Ma Stump Puller

Joe talks about it on the Steve Austin Podcast

This is VERY true from watching certain matches of his with guys like Johnny Smith in AJPW or mentoring Sabre Jr. in NOAH. Guy seemed to be a open fan of that kind of methodical WoS-lite British wrestling, makes sense with his style in general. I similarly heard great things about their 2003 match, but like with many mid 2000's NOAH stuff it seems to have been lost to time. Very much a shame.

Thanks for asking. For me, it would be the following: vs Danny Kroffat (09/10/1995) vs Akiyama matches (09/11/1998, also try to find their 07/16/1999 overlooked rematch, also fun) vs Masahito Kakihara (01/15/1999) vs Mitsuharu Misawa (12/07/2002) vs Kenta Kobashi (11/01/2003) vs Doug Williams (03/04/2007) vs Naomichi Marufuji (12/23/2014) vs Minoru Suzuki (07/01/2015) vs Zack Sabre Jr. (11/26/2015) vs Dick Togo (01/30/2020) Kaito Kiyomiya Trilogy (06/13/2021, 10/21/2021 & 02/12/2022) Probably the best 11 or so singles I could pick out with a insane variety of wrestlers. Anyone who just goes through these by themselves I think would understand why he's regarded so highly. The Kaito stuff is paired since each match kinda connects with the others. Some more eccentric picks: vs KENTA (03/13/2004) vs Takeshi Rikio (03/05/2006) vs Hajime Ohara (27/02/2015) vs Jay White (02/25/2016) Vs Chris Ridgeway (03/09/2023)

His neck was always on borrowed time since he almost got paralysed in 2011. His ring style drastically changed afterwards to be a lot safer, it's the whole reason why he stopped facing heavyweights since it put him at more risk than otherwise. Watching the matches after that point he clearly focused less on the stooge-bumping and more on being a smart vet with a lot of tricky technical work, it's actually where most of his more ring-generalish stuff comes from (and what I'm currently throwing write-ups on, etc etc) Ogawa was one of those types that smarks tended to hate more often than not; either saying he was pushed because of friend-nepotism, his style was "boring" or that he sucked because he wasn't doing a thousand neck-drops every minute. I'm not shocked that his buzz was relatively small, but I'm also happy that he at least got his flowers with the Kaito matches with a modern audience before bowing out. His influence continues on with the NOAH Dojo and all those out of it.

Other Deep Dive stuff Link to based match Probably the match of the night, to be honest. JOKER and Ogawa spent all of the first five minutes just rolling on the mat and doing slick technical work until Ogawa started pulling out his old Rat Boy tricks to work on the arm, then we got some brawling, turnbuckle smashing, and Ogawa being a dick by stomping on the exposed shoulder of JOKER with some nasty targeted work. There's some cool little bits like Ogawa using the ref to balance himself during a sunset flip attempt or doing a weird reverse key lock with arch that I've never seen someone do before. They got a ton of mileage out of Ogawa doing his usual control sequences, namely with a lot of motion, action, and never sitting in one hold for too long. You see JOKER closely get edges (a few strikes here, a counter there) until the big explosion of offence with a masterful spinning heel kick out of a front roll which got a big reaction. JOKER gets his own back by grabbing on a corner rope-hung armbar in the corner on Ogawa, and we also get a ton of really frenetic back and forth stuff as Ogawa keeps pulling for the arm submissions to try to keep control of things, but then getting screwed because JOKER now also had his own counter holds, etc etc. Despite kicking out of two big backdrops, JOKER quickly gets caught in a sneaky armbar that he simply can't escape from, forcing the tapout. This was a pretty simple structure, but I think it really held up, with the change of scenery helping with a fairly compact crowd really getting behind this. No small part to Ogawa, who works a masterful job making most of the grinding and fairly unimpactful technical stuff look fantastic, while JOKER also does his part to make this solid with his fluid bumping and incorporating that arm work into his own stuff later on as well. No shock that we'll see this guy in NOAH a few years later as a day 1 Stinger ally, this time unmasked. Watching this makes me wish we got more of Ogawa outside of NOAH where he could have fresher matches as an actual big deal as opposed to being simply a wheel in a bigger promotion. As it is, really underrated indie bout with two very overlooked guys.

Other Deep Dive stuff Link to match since it's very based Was dreading this but then realised that this was still around the time that Minoru was actually having good matches (when he gave a shit, anyway) The theme of this event was "Suzuki-Gun vs NOAH" (every singles match was a NOAH native vs one of the members) and the main follows the same as the plucky vet steps up to the invading NOAH champion. This was about the only year left where Suzuki was at least tolerable, even if this title run was WAY too long and actively buried half the roster in the process. In effect, it's the title reign that probably added to that impending burnout Suzuki would get after this year since his matches would always the same dry ass main event attempts at epics from a guy who really wasn't all that good at them in the first place. To rag on something else for a bit, Ogawa's best matches ever come from dragging guys who typically have conventional formulas into unconventional situations thanks to him. Think of his infamous Kobashi GHC match where he turns the whole thing into a melodramatic heel/face dynamic you'd see from 80's South; completely different from any other title defence Kobashi had and by a fair amount at that. Think of his Kakihara match where he takes a strictly shoot-style guy and drags him into his dirty catch wrestling game. Like these, Ogawa drags Suzuki into playing by his tune; the match is as a result much better for it. This starts off with some minutes of early grappling with Suzuki surprisingly being on the backend as Ogawa is way too tricky to handle and keeps getting around his stuff to focus on his arm; Suzuki isn't really used to Ogawa's tricky transitions since Ogawa isn't going by the usual rules of a Suzuki match where the person either tries to out-shoot or out-strike him for the starting exchanges. Ogawa is doing neither, instead relying on classical wrestling fundamentals and experience. Suzuki eventually relents by cheating via using the ropes to brute-force Ogawa's arm for a ropehung cross armbreaker spot; one of the few times where it didn't seem contrived. He gets the advantage with brawling and by also focusing on the arm mostly either with stiff kicks and strikes. Ogawa's selling is solid as he takes a beating from Suzuki who dominates with submissions, trying to crank and break the arm and hand and not giving a inch to ensure he doesn't lose the lead again. Ogawa gets a comeback with his punches and usual counter-heavy style to get in his usual spots when things got too hairy. First half was enjoyable, the second is amazing. They had a solid pace going for the last few minutes as Suzuki kept trying to break Ogawa down but would keep getting caught in some really amazing flash pins that were built around countering Suzuki's most obvious bombs like the sleeper and Gotch Piledriver, with Suzuki flying at points with how much he was getting outfoxed: Ogawa's gameplan was to basically completely throw him off in the process with one of these, which makes sense given how much of a advantage it gave him earlier. They don't work of course, and Ogawa gets caught in a nasty rear naked choke after a big backdrop, having to use the ref as leverage to escape the hold and survive; while he caught the champ off guard, Suzuki is a quick learner and quickly starts to get a handle on what Ogawa is trying to do. He actually puts in tangible effort with his own stuff, including a dropkick (! ) and he has a awesome spot where he deadlift-counters a Small Package attempt with a front guillotine. Ogawa can't escape and Suzuki can wear him down just enough for a single Gotch to get the pin. This started simple and did threaten to be a more slower affair but quickly turned into a fantastic Ogawa-style sprint by the second half, with tons of intelligent counters and flush work in general from the two aiding to a incredibly fun encounter driven by lots of cool styles-clashes against the two. Seriously top-notch stuff despite going sub-15, hell this is better than most stuff that has double the length lol. Easily one of Ogawa's MOTDC and probably one of the last truly fantastic heavyweight matches he'd have in his career.

https://x.com/noah_ghc/status/1823207884857221529 No special retirement match, event, or even a press conference despite having nearly wrestled 40 whole years. Very in-character for one of the most underrated wrestlers of all time that he'd remain modest until the end. As someone who was always excited for the few times a year he'd forgo the neck injury and actually put on a clinic (like with the Kaito/Ridgeway matches) it's gonna feel weird not having that around now.

You could have these two face off a million times and they'd probably still find a way to make this at least somewhat entertaining. Suzuki was much more energetic than in some of his other material (showing off with some cool Robertson-lite transitions that even Keita was stumped to deal with like that rolling Indian Deathlock!) and Keita despite his fucked up throat from years of trauma was game to do some rough and tumble amateur sprawling with the occasional wacky submission attempt out of nowhere. This really felt more or less like something you'd see from WoS, especially the way they get a ton of tension out of even the slightest big transition or suplex as a game-challenging problem to dodge around. Suzuki tries for a Butterfly Suplex around about in the middle of this and Keita immediately leaps to the ropes to prevent that from happening without even attempting to struggle or counter to highlight this alongside it being a neat callback to their first match together where that sudden attempt at a big bomb was the thing that finished Keita before. The first strike is really thematically important as it comes just as Keita is making a slow breakthrough with attacking Suzuki's arm with various different holds/attacks; eventually having Suzuki lose his patience and catch him with a elbow smash, happening as he was offering the bad arm to Keita during a lock-up and conceding the pure grappling side of this showing. There's a couple of sequences that are more or less there just to be blatant throwbacks to old Catch matches alongside Keita being his usual goofy ahh self by throwing in a random Tarantula spot near the end lol. The ending was especially uber based as Suzuki went into the Cobra Twist-cradle Osamu Nishimura used to throw out a ton, Keita kicked out but then in doing so got caught in a Banana Twist submission that cost him the match! Anything that manages to somehow include an Banana Twist into the match in general is great, this being the actual finish was doubly so. Definitely a slow one to start off with (I mean with these two you expect a slowish pace anyway mind) but the pace is more protracted than intentionally boring on that front with tons of attention to detail. Suzuki felt significantly motivated to actually work and do stuff here compared to some of his other material (most of it being lay and pray stuff, not that fun to go through) with Keita's own knowledge in grappling pushing him to work more proactively instead of laying about. He was legitimately very good here and showed off some impressive stuff that you'd be hard pressed to find elsewhere done with such technical proficiency. The crowd also helped as they were actually respectfully silent (not the usual BS "oh they're being respectful" explanation for crowds who just didn't give a fuck about the match) popping big when major events happened and clearly being very impressed by the performances here. Keita is as he usually is, really smooth grappler who seemed a lot more focused here: probably due to the calibre of his opponent similarly also forcing him to cut the more eccentric spots he has a tendency to throw out in less strict conditions. I'm not complaining though as this version of him is still really solid, glad he's actually being able to do serious stuff like this instead of lingering in random indie feds his whole life.

