Ma Stump Puller

I love how Yoshinari Ogawa is now in the old-man lucha role of getting to fuck around in tags and trios for 90% of the year, but he gets to then commit to matches with guys he really likes; guys like Ridgeway, HAYATA, etc, and now this. In a way, he's become what Misawa was in the 2000's with his consistent focus on training and working with his own projects to get them over. It was really cool to see him paired back up with Zack; I thought they were one of the cooler tag duos of the time (I actually covered that recently, not finished sadly) and him getting to cook with game opponents made this a easy great watch. Pre-match has Ogawa be a prick and yank Kaito down during his introduction for no real reason, he's just built that way. Starting sequences with Zack/Kaito were pretty much flawlessly smooth, maybe a bit too smooth but I still quite enjoyed how they played around with some WoS bits here and there between the usual handsprings and takedowns. Ogawa/Oiwa was all built on basic wrestling fundamentals; Ogawa would bully with extended holds, Oiwa would have to rely on his atheticism to find ways to escape or counter. Simple stuff: seeing how Ogawa would add in little flairs here and there to really grind the moves out with consistent cheap shots, taunting, and some genius transitions reminds you why he's so brilliant at structuring a match, making a crowd ooo and ahh at shit like headlock takeovers. I was surprised at how much he gave Kaito in terms of selling and bumping, even for stuff that I wasn't really that hot for like his dodgy elbows. The good news; that doesn't last for long! Kaito actually spends the whole middle half selling for the technical lads as they do their old tag-team routines and hone-in on torturing the guy with submissions and whatnot. Kaito's selling for this was fine, but him screaming for what was most of the duration was unneeded and kinda distracting: I'm fine with screaming during the worst moments, consistent screaming for every little thing? Yeah no thanks. I don't know why they went from the arm to the leg and then back again as well and it did feel like overkill, especially when Kaito's attempted hot tag almost right after was him running around the place over and over. There were some funny Rat Boy moments with Ogawa baiting out the ref to try to kick his arm away during a sunset-press before pulling back and making him fall so he could get away with punching Kaito in the face to escape lol. This leads to a strong sequence of the two using the apron to attack Kaito's head while he's draped over alongside Zack throwing on a really cool inverted headscissors to try to knock him out afterwards, leading Kaito to dramatically act like he's dead for a minute. The control work was generally pretty robust and kept a strong pace despite it being led by two technical guys. Looking at this and then the recent Bryan match, I felt like Zack's stuff while still smooth had a bit more.....struggle? I mean he's still mostly the same, more so his work seems more laboured here than it did there. Maybe that's the difference in crowd expectation: he can go at a more slower pace and not have to worry about losing interest: who knows. Last third was enjoyable enough with Oiwa's decent hot tag and some fairly good work with Sabre. He does like a big wrestling takedown after catching one of his kicks to go into a cross armbreaker and does a few gutwrench suplexes that looked very flush. Kaito's work was actually less impressive as he focuses on doing his strikes, which are pretty awful. Ogawa and Kaito finish up and as per expected from their prior work from the 2021 series, it's quite enjoyable, with Kaito pulling all of his wacky Muto-isms with Dragon Screws and crazy facial expressions in submissions. The roll-up sequences were legit entertaining given Ogawa's dragging himself along at such a old age yet still surprising the crowd with some of the stuff he was trying. Eventually Kaito just does the classic Muto-style Shining Wizard spam and after three (!!!) he manages to get the clean pin. All things considered, I think this could've helped with some more rowdy brawling in places. Apart from Zack near the start going to the outside for about a minute, they never really get to those levels of chaos that could've been accomplished. As per a Ogawa-match the technical aspects are all really solid and well thought out in terms of a basic "heel team in control" routine as per what the duo usually done. Sabre and Ogawa work that dynamic naturally really well, even if Ogawa is starting to get effected a bit by Father Time; he's a bit off with some of the faster counters here, but given he's nearly 60 years old at this point you gotta kinda let that slide all things considered. I think what actually does tangibly drag the match down are the other wrestlers involved here. I mean listen, I really like Kaito Kiyomiya, guy is quite talented, he just never really seemed properly on in this match with a lot of his stuff lacking intensity and, you know, looking good. Oiwa while also somewhat having issues with that had some strong powerhouse moments of just throwing weight around, so at least he has that coolness factor to rely on. Kaito parroting Muto-spots with none of the unique flash doesn't match that at all. I'd say the match is still a really solid watch, it's just that there were obvious weak links that could've been worked on.

I don't generally care a whole lot about modern DDT, but the implication of HARASHIMA/Funaki as a matchup (and to my knowledge their only encounter) was way too curious to ignore. They start off, and it's a lot of tentative grappling as HARA pulls guard and sits on his back most of the time, with Funaki slowly trying to grab something. It's not particularly good, and it felt like just being there for the sake of it to get a slow start. The Sakaguchi/Akito bits ruled though, Saka threw these really nasty sharp kicks until he tried going for one on the apron and Akito caught his legs and basically slammed them knee-first as a sort of modified shin-breaker on there instead to work them over, which went into the main chunk of the control segment. HARA got to be a prick by stomping and standing on his busted leg, and Akito took the time to take his kickpad and guard off so they could get maximum discomfort. Typically long limb targeting sections can be hit and miss, however I think these two got into a great grove and got some actual fun out of destroying the leg: Akito at one point gets Saka into a Death Valley Driver set-up before then throws him knee-first onto the mat, another spot had him dodge a roundhouse from Saka to slap on a absolutely hellish-looking calf crusher after trying for a School Boy to get him down to the ground. Sick little spots like that really helped get this over with the crowd and myself and they were absolutely invested. The eventual hot tag by Funaki was really standard though; lots of kicks and a PK before he got caught with a low dropkick and gutwrench suplex by Akito to balance the books. The HARASHIMA/Funaki exchanges were quite cool! We got a superplex and some hard strikes exchanged before Funaki won out with a slap and rolling wheel kick, usual stuff. The last few minutes was impressively done as Saka balanced his bad leg selling with doing moves, generally being undone due to his tendency to try to use the leg for striking offence and getting countered for his troubles like a typical dumb babyface. Akito rules with his wide range of knee-focused bombs and strikes while also realistically getting caught off-guard when he gets way too cocky for his own good and ends up overextending, so we get a nice cat/mouse tempo between the two as they try to get that one magic hold to win. The finishing stretch is messy in places but it just works wonders for the chaotic counter-heavy submission sequences the two end up having; Saka throwing gut punches to escape a figure-four setup to roll into a front guillotine rules. If wrestlers focused as much on working punches as they would anything else I'd say matches in general would be way better. Anyway, this was great! Reminded me of the old DDT tapes I watched a while back, full of violence and lots of pretty smooth wrestling that focused more on grounded technique rather than the usual DDT flash you'd see. Even Funaki and his fairly minimalistic wrestling got a pass because he still looked pretty damn good trying to slap HARA's face off and was game to work his role in making the younger guys look cool. Pretty underrated scrap and absolutely worth checking out.

I was dreading this: Funaki's last few shoot-style matches with Suzuki and Sakuraba haven't been much good, with his Aoki match being a decent but middling performance. Barnett is also a bit of a loose cannon when it comes to his consistency so yeah this was a risky match all things considered. Starting sequences had the classic slow grappling as Barnett got a takedown, but he couldn't really translate it to much as Funaki kept moving his legs around to prevent any proper leverage on toe-hold attempts. I guess it's funny to see the Achilles Tendon being treated as a scary move when it's been pretty much exposed for decades as uncomfortable but not something to tap out over. Barnett tried to escape, but ended up feeding his foot over in the process and had to quickly rope escape. I thought the spot with Barnett hooking the arm in stand-up for a potential legit arm drag and almost getting choked out when Funaki counters was a nifty bit that got the tension going quite early and had a good counter with a kneebar a little bit afterwards. Stand-up was crappy; Barnett's never exactly been great at pulling his strikes and this was especially true here as he threw these really goofy light slaps that typically were a mile away from hitting anything while Funaki kept to landing low kicks that looked quite sloppy at times. It felt more of a formality than anything else to pad for the matwork. They do some more stuff and it's ok, Barnett using his wrestling to get into full mount after some guard passes was cool, him fumbling a cross armbreaker and them having to awkwardly shuffle around as Funaki kept his arms together really wasn't. Was cool seeing the Billy Robertson headscissors counter but it lasted for maybe two seconds before being dropped Barnett stupidly tries to go into a side headlock for maybe a head/arm choke, Funaki catches him in his own headscissors that forces another escape for the lad. Third half of this was really great, however, as the two start just doing dangerous stuff to the other. It starts with Barnett going for a Grovit before trying for a takeover, but Funaki kinda undershoots for it and he ends up almost legit DDT'd on the floor. The two go for a really cheesy double toe-hold as Barnett grabs one before his opponent shuffles over on the mat to copy him. Stand-up time as Barnett gets flustered with shots and tries for a German, only for Funaki to employ a cool Sakuraba-lite double wrist lock from the back before trying for a Fujiwara armbar. Barnett won't go down and lands a pretty great overhand slap to the face for the first knockdown of the match. They do the classic "takedown counter is a knee to the face" bit, only Funaki ends up legit busting his nose in the process. It's cool that he was still able to do the front-face guillotine spot regardless alongside the absolutely awesome finishing bit where Barnett's solution to the submission is just to pick Funaki up and dump his ass with a brainbuster for the KO victory. I think the main issue with this is that it struggles to really pick up any: Funaki even in his prime has always been this super cerebral worker, but that doesn't really translate to quality when it comes to actual engagement with the match as it just looks like he's checked out for the most part. Barnett is a bit more eager to get moving and that, I would say, is how most of this trucks forward quality-wise. Dude is 45 yet can still make grappling look so much more refined and struggle-heavy than many of the so-called greats you'd usually hear about. His selling was mostly solid as well as he realistically paced out the leg-work by Funaki's kicks: he starts off taking them with a slight pause and by the near end he's shuffling around and struggling hard. I'd not say this was exactly amazing for what shoot-style as a whole is able to do, but as a functional throwback it works just fine and even gets quite decent in places, which is a fair shock.

