MISCELANEOUS JAPANESE PRO-WRESTLING PURORESU TAPES
Note: 1st 5 bouts digested, last 2 Onita bouts complete
All Japan Kickboxing Featherweight Championship: Matsuda vs. Hayashida
Ishu Kakutogisen: Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Ismael Changaney (sp?). Wrestler vs. kickboxer match
Shinya Hashimoto vs. Tatsutoshi Goto
Ryuji Murakami vs. ?
Rumi Kazama vs. Cuty Suzuki
Ishu Kakutogisen: Atsushi Onita vs. Masashi Aoyagi 4R
FMW 10/10/89 Tokyo Korakuen Hall, Ishu Kakutogisen: Atsushi Onita vs. Masashi Aoyagi R5 1:13
JWP: Dynamite Kansai & Hikari Fukuoka & Candy Okutsu & Fusayo Nouchi vs. Devil Masami & Mayumi Ozaki & Cuty Suzuki & Hiromi Yagi. Probably the best opening match ever! All action. Kansai, and also Devil, played monster here. Kansai & Ozaki were awesome together, and Candy & Yagi were really good together. ****1/2 to ****3/4
LLPW, Ultimate Rules Match: Shinobu Kandori vs. Harley Saito. Really intense. Very stiff and believable, but too short to amount to much.
AJW: Manami Toyota & Blizzard Yuki vs. Aja Kong & Kyoko Inoue. All kinds of great spots. Submissions between them didn't add much though. Great work, but some sloppiness. ****1/4 to ****1/2
Go Gundan, Alien Death Match for Interpromotional Title: Ryuma Go vs. Uchu Majin Silver X. Really bad match that was way too long. Go was over huge as a cult figure in a Hack Myers kind of way. Either hideously awful or decent depending on if you take this as serious wrestling or comedy. 1/2*
IWA Japan: Terry Funk & Shoji Nakamaki & Leatherface vs. Cactus Jack & The HeadHunters. Nothing but spots, but it was one sick spot after another. Hunters did sandwiched Nakamaki between barbed wire boards and moonsaulted him. Leather actually used the chainsaw. Funk did an Orihara moonsault after the planned finish didn't work. No direction or focus, of course. ***1/2-***3/4
Pancrase: Minoru Suzuki vs. Christopher DeWeaver. Uneventful
PWFG: Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Carl Greco & Don Arakawa.
This was supposed to be shoot wrestling, but Arakawa did the worst "comedy"
known to man. Viewing Arakawa's performance may be worse than getting a hot
poker up the ass. Ishikawa & Greco did some good serious shooting, but what
good did it do when Arakawa would then come in and do the spit spot and Baba
chops? 1/4*
Michinoku Pro: Super Delfin & TAKA Michinoku & Gran Naniwa vs. Great
Sasuke & SATO & Shiryu. Typical great Michinoku tag match of the time
period with the usual spots and comedy. Built well and had head. Smooth work
and good pacing. TAKA was very impressive. Tons of cool spots. Sakie is outside
the ring wearing a Delfin costume, and Delfin gets to take a bump where his
head winds up between her breasts. As always, the final minutes were excellent.
**** to ****1/4
RINGS: Akira Maeda vs. Chris Dolman. Dolman was in just about his last match,
so he was beyond washed up. Maeda was super over, but after their nothing match,
he let Dolman get the pops.
UWF-I: Nobuhiko Takada & Masahito Kakihara & Billy Scott vs. Gary Albright
& Kazuo Yamazaki & Gene Lydick. Interesting storyline here in that the
most popular wrestler and top star of the promotion, Takada, put himself in
the position to get booed by refusing to face Yamazaki. Match was great up to
the finish, which came too soon and came off very flat. It's a shame AJ doesn't
have a clue how to book Kakihara because he was so much fun to watch in these
days, and still could be if they had a clue. Very good.
FMW, Explosive Barbed Wire Match: Great Nita (Onita) vs. King Pogo (Mr. Pogo). The basic excuse for this match being so mediocre is that they weren't allowed to use any fire. Kinda funny when you think about it. Crowd was dead because this took place in a separate ring that very few people had a good angle to see. Onita's offense was really lame. Basically the requisite spots. Mediocre.
