Reputation Suicide: NSBW's Self-Inflicted Plunge Into The Abyss

                              (Written by jom)

     Modern MMA in Japan does not exist without professional wrestling. The JMMA boom of the 1990s and 2000s was built from the ground up by former professional wrestlers, most of whom were trained in the Gotch and Robinson styles of catch wrestling. In the wake of NJPW's Different Style Fights of the '70s and the UWF's nascent shoot stylings of the '80s, these wrestlers found themselves interested in applying their training and philosophies to actual combat, birthing organizations such as Shooto, RINGS, Shootboxing, and Pancrase. Just as the early '90s served as a fertile breeding ground for Japanese independent wrestling groups, that same period saw fervent development in JMMA, signaling even more prosperous times to come in the near future.

    In 1994, Masashi Aoyagi saw the incoming JMMA wave, and decided he would catch a ride. Thus was born "New Stage Battle as Wrestling," also known by the direct translations of New Fighting Wrestling & Shin Kakuto. NSBW was an organization planned to transcend the boundaries of professional wrestling and establish itself as the country's pinnacle of combat sports. NSBW, however, did not do this. NSBW didn't even last a full calendar year. Every step along the path to immortality was just another step onto a rake. Every major move only served to hurt the promotion rather than help it. By the end of its life, most wrestlers weren't even sure what the point of it all actually was. NSBW was the most doomed organization in Japanese wrestling and Japanese MMA history. It's worth looking at why. 

I. Wayward Souls

     A discussion of NSBW can't begin without a discussion of Oriental Pro Wrestling. Oriental Pro was the second attempt at an independent group by Ryuma Go & Masahiko Takasugi, two of the three men responsible for the very first independent promotion, Pioneer Senshi. Like Pioneer, Oriental Pro, while innovative and influential in its own right, was never much of a success financially. By December 1993, the company was in dire straits, as Go had already left the group behind and Takasugi's desire to freelance wasn't particularly a secret. When young aces Hiroshi Itakura and Kazuhiko Matsuzaki faced off in a dojo match to decide the company's fate, everyone already knew what the result would be. Oriental Pro's roster of rookies pledged to follow Itakura wherever he went next.

    That landing location appeared almost immediately. Even a month before the dojo match, Itakura had already publicly declared his intentions to join Masashi Aoyagi's karate dojo Seishin Kaikan as a representative wrestler. Around the same time as the dojo match, Aoyagi announced an upcoming Seishin Kaikan produce show, with Aoyagi booking himself against Itakura in the main event and populating the undercard with the former Oriental Pro roster. Aoyagi also hinted at something larger coming soon, as news broke that Aoyagi was not planning to re-sign his contract with New Japan and would instead be forming his own organization.

    According to some of the people involved in NSBW, Aoyagi wasn't the only one planning to leave New Japan for the new group. Akitoshi Saito was also strongly considering joining his mentor in the new organization, but seemingly decided at the last second to stick with New Japan instead. As such, Aoyagi would be leading the venture without him, signing on Oriental Pro representative Takeshi Tamao to be in charge of the new group's office. For the stranded Oriental Pro workers, this promotion appeared to be the oasis they had been looking for. It wouldn't retain that image for very long.

II. Identity Crisis

    On January 28th, 1994, Masashi Aoyagi formally announced the creation of New Stage Battle as Wrestling, and immediately declared Pancrase as its enemy. The impromptu press conference for NSBW's initial announcement, along with the more formal press conference four days later to reveal its logo and roster (a combination of Oriental Pro workers, Aoyagi's karate trainees, and a handful of young martial artists), contained a litany of statements from Aoyagi that left reporters confused as to what, exactly, Aoyagi was planning to promote. While NSBW was referred to explicitly as a wrestling company, it was talked about alongside shoot organizations such as Pancrase and Shooto. Aoyagi mentioned in passing that he planned to send some of NSBW's roster to participate in the Towa Cup, an openweight karate tournament happening in a few days (whether or not he actually sent anyone I don't know). He even floated the idea to reporters of doing away with a wrestling ring entirely, and instead running shows with an octagon-shaped cage. To many onlookers, NSBW appeared to be setting itself up as a full contact shootfighting organization.

