Fujiwara Family: PWFG 6/4/94

Shiochi Funaki vs. Minoru Tanaka

PAS: Both of these guys made their names doing other things, but at this point they were straight shootstyle guys, and pretty damn great at it. Funaki had a couple of totally awesome looking slips into tight rear naked chokes, and a really cool kneebar for the tap. Tanaka throws a couple of fast suplexes and a nasty headbutt while in the mount. This was way better then it would be a couple of years later, as they were PWFG young guys trying to prove they belonged. 

Katsumi Usuda vs. Joe DiFuria

PAS: This was great, DiFuria is a big jacked guy who spends much of this match chucking Usuda around the ring. He treats Usuda like a tackling dummy, dumping him with a couple of super nasty German suplexes and a deadlift throw, he was also super heavy on top, really leaning on Usuda with full weight and submissions which didn't look slickly applied, but a big jacked guy choking you is going to hurt even if it isn't perfectly applied. Usuda was able to wing some big kicks when he was able to get away from DiFuria, and the finish was an awesome Fujiwara special, DiFuria has Usuda locked into a rear naked choke, and it looked like curtains, but Usuda was able to grab an ankle and damn near twist it off forcing DiFuria to tap fast. Cool match, DiFuria had one match with Fujiwara which Tom and I didn't like 10 years ago when we watched it, but I kind of want to see his Vampire Warrior matches in Florida indies. 

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Bart Vale - FUN

PAS: This was a big kickboxing fight, and a rare match where Ikeda was in there with a guy with heavier feet. Vale really developed into a entertaining wrestler in the end days of PWFG, and he is thumping Ikeda with his big tree trunk legs. Vale isn't going to give a ton to Ikeda at this point in their career, Ikeda gets a couple of submission attempts, which Vale reverses, and throws some big kicks which mostly get blocked. This match was here for Vale to eat, and Ikeda was the meal, he would be at the big table plenty as his career moved on. 

Wellington Wilkins Jr./Yuki Ishikawa vs. Hanzo Nakajima/Naohiro Hoshikawa

PAS: Fuck this was badass. Wilkins and baby Ishikawa make a totally killer team. Wilkins is a square shaped guy who works like a total crowbar, he tosses some suplexes that have ab almost Taz on Pablo Marquez level of disregard for the well being of his opponents. He also throws some really sick headbutts including breaking a german suplex by just flinging the back of his head into the face of Hoshikawa, just gross. Ishikawa is also great, mixing a phenom level of matwork, with some real aggressive attacks. Nakajima is wearing a ninja mask and has a bad ass look, he looked perfectly comfortable on the mat with Ishikawa and mixed in some really graceful flying, he isn't a guy who had much of a career, having a cup of coffee with KDX in Mpro a couple of years later, but he looked great here. Hoshikawa is awesome in these kinds of hybrid matches, can hang on the mat, throw some kicks, and also hit a dope tope. Built to a pretty wild finish run, with Wilkins throwing this crazy top rope superplex, and locking on some sort of carny neck lock for the tap. The kind of match which would have led off a Schneider Comp back in the day.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Mark Ashford-Smith

PAS: This was a strange match which is worked entirely as a grappling contest, all on the mat with some long pauses and movement in and out of holds. It really felt in parts like Mario Yamazaki need to stand them up. Smith seemed comfortable on the mat, and this really felt like the might have been shooting at points, I can't imagine much was called before. Really a match for your Fujiwara completest, (or I suppose any Mark Starr superfans out there) I am a big enough Fujiwara head that I enjoyed watching him grapple and shift position, and the finish was pretty cool.  I liked this, still I imagine this will bore most folks.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKDEA

FUJIWARA FAMILY

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Saturday Night Digging in the Crates: Lightning Kid vs. Wellington Wilkins Jr.

The purpose of this project is to do a deep dive into the muck of the internet and pull out the hidden gems. Find a match which hasn't really been talked about and shine a light. This match is on one of Goodhelmets yearbooks, but outside of that it is pretty much unknown.




Lightning Kid v. Wellington Wilkins Jr.  PWA 11/90

ER: Man this match was such a blast. Wilkins is a stocky cruiserweight who's built like Backlund and spends 20 minutes ragdolling Waltman around the ring with awesome throws and weird matwork. Not many people in wrestling history have played the role of ragdoll better than early 90s Waltman. Wilkins is a guy who I admittedly have not seen much, but this match has me excited to break out all my M-Pro and see how he roughs up guys much tinier than Kid. Here he takes the full 20 minutes to stretch and smash Kid, starting with all sorts of trippy leg and arm grapevines, like Volk Han crossed with how you thought Dean Malenko actually worked when you were a teenager. Then he goes into all these wild bridging suplexes and powerslams that must mean he has the neck strength of a gorilla. He would just grab Kid by a convenient appendage and toss him, sometimes into a crazy bridged suplex, another time into a nasty over the shoulder backbreaker. Kid is always a good comeback worker, and here he gets to break out a bunch of desperation strikes, and if any of them whiffed he was great about selling a limb that Wilkins had just worked over. Awesome find, this.

