Ma Stump Puller

Mainly comes down to A. She's not that good (she's not TERRIBLE, but not really someone you wanna be doing a whole lot with) B. Her working more of a heavy-set Taue style wouldn't really befit the house style of the promotion (which is 90% just running through spots at a fast pace) so she functions as the pin-eater instead. Could she get better? Probably, but ehh I can imagine them not throwing so much behind someone who seemingly has a low ceiling given her showings

Mutoha's based YT account (ran by the same guy who praised yours truly for talking about how cool the promotion was) recently stuck this up FREE on Youtube if you really wanna see it. You should, because GENTARO grappling matches are always worth the watch. Makoto Kato was a nothing Pancrase guy who moved into super obscure indie pro-wrestling (alongside apparently being a Seikendo-style nerd? Seems cool to me tbh) he doesn't really look the part but he's a pretty good foil for his opponent here. The two have some nice back and forth grappling centred around relatively basic stuff like armbar transitions and Kato using key-locks to maintain control in that regard when he's threatened. There's some like really weird bits due to Kato's relative lack of pro-style experience (he struggles to take a Irish Whip at one point, for instance) but he as a whole has a really scrappy 90's Catch-amateur feel to him that's totally unique from the usual technical wrestler tropes you have today. He kinda feels like what a Mariko Yoshida trainee would wrestle like if they started in MMA and became wrestler rather than the other way around. GENTARO does his usual great disrespect and carries the general pace of the match, throwing in his usual grappling flair alongside occasional moments of brilliant spite like elbow dropping right on top of Kato's face and doing a nasty jobber-squash version of the running Bulldog like he's wrestling a grimy 80's South TV taping or something. Kato mostly focuses on getting off his fighting spirit slaps before always being shut down by his clearly superior opponent though does get the occasional cool comeback spot. Thought the finish was really simple and kept up the style of match that this was setting itself out to be in the first place; Kato being stubborn and battling to the very end against a much more experienced and competent foe even with the result and odds being heavily against him. Not a Mutoha must watch or anything but pretty robust for how short it was and a good look-in on GENTARO's ability to carry and direct a match on his end.

El Desperado wasn't good until he was 37. I doubt it's a huge reach to suggest he'll make a good case later on

Clearly quite physically talented with tons of charisma; my only gripe is that a lot of his matches tend to melt into each other once you've seen a lot of him in action. That's mostly down to NJPW categorically refusing to do anything interesting with him bar "I win the Jr heavyweight belt again" and whatnot. I'm not the biggest fan of his longer stuff but it's not unbearable. Like what Tetsujin said above, however, he's very much a "conversation in the future" kind of prospect, not one that I think has a major case at this very moment.

Super solid main event, yet another example of Sato having a super great title run but it being slept on because he's not in NJPW and thus might as well not exist lol. We got a great juxtaposition between Sato's shooty-work and Iwasaki just going full pro-style with a furry of strikes and bombs early to try to just run Sato over and end this as soon as possible. Sato's usual technical work did not have much of a strong effect, with his submissions regularly countered or his strikes turned into more slams. This more faster-paced focus worked masterfully: we see that as the two get the crowd amped up for, of all things, a Orton-tier side headlock. It was impressive how much of a lead he had over Sato, regularly dominating with sharp kicks or just breaking the champ down with whatever he could muster. Eventually Sato has to rely on him overshooting on a attempted apron big boot to hit him with a stiff ass headbutt and a really cool rope-hung Octopus Stretch to finally make a breakthrough. We get some typical work as Sato adds the pressure with multiple flush jumping kicks, being able to finally focus on the arm with shots to the shoulder alongside slowing things down with submission wangling. They did a great job with the last few minutes via communicating urgency; both men were massively fatigued so any big submission or strike could've convincingly been the finish despite the two braving it out as much as possible. We got the typical stiff forearm strike exchanges, only these were actually good because they hit each other hard/progressed well into Iwasaki's boots being the big factor into him winning out when they hit a impasse on them. Sato countering a running corner knee strike to go into a stiff ass powerbomb was a awesome bit. They did a good job getting Iwasaki over as he basically bombed Sato to near death regardless of all of the arm damage before once again fumbling near the finish line (in this case pausing due to his shitty arm) which in turn gives Sato enough breathing room to counter a pin off a German suplex into a deep double wrist lock for the tap-out. Great title defence here: they balanced a more frantic pace with enough nuance to still keep you interested outside of the action. It helps that this skips the big match filler bullshit tropes and immediately goes into impactful mat-work paired with some great strikes and counters to balance the books. Another top notch match by Tenryu Project, who knew?

