Control21

I'm fascinated by the Ric Flair vs Steve Williams match. It's a shame we never got that in real life. NWA Power looks good, with some tasty matches on the card. Ric Flair is the man, and everyone wants to beat the man.

Muta and Warrior feuding is going to be very interesting...that's definitely a dream match. Survivor Series is looking very interesting with the 20-man match and the stacked teams as well....fans are getting their money's worth there!

Yeah, I always liked EVIL as a brawler type, which seemed to be his style in LIJ. When he turned heel, he resorted to Bullet Club-esque tactics which weren't particularly interesting because that was something we had already seen before. I've never been big on House of Torture because of that. I think they were going to go for a Bullet Club civil war with House of Torture splitting off from the "gaijin" group, but maybe they got cold feet over that. I think Bullet Club either needs to be disbanded or broken up, so it's too bad we didn't get that outcome.

Good stuff! I like how the main event aftermath sets everything up for the EVIL heel turn we all loved back in 2020....

I noticed Jerry Flynn is on the list but he didn't debut until December 1989 and that was for FMW. He didn't wrestle again until 1991 where he worked primarily for PWFG (Fujiwara's promotion) until 1993. He doesn't hit the 10 match requirement for North America until 1995 by my count. He is someone I am interested in bringing in at some point but probably not until later next year of course.

One of my favorite "Different Style" matches and probably one of my favorite matches of all time too. Maeda and Nielsen both worked very hard to make this an exciting match and the hot crowd carried it to the next level. The story here is that Maeda is more dangerous when he can get Nielsen to the canvas, but Nielsen outclasses Maeda whenever they engage in a traditional striking contest as Nielsen is a good-to-very-good kickboxer who is at the peak of his prowess here. Nielsen's reach gets him out of most situations and seems to be heading to a victory until Maeda gets him with a very well-timed takedown that he quickly turns into a single-leg Boston crab. Excellent stuff all around. ****1/2

UWF Fighting Base Tokushima (2/27/1989) Yoji Anjo vs Shigeo Miyato A pretty good opener all things considered. Nothing that will blow you away, but the work here was very solid and Miyato put on display a lot of his potential that he never quite tapped into in his wrestling career. Anjo had a good performance too, and pulled off some nice moves. Better than some of the other UWF openers we've seen so far. ***3/4 Norman Smiley vs Tatsuo Nakano More of a Smiley showcase than anything else. Nakano was pretty much there to have Smiley demonstrate all of his cool moves. Nakano did put up a fight at times but never had a chance. It's a shame we didn't see more of Smiley in UWF as he had moments that made you go "wow" in a very Volk Han-esque way. ***1/2 Akira Maeda vs Bart Vale Pretty much a squash match for Akira Maeda. Nothing too exciting or decent here. Vale did have a good stretch at the end but didn't offer anything of note outside of that. A very dry match all things considered, and nothing to write home about beyond the last few minutes. **3/4 Nobuhiko Takada vs Kazuo Yamazaki A decent main event but it could have been better. Yamazaki did have moments of brilliance here, but this was mostly about Takada launching a comeback after being down 2-0 on points in the last few minutes. These two would had better matches, but this isn't too bad. ****

AWA with the big-time signing! Vader is a great fit for AWA. Sgt. Slaughter vs Nikita should be a great match.

I forgot to mention this in my previous post. Ryuma Go has been dropped from my roster.

That would be awesome! Ishii vs Naito would have been an interesting match in 2020.

Good stuff. Cornette knows how to deliver a promo and make me laugh at the same time! Chris Candido is making enemies and he might be barking up the wrong tree with Debbie Combs and Brian Lee.

Spooktacular sounds like it was a great event. Jamie Dundee continues his good fortune with Tojo Yamamoto.

UWF Newborn adds Don "Nakaya" Nielsen. I should also note that Atsushi Onita is missing from my roster list. On a side note, I have a small cosmetic request to update my info and promotion logo as it is presented here: Booker: Control21 Owner: Shinji Jin Promoter: Akira Maeda Commentators: Sōichi Shibata, Kenichi Takayagi, Sadaharu Tanikawa, Shogo Tanaka Referees: Masami Soranaka, Motoyuki Kitazawa, Yuji Shimada, Ryogaku Wada Ring announcer: Nobuyuki Furuta Trainer/advisor: Karl Gotch, Billy Robinson Location: Tokyo, Japan

I can't offer draft picks or anything, but I'll happily take him off your hands. I loved his work in UWF Newborn (and elsewhere), and I would probably make very good use of him.

