Ma Stump Puller

Additional match included here.

I was praying that this was going to be a ironed out shoot-style-ish match given the occasion and mix of talent, even just a couple of minutes of them pretending that was going to be the case at least. That hope is dashed in the first minute as after a fairly decent strike exchange, Saito and Shark start doing headlocks and Irish Whips sigh. I mean Shark's cool and all don't get me wrong, I'm just not interested in seeing what is essentially a slower Tiger Mask tribute act go at it. We do get some Aoyagi/First Tiger stuff and it's actually pretty good for two guys with a combined age of 110 or something. Aoyagi starts off with a fairly gentle low kick, Sayama responds with a hard high kick in response lol. He tries to do another but that gets answered with a spinning back kick that even god damn Masashi Aoyagi is like "that's way too much" and backs off. He gets bitched out with a Tiger Spin and sick Sambo throws into submissions. Shark gets in for a tame strike exchange which ends with Aoyagi doing a fairly on the money rolling wheel kick. Middle half is built around Shark being beat up by the two Karate bullies, mostly Saito doing his typical NOAH opener act; stalled suplex, apron DDT, piledriver on the outside, lariat on the ringpost, etc etc. Aoyagi does throw a nice kick here though. This bit drags a fair bit, especially when the two start doing IRS-tier headlocks near the end. Aoyagi bumps well for the inevitable First Tiger hot tag and even takes a sharp Tiger DDT. Last third is mostly him and Shark getting in their signature work and kicks, through we get a super awesome spot of Aoyagi just destroying Shark with some surprisingly damn good kicks to the body and head in response, including a solid leaping Enzuigiri shot. Saito comes in and we get another incredibly awesome spot as Saito throws Shark in the air off a back suplex for Aoyagi to "catch" (more like just hold his legs a bit, to be fair) him for a mid-air powerbomb!! Bonkers shit to add in here and it's also NOT the finish as that comes after a Saito lariat and Aoyagi throwing out a funky back sole kick to the head to finish things up. All in all I'm admittedly disappointed that this wasn't at least more grounded, though what he do get is fairly decent. Sayama's not really interested in the match sadly; a real shame given he still kicks hard as hell alongside the 2014 Saito match proving he could work a solid outing when pushed. Shark's better if only because he takes more bumps. I think the charm of this comes from Masashi Aoyagi having a blast as the old man indie karate dude just hurling himself around for spots he really shouldn't be doing yet proving otherwise. It's nowhere near his prime 90's stuff, still real charming. Saito does his job as the guy running the match in the background, standard antics for him.

The Shibu/Natsuki bits were just generic low-risk rookie joshi puroresu sequences, lots of dropkick exchanges, bad forearms to the chest, hair-pulling, all the usual beats. The Yoshida/Fujii spots are EASILY the best parts of the match, these two were basically built for each other. Of course we still have to had Yoshida bumping to the lamest cross-chops you've ever seen, but they actually built a nice little narrative around Natsuki being a shit and trying to grab Yoshida's body in side mount and hook a half-Nelson to try to get a cheap-ass pinfall which Yoshida then does to her to basically mock her attempts back, which then results in Yoshida eating a uber close near fall when she gets complacent while bullying her around. This sets Yoshida off for a rear-naked choke into extended rolling Spider Twist which gets the first fall fairly early into things. Yoshida is on a power trip as she tries for a immediate Air Raid as soon as the bell sounds and gets predictively punished by a Nat sleeper to counter out of the attempt. Yoshida tries this again on Fujii a minute later and it's the same result, only instead we get a really awesome submission exchange between the two where they go from hold to hold with ease. It's not done for the sake of flashy transitions: Yoshida really makes a marked attempt to showcase Fujii as this amateur demon who just dominates with speed and aggression, forcing Yoshida to snap on some pro wrestling stuff to survive as it's not her forte. Because Fujii is so light as well she can fling herself around for bumps; either to grab the back, or to go flying after a bow and arrow is stuck on her and Yoshida lets go. Small stuff like that just adds to her overall aura as someone who's always in motion, either trying to snap a submission or getting thrown around herself, because she's not much of a actual "wrestler" in that sense, wrestling moves are basically her Kryptonite. The stuff between her and Shibu is cool as well, she tries for some lucha stuff but that just turns into her trying for roll-ups before Fujii does a super sick roll into instant kneebar for the second fall. This keeps the tension well as the two teams get on some submissions that you are never quite sure will be the conclusive finish or not. Fujii even works her own Spider Twist on Yoshida to rub it in and it leads well to her being in danger of being choked out from a follow-up Guillotine and Nats sleeper, crowd buy it because it's been built up well from early on as a potential upset. Yoshida counters a running takedown into probably the sickest Sugar Foot transition ever before that gets hooked into a pin attempt instead. We get more Yoshida in Danger spots as she gets hit with a accidental dropkick and some additional sick flash pins for near falls. After this the match does somewhat turn into the usual ho-hum rookie exchanges with the occasional decent bit, it did lose that intensity that it had built up for the first half with the weaker quality of wrestling. Nats doing Honda-lite headbutts is great, that isn't enough to make this interesting for her though. The finish is Shibu doing this weird wonky arm-trap side German suplex as well that sucked, boo. First half is a amazing blend of shoot/high-flying work before it settles into a decent but lacking stretch focused around rookies who didn't seem to be up to scratch. Needed more Fujii and Yoshida doing cool grappling ngl.

