Ma Stump Puller

No idea, it just showed up on Youtube/other video sharing websites a while back. Not complaining tho

EWA is Dirtbike's own sleazy British indie promotion and one he'll frequent a few times to put himself over work matches until his early retirement from chaotic back injuries (according to Dirtbike himself, he actually broke his back before wrestling this match a few weeks earlier) One wonders how he didn't retire sooner given the shit he was putting himself though here lol. Of course he puts himself in the main event with Sabu, and this match is a glorious trainwreck; Dirtbike isn't a good wrestler, however he's a complete natural of trashbag indie garbage wrestling, and combined with Sabu? Guarantied craziness. I really like Sabu's "crazy man" antics, especially at the start when he's just shooting for Dirtbike's legs with takedowns wildly before just wrecking his shit with a big lariat early on, as well as a mean springboard senton and a Taue-lite Snake Eyes off the ropes; it's standard stuff from him but at the time no one was working like him so it felt fresh. Dirtbike bumps pretty hard for all of it and it looks good; his selling less so but hey, no surprises there. He tries for a moonsault but misses, allowing Sabu to take over again. It's a shame the crowd didn't bite harder for Sabu's arm work, because it's actually pretty decent as he pulls for cross armbreakers and hammerlocks, alongside just rubbing his elbow into the head of his opponent for bonus discomfort. Sabu goes for his usual chair spots, including a terrifying leap off one to knock Dirtbike off the top rope and to the outside in a wild bump. Basically most of this is just Sabu no selling Dirtbike's offence, or if he is then he's quickly getting back the advantage and doing more spots. Granted his ratio of botches is surprisingly low here, but still. We slightly miss a dive to the outside from Dirtbike that Sabu needs to move in closer for it to actually connect. He makes up for that with a actually good looking Lionsault for a near fall. There's also a bonkers bit where Sabu is on the shoulders of his opponent, he grabs the ropes and they do a Victory Roll to the outside, looked nasty but was awesome. Dirtbike dodges a Sabu leg drop before just botching the shit out of a moonsault by missing completely. Sabu quickly just does a top rope Frankensteiner before trying for another, is countered into a solid crossbody for another near fall. The big spot of the match is, of course, a table spot: Dirtbike is set up on one outside, Sabu is supposed to break it with a senton, easy stuff. The table doesn't even BUDGE, Sabu's ass is full force on the poor lad's face. Ok, try again with a leg drop this time....still nothing. Dirtbike is barely alive at this point, they end it quick with a Arabian Facebuster for the win while the table remains unbroken. I mean....is it good? Not in the technical way, but if you want attempted murder and Sabu just destroying someone for 15 minutes, this'll be up your avenue. Dirtbike is peak 90's indie badness but he has a endearing chaotic quality about him that makes that work, somehow. Guilty pleasure sure but I thought this was real fun for a grimy spot-filled main event with pretty much no logic, just cool stuff and/or botches.

Thanks! I started watching around this era for that exact reason, there's a lot of quality in going off the usual path taken. You'd never know that PCO vs Taue or Shiga/Misawa were things until you dived pretty deep lol. Can't wait to talk about those ones.

I'm so glad this got some love, while this match is great I would say their 2001 G1 outing is the best in terms of combining actual fun mat-work with the usual Yasuda antics. I did a whole thing why he in particular rules, he's one of the more slept on workers around this time because he was doing a lot of his Coward Shooter MMA Heel shit. Great Inoki-era melodrama at its best.

I remember watching this for Murakami content and I felt like the match would've been great IF there was a crowd reacting to it. That's the one thing that for me really undervalues this, because you aren't getting that insane energy that Mura matches need to really fuel themselves to the next level. It's a shame because this is one of the few times where Tana actually feels like he's on the edge of going completely off the deep end, and you'd argue he got there here lol. I feel like if we had the crowd for this from the Otani 2007 bloodbath/brain damage fest it would be remembered better. Still a stellar outing as you put very well above

The point is less so that Misawa did more dates, but that out of what's available his longevity (his quality in-ring, so to speak) drastically started to fall around about early 2000ish while Bryan's had about the same standard of work from nearly the very beginning to today. As you said above grumpy uncle Misawa is still quite enjoyable here and there (when watching his 2007 title run I found myself consistently entertained despite the obvious struggle he was going though) but as said above, his quality of wrestling was always at a certain cap of workrate before he gassed out as found out in the second Marufuji match; he can do half of a great performance before the gas tank starts to run on empty.

I feel like if you put the both side by side I think the consistency is a lot closer than you think. Bryan has plenty of phoned-in performances (surprisingly, but they are a lot more common than you'd expect) the only thing that definitively puts him at a higher longevity is simply the difference of health between the two; Misawa wrecked himself in the 90's to the point of 24/7 agony and he simply can't do the things Bryan is/can do at his age.

One usually only knows of Paloma from his goofy backstreet indie antics, but here he shows off a bit and reminds everyone that he can bloody well go when pushed. The Catch sequences they were doing here were tremendous: these two just have so much creativity together that what we get are these great clashes where Keita could do cool stuff, but Paloma would just completely school him with a equally cool counter or transition, either throwing himself around with super slick cartwheels or grabbing on a hold, keeping a frantic and consistently solid pace throughout the beginning. That bit was great, they moved on to more conventional wrestling stuff which wasn't as good, mostly focused around silly old WoS spots or some comedy. Outside of a sick Cravat variation where Keita pulls on the face as leverage instead of the neck, the rest was pretty much by the numbers for a Keita control sequence. Him doing evil laughs and aping Kendo Kashin spots will never not get old though. We had a good energised comeback from Paloma before hitting his always amazing Rick Rude-style gyrating in a heel hook to get extra leverage while Keita sells his ass off like he was being burned with hot irons. They teased a draw as Keita struggles to get up after a running back elbow with a dub spot but Paloma is ultimately just faking so that he can sneak on a roll-up. The two have a super slick back and forth with pins before Keita counters a La Magistral by hooking the shoulders and sticking his legs on the ropes, getting the dirty win. This was a pretty great match that was basically these two doing some stellar technical wrestling with the flair of a classic 80's British WoS outing. Paloma is a enigma for quality bouts, mostly known for his comedy work, but the dude is REALLY quite amazing for being 46 here, guy could outpace most wrestlers half his age with what he was doing and at the speed he was doing it. At the same time though, the two make sure to hone in on making this matter as a match, getting over Keita having to work dirty for a advantage after initially being outstaged over and over and staying with that theme all the way to the end. It's really something to see, and Keita puts in a surprisingly motivated performance to really hammer in how good this was. Lovely little COVID-era match, one of the more slept on ones.

BEEF. It's a four letter word, but it means so much more when you have these two in the ring stomping around and really setting the tension right off the bat between two fairly big dudes. The match is worked classic WWF Earthquake style as Tenta is the huge target that just won't go down for anything, so Fuyuki has to scratch and claw for everything, even a basic ass snapmare has him just wrenching Tenta over as much as possible just to try to get him into position. Tenta takes his usual signature bump over the ropes to the outside and Fuyuki adds to this with a clean leaping crossbody off the apron. Despite all of this though alongside a really well-done scoop slam Tenta is still firmly in control as he works the back with some big slams and drops; he firmly sets the pace and showcases that Fuyuki will have to do way more than usual to clinch the win. He misses a second rope splash and Fuyuki works another comeback with some quality closed-fist punches, but gets shut down again. Really liked them building up the big charges and bumps as Fuyuki kept having to keep throwing all sorts of frantic stuff out just so he could get a basic back suplex on the guy, so it becomes more of a speed/power dynamic as per standard. Despite tons of really stiff lariats and Tenta bumping like crazy, eventually Tenta gets the pin with a chokebomb, elbow drop, running Baba-style neckbreaker and Earthquake Splash for the clean three count. This was a solid and compact big/small man dynamic, with Tenta bumping like a trooper to get his opponent over well. Fuyuki in turn was fairly good as the underdog, consistently fighting from under to get that one big shot in to try to steal the win, and the crowd really got behind him as time went on. His lariats were great as well and looked real convincing even against someone who dwarfs him by a fair mile. Really good for what it was, if Tenta had a few more years hanging around in WAR and having really quality showings like this I'd easily stick him in a GWE top 100, no question: him vs Tenryu/Kitahara/basically half of the roster would've kicked ass.

