FU*CK! 09/10/2006

         (Written by jom)

Magnum Oedo & X vs. Koryuki & X

    Oedo and Koryuki come to the ring before either of their teammates. Oedo's teammate is set to come out first and... IT'S PARA PARA KUMA-SAN!!! Oedo and Koryuki both fall to their knees in agony of knowing they will now have to try and do the Para Para Kuma-san pre-match dance. They both fail horribly at it. Next, Koryuki's teammate comes out and... IT'S RIKI SENSHU!!! Wait, Riki Senshu is already hanging out by the entrance way in normal clothes, and seems slightly confused. OH FUCK IT'S KORIKI SENSHU!!! Riki Senshu absolutely dies laughing at this. Koriki comes into the ring, poses, walks out of the ring, and then walks backstage. At this point, the camera pans to follow him and shows that just across the hall, there are karate lessons going on. This is FU*CK!.

    The actual match that follows all of this is pretty short. Koryuki and Oedo do some surprisingly solid wrestling before Koryuki gets double-teamed, leading to Koriki Senshu coming back to the ring, only to immediately get hit with a genuinely great missile dropkick from Oedo, getting Oedo and Kuma-san the win.

    I'm so happy I do this blog.

Rating:

Konaka = Pale One & Takasaki Monkichi vs. Shuri Kaira & Nojiri-kun

    Got very excited to watch this simply because I'm a big mark for Konaka, his whole weird bendy demon shit is so entertaining and he's just a genuinely very good professional wrestler underneath the terrifying gimmick. Monkichi is a monkey dude with a red baboon ass. Kaira is kinda just a rookie wrestler I guess, no clue what her deal is but I've heard of her before this and couldn't find any info on her. Nojiri-kun is a random dude in a diaper who walks around like he has no bones in his arms. This match feels deeply cursed just from the people involved.

    The actual action in the ring was alright, definitely higher quality than I expected for this match but still nothing particularly special. Monkichi pretty much entirely did monkey stuff while also just yelling at people like a normal dude, but towards the end he started spamming missed dives that were performed near-perfectly, his attempted swanton was a genuine beauty. Kaira was okay, when she was on defense or trying to grapple it wasn't good at all but she busted out a sweet rana and a great tilt-a-whirl headscissors. Nojiri was absolutely horrible in the ring, but almost in that Tobita way where how stiff and uncoordinated he acted kinda wrapped around to being endearing. He also took a gross DDT and no-sold it for absolutely no reason, as well as traded crawling shoot headbutts with Monkichi, so in my book he's alright. Konaka was, of course, the best wrestler in the match by far, and probably one of the best wrestlers all night. Everything he did was so crisp and polished, and all of his contortionist-type stuff was extremely impressive. At one point he started walking on his fucking knees, before he somehow does this:

    Eventually, the match broke down towards the end, with Kaira getting the win for her team with a nice diving crossbody.

    From the description of the match, you'd think that this was some top tier stuff like the match before it. However, unlike that phenomenal encounter, this match went longer than 5 minutes. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it probably went longer than 15 minutes, which is way too long for a match like this. I still enjoyed it a solid amount, but it sadly wasn't able to reach the Misawa-Kobashi levels of perfection the previous match did.

Rating: B-

Mammoth Handa vs. Shinigami Shuucho

    This was not only the debut of Shinigami Shuucho, but this was also the retirement match of Mammoth Handa. Handa is a FU*CK! legend, being the long-time holder of the FU*CK! U-30 Internatural Title, which was contested under the rules that once you got a pinfall or submission, you had to answer a trivia question correctly. Handa also once lost this title to Mitsuya Nagai at a DDT show, only for the title to be stripped from Nagai immediately after because he was above the age of 30. Shuucho comes out and just starts attacking fans with his tomahawk (his gimmick is some kind of undead Native American chief, which sounds pretty socially unacceptable because it definitely is, but FU*CK has never really been socially acceptable in the first place so I'm not shocked). Handa then comes out wrapped in barbed wire, looking like a no-budget version of the Terminator. Shuucho continues to attack the fans and generally be a menace while Handa makes his entrance.

    It makes me sad to say this, but I'm not sure if this match was good. I don't mean literally good quality wrestling (which was not something I expected from this), I just genuinely think this match was way too long with not enough constant good moments to make it worthwhile. Shuucho was fine, constantly throwing tomahawk chops and doing the stereotypical Native American mouth pat thing, but honestly outside of the times he was hitting Handa with literal tomahawks I was never really interested. Handa meanwhile did next to nothing in terms of offense, outside of no-selling some of Shuucho's offense he pretty much just took a beating the entire time. The only moments from the match I truly think were good were when they left the building and started fighting in a playground across the street, leading to this amazing moment:

    The finish of the match was at least sort of funny, as Shuucho climbed to the top rope and attempted to do a diving tomahawk attack but the tomahawk broke while climbing, leading to Shuucho just hitting Handa over the head with the wooden handle. He then started biting Handa's tummy, leading Handa to pass out, giving Shuucho the win.

