Goto Ippa 09/30/2007

               (Written by jom)

     We return to Asakusa Indies Arena Fight Club. We return to Tarzan Goto's izakaya. We return to another great day of Goto Ippa action. I usually try to space out these show reviews to have a little bit of variety, as that is the spice of life. However, I've just been in a Tarzan Goto mood (coinciding with my IWE mood), and I've actually still never seen this show, even though I bought it almost a year ago. I kind of do that a lot. For the purpose of working on my bad habits as well as consuming more Tarzan Goto goodness, we are breaking unwritten rules and checking out another Goto Ippa show only a week after the last Ippa review. A lot of the same faces are back, and we've got a couple new ones to check out this time around. Plus, a massive money main event. What's not to love? So kick back, relax, enjoy some Tarzan Goto pizza (which did exist), and let's jump right in.

Shimizu No Gohaku vs. Lee Gak Who

      Lee Gak Who is probably most well known for that time Keita Yano shot on him and made him cry on an EXIT show. He's generally an awful worker with a propensity for taking liberties and no-selling, so much so that the aforementioned Keita incident isn't the only shoot I've seen him involved in. Considering all that, you've gotta imagine how shocking it is for me that I think the first portion of this match is genuinely great. Shimizu and Who hit the mat and don't leave it for about three minutes, going back and forth with really interesting and scrappy holds. Who hunts for armbars and kneebars with a more shooty mindset, which goes perfectly with Shimizu's amateur positioning and propensity for sugar holds. It's easily the best grappling I've seen on a Goto Ippa show yet, and it filled me with more confidence in Lee Gak Who than ever before. Sadly, the two eventually stood up, and that's what reminded me that I am watching a Lee Gak Who match. Lee Gak Who is truly awful. Shimizu spends most of the match weathering the storm of his strange full-force elbows and bizarre hesitation. The issue is that Shimizu never tries to get any payback on Who, nor does he ever even push the pace. He seems entirely content with letting Lee Gak Who dictate the match, which is an awful decision on his part. There are certainly cool or interesting moments in the match, mostly stemming from Lee Gak Who hitting nasty shots from weird angles, but nothing actually good for the match as a whole. A total mess, and one that didn't even have the balls to be a fun mess either. 

Wild Bear vs. Asuka Ichigeki

    For the second review in a row, I am here to tell you that Asuka Ichigeki's match is not good. I don't enjoy doing it! I fully believed in my last review that Mountain High was at fault for that match's failures, but two in a row is not a good look for Goto Ippa's resident karateka. Wild Bear is at least a more receptive worker and gives Ichigeki more to chew on, going for the usual strategy of out-grappling the striker early on before spending a lot of his time biting Ichigeki's hands and feet and crying in pain from Ichigeki's holds. Ichigeki once again delivers some very nice kicks (including a cool little handstand kick in the latter half of the match), but it's impossible to not notice that he is just not able to ramp the intensity up enough. The match moves at a snail's pace, never a good thing for a different style fight, and too much of it is the same formula of "Bear gets a hold in, Ichigeki punches and kicks his way out, Ichigeki puts his own hold on and Bear takes half a minute to get to the ropes". At least the match ends with a funny/awesome little bit of cheating and an actual walk-off finish that I've never seen in wrestling before. Otherwise, this is Goto Ippa going 0-2, which breaks my heart.