This was cut up to around about 7 minutes given how huge this G1 was, so televised matches were rare, full matches were even rarer. This was a pretty fun big man v big man outing, with Yasuda playing the underdog who was pulling out the vintage Fighting Spirit to try to nab the win against a bigger, younger beast who had just ripped apart Nishimura yesterday and was raring to go here. Yasuda is so great at being able to play the bullied bigger tank who eats a ton of offense, and has to dig super deep to try to take back control with whatever stuff he can muster; he understands how to balance being dynamic (for his size) with the optimal amount of fatigue for the occasion. When Nakanishi is hitting him with stiff shit and he responds with this epic fly-swat style sumo slap to the head, it's like he's hit this amazing turning point, and the fact that he gets super fired up helps with the crowd interaction as well as they go crazy for him finally firing back. Yasuda lands his usual bombs well and seems to be edging close to a win, even stealing Nakanishi's big Torture Rack and turning it into a big Samoan Drop! The two go back and forth with neckbreakers and lariats, with Nakanishi pushing though with a beefy spear and a Torture Rack of his own for the tap-out. Simple and easy to digest, just two meaty hosses going back and forth until one wins, with the added bonus of Yasuda being a great underdog babyface. Everything you would expect and even more.

Rip I forgot to keep updating this lol. I'll get to it shortly, 1999 is way too juicy to keep untouched

I mean that's surely one way of seeing it (and certainly how they wanted that to look like) the issue that this exact feature above, this exact logic, it's repeated over and over and over again for nearly every Hansen match in the 95/2000 block. It KILLS tension and turns everything into slow working-hold grapplefests with not a lot to really dig though, because you know Hansen isn't in any real danger (which was what they were trying half-heartedly to push with these submissions until the end of the Pillars era in 2000, shit they even had the tag belts switch off a RNC). doesn't help that bar a few high profile matches it never matters much whatsoever bar Hansen selling a bit. His better matches come when he's actually the underdog (especially around 98/99) and having to take a lot of shots just to rush in and try to keep control. Sometimes they don't even care to try to make it convincing, there's a few occasions where Hansen just gets grabbed, throws some punches and they ignore it completely afterwards. He CAN make drama out of it, but a lot of the time he felt content to sit in the backseat and not really do a whole lot to make it interesting.

Kojima has barely aged since the 90's, and he's still in that role of "guy who's over but not main event" as he's always been in. This is wrestled slightly different to the first matches these two were in as Koji becomes the underdog and Yasuda becomes the big lumpy sumo that he needs to chop down. Yasuda's stuff on top is fairly decent, mixing in the usual big man shtick while also occasionally doing something more athletic, like a rolling senton splash or whatnot. His sumo slaps are pretty damn stiff as well, naturally Koji works well with such a dynamic as he bumps solid, his selling is naturally sympathetic enough to get the crowd supporting the guy against the big lad, even during the lulls included here. Yasuda hits like a truck so naturally Koji tries numerous times to push though with his own chops to no success whatsoever. He has to instead use his speed to dodge moves and then just keep the momentum going with big moves until Yasuda inevitably powers though with his own. The crowd was fairly mixed as both men get chants depending on who's selling, they never really picked a definite favourite (isn't a bad thing, definitely makes this a interesting case). The pace reflects this as both men get the chance to shine, with Kojima having to consistently go to the well against the brick wall that is Yasuda. Especially good bit comes when Koji runs for the lariat and Yasuda just blams him with his own before doing the Baba-lite neckbreaker for a big near fall. When Koji manages to try for another after some good forearms, Yasuda does his huge big-man dropkick to stop him again. I do have to enforce the fact that the crowd are LOUD for this, like these two aren't even really big stars yet or anything but the crowd is firmly super hyped for every big moment. This has maybe a few too many near falls (especially the last five minutes, almost nonstop after every big move) however the crowd still bite so you can't really complain. They work logically with this as well as Yasuda is so battered that all he can do is keep kicking out; Koji just keeps on top of him relentlessly until a final successful lariat puts him down. I thought that the start of this was fairly middling but got good as the two really clicked, something Kojima is really good at doing: he's great at finding what works between him and his opponent, building on it. In this case it's Yasuda's solid ability to just shut down his explosive work with steady counters, so the dynamic is all about that. Yasuda also shines a ton here as he gets to show off just how much he can do: it isn't anything super special workrate-wise, but his ability to establish his role in a match, going from underdog to the exact opposite here? Quite good, especially given this is before his early 2000's peak. Being able to communicate dominance AND vulnerability at the same match is definitely not easy. Great early Yasuda showing, Kojima also gets a pretty big spotlight here as well.

Really enjoyable 9-minute romp with two masters of the mat. Yano's a weird one but Navarro just kicks ass, dude just doesn't care about any of his usual tricks and focuses purely on eating shots and grabbing on slick submissions; Yano would have all of these elaborate transitions to control things while Navarro would just get a simple counter to turn the tables before then completely outclassing him with more whenever needed. When Yano would actually get something on proper Navarro would just compliment the guy and/or give him a thumbs up while in the hold lol. It was definitely the definition of a grapplefuck: nearly all of this takes place on the mat with next to no strikes: but between Navarro's charismatic approach to that kind of work alongside Yano playing his role as the younger act trying to prove himself to perfection, that kind of thing isn't a detriment here. In fact, I'd say it's a positive with these two given how well everything just clicks. If you want a million ways of seeing someone get tied in knots, this is basically the greatest match ever. Otherwise it's still pretty good, I'd say.

This is the second match between the two, I'd suggest watching the first one for context. Keita was really like "let me wrestle a classic NWA-style Broadway on some mats in front of 25 people" and no one could stop him. I mean for one, this is a 61 minute match legit, no gimmicks included, every bit shown and recorded, two out of three falls for the win. It's also done in complete and utter silence for most of the duration, so that's doubly weird. However.....I didn't think this was bad at all. In fact, I thought it was seriously impressive for the fact that this was so low-budget indie that it almost hurt. The first 20 minutes are based around the two purely just grappling and nothing else. Yano finds edges with leg-work as he keeps finding really nifty leg-holds and Fujiwara-style ankle submissions to keep the pressure coming. Kid in turn has to get more scrappy with arm-work; his stuff is nowhere near as impressive, but he doesn't try to be more technically complex, instead just honing in on a more aggressive, strike-heavy style that leaned on being more conventional. They also do more challenging stuff, Yano at one point does a Irish Whip and I can only wonder wtf he was trying to do given there's no ropes lol. They call back to the first match by having Kid do his backslide into Crossface spot from before, only he modifies it to go for a reverse armbar instead (!!!) Keita also gets a good spot with a kneebar transitioned into a tight toe hold. There's just a wealth of really tricky holds being thrown out here by both guys that get sold well, and progress their own gameplan going in with limb-work; it's definitely a slow match for sure, but the sequences are so fresh and well-put together that the speed doesn't really matter. Keita's just doing these bonkers holds that I've never seen before or since while Kid's just trying to survive and/or grab something cool of his own, and while that sounds like it'd be boring for a hour-long match, it was the opposite: I wasn't tiring of it even after 30/40 minutes had passed. Shit, I was getting more hyped, the bit with Yano grabbing on a Crossface/cravat was god-tier hold-modification, looked sick. Keita gets more desperate as time goes on as he starts pulling out more and more risky moves (including a goofy chair-assisted rolling senton) alongside just grinding the head with painful looking cravat-locks, Kid will not quit and keeps on pushing, you can feel the desperation after a while as there's just no progress on either side in terms of grabbing a fall. Keita loses patience and starts throwing some hard strikes, which is his undoing as Kid catches him off a tremendously goofy chair-assisted sunset flip, reversing it back and over for the first fall. Kid battles to keep the advantage, but Keita roughs him up with submissions until throwing on a unspeakably awesome lucha-lite rolling reverse cross-armbar thing, like I can't even describe what it looked like because it was like three different submissions at once. That gets the submission fall for Yano, and despite Kid just running in and trying to beat the man to death with rough elbows Yano is able to survive by turtling up and enduring the beating until the bell rings for the draw. Easily one of Keita's MOTY's to be honest; he one-ups himself from the first match with even more sick grappling to fill that time up alongside getting Kid over as not necessarily a technical equal, but a reliable underdog who had to dig and claw for any big advantages. If you can get into the weird Wallabee-house style you will be rewarded with a immensely technical epic that barely let up and was full of exciting moments.

