Jetlag
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Sneaky BattlARTS guys always sneaking into joshi cards. Obviously there were some jokes in this match with Otsuka having to defend Fukuoka from creepy Ishikawa, but most of this was straight exchanges. Ishikawa/Otsuka is an all time great matchup and every single instance is worth seeking out, this being no exception. They did the bulk of the work and had some high end exchanges. I've been watching these guys for almost 10 years now and they still surprise me with some of the stuff the bust out, for example Ishikawa hits an awesome clean deadlift suplex on Otsuka, there is a nifty judo trip and some cool triangle scissor work. The exchanges between Hyuga and Fukuoka almost felt stale in comparison. Otsuka was a total stooge eating stiff dropkicks and double stomps from Hyuga and even a stiff Rider Kick from Fukuoka in a miscommunication spot. Of course the best moment is when Ishikawa finally gets ahold of Fukuoka and the first thing he does is lock in a chokehold with glee, fuck that's creepy. Hyuga and Fukuoka do the finish and they pick up the action which was good. This was 19 minutes which is pretty long for a novelty match but the whole thing went by in a breeze. -
Cool trios match which had some matwork and for once, ended without a gazillion bajillion nearfalls. The highlight was obviously Hase working the mat against he shooter cats. Though, the goal of the match was to put the UWFi crew over strong, I thought that considering AJPW always gets praised for it's psychological brilliance, they could've done a better job. I'm not sure I by Hase easily taking down and dominating Albright on the mat. It made him look like a fat dude with nice suplexes rather than an unstoppable beast. And Kobashi was taking some really stiff knees from Takayama, but was fine a minute later. Johnny Ace was fired up but kind of threated everyone like a jobber. Ah, to nitpick forever! It was a fun match and that's what counts.
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The main event was a stupidly good sleazy WAR battle with Arashi basically walloping everyone with stiff lariats all the time and not bumping ever and crusty old Kabuki ruling it doing you know exactly what, hitting the worlds greatest punches and superkicks. Yamada basically gets the shit beaten out of him and eats the fuck out of every lariat and superkick he gets, just drilling himself into the mat with enthusiasm. Okamura is pretty blah but he and Yamada are EAGER and Kabuki is totally carrying this by bumping like a motherfucker and getting chairs chucked in his face and making me give a shit for his nerve hold AGAIN. He teases the fist drop and eats a flying lariat in a sequence that wasn't athletically impressive or anything but awesome in context of the match. I was totally a Kabuki fan before getting into IWA Japan, but seeing him crusty, old and broken down as an improbable but determined company ace who throws fists and gets spin kicked in the face is an enlightenment.
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Motokawa/Nakano was a shockingly good match, everything you can hope for from sleaze indy undercard girl wrestling. Nakano is former GAEA and a kickpadded alternate universe Satomura. She almost KO's Motokawa with her opening barrage and from then on it's on. Everything she does is either a nasty kick or a cool shoot submission. She rules, and why have I never heard of her? Motokawa likes to indulge in silly spots but straightens herself out her after getting kicked in the face 3 or 4 times and starts dropping Nakano with suplexes that would do Otsuka proud. They don't indulge in too many nearfalls and I am left thinking the world needs more of this mysterious Chiharu Nakano.
