(Written by jom)
Ryuma Go vs. Atsushi Onita (Pioneer Senshi 04/30/1989)
The big bang event of the entire scene. Go and Onita, two of the most promising juniors of the 80s, two wayward sons of their respective majors, finally unleashed and given a Korakuen main event to show what they can do on their own merits. Turns out, they can do a lot! This is a pretty spectacular match, one that serves as the perfect introduction to both men's future works. Onita, for the most part, is already tapping into that mad brawler mindset, only really doing dives in the scariest-looking way possible and generally relying on his own skull more than his aerial abilities. Go, in turn, spends a lot of this match on the back foot, which gives him ample time to demonstrate just how great of a victim he is. They play with some interesting ideas, like Go's incessant targeting of Onita's previously-injured leg on offense, and there's genuinely some super awesome spots strewn about. More than anything though, this is two of Japan's best kept secret brawlers getting to go hog wild to start the era of independents.
Atsushi Onita vs. Masashi Aoyagi (WKA 07/02/1989)
One of those matches I've talked about too many times in too many different places. I've called it "lightning in a bottle" on at least three separate occasions, but truly, this is the kind of existence you see once in a blue moon, a moment in time that completely reshapes the future in its image. While I can claim that the previous match is the origin point of the indies, this is the origin point of FMW. This is the origin point of practically every invasion angle. This is the origin point of the 90s different style boom across both the indies and the majors. It's bloody, mess, and most of all, real. The fans bought into it. So did the seconds at ringside. If you told me that the only people in the world that knew this was scripted were Aoyagi, Onita, and the referee, I'd believe you, but I'd still be wondering if the referee really knew. It's funny that we only got this match because UWF denied Onita at the door. In a way, this one match is Onita completely outdoing everything the UWF crew had spent years trying to achieve. This is the realest pro wrestling of all time. I love it.
Yoshihiro Asai vs. Negro Casas (Universal 06/07/1990)
A pretty wonderful statement piece on where this new-fangled idea of "lucharesu" would be heading, while also being wholly unique. Honestly, you could probably argue this did more to develop the juniors style in Japan as a whole than any other singular match. Casas and Asai are a wonderful pairing as evidenced by their numerous encounters around this time, and this functions as the big singles match for them to get out some of their best ideas. There's a great balance of careful wargame-esque matwork, where both guys get holds in and tried their damndest to keep the other from getting out, and the big explosive spots you'd expect from Asai especially. The scrappiness of the striking and the tightness of the holds honestly reflects as something more akin to the other UWF kicking it at this point, but it never fully goes into that shoot-style mindset. This is distinctly lucha, albeit featuring two guys that did more to blend styles than others. You can safely bet that this is Asai's best work of his career, and it's a sleeper contender for one of Casas' better matches as well. The kind of match that could start a revolution; makes sense that it kinda did.
Atsushi Onita vs. Tarzan Goto (FMW 02/26/1991)
Easily the most difficult choice I had to make for this project. FMW presented so much variance in its 13 year lifespan. It tried and succeeded in so many different kinds of wrestling that it makes it difficult to try and pinpoint which style they did their best work in. Even if you consider FMW to be more of a major after they started running Kawasaki yearly (which, I do), that still leaves you with a few incredibly dynamic years of activity as an indie. Up until I finalized the list I was still switching between this match, their first explosions match, the Texas Death Street Fight, and Onita's match against Lee Gak Soo as prime contenders. In the end though, I went with my heart. More than any other match, this right here is FMW to me. Onita and Goto having a drag-out bloody brawl in a raucous Korakuen Hall, complete with flying tables and furious fists and all the drama you could ever want. It's messy and disgusting in just the right way, a demonstration of the endurance of the human spirit in the face of brutal conditions and unrelenting violence. It is the true soul of FMW, stripped of the pyrotechnics or light shows the company would end up being most known for. Really, it is the true soul of pro wrestling. At least, it is for me.