    I talked about the last match going long. This one went over 20 minutes. I genuinely considered skipping to the ending at one point because I was so bored. Definitely not a great start to Shuucho's career, nor was it a good end to Handa's. Handa would have a retirement ceremony about a month later where he wrestled a few more people in a gauntlet style match. Luckily Handa would return within months, and eventually would become a genuinely good hoss-type wrestler for Sportiva, who he's still affiliated with to this day. Not at all the career path I was expecting, but good for him.

Rating: C-

Dragon Soldier LAW vs. X

    Dragon Soldier LAW is such a strange character in the world of Japanese wrestling. While he's spent his entire career working for some of the sleaziest of sleaze promotions, he's also been part of some insane matches, such as the time he and Kenny Omega brawled all around Tokyo in a genuinely awesome match. At this point however, he was fresh into wrestling, not even a year into his career. This was part of a trial series for him, and who would come to face him but none other than... KORIKI SENSHU!!! Riki Senshu is barely able to contain his laughter. DSL seemingly talks shit to Koriki immediately, leading to Koriki once again immediately leaving the ring. At this point, "The World" starts playing, AND HERE COMES MOTHERFUCKING KENSHIN! He immediately looks over to good friend Riki Senshu and inquires about the weird man that looks like him that just walked by in the hallway, which leads Riki to nearly fall out of his chair from laughing.

    This was pretty much what you would expect from a rookie facing off against the official Kensuke Sasaki tribute wrestler (not even joking here). KENSHIN absolutely pummels DSL for the entire match, with DSL only getting a limited amount of offense in. KENSHIN just layed into DSL with some hard slams, gross strikes, and particularly nasty lariats. 

    The few times DSL was able to get to fight back, he fought back pretty hard, and the crowd was chanting "ISH!" for every strike he threw. Too bad for him, he was fighting against the tribute act of one of the kings of wrecking rookies, so KENSHIN sold next to nothing. Eventually, KENSHIN locked in a pretty nasty high angle crab, leading to his victory.

    Unlike the last two matches which went way too long, this match only went a little bit too long. DSL was genuinely pretty entertaining during it, with the crowd firmly behind him even if he was the heel and his victory was all but guaranteed to never come. KENSHIN is the official Kensuke Family tribute wrestler for a reason, with all his Kensuke moves being done to near perfection. Overall, a solid match between these two, but nothing too noteworthy.

Rating: C+

Different Style Rules: Kenji Fukimoto vs. Hideaki Sumi

    Two months before this show, Sumi made his debut in FU*CK! by attacking Fukimoto and Takuya Fujiwara, declaring that karate is far superior to professional wrestling. Now, Fukimoto is here to take on Sumi in a DIFFERENT STYLE FIGHT~! and defend the honor of pro wrestling. If you know anything about the very early 90s Japanese wrestling scene, this is probably a storyline that doesn't seem new, since this is pretty much what Masashi Aoyagi did for the first couple years of his career. That's not to say this story is bad though, as I personally think it fucking rules. Fukimoto is out here with Konaka and two guys in J2K shirts (the promotion/dojo that acted as a precursor to FU*CK!), while Sumi comes out with one guys in a shirt for some gym and gi pants.

    The first round is pretty evenly matched overall, with Sumi getting some of combos in and Fukimoto taking back the advantage with some real viciousness, at one point catching a kick and just going to town on Sumi with headbutts. Once the round ends, Fukimoto gets a cheap shot in before returning to his corner. Once the 2nd round begins, Sumi tries to rush in and take the advantage immediately with another violent combination, only for Fukimoto to do this:

    After hitting this absolutely fucked spike capture suplex, Fukimoto is in total control for the rest of the round. He dominates Sumi with some hard stretches and strikes, eventually pushing him outside the ring and laying into him with a chair. Sumi does get some moments of standing on equal ground, especially on the outside of the ring where a real hidden violence from him is starting to appear, but Fukimoto still stays in control. When the round ends, Fukimoto and Sumi both return to his corner. Fukimoto is calm, ready to get into the third round. Sumi... is not. Something in Sumi is telling him that he can't let Fukimoto get away with the chair shots and the cheap shots. Something in Sumi is telling him that Fukimoto is disrespecting karate, and nobody is allowed to disrespect karate. Something in Sumi... snaps.

    Once Fukimoto's cornermen are able to pry Sumi off of him, Fukimoto is absolutely gushing blood. He's dazed and confused, but out of a stubborn refusal to admit defeat, tells the ref to move ahead with the 3rd round. This is a horrible decision. Sumi is relentless with his attack on Fukimoto, absolutely pummeling him from the second the bell rings. This culminates in an absolutely merciless combination from Sumi, which downs Fukimoto.

    Fukimoto is able to get up just before the ref counts 10, but the ref and someone else calls for a momentary pause to the match. They check Fukimoto... and the bell rings. The ref deems Fukimoto unfit to compete, suffering from heavy blood loss and only choosing to continue out of instinct rather than being fit to keep fighting. Sumi and Fukimoto refuse to listen, continuing to fight past the bell ringing. The cornermen get involved and fight too. Sumi talks massive shit about pro wrestling leading one of the J2K guys to rip his shirt off and try to choke out Sumi. Absolute pandemonium from the moment the bell rang to the moment Sumi walks off camera to the back.

