TheBean

Hi again! If you've been following my Puro + More blog, you've noticed that I've been getting more & more interested in old school New Japan over the years. Well maybe you haven't. I did do a 1984 & 1985 AJPW deep dive and Muto's All Japan but, just trust me! I've found that I really dig New Japan's heavyweight style. It produces a lot of very good to great matches. Occasionally it offers up a classic as well. I think I enjoy it because the matches aren't as long as All Japan's during the King's Road era. The duration seems to be just right for the type of story they're telling. AJPW needs more time & I wouldn't change that at all. Anyways, a BIG project of mine is to do an overview of New Japan in the 90's. This is one of those projects that I need to be discerning in my picks or it will get out of hand. Even in the planning stages it's daunting. Much like the PWO Yearbook project, I'll be doing this out of chronological order 🙂 I think it will be easier for me that way. Additionally, I don't know how in depth I will go for each year. Some years might be in-depth while others might just be the G1 Climax. More about this in a later post. Here I want to kick it off with early 1990 as a teaser of things to come. I'm super excited for 1990. 1988-1990 puro may be some of my favorite stuff. Let's jump in! Liger vs H. Saito (01/18): Oh man! Loved this finish! This had a lot more in common with ECW than what you'd call NJPW Jr. style. Chair shots, fighting in the crowd, pile driver on a table. Saito's senton's are great and Liger goes off. Very good stuff. Liger vs Akira Nogami (01/20): joined in progress. Now this is your junior vs junior match. And both guys are going for broke on those dives - holy cow! The more that I see of Akira Nogami, the more I like him. Not sure how much we miss but what we see is a ton of fun! Choshu & Hase vs H. Saito & T. Goto (01/25): Fast and furious tag wrestling done right! Everyone was fantastic since the focus was on beating the crap outta each other. Under 10 minutes of uncomplicated action. Masa Chono vs Vader (01/25): jip but not much? Still this was sweet! I love the story of everyone trying to take down the ultimate monster. Vader is just that here. He scoop slams Chono from the ring to the floor! Chono is determined to get the win though. There's a dynamism in this match because both guys are still in good shape in 1990. Big moves, bumps and athleticism... there's a lot to like here. Kiss your ass goodbye Chono! ----- Liger & Nogami vs Naoki Sano & Pegasus Kid (02/10 Tokyo Dome Super Fight): At around 11 minutes in the match, I was beginning to think they were running out of steam. This is 1990 baby - they had a 2nd wind and then some!! A banger of a curtain jerker for the Dome show. This is a harbinger of NJPW Jr wrestling to come for the decade. Great match for sure! If you still dig the style then, check this out! Osamu Matsuda vs Takayuki Iizuka (02/10 Tokyo Dome Super Fight): Yeah this has been slept on because of the other, bigger matches. This is a very, very good technical junior match..heck it's probably a great one. It reminds me of the 1980 junior style - aggressive, with an emphasis on intensity. I loved the final third. Matsuda is El Samurai if that makes sense as to why this is so good. But for real, this is one that probably should have been included in the 1990 PWO yearbook as I think it's right in line with a lot of folks dig. This has been a real strong start. There's variety and an excitement to the wrestling. No one has the "90's style" in place so it's very transitional in the best of ways. Big moves can win just as much as a quick pin. Simple but clean moves are more important than the flashy highspots. Matches aren't just building to a finisher. Additionally, the hierarchy of the 90's hasn't been established so every match feels up for grabs. I'm definitely excited to get back to 1990 but I'm working on 1995 at the moment. So once that's finished, I think it's back to '90. It's actually the year I wanted to watch most - don't ask me why I started with '95 then 😄 Thanks for reading folks!