    Many of the pro wrestlers were just as confused as the reporters. While they had heard that NSBW would be leaning more towards shoot style, the majority of ex-Oriental wrestlers had been left in the dark regarding how far Aoyagi planned to take it. Some of them took this as their sign to bow out on the project and try their luck at finding work elsewhere, but the majority felt that they had no other option. They had pledged to stick with Itakura, and Itakura, at least for now, planned on sticking with Aoyagi, so the rookies stayed as well. 

    As the first show approached, however, Aoyagi decided that he wasn't done confusing his roster or the reporters, as he signed up to appear on the WWF's Japan Mania Tour. Publications such as Shu Pro were quick to point out the conflict of interest in Aoyagi, a man trying to present his new organization as the toughest and most legit fighting group in the country, working a tour for the WWF, the Sports Entertainment company. Aoyagi's explanation for this wasn't much of anything either, as he simply stated that he had no reason to reject the opportunity. For the wrestlers, this felt like another sharp left turn on the path towards understanding what Aoyagi expected of them. In hindsight, it was the least confusing development these wrestlers would have to deal with over the next few months.

III. Reality Check

    Following the conclusion of NSBW's first show on February 18th, Aoyagi held a press conference with Satoru Sayama, the former Tiger Mask and founder of Shooto, to announce that the two organizations would be working together for a "full-scale conflict" between their fighters. For many of the reporters there, the actual intended content of the press conference was less interesting than the fact that Sayama would be appearing at a wrestling show for the first time in nearly 10 years, along with what many assumed would be the end goal of this alliance, a match between Aoyagi and Sayama (which both men agreed sounded like a good idea, leading Aoyagi to say it would "probably" happen later in the year).

    For NSBW's roster, this announcement of "NSBW vs. Shooto" fights was a nightmare scenario, one that only a few seemed to grasp. As one former employee explained, in a pre-PRIDE world, many people just couldn't understand the gap in fighting ability between pro wrestlers and MMA fighters, and most assumed the wrestlers would at least have some chance. NSBW's roster also attempted to level the playing field just the tiniest bit, sending a handful of the former Oriental Pro workers to a boxing gym for training, which the wrestlers promptly abandoned as they had zero interest in learning boxing. With the first fight between boxer-turned-wrestler Jun Kikawada and rising Shooto star Yuki Nakai booked for NSBW's next show, all anyone could do is hope that the NSBW wrestlers would put in a good fight.

    187 seconds.

    187 seconds is the combined runtime of all four fights to occur between NSBW and Shooto. Kikawada's 27 second tap-out set the tone for what would be a slaughter, as NSBW's chosen fighters were completely outmatched in every way against the Shooto fighters. To call the proposed "conflict" a failure on NSBW's part would be an understatement. This was a misstep of nuclear proportions, where over the span of a single week NSBW's reputation was ripped apart and burned to a crisp. The Shooto disaster would remain a dark cloud hanging over NSBW's head for the rest of its life, and, to this day, is probably the thing people remember the most about it. It was pro wrestling's first attempt at proving its strength against MMA, and it couldn't have gone any worse.

    It was also, in my opinion, only the second worst decision made by Masashi Aoyagi. The worst of them all would come a month later. 

IV. Phantom President

    On the same show where Yuki Nakai demolished Jun Kikawada, SAW practitioner and former RINGS fighter Koichiro Kimura made an appearance backstage to challenge Aoyagi to a match. In Kimura's own account of events years later, he said that he only joined for the opportunity to wrestle Aoyagi. NSBW chose to use their hot new prospect immediately, and the match between Aoyagi and Kimura would be set for April 4th, main eventing in Korakuen Hall to start NSBW's second tour, "Phoenix Championship '94."

    Nobody seems to really enjoy talking about what happened in that match.

    Aoyagi, in an interview later on, would only state that there was a "difference in direction" between the two. Kimura gave more details on what led to the affair, stating that Aoyagi invited Kimura into his locker room 30 minutes before the match and told him something that made Kimura so angry, he forced everyone else out of the room and cursed Aoyagi out before deciding "Fine, I'm going with it." One other NSBW wrestler recalled that the Kimura/Aoyagi match is where wrestling in NSBW "stopped being fun."

