More IWE Matches For The True Believers

                        (Written by jom)

     My apologies. I don't mean to immediately go back to the personal collection well, but I've been incessantly watching these new tapes and WOW. There's just too much here worth talking about that I can't help but push it to the front of the line. Next post will be exclusively matches available for free on YouTube, I promise you that. 

Gypsy Joe vs. Mighty Inoue (04/27/1978)

     Dirty, nasty, brutal. Mighty Inoue gets a big-time singles match against Gypsy Joe and unleashes inner demons like never before. One of the biggest revelations coming from the IWE voyage is that Mighty Inoue is a complete psychopath. All it takes is a little bit of a push from a malevolent force and Inoue will happily ramp up the evil from zero to a hundred in a second, transforming from the chipper showstopper junior with the somersault sentons and big shoulder tackle into a spiteful and ravenous bastard. Gypsy Joe, of course, does not give him a little push, instead delivering a shove with the force of an NFL linebacker. He's dead-set on eating Inoue's face only a few seconds into the start of his fouling brigade, cracking him over the head and neck with hammer fists and throwing closed shots to the jaw every time he can get a chinlock on. Inoue, in turn, responds with 90% punches directly to the face, before eventually picking up the cannibalism himself with his own face-eating tactics. They rip each other's hair out, kick each other in the dick, and even bring a solid metal cigarette bin into the equation. I don't think I would put this in the tippy-top tier of IWE brawls (too much ring time and not enough blood for that spot), but it's undoubtedly circling around the 2nd to last floor. Wonderful piece of chaotic pro wrestling, my favorite kind indeed.

Rusher Kimura, Ashura Hara, & Animal Hamaguchi vs. Masa Saito, Mr. Hito, & Umanosuke Ueda (04/19/1979)

    There's absolutely nothing wrong with tags designed to be crowd-pleasers. Far from it — there's real value in matches built to give the people what they want. It almost feels stupid to say that out loud, but seeing as how so many people have always despised the lucha legend tags where the old heroes and villains would go out and do their spots to the adoration of the crowd, it's apparently an agenda worth fighting for. This match is another one of those people pleasers, as it's three invading villains doing their usual sort of heel heat while the babyfaces make repeated miraculous comebacks, all to build towards an Ueda/Kimura title match the next day. Nobody's trying to reinvent the wheel here, but if it ain't broke don't fix it. Mr. Hito is the most interesting part of the match to me, not only because it's one of the few Hito IWE matches we have on tape (and, for that matter, one of the few Hito Japan matches as well), but also because Hito is such a great bump guy for the heels. He looks like a Masa Saito mini-me and wrestles with a similar level of viciousness, while also being the only guy on the heel team willing to bump around for the babyfaces, which he does a great job at. I have no complaints about Saito and Ueda being protected to high heaven here, especially considering Ueda's impending title challenge, but the circumstances really do force me to appreciate Hito's talents as a bumbling fouler. Everyone else here does well, too. Really, if you know the type of work these guys do, it's business as usual. Not a great match or a match that feels like a big deal in any capacity, but not really a match designed to be that way regardless. House show main event that passes with flying colors.

Animal Hamaguchi & Great Kusatsu vs. Big John Quinn & Gil Hayes (06/29/1975)

    I don't know what the first fall of this match is like, as we jump straight into the second fall. I also don't know who John Quinn and Gil Hayes are, as I have never even heard of them before, let alone seen them. From a cursory glance at their wikipedia pages, both were long-time mainstays of Stampede wrestling in their native Canada, with Hayes spending almost his entire career up north while Quinn worked basically everywhere in the world at some point. Really, none of that needs to be known here, because all that matters is that Hayes and Quinn are the two most evil wrestlers alive. I've slowly built up this belief throughout all of the IWE watching that IWE was the one promotion in Japan to get the closest to southern-style territory rasslin', and this is the first match I've seen that feels almost designed to prove that argument. Within 30 seconds of where we join into the match, Hayes takes Hamaguchi outside and slams him face-first into a table. Thirty seconds after that, Hayes and Quinn get Hamaguchi back in the ring, and Hamaguchi is losing actual buckets of blood. What follows is one of the most uncomfortably gruesome angles in Japanese wrestling history, as Kusatsu tries his best to protect a completely limp and bleeding out Hamaguchi while the Canadians attempt to sneak around him and land shots on Hamaguchi's corpse. I truly cannot remember the last time I've seen something even remotely close to this from a Japanese company. It is entirely foreign to the makeup of that country's wrestling style, more reminiscent of something out of Memphis or Puerto Rico. I'm half-convinced that Dusty Rhodes was booking for IWE via snail mail. This is something special.

