At the start, I mentioned my original intentions behind purchasing any RIKI OFFICE DVDs: the legends. Big names appeared throughout RIKI OFFICE's lifespan, but the last two years of the promotion saw the biggest concentration of legends: Tatsumi Fujinami, Genichiro Tenryu, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, El Samurai, and Yuki Ishikawa, just to name a few. Just from glancing at some of the matchcards, it's not hard to assume that RIKI OFFICE was just Senshu's vehicle for working against bigger names than himself. To a certain extent, that's true! There's nothing wrong with it. Basically all independent promoters love to bring in a big name or two and place themselves against that big name.
The issue with my first take is that I assumed that's all RIKI OFFICE was.
For that transgression, RIKI OFFICE ripped my eyes open and Ludovico'd me into seeing the truth: RIKI OFFICE was one of the most consistently great local indies of its era, with one of the strongest local rosters of all time. The legends were cool, yeah, but the real meat of the fed came from the guys working there every single show. Watching RIKI OFFICE for the first time, my focus quickly shifted from old man Osamu Kido to young freak Kenji Fukimoto. I looked past Hisakatsu Oya towards Hideaki Sumi, and Goto & Ohara were pushed aside for Masanori Ishikura & Kabuki Kid. These were the guys putting their all into every single show, and they weren't the only ones, either. Takuya Fujiwara, Takaku Fuke, Dyna Mido, Shoichi Uchida, and more were always putting 110% into every single match.
Now, all of that isn't to say the legends didn't deliver. Far from it! RIKI OFFICE is inexplicably the promotion with the highest hit rate for the fed up old men you'd expect to care more about the paycheck than the performance. There was just something in the air in Osaka Sekaikan & Habikino Colosseum that pushed everyone to put on their working boots. Osamu Kido clocked in for some of his last matches ever in the Office, and he seemed to be having a grand ole time. Gran Hamada and El Samurai both more than delivered every time they showed up. Fujinami, Ishikawa, and Tenryu all gave performances that felt fitting for them and never felt like they were just phoning it. More than anything, the Osaka indie workers always pushed these veterans harder than they were being pushed by the majority of guys in Tokyo, and for some veterans, that meant they had to deliver just to avoid being outperformed by a guy that had never worked outside of his home prefecture.
In my opinion, the best way to break down RIKI OFFICE is by splitting it into three periods, based on which guy was the hot shit at the time between RIKI OFFICE's three prodigies: Masaru Kawakubo, Yosuke Takii, and Yuki Tanaka.
The Kawakubo era lasted from the promotion's start in 2005 to 2008, and similar to Kawakubo, it had some kinks to work out. It was a little rough, prone to overexposure in some areas with some places to improve in. Undeniably, though, it had the spirit. It had the will and force of will to succeed no matter what. Even as some things fell flat, the majority of shows tended to be incredibly fun just from the heart bursting out of it, and it was evident that RIKI OFFICE had a lot of room to grow.
On the same day in early 2008 that Kawakubo received a career-ending injury, Yosuke Takii made his debut for the promotion, and the Takii era took hold. While Kawakubo was a rough act, somewhat destined for a career in Osaka as a beloved yet imperfect local act, Takii was different. Takii was the gem RIKI OFFICE could never even dream of digging up, and the Takii era felt almost demanding in how it stole all attention. You can't look away from a lot of the best work of this time period, and it feels both entirely homegrown and massive beyond the scene. RIKI OFFICE from 2009 to 2010 is one of the most heated and engrossing promotions in all of Japan, especially during the OFFICE v. XWF rivalry.
Not a very fun sidebar here, but I do feel the need to clarify something now. I will be talking about Kintaro Kanemura in this post. He's a vital part of RIKI OFFICE during the promotion's most booming period, and the feud between his promotion XWF and the RIKI OFFICE forces was the driving factor behind that boom. At the same time, nothing I say concerning Kanemura's wrestling ability is an endorsement of Kanemura as a person. Honestly, considering just how much of a scumbag he was behind the scenes (and how much of scumbag he still is apparently!), it'd probably be better if he just dropped dead. He should've at least ended up behind bars at some point, and it's a complete failing of the Japanese wrestling scene that he escaped his 2008 scandal and was back on the indies within a month. Kanemura is a piece of shit, and nothing I say about his wrestling should change that in the eyes of anyone reading.
By the end of 2010, the OFFICE/XWF feud had concluded, and soon, Takii's career shockingly followed suit. Yuki Tanaka, a man that had actually debuted a year before Takii, was finally given his chance in the spotlight, albeit only until the promotion shut its doors on Christmas day of 2011. He fought his life out to keep that spotlight on him for as long as possible, and RIKI OFFICE did the same thing in aa indie scene with a waning love for local independents. Even with more and more legends cropping up on the shows, the core RIKI OFFICE roster continued to fight harder and harder against inevitability, putting in performances like they were trying to save the company. The last year of RIKI OFFICE is when the promotion finally combined the spirit of the Kawakubo era with the polish and heat of the Takii era. No amount of life or death fighting could save RIKI OFFICE, but it certainly let the promotion go out with a bang.
In searching around for any information about RIKI OFFICE, I've come across the social media posts of a lot of former fans yearning for the old days. Phrases like "Habikino strong style" and "Osaka's fighting spirit" have come up over and over again. RIKI OFFICE, more than anything else, was local. It was the place where a lot of local wrestlers, whether brought up by Kurisu or simply coming back home from one of the Tokyo or Nagoya gyms, placed their roots. RIKI OFFICE battling XWF was Osaka's scream to Japan, and RIKI OFFICE was the home for a style of wrestling seen nowhere else in the region, along with being the home for every wrestler and fan that loved that style. In a weird way, after completing the watchalong project, I feel like RIKI OFFICE is my home, too. It just has that feeling to it, like it's something to return to in times of need. It's gone beyond being a comfort fed and stands as THE return point for me when the flame flickers.
RIKI OFFICE wasn't any other vanity fed, or any other local indie, or really any other promotion. RIKI OFFICE was RIKI OFFICE; its heart kept beating and beating, even after most of the world stopped listening to the thumping. In a way, that heart is still beating, too. You can ask any of the RIKI OFFICE stalwarts still going today, and I'm sure they'd agree. RIKI OFFICE lives through those that called it home.
THE TOP 10 RIKI OFFICE WRESTLERS
Honorable Mentions:
Masaru Kawakubo
Kabuki Kid
Masahiko Kochi
Shoichi Uchida
Gran Hamada
10. Dyna Mido
Honestly, it was a toss-up between Mido and Masaru Kawakubo for who would occupy the #10 spot on the list. Kawakubo probably deserves to be on here just because of how much more he mattered during the early days of RIKI OFFICE. Still, my heart told me that Mido was the right choice, and heart is all that matters concerning these two guys. In a way, Mido was the Kawakubo of the final RIKI OFFICE era; he was a little dude with a lot of bark and a growing bite, and watching through RIKI OFFICE was watching his bite inch closer and closer to the bark.
Mido was a cannonball rushing around the ring with flying neckbreakers aplenty, and his matches were more about seeing how far he can make it compared to how he fared on the last show. There are better wrestlers than him left off of this list. Hell, even Kawakubo was arguably better by the time his career ended. Even still, something about Mido compels me to put him here. I always had a smile on my face when it was time for a Mido match. He's just someone you want to see win.
9. Kazuhiro Tamura
A little bit of a shocking choice for the list, entirely because I hadn't realized just how much he appeared in the OFFICE until getting to work.
