Ma Stump Puller

The German Kendo Kashin matches are amazing I'll give them at least that, dude worked twice as hard there than what he did in Japan for the last 10 years lol

Fun and quick outing. Sumi is a scum-indie karate guy (who apparently did some MMA? The records aren't clear on that) and of course Keita Yano like the big nerd he is wants to turn this into a conventional early 90's FMW Onita/Aoyagi situation where they basically just hit each other really hard on mats in the middle of a gymnasium. You know a match is going to be fun when the first two things that happen are Sumi landing a stiff leg kick and Yano feigning a injury to then catch the guy off guard for a spinning back kick in response. Yano takes control early with low kicks, as well as a tremendously goofy running headbutt to send the guy crashing to the hard floor. Sumi takes over for his own brawling bits, throwing Yano around and beating the dogshit out of him with stiff kicks to the back and to his own legs. Yano bumps great, Sumi looks like a maniac (and unlike Minoru Suzuki actually can hit hard while being interesting) all is good. Yano stumbles around like Terry Funk as his one good leg barely carries him around, with him throwing some wiffed slaps that Sumi can just dance around and act like a cocky shit with. Yano eventually gets rocked with a roundhouse and realise he can't really get anywhere with his shitty leg, so we get a duration of him pulling a Inoki and sticking to the floor with crab kicks. They work this bit quite well, and actually incorporate Sumi getting pissed off enough with this for Yano to catch him off-guard with a cool roll-up after dodging a reckless kick. Last few minutes involve some pretty hard shots by both men, but also a nifty sequence all about Yano slapping on Cobra Twist holds and holding onto them for dear life. Sumi throws as much as he can but his angry roundhouse is dodged and he's thrown into a nifty rolling cradle for the snappy win. Really fun and easy to get into striker/grappler match: despite the natural weirdness of Wallabee conditions making them....hard to get into, to say the least, this turned out to be a pretty sturdy outing where Yano got to show off more of his underdog selling in comparison to Sumi's hard shots and general chaotic shit he throws out here and there. Easily one of the far superior versions of these throwback pre-PRIDE wrestler/martial arts showings. Inoki would (probably) be proud

This was expected quality: Chono and Yasuda were not fully out of their depth here workrate wise, but neither are particularly well adjusted for a huge workrate-style sprint. To disguise this....and in usual ZERO1 inter-promotional fashion this quickly turns into a outside brawl. Chono and co quickly realise that their opponents are somewhat beyond their capabilities, so they use a lot of dirty antics to become de-facto heels here. Yasuda in particular was really great, shouting at the ref, crude low blows, having chop contests with Omori, just solid shtick on display. The middle section has the babyfaces get their big comeback with Yasuda mostly throwing himself all over the place for the both of them with some great big man bumps before getting back into things with running shoulder tackles. They continue their control segment by working over Otani's bandaged shoulder, with classic Chono trash talk and Yasuda scummy antics, egging him on to throw strikes with said shitty shoulder before knocking him back down. Good spot with Otani clinging onto the ropes to try to stay alive as Chono cranks his arm to punish the guy for it. Huge Otani chants, we get some teases at a comeback but nothing. Chono lands a decent top rope shoulder charge at his age which was majorly surprising. Omori is just about able to stop a STF after getting past Yasuda but nothing else, he's stuck on the apron. Big range of finisher spam to finish up, Chono does a Shining Kenka Kick only for Omori to hit his Axe Bomber. Yasuda eats a signature Otani top rope dropkick to the back of the head for a near fall before a spinning kick/Axe Bomber x2 with a Dragon Suplex seals the deal. This was a fairly by the numbers inter-promotional match, but both Chono and Yasuda are smart vets that know how to milk such a interaction for everything that it's worth, I would also say that Chono was surprisingly game on his end to work with his buddies and we really see that here given how much he was tangibly doing, even in his prime you'd see Chono do way less than this when he wasn't bothered lol. Otani and Omori don't really do much outside of the norm, however said norm is solid enough alongside a game crowd to really enhance the experience. Yasuda being a stooging giant continues to be one of the more entertaining parts of these kind of heat-focused matches, dude is solid despite his limited moveset. Probably one of the better late-career Chono performances.

