Found Footage Friday: I SHALL RETURN TO YOKOHAMA~! TIGER MASK~! ANJO~! DANDY~! SCORPIO~! SABU~! TAKAYAMA~! ABBY~!

Tokyo Pro 8/25/96

MD: This is more Found than New, with the Scorpio vs. Sabu match being the one most seen/known. Some of this you can find online.

First Tiger Mask/Yoji Anjo vs. Takashi Ishikawa/Yoshihiro Takayama

MD: Of course this is Takashi Ishikawa but that's ok because Takashi Ishikawa is still great. Here he's even older and has a mullet, grizzled as can be, trademark purple trunks a big more voluminous. Anjo and Tiger Mask are such a weird pairing, but they crack each other up in the pre-match interview and it's charming. I'd like to see a sitcom with these two. Anjo can be such a jerk. Sayama can be such a jerk, but it's weirdly wholesome when they're together. And of course Takayama is imposing and looks here like he could have been the villain from Karate Kid Part III. 

I'd love to say that my favorite stuff here was Tiger Mask up against some unique opponents, but we don't see him a ton against Takayama (mostly grappling when we do), and it just doesn't clear Anjo flexing. He does pretty well against Takayama honestly, but it's Ishikawa chopping the hell out of him in the ropes that stuck with me. Actually, Takayama wailing on him with forearms did too. I do love to see Anjo get beat up, sorry. That's not to say that Tiger Mask vs Ishikawa wasn't great, because it was. Tiger Mask did his spin out drop toe hold and looked as good as ever. He bridged up on his head just to show everyone he still could. He had his blue gear here, looking more inspired by Liger than inspirational to him. Finish had Anjo break up an Ishikawa Scorpion but then Ishikawa not break up Anjo's cool modified figure four, instead shouting for Takayama who had to tap. Overall, unique and a lot of fun.

ER: What a great mix of personalities and stiff work. Ishikawa looks so professional in his sit down interview because you can't see the mullet, then in the match he looks like he's doing Riki Choshu cosplay and it rules. It also rules that he clearly can't stand Yoji Anjo. Anjo is a guy who it seems a lot of people cannot stand, a babyface here only because of being teamed with Tiger Mask, but otherwise a man who is clearly miserable and cocky in equal measure, and I love that kind of self loathing overconfidence in a dangerous wrestler. Takayama during this era is the closest he ever can to being Hot. He had the slick back in the ponytail, his face wasn't yet entirely messed up, still had the one weird eye, but he wasn't as lumpy and horsey as he'd become in a few years. 

This was short but intense for the full nine minutes. Takayama and Anjo really went at it, loved the ways Anjo would drop fast hard knees into Takayama's legs (leading to the eventual tap) and the way Takayama started punching down to Anjo after letting him up from an armbar. Ishikawa only wanted to fight Anjo and Anjo hilariously played it off nonchalantly. When Ishikawa locked in a Scorpion Deathlock because he is TPW Choshu, he points over and yells at Anjo to no reaction from the crowd, and Anjo just kind of ignored it, shrugged, and adjusted his gear. I loved When Anjo threw several stiff kicks as the illegal man, dashing three hard shots off on Takayama before calling for Tiger Mask to throw a sweeping kick to finish. Tiger Mask looked good, and I was especially impressed by this wild physics-breaking moment where Takayama had him in a heel hook, and TM did his front roll kip up to escape, while Takayama never let go of him. I don't know how TM made it to his feet so smoothly while being trapped in a submission. 

Sabu vs. Black Wozuma

MD: This is Scorpio under a mask that has a bit of a stormtrooper or Stuka vibe to it. I don't know why Scorpio is under the mask but it doesn't hinder his work. He does a bit more with body language or head movement to help, but it's clearly Scorpio. No one else moves like him. This was exactly what you'd expect it to be and exactly what you'd want. Sheik is on the outside. They mat wrestle to start, and it's pretty gritty but it's not really what you came for. When things pick up, they really pick up. Sabu goes for a triple jump dive to the floor and Scorpio tosses a chair at him. After that, they play the hits. Sabu flies all over the place. When Scorpio flies, it's interesting, his slingshot somersault splash (which I've only seen Tiger Mask do so it's fun they're on the card together), a twisting splash, a splash allllll the way across the ring. Sabu hits an amazing triple jump back DDT. Scorpio catches his once with his side body attack but then gets nailed off the top rope with it a second time. Sabu goes through a table that doesn't look like it should break. That's when he gets the chants from the crowd, by the way. The hits played well for a game crowd. Post match, after he wins, Sabu tries to go through another table that looks like it shouldn't break and this time it doesn't, even after he keeps trying. They appreciate the effort. I'm wincing decades later. Wherever he is now he's still feeling that.

ER: What a strange happening in the uniquely cursed PACIFICO Yokohama. Why are the ceilings of this convention center so high? What happens in this building? Why would the ceilings possibly need to be so high and what kind of gas are they pumping into this preposterously cavernous room to make the crowd this quiet. This was the quietest crowd I've ever witnessed, in the most echoing building created, and it led to a fascinating study in Sabu and Scorpio having a full conversation in the ring. You didn't get to used to see something like this. Supposedly 4,500 people are there. It looks like 1,000 but the building is haunted and someone clearly fucked up a measurement somewhere so maybe there are 4,500 there who knows. Whatever is happening, there appears to be a moment where Sabu and Scorpio are working to get people involved, and they aren't really getting there, and the silence as they ramp up the action means we get an inside look at two greats calling their way through a match. 

At first, you get simple spot calling like "Watch the kick" and then it grows into an amusing back and forth between two of the best. Scorpio waffles Sabu with a clothesline and as he's pinning him says,"I got you there. You okay?" And as the hits get bigger, the banter evolves to a couple guys who sound like they're having a goof, while also killing each other with shots. Before Scorpio's slingshot splash, as he's dragging Sabu into position, he says, "It's gonna be stiff." It is! When he sets up much too far away for a top rope splash - I mean way across the ring - Sabu is chanting the entire time, "Oh you're gonna kill me. You're gonna break my ribs." It's an incredible look behind the curtain of two guys stiffing the hell out of each other, Scorpio landing heavy weight on Sabu's ribs a half dozen times, Sabu takes multiple bad crashes on moonsaults and takes a dive through a table on the floor. By the time this was over, Sabu had gone through three tables on four attempts. The fans catch up with them as the landings got worse, and the entire time our heroes sound like they're just having a laugh while beating each other up. I loved their fist fight after the bell and Scorpio's heavy pescado, Sabu still feeling the need to put himself through unbreakable tables in 1996. He moonsaulted ankle first onto a table that didn't budge, but I'm not sure it was worse that Scorpio doing a tumbleweed crotch first onto a chair. 

El Dandy vs. Gekko

MD: Gekko is Masao Orihara. He came out with a mask and then took it right off. This went five minutes or so before they did a great ref bump where Dandy move out of the way and Orihara flattened him with a dropkick to draw a DQ. Then Orihara went nuts including really lawn darting Dandy into the chairs and they restarted the match. He was maybe on the verge of victory when the bell ran again for the time limit and he obviously didn't like that. 

Along the way, Dandy looked like a million bucks. He was just hitting killer lariats and then clapping after the fact. He controlled a lot of this and everything he did looked great. The crowd didn't seem to want to go up for it until after the ref bump but afterwards they were with him. Late in the match he had a Gory Special on and brought the arms together and it looked pretty nasty. Orihara was a bit more all over the place, but he his springboard moonsault on the outside and was game taking all of Dandy's stuff. He almost won it with a kappo kick out of nowhere, but it wasn't meant to be. I'd call this a good Dandy showcase made better by Orihara's antics.

