Spitball Reviews #4

(Written by jom)

Southern Cross vs. Tadanobu Fujisawa (H.EVolution 10/12/2014)

    Inexplicably, this is a really good match. I've talked about both of these guys before when reviewing K-WEST, but only Fujisawa elicited praise. He's an incredibly competent Kurisu trainee with the capabilities to be a scary brutalizer, fitting for someone with his lineage. Southern Cross, meanwhile, is bad! I last saw him in 2010 when he wore a mask and had a lanky build, but here he is in 2014, unmasked and possessing the body type of a divorced father. His previously-seen work was sloppy, boring, and practically screamed "I shouldn't be within 500 feet of a wrestling ring". He always came off as the type of wrestler you'd only see "succeed" in a place like FU*CK!, a promotion that would treat his lack of skills like a skill itself. I came into this hoping it would just be a Fujisawa squash, a chance for him to be mean and cruel to a tomato can worker and make me happy with unnecessary violence. What we end up getting is still pretty close to this, but Cross got all the chances he needed to prove that a lot can change in four years. For all of Fujisawa's dick kicks and stiff shots, Cross returned fire with impressive chops and displays of raw power, like a really snappy Tenryu-style powerbomb. He does a damn good job on the receiving end of things, selling Fujisawa's shots with a lot of grunting and recoiling. His blood getting all over his white pants after a Fujisawa shoot headbutt is just the icing on top. I think the best way to describe this match would be a display of Southern Cross's will. The Fujisawa bullying is sick and gross and all that, but I can't help but come away from this with the lasting image of Cross's bloody visage and never-say-die attitude. An infinitely impressive performance from someone I never would've thought could deliver such a thing.

Asian Cougar & Great Sensei vs. Tarzan Goto & Masked Saturn (Samurai Project 01/25/1998)

    I only tracked this match down because of an old Japanese blog post talking about a supposed incident where Goto stabbed Cougar in his left arm with a broken broom and gave Cougar massive scars. That incident never takes place in this match and I have no idea whether the writer was misremembering which Goto vs. Cougar match it was or if it was just a plain ol' lie. Regardless, I have to find that writer's contact information and try to thank them. This match, as a whole, is borderline great. Sensei and Saturn (Hiroshi Hatanaka and Mitsunobu Kikuzawa respectively) only exist to detract. Sensei is a botch machine who slows the pace even if he has some good strikes. Saturn hits good punches and big moves but does nothing to further the match itself. The only two men that mattered on this day were Asian Cougar and Tarzan Goto. 1998 is part of that heavenly period of time where Goto could be put into any situation and deliver a great performance just by being himself, and when Goto wanted to put a little extra effort in? That's when you got the type of stuff that changed my entire perspective on wrestling. 1998 is also the start of Asian Cougar's run as one of the best spotfest workers of all time, but it's also when he sets himself into that role without much deviation for the rest of his career. I love Cougar and I've been very vocal on this blog about how much I love him, but I'd be the first to tell you he's never exhibited much range. He's got a winning formula and very little reason to do much else. This is different; this is the first Cougar performance I've seen where the man is truly a victim. Goto smashes dozens of chairs over his body, throws a table at his head, stabs his face with a broom snapped in half. Cougar's golden mask gets ripped wide open to expose a bright red ocean underneath his skin. Cougar bumps and staggers and collapses like a wounded deer, hopping around looking for any chance to escape. Cougar's greatest work comes once he's able to fight back. No slingshot leg drops; every single leg drop is done off the top rope for maximum damage to himself and his opponent. I've never seen Cougar so reliant on the top rope, so willing to bust his ass to hurt someone that much more. It's a subtle change to his moveset, a single rope difference between Cougar's regular arsenal, and yet it feels like the world has shifted. If this was a Cougar and Goto singles match with even more work between both, there's a chance it could've turned out as something truly special. As it stands though, it's an amazing preview of a match I truly didn't know I needed so badly. 

Minoru Tanaka vs. MIKAMI (Batos Cafe 12/15/2019)

    Two junior legends finally getting to duke it out in a singles match, albeit at least a decade past their primes. Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: 2019 Minoru Tanaka is not 1999 Minoru Tanaka, and 2019 MIKAMI is not 2005 MIKAMI. These aren't the greatest freak athletes in the world anymore. These are two veterans of the indie scene with a lot less to give than they had during the glory days. Coming into this match expecting to see these two busting out the flips and dives like the Y2K apocalypse hadn't happened yet would be a fool's errand. This is a match way more focused on what they can do rather than what they can't, and it benefits greatly from that mentality. Both men have their spots they've perfected over the years, and they do a great job of blending their work together into a seamless match. Minoru Tanaka is, of course, great. Even in his late 40s he still has great execution on all of his work, and, more than anything, he's dependable. At the same time, he's not particularly interested in getting out of his comfort zone. He's much happier using ol' reliable in the exact same way he always does rather than change up his game this late in his career. That's what makes MIKAMI stand out so much more. MIKAMI is a master at taking the pre-established and turning it into something new. He's hit a hundred Mickey Boomerangs throughout his career, but here he is at 45, hitting one on the apron. I've seen him put wrestlers in the Stinger since the mid-2000s, but I've never seen him set it up with repeated double axe handles between the shoulder blades. They're changes to the arsenal that might come off as unnoteworthy to some, but it shows a willingness to keep things fresh that many of MIKAMI's peers don't possess. When MIKAMI eventually calls it quits, wrestling will be losing one of the greatest and most under-appreciated minds in the history of the sport.

Kenji Fukimoto & Hideaki Sumi vs. Necro Butcher & Mad Man Pondo (FU*CK! 05/04/2007)

    I bought this whole DVD just for this match. Sure, there's other matches on the show that I'd enjoy checking out. If this match didn't happen I'd still probably get it! The fact is this match did happen, and it was the overwhelming force which motivated me to get this DVD. Necro Butcher is possibly the greatest American wrestler of all time, and Sumi is the greatest karate pro wrestler of the 21st century. In my mind, putting them together is money. In execution, it is ABSOLUTELY money. Sumi and Necro do so much great work here, from Necro pantomiming at Sumi that his karate will not work against his brawling, to Sumi's karate doing a damn good job against him after all. Necro is wonderful on selling duty and fights back with lots of gut punches and face grabbing, and after getting embarrassed by Sumi's karate flurries he commits himself to Sabu'ing chairs at Sumi randomly throughout the match. Considering this, Fukimoto and Pondo should be afterthoughts, but both put in their own quality performances. Pondo is in full plunder mode, pulling out a massive knife to cut up Fukimoto's face and beating down both Fukimoto and Sumi with random metal objects. Fukimoto is almost entirely on selling duty, getting bloodied up and screaming for his life, but eventually fights back with some great lariats. This is sadly only eight minutes and there are a handful of awkward miscommunication moments, but, for the most part, this delivers on expectations.