Other Deep Dive stuff Arai got the chance to do another Iron Man and, not shockingly, the match is similarly insanely high-quality. This is a long one. Yes, this is 60 MINUTES long and in one of the smallest rings you could imagine as per KOBE standards. I watched it though because Arai is the master of long-form matches and knows how to pace such a daunting task just enough that you can get into them. The first 10/15 minutes are focused around Arai doing either really cool escapes out of holds or focusing on solid limb work via the arm, managing to use some wrist control to brilliantly keep control of the match by bending and wrenching it backwards in a WoS-lite sequence. Sasaki does well as the besieged opponent who occasionally gets in a hold or two before Arai finds a way to outsmart or slap on his own counter-hold in response. As the match goes on Sasaki drags out some advantage with cool homages to Inoki via the Cobra Twist and Indian Deathlock, forcing Arai to really painful positions. I thought he sold his frustrations fairly well as he goes out of the ring a couple of times to regroup and go for different plans each time, switching which part of the body he was focusing on or trying for different ways to catch his opponent out. There's also some nice focus on the two finding uniquely impressive pinning positions for the other, occasionally being able to squeeze out a near fall from technique alone rather than from just beating the other person up with strikes. They do some playing around with the usual foundations of these kind of Iron Man matches: the "fish out of water" spot is in the middle here instead of at the beginning typically as a cheap way to get the crowd interested: instead it stops abruptly in the middle and is used instead to further establish Sasaki's headscissors as one of the killer moves of the match, having Arai fail to escape the second one. Rather than turn up the workrate after the beginning this grinds down immensely in the middle half, generally so that they can do a extended struggle in the headscissors, with numerous segments being dedicated to failing to escape/escaping and getting caught again in the same move. It actually works here through because this same move has been shown since the beginning to be a problem for Arai, so logically Sasaki is gonna go back to this again and again for maximum effect. Arai in turn sells it really well, stumbling around in confusion when he gets out, rallying the crowd to try to bowl over, rolling Sasaki up for pinfalls, etc etc. Arai finally gets out with this same rollup only modified slightly in that he scrapes his knees on his head lol. Sasaki's turn to leave comes with a major turning point in the match as he throws the first strikes at Arai in frustration and pays for it by getting caught in a arm-bind. In true tragic fashion Sasaki then just counters back into the headscissors lol. There's some nice added brutality as he also attempts to cover Arai's nose (! ) in an attempt to kill the guy. Eventually Arai is able to peel out bit by bit and stiffly slaps Sasaki in the face when he has the cheek to try to throw strikes to keep advantage. There's more focus on it even afterwards (namely when Arai tries to go for the side headlock over and over) but Sasaki and co slowly transition away from it as the main focus with other work. Them doing the Nishimura surfboard struggle sequence is uber based, thought them somehow managing to transition from that to a fancy pinfall while Arai was doing a handstand w/ arms locked was uniquely bizarre and brilliant at the same time. Sasaki stays on the attack as he pulls out the Russian Leg Sweep and other hallmark classics to slowly grind down Arai with sleepers. They do the good old Kobashi/Steve Williams spot of Arai having the backdrop and Sasaki pushing himself off the ropes to cause a dub spot. Arai follows up with some pretty goofy second rope axe handles before getting caught with a shin breaker that he sells excellently. The next 5 minutes are completely focused on a figure-four struggle w/ Arai doing a super neat toe-hold counter to it at points using his shoulder and the exposed leg, but ultimately having to tap out when Sasaki switched to the Spinning Toe Hold instead; something he had stopped before but was clearly too fatigued to push him off this time in a good progression of what we'd seen before. Arai sells being spent real well as he hides in the corner and keeps escaping to the outside to recover and stall out proceedings. Sasaki then overcommits in a very clever spot where he runs at Arai hanging off the ropes before then getting thrown through the middle rope into the actual wall of the bar they are in (the ring is THAT small that you can do this spot legit, amazingly) which then gives his opponent the chance to desperately snap on a Cravat and pull for dear life. We get some energetic transitions while still keeping the hold until Arai hurls himself into the top turnbuckle in a really violent sell that even Bret would've been jealous of. In a ironic twist of fate Arai throws on this completely original corner headscissors that he coverts to the ground that shockingly gets the tap when Sasaki tries to escape and gets his neck stuck! There's only three minutes on the clock so the two (literally) run through some spots like Arai missing a second rope back elbow etc etc. Sasaki grabs on a Cloverleaf and makes Arai tap just as the bell rings in a very well timed finish. All in all a fantastic match that proves once more that Arai is one of the best to ever do it when it comes to minimalism in wrestling, just a complete master of knowing how to get the most out of very little and equally knowing how to structure and pace a match that even the smallest of momentum changes feel legitimately earth-shattering. Dude really knows how to sell big when things got tense here as well. Sasaki deserves a ton of praise as well for someone who is barely on anyone's radar. Completely shocking that someone as obscure as him who mostly seems to be a nothing indie guy had all of this just bubbling under the surface, and it's made me definitely want to search out if he's got anything close to this level. If so, could be worth a deeper look. Not as epic as the 2023 GENTARO clinic (then again what could?) but absolutely a must-watch for any fan of this kind of methodical grappling.

There's also the IWE tag w/ Bockwinkel (10/06/1979) the WWF Battle Royal (11/16/1987) and his final match with Chono in NJPW (12/26/1990) if you want to be a completionist of the intact stuff. There is other material out there but it's mostly piecemeal and clipped.

I'm not sure how you could really quantify it in a possible GWE 100 case lol. It's fun comedy work but it's hardly the main reason why someone might pick Sawa. I tend to think about that kind of stuff in the same fashion as the Baba Family 90's tags; it exists, it's there, you can be a fan of it, it's just not necessarily a make or break for anyone involved.

I might be necro-bumping this (it's a cool thread so I don't feel that bad about it, but still) but the idea of putting Kendo Kashin as a "badass" is just...I'd have no idea even where to start with that. Yes he was a legitimate Greco-Roman wrestler....most of the time the dude was either getting his ass beat or doing silly troll antics in his actual pro-wres matches. I love the dude but I wouldn't say he's a mean shooter like Fujita. And yes Fujita was very much based, his era of work was largely overhated for years for being "the dark years of wrestling" despite every single company either overtly dying (GAEA, ZERO-ONE, etc) or having to use yakuza to threaten people to buy tickets to attempt to even stay afloat (NOAH and co). The dark years had more to do with rapid economical downturn than because one main event ran only 9 minutes and included Josh Barnett or Bas Rutten lol. I'm glad he has gotten the chance to at least keep doing the style that put him on the map, at least.

A really good example of pure sloppy BEEF kino. Akebono struggles with intensity that Ishikawa brings in spades and Ake brings a remarkably rare example of Ishikawa not being able to do his usual dominant giant routine as he's not the biggest man in the room as per usual, so we really get a nice little sprint that mixes things up ever so slightly between the two. If you weren't a fan of Ake control sequences then this won't be up your alley but I personally got into fairly easily thanks to the above reasons since this had a dynamic going for it that you aren't really going to see much anywhere else. Ishikawa just in the middle goes right into the crazy stiff knees and forearms to the head alongside an truly terrifying piledriver that Ake then responds with some big strikes and a goofy lariat. He then tries for his own botched Yokozuna Impact piledriver where he just falls over mid-move and Ishikawa also then jumps too early for, creating this weird delayed effect where the move basically happened, reset, then happened even worse lol. The actual finish was legitimately great as Ake got slapped uber hard alongside some scary stiff headbutts that he then responds with by doing his own huge sumo slap and a even worse Yokozuna Impact where he doesn't even get a quarter up without falling over mid-move, felt like something you'd see from the very peak of head-drop mania 90's AJPW when every big spot had to be modified to be even more risky than it already was. Ake gets all gassed up after this immense effort and leans on his opponent on the ground before finally nailing the move the third time for the finish after a brief pause. This was really sloppy but uber enjoyable at the same time BECAUSE of that sloppiness, especially with two huge heavyweights like these two where anything could realistically finish the match. Akebono is at that point in his career where he's starting to have legitimate issues getting around; this match doesn't really attempt to disguise that in any subtle manner; at the same time though you could tell he was really giving it his all despite said issues, landing a bunch of surprisingly solid strikes and meshing with Ishikawa well. He knew the memo from the first stiff headbutt and he damn well keeps that dangerous feeling all the way to the ending. I'm kinda glad we're past the mid-2010's smarky era of "well Akebono sucked because he had a bad match with big show once" because it means matches like these can get their actual flowers.