ER: This rocked, all of it. All of it rocked. Orihara is one of my very favorites, for his sincere punk attitude and the authenticity he brings to any match. He's extremely tough, works fast and stiff, and wears his emotions externally in a way I respond to (and crowds and wrestling officials seem to respond to). He's a menace in every way, attacking Dandy before he's announced and throwing him with a cool unstoppable overhead belly to belly. Everything Orihara does in a match is fueled by spite, and his sequences are so tight. Every landing looks hard, and yet he's clearly not unprofessional. He throws working punches, he feeds for Dandy when it's time for that, but in between he's just a damn menace. My favorite thing about Orihara is his commitment, specifically the way he commits to missed offense. He threw a missed clothesline here that was so beautiful I watched it a half dozen times. I don't tend to judge people negatively for poor missed clothesline, but I praise a wrestler to the heavens if he has a great one. Orihara's miss is one of the greatest I've seen. He swings so hard with his miss that it sends him off balance careening into the ropes, and he gets up looking pissed that it didn't land, just before he gets wasted by Dandy's. Everything about it was perfect. 

He's just a menace. His stomach kicks might be the best in wrestling. There's never light, always a firm connection, great placement. The way he strings his offense is so tough, the kind of guy who will suplex you but then run and drop a knee or senton on you before you even know he's approaching. His moonsault is a wrestling gift, never thrown with any kind of arc, just a violent fast whip onto Dandy. I even got into his (ever-present) beef with officials of all kinds. The way he dropkicks the ref to draw the DQ was such a great spot, as he had previously back elbowed the guy and shoved him across the ring, but this miss was another Classic Orihara Miss, where the dropkick landed flush while also looking like a complete accident. Great way to set up a mid-match DQ. When he convinces everyone for 5 more minutes, one of the first things he does is hit Dandy with a truly disgusting piledriver, dropping that man right on his head  and leaving Dandy looking like a man who did not expect to be dropped on his head. Maybe the thunder fire powerbomb after will snap him awake. When the time runs out on Orihara's second attempt at beating Dandy, he again argues with the ringside official for more time, and the exhausted look to the side this man gives is perfect. I'm surprised Orihara didn't knock him over the table.  

First Tiger Mask/Yoji Anjo vs. Abdullah The Butcher/Daikokubo Benkei

MD: Past a couple of Six-Mans from 82, this is the only Tiger Mask vs Abdullah encounter (and one more tag in September), and if youw ant to see Tiger Mask stomp and kick the crap out of a grounded Abdullah, this is the match for you. Overall, he wasn't in a ton. Pre-match, Abdullah did a promo backstage in English talking about how tough his partner was, or at least repeating it a few times. Always surreal to see. The joy here was Abby taking the fork to Anjo and then Anjo fighting back. Just when that was getting good and Anjo was getting revenge on the timekeeper's table with the fork, Benkei broke it up. Overall, he was fine, a big solid dude, but he's not the guy we were here to see. The previous tag was for the #1 Contendership and this was for the title and Anjo won it turning a bodyslam into a great Fujiwara Armbar. There are other encounters in Tokyo Pro between Abby and Anjo and now I'm curious if any made tape.

ER: A good match with a solid formula of cutting Anjo off from Tiger Mask, that would have benefitted from more Tiger Mask involvement. Daikokubo Benkei is a unique man with an extremely large head, but he is also not great and not a guy I'd like to see working the bulk of a tag. During the pre-match promo it really seems like Abdullah knows next to nothing about Benkei, referring to him almost exclusively as My Partner before eventually referring to him by a name that almost sounds close to Benkei. Tiger Mask's match opening work with Benkei might be the best part of this, as Tiger Mask shoot punches Benkei twice in the stomach while Benkei looks like he might toss his cookies. When Tiger Mask tries to snapmare him after, Benkei blocks it like a badass and stays standing. Anjo punches him in his giant head and hurts his hand doing so, it's the best. 

When the match settles down into a southern tag, it's from Abby stabbing Anjo with a fork while shrieking in the echoing Pacifico. Yes, this match settles down when the stabbing starts. Abby gives Anjo a tour of ringside so everyone can see how hard Anjo is getting stabbed and it gets good when a bloodied Anjo starts fighting back. But it's crazy how Abby somehow seems more violent doing his taped up finger strikes than he does literally stabbing someone. There was a slick moment where Abby caught a kick and swept Anjo's plant leg from under him. It got more heated and electric whenever TM would come in and save Anjo or fight off Benkei, and it was a great moment where Anjo started spiking Abby and drew the man's poisoned blood, leaking it all over the timekeeper's table before dropping several knees into his cut. I love how Anjo started shrieking like Abby during his comebacks, and how much louder Abby started shrieking while Anjo was driving knees down onto Abby's arm. Sick style clash, I had no clue how seldom Abby and TM ever crossed paths, and I wish we got them truly going at it. Glad we got what little work we did.  

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Fugo Fugo is Miles Away From Nowhere and The Wind Doesn't Have a Name

Tadahiro Fujisaki vs. Shigeo Kato WYF 1998? - EPIC

PAS: Fujisaki is the future Fugo Fugo, a long time Segunda Caida favorite, and he shows that early in his career he had that same lack of regard for his own and his opponents well being. This is 10 minutes of two George Takano trainees trying to impress their mentor by holding absolutely nothing back. Fujisaki opens the match with a sick lariat and they do some pretty good scrambling on the mat. Kato tries to break a kneebar by elbowing Fujisaki right in the back of the head and neck, Fujisaki responds by scrambling to his feet and reckless stomping Kato in the head and we are off. Kato gets cut from a head butt and tries to drive his knee through Fujisaki's head. There is a section with Kato working a figure four, which isn't what we came for, before we get back to slapping each other in the face until Fujisaki starts spitting blood. We get a cool offensive run at the end with Fujisaki winning with a crazy slam into a chokeslam. Sebastian is so great at digging up this indy sleaze, and this was a gem.

MD: This gave you a little bit of everything in <10 minute package. These two are Shinichi Takano trainees and they leave it all out there. I liked Fujisaki a lot here. You got the sense he knew he wasn't Kato's equal on the mat so he rushed him with a clothesline to start and when he got some distance later after getting stretched a bit, he just stomped him mercilessly in the face. Kato decided the best way to respond was to mostly wipe out on a flip dive. By the end of it, both guys were bleeding and slapping each other head on, with Fujisaki escalating things to a couple of big bombs including the press up turning chokeslam that he won it with. His bleeding maw post-match was a face that only a mother or a trainer could love.

ER: Not a ton better than an unseen Japanese indy scum match surfacing, with two young workers stiffing each other for 8 fun minutes. The poise isn't there, but who needs poise when you can throw a lariat as mean as Orihara and palm strikes nastier than Liger's? Fujisaki's match starting lariat really sets a tone, and I was into all the ways Kato would fight back from that. Kato was more comfortable on the mat and threw sharp knees dead on. Kato even breaks out a surprising tope con hilo (that Fujisaki doesn't totally bother catching) and that reminds me of Orihara too. I know these are Nakano trainees but maybe he got some other SWS alumni to help. Fujisaki throws some of the hardest palm strikes I've seen. No glancing blows, just full straight arm shots, like he's throwing a shot put. They really highlighted the actual power of palm strikes as usually they don't read as well as even worked punches. Fujisaki bleeds from the mouth and Sato hits a lariat maybe as hard as Fujisaki's match starting shot. These are the Young Lions matches we as a people need. Great find. 