Roddy Piper loves being in the center of the spotlight, although I think he adds a lot of flavor to WCW as well. Spivey being left alone by the other Horsemen is interesting. Spivey must not be very happy with his "comrades."

Survival Series is already shaping up to be good! These Brother Love segments are gold. Really well done. The Rockers are red hot, but I also have my eyes on Great Muta who seems to be on a upward trajectory too.

vs Templario 10/13/2022 CMLL Grand Prix Cibernetico 8/19/2022 vs Soberano Jr 9/1/2023 vs Titan 6/16/2023 vs Atlantis Jr 2/28/2023 vs Virus 9/29/2023

I agree, Kerry vs Terry Gordy sounds like a dream match of sorts. The Battle Royal for the title shot is shaping up to be very interesting. Lots of guys smell blood in the water...Nikita is a great wrestler but it will be interesting to see how long he can keep performing at the top level.

Billy Jack continues his hot streak in the run-up to his encounter with Barry Windham, and he's firing on all cylinders as he gets an impressive win over Curt Hennig. Dustin Rhodes vs Art Barr sounded like a fun match that I would probably wouldn't mind seeing in real life. Same goes for Cheetah Kid vs Chris Candido. Bob Backlund can't catch a break! Hope people living in Connecticut are taking proper precautions....

What a remarkable story for Ron Garvin as he comes back from the brink to win the A block and beats Bob Orton in the final! I'm sure Ron Garvin's fans are very pleased. Zero Fighters came close to winning but the Sheepherders were just one step ahead. I smell a "rematch" brewing at some point. Road Warriors come away with a great win over the Beasts of Burden in a brawl that gave the fans their money's worth. I was a Road Warriors mark as a kid (I got their replica chest plate once...) so it's always good to see them do well here. Speaking of guys I like to see do well, Junkyard Dog is giving Col. Deebers some fits! Can't wait for Starrcade on Thanksgiving night! Should be a great event.

Lots of interesting stuff happening in Fright Night! Leatherface making waves in both the opener and main event. Duggan probably isn't too pleased with that. Tammy Fytch in SMW is going to be interesting, especially with Chris Candido. The two could climb their way to the top. Cornette making lives difficult as usual!

Both semi-finals look really good! I wonder if KENTA can finally get his hands on a trophy in NJPW.

Yep! Sayama was the first Tiger Mask from 1981-1983. After he left for the first UWF, he became Super Tiger due to conflict over who had the rights to the name. Sayama then started wrestling as himself around 1985, and founded Shooto after the first UWF folded. Tiger Mask II (Misawa) popped up in 1984 after AJPW bought the rights to the gimmick, and then it reverted to NJPW with Tiger Mask III (Koji Kanemoto) and Tiger Mask IV (Yoshihiro Yamazaki), who is still wrestling today for NJPW. After Sayama returned to wrestling in 1996, he stuck with the "Super Tiger" moniker but he's the first Tiger Mask everyone knows and loves. It's interesting you bring up Onita. I'm trying something new with him. He won't be a deathmatch guy in UWF Newborn, but I'm aiming to retain the same "edge" Onita had but in a different form. Instead of a wild hardcore wrestler, he's a no-holds-barred Vale Tudo guy, which in the 1980s and 1990s, was probably the "deathmatch" of shootfighting/early MMA. That's why I kinda went with a new explanation for his return to wrestling with him spending time in Brazil and all that stuff. Hopefully, I can pull it off and it makes sense in the process. 1988 is actually when arcade games started taking off in Japan, and "Street Fighter" was released in 1987 as an arcade game. My goal with Onita is to base his character conceptually off games like Street Fighter, which is why I have him promoted as a "street fighter." You also have popular anime shows in the 1980s like "Fist of the North Star" which was similar to Street Fighter in some aspects. Most notably the show featured the protagonist killing "bad guys" in violent ways, so I'm taking inspiration from there too. He's still a wild, unpredictable dude with violent tendencies....but he's a shooter this time. Aoyagi and Onita had a series of matches in 1989 which were known to be a little bit brutal for their time. Onita had just opened FMW and was looking to cash in on the shoot-style craze by challenging Aoyagi to a series of wrestling matches. I'm accelerating things a bit by doing that a year early, but hopefully, it's a good way to introduce the "new" Onita to this world.