Various IWE Matches To Cure The Common Cold

                   (Written by jom)

     I might put out a list or something once I inevitably hit 10 IWE posts later this month. I promise you that I'm trying to think of other things to talk about on here, but I haven't pumped out articles at a rate this high since COVID. I am simply enraptured by the beauty of Ancient Pro. The IWE eagle flies over me. Who am I to ignore it?

Rusher Kimura & Great Kusatsu vs. Gypsy Joe & Killer Karl Krupp (01/05/1980)

      Pure piss & vinegar. Gypsy Joe is in one of his moods and Rusher Kimura is happy to satiate him with some of the wildest and most uncomfortable brawling I've yet seen. Like all great IWE brawls, things almost immediately break down at the bell, but what follows this time around is especially chaotic Korakuen touring, to the point that the most accurate comparison piece would probably be the Texas Death Street Fight from FMW. There's a frantic energy to all of the fighting, along with a willingness to push the stiffness to startlingly high levels. It's the kind of work that pushes all the right buttons for me and puts me into that heaven-like state. Then Killer Karl Krupp takes over and I'm brought back down to reality. Now, let me be clear. I think Killer Karl Krupp is cool! I like the claw! In fact, I really like the claw! He generally holds his own during the brawling portions and bumps huge for the babyfaces in the perfectly comedic way that works best for the IWE heroes. The issue is that Killer Karl Krupp is a claw worker, and the jump from the frantic and uncontrollable brawling at the start to extended claw sequences is absolutely felt during the match. Not that the claw work is even bad either; there's one super awesome claw struggle between Kusatsu and Krupp that had me on the edge of my seat. It's just such a tonal shift that it takes me out of the match. Speaking of Kusatsu though, this is another great performance from him. He's a fantastic FIP for guys like Kimura to run a comeback for, and he's not afraid to throw hands in that Kantaro Hoshino rabbit punch kinda way. Seeing him cold clock Joe after Joe refused to sell for him was riveting stuff. The incredibly violent brawling returns in the last five or so minutes, and the post-match brawl continues it with super sickening chairshots and garbage thrown in the ring, but that grind-to-a-halt middle portion can't be ignored. It's a great match, but more than anything else, it makes me hunger for a Joe/Kimura 1980 collision where all bets are off and they just destroy each other the whole time. Whether or not that match will come to pass on our journey remains to be seen. 

Rusher Kimura & Animal Hamaguchi vs. Gypsy Joe & Spike Huber (06/28/1980)

     Ahaha sike bitch that match is right here! Or, at the very least, another chance at it. Once more, this starts off huge with lots of outside brawling, and while the brawl might be slightly lesser than the previous one, it features Spike Huber, who stands head and shoulders above Krupp in that department. I'm getting ahead of myself here though. First of all, who the fuck is Spike Huber? His claim to fame stateside is being the son-in-law of Dick The Bruiser, but he might be my new favorite IWE White Boy. He's just as much of a line-stepper as Joe is, throwing a bunch of awesome punches and constantly running interference. He's also got incredible facial expressions and a great mind for selling, going between overly-dramatic slow fall sells where he sticks one leg up and ridiculous flipping sells where he nearly kills himself on landing. Hamaguchi is a wonderful foil to him, able to match him in the explosive energy while also proving himself just as violent as everyone else here. He's throwing the usual dropkicks and hitting funny standing splashes, but he's also responding to Gypsy Joe's fouling by goozling him and dragging him across the ring by the neck. Kimura and Joe's contributions can go unstated entirely. Both men are arguably in their primes and they deliver violence with the same fervor as in the previously discussed January tag. Now, having said all of that... this is not the match I desired. For as chaotic as some of the outside brawling is, it's still not the primary focus. The actual in-ring work is full of slower hold-working moments and the usual momentum changes. As much as I would wish otherwise, this match is firmly committed to the IWE main event tag formula. It's through that commitment to the standards of the time that this match reminded me of something incredibly valuable: I am not the booker. For as much as I may think I know what's best, I'm just some random dude typing away on a keyboard 45 years later. I really don't know what would've sold tickets or been worthwhile for the workers, and committing myself to theoreticals is not only asking for disappointment, but also denying the true greatness of anything that goes against them. This match fucking rocks. It is the time-tested formula of IWE's most exciting period, with four guys more willing than ever to kick each other's asses and a pretty raucous crowd for a show not happening in Tokyo. It's full of pettiness and hate and builds to so many crowd-pleaser comeback moments. Hell, it even has one of the most interesting bullshit finishes I've seen come out of IWE. It is a standout piece of work in a genre of match I have come to love. So no, according to my nerd ass pussy self, this isn't the match I wanted. It turned out to be the match I needed. 

