Ma Stump Puller

Honestly Big E might have a better chance of getting on than Kofi. That's not a slight on either man but I've never been particularly convinced he's this amazing wrestler: more so sub-par but carryable to great stuff under the right conditions. Lots of fun little agile spots and some fairly good matches under his belt but his main belt run put me to sleep more often than not. Yes, part of that is down to booking, but when you are working with guys like AJ Styles, Owens, Samoa Joe and getting "it's fine...I guess?" quality out of good PPV slots, there's a bigger issue underlying there. Good wrestler but not a top 100 by a fair margin.

I think Joe's a good exercise in how much you count prime performances against overall. Joe in RoH, those few golden years in the mid-2000's were easily some of the best in the world, not just in the US. The guy had it all in my book and then some, having good to great matches against virtually anyone through the door, at times he'd just get paired with random lads out of the blue and still knock it out of the park. He joins TNA and the hype is still going: he's got a undefeated streak, he's getting incredibly over with the crowds....then things start to slowly unravel. His Japan return in 2007 is a failure, being laughed out of the building after trying to get a presence in NOAH, TNA slowly shove him down the card and his demotivation becomes VERY clear after a while. Add that up alongside a lot of injuries and the dude drops off a cliff. He's still very good when he's on the game (I think he got a actually pretty solid bout out of Nash once?) but he falls into a black hole by the time 2012 or so hits. His WWE run is....mixed, but I think they made the best out of the guy given his injury issues really never stopped when he got there: if anything, they probably got worse with the quantity of matches. I'd still put him on a hypothetical top 100, but at the same time it's quite hard to place him proper as this thread definitely makes clear. I will say that people are somewhat sleeping on his ZERO-ONE stuff through, for a one year rookie he makes sure that doesn't look like the case

I'd probably have to put him on just for getting shoot Takayama to good matches consistently. He's got a good sense of pacing and he knows when to turn the heat up in a fight to really get the drama going, which aids him a lot when he's trying to make Takayama's Frankenstein-lite stance and mostly bad kicks look convincing

I'm a bit confused about the Mutoh & Sapp match being included here: it's decent, don't get me wrong, but it's not really a good example of the guy actually doing anything significant: he just shoulder barrages with Sapp a bit and they both exchange chokeslams. He's by far the least interesting of the four men included, even if he does land a top rope splash at one point (through Mutoh needs to roll into position so that he actually lands it) Better examples of early Jamal quality would be his Triple Crown bout against Kawada (12.06.2004) or his actually pretty good Korakuen brawl with Kojima (25.09.2004) during the latter's redemption arc after his long losing streak. He has respectable showings elsewhere as well with a awesome David vs Goliath bout with Kaz Hayashi (13.04.2004) as well as numerous fairly alright tag team brawls. I don't think he would be on a top 100, but all of this and his later solid Umaga work (even if it did kinda start to get tame after the Cena feud) makes him a very respectable choice here. If this was top 150, he'd have a spot.

Unfortunately Suwama's prime comes during AJPW's least known era: if he was in his prime today I think people would be talking a lot more about him. The issue about him needing to be carried to be great, for me, isn't really a actual issue; I've seen Suwama kick ass against a wide variety of opponents. He's great in brawls, great as a underdog, can play a ace role perfectly, can get good heat in matches, etc. The one chink in his armor is that he's bad in long, extended matches: he has a 60 minute match with Taiyo Kea that's just the shits, literally nothing happens. It's half inconsistent limb work that actually goes nowhere (not even regular Puro limb work where it at LEAST plays into the match for the beginning and middle) and the other half is padding via shitty strike exchanges, leading to a ending where Suwama takes all of Kea's offence, springs up like nothing happened, and then wins after some moves. In those situations, yes: he's a guy who needs to be carried to something better, because he's hopeless in long matches. He can't carry mediocre acts to great bouts (beyond some matches with Yoshitatsu) but he can balance the books and make people look good in more balanced bouts, namely when he's playing the bigger threat. He's also unironically a amazing tag specialist and has had a lot of success in that regard, especially in Evolution, Violent Giants, and even the really recent RUNAWAY SUPLEX duo, which have all been fun runs and have added a lot of legitimacy to a top 100 run, especially with Suwama's longevity. While he has slowed down a fair bit and seems to be finally being phased out of the Triple Crown running after a big final run, he's still a super essential part of AJPW and a damn good act at present. I doubt he'll get on here given there's so much more popular talent but I'd definitely consider him having a position given he's taken a while to get truly great (his early work up to maybe 2009 or whatnot isn't consistently there for me) but he has stayed there for a very long while.

I would agree but I think Miz is a quick learner in that aspect. In about a year or so of being around as a tangible member of the roster (I.E. not just doing dark matches or jobbing) he's already doing his very entertaining Dirt Sheet work with Morrison down in ECW and beyond, even if it wouldn't exactly result in the greatest of quality matches. Don't think he was ever going to be a all-star athlete, but I do think he learned quite quickly what his role was and performed it considerably well.

Insanely inconsistent, maybe too much quality-wise to accurately put on a top 100. His NOAH work is bleh with a few bright spots but he mostly stunk the joint with whatever he was trying over there: booking can be blamed for most of that but I felt like he's always been a poor match for overtly long matches in general, his title reign massively Suzuki working longer than 25 minutes drags the pacing down to a utter crawl, it's just something he can't do. This is fine by itself (there's plenty of great workers who can't do the same on here) but it's the fact that he isn't always conscious of this fact is what annoys at times. Overtly long matches are a issue of Puro companies in general but he's one of those who tends to lean into them more often than not with a lot of padding work that doesn't achieve anything but make the match longer. Shoot Suzuki is a really fun period for him but it's WAY too short to really account for much outside of some solid bouts (he has a match series with Shamrock that's pretty underrated) and it's mostly him against unremarkable mid-card acts. He fails to have a good match with Fujiwara on account of the same weakness mentioned above: it goes to a 30 minute draw, way too long for him, which does play badly against him in that regard. He is best used as he's been presented the last 5 years or so: he shows up now and then for big matches with people better than him and manages to get his usual stuff over with his sheer charisma, especially given his workrate has drastically reduced in recent years. Not the biggest fan of his match-style that he tends to lean into for every match (strike exchanges, dumb facial expressions, no selling, etc etc) as it becomes very overplayed and frankly, lazy, especially when he's in a match with no stakes doing the exact same thing as he'd do in a title bout. For me, I think Nagata would have more of a chance of getting on than Suzuki. Suzuki has FAR better high-ends but Nagata's been a consistent good to great act throughout the last 15 years: even his GHC title run I felt was better than Suzuki's overall. Nagata is also a lot more varied than Suzuki has been and has gotten a lot more out of his opponents than Suzuki, who tends to takeover the pacing of the match regardless of who's in with him. Suzuki is someone whom you tend to have high expectations for watching his best work but those reduce as you realise that a LOT of his material beyond that is varied and downright poor for a top 100 quality. He's very good at his best but that best is something that's incredibly hard to keep around.

I think my personal issue is that Jericho never really does anything particularly interesting in-ring as a heel. He really doesn't wrestle any differently beyond applying more long winded rest holds and trash talk and mostly just does the exact same things he normally does in matches: there's nothing really there in terms of variation or whatnot. Maybe he'll add in something new in a blue moon (a la his Mysterio finish at Extreme Rules) but it's mostly just the same material. I mean it works, sure, but it's not very exciting. I suppose I'd rather have that than see him do whatever the "Painmaker" was supposed to be, which was just embarrassing the longer it went on.

Other Deep Dive stuff Introduction Always neglected when it comes to retrospectives, Izumida has always been a curious undercard performer to me since I started watching a bulk of the AJPW TV segments overall. Behind the goofy appearance and uninspiring look was a tremendously aggressive act that could seriously go when prompted, from huge suicide dives to some truly insane spots for a guy his size. Through he never had any truly big pushes, he was always great whenever given the big stage to show off his stuff, but despite this a lot of the reception (especially on Cagematch and the like) has him positioned shockingly low on the totem pole, where he currently stands in the top 250 worst rated wrestlers on the site...for some reason. (seriously, he's worse than Nailz, of all people) Here, I'll be going through a few of the matches that are the most easily accessible for someone new to check out, as well as some personal favourites. There's more than this out there but this is just the ones that I feel like are most worthy of a primer set: if we were just going through good matches in general, this would be a lot longer, needless to say. What's best to know is that Izumida is basically a really stiff lad, so be prepared for some hard shots that would make even Shibata wince. Vs. Toshiaki Kawada (AJPW 22.03.1998) Probably the most infamous Izumida match out there. Him and Kawada basically have a pretty good sub-5 minute match as he essentially realises that Dangerous K is WAY out of his league, so he chooses to take the fight early by going balls to the wall at the very start and hoping to God that things work out. This involves a lot of diving headbutts, some big spots and Kawada being, well, Kawada. You don't need me to tell you who wins this but it's still a ton of fun and one of Izumida's first big moments, which he takes full advantage of here. Seriously, just go watch this when you can, it's a fun ride. W/ Akira Taue vs. Gary Albright & Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW 24.07.1998) While a lot of Izumida's showings have him as more or less the bully of the bunch, here he's essentially a lower card act having to swim with some real sharks in the form of two beefy guys who certainly don't give him any leeway. Takayama in particular smacks him here with some truly vicious shots after Izumida shows him up early on by blocking a lot of his offence and Izumida essentially has to ride out the experience long enough and try to get his own work in, hoping Taue can do the rest. This is mostly the Izumida show, however, as he powers through the pair's offence and really gets the crowd going by the end of this when he's holding on to the last straw just to survive. It's a very well done underdog match that has some real nail-biting moments throughout. I've seen this match format a lot in AJPW (namely the rookie teaming up with guys far above his paygrade and having to struggle to survive: it's a trend that's practically always been around in some format) but Izumida is most definitely one of the best when it comes to getting this over in general. I've seen far worse, so maybe I'm just more favourable to this than I should be. W/ Giant Kimala Vs. Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki (AJPW 16.01.1999) No one really knew this was going to be a great match from the get-go, but this somehow mutates into perhaps one of the top tag MOTY contenders for the year in general, not just AJPW. This starts off fairly good as Kimala and Izumida thrive as two big tanks that just hurl around the lighter guys with ease, mixing in some heel work at points to get the crowd more invested in the eventual comebacks of the duo. There's a certain moment in this match where things go from decent to utterly incredible: if you've watched the match, you know exactly what I mean: I'm not going to spoil it here for new viewers, just check the whole thing out but try not to eat beforehand. Izumida and co take complete advantage of the situation and turn it from a potential confusing mess in the hands of less experienced workers to a masterclass in heel brutality. There's a rematch that happened a month later but it's mostly just bleh; a weak attempt to catch lightning in a bottle twice. A great heel showing for Izumida that puts him over big time as a horrifically dangerous opponent. This arguably was the match where "Violence Master" became not just a nickname, but raw reality. W/ Giant Kimala vs. NO FEAR (Yoshihiro Takayama & Takao Omori) (AJPW 20.02.2000) Not going to lie: most of Izumida's match material with Kimala is either alright or just downright bad at points. They don't tend to have good matches usually but when they NEED to step up like here, they absolutely do so. Izumida takes a beating but unlike the Taue match, he shows that he can dish it out with some big headbutts, lariats, and outright stiff slaps. He can hang with the duo but just misses the mark due to NO FEAR's superior experience in brawls. Izumida shows that he can sell incredibly well as his injured mid-section is absolutely honed in by the NO FEAR pair throughout as a clutch to keep him in control, of which he builds very nicely to a Kimala hot tag, of all things. Unlike the last match where he was with someone who needed to carry him out of pure raw strength (in kayfabe, naturally) here him and Kimala are positioned as a true balanced duo, landing lots of goofy and at times sensational double team moves, helping each other out of very sticky situations. Izumida more than proves that he could more than have a competent match out of probably one of the best tag teams of this year (seriously, 2000 is a banner year for Takayama/Omori in general) but this is a great showing for things to come and a solid introduction to Izumida's modern style going forward. Vs. Takeshi Rikio (NOAH 25.01.2001) Izumida takes Rikio, whom at this point is a competent but pretty middling rookie singles act who seems to be only good in well coordinated tags to one of his best singles matches as of date, which is remarkable given Rikio's only real "good" match beforehand was with Misawa: a very high bar. Brutal, nasty, downright overkill at times. It's just two very meaty ex-sumo lads basically just hurling around in various ways and really just beating the crap out of the other. It's hard to use so many words for "stiff" but THIS is stiff, and it used in such a manner to enhance what would be a run of the mill match to something far more. Izumida lives up to his moniker and gives Rikio a ton of space to rail on him at points with some truly devastating stuff. By the end of this the crowd is popping for everything like this is Kobashi/Misawa or something crazy over like that, getting incredibly invested for every near fall this gives. This is clipped but still feels like a full-length match by the balls to the wall pacing and effective usage of big bombs. Vs. Takeshi Morishima (NOAH 13.03.2004) This is for Morishima's WLM belt (a American promotion that NOAH regularly worked alongside and trained people) and is actually the main event of the entire event, which was a cool gesture. Anyway, this goes how you'd expect it to go, but this shows how effective Izumida is at control segments and cut-offs, able to recover after a early beating by a insane diving headbutt from the ropes to the outside before focusing on Morishima's taped up leg for the duration of this match. He combines stiff slaps, chops, headbutts, alongside some surprisingly innovative technical work and agile spots to keep control his throughout. He shows that he can dictate a match (as seen above with Rikio) almost completely by himself, managing to get some good crowd reactions throughout this bout and building to a really fun comeback sequence and finishing stretch where it's just a mad scramble. Morishima's selling is bad when it comes to extended selling (like he'll scream and cry throughout the holds and working segments, but he'll almost switch that mode off as soon as he's free to work and he'll NEVER change his usual work to accommodate) but he's a good bomb thrower who is quite over with the crowd at this point, so this mistake is forgiven in their eyes. Izumida gets about as much as you can get from Morishima at this point and time and then some. Conclusion As stated above, this is just a helpful primer to Izumida's style of work, as well as a wide range of different matches where you can see how he can play both a confident underdog or a brutal heel with little regard for his own and his opponent's wellbeing. There's a lot more out there if you search around and some really fun matches that I left out of here to keep this simple and concise as all of these can be just easily picked up and watched without any additional context or pre-match watching. Hopefully you enjoy and appreciate one of the lesser heralded stars of early NOAH.

