Ma Stump Puller

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)

Alright, you wanna skip all of that early 90's shtick? You looking for the real weird deep cuts from the later years and not merely Four Pillars and maybe some Hansen or Akiyama? Here's the cut. I'll be including my commentary with the recommendations. I'm not going to throw out a ton of matches, just ones that usually don't crop up: if we included every good match, we'd be here a little too long for my liking. 1995 also wasn't a year that particularly interested me but there's some stuff worth mentioning. AJPW Oddities #1: 1995 Johnny Ace & Steve Williams vs. Jun Akiyama & Takao Omori (24.01.1995) Giant Baba, Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Johnny Ace, Johnny Smith & Steve Williams (29.01.1995) Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Danny Kroffat & Stan Hansen (17.02.1995) Johnny Ace vs. Stan Hansen (30.03.1995) Jun Akiyama vs. Stan Hansen (13.04.1995) Akira Taue vs. Johnny Ace (13.04.1995) Johnny Ace vs. Patriot (24.07.1995 Danny Kroffat vs. Yoshinari Ogawa (10.09.1995) Jun Akiyama, Masao Inoue & Satoru Asako vs. Ryukaku Izumida, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi & Yoshinari Ogawa (25.10.1995) Abdullah The Butcher & Giant Kimala vs. Dory Funk Jr. & Mighty Inoue (25.10.1995) Johnny Smith & Rob Van Dam vs. Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa (18.11.1995) Gary Albright & Stan Hansen vs. Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa (29.11.1995)

Might as well throw a few out that I've talked (and not talked about) on here! プロレスダイジェスト M.2 This is one of my secret weapons when it comes to AJPW/Kings Road research, especially for 1998/2000 work. The guy stuck up the entire 6+ hour omnibus for those years, meaning some of the usual matches are there with clipping alongside a lot of matches that are either otherwise impossible to find or were only featured here. If you just like the usual highlight stuff then this'll not be essential, but if you want to REALLY dive into everything AJPW and get some essential matches for lesser known stars, this is your ticket. John Gjoni Mostly grungy indies. You can find a lot of his stuff elsewhere, but it helps to have a easy way to find it without searching the depths of the Earth. Pro Wrestling Gold Mine More indies, including very rare looks at Super Dragon, Hardy Bros and a lot more. hirochan60 Is mostly non-wrestling and random sumo stuff (alongside very, erm, questionable vids) but has a ton of camcorder Inoki/RJPW/Onita content that wasn't televised/is VERY difficult to find publicly, namely stuff like the UWF/FMW feud and whatnot. You take what you get. Andy Fitzgerald Lots of comps, useful for quick finding of rare matches. BotchStylePiledriver Lots of particularly rare NOAH matches that have been either lost to time or mostly not really uploaded. Hallo Riched Near full collection of HEAT/Velocity shows from 2002 to 2004. Real helpful for finding certain great short sprints for guys who usually didn't get good TV time. Indy Handshake More fun indies, especially from the late 1990's crowd. Japan Wrestling Classics For some reason this channel has randomly got full versions of AJPW matches I've seen nowhere else. Not sure why, not sure how, but it's there and I really appreciated it being there because I got some great late 90's AJPW found as a result.

Absolutely on the top 100, especially with his current WWE run of having great matches with guys who haven't had a great match in years. He was already a really solid pick for me based on his wealth of work already, the fact he's continued to do so for a long while shows a elite consistency that I think will only get better and better as he moves up the card and gets more chances to show his stuff. At this point he kinda can't be ignored when it comes to being somewhere in that 100.

Honestly just says more about the aura of Muto and/or NOAH's presentation that people were thinking Nakamura was a lot better than he actually was there, I didn't see anything particularly crazy in that match that warranted such a response. Nakamura hasn't been terrible in recent years either (his recent 2023 quality of work has actually been fairly alright, for what it was) but he's just never really applied himself. Same issue he had in NJPW was that he'd be on maybe a few times a year and the rest would be autopilot mode, which seemed to start being a thing after his early runs had him get some nasty injuries. His WWE stuff isn't a black mark on his career by that same metric but I wouldn't be lying in saying that it's not exactly something that makes his potential top 100 run any more solidified. It's understandable because he's apparently really bashed up these days.

