style in this review down below. Denny Brown is an interesting style comparison for this type of match, and it's interesting because at one point that would have been considered a pejorative and now it's clearly being used as a positive comp to something that we both miss from modern wrestling. This match is nothing but excellent, honest work, both guys gluing themselves together to craft something tough and true while making my own joints and ligaments scream out in pain. 

They build this around increasingly torqued holds, no traditional "highspots", no strike exchanges of any kind, just one blunt attack that leads to a long full match of superglue. The blunt attack comes when Fuchi begins smiling and taunting Joe with a couple of head fakes, a couple of lunges that weren't ever leading to anything, but Joe sees the evil behind Fuchi's smile and just headbutts him in the face when he gets his hands on him, wrestling him to the ground and beginning the always satisfying wrenching. Joe's holds all look like the finish: his cradle, grapevining one leg while concurrently forcing Fuchi into a painful half nelson, using all his limbs to manipulate Fuchi's body, not going for a pin just going for pain; a camel clutch with no pullback on the chin, all focus instead on hooking both arms and pulling back on them as he sinks into the hold, leaving Fuchi wincing and rubbing out his shoulders after he escapes to the floor.

Joe Malenko is someone who can make a Fujiwara armbar takedown look like a hold that damages the entire body. The way he takes Fuchi's arm and drives him down with his full weight sends Fuchi's head, face, and shoulder into the mat, like he was using the arm as leverage to do something more sinister. He uses that same leveraged arm to do a Russian legsweep when Fuchi eventually fights to his feet, holding the arm the whole time and using that as the point to pivot into attacks that folded in other limbs. 

Fuchi makes no inroads working the mat with Joe so eventually involves his tried and true friend Ringside Table to smash Joe's knee into. Joe's knee selling is real and escalates the match instantly. I love an injury coming into play late in a match, rather than give someone a memory exercise in the first couple minutes that makes it near impossible to do an actual match without conveniently forgetting your injury. Once Fuchi smashes Joe in the knee, Joe's strategy changes entirely and you can see in his eyes that this was the worst thing to happen to him. Fuchi is now in kill mode and Malenko is bringing out the big guns. The way Joe swings his leg away from Fuchi's single leg attempt before swinging him over with a front face lock takeover, catching a high crossbody and floating over with Fuchi's momentum into a bridging pin, and a clean northern lights that I'm sure he wished he had pulled off earlier with a sturdier knee. Fuchi doesn't so much as wear Joe down as he does hold him down long enough to win, the same thing Joe had been doing all match long. Excellent work all around, showcasing a style that really wouldn't be hard to integrate into any modern work, you just have to be honest and actually put in the work. That's the thing I don't see happening.  

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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: Wrestle Yume Factory~!

Wrestle Yume Factory 8/11/96

Pick this up from @itako18jp on Twitter, he is doing god's work

The Madness vs. The Wolf/Cosmo Soldier

MD: A handicap match. Madness is a huge guy with a skeleton mask that he adjusts all the time. Wolf and Soldier start well with Soldier drawing him in with a test of strength challenge and Wolf attacking from behind. They have a flurry of offense but get tossed off on a double pin and really this is just a matter of time until he catches them, and catches them he does. Some of his stuff looks great. He has this suplex into a bodyslam of sorts which is brutal. Some, like his strikes, just kind of look ok. There's a great moment of Soldier bursting off from the side of the screen to break up a pin at one point, and another great one of a roll through pin out of nowhere which almost works. It goes on a bit too long after that though and even though they get one more flurry including a tornado DDT, it's inevitable and after a power bomb, Madness drops one on top of the other for the pin. This had a pretty good balance of protecting Madness but having Wolf and Soldier chip away at him effectively, I thought.

Basara vs. Masakazu Fukuda

MD: I'm not sure we've ever written about Basara here but he had a mask with a big white mustache coming out of it and hair on top the head. Fukuda was mid 20s here and died tragically in 2000. Basara controlled early. He had an answer for everything Fukuda tried and Fukada didn't have an answer. Fukada would take Basara down and try strikes but get his arm caught. They'd get in a headbutt war and Fukuda would get crushed and bump across the ring. When he took over it was by getting in and under and hitting a uranage, first a throw which opened up the match, and then the rock bottom version to win it later. In the middle Basara asserted himself as they ended up hitting bombs to a degree. Basara had a second rope senton and power slam and Fukuda got under him to take him over in a sort of Beach Break. They both threw dropkicks (Basara's surprisingly good). I'm not sure this kept the same narrative focus once it opened up but in general it was fun just to see them throw things at one another. 

