Edwin

Listening to an interview with Savio Vega. His inspiration to be a wrestler was Titanes del Ring. He began training and then began working as security for CSP thanks to family members who also worked as security for CSP. At the time he was also working smaller indy shows until Isaac Rosario saw him working an anniversary show they had for him and recommended him to Carlos Colón. He worked a number of gimmicks in CSP, Juan Rivera, El Corsario, El Asesino, etc. His first night in CSP was a Wednesday TV taping. He wrestled 3 opponents, including Sabukán and one of the Súper Médicos. He received an offer to do a tour of Tennessee, but it feel through and he ended up doing a tour of Louisiana where he worked in Mid-South. He also mentioned he did a tour of Mexico with José Huertas González. They were Los Corsarios. After those tours, he returned to Puerto Rico and he debuted the TNT gimmick. On his first night back, he had three matches at a Wednesday TV taping and he mentioned wrestling one of the Hart brothers in one of the three matches. He received his first offer for a tour of Japan thanks to Abdullah the Butcher. It was a tour with All Japan. He talked about his feud and working with the Canadian Jason the Terrible, Karl Moffatt. He said their matches were brutal and Moffatt liked working stiff. He recalls Moffatt knocking him out in one of their matches in Caguas with a diving headbutt. He said he kicked out by instinct. When he recovered, he stiffed Moffatt with body kicks and Moffatt was screaming at him to tone it down. He also said he had a scar in forehead from a headbutt he received with the Jason hockey mask which he says had a sharp edge. Scott Hall was the person who recommended him to Vince McMahon. He said he still has a relationship with Steve Austin and they talk on the phone often. He said Austin called him around the anniversary for their strap match as he credits as a key match in the development of his career on his way to becoming Stone Cold. Victor Quiñones was the agent for Kane, Big Show, the Mexican and Japanese wrestlers of the Attitude Era. He claims Big Show's deal was for $10M. Súper Astros was a project Quiñones was involved in. The goal was for Súper Astros to be a brand of itself. Their show was original for 30 minutes and they had plans to expand it to an hour, but someone had an issue arise with Linda McMahon and Vince decided to drop the entire plan. Regardless, Quiñones was still working on founding IWA in Puerto Rico. Obviously IWA was heavily influenced by W★ING. Savio says Jim Ross told him creative didn't have anything for him and when Savio approached the Undertaker to say goodbye, Taker told him he would get him a 2 year extension, but Savio turned down the offer from Taker as he was already working with Quiñones, Miguel Pérez Jr. and Victor Rodríguez founding IWA.

Then these "record" businesses Meltzer says they are doing don't really mean much in the grand scheme of things. If WrestleMania crowds tank, then there's a high chance the crowds for these indy shows will be less as well which the point I was trying to make.

Crazy how most of the indys biggest events all revolve around WrestleMania which is why a lot of them were even seeking crowd funds just to survive when the pandemic hit and they all had to cancel their events.

This one I can speak up for. Up until the 2000s, Carlos was a household name in Puerto Rico. WWC was the highest rated show on local TV and they of course could sell out stadiums on a regular basis. 9 out of 10 Puerto Ricans could have told you who Carlos was (Chicky Starr, Ray Gonzalez, Invader #1 and Savio Vega at certain times were also somewhat household names). Now, no. Carlos has mostly been working in the office and has been away from TV on a regular basis. Also Puerto Rican wrestling has been on a decline popularity wise since Victor Quiñones passed away and IWA's decline began. I was actually listening to Chicky speak in an interview and he said had Carlos run to be a mayor in the 80s or 90s, he would have won easily as he was a massive beloved local baby face and they would have voted him. I know Savio has already said he's running for mayor of Vega Baja.

