Owen Edwards

I discovered this project by seeing if SmarksChoice was still around and then finding Grimmas' summary of results. This was how I realized that I had taken part in the 2006 poll! It's interesting considering what I can work out from my list there to how I'll likely decide stuff now. 20 years apart - I was 17 then. A few entries are quixotic. Big Bruno Elrington I *think* was a Rob Edwards-related joke. Jody Fleisch i had seen in person a few times and just really enjoyed (and frankly I suspect that's a pretty defensible approach, though not my approach now). Many workers are there from me seeing a match plus some clips - I feel really dubious of this now. I was 17 with very limited access to matches, and I made my best call, but to some degree I probably listed "good wrestlers I've seen once" because I thought I needed to list them. Now I want to know what a worker actually does/"is" as a wrestler before putting them on the list. It definitely changes my priorities...and requires a lot more watching matches. I do think my ability to analyse matches - in an appreciative, enjoying fashion - is much better than it was then. I value workers who can turn up and just make the match work, even against slugs. Jumbo was my #1 then and probably will be again, but now with the added argument that he had a passable match with Abdullah. Billy Robinson is rgeat - though less great - and partly because he also could have a passable match with that particular gentleman. I value workers who don't necessarily have big runs on top, but who turn up every day and do valuable things. Mitsuo Momota will make my list because he adds so much value to all the stuff he's in, and it doesn't matter that for some people the Comedy Six-mans or Rookie Matches aren't big enough viewing to give credit for. I value workers who are just so, so competent. I actually think Flair's charisma and our sense of his "big matches" might underplay his case - have you ever seen a guy just turn up and be so competent so reliably? (This was a big takeaway for me of watching him against Jumbo. Two guys who don't even need to be working "classics" to put together a good match.) So I feel cautious about putting together a list, or least a 100 list, because I have the suspicion that it's too easy to rank people - positively or negatively - for some small sliver of work that becomes disproportionately big in our mind. I guess I'm a "whole career" guy in that sense - or maybe a WAR7 guy, to use sabermetrics. Great Kojika (who will not make my list) is probably better ranked on his scant, decent televised work in the 70s and 80s than the "ancient man does death matches" stuff.

Do you mean Debbie Malenko or Debra Miceli (Madusa)? Madusa says the same thing - they'd sometimes be given the result as they were meant to go into the finishing sequence. I agree, anyway, that it seems...unlikely that a 1983 title match was decided on a shoot pin. I like Jaguar, but do think she's someone who suffers from paucity of material. We probably have more Marty Jones than Jaguar, is sort of my point. I feel the same about Yukari Omori, though I think Jaguar is better and a genuine contender for a high spot...if I can scrape together more really good matches for her that make me understand her work at a deeper level.

Really appreciated this.

I appreciated this both in how I basically 100% agree with it but maybe subtly "disagree", or at least want to expand what you rightly say about why we care about limbwork. Big thing, big overview of the strength of your point: limbwork alone is often dull, consistent "selling" (as if something has been rendered useless) is both unnecessary and also sometimes when executed is weirdly lifeless, etc. My caveat is that I do remember, 20 years ago and more, why we started caring about limbwork. Partly it was the great examples - Kawada in '88, Kobashi in '95, that sort of thing - and partly it was that, as you say, it was a simple way to identify that a match was being built intentionally and that the performers cared about the story. If your background at that point was WWF/E and WCW, and if you were watching Ruthless Aggression stuff which was maybe marginally better on average then Attitude Era but still had whole PPVs void of serious psychology, consistent selling was an incredible contrast. Maybe the balanced position is that look, selling acknowledges the physical realness of the matches we're watching, the fact that the secondary reality we are believing in is one where people are battling and being hurt as they seek victory. When we watch a war film we expect the people who get shot but struggle on to the goal to "sell" their wound. But of course not all potential harm in a match is alike in seriousness, and if an element is overused in the same manner, it becomes stale or dull. "Selling" "limbwork" is an obvious victim there, because many great matches don't depend on it. Why it is brought up with Ospreay? (And many similar to him in high public regard right now.) Because though some people like - as I saw a guy put it on reddit - the "anime" style, the wrestlers going "super-saiyan", it simply does register as stale or silly to many of us, and, though "selling""limbwork" is a gross simplification, it's a simple code to point to the fact that it doesn't seem like a battle, and that's what many of us want. So I do think it's probably fair to raise in relation to Ospreay, it's just not going to influence people who DO like the style.

