Goto Ippa 08/26/2007

              (Written by jom)

     Somehow, this is the blog's first dip into any sort of Goto project. Considering how long I've been doing this (plus how many Goto feds have existed), it feels almost too absurd to be true, but it is. Goto Ippa is also the most ridiculous starting point, mostly because of how hard it has been to come by footage of the promotion. Thanks to developments over the last year or two, we've been able to get our hands on a handful of shows, and this is one of the most interesting thus far, featuring one of the few big time Goto singles matches of the time period. As an outright Tarzan Goto idolizer, it is my duty to report on all known activities of the big bastard to make sure the people are informed on any and all Tarzan Goto-related matters. So get yourself a bowl of chanko and strap in. Asakusa Indies Arena Fight Club awaits.

Black Bart vs. Chappie Kimura

      Aaaaah, Black Bart. Secretly one of my more difficult agendas from this era of indies is that Black Bart could've been one of the best juniors of the scene. Solely from the minuscule amount of footage we possess of his already short run, he comes off as one of the coolest and most capable juniors of his era. He comes out to a crazy ass remix of "Spinning Toe Hold" and throws the snappiest kicks ever, all while being entirely willing to throw caution to the wind for the sake of doing cool shit. Case in point, he starts this match with one of the riskiest suicide dives I've ever seen, nearly decapitating a fan on landing. The rest of this match actually stands out as being a little more controlled than the start, as Bart and Kimura work a pseudo-shoot style affair full of stiff kicks and slick matwork. Kimura, for his part, is a very interesting rookie, as he possesses a more noticeable roughness than usual but makes up for it with amazing offense. These guys spend the match going back and forth with head kicks and scary neck bumps, to the point that for all the weird pauses and slight miscommunications that occur, I really can't bring myself to care about that stuff. Too much of this match is off the chain for me to be primarily focused on the faults. Overall, it's a good match with flashes of something really special. It's a real tragedy that Black Bart's career ended in the way it did (too depressing and long-winded of a topic to get into here, so If You Know You Know), but damn did he give us some good work before he left the business. 

Shimizu No Gohaku vs. Wild Bear

    About halfway into watching this match, I began to mostly take notes on how well this would fit into an IWE card from 1981. Wild Bear puts on a bearhug? Very IWE of him. Shimizu goes for the running senton and misses? That would probably go over big in IWE. At some point Wild Bear even does the airplane spin into backflip combo which is just a flat-out IWE spot. Really though, pacing-wise and structure-wise, this was more akin to something Mighty Inoue would've put together in the early 80s compared to anything the other indie guys of the 2000s were doing. Shimizu and Wild Bear work a slow and methodical match based around working holds and throwing back clubs, and for the lack of excitement in half of the match, it all comes together as a pretty competent piece of work. I really enjoy Shimizu's big running sentons (which he does in the exact same way Mighty Inoue would do his flipping ones), and Wild Bear's slow descent from throwing nice headbutts and fistdrops into outright ball-targeting offense was fun to see. Also, unrelated to the ring work itself, but Wild Bear comes out to a theme song that sounds like something a NOAH main eventer would use, which is a very funny choice of music for a career Goto Ippa worker. This kind of match isn't going to blow anyone away, but as someone that really loves IWE and this genre of work, I had a good bit of fun with it.

Mountain High vs. Asuka Ichigeki

     I really wanted to love this match. Asuka Ichigeki is a karateka that comes out to crazy heavy metal. Mountain High is a masked boxer that comes out to what sounds like a ripoff of Atari Teenage Riot. My expectations could not have been higher; alas, this isn't very good. There are moments of worth for sure. Both guys hit very hard and Ichigeki especially pops off a bunch of combos. Mountain High's gut punching is nasty and his eventual face punching in the last part of the match is really brutal. However, Mountain High spends most of this match trying to do strike exchanges. He throws punches almost exclusively in response to Ichigeki kicks, at certain points just standing around and doing nothing while Ichigeki sells and seemingly tries to get him to really lay into him. It takes nearly 10 minutes for Mountain High to finally start throwing combos and actually try to win, instead of just standing there like an idiot waiting for Ichigeki to throw another kick. Ichigeki, god bless him, tries his best to make it work, and really does set Mountain High up for greatness at a few points, but it never manifests in any meaningful way. The finish also ends up as a wet fart due to a ref screw-up, but I can't entirely blame the ref was the planned finish was only a slightly less wet fart in its own right. In the end, this is one of the most uninteresting different style fights I've seen in years, and the one thing a different style fight should never be is uninteresting. 

Iori Sugawara vs. Musashi Oyama

     Outside of the main event, this was easily my most anticipated matchup for the show, and thankfully it mostly delivered on its promise. Oyama and Sugawara are the two most capable workers on the show thus far: Sugawara is a super charismatic dickhead that throws razor sharp kicks, and Oyama is an old head grappler hell-bent on brutalization via wristlocks and armbars. There's a lot of interesting back and forth in this one, especially regarding limb work. Sugawara is really frantic in the way he kicks at Oyama's legs and slaps him into kneebars, and he's just as frantic on defense whenever Oyama counters said kneebars into more complex holds that force Sugawara to scramble out. At some point though, the match becomes more concerned with Oyama's own legwork, as all of those counter holds have softened Sugawara's legs up enough for Oyama to change tactics and begin targeting them with a vengeance. Even with some moments not being the most clean thing in the world, this is a real testament to the abilities of both men, as they get to play to their strengths and really get everything out of the smaller moments. It's honestly more similar to Mumeijuku's matches than anything else, and really makes me wonder why neither guy ended up working there around this time.

Barbed Wire Boards: Tarzan Goto vs. Tomonobu Matsumoto

    The spiritual successor to Goto/Miyake, almost exactly 10 years later. Once again, Goto stands across the ring from one of his trainees in a barbed wire boards match, and, once again, Goto decides to use this as more of a lesson in suffering than anything else. About 95% of this match is Goto torture. If you don't care for Goto torture, I can imagine you walking away from this feeling unfulfilled. As a guy that really likes Goto torture, however, I certainly walked away from this a happy man. The thing that makes Goto's control work so good is not only how great he is at brutalizing, with one of the best arsenals of strikes and bombs ever assembled into one rotund Shoko Asahara-esque man, but also how much he works to make it clear that his victimizing comes from a very special and hateful place in his heart. He's outright vindictive, going beyond the call of duty to make sure his opponent suffers as much as possible. When one or two chops would get the job done, Goto throws seven. When a single stab would get the message across, Goto stabs four or five times instead. It does a lot to take the violence and really make it mean something. Matsumoto, for his part, is a fine victim. He's a little less capable than Miyake was whenever it was Miyake's turn to suffer one of these beatings, but he's never in a position where he detracts from the match. His comebacks are fiery and his elbows land pretty damn flush. I certainly think he could've done a better job with his blading, but I really only bring up such an annoyingly minor point because he spent at least a minute trying to draw more blood and couldn't figure it out. Goto at least fills the blood quota with his usual deep blading, so I have no complaints there. If you're a fan of Goto making a trainee reconsider this whole wrestling deal, and you've got about 25 minutes to spare, it'd be worth giving this one a watch.