The worst NOAH main event match since probably Misawa/Marufuji II. Heck that's a masterpiece compared to this. Christ Ibushi looked horrible here. I know he's basically crippled at this point given all of the injuries he just categorically refuses to have surgery on (including coming into this with a broken ankle he somehow obtained????) but he especially looked sloppy and unfocused here. The first half was mostly classic NJPW-isms with timewasting grappling at half-speed. Do you watch Ibushi matches to see him do week 1 headlock takeovers? Of course not; let's just ignore that section as much as they did. There was also a lot of awkward stalling that was played off by commentary as "mind games" but it felt supercilious: it never amounted to any actual story beat later on in the match and just made the two seem like they were trying to just cover for time while they thought something out. Maru focuses on Ibushi's arm with the most low-energy offence I've seen out of him while the crowd watches in complete silence. Ibushi fights back with some really lame forearms and outright botches as he seemingly has zero of the amazing atheticism he once had. Seeing him be incapable of even going over the top rope and instead flopping down when Maru snapped his arm was depressing. Maru controls more with arm holds and chops while Ibushi continues to land limp forearms that his opponent has to oversell for because Ibushi has to somehow look good here. They sit in a head triangle for another 2 minutes as time moves oh so slowly. Ibushi's control segment is almost all slow slaps to the back or the occasional kick, noticeably nothing involving his infamously bad shoulders. Maru takes over to do more chops in riveting fashion. They have a sequence where they move in slow motion and Ibushi almost murders Maru after he barely gets a powerslam done properly. Ibushi then bounces to do probably the worst moonsault he's ever done as he basically flops off the second rope with no speed. They hold onto each other's back until Maru catches Ibushi with a sloppy dropkick. The two fight on the apron in abject silence until Maru takes a back bump off it: again, the crowd are silent for everything here. Ibushi tries for his hanging apron German suplex (it's clear that he just can't do shit like that anymore so there's no real tension behind it) so instead we get him hugging Maru for a long while until we get a slow transition into Maru landing a Emerald Flowsion on the apron; cool spot? Absolutely! It's a shame I had to watch 20 minutes of sheer flavourless garbage to get there though. Maru misses his springboard dropkick and Ibushi follows up with a terribly slow outside moonsault that I'm pretty sure he breaks his other ankle on given how he landed and how he limps from now to the end. The two dance around with choreographed kicks and Matrix dodges done at the speed of a turtle before another dub spot. More strike exchanges. Maru looks bored. Ibushi no sells more. Murder Ibushi shows up here and it's just as sad as he throws the fakest punches I've also ever seen lol. Fans boo at this being shit. Cool ref spot as Maru bounces off him to land a knee strike, doesn't save the setup being so obvious though. Ibushi counters the Shiranui with this bizarre super high-angle backdrop? It felt like he just didn't have the strength to actually do the move so he just had to balance himself and fall over. Maru no-sells that to do a spot and Ibushi almost dies taking the Shiranui for a near fall. More sloppy botches as they fall over trying to set up a superplex. The two land the lightest strikes while on the top until Ibushi lands a horrendous Kamigoye to knock Maru over. Big powerbomb afterwards for another near fall. Maru counters a second Kami for the two to spend a eternity going into a sunset flip; seriously, they had to have spent 10 seconds too long sitting and waiting for the counter to pop off. He follows up with random key locks that don't do anything but grind this out more. The finish, I think, was one of the most pathetic I'd seen; Ibushi flopping on Maru with two weak knees to the head for the pin felt like the icing on a extremely shoddy cake. Easily Ibushi's worst match since returning (and I think ever, quite frankly). Whatever allure he had in Japan prior is all but gone with how this turned out; it was a sad scene seeing him try to do everything that typically comes easy and failing at it all before he just trucks on despite the match tanking after a couple of these moments. Even with Marufuji covering his ass as much as humanly possible with big bumps and very generous structuring (making Ibushi look much stronger with a bunch of kickouts, no-selling and spots) he just couldn't make this wreck of a match any good. In GIF form if you condensed this down to the one or two moments where it looked at least enjoyable this would be good, but in reality everything around those was so weak that I simply cannot recommend watching this, even for the "trainwreck watching" crowd. This felt just sad. Like watching post-Spinks Ali sad, you know? Just a complete nightmare from start to finish.

I just watched his NOAH match and Christ it was depressing. Ibushi dragging himself along while being out of shape and incapable of doing any of his usual bits for 30+ minutes was a sad experience; even the crowd couldn't believe what they were seeing. What's sadder is that he'd probably be fine if he just had surgery right after the G1 stuff. He just refused to do so for whatever reasons he had, and, well.....

I think it's a mix of a couple of things; 1. His main event push taking place during a dark spot of wrestling (around about 2002/2008 while in Muto's All Japan, pretty infamous for being underexplored as a whole) for a vast majority of individuals. It's hard to promote someone on here with not a lot of knowledge of their arguable peak material 2. His NJPW return and subsequent run coming before the company really became mainstream (in the eyes of Western fans, anyway). The Okada match as you mentioned does come around about then, mind you, but it's also in-between him being settled as a NJPW oldie who didn't really get a whole lot of work asides that and battling out for the occasional mid-card belt. 3. He's not the most memorable guy, to be fair. For most he has a cool lariat and likes bread, that's about the extent of Kojima discourse lol. I distinctly remember people being shocked that he even wrestled guys like Shibata outside of NJPW (through that leads to a whole different discussion) But no Kojima absolutely deserves some major credit for putting together such a great resume of matches at his age. Between him and Nagata New Japan should rightfully be kicking themselves for wasting those guys in useless tags 99% of the time.

