Jetlag

Next pick - Lightning Kid (1992) El Boricua Superkix Gordi Blehschmidt Joeg Superkix Lee Casebolt Jetlag El Boricua SmartMark15 Grimmas

Kawada has that dream match against Sasaki in the dome and an MOTDC against Tenryu. Also an excellent underrated match against good old Fuchi and that yuuge interpromotional tag against Nagata and Iizuka in December. Not the best year for the black and yellow destroyer but I'll take it over Kobashi and Akiyama trying to figure out how to work in a green ring.

My next picks: Mile Zrno (1990) and Franz Schumann (1992).

That was fast. My next pick: Steven Regal (1992) El Boricua now.

Agreed. Tremendous match. And it's not even the best match I watched for this project so far... 12/24/90 Tokyo Korakuen Hall: Mayumi Ozaki vs. Rumi Kazama This was another strong match, YMMW on how good exactly. The story was Ozaki's rough style vs. Kazamas brutal kicks. I liked the opening a lot with Ozaki immediately taking control roughhousing Kazama in a way similiar to what a guy like Mick McManus would do, yanking her head violently, putting her toe in her eye etc. After some failed attempts, Kazama makes her comeback by locking in an armbar and after that it's mostly back and forth action. They do a nice job of working a long match with a strong pace, but it was a bit lacking in terms of drama, if you know what I mean. One thing I've noticed is that the wrestlers would do a nearfall with a big move, then follow with a basic move to make the basic move look like a potential match ender too; it's such a simple psychological trick but it's the kind of stuff that's sorely lacking elsewhere. Should point out that Ozaki had really good suplexes and Kazama was kicking really hard. The fans wanted both girls to win, and they delivered another heated finish. I thought the match was lacking in high notes, intensity or epic story, but was a perfectly good quality main event otherwise and absolutely worth watching. 6/14/1990 Eagle Sawai vs. Maiko Tsurugi Maiko Tsurugi was a nimble worker in a funny pink outfit with shoulder armor and liked to kick hard. In a different reality she probably would've been a really good partner for Kansai in those interpromotional wars. This was back and forth action early on, with Tsurugi mostly coming out on top, dropping Sawai with a Superplex in the first minute of the bout, and then another one a few minutes later. However that changes when Mayumi Ozaki (who else) forearms Tsurugi in the kidney as she goes for a dive. Tsurugi injures her back, and this sets up the dramatic 2nd half where Sawai tries to get the submission with a bunch of holds to torture her back. Sawai bumping big is really fun and Tsurugi made a quite good sympathetic face. This would've been really good with a little more build, but as it stands it was still a quality 10 minute bout.

My first pick is, of course, Masayoshi Motegi (1992)

I must have gone insane, because Kyushu Pro is the last wrestling company in the world that still interests me. ASOSAN has the goofiest mask in the world, but holy shit this dude can work! This was really fun, plenty violent indy wrestling. I really liked the simple opening, with Aso working a basic headlock and really trying to pop little Sasaki's neck, then following up with elbows to the back of the head and neck. Then Aso goes on to just crush Sasaki with nice looking punches, awesome judo throws and lung-squishing sentons and sumo palm strikes. Sasaki, for a guy who wasn't very memorable previously, looked shockingly good selling here, and I really liked his constant leg kicks. He was suffering a bit from 2017isms here or there, thigh slapping and whiffing on a Shining Wizard (he realized that sucked too and just kicked Aso in the head), I also really liked his big slap combo. Aso's jab to the throat was such a simple, violent comeback spot too. This was mighty fine 15+ minute match that works because they kept it simple, always building to a powerbomb or piledriver, and had the selling in place to make the asskicking important.

I'll pick Hamburg, Germany.

I forgot this match existed and now that I know who Harley Saito is, I remembered. This such a gritty little war: Saito popping Hokuto with thudding kicks, and Hokuto just torturing her by working the stomach. Hokuto is totally at home in a nasty asskicking battle like this, and Harley was getting the maximum out of her underdog role. Then Hokuto blows her knee, and suddenly it looks like Harley isn't so chanceless anymore. I liked how despite the fact this was a fast paced match with a lot of action, every move had a ton of gravity, and these two are so good at timing momentum swings and cutoffs it's ridiculous. Really good example of how to do a near epic match between a megastar and someone a whole league below.

I'd prefer 88-94.