Damon Scythe just off a basic YT search has like a dozen+ matches (including having Brett Sawyer's last match in the middle of god knows where?? Not even Cagematch can be arsed making that official) he might not count for this tbh, even if these barely count

Despy's going to be one of those peak/consistency debates because his last few years have been great, he's spent a long time wrestling terrible shtick-heavy matches before then and you'd only ever see him turn on the gas against very few opponents. Had a horrid NOAH stint on top of that. He also kinda suffers from NJPW-isms where he's wrestling either overextended matches which expose the hollowness of some of his formulas like his usual leg work and co, especially when it typically leads nowhere. Tentative on if he'll get on or not but if he keeps up his rate of decent to solid Jr outings (no interest in his hardcore stuff) I think he'll definitely get a spot.

Looked fun in the few matches I seen out of him but he didn't make a splash to the degree where he'd be on a top 100 personally. If he'd worked a few more years more in U-Style or Fu-Ten then I'd consider the guy, just not enough out there though.

Kimura's nowhere near Yoshida in technical ability (I mean who is can be counted on one hand at best) but I thought she really got herself over here as a quite competent mat-worker. Of course this has the typical Yoshida-Isms thrown in as Kimura is mostly the brash upstart trying to dethrone a established vet and it starts off strong with the two hitting explosive offence on the other. Kimura is doing fairly well until she gets her leg stuck on the ropes and Yoshida cranks it with a ankle lock, basically cutting her short right then and there. Yoshida's control stuff is fantastic, it's a mix of shoot-style with the crazy submissions, it's rudo shit with the disrespect dished out with boots to the head, all good. Yoshida works on the leg and even tries for a super early Air Raid, the first is reversed for a near fall. Rather than stare in disbelief like a dumbass Yoshida just grabs her out of the hold for a successful second for her own near fall. Rolling inverted figure-four gets the first fall with a tap-out right after. I do like how there's no real padding here, it's just Yoshida just hunting down the crappy leg all throughout the match; as soon as the second round comes up she's right back with either working the leg or trying for a big bomb when the leg's worn out. She dominates the middle half with great bombs or submissions until Kimura plays dead long enough to snatch on a flash pin into a armbreaker. Messy Frankensteiner attempt aside (which gets the fall, of all things, ehh could've been better lol) her stuff here was flush and felt really frantic. Yoshida after this flash pin got noticeably even more grumpy, stomping on Kimura's back. This especially comes though during a dual Achilles Tendon struggle where Kimura's just stomping her face in while Yoshida's giving her headbutts, just vile nasty aggression on there, absolutely rules. Kimura slaps on a rear naked choke at one point and Yoshida's face is just "shit I'm gonna die here" like it's just masterclass selling to get over a choke as realistic as possible beyond the usual flailing of the arms or instant faint (read: every Minoru Suzuki match of the last 15 years). The double KO strike spots were a bit lame and Kimura does slop up on a few moves, otherwise the finishing stretch is epic, full of reckless strikes and even Yoshida being desperate enough to go back to her old moveset with a couple of lucha roll-ups. Kimura winning with a stiff ass big boot that Yoshida dies for is just the candle on a very well done cake all things considered. Really good outing that actually felt urgent and unpredictable; early on you knew that any submission or strike could end things from what they established and it pretty much carries that weight all the way to the end. Nothing felt certain and the amount of pop-up counters worked given how these two were just spending all of their energy purely to finish this quick rather than sit in heatless holds. Great, great stuff. If we'd got this from Yoshida the last 5ish years rather than a lot of her bumping and getting rookies over she'd be one of the GOAT's very easily.

The few times we ever saw Command Bolshoi against someone better at grappling at her....and it's a random tournament, 7 minutes long and the only time these two will meet in a singles contest. And it's cut to 4 minutes because ARSION's editors were dicks who couldn't be arsed. That said, this had signs of being solid at the start. Yoshida doesn't take Bolshoi seriously at first given the getup and everything else but after a couple of flash submissions she starts to realise she's in way deeper than she taught. Crowd are dead until Yoshida does her classic "pretend to play dead for a submission" bit for a side triangle choke before she gets a rope break to barely escape. They work this like a sprint, which is fine, however there are a good few moments of sloppiness because of that fact which is quite annoying, some material isn't the most well thought-out and seems a bit all over the place at points. The crowd are never convinced that Bolshoi's a threat at any point (not helped by the way this is structured) and the match basically just ends as soon as it starts due to Yoshida escaping a abdominal stretch to hit a flash Air Raid as the finish. If these two were only given actual tangible time to work stuff I think they'd knock it out of the park, however due to the size and height difference alongside Yoshida's status, there was zero tension and you never ever believed Bolshoi was winning despite Yoshida trying to sell good for her holds and putting her over about as much as reasonably possible. All this needed was time and we don't get it, so it's really just depressing as a watch. It's telling of the state ARSION was in that they couldn't just let the talent cook. They'd get the chance four years later though....