Might squeeze in Milano after watching some of his stuff. Fairly short career but it's a pretty top-notch 9 years all things considered

IIRC he's explained that NJPW management gave him the nickname to differ him as apart of the BC. Much like how Luke Gallows became Doc Gallows, King Fale became Bad Luck Fale, etc. OT: I want to like Page, but I feel like he hasn't really hit his big stride yet. He's had some fairly good matches with the likes of Danielson (granted I think their first match isn't particularly great but that's more due to it having to balance around the limitations of TV and the fact that they very obviously telegraph it as a Broadway, so the drama is diminished a lot) but I liked his tag work a lot more than his singles. I'll give him a few more years to see how he does when his initial title run ends and how he copes without a belt chase. Good wrestler with some very underrated work out there but I always feel like there's something lacking.

Me personally, I don't think it adds a ton beyond showing he can still (somewhat) go in very carefully structured tag matches. Like with many vets at the very end of their career, it doesn't really give any big swing towards them in terms of a general top 100 beyond extreme longevity, and even then you can find dozens of guys who have had far better post-prime showings. Sting in TNA was bearable but at least it added something to his resume in terms of being able to work different kinds of opponents, adapting to a modern style of wrestling, etc. His AEW stuff is fun but it's basically like the outtake segment on a movie: it's entertaining but you aren't judging the actual movie on that as a whole.

He has his days where he's just a cool annoying troll that can actually wrestle pretty effectively when he's not hammering that in but he's mostly just kinda there in the background, and his NOAH work is fucking dreadful for the most part if he's not with someone who can work what he does extremely well. Trying to make him a Yano-lite comedy worker when he's got maybe half of the speed and mobility that he does at best is a creative choice that still has me scratching my head. I'd like to do a deep dive of him one day to see if his bright days were more common in his prime through

No brainer for a top 100. Every match I see of her she's either a highlight or one of the top acts in whatever she's in, and she doesn't fall into a lot of the trappings that seem to plague her generation of talent in particular with a lot of false finishes and excessive sequences. Tends to have some mixed results when having to get inferior talent to her level (or at times even close to something like that) but she's still pretty effective at doing so, even getting individuals like Nyla Rose (who usually range to decent to not very good at all) to a fairly good series of matches. Other than that, she's above and beyond when it comes to storytelling and pacing, as well as having some of the best strikes around in the business as OP goes over. Maybe her ring quality and overall allure is somewhat enhanced because of her being a considerably big fish in a small pond but she's proven she can handle herself just fine on larger stages numerous times, so I think it's less that and more a case of her just being that good. Cliché, sure, but very much still true.

Would definitely agree, and this becomes more prevalent when you check out the earlier tag matches on the card. Ogawa and Misawa have a really kinda bleh chemistry with Omori and co and it results in a pretty flat match beyond some decent spots while Movement v Kawada and Taue is great despite Taue being out for most of it lol. When it comes to tag structures like these, I can easily say that Kawada provides the best quality when it comes to making them a lot better than they have any right to be. This is noticeable even in the (mostly) filler tag matches. His ability to add color to stuff like this is sensational.

Impossible for Muto to not have a spot in the middle of my personal top 100. Wasn't the biggest fan of him in his prime as I thought he sometimes had too much to do in the ring and not enough to actually hone in on in particular: he has some nice matches here and there but there's definitely a sense that he's doing a lot but not really at the same time: he does a lot of leg work to really no real endgame and tends to be pretty meh outside of his usual big spots and agility. Starting early 2000's, he finally GETS it. Hones in on the leg work, slows himself down to big sequences rather than just the whole match of him flinging himself around, but makes sure to innovate when it matters. He's had his fair share of omega bleh matches but Big Match Muto is incredible, a true innovative icon who truly reinvented the big match structure. I think people tend to credit guys like Marufuji and KENTA a bit too much when it comes to stuff like that when I think Muto was equal in influence, if not more, by his over the top, flashy style and presentation. You see it a lot in the generations who come after him. I was probably one of the few people who thought his 2021 NOAH title stint was good tbh, so maybe that's just me being bias lol. Get Muto to slow down a bit and he can really tell a story, and seeing him at the very end of his tether having to drag wins from younger, hungrier talent with just his experience and wit alone is very gripping stuff, despite his obvious limitations.

In all fairness, these undercard tags aren't intended to be a spectacular displays, they are 6-man tags where people just get in shit and then leave. You could knock literally anyone for stuff like that given the amount of aimless 90's Misawa and Pillar tags they've been in. Sure, the "one-trick" stuff is true, but it's like complaining about a baseball player always winning with a fastball: if it always works successfully, can it really be a complaint? I think Inoue's gimmick drags personality and drama into matches where they should be ZERO or very little. No one is buying that him and Saito can beat The Untouchables or AXIZ but he's able to drag the audience into such matches with incredibly strong psychology and genuine talent behind the goofiness. It's a gift that's very much lacking today

Might have been one of the best wrestlers in the world in the early 2000's. Great atmosphere, over as fuck, a dominating essence all in all but could work and wrestle very well for himself. He's a great asskicking heel that can really play both a surprisingly good presence against the big stars, bumping and selling at just the right moments, but could also flick a switch and just send them to hell and back with his horrifically stiff knees and general offence. Even after the stroke and his years of hard-hitting caught up with him (and they did, as much as you'd hope it wouldn't) he was still a good hand that could be relied upon to fill almost any role as a freelancer act. Even some of his rare comedy stuff that he did on the indies is quite well done, surprisingly. It's a shame that people only include his NOAH peak through. Yes, that's where most of his best material comes from, but his AJPW work had him pull out some bangers for a guy who'd barely gotten any match experience beyond shoot-style stuff. NO FEAR as a unit helped get him there faster with Omori and him having some great chemistry all in all. Even his early Triangle of Power work is actually fairly fun to check out. A small list of material from that era: Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW Super Power Series 09.06.2000) Giant Kimala II & Jun Izumida vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW Excite Series 20.02.2000) Akira Taue & Toshiaki Kawada vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW New Year Giant Series 23.01.2000) Jun Akiyama vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (New Year Giant Series 09.01.2000) Jun Akiyama & Kenta Kobashi vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (October Giant Series 30.10.1999) Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (Summer Action Series II 04.09.1999) Mitsuharu Misawa & Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (Summer Action Series 25.08.1999) Bart Gunn & Johnny Ace vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (Summer Action Series 23.07.1999) Kenta Kobashi & Kentaro Shiga vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (Summer Action Series 04.07.1999) Hayabusa & Jinsei Shinzaki vs. Takao Omori & Yoshihiro Takayama (Super Power Series 04.06.1999) Keep in mind this is just one year of ring work, not even including his extended UWF-I/AJPW Kawada feud and whatnot. No brainer for top 50.

To add on to this unexpectedly, he just had a incredibly well done 40 minute match with Kiyomiya literally like yesterday that I would highly suggest watching. Sensational technical masterclass.

Thanks! This was a really good little project to go through in-between my AJPW TV work, it really made me respect how vet matches are structured. Legend events are hit and miss but as you said, the unpredictability adds a lot and we get some unique matchups because of that.