Other Deep Dive stuff Introduction Ok so unless you are big big into small Japanese indies like 666 or NEO or whatever, chances are you haven't even heard of Yuiga: that's perfectly fine because her impact in any major indie is minimal, at best a undercard worker, at worst a random face in a rumble or big tag. Her more significant contributions come from her own promotion via Batos Cafe Entertainment, wherein she's basically done a crap-ton of main event matches there either being hardcore shtick or trying to work shoot-style against beefy heavyweights, with consistent matches throughout the year. These were lost footage until they started being released on a drip-feed via their YT account, which also includes some surprisingly good Minoru Tanaka shtick and other random showings that are probably decent enough to check out. As of now we have around about 13 Yuiga main events available, and I figured I'd go though them in the usual format because I wanted to document my curiosity and how that led to finding legitimately awesome matches from a no-budget indie, which you can follow along with at the same pace. W/ Drake Morimatsu vs. Shinigami & Tarzan Goto (????? Battle Sphere 30.10.2004) Wasn't even known to have been a thing until this was uploaded out of the blue last year after Goto passed. This is probably the best Yuiga hardcore match out of the bunch, and that's mainly because of Tarzan Goto, obviously. He's semi-retired, pretty out of shape and not particularly agile, but he gives so much socks for Yuiga here, bumping hard for her judo throw for the burst of action in the starting stages before firmly taking control with weapons and the like. Yuiga is a trooper as well, with her spending most of the match selling and eating some nasty offence from both of the rival team but especially Tarzan who just throws her around, throws Southern-style punches to the face and vicious headbutts, laughing all the while about it. Morimatsu just plain isn't very good bar the hardcore shtick but she does her job fine as a scummy indie act who kicks people in the balls and hits hard. Shinigami is mostly here in small dozes as Goto's goon sidekick who usually is the one doing the most selling for the comebacks, nothing offensive but nothing memorable either. There's some rough stuff here including a Yuiga top rope judo throw that turns into a head slam right onto a table essentially and there's some timing issues for sure, but the Yuiga/Goto interactions are super enjoyable and hard-hitting as hell, ending quick after a lariat and powerbomb into a not-so fancy barbed wire table gets the pin on her. Definitely not for everyone but I thought this was a fairly strongly put together match by mostly the beefy ex-AJPW lad, who makes the shaky Yuiga look a lot better than she actually is despite some spirited attempts. Watch if you want more Goto action after his big 90's boom. Vs. Aki Shizuki (07.06.2014) Ah yes, some for some IGF.....Indie Girls Fighting? I mean, I guess? This was alright. Yuiga's big passion bar the hardcore stuff was shoot-style, which she has pressed a couple of times like with this self-produced show. Shizuku is a Ishikawa trainee so she knows her way around the mat, but this for the most part was just a lot of "your turn/my turn" submission stuff that felt mostly like UWF cosplay, like I could just stick on a UWF 89' match and I'd probably get more depth and faster pace with those guys. Not to say it was bad given the two women clearly knew what they were doing, it just felt bit hollow. Then they go into generic forearm exchanges and Shizuku starts doing some shoddy day-1 wrestling school offence (elbow drop, corner lariat, scoop slam, chokeslam) and they lose me for a good while. Yuiga looks better with a mean Fisherman's Suplex into cross armbreaker using the arm Shizuku used to kick out, but she doesn't like.....defend the armbreaker at all, her defence is just sitting in the hold and crawling to the ropes slowly, which would've worked in the 80's but just looked weird here. Back to forearms, they tease a apron suplex but it never comes. Shizuku has some nifty arm manipulation shtick as she goes into a Fujiwara armbar, then modifies into a cradle, then back to the armbar again when her opponent kicks out. The two pick up the pace a bit as Yuiga slaps on quick rolls for flash pin attempts alongside stiff roundhouse kicks to the head and even her signature spinning Fisherman's suplex for a near fall. Yuiga's work is fairly strong and she definitely carries the impactful part of this match: not to say the opponent is completely off, but a lot of their stuff by comparison just doesn't look particularly clean, bar her lariats which are pretty great and probably the only thing that looks like it could actually knock someone out. The two spam submissions and some big bombs by Shizuku as she goes full Taue-mode with angry chokeslams and whatnot, nothing gets the job done. Bell rings before a proper pinfall can finish the job. This was fairly disjointed in places and not going to lie, it wasn't the cleanest by a mile. With that said I think Yuiga holds most of this together with her nifty mix of flips, submissions, and move-chaining to get the job done against the taller/more imposing opponent. Shizuku definitely wasn't the most seasoned as her offence flipped