When the 2026 list comes out I feel like she's going to be one of the biggest shifts on the list all things considered, the footage out there for her is pretty immense at this point as opposed to when the last one was made. You can definitely get hit and miss material as Jetlag said but even then you've still got one of the sickest Navarro-acts going for the stuff that matters, there's no question she's on that list somewhere solid, especially when we've probably not even hit close to the end of her iceberg in terms of obscure indie dates she did. Crazy stuff.

Unaired, but a fancam exists of the full thing. Now this is definitely a curiosity: these two will become legitimate tag champs and best bros in the future, for now Misawa is one of the hottest acts in the company and Ogawa is a 7-year (yes, seven year) undercarder who was only now really getting any buzz as a underlining in Tsuruta-gun, though he's mostly just there to bump and eat pins. The two don't do anything radically crazy, but you can tell they already had some solid chemistry with each other and Misawa thought highly of the guy, because this was not only a fairly evenly spread out match, but instead Ogawa actually controls things for a decent portion of it via working the arm in holds. This is definitely a bit slow in places given that fact, the crowd are nevertheless pretty invested. It's cool seeing Misawa actually not be in control here as Ogawa keeps outpacing him with faster stuff and quick snappy counters, using his speed to blindside him over and over. His mistake is then trying to out-strike Misawa, because, you know, elbow. Misawa adopts a more power-based style with the far lighter Ogawa, throwing him up for backbreakers or belly to belly suplexes, pulling from more of a Jumbo-style of power moves than his usual flashy stuff. Ogawa pulls out his usual cheap tricks and the classic punches as Misawa has him completely scouted, escaping his swinging neckbreaker to land a few stiff elbows into his patented facelock for the quick and easy tap-out. Nothing great for this super squash however these two had a great pace going out here and really got over the other despite said squash: Ogawa tries his hardest but he just can't get the job done against someone *this* good yet, at least not without all of the roll-ups in the world at least. Good outing for what it was, Ogawa even this early seemed extremely confident as a act.

For all the hype Shibata gets, you do forget sometimes that him pre-BIG MOUTH could be very hit and miss. Tana is in his weird punk-phase of his life as he sports a bizarre half-Mohawk/half-mullet with red and yellow dye just thrown in around to boot. Shibata's always looked the same pretty much. You'd think a match between the two even this early would be at least decent, but I don't think they clicked well at all. They do the "rolling out of the ring while in a submission" spot with dual Achilles Tendon holds applied to crickets, it's the least hype I've ever seen for that. Shibata's dickish heel antics are enjoyable, at least, but Tana is trying to be something he isn't: a mat-wizard. He's never been amazing at that, even if he has a couple of neat takedowns. He really just doesn't find a grove as he no-sells big boots...to just hold onto Shibata's leg a little longer. When he does the sensible thing and just rolls into a kneebar Tana immediately goes for the ropes because he doesn't want to engage with that. We drop the leg work to instead do chin locks instead while Shibata plays dead. The best spot was probably Tana doing his dumb elbow drop he used to do where he just recklessly throws himself up for it, Shibata no sells and socks him in the face with a punch instead lol. We get a brawl outside as Shibata throws more stiff shots as Tana looks a bit miffed and mostly awkwardly no-sells or moves away to stop getting hit. The pair exchange slaps to go into full on catfight as the two throw wild haymakers in a blatant rip from Takayama/Frye, only this looked mostly sloppy. Shibata catches with a right hook and Tana falls to his knees for a roundhouse to the back of the head. Tana no sells a backdrop near fall to go for a roll-up, and that's Shibata's cue to randomly spam STO's for the next minute or so. Shibata landing a cool Pele Kick to counter a potential German suplex was cool, Tana doing a weird wiffed kick to counter a rolling wheel kick was definitely not. Tana then lands a normal Inoki flying kick and tries for a German before Shibata runs to and then hits the ropes to try to escape, only to get caught with a O'Connor Roll with arch for the finish. This struggled for a theme or, well, anything, really. Shibata is the heel and he does some heel stuff, but other than that it was a awkward showcase of Tana not clicking with someone who basically embodied the style he detested; stiff striking, shoot-style grappling, both things he's not good at and never wanted to be. The crowd was mostly dead for this as they did moves yet failed to really work them into the match, it's just lots of stuff that doesn't really go or add anything to this. The only cohesion is them building up the suplexes with lots of counters, even then I feel like I'm cheating doing that though because then nearly every half-decent match would have something like that added in. Rough stuff.