    The end result of the "match" was Koichiro Kimura winning via referee stoppage on a kneebar after three rounds of domination. Aoyagi seemed to protest the ruling at first before congratulating Kimura on the win, only to then announce that NSBW would be "temporarily disbanding." This, however, was not true, at least according to the NSBW offices. As soon as publications started to report on this announcement, Tamao made a statement that NSBW would be operating as usual, and that the statement had been a mistake made by "wrestler" Masashi Aoyagi. While Aoyagi had indeed only been a wrestler on paper, he was also already established as the figurehead of the company and the man behind the idea, in the same way Tenryu was positioned as top dog in relation to WAR's actual president, Masatomo Takei. Calling Aoyagi just a roster member seemed to publicly imply that Aoyagi had overstepped, and Aoyagi would return that gesture in due time.

    Aoyagi and Kimura faced off one more time, 19 days later. This match was less eventful than the last, but once again resulted in Kimura's victory, and led to Aoyagi declaring that if he lost to Kimura one more time, he would retire on the spot. That third match would never happen. Starting in May, Aoyagi began to refuse all NSBW bookings. Aoyagi spent that month wrestling for the WWF, only willing to appear at ringside for that month's NSBW Korakuen show, where Itakura practically begged Aoyagi in a post-match promo to "take care of the company." In June, Aoyagi vanished from the public eye outright.

    Aoyagi finally reappeared for the promotion in July, working three shows before skipping the tour's final event to appear in FMW. Those July shows ended up being Aoyagi's final appearances in general. Soon, members of the "Aoyagi Faction" in NSBW followed suit, with Shigekazu Tajiri, Yuichi Fukaya, and Yoshiro Ito all leaving the company to follow Aoyagi. Koichiro Kimura personally invited Aoyagi to appear one last time, at the September 24th Korakuen event, for one last "grudge settlement" match between the two. Aoyagi never responded. After Kimura's match on the show (the only NSBW show to receive a video release), Kimura took the mic and declared to the audience "You are all witnesses. Masashi Aoyagi has run away from NSBW. He will never come back."

    Most people seemed to know at that point that it was over.

V. Wasted Time

    NSBW lasted less than two months after that final Korakuen show. Attendance had been down (or, more accurately, had never been particularly up), and wrestlers were less interested than ever in appearing for the group. Even as NSBW worked out a deal with WAR and Kimura brought in some of his SAW trainees, it seemed nothing could prevent what many were viewing as inevitable.

    On November 16, 1994, NSBW ran the final show of their "DD Spirits '94" tour in the Matsusaka City General Gymnasium in Matsusaka, Mie. They reported to Shu Pro an attendance of nearly three thousand people, but, having seen enough photos from the show, I just can't say I buy that number. NSBW ran this show as a special "all card Barbed Wire Cage Deathmatch" event, where every match on the show happened surrounded by a barbed wire cage. Reportedly, the only person to actually utilize the cage in a match was Hideo Takayama, better known as BADBOY Hido. Every other match was worked as if the cage never existed at all.

    After the show, Hiroshi Itakura told the audience that he would be leaving NSBW, which many understood to mean he would be joining WAR. Kimura shook hands with Itakura before taking the mic and claiming that NSBW had another tour booked for December. While some on the roster did believe Kimura when he said this, many of the wrestlers could already feel that those December shows would never come to pass.

    The final instance of NSBW existing in any sort of manner would occur on a Shooto show on January 21, 1995. In the second fight on the card, SAW fighter and NSBW wrestler Shingo Shigeta was announced as representing the promotion, before being completely pummeled and losing in a minute to Shooto's debuting trainee, Enson Inoue. Weirdly, it makes complete sense to me that NSBW's final mark on the world of combat sports was one of their guys being fed to Shooto's most famous fighter in his debut. It's the most appropriate way for that story to end.

    You tend to find mixed feelings from NSBW guys regarding their former home. Referee Matsui, for example, looks at NSBW somewhat nostalgically as the company where he made his debut. Certainly, the one thing you can give the promotion credit for is that it debuted some awesome wrestlers, ranging from SAW's Shingo Shigeta and Fumio Akiyama, to Oriental Pro trainee Masahiko Kochi, to the former boxer Hiroshi Osumi, later known as FMW's Shinjuku Same.

    However, the majority of interviews I've found from former NSBW wrestlers make me think they'd rather not remember those days. As said by Keisuke Yamada, "it was a complete waste of a year. I gained a lot before then in Oriental Pro, and I gained a lot after in IWA Japan. I gained nothing in NSBW."

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.

Spitball Reviews #5

        (Written by jom)

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

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

Match Rating: B-

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

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

Match Rating: B-

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

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

Match Rating: B+

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

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

Match Rating: B

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

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

Match Rating: B-

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-