Spitball Reviews #7

          (Written by jom)

Greed vs. Takashi (SED 05/24/2009)

    So... what's SED? Well, SED (short for Safety Enjoy Delight, maybe the least intimidating combination of words in wrestling history) is an amateur promotion started in 2003 that has generally been pretty active for the last 20+ years. They've run over a hundred shows, almost all of which are available on YouTube. I really appreciate the effort put into not only preserving all of these shows, but also in making them available to the public. I know literally nothing about SED or anyone involved outside of that, and this is the first SED match I've ever seen in full. Honestly, after checking this out, I'm definitely interested in watching more SED going forward! This is by no means a perfect match, or even really a great match, but it has a lot of cool stuff going for it. Takashi is the world's 2nd most blatant Naomichi Marufuji idolizer (Seth Rollins will never lose his crown) and Greed, besides having an AWESOME name, has a really cool look as "Y2K Hoodlum #2." They work some damn good juniors sequences considering the lack of actual pro training, with Greed doing an especially quality job of blending quick moves and transitions with nice heel work. He's also got a good knack for making his stuff look as mean as possible, putting some real snap on his dropkicks and throwing quick low blows regularly. As this is 2009, both men are absolutely obsessed with combos, which, while cool to a certain extent, is more funny than anything. Singular moves in this match are rare, and I never really needed to see things like a three amigos into an impaler or a superkick into three neckbreakers, but I guess I do appreciate the creativity. There are also some genuinely awesome moments of creativity, like Greed's wristlock Air Raid Crash, or Takashi's step-up guillotine leg drop. It's all the type of work you can tell is being done by amateurs, but as someone that appreciates the wrestling spirit in many forms, I see an abundance in these two. Also, Greed punching and kicking Takashi in the face fucking rocked. Expect to see more of Greed on the blog at the bare minimum. 

Match Rating: B-

Okonomi Man & Tortuga vs. El Enigma & Super Cacao (CMLL Japan 11/23/1999)

    CMLL Japan always had a really cool assortment of Japanese indie guys to fill the undercard, and here's four staples of the tours getting to battle it out. Okonomi is the future Hayate, Super Cacao is Nosawa, Enigma is MAZADA, and Tortuga is... Tortuga! This is really four Japanese guys getting the chance to show they know lucha too, and by God, they really seem to know lucha. Cacao is especially in the zone here, working the mat with that wonderful flowing kind of grappling seen in lucha that really keeps the action going and the spots rolling. Okonomi is just as impressive, maybe a little more stilted than Nosawa but easily more physically capable, and the sequences between the two are probably the closest thing to authentic lucha in this match. El Enigma is probably the most interesting part of the match, at least to me, as he actually knows how to work a match with this kind of pacing and format but does a damn good job of integrating his MUGA roots into his contributions. He gets the highlight of the match when he hits Tortuga with the dreaded nutshot uppercut directly into a real God Damner of a german suplex, the type that folds you up enough to fit into the carry-on luggage heading back to Mexico. Tortuga, IWA Japan trainee and career Guy That Exists, definitely falls in last place for this match, but even he has his moments. He's got a nice bit of snap to his arm drags and works pretty cleanly for a guy that showcased his absolutely awful push-up form on a previous CMLL Japan show. Even with this match being based around everyone getting cool stuff in, there are still some nice moments of a larger story, like Cacao and Enigma ripping into Okonomi's mask and really beating the hell out of him. It's fascinating to know that even before Gurentai existed, NOSAWA and MAZADA innately knew how to foul effectively as a unit. Even with this clipped down to about a third of the actual runtime, this still ends up being pretty damn fun.

Match Rating: B-

Masao Ando vs. Yoshihisa Mio (GENTEN 04/19/2015)

    A massive shout out to my good friend Ciel. This is one of his favorite matches ever, and probably his biggest find in his obsessive searches for any and all information regarding his favorite wrestlers. He originally stumbled across the file of this match on Yoshihisa Mio's abandoned blog, and only in the last year or so have we found that Mio himself posted the match to YouTube four years ago. This is in Masao Ando's MMA gym, where the ring ropes are literal ropes and the mats seem to be paper thin, laid on top of solid concrete. On Ando's old blog, he explained that he felt "love at first sight" when seeing Mio for the first time, and on that whim challenged Mio to face him in the main event of his produce show. I guess it was just obvious to everyone that this match would be great, and they were all damn right. This is incredibly tight professional wrestling, the kind of work where nothing is given up without struggle and everything is a process of breaking down the opponent. The matwork in this match is amazing, no two ways about it. Mio is such a fast grappler, moving across the mat with borderline Tamura speed and hunting for limbs like a starved wolf. Masao Ando, meanwhile, is a complete beast of a man himself, able to at point completely manhandle Mio and force control. The way he drags and flips Mio around almost enters the territory of disrespect, and when he finally gets around to doing more pro wrestling moves, a lot of them are just Ando treating Mio like a ragdoll. Every single bump on the World's Thinnest Ring Mat sounds like utter death. I have to imagine Ando is just a lunatic and wanted to force all the wrestlers on this show to suffer in the same way he suffers sparring in this ring on a regular basis. Honestly, I have nothing else to say that wouldn't spoil major moments of the match. Click on the link and check this out. The match is only 11 minutes long and there's no time wasted. Even with the very pro wrestling moments of this match, I have no qualms declaring it one of the best shoot style matches of the last 10 years.

