I'm not really sure why I watched these matches. This is a notoriously poorly rated year for AJPW. I don't think many people have thought highly of AJPW after the NOAH exodus. And as a result, I don't believe there's been a good consensus of if AJPW was ever any good post July of 2000. Sure there's been a handful of matches that have gotten some hype and even some wrestlers but I think Western fans have gone elsewhere. I've done some projects in the past looking at early 2010's AJPW (which when
Sorry for the delay! Here we are with the fall & winter of 2002 and it is a doozy!
KENTA & Kenta Kobashi vs Kotaro Suzuki & Mitsuharu Misawa (09/01): We get our first appearance of KENTA in his true form Gone is the surfer hair, orange trunks & white boots. He's in his dark grey tights with kick pad boots...and he is kicking. I know that sounds weird but up until now KENTA wasn't doing his shoot style kicks. This is a good match that gives us some good Misawa vs Kobashi mom
So I found a Japanese YouTube channel that has some more obscure/hard to find stuff for 2002. Most of it is clipped but I'm happy to see at least some of these matches. Looks like this person has a lot of Ogawa/Misawa/Wave stuff...and in turn more Wave vs Sterness so I'm pretty psyched. So we're going to kinda start back at the beginning of 2002 with these videos.
Jun Akiyama, Akitoshi Saito & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs Mitsuharu Misawa, Yoshinari Ogawa & Naomichi Marufuji (01/16): 7 of
Here we are back in Pro Wrestling NOAH! It's 2002 and the matches this year is known for are the NJ vs NOAH Jr tags. I did some digging and found the reviews - yay! I'll mix those in with this week's new stuff. Per the 2001 posts, this is mainly going to be stuff that is a little under the radar. The exceptions are Akiyama, Yuji Nagata vs Kenta Kobashi, Mitsuharu Misawa (02/17/02) & Misawa vs Takayama rematch from 09/02. I only ever saw highlights and dammit this is the time to finally see
Here's more 2001 NOAH! Along with the Sterness post and my Zero One vs NOAH post, https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/blogs/entry/862-spotlight-noah-vs-zero-one-2001/ , I feel like I've got a pretty good sense of the company in '01. There's a lot to like with the fresh match ups, up and coming wrestlers and new twists on old rivalries. With the benefit of hindsight we know that NOAH hadn't quite hit its stride yet. Of the big 3 puroresu companies in '01, I think it was the most consistently good
This is a project that's been in the works for awhile. So long that a handful of matches I had bookmarked on YouTube are no longer available. This early NOAH stuff is hard to come by through the normal "free" channels. I'm guessing a lot of folks didn't pony up and buy the tapes/dvds. And I'm pretty much past that part of my life now...I've got a mountain of stuff that's in need of watching. Still, this along with joshi and supplementing my late 80's AJPW with Riki Choshu content, is all I'm rea
This is a continuation of my "get through some DVDs I bought a couple years ago" project. Ha! Who am I kidding? That's 90% of my reviews I just can't seem to keep up. I'm starting to put a dent in it this year. This week I'll be looking at some early battles of Bryan Danielson. These ones are lesser known for one reason or another. For folks that are only aware of his WWE or AEW stuff, this might be something you'd be interested in checking out. My guess is you may have seen some of his better
My old friend TNA from the 2000's always helps ease me back into watching wrestling. Here I'll review their Best of the Bloodiest Brawls - Scars and Stitches DVD from 2008. In addition to my normal review, I'll give a scars rating for how bloody and extreme the match is. That doesn't always translate into a worthwhile match so be forewarned.
Jeff Jarrett vs Rhyno (Turning Point 2005): This was a good to very good hardcore match. It was a lot fun as it was mainly a bunch of different spots a
I'm just going to jump on in!
Brody & Hansen vs Terry & Dory Funk Jr. (12/08): An absolute all time classic match in my book. The sense of chaos and animosity is as high as its been in all of 1984 All Japan. Terry and Dory Jr. against Brody and Hansen finally is the culmination of one of the main themes of the year. Dory and Baba have faced the absolutely dominant monsters on a few occasions. They have hung in there but never truly were able to match the intensity and ferocity of Br
Sorry for the delay! Busy week last week so I missed my self imposed Sunday deadline. But made my Wednesday deadline We're getting to the end of '84 and you know that means Real World Tag League stuff. Excited for that! Let's begin!
Rick Martel vs Jumbo Tsuruta (10/11, aired 10/13): Joined in progress but we get the majority of the match (it seems). Very technically orientated match that stresses their equality. Eventually things get cooking and we get more high stakes action. We get a
Let's keep going with 1984 All Japan!
Brody & Hansen vs Baba & Dory Jr. (08/26): This was fought like a gang fight more than a wrestling match. Absolute furious pace with a stiffness you could hear. A near classic match but with the post match brawl this is a classic. There's a part of me wants to call this an all time classic if you're counting entrance to exit. Did I mention Terry is at ring side?
Team Grandpa!
Rough necks is scared!
-----
At
Let's take a look at more of 1984 AJPW. We've got a really good batch!
Jim Brunzell & Greg Gagne vs Dory Funk Jr. & Kerry von Erich (04/24, aired 04/28): These next two are Roy Lucier's 1984 AJPW TV episodes and not the Retro Classics that were broadcast in the late 90's. These technically should be with Part #2 but I'm putting these here. I'll try to work new ones in chronologically as I go on. A big reason for expanding beyond just my DVD set was I noticed that there were a couple
Here we are with week # 2 of AJPW from 1984. It's a pretty good one. Let's take a look!
