K-WEST 02/18/2010

         (Written by jom)

    K-WEST was a sub-promotion run by K-Dojo wrestlers SATOSHI and Tadanobu Fujisawa, meant to be the K-Dojo equivalent for the Kansai region (to the west of Chiba, K-Dojo's home). It was officially endorsed by TAKA himself, and they held dojo matches once a month. I'm not really sure how long the promotion ran for, but the latest I can find for one of their shows is 2011. It's closed down nowadays, but lives on through its spiritual successor, Fujisawa's Bukotsu promotion.

TAKA Michinoku vs. Jun Masaoka

    TAKA Michinoku needs no introduction, an all-star junior who's been all over the world, and in terms of K-Dojo he's responsible for training some of the best wrestlers of the 21st century. While Masaoka might be pretty well known nowadays, doing work for GLEAT and other major indies, this is Masaoka not even a year into wrestling, having only joined local indy fed Manyo Pro a few months prior to this.

    This had a pretty obvious "young boy gets dogwalked by vet" match style going into it just by looking at the participants, and they ended up following it to a T. Masaoka at this point really had nothing going for him besides being able to do a solid dropkick. TAKA meanwhile seemed very aware of the fact there were at most 20 people in the building, so he phoned it in hard. I wasn't expecting this to be some kind of classic, but it was disappointing to see just how little effort TAKA put into this. TAKA ended of winning (of course) with the Just Facelock.

    This match wasn't really bad or anything, but it wasn't good either. A perfectly nothing match, which honestly I should've seen coming considering Masaoka was so early into his career.

Rating: C

Sawako Shimono vs. HARU

    Speaking of people who are early into their career, here's Sawako Shimono! While she's best known nowadays as the owner of Osaka Joshi Pro and Rina Yamashita's trainer, here she was just a total rookie. In fact, Shimono had her official debut one month after this match, so technically she hasn't even debuted as a pro wrestler at this point. HARU meanwhile is mostly a mystery, but seems to have been a member of Hiroaki Moriya's J2000 promotion.

    Whenever these "pre-debut exhibition" matches happen, usually the quality of the match entirely depends on how well the more experienced wrestler can keep the match flowing. Mistakes are expected from the rookie, so it's up to the vet to make sure those mistakes don't entirely derail the match. In this match, HARU wasn't able to do that at all. She was fine doing her own moves, like throwing some thudding forearms and hitting a pretty awesome running senton, but she consistently messed up the execution of her own moves, which is really not something you'd want happening when you're facing a rookie. Shimono was shockingly good for someone who hadn't even debuted yet, hitting a few running knees that looked pretty sweet. This match really fell apart towards the end though. HARU hit a crossbody on Shimono and had her down for the 3 count, but for whatever reason the ref didn't count the 3 and the match continued. Immediately after this, HARU sloppily hit a Vader bomb, and once again the ref just chose not to count the 3. The bell rang anyways though, confusing pretty much everyone. The ref and the wrestlers just went with the flow and acted like the pinfall was in fact a clear 3 count.

    This was really rough, and not in the good way. You can clearly see that both HARU and Shimono have the potential to do some really good stuff, but that just wasn't the case here. The match was already not that good up to the finishing stretch, and the ref fucking up two separate pinfalls really didn't help to bring it back.

Rating: C-

SATOSHI vs. OLA

    SATOSHI and OLA are two guys that I genuinely know next to nothing about. SATOSHI seemingly worked K-Dojo pretty sparingly for a few years and now wrestles for Bukotsu but OLA is entirely a mystery. For some reason, going into this match I had a good feeling that this would be solid, and I guess I can see the future because I ended up being right.

    Both guys worked this match extremely tightly, with some nice limb work done by both guys (OLA targeting SATOSHI's leg and SATOSHI targeting OLA's arm). SATOSHI's striking was also very notably good, throwing some real hard bombs throughout the match (OLA's striking was solid, but definitely not at SATOSHI's level). Probably the best strike thrown by SATOSHI the entire match was this beauty of a dropkick, which made such a gross sound upon connecting with OLA.

    I will admit however, this match wasn't all great, as whenever OLA was in control the match did lose some steam. While the work he was doing was solid, it just wasn't kept interesting a lot of the time. SATOSHI also could be a little bit boring but was definitely much better in keeping me engaged. Eventually, SATOSHI hit a really nice northern lights suplex into a kimura for the win.