Small Tamura (not an insult - it's written on his trunks!) was head and shoulders above the majority of the roster in terms of pure skill, but more than that, his RIKI OFFICE run let him work with a pretty fascinating variety, especially compared to his runs in similar places like Kishindo. Sure, there were instances of "Minoru Tanaka's cryogenically frozen clone" Kazuhiro Tamura peppered throughout his run, but late 2007 gave us "dickhead shooter" Tamura in his battle against Sumi and Fukimoto, and late 2011 gave us "three steps ahead limbworker" Tamura in his title match against Uchida (more on that later).
Outside of his status as one of the most dependable acts to appear on any RIKI OFFICE card, Tamura was able to seize any opportunity and flex his muscles in ways he very rarely did elsewhere around this time.
8. Masanori Ishikura
Tamura and Ishikura falling one after the other like this is pretty interesting, considering the two feel like spiritually alike workers. Both are immensely talented juniors who got the chance to shine in RIKI OFFICE. Tamura ended up on the list not just through his amazing in-ring skill, but also through the variance he showed in his matches. Ishikura, meanwhile, is a much simpler entry, because in all honesty, Ishikura was generally the same wrestler every time he appeared. It just so happened that he was regularly one of the nuttiest wrestlers on the card.
Ishikura was a monster junior in a way very few have ever matched. He was the highlight of the best match from the first ever show (a very near inclusion for the upcoming match list), and he only continued to prove just how cool he is as time went on. Every match featuring Ishikura had all of us waiting on the edge of our seats for when he'd get to come in and kick ass. He was a human highlight reel. Like, I wish I could say he did more than be awesome, but I really can't, and I can't bring myself to put him any lower than he is. Sometimes, guys can just be cool as fuck, and very few have ever been cooler than Ishikura.
7. Diablo
Chaos manifest.
Diablo is almost the reverse of Tamura, in that I didn't realize just how little he worked RIKI OFFICE until I checked the stats. He only started appearing in the promotion in late 2009, appearing just as sporadically as Tamura did until the promotion's closure. Honestly, after a certain point, I just accepted that he'd always been there, even when I knew it wasn't true. Diablo imprinted himself onto the history of RIKI OFFICE through pure mayhem and relentless torment.
His run here was a real "heir apparent to Mr. Pogo" kind of ordeal, with tons of chain choking and face punching, along with many fuck finishes and even more outside brawls. His air siren theme song fit perfectly with his force of nature approach to wrestling, and Diablo matches were more about life or death fighting than anything like glory.
The entire Diablo run is something worth appreciating, and the peak of that run will be discussed much later, but it truly was a booking masterstroke by Senshu to have one of the few matches Diablo "won" be his final match in the company and also his most decisive defeat. Even if Diablo lost many of his matches, it was always due to DQ or some sort of bullshit finish. Gran Hamada getting fed up with his antics and ripping his mask off may have gotten Diablo the on-the-books victory, but it was also the thing that banished the demon beast once and for all.
6. Yuki Tanaka
Very few kicked ass just as much as they got their ass kicked like Yuki Tanaka.
Tanaka occupied a very important spot on cards, standing as both a gatekeeper to the undercard and an underdog to the uppercard. It wasn't uncommon to see him go from beating down an upstart like Masato Nakata or Kenji Yoshioka on one show to getting his ass kicked by Kabuki Kid or Hideaki Sumi on the next.
Like many of the regulars in RIKI OFFICE, his journey was one of personal and professional growth, transforming from a fodder undercarder with a lot of fire to a reliable and beloved floater with just as much skill to back it up. Watching Tanaka workshop his own wrestling style was kind of heartwarming, from the random llaves he would bust out on occasion to the technique development of the Hirakata Cutter. Seeing him evolve into one of Senshu's right hand men and a guy that could genuinely put Senshu on the ropes was easily one of the most rewarding experience of the whole watchthrough, and probably in all of my time watching wrestling.
Similar to fellow Ishikura trainee Dyna Mido, I just have too much love for Tanaka. I want him to succeed, and his success stories in RIKI OFFICE were some of the most cathartic I've seen in a long time.
5. Kenji Fukimoto
Speaking of guys I have a lot of love for!
If you know me, this shouldn't be a shocking placement. Really, the only shock some may have is that he isn't placed higher on the list. If we had more of Kenji Fukimoto's run, there's a good chance he'd be comfortably sitting at #2, but the fact of the matter is we have only six of Fukimoto's matches on tape. That should probably be too little of an amount to even qualify him for this list, let alone put him at the 5th spot, but those six matches do an incredible amount of heavy-lifting.
Fukimoto starts his career in the OFFICE as a victim to a millionaire Tiger Jeet Singh cosplayer, and somehow it gets even better from there. There's not a single Fukimoto match I didn't enjoy, and a couple of them are so great that they'll be appearing later on in the post. The quantity is lacking, but the quality more than makes up for it. He was great as a brutalizer, a victim, a stooge, and an all-around asshole, and as I said before, every single match of his featured at least one bump that looked like it should've killed him. Kenji Fukimoto was the rat bastard out to ruin the day of every person he wrestled. Time and time again he destroyed himself, and that was all for the chance to destroy someone else. I cannot say enough how gamechanging more Fukimoto in RIKI OFFICE footage would be, and hopefully, this post will shine like a beacon towards Tsubasa Shiratori, inciting him to find more OFFICE DVDs to re-list on his sales page.
4. Yoshiaki Fujiwara
It probably seems a little weird for a special guest legend to appear so deep into the top 10 considering how much I talked about the true greatness of RIKI OFFICE being the core roster. Well, Fujiwara is part of the core roster. He was there the day the group started, and he was there when it died. He easily worked RIKI OFFICE just as much as many of the people to appear on this list, and he did so with so much commitment and enthusiasm that you'd think he was the one running it. More than anything, Fujiwara just seemed to see Senshu's vision. I remember watching a pretty major tag match where Fujiwara was involved, and someone in the voice call (probably former writer for the blog Chris Yeelord) said something along the lines of "he just gets it." Honestly, that about sums up why Fujiwara was so deeply invested in the promotion. He just seemed to get it and wanted to be a part of it as much as he could.
Now, in terms of his actual wrestling, I probably don't need to say much.
It's Yoshiaki Fujiwara.
No matter the year, no matter the condition, Fujiwara always delivers, and that rings true through his entire RIKI OFFICE run. Honestly, as said before, Fujiwara seemed to be more committed in his OFFICE matches than in his bouts anywhere else. He never felt joy or anger or sadness on the same level in any other promotion, especially during the XWF feud. I've never seen Fujiwara more enraged during this period of his career than during his matches against guys like Kanemura and Kuroda. RIKI OFFICE, in a way, was Fujiwara's home promotion during this time period, and he treated it like so. What more could you ever ask for from a guy like him.
3. Yosuke Takii
"Why the fuck did Yosuke Takii retire in 2011?"
If you were in any of the voice calls during the watchthrough, you probably heard me say this at least once or twice. I can't imagine what the final tally would've been if someone had kept count. It was the biggest question going through my mind up until the actual retirement, and it's continued to bounce around since then, even beyond the project's completion. He cuts a promo after his final match, and I assume I'd have my answer if I knew a lick of Japanese, but I don't.
Based on how much I asked this question (and his placement on the list), you can probably guess my feelings on the guy.
Yosuke Takii was a complete monster of a rookie. Every move had impact. Every motion felt massive. He was a freak of athleticism who could dish out power shots like nobody's business. Beyond the moves, there was something much deeper with him, too. His masterwork (like many others) came in the XWF feud. He had so much heat behind everything he did, and it's shocking to see a guy work with such vivid emotion so early into their career.
I talked earlier about character evolution in regards to Tanaka, and that applies Takii as well. Seeing this young dynamo go from a desperate fighter to a figurative powerhouse junior is amazing, and it feels so natural for him to grow unnaturally just from seeing the footage. Even Takii's final match against Kengo Nishimura (which barely missed out on the top matches list) is good in a way that defies expectations, as Takii shows up shockingly pudgy after years of being the most ripped guy on the roster, only to beat Kengo like he owes him money, the kind of beating Takii basically never gave us during his run.