Yusha Amon vs. Minoru Suzuki (Tokyo Tama Luchas 08/18/2013)

    I don't like Minoru Suzuki. I understand the appeal of the "murder grandpa", although I don't agree with its validity, nor do I have any interest in talking with anyone that calls Suzuki that nickname unironically. A regular Suzuki match, at best, is funny because of how bad he is. He's an uncaring "legend" who collects paychecks by putting in the least amount of effort possible during wrestling matches. He's been a consistent net negative on professional wrestling since returning in the 2000s, after spending 10 years having fixed fights in Pancrase. The only type of Minoru Suzuki I truly find interesting is the Minoru Suzuki that works against the best and brightest of the scum indies. Whether it's the New Year's Summit tag where he plastered Keita yano around Korakuen Hall or one of the many neighborhood-spanning brawls he's done in places like Hokuto Pro, something about getting to work in the shoddiest promotions in Japan motivates Suzuki to actually care about his wrestling. This match is no exception, with Suzuki facing international man of mystery and possible Solar trainee Yusha Amon in Amon's own promotion. Minoru Suzuki's performance here isn't particularly out of the ordinary for a Suzuki match of the time, but there's something about the way Suzuki revels in Amon's lack of ability that really works to make me enjoy him here. He spends much of the early match refusing to sell or cooperate with him, laughing along with the crowd at his flubs and failures while grinding him down with the most basic holds possible, posing for photos along the way. He completely disregards all of Amon's offense, and the few times he does acknowledge it he completely denies it. The standout moment from the first two falls of the match (it's worked under "Mexico Rules") is easily when Amon goes for a flying cross chop and gets literally kicked out of the air. It's almost like Suzuki is working a comedy match while Amon is trying his damndest to work seriously. When Amon does start forcing Suzuki to work a little seriously, it feels like a life-changing event for Amon, proof that he can be a force to be reckoned with in professional wrestling. That period of time doesn't last long, but God bless him for getting to have that happen at all. Is this a legitimately great match? I don't know. There's a lot of talking to the crowd, a little to0 much reliance on Suzuki's usual schtick, and I just have bias against the guy. Still, I had way more fun with this than I ever thought I'd have with a 2010s Minoru Suzuki match.

Ranking Every Dive From The CMLL Japan 18 Man Dive Train

 (Written by jom)

    So, this is a first.

    I'm honestly not sure what exactly inspired me to create this, but I have a few good guesses. I love doing match reviews, but I also hate doing match reviews. It's easy to fall into formula and lose any personality or truly interesting ideas in the sea of spot-by-spot recapping. That's not to say that writing about spots is inherently bad! My good friend Ciel does a great job of balancing match coverage with his own takes and analysis. However, I pretty much hate almost all of the writing I've done this way. I've tried my damndest to abandon that style and feel like I've recently reached a good balance of my own, but I still feel pangs of disappointment whenever I finish a review and think "man, is that really all I had to say?" As such, I've felt like I need to do something different for a while. Something more fun in concept.

    These thoughts coincided with the public release of my new website, GL2JL. I've always loved Japanese luchadores as a concept and wanted a platform to share that love, and I've also always wanted to create an old school GeoCities style website, so I was able to kill two birds with one stone. I've been in a lucha libre mindset since starting work on this project, and I've been watching more lucha in general, so I was planning to talk about more lucha-adjacent wrestling here (or to just break my weird unwritten rule entirely and talk about wrestling outside of Japan).

    Finally, I only learned about this spot by chance. I was scrolling through Mr. Cacao's YouTube channel, looking for cool Michinoku handhelds to watch, and I stumbled across a YT Short on the channel titled "The Legendary 18-Man Consecutive Tope!!" I don't know why, but the moment I saw the title, I thought to myself "I should write about this." And thus, after three paragraphs of incessant rambling, here we are.

    The match itself is a battle royal from the 02/04/1997 CMLL Japan show, featuring pretty much every wrestler who worked the show. You should watch it! It's a fun match even when you ignore the endless tope sequence. I'll be ranking every dive in the match, giving my thoughts on each dive as they come until one stands alone on the mountaintop.

18. Negro Casas

    Casas is one of those guys on pretty much every person's shortlist as one of the best ever. I have friends that consider him the greatest wrestler of all time. Even with my limited exposure to his work, he's one of the most gritty and physically emotive wrestlers I've ever seen. He's in numerous all-timer matches, has been working at a high level for a scary number of decades, and just generally one of the coolest wrestlers of all time.

    So what the fuck happened here?

    This is maybe the lowest effort dive possible. In a way, it's almost impressive. He doesn't run off the ropes; he jogs towards them at a slightly brisk pace. He doesn't actually jump himself; he gets Kendo to do the heavy lifting. He's not even engaged enough to do some sort of cool dive to redeem himself! He just hits the most basic plancha with such low airtime that Ultraman has to rush forward to save him. Ultraman didn't need to take that bump. He sacrificed his own body to save shitty ass Negro Casas and his shitty ass plancha. Ultraman Jr. is a hero and Negro Casas is the world's biggest bitch. 

17. Cadaver de Ultratumba

    Another basic plancha. Cadaver de Ultratumba's name is significantly cooler than this plancha. "Corpse from Beyond the Grave." How sick is that? His cousin's named Guerrero de la Muerte ("Warrior of Death"). Do awesome names just run in the family? Anyways, he hit a plancha. It's fine, I guess. I appreciate a quality plancha! This is not a particularly quality plancha, but at least he tried. That puts him miles above Negro Casas. Plus, Kendo running away from taking the dive is incredibly funny. Oh, Ultraman. You didn't deserve this treatment.

16. Bestia Salvaje

    Bestia Salvaje! Another cool wrestler right here. I remember seeing him do some awesome work in WAR. Sadly, his dive here isn't good. For a guy called "wild beast," he seems to be chock full of uncertainty. Hesitating on the run and fucking up the distance? C'mon Bestia, puff your chest out! Have some confidence in yourself! You were doing a great job in WAR back in 1993. Maybe 1997 was just a rough year for him. He did lose his hair in both 1995 and 1996; that would crush the conviction of any man. Hopefully he was on the up-swing after this show (note: Salvaje would continue to lose his hair on a near-yearly basis for the next six years).

15. Black Warrior

    It's an Asai moonsault. It's fine? I don't know, it's not particularly inspiring to me. The execution is fine but it just does very little for me personally. Maybe it's because Black Warrior very casually walked into position. I really don't know! I'd understand this being higher up for other people, but I can't be bothered to care about it. 

14. Mascara Magica

    Once again, this doesn't do much for me. I have this over Black Warrior's moonsault because Magica gets some good air and the camera angle for the dive is cool. I also appreciate Mascara Magica's purple gear and his motif being the letter M. He reminds me of Majin Buu, who, similar to Cadaver de Ultratumba's name, is significantly more interesting to me than the dive at hand. 

13. Apolo Dantes

    I told you I appreciate a good plancha! Dantes has a nice snap to his execution, really throwing his arms out as wide as he can for maximum coverage. I also like his very motivated walk to the ropes. This is a man on a mission and his mission is to throw himself at Bestia Salvaje like a bag of trash into a dumpster. It's still a basic plancha, though. This match has so much more to offer than that.

12. Pirata Morgan

    Theoretically, this somersault plancha is about equal to Dantes' normal plancha. However, Morgan masterfully counters Dantes' purposeful strut with a full-on front roll to the ropes. It does absolutely nothing to improve the strength of his dive, but damn it looks cool. Not much else to point out besides Pirata Morgan's eyepatch being cool, but you already knew that. 

11. El Rayo de Jalisco Jr.

    This is actually the last dive of the entire tope train, and you can tell because Jalisco decides to really milk it for as much as it's worth. That's some Hulk Hogan level hotdogging right there. Jalisco follows it up with a pretty awesome dive so it all works out. I like to imagine he let out a "BELLY FLOOOOOP" victory scream as he did it.

10. Kendo

    Kendo has been a notable part of two separate dives on the list so far. So how's his own dive? Pretty damn good! I love the technique to this one. Kendo seemingly has enough leaping ability to clear the rope unaided, but he still pushes himself off the top for extra velocity. Maybe it was a receipt to Casas for doing such a fucking bad dive. I'll stop dwelling on that now, I promise. 