Naruse being a RINGS vet meant that he could carry the task of doing this random Inoki-Ism match to build Bas up for his Nagata match fairly well. This mostly had a good rhythm to it with a lot of back and forth in stand-up with Naruse using some wildly impractical kicks that barely hit their mark when he uses them. Bas here is a lot more methodical with how he conducts himself, tending to focus less on random big pushes to action and more of a calm approach to things & using submissions only when Naru tries to go for takedowns, preferring to work stand-up instead for the most part. This goes on for a good couple of minutes until Naruse makes the mistake of poking the bear by landing a loud slap to the side of Bas' head and trying to rush in right after. He in return gets a incredibly awesome receipt in a vicious Teep kick to the body and probably one of the best roundhouses in recorded history as he just smacks Naruse right the fuck down with what could only be really described as baseball bat-levels of force to the side of his head. The camera only briefly catches it but you can see Bas himself mouth "oh shit" immediately right after. Naruse barely gets up and he looks legitimately rocked from the shot with big wide open eyes and zero expression in his face, yet is still able to recover enough to land a Capture Suplex into an Achilles Tendon hold to slow things down. The two have a cool struggle over some leg holds as Naru grabs Bas' other leg for a neat toe hold to force a rope escape. We get a awesome counter to a takedown right after as Bas underhooks Naru's arms mid-tackle and hits a big knee to rock him to the ground for a tight looking rear naked choke for another escape. There's some hope thrown in as Bas hits a combo of head shots but Naruse is able to just about catch one into ankle lock; we have this amazing visual of Bas just a second faster reaching the ropes before Naru could drag him into the middle of the ring and perhaps even get a miraculous win out of the whole thing. Once that last inch of hope is gone this doesn't attempt to even pretend the two are even. Bas rocks Naru with a series of vicious shots and when he attempts to hide in open guard presumably to try to bait some grappling Bas just punches him in the stomach until he gets his ass back up lol. Actual finish is great with another big roundhouse to the head finishing things off in dramatic fashion as Naruse slowly flops to the ground for a KO win. This is honestly pretty great as a whole even if the start starts, well, rather slow. Not bad, mind you; just slow. It definitely takes a bit to get into things and the action you are fed to presumably keep you at the table isn't the most exciting. I will say that the second half starts off incredible with the slap to the head by Naruse and it basically never stops being uber-tense and exciting all the way to the finish, carrying no real way to predict what will happen next to boot. Bas has this truly unique aura of unpredictability and danger where any single strike/hold could potentially be a conclusive finish: something Naruse sells very well with how apprehensive he is to even commit to much of anything for the start. But of course, eventually, curiosity gets the better of him: he thinks he can chase the dragon and make something of himself here. He pays for that hubris. A lot. That by itself really makes the match what it is....alongside some sick strikes but hey, sue me.

A pretty fascinating baby-Taue match that has only recently been aired in full. Well ok, it's not THAT fascinating once the match starts but still. The two do a lot of big-man stuff as they tussle in a collar and elbow for about a minute or so until hitting the ropes, having Hansen just say random gibberish to pop the crowd. Taue is surprisingly successful with a side headlock for pretty much the entire first half of this and I'd say Hansen does well enough trying to get it over; when he eventually gets to the corner ropes to break out of the first one he acts frazzled and agitated over the whole affair, immediately running back into Taue's clinch and getting stuck back in another headlock as punishment for being reckless. They tease Hansen going for the Choshu backdrop counter out of it a couple of times but just isn't able to really do so due to presumably Taue's sumo-induced base strength, letting him keep control of the hold even despite being lifted off his feet ever so slightly. Hansen logically then tries to break the hold by trying to use blunt force by attempting to move Taue's hands away from his head and is also slightly successful at this before getting shoved back to the mat again, firmly being outclassed. It's not exactly the most compelling work in the world but it definitely contains within itself a endearing look here at Hansen's ability to make Taue look so strong out of something as simple as being incapable of getting out of a headlock. Compare with their 1989 match where Hansen squashed Taue in a couple of minutes and you can definitely see the improvements already before any real fancy work is performed, Taue is much more of a threat and Hansen is cognisant to showcase that visually for a long duration of the match. Hansen's explosion of violence as soon as he gets the rope break is really well done, with him hammering at Taue's head with forearms and dragging him outside for a small scuffle involving chairs and choking. Taue ends up miraculously snapping back on the headlock due to some random Misawa-lite forearms of his own. This time Hansen is a bit more prepared for the headlock, using a particularly nasty side neck crank to peel Taue away that felt shockingly technical for a guy who's main gimmick was being a wild cowboy. Most of the second half is focused around Hansen's strikes, mainly on his opponent's bandaged forehead. He throws in some decent power moves to truly exaggerate his dominance, multiple scoop slams and elbow drops to Taue's head to boot. Taue gets in a couple of neat comebacks that are noticeably very uncreative; he tries for Misawa's forearms again, he does Hansen's scoop slams and elbow drops right after he's just done them, hell he even throws in a Hogan leg drop right after for a near fall lol. His rookie tendencies bite him again as he attempts an suplex on his far larger opponent and inevitably pays for it with a weird modified suplex off the ropes and a DDT, but Taue hits the ropes. Hansen primes the crowd for a Western Lariat, it's only Taue's bad instincts (throwing Hansen off the ropes and attempting a shoulder charge when he knew the Lariat was coming!) that let him land the move for the big finish. This was a fairly low-impact match but had a ton of strong psychology that, led by Hansen, gives Taue a good platform to showcase his early abilities at doing a more protracted 70's style showing. I think Taue himself also does a decent job here, bumping and selling well when it mattered while also showcasing that freakish strength that'll be his whole shtick later on. His lack of creativity is a fascinating bit and shows that he isn't quite there yet; he can certainly pretend to be Misawa with his forearm shots or Hansen with his slams, that doesn't really make him either of them in terms of success though and it shows given how he eventually fails with both approaches. He's trying to lend from Jumbo with the headlock sthick to boot and while it gives him the most success you clearly see that he has no gameplan beyond that in-match and has yet to truly find his niche yet. Either way it's a really interesting singles performance from both.

