SHARK WEEK! #3: Shinjuku Same

                (Written by jom)

    Today is the saddest of days, as it is finally time to close the first chapter of Dragon Screw Shark Week. I'm sure many of you will be joining me and praying for a bountiful Shark Week in 2023. However, it isn't over yet, so let's go out with a bang: enter Shinjuku Same. I'm sure many people are confused, currently asking their computer or phone screens "but jom, what about this "Shinjuku Same" has anything to do with SHARK week?". To that, I say "shut the hell up you idiot, you moron, you absolute buffoon" (except in much kinder and respectful words) because Shinjuku Same, when translated, actually means "Shinjuku Shark". Therefore, I have not only the right but the responsibility to spread the good word of Shinjuku Same, and my lord there are many good words to be said. One of the pioneering boxer wrestlers, Same is somewhat of a prototype of guys like Thanomsak Toba, throwing absolutely destructive punches with a quickness and violence not seen by many others. While Katsuji Ueda did the boxing gimmick first, Same is the one to really have cemented it as absolutely beast, and in our final Shark Week post of the year, I hope to share with you the power of the 12 oz gloves.

Shinjuku Same vs. Onryo (FMW 10/22/2001)

    I don't care what anyone says, Fuyukiism is one of the greatest things of all time. Only through the insane mind of Kodo Fuyuki could FMW have booked a boxer to take on a literal ghost. Onryo absolutely rocks, with his whole undead spirit gimmick being one of the best in Japanese indy history. The powder in his hair, the spot where he catches the ref's hand during a pinfall count, and the entire storyline between him and GOEMON really cement him as an absolute legend. His actual wrestling ability is worth tons of praise too, with some truly spectacular juniors work and the always beautiful Onryo clutch.

    Onryo was awesome as always here. It did take him a bit to start actually doing his usual cool stuff but once he did he was running through the classics left and right. He did the teleportation spot (thrown outside the ring on one side, appear from the other to sneak attack his opponent), the hand catch spot, and even busted out a really nice Onryo clutch. He also just generally did some really nice wrestling, such as an awesome release German suplex and this beautiful counter into a backslide:

    Same was busting out some awesome stuff too here, even more so than Onryo. He threw some really cool punches (especially an uppercut onto a rope-hung Onryo), but probably the best one he did was the one gif'd below, where he countered an apron dive by jumping off a chair and just smashing Onryo in the face. He didn't just do cool punches though, as he also got to hit some really cool moves like a running dropkick on the apron à la Roman Reigns, as well as doing an absolute beauty of a moonsault.

    I think that overall this was pretty fun, albeit it took a bit to get there. The beginning third of the match was pretty middling and it wasn't helped by a crowd that could be described as "apathetic" at best. Seriously, this crowd was nearly dead silent for the majority of the match, at least until the last section. However, that last section did have a lot of fun stuff (enough to actually wake the crowd up for the most part), so if you're a fan of either guy I'd recommend checking this out.

Rating: B

Shinjuku Same vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (Apache Pro 04/28/2011)

    No, you're not reading this wrong. This is the Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, All Japan and NOAH legend and one part of the truly all-time great Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Can-Am Express match. However, by 2011, he had left NOAH and was applying his craft all over the independent scene, especially in Union Pro as part of Sanshiro Takagi's TKG48 group (side note: if you haven't seen his match against Tenryu from Union Pro in 2011, I highly recommend checking that out, as it's just two old guys way past their prime fighting their hearts out and there really isn't much better in wrestling than that).

    Kikuchi was uh... Kikuchi was different than you'd normally think here. The best way to describe him would be rabid, as he was running around like a wild dog, constantly yelling, and had a more fucked grimace on his face the entire match than any Murakami grimace ever. It was really a ton of fun though, with him constantly yelling at Same and the ref about whatever he could be yelling about. There were also like two older dudes in the crowd that were very clearly Kikuchi fans, with Kikuchi having conversations with both of them at different points during the match. Eventually, after getting "weapons" (aka a plastic bag and rope) involved in the match, Kikuchi and Same had this great moment that shows while Kikuchi may have aged greatly, his hard ass head never did.

