Ma Stump Puller

Shown in full. A fun six-man that helps to establish the big players as of now, as well as some of the up and coming. Crowd are mixed going in as Omori and Akiyama have a amateur wrestling stand-off before Kobashi gets in and gets a sneaky elbow smash after Omori doesn't clean break, leading to him staggering and knocking down the big man. Hansen is really good for 51 here, even if it's mostly because he's in with guys like Kobashi who he can just feed off for days, the lads have a great strike exchange. Also appreciate that Kobashi is so above him here that Hansen needs to cheat with eye rakes and illegal headlock punches to get the advantage: he can't just power through his offence like prior years, he has to actively pull out some cheap antics; this is a dynamic they've established for years by now, but it's still cool to see in action. We also get Taue working over Kobashi until a Misawa tag, which leads into a cool spot that has Taue lift up Misawa from a front headlock to the top rope, allowing Hansen and co to hold him down for Omori to start beating him up. Him and Misawa exchange strikes, but it's obvious that his elbow is way more effective, knocking him down after a few big shots. Akiyama tries to follow that up but eventually gets overwhelmed by some outside brawling, leading to the trio working over him for the second half. Akiyama naturally does a good job selling for everyone before countering a Omori dropkick, leading with a Kobashi hot tag. Omori gets some time to show off his resiliency as he shakes off some big chops, but eventually gets floored. It's interesting seeing him being placed in the underdog role as he has to endure getting worked over by the trio, chopped over a table on the outside, and basically rely on Hansen and co to at least even the score a bit: he's good, but he's not quite top tier yet. He's certainly more over than you'd expect throughout and he leads into a nice Hansen hot tag. There's some clever work on his behalf as he cuts off the more agile offence from Misawa before getting double teamed by the latter and Kobashi, which gets the crowd very much behind him as a result. It's also cool to see Taue at the end land multiple Baba signature moves as a solid tribute before leading into the usual road to the finish, with Omori noticeably getting well protected by having everyone have to get Kobashi out of a big Dragon Suplex counter at the very last minute for a crisp near fall. He lands a top rope knee but a Hansen assisted Axe Bomber is countered into a Half-Nelson, leading into a Tiger Suplex and Burning Lariat for the win. This is mostly business as usual for a starting year show but Omori is very noticeably being bumped up to be someone who can brawl with the top guys, even if he's not winning against them anytime soon: one wonders had Misawa and co stayed if that would've resulted in a significant push of any sort. Hansen puts in a inspirited performance, probably one of his last truly solid showings before his drastic breaking down and unplanned retirement later this year: this alongside the Tenryu singles are the last watchable matches I'd recommend looking at. Everyone else puts in a fairly par the course routine, with Kobashi and Akiyama impressing more generally. Good action paired with a steady pace that doesn't tire, these definitely get missed more and more as I went though the state of AJPW in 2000.

Yuji Nagata defends the AJPW Triple Crown Title I was worried about this one when it was announced seeing Nagata doesn't have someone like Miyahara there to work the faster-paced bits as well as having to work as the champ instead of the challenger, so there's increased standards as opposed to being a one and done match. Ishikawa wasn't going to win this in a million years given he's equally looking rough, so this was already a match with a big hill to climb. The start of this was all about Nagata trying to find gaps in his opponent to exploit: he tries for arm work, and fails. He tries cranking Ishikawa's head with submissions, but fails. He tries rattling him with forearms, but fails, mostly because his forearms are still terrible. He even tries doing some outside brawling sthick, but Ishikawa simply picks him up and goes for a really nasty apron foot stomp. Nagata sells the foot stomp like death, and equally does so when it keeps getting targeted afterwards for more damage. Eventually Nagata finds something when he intercepts a charge with a knee shot to the leg, which allows him the small grapevine to hone in on holds and submissions. It's a excuse for him to lie down basically but it also works as a way for him to take charge here without relying on shitty forearms. Stiff headbutt and Ishikawa goes for a properly insane apron spot as he does his powerslam piledriver to Nagata there, which even with the obvious assistance and being fairly slow was crazy to see. This gives Nagata a excuse to lie down for a few minutes for a count-out tease before getting back in. Ishikawa keeps control with more solid forearm shots. They have to do the silly top rope Exploder spot (because every big-time Nagata match needs it now, apparently) so he goes up to the top rope for no reason other than for Nagata to counter and then do what he does; really bad and transparent all things considered. Dub spot for more rest time afterwards. They go for the usual "no selling/exchange finishers" bit but are so gassed that they can't even no sell properly, so they weirdly spring up after a small delay after each move with a very lethargic pace. Another dub spot after a bad running knee. Ishikawa goes for some really bad-looking knee strikes for a near fall before doing another piledriver for another one. Splash Mountain powerbomb attempt is resisted, Nagata gets hit with a lariat anyway. Second looked really bad as Nagata couldn't get up properly, so it almost looked like Ishikawa was going for a Ganso Bomb instead for a uncomfortable few seconds before they recover and it goes as planned. Nagata lands a rogue knee shot to the head and works the arm with his usual wacky Nagata Lock shtick but this also goes nowhere, Ishikawa doesn't sell any of it afterwards, it's just a excuse for Nagata to do his goofy face and run though another spot. Finish simply has Nagata doing his usual bombs and them exchanging forearms, which Nagata loses again. Ishikawa lands a back suplex and a knee to the head but doesn't go for the pin (???) so that Nagata can win with a rolling wheel kick and two backdrops when he tries for a random extra knee strike. The two tried well here, however I thought this was incredibly disappointing for a main. They paced this in a way to give lots of breathing room and it really shows near the end when they are stumbling and fumbling a lot, because they are trying to do a "big epic" match when they simply can't measure it out by this point. Nagata can still work, don't get me wrong, but there was no real aim behind his stuff; he worked the arms and then the legs, did nothing with either outside of crowd-popping spots: it felt like a caricature of the guy, which is fine for generic 6-man tags, for a Triple Crown main event it doesn't work, idk if Nagata is just used to working his usual safe routine due to years of mediocre NJPW material making it muscle memory. Ishikawa has never been a favourite of mine but you could tell he was really trying to make this solid as much as humanly possible on his end, doing a bunch of big stuff and hitting really hard with some of his strikes. He might have been enough to carry this maybe 5 or 6 years ago to something better, but by this point he's really past that level physically. It's a shame, really, because I can see these two having a possibly great match if not for the need to pace this way beyond the limits of both of them for the sake of making the match long when this could've been perfectly suitable as a 15 minute run.

