Hi, not taking a break from 2013 AJPW but wanted to share something in the meantime. This is a review of ZERO1 07/31/08 & 08/03/08 from Samurai TV. Its the last 2 days of their Fire Festival which is their Champion Carnival or G1Climax. A side project that I'm working on is checking out Zero One, Zero1, Zero- One Max and every iteration of that company. Its not going to be a deep dive since there's no ready made compilation that I'm aware of. In fact there's not a ton out there in general...
I very much wanted to call this post "The Champ is Here" but that is the title of Joe's second volume ROH DVD. Today we'll be looking at volume one which looks at Joe's first defenses of the ROH World Championship after defeating Xavier. These are the matches that really put that title on the map and really establish the prestige of that position. You may forget that Low-Ki was the first champ and his climb to the top was greater than his time there. That's OK since Xavier was a project for Gab
In all honesty, this was going to be a quickie post of just a few matches that I stumbled across. But then I became intrigued by the match ups or was impressed by a worker and wanted to see more. And here we are! The entire 2003 Differ Cup watched out of sequence reviewed out of sequence. I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen. Sit back and read on:
KENTA & Kotaro Suzuki vs Great Takeru & Kappa Kozou (02/08): Was going to skip this since I'd never heard of the IWA Japan team. But
I was really psyched on the Doug Williams match vs Samoa Joe from a couple weeks ago. Williams has been a favorite of mine since seeing TNA in 2007. I remember how it really impressed me with how he used his knees for much of his striking offense. Knee drops, knee lifts and such really resonated with me at the time. Not only didn't you see them very often at that time, Williams used them in such a deliberate manner. It wasn't just one knee drop, it was a myriad of attacks. Its almost like when I
I'm back with the second and final installment of the Samoa Joe - World Champion DVD released by ROH in 2004. Let's pick back up where we left off.
vs Christopher Daniels (Glory by Honor II - September 2003): A fighting champion for sure! Daniels used his speed & agility to take Joe to the limit. In a way Daniels maybe should have won because he showed tons of toughness withstanding Joe's awesome offense. If you've seen their TNA battles then you know Joe can really toss The Fallen Ange
I'm going to be looking at Michinoku Pro Wrestling for the rest of May. Much like FMW, it's one of the first Japanese promotions I really was familiar with. In some part this has to do with Kai En Tai DX coming over to WWF around when I got back into wrestling as a teenager. Then from there its probably WCW vs The World on PS1 where they had TAKA, Shinzaki who I remembered as Hakushi (but also from clips of he & Hayabusa vs RVD & Sabu shown on ECW) and the Great Sasuke who I saw very bri
I've got a few New Years Resolutions and watching more Joshi is one of them. It's been a while so doing a spotlight on one of my faves Mariko Yoshida seems like a great way to get back into this style. As always, I'm cherry picking but here I'm omitting her stuff from 98-99 Arsion on purpose. I think I should do a separate post on that. Enjoy!
Kyoko Inoue/Takako Inoue/Mariko Yoshida vs. Cynthia Moreno/Etsuko Mita/Mima Shimoda (AJW - 08/15/92) Great 6 woman tag match! Intensely fought from s
I got interested in the Atsushi Aoki & Kotaro Suzuki team from watching 2013 All Japan. Their bouts against Koji Kanemoto & Minoru Tanaka are some of the best this year. So I was curious what they were doing in NOAH a year before they jumped to AJPW. Let's take a look!
Suzuki & Aoki vs Nakajima & Kajiwara - (NOAH 01/15/12) - Story here is Aoki is gunning for Nakajima's Jr. Title. Man do we get that. Aoki is like Kawada or KENTA by going after Nakajima every chance he
This post came about by accident but it's been a fun one. KAI is one of my favorite new guys from watching 2010's AJPW. So here we're going to take a look at some of his bigger matches while in W-1. His arc here probably reflects his booking had Muto & his loyal pals not left and formed Wrestle-1. Anyhow all but the last match are readily available on the 'tube. Let's take a look
vs Seiya Sanada (09/08/13): I think this might be clipped a few minutes based on the time they give
Here we go with the final entry in my FMW 1999 project. Let's see what we've got!
Darkside Hayabusa & Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Hisakatsu Oya vs Koji Nakagawa & Yukihiro Kanemura & Hido (08/20/99): jip. This looked to be like a graveyard match or something as there were big banners up, a coffin and wooden grave markers (which were used as weapons). This was fun! Hayabusa is sporting a different mask here which shows some of his face plus his hair is bleached orange. Both were ways
This is a small project that I've been pushing back for awhile. No big plans for June so let's take a look at the Briscoe Brothers in NOAH.
