Okay, this 2004 post came a lot sooner than I thought since there wasn't a lot to 2004 or what I could find online. Only two shows and only one that's worth a full look at. 

I started out with 09/25/04. This is an outdoor show...and wow! That is an amazing building across the way. But honestly, I can't truly recommend anything on this show. Kintaro Kanemura & Ryuji Yamakawa vs. Katsumasa Inoue & Shadow WX  was exactly the type of straight tag match you know they can wrestle. Fast simple stuff, good stuff. Renews my opinion on Shadow WX and Yamakawa. Delirious vs. Chris Hero was fun indy-riffic wrestling! That's cool that Samurai TV aired just about all of this. This under card is very enjoyable. So if you see these matches you'll be pleased but I wouldn't go out of your way to watch them. The main event of BADBOY Hido vs. Ryuji Ito felt really phoned in for a death match. Maybe these outdoor shows are C-level shows because that's what this felt like given the let down of the main event.

12/18/04

After the previous show's poor main event, I decided to watch this one backwards. Main Event first to the curtain jerker last. I've organized my review that way also.

BJW Death Match Heavyweight Title 10 Items Death Match
Ryuji Ito vs. BADBOY Hido - Holy cow, the ring looks like the game Mouse Trap...with glass. There's all kinds of apparatuses involving glass light tubes & barb wire. But this is a bad match. Even if you like death matches... it's bad. There's no selling, no psychology to the point where they are just leading each other to the next spot area. It's like Double Dare with blood. And unfortunately the finish spot doesn't make sense... the chairs laid a top the prone wrestler act as armor from the barb wire and nails that you're supposed to be driving into them. That's some part of psychology in wrestling - "Does what I'm doing make sense in the context of this match and the reality constructed by the promotion?" Anyone can tell you that sandwiching a guy between chairs is to crush him. Putting glass, barb wire, nails etc on top or underneath is to cut him. Putting chairs in between is going to crush still but not cut. I'm wasting brain power on this. This is pretty stupid unfortunately... Ito needs someone who can put a match together like W*ing Kanemura...Hido can't put together a straight match so this is just bleh. Go watch Ito vs Kanemura from the 08/24/03 show instead.

Hardcore Match
Shadow WX vs. Daisuke Sekimoto - Very good! This was best when they were doing wrestling moves. The chair shots were very disposable but I dug the table spot. So overall no big complaints with the Hardcore aspects but the wrestling was where this was at. Sekimoto's Choshu style matches WX's when he's in work mode...thankfully we got that. Lots of beefy lariats, brainbusters & German suplexes. I can't say there was a story here and the action wasn't so electric that a story was irrelevant. A little story in the ring would have improved this but, I dug it nonetheless!

Tornado Bunkhouse Death Match
Kintaro Kanemura vs. Jaki Numazawa - This was very good... maybe even a great death match. It got really interesting as it went on as they added surprises into the match. That's where this greatly exceeded the Hido vs Ito match. This had far less contraptions but it had better wrestling maneuvers, surprises, bits of comedy and it felt like they wanted to win.

Street Fight
2 Tuff Tony, Madman Pondo & Necro Butcher vs. Abdullah Kobayashi, Daikokubo Benkei & Gosaku - The beginning was shown in highlights/digest form and then maybe the 2nd half was shown in full. This worked as this was fun! Good moves, crazy spots but enough guys in the ring that no one's weaknesses were exposed.

MEN's Teioh & The Winger vs. Junji Tanaka & Yuki Ishikawa - Highlights... Ishikawa may have legit busted Teioh open. Wish there was more...

Tanny Mouse, Yoshiko Tamura & Yuki Miyazaki vs. Haruka Matsuo, Misae Genki & Yuka Nakamura - Highlights again but this was fun stuff. Nice to see joshi and makes me start thinking about GAEA again.

GENTARO & Takashi Sasaki vs. Hiroyuki Kondo & Katsumasa Inoue - Great action packed junior style tag match! So glad that I watched this show in MY order. This was the best match of the card. Very exciting stuff from all four dudes! 

This was a pretty good show with a crappy main event in Hido vs Ito. You totally could skip that and have a fun time with these matches instead: WX vs Sekimoto, Kanemura vs Numazawa, and  GENTARO & Sasaki vs Kondo & Inoue. I think it's worth finding this show online and watching those bouts. I wish I was able to find a little more for 2004 but, I've got to move on to my other projects. But I will be doing an in depth look at BJW 2006 which is based on a 4 disc compilation from Highspots from a few years back. Keep an eye out for that...I'm still working on getting through my DVD back catalog!

Thanks for reading!🙂