Great Kusatsu & Mighty Inoue vs. Pierre Martin & Mad Dog Martel (12/02/1975)

    As usual, two of IWE's beloved native workers take on two dastardly foreigners in the unforgiving steel cage. Martin and Martel are devious French Canadians known as THE COMBAT, with Martel actually being the older brother of Rick Martel. I'm still not exactly sure who is who, and I refer to them in my notes as "Combat Bald" and "Combat Hair," so that's what I'll be sticking with here. They're the traditional bunch of fouling white boys, prone to scratching and biting but also pretty amazing punchers, especially Combat Hair. Combat Hair comes off as almost a Canadian Satanico in this match, both in appearance and in his general in-ring style, full of nasty punches and incredible face bumps. Combat Bald is good too, albeit his best trait (his selling) only comes through once the early heel heat portion morphs into something much bigger. After two minutes of basic and solid fouling, the cuts cuts away for some clipping and comes back to Mighty Inoue bleeding harder than I've ever seen him bleed at any other point in his career. It goes beyond just a crimson mask and nearly becomes a crimson chest and torso as well. Inoue once again takes this torturing as his excuse to unleash hell upon the white boys with the nastiest chair shots of the 70s. Kusatsu is more than happy to dish out equal punishment too, including breaking a glass something against the ring post and repeatedly stabbing Combat Hair in the face with it. They beat The Combat up and down the ring with cage slams and big punches and everything you can imagine. While other IWE brawls have felt like culminations of violence, this is the first to feel more like a celebration of violence. Inoue and Kusatsu give the people what they want by pulling out anything and everything to destroy The Combat with. Maybe the most fun I've had with a match this entire project.

Rusher Kimura vs. Mad Dog Vachon (03/26/1977)

    Writing these little reviews makes me feel like an IWE Paul Revere. I just want to scream to high heaven that the Rusher is coming, so everyone can be prepared to witness Rusher kino. This is a strong candidate for the top spot in Rusher Kimura's Ultimate Bloodletting Classics list, and actually usurps the Mulligan match for the crown, at least for now. Mad Dog Vachon gives us the second best tone-setter in IWE history by spitting in Kimura's face only seconds into the match, and maintains that vile energy by spending the entire match fouling. No joke, about 80% of his offense is just cheating, ranging from eye pokes and claws, to chokes, to biting, to anything else you can imagine. He rips at any open hole on Kimura's face like he's trying to remove his skin. He gets his hands on a chain and begins putting Kimura through the closest thing to Hellraiser torture he can. The thing with Rusher Kimura, though, is that he gives back what he takes, and he gives it back twofold. It's similar to the Mighty Inoue policy of taking any provocation as a sign to press the nuclear button, but Kimura usually goes about it in a more heroic way, albeit just as brutal. Rusher Kimura is a reaction: if you give him a little, he'll give you a little more back. If you're a guy like Mad Dog Vachon, who gives Rusher the beating of a lifetime, then you'd better grit your teeth for the Rusher comeback run. Chain torture evolves into ring post slams which evolves into closed fist brawling among the crowd. Everything goes to hell and everybody dies, including the referee (which fulfills the long-dreamt prophecy of an IWE match where every single person in the ring bleeds). The entire finishing stretch of this match is up there for the best of Rusher's entire career. Calling this IWE fireworks feels like an understatement. This is an IWE atomic bomb, a dangerous and blood-soaked explosion of the pro wrestling spirit that probably left an indelible impression on the psyches of everyone in attendance. Easily one of Kimura's best matches thus far, and most likely one of his best matches ever.