Also done a C&A on Amano that really goes deep into some cool stuff

Other Deep Dive stuff Introduction Carlos Amano's pretty based, but I was really bothered a few months back because there just wasn't much if any comprehensive coverage on WHAT matches represented her coolness factor the best, especially to a more casual audience that didn't have the time to really discover these sort of things. This totally original thread that hasn't stolen a lick of creative value will attempt to document and list pretty much every major match (alongside some random selections) of her career....minus some showings that I either wasn't able to cover or wasn't bothered to do so, like the VKF tags (mostly boring) her Kamen matches (they suck) and a good few of her really early 1995/early 96 matches (pretty much all of them have nothing of value). Outside of that I hope that this is a valuable resource to anyone looking to get into this era of wrestling as it's immensely rewarding once you get a hang of what to try to find. Matches will be sorted as what you definitely haven't seen elsewhere: EPIC, GREAT, FUN or SKIPPABLE. I will add in a DECENT for matches that aren't necessarily reaching the point of being "fun" nor truly skippable either. Kinda like a 6/10 rating if that makes any sense. I also do dates in the Euro style so it's day/month/year in case anyone is confused at first. Some matches have their own pages on here so I will just link to those when necessary. 1995 Reiko Amano vs Tomoko Miyaguchi JWP (16/06/95): DECENT Reiko Amano vs Bolshoi Kid JWP (10/31/95): FUN 1996 Reiko Amano vs Bolshoi Kid JWP (07/04/96): FUN Reiko Amano & Tomoko Miyaguchi vs Command Bolshoi & Kanako Motoya JWP (21/04/96): DECENT Reiko Amano vs The Bloody Phoenix AJW (18/05/96): SKIPPABLE Reiko Amano & Mayumi Ozaki vs Dynamite Kansai & Tomoko Miyaguchi JWP (16/06/96): GREAT Reiko Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato GAEA (16/11/96): DECENT 1997 Reiko Amano & Mayumi Ozaki vs Devil Masami & Hikari Fukuoka JWP (09.02.97): GREAT Rieko Amano & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Megumi Kudo & RIE JWP (08/04/97): FUN Reiko Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Akira Hokuto & Maiko Matsumoto GAEA (21/04/97: DECENT Reiko Amano vs Tomoko Miyaguchi JWP (10/05/97): DECENT, BORDERING ON FUN Reiko Amano, Chikayo Nagashima, Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato vs Chigusa Nagayo, Devil Masami, Meiko Satomura & Tomoko Miyaguchi JWP (08/06/97): FUN Reiko Amano vs Kumiko Maekawa JWP (17/08/97): DECENT Reiko Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Meiko Satomura & Toshie Uematsu GAEA (30/11/97): FUN 1998 Reiko Amano & Sugar Sato vs Command Bolshoi & Dynamite Kansai JWP (11/02/98): DECENT Reiko Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki JWP (06/03/98): EPIC Rieko Amano vs Tomoko Miyaguchi JWP (10/05/98): GREAT Reiko Amano vs Kanako Motoya JWP (14/06/98): FUN Reiko Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Sonoko Kato & Toshie Uematsu OZ Academy (21/06/98): DECENT 1999 Reiko Amano vs Meiko Satomura GAEA (17/01/99): EPIC Carlos Amano & Aja Kong vs Meiko Satomura & Toshiyo Yamada OZ Academy (28/02/99): FUN Carlos Amano vs Azumi Hyuga JWP (23/09/99): GREAT 2001 Carlos Amano vs Hiromi Yagi Michinoku Pro (14/01/01): FUN Carlos Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Meiko Satomura & Sumie Sakai OZ Academy (18/02/01): FUN Carlos Amano & Hiromi Yagi vs Chaparita ASARI & Yuka Shiina NEO (04/05/01): FUN Carlos Amano vs Ran YuYu JWP (10/09/01): GREAT Carlos Amano & Meiko Satomura vs Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada GAEA (24/09/01): FUN Carlos Amano & Chigusa Nagayo vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Toshiyo Yamada GAEA (28/10/01): FUN Carlos Amano vs. Toshie Uematsu GAEA (15/12/01): DECENT 2002 Carlos Amano & Aja Kong vs Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada GAEA (13/01/02): SKIPPABLE Carlos Amano vs Aya Sakurai GAEA (13/01/02): DECENT Carlos Amano, Chikayo Nagashima & Mayumi Ozaki vs Chigusa Nagayo, Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada GAEA (14/01/02): DECENT Carlos Amano vs Azumi Hyuga JWP (23/02/02): EPIC Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Chigusa Nagayo & Sakura Hirota GAEA (17/03/02): FUN Carlos Amano & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Devil Masami & Toshie Uematsu GAEA (07/04/02): SKIPPABLE Carlos Amano vs Aja Kong OZ Academy (11/05/02): FUN Carlos Amano vs Sugar Sato GAEA (18/05/02): DECENT Carlos Amano vs Chikayo Nagashima GAEA (26/05/02): FUN Carlos Amano vs Ayako Hamada GAEA (02/06/02): GREAT Carlos Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Ayako Hamada & Chigusa Nagayo GAEA (30/06/02): FUN Carlos Amano vs Command Bolshoi JWP (15/09/02): GREAT Carlos Amano vs Command Bolshoi JWP (23/09/02): EPIC Carlos Amano vs Ran YuYu GAEA (20/10/02): FUN 2003 Carlos Amano vs Chikayo Nagashima GAEA (06/04/03): FUN Carlos Amano & Mima Shimoda vs Aja Kong & Lioness Asuka OZ Academy (31/08/03): DECENT 2004 Carlos Amano vs Mariko Yoshida GAEA (30/04/04): EPIC Carlos Amano vs Amazing Kong OZ Academy (08/08/04): FUN Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (08/08/04): DECENT Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota GAEA (16/10/04): DECENT Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Ayako Hamada & Dynamite Kansai GAEA (17/10/04): DECENT 2005 Carlos Amano & Chigusa Nagayo vs AKINO & Mariko Yoshida GAEA (16/01/05): FUN Carlos Amano & AKINO vs Ran YuYu & Toshie Uematsu GAEA (11/02/05): FUN Carlos Amano vs Aja Kong (10/04/05): GREAT Carlos Amano & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato OZ Academy (26/06/05): FUN 2006 Carlos Amano vs Kaoru Ito OZ Academy (22/01/06): FUN Carlos Amano vs Mika Nishio OZ Academy (03/23/06): FUN Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (30/04/06): SKIPPABLE Carlos Amano vs Yurie Kaneko Sendai Girls (11/11/06): DECENT Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (30/12/06): GREAT Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Ran YuYu & Yuki Miyazaki OZ Academy (30/12/06): DECENT 2007 Carlos Amano vs Chikayo Nagashima OZ Academy (28/01/07): FUN Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Eagle Sawai & Takako Inoue OZ Academy (28/01/07): FUN Carlos Amano vs GAMI OZ Academy (04/05/07): SKIPPABLE Carlos Amano vs Kyoko Kimura Battlarts (13/05/07): EPIC Carlos Amano vs AKINO OZ Academy (10/06/07): DECENT Carlos Amano vs Kaori Yoneyama OZ Academy (21/10/07): GREAT 2008 Carlos Amano vs Aja Kong OZ Academy (13/01/08): EPIC Carlos Amano vs Ryo Mizunami Sendai Girls (24/02/08): GREAT Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (12/04/08): FUN Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Aja Kong & Manami Toyota (07/06/08): FUN Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Chikayo Nagashima & Sonoko Kato OZ Academy (13/07/08): FUN Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs. KAORU & Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (10/08/08): FUN Carlos Amano & Azumi Hyuga vs Chikayo Nagashima & Meiko Satomura JWP (28/12/08): DECENT Carlos Amano, Devil Masami & Dynamite Kansai vs Aja Kong, Ran YuYu & Toshie Uematsu Marvelous Night V (30/12/08): FUN 2009 Carlos Amano & Tomoka Nakagawa vs AKINO & Ayumi Kurihara OZ Academy (22/09/09): DECENT Carlos Amano, Azumi Hyuga & Command Bolshoi vs Harley Saito, Mayumi Ozaki & Shinobu Kandori OZ Academy (16/08/09): DECENT 2010 Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (10/01/10): ??? Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (07/02/10): ??? Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (21/02/10): DECENT Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (14/03/10): DECENT Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (04/04/10): FUN Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Aja Kong & Kaoru Ito OZ Academy (13/06/10): FUN Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura OZ Academy (22/08/10): DECENT 2011 Carlos Amano & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Kana & Yoshiaki Fujiwara Kana Pro (10/01/11): GREAT Carlos Amano, Manami Toyota & Nao Komatsu vs. Hiren, Io Shirai & Mio Shirai OZ Academy (10/04/11): DECENT Carlos Amano, GAMI & Manami Toyota vs Chikayo Nagashima, Hiren & Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (03/11/11): SKIPPABLE Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto & Yumi Ohka OZ Academy (18/12/11): DECENT 2012 Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Aja Kong & Sonoko Kato OZ Academy (15/01/12): DECENT Carlos Amano vs Tomoka Nakagawa OZ Academy (26/02/12): SKIPPABLE Carlos Amano vs Shuu Shibutani WAVE (10/10/12): DECENT Carlos Amano & Ran YuYu vs Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (09/12/12): FUN Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki Sendai Girls (15/12/12): SKIPPABLE 2013 Carlos Amano vs Tsubasa Kuragaki OZ Academy (10/02/13): SKIPPABLE? Carlos Amano & Meiko Satomura vs Aja Kong & Hikaru Shida OZ Academy (10/03/13): DECENT Carlos Amano vs Aya Mizunami WAVE (27/03/13): FUN Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs AKINO & Hiroyo Matsumoto OZ Academy (12/05/13): DECENT Carlos Amano, Hailey Hatred, Hiroyo Matsumoto & Mio Shirai vs. DASH Chisako, Kagetsu, Meiko Satomura & Sendai Sachiko Michinoku Pro (30/06/13): DECENT Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Aja Kong & Ayako Hamada OZ Academy (14/07/13): DECENT Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (11/08/13): ??? Carlos Amano vs Kana OZ Academy (15/09/13): GREAT Carlos Amano vs Sonoko Kato OZ Academy (10/11/13): FUN 2014 Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Hikaru Shida & Kagetsu OZ Academy (02/03/14): FUN Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Hiroyo Matsumoto & Kaori Yoneyama OZ Academy (16/04/14): SKIPPABLE Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs. Dynamite Kansai & Kaori Yoneyama OZ Academy (11/05/14): DECENT Conclusion seems to be good wrestler idk