9. Ultraman Jr.

    ...So Ultraman has already proven himself as a hero for saving the life of the world's biggest pussy Negro Casas (last one I promise). Here he is also proving his own worth as a tope train participant! This is a really nice tope suicida! I always really fuck with a good tope suicida. It's a basic move, but, when done right, it can feel like a gamechanger in any match. Ultraman always had a great tope suicida, and this is just textbook for him. Maybe that's why it isn't higher, though. Considering the other tope suicidas I've seen him hit, this one doesn't really stand out. It does serve as a great mid-point for the list, since everything before this ranged from AWFUL to pretty sick, and everything after this starts from great and just keeps getting greater. 

8. Rey Bucanero

    I haven't watched a Bucanero match in maybe seven years? I remember watching a handful of Bucanero matches when I was first getting into NJPW because he was a Bullet Club associate. Writing that out now pisses me off, so I'm gonna watch some Rey Bucanero later and redeem myself. 

    Anyways, this rocks. I've spoken at length about how much I love Asian Cougar's suicide tope atomico, and while this one may not be as good as Cougar's, it's still a suicide tope atomico. God bless you, Rey Bucanero. Sorry for only watching the matches where you teamed with Karl Anderson and Tama Tonga.

7. SHINOBI

    SHINOBI was the one tasked with igniting the burning flame of the tope train. That's a needlessly wordy way of saying he went first. And god bless him, he set a great precedent. SHINOBI's moonsault plancha is a thing to behold. He has a PCO-esque lack of grace, albeit he's way smaller than PCO and has slightly better execution, really smashing into Espectro Jr. with some nice velocity. 

    Speaking of, how tragic is Espectro? 

    Imagine sitting backstage as all the boys discuss this crazy idea for an 18-man tope sequence, only for someone to put their hand on your shoulder and say "not you, pal." You have to sit outside and watch as your peers get to blow the minds of a packed KBS Hall. Everyone in the match has just made history. Everyone except you. But I respect you, Espectro Jr. You are the first brick laid. You are the pyre SHINOBI set ablaze. You are the foundation of this masterpiece. Your sacrifice will not be forgotten. 

6. Felino

    I remember when I first saw Felino sevenish years ago, my first thought was "damn, Puma King's been around for a long time, huh?" I used to be kind of dumb. I still am, but c'mon, they have basically the exact same gear! Learning Felino is Puma King's dad explained a lot. They both wear the same gear and they both rule. This dive is so awesome, man. I love a good triangle dive and Felino always had a great one. I almost want to rate this one higher, but I've also seen Felino do this with a much smoother execution, and that's the biggest thing holding it back. 

5. Mr. Niebla

    God, I love this one. 

    I've never seen Mr. Niebla before, but he was awesome in this match. Besides this dive, he also hit an awesome missile dropkick and died on one of the grossest avalanche powerbombs I've ever seen. I'm definitely going to be looking more into Niebla's work going forward, so if anyone has Niebla recommendations, let me know. 

    The dive itself is a real beauty. The moonsault plancha has basically flawless execution, with a perfect balance between height and distance. Now, is the rope run before the moonsault kinda fucking stupid? Maybe. Maybe. But I look at it from a video game perspective: that rope run was just Mr. Niebla building up special attack damage. I can't fault a guy for trying to fill his meter before the big move. 

4. Lizmark

    I thought there was an error with the show's listing at first. This is 1997. This should be Lizmark Jr., right? I mean the guy was on WCW TV around this time having awesome matches with Glacier and Yuji Nagata. There's no way his dad could be pulling off stuff like this, right?

    This is god damn Lizmark.

    We've reached the stage where I will call everything perfect, because this is a truly perfect diving plancha. The arms and legs thrown back like he's a spider monkey jumping across a river. The force of the dive taking him nearly all the way across the ring. Hell, even the connection is perfect, with Morgan doing a classic catch-and-roll to receive the dive. I love this. I love Lizmark. I do wonder why his son turned into such a freak in Lucha Libre USA, but that's entirely besides the point. Lizmark can do no wrong.

3. Arkangel de la Muerte

    Arkangel de la Muerte. 

    Really, that's all I need to write. If you know Arkangel, you probably aren't shocked to see him this high up. He's also one of my favorite luchadores ever, something I've mentioned on the blog before. I have heavy Arkangel bias.

    I don't think that matters much here.

    Arkangel's borderline hilarious running combined with Dantes' slight assist leads to the highest velocity dive of the entire sequence, and he slams into Felino like a runaway train. This is like the Undertaker Mania dive, except infinitely cooler and pulled off by a wrestler worlds better than that jabroni. I love you, Arkangel de la Muerte.

2. El Hijo del Santo

    Honestly, I feel bad not putting this at the top spot. 

    The Santo bullet suicida might be the dive in all of lucha libre. It's one of the most important and recognizable topes of all time, and also comfortably sits as one of the best. The way Santo’s silver dome almost magnetizes to the chin of Espectro Jr. is awe-inspiring. It's like Santo always knows the perfect angle to fly directly into his opponent and crack a few teeth. Once again, for lack of a better term, everything about this dive is perfect. And yet, it's forced to sit in second place.

1. Super Astro

    This. This is the peak of wrestling. This is the culmination of over 100 years of innovation. This is the final frontier. Everything after this has been done to diminished returns.

    Take everything I've ever said about Arkangel and apply it to Super Astro. I love this dude with all of my heart. He has such an incredible build, like a png of a normal beefy wrestler put into Photoshop and shrunk vertically. A guy with this body should not be able to do the things Super Astro is able to do, and yet he goes each movement with such ease, like a man created by god to be a luchador.

    Now, some of you may be thinking, "but jooooom, you can't include the tiger feint and the little kick in the dive! That's unfair!!" If you are one of these people, I have two things to say. Firstly, does it really matter? The suicide tope atomico is enough to secure the top spot.

    Secondly, go fuck yourself. This is my list, and in my list, I include Super Astro bitching out Apolo Dantes. Make your own list if you don't like it. Super Astro wins. Super Astro always wins. Just... don't search for a photo of him unmasked. That's the one time Super Astro was truly fighting a losing battle.

    If you like the list, let me know! This was almost entirely me just riffing and it was a ton of fun to make. Maybe I'll find another dive train to rank in the future. Until next time.

Spitball Reviews #3

       (Written by jom)

Masao Ando vs. Okonomiyakida (Okazaki Waiwai Festival 02/25/2023)

    Masao Ando is secretly one of my favorite members of the modern J-indie crowbar collection. At his best, he's on par with Tababa as a rough shooter with a ton of character and violence. He's not really in full-on fighting mode here considering his opponent is a guy in a cute little mask but he still gets a ton of chances to deliver the goods. He hits lots of hard kicks and big slams blended with some pretty fascinating choices, like fighting back in a strike exchange by kicking Okonomiyakida's arm. Everything Ando does has such a great feeling of weight too. His soccer kick is strong enough to actually push Okonomiyakida forward on connection, and all of his body slams look like they could put a hole in the ring. All of his bombs really feel like bombs. Okonomiyakida exists too I guess. He does next to nothing of particular interest but all of his work is fine. I won't ever complain about a glorified Ando showcase match though. Fun stuff all around.