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More to come. IWA Japan in 1998 rules. IWA Japan 4/29/1998 Perseus & Hidetomo Egawa vs. The Great Takeru & Akinori Tsukioka (The spot-a-ton!) Emi Motokawa vs. Chiharu Nakano (The girl match!) The Great Kabuki & Arashi vs. Keisuke Yamada & Shigeo Okamura (The crusty main event!) I'm an IWA Japan fan now, because every IWA Japan card is great in it's own unique way which can not be expressed in conventional measures of quality, this being an outdoor show in front of a picturesque setting just being the icing on the cake. This was a nice three-piece, as you had the junior opener, which was basically all these guys throwing a slew of big moves and occasional BattlARTSian intermission touches from Egawa including hitting some huge belly to bellys which you do not expect from a tiny insignificant guy like him. Perseus (a guy the internet knows nothing about), for a guy who is all about Dragon Suplexes and Triple Powerbombs and all that also hits a really great powerslam. It's all pretty senseless and really fun. Motokawa/Nakano was a shockingly good match, everything you can hope for from sleaze indy undercard girl wrestling. Nakano is former GAEA and a kickpadded alternate universe Satomura. She almost KO's Motokawa with her opening barrage and from then on it's on. Everything she does is either a nasty kick or a cool shoot submission. She rules, and why have I never heard of her? Motokawa likes to indulge in silly spots but straightens herself out her after getting kicked in the face 3 or 4 times and starts dropping Nakano with suplexes that would do Otsuka proud. They don't indulge in too many nearfalls and I am left thinking the world needs more of this mysterious Chiharu Nakano. The main event was a stupidly good sleazy WAR battle with Arashi basically walloping everyone with stiff lariats all the time and not bumping ever and crusty old Kabuki ruling it doing you know exactly what, hitting the worlds greatest punches and superkicks. Yamada basically gets the shit beaten out of him and eats the fuck out of every lariat and superkick he gets, just drilling himself into the mat with enthusiasm. Okamura is pretty blah but he and Yamada are EAGER and Kabuki is totally carrying this by bumping like a motherfucker and getting chairs chucked in his face and making me give a shit for his nerve hold AGAIN. He teases the fist drop and eats a flying lariat in a sequence that wasn't athletically impressive or anything but awesome in context of the match. I was totally a Kabuki fan before getting into IWA Japan, but seeing him crusty, old and broken down as an improbable but determined company ace who throws fists and gets spin kicked in the face is an enlightenment.
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GAEA runs a lot of sprints, but this was the kind of match that felt like a mix between NWA Studio grappling and BattlARTS with more high flying. Very unique match where both kept stubbornly going for specific moves. Both kept trying for a suplex, Uematsu for the Northern Lights, Kato for the Dragon Suplex, and they had some cool ways to work around these moves. In between that Kato had her kicks and Uematsu a nice shotai, and Kato kept trying to choke her out. You could tell they put thought into every move they tried. That kind of singular focus was really unique and it produced a compelling match. The weak point was the finish which I thought failed to pay off what they had been building up in the previous 10 minutes, but the work was cool and interesting which is what you want from your GAEA.
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The crusty main event! Kabuki train 98 continues! Everyone in this match gets WALLOPED and it rules. Yamada & Okumura get all uppity and Nagasaki fucking wastes them both with chairs. Kabuki & Nagasaki turn into the worlds lumpiest Anderson brothers and procure some brutal armwork and stomps, with Nagasaki rocking the shoulder dislocating Armbars. It's improbable and strange and great. Kabuki hits his awesome fist drop and starts working the ARMPIT CLAW and it's fucking gross. Okumura & Yamada are not technically great but they are willing to smack the shit out of the crusty old bastards and in return get punched in the face, elbowed in the chin and kicked in the throat a LOT. Kabuki & Nagasaki actually have enough cardio to keep things moving for 15 minutes and we get a handful of great spots and thrust kicks. FEAR THE GREEN MIST! Also, SICK piledriver finish. I loved this.
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The spot-a-ton! Match contains half a dozen leg drop variants and half a dozen tope atomicos! They hit ALL the spots. Match is actually fairly competitive. Palomino, the masked Ikuto Hidaka, looks ultra polished working pseudo lucha exchanges. Tsukioka lands an Asai Moonsault into nowhere! Swank moves and dives are rolled out. An almost unrecognizable Mikami hits the neat-o Victory Roll into Kneebar because that was en vogue in 1998. Tsukioka does another insane thing which the camera misses completely! They go BROADWAY (but we will never get the full experience, because they clipped a few minutes from the bout.) This match was praised in an old DVDVR and is still fun today. Manly and whip ass etc.
