Spitball Reviews #8

           (Written by jom)

Greed & Higuchi vs. Big Joe & Yuki Toshima (SED 11/21/2010)

    Another Spitball, another Greed match. I told you we'd be talking about him again! SED is here in a random gymnasium with the world's largest inflatable dinosaur in the background. I respect SED for making sure this show is accessible to all, even those of us who are 25 feet tall and made of PVC. This time around, Greed's in a tag with regular partner Higuchi, who looks like Greed's childhood friend that has tried to kind of clean up his act as he's grown up. He's not entirely out of the hoodlum mindset, but he's just trying to be presentable in job interviews. Yuki Toshima looks like any average indie guy in the US from 2006 to 2008, but Big Joe is anything but average. He's BIG. No false advertising here, this guy is at least a foot taller than everyone else in the ring. And wouldn't you know it, Greed delivers once again! This is a fun little tag match with lots of cool moments, mostly courtesy of Greed. He's really in the zone here with his shitheadedness, starting the match by going at Joe's eyes and never really letting up on his fouling and general misbehavior. He gets Higuchi involved and Higuchi always plays his part well, albeit he really only goes for heel stuff when Greed tells him to. Really, Higuchi and Toshima (who I exclusively called "red pants" in my notes) only exist to do solid enough juniors wrestling. Big Joe is the other star of the match for sure, throwing Greed around like a sack of shit and living up to his role as a big fucker. His interactions with Higuchi are pretty good as well, culminating in him letting loose with Vader hammers and a huge Amaze Impact. Really though, this is the Greed show for me. He's just so wonderful peppering in nasty kicks and stomps, like how he breaks up a crab done by Big Joe by just kicking him in the back of the head. Greed would've been wonderful working in actual pro feds, ideally as a midcard fouler in Z1 or BJW around this time. Even if we never got that, I'm happy to keep going through all the Greed footage going forward. Fun stuff all around, recommend checking it out just to see Greed, Big Joe, and the even bigger dinosaur. 

Match Rating: B

Masao Ando vs. Yuji Yoshida (Bukotsu 09/25/2016)

    Now this is that indie shit we all know and love. Two lumpy divorcees wearing bikers and kickpads laying into each other with unrelenting violence for a somewhat apathetic crowd in a small rec center in Osaka. If you had asked me about three years ago, I would probably call this a pure distillation of jomcore; my tastes have changed a lot since then, but this type of wrestling does still hold a precious place in my heart. This match does a lot to remind me of why I loved these kinds of matchups so much, working out to be the world's grimiest dick measuring contest. It's filled with full-force elbows to the nose and kicks to the jaw, along with crushing suplexes aplenty. It's also as much an auditory experience as it is a visual one: every strike has either a slap that reverberates around the room, or a thud that smashes through your soul. There's a ton of roughness in everything these guys do, with lots of moves being centimeters away from disaster. There's one moment in particular where Ando hoists up Yoshida for a waterwheel drop, and Yoshida, having seemingly never even heard of a waterwheel, doesn't even try to protect himself and nearly gets spiked on the top of his head. I've talked about it here before, but this kind of dangerous sloppiness does a lot to add to the match. The work doesn't feel clean, safe, or pre-planned, which is exactly how a brawl should feel. There are some attempts at through-lines in this match, specifically Masao Ando's attempts to apply some sort of armwork to Yoshida as things progress, but none of that really matters in any way. I respect Ando's attempts at giving this match some sort of story besides caveman MMA, but sometimes you don't need wrestling with any real brains behind it. The only brains in this match are the ones getting pinball'd around inside the skulls of these two men. The only thing that hampers this match is Yoshida's tendency to just stand around for extended periods while in control, but other than that, this is a real kickass match for people that like seeing asses kicked.