Super underrated Southern-style brawl between two guys who can REALLY do a brawl like this justice. Williams comes tearing down before the bell even sounds and Omori is right on his ass as soon as he tries running the ropes as apart of his regular entrance, nailing him with a flash Axe Bomber to the outside. Williams sells like he's just been shot, falling all over himself to the barricade. Omori takes advantage as soon as possible by throwing him around but Williams powers through with a clothesline. He tries for a Stampede on the floor but Omori escapes and throws him to the corner post, which then sends him flying into a back suplex outside! Vicious stuff. When he tries to get back in, Omori lands a insanely high dropkick that he almost falls out of the ring for before hitting a suplex. He heads in the ring for a top rope knee but gets a near fall. He tries for a series of Axe Bombers but Williams catches him for the second one into his signature spinebuster. Williams gets pissed, trying to choke Omori out with a sleeper to disable his momentum stone dead and take back control of the match from the furious Omori trying to run him down. He follows it up with a piledriver but Omori just manages to kick out. Both guys scramble for the backdrop, with Omori almost at once running to the ropes when Williams tries to hit one, but that leaves him defenceless to a big stiff slap to the face dazing him enough for a three corner bump Stampede for a near fall. Omori counters a second backdrop attempt but gets whacked with a predictively stiff lariat for his troubles. Williams tries for a second submission to once again halt momentum but Omori rolls out and after a bit of a scramble is able to land two Axe Bombers for the big upset pin! Great short brawl here. Williams is top notch when he needs to sell the shock of Omori just running at him full steam early but quickly gains back control, which turns this into a fun ride between two very explosive lads hurling stiff offence on the other. Dr Death is protected despite the loss by having the majority of the match being a control segment for him, but Omori is still put over strong by the actual victory, and the crowd were hyped up for this from the start to the finish. It's kinda amazing how, despite Steve Williams being way out of it by this point, he could still put on really violent sprints: this got Omori over far more than probably his entire NOAH run combined, and for that I think this is one of Williams' most slept on performances, dude made Omori look like a superstar while equally keeping himself strong as well.

You haven't been in hell until you've seen 2002 Rotunda try to work 30-minute draws in AJPW. Soul-destroying stuff. IRS is great though

Sure, here's some. I will mention that Murakami doesn't actually wrestle much after the brain damage scare from 2007, he's off and on for the most part, so he definitely doesn't have the highs from his earlier work. His benefits come from his entertaining presence. IGF 2.0./NEW duo series (02.06.2017/07.07.2017) Tenryu Project: Arashi & Ryuichi Kawakami v him & NOSAWA (27.07.2015) Basically any of his many Kensuke Office tags (there's no specific match here, I just think watching them in general is worthwhile content) This amazing six-man tag from Kana-Pro II (I'm actually gonna link it because it's so good) The Ashino squash from Gurentai (15.07.2015) (I covered this myself, quite fun for a basic squash) Daiki Inaba & Hiroki Murase vs. him & Yoshihiro Takayama; Gurentai again (11.12.2014) Probably his last properly great singles against Fuminori Abe (RJPW 22.4.2021) There's probably more but that's just me going off what I've already seen

How so? He's basically entertaining as anything post-UFO work, quickly gets his shit together and has his career-high BattlARTS stuff, keeps being consistently great until 2007, and even when he returns post-brain damage he's still quite entertaining in tags and was having bangers all the way up to 2021. I mean that's a pretty good stream of quality for such a long period, I feel like top 100 fits that definition well

I'd rather not see Muto book another promotion to death thanks Do agree that a big #2 Joshi promotion can and absolutely should be operational; the audience and wrestlers are all there for it. Even if it's a GLEAT situation where it's a small core filled with different rotating talent, that has been shown to be wildly successful in the right hands

Greg Valentine working in Battlarts sounds like a weird TEW save but no, this did actually happen in a actual match that did, in fact, happen. I guess Backlund (who was currently having a career-high run in the company) threw a good word out there about the guy. Now sadly this isn't the birth of shootstyle Valentine as he mostly just works this like a regular match but fair credit to the guy; he makes Oya look like a million bucks, especially with the overdramatic selling of his Inoki-style Enzuigiri. Valentine gets his control spot in the middle with some nasty clubs to the chest and pulling on Oya's face through the ropes. Dude just hurls Oya around here with a big Butterfly Suplex and his complete dismissal of Oya's Enzuigiri attempt by just throwing him to the mat for a sharp elbow drop was cool and definitely stood out compared to the tricky technical house-style we usually see in action. Valentine gets on the figure four but Oya manages to escape for the ropes, later attempt for a second one sends him crashing into the ropes and into the turnbuckle, which stuns him bad. Oya tries to take advantage with wild chops and a backdrop attempt, but Valentine ducks down mid-run and hits him flush with a back elbow instead, which gets a great reaction from the crowd. He follows up with some nasty stiff chops before a suplex is countered into a shock Cobra Twist cradle by Oya for the win! Bati-bati was definitely not on the menu here, instead having Valentine drag this into a more conventional 80's style match with a slower pace and focus on Valentine being the usual mean heel. He can still fairly go, however, and the crowd seemed to really appreciate what he was throwing out here given he was getting good reactions. Oya got in his few bits here and there as the underdog and his comebacks were convincing in terms of how desperate he made them feel, especially the roll-up ending. Either way, surprisingly fun and probably one of the last properly good Greg Valentine performances.