AJ: Mitsuharu Misawa & Kenta Kobashi & Stan Hansen vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Akira Taue & Johnny Ace. AJ used to have 6 man tags on this level fairly often, but this was the first great one they had in some time and they haven't done one that's come close to this since. Storyline was better when Jumbo was in this match, but this was very stiff and built well. Closing minutes were excellent and had great heat. Lots of great false finishes. Best men's heavyweight tag match at the Tokyo Dome? ****1/2 to ****3/4
NJ: Shinya Hashimoto vs. Masa Chono. Boring match. I have no idea what these two were thinking doing so little after most of the other promotions went all out to provide great matches.
Headhunter A vs. Headhunter B-Glass Death Match, Nakamaki vs. Keeper-Barbed Wire Ladder Match, Poison Sawada vs. White Mummy-No Rope Barbed Wire Lumberjack Cobra Snake Death Match, Nita & Goto vs. Pogo & Oya-No Rope Barbed Wire Street Fight Death Match, Sasuke vs. Fuji, Nita vs. Pogo, more!
Tokimitsu Ishikawa (Ka Shin) vs. Yuji Nagata
Osamu Nishimura vs. Kenichi Yamamoto
Shodai Tiger Mask vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi
Masahito Kakihara vs. Daisuke Ikeda
Bull Nakano vs. Akira Hokuto
Hiroshi Hase vs. Yoji Anjo
Antonio Inoki & Nobuhiko Takada vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Kazuo Yamazaki
LLPW Special Tag Match: Shinobu Kandori & Michiko Omukai vs. Eagle Sawai
& Michiko Nagashima
GAEA & JWP Special Tag Match: Chigusa Nagayo & Hikari Fukuoka &
Hiromi Yagi vs. Dynamite Kansai & Bomber Hikari & Toshie Uematsu
FMW Special Tag Match: Masato Tanaka & Koji Nakagawa vs. Hisakatsu Oya &
The Gladiator
IWA Japan Special Single Match: Tarzan Goto vs. Takashi Okamura
Fujiwara Gumi vs. UWF-I Golden Cups: Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Yoji Anjo
NJ vs. WAR Special Tag Match: Riki Choshu & Koki Kitahara vs. Genichiru
Tenryu & Tatsumi Fujinami
Paul Varelans vs. Shinji Katase
Becky Levi vs. Yoko Takahashi
David Beneteau vs. Patrick Smith
Wallid Ismael vs. Latsumi Isida
Don Frye vs. Mark Hall
Mitsuhiro Matsunaga vs. Dan Severn
Sean Alvares vs. Yoji Anjo
Kimo vs. Bam Bam Bigelow
Kickboxing match Glove Match: Hiroyuki Wakata vs. Yuji Murakami
Battlarts Tag Match: Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono vs. Alexander Otsuka &
Satoshi Yoneyama (now Mohammed Yone)
J Crown: Ultimo Dragon vs. Gran Naniwa. Naniwa Frankensteiners Dragon off the
top rope to the arena floor!
Shodai Tiger Mask (Sayama) vs. Masaaki Mochizuki (Bukoh Dojo)
Shinichi Nakano (Wrestle Yume Factory) vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara (PWFG)
Yuki Ishikawa (Battlarts) vs. Wilhelm Ruska (Holland)
Mabel (former WWF) vs. Koji Kitao (Bukoh Dojo)
Michinoku Pro 10 Man Tag Match: The Great Sasuke & Gran Hamada & Super Delfin & Naohiro Hoshikawa & Masato Yakushiji (Sekigun team) vs. Dick Togo & MEN'S Teioh & Shiryu & TAKA Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki (Kaientai DX). A great match, as you'd expect. The problem was it was much shorter (16:40) than 10 mans from 10/10/96 or 12/16/96 so it didn't build nearly as well. The pace was incredibly fast though, so that kind of made up for it. Really smooth work, with one great spot after another. The announcer had to talk as fast as Crazy Eddie to keep up with all the action, but unfortunately the fans weren't all that into it until the end. ****1/2
Kudo in studio with lots of highlights of her old matches and her 12/11 & 1/5 matches with Kandori, feature on Bison, AJW 1/4 highlights
Miho Wakizawa (AJW) vs. Rumi Sekiguchi (AJW)
The Goddess Chikako Shiratori & Yuki Lee (Jd' team) vs. Jaguar Yokota (Jd')
& Emi Motokawa (IWA Japan)
RIE (FMW) vs. Shark Tsuchiya (FMW)
2/19/97 FMW at Korakuen Hall: Kodo Fuyuki & Jado & Gedo vs. W*ING Kanemura
& Hideki Hosaka & Dragon Winger (W*ING team). Highlights
Bulldog KT (Gedo) & Coolie SZ (Jado) vs. W*ING Kanemura & Hido (W*ING)
Mima Shimoda (AJW) vs. Mariko Yoshida (AJW)
3/19/97 FMW at Sendai Miyagi-ken Sports Center World Street Fight 6 Man Tag
Titles: Hisakatsu Oya & The Headhunters vs. Kodo Fuyuki & Jado &
Gedo. Fuyuki team wins titles
World Street Fight 6 Man Tag Titles: Kodo Fuyuki & Jado & Gedo vs. The
Great Kabuki (IWA Japan) & Masao Orihara (Mebius) & Keisuke Yamada (IWA
Japan)
*Note: listing of wrestling matches only*
LLPW Match: Eagle Sawai & Michiko Nagashima vs. Yasha Kurenai & Carol
Midori. What was shown was typical LLPW and what you'd expect from these four.