Fugo Fugo Yumeji/Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Joeta/Kendi Takeshima WUW 1/1/15 - EPIC

PAS: EXIT Underground is my new favorite wrestling thing. Takayama fits the chains perfectly as he has always been his best as a guy pushing the limits of violence, and he lays Takeshima out at the end of this match with a great looking side suplex and vicious knee strike. Still these matches are Fugo Fugo showcases and he delivers here, his stuff is like a mix of FUTEN and Kurisu which is an incredible mix. I love how he just will shut off all strike exchanges with sick headbutts, and he splits Takeshima with one after the match. He has great chemistry with Joeta and they are really killing each other with strikes and kicks in this match, Joeta has one whip kick from the floor which looks like it sends Fugo's jaw into the stand. Nothing I love more then super stiff wrestling in a filthy looking arena and this totally delivers on that promise.

MD: This wasn't quite as confined as the last match we saw with the chains, but no one was going anywhere anyway (except for that time where Fugo Fugo got knocked out of the ring). This had a real sense of inevitability given the way Takayama towered over his opponents and just crushed them down at will. It then became about whether or not Fugo Fugo would ever kick out or if he was bullheadedly going to fight off two guys forever. For a while, you got the sense he just might, just meeting them strike for strike for strike, just nasty shots all around. At one point they had him in their corner and you got the sense that Fugo Fugo's hubris might do him, but he roared back and when his thirst for violence was finally sated, he made that tag and that was basically the end of it. These chain rope matches need to make the rounds so they become Daniel Garcia's signature match and his blow off with Dante Martin in 2025 is in a match like this where Dante can't make use of the ropes to vault off of. In the meantime, we're more than happy to see 2010s Japanese vets beat the snot out of each other.

SR: Wow, Takayama enters the underground! This was raw, unfiltered brutality. I‘m pretty sure the only plan they had going into this match was that they were gonna beat the fuck out of each other for 15 or so minutes and call it that a day. And that they did. Takayama wasn‘t in the match much, but Fugo absolutely held up his end. He just had one brutal exchange after another and his chemistry with JOHTA was Ikeda/Ishikawa esque. You can tell these two loved killing eachother. Johta blasted Fugo in the face with some crazy enzuigiris and Fugo, as usual, unloaded his headbutts. There was a fun moment where Johta went to headbutt Fugo only for Fugos hard skull to fire back on him. Takeshima was also in this match and mostly ate punishment aside from trying to grapple here and there. And he just got slaughtered by Takayama for the finish, just ending a bloody mess. That said Fugo is looking awesome in these EXIT brawls.

Fugofugo Yumeji/Buki vs. Yuki Ishikawa/Joeta WUW 7/14/18 - EPIC

PAS: This is in what looks like the back of a comic shop in Tokyo somewhere. There is a tiny ring with chains instead of ring ropes and Japanese indy legends Yuki Ishikawa and Fugofugo Yumeji bringing along two guys I hadn't heard of to have a violent punch out. They couldn't run the ropes or do any complicated sequences in that ring so it was all punishing grappling and hard shots. Buki and Joeta were in the spirit of things, and their exchanges were nearly as violent as Fugofugo and Ishikawa. Buki especially was a nasty little prick yanking at Joeta's face and stomping on limbs. Ishikawa and Fugo is as great as that match up promises on paper, Ishikawa is a more skilled grappler working out of the guard, but Fugofugo throws some gross headbutts and uses his strength to move into positions. Really nice mix of FUTEN/BattlArts style stuff and backroom violent indy sleaze.

MD: Phil covered this well, but I'd like to double down on the sense of confinement. This ring was tiny. It was surrounded by chains. While they never came into play, all it took was one hard shot to knock you back to your own corner. When Ishikawa and Fugofugo tested each other with early grappling, there was a sense of extra care to it. Movement was limited and they were very much aware of it and working all the harder not to allow for openings or make mistakes. Buki came off like a real bastard throughout most of this, just a guy with a huge chip on his shoulder. Joeta held his own, just solid throughout, especially when going strike for strike against Fugofugo. As this escalated and became more and more violent, you lost sight of what was on the walls behind them and only focused on the cage and the tiny box which it enclosed. It gave everything almost a pitfighter atmosphere that really encapsulated the underground feel they were going for and that I imagine most of the rest of the card couldn't begin to manage in the same visceral way.

SR: Now this… this is a damn MATCHUP!! Fugofugo going toe to toe with Ishikawa is a weird fever dream of this blog… and in this match, holy fuck they go toe to toe! Everything you can ask for from a match in a tiny ring with chains instead of ropes held in a Tokyo merch store. You get Fugofugo and Ishikawa brutalizing each other (including Fugo almost shattering Yukis face with pretty much the most god awful headbutt in the history of the world EVER), but you also get plenty of neat Ishikawa matwork. BUKI and Johta are really fun complementing characters, BUKIs super stiff mini Great Kabuki act is so cool, and while Johta was slower compared to his CAPTURE days he was willing to hit and get hit which is all I ask for. This went +20 minutes and had a really nice ebb and flow structure to it. The finish was between BUKI and Johta and while maybe that wasn‘t the epic Fugo/Ishikawa showdown you hoped for it was primitve and violent. Besides both the old guys were probably on the verge of brain damage at this point. Really extremely well done stiff quasi-shootstyle brawl, felt like one of the better Japanese tags of the 2010s.

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New Footage Friday: YATSU~! TAKANO~! RED~! JOE~! FUGO FUGO~! TAKAYAMA~! JOETA~! CHAINS~!

Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Shunji Takano AJPW 6/5/89

MD: This was a recent Classics drop, a match we never had from the big 6/5/89 show. We don't have a ton of singles Yatsu matches from this period, as most of his big ones were tags or six-mans, so it was a welcome pick up. Takano is a guy that, if you had asked me in 89, and from performances alone, I would have told you would have been a much bigger star than Taue. He was a couple of years younger than him but much farther along, with more presence for his size, able to scrap with anyone on the roster, possessing a decent athleticism, and with those kicks that he'd use when the situation was warranted against someone like Abby or Hansen (or as the case may be here, Yatsu) as his secret weapon. They were loose allies as Takano was often the third guy in a Jumbo/Yatsu trios and started respectfully enough, but after Takano took a but too long on a break, Yatsu just exploded out of the corner on him with forearms and knees in the ropes and it became a heated ten minutes from there. This was 1989 AJPW so you could get a momentum shift from Yatsu just catching Takano off the ropes and shoving him down or Takano escaping a hold and just stomping Yatsu in the head on the way up. We got most of their big stuff, including Yatsu's power bomb (and a top rope elbow which was not one of his usual moves) and this great full rotation Saito suplex from Takano. When Takano did lay in those kicks in the corner, it felt like a full payment receipt for those early knees from Yatsu. The finish was weird, as Takano did seem to get his shoulder up and he was hot after the match. Definitely a good one to have escape the archive.

