Ma Stump Puller

Complete batshit insanity as per expected from EXIT events. These two are battling with chains as ropes while in some dodgy basement with a camera setup that feels like some garbage CCTV from 1993 recording. The first half is focused firmly around holds. Fugo is not really a hold guy whatsoever and is a rather weird/unconventional opponent for Keita in this regard, but he still has the tools alongside Keita's milking of said tools to make this work as a concept. Fugo wasn't complex when it came to what he did in this section; mostly just grabbing ankles/arms or necks and going from there, while Keita would pull off some typically tricked out counters to show off his advantages. It's nothing awful and the two do get a good feeling for the other after a while of wangling. Fugo gets pissed after a good 15/20 minutes of tense grappling, unleashing a gross headbutt while in mount alongside slaps to really rattle him, firmly establishing the real start of the peak here. What helps a ton is that the low quality + the sheer bizarreness of the setting lends itself to a very fine layer of imagination being able to creep in when you're actually watching this. For instance, Fugo throwing on a tight headlock to drag Keita down to the mat would probably look fairly mediocre by its lonesome if it was in a well-lighted area with an actual good quality camera recording, but in here it looks like Keita's whole face is getting squished thanks to the visuals being scuffed, adding that sleazy backstreet feeling to everything that makes it twice as dangerous. They play off each other well here as Keita tries to match Fugo in sheer violence, mostly fails to do so as he simply doesn't have the sheer violent energy to really test him there. We get a good bit where that's reflected by Keita losing his cool trying to submit a deadweight Fugo and letting loose with his own headbutts, only to end up losing all of his advantage because those same reckless headbutts ended up doing more damage to him than his opponent. There's a good theme of frustration wherein Keita as the young kid is getting pissed and impatient with multiple moments like the above where he just pushes his luck way too far and ends up seriously hurting because of it. The finish is abrupt! Keita is being knocked around for close 10 counts with vicious strikes, forcing him to hit a real abrupt backdrop on Fugo after some struggle and getting a desperation armbar on him for maximum dramatics, really invoking some Inoki vibes as he just manages to squeeze out a victory out of a match he was seemingly outmatched in. It's a bizarre feature that definitely builds itself inherently towards alienating most people even trying to watch due to the quality (let alone the wrestling) yet still has lots of endearing stuff in it. Both guys carry a ton of intensity and the work done is nothing fancy but said intensity just helps that a ton to get it over. It's a more interesting encounter for Keita because he simply isn't able to show off as much because his opponent sandbags him on the fancier IIave material forcing him to get more simple and focus on selling: something that I think he's still great at anyway. Really good gritty work that you should absolutely attempt to watch at some point.

Keita Yano It had to happen at some point! Insanely innovative with his unique blend of IIave/shoot-style, Keita Yano has pushed the envelope of what constitutes a wrestling match for about a decade+ at this point. He's had NWA-style 60 minute features, battles in garages and local gyms, fought on playmats for an audience of a couple dozen at best, wrestled every single major Japanese indie name you can probably list off using Google and then some, in doing so got the attention of even legends like Tenryu who have made him mainstays of his promotion to this very day. What really gets the guy over is not just his sheer versatility; it's his ability to make any format of match seem impressive quality-wise. Even when he has to do more sanitized conventional "epic" main event outings he clearly proves that being in a actual wrestling ring doesn't hurt his quality one bit. It's the truly weird stuff that really consolidates his GWE case though, and it really helps that even with all of my extensive footage watching of the guy I still don't think everything's been covered yet. Vs Fujita Hayato (Battlarts 06.08.2008) Vs GENTARO (Apache Pro 04.17.2009) Vs Fugo Fugo Yumeji (EXIT 11.28.2010) Vs Taro Yamada (Wallabee Pro 6.14.2012) Vs Manabu Hara (Wallabee Pro 07.28.2013) Vs Iori Sugawara (Taiheiyo Pro 02.16.2014) Vs 326 (Taihieiyo Pro 11.30.2014) Vs Taro Yamada (Kani KING 01.25.2015) Vs Hideaki Sumi (Wallabee Pro 11.29.2015) Vs Great Zako (Unemployment 10.21.2018) Hikaru Sato trilogy (Tenryu Project 13/08/2021/09.19.2022/11.13.2022)

I did actually watch their trilogy of PWFG matches (which ended with a 40 MINUTE stint btw rough stuff) while going through Funaki PWFG stuff. My conclusion was that the first match was the best; it only goes on for about 20 minutes, good enough action and has a underlining intensity to it that is solely missing from their later two matches. From a pure technical side the two are mechanically brilliant, but they just do not click together in terms of making what they do look interesting for anyone else; there's just too much bloat to take with the good stuff. Pancrase would've died a sad death if every main event was like those matches. It's the same issue UWF Original had with every major match going at least 10 minutes too long.

Heart failure, apparently. Rather sad end to one of the most prolific sumo wrestlers of all time and arguably one of the biggest draws ever. RIP.