    Same meanwhile was same ole Same, throwing cool punches and just generally being pretty sweet. He was fully there for the comedy stuff, at one point setting up a chair in the ring, making Kikuchi sit on it, and then running off the ropes and punching Kikuchi so hard it sent him (and the chair) tumbling over. He also got into an argument with one of the old Kikuchi dudes which was just amazing. Probably the greatest thing he did in the whole match was this combo into an apron suplex (show below), leading to Kikuchi making one of the most insane faces of the entire match:

    I kinda loved this match. It was so dumb, full of dumb spots and Kikuchi making dumb faces, and it really reminded me that some of the best wrestling involves zero braincells. It wasn't anything spectacular or phenomenal or any bullshit terms like that (terms which I will inevitably continue to use even while acknowledging them as bullshit), it was just absolutely fun and a great way to spend 9 minutes.

Rating: A-

Shinjuku Same & Rocky Kawamura vs. Hikaru Sato & Takuya Kai (Tokyo Gurentai 04/04/2017)

    As of this post, this is Same's final professional wrestling match. In an interview Same did less than a year ago, he roughly said "I don't wrestle at all. I'm not enough of a wrestler to say I've 'retired' so instead I'm just kind of fading out.", so unless he gets some stroke of inspiration to get back in the ring one more time, this is the end of the shark from Shinjuku. He's here teaming with Rocky Kawamura (who at this point is wrestling kinda like he's a younger, balder Shinjuku Same), and it's certainly a sight to see with two guys deeply inspired by Rocky Balboa teaming up to wear American flag gear and punch people in the face. They're taking on Sato (previously seen in the Tiger Shark article that kicked off this whole series) and Takuya Kai, someone I've genuinely never seen before.

    I'm not even going to talk about the other team because Sato was fine but did very little of note and Kai just wasn't very good and not in an interesting way. This was the Rocky tribute match for Kawamura and Same. They spent the whole thing throwing punches at the gut, head, face, and anywhere else they could, and it was awesome. At one point Same even broke up a pinfall by chucking his gloves at Sato. The best moment of the whole match came when Kawamura and Same had the perfect opportunity and busted out this awesome combo:

    Overall, this wasn't a match really worth talking about, but it did have some cool moments courtesy of the two boxers in it. Honestly, I don't know if there could've been a better way for Same's career to end than tagging with another Rocky tribute wrestler and throwing as many punches as possible.

Rating: B-

SHARK WEEK! #1: Tiger Shark

               (Written by jom)

    Guys, gals, and non-binary pals, welcome to one of the greatest international holidays in the history of international holidays. A celebration so sweet they made it a week. That's right baby, it's Shark Week! A week to enjoy the most dangerous yet most beloved aquatic animal, with great program's such as "Air Jaws: Top Guns", "Rise of the Monster Hammerheads", and of course, the always lauded "Shark Women: Ghosted by Great Whites". Hell, this year's festivities are even being hosted by legendary IWA PR alumni, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson! However, with all these wonderful TV programs being hosted by a former professional wrestler, I got to thinking about something that has always been in the back of my head: "why doesn't anyone celebrate the greatest sharks in wrestling?". Well, I now have something of a platform, so if nobody else will, why don't I?

    For the next week, I'll be posting not one, not two, not four, but THREE different articles speaking the good word of three different professional wrestling sharks. And if we're gonna be spending a whole week talking about them, why don't we start with one with some real legacy? In comes Tiger Shark, evil nemesis to Super Tiger and RJPW's resident shark-themed Sayama trainee. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, this guy just rocks. He feels like he's way more of a protege of Sayama than any of the other tigers, regularly busting out both stiff strikes and impressive aerial maneuvers. While nowadays he's abandoned the Tiger aspect entirely and set on his own as Blue Shark, we'll only be looking at some of his work as Tiger Shark in this post. Now, on with the article~!