PAS: I love a violent torturer as a heel gimmick. Wilkins is nicknamed "The Mystic" and is basically working as Olivier in Marathon Man. He is just ripping and tearing at the joints and muscles of a 14 year old Waltman and it periously close to watching child abuse. Waltman is actually a heel coming into this match but is a such a great sympathetic babyface that he turns himself during the match. The fact that this was a draw bites into it a bit, as the Kid just looks like a badass for surviving this beating but it doesn't build to a crescendo. Still incredibly violent and compelling for a random US indy match in 1990. 

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The Sharpest Sword is a Word Spoken By Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Wellington Wilkins Jr. PWFG 5/19/91-GREAT

Damn was this a blast. This was worked as a mat brawl, both guys were exchanging really nasty shots mostly on the mat. Short punches to the temple by Wilkins, almost JYDish seated headbutts by Fujiwara, Wilkins kind of leaping from a lying position into a knee on Fujiwara's throat. Fujiwara was almost working heel here, as he slaps on a kneebar and lays out in a supine lounging position with his head resting on his elbow, he almost looks like he is stifling a yawn. Wilkins is great, he has nice deadlift suplexes and takes Fujiwara's signature boston crab reversal as a dangerous neck bump. Is their any other shoot Wilkins out there? Did he work Kingdom or something?

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Shinya Hashimoto v. Predator/Tom Howard Zero One 7/30/02-GREAT

Man this was a ton of fun, your gaijin team are two guys with some amusing signature spots who work stiff. That is totally enough for legends like Hashimoto and Fujiwara to have a great match with. Hashimoto blisters these two guys, I have to give Predator some credit, he may not be very good, but I bet Brody wouldn't be willing to stand in there and exchange shots with Hashimoto. Howard has a spot where he puts his hands behind his back and dares his opponents to hit him, and Hash and Fujiwara are a pair of guys up for that challenge. Fujiwara wasn't in the match a ton, but he did have a couple of nice exchanges with each opponent. I really liked how he used his speed and guile to maneuver Predator into the armbar, you don't see a lot of Fujiwara working as Rey Jr. v. Undertaker but he is really good at it.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Katsumi Usuda v. Shoichi Funaki/Ikuto Hidaka HUSTLE 5/30/10-GREAT

Funaki makes his return to his BattlArts/PWFG roots in this neat tag. This is a project dedicated to Fujiwara and the match was focused on Funaki, both guys were pretty fun. Fujiwara rips it up on the mat some, does his signature comedy spot, and gets a really great almost Southern hot tag moment, where he bumps around both of his opponents, before locking in a speedy submission. Funaki didn't look completely out of place as he hung on the mat, and took a nice bump or two. Despite that stuff, this match was really all about Hidaka and Usuda just ruling it, kicking the shit out each other, rolling through some breathtaking mat exchanges, looking like two guys made for each other. Their sections with each other was some of the best wrestling in 2010. I really want to see an epic singles match, or a match up in a more meaningful main event tag.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

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PRO-WRESTLING FUJIWARA-GUMI SHOW #2 5/19/91

Minoru Suzuki v. Kazuo Takahashi

This was basically a short squash with both guys working for takedowns on the mat, before Suzuki slaps on a quick cross armbreaker. Hard to tell much about Takahashi here. It had some energy.

Bart Vale v. Yusuke Fuke

I liked this a little better then Funaki v. Vale, as this wasn't based around Vale's flashy and loose looking kicks. This had kind of a weird story as Fuke kept going for submissions which would be reversed by Vale. Almost built as a showcase for Bart Vale Abu Dhabi superstar. Weird to watch Vale work this, but I prefer him as shitty Jean-Jacques Machado then as shitty Mirko Cro-Cop. After all of his submission grappling he ends the match with a sick looking knee to the head, which was even more jarring considering how tender everything else he throws looks.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Wellington Wilkins Jr.

Damn was this a blast. This was worked as a mat brawl, both guys were exchanging really nasty shots mostly on the mat. Short punches to the temple by Wilkins, almost JYDish seated headbutts by Fujiwara, Wilkins kind of leaping from a lying position into a knee on Fujiwara's throat. Fujiwara was almost working heel here, as he slaps on a kneebar and lays out in a supine lounging position with his head resting on his elbow, he almost looks like he is stifling a yawn. Wilkins is great, he has nice deadlift suplexes and takes Fujiwara's signature boston crab reversal as a dangerous neck bump. Is their any other shoot Wilkins out there? Did he work Kingdom or something?

Wayne Shamrock v. Naoki Sano

I was pretty much in shock during this match, I couldn't believe what I was watching. I have never particularly cared for a thing Ken Shamrock has ever done, so I expected nothing out of this match, and it turned out to be as good as anything on the 80's Other Japan set. So much to love about this match, as they pretty much went back and forth from spectacular mat exchanges into awesome slugfest strike exchanges, great takedowns, into more spectacular mat exchanges.