Match Rating: B+

Takahiro Tababa vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa (IMPACT 05/04/2018)

    A pretty big match for Tababa, getting the chance to face the guy who beat his ass in his debut match three years ago. It's his opportunity to show how much he's grown in the relatively short amount of time he's been a professional wrestler. Takaiwa, however, comes into this match with an entirely different mindset. Honestly, he seems to work this match as an attempt to undo the past and force Tababa out of wrestling. The way Takaiwa grapples with Tababa reminds me of the old tales of veteran workers in the 70s and 80s pulling hopeful trainees into the ring and stretching them half to death until they quit, leaving their dreams and money behind. He pulls off a ton of sugar holds and keeps searching for ways to grind down Tababa, like turning a grounded half nelson into the world's most painful crucifix. It's genuinely very stunning to see Takaiwa work like this; the guy's always had a mean streak to him, but it usually only manifested in particularly impactful bombs or even more punch behind his hits. All of that is still present here, but it's the way he rips apart Tababa on the mat that makes this stand out as one of his meanest performances ever. Tababa's eventual comebacks all land real well (it certainly helps that most of them are based around him kicking the hell out of Takaiwa), and he does a good job of milking his hope spots for all they're worth. His bombs also work out great, especially everything surrounding his holds. The moment where Takaiwa counters a Fujiwara armbar by sidewalk slamming him only for Tababa to maintain the hold really stands out as great endurance storytelling and makes Tababa look like a total badass. Wrap it all up nicely with a bow made of some truly spectacular late-match bombs and you've got yourself a damn good match. Hopefully there's more "burn your boots" Takaiwa performances out there.

Match Rating: B

Ryan Upin vs. Masked Mystery (GUTS World 02/15/2011)

    Ryan Upin is probably better known as Chon Shiryu, who I've somehow never talked about on the blog?? Absolute blasphemy on my part. If you've ever seen me talk about him elsewhere you probably already know this, but I really love Chon Shiryu. He's one of the only guys in the world doing kung fu pro wrestling, and his level of consistency is pretty mindblowing. He almost has the Thanomsak Toba condition, where, even when put in matches featuring complete shitters, you can always count on him to at least deliver the goods. Luckily, Masked Mystery is nowhere near a shitter, so this ends up being a total blast. Mystery is a somewhat conventional big man worker who has very good technique and clearly knows how to work a short match, which works perfectly with the smaller and more exciting Shiryu. They work this like a pretty high level TV match, streamlining everything to give you as many cool moments as possible all while keeping the action flowing at the right pace. There's tons of little moments interspersed between the cool big spots, like Mystery keeping one leg away from Shiryu's grasp while Shiryu goes for a gory special, so Shiryu just dumps Mystery onto the ropes with the half-applied move. But really, we're here for the big kung fu moments, and Shiryu gives us plenty with suicide flying kicks and springboard kung fu stomps. I think this match is probably one of the stronger testaments to one of the best aspects of Chon Shiryu. Even while working one of the more bizarre and unique characters in the Japanese scene, Shiryu actually feels like one of the most cohesive workers in the entire world. There are a lot of guys nowadays that have "but also"'s tacked onto their character descriptions. A big man that does power moves BUT ALSO dives and flips. A high flyer that can hit spectacular flips and twists BUT ALSO big powerbombs and every other move in the book. Chon Shiryu lacks a "but also" in his character description because everything he does feels so fitting for him. The kung fu, the gory special variations, even the way he'll grapple all work towards supporting this character of pro wrestling's one true kung fu master. In the end, this match barely clocks in at six minutes, and it's a damn fun six minutes at that. The only reason it doesn't go into the A-range is because this felt like it needed a better environment than a small dojo (ideally an actual TV studio with a more vocal crowd). I patiently await the day that a promotion finally opens its eyes and signs Shiryu to work compact TV matches on a regular basis.

Match Rating: B+

Isami vs. Phantom Funakoshi (IWA Kokusai 06/12/2005)