Part 5 ========== W/ Masao Inoue vs Akitoshi Saito & Shiro Koshinaka (19.06.2015) Ishingun never die!!!! Match was alright. Ogawa was doing petty bullshit to really put over Koshi's big hip attacks when he got control, which was a nice touch. I thought the two had a good rapport throughout, going for a WAR-style scrappy pace with not a lot of holds and more focused on strikes. Inoue spends ages predictively selling his ass off for the pair in the middle half, crowd bit into the comedy routine well and he got some good reactions. Eventually Ogawa and co get the advantage with eye rakes and Inoue actually does some moves, including his terrible lariat. Tag psychology kinda goes out the window near the end as Inoue just...stays in for the last half despite Ogawa being there for the tag all the time, he just doesn't go for it for some reason. Koshi does a good top rope hip attack, Saito ends things with a Death Cloak and a Death Sickle kick for the finish. Easy undercard that didn't really threaten much in terms of quality; it was all about Inoue for the most part so things were mostly going at a mild pace. I feel like Koshi and Ogawa could probably have a good singles match though, even if this late in the game. Ogawa babysitting Inoue is one of the funnier random pairings of this time, so if that's your thing then this'll do the trick like the rest of their outings. RANK: Decent Vs. Minoru Suzuki (01.07.2015) Was dreading this but then realised that this was still around the time that Minoru was actually having good matches. The theme of this event was "Suzuki-Gun vs NOAH" (every singles match was a NOAH native vs one of the members) and the main follows the same as the plucky vet steps up to the invading NOAH champion. This was about the only year left where Suzuki was at least tolerable, even if this title run was WAY too long and actively buried half the roster in the process. To rag on something else for a bit, Ogawa's best matches ever come from dragging guys who typically have conventional formulas into unconventional situations thanks to him. Think of his infamous Kobashi GHC match where he turns the whole thing into a melodramatic heel/face dynamic. Think of his Kakihara match where he takes a shoot-style guy and drags him into his catch-wrestling game. Like these, Ogawa drags Suzuki into playing by his tune. This starts off with some minutes of early grappling, with Suzuki surprisingly being on the backend as Ogawa is way too tricky to handle and keeps getting around his stuff to focus on the arm; Suzuki isn't really used to Ogawa's tricky transitions so he struggles to keep up because Ogawa isn't going by the usual rules of a Suzuki match where the person either tries to out-shoot or out-strike him. Suzuki cheats by using the ropes to trap Ogawa's arm for a rope-hung cross armbreaker spot, one of the few times where it didn't seem contrived. He gets the advantage with brawling and also focusing on the arm, mostly either with stiff kicks and strikes. Ogawa's selling is solid as he takes a beating from Suzuki who dominates with submissions, trying to crank and break the arm and hand and not giving a inch. Ogawa gets a comeback with his punches and usual counter-heavy style to get in his usual spots when things got too hairy. First half was enjoyable, the second is amazing. They had a solid pace going for the last few minutes as Suzuki kept trying to break Ogawa down but would keep getting caught in some really amazing flash pins that were built around countering Suzuki's most obvious moves like the sleeper and Gotch Piledriver, with Suzuki flying at points with how much he was getting outfoxed: Ogawa's gameplan was to basically catch him out in the process with one of these, which makes sense given how much of a advantage it gave him earlier. They don't work of course, and Ogawa gets caught in a nasty rear naked choke after a big backdrop, having to use the ref as leverage to escape the hold and survive; while he caught the champ off guard, Suzuki is a quick learner. He actually puts in tangible effort with his own stuff, including a dropkick (! ) and he has a awesome spot where he deadlift-counters a Small Package attempt with a front guillotine. Ogawa can't escape and Suzuki can wear him down just enough for the piledriver this time, getting the win. This started simple but turned into a fantastic Ogawa-style sprint by the second half, with tons of intelligent counters and flush work in general. Seriously top-notch stuff despite the length, if you can find this please give it a watch. Easily one of Ogawa's MOTDC, but Suzuki was game to work as well despite the rather unconventional style this ended up being. RANK: Great W/ Super Crazy & Zack Sabre Jr vs Akitoshi Saito, Mikey Nicholls & Takashi Sugiura (10.08.2015) I actually thought this was quite high-bar for what was essentially a C-show sprint with no stakes. Zack and Sugiura have some decent rolling on the mat and submission exchanging as Sugiura is way too relentless despite Zack's best attempts to escape and/or apply his own holds (including a double ankle lock reversal) Crazy and Nicholls have a slower, more comedy-driven sequence as Crazy got underestimated and Nicholls paid for it, and Saito/Ogawa was Ogawa having to outpace the bigger Saito with his speed and experience. Zack sucked with his stupid limp kicks (especially seeing he was doing them to Saito, who could absolutely blast him out of the water) Nicholls and him have a more enjoyable pace revolving around counters into pins and vice versa. It was cool seeing Sugiura (the biggest star here by far) be generous enough to be the guy bumping for the three near the end, especially Crazy with his usual good lucha-spots to boot. Everyone runs in at the end to do their signature bits: despite Crazy throwing on some near fall roll-ups, he eventually falls to Sugi doing a crazy Frankensteiner out of literally nowhere for the quick pinfall. Enjoyable undercard outing where everyone got to show off their work and be home quick at the same time. No one was really the weak link (apart from Zack's terrible PK's grrrr) and it felt really compact for what it was trying to do. RANK: Good W/ Masao Inoue & Yoshihiro Takayama vs El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki & Takashi Iizuka (19.08.2015) A match built around a forgone conclusion, however it wasn't that bad, even though the Suzuki-Gun antics made this unbearable in places. Brawling was decent as everyone got their licks in before Ogawa sold big for the heel trio as they did their usual stuff. Suzuki tried to add in some limb work but lol Iizuka ain't doing nothing to that leg, he's all about just choking spots and making the ref look like a ineffective ass. Taka comes in for the "hot" tag but this is 2015 Taka so it's all just terrible slap-clubs to the back or a Butterfly suplex, take it or leave it. Poor guy can't even do a PK without struggling, I just feel bad for him at this point. Him and Suzuki do a striking exchange that ends with Taka winning, Inoue comes in for a lariat for a near fall. It seems like he's finally going to do it as Ogawa and Taka beat up on Suzuki for him to just sweep in and finish the job...Suzuki grabs a sleeper out of his attempt to snap on a backbreaker and that's basically it for the guy. Despite having Inoue in the match, he's not actually doing a whole lot beyond the start (to fumble around) and finish (AKA to job) which was a shame. Suzuki-Gun antics are tiring and Suzuki was just in complete auto-pilot here, not as bad as his later NJPW and indies stuff but still poor; watching the singles with Ogawa to this was like two completely different wrestlers. Despy was shoddy as usual and Crazy Izu was pretty much just there to cheat. Ogawa was probably the best in terms of selling and actually getting over stuff in the match, though with a old Inoue and Takayama at his very worst that's not exactly a high point. RANK: Decent W/ NOSAWA vs Kendo Kashin & Kenichiro Arai (02.09.2015) Time wasting to start off with.....awesome. Arai's gimmick is that he's a alcoholic, essentially. Poor taste and something you definitely wouldn't get away with now? Very much so. That said, him and NOSAWA have a surprisingly half-decent fish out of water sequence. Ogawa definitely carries him in the technical department when they face off. Arai stumbles around and uses that to his advantage to confuse his opponents; it's basic stuff but looks fine for what he's trying to do. Arai gets his arm worked for a bit by the two as Kashin just does his usual thing. Ogawa does some great work onto the arm like only he can, making it look nasty and at times primal in how he just throws it around with no care in the world. Kashin vs Ogawa is as per expected, some decent work but I found them to be a bit all over the place. We get a repeat of the scoop slam/aluminium can bit from Kashin's DDT material after a messy outside brawl and it's the same thing, just with NOSAWA; it's a really silly spot and I have no idea why Kashin just carries around aluminium cans around, but with everything else going on it just breezes by. Arai betrays Kashin after he takes the advantage for no reason but Ogawa also gets pissy after getting hit with a accidental clothesline from NOSAWA, resulting in a messy finish where Ogawa and Kashin slap on small packages at the same time, but the ref counts Kashin only so he wins by technicality. Fine enough as a Kashin-style undercard outing but there's nothing really worth checking out here unless you want to see some goofy comedy alongside hints of maybe getting good before just never reaching that next gear.. While I would be morbidly interested in what a Kashin/Ogawa singles match would even look like, this definitely isn't either man's best moment for judging that lol. RANK: Forgettable W/ Zack Sabre Jr vs Mikey Nicholls & Mitsuhiro Kitamiya (05.09.2015) This was clipped to five minutes out of the original runtime of ten. Ogawa spends a good portion selling for the duo as they throw and splat him around. Even this early Kitamiya is a entertaining little hoss who's yet to grow into the force of nature he'll be in a few years. Nicholls is the same mediocre presence he always is in singles matches, nothing different here: as much as he's good in TMDK he doesn't look that good outside of it at all when Haste isn't around. Zack played the little guy to Kita well as he had to move and duck around the place to get around his mass advantage, which was a nice touch to his usual arm work spots; there was actual struggle as opposed to him just casually running though spots and sequences with no issue. Finish was random as fuck as Ogawa and Nicholls just fought each other for a bit, Nicholls ran over him with a lariat or two before getting powered out of a roll-up into a Mikey Bomb for the clean pinfall loss, a finish they repeated from the 08/03/2015 match; while it worked there because of the action prior, here it was just so abrupt that it harmed the match as a whole for me. It had some good moments in it, but with only five minutes shown and Nicholls kinda just not doing a whole lot for me this was basically all just a Kitamiya showcase. Not a bad thing, just not anything that interesting. RANK: Decent W/ Takashi Sugiura & Zack Sabre Jr vs Minoru Suzuki, El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku (10.09.2015) This was mostly a build-based match for Sugi/Suzuki, so a lot of this was dominated by the presence of those two while the Jr guys mostly filled in the blanks. TAKA/Desperado did their usual heel stooging in the middle half, with Ogawa and Zack having some really good moments to shine. These included a double cross armbreaker row-boat spot (which was goofy, but in a good way) Zack doing fancy arm wrench transitions and Ogawa just stomping the shit out of TAKA's shoulder and bending his arm way back for more damage. Standard stuff, but still pretty solid. Outside of that, we got the usual Suzuki-Gun cheating antics, though it was cool seeing Zack interact with Suzuki years before the two will be hanging around each other; Suzuki's bully routine is by the numbers, but I still thought it worked for what it was. Ogawa gets a cool hot tag but it's all about Sugi as he goes into a long extended stiff striking exchange with Suzuki again for what felt like forever. Strikes looked good, but there's a degree in which I can handle these before I just start to blank out, and this was getting dangerously close to that. Suzuki tries his usual spots but his former stable-mate is way too knowledgeable to get caught with any, leading to a dub spot off a German suplex. Finish comes off a messy brawl as Sugi runs over TAKA with a running knee, double spear and Olympic Slam for the win. As I said it's a basic build-match, but I didn't think it was bad, just mostly by the numbers. There's some decent work here but the mileage will vary depending on how much you can tolerate long-drawn out sequences, because oh man this has them aplenty. RANK: Decent W/ Zack Sabre Jr vs Kota Umeda & KUDO (14.09.2015) Good lord Zack looked like shit with this bowlcut lol. I forgot how bad it was at the time. Anyway, this was a DDT/NOAH crossover that I was shocked to see was actually quite decent! Ogawa and KUDO had a two minute exchange purely focused on super basic arm wrench transitions, counters to double wrist locks, and some fancy stuff; typical Ogawa-style work, quite good for what it was. Umeda is really just your standard generic DDT midcarder; some spots, some terrible modern tendencies, etc. Thankfully he spends most of the match being worked over by Zack and co's nifty old-school technical work, using the turnbuckle, using the ropes, and pulling out a lot of solid limb-focused offence on the leg. Even Zack was tolerable as he mostly kept to the stuff he's really solid at (bending limbs and getting over fairly unimpactful work with measured, controlled moments bit to bit) as opposed to what he isn't (throwing poor strikes). We get a long control segment, crowd gets surprisingly loud for Ogawa wangling a Figure Four and then the inevitable Umeda comeback as he manages to drag out a dropkick. KUDO's comeback was basic: mostly focused on kicks and his signature knee strikes: solid enough despite some minor delays, and Ogawa makes the guy look like a killer with his sell-job. However....this sadly went rough for the last third, and not because of any wrestling-based issue, but because KUDO fucked his leg almost right (tore his ACL, to be exact) after during a regular jawbreaker spot by Ogawa, falling right down to the mat with no warning. Ogawa tries for a DDT, but his leg gives out again and he falls over. KUDO is, well, done at this point. He can't even stand. In less experienced hands, this could've been a deer in the headlights moment and incredibly awkward. Ogawa knows what he's doing though: he works the injury into the match, taunting and mocking his injured opponent, and deliberately positions himself in such a way where KUDO can just "push" him over to his tag corner for Umeda to finish the match. It still looks akward given the guy can't stand, but Ogawa masterfully handles the situation once he understands what's up. He works the leg of Umeda like before but Umeda then no sells so that him and Zack can do a stupid "me hit harder" kick exchange for no bloody reason. Umeda pretends to be Shibata with his stiff kicks and corner dropkick, but gets kicked off when trying for a springboard with a cool low-kick by Zack. KUDO had balls for crawling in to break up a pin on one leg: of course this was all for nothing as Zack just got him in a modified single-leg Achilles Tendon to tap him out. If KUDO was healthy and could've worked the last bit, I think this might have been very solid as the build suggested, especially as the pace was starting to get better and better from the start of his hot tag. Sadly it wasn't due to the injury, and some other issues (inconsistent selling, Umeda being not great) meant this just wasn't able to take off properly despite some good moments. Zack and Ogawa were still pretty good, however there was just never a point here where the match got to that next big gear. RANK: Decent W/ Zack Sabre Jr. vs Masamune & Taiji Ishimori (19.09.2015) Wow a match where Ogawa/Zack have actual opponents that don't rely on crappy "heel heat" boring control segments, shocker. Masa and Ogawa work careful technical work on the fundamentals while Ishimori and Zack work a Dragon Gate style big sequence before then choosing to try to lock up, because psychology. We got to see Ogawa work a Nishimura-style extended surfboard stretch so 5+ stars though. Middle half is strong as the two go into the usual Cravat spamming on Masa. Zack gets a bit too cute going for shit and forgets to make it actually seem like a struggle, something Ogawa clearly understands with his own work; it's this match in particular where that is really illuminated in a big way, Zack just casually throwing himself around while Ogawa makes every little thing deliberately feel more laboured than it actually is. Ishimori gets a decent hot tag on both men, as well as some contrived stuff here and there; mostly seems flush though, especially with the always-great dropdown low blow Ogawa does. It's the Zack show for the last third as he takes on Masa, who has some nifty stuff like a bottom rope Tiger Feint kick to the head or a chunky side-suplex. Zack and him do more spot to spot stuff until the finish has him slap on the Jim Breaks Special for the quick and effective tapout. This was very much PWG-inspired as a lot of this was just spot to spot with not much actual meaning behind it but when Ogawa got in things got grounded and actually paced better because he just refused to play that style here. Not to say prime Ishimori flinging himself around is fun and all, however that for a whole match would tire. Zack is still really needing a fair bit of work but his technique is clearly there in a big way, and he's a solid partner here against the more fancy-footed foils. Quite solid. RANK: Good ========== Zack v Ogawa is next! That's a match that I'll definitely have fun talking about.

