(Written by jom)
So... what's SED? Well, SED (short for Safety Enjoy Delight, maybe the least intimidating combination of words in wrestling history) is an amateur promotion started in 2003 that has generally been pretty active for the last 20+ years. They've run over a hundred shows, almost all of which are available on YouTube. I really appreciate the effort put into not only preserving all of these shows, but also in making them available to the public. I know literally nothing about SED or anyone involved outside of that, and this is the first SED match I've ever seen in full. Honestly, after checking this out, I'm definitely interested in watching more SED going forward! This is by no means a perfect match, or even really a great match, but it has a lot of cool stuff going for it. Takashi is the world's 2nd most blatant Naomichi Marufuji idolizer (Seth Rollins will never lose his crown) and Greed, besides having an AWESOME name, has a really cool look as "Y2K Hoodlum #2." They work some damn good juniors sequences considering the lack of actual pro training, with Greed doing an especially quality job of blending quick moves and transitions with nice heel work. He's also got a good knack for making his stuff look as mean as possible, putting some real snap on his dropkicks and throwing quick low blows regularly. As this is 2009, both men are absolutely obsessed with combos, which, while cool to a certain extent, is more funny than anything. Singular moves in this match are rare, and I never really needed to see things like a three amigos into an impaler or a superkick into three neckbreakers, but I guess I do appreciate the creativity. There are also some genuinely awesome moments of creativity, like Greed's wristlock Air Raid Crash, or Takashi's step-up guillotine leg drop. It's all the type of work you can tell is being done by amateurs, but as someone that appreciates the wrestling spirit in many forms, I see an abundance in these two. Also, Greed punching and kicking Takashi in the face fucking rocked. Expect to see more of Greed on the blog at the bare minimum.
Match Rating: B-
Okonomi Man & Tortuga vs. El Enigma & Super Cacao (CMLL Japan 11/23/1999)
CMLL Japan always had a really cool assortment of Japanese indie guys to fill the undercard, and here's four staples of the tours getting to battle it out. Okonomi is the future Hayate, Super Cacao is Nosawa, Enigma is MAZADA, and Tortuga is... Tortuga! This is really four Japanese guys getting the chance to show they know lucha too, and by God, they really seem to know lucha. Cacao is especially in the zone here, working the mat with that wonderful flowing kind of grappling seen in lucha that really keeps the action going and the spots rolling. Okonomi is just as impressive, maybe a little more stilted than Nosawa but easily more physically capable, and the sequences between the two are probably the closest thing to authentic lucha in this match. El Enigma is probably the most interesting part of the match, at least to me, as he actually knows how to work a match with this kind of pacing and format but does a damn good job of integrating his MUGA roots into his contributions. He gets the highlight of the match when he hits Tortuga with the dreaded nutshot uppercut directly into a real God Damner of a german suplex, the type that folds you up enough to fit into the carry-on luggage heading back to Mexico. Tortuga, IWA Japan trainee and career Guy That Exists, definitely falls in last place for this match, but even he has his moments. He's got a nice bit of snap to his arm drags and works pretty cleanly for a guy that showcased his absolutely awful push-up form on a previous CMLL Japan show. Even with this match being based around everyone getting cool stuff in, there are still some nice moments of a larger story, like Cacao and Enigma ripping into Okonomi's mask and really beating the hell out of him. It's fascinating to know that even before Gurentai existed, NOSAWA and MAZADA innately knew how to foul effectively as a unit. Even with this clipped down to about a third of the actual runtime, this still ends up being pretty damn fun.
Match Rating: B-
Masao Ando vs. Yoshihisa Mio (GENTEN 04/19/2015)
A massive shout out to my good friend Ciel. This is one of his favorite matches ever, and probably his biggest find in his obsessive searches for any and all information regarding his favorite wrestlers. He originally stumbled across the file of this match on Yoshihisa Mio's abandoned blog, and only in the last year or so have we found that Mio himself posted the match to YouTube four years ago. This is in Masao Ando's MMA gym, where the ring ropes are literal ropes and the mats seem to be paper thin, laid on top of solid concrete. On Ando's old blog, he explained that he felt "love at first sight" when seeing Mio for the first time, and on that whim challenged Mio to face him in the main event of his produce show. I guess it was just obvious to everyone that this match would be great, and they were all damn right. This is incredibly tight professional wrestling, the kind of work where nothing is given up without struggle and everything is a process of breaking down the opponent. The matwork in this match is amazing, no two ways about it. Mio is such a fast grappler, moving across the mat with borderline Tamura speed and hunting for limbs like a starved wolf. Masao Ando, meanwhile, is a complete beast of a man himself, able to at point completely manhandle Mio and force control. The way he drags and flips Mio around almost enters the territory of disrespect, and when he finally gets around to doing more pro wrestling moves, a lot of them are just Ando treating Mio like a ragdoll. Every single bump on the World's Thinnest Ring Mat sounds like utter death. I have to imagine Ando is just a lunatic and wanted to force all the wrestlers on this show to suffer in the same way he suffers sparring in this ring on a regular basis. Honestly, I have nothing else to say that wouldn't spoil major moments of the match. Click on the link and check this out. The match is only 11 minutes long and there's no time wasted. Even with the very pro wrestling moments of this match, I have no qualms declaring it one of the best shoot style matches of the last 10 years.