This was good. I think what's spoiled me on Zack matches is the fact that after watching so much of 80's UWF where the grappling is prolonged and focused around fairly basic holds and transitions, having these two breeze through whole sequences with next to no struggle is incredibly jarring to the point of distraction. There's one bit early where Zack has a double wrist lock in Bryan's half-guard and he just....lets it go after a few seconds as soon as Bryan applies the lightest of pressure to moving his leg. It's just really weird and doesn't really create much threat in the holds being placed, which is a tricky one for a match like this that was really honing around that factor. People kept saying this was the modern-day "Inoki vs Robinson" (including the commentary) despite that match being a 60-minute prolonged semi-legit/shoot struggle with tons of gritty moments. This had lots of that technical detail sprinkled in by comparison, but the pacing was very much aware of the fact that they couldn't drag this out too much lest the crowd lose interest, which you could notice from certain moments was starting to appear as the case whenever they slowed down. It also didn't really have those "oh shit" moments on the mat where someone would get a breakthrough and potentially maybe even snap or break whatever they were working, it was just kinda dragging itself along at a reasonable tempo; there are uncomfortable moments, but never a true match changing momentum switch. The comparison bar the obvious Inoki connotations doesn't really ring much true tbf, I could honestly see any big Inoki sell after a exhaustive back and forth as much, MUCH more cathartic than this. When I went back to the 2015 NOAH Zack/Ogawa match for reference (which is a very similar match to this one bar the finish as it consists of two well-oiled technical guys trying to figure out who is superior) I immediately seen more flush performances and a really great sell-job by Ogawa when his arm is being torn apart, which this didn't quite manage to muster despite the match functioning around respective bad limbs. Bryan felt more annoyed than actually to the point of tears and unmanly screams like Ogawa was, while Zack pretty much undersold for most of this despite generally being solid with specific leg spots. I still quite liked this through: Bryan is nifty on all ends and Zack while a bit too excited to run through sequences (can't blame the guy though, this is probably one of the biggest matches in his career) is still very crafty in how he presents himself as the inferior all-rounder in terms of wrestling ability, but a incredibly resourceful guy who knows how to get under someone's skin and make them commit to mistakes; the bit where he eggs Dragon on to throw with his shitty right arm and eats a few shots before firing a elbow right into the arm mid-shot was a fantastic spot that really reflected the duo's dynamic in a nutshell; Bryan's willing to commit everything to win regardless of how smart it is while Zack is equally willing to find any opportunity to sneak a victory out, even if that means being a huge dickhead in the process. His control spots were solid and he generally had a solid understanding of his role in the match here, which is always appreciated. The Dragon Screw spot (you know the one if you've watched the match) I think was a Ogawa spot he had actually done once or twice back when I was binging his NOAH material, so that was cool to see. Dude also stole the finish to the Kendo Kashin/Sakuraba match with the top rope double wrist lock counter (even up to Saku cranking the hold in by bringing the arm up!!!) crazy stuff. The top top Butterfly Suplex into Lebell Lock could've been a epic spot alongside Bryan rolling into it in response to the attempted counter, but the fact that the attempted hold lasted about a few seconds before they were off doing other stuff meant there was no real chance to process it much. The crowd were big for the actual spot, but the submission afterwards didn't really get much interest; quite telling. Bryan's kicks were cool. His weird elbows to the chest through? No thanks. Them doing some goofy ahh slaps in a figure-four? Ehhh maybe not that either. Honestly if this had more of that stand-up stuff where Bryan was just hammering the leg with straight kicks I feel that would've got a much more visceral reaction, especially if it was hammered in more that Zack couldn't do a whole lot about it bar eat shots and hope for the best, instead they did commit to some ho-hum generic strike exchanges that while entertaining didn't feel appropriate for the level of pain the two were apparently in. Apart from that the last third was probably when the match started to get really solid because the two respected fatigue and the motions felt more laboured and desperate. Had that been the pacing for this bar a quick start I'd be way more interested in a match like this all things considered. If this match had half of the reversals and doubled the length of the ones you'd have left over, I'd say this could've been really good. Alas what we did get felt like a limited version of what these two could really do with no real expectations behind them, and the grappling of the match felt less of the critical part moving things forward and more of a formality that never really took centre stage. This needed that moment of pure grit to make it really legit at least and I felt like that never truly happened here. Having a potential rematch in Japan with the implication of Bryan truly beating Zack on the mat is definitely something I'm very looking forward to seeing, however, because I think the two can really have a fantastic outing if they committed to it.

Is Fujiwara going to UWF one of the greatest acquisitions of wrestling talent in history? I'd say so. This debut match was something that the company badly needed; it's all good having Maeda on board, but if he's just going to spend every main event squashing foreign talent that NJPW/AJPW hadn't locked in (and believe me the ones remaining after that aren't worth the trouble for the most part) then that's a bit of a waste all things considered. Fujiwara is not only fresh, he also has that inherent heat from being a outsider native with a fearsome reputation. I thought what worked about this match was that the two were not only working to get over the dynamic of the match; that is to say, Fujiwara showing up in UWF and just how dangerous he is as a wrestler while also really making something out of the natural heat that springs from such a thing. Maeda is the de-facto ace of the UWF, Fujiwara is to record his first true threat as a tricky defector, and that's very clear from the get-go given how tentative the two are with each other. Match keeps a good pace throughout as the two combine a lot of the proto-shoot style elements that will be refined as time goes on alongside just being really petty with each other. The grappling is nothing special even by the standards of then, but there's a great undercurrent of tension to everything done; Fujiwara is such a danger on the mat, everything Maeda does has a counter of which he doesn't always have a reliable answer against and for the first time he seems in tangible danger at moments here. Fuji of course is absolutely fantastic with his hair pulling and just full on punching dudes in the head when he can't break Maeda on the mat properly, and he keeps the tempo up with some really awesome roughhousing. Maeda as expected in turn keeps up with the tempo of violence, at one point just hammering Fuji with some sick punches of his own when he tried cheap-shotting him again. I do think there is a required taste in the kind of chaotic style that these two dig into at the latter end of this, especially with the always weird DQ false finish and then subsequent restart that always tends to be a hit/miss factor given it basically turns this into more of a example of politicking than anything else. Maeda wasn't going to lose (not at this point, anyway) and neither was Fujiwara for his debut, so what we end up getting is a messy Southern brawl rather than a UWF match to muddy the waters and to get the crowd going. It's still really solid, mind you, and Maeda gives Fuji a lot of leeway to do his thing in front of a very happy crowd. The double KO finish is expected shit from a 80's main event between two main guys, though I will say it's a LOT better done here than in NJPW or someplace like that and feels at least earned given the beatings these two gave each other. It's a solid match no doubt, however. It's nothing like what UWF will become, yet at the same time you see a lot of the elements that will make it such a powerhouse in later years.

