Jetlag

You guys are going to have to enlighten me. It seems his reputation mainly shot up due to getting into a promotion that people actually watch. What are his Top 5 matches? Keep in mind I loathed that Mochizuki match 5 years ago.

It seems his momentum has been tanked by being in RoH, which nobody watches anymore. I could see stuff like him vs. PCO being entertaining.

I started a Toba OCD catalogueing project a while ago: https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2020/12/tanomusaku-toba-documentation-project.html Watching him has quickly become an obsession. I don't think I've ever seen anyone acknowledge him as a great worker, more of a fun oddity DDT guy, but fuck he is a great worker. Modern wrestling sure could use a lot more Tobas thrown into the mix. Recommended Matches: w MIKAMI & Takashi Sasaki vs. Great Takeru & Phantom Funakoshi & Asian Cougar (DDT 5/25/1998) - GREAT w Super Rider & Neo Winger vs. Phantom Funakoshi & Exciting Yoshida & Yuki Nishino (DDT 12/22/1999) - EPIC vs. Takashi Sasaki, DDT 1/30/2000 - EPIC w Takashi Sasaki vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Super Rider, DDT 4/19/2000 - EPIC w MIKAMI vs. Sanshiro Takagi & Takashi Sasaki, DDT 4/20/2000 - EPIC w Koichiro Kimura vs. Sanshiro Takagi & Exciting Yoshida (DDT 7/6/2000) - EPIC vs. Takashi Sasaki, DDT 11/19/2000 - GREAT w Tsunehito Naito vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Tomohiko Hashimoto, DDT 5/26/2001 - EPIC w MIKAMI vs. GENTARO & YOSHIYA (DDT 11/30/2001) - EPIC w MIKAMI vs. Kota Ibushi & Daichi Kakimoto, DDT 12/28/2005 - EPIC w Ranbo Yoshida Okuntun vs. Kota Ibushi & KUDO (DDT 8/8/2007) - EPIC vs. Shinjuku Shark, XWF 9/8/2008 - EPIC w HARASHIMA vs. Masashi Takeda & Takashi Sasaki, 1/25/2009 - EPIC w MIKAMI vs. Sanshiro Takagi & Munenori Sawa, DDT 5/10/2010 - GREAT w MIKAMI vs. Hikaru Sato & Akito, DDT 9/29/2013 - GREAT Regardless where you stand on the merits of boxing gloves in wrestling, that is one hell of a career Top 15, and I'm not done deep diving him. It seems DDT moved him out of prominence in the mid 2000s after giving him many main events earlier on, which sucks and seriously made that company a lot worse.

I was thinking that I hadn't watched a single Toyota match in the last 5 years. But then I checked, and apparently I watched her vs. Bison Kimura in 2019. Bison made the match fun. I think I've seen enough Toyota for a lifetime.

Osaka Pro pretty much served as a retirement home for ex-deathmatch whipping boys. Buffalo, Kikutaro and Kuishinbo Kamen all used to get carved up. Kamen (Akinori Tsukioka) was also a very talented wrestler in his IWA Japan days. Before Osaka Pro, Buffalo was Keisuke Yamada. He started out working obscure feds like Oriental Pro and NSPW doing shootstyle bouts: As you can see, he made use of his judo background. Eventually he joined IWA Japan becoming the owner(?) of the company. He would work really hard on those cards, bleed like mad and take crazy bumps. Even in the deathmatches he would display more skill than you usually saw in these brawls. He had especially great chemistry with Tarzan Goto. He also fought Goto in Shin-FMW a few times, although Shin FMW footage is extremely difficult to find. He had a pretty great match against Ishii of all people in 1998: As far as his IWA Japan work goes, you can pretty much just search his name and watch any match he's in and you can be guaranteed that he will work hard, bleed and give his all. I really want to dive more into his Black Buffalo work because I've seen him looking pretty damn good in random matches.

Legendary German wrestler with some dingy handheld footage surviving from very late in his career. Apparently he horded some films of 70s German wrestling in his archives that couldn't be converted by the limited means of his family. Someone had the faint hope that his son signing with WWE would make it possible to have the footage restored, but that never materialized. Alas, all we have of him is the epic Morowski match in 1980 and a few good to great houseshow performances in 1981 and some very clipped stuff in 1986 where he faces the likes of Vader. I imagine if the French had filmed some of his appearances in Paris in the 60s we'd be raving about him similiar to his arch rival, Lasartesse. Notably he was very famous for not just being a good technician but also renowned for his toughness and bleeding, as well as acting as a literal shooter for the promoters by carrying a gun on him.