    I'm fairly certain this was uploaded by Goro Tsurumi's son. Thank you Goro Jr! I love Kokusai a lot for its bizarre monster matches and crazy arena brawls, but it did always feature some great indie junior heavy guys, both fresh in the scene and old but underappreciated. Isami is the new kid on the block after absconding from K-DOJO and transforming from a Takadist shooter into a scummy yankee, while Funakoshi has been around for years as a Showa-era wrestling idolizer. It's a bizarre pairing, but one that could have a lot of potential by virtue of the two being great wrestlers. Emphasis on could. I'm sure they've had a very good match together. They've faced off multiple times, and at least one of those times has given us a very good match. This is not that time. This is less of a wrestling match and more of a wrestling experiment, a public survey to see if certain angles can go off well. This starts with one of the most bizarre wrestling angles I've seen in a long time, where Funakoshi takes a rolling solebutt 30 seconds into the match that stops him dead in his tracks. He's stunlocked so long that Isami has time to do the full Sweet Chin Music charge-up and still hit the move, all while Funakoshi is just standing there bent over like he just knocked back a pack of original Four Loko's. This leads to Funakoshi being so knocked out that Isami has to abandon a suicide dive spot (?) and go out to try and wake him up (??), only for Funakoshi to wake up and start being incredibly aggressive. I genuinely cannot tell if this is meant to be some bizarre worked shoot injury angle or some sort of concussion work or anything. It's borderline nonsensical, something you can only vaguely interpret. The actual match that follows is... fine I guess? Funakoshi does some alright bullying and armwork, and there's a cool enough spot where Isami takes too long getting back into the ring after a corner knee sends him flying out that Funakoshi pretty easily dodges his returning superkick and dumps him on his head with a suplex. There's just too many whiffs and botches and weird angles to really even process what's going on half the time. The match goes to a "15 minute time limit draw" when the actual runtime was barely 12 minutes, only to then be restarted and continue with the weird botches and vacant atmosphere (there were barely 15 people in the building but you could've told me they were all cardboard cutouts with how this match appeared). To be clear, this isn't irredeemable wrestling: Isami and Funakoshi do enough cool stuff to warrant some commendation. That being said, this match is bad. I still don't understand why half of it happened. I respect the attempt at experimentation, and Kokusai is one of the few places you could really try to do stuff like this, but this was a complete flop.

Match Rating: D+

Spitball Reviews #6

         (Written by jom)

Masao Ando vs. Takahiro Tababa (Mutoha 04/20/2019)

    A matchup that's happened so much, the fans in Japan gave it a nickname! "Aka Oni v Ao Oni", or red demon (Tababa) versus blue demon (Ando). Pretty fitting name in my honest opinion. Ando and Tababa are two of the best tubby crowbars in a modern Japanese indie scene shockingly filled with quality tubby crowbars. With how the industry in general has progressed, you'd think that type of wrestler would be a dying breed, but there's inexplicably more of them around than anyone knows what to do with. These two are given ten minutes to beat the tar out of each other in front of a small Mutoha crowd, and there are very few people more qualified for that type of environment than Ando and Tababa. Even if I've referred to them both as crowbars and demons, they're not the exact same wrestlers, and the little changes in execution between the two are really where this rivalry shines. Ando is an incredibly labored wrestler. Everything he does feels heavy and strained, every kick taking so much power from Ando that it causes his whole body to move with his leg. A universal human experience is every person's first time swinging a large stick. We've felt our own bodies move almost involuntarily, rotating with as much force as possible to send that stick to high heaven. Masao Ando has large sticks for limbs, and he's doing his damndest to swing them directly into the head of Tababa. On the opposite end, Tababa is a precision fighter. Every strike lands with all of the force focused on the sharpest point. When he kicks, the point of his boot is what connects with Ando's ribs. When he knees, the kneecap is what flies into Ando's gut. This isn't an exact summation of his striking, but it's clear that's what his intent is. Ando is full force everything, and Tababa is concentrated power. Beyond all of that pontificating, this is just a great brawl of a shoot style match. Ando slams Tababa hard multiple times throughout the match and nearly breaks his neck with a german suplex, and Tababa's unrelenting with his hyperextending holds and kick flurries. With many matches, the action builds until it boils over and turns into something uncontrollable. This match exists in a state of being boiled over from bell to bell. An amazing display of how awesome wrestling can be when two guys really work like they want to kick each other's asses. 

Match Rating: A-

Ryo Tamiyasu vs. Junpuku Yamamoto (J2K 09/23/2003)

    Ryo Tamiyasu makes his official return to pro wrestling. I've actually covered his initial return as Riki Senshu on the blog before (in one of my favorite posts from last year), but the name "Ryo Tamiyasu" hadn't been listed on a matchcard since his retirement until now, so there's the official part of it. Any time I watch work involving the J2K guys, I'm always fascinated by the commonalities of their work - the little touches that link all of them back to Masanobu Kurisu. Tamiyasu and Yamamoto are two of the strongest examples when it comes to Kurisu's influence on his trainees. Both love to vocalize. Both have the execution of basics down pat, and aren't afraid to rely on those basics instead of pushing themselves to "innovate" or needlessly change their offense up. Both turn up the heat by introducing more force into their movements. As such, this match is the tightly-worked, hard-hitting affair that I tend to love. It clocks in at just under ten minutes but manages to properly tell the story of a high stakes main event without feeling rushed or forced. Tamiyasu's punches and Yamamoto's uppercuts regularly have audible connection, and an exclamation point is placed at the end of every movement with both men's yelling and shit-talking. Looking beyond all the smaller detail work and connections to Kurisu, both are just so awesome at throwing bombs, especially in a match where the bomb-throwing is built so well considering how little time they use to build it. Yamamoto's piledrivers are disgusting and reckless in the best way, and Tamiyasu's out-of-nowhere northern lights bomb completely blew me away. Maybe you could complain about a match this short having such a climactic-feeling finishing stretch, or you could point out the one or two times where the men could've tightened up the match structure and spacing between work. I won't though. This was great, a total blast of a watch and further proof that Kurisu built an army of monster workers throughout the 90s that'll never truly get the appreciation they deserve.