Mr. Pogo vs. Jason The Terrible (W*ING 05/07/1992)
God, I love W*ING. I love a lot of promotions here, some more than W*ING, but nothing makes me want to express my adoration more than W*ING. Very few companies have presented such a stronger identity with such an enrapturing assortment of freaks and geeks quite like Quinones' lovechild. The W*ING podcast featuring myself and TrillyRobinson will be coming in 2026, I guarantee it. This match has basically everything you could want from a W*ING main event: Mr. Pogo, a horror movie monster, a strange gimmick match (The Undertaker Casket Match), a white-hot crowd, and absolute pandemonium. Pogo and Jason go on extensive tours of the Korakuen facilities with their brawling, picking up weapons as they go like they're in an RPG. Jason has these amazing clubs and totally embraces the crowd's energy throughout the match, which makes it all the better whenever Pogo has his moments where he snaps and tries to murder Jason in front of over a thousand people. Mr. Pogo even sits down on his stoop in this match and answers one of philosophy's greatest questions: why does nobody just kill the Undertaker whenever he does his sit-up spot? Overall, biblically accurate W*ING. Not much better in wrestling or in general.
Hiroshi Itakura vs. Ryuma Go (Oriental Pro 09/12/1992)
This is a real baptism in blood. Itakura takes on his mentor as part of his trial series to prove he has what it takes to be Oriental Pro's eventual top guy (the company would die before that could happen). Itakura is full of piss and vinegar, flying at Go with dropkicks and elbows as much as he can. Ryuma Go, in turn, decides that Itakura needs intense brain damage as punishment, and spends the entire match hitting no-hand shoot headbutts. In a way, this is almost a punishment for excessive ambition, like a caveman beating his son to death with a big rock for trying to invent fire. The only time Go expands his moveset beyond clubbing blows and skull-shattering headbutts is when Itakura pushes him to heightened fury with his attempted hope spots. It's a deeply one-note match, but that one note is oh so sweet.
Koji Ishinriki vs. Umanosuke Ueda (NOW 12/11/1992)
Very few matches have ever reflected an intent to hurt more than this one. This is more Ishinriki and Ueda's excuse to take years off of each other's lives than an actual wrestling match. Two men so opposed in appearance and ideology fighting to the death. There's a really interesting layout thanks to the difference in appearance too: when you look at Ishinriki and his chiseled physique compared to the schlubby old fart that is Ueda, you come to realize that this is a man physically capable of doing anything duking it out with a man mentally willing to do anything. Ueda is a complete monster, stumbling around in his Mil Mascaras mask and stabbing Ishinriki in the face with The Foreign Object. He's on no-sell autopilot for half the match as well, eating chairshots to the head and walking them off like nothing. Ishinriki's progressive descent into more and more violent outbursts culminates in one of the scariest finishes ever, if not the scariest. Combine all of this with one of the best handheld recordings of all time, and this might be the quintessential LiveLeak wrestling match.
Hiroshi Itakura, Hideo Takayama, & Ichiro Yaguchi vs. Jado, Gedo, & Hiromichi Fuyuki (Shin Kakuto 09/24/1994)
Ultimate piece of shit Fuyuki is here with his two little goons to cause mayhem in a fed already on the brink of destruction. It hurts my soul for this (admittedly great) show to be our only piece of footage from Shin Kakuto's short lifespan, but man, what a match to end it on. Itakura, Takayama, and Yaguchi are a wonderful home team to get brutalized, fighting back with tons of fire and stiffness, especially the future Hido who unleashes with some insane kicks (probably as a receipt for Jado throwing a table directly at his head and making him bleed hardway). Really though, this is the Fuyuki-gun torture hour, and they do a great job of painting a purely white canvas red by the end of the match. Definitely one of the most memorable six-man tags from this era of the indies, and secretly a career highlight match for all six men involved.
