Monday Night RAW #5

     (Written by Jom)

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to MONDAY... NIGHT... RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH

       So, I know this is like two weeks late, but I have a great explanation for this. You see, 

Destroy Misaka vs. Reversal Sawa

    These two both gave me good impressions last time I saw them, so just based on the names I was very interested. Misaka is dressed the same as he was last time, very nice black clothes with a sleeveless button-up, but Sawa this time has no shirt and is wearing mma gloves. Sawa, just like last time, is a pretty solid shooter-type technical guy, putting on some really clean submissions and just being very slick with all of his takedowns. Misaka, also like last time, is just an absolute little mark, hitting a bunch of American-style moves and WWE finishers like the scissors kick and stunner, while also yelling "DESTROYY" before most of them. Both guys even continue their heel ways that we had seen in their previous matches on the series, as after the first exchange they both go for a handshake, before then both trying to cheap shot the other. I love it when two little shits fight each other and find camaraderie in their absolute asshole behavior. Sawa makes use of those gloves multiple times throughout the match, throwing potatoes like a mad man which Misaka responds to with some actually pretty good Funk-style punches. Now, I'm not really sure if it was the punches, the shenanigans, or the general wrestling that caused this, but for the entire match the crowd of fellow wrestlers was just so fucking into everything. They usually are, but this time it felt like they were having the time of their lives, and it made the contest that much better. Besides all that I can't really say much happens, but god damn was it so much fun. Misaka wins with a very nice neckbreaker (which he yells "DESTROYYY" before doing because of course he does), and after calls out someone on the mic. Turns out this person is literally across the room so he gets up and they start hate brawling, and after they get seperated another dude just runs over and jumping kicks Misaka, which I fucking died laughing at. Misaka finally gets on the mic one more time after this and tells people to go see him at fellow kusa promotion NKW along with Mr. Money (someone I hope to talk about here very soon), before throwing the mic down which causes it to have a seizure and bust everyone's ears. Misaka gets booed out of the building for this. This was such a strange match, as if this crowd wasn't there it would've been just another mid-level amateur match. However, the fact everyone watching was so fucking ecstatic to be there made this so much more enjoyable.

Rating: DESTROYYY

Norio Rikimaru vs. Kaijin Yanmani

    KAIJIN TIMEEEEEEE. You know it's about to be a good match when our favorite backpack-full-of-weapons black morph suit gawd walks out. Rikimaru looks like an actual indy worker, he's a pretty big dude who comes out in a robe and is wearing a black sleeveless shirt and shiny black and red pants with "MR ARROGANCE" on the back. Rikimaru is way stronger than Yanmani, pretty much manhandling him throughout the match while Yanmani finds advantages using his technical prowess and his backpack full of trusty whatever-the-fucks. These random items range from a bag full of candy, to a flyswatter, to even his trusty PSP, which he of course uses for his signature PSP chops. Rikimaru is able to dominate on Yanmani with nice moves like a back suplex, an Oklahoma stampede across the building (I guess RAW boys love this spot which, to be fair, I do too), and even a nice blue thunder bomb. Honestly however, he doesn't do a lot for me, as a lot of his offense feels pretty "do your moves"-ish. What I mean is that a lot of the time, no matter how the match is flowing, Rikimaru will always just hit a couple strikes, do a power move, and then one grounded attack before going for a cover. I'm not sure how many times he did this, but it was enough to be noticeable to me and just felt a little lazy. Yanmani isn't one to be lazy however, and is always there to interrupt his control segments with some very good weapons-based offense or genuinely good wrestling moves like a snap suplex. The match ends when Rikimaru hits Yanmani over the head with an XBOX (OW), before putting Yanmani in a submission. Yanmani crawls over, grabs what I assume was the XBOX (the camera didn't follow it close enough), and hits Rikimaru over the head as a receipt before hitting a piledriver onto the game consoles and finally connecting with a spinning backfist hold what seemed to be a controller for the three count. I think this is definitely the least good Yanmani match yet, but considering how much I've loved the last couple I've seen, this still ends up being a pretty fun match.

