Ma Stump Puller

Yeah I heard about that as well. Really awesome that a already known great match was actually better than we knew it as in the first place, the establishing work especially helps to set the scene before everything goes apeshit and punches start get thrown. If you're going into the NJPW early Nishimura stuff his Hashimoto singles in 1998 is pretty damn good for a quick hierarchy-style AJPW squash for Hash, quite fun

I'd also probably add the Choshu feud tags (it spanned a fair couple of matches, but I feel like each are fairly worthwhile in content.) and the GENTARO match, of which I think is perhaps Nishimura's top 5 best ever performances and his last truly great match. Obviously this Primer in many ways is more impactful than it was when I made it for reasons I don't really need to elaborate on. There's a real need to make sure that wrestling is preserved, especially for those who sadly are no longer with us and cannot speak for themselves. If this got at least one person into watching the man and his craft, that's worth it and then some.

I compared Fuke to Eric Roberts a good bit back and honestly I haven't been proven wrong since. He's a guy who COULD have fairly good matches with his solid technical fundamentals and experience, decent strikes.....but he'd rather just check in and check out than put any tangible effort into his performances. Getting something good out of him is more a testament to the person wrestling him than it is to the actual guy. I respect his longevity but fact is that he's really done a whole lot of nothing for a good long while.

I originally got the match + full show from Jetlag (thanks again! ) but VKF's channel have also uploaded this to their Youtube as well following Nishimura's tragic passing. It's a pretty damn good celebration of everything Nishimura stood for as a worker; incredible, crisp technical wrestling with expertly done storytelling via said wrestling, GENTARO especially seems to be having the time of his life wrestling what probably was one of his idols as he sells his ass off for the guy. Nishimura around this time had mostly faded into the background as most of his time was occupied with his political career so when he did wrestle it was mostly for pretty nothing tag matches where he'd just go through his routine without much focus or effort really applied into it. He'd not ever be terrible or even bad in them, just kinda in the background clearly not giving it a whole lot of thought. Something like this existing was especially shocking that the guy was still THIS great and could put on legitimate classics when inclined. The starting work is mostly the usual signature spots; the standing Nishimura arch, clean break etc etc. GENTARO gets pissed that he's getting upstaged starts working dirty in the headlock alongside throwing his signature Bret-style punches, which turns out only seems to piss off his opponent as he responds with nasty elbow smashes and a mean Cravat into headlock transition. The main gimmick is Nishimura simply having all of the cards when it comes to the technical game, consistently throwing out these wild counters to things that GENTARO tries to do, namely his big mistake being consistently going to the well of moves that Fujinami (who Nishimura knows very well for obvious reasons) also uses. He tries for a Bow and Arrow stretch at one point and immediately regrets it when he gets his foot bent into a toe-hold/kneebar, stuff like that. GENTARO sells like everything and adds in momentous struggle to the matwork; others recently may have done this kind of stuff faster but they don't get that ground work tends to be a grindy and rough struggle for the most part, especially when it's as detailed as it is here and covers about 98% of the match. Like GENTARO spending nearly a full minute just in a hold trying to comprehend a counter is much more engrossing than watching someone speedrun through multiple transitions at such a rushed pace that it looks like they're breakdancing, you know? They just get it in that regard. Nishimura looks solid in the ground work but those little moments where his stoic shell breaks and he gets nasty are the real money moments. Like after they'd had a struggle over toe-holds and leg locks Nishimura tries to drag his foot for a submission, but his opponent sticks to the ropes to escape it happening. There's a couple of seconds where he processes it, stands over the guy and lets him limp closer to the corner, then stomps the shit out of his hind leg while he's not even looking. It's such a sudden/brutal spot that it almost snaps your attention right back by how subtly done it is, crazy good. If a guy like Finlay did that we'd probably still be ranting about it to this day lol GENTARO also gets in some highlight moments where he's able to throw in counters like taking a Muta Lock and turning it into a Cravat choke but this is mostly just him selling and bumping big for the invading force which I think he does a awesome job at. He's even able to convincingly get over a potential count-out after Nishimura smashes his shin into a chair, even adding in theatrics by falling to the ground when he tries putting weight on the bad leg to step into the ring. You feel every bit of his struggle throughout the entire bit right up to the big shine comeback spot after Nishimura misses his second top rope knee drop, then his desperation to even the score creeps in. I'd say his offence is lacking in a couple places (he doesn't get much height for his signature shin breaker on the turnbuckle post, for instance) however it does build up nicely as he lands a couple of impactful suplexes despite his leg preventing him from absolutely capitalising. It felt like a truly 70's AJPW finish build wherein both guys are fatigued and moreso battling that than each other. There's some heavy focus on GENTARO trying to put a statement with his victory as he frequently goes for the figure four (Fujinami) and Spinning Toe Hold (Dory) clearly to showcase his mastery over one of their biggest students. Nishimura rides out the holds and exactly like the 2006 MUGA match GENTARO goes for the figure four once too many times, allowing Nishimura to quickly reverse the leverage and tap him out in the end proving his experience over the youth. This is a really well done match that basically plays to all of the pair's strengths and none of their weaknesses. Nishimura looked fantastic here for his age, really hammering in the control work to make him look like the big threat he is here. It's quite crazy since his best material is working as a crafty underdog: having the roles reversed here makes it clear that GENTARO by stature just isn't up to snuff despite some big close calls here. There's a sense of importance to the pair's work that you just barely see anywhere else wherein every big turn and twist in momentum feels like it could be the last. It's another cap in GENTARO's hat for him to come into a match like this and have such a lack of ego that he just happily went along getting his ass beat for most of this without complaint. Honestly? I think that mentality makes this match as great as it is - There's no pretensions of a "epic" or 50/50 bullshit, just a guy way over his head slowly realising it over the course of 25+ something minutes. Masterful craft by two of the best to probably do it.