Megumi Fujii in action is always worth a long watch, even if this match was kinda messy in places. The main issue is that these are two of the greatest female mat-wrestlers to ever do it vs two gals who aren't really close to that level of skill: not bad, but not on that level either. That being said this was still REALLY good, the first fall coming after Fujii tripped Kimura up before rolling back into standing position into a super slick Triangle choke and winning in the first minute of the match was a amazing spot alongside Kimura just being shocked afterwards. The fact that they run it back with Fujii doing a slick Frankensteiner right after to try to get another flash submission only adds to proceedings. The pro-style duo try to use double-team antics to stop another fall but Fujii's so sick that she easily dodges a Kuri dropkick to go for a nasty-looking inverted toehold. Kuri's limpy stomps and dropkick aren't so hype, but then we get a absolutely amazing back and forth between Kuri's pro-style rollups and moves while Fujii just relentlessly keeps finding ways to transition into a armbreaker until she ends up tapping out! Crazy stuff. Yoshida comes in basically just to feed for the two as they use some dirty rudo-style antics to keep control. Of course this doesn't work for long as Yoshida escapes a attempted kneebar to go into lucha submissions. Her stomping on Kuri's back and raking her shoes on her shoulder while she's trying to reach for the ropes is just plain revolting; doesn't matter how many times I see the spot, it's always great. Kimura strikes are good, Fujii does a tornado DDT transition for a front guillotine until Kimura actually manages to overpower her for a Fujiwara armbar before trying to pin her off the threat of a double wrist lock. The duo continue with Kimura just straight punching Fujii at one point to set up a Poetry in Motion-lite dropkick. Fujii escapes a powerbomb and instantly goes into a fast rolling toe-hold. The last third gets a bit weak in places as Kimura has to get over her no-selling shtick a bit too much for my liking, despite getting in some spirited offence and kick-outs before a Yoshida Air Raid firmly ends her run. This was more or less a squash and operated that way, with a lot of room made to show off Fujii as a complete killer. Mission accomplished there: she's pretty damn amazing for her second match ever, some occasional sloppiness, acceptable given it's her second match ever lol. Everyone else works fine.....well mostly. Kuri felt like a weak link and Kimura's gimmick gets old fast, even if Yoshida works with it well with some real stiff stuff to try to get her to crack. It just never really fully clicked and I have to put that onus on the quality of opponents here. Still a solid watch, could've been better though.

Kido's role in this UWF is fascinating. He's not a dominant force and mostly doesn't win matches against the big top card talent, but he's always positioned as a threat that gives them a lot of trouble. There's never a match where he feels like a afterthought despite him having zero strikes or any particular fancy moves to show off, instead just being a super ironed down grappler that you can't sleep on else he snaps on some obscure Gotch-taught move to escape. A main struggle in this match is Kido's defence and trickiness throwing Fujiwara off, especially when Kido has actually beaten the guy already, so you get that sense that this is not a good matchup for him. Seeing these two follow every hold to its logical conclusion is so satisfying, from the struggle over multiple Kido's Scorpion Death Lock attempts being more and more successful as fatigue sets in to the two drawing out the reactions to the throws used (the ones that Fujiwara uses especially, you can see the clogs moving before they happen and Kido at times even tries to convey him resisting it by hooking a leg or whatnot for leverage). There's good focus on the double wrist lock here as Kido keeps finding ways to either apply it or counter Fujiwara's versions, which leads to frustration, which leads to more mistakes, which then leads to even more frustration! They built up it up great with Fujiwara doing a bunch of cheap shots from clean breaks, typically little bitchy slaps and stuff that didn't even make a difference, he just wanted to be petty. Kido eventually just boots him in the face during a lockup to knock him down after tolerating the little shit for too long. What's funny is that Fuji STILL hasn't learnt anything and tries the same move for zero result lol. As much as people love technical grandpa Fujiwara or as a angry headbutter, petty diva is probably one of his more fun incarnations, especially with how much mileage he gets from his cheating antics as he loses patience trying to keep this clean and just goes full tilt into being a ass. Him finally snapping and going for his signature headbutts felt great as both a outlet to do his cool headbutts while conceding the pure technical side of things to his opponent, unable to find any definitive cracks to poke at. Kido responds with more power moves when Fuji gets too comfortable afterwards, and he's basically lost all of that progress as soon as he's got it. He works over the legs in desperation while Kido also gets a really tense armbreaker snapped on. The finish works well with the tempo this has set as Kido lands another backdrop out of a desperate headlock, however leaves his arm exposed to a double wrist lock while he's trying for one himself and forcing him to submit. All in all, a solid sleeper hit of Original UWF, the kind of match that Fujiwara excels in with his mounting anger and befuddled nature really making this something more than the usual main event jaunt. Kido's not the most varied worker out there and he's not exactly a ball of charisma by comparison to his opponent, but there's just something about him that makes audiences really want to see him succeed. It's kind like that Marty Jones vibe, just a clean-cut technical underdog. You really see *that* kind of style, especially in such a technical match like this. Mat work is a bit simplified compared to more modern shoot-style performances if you look close, I'd say all things considered it's not to the detriment of the match plus this is more about the interactions alongside the work as opposed to just the work, if you catch my drift. Probably one of Kido's best performances all year and a good highlight of what he can do with a game opponent.

