Jetlag
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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. -
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.
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Kings Road/WWE main event parody match better than a lot of serious attempts at such things. Neat opening exchange, and you realize these guys are good at filling time and getting their match over, Dino actually is better at things like working a sleeper hold or emoting during a strike exchange than most wrestlers, even aside from all the effective butt comedy. HARASHIMA really laces him up with kicks in a way not many comedy workers would be content taking them, and there is really amusing "distraction" spot that works better than most outside distraction spots because it's self aware. Funny to think that this main event drew more people to Korakuen Hall than NOAH does these days and was probably better than any NOAH main event in like half a dozen years too.
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Yeah, the actual air date here is June 19, 1959. Not sure how that mess-up happened since I listed everything in order, but it's bound to happen when you have to process hundreds of files.
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When you see a matchup with names like this, you expect everything. We ended up getting some really swank stuff. Lots of nifty throws, swank headscissors and smooth matwork, at one point both guys exchange fast leg trips. Comanche is a spindly guy with some eccentric mannerisms, and his physique adds to his matwork allowing for some cool escapes. Peruano continues to look like the real deal, at one point he does this transition where he hooks Comanches legs with his own legs and spins around almost like a double leg nelson, and his headscissor from the ropes – which he does slick and out of nowhere like a shootstylist – is one of my new favourite moves. He also busts out the Octopus Hold. Peruano eventually starts sneaking in inside shots and the bout gets chippy, with Peruano throwing punches to Comanches skinny body and Comanche firing back with neck chops. Comanche also has some cool looking non-standard dropkicks and a great victory roll. Once again, there were some intense pin attempts. Could‘ve built to a bigger crescendo, but what a neat match to watch in itself.
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JIP, but we get about 10 minutes. Mostly Zarzecki taking the Doctor to the pay window. Zarzecki wasn‘t kidding, he hit some pretty violent looking kneelifts and stomps. The Dr. is really fun at sneaking in cheapshots and his calculating behaviour is entertaining, he also busted out another cool double armlock. The finish has Warnia escaping the dreaded nerve hold with a nasty headbutt, only for Kaiser to spin him into a Dragon Sleeper in the middle of the ring. I didn‘t think they meshed quite that well and the match could‘ve picked up the pace a little, but it was a nice reminder that the Dr.s chokeholds will put anyones lights out.
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2/3 Falls match going a bit over 30 minutes. This is a match with lots of wrestling that‘s gonna stay in your mind because of the parts where they beat the hell out of each other. Not that the wrestling was bad, Laroche looked like a classy worker, but it just wasn‘t that exceptional and as soon as Joachim kicked him in the kidney you wanted more where that came from. It‘s like you slotted Tenryu or Takashi Ishikawa into a European style grappling affair. Most of the first 10 minutes are built around Laroche evading the Mexican, with Joachim La Barba attempting some double stomps which was rather interesting. As soon as Joachim found his opening he wasn‘t letting go of the chance to beat the crap out of Laroche. He also took the chance to bump all over the place once again. It all builds to an especially big bump to the outside. Little hard to rate for me, it‘s clear that this was good shit and smokes most 2020 pro wrestling in a cakewalk, on the other hand the baseline for this French stuff is getting really high.
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One fall match that goes about 30 minutes. The fact that Billy Catanzaro has two televised singles matches almost exactly 10 years apart is surreal. A few things change in 10 years, and in 1967, Billy Catanzaro was a thick veteran heel. You could still see his brilliance in his work, even when he was more interested here in kicking his opponent in the spine and grimacing to the crowd. Even though it was very obvious that this was gonna get chippy, there was a ton of ridiculously high end technical work here. Mantopolous was a wrestling dynamo, no kidding about it. Just a ridiculously fast moving worker with a ton of tricks in his bag. Most of this was wristlocks and armlocks, largely built around Mantopolous holding on to a hold while Catanzaro was trying to get out. Bread and butter euro stuff, but these two execute it in such a high end manner it‘s not even funny. Catanzaro is a joy to watch, as he always finds neat twists on the most basic things, such as using his foot to win a test of strength on the ground. This was getting chippy here and there, with guys throwing unexpected bitchslaps and using the face scrape, but they mostly stuck to working holds with a few blindingly fast, well timed rope running exchanges thrown in. My one issue with the match was that it could‘ve used a bit of a bigger heat section on Mantopolous – Catanzarro did go to town at one point, lacing the Greek up with gnarly kicks to the spine and nifty backbreaker variations, but Mantopolous was soon back to making a fool of Catanzaro. Guess it wasn‘t 1957 anymore. It‘ll happen to all of us. Hell of a match with a sick finish, regardless.