Primordial IWE Matches To Turn You Into Dust

                       (Written by jom)

     I have been on the planet Earth for a reasonable number of years now. These matches precede me by over double my age. It is baffling to me how much of this is in reasonably high quality, and I keep catching myself staring in amazement at the crispness of the Strong Kobayashi hammer fists. I just don't feel like we were meant to be able to see Rusher Kimura's early bloodletting spectacles in higher quality than the later ones. There has been some grave error in the fabric of the universe, and we can only use it to our own benefit. I ain't complaining though. Old ass IWE makes me happy :). 

Asataro Sano vs. Sankichi Fuji (10/29/1969)

     The very first IWE match on tape. It'll always be weird seeing matches from the 60s, especially from Japan. It's almost even more shocking that we have this match specifically, considering how few IWE young boy matches we have. We don't have a single bit of Masahiko Takasugi, Kodo Fuyuki, or Apollo Sugawara, but we somehow have an Asataro Sano match. Sano would be gone from the business by 1971, while Fuji would leave IWE for a life of working in the states, only returning years later for a short tour as Yasu Fuji (where he would have one of the promotion's best cage matches ever). Just by virtue of how fascinating this match is as a historical relic, it's worth checking out. The action itself is just about fine, though. Everything is weirdly stagnant and the progression of the match feels stilted but that comes more from the time period than anything else. Asataro Sano knows three moves and can't bring himself to string those moves together in any varying ways, but his dropkick is cool and he throws punches to the gut. Fuji is actually a very solid heel for someone so early into their career, catching Sano with punches to the jaw in headlocks and sticking his thumb in Sano's throat when the ref isn't looking. He also randomly hits a bodyslam on the floor which gets zero pop from the crowd but a big pop from me. I can't say this is anything more than perfectly fine when it comes to the in-ring stuff, but it's definitely something I think people should watch, just to see how much wrestling has changed in the last 50+ years.

Rusher Kimura vs. Billy Robinson (06/03/1974)

    Strong chance this is the biggest footage tragedy in IWE history. Bigger than Wahoo/Kusatsu, bigger than any of the other 8mm film I've seen so far. Arguably, the only one of greater magnitude is the original IWE cage match of Rusher vs. Dr. Death, and that one feels like less of a tragedy and more of an inevitability considering the circumstances around the match's broadcast. We have a little over a third of this match, and no audio at that, and even with so much missing I think there's a high likelihood that this is one of IWE's greatest matches ever. Kimura is a hammer and Robinson is a scalpel, and those two truths come to define the match. Both men get a chance to show how well rounded they are early on, with Kimura doing some great wristlock work on Robinson in the early portions and Robinson responding with nasty elbows and uppercuts, but the idea becomes set about halfway in that Rusher has Robinson entirely beat in a standing strike battle, and Robinson is forced to use all of his brain to avoid getting caught in a Rusher onslaught. I've never seen a wrestler so willing to block like Robinson. Especially nowadays when guys are totally fine with eating a strike to respond back with their own, Robinson stands out for how hard he tries to not get hit. When blocking isn't viable, he tries to eat Rusher alive with unrelenting strike combos, and that strategy is proved to be a double-edged sword when Rusher eats it all and tsuppari strike's him to hell. This is a battle of masters, two of the very best deep within their zones, and it delivers on all fronts. If we ever get the full version of this (which I have to assume doesn't exist anymore), I'm sure it'll stand out as a top 5er at the very least. It's able to land in the upper echelon just as it is now.