Tiger Shark vs. Ryuji Walter (BattlArts 08/30/2009)

    This is just such a kick-ass match on paper. I've already talked about how much Shark rules, but as I've been consuming more and more of reborn BattlArts, I've come to realize just how based Ryuji Walter is. He's a tubby shooter wearing a singlet, kickpads, and MMA gloves, with all three being in black and silver, which is just a really awesome color combo. He also has a really interesting story as a wrestler too, as he was raised in the United States and became a bouncer, before training under Boris Malenko and working the low American independents. Eventually, George King (a fellow indy worker who had gotten opportunities to wrestle in Battlarts previously) introduced Walter to Ishikawa, resulting in Walter returning to Japan and becoming a member of the promotion. He also booked some crazy produce shows, so Ryuji Walter, if you somehow end up reading this, please DM me on Twitter so I can pay you a lot of money to watch them.

    Ryuji Walter, similar to his gear, was pretty damn sweet in this match. He had some awesome pro-wrestling type stuff mixed into his shoot style stuff, like countering a takedown with a DDT or hitting a real nice vertical suplex. The best contributions he made to the match were, of course, his punches. He really laid them in like he always did, throwing them at Shark's chin like there was a big target painted on it. He also really peppered them whenever he could, throwing one or two almost always when he was on the ground with Shark. Probably my favorite moment during the match was when Walter, sick of Shark's many kick combos throughout the match, just went full-on braindead mode, completely shrugging off some middle kicks to fire off punches with such force that he fell over from swinging too wildly. That type of "no thought only punch" type of violence is just sorely missing in today's wrestling.

    Shark also did really damn good in this match, albeit maybe not as good as Walter. He threw some great kicks as he always does, and his own pro wrestling spots were solid (except for one elbow drop which just absolutely whiffed). His tombstone is absolutely horrifying too, so seeing him bust it out here was pretty great. He did kinda slow the match down a couple times with middling mat work, but he was competent enough to never completely shut the match's momentum off, and when he would get into a hot streak or pop off a counter it was always really awesome to see.

    Overall, this was pretty awesome in parts, but as a whole did lack some of the solid connective tissue needed to elevate this to greatness. That being said, it clearly showed that both guys were pretty sweet in this style, and a Ryuji Walter "comprehensive" series may or may not be appearing in the future.

Rating: B

Tiger Shark vs. Hikaru Sato (RJPW 09/08/2010)

    Sato is Minoru Suzuki's sole protege and he's pretty damn solid. He's got some good kicks and while in 2022 he has some aspects of his work I definitely do not like (the drunk selling on every single strike can take a fucking walk), at this point he's pretty much a pure MMA crossover type wrestler.

    Shark did pretty solid in this match just like the last one. He integrated more pro wrestling into his moves this time, such as hitting his honestly horrendous standing moonsault (even though it's ugly as hell I still love it for some reason). His kicks were on point and his grappling was better than the last match, although not too much better. Probably the best moment he had all match was this awesome sequence into the Shark Death by Lock:

    Sato also did well here. Honestly it's hard to elaborate more than that, he just did pretty well. His kicks were solid, his grappling was fine, and he did have a pretty cool spot of transitioning an ankle lock into a backdrop. He didn't do anything that really wow'd me besides that, but he never did anything that really hurt the match either.

    I feel like this definitely wasn't as good as the previous match, although it was still solid stuff. Everything they did came off mostly good, it was just a case of neither guy doing too much that I could call great or anything.

Rating: B-

Tiger Shark vs. SEIKEN (Battlarts 05/22/2011)

    Back to Battlarts, this time to see Shark take on SEIKEN. SEIKEN is a guy that, from some research I've done previously, seems to have been a member of B-CLUB (the Battlarts amateur wrestling club) before transferring into Seikendo. I've seen him in a match against Kengo Mashimo in FUTEN where he impressed me greatly, so coming into this I had some level of high hopes for the match.

