Ballad Of The Frontiersmen

                     (Written by jom)

     Watching early FMW tapes with friends has reminded me that FMW is probably the greatest promotion of all time. Hell, you can chop off everything that happened after Onita's FMW retirement match and it'd still comfortably sit near the top. Early FMW scratches an itch for me that nothing else from the era does, standing as one of the final bastions for weird gimmicky territory-esque brawling and shenanigans. It's also one of my favorite things to groupwatch, and everything I talk about here comes from the latest instance of me hopping into a voice call and shooting the shit with the buds. I hope you don't have a Tarzan Goto allergy, because if you do, fuck you!!! 

Tarzan Goto vs. Invader #4 (05/29/1991)

     1991 Tarzan Goto deserved a run in Puerto Rico. At least two or three weeks, enough time to get a tag with Carlos Colon and singles matches with TNT and Miguel Perez under his belt. Here he is stepping up to Invader #4 (Jose Estrada Jr.) and completely knocking it outta the park with a great little gem of a brawl. They're tied together with a bull rope and it really has no effect on the match itself, as neither man concerns themselves with the rope. All they care about is hitting each other in the face and chest real hard. Both guys are great punchers, and when they aren't punching, they're chopping, something they're equally great at. Mr. Pogo plays a great manager here too, cutting off a big Goto house of fire with interference and eating his comeuppance a few minutes later. All it takes is four minutes for these men to put together a well-told story, and Tarzan Goto comes out of it looking like a complete badass. Probably one of the best sub-five minute matches of all time, or at least one that speaks to my interests more than many others.

Sambo Asako & Ricky Fuji vs. Big Titan & The Gladiator (09/23/1991)

    Big Titan and Gladiator are such a great team of big ass white guys. They are so good at throwing people, which is a wonderful skill to have when you've been given free reign to throw people. They do a lot of throwing in this match, an Elimination Stretcher Street Fight against two of the biggest fan favorites of the era. Seeing Gladiator somehow pull off a nasty nasty powerbomb on the massive Sambo Asako is a sight to behold. Asako in general is a sight to behold here, hitting weird avalanche DDTs and throwing himself cannon ball-style onto both men on the outside. He also gets hit with one of the gnarliest bumps I have ever seen to start the match, which does a great job of setting the bar for how much his ass would get kicked. Ricky Fuji is really hot in 1991 and I get why he was the way he was after seeing him be so hot. The finish is something I saw happen a good bit in IWE and it fills me with joy to see FMW bring it back, as FMW was IWE's true spiritual successor. Can't go wrong with this one.

Tarzan Goto vs. Leon Spinks (03/25/1992)

    Realistically speaking, this is the most culturally relevant opponent Goto has ever faced, right? Onita and Tenryu are icons of wrestling in Japan, and his stints in Memphis let him face relevant names stateside like Snuka and Lawler, but Leon Spinks goes beyond all of that by quite a bit. Simply put, I could namedrop Snuka and Lawler to my dad and probably get a few words about each, but Spinks would get at least a paragraph. All of that is to say that Goto enters this match with the exact sort of reverence for Spinks' boxing abilities that he deserves. Goto completely controls the first half of the match, but he does so via pure pro wrestling, diving for single legs and drop toe holds while doing everything he can to avoid any jabs or hooks thrown his way. It's a fantastic display of Goto's ability to work to the situation, as well as how explosive he can be, lunging at Spinks with quick and impactful lariats to pulls off some great close down counts. Once Spinks finally gets rolling with the punches, it's lights out for Tarzan Goto, who takes the shots like a champ and sells like death, all while building to a desperate and bloody final stand. Onita, deservingly, gets most of the praise for the early FMW different style fights, but this feels like it could stand right alongside the Onita/Soos or Onita/Matsunagas of the world. Goto finds himself in the Different Style danger zone, and he never once flinches or backs down. What a fight.

The Shooter vs. The Sheik (04/23/1992)

    Hello to The Sheik! I truly love the old man Sheik run in FMW, such a fun time even if Sheik nearly burned to death halfway into it. Very few old man wrestlers have possessed such a powerful fluoride stare, eyes like a dead fish that shoot right through you and into something much darker. Sheik running through crowds with the spike pointed directly out in front of him had to be one of the most terrifying things to witness in 1990s Japan. The Shooter, little rookie Katsutoshi Niiyama, surely knew exactly what he was in for here. That's probably why he jumped Sheik before the bell and punched him in the face as much as he could before Sheik could even get his hands on the spike. This is a demonstration in inevitability, a proof that sometimes things have to happen and no amount of struggle can prevent fate. Shooter certainly puts that to the test with all his fighting, but at the end of the day, the Sheik will be covered in blood, and none of it will be his own. If you like stabbing, you'll love this one.

Tarzan Goto & Atsushi Onita vs. Grigory Verichev & Koba Kurtanidze (12/09/1991)

    Man, Tarzan Goto sure was fighting a lot of gold medalists during the early 90s. Four months before he would face olympic boxing gold medalist Spinks, here he is teaming with big man Onita against judo gold medalists Verichev and Koba. The soviet judokas are super interesting to me, both because they absolutely rule and because I've seen barely anyone ever talk about them. Around 2017, there was this massive push online for a greater reverence for Gary Albright, motivated by a few music videos, a larger push for UWFi footage, and other miscellaneous factors, and the end result was a resounding success. Honestly, if that same effort was put towards canonizing Verichev and Koba, I think it would go the exact same route (even if there's significantly less Koba footage). The two are grappling monsters, eating Goto and Onita alive with tons of throws where they make the stocky wrestlers look as light as feathers from how easily they're manhandled. Verichev stands with his willingness to eat big bumps and great counter-play abilities (including a gargantuan ippon on Goto onto the floor), but Kobe really brings it home in the ending stretch by hitting Goto with some of the scariest belly to belly suplexes I have ever seen, somehow turning each one into a neck drop halfway into the motion. Onita and Goto deliver all the usual fireworks, complete with amazing Goto headbutts and tons of Onita fire, and they never relent in their attempts to conquer the soviet judo forces with the spirit of pro wrestling. It may not be as climactic as the previously-discussed Spinks match, but it makes up for it by being sooooo god damn fun. Fantastic match from four fantastic wrestlers in a fantastic company. I fucking love FMW!!!