Pretty transparently designed to get the younger guys over but also show that the duo have some growing up to do yet. Muto hadn't shown up in NJPW since 2002 so the crowd were very hot for him from the get-go, even for his fairly by the numbers starting sequences. Tana and him have good chemistry as they exchange some freestyle wrestling, with Muto in particular shining with some great transitions alongside subtle mind games via quick slaps to confuse Tana and get the first takedown, or hair pulling to loosen leverage in a side headlock. Nothing massively heelish, just little things to make this a bit more interesting. The first half is mainly polite grappling before Nishimura breaks it with some stiff elbow smashes and we quickly go into usual puro formulas as Muto goes into his leg work, though he does mix it up in places. Nishimura also does some work before missing a sudden jumping kick, resulting in one back from Tana seamlessly. I do feel like this lacked heat for the Nishimura sections....not because of him in particular, it's mainly because everyone came to see Muto, not him, so they tend to wait until he shows up to really start going, even if they will cheer on occasion. As much as I like Nakamura as well, he did seem a bit all over the place here despite being really flashy. I did think Muto countering a takedown with a low dropkick was rad as shit though, so I suppose it worked here. That's probably the only time you'll see Muto do pure Inoki-Ism. Tana does have good athleticism but his offence goes from decent to "wow that didn't look good at all" tier move to move. While the two certainly can do moves, they don't really know how to pace out a match logically with them here, as opposed to Muto who gets massive cheers for honing in on the leg and exploiting counters to fit in Shining Wizards. He has a story to tell while the two younger guys don't plan out that far. We get in some bits like Nishimura's backslide struggle alongside a double figure four spot. Nishimura turns a superplex tease into a front-face choke (!!!) which was pretty cool as was Tana stealing the Wizard and Muto immediately getting pissy and running in for his own right after Muto gets taken out with a Shining Triangle by Naka a-la the Misawa tag. Tana and Nishimura have a good exchange of tricky near falls until Tana gets the upset with a flash small package. A bit aimless in places as the new guys tend to lack direction, Nishimura and Muto really shine with the younger bodies in the ring with some fast-paced work alongside subtle distain by Muto towards his old student. I wouldn't say this particularly interested me; the match never really got off the ground proper; the work was done well and Muto is a delight in these smaller, more compact showings where his charisma and mastery of pacing shine best as opposed to his more overblown dramatics in big main events. Nishimura does the bulk of the actual ring stuff and he's as per expected, quite good, typically being the one to direct and sell for the two. As the puppet master behind this match being solid, it's another great example of how his style just enhances everyone around him.

Probably the most technical match Nakanishi has ever done. Him and Nishimura spend about 10 or so minutes just doing typical Nishimura routines, only adjusted for Nakanishi's beef so he's typically the stronger pushing here, so it's more of a strength/skill situation. On a side-note, I'm always a fan of how Nishimura can control a crowd with simple catch-routines; he's a master at adding tension to fairly simplistic stuff, it works because it's so unique by comparison to the more popular big epics at the time or the big stiff striking battles, seeing a struggle of a headlock or a surfboard is wacky enough that you respect it. He also does a really good job at selling the danger of Nakanishi by immediately flopping to the mat after a vicious chop or two, not even trying to suggest he can go toe to toe with the guy. His bumping in particular is just great here as he makes Nakanishi's stuff look killer despite some counters here and there, typically getting sent flying. The back becomes a huge issue as Nakanishi targets it with a really nasty looking Boston Crab before landing a spear to the back of Nishimura when he dodges a lariat. What I do like is how for a 30 minute draw this doesn't pad attempted finishes until the end: Nakanishi by the halfway is already trying to grab on his backbreaker to end this, it's just Nishimura being smart enough to survive and counter, mainly with a Grovit/front face lock to keep his opponent grounded. He also gets on a sleeper to counter a lariat, which when Nakanishi tries knocking him off with a slam he keeps the hold on the ground as well: even a vicious backdrop afterwards won't stop Nishimura holding on. They even leave the ring and it's STILL applied. This goes on for about 4 minutes but the audience never stops not paying attention, because the stakes have been firmly established as Nishimura being exposed without locking holds. We get some leg work before Nakanishi applies a really cool Prison Lock, trash talking while landing some big chops. They even incorporate a Iron Claw into things despite how goofy it looks. I do think the lead to the finish is a bit weak; Nakanishi gasses up a bit here and messes up some of the Cobra Twist transitions due to being sloppy. We get some leg work and heel hooks before Nakanishi finally goes for a backbreaker, albeit Nishimura grabs him in a headlock for leverage in the hold and manages to counter a Hercules Cutter into a bulldog. The same thing happens with a third, only Nakanishi gets hit with a sleeper. A fourth is successful but Nishimura refuses to tap and the bell finally sounds. The first half of this is pretty good, with the second being a bit more mediocre because they spend a LOT of time in holds; I'm typically fine with them but multiple figure fours and sleepers for minutes at a time is rough stuff, even for me. Nishimura is great here with all of his counters and how he shuts down his opponent on offence; Nakanishi is also solid, albeit gasses up and his selling suffers massively as a result; by the end he's leaning around like he's Andre and just looking rough. Starts off well, tanks slightly despite some good moments; Nakanishi isn't really built for super long matches like these and it showed after a while.