This is the follow up rematch between these two and it's a really strong TV main event as it featured some nice action and of course the big commentators table bump. Jey has stepped it up since his singles feud with Roman Reigns and he was exceptional here. His grounded elbows to the ribs of Bryan were incredible. Bryan is currently my pick for wrestler of the year as he's been absolutely incredible even though he was absent for a few months. Crazy to think he's still this good and he's said his career is starting to wind down. He busted out some of his cool ROH world title run spots such as his face stomps, the avalanche backdrop and the small package which he used as a cutback counter to the big splash off the top rope.

Not trying to devalue this match at all, but it benefits from it occurring in ROH as it allows them to work a little more evenly as if it happened in Japan; there's no way Joe would get in as much offense as he did if this occurred in Noah and there's no way they would have gone over 15 minutes. With that said, the atmosphere is magical, it definitely has a big fight feel and the fans in attendance give this a dream match feel. Worth noting this also benefits greatly from the commentators abandoning the booth and letting the match play out with the live crowd audio. I know the goal is to mostly put on a Kobashi showcase, which is what this is for the most part, but Joe should definitely get some praise as he does an incredible job at bumping for Kobashi's offense; that bump over the guard rail for the chop countering the Ole kick was great. Given how small most of the ROH roster was at the time, it was great seeing two heavyweights wrestling like heavyweights. This is the perfect intro for anyone who is interested in getting into Japanese pro-wrestling. 15 years later and this still holds up as a great match.

Not an all-time classic, but this is easily the best and final match in their best of 5 series. It's kind of lame seeing folks trying to escape continuously in cage matches, specially in blood feud cage matches, but that's not the case here as they recognize they are locked in the cage because they want to fight. Great bit with them showing their hate for each other to the degree they were biting each others foreheads, fingers, etc. while battling on top of the cage. There's also a handful of big bumps in this with Danielson hitting a massive diving headbutt off the top of the cage and a big avalanche backdrop off the top rope. Also Homicide bringing back the brass knuckles he used to win the taped fist match was neat callback. The highlight of this was the finishing airplane spin that goes on for over a minute. I know an airplane spin is not what you would picture as the finish to a blood feud, I thought it was great. Julius Smokes played a big role in this, so it sucks he wasn't ringside for it. I think him trying to interfere and it backfiring would have elevated this.

The fourth match in the best of 5 series and they put on another solid match together. Julius Smokes comes out hitting the ramp with a metal baseball bat which adds another layer of insanity to him. The lumberjacks are all Ring of Honor students for the most part. The lumberjack stipulation stops them being able to brawl in the crowd which has been a staple in this feud and what has been the highlight of the previous 3 matches, however the action in this is nice and tight in the ring. Despite the lack of crowd brawling, there's still a sense of chaos in this with Smokes on the outside with a bat and with the lumberjacks around the ring. There's a new layer to this feud with furniture being introduced and Danielson eating an exploder through a table. I'm not a big fan of the stand around and catch me dives, but that's what the lumberjacks are for and Danielson hits a superplex on Homicide to the outside and in this match it makes sense for the lumberjacks to be down there waiting to catch them. Deep in the match, there's a lumberjack who is revealed as a plant setup by the Rottweilers as he attacks Danielson, but he then gets wiped out by a brutal backdrop and STO combo from Samoa Joe and Jay Lethal. There's a brief confrontation between Joe and Homicide which adds to their feud. The finish is neat as they have the fans on the edge of their seats and it seems like the match is going to go either way.

Not an all-time classic as you would expect we would be getting from these two in a different best of 5 series, but I thought this was still very good and by far the best match they've had in their best of 5 series so far. Most of this develops with some ringside brawling, but it's different than what you would expect as you get a rolling small package running into fans, an airplane spin the crowd, backslide pins, etc. They 've brawled in their other two matches in the series and those where the high points of those matches, but this is by far their best ringside brawl so far. This is the type of brawling I could see Dusty Rhodes losing his mind for and laughing for 15 minutes on commentary on a mid to late 90s WCW Uncensored. When they get back in the ring they keep it nice and tidy and leave a ton on the table for the remaining two matches in the series. Worth noting how underrated Julius Smokes is. He was fundamental in the Rottweilers success. He's a tremendous hype man/manager just constantly getting the crowd riled and just screaming in the opponents faces.

