Jetlag

YEAH~~! I cannot express how perfect Kurisu is on this card. Okamura is the next ultra-green reckless kicker from Kitao's Dojo and nowhere near as on-point as Mochizuki. This goes exactly how you imagine it to go from how it looks on paper: Okamura recklessly kicking Kurisu in the face a bunch of times, and Kurisu Kurisu'ing the fuck out Okamura. Because this fed is quasi-shootstyle, there's no brawling or chairs, so instead Kurisu mainly focusses on stomping and headbutting Okamura into a coma. Kurisu has about the most god awful stomps on film, as he puts the boots to Okamura's head, ears, and neck. To make things worse, Okamura even increases the trainwreck potential by blowing stuff and even trying a spin kick from the second rope. It eventually resolves into Kurisu almost popping Okamura's knee with a twisted Single Leg Crab. This match was ugly, grotesque, primitive, and fun as hell.

AND – this was one of the best rookie vs. Rookie opening matches I've ever seen – and really the perfect opening match for this kind of fed: fast, short, brutal, to the point, and with purpose – as the audience was dying to see young Mochi make a dent and topple the slightly more experienced Yasuraoka. This match also shows how good Yasuraoka could be when he wasn't stuck in a spotfest with Lance fucking Storm, simply by not backing down from reckless kicker Mochizuki. Yasuraoka absorbing Mochi's opening barrage, creating an opening with a big headbutt and then downing Mochi with a huge slap was such a simple, but badass sequence. Both guys came across as aggressive, fast moving, and willing to bite a face off when necessary. Neither of them were afraid to get nuked with huge suplexes either, and did I mention Mochi recklessly kicks the shit out of Yasuraoka anyways? This was a bonafide sub 5 minute war.

Let's make this a gauntlet of random 90s indies, shall we? I watched : Kitao Pro 6/14/94 - Koji Kitao's fed. They have a drum instead of a bell! Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Yuji Yasuraoka AND – this was one of the best rookie vs. Rookie opening matches I've ever seen – and really the perfect opening match for this kind of fed: fast, short, brutal, to the point, and with purpose – as the audience was dying to see young Mochi make a dent and topple the slightly more experienced Yasuraoka. This match also shows how good Yasuraoka could be when he wasn't stuck in a spotfest with Lance fucking Storm, simply by not backing down from reckless kicker Mochizuki. Yasuraoka absorbing Mochi's opening barrage, creating an opening with a big headbutt and then downing Mochi with a huge slap was such a simple, but badass sequence. Both guys came across as aggressive, fast moving, and willing to bite a face off when necessary. Neither of them were afraid to get nuked with huge suplexes either, and did I mention Mochi recklessly kicks the shit out of Yasuraoka anyways? This was a bonafide sub 5 minute war. Masanobu Kurisu vs. Takashi Okamura YEAH~~! I cannot express how perfect Kurisu is on this card. Okamura is the next ultra-green reckless kicker from Kitao's Dojo and nowhere near as on-point as Mochizuki. This goes exactly how you imagine it to go from how it looks on paper: Okamura recklessly kicking Kurisu in the face a bunch of times, and Kurisu Kurisu'ing the fuck out Okamura. Because this fed is quasi-shootstyle, there's no brawling or chairs, so instead Kurisu mainly focusses on stomping and headbutting Okamura into a coma. Kurisu has about the most god awful stomps on film, as he puts the boots to Okamura's head, ears, and neck. To make things worse, Okamura even increases the trainwreck potential by blowing stuff and even trying a spin kick from the second rope. It eventually resolves into Kurisu almost popping Okamura's knee with a twisted Single Leg Crab. This match was ugly, grotesque, primitive, and fun as hell. Akio Kobayashi vs. Nobukazu Hirai Eh, this was alright too. Kobayashi is the least of the green kickers so far, but Hirai has nice suplexes. Koki Kitahara vs. JR Carson Okay, SOMEONE has to be able to tell me what the deal with the US guys on this card is. JR Carson is one of the most strip club bouncer looking wrestlers I've ever seen, and he seems to have no shoot ability whatsoever. Altough his pro style offense is admittedly pretty nice looking, but what do ya know, Kitahara kills him off very fast with a nasty neck crank because Koki Kitahara has no chill. And this leads us to... Koki Kitahara vs. Akio Kobayashi I liked that Kobayashi seemed to target Kitahara's weak spot that Carson softened up in the previous match. Kitahara actually sells a good deal for Kobayashi and this was about as good as a 4 minute match you can have with a dude as limited as Kobayashi. James Magnum vs. Koji Kitao WHO IS JAMES MAGNUM?? Magnum looks like Randy the Ram and I love him and the bullseye he has on his butt. They totally missed out not showing Randy the Ram getting KO'd in a 90s primitive MMA fight in that movie. Magnum pussies into the corner, to start but blindsides Kitao with a huge forearm to the eye and looks in a quasi stretch plum. Kitao NUKES him with a Uranage, but Magnum says fuck YOU and headbutts him in the jaw! Magnum follows with some more awesome headbutts holding Kitao's pants, but eats a knee to the face before Kitao cripples him with a series of low kicks. Awesome squash match. Al Snow vs. Koji Kitao Yeah, Al Snow. Snow says before the match that he's been watching Godzilla movies to prepare for this match. Snow looks jobber as hell, but makes the most of this match, acting like a shootstylist and hitting a huge palm rush and gigantic suplex on Kitao before he gets kicked in the eye and dropped with one of the most brutal piledrivers I've ever seen. Snow actually beats the count after almost getting Chono'd but squash monster Kitao immediately finishes him off with a choke. Al Snow, you gave your best.