This wasn't on TV but they showed all of this on the VHS release afterwards, which I'm thankful for because the two have good chemistry in the ring. Williams offers a handshake but wrecks Kea with a lariat when he accepts, but Kea uses his speed to outpace the guy by dodging his corner splash and landing a dropkick. We get some decent outside brawling as Williams stumbles around and tries for a backdrop but gets reversed out of it. Kea lands a apron forearm to send the guy into the crowd, but his big running splash gets countered as Williams dumps him belly-first on a table instead. He controls things in the middle half, cussing all the time and threatening the ref when he doesn't count three off a good powerslam. He also does Kobashi's chops for some reason? Namely to the face, which was funny. They establish Kea as a solid underdog that has to work under Williams using weapons and skirting the rules to keep control of the match, so there's a good bit of brawling and then leg-work after he chips Kea's leg with a chair, giving them a excuse to slow down things here. Seeing Williams do stuff like a figure-four on the turnbuckle post and even a leg-dropkick were pretty out there, but I definitely think it worked for what it was trying to go for here as the two scrambled around in places, with Kea having the better strikes in his kicks but having to consistently stop and mind the leg meant he couldn't keep momentum, and Williams has to turn up the cheating, using a low blow when Kea starts to get the better of him. Dr Death can no longer just bulldoze though people like he could in the 90's, instead having to pull every dirty vet move out of the bag to try to keep this under control. They work some good spots involving Kea as he turns a attempted shin-breaker into his sliding DDT and had him do his nifty inverted Enzuigiri after a kick combo (why hasn't anyone stole this yet? It looks cool). You can definitely notice the Muto-influence on Kea as he's starting to move around a lot like the guy (or at least trying, anyway) as well as using stuff like his Frankensteiner and Dragon Screw. There's one sloppy bit where Kea just stands in front of Williams and basically talks to him about the next spot, but it only lasts a few seconds and didn't detract much here. It was cool to see Kea use the Shining Wizard to finally put Williams away, even if it did feel a little bit like pandering given he'd just jobbed to Muto the day before. Williams is of course far from his best, but he could still go and his signature flair with his chaotic brawling came out a fair bit; definitely still had a good few years left in him had he sadly not been side-lined with cancer. I'm of the opinion that people very much overlook his later years post-WWF stuff, and this is no exception given it's a well worked Carny match that really got over Kea as a solid upper-card act, no small part to Williams making sure he looked good here.

