Various IWE Matches To Cure The Common Cold

                   (Written by jom)

     I might put out a list or something once I inevitably hit 10 IWE posts later this month. I promise you that I'm trying to think of other things to talk about on here, but I haven't pumped out articles at a rate this high since COVID. I am simply enraptured by the beauty of Ancient Pro. The IWE eagle flies over me. Who am I to ignore it?

Rusher Kimura & Great Kusatsu vs. Gypsy Joe & Killer Karl Krupp (01/05/1980)

      Pure piss & vinegar. Gypsy Joe is in one of his moods and Rusher Kimura is happy to satiate him with some of the wildest and most uncomfortable brawling I've yet seen. Like all great IWE brawls, things almost immediately break down at the bell, but what follows this time around is especially chaotic Korakuen touring, to the point that the most accurate comparison piece would probably be the Texas Death Street Fight from FMW. There's a frantic energy to all of the fighting, along with a willingness to push the stiffness to startlingly high levels. It's the kind of work that pushes all the right buttons for me and puts me into that heaven-like state. Then Killer Karl Krupp takes over and I'm brought back down to reality. Now, let me be clear. I think Killer Karl Krupp is cool! I like the claw! In fact, I really like the claw! He generally holds his own during the brawling portions and bumps huge for the babyfaces in the perfectly comedic way that works best for the IWE heroes. The issue is that Killer Karl Krupp is a claw worker, and the jump from the frantic and uncontrollable brawling at the start to extended claw sequences is absolutely felt during the match. Not that the claw work is even bad either; there's one super awesome claw struggle between Kusatsu and Krupp that had me on the edge of my seat. It's just such a tonal shift that it takes me out of the match. Speaking of Kusatsu though, this is another great performance from him. He's a fantastic FIP for guys like Kimura to run a comeback for, and he's not afraid to throw hands in that Kantaro Hoshino rabbit punch kinda way. Seeing him cold clock Joe after Joe refused to sell for him was riveting stuff. The incredibly violent brawling returns in the last five or so minutes, and the post-match brawl continues it with super sickening chairshots and garbage thrown in the ring, but that grind-to-a-halt middle portion can't be ignored. It's a great match, but more than anything else, it makes me hunger for a Joe/Kimura 1980 collision where all bets are off and they just destroy each other the whole time. Whether or not that match will come to pass on our journey remains to be seen. 

Rusher Kimura & Animal Hamaguchi vs. Gypsy Joe & Spike Huber (06/28/1980)

     Ahaha sike bitch that match is right here! Or, at the very least, another chance at it. Once more, this starts off huge with lots of outside brawling, and while the brawl might be slightly lesser than the previous one, it features Spike Huber, who stands head and shoulders above Krupp in that department. I'm getting ahead of myself here though. First of all, who the fuck is Spike Huber? His claim to fame stateside is being the son-in-law of Dick The Bruiser, but he might be my new favorite IWE White Boy. He's just as much of a line-stepper as Joe is, throwing a bunch of awesome punches and constantly running interference. He's also got incredible facial expressions and a great mind for selling, going between overly-dramatic slow fall sells where he sticks one leg up and ridiculous flipping sells where he nearly kills himself on landing. Hamaguchi is a wonderful foil to him, able to match him in the explosive energy while also proving himself just as violent as everyone else here. He's throwing the usual dropkicks and hitting funny standing splashes, but he's also responding to Gypsy Joe's fouling by goozling him and dragging him across the ring by the neck. Kimura and Joe's contributions can go unstated entirely. Both men are arguably in their primes and they deliver violence with the same fervor as in the previously discussed January tag. Now, having said all of that... this is not the match I desired. For as chaotic as some of the outside brawling is, it's still not the primary focus. The actual in-ring work is full of slower hold-working moments and the usual momentum changes. As much as I would wish otherwise, this match is firmly committed to the IWE main event tag formula. It's through that commitment to the standards of the time that this match reminded me of something incredibly valuable: I am not the booker. For as much as I may think I know what's best, I'm just some random dude typing away on a keyboard 45 years later. I really don't know what would've sold tickets or been worthwhile for the workers, and committing myself to theoreticals is not only asking for disappointment, but also denying the true greatness of anything that goes against them. This match fucking rocks. It is the time-tested formula of IWE's most exciting period, with four guys more willing than ever to kick each other's asses and a pretty raucous crowd for a show not happening in Tokyo. It's full of pettiness and hate and builds to so many crowd-pleaser comeback moments. Hell, it even has one of the most interesting bullshit finishes I've seen come out of IWE. It is a standout piece of work in a genre of match I have come to love. So no, according to my nerd ass pussy self, this isn't the match I wanted. It turned out to be the match I needed. 