Other Deep Dive stuff Introduction How do you go crazier than deathmatches and gory blood? You join up with Inoki and fight a bunch of green Japanese MMA dudes! This will chronicle all of Necro's matches in IGF (minus one house show that was never filmed...ignore that through) and we'll see if they're anything worth watching. Vs The Predator (IGF Genome5 06.23.2008) Predator/Terkay is doing his Brody impression against a debuting Necro, so of course these two just work it as a brawl. He's throwing big kicks to the torso, Necro's just throwing punches and everything to survive against this giant dude, including some of the best gut punches I've seen in a long while. He blades after the two go to the outside, bumping his head off the turnbuckle pole. This leads to Pred getting out the chain and doing the usual spots with it, including a cool bit where he hangs Necro off the apron. They brawl in the crowd as Necro sells for this dude for what seems like forever until they get back in the ring. Necro finally springs to life after dodging a dodgy rope leg drop and does a mini Hogan-homage as he gestures to the crowd and gets a surprisingly good pop as he smacks Pred's back with the chair before scoop slamming him while still holding on to said chair for more damage in a fun little spot. Necro does a solid job getting over his desperation to get this over and done as he rakes the eyes to keep Pred steady for a powerbomb; still fails though. Predator is shaken and pulls from the GOAT Tadao Yasuda with a standing forearm choke that he leans off the ropes for before just blasting the dude with some stiff double chops. He focuses on the head until missing a lariat and letting Necro grab him and throw the dude on the ropes groin first, always a classic. More brawling outside; this had a pretty great bit where Necro just dragged a bunch of chair-rows onto Predator's prone body and tried to bury him in them: which goes well, mind you, but then Necro makes the mistake of hurling a individual chair at Predator and he just goes ape-shit, no sells and double stomps him on top of a chair that had next to no give lol. Third half kinda deflated as not a whole lot happens, Necro gets his Tenryu punch/chops, inevitably can't get much going as Predator overpowers him with suplexes and a cool modified STF. The two have a enjoyable hick fight as the pair throw wild punches, but Predator's knees win out and he finishes up with a leaping Brody knee drop for the win. I mean listen Necro matches are always messes, I'd say for this the appeal comes from this just being a freakshow match; Terkay's this giant MMA dude, Necro is basically just all-round crazy. The quality comes from Necro being a great seller and making Predator look great while also structuring this out to hide his more obvious shortcomings. It's surprisingly brutal in places and manages to maintain a chaotic feel despite the crowd being quite dead in places. Maybe cut this down a few minutes (especially near the end where the match starts to dull a bit) and I'd say this could've been a perfectly acceptable match for these sort of cards. Not great and certainly not one of Necro's must-watch from the time, but if you want something that's just easy viewing then this is a easy suggestion. Vs Kendo Kashin vs. Rob Van Dam (IGF Genome6 08.15.2008) This is probably Necro's best known match as it's just a complete mess of a triple threat. I can at least say the lads tried (read: tried) to make this enjoyable. This plays off more-so as a comedy bout than anything else, with everyone scrambling to steal pins and forgoing the natural awkwardness of a triple man match by having the odd guy leave the ring or team up. Necro and RVD have some fun comedy bits with him stomping Necro's bare feet for a advantage, or getting Necro to set up a Poetry in Motion to seemingly land it on Kashin before just dropkicking him in the face instead. Kashin does his usual nonsense but does have decent chemistry with RVD, albeit nothing special. Necro blades after a belt shot to the face, giving RVD the excuse to hit a big dumb dive to the outside while the other two are brawling. RVD also takes a suplex on the ramp, which sounded painful as anything. We also get Kashin bashing Necro with fake plants (like actual plants? It's pretty dumb) but he gets taken down after Necro uses the barricade to counter the...plants. RVD lands a actually awesome crossbody to them from the stage, which was fairly high up and got a good pop. This is shortly followed up by a nice spinning kick from the apron after Kashin was dumped there by Necro. Last few minutes have them do a tower of doom spot after Kashin interrupts a superplex attempt by RVD, which was also decent enough if a bit contrived. Necro lands a great Tiger Driver, Kashin lands a German suplex to interrupt his pin before rolling Necro into a successful pin attempt after getting his feet on the ropes. RVD basically squashes Kashin despite him interrupting a Five Star by kicking the ref into the ropes, but his successful top rope cross armbreaker is foiled as someone (I think it's Simon Inoki?) distracts the ref from seeing the tap out, leading RVD to nail a really lazy Van Daminator (like seriously, this was just zero effort, probably the worst one he's landed ever) misses the Five Star. Kashin does his usual cool headscissors choke into roll up and his opponent manages to kick out. RVD hits a really bad kick counter to Kashin after he catches the other one and hits a stiff back-first Rolling Thunder for the win. Decent work, pretty messy overall. RVD is the best in these kind of disorganised matches given he can just not worry about psychology and hit cool moves, which he does anyway, this is just a excuse to not care even moreso than usual: I'm not complaining because RVD never needed psychology to be good in the first place. Necro and Kashin do their usual business and it's fine, but I wouldn't say they were particularly great anywhere. Fine as a messy brawl with some decent spots, hollow as anything at the end of the day. I really would've wanted to see Necro/Van Dam as a singles given they'd both find excuses to do crazy stuff to each other and at the end of the day that's what you want to see, right? I guess Kashin is Inoki's kid so he wanted in here as well. Vs The Predator II (IGF Genome7 11.24.2008) This is similar to their last match, but also quite different in some marked ways. It follows the same formula of Necro against someone way more athletic and powerful, but is a lot more condensed to in-ring interactions and doesn't have any blood this time bar a tiny bit from a hardway Necro headbutt. Terkay's sloppiness does appear a few times here as well (early on he does this weird flapjack variation that ends with Necro falling right on his face with no protection, that's no fun) mainly with a corner splash where he goes over the top rope....and most of his body is squished on Necro's head during the spot, which is rough. Necro throws a nice stiff headbutt into a sloppy dropkick, but his apron move is countered as Pred just picks him up and squishes him on the floor with a fireman's carry drop. Apart from that we get more control spots where Necro's taking damage, selling dramatically (good selling mind you, but still) and fighting the knockdown counts as he tries to drag himself up for another scrap. Pred gets a bit too comfortable in control however as Necro escapes a second fireman's carry and then manages to bash Pred's arm off the turnbuckle pole after he gets thrown into it. This allows the guy to go into full on Methhead South as Necro starts working the arm with fancy kneedrops and just wrapping that shit tight around the ropes. This leads to a attempted powerbomb spot which like the last time ends with Necro getting slammed around more. The two go flying out of the ring after a cool over the rope lariat from Predator and then a back suplex, which honestly looked like it hurt the person doing it more than the guy who's actually supposed to be hurt lol. They milk a potential count-out for Necro before he gets in obviously. Predator randomly does this super slow scoop slam into suplex/sit-out Michinoku Driver thing that looks like a Create A Finisher from WWE 2K13. I dig it, I just don't get why he did it for no pop? The thrill? Who knows. Necro does a fantastic crumple-sell for a punch to the head. Predator loses patience and starts just doing lots of dirty stuff to Necro's face; this leads to a second rope leg drop tease like last time, but Necro is ready! He throws his punches and hits a tremendously crappy Frankensteiner, following up with a super slow top rope crossbody for a near fall. He decides that this is IGF, so snaps on a cross armbreaker. Amazingly the two actually know how to do a spot like this properly, with Predator keeping his arms together to stop the move being fully applied, leading to a neat little struggle until he can hit the ropes. Necro throws punches and headbutts, doing this great bit where he's just so fatigued that punching Predator is not only not doing a whole lot, he's actively just hurting his hand in the process because there's no real force to his shots anymore, so he kinda has this moment where he's like "shit this ain't workin" and has to go for big lariats instead. Two land, the third is countered with a boot and belly to belly suplex. Predator finishes the match with a amazing Carl Greco-lite rolling front Grovit to get the tapout win. So this is probably better than the last match? Less walk and brawl, more action. Terkay is still quite sloppy, but he's that good kind of sloppy that matches well with Necro's more wacky and unconventional style despite some slipups, he's more of a crowbar with the occasional great move or bit that suggests he could've been a lot better. Necro's so great here for all of those little moments where he's conveying pain or desperation or both, it's such a treat to see him work this big man/little man dynamic in ways that others usually can't, namely in his continuous attempts to struggle, his little comebacks that always get him a bit closer to winning, all great stuff. This is the kind of work that made Necro a must-watch during the time, dude could make gold out of anything. Vs Atsushi Sawada (IGF Genome8 03.15.2009) Necro's run in IGF continues with a pretty decent showing. He really carries the (mostly) useless Sawada to something decent with a starting brawl outside (including a real nasty scoop slam onto the concrete) and even does the courtesy of blading him to get blood given the lad doesn't probably know how to do it bar doing headbutts. Sawada is a big geek, but he can hit hard and even manages some of his really dumb CTE-inducing headbutts where he just throws his whole face into you and calls it a day. Necro works his usual gross offence that is super safe but looks, well, gross. He rips at the cut, bites it, spits out blood, all the good stuff. Sawada in response can only do a wonky dropkick and judo throw. The commentary name-drops Tenryu as Necro steals his chops and punches shtick. Oh yeah, that throw/dropkick combo is ALL Sawada can do outside of strikes lol. They work well with it though, Necro gets the interest of the crowd with blood-work with the consistent biting and stiff shots to drag out the heat. Sawada plays a decent enough babyface: can't really wrestle mind you, gets the crowd on his side fairly easily given his rep and sympathetic stance here with Necro beating him up. Finish is simple as Necro throws all of his usual bombs (including a sick backdrop) before Sawada slips out of the powerbomb and wins off a German suplex and a weird leg-hook side suplex. Necro puts over Sawada post-match with a handshake and Triple H point. This was fine for a regular card but for IGF, you might as well say this was good to solid. Necro carries a green Inoki-Ism lad to something resembling a match, it rules for that standard. Sawada is fun and a easy babyface to root for, even if he's super limited. Vs Taka Kunou (IGF Genome9 08.09.2009) Much like all of Butcher's IGF showings, this isn't much of a actual house-style match, but leaning to Necro being well, not a shoot-style guy lol. Kunou is mostly known for being a failed MMA guy who transitioned to shoot-style: he's nothing particularly special yet is one of the more entertaining Inoki-subjects due to his willingness to commit to wrestling proper. Necro does a lot of cheating with closed fists and biting to escape being taken down by Kunou. In all fairness, he's fairly decent on the mat and does at times show off that he can actually wrestle (like Kunou takes him down for a Fujiwara-lite armbar and he intuitively rolls on his front to escape before it is even applied, as well as escaping a cross armbreaker clean) but this is mostly him working like he can't: using a lot of dirty antics combined with brawling. The fight goes outside and Kunou gets thrown around, even getting hit with a extra set of ring steps lol. This is Kunou's cue to blade, with him getting worked over for a bit. Necro goes omega nasty with him licking and getting his face right in his cut, even blowing his nose on one of the cameras. Kunou recovers after he tries for a top rope move and gets countered, the guy can't really brawl and instead goes for a armbar transition into cross armbreaker, which gets a rope break. He hits some dodgy headbutts before hitting a stand-up transition to a second armbreaker, Necro just manages to wiggle to the ropes again. Necro hits some Abdullah-lite throat thrusts before hitting a big powerbomb and a bunch of okish signature moves to build up his comeback despite some shaky moments. Necro tries for a second powerbomb but Kunou then rolls him up for the three randomly. Not a bad match, amazingly! Necro works around Kunou like a professional, doing a lot of stuff that looks nasty but really isn't: he's light on offence and uses a mix of his hair hiding said offence combined with his exaggerated motions to make it look worse than it actually is, being a consistent professional in that regard. He builds well to Kunou's comebacks, which aren't really sold as exhausting last dish methods to win like they should, however all things considered they still look impressive. The crowd weren't initially that bothered with this but did actually get drawn in over time, leading to a big underdog win that they were actually surprised by, giving the finish a huge pop in response. It's a match that for viewers also does take a bit to settle in proper. Once it does it's a quite good outing that has Necro really get the investment proper with just how mean and gross he is here, garnering all of the heat and paving the way for Kunou to do his thing. For what it's worth, Kunou could at least work his spots in mostly organically, and as said he's one of the better Inoki guys here given he's actually trying to wrestle and sell. Once again we get a solid Necro carry-match all things considered. Vs Minowaman (IGF Genome11 02.22.2010) Probably the best Necro match out of this entire set of matches he did. Minowaman wants to shoot, Necro wants to brawl. The result is a pretty messy affair that has Necro quickly lose patience with Minowa's fancy offence and resorts to headbutts and biting, eventually dragging the guy outside and blading early after getting hit on the ring post. Minowa dominates with some sprawling and solid strikes before Necro gets control with some low blows and hits a nasty headbutt that covers Minowa in blood and ups the intensity immediately. He hits a airplane spin of all things but loses control like a goof and gets wrapped up in a leg vice, barely able to reach the ropes. Minowa hits some basic wrestling offence along with some punches and slaps before Necro hits another stiff ass headbutt and capitalises with a big lariat and some huge chops in the corner. Both men just end up throwing hands until Minowa takes advantage with a elbow shot and grabs on a kneebar for the tap out. This isn't a masterpiece or anything but as a short match, this turned out WAY better than expected, especially with the clash of styles. Minowa is still fairly green (this was his first year of wrestling, after all) yet he shows some good spirit and Necro is a great sport here, really getting over how tough this guy is and selling a ton in what felt like the closest to Necro doing a Batibati-style match in terms of physicality and it rules so much more once that's realised. Not a big workrate match but as a gritty throwback to the Mixed Rules Matches of old? Yeah sure, I can get behind that. Really a must-watch all things considered. Vs Bob Sapp (IGF Genome12 05.09.2010) "If IGF is the home of the freakshow " this was a thing? " matchups, then this has to be the peak of that given these two and their infamy. Sapp works this like a regular Sapp match, lots of screaming, weird athletic spots that wiff plenty, and his opponent selling a ton. Necro oversells for a bearhug so much that the crowd starts laughing in response, so you get a good idea of what this is going to be like before it even gets properly started. Necro escapes by biting Sapp's head and throwing knees to get him to the outside for a crappy apron cannonball. He tries to slam Sapp, he responds with probably the slowest powerslam in history as he spends like 15 seconds picking the guy up and slowly ramming him into the turnbuckle post. Necro blades, though given his forehead was already cut up from a BJW show a few days ago it didn't really seem like a whole lot of effort was needed. Sapp continues with some more awkward stuff, including the worst ground and pound I've ever seen. Sapp's always been terrible at throwing strikes (probably because the dude is so freakishly strong yet has zero technique in the first place, so asking him to pull his already crappy strikes while making it convincing is a step too far for that lad) but this was especially bad. Necro lands a lariat and works the throat with a rope lean and chop off the apron. Necro getting a plastic bag and trying to legit choke the shit out of Sapp with it was a surprisingly brutal spot for a fairly pedestrian showing. Necro being Necro follows that up with a generic lucha roll-up, rakes to the face, then invokes the spirit of Giant Baba with a Russian Leg Sweep, but nothing puts the big man down. Necro then invokes the spirit of Stone Cold with a crappy kick into cutter, but Sapp is so powerful that even this doesn't work. Finish was really poor as Sapp just wins off throwing Necro from the top rope and then doing a limp powerslam for the three count. I'm a Bob Sapp apologist for the most part; I think he was a amazing draw in his prime, his wrestling honestly wasn't that bad for the most part (I will get to that at some point, it's really unfair how maligned he gets for knowing psychology a lot more than even some current guys) and he gets how to play a monster pretty reliably. This is, however, definitely not one of his bright spots. I have to blame that on him being a lot older and less explosive; this was around about the time he started doing dives in all of his MMA matches proper; so he wasn't really as motivated now as he was then and I imagine this translated into his wrestling work. Necro's a lot of fun in these anyway but there wasn't really a whole lot he could do with Sapp given he doesn't exactly have the atheticism or the pacing to really get much out of the guy. Sapp's best matches are with people who can bounce around him and get the most out of his offence, and that's just a tall order for him here. All in all, the weakest Necro IGF match by a fair degree and probably the only one not worth watching. Conclusion In calling Necro a potential GWE case, most of it does come with more acclaimed, more spectacular showings around about the same time. For me, however, I see Necro's case far stronger with runs like these; wrestling a series of quirky matches with guys next to no one has watched in any sort of dedicated detail and actually having really solid matches in the process is one of the strongest qualities you can have as a wrestler in the form of strong consistency. IGF's a goofy mess, but it at least shows who has the adaptation to crawl out of the mess of weird Inoki-Ism matchups and look good in the process. There are probably better runs (Otsuka's stuff looked real fun from what little I watched, might need to check that out) I've yet to see them though. Other Deep Dive stuff

