Owen Edwards

Steamboat will rank high for me. Along with a couple others, the perfect proof you don't have to work both sides of the mat to be one of the best ever. An unrelenting peak more or less from his first title win to initial retirement, and then a glorious nostalgia tour in 2009.

Doubt she'll make my list but a really reliable, charismatic hand.

Yes. I think old saws and truisms haunt "Smarks" as much as anyone else, and I remember even 20 years ago people were saying the Sayama stuff was overrated and they weren't really proper matches etc - it's an old saw by this point. The fact Dynamite is just the perfect heel to play off Sayama's character and half-makes Tiger mask, the fact that his execution was nearly always at least "good" and often beautiful, the fact that his British work and his work against the Harts are just perfect within their genre - they're not relevant to the old saw. But yes, you just have to watch him from the late 70s through to 91 (or even, just about, 93) and you'll see a consistently intense, aggressive, charismatic guy. Watch him headbutt Jumbo half to death in RWTL91, or put in one last truly great performance against Kobashi and Kikuchi, or use his smarts to compete with Hansen on multiple occasons - he never lost the aura, the will, the basic ability, even as his body started rebelling against him.

I also don't even think his work has aged badly, as if it was just reliant on new spots we've now all seen. Partly the Sayama series was innovative BECAUSE of the way it is still so fun and exciting.

I love his aura and sometimes his acting, I love his weird little athletic moments in the '70s, but I don't buy into his heat segments except against an exceptional opponent. Given the rest of his stuff is bad, he's nowhere near for me. I grant a little taste may intrude here, but I'm more like Elliott 25 years ago.

You know what's neglected? His beat-up injured midcard Bruisers run. He's better, less hurt, more motivated than in his last four Bulldogs tours. He works really hard and is putting other guys over hard on random houseshows. He puts in sterling individual performances. He has great dynamics over a series of matches with Hansen and Kikuchi. He even has a genuine classic. Especially commend; Vs Kikuchi 01/90 (fancam) Vs Malenko/Malenko 09/90 Vs Momota/Kikuchi 09/90 (fancam) Vs Spivey/Hansen 10/90 Vs Gordy/Williams 11/90 Vs Kawada/Kikuchi 03/91 Vs Kobashi/Kikuchi 04/91 (fancam) Vs Hansen 04/91 Vs Tsuruta/Taue 11/91

I'll be putting down my 100 favourite wrestlers and the aggregate of my 100 and everyone else's lists will give a fair approximation, with footage caveats, of the 100 "best ever". If enough people like Schnitzel, he'll make it. This isn't rendering the whole exercise moot or meaninglessly subjective; the very process determines, in hindsight, the most common criteria. I trust the aggregate and don't think it needs overcomplicating.

I think Kikuchi makes my list, based on an exceptional 1990-1893, a few really nice matches in the late 90s (an otherwise middling period), his NOAH renaissance, and even a few random old man matches from the late 10s that I like. He is vulnerable over longevity - longevity mattering partly as a way of creating opportunities to have good matches - but aside from SGA/HSA trios (in which he is great,), there is so much to love. *Vs Dynamite Jan 90 *W/ Momota Vs Bruisers 90 *W/ Joe Malenko Vs Fantastics 90 *Vs Fuchi 90, 91x2, 93, 96 *W/ Kobashi Vs Bruisers, Can-Am x 2, Ogawa/Fuchi *Vs Hase *W/ Momota Vs KentaMaru 2002x2 *Vs Liger 2004 There are a few matches involving Kawada I need to watch, and one tag Vs Jumbo.

Top 5 comfortably. I don't believe in making cases against, though.