We get pre-match promos from both guys, basically just saying "I'm gonna be there, we're both old" etc. Severn looks a lot better here as he pulls out some of his typical overbearing wrestling technique and lands a early German suplex. I think what works about this is that the two (mostly Severn) really use the ring set-up as you would in a actual grappling contest, with Severn consistently just squishing his opponent, ramming his head and such to make it as uncomfortable as possible, etc. Otsuka more uses it as a clutch to lay down and defend. The stand-up was much less impressive with the two landing really fakey looking punches, at times not even attempting to try to make it look convincing; this was the really fake shit, them basically swishing their arms around and making hissing noises after every shot thrown despite most of it not even looking close to being a proper connecting shot. The mat-work, for me, was what made this work; Severn even at his age can throw out some surprisingly cool amateur-demon stuff and really articulate the sense of struggle that the two had to escape what the other was attempting to do. At one point he also does this really sick half Nelson neck crank that I swear I seen Billy Robertson pull out once or twice, that's pretty neat. As much as I like Otsuka, he really did himself no favours here with the fakey striking and being very non-descript on the mat, not really doing a whole lot to impress. They try to do a bit where Severn is supposed to go for a takedown and Otsuka knees him in the face, but it looks more like he collapsed than anything else lol. Second round had some interesting mat-work all from Severn while Otsuka mostly just sat down and shuffled. Third round has Otsuka try to wrestle Severn standing up, which leads him to get his arm trapped and for Severn to tap him out with a arm triangle choke. Entertaining if you want to see a 60 year old carry someone 10+ years younger than him, solid showing for Old Severn. Otsuka continues to disappoint post-prime. If you take one thing from the match, it's that it makes you wish they done this in 1999 rather than here.

TCW is essentially a money mark promotion that was built around getting over Yoon Kang Chul (???) from what I've seen. This is the result of their antics. The main idea of the match was that they had three different styles against each other: Severn was MMA, Suwama is wrestling, and Noboru Uchida is kickboxing. The result is a absolute messy delight that at least tries to engage with the concept a bit. Severn looks like he did absolutely zero conditioning and was relatively poor when doing anything in the ring but fair credit to the guy, he at least didn't seem like he was just here for the bucket of money they had for him and I'm sure he doesn't really need it anyway given how much he has laying around. Uchida just wanders around with punching gloves and kickpads doing a poor man's Tanomusaku Toba, just hitting light strikes and being extremely unconvincing. That's a common issue with guys like that, they tend to be incapable of pulling their punches due to extensive muscle memory so just do really fake ones to make up for that. Suwama was pretty much the only guy here holding things together. Bumped like a trooper for both guys (including a pretty hard high kick!) flirted with some shoot-style interactions (catching a Urchida kick into a ankle lock, going for sleepers, etc) ultimately winning out with a side choke. Surreal match to watch, I'd recommend it purely for the weirdness factor. The fact that the commentary ignore the entire match to go on about MMA with Severn (this was the typical post-production setup you get for indies so it wasn't live) is the icing on the cake. Severn also faced against Otsuka in the same promotion so you bet I'm watching that as soon as possible lol.