I was really dreading this one. Already early 2025 has not been a good year for wrestling fans. Nishimura had been battling stage 4 esophageal cancer for the last year and a half, having spread to his brain and everywhere else there wasn't much of a positive prognosis. He kept battling from his IG posts though and even managed near the end to wrestle a couple of times. RIP to one of the underrated technical greats.

This was the only Misawa GHC match that I was completely unable to review back when I was going through his title reign; namely because the match itself, much like many mid-2000's Puro content had been scrubbed off the internet completely bar a occasional snippet uploaded onto somewhere like Veoh (RIP) leaving a very noticeable gap in content. This made it so elusive that even the most famous video on Misawa's reign doesn't cover the match whatsoever! Thankfully some random Japanese salaryman just happened to have a low quality upload of it from a week or so ago so it does once again exist online. This is about as complete as the match appeared to have been, which means that we're predictively missing about 8 minutes of what was probably downtime. I do imagine that the PPV DVD of this that's floating around probably has the full thing though good luck trying to find it for a reasonable price. This was mostly pretty decent by 2007 Misawa standards since the guy was obviously not going to have the workrate from prior decades. He's much less mobile and carrying a lot of wear and tear but with a guy who is as simplistic as Smith is (despite some quirky moves he pulls out now and then) Misawa can easily just play the usual Western Monster shtick he did well enough with Vader back in the 90s, flowing right back into his role from then like he never left. They use a lot of that playbook here with staggered no-selling from Smith, easily overpowering his senior foil when it came to strikes and grapples while Misawa could only look on in his signature Stoic gaze, trying to find anything to play against him. We do get some moments when that shell cracks; a uncharacteristic moan when being forearmed in the chest for instance; bringing some humanity to the ailing ace. Similarly we get the opposite when Smith mistimes and gets his leg dramatically caught falling off the top rope, letting Misawa uncharacteristically ignore the ref to throw in multiple mean back elbows to Smith's foot in desperation. This takes away his base and allows Misawa to start building a lead with his usual heavy-set offense of the time. I thought this was for the most part pretty by the numbers even down to the horrendous motif of the Tiger Driver being so pathetically reduced in stature that Misawa just does it like 15 minutes before the actual finish for a near fall bit and not a single person in the crowd buys it. That has to sting after seeing so many 90's epics having that move be the conclusive finish lol. Now what I WILL say is that Misawa takes some horrific bumps here namely one where his opponent press slams him from the ring to the ramp which results in probably one of the most disgusting "THUNK" sounds I've ever heard. Now Bison also takes one, mind you, but it's a backdrop and nowhere near as high-impact. I have no fucking clue why Misawa was green-lighting these spots, dude also took a ramp-Bisontenial/Styles Clash that thankfully was modified to be a bit safer. Still, this is just nuts. It's a real showcase of how reckless he was seemingly having to take things to warrant being in the main event game. It doesn't take much for Misawa to get the crowd right into this by teasing a count out with those kind of spots, easily garnering massive sympathy merely by trying to stand on his own two feet. Smith follows up with a crazy top rope shoulder smash to Misawa on the outside alongside a equally crazy bit where he dove over the guardrail to hit him with another one. While I don't think Bison Smith was a crazy good worker I do heavily respect his atheticism for a guy that large to be moving as fast as he does here at points. They work the last half around the threat of his claw which, sorry to say, no one really bites. The claw was barely believable in its peak, let alone 30 