In 2020, Takii returned to wrestling in SHI-EN, a local promotion run by and featuring a lot of Takii's friends from college. He's still a marvel, somehow more ripped now than he ever was during his OFFICE days, and still has it in him to do a lot of the stuff he did in his initial run. There's just something about how it all went down that breaks my heart. Takii was a true diamond in the rough. Nobody else in the Osaka indie scene at this time felt like they'd be able to succeed on a grander scale more than Takii. Hell, he was getting bookings in places like New Japan up until his retirement. Takii could've been the one to go beyond all of this and rock the entire wrestling world.
Takii was my boy throughout this whole project, and I wish he could've done more before hanging up the boots for ten years, but in a way, this result fits him more than anything else. From beginning to end, he was RIKI OFFICE in heart and soul.
2. Hideaki Sumi
The only man to ever have a chance at that number one spot. 2nd place ain't too shabby, though.
Hideaki Sumi was a karate bomb dropped into the RIKI OFFICE mailbox, blowing up on the roster in a way that changed the trajectory of the whole group. Sumi's arrival and early work immediately started to raise the bar for chaos and brawling throughout the promotion, getting into spats with anyone and everyone, only pushing them to fight harder and harder. In time, Sumi became the measuring stick for the group itself: how you matched up against Sumi probably said a lot about how you matched up in general. Without Sumi's influence, the deep fighting feel of RIKI OFFICE probably would've never evolved as much as it did.
Sumi wasn't just in RIKI OFFICE to do cool kicks, though. I mean, sure, he did a lot of really cool kicks, but he wasn't a one-trick pony. When called upon, Sumi could deliver the type of emotional asskicker storytelling with all the impassioned flurries and dramatic final blows of a karate Jim Duggan. His comebacks and hope spots were always predicated by that type of creeping "you're about to get fucked up" kind of selling, like a fuse burning closer and closer to the boom. While his involvement in the XWF rivalry was nonexistent, Sumi more than made up for it with one of the sleeper best rivalries of RIKI OFFICE against Diablo and Kurokage, along with the karate versus shoot style feud against Takaku Fuke.
Sumi was one of the biggest highlights of the watchthrough, and, as I've said over and over again at this point, clearly loved RIKI OFFICE, to the point that once it shut down, he took a one year sabbatical from wrestling entirely, excluding making one appearance in 2012 on a show run by Yuki Tanaka featuring almost entirely former RIKI OFFICE wrestlers. Hideaki Sumi was the shot of adrenaline the promotion needed to push it from a fun and unique take on the vanity fed genre towards being the powerhouse strong style indie it became.
1. Riki Senshu
I mean, c'mon. Could it be anyone else? Riki Senshu is RIKI OFFICE; his name's in it and everything!
As said at the start of the post, I came into RIKI OFFICE as an apprehensive fan of Mr. Senshu. I had already seen his BML matches, along with a handful of DDT and FU*CK! performances. I knew he had it in him to do good wrestling, but more than anything, I just looked at him as some sort of joke. He was the dude in Osaka pretending to be Riki Choshu, probably just because he kinda looks like him.
What a fool I was.
Riki Senshu is an amazing professional wrestler. In a way, he's almost the Ishikawa to Choshu's Inoki: a guy so capable and transformative in his imitation that he ends up feeling like his own man, a copy that has come into his own. He is the Tekken to Choshu's Virtua Fighter, to make the comparison even nerdier. This isn't to say that Senshu is better than Choshu, as I am not here to lie to you. What I will say is that for the years Senshu was rocking it in the OFFICE, he was almost undeniably doing better work than Choshu was at the same time, and the gap between the two is much thinner than you'd probably expect.
Riki Senshu was, honestly speaking, one-dimensional. I talked and talked about how guys like Tamura and Fukimoto benefit greatly from getting to wear a number of different hats within RIKI OFFICE, but Riki Senshu stuck to the Riki way all the way through. He fought from above with lots of brutal beating and a "just stay down" mentality, and he played from below with simple yet incredible effective selling and a great mind for flash counters. His headlock counter backdrop always got me, and never once did it lose its luster. His execution of Choshu spots was always on point, and he always knew just the right time to move from spot to spot. Honestly, the man was a genius at match construction, and it made for a RIKI OFFICE career without any true blemishes.
Is he the obvious answer? I mean, probably. Again, the promotion's name is RIKI OFFICE. If anyone would have the most opportunity to succeed, it would be him.
The fact he excelled so greatly even considering that is more than enough reason for why he tops the list.
THE TOP 15 RIKI OFFICE MATCHES
Honorable Mentions (AKA #30-#16 in chronological order):
Stun Gun Takamura vs. Kenji Fukimoto (05/05/2005)
Kabuki Kid & Masanori Ishikura vs. Fuuma Kawasaki & Young Sammy (05/05/2005)
Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Riki Senshu (05/05/2005)
Riki Senshu & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Kazushi Miyamoto & Shota Takanishi (03/21/2006)
Riki Senshu & Kenshin vs. Tatsutoshi Goto & Michiyoshi Ohara (09/10/2006)
Kazuhiro Tamura & Kyosuke Sasaki vs. Kenji Fukimoto & Hideaki Sumi (11/11/2007)
Riki Senshu vs. Takaku Fuke (07/27/2008)
Riki Senshu, Hideaki Sumi, Takaku Fuke, & Yosuke Takii vs. Kintaro Kanemura, Asian Cougar, Tetsuhiro Kuroda, & Yusaku Obata (12/13/2009)
Kabuki Kid & Hideaki Sumi vs. Masanori Ishikura & Dyna Mido (02/28/2010)
Yosuke Takii vs. Yusaku Obata (02/28/2010)
Yosuke Takii vs. El Samurai (05/05/2010)
Yosuke Takii vs. Kengo Nishimura (03/20/2011)
Hideaki Sumi vs. Takaku Fuke (05/05/2011)
Keita Yano & Kurokage vs. Kabuki Kid & Hideaki Sumi (09/25/2011)
Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Riki Senshu & Tatsumi Fujinami (09/25/2011)
15. Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Riki Senshu (12/25/2011)
At the risk of starting our main event list in the corniest way possible, we find ourselves beginning with the end.
On May 5th, 2005, in the main event of the first RIKI OFFICE event, Riki Senshu faced off against Yoshiaki Fujiwara. Honestly, part of me wanted to included that match on this list too. It's an incredibly well put together affair, clocking in at a little over five minutes long while telling a complete and compelling story. There's places to improve, but they do a damn good job of setting a bar for quality in main events going forward. Still, there's this deeper feeling within the match, the kind of feeling that whispers during the day and screams through the night. Even if it's a match that accomplishes exactly what it set out to do, I can't help but wish it showed a little more ambition. It's a very enjoyable five minutes, but what if they went seven or eight minutes instead? What if they gave themselves the tiniest bit more room to improve, just enough to wrap a bow on top of it all.
Six and a half years later, RIKI OFFICE ends it all with the exact same matchup. This time, they've got those extra three minutes, and as suspected, that's all they needed to reach greatness.
Of course, it's still been six and a half years, and a lot has changed about both men. Fujiwara has gone through cancer and the relentless beatings of time, and his body only continues to betray his mind even more as the years go on. Riki Senshu, meanwhile, is stronger and more vicious than ever before, more willing to and capable of pushing Fujiwara farther than he's gone anywhere else. Senshu's attacks on Fujiwara feel so pointed and barbed. When he gets the chance to attack Fujiwara, he really rips into him, getting every bang for his buck. He throws slaps like baseball pitches and repeatedly picks at Fujiwara's two battle wounds: the surgery scar on his gut and the padded knee. Senshu escaping Fujiwara's single leg crab by kicking him directly on the kneecap is some of the grittiest violence experienced by Fujiwara in the last 15 years. Of course, old man Fujiwara still has the juice, and he turns in one of his angriest performances in a long time, putting extra oomf on the headbutts and snatching limbs as much as he can.