Rusher Kimura & Mighty Inoue vs. Danny Lynch & Butcher Lynch (01/06/1975)

    So, the Lynch Brothers (no relation to Jeff or David). Two of the strangest looking fellas I've never seen anyone talk about before. As far as I can tell, both of them come from the UK, which means their hobbit-like frame at least makes a little more sense. They look like the middle form in the Pokemon evolution chain going from Trashman to King Kong Bundy. They also work as oddly as they look: Danny does kung fu strikes while making Donald Duck noises, and Butcher goes for pure Britwres handstands and headscissors. They feel more like Saturday morning cartoon characters than gritty pro wrestlers, which makes the match in question feel even more surreal. This is the first Kimura bloodbath I've ever seen where Rusher isn't the heaviest bleeder; Danny Lynch gets some of the gnarliest juice in IWE history and spends half the match sporting a crimson mask. His blood is so coagulated too, splattering around the ring like Nickelodeon slime, especially during the points where Kimura literally stomps the blood out of his head. Kimura is pretty ruthless all around, chopping at the wound and even throwing a low blow at one point. Maybe he didn't appreciate Danny's attempt at Shaolin style martial arts, or maybe he just doesn't like people that look so round. Mighty Inoue falls more in line with the wacky fun that the Lynch Brothers imply with their inherent goofiness, mostly pulling off cool counters like one of the best back body drops I've ever seen, but he also gets in with the grittiness when he does a 1975 chair shot to one of the brothers and chokes the other with a cable on the outside. It's all such a bizarrely compelling affair, like turning on Wacky Races only to watch Dick Dastardly get waterboarded halfway into the episode. Definitely worth checking out to witness the passion of the Lynch Brothers. Also Rusher Kimura goes uber rage mode following the fuck finish and brutalizes referee Osamu Abe and booker Isao Yoshihara, so that's awesome.

Animal Hamaguchi vs. Mighty Inoue (09/26/1973)

    Absolute blast right here. This is spiritually much closer to the types of young boy matches you would see today compared to the Fuji/Sano match, albeit neither of these men are actually rookies. Hamaguchi and Inoue give Korakuen Hall a wonderful lightning-quick technical match, one full of techniques mostly foreign to the scene at this point. It's an amazing showcase of how talented both men are at this kind of relentless workrate action, and it's a great preview of not only their future work, but also the future of wrestling in Japan in general. I'd go so far as to say that this is the closest 1970s IWE ever got to hosting a spotfest, albeit the kind of spotfest is very different from the ones happening in the decades to come. I think the biggest boon of this match is just how good both men are at integrating struggle into their work. The execution is absolutely flawless, but the picture-perfect motions never sacrifice the realism of the work. Hamaguchi and Inoue fight over arm drags and cravates and every other hold they put each other through, all while finding more intricate ways to go about putting themselves into winning positions. This is supreme pro wrestling, and definitely stands out among the IWE crowd. It's a total heartbreaker that this would be the last time these two would face off in any capacity on tape until the Ishin Gundan invasion of AJPW in the mid-80s. This is a singles pairing that could've rocked the world.

Strong Kobayashi vs. Rusher Kimura (07/09/1973)

    The one. IWE's new ace versus the man who will become the true ace only a few years later. This is the first native-only title match in Japan in over a decade, and it has that big fight feel in droves. The crowd is super amped up before the bell even rings, and Kobayashi and Kimura know exactly how to play into that, crafting one of the better slow and deliberate title matches of the era. Similar to the Robinson match discussed earlier, this plays out partially as a striker against grappler sort of deal, with most of Kimura's big comeback moments coming from his nasty chops and Kobayashi taking back control with some of his best grappling I've yet seen. A lot of it is both creative and brutal, from the leg crucifix where he kept trying to squash Kimura's head like a grape to the body scissors with tailbone-shattering slams. It's certainly not the most exciting work at some points, but for most of the match, it's just active enough to keep you locked in. Kimura also does a great job of fighting out of the holds, mostly through chopping Kobayashi to hell while on the ground. The more energized moments of the match feel like great payoffs as well, especially the all-out brawl near the end of the first fall which I've posted to Twitter at least twice now. I think that the third fall would probably be the fork in the road for most people, as everything up to that point is pretty great, and the way they approach finishing the match either cements the match's status as great or knocks it down a peg depending on personal preference. For me, I think it's a fitting end to one of the most important title matches in IWE history, even if I also think there's a better version of the finish out there in another timeline. Regardless, this is more great stuff, maybe not either man's best work but something worth mentioning when discussing both men's strongest assortment of matches.