This is the Bathhouse Deathmatch. They put a wrestling mat into a bathhouse and tag partners have to stay in hot tubs until tagged in. The concepts sounds flat, but they actually manage to keep this entertaining the whole way through a combination of wrestling and surreality. Goto and Yamada start out with a bunch of fast mat exchanges, with Goto busting out Fujiwara armbars and Magistral Cradles and whatnot. In order to win you have to pin the opponent and then drown him in a nearby tub for 5 seconds. Lots of running around the bathhouse ensues, in the process of which lots of naked japanese women and men are scattering about the place looking for cover. I wonder if they put some of these tit and ass shots on the commercial tape cover. Goto also bashes the fuck out of Yamada with plastic buckets and then throws wooden baskets at him, while Yamada bumps like a madman for all that. Gannosuke and Nakamaki eventually get tagged in and immediately take the brawl to the streets. Another amazing thing here is the video editing, as there are constant cuts (including a dual screen while Gannosuke and Nakamaki are outside), they also constantly cut to a female host (who is holding a giant walkie talkie and a microphone in front of her face) and a bathhouse worker that keeps adding wood to the fire. I assume the bathhouse worker also explains some of the intricacies of hot tub heating in the process. Also, bluesy riffs play in the background here and there, and an announcer that is occasionally dubbed in shouts the names of some wrestling moves. Then this match also has it's tag psychology in place. Wrestlers keep leaving the hot tubs to break up submissions or pour cool water on themselves and get yellow carded for it. Yamada is the babyface in peril, gets bowled across the slippery floor and soaped up in a pretty creepy scene by Goto, he also does another slide across the floor to get the literal hot tag. Then it finally dawns on you that this is a partially inverted southern tag where the heat is on the guy who is tagged out, as Gannosuke and Yamazaki are selling the hot tubs like motherfuckers. In the end the video editing and inverted heat section come together for this amazing shot: There's also one woman who tries her darndest to not let her day at the bathhouse be disturbed by wrestlers drowning eachother nearby and stays in the tub. Eventually Goto beats Yamada and then shoves his face into her butt to make the invasion of privacy scenario complete. Truely a crowning achievement of our civilization, best japanese arthouse movie of 1995. What would YOU do if you saw a literally boiling Tarzan Goto coming your way at the bathhouse?

Harley Saito had one of the best women's matches I've ever seen in 1990, so let's see what she could do in the later much bigger era. This was one of the most sensibly worked Hotta matches I've ever seen, as it was worked as a David vs. Goliath bout. Of course Hotta brutally kicks Saito to a pulp, and even though the „outsider as sympathetic face“ story is weird it's executed extremely well here. Saito does some good work controlling Hotta while staying out of her kicking range, but eventually takes a brutal beating. The second half of this match was outstanding because it wasn't just bomb throwing but Harley really milking her moments, always being seemingly so close to turning the tide and swinging the match in her favour but missing. I assume this was the setup for Hotta vs. Kandori, but in itself it's a really good match for the „one contestant is hopelessly overmatched“ type.

Count me in.

Neither AJ/Finn nor the best PWG match on any weekend would be the 3rd best on a random 1993 W*ING houseshow.

They follow a silly spectacle with a badass heavyweight war. Good one. These are the two biggest meanie asskickers JWP ever produced; can they deliver a goodie even in their baby form? Yes they can. Kandori was full on Kandori, completely different from the worker she was the year before, while Kansai was learning the ways of working stiff and exciting. This had a pretty great opening – as they go right at it with the fast submissions, slapping the taste out of eachother's mouth, throwing lariats, Kansai making a comeback by punching Kandori in the face repeatedly etc. The second half was a little more generic and more like a wrestling match, but still interesting enough with some very well timed spots and nearfalls. Whenever Kandori looks in a submission there's automatic drama, so that's really nice. Strong bout, proof these two could go from very early on.

More 1989: 7/13/89 Tokyo Korakuen Hall Devil Masami & Maiko Tsurugi vs. Dementia & Heidi Lee Morgan 10:32 The first time seeing gaijins in JWP! And it's... uh. Dementia is working a „psycho killer“ gimmick. She has doll(?) thingy and hockey mask. Heidi Lee Morgan's outfit was ridiculous. There's gotta be a limit for much ass you can have hanging out, even if you're a lady wrestler. The most accurate way I can describe this is „A very polished GLOW match“. It wasn't even extra trainwrecky or anything fun like that. Shinobu Kandori vs. Miss A They follow a silly spectacle with a badass heavyweight war. Good one. These are the two biggest meanie asskickers JWP ever produced; can they deliver a goodie even in their baby form? Yes they can. Kandori was full on Kandori, completely different from the worker she was the year before, while Kansai was learning the ways of working stiff and exciting. This had a pretty great opening – as they go right at it with the fast submissions, slapping the taste out of eachother's mouth, throwing lariats, Kansai making a comeback by punching Kandori in the face repeatedly etc. The second half was a little more generic and more like a wrestling match, but still interesting enough with some very well timed spots and nearfalls. Whenever Kandori looks in a submission there's automatic drama, so that's really nice. Strong bout, proof these two could go from very early on.

Murahama with two big matches in two days. This was a good BattlARTSariffic match; maybe I'm oversaturated, but I didn't like this as much as the Yakushuji match from the day before. They start with some 5$ shootstyle matwork and essentially continue in the style of having a nearfall ladden indy match with shootstyle moves. Some brutal kicks, obligatory suplexes and no selling. I liked it and Hoshikawa's enzuigiri is one of the most disgusting spots I've ever seen but I probably won't remember much about it soon.

It's Yakushuji in his Bruce Lee gear vs. a rainbow pants wearing shooter. Pro wrestling is great. This was a cool indy match with some shootstyle moves interwoven. Murahama almost KO's Yakushuji in the opening and from then on it's mostly Murahama dominating and pushing Yakushuji closer to the upset. I really liked Yakushuji's super fast and out of nowhere spin kicks that he uses as game changers here, but I thought he may have oversold a little (doing a KO sell for a Murahama kick to the shoulder) and due to Murahama's greenness there was some noticable stumbling around/hesitation/wondering what to do at times. I also thought the match was lacking in vicious retaliation to be GREAT. Still liked this a lot, Yakushuji looked super cool in his role.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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..