Other Deep Dive stuff??? Entertaining but awkward encounter. Now me personally I'd like to think that these two could really have had a good to great match if this was, say, at least 1999/2000 Takayama and St. Clair was a bit younger. There's a good mix between the pair's technical backgrounds (Clair's WoS antics opposed to Takayama's UWF/Takada training) that COULD have worked. The issue is that this is a German Catch match, so effort is already not going to be particularly immense on either side. The other is Takayama; this is way too early for him to have a great match; he'd only had at this point a couple of years of fairly mediocre matches in UWF-I undercards wherein he definitely didn't feel like a finished product. He's still very gangly and a bit all over the place here quality-wise, making it hard for him to really get a groove going with how awkward he is. Clair though in seemingly uncharted waters with this being a Shoot-style match is actually fairly well equipped given his legitimate grappling background, being able to throw a couple of cool takedowns to kick things off. He's mostly working on the outside by getting kicked and hit with knees a bunch by his opponent, however. The best way I can describe Tony here is that he's basically playing the Fujiwara role; having to rely on smart takedowns and occasional cheeky antics to circumvent having zero stand-up to work with. That comparison grew ever stronger when I seen him rope Taka into trying for a knuckle lock only to pull into a Fujiwara armbar instead which is a beat for beat spot the guy would throw out. Things got more interesting on the ground as Taka tried to take control with wrestling only for Clair to take his back and try for a facelock, leading to him knocking Taka down with some goofy kicks for his own that admittedly didn't look great lol. He still sells great for some knees and roundhouses to the head, eating yet another knockdown. While recovering Taka ambushes him with a near naked choke, presumably getting a yellow card in the process. Tony throws in some more exciting offence in the last third with a cool Enzuigiri counter to a single leg attempt and a back suplex that he tells Taka to no sell while he frumps on the ground. I'm not quite sure what the thought process was with that, was he trying to sell the head work or what? Tony gets up and gets in a awesome leg-catch takedown into a toe hold to force a rope break. What happens after, however, is unfortunately one of those examples of just bad luck spoiling things. The two get tangled in the ropes and exchange knees. Tony's to Taka's chest, while his is right to the groin, getting him a red card and the DQ loss by the ref. I thought initially that this was worked, but when I seen Takayama clearly very apologetic and breaking character as the heel enforcer he'd been this entire match to help the guy up I knew otherwise. It's a unfortunate thing because this was really picking up just before that moment and probably would've carried itself to a solid enough match what with the more urgent pacing. As it stands it's more of a fascinating odd-couple pairing than anything else with a great performance by St. Clair to really get over the young (ish) big lad with huge bumps and a smart structure, never got firmly off the ground though.

Not the match that I think these two could have (especially in today's climate) but a brilliant callback to WWF New Gen match layouts by two guys who are nerdy enough to get what made those work. GENTARO works the back intently from the very start, finding every chance possible to throw Keita around and use his weight to just basically bully the guy bit for bit like a Bret match. That in turn gets him cocky and allows Keita to snap back with sharp elbow smashes and shots to the gut to try to get a edge, but he gets overpowered after a short brawl outside. Keita again tries to work on limbs when he dodges a top rope knee drop with a smooth calf slicer, GENTARO rolls through into a really nasty leverage-based armbar where his whole bottom half is directly on Keita's arm. Generally the match functioned like this; Keita would get his ass kicked and worked in holds/spots until GENTARO started to slack off, letting him slip in a counter or two when this happened but still getting firmly getting outclassed when he'd inevitably get countered. Keita's great selling combined with masterful slick counters made this fairly predictable formula absolutely fantastic to watch, especially as they alternated between limbs getting ripped apart and selling said limb getting ripped, GENTARO mostly keeping ahead with his experience. Keita works the leg more which lets him grab on some holds on it, leading to a clever spot where GENTARO uses the rope leverage to escape getting stuck in a Scorpion Death Lock by grabbing onto his straps to pull him outside with him in what was basically a 1-1 redo of a old Bret spot as per standard. GENTARO gets him back in for some snug offence before Keita jumps out of a bow and arrow to grab on a slick double wrist lock to try to get the upset. GENTARO was actually stuck here as his attempt to roll out just ends up with him stuck in a Fujiwara, forcing him to cheat with an eye rake. They did slightly (on Keita's side, mind) when they were trying to do the old backroll pushup bit, albeit the actual powerbomb G ended up doing at the end looked fairly nasty. Finish was easy to get as Keita got caught in a armbar trying to escape a German suplex and had to tap out to a deep Cobra Twist. Lots of old 90's-style cat and mouse antics here and built mostly around grappling so it translated real well into things. Keita is positively nowhere near his better years as a performer and does at times have issues with the more athletic spots dotted around here, generally doing better when selling and bumping than trying to measure up offence. GENTARO is pretty much always consistent as hell and he was the same here given his range of work looked pretty much all snug and solid, with some amazing technical work out of him when attacking limbs. Good heat he got for Keita as well and fairly generous all things considered. Rematch in 2024 would be nice, thanks

I'm not super well-versed into Navarro matches (those examples are dire, though) from what you are describing it sounds a LOT like the same problem Steve Wright had where he was more occupied showcasing how many great holds he knew rather than getting his opponent or anything else over. If it is then I can totally understand why there's such a apprehension to vote for the guy.

Smith/Fujiwara is absolutely worth searching out for the 3 or so minutes that aired, it's basically his Holy Grail of lost footage alongside the missing Korakuen match with Kawada and the 30 minute draw he had with Fuji in 2001 (real unfortunate for the last one given those two would've cooked good)

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/other-wrestling/ajpws-yutaka-yoshie-passes-away-following-match-in-takasaki Apparently he fell ill after having a to be televised match (in his hometown, no less) and passed away before he could get to hospital. Incredibly sad news all things considered. Not sure if AJPW will still upload the event as-is or will omit the match altogether. Either way, RIP.