This was perfectly decent as a match with some occasional really great bits when it got going. Mostly involving Amano and Kong who have naturally great chemistry from their series of matches with each other. We get a lot of structure built around dragging this out artificially with stuff like a vintage Korakuen messy brawl and a lot of interaction with the younger talent here as they either got in their shit or bumped for the more established acts. Devil was thankfully only in for very limited sections, but was still really game to bump around and her signature big bombs like the Jumbo Suplex are still as good as they've been for a while. It really felt like she put her working boots on here for her final outing as opposed to a lot of her 2000's material, was a good change all things considered. Ran and Toshie were very energised and obviously out to impress given the conditions, but I wasn't really all that into what they were doing here; lots of wiffed offence and a general unconvincing style of wrestling out of the pair as they ran around a lot without really doing a whole lot impactful to justify such a thing. Dynamite mostly just stuck to her usual assortment of stiff kicks and whatnot, though she does land a lovely Splash Mountain on Aja near the end. The lead for the finish being Devil surviving a onslaught of moves and near falls to claw back into the match with big beefy lariats and other old moves was fun through: a real solid throwback to her JWP stuff where she was throwing weight around with ease. The finish is relatively anticlimactic as Devil beats everyone up for a bit before getting pinned out of nowhere off a Uematsu Dragon Suplex that gets sold as more of a random fluke than Devil actually getting properly beat given her lack of selling afterwards. The bump itself was really smooth, it just made no real sense how someone who was getting their ass beat just a minute earlier is now magically not just up and running but winning off relatively little by comparison. I get they wanted the shock upset to get that big pop here but said pop wasn't even THAT big so idk, it just felt a bit goofy. This was about as good as a match as Devil was going to have in 2008 through so one cannot complain that much; she was used well and kept sparingly to either big bumps to get over the younger talent or her going back to her old ways on occasion, even if it's nowhere near anything she remotely touched in the 80's. The small little bits between her and Kong definitely showed that probably could've had a barnburner Everyone else filled their roles fine, Kong/Amano in particular just stealing the show with some epic back and forth work, watch for that mostly I'd say if you're looking for good quality stuff that aren't just inferior rehashes pulled from better matches.

"Incredible technical masterclass as expected from these four. Nishimura has made it his mission to bring Joe Malenko back into the promotion that arguably made him and his brother the acts they would become, and Funaki/Suzuki need no introduction. Even Suzuki, a chronic underachiever who phones aplenty was bringing his A-game here. Joe Malenko also looked really sturdy despite his age (45!) and his lack of experience, what with this being his first match back since 2000. Loads of "little things" moments shattered throughout as the four mix in a lovely blend of Catch/shoot-style with occasional splatters of cool pro-style moments like Nishimura/Funaki stiffing the shit out of each other with elbow smashes. There's a great spilt here between the more old-school styles of the first pairing and how that style interacts with the more contemporary proto-MMA shtick that Funaki and co throw out. You have Nishimura getting his ass beat by Funaki's striking advantages, having no real way to defend himself against such a blitz of furious kicks/submissions alongside having to Fujiwara his way out of the beatings by just taking them until a opening crops up. You got Joe Malenko doing all these epic Gotch-transitions and throws while Suzuki's got the knowledge to find ways out of them and into his own signature work and vice versa. The bit where Malenko counters his sleeper with a Cravat is just lovely, something you'd never see even these days. It truly felt like a subtle Dory moment of brilliance ripped right from the 70's to today. Fatigue also played a huge part in how the match was formed as we get tons of struggles over holds. Never felt like it was "easy" or "loose" when it came to simply sticking on stuff, there was always a undercurrent of struggle to everything and the feeling that any sort of advantage could easily be lost if someone managed to get a breakthrough. This also translated into the general structure of the match as Nishimura sold amazingly for a extended beating by Funaki, mostly with his razor sharp kicks to the stomach and chest. Watching him drag himself around to escape Funaki's tricked out leg submissions and almost pathetically having to hurl his whole dangling upper body just for a wiff of the ropes felt rough as anything, making his brief moments of hope where he'd snap on a signature flashy roll-up much more impactful than what they would be if this wasn't a factor. Suzuki's work wasn't as convincing, simply because he just doesn't have any real striking work to make me think much of him: going from Funaki's killer kicks to worked forearms and little stubby knees is most assuredly a downgrade and I'm not going to hear otherwise. Some good fake-outs here and there: the match ending on this never-say-die struggle with Malenko getting a toe-hold out of the RNC and never letting go of it even when Suzuki kept putting more pressure on the choke felt awesome. As a welcome back for Joe Malenko I don't think you could've done much better; he looked pretty solid despite some relative slowness (given his age that's warranted) and it felt like he never left to be honest. Nishimura doesn't have a lot of epic technical moments as this is more of a defensive/sell-heavy instance for him, getting to show off his compelling struggle to keep the team together despite his general disadvantages compared to his opponents. Suzuki is a bit more ehh (especially near the end) but he does put tangibly more effort into this as a whole so I can't complain too much, solid bully. Funaki was amazing; it's such a shame we don't have more of this version of him after AJPW because dude was a beast here. Incredibly nasty strikes and very fancy grappling moments galore, absolutely a highlight of this when he's able to just let loose with capable hands who can translate his relatively blank showmanship into something tangible for the match I.E. Nishimura making it all about him taking the blunt of it and still carrying himself forward despite the pain with as much stoic energy as possible until the very end where he's just screaming a ton. Good stuff, further proof that the Pro-Wres era of AJPW was assuredly much better than people act it out to be.