Match Rating: A-
Antonio Koinoki vs. Genichiro Tenryu (WGWF 05/31/2010)
The majority of Tenryu's best matches of the last 10 years of his career can be classified as "beatings." Old Man Tenryu wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and decides to make it someone else's problem. KENTA, Kengo, and many more were given the closest thing to a death sentence in the great sport. This is Antonio Koinoki's turn in the electric chair. Antonio Koinoki is, for all intent and purposes, a comedian; his wrestling is a joke by design. He is an inadequate Inoki, failing at the most basic spots and constantly finding ways to hurt himself doing the most innocuous things. So, how does an old Tenryu in a bad mood respond to an actual professional wrestling comedian? With maybe his most violent performance of the 21st century, that's how. He beats Koinoki within an inch of his life with some of the most ruthless punches, kicks, and chops Tenryu's thrown in his entire career, bloodying up Koinoki's mouth and legitimately putting an imprint of his boot's laces on the side of Koinoki's face. But, if you can look beyond the violence for just a moment, this match is a truly special performance for Koinoki, and one of the best examples of Tenryu's silent storytelling in this period of his career. Tenryu tells the entire story of the match through his facial expressions, going from general annoyance and frustration at this stupid jokester doing his little twirls and ineffective Inoki spots, to complete and utter rage at Koinoki's refusal to stay down. But for Koinoki, this match is proof of his resolve as a wrestler. He does all of his regular spots and eats shit as usual, but Tenryu's violence is some real life-or-death type stuff, and when put in the hot seat, Koinoki decides to keep on fighting to prove his worth as an actual wrestler, clenching his teeth and throwing his own live rounds no matter how ineffective they are. That's almost the magic of this match. Koinoki's ineffectiveness starts as just a joke, but soon turns into the crux of the match, evolving from a funny little gag to the one thing Koinoki has to overcome no matter what. He never does overcome his canonical weakness, but the enzuigiri that rattles Tenryu is all he really needs. Antonio Koinoki has the soul of a professional wrestler. Tenryu just had to rip the soul out for people to see it.
Match Rating: A-
Masashi Takeda vs. Koichiro Kimura (Kazushigumi 06/02/2009)
Damn man, I miss when Kazushi Miyamoto posted matches from his old promotion to his YouTube channel. There's still a lot that hasn't been released, but nowadays he's too preoccupied with vlogging and hypebeasting to return to his roots. Kazushi, if you're reading this, just know I would gladly drop all plans and turn this into the official Kazushigumi blog if you uploaded all the full shows to your channel. Anyways, what an insane matchup, both on paper and in practice. This is rookie-ish Takeda still rocking that shooter brain pattern against old and fed up Koichiro Kimura. Takeda has an awesome look here, sporting some slick black trunks and white boots along with the customary MMA gloves (this is a "Kazushi Gumi Comprehensive Rules" match, which basically means it's an MMA ruleset but worked). And man, do they get some mileage outta the gloves. There's a ton of closed fist punches to the face and body from both men, but especially Kimura, who really loves to throw a shitty little jab to the jaw right before doing anything in this match. There's some really nice mat grappling moments from both men, with Kimura doing his MMA terminator schtick and Takeda fighting for survival with massive bursts of energy and impressive technique. The best work in this match absolutely comes from when these ideologies butt heads, like Takeda getting sick of Kimura's head stomps by flying to his feet and letting loose with wild haymakers and throws. Really, even though this is happening in Kazushigumi, this almost feels like it comes from an alternate world Fu-ten, where Takeshi Ono started the promotion instead of Daisuke Ikeda. Now I'm thinking about a theoretical Masashi Takeda Fu-ten run and I'm getting sad that it didn't happen. Really though, this match does enough to fill the void in my heart in that regard. I honestly really want to give this the full-on "A" rating, but I do think a few too many strikes land without the right amount of oomph (maybe more the fault of the venue's acoustics than the combatants), and it needed to go just a little longer with maybe one or two more big moments. For what it is though, this is a real Ass Kicker, God Damner, etc. A Match That Fucks The Butt and things of that nature.
Match Rating: B+