PAS: 80s All Japan is going to deliver big dudes hitting each other very hard, and this totally delivered that. Yatsu especially threw real heat including some big shots in the corner and a great looking throw. Yatsu had really powerful hips and he also got a ton of torque when he chucked someone. That finish was pretty badly blow which is why I imagine this was stuck in the vault for 30 years, but it was an entertaining 10 minutes nonetheless. 

Red vs. Samoa Joe ICW 6/26/15

MD: If the Red vs Rey match we saw a few weeks ago was worked like a dream match, this felt like much more of a sub-10 minute TV match sprint. It was a lot of fun though. The first half had Red try something only for Joe to one-up him: he hit a punch exchange and Joe just crushed him into the corner with a flurry; he got some chops off and Joe flattened him with one of his own. Things picked up to the point where Red's speed got him a DDT and a frog splash but the size differential made it so he could barely even reach over to hook a leg. After that it was just a matter of time before Joe caught him out of the corner and dropped him with the muscle buster (which Red somehow managed a face-first bump out of). You could haved tacked on a few minutes at the start with Red evading Joe and in the middle of Joe grinding Red down to have a more complete match but it was fun for what it was.

PAS: This was really fun stuff, it did feel like the best TV match of a week. Joe is a great bruiser and Red is one of the best working babyfaces of his era. I loved Joe just running through Red with a big shoulder block,  and his killer punch flurry in the corner. Red's comeback's worked really well, that snap rana was very cool, and the frog splash landed big. All of Joe's big bombs looked huge and it ended right when it should have.  

Fugo Fugo Yumeji/Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Joeta/Kendi Takeshima WUW 1/1/15

PAS: EXIT Underground is my new favorite wrestling thing. Takayama fits the chains perfectly as he has always been his best as a guy pushing the limits of violence, and he lays Takeshima out at the end of this match with a great looking side suplex and vicious knee strike. Still these matches are Fugo Fugo showcases and he delivers here, his stuff is like a mix of FUTEN and Kurisu which is an incredible mix. I love how he just will shut off all strike exchanges with sick headbutts, and he splits Takeshima with one after the match. He has great chemistry with Joeta and they are really killing each other with strikes and kicks in this match, Joeta has one whip kick from the floor which looks like it sends Fugo's jaw into the stand. Nothing I love more then super stiff wrestling in a filthy looking arena and this totally delivers on that promise.

MD: This wasn't quite as confined as the last match we saw with the chains, but no one was going anywhere anyway (except for that time where Fugo Fugo got knocked out of the ring). This had a real sense of inevitability given the way Takayama towered over his opponents and just crushed them down at will. It then became about whether or not Fugo Fugo would ever kick out or if he was bullheadedly going to fight off two guys forever. For a while, you got the sense he just might, just meeting them strike for strike for strike, just nasty shots all around. At one point they had him in their corner and you got the sense that Fugo Fugo's hubris might do him, but he roared back and when his thirst for violence was finally sated, he made that tag and that was basically the end of it. These chain rope matches need to make the rounds so they become Daniel Garcia's signature match and his blow off with Dante Martin in 2025 is in a match like this where Dante can't make use of the ropes to vault off of. In the meantime, we're more than happy to see 2010s Japanese vets beat the snot out of each other.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Shootstyle All Japan!

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Late 90s Kawada!

Toshiaki Kawada/Masao Inoue vs. Kenta Kobashi/Yoshinobu Kanemaru AJPW 1/2/98

ER: I love these Kings Road hierarchy tags, where there's typically no doubt about who is eating the pinfall, the veterans appropriately sell the young upstarts' offense (i.e. not much), it's always fun to see how the vets work their young charges into the match, and the crowd ALWAYS responds to them in big ways. This is not a great match, but the crowd is on fire by the end of it, fully invested in seeing young Kanemaru get more offense in a match than he'd probably ever gotten at this point in his career. The meat of the match is Kawada and Kobashi throwing heavy leather: boots to the face and heart stopping chops; but the fun of the match is seeing Inoue and Kanemaru get involved, seeing them get minor success against Kobashi and Kawada. Kanemaru isn't quite good at this point of his career, but I like that he tries a lot of things. A lot of it lands pillow soft, soft moonsaults, light crossbody, diving lariats that we all know were supposed to be lariats but would have a hard time explaining to non-wrestling fans who don't know wrestling body language. But he busts open Inoue's mouth with a missile dropkick and that only makes Inoue's inroads look more awesome. If you're ever triumphantly yelling about something, it's going to look exponentially cooler if you're doing so with a mouthful of blood, darkening your teeth. Minutes later, when Inoue throws a couple of hard lariats into Kobashi's neck, blood dripping down his chin, it adds so much more to those lariats. This whole match is such a simple formula, and this kind of All Japan match is something I'm always going to be in the mood to watch. I mean, just look at Inoue snap off that Argentinian backbreaker on scrawny, barely adult, mushroom haircut Kanemaru. It's the stuff that joy is made from.

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Yoshihiro Takayama AJPW 7/17/99

ER: In retrospect it's weird how more of us weren't big fans of Takayama until 2003 or so. He was a guy who worked UWFI and All Japan during a really fun era, but he really wasn't spoken about nearly as much as his peers. Then he got his face turned to lumps by Don Frye and suddenly does a G1 and we all loved him. Going back and watch a lot of these underdiscussed late 90s AJ guys and it's pretty clear we took a lot of their skillsets for granted. Now that puro isn't something I actively seek out the way I did in '98-'08, it's shocking to see how much better 1998 Jun Izumida looks than many Japanese wrestlers who get a lot of hype today. I was there when people really started talking up Takayama, and nobody was into Takayama in 1999. See Honda, Tamon. These guys were hiding in plain sight in the promotion we were all getting tapes of. Maybe it was Takayama's lumbering horror movie monster awkwardness that made him invisible, but this match is the kind of gem you hope for when you click on a link. This is a 7 minute slugfest that sees these two throw the gnarliest knees to the guy you've seen and ends with Kawada kicking Takayama's ass so hard that he falls to the floor and gets counted up, and it feels like an appropriate ending. It feels like I really wouldn't have to write more than that last sentence to convince anybody who was GOING to watch this match, to watch this match. Takayama gets a cool showcase for his horsey lumpishness, and his kneelifts are truly all time great, here and after. Every one of them looked like Kawada would get his feet lifted off the mat, and Kawada did a great job of conveying some actual concern that this big goon was going to smother him. So we had some good grappling and good struggle, and it wouldn't have been a stretch to see some insane Takayama upset here with how effective Kawada was selling for him. We even got a great moment where Takayama punches Kawada right across the cheek and Kawada plays the greatest hit and drops down to his butt in pained disbelief. You knew Takayama wasn't coming out on top here though, and soon enough Kawada is throwing his own knees and kicking Takayama's ass to the floor, dropping him with a heavy as hell backdrop suplex and throwing more strikes, and Takayama ends it with this great awkward corpse bump, rigidly falling onto the bottom rope before spilling to the floor. This is great, one of the coolest sub-10 minute matches around.