something years later with a guy who hasn't beaten anyone worth their salt with the move: it worked with Kobashi's legendary selling in their matches but that's the exception to the rule alas, making this segment very cold by comparison with the crazy spots that came before. The crowd react much more for a big second top Emerald Flowsion which staggered Bison enough for Misawa to wear him down with a series of elbow strikes until finally finishing up with one to the back of the head a-la the Samoa Joe match for the pin. This kinda showed the contrast between Misawa and Kobashi; while the latter has a explosive and fairly short outing with Bison filled with intensity and fire, Misawa opts for a more traditional heavyweight match, more grindy and slower to fit the pace of both the gravitas of the event and Misawa's own struggling body. It's certainly not one of Misawa's better title outings, trailing off a bit in places and struggling to get crowd investment until Misawa starts taking stupidly dangerous bumps to add drama. It's a bad way to see what was one of the ring geniuses of the 90's (i mean this was someone who could get a crowd to explode with basic facial expressions, mind) reduced to taking dangerous stuff with a body that certainly was not up to that task. Bison did well enough, but his performances while strikingly dynamic are really hollow under the surface; there's really no humanity to his work, he just tends to do his big spots and grunt around the place, one never really gets the feeling that he's selling anything or trying to tell a story with how he works. The physical struggle that AJPW (and especially Baba-era) were so good at conveying is non-existent with the guy, probably because he seems to be too gassed to emote and work at the same time. Is this a bad match, though? I don't think so, but part of me wishes Misawa had spent one of these very valuable title bouts getting over a up and coming talent rather than a mid-card bruiser who was never going to be more than that.

Always felt like he missed a gear after the early 2010's. NJPW gave him a good boost, but then they started leaning more into the Tanahashi/Okada flashy types than Goto's more traditional heavy set work and he kinda got lost in the scuffle bar the occasional G-1 match that would get traction with the smarky Western fans, honestly couldn't tell you his highlights for some years. I can't blame him for playing it safe but I can't help thinking that he might've been better suited for a All Japan stint.

I think body-part work in a wrestling match can be done to a EXTREMELY high standard if it's taken to the natural conclusions. Guys like GENTARO/Ogawa pushed the envelope for how long you could really go just attacking a leg/arm and for the most part it was pretty damn good, even going 15+ minutes long at points with that same dynamic. Even Kenny Omega when he's actually forced to pace himself has some astonishingly strong leg selling if you give the room for that to breathe. I kinda get what Zack is doing now though, submission workers don't really work for the Kings Road-ish style NJPW have adopted so he's a bit less focused than he could be. It definitely makes them more watchable as opposed to his NOAH stint where he would spend obnoxious amounts of time submission-chaining for no apparent benefit.

Kinda shocking that it's taken this long for her to get nominated, you could go all the way back to her earlier years and still find great showings aplenty. Kada makes the case for her well enough, my only real complaint is that sometimes she can be a bit too derivative with the boring ahh grappling sequences, especially when she's not someone who has any conclusive submission finishes so it almost always feels like padding. Other than that? Pretty damn great, shockingly effective at getting less than impressive acts over to boot which is always a soft spot for me.

Eh i'd agree that it's pretty premature to be putting Gabe on a 100 list. He has a couple of good matches but I think he works best with existing heat/a angle to warrant his antics. I'm also not a fan of him starting to leer into the dreaded "epic" overkill style that has pacified so many great workers as of present.