Match Rating: C+

Kazushi Miyamoto vs. Kotaro Nasu (Apache Pro 07/25/2012)

    The resurrected Apache Pro is... bad. I hate to say it! Apache Pro during its initial run is a super fun indie fed, clearly a proto-FREEDOMS with a stronger focus on hardcore rather than deathmatch (which I prefer greatly) and a bunch of awesome indie guys like GENTARO, Keita Yano, and others populating the card. This is an entirely different Apache though, with Kanemura back at the helm following his sexual harassment scandal. The air in the promotion is murky and a real feeling of guilt permeates through basically everything. Most of the wrestlers seem like they're sorry to be on the card. Still, there're some real hidden gems from this period of the promotion, including this match. Nasu and Miyamoto are a real money pairing: a quick, plucky shooter junior and a 'roided up powerhouse wrestler. They work the match exactly as they should. Not a single strike exchange in this match is one-for-one. That is, at no point do the two actually "exchange" singular strikes. Miyamoto will throw a big chop or slap and Nasu will respond with a barrage of palm strikes or kicks. Nasu will throw everything he can at Miyamoto as much as possible while Miyamoto just needs one big hit to steal the match back in his favor. Miyamoto comes off as the ultimate professional wrestler here. He's got a ridiculous tan, muscles on top of muscles, and every real momentum-shifter from him is decisively pro wrestling. There's this wonderful moment where Nasu finally gets a successful combo off and puts in a tight armbar to try and tap Miyamoto out, only for Miyamoto to power up and hit Nasu with a real head-bouncing slam. In this moment, Miyamoto sees the dazed Nasu and smells blood in the water. In this type of situation in somewhere like the UFC, the guy on top would rush to rain down punches or hammerfists. Miyamoto is not an MMA fighter (take one look at his actual MMA record and that's pretty damn clear), so instead he yanks Nasu to his feet and hits him with an even grosser powerbomb for a nearfall. Add onto all of this a genuinely sickening finish and you've got yourself a damn good match. There're a few Apache Pro-related whiffs in it (Miyamoto at one point does a thirty second long delayed suplex which gets no reaction), but the match itself is really undeniable.

Match Rating: B+

Tarzan Goto vs. Yoji Anjo (Rikidozan Memorial 03/11/2000)

    This is a truly legendary clash of assholes. In a way, Goto and Anjo represent the two opposing ideologies of heel pro wrestling. Goto is a monstrous bastard who commits grievous bodily harm on everyone around him for his own satisfaction. Anjo is an annoying dickhead who psychologically torments his opponents for fun. Both are wrestlers that really only care about entertaining themselves, but their methods of doing so vary greatly. Incredible tone setter to start the match with Goto standing in the corner with his arms crossed, deep intent and cruel intentions in his eyes, only for the camera to switch to Anjo doing the same exact pose with the biggest shit-eating grin on his face. Sadly, the match never really lives up to the expectations created by this stare-down. It's a great match, don't get me wrong. Anjo and Goto are in their element, with Anjo being his usual smartass self and Goto responding like a slasher film monster. Goto has a one-track mind throughout, constantly going for headbutts and always beginning his longer strings of offense with a headbutt or two. Anjo's responses include strikes, dodges, and general big brain offense, but more often than not he gets caught up in Goto's onslaught. Where this match falters is the structuring. There are spots in the latter half of the match that feel like they belong much closer to the beginning, and it's honestly bizarre that they were done so late in the match. Anjo getting victimized with big Goto bombs only to slide out of the ring on an irish whip and do the big brain taunt feels so weirdly disjointed. They seem to lose the plot for a little bit before Goto finally snaps and starts to try and kill Anjo with weaponry, which admittedly led to a finishing stretch that helped recover a lot of the lost momentum for me. The post-match is pretty hilarious too, with Anjo finding a random police officer and trying to make him arrest Tarzan Goto for his rule breaking. Do I feel sad that this match isn't perfect? Of course. Do I know that they could've done better? Of course! But this is still two of my favorites ever having their only singles match. I was going to love this no matter what, and they still gave me a ton to love.

Match Rating: B+

Arkangel vs. Ultraman Jr. (PWC 08/23/1996)

    God bless Yoshino and Hasegawa for fishing this out of Yoshino's bin of VHS tapes. PWC in late 1996 began a series of shows known as the Fighting Beer Garden shows, taking place in the absolutely stunning Luna Park with fans sat at tables where they could eat and drink while the matches took place (this served as the inspiration for DDT's own Beer Garden shows). There were shows every single day and Takano somehow pulled off getting a number of luchadores to come to Japan and work the entire series, including Arkangel and Ultraman. The two of them would go on to face off numerous times, but this is (at least according to CAGEMATCH) the first filmed interaction between the two of them. Of course, it's a lot of fun. Arkangel and Ultraman are here to hit their spots in front of a crowd with basically no exposure to them, so all the arm drags and dives get huge pops. It's incredibly surface level pro wrestling but everything is so well-executed and flashy that it doesn't need to be anything else. Ultraman is awesome finding a thousand and one ways to hit an arm drag, and Arkangel does a great job of pulling off big reversals like his sitout powerbomb counter to some sort of Ultraman move that probably would've ended in an arm drag. The whole affair is only six minutes long and doesn't drag for a second. Overall, real fun stuff here. Probably the best type of wrestling to enjoy in a park while drinking some beers with the boys.

Match Rating: B

Kenta Nanami & Jumbo Hara vs. Tessho & Ikki Nomoto (Gamshara Pro 11/23/2012)

    Gamshara Pro... I know very little about Gamshara Pro, just being entirely honest. It's a local fed that exists. We have a couple matches from it. Outside of that, I know practically nothing. I also know nothing about the people in this match. Munenori Sawa appears near the start and seems to give a speech to the fans. I am completely in the dark here. Honestly, I wasn't even going to include this match in the post! It's not anything special, and most of the action is just alright. However, I have to talk about Ikki Nomoto. The other three aren't bad or anything. Nanami hits some cool throws and a nice lariat. Tessho hits a cool lariat of his own. Hara, wouldn't you know it, also hits a great lariat, albeit this one of the leg variety. Nomoto is an entirely different beast here though. He comes in and immediately slaps the taste out of Hara's mouth before throwing stiff knees to his jaw. Nomoto pushes the intensity to the next level anytime he's in the ring, forcing Hara and Nanami to fight for their lives against him. This is real Grade-A liberty taking, the type you really only tend to see in those power imbalance matches from UWF and UWFi. Nomoto's kneel kick looks like it could erase a face, and his Gotch piledriver compressed Hara's neck like a slinky. Is the match as a whole worth watching? No, probably not. However, I'd absolutely recommend at least tuning in to see the type of shit Nomoto does here. It's gruesome and violent in the type of way that makes me wish he expanded beyond Gamshara into somewhere like EXIT. Maybe he was just a big fish in a small pond and would've been eaten alive in EXIT. We have no way of knowing and can only dream of the possibilities. 

Match Rating: C+

Spitball Reviews #2

      (Written by jom, photo credit to @namjunkzone)

Shinichi Hayashida vs. Fugo Fugo Yumeji (Azul Dragon Produce 01/27/2024)

    I feel like it says a lot about me that one of the only matches from this year to pull me in came from two old dudes in a random MMA gym. Fugo is a man that needs no introduction, and Hayashida is such a small figure that I have very little to introduce. He's a veteran of the Kyushu and Kyushu-adjacent indie scenes, and nowadays he mostly wrestles for Jiraiya's "Real Lucha Libre" group. Both of these men are real lumpy crowbars, and as such, there's a lot of rough control-taking in this match. Fugo escapes from a wristlock and yanks Hayashida into a headlock. Hayashida only escapes that headlock by yanking Fugo's leg out from under him. Both of these guys are also pretty broken down, so every bump is slightly off-center and tumble-y, and neither guy wants to bump in the first place. If one wants the other to take a fall, they really have to make them do it. All of that's to say that there's a palpable lack of cooperation throughout the match, which only goes to benefit it as a whole. Beyond the grappling, there's still a ton to love. Hayashida's arm work is brutal, stomping on Fugo's wrist and slamming it into the turnbuckle as hard as he can. Fugo's momentum-shifting headbutt to the chest looks like the type of move a territory Russian would use to cause a hometown babyface to have a worked heart attack, and Hayashida's toe stomps right after remind me of my little brother doing the same thing to escape from any headlock I'd put him in. It's a petty move, really uncalled for, but god damnit it works. I feel like your mileage with this match varies depending on how enthralled you get by two old vets having a slow and mean match focused on the basics. If that sounds like your kind of thing, you'll probably love this.