Shinichi Shino vs. Shinigami

MD: Shino is later on Fukumen Taro. Shinigami is a blast. He's got caked on grey/green makeup like a ghoul and it's honestly a great look that no one really uses. Plus the gloves and the black coat/pants that makes him look as much like a Castlevania monster as a movie monster. He lumbered down to the ring upsetting chairs and driving fans away. Shono was all pluck and fire. Powerslams and clotheslines but he threw himself into all of them. He capitalized on a missed dropkick and took it to Shinigami, including tossing chairs on him on the outside, but nothing really worked. Shinigami turned it around, buried him under a row of chairs, and then splashed the chairs. Looked like a great bit but it was on the wrong side of the ring so we only had the sense of it. His big move was a claw-assisted uranage and frankly, it's a wonderful piece of business. He dragged Shino into the ring with the claw before hitting it and then down the stretch hit a top rope one before pulling him up and hitting a bridging one. Post-match he went after the timekeeper for no reason and I quite enjoyed the time I spent with Shinigami.

Hector Garza/Silver King/Onryo vs. Masayoshi Motegi/Super Crazy/Kamikaze

MD: All action trios with some great names. I'd say everyone looked pretty good here (Crazy maybe the most dubious if I was pressed), but Silver King looked like one of the best in the world. He was matched up with Kamikaze early and that was the best of the pairings. Everything broke down and we had some very loose rudo beatdown structure on Onryo a couple of times especially, but this was the sort of match where Silver King was just going to super kick someone in the face and take over. Dive train was sensational and Garza looked great in the final pairing. You knew what you were going to most likely get here, but they gave it to you, and that's the important thing. There was also this great bit where Silver King went for a powerbomb onto Garza (his own partner) and alley-ooped him into a splash which looked so smooth that people should reverse engineer and steal it. Variety is the spice of life and this absolutely fit into such a weird and varied card.

Horiyoshi Kotsubo vs. Hirofumi Miura

MD: (EDIT: According to Sebastian I got Kotsubo and Miura confused, so just flip them in the below. I haven't done that in a while). Horiyoshi Kotsubo is Tsubo Genjin. Here he has a karate gimmick with a black gi, the sides of his head shaved, a goatee, and nunchucks. But it's Miura who's fun here. It's scrambly to start, but Miura goes to the slaps first. Then he hits a great spinning backfist and later on a very quick tree-of-woe/short dropkick combo. Kotsubo has some nice pokey punches in a mount at least, and he wins it with a submission that is very hard to explain but certainly novel, starting with a STF but then barring the other leg. Not a ton to say about this one but I need to watch that Aoyagi vs. Miura match Phil covered here now. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Shinichi Nakano - GREAT

MD: I've spent a lot of time with 1989-1990 Shinichi Nakano, and quite a bit with him from the years prior, and there isn't a whole lot there, let me tell you. He was fine. Absolutely fine. Inoffensive. Sometimes could show some fire. He wasn't the guy you wanted in a Jr. Title match (not relative to Fuchi or Momota or Inoue or Joe Malenko) or in a tag, except for maybe if that tag was against guys like Hansen and Tenryu. Then he could take a beating and come back with a bit of fire only to get beaten down once more. Actually, 1989 Fujiwara vs 1989 Nakano would have been a blast.

Thankfully, this was pretty good along those lines too. Nakano was older, more grizzled, but a ton of this match was him doing something, paying for it, and getting beaten and stretched by Fujiwara, which really, is exactly what you'd want. Early on, he tried to push Fujiwara into the corner. That didn't go well for him. Fujiwara turned him around, punched him in the face, and then played to the crowd that he slapped him instead, all before goozling him in the ropes. Later on, Nakano tried again to stomp Fujiwara in the corner and the greatest defensive wrestler of all time, snatched his foot midstomp and hit a rare dragon screw leg whip, just like that.

At one point, he did have some success with things Fujiwara had less defense against, armdrags, leading to a cross arm breaker and Fujiwara escaping to the outside. He then got some nice clubbering in with Fujiwara on the apron stretched over the top rope. All well and good if he didn't try for a posting, but he did, and you can't slam Fujiwara's head into the metal connector obviously. Headbutts ensued, followed by Fujiwara doing his own mirrored clubbering and then hilariously teasing a dive. 