Match Rating: A-

Antonio Koinoki vs. Genichiro Tenryu (WGWF 05/31/2010)

    The majority of Tenryu's best matches of the last 10 years of his career can be classified as "beatings." Old Man Tenryu wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and decides to make it someone else's problem. KENTA, Kengo, and many more were given the closest thing to a death sentence in the great sport. This is Antonio Koinoki's turn in the electric chair. Antonio Koinoki is, for all intent and purposes, a comedian; his wrestling is a joke by design. He is an inadequate Inoki, failing at the most basic spots and constantly finding ways to hurt himself doing the most innocuous things. So, how does an old Tenryu in a bad mood respond to an actual professional wrestling comedian? With maybe his most violent performance of the 21st century, that's how. He beats Koinoki within an inch of his life with some of the most ruthless punches, kicks, and chops Tenryu's thrown in his entire career, bloodying up Koinoki's mouth and legitimately putting an imprint of his boot's laces on the side of Koinoki's face. But, if you can look beyond the violence for just a moment, this match is a truly special performance for Koinoki, and one of the best examples of Tenryu's silent storytelling in this period of his career. Tenryu tells the entire story of the match through his facial expressions, going from general annoyance and frustration at this stupid jokester doing his little twirls and ineffective Inoki spots, to complete and utter rage at Koinoki's refusal to stay down. But for Koinoki, this match is proof of his resolve as a wrestler. He does all of his regular spots and eats shit as usual, but Tenryu's violence is some real life-or-death type stuff, and when put in the hot seat, Koinoki decides to keep on fighting to prove his worth as an actual wrestler, clenching his teeth and throwing his own live rounds no matter how ineffective they are. That's almost the magic of this match. Koinoki's ineffectiveness starts as just a joke, but soon turns into the crux of the match, evolving from a funny little gag to the one thing Koinoki has to overcome no matter what. He never does overcome his canonical weakness, but the enzuigiri that rattles Tenryu is all he really needs. Antonio Koinoki has the soul of a professional wrestler. Tenryu just had to rip the soul out for people to see it.

Match Rating: A-

Masashi Takeda vs. Koichiro Kimura (Kazushigumi 06/02/2009)

    Damn man, I miss when Kazushi Miyamoto posted matches from his old promotion to his YouTube channel. There's still a lot that hasn't been released, but nowadays he's too preoccupied with vlogging and hypebeasting to return to his roots. Kazushi, if you're reading this, just know I would gladly drop all plans and turn this into the official Kazushigumi blog if you uploaded all the full shows to your channel. Anyways, what an insane matchup, both on paper and in practice. This is rookie-ish Takeda still rocking that shooter brain pattern against old and fed up Koichiro Kimura. Takeda has an awesome look here, sporting some slick black trunks and white boots along with the customary MMA gloves (this is a "Kazushi Gumi Comprehensive Rules" match, which basically means it's an MMA ruleset but worked). And man, do they get some mileage outta the gloves. There's a ton of closed fist punches to the face and body from both men, but especially Kimura, who really loves to throw a shitty little jab to the jaw right before doing anything in this match. There's some really nice mat grappling moments from both men, with Kimura doing his MMA terminator schtick and Takeda fighting for survival with massive bursts of energy and impressive technique. The best work in this match absolutely comes from when these ideologies butt heads, like Takeda getting sick of Kimura's head stomps by flying to his feet and letting loose with wild haymakers and throws. Really, even though this is happening in Kazushigumi, this almost feels like it comes from an alternate world Fu-ten, where Takeshi Ono started the promotion instead of Daisuke Ikeda. Now I'm thinking about a theoretical Masashi Takeda Fu-ten run and I'm getting sad that it didn't happen. Really though, this match does enough to fill the void in my heart in that regard. I honestly really want to give this the full-on "A" rating, but I do think a few too many strikes land without the right amount of oomph (maybe more the fault of the venue's acoustics than the combatants), and it needed to go just a little longer with maybe one or two more big moments. For what it is though, this is a real Ass Kicker, God Damner, etc. A Match That Fucks The Butt and things of that nature.

Match Rating: B+

Comprehensive Super Rider #5

            (Written by jom)

    How long has it been since the last one of these? Two YEARS??? Jesus Christ. It's about time we jump back on the Battle Hopper and ride into the night with our good friend, Mr. Shooter Super Rider. 

Super Rider vs. Uchu Power X (PWC 05/09/1996)

    PWC's two big bad shooters collide in the holy temple. This is a "No Rope Escape Instant Knockout" match, which means that there are no rope escapes and any shot that would usually initiate a down count will instead immediately end the match. This is a match that demands perfection in fighting. Any slip-up can be catastrophic, and any door left open may be the path to defeat. Rider and Uchu, however, are two legitimate monster shooters, and this feels like the closest the sleaze indies ever came to delivering a superfight. Everything that happens here is struggled for and fought over. There are counters on counters to an almost comedic extent, like Uchu's armbar-countering slam being countered into a heel hook by Rider, only for Uchu to counter that by keeping himself standing and slapping the taste out of Rider's mouth. That leads me to my biggest compliment for this match: it never felt like they were holding back. Especially with a match type like this, there's almost an expectation that they would rein it in and avoid throwing real killshots, focusing entirely on the groundwork to fill time. While matwork does make up a good chunk of this match, there's absolutely enough stand-and-bang to keep me happy, and every strike is thrown full-force. Kicks let out shotgun blasts and shoteis ring my ears as much as it rang theirs. Even with my glowing evaluation, it's not a faultless match. Especially around rounds three and four (this is five 3-minute rounds, by the way), this match slightly suffers from the RINGS problem; that is, some of the matwork just doesn't have enough happening to keep me locked onto the match. There's just a bit too much sitting in mount position to ignore, even if it happens so little that it only barely affects my enjoyment overall. To all the shoot style fans in attendance, seek this one out. It's the sleaziest UWFi midcard classic you've never seen. 