Part 5 Vs. Black Tiger (RJPW 17.06.2010: Brave Of Legend ~ Our Legendary Heroes ~) OG Mask vs the "Black Tiger" whom is actually Tatsuhito Takaiwa in a ill-fitting mask. As for the match itself, it's actually not that bad despite the length and both guys being fairly banged up by this point: this is worked in the RJPW house style of being a shooty/wrestling hybrid with some high flying put in. Both guys will wrestle on the mat and do grounded work, but Sayama also throws out a dropkick and a pretty picture perfect plancha to the outside soon after. While Tiger Mask is the more agile of the pair and will utilise a lot of strikes in stand up to wear down his opponent, Black Tiger opts to ground him down into mat work, with some pretty cool transitions into submissions. A lot of this match is pretty eh: Tiger Mask by this point in his career can't really do much workrate wise and Black Tiger, while having some solid enough mat work, it just sorta doesn't go anywhere. He slaps on maybe 5 holds on Tiger Mask within a minute or so but none of them are really sold any by his opponent, and the tendency to "drop" submissions: that is, to have a hold clearly held on and to willingly let go of it despite next to no resistance: bugs me extremely. I hated it when Sabre Jr used to do that, so I especially dislike it here. The run up to the finish is fine enough: Tiger Mask lands his greatest hits once more with his Diving Headbutt and Tombstone, but his second Tiger Suplex is countered into a really good looking Death Valley Driver, but Tiger Mask quickly recovers and no sells to land his Crossface Chickenwing for the submission win. All in all, not really a essential must watch for either man but a reasonable bout with some nice ground work. It won't really convince any naysayers of late Tiger Mask's style or is a amazing career highlight, but both men throw out some good work and outside of some slight botches by Sayama (namely with timing: sometimes he's a bit off the mark) was done pretty much spotlessly. I do have issues with the pacing as it feels almost rushed at times, contrived even: but it didn't make the match bad or anything, just one I won't be watching again. Takaiwa and co will wrestle each other A LOT through, so get used to seeing him. RANK: Decent W/ Mr. Cacao Vs. Black Tiger & Ikuto Hidaka (Fukumen MANIA 15.08.2010: Mr. Cacao 10th Anniversary) First off, I'll give a warning: this includes some random bloke semi-consistently honking a clown horn in the middle portions and it gets REALLY fucking annoying, really fast. Literally every second big move for a few minutes has honks behind it. I would suggest muting those portions unless you can somehow stand it. This starts off with typical Black Tiger stalling: moaning about closed fists and running to the outside. He asks for First Tiger and gets him, and predictably gets thrown to the mat with a Judo throw before he counters into a Kimura, of which gets broken up by a Savate kick by his opponent. Hidaka has some pretty cool exchanges with Cacao as they hit some nice fast-paced sequences that don't drag, with Hidaka bumping all over the place for Cacao's slower stuff. There's a awesome spot where he gets knocked out of the ring with a dropkick but hangs on the bottom rope to pull himself back up and hits a big spinning back kick to take advantage. Black Tiger is.... well less impressive, sticking on holds and some pretty bad looking offence at moments: he tries hitting a snap suplex but he gets zero snap from it and almost shoot-DDT's the guy. It's weird, because I know the guy behind the mask is still having pretty good matches (from what I seen) but he just loses all of that as soon as he puts on the Black Tiger moniker and goes into generic "heel" antics that don't really get him heat for this audience. It's like he doesn't know how to balance both. He beats down Cacao on the outside with a chair and ring post. Hidaka's work is a lot better, namely focusing on Cacao's back. He gets him in a kneeling Cobra Clutch and hits him with knees while he's in that position, which looked nasty as anything. He also puts on a bizarre grounded inverse Boston Crab or something? I've never seen it before but it looks incredibly well done, surprised no one stole it. The finishing stretch has Cacao finally tag in and land some big dives, namely a crossbody and a dive to the outside while First Tiger gets hit with a Tombstone and top rope back elbow for a near fall by Black Tiger before Sayama recovers mid-Death Valley Driver attempt and manages to hit his modified Tiger Suplex O'Connor Roll for the win. This is a lot more coherent than their later match together but most of the action worth mentioning is between Cacao and Hidaka, who have solid chemistry together and both have sections in which they shine against the other: it helps that Hidaka is a badass worker as well and extremely talented. Sayama comes in namely for his greatest hits but he's a fairly good wrestler when it comes to that specific style as proven by his numerous match formats that follow that kind of grove. Black Tiger is the weakest by far and his heel sections aren't really engaging as they are more him slapping on boring holds and not engaging with the crowd at all. The younger lads definitely steal the show here. RANK: Decent Vs. Fujinami II (IGF 25.09.2010: Genome13) This is the second time both men have faced off: spoilers, it ends in another draw lol. They set up the same dynamic from before, basically that Fujinami is better on the mat, Tiger Mask is better in stand-up, albeit he's apprehensive after Fujinami tags him early with a Dragon Screw. This is basically the same as before as Fujinami throws on holds to work over Mask's legs while Mask has to escape them. This is basically a lot of sitting in holds for the first half, with some decent counters here and there as both men exchange counters and whatnot. Most of this is just Fujimami slapping on holds in general, but he can at least work that style as opposed to gassing himself up in their first match. Mask tries to hit some comebacks with his signature spots but misses a Diving Headbutt and Fujinami gets a Figure Four, which his opponent needs to roll to the ropes to escape. Second half is just them exchanging big moves as Fujinami fails to win with the Cobra Twist, Mask gets a near fall with a Tombstone and hits a dropkick that Fujinami delay sells for so he ends up just falling over after a few seconds of being fine. Both men scramble (well more slowly stumble in the corner) as the time ticks down but no one is able to get any leeway before the 10 minute time limit is reached. This is better than their last match in terms of structure but not in terms of workrate: Fujinami just sits around in holds for a lot of this and Mask at this point could go, but not with someone who was even older than he was at the time and was way, way past it by this point. It's fine as a vet showcase but as a match, painfully slow and not very exciting. Fujinami can still go as well, I just think these two at this point don't work as a duo together. RANK: Forgettable W/ Ultimo Dragon Vs. Fujinami & Red And White Mask (IGF 03.12.2010: Inoki Bom-Ba-Ye 2010) First off, I have zero idea who this Red and White guy is supposed to be. Maybe he's the same lad that wrestled Sayama a few years ago as "X" but as for conclusive answers, I don't have any. Him and Ultimo have some short but fun lucha sequences. Fujinami and Mask have some eh exchanges that are drawn from their earlier encounters: Mask trying for a early finish with the Tiger Suplex but Fujinami using the same way he used to escape his Dragon Sleeper by running for the ropes. There's some clumsy notions as Mask hits a sloppy judo throw and a Tiger Spin respectfully. Ultimo has more solid stuff with RW Mask with some great agility between the pair and fast paced exchanges, with tons of arm drags and flips. Nothing incredible but for a vet match like this, it's VERY much refreshing to see. Tiger Mask also has some alright action with him as he blocks all of his kicks and hits his own big savate to knock him down, following it up with RW no selling into a leg lock. Fujinami follows that up until Sayama manages to escape and tags in Dragon, who gets countered into a Dragon Screw for RW, who follows it up with a good top rope dropkick + weird Russian Leg submission while Fujinami applies his Dragon Sleeper to Mask. The lads break out very quickly and hit a bad looking double cross chop before they double team RW with Mask hurling savate kicks into Ultimo's own, leading to him hitting his Asai DDT for the win. Very much a nothing match beyond some good showings for Ultimo as he gets a ton of time to have fast-paced sequences alongside some fun lucha stuff. Everyone else is just kinda here and don't add much: subsequently, it adds nothing to Sayama's overall perspective at the time. RANK: Forgettable Vs. Tiger Mask IV III (RJPW 09.12.2010: Extreme) Actually not terrible. Sayama by this point is pretty much mostly meh but he can still throw a incredibly mean kick with his heavier frame, and his technical stuff is still solid enough that he can get away with his mat-work when this gets grounded. Tiger IV.... isn't really great in the first place but he plays along fine here, and I like the fact that he plays a subtle heel in how he slowly starts to get more and more annoyed that his far older foil is getting the best of him multiple times, and starts to show some frustration when he can't get his own way. This plays to their two earlier matches in that IV is trying to outclass his mentor: not as a young rookie or prospect, but as a fairly respected vet in his own right. This is how you might expect this to be framed as: lots of kick exchanges, some back and forward technical stuff, added in with dives by the younger Tiger IV later on. Tiger IV tries to use his older incarnation's tricks against him, even his signature Crossface Chickenwing transition but gets countered by the far more experienced foe, only gaining a advantage once he focuses in on low kicks to damage First Tiger's foot and using that as a foothole for more offence. First Tiger is a bit of a dumbass, consistently going for dives and his top rope Diving Headbutt despite the risk and misses every opportunity at this which damages his leg even more. As for Tiger IV, he mostly sticks to low kicks and leg offence, stomping or grabbing a hold on it. He's no Bret for sure, but the limb work at least makes sense and isn't overdone. It allows for the two to keep a steady pace throughout without getting too involved in meaningless mat work. Both guys have a flashy display for the road to the finish: while First Tiger lands a big savate kick to knock down Tiger IV, the bad leg prevents him capitalising, allowing his opponent to recover and place on a kneebar for the win. Not bad, but these guys already had a WAY better match years and years ago. This wasn't bad or anything but just incredibly basic, and First Tiger's inability to lose clean or really give Tiger IV any of his element to work with harms the match quality and forces the guy to work on the mat, of which definitely isn't his speciality. Not worth checking out in my opinion. RANK: Forgettable W/ Tiger Shark Vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Black Tiger (Tenryu Project 5 14.12.2010) Most people harp on about the Tenryu/Tiger Mask encounter they had with each other in RJPW, but don't know about their rematch in Tenryu's own promotion against each other. I myself publicise that particular match as one of Tiger Mask's last legitimately really good outings as stated in the prior post to this but this was a curiosity that I couldn't ignore. While Tenryu by this point was pretty much done in terms of workrate (like this is the "struggling to walk around" stage of his career) he regardless tries to work a fairly decent dynamic with Tiger Mask, getting his ass beat by the latter's strikes and technical stuff and failing to be the big bully that he's usually pretty good at being. Black Tiger is once again played by Tatsuhito Takaiwa: for what it's worth he plays a fun heel in how he consistently moans at the ref at the start for Tiger Shark's aggression and focuses on being more of a cowardly heel than the straight-laced antagonist he is in his series with First Tiger. For a guy who started wrestling in his near mid-30's, Tiger Shark is a competent worker here: nothing special overall but he can hit his mentor's agile spots fairly well and knows how to sell. For a Sayama clone, he's fine enough. He's a nice addition to the match, even when having to tank Tenryu being a huge prick and smacking him with full on stiff punches. That being said, Tenryu spends like half of this getting his ass kicked, either in working holds on the head or leg, or getting kicked by the pair a lot, in particular Tiger Shark completely wrecks him with a ton of kicks in the corner before Tenryu is just able to recover with his dangerous brainbuster. Eventually the finish has First Tiger no sell a Death Valley Driver again to quickly apply a really clumsy Crossface Chickenwing for the win, while Tenryu is stuck outside fighting the younger Tiger. This actually gets quite decent when Black Tiger and Tiger Shark are going together: both have some fun, agile exchanges, even if Tiger Shark's offence is mostly just a less impressive version of his mentor. Tenryu tries his best, but he's just like, done here, like REALLY done, even climbing the ropes is a hard task. He does get some babyface cheers when he's getting beat down by Tiger Shark and co but his actual wrestling is kept to a minimum here. Tiger Mask puts on a average performance: nothing special out of him ultimately. Wouldn't recommend this outside of some hard hitting stuff but I suppose it works fine as a addition to Sayama's program with Tenryu. RANK: Decent W/ AKIRA Vs. Jushin Thunder Liger & Ultimo Dragon (Legend The Pro Wrestling 10.01.2011) This is a decent match that is unfortunately brought down by Sayama's well known diva-like attitude coming to surface, but we'll get to that when it comes. Liger and Tiger Mask have some decent exchanges with each other throughout here, through I've noticed that they don't really click well when it comes to sequences and have some somewhat iffy moments: even in their 90's matches they just don't really have a good tempo with the other and tend to stall or look weird when doing anything complex. Ultimo Dragon and AKIRA work a lot better: Ultimo in particular still is very fast on his feet and looks solid tagging with Liger, hitting some really agile offence before they hone in on AKIRA's legs for the good part of the middle portion. AKIRA is pretty good in general but that sadly doesn't get brought up a lot either. For what it's worth, they do have some nice limb working holds and manage to consistently tag in and out, making this section slower but not any less exciting, especially when the duo hit some double team stuff. Eventually AKIRA gets a comeback with a big jumping kick and tags in Tiger Mask. Here's where things get a bit iffy. Mask hits his usual kick combinations, but after a few, he seems to stomp his legs a few times uncharacteristically before going back to them. Liger counters a right leg kick with his knee (which is quite loud) and Mask seems to sell at first before this noticeably becomes a bit more than that when he staggers over to the ropes. Ultimo comes in and starts kicking it, but Tiger Mask clearly doesn't want him doing that and barely sells for him, only rolling out after a dropkick. He then bizarrely calls for a time-out.... in the middle of the match, mind you, ruining the pace completely. I've seen Sayama sell injuries like these before, but he's not THIS good of a seller and would be making sure to get his shit in regardless of it playing a factor, so it definitely wasn't him working a injury angle or whatnot. Very weird attitude in general. Regardless, calling a time-out in a wrestling match and no selling your opponents because your knee hurts is some extreme unprofessionalism and soured the whole match afterwards. AKIRA thankfully covers for him by getting right back in the match and doing some fairly good underdog work in getting around the numbers advantage. He tags in Tiger Mask after a few minutes and he basically just spends the rest of the match on his back while the pair work over his bad leg. Ultimo lands a Asai DDT for the win. AKIRA does well in those very large shoes, getting in some great comeback offence while also selling for the other duo reliably well. Liger and Ultimo put in good performances, through Ultimo impressed me a lot more than Liger at this point in terms of just how smooth Ultimo was compared to him. They work a good dominating routine and even get some big heel heat when they go for Mask's bad leg. All in all, this could've been a lot better had the whole injury nonsense been handled better, but this is still a good performance with some solid action, albeit Sayama is noticeably flagging behind due to obvious factors. RANK: Decent Vs. Black Tiger II (IGF 05.02.2011: Genome14) This is a repeat of the RJPW match these two had, which I wasn't particularly strong about in the first place. Now it's even shorter of a length in a IGF setting, which isn't exactly prone to match quality. For what it's worth, First Tiger is pretty solid for the stuff he pulls out here, but his opponent was pretty basic. I get it, Takaiwa WAS a great wrestler in his prime and this is him nearly 2 decades later, most of which breaking himself down doing big Jr action pieces in the 90s and onward. When he's actually mat wrestling here, he's perfectly fine, good even at spots, but he spends most of this doing generic week one wrestling school stuff: stomps in the corner, scoop slam, forearm strikes, shit like that. It's very boring and him on top is very flavourless. He can't really play the kind of brawling heel that I think he's trying to go for. He sells well for First Tiger's usual hits and all pretty solid through, no complaints there. There's also some cool late game spots as Black Tiger nails a superplex and a top rope back elbow for a near count, gets his Death Valley Bomb kicked out right at 2, not even a near fall (because Sayama gotta be kept strong brother) First Tiger quickly recovers and hits his Tiger Suplex after a spinning back kick for the win.....noticing a trend here. This is basically the same as their RJPW match (with some exact spots in places) but I'm willing to say this is the better match, if only because it cuts the filler (well most of it anyway lol) and goes right into the action. Black Tiger is pretty basic move wise and his technical work doesn't go anywhere, mostly being filler to pad out this even longer. This is a pretty standard performance by Sayama, who mostly sticks to the crowd popping moves. Definitely not one to be worth seeking out for late Tiger Mask fans. It says a lot when I think Fujinami vs Mascaras was better than this lol. RANK: Forgettable W/ Riki Choshu & Tatsumi Fujinami Vs. Gran Hamada, Great Sasuke & Tiger Mask IV (RJPW 18.02.2011: Pro-Wrestling Charity Event ~ Pro-Wrestling Japan Aid 2011) A typical name-value orientated 6-man tag, but nothing terrible. First Tiger and IV have decent sequences together out of everyone else. Choshu is as you'd expect him to be in these kind of matches in that he's all about the greatest hits and really nothing else. There's other sequences here but it's mostly Fujinami and co fumbling on the mat for a good portion in working holds. Tiger IV is probably the only guy out of everyone that can actually "work" to any proper sense but he's only really allowed to use that workrate against First Tiger, otherwise having to work the same pace as everyone else here. There's lots of tags made (like two to three per minute if they aren't working a hold) yet somehow is still incredibly slow as a match format as nearly everyone just sorta slaps on lazy holds. Choshu gets the crowd going with some actual moves but those are few and far between. First Tiger spends most of the middle portion getting his legs worked, including a double dropkick by Sasuke and IV. Outside of that, it's just kicks and working holds. The build to the finish has everyone hit their big signature moves until Fujinami Dragon Screws nearly everyone, Choshu hits a lariat, and First Tiger hits a Diving Headbutt for the win. Pretty standard vet showcase match you'd expect to see as a main card for Dradition or whatever, but quite boring in general. No one can really go much anymore (Sayama is probably the best of the bunch but even then, not a big margin) and if they can, they get paired up with someone who can't do that pace, so they need to slow down a lot. Unless you wanna see a lot of old guys just hold on for dear life mixed in with some nostalgia (trust me there's better matches for that, even on this list) this isn't very good at all. Functional sure, but not good. RANK: Forgettable Vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi II (Legend The Pro Wrestling 07.05.2011) After seemingly making it up to Sayama over the years during the Suzuki