    This was probably Shark's best performance yet. He threw kicks harder in this match than he did in any other, and he felt a lot more aggressive and violent overall, really taking it to SEIKEN throughout the match. He also pulled off his pro wrestling stuff better than he did in the Walter match, hitting one of the best standing moonsaults I've ever seen him hit, as well as a disgusting corner dropkick. Probably the best thing he did in the match was this axe kick though, which absolutely destroyed SEIKEN:

    SEIKEN meanwhile fucking ruled, throwing kicks that were even harder than Shark's and fighting in such a scrappy and hard way. He did some really awesome stuff in this match, like throwing headbutts at Shark's midsection while mounted and basically just button mashing his strikes whenever he could get even the slightest opportunity to go on the offensive. His stuff in the finishing stretch of the match was awesome too.

    This was just a fun, short, intense shoot brawl between two Seikendo trainees. Definitely Shark's best work from the three matches I went over, and hopefully I'll be able to talk more about SEIKEN on the blog eventually. 

Rating: B+

SHARK WEEK! #2: Shark Tsuchiya

                (Written by jom)

    It's been a few days since we talked about Tiger Shark, so let's change it up and talk about someone very different: Shark Tsuchiya. Tsuchiya is arguably the most well-known joshi wrestler from FMW outside of Megumi Kudo, and was a long-time rival for the female ace, even being her opponent for Kudo's retirement match. She's also seemingly very disliked by many foreign fans, with possibly the starkest contrast between profile rating (currently 1.75) and individual match rating (9.18 for her match with Kudo from 04/29/97) on the entirety of CAGEMATCH. I personally think that rating is bogus and the inmates are insane, because Tsuchiya is pretty damn cool. She comes across a lot like a female Mr. Pogo, not being great at bumping or actual wrestling but instead being a total force of nature heel, just beating the shit outta whoever she's facing with weapons and heel antics. Hopefully, this post might help sway the minds of some people who have already decided that Tsuchiya isn't good.

Shark Tsuchiya vs. Megumi Kudo (FMW 12/22/1995)

    This is a no ropes barbed wire deathmatch, taking place less than a year and a half before their more famous encounter at the FMW 8th Anniversary show. While that match is legendary for good reason, I wanted to cover this one instead because not only is it lesser known than that one, but also because I myself hadn't seen this match before and I just love flat-out barbed wire matches without any of the special additions like explosions. There's something about the main danger of the match just being barbed wire rather than something like explosions that makes these matches feel so much more realistic and violent to me.

    Tsuchiya was going absolutely hard as hell in this match. Her usual heel antics and weapon usage were done amazingly here, with Crusher Maedomari and Bad Nurse Nakamura both accompanying her and constantly interfering to beat down Kudo and provide weapons, like a barbed wire kendo stick and a scythe. Outside of those, she busted out some crazy big bombs, like a disgusting backdrop suplex and a real stiff lariat with her arm wrapped in barbed wire. She also did some awesome spots involving the barbed wire ropes, including the awesome sequence shown below:

    Of course, Kudo was absolutely the star of the show here. It really isn't fair for anyone to expect Tsuchiya (or for that matter most wrestlers) to outdo Kudo in a deathmatch, because she always brought her a-game to these matches and Kudo's a-game is really only comparable to most GOAT-level wrestlers. She threw herself into the barbed wire on multiple occasions, bled heavily, and sold like a motherfucker for everything in the match. Her moments of offense always came off like David besting Goliath, and the finishing run she did especially was crazy, with the entirety of Korakuen going nuts for every near-fall. Really, this is the type of performance that would be considered a career high for most, but for Kudo this was just another day on the job.

    Honestly, this match was just so fucking amazing. Kudo of course went nuts but Tsuchiya's contributions should not go unrecognized, as her evilness really helped to get Kudo's comebacks to the level of heat they reached. A very high recommendation from me, I implore you to check this out ASAP.