Match Rating: A-

Super Rider vs. Hayato Mashita (RJPW 06/17/2010)

    Hayato Mashita is not someone I have any particular interest in. He's probably the least interesting Sayama trainee of them all. Don't get me wrong, I've seen him in good matches, but I'd be hard pressed to say he was the reason any match was ever great. He's always had the problem of being particularly rough around the edges and generally boring compared to his peers in the world of 21st century shooters. Having said all of that, this is probably one of his best performances ever. Mashita is legitimately mean here, jumping Rider before the bell and letting loose with kicks, punches, and headbutts aplenty. He also does a perfectly fine job of targeting Rider's hurt leg, kicking it out and working it over with holds just enough to make it an understood problem for Rider. He's still very rough, but that roughness lends a lot to the grittiness of his beatdowns, so it somewhat works out for him. He also still has no idea how to run the ropes three years into his career, and his kicks are embarrassingly quiet, but I just appreciate how god damn motivated he was here. Anyways, Rider ruled as usual. He's no longer a spring chicken, but he's still got a hop in his step and a snap in his kicks. His rolling elbow is gnarly and his suicide dive is, well, suicidal. He even busts out the rare diving RIDER ELBOW, which not only looked really cool, but also gave me a great photo for the top of the blog post. It's not a great match, and it's certainly nowhere near the last one we talked about, but I had fun with this one. A real feather in the cap kind of match for Mashita, but just another Thursday in the office for Rider.

Match Rating: B-

Super Rider & Wild Pony vs. Junichi Hanawa & KURO-OBI (H-Production 08/11/2024)

    We've reached the big '24. Kamen Shooter Super Rider is 62 years old. A documentary on his career and current life has just premiered in Japan. No, really! I haven't watched it yet (and I have no idea how I would) but it's really cool to see something like this made. Rider's such an important figure in both MMA and pro wrestling in ways that very few people know or realize. Anyways, here's Old Man Rider wrestling in the world's smallest bar, working in a ring with chain ropes and so little room outside of it that both teams have to stand on the same side of the "apron" when outside. We're so deep in the muck here that we're practically swimming in it. Look beyond this strange environment filled with anime girl masks and moth beasts though and you're left with a pretty damn good match. This is the oldest of the taped Old Man Rider performances, and while he's clearly slowed down, he's still moving a lot better than a man in his 60s should, with his grappling against KURO-OBI being particularly inspiring. It's fascinating to see him doing restless sprawling and scrambling against a masked shooter in 1996, only to skip forward 28 years and see him do it again. This time around it's a little less hungry and a little more "two brown belts having a somewhat spirited spar," but the hold escapes feel desperate enough that the rolling never enters into unserious territory. Outside of this work, the match is generally Rider and Wild Pony attacking Hanawa's leg, and they do a good job of wearing it down convincingly. Pony might actually be my favorite part of the match sans Rider. He's worked under many names and you've probably never seen a single one of his matches, but Pony is a long-time scum indie veteran, and he's clearly so damn good from the small handful of his matches we have. He busts out some nice leg snaps and stomps, along with nailing a beautiful heel kick late in the match. He also hits a super snappy body slam as a kill move at one point, which actually works because the Tokyo Underground Arena ring might be the worst thing to bump on in the whole world. Hanawa and KURO-OBI are both cool enough and play their parts well, but the Rider and Pony team is really what keeps you paying attention here. Another fun outing from Rider and further evidence that we should try and track down as much footage of Wild Pony as possible.

Match Rating: B

Onita Pro 06/27/1999

 (Written by jom)

    Okay, so y'know how I said I'd have a new Onita Pro review every two weeks? I meant five weeks. But maybe the next one will come out in three weeks! Or one week? or maybe two after all. I don't know. You don't care. Onto the review!

Survival Tobita vs. Pinch Hitter Joe vs. Rey Pandita

    This is a Saitama Pro offer match. It's presented with the tagline "THIS IS ZERO" and contested under "Survival Three Way Fuckin' Dance" rules. Every time I write one of these Onita Pro reviews, I will call Atsushi Onita a visionary. Allowing fellow visionary Tobita to run something like this is further proof of his position in the pantheon of sick ass wrestling bookers.

    Once again, who the fuck is Rey Pandita? I still have no idea who's under the mask, but honestly, I'm fine with that. Rey Pandita is Rey Pandita, and he's here to ruin someone's day with psychologically-devastating bits wrestling. Also, who the fuck is Pinch Hitter Joe??? Probably Naoshi Sano, but that's besides the point. While Pandita is absolutely an Onita gimmick, Joe is a Tobita gimmick through and through. The story goes that Tobita planned for a "man from a manhole" to be in the match. However, due to some sort of bodily fluids issue, the man couldn't make it to the show. So, a pinch hitter named Joe has taken his place.

    Survival Tobita gets his own introductory paragraph because he's the coolest motherfucker ever. My Tobita bias is probably not much of a secret (I have a whole series on the site dedicated to singing his praises), but truly, has there ever been a more powerful entrance than this one? Tobita stomps out with a cigarette in his mouth, raising the plunger over his head and using his open hand to high-five the fans. He's also using Elephant Kashimashi's "Namida no Kazu Dake" as his theme on this occasion, which, while not my favorite Tobita theme (nothing will ever be better than "Gastronger"), is probably in my top five at the very least. 