Battlarts 2.0 did have some questionable elements about it, but including talents like these certainly wasn't one of them; this was pretty incredible for a undercard match. This started off with some grappling and then they pushed up the pace rather early with a pair of dropkicks before settling back down to more mat-work. As I've said about Kimura before she's not exactly one to really be the person pushing for holds here; she's more around just to essentially carry the pacing behind someone more competent like Amano rather than doing her own thing, so this meant that she was basically just jousting around rather than making any actual aim to working any real mechanisms of shoot-style. The real appeal comes from these two hitting each other ridiculously hard (especially early on with those stiff forearms that were making loud "THUD" noises with every shot) and that's what they did as Amano went for her gross headbutts while Kimura goes for her equally strong boots, both getting some good damage on the other in the process. Amano does a crazy Fatu-lite spinning bump for the first big boot which was especially awesome. There's some focus on the legs by Amano, this is swiftly dropped purely so the two could stiff each other up more. Later on we get some nice scrambles by Kimura as she reverses bombs into arm-work (including a lovely reversal of a German suplex attempt with a Sakuraba transition double wrist lock) and Amano milks the hold with some screams and prolonged wiggling for the ropes as the crowd gets into this more. Really simple stuff to the finish as Kimura goes for her typical mean big bombs and really cranks up a single-leg Boston Crab as a potential world-ender here. Amano certainly sold like it, anyway. She ended up winning with her signature cross armbreaker transitions and we got a sweet finish where Kimura tried powerbombing out of the triangle choke, did it, then got her arm exposed for a armbar instead and ended up losing. I'd say this is REALLY great; it's mostly just the appeal of seeing two legit hard strikers (some of the stiffest of this specific generation of talent, anyway) hitting each other legit hard. There's not much depth to it outside of that (and some weird bits like Kimura not really selling the limb-work and even throwing on her own in response from said bad limb without much of a base to really suggest it mattered a whole lot) it really didn't need to be much else through. Scrappy Bati-Bati is a great cure for insomnia, I'd say: it's kinda impossible to not pay attention to every earth-shattering shot thrown here. I suppose there could've been room for a potentially more complex match (especially since Kimura around this time was a REALLY good talent who was having great matches with nearly everyone) but for what it is? I'm more than fine with it.

Hanako Nakamori (JWP/Pure-J mainstay) much in the same vein as Bolshoi has started uploading matches from mostly around about the 2010's of JWP; especially handy given the rarity of footage from the era.

When doing these sort of random watches from around about this time it's inevitable that you will eventually come across a match with Kaori Yoneyama (better known as Fukigen Death by more contemporary fans) given she's been literally everywhere and done all you can imagine and then some. This focused around Yone clearly not being in the same league as Amano; she's a crafty Jr heavyweight who lacks the height/weight/experience/skill to properly defeat her opponent in a straight-forward match. She instead decides to basically turn the pace up to 11 and make this into a High Speed outing where she can blindside and possibly win off sheer agility alone. Now with a lot of the heavyweights this would be a bit janky (the weird stop/start nature due to the differences in speed between the two, the general apathy for the heavyweight to really put over the other all that much at all) but Amano can not only bump like a saint for all of Yone's incredible lucha sequences, she can also occasionally land some pretty fast-paced stuff of her own. This combined that with some pretty heated outside brawling as the pair got pissed and started slamming each other's heads all over the place. Amano doing Jun Izumida spots as she no-sells chairs to the head and hits stiff shit will never not get old, especially when she has someone who is more than fine to bump and throw themselves around. I'd say the two were pretty giving here despite all of the violence. Another issue with hierarchy-based matches is that they tend to get a bit too cutesy with themselves and drag immensely with near falls and consistent never-ending will they/won't they hope spots. This kept itself really tight in terms of pacing, barely hitting 10 minutes and having only a couple of truly big momentum shifts between the two. They made sense; Yone using her speed to get reversals or simply just to hit a move quicker than her opponent, but inevitably getting caught out when she would try for her bigger bombs eating some mean shots in response. The triple O'Connor Roll/Chaos Theory spot that ended with Amano deadlifting her out of the pin and into a headbutt to the back of the head was just plain vicious stuff, we get another later that looks even more nasty when it gets attempted again. Solid finishing stretch as we get Yone just spamming German suplexes, Amano milking big heat with her strikes and submissions getting good reactions etc etc. Right near the end Yone just starts resorting to Tenryu punts to the skull and super sick tricky pins; seriously, this was some amazing stuff. She ends up losing eventually to a couple of mean running clunks to the head and that's the match basically. Tremendously good for a sprint, Amano wasn't afraid to actually make her smaller opponent actually look threatening (unlike some certain talents) but always tied everything back together into her being in control and needing to be outpaced to lose that. Yone's pretty great as well as a more fleshed out talent of the time that relies less on big GIF-worthy spots and more on having just really good fundamentals and the speed to use them competently...though she still has the cool moments anyway because they're cool, obviously. Very much a must-watch, good cooking ngl

It's really depressing watching 2000's Joshi because there are so many talented workers who should and could be absolutely be on the same level of reverence as the 90's generation prior, it's just that there was so little actually floating around that many of them (Ray/Bloody/Nagashima/Kimura/Bolshoi/Hamada/Kurihara, the list is endless) were lost to the sands of random tape traders and the occasional random Youtube listing that never got took down. Amano absolutely qualifies despite her being one of the luckier ones that got a lot more taped time. As Jetlag says above she's a terrific mix of insanely cool grappler and deliverer of epic headbutts in ways I've never really seen one try to do a headbutt before, which is already a winning combination in my eyes. Not only is her peak showings pretty great (from what I've seen, anyway) her consistency in regards to floor is stellar. She stays great all the way to the very end of her performing career (starting about 1999 and ending in 2014) and even at the very end she's still having a blast working really good TV-style sub 15 minute matches; impressive given she spent most of her years doing wacky headbutts and not exactly going easy on them. I'm not qualified enough yet to say how truly good she'd be on a potential 100 list, but she definitely has earned a spot for me just by what I've watched and reviewed so far. Real crime how little attention she gets despite having so many high-quality stuff looming in the distance.