Match Rating: B+

Kohei Sato vs. Tomohiko Hashimoto (JWP 06/06/2000)

    JPWA having an offer match on a really small JWP show is kind of crazy, let alone that we have footage of it. Sato and Hashimoto are both in their respective REAL SHOOTER gear (MMA gloves for Shooto-ist Sato and a gi for judoka Hashimoto). I deeply respect Fujiwara and Kimura's vision to scout promising talent from a bunch of disciplines, and I wish JPWA lasted more than two shows. I also wish I had more to say about JPWA because JPWA as a concept is much more interesting than JPWA itself, including this match. This match's biggest problem is the same issue I have with some of the stuff coming out of HARD HIT nowadays: these guys are trying too hard to be "legit". Everything was tightly worked, although I'd say it was worked too tightly. Sometimes you need to loosen your guard so the other guy can pull off a really cool hold. Sometimes you need to comically scramble for the ropes to get over the danger that hold puts you in. Sometimes you need to let yourself get tagged and crumple for a dramatic down count. These guys weren't giving each other an inch which, in theory, would make the match more compelling. Instead, it just made the match feel stagnant and dull. Now, the match wasn't all bad. Hashimoto hit a few cool judo throws and even if they led nowhere they were still cool on their own. The finishing hold also looked pretty gross. Outside of that, I really couldn't care less. Thankfully both guys would embrace pro wrestling and become way more interesting only a year after this.

Match Rating: C

Dutchy Fujii JAPAN vs. Sex Inohara (University UWF 1990s)

    God, I haven't talked about student wrestling on the blog in years. Dutchy Fujii JAPAN still wrestles to this day as Great Fuji (and Hareta Kogan) and he's one of the more consistently great amaresu guys on the scene. Sex Inohara, meanwhile, is.... probably an office worker or something! I don't know!! I also don't know the date for this match, and I'm guessing the promotion based on knowing that Fujii was in the UWF group with a young GENTARO. What I do know is both of these guys are way too good at grappling. No kidding, these guys seem to have a better grasp of how to move between holds and apply pressure than the majority of guys working nowadays. The grappling takes up such a short portion of the match but sticks out like a sore thumb thirty years later. Outside of that, this match is a wonderful lesson in arm work. Not really an in-depth lesson, but instead one of those where the professor just puts a bunch of information on the board and leaves you to note it all down as fast as possible. Fujii works Inohara's arms in 1001 different ways, from stomps to kicks to wrenches to holds. Also, you may have noticed from the use of the plural form, but Fujii actually works over both of Inohara's arms rather than just one. Might that be an accident? Maybe, but I'm giving Fujii the benefit of the doubt considering he works each arm for an almost equal amount of time. Inohara gets a few openings to fight back with stereotypical 1990s juniors offense, but match is really all about Fujii and his addiction to arm work. If you like arm work, you'll probably find something to enjoy in this match. It's not really anything crazy as a whole but it's generally pretty fun and I'll always be impressed by the talent some of these guys had.

Match Rating: B-

The Great Zako vs. KEITA In THE House (Wolf Star Produce 03/03/2019)

    Great Zako? On nationally syndicated television??? Amazing. This is included on the first episode of Kacho Fugetsu's TV show on Sky PerfecTV. Keita comes out wearing a Kick-Ass mask, blue flannel, LWO sleeveless shirt, jeans, orange kneepads, and fuzzy boots. Not the best Keita gear, but I do have a soft spot for it. This is a "Singapore Cane Showdown", which you may think implies that only Singapore Canes are legal, but that would be wrong. It's really just a hardcore match, but I don't mind because Keita and Zako are awesome bizarro brawlers and I enjoyed this a good deal. You're never going to see these guys do "perfect" wrestling against each other. The basics of their matches are usually at least a little rough (and they were rougher than usual here), but there's so many compelling spots and segues that it doesn't really matter. Keita throws great punches and Zako sells them by going "GUAGH" and shaking a bunch, which somehow really works for me. Zako also slams a bag of assorted metal objects onto Keita's head which probably hurt like a bitch to take. Very few pairings in wrestling give you the chance to see one guy try to hang another with a water hose, only to follow it up with the Shawn Michaels forearm into kip-up combo. This is a match that, like basically all of their other singles matches, breaks a lot of unwritten rules of wrestling, but the blood, plunder, and genuine heart of the match do an incredible amount of heavy lifting. Is it their best match together? Hell no!! This is only a shadow of the UEW classic, but the shadow of a masterpiece still cuts an imposing figure. I'm also only just now realizing this is probably the only match they ever had in an actual wrestling ring. God bless.

Match Rating: B

Hiroshi Itakura vs. Akio Kobayashi (Kitao Dojo 02/21/1995)

    No ropes on the ring; this is like Bloodsport if it was good. Kobayashi is out here in a sleeveless gi. I can't decide whether it looks really cool or really lame. Probably somewhere in-between. Itakura meanwhile looks like 1990s Kota Ibushi, which, in a way, he kinda was! Y'know that rant I went on a little further up for Sato/Hashimoto? This match is exactly what I described as good shoot style there. Kobayashi works like a karate Kim Hyun Hwan, throwing a lot of really pretty kicks that only land half of the time but make gross audible connection when they do. Itakura is on the back foot anytime Kobayashi is able to chain together some kicks, but he does a damn good job of turning the tide with some pro wrestling bombs. The feint into a leg sweep he pulls out is really incredible. There's such a great sense of shifting control, each guy getting his moments to shine while building up the intensity towards the big finish. Super fun match, a damn shame it only went four minutes even if that runtime felt very fitting.

Match Rating: B+

Spitball Reviews #1

     (Written by jom)

    I still don't feel like reviewing Onita Pro (I've been way too busy with RL stuff to commit to watching a full show on my own while taking notes) but I do feel like writing. I also don't want to write in my usual "half recap, half breakdown" style. Instead, I'm just gonna write down some thoughts on random matches I've watched recently and call it a day. The series is called "Spitball Reviews" because the reviews are small and I'm shooting 'em out malformed and at high speeds. Will they be good? Hopefully!!

KING vs. Cosmo Soldier (KAGEKI 12/23/2009)

    KING is a pretty awesome lumbering masked heavyweight doing a blend of sumo and power moves. He starts the match by doing a tsuppari rush, sending Cosmo into the corner and himself into my heart. Cosmo meanwhile is a 10,000 IQ worker who does some gritty leg targeting before KING really starts owning him, leading Cosmo to abandon the leg work and morph into a really compelling junior-in-peril. There's a lot happening in the match considering it only goes nine minutes. The finish does feel abrupt but in a really violent way, like a fist fight ending with one dude breaking the unwritten "no grappling" rule and putting on a rear naked choke. Am I sad about us not having the alternate version of this match where Cosmo just does really vicious leg work for the entire runtime? A little!!! I'm still happy with what we got though.

Match Rating: B

Ni Hao vs. Makoto Saito (WYF 09/13/1998)

    Wrestle Yume Factory in a random field! Ni Hao's awesome theme gets cut off because of technical issues and he just jogs to the ring as the fans clap for him. Around this point in Japanese wrestling, it was pretty commonplace to see traditional junior vs. hybrid junior matchups, so it's cool to see the pretty rare hybrid junior vs. shoot junior matchup instead. Ni Hao is half a year into wrestling and already one of the coolest wrestlers ever. He's damn good at picking apart Saito here, constantly going for limbs and working over different parts of the body hoping for one to give out. His throws also have an insane amount of snap to them, and they all look dangerously close to putting Saito in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Saito eventually taking control with big bombs like a springboard double foot stomp feels perfect for this type of pairing since Ni Hao, by virtue of being a CAPTURE guy, is much more susceptible to cutters and drivers than he is to grappling. Ni Hao and Saito keep the intensity going from bell to bell and end the match right when they need to. Nothing that would blow you away but still a lot of fun. God I love Ni Hao.