Match Rating: A-

Masakazu Fukuda vs. Masaaki Mochizuki (WYF 08/04/1998)

    The key singles match of the endless WYF vs. Buko Dojo rivalry. The feud kicked off in early 1997, and here we are over a year later. Karatekas hold a grudge. Rather than being a different style fight, this ends up more as Fukuda and Mochizuki successfully predicting the juniors style of the 2000s. Both men are really talented and know how to get into their spots well, and they pull off a ton of little counter sequences, none of which ever go so long that it loses the magic. Mochizuki is a monster kicker who's gone from Kitao's poster child for his karate revolution to a truly masterful hybrid junior. Fukuda fights back against Mochizuki's quick feet with real mat supremacy, grinding him down with arm holds after a mishap results in Mochizuki slamming his arm into the ring post. Does the limb work lead anywhere? Not particularly, but it fills time well and never goes too long as to require some sort of bigger payoff or heightened attention to selling. Honestly, as I write this, I wonder why I loved this match so much. There's so many things about this match that I hold against matches that occurred in the last five years. Limb selling that goes nowhere? check. A somewhat stupid opening spot? They did the double dropkick, so check. An abrupt no-sell? check. On paper, this match has no right getting as much love from me as it does. I think what makes this match different from many other matches to feature these same tropes is not only that this match predates many of those matches by multiple decades, but also that these two execute these spots so well that I really don't care. The no-sell is especially forgiven, as a Mochizuki DDT is immediately no-sold by Fukuda into a deep armbar. There's a quickness and urgency to it that takes it from a corny "I power up through fighting spirit!!!" shitshow and turns it into a genuine burst of energy at the sight of a perfect opportunity. I'd say this is a great match if you turn your brain off, but it's honestly great enough that the brain can stay entirely on and still find a ton to enjoy here. I pray that I one day get to peek into the reality where both these guys found a home in a more fitting fed in their later years like Battlarts or ZERO1. This type of work would've done them very kindly.

Match Rating: A-

Hiroshi Watanabe vs. Phantom Funakoshi (SGP 05/04/1998)

    Is this the best match to ever happen at a flea market? At least within SGP's flea market show history, there's a few contenders, like the great space war where one of the Brahmans breaks an incredibly expensive Astro Boy statue, forcing Great Sasuke to buy it and use it in the next great space war. Still, this has to be the standout match of that catalogue. Watanabe is a Kotetsu Yamamoto trainee and Funakoshi is an Inoki idolizer, so they deliver the type of technical masterclass that would've blown a lot of people's minds if it didn't happen in front of passively-interested passersby. It feels like a higher level midcard match ripped right out of early 1980s NJPW, with incredible displays of body control like Watanabe's awe-inspiring escape from a knuckle-lock, and a real smorgasbord (I should have to pay a tax for using this word) of slick counters for holds and even slicker counters for counters. The work both guys put into all of their holds is laudable as well. Funakoshi spends a solid section of the early match trying his damndest to maintain a side headlock, and the way he rotates his body on the ground to keep Watanabe away from breaking the grip is immaculate. They stick to the grappling for a solid 2/3rds of the match, but once they get rolling with everything else, the quality stays just as high. Both men throw out some really great suplexes, like Watanabe's textbook german or Funakoshi's super impressive uranage. Watanabe even goes to the top rope and hits a crazy looking diving splash for a close 2.9. I try to avoid just listing moves as much as I can, but I honestly don't know what else to do with this match outside of repeatedly stating how perfect the work is. It's a match displaced out of time, meant for a raucous Korakuen Hall in 1982 instead of a flea market sixteen years later. It's no wonder that Watanabe would lead the charge with high-level grappling in the 21st century with Mumeijuku/Mutoha, and it's honestly a damn shame that Funakoshi never got to work there before hanging up the boots earlier this year. This one's available from Hasegawa for only $2. Bite the bullet and enjoy what may be the best technical wrestling match of 1998.