This got caught on fancam and it's a surprisingly good romp for a fairly nothing Carny Block. As expected, this turns into a generic David/Goliath matchup for the first few minutes, with Taue throwing his weight around and Ogawa having to use his smarts and tricky arm-work to keep him busy. While it's obvious the two have a way to go before they get into their primes, they manage to work a pretty good pace that's more grounded and based around Taue trying to out-grapple Ogawa and obviously failing at it with some surprisingly flush technical spots like doing the Inoki/Gotch triple arm drag sequence and Taue trying for a scoop slam that gets rolled over into a armbar instead. While this had the potential to be boring, Ogawa's arm-work is actually pretty great even this early with him relying on not just the busted arm but clever uses of leverage via that arm to get him into bad positions to wrangle it more. Eventually Taue is able to get his angry Baba Jr chops off alongside getting his size over, using a lot of power moves and cranking the neck to establish his own work. Ogawa's plan B is to throw punches and hope for the best, which...also doesn't go well for obvious reasons. Him landing a second rope dropkick was cool though. It was also nice to see some early Ogawa antics as he counters a fallaway slam into a small package and gets his snap neckbreaker on for a 2 count. Taue's first suplex is countered but his follow-up DDT isn't, and from then on in it's just a traditional Taue bomb-fest until he wins with the chokeslam. Not anything amazing or exactly out there for AJPW especially in 1992, but a nice, compact showing that really showcased two emerging talents well, even if Taue is still growing as a performer and has a few hiccups here and there with how he tends to lumber around with very numbly movements. Ogawa is flavourless as a generic underdog but his actual ring-work is more or less the same as it would be in a few years bar the Rat-Boy shtick (and some well-needed pushes) His arm work is robust and his comebacks are well-timed while not making his inevitable loss incredibly obvious like a lot of underdog matches tend to do. All in all, a decent showing and one of the very early bright spots for baby-Ogawa.

If I could just make one extra suggestion, I'd absolutely suggest checking his match with Takayama (29.08.2002) it's a very rare underdog Fujita match and done pretty well

Basically sums up the entire Taka/Suzuki tag run to a tee here. Very weird reign

Definitely depends on how you judge RINGS stuff, because that's about 70/80% of his stock. He hits quite hard and knows how to grapple but other than that there's a lot of featureless material and half-hearted entries. Outside of the Kojima match in that 2002 Champion Carnival match (and I honestly think Yoji Anjo got a better match out of Koji there anyway for the time) he has a sloppy draw with Anjo and a boring match with Barton, with the rest of his AJPW 2002 being featureless tags. He's had maybe one or two properly great matches in the last 20 years. Talented sure, but unless we get access to all of the Futen matches he had he really isn't getting on a top 100 in my mind.

