Tarzan Goto Fire Blows a Signal in the Sky

 

Tarzan Goto/Mr. Gannosuke vs. Kendo Nagasaki/Yuichi Taniguchi IWA Japan 7/5/95 - EPIC

ER: Have we been fools for ignoring IWA Japan this whole time in our focusing on WAR and FMW and New Japan Russians and all else? Where have the IWA Japan champions been? This is fucking WAR baby, this is fucking all time great 80s Memphis, it's the kind of inter promotional Japanese realism that has aged perhaps greater than any other kind of 80s and 90s puro. The first VHS tape I ever traded for after getting the internet was a 6 hour IWA Japan/FMW/W*ing comp. It started everything. I had literally no idea what to expect when I put in this tape and within minutes I was watching 11th generation videotape wrestling of Sabu and Terry Funk and two guys whose identifies were too foreign and pixelated for my teenage self to recognize seemingly burning alive in an outdoor ring that gets dangerously engulfed in fire. And now it feels foolish that I didn't just exclusively spend my wrestling time watching every single IWA Japan match since. IWA Japan existed in its own bubble and yet they were out here having the same kind of body bruising, exclamation-inducing fights. Phil sought this show out when he found out Cactus/Kurisu happened on it, and I saw this intriguing Tarzan Goto interpromotional tag right before it on the video file and decided to just let it play through while I finished something up. 

That's when I fell in love all over again with IWA Japan. This whole tag was what we all seek in wrestling. Everybody was great. I watched it for Tarzan Goto - somehow the Biggest Miss from our corner of pro wrestling fandom, a man we all came around to late and can't explain how it happened - was as good as expected, but this was every person at their peak powers. Has Kendo Nagasaki always been this good? He's a monster here. Is he a monster everywhere? Have we missed on Dragon Master in the exact same way we missed on Goto? This is interpromotional invader shit and Kendo treats Goto and Gannosuke like a couple asshole outsiders, especially going after Gannosuke. Gannosuke is a guy I love, but this was a shitheel Gannosuke who is like a Jamie Dundee level opportunistic prick with a mustache who will run into the hardest clotheslines possible and circle like a buzzard when he smells blood. And there is blood, because they bust open Yuichi Tanigucihi - a guy less than 20 matches in his career who of course is one of those era psychos who is still wrestling in Japan and has like 2,000 matches - looks like a gigantic 12 year old and hits clotheslines like an angry Morishima, and when the match settles into Goto and Gannosuke getting real blood red heat from a rabid Korakuen crowd, we achieve nirvana. The brawl through the crowd was so charged and violent, Nagasaki passionately defends Taniguchi like grumpy murderer era Jumbo, and Goto is this piece of shit southern worker who stirs the pot the entire time, this incredible blend of Zbyszko and Bunkhouse Buck and Riki Choshu. These are the toughest guys ever built wrestling real strong style, nothing but headbutts and shoot clotheslines and Kendo Nagasaki throwing what look like heavy fucking tables without a single fuck given where they land. This is an IWA Japan blog now. 

PAS: My goodness what a discovery. This isn't as good as the famous FMW Texas Death Match, but it is pretty damn close, and is a match which basically has no profile at all. This actually starts like a standard tag match with Nagasaki taking young Gannosuke to the woodshed smacking him with hard forearms and stretching him on the mat. Goto and Taniguchi smack each other with hard clotheslines and headbutts as well, and it feels like a cool WAR heavweight stiff fest. Then it inevitably spills to the floor and all four guys start trying to brain each other with heavy wood tables and chair shots. Taniguchi looks like someone took a power drill to his face, and Goto and Nagasaki are in hog heaven fling furniture. Truly chaotic brawl, a ton of Moondog energy. As a community we have long since reevaluated Tarzan Goto and elevated him to the heights he deserves, is it time to reinvestigate Nagasaki?

