Jetlag
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You know, I find the statement that Wanz is a horrible babyface funny. Given he is right there getting insane reactions for the most basic shit. I'm not argueing he is good based on that, but he certainly gave the crowd exactly what they wanted. The crowds in Bremen were huge, too, so it's not like he was some niche indy guy appealing to a specific minority fanbase. It's fine if you don't like his 40 minute long forearms & body slams style of wrestling, but to say he was a horrible babyface is pretty much as close to being factually false as you can get in internet discussions of 38 year old handheld matches.
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The pro-shot Wanz/Slaughter match was in Graz (Austria). This one happened in Bremen. It's good, if you can enjoy an Otto Wanz style match which is really unlike other types of pro wrestling. Slaughter kicks ass and bumps big, and there are no lengthy restholds which is good for such a long match. The most amazing thing is how over Wanz is. People were just flipping out for everything that he did. The 1st 5 minutes of the match is just the announcer reading "sympathy premiums" (a small money bonus that fans could pay to their favourite wrestler) that Wanz received. That must have been several hundred DM Wanz made just by being there and being beloved. That kind of workrate won't come back, ever. It's not as good as the Graz match since it doesn't have (visible) blood and you don't get the visual of guys heads being smashed into the glass protective wall but if you're Wanz fan or just want to see Slaughter being a badass heel you'll be happy. The really amazing drops are those chain matches from 1991. I had no idea those happened let alone that they were taped.
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1 Fall match going about 15 minutes. Humez is one of the great French boxers. OJ theorized that this may be his debut match, and it had the feel of a debut match. It felt like French pro wrestling, but there was no overlay elaborate stuff. Feels weird to see a middle aged guy with bald spots working a rookie match. Instead the match just turns into this nasty fight with Humez reacting to Debusne's shenanigans by tagging him and Debusne trying to gouge Humez eyes. It wasn‘t a Roger Delaporte level eye gouging, but it served to get Humez sufficiently fired up. Debusne ends up busted open and Humez takes him to the pay window. Humez has these cool left-right european uppercuts and Debusne was really good doing some noodle legged selling. It wasn‘t an epic spectacle, more like a fun way to debut Humez as this no-nonsense hitter, but it was really enjoyable and not having more Humez feels like a big miss.
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2/3 Falls match going roughly 30 minutes. Karl von Chenok was another Hungarian wrestler, although he was billed as „the German strangler“ here. His son, Jörg Chenok, was a decent middleweight working the German scene in the 1980s and early 90s and appeared on British TV at least one time. As far as evil fake-German guys with strangler gimmicks go, von Chenok sure was no Dr. Adolf Kaiser, as he reeeally liked the nerve hold, but he looked a decent grappler and his european uppercuts sure were stiff as hell. Tarres was a Spanish worker with the legend saying he had metal plates implanted in his head, giving him the nickname „Iron Head“. His headbutts in this were tremendous. This was even further removed from typically beautiful French style pro wrestling than the previous match between Debusne and Humez. It was basically scrappy and uncooperative the whole way through and built around von Chenoks nerve hold vs. Tarres‘ headbutts, with both guys having good ways to avoid the other signature moves. Tarres was really brutalizing von Chenok with those, including a spot where he had him in a surfboard and rammed into the back of his head. Tarres also did a great job fighting out of von Chenoks nerve holds and tossing him around by his bald head. Von Chenok ended up busted open and KO‘d losing the first fall. Through this we learn that unlike in a British wrestling, in France a KO doesn‘t end a 2/3 falls match immediately. If the match had continued in the vein of that 1st fall I could have seen this being really great, but instead we were subjected to a lengthy nerve hold routine from von Chenok. Tarres sold like an absolute champ and you could tell he was a superstar quality worker though. If he had mounted some kind of epic comeback against von Chenoks tactics this really would‘ve been awesome, but I guess it wasn‘t in the books that night. At least we get some more matches of Tarres, including one against Dr. Adolf Kaiser who is the rich mans evil German strangler, so that is something to look forward to.