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IWA Japan 7/20/1998 So IWA Japan continues to be the most watchable non-MUGA promotion in 1998. The awesomeness of IWA Japan is sorely underappreciated, so allow me to breakdown the ingredients that makes a fun indy card! The „who are these guys“ improbable fun opener! Yuji Kito & Yoshiya Yamashita vs. Turtuger & Hiroki Achiiwa. It's 4 rookie nobodies beating the shit out of eachother! Even the turtle guy is laying it in, in between jokes! The ref hits a suicide dive! Brutal elbow drops and kneedrops that land with full weight and bad intentions! Nasty boston crab finish! The tease! Cosmo Soldier vs. Hidetomo Egawa. This was 6 minutes clipped down to 2 and a half. The full match was probably an awkward botch ladden mess, and I wanted to see every second of it! Awkward attempts at shootstyle/lucharesu style experiments and cool suplexes! The utterly bizarre! Freddy Krueger vs. Katsumi Hirano. Freddy Krueger and a blonde japanese guy in a black gi hit the mat! Krueger has a noisy sleazy glamourus valet! Krueger puts the Fujiwara armbar over like a champ, while everyone is eyeballing the whip carrying lady. The spot-a-ton! Asian Cougar & Palomino vs. Akinori Tsukioka & Kyohei Mikami. Match contains half a dozen leg drop variants and half a dozen tope atomicos! They hit ALL the spots. Match is actually fairly competitive. Palomino, the masked Ikuto Hidaka, looks ultra polished working pseudo lucha exchanges. Tsukioka lands an Asai Moonsault into nowhere! Swank moves and dives are rolled out. An almost unrecognizable Mikami hits the neat-o Victory Roll into Kneebar because that was en vogue in 1998. Tsukioka does another insane thing which the camera misses completely! They go BROADWAY (but we will never get the full experience, because they clipped a few minutes from the bout.) This match was praised in an old DVDVR and is still fun today. Manly and whip ass etc. The girl match! Emi Motokawa & Sumie Sakai (Jd') & Sachie Nishibori vs. Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi & Miho Wakizawa. It's somewhat light hearted and also mayhem! They do all the moves. The AJW girls don't look good! Neither does Motokawa. Sakai tries a moonsault off the top to the outside and NOBODY catches her at all! The announcer calls it a „Flying Sausage“ everytime a chubby wrestler attempts a flying bodypress. Nishibori hits some nice flying headscissors, but probably isn't polished at anything else. They already had the foxy S&M valet earlier, why have this match be overly cute? Bring back Chiharu Nakano. The sleazeball fest! Keizo Matsuda & The Great Takeru vs. Masao Orihara & Takeshi Ono. The Not So Great Takeru is in his goofy Power Rangers costume! Masao Orihara & Takeshi Ono are the Tonpachi Machine Guns, and they will kick you in the balls a LOT. Takeshi Ono actually works STIFF. Golly gee he is roughing up those IWA Japan dudes. The Machine Guns are slick and sloppy at the same time, if that makes sense. This was mostly an extended squash for the guns, which is a good thing, because Takeru ain't so great, and Matsuda with his wrestling school level leg drops is laughable. Takeru atleast lays in his spin kicks and hits a moonsault kneedrop. Orihara hits the stupidly gorgeous Orihara moonsault to the outside following a spider german suplex to make up for all the horrible moonsault awrygoings of the evening. Likely the classiest thing he's ever done. The crusty main event! Great Kabuki & Kendo Nagasaki vs. Shigeo Okumura & Keisuke Yamada. Kabuki train 98 continues! Everyone in this match gets WALLOPED and it rules. Yamada & Okumura get all uppity and Nagasaki fucking wastes them both with chairs. Kabuki & Nagasaki turn into the worlds lumpiest Anderson brothers and procure some brutal armwork and stomps, with Nagasaki rocking the shoulder dislocating Armbars. It's improbable and strange and great. Kabuki hits his awesome fist drop and starts working the ARMPIT CLAW and it's fucking gross. Okumura & Yamada are not technically great but they are willing to smack the shit out of the crusty old bastards and in return get punched in the face, elbowed in the chin and kicked in the throat a LOT. Kabuki & Nagasaki actually have enough cardio to keep things moving for 15 minutes and we get a handful of great spots and thrust kicks. FEAR THE GREEN MIST! Also, SICK piledriver finish. I loved this.
