Edwin

Chapparita ASARI vs. Hiromi Yagi This was an entertaining sub 10 minute showcase match. The start with the slap exchange was awesome and from there onward they kept the crowd going as Yagi hit a crazy dive from the top rope to the floor. Yagi as a great looking throw and here she follows it up with an armbar which is something you would expect in a Ronda Rousey finish from when he had her streak in the UFC going. Also her countering a Michinoku Driver to a leg lock was nice. The finishing stretch was pretty cool and felt like an ideal finish for this match as Chaparita hits her Sky Twister Press which seems like the type of spot that would work being placed on a card full of Jr.’s. ***

This was a very fun match and was very different from the other matches from this tournament we have seen. Compared to the others we've seen, these guys worked at a much slower pace and did less than the others, but it worked here, specially with MEN'S who usually works entirely different to the majority of the other younger Jr.'s here. MEN'S is one of the most underrated Japanese Jr.'s. He never really got the same amount of chances to shine in big singles as the other Kaientai members did, but given the chance as he does here, he shows up and shines. His Irish whip counter manjigatame is a staple move of his and it's awesome. By the end, MEN'S gets the crowd believing in an upset and it leads to some perfectly setup false finishes. That finishing stretch was ideal for this match as they kept it really simple, yet effective. ***1/4

I thought this was weak. They didn't click as I expected them to and that head kick in the finish looked weak.

He is right though. The only ones who don't understand this are the blind hardcore MMA fans who don't believe there's been a ton of fixed fights in the sport before to begin with. The local Japanese fanbase is very different than the foreign fanbase. If you are an entertaining, charismatic fighter with a ton of personality, a flashy entrance and put on exciting fights, the fans will respect, cheer and support you. That's why there's guys with a ton of losses and possibly losing records getting marquee fights. IIRC he was also supposed to go over Tamura before he got KO'd. I agree with the North American MMA fans being in denial how much Pro Wrestling influenced and contributed to MMA. Also for the earlier comment I thought the Coleman fight looked way faker than the Sturgeon fight but both were awful. The Tamura fight I always heard was supposed to be a carry job with Tamura not going for the finish so soon but Takada fucked up and charged it and got clipped and KO'd. I never heard he was supposed to go over and it'd defeat purpose of him retiring if he beat Tamura who was gonna still be a viable star for PRIDE. That Takada - Tamura story makes sense, but I've always heard Takada was supposed to go over, however these stories have never been confirmed. I do know in the PRIDE Secret Files, it was mentioned that Takada was originally going to fight Naoya Ogawa and offers to fight Mirko Cro Cop and Hidehiko Yoshida arrived, but they decided to go with the Tamura fight as they thought it would be a bigger draw due to their past history in UWF-i.

I had no idea this happened...

That doesn't really make sense for why anyone would do that though, the $9.99 gives you access to their entire back catalog and the live event on top of that is only $5 so with FITE TV you'd pay the exact same price for one show as you would for one show at the WNN Club without the hundreds of back catalog shows. For some reason I thought you had to pay $9.99 + the $14.99 for the PPV's... Never mind, move on then...

Onryo is one of those indy sleaze guys. He was a former backyarder similar to Survival Tobita who eventually made his way to the bigger Japanese indys like FMW and BJW, but he never became a main eventer. His gimmick is that he's a ghost... This match was way better than it had any right to be... At this point CIMA was making a name for himself as one of the aces of Toryumon and Onryo was already making rounds to FMW, however he was never seen as more than a mid carder at best, so that's why the false finish got such a big pop. The match itself was a spotty, 5 minute Jr.'s match where they focused on getting all of their stuff in in as little time as possible.

