West Japan 01/18/1996

                           (Written by jom)

     Speaking candidly, this is my third attempt at a show review post in the last two weeks. I set up the formatting for an SGP show and watched the first match before getting sidetracked by the new NPW/NWD footage, and once I had finished that post up I no longer had much interest in visiting Ultraman Robin's turf. A few days later, I started and got about 60% of the way through reviewing an IWA Japan show from 2001 before throwing in the towel (not a bad show per se, but one marred by nasty clipping and a botched finish that took all the wind out of my sails). I can feel that this one is a winner, though. The Halloween season is upon us, and what better way to celebrate the festivities than with one of Mr. Pogo's most gruesome performances ever? Let's take a journey to the west. 

The Jackal & Osamu Suganuma vs. Shunsuke Aijima & Kenichi Kawasaki

     Very clipped but very fun. This is pretty much our only footage of Suganuma until 2004, and it's incredibly bizarre to see him be such an ass-kicker. I've always been a fan of the guy, both as a comedy worker and as a steady hand in the midcard, but this is the most he's ever appeared to have top guy potential, lighting up Aijima with nasty slaps and hitting him with really great bombs like his dangerous-looking powerbomb. Kawasaki is maybe even more of a surprise than Suganuma, throwing stiff kicks like a D-league Battlarts guy. I'm used to Kawasaki wearing oversized t-shirts and carrying around a beer gut, so him being a thickly-built shooter just doesn't look right. Aijima and Jackal (the future Kuishinbo Kamen) are fine enough as well, perfectly capable but just not included much in the footage shown. I feel like if we had the full thing this would be shared around in our little circles as a standout rookie tag from the era, but what we get still satiates the hunger.

Masahiro Hashibe vs. Doku Gas Mask VX

    Hashibe is one of those Malenko Dojo boys who populated random scum indies around this time, a la Cannonball KAZU and Tsunehito Naito. He's got Adidas brand gear and hits pretty damn hard, so he's fine by me. The real draw for this match is getting to see Tobita in the gas mask with a big ass flamethrower, which seemingly gave him the confidence to throw meaner bombs than usual. His piledrivers all hit with that usual force and then some, and his powerbomb looks like a barely-averted disaster. He's so awesome. Perfectly fine match, both guys look good and Tobita threatening the lives of fans with a flamethrower always makes me smile.

Magma Inferno vs. Bio Franken

    Magma Inferno is probably Mitsuteru Tokuda, and Bio Franken is probably Hiroshi Hatanaka, but those are both gut calls more than anything else. Franken has the same all-red manager that Gas Mask had on the last West Japan show on tape (which I talked about here many moons ago). I assume this is just the manager for every midcard masked freak in the company, kind of West Japan's Kim Chee. The wrestling is okay I guess. It's nothing special, but matches like this are more concerned with letting the fans see a big freak like Bio Franken than having quality in-ring action. All of red manager's kendo stick stuff is awesome so I'm happy.

Great Nobushi Thunder Flame vs. Guerrero Diablo

    Easily the most that Diablo has ever looked like a Solar trainee. I've always known he had this kind of performance in him, but actually seeing him fly around the ring with arm drags and big dives is another story. It's very cool! Diablo does a lot of fun stuff here, pulling out a couple different aerial spots while also incorporating the fouling he would be known for later, probably because he has "RUDO" written across his back. Flame is another West Japan exclusive gimmick, one that I'm half-convinced is some sort of Hayabusa clone in the same way that Great Takeru was. He's fine! He does very little to inspire besides a nice suicide dive but he's also perfectly competent. There's a sad botch at one point near the end but otherwise this is pleasant local juniors action.

Hiroshi Hatanaka & Akihiko Masuda vs. Kenichiro Yukimura & Yasuhiro Morinaga

    This match is clipped and it PISSES ME OFF!!! Every match before this has been clipped as well, but this one is especially painful considering what we do get. Masuda and Hatanaka are here representing Tokyo Pro, looking to squash the West Japan bug by defeating future ace Yukimura and other future ace Morinaga (AKA Kyoshiro Suizenji; shoutout to Chris fuckin' Yeelord). Masuda and Hatanaka are a well-oiled torture machine, both talented at working the mat while being unafraid to hit nasty knee drops and smashing lariats. Every time there's a tag they make sure to get as much double-teaming in as possible, which actually elicits boos from the crowd! Do you realize how hard it is to get an indie crowd to seriously boo people, especially around this time? It helps that they get color from both Yukimura and Morinaga (neither man's color moment makes it onto the tape), and Yukimura especially is bleeding pretty heavy by the end of the match. Yukimura and Morinaga fight off the onslaught very well with lots of dropkicks and desperation. Morinaga's dives into the ring to break up every hold or pin are so awesome, and each one gets a massive pop from the crowd. It all wraps up to be one of the most interesting interpromotional feud matches from this period of the indies, almost entirely because it's the first in a while to generate real heat and benefit from it. I know some uncle in Kumamoto has this match in full somewhere in his garage. Give me a call man, I need this like a fish needs water.

Free Weapons Street Fight Death: Ho Des Minh & Mr. Pogo vs. Masashi Aoyagi & Mitsuteru Tokuda

    I've neglected to mention so far that the audio for this tape is absolutely fucked. Not in a completely unlistenable/completely inaudible way, but fucked enough to be of note. It plays into this match more than any other because this is the only match to receive entrance footage, where it sounds like each guy is coming out to harsh noise. Honestly, for a match like this, it works very well. This is complete pandemonium from bell to bell, kicking off strong with a violent Pogo/Tokuda brawl and mostly riding the wave of that matchup for the next twenty minutes. Aoyagi and Minh are both great in their own right though, especially Aoyagi. Everything he does is so cool and he carries himself so well that it takes his already kick-ass karate offense and multiplies the coolness by ten. Minh is more of a whipping boy for the faces here, but he's a great bumper, and most of his offense consists of fouling, so he gets a big passing grade from me. Seriously though, this is all about Mr. Pogo taking Mitsuteru Tokuda to the coldest parts of hell with some of his most vicious torturing ever. He puts his scythe to use all over Tokuda's body, from trying to cut his ear off to stabbing his inner thigh as an anti-air technique. Tokuda bleeds heavy from every stab wound, especially the ones on his face and stomach, and all his comeback consist of him throwing his limbs at Pogo as hard as he can, which is probably what I would do if I was always trying to fight Mr. Pogo. It's a pretty wonderful ace performance from Tokuda. His final one too, as he'd leave West Japan soon after this show before failing to launch his new promotion JET's. What a way to end an ace run. Really great match, a strong way to cap off this generally sick slice of prime indie sleaze.

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.