This was a fairly solid match focused around showmanship, with the Super Rookie trying to prove he can work on Nishimura's ballgame of tricked-out technical work. I especially loved how extra Nishimura is here: while Nakamura at times will be showy Nishimura will almost intentionally throw out some brilliant counters to relatively simple moves, flying around at points to show off his funky WoS-lite technique. It's not necessary; Nakamura establishes by simply strolling to the ropes instead prior when in a similar situation; but Nishimura almost refuses to do so out of principle, he's not letting this kid outshine him. At the same time I think he gives a ton of room for Naka to stand his ground and get over with the audience as they go head to head, generally having Nishimura be on the backend when having to go strike to strike. This plays into the middle half with Nakamura's knees proving particularly painful for his opponent, who sells hard for them. Nishimura has to pull out some wacky stuff with a headscissors on the apron and a big knee drop to the head afterwards to change things up. He keeps his opponent on the outside with big dropkicks, as well as dropping his knee on the guardrail in a particularly nasty bit. The leg work inside and outside of the ring as the slower heat spot is fairly decent, despite Nakamura kinda botching his big comeback with the Shining Triangle with a sloppy transition. He makes up for that with a nice bomb in the form of a German Suplex alongside a gnarly kneeling Torture Rack. The finish has a second Shining Triangle get countered into a Spinning Toe Hold/figure four for the tap-out win. Nishimura sticking a towel on the guy afterwards was a cool spot, if a bit ruined by Nakamura not selling the leg work and getting right back up afterwards like nothing happened lol. That's a general issue here: his sustained selling is pretty shoddy, with him not really bothering to showcase the effects of Nishimura's leg work whatsoever, even just slight pauses. His pacing is also a bit iffy and seems stiff, there's not really a feeling anything he's doing feels spontaneous or off the cuff, which was needed given Nakamura's comebacks were the big moments of the match. That said, this was a fun technical showing designed to get him over which was half-successful judging by the crowd's positive reactions, even if he felt far from ready for a main event outing. Nishimura once again really shows his stuff as the calculating Catch-act who works this masterfully as the overbearing vet intent on dragging this down to the mat. It's a easy gameplan to understand and he pretty much follows it to the letter.

The only real thing I can suggest is to check out as much of his AJPW stuff as possible because that's basically where most of his best pro-style matches come from, namely due to a mix of motivation and great opponents. Otherwise it's just a rough gamble.

Time for a middle of 2023 update! Rising: Kawada: Rewatching AJPW in 2000, Kawada is the MVP both before and after the Exodus. You really get the feeling that he's just inching to actually work, and when he gets the chance to be the Ace he's always wanted to be his motivation and work goes right though the roof. Tenryu series? Fantastic. Random Sasaki crossover the DAY after going nearly 30 minutes with Steve Williams and Tenryu? Easy. Getting actual good matches out of a dire roster/ one of the worst RWTL's ever? Done and done. Fuchi as well, but Kawada was just dominating with all of this newfound freedom on his hands. Keita Yano: Still on his amazing run in Tenryu Project, in this case showing that he can work a more regular pace of matches with a wild assortment of characters. Dude was always great but this run has really hammered down just how strong his technical work can be outside of his crazy wheelhouse. I still think his greatest hits were in Wallabee Pro, that's far from a insult though. He'd honestly already have a GWE case without these last few years, at this point I think it's undeniable. Hikaru Sato: His Jr Heavyweight run has been all killer and no filler, every defence has been remarkable in one way or another. His AJPW stuff less so but that's par for the course for that company. You can click on nearly every match he's done in the last few years and find something worth mentioning with his performances, he's that good at what he does. Beastly on the mat and his strikes are still full of murderous intent. Command Bolshoi: it's such a shame she got into her prime during the major decline of Joshi because she was pretty stellar in nearly everything I've found of her. Comedy Bolshoi is hit and miss, Navarro-fan Bolshoi is one of the slickest lucha-mat wizards I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. Hoping as more time goes forward we get more and more of her 2000's work because she's super enjoyable when her matches aren't being clipped to shit. Akebono: Akebono's got a little bit of a resurgence in recent times as people have went back and actually looked at his wealth of work and hey, even I've been impressed....slightly. His matches generally are one-note but he's one of those guys who's basically had matches with every major Japanese talent of the last 20 years so there's a lot of entertaining matches out there to enjoy. I'm still not convinced he's great though. Down: I don't really like being negative on these bits and to be honest, there's not any that have massively fallen down on my viewing because I'm not really hunting for bad matches. Emi Sakura: by proxy because every match involving a trainee of hers I've seen in the last two months have had them be tangibly the worst element in them. It's weird because this was even when she was actually quite good, for some reason it just never rubbed off on anyone she tried training up. One wonders if her deal is the same as Dory Funk..... Masakatsu Funaki: mostly due to his later work where he's just taking paychecks, especially his W-1 stuff which is just garbage mostly. Watched him recently on a RJPW show and man he's just dull as anything. They gave him Bobby Roode, Takayama and Otani, all of these are stinkers. The worst part is that he can still go quite well. Johnny Smith: I expected him to really step up for my AJPW 2000 viewing and.....yeah he just didn't do a whole lot. Bar the Fujiwara match (it's a crime that's cut as badly as it is) nothing really stands out and despite tagging with Kea he just seems like a complete afterthought that didn't seem that keen on going out of his comfort zone in matches, sticking to the same song and dance like he'd done for the whole of the 90's.