feud, Kobayashi is back to his old Tiger Hunter days and he's raring for blood. We also get a hype package where he's training with Choshu at the NJPW Dojo and vowing his victory. This would be one of Kobayashi's last official matches before retiring, with his last being a random NJPW battle royal. The beginning of this is paced around Kobayashi trying to get past Mask's kicks, of which he basically fails a lot, getting knocked around with some good roundhouse strikes. Sayama nails a Tiger Spin but fucks up a Tiger Feint pretty badly. Kobayashi hits a good spinning kick from a Irish Whip and hits some strikes. The narrative of the match is that Kobayashi is trying to rip Sayama of his mask once more, and he quickly gets to it by using a ref distraction while in a headlock to start undoing it bit by bit. Eventually after maybe 3 minutes of wrestling, he's able to just completely rip the thing off after raking at his eyes and whatnot, leading to him losing via DQ. Sayama is pissed, refusing to cover up his face. He goes on the mic and basically says "this is bullshit, not taking the win bro" before demanding a restart, which he ends up getting. Kobayashi gets big heat by teasing just leaving the match altogether and getting a count out in a great little spot before bumrushing him and getting his ass kicked with a big kick to the chest by Mask. He beats down the heel with some big kicks and a flipping senton as well as a good cross chop and his other signature spots, but ends up missing a Diving Headbutt. Kobayashi calls for the Fisherman's Suplex and gets it, but Mask kicks out at 1! Kobayashi at this point kinda goes nuts, hitting a big spinning back kick and a plancha to the outside. Knowing that he can't beat Mask with what he has left, he gets him up to the turnbuckle post and ties his mask into the pole itself, preventing him from getting in the ring. The spot itself takes a bit too long for it to be believable but it was pretty cool to see in action. All in all, I'm not going to pretend this was any good, even for their respective ages. This is really only kept up by the relatively good heat the lads manage to gather here, combined with Kobayashi being in good shape and raring to go as best as he can. It's not the greatest conclusion to such a ironic rivalry as this, but it keeps true to both of them: Sayama is the superior wrestler, but Kobayashi simply won't play clean to allow him to win that way. In the end, it's about the best they could do under the circumstances. RANK: Decent W/ Riki Choshu & Tatsumi Fujinami Vs. Jun Izumida, Tamon Honda & Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (RJPW 21.07.2011: Space Flying Tiger Drop) A fairly eh 6-man. Obviously everyone involved is far from their best incarnations but they put in some perfectly fine ring work here. Tiger Mask is mostly just nailing his greatest hits routine that he's thrown out a few times over in less important matches but he can do that routine good enough, so can't really complain. Kikuchi is funny as the forever underdog that gets beaten up and bullied by everyone else here: obviously by this point he can't throw himself around madly but he does fine in that role. Choshu and Fujinami put in their standard workrate for this, not really much to add. To be honest, if you took out Tiger Mask and Choshu this could easily be a 6-man AJPW uncle fight especially given the real lack of urgency here. Is there some funny stuff with the Honda trio all going headbutt crazy at one point and throwing out some dumb headbutt combos? Yes, but it's overall not really much to talk about in detail. Choshu nails Izumida with a second rope brainbuster and then later follows it up with a lariat for the pin while Tiger Mask kicks Honda and Kikuchi around. All in all, a decent vet showcase but that's really what it is, a showcase. Guys like Izumida in particular were pretty immobile here in general and added very little. RANK: Forgettable Vs. Kuuga (Legend The Pro Wrestling 30.09.2011) I don't know a ton about Kugga beyond the fact that he seems to be a pretty generic heel figure. He almost at once leaves the ring after a big spinning kick and gets overpowered on the mat, needing a eye rake to escape the hold. That starting sequence is basically the whole match: First Tiger lands some offence, Kuuga stalls and/or cheats to get a advantage, rinse and repeat. He's got some heel spots (like he spits into his hand and then sticks it in First Tiger's face at one point in a very gross spot lol) but he's also got some fairly alright flippy stuff, with the dude hitting a big senton to the outside while his opponent was under a stack of chairs. Looked sloppy as shit but more of a PCO-kind of sloppy than a actual dangerous sloppy if that makes any sense: he's hurting himself more than his opponent. First Tiger takes a nasty landing from a missed Flying Headbutt (usually he puts his knees first to mitigate the landing but his head ends up bouncing off the canvas after he falls upper body first). Kugga hits a shitty STO and then moans at the ref when it doesn't get the pin, which was a nice way to get around the bad execution. First Tiger seemed a bit off here as his moves didn't really have that much behind them, and he badly botches the Tiger Suplex O'Connor Roll finish. The crowd are polite to both men but clearly didn't care a lot for this, namely because there's not really any fire behind both men. Kuuga's stuff is alright and he at least knows how to act up as a heel, it's just that this crowd weren't biting at all in terms of actual heat. Maybe that's because he isn't really very well known by the kind of older nostalgia-ridden audience that comes here, but still. A pretty nothing match overall: definitely save your time and skip this one. Kuuga is a pretty plain act that adds nothing to Sayama's ring work by this point. RANK: Forgettable W/ Mil & Dos Caras Vs. Tiger Mask IV, CIMA & Ultimo Guerrero (Mask Nobility Fiesta 2011 ~ Mil Mascaras 40th Anniversary Of Coming To Japan & Depomart 10th Anniversary) For what it's worth, this is fine enough for a nostalgia bout. Guerrero and CIMA alongside Tiger Mask are the young next gen guys that can go, while Mascaras, his bro, and First Tiger are the vets who are of varying physical states. Caras wrestles in a shirt and doesn't really do much beyond the greatest hits and light mat work: he does hit a awesome dive to the outside despite this but still, nothing that really shocks in terms of old man lucha standards. If anything, he plays off well with CIMA's dickish antics. First Tiger can still go fairly well and works good technical mat work alongside pulling out his big fancy spots whenever, he works with everyone here fairly well. Mascaras is also.... well, old by this point but in all fairness, he puts in a good performance for his age, even if Ultimo and co bump a lot for him. That's basically this whole match: younger guys bumping around a lot with older vets who can't obviously go as hard as they can, especially the Caras brothers, but what else would you expect at this point? This also involves a lot of the Caras brothers just outright eating up the younger dudes, either knocking them all down or no-selling their offence to get in their own. It's what you would expect but I appreciate that even when this old they still don't care about selling. lol. After some sloppy back and forward stuff, Mascaras nails the crossbody to pin Guerrero while everyone else is busy, getting the win. We get a prolonged post-match celebration as well as a emotional Hayabusa appearance. As stated, this was basically a fun little nostalgia bout: the young guys were more than happy to be in the ring with the Caras brothers and sell all over the place for them. CIMA's heel stuff was a big highlight of the match as his consistent interruptions and just general shithouse behaviour got him some big heat with the crowd and gave this random no stakes match a little bit more to work with. Everyone puts in a fair enough performance given who's here: obviously the younger guys like Tiger Mask and Guerrero can't really go all out but they work well with the vets and manage to get a fairly good workrate despite the big age gap, even if things do start to fall apart around about the end. All in all, not career defining or anything, but a decent little match that knows what it is, and plays to that greatly. Sayama is a good workhouse that can still bump and actually sell for the younger lads, and does so just fine. RANK: Decent Vs. The Great Sasuke (RJPW 25.10.2011: Breakthrough) What I like about this match first and foremost is that it doesn't attempt to pretend that Sasuke is incredibly equal to Tiger Mask in this context: he is completely out of his depth in these shooty conditions and quickly realises that his opponent is way better than him at stand up, completely shutting down after a few big kicks. The start of the match is basically Sasuke getting his ass beat, in particular a vicious punch to the throat knocks him down. He only gets a advantage after going to the ground and working Mask's legs for a bit: through his limb work is eh, it works well to get over his desperate condition to finding a way to keep Mask subdued and away from his kicks. He even tries working the arms and the head with holds, but Sayama finds ways out of them as well. Sasuke is a bit of a mad lad here as well, turning a top rope splash into a neck bump after missing and going for a fancy dropkick through the ropes that ends up with him hitting the floor fairly hard. Guy lands a Swanton Bomb to the outside and he bounces off Tiger with the impact, just ouch overall in this second half as he hurls himself all over. Sasuke does another one and ends up missing and landing on a fairly small mat soon afterwards as not to be outdone. Basically, while he sucks at shoot-fighting, he's great when allowed to be a lunatic, and that's where he gains the advantage here. After this missed flip, however, Sasuke is done, and despite the crowd being massively behind him, it means nothing when Tiger Mask is smacking you with kicks until you drop, which Sasuke then does, getting submitted with a key lock. Not much of a "match" per se, just Sasuke getting wrecked before putting it all on the line with dives until he physically can't anymore. Simple narrative, but it works here, and the crowd really get into it. As a match, obviously both men aren't exactly in their prime, but fill their roles great here. Sakuke is a risk-taker, Sayama is a more pragmatic vet that focuses less on his flips and more on concentrated, grounded ring work and strikes. It's not very good workrate wise but a fun little outing. RANK: Decent W/ Mr Cacao & Great Sasuke Vs. Black Tiger, Ikuto Hidaka & Fishman (Fukamen MANIA 20 25.12.2011) This is one of Fishman I's last matches before passing away a few years later. He's miles away from his prime by point and to be blunt, he's not very good here whatsoever. I'm not going to hold anything against him because the dude was 60, but still, even by old man lucha standards he's pretty terrible and cringed watching him botch move after move with First Tiger: thankfully he's kept to mostly doing strikes or assists with the more mobile guys where he's either holding somebody on the ropes or hitting a strike. I'd rather watch modern day Dory Funk wrerestle than him and I DON'T say that lightly. Hidaka and Cacao have some decent fundamentals and can work fine much like their last match together, through Hidaka does most of the actual big bumps. Black Tiger is meh and I didn't really care for much of what he was doing either. A lot of the middle section is just headlock city: I get working a hold but this was just strike into rest hold repeated a ton. Hidaka mixes in some good agile work here and there, namely a rolling senton and a handspring calf kick, good shit. Sasuke eventually escapes and manages to get the hot tag to First Tiger, who wrecks Hidaka and Black Tiger with kicks before trying (and failing) to get Fishman to bump for a sunset flip, which ends awkwardly. There's some more scuffle between the trios before Black Tiger hits a low blow on Sasuke to get the advantage, countering his top rope elbow into a superplex. Fishman and Hidaka are taken out with a dive and savate kick before First Tiger battles Black Tiger, getting a near fall after taking a Death Valley Driver. Both men try to land the finishing blow before First Tiger gets the win with his modified Tiger Suplex rollup once again albeit he almost fucks it up by not hooking the arms afterwards: bonus points for the shitty dubbed over rock music they have playing over his theme at the end lol. All in all, this isn't great. Most of the guys here put on half-baked performances outside of Cacao and Hidaka, who do most of the actual ringwork together. Black Tiger and co aren't bad but they aren't very good either, with a lot of dull work between them. First Tiger adds in some exciting stuff out of them but he's forced to work mostly with Fishman, who can barely move. Alright in general but not a match I'd watch again. RANK: Forgettable Vs. El Samurai (Legend The Pro Wrestling 08.01.2012) Complete garbage. I didn't care about El Samurai in his six-man with Mascaras and co a few years back and the prospect of him having to wrestle First Tiger by his lonesome, whom was starting to fairly decline at this point, is a big issue for me. My fears are confirmed when the guys just at once start trading random holds, Samurai fucks up a Americana somehow and has to cover it by going for a pin in the first two minutes of the match, and he starts hitting these uber loose punches. His style is mostly generic beatdown nonsense that the crowd are silent for, and it's not a respectful silence either. They finally pick up when First Tiger hits his signature Tiger Feint but then Samurai gets back in and does some shitty toe stomps to get him down for a single leg Boston that lasts for what seemed like forever. Later on he hits a Diving Headbutt to crickets before botching a reverse DDT. He does nail a decent top rope dropkick but again, the crowd don't really care because it hasn't been built up any. Samurai tries to follow this up with more offence, but Mask recovers, hits a spinning kick, then pins Samurai with the Tiger Suplex. This was pretty bad overall, and I squarely put the blame on Samurai for this as most of the match is him sticking on heatless holds or strikes. If you are going to do a strike-orientated style, your strikes need to look, well, good, not like a budget post-broken neck Chono without any of the charisma. Tiger Mask tries to get something out of this with his selling but this was mind-numbingly boring and just felt like complete padding for the most part. Shockingly bad beyond the last minute or so, probably one of the worst matches I had to watch for this entire project. RANK: Forgettable X2 W/ Great Sasuke Vs. Atsushi Onita & Ichiro Yaguchi (RJPW 16.03.2012: Daybreak) Utter slog. Onita turns this into a brawl fairly quickly with a pre-match ambush and this turns into walk-and-brawl antics almost at once, with Tiger Mask mostly being the guy falling around chairs and whatnot. Yaguchi is.... like nothing here. He's a big dude with a barbed bat, that's basically it for stuff worth talking about. Replace him with literally anyone else and the aura would be the exact same, he's just here to swing the bat and keep Onita out of tricky situations. Onita himself obviously can't wrestle worth a lick beyond some weapon spots, a DDT, and spraying mist, he also does a limp powerbomb at one point and assists in another. Tiger Mask and Sasuke kick out of every powerbomb and DDT here, even the assisted ones on the barbed wire, making the duo look pretty strong and the invading force incredibly weak as they can't seem to put down the pair with tons of offence, despite this mostly being one-sided. Onita misses a chair shot and ends up hitting his partner, which leads the masked duo to do a comeback, leading Tiger Mask to wreck Yaguchi with multiple DDT's and a Tiger Suplex for the pin while Sasuke hits a dive outside to keep Onita away. This is more of a angle to get the eventual Onita/Tiger Mask match set up and you clearly see that as the case as most of this was mostly just a lot of meandering brawling and weapon spots. I didn't really buy that there was any real hatred between the teams either, which could've at least salvaged the messy format. Had they went all in on the hardcore aspect, this could've been at least a relatively interesting prospect, but because of the restrictions that RJPW provides (combined with them being in Korakuen) they had to stick to this half-assed stuff. All in all, complete filler and badly paced. This is thankfully the weakest part of the multi-year Onita feud. RANK: Forgettable Vs. Atsushi Onita (RJPW 06.07.2012: Strong Style Ism) Obviously you get what you expect here with a Onita bout: even in the 90's he was basically completely spent workrate wise, so you get his typical smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that the guy by this point can't even really move around without looking like his knees are going to explode. This includes the very stipulation itself, which while sounding interesting and unique (described as a "Dangerous Special Lumberjack Death" format) is in actuality just a standard Lumberjack match, but some of the guys have weapons, namely Onita's guys. This quickly gets played out by the second time it happens, through we get a nice spot where Tiger Mask gets thrown out but does his Tiger Faint to get back in and smack Onita with a kick. When Onita gets thrown out, he gets stomped to death, basically. He spends what seems like forever getting hit with incredibly light clubbing blows and kicks. Onita blades almost at once after being thrown at the ring post and spends a lot of the start just getting smacked around by Mask's huge kicks, only recovering when he's able to throw him to his Lumberjack side and his control section is typically him just doing stuff onto weapons like DDT's into barbed wire bats and whatnot. Eventually the match gets out of hand when the lumberjacks predictively start brawling a bit, involving a uber contrived chair duel spot that looked dumb, but enjoyable nonetheless. Eventually this turns into a more conventional affair as Onita focuses on the damaged leg of Tiger Mask with some holds until the lumberjacks drag him out and nail him with a pretty cool looking dropkick from the apron. Tiger Mask tries to finish him off with the Crossface Chickenwing but more interference stops that from being the finish, and Onita hits yet another DDT on a barbed wire bat for another near fall. Yaguchi mistimes a bat smack and ends up hitting Onita, leaving Mask to land his usual tombstone/diving headbutt combo into the finish, which has him hit a running barbed wire bat shot to the head for the win. Post match has both men seemingly respectfully shaking hands before Onita sprays mist into his face and beats him down, while the bell keeper goes ballistic with the bell ringing. I'm not gonna pretend like this was great or anything, but as a messy hardcore bout, it's perfectly fine even with the limitations. Onita can't really wrestle much but he can emote very well, and his strong charisma keeps him as a good heel foil here. He knows he's outmatched in the ring by a fair margin and relies on his old war buddies to do the dirty work, while Tiger Mask's comebacks are worked well here: he can still pop a crowd with his greatest hits on display. About the best match you could've got in the conditions given but Sayama does a fair job here getting his opponent to something good. RANK: Decent W/ Tiger Shark & Tigers Mask Vs. Spider J, Orochi & Kugga (Osaka Pro 22.07.2012: 2012 Hurricane) Some decent action at the start as First Tiger beats down Kuuga with some big kicks, a flying cross chop and a Tiger Feint, which is all solid fantastically by the heel trio respectfully, with the guys at the apron going nuts while this is going down. Tiger Shark is fine enough for a Sayama clone but he's a bit sluggish in places (like he's 38 here and started wrestling when he was 33, so he's not exactly got time on his side there) but he does fine. The heel trio have some cool sequences where they are cutting off people or just doing general asshole antics, but I couldn't really pick out any particular member in terms of overall performance, especially in the later halves when they start just outside brawling a lot in-between their ring work, through Orochi has some nice agile stuff squeezed in here. I guess Tigers Mask tumbling down the ramp was funny enough. At one point First Tiger looked confused as fuck as Kugga's walking down the ramp after the spot and just sorta didn't do anything while he was getting beaten down: not sure what was going on there but it looked very awkward. The main portion of the middle is based around Tiger Shark getting worked over by all of them, with some nice inventive offence thrown in. Kugga whipping him with the ring cover was pretty brutal. Eventually Tiger Shark gets the hot tag to First Tiger who sends all of them packing with some