Jetlag

Whacky Dragon System name changes tricked me into writing another review for this, for posterity: Much of T2P was basically thrown together ideas for cool moves and sequences. That was felt strongly here, altough the match had a solid structure. You get the initial matwork sections, then a stretch of Yasshi and Yossino working heelishly and hitting a variety of double team moves before a hot ending run. Pretty simple formula but it works fine. My favourite section here was probably the Yossino/Mori hold exchanges which felt like the lucharesu equivalent of two fired up U-Style guys going at it on the mat. Really slick and fast movements. Double teams were cool and the finishing run had some cool, some slightly wonky stuff. It didn't help that this had a whole 7 minutes clipped from it. Still, a nice showing, and probably the most inspied brother YASSHI performance ever.

Jaguar had a match in Wrestle-1 earlier this year where she hit some sharp looking spin kicks. She's been working consistently the last couple years, but hasn't made tape much for such a legendary wrestler.

Pudgy mulleted japanese guys beat the fuck out of eachother for your entertainment. Tatsuo Nakano is just the master of this kind of brutal under 10 minutes brawl, and Kitahara is Kitahara. Starts out with a pretty intense scramble to the outside. Nakano of course gets a bloody nose, hard to see where, so he gets up and fucking breaks Kitaharas nose with a knee of his own. I was surprised he may have out-stiffed Kitahara in this one. Kitahara does throw one absolutely disgusting leg kick though which Nakano sold accordingly great. Short and intense but you already knew that.

Yamazaki at this point was honestly a kind of dull worker. That does not matter though because Tatsuo Nakano is here to kick his ass. Anytime Nakano gets close he is battering Yamazaki with headbutts. At some point during the early grappling Nakano gets a bloody nose and then blows the blood from his nose during a leglock. Yamazaki DOES kick Nakano like a dog at one point but largely looks overwhelmed. Nakano even slaps him like a bitch after hitting a suplex. Nakano nearfalls were awesome and the crowd went nuts for him, easy Yamazaki finish not so much.

This was fine. I'm not a huge fan of shootstyle matches with a ton of leglocks, altough Fujiwara is one of the few wrestlers who can make it somewhat interesting. He basically outclassed Yamazaki here with amazing fast submissions and counters left and right. When Yamazaki finally starts to unwind it's somewhat pedestrian as he's reluctantly beating on Fujiwara with elbows and knees in the ropes. Though I did love the little kick he belted Fujiwara with when he went down, a nice touch of taking out built up frustration. Fujiwara blasts him with those awesome body shots though a seemingly punch drunk Yamazaki hits a lucky suplex and quickly puts the old man away for great reaction. Parts of this were great but the overall structure and Yamazaki being Yamazaki didn't draw me in as much as it possibly could've had.

Big megastar vs. Pudgy short jobber. Nakano doesn't care though and uses Maeda as his punching bag with awesome kicks, punches and headbutts. The first minute or so is slow but this quickly picks up with brawling. Maeda looked pretty badass putting the little fucker away too.

This is one of my favourite UWF matchups. Even young Minoru Suzuki is best as a dickhead beating someone down, and Nakano is just a pitbull. And they maul eachother something fierce here. There is some intense grappling, with veteran Nakano mostly dominating early through sheer tenacity. Suzuki would hit a big fireman carry only for Nakano to keep controlling him. There is an awesome leglock battle leading to a really intense nearfall for a single leg crab. After he had bruised Suzukis face with kicks on the ground, Nakano would wrench his face further with a nasty facelock. Obviously the highlight here are Suzukis out of the this world brutal stomps and kneedrops. The shootstyle Gotch Piledriver was just amazing aswell as Nakano wasn't willing to take that at all and lowered his weight only for Suzuki to pick him up. Loved Suzuki getting fired up to a huge crowd pop after the low blow. Finish is something very rare for shootstyle but executed about as believably as you can. Just really intense brutal wrestling, great moment after great moment that the crowd loved.

Fujiwara gets a really good match out of Takada, Film at 11. Opening grappling was basic but really entertaining due to the sheer resistance. Anytime Takada would go for a throw Fujiwara would pull back hard. Plenty of neat Fujiwara moments. People know he's the master of the submission counter, but I also really dug his counter hip toss. There was also one really fast legsweep. The parts were they stand up and punish eachother are pretty great. Fujiwara bitch slapping Takada in the middle of uncooperative shootstyle exchanges is what pro wrestling is all about. Later Takada is unloading barrages of kicks and slaps only for Fujiwara to come charging through and clock him with his cranium. Very memorable finish. I actually would have liked this to stretch out and go a little longer though considering Takada has a tendency to blow up this was for the better.