This for a good while was only available as a chopped up match that removed the majority of the starting grappling exchanges, which for a match like this you'd kinda want to see out of these two lol. Thankfully the full version has now shown up and not shockingly is very good. Mainly what works about this match (as well as any involving this two, really) is that they compliment each other well. Amano I've found does her best work when using her technical wizardry first and foremost, mainly in give-and-take formulas where she mostly has heelish tendencies during her control spots, attacking weak limbs like a injured shoulder or a bad leg as the main lead-in for everything else on the table. Meiko around this point excelled at emoting/selling, working from under a more confident opponent alongside throwing out crazy bombs to get the maximum amount of action. You can see how that pairing works before this even started. The first 5/10 minutes is mostly dedicated to grappling, mainly Amano using Meiko's bandaged arm to do some cool submission spots. The bit where she counters a toe-hold by forcing Meiko's head down to pop up her shoulder for a double-wrist lock in mount was really cool, not anything you'd see today at all or done that smoothly anyway. The grappling isn't insanely complex (Meiko was never particularly known for her mat-work to be fair) but is carried well by the pacing, with both getting the chance to slap on holds and sell pretty strongly, though Meiko stands out as the far greater of the two when it came to just communicating a mix of pain/frustration. It bubbles through when she's trying to use her bad shoulder for stuff and clearly hurting. Stuff like the Boston Crab for instance; typically only dangerous for rookies; is put over as much more dangerous than otherwise because Meiko can't use her arms to push herself up (which is the usual kayfabed way to deal with that kind of move) so she's forced instead to slowly crawl to the ropes. The middle portion diversifies by throwing in OZ Acad interfering and some outside brawling. This stuff is fairly fine yet not my cup of tea all things considered. I don't think it's done bad or anything though and the crowd are clearly very into it from the get-go so I can't moan too much lol. Meiko's improvised brawling with her throwing water bottles and buckets was funny though. They do pick up the intensity well as Meiko throws some convincingly solid strikes (including a shockingly sick ankle lock counter to a roundhouse while on the top rope!!!) and really gets the crowd invested in her comebacks. In turn they amp up the interference to establish that while Amano is fairly good, she just doesn't have the edge in striking that her opponent does, forcing her to exploit the arm more. One bit they had here was like her doing a underhook suplex into butterfly lock which looked absolutely nasty, shocked no one tried to steal that. Last third is mostly focused around the threat of Amano's many armbreaker transitions, which was a treat for someone like myself who had a good idea of what they were going to use (the one off the top rope, the standing one) with a couple of interesting changes and mix-ups that honestly I hadn't seen before. They build up the interference even more to the point of them basically just turning into a mob hurling chairs around. Satomura's mastery of doing these sort of chaotic finishing stretches where there are counters on counters into big moves is well documented but it definitely shines here, with her playing dead for submissions before somehow almost managing to hit the DVD anyway. It's the big death-move of the match and clearly the one she needs to hit yet every attempt just never seems to work properly, with loads of teases and cute transitions into it that ultimately never get enough time to breathe before the next counter. Alas there is one botch where they seem to fuck up the timing on the ending as the ref counts Meiko out during a arm triangle. The bell is even rung and then they awkwardly just continue anyway. It's bizarre and doesn't add anything to the match bar being confusing. Other than that it was basically next to perfect as we get a couple of big roundhouses by Meiko into a huge underhook for the symbolic three count (interference again rip) before Amano eventually reverses out of one too many bombs and manages to win with a rolling armbreaker. As I said above this match works primarily because the two involved are great matches for the other; every one of their matches is good to great, this being their best naturally given the fantastic blend of tense grappling with a ton of drama to get the crowd from fairly cold to being all over this by the end. I wouldn't say in terms of Amano matches that this was as up there as Yoshida '04/Bolshoi '02/Hyuga '02 as all of those are just a bit more focused on the technical side of things, a bit cleaner, a bit more varied etc. Top 10? Yeah sure, definitely.