nice strikes. After hitting a Tiger DDT to Kuuga he tags out, leaving Tiger Shark to hit a awesome corner kick, German suplex, and roundhouse to the head combo that he does amazingly fast. Eventually Kuuga saves the day by holding onto his boot, preventing Orochi from getting a Irish Whip and allowing the heel lads to take control. In particular, Spider J lands a nasty dropkick while Tigers Mask is kneeling, which he bumps a ton for. Eventually Tiger Shark is able to take back control with a great double dropkick before all of the Tiger guys land dives to the outside in a cool bit. Tigers Mask gets his own back on Kuuga by sending him flying with a massive dropkick on top of the ramp, leading to Shark and First Tiger to land a Tombstone + Diving Headbutt combo on Orochi: he's stunned enough that Sayama can win with his regular Tiger Suplex for the finish. All in all, a good lucha hybrid outing with some good pacing and action, outside of a somewhat messy start to the middle portion. Spider J and Orochi were good Jr style heels and Kuuga was fine enough for what he did beyond the usual eye raking and whatnot. Shark and Tigers Mask were fine as well: Tigers had better outings but Shark seemed more balanced in comparison. Even in his mid-50's Sayama can still go pretty well at this point and doesn't disappoint for the portions where he's in for. He's obviously limited here but manages to work strongly for the little time he shows up for. All in all, a solid outing. RANK: Good W/ Kuniaki Kobayashi Vs. Atsushi Onita & Ichiro Yaguchi (Legend The Pro Wrestling 13.01.2013) Kobayashi comes out of semi-retirement to help out Tiger Mask in his ongoing feud with Onita. Of course, you know how this goes by now: Onita starts a brawl early with Kobayashi, leaving Tiger Mask to handle Yaguchi, which he does fairly well with a dive to the outside. The next few minutes are basically everyone running around doing walk and brawl shit. Kobayashi...... can't really work at all anymore, which is a stark contrast to two years ago where he was limited, but still able to work basic stuff. Here, he's physically stiff as anything and even doing basic stuff seems to be a issue, so you get him (slowly) hitting his head against a Korakuen sign, or (very very slowly) falling over a row of chairs with Onita. After a few minutes of this they get back in the ring, with Kobayashi just sorta bumping around for everyone else. Yaguchi sucks as per usual and is literally only here to swing the barbed wire bat or do some unconvincing raking of the face using it. He does one move: a spinning kick: and it looks pretty bad. Kobayashi actually does a better one just a few minutes later before he's put on the defensive again with a Onita mist spray. He takes even more offence with the bat while stuck in a figure-four, as well as Yaguchi doing like a leg-vice with the bat, which looked goofy. They make a stack of chairs and barbed bats and throws Kobayashi (super slowly) into it. Kobayashi finally gets a comeback after like 30 bat shots, dodging one that ends up hitting Onita by accident. This is enough for Tiger Mask to get his shots in, with the pair hitting a nice double back kick combo on Yaguchi for a near fall, as well as a double Fisherman's Buster for the big pin. All in all, this isn't really that good workrate wise, but the crowd at least bite into Kobayashi having to struggle through this almost solo and do get into this by the end. For me, this was just a garbage brawl that didn't even have that much garbage in it beyond a endless amount of barbed wire bat shots. Sayama doesn't do much of anything and everyone else here suffer a lot for it without his presence. Boring pace and a near endless heat spot in the middle killed this for me. RANK: Forgettable Vs. Naomichi Marufuji (RJPW 07.06.2013: Yes, We Can! ~Revival of the Real Strong Style) This was untelevised but a fancam exists of the full match bar a minute or so. Maru comes here with his own version of the Tiger Mask and starts things off by not clean breaking the guy while in the ropes, establishing himself as cocky right off the bat. Naturally he gets hit with some big kicks and gets knocked to the outside afterwards for his troubles. He continues hitting kicks but also tries to lock in some holds before Maru gets to the ropes. The latter tries to bring his own strikes into this but is way too inexperienced, with Mask easily countering his kicks and hitting his own, namely to Maru's left arm (he's had a long history of injuries around that upper body section) consistently. He sells this strongly by clutching it every time one lands, as well as scrambling when his opponent works over it. Maru tries to set up the apron dropkick but Mask manages to roll out of place, leading to him having to throw some forearms and his weird neck snap twist thing he does to soften him up for one, which looked pretty great when it did eventually get landed. He follows this up with a big jumping elbow and head stomp from the corner, finally pulling a superkick for a near fall. He tries for the Shiranui but his opponent escapes and manages to dodge some fairly sharp shots for a spinning back kick to the gut, which turns the tables, adding on a Tiger DDT for good measure. A Tiger Suplex gets countered as they both roll outside, but Maru is able to land a top rope dropkick while he's trying to get in, giving him the smallest of near falls. This leaves Mask badly on the ropes, with Maru landing a successful big Shiranui but his opponent just grabs the rope at the last second. The finish has Maru try for a Tiger Driver but fail, leading him to modify it brilliantly into a cross armbreaker in the middle of the move. Stuck in the centre of the ring and with nowhere to go Tiger Mask is stuck but refuses to tap, forcing the ref to call off the match in favour for his opponent. The first half of this is pretty slow as Maru has to pace himself down a lot for his opponent and he's still trying to find his footing post-Omega injury as he moved into heavyweight bouts, switching between a more grounded approach and his old Genius of the Ark Jr days. Eventually they pick up good momentum despite the limitations and have some fairly decent sequences between the slower but far more sharper Tiger Mask vs his much lighter and faster foe. Maru is able to hit some of his big spots and they all look really good, but it feels like he doesn't really know what to do with the slower pace, having to fill his time between spots with loose kicks or whatnot that hardly look convincing. Tiger Mask is obviously far more comfortable with such a concept and has some solid working holds thrown alongside some hard strikes, but this felt like a off-day for him as he didn't really pull half of what he was capable of here. This sounds like a great match on paper but it just didn't completely translate well, and I kinda have to blame Marufuji for that factor moreso than his opponent, as weird as that sounds. RANK: Almost Good, but some off moments makes this a Decent W/ Tiger Shark Vs. Atsushi Onita & Ichiro Yaguchi (Legend The Pro Wrestling 14.07.2013) The listing on Cagematch doesn't list the stipulation of the match here: it's a double bullrope match, so everyone is connected to a single strand of rope between each other and weapons are scattered on the four sides of the ring. Sounds incredibly dumb and impractical? That's because it is, especially when Yaguchi's rope falls off in the first minute of this starting. In all fairness, Onita and co try to work the stipulation with unique spots, like knocking the Tiger duo into each other or whatnot, but they forgo the stipulation after a bit when Yaguchi uses scissors to cut through the rope, turning this into a generic trash brawl, with him and his partner focusing on Tiger Shark mostly as their rope is still attached. For what it's worth, Tiger Mask gets good reactions when he's able to get in his offence before Onita and co cut him off and use his remaining rope to tie him to the ring ropes, allowing them to focus in on Tiger Shark exclusively. Rest of this is just Yaguchi and Onita doing consistent barbed wire bat shots or Onita spraying mist. Tiger Mask eventually just takes off the loose strap instead of trying to untie the knot he's stuck in (why he didn't do that right away is another matter) and goes on the offensive. The second part of this turns into a more traditional tag team as everyone now starts to play by the rules. This leads to the Tiger duo to go for a extended beat down on the pair, landing combo kicks, diving headbutts, and a big dive to the outside by Tiger Shark. Tiger Mask gets the win on Yaguchi after a top rope crossbody. By workrate, this was mostly pretty bad until the end, but I think the Tiger duo make up for that with a fairly strong comeback in the last few minutes or so: for what it's worth the crowd was really into Tiger Mask's comeback and clearly bought into the match: either that's because of the match itself or the nostalgia factor is up to you. Either way, it's a trash brawl (and I do mean trash in this sense) and typical Onita gimmicks that eventually gets fairly good when Tiger Mask works his babyface stuff alongside Shark. Not a essential post-prime Tiger Mask showing but one that might be interesting as a perspective for his Onita feud. RANK: Decent Vs. Atsushi Onita II (Legend The Pro Wrestling 16.08.2013) Such a weirdly paced match. This is apart of the near infinite Onita/Tiger Mask feud and we unfortunately get a lot of same spots being repeated: even the Tiger Feint into mist shit was already done exactly prior to this. Onita also smacks some poor trainee hard enough with a chair that the base of it snaps off. As you can imagine, this is mostly just the same formula as their last singles match: lots of weapon and outside spots, Sayama smacks around Onita with some big kicks and gains the advantage until his backup gets in and interferes. Repeat that a few times and you have, essentially, the whole match, as well as Onita screaming or shouting the whole way through. Despite tons of weapons and just blatant cheating throughout, the ref only DQ's Onita after he fireballs Tiger Mask in the face.... for some undiscernible reason. All in all, a trash brawl with some funny stuff thrown in. Tiger Mask nails his usual spots and looks fine and while this definitely wasn't very good workrate wise, there's at least some charm in how incredibly messy this was and how self-aware everyone was about it. Guilty pleasure for sure, but don't come looking for anything worth much at all. RANK: Good Vs. Akitoshi Saito (RJPW 16.04.2014: Strong Style Returns Project) This was untelevised but exists as a series of fancam recordings. Saito and First Tiger go right into attempting kicks, with First Tiger winning with some fairly hard shots before hitting his usual spots with his signature Tiger Feint and Tiger Spin respectfully. He finds something to work with as Saito's legs keep getting blasted with some stiff kicks to them before Saito just bumrushes him with some stiff forearm strikes of his own to counterbalance. Saito tries for his own high kick but Mask blocks it and goes for a nicely done back high kick to knock him down. They tease a apron suplex (that was NEVER happening lol get outta here with that) but he manages to hit his DDT instead and then a dodgy piledriver on the exposed mat. The fancam misses what goes on outside so we skip that: looked like a lot of nothing brawling anyway. Saito hits a nicely done delayed brainbuster for the first near fall. First Tiger responds with his Tiger DDT, a top rope crossbody, a Tombstone but doesn't go for the pin, instead missing his Diving Headbutt. Saito responds with some lariats for a near fall and motions for his backdrop, but gets knocked out of it: in response he lands two Death Cloaks, as well as a dodgy lariat for a near fall. Saito finally hits his forbidden backdrop and his Death Sickle, but Mask won't quit and hits a savate kick when he tries for another lariat, hitting some more strikes before getting the win with the Tiger Suplex. Some might be bugged out by how much offence Saito hits to see First Tiger just eventually get up and win with relative tame stuff in comparison but I thought this was well-paced, focusing around Saito wearing down his opponent over time with big blows and climbing for the advantage as opposed to Sayama taking a fairly big early lead. They build up to the backdrop nicely by having his opponent escape from it multiple times over and Saito just keeps on attempting it so that when he finally does actually hit it and it isn't just another tease, it's a big shock for the audience. Saito puts on a fine enough performance: he's basically how you would expect him to be here, just kinda his average workrate. First Tiger hits everything well and still looks solid in the ring despite some fumbles. Not a great match but certainly a good example of a considerably late Tiger Mask having good matches. RANK: Good W/ Tiger Shark Vs. Black Tiger & Mitsuya Nagai (Dradition 19.11.2014: Immortal Dragon) This starts off with.... you guessed it, a trash brawl! In all fairness, Nagai is a lot better at this kind of stuff than some of First Tiger's other opponents, and his goofy persona helps with getting through the walk and brawl stuff at the start. Black Tiger is a fun heel that cheats a ton with eye pokes and a delayed Shattered Dreams at one point just for the fun of it. Both together make a solid heel duo that work over Super Tiger for a good portion of this match. I love how the pair don't really try to hide their heel antics and just do them right in front of the ref lol. Eventually a suplex counter allows for the hot tag to First Tiger, who hits his usual kicks and signature spots, as well as a solid rolling senton splash. Eventually the pair take over with some leg work that goes nowhere (I do mean that as well, they work on it for a minute before dropping the whole thing) before First Tiger is able to get his second wind with some kicks. Super Tiger has a fairly alright exchange with Nagai involving some slap fights and Nagai countering a kick into a Capture Suplex. Black Tiger does more heel stuff but also pulls out a nice modified Tombstone and top rope back elbow for a near fall. There's a really dumb spot where Nagai and Super Tiger are fighting, Black Tiger gets involved, First Tiger is the legal man but doesn't bother to help the guy and lets him try to get out of the double team by himself, then hits a crossbody both him and Black Tiger, who's holding him in place. This somehow takes them both out and leads to a near fall. Eventually Black Tiger manages to counter a diving headbutt thanks to Nagai interfering, First Tiger takes a big back bump but recovers to hit a spinning back kick into Tiger Suplex for the win. Obviously this isn't particularly great (almost everyone involved is way past their prime and Super Tiger is incredibly mediocre) but as a match, it's perfectly fine for what it is. Super Tiger gets some spots to shine, Nagai and Black Tiger/Takaiwa are good as a heel duo that cheat consistently, keeping a fresh pace and not overusing the same heat spots, mixing stuff up. First Tiger is solid for what little he does beyond his kicks and some agile spots: very well done for someone his age in particular. All in all, a good little match that doesn't overextend itself. RANK: Decent W/ Billy Ken Kid, Ryota Chikuzen Vs. Asosan, Minoru Fujita & Naoki Sakurajima (Kyushu Pro 01.03.2015) This is Tiger Mask's third final match before his fated Akebono bout retires him (and it's also really his final officially recorded bout: the Akebono match wasn't ever caught on camera and his "match" in 2016 was barely even a minute, so that REALLY doesn't count in the end but we'll cover it anyway) and he's teaming up with a bunch of decent performers as well. I don't know most of them to really judge their average performances, but some of them like Billy Ken Kid and whatnot were really bombastic and agile while guys like Chikuzen got their ass beat and really weren't that dynamic in comparison, mostly sticking to basic chops and slams. Tiger Mask puts on a pretty decent performance: you know by now how that mostly entails him hitting most of his greatest hits, a few sharp kicks, as well as some general limb work. He's not exactly incredible or anything but he gets in his work just fine and is a reasonable hand in these conditions. Eventually Asosan and co do some heel antics to get Ken Kid away from continuing to work over Fujita and they have a middling outside brawl for a few minutes. They then work over Ken Kid for a while with some fine enough ring work but nothing amazing, just some good double team moves. Sakurajima does like a People's Elbow but it's a headbutt instead, which was pretty funny. Eventually Chikuzen clears house thanks to a hot tag and Tiger Mask helping out, but the other team recovers after Ken Kid gets back in the match after Fujita sneaks in a low blow. This eventually leads to a triple team move where they hold up Ken Kid sideways while Asosan goes for a middle rope splash, which gets a near fall. Sakurajima tries for one more Sliding N but Ken counters and gets a Air Raid. Tiger Mask comes in and hits his signature kicks, Tombstone Piledriver, and Diving Headbutt for the win. This is a pretty decent match but doesn't really get into any high gear. There's nice moves but this is mostly just kinda basic ring work, and half of the people involved were far from their prime so this kept to a third gear for the most part, especially given the rather casual ring in the theatre layout or whatever they had going on there lol. The crowd were into this by the end but this was just kinda meh for me. As the (unofficial) end to Tiger Mask's career, it ends on a good, but noticeably dry conclusion for a man of his standing. RANK: Decent ========= Sayama's last match would be against Akebono at RJPW's Burning Tiger event. During the finish, which had Ake land his signature splash and get the win, Sayama reported chest pains, which eventually turned out to be underlying Coronary artery disease and would require emergency surgery involving having multiple catheters installed. This would effectively put him out of commission permanently, despite him proclaiming that he'd continue to wrestle in a RJPW press conference shortly after recovering. However, he'd wrestle one more time in a sort of trial match to see if he could feasibly wrestle again. Vs. Minowaman (RJPW 23.06.2016: Legend of The Gold V) This was unaired but was recorded by local cameras there at the event. but This is a very hard one to judge because it's not even really a match, it's one minute of action and then nothing else. This is namely because Sayama is naturally in no real ring condition whatsoever (he openly admits in interviews that his only exercise leading up to this was just doing casual golf) and this is more of a way to hawk his new "Sumabi" martial arts to the crowd, which was more or less Sayama's typical way to work through his limitations by having this "martial art" involving a points system, very quick matches, namely because touching the ropes: any part of the ropes mind you, not even like a rope break: leads to the other person getting a point. There's some comedy early on as Minowa backs up to the corner, but then protests because he wasn't touching the ropes. Minowa sells like a champ for Mask's fairly meh kicks, even getting knocked down by them. He also has to basically bump to the floor after Sayama botches his kneebar transition after he catches his leg. He tries to boot Minowa in the face while he's on the floor, but gets caught into his own kneebar, leading to a draw. Naturally this was pretty rubbish all in all: Sayama seems incapable of doing much at all (not helped by his full body suit and whatnot) and Minowa has always been a pretty niche guy in general. I tend to ignore this in the long run because it adds nothing. Thankfully this is the only Sumabi match ever to my recollection. RANK: ????? ========= Sayama would stay out of pro-wrestling afterward and wouldn't return. Considering his physical state has only gotten considerably worse in recent years (with him having developed a rather persistent shaking that seems to plague him almost nonstop) it's extremely doubtful we'll ever see the man in a wrestling ring again. Hopefully this has allowed you to find some proper solid gems, and appericate his late-form work a little bit more. Sayama might've not been the greatest post-prime worker ever, but his versatility and incredible agility provided him with more than enough top notch matches to look through and a lot to consider when figuring out where he lands on a potential top 100 listing. Here are my top 10 from this Deep Dive (in no particular order because that's pretty hard!) Vs. TAKA Michinoku Vs. Tiger Mask IV I Vs. Alexander Otsuka I Vs. Alexander Otsuka II Vs. Minoru Tanaka Vs. Minoru Suzuki I Vs. Genichiro Tenryu Vs. Genba Hirayanagi & Yoshinobu Kanemaru W/ Marufuji Vs. Jushin Thunder Liger, The Great Sasuke & Ultimo Dragon W/ Koji Kanemoto & Tiger Mask IV Vs. KUDO & Toshiaki Kawada W/ Kota Ibushi