The Eternal Suffering of Takagi Sanshiro: DDT From June & July 2000

                            (Written by jom)

     I generally tend to avoid mish-mash tapes like these just so I don't have to deal with weird blog formatting that annoys me, but this one has been screaming for my attention from the DDT folder on my hard drive. It's not every day you see a TV broadcast featuring a promotion's top star getting his ass beaten on three separate occasions, let alone all in unique ways. Sanshiro Takagi put himself on the cross for DDT's prosperity, and it's only right that we witness him receive the stigmata. 

06/29) Sanshiro Takagi vs. MIKAMI

     MIKAMI's heel run after coming back from his IWA PR tour didn't last very long. I suppose he had the "too cool" issue (he was just too easy to root for), along with probably ten other reasons for why he turned face only a few months into his return. Since then, he's had a handful of individual heel performances, but he's never gone on a prolonged heel run. That makes this match almost heartbreaking because heel MIKAMI is something else. MIKAMI goes beyond the usual cockiness and bravado into a much crueler sort of work, full of little potshots and scrapes while cranking the heat up to eleven for all of his usual spots. He's still the athletic freak of nature he was before, but all of his athletic feats feel so much more pointed, more focused on hurting than wowing. He's also not afraid to throw punches, ranging from his fantastic worked ones to some jarring shoot ones, and his picks apart Takagi with big bombs like his horrifying swan dive dropkick to Takagi's knee. Takagi is always pretty solid on the back foot, and his comebacks land really well, especially thanks to MIKAMI's willingness to bump like a maniac and cry to high heaven while in Takagi's holds. It comes together to allow the two to work some really great sequences and have a natural back-and-forth flow while never losing the plot of MIKAMI being the biggest son of a bitch alive. Considering the roughness of some patches, the somewhat abrupt finish, and the unfortunate clipping, I wouldn't really call this a great match, but it has most of the elements of one, along with one of MIKAMI's sleeper greatest performances ever. I hope I one day get to peek into the alternate universe where MIKAMI's heel run lasted much longer.

07/06) Yuki Nishino vs. Naoshi Sano

    Power violence squash match. Naoshi Sano comes out in the world's largest t-shirt and hits some poses. Nishino comes out dressed like Tazz, complete with black towel and being very short. Sano gets a hot start going with a full-force dropkick and a bunch of hard chops, and then Nishino hits a single chop harder than any of Sano's and everything goes to hell for our favorite lovable loser. Yuki Nishino is a crowbar with a mean streak and Sano is just a bump in the road for him. Sano's beating is so scary that I almost considered changing the article's title to "The Eternal Suffering of Naoshi Sano". Nishino revels in violence and comes at Sano like a rabid dog. Nishino throws headbutts like he's trying to chase down his opponent, to keep them from escaping the CTE like some kind of pussy. Nishino throws lariats like he's trying to break their nose. Yuki Nishino is a demon. Another name for the "they don't make wrestlers like this anymore (and maybe that's a good thing)" file.

Poison Sawada Black vs. Mitsunobu Kikuzawa

    I have no idea why Sawada is "Poison Sawada Black" here. It's clearly a transitional phase between regular Sawada and JULIE, but it mostly consists of him having weird paint on his eyes. This match entirely exists for Kikuzawa's manager to get into heel manager shenanigans and accidentally win the Ironman Heavymetalweight belt off of Kikuzawa. The wrestling that comes before and after this is just fine. Kikuzawa has a great dropkick and Sawada does a cool rear naked choke spot, but absolutely none of it matters and the crowd does not care. Kikuzawa does an Onita-style promo after the match because who's gonna stop him.

Showa vs. MIKAMI

    We love Phantom Funakoshi, don't we folks? Here he is as SHOWA, a masked gimmick that let him crank the showa-era wrestling tributes up to eleven, so I have to assume it's his dream come true. And this is a great match! It's got a couple moving parts to it, and both guys are so talented at everything that each story to the match is told excellently. A lot of this match's early portion is focused on grappling, with both guys making good movements on the mat and getting to show their stuff while being entirely in character. Showa pulls out some big time old school holds like the bow & arrow, and MIKAMI counters with face claws out of headlocks and double boot rakes. All the bigger spots, from both men's dropkicks to the late-stage bombs, feel so well-built considering the early match work, and they usually come swiftly and naturally. In a way, this feels like the kind of thing Mumeijuku would put on years later, with more of a 2000s juniors tinge to it. MIKAMI is also the coolest wrestler ever and his bombs are incredible. I don't mean to ramble on about how cool he is after already slightly doing that in the previously discussed Takagi match, but man, he's just so cool. Nobody has ever hit sentons like MIKAMI. The match's bullshit finish is very out of nowhere but fits the general vibes of the match itself, and it's a really fun way to wrap up such a good little match. Definitely one worth going out of your way to check out.

Sanshiro Takagi & Exciting Yoshida vs. Koichiro Kimura & Thanomsak Toba

    This era of DDT, as discussed before on the blog, was weirdly reliable when it came to running bizarre hybrid shoot-style tags. The mix of WARist crowbars and martial arts expats led to a good handful of out-of-this-world brawls where guys flew at each other from across the ring to punch each other in the face. Sanshiro Takagi is decidedly not part of the usual crowd for these, but some sort of demon unlocks from his heart when put in the ring against Toba (probably caused by Toba getting up too early after the match-starting People's Stone Cold Forearm), and it turns this match into a highlight of the genre. Takagi's willingness to throw down is something to behold, throwing chops as hard as he possibly can and chucking out teep kicks to Toba's ribs every time Toba starts getting a little too hot at the wheel. Toba, of course, sells everything like death, ragdolling and bending his own body in weird ways in response to being yanked around. He also never calms down and turns every one punch into five punches because nobody else can combo like him. Kimura and Yoshida play second fiddle to both of their tag partners, but they each get extensive time to prove their worth, from Kimura's relentless soccer kicking and shoulder-dislocating crossface, to Yoshida's Hamaguchi tribute act and unhinged no-hands headbutts. Would I place this right beside the very best of the DDT shoot tags? Not exactly, but it's probably only a notch or two below the Ishii/Rider vs. Toba/Sasaki's of the world. Who knew Takagi had this kind of match in him? For all my stiffness freaks in the audience (assumedly all of you), this is essential.