Match Rating: A

MIKAMI vs. Kuishinbo Kamen (Kamen Produce 12/15/2010)

    Kuishinbo Kamen's mask has angry eyes for this one. You know it's time to get serious. MIKAMI and Kamen actually have a ton of history, producing some great work in the 90s as both partners and opponents. This is their first time meeting in the ring since Kamen became Kamen, and I guess there was a score to settle? Kamen is an entirely different beast than usual in this match. Gone are the bits and goofs; say hello to Great Kabuki-style uppercuts and punt kicks. This is one of those real great juniors matches that pretty successfully blends a lot of different work together thanks to the talents of both men. MIKAMI and Kamen seamlessly flow from clean and pretty grappling to gritty punching and slapping to high octane juniors sprinting, all while maintaining a great pace and properly escalating everything. MIKAMI gets a busted mouth from all the Kabuki uppercuts and while he never really responds with equivalent violence, he more than makes up for it with massive bombs, like the ludicrous spot on the outside you really need to see to believe. The fans being so behind Kamen for the entire match is almost shocking considering his viciousness, albeit it makes complete sense. This is Kuishinbo Kamen's arena. These are Kuishinbo Kamen's people. Better to cheer on the devil you know than surrender your hopes to the hot guy you don't. Luckily, MIKAMI never tries to go for a sympathetic babyface-in-peril angle, and relies entirely on himself with tricked-out juniors work and a great mind for countering. His flying codebreaker is such an awesome move, easily the best execution of that move I've ever seen and perfectly combo'd with one of his always-great schoolboy pins. Speaking of schoolboys, the cradle rush near the end of this match is so great, and truly works here as opposed to a lot of other matches with this type of spot. MIKAMI and Kamen are trickster juniors and have been for their entire careers. They've won tons of matches with roll-ups and cradles, so out of everyone to spend a minute going for just those, these two are the most apt for the occasion. Even with some moments of dead air, this feels undeniable to me. A wonderful encounter, the type that makes me long for the reality where these two faced off at their physical peaks around 2003.

Match Rating: A-

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 05/13/1999

                 (Written by jom)

    Ahhhh, Onita Pro.

    It's not much of a secret, but I'm a total sucker for skeezy Japanese indie wrestling. It's the scene that I dove into when I saw the branching paths of being a wrestling fan before me, and I've maintained a long-term loving-yet-unhealthy relationship with it for at least five years now. While I've thankfully expanded my range of wrestling consumption beyond the shindies of Kansai into scenes like the shindies of Tijuana, I'll probably always keep myself locked into this world of bizarre masked gimmicks based on inside jokes only the workers get and sociopaths no-showing events with less than 50 fans, for better or for worse.

    Onita Pro (I bet you can't guess who runs this fed) is probably one of the most fascinating sleaze-adjacent feds ever (feels weird to call a promotion full-on sleazy when they've Korakuen as much as Onita Pro has). It's a pure distillation of the Japanese indie scene of the time, with guys from promotions you've never heard of getting some of their only chances to work in front of larger crowds, let alone to make it onto TV. Where else would you find an underground juniors tag followed up by a UNW offer match? Onita has always been a guy with a really special vision for wrestling (one that I absolutely adore), and the fact that he spent 1999 having explosion deathmatches in NJPW while also booking a promotion with a murderer's row of sleaze scene names as regulars is truly why he's the GOAT.

    Even though I love Onita Pro as a concept and I've really enjoyed the matches I've seen from it, I've only seen maybe two full shows. I've always wanted to do a deep dive into the fed, going through every single taped event to experience Onita's vision in full, so why not write about it? I have no idea what type of schedule these posts will follow, but I'm hoping to get a review out every two weeks at the very least. Who knows, maybe I'll get distracted with a homework assignment and take another year to do a blog post again. Onto the review!