Rating: A

Shark Tsuchiya vs. RIE (Fuyuki-gun 03/29/1997)

    Less than a year and a half after the last match (and only a month away from the famous Kudo retirement match), Tsuchiya is here for Fuyuki-gun's debut event. She's taking on RIE, aka Bad Nurse Nakamura after abandoning her heelish ways and becoming a straight-up wrestler.

    Shark's performance this time around was pretty damn good as well, playing a much more dominant bully heel. She really beat down RIE with some hard strikes and especially solid back suplexes, but her weapon use in this match was definitely the best part. She went crazy on RIE with her scythe, just digging into her face with it and dragging her around the ring so everyone could get a good look at it. The most terrifying moment was absolutely her fire spot though, where she dumped a bunch of "gasoline" onto RIE with RIE screaming bloody murder at the potential for her to be straight-up burned alive, before Tsuchiya just spit it at her and laughed about it being water or something like that. RIE's face of being like genuinely broken after that "prank" actually sent shivers down my spine, truly horrifying stuff.

    RIE was perfectly fine in her role as the underdog, albeit "fine" is really the best descriptor I could give. She had some alright hope spots like countering a back suplex attempt into a rollup, but overall she was just competent as a body for Shark to destroy.

    Overall, this wasn't really anything that you'd have to see, but it's a solid enough extended squash type match with a few harrowing spots courtesy of Shark.

Rating: C

Shark Tsuchiya vs. GAMI (ARSION 10/07/2002)

    We've made it to the 2000s, and somehow, this is the first ARSION match in the history of the blog. I'm kinda shocked to say that considering there's a few wrestlers from the promotion that I love and eventually at least two of them will be getting articles focused on themselves. In fact, one of those wrestlers is in this match, as Tsuchiya is taking on GAMI. GAMI is really one of my favorites from the whole promotion, as her earlier work under her real name of Mikiko Futagami is especially something to behold, with tons of great stiffness and sick grappling that only Mariko Yoshida could hold a candle to.

    Contrary to the way I described her above though, this match was based much more around comedy and Tsuchiya-brand violence. Tsuchiya was cool here as the straight-woman to counter GAMI's more fun antics, and when she eventually has enough and starts going to her weapons, she once again comes off as a cool force of nature. Honestly, there's not much to say in terms of anything different from the last performance she did against RIE, albeit there weren't any threats of immolation and GAMI definitely was less of a squash victim and more of just someone on the receiving end of a solid amount of offense. Tsuchiya even busted out this awesome piledriver seen below:

    GAMI was very good in that role too, but she shined best earlier in the match doing the comedy stuff. Her repeatedly going for eye pokes got a laugh out of me, as well as her starting the match by trying to befriend Tsuchiya (which is truly one of the most insane things she could have done in this match because there wasn't any chance of that working).

    This wasn't much more in terms of quality than the last match, but I do think the comedy stuff did actually elevate this a solid amount. A fun match to end this post.

Rating: B-

Comprehensive Super Rider #2

              (Written by jom)

Super Rider & Super Uchuu Power vs. Kazushige Nosawa & Sanshiro Takagi (DDT 03/25/1997)

    This is the main event of DDT's "Prelaunch Battle", which basically means the show was meant to be a preview of what people could expect from DDT once it officially launches. Starting your promotion with two of the founders taking on shoot style spacemen is truly next level wrestlebrain, so it isn't shocking Takagi has been able to grow DDT into being the possible #2 most popular promotion in Japan.

    Takagi and Nosawa were pretty sweet here, both were really energized and constantly fighting Uchuu and Rider in really scrappy ways. Both guys were throwing some hard dropkicks all throughout the match, especially Nosawa who threw a really gross one especially at Uchuu to break up a submission. Takagi meanwhile was already very clearly the top guy in the promotion, with everyone chanting his name and some big comeback spots towards the end, peaking with this beauty of a tornado DDT:

    Super Uchuu Power (Koichiro Kimura) was undoubtedly the star of the show. He was an absolute killer here, doling out some nutty strikes and hitting insane slams. He was lariating Nosawa and Takagi like they owed him money, and the way he treated Nosawa especially was borderline hard to watch, constantly destroying him with crazy moves like a double tombstone piledriver. The nastiest thing he did to him though had to be the powerbomb shown below, the bounce that Nosawa got off of being slammed onto the mat was horrifying.