Match Rating: B

Macho Pump & Masao Orihara vs. Sabu & MIKAMI (Michinoku Pro 10/16/2003)

    MIKAMI and Sabu teaming up feels like the bump freak equivalent to when a famous red ranger would appear in a newer Power Rangers series and work with that team's red ranger. We need to get a bunch of other bump freaks together with these two to do the wrestling equivalent to "Forever Red". If we're to continue this comparison, Masao Orihara is Lord Zedd as he is the fucking devil, throwing lots of unprotected chairshots to MIKAMI's head and hitting gross double stomps to his ribs. At some point he seems to break MIKAMI's nose and MIKAMI bleeds all over his white mesh shirt. MIKAMI, for his part, is an amazing seller, doing a great job of stumbling and ragdolling for all of Orihara's offense like he's suffering from intense blood loss. Macho Pump is fun enough as a little goon mostly there to support Orihara and hit one or two moves of his own (which are just moves stolen from The Rock). Sabu and MIKAMI do get some points to run wild and hit all of their cool moves, with Sabu throwing a chairshot at Orihara as revenge for his new friend's gruesome beating. I came into this hoping to see Sabu and MIKAMI doing tons of crazy spots in a big car crash of a match. Instead, this is the Orihara and MIKAMI show, and both guys do a great job stiffing and selling respectively so I still thought this was great. Hopefully more Sabu in Michinoku crops up where Sabu and MIKAMI get to go full chaos mode like I originally hoped for.

Match Rating: B+

Hiroshi Itakura vs. Ryuma Go (Oriental Pro 09/12/1992)

    A real baptism in blood. Itakura takes on his mentor as part of a trial series of matches to prove Itakura has what it takes to be Oriental Pro's eventual top guy (Oriental Pro would die before that could ever happen). Ryuma Go decides Itakura needs intense brain damage to take on this role so he spends the entire match hitting no-hand shoot headbutts. No kidding, Go throws at least 50 skull-cracking headbutts, with Itakura getting busted open hardway after only the fourth one. Itakura, for his part, responds with equal stiffness in his handful of hope spots, but every moment of triumph leads directly into Go dragging him back to hell. If you've ever seen Masanobu Kurisu vs. Shoji Akiyoshi (specifically the handheld) this match feels thematically similar, albeit Kurisu was a lot more varied and intelligent in his beatdown. Ryuma Go is a dumb man. He's called the "pro wrestling idiot" for a reason. His head doesn't store information. His head is filled with rocks and he will use this rock-filled head to kill his son.

Match Rating: B+

Drake Morimatsu & Yuiga vs. Tarzan Goto & Shinigami (Yuiga Produce 10/30/2004)

    Shinigami and Morimatsu do not exist in this match. They each get one or two moments to show out, but are primarily just warm bodies in the ring rather than anything worth paying attention to. No, this is all about Goto and Yuiga. Goto might be my favorite plunderer of all time. He's so good at grabbing any object within range and turning it into a deadly weapon. He was in prime form here, stabbing and smashing things into Yuiga's head while doing evil laughs and little dances. While Yuiga was mostly selling throughout the match (which she did really well), she took her chances to fight back and ran with them, throwing really stiff strikes and hitting awesome judo throws. Her botched avalanche judo throw on Shinigami looked like it should've killed the man, and honestly turned out much better because of the botch. This is up there as one of Goto's better 2000s matches, and is a real feather in the cap for Yuiga so early into her career.

Match Rating: B+

Mumeijuku 08/02/2008

     (Written by jom)

    I'll be honest; I need a break from Onita Pro. Not a long one, but a break nonetheless. I really love the promotion, and I've enjoyed writing about it so far, but at this point, I've done four straight Onita Pro posts. I'm a little tired of writing about it, and I'm sure you're a little tired of reading about it. Luckily, Hasegawa's got me covered.

    If you're reading this and somehow out of the loop, diamond in the rough promotion Mutoha has been doing online sales for close to a year now, after myself and a bunch of other complete nerds practically begged them to start selling matches to foreigners. Beforehand, getting our hands on Mumeijuku/Mutoha footage was extremely difficult, mostly relying on YouTube uploads and the rare case of someone getting their hands on a DVD release. However, through Hasegawa (an editor with ties to Mutoha along with other indie promotions), we've finally been able to get direct access to a plethora of footage (mostly from Mutoha, but also a lot from indies spanning four decades) we would've never seen otherwise.

    I've been meaning to write about some of the footage I've gotten from Hasegawa for a long time. Sadly, the beginning of the online sales coincided with my complete loss of motivation for blogging, and I only really got that motivation back through having a focused project in the form of the Onita Pro reviews. I'm back in the zone though, and Hasegawa just started selling this event, so I thought what better show to cover. This is only the fourth show in the promotion's history, back when it was still called Mumeijuku, and the card is absolutely stacked, so I'm excited to dive in.

    One last note before getting into the pontificating. If you have any interest in this event, or would be at all interested in purchasing some of the hundreds of matches Hasegawa has made available in the last year, you can contact him here. I'll be avoiding discussion of match finishes for this post in case this inspires anyone to actually get the show themselves. Mutoha is easily the most interesting and consistently great promotion in the world, and any purchases you make go directly towards supporting the promotion. They've been going through rough times financially and only plan to run one show this year, so show some love and maybe we can convince them to run one more. That's all the begging from me. Onto the review!

Daisuke Kamata vs. Leonardo Takatsu

    Leonardo Takatsu? Cool guy! I've seen maybe two full Takatsu matches in my lifetime along with clips from Occupation, but he's always seemed like a worthwhile judoka. Meanwhile, I've never seen a Kamata match before. I've definitely got a few, but I've just never sat down and watched them. All I actually know about him is that his retirement match against Syuou Fujiwara is apparently amazing. That's really all I have to say about either guy.

    Similarly, I have very little to say about this match. It's a fine match! Just not in a particularly interesting way

    Kamata brings very little to the table here. He works this like a young boy (he's only two years into his career and has only worked 10 matches before this, so it makes sense), throwing kinda worthless forearms and doing very basic grappling. He also initiates a lot of strike exchanging, and I grew tired of that pretty quickly. However, Kamata's basic grappling is still good, and Takatsu does a damn good job of making the grappling a lot more interesting. He works almost like a rookie different style fighter, rough around the edges when it comes to execution but still able to do a lot of really fascinating work. His leg picks and hold transitions in this match are all great, and he does some nice matwork throughout. He also throws some really loud chest chops, so that helps make the constant strike exchanges more bearable.

    As a whole, this was a solid outing. I wouldn't say this is something you should go out of your way to see, but Takatsu's definitely someone I'm going to need to keep more of an eye out for.

Match Rating: C+

Hideya Iso vs. Kosei Maeda

    Now this has a lot of potential. Here's two of the founding fathers of Mumeijuku, battling it out for the first time ever. Iso is a real mystery. I have no idea how he actually got into pro wrestling, who trained him, or even when he first debuted. The first Iso appearance we know of is in a tag match on a Bungee Takada produce (which Hasegawa recently posted to YouTube! You should watch it, the match is great). His second appearance, and I'm not making this up, is in the main event of an Onita Pro show in Korakuen Hall. Sadly, we won't be getting to cover that show as it was untaped, but I've seen a photo that confirms he was there. I also know he was originally affiliated with a group called NCL (couldn't tell you what that stands for). One day, I'll actually start asking around to find out who Iso is and how he started his career like that, but for now, we're all in the dark.