    This is a match of many phases, all of which are pretty fun. We start out with the usual comedy three-way spots (triple lockup and interrupting holds) before Pandita and Joe start teaming up on Tobita. It's around this point that I realize Pandita might be Mitsunobu Kikuzawa. There's just something about the way he pantomimes that reminds me a lot of Ebessan. Pandita is also built pretty similarly to Kikuzawa around this time, and Kikuzawa really began his time under Onita in Onita Pro, so everything seems to line up. Also, Joe pays dearly for trusting Pandita when Pandita starts trying to get one over on him, leading to a Gedo Clutch from Pandita eliminating Joe. The golden rule of Onita Pro: never trust Rey Pandita.

    At this point, the match takes a sharp turn: Pandita becomes Genshi Enjin Virgon. He starts doing all of the Virgon-isms (prowling around, hopping up and down, running into the crowd) and the monster music begins playing over the speakers. The crowd is barely invested which hurts my soul, but they still do some fun stuff, with Tobita bumping like a madman for every Pandita push and Pandita doing a good job of pretending to be Virgon. Tobita eventually hits his piledriver and locks in a figure four necklock for the KO victory.

    Honestly, not much to say about this one. It's an extremely surface-level match, and while it never does anything bad, it also never does anything particularly good. I love Tobita and I was fascinated by Pandita's Virgon tribute performance, but it really just made me want to watch more of the Tobita/Virgon matches. Pinch Hitter Joe also certainly existed. This was a fine enough opener for the show.

Match Rating: B-

Masanobu Kurisu vs. Kengo Takai

    Atsushi Onita is a monster. I take back everything good I've ever said about him. Booking this match should get you arrested. A young Kengo Takai, only a year into his professional wrestling career, is taking on Masanobu Kurisu. This is nine and a half years after the Kurisu/Akiyoshi slaughter, and here we have another case of Onita putting a plucky rookie against the king of killing rookies. Truly, these matches are the sins that will weigh heavy on Onita's soul in the afterlife.

    This goes roughly like you'd expect. Kurisu (with a shitty little ponytail) is actually a lot more giving in the early portion of the match than he was against Akiyoshi. He throws some mean headbutts and stomps, but he also lets Takai throw some big strikes of his own, and even bumps for him on a few occasions. However, Kurisu gets his hands on some chairs and all of that cooperation goes out the window. With chair in hand, Kurisu is an agent of pain. He throws an unprotected shot to the head in this match that almost made me turn away from the screen. Takai committed the crime of accepting a match against Masanobu Kurisu, and Kurisu is his executioner.

    Even after the initial chair assault, Takai still fights back, and even gets a good string of offense going, culminating in a big diving headbutt. That's probably Takai's biggest strong suit in this match: his fire. Shoji Akiyoshi had a lot of fire in him in the infamous 1989 squash, but Takai's fire feels a lot more outwardly expressed. He's yelling out to the crowd, almost hyping himself up to try and fight this old behemoth he has no chance of beating. Of course, Takai waves his muleta in front of the bull a little too much. His attempt at throwing some shoot headbutts gets no-sold. Kurisu entirely brushes off a dropkick and goes back to '89, letting loose with the headbutts, head stomps, and punt kicks that made him infamous. He even flings Takai back outside to throw more unsafe chairshots, before finally, mercifully, killing Takai with the Kurisu Special (a llave that I can't even begin to explain, but it looks like it could've snapped Takai's neck).

    This, like many "Kurisu vs. guy he can take liberties on" matches, was uncomfortable. Was it the most abhorrent of the genre? Absolutely not. Kengo Takai should pray to his god that this was a decade beyond Kurisu's peak of cruelty. But, like many of the matches from that genre, it also kinda rocked. It may be weird to say this, but there's something special about these types of young boy matches. They're full of work you could never see today. We as a society have improved enough to silently ban these matches from happening. And yet, there's something bizarrely entrancing about them. They're the ultimate fights for survival, genuine David vs. Goliath matches. Even if you're vocally cheering for the Goliath, you always silently pray for this David to have a slingshot. They never do. But one day someone might. It's an awful genre of match to exist, but I will never stop enjoying it.

Match Rating: B+

Combat Toyoda, Crusher Maedomari, Miss Mongol, & Shark Tsuchiya vs. Emi Koizumi, Killer Iwami, RIE, & Tsuppari Mack

    Fun fact! Half of this match is already retired. This is a reunion tag for a bunch of the FMW-raised women's wrestlers, and there's a lot of people here I've never seen before. Specifically, I haven't seen Koizumi, Iwami, or Mack before this match, and I've never seen RIE in this gimmick (but I've seen a fair number of Bad Nurse Nakamura matches and she fucking rules). This is also Combat Toyoda's one-time return in the form of an actual match. I don't really count battle royals as returns because there's an entirely different energy to battle royals than pretty much all other wrestling.

    Speaking of energy, this is a match all about having fun. And wouldn't you know it, it was fun! If you came into this match expecting some sort of serious clash between the face-painted freaks and the plucky underdogs, you'd probably be disappointed. This was around 85% just bits and goofs, but you could tell everyone was having a blast. 

    Any time one of the retired faces would do anything, everyone would clap and cheer (including the heel team). Toyoda gets to come in and run wild at least once, and it's cool to see her still put some power behind her lariats. There's a very fun spot near the middle where RIE does a great rolling cradle, and Koizumi completely botches her attempt at one right after. Then the faces and heels all start hyping her up, and she gets the strength to pull off a great one. If I had to pinpoint one person as a highlight, it'd probably be Tsuppari Mack, who kept hitting Maedomari in the face with a book or something. She was cool and I might need to seek out some of her work from when she was actually an active wrestler.

    All in all, I had a fun time watching this. Maybe it wasn't the most engrossing thing in the world, but that's fine. It was a real "getting the band back together" type of match, and you can't not enjoy that, at least a little bit.

