Comprehensive Super Rider #1

              (Written by jom)

Hopper King & Hiroshi Shimada vs. Black Hole 1 & 2 (IWA Kakuto Shijuku 05/14/1995)

    We're starting off where every great article should start off, with a match in the Yong Dong Village food market. Hopper is teaming with big guy Shimada who I'm a fan of, and they're taking on one of my favorite acts on the sleaze scene, the Black Holes. I have no idea who Black Hole 2 is and can't even begin to throw out some guesses, but I'm fairly certain Black Hole 1 is the same Black Hole previously talked on the blog in that amazing shoot style tag match from the West Japan korakuen show (this Black Hole may or may not have gone on to become Eagle Pro's Super Judist but you didn't hear it from me).

    Going into the match, I had a pretty strong idea of how it was going to play out. Hopper would throw his strikes as much as he could while the Black Holes would respond with brute force and absolute mass to crush him. I'm starting to get good at predicting how matches go because within the first minute this exchange happened, proving my idea entirely:

    This is how the match mostly went for its sub-10 minute runtime. Hopper was pretty sweet here, throwing some thudding kicks and did all his pro wrestling type stuff really well, even hitting an awesome Rider Kick towards the end. He also was somehow able to do a little grappling on the big man. Notice I said man, because Black Hole 2 is in the ring for maybe a full minute. I'm sure he was in for longer and those moments were just clipped out, but this was entirely about Hopper and Shimada taking on the original Black Hole. A very good thing in my opinion, because the original Black Hole rules, throwing big man clubs and judo throws like there's no tomorrow.

    Shimada more than held his own end of the match too. He was able to do some solid stuff with the biggest highlight being hitting this genuinely disgusting senton, the way he landed made it look like all of his weight fell on only the right half of Black Hole, probably crushing all the ribs on that side. The match's finishing stretch wasn't anything special but it didn't feel out of place or rushed either. Overall a pretty solid affair, with the three people that mattered getting to do some cool spots, but nothing that'll blow your mind.

Rating: B

Super Rider vs. Takeshi Ono (BattlArts 01/07/2001)

    Ono is one of my favorite BattlArts guys, as pretty much all of them had one defining trait and Ono's was closed fist punching. Just wanna say before the match even starts, Rider is his Hopper King gear of red pants and a red Super Tiger Gym shirt, so he's going full throwback for this one. Ono meanwhile is wearing his awesome trench coat, although he doesn't have the cybergoth mask he work in like 99, so his look doesn't feel entirely complete here.

    Contrary to his attire choice, Ono was in prime form wrestling-wise here, fully committed to punching Rider in the face and kicking him in the balls. He busts out some awesome punch combos throughout the match, as well as doing a couple really creative sequences like hitting a snap suplex before immediately flowing into a gnarly handstand kneedrop straight to Rider's face. One of my favorite moments from him comes early in the match, with Ono just countering Rider's attempt at a waistlock by kicking him directly in the nuts and slapping on a deep manjigatame.

    Super Rider, honestly, wasn't at the same level as Ono here, but he was definitely at a high enough level to warrant appreciation. A lot of his kicks had that same thudding impact he's had his entire career, and he also busted out a little cool grappling like transitioning a crossface chickenwing into a slick backslide. Some of his spots down the line did kinda drag and get sloppy, but he recovered for the most part in that area just by hitting this insane German suplex:

    The finish sadly did feel a little rushed, and the crowd was never really into the match either. This was 2001 BattlArts so that's not an uncommon occurrence for any match that's not the main event, but it definitely didn't help this match in any way. Somewhat disappointing considering the unrealistic standard I probably came in with, but there were enough cool moments between the two that it's totally worth checking out if you're already a fan of either guy.

Rating: B

Super Rider & Yuko Miyamoto vs. Takafumi Ito & TORU (SSPW 07/29/2021)

    We have arrived to 2021, and Rider's final match in SSPW as of this post. All three other guys in this match I'm a fan of. Miyamoto is genuinely one of the best wrestlers of his generation, consistently putting in amazing performances no matter if he's in a normal match or a deathmatch. Takafumi Ito is really damn good and has been enjoying a very fun late-career revival recently. TORU is one of Tenryu's chosen ones in Tenryu Project and he absolutely deserves the credit Tenryu has given him because he's extremely talented in the ring.

    It's crazy that I said all that shit about Rider being old and near retirement because he and Takafumi Ito started this match off with some absolutely awesome grappling. The guys on commentary said "Shooto vs. Pancrase" and just hearing that definitely added some level of authenticity to everything happening, with both guys going back and forth with holds in a really smooth yet competitive way.