Fantastic match. My favorite from this first round of the Super J Cup. The nuts is going bonkers from the start and they stay captivated for the rest of the match. Fantastic performance from Liger. Tiger Mask is usually categorized as boring and lazy by many fans, but Liger does a fantastic job getting him over. Those slaps on the ground by Liger are fantastic. TM kicking out at 1 of some Liger's biggest offense and then countering a shotei before being put down by a big one had the crowd going nuts and made for the perfect finish to get TM over. ****

I was just checking the FITE TV website for the RIZIN listings for next week and they have EVOLVE listed on their calendar, so if you don't want to pay for the $9.99 for their VOD and then pay for the live events, you can just order the live events from FITE TV for $14.99.

Kaz Hayashi is categorized as a WCW representative even though WCW had closed before this. It's obvious as to who Hayashi's inspiration is here... Hayashi and Sasuke go back 3-4 years as they faced themselves multiple times throughout the years when Hayashi was Shiryu in Kaientai DX. This is nothing groundbreaking, but it's a nice sub 10 minute Jr.'s match which sees them take advantage of the short time their given. ***

I didn't dig this as much as some of you and I also don't think this is the best Sano has looked so far this year as I thought he looked good in the Minoru Tanaka match and in the tag match with Ishikawa against Murakami and Otsuka from Battlarts. This isn't the best SUWA has looked either. SUWA hit a beautiful tope over the top rope which was awesome, but the rest felt kinda flat. The Crazy MAX interferences are better when they're against Toryumon guys who they are familiar with and know how to get them over. Here it didn't worth. Underwhelming.

Yeah, I agree with the above sentiment, this was a super fun opening round match. Both guys looked really good here. Really dug CIMA's Venus here as it looks better than it does most of the time. Despite being really short, they went all out from the get go and delivered the fun. ***

For us, this is round two between. Back in January they had a similar different style fight in what was Murahama's debut which was very good. This takes place two months later and it's far better than their previous match. Murahama has found his spot on the Osaka Pro roster and he's decided he does not want to affiliate himself with the Osaka Pro Sekigun and he wants to do his own thing and let them battle the heels LOV. Hoshikawa decides he wants to step in and defend the honor of Osaka Pro and takes up the challenge. In the stand up department, Murahama is clearly the better man as he has previous kickboxing experience and on the ground he's competent, but Hoshikawa has the upper hand. These guys exchange wildly on the feet where Murahama drops Hoshikawa and even opens him up and Hoshikawa gets a close false finish by also tapping out Murahama before he's saved by the bell. Unbelievable stuff. Definite must watch MOTYC so far for the U.S. or Japanese indys. ****3/4

Fresh off his big submission of Fuji, Genki gets a shot at SUWA's NWA Welterweight Title. Toryumon strives more in a multi man match setting, but this was very entertaining. Toryumon big singles matches or title matches usually are more 1 on 1 featured and don't involve the extensive interferences that you might get accustomed in the multi man matches which is why they let SUWA and Genki go at it. Sure this is by no means a MOTYC or an all-time classic, but its a very entertaining match that never drags. I really dug the false finish to the Mysteriorana and the counter backslide to the FFF from SUWA. They also kept this relatively short as they usually start giving singles matches 25+ minutes in some singles matches and they feel like they go on forever. ***

Another solid performance from Honma and another solid match featuring these two. This was another gritty battle where they built neatly to their weapon use. There was some brawling around the arena where Kobayashi got all bloodied up, but that blade job fell short to the previous one. The crowd was somewhat silent for the entire thing, but it didn't affect this one bit as it kept me engage because their in-ring work was captivating. Good stuff. ***1/4

This was a strong match. Very intense and gritty. Its a rarity at this point watching Kasai participate in non wild death matches so this was a pleasant surprise. Its even more surprising that he can actually go and hold his own against Honma. Kasai did the classic Flair head first into the corner spot that leads to the blade job. However Kasai is a masochist, so of course he went overboard with the blade job and got really bloodied up which was awesome. In fact there's so much blood here that it splats on the camera after a vicious running corner elbow from Honma. Another awesome performance and another solid match involving Honma. Very good match.

