(Written by jom)
Masao Ando is secretly one of my favorite members of the modern J-indie crowbar collection. At his best, he's on par with Tababa as a rough shooter with a ton of character and violence. He's not really in full-on fighting mode here considering his opponent is a guy in a cute little mask but he still gets a ton of chances to deliver the goods. He hits lots of hard kicks and big slams blended with some pretty fascinating choices, like fighting back in a strike exchange by kicking Okonomiyakida's arm. Everything Ando does has such a great feeling of weight too. His soccer kick is strong enough to actually push Okonomiyakida forward on connection, and all of his body slams look like they could put a hole in the ring. All of his bombs really feel like bombs. Okonomiyakida exists too I guess. He does next to nothing of particular interest but all of his work is fine. I won't ever complain about a glorified Ando showcase match though. Fun stuff all around.
Match Rating: C+
Kazushi Miyamoto vs. Kotaro Nasu (Apache Pro 07/25/2012)
The resurrected Apache Pro is... bad. I hate to say it! Apache Pro during its initial run is a super fun indie fed, clearly a proto-FREEDOMS with a stronger focus on hardcore rather than deathmatch (which I prefer greatly) and a bunch of awesome indie guys like GENTARO, Keita Yano, and others populating the card. This is an entirely different Apache though, with Kanemura back at the helm following his sexual harassment scandal. The air in the promotion is murky and a real feeling of guilt permeates through basically everything. Most of the wrestlers seem like they're sorry to be on the card. Still, there're some real hidden gems from this period of the promotion, including this match. Nasu and Miyamoto are a real money pairing: a quick, plucky shooter junior and a 'roided up powerhouse wrestler. They work the match exactly as they should. Not a single strike exchange in this match is one-for-one. That is, at no point do the two actually "exchange" singular strikes. Miyamoto will throw a big chop or slap and Nasu will respond with a barrage of palm strikes or kicks. Nasu will throw everything he can at Miyamoto as much as possible while Miyamoto just needs one big hit to steal the match back in his favor. Miyamoto comes off as the ultimate professional wrestler here. He's got a ridiculous tan, muscles on top of muscles, and every real momentum-shifter from him is decisively pro wrestling. There's this wonderful moment where Nasu finally gets a successful combo off and puts in a tight armbar to try and tap Miyamoto out, only for Miyamoto to power up and hit Nasu with a real head-bouncing slam. In this moment, Miyamoto sees the dazed Nasu and smells blood in the water. In this type of situation in somewhere like the UFC, the guy on top would rush to rain down punches or hammerfists. Miyamoto is not an MMA fighter (take one look at his actual MMA record and that's pretty damn clear), so instead he yanks Nasu to his feet and hits him with an even grosser powerbomb for a nearfall. Add onto all of this a genuinely sickening finish and you've got yourself a damn good match. There're a few Apache Pro-related whiffs in it (Miyamoto at one point does a thirty second long delayed suplex which gets no reaction), but the match itself is really undeniable.
Match Rating: B+
Tarzan Goto vs. Yoji Anjo (Rikidozan Memorial 03/11/2000)
This is a truly legendary clash of assholes. In a way, Goto and Anjo represent the two opposing ideologies of heel pro wrestling. Goto is a monstrous bastard who commits grievous bodily harm on everyone around him for his own satisfaction. Anjo is an annoying dickhead who psychologically torments his opponents for fun. Both are wrestlers that really only care about entertaining themselves, but their methods of doing so vary greatly. Incredible tone setter to start the match with Goto standing in the corner with his arms crossed, deep intent and cruel intentions in his eyes, only for the camera to switch to Anjo doing the same exact pose with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. Sadly, the match never really lives up to the expectations created by this stare-down. It's a great match, don't get me wrong. Anjo and Goto are in their element, with Anjo being his usual smartass self and Goto responding like a slasher film monster. Goto has a one-track mind throughout, constantly going for headbutts and always beginning his longer strings of offense with a headbutt or two. Anjo's responses include strikes, dodges, and general big brain offense, but more often than not he gets caught up in Goto's onslaught. Where this match falters is the structuring. There are spots in the latter half of the match that feel like they belong much closer to the beginning, and it's honestly bizarre that they were done so late in the match. Anjo getting victimized with big Goto bombs only to slide out of the ring on an irish whip and do the big brain taunt feels so weirdly disjointed. They seem to lose the plot for a little bit before Goto finally snaps and starts to try and kill Anjo with weaponry, which admittedly led to a finishing stretch that helped recover a lot of the lost momentum for me. The post-match is pretty hilarious too, with Anjo finding a random police officer and trying to make him arrest Tarzan Goto for his rule breaking. Do I feel sad that this match isn't perfect? Of course. Do I know that they could've done better? Of course! But this is still two of my favorites ever having their only singles match. I was going to love this no matter what, and they still gave me a ton to love.