    I feel like I say this nearly every review, but this time it is absolutely genuine. I believe this is the best match I've seen so far, and it's definitely a step above the last two matches to make me say that. Both guys went absolutely nuts with the violence in this match, and there was so much pressure the entire time. I felt like at any point the cornermen would just rush in and start a massive brawl. The finish was definitely controversial, and maybe I think a clearer finish would've been better just because the match would've gone longer. But my god, it definitely worked. As far as I know, they never had a rematch, which absolutely fucking sucks because this match was a genuine classic in the Different Style Fight genre. A true spiritual successor to the Heisei Ishingun/Seishin Kaikan wars of the early 90s.

Rating: A

Ultraman Robin vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

    After such an insane match, the only way you could follow it up is with a battle between two legends. Fujiwara is one of the greatest wrestlers of all time. Maybe the greatest technical wrestler in history, with some of the greatest headbutts and slaps of all time to boot. One of the best parts of the original two UWFs, as well as tons of early NJPW. In terms of his contributions outside of wrestling, we have him to thank for pretty much all of the original Pancrase and Battlarts guys. Even to this day, he can push out a solid match. Ultraman Robin is decidedly not Yoshiaki Fujiwara, but he does deserve his own set of flowers. A long-standing pillar of the lower Japanese wrestling scene, while also possibly being the innovator of the "monster match", a format used to great success by guys like Ryuma Go and Survival Tobita. While he's definitely had some very poor performances in the past, in his prime he was a genuinely pretty well-rounded technician who could bust out some truly insane maneuvers (I've seen him hit the Scott Steiner backflip slam, genuinely don't understand how he was able to do it either). While he's definitely exiting his prime at this point, he's still more than up to the challenge of meeting Fujiwara.

    ...I say that, but Robin got absolutely dogwalked in this match. Fujiwara spent the entire match just stretching him out hard and laying in some truly brutal strikes (at one point even headbutting Robin so hard that he bust himself open). Just to demonstrate how much of a different level he was on, Fujiwara made it his mission in this match to see how many times he could make Robin tap out before the ref ended the match. How did he do this? Very simply. He, at many points through the match, told the ref to look at the crowd for whatever reason. The second the ref would turn around, Fujiwara would wrench back with full force on whatever hold he had applied to Robin. Robin would immediately tap out, and Fujiwara would only release the pressure of the hold when the ref started to turn back around. I'm not joking, this was some genuine menace type shit. While Robin did get a few moments of reprieve (to which the crowd would absolutely rejoice), Fujiwara made sure Robin was aware of who the better wrestler was at all times.

    Eventually, Robin would finally tap out in front of the ref to a Fujiwara armbar. Fujiwara would seemingly show respect to Robin afterwards for being able to actually hang with him for some of the match, only to let go of the handshake and shoot headbutt him one final time as a parting gift. The camera actually followed Fujiwara to the back, with Konaka following him, and in a rare moment of Konaka breaking character, you can hear him marking out with the cameraman at the fact he was walking next to Fujiwara.

    Overall, this was honestly pretty fun, and a good way to end the show. Robin was never going to win, and turning that into a story like the one told in the match was a really cool way to go about it. It didn't outstay its welcome either, and the few times Robin was able to get in control the match actually maintained my interest entirely. A solid way to conclude this legendary event. Long Live FU*CK!.

Rating: B+

K-WEST 02/18/2010

         (Written by jom)

    K-WEST was a sub-promotion run by K-Dojo wrestlers SATOSHI and Tadanobu Fujisawa, meant to be the K-Dojo equivalent for the Kansai region (to the west of Chiba, K-Dojo's home). It was officially endorsed by TAKA himself, and they held dojo matches once a month. I'm not really sure how long the promotion ran for, but the latest I can find for one of their shows is 2011. It's closed down nowadays, but lives on through its spiritual successor, Fujisawa's Bukotsu promotion.

TAKA Michinoku vs. Jun Masaoka

    TAKA Michinoku needs no introduction, an all-star junior who's been all over the world, and in terms of K-Dojo he's responsible for training some of the best wrestlers of the 21st century. While Masaoka might be pretty well known nowadays, doing work for GLEAT and other major indies, this is Masaoka not even a year into wrestling, having only joined local indy fed Manyo Pro a few months prior to this.

    This had a pretty obvious "young boy gets dogwalked by vet" match style going into it just by looking at the participants, and they ended up following it to a T. Masaoka at this point really had nothing going for him besides being able to do a solid dropkick. TAKA meanwhile seemed very aware of the fact there were at most 20 people in the building, so he phoned it in hard. I wasn't expecting this to be some kind of classic, but it was disappointing to see just how little effort TAKA put into this. TAKA ended of winning (of course) with the Just Facelock.

    This match wasn't really bad or anything, but it wasn't good either. A perfectly nothing match, which honestly I should've seen coming considering Masaoka was so early into his career.

Rating: C

Sawako Shimono vs. HARU

    Speaking of people who are early into their career, here's Sawako Shimono! While she's best known nowadays as the owner of Osaka Joshi Pro and Rina Yamashita's trainer, here she was just a total rookie. In fact, Shimono had her official debut one month after this match, so technically she hasn't even debuted as a pro wrestler at this point. HARU meanwhile is mostly a mystery, but seems to have been a member of Hiroaki Moriya's J2000 promotion.