Rating: for the Yanmani completionist (which should be everyone)

Karasuno Sho vs. Yujiro Yamamoto

    No, I'm not joking and it's not just a case of someone having the same name. The ace of RAW is here and he's taking on one of Yuki Ishikawa's last Battlarts boys and the owner of BAP, Yujiro fucking Yamamoto. RAW's had some very strange and awesome guests, particularly indy shooters (who we will one day get to), and seeing any Yamamoto match from recent times is always a treat. Yamamoto even comes out with only kickpads, following the RAW code of conduct. No shoes, no shooting motherfucker. Both guys are very snug in all the grappling done, which makes sense considering how good they are at shoot-style working. A lot of the mat work is really smart too, both guys are great at going for holds while also trying to stop the other person from putting holds in themselves. Sho is definitely not here to make friends, using eye gouging and Yamamoto's repeated attempts to show respect to take advantage. Yamamoto, meanwhile, slowly comes to realize that not only will Sho not be respectful, but also that he should be disrespectful in response, going into segments of the match where he just pulverizes Sho with some mean bullying stomps and limb-bending. They do a couple great strike exhanges, mostly doing forearms but also throwing some loud chest kicks. Sho is really good at adding character behind a lot of what he does, hitting some really creative variations of classic maneuvers, such as a basic ankle slam being turned mid-air into an elbow drop to Yamamoto's leg. The ending segment of the match is also awesome, Sho and Yamamoto go into one more sweet forearm exchange that ends in Yamamoto pretty much disregarding Sho entirely and trying to talk to the crowd. Sho doesn't take kindly to this, and connects with a gross as hell cartwheel kick, a suplex gutbuster à la YAMATO, and a great curb stomp for a nearfall. He then hits the uranage side slam he'd been looking for the entire match, once again getting a nearfall. He backs up and goes for some type of cartwheel move, but Yamamoto rushes him and puts in a sleeper, before both men hit roundhouse kicks to the head. Yamamoto somehow stays standing, and takes advantage of Sho being on one knee by connecting with a sweet running knee for one more nearfall. Yamamoto immediately grabs him and rolls through into a double arm lock, which finally gets him the submission victory. Both guys went out there to deliver an intense battle and they absolutely did, pulling out all the stops to beat the other person. If you want to see a stiff, no ring war, this is exactly the match you'll wanna watch.

Rating: violence is king, forever and always

Monday Night RAW #4

    (Written by Jom)

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to MONDAY... NIGHT... RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH

       Look at this, a Monday night RAW post that's actually going up on a Monday night! Whether or not "Monday night" ends in 5 minutes is besides the point. This is what daylight savings does I guess.

Prince Ishii/Akira Hirata vs. Tomoya/Tomohiro Otani

    Misawa's theme comes on as the video starts, and the second I heard it I realized who was in this and got so fucking excited. I've seen pics and clips of the infamous Misawa cosplay kusa wrestler before, but this would be my first match of his to watch. Turns out that Misawa cosplay wrestler is Prince Ishii, joined by Akira Hirata, a Taue cosplay wrestler. Their opponents Tomoya and Tomohiro Otani are decidely less King's Road, but both look like the average sleaze puro wrestler, so I guess that's fine too. The match starts with some pretty basic chain wrestling, but it was well done so no harm no foul. I personally watch kusa for the stupid shit (in terms of both quality and safety), but seeing these untrained guys prove they aren't just here to drop each other on their heads is always nice to see. Ishii starts working on Otani hard, even doing those weird jumping chest kicks Misawa used to do, and doing them very well at that. Tomoya comes in and does the similar hard work to Ishii, including a body scissors stretch plum, a move that is just so fucking cool and needs to be stolen by Daniel Makabe or Lee Moriarty or someone else of that ilk. Eventually Ishii gets control and tags in Hirata to do the backdrop/Nodowa Otoshi combo that Holy Demon used to do, spiking Tomoya right on the neck with it. Ishii throws some really clean forearms (it would be really bad if he didn't) but honestly? Tomoya's were better. He throws elbows very similarly to how Manjimaru throws them, putting his whole body behind them and kind of pushing his elbow past Ishii’s face every time he throws one. Tomoya is finally able to get the hot tag to Otani after hitting a great enzuigiri, and Otani immediately picks up Ishii for a lightning fast UFO! He attacks Hirata before coming in like a bullet train with a nasty Goldberg-like spear to Ishii. At this point, I realize "oh my god, I might've found a new kusa guy to add to my favorites". Otani follows all that up with a nasty release German suplex, but Ishii just gets right back up and runs as fast as he can to hit Otani with an elbow to the side of the head, before tagging in Hirata so he can Nodowa Otoshi Otani to hell. Hirata then picks him up, grabs his wrist, puts him in a waist clutch, and as god as my witness, Hirata does a rainmaker Nodowa Otoshi. Otani changes that "might've" into a "definitely" by HEADBUTTING HIRATA LIKE DEATH, before hitting an uranage backbreaker and throwing him over to Tomoya for an unprettier. However, even that gets a two count on Hirata, so Tomoya finally hits a huricanrana for the win. This was honestly so much fun, watching two random dudes attempt to pull out all the King’s Road classics and actually being kinda successful at it was really cool. Tomoya was perfectly fine with a couple good moments and holy shit I need to see more of Tomohiro Otani, he's like the perfect kusa wrestler for me. Another good chapter in the King's Road saga, GET ON IT JOSEPH.

