The Voices Are Back. They Beg For IWE.

                          (Written by jom)

     I took a bit of an IWE break recently, mostly because I was just busy but also to refresh myself with other wrestling. Sadly, I have conditioned my brain too far. I couldn't help but watch and think "where are all the referee bumps?" or "why isn't there a 9ft tall cage around the ring?" I'm like a sick dog, ready to be taken behind the shed and sent to the angels. Until that happens though, I'll remain here, in my chamber of IWE. 

Rusher Kimura vs. Nick Bockwinkel (10/05/1979)

     Bock. Is. Back. Nick Bockwinkel returns to the IWE blog posts and once again delivers a really great match against one of the stalwarts of the company. Rusher feels like a great compliment to Kintaro Oki in that sense, similar in build and mobility but different enough in both the grounding and standing game. As usual, this match starts with nearly ten minutes of old school grappling, and I'm just in love with everything that happens. So much of the grappling portion is based around Kimura putting on side headscissors, and it works so well thanks to both Kimura's dogged determination and Bock's wily escape tactics. Watching them battle it out on the mat, I couldn't help but think that these kinds of matches feel almost similar to double acts from old vaudeville comedy, with each guy filling their own roles to work off one another. Rusher Kimura is the straight man, stiff and rigid in his work and entirely grounded. Nick Bockwinkel, meanwhile, is the banana man, flailing around wildly and crafting weird holds and escapes to get control over Kimura. It's a comparison that may not land all the way, but I hope my ramblings at least make some sort of sense. Everything beyond the grappling is great and exactly what you would ask for from the pairing. Bock is an incredible seller and Kimura is an incredible giver, and everything feels just so well done for the pairing. Truly, this is the perfect match that these two could give, down to the wonderful bullshit finish. Another strong non-brawling performance from Kimura, and another great match from Bock.

Strong Kobayashi vs. Lars Anderson (09/26/1973)

    As I've stated before, the usual Strong Kobayashi match format doesn't go entirely well with my sensibilities. I can enjoy a good bit of slow-burn grappling, but the slow crawl pacing of many of his matches is just a bit too slow for me. So you can imagine my excitement when I was skimming one of the early 70s compilation DVDs and stumbled across what appeared to be a Rusher Kimura-esque bloody brawl featuring Kobayashi! I have no interest in Kobayashi being Kimura, but I was just interested in seeing what Kobayashi would do in an environment like this one. And yeah, he's pretty good at this whole brawling thing. He's a little less active than Kimura is in his matches, more prone to just letting himself get beaten down, and his strikes definitely land with less oomph (especially the Hulk Hogan style chairshots), but he's certainly able to harness the spirit of a pissed off ace, throwing mean shots to the midsection and eventually taking out his frustrations on the referee. Lars Anderson, for his part, is fine enough too. He's pretty good at what he does here, which is mostly punching and kicking Kobayashi in the face, so he slots in nicely as a dollar store Blackjack Mulligan. I still anxiously await the Kobayashi match that'll blow me away, but this is a nice detour from snail-like matwork and an interesting look at another of Kobayashi's faces.

Rusher Kimura & Great Kusatsu vs. Danny Lynch & Butcher Lynch (01/07/1975)

    The quacking Humpty Dumpty duo returns. Last time we saw the Lynch Brothers, they gave us a very special Kimura bloody brawl featuring the very first instance of someone bleeding more than Kimura himself. Well, here they are once again, and they're game for another big Kimura bloody brawl, albeit one that's way more in line with the usual expectations. This match actually has one of Kimura's grosser bladejobs, as he spends the entire last half of the match with blood all over his head, arms, and torso. The Brothers Lynch are strong in control with their usual bizarre offense, complete with Danny Lynch throwing reach-around tummy punches and Butcher Lynch basically running across the ring to land uppercuts. They're great on defense too, bumping like lunatics around the ring for Kusatsu and Kimura, and Danny Lynch cranks it up even farther during Kimura's big comeback as he starts hitting backflips on every Kimura punch. It's selling that goes beyond the point of parody, but I love it very much. Certainly not one of the best tags from this era or matches from this genre, but a fun little time that makes me happy we have more Lynch Brothers footage.