    Maeda, meanwhile, is a lot more of an open book. He's one of those guys who you could find pretty much everywhere on the indie scene in the 90s and 00s. He used a ton of masked gimmicks (including all of the Tokai Bushidos) and tended to do fun juniors work. However, according to people like GENTARO, Maeda's greatest happiness was found doing visceral matwork wrestling as himself. Considering that, it's no surprise that Maeda is considered just as vital to the Mumeijuku/Mutoha ethos as Hiroshi Watanabe. Those two were the architects of the in-house style, a style that persists to this day, and Maeda was the staunchest defender of the deliberate grappling and patient flow of the promotion's marquee matches. He's someone that secretly stood head and shoulders above the majority of the wrestling world in terms of pro wrestling IQ, and Mumeijuku was the one place to give him a chance to show that off.

    This match feels special. 

    It's weird, because as I mentioned at the start, I came into this with the belief that the match had a lot of potential. I already knew they could deliver, and that they most likely would. And yet, I still didn't set that bar high enough, because this match clears the bar by a mile. From the first time Maeda and Iso lock up, there's a magic in the air. A feeling that these two fully understand what to do, that they subconsciously have already planned this match out beat for beat. That's what this match kind of feels like. It's natural, but in a perfect sense. At no point do I watch this match and feel like I'm watching pre-planned spots, but everything just goes so well that I almost can't imagine it being anything else.

    Mumeijuku's ideology, at its core, is human struggle. It is a battle of the body. It is a challenge to see how far the will can guide the vessel, and how much one will can endure being battered by another. It is an ultra-traditionalist view of professional wrestling, one that relies almost exclusively on the ability of the wrestlers to convey pain, struggle, and fortitude entirely through physical combat. This match is Mumeijuku. Every hold is wrenched, and every counter is tight. Everything in this match is a struggle. Nothing in this match is earned without effort. Iso and Maeda grunt and pull and rip each other apart on every hold, every transition, every single little moment. It's all a fight.

    There's a moment pretty early on that feels like a strong statement of what the match is as a whole. Iso, in an attempt to take control quickly, goes for a double leg takedown. It's an easy way to gain a strong foothold, and it's the type of move that you'd see executed effortlessly in a lot of matches. Iso does this when Maeda is still at relatively full strength, without being stunned or inundated in the slightest. As such, Maeda punishes him for this, first simply shutting down the takedown attempt, then carefully twisting Iso's body around, before finally locking in a deep side headlock. It's a strong mood-setting moment for the match. Nothing either man does in this match will be done with ease or without backlash. If you want to accomplish anything, you have to fight. You have to create opportunity rather than hope for it. You cannot hope to win a battle without putting yourself through one.

    I tend to avoid talking about professional wrestling philosophy and things of that nature because it feels like a slippery slope. Simply observations turn into grandstanding, which turns into making a fool of yourself. It's not hard to start off with a genuinely good point and lose it in a subconscious attempt to create something bigger than the point itself. I'm fully aware of this. I still think this philosophy talk is incredibly fitting and important here though, because I don't know if I've seen many other Mumeijuku matches that feel so representative of the promotion's philosophy, as well as why I enjoy said philosophy so much. Off the top of my head, GENTARO/Watanabe and GENTARO/Arai are the only matches I can think of that truly fit the bill. Maeda/Watanabe from the first Mumeijuku show ever is within the realm, but this feels like such a strong piece of work that it blows that match out of the water.

    I feel almost uncomfortable giving this match the grade it's getting. This is the second match on a five match show. This is a match I've only ever seen once. It feels wrong to give it a score this high. Truth be told, part of me wants to take that last step, too. I'm not going to, because I need to give this at least one more watch a few weeks from now when I've cooled down on it. At that point, if my feelings remain the same, I'll probably pop back in here to make the appropriate change. Regardless, what a god damn match. What a god damn match.

Match Rating: A

Daisuke Masaoka, Shun Mizuno, & Kazuma Nishi vs. Shota, Masashi Takeda, & Kazuhiro Tamura

    So... where do we go from here? How about Tokyo vs. Aichi BITCHES?! This is a STYLE-E vs. DEP match, and if you read those two promotion's names and got excited, congrats! You are one of the probably twelve people that would pop for that. I popped for it though, and that's all that matters to me. 

    For everyone that has a life, STYLE-E was the pro wrestling promotion started by all of Kiyoshi Tamura's trainees in the early 2000s. A lot of staple indie guys of today's scene got their starts there, primarily Tamura trainees like Masashi Takeda, MJ Paul, and TAMURA (Kazuhiro, no familial relation to Kiyoshi), along with guys like Shota who just went through the pro wrestling training aspect of U-FILE CAMP. Nobody seems to actually know who was running the U-FILE pro wrestling classes when Shota trained there, but timeline-wise, my bets are on TAMURA and AKINO. 

    Meanwhile, DEP (full name Daiwa Entertainment Pro) is a promotion started a few years after STYLE-E based in Aichi. Lots of the more popular Aichi workers nowadays spent their early years in the promotion, including Michio Kageyama, Daisuke Masaoka, and Toru Sugiura, just to name a few. Mizuno and Nishi are two guys that also got their starts in DEP, albeit neither of them stuck around in wrestling for long. This is actually the first time I'll be watching either of them, and considering Aichi seemingly had a machine printing out good wrestlers like clockwork around this time, I'm excited to see how they fare here.

    God, this match rocks. Really, it's perfect way to follow up the last match. Instead of trying to match Iso/Maeda in Mumeijuku-ness, these six stick to what they know best: super high energy juniors work. This is easily one of the most accessible Mumeijuku/Mutoha matches I've ever seen. The DEP guys and the STYLE-E guys have prebuilt heat simply from representing two different promotions, and they do a great job of maintaining that heat while keeping everything moving at such at fast pace.

    The DEP team really show out here in a big way. All three do a great job, all in different ways. Mizuno is a pudgy rookie and he works exactly how a pudgy rookie should work: lots of yelling, lots of spears, and lots of diving headbutts. It was one diving headbutt, but considering how low the roof is in Nishichofu, that's still a lot of a diving headbutt. Nishi is equally impressive, coming in with blatant Masaaki Mochizuki ripoff gear and working like a guy that studied Mochizuki tapes without actually learning karate (but in a good way). He throws a bunch of hard kicks and lets loose with some big forearms. He's probably in the match the least, but I appreciate everything he brought to the table. Masaoka is easily the star of his team though, and maybe the whole match. As someone that's really only see Masaoka working as a deathmatch guy, seeing him do lightning-quick juniors work with full commitment and perfect execution is pretty stunning. He's blatantly inspired by TAKA Michinoku, and honestly? If TAKA ever brought him into K-DOJO as TAKAcito, I'd buy into it. He feels like the next coming of the guy, and does a ton of really awesome work outside of the TAKAism too, like a wild sliding knee strike and a beauty of a moonsault.

    The STYLE-E team is equally impressive. Even only three months into his career, Shota already has pro wrestling down to a science, hitting everything so smoothly and positioning himself perfectly for every spot he's involved in. To be this dependable of a hand with such a short amount of time as an actual wrestler is absurd, but of course Shota's the one to fit the description. Tamura and Takeda are both in the zone just as much as Shota is. They're rattling off their respective spots like nobody's business, and Takeda even gets to pull off some new moves, like a weird double underhook powerslam I've never seen him do before or since this match. I guess he decided to leave it in the workshop after this night. It was a cool move though, so he should bring it back. The best work the STYLE-E team does in this match is easily their tandem moves though. The three have a great sense of chaining moves together, and even hit the KDX pose with the STYLE-E hand sign. If you're gonna be a trio of dominating juniors workers trying to break down a team of plucky upstarts, you might as well take lessons from the best of the genre.