new yuiga W/ Shinigami vs Katsunori Yoshida & Garoga No. 3 (Pro Wrestling Night-Mare 09.11.2005) This was classic bottom of the barrel trashy indie stuff. Garoga is named after a obscure 70's Godzilla-related show and is just a big tubby lad with camo shorts and a mask, probably Arashi working off his gambling debts. Katsunori Yoshida seemed like the only legit wrestler there despite zero info on him as he just does really cool spots all over the place, the usual antics for that time all things considered. Shinigami does do a really sick Iron Claw Uranage though so this is instantly ***** already. Yuiga....is not very good here lol. She's relatively green and her limited experience in the relatively shoddy NEO promotion meant she was mostly bumping and selling. Her minor moments of offence were a very shaky judo throw, running neckbreaker and cross armbreaker before going back to bumping more. Yoshida does more springboards before Shini goes though some tables set up in the corner. Yuiga comes in to stiff the two with table chunks and we get a nice mini-plunder brawl as her and co bring out a garbage can (!!!) and do goofy spots with it. She also got the chance to do a relatively flush German and Fisherman suplex for a near fall. Eventually Shinigami jobs after Garoga hits him with a messy Snake Eyes and lariat to finish things up. Relatively middle of the road low budget indie work but I didn't think it was bad or anything, everyone got their role and despite some messy moments there really wasn't any major dull moments. Check this out if you have some time to burn and you want to see some entertaining stuff. W/ Yasushi Sato vs Aki Shizuku & Taro Yamada (Mumeijuku/Mutoha Declaration 13.07.2014) This was a cool 30 minute stretch of super strong action. Sato and Yamada start off with some solid grappling, with Sato throwing on some especially tricky near falls as he just bent his opponent in all kinds of different directions to try to wangle in a early pin. Taro would get out of these but then get too comfortable throwing on cool submissions, allowing him to get caught multiple times. Shizuku/Yuiga have already faced off against each other at least two times over so they were more than comfortable working more traditionally shoot-ish mat stuff, with Yuiga having to endure multiple slams and submissions from the taller opponent. Shizuku looked pretty solid even when wangling with Sato as she mostly was able to counter his stuff, including a absolutely epic bit where he snapped on a inverted toe-hold and she basically deadlifted him Albright-style off and into a Cobra Twist. Yuiga also got into a slugfest with Yamada that ended with her destroying his balls and stomping on his ass lol. This continued with her doing some trolling as Sato got involved and they heeled it up for the middle half with double team antics and hair pulling. Sato got in a groovy rolling Rings of Saturn that I wished someone stole because it looked nasty as anything. As per Yuiga-match standards it all built up to Yamada landing a disgustingly stiff headbutt to her to finally get the tag out. Shizuku and co traded leg locks and Yuiga got the very rare slingshot spot that didn't end in her hitting someone else. Last five minutes were just crazy as we got even more stupid stiff headbutts, freaky slams for near falls, and Yamada sticking on some bizarre rolling reverse La Campana just for the fun of it. Some funny interference bits and the standard "Yuiga stiffs someone with head shots" as per usual. Finish has some good tension all about the build to the draw as they frantically go for some sort of move to finish things up, but of course it never works. If trashy violence and some funky grappling appeals to your tastes then this is definitely one to enjoy, another high quality Mutoha match! Vs Kunihiko Mitamega (Pro Wrestling Wallabee Show Down 14.09.2014) This was expected goofiness from such a matchup. Mitamega's whole thing is that he's just a bootleg Onita and Yuiga really has no issue beating him up on the mat or just twisting the guy in submissions for days. Mita has the occasional interesting bit but man was this dry as anything, just mostly real slow, real basic mat-work except there's no real tension because Yuiga just trumps this guy by leagues and leagues. The finish is dull as Yuiga doesn't even get the win, she just wins via DQ as fake Onita sprays mist while stuck in a Triangle armbar. Post-match makes fun of Onita's long promos by having Mita be talking shit for about 5+ minutes. Outside of that, really just nothing worth watching here, which is a shame because Yuiga in Wallabee could be pretty good with the right dance partner.

Solid little match here. YO-HEY is another of NOAH's random Jr heavyweight guys that showed up around this time and he's pretty solid for what he's always been mostly, a tag specialist. That being said, he had a pretty decent outing. They work like this like you'd expect: Yo has the advantage when it comes to just straight up wrestling due to his atheticism and youth which lets him land spots and movez all over the place, but his cockiness early on costs him the advantage as him gloating allows Ogawa the time to dodge a outside dive and cause Yo to land right on his knee, badly hurting it. Ogawa smelling blood goes for the leg with his usual nasty control spots, using a chair, stomps, and tons of tricky holds to work it over as much as possible, really showcasing why he's one of the best when it comes to limb control sequences as he just methodically breaks down it with a whole staple of stuff. Yo's selling is decent and is able to get the crowd really invested in the holds being used despite that kind of slower wrestling generally being frowned upon. Even when he manages to make a comeback, he sells the leg buckling and not being able to give him any leeway to catch up with Ogawa in terms of damage, always being forced to slow down and get caught out again. Ogawa also mixes things up a bit, throwing out some pretty sick leg locks to try to break the guy. Unlike many matches where Yo would eventually get his big break, that just never came here. Ogawa kept cranking on the leg, upping the intensity, and trying to break him with backdrops into figure-fours and the like, Yo didn't give up, but he wasn't in any position to do much else either. Eventually his buddy HAYATA is forced to throw in the towel for him as there was nothing else he could do. As a match it's not amazing or anything, but as a Ogawa showcase of him just working slick technical stuff it's pretty sharp; Ogawa knows how to get simple wrestling over and in doing so really gets them invested in a potential comeback that never comes. It's pretty strong stuff for a random undercard all things considered.

They got VERY close to doing so as one of the early MUGA shows had them teaming up against Nakano/Fujinami in a really solid match, sadly they never faced off though. Funnily enough him carrying Kawada happens two times over when they met on a MUGA show a few years later.

Nope

3 part 2008 Wilderness Years

I think I watched that for a couple of minutes and just tuned out after the admittedly impressive first half. Ishikawa being creepy didn't help

Yoshida 2 I actually went proper back and found some really old YT stuff for Yoshida that to my knowledge isn't anywhere else. I'll include these here because why not? I'll get the rest of the matches up soonish. BONUS

Idk if this'll fit in with everything else but I've basically watched a grand majority of her post-ARSION/A-Z to see just how great she was past her peak given that seems to be a pressing question that was never conclusively answered. The only things that aren't here are her 3-minute exhibitions she did near the end of her career because those weren't even in full last I checked and skipped some nothing comedy matches because....they were nothing comedy matches. Other than it was a very interesting watch. Bolded are recommended watches. 2004/2005 2006/2007 I'll probably finish off the rest later.