Magaki vs. Iori Sugawara

     Thank christ. This match is awesome. I am so happy that this match is awesome. It's also a very striking case of guys being leagues better than others, so much so that it's genuinely a little jarring. Magaki and Sugawara feel like they're just on a different level from everyone to come before them on this show. They're snappy, driven, and have a clear idea of what they're doing. Most of all, though, they seem professional. I'm not here to rag on any of the hobbyists in the J-indie scene. Hell, some of my favorites are the guys that clearly had things going on outside of the business. It just really reinvigorates the spirit to see a match like this after going through a Lee Gak Who match and an Asuka Ichigeki match. Love those two to death (well, love Ichigeki to death), but you can tell they spent a lot more time on their martial arts than their wrestling. Anyways, this match is a nice little treat of a midcard affair. Magaki and Sugawara have got themselves figured out character-wise, and both guys have really nice offense. Magaki's heel antics are very fun, and Sugawara is a mean ass pirate karate guy who throws hellish kicks. Lots of this is back-and-forth work but done more naturally than literally going back and forth. My favorite part of the match by far was the outside brawling, where the house lights came on and we finally got our first look at the izakaya part of Goto's izakaya. Pretty good izakaya Goto! But yeah, this match is very enjoyable and a needed refresher after the last two slogs. Not the kind of match that elicits much discourse, but most wrestling doesn't need an essay written about it. 

Ricky Fuji vs. Mountain High

     Speaking of professionals, hello Ricky Fuji! My thought process coming into this match was very simple: if there is anyone that could get a good match out of Mountain High, it would probably be Ricky Fuji. Fuji has always been a very giving and putty-like worker, easily able to mold himself to the situation and accentuate his opponent's strong points. Mountain High, more than anyone in Goto Ippa, truly needs a helping hand like that. And because of these two forces colliding, this match is... good? It's okay? It's something, but I don't think I would call it bad. Mountain High is truly incapable of doing anything besides throwing punches, which wouldn't be as much of a problem if he wasn't so prone to letting his opponent take over, thereby forcing himself to do things besides throw punches. His selling fluctuates between barely acceptable and outright nonexistent, and his brain just can't seem to comprehend the idea that the action should probably stay moving and not have odd breaks where people just stand around! Still, Ricky Fuji does his damndest here to make Mountain High out to be a monster, at one point even bumping and feeding for High's full-force punches to the face like a bumbling heel trapped in a Robert Gibson hot tag. I'm not sure if that says more about the strength of High's punches or the resilience of Fuji but I'll stick to thinking about the latter. If this match were to serve any purpose, it would possibly be a wonderful piece for a Ricky Fuji agenda, showing how even when facing the most incapable of opponents, Fuji still found a way to make them look good. Certainly not anything great or even particularly worthwhile as a whole, but if you're a Ricky Fuji fan then you'll probably appreciate the man's hard work.

Tarzan Goto & Chappie Kimura vs. Musashi Oyama & Tomonobu Matsumoto

    A stunning piece of work. Earlier this week, I talked about an amazing IWE tag where Umanosuke Ueda got to show every side of his character, from merciless fouler to crying coward. This match kind of serves the same purpose for Tarzan Goto. Goto rounds up two of his trainees and his most reliable veteran for a massive tag match, one that goes 30+ minutes and tells a fascinating story of Goto having his own methods used against him. The early portion of the match is mostly dominated by the younger guys, Kimura and Matsumoto, and they are AWESOME. Kimura is even slicker than he was on the last show, gliding around the mat with super compelling shoot style grappling and throwing nasty kicks all over the body. Matsumoto, meanwhile, gets a greater opportunity to show his stuff, bruising up Kimura with chest chops and pushing the pace as much as he can. Of course, the time eventually comes for Goto to turn back to old habits, and we get a condensed version of the beating Matsumoto got only a month earlier, with knives, forks, chairs, and whatever else Goto can get his hands on smashed into Matsumoto's head with reckless abandon. Kimura gets with the program too, throwing punches at the wound on Matsumoto's head and grinding his head against the ropes. It all seems to be going according to Goto's plans... until CUBAN ASSASSIN K shows up and destroys Goto's arm with a barbed wire kendo stick!!! After a bit of selling on the outside, Goto comes back up with an arm covered in blood, and suddenly, this match takes a total turn. Now Goto gets to be the injured man in peril, as Oyama and Matsumoto target the arm wound with a ferocity even greater than Goto's. Oyama uses all the veteran wiles he has to ground Goto and rip at his arm with the nastiest holds ever used in a dojo, and Matsumoto flies at Goto's arm like a cannonball. It leads to some of Goto's best work of the 2000s, if not THE best outright. Really, if you have any care at all for these guys and this kind of wrestling, contact Hasegawa and get yourself this match. I wouldn't be shocked if this was the best thing to ever come out of Goto Ippa, or at bare minimum the best of what we currently have on tape. Witness the passion of Tarzan Goto. You owe it to yourself.