Sound quality of this was burning hot ass as per Battlarts 2.0. standards but was regardless pretty good as a match. Narita is a full on MMA guy with martial arts credentials so he knew how to sprawl and move around with authority, making for a fairly engaging series of opening exchanges as the two did some seriously nifty grappling of the time. They also threw in some great aggression with a lot of nasty shots to the head (Narita's got gloves on so he can legally throw full on punches, something he attempts to do here a fair bunch) while Keita pulled off a ton of his usual tricky Catch wrestling tricks, in particular throwing down a rough Cravat to pull his opponent down to the mat and throwing knees to the back of the head when his opponent tried escaping. Generally this had a good balance of Keita doing his nerdy grappling while Narita attempted to compete at points with some really tricked out shit (he does like a headscissors double wrist lock combo at one point, was hype) while focusing more on strikes to transition and score knockdowns, firmly staying ahead for most of the match. Middle half has Narita focus on the armbreaker with a couple of smooth standing transitions, forcing Keita to pull guard by going to the floor. Narita does this awesome Sakuraba roll while having hooked one of Keita's feet, letting him move into a standing ankle lock before landing a fairly safe German suplex when his opponent tried standing up to escape. Last third was conventional; the two sold the fatigue of the last work strongly, Keita especially having to really grind from underneath by abusing rope escapes and doing bonkers pro-wrestling nonsense to try to stay in the game. He catches Narita out with knees to the head + big dropkick, going for a side Robertson-style headscissors as bait so he can snap on a really fucking tight LeBell Lock to get the shock tapout victory. There's a solid roughness to this that I really appreciate in that the two actually feel like they're duking out and thinking about their next move. There's some pauses, some little spaces between strikes or holds which really sells the experience so much more than two guys effortlessly bouncing around the place with a thousand counters a minute which for the record is always a rather weak experience for myself. This was rough-and-tumble Bati-Bati as it should generally look like thankfully. Quite a shame Narita never did a whole lot given he was quite the talent and probably would've been at least a RINGS mainstay if he'd been around 15 years ago, guy had the striking and fairly unique grappling to show off. Keita despite being hit and miss during this time looked pretty impressive here.

Definitely a late-bloomer for me, a lot of his early/middle work wasn't very interesting and I don't think his Killer Elite run with Davey has aged particularly well (especially when you have similar teams like Bad Intentions that just mogged them quality-wise) He's a good base, for sure. His monster-heel shtick is entertaining enough (even if he loses pretty much every major match, making it hard to really believe him as such) but he just doesn't have the range or actual solid quality runs for me to consider him whatsoever.

I really liked Kido in UWF 1.0. and if he'd kept on with his weird Catch/shoot hybrid much in the same fashion as Fujiwara I think there'd be more interest there, especially as the scene evolved. Sadly he came back to NJPW, had a couple of solid tags as recommended above and then kinda vanished into the mid-card vortex where he'd only be used as a reliable and consistent worker when that was needed more than ever. Would I like to stick him on a top 100? Oh hell yeah. Sadly he just doesn't have the volume of truly astonishing matches to really even start trying in that regard.

I'll bump this only to add in more matches that should be watched for Nishimura GWE analysis vs Suwama (AJPW Pro-Wrestling Love In Taiwan/11.20.2009) w/ Joe Malenko vs Masakatsu Funaki & Minoru Suzuki (Real World Tag League/11.20.2010) I'm pissed that the old AJPW Gaora channel is defunct now because it had this + more shit that could've gotten a good shake if I'd been able to snap it up. Oh well.

The stipulation seems batshit (and the match isn't too far off it in practise) but as a match this was real good. This was a eight man survival tag, for the record. The key idea is that OZ Academy as a team are massively outgunned here; Ozaki is here, sure, other than that she's surrounded by essentially rookies. Team GAEA by comparison have Nagayo/Devil/Meiko, a hellish trio that would make any prospective wrestlers shit their pants and run for the hills, insanely superior hierarchy-wise; even Meiko this early already had tag team gold for instance. There's no way you can look at these two teams and judge them equally, and thankfully the match doesn't attempt to do so. The aired version skips over some of the early eliminations with Nagashima being eliminated by Miyaguchi while she herself takes the fall to Sato in some fairly decent sequences. The pace is set at a fast one as Team OZ have to really get frantic and essentially just go through as much as humanly possible to try to balance the books here. They'll do crazy combo top rope dives and then it'd barely matter even after all that because Devil would no sell and start throwing weight around again, really making the imbalance tangible for anyone watching. The feeling of hopelessness is amped up by team GAEA just swamping the ring with their beefy brawlers before Devil is able to take out Sato with her signature rolling senton, leaving things at 2 for OZ. There's this great sequence where Amano is trying to go for submissions but there's so much shit flying between Ozaki and co with their wacky brawling that she can barely get in anything without getting kicked in the head or having Devil just do a leg drop even if she does grab a limb for something, communicating how chaotic the match was by this point. Nagayo has some amazing bully antics as she torments Amano on the mat with submissions, actively egging Ozaki on to interfere so she can get stuck fighting someone else or Nagayo herself gets to throw a stiff shot in like a stiff headbutt. She really feels like the big bad boss of the crew only getting in if she's really needed/she gets to stick the knife in to Ozaki in some way. Amano did a good job working as the feeder here, really throwing herself all over the place to try to get some sort of advantage yet typically getting her ass kicked and thrown around for her troubles. Devil generously gives her some leeway and even gets stunned one or two points before finishing with a mean double-arm powerbomb. The bit where Devil's just gleefully smiling knowing that Ozaki's basically screwed with the two having a tense standoff is real solid and the crowd immediately took to what they were dishing out here given it was being delivered by some of the GOAT's at the time. Ozaki also had a solid comeback run as she gave a ton to Satomura who in turn throws out some really frantic offence that was convincing enough to make the crowd think Oz might actually get tripped up here. She almost gets the pin to boot, it's just the combination of Oz being tough/smart with some sneaky counters that lets her barely get by with a rushed powerbomb. The last few minutes focus on Nagayo and co being dicks by trying to choke her out which only backfires due to more interference muddling the waters. Devil getting eliminated with a couple of backhands and a dodgy roll-up isn't the greatest but it helps with the tension aplenty alongside being appropriately sold as a fluke by both parties than anything serious. Crazy ending sprint with Nagayo absolutely terrified of losing as the two exchange some great fatigue-fuelled back and forth work all about hitting their bombs as much and as soon as possible while everyone else is scrapping. Ultimately Nagayo takes advantage of Oz's speed to get her up for a Running Three (while Ozaki was running, no less) and then a incredibly mean high-angle Superfreak powerbomb to get the conclusive pinfall. It's not much of a "clean" match if that makes any sense; there's not a lot of classical work to be seen here in terms of measured and "clean" wrestling. It's a lot of tag psychology paired with some tremendously great moments scattered here and there from individual performances forming to make a lovely whole that composed the match. What works about it is that everything feels very coordinated as in there's no wasted movement here, everything feels connected to everything else, there's no random filler stuck in for the sake of it and the focus on the GAEA troop naturally taking a big advantage lets the Oz and co work as underdogs, which is something that needless to say does a lot to enhance the quality of a potential mess like this as it's more up everyone's alley for people like Devil and co to wrestle on top than pretending this was even fair going in. Solid watch for sure