While popular sites state that Suzuki returned to wrestling in 2003, one might argue that he actually did so in 2002, or at least was gearing up to it anyway. This is a shoot-style tag match that one could definitely debate being legit or not, for me I'd say this is definitely worked all things considered given there's a couple of spots thrown in and everyone here was noticeably holding back a fair bit when it came to the grappling. It's noticeably also not on any major MMA sites (which says nothing given even clear works get on some fighters legit records, but still). This was a grappling-only match, so no strikes or the sort permitted. Anyway, the match. Quite cool. There's a lot of post-PRIDE tendencies here with lots of tentative guard-pulling and focus on defence, though the match itself still has a ton of really flush pushes for submissions and whatnot. Kosaka gets his fancy TK-Guard shit in on Shibuya as the two just seamlessly go from stance to stance with uber skilled mat-work. Kosaka here is the man, he's just bitching out these younger guys with seeming ease. Of course the main interest comes from seeing Suzuki in action, and yeah it's pretty fun to see him do this kind of stuff. He does tricky stuff like faking a handshake to try to grab a arm off Uno to a awesome spot later on where he rams Shibuya's headfirst into the turnbuckle while he's trying to pull guard with his whole body. Not quite his cartoonish persona yet and plays much more of a straight-laced scrapper who finds any opportunity to get some pain going, at one point just casually pulling out a can-opener purely just to make things uncomfortable. It's also quite interesting how they work in the tag gimmick in a actual shoot-style match with the older Suzuki and co shutting down the ring more to keep the action on their side for quick and easy tags while the more disjointed younger side prefer to just freestyle and tag out whenever things get too hot for them. First fall comes when Kosaka does a solid job hooking his leg on Shibuya's arm while in back mount, forcing him to wiggle and get caught in a full on cross armbreaker for the tap-out. The second comes when Shibuya is teasing getting a submission win back on the latter before he then quickly tags out to Suzuki who mangles the guy in a rear naked choke while he's exposed, finishing off the match then and there. All things considered this is DEFINITELY a grapplefuck, but if you are really into the more RINGS-style of working these then this is definitely very enjoyable. If you aren't then there's not a whole lot to really get into given this is all just high-end grapplers just wangling it out for a good 20 minutes or so with Rob Zombie (???) blaring most of the time. Weird oddity of a showing all things considered.

A REALLY good match, which is shocking given Clive Myers was 69 here! Dude was doing arm wrench rolls and leg takedowns like he'd never stopped despite the fact he'd not been wrestling since the 90's. Of course there's a lot of that classic WoS comedy as well, which might turn some off. Me personally, it was used effectively and never went over the top to the point of negating the stakes of the match. There's also some expected sloppiness given, well, both men are pretty old here, so the more speedy stuff can come off pretty rough and tumble. That being said, the work in general is well done despite their limitations, with Kidd getting in some pretty awesome bits of just technically dominating Myers but letting his guard down and playing the usual prat-faller otherwise. Myers obviously does fumble a bit given the old lad is almost 70 here but at the same time he really gets his role as a smart-working old man of the sport who can still pull off the tricky stuff when needed. He does this weird version of a Figure Four where he bends the other leg and steps on it while doing the move, like I've never seen that before and it still looks awesome. He also escapes a leg vice by placing his foot on Kidd's face before moving his whole body back and slapping the leg to make it look like he did it with the force of the sit-up; generally you would never see that in a match these days, but somehow it works here. Kidd keeps trying for the second fall after taking the first with a backslide, but gets desperate and tries leap-frogging the ref to ambush his opponent before getting countered with a good school boy roll-up to even things out between the pair. They go into a "sprint" (though you'd be hard pressed to consider it as such) but fair credit to the two for making it pretty tense, ultimately Myers finally gets the win with a great slap-kick to the stomach and a rolling bodyscissors. Myers gets a standing ovation after the fact, which is well deserved given his performance here: the guy while having some obvious issues with speed and timing is still a pretty good worker who can bump and move around, and he works his aspect of the match as a smart vet real well. It's a bit bonkers to see him seamlessly get back into the groove of things despite sme fumbles. Kidd also makes him look as good as possible while working a good foil; he's also technically talented but he puts that to the side mostly to make Myers the star of the show, which he doesn't need much to do with but still. Probably one of the best 60+ year old performances I've seen so far and generally a great footnote to end Myers' career with, quite solid.

