Edwin

Again utter chaos as with every other Onita Pro main event. There's no really much to add aside from what's already been said about these. However I will say that Naoshi Sano being a newer addition to these and getting blasted with a huge fireball from Yaguchi was nuts. Another good one from them. ***

This was as wild and crazy as you'd expect it to be by now. As I expressed in one of the other matches, all of these Onita Pro main events are very similar in the sense that they're all wild brawls with everyone all over the place at the same time with the focus obviously being on Onita. Kendo wearing a kang-esque entrance mask throughout this matches is still odd/funny. Even with the focus being on Onita, there's so much going on that its hard to focus on one thing. The post match fiasco with the heel CZW invaders and the Onita promo are a lot longer than the match itself. I don't recall this invasion ever leading to anything so it seems kinda pointless in hindsight. Again, if you like the Onita Pro brawls, then you'll dig this one. ***

Yeah, this was a pretty good showcase match with Hamada as the alternate. It was a bit slower paced due to Hamada being involved, but it got very good near the finishing stretch as they got the crowd more involved in their work. Hamada wasn't a bad alternate either as he did just fine, although I would've liked seeing what some more extensive Hamada vs. Fuji exchanges would have been liked. Either way, this was a pretty good match. ***

This was pretty good. SUWA's really starting to find himself and develop as a heel. The mask tearing and simplicity and effectiveness of everything he does is a plus. However TM's sloppiness and recklessness hurt this for me -- botched spin wheel kick, reckless Tombstone Piledriver, etc. I'm surprised he didn't seriously injure SUWA on that one Tombstone in his comeback. ***

Not sure if Kandori has a death wish or not, but she's scheduled to fight Gabi Garcia tomorrow at RIZIN, but Gabi missed weight by 26 lbs and the weight limit was 205 lbs... Kandori stormed off the stage and was irate. Nobuyuki Sakakibara and Nobuhiko Takada said they were going to see what they could do about the fight, so I'm guessing they'll probably reach a different weight for NYE possibly. Gabi's a horrible striker, but she's way bigger than Kandori a legit BJJ black belt who can destroy Kandori easily.

I didn't think this was that good, however I will say the idea of Ricky Marvin getting in the mix with Crazy MAX was awesome. His work with all of them was great, but the best was his the sequence you mentioned with SUWA. I really wish we'd get more Crazy MAX vs. Marvin interaction, but this seems like a rarity. Also CIMA didn't finish Marvin with the rana counter powerbomb, it was with the Iconoclasm followed up by the Mad Splash. The post match stuff with SUWA going after Dragon Kid's mask was a nice touch as its building towards their later hair vs. mask match.

This was somewhat of a partial AAA showcase on a Michinoku Pro show with los Vipers, Apache and Oscar. I thought Apache was the best performer in this match with his stiff right hands and his exchanges with Oscar. I agree Jody Fleisch looked better here than he usually does as he hit all of his spot nicely. Good showcase. ***1/2

According to Wrestling Data, Sasuke Diner worked as Great Sasuke and it was Gran Apache... Considering AAA was around Japan doing an event and some of the AAA worked regularly for Michinoku Pro, this seems legit. The match itself was pretty awesome. The comedy elements added to the fun such as that entire Sasuke fainting fiasco. The finish was very different with TM getting the Triangle Choke. ***1/2

Yeah, this was pretty awesome. Onryo's gimmick was over and he had a unique presence and his in ring work was relatively good here. A bunch of crowd brawling and some blood here. The hardcore elements here never got excessive and they never went overboard with anything. Good stuff. ***

The Shinzaki turn was to be expected. He was close to Hayabusa and that's one of the reasons he was at the 5/5 Anniversary show. Also why they worked that ECW match together against RVD and Sabu and why they toured AJPW together. The match was one of the better FMW matches we've seen. I love it when a face comes in with a tapped up/injured body part and the heels exploit it, so Oya coming in with tapped up ribs and the heels going after it was neat, however Oya's just walking around normally despite the "injured" ribs was kinda eh. Not sure if the backslide by Gannosuke on Oya was a botch, but the quick Fujiwara armbar made up for it and looked natural so kudos to them. That turn by Shinzaki was great. Got a massive pop from the crowd and their tag team moves looked fantastic. Really good stuff. ***1/2

GOEMON is former Team No Respect member Koji Nakagawa. This is new gimmick. I know he used this going forward when he began working regularly with Onryo. H here is working in some hybrid H and Hayabusa garb. The heat segment on H was a bit absurd in the length -- as it was a 10+ minute beatdown or at least that's what it felt like. Hayabusa's music hitting and Tenryu coming out in the Hayabusa gear was glorious and got a massive pop. Unfortunately the comeback was way too short compared to the beatdown endured. Either way, this was good stuff. ***

