Fujiwara Family: Pro-Wrestling Fujiwara-Gumi 8/12/95

TAKA Michinoku vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa

PAS: This was a bit of a mix of MPRO and PWFG, we had some early fun grappling, and a cool short tope by Hoshikawa. This was pretty clipped up, but we did get a nasty TAKA kneebar finish, where he really grabbed the hold high on the knee, looked like it put tremendous pressure on the kneecap.

Carl Greco vs. Katsumi Usuda

PAS: I think this was also really clipped but what we got was awesome. Greco is rocking an Eminem blond dye job and is just as killer on the mat early in his career as he was later. Usuda comes out swinging and it is pretty much can Greco tap Usuda before Usuda puts him to sleep. The half crab/rear naked choke he uses to put him down was gorgeous looking.

Takeshi Ono vs. Shigeo Okamura 

PAS This was short but really cool. Ono was awesome from damn near day one. Okamura is a guy who had most of his success as a CMLL Japanese rudo who would team with whatever Japanese guys would come over to Mexico, here he is working as a Gi wearing kicker. Okamura starts dominating with big kicks to the midsection and head, dropping Ono, including a cool spin head kick feint into a low sweep. Ono starts getting some success on the ground, bringing Okamura down and locking in submissions, and finally hitting him with a huge leverage judo throw and locking on an armbar for the tap. Fun to see Ono be the kicking bag instead of the kicker, but damn he was great early.

Minoru Tanaka vs. Oishi

PAS: This is a mixed match against a gloved kickboxer who's full name is lost to history. Mostly Tanaka avoiding punches and kicks until he got caught in the second round. Didn't have the frenetic insanity the best of these matches have, it was pretty subdued.

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa - EPIC

PAS: This is a very early look at this all time great rivalry. This already had a ton of spice, as the tumble out of the ring at the bell and Ikeda hits a great spin kick to Ishikawa's stomach sending him into the chairs. It is a great start to a match which delivers on what it promises. Ikeda spends a lot of this match trying to destroy Ishikawa's internal organs, he hits him with brutal spinkicks, straight body kicks and Chavezian body shots. Ishikawa puts on some great looking holds, squeezing Ikeda's head like a zit, twisting his ankles into odd and painful directions, and throwing some big shots of his own including a big knee lift which glassed up Ikeda's eyes. Finish was great, each guy gets a big knockdown and the come up and both guys are just unload their arsenals, not exchanging elbows to show their toughness, but franticly throwing everything they have at each other. Ikeda catches Ishikawa with a slap to the ear which drops him, he pops back up, but it is the third knockdown and he loses by TKO. Ishikawa wants to keep fighting and they have to be separated. It is interesting to watch this legendary rivalry in it's incubatory form, while there later matches were often brutal wars of attrition, this was more of a frantic pedal to the medal fight, the kind of thing you might see from two MMA fighters trying to get on a UFC main card, fun to watch them expend that kind of energy.

MD: Definitely another gem. These two are the perfect cross section of unmitigated violence and astonishingly slick grappling. When you've seen enough wrestling, not much can surprise you, but the more I see this pairing (and I haven't seen them quite as much as Phil and Eric so I'm still allowed to be in awe), the more I remain blown away by just how they manage it. They're pure struggle with nothing given and the consistent illusion that if one makes the tiniest misstep, allows for an opening, drops a guard, leaves the smallest hole in his defense, he will pay dearly. This could be with vicious stomps to cement a hold or with a spin kick out of nowhere or with leverage gained for a devastating belly-to-belly. The selling feels just as abrupt. It becomes more about momentum shifts and advantage than a long-running narrative, but you end up left wondering, two thirds through the match how a comeback might even be possible. The level of skill involved in all of this consistently blows me away.

ER: How cool is it to see two guys who have matched up probably over 100 times in their career, in what might be their earliest singles match? I know I have a BattlArts singles match between them from a year later, not sure there's another one this young. I love the charm and violence of their more experienced matches, with Ishikawa playing more of a Fujiwara "hang back, minimize the beating, look for your opening" with Ikeda as the always advancing bully. Here they're both punks in their 20s and Ishikawa is super aggressive with offense and kicks. Ishikawa didn't use a ton of kicks even by '98, so it's a trip seeing kickpads Ishikawa fly at Ikeda with high kicks and knees. Ikeda is still a bully, still comes off more ice water veins than Ishikawa, kinda letting Ishikawa tire himself out on flurries before pouncing, or backpedaling until Ishikawa slips and then diving into him viciously. Aggression is really the cause of many of the momentum shifts here, and I loved seeing these two tumble to the floor a couple of times because they were too busy kicking each other's asses to pay much attention to their ring placement. We get a lot of nastiness shining through, look at them grabbing at each other's hair while Ikeda works for mount. Kick-y Ishikawa is fun, but Ikeda always has those lethal feet, and his mule kicks to Ishikawa's gut look absolutely match ending. He drops him fairly early with one and either Ishikawa is among the great salesmen in the history of this great sport (which, he is), or that's a man who had the wind kicked out of him through his stomach. All the twisting looked really great throughout, and the knockdown drama at the end was really exciting. I've watched enough Ishikawa to know that he can't be counted out, and I loved the ending of him popping up right after getting TKO, showing that he wasn't down and that Ikeda only won because of a fucking rulebook. These two guys. 

Koji Kitao vs. Mark Ashford-Smith

PAS: Kitao isn't a guy with a great reputation among fans of Japanese wrestling, but I am not going to hate on a big fat sumo guy who is kind of a crowbar, that is in my wheel house. Smith had a nice short elbow smash, and tried some submissions, but this was mostly Kitao ragdolling him around the ring including a big side slam before finishing him off. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Shoichi Funaki vs. Hisakatsu Oya/Ricky Fuji - GREAT

PAS: This was for the FMW tag titles and was much more of an FMW match then any sort of shootstyle match, although a pretty nifty FMW match. We start with Oya and Fujiwara grappling which was easily the most PWFG part of the match. Oya always seemed like he was playing on the wrong team in the 90s, and it was cool to get a glimpse of what BattlArts Oya would have looked like. FMW team ends up isolation Funaki and busting him open with a chair, and the match builds up to a Fujiwara hot tag, and a bunch of Mark Ashford-Smith pro PWFG interference. Could have used a more dynamic ending to push it up into EPIC territory, but I can't hate on a match where a bloody Funaki tags in a house of fire Fujiwara

FUJIWARA FAMILY

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA