IWA Kakuto Shijuku 07/16/1995

             (Written by jom)

     Returning to the Yong Dong food stalls always fills me with a joy & comfort I don't really find anywhere else. There's just something so home-y about it. For all the bizarre monsters and strange gimmicks, it's wrestling that caters well to the mostly drunk and casual crowds. IWA Kakuto Shijuku has always served as a recalibration point for when I need to throw on an hour long tape and have a good time, and this is probably one of my favorite Kakuto Shijuku tapes yet, serving as both the usual Kakuto Shijuku madness combined with a bunch of IWE tribute wrestling. Let's get into the thing.

Akihiko Masuda vs. Hiroshi Watanabe

      Biblically accurate young boy wrestling. Masuda and Watanabe are destined for greater things, only a few years away from already becoming major fixtures of the indies, but here they are as black trunks rookies throwing big kicks and suplexes aplenty. It is entirely one-dimensional pro wrestling, but it's earnest in its simple approach. Masuda has a beautiful spinning heel kick that I've never seen him do as Great Takeru, and Watanabe's suplexes are all performed perfectly, especially his fantastic bridging German. The clipping is pretty hardcore here (it's an hour long tape with eight matches to cover), but I really couldn't care less about clipping nowadays, and everything they showed was awesome. It's not hard to see why both guys turned out as well as they did when they had the execution down so well this early into their career. 

Best 2/3 Falls: Masahiko Takasugi, Isamu Teranishi, & Apollo Sugawara vs. Shigeo Okumura, Mitsunobu Kikuzawa, & Crusher Takahashi

    This is mostly the uncs getting reps in before the big reunion battle royal in the main event, but it's a fun time. Due to the clipping on the tape, we see basically nothing offense-wise on the part of the rookie trio, albeit all three are spirited in their being demolished. I could've rectified this by watching the available handhelds of the show on YouTube, but I didn't feel like doing that to be quite honest, so Mitsunobu Kikuzawa will have to settle for solely being a victim of Takasugi's 18 wheeler-esque hip attacks. The vets all get their own moments to kick ass, and Sugawara especially showed out with an awesome Arn-style DDT and a nasty lariat. Once again, more of a clip package than an actual match, but a very fun clip package indeed.

Goro Tsurumi vs. Katsuzo Oiyama

     Tsurumi celebrates his 25th year as a wrestler by having a gauntlet-type affair with two of his old IWE compatriots. Here he's facing Oiyama, who I've never seen before this but seems to be a former sumo that basically vanished after IWE died, based on his performance here, his disappearance was kind of a tragedy, cause this rocked. Lots of big punches and chops and headbutts, meat and potatoes wrestling that never regresses into "I hit you, you hit me" slop you're more likely to see nowadays. Oiyama, for a guy dressed like a big baby, hits like a motherfucker, throwing some mean chops and even meaner headbutts. Still, this is a controlled contest, never going entirely off the rails even with how heated some of the striking gets. Just a fun ass match from two fun ass workers. 

Goro Tsurumi vs. Jiro Inazuma

     And this one is even better! Inazuma (otherwise known as Gerry Morrow) actually just passed away a few days ago, and I've always meant to give him the proper deep dive since he's a real great worker and trained basically every famous wrestler to come outta Canada in the 90s. This one is more technically-minded, with some nice grappling and smarter spots between Inazuma and Tsurumi, but it also cranks up the violence as Inazuma throws straight punches to the face and Tsurumi responds with nasty backfists. All of Inazuma's headbutts are so good too, especially his jumping ones where he comes down like an avalanche onto the skull. Another good times kind of match, but once again, there's something really bubbling beneath the surface here.

Jiro Inazuma vs. Katsuzo Oiyama

    This is where it boils over. Once again rough and violent in the IWE way, hitting all the right buttons for this to end up as a perfectly solid match, only for Inazuma to really start targeting the leg. Oiyama takes umbrage at this, probably offended that Inazuma would do limb targeting to a man who hasn't worked a match in over a decade, and responds by GRABBING HIM BY THE EYE and hitting the nastiest chop of the whole night. This very quickly morphs from another heated half-brawl like the previous two into one of the nastier confrontations of the 90s, with both guys grabbing each others throats and hitting low blows over and over again. Inazuma unleashes some super mean uppercuts and Oiyama tries to cave his head in with headbutts. It's definitely the closest anything on this show has gotten to IWE's more chaotic brawls, and it ends up being a great conclusion to the super sick Tsurumi 25th Gauntlet Thing.

Chain: Super Uchu Majin vs. Masanobu Kurisu

    I have no idea who Super Uchu Majin is. When I saw him appear in Go Gundan, I thought he might be Shoji Nakamaki, but here he is working in Yokohama the exact same day that Nakamaki is working in Tokyo. Regardless, he throws great punches and lariats so he's cool in my book. He's also not at all the main focus here, as Kurisu puts in a really wonderful performance. The way he hunts for headbutts is awe-inspiring, snaking around Majin to find the perfect spot on the jaw to try and break with his skull. He also goes outside and drinks beer in the middle of the match which is objectively a really awesome thing to do. The chain really doesn't matter and this ends in a complete fuck finish, but it's a fun match overall. That fuck finish does bring out an angry Tsurumi, and it can only lead to one thing...

Goro Tsurumi & Super Uchu Majin vs. Masanobu Kurisu & Uchu Majin X

    Impromptu tag match! This goes less than two minutes and still gets clipped at some point. Maybe I'll watch those handhelds later after all. What we get here is really awesome, guys just beating each other around the ring with super stiff chops and punches, wrestling that puts hair on your chest. Really not much else to say there. I wish it went longer I guess, but the nature of the beast means that it did exactly what it meant to do.

IWE Memorial Battle Royale

    Just a damn good time. "Damn good time" seems to be the theme of the show (and every Kakuto Shijuku show for that matter), so this is a perfect way to send the fans home happy. Every guy seems very excited to get in the ring and do some brawling, to the point that Ryuma Go and Jiro Inazuma both preemptively come out before their names are even called, hanging out by the apron until they can jump in and get to working. Peak of the match is easily Oiyama getting the Charlie Brown treatment, tricked into trying to slam Sugawara only for Inazuma to push him over. I guess that makes Sugawara the football? As always, my analogies make more sense in my head than on paper. Really though, this is fun stuff, chicken soup pro wrestling that would appeal to fans that appreciate IWE, old men, food stall villages, or anything even tangentially connected.

Spitball Reviews #5

        (Written by jom)

Kazuki Okubo vs. Kozo Urita (Kingdom Ehrgeiz 06/16/2018)

    Kingdom Ehrgeiz is the MMA promotion originally known as the shoot style fed Kingdom. Kozo Urita is an unmasked Tiger Shark. This match takes place under TWF rules, which is basically UWF rules but with three minute rounds. I think that's all the explaining I need to get out of the way? Anyways, this was cool. It's a shoot style match between a Kiyoshi Tamura trainee and a Satoru Sayama trainee, so that's probably not the most shocking news in the world. It's interesting how both guys really fall into those categories in the match. While both are capable strikers, Urita's strikes land with a lot more oomph, and all of his knockdowns come from his striking. At the same time, Okubo tends to outclass Urita on the ground, hunting for armbars and triangle chokes while also pulling out a great capture suplex for a down count early own. The match progresses pretty naturally and has an awesome ending stretch, including a random American (probably an MMA fighter on the show) being heard in the background, seemingly convinced this is a shoot and very confused by the pro wrestling decisions made by both guys. This would be a lesser match in UWF or UWFi, and isn't even the most impressive thing in 2024 when HARD HIT and even GLEAT have hosted better matches. Still, I enjoyed it. Newly-discovered footage of Tiger Shark is something I'll always happily watch.

Match Rating: B-

First Tiger Mask & Toshio Fujiwara vs. Satoshi Kobayashi & Hayato Sakurai (Fujiwara Festival 12/05/2004)

    These "let the martial artists do some pro wrestling" type matches have always fascinated me. They're a peek into the general philosophy towards wrestling as a combat sport in Japan, compared to how it is in America. When MMA fighters have made the jump to pro wrestling stateside, many of those fighters have been derided by MMA fans and looked down upon by certain wrestling fans. There's a real "stay in your lane" kind of mentality from both sides of this stupid war between two of the most annoying fanbases in the world. In Japan, a lot of people seem to have a lot more respect for both forms of entertainment, and workers from both sides getting to test the waters is generally appreciated and cheered on. There's an acceptance of both being individual sports, but also a clear understanding of the constant and objectively vital crossovers between the two over the last hundred or so years. Pro wrestling birthed MMA and all that noise. This isn't meant to be a history lesson, nor is it meant to be an "America sux, Japan number one" think piece; it's just an observation I've had many times being put into writing. Anyways, Sayama comes out and his nameplate says "former WWF Junior Heavyweight" on it which is very funny. A real light-hearted joke for a light-hearted match. There's a handful of serious kickboxing-type exchanges (and Satoshi Kobayashi strikes me as the type of guy who would've done great in some serious pro wrestling), but this is more about popping the crowd with old man Fujiwara antics. The pro wrestling Fujiwara is the guest referee and he's having a fun time too, throwing around kickboxer Fujiwara for his disrespect and sharing some alcohol with him. Is there much else to say about the match? Not really! It's a deeply unserious affair, but one I had fun watching nonetheless.

Match Rating: B-

Riki Hyakumangoku vs. Chindeka Kizoku (KIW 12/12/2015)

    I've tried to stop myself from context-dumping at the start of match write-ups, as I've done that so much in the past and it doesn't tend to read well. However, I feel like this requires context. Kansai International Wrestling is potentially the first uni-born pro feds, predating groups like Guts World and SHI-EN by multiple years. JWA Tokai went pro first, but Tokai was an amateur group and not a university one, so KIW takes that crown. Hyakumangoku and Kizoku are day one KIW guys, with both working the first KIW show in 1999 and continuing to work even to this day. Hell, they just faced each other again last year! Both are tribute acts too, with Kizoku being a Flair idolizer, and Hyakumangoku unsurprisingly working like Riki Choshu. I came into this expecting the match to just be a fun little thing, with both guys doing half-hearted tribute spots and the crowd happy to cheer anything at all. That's how a lot of these matches go! This was not that. There was nothing half-hearted about this. Both men were so committed to their act that it kind of blows me away. One of the most striking things about the match was how great the execution was. It wasn't just great execution either. It felt like the type of movements you'd see decades prior, with lots of focus on proper limb placement and working their way into maneuvers rather than just executing them. There was still some fun work throughout the match, like Kizoku repeatedly bribing the referee into breaking up Hyakumangoku's holds, and the eventual payoff of Kizoku running out of money was pretty spectacular. There were hard lariats, gritty elbow-grinding legwork, and even an incredibly hot finishing stretch. Honestly, I know these two have it in them to do something truly spectacular, just based on the match here. As it stands, this is still borderline great.

Match Rating: B+

Asian Cougar, Masked Halcon, & Tokai Bushido V3 vs. Tomoya Adachi, Spider Warrior, & Heaven (ZIPANG 03/06/1998)

    Before I even start talking about the match, what a venue. From my understanding, this was the only time a wrestling event ever took place in Ebisu East Gallery, which really sucks. This would've been a cool small venue for a lot of the indies of the time to hold shows in. At least ZIPANG got to make their debut on such sacred land. They also made a great choice for their main event; this rocked! This was six guys with a lot of love for and training in lucha libre getting to work a big lucharesu fireworks display. Like many of the other notable lucharesu tags of the era, everyone got their own moments to shine. Cougar and Adachi were unsurprisingly the biggest standouts. By 1998, Cougar is dangerously close to figuring out the perfect spotfest formula, and a lot of the spots he pulled out here would continue to appear for the rest of his career. Adachi was similarly far along in his own formula, albeit he would continue to rewrite said formula for the next 26 years. They only got the chance to face off once in the match, but their encounter was probably the cleanest and most explosive of the whole bunch. Bushido very nearly earned a namedrop alongside Cougar and Adachi, as he was pulling all of his spots off perfectly, including hitting one of the best rider kicks I've ever seen him do. Spider and Halcon served similar purposes as trusted hands with highly developed basics, and each got to pull off their own greatly executed running attack at least five times (Spider's dropkick and Halcon's flying cross chop). Heaven was probably the least of the six, but he still managed to do some great sequences with Cougar as the two Hamada trainees and hit one of the coolest outside dives of the match's customary dive train. Outside of going spot-for-spot, there isn't much else to say. There were moments of roughness and ending the match with the not-so-interesting pairing of Heaven and Halcon probably wasn't the best move, but this match was a lot of fun and I'll probably revisit it many times in the future.

Match Rating: B

Ryuma Go & Masahiko Takasugi vs. Masashi Aoyagi & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga (Pioneer Senshi 03/15/1990)

    JCTV channel, please go back to uploading. You posted Battlarts and W*ING in 1080p. You gave us previously lost matches like this. Please come back, we miss you... Anyways, here's Pioneer Senshi! A different style tag! Wahoo! This match, at its best, is a Masashi Aoyagi showcase. Aoyagi is a true monster for the first few years of his career. He's a monster for his entire career, but the early Aoyagi matches feel like extended executions. He's in full spiritual black hood here, as he lays into Go and Takasugi for nearly 20 minutes with full force kicks to the face and ribs. He also blades pretty early on and we get to see the always great visual of a white gi stained red. Ryuma Go is his primary dance partner, and while Go can't fill Onita's different style shoes, he can certain fit his own pair. He's solid enough early on, locking in counter holds and going for the occasional strike or throw, but it's only after he starts bleeding that he really excels. Go's a very rigid wrestler, with jerky and stiff movements, but his movements become a lot more sympathetic when his face is covered in blood and it looks like he's collapsing from both the pain and the blood loss. Matsunaga is a good sidekick for Aoyagi. His kicks don't land as well and he's a little too willing to play the submission game for my liking, but he's still an Aoyagi-trained karateka. And then there's Takasugi. Masahiko Takasugi is a bad different style fighter. As a wrestler in a different style fight, your job is to A. sell like a madman, and B. take advantage of every opportunity to the highest extent. You should be a victim. You should fight like hell. Masahiko Takasugi generally doesn't sell much and constantly tries to put on holds. For all of Go and Aoyagi's awesome blood-filled brawling, Takasugi is happy to lay on the ground with Matsunaga for minutes on end, applying worthless double wristlocks and heel hooks. He takes a few moments to show that he could be good if he wanted to, hitting an admittedly mindblowing backdrop and pulling off a great hot tag where he full force stomped Matsunaga's head at least 20 times. Those moments are a fraction of his whole performance though, and he's in the ring much more than Ryuma Go. As a whole, this just ends up being pretty damn good. If Go had a better tag partner, this could've been something really special.

Match Rating: B-

PWC 09/17/2003

                    (Written by jom)

TONY GUCCI & BAM-Z vs. MEN's Teioh & Ricky Fuji

    A very American match to start off this PWC show. Teioh is awesome, a really great juniors guy and tied with Togo for my favorite KDX member. Fuji is also pretty solid, he's not someone I'm a huge fan of but he's had some good performances before. GUCCI and BAM-Z are the BAGGYZ, two dudes in Gold's Gym shirts, Zubaz pants, and fanny packs. They're managed by "Miss America" and make their entrance to "Born in the USA". Truly, whoever was booking the new PWC (I believe it was Toshiyuki Moriya aka Violence Revenger/Nise Onita) was on another level. I swear to god I can recognize at least one of the BAGGYZ but I can't put a name to the face, so for now they'll just be GUCCI and BAM-Z.