    While Rider wasn't able to perform at the same level Power did, he more than held up his portions of the match, dishing out some great kicks and cool pro wrestling spots. His kicks especially were pretty awesome, doing some great jumping rolling solebutts and at one point accidentally hitting Power with a great Rider kick.

    The overall match did have some iffy pacing and the extended length of it led to some spots that felt like they were almost repeating, but overall this was a damn cool fight. In terms of history, this match is extremely important too, as it set the stage for the first few years of life for the eventual juggernaut that is DDT, so on that front it's definitely worth checking out.

Rating: B+

Super Rider vs. Takeshi Ono (BattlArts 06/02/2001)

    This is a rematch to the Korakuen match reviewed previously on the blog. Last time, I thought that while a good amount of the work was really awesome, some iffy pacing and the lack of interest from the crowd left me somewhat disappointed in the final product. Hopefully, now that they've gotten some more experience working together, those problems will be alleviated and they'll pull off the match I know they can.

    Takeshi Ono was, in a sense, pure Takeshi Ono here. He did the usual awesome strikes, slick grappling, and great selling, all at the usual high level he did it at. This was also a great piece of evidence to support my belief that Ono is maybe one of the greatest "targeting" wrestlers of all time. When Ono picks a spot of the body to go after during a match, he's truly vicious as hell, and in this match he totally wrecked Rider's leg, with tons of gross kicks and submissions that honestly shock me didn't actually fuck up Rider's leg.

    Super Rider was going pretty damn crazy in this match too though. He met Ono on the mat with some superb grappling, doing some awesome submissions like one particular counter into an armbar. He also brought the goods with striking, at one point throwing a real sick high kick that Ono sold like death. While he didn't have as many high spot type moments as Ono, the stuff he provided helped keep the match's intensity at a level not at all seen in the previous match they had.

    This match was kind of insane, because somehow, the crowd was even less interested during this one than the Korakuen one. However, even accounting for the near silence during the match, this fucking rocked. While the last match they had was more of a fun creative juniors type match with bomb segments and more emphasis on spots, this was just a total grappling fest while still retaining the creativity of the last match. The late match bomb throwing was amazing too, and my god the actual finish ruled. It even only went about 7 minutes, so genuinely, go out of your way to see this.

Rating: A-

Super Rider vs. Tomohiro Ishii (RJPW 03/01/2009)

    This match was brought on by GBH member Ishii seemingly laying out a challenge to Rider. Ishii needs little to no introduction, around this point he was no longer the sleazy indy guy that Rider had previously faced in 2000, but instead a full-on NJPW roster member. Whether or not that made him better or worse is up to your interpretation (it made him worse).

    Ishii was a solid bruiser in this match, doing a ton of heel type work. He threw Rider around outside and hit him with chairs, and he took cheapshots whenever he could. He didn't really do anything particularly special, but he was entirely competent in the role he played and he did throw this killer lariat:

    Rider was totally off the bean in this match though. He started out doing his usual stuff but as the match went on he got progressively more angry and more aggressive, eventually busting out full-on shoot headbutts. The big turning point was when Ishii had manhandled him on the outside some, and Rider decided "fuck this", whipped his shirt off, and started throwing closed fists at Ishii's midsection. Getting this level of violence from Rider wasn't easy at this point, so it was awesome to see him get this pumped up.

    Eventually, the match ended in a DQ after Ishii ripped off Rider's mask, leading to Rider putting on his old Hopper King mask and brawling around with Ishii for a couple more minutes. Overall, this had some pretty awesome moments but did leave me wanting more. Sadly, the GBH invasion would go nowhere after this (mainly because GBH practically died a month later) so we never ended up seeing a rematch between the two, but what we got was solid enough.

Rating: B