    Overall, this was a nice tightly worked match between two guys who seemed to be pretty solid wrestlers just from this match. OLA is fine and I'd enjoy seeing more of him, but SATOSHI I'll definitely be looking out for in the future.

Rating: B-

Yoshihiro Kawaguchi & Southern Cross vs. Bull Armor TAKUYA & Mahoroba

    For two reviews in a row, it is Bull Armor time. TAKUYA is back, teaming with Kansai indy stalwart Mahoroba to take on the team of Riki Office's Kawaguchi and Southern Cross. I honestly know very little about Southern Cross, but I've seen his name pop up a few times while looking for DVDs.

    This wasn't good. Usually I leave statements like that for the end of the review but I honestly don't have a ton to talk about. TAKUYA was the definite highlight of the match, dressed like Survival Tobita and throwing mean chops and hard lariats. He even did some of his signature flexing spots which I'll always love. Mahoroba was fine, nothing special from him but nothing especially bad either. Kawaguchi and Cross completely sucked. Kawaguchi seemed a lot worse off than we last saw him in Riki office, as while he still seemed to be solid overall he kept messing up his own moves, the biggest example being when he sloppily applied a cross armbar which made me particularly mad considering the way he set it up looked awesome in concept. Southern Cross might not have any redeeming qualities in this match, nothing he did sparked interest in me at all and he generally coming off like he had never wrestled a day in his life. The match eventually ended with TAKUYA hitting a botched thunder fire powerbomb, but I did kinda like how it ended up even if it was clearly unintentional.

    I'm not entirely sure just how long this match went, but I remember feeling like it had gone 30 minutes. In actuality, it definitely didn't go past 15. I'm once again happy to see more TAKUYA but I wouldn't be opposed to not seeing much else from the other 3.

Rating: C-

Kazuki Niimura vs. Tadanobu Fujisawa

    Kazuki Niimura was a JWA Kansai wrestler who also worked a little bit of Osaka Pro, and although that's really all I can find about him in terms of information he did come out with a very awesome theme song so I was pretty much ready to be a fan of him from the start. Tadanobu Fujisawa meanwhile is a Kurisu trainee, which meant I immediately was ready to be a fan of his as well. After the last four matches left a lot to be desired, I had not much hope for this match in terms of overall quality. I guess they were saving the best for last though, because this fucking ruled.

    From the start, both guys worked with a level of intensity that no other match had even come close to having. While the OLA/SATOSHI match was definitely pretty tightly worked, this one was worked even tighter, with Niimura and Fujisawa throwing some real heavy hits for the entirety of the match. Niimura really came off as an unsung technical star here, doing some great grappling as well as throwing some awesome strikes. Most notably however, his suplexes were absolutely astounding, with the snap gutwrench suplex shown below being one of the best moves done throughout the whole show.

    That's not to say Fujisawa didn't deliver on his half of the match. Far from it, I honestly believe he did even better than Niimura did. He was an absolute menace with all his striking, throwing some absolutely gross forearms and headbutts, as well as doing some nasty boot scrapes. He also hit one of the best spears I've seen in a good bit, with it almost turning into a spinebuster on the way down. Probably my favorite move he did all match though was this absolutely disgusting sliding knee. It was definitely extremely basic, but it absolutely worked through how vicious it was, and the way it was executed really sold how much of a drag-out brawl the match had become.

    And then came the finish. To preface this, I had originally tried to do research on a number of wrestlers from this show before watching, and Niimura's cagematch profile had one interesting note. In the tidbits section, they listed that in February of 2010, Niimura had gotten a cervical spine injury while wrestling, leading to his immediate retirement. I'm not sure why, but for some reason, it just didn't click with me that this match was taking place in February of 2010. Fujisawa picked up Niimura and hit a gnarly single underhook impaler DDT, and Niimura didn't move an inch for the rest of the tape. Fujisawa pretty clearly saw that there was something wrong, and after hitting the lightest of stomps to test if Niimura would sell (to which he did not), he immediately told the ref to check him, which resulted in the match being called off entirely. After this a really gruesome scene plays out, with TAKA and a few others coming out from the back to help Fujisawa with trying to help Niimura and get him medical attention. The only thing I can compare this to is the Misawa footage, and even though I knew that Niimura didn't meet that same fate, I was genuinely horrified for him. 

