Edwin

This was all 2 minutes of Road Dogg on offense before a short Lawler comeback and a quick run in from the KAW crew.

This was relatively underwhelming. Both guys seemed like they were just cruising through this. Lawler dropping the strap to a mild reaction sucked as that usually drew a massive response some 12 or so years before this. The post match brawl with Dundee coming out to try and save Lawler was better than the match itself.

First time seeing Tiger Steele and he retrieved his attire from the WWF archives as hes fully dressed as circa 1993 Diesel. If only he was half as good as Nash... I thought this was pretty bad. Spankys way to green here to be working with someone as bad as Steele to actually amount to anything memorable. Those chairshots from Spanky were really weak and that mess of run ins was bad. That table spot by el Hijo de Gangrel maybe the worse table spot Ive ever seen.

This was possibly the worse TWA match weve seen this far. Dragon and Spanky were off entirely. Buster Time was a former NFL linebacker? I had no idea... He looked the best and even then he wasnt that good. He hit a mean looking backhand slap at Dragon and did a little dance that popped the crowd. Chaz did nothing for me here either. Forgettable match.

Yikes... This as horrible as expected as was the majority of XPW. Larry Rivera and Kris Kloss epitomize XPW badness on commentary. Rivera for some reason finds Tammy attractive at this point... Ouch. Kloss telling Rivera he doesnt understand him because of his think accent was hilarious. I remember Real Deal Damien Steele as he had a pretty lengthty stale run in Puerto Rico. He didnt do anything memorable back then and this is just equally as unmemorable. Yeah, I cut this off before the lame, played out Shane Douglas shoot promo of always.

Itami botching the tornado DDT stun gun he does while Corey Graves puts over how he has a ton of innovative moves and Michael Cole saying like this mid botch was hilarious.

I thought this was pretty awesome, albeit a bit too short. Loved the brawling around the arena. I hope the FMW, Onita Pro, etc. around Korakuen Hall brawls followed this mold instead of just grabbing each other by the back of the head and walking around the crowd in the arena. Had they been given the green light to go a little longer, I would have liked seeing them brawl a little longer in the back before returning to the ring. That finish was nuts. Tracy stumbling to setup the table didnt look that bad to me as Wolfie had missed a big dive off the top and was still selling the impact of it. Aside from this being as short as it was, I cant really find anything else negative to say about it.

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.

This was pretty awesome. A lot more diverse of a multi man match than the 2 from the previous month as it featured a crowd brawling segment and a little less outside interference than the aforementioned matches. At this point it's pretty clear CIMA and TOKYO are the two guys they want to feature the most along with Mochizuki. Fuji reminds me of a Jr. heavyweight, less grumpier, more comedic Tenryu. Out of the all the Toryumon guys we have seen this far, he comes across as the most polished. This is out first glimpse of the year of SUWA in the ring who eventually turned out to be one of the better workers Toryumon produced in the long run. There were some awesome flashy exchanges between SAITO and Fuji which are pretty great. Unfortunately these segments aren't longer than they were. I really dug SAITO's handstand sub attempts and cradles. CIMA just standing and walking away while Genki attempts a flashy moonsault off the second rope was awesome. Reminded me of Jr.'s going for crossbodys on Samoa Joe and him just walking away while they crash landed on their faces. CIMA also hits a nasty slap on Genki when he's on the floor before he mocks him by surfboarding on him. The finish was perfect. It ended at just the right time without them going into excessive stretches. The post match between on SAITO was pretty great as usual. ****

MAKOTO is a guy I prefer when he's the masked heel Darkness Dragon, TARU is someone I'm not too high on and prefer as a second who interferes in favor of Crazy MAX, attacks cameraman's and refs. or working multi man matches. However, Kanda and Susumu are guys I really like, but at this point Kanda was still working on discovering his personality as this was before M2K was formed. This was really weird. They're both heel tag teams working against each other and it doesn't provide an ideal setting. This felt more like a straight up Jr.'s tag from Osaka Pro than the awesome Toryumon's trios we got in the previous month. This also went on 5 or so too many minutes. Despite being a bit underwhelming, I would rank this Toryumon tag beneath the previous CIMA & Fuji vs. Mochi & Chocoball tag match from the same month.