between looking solid or really shoddy: usually no real in-between. It's fine for a indie show of this.....calibre and definitely isn't bad, just a bit all over the place. I think they went a little bit too long as well as the two were really just repeating themselves by the 12 minute mark. The two have a better match next year in Marvelous so just watch that, I suppose. W/ Shinjiro Otani vs. GENTARO & Takashi Sasaki (15.03.2015) FREEDOMS vs the rag-tag Otani and co sounds like a good match for what it is. The starting sequences are fairly slow, especially with Otani in the ring as we mostly don't get any action. Sasaki tries getting cocky with Yuiga and ends up eating shit as he ends up getting hit with some nasty stiff kicks to the leg before he takes over with a eye rake and some outside brawling. This actually was kind of funny though as Yuiga kept hiding behind people in the crowd, so Sasaki had to chase them off or work some silly stuff to get around them in the first place. Sasaki tries throwing weak slaps at Yuiga and she just immediately has none of that light nonsense as she pulls out some angry slaps and even her signature gross shoot headbutt. A second one isn't so successful as Sasaki eats it and goes for a sudden spin kick to knock her down. GENTARO has more headbutts but thankfully these are the safe, pro-style worked ones. He's also a huge shit as he takes Yuiga trying to throw forearms seriously enough to immediately start working the throat (!!!) namely with a dirty 80's style sneaky choke alongside chokeslam to boot, as well as outright slapping it; all of this rules, obviously. The middle half of this is mostly the two doing solid old-school heel stuff like pulling the hair and face, GENTARO shoving himself between Yuiga and the ropes to stop her getting rope breaks. It's basic shtick but it works given the quality of the two doing it. Otani comes in for the face washes and usual drab B-show spots but GENTARO awesomely counters one attempted wash into a fancy rolling Scorpion Death Lock, which Yuiga has to break up via kicking his shoulder to death. Sasaki has some fun enough stuff with a ton of cheesy leg-slap strikes and Otani gets in a slick flying kick to crawl for a hot tag. Yuiga does her usual sequences, but then just slaps the shit out of Sasaki with a actual good backhand slap to the face alongside a roundhouse, slapping on her spinning Fisherman suplex for a near fall. We get a fairly generic burst of action for the finish as Otani tries to keep Yuiga out of trouble, eventually falls, and GENTARO grabs the win with a rough lariat and three big backdrops in succession. This was a enjoyable match for what it was; we get a fair chunk of just really simple, really effective ring-work. Otani is probably the least interesting as he's kinda settled into his usual tag shtick that you always see him doing for diminishing returns, just slower and not as impressive as prior years. Sasaki and co were real fun though, even with the abundance of crappy leg-slap stuff, being strong heels with mostly smooth stuff under the bag and alongside a very hard-hitting but competently solid Yuiga, this wasn't anything bad at all and definitely worth the watch if in the mood for some relatively harmless and at times impressive indie stuff. Vs. Takashi Sasaki (09.12.2015) Gross BJW-style deathmatch involving lots of tacks, but worked fairly minimalistic in comparison to that kind of style. They wrestle normally for about a minute before we get some outside brawling (can't see any of it in the venue itself so it's a waste of time for the viewer) and Sasaki bringing in chairs. We get some sloppy bits but also just some downright rough stuff as Sasaki slams Yuiga into chairs and she in turn gets to hit him in the head with one alongside her usual janky roundhouses. She pours the jacks over herself and Sasaki like a goof but ends up getting slammed into them herself as per tradition. The middle half is the usual Yuiga heat segment as Sasaki does some stuff with the tacks, namely sticking them into her head, a suplex, etc etc. They at least do well at building up Sasaki eventually having to bump himself as his opponent wears him down with forearms and the like. Eventually he falls to a really crisp judo throw and he then has to get cut up by said tacks. The two exchange dumb headbutts before we get a superplex set-up exchange with the two trying to battle the other for the right to do said superplex. Sasaki wins out by sticking more tacks into Yuiga by just taking them off his body, gross stuff. She eventually comes back with forearms and more headbutts, but Sasaki quickly takes back control with a big backdrop. We get more headbutts into a Fisherman's suplex onto the tacks themselves for a near fall. Yuiga puts a chair and tacks on Sasaki before doing her usual weird-looking leg first splash for another one. We get the first overt botch of the match as Sasaki is supposed to roll away from Yuiga's second rope senton, but he does it way too slowly and Yuiga falls Jeff Hardy-style with the senton anyway, so it's all of her back with little give, ouch indeed. I also think Yuiga fucked her foot on the splash because she hobbles from here on to the finish, but they manage to cope as Sasaki eats a nasty German suplex onto the end of a chair before he just takes