A Wrestling Enterprise Of The International Variety

                      (Written by jom)

     I think that if Rusher Kimura were to wrestle in 2025, he would receive the Jon Moxley "blood gooner" accusations, and, whether or not they have any basis in reality, my head would unscrew from my body and fly at the accusers like a cannonball. Rusher Kimura bleeds for ME. Rusher Kimura bleeds for YOU. Rusher Kimura bleeds for ALL the IWE faithful. Take part in IWE communion and cherish the blood of Rusher, along with the Strong Kobayashi wafer biscuit. 

Rusher Kimura vs. Blackjack Mulligan (10/10/1973)

     Visceral violence. This is a top tier match belonging in the Kimura Bloodletting Hall Of Fame. Two men in their early 30s that appear to be in their late 40s taking turns trying to push all the blood they can out of the other's face using only their fists. What's not to love? Describing it as just a bloody punchy match actually does this one a major disservice though, as both men put in stellar performances and do a heck of a job making themselves out to be the best wrestlers alive. Blackjack Mulligan's work as a heel is phenomenal. He's not afraid to look like a complete goof in the early portions as Kimura outwrestles him at every turn, yelping in pain and practically begging the ref to break the holds with farcical hair pull accusations. Throughout all of this, he keeps motioning to his tights, and the IWE fans are smart enough at this point to know that Mulligan has an equalizer that he's waiting to get his hands on. Once he does, it's a slaughter. Mulligan's work surrounding The Foreign Object is where he truly shines, maybe even more than when he's punching Kimura in the face. He's so good at slipping it in and out of sight, shifting it around his body to keep the ref from ever noticing, while making sure the crowd is keenly aware of its presence. I almost made the match's GIF a clip of him shifting it from his trunks to his palm during an impromptu gear check by the referee, only to then slip it right back into the glove the second the ref turns away. It's smarmy and reprehensible and all around evil, the exact kind of work a guy should be giving a hard-nosed hero like Kimura. Speaking of Kimura, what a god damn seller he is. He stumbles around and gasps for air as his entire face gets covered in red. He swings for the fences in the face of complete annihilation. He is blood-drenched and near death, and yet he can't help himself but get back up and try one more time to give Mulligan a couple good socks to the jaw. As always, the Kimura comeback delivers big time, especially once he gets his hands on the loaded glove. You can certainly levy accusations that this match goes a bit too long considering how much the match repeats itself with these punching frenzies, but, as someone with a deep and unhealthy obsession with brawls, this match never stops giving me what I love, so I certainly can't complain. Just as much of a clinic in character work as it is a gore feast for the sickest of minds.

Ashura Hara vs. Nick Bockwinkel (10/03/1979)

    I've been covering a lot of bloody brawls and big-time grappling epics in the last few posts, so it's kind of nice to get a match like this for the first time in a while. This is good! It's a nifty little match that never really goes beyond first gear, but that first gear is good enough on its own. Hara and Bock do mostly basic work but both are smart enough workers to be able to make it all feel pretty interesting. Bock is the king of positioning, putting his own body as well as Hara's into the exact right place for any given spot or counter. There's so much evident greatness in the way he approaches momentum shifts, not only making them feel labored but also showing a step-by-step guide to how he performs each one. It works especially well against Hara, who, while entirely competent on the mat, certainly isn't as energized here as he was in the Zrno classics. Also, both guys throw super awesome shoulder tackles. I'm so used to shoulder tackles being perfunctory at this point, so seeing both men put so much effort into actually tackling each other with theirs made me genuinely pop a little bit. This isn't some big great encounter or anything that'll be remembered by me a week from now (maybe save the shoulder tackles), but I'm not going to complain about two guys putting in a perfectly fine match.