Kea was supposed to be one of *the* big AJPW guys but it was obvious that was never happening lol. There's a interview out there where he credits Tenryu as his greatest ever opponent (alongside saying him and Muto taught him the most about wrestling) and I can't really disagree, he got more out of the guy than Muto and everyone else combined pretty much. He got a traumatic leg injury around about the end of 2002 and as you said he vanished for all of 2003 bar showing up as a RO&D goon with baggy long trousers to hide the injury. Dude always seemed to be plagued with injury trouble whenever they wanted him to run at the top, which is always a shame. He got great near the end of the 2000's though in a pretty stellar run of matches if that helps

I was thinking on what on earth a "Different Style Fight" between these two would tangibly look like. Josh was still pretty green and Norton isn't exactly known for his shoot-style antics. So what do you do? You cheat, of course; this is barely a shoot-style match. Barnett rocks Norton early with kicks and he in turn gets the guy in the corner for gut punches that Barnett DOES NOT sell for in the slightest, so they look like shit. Norton bullrushes Barnett with all of his power moves, including a super early powerbomb! That gets a near 10 count from the ref before he gets up. Norton stupidly trots in and tries for a chokeslam to finish things off, that goes about as well as you'd think as Barnett slips out and into a cross armbreaker in a good spot. He impressively carries Norton up and over for a spinebuster before snapping on the leg for a submission. He throws a few leg kicks before trying for a Capture Suplex...granted it's botched slightly due to Norton being obviously way too big to bump clean alongside Barnett being too close to the ropes when trying to do it, but hey, it's impressive as a attempt at least. Barnett slips on a tight ankle lock, Norton struggles for the ropes again. He makes the mistake of getting cocky: when he tries for a running rolling wheel kick Norton just wrecks him with a stiff lariat in turn. The pair try for bombs; Norton his powerbomb, Barnett the German suplex; but both manage to hold out long enough to escape. Barnett lands his wheel kick the second time fairly well and makes Norton bump for a meaty gutwrench. The dude is gassed after this bump and just hides outside, forcing Barnett to come after him after taking one glove off. Barnett has to manhandle him into the ring by going for a rope-hung DDT which almost went real bad, Norton is a pro and escapes death via his huge shoulders though. The finish is real cool as Barnett logically tries for a Guillotine, then decides he's got to throw Norton AGAIN so he goes for a one-arm suplex while still in the hold, which magically gets the tap-out win! This was all about pushing Barnett hard and hey, it went as well as I think this could've went. Norton bumps all over the place for sick dangerous suplexes, he gets in some of his own classic hoss shit in turn. It feels like a 90's Vader UWF-I match where his bombs can end things in a instant, but he's clueless about anything else that matters in these sort of matches so things are balanced out. Barnett is a bit awkward in places, you get why they wanted to push him though. He's got a great look, naturally quite athletic, and he loves his MMA, he's basically built for this era of NJPW. Surprisingly quite solid.