Remember when Dick Togo actually wrestled? I sure do. This was a semi-final match so Togo wasn't pushed a ton (as he'd be working the finals) but Ogawa's style also means they could do a lot without it being super exhausting or high-impact. The result was a lot of really well-put together technical work where the two basically had a Catch-style masterclass where they got over duelling over arms and heads, some seriously smooth transitions (like there's one where Togo tries escaping out of a hammerlock by going the other way and Ogawa immediately responding by snapping on a standing rolling double wrist-lock that's just seamless, legit near perfect in execution) and a general pace that was definitely slow, but that actually played well into getting the crowd into this with some really positive responses and big cheers. Togo does a Nishimura handstand to escape the headscissors and Ogawa just dumps his head on the floor; the second attempt is successful and Togo takes the legs to go into a impressive Bow and Arrow submission. The second half had a bit more color as Ogawa was working Triple H style Indian Deathlocks alongside head cranks while Togo had to pull at the hair, throw chops, and sold hard to reverse the leverage and finally escape, which was surprisingly solid for a extended sequence of just the two sitting in a hold. The two default to throwing Memphis-lite closed-fist punches at the other but Ogawa uses his slippery counters to keep control and land his usual signature spots to try to snap the win. Togo cleanly counters a second backdrop into a crossbody and lands a flush sunset flip, leading the two to spam near-fall flash covers before Togo snaps on his Crossface off a rolling cradle attempt; despite Ogawa trying to escape via tricky pin-falls via reversing the leverage into a School-Boy alongside attempts to roll to the ropes, Togo keeps finding ways to get back into the submission and Ogawa is eventually forced to tap when he runs out of gas. This was a crafty match that did a lot despite the length: only 8 minutes, if you can believe it. Usually saying something was longer than it actually was is a insult, but in this case it really isn't: the two had some solid chemistry going hold to hold here and understood the assignment, making a solid showing out of a match with not a lot of actual bumps. Really enjoyable work that blended old-school grappling with some good flavour to mix it up didn't even need 10 minutes to be good.

This YT channel recently stuck up a couple early Fujiwara matches with WoS guys if that's up your alley. It's nothing amazing or anything, but helpful for sure.

This got some fairly harsh reviews for being very long and very slow. The first complaint I'll definitely agree with: Ogawa tends to get ambitious on C-tier shows (the near 30-minute NOSAWA match, the 40+ minute Kaito match, etc) and this was no different in length, clocking in at 23 minutes. The second? Not so much. This was not as good as their 2020 title bout but solid enough for a C-tier touring show. HAYATA is obviously wanting pieces out of Ogawa as well, and does so by trying to crank the same bandaged leg that Ridgeway had his hands on just a few days ago because, you know, long term ring psychology is sometimes a thing. Ogawa's counter is eye work if you can believe it, consistently raking and tearing at the eyes to try to get the guy off his leg. Ogawa definitely had his hands all over this match by the length and amount of carefully worked, smart wrestling that was on display; it helps that HAYATA was a kinda-sorta Ogawa project, so he's familiar with this more prolonged style and knows how to make it interesting, while speeding things up to showcase his youth advantage, eating up a lot of time to showcase that. Eventually Ogawa is able to block a dive to the outside and he uses that opportunity to then throw HAYATA's arm into the turnbuckle post to soften it up. Ogawa's work on the arm was entertaining while also being able to showcase his leg selling by not going for big fancy technical showcases and instead mostly working dirty, wrapping the arm up in the ropes and punching it, going for stomps, etc. He does some technical work but it's mostly playing to a more Hansen-lite scrappy brawling style than his usual pace. The way that he makes basic stuff like a knee drop on the arm so much more painful by rubbing the knee on the joint or bending at the fingers are small touches, but they go a mile in making the fairly long control segments seem more fresh. That bit where he had one foot on HAYATA's fingers and the other cranking the arm over the top rope was a pretty sick spot. They get back to a regular (ish) pace as Ogawa relies on hip tosses and key locks to keep his younger opponent on the mat, and he gets real desperate when HAYATA starts to climb out of the hole with more reckless tactics, going for chokes and that nifty ducking low blow when the guy tries for a dive. None of those stick and eventually Ogawa gets wasted when the pace climbs up with HAYATA landing a bunch of decent high-spots to get the crowd going. The arm work gives Ogawa pockets of room to work with; I especially liked HAYATA deliberately botching a handspring due to his bad arm to build the drama for the finish, which has Ogawa's double wrist lock get countered into a small package mid-move for the sneaky win. I think they could've easily taken a few minutes off this: the control segments are a little too long, and definitely start to drag by the third extended one as HAYATA isn't nearly as good as his opponent in making that work seem interesting. however, this was mostly pretty good drama, I'd say. Ogawa's limb work and selling are masterful and while he obviously can't go at HAYATA's pace, that's used as a storytelling device to showcase how he has to use more smarts and Rat Boy-isms to try to snatch a win via limb damage and slowing down the match. Not as compact and technically impressive as the Ridgeway match, but the two still had a pretty solid affair if you can stand more of a slower paced 70's AJPW feel to things. Another fun showing for the vet.

I remember checking this out a while back! It's their attempt to try and redo a similarly bloody affair between Tenryu/Muto in the 2002 Carnival: doesn't quite get to those epic levels despite a bigger bladejob, but it was refreshing enough for what it was. It led to some solid outings from Kojima against guys he typically wouldn't have faced in his "Loser Revival" gauntlet, so it worked for what it was. Glad you enjoyed it.

