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Jetlag

DVDVR 80s Project
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  1. Jetlag
    I rewatched this on a whim and I decided it was a lot better than I initially thought. Nothing GREAT, but perfectly good undercard semi-shootstyle that was actually exciting here or there. The weird thing about the 90s MUGA is that it's like shootstyle with 80s NJPW psychology and tropes; in this case they do spots like the "roll to the floor while in a leglock then slap the shit out of eachother" or "piss off the other guy to lure him into a trap". The grappling early on looked good and the bout had a nice escalation, starting with Kotsubo frustrating Takemura and then pissed off slaps and stomps ensue. I think Takemura went to mexico and then came back as generic heel, he should've stayed a grappler then he might have had a better career. Maybe not in New Japan, but gotten a nice indy run out of it. I echo my previous thoughts on Kotsubo and his punch combo and screw ankle hold, this might be his finest performance ever - which absolutely doesn't say much, but he seemed to be carrying this and it was a nifty enjoyable match.
  2. Jetlag
    Man, they couldn't have booked a less exciting BattlARTS vs. Yume Factory/MUGA matchup. To be fair, this was almost shockingly watchable, as the grappling early on was largely listless as usual from these guys, but atleast not slow or actively bad. Then Tanaka starts doing his usual bullshit like the robot he is, while Kotsubo gets a surprisingly big run of offense. It wasn't terrible and would have been a decent rookie vs. established guy match, but Kotsubo actually had more experience than Tanaka here. Kotsubo has been in some good matches (probably less than 5 tho), but you can tell why he stayed jobber for life here.
  3. Jetlag
    Okay, wow. This was brutal as hell. Essentially the world's sleaziest WAR match. Forget about explosions and barbedwire, this was about crazy headbutts, lariats and punches in the face. This was also a total fight. Normally in hardcore type matches there will be some lulls when guys are rummaging around, but here they are just killing eachother the whole way. Right out the gate they are ramming their heads into eachother, Goto's face in a pool of blood immediately, and I love how Goto was selling that he is clearly rattled by Onita's headbutts but still trying to push back. Onita comes out on top and immediately goes for a suicide dive that doesn't go well, and Goto immediately grabs a chair and waffles Onita in the face. Next you know Onita is bleeding and Goto continues to beat the life out of him, just killing him chucking tables and stomping him in the face. When that doesn't do it Goto briefly works Onita's leg to set up an STF, altough he is still laying in a fucking stiff beating kicking Onita in the hamstring. One headbutt exchange later and Onita has proven that he is still tougher, sending Goto outside altough Goto immediately goes for a fucking dropkick there. Neither of these guys will stop attacking, altough Onita gets the advantage again body slamming him into chairs and landing a table-cracking piledriver that looked like a potential KO as much as anything. Back in the ring and both guys are a mess at this point. Goto with the blistering lariats and huge superfly splash again, but Onita catches him with his DDTs and goes on to drill him with the big damn powerbombs. I actually liked the "kick out at 1 spot" here, it's become such a cliche at this point, but Goto's facial expression really gets it across, he's thinking "I know I'm dead on my feet, but I'm not quitting now, fuck you" then punches Onita in the face. Onita just keeps dropping Goto with one nastier powerbomb after another until he stays down, making this almost a Steve Williams Backdrop moment. I dunno. This is probably not as fine as Kawada/Taue, but in way it feels like the ultimate 90s indy sleaze massacre. It's easily the best match of that kind that I can recall seeing. It's gruesome, primitive, savage as hell and unlike many other matches of that kind had me enthralled the whole way through. Yeah maybe it's not a Top 40 match in 1991, who gives a shit. I loved this.
  4. Jetlag
    Arkangel de la Muerte match from 93? Mexicans vs. Puerto Ricans match? WING delivers it all! This was really cool to watch as it was a rare opportunity to see the Invaders show their technical skill. The early exchanges had the feel of workers who are not used to each other still clicking. I really liked the simple, powerful takedowns and sweeps and all guys looked good. Theeeen after that mexican 1st half of matwork and armdrags we move into a Puerto Rican second half were the Invaders crack the mexicans really violently in the brain with chairshots and kneedrops. I especially liked how the Invader's dives felt like they were actually assaulting the guy and not just hitting a nice move. I like how Arkangel and Talisman made several comeback attempts culminating in Arkangel getting a bigger run before getting handily finished off with a couple crushing double teams from the Boricuas. Really cool stuff and I wouldn't mind seeing more Invaders.
  5. Jetlag
    WING is a rare fed were the juniors are more interesting to me than the heavyweights. This match won't blow your mind, but it's interesting and a lot fun to watch. For two no name indy wrestlers these two are surprisingly competent at pro wrestling, and they manage to have a bonafide 17 minute proper title match with no stutters at all. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I prefer this type of junior wrestling where they keep it mostly basic with rope running exchanges leading into hip tosses, and building to submission holds like a surfboard or STF. They are even clever enough to work a compelling layout with Motegi controlling early on and hitting a big dive right out of the gate, and Itakura having to work his way in. The finishing run was executed very well and they avoided overkill completely. Damn good showing for a match at a tiny houseshow.