A good showing of GENTARO in his Bret-phase of technical brilliance against the uber-sleaze kickboxing MMA dude in Yago. The start of this was good tense grappling with the pair as they messily tried to grab for chokes and headlocks, occasionally getting tied in knots trying to submit the other. GENTARO does a good job guiding this around by working as the smaller man, having to consistently find clever ways to catch his bigger/meaner opponent off-guard. He typically has to try to attack limbs like the legs or arms to take away Yago's base and force him to work from under on the mat which comes into his biggest strength here. Yago feels like a bit of a crowbar here in that he's a bit all over the place in times and doesn't have the cleanest work in terms of anything he does but that works into his presentation as the less-refined yet still dangerous foil pretty well here, so it wasn't too much of a turnoff. Occasionally he does something REALLY awesome like a Robertson-lite back suplex backbreaker or just punching his opponent in the chest or face, so you can't really go wrong with that. Yago seems to focus on the back during his little control stint in the middle half while GENTARO threw out a awesome amount of focus on attacking the leg in different ways to take back control, really keeping the coherency of the match together as he kept having to change things with his speed and agility to keep in the game. The crowd do get into the two getting over the Cobra Twist as the big scary move in Yago's arsenal that could win the entire match, GENTARO spending multiple occasions either having to struggle for dear life or just barely escaping from it by tying up in the ropes. When it gets cleanly applied it does get a tap out but there's a lame ref bump to ensure that Yago looks good without actually winning (which I despise as a "thing" in wrestling, it just doesn't work most of the time because it makes the guy who's supposed to look competent instead seem like a complete fucking dumbass for dropping the hold to lightly tap the ref's shoulder a couple of times). We still get a nice sequence of submission chaining out of Yago though so the spot isn't completely derivative. GENT throws a bunch of good bombs for near falls, a punch to the stomach from Yago again taking back control. The finish is built to make Yago again look like a killer as he tries for the pumphandle slam but GENTARO just barely manages to counter into a tight head/arm clutch 3.1. roll-up to win the whole thing. This felt like a match mostly made solid by GENTATO's efforts in regards to putting over Yago as a big threat that he with all of his technical tricks couldn't really handle. There's good control spots where he does keep things together, it never feels like he's completely safe and you get reminded that aplenty here because when he screws up the momentum swings right back to the bigger guy. Yago here in places looked like a good worker; I could totally understand why he wasn't a bigger thing though. He has the size, the background, he's just kinda flat when it comes to actually backing up his hoss appearance with actual hoss shit. His shots are typically really unconvincing pats to the shoulder or head, occasionally he hits great when he's actually trying to punch but it mostly feels like he's holding back immensely due to his background, which is a common problem with ex-MMA guys because they just can't be coached to work a punch when they've spent decades doing it one way lol. Definitely a mixed bag of a wrestler, which makes it much more significant that a guy like his opponent could carry him to something as fairly solid as this. Pretty solid lower-end GENTARO carry, but still a worthwhile watch for the guy.

I'd add to this as well by saying that the WWE involvement has mostly been a net plus on their shows. The KENTA/Nakamura matches were good, Tavion Heights got insane coverage for his wins over top guys like Kenoh (not to mention getting super over with his amateur-wrestling shtick) and Omos similarly has been booked really well and presented like a legit big deal feature. He's clearly a Muto-project, I would expect him to be back in the company sooner than later. NOAH's gained quite a bit from the headlines generated from everyone involved here.

I've really enjoyed the turn Fujita has had from his 2010's Inoki-Ism big deal antics to more of a elder statesmen figure who works small little feuds here and there. His little spat with Shuji Ishikawa resulted in some amazing big-man beef showings, his singles with Kitamiya being a classical Strong-Style sprint and his current project in putting over Daiki Odashima as this never-say-die rookie babyface has ruled. It's shown depth to him that I never thought would've been possible even 5-ish years ago.