Tenta's thing in WAR seemed to be wrestling ex-WWF dudes lol. Warlord and him haven't actually wrestled each other in singles ever (yes, even in the WWF) so this is a surprising first. Obviously Warlord isn't remembered for his workrate classics but I think they really make this work for a 9 minute match for a number of reasons I'll get to while going though the match. Warlord and co shoulder barge before Tenta takes a bump off a good big boot and then eats a scoop slam, which got the crowd going great here; already they are super hyped to see these two hoss guys jumping around. Warlord gets in a good flying clothesline before his opponent takes over with a running dropkick. From then on in it's more or less by the numbers work by Tenta as he goes though his usual big man repertoire, followed up by Warlord occasionally taking control with big meaty suplexes and slams. if you aren't a fan of that style then I can see this getting grating but it's fairly decent action and the crowd enjoy every minute of it. Warlord tries for a cartoonish axe-handle off the apron and Tenta catches the guy mid-air to ram him into the turnbuckle post which was incredibly sick. We also get a nice false-finish as Tenta lands the powerslam + elbow drop and even a Earthquake Splash, but Warlord kicks out at 2.9! Big cheers from that. Warlord somehow gets a dumb Hogan spot over as he gets caught in a bearhug and literally throws his arms in the air when he's getting his second wind; it's stupid but again, the audience are into this as they chant for the guy. He Hulks up and lands a big jumping shoulder press and wild backdrop, teases the powerslam but gets countered into a crossbody for a near fall. Tenta lands a elbow AND a leg drop for yet another near fall. In true Kings Road style he then has to come up with a superfinisher to beat the guy: in this case a running neckbreaker Baba-style: which gets the win at last. Probably Warlord's best ever match apart from maybe the Bret showing. Tons of intensity, Tenta just landing crazy bumps while also getting over his own shit at the same time, Warlord's limited offence getting over because of who's he's doing it to, etc. Even loved the little touches like Tenta getting more and more grumpy after every near fall as he's just not really used to somebody this resilient, you really get the feeling that he's just pissed that this dude won't go down proper. I also feel like the two paced this well; despite it obviously not being the fastest match this never slowed down to a crawl, which was vital to keeping the crowd friendly and interested in what they were trying to do. Either way, a surprisingly solid outing that I think showcases how a limited worker like Warlord can be guided and paced up to a proper good match with the right hand. Seriously, this was top-notch stuff.

Suzuki has a smart starting bit as he keeps pining for the handshake and acting nice...until he cheap shots Nishimura when he lets his guard down and starts running around like a maniac. Thankfully we go away for that as Nishimura keeps hurling his opponent into numerous roll-up positions and he starts to not fuck around with constructive arm work and hard shots. Suzuki plays some good mind games with his opponent, consistently going from goofy joker to Pancrase demon seamlessly, making the tempo of the match very up and down workrate wise. Good bit of the early to middle half stuff is played like this, with Nishimura throwing out some smooth old-school work to counter Suzuki's more conventional MMA stuff. It's a interesting styles crash that I think the two work well into the action here, even if Nishimura doesn't click much with the more modern shoot-style approach. He mostly works defensively and manages to get the crowd behind him as Suzuki bullies the guy with stiff kicks and holds. Nishimura gets pissed as Suzuki keeps toying with him, so much so that when Suzuki slacks off too much when he misses a high kick and it gets trapped in the ropes, he relentlessly goes after it; even shoving the ref when he tries to stop him. Nishimura plays into this by slapping on a figure four and refusing to let Suzuki go when he hits the ropes as the ref is out. He moves into the middle of the ring afterwards like nothing happened, what a heel! Suzuki keeps goofing off, and that sets his opponent off more: we get wild angry swings out of Nishimura and him refusing to let go of a figure four on the outside, forcing Suzuki to punch the shit out of his leg to escape in a pretty good spot. We get a great transition as Suzuki throws out a backslide and then counters Nishimura's own to go into a smooth Gotch Piledriver. We get a similarly great bit as Nishimura's O'Connor Roll is reversed into a rear naked choke, blending in the MMA/catch style clash even more. I thought they really effectively got this over as a world-ender, especially when Suzuki snaps it on while Nishimura is literally hanging on the ropes, Suzuki BENDS his back all the way down to turn it into a Bulldog choke instead; really simple but really nasty work that makes the move from *just* a choke to something terrifying. The two brawl for a bit, Suzuki gets a nose bleed after some hard slaps as Nishimura hits some of the harder shots of his career. I thought the finish was a bit goofy with the 5 minute (yes, that long) long Cobra Twist exchange and double dropkick w/ random staredown, felt really unnecessary and put on to add some random drama. But yeah, this was a good match that didn't feel overtly like a draw until the very end when they basically start to run out of ideas. That said, it's a really strong showing from both men as they combine bits from each of their styles to make something unique and fresh. I'm glad Nishimura got to kinda get out of his comfort zone a bit here and to be fair, he does really well on both sides as does Suzuki who was pretty hit and miss around this point. This is, however, harmed by this being after yet another 30 minute draw: the match right before this was a Tanahashi/Toru Yano match.....as you can imagine this did kill the crowd off a little bit for this. Still solid, definitely worth searching out for more Nishimura gems.