Listened to an Invader #3 interview last night. He's in his 70s and doesn't really go into detail too much about his wrestling career. He said he teamed up with Andre the Giant when he worked for WWE in the 70s and 80s and that Andre loved Puerto Ricans and he showed a photo of Andre with his wife and kids he has in his house. He talked briefly about his All Japan tours. He said Giant Baba saw him work an MSG show and enquired about booking him. His first tour was unmasked as Johnny Rodriguez. He also worked in the US without the mask as Johnny Rodriguez. He puts over Vince Sr. and Carlos Colón are the two top promoters he worked for. He was one of the top trainers in Puerto Rico. He trained Mecha Wolf/Hammet/Mr. 450/whatever he's called these days, Amazona, Tavu, Sir William de la Vega, etc. Out of the 4 Invaders, he's the only one who's wrestled as Invader #1, Invader #2 and Invader #3 across the world. However in Puerto Rico he only wrestled as Invader #3, though. The highlight of the interview was the famous Manny Fernandez diving knee blood vomiting angle. He claims it was 100% a shoot. He was really injured and vomiting blood which adds to Manny Fernandez' also claiming it was a shoot. Aside from that, the other highlight was seeing him unmask. It's been 25+ years I believe since he's been unmasked on any wrestling show.

Listened to part 2 of the Caguas Screwjob. Someone had asked if Pelayo Vazquez who was the ref. knew about it beforehand and they all said no. Dennis and Noel also were screaming at him to bring them the titles after the match so they could rush out of the arena. After the match, Dennis and Noel left the arena and Niche and Lynx went backstage and they were heated as they got double crossed by people they grew up in the business with and they began flipping tables and throwing stuff in the locker room. They said Carlos Colón and Invader #1 were calm backstage and telling them to take it easy as it was just wrestling and they would get the titles back somehow. Dennis and Noel mention they were going to call Niche and Lynx after a few weeks and they were going to continue this angle and turn into a work by having Niche and Lynx face them at an IWA show and they were going to put them over and allow them to win the IWA tag titles so they could further the angle and try to force the two companies into working the invasion angle they had previously agreed to, but dropped. Dennis and Noel got a ton of attention with the angle and even the municipal police department were huge fans and reached out to them and had them stop by the municipal police department and Dennis and Noel were able to record a promo in a jail cell there and they were also loaned a police vehicle to ride into one of the shows with all of the titles hanging from the front of it. They said they got a ton of indy bookings that week and on Saturday they worked an indy show in Ciales I believe it was and then they headed out to work an IWA show in Levittown. Niche and Lynx knew IWA was running Levittown that night, so they planned on showing up to get the titles back. Their plan was to arrive at the arena and storm into the arena and grab the titles from the ring announcers table. Niche and Lynx arrive with Cuervo and 2 other people. Niche and Lynx stay in the car and they make a conference call with Cuervo and the other two people that where with them. They send Cuervo to walk around the arena and see if the backdoor entrance is open and they send the other two people to buy tickets and get into the venue so they could see what the setup for the show is. IWA spot the people at the venue and they order the titles get taken back to the locker room as they were suspicious. After their match, Dennis tells Noel he's going to shower and then they could leave together as the IWA staff was already suspicious something would happen and Dennis had two people he brought with him to all his booking who were armed and were his backup in case something would happen as there was real heat between the IWA and WWC offices. Noel decides to blow off Dennis and he leaves with his ex-wife. The two people who came to the arena with Niche and Lynx spot Noel walking out the arena and they tell Niche and Lynx and they head off running to the entrance and they confront Noel. They all start arguing and in the middle of the argument, Niche and Lynx try to snatch Noel's suitcase where he had the titles and they fall on the ground and Niche and Lynx grab the titles, so Niche and Lynx leave the arena with 1 IWA tag title and 1 WWC tag title. Noel goes back in the venue and he tells Dennis what happened and Dennis got pissed and told him he should've stayed and waited as that's why he had backup for them because he knew something could happen. Miguel Pérez Jr. called the police and opened a report about the confrontation. The police are now searching for Niche and Lynx all over the north of Puerto Rico. People from the IWA staff that knew Niche and Lynx call them and tell them to protect their families and homes as Dennis and Noel were out for them and they were armed which wasn't true as Dennis went out to have a drink with his friends after show and Noel went home, plus they weren't armed themselves, their backup was. On Monday morning, Niche and Lynx come to the WWC offices with the IWA tag title and WWC tag title and the police arrive to speak with Carlos and Victor Jovica who are the heads of the office and Carlos calls in Niche and Lynx. Carlos tells the police it's nothing major and just wrestling and the police close the report. Niche and Lynx are blown away as they just saw how being a pro-wrestler could help them manipulate the police in their favor. Both companies offices spoke and eventually all of the titles were returned and the entire thing came to an end. Unfortunately the only real good video of this hasn't been posted anywhere that I am aware of and what's out there is bad video quality, but they did put clips of their higher quality video on the podcast, but it's just the promo and Dennis and Noel leaving the arena in their ring gear with the titles. Dennis has heat in real life with Invader #1 as he's Savio Vega's little brother. Niche said he should try to get Invader to record an episode of the podcast with him and Dennis said he would if Invader agreed to it and he said it would be a good idea to stream it live for episode 100 as they are currently on episode 94. Dennis said he would record with metal detectors just to play it safe and make sure no has any foreign objects on them. I saw a clip of a separate interview with Chicky Starr and Chicky mentioned the Japanese yakuza flew to Puerto Rico and they arrived at the arena in Caguas for a show and they were looking for Invader and luckily Victor Quiñones was there and he was able to speak to them.