Now this is it. Primitive shootstyle with no 10 counts, but everything that makes the style great is already here. Snug, tightly worked, uncooperative and unpredictable pro wrestling, everything counts, and when somebody gets you in a hold you better scramble like mad to get out of there. Sayama looks like the coolest man to ever live here with the lightning fast, credible spin kicks and athletic mat escapes and shootstyle sentons and whatnot. The match is rough around the edges in part, but it never drags and the crowd is absolute white hot for these two killing eachother. Maeda isn't overly expressive, but he keeps it moving on the mat and when he clocks you with a big spin kick it's extra cool because he is huge. I don't get the criticism, that crossarmbreaker can and will end the match so it makes sense to go for it at any chance. Formative work that holds up extremely well today.

I finally watched Backlund/Hart. Wow, WWF had matches like this? Backlund did all this awesome shit, twirling around Bret a bunch and getting cool pin attempts. Bret didn't do a ton and I thought the match ended prematurely but watching Backlund step up and be awesome randomly on TV is something else.

The INA has uploaded some wrestling on YouTube, giving some hope there is more to come. They labelled this video as "Inca Viracocha vs. Mr. Montreal" (a match where only 3 minutes are shown) and mispelt Caclards name, so I'm not sure they know what a mountain of greatness they are sitting on, but everytime a match like this gets uploaded is like finding 20 $ on the street. This goes about 35 minutes and is a total wresting clinic, just an absolutely bonkers match. Sanniez & Caclard I've loved before and they look like an all time great heel duo. Just really dedicated stooges who will take every bump in the book (Sanniez at one point just does this huge no water in the pool plunge into the ring, and Caclard flies into a ringside table), and when it's time to kick ass they will punt the shit out of their opponents. Aside from the crazy fast standing exchanges, awesome weird ranas, flips and european uppercuts, there was some brainy hold for hold work with really complex reversals/one upmanship sequences and a few smart spots. Highlights include an awesome Rocca deadlift suplex from the ground, Caclard making use of the proto-Powerbomb, Hassouni busting out these great Johnny Kidd spots and Sanniez using a flying kick that was like something Tamura would do. It made me think french guys may be the best sprint workers of all time, because they basically start fast and then just keep going and going without letting up, and even picking up the pace by the end with the heels flying everywhere and Roger Delaporte whacking Caclard for good measure. All the time there was never a filler half crab or sitting in a hold. It really makes you go Fuck a Manami Toyota and 90s AJPW, this stuff is the real athletic peak of wrestling.

The first 10 minutes are very stiff but also very bland. I'm just tired of seeing shit like Nomura just plain allowing Okabayashi to go back on offense. Okayabashi is such a simplistic wrestler and Nomura doesn't show any of his cool flashes until later. It gets good once Nomura counters a torture rack attempt by locking on a crucifix and then trying to push Okabayashis nose into his brain. The armwork actually becomes a little more hard fought and they deliver some sick strike exchanges, including Nomura just punching Okabayashi in the jaw. Nomura restores my faith in him by busting out an awesome Firemans Carry. The armwork felt slightly goofy.

@C.S.

Watched and reviewed the match I was given. Was pretty fun. When's the next round?

Really entertaining match which is made by NO FEAR stepping up and putting the boots to those BURNING pretty boys. No Fear were really coming into their own at this point and they did a good job here roughing up and cutting off BURNING in a lean match that was basically a sprint by All Japan standards. Takayama was starting to feel it in 1999 and he looked awesome running through everyone with massive knees and strikes. Dug the use of the AXE BOMBER~! Add a couple fun moments of Kobashi going angry bear and NO FEAR getting credible nearfalls and you have a really cool little match.

For nintendologic: Charles Lucero vs. Epydemius, 3/3/2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V578fVX0MrI

I am up for this.

Fun CAPTURE-esque spectacle. All the strikes were just brutal and the shootstyle floor brawling a suitably crazy moment. I wasn't sure how Toba would work in this kind of main event singles match but the whole thing comes out fine. He certainly knows how to throw that spinning backfist as an exclamation point. Sasaki muscling Toba around to drop him on his head was suitably gritty. Stiff as fuck brawl, DDT should go back to this stuff.

