STYLE-E 03/21/2009

                   (Written by jom)

Shota vs. Takeshi Tengu

    Takeshi Tengu is a Hanzo Nakajima trainee who primarily works for Nakajima's Wrestle Gate promotion (the same place Yuya Susumu and Seiki Yoshioka got started). That's really all I can say about him, as I've never seen one of his matches before this. Shota I've seen much of though, as he's currently a personal favorite in the 2022 wrestling landscape. He does a ton of Eddie Guerrero type stuff, has some great worked punches, and his team with Kenichiro Arai as Hattoshite Good is so much fun to watch. However, the Shota here is very different from the Shota many of you probably have seen before. This is him not even a year into pro wrestling, being a trainee from the U-FILE CAMP pro wrestling class and making his debut in April of 2008.

    The match itself was pretty solid overall. Tengu did some alright juniors stuff, hitting a good one-handed bulldog and a pretty cool cartwheel into flashing elbow. Shota meanwhile was fine, he had some nice grappling towards the start, he threw a nice enzuigiri, and the highlight of the match was definitely this beautiful german suplex he hit near the end:

    And that's really about all that happened. This was short (about 5 minutes long), worked in a really basic way, and ended when it probably should've. Not really worth seeking out or anything like that, but overall this was fine and it was cool seeing Shota so early into his career.

Rating: C+

Shoichi Uchida vs. Yukihiro Abe

    Shoichi Uchida is a guy I've seen a good bit since he tends to hang around the Kansai scene. He's been a mixed bag so far with some of his matches being pretty fun and some pretty boring, but he does do some pretty sweet samoan drops so it's hard for me not to be a fan. Abe meanwhile is someone I've yet to see in action, but from the looks of it he's a DDT guy who never really ended up getting anywhere big. He came out to Cruel Angel's Thesis and wears EVA-01 gear though, so obviously DDT must've been missing out.

    And this ended up being true because Abe was awesome in this match! His grappling was actually pretty damn good, really flowing on the mat early on. He hit some pretty nice dropkicks too, especially one after Uchida kicked out of a roll-up. On the topic of roll-ups, that was the best part of Abe's offense by far, doing a ton of different ones including this beautiful counter one that looks like a reverse Gannosuke clutch:

    Uchida, for his part, was solid enough. He never really did much that impressed me or anything, but he also never did anything negative either. Towards the end he did start to hit some cool things, like the nice flowsion below and some cool samoan drops.

    This was better than the last match, albeit not by much. It had some cool moments though, and I'm definitely interested in seeing what else Abe has done that's made tape.

Rating: B-

AKINO, Kyosuke Sasaki, & Shuji Ishikawa vs. Chon Akitoshi, Masa Takanashi, & Toshihiro Sueyoshi

    I haven't seen a ton from Takanashi or Sueyoshi but they both have cool looks. As for the rest, I've seen enough work from those four to say I'm a fan of them all, especially Sasaki who for my money might be the best U-FILE trainee in terms of pure shoot style ability.

    This ended up being solid. The face team were absolutely the highlights of the match. AKINO is awesome as a tenured hard hitting wrestler, and ended up probably being my favorite part of the match. She threw some really awesome kicks and hit one particularly awesome backdrop. She also did some genuinely funny comedy stuff towards the beginning, I couldn't understand anything she or Takanashi were talking about but the fact she just refused to stop trying to talk over him was great. Sasaki was also good in that same role, coming in and just beating people up. It didn't feel like he was in a ton but when he was he did some cool stuff. Ishikawa was great as this giant monster, throwing big boots and manhandling everyone. He had the spot of the match too when he threw Akitoshi into the ring, as seen below.

    The heel group (members of the Heisei D-Shingun faction led by Ken Ohka) was also pretty good, albeit definitely not as good as the face side. Akitoshi is awesome, doing kung fu diving side kicks and shit like that. He also did some really great arm targeting stuff on AKINO, really showing how he's not just a one-trick pony with the kung fu. Takanashi was alright but god he made me mad sometimes. In terms of good he did hit a few cool moves like a leg lariat thing he did near the end, and some of his heel work was genuinely pretty good, but man he just would not stop overselling. About 50% of the time, if you hit him slightly hard he was going to flop around on the mat like a fish out of water, and it was some of the dumbest selling I've ever seen. I understand that Heisei D-Shingun is meant to be a heel faction full of guys that are over-emotive and it's meant to be somewhat hokey, but every time he did that and other horrible sells it just took me out of the match. Sueyoshi on the other hand was about as good as Takanashi but was bad for different reasons. He just felt relatively weak and untrained compared to everyone else, throwing nothing forearms and hitting moves sloppily, like he literally only started training a week before the match. At least he got to somewhat redeem himself by hitting this combination with Akitoshi:

    I think this was somewhat better than the last match, but not by a ton. It had some pretty fun moments throughout but when 2/3rds of one of the teams are lame ducks, there's a ceiling to how good the match can actually be.

Rating: B

Masato Shibata vs. Hiroshi Kosakai

    This is for Shibata's RCW International championship, a title he won from Kosakai, who originally won it at River City Wrestling in 2007 while on a short US tour. At this point, the belt was pretty much a title owned by MAKEHEN/Team Vader, so it makes sense for two MAKEHEN boys to fight for it here. Masato Shibata is the future Mad Paulie, who at this point is just a shooty hoss and a big mark for Vader (a very good combination in my own opinion). Kosakai meanwhile is a guy who I've gotten very hyped up on in the past few months, first seeing him appear on one of the Occupation of the Indiez reruns and then getting more and more into his work as I sought out more full matches. He's a hard-hitting shooter who throws some crazy knees and punches, and he has a really awesome look to him too with the silver/white/black gear and the big arm tattoo. 

