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
Akira Hokuto & Etsuko Mita vs Kyoko Inoue & Sakie Hasegawa (W*ING 08/02/92): Who knew this match took place in a W*ING ring? Not I, I sing! Dr. Seuss...It's a pretty darn good match too. Sure, it gets the standard W*ING buzzcut in the middle and it starts raining but, its these 4 in 1992. So, if you ever needed an incentive to check 90's joshi out this might be it: 4 greats, tag match, sopping wet babes, insane dives in the rain, and not a super long epic. Thanks W*ING!
Now o
The Japanese garbage wrestling scene in the 90's is really interesting. One that I was ignorant of until a while ago was W*ING. I'd seen the wrestlers before in IWA Japan, FMW, or Big Japan. Honestly, the matches aren't too different as essentially IWA Japan was started from the ashes of W*ING. BJPW upped the kooky death match stipulations but, many of the guys were there in the early days like Mr. Danger Matsunaga & Nakamaki.
W*ING featured some really exciting matches though. I
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
This week features ROH on HDNet matches predominantly. Let's see how they are
Austin Aries, Kenny King & Rhett Titus vs Jerry Lynn, Kenny Omega & Erick Stevens (ep. 16) - It sounds like Jerry Lynn already lost the strap to Austin Aries. Man...for all of the complaints... Lynn barely had the title especially in comparison to Nigel, Danielson or Joe. Anyhow, very fun match...lil FIP reunion with King & Stevens, Omega & King have history, Jerry & Austin do too. Yeah this w
We're getting into the main chunk of the ROH on HDNet DVD now.
Chris Hero vs Jerry Lynn (ep. 13) - You know another reason Jerry Lynn was champ, beyond Nigel's injuries, beyond Nigel probably already planning going to TNA but specifically giving it to Jerry was this TV deal. Lynn is pretty much the only recognizable face in ROH at this time. They are trying to grow and get new fans and Mr. JL is someone watching TV is going to remember. A lot of folks wanted them to pull the trigger on Tyle
The second post is Davey/American Wolves/Steen centric post. So I'm only looking at 4 matches this week. I was going to watch American Wolves vs Bryan Danielson & Tyler Black (Tag Title Classic (Double Feature) 2009) but it's a long ass match. I don't have time for that. I'm not in my 20's...I'll get around to this at the end if I have the will to continue. Seeing as its called Tag Title Classic, I'm not really unearthing anything new, overlooked, or forgotten...which is an objective of thi
Here we are for the final post for my very narrow look at Ring of Honor for 2009. This should be a good one! We're looking at DVD events only.
Claudio Castagnoli vs Davey Richards (Final Countdown: Dayton 09/18/09) - Good stuff especially at the end. It wouldn't surprise me if this was a mid card match. It lacked the intensity and pacing of anything else. But it's been awhile since I've seen Claudio. He did some really cool strength moves. Yeah this was good.
American Wolves vs Briscoe
I'm still trying to get through my pile of DVDs. A big blind spot is Ring of Honor starting with the HDNet era stuff. I'm going to start with 2009 and I'm going in with the DVDs that I got: Best of ROH on HDNet vol. 2, American Wolf: Davey Richards comp and Best of the American Wolves that was a bonus DVD compilation with Champions vs All-Stars 2011 (pretty obscure place to put a Best of Comp). I think I have 3-4 matches from YouTube. I'm not going to find more...there's way too much material to
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
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
In true Mixed up Monday fashion, I'm going to do a whole show review which is all mixed up since, I usually just toss a couple random fun match reviews up.
I bought the official NOAH DVD from Highspots. Its got English commentary. Its not very good commentary but, its not awful either. Its laughable that at every (yes, every kickout), the lead commentator asks, "Did he kickout!?" Does he mean that he literally cannot see the kickout or is that a dramatic phrase? I wonder even as I wr
The NJ vs NOAH feud was pretty well regarded in what was considered a down year for puro. This talk was over 5 years ago so, its something I think most people, especially those not hip to pre-Kobashi GHC title run NOAH, may have missed.
Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs Jushin Liger & Wataru Inoue (02/17/02): This is one of the earliest in the feud and its full of stiff shots and heat. Its getting hot in here! Like Nelly! Remember him? Not Nelly Furtadoshe was cute tho
I really enjoy puro from the late 80's so, I'll admit that I probably get more rewatch value from pre-Jushin Liger Yamada than most. I think when I think about his work with and without a mask, he's probably in my top 10...I think! There's been a backlash against the 90's NJ Jr. style but, I've also seen that with the 80's Jr. stuff as well. That's cool but, that ain't me.
Keiichi Yamada vs Marc "Rollerball" Rocco (09/01/87): JIP, All action plus a leapfrog face to the nuts spot! Yes
I'm really digging 2003 NJPW even with the MMA Inoki-ism. Well I'm avoiding the legit MMA that is shown. Here I came across a commercial compilation showing things from the summer of 2003. It starts with the Best of the Super Jrs. X which I'm happy to find. The matches they have included only have the last few minutes shown. It's a nice taste of the action. I believe I've seen some matches NOAH's Takashi Sugiura wrestled...maybe I really dug he vs Kanemoto from 06/11. Also there's another tag L
I'm continuing to take a peek at early 2000's New Japan. Early on we're going to look at some NJ vs NOAH that I didn't cover back in my NOAH 2002 posts from last year (I think). Some might be in a NOAH ring but I'm counting them. But overall this is just a mix of matches from 2002 New Japan that I thought looked interesting and were online
Yuji Nagata vs Jun Akiyama (01/04) - Oh, that was a great bout! No way you would guess this is their first time working together and at the Dome no less
Here's part # 2 of my 1980 NJPW cherry picking expedition.
Gran Hamada vs Baby Face 04/03: Very good lucha/junior type match. This definitely translates well into contemporary wrestling. The wrestling on the mat was very good albeit more of the sit and stretch variety than the fighting over holds/escapes/reversals like we'd see in other NJ "strong style" junior wrestling. The running and flying stuff was the real showcase here. The only drawback was the finish where it was not really clear
Here's the final part of my 1980 NJPW cherry picking expedition.
Kengo Kimura vs Tatsumi Fujinami 09/25: One of the longer matches. Classic Inoki Strong Style technical game-of-human-chess duels. Competitive, non-profit cooperative looking. Doesn't rely upon stiffness but instead counters, reversals, escapes and blocking of moves & holds. There's moments where at first you think they've made a flub but they transition into to capitalizing on the "flub" that it was either planned or the
This period of New Japan stuff is quickly becoming some of my favorite wrestling. I think it is more relatable to the modern wrestling fan than AJPW/NWA style. The tempo is faster and there's more action between holds. Or at least that is the case with this high quality stuff. And to be fair, most of the matches here are technically Junior matches whereas the top shelf stuff I'm thinking of in AJPW is heavyweight. Honestly, to me, it just seems like they wanted to separate Inoki from Fujinami. A
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
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 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
