Masao Orihara/Macho Pump vs. Sabu/MIKAMI Michinoku Pro-Wrestling 10/16/03
MD: We come in a little JIP here but you get the idea quickly. Orihara and Pump grind down on Mikami and it's ok. It's consistent and competent but it's lacking the pep of havint Togo in there. You're just sort of waiting for Sabu to get in. That's the point though, because once he does get in, it's electric. They try to double team him and he just is having none of it. Then he puts the chair in the center of the ring and hits a jumping knee into Macho Pump in the corner; Pump immediately falls throat first onto the opened chair and it's brilliant. Eventually Mikami ends up back in and this turns into an Andre tag where the partner keeps getting dragged down to build up the anticipation for a little bit of Andre. After the second Sabu showcase we get the finishing stretch which has Mikami finally getting to shine with a ton of interesting and seemingly physically impossible roll up attempts on Orihari before Sabu has his final burst and wins the day. Pretty fun stuff once it got going.
Dick Togo/Masao Orihara/Macho Pump vs. Kesen Numajiro/Hayate/Komachi (Mistico) Michinoku Pro-Wrestling 10/19/03
MD: We've got people kicking and screaming and begging to see a sparring content in front of no crowd between Malenko and Mistico and they can instead watch baby Mistico get beaten on by Togo, Orihara, and Macho Pump. People's priorities are all messed up. This was very good. Bad guys ambushed right from the start and took the first three-fifths before things broke down for the rest. It was a near-perfect balance enabled by the lack of a shine or a feeling out process.
They started on Komachi (who was in matched gear with a matched act with Hayate), and he had one good bit of hope towards the end of this with a handspring but generally just got beat on and screamed. He was figuring it out though his natural instincts were pretty good. They spent longer beating on Numajiro though. Sharp stuff from the rudos though they didn't have a lot of tandem offense. It was more one guy setting up the next for something nasty. As always Togo stood out but everyone carried their weight.
Eventually Numajiro ducked for a heel miscommunication spot and Hayate and Komachi came in hot with big offense and dives. They cycled through a bit after that with everything feeling earned and most things having a little twist to them before Togo finally flattened Numajiro for the win. This went down smooth. Just real easy wrestling to watch and enjoy.
The Great Sasuke/Jinsei Shinzaki/Hayate vs. Dick Togo/Taka Michinoku/Macho Pump Michinoku Pro-Wrestling 12/16/03
MD: The great thing about heel TAKA is that not only is he a total dick, but he makes everyone around him more of a dick as well. That means that you don't just get him paintbrushing Sasuke in the corner, but you also have Macho Pump playing with Sasuke's mask tassel at the same time. The match was full of stuff like that, but counterbalanced by the fact that the other side, most especially Shinzaki, weren't going to put up with it.
So you got that great mix of the bad guys being really bad and then getting justified and satisfying comeuppance, stooging and bumping and flying around the ring for the other side and taking all of their signature stuff. The video goes around twenty and is a little more back and forth than the other matches we're covering this week but doesn't feel nearly that long at all. Things would build to chaos and calm back down and build back up again until finally boiling over into a hot finishing stretch. We ended up with three different variations of the theme this week (as you might expect) but all three were very watchable. It's so easy to just drop into this stuff and visit for a bit.
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