    God man, this match rocked hard. Kosakai was fucking great here, throwing some disgustingly stiff kicks all over Shibata's body, but especially to his leg. He really beat the shit outta Shibata's leg, not only throwing kicks but also stomping on it and really trying to rip it apart with different holds. He didn't just throw kicks though, with the combo shown below being probably the best strike combo he did the whole match. He also somehow hit a fucking brainbuster on the 300+ pound Shibata, which I truly cannot fathom even though I saw it happen.

    Shibata more than held up his end of the match though, probably putting in an even better performance than Kosakai. His leg selling during the main portion of the match was great, even doing a running corner move with a slight limp so he could still do his moves but keep the logic of the match going. He threw some absolutely gnarly chops too, with the noise they made being WALTER level, and he also threw some vader hammers with such reckless abandon I'm shocked Kosakai didn't get legitimately fucked up by one. The best part of his whole arsenal was the suplexes though, with this combination genuinely getting me to laugh and say "holy fuck" under my breath.

    Now, did this match have some faults? Of course. Kosakai and Shibata both had no-sell moments, and Kosakai had some "KING'S ROAD~!" type shit with a one count kickout which, while significantly less offensive than usual due to the execution of the following spots, was still unneeded. But even with this, I still think this was an absolute blast, with both guys going balls to the wall throughout. A really great match, one that makes me wanna start a new comprehensive series for Kosakai ASAP.

Rating: A-

Keita Yano & Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs. Masashi Takeda & Jaki Numazawa

    This looks like a really fun bullshit match on paper. Yano is of course a beast, one of my personal favorites and even this early into his career he was doing a ton of fun stuff (even if he hadn't lost his mind and gone joker mode yet). Kuroda is kinda divisive among people I know but I personally enjoy his work usually, doing some fun spots and having a solid lariat. Takeda is a generational talent, while Sasaki is my favorite shoot style guy from U-FILE CAMP, Takeda is definitely my favorite overall wrestler, and in my opinion might be the greatest "deathmatch" wrestler of all time. Numazawa is another really fun deathmatch guy, and absolutely able to hold his own in normal matches too.

    And this ended up being a fun bullshit match in execution! Yano was pretty sweet here, doing his usual work but also incorporating some chair stuff into it. He hit a pretty cool combo of a codebreaker with a chair into the Yurikamome, and he also hit this awesome springboard dropkick onto Takeda with Takeda's head on a chair, as seen below. Kuroda meanwhile was fine, he didn't do anything out of the ordinary for him and he kept the match going.

    Takeda and Numazawa were both menaces here. Both frequently used chairs and Numazawa even became the only person to use a weapon besides a chair by hitting Kuroda with the ring bell. Takeda was pretty awesome here just doing his thing, hitting some cool moves like a dropkick with Keita seated in, you guessed it, another chair, as well as a pretty sick german suplex. Numazawa actually was even better in this match in my opinion, doing some really fun brawling and hitting Yano with a michinoku driver onto a pile of... wait for it. CHAIRS! The sickest spot of the match also involved a chair, and it was downright horrifying, with Takeda and Numazawa hitting a suplex on Yano onto an open chair, completely snapping the back of it.

    In the end, this ended up being pretty fun, albeit nothing must-see. No real big takeaways or anything, just a fine match featuring some cool spots and overall doing everything it needed to.

Rating: B

No Rope, No Escape: Ken Ohka vs. Kazuhiro Tamura

    This match had been built up for a good bit of time, with Ohka leading Heisei D-Shingun (a stable made up of DDT regulars and also Toshihiro Sueyoshi) with the intent of taking over STYLE-E, and Tamura leading the frontlines in fighting this invasion off. He actually lost the title to Masa Takanashi in late 2008, as well as losing a singles to Ohka at the end of the year, but he regained the belt at the show before this one, leading to the two leaders of their respective groups facing off in a match without any ring ropes (the name given for the rules is actually what they called it, which is beast). Ohka came out with his stablemates and Akitoshi flying the Heisei D-Shingun flag, while Tamura came out flanked by the rest of the STYLE-E roster draped in a STYLE-E towel.

    Wouldn't you know it, this match was a lot of fun too! Tons of great bullshit spots featuring both teams, which we will get into, but I must at least show you the first one before saying anything else because it fucking ruled:

    Ohka was pretty awesome here, doing a ton of cool heel stuff and working strongly from the top. He had some nice punches and cool spots targeting the stomach like this crazy gutwrench gutbuster and his signature rolling fireman's carry. While some of the stuff he did towards the beginning was kinda meh, he absolutely turned it up in the latter half of the match. Best spot of the night on his part was the disgusting spear pictured below. His cronies in Heisei D-Shingun also played their part perfectly, constantly getting involved and being general assholes, eventually leading to the wild brawl that would cause both teams to leave the match.

    Tamura, meanwhile, was the absolute king in this match. He layed in some awesome kicks and did some crazy big moves, like an insane spear counter into an armbar. He was really awesome in the role of the underdog too, getting the crowd behind him pretty damn well. The stuff he pulled off towards the end was awesome too, especially this absolutely blasting head kick:

    The finishing stretch was fucking insane too, with both guys looking to genuinely destroy the other's brains (Ohka using headbutts and Tamura using head kicks), and honestly just that finishing stretch made this match worth watching. Overall, a really fun main event, and a great way to end the show.

Rating: B+

NEW NOW 04/04/1999

                  (Written by jom)

Sachie Nishibori & Emi Motokawa vs. Keiko Aono & Yasha Kurenai

    Being entirely honest here, I have significantly less knowledge about these four than I really should. Nishibori and Motokawa (the future Emi Sakura) are IWA Japan wrestlers who worked frequently in other promotions and have been pretty damn solid in the small amount of their work I've seen from IWA Japan. Yasha Kurenai is someone I've only seen pictures and clips of but she looks absolutely beast, with a really sweet yankee gimmick which is honestly just a gimmick I love in general. And Aono... I've never seen before. I've definitely at least seen her name but cannot for the life of me remember if I've ever seen her wrestle.