Tarzan Goto/Mr. Gannosuke/Dennis Knight vs. Keisuke Yamada/Hiroshi Ono/Shoji Nakamaki IWA Japan 7/5/95 - GREAT

PAS: This was the same night of the all-timer tag we wrote about above, and was a hell of second act. This is basically just Goto and the boys mauling the white shirted IWA undercard kids. It started with Yamada and Ono doing some awkward but forceful dives, but their advantage was short, and Goto starts fucking people up. Hitting them with hard clotheslines, barbed wire board smashing, and even some attempted hammer murder. It is pretty one sided and ugly with a couple of moments of hope by the white t-shirt boys. The finish dragged it down a bit with a Cactus Jack run in, where he beats down Goto with offense that didn't look as good as anything else in the match.

ER: Tarzan Goto came out in his finer-than-Kawada robe for a tag match earlier in the evening and bloodied up the chubbiest Nagasaki trainee in IWA, smirking his way through a tag where people hated him, dropping elbows like Stan Hansen, letting Gannosuke take extra punishment while he leaned on the ropes, showing nothing but aloof disrespect...so of course he comes out for the main event and does it all over again. Big Dennis Knight is with them this time and there are barbed wire boards everywhere, and the FMW boys do nothing but slam and smash the blue jeans/white shirt IWA Japan doo wop gang into this barbed wire. Hilariously, Tarzan Goto draws real heat the entire time by avoiding most of the barbed wire entirely. Team FMW is throwing hooking clotheslines to necks and beating up the home town boys like an Unstudly Stable and I loved how the IWA boys kept fighting no matter how much of a losing battle it seemed like they were in. Just as Gannosuke hit a wicked piledriver on Taniguchi earlier in the night, Knight hits a wicked one here (being careful to not plop his butt down into the wire) and the IWA crowd HATES their Memphis bullshit. Somehow Cactus Jack is the worst guy on this entire card, and his involvement for the finish is the only weak part of this match, running in and hitting awful Hitman elbows off the middle buckle, the worst offense anyone hit the entire match. If you leave Cactus out of this and finish the match literally any way involving the people in the match, this is another classic. 

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SEGUNDA CAIDA DECLARES WAR!!! 7/13/00

ER: Hayabusa passed away and it's terrible. I'm sure all of us have similar stories about the first time we saw a Hayabusa match. I started tape trading in high school, and naturally the first things I traded for were death match compilations. I just had to know. I have no clue what I was expecting to see, or if I would be mentally scarred after seeing whatever was on these tapes, but I had to know. We all had to know. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I imagine that 90% of people that got into tape trading had a first trade that included matches from either Sabu, Cactus Jack, or Hayabusa. The first tape I traded for smelled like weed when I took it out of the box. I didn't even know what weed smelled like then but I opened up the box and thought "this is definitely what weed smells like". The tape had Pogo twisting a scythe into a guy's head for 20 minutes, the fire tag match where the ropes go up like styrofoam, matches worked without a ring, Cactus bleeding a lot, and then this crazy satin clad ninja doing ridiculous flips that I had never seen before. The death matches didn't do a whole lot for me, but I certainly wanted more Hayabusa. Hayabusa ended up being a pretty terrific gateway drug into Japanese wrestling for me, and I don't think I was alone in that. R.I.P. you crazy ninja.

1. Nobukazu Hirai vs. Osamu Tachihikari

ER: This wasn't bad. Decent little match. Hirai was a guy I really liked around this time. He always had nice stomps and stiff shoulderblocks and clotheslines. Tachihikari was a meaty Tenryu trainee who got beat really quickly by Gary Goodridge at an early Pride show. Hirai looks really good here, Tachihikari not so much.

2. TARU vs. Stalker Ichikawa

ER: This actually got a lot of time (12 minutes) but that was because apparently Stalker's layered brand of comedy needs a bunch of time to flesh itself out. He's a guy I would probably like a lot if he dialed down the comedy in every single spot. He bumps huge - there was a table spot where he was to do an Asai moonsault through TARU/table and "accidentally" flubs the spot, instead crashing and burning off the apron - and does some nutso spots, like his slingshot senton to the floor. Also dug his moonwalk rope walk. But you gotta take the comedy with it. That's the rub. TARU is always fine in things, and he was fine here. I am not a cold, heartless man. I love a good laugh. I have enjoyed a good laugh while watching a wrestling match. But sometimes I just want some wrestling. If I wanted funny I'd borrow one of Phil's Dave Barry novels.

3. Shoji Nakamaki vs. Mitsunobu Kikuzawa

ER: It's weird seeing Ebessan when he was just a short chubby garbage match worker wearing baggy jorts and bleeding. I liked Nakamaki here as he works real stiff with Kikuzawa and came off way more like an IWA Mid-South guy than a WAR guy, smacking Kikuzawa in the chin with the end of a chair and locking on a real snug STF. Match wasn't much but made me want to go back and watch more Nakamaki.

4. Shinobu Kandori & Keiko Aono vs. Harley Saito & Noriyo Tateno

ER: This was pretty clippy so kinda hard to gauge how good the match actually was. Being a pretty big joshi novice didn't help things. I really liked Harley in this and wish she matched up more with Kandori. Harley threw all sorts of nice spin kicks and had some cool roll-ups. I'm not too familiar with Aono and it's been awhile since I watched a Jumping Bomb Angels match but Tateno seemed fine.

5. Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Tomohiro Ishii

ER: Mochizuki was one of my favorites during this era and he's just a relentless monster during this match, kicking the snot out of Ishii with all sorts of big time front kicks and yakuza kicks and missile dropkicks and flashy flippy kicks. It's pretty one-sided until Ishii gets fed up after getting clotheslined right in the face and blasts Mochizuki in the face with a slap and then levels him with a clothesline of his own. Ishii also takes a couple of big time bumps, taking a DDT on the apron and also taking a suplex from the ring to the floor which Mochizuki turns into a Falcon Arrow from the apron to the floor. Nuts. I had no idea Ishii was even wrestling this early but he looked good here. Real fun match. Both guys dished a nasty beating on the other with Mochizuki's kicking offense holding up great.

PAS: I enjoyed this much more then your current Ishii meta stiff fests. This was plenty stiff, but it was an actually back and forth match with no weird sections where both guys stand there and prove wrestling is fake. Because this doesn't have any of that, the big shots by both guys meant a bunch more. Mochizuki has a bunch of fun ways to kick you, I love his axe kick and jumping knee to the back to Ishii's head, I also loved Ishii's giant slap, looked like it popped Mochizuki's ear drum, and he sold it like it completely dazed him. Really fun, makes me want to watch more Mochizuki.

6. SUWA/CIMA/Sumo Fuji vs. Dragon Kid/SAITO/Genki Horiguchi

ER: Oh man did I seek these kind of matches out in the year 2000. Toryumon/Dragon Gate 6 mans, all those east coast indy 6 mans, all that stuff. Loved spotty 6 mans. I still love spotty 6 mans. This was not a great, or even very good spotty 6 man, but it had value. I'm pretty sure anything with SUWA in it could never be classified as bad. The face team is pretty weak as Dragon Kid had one of his off nights which meant a bunch of twisting headscissors and roll-ups that get flubbed amidst a bunch of spinning. I remember liking Horiguchi more back then, but he looked pretty lousy here and was only really fun when SUWA was kneeing him in the face. SAITO looked best of the bunch, but even then he wasn't as good as any of the rudos. Team Crazy MAX was just as good as I remembered, with SUWA being the clear best (although he and CIMA were perhaps a bit too generous bumping big for wimpy Horiguchi dropkicks), and Fuji being one of the more underrated guys of the late 90s/early 00s. Not one of the higher end versions of this match-up, but seeing SUWA do his thing is always a treat. He had one of the best flying clotheslines I've ever seen (comparable only to Ikeda's), just leveling Horiguchi. Add in all his great elbow drop variations and his refusal to let others' blown spots derail things, and the guy is just awesome.