The pacing of this was great, I especially loved how they paced their mat highspots. One guy would get in position and struggle a bit, and their would be a lull, and then super fast move into a choke or a kneebar. The crowd would pop huge for all of the mat spots, and it was the pacing of them which would really do it. Then after the mat near falls they would stand and just lay into each other with big shots, Shamrock's strikes looked way better here then in the previous match, and Sano was drilling him too. This was before Sano went to UWFI so I would guess this was his first shootstyle match ever, and he was a master of it. This was Sano's match, and while Shamrock was game, you could tell Sano was leading him. I also loved how Sano mixed in pro moves, as I actually bought an STF as a shoot submission, and a DDT as a shoot throw. I have never heard anyone even mention this match before and it is a total hidden classic.

Masakatsu Funaki v. Johnny Barrett

This was perfectly fin, but suffered a bit in comparison to the previous matches. Funaki really works this match the Maeda would, and that isn't a compliment. Barrett was fun, but you never got the sense Funaki was in any danger of losing. Some cool stuff, especially Barrett's shoot armdrags, but this was the PWFG version of a competitive TV squash. Naylor said Julio Barrett was a great NWA jobber, and that is what he was here.

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PRO WRESTLING FUJIWARA-GUMI SHOW #1 3/4/91

Pro Wrestling Fujiwara Gumi 3/4//91

After watching all of the UWF2 from 88 and 89, and reading the Funaki bio in the Observer, I decided I need to get all of the Fujiwara-Gumi. Tim Cooke, Tomk and I are buying all of it, and will be reviewing all of it. When we are done we will be putting together a PWFG comp so everyone can feel the love as well.

Wellington Wilkins Jr. v. Yusuke Fuke

I only ever remember Wilkins as a comedy opening match guy in MPRO, but he is a blast as a shootstyle guy, just laying in the kicks and submissions. Fuke has really fast hands, and throws a couple of really pretty flurries. Goes back and forth for a nice long time, before Wilkins wins with a nasty looking kneebar where he grabs the folded up knee. This was better then most of the opening matches from the late 80's UWF, and got me very excited to work through these shows.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Johnny Barrett

I was really excited when I saw this on the matchlist. Barrett is an early 90's Florida indy worker who was an early DDP tag partner and feuded with the Nasty Boys. Somehow he ended up in UWF2 working as a Greco guy. All of his earliest UWF matches are filled with 3 Stooges style selling and dropkicks, so of course I loved them. Fujiwara of course is fucking Yoshiaki Fujiwara. This was as great as I was hoping it would be, although for different reasons. By 1991 Barrett had gotten the hang of working the style and is actually a really great shootstyle monster, kind of like Gary Albright with takedowns instead of suplexes.

Fujiwara really puts him over great here, as they exchange big shots, including Fujiwara's awesome shootstyle headbutt, which is completely different from his pro-style headbutt . His Pro-style headbutt has him grab the hair and really rare back, the kind of showy headbutt that plays to the back row. The shootstyle headbutt is more like a ram, he bends his knees and drives the top of his head right into either the jaw or the temple of his opponent. It is so different from his pro-style headbutt, that it always looks reckless and potatoey. It really looked like he broke Barrett's jaw. The finish was awesome, Barrett is on top, and tries to maneuver for a cross armbreaker, he slips while trying to apply it, and Fujiwara pounces, grabbing his ankle and sinking in a deep ankle lock for the tap. It actual looked like Barrett blew the spot and Fujiwara just went with, although it might have been intentional. Fujiwara is an amazing defensive wrestler, and this was just a brilliant reaction spot.

Minoru Suzuki v. Wayne Shamrock

It is good old Ken rocking an amazing Paul Diamondish mullet. This is clearly a showcase match for two of their young stars, and they work a showcase 30 minute draw. Kind of the shootstyle version of a IWA-Mid South "two-guys-who-trained-with-each-other-intro-match" Think Delirious v. Matt Sydal or Marek Brave v. Josh Abercrombie except with kneebars instead of mirror sequences, and nine counts instead of 2.9 finisher exchanges. Much like one of those matches, their was alot of cool spots, but no real structure or story outside of "look at these two guys do stuff". Watching Ken Shamrock wrestle is alot like watching him shootfight, he has a bunch of cool looking leglocks and leglock counters and awful looking strikes. There was some nice stuff here, I especially liked Suzuki using the Fujiwara headstand leg scissors Boston Crab counter into an armbar near fall. Very cool Fujiwara tribute on a Fujiwara show. I also liked the draw finish as it really looked like Suzuki was desperate to put away Shamrock. Still some cool stuff doesn't make a great match.

Masakatsu Funaki v. Bart Vale

While Johnny Barrett has improved a ton from the UWF2 I watched, Bart Vale really hasn't. He still is pretty useless on the mat and throws these flowery kicks which don't really land at all, think Ernest Miller. Funaki puts together a pretty cool match, but plugging Vale into it really doesn't work. For the match to work Funaki has to sell Vale's shitty looking kicks like death, which looks like crap. The near falls and the finish were all really cool, and this would have been a good match with a kicker who actually connected with what he threw.

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