    Wouldn't you know it, this was pretty awesome! Genuinely, this was a lot of fun with all four involved really bringing it and starting the show off right. Nishibori was doing some pretty cool stuff, hitting a great hurricanrana and a crazy dive, as well as pulling off some cool counters. Motokawa was awesome here too, moreso than Nishibori, being absolutely full of energy and going as fast as possible the entire match. Her first contribution to the match was repeatedly dropkicking Aono into oblivion so it was pretty obvious she was gonna pull off a top level performance. The two of them even had a few solid moments of teamwork, especially this crazy assisted flipping senton onto Kurenai:

    Aono was solid for the small amount of stuff I got to see her do. She did some fun power moves like her really good shoulder tackles, and at one point caught a Nishibori crossbody to hit a real nice powerslam. Kurenai was my favorite part of the match though, just completely wrecking Motokawa and especially Nishibori. She pulled off some cool stuff, like a springboard leg drop and the awesome uranage/exploder type move shown below (not really sure what to call it considering the landing).

    Overall, this rocked pretty well for the amount of it that we saw. SamuraiTV ended up clipping out over half the match which really does suck considering what we got was awesome, but I've definitely become more interested in checking out the work of all four women after this.

Rating: B

Yusaku & Daisaku vs. Yuichi Taniguchi & Sanshiro Takagi

    There's really not an introduction needed for either of the Shimoda twins (I've already covered them both enough in Yusaku/Rikiya Fudo's Comprehensive series). Taniguchi is a guy who I've never been super high on but he's almost always put in at least a serviceable performance. Takagi is based as hell. I love the resident Stone Cold cosplayer in Japan and especially during this stage in his career he was pretty great, doing some solid brawler type stuff while starting to really integrate Austinisms into his work. Sadly all the entrances were cut so no "FIREEEEEE" but it's not the end of the world.

    Once again, this was really damn good! Two for two so far on this show. Taniguchi really surprised me with how well he did here, really using his mass to pulverize the Shimoda twins with crushing corner and running splashes. He also at one point hit a genuinely great northern lights suplex which I was decidedly not expecting from someone of Taniguchi's size. Takagi was also great here, constantly turning up the heat when he was in the ring by just fighting with whoever he was there with. He had some awesome moves like his DDTs, but probably the best moment he had all match was when he came in and just started shooting on shooter Daisaku for no particular reason. Truly, Takagi is a beast.

    Yusaku, similar to Aono, was a solid power wrestler, although honestly he didn't do a ton of impressive stuff here. He hit a cool back elbow and a vader bomb, but for the most part was just fine. Daisaku on the other hand was off the fucking bean. He was honestly pretty similar to Masashi Aoyagi, coming in and popping off some hard strike combos, really making himself feel like such a threat. Probably the best of these combos came towards the end, when he hit a beauty of an axe kick before smashing Takagi's temple with a gamengiri.

    Another really good match for this show so far, even better than the last one. I think that this never really entered into enough of a next gear to be called "great", but this wasn't a match ever intended to be anything like that. It accomplished exactly what it was meant to as a lower midcard match featuring some real shitkickers, and if you're a fan of any of these guys you'd probably enjoy this.

Rating: B+

Azumi Hyuga & Ran YuYu vs. Carlos Amano & Kana Mizaki

    Basically take what I said about the opening match and increase it tenfold. I have no watching experience with anyone in here besides Carlos Amano (although I recognize all of their names). Now, having said that, I think that Amano might be a top 100 wrestler ever from the amount of work I've seen from her. She throws hard headbutts, has some insane grappling ability, and does the greatest armbar of all time, so going into this I'm at least hoping she gets to pull do two out of three of these things.

    Another pretty solid match, albeit a step below the last two. Hyuga and YuYu both did pretty good, especially YuYu. She hit some pretty awesome samoan drops, especially a really sweet one off the top rope. Hyuga hit some cool stuff of her own, such as a nice springboard dropkick and this beauty of a butterfly backbreaker:

    Mizaki and Amano both put in some pretty good performances as well. Mizaki hit a ton of sentons which I thought was cool, and also it a solid tornado DDT. Amano was absolutely the best part of the match, pulling out some real nice grappling and hitting a ton of different armbars (which made up for the complete lack of headbutts). This culminated in her hitting genuinely an extremely awesome doomsday armbar, shown below.

    While I think this match had a solid handful of cool moments, it definitely felt slightly disjointed and move-spammy. It didn't help that the way the pace went made it feel like it never really built to the finishing stretch, just going at the same tempo for the majority of the match. That said, I still think this was pretty good and I enjoyed it overall.

Rating: B

Great Takeru, Keisuke Yamada, & Keizo Matsuda vs. Shigeo Kato, Onryo, & Shinigami

    IWA Japan vs. Wrestle Yume Factory~! Starting to think Kendo Nagasaki was somehow talking to me when booking this show because this is exactly the type of match I would book if I could. Love all six of these guys, with Takeru being an awesome suicidal high-flyer, Yamada and Matsuda both being hardass bruisers, Kato being a solid heel technican, Onryo being a sleek juniors worker, and Shinigami being like if Undertaker was a member of the Von Erich family. Basically, I already was in love with this match before it even happened.

    ...And that's about as much love as it ended up getting. It pains me to say this but this match just wasn't very good. The opening of it was pretty hot with the teams brawling before leading into a solid "good guys stand tall" moment, but after that the match turned into one giant extended heat segment with very few breaks. Nothing these guys did was bad per se but it was more that they just did nothing at all. Probably the best guy in the whole match was Shinigami, who not only got to act cocky as hell and do a bunch of shittalking, but also did probably some of the most interesting stuff in terms of moves, with the best one being this pretty awesome double choke into a belly to belly suplex:

    Now, maybe this match was better than it seems. Once again, this match was the victim of some extreme clipping, with the 22 minute match being cut down to roughly 10 minutes. However, considering what we do have, I have a feeling that it wasn't, and that makes me very sad. This is probably a C- but my disappointment weighs heavy.