When he's arsed, he's actually fairly good for his size and height. Nash may be "lazy" or "unmotivated" at times but he's got a good understanding of timing and psychology: he was never going to do a lot anyway given his injuries and age but he wrestled a style that was realistic and didn't try to take any shine from his opponents. He knew how to make underdogs get incredibly over, he was always generous for hot tags or big acts when selling, and despite his rep as a pretty prolific figure that popularised wrestling politicization, he wasn't someone who mindlessly got pushed to the top: Nash had obvious charisma and the size to go along with it. He was smart enough to use his limitations as strengths, which I can most assuredly say not many wrestlers in general could do. Get him in the ring with people who he respects, he'll put on a good show. I feel like that aspect got overlooked while Hall got overhyped as the guy who could actually go (even if his record isn't exactly much improved: in fact I'd say Nash beats him out in terms of WCW stuff overall) which is unfortunate. Top 100? Hell no, but he certainly wouldn't be miles off that either.

Part 4 Vs. Minoru Suzuki (RJPW 12.12.2006: Real Strong Style Decisive Battle) One of the last truly top notch Tiger Mask matches. This is mainly because Suzuki is a great foil for the general stoicism of his opponent. It's also the GOOD Suzuki, not the weird caricature who just spams forearms and maybe five other moves all match. He messes with his opponent right at the start, taking a bunch of high kicks and laughing along with them, even doing a big Flair flop after a roundhouse and waiting until the 9 count to get up to mock the audience and Sayama, which really set the tone for the whole match: Suzuki likes playing with his food a lot. While that's a bad thing, it's also a good thing for Sayama, because it gives him room to set up comebacks when he gets over-confident. Suzuki takes advantage of a missed high kick that hits the ring post outside, and smashes Mask's leg with some big chair shots. Him laughing like a maniac in front of Mask's students while hitting some hard chair shots was a great little bit in general. A lot of the match structure is based around Suzuki's trash talk and trying to catch the one big submission with Mask barely being able to escape and having to find innovative ways around Suzuki, namely when he tries to operate in stand-up strike exchanges, which has been his biggest weakness in his actual MMA career. The ground work is great by the pair, with some good selling by Mask as he's having to avoid all of Suzuki's big submission attempts and desperately grasping for anything that can work in his favour. Suzuki is also a master at being the heel in peril: he sells his panic when Mask lands a lucky spinning kick to his gut expertly like he'd just got shot, but it never feels overdramatic, and you never know when he'll get back in control again or if this'll be the point where he's able to win outright. He's effortlessly able to combine his extended control segments into believable "oh shit I messed up" instances where he gets beaten down by taking too big of a chance, always noticeably extending his boundaries until it bites him in the ass. Obviously Tiger Mask's ring work is more or less the same as you'd expect: the usual big signature spots, but he also adds some pretty fiery kicks here to match Suzuki's stiff slaps, which I appreciated. Eventually after his best attempts Suzuki grabs on a sleeper after Mask throws virtually everything he's got left in terms of strikes, getting finally dropped with a Gotch Piledriver. His opponent firmly out, Suzuki grabs on a basic leg lock, but one of his trainees throws in the towel as Mask is firmly unresponsive. Suzuki's post match celebration is great as well as he celebrates like he just won every world title in existence: just screams of that little shit persona he was so capable of doing back then as he manically jumps up and down in the middle of the ring. Tiger Mask sells a ton for Suzuki and makes him a true menace, Suzuki is a perfect foil and truly soaks in the energy here. It's not insanely workrate but it keeps to a strong narrative, follows it through, and gives a good story of a respected vet trying (and failing) to step up to someone far more vicious than they ever were. A truly phenomenal spectacle of a match. RANK: Great W/ Masao Orihara Vs. Minoru Suzuki & Kota Ibushi (RJPW 07.03.2007) This was naturally pretty messy, being more of a angle to set up Tiger Mask/Suzuki II later this year. The version shown on the DVD collection only shows maybe 5 minutes of this in action, so this was clearly intended to be more of a transitional match. That said, it isn't bad at all in terms of what we do see of the match beyond the start and whatnot. Ibushi and Suzuki are a odd couple but they work well together here: Ibushi is a reluctent partner that kinda has to go along with Suzuki's antics to stay in his good books, but he mainly interacts with Orihara mostly until the finish. Speaking of him, he was fine from what I seen of him (a nice Spider Suplex for one, albeit Ibushi takes it on his neck because of course he does) and Tiger Mask looks strong here beating up Suzuki and getting the better of him as compared to their last encounter. This ends with Ibushi kicking out of as much of Mask's signature offence as he can, before a Tiger Suplex does him in. Gotta say, this was fine enough, but nothing much special and you definitely aren't missing anything out, even if the Ibushi/Suzuki duo sounds enticing on paper. Not much to say about this, really, through Suzuki shit-talking the ref in a post-match promo was funny. I'd probably say to skip this as it really doesn't add much of anything outside of building up to something better down the line. RANK: Forgettable W/ Kota Ibushi Vs. KUDO & Toshiaki Kawada (RJPW 08.06.2007) This is significantly less cut than the tag team earlier this year: probably because holy shit, Dangerous K has shown up and he's going right into strike exchanges with Tiger Mask. While this isn't the potential big match it could have been in each man's primes, this is still a great pairing, and Kawada's ring general antics elevate this further when they start spamming kicks like a more fancier Sasaki/Kobashi exchange. He sells well for Mask's offence and they both equally go back and forward in terms of the pace here. Him and Ibushi is, again, a good pairing, the younger more agile youth against the experienced vet, something Kawada does equally well here, especially when on top delivering his usual stiff kicks and knocking the youngster around. Even he's nowhere near even his early 2000 workrate and is quite beaten up, he can still go fairly well albeit relying more on his reputation and psychology than big workrate sequences. KUDO and Ibushi basically just do flippy spot stuff and there's some cool sequences here between the pair. Yes, some of it is a bit contrived and rather silly in places but overall doesn't insult the intelligence too much. The main attraction is the Kawada/Tiger Mask dynamic through, and both men get in on the action even when they aren't the legal guys, consistently laying in blows to the other to help out their younger partners. Ibushi goes nuts at the end with a weird somersault heel kick into a big moonsault to the outside which he just misses completely and ends up going into the first row but Kawada still sells like a trooper. Tiger Mask then easily gets the pin despite KUDO barely getting worked over with his Tiger Suplex variation. While I'm tempted to rate this somewhat in the middle because of the lackluster ending, the match itself was pretty good overall: Kawada even at this point could enhance a match by a ton with just his general reputation and grumpy uncle antics: he really makes sure to have a lasting impression against Tiger Mask with some great kick sequences between the pair. Sayama is the same as he normally is at this point, but he puts in a little bit more effort against Kawada, even just outright taking a top rope superplex (which, believe me, at this point he really shouldn't have been taking) and Ibushi and KUDO are fine enough as foils, naturally I'm far more impressed with Ibushi's crazy style than KUDO's decent but generic Jr heavyweight work here. All in all, a reasonably solid match helped with some good starpower across the board. RANK: Good Vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi (RJPW 21.09.2007: Strong Style Karl Gotch Memorial Show) It was at least good to see these two guys back in the ring together. Naturally Kobayashi is retired by this point: he'd return for some comedy stuff every few years or so: but this is the first actual match he's had since he retired seven years ago, and it clearly does show this as the case here, through he can still throw a pretty mean kick. The pair do some homages to their earlier battles in NJPW, and Sayama in particular has his workrate boots on here as he flips and bumps around for his opponent. He's a bit sloppy here and there but overall, it's a fairly good performance for his age, outside of him just doing a random top rope backflip that almost ends in him falling on his face. You can tell that he wanted to do more than what he usually did out of respect for the guy, as well as just trying to get the match over in general. Mask focuses on Kobayashi's arm with working holds, namely armbars and Kimura locks. This keeps most of this a grounded affair, which is good for both men as Kobayashi really doesn't have much to give in terms of, well, moves. He does a decent enough baseball slide and a elbow drop: add some kicks in, a few headlocks and his finish, that's basically his entire offence here. Despite some close calls from both men nailing big counters on the other, this eventually ends after Tiger Mask uses his modified Tiger Suplex to get the pin. All in all, this wasn't great. Tiger Mask bumps like mad here and pulls out a lot of transitions and moves he hasn't done in a good few years at this point, namely because Kobayashi is so limited in comparison. I commend them for giving it socks and this certainly wasn't bad, but this just felt like a far more sloppy/slower rethread of better matches. I get it, it's not going to be as good, but at least mix things up here a bit if you are going for a older version of this in action, experiment a bit at least. I can't really blame either (Sayama was quite old by this point and couldn't really be relied on to carry someone like him to something super good) for how this came out, but it's still a issue that sadly doesn't get worked around very well here. RANK: Forgettable Vs. Minoru Suzuki II (RJPW 20.12.2007: All or Nothing) Last match these two had, I said it was Tiger Mask's last truly great showing (excluding the Tenryu bout: we'll get to that later) now they have a storied rematch where he's trying to get his honor back after the beating last time. The start has Mask use his kicks to knock Suzuki around, but he's not able to sustain any advantage against his opponent, who's quickly able to take control on the mat. We also get Suzuki having a scuffle with both the ref and Kobayashi on the outside in the meantime between the action. Suzuki sells Mask's sustained offence well, throwing himself around at times for the guy, but we just don't get enough actual ring work here beyond Suzuki playing around with the ref for what seems like ages, as well as teasing pins but then not committing to them. This is fine enough for the start, but the lads kinda run out of ideas after a few minutes and it turns into a regular Suzuki match: sleeper hold into Gotch Piledriver (which made no sense because Mask was already down and out from the sleeper) him doing silly faces, some no selling, etc. Suzuki goes after Kobayashi on the outside and tries to set him up for a dropkick, but gets hit instead. He holds Suzuki down enough for Mask to recover and land a good plancha to the outside before following it up with a Tombstone and Diving Headbutt as well (the Diving Headbutt looked pretty ass but I can't blame the guy, it's just not a good bump whatsoever regardless of how old he is doing it) Suzuki no sells all of it while laughing like a maniac afterwards but Mask has a stiff slap exchange with him on the apron before hitting a roundhouse kick to the head to knock him down, getting the count out victory to a pretty timid reaction. A pretty disappointing sequel thanks to some disjointed pacing between the pair, namely due to them not really committing to any one idea and having too many story threads (Kobayashi on the outside, the ref bumps, Suzuki being a goof) to properly balance. Suzuki just phones this in badly on his part, it reminded me of his indie shows where he'd do the bare minimum in the ring: that's typically because of his age and the fact that his bad back means he can't exactly bump all over the place so it's understandable there but Suzuki was more than capable of going very hard at this point and time and just.....choses to not do so. He does the bare minimum of what you'd expect from his typical antics. Maybe it's because he's the one losing, but he doesn't even really lose clean due to interference and a messy finish, which I can again estimate up to Suzuki refusing to lose clean. Sayama puts in a spirited performance in the second half and takes some unnecessary trauma on his knees in a attempt to make this memorable: it ultimately doesn't really get the crowd pumped up at all. This resulted in a pretty flat match where I just kinda left this feeling nothing much at all, which is probably the worst feeling to have after a match. If you wanna see how utterly boring and trite Suzuki can be at his most lazy, I guess check this out? I almost second-guessed myself and thought this was because the formula of the first match soured on me when repeated again but I went back and nope, it's still super solid, so it's just this being shitty. RANK: Forgettable W/ Super Rider Vs. Genichiro Tenryu & Masao Orihara (RJPW 13.03.2008: RJPW Clash) This is a clash between Tenryu and Sayama before their big singles match two years later, so I was curious to see if they were as good here as they were in that particular match. They mainly focus around strikes, with Tenryu's thunderous chops against the former's big kicks, of which Sayama gets the advantage before Orihara interferes and allows Tenryu to get his cheap shots in. Rider is quickly established to be pretty rubbish as Tenryu easily slaps him away after he tries to help his mentor out of the mess. Tenryu gets hit with a running cross chop that ends up smacking him in the mouth pretty hard: Orihara's is more smooth by comparison. Rider also gets randomly hit by Tenryu's rolling savate kick in a funny spot. Tenryu also steals Mask's Tombstone Piledriver, doing it right in front of him for a near fall. He also has a nice assisted top rope senton where he helps out Orihara to nail one on Rider for a near fall. Mask gets in after Rider manages to hit a random high kick and tries for a Diving Headbutt, but he doesn't really hit his mark at all and stands around awkwardly before Tenryu gets in and also gets hit with a Tombstone, albeit Tenryu can't get his legs into position so they need to sorta just awkwardly hit it as it is. Rider tries to take over but Tenryu's selling, albeit stunned, is enough in that he can still land a few signature punches to get him away from his kicks. Orihara does some more bland stuff before Mask gets back in and hurls him into Tenryu's corner: he wants the main man, not Orihara, and shows it by firing more stiff kicks with vicious intent. Tenryu is stunned and rolls to the outside, but is able to dodge a plancha (which looked rough on Mask's knees oof) Rider hits a dive to the outside: but we don't see it because the camera is focused on Tenryu outside brawling. The lads get back in the ring and exchange blows, with Tenryu even pulling out a Dragon Screw at one point and Mask hitting a second rope moonsault to Tenryu's back. Mask tries for I think is a brainbuster but Tenryu