Rating: 90s All Japan could never be this good.

Reversal Sawa vs. Gotaro Ushiku

    Reversal Sawa dresses like every American deathmatch worker, wearing camo cargo pants, a sleeveless shirt, and tape going from his fingers up to his entire forearm. Gotaro Ushiku is wearing a purple singlet with some trippy design on it, so basically he looks like Sawa's polar opposite. Ushiku also looks to be six inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier, so this'll be a total David vs. Goliath match. Sawa is actually really competent technically, working a really deliberate style and targeting Ushiku's arm very well. Ushiku, while also fine in the chain wrestling aspect, usually just shuts them down instead with his strength alone, pushing Sawa all around the square and slamming him face first out of a lock-up. Ushiku, even with his hurt arm, is able to bust out some big power moves like a super atomic drop and his running splash looks like death itself (Sawa even sold this by sounding like he was about to throw up his whole organ system). Ushiku eventually signals for a running clothesline by doing a single giant stomp and stretching his clothesline arm. I can't say enough how cool that stomp was, he slammed his foot down so hard that the hardcam shook, and hardcam was literally on the other side of the room. Sawa dodges the clothesline however, causing Ushiku to run into the ref, and it turns out that Sawa is a hardcore guy. He somehow has the time to use a plastic lid, a steel chair (which he pillmanizes Ushiku's arm with), AND A KENDO STICK, before he has to get the ref up himself. I've never seen a wrestler bump a ref and then have the time to use three different weapons, and honestly it was just pretty funny. Sawa runs at Ushiku and jumps, but Ushiku catches him and hits this really cool bossman slam style backbreaker. Ushiku tries to pick Sawa up after this but Sawa locks in a surprise triangle choke, which Ushiku deadlifts him out of but Sawa reverses again, putting in an armlock. Ushiku is able to somehow escape this and hit another backbreaker, then one final backbreaker, before finishing Sawa off with a deadlift into a full nelson slam. This was a fine match, at no point did I think this was great (or even particularly good) but both guys showed a lot of cool stuff off.

Rating: Nothing mind-blowing but maybe world record for the most ref bump weapon pulls?

YAMATO vs. The Bosconian (part two)

    Last Monday, I expressed so much love for both of these guys, and I'm fairly certain I said I wanted to see more of both. Well, I guess I got my wish. Also, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but to get these matches I literally just pull up my RAW matches playlist and hit shuffle play, and I really did end up getting this match randomly (albeit before the Sawa/Ushiku match, but this HAD to be the last match reviewed). YAMATO has no shoes on this time around, so I feel okay with cheering him. Both guys are genuinely great at chain wrestling, which is still so insane to me when you look at Bosconian. Bosconian eventually takes control with what seems to be a prison lock, before YAMATO just slaps him as hard as he can in the jaw, knocking down Bosconian. YAMATO then puts in his own prison lock, but while in it just starts going insane with the slapping all over Bosconian's body. YAMATO pulls down Bosconian's jumpsuit AND SHIRT and throws a chest chop that sounds like a gunshot. YAMATO then walks away for a second and, I shit you not, grabs a PSP. Why? Well to give to Bosconian of course, as he wants to do a chest chop battle but also want to make it fair. The best part is that even with Bosconian slamming a PSP against YAMATO's chest, it is pretty even with it taking a couple for YAMATO to lose. Bosconian then grabs YAMATO by the head and points at the... exit door. He walks over and I'm thinking "oh no fucking way". Door opens, blinding light comes out, and there they fucking go. The camera is taken off the tripod it was on and they start running over to the door, and it jumpcuts to THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING STREET. YAMATO AND BOSCONIAN ARE NOW BRAWLING ALL AROUND THIS JAPANESE TOWN, TAKING US AND THE ENTIRE AUDIENCE ON A TOUR. Eventually, they get to one door and just go inside, and the ref stands in front of the alley to keep the fans from getting past him and to said door. Bosconian and YAMATO start fighting in this room that nobody can see, so the audience is just so confused and laughing their ass off and the distant yelling. Finally, both guys walk out and YAMATO HAS PANTS ON NOW FOR SOME REASON. They then go back to walking around the streets, randomly switching between who is holding a headlock and who is being held in one. This should be so fucking boring, but I just can't take my eyes off of it. YAMATO and Bosconian get close to a park and YAMATO spots a bike, which he then climbs onto and starts riding WHILE STILL HOLDING BOSCONIAN IN A HEADLOCK. AND THEN, HE THROWS BOSCONIAN DOWN AND JUST THROWS THE BIKE AT HIM. YAMATO puts Bosconian up against a tree and sees someone putting up the bike, to which he starts yelling at them and takes it back, trying to ram Bosconian once again. Bosconian dodges however, and then just starts stomping away at the bike for the crimes it committed. There's another jump cut soon after and now we are back at the main building, with both YAMATO and Bosconian starting to come back in. They disappear and the ref starts to count them out (I have no clue why he didn't before but I'm not complaining), and then I hear the sound of yelling and running water. Based on all of this info, I believe Bosconian and/or YAMATO were in the bathroom, and they were now rushing to get back before getting counted out (YAMATO is no longer wearing what I assume were his literal street fight pants, which based on the noise he may have flushed down the toilet). YAMATO puts Bosconian close to the wall. And sets up a chair. AND BACKS UP. AND OH MY GOD, HE DOES THE WALL RUN ATTACK AGAIN, BUT THIS TIME A KNEE DROP. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW HAPPY I AM TO KNOW THAT'S A REGULAR MOVE FOR HIM. He does ANOTHER one just for good measure too, absolutely destroying Bosconian's ribs. Bosconian is able to take advantage with a running neckbreaker that YAMATO sold on his head because of course he did, and also hits a great butterfly suplex and a disgusting lariat to the face. YAMATO dodges the second lariat attempt, and after a little more back and forth, hits a gross enzuigiri, his suplex gutbuster, and the figure four pin, but Bosconian kicks out. YAMATO then dropkicks Bosconian's leg and puts in an actual figure four, before GETTING INTO A FIGURE EIGHT HOLY FUCK. THIS IS 2007. Bosconian taps, and just to cap it all off, later gets up and does his "my shoulders weren't down for 3" thing with the ref. I loved this. You will love this. Holy shit. I'm happy now and I will be forever, and I hope you watch this so we can be forever happy together.