Rating: D+

Barbed Wire Boards Deathmatch: Tarzan Goto & Freddie Krueger vs. Shoji Nakamaki & Mitsunobu Kikuzawa

    Another match that, on paper, seems really fun. Jun Saida is someone I've never heard of before wearing a weird red mask, wrestledata says that Nakamaki teamed with Kikuzawa on this show so maybe that's his real identity but no sure way to know (EDIT: the mask came off within 3 minutes of the match, it is in fact Kikuzawa). Krueger (the IWA Japan one portrayed by Doug Gilbert) is alright, albeit he only really does good when he's being carried by someone better. However, Nakamaki and Goto are absolutely better enough wrestlers to carry if need be, with Nakamaki being a really fun hard hitting deathmatch brawler and Goto being a top 50 wrestler of all time in my own eyes. To be honest though, my expectations are out the window after that last match and I'm just kinda hoping this ends up being good.

    It's a good thing I did temper those expectations because this was totally alright. Tarzan Goto was by far the best part of the match (I would've been shocked if he wasn't), just being generally very evil and doing things like his signature bottle break spot, throwing people into the wire, and letting out an evil laugh. The best thing he did all match was the powerbomb shown below, where Kikuzawa got all sorts of wrapped up in the wire. Outside of Goto though, everyone else didn't really do much. Krueger had a couple moments of being in control on his own and they were very nothing, Kikuzawa was the whipping boy for the most part (although he did get to hit one very cool running senton onto Krueger in the wire), and Nakamaki just didn't really do anything worthwhile outside of some pretty solid brawling with Goto.

    While I think this match had a solid handful of cool moments, it definitely felt slightly disjointed and move-spammy. It didn't help that the way the pace went made it feel like it never really built to the finishing stretch, just going at the same tempo for the majority of the match. That said, I still think this was pretty good and I enjoyed it overall.

Rating: C+

Sayuri Okino & Eagle Sawai vs. Shinobu Kandori & Junko Yagi

    Once again, I know nobody hear besides one person. I've seen limited amounts of Kandori but she's always come off amazingly so I was looking forward to this match just to see more from her.

    And we are back with a genuinely good match! This was a really solid old school face/heel tag match, with Sawai and Okino constantly running interference (along with a 2nd they had with them that was in the ring for like 90% of the match) and using weapons, while Kandori and Yagi having to try and fend them off. Sawai was pretty solid here, doing some alright body blocks and being a generally imposing force but she never really did anything that wow'd me. Okino was really good as a less imposing, more annoying heel, just wailing on Kandori and Yagi with weapons like a pink kendo stick and a chain. She had a few moves she got in that were awesome too, like this sweet dropkick:

    Yagi was alright, although she didn't do much. Her main existence in the match was to get beaten up by the heels and to constantly get inches away from the tag, only to get cut off at the last second, leading to Kandori's eventual hot tag. And man, Kandori fucking rocked in this match. She was a total house of fire any time she got involved, moving with such ferocity and busting out some amazing counters like the one into an armbar show below. Her work in the finish was absolutely amazing too, with her repeatedly going for the kill on Okino while Sawai and the 2nd tried their damndest to stop her for finishing Okino off.

    Overall, this was a blast of a match. I think the only thing holding it back from greatness was just how much the 2nd was involved. If they had been a little more creative on how they got her in the match so that the ref didn't look like the biggest idiot on the planet I think this would've been a shoe-in A-, but the score it ended up with is still absolutely respectable.

Rating: B+

Shigeo Okumura, Nobutaka Araya, & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Kendo Nagasaki, Genichiro Tenryu, & Masaaki Mochizuki

    The main event of the show is here and what a clusterfuck on paper. You've got a solid all-rounder, an agile hoss, an old stiff grappler, a violent brawler, a total force of nature, and a karateka. Pretty much the perfect storm for a crazy main event tag match.

    Yeah, this match fucking rocked. It ended up being the absolutely insane brawl I was hoping for, if not even more so than I could've dreamed. I can't even begin to go over everyone's performance, genuinely not a single person wasted their spot. Of course, anything involving Fujiwara or Tenryu was money, especially when they were together in the ring. This is a few years removed from the genuine all-time classic singles match they had in WAR, and the heat from that match completely carried over because these guys tried to kill each other as much as possible.

    Nagasaki also had some awesome exchanges with Fujiwara, especially when the two just started shoot headbutting each other with reckless abandon. He was also part of maybe my favorite visual of the whole match, as when it turned into an all-out brawl Fujiwara and Tenryu were fighting in the ring, but in the background you could see Nagasaki absolutely mauling Okumura. Mochizuki did an awesome job hitting a bunch of badass karate stuff including a brutal head kick into a springboard dropkick. Araya and Okumura both were really damn good too, acting as some awesome young bruisers backing up old man Fujiwara when he needed it and just beating the dogshit outta whoever they were in the ring with.

    This was just such an amazing match. Violent, chaotic, a total shot to the heart compared to everything else leading up to it. This is the type of match that walks in, punches you in the nose, and walks out like nothing happened. Truly something special.