over with bombs and some good-looking kicks. He lands the D-Geist to finally put this one to bed. This was very sloppy in places and while Sasaki generally is accepted as a great hardcore guy in some circles he didn't do a whole lot to convince me of it here: nearly everything was fairly basic for a hardcore match, just chairs and tacks for everything and even what was done was a bit tame by comparison to the "8075 Thumbtacks Death" stipulation. Yuiga was also noticeably not great here either; idk why but she gets a lot more sloppy when she's working these kind of matches. This had some mean stuff in it for sure, the match as a whole was unimpressive and lacked much of a edge. Vs. Shinobu (06.03.2016) Shinobu is some lanky lad who looks not particularly threatening before he starts doing really nasty snappy chops and dropkicks to the head. He also slams his opponent on the bare ass floor outside with absolutely not a care in the world alongside a suplex for shits and giggles. It's definitely one of those E-tier indie main events where they just go for the rough stuff right away for the big pops. I will say Shinobu isn't completely all that as he does have a nifty Misawa-style twisting neckcrank, and he loves doing dropkicks to the head all the time here. He's super indie-tier for sure but charming enough for a Yuiga showcase, so she spends most if not all of the first half selling and bumping until she gets her signature shine with a judo throw and then a random Kendo Kashin rolling cross armbreaker for no reason. Usual Fisherman suplexes mixed in with surprisingly good submission chaining. Shinobu gets in his goofy stuff but it isn't too overwhelming. Yuiga focuses in on the arm in the second half as her big break, so we get a lot of work based around it with not a lot of selling beyond said work, so while it looks good it doesn't really add to much. They build up the tension well with both wrestlers having to brave though some bombs before Yuiga throws stiff ass forearms and headbutts to get Shinobu shaken up enough for the spinning Fisherman's suplex and German suplex for separate near falls. Eventually Shinobu manages to run though Yuiga's tricks, landing two particularly mean lariats and a crisp Shooting Star Press for the victory. This is alright but not particularly great in any real way I can think of: while it builds logically, the match itself isn't particularly tension filled and Shinobu is a bit naff when it comes to actually bringing anything unique to the table here. While he had nice moves and shit felt stiff, he didn't really sell or create any urgency to take the win against his opponent. Yuiga as per usual brings good selling alongside her chunky offence, but I would definitely say she felt more....focused, if that makes any sense? Like you can tell she was trying to win here as opposed to her opponent kinda just being around. Not bad, certainly lacking. Vs. Kazuhiro Tamura (14.05.2016) Tamura is a strange STYLE-E lad who loves shoot-style, so of course he gets the chance to grapple with Yuiga. They work some comedy into the early exchanges as Tamura keeps getting slapped randomly for his troubles. Tamura throws some weird leg-locks here, like a legit shoot Figure-Four and Inoki-style Indian Deathlock. Yuiga does a little bit of cheating with some hair-pulls and good old fashioned kicks to the back. She also does some Fujiwara-style trolling as she pokes the ref in the eye so that she can rub the forearm into Tamura's face during a neck crank alongside just randomly slapping his face; alongside the equally as good dropkick to the head she does afterwards this was some solid starting work. Tamura gets caught into a Figure-Four but eventually escapes, with Yuiga doing a follow-up by going for a gnarly high-angle reverse-Cloverleaf. Tamura manages to get her down via leverage before escaping for a super quick cross armbreaker that Yuiga is completely exposed by, forcing her to quickly reach for the ropes in grand panic-selling, which damages her arm in the process of doing so. Tamura stomps the shit out of said arm afterwards, marking this as the big weakness he'll be working on for his section. Tamura is beastly on the mat as well, converting a reversed Fujiwara armbar into a nasty double wrist lock and really twisting for max effect. His shotgun sounding kicks on top of everything else are wonderful, really puts everything all together. The fact it lasts as long as it does (which is a fair while) is definitely daring but it works, and Yuiga's selling garners easy sympathy as she tries to mount multiple comebacks only to be met with hard kicks. Her eventual Wilkins-ish comeback rocks as well, just going nuts with Northern Lights suplexes, roundhouses and judo throws, finishing off with a tight head/arm side mount choke for a close submission win. Last few minutes are shaky in places but mostly kept strongly together as Yuiga throws everything she's got into beating her opponent with some risky dives and slaps but ultimately comes undone after Tamura weathers the storm and manages to get in a cross armbreaker: when Yuiga tries to arch out of it he adjusts for a seated Fujiwara armbar instead, forcing the tap-out. This was honestly pretty bloody great for a random 50-person indie show. It starts slow with some well-meaning comedy but really