Rating: Required viewing for every person ever.

Monday Night RAW #3

   (Written by Jom)

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to MONDAY... NIGHT... RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH

       I know that at this point it's Tuesday, don't you dare say a word. Also, this'll only be two matches because my time management is absolutely shit and I need to sleep so I don't miss class. You live and you learn (YOU CRASH AND YOU BURN).

Kyūdō ☆ DK vs. The Bosconian

    DK looks like what I assume is every generic Kusa wrestler, coming out with a t-shirt and venum mma shorts. His opponent is announced as "X", and out walks The Bosconian. I cannot describe the feelings I felt upon first viewing of this man. Baby blue jumpsuit. Atlantis mask. Snazzy 80s jazz. Immediately kicked the "ropes", breaking them and forcing the nearby guys to rush to fix it. I'm not sure if I feel intense love or intense hatred for him, but my feelings are definitely intense. Honestly, my feelings are more intense than the match was, for all three minutes of it. The starting grappling is pretty solid with fucking Bosconian being actually really good, before strikes start going out. DK wins with his chest chops after pulling down the jumpsuit and slapping the t-shirt underneath with the might of Zeus. DK then said "fuck it" I guess cause he did a terrible leg drop that missed entirely, landing ass first on Bosconian's nose which probably hurt like a motherfucker. DK does a kinda shitty three amigos and then a pretty good running knee, but then tries to pin Bosc (my new nickname for him) while Bosc is pretty much laying on top of the ropes. DK then decides to put in a pretty cool straight jacket crossface, but of course once again Bosc's leg is laying over the ropes. The ref goes to stop the hold but Bosc actually moves his leg outta the ropes, which immediately made me think "wait is this the finish?". I was actually right here, which made the fact the rope break didn't happen even more shitty. This was so notable even the announcer got in on it, mentioning that DK won while a rope break was happening. DK seems like he genuinely doesn't care about this too, almost confused as to why people wanted to mention that. When the announcer asked how he felt about winning that way, DK said "Judo Clutch" and then bumrushed Bosc, resulting in a small brawl between him and a couple other wrestlers nearby, where fucking SG Wonder randomly did his German slam to someone else. Why? I don't know but it was really funny. Bosc walks out while complaining to the ref that he got his shoulder up before the three count, which honestly I thought was hilarious. This should've been terrible because DK is just not that great and Bosc did not give me high hopes. However, since this entire thing is only 8 minutes, it ended up being a nothing match combined with some genuinely funny shenanigans.

Rating: I just hope Bosc comes back.