Mighty Inoue & Isamu Teranishi vs. Strong Kobayashi & Haruka Eigen (06/29/1980)

    I've been so deep in the IWE brawl tag mines that watching one of these high-octane technician tags feels like a much-needed breath of fresh air. There's an implicit story to this match of former ace Kobayashi returning to IWE after joining enemy promotion NJPW to take one of their top belts, but that barely matters at all because the IWE faithful are just happy to see the prodigal son come back home. Instead, this is relentless tag team action from bell to bell, as both teams take turns picking at limbs and testing strategies while looking for the right moves to seal the deal. The IWE duo are the most technically adept, both great at counters and picking their spots, but Teranishi has a slickness that allows him to seamlessly flow out of any situation, while Inoue is more prone to fighting his way out with the big chest chops and slaps right to the mush. Kobayashi plays his part against both perfectly, less mobile and less capable of fighting back on the mat, but also still such a fortress of a wrestler, making Inoue and Teranishi work for everything they get and withstanding so much punishment. Eigen fills the role of Kobayashi's little attack dog very well too, running interference constantly to break up submissions with headbutts and turn the match into something closer to a standing fight. These kinds of tags feel like intricately-made machines, full of little moving parts and interesting mechanisms that make the whole thing work wonderfully. This might be my favorite of the IWE tags fitting into this genre, and you really should check it out, if for no other reason than to see Mighty Inoue and Haruka Eigen working energized juniors sequences over a decade before they would become The Quintessential Old Men.

Kintaro Oki vs. Alex Smirnoff (10/11/1980)

     Yeah dude this is just fun as hell. Two of my favorite characters in IWE get to meet in a singles match and it's exactly the kind of schtick I was looking for. Smirnoff is a chain maniac, basically using it the whole time by either choking Oki with it or punching him with a chain-wrapped fist. He's a master at keeping it out of referee Thesz's line of sight, at one point shifting it to his other hand and hiding it behind the turnbuckle. Oki, meanwhile, is wonderful bumping around in his own half-mobile way, and his headbutts are as supreme as usual. The entire finish is based around Oki's unstoppable rage after finally getting his hands on the chain, and it's a ton of fun. We even get some referee Thesz shenanigans with him throwing off the shirt post-match, looking for a good ole tussle. The previously discussed Oki/Sik vs. Smirnoff/USSR tag was a wonderful setup to this encounter, because it's all the fun character-driven work turned up to eleven. Simple as that. Secretly, this is one of my favorite matches of the project yet, just because of how much fun I had with it. Wrestling is actually super easy when you aren't trying to be a high-concept loser and just give the people all they need to be happy.

Strong Kobayashi vs. Billy Robinson (05/14/1970)

    True Ancient Pro right here. Also incredibly incomplete Ancient Pro! This is five minutes of clips from a nearly 25-minute match. Just by the nature of its presentation, it's kind of hard to gauge the actual quality of the whole thing, and that also gives me a little less to talk about compared to usual. Still, there's a lot of awesome stuff to take in here. Wrestling like this just doesn't exist anymore. Strong Kobayashi and Billy Robinson put each other through the work in ways that have been lost to time, ranging from bridging headscissors struggles to monkey flip waistlock counters. Certainly, most of the IWE I've watched up to this point has felt foreign to the wrestling of the modern day scene, but this is the first match to feel truly alien in both presentation and execution. And that sucks! I really do enjoy these super old school grappling affairs where both guys put on weird holds and torture each other circus tent style. This match also works as a wonderful example of the value of building to the bombs, as seeing Billy Robinson pull off his vicious backbreaker after assumedly 20 minutes of grinding Kobayashi down with mean holds hits a lot different than him just hitting it in the first five minutes next to a bunch of other bombs. It's major credit to them that even with how clipped this is, the wear and tear of the match still comes through. This is definitely worth a watch beyond just the historical footage aspect, especially for anyone that enjoys seeing a guy work a god damn hold.