07/13) No Rope Barbed Wire Death: Sanshiro Takagi vs. Atsushi Onita

    Arguably the biggest match in Sanshiro Takagi's career, at least up to this point. Takagi, the charismatic ace of the indie scene's new hotness, takes on the charismatic ace that built the indie scene itself. I have to assume most people had the same guess as to how this match would be worked, myself included: complete fireworks brawling. That was exactly how Onita had been working his matches for the last two years, and Takagi was the best opponent for a singles match of that variety. This match, however, is not complete fireworks. I'm still not exactly sure what you would even call it. The match starts hot, then enters some early slow grappling, and then just... stays there for about 15 minutes. It's jarring, confusing, and, more than anything else, a complete betrayal of expectations. And it also makes complete sense, in a way. Atsushi Onita has spent most of his career working these matches against either larger, stronger forces, or hellions more malicious than him. He's almost always played the underdog, at most standing on equal footing while still fighting from underneath. Sanshiro Takagi is not more imposing than Onita, nor is he more malicious. Sanshiro Takagi is the top guy of a new indie, and Atsushi Onita is at the top of the world. There has never been a greater power discrepancy in the history of Onita deathmatches than this one. So Onita, faced with a foe weaker than him, finally playing the one in control, simply wrestles him to death. He puts on facelocks that bend Takagi's head nearly 180 degrees, and drops his knee onto Takagi's face with his full body weight. When Takagi gets a little fired up, he punches him as hard as he can and slaps on tight sleeper holds. It's textbook rookie annihilation, the kind of beatdown old trainers would give prospective trainees to try and make them quit the dojo. Atsushi Onita is young boy'ing Sanshiro Takagi in the biggest match of Takagi's career, and I buy it. It's also, sadly, not perfect. 15 minutes is a long time for something like this, especially with the expectation that a ring surrounded by barbed wire sets, and it gets a little too slow and uneventful at some points. For as invested as the crowd is, you can definitely tell they're just as tired as you are by the time things really heat up. That heating up doesn't feel particularly natural either, as Onita and Takagi talk shit to each other in an armbar until Onita decides to give up on his rookie-beating and throw Takagi head-first into the wire. Once they reach that point, the match turns into exactly what you would expect: tons of wire bumps, tons of powerbombs, all the big kickouts and yelling you assumed would happen in the first place. It's great, and it's what I wanted. Having said that, I really do think there's something to that 15 minutes. Maybe it could've been cut down or worked a little differently, but it's the kind of match development you could only get from a mind like Onita, and I love that it happened, even if it didn't go as well as it could've. Even with its faults, this is still a great match, and it leaves one to wonder just how much farther it could've gone with a few tweaks.

Onita Pro 09/29/1999

   (Written by jom)

    If you look about an inch up, you'll notice an actually good photo for once! I've been trying to find pictures from these Onita Pro shows for a while now, and I've finally found one. Of course, this isn't actually a photo from the show I'm talking about. It's from an untaped show ten days before, because Shu Pro's magazine archive doesn't have the magazine covering this post's shows. Also, I already know I won't be finding any more Onita Pro pictures for the rest of 1999. Damn you BBM and your incomplete archive. Onto the review!

    Actually, not onto the review just yet, because this show starts with the FUNERAL OF GREAT NITA. This show is only a month after the Nita/Muta deathmatch, so I guess Nita is actually dead after that match? A little slideshow plays of Nita being a freak and facing guys like Mr. Pogo, before cutting to the ring which has Great Nita's coffin in it, a single spotlight shining down onto the jet black tomb. The people are silent for a 10 bell salute, break out into Great Nita chants afterwards, and then the segment ends. No emerging from the casket, no jokes or interruptions or anything. Nita is DEAD in pro wrestling canon. What a way to start a broadcast.

Chain: Rey Pandita vs. Animal Welfare Association Satan

    For one final time, I beg to be enlightened: who the fuck is Rey Pandita? You can probably guess from the way I wrote that, but this is the last ever appearance of Rey Pandita in Onita Pro. I couldn't even try to tell you why that is. All I know is that his name doesn't appear on a single card after this. Maybe he was dragged to hell considering his final match is a chain deathmatch against SATAN! This is the same dude from the last show who turned on Pandita and joined up with the Hayabusa clones. Is Onita trying to make some sort of political statement here? He's created a character equating an animal welfare association to the devil, and has made him explicitly heel. Does Onita have heat with PETA? Did they try to make him Get The F Out? I have a feeling even Onita wouldn't be able to answer these questions.

    Yeah, this match was fucking bizarre. It's three minutes long and still joined in progress. Pandita and Satan botch half of the moves they go for. The other half aren't interesting. Both guys keep tripping over the chains and there are multiple points where they almost injure themselves. It's a complete mess.

    There's actually one spot that's really cool, one that I've thought of before that could be a great tide-shifter for an actually serious chain match. Pandita goes for a dive without realizing the chains are wrapped up in the ropes, and on landing, his arm nearly gets ripped off. It's an incredibly gross and dangerous spot to pull out in a sloppy worthless comedy match like this, but god bless Mitsunobu Kikuzawa (I am CERTAIN that it's him now) for committing. Of course, When Satan goes for a dive right after, Pandita immediately gets up and throws him off the top. The cool wrist-breaking spot doesn't actually matter. Nothing matters in this match.

    Pandita wins after pantsing Satan and immediately school-boy'ing him. He then tries to steal Satan's shoes or something, I don't know.

    God speed you, Rey Pandita. 

Match Rating: Rey Pandita

Yusaku & Daisaku vs. Takashi Sasaki & Fushitori Karasu

    Here's the show's obligatory DDT offer match, this time including the fresh-faced Karasu! He debuted on the last show in a god-awful tag featuring the two guys in this show's opener and another Hayabusa clone who will never appear again. He's teaming with Sasaki, a man who redeemed himself with an amazing tag last time, and they're taking on the Shimoda brothers. We haven't seen either of them since the first Onita Pro show, where both were mentally tortured by Rey Pandita. Hopefully they can do a better job this time around.

    And they do! Kinda. Maybe? I don't know, this was really just a match. The Shimoda bros are cool here though. Yusaku is a big mean bully, and Daisaku... never actually gets to do anything. I think he does an arm-wringer to Karasu once and that's all we see. But still, Yusaku is here! I like Yusaku! Let's go Yusaku! He's definitely not as good as he'll get in the future (and he does a stupid DDT no-sell spot with Sasaki), but as a guy with less than two years of wrestling under his belt, he's awesome. The highlight of the whole match is him killing Karasu with a lariat.