This like recent SSPW events hasn't been officially aired however there is a good fancam by fellow wrestling fan fxnj that thankfully captures this epic main event. Murakami in 2024 is certainly not one for quality; he isn't going to hand you a lovely steaming Battlarts pie full of intricate grappling or complex stand-up work; but what this version is especially good at is projecting a unique chaotic vibe into these kind of matches. The way he swaggers around, dressed in a completely ugly dress combo with slacks, MMA gloves at the ready to stumble in and punch someone in the head is not only incredibly based, but it's something that you simply cannot find anywhere else unless you went to Japan's deepest underbelly and found a couple of drunk Yakuza guys. Most of us don't have those opportunities though so I guess this'll do. Super Tiger has stayed basically where he's always been, a consistently good but underperforming talent that only really seems to give a damn if the mat has the Battlarts logo on it. The start of this is a very entertaining brawl as Mura runs in before the match starts and goes at it with Tiger in a striking exchange, ending in him winning with a hook to the head. Outside stuff is more or less what you'd expect from this style of Murakami matches (throwing into stacks of chairs, the odd punch) but it does have a very cool bit where he just smacks Tiger in the back with kicks over and over in a fairly brutal fashion. The crowd feed off this energy in such a way that Murakami de-facto becomes the face here, getting consistent chants and applause despite eternal hometown babyface Super Tiger being right there. That lad in question does fine enough selling from what's shown throwing in a couple of nice strike combos but being too fatigued to really capitalise properly. There's some mask work here as well with it being teased getting yanked off and that predictively going absolutely nowhere as per expected. They get back in and Murakami tries to do his corner stomp: bless him, he's really past the age of being able to just pounce onto someone's head like he used to be able to do even a decade ago instead gingerly plopping his legs onto Tiger for a few seconds. They kinda incorporate that into the big comeback spot as Mura is too busy trying to get his stomps right that Tiger is able to hurl him off. One scuffed STO spot later and we get the first big spot of the match as Tiger carefully lands a head kick to counter a punch. This is followed up by a random (but definitely awesome) brainbuster into GTS spot that gets the upset pinfall in less than 8 minutes! Definitely not a classic (in fact having Super Tiger get his ass beat for most of a match before abruptly winning is pretty much beat for beat ripped off from his Fujita feud) but I thought this was a fun enough romp for what it was. In a world of incredibly long strung-out epics that go long purely just to go long, having a title match just end with a convincing finish is VERY refreshing.

i've been watching a good chunk of ajpw in the 2000's and i would have to agree with most of what this is saying. AJPW respected the tag belts quite a bit more despite the dire roster in places and i think they eventually pulled together a fun jr scene when they start pushing guys like Hayashi/Kondo and co in the mid to late period. Their legacy just isn't as well known because a lot of the documented footage Gaora scrubbed off the internet bar obscure corners like Veoh (RIP.) and other oddball websites, which is a shame because half the reason why I made this thread was due to that lack of exposure.

I don't invest much into these sort of things but the idea of Takayama not being a HoF-guy is legit baffling to me tbh, not to knock anyone in particular (we all have our blind-spots!) Guy was one of the few who was could be stuck as a legitimate top star in all three mainline promotions and his peak was pretty much him having good to great to ground-shattering epic matches with pretty much everyone. Even his UWF stuff (which is usually overlooked) has a bunch of solid material that proves he could've been successful down that road as well as a rampaging knee-throwing monster. Shit even his AJPW stint has a bunch of matches that any contender would be happy to have on their resume. I've talked about late-Takayama before in detail but I do want to say that he doesn't have a REALLY bad decline in terms of match quality. He just goes from a insane peak to being more varied. I likened him to a late-stage character actor before; he's someone who relies more on the classical psychology of a giant than being the freak of nature that he was before; more of a oddity who's about filling in and getting work out of being able to play all sorts of roles regardless of condition or opponent. It allows him to do a silly comedy bout with a Inoki impersonator the one week, do a freakshow match with a green ex-MMA guy the next, fight in a dingy basement floor covered in chains as a sleazy enforcer after, then pop in to fight Tiger Mask in a dream match and then somehow also be a big main event hoss all at the same time without losing any face. He had legendarily high levels of variety in him; I even seen him recently on a old 2009 AJPW house show taping where half of his moves were just dropkicking people! There is a wealth of great work there for the guy and it absolutely warrants a deep analysis by anyone interested.