IWE Matches That Make Me Smile :)

               (Written by jom)

     I love IWE. I love the homegrown guys that made up the regular roster. I love the random foreigners brought in as Rusher Kimura & Strong Kobayashi stepping stones. I love the constant presence of special guest referee Lou Thesz. I love the cage match design that barely goes higher than 10 feet. I love the ring design. I love the logo. Really, I love basically everything about the company. Over the years, it certainly had its not-so-great moments. I'd need more than two hands to count the number of boring, worthless Rusher Kimura singles matches. I've seen more than my fair share of disappointing cage matches, ones that answer the question "what if you had a cage match but pretended the cage wasn't there". Still, in all of my IWE watching, I've definitely come away from it thinking I like IWE a lot more than I don't. For the sake of talking more about the wrestling I like, which is, truthfully, all the wrestling I would ever like to talk about, I've grabbed a handful of IWE matches that all make me very happy. I hope you enjoy reading about them as much as I've enjoyed writing about them.

Mighty Inoue & Animal Hamaguchi vs. Kintaro Oki & Umanosuke Ueda (10/05/1979)

      Wonderful chaos. The entire Ueda IWE run is filled with these kinds of legitimately shocking brawls, matches where it almost appears that Ueda is legitimately trying to make his opponents angry so they take the brawling to new heights. Mighty Inoue was possibly his best partner in that regard, easily one of the most explosive members of the roster who really got the chance to develop a mean streak when in the ring with Ueda. Inoue is actually the one to kick off the violence here, bumrushing Ueda before the bell and throwing a table at his head. The Inoue & Hamaguchi duo is a well-oiled machine, seamlessly blending together energized limbwork with lots of chest chops and dropkicks. Ueda and Oki, however, are perfect disruptors. Oki's mastery of the headbutt is second to none at this point in time, really putting out great innovations in the fledgling genre of Headbutt Pro, and he uses that chrome dome of his to completely flip the match's momentum on more than one occasion. Of course, Ueda is far and away the star here. He's got foreign objects aplenty, little regard for the safety of wrestlers or fans alike, and a killer instinct nobody else can match. The way he jabs the edges of chairs into the clavicles of Inoue & Hamaguchi is sickening, and his actually unidentified Foreign Object usage is superb. It's a wild ride, the kind of brawl that makes you realize that we've actually known how to do really great wrestling since the very beginning. Also a Kintaro Oki fan snuck their trumpet into the venue and really had a grand ole time with it the whole match. 

Goro Tsurumi vs. Isamu Teranishi (03/12/1981)

    This is probably the closest thing to a throwaway TV studio classic that IWE ever put on. It's the kind of match that finds itself seated among the sick ass Ronnie Garvin squashes and randomly awesome WCCW lucha matches. While this match, like most of IWE, is distinctly Japanese in structure and execution, this is one of the more lucha-adjacent matches to come out of the company, complete with Tsurumi putting in a wonderful stooging base performance to compliment Teranishi's incredible athleticism and fantastic execution. The bigger spots like Teranishi's amazing sunset flip counter out of a failed monkey flip certainly wow the most, but the smaller stuff like Teranishi's punch sequence really does a lot for me, especially when Tsurumi is putting in a hell of a job selling it all. Tsurumi also gets his receipts in great ways, from throwing punches to the jaw during a chinlock to chopping Teranishi's throat while he's laying on the ground. Add onto all of this one of the more awe-inspiring finishing stretches I've seen come out of this period and you've got yourself a real hidden gem.

