Jetlag
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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. -
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
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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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[1996-12-01-Inoki Festival] Ultimo Dragon vs Gran Naniwa
Jetlag replied to Loss's topic in December 1996
This was a kind of weird match where they start it really hot with Naniwa landing the huge rana to the floor and Ultimo retaliating with a thudding powerbomb of his own, but then settle on a regular ass junior match completely disconnected from the opening. Ultimo even seemed to know as he gave an awkward look while getting the win as the match was completely deflated. Ultimo is kind of hilarious in how he overcomplicates things, for example to send Naniwa outside he first produces a suplex to lift him to the apron, then jumps to the rope in order to hit a springboard dropkick. -
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.
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This' a good match. Watching this again after so many years and having watched quite a bit of joshi from this time period, I understand what's going here isn't exactly mindblowing. The three things special things going on here are as follows: - the length - the interpromotional flair - Yamada and Kansai upping the stiffness x10000 and kicking the life out of everything that got in their way And even the last thing isn't that unusual, as Kansai always worked like that. Other than that, they constantly go by the same go hard->rest pattern and occasionally throw in a sequence to mix it up. Lots of shit that is sloppy or blown and not a ton of selling, but they keep it going which is what counts. People have praised Ozaki's heel work, and it is good, but knowing her a little better now, she probably wasn't thinking too much about it herself. It was pretty much just another night for her.
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JPWA 4/14/2000 - I know this thread called "obscure 90s..." but here's a real oddity from early 2000: it's a shootstyle event ran by Yoshiaki Fujiwara and Nickbockwinkel centered Japan vs. USA matchups. Reminded me a bit of PWFG, and the 2000s could have used a PWFG style fed, but it seems they only did this one event. Card: 1. Billy Scott vs. Mamoru Okamoto 2. Tomohiko Hashimoto vs. Tom Burton 3. Retsu Maekawa vs. James Woodin 4. Kohei Sato vs. Kasey Geyer (KC Thunder) 5. Koichiro Kimura vs. Shawn Hernandez (Hotstuff Hernandez) The card looks interesting, but unfortunately, they clipped all the matches. Quite unecessesarily, because most of these were around the 7 minute mark except the main event and opener. Billy Scott looked quite good in the first match, doing some nifty wrestling, and his opponent, former BattlARTS undercarder Okamoto bringing the punishment. The 2nd match was wrestler vs. judoka that looked fun from the glimpses. Tom Burton looked old as dirt, but still like a credible asskicker, so it's obvious that I love him. Maekawa/Woodin was barely shown. Woodin had funny bleach blond hair and was not in great shape, so kinda looked like a garbage worker. Sato/KC looked like a fun power vs. skill matchup, with Sato looking especially good, and KC (a huge musclehead) looking nervous. Then the main event - this was 28 minutes clipped down to 17 minutes. And Shawn Hernandez is Hotstuff Hernandez in a singlet, looking like an absolute tank. This match was a match of two sides - 1. Hernandez was absolutely killing Kimura for the entire duration, launching him around with some of the most beastly throws I've ever seen and exploding his nose with a stiff palm strike. 2. the absolute stupidity of putting Kimura, a guy who's not all that good, and Hernandez, a guy with very little experience especially not at shootstyle wrestling in a match this long. Hernandez didn't seem to know any submissions, Kimura added very little, and for some reason they did not allow rope breaks at this show, so even with the clipping, a lot of this was two guys lying on the mat, one of them being very unsure. Thankfully, Tom Burton was at ringside to tell Hernandez what to do step by step: "Take the ankle! Good, now slap him once!" Now that's a veteran, carrying a green guy when he's not even in the match! God bless you, Tom Burton. Fujiwara also was at ringside, and at one point was convinced Hernandez was throwing fists, so he took offense and took his jacket off, ready to go at him. So, Fujiwara and Tom Burton did more to add to this match than Kimura. Kimura eventually got to pick up the win after he KO'd Shawn with a lucky kick after absolutely getting his shit pushed in for 28 minutes, and admittedly this got a pretty excited reaction from the crowd. So I guess the match did work after all! Kinda funny to watch, and makes you wonder if with a little more help from Tom Burton Hernandez could turn into the next Shamrock or a great tag partner for Lesnar.