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2/3 Falls match going roughly 25 minutes. Holy lord, King Kong Taverne is a massive, massive man. Big, bald, hairy, built like a gorilla, he had the quintessential look of a guy you don‘t want to piss off. Delaporte, in the span of 7 days, goes from hated prick to almost a comical babyface as he tries not to get squished by the mighty Taverne. Some really amusing cat and mouse play and Delaporte going for clean wrestling holds ensue. This is our first taste of Delaporte in a singles match and he looks like a really good character worker allowing both his charisma and ability to shine. Taverne, despite his size, is quite good both at scurrying out of positions aswell as stooging and working sequences. He also just runs over Delaporte when he tries to get cute and throw punches, then makes sure to forearm him in the face in the ropes. Delaporte soon gets what‘s coming to him as Taverne locks on the mother of all bearhugs before throwing Delaporte like he was 20 pounds for the fall. The match took a drastic turn in the 2nd fall, as an overzealous Taverne misses a few charges, banging his head against the steel post and flying out of the ring. Before soon Delaporte is at him just trying to rip his eye out, biting and attacking a blinded King Kong with nasty forearms and punches to the face. Quite a return to form for Delaporte to go back to being such a violent prick. Before soon he has forearmed the referee and the match is thrown out. I am going to assume that French wrestling was booked like US studio wrestling except the matches were longer, because I can see this setting up the most epic arena brawl ever for Taverne to get his revenge on Delaporte. We don‘t have such a match, and Taverne only shows up once more which seems to be the theme of this French footage, we have hundreds of matches of great forgotten workers going 20-30 minutes and it‘s still not enough. Atleast we‘ll have plenty more Delaporte, maybe we‘ll see him meeting the guy to give him his comeuppance on TV for once. The ultra vicious streak he showed in this match was some of the most intense wrestling I‘ve seen in a while for sure.
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1 fall match with about 20 minutes shown. There seems to be some clipping, but nothing too annoying. This was like the French version of a bomb throwing sprint. I could see this exact match happening in Korakuen Hall and the crowd going bonkers for all the ultra stiff european uppercuts and upkicks they did. It also helps that Ami Sola is a gentleman looking dude with a classy mustache and Couderc is balding and cleary muscular but a long way from having visible abs. There wasn‘t a ton of hold for hold work here, but the bits they did were great and felt really fresh. There was an awesome body scissors spot, a great wrist stretch from Couderc and some nifty leg trips amongst other things. Couderc also turned a headscissor sequence into a series of deadlift powerbombs that would make Takaiwa wince. Couderc may have been the man of the match but Sola held up. He uncorked some brutal headbutts and what may very well be the nastiest leg stretch I‘ve seen in any match ever. He looked like he was about to pop Coudercs hip with that. And, I feel compelled to say that these guys were bumping hard as motherfuckers. The ending crescendo was also damn great with these guys eating upkicks and bumping around like mad. The upkick is such a basic spot that nobody remembers these days but hot damn it looks awesome in these matches and these guys will fly face first into it. It was nice to see that the crowd seemingly filled up to watch this match. True to form, Couderc does not show up again, but it‘s save to say he made his mark in this sole appearance. This was a mix of high end technical work, brutally stiff and with a sense of classy athleticism. Exactly the kind of awesome unexpected match to remind us all that French pro wrestling was fucking awesome.
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1 Fall match going about 25 minutes. This was a clean match. The first time we see Labat and he played nice. The technical work here won‘t blow you away if you‘ve seen a lot of French stuff but it was good. I like how rugged some of the flying headscissors felt, some would miss their targets and for others the guys would fall weirdly like in a real fight. The crowd comes alive when they finally start throwing forearms about 20 minutes in. Labat has this really cool thing where he locks on a cravate and than just rams the guy with an uppercut. Absolutely loved the finish.
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https://www.youtube.com/user/sergje1 is absolutely on fire right now uploading boatloads of 80s/early 90s German (and some UK) footage. Some of this stuff I had no idea was taped. He uploaded almost 40 videos from the 1987 tournament in Hamburg alone including decision matches, which is a pretty good look at that tournament.