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Another night in Paris where lumpy 50s gentlemen forearm the shit out of eachother. Bury is introduced as the champion of Belgium, I guess everyone wrestling in France was a champion then. Bollet is someone who will be a recurring figure to this project. With his thinning hair and greasy look, he has the vibe of a Kurisu or sleazier WAR heavyweight. This, like most of these matches, was a cool mix of wrestling and guys really laying into eachother. Bury brought some classy wrestling, doing cool escapes and athletic bridge up spots. Soon Bollet found his opening though when Bury was on the ground and the fun began with Bollet landing a big kick to the spine. Bury was less stoic than the French workers we have seen, he had really good, decently expressive selling, sometimes barely managing to beat the 10 count from Bollets beating. When it was time to fire back he would hit big beautiful dropkicks or savate kicks which were trippy to see. It‘s also clear that Bollet can wrestle, but he would rather punch you in the kidney. This goes 30 minutes but it‘s really good, nice wrestling and when they beat on eachother, they really beat on eachother. Nice finish with a series of badass strike exchanges leading the winner almost landing a lucky shot and sinking into the pin.
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Roger Trigeaud is Cheri Bibi. A stumpy legged bald guy with a massive upper body. Roland Barthes was right when he wrote that at most 1 in 5 wrestling matches is „fair“. This followed the same formula as usual, wrestling to start, Cheri Bibi would start throwing, and they would keep the heat up until the finish, but it was a very good match with both guys adding to it. Ami Sola is a bulky looking guy with a mustache and wrestles similar to what we saw Gilbert Cesca and Billy Catanzaro do – cool flying headscissors, solid european uppercuts and kip-up headbutts. Cheri Bibi would do a spot where Solas dropkicks were bouncing off of his massive chest, and he also found an answer to some of the stuff Sola did. They didn‘t go for an all out european uppercutfest and went back to the wrestling. At about 20 minutes, this was pretty lean as well with a neat finish.
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JIP with 6 minutes shown. I would‘ve liked to see this in full, because these are two of the more unique workers showing up on French TV at the time. Inca Peruano has been a heel in other matches but easily becomes the babyface against the nefarious Doctor of Philosophy, Adolf Kaiser. This was a fun match up with Kaiser having cool ways to lock in his dreaded Dragon Sleeper and Inca having cool ways to escape from it. Peruano works some submission nearfalls of his own, and there are some cool hold escapes. I also really like Kaiser diving all over the ring trying to catch his opponent like an animal, and Peruano really gives him the business with fast uppercuts and kicks.
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2/3 Falls match over about 25 minutes. We see Luis El Gayo again. Rene Gerber is introduced as Swiss, but not a champion. After using some foul tactics against Jacky Corne, Luis El Gayo gets to play face in this match as Gerber pretty much foregoes the usual hold for hold work and goes for brawling almost immediately, landing tough looking kicks and knees and it‘s a big hit and get hit contest from there. The bar for heels working France in 1957 was pretty high, Gerber had nice kneelifts and I liked the spot where he did a chinlock and kept switching around so he could punch Luis in the kidney, and he also does the amazing „pretend to tie your shoelaces but go for the attack“ spot. Luis is veritable in the babyface role and provides some slick wrestling moves. Most notable here were the fan reactions with excited teenagers and working class joes threatening to storm the ring when Gerber got too cute. We understand this kind of match is bread and butter French material by now, although it is really fun to watch, basically a 25 minute sprint with lots of violent shots and moments.
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1 Fall match that is a little over 30 minutes long. Bob Anthony is someone we saw before in the twilight years of his career working World of Sport, and here he is in his mid 20s only a few years after making his debut. Although he didn‘t look green at all here and was doing many of the same spots as 19 years later, so I guess back then in European wrestling things changed slowly. This was a clean contest for the purists with no unfair tactics from Anthony. I‘ve noticed that while the athleticism is quite high end, French wrestling didn‘t get as brainy as the British stuff when it came to matwork. That is minor complaint though when you get 30 minutes of classy back and forth technical work. Ben Chemoul is probably at his best when he is being charismatic and uppercutting the fuck out of a stooging heel, but of course he is also a maestro and this type of match fits him like a glove. This didn‘t really kick into next gear and the finish looked a little too easy but I enjoyed it greatly.