    Whenever these "pre-debut exhibition" matches happen, usually the quality of the match entirely depends on how well the more experienced wrestler can keep the match flowing. Mistakes are expected from the rookie, so it's up to the vet to make sure those mistakes don't entirely derail the match. In this match, HARU wasn't able to do that at all. She was fine doing her own moves, like throwing some thudding forearms and hitting a pretty awesome running senton, but she consistently messed up the execution of her own moves, which is really not something you'd want happening when you're facing a rookie. Shimono was shockingly good for someone who hadn't even debuted yet, hitting a few running knees that looked pretty sweet. This match really fell apart towards the end though. HARU hit a crossbody on Shimono and had her down for the 3 count, but for whatever reason the ref didn't count the 3 and the match continued. Immediately after this, HARU sloppily hit a Vader bomb, and once again the ref just chose not to count the 3. The bell rang anyways though, confusing pretty much everyone. The ref and the wrestlers just went with the flow and acted like the pinfall was in fact a clear 3 count.

    This was really rough, and not in the good way. You can clearly see that both HARU and Shimono have the potential to do some really good stuff, but that just wasn't the case here. The match was already not that good up to the finishing stretch, and the ref fucking up two separate pinfalls really didn't help to bring it back.

Rating: C-

SATOSHI vs. OLA

    SATOSHI and OLA are two guys that I genuinely know next to nothing about. SATOSHI seemingly worked K-Dojo pretty sparingly for a few years and now wrestles for Bukotsu but OLA is entirely a mystery. For some reason, going into this match I had a good feeling that this would be solid, and I guess I can see the future because I ended up being right.

    Both guys worked this match extremely tightly, with some nice limb work done by both guys (OLA targeting SATOSHI's leg and SATOSHI targeting OLA's arm). SATOSHI's striking was also very notably good, throwing some real hard bombs throughout the match (OLA's striking was solid, but definitely not at SATOSHI's level). Probably the best strike thrown by SATOSHI the entire match was this beauty of a dropkick, which made such a gross sound upon connecting with OLA.

    I will admit however, this match wasn't all great, as whenever OLA was in control the match did lose some steam. While the work he was doing was solid, it just wasn't kept interesting a lot of the time. SATOSHI also could be a little bit boring but was definitely much better in keeping me engaged. Eventually, SATOSHI hit a really nice northern lights suplex into a kimura for the win.

    Overall, this was a nice tightly worked match between two guys who seemed to be pretty solid wrestlers just from this match. OLA is fine and I'd enjoy seeing more of him, but SATOSHI I'll definitely be looking out for in the future.

Rating: B-

Yoshihiro Kawaguchi & Southern Cross vs. Bull Armor TAKUYA & Mahoroba

    For two reviews in a row, it is Bull Armor time. TAKUYA is back, teaming with Kansai indy stalwart Mahoroba to take on the team of Riki Office's Kawaguchi and Southern Cross. I honestly know very little about Southern Cross, but I've seen his name pop up a few times while looking for DVDs.

    This wasn't good. Usually I leave statements like that for the end of the review but I honestly don't have a ton to talk about. TAKUYA was the definite highlight of the match, dressed like Survival Tobita and throwing mean chops and hard lariats. He even did some of his signature flexing spots which I'll always love. Mahoroba was fine, nothing special from him but nothing especially bad either. Kawaguchi and Cross completely sucked. Kawaguchi seemed a lot worse off than we last saw him in Riki office, as while he still seemed to be solid overall he kept messing up his own moves, the biggest example being when he sloppily applied a cross armbar which made me particularly mad considering the way he set it up looked awesome in concept. Southern Cross might not have any redeeming qualities in this match, nothing he did sparked interest in me at all and he generally coming off like he had never wrestled a day in his life. The match eventually ended with TAKUYA hitting a botched thunder fire powerbomb, but I did kinda like how it ended up even if it was clearly unintentional.

    I'm not entirely sure just how long this match went, but I remember feeling like it had gone 30 minutes. In actuality, it definitely didn't go past 15. I'm once again happy to see more TAKUYA but I wouldn't be opposed to not seeing much else from the other 3.

Rating: C-

Kazuki Niimura vs. Tadanobu Fujisawa

    Kazuki Niimura was a JWA Kansai wrestler who also worked a little bit of Osaka Pro, and although that's really all I can find about him in terms of information he did come out with a very awesome theme song so I was pretty much ready to be a fan of him from the start. Tadanobu Fujisawa meanwhile is a Kurisu trainee, which meant I immediately was ready to be a fan of his as well. After the last four matches left a lot to be desired, I had not much hope for this match in terms of overall quality. I guess they were saving the best for last though, because this fucking ruled.

    From the start, both guys worked with a level of intensity that no other match had even come close to having. While the OLA/SATOSHI match was definitely pretty tightly worked, this one was worked even tighter, with Niimura and Fujisawa throwing some real heavy hits for the entirety of the match. Niimura really came off as an unsung technical star here, doing some great grappling as well as throwing some awesome strikes. Most notably however, his suplexes were absolutely astounding, with the snap gutwrench suplex shown below being one of the best moves done throughout the whole show.