    TORU and Yuko Miyamoto more than held up their ends of the match as well. TORU didn't get a ton to do here but was able to hit his beauty of a dropkick. Miyamoto meanwhile had some awesome grappling and working moments on TORU, and even pulled out a pretty sweet handspring backflip kick instead of his usual handspring elbow. Takafumi Ito was probably the best guy in the match though, throwing hard strikes and doing tight grappling as seen above, as well as hitting his great uranage as seen below:

    The finish came soon after this, but I do just want to say that Super Rider's Rider Kick is still solid as hell. It's genuinely shocking to me that he was able to pull it out at 58 and still make it look pretty damn sweet.

    Overall, this match was some fun stuff. Rider and Ito's interactions were genuinely really enjoyable, and TORU and Miyamoto helped to keep the match flowing when the older guys needed to take a breather. A worthwhile early card match and proof that Rider still has some solid work left in him.

Rating: B

West Japan 06/21/1995

           (Written by jom)

Masahiko Kochi vs. Kenichi Kawasaki

    West Japan starts out their only Korakuen show right with a batch of rookie matches. Kawasaki is a complete unknown, I tried looking into him but couldn't find any info at all. Kochi is a personal favorite of mine, a really solid worker in his prime who could throw some really hard kicks and had an amazing spinning wheel kick. However, this was not even a full year into his career, so I honestly wasn't expecting much.

    It's pretty good I came in with that expectation because this match was nothing. While the whole match was about 12 minutes long, this was clipped down to not even 2 minutes (the beginning of a show full of mostly unnecessary clipping). Kawasaki was fine, doing a cool roll-up at one point, but that's really his only contribution worth noting. Kochi was also mostly fine, he actually threw some of those kicks I was talking about and even did a wheel kick, but it wasn't done that well. The match ended after Kochi reversed a small package into his own small package.

    Again, this wasn't bad or anything, but overall what we got made this out to be a very nothing match.

Rating: C

Toyonari Fujita vs. Diablo

    Now here is a match I had some hopes for. Fujita is of course the future Magnitude Kishiwada, taking on fellow future Osaka top heel Diablo. Both guys are very early into their careers, with Fujita having debuted less than 2 years prior to this, and Diablo being only 8 months into professional wrestling (while also wearing some very different gear than what we'd come to recognize him for). Even though both guys were definitely still getting their acts together, I did have some confidence this would be good.

    Luckily, I ended up being right about that, at least based on what we saw. Diablo sadly wasn't shown getting much offense in, however of the few things he did, they pretty much all rocked, especially this great diving headbutt by him.

    However, the real star of the match was definitely Fujita. The way he worked here was in sharp contrast to how he would end up working only a few years later, as the wrestler Fujita was at this point was more akin to the IWA Japan juniors guys than anything else. He hit some great dives, nasty suplexes, and capped it all off with a pretty gnarly powerbomb. 

    Eventually however, both of the competitors were unable to get a pinfall or submission before the 20 minute time limit ran out, resulting in a draw. The fact we were only shown three fucking minutes of this match is pretty annoying, but at least the three minutes we got to see were pretty damn solid.

Rating: B-

Doku Gas Mask vs. Crusher Takahashi

    Crusher Takahashi is one of my favorite guys on the sleaze scene, a worker with his heart on his sleeve and an undying love for Terry Funk, capable of throwing punches and selling in a way that would almost definitely make Funk himself proud. Doku Gas Mask is of course the one and only Survival Tobita, playing the gimmick that introduced him to the world of flamethrowers, a world that he would embrace for the rest of his career. To truly cement that, here's Mask's "pre-match promo", which is just him walking up the Korakuen stairs with flamethrower in hand:

    While the match overall didn't give me much to say, this was just so much fun. Takahashi is a wonderful babyface with a great punch who can sell his ass off for anything and everything Mask throws at him, and Mask is great as a monsterish force of nature, throwing some really gross headbutts: 

    There were some nice interactions involving Mask's mostly ineffective manager, some person in all red with a big stick. Neither guy really did anything notably great in terms of moves, but the way this was worked and how invested the crowd got made this a total blast. Eventually, Mask won by reversing Takahashi's spinning toe hold into a small package.

    After the match, Mask attempted to incinerate Takahashi with the flamethrower, but Takahashi was able to catch his arms, fighting him off and just chucking the flamethrower out of the ring. Mask tried to throw a chair at him from the outside but Takahashi caught it and threw it back, and Mask's manager attempted to do the same but his chair ended up hitting off the ring post and flying back at him, to the glee of the audience.