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It's been a while. But U-STYLE still rules! U-Style show #11 (10/9/2004) was another good entry into the U-Style canon. You had a decent undercard with the only lowlight being Miyazawa vs. Oniki - a real contender for the worst U-Style match ever. At least Miyazawa KO'd that fool like a champion. Moriyama didn't show much in the opener, but any Crafter M match will involve Crafter M grappling the fuck out of some guy and that will be at minimum entertaining. Sasaki/Hara was a decent midcard affair too, although not exactly glowing with personality. It was the kind of solid but slightly bland shootstyle that was the U-Style trademark and I imagine they had a better match just potatoeing eachother like maniacs on a FUTEN card. Otsuka took on a bland young guy in Yoshida and while it was short it was good with Otsuka doing his signature freaked out grappling and getting a nice win with a single german suplex. Both main events were great. You had Ishikawa/Ito with the expected striker vs. grappler dynamic with Ito having to realize striking alone wasn't gonna cut. Some absolutely brutal knees and kicks in that match as Yuki Ishikawa being involved cancels any trained monkey possibilities. Ikemoto was the star of the main event pulling out freaky guard passes and submissions like crazy and Ueyama having to pull out something good to not get blown away. Really good athletic modern shootstyle.
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2/3 Falls match going nearly 40 minutes. JIP and the fans are already pelting the ring with garbage, enraged at the tactis of Delaporte and Robin, who were pulling every dirty trick in the book. This was an all out fight from beginning to end, no shots pulled. The Fishers did almost nothing but forearm and throw the shit out of their opponents, but it was some great looking forearms and throws. One thing I really appreciate is the chinlocking the guys will do to pull others away from a scrap, it‘s such a small detail but it aids to the barfight feel. Delaporte & Robin are constantly jumping on the Fischers 2 on 1 and it‘s natural for a 4th guy to join the fray and try pull one of these bastards off. Aside from all the guys fighting, tumbling and climbing over each other you get some nasty armwork which while not being played up in the long run leads to a pinfall. I probably liked Robin the best of all the guys in the match, he did this awesome in ring tope to break up a hold, and he was always sneaking around to kneedrop someones throat. Delaporte was no slouch either and the faces convincingly play their role. It‘s a bit hard to rate this kind of match since it‘s basically a brawl worked like a sprint going 40 minutes with 2 breaks, it didn‘t have the kind of build I am normally used to from a wrestling match where it ebbs and flows, but as a heated slugfest it was quiet grea -
1 Fall match going a little over 20 minutes. We go from Bernaert stirring shit up in a big way against Dauthuille to Bernaert doing a surprising amount of wrestling in this match. Although he did go back to his kidney punching, neck elbowing ways soon. Bernaert doesn‘t do much to truly set my world on fire, but he is solid enough to always be good for a niggly bout. Chaisne is notable for bringing really good babyface fire. Not quite as much here as he did in his match against Dr. Adolf Kaiser, so I guess Belgian jock who acts like a massive dick isn‘t quite as stirring as evil German Doctor of Philosophy. Once again, I felt the match ended a bit abruptly. This had such a lengthy build and we see so many matches where the heel ends up bumping like a maniac all over the place that the match just ending like that made this feel like a prelim bout.
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About 13 minutes of 30 are shown. Rinaldi is said to be Italian, which of course may be a complete fabrication. Moine doesn‘t show up again, and Rinaldi only shows up in these JIP matches, which I‘m a little salty about because both guys did some quality shit here. There was a particular cool sequence centered around leglock reversals that was the brainy type stuff I associate with European style matwork. There was also a great keylock escape that lead to a giant swing. They never threw strikes and then it goes to a time limit draw without ever heating up, so I guess it was that kind of scientific match. Still, it was cool to watch.
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This show had a lot of rad matches. By this time, Orihara had fully morphed into the singlet wearing punk. Even though this was UWFi vs. WAR and he was the outsider, he was quite sympathetic here taking on ultra-skilled young Sakuraba. Lots of basic but hard fought grappling, gritty suplexes and Orihara getting kicked in the face by Saku. Orihara actually gets the upper hand on Sakuraba - apparently the trick is to just kick him in the balls and follow up with a nasty kick to the back of the head - before uncorking some nasty as fuck piledrivers. Great little match.