    This was uh... a weird match. Nobody really did anything notable for the entirety of the match. Genuinely, outside of Fuji hitting the Kamikaze at one point, this was extremely nothing, with Fuji and Teioh doing alright work mostly based around hitting weird American wrestling moves and poses. Miss America used her boobs to distract Teioh and Fuji, and also used them to trap Teioh's hand at one point so the BAGGYZ could go for their ultimate kill move, the "BIG BAGGY BURGER". Teioh escaped and then Fuji and Teioh hit a BIG BAGGY BURGER of their own. When it comes to the BIG BAGGY BURGER though, you don't actually get to see what it is. Instead of actually showing the viewer the move... this happens:

    This is something I have never even seen in wrestling before. I cannot even begin to explain the strange emotions I feel upon seeing a slide show of a burger instead of seeing an actual move. I need to go for a walk.

Rating:

Asian Cougar & Tomoya Adachi vs. Akihiko Masuda & Katsunari Toi

    Following... that, we have a pretty cool sounding juniors match. I'm a fan of all four guys here, especially Masuda (aka Great Takeru).

    This ended up being good enough, but it had some definite faults. Masuda was weird here, as he did some of the stuff I love about him like the crazy t-pose looking dive and a couple hard kicks, but for the most part just worked like any other juniors guy rather than the sabuish masked flyer I prefer him ask. His partner Toi though was going nuts, wrestling like he should've been the junior ace of IWE by doing a bunch of mostly basic stuff really well and putting his own slight spin on it. For example, check out the Oklahoma Stampede below where he basically rolled through it and ended up hitting a Mighty Inoue senton. Also, his slingshot foot stomp to the outside is downright terrifying, it looked like it crushed Cougar's intestines.

    Cougar was also pretty damn good as usual. He mostly just hit the signature spots but all his signature spots rule, such as the springboard bulldog and the slingshot legdrop to the outside. Adachi was actually great here in my opinion, doing some really cool stuff like this awesome diving front dropkick where he got a ton of hesitation on it. He also did some great tag stuff with Cougar, like this awesome combo:

    I think that this definitely had some issues with pacing and length, as it went 14 minutes and there were some real down times in there making this feel pretty slow overall. However, there were still enough cool moments from the 4 involved that I would say it was a solid match.

Rating: B-

    For the first time ever I have to pause between matches on this write-up, because what I just saw was insane. Every match has had some form of pre-match video up to this point, but instead of a hype video or promo for the next match, the screen instead started displaying video of GENTARO hanging out by himself in the backstage area, until...

    ... his thoughts are interrupted by the arrival of Gentaro Takahashi, looking for fellow gi wearers Survival Tobita and Iori Sugawara. They have a conversation where GENTARO is chill and Gentaro Takahashi yells a lot, and then when Takahashi leaves GENTARO talks right at the camera about how crazy Gentaro Takahashi is. This is one of the most surreal experiences I have ever had watching a Japanese wrestling show.

Sosai Nagase & Karate Machine Special vs. Hajime Moriyama & Kazuhiro Tamura

    I have no idea who Machine is, but I do know Sosai (aka Kancho/Masakazu) Nagase, who I've talked about before when reviewing FU*CK! He's actually PWC alumni, originally becoming a PWC guy in late 1995 after starting his career in Mexico by training with Fray Tormenta (yes, the priest that inspired Nacho Libre). Moriyama is a U-FILE CAMP trainee and really good shoot style wrestler probably best known for his work in Fu-ten. Tamura is a guy that I talked about in the main event of the last show I reviewed, but what you may not know is that this match here? This is Tamura's debut as a professional wrestler. That's right, Tamura started his career in the wrestling business at a shitty PWC show in 2003, and I'm very excited to be able to talk about it.