This was pretty great and a good example of Amano making a relatively basic rookie/vet squash look tangibly fun with her cocky attitude and beatdowns before inevitably paying for it with some heated counters back at her. Mizunami isn't the most seasoned (shown very easily by the pair struggling to set up a superplex, of all things) but she gets the standard fiery upstart formula pretty easily helped by Amano directing the action with awesome grappling and some stiff shots being thrown out; knees to the head, headbutts to the back of the head, mean suplexes, all that and some more. The offence here is generally convincingly stiff enough despite being relatively low-risk. The crowd heat is palpable in this one and gets better as they work through the match and keep building up to Mizunami's big breaks when they come. Her stuff is incredibly basic: scoop slams, leg drops, all that stuff, but her energy while doing them is frantic enough that you do buy her offence a lot more than you really should in a situation like this. She goes at about 100 miles per hour doing almost everything. It helps that she does on occasion do something unexpectedly sick like a shoulderbreaker transition into a head/arm choke that catches you properly off-guard when stuff like that happens. With the added background of Team OZ having won all of the other matches on this event by running through the rest of the native talent and the fact that Amano wasn't exactly the most protected out of the four (especially compared to someone like Ozaki or Kong) it does provide just that extra layer of suspense to the outcome despite it being rather obvious: there's that small part of doubt as to if Amano really will actually just win this or if there'll be a last second upset. Miz near the end even gets *really* close to a 3-count (especially for the stakes of such a match like this) but her need to try to beat Amano in headbutts opens her wide open for a really nasty running one to the face. The last sequence where Mizunami is throwing all of these super slick rollups to avoid the equally sick huge nail-in-the-coffin bombs was the icing on a really good barnburner that cooked even better when they were doing submission counters instead. Miz gets the crowd incredibly loud with a cross armbreaker/triangle armbar transition bit, Amano responds with a sliding Fujiwara that she then kicks Miz in the face after she manages to escape. The finish is also really simple; Amano going for this really unique rope-hung transition into her cross armbreaker where she basically slingshots off it after grabbing her opponent's shoulder. The kicker comes from how they tease it almost being broken by the leverage being peeled away....before Amano springs back into the full thing and that conclusively ends it. It's kinda weird how great Mizunami was as a youngster compared to her later years when she's been nowhere near as energetic/mat-focused like she was here. Maybe that's just due to her wanting to slow down or focusing more on longevity with her shtick, it's just a real shame we don't see this version of her going forward because you really got the notion that she was one of the next big things from how she worked here. Super energised throughout, bumped and sold super well, robust fundamentals and mat-work, etc etc. She had essentially most of it figured out for someone who was still relatively inexperienced. Amano is the guiding force of the match and is as great as always: big bombs, lots of little character bits to get the most of the crowd heat with her outrageous taunting, using some bait and switching to get their expectations flipped around, etc. She also really gave a lot given how relatively low on the totem pole her opponent was by comparison. She could've easily big-leagued and made this into a pure squash match, thankfully that wasn't the case though.

I'm glad you're liking it! Was a ton of fun going through all of them and seeing cool little gems from members of the roster who otherwise would've never showed up in their usual TV slot. I would also like to add in some additional resources for anyone reading: RedLeaf Retrocast Tons of rare Dark Age (2000-2015) Joshi puro here. Very helpful given the general problems trying to find good sources for these kind of matches. I may be cheating with the next two because they aren't from YT/Dailymotion but that's life, I suppose. King Kaz Hayashi AJPW Collection 9 HOURS of Kaz Hayashi matches. If you're a madly dedicated person and you really want to see one of the most unsung Jr heavyweights of all time do his thing for longer than multiple feature-length movies combined then this is absolutely for you. Especially good given 2000's AJPW is very rare. Puromall Solid comps

Kido spends his time pre-match lifting heavy ass weight, Fujiwara spends it trying to break the hand of I think was a very young Tatsuo Nakano (?) though I could be easily wrong given his face was obscured: perfect (if purely accidental) distinction between two made right there between the physically refined professional in Osamu Kido and the torturous demon in Yoshiaki Fujiwara. This is definitely one of those matchups that people are going to be hit or miss on because it's mostly two middle aged uncles rolling around for pretty much the entire match. Sure, it's two of arguably the most refined and knowledgeable mat-workers in living history, sure Fujiwara is one of the greatest wrestlers ever, but again, it's a lot of rolling about for a good while. If you're a grappling nerd like me then this is going to be good, for anyone else possibly interested in something aside that it's not going to really pander to you much. I guess they were kinda conscious of that given Fujiwara does add in some explosive spots to mix things up (alongside a lot of his signature tricks that keen eyes will particularly notice, like him rubbing his elbow into Kido's back to expose his head for a facelock) and to make this a bit more fresh. It was also cool to see a rather early prototype Sugar Foot attempted by Fuji despite it being unsuccessful as he tries to bait Kido into trying to take his leg in the same manner as such. We get a solid Achilles Tendon exchange as the two try to outmanoeuvre each other on leverage, ultimately having to get back up to their feet after hitting a brick wall in terms of either man getting a lead. Kido follows up with a particularly slick Sakuraba-style double wrist lock off Fujiwara taking his back, getting a loud yell from the guy in response to really establish how dangerously close he is to losing this whole thing. Good scuffle with Fuji trying to get past Kido's seemingly unbreakable submission (and with a heated crowd following along nicely) but only ends up stuck in side mount, really getting the crowd amped up for the potential of a Fujiwara loss. Builds well to Kido trying for the classic Robertson headscissors when Fuji tries to escape, only for him to go up and over for a Achilles Tendon. The two finally try for strikes, Kido landing a low kick and Fuji trying for some jabs before relenting for more mat stuff. The finish was simple but effective, running around Fuji feigning effort for a double wrist to bait Kido away from defending against his actual play: a cross armbreaker, which forces the submission victory when the deception is revealed. As I said, if you love this stuff it'll be pretty good all things considered; these two put on a fairly low-impact mat clinic focused around a limited yet surprisingly compelling range of submissions and suplexes. It's definitely a match that plays into the the philosophy regarding the debate of "the struggle of the move being applied" being superior to "the struggle within the move applied" stance because this was mostly just the two jousting for said moves and submissions rather than sitting in them and working from that base. I'm not going to go into that in detail here but needless to say I was way more interested in this than typically these sort of matches tend to turn out. Is it as good as their late 1985 match? I'd say no, but that's hardly a bad thing given these two have plenty of great work regardless: including this match, of course.