She really wasn't in many high profile singles matches. That happened in the second half of the 90s, which is an underexplored/forgotten period. Her early JD' run had some potentially great match ups that ended up clipped. I was tearing my hair out going through the 1996 JD' TV and seeing how they would always hack everything in half due to only having a 1 hour TV slot. Apparently, her career ended as she broke her arm in a random trios match. She didn't even get a retirement tour. Travesty.

Alright: Masao Orihara - the more I watch him, the more great matches of his I find. His 1994 singles against Otani is an absolute superclassic that I had never heard of until I started going through random WAR handhelds. Really good at getting great stuff out of mediocre indy juniors like The Great Takeru. Excellent base with a knack for cool athletic spots that you won't see anyone else do. Long career where he shows up in great matches from 1992 to ca. 2011. He has some great scrappy matches in the WAR/NJ feud. Finally, one of the coolest wrestlers ever with his unique singlets, mohawks and face paint. He worked so many different offshoot feds I'm sure there's a still a few hidden gems to find. Tanomusaku Toba - extremely unique with a surprising number of epic matches under his belt. Excellent ragdoll bumper, always forces his opponents to snap out of their usual routine, and of course, spectacular with the constant barrage of stiff punches and kicks on his opponents. I imagine boxing purists won't like him, since some of his punches are obviously showy, but his stuff works for me. Great tag worker who has a cool dynamic with MIKAMI, has a handful of really cool singles. I hope to unearth more under the radar DDT to showcase him. Koichiro Kimura - very interesting worker who would serve as a pillar of DDT while working shootstyle. Great with the violent kicks and submission holds. His work as Super Uchu Power is stellar as he is the perfect combination of baffling sleazebag and violent psychotic asskicker. Footage is a bit of an issue as I need to dig up more DDT handhelds and what not. Had some good matches in RINGS and FUTEN too. MIKAMI - he looks really good in early DDT. Great combination of a shootstyle grappler, an innovative junior, and a surprisingly stiff worker. He formed a great team with Toba. His 1999 singles match against Takashi Sasaki is kind of the beginning and end of Japan indy singles. I've checked out some recent work of his and he still looks like a good worker. I want to watch more of him but from ca. 1998 - 2002 I'd say he was great. Keisuke Yamada/Black Buffalo - super interesting worker. He looked good in the early 90s working as a shootstylist. Then he became the hope of IWA Japan and kind of started wrestling like Tomoaki Honma. Spunky young fired up guy who is willing to bleed and has a knack for unique violent spots, and can do actual wrestling too. I need to watch more Black Buffalo but I've seen good stuff from him in that role as well. Dr. Adolf Kaiser - one of the most unique TV wrestlers in history. This man performed the evil, vaguely naziesque, arrogant, effeminate Doctor of Philosophy to a tee. His strategic approach in matches reminds me of Billy Robinson and the choke finish is very unique for its time. He wasn't afraid to eat serious punishment too. Jose Tarres - I just now noticed he has only 2 whole matches on tape so I should probably take back this nomination. Inca Peruano - a truely unique wrestling genius, like if Negro Casas was a stoic 50s grappler. Both excellent technician as well as a tremendous heel worker. He also has a really strong rudo cases in his team with Anton Tejero. Andre Bollet - outrageous heel character who could do both stiff heated brawling as well as really graceful wrestling, all while looking like a balding dumpy car salesman. If this list was about heat seeking heel shtick alone he would be a lock for the top 10. Still have a few matches of his to go through, but people should be aware of this French star. Bert Royal - he had some strong matches in World of Sport, but the French footage gave us him in his physical prime working an all time classic match against Tony Oliver and another really heated match teaming with his father. Both a tremendous technician and a tremendous fired up brawler. Lino Di Santo - Italian worker who I think is easily slept on but has shown up in the French footage with insane consistency. Good technician, but also a good storyteller.

People should check out Ishiis early work in promotions like WAR, DDT, CAPTURE, IWA Japan, even Michinoku Pro. It's more interesting than the groove he got into in 2010s New Japan.

I'm doing a series of 1997 GAEA reviews which feature some strong Chiggy performances on my blog. The best I've seen so far was her & Hokuto vs. KAORU & Maiko Matsumoto, which I reviewed over at the GWE board. There is more good stuff coming up as I'm reviewing 1 1997 GAEA show per week from now on. I also watched all of 1998 GAEA and the Chigusa matches that stood out to me enough to write them up on here were: vs. Maiko Matsumoto, 10/23/1998 vs. Toshie Uematsu, 1/15/1998 vs. Makie Numao, 2/22/1998 vs. Sonoko Kato 2/21/1998

In 2016, Chigusa was one of the wrestlers I came out hating the most after watching many of her hyped up matches. After watching lots of GAEA, I've come around to her as she is undoubtedly one of the greatest rookie squash workers of all time, and is in some expertly laid out tag matches. Her big matches are still a mess though, I'm afraid.