Goto Ippa 08/26/2007

              (Written by jom)

     Somehow, this is the blog's first dip into any sort of Goto project. Considering how long I've been doing this (plus how many Goto feds have existed), it feels almost too absurd to be true, but it is. Goto Ippa is also the most ridiculous starting point, mostly because of how hard it has been to come by footage of the promotion. Thanks to developments over the last year or two, we've been able to get our hands on a handful of shows, and this is one of the most interesting thus far, featuring one of the few big time Goto singles matches of the time period. As an outright Tarzan Goto idolizer, it is my duty to report on all known activities of the big bastard to make sure the people are informed on any and all Tarzan Goto-related matters. So get yourself a bowl of chanko and strap in. Asakusa Indies Arena Fight Club awaits.

Black Bart vs. Chappie Kimura

      Aaaaah, Black Bart. Secretly one of my more difficult agendas from this era of indies is that Black Bart could've been one of the best juniors of the scene. Solely from the minuscule amount of footage we possess of his already short run, he comes off as one of the coolest and most capable juniors of his era. He comes out to a crazy ass remix of "Spinning Toe Hold" and throws the snappiest kicks ever, all while being entirely willing to throw caution to the wind for the sake of doing cool shit. Case in point, he starts this match with one of the riskiest suicide dives I've ever seen, nearly decapitating a fan on landing. The rest of this match actually stands out as being a little more controlled than the start, as Bart and Kimura work a pseudo-shoot style affair full of stiff kicks and slick matwork. Kimura, for his part, is a very interesting rookie, as he possesses a more noticeable roughness than usual but makes up for it with amazing offense. These guys spend the match going back and forth with head kicks and scary neck bumps, to the point that for all the weird pauses and slight miscommunications that occur, I really can't bring myself to care about that stuff. Too much of this match is off the chain for me to be primarily focused on the faults. Overall, it's a good match with flashes of something really special. It's a real tragedy that Black Bart's career ended in the way it did (too depressing and long-winded of a topic to get into here, so If You Know You Know), but damn did he give us some good work before he left the business. 

Shimizu No Gohaku vs. Wild Bear

    About halfway into watching this match, I began to mostly take notes on how well this would fit into an IWE card from 1981. Wild Bear puts on a bearhug? Very IWE of him. Shimizu goes for the running senton and misses? That would probably go over big in IWE. At some point Wild Bear even does the airplane spin into backflip combo which is just a flat-out IWE spot. Really though, pacing-wise and structure-wise, this was more akin to something Mighty Inoue would've put together in the early 80s compared to anything the other indie guys of the 2000s were doing. Shimizu and Wild Bear work a slow and methodical match based around working holds and throwing back clubs, and for the lack of excitement in half of the match, it all comes together as a pretty competent piece of work. I really enjoy Shimizu's big running sentons (which he does in the exact same way Mighty Inoue would do his flipping ones), and Wild Bear's slow descent from throwing nice headbutts and fistdrops into outright ball-targeting offense was fun to see. Also, unrelated to the ring work itself, but Wild Bear comes out to a theme song that sounds like something a NOAH main eventer would use, which is a very funny choice of music for a career Goto Ippa worker. This kind of match isn't going to blow anyone away, but as someone that really loves IWE and this genre of work, I had a good bit of fun with it.