Match Rating: B

Atsushi Onita, Nise Onita, & Sambo Asako vs. Katsuji Ueda, Masashi Aoyagi, & Shooter #1

    For the first time in blog history, Nise Onita is here. Nise Onita, for anyone that doesn't know, is Toshiyuki Moriya, a bonafide legend of the Japanese indie scene. Even if he wasn't always the greatest worker in the ring, he was a vital part of many important promotions from the time, and places like DDT wouldn't have become the monoliths they are without Moriya's help. Also, I'm gonna be referring to him as Moriya throughout the review, because calling him Nise sounds weird, Onita would be confusing, and Nise Onita is too long.

    Moriya is actually the primary focus on this match, as this kind of serves as an initiation into the Onita crew. Ueda and Aoyagi beat his ass over and over again, and Moriya bumps for it all because, canonically, Moriya is an incredibly weak wrestler. If Onita was a normal wrestler trying to become a God, Moriya was a normal man trying to become Onita. Moriya does get some offense in, with a lot of "swinging for the fences" strikes filled with some real passion. Both Aoyagi and Ueda crush him as much as they can, and Aoyagi especially takes exception to Moriya's fiery attempts at fighting back, at one point just raining down mounted punches on Moriya's head, busting Moriya wide open.

    Onita and Asako are both in more "supporting act" roles here rather than being at the main stage (both men still have to wrestle in the main event after all). Onita does get some great moments to shine though, and the crowd becomes rabid when Onita and Aoyagi finally get to face off. The crowd in general were super into the match here, cheering a ton of Moriya and getting unglued whenever one of the martial artists popped off a strike combo. Eventually, Ueda uncorks a punch to the back of Moriya's head, and the referee calls for the bell.

    Moriya cuts a promo after while covered in blood and he does all the Onita-isms, which gets a big pop from the crowd. The camera then cuts to backstage, where Moriya is laying on the ground, still covered in blood, in Onita's jacket.

    Honestly? I thought this was pretty damn good. Ueda and Aoyagi got to let loose with their awesome martial arts stuff, and Onita had a few moments to reignite the old different style fighting spirit within. Moriya was the real star of the match though, and he did a really great job of selling like a motherfucker. He fully understood how to do the Onita style of work, and it came off as very endearing. Asako and Shooter (oh yeah he's in this match) were pretty much nothing here, but the other four played their roles very well, and I enjoyed it as a whole. 

Match Rating: B

Anywhere Fall Street Fight: Masao Orihara & Shooter #2 vs. Exciting Yoshida & Sanshiro Takagi

    Takagi is BACK! I assumed on the last show that Takagi was challenging Luther and Hannibal to a match, but this makes a lot more sense. Takagi and Orihara had been feuding for a few years at this point (and still had another year to go before the feud ended), and this is their first encounter in Korakuen. Takagi is teaming with regular partner Exciting Yoshida and Orihara is with "Shooter #2." The original Shooter #2 was Ryo Miyake, but no telling if that's who's under the mask here.

    This starts off with Shooter and Takagi getting into a scrappy fight while Orihara throws a comically wide chair swing that Yoshida sells by jumping away. This is a pretty great precedent setter for the match, as all the actually cool stuff comes from Takagi and Shooter brawling around Korakuen, while a lot of the very funny/not good work involves Orihara and Yoshida.

    The best wrestler in this match was probably Shooter #2, who I can very safely say is Koichiro Kimura. He was just working how he usually does, only in a black mask. Him and Takagi went on a little tour of Korakuen, checking out the lobby and the hallways, before eventually landing in the crowd where Shooter started throwing a bunch of really gross kicks before crushing Takagi with a double arm suplex in the bleachers. Kimura is a really underrated worker when it comes to his versatility, and this match really helped to show just how capable he was in a brawling context. He brawls the exact way you'd hope for him to, basically doing all the same ruthless shoot style work he usually just, just on concrete instead of in a ring. I am, of course, a hardcore Kimura agenda pusher, but that doesn't change the fact that he ruled here.

    Orihara, meanwhile, fucking stunk. He really couldn't be bothered to put any effort into his work here, or at least it didn't seem like it. He did a very goofy spot with Takagi early on where they dodged each other's clothesline attempts six or seven times, before doing another stupid spot with Yoshida where they casually no-sold brainbusters back and forth. Yoshida was kinda meh here as well. he wasn't as offensively bad as Orihara, but his brawling was uninspired and his in-ring work was just acceptable.

    The match culminated with Shooter and Takagi (who was solid enough hyping up the crowd and letting Shooter kick him) doing some nice heated brawling on the Korakuen stage, before Takagi hit a fucking german suplex on Shooter to get the win. It was a really gnarly way for the match to end, so at least they wrapped everything up on a high note.

    I have very mixed feelings on this match. Takagi was cool and Shooter rocked, but Yoshida wasn't good and Orihara sucked. If this was just the Orihara/Yoshida stuff, I think this would be in the Ds range. If it was just the Takagi/Shooter work, it would be closer to a B+. I'll just split the difference in a positive way because the finish was crazy.

Match Rating: C+

No Rope Barbed Wire Double Hell Street Fight: Atsushi Onita, Mitsunobu Kikuzawa, Sambo Asako, & Shigeo Okumura vs. Genichiro Tenryu, Hiroshi Ono, Ichiro Yaguchi, & Shoji Nakamaki

    Once again, no big explanation needed. This is pretty much the same match on paper as the main event of the last show, only this time Kikuzawa and Ono have been thrown into the mix, and the stipulation has gotten bigger. Also, Tenryu is here in a button-up and tie this time around. He's all business.