Nominating Masao Orihara, Tanomusaku Toba, Koichiro Kimura, MIKAMI, and Keisuke Yamada/Black Buffalo via the blog and Dr. Adolf Kaiser, Inca Peruano, Andre Bollet, Bert Royal, and Lino Di Santo via. segundacaida.

Koki Kitahara is one of the most fascinating hidden wrestlers. Tubby mulleted asskicker in a rainbow colored gi, who is a skillful grappler but mostly devolves his matches into violent blunt force asskicking. The CAPTURE project is fascinating. I'm currently trying to catalogue every match he's been in: https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2020/12/koki-kitahara-documentation-project.html

I am doing a Tarzan Goto project on the blog: https://reverseviperhold.blogspot.com/2021/03/tarzan-goto-documentation-project.html I will predict he will end up coming out with a damn high number of EPIC ranked matches. He was running wild on the Japanese indy scene having great bloodbaths everywhere, and many of his matches weren't even aired. He is also really great when he is doing some actual wrestling, but his prized role is still fat grotesque psycho butchering people in really entertaining ways.

Her best 80s work that I recall is against Jackie Sato, Monster Ripper, La Galactica, Chino Sato, and Mimi Hagiwara. Also check out her 90s-2000s work, especially the 1996 match against Asuka, which I thought was better than the 80s classic. There are some hidden gems in her JD' work against the likes of Cooga and Megumi Yabushita. I did a Microscope on Jaguar Yokota here mostly focusing on her 70s/80s work: Some saint has uploaded a ton of JD' to the internet archive and I intend to comb through it for more cool Jaguar matches. Her veteran work is really good.

I like him a lot as a superior Japanese Goldberg and while he has a ton of matches I really like he has also been in some real fiascos. The fact people get excited about his over the hill act in NOAH right now seems more testament to how dire Japanese wrestling has gotten in the last 10 years. That Shiozaki match was an absolute joke and the fact some people love that is part of what alienates me from discussing wrestling so hard.

LCO were initially super exciting when they showed up in ARSION but I ended up being quickly fed up with their act. I also recall her having some long singles matches in NEO that were really hard to get through. There may be some hidden gems in her AJW work. Really great worker in small doses, though

I like Chemoul, but he isn't super exciting in the new footage compared to the more mysterious guys like Dr. Adolf Kaiser, Jose Tarres, the Oliver Bros or Jean Rabut. That said Cesca has been very reliable and seems a bit like an Angel Azteca type guy.

I'm excited for Akiyama having a Tenryu-like run carrying a promotion in his 50s, but please god stop it with the 30 minute long matches. Akiyamas is clearly a great wrestler still and his potatoe knee strikes ruled, but this was so full of obvious time killing and blatant filler it sucked the soul of the match. I'm not sure I've seen Endo before, he looked about as good as Yoshinobu Kanemaru here. There was some leg work and neck work going on here, but it ended up not mattering in the last 15 minutes of the match. After a slow but acceptable beginning they really lost me about 20 minutes in when Endo did this parody level bad superkick followed by a sequence that involved guys popping up after suplexes. There was also a pretty bad moment where Akiyama tried this powerbomb like move into the ropes and they completely blew it. This would be pretty great if you cut it down to about 8 minutes while editing out 75% of Endos offence.

Shinjuku Shark is a boxer who has been working sleaze indy shows since forever. With his shaggy hair and lanky frame, he looks kinda like Tobas dad. But he never had a big run in any promotion, mostly doing sleazy shit in promotions like FMW, while Toba at least has a series of DDT main events to his name, not to mention that Shark can’t use his feet. Shark is essentially the underdog here and Toba dominates him early until Shark is able to down with him with a big surprise punch. After that it’s like the last 5 minutes of an epic FUTEN match with both guys trading big combos and Shark mostly coming back using his toughness and puncher’s chance. You don’t really expect much from a match involving two boxing gloved guys but I actually ended up wanting this to go longer.

Great great match, a true hidden hidden gem. Even knowing that Toba can be really great, MIKAMI being pretty good around this time and GENTARO very talented, this far exceeded expectations. Mostly because the psychology in the match was super, and everyone played their role to perfection. MIKAMI comes into this with a cast on his wrist, and he does a really great almost Misawa-ish wounded ace performance here. He really sold that shit to absolute perfection, being wary of it the entire match, being unable to follow up his own moves etc. Toba is great here throwing wild strikes, and then GENTARO & YOSHIYA swoop in with a fantastic Anderson Brothersesque performance isolating Toba. These guys were really zoning in on Tobas leg, and while the legwork wasn’t sold in a major way (the main story was Mikamis wrist) it was really good and Toba got ragdolled hard, he is so tiny that even something like a Shinbreaker can be made to look brutal. Thought Gentaro looked just amazing here, and Yoshiya was fun as a Taue-ish big dude booting peoples heads off and acting like a dick. Toba punching Yoshiyas lights out was really fun, and then we get to the awesome finish. Really tremendous stuff, it’s insane how things like this fell under the rug when this kind of smart+brutal pro wrestling is a direction Japanese wrestling should’ve kept going in.

