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-