Every now and then NOAH will drag me in with something truly based; a 30 minute Fujita match in 2024 was most definitely something that counts towards that standard lol. This is definitely also going to be one of those matches that workrate-heavy smarks will dislike immensely because it really didn't cater a whole lot to them if at all until maybe the last few minutes. You already got people calling this the "worst match in company history" which is.....a interesting opinion given Ibushi/Marufuji is a thing but hey I'm not going to start knocking anyone for statements like that. The first 10 minutes of this were all sprawling on the mat providing a really interesting comparison between Lee's BJJ antics and Fujita's amateur wrestling background. Lee would wangle from under while Fujita was all about taking the top and controlling from there, typically forcing Lee to use the ropes multiple times to escape getting squished. He did get one or two off Fujita with some smart traps (including baiting him into a triangle armbar that shockingly forced Fujita to sell pain!) but mostly had to play it safe with someone as extensively dangerous as his opponent. We got a great bit where Lee had a Sakuraba-style armbar applied and was just throwing himself around trying to get it with some leverage, felt like something out of a random PWFG undercard. Very good stuff ngl Lee desperately tries to get back control with his cringe mindgames by trying to play around with clean breaks off the ropes; gets the piss slapped out of him for his troubles and forced into a long slog of a outside brawl. This was definitely the filler of the match though helped by Lee being completely ineffective against Fujita's stiff forearm shots making this very one-sided. Fujita basically sat on the guy inside the ring as well as he egged on for more strikes until he did the singlet strap pulldown a-la Angle and got hit with a running knee for his troubles. Lee hits some fairly tame knees; one off the apron, one running down the entrance. It didn't really go anywhere alongside the random leg work right afterwards that felt very much like a placeholder for any random hold. Last few minutes had Lee try to turn up the pressure with bombs, namely German suplexes. His stuff looked fine enough and he got over the struggle in trying to put down someone who seemingly couldn't get hindered by anything as Fujita could predictively no sell and keep trucking along. Lee loses the final forearm exchange, gets hit with a running slap alongside a shockingly safe punt kick to the head. Fujita mounts up a backdrop and sets up a Beast Bomb only to be stopped by the ref as the 30 minute time limit is hit. Really mixed feelings on this one. The grappling at the start is legit the best part of the match, no joke. Fujita as shown from the Suzuki match a few years ago can legitimately do grapplefucks with considerable skill (as long as he has a good dance partner) and Lee brings something unique with his passive work in that regard to make this a sort of cat/mouse situation where the mouse occasionally manages to do something really impactful. This does eventually turn into the usual Fujita brainless strike stuff, but Fujita is still really good at hitting hard so you can't really complain about it too much. I think what hurts the match mostly is the length (loads of filler with slow unimpactful work that either went nowhere or was just slow for the sake of stalling) and Lee who really looked awful trying to strike with Fujita. He just isn't one of those guys that can blast people convincingly like a Go or Nakajima and you really felt it here with his piddly forearms and knees. His selling and emoting the hopelessness of the situation was much lot better, really seeming dumbfounded as to how he could actually win this in places. In a way, I suppose, his poor striking played into the match dynamic of him just being well out of his depth despite all of the prior hype surrounding him. This really needed that big "oh shit" moment in the last 10 minutes to sell that though; Lee sitting on a figure-four that did fuck all just felt awkward and purely there to have a rest. If they'd gone all in with this being mostly grappling and THEN had the figure-four and strikes then I think this would've been a lot better. Still fairly enjoyable though.