Goro Tsurumi vs. Zombia II (IWA Kakuto Shijuku 12/11/1994)
In true IWA fashion, this match starts in the middle of one already happening. Goro Tsurumi is the father of the monster wrestling genre, and this might be his magnum opus, the best creature feature in a pre-Tobita landscape. Zombia is one of the earliest and most forgotten wrestling monsters but he rules, a freak in all denim and a strange mask that looks more like a melting wolfman than a zombie, stabbing Tsurumi in the face with a Freddie Krueger glove made using a ninja rake. This match is a masterclass in Tsurumi selling; witness as he both screams in pain and stares into the crowd like Wile E. Coyote floating over a canyon. His comebacks are just as fascinating to see, as he throws punches and backfists with so much force, like the masks somehow mean the guys getting hit can't feel a thing no matter what. Sprinkle in rampant interference and a slightly drunk crowd going wild and you have one for the history books.
Poison Sawada vs. The Mummy (Union Pro 12/25/1994)
This match is... questionable. I'm not just referring to the moral implications of live snakes being used in a wrestling match. Arguably, this match isn't very good. With Mummy's choke-heavy control segments and the few bursts of "action" leaving a little to be desired, you could get away with shitting on this match to my face. Really, I'd get it. And yet, there's something so magnetic about this match to me. Every time I watch it my eyes are glued to the screen, seated with baited breath as I watch Sawada scream and cry in any attempt to avoid assured death via snake poison. Part of that comes from the fact that this match just doesn't feel like the kind of match that would give you a resolution. I've seen enough nailboard deathmatches to know when a stipulation match is ever really going to go all-in with the stip, and this one just reeks of false promises. Until the snake bite happens. At that point, all assumptions are out the window. All anyone can do is fall headfirst into the chaos. If you were to try and watch every match I talk about in this project, this match is the one I'd be most accepting of you just skipping. However, this is one of the most "indie" matches ever, for better and for worse. You don't have to respect their arguable animal abuse, but you do have to respect their conviction.
Hayato Katayama vs. Mitsunobu Kikuzawa (Yataimura 01/07/1995)
Super impressive lucharesu from two complete rookies in a food court. I love Yataimura. Even considering how little footage we have, the concept of a promotion running almost daily in a market is such a cool idea, and it led to the entirely-rookie roster developing into total monsters (Kuishinbo Kamen, Sanshiro Takagi, NOSAWA, etc). Here we have the future Kikutaro and what-could've-been Katayama (who actually secretly returned in 2021 after 20 years away), both only months into their respective careers, and they're given the stage to do some really fun pro wrestling. There are definitely moments where you can tell the two are early into their careers, but those moments are covered by just how well they do pretty much everything else. All of their sequences are well-timed and never boil over into self-indulgence, and they already have a great gauge of how to keep the crowd rolling. Above all else, it's a damn fun encounter, and it feels really nice to see two rookies like this experimenting and finding their footing in the wrestling world.
Stray Dog Legend (PWC 02/16/1995)
Hubris as high art. Shunji Takano, the Stray Dog a.k.a the Human Bazooka a.k.a the Super Dual Fuma Ninja, spends roughly 15 minutes beating up seven people before playing air guitar with a live band and celebrating with a man dressed as the joker. I have never before or since seen a more grand display of ego. It is painfully obvious that Shunji Takano believes himself to be the coolest man on planet Earth, and, to be frank, this match is a strong piece of propaganda for that argument, even if it also exposes him as a complete lunatic. Seeing Takano brawl around the arena and Shinjuku's night life with his trainees, taking a healthy amount of liberties on all of them, is some of the most absurd imagery to come out of wrestling ever. At least two people seem to get busted open for real by Takano's live rounds and reckless object swinging, and Takano can't seem to care one bit. He feels the vibe in the air and the vibe is himself. This is Shunji Takano as pro wrestling's god emperor for one night only, and we can only be thankful it lasted no longer than that.
Koki Kitahara vs. Akio Kobayashi (Kitao Dojo 02/21/1995)
A sleeper hit from one of my favorite shows ever. When picking for Kitao Dojo, I knew I needed to take a match from the Buko tournament, but I had a bit of difficulty choosing what. After weighing my options and convincing myself to not pick the obvious Kurisu/Mochizuki match, I felt like this match deserved to be talked about the most. Kitahara and Kobayashi are so different in methodology, with Kobayashi being a shithead karateka who loves to spam awesome looking kicks, and Kitahara working like he already has the concept for CAPTURE in mind. As such, this match is disgustingly heated, worked like a mix between a final fight from Karate Kid and a back-alley mugging. It gives you all you'd want in terms of big slams and flying feet, while padding out the runtime with some very genuine-feeling mount struggles and submission work. It all adds up to make for a pretty great four minutes, secretly one of the best matches on one of the more stacked shows of the era.