Series Outline Part 1: Three Crows and One Heir 1972-1982 (You Are Here) Part 2: Atsushi Onita, Junior Heavyweight Ace 1982-1983 Part 3: Experimentation 1983-1986 Part 4: The Glorious Summer of Fuchi 1987-1990 Part 5: Transition 1994-1996 Part 6: Signs of Spring 1997-2000 Introduction Here’s the thing: if you want “the best” high-flying Junior Heavyweight action in the world in the ‘80s, you go to New Japan. It’s drawing on all the best influences – lucha, World of Sport, martial arts – and it produces, after the transitional step of Junior Fujinami, a whole cavalcade of stars: Tiger Mask I, Gran Hamada, Jushin Thunder Liger, Kuniaki Kobayashi, and Naoki Sano as the biggest names amongst the natives, and a glorious selection of foreign grapplers from Dynamite Kid to Babyface to Mark Rocco to Owen Hart. If you want the “best” high-flying Junior Heavyweight work in the ‘90s, well…your options expand! You have New Japan, Michinoku Pro, an increasing amount of crisp and modern work in Mexico, the merger of all these styles in WCW and ECW… But you know what nobody recommends? Watch All Japan Juniors in the ‘80s and ‘90s! Well, I’m here to say: you should. Yes, there is only so much time in the day, but we have the enormous privilege of being able to eat buffet style. We aren’t limited to one or two costly tapes shipped by an intermediary in America; we’re not limited by having to rely solely on very fragmentary TV clips on AJ TV shows. The cost proposition, in time and money and ease, has never been better. And there is a LOT of good Junior work in All Japan during this period. It’s worth saying, though, what is different, and what is often disappointing to people. Let me suggest two main reasons. First, Junior work was nearly always a tertiary proposition in the programming. It simply does not main event. There is a period of years in the ‘90s – still with some great matches – where it may even be a fourth-tier priority, with virtually no-one in the division. Baba liked big hosses, and was forgiving of genuine wrestle-turds like Abdullah and Tiger Jeet Singh because they drew and because he found them easy to work with as he got older; the exciting and industry-changing stuff he put together from the mid-‘80s was based around hard-hitting heavyweights; he ran a smaller company than Inoki and relied more heavily on seasonal foreign talent, hard to build whole programmes around. Second, the Junior work that did emerge in All Japan – from some of the best to ever do it – often looks and feels different to what people find exciting and fresh in New Japan’s Junior division, both those watching then and those watching now. You have far fewer explosive high-speed acrobats, far less innovation. You are rarely experiencing the pure and glorious honey of Sayama vs Dynamite, Liger vs Sasuke. If you divide Heavyweight and Junior Heavyweight by the tags “hard-hitting” and “acrobatic”, you will certainly find the All Japan heavyweights smash-mouth as anyone, but you will find the Juniors very disappointing. To appreciate the best All Japan’s Juniors had to offer, you have to recalibrate your expectations and learn the Junior style actually on offer at different points. On that basis, let us begin. Apprenticeship A little history round All Japan’s talent production pipeline will, I think, help illuminate not so much why a Junior division sprang in to life in 1982 – that’s surely mostly because of the success of Satoru Sayama – but why it looked like it did. The first in-house trainer in All Japan was Masio Koma, Giant Baba’s first valet. We have, I think, only one surviving match of his, the first AJPW match to ever make tape in 1972; it is not well regarded, though this isn’t necessarily Koma’s fault. Koma was, however, seen as a very good trainer. All Japan needed new talent and fast, even though it technically had about the biggest native talent pool amongst the Japanese promotions. It had inherited not just Baba’s own loyalists, but also the JWA remnants led by Kintaro Oki; Baba, however, didn’t really have much trust for this group, and in the short term most were dropped to the undercard til retirement, or subtly encouraged to go their own way. Eventually, one would come back and add green mist to his gimmick and become The Great Kabuki, and Oki himself would be part of the first “native rivalry” in the promotion, but in the short term the pickings were thin. Only likable heavyweight rookie Rocky Hata made the cut. Alongside him, JWA rookie and close Baba ally Mitsuo Momota made up the younger tranche of the promotion. Koma was given the task of running the AJPW dojo, and took part in producing the first four talents the company debuted: Tomomi Tsuruta and the “Three Crows”, Atsushi Onita, Masanobu Fuchi, and Kazuharu Sonoda (better known, perhaps, as Magic Dragon). Sonoda debuted in 1975; Koma died in March 1976 from liver failure. His death leaves a lot of What Ifs – he was influenced by what we would call “shoot” work – but the actual existing situation meant the rookie classes were thin. The next debutant would be Shiro Koshinaka in 1979, followed by Takashi Ishikawa and Genichiro Tenryu. Consider, briefly, those seven names: Jumbo, Tenryu, and Ishikawa are heavyweights; the rest are juniors (and would chiefly wrestle as such in their “earlier careers”). Fuchi is tall, no doubt, but you see him wrestling the shorter Kawada in 2000 and it’s no contest weight-wise, ignoring ages. By the back end of the ‘70s, the first generation of AJPW work and workers was moving on and aging out. Some of the JWA remnants had retired or left and the undercard looked pretty thin. By 1980, what had been the main event is beginning to shift, too: the Funks are still hot but their feud with Abdullah and the Sheik is finishing up, with a new gaijin heel in Bruiser Brody coming in; Jumbo is really at end of his “wakadaisho” period, is working out his new ace persona, and will have a couple quiet years in dead-end feuds with humps, occasionally illuminated by getting to work Flair. Baba is slowing down visibly now. The Destroyer’s contract ended in 1979, though he’ll still return occasionally – but very much as an aged vet. Though NTV seemed to partly blame the booking and the cost of foreign talent for these problems, Koma’s death and the pursuant state of the talent pipeline have more to do with it. In 1982, Baba will debut, or redebut, two men to help solve this problem. Stan Hansen will be brought in to tag with Brody and feud with Baba, changing All Japan forever. For the other new star, we actually need to head back to 1978. In 1978, we get the first footage of three future Junior champions: Masanobu Fuchi, Mitsuo Momota, and Atsushi Onita. Onita had ended up as in essence an adopted son to the Babas, who hadn’t had any of their own for fear of passing on Baba’s gigantism. Momota is Rikidozan’s son, and Fuchi is – at this point – some other guy. Sonoda, the last of the Three Crows, will not have TV time til 1982 or so, and that will be in Texas for WCCW. The 1978 matches are all clipped, but all three men are capable. What they are doing, who they are facing, is important: Momota