    This match was actually pretty awesome! The whole basis of this match was pretty simple, with the heel karatekas using karate and pro wrestling to beat down Moriyama and Tamura, while the U-FILE boys constantly went for takedowns and throws to get Nagase and Machine on the mat and make them tap out. Machine was actually pretty cool here, doing some big kicks including a great kneel kick, and also just acting as a somewhat imposing force for Tamura especially to fight back from. Nagase was awesome and definitely the highlight of his team, throwing some real hard kicks and even hitting some bigger wrestling style moves, like this absolutely beautiful dropkick:

    Moriyama was really great here too, doing some pretty awesome stuff like a beautiful waterwheel drop into a tight armbar, as well as some really good knees and kicks. He even hit a dragon suplex near the end with absolutely ruled. Tamura was probably the most interesting guy the whole match though, not just because of what he would become in the future, but because he was absolutely living up to the "Small Tamura" nickname, grappling with some of the same ferocity and complexity that Kiyoshi Tamura did. He hit a really awesome flying armbar at one point, and probably the coolest thing he did all match was the awesome quick transitioning into an armbar seen below, which is a spot very clearly adopted from his teacher Kiyoshi.

    Overall, I think this was genuinely pretty fun and an awesome historical importance match. Seeing Tamura work at a pretty high level from the first match of his career is amazing, and everyone else was great too. Plus, I just love Different Style wrestling and this absolutely had some hints of that so I was gonna enjoy this regardless.

Rating: B

Koji Ishinriki, Crusher Takahashi, Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Kazunori Yoshida, Kosei Maeda, & Mitsunobu Kikuzawa vs. TAKA Michinoku, Iori Sugawara, Daigoro Kashiwa, Teppei Ishizaka, GENTARO, & Survival Tobita

    I'd need someone to pay me for me to try and write a normal intro for this match. Everyone in this rules and I'm very excited to watch this. Also, Tobita came out with Sugawara before anyone else because they are members of Shin Piranha Gundan (named after the original Piranha Gundan of Masanobu Kurisu, Kim Duk, and Mitsuhiro Matsunaga). Gentaro Takahashi is also a member of the stable, but for some reason he wasn't able to make it to the match. Wonder where he could be. 

    This was such a blast to watch. I'm not going to give a proper rundown on everyone, and instead I'll just primarily be highlighting a few of the best performances from the match. Probably the best one overall was Kazunori Yoshida. Every single time I see this guy wrestle I'm so blown away, he genuinely comes off as one of the best juniors guys on the planet at times with some insane height to all his dives. He hit a beauty of a springboard dropkick, a beauty of a double springboard avalanche hurricanrana, and the absolutely phenomenal combo shown below. Truly, I cannot understand why no promotion was able to see this dude's talent because he has it in spades.

    Yoshida's teammate and fellow insane juniors guy Kosei Maeda also definitely deserves a shout-out. He did some really awesome stuff in this, such as an acid drop and a springboard kneel kick that looked like it took TAKA's head clean off. Kuroda, Ishinriki, and Kikuzawa were all solid too but they just mostly hit the classics without much effort. The best guy on the face team besides Yoshida was definitely Crusher Takahashi though, who, as always, came off as one of the coolest wrestlers on the planet. His punches were perfect, his chops were thudding, and he had some awesome big spots like the calf branding below. I truly think Takahashi, in his prime, was one of the best wrestlers on the planet, with a mind for wrestling that would've taken him to superstardom in an earlier decade.

    From the heel side, the only group I believe is worth mentioning is Shin Piranha Gundan. Kashiwa, Ishikaza, and TAKA all had solid moments but for the most part this was all about the gi boys. Sugawara was awesome in the few moments he got to shine, letting loose some nice kicks including a real nice enzuigiri to Ishinriki. Tobita was an absolute destroyer in the match, just wrecking guys with hard hits like one particularly cracking lariat on Ishinriki near the end. He also hit a truly disgusting pedigree on Maeda, straight up spiking him on the landing. GENTARO was probably the best part of the match outside of Yoshida. He only got to do one solid piece of offense towards the beginning though, as he ended up getting hurt and stretchered out... ONLY FOR GENTARO TAKAHASHI TO FINALLY ARRIVE AND BEAT UP THE OTHER TEAM WITH KARATE!!! Truly put a smile on my face when I saw him running in. He did some actually really cool karate stuff too, including a great kneel kick and this combination:

    This wasn't perfect for sure. There was some clear miscommunication at different points, with guys not entirely sure who should go in and who should break up a pin. However, this was still really damn fun and it was such a cool way to cap off the show.

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