Highest floor refers to range of consistency; not having great matches all the time per-se, but having consistently decent to quite good matches over a long period of time, being able to carry a wide range of wrestlers to a reasonable level of quality. Having a low floor would mean consistently not performing well. Highest ceiling relates to peak performance/potential: having a high ceiling would mean having really great matches, but maybe that's a peak they've only managed to reach one or two times and they've otherwise been pretty below that. Random examples off the top of my head Misawa, for example, would have a tremendously high ceiling, but questionable floor given his pre/post-prime work. Undertaker I guess would count here as well. Osamu Kido would have a great floor given his decades of reliable mid-card work and as a tag guy with whoever NJPW fed to him, but his peak matches are more or less a dozen at best, so not that high of a ceiling. etc etc

This was a real Monkey-Paw issue right here. We get Barry Windham back in AJPW, fantastic, but he's tagging with his brother who barely had any decent matches, let alone good ones. Thankfully Tenryu and Araya as Team WAR are here to make this at LEAST somewhat worth watching. Tenryu and Kendall get some good action out of a chop exchange as Tenryu can't match the guy in terms of hard-hitting shots, so has to cheat with punches and a stiff lariat, usual business out of him. If you like a slower 80's style match then this is probably more up your alley as a lot of this was just real protracted holds, basic slams and strikes. Nothing really that interesting and there's a couple of noticeable fuck-ups, nothing terrible; this feels like a early WAR match you'd see, full of stiff shots and plenty of non-cooperation. Tenryu was the best here by far, selling real good in places, getting over the pair and generally making things a lot more interesting with his usual rough and tumble style to drive in the intensity and make the match feel a lot more important than it actually was. The finish was fine: Araya lands his cool moonsault, eats a nasty top rope back suplex, Tenryu is taken out with a beatdown and the two get the win over Araya with a back suplex/neckbreaker combination a-la Kobashi/Ace or Movement. Not great, but I didn't think this was bad at all. The four knew what this was going to look like from the get-go and worked stiff and rough with everyone else: combined with Tenryu's experience and quality alongside Araya as some dynamic new-blood with some quality bumping cards drawn up here, this was honestly one of the better showings of the night. Slow but measured, a fun watch if you like weird pairings that you thought never happened.