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Let My Son Go So He May Serve Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Kensuke Sasaki/Super Tiger 2 vs. Mitsuo Momota/Yoshihiro Takayama/Jun Akiyama Rikidozan Memorial 12/16/13 - FUN

PAS: Nifty match with Rikidozan's son Mitsuo Momota taking himself out of 20 years of comedy matches to come out and battle with the big boys. Momota was the focus of the match, as he takes a beating by Fujiwara teams and firing back. Momota was 65 in this match and looks credible exchanging chops with Sasaki and Fujiwara. Momota gets to fight his way to the ropes on a Fujiwara armbar and even kick out of a Sasaki pin. He eventually goes down to a Northern Lights bomb which is an insane bump for a guy old enough to collect social security to take. There was a couple of fun Takayama v. Fujiwara exchanges, although the match was the Momota show.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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All Time MOTY List Head to Head 2004: Necro vs. Klein VS. Kobashi vs. Takayama

Kenta Kobashi vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (NOAH 4/25/04)

ER: Wow. I...didn't actually love this. And I feel kind of stupid about it, because everything I've seen written about the match is about how great it is, and this was a period of NOAH I loved. In fact it was probably still my favorite promotion in the world at this point. But this felt much more like Omega/Okada than any of my favorite NOAH/AJPW singles main events. I liked elements of the match - several of them - like the slow early build that felt ominous, as if neither man wanted to take the first shot, and how the build made that first backhand by Kobashi feel even nastier. Kobashi's chops to the neck all match looked vicious, and Takayama's shots looked bone rattling. Takayama's armwork made sense, and Kobashi sold it nicely, sometimes very subtly (using his other arm to chop)...and things just got weird for me from there. We got more stand and strike exchanges, we started trading ugly headdrop suplexes, Kobashi randomly grabbed his arm 10 minutes after the arm work - something I hadn't seen him do yet - and within a minute threw one of several burning lariats (so he overtly reminded me his arm still hurt, right before using his arm more than he did the rest of the match. I guess I'm supposed to buy that he's working through the pain?), both do death selling before getting right back up and throwing suplexes again. 

A lot of it just didn't work for me and the build felt scattered all over the place. I liked Takayama going MMA, but felt like it was too late in the match. I didn't like it as a desperation move, I like it more when a guy does it as a condescending move. Kobashi dumps him with the nastiest brainbuster and hits more lariats. The suplex trading and strike exchanges felt too modern NJPW to me, and it's not something that does it for me anymore. The strikes and basics here looked much better - and that counts for a lot, as I do think this is a better version of modern NJPW and will always look better than Okada/Omega - but it's not a framework I enjoy. I honestly think I need to revisit this, as it felt like I was watching a different match than the one that gets 100% praise.

PAS: I think Eric is nuts, this is a great heavyweight slugfest between two monstrous dudes, a big boy fight which has all the drama and violence the moment demands. Takayama has some of best thudding shots in wrestling and everytime he lands a knee or kick it has this awesome bass sound like a cricket bat hitting a watermelon. There were a bunch of cool individual moments.  I loved the spot when they are battling on the floor, Kobashi tries to get into the ring and Takayama just throws him off the apron with a german. Lots of the times an apron spot is set up and teased, but here it is just a surprise moment of violence and it is awesome. Kobashi diving into the corner on an attack and getting caught mid air with a huge knee was great. During the final run Takayama flipping out and throwing this great MMA combo was awesome, this was the fight of his life and he was going to go back into PRIDE to finish this guy off, so cool like something out of an epic Low-Ki match. The arm selling complaint is really odd, Kobashi sells the arm during the entire finish run, including failing to getting Takayama up for a couple of suplexes and the burning hammer, and I totally buy a maniac like Kobashi continuing to throw lariats with a busted arm, he sells each lariat like a boxer with a broken hand who was going to punch through the pain. This was a NOAH Kobashi bomb fest, they aren't my favorite type of matches, but this was an all timer for that style.


Verdict:

ER: This really surprised me. Takayama was one of the main reasons I got so into puro in 2001/2002, but this didn't do much for me. Maybe it's because I know both guys are brain damaged and/or crippled now, but I just didn't like this. And on memory I was expecting it to be the new champ. But Necro retains his improbable crown.

PAS: Kobashi and Takayama wins pretty clearly for me, at this point the Necro match retaining the title has an Eric as twin Hebners feel to it.

ER: I would be fully willing, wholeheartedly, to rewatch this match if enough people think I didn't give it a fair shake. Chalk the challenge up to questionable officiating and run the rematch. I just can't shake that something felt off for me about the match...

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Within Segunda Caida's Wheelhouse: FMW vs. UWF vs. Barbed Wire

Yoshihiro Takayama/Masakatsu Funaki/Takuma Sano/Mitsuya Nagai vs. Atsushi Onita/Ricky Fuji/NOSAWA Rongai/Raijin Yaguchi (No Rope Barbed Wire, FMW 6/21/16)


ER: I have no idea what this was, or who it was designed to appeal to, or...well I guess I just don't understand Japan. The cat is outta the bag. What would be the American equivalent to this? Maybe an old timers softball game, except when Ozzie Smith picks up a ball then Dave Winfield is allowed to punch him in the dick? This match feels one step removed from WWE including a clause in their Legends' Contract stating "We reserve the right to one day film a WWE Network reality show where you may be hunted for sport". Several of these guys had very respectable, high end careers. Funaki is a pioneer, Takayama had one of the great puro runs of my lifetime, Sano has had great matches spanning decades, just seems a weird and sad and weird match to even be taking place. Nagai is the lone UWF guy with the sense to show up in jean shorts and a t-shirt. Takayama, Funaki and Sano are all in their trunks and kickpads, looking older and confused, as if they were tricked into being there. I refuse to believe that Takayama still regularly wrestles for actual real promotions. He wrestles the way people think they remember brain damaged Terry Gordy wrestling. I don't think he was able to throw one kick without immediately losing his balance and stumbling backwards. Sano now weirdly resembles Bob Backlund in the face, and I would be greatly interested in seeing a 2016 Backlund/Sano match. I guarantee you by the end of the year I'll have watched good matches featuring older luchadors. NOSAWA looks the same as he always does, Ricky Fuji looks like old weird Gregg Allman, Yaguchi looks like glam Kabuki, and Onita still *looks* like a fucking rock star. Dude could be playing bass in Guitar Wolf for all I know. I do hope he plays bass better than he approximates pro wrestling though. This was about 10 minutes of guys trying not to touch barbed wire, caring mostly about seeing where the barbed wire was in relation to their person, instead of caring about throwing decent strikes. We got SOME decent strikes. Onita took a kick to the eye. Onita also took a couple whips into the wire. I actually thought Funaki was going to be crazy enough to go into the wire, but he reversed Onita into it. Takayama got slammed through a barbed wire board, Sano got hit with a chair and fully looked like he did not want to be there. Some brawling on the floor made up in spirit what it lacked in quality. Onita won with some sort of chickenwing choke on Sano that was so loosely applied that I did not realize he had a chickenwing choke on Sano. I thought he was holding him or something, so that another old FMW guy could inflict actual damage on him. This was a match with old FMW guys and old UWF guys and barbed wire for ropes. I am going to go ahead and assume that all puro is currently just like this.