Invader #2 vs. Goro Tsurumi (01/20/1981)

    Another match that lands more along the lines of "fun" than "great." I hate that we have so little Goro Tsurumi IWE footage compared to the other major players. He's a pretty wonderful foil to Invader in this match, kicking his ass with nasty punches and knee drops while getting into spats with referee Thesz. Invader isn't the greatest of the foreigners around this point, but he's pretty interesting as a face that's incredibly willing to foul. There's a great spot where Invader and Tsurumi trade hidden closed fists, and I have to imagine Thesz was not a happy camper watching these guys so willingly break the rules in the latter half of the match. Once again, this is nothing vital, but if you're in the mood for some Goro Tsurumi, this is definitely one you'll find some joy in.

Rusher Kimura & Great Kusatsu vs. Umanosuke Ueda & Thunder Sugiyama (09/13/1979)

    We're on a roll here with matches that deliver the goods. This is more of the usual Ueda/Rusher madness, complete with hot starts, nerve holds, and a bullshit finish. What more could you ever want? As usual, everyone performs at their usual high level, with Kusatsu especially standing out at maybe his most pissed off I've ever seen. He responds to Ueda's cheap tricks and choking propensities with equal violence, at one point holding him in a necklock through the ropes and cursing at him the whole time. While he never really throws any of his great punches during the match, he does take Joe Leduc out of the equation with them before the match even begins. I'm incredibly excited to find the one Kusatsu match from era where he's really allowed to let loose, because it's not hard to tell that he has real hate boiling under the surface. Thunder Sugiyama also stands out here, less because of his performance (which is really good to be clear!) and more because of his presence at all. Sugiyama's IWE work on tape is tragically limited, a bizarre fact considering how big of a deal he was for the group in the early days. It's nice to see him show back up as an NJPW fighter, crushing Kusatsu with his hip drops and happily going along with Ueda's choke clinic. In all, this is the usual great stuff from these guys, and definitely serves its purpose of making me want to see a lot more from each of them.

Spike Huber & Rocky Brewer vs. Animal Hamaguchi & Mighty Inoue (07/25/1980)

    Let's rip the band-aid off: this match is not good. At least, I can't find it in myself to call it good. The matchup itself is high potential, as IWE's greatest tag team of Hamaguchi and Inoue get to take on the lunatic white boy Huber and another complete nobody named Rocky Brewer. In my experience, putting the more energetic IWE guys against the foreigners that know how to get a little crazy is the winning formula for the cage matches. Hell, they even send Gypsy Joe out there as Huber and Brewer's cornerman/guide through the chaos. The biggest problem this match has is that they gave it 27 minutes, and the four men involved couldn't find a way to deal with that except via working a completely normal match for the first fourteen minutes. No joke, you could spend the entire first half of the match pretending that the cage isn't there, and at no point would they break the spell of your own delusion. No cage slams, no face grating, the only time it even gets close is when Inoue dodges a Brewer tackle and Brewer goes through the ropes, just happening to hit the cage. The work itself, that kind of energized tag work Hamaguchi and Inoue always excelled at, is perfectly fine, but the complete disregard for the environment of the match legitimately troubles me. It does! It bugs me to no end to see these guys just working holds and making quick tags, all while they're surrounded by unforgiving steel and chain. The action only gets moving in the right direction after Gypsy Joe appears without a shirt on and hands the white boys some sort of big spike or 2x4 or something. It is the largest item I have ever seen that can deservingly be called a Foreign Object. Even then, there's still a minute or two of the white boy duo working over Inoue normally, until Huber gets his hands on a much smaller Foreign Object and admittedly does awesome falling stabs to Inoue. The proceeding 13 minutes are generally pretty sick, as all four men end up bleeding, the fists start flying, and the drama picks up appropriately, but the energy just isn't there. I was so checked out by the time Joe showed up with The Big Ass Foreign Object that none of the work after that could get me all the way back into it. Would I therefore call this a bad match? I don't know! The work is jarring, but it's still fine, and they do very nearly bring it back in the last few minutes. I just think this match possesses a fundamental misunderstanding of the cage and what it implies, and the more I think about it the worse I feel. If all you care about is moments, there are good ones here. It's certainly the most off-putting cage match I've ever seen though, and not in a good way.