While this matchup is pretty random it's actually super important as this is during Mossman's impending main event push. He's been loyal to the company post-NOAH (a crazy outlier given nearly everyone else left, apparently Kea's loyalty to Baba taking him in when he wasn't even trained to wrestle was enough) so he's going to get rewarded with a pretty strong shove forward all things considered. We get six minutes on tape, if you dig around a bit you can find a fancam version that keeps in about 90% of the actual match. Thanks, random guy. The match is fairly slow to start, but noticeably focuses around Mossman showing off a bit more. He shows up Shinzaki in the starting sequences and gets into a vicious exchange with Ishikawa. Ishikawa is so good in this match, shocker. To shoot-style/Bati-Bati fans he's this great icon of the scene and a trailblazer for all of the misfit indie crowd to follow but here in the conservative All-Japan world he's just some little shit who keeps fucking headbutting and hitting stiff forearms to anyone in striking distance. No one likes him here; he's a outsider who won't fall in line with the usual hierarchy-based tags; they definitely also don't like his style, so Kawada and co lay it in real solid here to try to get him back into line. Middle half is mostly solid leg work on Mossman by the duo as they ground him down as the weak link of the two. Mossman also gets in a unbelievably cool Russian Leg Sweep into kneebar, which, like, that's way too awesome a spot for him lol Ishikawa had to have thrown that in for the guy. While Kawada and Ishikawa get some great tension, this just never reaches that epic peak that I think this could've reached with some more chaos. Everything feels heated in places, but there's never that eventual explosion that you would come to expect, instead just settling for a more tame outing. Mossman also seems to be getting better, however I'd say there's a noticeable amount of standing around out of him (he doesn't really "get" how to communicate or emote well) and he doesn't seem fully freshed out yet, like he's still pulling a good bit from his old playbook rather than reinventing the wheel. Ishikawa snaps on some decent arm work until Kawada walks in to knee drop the shit out of him and balance is finally restored. Mossman throws in some knees and a botched Frankensteiner before doing his usual slick kick combo, following up with a Hawaiian Smasher for a near fall that Shinzaki has to break up. Mossman gets to lay him out as well with a big dropkick, albeit Shinzaki just rolls out and no sells for no reason. We do also get lots of Ishikawa/Kawada interactions for the second half and they are REALLY good with Kawada having his legs attacked with stiff Inoki crab-kicks before the two trade flying kicks! Man a full match between these two would've ruled, even this late in the game. Last two minutes are almost all Kawada as he beats up the two and establishes himself on top. Shinzaki can't really do a whole lot bar his usual spots, though they do work in them in fairly clever ways, like having Kawada predict his usual Pele kick mid-run and stop in the ropes to hit him with a flush lariat instead. Shinzaki does the Terry Funk selling for the Gamengiri kicks as he kicks out, but it's more or less just him acting on instinct at that point; his body merely stumbles around in a weird state without much thought to it, he's already done. Kawada gives him a shitty powerbomb before he finishes things off with his knee drop (!!!) of all things. As stated this is still solid, however I feel like Shinzaki and Mossman were weak links in their own ways. Mossman as mentioned wasn't up to the mark to raise the heat with his mediocre selling and Shinzaki is as plain as white bread, not a solid fit here at all. Kinda a shame given we've got two of arguably the best tag guys just chilling and doing their thing and that's miles beyond anything else here. Obviously built to make Kea look strong and it's all the worst for it.

I don't think it's that weird when you consider the drama surrounding his allegations probably makes him near impossible to book anywhere worth a damn lol. He's in his late 40's as well and pretty banged up, apparently.

I'd say this was a sad occasion to see someone like Quack so hyped up a couple of years back to now be doing matches in a z-tier promotion in what looked to be a British social club which had probably been last refurnished in the early 90's, but that would imply that he's a good guy that deserves that kind of pity lol. Anyway, the match is basically the 69 year old Kidd pulling off a good performance while Quack kinda dragged his feet along and did some really stupid mannerisms, all in round format! Round 1 has them do a few decent back and forth starting sequences, with Quack getting a bit overconfident before getting his legs worked over until the end; despite selling them a bit afterwards, it never becomes an actual thing. Round 2 had Quack do some half-speed escapes from Kidd (including a monkey flip out of a arm wrench, which was a cool bump for the oldie) before they do some surfboard transitions. It goes to the ground and he escapes using his legs to knock away Kidd's arms before rolling out. I do have to generally praise Kidd in this match; the guy is basically 70 but he's still pretty slick when it comes to sticking on the usual holds and he still knows how to get around the ring pretty damn well for his age, probably in part due to the low-impact style that he's still working. Round 3 continues the arm work with some pretty goofy Quack-isms as he lands slow and convolved counters to Kidd just sticking on robust arm work. Eventually the first fall comes as Kidd does a cool old-man cartwheel before catching the legs of a attempted sunset flip to take the first fall. Round 4 starts with Quack doing weird stuff with his arms before the two go over more fairly basic WoS sequences, with some being a bit more awkward than others. Quack gets a fall by coming off the corner and doing this really goofy 10-second long transition fest into a leg-capture STF. Sure it was a cool move, way better ways of applying it than this though. Round 5 has the two be a lot more tentative, with both using extended holds to drag this along, Kidd with a headlock and Quack with a leg-vice. Quack's still doing weird stuff with his arms so that's something. Really awesome bit where Kidd has a modified Cobra Twist applied, then springs off the ropes into a sunset when threatened with a rope break, thought that was really clever and could've easily been a spot people would gush over if done today. The rest of the round is him dominating with slick arm work until the end. Round 6 is mostly establishing Full Nelson transitions (!!!) and them pacing with each other in-between these Quack does a flip near the end and hits a monkey flip transition, forcing the two to go back and forth until Quack countered the sunset back to get the conclusive pinfall, so there's a bit of storytelling from the first fall to here. This was perfectly fine for what a WoS match would look like in 2023 if done by a 69 year old and a guy who isn't really that amazing at the style. Quack's a bit stiff (natural given this is his first publicly worked match for about 3/4 years, give or take) and his stuff is nowhere near as refined as Kidd, who mostly kept this going with some solid bumps and focus on limb work and tricky old-guy transitions to carry this along. It's definitely a great showing for him, I don't see how this does anything for Quack though. Someone should do what Quack did and take Johnny Kidd to Japan instead of America so he can work sick Mutoha matches before he retires, I'd really appreciate that.

I think Meltzer giving this a pretty high rating for the time (****, for reference) is telling of what interested him more back then compared to now. And oh boy, is it rough to get into. This match doesn't try to make itself any less hard to swallow, it's just right into slow grindy Catch work and British-style lads stretching each other at a pace many would consider as glacial. Let's be honest though; this match is pretty awesome. There's a real feeling of struggle to every sequence, every counter feeling earned and strained out as everyone here is pretty comfortable on the mat and can more than handle themselves. Pete Roberts was great when I was watching him vs Tiger Mask and he's just as good if not greater here, really holding down the fort for the first half as Kido and co grapple and test his limits regularly. Maeda isn't quite as snappy as the British lads are, operating as the more dynamic younger talent who is eager to throw weight around and try for more shoot-styleish stuff, though of course it hasn't quite gained any grounding yet as a strict method of sorts. They use a cross armbreaker for a casual hold rather than as a dangerous match-ender, for example, so that does age this to a degree. I really liked the interactions that he had with Kido, traditionally the more pragmatic grappler. Maeda would push for action and Kido would take advantage of that to wangle in double wrist locks and other submissions, forcing Maeda to struggle to either counter or escape, forcing him to waste his energy on that more than mounting a proper attack. Best parts of this were probably whenever Roberts/Haward were in and doing slick WoS stuff which the crowd seemed to love given they would clap enthusiastically after every extended sequence. It's a shame that they'd be historically used in this promotion as stepping stones. The last 10 minutes or so majorly step up in tempo as Maeda is fed the fuck up with all of these dudes slow dancing with each other and starts kicking Haward around and doing awesome big power moves on him. This energy kept up well despite Maeda sitting in a side headlock for a bit as we get faster and faster spots as the others start to throw strikes and get fired up. Last five minutes are solid as we get a steady increase in violence and a perfect build for the impending draw as the crowd start to realise that time is running out alongside the wrestlers themselves, leading to more risky attempts to take a win. Truth be told, the only thing they royally messed up was the finish. Kido and Maeda were working, crowd was paying attention and reacting well....then Kido tags out and Haward and him basically circle around for the last 15 seconds left: this felt less like a tense standoff and more of the two realising they needed to stall but had nothing in the bag to convey that apart from just moving around. Naturally the draw verdict is going to rub some people the wrong way but I get it, no one wanted to lose face. Crowd chants "Kido" loudly to finish. This is a great example of a Marmite match; for some this is going to be a amazing 30 minutes of well-paced grappling, a slow descent into more modern flashiness and showmanship, and a standout performance by Kido as he battles the odds and manages to mangle Maeda despite only gaining a moral victory by the end. Others are going to see this as a start/stop rest-hold ridden match that fails to keep interest and ultimately drags out to a draw that didn't really feel deserved or really built up any. I get both of these opinions, I really do, but for me this was a brilliant example of how simple matches can be and how much you can draw from pure groundwork alone when you have enough talent. Solid stuff, I'd say beware though. This match really doesn't care about appealing to people who "don't get" grappling matches like these. It honestly feels like it just wants to kick them out as soon as possible lol.