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This is the DVDVR 100 match that Dean labelled as "Samurai TV debut card", which is why it took me so long to track this down. Not very helpful labelling, dude. I have little grudge though, because this was as good as advertised. They downtuned the matwork elements and just went right to straight up murdering eachother. This is really as good of an introduction to BattlARTS as I can think of, as they establish their "shootstyle with pro style psychology and 200% more death" dynamic as well the tactics of the Team Taco "we'll isolate you and then stomp you to a pulp" heel team, Otsuka's ability to kill folks by dumping them on their necks till the lights go out and Yone's underdogness. Ikeda and Ono were constantly cutting off the ring and whenever in trouble would buckle the opponent to their corner and reign shots on him 2 on 1. Ono looked damn great here, as he was obviusly a target being the smaller guy, but got the better of his opponents using his superior speed, getting chokes and felling them huge kicks in the standup. Ikeda and Otsuka were as good as you've ever seen them here and Yoneyama didn't get in the way, hitting some brutal moves of his own and mostly being punching bag for Team Taco otherwise. 13 minute match, but probably the 2nd or 3rd best BattlARTS tag that year.
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Hey look... it's indy wrestling of the good type! 2 fat guys with awesome fat guy offense, 1 sleazy junior heel who doesn't get in the way much, 1 guy who is mean and uncaring and 1 guy playing the promising rookie that won't quit. That lineup alone speaks for itself and the match delivered good. Nozaki is apparently a 1 year rookie and seems like a guy to keep an eye on, as he has amazing fatboy look with tree trunk legs and is game to bring the power moves and sell his ass off. His fire was good enough and I loved his big judo slam that got a really nice nearfall for such a basic moves. Genkai is the former Hideyoshi from Osaka Pro, a fact that ultimately means nothing, but he is veteran enough to work plenty stiff and look like he has lost all joy in life. He was pretty thigh-slappy (it's the current year), but he did have a pretty great punch and a brainbuster that looked like a fucking brainbuster, so... eh I liked him. GAINA had an awesome powerslam and elbow drop, but left most of the work to Nozaki... which was probably a good decision. HUB was amusing too, hitting his stuff well (besides one somewhat flubbed coordinated multiman thigh slap near the end) and whipping the fuck out of his opponent with his goofy mask extension. Most importantly the match had really nice atmosphere with the local fans being really into the whole thing. Good to know atleast the Kyushu Pro guys are doing well for themselves.
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This is a 30 minute draw between two young workers. And it's actually good!!! Holy shit!! Mind you, at this point Mariko was a feisty quasi-luchadora who did beautiful rope climbing dives rather than ankle snapping submissions. And this was the type of match that could only happen between two particular workers, as they build almost Monterrey-like exchanges into a bonafide joshi epic. They start with lots of intricate fast arm drags mixed up with comedic spots that WORK because they fit into their exchanges. Yoshida accidentally monkey flipping the referee while in the middle of a battle of one up manship is way better than some hick comedian stopping the match to tell a joke. Kyoko Inoue was working a lot like Super Astro here and looking really spectacular doing fast walking on the ropes and chunky girl flips. Kyoko gains the advantage through her power and some literal cat and mouse ensues, before they tease ending the match early in a pretty hot section. They settle down again as Kyoko wrenches in a mean headlock and both try to gain the advantage on the mat before Mariko's taped shoulder gives out and she has to start battling her injury. I guess some could call the hold exchanging the weak point of the match, as it kind of gave away that they were gonna go long. On the other hand you gotta have some holds in a 30 minute bout PLUS I thought the whole thing was really well done and integrated. It also set up the Yoshida injured shoulder story, which ended up not being a huge deal but still added some character to the bout (and young Yoshida). Finally they get up and into a HOT finishing stretch that doesn't feature a lot of bomb throwing and instead is more technically focussed. Both girls go for pin combos and flying off the ropes, and they had some really cool stuff in their sleeves. Like said before Yoshida has the really great body press where she runs up the turnbuckle, and Inoue is the queen of the springboard moves. She uses them as game changers and just crushes Yoshida repeatedly with back sentons and dropkicks. My favourite spot was her just dropping down on Mariko when she tried to avoid the back senton. Yoshida has awesome dives in the middle of this epic section and holds her own really well too. The ending was picture perfect as seconds before the time runs out Kyoko goes for the big damn SWING before hitting her fat deadlift powerbomb for the sure win except she was 1 second too late. Pretty excellent match and easily the best pre-Spider Lady Yoshida I've seen.