Having seen these two do some reckless shit a month or so back for one of Saito's retirement matches I was super happy to see these two get some dedicated time to themselves to really do some fun stuff by again doing reckless shit for a whole 20 minutes this time. Ishikawa's been on somewhat of a career renaissance since leaving AJPW, basically going to every major promotion purely so he could beat the piss out of anyone they threw in front of him and having a grand old time dishing out the gift of CTE. Fujita's been very hit and miss; I was one of the few people to actually enjoy his Jake Lee match but other showings have had him noticeably on the backburner and acting more as a elder statesman than an active wrestler, I can't really deny that he's lost a step or two since his more acclaimed work in the 2020's. This match did show some of their limitations (especially in regards to pacing since these two aren't exactly on the younger side of things) but all in all it was pretty damn fun, especially when the two just started throwing hands and hitting really high-impact suplexes and slams. There's some limb work that doesn't really go anywhere with Fujita sitting in a couple of leg holds to presumably weaken Ishikawa's knee strikes but they don't really play around with the concept much so I'm not going to attempt to similarly make it make sense here since it's just blatantly there for the pair to rest for a bit. What matters is that these two are masters of relying purely on their physicality to make crowds care about them and this is exactly the appeal here. It doesn't really matter that it's sloppy because they aren't trying to be clean. It's a pure honest to god hoss brawl with all of the imperfections included, no diet anything here, just the two using slaps, elbows and headbutts until the other guy stopped moving. I did like how there wasn't many actual big bombs here and the ones that were included were made to count especially in how the two treated them as world-ending stuff that would completely flip the momentum of the match. The biggest spot here was a weird botched Emerald Flowsion, for the record, and that did legitimately look like it could've ended some stuff other than the match lol. This does end predictively in a non-finish via the pair reaching a draw which does drag it down for me even if it does play into these two being so bonkers that they spent more time trying to hurt each other than win the actual match. All in all a really awesome affair that felt like it could've gotten even more crazy with a third act; what we do get is Fujita and Ishikawa just doing what they do best, but if anything I felt like they could have done even better with a extra 10 minutes thrown in and a proper finish. This otherwise flew by, helped by some great performances by the two to really make you invested in this clash all the way to the final tease of a proper finish, with every big strike or head-drop suplex feeling like they could've ended this entire match by themselves. As a match, this sets out to do only a few things and does those things tremendously well: it's a great lesson in minimalism from arguably some of the best to ever do this kind of meathead style justice without any pretentious flair added on.

very cool, thank you for your service

Who thought we'd get some actual cool Bati-Bati antics on a super mid C-show brand? Dan Tamura's look is incredibly unflattering and Tyson Maeguchi is truly apart of a misguided generation of guys who really needed a Ikeda/Ishikawa mentor figure to be truly great; that said, I think combined this was fairly decent for what it was. They worked this like a conventional 90's striker/grappler match you'd see out of Fujiwara Gumi so Maeguchi was consistently abusing rope breaks while Tamura was throwing out double legs and tackles as soon as any strike was being fired out, bringing in a fairly smart gameplan on both sides that was respected enough to stay basically in that same formula for the entire duration of the match give or take. Maeguchi scrambles out of a couple of toe-hold attempts and seemingly is in a lot of trouble until he gets in a nice kick to the side of Tamura's stomach, staggering him enough that he can go fire off some equally nice leg shots. Tamura's weird stumble-selling was definitely way overboard (the kind that really should've been ironed out years ago if AJPW were bothered about making strikes as important as their finishing stretches, anyway) but you got the point that it was a weak point that had been opened up. The second half is a lot more scrappy as the two settle for back and forth stiff slapping exchanges while having the occasional mind game around Tamura baiting leg kicks on his bad leg to try to then counter and catch said kicks mid-swing for a big takedown or two. Match drops down significantly when they decide to do lame ass forearm exchanges for the millionth time for no real reason but makes up for it by Maeguchi going right into some beefy kicks, ending with a kneeling head kick for the first and only near fall of the entire match. Actual finish is super cool as Maeguchi gets his running knee blocked twice, Tamura getting the pin off a crumple-powerbomb and really awesome standing Kobashi-lite Burning Lariat was definitely abrupt, sure, yet it was a confident book-end to a fairly physical fight where they established that any big blow could take the whole thing; it concluded and respected that logic here by simply pushing it as far as possible, simply put. This obviously has some issues in regards to the pacing being a bit too slow at the start (this suffers from this bizarre expectation that matches like these have to start painfully slow and uninteresting under the guise of "feeling out" a sad myth caused by a decade of wrestlers believing that the only thing you could start with was shameless bloat and bluster) and a couple of small things that I think I can just equate to the pair being somewhat green (especially to Tamura who's mostly been actively wrestling in the stop/start COVID years) all in all I thought it was shockingly fun for something like this and could've easily been seen on some crappy 240p 2008/9 Battlarts tape that's barely watchable, it's THAT good. Definitely worth the look.