This is a blueprint OFFICE Epic, with the nasty fighting, cruel heat segments, and counters into lariats I've come to expect from the genre, held up by the emotional weight of both men's progression over the last half decade, along with the reality of this being RIKI OFFICE's final match ever. It's pro wrestling that hits my soul in a way not much else wrestling is able to do.
14. Riki Senshu, Yuki Tanaka, & Yosuke Takii vs. Hideaki Sumi, Shiro Koshinaka, & The Great Kabuki (12/26/2010)
I just gotta say, RIKI OFFICE bringing in Heisei Ishingun and having Hideaki Sumi fill the Masashi Aoyagi role is a masterstroke from Senshu. He's absolutely the modern karateka to fill such a role in a new generation Heisei, and putting him with the old guard really helps to show just how well he'd fit in a role like that.
Anyways, this rocks. It's as simple as that! This is a high level nonstop action kind of tag, split into three really well-done sections to match the 2/3 Falls stipulation. Koshinaka and Kabuki are about into it as you can ask them to be in 2010, with Koshinaka especially throwing tons of gross shots and hitting his beauty of a russian leg sweep as hard as he can on Tanaka. As said at the start, Hideaki Sumi fits like a glove as part of Heisei, bullying around Tanaka and Takii while being the one most willing to take a beating from the OFFICE team. Tanaka and Takii are both as fired up as you ever saw 'em. Takii shows out with some God Damner elbows targeted at Sumi's jaw and throat, and Tanaka has a wonderful moment where he takes advantage of Sumi getting complacent by flying at him with the Hirakata Cutter multiple times. There's some really wonderful cutoffs and heat segments, a couple of wonderfully basic combination attacks, and every time Senshu hits a Riki Lariat it gets the exact kind of pop you'd hope for.
All of that being said, the tag action in this match is, generally speaking, just really fun. It's a blast to watch for sure, but it's not really good enough to make it onto this list. It's an Honorable Mention for sure, but it shouldn't be on the actual top 15.
... Is what I would say if Senshu & Sumi weren't placed on opposite sides of the ring.
Senshu and Sumi faced off numerous times in RIKI OFFICE. Hell, we're gonna talk about another tag much deeper into the list where they faced off before this one, and they even got to have a few singles matches in both RIKI OFFICE and Gran Hamada's MWF promotion (neither of which made tape although both are real grails for me). There's just something different about this face-off. The two smash their heads together like Onita and Goto. Senshu spams punt kicks the second Sumi falls to the ground. Sumi tries to crush Senshu's vocal chords with a kick directly to the throat. It's reprehensible violence from both men that takes this match as a whole and boosts it from being very good to straight up great.
Functioning as both a shockingly-motivated legends main event and a preview for the earth-shaking singles that never followed it, this is exactly what you want from this matchup and even more.
13. Yuki Tanaka vs. Hideaki Sumi (03/20/2011)
Tanaka and Sumi were always two of the most spirited brawlers in RIKI OFFICE, so it makes a lot of sense that their only singles match would be a complete barn burner of a brawl. These are two wolves trying to rip each other apart, constantly gnashing all over each other's bodies and going for the throat every chance they get. So much of this match is Sumi and Tanaka throwing wild haymakers at each other, and not in the shoot style way where they miss most of them and only really do it to put space between each other. No, pretty much every big strike connects here, and it connects as much as it possibly can.
The really interesting thing, to me, is the way they each man approaches how to handle the other once things get down to the nitty gritty. Sumi's entirely zoned in on unrelenting striking and beating Tanaka into submission, with baseball bats for legs and palms made of steel. Tanaka also plays the striking game, but he's much more varied in his strategy. He takes advantage of Sumi's overzealousness for his bigger bombs and pulls off some great counters, and his grappling game helps to keep Sumi at bay whenever it seems that Sumi's taken too much of the advantage. This is also a notably vicious performance from Tanaka, exemplified by his gi choke on Sumi early on and the tackle into the ring post late into the match. Just by engaging in the brawling with Sumi, he knows that he has to do everything he can to take any advantage in front of him.
This is also a great match when it comes to showing the crowd connection in RIKI OFFICE. I talked about it earlier in the post, but man, RIKI OFFICE fans really loved the promotion. It's one of the more vocal Japanese indies I've ever seen, and there's so much yelling and cheering in this match for both men. There's a wonderful little moment as both are brawling on the outside where a female fan keeps yelling "YUKIIII," and Sumi, the master he is, turns to her, yells "YUKI YUKI YUKI," and kicks Tanaka as hard as he can. It's just the little things like that blended into all the chaos and brawling that makes this match as good as it is.
High emotions and high intensity, exactly how the match between these two should go. Really, all I need is two dudes just fighting to be happy.
12. Kazuhiro Tamura vs. Shoichi Uchida (09/25/2011)
So, a little bit of backstory is necessary.
Uchida first appeared in RIKI OFFICE in 2007, but didn't become a frequent flyer until the middle of 2010. This would've been around the start of December last year in terms of the watchalong VCs. It was in that VC where Uchida hit his first Styles Clash of the project, and, as a joke, my good friend/former DRAGON SCREW writer Chris Yeelord said "c'mon man hit the Hollow Point". This started a loooooong running gag through every VC, where at some point during every Uchida match Chris would practically beg Uchida to hit the Hollow Point. Time and time again though, Uchida failed to deliver. Most likely because the Hollow Point hadn't even been done by Styles yet, but I digress. It was a fun bit and probably lasted the longest of all the bits from the watchalong.
In this match, Uchida hits the Hollow Point.
Seriously.
This match is Uchida finally delivering everything we've ever asked of him on a silver platter. Up until this match, my main takeaway on Uchida would've been "good wrestler that probably could've given us a lot more than he did." Most Uchida matches were at least good. He was clearly talented and deserving of his new designation as RIKI OFFICE's top junior, but there was always just something missing. Some matches needed more intensity, others needed stronger structure or logic, but regardless, every performance needed something. Hell, we actually came into this match with low expectations following the truly awful Uchida/Obata match on the previous show. The fact that he walked in less than two months after putting on the worst RIKI OFFICE match ever and delivered one of the best RIKI OFFICE matches ever blows my mind, but that's just the kind of guy Uchida is.
Tamura, most likely, is the driving force behind why this match is so good. Uchida always needed a guiding hand to push him towards doing his best work, and Tamura in 2011 is at his peak as a worker, both physically and mentally. Rather than just working a basic mindless juniors match based around hitting big moves and not much else, Tamura runs this match using incredibly vicious armwork. He's constantly throwing kicks at the elbow and hitting really interesting arm-targeting moves I haven't seen before. His springboard tornado armbreaker is a beauty and the La Mistica into the Andre is a wonderful late-match move for the story. Uchida sells more than competently, putting a lot of fight into it whenever he can, throwing wild punches and elbows to try and stop Tamura from applying whatever holds he goes for.
By doing all of this, Uchida and Tamura avoid drowning themselves in excess, saving all of it for when the time calls in the ending stretch of the match and still calling back to the armwork at least once. The big supermoves all look awesome, such as the super Styles Clash and the aforementioned Hollow Point, and they feel awesome because they happen at the right time without other supermoves overshadowing them.
A real masterclass from both men on how to make the big spots matter.