Tiger Mask Festival: Shodai Tiger Mask (First generation, Satoru Sayama) &
Yon-Dai Tiger (Tiger Mask #4, Michinoku Pro) vs. Ni-dai Tiger (Tiger Mask #2
originally Misawa, but today it was Yoshinobu Kanemaru, AJ) & San-dai Tiger
(Tiger Mask #3, Koji Kanemoto, NJ). It was cool seeing all these guys in the
ring together, but the match was disappointing. Sayama didn't look good at all.
Koji was the best, but he wasn't close to as good as normal because he's not
used to working with these guys. Also Koji didn't want to sell anything, again.
Sloppy in points and didn't build that well. Kanemura was the best flyer. Tiger
#4 looked good. Some cool spots. **1/2
WAR Tag Match: Genichiru Tenryu & Arashi vs. Mitsuharu (aka Koji) Kitao
& Masaaki Mochizuki. Good match when Tenryu was in with Mochizuki, but Tenryu
didn't sell much for him. *1/2
UWF Match: Super Tiger (Sayama) vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara. This was a bizarre match.
It kept getting out of control and the ref stopped it, but they wrestlers kept
going at it so it would up with Inoki taking over for the ref who couldn't keep
it under control. Still it was out of hand. I think time eventually runs out.
Different.
Opening Battle: Hidetomo Egawa vs. Perseus. 2:46 shown.
Battlarts Special Single Match: Mach Junji vs. Ryuji Hijikata. 3:56 shown
New Generation Ladies Tag Match: Kiyoko Ichiki & Chiharu vs. Chihiro Nakano & Miyuki Fujii. 5:27 shown.
Top Of The Queen Zenjo Special Tag Match: Manami Toyota & Takako Inoue vs. Yumiko Hotta & Kumiko Maekawa. All action with the expected level of work. 8:59 shown.
High Tension Powerful War: TAKA Michinoku & Asian Cougar vs. Masao Orihara & Palomino. Lightning pace. There were like 5 Michinoku driver II's in the first 2:15. The problem was they got off to such a hot start that the match ended up tailing off instead of building. The ending was the worst part with TAKA nearly killing himself slipping off the top rope while trying his quebrada and the finish being blown. Overall it was a really exciting match with a typically awesome performance from TAKA, particularly when he was in with fellow punk Orihara. Cougar was very impressive as well. ***3/4
Dick Togo & MEN'S Teio & Sho Funaki vs. Tarzan Goto & Masashi Aoyagi & Azteca. It was a good match when Azteca was in, but Scroto having an ego trip really took it down. Scroto wouldn't sell for KDX, just dominated Togo, beating him Bloody. KDX won, but Scroto made sure we all knew he was far superior to them, and also beat them up after the match. All of this made their win totally worthless. On the bright side, this was the best wrestling I've seen from Azteca. **
Strong Style Six Man Tag Match: Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Ryuma Go & Tatsuo Nakano vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu & Hiroshi Itakura & Shigeo Okumura. Bad and boring. The two guys that might have been able to save it, Okumura and Nakano, didn't play a very big role in the match. 1/2*
Mosco De La Merced vs. Chinen Nishida
Sexy One & Dancing Danny & Psicodelico Jr. vs. Super Crazy & Mosco De La Merced & Psicodelico De La Muerte
Gran Hamada & Dos Caras & Giant Dos Caras (Shunji Takano) vs. Antifaz & Shu El Guerrero & Dos Caras De La Muerte
The beginning of this tape is kind of dull with one of those histories of puroresu that we can't understand and interviews, although there are a lot of cool flying moves in between the interviews. It gets good when they set up equipment on a dummy to gauge how hard Hashimoto is kicking. Their results show that Sasaki's lariat and a baseball bat hitting the dummy register 40G (I guess this is grams?) of pressure, but Hashimoto's kicks are 55G.