This is a really neat gem that doesn't get much credit at all, which is hardly surprising since AJPW coverage bar the mid-90's is scant and hardly respected in regards to the quality of the matches put out. Honda and Inoue are two guys who honestly weren't particularly great at this point at all, for the record. Honda would get surprisingly solid when the spotlight was on him in NOAH but as of now he's a goofy mid-card act who can headbutt well, certainly didn't really have much of a grip on how to work a match in any interesting manner. The Olympic stuff just wasn't here yet, so what's on the table is limited and consisting mostly of headlocks and dry work, still doing the turnbuckle corner splash spot that EVERY AJPW rookie has done 5+ years later. Inoue is...well, Inoue. This works partly because they made a good story out of a relatively bleh lineup. Basically Ogawa tries to work fancy with Inoue with the security of Misawa at his side trying for a couple of clever technical spots to goof off for the most part. The issue is that while these two may usually be a easy night by their lonesome Inoue and co were actually currently the tag champs, so their chemistry is far better than anyone would expect. Ogawa ends up getting his ass beat when he realises that Inoue is a lot tougher than he thought then has to spend the majority of the match selling for two guys who aren't exactly well known for devastating offence or being compelling on top; with brief (and I do mean BRIEF) Misawa tags this could have easily been a dull affair with a inevitable finish. Regardless, Ogawa actually manages to get this narrative over! The crowd really get into this very much so when Inoue and Honda start pulling out the big signature spots and Ogawa has to not only survive, but also help out his partner out of some surprisingly dangerous situations. They manage to work a shticky 80's style extended sleeper hold where Honda and Inoue just sit in the hold for a good while and it somehow doesn't kill the crowd in the process, it's great! It's a great example of Ogawa playing a underdog babyface, but also a established act trying to hold on to that spot against a pair that are willing to do anything to move up in the Tag League, so he plays up his desperateness in trying to protect that with everything he's got on top of everything else. Even some of the best could not make this work, especially with a very much B-show mode Misawa hanging around (who despite his obvious GOAT status to many was a very questionable worker when it came to TV slots) regardless it DOES work, and that's pretty cool all things considered. The second part of the match is Misawa and Ogawa bullying Inoue for a extended sequence as they finally get the ball rolling namely working the back after Ogawa attacks it on the outside using the railings and a scoop slam. Honda makes the hot tag and *almost* scores Misawa with a huge German, Ogawa delays it by him and Misawa holding hands on the ropes to stop it from happening in a cool desperate maneuverer to try to survive. He still scores it: a great delayed German as well: but it's a close 2 count. Inoue tries to also end Misawa with a Torture Rack, Ogawa gets in the way to repay Misawa helping him out. After a extended attempt by both teams to hit double moves it ends with Ogawa catching Inoue with a flush backdrop for the three. Definitely a Ogawa In Peril match as a whole and all the better for it since this kind of showing got his endurance and durability over fairly well by showing him take a heap of abuse, but also as a essential part of the team with his teamwork and hustle. Misawa (deliberately?) takes a backseat to let the less established lads and as a result we do get to see a bit more out of them than what you would usually expect. Even Inoue, who rest assured was not much good in general managed to get in some moments that actually got me hype outside of just the wacky backbreaker and any match that can do that is definitely a success in my book.