Takashi Ishikawa & Ryo Miyake vs. Yuichi Fukaya & Shigekazu Tajiri (Tokyo Pro 02/23/1995)
Starting your company out by letting the Seishin Kaikan B-Team whoop your entire roster's ass is a wonderful bit of booking genius. Hats off to Takashi Ishikawa. Forgotten Aoyagi trainees Tajiri and Fukaya are here to destroy thicky-built indie bruisers with leg kicks that could snap baseball bats, and Ishikawa is here to remind them who runs the company. Tons of mean punching, kicking, kneeing, and throwing of whatever other parts of the body these guys can figure out. Even with the basic structure of these matches being mostly adhered to, they find some pretty interesting ways to divert, especially when Ryo Miyake, the designated whooping boy, gets revenge in a manner I've never really seen in these kinds of matches, to the point even Ishikawa seems put off by the viciousness. These guys aren't blowing anyone away, but they're playing with a tried-and-true match style and finding new paths on a well-travelled road by this point. That gets big points in my book and lots of love from my heart.
Koichiro Kimura & Hopper King vs. Black Hole & Fumio Akiyama (NNP 06/21/1995)
This right here is the real sleaze shit. Two straight shooters and two space aliens having a super heated Battlarts match a year before Battlarts even existed. They're throwing potshots and dragging each other onto the floor and crowd brawling while firing off full force body kicks and shoteis straight to the jaw. Akiyama and Kimura work with a grudge against one another, at one point rolling around in mount and raining down slaps with eardrum-bursting force. Black Hole is a big fat dude in a super awesome costume that exists to hit hammer fists and judo throws, and seeing him absorb the hardest strikes ever into his blubber and not sell at all gives me the biggest smile on my face. And Hopper King. Hopper King, man. Absolute killing machine. This has a solid contender for the most ungodly finish ever, especially if we one day get confirmation that it was a shoot. When I pass, I hope matches like this one are what people in the scene remember me for.
Kendo Nagasaki vs. Seiji Yamakawa vs. Yosuke Kobayashi vs. Bruiser Okamoto vs. Yuichi Taniguchi (BJW 07/01/1995)
Personally, I'm just not the biggest fan of "cinematic matches." Outside of the questionable nature of what that term actually entails, a lot of the modern renditions have never hit for me on the level they have for others. They're fun novelties, sure, but I think that, for most of them, they only really thrive thanks to the nature of their production. It'd be a little hard to enjoy many of those matches if they existed on a single handheld recording. This match, placed about 20 years before the term "cinematic match" was even a thing, does not have this same issue. I think I would love this no matter how the tape was produced; it just so happens that the production here is some of the best ever. This match is best consumed as part of the full 45-minute tape, existing as a monolith of its own, a loving tribute to destruction of property directed like a natural disaster documentary. Kendo Nagasaki is a man obsessed with annihilating a small town's market square, and he uses the bodies of his four trainees to go about doing that. It's legitimately one of my favorite wrestling experiences ever, and one I've replayed at least once a month for the past two years.
Takeshi Miyamoto vs. Kei Tsukada (Go Gundan 07/30/1995)
It feels weird for me to not choose a Ryuma Go match for the fed with "Go" in the name. Honestly, it feels pretty bad! Still, I had to include at least one of Tsukada and Miyamoto's matches, and this one is by far their best. I had a whole series dedicated to the CMA Gym rivalry on the blog many years ago, but this tape only surfaced in 2023 after we came across it on Yahoo Auctions. My god, what a discovery. This is balls to the wall unrelenting action in a way very little wrestling has ever even came close to matching. The promise of "karate vs. boxing" is delivered upon in spades, and both Miyamoto and Tsukada get their moments to flex their newly-developed pro wrestling muscles. The build to Tsukada's diving punch is so basic and yet some of the best shit I have ever seen, helped immensely by the crowd being on the verge of a riot for everything these guys do. Tsukada and Miyamoto were the greatest traveling act in all of indie wrestling history, and this was the type of performance that could convince the hundreds in attendance to turn into fully-fledged CMA deadheads.
Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa (PWFG 08/12/1995)
Somehow, this is the only instance of Ishikawa and Ikeda facing off on the list. I suppose it makes sense considering the matchup didn't happen in many different places, and I've made it my goal to generally present a wider range of indies yet undiscussed, but it still feels a little bizarre. Even more bizarre is this match, as it stands out from the pack as their most "shoot style" matchup to date. Instead of the Inoki and Baba tribute acts of the '98 encounter, or the "I will make you retire" closed fist throwing of the '05 classic, this match features both men kickpad'd up and ready to throw down with kicks and submissions. Seeing Yuki Ishikawa of all people throw rolling solebutts is certainly a strange image, but the perfect execution certainly reminds you that he was a Sayama disciple before ever stepping into Gotch's house or Fujiwara's dojo. There are still tinges of the bati-bati stylings to come in the next year or so, but this serves as more of a subtle preview of these two's future bread and butter. Instead, this is just straight-up great shoot style, and another testament to the fact that these two could really do no wrong.
Ryuma Go & Shunji Takano vs. Mr. Pogo & Imagine (Samurai Project 04/17/1996)
Three of the most magnetic presences in j-indie history and the ghost of John Lennon rock the Korakuen Hall like few others even dare attempt. This is the Ryuma Go big match formula at its best, with the most fitting partner and opponents possible to take this to the next level. More than anything else, there's just such a perfect understanding of the energy in the room. The people love Ryuma Go. When Ryuma Go suffers, they suffer. When Ryuma Go bleeds, they bleed. When Ryuma Go triumphs, well, so do they. Pogo is a master as delivering suffering, and Go's comebacks filled with plunder and fire really feel like the best way to respond to such torture. Meanwhile, Shunji Takano is the coolest guy ever. He comes out singing along to "Touch Me" by The Doors and generally spends his time in the match stiffing the fuck out of Imagine. He's almost like a subplot to the match's general focus of The Passion Of Ryuma Go, but a welcome one indeed. If you want to see what the indies are all about in '96, this is a strong match for that. Just sit back, relax, and watch Ryuma Go put on a hard hat and headbutt Mr. Pogo.
The Great Sasuke, Gran Hamada, & Super Delfin vs. Dick Togo, Men's Teioh, & Shiryu (Michinoku Pro 01/14/1997)
The leanest meat variant of the KDX/Seigigun tags, whittling the teams down to the three most vital members on either side and letting them duke it out as long as they need to. This is professional wrestling executed to be its very best. All six guys are so damn talented, so beyond everyone else, that they put performances I'd go so far as to call perfect. The faces are all fantastic fighting from underneath, making huge comebacks with crazy flips and displays of athleticism never matched at any point since this time period. The KDX side of the match juggle the tasks of being brutalizers, bases, and cowards against the face team, and they knock it out of the park. There are incredible displays of ambition throughout, but at no point do they ever cross into overambitious territory, nor do they ever fail to deliver on their promises. On a good day, I'd say this is genuinely the best match to come out of the KDX/Seigigun feud, better than the THESE DAYS tag or the Battlarts tag or anything else. In terms of pure wrestling excellence, there has maybe been nothing else better.