Part 4 ========= W/ Zack Sabre Jr vs Katsuhiko Nakajima & Mohammed Yone (22.02.2015) I actually did dig the start of this as Nakajima and Zack had a few minutes of slow grappling. It wasn't anything special, but Nakajima actually looked good with his shoot-ish stuff given his weird MMA background and Zack got to twist him around in WoS fancy spots and the like. Yone gets jobbed out as Ogawa grabs his leg mid-run for a cool ankle lock set-up and so him and Zack go to town on that thing. It's amusing seeing Yone, who had just a few years ago beaten big main eventers, was a co-leader of a stable and even drawn with Kawada (well 2010 Kawada, but still) had now been reduced to being dominated by essentially two Jr heavyweight guys, which is typically a no-no in hierarchy-based feds like these. Ogawa and co do some pretty standard limb work, with great cut-offs of the ring and them occasionally having Yone break out with strikes before just scrambling for his shitty leg again, and of course this ends badly as Ogawa's hubris to try to overpower him with punches goes badly. Nakajima gets back in for some usual kick routines, but him and Zack have a nice little exchange, with the highlight being Zack doing a based Shiga-style tornado DDT into armbar. Yone comes in to basically just get his ass kicked more as his leg gets wrecked again, but he gets to do some lariats and a kneeling kick eventually, as well as landing the finish with a Kinniku Buster on Zack for the big pin. Pretty robust midcard outing: Yone is pretty useless as he usually is but he's thankfully mostly not doing much of anything, so instead we get to see the guys who can actually work, well, work here. Nakajima doesn't really go far out of his usual ballpark at the time, landing big kicks and mostly just sticking to that. Ogawa/Zack are a solid duo as always, with some really snappy technical stuff between them as they focused on working smart against their higher-up opponents on the card. RANK: Decent Vs Hajime Ohara (27.02.2015) Yeah the presentation looked like this took place in some random ass warehouse/local theatre they hired out for like, 2 hours at best. The footage looks like shit, the camera is fixed to the middle, and the match takes place on a stage with literal boxes littering the background view to the ring. It honestly made this even more funny to watch as the match itself was fantastic. Ohara is a Lucharesu guy and Ogawa is a nerdy British Catch worker, so the two naturally clashed here with a lot of grappling, bizarre moments of Ogawa and co being tied up in four different directions, and generally a solid pace that never let up. This doesn't have any magical big fancy spots to get you hyped up, but as a straight-forward grappling session it was tremendous, and because of Ohara's skill we got to see Ogawa pull out some really nifty British-style holds and cranks to get the job done in contrast. It really felt like these two went basically "fuck it" and went all out with a uber protracted pace to try to mix things up. Ohara spends most of this on top via working the back, and Ogawa has to crawl back into this with his usual smart counters and work to try to take back the match. Ogawa sold especially well here as he just made Ohara look great, bumping big and animated for his work whenever he was in charge. They somehow make the Backstabber as a move look devastating as well. The last few minutes are entertaining enough Ohara looks really confident going into a possible win, but his big Tres Fleurs is foiled as Ogawa rolls into a reverse Victory Roll for the spoiler win. Despite Ohara again being super scummy he and Ogawa do have a solid match for what it is, and while the second half is more conventional and loses the fun dank indie-feel of the first half, it's still good enough to be quite well regarded in my mind. If you want a more strictly technical match out of Ogawa than even his usual assortment of stuff, this is definitely for you. RANK: Good W/ Katsuhiko Nakajima vs Mikey Nicholls & Shane Haste (08.03.2015) Basically a short TMDK outing to get them over. Ogawa had some really enjoyable sequences with the two revolving around holds and counters to said holds, as well as selling well when he was on the backfoot, justifying his antics later on in the match; both guys get a lot out of him despite the match only being 10 minutes long in total, definitely some solid opening exchanges. Nakajima kicks hard. We got some nice work in the middle half as Ogawa pulls out the old dirty antics, namely some brawling, full on stomping on Haste's face, and bunching up his hair to then pull it all in one go. Nakajima shockingly does some stuff other than stiff strikes as he sells for Nicholls' hot tag after some minutes of getting worked over. Ogawa and him have some fun interactions as Nicholls had some truly goofy bumping, literally jumping out of the ring after getting hit with a low blow and flinging Ogawa in the air when he tries to kick out of his backdrop. Finish was a bit messy as everyone just ignored the rules and started doing stuff regardless of who was legal; Ogawa manages to almost get a comeback via dual eye-pokes and a near fall School Boy after dodging Nicholls' lariat; he tries to snap for another via a headlock takeover, but instead gets impressively powered up into a Mikey Bomb for the finish. Good stuff for a undercard; even the fairly one-dimensional Nakajima actually did more than the usual shtick he just endlessly tries to get over, namely that he kicks hard. TMDK seemed energised and Ogawa was definitely the MVP with how he got both guys into enjoyable sequences. Not necessarily a amazing match for the workrate, but mostly for the great pacing between the goofy B-show antics and the serious stuff. You really get to see how Ogawa got his rep as a ring general from material like this. RANK: Good W/ Jonah Rock, Super Crazy & Zack Sabre Jr vs Captain NOAH, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Mohammed Yone & Taiji Ishimori (15.03.2015) Captain NOAH's debut, so you know this shit stunk ass. Jado is about as mobile in 2015 as he is now, so you get generally really bad slow-mo wrestling while everyone bumps around him because he's the booker and so no one wants to cross him proper. Other than that this was basically just a dull house-show match with as many people as possible to stuff the card, but with only 10 minutes for a 8-man it means you can't have any story outside of movez.....and this was mostly just that alongside the comedy stylings from the mind of Jado, so erm, about as solid as you expect. Ishimori gets the pin on Crazy with a 450 Splash, the only impressive spot of the match. Dogshit, fresh and pure. RANK: Forgettable Vs Super Crazy (28.03.2015) One of the descriptions for this match on Cagematch described this as "two tricksters who want to curl each other in different ways." and I really love that description so I'm using it here. Ogawa works his usual strong and steady technical work while Crazy uses his lucha technique to outpace him in turn, so the match is basically those two going back and forward for control as two clever vets trying to outclass the other. Outside of Crazy sweating buckets here (seriously, does the guy have a problem or something? Even just laying on the mat he's sweating up) his stuff was flush and never went that over the top for lucha standards, even if he was never going to sell the arm long-term that Ogawa was focusing on for most of it. He does wiff a second rope moonsault though pretty badly near the end. Ogawa gets blasted for most of the second half until Crazy tries for three moonsaults (each from the bottom/mid/top ropes) the third being dodged. Crazy plays dead to try to snap Ogawa up for a roll-up (a trick he's used in the past to steal wins) but Ogawa simply plants his hands down to catch the shoulders mid-transition and steals the stolen win. Nothing special about this but there's a lot of fun work here for a nothing undercard. The two don't really click specifically well though, bit of a shame. RANK: Decent Vs Dragon JOKER (Tenryu Project 03.04.2015) Probably the match of the night, to be honest. JOKER and Ogawa spent the first five minutes just rolling on the mat and doing slick technical work until Ogawa started pulling out his old Rat Boy tricks to work on the arm, then we got some brawling, turnbuckle smashing, and Ogawa being a dick by stomping on the exposed shoulder of JOKER with some nasty targeted work. There's some cool little bits like Ogawa using the ref to balance himself during a sunset flip attempt or doing a weird reverse key lock with arch that I've never seen someone do before. They got a ton of mileage out of Ogawa doing his usual control sequences, namely with a lot of motion, action, and never sitting in one hold for too long. You see JOKER closely get edges (a few strikes here, a counter there) until the big explosion of offence with a masterful spinning heel kick out of a roll, which got a big reaction. JOKER gets his own back by grabbing on a corner rope-hung armbar in the corner on Ogawa, and we also get a ton of really frenetic back and forth stuff as Ogawa keeps pulling for the arm submissions to try to keep control of things, but then getting screwed because JOKER now also had his own counter holds, etc. Despite kicking out of two big backdrops, JOKER quickly gets caught in a tight armbar that he simply can't escape from, forcing the tapout. This was a pretty simple structure, but I think it really held up, with the change of scenery helping with a fairly compact crowd really getting behind this. No small part to Ogawa, who works a masterful job making most of the grinding and fairly unimpactful technical stuff look fantastic, while JOKER also does his part to make this solid with his fluid bumping and incorporating that arm work into his own stuff later on as well. No shock that we'll see this guy in NOAH a few years later as a day 1 Stinger ally, this time unmasked. RANK: Good Atsushi Kotoge, Katsuhiko Nakajima, Naomichi Marufuji & Zack Sabre Jr vs Brian Breaker, El Desperado, Shelton Benjamin, Taichi & TAKA Michinoku (19.04.2015) Very very messy Suzuki-Gun paced match, but that's obviously going to be expected from a bloody 10-man tag. This had Jr heavyweights randomly assorted with some heavyweights in the form of Breaker and co with not a lot of actual sense put into it. This is also partly a build match for Ogawa/Zack's title shot against TAKA/Desperado, so they get that over as soon as possible by having TAKA get beat down by the two with some cool double team arm work. There's some fun house-show style spots like Benjamin's scoop slam being so full of beef that TAKA and the lighter guys on the apron jump for it and fall off the apron, as well as Taichi goofing off with a hammer, alongside Desperado and co calling everything a "Axe Bomber" from a back elbow to a big boot lol. Breaker is a lump who does next to nothing, no idea how this guy was earmarked for the Fed with such a unremarkable look; all this dude does is ape Steve Williams; he's most definitely not Steve Williams, either by his roid belly or with his shoddy wrestling. Other than that, predictively this was mostly Suzuki-Gun dominating over Nakajima, who does a dropkick and hard kicks like he basically always does, because he's just so, so bland, especially around this time. Maru is