11. Masanori Ishikura, Kabuki Kid, & KENT vs. Gran Hamada, Takuya Fujiwara, & Young Sammy (09/10/2006)
An OFFICE anomaly, to say the least.
Speaking in generalities, RIKI OFFICE tended to prioritize rough and heated work, with guys more focused on beating the tar outta each other than wow'ing the crowd. The heavyweights had matches that felt fitting to the term, and even the juniors preferred to just beat each other up or target a limb rather than go for an all-flash approach. Physicality was the name of the game, and the majority of matches were happy to play along. This match, in a way, is entirely opposed to that ideology: six guys in flashy, colorful gear run through a ton of cool ass sequences and big spots without even trying to touch on anything deeper.
Is there possibly a little bit of dissonance between this match and everything else on the list? I'd say there is, but it doesn't stop this match from being a welcome detour along the journey. If this project were to be compared to a cross-country road trip, then this match is the rinky-dink gift shop supplanted between two actual destinations. It's not something anyone really planned for or had envisioned when mapping out the trek, but when you see a billboard with "pop-up atomic drop into flying wheel kick" on the side of the road, you just kinda have to take that left turn in fives miles and at least window shop the oddities.
Like all great spotfests, this is a highlight reel for everyone involved, with everyone giving performances like they're trying to get booked somewhere that pays better. There's a ton of GIFable moments, from the aforementioned ultimate ballbuster, to Ishikura's dropkick where he nearly lands on his feet, to KENT catching a high kick from Fujiwara and biting him on the kneecap before hoofing him up and dropping him with a powerbomb. It's also not the prettiest match in the world; like all local firework shows, there's bound to be a few rockets that just don't launch like you wanted them to, and it kind of forces you to admire how some things need to fail so the successes are that much prettier. Maybe this is me coping for Sammy's horrifically-missed enzuigiri and KENT's glorified flair flop in response. In any case, the hit rate is still high enough that this feels like a real success for all six men involved.
Credit to all six men for delivering not only the earliest standout great match in RIKI OFFICE history, but also a match that's great in such a different way from everything else.
10. Riki Senshu vs. Kintaro Kanemura & Tetsuhiro Kuroda (02/28/2010)
The Passion of Riki Senshu.
I have a deep appreciation for "happy accidents" in wrestling, matches and other things that only exist due to the hands of fate interjecting in a show's booking in one way or another. Hideki Suzuki getting injured led to one of Fu-Ten's greatest matches ever in Takeshi Ono vs. Mitsuya Nagai. The entirety of FMW only exists from Onita slipping and breaking a leg. Hell, even as I write this, we now live in a world where Hirooki Goto is IWGP champ, and you can trace the road to winning the title all the way back to Finlay's injuring getting him into the NJ Cup finals.
The match at hand is another example of one of these happy accidents. Masahiko Kochi, Senshu's scheduled partner for the evening, injured himself during training only a few days before the show, leaving a slot open for a new partner in Senshu's team. In most cases, Senshu would find someone to replace him, someone to join Senshu in the battle against XWF.
Instead, Senshu decided that he would be a one man army.
Whatever we should've gotten probably would've been fun, but what we end up getting is one of the best handicap matches I've seen in a long time. Senshu is entirely in the zone as company ace, throwing lariats aplenty and fighting his heart out against insurmountable odds. The heels are more than happy to stack the deck as highly in their favor as they can, constantly resorting to low blows and chairshots, but even then, it never feels entirely hopeless. Riki Senshu is a monument to will power, taking every cheap trick in the book and turning each one on its head with lariat after lariat. Even when Obata interferes in the match to help his XWF mentors crush Senshu, Senshu still finds a way to fight back.
I suppose some things are inevitable, though.
I usually try to avoid talking about match finishes since I'd prefer the readers to experience the finishes themselves, but I feel the need to talk about this one. Senshu endures and endures and endures, but with a match like this, there's only so much he can do against a team happy to break all the rules. After one final massive diving senton from Kanemura, he goes for the cover, but Senshu puts his foot on the ropes at 2... only for Kanemura to pull Senshu's foot off the ropes before the referee can spot it. It's the type of bullshit win that perfectly wraps a bow on this whole affair. Even when facing the most despicable scumbags in the world, Senshu still finds the strength in himself to fight back, to the point those scumbags are forced to take a cheap unfair victory.
If that doesn't best demonstrate the power of Riki Senshu, I don't know what would.
9. Yusaku Obata vs. Yosuke Takii (09/26/2010)
Yosuke Takii's moment in the sun.
I'm somewhat of an open book regarding the type of wrestling I love and the type I hate, and as the years of hot boy band juniors doing EPIC matches have worn on me, I've found myself less and less interested in seeing chiseled young guys with swoopy haircuts no-selling various piledrivers and suplex to show how much fighting spirit they have, while simultaneously displaying such little character and personality that you'd think they're CPUs. I just can't bare with any more of these faux classics in the year of our lord 2025.
Obata and Takii somehow worked that same type of match but made me love it. Call it the magic of the OFFICE or something.
Of course, the way they circumvent the faults of such a weightless-feeling style is by making it as weighty as possible. Everything they do here, from the striking to the dangerous head drops, is done with maximum commitment. Every Takii kick has a crack, and every Obata driver has a crunch. It becomes a lot easier to accept that someone has the strength to pull off a no-sell when they're putting that same level of strength into everything else they do.
Obata's legwork on Takii is incredibly vicious and features that same weight, teeing off with full force kicks and stomps along with plenty of dropkicks and stretches. Takii sells just enough to show the effect of the work, slowing down his offense to a speed where it still communicates the suffering he's been through without impacting the match's flow. With these kinds of matches, constant action is the name of the game, and being able to integrate well-done limbwork into the match shows just how in the zone these two were.
The most interesting facet of this match, though, beyond the reckless maneuvers and stiff striking, is the ultimate form of Yosuke Takii.
This is easily the biggest match of Takii's career, including everything he's done since returning in 2020. As such, Takii comes into this match as almost an evolved version of himself. He's easily the most jacked he's ever been, with brand new blue gear and a spray tan like he's getting ready for a Hogan-esque main event run. Even his moveset is evolved, with Takii pulling off more complicated and risky versions of all of his signature spots. Takii's once-in-a-lifetime top rope Asai moonsault is especially stunning, and it's a damn good way to communicate the desperation fueling Takii here. For him, this is all or nothing.
There's still things about this match I don't love. It still contains aspects of the EPICs I've grown to hate, from the fighting spirit to the one-count kickouts, but again, the weight is there throughout the match. At the same time, Takii and Obata actually do a good job of reining it all in. Takii's one-count kickout into a lariat is where the sequence ends. Obata doesn't take it too far by flying back up to his feet, which, knowing Obata's other work of this ilk, probably took more willpower than he's expended in any other match. They knew just the right moment to cut off every sequence to keep it from turning into excess for the sake of excess.
In the end, everything I'd usually roll my eyes at is done so well that I find myself perfectly fine with accepting it all as part of the whole package. Hell, even the 2.9 farming near the end feels earned considering it leads to a one time only superfinisher ending the match. Leave it to Yosuke Takii to make me care about any sort of EPIC nowadays.
8. Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Hisakatsu Oya (09/10/2006)
It may be surprising to hear this, but some people would probably hate this match. Really! You, lovely reader, you might hate this match too! "How could I hate this match?" I hear you asking with a generally innocent tone. And I get it, I really do. You see Fujiwara and Oya in a singles and your mind immediately conjures up images of a certain kind of infallible match.
This match here, truth be told, is not that match.
In talking to multiple people who have seen it, I've learned that two predominant opinions stand tall: you either think this is one of the funniest matches ever or one of the most disappointing matches ever. Considering where it lands on my list, you can probably guess on which side of the fence I've plopped my lawn chair.