Daisuke Nakamura is the king of armbars and is a U-System wrestler who's been doing MMA and pro-wrestling for some years now. Yu Kobayashi is a former MMA fighter who fought a ton in Pancrase. Nothing ground breaking or revolutionary and not on par with some of the other BJJ gi wearing wrestlers, but definitely a fun BJJ vs. CACC match. The match lacked urgency and went to a time limit draw, but the grappling exchanges were all snug and tight. There's other single matches where it's BJJ vs. CACC, but I believe this one of the few tag matches that is BJJ vs. CACC.

This is beautiful. I trained BJJ for a while and even then at a high level, BJJ in a gi is boring to watch (no gi is much more entertaining) as it's two high level grapplers cancelling each other out until they find an opening to exploit if one appears. This, however isn't BJJ (despite being marketed as that), it's a pro-wrestling match with two guys with pro MMA and BJJ backgrounds wrestling with gis on. Neither guy was lighting the world on fire MMA, but they been fun to watch as they transition to pro-wrestling. Sato's MMA record is full of worked matches for some reason (the Takayama U-Spirits match is a known work, there's talks the Shannon Ritch match from Pancrase was also a work, etc.) and he also had one of the oddest finishes to an MMA fight ever as he was mounting his opponent and his opponent knocked him out from underneath. Despite having more experience in MMA and pro-wrestling, Sato is a lesser ranked BJJ practitioner than Matsumoto as it's a purple belt vs. brown belt and it's worked as such. Matsumoto dominates the grappling exchanges and Sato shows signs of frustration and he takes his belt off and whips Matsumoto with it. There's a cool bit where Matsumoto gets heated and takes his belt off in exchange and chokes Sato with it. One of the neat things about Matsumoto, is he uses shoot BJJ holds to pull off beautiful looking innovative cradle pins. The finish is fantastic with Sato using his belt to pull off a nasty belt assisted looking arm trapped choke. These pro-wrestling matches with BJJ practitioners is still a somewhat new genre, but it's been fun to watch and one I definitely welcome more of specially when they mix it with other BJJ practitioners, judokas or CACC wrestlers.