Three event recaps and digging into the Mentai Kid archives in light of his retirement. Kyushu Pro AEON Omura Shopping Center 30th Anniversary 03/05/2025 Held at AEON Omura Shopping Center in Omura, Nagasaki Prefecture. Not aired. KPW do a number of these “community-side” events, presumably as a result of sponsorships or where there is a charitable upside. No announced attendance, and it’d be hard to know because the ring (per photos) is literally in the mall forecourt next to the escalators. Batten Blabla vs Hitamaru Sasaki vs La Castella La Castella is this yellow panda or bear gimmick they do list on their website but I’ve never seen. The photos make this look fun. Sasaki is obviously being given the “serious guy who works with the comedy guys” job today. La Castella pins Batten. La Castella defeats Batten Blabla and Hitamaru Sasaki in 10:28. Genkai & Georges Khoukaz & Jet Wei vs Kodai Nozaki & Mentai Kid & Naoki Sakurajima The photos show the heels beat up Sakurajima, and the faces finish off Khoukaz with some sort of three-man mountain splash. Mentai with the pin on Khoukaz. Everyone in this matchup can work so this was probably fun. Kodai Nozaki & Mentai Kid & Naoki Sakurajima defeat Genkai & Georges Khoukaz & Jet Wei in 11:22. Kyushu Pro Kasuga Ba Genki Ni Suru Bai! 05/05/2025 Held at Kasuga City Sports Center. Kasuga is a big commuter belt city (110,000 people) in Fukuoka Prefecture not far outside of Fukuoka City itself. This is the typical gym setup for these shows, but with a lot of giant fish mobiles hanging from the ceiling. I am in favour. Announced attendance of 1,009, which I think is the fourth biggest show of the year so far. Hitamaru Sasaki vs Minoru Fujita Fujita is obviously a bigger name in wider puro than Sasaki, and he has had belt runs in KPW before. His outfit actually has the KPW branding on it which is nice. You immediately know why he’s here: put over Sasaki ahead of Sasaki putting in title challenges. Sasaki doesn’t work many singles matches, and really I’ve seen little of his offence over several months’ worth of material – he has great kicks, basically, and is very mobile for a 47-year-old. Fujita’s prominence and Sasaki’s basic ability make it all the more surprising, for me, that the first half of this is just dreadful. It’s comedy work, and that’s kinda okay except that the point of this is obviously about putting Sasaki over. The problem is the comedy isn’t very strong – in a fed where comedy is done pretty well – and it’s insanely slow and low-impact. Strikes don’t seem to connect, despite them having whole “Hit me!” challenge exchanges. This feels like, at least, time catching up: Fujita is a deathmatch guy, Sasaki is a shoot-style guy, they should be able to hit each other hard, but this just doesn’t work. We do slightly pace up in the back half, even though it’s still too long and slow – 20 minutes is one of the longest matches in KPW this year and you feel the length. Sasaki has some nice submissions, and once he gets going on a chain of kick offence, you’re reminded that actually he’s good at this stuff. Fujita gurns and stooges for the crowd, low-blows a couple times, tries to regain some control. Thankfully, eventually the match ends. What a disappointment. Hitamaru Sasaki defeats Minoru Fujita in 20:43. Asosan vs Batten Blabla vs Jesus Rodriguez This is Rodriguez’ first ever match in Japan and after thanking the ring announcer he does his own intro in MEXICAN~! style. I see he spent several years in and around WWE under a few gimmicks, notably Ricardo Rodriguez (his billed middle name). He’s a bit tubby but he can move. We get long intros for Batten and Rodriguez, and the match itself is pretty short, which is sensitive booking. Asosan doesn’t have to do much, and that’s good because his knees look worse than normal here. Virtually immobile except when pushing himself to hit one of his (very cool) athletic moves. But you get Batten allying first with one guy then the other, trying small packages to get the win, roping Rodriguez into holding Asosan down for his patented elbow/fist drop, etc. Batten hits a magnificent Enzuigiri at one point in a passage of high-speed and entertaining offence on Rodriguez. Rodriguez misses a Moonsault but it looks great anyway. And it’s all very short, which fits the matchup they want to layout. Batten betrays Rodriguez, Asosan gets pushed out of the ring, and Rodriguez beats up Batten before knocking him down with one finger. Fun. Jesus Rodriguez defeated Asosan and Batten Blabla in 6:40. Genkai & Georges Khoukaz & Jet Wei & TAJIRI vs Kodai Nozaki & Mentai Kid & Naoki Sakurajima & Shigeno Shima This hasn’t been uploaded at time of writing and I’m assuming it won’t be. Alas, this looks like it could be good fun. If they worked this with any pace, the eight-man format likely comfortably covered the limitations of some of the competitors (I mean TAJIRI). Khoukaz, Jet, Mentai, and Sakurajima can all offer real workrate, and Nozaki, Shima, and Genkai aren’t bad for that either. The faces win, presumably with a Mentai pin. Kodai Nozaki & Mentai Kid & Naoki Sakurajima & Shigeno Shima defeat Genkai & Georges Khoukaz & Jet Wei & TAJIRI in 12:24. Kyushu Pro 06/05/2025 This was held at the Chacha Town Kokura Special Ring in the city of Kitakyushu, a big conurbation in Fukuoka Prefecture. No announced attendance, no footage. This again looks like a mall or shopping district – the ring is set up outside in the “square” of the downtown/mall/whatever it is. It’s really lovely seeing at this subtype of event the crowd spilling into balconies or looking over an upper deck. Big community entertainment vibes, which is definitely one thing pro-wrestling should be sometimes. Asosan & Hitamaru Sasaki vs Batten Blabla & Shigeno Shima So this will be Asosan & Sasaki beating up Shima who wants Blabla to tag in but Batten refuses. Then Batten does tag in, gets some decent offence in, gets arrogant, gets smashed up and pinned. Asosan & Hitamaru Sasaki defeat Batten Blabla & Shigeno Shima in 12:52. Georges Khoukaz & Jesus Rodriguez & TAJIRI vs Kodai Nozaki & Mentai Kid & Naoki Sakurajima I can’t help but feel that in these smaller (in this case mid-sized) events, if you’re picking who goes on the card, you probably want Jet Wei over TAJIRI every time. Tadgers is the bigger name and I like seeing him, but his knees are totally gone, and Jet is a Mentai trainee and is, with Nozaki, the future of the company. Rodriguez gets triple-splashed this time. Mentai naturally is the kid on top of the dads’ shoulders! Nozaki also splashes Khoukaz, who hopefully has enjoyed his tour but mostly seems to have been beaten up by KPW heavyweights. This looks like Mentai takes the pin after a 450 on Rodriguez. Kodai Nozaki & Mentai Kid & Naoki Sakurajima defeat Georges Khoukaz & Jesus Rodriguez & TAJIRI in 13:50. BONUS: Four Classic Mentai Matches As we run up to Mentai’s retirement this coming weekend, KPW has been putting classic matches of his up on the YouTube channel. I’ve watched some of those, and I’ve watched a few of his older matches too. It’s striking that nowadays, he’s insanely over and very decent in the ring; “back then” (2009-2019, say), he was an elite lucharesudor. Time is unmerciful, except to Ricky Steamboat in 2009, and Mentai has obviously lost a step these days, despite his continued good speed, workrate, and execution. In his prime he is as good as any other Toryumon or Dragongate product you could name; he’s the best Junior Heavyweight you’ve never heard of. Mentai Kid vs Shiori Asahi – Okunchi Cup 2009 Final, 12/10/2009 Wait, I’ve seen this Asahi guy before! He wrestled Mentai this year in a good little bout. Perhaps that was a bit of a farewell tour booking for Mentai. Nowadays he does these hand strikes like his hand is a flamingo. That doesn’t seem to be the case here. The Okunchi Cup was a two-day affair over three rounds, this is the final. Weirdly we only have this clipped, where other matches from 2009 exist in full. The 4-minute clip we have is magnificent, though. Escalating lucharesu action, with some really unique little variations on moves, and nearly constant attempts to hit massive dives outside into the crowd. It also doesn’t come off as a spotfest – the men sell being worn down by the impact of the moves, they each look for an opportunity to finish stuff. Boo, hiss! Asahi gets control at the end and wins. This was fun. Shiori Asahi defeats Mentai Kid in 14:51. Kaijin Habu Otoko vs Mentai Kid – 16/05/2010 Kaijin Habu Otoko seems to be a serpent dude who his hair queue to whip Mentai at one point. He is much better known as HUB. This is solid; it has an obvious and natural structure, with Mentai working from underneath and trying to break out. He at one point does his Coast-to-Coast Diving Dropkick but it’s, uh, not diving, it’s from the floor to the apron. That’s worth a star on its own I think. This isn’t, alas, incredible, when you can see it could be; it’s fun, but the heat segments are pretty heatless, which means the comebacks and hope spots rely wholly on Mentai’s aura (which is not