    That's not to say Fujisawa didn't deliver on his half of the match. Far from it, I honestly believe he did even better than Niimura did. He was an absolute menace with all his striking, throwing some absolutely gross forearms and headbutts, as well as doing some nasty boot scrapes. He also hit one of the best spears I've seen in a good bit, with it almost turning into a spinebuster on the way down. Probably my favorite move he did all match though was this absolutely disgusting sliding knee. It was definitely extremely basic, but it absolutely worked through how vicious it was, and the way it was executed really sold how much of a drag-out brawl the match had become.

    And then came the finish. To preface this, I had originally tried to do research on a number of wrestlers from this show before watching, and Niimura's cagematch profile had one interesting note. In the tidbits section, they listed that in February of 2010, Niimura had gotten a cervical spine injury while wrestling, leading to his immediate retirement. I'm not sure why, but for some reason, it just didn't click with me that this match was taking place in February of 2010. Fujisawa picked up Niimura and hit a gnarly single underhook impaler DDT, and Niimura didn't move an inch for the rest of the tape. Fujisawa pretty clearly saw that there was something wrong, and after hitting the lightest of stomps to test if Niimura would sell (to which he did not), he immediately told the ref to check him, which resulted in the match being called off entirely. After this a really gruesome scene plays out, with TAKA and a few others coming out from the back to help Fujisawa with trying to help Niimura and get him medical attention. The only thing I can compare this to is the Misawa footage, and even though I knew that Niimura didn't meet that same fate, I was genuinely horrified for him. 

    I sadly haven't been able to find any info at all on how he's doing today, but at the barest minimum there's been no word that he was paralyzed or killed by the move. This was a really depressing end to an amazing match. Honestly, up to the finish, this was nearing the level of the Fukimoto/Senshu brawl in terms of amazing wrestling. Everything was so violent, the match flowed perfectly, and just in general everything worked. If you can handle bad injuries I think this is absolutely worth watching, as although this was Niimura's final match it was also one of the best matches I've ever seen from the sleaze scene. It's absolutely worth your time to appreciate just how great of a wrestler this guy was, along with how good Fujisawa is.

Rating: A- 

Atsushi Maruyama Produce 01/18/2015

         (Written by jom)

Kazuaki Mihara vs. Katsumi Oribe

    Two of Maruyama/Tigers Mask's trainees square off to start the show. Oribe is nicknamed "Karate Boy" and comes out in satin pants with a gi belt design on them. This irrationally infuriates yet greatly intrigues me. Mihara meanwhile is out with with an absolutely insane mohawk and looks about 50 lbs heavier than he is today, so good on him for getting fitter.

    Sadly, this match has less to talk about once the bell rings than before it even started. Mihara was fine as the one in control, doing some okay power moves and throwing some kinda hard chest chops. Oribe just wasn't that good though. He only threw a few kicks throughout the entire match and, while fine, none of them seemed good enough to warrant literally being nicknamed "karate boy". The rest of the time he threw some meh chest chops. Finish was solid with Mihara barreling through Oribe with a nice lariat before hitting a well-executed landslide for the win.

    Not that good of a match, I guess it worked as an opener but genuinely, I can only sum up my feelings on Katsumi Oribe with one image.

Rating: C-

Bull Armor TAKUYA vs. Naoshi Sano

    Not many better ways to rebound from a disappointing match than with Naoshi motherfuckin Sano baby. Sano's one of my favorite sleaze indy guys, able to do some genuinely good wrestling when he's in the zone but almost always entertaining regardless. Bull Armor TAKUYA is a guy I only saw for the first time a few days ago, but Chris can vouch for me when I say that he's pretty sweet. He was in a battle royale from a 2007 Riki Office show and at one point did an MDickie running flex taunt into a corner splash, which immediately made him one of Chris' top sleaze boys. However, that was 2007, and this is 2015. In 2007 TAKUYA was absolutely jacked, but here he looks more like Akebono than Chris Masters. This may sound like a negative, but, as my friend Ciel put it:

    In terms of the actual match, it ended up being a pretty fun one. TAKUYA and Sano both have their own bits that they like to do, and more often than not those bits meshed pretty well, such as when Sano would do his "not a powerful wrestler" bit combined with TAKUYA's "extremely powerful wrestler and also evil laugh" bit. TAKUYA has not only gained weight in the last 8 years, but has also seemingly lost brain cells, because he was just going absolutely insane during the match. At one point he started like yelling and swinging his arms around, with both of them ending up in a flex pose. He then went completely silent for about 3 seconds before starting to do his weird evil laugh thing and ran in place for 10 seconds. I'm not entirely sure what this bit is meant to be but credit to him for the creativity. 

    The actual wrestling during this match wasn't particularly great or anything, but it was totally serviceable for the type of match they were doing. TAKUYA throws some real thunderous chops a few times, and Sano is more than game to do a little bit of hard striking of his own. TAKUYA also does a pretty sweet Vader bomb at one point, but soon after would get rolled up by Sano, resulting in Sano's victory.