This was a fairly fascinating watch all things considered. It's wrestled under what is essentially NJPW's Different Style Rules, basically no pins, submissions/KO only etc. It's the only Amano match that is overtly shoot-style (while the Kana tags are wrestled as such pinfalls were still allowed, not counting her jd' MMA match either because that wasn't worked) and as such is quite the oddity. Maekawa with her Karate background basically acts as the striker here while Amano with her amateur background was shooting much more and trying to get submissions. They get that over very easily by having Amano's first action in the match be a double leg takedown which led to Maekawa going for the ropes when she lost the mount and then almost had her back taken trying to escape, then had Amano be cowering in the corner taking leg kicks when they got back in stand-up. Even if you knew absolutely nothing about the pair you get exactly what is being communicated here just from watching their first exchange. As a whole I think this while functionally decent doesn't really hit the mark in any real way possible in that the exciting parts of a shoot-style match (the technique, rapid changes in momentum, sick counters) just aren't really here for the most part. There's lots of tentative sitting in open mount and the pacing is particularly slow by the second round, especially when Maekawa takes charge on the mat since that's not really her avenue. While the actual work was for sure competent (Amano especially snaps on a super quick armbreaker out of full mount that really shocked the crowd near the beginning) it just never quite peaks at any point worth mentioning, instead trucking along at a safe but rather plain pace. They did do better than some of the dogshit UWF-I undercards in prior years though so that's saying.....something, at least? I thought the ending was goofy as fuck as Amano at the very start of the third round tries to run in with a dropkick and predictively does nothing, getting kicked in the head for a long knockdown. Amano gets back up, Maekawa just roundhouses her head off again to finish the match with a KO. As I said above this had a interesting premise with fairly talented workers, it just never really got all that exciting. There's lots of downtime on the mat and less time seeing Maekawa land huge clunky kicks to the face and head; never a good thing in my book. Amano definitely showed a more amateur-style with a bunch of solid tricky takedowns and some submissions that I think could've been a interesting style to contrast with, say, ARISON-era Yoshida or Yagi. This just lacked a real hook to really sink my teeth into, which is a shame because this matchup on paper had a lot of potential.

epic

Other Deep Dive stuff Fun/weird match that had some great work at a time where Keita was a bit inconsistent quality-wise. Ryuji Walter (usually named "Ryuji Walters" on his singlet) is another one of those mysterious Japanese uber indie guys that despite being trained by the legendary Boris Malenko has sparingly appeared....well anywhere, really, bar this promotion and some self-promoted indies that maybe made tape. He apparently trained for Inoki's UFO promotion yet it went under before he could show up so he just kinda lingered around the indie scene. Walter still seemingly trains a fair number of wrestlers to this day but any substantial info is lost to the sands of pre-2010's internet obscurity. Keita attacks mid-entrance and works on the leg with some good work while we get the occasional goofy spot that he just lets slip through the usually clean technique out of him, a common occurrence at the time and one of the main issues with his Batti run. I thought the two otherwise were cooking with the major focus on leg submissions and counters, with Ryuji having some good transitions while ultimately getting worn down by Keita's prior leg work and thus not being able to keep the aggression going even when he was seemingly on the upswing. Keita throws in some relatively novel outside work involving chairs and the very apron being involved, which was very outside the spectrum of action you'd usually see out of a Battlarts 2.0 match. Ryuji gets in some great worked punches in response and sells quite well in terms of getting over his leg troubles enough that you believe the hole he gets stuck in as it gets bigger and bigger from the deficit caused by Keita's relentless knee attacks. It helps that when Keita gets too goofy with his WoS homages that Ryuji has the sensible mindset to rein things back with sick punches and knees to distract you from that stuff. The only thing that hurt the match as a whole was the abrupt ending which had Keita get knocked down, get up, then smacked enough with punches that the ref calls the thing off for a TKO victory for Ryuji. It certainly had some dramatics to it (with some...questionable selling by Keita mind you) but it came a bit too soon and just as things were starting to tense up after a fairly long control segment. It's a shame as well because this pairing feels like something that could've been way expanded, especially in the next few years when Keita becomes a rogue and starts wrestling epics in basements and backyard gyms. Without the constrains involved here you could see how this could've progressed into more of a dirty scrap with some real huge dramatics to boot. Certainly a match that definitely could've been much greater if it happened down the line. That said, this is still fairly solid by itself. Keita really invokes the GOAT Yoshinari Ogawa here with his prolonged control spots and ability to get you invested throughout despite the length and breadth of said control spots. Ryuji's little counters on the mat here and there were pretty cool; his Kimura attempt while in a heel hook and some fancy exchanges of toe-holds/Achilles Tendon struggles made me pretty much a instant fan of him, and I was really hooked when he starts throwing some very hefty stand-up bombs. Nothing that out there but definitely a real fun and overlooked 7-minute sprint.