  6. Jetlag
    The junior tag was much faster and livelier paced and just a really fun match. One thing that's different between early 90s junior indy wrestling and today's junior wrestling is that back then everything felt made up on the spot, nothing felt overly contrived or choreographed, and I like that a lot. Even when Motegi busts out a dive it feels like something he just decided to do in the moment, and thus much more exciting. Motegi is generally awesome in these matches as he always does something entertaining, like randomly locking in an awesome ground cobra twist in this match. Matsuzaki I liked a lot on the previous OPW show and he looked good again here throwing hard kicks and headbutts. Tokuda was the guy I hadn't seen before, and he looked really fun too, apparently doing a judo gimmick, as he had some cool judo-ish offense, such as Mariko Yoshida monkey flip into armbar and a badass backdrop that he turned into a Uranage in mid-air. The finish was great too with Motegi just nuking Matsuzaki with the triple german, really fast and with a ton of snap. He made that move look better than Angle. There I said it, Motegi > Angle. Hell, Motegi > Liger. I love Motegi pretty much.
  7. Jetlag
    So, a shitton of WING has popped up on the internet, includig the handheld show I reviewed earlier: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn2ThJiM6OQiC1Le-WppomQ/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKDS3Uc07Guw9M06YnStqNQ And also including this show: W*ING 01/02/93 Card: Katsumi Hirano vs some WING rookie Ryo Miyake vs The Winger Mitsuteru Tokuda & Masayoshi Motegi vs Kazuhiko Matsuzaki & Hiroshi Itakura Gypsy Joe vs Shoji Nakamaki Kim Duk vs Hiroshi Shimada WWC Junior Heavyweight Champion Ray Gonzalez vs Masaru Toi WWC Caribbean Heavyweight Champion Yukihiro Kanemura vs Ricky Patterson Jason the Terrible, The Cuban Assassin & Mohammad Hussein vs Mr. Pogo, Gypsy Joe & Crash the Terminator in a Bunkhouse Deathmatch This card looks awesome, and it was pretty cool. W*ING had really nice variety - you really don't see indies flying in Puerto Ricans and US legends for a show in Korakuen hall anymore, not to mention Saddam Hussein. And this starts with a lot of wrestling, as Miyake and Winger go toe to in a 20 minute scientific wrestling masterpiece!! Well, actually it wasn't that great. I wanna congratulate them for starting slow with a ton of matwork, but it was... really slow... so slow in fact that I watched it at 2x speed and it was still slow. And they didn't really know how to make their matwork interesting. They finally pick it up in the 2nd half when they start throwing all their bombs for 2,9999 counts. Miyake has really nice offense, nice fatboy sentons and a sick looking Tiger Driver/Ligerbomb mashup. The time limit draw was really predictable and they also ran out of moves they could do so they had to repeat spots... not a good match, but the crowd ate it up, so who am I to judge. The junior tag was much faster and livelier paced and just a really fun match. One thing that's different between early 90s junior indy wrestling and today's junior wrestling is that back then everything felt made up on the spot, nothing felt overly contrived or choreographed, and I like that a lot. Even when Motegi busts out a dive it feels like something he just decided to do in the moment, and thus much more exciting. Motegi is generally awesome in these matches as he always does something entertaining, like randomly locking in an awesome ground cobra twist in this match. Matsuzaki I liked a lot on the previous OPW show and he looked good again here throwing hard kicks and headbutts. Tokuda was the guy I hadn't seen before, and he looked really fun too, apparently doing a judo gimmick, as he had some cool judo-ish offense, such as Mariko Yoshida monkey flip into armbar and a badass backdrop that he turned into a Uranage in mid-air. The finish was great too with Motegi just nuking Matsuzaki with the triple german, really fast and with a ton of snap. He made that move look better than Angle. There I said it, Motegi > Angle. Hell, Motegi > Liger. I love Motegi pretty much. At this point the card gets a lot hokier. Joe/Nakamaki was basically just a squash. Shimada/Duk was a slightly weird match - Duk looks really huge and menacing and I was totally expecting him to beat the shit out of the young boy, but instead he was really nice and they just had a normal match with drop toe holds and bionic elbows and whatnot. Gonzalez/Toi was another cool juniors match with Gonzalez having lots of elegant moves, but it was fairly rushed at about 8 minutes length. Lots of nice crossbodies, leapfrogs and clotheslines though. The two main events - you didn't see much of em because it's a handheld and these two matches had a lot of wandering crowd brawling. Patterson/Kanemura looked like a good match, Patterson looked like a mashup between Hansen and Sgt. Slaughter so he's cool, he also hit a pretty ballsy spinning plancha. Both guys bled and Kanemura was selling big. The main event was essentially guys wandering around and hitting/stabbing eachother. Crowd was into it, but hard to figure out how good it was as you basically saw less than 1/5th of it..