Takada is a young gun with some already good stuff under his belt, and he's wrestling Tiger with a big handicap due to a broken arm (allegedly) which he sustained in a untelevised bout against Fujiwara. This plays into the start as he gets a bit too compliant in stand-up and ends up getting battered with a combo of sharp kicks from Tiger, which allows him to wrestle his opponent to the mat and attempt a cross armbreaker, countered by Takada excellently into his own, which he's almost able to end the match right then and there if not for him locking his hands together for dear life. He has to give up his back, which results in Takada applying a nasty Misawa-style neck crank until Tiger gets up and throws out a backdrop, taking control with some nasty gut kicks. I love how Tiger also pulls out some goofy pro-wrestling moves here as well, namely his Tiger DDT and flipping senton; not as wild as he was in 1984 where he was basically just doing all of his NJPW shtick, but every now and then it comes though in the form of goofy moves. He then gets on a legit headscissors which Takada has to scramble to the ropes for. He tries to get back on top with his kicks, but Tiger is way too experienced for that and blocks many of them, showing him up with a three kick combo, knees in the clinch, and some elbows. Takada's back has been taken, he's under a ton of pressure and his strikes clearly aren't cutting it, so he decides to hit low and try to Kimura his injured joint (which looked incredibly painful, credit to Sayama's selling for once) but he hits the ropes. He doesn't break clean and hits a super high-bar belly to belly, looked great. He tries again at the above, but Tiger escapes and throws a knee drop at his head for his troubles. Once again, Tiger dominates in stand-up, landing more big kicks to floor Takada. He tries to take his back again, but he expertly rolls at the right time to not only counter, but also to apply a cross armbreaker. Tiger barely escapes but manages to pick him up like he weighs nothing and plop him at the ropes despite his broken arm lol. A lot of the second half is based around Takada just consistently aiming with hawk-like focus on Tiger's bad arm, relentlessly hunting it down on the mat and wearing it out in submissions. The crowd REALLY get behind him when he's in peril and his desperate scrambles for the ropes every time play to that greatly, especially when Takada heels it up a bit with wrapping the arm in the ropes and punching it like a dirty 80's Southern heel. Tiger hits a solid Tombstone Piledriver into a cross armbreaker but gets countered again, having to head to the ropes. His kicks finally get to Tiger as his bad arm simply can't bat them away anymore, and Takada knows this, hammering his opponent with strikes relentlessly despite being incapable of really doing much to defend. Tiger refuses to concede and tries to fight on but Takada just won't give, and the ref calls the match off when Sayama is incapable of fighting further. A fantastic early UWF match with some solid technical work alongside some big Korakuen heat as Tiger keeps getting big breaks, but his arm just presents him sealing the deal. Takada is solid on the mat: a bit shaky in strikes but it works to play up the experience gap between the two. Sayama plays a superb underdog, namely in his selling and timing of big comebacks, which is one thing that makes this particularly unique in that it's a match where I can actually praise that. One thing I'll particularly mention is that UWF 1.0 matches suffer real badly from being way too long (even on this card nearly every match was 20-25 minutes long, which even for something as potentially awesome like Finlay/Yamazaki is pushing it) but this was robust and barely went 10+, which helped the pacing and made this a lot more palpable. I'd say this was slightly ahead of its time in that regard. Takada definitely gets led to something great here though, especially given his later matches aren't as good as this one.

Loads of fun: I love watching Ogawa singles matches because he mostly gets to show off his talent that you usually don't get to see much in the usual trashy tags he shows up in and it's still a ton of said talent despite the guy being 56. With the build from the Muto show I expected this to be a short brawl but thankfully we get a smartly worked match where the two got over their hate for the other while actually wrestling and not doing sloppy brawls on the outside and/or blading, because, you know, you can get over those things without the need to just do that all the time. Ridgeway isn't much look-wise however his wrestling is really sinister and calculated, focused around little mean moments like hair pulling to maintain momentum on a headlock or doing a inverse Dragon Screw to mess up Ogawa's knee. Ogawa sold great and really got over his younger opponent as being a lot to handle, ultimately only getting the advantage when Ridgeway tries taking him outside and exposes his arm to a few nasty stomps. Ogawa works the leg outside but not much comes of it as they mostly go for the arm instead. They threw in some heated stuff on the outside as the two threw each other around. The bit in the ring where Ogawa tries for his usual eye pokes and Enzuigiri counter only for Ridgeway to snap his leg into a ankle lock was really well done, as was him sticking it on the ropes for a vicious stomp afterwards. The bit later with the Cravat holds into the arch and rolling Achilles Tendon was masterful, amazing old-school work right there. Ridgeway getting even meaner when he tries to break Ogawa's finger when he attempts a escape with his arm and forcing a rope break was also a solid addition. Ogawa's only chance is to focus on the damaged arm, but every attempt to do so is swiftly answered. The two steal stuff from the other as Ridgeway applies a figure-four and also stops Ogawa from trying to bend his finger in a nice little touch. Ridgeway even does a cool little modified version of the Ogawa Enzuigiri when his leg is caught, only it's a rad knee strike to the head instead. Last 2 minutes were tense as anything as Ogawa tried to pull off a upset with the usual Rat-Boyisms but Ridgeway just had him cornered with the bad leg and a few incredible technical reversals and a sustained ankle lock get the tap out. This was a pretty solid showing from the two that also really got over Ridgeway as a dominant technical force while showing how much he's learnt from his former mentor in how much he overtly pulled from his playbook here to get the win. Ogawa always brings matches back down to this really great WoS-lite format where holds and submissions actually matter, it's great. Definitely worth the watch; if every NOAH card just had Ogawa working singles matches he'd probably get something great out of all of them, somehow.