This was alright. I think the most intriguing factor was Maru basically playing the wiry vet role and how much he learnt off wrestling Misawa when they were in this same situation back in the mid 2000's. The match started off with typical tentative grappling and "big-time" shoulder charges alongside some ok back and forth action. Maru worked the arm for a bit then dropped it while Ospreay kinda just did whatever in terms of setting stuff up limb-work wise with barely a care in the world. The strikes were predictively pretty bad across the board; Maru has his usual wiffy kicks and Ospreay mostly kept to landing very light forearms (to be fair he does land a good rolling elbow near the end, so that's something) or his own kicks, mostly because that's not what matters here. What matters for these two is the spots and how those spots interact with each other, so you have Ospreay's usual big fancy sequences paired up against Maru having to rely on landing his shit through openings or counters given he just can't keep up with that pace anymore. That's great, because Maru is at his best when he's allowed to live up to his "Genius of the Ark" moniker as opposed to just running through spots with no real attention to detail. His comebacks feel laboured and desperate, especially around about the last 10 minutes where Ospreay is just overwhelming him with anything he can think of in the moment, so his more clunky execution does, I feel, make sense with the context of the match. I think the selling in that regard is fairly effective, even if it's predictively not that amazing for two guys who aren't really known for their outstanding work in that regard, it's mostly just sitting around after big stuff or doing facial expressions that might suggest they're hurt. Fatigue builds quickly between the two and there's a real sense that any truly big move could potentially finish things up real fast. Ok, enough positives? Cool: this had some stinky stuff in it as well. The dreaded mandatory strike exchange that everyone wants to do these days was alright, but I don't think it was needed given it just led into the two doing more convoluted stuff rather than build to a proper crescendo. The other really bad trend of "x does finisher close to y's heart in some way and they kick out at 0.5" is peak melodrama bullocks, and it didn't help that the last 5 or so minutes is just finisher spam between the two, so it's not something that really feels earned bar the significance of the move itself. You get what it's trying to go for with said spam....but it's still spam, so if that irks you it definitely won't be a fun sequence. I was amazed at how simple the finish was as Ospreay just ignores a knee strike to the face/superkick to hit two Hidden Blades and the Stormbreaker for the clean 3. While it fit the idea that Maru was on basically borrowed time in this match, it did feel a bit....weak, especially after all of the crazy stuff before. You're telling me a apron Shiranui and a rope-hung Shooting Star Press doesn't hit the mark as much as two running back elbows and a elevated cutter? Ehh not believing that. Anyway, the match isn't going to convince anyone who's sceptical of the pair into believing the hype, but for those who do like this callback-heavy focus on spots and big action it definitely hits the mark. It was clearly set up in a way to make Maru seem like he could still go hard even if he really can't bar a couple of his usual big main-event spots, with a lot of smoke and mirrors used alongside tons of dub spots to The guy isn't "cooked" per-se, just felt like Ospreay carried a lot of the raw atheticism. I think what it's lacking was some sort of....thing to go along with it. Usually with matches like these they start friendly and get more and more disrespectful as time goes on, building on the natural heat to really drag a match into the next level. Bar Ospreay doing Misawa-moves, nothing of the sort pops up here. It's just two guys doing spots and sequences well, just not building on much beyond that.

This is a early house-show test of the December Korakuen and it shares a lot of the characteristics of it in particular; very long, focus on prototype shoot-styleisms to come, and arguably a bit boring in places. The first five minutes are virtually nothing but prancing around, occasional wiffed kicks and maybe one or two grappling bits that end in the ropes. Takada then dominates as he mostly takes control when on the ground. Yamazaki gets to the ropes and they reset. And....yeah nothing much happens for a bit after as well, it's mostly just them trading submission attempts at a fairly slow pace. I will say it's not even half-bad wrestling in that regard, it's just something that seems lost on this crowd bar the occasional fairly small chant. Like at one point they were trading shoulders on a small package application, which, like, would've been a spot that wrestling nerds on X would've gushed over in 2023; here it's just seen as a bit weird and not really given much of a reaction. The crowd do eventually start to pick up when the two go for strike exchanges, though unlike their December match they don't go into bombs, Yama just kicks Takada around a bit until he recovers and flops on top of him in full mount while trying for a double wrist lock. He escapes and keeps throwing forearms and kicks until being tackled down. This formula is basically what they stick to for most of the middle half, bar Yamazaki occasionally throwing a slap or errant strike when escaping holds or positions. Takada is firmly established as the guy who just wants to drag this down with holds to avoid the risk of getting blasted with kicks, which does lead to some particularly dull moments where he's just hanging around and not doing a whole lot in classic Takada fashion. Yamazaki by comparison is a bit more dynamic in approach; even when he's trying for holds he isn't as complacent to wait on them so much, opting more to get the struggle when applied rather than to wait and then struggle. At some point Takada wants to do a top rope move (for some reason? ) and he gets thrown off as per standard. Despite Yama trying for a double wrist/Gotch side mount headscissors gambit, eventually Takada throws some kicks and gets in his reverse piledriver, so now we're getting a bit closer to what their taped match will look like. Despite Takada's floaty kicks, the selling for when Yamazaki foils the back suplex by hooking his leg and making Takada fall is really well done; Takada gets knocked down and really seems off-base as he keeps getting knocked around with suplexes and dropkicks. Even when he gets the shoulder off the mat during the false-finish German suplex you can tell he's groggy off the impact, throwing these half-strict, half-sloppy slaps to the body and head while not even being able to stand up proper. I thought that their attempt at what a "shoot-style powerbomb" would look like; basically Yama forcing the movement, bringing it right down on Takada's side in a jerky kind of fashion; was incredibly experimental for the time and didn't look half bad. The finish was rather poor as Takada was stuck in the double wrist lock movement, but was able to roll into full mount and apply the move himself out of nowhere for the submission win. One thinks maybe that was done to protect Yamazaki/the sanctity of the matchup, which is understandable. Still sucked though. With that being said, how good was this? It's hard to say, really. I felt like this did have some moments of greatness yet also had a lot of points (especially at the start! ) where you just could not get into the match. It was so ice-cold and the lack of real reactions from the crowd hurt especially. Will say that the mat-work while obviously dated does hold up mostly, bar Takada just dulling the match with long attempts at stuff that no one was really hard-biting onto as a potential matchender. If I can say one thing that was really positive: Yamazaki looked super solid with his sharp kicks and huge suplexes. He hasn't got that intensity yet (which is natural, he's essentially a kid here) but it's a good foundation, no shock given it's from the same guy who trained Super Tiger/Naoya Ogawa/Sad Genius, the Triforce of goofy wrestlers. I wouldn't say this is essential by any means of the imagination (especially with the crowd and smarky Japanese commentary) if you want a raw unfiltered taste of the experimental spirit that UWF Original was all about, I'd say this is a good shot at it.

With this match being fancam recorded in-full I am very certain that this is the earliest footage of Danny/Dan Kroffat we have around of an actual full match in action (there is earlier with him showing up for a televised Stampede taping last year, but only for sparingly few minutes and most of it involving him talking than wrestling). so that's cool. Match is eh, alright. Even someone with as little experience as Kroffat still looks good enough when him and Maeda are having solid ground work focused around Maeda attacking the arm with key/double wrist locks, and of course Kido is as smooth as expected. Tapu is the odd one out here; he's a short stubby guy who's past his best years and mostly acts like it, doing a lot of bashing around for Maeda and co at a pace I guess you could call glacial. At one point Maeda in particular randomly does the Scorpion Death Lock on Tapu for shits and giggles as a possible dig at a certain Mr Choshu. I guess the issue is that a "babyface duo in control" segment isn't exactly one prone to producing much heat so the crowd are mostly just watching and waiting. Kroffat gets in after a good while and does Johnny Smith's signature top rope dropkick/kip-up before he'd even become a wrestler, but he does botch the kip-up part. B-minus for trying I suppose. He also bumps super well after going chest-first into the turnbuckle while running, which is another thing that a certain other Canadian might have also been doing at the time. Aside from that, it's just the natives slowly running over them again with occasional moments from Kroffat where he's able to do a move until he tags out. Tapu slaps on a bearhug on Kido which some in the crowd laugh at for looking particularly silly and I'd have to agree; even at this point a bearhug was well and beyond reasonability as a move people thought was threatening, let alone in the UWF lol. Maeda gets in and wrecks Tapu with all of his signature offence before finishing up with a Cobra Twist for the submission victory. While the stuff outside of the match is interesting, this really wasn't by itself. It's the definition of a house show style "get your shit in and leave" scenario as that's exactly what happens, with most of the match dominated by Maeda and Kido just having little time to mess around trying to pretend this could go either way. The other duo aren't even given the dignity to be presented as threats, just annoying detours to a inevitable win. I suppose Kroffat even this early looked solid if naturally green. Not as good as he'd be in his next taped appearance in the company, but that's for another time....