Rating: A

SHARK WEEK! #3: Shinjuku Same

                (Written by jom)

    Today is the saddest of days, as it is finally time to close the first chapter of Dragon Screw Shark Week. I'm sure many of you will be joining me and praying for a bountiful Shark Week in 2023. However, it isn't over yet, so let's go out with a bang: enter Shinjuku Same. I'm sure many people are confused, currently asking their computer or phone screens "but jom, what about this "Shinjuku Same" has anything to do with SHARK week?". To that, I say "shut the hell up you idiot, you moron, you absolute buffoon" (except in much kinder and respectful words) because Shinjuku Same, when translated, actually means "Shinjuku Shark". Therefore, I have not only the right but the responsibility to spread the good word of Shinjuku Same, and my lord there are many good words to be said. One of the pioneering boxer wrestlers, Same is somewhat of a prototype of guys like Thanomsak Toba, throwing absolutely destructive punches with a quickness and violence not seen by many others. While Katsuji Ueda did the boxing gimmick first, Same is the one to really have cemented it as absolutely beast, and in our final Shark Week post of the year, I hope to share with you the power of the 12 oz gloves.

Shinjuku Same vs. Onryo (FMW 10/22/2001)

    I don't care what anyone says, Fuyukiism is one of the greatest things of all time. Only through the insane mind of Kodo Fuyuki could FMW have booked a boxer to take on a literal ghost. Onryo absolutely rocks, with his whole undead spirit gimmick being one of the best in Japanese indy history. The powder in his hair, the spot where he catches the ref's hand during a pinfall count, and the entire storyline between him and GOEMON really cement him as an absolute legend. His actual wrestling ability is worth tons of praise too, with some truly spectacular juniors work and the always beautiful Onryo clutch.

    Onryo was awesome as always here. It did take him a bit to start actually doing his usual cool stuff but once he did he was running through the classics left and right. He did the teleportation spot (thrown outside the ring on one side, appear from the other to sneak attack his opponent), the hand catch spot, and even busted out a really nice Onryo clutch. He also just generally did some really nice wrestling, such as an awesome release German suplex and this beautiful counter into a backslide:

    Same was busting out some awesome stuff too here, even more so than Onryo. He threw some really cool punches (especially an uppercut onto a rope-hung Onryo), but probably the best one he did was the one gif'd below, where he countered an apron dive by jumping off a chair and just smashing Onryo in the face. He didn't just do cool punches though, as he also got to hit some really cool moves like a running dropkick on the apron à la Roman Reigns, as well as doing an absolute beauty of a moonsault.

    I think that overall this was pretty fun, albeit it took a bit to get there. The beginning third of the match was pretty middling and it wasn't helped by a crowd that could be described as "apathetic" at best. Seriously, this crowd was nearly dead silent for the majority of the match, at least until the last section. However, that last section did have a lot of fun stuff (enough to actually wake the crowd up for the most part), so if you're a fan of either guy I'd recommend checking this out.

Rating: B

Shinjuku Same vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (Apache Pro 04/28/2011)

    No, you're not reading this wrong. This is the Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, All Japan and NOAH legend and one part of the truly all-time great Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Can-Am Express match. However, by 2011, he had left NOAH and was applying his craft all over the independent scene, especially in Union Pro as part of Sanshiro Takagi's TKG48 group (side note: if you haven't seen his match against Tenryu from Union Pro in 2011, I highly recommend checking that out, as it's just two old guys way past their prime fighting their hearts out and there really isn't much better in wrestling than that).

    Kikuchi was uh... Kikuchi was different than you'd normally think here. The best way to describe him would be rabid, as he was running around like a wild dog, constantly yelling, and had a more fucked grimace on his face the entire match than any Murakami grimace ever. It was really a ton of fun though, with him constantly yelling at Same and the ref about whatever he could be yelling about. There were also like two older dudes in the crowd that were very clearly Kikuchi fans, with Kikuchi having conversations with both of them at different points during the match. Eventually, after getting "weapons" (aka a plastic bag and rope) involved in the match, Kikuchi and Same had this great moment that shows while Kikuchi may have aged greatly, his hard ass head never did.

    Same meanwhile was same ole Same, throwing cool punches and just generally being pretty sweet. He was fully there for the comedy stuff, at one point setting up a chair in the ring, making Kikuchi sit on it, and then running off the ropes and punching Kikuchi so hard it sent him (and the chair) tumbling over. He also got into an argument with one of the old Kikuchi dudes which was just amazing. Probably the greatest thing he did in the whole match was this combo into an apron suplex (show below), leading to Kikuchi making one of the most insane faces of the entire match:

    I kinda loved this match. It was so dumb, full of dumb spots and Kikuchi making dumb faces, and it really reminded me that some of the best wrestling involves zero braincells. It wasn't anything spectacular or phenomenal or any bullshit terms like that (terms which I will inevitably continue to use even while acknowledging them as bullshit), it was just absolutely fun and a great way to spend 9 minutes.

Rating: A-

Shinjuku Same & Rocky Kawamura vs. Hikaru Sato & Takuya Kai (Tokyo Gurentai 04/04/2017)

    As of this post, this is Same's final professional wrestling match. In an interview Same did less than a year ago, he roughly said "I don't wrestle at all. I'm not enough of a wrestler to say I've 'retired' so instead I'm just kind of fading out.", so unless he gets some stroke of inspiration to get back in the ring one more time, this is the end of the shark from Shinjuku. He's here teaming with Rocky Kawamura (who at this point is wrestling kinda like he's a younger, balder Shinjuku Same), and it's certainly a sight to see with two guys deeply inspired by Rocky Balboa teaming up to wear American flag gear and punch people in the face. They're taking on Sato (previously seen in the Tiger Shark article that kicked off this whole series) and Takuya Kai, someone I've genuinely never seen before.

    I'm not even going to talk about the other team because Sato was fine but did very little of note and Kai just wasn't very good and not in an interesting way. This was the Rocky tribute match for Kawamura and Same. They spent the whole thing throwing punches at the gut, head, face, and anywhere else they could, and it was awesome. At one point Same even broke up a pinfall by chucking his gloves at Sato. The best moment of the whole match came when Kawamura and Same had the perfect opportunity and busted out this awesome combo:

    Overall, this wasn't a match really worth talking about, but it did have some cool moments courtesy of the two boxers in it. Honestly, I don't know if there could've been a better way for Same's career to end than tagging with another Rocky tribute wrestler and throwing as many punches as possible.