Yusaku vs. Rey Pandita

    Who the fuck is Rey Pandita? Cagematch says that Violencia and Flying Kid Ichihara worked under the gimmick at different points, but it's 100% neither of those guys. I guess the world may never know. Yusaku is here though, so I am a happy man. He's only a year into wrestling too! Sadly he's given the jobber entrance treatment, but I can't imagine Korakuen Hall going wild for a Yusaku Shimoda entrance in 1999. He's wearing all gold gear with a bleach blonde mullet though, so he looks like a much cooler Shane Douglas. Pandita comes out wearing a burger king crown throwing candy into the crowd, which is a great first image for a promotion's first ever taped show.

    This follows the basic formula of agility versus power, as Pandita has some lucha acumen and Yusaku really likes Vader. He's already got some pounds on him too, although he's not yet reached the level of BIG that he would ten years later, so his power level is much lower. Pandita commits to styling on Yusaku throughout this match, including psyching him out on a dive only to slap Yusaku on the back. This confuses Yusaku, who thinks his brother Daisaku did it, and gives him a big shove. To Pandita, this is all fun and games, but he may have just sown the seeds for a family to rip itself apart.

    Pandita continues to style on Yusaku until he misses a moonsault. Yusaku promptly picks him up and casually crushes him with a pumphandle emerald flowsion for a two. Yusaku then goes for a lariat but gets drop toe hold'd by Pandita, and then Pandita does a Gedo Clutch while posing for the cameras to get the win.

    This was a perfectly fine piece of work, albeit weirdly paced with a few odd moments, especially the finish which just kind of happened. Yusaku was fine though, and Pandita styling on him was fun. Hopefully Pandita can showcase his abilities in MUGA-esque matwork on the next show.

Match Rating: C+

Asian Cougar & Phantom Funakoshi vs. Exciting Yoshida & Takashi Sasaki

    DDT! One of Onita Pro's defining traits was the massive presence of DDT on all of the shows. I guess Onita was just a big fan of Sanshiro Takagi's vision, something I'm very thankful for because this got us some of the first TV exposure for the DDT crew (outside of having show highlights appear on STV news broadcasts).

    This match is... good. I'm gonna do some individual performance breakdowns here because this match was basically just all four guys trying to get themselves over, they still worked together and cooperated to do moves but it was pretty obvious that the main goal for these guys was to try and get booked on more Onita Pro shows.

    Takashi Sasaki is probably the weakest guy here. You can kinda feel it with how he's wrestling, but he's in a lab mindset, just busting out random moves and seeing what works. He does some nice kicks and hits a few gross diving knees, but he also does some weird suplex gutbuster things and hits a diving knee drop 69-style, so it just looks like he's trying to diving teabag Funakoshi. Sasaki also never hit the D-Geist for some reason, even though he was absolutely doing the move by this time. Maybe one of those fucked up suplexes was an attempt at it? I couldn't tell you.

    Cougar's also not a faultless worker here, but he's got a much better idea of who he is, busting out some of his trademark wild leg drops. There's this great moment in the latter half where Funakoshi has Sasaki gripped by the neck while he's laying on the apron, trapping him there for Cougar to hit the guillotine leg drop. It kinda felt like a moment from a gorey horror movie where the killers hold a guy down while one of them chops his leg off, and you just have to watch the poor guy squirm around and suffer. Cougar isn't perfect in this match when it comes to execution though, and the crowd laughs at him a few times for his botches. He also doesn't do his biggest signature spot (the tope atomico suicida). It's Korakuen! Do the spot!!!

    Exciting Yoshida does some awesome Animal Hamaguchi stuff and throws sick ass headbutts, but also hits an insane spinning tombstone and a big diving leg drop. Sasaki kicks him a bunch and he sells by slowly falling over every time. He's a bomb-thrower, but also an easy one to beat up. Not much else to say, wrestling needs more glass cannons like Yoshida. 

    And then Phantom is the coolest wrestler ever. He's a hardcore lover of 70s wrestling, so all of his high spots are indian deathlocks and snapmares. Every time the match felt like it was about to go too far into experimenting and botching, Funakoshi would tag in and hit a few suplexes and suddenly all is right in the world. Sasaki can invent as many bad moves as he wants because Funakoshi knows the exact time he needs to trip Sasaki and do a japanese rolling leg clutch to pull me right back in. He hit a release tiger suplex that nearly killed Sasaki and I sprung out of my chair like a jack-in-the-box.

    The finish ends up being with Sasaki and Cougar, but they luckily keep it short and sweet. Sasaki nails a real disgusting lariat for a two count, and then Cougar counters an attempt at another one into a cross-arm german suplex for the three. Sasaki, of course, immediately no-sells the move to get up and complain to the ref that he kicked out. Man, Sasaki really wants  me to hate him, huh?