Briscoes vs Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Takashi Sugiura (01/07/07): I'm not sure if the fans knew what to make of The Briscoes. This looks like it might be their first appearance in NOAH. They dominated the home team early on with their high energy offense and team work. Eventually the NOAH team has their chance for some payback. The fans are into this and
I am really glad to be watching more Joshi this year. I got burntout/jaded a few years back when watching some of the 1996 AJW tag matches with Double Inoue and my 1997 AJW DVD purchases weren't exactly as expected. See the previous post. So I just turned of the whole thing for years. I'd watch a match here and there but other than a couple odds & ends matches, I figured I'd seen what I wanted. Clearly this year, I've found out that I was wrong. 1997, 2000-01 AJW, Megumi Kudo, 1990-91 JWP h
I'll be looking at the breakout year for Michinoku Pro - 1994. This is the year where the Great Sasuke won over fans during the Super J Cup in NJPW. Many consider that to be one of the best shows of the 1990's. From 1994, we continue to see the wrestlers of Michinoku Pro featured in New Japan, AJW, WAR and FMW. Eventually many will make it over to the U.S. in ECW, WCW and WWF. That's pretty amazing when you consider M-Pro was a regional promotion with no big nationally known star to anchor the p
I remember being really stoked when Ayako Hamada, Awesome Kong and Cheerleader Melissa joined TNA for a brief time. Women's wrestling was actually the best stuff they had at that time. Hamada seemed to be a big deal to me as I was really getting into Joshi at the time and seeing a legit Joshi wrestler every week was pretty cool. Her and Cheerleader Melissa had an awesome match..maybe a hardcore match or something. Anyway, I never really got too see too much of her stuff in Japan. There's a coupl
All Japan Women's Wrestling in 1997 is something I've been interested in from a far. It features many matches that have been favorably reviewed but there's something very different than '92-'96 AJW. The roster is pretty similar but they're finally pushing some of their younger wrestlers to the top. Mima Shimoda and Etsuko Mita (Las Cachorras Orientales) go full heel and become the chair swinging baddies. Kaoru Ito and Tokoko Watanabe were always great in mid card tags and 6 mans are elevated as
Here we are with Part #3 of the very best of GAEA. We are looking at '98 which features a lot of Meiko Satomura and not so much Chigusa Nagayo. Don't think that's intentional just Meiko along Sonoko Kato seem to be the featured in the best stuff.
Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs Meiko Satomura & Sonoko Kato (01/15/98): Great match with Satomura and Kato getting plugged into the LCO vs young team equation. So this is very much Mita and Shimoda's match with the youngster team hanging on
This installment covers Christopher Daniels/Curry Man in M-Pro or representing M-Pro. This is from the RF video DVD set but there's a Curry Man set out there that has many of the stuff.
Christopher Daniels & Pablo Marquez vs Magnum Tokyo & Kendo - This one Daniels appears as The Fallen Angel instead of Curry Man. My guess is that this takes place early 1999 as Marquez was doing M-Pro then and Curry Man hadn't yet appeared. I can't find this on Quebrada or Cage Match though. Anyhow,
I decided to take a little break from JWP. No way I was going to meet my self imposed deadline. Instead I thought I would switch stuff up and watch the best of Megumi Kudo. As an FMW and joshi fan, it's a bit crazy that I've only seen like 2 Kudo matches and some clips. I skipped the one's I've seen 04/02/93 AJW and 05/05/96 Combat Toyoda retirement match. Oh I have seen the first inter-promotional match with Toyoda vs Bull & Bonito in 1992. That's covered in my 1992 FMW post from a couple y
Sorry for the delay! I'll get to that in a minute. It's nothing dramatic. So here we are in August & September of 1985 All Japan Pro Wrestling! The Funker...the late great Terry Funk is here. Lots of Stan Hansen and yeah this one is pretty star studded. Let's begin!
Riki Choshu/Killer Khan vs Genichiro Tenryu/Jumbo Tsuruta (08/02 aired 08/03): A great match without a doubt! Things started out with Jumbo and Riki having a technical fight. Once Khan started slapping people in the face, th
Back with Part 2 of FMW in 1999. Got some cool pics (too many actually...maybe I'll post those later). All grainy & shit like we watched our Japanese wrestling back in the day son! This time it is all tag and 6 man wrestling. Fans of this stuff, you are going to find out about some good stuff. Let's go!
Gannosuke/Kanemura/Oya/Hosaka/Hido vs. Ishikawa/Ikeda/Yone/Usuda/Hijikata (05/05/99): Big cross promotion elimination match for the anniversary show! BattlArts vs Team No Respect/Gannosu
This is a two birds with one stone post. I wanted to get a little more Zero One in this year as well as get back to early 2000s NOAH. I was going through my 2001 list and realized I had a mini project with Zero One vs NOAH in 2001. There's some better known stuff and a couple I'd never heard of. Let's jump in!
Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Shinya Hashimoto & Alexander Otsuka (January 13th, 2001) : A good match that goes a long way on the Misawa vs Hashimoto interactions. Ve
I'm back with part #2 of the Very Best of GAEA. This time we're looking at 1997 which is a big year in Joshi. The whole landscape changes and you'll see that here with more familiar faces from AJW.
Akira Hokuto & Toshie Uematsu vs KAORU & Kiyoko Ichiki (01/19/97): Wow! That was awesome! For a good portion there they had a classic match on their hands. Things got a little loose with the younger wrestlers towards the end (disruption to the flow and not so much unforgivable sloppiness)
This post I'm taking a look at some of the best of FMW in 1999. Without further ado, let's begin!
Hayabusa v Tetsuhiro Kuroda (01/05/99): Really exciting match with some really great sequences and spots. This is a textbook example of working a body part and blowing it off though. He hurts Hayabusa's leg the Hayabusa hurts Kuroda's arm and it unfortunately has no bearing on the match's story or outcome. This is not a deal breaker at all. It's actually pretty well worked as Hayabusa keeps it
Back with more 1985 AJPW goodness! Let's get going with April!
Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Stan Hansen & Ted DiBiase (04/21 - aired 04/27): This from the Roy tapes as well. I needed to get some Stan Hansen in my life. This is a fine way to introduce him and Ted DiBiase into 1985. They make an excellent team (not my first time seeing them together) that has a different dynamic than the Brody or Gordy teams. Ted is more technical and has a calmer more calculated approach that makes
I'm very excited to be watching more FMW after a long time away (Kudo stuff excluded!). I'm not limiting myself to just FMW but am including interesting stuff from ECW and AJPW as well. I'm going off my DVDs so there's a bunch of pics. They're grainy but you get that old school VHS video quality vibe like you're watching these in '98. Hope you dig 'em. Let's jump on in!
Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs Yukihiro Kanemura & Hido (01/06/98): Oh yeah, this was just a blast! You kinda get e