    Just like the first Onita Pro main event, this was a ton of chaos and brawling, so attempting to run down the match spot-for-spot would not only be a fool's errand, it would also make for shitty writing. Instead, I'll focus on the most important wrestlers in the match.

    Firstly, let's talk about Onita and Tenryu together. They're the team captains, leading their armies into battle, and their interactions are of course the big draw. As always, they did great together. All of their encounters were equally violent and dramatic, with Tenryu letting loose with an enzuigiri within a minute of the match starting and Onita getting the boys to help him do a spike piledriver on the big man (using a chair since the top rope wasn't available). They also rehash the chair bash spot I loved from the last match, but this time Tenryu was very clearly just punishing an already hurt Onita rather than throwing a chair out of desperation. It felt like the natural evolution of the spot considering Tenryu was in control for much more of this match than he was in the previous one, and did a great job of continuing to isolate Onita from his partners.

    Speaking of Onita's partners, Shigeo Okumura. What a fucking guy. In the last review, I mentioned that Okumura came off as a million bucks, but this is the match where he truly felt like he near Tenryu and Onita's level power-scaling wise. One of the first spots of the match was Tenryu pulling off a whip cancel to keep himself from going into the wire, only for Okumura to dropkick him into the barbs anyways. Okumura constantly ran roughshod over the match, throwing chops and punches at anyone in his way and never staying down too long. He even pulled off another save like before, keeping Tenryu from killing Kikuzawa long enough for Onita to come back in and regain control for the team. I don't know how you can see his performances in Onita Pro and not walk away thinking that he had a monster of a traveling brawler career hidden within him.

    Finally, we need to talk about Mitsunobu Kikuzawa. I haven't been silent about my distaste for Kikutaro. Most of my issues stem with the plethora of matches he's had against women, because sadly, I just don't really find sexual assault funny! And his many intergender matches are filled with creep spots. I'm aware that Kikutaro's non-intergender work is an entirely different world, and I enjoy a lot of it, but I just can't ignore his VKF career. 

    All of that being said, I've always thought that Kikuzawa was a real missed opportunity, as all of his unmasked work that I've seen has been very good. This was probably one of his best performances ever, as he took the role of designated team victim for the Onita army, and my god, was he a victim. Tenryu made it his mission to force Kikuzawa to leave the industry in this match, constantly punching him in the jaw and chopping his throat, which Kikuzawa sold like hell. Kikuzawa also took the most insane spot of the whole show, a monkey flip from the ring to the barbed wire on the floor from Tenryu, which Kikuzawa sold the same way I reacted when I hit a rough bump riding my bike downhill at 13 and did a full flip directly onto the small of my back on the poorly paved road. Kikuzawa was here to die, and although he fought back as best he could, but by the end of the match, he was left bathed in own blood while wrapped in barbed wire (just like Onita was in the last main event; I see what's going on here). But he survived. He survived and made the decisive final attack for his team. Kikuzawa's body attack with his barbed wire-wrapped chest led directly into Onita's match-winning powerbomb. Kikuzawa went through hell in this match, and used that hell to win.

    After the match, there's this visually beautiful moment where Onita, Okumura, and Asako all work together to unwrap the wire around Kikuzawa, before Onita grabs his water bottle and pours it over his own head, dripping onto Kikuzawa's crimson visage and washing some of the blood away. In a sense, Kikuzawa was baptized into the Onita sphere of wrestling in this match, and this was the actual baptism.

    This was a clear sequel to the last Onita Pro main event, so it's worth comparing the two. A lot of the spots from the last match happened in this one as well (even a few of the same botches), but this match also brought a lot of new stuff to the table, especially when it came to the whole "double hell" part of the match. I do think this one slightly falters compared to the first Onita Pro main, as it doesn't stay as consistently chaotic, and the action-less parts of the match are more noticeable. Still, this match was fucking great. Again, I have bias for Onita Pro main event brawls, but I do feel like this was a very worthwhile sequel to one of the best matches ever. 

Match Rating: A

    I think this was a little worse than the previous Onita Pro show. While this show never had anything as bad as the Hannibal tag, it also felt like it never truly reached the highs of the first show, and the stagnation in quality really hurt the flow of the full show itself. The main event was still great though, so that keeps it from escaping the B-tier. Overall, solid stuff, and I'm still excited to continue going through Onita Pro.

Show Rating: B-

Comprehensive Rikiya Fudo/Super Rider #3 (DDT 11/20/1999)

                    (Written by jom)

    For the first time, two Comprehensives in one! The matches I'm reviewing today are all from the 11/20/1999 DDT show, which featured a one-night round robin trios tournament. Rider and Fudo (under his Yusaku name) both participated in the tournament in the B block, so that means we got 3 matches featuring them from this show, as well as the only recorded interactions between Rider and Fudo, so I'm very excited to see how those pan out.

Yusaku, Daisaku, & Yuki Nishino vs. Kazunori Yoshida, Koichiro Kimura, & Takao Iwasaki

    Starting off this special edition of comprehensive is the Shimoda bros, and they're teaming with Yuki Nishino, a former SPWF guy who throws awesome headbutts and moves at a really violent pace. Yoshida is another guy I've been a big fan of, as is Kimura. I've honestly never seen Iwasaki before this match, but the fact he was put on a team with Yoshida and Kimura makes me think he's probably solid enough.