Rusher Kimura vs. Ox Baker (06/23/1979)

     I know that I started the blog post by referring to Kimura's many boring singles matches, but this is certainly not one of them. Ox Baker was almost undoubtedly the best foreigner in IWE's history, save for maybe Nick Bockwinkel (who worked there significantly less) or Alexis Smirnoff (who was Baker's regular tag partner too). For a fed with such a penchant for brawling, he was the perfect fit, a massive lumbering heel with a presence that screamed danger. In most of his matches, his work more closely resembled Resident Evil's Mr. X than anything else. He's a creeping death, slowly following his opponents around the ring and putting them through the torment of clubbing blows whenever he gets close. Some people would probably say that it borderlines on cheesy, but I would disagree - it's actually very cheesy, which is why it's so great. I mean, look at Ox Baker. He is the most villainous man to walk the face of the planet. Of course he's going to wrestle more like he's a slasher villain than a professionally trained worker. Kimura also always does his best work in these kinds of bloody and violent fights, and he does a damn good job of not only fighting back valiantly, but also eventually really taking the fight to Baker with nasty chops and headbutts. It's slow and plodding, but it's also a gruesome chain match. If there was ever a match that would benefit from that kind of pace, it's this one. 

Isamu Teranishi & Ashura Hara vs. Katsuzo Oiyama & Goro Tsurumi (01/30/1980)

     It hurts my soul that we have so little of the Oiyama/Tsurumi duo on tape. I mean, we barely have any Oiyama in general, but every time I've seen them team up, it's been magic. In a way, Independent Gurentai were the heel answer to Hamaguchi & Inoue: young and energized, able to seamlessly work together, but also fueled by malice with a penchant for fouling. They do a good job of taking it to Hara and Teranishi in this one, with Oiyama pulling off some awesome headbutts (especially the rebound one) and Tsurumi throwing great punches all over Hara's body. Oiyama also gets to show out with his weapon usage, trying to bisect Teranishi on the outside with a chair before trying to beat him to death with it while Tsurumi has him in a saw trap-like situation. Hara, for his part, in way more of an all-rounded dynamo than the lumpy shitkicker he would become only five or six years later, and it's really cool to see him working the mat with such high ability. And Teranishi rules, obviously. He feels like such a revolutionary figure compared to everyone else, a man displaced from time by at least four or five years. More of a popcorn match than something entirely substantial, but god I love myself some popcorn.

Rusher Kimura & Mighty Inoue vs. Joe LeDuc & Umanosuke Ueda (09/09/1979)

    Outstanding. Is this Ueda's best work from his time in IWE? Maybe so. The singles against Kintaro Oki and his cage match against Hamaguchi & Inoue are really the only two matches that stand a chance of besting this one, and I'm currently leaning towards it being better than the Oki singles at least. What we have here is Ueda at his meanest, his smarmiest, his most willing to punish and most unwilling to be punished. This is Ueda The Coward as much as it is Ueda The Tormentor. Seeing him turn on a dime from an unrepentant fouler throwing hidden closed fists to a crying yellow-belly begging for mercy borders on being a religious experience for me. It also helps him that he has Joe LeDuc, another biblically accurate IWE foreigner, as his big muscle, throwing massive clubbing shots and fully following behind on Ueda's fouling antics. Inoue, much more of a victim in this match than in the previously covered Ueda tag, fights his heart out as he's stabbed, choked, and treated with no regard for his livelihood. His big revenge moments are full of his own fouling, from low blows to chokes to even one of the craziest weapon moments I've seen in all my IWE watching. Inoue never even attempts to portray himself as a "hero of justice" - Mighty Inoue is a man getting fucked on by Umanosuke Ueda, waiting for the moment he can strike back with the same kind of violence. Rusher Kimura, somehow, ends up being the least notable guy here, while also delivering one of his best house of fires ever, punctuated by an incredible LeDuc "timber" sell. This is the kind of match I wish I could bottle up and take sips of for the rest of my life. This is the kind of pro wrestling that shakes me to my core and keeps me in this godforsaken hobby. If you watch anything from this post (and you really should watch everything), let it be this match. This is everything to me.

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.