This is a really fun match between two folks who have less than 50 matches in their careers combined. Monma is a former pro MMA fighter with a background in BJJ who is known as the Japanese Arona and who's fought some relatively big names in MMA like Kitaoka, JZ Calvan, Dan Hardy and Mach Sakurai in Japan. Matsumoto as we know is the BJJ brown belt who's wrestled mostly on smaller indy shows and mostly somewhat shoot style so this is the first time I'm seeing him in a more pro-wrestling style match. Despite both being relatively rookies in pro-wrestling, they do a fantastic job putting this together. You know all the grappling exchanges are nice and tight with some awesome scrambles as you would expect given the two parties involved. Aside from the grappling exchanges, Matsumoto can throw some nasty looking stomps and he also does a fantastic job using his belt to tie up Monma and take advantage. Monma also lands one of the nastiest backdrops I've ever seen where Matsumoto's get folded like an accordion. There's some brief ringside brawling with Matsumoto using his belt to tie Monma to a chair which is OK, but it's very brief. One of the trends that's infiltrated wrestling is folks shooting for horrendously loose and phony looking triangle chokes (I'm not saying you should choke someone out, because that's obviously ridiculous, but at least tighten it up a bit so there's no glaring gaps). Monma shoots for some triangle chokes here and they look nice and tight (yet it's safe as he's not pushing the arm across for the full choke) so it looks believable. He also does some neat looking armbars before eventually using Matsumoto's gi pants to catch him in a beautiful armbar.

Was listening to Bronco #1. I had no idea he had a background in freestyle wrestling and judo. He talked about Dominican wrestling for a bit which I'm not too familiar with aside from the big names that appeared on Dominicana de Espectaculos and in WWC which were Bronco, Astroman, Jack Veneno and Relámpago Hernández. He shared a story of Relámpago Hernández. Relámpago had suffered a broken leg and he had a crutch with him. He had so much heat, the captain of the PD slapped in the face at a show and they got into a fight and Relámpago ended up breaking the crutch over him. He also mentioned he found Puerto Rican wrestling boring at first as the Dominican style was faster paced and violent compared to the Puerto Rican style which was much more psychology based with a slower pace and build. He rarely watched any of the matches, but he said a 30 minute match between Greg Valentine and Invader #1 was the one that made him appreciate the style. He received an offer from WWE when the steroids scandal broke out, but at the same time WWC was struggling due to AWF being formed and almost everyone except for Carlos Colón and Invader #1 jumping ship, so he came up with a business plan and he presented it to Victor Jovica and Carlos Colón and they accepted it and he turned down the offer from the WWE in favor of working for WWC. A lot of folks jumped shipped because they weren't getting paid on time or getting paid at all. Hercules Ayala, Huracán Castillo Jr., Miguel Pérez Jr., Ray González, TNT aka Savio Vega, etc. all jumped ship to AWF. When this occurred, Jovica and Carlos closed up Capitol Sports Promotion and then from the ashes of CSP arose the World Wrestling Council. Bronco's plan was to book himself, Carlos and Invader as the top 3 faces and to bring in foreigners as heels to face them. Among them were Abdullah the Butcher, Dick Murdoch, Dutch Mantel, Greg Valentine, etc. Bronco then saw things began to change and they began to draw again and he turned heel on Invader and Carlos. Bronco lost his mask to Carlos in an apuestas match after he defeated Carlos for the title and in an apuestas match for Carlos hair. The remaining stipulation was an apuestas match with Bronco putting up his mask against Carlos' career which of course Carlos won. When he got unmasked a lot of folks began telling him his run as a top guy was pretty much done but he knew he had to reinvent himself. What he did to reinvent himself was cut promos in TV with his back turned to the camera. By having his back turned to the camera, the fans would be intrigued to see his face, so the simplicity of seeing his was a draw. He mentioned a lot is lost behind a mask as fans can't see facial expressions through them. He also worked with an actor who worked for the office on how to convey storytelling through facial expressions. He talks about being attacked by fans in Puerto Rico. He talked about a fan cracking him with a hammer in the stands and him getting tired of having to fight fans on his way to the ring, so he talked to Jovica and told him they had to close a section off of the stands for their safety, but Jovica told him if fans keep paying, they had to keep up opening up the stands. Bronco says he never liked working recklessly and he enjoyed putting together simplistic matches, more is less, basically. Dennis Rivera who's interviewing Bronco puts him over as one of the top 2 heels in Puerto Rican wrestling history along with Chicky Starr and he talks about a match they had a few years ago and Dennis said it was one of the easiest matches he's ever had as Bronco told Dennis he would lead the match and they could get the match over with as little as possible which they did.