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara Still Bears Fruit he is Forever Full of Sap and Green

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Kazunari Murakami/Minoru Suzuki NJ 11/15/15 - EPIC

Holy hell what a war, you can tell Takayama and Fujiwara mustered everything they had left in them for one more rumble. I would love this match if it was just these four guys making faces at each other, but instead they really press the pedal down. This was worked like an old school Murakami brawl with he and Suzuki jumping Fujiwara and Takayama at the bell and really slapping them around. Suzuki wasn't pulling anything including unloading some liver shots on Fujiwara's surely seasoned liver. Finish was a perfect Fujiwara finish as expected, as the cocky prick Murakami got a little too cocky. Way exceeded expectations, this felt like a something from 15 years ago, shocked that it was still this good today.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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Hatred Stirs up Dissention, But Yoshiaki Fujiwara Covers Up All Wrongs

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Yoshihiro Takayama v. Atsushi Onita/Shinjiro Ohtani Big Fireworks Promotion 3/21/14 - GREAT

PAS: This is a pretty nasty exploding barbed wire match.I can just imagine how awesome this would have been 20 years ago, and considering how old and washed up most of these dudes are (outside of our boy Fujiwara, he will never be washed up) this was damn surprising. Although when you think about exploding barbed wire matches they are really more about charisma and facial selling then insane bumps, and these are four guys with boatloads of charisma and expressive faces. Ohtani has gotten really bald and fat, with that gut and hairline he looks like he is working a Phil Schneider gimmick, he totally looks like a ringer for old FMW dudes like Sambo Asako or Kurisu, he isn't Kurisu great in this but he has some fun exchanges with Fujiwara and a great spot where he gets too enthusiastic with his signature boot scrapes and scrapes his way leg first into an explosion. Onita at one point gets caught in the Fujiwara armbar and has to set off an explosion to escape. Fujiwara gets a showcase after he gets smashed with an exploding chair, he comes out like an action movie hero covered in debris and mist and starts fucking dudes up. The stuff between the big spots was a bit meandering, but I enjoyed this way more then I should have.

ER: Man what a weird little match. I mean step back and think about this match. You have four guys who all had very successful and pretty damn unique careers. And here they are, with a mean age of 52, working an exploding barbed wire match. And it's super fun and just bizarre the whole way through. Fujiwara looks so damn great in this. He's 64!! But he shows the most fire of anybody and at one point takes a chairshot to the chest. Oh, and the chair was wrapped in exploding barbed wire. What the hell!? Takayama was one of the main guys who got me fully into puro back in the early 2000s, but now he has the reflexes of a guy who went 0-10 in MMA or something. It's also possible that he's working a post-OD Terry Gordy gimmick. Onita looks like a deadbeat dad who also happens to really be into Eno-era Roxy Music. Onita grabbing the exploding barbed wire to break an armbar was an incredible spot. Just looking at Onita, mentally struggling with whether to let Fujiwara rip his left arm off, or save the left arm by grabbing the barbed wire and getting his right arm blown off; it was like something out of a Saw sequel. This match was both bad and awesome.

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Embrace of the Backstroke: NOAH “Great Voyage in Tokyo ‘09″, 9/27/09

Consistency, uncertainty remain in Misawa's wake

I find NOAH to be one of the easiest promotions to watch: there’s a predictability to their format and booking that’s approachable (if frustrating to some), and their roster is deep. This may prove less the case in the months to come: it’s been speculated that without their flagship television, talent will be cut. Conspicuously absent from the card were Takuma Sano, Masao Inoue, and Ippei Ota. Solid hands Tamon Honda, Junji Izumida, Kentaro Shiga, and Kishin Kawabata were reduced to an untaped tag opener. In what some are calling the last time NOAH will ever sell out Budokan Hall, this first in a pair of Misawa memorial cards proved a mixed bag that signaled neither certain doom nor a turning point for the company. It was largely the same familiar NOAH that always goes down smooth. What can I tell you: sometimes grits are all you’re hungry for.

Akihiko Ito vs. Genba Hirayanagi

Genba is a sometimes fun version of Dick Togo still in search of motivation, not likely to ever find Togo’s breakneck pace or precision. Ito works so light that dropkicks which connect perfectly well still look like they’re rolling over Genba’s form like waves in Bermuda. They try the rudo spot of Genba grabbing the ref to avoid being taken to the mat before being bridged for a pin. It ended up looking like Ito playing hopscotch, which for those of you under 25 is kinda like Dance Dance Revolution on pavement. This is the first boring Hirayanagi match I can recall, one where his heel act of not giving a damn felt like legit apathy or laziness.

Atsushi Aoki vs. NOSAWA Rongai

Nosawa’s a hooligan character. When reading his name here I thought of him being dragged into an interrogation room.

“Who are you?”
“Rongai.”
“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

Aoki’s entrance music is a Japanese pop-punk cover of “Hotel California”. The point of this match is to make Aoki look great by jobbing out a known, overconfident outsider. Preferably by tapping him with an armbar, which Aoki has successfully made NOAH’s first over submission. Instead this was worked as competitive, with a stilted momentum stemming from Nosawa’s comedy and lack of fluidity. Aoki gives Rongai most of the match, coughing up a lung when kicked and writhing in pain when “caught” in limp crossfaces. The inevitable deadweight section of modern Japanese juniors wrestling, in which two men play Triple H and hit a series of Irish whips that go nowhere, was here followed by something far better: believable nearfalls which did hype Aoki’s armbar as instant death. In a match against a guy who takes himself too seriously but is engaging to watch vs. a cad getting polite applause out of crowds, I’ll take Gary Sinise over Drew Carey. And I will stand by that half-baked analogy considering how much Rongai’s mugging resembles Carey’s.

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi/Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Ricky Marvin/Taiji Ishimori

Kikuchi has always had stubby crooked arms, but his entire physique has now become a knotted slab. His trot around the ring and perpetual shaking of cobwebs are reminiscent of Rick Steiner, his face equally canine. Ishimori hit several flashy psych-out non-moves that clearly weren't really going to be executed and thus psyched out no one but his opponent. Marvin in contrast is far better at telegraphing one move, and surprising a crowd by delaying, biding time, then hitting something different and more impactful, as he does with a tope to Kanemaru. What I said about juniors sharing Hunter’s Irish whip overkill does not apply to Marvin, who should be throwing them all the time after killing Kanemaru with one into the guardrail. The Kikuchi-as-dog phenomenon continues when he bites Marvin’s hand and is reprimanded by being swatted on the snout. This being a Sunday, any section of the paper would have fared better rapping against Kikuchi’s skull. Marvin’s rope running and flips were great as ever: he is too agile and precise in movement to have a bad match right now. I’m a sometime defender of Kanemaru, but he was the weak link throughout, hitting cross-bodies that looked like curtsies and no-selling so as to sneak in bad lariats. This was the first match on the card to feel like an actual Misawa tribute, or proxy tribute to King’s Road, as the story told was that of Kikuchi’s resilience, and willingness to take offense as stiff as Ishimori’s brainbuster. The vaudeville finish of dudes beating on each other while they literally ran offstage and crashed into the company logo worked.

Bison Smith vs. Shuhei Tanaguchi

Smith is a fine photocopy of a boardwalk caricature of Vader. He’ll likely never have a match as good as Misawa’s GHC defense against him. Tanaguchi is a petrified goober, Mike Graham with a bleached mushroom cut. Bison quickly press slams him from the ring to the ramp, powerbombing him back into it, on and on in a series of moderately impressive displays. Watching Smith, this seems a new world order, in which the monster gaijin is no longer the menacing foreign invader: this audience’s grandparents are dead, and this Coloradan Caucasian wears both the American and Japanese flag on his trunks. In fact, Smith gets the biggest round of applause thus far off his running shoulder tackle tope from ramp to ring. They go through the motions of a comeback, but all we learn is that Tanaguchi is presently a third-rate Sugiura who can lift heavyweights up for timid backdrops. Smith tires of this and hits an impressive lariat from his knees. That he then wins with a Styles Clash feels meager and out of place, like Sherlock Holmes ruminating over a bubble gum cigarette.