more detailed diving here??? This lasted 25 minutes (! ) thankfully the action made it seem much less than that when watching. Keita is in his young boy phase yet (only 2 years wrestling btw) still had a lot of the great qualities that would continue on with him; namely his authentic aggression and incredibly nerdy technical work. Both of those come best to light when he's in there with GENTARO for obvious reasons, with the two having some really awesome tricked out Iiave-lite exchanges between each other with counters to things I've never even thought of before. Such a shame that this is the only "big" taping (bar a singles match in the same promotion that rest assured WILL be covered) of these two in action because even here you felt some strong chemistry. Sasaki is a mean fucker who chops people to death and has basically only two solutions to everything in that he either slams you hard or hits you hard until the problem is solved. Even when the pair target his arm the dude just powers into a scoop slam anyway like a beast, when him and Keita are working the leg he's basically just slamming it down or sitting on it. Wrestling needs more basic hosses like this lad ngl. Winger was the weakest as per expected given his rep yet he wasn't bad for what he was here as essentially a guy to sell and get the younger guys some shine. GENTARO was a menace as he attacked the pair while they were working on Winger and tore Sasaki's leg apart with the classic Bret routine of rope hung hip drops + turnbuckle-hung Figure-Four. They also threw in some awesome lariat shots between each other for the tag with Keita, which was shocking given Winger's work was all slow hold stuff that more or less filled time. GENTARO/Keita had some more cool hold exchanges, including Keita rolling out of a bow and arrow to snap into a side headscissors before getting rolled back into it all in the space of about 30 seconds so you can tell these two were cooking here. Really badass moment where Sasaki tries to break up a Octopus hold with a sharp chop to the back and walks off until GENTARO demands another while still applying the hold and chases him outside afterwards for a quick brawl. Generally those kind of antics made this feel a lot more hateful than it would otherwise, helped by the main players keeping that vibe up as things went further. They threw in some wild stuff near the end like a 3 person superplex and double spear to really get over Sasaki as this huge threat, him doing the Torture Rack right after to Winger was just the icing on the cake there. GENTARO ends up costing him the victory as he manages to catch Keita in a cravat to throw him at Sasaki to stop the submission. Russian leg sweeps can't cut it and Sasaki catches G out with a really well-done mid-air spear when he tries going off the second rope that put Batista's to shame. Finishing stretch felt appropriately urgent as Keita hits some really frantic quick submission counters to try to squeeze out a win (including a sweet sleeper out of a armbreaker motion). Really liked how him and GENTARO really operated near the end, things always feeling like any small counter could push things over the edge: the sleeper exchange spot, the bottom rope rebound lariat into Fujiwara armbar, that into a improvised roll-up when Keita tries rolling up and over to escape.....everything had a sort of impact to it that you just don't see typically where it mattered a lot more than it would otherwise, helped by Keita bumping and selling like crazy as the underdog here when he'd get caught trying to wiggle away. They capped it off well and didn't overindulge, finishing simply by having Keita brave through a kick to the head to hit a flash bottom rope lariat for the 3.1 pin and upset. Shockingly great tag team work that never once felt like the 25-minute mark this actually was, helped by a structure that benefited a ton by having varied and dynamic performances on display. Winger is perhaps the odd-one out in terms of simply being "decent" instead of "good" yet he still carries his own and doesn't feel left out ultimately. GENTARO felt like such a incredible maestro here, balancing very crafty technical work with good limb control, feeling mostly in control of the match when he was around. Sasaki is a terrific mini-hoss that keeps himself fairly minimalistic as a statement; no attempt to go off the ropes or do any fancy shit, he's just here to hit hard. Keita is a great contrast because he settles for technical trickery, fails mostly at it against someone clearly more experienced than him, still trucks along until he relents for just throwing himself around instead lol. Absolutely worth the watch if you can search it out.