This match is a ton of fun. This is BJJ vs. CACC. Matsumoto is a legit BJJ brown belt and Suzuki was trained by Billy Robinson. BJJs philosophy is position before submission and CACCs philosophy is submission before position and that's exactly what we get here and is why it seems like Suzuki dominates for the most part. No strikes are necessary here and luckily none are thrown as this is just two high level grapplers rolling. Suzuki really catches Matsumoto with some cool stuff such as a modified north-south choke and a toe hold and Matsumoto just does an incredible job of scrambling and survivng.

Was listening to a podcast with El Profe. He sounded like the nicest guy. He talked about a first blood match he had with Rico Suave. He said they wanted to bleed hardway, so they were working stiff and throwing bombs at each other and he was scheduled to go over so it took about 18 right hands to crack Rico's skull open. He talked about Chicky Starr and Bronco #1 having so much heat that Bronco's car got set on fire in Loiza and Chicky's car got set on fire in Vega Baja. Chicky was born, raised and lived in Vega Baja, so folks saw him grow up there and he was still able to generate enough heat that they still set his car on fire. He shared a story of when Su Yung met him. He says she gave him a hug and thanked him because thanks to his feud with Monster Ripper she was now able to participate in intergender matches. He got paid $35 for his first week managing Savio Vega as TNT and he felt he got lowballed so he complained and the office told him to take it easy as things would get better. The following week he got paid around the same amount. The third week he was so paid so much he was able to pay all his bills and he still had $1,500 leftover. He said he got so much heat when he was a heel manager, he would have to leave his car parked far from the arena and cops would have to pick him up and drop him off at the venues and then they would have to give him rides back. He said there were times when he would have so much heat, they wouldn't let him walk out to be seen in public and he would get paid $300 just for arriving at the venues.

Necro Butcher vs. any non death match wrestler is always compelling to watch. All you want from him in these scenarios is his him to sell, to punch folks in the face, to bump like a madman and to throw headbutts. Here he doesn't bleed, but he does all the other things you want him to do. When Roddy began working the more followed indys in the northeast, he made his reputation by throwing some of the loudest chops around and hitting a variety of backbreakers and it took him a while to breakout of that and actually begin developing more personality. At this point he was still in the middle of making that transition, so you know he wasn't afraid of throwing some heat at Necro. Necro is such a lunatic that he can get a pop out of the most basic moves and he does when he pulls out a roll up out of nowhere. The majority of this developed with ringside brawling with Necro going nuts and wrapping Roddy in the ringside padding and hitting him with headbutts after Roddy threw chops at him. As with every Necro match, two chairs are introduced and they get positioned against each other and they tease his usual backbreaker across them, but instead we get Roddy hitting him with his big boot which left you wanting a bit more. This is still very good regardless.

In the midst of Bryan Danielson 30+ minute main events, he switches it up and is involved in a brutal hot 6 minute bloody brawl. Both guys come to fight from the start and both play their parts fantastically in this. All that is required from Morishima here is to throw big clubbing blows and Danielson carries the rest as he bleeds like crazy, sells incredibly for the early attack from Morishima and then puts together a blitz of offense like a madman who is out to get revenge. Great match and great result as it left a lot on the table to follow up with.