picks up steam after the Figure-Four spot as the two just bend and kick the crap out of the other. Super enjoyable Battlarts-style romp that never goes into overkill mode, with the pacing just long enough to appreciate what's on display here, clocking at about 17 minutes. Really great stuff, probably the match most worth watching out of this whole Mini-Dive. Vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa (03.07.2016) Not satisfied with deathmatches and scary shoot-style matches, Yuiga does further by going 1 on 1 with Takaiwa. She tries for some grappling and takedowns but Takaiwa quickly takes control as he counters a particular takedown attempt into a rough side headscissors and double wrist lock before she hits the ropes to escape. Mean vet Takaiwa rules so much more than his generic spot-spamming self, and you really get to see why by how vicious he is despite the minimalistic style he brings to the table here. He's all about just mangling on the mat or hitting mean strikes whenever possible with the energy of someone who just got out of bed like ten minutes ago, it's great. Yuiga has good selling and she works strongly from underneath with whatever she can muster but as you can imagine Takaiwa just blasts everything with more stiff shots and/or lariats when he meets resistance. She's eventually able to get a suplex in after stomping on Takaiwa's feet to unsteady him in a goofy little bit as well as a Fisherman's Suplex. Top rope move is undone as Takaiwa headbutts her in the stomach to get in his signature superplex instead for a near fall. Takaiwa plays around a bit as he tries for some painful looking submissions, as well as a scoop slam on the concrete for no reason outside of just being a ass. He continues the beating with more lariats and a mean top rope elbow drop for a near fall. Yuiga is uber desperate and goes for a low blow and small package to try to get a flash pin before having to resort to her uber-dangerous gross stiff headbutts and a German suplex for a big near fall. The two scrap but Takaiwa just goes full murder-mode with a Driller, a lariat, vicious powerbomb and a Death Valley for the pinfall. This could've been a regular Takaiwa squash and to be fair it mostly was, I have to admit though that the 100-something crowd absolutely get so invested into this, which is helped by Yuiga taking big bumps and selling strongly. It helps that Yuiga can actually hit pretty hard and looks good with her own shine spots, so this isn't just a gross one-sided beating that you feel weird watching after a few minutes. Takaiwa takes over most of this though, so it's mostly a vicious heel performance which I thought was enjoyable enough to bump this up a peg or two. Real good action here despite the simple dynamic. Vs. Daisuke (02.10.2016) Daisuke was a GUTS vet who was decent for the time, sadly having to retire just as he was starting to get some exposure. He's not super great (in fact I'd say he's one of the weaker opponents here) but a reasonable worker for the Yuiga spotlight. They do some polite locking up before Yuiga just slaps the shit out of the guy, and from there we get a good little burst of violence as the two exchange strikes. They then go into some ho-hum mat-work that wasn't terrible: I did like the focus on foot-based submissions, and Daisuke has some goofy counters like trying to roll into a lucha-style cradle and whatnot. He also throws some really nasty forearms when Yuiga tries pushing her luck against the guy, and in response she goes for a low blow and her signature gross headbutt bit. We get some smart work as she focuses on Daisuke's arm to weaken his strikes, mainly with kicks and the usual shoot-style throws and submissions. Daisuke doesn't really sell any of this though as he just casually uses strikes anyway. I do like how him being cocky costs him the advantage though as he ends up eating way too much damage from eating forearms and other strikes, with the tide turning after a superplex. Yuiga goes though her usual Fisherman suplex spam until Daisuke lands a neat Tenryu-style Enzuigiri and then a suplex variation of a Michinoku Driver for a near fall. He tries for a lame Sliding D but is dodged and gets met with a gross roundhouse to the head. They go back to the arm work as Yuiga just spams out more submissions and kicks, she gets dropped by a lariat with the other arm instead. I thought the finish tease with Yuiga countering the top rope frog splash into a triangle armbar was particularly strong, as was the continuality of Daisuke trying to power out of this one like the first time only to fail because of arm fatigue and almost losing altogether when he does so. The finish is a bit weak as Yuiga throws a great German suplex however Daisuke puts her down with a lariat, frog splash, and Sliding D for the pin. This was decent enough for what it was, hampered by Daisuke's limitations and some sequences repeating themselves to pad this out slightly. Daisuke isn't bad or anything but he is a bit samey for a worker and he doesn't really add anything unique against Yuiga par generic stuff I've already seen better wrestlers do better than him. Yuiga was as solid as she usually is but this never quite got proper "good" if that makes any sense, never got to the next level. Vs. Kintaro Kanemura (12.12.2016) I came into this