Jun Akiyama/Minoru Suzuki/Takashi Sugiura vs. KENTA/Takeshi Rikio/Mohammed Yone

If you’ve seen Sugiura and/or Yone wrestle tags in the last few years, you know how this starts: rope running from both, leg drops from Yone, and frenzied swing-and-miss Yakuza kicks from Sugiura. This doesn’t get going until several minutes in when Suzuki and KENTA square off. Both fake hatred well: Suzuki in particular has built this autumn of his career on getting into a Sheriff of Nottingham-level quantity of slap fights. The story told throughout the match of Suzuki taking the piss out of Akiyama fizzles, even if Akiyama gets that someone has to play the rube for the bit to succeed. Rikio has gotten an unfairly bad rap in the past, but his face is too soft to play ringleader of the motocross gang, or whatever gimmick they’ve got him penciled in for. Your heel Cena can’t look like Lou Albano. His ring work is equally uninspired and brings the match to a halt. KENTA on the other hand shines no brighter than in tags, this one no exception. Even Suzuki and Akiyama failed to match his viciousness. Were Marufuji a better face-in-peril, the two would today make a premier team. This slogged to the finish line, with everyone killing time and looking out of position, none moreso than the ref who glaringly ignored Rikio’s rope break, presumably thinking they were going to the Sugiura tap out victory earlier than they were.

Kensuke Sasaki/Takeshi Morishima/Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Yoshinari Ogawa/Kotaro Suzuki

From the outset Sasaki surprises: he asserts his size advantage over Suzuki on the mat and throws a series of quality chops. Tenryu takes some bumps from Morishima, drawing less crowd sympathy and humor from his begging off than expected. But the interplay of Tenryu as Nakajima’s drunk, berating uncle pays off: when they finally tussle, Tenryu’s chops and lariats blister. Nakajima sells Tenryu’s double chicken wing for lack of anything else to do: he is stuck. Later, Ogawa’s eccentricity is apparent in a shot of Tenryu on the apron that pans shortly to Ogawa chewing tape off his fist. Sasaki and Tenryu have a chop battle here that can stand toe-to-toe or higher (ankle-to-ankle) with every other time that bit’s been done in NOAH. The difference is Tenryu’s expressive bracing of himself with each chop, the tense willing of himself to press on. He hulks up at least three times here, each better than the last. The finish is disengaged routine, but the Tenryu vs. KO clashes are too deep to not name this fight of the night.

Kenta Kobashi/Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Keiji Mutoh/Akira Taue

Kobashi sporting a shiner was weird, as if one’s senile grandfather took a spill. This isn’t much until Kobashi and Mutoh lock up, and even then the awe isn’t there. Mutoh’s offense is too loose and sloppy for this setting, especially considering he dwarfs Kobashi in height and mass, a surprise even when considering Kobashi’s cancer. Kobashi’s selling of these moves is admirable, but can’t hide Mutoh hitting shining wizards and bulldogs with the wobbly tentativeness of a modern Mick Foley. The timing of tags throughout feels arbitrary. Takayama and Mutoh have had two exciting, violent singles this year. Yet when they lock up here, Mutoh settles for sitting in a weak STF. The crowd is up for this match but is given little to applaud: these are broken men performing an act too hobbled to be drama, and too humorless to be comedy. The highlight is Kobashi’s selling while stuck in Mutoh’s figure four: a testament to his expressiveness that’s been at times lost or taken for granted in recent years, but which now seems his greatest asset entering this pseudo-Baba phase of his career. The hold is broken in an illogical moment of Kobashi reversing the figure-four, and Mutoh reversing a second time, yet for some reason going for a rope break, even though it should be he who then has the leverage over Kobashi. Taue improves as the match progresses, getting a huge pop for his Shining Wizard and taking an insane Kobashi rana from the top rope perfectly. Like Kobashi, his selling made this all that it was. The ending is weak and too sudden, ironic given how overwrought NOAH finishes can be. While it may seem naïve to expect more from four wrecked workers, an excess of workrate or brutal head drops is not what’s missing, but a lack of storytelling, as if it was thought that simply putting these cogs together several years too late would suffice.

Go Shiozaki vs. Akitoshi Saito (GHC Title)

It’d be easy to give this one high marks for sentiment, but initially it really does click on several unexpected cylinders. Saito’s kicks are very stiff, and the backdrop driver is teased appropriately as a big deal. Even the test of strength works well. Shiozaki’s execution is still lacking, and for a presumed ace his size, his strikes still lack fire. The story early on is of Saito working over Shiozaki’s arm for several minutes. When Saito is on offense, Go sells. When Go is on offense, he does not.

One misunderstanding in the ongoing debate regarding selling in Japanese wrestling is the idea that if someone sells, they’re doing all that can be asked of them. Yet like any aspect of any emotive performance, selling can be convincing or unconvincing, effective or ineffective. Shiozaki recognizes that he is supposed to be selling, and makes a sporadic effort to do so, but like a goon actor whose crocodile tears we don’t buy in a romantic comedy, continues to chop with the right arm at full blast. If anything the strikes are stronger after the arm has taken a thorough mauling. The logistical flaws to such un-selling are often dismissed with the false ideas that a) Japanese audiences don’t care about selling, b) because they don’t, neither should anyone else watching and/or critiquing the match, and c) that wrestling is like a sport, and in sports, athletes play through pain thanks to grand intangibles such as “heart” and “adrenaline”. Option C is not a terrible story to tell in professional wrestling. Yet it seems obvious that the telling of that story would be more engaging were the worker persevering through pain visibly express that anguish, as Kobashi, Tenryu, and Kikuchi all did earlier on this card. It would ring false for me to criticize any of them for making will-powered comebacks given that all expressed how brutal the ass kicking they had taken was. For Shiozaki to use the arm as if nothing has happened negates the work Saito has put into clobbering it: from a kayfabe perspective, Shiozaki’s weapon is his right arm, and Saito aims to neutralize it. Good selling achieves two apparent, crucial goals: it gets over the offense of one’s opponent, and in turn gets over one’s self for being able to endure what is being dramatized as devastating. The issue isn’t that Shiozaki uses his arm to win with a proverbial Hail Mary: it’s that he uses the arm crucially in nearly every single move he hits through the remainder of the match, and after a minute or so of selling gives no indication that the arm has been damaged.

That said, Shiozaki does take a true beating, and the middle section of this isn’t bad. Modern Japanese wrestling is often dragged down by the compulsion to have a long-as-fuck epic, and in doing so fill the middle of the match with a bunch of wind sucking and lollygagging. Saito is capable enough to know that if you’re gonna catch your breath, it helps to break up the monotony with a vicious lariat or two. In what can be taken as a tribute to Misawa in itself, Shiozaki’s elbow smashes are the best strike he throws, something he should add to his arsenal. Using your destroyed arm to hit a handful of quick, nicely executed elbows also seems less glaring than using it to hit a half dozen lariats in succession. And while the victor of the match is never in doubt, Saito’s last stand is well executed, hitting a great suplex and as stiff a scissor kick as I’ve ever seen. His performance was not merely one those sympathetic to woe he’s expressed over hitting Misawa’s deathblow could pat him on the back for. This was an inspired performance by one who NOAH would do well to depend on as a maestro guiding the next generation for whatever time the promotion has left.