    This match was again clipped down to just around 2 minutes, but the overall match was only about 8 minutes long so this really didn't hurt as bad as the last two. Both guys played their roles really well and the crowd were so into everything they were doing. Just a great fun old school match featuring two guys who are genuinely great at delivering that type of match.

Rating: B+

Black Hole & Fumio Akiyama vs. Hopper King & Koichiro Kimura

    As you can see from the title of this match, this one is actually on YouTube, courtesy of the wonderful IndyPuroresu channel. This match had a ton of potential just from the names, as it features four dudes with awesome attires and fucked attitudes going at it in a "shooting style" tag match. This was probably the match I had the most hope for on the whole show, and my lord did it deliver.

    Akiyama was great here, fighting with a real ferocity to everything he did, at one point sweeping out Kimura's legs and just going nuts on him with strikes. Pretty much everything Akiyama did felt so legit, he really felt like he was fighting for his life against Rider and Kimura for the whole match. Black Hole was great too, acting as like a weird space alien judoka version of Vader. For a lot of offense thrown his way, he would just absorb it with his big fuckin belly like a god, and he threw some real stiff clubbing blows in combination with some absolutely beautiful throws.

    Kimura was an absolute beast during his times fighting. He had some absolutely awesome moments like ducking a head kick from Akiyama to pick his other ankle, or when he just started brawling with Akiyama and Black Hole. Hopper King (aka Super Rider) was probably the best part of this whole match however. He threw some fucking amazing punches and kicks, absolutely obliterating whoever he was in the ring with at any time, while also doing some awesome grappling on the mat. 

    Eventually, the match ended in one of the best finishes I've seen in a long time, which I honestly won't even say since you should really go out of your way to check this match out. It's less than 10 minutes long and absolutely worth your time. Just an insanely stiff fight, real sleazy bati-bati featuring four of the best at working a style like this.

Rating: A-

Hiroshi Shimada, Kenichiro Yukimura, & Shigeo Okumura vs. Hiroshi Hatanaka, Masaru Toi, & Mitsunobu Kikuzawa

    Following up that insane intergalactic shoot-style match, here we have a who's who of the 90s sleaze scene. Shimada is a big fucker with some great athleticism, Yukimura is a solid juniors worker, Okumura is a pretty nice rounded wrestler, Hatanaka is an absolute bruiser, Toi is a pretty sweet juniors guy, and Kikuzawa is (at this point) another solid all-rounder.

    This was pretty damn good, albeit not reaching my expectations but still being a pretty fun watch. Everyone had a moment to shine or two, with Shimada probably putting in the best performance. He was an absolute beast here, just chucking Toi and Kikuzawa around like they weighed nothing while also having a really awesome segment where he used Kikuzawa and Toi against each other like they were human battering rams. Kikuzawa was able to put on a great performance too, getting some revenge on Shimada later in the match with this absolute beauty of a suicide dive:

    Around this point, the match breaks down, with tons of brawling on the outside. Hatanaka is able to get in the ring with Yukimura and while Yukimura is able to get some nice offense in, he's no match for the absolute monster that is Hatanaka, with Hatanaka's onslaught leading to this borderline unprofessional beatdown:

    After this, Toi hit a crossbody on Yukimura for the win. Overall, I think the match was pretty solid stuff, however it did feel kinda disjointed and some people like Okumura and Toi contributed far less than I would've liked them to have.

Rating: B

Flag Deathmatch: Mitsuteru Tokuda vs. Ho Des Minh

    Just like the shooter tag match, this match has also been uploaded to YouTube by IndyPuroresu. The rules of this match are pretty simple: to win, you have to pin your opponent with their flag on top of them. Ho Des Minh is the weird Chinese militant gimmick of Poison Sawada, coming to the ring with a god damn combat knife like he's planning to murder Tokuda. Tokuda at this point was the top guy in West Japan, and it seems that he and Minh had been feuding for a while up to this point. 

    Honestly, the best way to describe this match is that it just fucking ruled. Tokuda and Minh brawled like mad all around the arena, throwing each other into chairs and going nuts with some awesome spots, like Tokuda doing an amazing judo throw on Minh while Minh was on the top rope. They also were both able to do some crazy table spots, such as this absolute beauty of a DDT by Minh:

    Or this genuinely insane suplex by Tokuda:

    This may be surprising, but I'm actually going to leave talking about the match at this. The whole match is less than 10 minutes just like the insane tag, and some of these spots just have to be seen to be believed. A top-tier hardcore brawl with an insanely hyped up crowd, this is a career performance from both Minh and Tokuda. Definite recommendation that you check this one out ASAP.

Rating: A