and Onita wrestle El Halcon (later Halcon Ortiz), whilst Fuchi faces off against Dos Caras. They are all put in to job to Mexican stars on tour. In 1979, Onita will perform the same role for Miguel Perez Sr. (Mascaras tends to get heavyweights jobbing for him – for instance, Rocky Hata, on whom I will write another time soon.) Also in 1979, we see Onita and Fuchi tag for the first time, again against luchadores – those famous luchadores, erm, Robot-R2 and Robot-C3 (yes, you can guess the gimmicks). This match is solid if underdone, with some nice early matwork and a bit of flying. The definitional AJPW foreigner for most people is Stan Hansen; his time is yet to come. Bruiser Brody gives you a foretaste of where we’ll be going, and Terry Gordy, Steve Williams, and Vader are the continuations. In the first decade, you have a very different type of foreigner: you either have the cheating foreign object heel (Abby, Original Sheik), or you have real catch artists of all kinds of backgrounds (Destroyer, Mil Mascaras, Billy Robinson). You can see this in the water. The first lucharesu is visible in All Japan in the late ‘70s – but it’s not high-speed, super-crisp acrobatics, it’s not an insane ten-man tag with co-ordinated tope con hilos. It’s much more like title match lucha as you see it in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, with an even stronger emphasis on careful chain work. We have four short clips, plus some actual luchador-vs-luchador matches (notably, we have a taped Mascaras vs Halcon match from 1978, as well as – seemingly untaped – their Mask vs Mask match later in the year). This is enough of a body of work, though, to see the direction in which a Junior division led by first Onita and eventually Fuchi will go: an emphasis on chain-and-mat work, a careful selection of big dives and big moves, and (only prediction at this point, but they did run an apuesta) the occasional angry lucha-inflected brawl. Interestingly, I think the best of the Japanese juniors clips is actually the one with Fuchi. Onita is perfectly solid against Halcon and Perez, as is Momota against Halcon – though Momota’s clip is much more anonymous – whereas Fuchi works a really nice back end against Caras. This may just be that Dos Caras is better than the other two luchadors – my judgement is that he is – and certainly the fact that we actually get a decent length clip (5 minutes) helps, but it’s non-obvious at this point that Onita will be the first choice for the company. Foreign Climes Excursion was standard in 1970s puroresu. In point of fact, some of Baba’s keystones in the ‘70s were precisely people who had been on long-term excursion when JWA imploded. It was a finishing school in more established wrestling cultures, and part of the way workers stayed fresh and found receptive audiences in a more fragmented media landscape. Indeed, some Japanese workers returned to work overseas long after their finishing excursion – look at Umanosuke Ueda and Kim Duk/Tiger Chung lee. Jumbo worked out in Amarillo. So did Tenryu. Rocky Hata worked Florida, Georgia, Central States, and with Sam Muchnik in St Louis. Momota was sent to Mexico, though alas we have no footage. A common path was working across the American (and sometimes Canadian) territories. Momota, having debuted in 1970, visited Mexico in 1975 (where he worked Blue Demon in singles!) and then Amarillo in 1976 (where he tagged against Santo). Fuchi and Onita started their excursion on Barbados in December 1980, performing as far as we know on a single Capitol Sports Promotions (that is, WWC) card. Above them on the card, the Fabulous Moolah defended the NWA World Women’s Title, and in the main event, Dutch Mantel and the future Honky Tonk Man lost to Carlos Colon and Invader #1. Onita’s first brush with that last individual, though not quite his last. They then spent 1981 working in first Memphis and Florida, and – more as a curiosity than something that can be easily traced in AJPW Junior style – it is worth spending time here, or at least in Memphis, as we have a lot of this on tape and some of it is rather famous. There are basically two “types” of matches that seem to have survived: studio matches and short clips of arena matches. We get the TV matches in full, though a lot of these are basically squashes. They run to one fall or an odd Ironman to Expiration of TV Time, which is usually practically one fall anyway. The arena matches are, as far as I can see, all clipped – I only know of three surviving. They’re cut for inclusion in the TV programme. Usually we get tags (Fuchi and Onita), but sometimes six-mans with Tojo Yamamoto included. The Japanese did wrestle singles (Fuchi won through two rounds to make the phantom “Indiana Title” tournament final), but they were only taped in tags. They get to work some big names in what survives – Lawler, Dundee, Koko, the Gibsons, Dutch, Gilbert, Morton. Nonetheless, the quality of the work is middling to indifferent. That’s the nature of the beast. The TV matches run to formula, usually, though their match against Lawler and Dundee ends in a marvellously entertaining whole roster brawl. The TV formula never allows for much juice – the guys get seven minutes, it’s usually a simple enough hybrid of the squash and a Southern tag, the faces get to do one or two exciting moves. Koko is fun as the Rescue guy in these tags. A major limitation here is that the work the foreign heels can do working as bases is very simple stuff: “Oriental” strikes, cheating moves, a very occasional jumping chop. It’s not heatless but it’s not particularly intense or vigorous. The best matches we may suspect they had were arena tags working as bases against exciting teams like Morton and Gilbert – but precisely what we have of their match against that team is the closing thirty seconds and then the Second Tupelo Concession Stand Brawl. This is intense but faintly silly, and probably the TV whole roster brawl mentioned above is more entertaining. There are three minutes of match and one post-match surviving of a fairly entertaining six-man brawl against Dutch, Dundee, and Dream Machine, which has a great little bit of swirling chaos to it and ends with Dutch getting sick of all the cheating, knocking out Jerry Calhoun, and then taking a chain to the heels for a DQ. The final arena match, and the longest we have, is against Dundee and Dream Machine. We have just under five minutes of this, and as a Southern-inflected tag won by the heels via their cheating manager, it’s pretty solid. The Japanese work the sympathetic Dundee in a slightly-better-than-TV way, cheerfully cheating to keep him in peril, but eventually Dream breaks in and clears house. However, in the midst of heel interference and ref distraction, Dream loses a visible pin and Tojo throws salt or whatever in Dream’s eyes so his team wins. The two then headed to Florida, where they worked Butch Reed, the Brisco Brothers, Jay Youngblood, Steve Keirn, David on Erich, and Jim Garvin. I don’t know of anything that survives from this tour, though it might. Onita then headed to Crockett, Mexico, home, and destiny – the topic of the