inconsiderable), and the eventual Bad Guy Win is a matter of surprising indifference. But look: if you can turn up and get a three star match out of a not-very-successful match, you’ve had a good day at the office. Kaijin Habu Otoko defeats Mentai Kid in 11:58. Menso-re Oyaji vs Mentai Kid – 27/03/2011 The future Black Menso-re, here merely a friendly fellow from Okinawa who embodies all the tropes about Okinawans. He’s wrestling with Okinawa Pro under his trainer Super Delfin at this point. He runs a light comedy gimmick – drinking cheap Okinawan beer during the match and at one point using it as a weapon shot. This really works for me. The comedy stuff is worked well, but it’s a light touch, because ultimately this is the grandkids of Gran Hamada working a match that wouldn’t feel out of place in Michinoku Pro in 1996, but with just a bit of a technical twist and advance fitting of the Dragongate/Toryumon era. It’s not even madly innovative – the 2009 Shiori Asahi match has in its own way more “original” spots and twists, in the sense of new to me – but this is delightful. The face-vs-face dynamic is quite interesting, too, because you get them showing off to the audience, setting up for some lovely move-counter-move at a nice speed, without worrying about heat segments and instead relying on the move escalation. Good stuff. Mentai Kid defeats Menso-re Oyaji in 14:52. El Lindaman & T-Hawk vs Mentai Kid & Naoki Sakurajima – 07/04/2019 Part of a Kitakyushu show in 2019, held on a theatre stage which looks weird. The invaders earn cheap heel heat, get chances working over both of the faces. Mentai is small so can be overpowered, Sakurajima gets isolated and the ref distracted and gets beaten up. The plucky faces work their way back and win! This was very, very by-the-numbers in a perfectly pleasant way. Mentai Kid & Naoki Sakurajima defeat El Lindaman & T-Hawk in 10:11. Full Matchguide and links at Undercard Wonders

Enjoyed this one. Really helpful guide.

Series Outline Part 1: The Noble Art of Jerking Curtains (You Are Here) Part 2: King of Comedy Part 3: The Heir to Rikidozan Introduction – Who On Earth Is Mitsuo Momota? On CageMatch, Mitsuo Momota has a fan rating of 4.71 out of 10. He mostly seems to turn up in six-man comedy matches with arthritic old men. For Mitsuo Momota’s official 30th Anniversary match, he wrestled a rookie in the first match on the card, and it was even clipped when shown on TV. He’d been wrestling 30 years and he was only worth a curtain-jerker that wouldn’t even be shown in full. The only reason he had a job was because of who his das was. This guy sucks, right? Right? WRONG. Wrestling fandom is hardly infallible in its judgements, and you see all kinds of revision go on over time for good or bad. Indeed, “the judgement of the fandom” is no such thing – it’s only an average, not a single judgement. But as that average is what we are working with, literally in the case of CageMatch, it’s right to press back in cases of manifest injustice, and to help fill the gaping holes in knowledge that cause such misjudgements. Mitsuo Momota is a victim of such a misjudgement. Frankly, he’s great. I have never him be really bad in a match, and I’ve often see him be really good. He was able to work palatable rookie matches, which is a difficult task when you realize what the job is there; he was a vital piece in the horribly underrated AJPW/NOAH comedy matches; and when it came time to really throw down, it turned out he could go as well as nearly anyone. (I note here that he is technically still going, or technically unretired, with his last recorded match in 2000 – but I won’t be considering the final leg of his career in this series.) In this opening essay I’ll consider the least glamorous part of his work, the underappreciated art of “curtain-jerking”, starting out the show for All-Japan and NOAH against a rookie whilst the crowd is still filing in. The first section below will cover the general topic, its problems, and how Momota addressed them; the second is a (partial) matchguide with reviews and video links. The Humble Art of Seating the Crowd In 1988, the year in which he turned 40, Mitsuo Momota wrestled 151 matches, as far as recorded cards go anyway. Of those, 3 were Battle Royals and 4 were tag matches. The Battle Royals were not the New Year Battle Royals, with everyone important in them; these were all in the middle of the card, with a bunch of old guys and rookies and occasionally a spare tag team member. Aside from the Battle Royals, one tag match came in the second