    This was pretty sweet and extremely heated. Nishino was solid here, doing some nice grappling and hitting a few bombs like one crazy backdrop suplex on Yoshida. Daisaku was also pretty good, laying in some kicks and knees with real force and doing some cool scrappy work against Kimura and Iwasaki. Yusaku was definitely the best part of his team though, as he was just a beast here. He started the match by plowing through Yoshida with a lariat, and he kept that energy the entire time he was in the ring, with some big lariats and headbutts. He also hit some awesome bombs like this great sit-out spinebuster:

    For the other team in the match, everyone involved ended up having a good showing. Iwasaki was alright here, not really doing anything crazy but throwing some cool kicks. Yoshida also was a little more reserved than I've usually seen him, but he still busted out some great stuff like an awesome pop-up dropkick. Kimura was the most notable member of the team, purely through the level of violence he inflicted on the Shimoda bros, especially Yusaku. Honestly, with how hard he was hitting them and how little he was getting hit himself, I think that he might've been genuinely shooting on Yusaku. He doesn't have the greatest reputation for taking care of other wrestlers, so it wouldn't be entirely out of character. At bare minimum though, it made for some real sick stuff, like the combo seen below where Kimura just beat the dogshit out of Yusaku before putting on a really mean standing armbar.

    Overall, this had some pretty crazy sections, but as a whole felt somewhat disjointed. Still, those moments it did have were really good, so if you are just interested in seeing guys do cool shit to each other without the need for clean pacing and structure, you'd probably be pretty into this match.

Rating: B-

Super Rider, Asian Cougar, & Thanomsak Toba vs. Kazunori Yoshida, Koichiro Kimura, & Takao Iwasaki

    Next up we have the Yoshida/Kimura/Iwasaki team from the previous match taking on the sleaze legends team of Rider, Cougar, and Toba. I've of course talked at length about how great Rider is, and I just talked in the most recent post before this about how awesome Cougar is. Toba is someone I've somehow not covered until now, but he's maybe one of my favorite martial artist type wrestlers of all time. He throws some extremely violent punches and kicks, with his spinning backfist being maybe the greatest of all time.

    This match ended up being pretty awesome! Cougar was cool busting out some of his usual big spots like the corner kneel kick into slingshot leg drop, and he also got to hit some stuff I have rarely seen from him, including a crazy tope over the corner. He wasn't part of the match as much as Rider or Toba, but he made his contributions felt for the parts he was in. Toba was a god damn menace here, throwing his trademark horrific strikes, including a lightning-quick flurry of punches that he threw at all three of his opponents (with his sequence against Yoshida gif'd below). He also threw some genuinely scary kicks at Kimura, including one that hit Kimura's jaw with one of the loudest cracks I've heard in a while. Rider, for his part, was also really cool here, doing some phenomenal grappling with Kimura and laying in a few hard strikes like some brutal headbutts on Iwasaki. He even had a few fun moments, like doing a spot where he kept fucking up a scoop slam because he's more of a fighter than a wrestler, eventually leading to the payoff of him actually doing one correctly, with the crowd popping big for it.

    All three guys on the other side of the ring more than held up their end of the match too. Kimura was great in this one, doing some really solid grappling with Rider and hitting some big bombs like an awesome butterfly suplex into an armbar, or the great transition into a fujiwara armbar seen below. He definitely wasn't working with the level of hate he had in the previous match, but he made up for that with some overall extremely solid mat work. Iwasaki was much better here than he was in the last match, pretty much being in a sink-or-swim situation with Toba and responding by throwing some strong kicks and pulling out big holds, like a stiff side headlock. Yoshida was probably the best part of the match for his team though, as he got to hit a ton of awesome stuff even with the roof of the building being so low. He hit a great springboard dropkick, an awesome suicide dive, and a crazy springboard arm drag which he really shouldn't have been able to pull off considering how little space he had to do it.

    This was better than the last match I went over, albeit not by a ton. I think all six men put in a really solid performance, but the match never really brought itself up to being great or anything like that. As it stands though, this was still a really enjoyable match.

Rating: B

Super Rider, Asian Cougar, & Thanomsak Toba vs. Yusaku, Daisaku, & Yuki Nishino

    Finally, we have arrived to the match I was most excited for going into this. Not only does this have the only known interactions between Rikiya Fudo and Super Rider, but it also features 4 other extremely awesome wrestlers as part of the match. This actually takes place before the match I just reviewed, but considering the importance of this match in terms of the blog, I'm reviewing it last.

    ...having said that, let's rip the bandaid off now: Yusaku didn't enter this match once. My best guess is that the dude was still pretty fucked up from the beating he got from Kimura, leading to him only entering the ring at the end to do a little bit of brawling with Toba during the finish. It fucking sucks to see that Yusaku and Rider seemingly never actually had any interactions in their careers after all, but at least this match still ruled very hard. Nishino is really damn great in this match compared to the last one he was in. While he had a solid performance there, he was fighting like his life was on the line in this match, throwing some gnarly headbutts including one to Cougar that sent him flying off the apron and into the crowd. Daisaku rocked even harder than him, busting out some awesome grappling against Rider such as when he countered Rider's triangle choke into a kneebar. He also did some great strikes and combos, like the flurry of high kicks he threw at Toba, as well as this great combo:

    Asian Cougar was pretty awesome here (it's very rare for him to not be at least awesome). He pretty much just hit the classics, but not only do the Asian Cougar classics rule, he also hit them with a lot of urgency. He did the slingshot leg drops (both inside and outside the ring), he hit his awesome running corner kneel kick, etc. Toba was really good too, laying in some hard strikes on Daisaku like a combo that led into a pretty disgusting kick straight to Daisaku's face. The best part of the match to me though was Super Rider, who had a truly awesome performance. He hit some mean strikes, such as a pinpoint solebutt to Nishino's jaw, as well as some stiff mounted punches to Daisaku. He pulled off some great grappling, like a great transition into an armbar from a wristlock and the gif seen below of him countering a snapmare perfectly into a kneebar. He even bust out some high spots, like a crazy suicide dive he hit on Nishino, as well as the always awsome rider kick.