    Speaking of Karasu, let's talk about that bird freak. He's not very good. A lot of his basics are nonexistent, and he botches about as much as the two guys in the opener did. At the same time, I'm starting to see the vision with Karasu. Sure, he botches a lot, but man, he's great at dying. He hits an insane plancha on Yusaku which nearly sends him into the bleachers ribs-first. He goes for a diving splash and almost dies from spiking himself on his head. He also sells like a ragdoll, with lots of stumbling and crumbling, and he loves to go entirely still on the mat like he's been paralyzed. Watching Karasu is like watching one of those videos where a guy is walking on a rickety bridge across a canyon. You know that he probably won't actually die, but with every little gust of wind, every snappy swing of the rope bridge, you can't help but believe that you're about to see a death. Karasu puts a great deal of fear into me because one day he's gonna bump and not stand back up. And, in a way, that's more compelling than most other wrestling.

    Takashi Sasaki is also here. He does some kicks or whatever. Yusaku wins with a Yusaku Clutch (the Batista Bite). I know I just talked a bunch about Karasu's strangely engrossing work, but this was still a generally nothing match. It wasn't bad, but I wouldn't try to recommend it to anyone.

Match Rating: C+

Miss Mongol & RIE vs. Misae Genki & Yoshiko Tamura

    Onita Pro cards are incredibly predictable. Following the DDT offer match, we are given the obligatory joshi match. This has roughly been the format for the last three shows, and it will probably be the format for the next ten. I don't have any complaints, but I do think it's funny that Onita had a very clear template for all of his shows. This is the first show since the start of the series to not feature an FMW joshi reunion tag, and instead just a straight up normal wrestling tag. I say good to this, because the joshi reunion tags became stale fast. Mongol and RIE are both good. Genki and Tamura are also both good. I have a feeling this match will be good. 

    The results are in: it's good! Well, good enough at least. A fine little match here. RIE is by far the best part of the match, entirely because she fills the roles of victim and fighter very good. She does a good job of selling for Tamura and feeding for all of her spots, and works nicely with Mongol during their tandem attacks. However, on offense, RIE also delivers the goods, hitting a pretty nasty diving knee to the back of Genki's head, and generally moving at a great speed for all of her attacks. She's the lifeblood of the match, since everyone else is just intent on coming in and hitting moves without much care.

    Genki is the best of the other three, simply because she's big and hit big wrestler moves like chokeslams and really loose backdrops. Tamura also hits cool moves like the cutter. Mongol is mostly non-existent but does hit a nice STO. I feel weird just listing moves here but I don't know what else to say. These three mostly exist to hit moves. Tamura sells alright and Mongol sells well in the finishing stretch, but really, there's not much else going on.

    Genki wins the match for her team with the G-Driver. Again, this was fine. I feel like the way I wrote about it might make you think it's not good. It is! It's just incredibly surface-level and unambitious. It filled its spot on the card well enough, but it also never tried to excel in that position. It was a match that happened, and, in a way, that's a fate worse than being outright bad or bizarre. I will remember Pandita vs. Satan a year from now. I'm already having trouble remembering this match while finishing the write-up.

Match Rating: C+

Shigeo Kato & Shooter #2 vs. Exciting Yoshida & Sanshiro Takagi

    Kato! Wow, I had no idea he would ever show up in Onita Pro. Kato is probably the biggest victim of WYF losing a semi-regular timeslot on Battle Station, because he's generally just a solid enough worker up until 1998. Around the start of 1999 though, Kato becomes this annoying little chickenshit heel, beginning his slow transformation into the Japanese indie Ric Flair. This is late 1999, so I have some expectations that he's already gonna be tapping into that role. He's with Shooter #2. I have no idea who this is. He's wearing the usual Shooter gear, except with a black Thrasher shirt on. I guess he likes skateboarding on his spare time or something, I don't know. Takagi and Yoshida really need no introduction; I've talked about each of them at least 3 times now.

    Within 10 seconds, I realize that the referee is Yasuki Shino, the representative of NEO and one of the main heel figures in DDT around the time. I realize this because he does the fastest pinfall count I've ever seen that Takagi just barely kicks out of. I am now a happy man, because this is complete bullshit and I love complete bullshit. There's lots of awesome little moments with referee Shino being the most biased man alive, like when Shooter has Takagi in a weird camel clutch thing and Shino steps on Takagi's fingers as casually as possible. Shino is also carrying around a taser for the entire match, and any time Yoshida starts getting feisty on the apron, he walks over and starts waving the activated taser at Yoshida. It's all so stupid and such an egregious example of a referee being a biased piece of shit. I love it so much. Very rarely do I get to see Tirantes-ism in Japanese wrestling.

    In terms of the actual wrestling, there's not much to talk about. Kato does some nice work, hitting a beautiful dropkick along with some deeply American moves like the Mr. Perfect neck snap. Yoshida's appearance halfway into the match has him spamming headbutts which is pretty awesome. Shooter #2 sucks, but he's also not in much. Takagi is probably the best worker overall, and gets to show his stuff with a really nice dropkick of his own. The highlight of the match, though, comes right near the end. Shino goes for a taser shot on Takagi, but Takagi dodges, making Shino accidentally tase Shooter. Takagi then goes for a stunner, and Shino botches it in such spectacular fashion that it really needs to be seen to be believed. 

    Takagi wins right after this with the Sanshiro Stunner 2000. I thought this was a pretty fun bullshit match. The match started to lose steam near the end (the complete silence from the crowd seemed to confirm we share that sentiment), but the finishing stretch was awesome in a car crash sort of way. Hopefully Shino reappears later on in the series and causes more trouble.

Match Rating: B-

Atsushi Onita, Katsuji Ueda, & Masashi Aoyagi vs. Nise Onita, Sambo Asako, & The Shooter #1

    On the last Onita Pro show, Nise Onita was sacrificed to the gods by way of an Ueda mauling. Now, he is back again, teaming with regular mauling victim Sambo Asako and the unknown Shooter #1 to face his two biggest victimizers, along with his hero. It's gotta be awful to see your idol teaming up with your biggest enemies, especially when they all have the goal to kick your ass. How will Nise fare in this mental warfare?

    Considering the first thing he does is the Onita jacket throw at a dumbfounded Onita, it seems he may be more mentally resilient than I'd given him credit for. He's certainly not any more physically resilient, because he dies here once again.

    I'll be entirely frank: this is a mostly unnoteworthy match outside of the Onitas. Shooter exists to stop people from losing and then get thrown outside. Ueda and Aoyagi chain together combos and just beat people up. Asako gets about half a minute to shine against Onita, but he exclusively sells and is gone from the rest of the match after this. The Onitas are the stars though.