next in this series. Before we look at that, though, we should consider the rest of Fuchi’s extended excursion, and touch on Sonoda. Fuchi, at least, had made a short trip to Houston and Southwestern Championship Wrestling in 1981. We know this because we have the footage of a short, eminently competent match against Chavo Guerrero Sr. It’s kept simple, but Fuchi is allowed to work as a heelish but serious competitor rather than a foreign villain. It’s a decent insight into the worker he’ll be later, but very much in embryo: a few nasty control moves, a few slightly heelish rules breaches, and the like. Chavo wins. Fuchi stayed in the USA when Onita went to Mexico. We have, I think, two matches surviving from this period. One is actually on Puerto Rico, for CSW/WWC, against Eddie Gilbert; this is similar to the Chavo match, simple, mildly technical, characterful enough, though it ends in a goofy fashion, with Fuchi putting his head down for the backdrop in an absurdly telegraphed fashion, being kneed, and then pinned. Very different to their Concession Stand Brawl! Fuchi would then work in Crockett, and it’s from MACW that we have a really interesting tidbit, from a more or less random NWA World Championship Wrestling TV episode (aired January 1983). It’s against Ricky Steamboat, and it’s lowkey very good. It’s not an all-time classic, but they work a really interesting little layout. They are vying for control on the mat, and Fuchi regularly gets to rip out Steamboat’s arm. Steamboat, though, is not just a high flyer, and keeps up more than adequately, ultimately winning by submission. Sonoda would actually be on excursion even longer than Fuchi, leaving in late 1979 and only returning to AJPW in the new year of 1984. In 1979 he was in Puerto Rico, defending the WWC North American Tag Titles alongside Ishikawa; in 1980 he worked in Central States and Western States, in the latter again defending a local tag title with Ishikawa. In 1981 he worked as Professor Sonoda in Florida and Georgia, and then as Chung Lee in Portland. He did occasionally work “names” – Mil Mascaras and Les Thornton in Florida, Kevin von Erich in Georgia, and a tranche of slightly lower-level but respectable talent like Steve Keirn – but he’s booked weaker here than Fuchi and Onita are being booked in Memphis and Florida in the same year. In 1982 he moves around a little and also enters the video record. He continues in Portland to start, challenging for their Pacific Northwest Heavyweight title. He wrestles a guy called “Dizzy Hogan”, who, uh, is Brutus Beefcake (weird), as well as jobbing to a young Curt Hennig and Tommy Rogers. Aside from layovers in Mid-South and Georgia, he spent most of the rest of the year in WCCW, Fritz von Erich’s Dallas promotion. He’s working under a mask as “Magic Dragon” for the first time, and he’s teaming with another Japanese gimmick (albeit billed from Singapore), “The Great Kabuki”, former JWA lower-midcarder Akihisa Takachiko. We have ten or so taped matches of Magic Dragon in his WCCW run, which lasts to April 1983. He’s a hard one to rate. He was tubby, really – 5’ 10” and a bit, over 220lbs – but surprisingly agile. He’s actually just a little like Jun Izumida later. Sonoda/Dragon works as a heel in WCCW, which limits our all-round view of him, but he is allowed to do some cool flippy stuff occasionally. He works against the von Erichs regularly, feuding over a mirror version of the All Asia Tag Titles and sometimes just feuding in general – it’s obvious he and Kabuki offer another angle for the home town boys other than the Freebirds. The mirror titles, presumably emerge from David and Kevin’s 19 day reign in 1981; I haven’t quite worked this one out, but presumably either they were permitted to promote themselves as still holding them on return, or – more likely – when Kabuki and Dragon arrived in WCCW, it was made clear that they held the titles formerly held by our red-headed heroes. Natural heat. The work is variable with flashes of brilliance. Essentially everything is solid without soaring – there’s a decently fun little singles match against David, for instance, which David wins with a Sleeper despite the distracting machinations of Dragon’s manager. He has a few decent singles against Kevin. The tag matches – he teams with Kabuki, obviously, but also “Checkmate”, a Tony Charles tiger-masked gimmick (hmm) – are von Erich territorial tags. There’s brawling, there’s cheating, and we get some cool flying moves from Kevin and nice wrestling stuff from Kerry. It’s never stepping up much beyond that, of course, but they do sort in some fun gimmick matches: a Penalty Box match with Kerry and Kevin challenging for the titles where Kevin is just on a tear and keeps getting penalized whilst also eventually wrecking the heels, for instance, is really full of character; a 2/3 Falls match with David and Kevin defending is also fun. He does work a 60-year-old Blue Demon in one WCCW match! (This is mostly significant because it’s Demon’s first full surviving match and, uh, he’s incredible.) I actually think the best Sonoda match I’ve seen from his excursion is the surviving end few minutes of a match against Chavo Guerrero in Mid-Atlantic, at the end of 1983 – working face, as in Southwestern. Sonoda is just a great base for Chavo hitting headscissors, a La Magistral, etc, and even a few mini-bombs before winning with a Rolling Cradle. As ever, one ends up regretting what a territory chose to preserve and air in full and what they clipped. Here’s the question to finish with, though: why is Onita heading via Crockett and Mexico to an uppercard spot at home, whilst Momota jerks the curtain and Fuchi and Sonoda are left on excursion for a year or more in each case? It may be sheer favouritism by Baba, but I think there is something to be judged from the spotty records from 1978-1982. Sonoda is physically not impressive, though a fair enough worker; he’s not the face of a division, under a mask or no. It’s pretty clear that the internal sense was that Momota was a lower carder, particularly given the lack of any Junior division prior to 1982; he’s also physically nondescript and a fair clip older than the Crows (Onita born 1957, Fuchi born 1954, Sonoda born 1956; Momota born 1948). Fuchi, I think, misses out to Onita on looks and moves rather than on any obvious skill gap. Their Memphis work is pretty similar to each other, and Fuchi has that good rookie match and Houston match against Chavo – but he’s a groundworker and his broad-planed face and close-cropped hair are those of a severe sports coach rather than of a big-drawing crowd favourite. Onita has those big eyes and fluffy hair. He’s lither, more agile. We’ve seen him fly in his rookie days (and he’s specifically the high-flyer in the one tag match he has with Fuchi in All Japan). The talent pipeline problem is part of what precipitates the turn to a Junior division – but the success of Tiger Mask is what makes it commercially viable, and Onita is a better fit for that role. Next time, we will cover Onita’s years as Junior Ace. Find full matchguide, links, and other articles at Undercard Wonders.