    Overall, I really enjoyed the work we got in this match. It was honestly pretty short (a little over 7 minutes long) , and the fact that Yusaku did literally nothing probably damaged the rating enough to guarantee it wasn't gonna get into the A-grade range, but it was still a really sweet six man tag and everyone who participated put on a really fun performance.

Rating: B+

Comprehensive Super Rider #2

              (Written by jom)

Super Rider & Super Uchuu Power vs. Kazushige Nosawa & Sanshiro Takagi (DDT 03/25/1997)

    This is the main event of DDT's "Prelaunch Battle", which basically means the show was meant to be a preview of what people could expect from DDT once it officially launches. Starting your promotion with two of the founders taking on shoot style spacemen is truly next level wrestlebrain, so it isn't shocking Takagi has been able to grow DDT into being the possible #2 most popular promotion in Japan.

    Takagi and Nosawa were pretty sweet here, both were really energized and constantly fighting Uchuu and Rider in really scrappy ways. Both guys were throwing some hard dropkicks all throughout the match, especially Nosawa who threw a really gross one especially at Uchuu to break up a submission. Takagi meanwhile was already very clearly the top guy in the promotion, with everyone chanting his name and some big comeback spots towards the end, peaking with this beauty of a tornado DDT:

    Super Uchuu Power (Koichiro Kimura) was undoubtedly the star of the show. He was an absolute killer here, doling out some nutty strikes and hitting insane slams. He was lariating Nosawa and Takagi like they owed him money, and the way he treated Nosawa especially was borderline hard to watch, constantly destroying him with crazy moves like a double tombstone piledriver. The nastiest thing he did to him though had to be the powerbomb shown below, the bounce that Nosawa got off of being slammed onto the mat was horrifying.

    While Rider wasn't able to perform at the same level Power did, he more than held up his portions of the match, dishing out some great kicks and cool pro wrestling spots. His kicks especially were pretty awesome, doing some great jumping rolling solebutts and at one point accidentally hitting Power with a great Rider kick.

    The overall match did have some iffy pacing and the extended length of it led to some spots that felt like they were almost repeating, but overall this was a damn cool fight. In terms of history, this match is extremely important too, as it set the stage for the first few years of life for the eventual juggernaut that is DDT, so on that front it's definitely worth checking out.

Rating: B+

Super Rider vs. Takeshi Ono (BattlArts 06/02/2001)

    This is a rematch to the Korakuen match reviewed previously on the blog. Last time, I thought that while a good amount of the work was really awesome, some iffy pacing and the lack of interest from the crowd left me somewhat disappointed in the final product. Hopefully, now that they've gotten some more experience working together, those problems will be alleviated and they'll pull off the match I know they can.

    Takeshi Ono was, in a sense, pure Takeshi Ono here. He did the usual awesome strikes, slick grappling, and great selling, all at the usual high level he did it at. This was also a great piece of evidence to support my belief that Ono is maybe one of the greatest "targeting" wrestlers of all time. When Ono picks a spot of the body to go after during a match, he's truly vicious as hell, and in this match he totally wrecked Rider's leg, with tons of gross kicks and submissions that honestly shock me didn't actually fuck up Rider's leg.

    Super Rider was going pretty damn crazy in this match too though. He met Ono on the mat with some superb grappling, doing some awesome submissions like one particular counter into an armbar. He also brought the goods with striking, at one point throwing a real sick high kick that Ono sold like death. While he didn't have as many high spot type moments as Ono, the stuff he provided helped keep the match's intensity at a level not at all seen in the previous match they had.

    This match was kind of insane, because somehow, the crowd was even less interested during this one than the Korakuen one. However, even accounting for the near silence during the match, this fucking rocked. While the last match they had was more of a fun creative juniors type match with bomb segments and more emphasis on spots, this was just a total grappling fest while still retaining the creativity of the last match. The late match bomb throwing was amazing too, and my god the actual finish ruled. It even only went about 7 minutes, so genuinely, go out of your way to see this.

Rating: A-

Super Rider vs. Tomohiro Ishii (RJPW 03/01/2009)

    This match was brought on by GBH member Ishii seemingly laying out a challenge to Rider. Ishii needs little to no introduction, around this point he was no longer the sleazy indy guy that Rider had previously faced in 2000, but instead a full-on NJPW roster member. Whether or not that made him better or worse is up to your interpretation (it made him worse).

    Ishii was a solid bruiser in this match, doing a ton of heel type work. He threw Rider around outside and hit him with chairs, and he took cheapshots whenever he could. He didn't really do anything particularly special, but he was entirely competent in the role he played and he did throw this killer lariat:

    Rider was totally off the bean in this match though. He started out doing his usual stuff but as the match went on he got progressively more angry and more aggressive, eventually busting out full-on shoot headbutts. The big turning point was when Ishii had manhandled him on the outside some, and Rider decided "fuck this", whipped his shirt off, and started throwing closed fists at Ishii's midsection. Getting this level of violence from Rider wasn't easy at this point, so it was awesome to see him get this pumped up.

    Eventually, the match ended in a DQ after Ishii ripped off Rider's mask, leading to Rider putting on his old Hopper King mask and brawling around with Ishii for a couple more minutes. Overall, this had some pretty awesome moments but did leave me wanting more. Sadly, the GBH invasion would go nowhere after this (mainly because GBH practically died a month later) so we never ended up seeing a rematch between the two, but what we got was solid enough.

Rating: B