Ashura Hara vs. Nelson Royal (10/05/1979)

    This is a pretty infamous match, less for the content and more for the ramifications. The long and short of it is that Nelson Royal's NWA Junior Heavyweight title defense wasn't considered authorized, and both NJPW and AJPW contacted the NWA to protest about the belt being defended in a non-NWA organization. This would result in Royal giving up the title and retiring, making this his last match (until he would un-retire four years later) and leading to the creation of another junior title because of more NWA in-fighting spawned by this. All of that is to say that most people don't remember this match for the match itself, which I think should be rectified. This is great! So much of Hara's late '79 run has been him proving his capabilities in as many facets of wrestling as possible, and this is his best showing when it comes to the slower minimalist grappling that dominated the Japan main event scene. Unlike the swift and complex matwork of Mile Zrno, Royal's brand of wrestling is concentrated on headlocks and sleeper holds, doing his best to trap Hara back into the chokes any time he would find a way to escape. Hara is great on defense, scrambling on the mat to escape Royal's clutches and selling Royal's knee strikes to the body like his appendix burst. The work is slow, but it's well-practiced, and the struggle is kept interesting enough to never lose me. It all builds to a great finishing stretch involving big suplexes and even bigger counters, the exact kind of ending this type of match deserves. I certainly wouldn't call this better than either of the Zrno singles matches, but it still stands out as a different kind of great technical match than what I'm used to seeing from Hara.

Mighty Inoue & Great Kusatsu vs. Mad Dog Vachon & Gypsy Joe (02/27/1977)

    Wild, wild fun. Honestly, I don't have a ton to say here. The biggest problem I have with these kinds of matches from a writer's perspective is that they leave little room for aggrandizing, and aggrandizing is, in a sense, my business. This tag wears its heart on its sleeve and spends no time at all attempting to apply subtext or hidden meaning or any of that other bullshit. What you see is what you get, and what you get is an unstoppable frenzy of Korakuen violence. These are four immensely talented brawlers being given the floor to brawl, and they do basically everything you'd want them to do in that situation. Gypsy Joe keeps finding assorted objects to attack people with, ranging from actual blades to big bins. Vachon repeatedly nearly kills fans with his crowd rampaging and gets into little fights with Inoue & Kusatsu multiple times. The home team throw their usual nasty strikes and get big comeback pops. It's textbook stuff from the four in question, and the execution is great all around. No need to try and think too hard about a match like this. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.

Waiter! Waiter! More IWE Please! Thank You :)

                         (Written by jom)

     I wonder how much we have of the IWE guys on excursion. I'd kill a man to see the Rusher Kimura USA and Canada tapes. CAGEMATCH says a Kimura/Dory Funk Jr. match from 1970 ended up on TV, so if anyone knows where that one is hit me up. 

Great Kusatsu vs. The Stomper (11/04/1979)

     The (Mongolian) Stomper makes his debut in the Kokusai zone. I deeply respect Kusatsu's commitment to getting over all the top act foreigners in late stage IWE, usually at the cost of his own credibility as a main eventer. Here he is bumping like a beast for Stomper, getting beaten down and choked out while letting Stomper get over all his bigger moves and, more importantly, his character. Kusatsu certainly isn't a weakling in this match though; he pulls off some of his usual big spots, like the always great counter cobra twist and the figure four leglock, and he even hits a massive suplex on Stomper that shakes the ring. Still, Stomper is a real animal of a worker, frantically hunting down Kusatsu and always applying the pressure. He has Yasu Fuji hovering around him as well, ready to jump in and interfere any time Kusatsu gets a little too deep in control. Grading this in the "great match" way feels almost wrong, because this match actually does exactly what it sets out to do and does so excellently. Stomper is now a credible top guy, ready to take on Rusher and Oki and whoever else he'll need to stomp all over in this tour. Good stuff and a well-done debut match.