I wouldn't take the criticism of stuff like his laziness or attitude too seriously. Nobody actually believes the one guy who didn't like him. Nobody actually thinks he dogged matches. I do think people don't like his work or his vibes or whatever, and that's everybody's right, of course. He was absurdly adaptable - even within the '70s he has just really beautiful matches against Brisco, Robinson, and Bock, hybrid American stuff that really works with Terry and Baba, and wild brawls with Duk/Oki and Abdullah (yes, the Abdullah stuff is still mediocre, but that's a sign of Jumbo's miracle-working; Abdullah really is utter drizzle). In the '80s he continues to have great work with foreigners, especially Flair, Bock, and the newly-arrived Hansen. (The upgrade from Abby/Sheik to Hansen/Brody is insan, by the way, as far as match quality goes.) Of course things tick up at the start of '85 as the Ishin-gundan feud starts in earnest, though Jumbo's best work in this is in tag matches. He's genuinely brilliant in that, but he's quieter as a singles guy. '87/'88 onwards he moves back into having top quality singles matches and, between those and the tag/trios matches against Revolution and SGA, he is the base for the most concerted period of quality in All Japan history. He's =1 for me.

That result would have been bad for business. The company is in a rock and a hard place situation then: the older generation of foreigners is aging out except for Brody, the native upper midcard is solid but not distinguished, and the company wants to protect its two stars, especially Baba as he begins to noticeably slow down. He's big money, he would have worked his socks off for Jumbo in such a match (see his last title win against Hansen, or doing the job for Tenryu in '89; Baba has five star matches when he can otherwise barely move), but it would have seriously damaged Baba's credibility as one of the two reliable top draws. Of course, it led to a wilderness period for Jumbo in a sense, as he's stuck with Ueda and Singh and other total humps like that to feud with.