Hi folks! Wanted to share a quickie review of ZERO-ONE from 2002. I think most folks might know the Spanky vs Low Ki match but, there's some other stuff worth your time. The main event especially might be appealing. It brings a '89 FMW, '92 NJ Karate vs Pro Wrestling vibe that I know I dig. Let's go! Fugo Fugo Yumeji & Kuroge Wagyuta vs. Kamikaze & Yoshihito Sasaki - Good match! This surprised me. Nice, hard hitting action. Nice way to kick things off! Hirotaka Yokoi vs. Kintaro Kanemura - MMA type vs hard-core hero...this is an excellent styles clash. This was a blast...Kanemura leads Yokoi through a fun under 10 minute match with hard-core elements, big spots and couple nifty holds. I only know of Yokoi from Fire Pro Returns so it was neat to finally see an actual match of his Naohiro Hoshikawa, Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Wataru Sakata vs. Dick Togo, Ikuto Hidaka & Kohei Sato - Really good stuff with all of this talent. Hoshikawa was the standout for his team and Dick, Hidaka & a young Sato delivered as well. I didn't dig the finish as it came out of nowhere but there's plenty to like beforehand so it's not ruined in the slightest. Leonardo Spanky vs. Low Ki - This felt too choreographed and purposefully epic, at times. Other times it felt right. The last minute was done just right..So all said, this was a very good match. It's a lot of fun with the surprises and variations on moves you thought you knew. The familiarity is present and if you're into the early 2000's indie scene or founding fathers of ROH etc., this is one to watch. Masato Tanaka & Shinjiro Otani vs. Kazuhiko Ogasawara & Shinya Hashimoto - This was early 90's NJ with Ogasawara being a Karate black belt teaming with Hash vs Emblem. And I loved it! It had that odd flow with the Karate guy going 70% strength and blasting Otani and Tanaka with punches and kicks (and occasionally missing). Hashimoto would direct Ogasawara what to do next both as leader/vet but also to keep the match interesting. Hash would get beat up early on (going after his knee) which unfortunately was pointless and my only big complaint. Eventually he would just unleash upon his opponents. All that said, Otani and Tanaka did not go soft on either of their opponents. This was very much a WAR match in a Zero-One ring. Four guys just beating each other up. Highly recommended! ----- Zero-One along with BJW are two promotions that I have dabbled with here & there (see the Puro + More blog) but I really need to focus more on these. I am going to be looking into even more in the future. My internet only projects keep getting bigger while my stack of DVDs doesn't shrink. That said, my DVD projects get slowly taken over by internet based videos that are meant to augment originally. At the end, they become 75% internet and my DVDs augment that! I've got to be more discerning! Anyhow, more wrestling tomorrow! Thanks for reading!

Hey folks! due to some technical issues with the site, I lost access to my G. Badger account. So I'll be using this new account to continue my blog & post here on PWO. Just wanted to let you know! The Further Adventures of Puro + More... is a continuation of my Puro + More blog than I've been doing since 2018. Fortunately, my wife had made a profile on here a few years back while I was getting her into different types of wrestling & she was kind enough to loan me her profile. Let's be honest, I don't think she used it! But it definitely came in handy when the machine gods of the PWO site decided to hobble my access after changing some settings. Anyhow, this is a good time to talk about what's coming up next. It's been awhile since we looked at Japanese wrestling. I'll be posting some stuff from Zero One, New Japan and UWFi & Rings. These are meant to be a part of larger projects but I want to get something up for you guys. Think of them as teasers for projects down the road. I'll use this reintroduction to pontificate, if you don't mind. First, I'd like to reiterate my perspective on pro wrestling. It is fun. It is a diversion. So when I watch wrestling, I'm in it to have a good time. That said, I'm along for the ride. I'm interested in the story the booker and wrestlers are trying to tell me. I want to feel the ups and downs. So when I write my reviews, I'm trying to convey that emotion to the reader. I want you to get pumped to watch a match. If I'm lukewarm or cold, I want you to know why. I'm just one voice and my taste might be different than yours. This is why I try to reference other matches or wrestlers. I want you to be able to compare & contrast with your own opinions. Additionally if you have a preference for or against a certain wrestler, style or promotion, I try to add a remark in my reviews. You might see things like, "Great TNA tag match," "Classic FMW main event," or "If you're a fan of Jun Akiyama or Stan Hansen then see this match." I'm not just being colorful. I want to give you a little bit more information. There's so much wrestling available with the internet that I don't want you to blow time on something you're not going to enjoy. I don't do star ratings very often anymore. I think after Meltzer got goofy with those, they've fallen out of usage by many people. Still they are helpful especially if you trust the reviewers. I stopped doing them awhile back because I get too caught up in trying to quantify. If wrestling is a fun diversion then I don't want to quantify it numerically. Numbers are too exact even if using whole numbers. I mean that every match is different so if I give Kurt Angle vs Samoa Joe 5 stars and I give Ric Flair vs Ricky Steamboat 5 stars then they must be equal (5=5). But they aren't actually equal in all or even many ways. So I think by saying both are All Time Classic matches, I can indicate the highest level of quality, my highest level enjoyment without making a direct equivalence. So you may say, "That's good and well Badger but couldn't you just assign a number to each of your ratings? So All Time Classic is a 5, Classic is a 4, Very Good a 3 etc. And then you would be quantifying. Aren't you just trying to trick yourself?" And I would then say, "You go to hell!" 😄 Seriously, you can do that number jazz if you want. I'm a qualitative data person when it comes to this stuff. I'm in it to get you amped to watch wrestling not to work on spreadsheets. I want to get people excited to watch different stuff. That's what a lot of the early projects here on PWO did for me. It got me out of my bubble and tried new things. OK, I got that out. Let's do a wrestling art show 😋 Haven't done one for awhile. Just for fun. Misawa vs Takayama --- The Sheik in FMW --- Black Moth Super Rainbow Mr. Wrestling II --- Thanks for reading folks! Thanks for sticking around! Be back soon with some wrestling!

Hey folks! due to some technical issues with the site, I lost access to my G. Badger account. So I'll be using this new account to continue my blog & post here on PWO. I will get the "new" blog setup shortly. Just wanted to let you know! So it's the same Badger just with a new handle & pic 🙂 thanks!