Very sad to hear: guy was a phenomenal Gotch-trainee and probably one of the closest resembling his intended style of wrestling, always was a treat to watch one of his matches wherever he was. RIP.

Was randomly going through Youtube and I curiously found this lad here with a alternative camcorder rip of the Misawa/Tiger Mask match that shows slightly more of it and perhaps more..... I went to his site and while I thought it was dodgy, he claims to have footage of a lot of First Tiger Mask matches; many I've seen and documented, some I've never even heard of before. Could be a good lead for this kind of stuff ngl

I do wish I could put him on a top 100 if only for the sheer scale of longevity he has at this point; guy has been through it all and he still keeps trucking. I think the issue is that Tanaka's really been someone who was exposed a long time ago for having really bit for bit formulas for his matches. As Jetlag said he's had essentially the same two/three matches (hardcore mess/super stiff/combination of both) for a good majority of his career. Not to say he's not had REALLY good matches with that in mind, far from it, it's just that it gets pretty old pretty fast when you're going through them all at once. He's one of those guys that wows you if you see a watch now and then but just doesn't hold up once you're having to measure up his matches next to each other. Not a lot to really spread them apart outside of who he's wrestling and that in turn kinda shows a lack of agency (or creativity, really) to change things up much

KENTA is in his rebellious teen phase and I guess Ogawa is next on his big list of established guys he wants to put on notice. He blasts him mid-entrance with the usual stiff kicks and from there the match pretty much goes how you'd expect: KENTA is by far the superior striker alongside clearly has the advantage of youth on his side with his speed and agility but Ogawa's been the punching bag way too many times to get tripped up by this point. His experience directs him to trying to work on KENTA's legs to try to slow him down and get the match under control. The match itself in terms of macro elements is unspectacular but I feel like the little things this provides are where it gets really great. There's a solidified feeling of malice around this match: KENTA wants to prove in his heavyweight Trial Series (of which this is apart of) that he can belong with the big dogs of the company, that he can not only challenge them in terms of hierarchy (despite his relative size difference) but actually win matches to boot: his attitude shows that he's inching to be respected as someone on their level. Ogawa clearly would know what that's like, given he spent years and years jobbing it up in AJPW as the pin-eater for numerous different factions. Ogawa had to go the LONG way to even get a inch of the kind of thing his opponent wants right now. Even then in NOAH he's been one of those guys who has really respected the old Kings Road hierarchy, having to steal most of his victories against the likes of Taue or Akiyama with dirty tricks and roll-ups, never feeling like a equal to them in terms of stature. Despite being a heavyweight, Ogawa in almost all of his big matches never actually feels like one. Then KENTA shows up and does the same thing without needing to cheat his ass off? You really get the feeling here that Ogawa just wants to squash the dreams of this little shit trying to jump the queue so he can sleep better at night knowing there isn't a easier way of doing what he did. Now despite the epic premise or the potential of these two to have a properly great heated outing with each other, this sadly never truly meets that dream all things considered. KENTA is still a bit shaky here and there and hasn't quite ironed out that killer persona that we'll see in later years. He's a bit unfounded, with him doing moves that, at times, felt rather by the numbers, more-so when he's trying to add in some obligatory Jr heavyweight spots of the time. I mean they aren't bad or anything; just not suited for what this started off as more of a heated brawl than a conventional Jr vs heavyweight back and forth. Regardless of the above there was still a lot of natural heat that stemmed from this, helped by KENTA pulling from the opponent's playbook of rollups at points: this further playing into him surpassing the guy who was formally known as the undersized giant-slayer, something that would ring true later on. Ogawa in turn really helped get this over as well as he really threw in some spiteful stuff to try to squeeze out as much as possible from this small encounter. Despite some incredibly stiff strikes and near falls, eventually the inevitable comes as Ogawa gives his opponent a truly nasty counter-powerbomb off a top rope Frankensteiner attempt and completely stomped on his dreams of heavyweight glory with a sequence of big backdrops (including a rather elaborate one off the second rope) for the pin, despite some last-second counters and attempts by KENTA to stay in the fight. This was solid for sure but it just felt like it was missing something truly special to it. KENTA surely hits hard and has some already amazing offence. He also hasn't quite paced out his M.O. yet, so feels a bit green still despite all of his early success. As mentioned above, he didn't feel ironed out as much as he'd get even by the next year in terms of feeling like a tangible big deal, so a lot of his work seems a bit lackluster compared to then. Ogawa was, however, considerably great and really got a lot out of this despite the lack of big spots for most of the duration: a tough task when Jr-era KENTA essentially made his early career out of having bonkers spot sequences and GIF-heavy moments that were instantly copied across the world. instead his aim was focusing on easy and malleable mat-work and counters to ground this down and give a relatively different angle of his opponent than what we'd usually see while also making sure he looks pretty great with some big sells here and there. Is there better matchups between the two? Absolutely, this is still pretty solid tho