YAMATO vs. Kaijin Yanmani (part two)

    OH YEAH BOYS, YANMANI IS BACK. This time he's wearing some mask along with the morph suit so I guess that in between this and the SG Wonder match he was unmasked. YAMATO looks like a genuine wrestler with a similar attire to most other juniors guys in 2007, although he doesn't seem to be the YAMATO from Dragon Gate, nor does he look like the YAMATO that works on the indies. This means that now I know of at least three different YAMATOs in the puro scene, so I guess that's a popular name. YAMATO is real slick with the grappling to start out, but Yanmani just shoves him and starts to choke him with something he grabbed off camera. It took me a good minute to realize holy shit, that's a Wii Nunchuk. Immediately after realizing that Yanmani whips out the actual Wii controller and just chucks it at YAMATO's chest which fucking hurt. After grabbing one more object and hitting YAMATO with it a couple times, YAMATO is able to grab it and throws it down before ELBOW DROPPING IT, AND YANMANI JUMPS ON TOP OF IT A LA KOBASHI TO MISAWA FROM 09/06/95. YAMATO GRABS IT FROM UNDER HIM AND THROWS IT AWAY, AND YANMANI STARTS FUCKING STIFFING HIM. I'm sorry for the overuse of caps lock there, but holy hell that was so fucking fun. They trades some slaps before YAMATO hits a genuinely great suplex, and follows that up with some nice leg targeting. YAMATO pulls off Yanmani's mask but Yanmani has another one under it, so he just puts the removed mask on YAMATO and hits a reverse jawbreaker which looked nasty. He then hits YAMATO with a reverse DDT, and holy shit YAMATO sold it so great. YAMATO is able to get the advantage back and puts Yanmani on his shoulder, and then starts yelling across the room for people to move. He runs ACROSS THE ROOM to do an Oklahoma stampede into the wall. Yanmani is able to reverse a second one to push YAMATO into the wall, then grabs a chair and sets it up, then puts YAMATO in the chair, and then finally runs at him and lariats him out of his shoe-MOTHERFUCKER YAMATO IS WEARING SHOES, WE'VE BEEN OVER THIS. YAMATO, that shoe-wearing freak, kicks out at 2, so Yanmani sets everything back up to do it again. This time however, YAMATO jumps up onto the chair from the seated position and does a front dropkick to Yanmani as he runs towards him. This is very close to the start of the 2nd part of this match, so go watch this even if you don't wanna watch the match, it was genuinely awesome. YAMATO picks up Yanmani and takes him over to a table, putting him on it and throwing him off with a deadly drive for a two. YAMATO goes back to leg targeting but this time uses the chair, culminating in a figure four with the chair wrapped around their legs. Yanmani eventually escapes from it and, upon seeing the chair laying on YAMATO's face, simply stomps it really hard. Absolutely nasty. Yanmani goes back to his backpack of stuff, pulling out what I think are trading cards before hitting a huge thunder fire powerbomb onto them. YAMATO kicks out of the pinfall after that, so Yanmani picks him up and hits a SPIRAL STYLES CLASH? I've never seen that before, and honestly? I kinda dig it. YAMATO is able to take back control and hits this great combination attack, grabbing Yanmani in a waistlock and slamming him face first into the cards before deadlifting him into a beauty of a German suplex for a close 2. YAMATO then decides he really just needs to be my new favorite Kusa wrestling guy, so he pulls Yanmani close to one of the walls and sets up a chair next to him. He then backs up, runs and jumps off the chair Sabu style, RUNS AND JUMPS OFF THE WALL, AND HITS A TENRYU ELBOW TO YANMANI. YAMATO isn't done though, he immediately picks up Yanmani and hits this awesome suplex gutbuster and locks in a reverse figure four before rolling over and doing a back bridge for a surprise roll-up, but Yanmani is able to escape the pin by raking YAMATO's eyes from under him. Yanmani takes YAMATO over to that table YAMATO used before, hitting a suplex off of it for a two count. Yanmani, the inventive bastard, realizes no simple pin will defeat YAMATO, so he sets up the chair one last time, before putting YAMATO's body under it in a way that still lets Yanmani grab and hook his legs while sitting in the chair, an absolutely awesome pinning combo that gets him the victory. This match was just fucking awesome man. It was hectic, it was inventive, it felt not only like a great 00s puro match but it also felt like it exemplified what makes Kusa wrestling so cool. The Tenryu elbow with the Sabu chair jump was one of the coolest things I've seen in wrestling in a little bit. If I was going by my usual grading set-up, this would be an A-, a grade I never thought I'd give a Kusa match. However, my rating below really tells you how I feel about it.

Rating: Holy shit this match. Please just watch it. I beg you.

Monday Night RAW #2

   (Written by Jom)

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to MONDAY... NIGHT... RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH

       I slept in after crashing hard from working for 12 hours on a film set, so this'll probably go live at at 11, just barely fitting the category of "Monday Night". Honestly, with a series like this, that kinda fits it. Let's get into the matches for this week.