SHIT THAT NOBODY REMEMBERS OR CARES TO KNOW: Black Buffalo started wrestling in 1993 as a shootstylist but then lost his way and ended up touring scummy japanese indies like IWA Japan, before he eventually ended up becoming the evil baseball mascot in O-Pro. This fact is the explanation why Buffalo is totally able to rock Murahama's world with some really fast judo takedowns early on. This is basically the most IWA:MS match ever in Osaka as the garbage brawler who's secretly a legit badass steps up push a young kickpadded punks shit in. The opening quasi-BattlARTS matwork, culminating in Murahama channeling his lucharesu surroundings to do a lucha transition into an armbar was really sweet and could've gone longer. They get into a huge potatoefest as Buffalo is slapping the sense out of Murahma and hitting him in the chin with chairs etc. while Murahama is totally game and kicks like a devil. Buffalo looked Villano-ish, dropping huge legdrops and pasting the kid with lariats. I thought the run of big near finishes was extremely well done as Buffalo always seemed to have the upper hand, until Murahama was able to kick him in the eye and put him away. Buffalo looked like a total badass and Murahama like a dangerous tough kid. Absolutely loved this match.

I dunno, I thought they did everything right here. This style of match with it's generic matwork -> brawling -> nearfalls layout isn't popular anymore, but I thought every section was well executed. Opening matwork was quite good as both are fast and spry, and Hyuga is smart enough to know she has to prove that she's a class above, brawling outside had some nasty stiff kicks, table spot and really well done near countout spot. There were some minor hiccups in the last section, but they did a good job mixing up strikes and impact moves and keeping the match moving in a way that seemed closer to AJPW heavyweight stuff than your typical joshi bout. I thought the selling was spot on too, as Hyuga was pushed to her limit by a mid section injury. The biggest problem was that the match took place in a pale hall in front of an audience of rocks and thus didn't have great atmosphere.