Admittedly, this is the match you probably envisioned for the first five minutes. Two black trunks ringmasters meeting in singles action for the first time, testing the waters while establishing clear power dynamics. Fujiwara is obviously the stronger man here. Even with his age and more extensive wear-and-tear, he's the architect of the wrestling himself and Oya engage in, and it's a style that lends itself to being more experienced. Oya has to really fight for everything he gets, putting three slaps in for every one slap from Fujiwara, and struggling to keeps his holds applied as long as possible. There's this really wonderful moment early on where Fujiwara just keeps finding different ways to reverse the pressure on Oya's figure four, but even when Oya gets to the ropes he just refuses to break the hold. It's all he can do when trying to play the mental game against one of God's strongest Thinkers.
And then, almost exactly five minutes into the match, Fujiwara kicks Oya in the dick. It comes entirely out of nowhere, and Oya is instantly incapacitated. Neurons in Fujiwara's brain start firing at an ever-increasing pace, and suddenly nothing will ever be the same again.
At this point, the action dumbs down hard. Gone are the struggles for holds or emphasis on power structuring. Instead, both men have resigned themselves to chops and clubs, a caveman arsenal of a moveset, to focus on what truly matters: torturing the cock and balls of their opponent. Fujiwara is relentless with his groin targeting, finding every moment he can to stomp or punch Oya's nether regions. Oya tries to fight back "honorably" early on (as honorable as hitting a guy with a chair can be), but soon finds himself resorting to the same tactics. The match becomes a vortex of pain and suffering for those involved, as precious areas turn to mush and life becomes less about living and more about destroying. Even when the match ends, the fighting doesn't stop. Neither of them can just move on from something like this. Someone HAS to die.
Reining it in for a second, as I think I've gotten a little lost in my waxing. The best depiction of this match's ethos comes near the end of it, when Oya's cobra claw is countered by Fujiwara doing a cobra claw to his dick, and Ted Tanabe visibly corpses. This match absolutely does have that grittiness and tight, masterful work you'd want from these two, but it has so much more to offer. This isn't just a battle between masters because that'd be too easy for these guys. This is a match that takes your expectations and, for lack of a better phrase, punches them in the dick. It's one of the best group watch experiences I've ever had, from the early grappling that stunned us into silence to the postmatch backstage brawling that had us rolling on the floor.
Yeah, I guess this isn't the five star mat classic some would want from this pairing. Who gives a fuck? Have a little fun.
7. Riki Senshu & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Kintaro Kanemura & Tetsuhiro Kuroda (09/26/2010)
When I first plotted out this list, this match was much closer to the borderline. I had seen it twice at that point, and both times I came away thinking that, while it was great, it just lacked that something that would propel it farther up the list.
Then, I watched it for a third time (to write this review with it fresh on my mind), and I had the epiphany that it needed nothing else than what it already had.
Seriously, this match is kind of amazing. It's wrestling at its most basic storytelling-wise, with a strong face-heel dynamic and a match structure that feels more reminiscent of a local American indie's main event rather than any major matches in Japan. When I was semi-regularly going to indie shows in the West Tennessee area, I saw matches with this kind of construction at least three times on every show. That may partially be the reason why I devalued this match to begin with; a match like this feels like something I've seen hundreds of times before, so I have no reason to put it above matches that feel more unique.
It wasn't until the third watch that it dawned on me: this is a comfort food kind of match. Sure, I've seen something like it countless times, but I've enjoyed this kind of match every time, and this is that style done perfectly. Senshu and Fujiwara are situated as being entirely above Kanemura and Kuroda, to the point that both men actively run from Fujiwara early on, forcing them to respond with rule-bending and untold cruelty. And when it comes to cruelty, there are very few that do it better than team XWF.
It astounds me just how willing Fujiwara was to allow guys in RIKI OFFICE to target his stomach. I'm sure the look on Fujiwara's face every time he takes a shot to the gut is just worker magic; Fujiwara is one of the finest magicians after all. Even still, watching Fujiwara grimace in pain or gasp for air every time someone attacks where his cancer was is almost too much. It hurts your soul seeing scumbags take advantage of the one real weak spot on the old legend.
Senshu targeting the stomach in the last RIKI OFFICE match ever was a sign of moral failing on his part; that he would be willing to do so shows just how willing he was to sacrifice his own morals for the sake of ending RIKI OFFICE differently from how he started it. Kanemura and Kuroda are entirely different beasts, almost finding pleasure in putting the old man through some of the worst pain of his life. The chair guillotine on the stomach (by itself a pretty brutal spot) feels like something worth arresting them for, let alone when Kanemura starts hitting double stomps on Fujiwara.
Fujiwara and Senshu's eventual comebacks are as spirited as they are spectacular. From double submissions to Fujiwara's bloody headbutts, everything they do is so dramatic and explosive, and they have the hottest RIKI OFFICE crowd ever cheering them on the whole time. It's almost lightning in a bottle, the perfect environment for the most perfectly basic wrestling match.
Sometimes, you don't need shades of gray, or something beyond the realm of storytelling 101. You just have to give the people what they want.
6. Diablo vs. Hideaki Sumi (09/26/2010)
Sumi and Diablo had been going at each other's necks for the better part of a year, brawling around arenas and fighting it out with reckless abandon to a number of DQ finishes and no contests. Now, with the added bonus of a chain holding them together, they get to finally unleash months of building hatred on one another.
A lot of times, people will describe a match as a "fight for survival." This match feels more like a fight to make sure the other man doesn't survive.
I've already talked about things like heat and hatred in this post a lot, but man, this truly feels like hateful professional wrestling. There's multiple points in the match where Sumi stares at Diablo with such a crazed look in his eyes, like his absolute disgust for Diablo is driving him to the point of lunacy. In a way, Diablo is his white whale. Sumi's spent months trying to get his revenge to no avail, and now, with a chain around his neck, he's finally got Diablo where he wants him. The problem is that Diablo lives up to his name, and he spends much of this match ripping Sumi apart.
Beyond the ham-fisted Moby Dick comparisons, this is also easily the most territory-esque match in the entire history of the OFFICE. The match stipulation, the blood, the drama, the constant bullshit with interferences and referee bumps, and the explosive punchout comebacks of Sumi all work together to make this feel like Sumi and Diablo's own interpretation of those classic Mid-South brawls. Diablo's heat work is pretty monumental in that regard, throwing tons of nasty punches and using the chain to drag Sumi around like a ragdoll or choke the life out of him. Pretty much every big Diablo spot includes the chain in some way, whether it be yanking Sumi head-first into the ring post or wrapping the chain around his arm to hit a throat-crushing lariat. Sumi's own big moments tend to include the chain as well, like when he wraps it around his leg before kneeing Diablo in the head. Both men treat the chain exactly how they should treat it, giving it all the weight in the world every time they use it and allowing it to be the driving force behind the match's major points of progression.
There are certainly criticisms that could be made about the generally simple nature of the action, or the lack of complex and varied work. This is an incredibly punchy match, and everything else they do is pretty much in line with that kind of work. However, I think those criticisms would only be evidence of the critic not really "getting" the match. It's a brutal affair with two men hellbent on beating the other into unconsciousness. There's no point in asking for anything more, because really, what else could you want from a match like that?
5. Riki Senshu & Yuki Tanaka vs. Kenji Fukimoto & Hideaki Sumi (11/11/2007)
The closest RIKI OFFICE ever came to complete chaos.
From the moment Kenji Fukimoto materializes behind Riki Senshu to smash a chair against the back of his head as hard as humanly possible, this is pandemonium. Senshu and Tanaka fight their hearts out both for the sake of self-preservation and to try and destroy these two pieces of shit looking to take over Senshu's kingdom. Fukimoto and Sumi, meanwhile, just want to run roughshod over the OFFICE by any means necessary, and Fukimoto specifically has a score to settle with his decade-long rival and senior in the Kurisu camp back in the 90s.