spot on a card. Every single other match – 144 singles matches and 3 tag matches – came in the opening spot on the card. These are not, at first glance, very significant matches. Only half the audience is seated. If we consider his opponents, this feeling is only solidified: they are either against rookies (Yoshinari Ogawa at the start of the year, Tatsumi Kakihara, Tsuyoshi Kikuchi, and recent debutant Kenta Kobashi for a short series) or the smaller “old men” of the company (Masanobu Kurisu, Haruka Eigen, Isamu Teranishi). This had really been the story of his career thus far. Aside from a rookie year win against a certain Tatsumi Fujinami in JWA, his native record of success over its first 19 years consisted of a period of winning midcard Battle Royals and going 2-2 in the Lou Thesz Cup. There are some curiosities from his excursions – as “Rikidozan” in EMLL in 1974, he got his only title shot up to 1989 for the NWA World Welterweight Title against Mano Negra; in Amarillo in 1975 he wrestled El Santo (!) in a tag match – but you would be forgiven for thinking that this guy really was a lot of crap and was kept around for name value. This is to misunderstand the work he did in those opening matches. The veteran in a curtain-jerking rookie match has a position of trust – he’s giving a young guy, who maybe started training 9 months ago if he’s debuting, the opportunity to test out all those skills for real in front of a crowd. Is it a full, hot Budokan? No, and that’s all to the good; but the match also needs to be digestible enough for the audience finding their seats to settle in with. It’s a match there to prepare everyone for the serious business ahead, and it’s a vital training opportunity. This is a role Momota excelled at. Perhaps we should start, though, by considering the earliest of his work know to us, from 1978. At this point he was already a professional curtain-jerker, mostly wrestling in the 1 or 2 slots on the card against Baba’s Three Crows (Onita, Fuchi, and Sonoda) and relative peers Munenori Higo, Masao Ito, and Mr Hayashi. He also wrestled Kintaro Oki’s brother several times in the same slot. However, at this point he also sometimes got to wrestle higher up the card – if a foreigner needed a jobber. In 1978, he fulfilled this role five times: once each to Don Kent, Don Kernodle, and Dos Caras, and twice to El Halcon (later Halcon Ortiz). It is via a Halcon match that we have our first TV footage of Momota – and the only such footage for a decade, as far as I can tell. We have this so All Japan could show us one of their guest lucha stars. We have our first footage of the two most famous “Crows” – Onita and Fuchi – for the same reason in the same year, with Onita also wrestling Halcon and Fuchi working Dos Caras. We get three and a half minutes of Momota, and it’s really nothing special – the work itself is just a little slow and sloppy, we JIP into decent matwork and then move into a finishing run that is really nothing stellar, and the finish is an awkward but still interesting enough Crucifix Backslide after Momota avoids what looks like a Piledriver attempt. If this were all that existed of Momota’s work, you’d have to withhold your judgement – but your hopes would not be high. However, there are two moments even here which are visions of the future, and they’re both character moments. First, Momota protests to the ref after Halcon balling his fists, and looks genuinely affronted, that hangdog face and droopy moustache of his as ever being some of the most communicative gear in the business. Second, he briefly drives Halcon from the ring and then prepares to make the Suicida Run, but Halcon is out of position and Momota pulls up. The crowd laughs. This will be a stock bit in his comedy work through the 90s and 00s, and is an important tease and then reversal in his last serious title challenge, against Liger. He has a beautiful Somersault Suicida, but even in 1978 his inability to hit it is a gag. He’s over, we see; there is a natural engagement with his bits. The match itself isn’t much, but it’s interesting historically. Ten years on, Momota is an old man (He turned 40 in September! Virtually dead!). It’s at this point we start to get a mix of fancams and actual footage of the curtain-jerking matches. Japanese fancam is a massive blessing, because you have people making them even back in the ‘70s – early adoption has its bonus side effects. Our problem before 1988 is that of course All Japan weren’t shopping 2 minute clips to NTV of Momota against no-names