    This is probably Nise Onita's best performance yet. I've talked before about his talent in emulation, but he's on an entirely different level here. He's selling like Onita would, but he's doing it to 150%. Every single strike thrown his way has him shaking and swaying like a stray dog in December. He writhes around in pain to the extent you'd almost think he's making a joke out of pain itself. He's beyond a tribute act of Onita here, getting extremely close to being a flat-out parody. And yet, there's so much genuine feeling behind all of it. That's probably why I find it possible to believe in it, to find real value in it. Nise may be working as an exaggerated Onita here, but he's still Toshiyuki Moriya, the world's greatest Onita fan, and beyond the hyperbole of the physical motions, there's a feeling of personal reality. Moriya bleeds and cries and screams because he's human, and that humanity is interlaced with his every movement. The passion behind everything he does is palpable, and it takes a performance that could be considered laughable and turns it into something commendable.

    On the entire opposite side of the spectrum, Atsushi Onita is a monster in this match. Just because of his position as the perennial underdog of wrestling, we really don't have many Onita performances you could refer to as monstrous, but I feel like this is one of them. He doesn't bump, he doesn't sell, he doesn't take any sort of meaningful offense. Hell, he outright ignores shots from Asako and Nise at different points. He's fully in the zone beating those two within an inch of their lives. When Asako demands him to get in the ring, Onita responds by repeatedly headbutting him around the ring until Asako can no longer stand. Matched up against Nise, Onita immediately throws the doppelgänger to the floor and piledrives him to hell. The most telling moment in this match is soon after, when Onita punches Nise in the head over and over while Nise is on the apron, leading Nise to collapse back to the floor. Onita has always portrayed himself in the ring as a man who lacks the abilities of his peers but makes up for it with a mountainous amount of spirit. It's important to pay attention to the phrase "peers" though. Onita is weaker in ability compared to guys like Tenryu and Choshu, but so is everyone else in the world. Onita is still one of the strongest wrestlers on the planet, and this felt like a declaration from him of the pecking order in Onita Pro.

    The match ends with Onita hitting a powerbomb on Nise, followed by a strike combo from Ueda, before Aoyagi finishes him off with a spinning heel kick. A fitting end to an impassioned performance from Nise. As a whole, this isn't really worth going out of your way to see. A lot of the action wasn't particularly enthralling, and 2/3rds of this match didn't inspire anything in me (even if I usually love Asako and Aoyagi). Still, the Onitas carry this into being a match I'd still call good, and if you think their performances sound at all interesting to you, I think you might enjoy checking the match out.

Match Rating: B-

Falls Count Anywhere Street Fight Death: Atsushi Onita, Mitsunobu Kikuzawa, Nobutaka Araya, Sambo Asako & Shigeo Okumura vs. Dr. Hannibal, Dr. Luther, Ichiro Yaguchi, Mr. Pogo & Shoji Nakamaki

    After four months of battles and bloodshed, the Tenryu threat has been eliminated. Now, Onita must move towards the future by going to war with a face from his past. Mr. Pogo leads the new charge of enemies into Onita Pro (all four other guys on his team have already fought in Onita Pro) to try and defeat his greatest rival. This is the biggest match in Onita Pro yet, with ten people in total facing off. Also, this is the first Onita brawl to have no object-based stipulation. There's no barbed wire ropes, no explosives, nothing. It's just a classic falls count anywhere brawl.

    This is probably the main reason why this match is my least favorite Onita Pro main so far. There's absolutely more to it than that, and this is still really fun, but comparing this match to everything else feels almost unfair. I feel like this match almost has a "too many cooks" kind of problem. There's so many guys trying to do different things that it goes beyond chaotic into feeling scattered and way less thought out. The loss of such a demanding figure like Tenryu also makes the heel group feel a lot less focused. Pogo is a good addition to the match, but he isn't trying to lead the charge or anything like that. All Pogo really does is concentrate on Onita, and for that matter, he mostly gets his ass kicked. Really, the only person I want to note from Pogo's team is Nakamaki, who sells like a motherfucker as usual. I feel like I haven't given him his flowers for his work in these matches, but really, he's a vital part of the formula, and he deserves his credit as a guy that bumps and sells big while also throwing a bunch of awesome headbutts.

    The face team, sadly, is just as unnoteworthy. Okumura and Araya hit a cool superbomb/back suplex combination at one point, and that's really the only notably good thing either of them did. Kikuzawa and Asako barely ever show up on screen. This brawl is entirely focused on Onita, which I'm not really against since he puts in a great performance. He comes out with Great Nita half-paint and immediately mists Pogo upon the latter entering the ring. Onita spends this match being incredibly cool and incredibly funny at the same time. In-between the sick reckless brawling around Korakuen, Onita mists every single member of the other team except for Dr. Luther. He even mists Dr. Hannibal through Hannibal's chalk throw. He also does the Great Nita prancing around the ring and keeps headbutting people as he does it. Is this better than his performance in the last match? It's hard to say, since these two performances are so different in purpose and execution. What I can say though is that he didn't mist the entirety of the last match's team, so he gets some points for that here. 

    Eventually, Luther hits Kikuzawa with a liger bomb on a chair, and wins. This is the first time Onita has lost a main event in our series (he lost one earlier in the month on an untaped show), and it's because of LUTHER. Truly incredible stuff.

    I have very little to say overall. Even with my problems with the match, this was still a good amount of fun, and featured a memorable Onita performance. Is it the only thing memorable about this match though? Sadly, I'd say so. For the first time in blog history, an Onita Pro show is going without a single A-rated match.

Match Rating: B

    The decline in quality in Onita Pro main events is starting to worry me a little. I was fine with the second show's main being worse than the first, because that first main was one of the best matches I've ever seen. I was also okay with the third being worse than the second, since I felt that it was more representative of my personal preference for straight-up brawling rather than the dramatic explosion matches. I even understand why this was worse than the third (too many wrestlers to try and pay attention to, the loss of Tenryu). However, I'm beginning to worry this might be a trend, and I may have made a poor choice in committing myself to watch every Onita Pro show ever. I guess only time will tell.

Show Rating: C+

Onita Pro 08/22/1999

  (Written by jom)

    I guess the bi-weekly schedule is back on track? Probably not. I have finals for the next few weeks and then I graduate. Life is about to suck. Four years ago everything I knew changed, and now everything is about to change again. But no matter how many things, places, or people come and go, Onita will always be here for me. Onto the review!

Fushitori Karasu & Walbuta vs. Animal Welfare Association Satan & Rey Pandita

    The first two Onita Pro shows took place in Korakuen Hall. We've finally left the sacred temple, and have arrived in a random field. The outside venue means explosions are finally on the table, but it also means we get natural lighting pro wrestling! It's a weird thing to love so much, but ever since I played SmackDown vs. Raw 2011 and discovered the greatness of the "Tribute to the Troops" arena, I've been a big proponent of outdoor shows, especially ones happening in the daylight. Plus, well-lit outdoor night shows rule, and just from the show-opening music video, this show's going from sunup to sundown.