Matsunaga was "good" at one point in terms of hardcore wrestling standards as W*ING's big draw but he's way, way past it now: he'd not even been working full-time for the last 8 years or so due to his knees blowing out Rey-style (again) being used mostly for novelty matches. Gone are the kicks, gone are the massive overkill matches. This was purely going to be good by his emoting and reputation rather than anything to do with fancy bumps. He gets in and is immediately hit with stiff punches by Mura, forcing him to leave again. He's annoyed enough that he immediately produces bladed weapons, of which Mura scoffs at him for using before beating his ass again lol. He does get hit by them though, which allows Matsu the time to recover and push him into the barbed wire. He also pulls out a fork and legitimately stabs his opponent with it, causing gross cuts. Mura sells the subsequent "stabbing" of the fork as Matsu very gently and lovingly brushes the fork on his head, making little attempt to make it look realistic. We get some outside brawling, with Matsu jabbing one of the trainees with the fork in a also very gross spot. He pulls out more shit from his knee brace (seriously, how much does he have in there?) before Mura smacks him with a chair. Doesn't stop him getting beat down with the blade though despite hurling out a judo throw and some shots. Otani (the ref for this one) tries to get them out of the corner and gets attacked for his troubles. Matsu pulls out ANOTHER blade from his brace and slowly stalks Mura to stab him with it, only for Otani to slap him up for his antics. This gives his opponent enough time to land another hard punch into a STO before choking the shit out of the guy: despite Matsu stabbing his hand while he's in the hold, Mura just rages though long enough to send him to sleep to finish this in a pretty desperate manner. This wasn't great workrate wise obviously, and the barbed wire stipulation was basically useless: outside of Mura going into it once at the very start it's never used again at any point, which feels like a waste given the setup. Mastsu is good as this crazy old weirdo who just attacks everyone and seems to hoard blades for a living, but obviously he can't do a whole lot bar shuffle and stab, so it's a more muted performance than what you might be used to seeing with his 90's material. This is mostly saved by Murakami putting on a pretty great performance, selling like crazy: at first he's cocky as anything in anticipation of beating up the old man, by the end he's throwing anything to just live though the match, it's super out of character for him. If you like grungy hardcore stuff filled with fair amount of violence, this might be up your avenue.

It's included alongside the full card on Internet Archive! What would your recommendations for Pogo be, simply asking?

That's perfectly acceptable as a viewpoint and to be honest, I'd probably agree if it wasn't for how strong Fujii looks in her three matches. You can't *really* see her as having stinkers, at least not without trying hard at least. Idk, I feel like for the material provided there's more than enough to be able to say "yes this person would've probably had some other good matches" at least from what I've seen. We don't have her 2008 kickboxing match with Mio Shirai. It's not like that would add anything anyway (it 99% wouldn't from what I'd imagine) but still.