Definitely controversial for sure. Like many big-men wrestlers he's more of a bar of quality for other workers as to how much they can get out of him rather than anything he could do himself: I remember watching some of his spectacle matches against Kobashi and Sasuke and definitely enjoying them, but at the same time Ake as a worker is very limited, got better when he was more conditioned and actually leaned out a little later on, even had a fairly solid AJPW run (as you can see from almost all of the recommendations being from then) however I never seen him as a top worker bar the fact he could use his size well in matches. Is he bad as a wrestler per-se? Not really, but at the same time he has a wealth of bad to really rubbish showings. I like him, for the record, but I'm also not going to stick him on a top 100 list. Bob Sapp has more of a chance of getting on than he does, has the exact same positives, and Sapp has about as many good showings if not more while lacking the dregs that Ake has.

All right ok, some of Funaki's comeback stuff is fucking dreadful looking back on it. His W-1 run is probably one of the worst examples of the dude just not giving a shit for nearly all of his matches bar when he's working with people that he likes like Shibata or whatever, he has like a trio of matches with Takayama that are the pits, just lazy UWF-nostalgia baiting with silly Muto-style booking on top. The less said about him working with crappy TNA talent and his weird shoot-work with Marufuji and the like, the better. He does get post-IGF Kendo Kashin to a entertaining match so that's something at least.

Dope idea for a project, there's a ton of good matches hidden in seemingly nothing C/D shows, and some wrestlers have some of their most fun showings doing these kind of sprint TV tapings

I usually don't bump these but very very recently someone somehow found a intact pro-shot version of the Kawada and Takayama match after 20+ years! Pretty wild to see in action, there's a lot more to value out of the match when it isn't all, you know, green. Check it out. YT link Backup in case of removal (no sound)

Idk I can think of at least 50 guys who I'd rather see in a ring consistently more than Mox. His stuff is great at the high-end but everything else is just him juicing for diminishing gains in so-so matches, at least for me anyway

Behold, a match Nishimura cannot save with all of his talent. (well this and that one promo he had to cut in some dingy hotel room at midnight but I'm not counting that lol) Dory's last match (listed on Cagematch anyway, he's had matches after this, somehow) is predictively with one of his best known students in Osamu Nishimura for a 10 minute wrestling showcase. By this point Dory is basically part-cyborg, with padding all over himself including weird gloves/sleeves for his arms. The first few minutes of this were painful: they both either very gently grabbed the arm and patiently waited until the other person did something or very slowly moved to the ropes. They eventually go to forearm smashes but even those are fairly mediocre despite these typically being Dory's only consistently good feature for many years. They do start getting some better stuff out as Dory actually does moves, but at the same time he struggles to do much without Nishimura doing most of the motion and can't even get up without the guy helping, which felt a bit sad after a few times. Nishimura like a trooper works in his usual spots slowed to his opponent's pace and this mostly goes off without issues....relative to a match quality like this, anyway. We do get a Spinning Toe Hold reversed into Nishimura's own version before a near fall roll-up followed by Dory not being able to do a backslide and butterfly suplex so they have to awkwardly drop said spots out of the blue. The finish is complete booty as Nishimura is sent flying from a forearm shot as Dory keeps spamming slow pins over and over without doing anything else until the bell sounds. Post-match has Dory and co have a emotional hug before Nishimura is given the shitty ! Bang TV Title (which, btw, the poor lad is still holding to this day) and we get a short promo of Dory thanking the crowd and whatnot. It's a pretty sad affair given Dory was already given a good retirement back in 2008 (he was even supposed to be training people at AJPW afterwards, apparently) at this point it's painfully clear that this flopped for a final match of any kind, and the fact that the guy is still wrestling even to this day is mind-boggling. Nishimura tries his best but he just can't make this work: and I don't blame him one bit for that fact given what he was working with. It's the ultimate test of his carrying powers and he just can't do it. Watch him vs the Funks in 2013 if you want a good version of this match.