I thought this was pretty good... Easily the best and only memorable match from this card we've seen. Giving the backstory to it, this was the perfect way to end it with Hayabusa finally getting one back for FMW. I also agree this was worked in a similar vein to a lot of the modern stuff we see get highly praised. ***

Another match I haven't seen in ages... This is the old Shibuya Club ATOM where DDT ran for a while. It's crazy to think there was less than 200 fans in attendance for this event. This is a local cult hero vs. a big name veteran. The local cult hero booked himself against the bigger name to test his abilities. The match starts out slow with some matwork and they slowly build to the barbed wire spots which are mostly seen as game changers here. Onita lands some brutal looking knees here while Sanshiro is on the ground during their matwork exchanges. In the second half the intensity picks up as Takagi is introduced to the barbed wire out of nowhere. There's this cool moment when Sanshiro gets worked up and he runs himself into the wire just so he can gain some impulse to hit a facebuster on Onita. Sanshiro's comeback is short, but sweet as he hits Onita with a stunner and the crowd pops when Onita kicks out as they were really buying into Sanshiro pulling off the upset. Aside from the wire, the only other prop that comes into place is a table which Onita uses excellently by hitting a piledriver through it. The finish was sick as Onita hit Sanshiro with 2 Thunder Fire Powerbombs, but couldn't put Sanshiro away and has to rely on tossing him to the wire one more time before hitting one final Thunder Fire Powerbomb on Sanshiro's neck. Despite being a death match, there is no blade job or anything and the blood here in a minimum and it comes from the scars Sanshiro suffered from being run into the barbed wire. Great stuff. ****

This wasn't bad... I was expecting to dislike this, but it was way better than I thought. I'm not too fond of these CZW guys, but the BJW crew have really made them shine with their crazy bumping and selling -- namely the BJ Jacks. The light tube spot on the superplex was neat, although that may not have been planed. Despite being a smaller show match, it was well worked and the crowd was kept engaged namely near the end. Decent stuff. ***

I haven't watched this in years, but its still as bizarre today as it was back then. Its just a pure spectacle that must be seen. Here's some highlights of it: The ring has no mats and is just on plain boards and the ropes have been replaced with barbed wire. Matsunaga pulling Zandig through rocks with a car. Matsunaga trying to run a tied to the post Zandig over with a beat up white car only for Zandig to stop it with his brute force. Wifebeater setting the barbed wire on fire as the locals try and put them out with fire extinguishers. Zandig stumbles through the woods on the ring and almost catches himself on fire. Kasai tries to do a dive over the flames and almost catches himself on fire as he botches it and stumbles to the outside of the ring. Matsunaga botches a powerbomb off the car onto a flaming table and almost breaks Zandig's neck. Kasai hopes in a BJW truck and he has someone drive it ringside while the cameraman is on top sitting in a chair still filming. Kasai tries a dive off the top of the truck and pretty much misses everyone and lands on the boards. Zandig tries powerbombing Matsunaga through a table off the hood of the car. Kasai gets press slammed off the top of the truck through three flaming tables. Gage giving Kasai a Michinoku driver on top of the boards of the ring. Gage slipping in the wet ring. Barbed wire bates come into the hands of Matsunaga and Zandig. Gage setting part of the board in the ring on fire. Zandig does a dive off the top of the truck onto Matsunaga in the ring. Insanity.

Finally the match they have been building up throughout the year... The young invading heel vs. founding vet. Murakami clearly has the advantage on the feet and Ishikawa clearly has the advantage on the ground, so Ishikawa's best bet is to ground Murakami and Murakami's best bet is to keep it standing and try to brutalize Ishikawa. Murakami blitz Ishikawa whenever he sees an opening and Ishikawa being used to fight strikers, knows how to absorb punishment and catch their head kicks and take them down and try and submit them. Murakami is working extra stiff here and he busts Ishikawa's mouth open with of his flurries. The brawling in the crowd is hard to follow due to wildness, but its something they had teased in their previous matches, so this finally panning out was a nice touch. That finish was amazing. Ishikawa finally mans up to Murakami's strikes and he catches him with a right hand, an enzuigiri and he puts him to sleep. This was a tad bit short, but totally understandable due to the intensity these guys we were working with. What a beautiful, beautiful thing. ****1/2 From all of the guys I've seen in the U.S. + Japan indys, I would sit Ishikawa at the top as my #1 at the moment (although I still have quite a bit to see) and I can safely say he should be in the top 10 fairly easily and possibly a top 5.