Link to match! Fantastic stuff as expected. Zack is at the very end of his NOAH tenure to go on to try his stuff in America and the indies (namely WWE and Evolve, though that would fall though) and so his final singles outing in the company is against his mentor and long-time tag partner to settle the score proper. Zack has all of his WoS spot-stealing, but Ogawa is indefinitely more crafty and knows basically all of his tricks so he keeps control for the most part with basic head work. What I really like is how these two get the audience's attention not with crazy workrate, but with smart planning and structure around repeating holds into more and more complex counters and vice versa. The first five minutes of this were all about Ogawa finding ways to snap on a side headscissors a-la those Kenichiro Arai clinics. In the hands of most this would be a total failure, but with these two putting their all into it and respecting the formula this crowd in attendance are loud and interacting well with every big moment between the two. They work a lot of move-stealing as well: Zack does Ogawa sequences beat for beat while adding in a little extra when they try to get countered, which is neat to see for turbo nerds like me who watched these two a lot around the time. Ogawa's selling for the arm in the middle is amazing: he occasionally throws in like a startled yell that you'd make or he'd have a voice crack just to really get Zack's offence over really well with the crowd alongside his attempt to get over the idea that his stuff REALLY actually does hurt, especially with Zack making every little bend of the arm as animated as possible to assist there. There's a fairly easy to follow structure to things: Ogawa the vet controls most of the match at the beginning when both are fresh but near the end he's basically lost all of that carefully constructed control to the younger, more agile counterpart, needing to resort to old Rat Boy bullshit to try to even the score in the third half. I feel like this last third isn't quite as good as the rest of the match, namely because they go from particularly slick technical work to just going though their own bits, frankly Zack doing his leg-slap strikes over and over by itself isn't much good either even with Ogawa's godly selling. The road to the finish is strong however because they firmly build off the idea that these two just know each other so well that nothing in their arsenal works on the other long enough to be effective, forcing these the big counter-heavy sequences for pins. It's a good premise to finish on and builds to a genuine unexpected finish that catches you by surprise. This was quite good, even if I think it lost some of the lustre building to the end given the less than stellar striking displays. Rest of this is great though, two slick tag partners just going back and forth, squeezing a insane amount of mileage from not a whole lot of bombastic displays and instead just honing in on what they do best. Ogawa is, frankly, one of the GOAT's just watching something like this; even nearly 50 the dude is keeping up with and arguably is the better part of this match with his great selling, experience, and focus on strongly led mat-work fundamentals. Watching matches like this make you realise that he's very much a secret fan of British Catch what with his very insistent focus on raw fundamentals to build his matches around alongside lots of little things that only a seasoned watcher would really *get* and understand enough to throw in here. Zack isn't too bad either as a dance partner for his mentor despite some of his less impressive qualities of the time (random kick-based offence, slightly too cooperative when working transitions or static holds) showing their face here and there.

Batshit insane but deep down in my heart I knew that this was actually kinda heartwarming to see. Dory is at the end of days and Nishimura's got stage 4 cancer with the occasional brain seizure (god bless him, I really hope he's able to at least live a couple more years in relative comfort) and Onita's been fucked since the early 90s. This was always going to be built by the stipulation and sheer spectacle. The bar is so low that Yaguchi ends up being the MVP purely because he's the only guy here who can take bumps consistently without shattering into a million pieces, having to oversell at times for completely nothing since Dory can't even muster the ability to throw on a move or a uppercut. Nishimura's muscle memory is good enough that despite the cancer and chemo wrecking his body he's able to almost dance around Dory's immobile body to create the illusion of movement, doing pretty much all of the work for their side with some arm work (in a deathmatch??) and a couple of teases towards getting thrown into the barbed wire explosives. The explosions were cool at least (open baseball arena, so they could actually go ham here with the stuff) and Onita's smoke and mirrors shtick means that his botox-riddled ogre face isn't as noticeable as it should be when there's green mist and barbed bats being flung around here. The heel work from him and Yaguchi is convincing enough that you can sympathise with the other side as they get literally blasted with barbed wire bats while Dory gets literally held to the side for most of the final push. SayamaFan's writing on the finish is basically my own thoughts; it was very cool to see Dory actually finish a move! You could tell that this match meant a lot for the people involved (even carny Onita you could tell was feeling it a little bit) and even if it was objectively a complete mess, barely a wrestling match, shouldn't probably had happened, looked fake as hell blah blah; the emotion was real, and that's something Terry would've always been happy with.

Seconded corwo's review, this is a fantastic outing for something that went the length of a typical WWF HEAT main event. Everyone gets the memo and there's next to zero wasted movement between the four, which is truly what makes this so damn fun to watch. Here's my own review for reference:

Great example of the rare inverted David/Goliath dynamic, even rarer example of it actually working lol

it would've been awful obviously but I also would have loved to have seen the sheer chaos it would've caused having Kobashi doing dated WWF Yokozuna antics in 2005 and the crowd hating every second of what they were seeing. Fascinating piece of alt-history there