This is a bit of a treat to see a youngish Steve Williams go at it with Yatsu a few mere months before he leaves with Tenryu and co for SWS. In fact it's his last singles match in AJPW EVER, so big big deal. This started off hot as the two scrapped while Doc was doing his entrance and that scrappy pace never truly went away throughout the entire match. Yatsu is always on his ass with headbutts; even right after moves he's still getting up to do them and other strikes, the guy isn't selling much. Williams isn't quite the scary beast he'd be in a few years as well, so he can't just blast him away with his own shots for long: even after a big lariat he still manages to lose the advantage as Yatsu catches him out with headbutts. Doc doing stuff like Fujiwara armbars to counter shoulder charges, dropkicks and even a fucking middle-rope springboard axe-handle to the outside was wild to see in action, dude was just doing whatever he liked here and it was bizarre to see. The middle half is a bit slower as the two wrestle around a bit and exchange holds, namely Yatsu trying to apply the Prison Lock. Williams resists either with wrestling or by just slapping the guy or headbutts or all three sometimes. Williams in particular gets a bit miffed with a stiff one and throws a punch back with bloody lips, so yeah these two definitely weren't holding back much. He sells the leg post-leg work as Yatsu beats on it with whatever he can do before just ignoring it to go for a sick Enzuigiri, which I'm not complaining about because, well, it was sick. This doesn't stop Yatsu getting cosy with his legs though so Doc has to roll about to take Yatsu's legs instead for his own submission. Yatsu also spams suplexes and we get to see the two struggle to stop the other from doing anything major bar said suplexes. We get a bulldog out of Yatsu for a near fall, but a second is countered into a particularly mean Dangerous Backdrop by Williams, forcing his opponent to roll out to escape a pin: this apparently injured Yatsu enough for him to take a few months off afterwards. The finish is cool enough: Yatsu almost gets counted out, just manages to get back in and tries for a neat back headbutt + German suplex combo, but Williams keeps dropping elbows on his face and head so it's a bit tricky. He ends things with a corner lariat and a corner bump Stampede to boot. This was a fair bit of fun: seeing a early Williams do a lot that he normally doesn't alongside his usual mean attitude worked, and Yatsu was a relentless brawler who made things insanely back and forth with how everything was performed; it felt difficult, everything felt earned from transition to transition as they had to really bend and hurl weight around to do so, partly because Yatsu really wasn't giving much here at all so they had to really push and shove to get stuff applied. Helped that these two can do stiff striking well on top, which enhanced it a ton. Nothing great, but a solid enough brawl between two guys who could've probably had better with each other had the Tenryu exodus never happened.

Honma in Battlarts sounds like the weirdest combo never to be a thing, but it actually was a thing for a good while during his early career, and it's also surprisingly strong even though he was losing basically all of his matches...of which like less than 1% got taped. This is just a solid shoot (ish) match for about 6 minutes, and the two really make it work for what they have as Honma focuses on slick head and leg locks while Otsuka is able to get out of all of his attempts at submissions and make him pay with either his own or just slamming the guy, with the occasional burst of action with either strikes or whatnot. Honma is surprisingly good at working a more amateur wrestling style into things, finding ways to sprawl on the mat or keep Otsuka busy with transitions to the ground. There was a good feeling of minimalism here as the two kept mostly to the basics, with a wacky Otsuka-style head spike scoop slam and a brainbuster being used as dangerous moves that are treated as such, each getting knockdown attempts. The most spot-based move we got here was a second rope dropkick. Honma lands a awesome German suplex and rear naked choke combo, but Otsuka gets on a heel hook instead, forcing Honma to use one arm instead for the choke; this proves to be his undoing as Otsuka can simply turn his body to said arm and reverse the leverage, snapping on a nasty Chickenwing instead. The second one is converted into a Dragon Sleeper which Otsuka then does a Giant Swing out of while Honma is still in the hold, which was a pretty great bit. They give the underdog a hope spot as he turns a half Boston Crab/Achilles Tendon attempt into a sudden ankle lock and Otsuka crawls to the ropes like a fish out of water to really get over the danger he was in. Otsuka takes a Samoan Drop on his side in signature Otsuka fashion but they do a good job of showing Honma try to finish him off afterwards with a furry of strikes, only for Otsuka to wreck his shit with a terrifying head-drop Capture and Dragon Suplex combo for the finish. This was very robust for merely 6 minutes and got over a easy to follow shoot-style pace that made sure to add in some explosive bits whenever things felt slow. Honma is quite good at this kind of stuff, wish more of it made tape: shoot-style Honma is a lot of fun.