Mike George vs. Kintaro Oki (04/26/1980)

    Good stuff. Mike George is a Mid-South guy, so I honestly assumed he would fit like a glove, and he kinda does? Maybe it's just by the nature of this match, but while he definitely works well, he's not doing as much fighting as I would've expected. This is primarily a grappling match by design though, so maybe that's not the best option for studying the Mike George capabilities. This follows a pretty basic structure of Oki dominating on the mat, George pushing back with fouling, and Oki making the big comeback with chops and headbutts. It's the time-tested formula for most IWE main eventers, and it's one I usually enjoy no matter what. This match is no exception, albeit it's certainly not trying to stand out from the pack. Oki's armwork is cool and feels very unrelenting, as he constantly hunts for grounded armlocks from any and all positions. George's fouling is more than competent, and features the first white boy cross chop I've ever seen. The Oki comeback, as always, rocks. Not a match that elicits much discussion, but a perfectly fine outing indeed.

Rusher Kimura vs. Umanosuke Ueda (04/20/1979)

    For some, this might be the most anticipated matchup of the IWE voyage. IWE's greatest hero takes on its most notorious villain with the IWA World Heavyweight championship on the line. Just for a bit of historical context, these two's first singles match came in 1976, where Ueda beat Kimura and actually won the title (a tragically lost piece of wrestling as far as I know). They'd have a rematch a month later that would end in a no contest, and then Ueda vanished from wrestling for half a year, vacating the belt before Kimura could ever win it back. Now, here we are, three years later. This match starts with the very rare appearance of Thinker Kimura, as Rusher actually tries to out-wrestle Ueda to cancel out Ueda's bullshit fouling. It's a fascinating strategy for a guy like Rusher to use. He's a wrestler who thrives off of passion, and it's almost bizarre to see him use his brain instead of his heart for his decision-making, but it's an awesome wrinkle in the match for sure. Of course, no amount of hammerlock hunting can stop Ueda from engaging in his fouling ways, complete with an infinite number of headlock punches and foreign object jabbing, and a man can only take so much. It isn't long before Kimura abandons the measured approach and lets the raging beast loose, turning the match into the frantic bloody brawl it was always meant to be. Chairs and ring bells are smashed over heads, referees are ignored, and the ring itself is torn apart. I can't imagine there was ever any doubt that the Ueda/Kimura singles would rip, but it truly passes with flying colors. The wonderful IWE violence we're all here for.

Mighty Inoue vs. Jumbo Tsuruta (11/25/1978)

    Well, hey there Jumbo. I've talked a bit about the IWE/NJPW feud of 1979 and 1980, but I've somehow yet to talk about anything fromthe IWE/AJPW feud that took place during the preceding years. This is from 1978's Japan League, where Jumbo repped Zen Nihon as he skipped the tournament blocks period and jumped straight into the single elimination stage. Inoue is a perfect dance partner for Jumbo, as Inoue pretty much fulfills the same role of revolutionary young gun. And wouldn't you know it, these two very clearly have a great match in them! This is not that match, but it's a very nice preview of what's possible for the pairing, and a very good match in its own right. The early portion is that old grappling that has become lifeblood for me, full of interesting little counters and complex entries into basic holds. Inoue is a fiend for an armlock and Tsuruta does a great job of countering with big arm drags and more subtle movements like dropping a knee on the stomach to prevent the sequence from going all the way back into an armlock. It isn't as engrossing as it certainly could be, but it's competent at worst and genuinely pretty great in a few moments. Once both men start dropping more bombs, this match moves the closest it could possibly get to greatness, with Inoue especially showing out with some truly awe-inspiring counters. Give these guys five more minutes and let them go wilder earlier into the match and you'd have yourself one of the best matches of this ilk from the 70s. As it stands, this is still a ton of fun and worth watching if you're a fan of either man.