Rating: B-

SHARK WEEK! #1: Tiger Shark

               (Written by jom)

    Guys, gals, and non-binary pals, welcome to one of the greatest international holidays in the history of international holidays. A celebration so sweet they made it a week. That's right baby, it's Shark Week! A week to enjoy the most dangerous yet most beloved aquatic animal, with great program's such as "Air Jaws: Top Guns", "Rise of the Monster Hammerheads", and of course, the always lauded "Shark Women: Ghosted by Great Whites". Hell, this year's festivities are even being hosted by legendary IWA PR alumni, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson! However, with all these wonderful TV programs being hosted by a former professional wrestler, I got to thinking about something that has always been in the back of my head: "why doesn't anyone celebrate the greatest sharks in wrestling?". Well, I now have something of a platform, so if nobody else will, why don't I?

    For the next week, I'll be posting not one, not two, not four, but THREE different articles speaking the good word of three different professional wrestling sharks. And if we're gonna be spending a whole week talking about them, why don't we start with one with some real legacy? In comes Tiger Shark, evil nemesis to Super Tiger and RJPW's resident shark-themed Sayama trainee. No ifs, ands, or buts about it, this guy just rocks. He feels like he's way more of a protege of Sayama than any of the other tigers, regularly busting out both stiff strikes and impressive aerial maneuvers. While nowadays he's abandoned the Tiger aspect entirely and set on his own as Blue Shark, we'll only be looking at some of his work as Tiger Shark in this post. Now, on with the article~!

Tiger Shark vs. Ryuji Walter (BattlArts 08/30/2009)

    This is just such a kick-ass match on paper. I've already talked about how much Shark rules, but as I've been consuming more and more of reborn BattlArts, I've come to realize just how based Ryuji Walter is. He's a tubby shooter wearing a singlet, kickpads, and MMA gloves, with all three being in black and silver, which is just a really awesome color combo. He also has a really interesting story as a wrestler too, as he was raised in the United States and became a bouncer, before training under Boris Malenko and working the low American independents. Eventually, George King (a fellow indy worker who had gotten opportunities to wrestle in Battlarts previously) introduced Walter to Ishikawa, resulting in Walter returning to Japan and becoming a member of the promotion. He also booked some crazy produce shows, so Ryuji Walter, if you somehow end up reading this, please DM me on Twitter so I can pay you a lot of money to watch them.

    Ryuji Walter, similar to his gear, was pretty damn sweet in this match. He had some awesome pro-wrestling type stuff mixed into his shoot style stuff, like countering a takedown with a DDT or hitting a real nice vertical suplex. The best contributions he made to the match were, of course, his punches. He really laid them in like he always did, throwing them at Shark's chin like there was a big target painted on it. He also really peppered them whenever he could, throwing one or two almost always when he was on the ground with Shark. Probably my favorite moment during the match was when Walter, sick of Shark's many kick combos throughout the match, just went full-on braindead mode, completely shrugging off some middle kicks to fire off punches with such force that he fell over from swinging too wildly. That type of "no thought only punch" type of violence is just sorely missing in today's wrestling.

    Shark also did really damn good in this match, albeit maybe not as good as Walter. He threw some great kicks as he always does, and his own pro wrestling spots were solid (except for one elbow drop which just absolutely whiffed). His tombstone is absolutely horrifying too, so seeing him bust it out here was pretty great. He did kinda slow the match down a couple times with middling mat work, but he was competent enough to never completely shut the match's momentum off, and when he would get into a hot streak or pop off a counter it was always really awesome to see.

    Overall, this was pretty awesome in parts, but as a whole did lack some of the solid connective tissue needed to elevate this to greatness. That being said, it clearly showed that both guys were pretty sweet in this style, and a Ryuji Walter "comprehensive" series may or may not be appearing in the future.

Rating: B

Tiger Shark vs. Hikaru Sato (RJPW 09/08/2010)

    Sato is Minoru Suzuki's sole protege and he's pretty damn solid. He's got some good kicks and while in 2022 he has some aspects of his work I definitely do not like (the drunk selling on every single strike can take a fucking walk), at this point he's pretty much a pure MMA crossover type wrestler.

    Shark did pretty solid in this match just like the last one. He integrated more pro wrestling into his moves this time, such as hitting his honestly horrendous standing moonsault (even though it's ugly as hell I still love it for some reason). His kicks were on point and his grappling was better than the last match, although not too much better. Probably the best moment he had all match was this awesome sequence into the Shark Death by Lock:

    Sato also did well here. Honestly it's hard to elaborate more than that, he just did pretty well. His kicks were solid, his grappling was fine, and he did have a pretty cool spot of transitioning an ankle lock into a backdrop. He didn't do anything that really wow'd me besides that, but he never did anything that really hurt the match either.

    I feel like this definitely wasn't as good as the previous match, although it was still solid stuff. Everything they did came off mostly good, it was just a case of neither guy doing too much that I could call great or anything.

Rating: B-

Tiger Shark vs. SEIKEN (Battlarts 05/22/2011)

    Back to Battlarts, this time to see Shark take on SEIKEN. SEIKEN is a guy that, from some research I've done previously, seems to have been a member of B-CLUB (the Battlarts amateur wrestling club) before transferring into Seikendo. I've seen him in a match against Kengo Mashimo in FUTEN where he impressed me greatly, so coming into this I had some level of high hopes for the match.