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.

IWE Matches That Soothe My Troubled Soul

                  (Written by jom)

     Have you guys seen that photo of Rusher Kimura with his massive collection of Louis bags? If not, here it is. You should check it out.

Kintaro Oki vs. Umanosuke Ueda (10/04/1980)

      Considering everything else I've discussed up to this point, this is the most obvious great match ever. Ueda and Oki go out and beat each other around Omihachiman Athletic Park for fifteen minutes and all is right in the world. In a way, it's almost hard to find worthwhile words for this match, because it really just gives you everything you would expect. Oki hits as hard as he ever did and rampages Ueda into walls and ring posts with his signature pissed-off fire. Ueda finds any and all opportunities to slap on cobra claws and utilize Foreign Objects, all while begging off and bumping huge for Oki's moments of rage. They tear down the building and drag anyone not quick enough into the onslaught, including the commentator who gets bumped hard and taken out in the latter half of the match. I will at least admit that, for as great as this is, it also never really goes beyond "great". I can't really explain why, either. I think it generally did a good job of delivering on the promise of Ueda & Oki in a singles match, but I also think it may have had more juice worth squeezing out. The violence was big, but it could've been even bigger with a little more time or a little more violence. This kind of argument isn't worth much salt, though. The match is great, and the match makes me happy in the exact right way this match should. No use in expending any energy on what-ifs when what we got is sick as fuck. 

Mile Zrno & Charly Verhulst vs. Ashura Hara & Jiro Inazuma (05/09/1979)

    More Zrno goodness, and more Zrno goodness with Hara! Both men have brought their friends with them, and what an assortment of compatriots. Charly Verhulst is another guy I've never heard of before, and you can tell he's from the Zrno sphere of pro wrestling just from how he moves in the ring. He's certainly not as quick and enduring as Zrno, but he's holds his own on the ground and knows how to throw uppercuts with the best of them. Jiro Inazuma, meanwhile, is a man I know much about, and a man I've somehow not included in any of these IWE write-ups until now. I wouldn't call this match the best showcase of his abilities, but he gets his moments to shine, throwing wild uppercuts at Verhulst and pulling off beautiful headscissors takedowns on Zrno. Of course, Zrno and Hara are the stars of the show, and they give us a lot more of the action they rocked Korakuen Hall with a few days prior. Zrno's such a tenacious worker, outright refusing to give up holds unless he has a very clear reason to do so (be that rope break or better vantage point). Hara, meanwhile, is one of the best at taking advantages of those little pockets of opportunity found between Zrno's barrages. This match also has both men laying in the strikes even harder than before, with Zrno's uppercuts landing flush on the jaw, and Hara's dropkick nearly detaching Znro's head from his body. Ignoring the sadly weird and sloppy finishing stretch between Inazuma and Zrno, this is more prime pro wrestling, and a fitting lower-key sequel to the borderline classic earlier in the tour.

Kintaro Oki & Kim Duk vs. Great Kusatsu & Animal Hamaguchi (11/28/1978)

     I simply cannot get enough of Oki going beast mode. This is one of the more tweener Oki performances of his IWE appearances, taking on the definitive babyface duo of Hamaguchi and Kusatsu with loyal goon Duk by his side. Tragically, this is also clipped to high heaven, seemingly less by the TV station and more by footage degradation, but what we get is very cool. This is the best Kusatsu has ever looked, as he locks on quick and flashy holds and gets a few chances to go toe-for-toe against the Koreans with standing strikes. Most of his striking is just perfectly fine, but he does turn it up out of nowhere in the latter half of the match, throwing hellacious jabs and uppercuts at Duk. I'm sure Kusatsu got more of an opportunity to show his stuff in the handful of cage matches I just haven't gotten around to checking out yet, but for a guy that's always come off as good enough, he certainly feels like a lot more coming out of this one. Hamaguchi mostly does what Hamaguchi does, bumping around well and pulling off one of his awesome airplane spins, but never doing too much of note. The Korean duo here stand out the most, especially Oki with his usual Oki headbutts and meanness, but Duk shows his own viciousness with some nice knees to the temple and an awesome Canadian backbreaker. Maybe if we had the full 18 minute version of this match it'd be something outright great. As it stands, we only have 6 minutes, but those six minutes are fun and worth a look. 