    While this wasn't anything special in terms of the "action", this match still ended up being a lot of fun thanks to the really enjoyable personalities of the two involved. Comedy can be hit or miss for me but this was definitely a hit.

Rating: B-

Osamu Suganuma & Kuishinbo Kamen vs. Takoyakida & Otoko Sakari

    Y'know how I literally just said "comedy can be hit or miss for me"? Well, hello Otoko Sakari. Glad you could be here to demonstrate the latter option. If you don't know, Otoko Sakari is the comedy gimmick of the legendary Alexander Otsuka, one of my personal GOATs and an undeniably amazing wrestler in his prime. Otoko Sakari, meanwhile, fucking stinks. I've never been a fan of someone's whole gimmick being based around their private areas and gross-out humor, so whenever I see genuine all-timer Otsuka trying to force people to eat his gross ass through a loincloth, it just makes me really sad that I'm not watching him do actually cool stuff. Anyways, there's three other people in this match, including Kuishinbo Kamen (an example of good comedy wrestling!).

    I don't have a ton of notes for this match because sadly, about half of it was Sakari spots, and I just cannot bring myself to note down every time he presented his asshole to an audience member. Takoyakida wasn't great either, as he pretty just did a "funny haha" voice and pointed at his ass a few times. He might've done more but he was so nothing in the entire match I can't remember. I will say that in terms of good comedy, Suganuma and Kamen brought it in spades. Suganuma is of course the 3rd Ebessan (after Kikutaro and Flying Kid Ichihara), so he's able to do some pretty fun comedy spots such as trying to hit a running senton only to fly about 5 feet off target. Kamen is of course the best part of this match, a genuine all-time great of the comedy wrestling genre. He was an absolute dickhead this entire match, pummeling Takoyakida with closed fists and low blows. This of course culminated in maybe my favorite spot of the whole match, where Kamen does this:

What an asshole!

    Unsurprisingly, the actual wrestling was pretty solid as well. Both Kamen and Suganuma are pretty damn good in the ring, with Kamen continuing to be impressively agile over 20 years into his career at this point, and Suganuma doing some pretty cool moves as well. Takoyakida was fine, about as forgettable as a wrestler as he was as a comedian though. The most impressive/depressing part of this match was definitely Sakari, as shockingly, he could seemingly still go at this point. Maybe it was because he didn't have to work at the usual hard pace he does, but he was able to pull off the best giant swing I've ever seen him do in the 2010s. This is depressing because it happened in an Otoko Sakari match, meaning almost immediately after this he went back to trying to force his opponents to eat his ass. The match ended soon after with Suganuma hitting a genuinely great Musou for the victory.

    I think that when you look at this match outside of the Otoko Sakari stuff, it was actually kinda good. Kamen and Suganuma were both really enjoyable, and Takoyakida was perfectly fine as the guy taking all of their cool moves. However, the Otoko Sakari stuff was at least half of the entire match, and it wouldn't be right to not consider just how bad and even boring some of it made the overall match. If you enjoy that type of comedy I guess this match would be up your alley but my god I just can't bring myself to like it.

Rating: C-

Magnitude Kishiwada, Tadasuke, & Shuji Ishikawa vs. Naoki Sakurajima, Mineo Fujita, & HUB

    After three matches that ranged from meh to flat-out bad, I really needed to see something that made sitting down for this tape worth it. This match had made me excited from the second I saw it listed on the show, so going into this I was hoping that this would be the match to help me recover my drive and push me to actually stick around the the main event. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed in myself though. Why would I ever doubt that this match would kick ass?

    Not a single person in this match did a bad job on this night. Genuinely, I think every person delivered what they were meant to deliver. Sakurajima was the whipping boy for the face team, taking the brunt of the major offense and being targeted by a particularly malicious Kishiwada for most of the match, which only lead to his eventual comeback against Kishiwada being that much more impactful. Fujita was also doing great as a whipping boy in this match, albeit he got significantly more offense in. Fujita's a guy that I have extremely mixed feelings on, as on one hand he's an extremely talented juniors guy who was quite possibly the greatest WMF trainee out of the few to come out of the promotion. On the other hand, he's fully committed himself nowadays to his "EROTIC VIOLENCE" gimmick, and as said before, gimmicks based around cock and balls just aren't my thing. He's a perfect example of an exceptional wrestler who completely squanders any interest I'd have in him because he has a stupid, gross gimmick. In this match though, that isn't the case, as while he's near the peak of his wrestling abilities he also hasn't taken on the gimmick of a pervert yet so he's significantly more enjoyable. Tadasuke was pretty similar to Fujita in this match actually, being the clear whipping boy for the face team while also acting as a good spoiler, shutting down different comeback attempts. I think he definitely performed at a lesser level than he could, but that was less because of his own efforts and more because he just wasn't the center of attention at any point really.