    I sadly haven't been able to find any info at all on how he's doing today, but at the barest minimum there's been no word that he was paralyzed or killed by the move. This was a really depressing end to an amazing match. Honestly, up to the finish, this was nearing the level of the Fukimoto/Senshu brawl in terms of amazing wrestling. Everything was so violent, the match flowed perfectly, and just in general everything worked. If you can handle bad injuries I think this is absolutely worth watching, as although this was Niimura's final match it was also one of the best matches I've ever seen from the sleaze scene. It's absolutely worth your time to appreciate just how great of a wrestler this guy was, along with how good Fujisawa is.

Rating: A- 

Atsushi Maruyama Produce 01/18/2015

         (Written by jom)

Kazuaki Mihara vs. Katsumi Oribe

    Two of Maruyama/Tigers Mask's trainees square off to start the show. Oribe is nicknamed "Karate Boy" and comes out in satin pants with a gi belt design on them. This irrationally infuriates yet greatly intrigues me. Mihara meanwhile is out with with an absolutely insane mohawk and looks about 50 lbs heavier than he is today, so good on him for getting fitter.

    Sadly, this match has less to talk about once the bell rings than before it even started. Mihara was fine as the one in control, doing some okay power moves and throwing some kinda hard chest chops. Oribe just wasn't that good though. He only threw a few kicks throughout the entire match and, while fine, none of them seemed good enough to warrant literally being nicknamed "karate boy". The rest of the time he threw some meh chest chops. Finish was solid with Mihara barreling through Oribe with a nice lariat before hitting a well-executed landslide for the win.

    Not that good of a match, I guess it worked as an opener but genuinely, I can only sum up my feelings on Katsumi Oribe with one image.

Rating: C-

Bull Armor TAKUYA vs. Naoshi Sano

    Not many better ways to rebound from a disappointing match than with Naoshi motherfuckin Sano baby. Sano's one of my favorite sleaze indy guys, able to do some genuinely good wrestling when he's in the zone but almost always entertaining regardless. Bull Armor TAKUYA is a guy I only saw for the first time a few days ago, but Chris can vouch for me when I say that he's pretty sweet. He was in a battle royale from a 2007 Riki Office show and at one point did an MDickie running flex taunt into a corner splash, which immediately made him one of Chris' top sleaze boys. However, that was 2007, and this is 2015. In 2007 TAKUYA was absolutely jacked, but here he looks more like Akebono than Chris Masters. This may sound like a negative, but, as my friend Ciel put it:

    In terms of the actual match, it ended up being a pretty fun one. TAKUYA and Sano both have their own bits that they like to do, and more often than not those bits meshed pretty well, such as when Sano would do his "not a powerful wrestler" bit combined with TAKUYA's "extremely powerful wrestler and also evil laugh" bit. TAKUYA has not only gained weight in the last 8 years, but has also seemingly lost brain cells, because he was just going absolutely insane during the match. At one point he started like yelling and swinging his arms around, with both of them ending up in a flex pose. He then went completely silent for about 3 seconds before starting to do his weird evil laugh thing and ran in place for 10 seconds. I'm not entirely sure what this bit is meant to be but credit to him for the creativity. 

    The actual wrestling during this match wasn't particularly great or anything, but it was totally serviceable for the type of match they were doing. TAKUYA throws some real thunderous chops a few times, and Sano is more than game to do a little bit of hard striking of his own. TAKUYA also does a pretty sweet Vader bomb at one point, but soon after would get rolled up by Sano, resulting in Sano's victory.

    While this wasn't anything special in terms of the "action", this match still ended up being a lot of fun thanks to the really enjoyable personalities of the two involved. Comedy can be hit or miss for me but this was definitely a hit.

Rating: B-

Osamu Suganuma & Kuishinbo Kamen vs. Takoyakida & Otoko Sakari

    Y'know how I literally just said "comedy can be hit or miss for me"? Well, hello Otoko Sakari. Glad you could be here to demonstrate the latter option. If you don't know, Otoko Sakari is the comedy gimmick of the legendary Alexander Otsuka, one of my personal GOATs and an undeniably amazing wrestler in his prime. Otoko Sakari, meanwhile, fucking stinks. I've never been a fan of someone's whole gimmick being based around their private areas and gross-out humor, so whenever I see genuine all-timer Otsuka trying to force people to eat his gross ass through a loincloth, it just makes me really sad that I'm not watching him do actually cool stuff. Anyways, there's three other people in this match, including Kuishinbo Kamen (an example of good comedy wrestling!).