  8. Jetlag
    He is one of Meltzer's highest rated wrestlers, I think the US guy with most ****+ matches.
  9. Jetlag
    Itsuki Yamazaki awesome match train continues. Much like the Kansai match this was an extremely effective singles match crafted around the personality of her opponent. Plum is of course completely different from Kansai. I dug the opening of this match a lot, as Plum immediately dumps Yamazaki with a huge german suplex. Yamazaki makes a brief skillful comeback, but immediately rolls outside to sell her neck. Next thing that happens is Plum working over that neck with elbow. The match was full of cool little touches like that to add purpose to even basic moves: Yamazaki controls with some sleeper holds early on, Plum complaining about being choked, so when Plum makes her comeback she almost puts away Yamazaki with a sleeper of her own. When Plum was catching Yamazaki with her rolling legbars, the first thing Yamazaki does after she regains control is drop Plum with a big kneebreaker before stumbling across the ring selling her own leg. I thought the story of the young girl pushing the superstar to the edge of defeat was done in really compelling fashion and Yamazaki's fast moving spots were cool. Also, this was a rare match where the spot where a wrestler gets pushed off the tope rope while the other is trying for a flying move actually ended up being of importance. Really well worked high end joshi match for 1990, Yamazaki is 2-0 so far.
  10. Jetlag
    5/25/90 Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Plum Mariko Itsuki Yamazaki awesome match train continues. Much like the Kansai match this was an extremely effective singles match crafted around the personality of her opponent. Plum is of course completely different from Kansai. I dug the opening of this match a lot, as Plum immediately dumps Yamazaki with a huge german suplex. Yamazaki makes a brief skillful comeback, but immediately rolls outside to sell her neck. Next thing that happens is Plum working over that neck with elbow. The match was full of cool little touches like that to add purpose to even basic moves: Yamazaki controls with some sleeper holds early on, Plum complaining about being choked, so when Plum makes her comeback she almost puts away Yamazaki with a sleeper of her own. When Plum was catching Yamazaki with her rolling legbars, the first thing Yamazaki does after she regains control is drop Plum with a big kneebreaker before stumbling across the ring selling her own leg. I thought the story of the young girl pushing the superstar to the edge of defeat was done in really compelling fashion and Yamazaki's fast moving spots were cool. Also, this was a rare match where the spot where a wrestler gets pushed off the tope rope while the other is trying for a flying move actually ended up being of importance. Really well worked high end joshi match for 1990, Yamazaki is 2-0 so far.
  11. Jetlag
    This is the 4th and last match in the series of awesome brawls between these two teams. They only show 13 minutes of a 22 minute bout, which I'm pretty salty about, but hey, until recently I didn't even know this show even existed on tape! The clipping is seamless so the match feels complete enough, and it's another high intensity affair that felt like it could end at any moment. The centerpiece was Kotsubo getting KO'd by a high kick from Taru and then the buko guys kill the ever loving shit out of him spin kicking him in the head a bunch. Kotsubo looked convincingly near death and the finish between him and Taru was far better than it should plausibly be. Intense chaotic stuff as always from these teams, also Kamikaze almost kills some Buko guys by landing with his knees on their heads doing a spaceman moonsault. God bless WDF for this shit.
  12. Jetlag
    Another very good entry in the shockingly awesome WDF vs. Shin FMW series. In this match Nakano teams with Basara, who is a pudgy low ranked guy in an awesome mask (it has a beard). This matchup gives Nakano and Goto the opportunity to work a really nice opening match section, where both guys have great armdrags, firemans carries etc. and then kick the shit out of the lower ranked guy on the other team. Nakano stomps the hell out of future Kikutaro (take that you unfunny motherfucker!) but Basara gets it worse as Goto piledrives him on the floor, ripping his mask open and bloodying him. Goto's awesome and unique use of foreign objects continues in this match as he grabs a broom, then breaks it in half and stabs Basara in the face with the wooden splinters. It's shit that happens in any lousy deathmatch but the way Goto does it makes it look like some horrific inventive abuse. The crowd actually gets into Basara as he absorbs a beatdown and he arguably has his finest moments ever in this match (not a high bar, but it's something), .including landing a big diving headbutt that leaves a pool of blood on the other guys chest. Kikuzawa also busts out the fatboy moonsault and Goto makes uses of the ring bell guy's hammer which I am always a sucker for. Really good stuff, Goto always does the same shit, but he can do no wrong in this formular and the WDF guys were perfect foils as usual.
  13. Jetlag
    WDF opening matches keep on delivering. This was less of a horrific fascinating trainwreck, and just a really fun match with stiff shots and some matwork. Fujizaki continues to bring the hatred, in this case he goes at it with generic rookie Tsukioka (the future Kuishinbo Kamen) and bah gawd Tsukioka actually gives it back to him! Fujizaki starts the fun with stiff headbutts and slaps, and Tsukioka gives him back some with Tenryu style kicks to the face and stiff punches from mount. Man it's insane these two wound up being comedy workers, can you imagine the universe in which Fugofugo Yumeji and Kuishinbo Kamen had an epic bloodfeud? Takeru looked like the IWA Japan resident Hayabusa ripoff, and actually wasn't a highspot machine, in fact he was easily outshone by Makoto Saito. Saito hits a gorgous springboard tope and also almost breaks Takeru's face with a spin kick. This was worked almost like a mini-AJPW epic under 15 minutes, stiff shots and neck-crushing suplexes and neat double teams and some decent enough matwork. Somewhere on the verge between fun and really good, but man I wish there was a company around right now that put on wrestling like this.