THE QUEST FOR THE CARL GRECO OF THE YEAR - - 1996 PART 2 Yuki Ishikawa vs. Carl Greco (BattlARTS 4/13/96) Yuki Ishikawa & Katsumi Usuda vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Carl Greco (BattlARTS 4/14/96) Welp, here's two matches I didn't even know existed on tape until last week. They didn't make the Best of BattlARTS comp – which is some serious bollocks if you ask me, because both these were excellent and immediately skyrocketed towards the top of my list of favourite Greco matches. The first match was a full shootstyle main event and as cool as you imagine it to be. They had the BattlARTS roster (and even Dieseul Berto) watching from ringside. The second match also had a cool atmosphere as it took place in a hotel with folks watching from fancy dining tables. The tag had a cool layout too, as Ishikawa and Ikeda avoided eachother for the first half of the match, allowing for lots of good matwork involving Greco early on, before all hell broke lose in the second half. Even after watching so much Greco footage, I was surprised with all the cool shit Greco came up with in these two matches. I've said it before that Greco brings the best out of his opponents, but it was striking that Usuda and Ishikawa never looked better on the mat in 1996 than opposite Greco here. Another thing was how brutal Carl could get: the Ishikawa singles obviously had a lot of pride involved, and maybe Ishikawa's cockiness is what lead Carl to angrily waffle him with shotais and eventually rattle his brain with a series of kicks to the skull, but he did it the next night aswell when the beef was between Ishikawa and Ikeda... maybe it's cause he was fighting Ishikawa, maybe he toned down the striking later on to focus on his submission work, maybe April of 1996 just wasn't Ishikawa's month... one thing wasn't out of the ordinary: both matches had Carl ensnaring people like a python. Regardless, 4/13 was an intense contest with a crazy finish, and 4/14 another top notch BattlARTS tag that told an excellent story, and both matches delivered both brutality and crazy mat stuff in spades as you want. Highly recommended stuff

This was pretty much a sprint and made me think the Headhunters might be one of the most underrated tag teams ever. This was not just funny sleazy pro wrestling, it was basically like a Twin Towers vs. Rockers match, except far seedier, blood-drenched and violent. Headhunters were absolutely pasting the Twins with chairshots, powerbombs and their combined FATNESS, and I loved every second of it. Meanwhile Jado/Gedo were hitting superkicks and flying around, and the Headhunters did a really good job setting themselves up for their offense and bumping around like huge bowling pins. Also, the guy operating the camera finally gets his shit together and we get a full picture of this match. The only bummer was that the camera missed a huge Headhunter dive outside the ring. Watching this grainy footage zooming in on a Headhunter rampaging about in the stands of Korakuen Hall felt kinda like a found footage monster movie. The finish - a giant Headhunter moonsault - was one of the most ridiculous spots I've ever seen as the poor little japanese guy lying in the middle of the ring basically disappeared underneath as this giant fat dude splashed into the ring like free willy. Fantastic match

post-SWS Nakano matches are rare as hen's teeth, which is awful because he is such an interesting worker, as his basic technical stuff looks tough as nails, and then he will stand up and kick you in the kidney. This was an extremely basic juniors match (that was half missed by the camera guy) where Winger added nothing, but was still a decent Nakano carryjob. Nakano made Winger struggle for everything, and at one point popped Winger straight in the mouth with a huge punch and then proceeded to stomp and kneedrop the back of his head as if trying to give him brain damage. Japanese sleazy unprofessionality at it's best.