Soft necro! Sorry Grimmas. Ted Betley, Harley Race, and Stu Hart are surely the architects, though not "blaming" any of them.

There's a random RAW match for the European title against Davey Boy which is a wild upgrade on their All Japan match. It still falls apart - DBS gasses so they sit in a headlock for literal minutes, with Dustin doing his best to sell it and make it interesting - but it's a sign of just how good Dustin was that he carries the match to pretty fun.

My note: Fuchi has taken the belt off Ogawa in first reign. The old man still has it, just about. One of his two meaningful rivals is back, though, and it’s the one with the most baggage – Kikuchi. They start incredibly slowly. This could be shaved by five minutes and not suffer. It’s strange, and partly reflects Kikuchi slowing down (he will be comfortably better 8 to 10 years later – it’s very peculiar). The middle of the match is good build, though, with Fuchi both stretching Kikuchi out in nasty funky innovated holds and cutting off any attempt to shine. Kikuchi does backdrop him a couple of times, which is plainly a reference to 1993; Fuchi, though, builds up and hits about six backdrops in response, slightly interspersed by breaks and foiled comebacks. Kikuchi does look stronger and smarter, he’s making more tactical decisions, moving to the ropes and the rest, but Fuchi sems to have the advantage. Kikuchi isn’t flying too much, which maybe adds to this. However, a combination of surprising good elbows and Leg Lariats set up what ends up being seven German Suplexes, worked rolling – the crowd pops as, in the final set, Kikuchi turns round for the third. This gets him the win and a gigantic pop. Like the Triple Crown match later in the evening, the context and the payoff add to what is otherwise just a good match. 3.5/5 It is strange that Kikuchi will be obviously better in 2002-2004 and even after than he is here. His following match against RVD is similarly just "pretty good", where Kroffat had put together a really good match in 1995 - partly that's ring smarts, but I do think it's also conditioning and work (Kroffat by 1996 is tubby like Kikuchi and they both are slower and less interesting for this reason).

I think there are two Pete Roberts, both good workers, though one is better than the other. I don't mean The Technician and The Brawler; I mean the younger guy and the older guy. I need to watch more of the younger guy to really finalize my placement on him. That Fujinami/TM vs Roberts/Solitario match. It's fantastic. Is it fantastic because the natives are two of the best ever? No. It's fantastic because Pete Roberts decided that it's going to be a 4*+ match, and even without a functioning tag partner just makes the whole thing sing. Look at every moment that actually carries, everything that seems to matter - it's Roberts executing, selling, moving, reacting. At this point, through the first half of the '80s, he's a very complete and actively interesting worker. Old Man Roberts is certainly less charismatic, but there are some interesting things. He's effortlessly good in the "ITV Wrestling" era (I don't know if I've found any late Reslo of him, will check the cards; it'd be fun to see some 1992 Welsh match). He is incredibly in tune with the crowd and you will never see someone more intentional and thoughtful in terms of mapping a match - interestingly, it's pretty obvious that even as a blue eyes he is often leading the work. In AJPW, he has a distinctive persona that you would have picked up via AJ TV and if you regularly went to the Korakuen during his tours. He doesn't heel even if he's with a heel foreigner; he has this distinctive air of a purist, of a strong but technical guy who outworks his weight. He has a lot of solid Junior matches and "gaijiin tags" in AJ; he essentially is never bad, pace any comment above, but there is a problem that these matches are usually set up as good midcard fodder and not more. Fuchi is a grounded control worker, and so those matches depend much more on Roberts being energetic (which is a trait that fades out by 1990, say), Saito is basically not much good and not very excited by the idea of working with Roberts, etc. He always contributes a lot to the "gaijin tags", but again these are often afterthought matchups - DiBiase/Roberts vs TM2/Kabuki, for instance.

This is how I see it, for sure. Though, to be clear, MJ was great on the Wizards pre-injury...