Mountain High vs. Asuka Ichigeki

     I really wanted to love this match. Asuka Ichigeki is a karateka that comes out to crazy heavy metal. Mountain High is a masked boxer that comes out to what sounds like a ripoff of Atari Teenage Riot. My expectations could not have been higher; alas, this isn't very good. There are moments of worth for sure. Both guys hit very hard and Ichigeki especially pops off a bunch of combos. Mountain High's gut punching is nasty and his eventual face punching in the last part of the match is really brutal. However, Mountain High spends most of this match trying to do strike exchanges. He throws punches almost exclusively in response to Ichigeki kicks, at certain points just standing around and doing nothing while Ichigeki sells and seemingly tries to get him to really lay into him. It takes nearly 10 minutes for Mountain High to finally start throwing combos and actually try to win, instead of just standing there like an idiot waiting for Ichigeki to throw another kick. Ichigeki, god bless him, tries his best to make it work, and really does set Mountain High up for greatness at a few points, but it never manifests in any meaningful way. The finish also ends up as a wet fart due to a ref screw-up, but I can't entirely blame the ref was the planned finish was only a slightly less wet fart in its own right. In the end, this is one of the most uninteresting different style fights I've seen in years, and the one thing a different style fight should never be is uninteresting. 

Iori Sugawara vs. Musashi Oyama

     Outside of the main event, this was easily my most anticipated matchup for the show, and thankfully it mostly delivered on its promise. Oyama and Sugawara are the two most capable workers on the show thus far: Sugawara is a super charismatic dickhead that throws razor sharp kicks, and Oyama is an old head grappler hell-bent on brutalization via wristlocks and armbars. There's a lot of interesting back and forth in this one, especially regarding limb work. Sugawara is really frantic in the way he kicks at Oyama's legs and slaps him into kneebars, and he's just as frantic on defense whenever Oyama counters said kneebars into more complex holds that force Sugawara to scramble out. At some point though, the match becomes more concerned with Oyama's own legwork, as all of those counter holds have softened Sugawara's legs up enough for Oyama to change tactics and begin targeting them with a vengeance. Even with some moments not being the most clean thing in the world, this is a real testament to the abilities of both men, as they get to play to their strengths and really get everything out of the smaller moments. It's honestly more similar to Mumeijuku's matches than anything else, and really makes me wonder why neither guy ended up working there around this time.

Barbed Wire Boards: Tarzan Goto vs. Tomonobu Matsumoto

    The spiritual successor to Goto/Miyake, almost exactly 10 years later. Once again, Goto stands across the ring from one of his trainees in a barbed wire boards match, and, once again, Goto decides to use this as more of a lesson in suffering than anything else. About 95% of this match is Goto torture. If you don't care for Goto torture, I can imagine you walking away from this feeling unfulfilled. As a guy that really likes Goto torture, however, I certainly walked away from this a happy man. The thing that makes Goto's control work so good is not only how great he is at brutalizing, with one of the best arsenals of strikes and bombs ever assembled into one rotund Shoko Asahara-esque man, but also how much he works to make it clear that his victimizing comes from a very special and hateful place in his heart. He's outright vindictive, going beyond the call of duty to make sure his opponent suffers as much as possible. When one or two chops would get the job done, Goto throws seven. When a single stab would get the message across, Goto stabs four or five times instead. It does a lot to take the violence and really make it mean something. Matsumoto, for his part, is a fine victim. He's a little less capable than Miyake was whenever it was Miyake's turn to suffer one of these beatings, but he's never in a position where he detracts from the match. His comebacks are fiery and his elbows land pretty damn flush. I certainly think he could've done a better job with his blading, but I really only bring up such an annoyingly minor point because he spent at least a minute trying to draw more blood and couldn't figure it out. Goto at least fills the blood quota with his usual deep blading, so I have no complaints there. If you're a fan of Goto making a trainee reconsider this whole wrestling deal, and you've got about 25 minutes to spare, it'd be worth giving this one a watch.