    I don't have a ton of notes for this match because sadly, about half of it was Sakari spots, and I just cannot bring myself to note down every time he presented his asshole to an audience member. Takoyakida wasn't great either, as he pretty just did a "funny haha" voice and pointed at his ass a few times. He might've done more but he was so nothing in the entire match I can't remember. I will say that in terms of good comedy, Suganuma and Kamen brought it in spades. Suganuma is of course the 3rd Ebessan (after Kikutaro and Flying Kid Ichihara), so he's able to do some pretty fun comedy spots such as trying to hit a running senton only to fly about 5 feet off target. Kamen is of course the best part of this match, a genuine all-time great of the comedy wrestling genre. He was an absolute dickhead this entire match, pummeling Takoyakida with closed fists and low blows. This of course culminated in maybe my favorite spot of the whole match, where Kamen does this:

What an asshole!

    Unsurprisingly, the actual wrestling was pretty solid as well. Both Kamen and Suganuma are pretty damn good in the ring, with Kamen continuing to be impressively agile over 20 years into his career at this point, and Suganuma doing some pretty cool moves as well. Takoyakida was fine, about as forgettable as a wrestler as he was as a comedian though. The most impressive/depressing part of this match was definitely Sakari, as shockingly, he could seemingly still go at this point. Maybe it was because he didn't have to work at the usual hard pace he does, but he was able to pull off the best giant swing I've ever seen him do in the 2010s. This is depressing because it happened in an Otoko Sakari match, meaning almost immediately after this he went back to trying to force his opponents to eat his ass. The match ended soon after with Suganuma hitting a genuinely great Musou for the victory.

    I think that when you look at this match outside of the Otoko Sakari stuff, it was actually kinda good. Kamen and Suganuma were both really enjoyable, and Takoyakida was perfectly fine as the guy taking all of their cool moves. However, the Otoko Sakari stuff was at least half of the entire match, and it wouldn't be right to not consider just how bad and even boring some of it made the overall match. If you enjoy that type of comedy I guess this match would be up your alley but my god I just can't bring myself to like it.

Rating: C-

Magnitude Kishiwada, Tadasuke, & Shuji Ishikawa vs. Naoki Sakurajima, Mineo Fujita, & HUB

    After three matches that ranged from meh to flat-out bad, I really needed to see something that made sitting down for this tape worth it. This match had made me excited from the second I saw it listed on the show, so going into this I was hoping that this would be the match to help me recover my drive and push me to actually stick around the the main event. Honestly, I'm a little disappointed in myself though. Why would I ever doubt that this match would kick ass?

    Not a single person in this match did a bad job on this night. Genuinely, I think every person delivered what they were meant to deliver. Sakurajima was the whipping boy for the face team, taking the brunt of the major offense and being targeted by a particularly malicious Kishiwada for most of the match, which only lead to his eventual comeback against Kishiwada being that much more impactful. Fujita was also doing great as a whipping boy in this match, albeit he got significantly more offense in. Fujita's a guy that I have extremely mixed feelings on, as on one hand he's an extremely talented juniors guy who was quite possibly the greatest WMF trainee out of the few to come out of the promotion. On the other hand, he's fully committed himself nowadays to his "EROTIC VIOLENCE" gimmick, and as said before, gimmicks based around cock and balls just aren't my thing. He's a perfect example of an exceptional wrestler who completely squanders any interest I'd have in him because he has a stupid, gross gimmick. In this match though, that isn't the case, as while he's near the peak of his wrestling abilities he also hasn't taken on the gimmick of a pervert yet so he's significantly more enjoyable. Tadasuke was pretty similar to Fujita in this match actually, being the clear whipping boy for the face team while also acting as a good spoiler, shutting down different comeback attempts. I think he definitely performed at a lesser level than he could, but that was less because of his own efforts and more because he just wasn't the center of attention at any point really.