Really didn't need to be a almost 30 minute match but hell this is probably Shinzaki's last proper singles match (unless he pulls a Muto and starts winning titles at 60) so you might as well. The guy is in great shape and unlike Great Sasuke he hasn't broken himself down nearly as much to the degree where this would've been painful to watch. As you would think, this did slog on a fair bit at the beginning; lots of slow holds, trading hammerlocks, etc. It made sense to the logic of what they were trying to showcase here, however: MSUASHI is Michinoku Pro, or at least their last truly loyal trainee that hasn't bounced like Kenoh or the like. He's trying to establish that he's the guy now while Shinzaki is having to pull every trick possible to convince otherwise, so the feeling out at least has something to it before just that. When it got going though this was pretty amazing. Shinzaki is 56 years old and he's doing transitions and sequences that you'd be hard-pressed to see from someone half his age, moving with some incredible speed and slickness. Sure, there's definitely points where things really slow in favour of rest holds, however like I said these at least have a narrative purpose so it wasn't as offensive as it could have been. Both guys take nasty bumps on the hard floor outside but MUS comes though with a cool Frankensteiner counter to the powerbomb. We also get a good continuation of that theme as MUS goes for a top rope version before getting countered back into a powerbomb in response. Shinzaki tries for a proper one while on the mat but gets consistently countered, even taking a big bump off onto the apron. MUS lands a good senton over the ropes to capitalise and we get a pretty long dub spot as they tease a double count-out 70s style. Shinzaki gets his ass beat for the last few minutes as he's simply outclassed by his younger opponent, though he's still able to get occasional pockets of resistance. MUS looked good as he pushed for some smooth offence while getting over the urgency to finish things as soon as possible as to not give his opponent a chance. Gassed Shinzaki still throwing himself around barely was a great visual, as was MUS going full fighting spirit and kicking out of a good few powerbombs. Shin nailing a Spanish Fly from the top rope for the finish was CRAZY stuff, again this guy is 56 years old and doing stuff like this just off the cuff. Him winning over the younger guy might give some bad vibes but I digged it, MUS kicked out of basically everything so Shinzaki had to go crazy-mode to put him down proper. It's definitely not perfect, for a celebration of one of Michinoku Pro's founding fathers it did the job for what it was supposed to be and showcased his incredible longevity as a performer. Well done action for what it was supposed to be going for.

Really solid undercard that I enjoyed also because they mixed things up a bit instead of the usual "everyone gets their shit in, brawl, leave" standard six-man stuff. Ogawa backdrops Genba Hirayanagi on the outside early because he tries interfering on behalf of his staple mates and Ogawa's just trying to enjoy the match, so he has insta-heat with both his tag partners from the get go as that's Kanemaru's boy and he also slaps the shit out of Suzuki when he complains about it. Match itself gets a little bit cute in places (like Suzuki and Aoki do this really contrived starting sequence where they are just going from bit to bit with next to no struggle, that's always lame) but the premise of Ogawa having to contend with his own tag partners trying to fuck him over throughout is definitely unique for something like this and lends itself well to add actual heat instead of just being a series of bland interactions. Ogawa adds to the fire by clapping when Danielson gets the better of Suzuki in a strike exchange which Suzuki calls back to in a few minutes when he full on kicks Ogawa when he's trying to come off the ropes. Ogawa and Williams also get to nerd-out with tons of British Catch spots alongside counters to traditional stuff they pulled off in the past. Kanemaru goes nuts in the middle with a huge jumping head guillotine kick from the guardrail onto Aoki, which Ogawa has no part of because he's a nice guy...this time. Who impressed me the least here? Shockingly, Bryan Danielson. He didn't really look that good here and his stuff was mostly either iffy strikes or spamming his running elbow like a million times with absolutely no urgency or fire. Even a young Aoki was more energised, maybe it's just a off day for him but you definitely didn't get the vibe of a GOAT tier contender here. He does do a springboard knee at one point so that's something at least. Last few minutes were just a burst of spots, but thrown in with solid Ogawa heat as he kept getting beaten up. That threatened a loss in places, however Aoki still ate the job to Suzuki's Blue Destiny for the finish. Williams and Ogawa do a awesome Chaos Theory/backdrop combo post-match on Suzuki when they try for a beatdown. Solid undercard outing with some drama added in to make it a lot fresher than it could have been. Ogawa is probably the backbone as to why, what with his little motions to get the dynamic over alongside enjoyable work with Williams as always, guys like Suzuki, Aoki and Kanemaru add in a really fast pace that kicks ass throughout. Smartly worked but also just as enjoyable as some of the more crazy Jr tags of the time.

Bumped for new match!!!! W/ Tigers Mask v Gran Hamada & Ryuji Hijikata (AJPW New Year Giant Series 18.01.2004) Clipped by around about 7 minutes. It's Tiger Mask! Tigers Mask! Hamada! I shamelessly stole this off SayamaFan's (much thanks) IG; I mean it's mid 2000's AJPW, I'll take what I'll get given there's so little of it around and even less of it is easy to find. Tigers is kitted out in baseball gear and is as predictively goofy as a Osaka Pro trainee would be. Hamada still looks great, Hijikata less so, which is sad to see given how well he looked in his Battlarts/early AJPW days. He tries for a Tiger DDT but it looks pretty rubbish given there's no real bounce to it, so he just kinda flops though the move. His armbreaker transition post pin was fairly cool though. Mask/Sayama doesn't look great here; it's telling that the clipping basically cuts out all of his involvement bar the finish despite his obvious star power. He's wearing a shirt as well, which is fairly uncharactistic for him. All he does is jump in to stomp people in the face when they have submissions on basically lol. The match moves at a fairly dull pace, with Tigers' big comeback being...a dropkick before he tags out. Tiger Mask's comeback is fine, he is a bit wonky when taking moves, otherwise seemed competent enough doing his greatest hits routine. Hamada stomps in to do some moves and even a flush Tornado DDT; of course gets basically ignored as he gets hit with a spinning kick just a few moments later and a awkwardly long Tombstone piledriver spot. Sayama misses the diving headbutt and snaps on a terrible botched backslide where he hooks one arm only and awkwardly yanks him down for the pin. Post-match he's just laying there ashamed of himself while the ref and co argue about it, great stuff. Anyway, this wasn't amazing, but for the time this was about as good a match you were getting out of the him until his RJPW First Tiger Mask days, which is sad to say all things considered. With more of this coming out I respect more and more the shape he worked himself into for his later material. In a way it feels like how Undertaker was outright terrible in the early 2000's until he also rebounded. RANK: Decent