7. Koki Kitahara vs. Nobutaka Araya

ER: Araya looks like such a skuzz bucket here, with his greasy shag and patchy goatee, karate pants he must have washed with a red shirt, and what appear to be cigar burns on his arms. He also seems loaded. And this match is completely great. There's a real feeling of disrespect that runs throughout, and though it never delves into uncooperation it's always right there, lurking. They spill to the floor early and toss each other through chairs, with Araya choking a ring boy who tries to intervene. Back in the ring and Kitahara boots Araya in the forehead a lot, with Araya laughing like a tubby drunk dude while it's happening. The story of the match is basically two meaty guys who would make me cry with any of the offense done in this match. At some point the match structure kinda breaks down and it becomes more two big guys trying to hit each other as hard as possible while still retaining some sort of worked atmosphere. Kitahara finishes it with a nasty armbar and man I wish I spoke Japanese just to hear what he said to Araya after letting go of said armbar and heel kicking him to the head while walking away. The disgusted glare Kitahara shoots him is something I know I wouldn't want to be on the other end of. This was incredible.

Post show during a press conference Araya has some nice purple bruises on his forehead from all the yakuza kicks. Awesome.

8. Genichiro Tenryu vs. Hayabusa

ER: This is pretty much exactly what you would think this match would be like when seeing it on paper. Tenryu chops Hayabusa's chest raw and hits tons of awesome falling clotheslines (one of my absolute favorite clotheslines in wrestling) and Hayabusa throws in flying when he can. His stuff was pretty on as he hits a beautiful 450, nice springboard spinning heel kick and some nice dives. Tenryu is the man though, and has the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand. Every time one of Hayabusa's shots would land a little lighter than they should have, the whole crowd started buzzing because they know Tenryu will be coming back harder. Hayabusa mans up and leans way into every clothesline, the match doesn't overstay its welcome, and Tenryu busts out the lumpy 50 year old man tope. What more would you want? This was two guys who at very different points in my wrestling fandom, were my favorite wrestler.

PAS: I thought this was a great Tenryu performance and a pretty mediocre Hayabusa one. You really want Busa to break out a bunch of crazy highspots, but instead he mostly tries to go toe to toe with Tenryu, and that isn't his game. Tenryu does a nice job of putting over Hayabusa's shots and of course unloads in return. Loved the crazy tope by Tenryu and he will crack someone in the mouth. Still this was a bit underwhelming, I kind of expected this to be a big deal, and it wasn't as frenzied as your normal Tenryu main event.

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Hell is Empty and All the Devils are Yoshiaki Fujiwara

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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W*ING v. Fujiwara Group 3/02

Tomokai Honma v. W*ING Kanemaru, Shoji Nakamaki, Hidoh

PAS: This was a death match graduation gauntlet as I assume Honma was on his way to his undercard All Japan stint. This really felt like an exhibition with a three opponents kind of running through their specialties. Honma bleeds a bunch and gets awkwardly powerbombed on his head, but this never really felt like a match

TKG: I guess there was some sort of build. Honma has to last five minutes with each guy and its not like each five minute segment had Honma going through lighttube boards and barbed wire. Instead first five minutes was Kanemaru doing floor brawling, next five has Nakamaki intro a barb wire board, next five has Hidoh introduce the lighttube board. Does that count as build?

PAS: There was a point in the early part of this decade where I really liked Japanese indy juniors wrestling, and these two along with Onryu were big reasons why. This was a total train wreck though, Cougar had a nice legdrop, but this was a bunch of blown and awkward spots. I am concerned that if I revisit all of this stuff I will have to reevaluate these guys, because this sucked a dick.

TKG: I kind of expected these two guys to have a touring match worked out by this point. I mean this is 2002. These guys have wrestled each other for years. But this wasn’t as worked out as the worst Fleish/Storm, Shelley/Jacobs or Sydal/Delirious match. It didn’t feel like these two had an idea of what to do with each other.

TKG: The W*NG guys and Fujiwara guys meet in a wine cellar to determine tourney brackets. Pogo looks like ary Busey talking nonsense while everyone else looks away in embarasment. After dinner Pogo gets a blows fire on a caricature of Fujiwara to get his team psyched up.