expecting to really hate it as I think Kanemura is at best a goofy guy who can do dumb bullshit hardcore fests competently, but he isn't a good wrestler whatsoever and he's a even worse person given his allegations. What I at least appreciate is that they cut the nonsense and went right into the hardcore sthick from the get-go, with Kanemura bringing out the barbed bat for a few shots and the usual raking spot. This was about 3 minutes of the match as Kanemura wandered around and occasionally did something. His stuff generally isn't great-looking and we get about a million barbed wire shots to the back on top of that to pad this out. Yuiga takes over with a low blow and sets up a table on the outside for a big top rope splash that admittedly she managed to pull off, in fact it looked better than almost all of her normal splashes lol. Kanemura runs in with a table chunk after Yuiga sets up some chairs and they battle over the chunk before Kanemura ends up going though the set of chairs with a Fisherman's Suplex, cool spot. The second half of this is where things kinda just settle for being meh as the two hit chair shots, Yuiga does her Fisherman Suplex onto them before Kanemura barely gets up for a slam into a stack of the things. Yuiga tries for a splash but gets countered into a superplex onto them for a near fall. Finish is a wet fart as Kanemura just hits two chair shots afterwards for the win. This wasn't bad, certainly wasn't very much good either, Kanemura by this point was just done physically and he can't do anything bar chair shots and weak offence. This is also if I recall his final on-screen match as this was his fourth last match altogether (although I'm not 100% sure about that) everything afterwards was on indies that weren't sold or filmed anywhere to my knowledge, so this is his final big appearance. There's SOME vintage value in that if you want to be optimistic but otherwise this is a really weak hardcore match that honestly didn't even feel that hardcore after the initial shock of the blood. Really meh and even Yuiga selling her ass off couldn't save this from dying a quick death. Vs. Masato Tanaka (06.12.2017) This is a pretty enjoyable Tanaka paced match: it helps that the structure turns it into his usual bomb-fest in a logical manner as Tanaka initially tries to work over the head with some surprisingly robust and aggressive mat-work, namely with headlocks and a couple front-face locks. Yuiga ends up punching Tanaka in the face to escape his holds, and that's how he snaps and goes into his usual angry elbows and chops. There's a good theme here where Tanaka will really make Yuiga earn her big comeback spots, like she wiffs a school boy transition slightly and rather than going down for a bad-looking move, he instead just kneels and tries choking her out with his knee while she's still trying to do said hold. There's a real feeling of uncooperation here and of Tanaka just really trying to wangle his stuff in as best as possible, especially with head work. His strikes are as always flush, and Yuiga in turn throws out some stiff judo throws and hard ass forearms in response in the right moments. Basically the entire match is just the two beating the crap out of the other in a big arms race to see who'll go down first, and I will say that kind of match tends to kick ass when Tanaka is involved so while it was samey, I can't really complain about it that much. Yuiga gets in some solid shoot-style submission attempts and as time goes on she gets more desperate, throwing out the last-ditch headbutts and then snapping for funky lucha roll-ups to try to clinch a win. The only real issue is that they botch the spinning Fisherman Suplex spot and have to reset, but other than that this was pretty smooth all things considered. Tanaka lands all of his really rough offence including a horrific brainbuster for a near fall: ultimately winning out with a lariat, frog splash, and then a big Sliding D for the pin. As I stated this was a usual Tanaka-paced match, you don't really get much else different bar some logical pacing on top of everything else. Yuiga is definitely not the smoothest but her hybrid work is really interesting and she has a natural charm that allows her to get audiences pumped for her comebacks fairly easily. Good stuff for what it was. W/ UTAMARO vs. Hideki Suzuki & MIKAMI (17.06.2018) This was rough shit to watch, but in a good, low-budget indie kind of way. Suzuki's better matches come when he's just allowed to be a giant monster and not just a Billy Robertson clone, and that's exactly what we get here as his main feud of the match is Yuiga, who despite being a female Joshi gets ZERO leeway from Suzuki as per her other intergender showings. I do like how Suzuki approaches this dynamic though, he kinda lets her play around for a minute or so on the mat for some lackadaisical rolling around and defence before just snapping with a nasty head stomp. His lack of agency at the start and subsequent explosion of violence feels real mean for what it is. MIKAMI by comparison is noticeably far more gentle and forgettable as a result, he's competent though. Suzuki eats a lot from Yuiga to play up the huge gap between them: he's kinda like a cat playing with his food, he lets her just explode with forearms and slaps, get the crowd get their