Found Footage Friday: SOLAR~! IN~! JAPAN~! AZTECA~! JIRAIYA~! DRAGONS~! SKULL REAPER~! URA~! ITO~!

Hiroaki Ura vs. Yusaku Ito Sportiva 2/6/19

MD: Sebastian sent this one on to us. He described Ura as in his black trunks roookie stage but very talented. That tracked. He started out with very basic holds to just try to contain Ito and I had the sense Ito was taking him lightly and letting him sow his wild oats a bit, ready to shut him down when he'd had enough. Ito didn't turn things around early enough though. Instead, Ura was able to pry a leg off and start to do real damage with it. Throughout the match, especially after the tide turned back the other way but even before, I had the sense that Ura was like the dog that caught the car at times; once he got it, he wasn't entirely sure what to do with it. He was going off desperation and instinct and throwing anything he could. It meant that when he shifted away from the leg and to broader offense. It didn't work so well for him. Ito, on the other hand, was entirely deliberate. If he couldn't get a hold, he jammed an elbow down onto Ura's skull once and then took it. He'd block him and turn him right into a hold. The finish is him shutting Ura down with a decisive motion to hit a Michinoku Driver. The damaged leg is a wedge that Ura could use to get back into things though. He also had a potent explosiveness able to zoom across the ring while Ura was stumbling in his selling. When they moved into strike exchanges, it had fighting spirit how I particular like it, with staggering and recoiling, and a struggle to push forth and some really spirited screaming from Ura. This was inevitable, of course, but they did a very good job in not quite making it look so. 

Solar I/Dragon Yuki vs. Azteca/Jiraiya KAGEKI 7/13/13

MD: This had been thought lost but it's just been out there where no one knew to look for it. I think it was on the Azteca 20th anniversary show. Here, you have Solar in his most exhibition-y, touring mode, but somehow more so. He's so over the top here with poses and flexing and pandering to the crowd that it's almost transcendent. Especially because he backs it up. It's in one fall so the structure is kind of loose, in as you get exchanges early with a lot of motion and everyone getting to pair with everyone else, things building to some relatively big dives including a huge Yuki flipping senton off the second rope to a grounded Azteca on the floor, and then the matwork which actually gets some room to breathe, with the pairing of Solar and Jiraiya particularly great. It was a little weird to go into the matwork after the dives but what I was watching was so enjoyable I didn't mind too much. It both gave rationale for no one to break things up as Azteca and Yuki were still recovering and also sort of felt like a tercera where teams trade submissions once they were there to save their partners. In a lot of ways, this was Solar at the very height of his old man powers, completely confident in his own skin almost to the point of bombastic parody. But he still went hard to celebrate Azteca.

Solar I/Azteca vs. Azul Dragon/Skull Reaper A-ji KAGEKI 7/14/13

MD: I was a little worried this was going to be more of the same but it really wasn't. Dragon and Reaper came in full rudo, ambushing to start and using their second to cheat to take back over when the opportunity arose. It meant that there was a lot more heat. The previous match was celebratory but in a good way, certainly structured like a real match. This didn't have anything quite as tricked out but there was a lot more animosity to draw upon. When Solar and Azteca fought their way back, there was some of that posing and pandering (but in the best way, of course), but the rudos kept it from going overboard by keeping the pressure on. That's not to say it wasn't without levity. The commentators (and Azteca) watching it back got a real kick out of Skull Reaper nonchalantly taking out the ref to break up a pin. It all built to Solar quebradors as you'd imagine followed by a simultaneous Solar submission and Azteca splash. Fun stuff but I did miss the matwork of the other match.

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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: SPORTIVA~! KONAKA PALE ONE~! XEVIOUS~! KUBOTA~! ABE~! ISHIDA~! IZUCHI~!

Shinya Ishida vs. Xevious Sportiva 11/22/17
https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=kZekA2ZmHdaABUjlI8L8sWtExfrBVfUsxUy (video 6)

MD: Back to Sportiva (which is not a night Club but a sports Bar that kind of looks like a night club) wrestling. Sebastian wanted us to look at Xevious, "a fat local obscure wrestler in a mask who does weird submissions and nasty knee attacks." And I might go with "fairly tubby" instead, but it's spot on past that, at least at first glance. My favorite thing about this guy immediately is that he does things that are supposed to be graceful, like Eddy Guerrero's slingshot senton into the ring, and he does them gracefully enough, but the impact is defintitely fat ("fairly tubby") guy impact. He has a very matter-of-fact way of hitting stuff. Not a lot of prelude or framing, just right to it.

Ishida had his charms. He botched a handspring early and played into the comedic effect of it, with Xevious right there to go along with it; either that was the plan all along and they made it seem natural or they just rolled with the crowd's reaction and a moment in a way that the casual setting really allowed. Both of these guys could do a number of fairly complex things over all and did a range, a little comedy, a little chain wrestling, some rope running and flying, some weapon shots on the outside. Midway through the match, Xevious started on the knee and that worked pretty well right up until the point that Ishida was supposed to come back and completely dropped the selling, but considering how many things they did well given the setting, I'm going to forgive that this one time. 

Yasu Kubota vs. Fuminori Abe Sportiva 4/5/17
https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=kZekA2ZmHdaABUjlI8L8sWtExfrBVfUsxUy
(video 15)

MD: Satisfying clash of styles here, or at least clash of executions. Abe flowed from one hold to another, peppering shots in when possible or necessary. If there was a rope break, he'd show frustration, but throw some straight punches to whatever limb he had been working on and would move right to the next hold. If he was in a hold himself, he'd try to throw shots so he could make himself an opening. He was dogged early on and then, when fighting from underneath later, equally persistent in his desperation, chaining kicks together so even if the second missed, the third would hit.

Kubota was more solid and deliberate, thudding blows down upon the leg over and over. He made it seem painful when he dropped his stocky frame down into the hold; it wasn't just the hold itself. Whereas Abe would try various things, switching holds if one wasn't doing it for him, Kubota focused on that leg for as long as he could, with Abe selling it deep into his comeback. In the back half, though, Kubota used it to open Abe up for bombs. It gave the sense that Abe was always trying to come back from a deficit and Kubota was ever closer to putting him away. By the end, all he had were those kicks, and one kick too many meant that Kubota was able to heft him up for a powerbomb, the beginning of the end. 

Konaka Pale One vs. Tetsuya Izuchi Sportiva 8/21/2019
https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=kZekA2ZmHdaABUjlI8L8sWtExfrBVfUsxUy
(Video 75)

MD: Izuchi is a guy we've covered maybe once on the site, a couple of years after this where he was a young pretty boy asshole kickpad guy. Here you don't get to see quite as much of that. Early on when he is in control, he's more of an all arounder, with sharp mat wrestling but also throwing hip tosses and kicks. Transitions here are pretty great. Konaka takes over for the first time by catching the leg in the ropes on a dodged kick, trapping it, and hitting a 619 onto it. He has plenty of those unique twists on things, like how he drops straight to his back abruptly to use a drop toehold or his rolling entry into a figure-four.

That figure-four took up a lot of the match but it was never not compelling. Izuchi sold the knee whenever he had the oppportunity throughout the match and he was constantly struggling to get out of the hold, with Konaka taking his attempts and turning them against him. When he finally caught Konaka off the ropes and hefted him over into a cradling suplex, and certainly when he was able to pull him over for a German at the end, it was like watching a guy trudge through mud. He had every elemental and universal force working against him and he had to grit through it all to get Konaka over. So absolutely no shortchanging the sense of struggle in this one.

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