This had some shady guys typical of DDT at the time. Masahiko Orihara is a Masao Orihara clone in a goofy mask, and kind of wrestles like a poor mans Masao Orihara, while Neo Iceman looks like a guy who forgot his wrestling gear so he enters the ring in street clothes and a random mask they had lying around. Both guys were okay though, aside from one funny moment where Orihara went for an RVD move and fell on his head. Takai was in the rookie underdog role and kind of rough, he blew his clothesline and dropkick, how the hell can you not hit your clothesline and dropkick when you’re a japanese rookie? That said Toba had an awesome moment where he came in and worked over Neo Iceman with stiff blows, and I continue to leave young MIKAMI, he gets good exchanges out of everyone and when he’s throwing out highspots he’s just crushing dudes. Onryo was good but these two carried the show. Kind of an undercard tag with some rough and some nice moments, but I had fun.

Wonderful matchup, the kind that exemplifies the charm of 90s indy sleaze. Everyone here is a unique character with their own style, and they mesh really well. Rider was in his goofy Seikendo suit and working a mix between highflyer and submission wrestler while almost knocking himself out on dives, Funakoshi a mysterious MUGAesque technician, Exciting Yoshida a goofy IWE tribute heel, and of course our boxing gloved hero Toba. Toba really is the MVP in this match potatoeing everybody and always getting the best out of everyone, when you are facing Toba you are guaranteed to get punched in the face, so everyone fires back with unusual piss and vinegar. I especially loved Nishino crushing him with sick running headbutts. Phantom Funakoshi always looks like a real worker in these matches, working fun MUGA vs. Seikendo exchanges against Super Rider and channeling Fujiwara when he was facing Toba, I’d love to see more of him. Exciting Yoshida was a bit weird, he kept trying to no-sell Toba and getting punched and spin kicked in the face, and also did a bunch of banana peel heel spots, then again he also worked a sick headbutt exchange at one point so I can’t hate the guy. There’s also more shootstyle floor brawling involving Toba and a crafty finish between Super Rider and Funakoshi. Neo Winger blew, but wasn’t in the match much. Really everything you can ask for from a match up full of random indy dudes from forgotten sleaze feds (how often do you get Nihei Gumi, Seikendo, DDT and SPWF representatives in one match?).

1997 was probably the period where you could take almost any random BattlARTS match and it would be the #1 best match to happen in 2020 for months. Carl Greco was a barefoot machine here, lord in heaven what a great grappler he was. This is all about Ono trying to out-slick the beast. Some absolutely fantastic grappling and holds here, and Ono throwing strikes feels like he's trying to equalize the situation in order to not get steamrolled. Great nearfalls here, including an absolutely awesome Octopus Stretch that Ono sunk in like he wanted the tap out more than anything else in his life. This was a second match on the card and went eleven minutes, you get the sense if they had gone for a slightly more grandiose finishing stretch with some big strike exchanges and near KO this would've moved into serious MOTYC territory, but for that type of second 11 minute match on the card this was damn great.

FUTEN baby. Ultra-stiff fast paced basically shootstyle brawl where everyone lays into each other with the stiffest punches, headbutts and lariats pro wrestling has ever seen. This is not even remembered as one of the greater matches from that brief but sweet run of FUTEN actually making tape in 2010, but it’s chock full of fantastic and violent exchanges. Just the opening exchange with Ikeda and Hara trying to pulverize each other was fantastic. I have seen some people object to the Brahmans in Futen before, but they are fine here, working stiff and their comedy spot was over quickly and didn’t derail the match. One of them also had this sick leaping headbutt. Hara looks great coming in for his hot tag crushing everyone, and Moriyama is really good in his fired up youngster role. Ono isn’t in the match a ton but he looks great lighting up dudes with punches and kicks and stretching them with nasty submissions. His exchange with Ikeda was insane and the highlight of the match by far. Ikeda was working this match like an injured but still super tough and dangerous beast. His chemistry with Ono is really no worse than his chemistry with Yuki Ishikawa, except Ono is in more of an aggressor role. The finish is between Ikeda and Moriyama and basically about Moriyama trying to slowly chop the boss down and getting met with brutal punts kicks and straight rights. Absolutely dope material, it’s too sad FUTEN only started regularily releasing DVDs in 2010.