I watched the W*ING 1/2/94 show (Handheld). Or, the last 3 matches, because only those were filmed. If you come across a pro-shot version of this show, grab it, because even the nearly unwatchable handhelf stuff was really fun. Crypt Keeper & Nightmare Freddy vs. Jason the Terrible & Shoji Nakamaki - this was a tornado tag and some of the best stuff I've seen from the horror creatures. That doesn't say much, but the layout was right, as Keeper & Freddy were the heels beating down on the faces, while Jason & Nakamaki were your charismatic babyfaces bleeding, being charismatic and making fun comebacks. Keeper was really spry here, doing a flip entrance to the ring and then landing huge boots to people's faces like he was Kawada or something. I feel like a hypocrite for it, but Jason is really fun to doing his Undertaker stuff and hitting absurd spin kicks. Shinichi Nakano vs. The Winger - post-SWS Nakano matches are rare as hen's teeth, which is awful because he is such an interesting worker, as his basic technical stuff looks tough as nails, and then he will stand up and kick you in the kidney. This was an extremely basic juniors match (that was half missed by the camera guy) where Winger added nothing, but was still a decent Nakano carryjob. Nakano made Winger struggle for everything, and at one point popped Winger straight in the mouth with a huge punch and then proceeded to stomp and kneedrop the back of his head as if trying to give him brain damage. Japanese sleazy unprofessionality at it's best. Head Hunters vs. Jado & Gedo - this was pretty much a sprint and made me think the Headhunters might be one of the most underrated tag teams ever. This was not just funny sleazy pro wrestling, it was basically like a Twin Towers vs. Rockers match, except far seedier, blood-drenched and violent. Headhunters were absolutely pasting the Twins with chairshots, powerbombs and their combined FATNESS, and I loved every second of it. Meanwhile Jado/Gedo were hitting superkicks and flying around, and the Headhunters did a really good job setting themselves up for their offense and bumping around like huge bowling pins. Also, the guy operating the camera finally gets his shit together and we get a full picture of this match. The only bummer was that the camera missed a huge Headhunter dive outside the ring. Watching this grainy footage zooming in on a Headhunter rampaging about in the stands of Korakuen Hall felt kinda like a found footage monster movie. The finish - a giant Headhunter moonsault - was one of the most ridiculous spots I've ever seen as the poor little japanese guy lying in the middle of the ring basically disappeared underneath as this giant fat dude splashed into the ring like free willy. Fantastic match

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.

I LOVE 80s JUNIOR WRESTLING! And this has prime Fujinami in a match with interpromotional flavor. We know junior Hara is game from his match with Zrno the year before, and he was game here once again. But this match was less about matwork and more about building intensity, as they would work uncooperative holds, slap eachother, stare and make you root for Fujinami kicking Hara in the mouth. In terms of technical work this bout isn't on the level of the high end 1980 stuff, but the general sense of "these two really are about to kick the shit out of eachother" is awesome in it's own way. Like all great old junior wrestling the timing is great, as they really build towards the dropkicks and other basic highspots. Hara busts out the rugby tackles and his insane backflip suplex once again, and gets so mad by Fujinami retreating that he busts him open with meaty punches and headbutts. Match felt like it ended 5 minutes too early, altough I take a pissed off Hara stomping a bloody Fujinami in the face and Fujinami making a desperate flash comeback over lengthy sections of 2,9999 counts and shocked faces.

With this and their MUGA appearance from the year before, these two are on a hot streak of cool 10 minute bouts. This was less hold intensive and more like BattlARTS match as they go for the hellish kicks and breakneck moves. I really hope these two had an excellent 20 minute match at some point which had the matwork of the MUGA match and the brutality of this match edited together. Actually this match was suffering a little from them cramming a lot into a short time while not doing the interpunctuation. Eventually though Kato's kicking Meiko really hard in the gut led to some strong selling from Meiko to atleast give the impression of the match having a red thread. One thing about the GAEA younglings crew that doesn't get brought up much is how inventive these girls were especially Meiko, and you can see it in this match from her, hitting her opponent from all kinds of unusual positions. Liked this match as the girls have the brutal offense and fundamentals down, but in terms of selling or structure was still lacking.

These two had a match in JWP earlier in the year that was solid but rather unspectacular. This was much closer to delivering the promise of the match up, as it was faster paced and livelier. Too bad we only got a clipped version. Match is mostly flash submissions with Bolshoi adding in a slick Clown-Sambo move here and there. Eventually Amano focusses on the arm while Bolshoi tries to counter by going for leg attacks. These two actually know something about timing and not to infuse too much bullshit, benefiting the match greatly. Amano doesn't even go for any headbutts here and it goes to a draw to make the 70s studio scientific wrestling clinic analogy perfect. Probably not that interesting match if you're not already a fan of these two, but I liked it.