Clipped by about 5 minutes on the conventional TV broadcast, but I'll share a secret: the full version is available via the AJPW Omnibus (give or take, there's still about 2 or so minutes missing of downtime but trust me, that 2 minutes is probably worth not seeing) To say Vader and Hase have history with each other is a understatement: they had a incredible 1995 match in the tag scene while in NJPW which is widely regarded as a highlight of both men's career: but here we get a singles matchup that's more or less designed to get Vader over going into the 1999 Tag League, and, well, I think it's probably one of Vader's best AJPW showings if in general. It's a match that has a insanely loud crowd that immediately kick up for this as soon as the two start throwing meaty chops and big slams. Vader smacking the crap out of him with hammer blows with Hase going like a trooper and throwing himself around like it's no tomorrow with big knee shots and Uranages like Vader doesn't even weigh anything at all is a very surreal visual, but it all works to provide a unique Vader-style match that never dies down or gets especially boring. It's just the two hitting sick stuff to the other while making it make sense in the context of the match. The crowd explodes for him nailing Vader with a perfect Northern Lights Suplex as well, rightfully so because it was a awesome spot. Vader eventually takes over with his usual power moves, but Hase manages to kick out of a big middle rope splash with ease, even managing to walk off a hellacious Vader lariat. Hase's main tricks are submissions on the legs and arms (doing these as counters to try to make the guy tap out namely a great rolling cross armbreaker out of a chokeslam) and jumping knees, namely off the top rope and apron. Both of these are used as clutches that Vader slowly gets better and better at taking, to the point where they simply don't work anymore. You really get the feeling that Hase knows he's inevitably losing, but he still stubbornly takes as much as he can and then some to try to squeak something out. Of course the inevitable comes as Hase runs out of time and gas, with Vader overwhelming him with a big chokeslam and powerbomb. I would've loved to see more of these two because they've clearly got some incredible chemistry, but for a short sprint, this was incredible stuff, especially helped by the insanely hot crowd that were all over Hase's offence, or just kicking out of stuff. The feeling of Kings Road is definitely still here, but condensed into a smart and compact showing rather than a bloated 30+ bomb city match, which was becoming more and more rare as the years went by. I can still feel confident in placing it as high as this is, both men killed it for something that could've easily been as forgettable as other Vader undercard outings.

AJPW Oddities #4: 1998 Be warned folks, 1998 and above is all of the years where I went omega-nerd mode to find unconventional stuff during my extended watching Akira Taue & Kentaro Shiga vs. Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori (10.01.1998) Masao Inoue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Satoru Asako (same day) Giant Baba, Maunakea Mossman & Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Kenta Kobashi, Masanobu Fuchi & Toshiaki Kawada (23.01.1998) Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Johnny Ace & Kenta Kobashi (25.01.1998) Gedo & Jado vs. Yoshinari Ogawa & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (14.02.1998) Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi vs. Masahito Kakihara & Yoshihiro Takayama (28.02.1998) Johnny Ace vs. Kenta Kobashi (21.03.1998) Jun Akiyama vs. Toshiaki Kawada (26.03.1998) Stan Hansen vs. Steve Williams (29.03.1998) Headhunter A & Headhunter B vs. Shigeo Okumura & Tamon Honda (01.05.1998) Jun Akiyama vs. Steve Williams (05.06.1998) Akira Taue vs. Bobby Duncum Jr. (12.06.1998) Masao Inoue & Takao Omori vs. Steve Williams & Wolf Hawkfield (same day) Gary Albright, Masahito Kakihara & Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Hiroshi Hase, Johnny Ace & Kenta Kobashi (18.07.1998) Akira Taue & Jun Izumida vs. Gary Albright & Yoshihiro Takayama (24.07.1998) Akira Taue vs. Maunakea Mossman (22.08.1998) Akira Taue & Tamon Honda vs. Johnny Ace & Kenta Kobashi (23.08.1998) Maunakea Mossman vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (11.09.1998) Akira Taue & Tamon Honda vs. Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa (04.10.1998) Gedo, Jado & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Giant Baba, Jinsei Shinzaki & Naomichi Marufuji (31.10.1998) Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Stan Hansen & Vader (14.11.1998) Gary Albright & Giant Kimala vs. Jun Izumida & Tamon Honda (05.12.1998) Bart Gunn & Johnny Ace vs. Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi (same day)