Caught on fancam, almost fully preserved bar minute or so cut off due to some minor corruption. Cuban's hardly much to talk about in terms of how he fits into UWF (even this super early incarnation of it where we were still having random lucha guys showing up) not to worry; he's with Fujiwara who can make exchanges over who can stick a hammerlock on look actually cool and engaging. After a few minutes of the two on the mat (surprisingly half-decent!) we go into more scrappy/comedic work as Fuji gets a lot of mileage out of Cuban's usual brawler shtick while throwing some pretty hard shots when it comes down to the handbag slinging with his usual headbutts and stiff slaps to the face. Cuban can't do much there either and after more grinding on the mat, he basically goes right to cheating via nut shots and giving Fuji sumo wedgies lol. He gets his own back after with headbutts and choking alongside his own attacks on the groin for revenge as he toys around with the ref in doing so. Last few minutes are basically just Cuban getting wrecked as he uses a lot of rope breaks to escape numerous submission attempts. Cuban gets maybe a few shots in before Fuji finishes up with a good second piledriver and modified namesake armbar to finish up. Mostly just a showcase for Fujiwara but man is it fun. Cuban's a game heel prat-bumper alongside Fuji just easily moving this along with basic but smooth technical work, getting the crowd fired up for what was for his standards a pretty basic performance. One of the better early showings for UWF Original in terms of foreigner/native matchups and a good example of how a match doesn't need to have amazing workrate to be fun or engaging.

Caswell Martin seems to be one of those workrate darlings of WoS that, unlike others, never really got that next step into being a big deal. He was a good hand....and that seems to be the best of him. With that said, does he look good here on a iffy fancam....with Takada? Well we start off solid as Takada hits him with a low kick and he immediately backs off and changes stance before escaping a Grovit, catching Takada in this funky cravat variation until he has to get a rope escape. Generally the starting sequences mostly go like this, with Martin using his superior Catch knowledge to best Takada's attempts at submissions, using arches, armbars, and some nifty stuff to get out of trouble. Especially cool bit with Takada trying for a front face lock to escape a kneeling Achilles Tendon, only for Martin to throw him up and over into a perfectly placed armbar. This definitely was more of a WoS match than a shoot style match all things considered; Takada even pulls out some of his old fancy spots to run with here as opposed to his more restrictive version we'd see with guys like Maeda or Fujiwara. After a while of Takada struggling (with some decent matwork to boot) he goes for a cheeky slap when Martin tries for a lock-up, signalling his mood shift to strikes, which Martin can do little but eat up and sell. Martin does land this amazingly awesome version of a hammerlock where he does a handstand to give him more leverage (seeing as Takada was wiggling around) before almost spinning his body back down to get back to work. Crowd were big fans of that spot. His arm work is surprisingly dynamic for the time as he catches Takada's arm for a really mean gutbuster out of a fireman's carry. Takada not to be outdone hits his back suplex and tries for some Fujiwara-isms like a facelock and Achilles Tendon to no avail. The two do the usual underhook pinning exchange, only Martin escapes the inevitable backslide by pushing his legs off Takada to get the leverage off his shoulders, which the crowd were also super impressed by. Martin is pissed and does a gutwrench powerbomb into a bunch of super solid head-submissions (including a outright mean neck crank that I swear Jun Akiyama stole later on) leading Takada to respond with a good kick combo only for Martin to scoop him back into a back suplex and more head work. This third part definitely felt like a pro-wrestling match more than anything else, which is wild when you consider this was way after UWF Original had tilted away from doing stuff like scoop slams and leg drops. Takada uses more strikes to settle Martin into working at his tempo, which is him struggling for double wrist locks in side mount. Martin gets a arm caught with a hook, so arches to stop Takada taking any significant position before using his legs to slide under the ropes for a escape! Despite this and him also going for a solid Butterfly Suplex Takada's strikes are just too much, and he puts the resilient grappler away with a somewhat botched Tombstone (which Martin kicks out at 1.1. to get back at Takada for doing so earlier off the Butterfly, lol) and a full on Boston Crab/double ankle lock to finish things up. So ok, this definitely had some issues; Martin's selling of Takada's kicks is solid but he absolutely refuses to take any knockdowns or even to bowl over, preferring to just eat them and then keep trucking on. It felt at times like the two did have some issues bridging the gap between a UWF match of this era and a regular pro-style outing, with Martin not really caring while Takada was generally trying to keep on some sort of theme. That being said, I still really enjoyed this. The two work quite well together and the crowd go from politely clapping for Cas to full on chants near the end. I do wish we got more of him just around in Japan, because the crowd really took to him well here despite going up against a fairly popular native. He's not especially flashy, but he's very clean and effective with what he does do here. This for a Takada performance was also fairly strong as well as it got him out of his stupid headlock mania and into actually working a proper match despite his lacking mat-work. All in all, pretty enjoyable match, I just wish we got some of Cas' other matches in UWF on actual footage (apparently he did some pretty long tags against Super Tiger/Fujiwara which sound sweet!)

More Deep Diving here It's a double turn.....but with Inoki-ism! Imagine Bret/Austin, now replace the two with a really tall guy and a tubby ex-sumo. This comes abruptly after Yasuda had fought a Dutch kickboxer by the name of Rene Rooze: the two had already fought for real at one of Inoki's earlier events, with Yasuda of course losing. This was obviously worked so the match was fairly tame, thankfully only three minutes long. Yasuda and him fall out of the ring after a clinch and Yasuda smacks him on the ground with a chair two times (yet doesn't get DQ'd because uhhhh don't think about it) and beats Rooze by TKO, potentially ruining the main event with his usual antics. Ogawa comes out to Hashimoto's music and decides to avenge the guy, so we have this match. As you might expect from the mad lad this immediately starts off with a corner beatdown and the ref falling over for no reason. As you might also expect this was a lot of nonsense: Yasuda doing his usual fun heel work like throwing low blows in clinches, Ogawa pulling out a chair when Yasuda tries to get one himself, the usual Coward Shooter stalling and beatdowns, etc. Ogawa blasts Yasuda with strikes (namely some pretty stiff shots to the chest) before cutting to a depressed Inoki trying to stay awake. Ogawa throws the ref out when he tries to end the match so he can keep kicking the guy. Yasuda tries some fighting spirit but he's a complete goof so he gets nowhere with that despite his best attempts. It's funny to say but Yasuda is great at being pathetic; how he keeps falling over with each attempt, how he keeps pushing on with the same stubbornness, it's like he knows he can't win anyway, it's either that or just do nothing and still get kicked. Over time Yasuda becomes more of a babyface to the crowd as Ogawa keeps relentlessly beating him down. He does catch Ogawa's leg at one point but he's so weak that he can't make it mean anything. This keeps going as Ogawa shoves out a second replacement ref to keep the beating going until Inoki runs in and starts throwing hands! He knocks out Ogawa with his vintage sleeper. Post-match have the two square up, nothing comes of it. This was typical for a Ogawa match; messy like anything, stiff shit, etc. Having a match be mostly composed of him kicking Yasuda in the chest is certainly a choice but they make the best out of the situation, especially given Yasuda has some endearing selling that ever so slightly makes this bizarre and very chaotic match work as he becomes the wrestling equivalent of Sisyphus, just replace the boulder with a guy who associated himself with chickens. If you like what these two bring to the table then this is definitely going to be at least fun to watch.

I'll be the first one to admit that the Wilkins/Genjin feud is hardly that interesting given it's essentially the same goofy match over and over, but this is by FAR the best match the two ever had together. They always end in a count-out, so fuck it, Falls Count Anywhere, someone's got to win this time. The first half balanced crowd brawling with Wilkins doing sick power spots and no selling stuff alongside the occasional bit of comedy. Yone generally got the advantage with dirty antics, though Wilkins would only need a single counter to get back any lead lost. Comedy stuff is hit and miss but I felt like it mostly clicked for the crowd and was always balanced well with Wilkins getting his shit in, which is always hard-hitting and enjoyable. The second part turns into complete trash brawling with Yone assaulting Wilkins with a random can, Wilkins throwing Yone up and over into a nasty brown lake outside and the legendary cart spot as per standard. Wilkins looks like the Terminator as he gets pelted with a full on bin of garbage to the face while going up stairs and no sells it. They march back and Wilkins throws Yone out of the ring onto the floor with a military press, though thankfully there are some random refs there to catch the poor guy. The finish was pretty good as Yone kept milking crowd reactions while out in the bleachers, throwing surprisingly good headbutts and bashing his opponent with weapons until he ends up stumbling and gets slapped up with paintbrush shots before getting stuck in a Chickenwing for the verbal submission. It's definitely not a "great" match by any extent of the imagination but it's a pretty ahead of its time crowdbrawl you'd be more inclined to see from DDT with all of the wacky spots here. Yone is quite over as a underdog, with him and Wilkins doing about as much as this sort of gimmick brawl allows without it becoming tiring, which it does dare to almost be at the end. Stupid stuff, definitely ahead of its time in that it's doing this kind of stupid shit WAY before anyone else in Japan was even thinking about it.