This was solid as anything. Misawa coming out with sunglasses on like some struggling uncle battling through a midlife crisis, Ikeda being the usual goofy killer that he is, Ogawa running a trial by fire to keep the titles retained, just so much great moments to watch. The start was the typical Ogawa/Misawa dynamics, Ogawa has to be bailed out a good few times by his typically far more impressive counterpart in Misawa, some double teaming, etc. Yone comes in and starts throwing forearms, and any casual viewer of Misawa matches (even someone who's just watched a couple bits of his best work) will tell you that this is the moment when Yone should get wrecked for even trying to outscrap Misawa, especially with elbows; it's just a universal truth at this point that no one has sharper elbows than Misawa, even with a pad on. Yet....that's not the case. Yone knocks Misawa hard to the outside with a rather stiff forearm shot, and while Misawa gets his shots in later on, this is definitely here to showcase that he's not going to be able to carry this solely by himself. this is further showcased by Misawa being beat up by the two shooty lads for a good while with a pretty confident control segment. Even when Ogawa gets in and tries for his signature scrappy Japanese Memphis punches he's flattened by Ikeda and nullified as well. It's really great how Ogawa sells basic stuff in the context of the match at hand, like how he clings onto the ropes for dear life when Yone tries for a backdrop or a tight headlock: he's terrified of these two because they completely outgun him. He knows IMMEDIATELY that simple fact just by how he's seen his mentor take some beatings. Ogawa is, try as he might, not a man with much to give in this matchup: strong strikers simply run over him, so Bati-Bati guys are, essentially, his Kryptonite. That's shown excellently by Misawa needing to get involved to stop the control segment by beating up Ikeda on the outside and abusing double team moves to get the advantage alongside a face crank, pulling out all of the stops just to balance this out. Despite this and a dirty punch to the back of the head by Ogawa afterwards Ikeda still has his number and so he quickly tags out again, completely defeated. The Misawa/Yone interactions are probably some of the best of Yone I've ever seen barring probably his Battlarts stint, even if it's mostly him trying to beat Misawa's ass and getting elbowed to death and back for his antics. He has so much fire that you'd almost be fooled into thinking he doesn't turn out to be a massive disappointment so it pairs well with Misawa really pushing him here on a big stage with his domineering bombs setting the pace well. Ogawa gets back in and Yone seems toast after a backdrop, but then Ogawa takes a stiff kick to the head and again has to tag out quick to Misawa: he's still the weak link here, not pulling his weight. Misawa takes a rough backdrop on the ramp, a Axe Bomber, and a whole assortment of good double team stuff from Ikeda and co as he just gets chopped down. This leaves him out of most of the third half in terms of substantial plays, forcing his partner to finally somehow conquer the two by himself. The last 10 minutes in particular were just a lot of smart work, Ogawa in particular with a ton of nifty little moments where he's trying to push though these two with everything, eye pokes, fun ref involvement spots, you name it. Even Yone looks like a big threat here with Ogawa hurling himself around here. Stuff like the top rope double Kinniku Buster or the top rope Flowsion were bonkers spots to see in action. A bit too long? Sure, definitely; this was nearly 30 minutes long, just way too much for something like this. The crowd still loved it though, especially the desperation near the end as Ogawa struggles to survive against the bombs/strikes but eventually wins the match out of a wacky Small Package, just barely pushing through the finish line for the duo. Cut five minutes off this and it could've been great: the four had a pretty solid grove on what they wanted the match to be outside of huge spots. It was designed to be this big showing of Ikeda/Yone as a threatening duo and in that aspect it conclusively works to show that in action. You can tell also that this was a match paced around Ogawa basically proving himself as a valuable act all of his own, starting from being knocked around the place and basically having to crawl and sneak every big advantage back with all of the dirty tricks he knows so far. It's a good look at how his role in the team isn't just the guy who gets knocked around for the big comeback, he's a tangible threat that every now and often reminds you why he has that reputation in the first place. Too long, sure. It makes the point well enough to make up for that.

Suzuki is still a up and coming "star" for the promotion; despite the fact he's only been wrestling for two years he already is the prime Young Lion as per management, having beaten Tanahashi and consistently having a slot in the G1 since debuting; rather unheard of these days. He's got everything they'd really want; he's tall, has a good look and a sports background, crowds seem to take to him well for the level of experience he has. He's not much in the actual wrestling department, but that can change, right? The promotion certainly had big plans for him, of course we know how that ends. Nishimura is of course having to hold his hand here and carry: a relatively easy task given how good the guy was around this time. As expected we go though typical Nishimura starting routines (I did like him stopping Suzuki from trying his fancy handstand when given the chance as a cheeky little spot) but it's mostly pretty dry. Suzuki has some nice tricks on the mat but he's pretty lacking in the actual details so we get a lot of basic wrestling out of him without much real purpose behind it. He's always been one of those guys who never was able to put the pieces fully together and seeing him just really fumble around the ring really hammers that in. Nishimura lands in some intelligent counters alongside solid holds: at one point he goes into a Muta Lock and then into a Bulldog choke in the same position for more leverage in a surprisingly convincing bit. He also goes for his "knee drop on a outside table" spot that he loved doing around the time which has Suzuki take a tumble. Suzuki also takes a more nasty bump off the railing after a apron dropkick comes his way. Nishimura was such a prick during this specific sequence lol. He'd get the audience to clap for his opponent to get back in the ring and get them all rallied up before landing a dropkick and sending the poor guy flying again when he actually had a chance of getting back in. Just dickish stuff that doesn't bend the rules or anything, it's just a bit mean. Eventually he just loses patience with all of this and lands a apron knee drop to a big round of applause. I did like how Nishimura mixed up the leg work this time, going for more unconventional holds than the usual Figure Four/Spinning Toe Hold shit, so you had him stretching and pulling at the leg alongside occasionally elbow smashing when the chance came up to do so. Suzuki manages to survive for a bit despite some sturdy work but eventually we get the finish: which has Nishimura apply the Spinning Toe Hold only for Suzuki to slap on a small package and steal the win out of essentially nothing but a couple of moves. Suzuki isn't very good here but Nishimura dominating allows the crowd to mostly ignore that in favour of Nishimura's stuff instead, which is obviously far better and can carry the two to something more interesting than just a movez fest. This is also paced well; not too long but also just enough to get over how deep in the hole Suzuki is here as soon as Nishimura starts getting momentum and doing his thing. I did really like how this played on the typical "vet vs rookie" formula with how Nishimura torments Suzuki, but never goes overtly heel with what he does. He skirts the line here and there yet it still feels more like a cold mentor putting the rookie through some hurtful lessons than him being an actual heel. It got the crowd into the match, so I can't complain too much. It's a Bret/Magee situation again, only Kenzo will eventually evolve into a weird attraction wrestler who slaps the shit out of people as opposed to.....well being this badly green forever, so that's a positive.