Red Alert Nakano vs. Destroy Misaka

    Nakano comes out in red tights (fitting for his name) and a t-shirt, while Misaka comes out in a full black suit. This guy is rocking a sleeveless black button down and a white tie, so I'm already kind of a fan. Almost immediately, Nakano comes in out of nowhere with a slingblade, and we're off to the races. The match is pretty intense the whole way through, with a big highlight being a strike exchange between Nakano's chops and Misaka's gu punches. Nakano is very much an indy style wrestler, while Misaka fits RAW perfectly with weird cheating moves like putting a black tube sock on Nakano's head to blind him. Misaka is actually able to get the upper hand towards the end, first hitting a fine spinning heel kick, then a pretty great axe kick, and finally finishing Nakano off with a good neckbreaker. This was fine, if unnotable and unmemorable, but I'll at least remember sleeveless button down Misaka.

Rating: don't cancel any visits to grandma for this match.

Ryusei Kawabata vs. Karasuno Sho

    Both men are kickpad'd up in this match, and Karasuno is notable for our series as he's pretty much the ace of modern day RAW. This match starts out with some actually really great chain wrestling, with Karasuno at one point stepping on Kawabata's foot while holding him in a wrist lock, making it much harder for Kawabata to reverse. Kawabata isn't a slouch in the wrestling aspect either, eventually being able to hit a chop block on Karasuno and doing some really good leg targeting. Karasuno isn't just great at wrestling, he also throws some great shoot kicks to Kawabata's chest and back. Once again though, Kawabata is almost his equal there, doing a genuinely great yakuza kick. Karasuno eventually is able to take full control with a god damn rock bottom, one that was done extremely well might I add. He holds the advantage for a while with good kicks and knees before Kawabata is once again able to take back control with the leg targeting, putting in a great sharpshooter and transitioning it into an STF. Kawabata at one point goes for a yakuza, but upon seeing Karasuno raise his arms up to defend, stops himself and does a great low kick instead, but pushes his luck too far by backing up and going for a shining yakuza, allowing Karasuno to counter into his own STF. This leads to the end of the match, as Karasuno is able to connect with an absolutely vicious enzuigiri, before following up with his big curb stomp for the... 2.9??? Karasuno is NOT a fan of Kawabata kicking out of this, and immediately does that foot lift Aleister Black does into another, more vicious one, finally getting the win. This is the type of match that if it happened in a regular puro promotion, it would be talked about on twitter for a good little bit. However, the fact it happens in the ringless RAW really makes it even better for me, and I can't wait to see more work from both men.

Rating: well, maybe grandma can wait after all.

Kaijin Yanmani vs. SG Wonder

    Another week, another SG Wonder main event. I swear to god I have this playlist on shuffle play and I'm just doing the first 3 matches that come up. Yanmani comes out in black pants and a black morph suit, while Wonder comes out once again in his shiny black pant and black long sleeve with white shirt on top, so this really does look like what RAW is all about. After some talking between the two men, the match begins, and honestly I have no clue what the rules are. I say this because almost immediately after the bell rings, Wonder says something, the announcers play a sound effect, announce Wonder as "out", and then some dude in giant black jacket and a CUTE CAT MASK comes out with a BASEBALL BAT, HITS WONDER ON THE ASS, AND THEN JUST LEAVES. I have absolutely no idea what just happened, but I'll just try to figure it out as the match goes on. They go to lock up and as they do Wonder says something again, which causes the sound effect to play. You can just see the terror on Wonder's face as he knows what's coming next. What he couldn't have known was that cat dude didn't come out with a baseball bat, but instead two giant silver block things, and just smashed Wonder from both sides with them. I guess the rule is "if you speak, the cat man cometh", which is a ruleset that should be done a lot more in the wider wrestling world. Wonder, based on his match with SAGAT last week, is a giant shit talker, so you can tell he really wants to talk but can't. He finally gets some revenge on Yanmani by pulling his chest hair out, making him yell and causing the cat man to come for him. Cat man comes out with a FUCKING BARBED WIRE BAT, and goes to hit a home run swing on Yanmani's head before turning it into a light bonk on the forehead with the back end of it. Yanmani says "ow" upon being hit, causing another sound effect play and the cat man to walk right back with the intention to hit him with the chest with the bat. Wonder finally takes this moment to shit talk. Poor Wonder, the fool doesn't realize that just because Yanmani is about to be hit doesn't mean he's free to talk. Cue one more sound effect play, and the cat man turns to Wonder, hitting him in the ass with the bat. This finally causes the cat man to leave, and they go back to their silent library wrestling match. There's a nice chop exchange which ends with Wonder hitting his great german suplex into a slam move. He tries to tell the ref something with pantomime, but the ref has literally no clue what he's trying to say. Wonder goes to the announcers and asks for a time-out. Sound effect plays, and Wonder looks like he's already dead inside. Cat man comes with a frog hand puppet, and chokes Wonder out with it mandible claw style. Yanmani seems to not have learned from Wonder's mistake and says something. Cat man actually leaves though, only to come back with a FUCKING MACE. He swings it at Yanmani and the fucking spiked ball breaks off and flies away, almost hitting an announcer in the face. This moment seems to signal the end of this portion of the match, as both men agree to finally just do a normal wrestling match. This normal match is actually pretty okay, with Wonder being obviously the better man in every way. Yanmani seems to realize this and just starts talking with Wonder. Based on the crowd's reaction, if I spoke Japanese I probably would've found this hilarious. Both men start throwing slaps and seemingly cursing each other out, and Wonder shoves the ref away while almost crying. And then, music starts playing. Ladies and gentlemen, THIS IS NOW A MUSICAL. BOTH MEN ARE DANCING THEIR HEARTS OUT. THEY GO ARM IN ARM, AND THEIR BOND IS HEALED ONCE MORE. THEY TURN AROUND AND PRANCE AWAY INTO THE SUNSET. THE BELL RINGS, THIS MATCH IS A DOUBLE COUNTOUT AND THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP IS THE WINNER. THIS IS PRO WRESTLING.