Daisuke Ikeda & Alexander Otsuka vs. Yuki Ishikawa & Minoru Tanaka. This looked like a really good Battlarts match with great exectution, all the big spots and near falls, etc, except they only showed 9:31 of a draw so that has to make you wonder.
Super Delfin & Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Hayabusa & Tsubasa. Work and spots. The match didn't build, but Hayabusa & Tsubasa were really on and did all kinds of cool moves. ***1/4
Super Techniques-This was the highlight of the tape, IMO. They spent 50 minutes showing pretty much every move that's somewhat regularly been used in New Japan with some indy guys thrown in. They divided all the moves up by section (ie submissions are together, throws are together). Within the move, they'd also show the variations of the move (reverse, off the top rope, etc.) if there were any. If you can read Japanese and want to know the names of the moves then this segment makes the tape a must.
*Replica package available*
JWP Match: Tomoko Kuzumi & Rieko Amano vs. Tomoko Miyaguchi & Kanako
Motoya. ***1/4 range
AJW Match: Kumiko Maekawa & Momoe Nakanishi vs. Nanae Takahashi & Kayo
Noumi. *1/4 range.
Jd' Match: Yuko Kosugi vs. Shark Tsuchiya (Modukutai). 3/4*
Request Ni Yoru The Heel Taiketsu (showdown): Sugar Sato & Chikayo Nagashima
(Oz Academy) vs. The Bloody & Fang Suzuki (Bukyogun team). ** range
ARSION Match: Ayako Hamada & Mika Akino vs. Aja Kong & Mariko Yoshida.
***
Request Ni Yoru Yume no Tag Match: Hiromi Yagi (free) & Sumie Sakai (Jd')
vs. Tiger Dream (ARSION) & Chaparita ASARI (Neo). ***
Jaguar Yokota Intai (retirement) Final Match: Jaguar Yokota (Jd') vs. Devil
Masami. *1/4
Bukyogun Shuryo (leader) vs. Oz Academy Kocho (principal/headmaster) Chojo (top/climax)
Taiketsu: Lioness Asuka (Bukyogun) vs. Mayumi Ozaki (Oz Academy). **
Zenjo vs. Neo Ikon (grudge) Karyu (whirlpool) Ku Kaisen (outbreak of war): Manami
Toyota & Yumiko Hotta & Takako Inoue (AJW team) vs. Kyoko Inoue &
Mima Shimoda & Etsuko Mita (Neo Ladies team). ****
*I have a very limited quantity of additional 1st Gen SP copies of this tape
that are available for $18. I also have a very limited quantity of Xeroxes of
the video's cover*
9 Man Battle Royal
Azteca vs. Guerrero Diablo
Brad Kohler & Scotty Z vs. James Kahn & Chi Town Thug
Jeff Mangel vs. Derrick Dukes
The Hater vs. Masashi Aoyagi
Triple K 1 & 2 vs. Rikio Ito & Daiyo Kawauchi
Pepsi Boy & Cola Kid vs. Knuckles Nelson & Eric Spracha (sp?)
*Special price $18 or $23.50 COOP*
Yoshiya Yamashiya vs. Gilgilgan, Jr.