Rusher Kimura vs. Professor Tanaka (11/30/1978)

     Another IWE post means another Rusher Kimura singles match. Kimura singles matches are closer to being comfort food to me than anything else, usually simple and repetitive in their structure and narrative but full of the necessary heart and spirit to keep me enjoying the action no matter how many of them I watch. This match is, undeniably, par for the course for Kimura singles matches. As usual, he's placed across the ring from a big bad foreigner, this one being Professor Tanaka, a guy that looks so intimidating that he had an entire second career as a character actor for bodyguard and sumo roles in B-flicks. I guess you could say there's an extra layer here with Tanaka's existence as a gimmick Japanese man, but IWE puts less than zero effort into making that part of the match's story, and I personally feel no interesting in dwelling on it beyond this mention here. He's good in the role of intimidator + brutalizer, letting his general presence do a lot of the heavy lifting while pulling out some nice holds or quick jabs every now and then to keep the action from stalling out. Kimura matches up with him well too, as he's just as good at wrenching himself out of submissions and crumpling from Tanaka's cheap shots. Inevitably, Kimura fights back hard enough to require Tanaka to rely on a Foreign Object, and that leads to a bloody Kimura's final stand. I could've pulled out a piece of paper and mapped out this match's entire structure within 10 seconds of the bell ringing. I promise you, if you know the Kimura formula, you know what will happen here, and neither man does much of anything to divert expectations. Having said that, I love the formula, and I have no issue with them sticking to the usual script. Maybe not much for the average fan, but for the real Rusherholics, this is more of the good stuff.

Cage Death: Ashura Hara & Mighty Inoue vs. Terry Lathan & Paul Ellering (05/16/1981)

    Astonishing. I can't believe I missed this match when I went on my journey through the IWE Chronicles DVD set. This is the first time I've ever seen it and I'm completely blown away. I'll just come out and say it now: this is a strong contender for the best cage match IWE ever put on, at the very least among the matches we have on tape. This is Hara at his most emotionally-driven and Inoue at his most fiery and unrelenting, complimented by two white dudes willing to throw endless punches to the face and cheat to high heaven. Paul Ellering looks like a cartoon parody of a professional wrestler, complete with action figure-like body shape and the world's worst hairline. He throws bizarre punches that are as good as they are weird, and he more than makes up for any strange movements with just how much of a presence he has in the ring. Terry Lathan, meanwhile, feels like the biggest non-Japanese discovery of the whole project, a 'Bama boy with a propensity for biting at wounds and bumping like a madman. While Ellering does a damn good job of being Ellering, Lathan acts as the workhorse here, doing most of the big bumping during the babyface comebacks while also pushing the level of violence with his viciousness. They're a fantastic duo, one that matches up perfectly with two of IWE's best in their most prime forms. Hara really feels like the next guy up with his beautiful punching comeback and his massive superplex, but he really excels on defense as he stumbles around from Lathan's punches. It's a nice preview of Hara's work a decade later as he starts to figure out that signature Hara selling style that would put him head and shoulders above practically every other wrestler ever. Inoue, meanwhile, is fully realized. His pissed off and reckless comeback work in this match is the best I've ever seen from him, even greater than the comeback in the Ueda tag discussed last week. He's a punching and stabbing machine, throwing the ref around whenever he tries to get involved and refusing to let up on his assailants. This is spectacular, one of the last great matches from the final months of IWE, and a potential contender for IWE's best match ever.