This is by far the most cursed matchup, Brody Yano vs Ichiro "my best friend is Onita PLEASE book me on your show now" Yaguchi in a 15 minute draw in the middle of nowhere. Yaguchi was dressed like the missing Godwin half-brother and Yano was, well, the usual mess he typically is. The match was not good! Yaguchi can do nothing in these conditions as he's way too immobile to actually wrestle or anything (as I sadly recounted from his terrible showings during the Onita/RJPW feud) so all we get are clubs to the back and/or very limp strikes in general. Yano tries to work around this by playing up the size and mass difference between the two, however outside of Yano doing some cool transitions he can't make this that interesting. It didn't help that Yaguchi at points was just pathetically sitting on the mat for minutes on the mat while the ref counts obnoxiously slow. At a point Keita just socked the dude in the face with a punch almost in frustration of how shit this was looking and then it turned into a weird real shoot-ish fight as the two tried throwing stiff shots and going for the eyes. One would think that this added tension would be interesting, maybe we get a repeat of the Maeda/Sayama potato throwing back in the UWF days however it just ends up with Yaguchi getting caught in a neck-crank for a few seconds before spending yet another eternity laying on the mat. There's nothing more surreal in wrestling than seeing a fairly overweight trashy indie guy getting dragged to his feet by Survival Tobita while another guy in purple with Joker makeup cuts a promo with maybe 3 people at best getting a chant going. It doesn't go to plan and Yaguchi spends the next five minutes just gagging on the mat endlessly. He finally gets up and very very slowly starts to throw strikes, but these strikes are ass and even worse than before. Keita looks depressed. Grapple more. Yaguchi falls after getting caught in a front face lock. Yano grabs a arm and tries for something, Yaguchi doesn't give a inch and the time limit draw sounds. I'm honestly not even sure what this was going to be in the first place; the first half at least seemed somewhat planned, but then Yaguchi just dies after a couple of fairly tame knee strikes and he's never the same until the end due to whatever happens to him. Elaborate art-piece, or crappy wrestling match due to nonsense? You be the judge. Even three months on I still don't get what this was trying to be and that scares me a little bit.

Nothing is better than a Keita Yano match with loud overbearing club music blaring in the background. Dove Pro DO NOT care about your auditory experience of the actual match, just pure beats. Yes the music does not stop, the whole match is them working out the match while it just keeps on going. I imagine it's a bit easier because you don't have to worry as much about calling spots because the music is as loud as it was, so unless you are Cena levels of shouting stuff out it doesn't really matter. The match itself was super basic with Yano controlling most of it with his tricked out grappling. HUB would get occasional moments where he'd do some crazy convoluted sequences in response, that was cool. This didn't really have much depth to it though, it was just the two doing some good stuff with the other with hints of something more but never getting to that level, just a really solid lucha technical wrestling sprint between Keita's wacky antics and HUB doing cool lucha work with it mostly disappearing near the second half in favour of more conventional spots, dives to the outside etc. Occasionally Keita just does something silly like steal WoS spots or do chest rakes, otherwise it's just a fun sprint, HUB going for a crazy lariat near the end that Keita did a complete Rikishi flip for ruled for a finish. It might honestly be better than the 2022 Tenryu Project match if only because it's a lot shorter and cuts the fat out for a comfort food-tier outing. We really do need more matches that aren't pretending to be these secret lore-heavy outings that you need a study guide to get everything involved when we can instead just have well-wrestled matches by their lonesome.

Basically just 14 minutes of very clean, very good catch-wrestling. Both of these guys are already quite solid at that so not that shocking. As per most Keita matches he really doesn't give much of a inch anywhere, dominating most of the early sections with slick matwork, aiming for the legs and feet mostly with the occasional extra bit here and there. We get the good old "rolling off the apron in a leg-lock" spot to mix things up, as well as Keita fucking around by trying to Irish Whip in a UWF match and Tamura just absolutely not playing with that at all, but then Tamura plays along by going for it himself before the two do some goofy lucha bits. Keita gets a bit too cocky after a Albright-lite deadlift gutwrench suplex as he gets caught with a reverse kneebar setup and kicks, getting rocked with a big knee when he tries to rush in for a single-leg to take back control. Yano throws out a couple more funky tricks in his bag like a desperation Fujiwara armbar out of a suplex and a lariat, but his mistake is going to the well one too many times with strikes and lariats, allowing Tamura to time and counter with a cool knee block, jumping kick, and then rolling into a slick cross armbreaker into modified Fujiwara when Yano tries to roll out to make the guy tap out. Not as good as the 2008 match but still pretty solid, even if the strikes are a bit lacking here. There's never a sense of the match going into super full gear either despite the two's best attempts by amping up the impact of their shots; the pacing kept at a decent if unexciting rate, always building to something that never comes. It's a good outing, just not the best these two could do. Hardly a insult though, this still was really cool.