in to do lazy chops and try to get his lariat over, but naturally you'd never buy him actually doing much with it so it just goes like a wet fart. Taichi and Kotoge get their impending title match over with a small exchange that's of course not that good as neither man was exactly having epics around this time. Finish has everyone come in for a messy brawl, ending with Kotoge beating the odds and catching Taichi with a flash pin off pulling his trunks for leverage to a remarkably loud pop. Despite the finish, the match itself was really bog standard lazy B-show stuff, with some people here not even tagging in like Desperado and the like. Fine of previews and as a build match, but as a result of the structure this was always going to be messy: the fact the match itself focuses a lot on guys like Breaker and a lazy Maru definitely don't help things. Weak stuff. RANK: Forgettable W/ Hitoshi Kumano & Zack Sabre Jr vs El Desperado, Taichi & TAKA Michinoku (25.04.2015) Same match from the January 18th show, only with slight changes, like Zack/Ogawa working the leg of TAKA instead of the arm, and Kumano is the one worked over in the middle half instead of Zack. Heel antics were funny in places (like they took turns doing these really goofy stomps at one point on the poor lad) but you know, it's the same match, so like, not much to really mention. The NOAH guys got more shine as Despy jobbed to all of their stuff, ultimately it ends with the same finish: Kumano tries for roll-ups, but he gets caught and pinned. Same match, only I'd say this one might be a bit better given the shorter length and not as much focus on slow heel control segments, always a bonus. Still a lazy rethread though. RANK: Decent Vs Genba Hirayanagi vs Masashi Aoyagi (26.04.2015) NOAH would occasionally do these goofy triple-threat matches for their smaller shows, so here is one of them. They wrestled the old fashioned formula of "one guy leaves and the two in the ring do a regular match" deal, though they also played around with that concept by having Hirayanagi be a little shit trying to double team on people and/or leaving to let the other two beat on each other, both to absolutely no success. He'd get the occasional move with someone before they'd beat his ass as well. Ogawa/Aoyagi is fun as the two exchanged strikes, Ogawa mostly doing the selling. The finish is simple as Hira throws Ogawa out, but he silently sneaks back in to snap on a School Boy and steal the win while he's getting the crowd amped up. Fun comedy sprint that was pretty innocent; everything went off well and while this is basically just a bunch of 1 v 1 matches rolled into one, it's sturdy enough with Hira's goofy comedy alongside Ogawa/Aoyagi being the serious guys trying to beat everyone around them up. Enjoyable for what it was. RANK: Decent W/ Atsushi Kotoge & Zack Sabre Jr vs El Desperado, Taichi & TAKA Michinoku (30.04.2015) Suzuki-Gun shtick is never that interesting, but I guess this was alright for a 10 minute jaunt. The heels did their usual standard rudo act with lots of brawling, belt shots, and selling for the babyface natives when push came to shove. Ogawa had to sell his ass off for these goobers and he did so in his usual standard great way, always getting the initiative for the hot tag while getting over their threat well. His Hogan-lite comeback with the finger pokes and pro-style punches wrecking all of the heels was enjoyable enough. Kotoge gets in to do all of his big spots as the heel trio fail to take him down, and this basically just devolves to everyone brawling until Desperado's chair attempt is missed and we get a cool Zack/Ogawa combo with a backdrop into half-Nelson suplex, with Zack snapping on the Article 50 reverse Fujiwara armbar for the quick tapout. It's decent for what it was (even though the NJPW guys were lazy as shit) and a quick and easy watch. RANK: Decent W/ Captain NOAH, Mikey Nicholls, Shane Haste & Zack Sabre Jr vs Brian Breaker, El Desperado, Shelton Benjamin, Taichi & TAKA Michinoku (19.04.2015) Basically just the exact same match we got on the 19.04.2015 show, only they replaced Marufuji with Jado so predictively this wasn't very good, though we get TMDK for Kotoge and Nakajima, better trade. I thought Zack and Ogawa going for cravat work was cool, as was Ogawa dragging TAKA down to the mat and punching him while in said hold, which is always cool regardless of it being repeated as a spot like four times at this point. Zack also gets fancy with rolling cravat holds as well to keep this fresh and interesting. Good chunk of this was dedicated to just mindless Suzuki-Gun style brawling and the same spots from the last match, even down to Zack being the man working from under for most of the middle half. I will say that Nicholls makes Brian Breaker about as good as we've ever seen him, and that's definitely something given the guy isn't exactly top quality. They finish with Captain NOAH doing a shockingly cool rope-hung DDT and making Despy tap out in the Crossface, but with a ref distraction, Taichi using the tag belts as a weapon, and a shitty frog splash, he quickly jobs as a result. All in all, same match as before, wasn't impressed then and I'm certainly not impressed now. RANK: Forgettable W/ Zack Sabre Jr vs El Desperado & TAKA Michinoku (c) (10.05.2015) This is for the Jr Heavyweight belts and....yeah as you'd expect this is a rather iffy match. Desperado is years away from the performer he will become and TAKA is more than content doing the bare minimum, so I felt like this didn't have a high bar going in. The first 5 have Zack and Desperado do some basic technical work, mostly around Zack being able to dominate with his WoS-shtick, but he also throws in some little bits to shake it up here and there that aren't just random bad strikes out of the blue. Desperado really isn't much to talk about and he mostly spends the beginning selling for both him and Ogawa as they focus on his head with cravat-variations. TAKA gets in and that same thing happens, only dual arm work instead. This goes on until Zack is tripped up from Desperado and dragged outside, meaning it's time for the BS slow brawling section. Ogawa works from under as Suzuki-Gun gang up on him, I did enjoy how he throws out the occasional punch or kick to really struggle, surprisingly gave me Hansen-lite vibes off it with how scrappy he tried to make it. Such a shame though that TAKA and co just stink the place up with boring "heel" wrestling and control spots, you've seen these a thousand times over and they still aren't that interesting. TAKA and Ogawa have a goofy exchange over eye pokes, with a counter neckbreaker and Enzuigiri giving Ogawa the hot tag to Zack, who follows up with equally goofy Euro uppercuts and his limpy kicks with no force behind them. He also does some contrived arm work, teasing a tap out from a Northern Lights/cross armbreaker transition but then having Desperado interfere. TAKA acts like his arm is broke from the hold....but it's a ruse, him using it to get a eye poke, a superkick, and then a Michinoku Driver. Desperado does the only good move he's done all match with a regular frog splash, which gets the win. Lame, which is a shame given the Ogawa/Zack duo could do quite solid matches but keep getting crummy opponents who positively refuse to have good matches with them. TAKA phones it in, Desperado is pathetically lazy around this time, the fact these two were even champs at all tells you the dire, dire state of NOAH in this state, at least the Yano/Iizuka pairing were a bit unique. RANK: Forgettable W/ Jushin Thunder Liger vs El Desperado & Taichi (09.06.2015) This was pretty much by the numbers for the Suzuki-Gun Jr guys. Ogawa and Liger as a duo is incredibly intriguing but it doesn't really factor into this much; they don't have any cool moments of double team work or dynamics, mostly keeping to themselves. The match itself is fairly simple: the Suzuki-Gun guys work heel shtick, Liger and co get comebacks and fun stuff in turn. Liger spends a good portion of the early section trying to get Desperado's mask off but gets wacked with a chair and so has to work from the bottom again. There's a good amount of trashy brawling that adds nothing but it helps get some heat on this match as Ogawa has to play the frustrated hot tag who keeps inadvertently giving the heel guys the advantage by distracting the ref when he gets outraged about their cheating, because they just end up cheating more when he does that lol. Liger can do this kind of match sleepwalking and it feels like he is as he mostly sells low-key for them and spends most of this on the floor. Ogawa's hot tag is solid as you'd imagine and him and Taichi have a fun chemistry that lets them get away with some goofy sequences. Desperado is mostly featureless bar a really cool Vertebreaker variation near the end. The finish is gimmicky as Taichi tries to use his GHC Jr heavyweight belt, but hits Desperado instead and Ogawa capitalises with a roll-up, so it protects those two while letting them take a loss. All in all, pretty by the numbers. Taichi is most definitely a required taste at this point and time as he was immensely limited, and Desperado is just as lazy a worker as he's always been throughout these watches. The match was a fun little outing but I can't help thinking Ogawa and Liger were wasted here given how by the numbers the whole thing felt. RANK: Decent W/ Genichiro Tenryu & Yoshihiro Takayama vs Masao Inoue, Naomichi Marufuji & Yuji Nagata (13.06.2015) I wonder who's taking the fall, such a mystery Cool to see Tenryu for his last NOAH match before retiring: unlike some of the other matches in earlier years it seemed like he was in good shape....well, good shape for a ex-sumo of 65 with decades of wear and tear anyway. It was a bit of a slog when you had Nagata and Taka in doing really dainty kicks to the other, and there wasn't ever a big moment where this got heated. Inoue was fun as the guy taking most of the beatings; if you like his sort of comedy then this'll definitely be a positive. Tenryu despite barely being able to get around without a big weightlifting belt and one hand on the ropes at all times is still a all-timer when it comes to facial expressions, strikes, and making every small thing he does matter. The way he brings some of his old self back to really put over Maru as his successor when it comes to sharp ass chops was a nice touch, and probably the closest Kobashi-impression I've seen out of the guy yet with a ton of vulnerability on his part. Shame about the terrible rolling wheel kick right after to Nagata though, but I don't think that can be helped, the dude's 65. Seeing him struggle to land a lariat without falling over was a bit depressing. After that we get a lull for the finish as Inoue comes in to tease a win, but of course things go badly wrong and he quickly gets blown up by some triple teaming, a sloppy Taka knee and a big Everest German suplex for the finish. Outside of the Tenryu stuff though no one really was doing much interesting, shit Ogawa was in this for maybe a minute at best and just hung around on the apron most of the time lol. If you are looking for GWE Ogawa in action then this is a bust, but as a late-Tenryu showing I think it really worked and gave us the last proper stiff exchanges left in him before hanging up his boots. RANK: Decent =========