like Toshiaki Kawada (who he?) and Kensuke Sasaki (sounds like the name of a man who would marry a noted psychopath). But in 1988, we get a fancam of a show opened by Momota facing off against Tatsumi Kakihara. Imagine you had never seen – well, either of these guys. You get told this is the show opener. You’re going to conclude: “This promotion must be great, because this random opener is…good?!” They have 7 minutes, and they open with a nice little section of what I call “AJPW lucharesu”. [Connected tangent: People are so used to All Japan in the ‘90s – the bombs, the superheroics, the long crazy finishing sequences – that the way in which first amateur wrestling and NWA-style matwork and then lucha libre influenced All Japan in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Momota, Onita, and Misawa all excursioned in Mexico, and the luchadors led by Mil Mascaras – and including legends such as Dr Wagner (Sr), La Fiera, Dos Caras, and Pirata Morgan – were a major fact on the cards into the late ‘80s. It was against Mascaras that Jumbo fought “The Battle of the Idols” in 1977, which along with Jumbo’s series against Billy Robinson and his work against Harley Race in the same year are both really foundational for Future Ace Jumbo and a real sliding doors moment: what if the crowds had still wanted this work by the mid ‘80s? What does the final form of this hybrid look like? Anyway, the point here is that you will see lucha-styled groundwork throughout the ‘80s, especially amongst the Juniors. This influence flows forwards for decades, too, through the influence of Yoshinari Ogawa as chief matwork trainer in AJPW and NOAH.] Momota gives Kakihara a lot – here he is working from underneath, giving the rookie a chance to hit stuff and practice leading heat segments. The highlight is surely when Momota steals Samoa Joe’s bit 12 years early, and Nopes out of a Kakihara moonsault attempt – only for Kakihara to spot him, and hit him with a dropkick instead! Momota, again, is working crowd-pleasing comedy segments – and that’s especially suitable for this sort of warm-up. Momota gets the win in a way matching the character work: he catches Kakihara with a backslide when the rookie overextends. Mark that backslide down for the future. These rookie matches are as much about giving the young guys the opportunity to work different parts of a match in a low-pressure but still “real” situation, and in 1990 we get a really helpful little fancam duology of Momota rookie matches, with the curtain-jerker facing off over two nights against Tsuyoshi Kikuchi. Kikuchi is about to ascend the ranks; by the end of the year, he’ll be in the upper-midcard and Super Generation Army for a brief but coruscating run as a rising star. On the first night, Momota works from underneath. Momota is a natural underdog; it’s his size, it’s his look. He’s sympathetic, and it’s not just the All Japan/NOAH crowd that loves him – a New Japan crowd will roar him on against Liger. His background, his dad, only work into this: he’s not sympathetic because of that fact, but the contrast between his heritage on the other and his stature and his levels of success on the other only add to his babyface heat. He’s also, obviously, a humble and dedicated worker – yes, he’ll job to some random Mexican dude (albeit one he’d wrestled in Mexico); yes, he’ll open the show 150 times a year; yes, he’ll let a rookie dominate him for a match so the youngster can learn, and yes, he’ll eventually let that rookie surpass him and go up the rankings past him. So we learn that working from underneath – against Kakihara, against Kikuchi, against other bigger names later – is Momota’s specialism. He can win, though, because he’s canny, he’s an expert matworker, he has a variety of tricks. He can’t outpower anyone, but he can outthink them. The next night against Kikuchi, though, he works on top. This match isn’t as good as the Kakihara match, perhaps because Momota just can’t pour as much heat on Kikuchi as, say, Fuchi will be able to. But what we do get is Momota giving Kikuchi a chance to shine; these matches aren’t about Momota, they’re about the men who are going to carry the company forward in the future. Kikuchi gets to work nearly 10 minutes of” “AJPW lucharesu” counters and some really beautiful escapes, whilst Momota carefully works the arm and then takes advantage of his experience and momentum to hit his Jumping DDT for the win. I actually don’t know of any Momota-rookie footage for over a decade from this point. This is at least in part