  14. Jetlag
    Back to the fed that started the madness: WDF 9/23/1997 Tadahiro Fujisaki & Makoto Saito vs. Great Takeru & Akinori Tsukioka Shinichi Shino & Onryo vs. Cosmo Soldier & Shigeo Kato Shinigami vs. Katsumi Hirano Masashi Aoyagi & Gokuaku Omibozu vs. Masayoshi Motegi & Azteca Shinichi Nakano & Basara vs. Tarzan Goto & Jun Kikuzawa Masakazu Fukuda & Kamikaze & Hiroyoshi Kotsubo vs. Masaaki Mochizuki & Takashi Okamura & Yoshikazu Taru I got this and 3 other shows from Lynch... they weren't listed in his PDF file or anywhere, but I guess he just magically summons stuff like this from time to time. And what do ya know, this card was pretty awesome. The opener was a well worked match that was also stiff as fuck and had some really good hatred between future comedy jobbers Fugofugo and Kuishinbo Kamen. Also Saito really should've kept wrestling this way instead of becoming a generic heel in Toryumon (Dragon System ruins everything I guess), he was flying around and spin kicking people in the face like the easiest thing in the world. The second match was not really good but had Shinichi Shino threating the other two guys like trash and smacking them around all stiffly and arrogantly for 8 minutes or so. The 3rd match - Shinigami is so fucking bizarre to watch, also I am probably the first person in the western hemisphere to have seen three Katsumi Hirano matches. The second half had a decent Karatekas vs. wrestlers match. For some reason Aoyagi works not that urgent in his fed and just pummels his opponents like he was auditioning for a WCW gig, and Azteca is such a goof, but atleast the match had an exciting ending that fans got into. The two main events were great - Goto match was a Goto match, well it had some fun matwork between Goto and Nakano, but mostly it was Goto carving up Basara and ripping mask, and it was awesome. The main event was another high intensity affair between the Buko guys and the WDF home boys, with all 3 kickers trying to kill Kotsubo dead spin kicking his skull, huge deadly dives, reckless spin kicks and great crowd heat. I am just sour cause they clipped a 22 minute match down to 14, but the stuff they showed was really good and felt like it could end at any moment.
  15. Jetlag
    The other fun part of watching the original JWP: getting to check out how good Mayumi Ozaki was early on. She was a 5 foot 90 pound girl with 3 years of experience, but the way she wrestled here, she might aswell have been Arn Anderson. She brought the asskicking to the idol girl in a way that made this resemble a US style match, working Cuty over with stomps to the face, big knee drops, stepping on her hand etc. I know this type of stuff is bread and butter joshi, but I still thought the way they paced the match early on was exceptional, with Ozaki dominating and Suzuki having to string a few nifty babyface flyer spots together to regain control. Eventually Suzuki starts working a chickenwing crossface (everyone in JWP uses the UWF submissions), before Ozaki lands a cool leg trip to stomp the hell out of Cutie's leg – which is promptly no sold cause Cutie ain't no Mimi Hagiwara, but okay. They do 50/50 section trading a bunch of nearfalls and keeping a good „this could be decided at a coin toss“ feeling before Mayumi seals it by catching Suzuki flying at her into a bridge suplex that was pretty cool. Oz was queensized in this match, and even though they both made their debut the same year, it felt like a seasoned vet carrying a young flyer to an impressive match.
  16. Jetlag
    Some matches from 1989... 8/13/89 Tokyo Korakuen Hall Jr. Tournament: Plum Mariko vs. The Scorpion This was a hot 7 minute sprint where they give their all. These joshi sprints work much better when they keep them short instead of dragging them out by doing moves 3 times in a row, or throwing in entirely too many half crabs. Lots of neat moves and impressive suplexes here, especially from Plum. Scorpion busts out a cool back top from the ring apron, and has other nifty moments like an ankle pick, but overall was working a slightly more generic style than she did later on. They keep it flowing really nicely and deliver a bunch of hot nearfull. Fun exciting match. Jr. Tournament: Rumi Kazama vs. Smiley Mami The fun part of watching the original JWP: getting to check out all these workers you knew nothing about previously. Smiley Mami looked like a distaff Kandori here, rocking a grappler outfit and working a shoot submission based style, while Kazama was kickpadded and not afraid to kick her in the face a bunch. Clearly, the JWP crew were watching too much UWF around this time. Mami looks real good, wrenching in her front chokes and kimuras hard so you really buy how bad they suck to be in, and Kazama pays her back by kicking the crap out of her. Mami catches her leg and they do some dueling arm/legwork before Kazama strings a series of kicks to the jaw together, KO'ing Mami on her feet before sealing it with a german. This was also a 7 minute cool undercard match but completely different from Plum/Scorpion, JWP had pretty nice variety. 4/26/89 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Mayumi Ozaki vs. Cutie Suzuki The other fun part of watching the original JWP: getting to check out how good Mayumi Ozaki was early on. She was a 5 foot 90 pound girl with 3 years of experience, but the way she wrestled here, she might aswell have been Arn Anderson. She brought the asskicking to the idol girl in a way that made this resemble a US style match, working Cuty over with stomps to the face, big knee drops, stepping on her hand etc. I know this type of stuff is bread and butter joshi, but I still thought the way they paced the match early on was exceptional, with Ozaki dominating and Suzuki having to string a few nifty babyface flyer spots together to regain control. Eventually Suzuki starts working a chickenwing crossface (everyone in JWP uses the UWF submissions), before Ozaki lands a cool leg trip to stomp the hell out of Cutie's leg – which is promptly no sold cause Cutie ain't no Mimi Hagiwara, but okay. They do 50/50 section trading a bunch of nearfalls and keeping a good „this could be decided at a coin toss“ feeling before Mayumi seals it by catching Suzuki flying at her into a bridge suplex that was pretty cool. Oz was queensized in this match, and even though they both made their debut the same year, it felt like a seasoned vet carrying a young flyer to an impressive match.
  17. Jetlag
    This is an amazing match; not just by far the best JWP match I've seen probably ever, but in the top 5-10 of the finest women's single matches I can remember. What made this outstanding was that what they did was stylistically state of the art, mixing 80s NJPW-like shootstyle/wrestling hybrid with something resembling a classic title match, and emotionally captivating: right from the get go there is a ton of disdain, uncooperativeness, and another fantastic underdog performance from Harley. So this is like a joshi version of Fujinami/Maeda, without the blood and more outright hatred. Kandori is naturally really good at grabbing flash submissions and they use their holds really well, while Harley was bringing the violence with her kicks – there are a few moments where she is contorting her body to get out of Kandori's holds and then proceeds to kick Kandori in the face and ear repeatedly. It was awe inspiring. Kandori gives her back some raining angry shots down on her smaller opponent too, and with some of the uncooperative moves, stiff shots and flash subs here I was thinking I was watching some sort of Tenryu/Hashimoto/Fujiwara showdown. Another cool thing is how they interweave their shootstyle stuff with more traditional wrestling, they were working shoot kicks and flash armbars one minute, and then neck bridges and small packages. The rollups make really good nearfalls because JWP was booking a lot of rollup finishes, and thanks to that they can build to big section of 2,99999s for the ending run that doesn't have that big move spam. Some incredibly well timed spots, and there is one false finish that is executed in a way I can't recall seeing in many other wrestling matches, which sets up another angry Kandori comeback to the keep the crowd behind Harley. I mean, watching what they did here felt like the stuff that is missing from so many wrestling matches, they had the folks at Korakuen hall flipping out for a small package or fall-on-top counter. Really great match that delivered beyond expectations, considering this is Kandori years before coming into Superstardom and Saito who was almost completely under the radar (RIP, you magnificient gem). Mindblowing that you can still find shit as good as this in 2017 that has apparently never been talked about.
  18. Jetlag
    7/19/90 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Shinobu Kandori vs. Harley Saito This is an amazing match; not just by far the best JWP match I've seen probably ever, but in the top 5-10 of the finest women's single matches I can remember. What made this outstanding was that what they did was stylistically state of the art, mixing 80s NJPW-like shootstyle/wrestling hybrid with something resembling a classic title match, and emotionally captivating: right from the get go there is a ton of disdain, uncooperativeness, and another fantastic underdog performance from Harley. So this is like a joshi version of Fujinami/Maeda, without the blood and more outright hatred. Kandori is naturally really good at grabbing flash submissions and they use their holds really well, while Harley was bringing the violence with her kicks – there are a few moments where she is contorting her body to get out of Kandori's holds and then proceeds to kick Kandori in the face and ear repeatedly. It was awe inspiring. Kandori gives her back some raining angry shots down on her smaller opponent too, and with some of the uncooperative moves, stiff shots and flash subs here I was thinking I was watching some sort of Tenryu/Hashimoto/Fujiwara showdown. Another cool thing is how they interweave their shootstyle stuff with more traditional wrestling, they were working shoot kicks and flash armbars one minute, and then neck bridges and small packages. The rollups make really good nearfalls because JWP was booking a lot of rollup finishes, and thanks to that they can build to big section of 2,99999s for the ending run that doesn't have that big move spam. Some incredibly well timed spots, and there is one false finish that is executed in a way I can't recall seeing in many other wrestling matches, which sets up another angry Kandori comeback to the keep the crowd behind Harley. I mean, watching what they did here felt like the stuff that is missing from so many wrestling matches, they had the folks at Korakuen hall flipping out for a small package or fall-on-top counter. Really great match that delivered beyond expectations, considering this is Kandori years before coming into Superstardom and Saito who was almost completely under the radar (RIP, you magnificient gem). Mindblowing that you can still find shit as good as this in 2017 that has apparently never been talked about.
  19. Jetlag
    This is the finals of the UWA title tournament. In a way this feels like an early Misawa/Kawada match, two young workers having a somewhat basic match upgraded to epic format, while adding their own touches. This is different from the get go, as they start slow on the mat and really work to establish their roles. I don't know whether to call this a match that is extremely unlike joshi, or extremely JWP. There certainly is something really cool about the style they are working, as they mix bridge spots and sunset flips with the brutally stiff shots Kansai is known for (and Harley steps up to her level). The pace was almost like a niggly european bout, as they would stick to wrestling, but occasionally there would be an explosion. Kansai starts the fun, but whiffs on a dropkick and Saito pounces on her with a series of kicks and knees in the corner that would've done Kawada proud. Of course this does not end well for little Harley and soon after Kansai is cracking her with kicks and chairshots. This sets up the rest of the match for Harley refusing to quit despite being in a grueling battle. I could see some people not being overly in love with the generic title match layout for this match (there's even rollup exchanges at one point), but I thought Harley was a phenomenal underdog here and the style they used was awesome. Great match, Harley really should've been a bigger star.
  20. Jetlag
    Haven't had much trouble with the handhelds so far. I'm used to handhelds by now, though. The camera angle is good though and they always catch everything going on. Anyways... 11/11/90 Osaka: Miss A vs. Devil Masami This was the two biggest women in the fed meeting in a match. It was kind of a disappointment though, as it followed the same basic pattern as all the these other matches: Fast start, work some holds in the middle to kill time, then do a 50/50 run trading 2,9s. It wasn't bad, Devil can throw bombs, and Miss A as always kicks hard to soften up her opponents, still the end run wasn't that grand and A's victory seemed to come too easily. There was also a bunch of work on Masami's leg, and Kansai missed a suicide dive, but neither thing ended up being important. Yes yes, I'm pedantic, but they just really didn't deliver anything overly spectacular to win me other. 2/1/91 Miss A /Dynamite Kansai vs. Harley Saito (UWA Title Tournament Final) This is the finals of the UWA title tournament. In a way this feels like an early Misawa/Kawada match, two young workers having a somewhat basic match upgraded to epic format, while adding their own touches. This is different from the get go, as they start slow on the mat and really work to establish their roles. I don't know whether to call this a match that is extremely unlike joshi, or extremely JWP. There certainly is something really cool about the style they are working, as they mix bridge spots and sunset flips with the brutally stiff shots Kansai is known for (and Harley steps up to her level). The pace was almost like a niggly european bout, as they would stick to wrestling, but occasionally there would be an explosion. Kansai starts the fun, but whiffs on a dropkick and Saito pounces on her with a series of kicks and knees in the corner that would've done Kawada proud. Of course this does not end well for little Harley and soon after Kansai is cracking her with kicks and chairshots. This sets up the rest of the match for Harley refusing to quit despite being in a grueling battle. I could see some people not being overly in love with the generic title match layout for this match (there's even rollup exchanges at one point), but I thought Harley was a phenomenal underdog here and the style they used was awesome. Great match, Harley really should've been a bigger star.
  21. Jetlag
    Hahaha, I just noticed Kansai comes out to Conga. „My themesong is goofy latin pop, now watch me brutalize girls with my unpulled kicks.“ This was shockingly good for a Sawai match – it starts fun with Kansai taking one of the hardest guardrail bumps I've ever seen (scaring the audience in that section good) before Sawai works a fun control segment, using chokes and a spinning body scissor. They get into stiff slapfights and trading headbutts on the ground and this is pretty cool big girl wrestling. Kansai takes over with her badass kick to the throat and then methodically works over Sawai's back with headbutts and brutal kicks to set up her Scorpion Deathlock. However Sawai makes another comeback, this time bloodying Kansai by ramming her head into the steel ringsteps. Kansai is selling big and making desperate comebacks now and Eagle continues to work the cut with punches. Sawai impresses me by selling a good deal herself, acknowledging the work on her back from earlier. They do these spots where one girl goes for a suplex and other twists in mid-air to crush her with her weight, which look double cool because these two are chunky. I felt the match was building to a bigger crescendo than we got, but then again this was only the semi final. Still, quite good match for what it was, and I could see this being considered a classic if it happened in a US fed.
  22. Jetlag
    More from the 1st round of that UWA tournament... You wanna know how low-budget JWP was back then? They couldn't afford to make a graphic displaying the tournament brackets, so they drew them on a piece of cardboard and filmed two guys talking over that for the beginning of the tape. https://imgur.com/Op3tQOX ^looks like something from a super low budget splatter movie. Also, all these matches were filmed with 1 camera. I dig the asthetics though. 1/7/91: Eagle Sawai vs. Shinobu Kandori This was sort of interesting, as it was Sawai's heel tactics vs. Kandori's no nonsense style. In practise however it was just a decent houseshow undercard affair. Because Sawai is chunky, her stuff becomes a little more interesting, she has a nice back elbow and missed superfly splash. Kandori nailed her with a stiff lariat to the throat and some hard kicks to the spine, but didn't add much otherwise, not even any cool flash submissions. Eventually Kandori got really upset and hit Sawai with a chair causin the DQ and Sawai to advance in the tournament, proving this was just a throwaway match to get Sawai to proceed in the tournament over Kandori in cheap manner. 1/8/91: Harley Saito vs. Devil Masami This was a weird match where it was two clearly good workers bringing lots of good stuff to the table, but not really putting it together into an actively great match. They were working from a big vs. Small base, with Masami planting little Harley with big powerbombs, gorilla presses and other throws, while Harley was fighting back using sharp kicks and agility. Masami also did some excellent armwork, proving she was still highly proficient in the technical stuff too. On the other hand Masami's personality seemed to kind of eat the match up. There was some bizarre crowd interactions (drunk gaijins in the audience?) and Masami never seemed in serious trouble until Saito picked up the win with a fluke rollup. Fun stuff but not a serious contest. 1/13/91 Osaka, Tournament Semifinal: Miss A vs. Eagle Sawai Hahaha, I just noticed Kansai comes out to Conga. „My themesong is goofy latin pop, now watch me brutalize girls with my unpulled kicks.“ This was shockingly good for a Sawai match – it starts fun with Kansai taking one of the hardest guardrail bumps I've ever seen (scaring the audience in that section good) before Sawai works a fun control segment, using chokes and a spinning body scissor. They get into stiff slapfights and trading headbutts on the ground and this is pretty cool big girl wrestling. Kansai takes over with her badass kick to the throat and then methodically works over Sawai's back with headbutts and brutal kicks to set up her Scorpion Deathlock. However Sawai makes another comeback, this time bloodying Kansai by ramming her head into the steel ringsteps. Kansai is selling big and making desperate comebacks now and Eagle continues to work the cut with punches. Sawai impresses me by selling a good deal herself, acknowledging the work on her back from earlier. They do these spots where one girl goes for a suplex and other twists in mid-air to crush her with her weight, which look double cool because these two are chunky. I felt the match was building to a bigger crescendo than we got, but then again this was only the semi final. Still, quite good match for what it was, and I could see this being considered a classic if it happened in a US fed.
  23. Jetlag
    Some matches I've watched in the last few weeks, starting with the most famous: Shinobu Kandori vs. Devil Masami (Original JWP, 7/14/88) The original JWP is painfully underexplored. This is probably it's most prolific match, and it's more interesting than a great match. You may theorize that this is Kandori, the dangerous shooter putting the pro wrestler under fire and setting the blueprints for Kandori/Hokuto... which is a good formula, but in reality it was Devil dragging a green Kandori by the nose through a long match. Kandori looks good on the mat, and not very good doing anything else. Devil is as mean as you can want a hardened veteran to be carrying this and brings the goods, downing Kandori with a huge punch, almost ripping her in half with a surfboard, dishing out clubbing blows to make up for Kandori's weak kicks and so on. The biggest problem with the match is that it's needlessly long, as the iconic moment - where they both start bleeding all over the ring - only comes about 30 minutes into the match, and before that, there's a lot of meandering. It felt a bit like Devil redoing the Chigusa match against a far lesser Chigusa with nice submissions. The actual bloodbath was kind of underwhelming too, honestly. There's always charm to watching a rookie and a veteran going along for a lengthy match and this had enough good moments and nearfalls to keep you satisfied, but I gotta say this wasn't as good as I've seen it hyped up. Also, I'll never understand what was up with that restart/overtime they did. Mayumi Ozaki vs. The Scorpion (JWP 6/14/90) This was a pretty fun match between two young and eager workers. The Scorpion works a fun junior/shootstylist hybrid style and Ozaki always adds a ton of personality to her matches. In fact Ozaki looked as good and charismatic as she did in her most famous matches. Her outfit was pure pulp awesomeness and she reminded me a little bit of Negro Casas here in how fast she was thinking and how she would exploit weaknesses relentlessly. Scorpion's execution was a little sloppy at times, so I have no problem calling this an Ozaki carryjob. Whenever Ozaki was able to grab an arm or leg, she would stomp the shit out of that body part to create an opening, then go for the finish. Because this was 1990, moves like a superplex or sunset flip were HOT nearfalls and they timed everything extremely well, resulting in a bunch of 2,9999s that the crowd went bananas for. Weak finish, but I still liked the match a lot. Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Miss A (Dynamite Kansai) (JWP 1/6/91) I'm not sure why the name change from Miss A to Dynamite Kansai. She looks and wrestles the exact same. This was a first round match in a tournament for the UWA International title(?) and a better match than a lot of tournament finals I've seen. Why have I never heard anyone talk about how awesome Itsuki Yamazaki was in JWP? It's far more interesting than anything I've seen her do in AJW. Right at the go Kansai whacks Yamazaki with a big lariat, but in the following tussle on the outside Yamazaki catches her leg and rams it into the steel post. Yamazaki proceeds to work over Kansai's leg and use this advantage to stay in control. When Kansai comes back, she immediately reestablishes how dangerous she is by crushing the veteran with ultra stiff blows. I thought Kansai's selling was good enough, as she made it clear the leg was bothering her and there were times where she couldn't follow through due to the damage done, on the other hand Yamazaki was super focussed and always aiming for the weak spot to get out of her situation. Yamazaki would add these cool maestra-like touches, such as locking in an octopus hold from her back, or elevating herself extra high when reversing a figure 4 (something I've never seen before). Yamazaki had excellent game, but in the end fell to a crushing shot from Kansai when she thought she had her in the bag. Really good skill vs. Pure brutality match.