Fun lucha dance partners go HARD for japan type match. Virus looked almost indistinguishable from his current form, meaning that was great here. Marvin looked a little green and sloppy, not always 100% with his form, but didn't blow anything. Virus on the other hand executed all his stuff effortlessly. To be fair, Virus has probably done 500 matches like this, and equally as many matches of this type have happened over the years in japan, there was nothing particularily outstanding here. Still it's a chance to get to see Virus do his thing, which is better than most wrestlers doing theirs, honestly.

This starts really nice with about 8 minutes of really cool opening matwork. I especially loved the sections with Hashimoto as he is so fast and at the same time such a behemoth that he provides a great challenge as half the stuff you try on him you won't pull off, so you have to think fast and give your best. Soon the youngsters take over by putting the boots to the veterans, which sets up the second half of the match in which Hashimoto absolutely mauls Nagata. You really can't praise Hashimoto enough, as his offense is all kinds of furious and amazing chop-your-head-off type, but at the same time he does a great job putting over Nagata as this gutsy bloke with enough firepower to possibly put him away. Fujinami is secondary role here as he mostly serves as a foil for the young punks to show off their punkiness, but he is such a fun tricky wrestler too as he always has a counter in his sleeve and will slap your shit if you push him too far. Also his huge kneedrop off the top has become one of my favourite spots. Great signature performance from the old guys here and really good spunkiness from the young guns.

Too hipster. You wait until I release my Top 100 consisting of nothing but pre-1992 JWP and WING handhelds.

This is intense from the very beginning as Hokuto hits a big backbreaker, crushing her own knee and at the same time setting up the back work on Kazama. Lots of Hokuto kicking the shit out of Kazama's spine ensues, landing every basic move with some extra pissed offness until kickpadded Kazama comes back kicking her in the face and then gives back some by attempting to kick Hokuto's leg out of her leg. The result feels obvious but Kazama gets some fun offense and surprise nearfalls in on Hokuto. This felt like it could've been better, but Kazama looked good selling and kicking the hell out of Hokuto, and I guess keeping the hierarchies intact was more important for them.

This was fun. How can you not love Yakushiji in his Bruce Lee get up? His opening section opposite Murahama makes me wish that singles match footage of his wasn't so scarce. And this was his last year of wrestling! Talk about retiring on the height of your game. The rest of the match was more Hoshikawa style, meaning it involved Murahama eating lots of nasty shots. I am fascinated witht his venue - looks like they crammed 70 people at most into there, and they are sitting on the floor really close to the ring, making the fans prime targets for getting flattened by suicide dives while drinking coffee. Delfin didn't do a ton here as the focus was to get Murahama into the fans hearts by eating ALL the punishment and busting out and awkward shooter dive and generating a bunch of nearfalls. I've probably seen a hundred japanese tags like this but the combination of this being O-Pro, Game of Death Yakushuji and Murahama in the focus makes it well worth checking out.

Sayama was showcasing his Seikendo philosophy here. The point of which was to do fighting in any situation, hence I think the GI was made to resemble an office suit. I remember Sayama and someone else also did a demonstration at an RJPW show wearing actual office suits and MMA gloves. Anyways, this match is never not fun, even though this was short. Fujiwara just does so much cool stuff taking Sayama down by his gi and all that, and Sayama's contempt was amusing, not like he was selling, but as if he was thinking "Stop grabbing me! I wanna do spin kicks!"