The Convict reminds me of a 1990's opening card from Puerto Rico called el Ex-Convicto 308 who feuded with la Ley de Puerto Rico. He wasn't nutty enough to working an extensive match in handcuffs though. Aside from the Convict here, Darby Allin in his match against Ethan Page in EVOLVE this year maybe the only other dude I think I've seen work an entire match handcuffed. Convict was managed by a guy called Martial Law who attacked him every time he was on the outside of the ring... That's not good... Necro was working as a wildman back then, but he still hadn't evolved into the wildman he would turn within 4 years. He brings a ton of junk to the ring and for all we know, that maybe the same junk he's used in other death matches. I know there's a big ol' monitor there, but Necro doesn't get smashed in the mouth with it, nor does he smash Convict in the mouth with it ala IWA-MS KOTDM against Toby Klein. I liked how the Convict worked within the limitations of being handcuffed. He definitely made the use out of it possible by using them to bruise up Necro's face with the chain on them. aside from that, there wasn't much else I liked. This was pretty trashy and felt like a garbage match from a JCW show in someones barn. Not enough brawling and more so excessive use of weapons. We don't get to see the end of it, as they air a video of the promoter pretty much putting the match over as being too violent for the viewers and he opts to cut it off before hand. Lame.

This was a pretty standard Osaka Pro multi man match. Opposite 90s Michinoku Pro and early Toryumon, the Osaka Pro guys never reached that level. The best out of the Osaka Pro guys were Black Buffalo whs featured here and Big Boss MA-G-MA who then went on to be Magnitude Kishiwada in Dragon Gate. Theres also Billy Ken Kid and Tigers Mask who come along later, but arent as good as the aforementioned two guys. I like Super Delfin a lot, but hes never striked me as a great single guy. His selling is usually questionable and he spams a lot of DDTs in big singles matches. Togo is always fantastic in any setting and against any set of guys. This was no different. Tsubasa iirc was later repackeged as Garuda in FMW as they tried to build him up as the new Hayabusa which of course failed miserably. He looked pretty decent here. Im not too familiar with Sugamoto or Policeman, but I thought neither looked to shabby here. The match itself never reaches that next level despite them trying their best. The crowd just never seems to get into it either. That Policeman briefcase spot at the end was awesome. I liked how they kept it simple and didnt go overboard with the big moves and 2.99999 kickouts. Overall this is perfectly fine.

Awwe man, thought this was pretty underwhelming compared to the other matches from the previous month. Chocoball KOBE looked really green here and that hurt the match. His comeback looked weak. Luckily it was short and Mochi came in quickly. The other three looked pretty good though. CIMAs strikes sans the leaping palm strike, are really underrated. I also feel he doesnt get enough credit and is always discredited, but he has been really good in these matches. As a faction, Crazy MAX are great. The longer they keep TARU as a second manager the better as he excels in that role and not as much in the ring.

Huh? He was involved in that mess? This is the first time I've heard that. If I was him, I wouldn't even admit I had to do with that. That was atrocious. Takada was involved in some really bad worked PRIDE fights. The Kyle Sturgeon fixed fight was far worse however.

I believe the Hido was paying a comedic tribute to karate fighter Willie Williams who had some matches with Inoki in New Japan and he also had some matches in FMW, hence the Willie Takayama name. This was a comedic relief match and it was quite fun in all the wrong ways. Hido landing a flush right hand on Kuroda while he tried replicating his obnoxious long hall run lariat was great, as was his Hido landing a flush right on the ring post. They tried putting on a serious stretch near the end, but had used too much comedy by then for anyone to take them seriously. If you don't mind a little comedy, then you will get a kick out of this.