    In a strange way, this felt like it was both overambitious and underachieving. They had all the pieces to put together a great match, and ended up only completing half of the puzzle. At the same time, it felt like one guy was using the rest of the pieces to try and create a whole new puzzle. Does this analogy make sense? Whatever. Good little match, even if I know it could've been much more. I pray that Funakoshi keeps popping up on Onita Pro shows going forward. Damnit, I just remembered he's retiring later this month and now I'm sad. God bless you Phantom.

Match Rating: B

Street Fight: Yoshiko Tamura & Yuka Nakamura vs. Crusher Maedomari & Shark Tsuchiya

    Putting these four in a street fight is inspired. Onita just can't be beat. I don't know if I've ever seen Tamura or Nakamura in this type of environment so I'm already very excited. They slot into it well with their street fighter gear, which just looks like they're going into a very fashionable war. Maedomari and Tsuchiya respond with black shirts and black pants. "This is no time for fashion", they say. "This is a time for bloodshed."

    Maedomari and Tsuchiya jump the faces before the bell rings and we're off to the races. Lots of brawling around the ring, most of it isn't worth talking about but everything Tsuchiya does rules. Tsuchiya beats the hell outta scared little Nakamura like she owes her money and smashes a microphone into her face a bunch. Then a little later on she goes wild on both women with a barbed wire sword. I love Shark Tsuchiya so much. Maedomari is cool too though! She and Tsuchiya (I can't not talk about Tsuchiya) do some crazy tag moves throughout, culminating with a gut kick/snap backdrop driver that's as funny and as violent as it sounds.

    I guess I should talk about Tamura and Nakamura too. They were fine! Nakamura is good at getting beat up, and I love how she sells for the Tsuchiya sword attack like she's just been cut in half in one of those old samurai movies. She also throws some absolutely awful punches at one point, but redeems herself with a crazy ass roll-up counter out of a chokeslam. Tamura is alright as well, albeit I remember like nothing she did besides screaming a lot. Not in a "I'm in pain" kind of way, just screaming whenever she got the chance to. Why do so many joshi wrestlers do that? Can they please stop?

    Maedomari wins the match for her team with a gross chokeslam, and she even sits on Nakamura and counts the three with her fingers because some of Tsuchiya's coolness has rubbed off on her. Not a ton to complain about here, just a fun little match. Tsuchiya is the best and I hate everyone that hates her.

Match Rating: B

Dr. Hannibal & Dr. Luther vs. Katsuji Ueda & Sanshiro Takagi

    Hey, it's the funny internet guy! The guy that goes Blehhhhh~ in AEW! Is Luther culturally relevant anymore? Deadlock haven't mentioned him in at least a year. Anyways, he's here with fellow weird Canadian Hannibal (different from the other weird Canadian Hannibal wrestling today) and they're facing a real kickboxer (Katsuji Ueda) and a fake Steve Austin (Sanshiro Takagi). Onita, vision, etc. Hannibal and Luther come out and do the chaotic running through the crowd shit, except they're in straight jackets and keep trying to headbutt people. I already hate Dr. Hannibal because he's literally just walking around with his head turned sideways and that's it. This guy is a phony. Dr. Luther meanwhile is throwing chairs into the crowd and threatening fans, like a real worker.

    I don't even know how to talk about this match. Ueda does kickboxing to Dr. Hannibal and Dr. Hannibal responds with bad strikes and his shitty sideways neck stance because he has no idea how to be a psychopath. Luther and Takagi tag in and they work at a really fast pace before doing a pretty wild brawl on the outside. Luther has become le funny internet wrestler guy but he was actually pretty damn awesome in Japan, and Takagi is a deceptively good wrestler for a guy who's only really known for liking Stone Cold.

    Eventually they get back in the ring and Takagi pulls out MR. SOCKO, APPLYING THE MANDIBLE CLAW TO DR. LUTHER. The WWF had a stranglehold on Sanshiro Takagi's life in 1999. He hits a few other moves before trying to win with a meh impaler DDT, only for Dr. Hannibal to throw what looked like a full cup of powder into his face. Luther hits a German Suplex for a 2.9, and then Hannibal comes back in and dumps even more powder on Takagi. I wonder if this is how British Bulldog looked when Bret found him before Summerslam 1992. Katsuji Ueda runs in to stop Hannibal's cocaine-based assault with some kicks that probably hurt like a bitch. Then Luther hits a genuinely great kneel kick and a rope-walk bulldog and wins.