It's sleazy IWA japan brawling vs. sleazy UWFi shootstyle. Anjoh is thrilled to wrestle a guy this grotesque and goes nuts with the Looney Toons spots! Watch as Anjoh points to his head to signify his cleverness then falling on his ass the next second, getting MMA mount position only to play belly drums on Goto, STALLING~, etc. However there are also some slick takedowns and submissions in this match, and given that it's Anjoh and Goto, lots of nasty violence and uncooperativness. Goto actually isn't afraid to go on the mat and give out stiff lariats and punches, and Anjoh was right there kicking him in the jaw a bunch. Eventually Anjoh lands a series of stiff knees and elbows, bloodying Goto, who promptly goes nuts bloodying Anjoh with punches and a fork in return. Crowd boos the hell out of the DQ finish, I guess because they enjoyed watching these two murder eachother so much. Post match a bloody Anjoh tries to drag a police officer into this, as if to question why the police always sit there watching when a heel is doing something seriously wicked.

Really fun meeting of two absolute wrestling masters. Both guys were working double hard here, as if trying to prove at the big show that they can outwork anyone else in the country. Starts like MUGA match with some tricked out matwork, before they mix in BattlARTS stiff savate kicks and headbutts, then Sano busts out his junior dives before they do Lawler/Mantell exhausted elbow exchanges into an awesomely timed Ishikawa enzuigiri before going back to the MUGA again. Real tour de force from these guys, but there were lots of cool details aswell, such as Sano using his legs to extend the arm and get the sleeper, Ishikawa bridging out of a choke attemept, Sano doing some center of gravity shifting (which eventually backfires on him) etc. Really cool match and I dug the hybrid style they were aiming at here.

Is that the month with the Fuji vs Strongbow match? (kidding, but if so the best choice we probably have that people would have access to easily is Bruno vs Patera; I should have probably said August, 87). FWIW Claude Roca/Walter Bordes vs. Albert Sanniez/Pierre Bernaert (France 8/29) was pretty rad

Go here: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzg2OTg5NDQ=.html?spm=a2h0k.8191407.0.0&from=s1.8-1-1.2

Former top juniors do battle while being much older and all grizzled up. Sounds depressing? Maybe, but this was just a ridiculously fun MUGA style match with tremendous psychology that got Korakuen Hall into a frenzy. Fun stiff opening before Fujinami lands a big backdrop that Kimura sells huge. Kimura is still junior-sized and never a megastar like Fujinami, so he is the considerable underdog. They do some cool matwork, both guys still moving fast, Kimura desperately avoiding the Figure 4 etc. But the money here is the storytelling as Fujinami keeps getting the advantage on the mat and locking in nasty arm triangles and chokeholds, leading to Kimura desperately going for his kicks, and even an over the hill Kengo Kimura can still lay in some stiff kicks. Kimura finally catches Fujinami with a simple knee strike that Fujinami sells in amazing fashion and it's a testament to the quality of this match that such a basic spot had me verbally marking out. Korakuen Hall gets behind Kimura big time and his final comeback where he's throwing fists is exactly what you want. Matwork, stiff shots, quality underdog story, quality match overall.

Thanks GOTNW. This was phenomenal and one of the best pure skill vs. pure rage matches I've ever seen. Fujinami wants to open this MUGA style, but Hash blitzes him with a DDT and follows up with a huge barrage of kicks, setting the tone for the rest of the match: Hashimoto demolishing the old man, and wily Fujinami trying to catch the beast. No one kicks a man when he's down like Hashimoto, and he lays an all time epic beating on Fujinami including one of the most gorgeous high kicks I've ever seen. Fujinami is great withstanding the beating, selling his leg and making comebacks, and the psychology is top notch: In isolation, Hashimoto's leg sweep is a cool enough spot, but integrated into the match like this as a "fuck you" to Fujinami's leg screws and Figure 4s it becomes something entirely different. It all builds to some of the best submission nearfalls (and breakups) I've seen, Fujinami teasing the Dragon Suplex, a glassy eyed Hashimoto refusing to go down, a big "Dragon" chant breaking out etc. Great match.