What do you get when you pair up two super technically talented wrestlers stuck with a unique stipulation on a random house show? Really great work, that's what. Basically the match functions on the simple rule that the match ends on a 2-count rather than the typical 3 required. This brings in itself elevated sense of tension from the usual holds and submissions because any of them, realistically, could get a quick pinfall: that aforementioned tension is cheap and easy here given this simple stip makes the match super unpredictable: something these two can very easily work with as a base. Bolshoi walks into this with some sensationally awesome Rey-style innovative roll-ups alongside nifty lucha transitions while occasionally getting to show off her mat-work when it comes down to it. Amano plays more of the fumbling shooter here as she's consistently trying to get in submissions and/or openings for them but either keeps forgetting the rules or they get exploited in turn to try for more cheap flash pins. There's some brilliant comedy around Amano struggling to escape holds without sticking her shoulders down and the struggle that in turn causes between the two when they're throwing themselves all over the place. Typically this more technically inclined comedy doesn't always click: didn't think that was the case here. The two really explored the concept beyond just barfing up spots and sequences endlessly without much care. They could have done that given this had no stakes towards anything in particular and the match would probably also been quite good, yet they didn't, and I'm so much more happy because of that. Despite the potential for this to be a really nothing match with a couple of interesting moments (which this did threaten at points with some of the stalling going on here and there) it turned out to be WAY better than expected; for a 10 minute sprint this is borderline revolutionary, being this high-speed/grappling showcase with a lot of different influences from lucha, catch, shoot-style, etc, just a super fun blend of styles going on here. This finishes up with some hard-hitting shots and bombs between the two (which is funny if only due to it meaning they have to keep kicking out from big suplexes at 1, lol) before Bolshoi goes over with a top rope Uranage for a relatively simple ending. Not their best outing by a long shot but absolutely worth the watch; it's a great use of 10 minutes all things considered.

The culmination of Amano's rookie struggles against Bolshoi and her first major win is.....well it's clipped for one, so we only get about 8 minutes out of this. I imagine the length was close to the first two matches they had together (so the 10/15 mark) but who knows. The match is also kinda iffy. Bolshoi just spams 5 Uranage throws in the first showcased minute + a top rope dropkick, and Amano no sells to go into terrible forearms and a weird botched sequence that Bolshoi just flat-out refuses to try again so she does yet another Uranage for a near fall. The above pretty much spells out the sheer roughness of the match. It's not pretty at a lot of points. Even when stuff comes out good (like Amano builds on the O'Connor Roll shtick from before with a cool middle rope version of the move to catch Bolshoi out after the two throw some stiff slaps to each other) it feels very herky-jerky and not at all smooth. This honestly makes the match better as a whole, especially given Amano's tourney has had her get wrecked two times over now by Bolshoi; she feels more desperate to finish things off as opposed to the first match where she was simply in the position of the rookie squashed without much thought put into it. Now that she knows Bolshoi can be taken to the brink, there's more of a confidence behind her big pushes and kickouts. Bolshoi is equally as eager to get this over and done with, mind you. After a few minutes she's immediately into big moonsaults and top rope Uranage slams, extremely confident that she has her opponent completely scouted. She taunts both her and Ozaki at ringside, does multiple Jericho-style cocky pins, etc etc. She just doesn't really give a damn about potentially losing this, perfectly illustrated by throwing four big powerbombs in a row on Amano, getting a near fall with each, then letting go at the fourth one before she could've maybe finished this whole thing. At this point it's more of a lesson being taught than a match wrestled. She doesn't want to just win, she wants to win without any doubt. I guess you could put this up to the second pairing wherein Bolshoi basically won off a fluke submission counter.....knowing better that probably wasn't intended, yet it's still a great story beat to add in. Finish is super simple and plays off the second match again by having Amano counter a top rope Uranage with a Fujiwara armbar like before and Bolshoi similarly countering it with ease, only to get firmly trapped in a flash cross armbreaker out of nowhere. Bolshoi has zero warning of this happening and as such she has to abruptly tap-out much to her annoyance. There's some goofy ahh melodrama at Ozaki showing up and giving Amano a big hug that's a bit sappy however it's a nice bit to finish off Amano's struggles as a random rookie alongside this match. I'd probably say the second one is better purely off it having more footage and a more substantial formula (this sorta cuts to the chase, though that's by design). This has more action in turn while the second outing had that pretty bloody solid blade-job and a far more conditioned audience to really dig their nails into it. Is this still quite good? Definitely so, just not as much as I think it could've been.