Before Hoshikawa was known for his amazing Jr work, he was nothing more but a rookie dipping into shoot-style exhibitions with his first moral enemy given these two will be wrestling each other a lot. Hoshikawa here has gained a bit of confidence as he's able to land some big slaps and a hip toss early on to take advantage. Despite this he still gets overpowered into a double wrist lock, which despite the rookie arching like hell is unable to break and is forced to tap out for the first count. He tries for more stand-up as he pushes Hoshi down to the floor with a side toss into nasty neckcrank for a rope break. Wilkins lands some hard slaps into a Capture suplex, going into full mount for a unsuccessful submission. He does manage to snap on a cross armbreaker out of Hoshi pushing for a single leg takedown however, which was incredible slick. I love the pacing here as Hoshi keeps getting rope breaks but it never feels like he's on top of any of the sequences on the mat here: every single attempt has him scrambling for survival, but despite this he never quits trying. Third tap out comes after a Fujiwara-lite twist into a side mount double wrist lock. Fourth comes from Wilkins putting all of his head and upper bodyweight on Hoshi's head during a neckcrank, which looked rough as anything. Wilkins throws some of his signature headbutts into a Exploder for a near fall before a backwards double wrist lock is prevented with a break. A belly to belly into full mount has Hoshi eat some hard slaps before Wilkins rolls him into a back mount Crossface neck crank for the fifth. Crowd chants for Hoshi as he runs in with knees and a German suplex but can't get a submission in. Wilkins answers with some shots to the stomach before a Dragon Suplex into a head/arm crank forces the sixth. Hoshi's takedown attempt afterwards gets converted into a horrific shoot-style version of a piledriver before the seventh tap out comes from a double wrist lock. Hoshi goes nuts with wild strikes before getting driven down with a mean backdrop, leaving him cowering in the ropes. Wilkins responds with a mean boot in the back for good measure. Hoshi tries going for his own dirty work before getting nearly knocked out with headbutts in the clinch, with the eighth tap out coming from a double wrist lock again before the bell sounds after Hoshi tries for some big dropkicks. Grungy and hard to watch at times, but this is a definitively fun match for rookie-squashes, especially given Hoshi's great selling alongside Wilkins being a top-notch bully throughout with his technical work: it's nothing overtly showy like a Volk Han or whatnot but it gets the job done VERY well here as he just twists and turns his opponent endlessly. Real good stuff, especially given the more reactive crowd and the two working out more spots compared to earlier showings where it was more on the fly. One of the most enjoyable pseudo-shoot style matches I've ever seen.