counters into a massively sloppy small package for the win. This suffers from the vets being less than mobile (in this case more so Tenryu given he can't really bump a ton anymore and does tend to do more than he's capable of at points) but they try their best regardless, and Sayama puts in a lot more effort than other instances because this is a fairly big occasion, throwing out some big flips alongside his usual mix of solid strikes and some mat work. Tenryu is limited but can throw great strikes and plays his usual grumpy self. Rider and Orihara are unremarkable and they definitely are a afterthought alongside the far bigger stars, thankfully the match is structured around that fact and little importance is put on them beyond some small exchanges that really add nothing to this match. Definitely not bad, but kinda sloppy as time goes on as the vets get more exhausted: for what it's worth I feel like Sayama could definitely pull his weight far more if he had someone who was incredibly mobile to work with. RANK: Decent Vs. Ultimo Dragon (RJPW 18.09.2008: Marvelous) A Cagematch review on the show in general blames this match in particular for dragging the entire thing down, so I was curious to see if this was the case or not. Match starts with First Tiger taking the advantage by countering a kick and tripping Ultimo over, later completely missing a Tiger Spin transition. He also botches a kip-up during a fairly intense high speed sequence but nails everything else just fine. They have some more lucha-influenced sequences with Mask escaping from them with his usual agility and Ultimo selling the fact that he can't get a good grasp on the guy with a lot of frustration on his part before he's able to ground him down with working holds, as well as a wonky Dragon Hold at the end of it that doesn't really look great. Ultimo tries to do a 619 but fucks up and gets tied up: Mask doesn't sell. He makes up for that with a big dropkick and plancha to the outside that gets zero reaction. Ultimo tries for some bigger bombs but gets countered into a solid Tiger DDT. He follows that up with his Tombstone Piledriver/Diving Headbutt combo but misses the latter and Ultimo slaps on probably the slowest La Magistral pin I've ever seen, which only gets a one count. They try for the same spot again and it works out a lot better, getting a near fall. Mask goes for some of his kicks, as well as a.... weird jumping headbutt? Not sure what that was. Ultimo counters a suplex attempt into the ring from the outside in after he was knocked out, but gets countered into the Tiger Suplex roll up variation (that didn't look great) which gets the pin. This isn't a BAD match per se, but it's definitely not a very good one either. It's two guys who are trying to do old spots and holds when they were a lot more mobile.... but also having to deal with the fact that the other guy is also in that exact same hairy position as well, which results in some awkward botches as they struggle to move around for each other at times. It's usually why Ultimo these days is thrown in with younger guys who can bump and move for his signature work a lot better despite his obvious decline in ability to even when this match happened. There's some fun bits but beyond a hot start, this inevitably cooled down as both men started to tire (as shown by the numerous rest holds in the middle, at times placed side by side between each other) and got fairly sloppy as a result. Again, this isn't bad, but it's a pretty droll performance for two wrestlers who have had a lot better showings. RANK: Forgettable Vs. Tatsumi Fujinami (IGF 24.11.2008: Genome7) This is weirdly under pseudo-wrestling rules as pins are permitted but not used here. This functions like you'd think it would: Mask hurls out his kicks but Fujinami has some tricky counters to handle that, showcasing a nice Dragon Screw into leg lock after catching his leg. There's some good transitions between the pair as Mask is able to use his speed and agility to keep finding measures that'll take Fujinami down to the mat and keep him on top, but Fujinami also has some effective technical stuff that allows him to keep finding holes in said offence and take control, namely throwing out a Kimura lock and a cravate to take him down as well. Mask tries to grab on a cross armbreaker but Fujinami is able to block it by first holding his hands together, and when he moves his arms to try to break Fujinami's defence, he quickly moves up and grabs Mask's leg with his own to transition into full mount and then apply a cross armbreaker. Weirdly Mask doesn't really do much against it beyond moving slowly to the ropes despite the dangers of the hold just being illustrated by his opponent, who wouldn't even let it be finished. After this he just forgoes the stipulation and starts doing pro wrestling stuff but misses after a Flying Headbutt (that, let's just face it, he was never going to be able to hit considering Fujinami was like, nearly all the way to the other side of the ring) and Fujinami almost makes fun of this by teasing a Tiger Feint but then stopping at the last minute. This gives Mask a excuse to stall as he's absolutely gassed by this point, with him fucking up a suplex reversal and stumbles over himself instead of falling into a sleeper afterwards anyway after a Irish Whip exchange. Both men do a good job of a dub spot to the outside after Mask teases a Tiger Suplex and Fujinami counters and tries to get his Dragon Sleeper applied, leaving the former to run out of the ring mid-hold with him still attached instead of face the potential of losing the match. Last part has both men throw out some big stuff, Fujinami almost gets a Dragon Sleeper but Mask counters into a backslide pin and then into some agile stuff like a rolling senton and whatnot, but nothing seals the deal. There's some sloppy stuff near the end as both men are completely spent, with a very slow Tiger Spin and Kimura transition respectfully. Match ends with a time limit draw. This actually wasn't that bad for maybe the first half: it's when both men start going into a pro wrestling mode that loses me, especially when there's no real reason why: it's not like Tiger Mask couldn't beat the guy on the mat or anything: and there's some pretty off moments in general. Fujinami by this point was still fairly decent through and showcases a lot of solid albeit basic technical work, as well as really fighting to break out the holds he's put in. All in all, could've been a lot better if both men could keep the same pace throughout, instead of the first half or so. Not bad but noticeably limited. RANK: Decent W/ Ultimo Dragon Vs. Kotaro Suzuki & Mitsuharu Misawa (RJPW 04.12.2008: Conclusion) The first and last time both Tiger Mask I and II have ever shared the ring! This meeting was intended to happen in the late 90's when all of the Tiger Masks were together for a big match, but scheduling conflicts with AJPW (likely Misawa and the company simply not being able to afford taking other bookings because of his immense demand by promoters paired with AJPW's isolationist policies) meant that wasn't to be until both men were a lot older. This wasn't televised (likely because of NOAH's TV deal at the time restricting his public availability) but about 5 minutes or so of footage appeared online in a shaky handcam version, namely the encounters between Misawa and Tiger Mask, so I figured I would check these sections out for myself. As such, I unfortunately can't rate this match properly as the finish isn't shown (as well as anything from Kotaro or Ultimo outside of some interference spots) so it really wouldn't be fair to judge it on what's available. What we do get are some very heated exchanges between Tiger Mask and Misawa: they start things off by Sayama just slapping the shit out of him with a right hand that's loud as anything. Both men have a exchange that has the Korakuen crowd just in the palm of their hand for every big shot made, and the pair milk this as best as they can with some knockdown teases, Misawa does his whole stoicism spot after shaking off a nasty savate kick to the gut and goes right in for more big elbows, etc. It's great to see Misawa pull out some of his old technical work from his Tiger Mask II days as well with some Kimura transitions, but he also sells for a great Tiger Spin as well afterwards. He's a great sport for Sayama and despite the latter's reputation for selling funny, he does take Misawa's bigger shots well. The second encounter has them both tease their Tiger Driver and Suplex respectfully, being interrupted by their tag opponents. There's a fun spot here where Misawa tries doing his little signature flying kicks to the head and Tiger Mask just has absolutely none of it and gives him a roundhouse boot to the head right afterwards, looked stiff as anything. He hits a big dropkick afterwards to follow that up. And.... yep, that's all of the footage we have, sadly, which sucks because the encounters described above are quite well done, and the crowd is more than happy to see these two men share a ring, let alone go to blows: they more than deliver in that aspect. Alas, this'll just something we'll never get to see. RANK: Inconclusive Vs. Fujiwara II (IGF 09.08.2009: Genome9) Last time these guys had a match, it pretty much sucked across the board. Now nine years later, with both even older than before, with the boss himself on commentary, the stakes couldn't be any higher. Both men have a long history between each other: sometimes as respectful rivals, others less so. Fujiwara can't defend himself on stand-up as well as he could before, leading to him usually succumbing to big kicks from Mask. They tease a early knockout early after a sequence of these while he's pinned in the corner. Eventually Fujiwara catches his leg and transitions to a kneebar into heel hook, which his opponent barely escapes from with a rope break. He tries this trick again but Sayama has him scouted and hits a Enzuigiri when Fujiwara grabs his leg which he sells like death for. He recovers but it's a more stubborn "I'm not quitting" attitude than actually recovering as he tries to take on more kicks, but they get to him eventually with a big roundhouse knocking him down. a big kick to Fujiwara's torso makes him stumble to the corner and collapse once more, leading to a Tiger DDT and Diving Headbutt that gets dodged at the last minute. Fujiwara gets mad and starts hurling out headbutts, namely to the exposed turnbuckle, which busts him up hardway and gets some blood. He's so mad that he won't even let the ref do his count after Mask is knocked down and gets more headbutts in, the last one causing Mask to flop to the floor. When he shows the slightest bit of life, Fujiwara gets him back up and keeps hitting them until Mask counters into some last-minute roundhouses, which knock Fujiwara back but noticeably don't keep him down, and the lads brawl a bit, going back and forth with kicks and headbutts, neither willing to concede. Mask even tries for his own headbutt, but obviously that's a terrible idea as he does far more damage to himself. Eventually Fujiwara gets brought down with a punch to the throat and a knee drop. The drama mounts as the time ticks down, with Fujiwara quickly grabbing on his signature armbar to try to end the match, but Mask refuses to tap, leading to a draw. This isn't great, but manages to be a decent vet showing despite the respective age and wear and tear of both guys. Fujiwara can still relatively go, Sayama is.... varied at this point, but they manage to get some of that old fire back with each other with Fujiwara just going nuts near the end with big headbutts all the time alongside a bunch of stiff kicks. The pacing never truly drags and this doesn't really tire much. If you are looking for a deeply technical, methodical chess game between two varying styles, this isn't for you: go watch their 80's series. This is more of the NJPW, angry grandpa Fujiwara that pops out here, and it does make this a lot less dry in the process. Enjoyable romp. RANK: Decent Vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (RJPW 11.09.2009: Break Out) This was a fun one. Takayama by this point is fairly limited, but give him a smaller opponent that can bump around a bit and the ideal settings, he can pull out some nice performances. Tiger Mask can give and take fairly well even at this point of his career, and does so at the start after Takayama underestimates his kicking power and gets rocked with a big roundhouse, which pisses him off enough to drag the guy out afterwards and smash his head in hard on the announcing table. From then on, he takes the advantage with multiple big shots before Tiger Mask manages to counter with his speedy kicks, in particular hitting a great looking spinning shot to his opponent while he was leaning on the ropes stunned. He even manages to hit a back suplex on the guy, which isn't easy even with the assist, rightfully getting a good pop. Mask lands all of his signature offence including his Diving Headbutt and Tombstone before Takayama kicks out at one after, because the big lad ain't selling shit. He wakes up after a few extra kicks and goes to town, using his exposed knee (after removing his pad) to land big body and head shots before landing a fantastic Everest German bridge for the pin. Is this very short? Yes. Is this extremely clunky in places due to communication problems? Yes (the pair of them will at times just sorta stand or sit in a position for a bit and noticeably wait around until they decide what to do next). But this is just two guys throwing big shots until one of them stops moving. Takayama is a monster on top and has some great offence as you'd expect and Tiger Mask throws out the usual greatest hits well, alongside some good kicks, playing a reliable underdog that's not got much time to spare before eventually being ran over. This is understandably a mess given the short format and wild offence at points, but it's a mess you can enjoy, at the very least. I have a good fondness for the fact that Sayama didn't really bother with a traditional format and went with a more realistic brawl between the pair. It doesn't pretend to be a epic, and that level of meta-awareness is sorely missing these days. RANK: Good W/ Kota Ibushi & Tiger Mask IV Vs. AKIRA, Riki Choshu & Jushin Thunder Liger (NJPW 12.10.2009: Masahiro Chono 25th Anniversary Aristrist In Ryogoku Kokugikan) A nice little vet showcase alongside First Tiger Mask and his successors. Obviously you have Choshu, whom by this point just does the same five moves in his matches: he does the same thing here: but we do get at least some semblance of work here as Liger and Tiger IV have some fun explosive sequences together. AKIRA and Ibushi have basically what you'd expect them to have at this point and time: namely crazy agile spots and Ibushi hurling himself everywhere without a care in the world. He's just so good at car-crash bumping, namely making a pretty old Choshu look like a complete monster when he's wrecking him with a lariat and a brainbuster that makes him look like he weighs absolutely nothing. He also spends the middle half as the young kid getting wrecked by the vets as Liger and Choshu just pick him apart with some vicious stuff before Ibushi dodges a double clothesline and nails a Pele Kick and dropkick on AKIRA and Liger respectfully to get the hot tag to First Tiger, who hits some explosive kicks before awkwardly tagging to Tiger IV (seriously, he just sorta forgets that it's not his cue and has to walk over for a tag out of the blue) for his spots before IV misses a moonsault, resulting in him getting hit with a Liger brainbuster and AKIRA splash for a near fall. Ibushi hits a springboard dropkick and moonsault to the outside to handle Liger and co while Tiger IV hits a Tombstone. Him and First Tiger hit a double Diving Headbutt + Tiger IV's modified Tiger Suplex for the pin on AKIRA. All in all, this is basically just a series of spots: the guys don't even really pretend to sell as Tiger IV gets hit with all of this huge offence but can spring back