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Any members of this forum ever tried out or worked in the ring as wrestlers?
Jetlag replied to SPS's topic in Pro Wrestling
I considered joining Alex Wright's school, which is just around the corner from me. I've decided against it simply because it was too expensive and joined a local amateur wrestling club. I've done amateur wrestling and some grappling for the last 5 years. To put things into perspective, I can go wrestle and lift weights at the club 3 times a week and it costs me a few bucks per month, while Alex charges 200 for a weekend of training. That's just gross. I think the perspective change is comparable to how your perspective on music changes once you start playing an instrument and then how it changes again when you start writing your own songs, and then when you try arranging a band and practising. You become more aware of the intricacies and then your respect for the artform grows. I've grown a lot of respect for workers who can do matwork and make it look good. I enjoyed matwork before I started grappling myself, but since training I've realized how much repetition and practise it takes to get even simple movements to look perfect. On the other hand, I've also learned that anyone can learn some rudimentary grappling techniques, thus wrestlers that can't even think to do a half nelson on the mat earn my scorn. If you're a pro wrestler who can do a nice single leg takedown or headlock takeover, you gain my interest on the spot. -
This was a really good studio match between two talented young workers. Hell knows why, but for some reason they got a lot things right that many other joshi matches get wrong. It may be just my imagination. The thing I liked most about this bout was that it was basically a primitive approximation of a lucha title match. They start it very mat based and build nicely from simple holds into submission nearfalls. Then Bolshoi Kid was working like one of the stranger luchadores - think Matematico, or maybe Super Astro, doing all these funny clown moves that work really well for an eccentric technical wrestler. Mariko shows her colors when it's time to drop bombs and she dishes out some big suplexes with a lot of snap. Really good sequences where Mariko gains the upperhand and lands a series of big dives, but gets caught with a piledriver on the floor. Mariko actually sells the floor piledriver a good deal allowing Bolshoi to get some nearfalls over her at this point much more established opponent. Quality match, proof Bolshoi could really go and Mariko too.
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Too bad. Just watched a Carlos Colon/Mil Mascaras the other day there that was pretty good.
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Aw lil puppy Ayako tries to get on Aja's grill. No Aja don't do that she's just a kid! Structurally this was barely different from their 1998 match as it's Ayako going at Aja and Aja just CRUSHING her. Seriously Aja puts a deeply brutal beating on Ayako here even for her standards, just bruising her with kicks and slaps and just impaling her when she tried a moonsault. However, NOW Hamada was little more well-rounded offensively, and more importantly she had all the fire in the world to keep her going. Hamada tried her darndest, even taking the fight to the mat in some neat moments, and most importantly really, really laying it into Aja, throwing hands and kicks that were almost reckless. Seriously, I don't recall many „flyer vs. Powerhouse“ matches where the „flyer“ throws flurries as savage as this. Still not quite there, but she was getting there! This was compact, highly violent, and pretty great.
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Hm... two things about this match: 1. It's Regal literally on the brink of death 2. It's Regal and Severn in a long, intense mat based contest, which is itself pretty cool. I'm not gonna pretend this was GREAT or something and there is probably something macabre about enjoying a match where one guy is close to self-destruction, but all things considered, this was pretty fun. Severn busts out some cool shit like a pretty sweet cobra twist into a pin, and Regal, while struggling to keep it together, keeps it together, and they have a sort of quasi UWF meets NWA style match. Even inebriated, out of tune Regal with his boot on the wrong foot can still make basic holds look good and hit stiff uppercuts, and the applause from the crowd they got was astonishing. I mean, slot this match 20 years back in the time and there would be nothing out of the ordinary here except Severn's armbars.