because he doesn’t work anywhere near as much rookie stuff; he actually technically goes up the card in the ‘90s, the decade in which he will hit 50. In 1998, to give a demonstrative example, he works one singles match total, a New Year’s curtain-jerker against Satoru Asako, and then works a mid-card Battle Royal on the next date. After that, he only works comedy tags the whole year. In NOAH, though, his duties change. He still works comedy matches – he’s ever more central to this strand of work – and in some years this will be dominant. But in, say, 2004, he works 41 singles matches in NOAH plus 1 in NJPW. Many of those are against Eigen and Kikuchi, the two other “older juniors”. These are still in match slots 1 and 2, and they’re really all comedy matches, especially against Eigen. 6 matches, however, are losses to other undercarders, usually in the opening slot. None of these are “rookie matches” – the most junior man is Makoto Hashi, who debuted 6 years before. However, they are fulfilling many of the same functions as the earlier rookie matches, and in other years Momota will work more traditional rookie pieces. So back to that 30th Anniversary Match against the confusingly-named Kenta Kobayashi in 2000. We’ve put this into better context now, I think. This is the anniversary match Momota wanted: giving a young guy a chance to show his stuff and develop his craft. This is the first thing the audience get as they sit down – the emblem of their tradition of wrestling against the future of it. It’s hand-over-hand, generation-to-generation. The match against the future KENTA is a nice little thing. It’d be better if it were complete! The clip is enforced on us by this being from a TV cut, though perhaps one day G+ will do us the honour of releasing it complete. What we have shows both to advantage, without being any sort of all-timer. Young Kobayashi gets to fly around, and hits a flying cross body for the ages, and he gets to kick out of the DDT and Backdrop Suplex. He only debuted this year; he is being put over hardway. Of course, Momota is still too much for him at this stage, and a big Powerbomb does the job. But they will meet again in a few years, in different circumstances. A footnote to this is one of his 2005 losses to a “senior undercarder” which aired on TV (there is at least one more in this whole period, against Trevor Rhodes, which I haven’t seen). It’s against Kishin Kawabata (who he also wrestled once in 2004), and I’m afraid Kawabata was never good. Oddly, they work this exactly like a rookie match – the length, the slot, the way that they transition and work holds. Momota works some comedy spots, just like he did in 1978 and in 1988. This is, honestly, poor – but I confidently blame Kawabata, because Momota is putting on Four Star work in this period in his late 50s, whilst Kawabata never did that at any point in his career. The rookie match will always struggle to be great. The rookie is limited by their experience, and both men have a format to work to – the most impressive feats of strength are not performed in the gym, after all, even though the reps you put in at the gym allow the big lifts. Rookie matches are about repetition under light pressure. Momota still manages to get results in this format, from the tragically small sample we have. One imagines him geeing up young Kawada – Kawada reports that the only person to come and see him after his return from a dreadful excursion was Mitsuo’s brother Yoshihiro, and you generally hear just excellent things about the Momota brothers. But what we have does show a reliable pattern, even in fragments like the El Halcon match or squibs like the one against Kawabata: Momota is technically adroit, he’s funny and helps be a bit of a teacosy to the settling crowd who knows and loves him, he gives his opponent a lot, and he lets rookies shine. If this was all we knew about him, he’d be better than 4.71/10. Thankfully, we know a lot more. Full matchguide and links at Undercard Wonders.

This is such a good point, and not just about Kobashi. You get a lot of dismissal over people worrying about the industry being exposed or whatever, but it is simply not a coincidence that, outside of a few very popular NJPW/AEW darlings who dominate the CageMatch match rankings, people buy into and love older ereas best. The High Irony era of pro-wrestling doesn't serve it best, I think, and will not age very well. Sincere, hard-working guys who wanted to put across these great matches as if they were serious theatre will always have a legacy.