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I am not overly familiar with Cooga's career, but I assume this is likely her career match thanks to Jaguar Yokota. Yokota may be old enough to be Cooga's mother, but totally smoked her during the sprint portion of this match. In a lucky moment Cooga land an abisegiri to Yokota's knee which is a totally stealworthy transition. Cooga proceeds to tear up her leg including ramming her with chairs. Yokota's selling was world class and her knee was even bloodied which is something I've never seen in any other match. Yokota kept stumbling and hobbling even while irish whipped and failed to hit her fisherman buster in another great spot which lead to Cooga planting her with some sick DDTs which Yokota sold by spiking herself on her head. Another great spot saw Cooga catching her with another nasty abisegiri to maintain control. I'm annoyed they clipped 4 minutes from this but the clipping was seamless and the match was a great mini junior epic.
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This may take the cake as the most overrated match of 1998, but it's still good enough to make a Top 100. Wagner Jr. utterly dominating Kanemoto was highly entertaining and saved the match from being your typical ridiculous junior affair. He also showed good sense on how to progress the match. I loved how he threw Kanemoto over the top rope like a piece of shit and then chucked a chair in his face. Unfortunately, the transitions and cut offs weren't quite up to snuff. Not much difference between this and joshi, honestly. Both guys were eager to just hit their moves. Thankfully, they remembered how to sell in the last 3rd which saved the finishing run from becoming a complete farce.
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The opening matwork may have been filler, but I still prefer these guys working amateur exchanges and fighting for armlocks over the usual sprint opening. This was, once again, a long, solid match, which I easily enjoyed more than any long AJPW match up to this point. The fighting spirit/no selling shit was also less prevalent. Enjoyed how Kobashi controlled early on with nasty neck cranks etc only for Kawada to start slowly getting the better and using him as a kicking bag. Lots of violent neck chops and boots to the face ensue. They dish out some insane punishment, to the point where the finishing run came across as chaotic messy. Once again I thought the match should've ended like 5-10 minutes earlier, but there was nothing egregious about it. Both guys had some crazy selling. Kawada doing his stumbling around then hit a kick to the face is like the only guy who can do that. So yeah, long, excellently worked, crazy crazy match. I don't mind there being not an epic story, but I thought the match inevitably lacked urgency as opposed to Hashimoto/Fujinami.
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Not as great as their match earlier in the year, but still a pretty good showing. Some nasty work on Ace's neck early on, with Kawada working some nice snug sleeper holds and what not. Some nice more-pissed-off-than-usual stiff exchanges between Kobashi and Kawada ensue, and they tease a big spot from their previous match. Kobashi using the guardrail to soften up Taue's leg was unexpected and nasty, and Ace brings the US style work with some nice looking elbows to the thigh. Unfortunately, the legwork ends up being meaningless heatless filler (gee what's up with every 98 AJPW match having a pointless Figure 4 spot in the middle of it?). The finishing run was as big and dumb as a finishing run can get, but had plenty of fun moments. I expected Kobashi come out and assert himself because he was facing Kawada for the Triple Crown soon, but instead they just destroyed him and it was awesome. Flawed match, but brownie points for having a 30 minute long All Japan match that didn't bore me to tears.
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CM Punk is also a blue belt, supposedly...