What else did Nakano try? Oh, a leglock. Went ok for a bit until Fujiwara snatched a leg of his own and slowly and patiently worked things all the way around so that Nakano was on his stomach and Fujiwara was bending a leg back. And then down the stretch, he hit a power bomb and a suplex and locked in a half crab, but he couldn't put Fujiwara away and when he went back to the well for another suplex, everyone watching knew exactly what was going to happen. Fujiwara jammed it and jammed Nakano down right into the armbar. While I may have hoped that Nakano had become some sort of secret master over the 90s, what I can say about him instead is that he was still a good sport, and that gave Fujiwara lots of room to stretch (figuratively, literally, metaphorically, however you want it).

PAS: This was pretty much a Fujiwara one man show, Nakano was a fine sparring partner, wrestling chicken stock but Fujiwara bought all of the spices here. Of course those are incredible spices, countering everything Nakano tried, backing him into the corner and working him over. I have written time and time again about how Fujiwara is the greatest defensive wrestler of all time, and here he is again throwing up another countering masterpiece as easy as a Nikola Jokic 40/14/12 stat line. The kind of thing that would be legendary for anyone else is pedestrian for him.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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Found Footage Friday: SMOTHERS~! HARRIS~! SLATER~! TAKANO~! NAKANO~! BABY SHAMROCK~! AKITO~! SANO~!

Dick Slater/Ken Shamrock vs. Shunji Takano/Shinichi Nakano AJPW 10/20/89

MD: This isn't the world's easiest HH to watch; it's pretty far back. Thankfully, everyone's fairly distinct, from the extreme size difference between Takano and Nakano that would define their roles to the match to Shamrock's light blue trunks. There is a Joe Malenko vs Fuchi match later on the card that only exists for a few minutes pro-shot but it's just an exercise in futility to try to watch it on this HH. You need to see the close up magic and it's just a blur at thid distance. This one's easier to parse.

The historical value here is seeing Shamrock in Japan in 1989. We have one or two other matches with him on this tour but it's not a lot to go on. This is a little bit more, though it's more informative to see where Slater was. He's a guy who doesn't have a lot of interesting Japan matches from around this time. Either the hierarchy is way off and he's getting beaten up by Jumbo or he's teamed with someone they're trying to elevate like Spivey and it's up to him to lose the offense. Here he was top of the totem pole and they got to lean on Nakano quite a bit. That meant some nice looking stuff (Neckbreaker, Russian Leg Sweep, punch combos) and goading Takano in to set up double teams.

Shamrock showed promise, with one nice mat exchange with Takano a bit of bumping around for dropkicks and hitting some of his own, and good struggle against Takano's belly to belly before going over for it on the second or third try. He had a fairly awkward splash off the top and a modified abdominal stretch which worked more than it didn't but definitely looked odd. They dragged Nakano down a few times allowing Takano to come in and wreck people before an abrupt finish where Shamrock (with Slater's help) survived Takano's knee off the second rope only to immediately eat a German from Nakano. I liked when they had mid-card matches end without a big back and forth stretch but with the damage just being too much over time because it made those main event stretches and all the saves and kickouts that came with them more believable. 

Tracy Smothers vs. Chris Harris (Kennel Cage Match) MWA Thunderdome 98

MD: The gimmick for the show was that the top three matches had this smaller cage within the ring. It fit right inside the ropes basically. This was a wonderful ten minutes. They stalled for about a third of it, then after Smothers dodged a punch and strutted arrogantly, Harris nailed him and he bumped around the ring like an absolute champ for two or three minutes. That meant pinballing into the cage a couple of times, but mostly just managing to get his feet over his head as he went all over the place for Harris' punches. He'd get a cheapshot out of the corner only to get planted into the cage once again for his trouble. Then he called for interference, snuck a weapon out as Harris fought it off, and clocked him for the win. Simple yet over the top and just the sort of glorious bs that I want in third-from-the-top 98 Tracy Smothers in a little cage. 