    Takagi cuts a promo after and challenges the two psychopaths (well, one psychopath and one pretender) to face him and Exciting Yoshida in a street fight on the next Onita Pro show. This was just really bizarre. Luther was honestly the standout with his antics and actually good wrestling (albeit the move he won with really didn't feel like a finisher). Takagi was fine and him just ripping off WWF moves was funny. Ueda did kickboxing and I like kickboxing so I can't complain about him. Dr. Hannibal offends me on a spiritual level and I could probably do a better job of wrestling than he ever did. Please find a real psychopath like Luther to replace this stain.

Match Rating: C-

No Rope Barbed Wire Street Fight: Atsushi Onita, Sambo Asako, & Shigeo Okumura vs. Genichiro Tenryu, Ichiro Yaguchi, & Shoji Nakamaki

    No reason to have a big opening explanation for this match. If you're reading the blog, you most likely know who all of these people are. At bare minimum, you know who Onita and Tenryu are. That's all you need going into this.

    I fucking love this match. The first time I saw this was in a random late-night voice call with a few friends. None of us had seen this match before and I thought it sounded great on paper, so I just threw it on. We rewatched the match at least two more times within the span of 24 hours. It felt like striking oil in your backyard while digging up some weeds. What we thought would be a fun "send the fans home happy" kind of brawl between some great wrestlers ended up being one of the most chaotic, dramatic, and all-around insane matches I've ever seen.

    There was way too much going on here to try and properly run down everything, so instead, here's a list of some notable spots:

- Tenryu holding Onita's head down and repeatedly punching him in the forehead

- Onita doing the classic baseball slide wire dodge only for Tenryu to do his own into Onita's face (countering baseball with baseball)

- Yaguchi vanishing from view for a few minutes only to reappear bathed in blood

- Tenryu throwing a chair into Asako's face really hard

- Okumura saving Asako from more damage by rushing Tenryu and then punching him a bunch in the face

- Onita swinging a table onto the top of Nakamaki's head like Whac-A-Mole

- Okumura choking Tenryu with his wrist tape (Okumura felt like the best mid-tier Memphis brawler ever in this match)

- Yaguchi DYING

    And that list is less than half of the craziest shit that happened. The match never slowed down, just constantly bashing you over the head with violence and chaos like the many chairs bashed over the head of Sambo Asako. Now, there were a solid handful of moments that you could call "botches" or "mistakes", and I'll happily admit that some of them were probably not planned. But if you see these moments and think "this makes the match worse", you're stupid. This is a fight, a brawl, and brawls are messy. Brawls are uncoordinated. Brawls aren't about doing everything perfectly, they're about trying to do anything you can to hurt who you're fighting. Of course you're gonna slip up every now and then, that's just a part of brawling. What matters is how you recover, and every single time a "mistake" happened, not only did it usually still look insane, it was also always recovered from incredibly well.

    I think the spirit of this match comes through the most in a spot near the halfway point. Onita and Tenryu are down, already broken by the damage dealt to both of them so far in the match. As they both start to get up, Tenryu notices a chair, immediately grabs it, and lunges over to throw it into Onita's face. It's the type of moment that takes this from a wild chaotic brawl into something with a real sense of spite and fury behind it. Before watching this match, I believed in Tenryu and I believed in Onita. Hell, I believed in everyone here. Spots like this are why I believe in the match itself.

    No rundown of the finish, because you really just need to see it for yourself. In fact, you need to see this whole match for yourself! It's up there as one of the best Onita brawls ever, and if you enjoy those matches in any way, shape, or form, you have to watch this. Life-changing pro wrestling.

Match Rating: A+

    In terms of the show as a whole, this was a mixed bag. I don't think anything on the show was truly bad (outside of everything Dr. Hannibal did), but there was a lot that never really moved me. As it stands, it felt like a good starting point for Onita Pro. Most of the less interesting stuff feels like it'll naturally get better with time. The DDT crew will complete their individual journeys of self-discovery, Onita will book better women to lose to Maedomari & Tsuchiya, and Pandita will only grow stronger in his ability to style on people. Add onto all of that one of the best matches ever in the main event, and I feel like this show left me pretty satisfied in the end. I'm excited to see where we go from here.

Show Rating: B