Billy Robinson & Brad Rheingans vs Steve Regal & Kevin Kelly (03/04): Wouldn't it be funny if it was the Steve Regal and Kevin Kelly you thought it was? Its not But it's 1984 AWA via AJPW Classics. I thought this might be a boring match but it was quite fun. Regal & Kelly bumped really well for Billy and Brad. I thought they had some good chicken shit moments as well. I don't know if you're
I'm going to be looking at the AJPW Classics for 1984. I want to make an effort to put a sizable dent into my DVD collection this year. I was pulled a little off track with the JWP and Muto AJPW last month. And I am planning on going back to Muto's All Japan perhaps in May. Anyhow we're looking at 1984 AJPW right now. It's interesting to me as it features quite a few Americans that weren't necessarily AJPW regulars. A big part of that is the inclusion of AWA talent since this is when Jumbo was
Back with more of Muto era AJPW! This time I'm going over 2005-2010. Well I'm actually going to sneak in a '03 & a '04 match that I found as well. This post I thought I'd change it up a bit and focus more on the Junior Heavyweight side of things.. or at least matches that included them. AJPW was never really known for their Junior division so I thought I'd check that out since there was a concerted effort by many companies to feature these guys in the 21st century. Just a guess but NOAH see
Here we are for the final portion of my early JWP project. We'll be looking at the end of 1991. The dates are not evenly spread out but this is what I wanted to see based on others recommendations and my own preferences. There is more out there like the Cuty vs Scorpion stuff from the fall that I could do without. Anyhow, let's begin!
Harley Saito vs. Rumi Kazama (05/12): Wow! I was impressed with what they were able to do in an under 10 minute match! Lots of stiff looking kicks, good bits
I'm doing a mixed up March type thing so I'll be getting back to JWP 1991 next week. For this week, I wanted to follow up on another little project Muto's AJPW. This covers 2001-2011. As you may know, I did a look at AJPW in 2011 sometime ago and was really impressed. It's not the Baba era but has its charm and quality wrestling. That along with post Muto AJPW made me question my preconceived notions about the 2000's All Japan. Generally speaking, I think most people skip over it entirely except
I'm back with JWP 1991. Thank you to the folks who have posted these matches online. I've got the dates in an irregular order but you still be able to find these for your own enjoyment. Hopefully you find something you'll want to check out. Let's get going!
01/06/91: Miss A vs. Itsuki Yamazaki
A great bout pitting veteran technician vs the young powerhouse. I think they told that story wonderfully. Yamazaki's leg work on A/Dynamite was masterful. A eventually found the opening she needed
This is a project I wanted to do for a good while now. When I decided to watch all Joshi this month, this it the one I've been itching to start all month. Jetlag has done an awesome overview and Quebrada.net's reviews are really great as well. I've used those as my guide. As Jetlag has said, so little is talked about this era. I hope to add a little bit to the conversation. For reference here's Jetlag's Microscope topic: https://forums.prowrestlingonly.com/topic/39849-early-jwp-pre-splitinterpro
I was psyched to find this inter-promotional JWP show online. It's from right around the era I want re-explore. Having watched a ton of full Joshi shows, I skipped the following:
Kumiko Maekawa & Rie Tamada vs. Fusayo Nochi & Hiromi Yagi, Command Bolshoi vs. Bolshoi Kid, and Cutie Suzuki vs Takako Inoue.
Chigusa Nagayo vs. Mayumi Ozaki - Well, that was a war! I wasn't quite sure what to expect but the hate in this match was off the charts. It wasn't the quick burst of hate typ
Let's go back to 2011 and see what I missed the first time around. I'll post the links to the Gaora YouTube videos for your enjoyment:
Minoru Tanaka vs Kaz Hiyashi (01/02/11): This was a very good junior battle with two legends of the style. I think they have something better in them but this was still pretty good stuff. My issue is with how they're not really transitioning control from one guy to the other. It does seem a bit like 'your turn-my turn' and I'd like to see a reason why Minoru
Here we are back in 2013 -again! Some kind soul posted these since my 2013 project wrapped up. I stumbled upon them will looking for 2014 stuff. This is some really nice wrestling so let's take a look!
Minoru Tanaka, Koji Kanemoto & Hiroshi Yamato vs Atsushi Aoki, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Kotaro Suzuki (04/29/13) : Thought maybe I saw this but, no! So this was from the 2013 Champion Carnival final night. First things first, kudos to the dude who gave Aoki the double birds right in his f
Here we are at the end of the road for 2014 AJPW. We're wrapping up with the 11/29 show which I found online.
Masanobu Fuchi vs. Naoya Nomura -skipped
Takeshi Minamino vs. Yohei Nakajima - Fun indie heel vs babyface match. Just simple stuff but so enjoyable.
Keisuke Ishii & SUSHI vs. Enoshima Man & Ultimo Dragon - I started watching this and it was pretty bland. It was just a generic junior tag match with not much spark. I fast forwarded to the last couple minutes and it n
Well looks like my sample of AJPW for 2014 is going a bit shorter than expected. My disc for 09/28/14 is defective. I'm going to be perfectly honest, this is why I stopped getting stuff from my "Internet Video Provider." This disc was probably from my last or second to last order when half the stuff was either defective like this or just the wrong show (labeled date matched what I bought but what was on there was different). And here it bites me in the ass a couple years later. If you're interes
Part Two and our first combo entry. We start off with a match found online then we'll go over a full show. As you can tell from the date we're skipping ahead a few months.
Jun Akiyama vs. Takao Omori (Vacant Triple Crown Title - 06/15/14) - I guess Akebono had to vacate the title. We get a nice lead in to the match showing the history between Omori and Akiyama. I'm a dork and know it already... it's one of things that makes this period of AJ special. It's as if Akiyama never left and he and