match new w/ Osamu Kido vs Kantaro Hoshino & Masanobu Kurisu (19.12.1982) Caught via handcam footage from the event. This is pretty much what a usual Tiger Mask house-show looks like; it's more or less a balance of him doing his usual big spots and lots of slow grappling to fill the time. That however doesn't mean this wasn't good; the opposite really. Kido is a tremendously gifted technical worker and seeing "young" (well as young as you can imagine him, really) Kurisu is a treat with how mean he is without breaking any rules, yanking at hair and masks for leverage for holds or throwing in a sneaky shot here and there in lockups. His violent streak isn't as crazy as it'll be in the 90's where he's braining rookies and giving them concussions but he's got a lot to give regardless. Lot of the match felt very freestyle outside of the usual Tiger showcases so there is a mix of organic exchanges that flow half-decently and some occasional messy bits due to the lack of structure lol. Not like Sayama was going to help much here in that regard (he was never much of a guy to lead a match) though he does work well with pros like Hoshino that can consolidate his amazing atheticism into coherent sequences like what we get here. The televised footage for Hoshino mostly had him as a ally/tag partner of Mask, so it was cool to see him get to work the opposite role here as a foil. For a guy who was going on 40 he looked pretty sharp and quick, could probably outpace a lot of guys half his age these days. Kurisu's mostly here to be the gruff asshole who gets beat up by the pair namely going through some Mask spot sequences that looked really cool for what its worth. Guy got some energy out of Kido as well; rather shocking given the guy is typically really non-descript when going through matches like these, but he looked really energised when he was going through his Gotch-work and the occasional sharp boot to the chin. The second half felt a bit messy in places as the four at times kinda stumbled over their spots and didn't really have the best timing, flubbing moves in places or delaying bits to the point where it felt more awkward than it should. It felt like they were trying to escalate things yet it never really got off the ground. That's somewhat reflected by the finish; a random 450 springboard by Sayama; something that completely came out of the blue. Not unexpected, mind, given he always seemed to have random endings to his matches that at times could feel really abrupt/random as you can observe here. Granted it was still really awesome from a athletic standpoint (like you could do that today and it would still be mind-blowing much like pretty much everything else he was doing here) just felt that there could've been a better setup to it all things considered. Nothing worth really going out of your way to watch in the end even if these are four fairly talented guys trucking along. RANK: Decent Vs Dave Finlay (03.08.1983) Recently dug up by the GOAT Matt D upon requests by others and oh man is it a fun one. This is probably one of the earliest showings of Finlay in Japan if not the earliest (though there is apparently a tag match also hanging around from) and is only caught by handheld. It's also cool to see Finlay come out to Eye of the Tiger, a theme that will later become synonymous with Sayama's later UWF run and beyond. There's this great bit pre-match where they shake hands, seemingly everything is fine, but when Mask turns his back to stretch in the corner Finlay immediately starts advancing on him like a lion in the wild, only being stopped by him noticing this as does the ref. It's a great little moment that shows at once the dynamics of the match and who to root for. There are some house-showisms like Finlay stalling to complain about the crowd's super loud chants for Tiger Mask other than that this is a pretty solid outing if action is on your mind. Like with many matches around this time we were getting a firm focus away from the usual crazy lucha spots that Mask was famous for in 81/82 and more on holds and grappling; most likely influenced by Sayama's growing interest in martial arts over traditional wrestling. Finlay focuses on the arm with zeal, really getting in some nasty old-school grinding with armbars and just hurling his opponent around in places to get the most discomfort, having no respect for his opponent while also not going over the line to goofy heel. He bumps very well for when Sayama inevitably gets in his usual spots and counters, his irritation showing most of all despite the low quality of the footage. Despite that, this mostly focused on being a gritty WoS-style outing where Finlay could flex all of his great limb work while being a huge prick at the same time, something that needless to say he's VERY good at and will continue to be so until he retires. They do a solid job speeding up things in the last third with more tempo-focused offence as Mask would speed things up to try to get moves in yet would get shut down by Finlay sticking to the arm again and again for dividends until Mask finally got the edge with big kicks to the body and head. Finlay getting desperate near the end and randomly doing a top rope splash was fun to see get punished immediately with a piledriver from his opponent and they kept things pretty high-pace until the finish had Finlay get beat by a twisting backbreaker. It's quite the shame that we don't have more of young Finlay in Japan because his physicality is amazing. The guy bumps like crazy here at places and that by itself is so bizarre to see from someone who majority of the time is known for being a more heavy-set and slower wrestler, more grindy than showy. He still has that technical knowledge but he's also incredibly fast and keeps up great with his opponent when they start bouncing around the ring. He really seems like a foil who could've easily been one of the greats alongside Dynamite and Kobayashi in terms of mighty Tiger Mask foes but of course that would never happen due to Sayama leaving NJPW very soon after this. Speaking of, his performance here is definitely more muted. He still has phenomenal speed and agility yet you can also tell he was trying to pivot away from those expectations. It's not to say it's not good, given this was a house show he was never going to do a ton here anyway. This is more of a feature for Finlay and he makes a big impact as a result. Not quite the dream match that I think would've been possible between the two yet it's still a real fun outing. RANK: Good

Spider comes into this with a taped up shoulder/support, naturally that became apart of the match. This came about in a number of ways; Keita aiming to target it with his limb work, Spider having to take breaks to fix it and Keita teasing running in and attacking him, etc etc. Keita also attacked the leg whenever convenient to even things out as not to make this too one-dimensional, which was similarly cool to see. As a match this mostly composed of the two doing some tricked out lucha Llave back and forth exchanges. Spider being a Osaka Pro lifer would make you presume that he wouldn't be particularly amazing at this but he actually got to show off some skills in that regard, having some real fun bits where he's able to catch out Keita during his showy holds to do his own in turn with some dynamic counters. Keita in the middle starts ripping off Kendo Kashin spots (dude loves the guy for some reason) with some dirty chokes and stomps to throw some variation into this beyond the grappling. Spider stepped up here as well as he threw some hellish chops and forearms when they started trading. Things got a bit silly as Spider was using traffic cones as dangerous weapons alongside Keita throwing out random back rakes, yet also included some fantastic counters that got started off when Spider had a headscissors applied and his opponent slid the loose foot into a figure-four toe-hold that Fujiwara would've been proud of seeing in action. Seeing the guy use his signature knee brace (of all things? ) as a way to do even more damage when Spider tried rolling out by just jabbing it into the calf was sheer genius and one of the main reasons why I watch most random Keita Yano matches I stumble across; throwing out really awesome stuff that you aren't going to see anywhere else. We also got the usual Keita high spots as he pulled out his running senton while also some super goofy bits like him trying to use a chest fly machine as a makeshift turnbuckle for a attempted tornado DDT. The setup was.....less than amazing: Spider flipping out of it into a cutter was really cool though as was the more spotty pacing for the last third as they exchanged some big moves between each other. Keita finishes up with three tilt-a-whirl backbreakers into a fairly neat spinning Tombstone for the 3.1 pinfall. One of the more action-packed lucha inspired matches from this era of Keita/Wallabee showings and it's definitely very much as enjoyable as the more strict shoot-style ones around as well. Spider is a pretty solid foil that can strike, grapple, and has plenty of atheticism to show off despite the obviously bizarre conditions set up here. Keita does throw in the occasional amazing moment on the mat but he's more content to wrestle with a bit more shtick here as a Kashin-lite heel with back rakes, elbow smashes, etc etc. It's not a particularly endearing side of him, still say it does the job here though. Good underrated showing for this year.