up after 20 seconds: Ibushi almost instantly recovers from injury as well and goes to his big moves whenever. That being said, it's a pretty solid spotshow with very little wasted motion outside of Tiger IV and First Tiger having some miscommunication at points. Everyone gets their chance to shine and no one was really the weak link, even if Choshu was a bit of a odd one out here and kinda had to be excused to the side for basically all of the fancier Jr style offence. alright stuff for a undercard. RANK: Decent W/ Riki Choshu & Tatsumi Fujinami Vs. Daisuke Sekimoto, Mitsuya Nagai & Yoshihiro Takayama (RJPW 10.12.2009: RJPW Revival) A nice little 6-man. Takayama plays ball with Fujinami at the start with some basic technical wrestling before he hits his strikes and knocks him around. Choshu gets big chants just showing up for a tag and teasing a Sasori-gatame because he's THAT over at his age that even just the sniff of action gets people going. This eventually devolves into more of a short and snappy 6-man as everyone gets their chance to hit their signature spots, namely the other lads working over First Tiger. Takayama was decent here albeit a bit ehh in places, noticeably not wanting to hurt Tiger much at all with his shots so they come off as fairly soft for the most part outside of some boots to the head. Choshu breaks up some holds and no sells Nagai trying to hit him from behind lol. First Tiger even goes up for a Torture Rack from Sekimoto, which was pretty bonkers given he's not a spring chicken by now. He finally makes a comeback after a huge splash from the latter and hits his kicks and a Tiger DDT, hits the hot tag to Choshu who throws out a mean series of lariats to Sekimoto before applying his Sasori-gatame, but Takayama boots his head off in a cool little spot. First Tiger takes him out with a dropkick and dive to the outside before Choshu and Fujinami apply dual submissions (namely a Figure Four and the above once more) to tap the pair left over out, even if Sekimoto is the legal man. Nothing that'll blow your socks off but a fun short match that gets all of the crowd favourites something to do, and the introduction of Takayama and co, however short and minimalist they are, are still solid additions to proceedings and add in essential workrate with the older guys. Choshu hits maybe less than 6 moves here but is still very much over with the crowd, Fujinami does virtually nothing and First Tiger is set out to bump and sell for basically the entire middle portion. Outside of him no selling a splash just moments after like it didn't even happen, he does a solid job at doing so and playing up to the other team's strengths. Better than you might expect! RANK: Decent W/ Yoshiaki Fujiwara Vs. Osamu Kido & Tatsumi Fujinami (IGF 22.02.2010: Genome11) The best way I can describe these IGF tags is basically if the old 90's 6-man tags with Kimura and the bunch happened in the modern day and the workrate was better. These focus on a lot of comedy with some basic technical wrestling and whatnot. He has a neat exchange with Fujiwara at the start, utilising wrist control over him to keep the advantage throughout: it's nothing crazy good but that and some competent technical work and counters from Kido when Fujiwara tries applying the armbar makes this a pleasant start to the match. Mask and Fujinami have a fairly good technical exchange as well: Fujinami is obviously quite ehh when it comes to match quality outside of the 80's (and 90's when he's rarely on the ball) but he can still have entertaining sequences for the standards of this. Fujiwara and co repeat some of the spots that they'll use in a later IGF match with Hamada later this year. Fujiwara gets worked on for a bit before eventually making a comeback with a blatant low blow to Kido, as well as stomping his groin outright lol. He also pulls out some more dirty antics, mainly choking and a fake tag to Mask by clapping his hands together. Mask continues with some good kicks and a decent Diving Headbutt for a near fall before Fujinami gets in the way. Both guys have a bunch of rest holds between them (Fujinami even tries for a Dragon Sleeper but doesn't get it applied properly) Fujiwara interferes to get Mask the advantage, hitting a good cross chop and dropkick with a Tiger Feint at the end. There's a funny as fuck spot where Fujiwara and Fujinami go to the outside to brawl and the former tries to slam his head into a wall, but Fujiwara no sells right afterwards and he just legs it back to the ring lol. Tiger Mask takes more offence as Fujiwara refuses to get tagged in but he does so afterwards when Mask gets the advantage. He primes his armbar and gets Mask to get in and kick him a few times, but he puts like no effort into them before just scurrying off, which was also unintentionally funny. Kido gets his own armbar but Mask rakes his eyes, then gets ANOTHER on Fujinami, but he powers out. Fujiwara gets his ass kicked with a double Achilles hold but Mask helps out yet again by kicking and stomping both of them before sticking his own to join in. The bell rings for the draw soon afterwards. This is a perfectly fine match that focuses a lot more on vet comedy than workrate, through there's some decent quality throughout. Don't expect nothing crazy but it's a fun match that doesn't drag too long and keeps a good pace throughout. Sayama plays a good straight man to Fujiwara's antics and Kido and Fujinami are fine enough as competent peers, even if they are nowhere near as interesting workrate wise. RANK: Decent W/ Naomichi Marufuji Vs. Genba Hirayanagi & Yoshibobu Kanemaru (NOAH 14.03.2010: Naomichi Marufuji Produce Shiranui Ikotenyoku ~ Yoku No Kan) A really fun main event. Marufuji's style is largely influenced by Sayama's own antics and as such, it's a no brainer to have him make his one and only NOAH appearance to face against the Disobey lads. If anything it's nice to see him in one last big main event setting. Hirayanagi is someone I have rather limited knowledge about, but he seems to be more of a comedic foil than actual serious threat, he's basically treated as the fall-guy here, cheating to get a advantage while Marufuji and co get around him with their superior agility and whatnot. He's a fast bugger when he wants to be (they have a cool spot where Maru Irish Whips him on the outside and he leaps to the apron before going back down to hit a flying elbow) but he gets over his cowardly antics as well, getting excited to fight Mask before a few kicks scare him off. In general Hirayanagi's such a great annoying heel foil: getting over small elements with tons of cheating while adding in small cheap shots (like stamping the foot of Marufuji to get a brainbuster applied or faking out a punch to rake his eyes) that just add a ton to this match in terms of heat. He's the guy the crowd visibly react to the most, either getting his ass kicked or otherwise. Sayama is pretty great here! He's 53 at this point but he can still do most of the spots he could do in his prime in short bursts: it helps that he's with younger opponents that can work around that as well so he really gets to let off some steam here with perfect backdrop counters and all of the big signature spots, keeping a good pace with them. I liked how Marufuji took a lot from Mask as well alongside his usual spots, either just copying them exactly (nailing a Tiger Wall Jump on the corner turnbuckle) or modifying them (nailing his usual kicks while also hitting savate-style strikes as well) which wasn't needed but was a nice change on his usual antics. Kanemaru and Hirayanagi are a good heel pair, focusing in on a combination of dirty play and legitimately fun sequences: Kanemaru was particularly good on that front, hitting some innovative offence while without taking too much shine off the babyfaces. There's some downtime in the middle where the pair slow things down with rest holds but it never feels overtly boring. Mask gets back in for the tag but gets cut off before he can hit a Diving Headbutt as Hirayanagi holds his legs, leading to a insane top rope superplex....through he quickly recovers in time for a savate kick lol. Hirayanagi even throws in a sneak diss by hitting a Fisherman's Suplex on Mask as a callback to his Kobayashi feud. He tries doing his own fancy kicks but quickly gets rocked with some himself. The lead to the finish has Hirayanagi taking control with a Brainbuster and tries for a Tiger Suplex, but gets kicked by Mask. Him spitting at the guy leads to Maru and co to land a double Diving Headbutt combo before Maru goes for a running kick and the weirdest Pole Shift I've ever seen (it's like he does the set-up Tiger Driver, but goes into a Northern Lights Bomb for the second part: not sure if that was Hirayanagi fucking up the move or Maru just randomly pulling out the super extreme Kings Road variation for this match) for the win. All in all, this is a pretty solid main event that manages to keep a lot of action while focusing less on the workratey elements of NOAH's usual displays in favour for a more matured showcase that keeps these elements in moderation. Maru and Sayama are obviously popular babyfaces, with both having good displays of strikes and agility between them. As stated above, the latter is 50+ but can still produce some incredible sequences for his age: probably the best I've seen him in years up to now. Marufuji puts in a expected performance at this stage of his career, still moving well despite his weird paradox he found himself in where he was NOAH's actual big ace (despite Go just awkwardly being squeezed into big title shots) but still dipped in and out between Jr and heavyweight matches. That would change eventually with his Omega match, but that's a story for another time. A very well done performance by Tiger Mask that proved that he still had plenty of gas in him even by this stage. RANK: Good Vs. Genichiro Tenryu (RJPW 18.03.2010: Overheat) This is a grudge match after Tiger Mask lost their tag match two years ago, which was to determine if WAR or RJPW won the whole event in general, so naturally this is paced around Sayama getting back his honour with a rematch. Tenryu and Tiger Mask are both pretty old at this point: Tenryu is 60, Mask is 53. Both men are obviously far past any sense of prime here so this is more of a grounded affair. Tenryu immediately goes for his infamous boots to the head after getting a arm lock applied, which gets Mask heated enough to pound him with sharp kicks. Tenryu's punches in response aren't exactly as sharp and get swiftly punished with more kicks, having Tenryu get like 20 shots on the ground or something lol, vicious stuff. Tenryu gets outside and Mask does a nice plancha but gets smacked with a chair mid dive in a brutal spot. This leads into a extended heat spot of Tiger Mask getting his shit pushed in with strikes for a good portion of the bout, which is something that, needless to say, the opponent is in his element: for once Tenryu actually lands his Enzuigiri proper. He follows that up with a nasty brainbuster for a near fall. Love Tenryu's expressions throughout this whole thing: guy is so confident going into the brainbuster as the match seems set for a big win with so much of it dominated by a control segment, Mask kicks out and his face afterwards tells you everything you need to know, dude is completely disheartened and already kinda loses the match right here mentally. Mask gets a comeback with his kicks and slaps and throws on a illegal choke: he doesn't want to win with it, just give himself some breathing room and keep the momentum going in his favour Tenryu sells it like a shoot choke as well, waking up all of a sudden after being motionless. Tenryu and Mask have a great final strike exchange afterwards, both landing some intense blows before Mask manages to get the advantage and slaps on a Chickenwing Crossface for the win. This was more or less all Tenryu here in terms of moves but Sayama does a great job selling the beating he gets and his eventual comebacks, despite being quite obviously limited. There's nothing better than watching grumpy Tenryu beat the snot out of someone and this was no exception, with some strong strikes throughout: Tenryu really works the crowd proper good here with his whole act even getting a chant of his own despite Mask being the underdog after he was choked out and Tenryu playing a heel here. This was the best match both could realistically have, but it's a testament to the pair in particular that they could have this level of quality despite how old each guy was, even if Tenryu brings out a little bit more than his opponent overall. Solid stuff in general. RANK: Great W/ Yoshiaki Fujiwara Vs. Gran Hamada & Tatsumi Fujinami (IGF 09.05.2010: Genome12) Mask and Fujinami start things off with a typical back and forward, involving Fuji dropping him with a Dragon Screw and Mask faking out a Tiger Spin for a takedown instead. Fujiwara and Hamada also have a fairly decent exchange, with Fujiwara's grumpy antics getting good reactions. Mask hits a Tombstone to Hamada after he works over him with kicks but misses a Diving Headbutt, which leads to the other team then taking the lead. Fujinami grabs on a Dragon Sleeper but Fujiwara breaks it up, leading to the pair having a solid technical exchange between each other as Fujiwara battles out of the headlock takeover he's in and manages to power him into a monkey flip, but Fujinami manages to take his leg when he tries to establish advantage. Hamada and him have some strikes together before Mask is tagged in for a dropkick, but he ends up hitting Fujiwara accidently, which gets him annoyed enough to slap his head to tag the guy in. Hamada and Fujinami have some more flavourless offence (particularly Hamada botching a spinning wheel kick and Sayama having to no sell it, quickly setting up the Tiger Suplex to cover it up) Fujinami ends up hitting his partner with a slap and in a comical spot, Mask turns against Fujinami and goes to the other corner, which results in all three men beating Fujiwara until he goes nuts and hurls headbutts at everyone, even the ref! This results in a DQ loss for him and his partner but they don't really care at this point. Fine enough as a undercard match but mostly focused around comedic stuff which Fujiwara can do very well: Tiger Mask being the stoic rival that eventually just gives up on trying to deal with Fuji's attitude and going ham on him was pretty funny. Not really much to talk about ultimately, through it was fairly enjoyable. Hamada can't really do much at this point through: while I could also point fingers at Fujinami, he can at least work fairly competent. Hamada just sorta....doesn't do a lot, outside of the bare minimum. RANK: Decent Part 5 will cover the last six years (more so five but we'll get to that as well) of Sayama's career, going over his last matches in the ring as well as his final feuds, namely with Onita and a final encounter with Kobayashi. It's definitely going to be a bumpy ride!

I remember watching this last year and doing a whole ass review for it, nice flashback lol. Kojima and Hashimoto have the typical "big match" spots together and Ogasawara stinks up the joint massively. Kojima can usually do inter-promotion work quite well (see his BIG MOUTH Shibata and WMF Gannosuke matches for some fun examples of that) but this was a definite low bar in terms of quality despite some good heat and the crowd getting into the dirtier parts of this. Kashin's.....here, I guess? Usually I love the guy but he was so blatantly the fall guy here that I couldn't really judge anything else he did. Kinda just felt like the usual inter-pro crap as you stated

I wouldn't say "bad" as such a strong word but yeah, at that point the style was way above his head. There's some obvious disconnect in how he works on the mat where he doesn't really seem to take initiative when it would make sense to do so. He's fine enough as a "fish out of water" pro-wres in a shooty world and his selling as always is pretty good but him just hurling out random backdrop drivers was always going to bug people out.