AJPW Oddities #3: 1997 Akira Taue, Jun Izumida & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Bobby Duncum Jr., Johnny Ace & Steve Williams (02.01.1997) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Tamon Honda (17.01.1997) Kenta Kobashi & Masao Inoue vs. Toshiaki Kawada & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (16.02.1997) Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Gary Albright & Yoshihiro Takayama (01.03.1997) Gary Albright vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (22.03.1997) Johnny Ace vs. Stan Hansen (30.03.1997) Hayabusa & The Tornado vs. Kentaro Shiga & Maunakea Mossman (02.04.1997) Gary Albright vs. Toshiaki Kawada (same day) Hayabusa & Yoshinobu Kanemaru vs. Kentaro Shiga & Yoshinari Ogawa (19.04.1997) Daisuke Ikeda, Giant Baba & Rusher Kimura vs. Haruka Eigen, Masanobu Fuchi & Masao Inoue (18.05.1997) Hayabusa & Jun Akiyama vs. Kentaro Shiga & Takao Omori (06.06.1997) Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa (29.06.1997) Gary Albright & Steve Williams vs. Johnny Ace & Kenta Kobashi (25.07.1997) Tamon Honda & Toshiaki Kawada vs. The Lacrosse & Yoshihiro Takayama (same day) Gary Albright & Steve Williams vs. Jun Akiyama & Mitsuharu Misawa (26.08.1997) Akira Taue, Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi vs. Hiroshi Hase, Mitsuharu Misawa & Toshiaki Kawada (15.09.1997) Daisuke Ikeda, Satoru Asako & Tamon Honda vs. Giant Kimala, Rex King & Sean Morgan (27.09.1997) Jun Akiyama & Kentaro Shiga vs. Takao Omori & Yoshinobu Kanemaru (21.10.1997) Barry Windham & Justin Bradshaw vs. Johnny Ace & Kenta Kobashi (15.11.1997) Giant Kimala & Jun Izumida vs. Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki (15.11.1997) Giant Kimala & Jun Izumida vs. Jun Akiyama & Mitsuharu Misawa (16.11.1997) Barry Windham, Gary Albright & Steve Williams vs. Bobby Duncum Jr., Stan Hansen & Takao Omori (05.12.1997)

Clipped by around about 6 to 7 minutes. This is the first real time that Akiyama has taken Misawa to a reasonable distance, and while it's still obvious that the Emerald Ace is going to win, that doesn't mean his opponent isn't going to lay down easily. We start from the middle of the match, which starts hard with Akiyama beating down on Misawa with a ton of big bombs: knee drops, a big Northern Lights Suplex, a pair of German suplexes, nothing does the trick but noticeably does get near falls. Misawa takes control with a big dive to the outside and top rope dropkick. Misawa teases the Tiger Driver but Akiyama braces, making Misawa have to do a Butterfly Suplex instead, of all things. Misawa gets a Tiger Suplex setup but again Akiyama has his number and walks to the ropes to escape, using the break to nail a backdrop for a equaliser. Misawa tries for his second rope back elbow but gets expertly countered into a Blue Thunder Bomb in a amazing spot. Akiyama secures his vicious back elbow to the head and pulls out a powerbomb and a Exploder. Misawa sells this like death, having to hold the ropes for dear life as Akiyama attacks him with a back elbow in the corner, follows it up with a big knee for a second Exploder for a insanely near 3 count that gets the crowd going hard for it. Akiyama tries for a top rope Exploder but Misawa counters, but his elbow is then countered into another near fall via roll-up. Akiyama tries to bring his striking but Misawa fucking wrecks the guy with a rolling elbow/back elbow combo into a Tiger Driver for a near fall, which then directly goes into a second one for the pin. This is a amazingly well kept hidden gem of a match, despite having the start cut. The whole thing is a intense ride of Misawa trying to handle someone who has counters and preparations for everything he has and can bomb him to death almost as well as he can, with a crowd that never dies down for the entire thing. There's no real flashy stuff or big fancy spots but this is super strong work by both men in how vicious Akiyama is, and how Misawa presents him as a true near-equal, barely escaping with the pin. Fantastic and heated. There's a few too many near falls but they work around this by having a lot of work be based around counters and momentum switches than just eating stuff all the time.

AJPW Oddities #2: 1996 Tamon Honda vs. Toshiaki Kawada (12.01.1996) Johnny Ace, Lacrosse, Patriot & The Eagle vs. Kenta Kobashi, Kentaro Shiga, Mitsuharu Misawa & Satoru Asako (22.01.1996) Gary Albright vs. Jun Akiyama (31.03.1996) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Toshiaki Kawada (14.04.1996) Giant Baba, Kentaro Shiga & Satoru Asako vs. Masanobu Fuchi, Masao Inoue & Yoshinari Ogawa (20.04.1996) Gary Albright & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Giant Kimala & Kenta Kobashi (03.06.1996) Brian Dyette & Kenta Kobashi vs. Jun Akiyama & Mitsuharu Misawa (29.06.1996) Gary Albright vs. Masanobu Fuchi (22.08.1996) Gary Albright vs. Takao Omori (05.09.1996) Danny Kroffat, Johnny Ace & Steve Williams vs. Giant Kimala, Kenta Kobashi & Patriot (28.09.1996) Gary Albright vs. Toshiaki Kawada (12.10.1996) Johnny Ace & Steve Williams vs. Kenta Kobashi & Patriot (same day) Danny Kroffat & Rob Van Dam vs. Kimala II & Ryukaku Izumida (18.10.1996) Akira Taue, Dory Funk Jr. & Giant Baba vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, Jun Akiyama & Mitsuharu Misawa (same day) Gary Albright & Sabu vs. Stan Hansen & Takao Omori (22.11.1996) Masanobu Fuchi & Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Satoru Asako & Tamon Honda (29.11.1996) Giant Kimala & Sabu vs. Maunakea Mossman & Yoshinari Ogawa (06.12.1996)