    In terms of the best performances though, that mark definitely goes to HUB and Shuji Ishikawa. HUB was undeniably the best part of the face team, hitting all his usual spots to perfection. I'm a sucker for moves involving grey-area weaponry, and HUB's tail whip is maybe the best of that category. He's also just a genuinely amazing juniors wrestler, and even at one point hits an insane diving senton onto Kishiwada and Tadasuke stacked on top of each other. However, the best wrestler not only on the heel team, but in the entire match, was for sure the big dawg. He actually acted as the backbone for the entire match, guiding the ebbs and flows with his actions and consistently being the one to push the match forward positively, keeping it from entering into flat-out move spamming or losing heat. Ishikawa is also just one of the best of his style, and he was in full-form on this night, doing some insane power moves like a stun gun to Fujita where he threw him like a lawn dart into the ropes. He also popped off multiple of his disgusting knees, culminating in this absolutely nutty one to Fujita:

    Soon after this, the faces were able to get the advantage, with Tadasuke eventually being put down for the 3 count after being hit with a swanton bomb from Fujita followed by a beautiful frog splash from HUB.

    This was an absolute barn-burner of a match. It's honestly hard to say more than that. It went almost 20 minutes, yet at no point do I think it felt like it was going long. Every person got their moment to shine, and even if I think Tadasuke should've gotten a little bit more in the match, overall this is still one of the best 6-man tags I've seen in a very good bit of time. A wonderful palette cleanser of a match in preparation for the main event.

Rating: A-

Atsushi Maruyama vs. Daisuke Sekimoto

    For anyone that doesn't know, Atsushi Maruyama is the real name of one Tigers Mask, a common fixture of the Osaka scene. In all honesty, I've always been split on Maruyama. I think that while he's definitely talented in the ring and is a good lucharesu guy, I've always felt that his strikes left a lot to be desired, and his "Tigers Suplex" is one of the worst tiger suplexes I've ever seen. However, Sekimoto is a true future Hall of Famer (for whatever Hall of Fame he'd be able to be entered in) so I had faith that even if Maruyama shit the bed, Sekimoto would make sure this match was still at least good. In good news though, Sekimoto totally didn't need to carry the match, as Maruyama very much held up his side of the encounter.

    The match's overall story was pretty good. Maruyama spent a lot of time attacking the limbs of Sekimoto, throwing some hard strikes at the legs while primarily focusing on targeting the right arm of the muscle monster. He threw some genuinely nasty kicks to it, as well as pulling out some pretty nice submissions like a tight kimura. He also was able to pull off some pretty cool maneuvers, like countering a lariat by backflipping before locking in a tight manji-gatame. Sekimoto was in peak form here, continuing to show why his mid-10s were probably the best years of his entire career. He absolutely obliterated Maruyama with some mean chops and forearms, and also threw Maruyama around like a child with some insane suplexes. Of these suplexes though, none of them were as impressive as his outside-in deadlift german suplex, where he seemed to pick up Maruyama so casually that I genuinely didn't register that he was lifting him until he was actually starting to suplex Maruyama.

    In terms of criticisms, this match definitely was not perfect. Maruyama was hit-or-miss with some of his strikes, the biggest miss being his high kicks. Maybe it was because his low and mid-kicks were so vicious, but when he started throwing ultra-light thigh-slappy high kicks at Sekimoto, I genuinely lost interest in the whole Maruyama control segment. Also, for a lot of the earlier portion of the match Maruyama depended a lot of some pretty boring rest holds. Sekimoto isn't exempt from criticisms either, as the end of the match, while good, entirely ignored the last 90% of the match. Sekimoto was able to take control from Maruyama and started to just hit all his big match-enders, throwing two nasty lariats before hitting his beautiful deadlift german suplex for the win. While this finish was sweet in isolation, it entirely ignored the 10 or so minutes of Maruyama hyper-focused on the right arm of Sekimoto (the arm that Sekimoto hit those last few lariats with mind you). I'm not saying that Sekimoto shouldn't have hit his ending combination, because it was awesome. All I'm saying is that if that was what the ending was going to be, maybe working over his right arm wasn't the best move.

    Overall, this was a really good match between two guys who had enough chemistry to make going 20+ minutes mostly work. While I have gripes with the ending and some of Maruyama's offense choices, I can't deny that he performed well overall and definitely exceeded my expectations. Was this match better than the one before it? Absolutely not. But it told its own story and at bare minimum, I'll be thinking about that outside-in german for a while.

Rating: B

Riki Office 01/14/2008

        (Written by jom)

Yoshihiro Kawaguchi vs. KUDO

    This first match features probably the most well-known guy on the whole show, as DDT stalwart KUDO takes on Senshu trainee Yoshihiro Kawaguchi. 

    Honestly not a ton to say about this, KUDO was able to get a lot of his spots in which I like considering KUDO's spots fucking rule, and Kawaguchi ranged from inoffensive to genuinely pretty good, hitting a real nice STO at one point. KUDO finished the match with his gnarly double knee stomp while Kawaguchi was in a tree of woe, usually I'm not a fan of this spot but it made sense since it was done as a counter to Kawaguchi attempting a superplex. 

    Overall not a great match, hell I wouldn't even call it particularly good, but it served its purpose and both guys looked pretty good.