Sogo Kakutogi Die Hard Tournament Ikkaisen: Chotaro Kamoi vs. The Karate Devil
Sogo Kakutogi Die Hard Tournament Ikkaisen: Toshi Moriya vs. Edward Sexton
Sogo Kakutogi Die Hard Tournament Saikai Ketteisen (Decision Match For Lowest Rank): Naoshi Sano vs. The Karate Devil
Sogo Kakutogi Die Hard Tournament Kesshosen: Chotaro Kamoi vs. Edward Sexton
Survival Tobita vs. Genshi-Enjin (Primative Ape Man) Vargon
Emi Motokawa & Sachie Nishibori vs. Yasha Kurenai & Keiko Aono
Yuuichi Taniguchi & Sanshiro Takagi vs. Yusaku & Daisaku
Rieko Amano & Kana Mizaki vs. Azumi Hiuga & Ran Yu-Yu
Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda & The Great Takeru vs. Onryu & Shinigami & Shigeo Kato
Barbed Wire Board Death Match: Tarzan Goto & Freddy Kreugar vs. Shoji Nakamaki & Juno Spider (Mitsunobu Kikuzawa)
Eagle Sawai & Sayori Okino vs. Shinobu Kandori & Junko Yagi
Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Nobutaka Araya & Shigeo Okumura vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Genichiru Tenryu & Masaaki Mochizuki
If you are looking for good technical wrestling, avoid this tape like the plague. If you are looking for something ridiculous and kinda funny then you might want to give this a try. This is the weirdest wrestling I've ever seen from Japan. They wrestle on gym mats in a small school gym before crowds of less than 50. There are some quasi-shoot style matches on the undercard, but the focus is on Survival Tobita trying to fend off these ridiculous looking monsters. His most notable opponent is Mokojin Ken, who is supposed to be a walking tree. Ken is sometimes referred to as Ken The Box because his costume is a bunch of boxes with "tree leaves" wrapped around his body garlin style. Basically he's one big box with a hole for his head and two holes for his arms, but his head has a box and his arms have two boxes so he can bend at the elbows. Everything else is under the main box so he cannot bend over, resulting in his only offense being punches that Tobita puts over huge. It would be the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen in a wrestling ring, except they don't use a ring!
8/23/99
Gilgilgun, Jr. vs. Chotaro Kamoi
Young Young Poi (cup) Koshikileaguesen: Naoshi Sano vs. Daisuke Taneichi
Survival Tobita vs. Mukojin Ken
Neo Ladies 8/25/99 Tokyo
Yuushitessen Board Death Match: Naoshi Sano vs. Survival Tobita vs. Mukojin Ken
12/23/99
Young Young Poi (cup) Koshikileaguesen '99 Kesshosen: Naoshi Sano vs. Daisuke Ichikawa
Fukumen Mixed Match: Octopus Eight vs. Violence Kiranger (?)
Christmas Present 4 Person Sanga (participation) Battle Royal: Naoshi Sano vs. Daisuke Ichikawa vs. Octopus Eight vs. Violence Kiranger
Saitama Musabetsukyu Real Fighting Oza Ketteisen: Survival Tobita vs. Jido (automatic) Senshi (soldier) Gurdan
Genichiru Tenryu & Shinya Hashimoto vs. Naoya Ogawa & B.B. Jones
Full match list coming soon
Yoshiaki Fujiwara's team vs. Nick Bockwinkle's team
Match list coming soon
Highlights of Rikidozan matches
History of the Ironman Heavy Metal Senshuken - Highlights of all the title changes. It's amazing they were able to capture all these on film what with the 24 hour rule being in effect.:)
Ironman Heavy Metal Senshukenjiai. This was like the WWF hardcore battle royal. They had title changes in the bathroom, a 10 way headscissor where the belt changed hands right down the line, etc. The title changes like 30 times. Only Karasu tried any wrestling, and he's a sloppy spot matchine. Chotaro Kamui came out the victor, but as he was walking back to the dressing room, Shark Tsuchiya, who wasn't in the match (the one woman was Genki), jumped him and pinned him to become the new champ.
MIKAMI & Tanomusaku Toba vs. Takashi Sasaki & Yuki Nishino. The match was fast paced with so many sequences and big spots. It had it's share of mistakes, but the level of difficulty was pretty high. MIKAMI is small, but really athletic. He did a Frankensteiner off the top rope where he just took a couple steps, jump up, and took the opponent over.
Undercard digest
KO-D Musabetsukyu Senshuken 4 Way Single Match: Sanshiro Takagi vs. Poison Sawada JULIE vs. Tomohiko Hashimoto vs. Super Uchu Power. Takagi is the only guy in the match that I'd say is good, but they kept the action up and did a lot of near finishes so it was decent.
Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs. Chaparrita ASARI & Hiromi Yagi
APEX of TRIANGLE 3 Men TAG TOURNAMENT with Sasuke & Hamada & Tiger Mask, Masato Tanaka & Jado & Gedo, Mr. Niebla & Tony Rivera & Ricky Marvin, Teio & Ryuji Ito & Daisuke Sekimoto, Togo & NOSAWA & Nishida, etc.