Match Rating: B+
Arkangel vs. Ultraman Jr. (PWC 08/23/1996)
God bless Yoshino and Hasegawa for fishing this out of Yoshino's bin of VHS tapes. PWC in late 1996 began a series of shows known as the Fighting Beer Garden shows, taking place in the absolutely stunning Luna Park with fans sat at tables where they could eat and drink while the matches took place (this served as the inspiration for DDT's own Beer Garden shows). There were shows every single day and Takano somehow pulled off getting a number of luchadores to come to Japan and work the entire series, including Arkangel and Ultraman. The two of them would go on to face off numerous times, but this is (at least according to CAGEMATCH) the first filmed interaction between the two of them. Of course, it's a lot of fun. Arkangel and Ultraman are here to hit their spots in front of a crowd with basically no exposure to them, so all the arm drags and dives get huge pops. It's incredibly surface level pro wrestling but everything is so well-executed and flashy that it doesn't need to be anything else. Ultraman is awesome finding a thousand and one ways to hit an arm drag, and Arkangel does a great job of pulling off big reversals like his sitout powerbomb counter to some sort of Ultraman move that probably would've ended in an arm drag. The whole affair is only six minutes long and doesn't drag for a second. Overall, real fun stuff here. Probably the best type of wrestling to enjoy in a park while drinking some beers with the boys.
Match Rating: B
Kenta Nanami & Jumbo Hara vs. Tessho & Ikki Nomoto (Gamshara Pro 11/23/2012)
Gamshara Pro... I know very little about Gamshara Pro, just being entirely honest. It's a local fed that exists. We have a couple matches from it. Outside of that, I know practically nothing. I also know nothing about the people in this match. Munenori Sawa appears near the start and seems to give a speech to the fans. I am completely in the dark here. Honestly, I wasn't even going to include this match in the post! It's not anything special, and most of the action is just alright. However, I have to talk about Ikki Nomoto. The other three aren't bad or anything. Nanami hits some cool throws and a nice lariat. Tessho hits a cool lariat of his own. Hara, wouldn't you know it, also hits a great lariat, albeit this one of the leg variety. Nomoto is an entirely different beast here though. He comes in and immediately slaps the taste out of Hara's mouth before throwing stiff knees to his jaw. Nomoto pushes the intensity to the next level anytime he's in the ring, forcing Hara and Nanami to fight for their lives against him. This is real Grade-A liberty taking, the type you really only tend to see in those power imbalance matches from UWF and UWFi. Nomoto's kneel kick looks like it could erase a face, and his Gotch piledriver compressed Hara's neck like a slinky. Is the match as a whole worth watching? No, probably not. However, I'd absolutely recommend at least tuning in to see the type of shit Nomoto does here. It's gruesome and violent in the type of way that makes me wish he expanded beyond Gamshara into somewhere like EXIT. Maybe he was just a big fish in a small pond and would've been eaten alive in EXIT. We have no way of knowing and can only dream of the possibilities.
Match Rating: C+
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