Masaru Toi v. Takeshi Ono

PAS: This was the second most intriguing match on paper, and while I would have liked it to be longer, it delivered for a short match. Toi is a guy famous for potatoing people, but he took the worst of it, getting kicked square in the face a bunch of times, as well as eating some nasty body shots. Toi fired back with some chairshots and a nasty top rope double knee. Feels like these two have a great main event on a Goro Tsurumi fed in them, but this was kind of short undercard match.

TKG: I don’t know if I think of Toi as being a guy who delivers potatoes so much as veteran in multiperson match who hold stuff together and has cool old man highflying. They start with basic wrestling feel with Ono eventually doing the dickish “I won’t participate in BS rope running wrestling thing” move. Toi responds to the shooter going “pro-wrestling is BS” by grabbing for the weapons and dropping Ono on stack of chairs.

Sato v. Hiroshi Shimoda

PAS: This was worked BattlArts style with Shimoda using his fatness, Roy Nelson style to stymie the skinner Sato. Shimoda was kind of awesome in this, doing all kinds of little cool spots, stepping on Sato’s foot to get control, really laying on him in the amateur rides. I loved the finish with Sato squirming out of a powebomb into a choke sleeper. Shockingly good for two guys I have never heard of.

TKG: The Japanese Pride open weight thing can be silly but played out fine here. I haven’t watched any 21st Century W*NG, but wouldn’t mind seeing what became of Shimoda. Shimoda does a really neat fat guy feint where he claps his hands above his head, distracting Sato so he can go in for a takedown. Made me nostalgic for playing rugby in my younger days. Skinny guys can feint by quick feet movements. Fat guys on the other hand if they plant their feet in one direction..that’s where there feet are going to stay planted. Fat guys need to do really ridiculous broad theatrical movements and yell “Hey look over there!” if they want to create misdirection. The clapping above the head was just a really fun fat guy fake out spot.

Mr. Sakai v. Tomokai Honma

TKG: I have no idea who Mr Sakai is or why he represents Fujiwara. He’s in a really cheap wrestling outfit with the Japanese sun on his belt and a cardboard tiara that says Mr Sakai on top of his head. He has a nice asai and I kind of liked part of the set up for the finish as they fight off the ropes on the ramp. But this was the least of your Fujiwara v W*NG matches thus far.

PAS: Pretty short, but outside of the nice dive, pretty bad. Man Honma may have been a Ryuji Yamakawa creation. The finish of this match was especially shitty as Honma hits a Thunder driver on the ramp where Sakai’s head doesn’t even come close to hitting the ramp. It’s W*ING if you aren’t going to recklessly injure your opponent, what are you doing there?

Osamu Tachihikari v. Gran Sheik

TKG: Ok. So I was wrong. This is the least of your Fujiwara v W*NG match ups. Gran Sheik is an L.A. lucha heavyweight who works like a really poor man’s Rey Sr or Kiss. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him work the mat this much. He is about as impressive on the mat as he is doing stand up brawling.

PAS: There was a couple of nice open hand chop exchanges, but this was some dull fat man wrestling. Osamu Tachihikari was a guy who got Internet cult status based on his fat face, hair and pockmarked skin, but he was the least of your man breasted WAR dudes

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Yuki Ishikawa/Katsumi Usuda v. Mr. Pogo/Hidoh/Shoji Nakamki

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

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

W*ING Kanemaru v. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga

PAS: This felt kind of desultory. It was a W*ING show, so this had to be the main event, but it didn’t feel like there was any purpose beyond that. For some reason they kept turning out the lights, so large parts of this were in the dark. The finish was sort of a crazy balcony dive by Matsunaga which is pretty crazy to try in the dark.

TKG: They’re wrestling in the dark. It’s 2002, so this is pre Rick Saloman popularizing night vision technology. Or is that something that Paris picked up from the Harajuku girls? I’ve heard people mock death match workers for killing themselves in front of small crowds. But at least keep the lights on so that small crowd can see you killing yourself. Doing it with the lights out so no one can see it is bizarre.

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