hopes up a bit before just trying to snap the arm, doing Tenryu punts to the head, all the real nasty stuff. He's so lackadaisical about it as well, like he'd just do petty things for the sake of it despite this being a no-stakes match just because he can. UTAMARO is a real generic Jr heavyweight, does fancy convoluted spots that look fake as anything, like a top rope cutter that they spend like 5 seconds standing around in position waiting for and then a overdramatic kneeling DDT that I swear I seen the Miz doing better than this guy. Not a insult to the guy, but.....still, you know? MIKAMI counters eventually into a really silly spinning Codebreaker before landing a better looking middle rope West Coast Pop to knock the guy down before landing a weird jumping knee. Thankfully the last few minutes are dedicated to Suzuki and Yuiga kicking seven shades of shit out of the other because this part of the match just kinda shits on their spot-fest. Yuiga really sells the few moments where she actually has the advantage by just going as hard as possible to try to drag out things to the point where she could possibly win. Suzuki is a great bully as he goes for a rough heel-hook before getting cocky by allowing Yuiga to land forearms, slaps, and even a shoot headbutt. This almost puts him in danger as Yuiga takes his back after dodging his own slap to try for her German suplex but it's all for nothing as he manages to snap on a sleeper long enough to get a pinfall out of it. Very rough viewing at points with the Suzuki/Yuiga stuff but they at least work it well into the match as the critical theme: it's not just a cheap heat afterthought for shock value which I utterly detest in all forms, it's actually used as a driving force in the match and means something. Suzuki is great, Yuiga was also solid albeit a bit shaky in small places. The two Jr heavyweights were complete afterthoughts and didn't add anything apart from bad-looking indie flips. That said, they don't intrude on the main quality much and were competent in their role as filler. Vs. Jun Kasai (10.12.2018) Yuiga once again risks life and limb against Jun Kasai, of all people. The crowd for this are super into it by the get-go, even the locking up and generic exchanges get them going and yelling a good bit. Of course this is all about the light tube stuff, and they get to that quick after about 3 minutes or so of teasing it. Kasai plays the heel here, so he's doing lots of gross stuff to get the big heat. I will say that this isn't the most.....polished match, I know that's expected from something as crazy as this but there is a good bit of sloppiness here, mostly from Kasai as he'll just occasionally fluff a spot or miss something, like a goofy dropkick or missing the light tubes for a DDT, the latter happening a lot. Yuiga's kicks are also a bit so-so in places, though that might just be the sound quality as a good majority of the strikes have zero noise to them. Yuiga takes a bit to warm up to the match but soon she's doing knees though the tubes or just outright headbutting her way though them to get to Kasai's flesh. It's a standard Kasai match in that regard as he eats sick stuff before going for shit like a tube powerbomb or a angry lariat. The big spot involving Kasai getting his diving headbutt interrupted took WAY too long however and just looked sloppy, though Yuiga throwing headbutts for a superplex looked decent enough. The bad-looking Fisherman's suplex wasn't though, Kasai went for the rotation way too soon and as a result it looked particularly bad. The big spot near the end where Kasai did his skewer trick and lariat into tubes was solid, as was Yuiga kicking out of the finish to a huge reaction. Kasai then takes the win with a diving headbutt with the signature goggles. This was certainly a match with a ton of heat as shown very easily by the crowd reaction to everything, I felt it was lacking much beyond the usual Kasai formula: he's not a guy I'm particularly high on in the first place and he doesn't add a lot here beyond some token heel gestures, mostly just doing a generic performance outside of that. Yuiga has some solid fire and certainly adapted solid to the hardcore shtick, she didn't click particularly well with Kasai as they botched, missed timing or didn't pace well between spots; there's a expected level of sloppiness in hardcore stuff given the nature of such matches but this was way, way beyond the acceptable limit, something was definitely in the water there. With that said this was still a decent if a bit empty Kasai-B show performance with nothing much to stand it out. Vs. Akira Jo (16.06.2019) Akira Jo is mostly known for his scummy indie career, but interestingly enough he's also a Billy Robertson trainee who mostly used his legit mat-skills to job in the IGF for a while. He looks like a generic low-card hardcore guy that you'd see wandering around in Voodoo Murders or something, but he definitely proved otherwise though as he pulls out some fun stuff in the opening exchanges, namely a random Bulldog choke and a nifty rolling arm-wrench in side mount. Yuiga has some strong arm work as well which she uses to snap on multiple submissions and transitions whenever necessary. Middle part is Akira's heat segment so we get some listless outside brawling paired with some better