Ashura Hara vs. Gypsy Joe (11/07/1979)

    As I've mentioned a few times previously, I originally started this IWE journey privately months ago, mostly going through the IWE Chronicles DVD releases while randomly watching matches posted to the Channel 12 account that has littered my blog since turning this into a writing thing. Back then, this match comfortably sat at the top of my list as the very best of what IWE ever offered. Well, it's been a few months since then, and things have changed. I've found matches that speak to my soul just as much as Hara/Joe did. I've found others that may reach me on an even deeper level. But, here I am, months later and one fresh rewatch removed, ready to tell you that this match still hits just as hard, if not harder. This is IWE at its most cruel. More specifically, this is Gypsy Joe at his most cruel. In the Rusher Kimura cage match, I pinpointed him as a Dracula-esque blood drainer, but the Gypsy Joe here feeds more on suffering than blood. The way he tortures Hara around the ring goes beyond the scope of anything seen before, dragging him by the hair and face to throw him into the metal beams on the cage and finding all opportunities to punch him as hard as he can in the nose and jaw. Hara certainly tries to fight back, wildly throwing punches and chops into the air, but always gets cut off and dragged back into hell, convulsing as he goes. Joe's violence would be enough on its own for sure, but Hara's disgusting jerky motions and gasps for breath take his struggles and transform them from an attempt to fight back into an attempt to live. Hara really only gets his comeback through sheer force of will, picking the right moment to put everything he has into one final momentum-shifter, and it starts the most harrowing babyface revenge segment I have ever seen. Ashura Hara, after 10+ minutes of torment, gets it all back in blood by scrambling Gypsy Joe's brains into a mushy mess. I mean it when I say that I don't think it would fly nowadays, at least not in any of the major American or Japanese companies. It's scary, but it's also entirely fitting as a punishment on Joe for his abhorrent actions leading up to the comeback. This is a match of consequences, and the consequences are graver for Joe than any other man. One of the most compelling pieces of work from IWE's catalogue, and one that more than holds up as one of the best IWE matches ever.

    ...But where exactly does it land on the list??? Considering the occasion of this being the 10th IWE post so far, I thought I'd release my IWE ranking list. This list only includes matches I've covered on Dragon Screw, and I'll release a new list every now and then so the people can know what it's currently looking like. I already know of a few matches that I've already seen that'll probably make it into the top 15 once I cover them (and a few I haven't seen but have high hopes for), but I do feel pretty confident in the top 5 being pretty unshakeable. Behold!!!

    Thank you to everyone that has been tuned in for the IWE reviews so far. I'm planning to slow down the posts for the next month or so, just because I want to chill out from making blog post announcements every three or so days. That being said, I already have the lineups figured out for the next few posts, so who knows. Maybe there'll be a new one ready within two days of this. Regardless, thanks again for checking this stuff out, and go watch some IWE bro.

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.

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.

My CIA Activation Phrase Is Kokusai

                    (Written by jom)

     No links on this one, as all matches reviewed come from some new footage I got from a close friend. I'm sure some of this is floating around online in the usual sorta places, but, as far as I know, none of this is on YouTube. I'll probably be hopping back to this footage on occasion, but I do still plan to use as many publicly available matches as possible in future posts. The people must witness IWE. 

Ashura Hara vs. Mile Zrno (05/07/1979)