    This was probably Shark's best performance yet. He threw kicks harder in this match than he did in any other, and he felt a lot more aggressive and violent overall, really taking it to SEIKEN throughout the match. He also pulled off his pro wrestling stuff better than he did in the Walter match, hitting one of the best standing moonsaults I've ever seen him hit, as well as a disgusting corner dropkick. Probably the best thing he did in the match was this axe kick though, which absolutely destroyed SEIKEN:

    SEIKEN meanwhile fucking ruled, throwing kicks that were even harder than Shark's and fighting in such a scrappy and hard way. He did some really awesome stuff in this match, like throwing headbutts at Shark's midsection while mounted and basically just button mashing his strikes whenever he could get even the slightest opportunity to go on the offensive. His stuff in the finishing stretch of the match was awesome too.

    This was just a fun, short, intense shoot brawl between two Seikendo trainees. Definitely Shark's best work from the three matches I went over, and hopefully I'll be able to talk more about SEIKEN on the blog eventually. 

Rating: B+

SHARK WEEK! #2: Shark Tsuchiya

                (Written by jom)

    It's been a few days since we talked about Tiger Shark, so let's change it up and talk about someone very different: Shark Tsuchiya. Tsuchiya is arguably the most well-known joshi wrestler from FMW outside of Megumi Kudo, and was a long-time rival for the female ace, even being her opponent for Kudo's retirement match. She's also seemingly very disliked by many foreign fans, with possibly the starkest contrast between profile rating (currently 1.75) and individual match rating (9.18 for her match with Kudo from 04/29/97) on the entirety of CAGEMATCH. I personally think that rating is bogus and the inmates are insane, because Tsuchiya is pretty damn cool. She comes across a lot like a female Mr. Pogo, not being great at bumping or actual wrestling but instead being a total force of nature heel, just beating the shit outta whoever she's facing with weapons and heel antics. Hopefully, this post might help sway the minds of some people who have already decided that Tsuchiya isn't good.

Shark Tsuchiya vs. Megumi Kudo (FMW 12/22/1995)

    This is a no ropes barbed wire deathmatch, taking place less than a year and a half before their more famous encounter at the FMW 8th Anniversary show. While that match is legendary for good reason, I wanted to cover this one instead because not only is it lesser known than that one, but also because I myself hadn't seen this match before and I just love flat-out barbed wire matches without any of the special additions like explosions. There's something about the main danger of the match just being barbed wire rather than something like explosions that makes these matches feel so much more realistic and violent to me.

    Tsuchiya was going absolutely hard as hell in this match. Her usual heel antics and weapon usage were done amazingly here, with Crusher Maedomari and Bad Nurse Nakamura both accompanying her and constantly interfering to beat down Kudo and provide weapons, like a barbed wire kendo stick and a scythe. Outside of those, she busted out some crazy big bombs, like a disgusting backdrop suplex and a real stiff lariat with her arm wrapped in barbed wire. She also did some awesome spots involving the barbed wire ropes, including the awesome sequence shown below:

    Of course, Kudo was absolutely the star of the show here. It really isn't fair for anyone to expect Tsuchiya (or for that matter most wrestlers) to outdo Kudo in a deathmatch, because she always brought her a-game to these matches and Kudo's a-game is really only comparable to most GOAT-level wrestlers. She threw herself into the barbed wire on multiple occasions, bled heavily, and sold like a motherfucker for everything in the match. Her moments of offense always came off like David besting Goliath, and the finishing run she did especially was crazy, with the entirety of Korakuen going nuts for every near-fall. Really, this is the type of performance that would be considered a career high for most, but for Kudo this was just another day on the job.

    Honestly, this match was just so fucking amazing. Kudo of course went nuts but Tsuchiya's contributions should not go unrecognized, as her evilness really helped to get Kudo's comebacks to the level of heat they reached. A very high recommendation from me, I implore you to check this out ASAP.

Rating: A

Shark Tsuchiya vs. RIE (Fuyuki-gun 03/29/1997)

    Less than a year and a half after the last match (and only a month away from the famous Kudo retirement match), Tsuchiya is here for Fuyuki-gun's debut event. She's taking on RIE, aka Bad Nurse Nakamura after abandoning her heelish ways and becoming a straight-up wrestler.

    Shark's performance this time around was pretty damn good as well, playing a much more dominant bully heel. She really beat down RIE with some hard strikes and especially solid back suplexes, but her weapon use in this match was definitely the best part. She went crazy on RIE with her scythe, just digging into her face with it and dragging her around the ring so everyone could get a good look at it. The most terrifying moment was absolutely her fire spot though, where she dumped a bunch of "gasoline" onto RIE with RIE screaming bloody murder at the potential for her to be straight-up burned alive, before Tsuchiya just spit it at her and laughed about it being water or something like that. RIE's face of being like genuinely broken after that "prank" actually sent shivers down my spine, truly horrifying stuff.

    RIE was perfectly fine in her role as the underdog, albeit "fine" is really the best descriptor I could give. She had some alright hope spots like countering a back suplex attempt into a rollup, but overall she was just competent as a body for Shark to destroy.

    Overall, this wasn't really anything that you'd have to see, but it's a solid enough extended squash type match with a few harrowing spots courtesy of Shark.

Rating: C

Shark Tsuchiya vs. GAMI (ARSION 10/07/2002)

    We've made it to the 2000s, and somehow, this is the first ARSION match in the history of the blog. I'm kinda shocked to say that considering there's a few wrestlers from the promotion that I love and eventually at least two of them will be getting articles focused on themselves. In fact, one of those wrestlers is in this match, as Tsuchiya is taking on GAMI. GAMI is really one of my favorites from the whole promotion, as her earlier work under her real name of Mikiko Futagami is especially something to behold, with tons of great stiffness and sick grappling that only Mariko Yoshida could hold a candle to.