The Irresistible Rise of Kyushu Pro Before starting the recaps proper, I saw stats gathered by F.G.C. (https://x.com/FGC648948974342/status/1940307839060426897) on puro company attendances through the first half of 2025. Kyushu Pro comes out very well: in terms of total attendance (30,434), it is the fifth-biggest men’s company (behind NJPW, Dragongate, NOAH, and AJPW) and eighth-biggest overall (adding in Stardom, Marigold, and TJPW). That’s respectable – but the average attendance is even better, where Kyushu Pro is third-highest overall (910 average attendees per show) only behind NJPW (2130 average attendees per show) and AJPW (1014 average attendees per show). Of course there are lies, damned lies, and even worse, statistics; there is a selectivity to this, because Kyushu Pro has also run the fewest shows out of 13 companies covered, with (therefore) more regular “big shows”, and with the added benefit of the big Mentai Kid retirement show this year. Additionally, as FGC notes in the thread, something like 8 events aren’t included due to no attendance being announced – but I think it’s fair to exclude these, as these tend to be one- or two-match “events” that are part of something larger (Boat Club celebrations, Avispa Wrestling Festival, etc) and aren’t normal public shows. Whatever the case, it is still a remarkable achievement. Also, during the break after the Mentai Kid show, Batten put up pictures of himself planting rice at his family farm. Nice. Kyushu Pro Ya O Genki Ni Suddo! 21/06/2025 Held at Kagoshima Hotel Satsukien 1st Floor Large Hall with an announced attendance of 462, a smallish attendance for the number of wrestlers working this one, but it looks moderately busy. More significantly, this is just patently a bad space for a wrestling show: it is a hotel function room, and the side of the room which holds the ring has a notably low ceiling, the sort with polystyrene ceiling tiles covering the electrics. Note this for later. Still, the crowd is good. We have two guests, both from PWS Korea, tag champion SHIHO’s company (yes, that’s your TRUE! KOREAN! IDOL!). Ha Da On (or Hadaon) is a former PWS champion, and was involved in a previous Korean company, PWF, which shut in 2021, basically due to the pandemic. Starlight Naru (Starlight Fortress in PWS) debuted in 2024. Hitamaru Sasaki vs Jet Wei Sasaki is getting singles matches because he’s the (temporary?) face of the company ahead of his title challenge against Shuji Ishikawa in August. It’s a chance to build credibility. Jet Wei is the sacrificial victim here. He’s been the junior of the whole company, and is usually in moderately decent tags. This is something different. I’ll say up front that it involves a wild botch: two-thirds through, Jet goes to the turnbuckle for a Missile Dropkick…and promptly hits his head on the ceiling, barely connects with Sasaki, and then is briefly out of action on the mat. Either side of that, he works comfortably his best match that I’ve seen to date, setting aside a few timing issues. Sasaki doesn’t steamroll him; in fact, Jet takes control and fights back multiple times, and hits new moves, notably a Northern Light Suplex. He looks good, crisp, aggressive, hard-hitting. He still has one or two odd moments of timing but this is a big step up in performance. He is obviously being pushed here, and the recovery from the botch is really impressive. Hitamaru Sasaki defeats Jet Wei in 10:50. Asosan vs Batten Blabla vs STAR LIGHT NARU An inferior entry in the Batten Files, though it’s perfectly pleasant time for the sub-eight minutes it takes. Asosan can’t really work anymore, most days, and NARU – a skinny energetic guy – doesn’t get given much to do. This follows a basic Batten triple threat match pattern, with alliances and betrayals and Batten running away, and he performs all this with verve and energy, but there’s just not much here. Asosan wins. Interesting that the guest doesn’t get the win, but that may be a function of seniority; NARU – who moves well and is entertaining enough – is a real rookie. Asosan defeats Batten Blabla and STAR LIGHT NARU in 7:51. Genkai & Ha Da On & TAJIRI vs Kodai Nozaki & Naoki Sakurajima & Shigeno Shima Ha Da On wears a one-shouldered singlet, which feels more than retro. This is a pretty energetic match, enabled by the six-man format. It takes just a little time to get going, but everyone seems to be in a hard-hitting mood. They brawl down on the floor early, which is always amusing in Kyushu Pro because you have the stewards desperately chasing them to move the spectators away. The heels build some good heat on Naoki – and Ha Da On does well at this, he’s naturally a bit unbearable. Naoki turns round a three-on-one by dodging Ha Da On in the corner and then dancing round Genkai and Tadgers before double-dropkicking them. His teammates return to complete the save, and we even see Shima do his Railgun Driver as a pin set-up – this is the first time he’s ever done a finisher in the Kyushu Pro I’ve watched! Naoki with the heavy Bridging German for the pin on Ha Da On. An interesting thing about the dangerous ceiling: it definitely helps the acoustics, as anyone who’s tried to chat to someone else in that sort of room knows. The background buzz is amplified massively. Here, we realize just how over Naoki is with the crowd (especially the children). Massive Naoki chants. He’s more over than Sasaki, so I wonder what things will look like in six months or a year. There are some Kyushu Pro house style habits on display which don’t always jive for me: big tag clearouts, or chasing the other team off, or whatever, often look super slow and choreographed. It’s strange, and may slightly be caused by the physical condition of some workers, but it’s on display here. Kodai Nozaki & Naoki Sakurajima & Shigeno Shima defeat Genkai & Ha Da On & TAJIRI in 15:47. Event Summary The Sasaki/Jet match, despite the botch, is very much match of the night. A new Jet Wei seems to have turned up for work, presumably slightly unleashed by the change in seniority. That felt like a legit “serious” match. The comedy match was an inferior edition of its kind, and the six-man was fun but nothing remarkable; the Jet match shows us that the company has another genuinely credible upper-midcarder, if they want one. Kyushu Pro Kagoshima O Genki Ni Suddo! Held at the Kagoshima Nishihara Shokai Arena Sub-Arena – a classic prefecture gymnasium-like space – with an announced attendance of 616. Decent but not enormous crowd. The most important matter this show: Ringboy is debuting! His ring name will be Koyo Ume. Hitamaru Sasaki vs Koyo Ume Ume’s skinny, with an expressive face. He’s young. He’s technically fodder for Sasaki – Sasaki getting singles matches against regular guests and low-ranking in-house juniors to build credibility – but this is obviously more about his debut. This hits the rookie match notes you’d expect. Ume gets stretched out a lot. He’s marvellously expressive when being worked over, and he sells consistently. In this regard, I’d say he’s a precocious rookie; he has a natural instinct for the crowd, who back him, and he knows how to put offence over. His own offence is, as you’d expect, limited. Strikes, dropkicks. The strikes look a bit weak, though he works up to some nice-sounding chops. He does get in a Camel Clutch, which is nice to show a bit of range. It’s rookie offence, and it’s all fine. He really is skinny, and that can cause credibility issues, but as he develops his offence, he will probably find options that fit. I genuinely really enjoyed this. Hitamaru Sasaki defeats Koyo Ume in 8:31. Batten Blabla & Shigeno Shima & STAR LIGHT NARU vs Genkai & Ha Da On & TAJIRI On paper, this looks like the easy-pace match which gets by on being a six-man. In reality, it slaps. Batten obviously doesn’t want to wrestle and forces Shima and NARU to do nearly all of the work. Shima actually doesn’t do much, relatively speaking; NARU, the Korean rookie, runs his side’s match. He takes pretty obvious cues at points, which may be partly a language barrier issue (I don’t know). But the thing he – he’s genuinely excellent. He flies around, he’s enormously charismatic, and people bump for him: Genkai goes flying off the apron! NARU will end up taking the pin – I’m surprised it’s not Batten, but NARU is junior – but he’s the star here. But everyone else works too! Tadgers hits a Vertical Suplex! Genkai bumps and runs around! Ha Da On continues to be obviously a solid hand! This is genuinely not the normal six-man, which is fun but chill; whether it’s NARU’s energy or everyone having decided beforehand that they’re going to put together something really energetic and fun, this one is a genuine success. Genkai & Ha Da On & TAJIRI defeat Batten Blabla & Shigeno Shima & STAR LIGHT NARU in 13:10. Asosan & Naoki Sakurajima vs Jet Wei & Kodai Nozaki The best tag match I’ve watched in Kyushu Pro. I actually watched this before the Jet Wei singles match from the previous night, due to their YouTube posting schedule, and was legitimately startled at how Jet was booked. Nozaki is the ace, and of course he gets to knock people around – but Jet gets big hits and nearfalls on both of his much senior opponents. This is REALLY well-paced, really good workrate, and Asosan HITS A DROPKICK. This is a man with no knees who normally walks around the ring waiting to hit his one remaining move, and he just explodes here (no pun intended). Nozaki and Jet should – as I’ve said before – be the ones to go for the tag titles. In a sense the booking here stymies that: the former tag champs beat two of the three young guns, one of whom just debuted. We know Nozaki is of quality, so we’re left (in booking terms) having to conclude that Jet just isn’t there yet, especially as he took the pin. Now, two very strong, very powerful performances over two days do shift our view of him, but he needs a pin on a senior name to make the step up. Anyway, very fun. Asosan & Naoki Sakurajima defeat Jet Wei & Kodai Nozaki in 18:44. Event Summary A much more consistently good event than the Mentai Kid Retirement Event, even if that included a real MOTYC. Koyo is really promising, with good athleticism matched with strong selling, and NARU and Jet both had standout performances. Asosan, Genkai, and TAJIRI all brought their working boots. I’ve seen most of their shows this year, and this is the best so far. Full matchguide and links here.

