I'm moving forward to 2003 in my very cursory look at turn of the century era BJW. These cards are looking pretty cool. Let's take a look!

03/30/03

Darkness Fluorescent Light Tubes Death Match
BADBOY Hido & Madman Pondo vs. Gosaku & Ryuji Yamakawa - Oh ho, that was good! About 10 minutes of really fun stuff, nice old school foreign object forehead carving, a few sick spots..this was an easy watch for most anyone.

WEW Hardcore Tag Team Title Ryuji Ito & Daisaku Shimoda Trial Series Match #4
Abdullah Kobayashi & Daikokubo Benkei vs. Daisaku Shimoda & Ryuji Ito - Yeah!!! This ended up being a ton of fun!! The baby faces made their comeback right as I was losing interest and the rest of the match was exciting. Ito & Shimoda were going off on offense. This maybe the best Benkei match as a result. 

BJW Heavyweight Title Match
MEN's Teioh vs. Daisuke Sekimoto - Oh shoot, this was absolutely awesome! Like Tanaka, Gannosuke & Hayabusa working AJPW style in the late 90's, Teioh & Sekimoto do the same. They prove here (and I'm sure before) that they are not just death match wrestlers. They put on an classic match in that pure puroresu style. The early portion reminded me of Flair vs Steamboat. And the later portion was an homage to Misawa, Kawada & Kobashi without being parody or tribute. If you're into the older indies, then you ought to see this. Teioh, who was overshadowed by other members of KDX, and a young Sekimoto really put on a show and really encouraged me to keep exploring this period of BJW. Highly recommended match, FMW/BJW/Michinoku Pro fans...it's a Must See. It's early still but this is Best Match Watched contender for the Indies.

BJW Death Match Heavyweight Title Light Tubes & Glass Death Match 
Shadow WX vs. Kintaro Kanemura - A very fun way to spend 13 minutes. This style or era of death match is much like a TLC match...there's a good amount of time spent setting up furniture. And then WHAM! big spot. So you're going along for the ride and waiting for the those big moments. It certainly couldn't have followed up the Sekimoto vs Teioh match but it felt more like a post credit bonus scene. 13 minutes of high spots and spectacle to cap off an excellent BJW show.

I'd definitely recommend this show/TV episode...BJW is moving in the right direction!

08/24/03

Hyoma & Junji Tanaka vs. Hiroyuki Kondo & Katsumasa Inoue - Jip -This was just as good a junior tag match as you'd probably see on a NJPW undercard at the time. It's simpler but well paced and executed. I dug it.
 
Shinjuku Shark vs. Bancho Matsuzaki - clips...

Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Yuichi Taniguchi vs. Mike Samples & Mr. Big Japan (Ryuji Yamakawa)  - Fun match...kind of stupid but that's why it was fun I do wish they book Kuroda in something a bit more prominent than these under card tags though.

Free Weapon Street Fight
2 Tuff Tony & Madman Pondo vs. Mr. Pogo & Shadow WX - Now this is the fun type of match you'd watch BJW for - half of a hardware store is used, guys are bleeding, some cool spots...no rhyme or reason but violence for violence sake. 

BADBOY Hido & Gosaku vs. Abdullah Kobayashi & Daikokubo Benkei - OK match that had it moments. Gosaku took a sick bump and may have hurt his head and maybe ended the match a bit sooner than planned.

*Tag Team Match
TAKA Michinoku & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Sekimoto & MEN's Teioh - Yeah this was really good stuff. I gotta say Sekimoto vs Ishikawa was my favorite pairing. Lots of great action and tag moves.  This went longer with 2/3rds being shown. The talent of all workers shone through and made this very good wrestling to watch. My only real complaint is the camera work seemed to be all over the place.. like it was too zoomed in at times and was catching the lights too often. It made things feel disjointed at times. That's to say, it was hard to follow all of the action. Oh and I thought the figure four on the floor killed the early energy/momentum and they had to work their way out of that hole. Had they not done that, I think this would be a great match...still totally worth your time!

*BJW Death Match Heavyweight Title Cage Death Match
Kintaro Kanemura vs. Ryuji Ito - Aw hell yes! This is what I wanted. Kanemura works so much better with Ito than Shadow WX. Ito can still move, wants to do pro wrestling and while Kanemura is broken down some, he's willing to meet the young guy in the middle. As a result we get a great, dare I say classic Cage Death Match. While it isn't in the upper echelon of cage matches, this is right below as it conveys the intensity, they use the cage as a weapon, they use their other weapons but at almost 15 minutes, this never overstayed it's welcome. They do a little bit of everything and it hits just in the right way. I think one of the near falls should have ended it but, nothing afterwards feels superfluous. They made it work and went back to "wrestling" at the end. And that's a good sign for BJW to come. If you're a hard-core/garbage wrestling fan, I Highly Recommend this one.

12/24/03

Tag Team Match
Chocoball Mukai & GENTARO vs. Gosaku & Shadow WX - Fun tag match. They super bomb GENTARO on his fucking head. He's the best worker of the match.

Hardcore Street Fight Death Match
BADBOY Hido vs. Jaki Numazawa - Good garbage wrestling... lots of spots with the ladder and barb wire bat. 

BJW Heavyweight Title Match
MEN's Teioh (c) vs. Ricky Fuji - This is a fun match with a bit of comedy so it's not the full extent of what they're capable of. Still it's a treat to see Ricky Fuji vs Terry Boy face off

Tag Team Match
Daisuke Sekimoto & Manabu Hara vs. Daikokubo Benkei & Yuki Ishikawa - This was OK. I'd rather see Sekimoto vs Ishikawa. I don't think there's anything worthwhile here unless you're watching the full show. 

BJW Death Match Heavyweight Title Ring Of Death Fluorescent Light Tubes Barbed Wire Board & Glass Board Death Match
Ryuji Ito (c) vs. Abdullah Kobayashi - For Xmas, Kobayashi brings out a barb wire wrapped cactus with a star on top...like a death match Xmas tree. This was more spot crazy than working a match with the props. This is no less cohesive than many ladder matches you'll see. Nonetheless, this was pretty sick...there was a ton of glass. Abdullah's back is red with blood and Ito may have actually hurt himself. You can tell with this match and the cage match that BJW has a great future with this style.

Thanks for reading! The next few posts should be more U.S. oriented as I've been watching Mid South Wrestling and WCW. If you're enjoying the Big Japan stuff, I'll probably do a post on 2004 stuff in couple weeks.