This is a continuation of the Murakami vs. Ishikawa feud and we get: Murakami blasting Ishikawa from the start. Nagai spin heel kicking Malenko in the face. Gritty grappling exchanges between Malenko and Murakami. Ishikawa coming in and kicking Murakami's hands to break his grip blocking an armbar from Malenko. Nagai vs. Malenko. Murakami blitzing Malenko with a flurry composed of stiff kicks and right and left hands. Post fight chaos. Great stuff. ****

This is all about Murakami vs. Ishikawa as it was back in March tag match with Sano and Otsuka now being replaced with Taira and Malenko who're a much better fit.This is mostly worked as Ishikawa vs. Murakami and Malenko vs. Taira. There's a lot of good stuff here such as: Kicking it off with Ishikawa tossing Murakami. The hate Ishikawa and Murakami bring. Murakami kicking Ishikawa outside of the ring after he's used the ring apron as a escape. Them blasting each other on the outside. Ishikawa blasting Murakami in the face from on guard. Murakami blasting Ishikawa back in the face from the bottom. Ishikawa tricking Murakami to follow him to the ring apron so he can catch one of his punches and hit an armbreaker on him. Malenko and Taira bring it here too, but they're just mostly here for the ride even though Taira has dropped the long Shoot boxing trunks and has adapted some flashier kicks which he uses to blast Malenko with here. That finish was beautiful. Malenko locks Taira in a LeBell Lock while Murakami and Ishikawa stare off before they begin throwing down again. What a beautiful thing! ****1/4

I thought this was a pretty cool match, but not a great one by any chance. Nagai so far has showed us he mostly shines when he's being paired up against Ishikawa. However, his spinning kick in the second half was great, as was he pulling out some more pro-wrestling related offense such as the powerbomb. I also dug the heel hook finish and Nagai's selling of it, but aside from that, there wasn't much else I dug out of this.

Hijikata is a guy I remember as he was an AJPW Jr. four or so years after this. I don't recall anything memorable he was in though. Here wasn't that good, neither was Yone who I'm not fond of. Ishikawa is probably the best Battlarts guy and Nagai has been great when he's been working with Ishikawa, but unfortunately we don't get a good enough exchange between these two to make this memorable.

I wasn't paying much attention to the show, but I thought the bit with Cena and Elias was great.

Its Ishikawa's ground game vs. Usuda's stand up and its fun. Ishikawa does a great at countering strikers kicks and ankle picking them and the case is no different here. Also everyone seems to step up the intensity of their strikes whenever they face Ishikawa and Usuda is no different as he blasts Ishikawa with some stiff kicks. The finish was neat and unexpected as Ishikawa puts Usuda over by getting choked out. Good stuff. ***1/2

Man, I really love watching Carl Malenko. Dude is always in some fun matches. Taira has come along nicely here too. I had no idea they had given him the Independent Jr. title... This was good, yet relatively underwhelming considering the sides involved in it. The mat exchanges were fun, but the scrambles weren't exactly at the level of the earlier Ishikawa vs. Ono match from the previous month. The finishing stretch was OK'ish as it wasn't particularly great either as they seem to hold back a lot and not blast kicks ala Nagai, but that body press and rolling butterfly suplex into a double armlock were neat. ***

Eh, I'm with OJ and don't agree with the general overlook of this... Not saying it wasn't good, because it was, however I don't feel it was as good as it's being made out to be. I really dug the endless scrambles which I thought were great, namely Ono channeling Sakuraba and using a cartwheel to escape an armbar attempt. However Ono looks really flimsy, similar to Spanky in TWA levels of flimsy and thus a lot of the stuff he does doesn't come off looking as good as it would if it were someone else. I'm not sure that's what OJ was going for, but that's how it came across to me. Anyway, this was fairly good however. ***

The start to this was fantastic with Nagai dropping to the ground like he's Fabrício Werdum inviting Alistair Overeem to jump into his guard with Ishikawa obliging and getting a full mount and blasting Nagai twice in the face with right hands. I dug Ishikawa finding ways to counter Nagai's strikes on the feet either by ankle picking his head kicks leading to kneebars or countering his slaps with armbreakers. I thought both guys came out looking really strong here as they both looked really durable due to the amount of damage they both took and Nagai pulling out a big win with a brutal heel hook submission which Ishikawa did an awesome job of putting over with his excruciating screams of agony. ****