  24. Jetlag
    Early JWP seems to be the biggest mystery of joshi along with LLPW. There's so little discussion about it, even though there is plenty interesting to it: it had future stars like Kandori, Ozaki and Kansai, and veterans such as Devil and Itsuki Yamazaki. Gran Hamada trained the girls, and they used a unique style while still bringing the workrate. I've aquired quite a bit of this old stuff recently, so I think it's time to settle this and discover things such as: - What are the good matches involving pre-interpromotional blowup Kandori, Kansai, Ozaki, etc. that is relevant to their GWE case? (Stuff that was not brought up in the GWE discussion) - How close were those workers in their early state to their later, more famous versions? - Who is the lost great worker among the lesser knowns? (SPOILER: It's motherfucking Harley Saito, god bless her) - Are there any hidden gems/all time great stuff that stands up to the best stuff AJW was putting out? (SPOILER: Yes there was) I'll be posting my reviews in this thread and use it to document my findings. Recommended Matches: (ongoing) Shinobu Kandori vs. Devil Masami (Original JWP, 7/14/88) --- 1988 MOTY Rumi Kazama vs. Plum Mariko (2/12/89) Shinobu Kandori vs. Miss A (7/13/89) Mayumi Ozaki vs. Cutie Suzuki (4/26/1989) --- 1989 MOTY Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Plum Mariko (JWP 5/25/90) Mayumi Ozaki vs. The Scorpion (JWP 6/14/90) Shinobu Kandori vs. Harley Saito (7/19/90) --- 1990 MOTY Rumi Kazama & Shinobu Kandori vs. Devil Masami & Itsuki Yamazaki (JWP 9/30/90) Miss A & Harley Saito vs. Shinobu Kandori & Rumi Kazama (JWP 10/10/90) Rumi Kazama vs. Mayumi Ozaki (12/24/90) Mayumi Ozaki & Rumi Kazama vs. Shinobu Kandori & Harley Saito (JWP 1/6/1991) Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Miss A (Dynamite Kansai) (JWP 1/6/91) (UWA Tournament First Round Match) Miss A (Dynamite Kansai) vs. Eagle Sawai (JWP 1/13/91) (UWA Tournament Semifinals) Miss A vs. Harley Saito (UWA Tournament finals) (2/1/91) Miss A & Harley Saito vs. Rumi Kazama & Mayumi Ozaki (JWP 4/23/1991) Devil Masami & Rumi Kazama vs. Miss A & Itsuki Yamazaki (JWP 4/26/1991) Devil Masami & Hikari Fukuoka vs. Itsuki Yamazaki & Cuty Suzuki (JWP 5/25/1991) Utako Hozumi vs. The Scorpion (6/30/91) The Scorpion vs Cutie Suzuki (JWP 08/30/91) Harley Saito vs. Eagle Sawai (7/14/91) Dynamite Kansai & The Scorpion vs. Shinobu Kandori & Harley Saito (8/4/1991) Dynamite Kansai & The Scorpion vs. Harley Saito & Itsuki Yamazaki (JWP 8/8/91) Cuty Suzuki vs. The Scorpion (8/11/91) The Scorpion vs Cutie Suzuki (JWP 10/10/91) (Mask vs. Hair) Harley Saito vs. Dynamite Kansai (JWP 11/2/1991) --- 1991 MOTY Harley Saito & Devil Masami vs. Dynamite Kansai & Madusa (JWP 12/7/1991)
  25. Jetlag
    In the span of a month, I've gone from watching Al Snow getting blasted in primitive shootstyle matches to working Ricky Morton in a southern fed. You were going place, Al. This was an extremely simple and generic US style match, the type Morton must've done a thousand times. I am baffled by the previous comments about this being a great match and Snow looking like a future star. It's a solid match - like you can't not have a solid match against Morton. But Ricky's punches didn't even look good and Snow was as bland as you can be. You could've slotted any other kid in that knew to execute 5 moves and put on a glove and Morton would've had a match on the same level. Snow had a nice asai moonsault, but so what? Asai moonsaults never made anyone a star.
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