This is cut to 19 minutes of the original 30, because fun editing is all about making cool matches less cool, idk. We get to see the opening grappling and it's pretty great? Yoshida is obviously just a master of this craft, Emoto doesn't look lost and keeps a good tempo. Then they cut and it's generic shit and I'm sad again. They do actually work stuff into the match, namely that Emoto works the back and Yoshida works the arm. Emoto uses the ropes aplenty, either throwing her opponent onto them or using them as weapons to work the back more. They do the classic Kings Road 90's spot of teasing apron moves, which ends with Yoshida eating a nasty Gourdbuster onto it. It was as safe as can be but damn it didn't look nice. A good positive is that both of them really seem like they're working under urgency to finish this as soon as possible, and their respective selling is good, especially Yoshida when she's just cranking on a nasty armbreaker for dear life or her numerous counters to try to snap the arm into pieces. There's a consistent grind to the pair as they both try to basically push the other to beyond the breaking point with whatever hurts the most. Emoto feels like Roderick Strong here as she has all of these sick backbreaker/suplex variations up her sleeves, making her a strikingly jarring force to Yoshida's mostly ground-based offence: she also actually has charisma, so there's that also to factor into things. Either way, it's a really good styles-clash. They built off top rope struggles well; early on Emoto lands a huge superplex that basically sets up the back work for later, so when she tries again Yoshida is NOT playing that and works in a Spider Twist while on said top rope! Pretty awesome. The match seems like it's going to finish at a point (namely after Yoshida boots the lariat arm) but then it goes for another six minutes. Some of this seems like filler (long hold struggles that sorta burn out rather than get more intense) other bits have Yoshida full on punching her opponent in the face, so yeah, I think it's justified. Yoshida also does the Fujiwara Sugar Foot to combo off a Small Package? Then she gets the other arm for a Rings of Saturn transition? Yeah, this is pretty up there, not even going to pretend now. Emoto's lariats aren't great, but her super slick roll-ups and counters definitely work for the pace this match is trying to go at, and you really get the feeling that she's just doing them out of habit at this point to just rush out a pin as things start to tick down. The finish has Emoto just spamming sick suplexes, but can't get a definitive pin off any of them. Draw sounds after another failed roll-up that seemed mistimed. This is somewhat harmed by the clipping but damn if this isn't just a brilliant little gem. Both women bring the best of their styles here and we get a super well-paced showing that balances fatigue selling with plenty of astonishingly brutal spots. Probably the best of Yoshida in IBUKI, though I've yet to go though all of her matches. This just clicked way, way more than others.

Watching her material back, I'm not sure.....the matches aren't obviously these incredible life-changing showings (be it the fairly shaky dance-partners and weird editing for the IBUKI dates) but she's still very good for what is pretty much the bare minimum of experience if even less given her other commitments at the time. Those three matches as you say showcase a fairly impressive range of versatility given each are slightly different in scope. If people give Bockwinkel slack for having entire decades of his career missing to the degree that he's a top 15/20, I think assuming a very high-end prodigy probably having a dozen or so good to great matches is fair. Just me though.

Absolutely criminal that this has no discussion. Fujii's three matches (not counting a weird shootish kickboxing bout she did for a wrestling show in 2008) are all pretty good showings. The 2005 IBUKI First to Three Falls match is probably one of the flashiest shoot-style squashes she's ever done and basically puts her over as this unstoppable force who just keeps relentlessly hunting for limbs to snap off. It's a fantastic visual and despite some obvious greeness off her you really get the feeling that she was *the* definitive package. Even with just three matches I'd say she deserves at least a nod to a top 100 spot, but also in acknowledgement that she would've probably easily been lower had she hit that peak a decade earlier.

This'll be the last version unless I can bother to watch lots of Muto-Era 2001 AJPW, and, erm, that's a tall order that I'm going to have to not be sober for. This only covers the first six months to the Ark-Exodus, I have something bigger planned for that. AJPW Oddities #6: 2000 Jun Akiyama vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (09.01.2000) Hiroshi Hase vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (same date) Masahito Kakihara & Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Masao Inoue & Tamon Honda (31.01.2000) Jun Izumida vs. Toshiaki Kawada (same day) Steve Williams & Vader vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (12.02.2000) Akira Taue vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (17.02.2000) Giant Kimala & Jun Izumida vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (20.02.2000) Jun Akiyama vs. Kentaro Shiga (11.03.2000) Jun Akiyama vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru (24.03.2000) Akira Taue vs. Steve Williams (26.03.2000) Steve Williams vs. Takao Omori (09.04.2000) Daisuke Ikeda & Naomichi Marufuji vs. Kentaro Shiga & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (15.04.2000) Masao Inoue vs. Tamon Honda (same day) Johnny Ace & Mike Barton vs. Jun Akiyama & Maunakea Mossman (same day) Kenta Kobayashi vs. Makoto Hashi (31.05.2000) Jun Akiyama & Maunakea Mossman vs. Kenta Kobashi & Kentaro Shiga (09.06.2000) Kenta Kobayashi vs. Yoshinobu Kanemaru (same day)