Full match list coming soon
ReMIX 3min 5rd: Ikuma Hoshino vs. Mako Ogawa
Takako Inoue & Miori Kamiya vs. Kaoru Ito & Tomoko Watanabe
Osaka Puroresu Battle Royal Senshuken: Osaka Royal Rumble
Chikako Shiratori Intai: Chikako Shiratori vs. Rie Tamada
5 Min Bonus 3 Way Dance: Chikako Shiratori vs. Rie Tamada vs. Kumiko Maekawa
*Special price $20 or $25.50 COOP (insert autographed)*
Ikuto Hidaka vs. Asian Cougar. Good match with crisp execution. Lots of athletic spots, but also some good submission wrestling with Hidaka using both styles to attack Cougar's knee and set up his Shawn capture finisher. Cougar finds the most interesting ways to utilize the ropes. At one point Hidaka was leaning on the apron and Cougar reentered the ring by slingshotting over and turning 180 degrees in midair so he could come down with a dropkick to Hidaka's arm. ***1/4
Kaori Nakayama vs. Azumi Hiuga. Nakayama's offense has definitely improved, and this was a good opportunity to show it. Unfortunately, sometimes she couldn't follow Azumi, at least not quick enough. The thing with Nakayama is she's much better at single moves than sequences. If she could improve her sequences she could be a spectacular worker, but right now she's someone with some excellent that can't hang with a wrestler of Azumi's quality work wise. Azumi didn't give Nakayama too much respect because of this. Nonetheless, Azumi is such a good worker that it can't be too bad a match when you stick her in with a wrestler that also has some spectacular moves. The highlight was Nakayama countering Azumi's nadare shiki no doublearm suplex with a sunset flip powerbomb into a jackknife hold. **1/4
Nishida & MIKAMI vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Takashi Sasaki. MIKAMI vs. Sasaki was good, of course. Nishida & Ishii were unimpressive though and Psychic interfered too much. The horrendous finish was right out of 80's American wrestling, except the match was ruled a no contest rather than a DQ. *1/2
Hideki Nishida & MIKAMI vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Psychic. Sasaki didn't help Ishii & Psychic beat the opposition up after the match, so they stomped him and had another match without him. This match was too short to amount to anything though.
Royal Rumble Scramble Bunkhouse All Anything Hazard 6 Man Street Fight Match: Atsushi Onita & Hideki Hosaka & Dick Togo vs. Tomoaki Honma & Hido & Shoji Nakamaki. This isn't my type of match; just a bunch of gimmick spots. Bloody chaos with Honma being the only one that did any wrestling. *.
Masato Tanaka & Jado & Gedo vs. Shinjiro Otani & Naohiro Hoshikawa & Kohei Sato. They didn't show all their moves, but for ass kicking from start to finish this was pretty much top notch. Everyone was stiff, but none of these guys come close to Hoshikawa when it comes to intensity. Hoshikawa is probably the best right now at incorporating speed and athleticism into a stiff and precise striking style. He carried his team with Otani not wrestling too many minutes and Sato being the weak link. Tanaka looked really good in a straight match, fighting AJ style. Jado & Gedo came to fight and were solid. I'd rank Otani as the 5th best in the match, although he was good when he actually wrestled. ***1/2
JWP Opening Special Bout: Kayuko Haruyama vs. Kobina Ichikawa.
Michael Smith: The work itself wasn't bad for an opener. However, Kobina's
lame attempts at comedy make her come off as an androgynous version of Bolshoi
Kid, only worse. She has decent speed and ability, but if she's going to
be almost total comic relief then she should at least try to be original.
Haruyama looked okay here. Nothing special, but she showed more than I ever
thought she would a few years ago when she was as bad as it gets as a rookie.
*
Wacky FINAL COUNTDOWN: Takako Inoue vs. Miho Wakizawa.
MS: Considering that this was Takako's show and they were only going 5 minutes
(granted, they were having another very short match following this and Takako
was in the main event as well) you would think they'd do more than they did
here. Instead they basically killed 4 minutes by doing a lot of minimal stuff
(punches, kicks, and basic submissions) and then tried to end it with some
near falls, only one of which, Takako's destiny hammer, was effective. Miho's
last pin attempt (as the bell rang) was a weak German suplex that she couldn't
keep the bridge on. The tag match somewhat saved this though if you include
both together.
Takako Inoue & Momoe Nakanishi vs. Kayo Noumi & Miho Wakizawa.