    I must ask once more: who the fuck is Rey Pandita? He's been the true anchor of these Onita Pro shows, and yet I still don't know for sure who is under the mask. A damn shame if you ask me because he really deserves his flowers for his work here. A better question to ask though would be WHO THE HELL IS ANYONE? We've got FOUR unknown entities here! Well, four in August of 1999, because we actually know who one of these guys are. Fushitori Karasu is... Fushitori Karasu! Although this is his debut as a pro wrestler, he's going to become a regular in the series. He's another Hayabusa knockoff, sitting on an island with luminaries such as Great Takeru and Garuda. He'd wrestle under the Karasu name for his entire career, working a bunch of sleaze indies and eventually becoming a Goto Ippa guy before silently retiring from wrestling (outside of a special appearance on Tokai Bushido V3's retirement show). 

    So... what the fuck was this match? I've watched it twice now, and I still don't really know. We know Karasu is making his debut, but I have a strong suspicion that Walbuta is too. Commentary keeps repeating that they're Hayabusa parodies like you couldn't just guess from the gear. I have a feeling that if you're a Japanese indie fan tuning into an Onita Pro broadcast, you know who Hayabusa is. Although, you can definitely tell that everyone here, from the audience to the commentary to even the wrestlers, has no idea what's going on. 

    Karasu (the person I was most interested in seeing here) was in the ring for maybe a minute, only doing bad matwork and one alright evasion into a shitty rolling solebutt. He seems to actively avoid wrestling, constantly tagging out and forcing a gassed Walbuta to come back in and hit more incredibly sloppy moves. Walbuta is really something to witness here. He throws some alright kicks but all of his aerial offense is dangerously sloppy. Outside of a sloppy-but-kinda-good-because-its-sloppy Asai Moonsault, the safest-looking move he hits is a diving crossbody where he entirely overshoots Satan and almost hits a slingblade on him in the process.

    Pandita is good though! He hits a nice dropkick and slightly overshoots a moonsault (just like Kikuzawa tended to do around this time... I think my "Pandita = Kikuzawa" theory from the last post may have more merit than expected), and that's really all he does here. Satan is entirely worthless until he TURNS ON PANDITA AND FLOORS HIM WITH A FUCKED UP LARIAT. And then he high-fives both of the fake Hayabusas. And then Walbuta hits a bad avalanche hurricanrana. And then it seems like Karasu is gonna hit a match-finishing dive but NO! He points at Walbuta and Walbuta begrudgingly climbs the top rope to hit a bad frog splash for the win. Hayabusa's theme plays as the three walk out. I am unable to process all of this and begin to cry.

    Honestly, if they had just let Walbuta die in the ring from exhaustion, never having Karasu tag in to do slow and boring matwork, this could've been a dogshit classic. All it needed was more actual botches and a faster tempo. However, this match just had too much worthless filler between the incredibly bad wrestling, and that's a recipe for disaster. It's the most baffling match I've seen in the project so far, and also definitely the worst. I can't imagine it going lower any time soon.

    Just as a final note, Walbuta never wrestled again after this. And honestly, I kinda get it. 

Match Rating: D

Crusher Maedomari, Miss Mongol, & Shark Tsuchiya vs. Killer Iwami, RIE, & Tsuppari Mack

    Tsuppari Mack is BACK! I had no idea any of the retired FMW women stuck around after the reunion tag on the last show, but luckily the coolest one of them all is here again (and Killer Iwami). Once again, the random assortment of faces are put against the badass face-painted fouler team of Maedomari, Mongol, and Tsuchiya. And the heels come out eating ice cream!! I don't even know man, this sounds incredibly stupid on paper but something about three devious fiends coming out for a match enjoying ice cream cones kinda rules.

    Sadly, this was another bits match like the reunion tag, except without the context of a light-hearted reunion, and less funny bits. That whole ice cream entrance I talked about? That was probably the highlight of the match. The only person particularly interesting was Tsuppari Mack, who did her weird satchel attacks and also hit a really nice kneel kick on Tsuchiya. Of course, the joke was that everyone in the match besides Maedomari and Tsuchiya is weak, so Tsuchiya took the kneel kick, stood there for a second, and then hit a flat back before leaning up and shaking her head in approval at Mack. Whatever.

    There's nothing to really even say about this match. It started! There were jokes! And then it ended! Were some of the jokes funny? A little bit. I'm not even trying to be a killjoy here, I just don't particularly care for comedy wrestling, and I'm starting to get sick of seeing Maedomari and Tsuchiya do it when they could be doing awesome brawls like the one from the first Onita Pro show.

Match Rating: C-

Asian Cougar & Kurokage vs. Kyohei Mikami & Takashi Sasaki

    Thank God, a DDT offer match. This show started on the worst foot possible with a 1-2 punch of shitty tag matches, but Sanshiro Takagi has sent the troops in to save the day. Cougar and Sasaki were in the last DDT juniors tag, where I pointed out both as being good but not all the way figured out yet (especially Sasaki). But, it's been a few months, and a lot can change in that amount of time. 

    Mikami is also here! And Mikami fucking rules. It's not until he changes his name to MIKAMI and becomes the coolest guy ever that he really reaches his peak, but 90s Kyohei Mikami doing incredibly quick hybrid lucharesu shoot style whatever-the-fuck pro wrestling is a sight to behold. Kurokage (the DDT/WYF one, not to be confused with the other Kurokage trained by Kurisu that teams with Diablo all the time) is the odd man out, as everyone else eventually becomes a big name in the 2000s juniors talent pool, but Kurokage/Hebikage/Masahiko Orihara/etc was always a really talented worker, so it's cool to see him too. 

    So this match fucking rocks. Like, it rocks a lot. Even with my praise of all four men at the start, I still came into this with some hesitation. Maybe three months isn't enough for Sasaki and Cougar to figure everything out. Maybe Mikami isn't ready yet to carry the load if this is the case. Maybe Kurokage actually sucks and my memory is wrong. Luckily, not only was I wrong about all of these concerns, the opposite is true. This is really something special.