Fukimoto and Sumi are an incredible team of lowlifes, even just from their appearances. Fukimoto has the tiniest bit of mullet growing in and one of those old Sukajan jackets, cementing himself as the king of the trailer park. Sumi is good company, as, while he's a legitimate and highly trained martial artist, the greased-back hair and general sleazy demeanor certainly paint him as the master of a Kansai McDojo. They work so damn well together too, seamlessly hitting double kicks on Senshu and hoofing Tanaka up for a dangerous assisted powerbomb. Their spike piledriver to Senshu looks like the type of thing to turn Senshu from a 5'10" to a 5'6", and that's just one of the four or five vertical-dropping moves hit on Senshu throughout the match.
One of the best parts of this match is just how spontaneous everything feels. There's at least three different moments where a wrestler just flies into frame to smash into someone else at high velocity, and everything feels so natural. The closest thing to coordination comes in the form of one member of a team directing the other to quickly set something up, like Senshu gripping Fukimoto up by the hair so Tanaka can hit him flush with a diving dropkick to the face, or Sumi sliding in a bunch of chairs so Fukimoto can piledrive Senshu onto them.
While the money pairing here is of course Senshu and Fukimoto, Sumi and Tanaka more than deliver in their parts of the match. Tanaka is a spitfire looking to prove his worth by landing nasty knees to the face and throwing elbows straight to the jaw, and he feels like a real threat rather than just being the match's designated fall man. Sumi, meanwhile, only a year into his wrestling career, already pretty much has it all figured out. He's throwing wild kicks and punches throughout all the crowd brawling, knows just the right moment to do his awesome corner choke, and puts enough strength into each kick that when he only uses one to break up a Sasori-Gatame, it feels justified.
For a company that gave us a lot of wild fights, this is easily the wildest of them all, and, in turn, one of my favorite wild brawls to come out of Japan in the entire decade.
4. Kintaro Kanemura vs. Yosuke Takii (12/13/2009)
In the OFFICE universe, Kintaro Kanemura is the big bad. He is pure evil in the form of a sweaty, greasy scumbag wearing clothes he hasn't washed since FMW died. Guys like Diablo and Fukimoto certainly pushed the envelope, taking cruelty to a level not many others would be willing to match, but Kanemura practically wrote the book on inhumanity. There's really nobody to rival him in that regard.
In this match, Yosuke Takii successfully fights fire with fire, which feels like an apt idiom to use since both men belong in hell for what they do here.
Takii comes into this match as a sword of vengeance, slashing at Kanemura with the kind of precision and force needed to take a life. The match itself feels like a demonstration of Takii's argument in favor of capital punishment being used on Kintaro Kanemura for his crimes against the OFFICE, where Takii places himself as judge, jury, and executioner. From the moment Takii rips the bandage off of Kanemura's forehead and starts punching him repeatedly in the open wound, all bets are off. Takii is here to punish Kanemura for his sins, beating him with a biblical kind of fury, great vengeance and furious anger, all that jazz.
Of course, Kanemura gets his licks back the only way he knows how: by escalating.
The first time I saw Kanemura stab Takii, it almost felt like I lost the ability to process what was going on. It took me a few seconds before I could even pause the video and rewind to see it again. It stunned all of us into a flurry of screams and yelps. Even on rewatch, seeing stab wounds appear all across Takii's face, blood pouring out like honey leaking from the comb, it almost doesn't feel real. RIKI OFFICE getting bloody was a pretty regular occurrence, but blood like this really only ever came around twice during the entire voyage (more on that later).
Somehow, even beyond this point, both men find ways to escalate. They continue to bomb on each other over and over again, each getting their moments to return the favor for whatever sort of torment the other put them through. Eventually, all you can do is just sit there slack-jaw'd, unable to critically analyze anything going beyond that point. At least, that's how it feels for me, and that's my excuse for a lack of deeper review on the latter half of the match. It's incredibly violent and compelling stuff, but the type of stuff that you can't put into words without explaining the spots themselves, and that doesn't feel like the right kind of analysis for a match like this.
This match is war. It's bloody, tragic, and just when you think it can't get worse, someone escalates in way nobody can back down from. The ring is just a battlefield for two people to forget the humanity of the person they face, as well as their own.
3. Riki Senshu vs. Yuki Tanaka FOLLOWED BY Riki Senshu & Hideaki Sumi vs. Yuki Tanaka & Dyna Mido (07/31/2011)
Yes. Technically speaking, these are two matches. The second match takes place almost immediately after the first, and I personally feel it's more akin to a match restart rather than a full-on separate match. Still, the record book shows to separate results, and the fact the second match features two entirely new participants may put a dent in my argument. You certainly have the right to view this inclusion as compromising my integrity and, as such, devaluing my list as a whole.
At the same time, this is my blog post, and I have the God-given right to do whatever the hell I want with it, so we'll just have to agree to disagree.
The stories of Yuki Tanaka and Dyna Mido are stories of strife and hardship. Two students of Masanori Ishikura left behind by their mentor to fight it out on the RIKI OFFICE undercards, scratching and clawing for every opportunity they can get. In the face of inevitability, they keep fighting anyways, doing anything they can to prove their worth before the OFFICE dies. This is their statement of existence.
Tanaka vs. Senshu is a battle from the moment the bell rings. Tanaka is constantly going for head kicks, trying his damndest to put Senshu down as fast as he can considering the undeniable gap between the two. The thing is, Senshu's scarily composed for a lot of this match. He has bursts of anger as usual, but really, this is almost more about pushing Tanaka to his limits than actually winning. Victory will come, but what matters is how far he can make Tanaka go to try and change the future. In that way, this feels almost dojo-esque, like one of those older Japanese dojo clips where the trainer is really taking things too far just to see how much fight his trainee has in him before he breaks. And Senshu absolutely tries to break him. Full force elbows to the jaw, straight up running punches, repeated superplexes. His Riki Lariats also keep getting more and more vicious, with the last one thrown with such force that it sends Tanaka flipping onto the top of his head.
On its own, the match between Tanaka and Senshu is already pretty great. It's a brutal fight where Tanaka tries his damndest to usurp the king, no matter how impossible that task may seem. If this is where it ended, there's a good chance this still would've ended up on the list, around the 13 or 14 mark.
Riki Senshu had other plans.
Dyna Mido gets thrown out of the ring for trying to check on Tanaka, and Senshu grabs a mic to deride both of their efforts, along with trash-talking Ishikura Dojo and their now-absent trainer. Senshu seemingly calls for one more match featuring both Mido and Tanaka, and Sumi appears from the back to join in, dressed in street clothes and talking even more smack than Senshu was. He talks so much smack that Dyna Mido snaps and starts brawling with him, leading to one more match between the four.
The reality of this second match is that it's a punishment. It's undeniably even more of a losing battle than Tanaka vs. Senshu ever was. Tanaka is barely breathing on the apron and Mido is still recovering from a beating Sumi gave him at the start of the show, while Sumi and Senshu look fresh as they can be. There's really no point to this match besides proving the pecking order in the company.
Still, Sumi and Mido fight their hearts out, because that's all they can do, and that's all they've ever done. Mido throws harder elbows than I've ever seen him throw before or since, and Tanaka lands one of the meanest Hirakata Cutters of his career. Senshu and Sumi are throwing headbutts and uppercuts and whatever else at the rookie duo but neither of them are willing to just go down. Considering only a few more shows remain on the RIKI OFFICE schedule, both probably already know this is their last chance in the main event. If they're gonna go down, at least they'll go down swinging.