MS: Miho did some mic work to set this up. When Takako accepted the challenge
of MihoKayo it was kind of amusing because Momoe tried to hide from her vision
by crouching low at ringside. Both Kayo and Momoe wrestled in their seconds
attire - sneakers, shorts, and a t-shirt. The match itself was fun because
Momoe immediately turned on Takako but kept apologizing for it. Basically
this was a fast paced 90 second squash that culminated with Miho getting
the win with a fisherman's buster. Afterwards, they did some comedy where
Takako shook Miho and Kayo's hands but playfully smacked Momoe when shaking
hers. They all enjoyed themselves here and that's all that was attempted
and needed.
Sachie Abe vs. Chaparita ASARI.
MS: Neither woman did much. ASARI mainly did a couple of decent submissions,
throwing in a plancha and bad looking top rope hurancanrana (due more to
Abe's bad bump off it then it being Chaparita's fault). Sachie's main offense
consisted of using a straw thing that looked like a broom head and a couple
of good looking highspots. Her problem though is that she looks lost in the
ring half the time and her selling is so bad that she'd be hard pressed to
unload a dollar for 75 cents. Maybe it's her seemingly bubbly personality,
but she was smiling and slightly giggling most of the time ASARI had her
in a submission. Otherwise her highspots looked solid, but she didn't have
anything else. They aired about half the match and didn't make it look better
by clipping it. *1/4
Kaoru Ito vs. Miyuki Fujii.
MS: What aired was what you'd expect. Ito dominated when she wanted to and
Fujii didn't look good with what little she did. Ito gave her two kickouts
on pins following a couple of strong clotheslines, but not much else.
W Inoue Debut 13th Anniversary Memorial Match: Manami Toyota & Takako Inoue
vs. Kyoko Inoue & Yoshiko Tamura.
MS: Manami (especially) and Takako worked hard to try to make Kyoko look
good. Manami even did a flip bump on a Kyoko clothesline. Tamura wasn't involved
that much as the match progressed, but she did have an elongated sequence
with Manami where they traded near falls. The two best attempts were Tamura's
- a top rope doublewrist armsault and a doublearm DDT that followed. The
problem they had though was that both women had trouble lifting each other
and keeping the bridges on their German suplexes (they had a back and forth
of pin attempts with these). After this Tamura was only in the ring to either
break up pins on Kyoko or stop Manami from saving Takako. Not too far from
a good match (probrably partially due to be chopped by 4 minutes), but it
wasn't realized because the NEO women couldn't match Manami and Takako's
effort. **1/2
*Replica package available*
JWP vs. ARSION Joshi Tag Match: Azumi Hiuga & Tsubasa Kurgaki vs. Michiko Omukai & Ai Fujita
Man & Woman Mixed Tag Match: Asian Cougar & Commando Bolshoi vs. Ikuto Hidaka & Ran Yu-Yu
Toryumon JAPAN 6 Man Tag Match: Super Shiisaa & Kenichiro Arai & Ryo Saito vs. Susumu Mochizuki & Genki Horiguchi & Darknes Dragon
Battlarts Single Match: Katsumi Usuda vs. Takahiro Daijo
Special Single Match: Masato Tanaka vs. Tomoaki Honma
Death Match: Mitsuhiro Matsunaga vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara
Royal Rumble Scramble Bunkhouse Anything Hazard Street Fight Death Match: Atsushi Onita & The Great Sasuke & Hideki Hosaka vs. Hido & Shoji Nakamaki & Masayoshi Motegi
Hideki Nishida vs. Psychic
Gran Hamada & Kazuya Yuasa vs. Ikuto Hidaka & Tomohiro Ishii
No Rope Yuushitessen Street Fight Tornado 8 Man Tag Death Match: Atsushi Onita & Kazumasa Nihei & Masayoshi Motegi & GENTARO vs. Mr. Pogo & Hido & Shoji Nakamaki & Ichiro Yaguchi
Full match list coming soon
Tanomusaku Toba vs. Tomohiko Hashimoto 5:45
Iron Man Heavy Metal Title Match: Biomonster DNA vs. Issei Fujisawa 7:15
Hebikage, Fushicho Karasu & Toguro Habukage vs. HERO!, San Paul & Ken Ohka vs. Hebikage, Fushicho Karasu & Toguro Habukage 15:44
Ladder Match: Onryo vs. MIKAMI 18:54
Royal Rumble Elimination Match 32:48