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Mariko Yoshida vs. Megumi Fujii (ARSION 5/24/2003) It's pro wrestling's female top grappler vs. her MMA equivalent. This was before Fujii made her MMA debut, but she was already a seriously great grappler. And thus a great matchup for Yoshida to test herself against. Yoshida is a worker and thus carried this nicely, and Fujii's grappling was just a trip to watch. For someone who was pushed as the top submission artist in her promotion for years, Yoshida had no qualms about putting her significantly smaller opponent over as an ultra dangerous force. Early on Yoshida was outmatched on the ground, so she quickly went to her feet and landed a big impact move to gain the advantage. Later she tried standing up again, only to be caught in a whacky twisting armbar. Yoshida looked credible grappling with Fujii and dished out some nasty boots to her face for good measure. Fujii had some ultra impressive counters and didn't have any hiccups for someone who's never done fake fighting before. I'm generally a fan of wrestler vs. MMA fighter matches and this went smoother than most. Last sequence was kind of ridiculous and awesome, like one of those Okada/Omega sequences if they knew how to fight.
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Interesting thought, but I've seen both Kikuchi and Kikuzawa and they are not the same guy. There are tons of late 90s japanese undercarders no one remembers and a few of them have been subject of theories regarding what happened to them. Takeshi Sato, YUSAKU, Hidetomo Egawa, Basara, Cosmo*Soldier, junji.com, I'm collecting 'em like by Pokemon by now. It probably says a lot about me that I know at one point people theorized Basara may have been Yuichi Taniguchi (I doubt it, by the way). It's a miracle Mochizuki and Ishii ended up becoming big stars given how almost everyone else was lost to time or become some type of gimmick wrestler.
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Leave it to a pair of 18 year old girls to have an excellent lengthy match in 1998. The cool thing about the mat stuff they did here was that it wasn't shootstyle stuff, but closer to NWA-ish legbars and kneedrops, executed in really vicious fashion. Sugar doesn't have the high end offense of Satomura, but I thought she did well enough to mix it up and keep the match going. Everything made sense and built really well to their respective finishers (Death Valley Driver vs. Liger Bomb), and while there wasn't any super-focussed extended selling they worked hard to put eachother's offense over as devastating. Plenty of neat spots, including Sato finding ways to counter Satomura's arm attack stuff. Best GAEA match of 1998?
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Finally, a bit of a return to form for Misawa. This wasn't a bad match and had plenty of neat exchanges throughout. I really enjoyed Kawada selling the elbows and Misawa did a neat job putting his banged up leg over early in the match (not that it was much of a factor later on... but I liked it!). On the other hand, it was yet another near 30 minute epic that took a long time to get hot. The work was less randomly thrown together than their match earlier in the year, but still left something to be desired. Also, I thought there could have been a better layout. Much of the early part of the match is Kawada trying to hang on and finding a way to isolate Misawa's weaknesses and Misawa cutting him off. Then at the end Kawada gets a sudden run of big moves together to put his rival away. I think the match would've been more effective if it were Kawada working over Misawa and cutting off his comebacks, then putting that brilliant sequence together. Yeah, I can armchair book too! I don't know whether to love or hate Misawa eating a series of armbreakers and then hitting elbows with that exact arm and then having it hang like a limp noodle. Armbreakers were used much better in GAEA and BattlARTS for sure.
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I actually thought the opening mat exchanges were the highlight of this match. Akiyama lost his calling as a shootstyle grappler, and it's really nice to see an All Japan match open with guys working leg rides and fighting over single legs and the crowd reacting to the small victories in all that. But after that... man, fuck this match. Anytime someone he gets hit he starts no selling while continueing to block incoming hits with his face. Some long and meaningless legwork ensues, three dozen suplexes are thrown... fuck that suplex exchange. With a VENGEANCE! Man, I hate wrestling.