It's a beautiful experience in that way. You can kill a man, but you cannot kill a man's spirit.
2. Riki Senshu, Masahiko Kochi, & Yosuke Takii vs. Kintaro Kanemura, Tetsuhiro Kuroda, & Yusaku Obata (09/27/2009)
Sometimes, you peak early.
The RIKI OFFICE vs. XWF feud is, as you can probably guess from how much I've talked about it, the best storyline the OFFICE ever did. A solid chunk of matches on this list have been taken from that feud, and two separate matches from the feud's conclusion have made it into the top 10. This isn't me claiming that the feud was only good at the start. The feud was great from start to finish, and everyone involved should be proud of every contribution they made.
They should just be extra proud for starting it off with a match at this level.
This is the exact kind of tag you want to see during an interpromotional feud. It's fast-paced and aggressive, with everyone having that "fuck you" energy towards their opponents that you need to really get across how much heat there is between the two promotions at hand. It's also structured perfectly, with just the right amount of bullshit to be a boon for the match rather than hamper it.
Every person in this match plays their role how they should. The heel team is here to curse and cheat and make everyone hate them, and they do a damn good job of that. Kuroda is constantly talking trash to the crowd, Obata is being an annoying little fly pestering all the faces, and Kanemura is the slimiest dirtbag on God's green earth, spitting at the crowd and using his trusty blade-on-a-stick to stab Takii all over his face. The face team, meanwhile, is a ball of fire every time they get an opportunity to go wild. Kochi is a great asskicking veteran coming in to hit big crunchy slams and hooking lariats, and Senshu is the hot tag in this match, coming in with the type of monstrous lariats fitting the occasion.
The standout of this match, though, is Yosuke Takii. He's the designated sufferer, here to bleed and sell for the crime of defending his home. And he bleeds. He bleeds like never seen in RIKI OFFICE, only really comparable to the other time Kanemura stabbed him a bunch in the face. In that match, Takii used that crimson mask to turn into a real demon of vengeance, but here, Takii is the face of innocence, practically begging for God or Riki Senshu to save him, whichever can do it faster. There's this amazing moment when Obata, arms covered in Takii's blood, slaps on a sleeper hold, and Takii immediately reaches out to Senshu across the ring, like if he can stretch his arms long enough he can make the tag. The crowd is in love with Takii the whole match and when he finally makes his big tag, it's one of the biggest pops of the whole night.
There is one more standout in this match, a seventh participant I've neglected to mention until now. That man is Yoshiaki Fujiwara, the special guest observer of the show. Fujiwara is at ringside watching everything take place, and you can see the rage on his face every time the XWF team bend the rules or exercise extreme cruelty on Takii. At one point he even stands off with Kanemura, taking his jacket off and getting ready to throw hands until Senshu talks him down. Fujiwara's eventual explosion in the face of a truly egregious ref bump is one of the coolest moments in the entire history of RIKI OFFICE, and immediately evolves Fujiwara from Senshu's on-and-off rival into his right hand man in the war against XWF.
If you enjoy interpromotional tags, you'll find a lot to love here. It's most likely the closest anything this millennium has come to matching the energy of the WAR vs. NJPW tags of the 90s. It's just that damn good.
1. Riki Senshu vs. Kenji Fukimoto (01/14/2008)
The one true RIKI OFFICE epic.
Longtime readers may recognize this match, as I talked about this match while covering the whole show a few years ago in what ended up being my only blog post concerning RIKI OFFICE until now. Since then, I've watched this match at least five more times, not including the two times I've watched it for this project. I've talked at length about it in numerous places, from this blog to Twitter to private Discord servers.
The reason I've talked about this match so much (beyond it being a genuinely amazing match) is because it was my entry point into RIKI OFFICE.
Way back at the start of this monstrosity of a blog post, I mentioned that my first Shiratori purchase was in 2022. This match, or rather the full show it occurred on, was one of the few RIKI OFFICE shows I got in that purchase. I didn't buy the DVD for Fukimoto and Senshu (although the match certainly had my interest), I bought the DVD for a KUDO match earlier in the card. This was the first DVD I watched as part of the purchase, too; the full show only ended up being 55 minutes due to all the matches cut, so it was an easy watch after a long day.
I'm not going to tell you I remember exactly how I felt after watching Senshu vs. Fukimoto, because I don't. Life was a blur around that point, and nothing was really going to change that. However, I do remember contacting basically every single person I knew in the deeper wrestling scene to tell them that something in my box of DVDs may have changed my entire view on the Osaka indie scene. I remember the first time I showed it to other people. I remember putting out that original RIKI OFFICE blog post and being so damn proud of it, less because of the writing (which was passable at best) but more because I felt like I was doing my part in making this match be something known. I felt like I wanted to shout to the high heavens that gold had been found in Kansai. I still feel this way! This why this comprehensive exists! My entire obsession with the Kansai indie scene and the workers within it can be traced back to my first experience watching this match.
In trying to write about Senshu vs. Fukimoto, I've repeatedly hit a brick wall. Every attempt at a deeper analysis has felt like too much, and every comparison or grand simile has felt like grasping at straws. It's really hard to compare this match to anything outside of wrestling, because, in a way, this match is pro wrestling, at least to me. It's a bloody and violent affair that punches you in the face and smashes you over the head with a chair. It's dramatic just to the point of avoiding melodrama, hitting all the right emotional notes without ever trying to drag them out. It's a story of faux sibling rivalry and deep-seated grudges and I can't help but think that somehow, someway, Riki Senshu and Kenji Fukimoto understood what wrestling actually is better than anyone else in their generation, at least for one night in 2008.
There's no point in treating this match like something else, especially when it's more fruitful to look at it for what it is. This match is RIKI OFFICE. This match is pro wrestling.
IN CONCLUSION or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying & Love The RIKI
What a journey this has been.
I have a lot of people to thank for this blog post (article? Think piece? Novella? Who's to say anymore). First and foremost, I want to give a massive thank you to Chris Yeelord, Joshie, JackCrimson, and Ciel for being with me for the entire voyage, along with a thank you to everyone that just popped in for a show or two. Lord knows I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the trip as much as I did if I was on my own.
Thank you to my good friend and fellow writer Ethan (Mac Pillars) for all of your advice during the writing process, along with the proofreading you did on this behemoth. You should've hopped into more RIKI OFFICE voice calls than you did! You would've loved Masahiko Kochi.
Similarly, I need to give my greatest thanks to another close friend and fellow writer, Seki. Not only were you there for EVERY single RIKI OFFICE show, but you also helped me a ton with your proofreading, suggestions, and general support. This post would have looked very different without your involvement. Also, you need to start writing again bitch! You're too good at writing to do it as little as you do. And hey, you were meant to be a writer on this very blog back when it started four years ago! If you ever wanna dip into the pro-wres writing world, there'll always be a spot open for your work on here, bud.
On a grander scale, I need to give my thanks, as always, to Tsubasa Shiratori, the man behind the production and sale of basically every match we talked about here. Similarly, a big thank you goes out to Riki Senshu for even running the promotion in the first place. If either of you somehow read this and find more RIKI OFFICE shows in the vault, just know that I am a fiscally irresponsible mark willing to shell out dollar bills for any more DVDs put up for sale.
Finally, thank you, the reader, for, well, reading all of this. Whether you skimmed the post in five minutes or actually worked your way thought this monster in however long it'd take to read it, just know that I appreciate you for giving my writing the time of day.
I'm not really sure what I'll be working on after this. I could just infrequently release Spitball Reviews for the foreseeable future. I might work on that Super Rider series I haven't touched since 2023. Who knows, maybe I'll do the Comprehensive Kana Pro in about three months. Only time will tell.
Until then, though, keep on keepin' on.