    Contrary to the way I described her above though, this match was based much more around comedy and Tsuchiya-brand violence. Tsuchiya was cool here as the straight-woman to counter GAMI's more fun antics, and when she eventually has enough and starts going to her weapons, she once again comes off as a cool force of nature. Honestly, there's not much to say in terms of anything different from the last performance she did against RIE, albeit there weren't any threats of immolation and GAMI definitely was less of a squash victim and more of just someone on the receiving end of a solid amount of offense. Tsuchiya even busted out this awesome piledriver seen below:

    GAMI was very good in that role too, but she shined best earlier in the match doing the comedy stuff. Her repeatedly going for eye pokes got a laugh out of me, as well as her starting the match by trying to befriend Tsuchiya (which is truly one of the most insane things she could have done in this match because there wasn't any chance of that working).

    This wasn't much more in terms of quality than the last match, but I do think the comedy stuff did actually elevate this a solid amount. A fun match to end this post.

Rating: B-

Comprehensive Super Rider #2

              (Written by jom)

Super Rider & Super Uchuu Power vs. Kazushige Nosawa & Sanshiro Takagi (DDT 03/25/1997)

    This is the main event of DDT's "Prelaunch Battle", which basically means the show was meant to be a preview of what people could expect from DDT once it officially launches. Starting your promotion with two of the founders taking on shoot style spacemen is truly next level wrestlebrain, so it isn't shocking Takagi has been able to grow DDT into being the possible #2 most popular promotion in Japan.

    Takagi and Nosawa were pretty sweet here, both were really energized and constantly fighting Uchuu and Rider in really scrappy ways. Both guys were throwing some hard dropkicks all throughout the match, especially Nosawa who threw a really gross one especially at Uchuu to break up a submission. Takagi meanwhile was already very clearly the top guy in the promotion, with everyone chanting his name and some big comeback spots towards the end, peaking with this beauty of a tornado DDT:

    Super Uchuu Power (Koichiro Kimura) was undoubtedly the star of the show. He was an absolute killer here, doling out some nutty strikes and hitting insane slams. He was lariating Nosawa and Takagi like they owed him money, and the way he treated Nosawa especially was borderline hard to watch, constantly destroying him with crazy moves like a double tombstone piledriver. The nastiest thing he did to him though had to be the powerbomb shown below, the bounce that Nosawa got off of being slammed onto the mat was horrifying.

    While Rider wasn't able to perform at the same level Power did, he more than held up his portions of the match, dishing out some great kicks and cool pro wrestling spots. His kicks especially were pretty awesome, doing some great jumping rolling solebutts and at one point accidentally hitting Power with a great Rider kick.

    The overall match did have some iffy pacing and the extended length of it led to some spots that felt like they were almost repeating, but overall this was a damn cool fight. In terms of history, this match is extremely important too, as it set the stage for the first few years of life for the eventual juggernaut that is DDT, so on that front it's definitely worth checking out.

Rating: B+

Super Rider vs. Takeshi Ono (BattlArts 06/02/2001)

    This is a rematch to the Korakuen match reviewed previously on the blog. Last time, I thought that while a good amount of the work was really awesome, some iffy pacing and the lack of interest from the crowd left me somewhat disappointed in the final product. Hopefully, now that they've gotten some more experience working together, those problems will be alleviated and they'll pull off the match I know they can.

    Takeshi Ono was, in a sense, pure Takeshi Ono here. He did the usual awesome strikes, slick grappling, and great selling, all at the usual high level he did it at. This was also a great piece of evidence to support my belief that Ono is maybe one of the greatest "targeting" wrestlers of all time. When Ono picks a spot of the body to go after during a match, he's truly vicious as hell, and in this match he totally wrecked Rider's leg, with tons of gross kicks and submissions that honestly shock me didn't actually fuck up Rider's leg.

    Super Rider was going pretty damn crazy in this match too though. He met Ono on the mat with some superb grappling, doing some awesome submissions like one particular counter into an armbar. He also brought the goods with striking, at one point throwing a real sick high kick that Ono sold like death. While he didn't have as many high spot type moments as Ono, the stuff he provided helped keep the match's intensity at a level not at all seen in the previous match they had.

    This match was kind of insane, because somehow, the crowd was even less interested during this one than the Korakuen one. However, even accounting for the near silence during the match, this fucking rocked. While the last match they had was more of a fun creative juniors type match with bomb segments and more emphasis on spots, this was just a total grappling fest while still retaining the creativity of the last match. The late match bomb throwing was amazing too, and my god the actual finish ruled. It even only went about 7 minutes, so genuinely, go out of your way to see this.

Rating: A-

Super Rider vs. Tomohiro Ishii (RJPW 03/01/2009)

    This match was brought on by GBH member Ishii seemingly laying out a challenge to Rider. Ishii needs little to no introduction, around this point he was no longer the sleazy indy guy that Rider had previously faced in 2000, but instead a full-on NJPW roster member. Whether or not that made him better or worse is up to your interpretation (it made him worse).

    Ishii was a solid bruiser in this match, doing a ton of heel type work. He threw Rider around outside and hit him with chairs, and he took cheapshots whenever he could. He didn't really do anything particularly special, but he was entirely competent in the role he played and he did throw this killer lariat:

    Rider was totally off the bean in this match though. He started out doing his usual stuff but as the match went on he got progressively more angry and more aggressive, eventually busting out full-on shoot headbutts. The big turning point was when Ishii had manhandled him on the outside some, and Rider decided "fuck this", whipped his shirt off, and started throwing closed fists at Ishii's midsection. Getting this level of violence from Rider wasn't easy at this point, so it was awesome to see him get this pumped up.

    Eventually, the match ended in a DQ after Ishii ripped off Rider's mask, leading to Rider putting on his old Hopper King mask and brawling around with Ishii for a couple more minutes. Overall, this had some pretty awesome moments but did leave me wanting more. Sadly, the GBH invasion would go nowhere after this (mainly because GBH practically died a month later) so we never ended up seeing a rematch between the two, but what we got was solid enough.

Rating: B