    Mikami is by far the biggest highlight here. Talk about a guy capable of doing anything. He does some really great work with Cougar both in terms of grappling and high spots (commentary actually mentions that both men started in Hamada's UWF around the same time as trainees so there's a nice little bit of lore that adds just a little bit to it all), and his work with Kurokage is nothing to sneeze at either. I think Mikami's biggest contribution to this match is just how high-octane it felt any time he was involved. Don't get me wrong, Sasaki kept the action going for sure, but Mikami flying in to hit a perfect hurricanrana or one of the best dropkicks ever while moving at speeds usual humans can't even fathom is the type of work that pushes a match from being "fast-paced" to actually breakneck.

    Asian Cougar is probably the next best person here, and that feels insane to say because once again he doesn't do the Cougar Tope Atomico! But man, does he deliver. He more than makes up for not doing that move by doing a bunch of other crazy ones. I've said this before about Cougar, but there may not be another wrestler ever who's better at setting up their spots than Cougar. Every time he hits a leg drop, it feels like a natural occurrence, like a leg drop was the only thing Cougar could even do in that scenario. At the same time, he's wonderful at setting himself up for moves by other wrestlers, positioning himself well and feeding into spots in such an effortless way. He's a guy that not only does big spots, but actually understands how to do them in the best way. And beyond all of that, he just rules. Nobody else was hitting slingshot leg drops to the floor, and nobody else ever will.

    Takashi Sasaki has it all figured out. I said earlier that a lot can change in a few months, but wow. Sasaki feels almost like an entirely different person here. He does a lot of the same moves, but his work feels so much more driven and aggressive, and he's put a lot more focus into throwing strikes and bullying guys rather than experimenting with new moves. That's not to say he doesn't have some new weapons in the arsenal. At one point he hits a slingshot rider kick to the outside and sends Cougar tumbling across the concrete. At another he pulls out a ridiculous twisting fisherman's buster. Unlike his last appearance though, all of this feels so fitting for him, and like he actually knows what he's doing. This is the start of Takashi Sasaki, the relentless asskicker of the Japanese indies.

    Finally, Kurokage. While he's definitely the least interesting part of the match, he also fills his role perfectly. He's here to take a lot of the bumps for his team, while also getting some chances to bust out big moves every now and then. And man, his moves are big alright. Everything he does feels like a bomb, from the Sankakugeri to Sasaki to the crushing Blue Thunder Bomb to Mikami. His moonsault is also a real beauty, and he works really well with Cougar throughout the match. He's a vital part of the match's flow, and more than fills his portions of the match with cool shit. Really, you can't ask for more.

    Eventually, the match ended after Mikami flattened Kurokage with a beautiful 450 splash. What a war this was. Not only did this serve as a great showcase of all four guys' individual talents, but the match itself was extremely well-structured and flowed at a great pace. It did everything it needed to do as a spotfest without ever devolving into just hitting spots, and the escalation was really well done. This felt like the type of match that would've rocked a compilation tape and blown the minds of a bunch of forum posters during the time period. I feel very comfortable giving this match the the A-range rating of a non-Onita match from this series.

Match Rating: A-

Different Style Fight: Nise Onita vs. Katsuji Ueda

    Almost two months ago, the Onita Pro faithful were introduced to the fraudulent Onita, Toshiyuki Moriya. He fought his heart out against a squadron of different style fighters, with his hero by his side, and he was defeated. Now, Nise Onita is back once more, this time on his own to fight one of the very fighters that defeated him previously. Can he even dream of standing against the might of Katsuji Ueda's boxing gloves? Only time (and this match) will tell...

    ... And he can't! He really can't at all. This is a slaughter. The footage is clipped to hell so maybe he got something in the match at some point, but he gets literally zero offense in the footage we have. All he does is die, die, die. I'd say something like "Ueda took the dog out behind the shed" but that would imply a quick and merciful death. Ueda repeatedly beats on Moriya until Moriya can't stand, throwing lots of punches, kicks, knees, elbows and anything else at the poor man. He unloads combo after combo into Moriya, and to Moriya's credit, he lasts until round three. Then Ueda throws an incredibly gross bicycle knee to Moriya's jaw, and that's the end of him.

    I can't even rate this. I'm sure if I really wanted to I could (Ueda threw mean strikes, Moriya's selling was alright), but it feels so weird to try and rate a match like this, not only considering just how little of it we have, but also what we do have. This wasn't a match. This was a sacrifice. 

Match Rating: (x_x)

Naohiro Hoshikawa & Super Delfin vs. Black Buffalo & Policeman

    I believe that I've noticed a trend. Every single Onita Pro match on this Onita Pro show has been either bizarre, awful, or both. Meanwhile, the only non-Onita Pro match so far was stellar. Hopefully that trend continues here as Osaka Pro throw their hat into the ring. 

    Admittedly, this is the match I was most excited to see coming into this tape, as I've already seen two Onita/Tenryu main events and I haven't checked out any early Osaka Pro in years. Plus, good friend of the blog CFOS just finished his entire watch-through of Osaka Pro (and wrote a nice piece on his findings from the journey which you can read here), and I've been getting bombarded with Osaka Pro information from him for the last few months. I love all four of these guys, so I'm excited to see what they do on Onita's grand stage.

    Wouldn't you know it, but my prediction at the start was correct! This is a fun little match, one that really played to each guy's strengths well.

    Delfin and Policeman are both somewhat interesting, but I don't have much to say about either of them. Policeman does fun spots involving being an officer of the law, and he also hits a nice quebrada. Policeman is one of those genuine "what could've been" scenarios based on his early FMW work under his real name of Yukihide Ueno (I have a friend that has pushed the idea of Ueno being the heir apparent to Onita himself during this time), but even though his career never really panned out as well as it should have, he still always did fun work like he did here. Delfin meanwhile hits a lot of the classics. He's always been a good foil for shooty juniors guys, both as a teammate (see Masaaki Mochizuki) and an opponent (see Takehiro Murahama), so he does a lot of fun tag work with Hoshikawa here. Outside of that, he's just a generally cool dude, and even hits the Osaka Midosuji Stunner, a move I have a great deal of love for since it was my Create-A-Wrestler's finisher for 5 or so years.

    Someone I do have a good amount to say about is Hoshikawa. He really felt perfect for Osaka Pro, and actually stood as a nice representative of where juniors wrestling was heading around this time. Hoshikawa was a perfect hybrid of both sides of the evolving juniors styles, pretty seamlessly mixing the more aerial risk-taking offense with very "jumping out of the screen" shoot-inspired work. Hoshikawa was never able to out-shoot Murahama, nor was he ever able to out-fly Yakushiji, but he was able to do things from both ends of the spectrum in just the right mixture that it worked out perfectly. All of that is to say he's pretty awesome here! He hits cool kicks really quickly and pulls out the meteor knee strike. Thank you for your service Naohiro Hoshikawa. 