    I was ready for this to be a pretty good match. A decent follow-up to the potential classic that happened before it, mostly worth talking about because of how fascinating it is to see FREEDOMS main eventers Takeda and Masaoka squaring off before either of them were even in the deathmatch world, let alone six years before they'd face off in their current home promotion. However, this really overdelivered, and helped to reset the show as a whole. A vital match for the card, and a kickass match on its own.

Match Rating: B+

Ken Kataya, Bungee Takada, & Fugo Fugo Yumeji vs. Diablo, Kaoru Nemoto, & Kazuhiko Matsuzaki

    From six juniors to six heavyweights. We're pulling out the big guns here, as trio of general good guy attitudes Kataya, Takada, and Yumeji take on the dastardly Diablo, Nemoto, and Matsuzaki. Is Matsuzaki that evil? I don't feel like he usually is, but he's teaming with two notably evil guys here. Maybe he's moonlighting as a bastard. I think I've talked about everyone in this match before, so I'm not gonna do it again. Just know I think all six of these guys are cool, and this match is, on paper, pretty sick.

    Paper reflects reality, because this match is, in fact, pretty sick. It's incredibly "heavyweight" styled wrestling, so how much you enjoy this match probably depends on how much you enjoy that type of work. I've somewhat grown tired of the style over time, but these guys keep it interesting and do a lot more work than just heavyweight stuff, so it keeps me entertained throughout the runtime.

    The heel team is pretty awesome here. Nemoto is the weakest link, throwing some not good hammer fists and being a little underwhelming at first, before throwing a couple good punches and reeling me back in. He probably does the least outwardly interesting work of the three, but his work is still consistently solid and he's a nice addition to the team. Diablo is the main bad guy of the three and lives up to that position well, stomping and kicking Takada's arm and constantly bending the rules in his favor. He also has a real nice lariat and he hit it a good few times in the match, so I was happy. Matsuzaki is the highlight of his team though. Matsuzaki is kind of the ultimate reliable hand, working for over thirty years without losing much of a step. All of his execution is crisp, and he knows exactly when do what he does. He wrestles like he's got eyes all over the ring, and this was another textbook performance from him. He also throws really awesome strikes so that definitely helps. 

    The faces also contribute some great stuff here. Takada spends most of the match getting his ass kicked, but he gets a few opportunities to fight back, throwing some nice kicks and just generally doing good work. Kataya is a little rougher around the edges, but he's got some nice fire and his bigger bombs all rule, especially his piledriver. Fugo is definitely the most notable guy from the face side of the ring, entirely because he only comes in to hit big moves and be cool. His house of fire spot in the match entirely consists of him throwing headbutts and hitting backdrops. There's not much else to say. What more could you want?

    I think that this is definitely a step down from the last match. While the last match started strong and kept escalating to bigger moves and spots, this match was just generally solid for the entire runtime. I did enjoy all of the work in the match and I'm never unhappy about getting to see guys like Matsuzaki, Diablo, and Fugo, but it wasn't anything you'd need to see.

Match Rating: B-

2/3 Falls: Shigeo Kato vs. Hiroshi Watanabe

    The main event is here. On one side, you have Hiroshi Watanabe. The ace of Mumeijuku. The king of the style. The bastion of everything the promotion stands for. On the other, Shigeo Kato. Another person that has strong feelings for more traditional wrestling, but in an entirely different sense. Kato is a heel down to his bones. A man who embraces the villainy of old. If Watanabe is the last believer in the classic Japanese style, Kato is the final follower of Ric Flair-esque territory technical heel work. In a way, there's no two men more similar in the Japanese indie scene at this point than these two. And at the same time, they couldn't be any more different.

    The match reflects this pretty damn well. Kato and Watanabe both stick to the essentials of pro wrestling, taking weapons from the arsenals of the 60s and 70s, while still feeling like entirely unique individuals. If Iso/Maeda was a battle of physical endurance, then this match is a lot more concerned with mental fortitude. Rather than being a back and forth contest of two men trying to pick each other apart, this match is all about Watanabe's will to survive Kato's onslaught.

    Kato is a total bastard in this match. Early on, he's cheating at any and every opportunity, raking and gouging the eyes while going for cheap shots and quick tricks. The earliest lockup in the match ends with Watanabe against the ropes and Kato raking his forearms across his face, and that kind of petty work just never goes away. Kato, all throughout the match, kicks at Watanabe's face. It's never really one big moment when he does it. Instead, they all happen right before or after a more notable spot, or as a passive action in-between two larger actions. They don't do a ton of damage, nor does Kato probably want them to. They hurt just enough to pester and frustrate Watanabe, to drive home who's in charge.

    Because of all those little bug bites, Kato's real stingers feel much bigger. When Kato starts drilling Watanabe with piledrivers, it's not just a noteworthy moment because the piledrivers look great. The piledrivers are exclamation points at the end of a long paragraph of torture. Torture that, as the match goes on, becomes more and more targeted. Kato goes for the leg pretty early on, but somewhat abandons that target to instead go for every part of Watanabe's body. After the first fall however, Kato's mentality changes, and he very quickly starts shooting for Watanabe's left leg. There's a ton of super creative work here, from some awesome rule-bending involving Watanabe's boot to Kato's toe kicks transforming into shin kicks. The bombs of the match also morph into leg targeting. There's one spot on the outside of the ring that I really wish I could talk about, but it's the type of moment you just have to see for yourself. It's been a long time since I've seen a spot where borderline-parodic screams of pain like the ones Watanabe let out feel entirely earned.

    Speaking of Watanabe, what a guy. In the face of Kato's rule-breaking and disrespect, Watanabe stands firm on his beliefs. He fights back with incredible displays of athleticism and conditioning, tight submission work, and a fiery spirit. There's something incredibly endearing about Watanabe's work. I've heard friends describe him as a poor man's Inoki, and I don't think that's entirely inaccurate, although it certainly has some negative connotations to it. Watanabe is, at his core, an Inokiist. Not in the Twitter buzzword kind of way, but in the real kind of way. He's much closer to Yuki Ishikawa than he is to Kazuyuki Fujita. Watanabe is a firm believer in the power of fighting spirit, of standing your ground in the face of insurmountable odds and never saying die. It's a goofy spot, but every single time I see Watanabe get into his "take a swing wise guy" stance, I get the biggest grin across my face. Watanabe fights for a professional wrestling that doesn't exist anymore, and Mumeijuku is his only refuge to embrace that wrestling in full.

    This match isn't perfect though. I have some critiques, albeit not strong ones. The first fall of the match, while really good, does feel a little loosely worked, especially compared to Iso/Maeda. The finish for that fall also comes pretty abruptly, and I'm not sure if I love that abruptness (the crowd seemingly agreed with my mixed feelings based on their response to the fall). The second fall is pretty much perfect to me, so I have nothing to say there. However, I do think the third fall ever so slightly betrayed the previous one. I understand why it's worked the way it is, and I do think it's still really good, but if the execution had been slightly different, I'd be a lot higher on it. Also, I actually enjoyed the way the match ended, although I already know some people who have issues with it.

   Overall, this match, even with those faults, was great. Kato and Watanabe tapped into the pro wrestling they excel at, and they both played their roles incredibly well. The two have a rematch a few months later, and I'm praying that Hasegawa is able to unearth that show in the future. Just based on this match, I know they've got it in them to really craft together something monumental.

Match Rating: A-