     Zrno and Hara run it back just one day after their previous classic. This is our final piece of Zrno's IWE run, which might be the strongest foreigner run in IWE history just based on the average quality of each match on tape. It seems like all it took was one day for Zrno and Hara to figure each other out too, because the grappling in this match is, somehow, noticeably better, a completely mind-blowing turn of events considering just how good the matwork of their first match was. It's almost llave-like in a way, as both men refuse to break contact for minutes on end as they flow through incredible holds and incredible counters to holds and incredible counters to counters of holds. There's plenty of wonderful little moments, like Zrno locking in a hammerlock and slowly pushing Hara to the ground to prevent a bodyslam counter, or Hara pushing his leg into the back of Zrno's knee to force a drop toe hold that Zrno had no intentions of going down for. Zrno and Hara are also not afraid to lay into each other just as hard as they did in their Korakuen match, with Zrno's uppercuts especially standing out. Having said all of that, is this match better than their first encounter as a whole? Sadly, I don't think so, albeit the race is incredibly tight. I could simply say that the finish of the first match is still too magnificent to be overtaken, and that wouldn't be entirely wrong, but that's certainly not the only reason why that match is better. Honestly, this match's progression is strange. For as riveting as the grappling is, it never seems to fully leave that first gear, certainly not helped by this being one fall to a finish rather than another best 2/3 falls match. Once this finish for this match comes, it sort of just happens. It's cool, but it feels almost random compared to the fantastic build-up for their first match's ending stretch. Still, this match is great, and another must-watch for the grappling heads in the audience.

Rusher Kimura vs. Mighty Inoue (06/29/1975)

    I will admit that going into this match, I was tepidly excited. I had a strong feeling that whatever they gave me, I would enjoy it, but I also could imagine the less-than-engrossing Kimura matwork I'd have to get through for all the good bits. I think Kimura is a perfectly fine worker on the ground, but enough Kimura matwork matches have come and gone in my life for me to know that his matwork just isn't what I want to see from him. It's not his strong suit, and on occasion feels like a waste of time. This match is not a waste of time. This match is a wonderful case of both men using their time perfectly. A sizeable chunk of it is clipped, and maybe that portion was all Kimura matwork, but the wrestling we do get is totally killer through and through. This is Rusher Kimura engaging in counter-style pro wrestling, and, against all previous assumptions, he's actually pretty amazing at it. He and Inoue go through sequences clearly based around Kimura's partial immobility, which leads to Kimura eating shit some times and pulling off awe-inspiring counters in the others. This match is also a wonderful case study for Mighty Inoue, not only as a worker, but also as a character. He is ruthless right from the jump, turning slaps into punches and choking Kimura in the corner, looking for any advantage he can take over the more experienced champ. Once Kimura escalates the violence himself with throat-targeting chops and big bombs, Inoue gets to showcase himself as one of the most resilient men of the time by kicking out of more 1970s kill moves than I've seen anyone else do. It's the type of performance that establishes a guy as a true main event star, and I have to assume that's what it does for Inoue at this point in time. Tack onto all of that a fantastic finishing stretch featuring the very best counter in IWE history and you have yourself one of the greatest straight-up wrestling matches of the era. One day I'll learn to never doubt Rusher Kimura.

Strong Kobayashi vs. Bill Watts (01/19/1974)

    I will be entirely honest and admit that some of these 50+ year old Japan singles matches wear on me, at least a little bit. I've spent the last month or so professing my love for Ancient Pro, so it certainly does hurt me to come clean. This match is a strong example of the kinds of older matches that feel a little too much like a chore at times. Basically the entire first half is grappling, and while the grappling has moments of greatness, most of it is pretty dry. I find it fascinating that, at this point in time, there wasn't an obligation to create a sequence out of the matwork. Nowadays, it's entirely impossible to see guys do early match grappling without each hold being part of some larger sequence. In this match though, Kobayashi and Watts maintain holds until their opponent escapes, and that's the end of it. The closest thing to a modern sequence comes with Watts tries to do the same full nelson escape Kobayashi had just used, only for Kobayashi to catch him with another full nelson. Outside of that, each hold was treated as its own spot, and it's certainly an interesting way to look at matwork, if not incredibly tedious at some points. However, I still think this match is pretty sick, mostly because the entire back half is Kobayashi bleeding and hulking up while Watts fluctuates between cheating torturer and big ole baby. They also amp up the energy by 10 for the entire final fall, which helps a lot with engagement. Maybe I would enjoy the early portion grappling if I wasn't a Tiktok-brained zoomer, but that's the way the cards fell, and I do still find a lot of joy in this matchup. Expect more Strong Kobayashi ace run on the blog in the future.