Honestly you could throw any singles Amano/Ran match in there, they have great chemistry all things considered. The 1998 match is their most ambitious mat-heavy work though so it's a good addition to throw in Haven't watched the Meiko 2002 match but that should be good. It's a real shame that their 2013 rematch in OZ got clipped to 2 minutes because they always bounced off each other especially well.

Alright so I actually wanted to put out a proper watch list as soon as I had got through basically nearly every comprehensive Amano match worth watching minus the occasional filler tag or two lol. Jetlag didn't throw recommendations up above, so consider this the unofficial version I suppose. It can be tricky finding 2000's OZ and whatnot but there are sites and resources worth searching out if you dig. Best of: singles vs Mayumi Ozaki (03.06.1998 JWP) vs Tomoko Miyaguchi (05.10.1998 JWP) vs Meiko Satomura (01.17.1999 GAEA) vs Azumi Hyuga (09.23.1999 JWP) vs Azumi Hyuga II (02.23.2002 Neo-JWP) Any Command Bolshoi match she had/was involved in 2002 vs Mariko Yoshida (04.30.2004 GAEA) vs Aja Kong (04.10.2005 GAEA) vs Kyoko Kimura (05.13.2007 Battlarts 2.0) vs Kaori Yoneyama (10.21.2007 OZ Academy) vs Aja Kong II (01.13.2008 OZ Academy) vs Mayumi Ozaki II (04.12.2008 OZ Academy) vs Kana (09.15.2013 OZ Academy) vs Sonoko Kato (11.10.2013 OZ Academy) Best of: tags w/ Tomoko Miyaguchi vs Command Bolshoi & Kanako Motoya (04.21.1996 JWP) w/ Mayumi Ozaki vs Devil Masami & Hikari Fukuoka (02.09.1997 JWP) w/ Chikayo Nagashima vs Meiko Satomura & Toshie Uematsu (11.30.1997 GAEA) w/ Aja Kong vs Meiko Satomura & Toshiyo Yamada (02.28.1999 OZ Academy) w/ Hiromi Yagi vs Chaparita ASARI & Yuka Shiina (05.04.2001 NEO) w/ Meiko Satomura vs Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada (09.24.2001 GAEA) w/ Chigusa Nagayo vs AKINO & Mariko Yoshida (01.16.2005 GAEA) w/ Dynamite Kansai vs Eagle Sawai & Takako Inoue (01.28.2007 OZ Academy) w/ Yuki Ishikawa vs Kana & Yoshiaki Fujiwara (01.10.2011 Kana Pro II) w/ Manami Toyota vs Hikaru Shida & Kagetsu (02.03.2014 OZ Academy)

I'm fairly high on Kaito. He's a great base for getting good matches out of basically anyone that wrestles him for big-time matches, namely because of his generous selling and ability to accommodate a wide spectrum of styles. My main issues are fairly easy to explain: 1. His strikes are dynamic but not particularly hard-hitting, making it hard for him to seem legit against actual solid hitters 2. His Keiji Muto inspired work sucks (every "mentor Muto" gimmick has been awful all the way back to young Sanada in AJPW when he was green and overpushed) 3. He tends to overuse particular formulas way past being enjoyable (see his 2018 title run where EVERY match was the same "Kaito gets his ass kicked for 80% of the match, comeback with a couple of moves, cut-off, repeat until finish" bit for bit for two bloody years) He also has a issue of not really being able to make his own style. His first gimmick was doing Misawa-cosplay without what really made Misawa's tick, how he's doing the same for Muto. His best matches come when someone gets past that barrier and drags out his terrific selling and emoting like in the Yoshinari Ogawa clinics, Kenoh, Muto etc. Kaito is great on a technical basis but needs direction to really have great matches rather than just good. I agree with Ogawa's statements after one of his matches that he's lacking something to make him truly stand out.

I'm not gonna go into the "what was legit in Pancrase and what wasn't" debate because I feel like that's a dead end. Purely judging on his confirmed pro-style work. Honestly I would stick Bas on as a potential 100 to 90 pick tbh. He definitely took to wrestling pretty easily and understood how to work really flashy and impactful Inoki-Ism bouts at a time where guys like Tana and co were stinking cards up trying the same thing. He seemed like a bit of a crowbar based on him accidently nearly knocking out like half of the people he wrestled. With that said: you could put him with a more experienced worker and he could do really solid stuff for the time. His Nishimura match is absolutely one of those where he's definitely semi-carried (especially when you see him do weird incomplete Frankensteiners and dropkicks lol) yet still got how to communicate correctly how to sell Nishimura's holds, scrambling for rope breaks and communicating his frustration at not being able to get the big KO a hell of a lot better than many modern big time wrestlers today. Dude had a unique aura of danger that lent itself nicely to the trope of "anything could end the match" formula that Inoki-Ism lended itself to so much. Control doesn't have it included but also absolutely watch the Nakanishi match as well for a super fun styles clash.