Julius Smokes doesn't get enough credit for his work, but he was a fantastic hype man in Homicide's corner. These two just have straight up brawls which sets their matches together apart from everyone else. The early brawling in the streamers was fantastic as it made it seem more chaotic than usual. The tope con hilo table bump was wild, but it is second to the one he did in their other match where he bent his spine on the guard rail on his way to landing in the first two rows. The forking in the crossface was great as you could see Joe's skin tearing again and him starting to bleed again. I thought the false finishes were fine as they were somewhat spread apart and not them going for back to back to back to back false finishes. Also dug the brainbuster as the finish as it was unexpected.

Crazy match. Not a classic by any chance or anything, but two guys who just hate each other brawling it out. Homicide is coming in off a loss to Samoa Joe in a world title match and his frustration due to lack of title wins is starting to kick in. Worth noting Julius Smokes is an incredible hype man. His ringside work never gets the proper recognition it deserves. The match itself is just built around both guys just hitting each other with stiff strikes for 12 or so minutes while it slowly escalates to a brutal finish with Homicide using a noose to choke out Joe.

This is a blood feud that has been building up for months now and even featured both guys factions being involved in a riot at one of the past shows. Corino's entrance with all of the titles and having the ring announcer announce him as an over the top champion was great given the crowds he's in front of. One of the bloodiest and most brutal matches in the history of the company. Corino got his ear drum busted by a brutal slap. Homicide bleed buckets. Homicide used barb wire and a fork to carve up Corino's arm. It's surprising Homicide didn't paralyze himself as he hit one of the nastiest bumps I've ever seen when he missed a tope con hilo and ended up bending his back landing on the top of the guard rail. Homicide recurring to even bitting Corino's bloody arm was quite the gruesome visual. Gabe on commentary dragged my enjoyment of this down though with his endless yelling and constantly repeating of Corino's distaste for the fans. Great match regardless.

They haven't covered it entirely yet. I am guessing they will go more in detail in the next episode. I know they mentioned previously working with the ref., Pelayo Vazquez beforehand as he worked a ton of smaller non televised shows with them and he was a former IWA ref.

This is a blast. Chakukiri is a kickboxing gym that's spread branches all over the world. Their branches in Japan put together mixed combat sports shows. This is a pro-wrestling match from one of their shows. Takatoshi Matsumoto is a legit BJJ brown belt who fought MMA for a while in Pancrase. He only has a handful of pro-wrestling matches, but given his experience he was able to transition to pro-wrestling. Fujiwara is 70 years old in this and still rules. There isn't much strikes thrown in this as it mostly revolves around some tight and gritty grappling. For the most part the strikes that are thrown come from Fujiwara and they are vintage brutal body shots and Matsumoto trying to headbutt Fujiwara, but of course you know that's not going to be efficient. Matsumoto wrestles in his gi, but it's not of much help as Fujiwara being a former judoka knows how to use that to his advantage and in a moment catches Matsumoto in a gi choke. There's a ton of cool stuff here including Matsumoto getting frustrated and taking off his belt while in a heel hold and trying to choke Fujiwara with it, but it back fires on him shortly as Fujiwara uses his own belt to choke him in the ropes. There's also a cool transition where Fujiwara catches Matsumoto in a Fujiwara armbar and Matsumoto escapes and catches Fujiwara in a gator role and a choke.

This wasn't on par with their previous match, but it's still good. Love how they actually make every grappling exchange into a scramble struggle and they aren't just leaving limbs out there for their opponent to grab onto and don't just lay there waiting for their opponent to lock them in submissions so they can then run for a rope break. Kanehara again outclasses Sakuraba on the feet and KOs him with a brutal combo, but it felt kind of flat as it came out of nowhere and the match was shorter than I had hoped for.