Akito vs. Yasushi Sato Sportiva 11/30/11

MD: With thanks, as always, to Sebastian for all of these Sportiva matches, including the suggestion. Akito was far younger than Sato here, and at one point mid-way through he sort of got swept under, needing (and ultimately getting) a clutch defensive counter to survive and overcome. Early on, however, he had this great way of chaining together holds and an even better way of turning an escape or kickout into an immediate submission. There are norms in wrestling. Usually, even in the most go-go-go matches imaginable, after a kickout or an escape, there's a brief pause or reset. Even if there's going to be an unclean break and subsequent stomping or another hold attempted, it happens after a blink, a pause, a breath. There's a theatricality to it that even the people most concerned about getting their stuff in can't full escape. With shootstyle, you'll see a throw or a kickout turned immediately into a grounded top wristlock, for instance, but it's almost always done by the aggressor. Here, Akito would push out of a leglock or kick up out of a pin and simply keep his hands moving, one smooth motion to capture an ankle and lock in a hold of his own. You wouldn't want it for every exchange, but done two or three times in the match, it was striking because it pushed against exepectations in a blink and miss it sort of way. It was when Sato started to push in the same sort of relentless and unforgiving of way that he was able to take over.

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Found Footage Friday: CANDIDO~! SCORPIO~! SPIKE~! GUIDO~! TAKANO~! NAKANO~!

Shunji Takano vs. Shinichi Nakano AJPW 9/15/89

MD: Another AJPW Classics drop with a singles match between two guys that I associate more as partners in this era. If you were to look at the entire All Japan roster in 89, the guy who you'd most likely project as a star in 92 wouldn't be Misawa or Kobashi or even Taue, but Takano. He was further along, had size and more presence, hit harder, pressed up better against guys like Hansen. This one bore that out. A good chunk of the first half was down on the mat like you might expect, but it kept building to fiery moments. That might be Takano wrenching Nakano in half with a gnarly elevated half crab and following it with a head-shattering lariat or it might be Nakano coming back with a series of headbutts only to have Takano dive across the ring with a bullcharging headbutt of his own and things boiling over to a visceral slapfest. Nakano would take some big swipes towards the end with a German and Northern Lights Suplex but ran into Takano's feet one too many times (and that's not counting the times that Takano's feet ran into him). It was just over ten minutes but they really put it all out there. This is just how friends hung out in 89 AJPW, by beating the crap out of one another. Hell of a time and hell of a place.

Little Guido vs. Spike Dudley ISPW 7/15/99

MD: Spike had some pretty great forearms. I'm not sure I had registered that previously. It feels like one of those things I knew, forgot, and will forget again. Anyway, this was very much of its time, stemming from Guido heading out to help Corino and Spike making the save for Nova and the two of them just rolling into their match. Guido leaned hard into that with wild, flailing bumps for every one of Spike's shots. Both guys took wild bumps for the setting really, Guido diving to the concrete, Spike crashing out in the corner. The meat of the match was Spike having a ton of great hope spots and Guido gutting him off again and again, even as Guido consistently worked the crowd. Nothing here seemed rote. It was fast moving and all fairly interesting for the time. Eventually it built to a final comeback and Corino and Nova coming back out to build things to a screwy but satisfying finish. This is a good eleven minutes of your time.

Chris Candido vs. 2 Cold Scorpio ISPW 7/15/99

You can't say they didn't have time. Take out the entrances and promos and this went about twenty. You don't want to take out Candido's closing promo as it might be the best thing about the whole experience. This was just these guys calling it out there, doing their thing, being about as much as themselves as could possibly be. That meant Scorpio was making up move after move and hitting things from weird, interesting angles, and Candido was stalling, stooging, feeding, leaning on Scorpio, and overall mean mugging. At times, things didn't feel clean or polished, felt rough or crunchy, but it felt perfect for a 1999 Wildwood main event. They never missed a beat, they never lost their place, even if they went back into a chinlock to figure out what was next more than once. Finish was wonky since it was setting up a 3 way with Ace Darling for the following week. We have that one too and if nothing else, this made me want to see it.

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THE MOTHERFUCKING INTERNET: Yume Factory v. Shin FMW

Tarzan Goto/Ryo Miyake vs. Shinichi Nakano/Masayoshi Motegi WDF 7/16/1997

PAS: What a sleaze soaked pleasure this match was, the wrestling equivalent of eating a giant roadhouse bacon cheeseburger. Goto is a treasure in this, I can't believe I ever used to diss this dude. He basically works this as a fat grotesque Tenryu as he beats the bricks off of Motegi with chair edges, meaty punches right to the nose and thick headbuts. Motegi bleeds a ton and was pretty great as a fired up babyface, by far the best I have seen him look. Nakano and Miyake were really fun as the secondary dudes too, they would tag in and slap the shit out of who ever was in the ring. I really miss this kind of dirtbag Puro indy, now all Japanese indies seem to be about telling jokes, there was nothing funny about this match at all. 

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