HoT is a solid native heel act much in the same vein as Voodoo Murders and co before it, it's a good formula for babyfaces to work with much better than watching guys like uemura/tsuji do shitty homogenised "epics" for a hair v hair match anyway; that kind of stuff just absolutely does not rule

Ngl I don't like Okada or the overtly embarrassing trends he brought with him and his formulas but the idea that "passing the torch" is a offence put to him is beyond silly, especially given what came before. Baba didn't pass the torch; Jumbo was more of a peer to him, still lost every singles match they had together (or drew) by the time Baba did start eating L's it was well past anyone caring Jumbo gave *a* win to Misawa, went over all the other times and retired without passing any torch Inoki held the torch for long enough that Fujinami beating him didn't matter despite the momentous occasion Hashimoto kept beating all of the young guys until death Takada kept his own belt for pretty much the entirety of the UWFI to the point where it arguably killed the promotion etc etc. It's so rare that you get a clean transition between generations (Nagata/Tana) that I don't think it should be held against the guy

Naoshi Sano (704 here) and Keita have combined their sleazy powers as the new LWO to handle one half of the 2023 MOTY and Shota. Arai/Keita seems like a dream match in the making (despite them having a frankly underwhelming 2011 singles before) and their encounters definitely had a lot of enjoyable to be had as Keita would just run through the pair with random cool submissions and counters for the beginning sequences. Him and Arai have a nice little bit where they actually utilise proper pummelling technique between each other until Keita takes the arms for the cool underhook sumo spot where they throw them while said arms are trapped, always mark out for Taue spots like that so this was already a great watch. Was also very good to see that even this match with no ring/ropes still had elements of tag psychology; Arai and Shota tagging out mid-counter so they could blindside Keita repeatedly while he was busy escaping their headlocks was something you'd see out of some old ass 80's NWA tapings. Their extended attack on the arm of Keita was quite fun as well as they mixed in some old technical working holds while also just biting and stomping on it whenever the opportunity came. I'm a sucker for grindy limb work AND biting the limb so this was right up my alley. You might as well not even had Sano/704 because he does barely anything in this match until he gets the big tag after Keita got worked for the middle half. His hot tag comes about 13 minutes (this only went 15, btw) into the thing and it's mostly goofy spots (including him using a punching bag as a weapon by using it as a pendulum to bonk someone's head with). Not awful but not that amazing either by comparison. The lead in for the finish is entertaining enough as Arai does diving headbutts off the floor and window alongside Keita taking some actual impactful wrestling moves onto the mats under him. Him and Sano do the Eliminators double-team spot on Arai and Keita's able to catch him in a roll-up....only to not notice Arai tagging in his partner beforehand, letting Shota drop in and catch the guy the out with a slippery small package to get the upset win. More of a entertaining match than a good one, though that's not to say that this was bad or anything. There's some fairly good grindy hold work and the creativity of this despite the conditions is definitely to be admired. Keita also works the grand majority so we get more cool and exciting submissions rather than Sano doing dodgy dropkicks with no height to them. Arai here sadly isn't the methodical Mutoha grappler of relative wrestling indies fame; instead being his more goofy self; and as such this isn't the match that potentially could've been the contentious grappling epic that he could do with Keita. All in all a fairly low-level outing with some fun sequences and elements to admire.

more detailed diving here San Nakadai was a legit Pancrase guy who never seemed to get anywhere bar opening act for what seemingly was a fairly infrequent career. he now has the Yakuza tats to go along with his wrestling persona as a dangerous MMA guy who will kick you in the face if need be. There's a fascination with such a matchup with someone like Keita who typically had to sprawl with fairly giving Bati-Bati guys and not legit fighters. Is it warranted? I think so in this case. You see that unique matchup become apparent as Keita tries doing his little tumble roll at the very start and Sen almost by instinct tries kicking him while he's down there lol. Generally the early exchanges have Keita super apprehensive to commit to anything as his opponent does outsprawl him on the ground and catches him right in the face with a weird standing face wash off a high kick, forcing him to take a break right afterwards. It really feels like he's super ineffective in this matchup against someone who has no time for his BS and just wants to turn this into a mean brawl than a wrestling match, something that his opponent is not particularly great at. Of course Sen also does some goofy ahh nonsense like a random springboard axe handle (???) I mean it's cool, just seemed out of the blue for someone like him. They did a good job working in Keita's big break being him taking advantage of Sen's aggression to force the ref to break them up, letting him sneak in a sucker punch and chop block in turn in a cool bit. Similarly decent limb work afterwards as Keita balances attacking the leg alongside his usual quirky tendencies, throwing in the occasional lucha spot or punch to the face. Sen also kinda has that Bas Rutten selling down where he doesn't waste time laying in holds for too long, always trying to throw in some agency to make the submissions have more sense to them than otherwise by either trying to get around it or reaching for the ropes. When Keita hunts for the leg while he's in the corner he ends up socking him in the face despite him still having hold of the leg and egging on some slaps to get Keita prone for a sick knee to the head while he's balancing on one leg, real awesome spot. His short-arm lariat thrown out after is surprisingly good as well for his experience level. Finish was really simplistic: Keita caught a running PK, tried taking the leg again but ended up getting slapped into a big chokeslam for the pinfall. For what it was? I think this was fairly decent. I feel like there's a better match between these two conceptually that we simply don't see that's more heavy on the shoot-style sprawling and brawling that the first half had built in fairly well. At the same time, however, I can understand why they went for a more varied performance given they weren't exactly working with stakes or anything. For what its worth it's still intriguing by its lonesome and Sen Nakadai is shockingly quite good for a non-wrestler with minimal experience, throwing a ton of snug strikes and getting the memo down here. Keita isn't necessarily carrying here but he does do the bulk of the big selling and the whole structure (he gets beaten up for ages/dramatic counter/limb control/back and forth) feels like something he'd cook up as it is rather similar to some of his other material. All in all, fun stuff.