Rating: I thought the terrifying cat man would be the craziest part of this match. I was wrong. I love SG Wonder. I love RAW. I love pro wrestling. 

Monday Night RAW #1

  (Written by Jom)

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to MONDAY... NIGHT... RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH

       ...This is probably not the RAW you were thinking of when I said that, but you couldn't pay me $100 to watch a full episode of the big Dub. Radical Athletic Wrestling is a "Kusa" (grass/sandlot, aka backyard) pro wrestling promotion in Japan that's been around for about 15 years. The roster is almost entirely made up of guys who were never trained, which actually works in the favor of the promotion. You can tell everyone in it is only doing this because they love puroresu and want to somewhat live out a dream of actually doing it. Almost all matches happen on the same giant gym mat, and while there are definitely the types of wrestlers you would expect for such a promotion, a majority of the roster actually don't give off the generic yarder vibe, as all of them are pretty solid with most matches being a weirdly cool mixture of battlarts/zero1 style wrestling. I love backyard promotions due to them entirely being passion projects, so I knew that if I had to spend every Monday night watching wrestling called RAW, it would be this. I have a playlist of seemingly every RAW match on youtube, and I'll be reviewing 3 RAW matches every Monday from now until I've gotten all of them. Also, since the promotion's whole thing is about having fun, I'm just gonna wing these reviews and write whatever I think works. Without further ado, let's begin.

Macho-Michaels vs. Ariake Shogo

    Shogo comes out and from the start I'm a fan. He walks out with his own stool to sit on, and his theme is so good that it's about to make me go on a Sheena Ringo binge just to see if all their songs are like this. Macho-Michaels (who I will refer to as Macho) is a Shawn Michaels' ripoff while Shogo is a shooter who could care less to be here, a gimmick I always love. I should mention neither of them are wearing shoes, which is pretty much customary in RAW. Shogo starts the match by hitting a nasty rolling solebutt. 15 seconds into the match and I'm already a bigger fan. Macho responds with a kinda bad flippy chain escape and a stiff dropkick, but then pulls out the WTCHAAAA pose like X-Pac. I think he might just be a big fan of the clique. My suspicions are confirmed when he pulls out the Indian deathlock, doing Michaels poses every time he falls backwards. He tries to turn this into a Muta lock at one point but Shogo simply grabs Macho's neck first. After some more grappling, Shogo starts unloading these wicked uppercut elbows, you can hear the arm to chin connection every time he throws one. At the same time he uses some overhand punches that... well, let's just say I wanna see him do a lot more upper elbows. He gets the advantage and puts in a COBRA CLUTCH MANJIGATAME? I've never seen this move before, and why the fuck haven't I, it's so cool. From this point on there's a couple very noticeable miscommunications between Shogo and Macho, mostly when Shogo has beaten on Macho a little and he obviously wants Macho to start fighting for a comeback, but Macho just kinda stands there not doing anything. It doesn't kill the flow, but it certainly hurts it. Speaking of hurt, Macho nearly kills Shogo with a body slam, letting go of him way too early and almost spiking my new fave shooter right on the top of his head. He makes up for this terrible mistake with some okay kick combos, before tuning up the band. I think to myself "well, he can't be that bad at the sweet chin music, so let's hope for the best". Turns out I had nothing to worry about, as he simply instead hit the NASTIEST FUCKING THRUST KICK IVE EVER SEEN. STRAIGHT TO THE NECK JESUS CHRIST. Because Macho has no clue what he's best at and is also somehow confused about who he's trying to imitate, he then does a running frog splash where he lands on his feet nearly a full second before falling onto Shogo. I got so scared Shogo wouldn't kick out but he did, and I guess at that point Shogo was sick of Macho's shit since he shoot punched him in the jaw and knee'd him like he was trying to kill him, getting Shogo the win. This honestly didn't do a great job as a match, but as an introduction to Shogo I'm very glad I watched this.