This was crazy. Everyone's fighting all over the place and hitting each other with a ton of weapons. Not a particularly great match by any chance, but Homicide hitting people with crutches was the highlight for me. Lowlife Louie putting over the light tube spots by screaming in agony was neat. The post match buffoonery with Foo Foo? coming out to Goldberg's music in underwear only to get recked by the Da Hit Squad, Low Ki and Homicide was awesome. Aside from that, there wasn't much else noteworthy.

I didn't like this as much as everyone else and thought it was kind of a mess for the most part. Everything involving the Big Unit was bad except for when they were getting steamrolled by the Da Hit Squad. I wasn't too impressed by the Haas Brothers either. They try to put together some cute tag team combos, but they look rather weak. I like Da Hit Squad a lot, specially when they're running people over, but I felt this wasn't their best performance.

This did nothing for me. I remember the famous Taipei Death Match from 1990's ECW between Ian and Axl that made one of the VHS and DVD commercial releases and I wasn't too fond of that match either. The first half of this wasn't as bad as that Ian and Pondo fiasco from the previous month in CZW, but it was still pretty pointless and pretty much ended my interest in the match from there.

This was nuts. Montoya did nothing for me, but I thought Low Ki looked really good. Him coming out barefoot with his fists all wrapped up and ready for a fight was great. His crossfaces looked good, as did his counters to Montoya's suplexes with the modified armbar and rolling kneebar. He also did an excellent job at putting over Montoya's kneebar by screaming in agony. I really dug that brawl on the outside between Homicide and Nick Berk. It seemed like it was a legit shoot fight. The finish was weak as Mark Reil barely grazed Ki with the chair shot. That post match beatdown looked brutal. ***

This was unintentional comedy. The highlights were Rukkus shoot punching Mr. Extreme in the mouth in the corner and then getting recked with a toaster by White Trash. I live in central Florida and I've never seen such a variation of mullets as I've seen here. Pretty pointless.

This is your typical bizarre Survival Tobita match. Tobita picking up the mats and ramming through Kendo Azteca with them for his comeback after having gotten battered with a kendo stick was hilarious. I'm surprised DDT never really gave Tobita a chance as they've given backyarders a ton of opportunities to compete for them.

This is a worse version of the January match. The focus is obviously Onita, so no matter what happens in the ring during Onita's obnoxious walk around Korakuen Hall pulling Nakamaki by the hair, the focus will always be on Onita. Despite the chaos, this was wilder (not good way) than the January match. The biggest problem with these Onita Pro main events is that they're all very similar so if you didn't like the January match, then you will most likely not like any of the other ones.

I think it's funny Nagai has a ton of worked shoots on his Sherdog Fight Finder as if they were MMA fights... I like him a good deal, but he didn't look particularly great here. I wasn't blown away by his grappling nor was I particularly blown away by his strikes. It seems whenever the match hit the ground and he was on top, he would immediately try and lock in a lazy Americana. I wasn't particularly sold on his two dives off the top. I thought Ikeda's groggy and fatigued selling was neat as was him blastin Nagai with lariats near the end. I would've preferred Ikeda stopping Nagai with one of those lariats instead of that rolling dive. That said, I thought this underwhelming and wasn't sold on this mostly due to Nagai's performance.

This was not a shoot style Battlarts match. This was a standard Independent Jr. Heavyweight title match, so if you were expecting this to be otherwise, then you were going to get letdown. This was more of a straight forward Jr.'s match, than anything else. Thought the finishing stretch was pretty good. They got the crowd invested, so you have to give them that. Sano's desperation on the cradles leading to the near falls, him countering Minoru's kneebar with a leglock of his own, his rolling sole butt kick, etc. all looked fantastic. I agree with ohtani's jacket, the criticism on this is a bit harsh as it's not necessarily as bad as it's made out to be here. *** Also I have no idea what the commentators were rambling about, but they name dropped WWF, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Chyna and the WWF Intercontinental title...