This was pretty awesome. This was the new era WEW Sports Entertainment era FMW from the time Fuyuki was in charge. IIRC Fuyuki got a ton of heat from the local FMW fans for his decisions as he wanted to change FMW's direction and that's why they took a more Sports Entertainment approach. It started out slow with Kuroda working over Fuyuki's arm as he used the lariat a lot in his matches. The match really picks up when they're brawling in the crowd and the ECW Japan crew appears and they get a ton of heat on Kuroda with an awesome extensive beatdown featuring Kuroda getting all bloodied up, getting slammed from the ring apron by Balls and getting whacked with the remnants on the table until its completely in shreds. The finishing stretch and the post match angle was fantastic as they built up perfectly for the next big event with Masato Tanaka making his return to the promotion after an absence while touring ECW in the U.S. to take out both H and Fuyuki before aligning with the ECW Japan crew. Really good match. ***3/4

This brings back some memories... After this Koji Nakagawa went on to become the indy sleaze character GOEMON who would be around the Japanese indy scene namely with Onryo and Yoshinari Sasaki was a rookie Mammoth Sasaki who was awesome. Eiji Eizaki post Hayabusa as H and under his real name was getting up there in age and wasn't as good as he once was in his prime -- in his first run as Hayabusa. As for this, yeah, I agree with everyone else here... This wasn't particularly bad, but it seemed effortless and it was never captivating and judging on the crowd, they probably felt the same way too.

This was tons of fun. We get some wild ringside brawling, blood, mask tearing, a table bump, two big cage dives, etc. The selling of the the arm injury from Dragon, the chair shot from Cruz on Dragon's injured shoulder, Dragon selling the injury, Spanky bleeding, Cruz bleeding and Dragon's two cage dives were all great. Stuff such as the predictable table spot irked me, but there wasn't really much to dislike here. By far the best TWA match we've seen so far. ***1/2

Relatively short and simple indy TV match. I thought Onyx looked good although his performance wasnt really that remarkable. I dug Jeff G. doing the old manager leg pull from the suplex so his guy lands on top for the pin. Overall this was pretty short and unoffensive.

A somewhat green Low Ki in a comedy setting with a different gimmick against what seems like two greener opponents than him is not very good...

Yeah, I wasn't too hot on this. Felt kinda dull for the most part and it was kinda sloppy. They never did anything to keep me captivated and I never felt a sense of urgency from Tiger Mask during the finish.

This was supposed to be a showcase Joshi match similar to the Toryumon showcase matches we've had on this show. However they didn't work like they want to put on a showcase and the match was underwhelming.

LOV do a great job attacking the Sekigun members at the bell and laying out Tsubasa with a piledriver on the outside. Yakushiji changed his gear from the previous Peter Pan outfit he wore the couple of times I saw him in the late 90's in Michinoku Pro and is now dressed like Bruce Lee in Game of Death. I like how Loss' puts Osaka Pro as a promise unfulfilled at this point. That's an on point observation and that one could say was their entirety as they always had high points, but they weren't high and always seemed like they could be better than they were. Watching Black Buffalo and Togo working regularly as LOV members, I kinda wish they would have been Crazy MAX members. I think a leader like Togo would have been ideal to carry Crazy MAX in the early days with CIMA being second in command as he continued to develop with Buffalo in the TARU role in the matches and TARU stayed as a second which is where he excels. These Osaka crowds hurt these a bit as they're generally silent the majority of the time in the matches we've seen this far. I thought Togo and Delfin looked the best here. Delfin is a guy I prefer in multi man matches than in singles because his singles usually feel repetitive a lot of the time. This was fun, but it never hit the next level for me. I did dig the finish as it had them go out without going into overkill with a few false finishes before the big counter pin out of nowhere.

This was another very good Toryumon multi man match to add to the bunch despite it being JIP. This was worked similarly to the other Toryumon multi man matches, so you know it'd deliver. Glad Genki got the win as he got beatdown pretty badly in the heat segment at the start and he's also the lesser ranked out of the bunch, so it at least gives him a boost. ***1/2