Clipped by ten minutes, but there is a full version out there as well if you dig deep enough. It doesn't add a whole lot bar a solid exchange between Malenko and Fujiwara. This stars a very young Joe Malenko in what is probably his first televised match as apart of a quick tour with the company, where he was predictively used to mostly job to the main stars. This starts off solid as Kido runs down Tiger and gets a few German suplexes off alongside well as a Scorpion Death Lock that he at once falls to the floor as a way to modify the move for extra leverage Fujiwara also gets in to land some nice scrappy worked punches before Sayama gets his own namesake armbar applied on the guy, following it up with a slap and roundhouse for a knockdown. Fuji scrambles to survive and has to dirty break with some petty punches to the body out of spite. Loved the little stagger he does shortly after that bit as well, showing that he's still trying to maintain his aggression despite being clearly damaged goods. Sayama sees him shaking around and therefore goes into hammering his legs with stiff shots, which doesn't knock Fuji down but causes him to be barely able to keeping himself upright and hugging corners. When Malenko gets in, he's just kinda leaning to the side, trying to keep himself together. Again, it's awesome subtle selling by a true master of the craft. Malenko's work is greenish: he hits a weird floating fallaway slam that looks bad on one hand but he also knows how to work the fundamentals and has a awesome counter to Kido trying to hook his leg for a takedown, going into a drop-toe hold transition and attempting a kneebar. He's admittedly also not quite the best seller in places, though this is a expected limitation for someone of his stature. He does fine for his role here, mostly getting grinded down by Kido's mat work and building to a decent hot tag. Tiger gets in and scores a knockdown off a multi-strike combo ending with a smooth spin kick to the head. The road to the finish has Kido be broken down with a particularly long cross armbreaker so Fuji finally gets back in. He's still selling the leg damage so he spends some time just hanging on to the ropes while his legs get battered. Fuji plays patently while they tease him getting counted out with a definitive knockdown. He's able to dodge a Enzuigiri shot from Sayama when he catches his leg before quickly snapping on a deep Achilles Tendon hold for the quick win. This isn't a must-watch or anything but it's a pretty great extension to the Tiger/Fujiwara feud, with Kido and babyish Joe being really good additions despite not having quite as much heat or action with their moments. Solid stuff all round with some absolutely great dramatics on top, can't really go wrong.

Since everyone here was talking about the UWF stuff, I'm glad to say that it doesn't really add much of anything to Haward's already solid resume. That's generally because UWF Original mostly treated their foreign talent as little more than stepping stones for their main guys, so Haward barely got any screen time and when he did, he was losing the match he was involved in. His best work is in the 05.12.1984 tag with Maeda and Kido alongside his singles match with Super Tiger. Outside of that.....not a whole lot, unless you want to see him job to Nobuhiko Takada in 5 minutes.

Kido matches are the best when he's being taken out of his comfort zone and forced to work a more proactive technical style as opposed to how he can look like in many a match to come in his career: very calculated and tricky on occasion, not exactly Mr Excitement at the end of the day. Mechanically this match is pretty great: Maeda and Kido are fantastic when it comes to working the technical portions, making their transitions and counters natural, like they're figuring it out in real-time as opposed to just doing them for the sake of the move. For example, Kido doing the Billy Robertson headscissors in side mount bit is a pretty basic submission in terms of shoot-work, you'd expect that in nearly any match, but Kido then having Maeda shake out and him then going for sticking his knee on Maeda's face when his double wrist lock is blocked as a set-up to apply the headscissors again (as in, he just did all of that to get a better position of the move, big brain) is just a really smart way of conveying defence/offence working alongside each other to make for a really solid exchange as opposed to just sitting and waiting for the big move/transition to happen. There's a lot of that in action here from Kido as he will seamlessly go from submission to submission, but do so in a way that even a casual watcher can look at and go "ahh that's why he did that" because it only makes sense after the fact. This is a art that hasn't carried over a whole lot in decades to come. Maeda is generally on the defensive here due to just never having all of his bases covered and letting his opponent either slip out or slip out and then put him in danger with a counter-hold, which is cool since it lets him be a bit more versatile beyond the usual domineering Maeda people can get used to seeing. Despite some good holds Maeda is still firmly on the backend of exchanges as Kido continues to wangle out of his best attempts and almost taps the guy out with a single leg Boston Crab at one point. Was fun to see the two throw shitty little tap kicks as Kido basically just messed with his opponent rather than do much damage. Finish is REALLY good as Maeda just explodes with a stiff kick combo as he lets out all of the mounting frustration, running out of steam eventually and having to basically lean on his opponent in the corner. Kido just rides the storm and tackles him down to make him tap with the single leg right in the middle of the ring. It's a really epic moment that just showcases Maeda just lashing out at his wits end and getting absolutely punished for it, which is wild to see when you consider he's been pretty well protected in Original UWF so far when it comes to wins/losses. The match itself as you'd imagine is quite strong; it's predominantly mat-work (not the RINGS fast kind either) that's smartly paced out and surprisingly full of dynamic moments between the two. Maeda's explosiveness with Kido's experience and sheer knowledge make for a potent combo that really impressed at the end of the day. Would recommend strongly. If Kido had matches like these afterwards for longer than a couple of years or so he'd be a lot more known.

Not much credit is thrown Takayama's way for how he adapted his style as he started to drastically slow down after his near-career ending stroke alongside general wear and tear issues. Sure, the guy was always on the lumbering side (give or take) but if you look at how he was from 2000/2004 to afterwards you can tell he's lost a few steps, he can't really rely on his freakish atheticism like before. He could still move fairly well (until around mid 2010's where he started to really pack on weight) however he had to work matches a bit smarter. This is a pretty good example of that; it's him playing a more immobile Goliath against a smaller guy. He consistently towers over Kondo, he barely does anything considered "fast" he's consistently just working the bigger slower pace, even when brawling on the outside he's prolonging and extending his usual pace. Everything he does is to really get Kondo's more faster shit over when it counts, namely his signature fast lariats. Super simple formula, the only real issue is that because this is right before Takayama loses the Triple Crown in three days, the two are noticeably not going full tilt like they easily could have done so. It's fine though because Takayama is such a pro that he can make even simple shit like a regular back suplex look absolutely terrifying. Kondo gets in a pop-up powerslam somehow and manages to even get a School Boy powerbomb (albeit with a small delay) for brief moments of hope, with even a lariat near fall near the end. Of course Taka just wrecks him with a few suplexes and knee shots, ending with the Everest German. Easy match to follow and was quite explosive for that as well. It's a good example of a late-Takayama match being more about the psychology of him being a giant than anything else, and Kondo is beefy/capable enough to throw convincing enough stuff on the table for me to believe he could topple his opponent despite that obviously never being the case whatsoever lol.

Oh how I'd love to have seen this with a Nakamura from a few years later. Not to say that he was bad here, just nowhere near seasoned enough to get the most out of a matchup like this. Match was still quite solid though. Murakami runs in early for the rush of strikes and corner stomp spot. Mura shit-talks and the two exchange shots, with Nakamura's forearms and slaps winning out. Match slows as Nakamura and co get weary of the other, so we see lots of takedowns and sprawling to escape them. Smooth mat-work as Murakami effortlessly escapes multiple kneebar attempts, trying for a toe-hold and a head/arm choke. The sticker comes when he tries to pry the arms open for a armbreaker as Naka arches over and tries for his own toe-hold, but the pair roll into the ropes. We get more wrestling on the mat as Nakamura pulls out the Sakuraba cartwheel into mount trick, but he's way too slow doing it and so it looks like ass by comparison. He makes up with a cool rolling toe-hold so it's even. Naka applies his Triangle Choke (which was a killer move of his at the time) another rope break. His frustration on the mat leads him to instead go for risky bombs, throwing in a belly to belly and pretty dangerous looking powerbomb to counter a kick off his opponent. The finish is pretty cheap, however I think it works into the dynamic well. Naka is in his Muay Thai clinch and throwing forearms and knees; he makes the mistake of going for more punishment instead of a conclusive final bomb, in doing so Mura manages to slip out and snap on a rolling cross armbreaker to steal the win. Murakami post-match is a huge dickhead as he goes for a handshake from the arm that's all messed up from the armbreaker lol. Anyway, if you dig Inoki-Ism stuff then this is enjoyable. It's nice to see a actual somewhat compelling technical wrestling bout from Murakami given most of his NJPW stuff leans into the more crazy brawling side of his arsenal as a performer, and Nakamura for his credit wasn't too bad at it either, even if it isn't something he really excels in working with. If you're looking for Battlarts-tier quality out of Murakami this will definitely NOT be satisfying despite being pretty robust in its own right.

Would suggest Yasuda/Nishimura from this year if you want to see him pretend to be a Catch wrestler (and fail epically)