    In terms of the best performances though, that mark definitely goes to HUB and Shuji Ishikawa. HUB was undeniably the best part of the face team, hitting all his usual spots to perfection. I'm a sucker for moves involving grey-area weaponry, and HUB's tail whip is maybe the best of that category. He's also just a genuinely amazing juniors wrestler, and even at one point hits an insane diving senton onto Kishiwada and Tadasuke stacked on top of each other. However, the best wrestler not only on the heel team, but in the entire match, was for sure the big dawg. He actually acted as the backbone for the entire match, guiding the ebbs and flows with his actions and consistently being the one to push the match forward positively, keeping it from entering into flat-out move spamming or losing heat. Ishikawa is also just one of the best of his style, and he was in full-form on this night, doing some insane power moves like a stun gun to Fujita where he threw him like a lawn dart into the ropes. He also popped off multiple of his disgusting knees, culminating in this absolutely nutty one to Fujita:

    Soon after this, the faces were able to get the advantage, with Tadasuke eventually being put down for the 3 count after being hit with a swanton bomb from Fujita followed by a beautiful frog splash from HUB.

    This was an absolute barn-burner of a match. It's honestly hard to say more than that. It went almost 20 minutes, yet at no point do I think it felt like it was going long. Every person got their moment to shine, and even if I think Tadasuke should've gotten a little bit more in the match, overall this is still one of the best 6-man tags I've seen in a very good bit of time. A wonderful palette cleanser of a match in preparation for the main event.

Rating: A-

Atsushi Maruyama vs. Daisuke Sekimoto

    For anyone that doesn't know, Atsushi Maruyama is the real name of one Tigers Mask, a common fixture of the Osaka scene. In all honesty, I've always been split on Maruyama. I think that while he's definitely talented in the ring and is a good lucharesu guy, I've always felt that his strikes left a lot to be desired, and his "Tigers Suplex" is one of the worst tiger suplexes I've ever seen. However, Sekimoto is a true future Hall of Famer (for whatever Hall of Fame he'd be able to be entered in) so I had faith that even if Maruyama shit the bed, Sekimoto would make sure this match was still at least good. In good news though, Sekimoto totally didn't need to carry the match, as Maruyama very much held up his side of the encounter.

    The match's overall story was pretty good. Maruyama spent a lot of time attacking the limbs of Sekimoto, throwing some hard strikes at the legs while primarily focusing on targeting the right arm of the muscle monster. He threw some genuinely nasty kicks to it, as well as pulling out some pretty nice submissions like a tight kimura. He also was able to pull off some pretty cool maneuvers, like countering a lariat by backflipping before locking in a tight manji-gatame. Sekimoto was in peak form here, continuing to show why his mid-10s were probably the best years of his entire career. He absolutely obliterated Maruyama with some mean chops and forearms, and also threw Maruyama around like a child with some insane suplexes. Of these suplexes though, none of them were as impressive as his outside-in deadlift german suplex, where he seemed to pick up Maruyama so casually that I genuinely didn't register that he was lifting him until he was actually starting to suplex Maruyama.

    In terms of criticisms, this match definitely was not perfect. Maruyama was hit-or-miss with some of his strikes, the biggest miss being his high kicks. Maybe it was because his low and mid-kicks were so vicious, but when he started throwing ultra-light thigh-slappy high kicks at Sekimoto, I genuinely lost interest in the whole Maruyama control segment. Also, for a lot of the earlier portion of the match Maruyama depended a lot of some pretty boring rest holds. Sekimoto isn't exempt from criticisms either, as the end of the match, while good, entirely ignored the last 90% of the match. Sekimoto was able to take control from Maruyama and started to just hit all his big match-enders, throwing two nasty lariats before hitting his beautiful deadlift german suplex for the win. While this finish was sweet in isolation, it entirely ignored the 10 or so minutes of Maruyama hyper-focused on the right arm of Sekimoto (the arm that Sekimoto hit those last few lariats with mind you). I'm not saying that Sekimoto shouldn't have hit his ending combination, because it was awesome. All I'm saying is that if that was what the ending was going to be, maybe working over his right arm wasn't the best move.

    Overall, this was a really good match between two guys who had enough chemistry to make going 20+ minutes mostly work. While I have gripes with the ending and some of Maruyama's offense choices, I can't deny that he performed well overall and definitely exceeded my expectations. Was this match better than the one before it? Absolutely not. But it told its own story and at bare minimum, I'll be thinking about that outside-in german for a while.

Rating: B