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[1998-04-18-AJPW-Championship Carnival] Mitsuharu Misawa vs Jun Akiyama
Jetlag replied to Loss's topic in April 1998
This is a match that left me really dry. You can only watch so many AJ epics before it gets irritating. The "fast paced opening with surprise big moves" would be a lot more exciting if those big moves didn't get no sold constantly. Then a bunch of filler stuff ensues and Akiyama out of nowhere almost breaks Misawa's face with the reverse calf branding and drops him straight on his head with the GANZO PEDIGREE and you wonder what the hell the point of all this is. The one cool thing in the match was Misawa countering the attempted exploder outside the ring. -
[1998-04-11-AJPW-Championship Carnival] Kenta Kobashi vs Jun Akiyama
Jetlag replied to Loss's topic in April 1998
Jun Akiyama has a mustache! „Maybe if I grow this beard, I will finally be taken seriously as a main eventer?“ Man, what the FUCK is going on in AJPW with every match going 30 minutes?? Make this a little more compact, and you would've ended up with a serious MOTYC. Peppering things up with some holds and teasing spots rather than hitting them adds a lot to the usual AJ formula. Akiyama going for Dragon Screws after getting punished with crossfaces and boston crabs was so much better than Akiyama hitting a bazillion exploidas and heinys. The same can be said for Kobashi who came back with a big chop that nearly broke Akiyama's face. They miscalculated the match pacing, so they were forced to do a bunch of laying around between nearfalls and the last 10 minutes of this were just really stretched paper thin and somewhat forced. Still, the struggling and teasing over big moves was world class (of course being 1998 they also throw out a little too many big moves. Man, it's weird when the Orange Crush is just another move to throw out for a nearfall). Kobashi had one of his better days, hitting an awesome STO and being on point with his leg selling. -
[1998-02-03-BJW-Indy Hyper J Tournament] Yoshihiro Taijiri vs Gedo
Jetlag replied to Loss's topic in February 1998
This was like a sleazy little version of Liger/Sano as Gedo immediately pounces on Tajiri's bad arm while every move Tajiri hits is either a kick to the face or some crazy highspots. Really great selling Tajiri performance with the consistent armselling and constantly working to draw the audience in. Gedo's arm work wasn't frantic but he hit some hard dropkicks and stomps and had a few cool holds to torture him. The explosive sequences towards looked great after they had suckered the audience in with a few double counts and I loved that the work on the shoulder would set up the Gedo Clutch as a dangerous move. Smart indy junior match and an early career highlight for Tajiri. -
Where is the anywhere version of Bull Nakano? Moreover, can someone please create another Fujiwara in a petri dish?
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[1998-03-29-AJPW-Championship Carnival] Mitsuharu Misawa vs Toshiaki Kawada
Jetlag replied to Loss's topic in March 1998
Solid match with lots of neat exchanges throughout. However, it was reaaaal long and also felt really inconsequential. Kawada opens by hitting a big brainbuster, which allows him to work on Misawa's neck for a little, then Misawa nearly KOs him a couple times, then Kawada works his back some... and so forth. It doesn't feel like it's building anywhere, and there was very little urgency. Really one of the most obvious 30 minute draws I've watched. I enjoyed the finish, which saw them bust out things like a Chaos Theory, big knee drop or neckbreaker drop for nearfalls to keep things a little fresh. I also dug the double Tiger Driver spot, „yeah, it's 28 minutes into the match now, I could go for a pin... but I know you're way tougher than this, so have another you son of a bitch.“ -
[1998-03-26-AJPW-Championship Carnival] Toshiaki Kawada vs Jun Akiyama
Jetlag replied to Loss's topic in March 1998
Parts of this came across as an AJPW epic on autopilot, which is, however, still a really good match. Some really good strike exchanges, Akiyama trying his best to stay in control early on, only to eat a nasty Backdrop Suplex which lead to some gritty work on his neck. Akiyama fights back hitting a Dragon Screw which in turn sets up some good legwork (including a killer spot where they struggle over a Sharpshooter) and some excellent selling from Kawada. It's this kind of A leads to B match structure that is really simple and maybe predictable but still ends up producing an enjoyable match. Finish run had some badass strikes such as Kawada hitting an awesome Abisegiri and Akiyama desperately escaping a Powerbomb only to eat a lariat to the back of the head. Some of the obvious „prolonging the match“ stuff such as Kawada locking in another Stretch Plum only to release it and go for a pin (something that about never produces a finish) or Kawada suddenly deciding his leg was hurt again felt pretty dated. The one thing I actively disliked was how everytime Kawada hit a yakuza kick Akiyama would hulk up immediately. Stop hitting that strike then, will you?