    Black Buffalo is the fucking man. I love this bastard so much. I want to preface what I'm going to say next with a little tangent on the idea of "versatility." I'm kind of a critic on the versatility talking point when it comes to analyzing wrestlers' GWE cases, because I've noticed that a lot of people will put high value into guys just attempting other match styles rather than excelling at them. This isn't to say it's bad for wrestlers to be versatile! I may love the one-note workers of the world, but being able to do your job in a lot of different and equally interesting ways is incredibly impressive. Such is the case of Black Buffalo, also known as Keisuke Yamada. The fact that he could go from a scumlord IWA Japan bruiser to such a fun lucha fouler in a place like Osaka Pro is a testament to his abilities. He does so much great work here, moving at Delfin pace without a single slip-up and constantly targeting the balls of his opponents. He also throws in a lot of nice character work, like scraping his feet back like a charging buffalo for all the big running moves. I just can't help but applaud the guy any chance I get. He's someone who'll probably never get the flowers he deserves for the incredible work he did for at least a decade and a half.

    Delfin wins for his team with the Delfin Clutch after the aforementioned Osaka Midosuji Stunner. This wasn't better than the DDT tag, but it filled its role as a fun crowd-pleasing juniors tag with a lot of goofy character work mixed into some genuinely real good wrestling. I already know the Osaka Pro crew probably won't be appearing again anytime soon, but hopefully Delfin and Co. return to this journey through the Onita sphere of influence one day.

Match Rating: B

No Rope Barbed Wire Double Hell Barricade Street Fight Current Mine Explosion Death: Atsushi Onita, Mitsunobu Kikuzawa, Sambo Asako, & Sanshiro Takagi vs. Genichiro Tenryu, Hiroshi Ono, Ichiro Yaguchi, & Shoji Nakamaki

    Outside of this being the first super long Onita stipulation, I really don't have much to talk about. This matchup has been done twice already, and you probably know my thoughts on it by now. I will say though, Onita has made the first notably bad decision of the series by swapping out Okumura for Takagi. Takagi is a very fun wrestler who actually tends to do really well in these types of brawls, but Okumura has been the secret standout of the last two matches. I love Sambo Asako, but if you had to bring Takagi into this, why not get rid of him? Just put Asako in a fun lower card match and let Okumura run wild like he always does. It's disappointing, but I might as well trust Onita's vision on this one. He hasn't led me astray thus far.

    Ichiro Yaguchi makes his entrance coming out with a guitar, shredding on it to Tenryu's theme before flipping off the camera and sticking his tongue out a lot. Already a definite A-range match.

    This is probably the most fascinating Onita brawl yet, entirely because of how it plays on the formula established by the first two matches. The biggest change so far is, of course, the additions and limitations of the explosive environment. One of the vital aspects of the first two matches was the extensive crowd brawling, turning Korakuen Hall into a complete warzone with guys traveling all around the venue and throwing each other who knows where. In this new place though, that type of work really doesn't work. Onita and Tenryu spend a little bit of time fighting amongst the fans, but it's less them splitting the action in two and more the two captains leaving their soldiers to be the main attraction for a little bit. Otherwise, most of the match takes place in the ring, and a lot of the brawling is a lot slower because of this. Not worse per se, although definitely hampered by this more confined space. The guys still deliver the goods though, with Nakamaki and Takagi especially getting into a lot of very spirited exchanges (Nakamaki takes a bunch of unprotected chairshots and does the chicken walk after each one of them; it's very good).

    However, this new territory also brings about the incredible power of the explosion, something neither of the last two matches had any way of embracing. And my god, do they embrace the explosions here. There are at least ten different explosions in this 15 minute match, and the crowd goes wild for all of them. The previous Onita brawls were concerned with the gradual degradation of each wrestler, contests of endurance to see how much each side could take until one person cracked. This match completely flips that idea on its head, with wrestlers instead trying to avoid the one-shot killers surround the ring on all sides. There's this genuinely incredible moment early on, when Onita takes the first explosion bump and time just stands still. All the action in the ring just stops. Everyone ducks for cover and stares in awe at the mighty power of the boom. "If such flimsy wire could do that to a guy like Onita, what the hell could it do to me?"

    The way previous spots get adapted into this new world is equally interesting. Yaguchi and Nakamaki had set a precedent in the previous two matches with their double team suplex barbed wire hanging move, and they once again do the move in this match, with Takagi being the victim. However, the second that wire underneath Takagi's stomach explodes, there's a real feeling of dread that sets over. The last two times they did it, the move was a nice way to deal some big damage. This time, it feels like they might've actually killed the guy. I don't feel like I need to explain that explosions add gravity to a situation, but man, they really fucking do.

    Karma is a cruel beast. Yaguchi and Nakamaki go for another one of their signature spots later on, attempting to rip the wire from the ropes on one side to wrap a poor soul up in it. Their hubris, thinking they have any control over this environment, is their downfall, and the wire explodes in their faces. I think this one moment really does a great job of illustrating the real story of the match. This isn't about one team trying to overcome the other directly. This is about everyone trying to figure out how to cope with being surrounded by certain death. The winner is just the first team to do it.  

    Onita, of course, figures it out first. This is home turf. He and the rest of his boys fight back, and Kikuzawa even makes a noble sacrifice by getting knocked into the hell pit with Ono. Onita gets to Ono, his clothing ripped and charred from the explosion in the pit, and a Thunder Fire Powerbomb seals the deal. Onita leads the hundreds in attendance through an impassioned Onita Theatre (definitely the coolest one yet), and everyone goes home happy.

    To be entirely honest, this is my least favorite of the three Onita brawls so far. I know I just wrote a whole thesis on the power of the exploding barbed wire, but I truly just love a good old fashioned street fight, and the venue-spanning chaos of the first two matches just hits all the right buttons for me. Still, this is a great piece of work, and I had a ton of fun watching guys blow up. It's an Onita Pro main event brawl. Of course it's fucking good.

Match Rating: A-

    Theoretically, this should be my lowest rated show yet. The first two matches were pretty damn bad, and the Nise Onita squash was almost indescribable in terms of "quality." However, the peaks of this show were damn good. Even if the highest rating I gave was an A-, I gave two of those, which I didn't think would happen so soon, if ever at all. A very wide-ranging show in terms of quality, but I will always value great peaks over a consistent level of good.

Show Rating: B