AJ Hour #94, available via Quebrada, has the whole with no video problems either. I watched the clipped/damaged version a while ago and liked it, thanks for the link, watched the whole match today and thought it was slightly better again. I'll get on to the Yoshida ARSION watch-through soon, though, I promise...

In my recent review of the '99 Burning vs Untouchables tag title match, I referred to Ogawa as "wrestling glue", and that title...sticks. Even early on, in Tsuruta-gun six-mans, he's always adding so many small things.

My impression is that the matches vs Asuka and other important title setups from Jd' are the most important ones.

Having watched a few Satanico matches recently, I'm very tempted to find more, because he does look like a longlist contender.

I actually have some affection for the latter part of Danielson's "cosplay" era in ROH. I mean, he was always impressive by some metrics - you watch some random TWA match of him with three months experience and he's so plainly a natural, athletically and performatively - but once he's polished and vibing he's just really fun to watch. The matches tend to run long, maybe they're still a little self-conscious, but he's basically in the zone and it's great. I'm thinking the third match vs Styles, the Samoa Joe match, that period.

I think people sleep on his Junior run - not that it's a Top 100 run in my view, but it's much better than the lukewarm reports you sometimes read. Partly this is explicitly due to an unwise comparison to Sayama - whereas the essence of a good match, imo, is connected to its moveset contents but is not determined by it. (I just watched a 1977 Bllington vs Breaks match where DK does no classic DK spots and there are in fact very few moves and it's still a great 4/5 because both men know game.) Onita vs Chavo (three of their four matches, one is poor)), Hector, Steamboat, and w/ Steamboat vs High Flyers and w/ Baba vs Flair/Slater are all legitimately good, and you can jaw about how they must all be carry-jobs but if you watch the actual work he's really good. He was still putting it together when he had his accident. I still have a few more of his major early matches to watch, and I expect at least one or two of those to join the rec list.

I tend to be generous over crap sections of a career whilst still valuing peak longevity, and Ozaki had peak longevity. Definite top 100 for me. Probably a decent ranking.