strike exchanges, even if he's not really the best at doing that kind of stuff outside of the usual generic heel shtick you've seen a thousand times. Yuiga has to try to keep up, eventually doing so with a mean stiff headbutt to balance things out alongside nasty ground and pound. She also throws out the usual conventionally impressive range of judo throws and suplexes, including a great German suplex and whatnot. Eventually Akira manages to no sell one long enough to land a well-done leg slap knee to the head for a dub spot. The finishing stretch is simply really well put together as the two blast the other with stiff shots, Yuiga using her speed and endurance to get in some snappy roundhouse kicks and more suplexes to get the guy off-balance. Akira kicking her mid-roundhouse attempt to then do a horrific head-slap superkick to her afterwards cements his advantage, that and even a big brainbuster can't get the win as Yuiga refuses to go down and lands some stiff slaps to try to resist. Akira goes for another knee shot, with the finish being a rough Fujita-lite punt kick for the KO victory as the ref calls things off finally. I thought this was pretty robust for what it was, even if the outside brawling and beginning sections are listless and don't do a whole lot for the match as a whole. These two going back and forth could easily be stuck on a endlessly boring "big epic" style 30+ minute match with extended headlocks and limb work that is then ignored but they instead condense it down to a sub 15 minute match that also kicks much more ass than something like that would. Good watch alongside the other Yuiga matches in the Batos series, one of the better showings. Vs. Hanako Nakamori (15.12.2019) This was for Yuiga's 19th anniversary as was the general show. She apparently picked Nakamori for their tendencies to use Fisherman-style suplexes? I guess that's something to relate with. This starts with Yuiga knocking her around and some shticky outside shit that I didn't care a whole lot about, just some nonsense with trainees from PURE-J. The middle half is mostly the two exchanging some hard kicks for minutes on end, which was entertaining for what it was. Nakamori ultimately wins out with a top rope dropkick, and she goes though the signature stuff until Yuiga takes over with a superkick and Fisherman's suplex for a near fall. She also pulls off a decent second rope splash and a good spinning Fisherman's suplex for a near fall before snapping on this bizarre submission I've legit never seen ever pulled off: it's like a inverted kneeling Cattle Mutilation, and it rules, just I've ever actually seen someone use it before so it threw me off for a minute. When Nakamori tries to escape, Yuiga modifies it into a reverse shoulder crank instead while maintaining the arch from the prior submission in a awesome spot. There's some silly stuff with a bad Nakamori knee and a double KO roundhouse for a dub spot (legit every version of this looks bad, stop doing it) before they start spamming forearms and Yuiga starts banging out stiff shots to compensate for missing others. Nakamori sells bad for a headbutt but goes up perfectly for a German suplex near fall. Despite Yuiga's signature endurance spots against another Fisherman's suplex and whatnot, she goes down for a sitting roundhouse kick. This was enjoyable and downright good in places, but it does suffer from some random shtick, wiffed strikes and Nakamori's selling being pretty iffy for what it was. The stiffness is there and this is definitely great when it comes to the hard-hitting as Yuiga matches always bring, but I would be lying if I said this felt coherent. Conclusion It does kinda feel weird not talking exclusively about GWE wrestlers but I figured this helps for a change of pace, and does help shine a small light on a surprisingly gem-ridden promotion nobody has heard of lol. I definitely won't be putting Yuiga anywhere on a top 100 but she's also someone that has absolutely surprised me in how she's normally presented (random undercard fodder) and what she can actually do on the main stage, combining really clunky strikes with a great knowledge of submission wrestling. It does go to show just how it's important to go beyond your comfort zone of what you expect, and why that's so important sometimes.

Apparently NOAH tried to make Rock a offer to be Muto's final opponent, which while that would've been awesome purely for the crazy visual of such a matchup, It would've probably ended with both of them shattering into a million pieces in the first minute lol

I think the issue is that unlike Japan, there wasn't ever really a need for a pro-wrestling scene. It's the same thing with China: despite the theoretical very large and profitable success that could go along with wrestling there, there's just.....no interest, really, people just aren't interested in the prospect of native wrestling shows. IGF tried hard with talent exchanges (even the WWE got in on that as you'll notice from around about the mid-2010's) and fairly strong shows but no dice. The closest there's been a Korean scene like what you described was with NKPWA who also put on huge shows with big international stars (Angle, etc) got absolutely nowhere and now do sad events in warehouses in front of maybe 30 people while not even being in Korea.