Indian Strap Cage: Great Kusatsu vs. Wahoo McDaniel (11/28/1973)

    Now this is way more in line with my brain pattern. This is our only piece of Wahoo McDaniel in IWE footage, which breaks my heart considering Wahoo's one of my favorite territory guys. Thankfully, the single match we have is this one, with one of the best IWE stips I've ever seen. This match also has no sound, which presents a very interesting question: how did the fans in attendance respond? Considering the kind of action and their usual reaction to cage matches, it's a safe assumption that they were super vocal and gave this match the kind of noise it deserved. It's also true though that IWE crowds could be criminally silent depending on any number of factors. Therefore, we must consider this match to possess Schrodinger's Crowd; as long as we have no sound, we have no way of knowing whether or not the crowd audibly cared. Anyways, this match fucking rules. Even with about half of it clipped away, what we get is super sick and exactly what you would want: guys beating the fuck outta each other. I've very quickly come around on Kusatsu being one of my sleeper favorites of the home team IWE boys, and this is just another feather in his cap as he takes the fight to Wahoo with tons of nasty punches and elbows. Wahoo is more than happy to respond with his own punches, as well as those signature chops that probably sounded like death itself. It's only now as I write this review that I realize we have lost one of the best audio experiences in wrestling history. There's slams into the cage and whips with the strap and tons of drama surrounding the four corners winning stipulation. This match almost definitely sounds as good as it looks, but we'll probably never know for sure. If we had this match in complete form with audio, it'd probably be a top 10 IWE matches contender. As we have it now, it's just a real great match, and another piece of ammunition in the slowly growing Great Kusatsu agenda.

Cage: Rusher Kimura vs. Gypsy Joe (05/07/1979)

    In the last IWE write-up I did, I spent a good amount of time on the Joe/Kimura tag series, bemoaning the lack of a culminating all-out brawl before realizing that I had no right to criticize those matches for not being something I had concocted in my own imagination. It was a reflective moment for me, a lesson in appreciating something for what it is rather than depreciating for what it isn't. Well, I regret to inform you all that this match is actually exactly what I have been looking for, which means that I have now had my cake and eaten it, too. Gypsy Joe sets the tone by sauntering down to the ring with a sledgehammer, and then spends the rest of the match trying to split Kimura's head open with his own sledgehammer-like fists. There has never been a more vampiric performance in Joe's career, as he relishes in Kimura's ever-growing bloodshed and tries his damndest to get his fill, constantly biting at the wound until his mouth is covered in Kimura's blood. Joe also utilizes The Foreign Object better than any IWE foreigner before or since, using it as a crutch any time Kimura starts to get a little too feisty, and, sometimes, just for fun. It may not shock you to learn that this is also the greatest Kimura performance I have ever seen, as he swings wildly with the hardest punches and slaps he has ever thrown and attempts to destroy Joe's brain with ridiculous headbutts. He's a wonderful face in peril for the whole match, but he shines the most once he finally gets The Foreign Object from Joe, turning into a Dracula of his own and giving Joe his own case of face-ripping torment. At this point in the blog's history, we've talked about a lot of great IWE brawls, and we've talked about a handful of great IWE cage matches. Hell, we've even talked about a different Joe/Kimura cage match. This match stands above everything else so far, and it does that from nearly a mile up. This is, at least up to this point, the greatest IWE match I've ever seen. Oki vs. Bock and Inoue/Hara vs. Ellering/Lathan stand as the only real opponents (in terms of what's been discussed on the blog), and even those feel a step below right now. I'm certainly riding a discovery high and a recent viewing high. I've watched this three times now and I will certainly watch it twice more by the end of the week. Still, even after I cool down, I don't think my opinion will change. It’s simply the best.