Rating: C+

Hideaki Sumi & Iori Sugawara vs. Masaru Kawakubo & Tomoki Chiba

    DIFFERENT STYLE~! Love anytime a match is based around two distinct styles facing off, in this case Sumi and Sugawara are very much karate fighters (Sugawara specifically represents "Evil Karate" which is just amazing) and Kawakubo and Chiba are total spitfire indy guys willing to throw down with the karatekas they're facing off against. And my god, do they throw down. Real early on Chiba throws a few particularly hard forearms at Sumi, and Sumi responds with some disgusting punches to the face and a gross midkick, setting the pace for this match really well. 

    Sumi is so great here, he really comes off like if Murakami chose to pursue karate instead of judo, with some greatly cruel offense combined with some great shit talking. I of course can't understand what he's saying exactly, but the tone of everything he says is just so damn mean, as shown below:

    Sugawara is pretty good in this too, definitely not as enjoyable as his partner but still very good. He also threw a gross shoot headbutt at one point which means I automatically have to be a fan to a certain level. Kawakubo was pretty okay here, nothing too special from him but he had some hard strikes when it was his time to be on offense. Chiba was absolutely awesome, throwing some bombs anytime he could get any semblance of control, and he even hit Sumi with an absolutely nasty spear to turn the match's momentum around. Sadly, the finish was actually missed by the camera who was concentrating on Kawakubo and Sumi brawling on the outside, but that didn't hurt the match overall too bad. 

    There were some pacing issues, with one particular section of walking and brawling having a ton more walking than brawling and really killing the momentum of the match up to this point. However, overall, this was still a lot of fun and I'm really excited to see more from all these guys, especially Sumi and Chiba.

Rating: B

Riki Senshu vs. Kenji Fukimoto

    Going into this match, I had a weird combination of high hopes and low expectations. Tribute wrestlers can be hit or miss and I'm honestly not even the biggest Choshu fan to begin with, and Fukimoto can be a fun deathmatch guy but he's not someone I usually particularly like in singles action. At the same time, both of these guys are proteges of Masanobu Kurisu, one of the most evil wrestlers ever (as well as a personal GOAT of mine), so I still held out hope that maybe they would channel that hatred Kurisu had in all his matches. As god as my witness, they channeled that hate even more than I could've expected, and at the same time delivered one of the most compelling matches I've ever seen from the sleaze scene.

    Early on, they enter into a pretty solid feeling-out process, where you get the vibe that in pretty much every way, Senshu is the better wrestler. He's stronger, he's smarter, he's even got the home-field advantage. While Fukimoto is on a lower level in pretty much every way, the one thing he has over Senshu is his insane pain tolerance, as well as his ability to frequently turn situations around in his favor. Therefore, this match is entirely going to be based around how long Fukimoto can last against the dominant Senshu, and if he'll ever be able to get a big enough break to snag the win.

    I say all of this, but very soon after this feeling-out process concludes both guys go outside and just start obliterating each other with chairs. Genuinely some of the most sickening chair attacks I have ever seen, truly living up to their mentor's legacy as the Chairman. Even with Fukimoto being the more hardcore-oriented wrestler, Senshu absolutely dominates him with this chair, smashing the edges into Fukimoto's head and even causing Fukimoto to smash his own head into the post at one point. When Fukimoto is able to take control he delivers some equal levels of violence, along with doing some great chair-included moves like a front dropkick and a piledriver. At some point, both guys start bleeding pretty hard, really adding so much to how intense this all felt.

    When they're both able to get back in the ring and start working spots, they really excel at that too, with Senshu showing just how great of a Choshu tribute wrestler he is by pulling off all the regular Choshu spots to perfection. Fukimoto also does great here, hitting a ton of great brawler stuff like piledrivers and powerbombs. Eventually, this build-up of violence culminates in one of the most insane apron spots I've ever seen, as Senshu hits a releasing Choshu-style back suplex on Fukimoto, with Fukimoto smashing the small of his back directly onto the apron before crashing hard to the floor below.

    The actual finish of the match is fucking phenomenal. Earlier in the match, Senshu went for one of his great Riki lariats, only for Fukimoto to pull out a really awesome counter into a backslide, getting mere milliseconds away from stealing the win. Once both guys get back in after that apron spot, Senshu once again goes for the Riki lariat, only for Fukimoto to once again try and counter it the same way. At this point though, Fukimoto is absolutely fucked, and doesn't have the strength to go all the way with the move, so Senshu just swings him out in front of him and hits a gnarly short-range Riki lariat.

    Senshu is finally able to lock in the Sasori-Gatame after this and Fukimoto passes out from all the pain he's endured in the match, resulting in Senshu's victory.

    This match was insane. Both guys were merciless throughout with their strikes, and Fukimoto took such insane punishment that I straight-up felt bad for him by the end of this match. Honestly, the fact Fukimoto was working at such a high level here really explains why he's not the most mobile guy around today, because it seems he maxed out his bump card in the 2000s with stuff like that apron bump and has just been working in debt ever since. That's not to say his times on offense weren't great, because they absolutely were. Senshu was also wonderful here, really living up to the Choshu tribute stuff while dishing out some sleaze-level violence along with it. Overall, this was just fucking great and maybe one of my favorite sleaze scene matches ever. I'll definitely be looking out for more work from both guys from this time period.

Rating: A-