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Wrestling I've Enjoyed Recently (9 Months Ago Edition)

Whenever I talk with Phil I always feel like the most out-of-the-loop wrestling fan around. I love watching wrestling on DVD. DVDs have revolutionized tape trading. You used to buy a tape for $10-15, and now I can find people selling DVDs for $2 a pop. I can afford to keep up with every single promotion in the world at that rate. BUT, I don't love watching wrestling on a computer. I will watch if it is the ONLY way I will ever see a match (the amazing VIP lucha tag from a couple years ago, the Navarro/Terry match, etc.), but otherwise I'll just wait for the DVD.

PHIL, however, is the master of watching wrestling on a computer. He watches matches matches that have disappeared forever by the time he tells me about them the next day. "Oh man, it was fucking amazing." "Where can I see it!?" "Oh, it got taken down 7 minutes after I watched it. I doubt it'll ever be uploaded again." If we're talking music terms, then Phil is getting his hands on all the cool new 7"s from hip indie labels like Hozac or Captured Tracks or Woodsist before they go for ebay money, while I'm still listening to my Deep Blue Something cassingle on my Walkman.

So, yeah, I watch wrestling way late, on DVD, like a loser. Here are some matches I watched recently that I really enjoyed, that took place 9 months ago.

1. Bronco/Romano Garcia vs. Danny Boy/Flecha (El Toreo, 12/3/08)

Going into this I didn't know Bronco, loved Garcia but didn't realize he was still even making tape (Mr. Condor/Diabolicos, along with Apache and Pimpi, were one of the only bright spots on early 2000s Galavision AAA TV), didn't know Danny Boy, and knew Flecha was Skayde. Didn't have tons of hope for it but I love old guy lucha so figured it would be OK.

It was awesome. Romando Garcia is a total monster here. He's a little greyer up top, but he's as sneaky and bastard-y as ever. He just makes Danny Boy (who has the appearance of an older, hispanic Joey Maggs) his target the whole match and is just ruthless. Just kicking him in the balls, beating him with nasty chairshots, and in one of the greatest things I've ever seen in wrestling, Garcia grabs an empty beer bottle from a ringside vendor, breaks it on the ring post, and goes after poor Danny Boy with it!! Garcia is a marvel here, one of the ultimate heel performances I've ever witnessed.

Danny Boy bleeds like a champ and plays a really great sympathetic technico. Really interested in all their other meetings this year (two of which I have on my old fashioned Digital Video Diskz), so look forward to watching those some time in 2011.

2. Sami Callihan vs. Trik Davis (IWA-MS, 12/5/08)

These guys matched up a couple times in '08, but THIS was the singles match to watch from them. This is one of my favorite indie workrate singles I've ever seen. Trik Davis is so great here it really makes me think I should've had Trik over Sami, and Sami just got more showcase matches against cool opponents (Trik didn't get the Scorpio or Ian singles matches). Trik makes Sami's offense look better than I've ever seen it look before. Trik just leans into EVERYthing and both guys really deserve some kind of weirdo standing ovation for giving and taking such nasty beatings in front of like 35 people. The way Trik takes Sami's finisher on the floor is just totally painful, and it was on a side of the ring that had like 6 people sitting on it. Sami doesn't really know how to play to the crowd very well and project, he just kinda does his Billy Idol sneer and that's it. Trik is getting really good with his facials and plays to the crowd well and it really ties the match up. This is a great match, well worth going out of your way to see. PLUS, Fannin points out that Trik came out to the Fall Guy theme song , which may be appropriate. Trik still doesn't get much credit as a great worker, just because he looks like Big Pete Wrigley. So even though he might fall from a tall building, or roll a brand new car, he's still the unknown stunt man, that in this match made Sami Callihan such a star (I still have my Fall Guy lunch box up on my living room shelf).

3. Grits N Gravy vs. Ian Rotten/Mickie Knuckles (IWA-MS, 12/6/08)

This was part of the IWA-MS Candido Cup tag tourney. Grits N Gravy is Sami Callihan and Michael Elgin. You're all familiar with Ian, Mickie, and Callihan, and Elgin is a big doughy squishy dude squeezed uncomfortably into a singlet, who hits REALLY hard.

Ian is the standout here, and he's just awesome. He looks like my old elementary school classmate Nathan Hoffman, who would kinda do anything just to get attention (and had a baby blue Member's Only jacket with a spot on the left breast pocket so you can put I.D., so Nathan sloppily wrote "Nathan" on a piece of torn lined paper and put it in there). I usually don't get too excited for bullshit in wrestling. I have to be in the right mood for it. But Ian's bullshit? I could watch that all day. The dude is always on and people could gain a lot by watching his tag work. The dude is just always on. His apron work here is fantastic, his stuff on the mat is cool, there's a great spot on the floor where he dishes out some classic "Smothers-Fu" to Elgin, and when Sami wanders over to save Ian delivers a mule kick to the balls. Just watching the guy waddle around and somehow be awesome is such a treat.

Mickie Knuckles genuinely scares me. I like watching her wrestle, and like seeing her come in and headbutt her brain cells away, but she scares me. She really has a kind of reckless way about her -- not in a sloppy way, but in a I-don't-care-if-I-die way -- that makes her really intriguing.

Real fun tag match with four people who hit hard and get hit hard.

4. Takeshi Rikio/Naomichi Marufuji/Mohammed Yone vs. Yoshihiro Takayama/Takuma Sano/Ricky Marvin (NOAH, 12/7/08)

I am such a sucker for NOAH six mans. Throw six guys with seemingly little connection to each other, one side acts like heels, the other acts like faces, somehow all six guys end up looking awesome. I have no idea how this happens. Marufuji consistently looked like the worst guy in everything he was in the last two years, and he was great here! And remember when Ricky Marvin was the best wrestler in the world!? Well he looked like those days were upon us NOW. All his stuff looked good and he did a rope-walk dropkick that I had to rewind a few times. Yone is really big now and he has his fro back. The only guys larger than him in the match were Rikio and Takayama, and man he packs a wallop. This had all the shit you know and love about NOAH. Dudes getting thrown into guardrails a bunch, dudes setting up spots where they run all the way across the building to clothesline a guy, stiff strikes, hott stand-offs, everybody wins. I love NOAH six mans.

5. Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima (NOAH, 12/7/08)

This was the first time I enjoyed a singles match with Nakajima. I've enjoyed a good amount of tags where he's in with heavyweights that just beat him up and all he has to do is get beaten up and throw some big kicks. But this was a good Nakajima singles match. Misawa is fat, grumpy, and in no mood to get kicked by some punk. Misawa's elbows are truly insane. They're like an Anderson Silva back-peddling jab: He doesn't look like he's throwing them that hard, but when they connect, they just might dislocate your jaw. Misawa hits all sorts of elbow combos and Nakajima reddens his chest, and the match ends when it should end.

6. Yoshinobu Kanemaru/Kotaro Suzuki vs. KENTA/Taiji Ishimori (NOAH, 12/7/08)

There are gonna be a hundred of these matches this year that I can't stand, filled with wasted big moves and dudes popping up doing the jacking two dudes off fighting spirit fist pumps. But I dug this one. KENTA plays a great face-in-peril and Kanemaru/Suzuki are really good at cutting off the ring. The first 10-15 are classic southern tag, and by the time we get to the big spots they're all really fun and well strung together, making good use of saves to avoid too many pointless kickouts. This was real fun and I seriously doubt I'm going to enjoy a juniors tag this year as much as this one...but like a sucker I'll still watch them.

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