Nobutaka Araya vs. Masaaki Mochizuki (WAR 02/08/1997)
All cards on the table in this one. Araya and Mochizuki, the top rising stars of the heavyweights and the juniors respectively, get nearly 20 minutes to rip each other apart on a Korakuen show. Boy, do they make the most of it. This is sloppy and rough in the most WAR way imaginable, with limbs flung around with reckless abandon and moves done in such a way that death is on the doorstep with every bump. Even a body slam looks and feels like it could kill. They beat each other black and blue, with control shifting in a really natural way, moving back and forth as each guy gets the chance to rattle off just enough of their offense to snag it back. Araya's a great dominating heavyweight, a role he didn't get to play as much as he should've in WAR, and Mochizuki is an awesome victim, taking bumps like he's just been shot. The crowd is nuclear for the entire match but especially the final three minutes with all the nearfalls and big moves. This might be WAR's biggest hidden gem.
Jado, Gedo, & Kodo Fuyuki vs. Masao Orihara, Keisuke Yamada, & The Great Kabuki (Fuyuki-gun Promotions 03/29/1997)
In a way, this is team IWA Japan finally getting revenge for all the groups victimized by Fuyuki-gun. It starts out normal enough for a Fuyuki-gun match: lots of uncooperative fighting and early bombthrowing, general disrespect behind all of their domination, etc. Yamada eats shit for a good bit in the early portion of the match, and it all seems to be going according to plan. That is, until the IWA Japan team gets Fuyuki-gun outside and beats them half to death around the venue. IWA Japan's torture segment of the bloody and battered Fuyuki-gun is some of the best work I've seen the stable involved in, with Fuyuki constantly trying to hulk up but getting cut off every time. There's some moments of shifty melodrama that honestly work because of how hard the IWA team no-sells it, and the eventual Fuyuki-gun comeback feels monumental, somehow morphing the team from the usual dastardly heels into valiant babyfaces finally getting their house of fire. Damn good stuff, and an interesting case study for the capabilities of everyone here beyond their usual roles.
Tarzan Goto vs. Ryo Miyake (Shin FMW 06/17/1997)
The culmination of Goto's trial of endurance, the main event of the show where he wrestled in every single match on the card. You'd expect this final match to be focused on the wear and tear catching up to Goto, giving his trainee Miyake the chance to finally stand on equal footing with such a mountainous figure. Well, how about no. When it comes to Goto, you should learn to expect the unexpected. This is instead one of Goto's most disgusting torture sessions, an exercise in gratuitous violence by father on son. Miyake looks like a butchered cow before the match is even over, covered in blood from stabs and jabs all over his body. Still, he gets his moments to fight back, and you really see flashes of Goto's ideology bleeding into him in some of these. This match, in isolation, is already pretty great. When you factor in the show it happens on and the journey to get to this match, you've got something really special. All hail Tarzan Goto.
Masashi Aoyagi & Cosmo Soldier vs. Azteca & Masayoshi Motegi (WYF 01/08/1998)
This is a lot. Most Yume tags are, but this one especially. You've got a junior of the Liger ilk and a luchador taking on a spaceman and a karateka for nearly 20 minutes. But damn man, do they make it work. Somehow, this is one of the tightest matches to come out of the lower indies of this era, filled with really interesting matwork and control segments. Cosmo is in top form especially, struggling a lot on the ground and doing a great job with selling once Motegi and Azteca start obliterating his back. Aoyagi is also a great hot tag, coming in and going wild with the kicks while also really getting in the faces of anyone willing to step up. Combine all of that with some nasty stiffness and wonderful reckless juniors work and you have yourselves a great tag, one that feels deeply emblematic of the kind of fascinatingly varied place WYF was.
Yuki Ishikawa vs. Katsumi Usuda (Battlarts 03/06/1998)
Battlarts, at its core, is a loving tribute to the wrestling the crew involved loves. Strip away the stiffness and absurd cardbuilding and what you have left is a group of guys absolutely obsessed with wrestling. Ishikawa and Usuda are two of the most open tribute acts, and this plays out as the stiffest, most Shooto version of an Inoki/Fujiwara match possible. Tons of crazy palm strikes and kicks combined with Manji-gatames and Waki-gatames, usually glued together by some of the coolest counters you've ever seen. Both guys are absolute killers but know how to emote enough to never come off as liberty-taking robots. They also wrap it all up with one of my favorite finishing stretches ever, cementing this at one of my top 10 favorite Battlarts matches ever.
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