Rating: Shogo was great, and Macho should be directed to the nearest exit

Ashita Maeda vs. Yuuki-Robert Kawaguchi

    Maeda is, as you probably could've guessed, a total Akira Maeda cosplay wrestler, coming out to an alternate version of "Captured" and wearing a RINGS shirt along with the traditional Maeda black trunks and kickpads, also wearing black boots to complete the look while also going against the RAW rules of no shoes, meaning that he's even a rule-breaker just like his idol. Kawaguchi on the other hand comes out in full black gi with the nWo logo on the back. Why? How the fuck should I know. This is under what I assume are RINGS or UWFi rules, as there's a scoring system based on each time a person gets knocked down or has to use the ropes (and by ropes I mean a tape square used to signify the ropes). To show these points, the announcer's table has two notebook paper sheets behind it, and every time someone loses a point they tape a new paper with their current point count on top. I'm not sure why I enjoy this so much (probably because I'd wanna do the same thing if I was in a backyard fed doing shoot matches), but I certainly do. The grappling in this is definitely amateur, but at the same time that helps the struggle feel real, as this is just two dudes genuinely trying to put each other in holds they probably are thinking of on the fly. Maeda throws some nasty kicks which let out a gross sound when they connect, and I can't tell if that's because the room is so small or he's just throwing them that hard. Either way, this match is just Maeda kicks and both men doing snug grappling for less than 10 minutes until Maeda gets Kawaguchi in a pretty sick arm-trap neck crank for the victory. This wasn't great, but for two guys who weren't trained, it was still a pretty fun match, one that was actually aided by how low budget everything was. Low budget Maeda, low budget judoka, low budget RINGS system, this was simply some low budget fun.

Rating: cosplay RINGS is still RINGS baby

SAGAT vs. SG Wonder

    For anyone wondering, yes, this is that SAGAT, the BASARA dude. Turns out not only was he originally a yarder, but he was apparently considered the best yarder in Japan in 2011. No clue when this is happening, but hopefully it's around that year. This whole match felt like a weird fever dream honestly. Both dudes just drop all the normal parts of a wrestling match at multiple points, and it honestly is so cool. It starts out weird enough with Wonder doing some singing before SAGAT throws a NASTY spear out of frustration. Wonder, after getting up from the spear, then starts singing again, which makes SAGAT just kinda not care anymore and try to wait it out. Wonder takes advantage of this by getting SAGAT to get on his knees and then IMMEDIATELY GO FOR A GEDO CLUTCH. Both men trade chops before going into a Wonder limb targeting sequence, which actually works because Wonder is surprisingly good at it. What else is surprising? Oh, when SAGAT gets up and Wonder does a mean headlock takeover into a fucking superkick straight to SAGAT's face. SAGAT gets up pissed off and the two men are now throwing shoulder tackles like they wanna turn the other into roadkill. At this point it becomes less of a wrestling match and more of a turn-based battle, as each one waits for the other to hit a move, taking a normal strike exchange and turning it into a fucking bloodbath with the escalation of the strikes. Sadly, it wasn't a literal bloodbath, but I'm amazed it never got to that point since some of those strikes were totally full force. Wonder finally wins with an out of nowhere slap to the face, followed up by a rolling solebutt, before running back for his nasty lariat but slipping, allowing SAGAT to bowl into him with another shoulder tackle almost to Wonder's face. SAGAT follows it up by diving off the announcer's table for an elbow, but Wonder just gets up again, hitting a nasty german suplex into a side slam, then another shoot kick to the chest, then a running leaping superkick, AND FINALLY A POUNCE. SAGAT GETS BACK UP AGAIN AND NOW THEY ARE THROWING STIFF SLAPS. WONDER RESPONDS WITH SHOOT PUNCH AND I CANNOT TELL IF THIS IS PLANNED OR NOT. Somehow SAGAT gets control again finally and hits another shoulder tackle to the face this time, before following it up with a rear one straight to Wonder's neck. Wonder... KICKS OUT??? SAGAT IS FUCKIN PISSED, ROUNDHOUSE KICK, SPEAR, ANOTHER FUCKING KICKOUT, AND FINALLY ONE MORE SPEAR FROM SAGAT GETS THE WIN. I don't even know how to rate this because sometimes it was boring and sometimes it was so violent I couldn't take my eyes away from the screen. Those first 5 minutes of Wonder playing around and singing did not prepare me at all for what followed, but I probably won't forget this match for a little bit.

Rating: what the fuck, holy fuck, all the fucks