Mighty Inoue & Isamu Teranishi vs. Strong Kobayashi & Haruka Eigen (06/29/1980)

    I've been so deep in the IWE brawl tag mines that watching one of these high-octane technician tags feels like a much-needed breath of fresh air. There's an implicit story to this match of former ace Kobayashi returning to IWE after joining enemy promotion NJPW to take one of their top belts, but that barely matters at all because the IWE faithful are just happy to see the prodigal son come back home. Instead, this is relentless tag team action from bell to bell, as both teams take turns picking at limbs and testing strategies while looking for the right moves to seal the deal. The IWE duo are the most technically adept, both great at counters and picking their spots, but Teranishi has a slickness that allows him to seamlessly flow out of any situation, while Inoue is more prone to fighting his way out with the big chest chops and slaps right to the mush. Kobayashi plays his part against both perfectly, less mobile and less capable of fighting back on the mat, but also still such a fortress of a wrestler, making Inoue and Teranishi work for everything they get and withstanding so much punishment. Eigen fills the role of Kobayashi's little attack dog very well too, running interference constantly to break up submissions with headbutts and turn the match into something closer to a standing fight. These kinds of tags feel like intricately-made machines, full of little moving parts and interesting mechanisms that make the whole thing work wonderfully. This might be my favorite of the IWE tags fitting into this genre, and you really should check it out, if for no other reason than to see Mighty Inoue and Haruka Eigen working energized juniors sequences over a decade before they would become The Quintessential Old Men.

Kintaro Oki vs. Alex Smirnoff (10/11/1980)

     Yeah dude this is just fun as hell. Two of my favorite characters in IWE get to meet in a singles match and it's exactly the kind of schtick I was looking for. Smirnoff is a chain maniac, basically using it the whole time by either choking Oki with it or punching him with a chain-wrapped fist. He's a master at keeping it out of referee Thesz's line of sight, at one point shifting it to his other hand and hiding it behind the turnbuckle. Oki, meanwhile, is wonderful bumping around in his own half-mobile way, and his headbutts are as supreme as usual. The entire finish is based around Oki's unstoppable rage after finally getting his hands on the chain, and it's a ton of fun. We even get some referee Thesz shenanigans with him throwing off the shirt post-match, looking for a good ole tussle. The previously discussed Oki/Sik vs. Smirnoff/USSR tag was a wonderful setup to this encounter, because it's all the fun character-driven work turned up to eleven. Simple as that. Secretly, this is one of my favorite matches of the project yet, just because of how much fun I had with it. Wrestling is actually super easy when you aren't trying to be a high-concept loser and just give the people all they need to be happy.

Strong Kobayashi vs. Billy Robinson (05/14/1970)

    True Ancient Pro right here. Also incredibly incomplete Ancient Pro! This is five minutes of clips from a nearly 25-minute match. Just by the nature of its presentation, it's kind of hard to gauge the actual quality of the whole thing, and that also gives me a little less to talk about compared to usual. Still, there's a lot of awesome stuff to take in here. Wrestling like this just doesn't exist anymore. Strong Kobayashi and Billy Robinson put each other through the work in ways that have been lost to time, ranging from bridging headscissors struggles to monkey flip waistlock counters. Certainly, most of the IWE I've watched up to this point has felt foreign to the wrestling of the modern day scene, but this is the first match to feel truly alien in both presentation and execution. And that sucks! I really do enjoy these super old school grappling affairs where both guys put on weird holds and torture each other circus tent style. This match also works as a wonderful example of the value of building to the bombs, as seeing Billy Robinson pull off his vicious backbreaker after assumedly 20 minutes of grinding Kobayashi down with mean holds hits a lot different than him just hitting it in the first five minutes next to a bunch of other bombs. It's major credit to them that even with how clipped this is, the wear and tear of the match still comes through. This is definitely worth a watch beyond just the historical footage aspect, especially for anyone that enjoys seeing a guy work a god damn hold.