Tenta is one of the more famous examples because he has that WWF affiliation hanging around him. That and Rikidozan are the most famous examples (alongside Tenryu, Tadao Yasuda, Akebono etc etc) Sumo generally is one of the more popular professions to have a transition to wrestling given the similarities in training so at least in Japan there's always been a physical link between the two sports

more detailed diving here Nyuto is mostly a Mutoha/EXIT guy. Despite him looking like a fairly short and unflatteringly sleazy man (and, well....that's not wrong either) he is one of the more random mat-workers that Keita has had to face up against so he can't just do the usual dominant routine he'd otherwise do at this point and time given Nyuto is a bit less athletic and isn't really inclined for that sort of stuff. Keita's fine with that because that just means he gets to be even meaner with legit Grovit applications and loads of nasty arm work that Nyuto definitely wasn't having fun with at all. Eventually Nyuto has enough of this and goes for his kicks instead which are at least sold half-decently despite being less than convincing in places. Nyuto hits Keita with a particularly rough senton splash and you can tell at this point that this pisses off the guy a fair bit; he kicks out before even 1 when the pin is attempted, immediately gets up and starts just trying to slap the shit out of him. This in turn makes this into more of the usual mid-2010 Keita brawls where he basically shoots on the other guy for the most part. Loads of just nasty stiff strikes between the pair, Keita has the advantage eventually when they get dragged out in long back and forth bits. Nyuto in desperation decides to go all in with numerous loud headbutts so he gets those back in equal measure in a particularly horrifying spot where even the shitty camera picks up the signature bonking noise that a real headbutt provides as Keita delivers like a dozen of them in sequence. They bring it back near the end as Keita finally seems to be out after Nyuto catches him off-guard with a sucker punch headbutt only for Keita to have been playing possum as he creeps out of the arm/head choke his opponent was trying for to grab on a mean armbar for the submission win. The mat-work is really not that interesting: rather tame by the standards set by a Keita Yano performance not going to lie. Not a whole lot interesting going on in that aspect, fairly generic sprawling with Nyuto not really throwing a lot on the table. If, however, you want a Keita performance that's just him devolving into insane crazy strikes? This is a excellent choice given what he was throwing out and prepared to take in turn. Nyuto keeps up the tempo and arguably is always the one pushing the boat out that little bit further to get this more intense, moving from grappling to strikes to REALLY stiff strikes to the peak of craziness with ridiculously rough headbutts. As a Jun Izumida guy I love rough ass headbutts but this was bordering on uncomfortable in places despite the pace set before. It definitely pushes the boundaries of what one could consider a acceptable wrestling showing, not withstanding the lack of ring or ropes or....well anything, really. It feels a lot more authentic though, and at the end of the day I'm going to go for that over something more "clean" if that makes any sense.

This was a marvellous little match from what is considered Keita's most erratic and inconsistent years. The first five minutes of this is completely focused on wrist leverage.... based Lots of rolling around and spots more reminiscent of 80's Catch work you'd see in a NJPW opener or early UWF outing than anything modern as the two battled to keep control over the match through the two battling for wrist dominance with Shota having consistent counters to Keita's attempts trying to slip out and gain advantage. It was really refreshing to see something done so clean despite it being so fundamentally basic at its core as well; typically we're used to seeing a big explosion of action or some sloppy huge spots so just sticking to one thing and doing that one thing incredibly well was great to see for a change. Then you'd have Keita Yano being his usual self by trying to do throwback Steve Wright transitions and fucking them up lol. They still manage to keep things on track by still following the limb work path set up excellently at the start, which shows why you want to establish stuff like that as soon as possible for reasons like this because it makes building on it incredibly easy to do. The rest of the match follows the usual Keita formula of him sprawling and throwing out loads of shoot/Llave technique that astounds every time you see it in action. He controls the action for the middle half with arm work before getting too cocky playing around with his opponent with stomps in the corner, letting him catch Keita out with a chop block to the leg while his back was turned. Shota follows up with the Bret leg-work routine that he was similarly throwing out around this time, having him work it via the ropes with those goofy hip-attacks and ring post alongside a Bret-style figure-four using said post. solid Engrish drama built by Keita struggling to walk, refusing to surrender when asked by the ref when he's stuck on the floor leading Shota to angrily shout "STOP IT" and HE CAN'T WALK" felt like a Roman Reigns COVID-era talky segment only good this time. Continued work with a figure four bit as Keita battled for leverage by trying to wiggle around and reverse the hold. The big change in momentum was particularly nifty feigning trying to remove Shota's other leg to remove pressure to then quickly roll to the ropes to escape, cool bit despite it being in a typically overexposed spot. We get some strong Keita selling as he battles through his usual roll-ups with only one good leg, forcing him to work super defensive, sparingly being able to do moves and forcing him, as a result, to get more creative with what he actually uses. That plays into the finish as well as Shota takes too long going for the killing submission, allowing Keita to escape and snap on a very cool Cravat into shoulder pin (Keita himself describes this as a "Three Quarter Nelson Switch" so there) to win the match. As I said at the start this was a little match for sure, but it's full of just top quality technical wrestling as a whole that it's absolutely worth the watch if you can search it out. Just very minimalistic as a whole with some experimental elements thrown in places that they bizarrely make sense, like that Wright botch mentioned earlier. Any normal match that would be a fuck up that would at least disrupt everything and make the action look clumsy, here it's an actual development that adds to the match (it adds to the pre-existing limb work!!) which says a lot about how well they had this ironed out. Fun dark horse outing that flows very well for a 15-minute mini-mat wrestling epic.