KO-D Heavyweight Title & Iron Man Heavy Metal Title Match: Super Uchu Power vs. Sanshiro Takagi 17:48
Shinjuku Same vs. Kazumasa Nihei. Even Same does a better shining wizard than Muto. Otherwise this was hideous though. Bad deliberate wrestling with too many distractions from Same's scaredy cat valet. 1/4*
Bio-Monster DNA & Onryo vs. Poison Sawada & Jun Kasai. It's hard to decide who is goofier, but Kasai is definitely a much better wrestler than Poison. Sadly Kasai was the best wrestler in the match since Onryo did nothing. Poison vs. DNA was some kind of awful. The big comedy segment had Poison slipping on his partner's banana peel and a pissed Naomi Susan waving her rattle at Kasai. Later Poison tied Kasai's tail to the ropes and finished DNA himself then he and Naomi beat on Kasai until he got his tail free. Poor. 6:47 shown
Chocoball Mukai & NOSAWA vs. Sanshiro Takagi & Takashi Sasaki. Takagi seemed to wrestle up to his ability and Sasaki was typically good. I liked what I saw here. 3:03 shown
Manami Toyota vs. Kumiko Maekawa. Sometimes they weren't on the same page when Maekawa was kicking. Otherwise it looked like a good match with flying and suplexes vs. nasty kicks. Toyota did a cross between a captured and northern lights suplex. 3:20 shown
Rumi Kazama & Eagle Sawai vs. Harley Saito & Norio Tateno. Why is LLPW coming on after AJW, especially a good Toyota singles match? Anyway, this seemed like an adequate match largely due to Harley who actually even tried to wrestle Eagle. 2:57 shown
Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Tamon Honda & Masao Inoue. Work was fine, but as you'd expect Misawa didn't go out of his way everyone knew Honda's team had no chance. Okay. 9:13 shown
Akira Taue vs. Tetsuhiro Kuroda. Taue did fine carrying the match, but he's slowed down a lot so he's pretty deliberate. Kuroda was fiery, but as always it was just lariat after lariat from him. Wasn't a squash, but Kuroda wasn't portrayed as being in Taue's class. **
Vader vs. Kintaro Kanemura. This was a squash, and that made it boring. Kanemura made a very brief comeback with a table, but Vader wound up chokeslamming him through it. Kanemura was jobbed out, only being able to put Vader down once. *1/2
Atsushi Onita & The Great Sasuke vs. Shinya Hashimoto & Shinjiro Otani. Started out fine with Sasuke vs. Otani, but then Onita tagged in and forced Hashimoto to tag in. Onita proceeded to stall for 2 minutes by circling around the ring. when he finally locked up he was DQ'd for spewing Hashimoto. Pandemonium broke loose in the ring, but the match was eventually restarted with Sasuke doing a tope con hilo with Otani on a table. Luckily Sasuke totally carried his team. The problem is while Sasuke & Hashimoto are two of the better wrestlers in their respective weight classes, Hashimoto's gimmick dictates that he must destroy the little man the whole time. Eventually Onita fireballed Otani for a second DQ and another huge brawl in the ring. Some of the wrestling was good, you know when it didn't involve Onita. I could have lived with the first stupid finish because they restarted it, but two terrible finishes was ridiculous. **
Kodo Fuyuki retirement
ROH Tag Title Match: SAT vs. The Briscoes 11:00
ROH World Title Match: Jay Briscoe vs. Samoa Joe 12:19
Colt Cabana & CM Punk vs. Tomoaki Honma & Kaz Miyamoto 16:36
AJ Styles vs. Kaz Hayashi 14:49
Homicide vs. Satoshi Kojima 13:11
Dan Maff & Christopher Daniels vs. Arashi & The Great Muta 16:07
Daichi Kakimoto & Masahiro Takanashi vs. Katsumasa Inoue & Hiroyuki Kondo 5:51 of 10:24
Intergender match: Ken Ohka vs. Showa-ko 3:50 of 6:07
Four Team Elimination Match: Tomohiko Hashimoto & Seiya Morohashi vs. Yusuke Inokuma & Ken Kataya vs. Syuji Ishikawa & MIKAMI vs. Kyosuke Sasaki & Tanomusaku Toba 10:13 of 15:46
Kensuke Sasaki & KENSHIN vs. Yoji Anjo & Koichiro Kimura 12:35
NO DQ four way for KO-D Heavyweight Title & Iron Man Heavy Metal Title: Shoichi Ichimiya vs. Sanshiro Takagi vs. Poison Sawada JULIE vs. Danshoku Dino 17:22
KO-D Tag Team Title Match: Takashi Sasaki & GENTARO vs. HERO! & KUDO 20:36