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Great Mariko Yoshida performance wasted on the slug that is Lioness Asuka. Honestly, at this point Asuka is sub-Takada level when it comes to dull japanese main eventers for me. Even her kicks blew in this. Yoshida was doing her submission master with dangerous punches thing on point and did a great job zoning in on Asukas leg. Of course, none of that submission master stuff was over with the crowd as the company had been pushing Yoshida into irrelevance for 2 years and Asuka was as unaffected as can be by all the leg work, punches and submissions and instead opted to shoe her table spots bullshit into the match. It's only fitting that the match basically turned into contest of who could no sell more and Lioness easily gobbled up the win after absorbing all of Yoshidas punches and finishers like nobodies business.
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A very subdued NOAH main event, which makes this cool immediately in my book. I prefer these guys working smart exchanges over some head droppy macho ass bullshit. Ogawa as usual gets some unusual and cool exchanges out of Misawa. I also really like that Misawa was tagging with IZU~ here. He and Sano just potatoed each other a lot and it was really fun. Izu seemed to be riding high in the end, uncorking his awesome diving headbutt and fending off Sanos comeback attempts only to fall to a basic armbar.
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Really well laid out sprint 6 man tag, with everyone bringing something neat to the table. We get Scorpio looking ultra sharp working basic opening exchanges with Hashi, Vader having a good day and really beating the shit out of Saito with a flurry of nasty strikes, Hashi being as effective as ever in his underdog role and Akiyama immediately going for the kill handing out exploders. It clocks in at just under 10 minutes where Vader chokeslams Akiyama through a table and then starts attacking people with a whip(?). Full NOAH point.
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This match was lovely to see as the crowd is CRAZY CRAZY HOT for Shiga & Rikio and they beat the snot out of each other. We also get Kawabata trying to stand up to Kobashi. I imagine if 90s crowbar Kawabata had shown up this match would've been really great, unfortunately Kawabata was merely solid here. Kobashi when not working a 30 minute long epic is really fun though and we get some quality exchanges between him and Rikio. Not mindblowing greatness here by any stretch of imagination, but you'll feel good having watched this.
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There was one really great FUTEN-esque exchange between Ikeda and KENTA in this. I can see KENTA having a pretty great career in BattlARTS/FUTEN or WAR just acting like a kickboxer. Unfortunately, Sugiura & KENTA immediately cooled that excitement down by working a rather lame control segment. Taue does almost nothing in this, but the 2 times or so he is in he really kicks people in the face or ragdolls KENTA around, so it's fair to say that he rules. It picks up again for the finish and Ikeda even gets to pick up the win with the Kinniku Buster in a nice moment.
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This is second match on the card. Kikuchi is in his karate pants for teaming up with Aoyagi. Nobody would look at this match on paper and expect a great match, but what we get is really fun with each guy bringing their trademarks. The ending run is ridiculously fun as Aoyagi goes crazy spin kicking everyone and the crowd being really excited for him potentially winning this meaningless undercard match. Honda didn't do much except really squeezing people with headlocks, teasing the Dead End and having some cool selling after eating some nasty leg kicks from Aoyagi & Kikuchi. Sometimes, less is more.
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I find that early NOAH ages extremely well. For some reason, even undercarders understood how to mix up match formulas to keep things interesting. Why even a guy like Donovan Morgan can have interesting matches here but nowhere else I don't know, maybe there was some Pat Patterson genius laying out these matches for NOAH. This was a fun junior opener, with Morgan & Modest immediately isolating young Kotaro and working cutoffs to get the crowd amped for Kanemaru, which lead to Kanemarus sections actually being fun. Kotaro is still a rookie, but he gets to look good thanks to the stooging of the gaijins. The finish was memorable to with Modest hitting his finisher on Kanemaru on the floor and then him & Morgan going to town on him with chairs before Kikuchi runs in making the safe like the worlds most pissed off Steve Austin.