DAISAKU is a kickboxer dude who has worked CAPTURE, so can handle himself against a stiff monster. Doesn't matter though cause S.U. Power just crushes him. Daisaku puts on a good fight but is put to sleep in about 3 minutes. Very brief but very painful looking. Amazing promo after the match and Super Uchu Power struts away as the theme from Terminator 2 blasts from the speakers. All hail the Super Cosmic Force!

Another wonderful slice of DDT pro wrestling with touches of BattlARTSian greatness. This wasn't quasi-shootstyle like the tag from the night before, altough it's still quite the stiff-fest. No idea what went into Takagi here, because he has an unusually mean edge and decides to work a rough no nonsense style, even approximating a poor mans Otsuka in his sections against Toba. Speaking of Toba, I think he is a guy mostly everyone with a little japan wrestling knowledge knows as the fun boxing guy from DDT, but is it crazy to say he might actually be an underappreciated indy great? All the involving him where once again manly as fuck and he mixed in some cool unique spots aswell as taking punishment and setting himself up as a foil to make Sasaki & Takagi look badass. Loved his crazy flying apron kick. Mikami was the weak link but still pretty good. He threw some poor punches which especially stick out in a match with Toba in it, but he also had some insane bumps and dives and hit some 2000 sleaze indy level brutal looking high spots, such as a rib crunching twisting senton. All the reckless looking headdrops – which basically saw Takagi muscling Mikami up and driving him headfirst into the mat were pretty nasty too. Sasaki once again handles himself in this kind of stiff main event. Brilliant finish. Crazy to see the DDT crew at one point did a stiff heavyweight potatoefest as good as anyone else.

Here's your 2000 indy MOTY. No kidding, this was just awesome and shockingly better put together than you'd expect. Really makes me wish there was more footage of the DDT crew doing BattlARTS style matches. I liked the opening matwork between Sasaki and Rider a lot. It felt very raw and unrehearsed, but they still whip out some cool transitions. Watching Sasaki here made me extra sour he spent the rest of his career as a go-through-the-motions bleeder because his stuff was inspired and he hit everything with a lot of snap. He looked like a rich mans Yuji Nagata here, a slick pro style wrestler who can hang doing stiff shootstyle. Ishii was in CAPTURE mode here - basically trying to crush his opponents with every single move he did. He opens this with one of the nastiest lariats I've ever seen against skinny thaiboxer Toba and basically doesn't let up after that. Even his basic "throw guy into corner to set up a tag" looked really violent. Toba is the DDT guy who works as basically a boxer which works very well in this kind of sleaze shootstyle match. He does exactly what you want, by punching guys in the face hard a lot and getting ragdolled around. I was also really impressed with Super Rider here - he made some brief Sasaki legwork that could easily have been filler compelling by selling vulnerability. He would then shoot for takedowns and submissions to protect himself, and also maul opponents on the ground. I also loved his Volk Han like ragdoll throw on poor Toba. The Ishii/Sasaki pro style section was probably the weakest point in the match but still had enough neck compression and potatoe shots to keep you entertained, with Sasaki doing some cool things that he would later drop - presumably because his athleticism declined. I liked how Ishii, when reversing a basic suplex, immediately went for the kill by dropping Sasaki on his head. The finish is between Super Rider and Takashi Sasaki, which is a match up only the most hardcore tape nerds (i.e. me) would anticipate and it totally delivers with Rider whipping out some genuinely awesome reversals. So there you have it, great ultra stiff quasi-shootstyle action that was actually well put together while retaining some of that sleazy underbelly of pro wrestling rawness. Maybe a low end nomination when it comes to all-timer discussion, but golly I loved checking this out. The whole thing is on the DDT Universe streaming service.

I didn't expect to see a solid Match of the Decade contender at this point, but this was it. Just an incredible match, if CMLL did this kind of story based intense pro wrestling more often there would be no stopping the company. The psychology was sharp as a knife, early Virus working over Metalico with shots to the head followed by a control switching dive sequence felt straight out of 90s AJPW. The struggle and nearfall sequences where top tier and as good as it gets in lucha. I realize I'm sounding a little generic here, but they worked so many fine details into the back and forth, combined with a determined Metalico giving it all to take down the trickiest wrestler in the world. I haven't seen as much Metalico as I probably should have but he was great here as the aging gunslinger who would throw fists and fight tooth and nail. Even his sloppiness added to the match. Virus was as classy as usual. Every counter was incredibly well executed and perfectly timed, with some great struggle over holds and pins thrown in. Loved the constant punch outs which gave the match a feel like somebody would have to be KOd for it to end. Gotta love the fact they made suicide dive feel this epic in 2019.