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I had no idea what to expect going into this, since it's Kandori close to her last hurray, this being the finals of a 1 night tournament, and I've never heard of anyone mentioning any great Kandori performances in the 2000s. This ended up being just awesome though and exactly what it should be. It's basically Satomura brutalizing Kandori from the get go with the kind of nothing-held-back kicks you wouldn't expect a 43 year old lady to take. Kandori was damn great here as the aging legend trying to pull out one last trick. She came in with a bandage over her forehead with a cut and bruises underneath and takes some absolutely disgusting kicks to the skull. The spot where she goes for a headbutt only to end up hurting herself was a pretty great "aging warrior is surprised at her lost toughness" moment. This was obviously striker vs. grappler, which can be predictable, but that wasn't the case here as they timed and milked all the submission spots really well. Satomura is basically all kicks here, just trying to put Kandori down for good, basically coming forward constantly until she got trapped, she also he some great selling of her damaged equilibrium after eating some nasty lariats and palm strikes. I'm honestly amazed I haven't ever heard this brought up before (it didn't even come up in Ditchs Best of Japan poll IIRC), I thought this was really both these legendary asskickers working a great 11 minute sprint up there with the best of them in wrestling history.
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Insane spectacle, which may have been even better than the previous match. Easily the best Nagasaki singles match I've seen ever, hell it's probably the best for Fuyuki too. This is a lumberjack match which in WAR means guys dressed like ninjas or wearing devil masks and tracksuits are stalking near the ring. Initially it's fun with both guys being locked in the ring to potatoe each other, but things take a crazy turn when Nagasaki takes a big bump to the outside (a remarkable thing in itself) and for no reason decides to shove Tenryu aside. Tenryu gets pissed off and they proceed to hurl chairs at each other as you can feel the tension growing exponentially. Jado & Gedo proceed to get involved, braining Nagasaki with a chair, leaving him bleeding like crazy. It leads to this really fascinating ending run where they just keep escalating the violence while guys from the outside keep getting involved. Nagasaki is especially of the charts here, bleeding and absorbing some sick headbutts and lariats but then turning around and doing some psychotic things, throwing the referee around, teeing off on Fuyuki with chairs, undoing the ring ropes to strangle his opponent, hitting his awesome superkick. I've never really thought of lumberjack matches as a great stipulation or cared for matches that have guys not involved in the match getting involved., but fuck this was great.
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[1994-11-29-WAR] Genichiro Tenryu vs Tatsumi Kitahara
Jetlag replied to Loss's topic in November 1994
This was what the matchup promises. Two guys infamous for doing grossly violent things to their opponents doing grossly violent things to each other. It stards with both guys working a standard side headlock sequence and then Kitahara going "Hm, that isn't going to work" so he starts just clobbering Tenryu with thudding kicks left and right. Tenryu fires back with throat chops and kicking Kitaharas head like a football constantly. I love the savate kicks Kitahara will mix in, and Tenryu is really great at selling an assbeating from a kicker. He is much higher than Kitahara in the hierarchy, but he will sell that he got caught in a painful spot. So it's basically a constant stream of Tenryu trying to brush off Kitaharas kicks until "Damn, he kicked me in the elbow! Ow, now my chin, too!". Great spot where Tenryu tries for the Flair turnbuckle spot but Kitahara just kicks him in the face and he slowly sinks over. By the end Kitaharas legs were giving out because he just spent 10 minutes kicking Tenryu as hard as humanly possible. This is exactly what you want. -
Two barrel chested bastards throwing tables at each others heads, bleeding and cracking each other hard with open palm blows and headbutts. If that premise for a match is not enough to get you to watch this, you came to the wrong board. Black Cat looked very good here, he threw a great punch and knew how to keep things moving. Initially he was the aggressor but after Fuyuki seemingly hardway'd him with a series of headbutts he turns into the babyface and even does a strap drop. Whenever the action spilt to the floor, Cat seemed out to seriously hurt his opponent. For example, Fuyuki would connect him with a foreign object, and it was one of those "worked" looking foreign object shots, but seconds later Cat would just smash the same object over his head. The finish had Cat lariating Fuyuki in the face and moments later one guy eating a nasty headdrop which came completely out of nowhere.
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This was exactly what you want: very short, compact and brutally violent. Aoyagi flailing Tenryu with kicks (which Tenryu puts over great), to which Tenryu responds by working rough looking sumo throws. Aoyagi spin kicks Tenryu on the break so Tenryu just flips out and we get a nasty "killed him dead" style finish. Worth watching just for Tenryu throwing the corner stool at him.