Kyushu Pro Super Genki Festival ~ 17th Anniversary 27/04/2025 The biggest show of the year so far, in Fukuoka City’s Fukuoka West Japan General Exhibition Hall’s New Hall. Declared attendance of 2,576. This is a pretty big show by modern standards. All Japan’s Champion Carnival 2025 opener at the Korakuen (9th April) drew 1,105, and their biggest show of the year so far was their 24th February date in Hachioji, with an attendance of 1,870; KPW has two bigger than that. NOAH had a big Budokan date on New Year’s, with over 5,000 in attendance; they get around 1,500 in the Korakuen, and hit 1,605 at Yokohama. I say this to make the point that KPW, partly due to its business model, can get big, hot crowds in a difficult market for puro. The hall is dark, and we have a full entrance ramp, some light pyro, and a “big event” feel. I actually secretly prefer the brightly-lit gyms and mall display areas – the personal nature of those crowds adds a lot. But this works in its own way too. Mentai Kid vs Ryota Chikuzen This was the match set up when Mentai announced his retirement. Chikuzen is the founder of the company, and he recruited Mentai to come join at the start (and become Mentai Kid, indeed – an avatar of Kyushu’s famous spicy fish roe paste!). This is a match marking the end of the era, even though it’s not Mentai’s retirement match. It’s a pleasant enough match – it’s nice to see Chikuzen wrestle, as I’ve not before, and he works the spots here he needs to well – he bullies Mentai, puts heat on him, hits a bunch of decent-looking moves, and then eats two 450s for Mentai’s win. It’s fluffy and throwaway, and the real juice here is the emotion between these two very old friends, and the enormous Mentai entrance – he goes round collecting every Mentaiko garland (yes, really) that the kids (and adults) are offering him, and bumps fists with everyone who wants to. His entrance takes ten minutes. This is time actually worth spending, unlike most Big Company Long Entrances. He’s beloved; you see it in the teenagers coming over, who I suspect have been watching him their whole lives now. Mentai Kid defeats Ryota Chikuzen in 9:30. Genkai & Georges Khoukaz & Jet Wei vs Gabai Ji-chan & Hitamaru Sasaki & Shigeno Shima This is the ordinary six-man comedy warmup, but with the ordinary sorts of twists: one of the guests is in the match (Georges Khoukaz, originally from Syria, now works Euro indies) and there is one of the occasional guest gimmicks (Gabai Ji-chan, who usually works as PSYCHO). This is a solid iteration at the lower tier of these. The appeal is that Khoukaz is a big guy (6’5”) and Gabai Ji-chan wears an old man mask and walks with a stick but then halfway through goes full Gandalf-at-Meduseld and hits a bunch of flying moves. This all works fine, though I suppose I want Gabai Ji-chan to be literally the best high-flyer ever to really make that sing. He’s solid, and his old man comedy is solid, too. At the end, after the heels win by pinning Shima (who has obviously come here as an old guy at the end of his career to help prop up the roster by eating pins), Sasaki goes to talk to Genkai, and it’s obviously communicated that he wants to team up to go after a belt – presumably the tag belts? It’s a respect moment, and simple solid communication to the crowd who will know the language. Genkai & Georges Khoukaz & Jet Wei defeat Gabai Ji-chan & Hitamaru Sasaki & Shigeno Shima in 12:31. Batten Blabla vs Dump Matsumoto Batten is a really good worker in ways that get ignored. I mean, he’s a good gag worker – the gimmick here is that, well, he’s Chigusa Nagayo circa 1985. He wears a leotard like hers, he changes his Finishing Move Chant to “Nagayo! Asuka! DUMP MATSUMOTO!”, he comes out in a beautiful and oversized robe, etc. The match is functionally a hair match with Dump wanting to cut it (and succeeding). But what is cleverer is a layout which lets the incredibly limited Dump to be fun and have fun and have the audience enjoy the show. One thing is not much to do with Batten, though he uses it – Dump has a second, Zap, who comes along and stooges for her. This means Batten can hit more moves, basically, which aren’t on a waddling lady in her sixties. Batten, though, manages to work his extreme cowardice and frailty well into making the ladies look threatening – of course the younger one can beat him up, he’s Batten! He bumps around, he invests everything with amazing energy, he hits his own moves with signature crispness. This is fun! Dump Matsumoto defeats Batten Blabla in 4:33. Asosan & Naoki Sakurajima © vs TAJIRI & SHIHO (Kyushu Pro Tag Title match) TAJIRI and SHIHO come out accompanied by Poison Rose, an American who works in Shiho’s Pro Wrestling Society promotion in South Korea (where he’s legitimately reviving wrestling!). Shiho wanted a tag title match with his pseudo-dad Tajiri, and here it is. It’s actually not great – and not because we get long Asosan vs Tajiri sections, which I have the suspicion would be dreadful at this point. Two men with one knee and three quarters of a cardio capacity between them are not best suited for long exchanges. The problem is actually that we rely on the most obvious heel heat, permitted by Idiot Ref Syndrome, to actually move the match. Shiho can fly around and Sakurajima is a legitimate worker, but the best stuff here are a few comedy spots and, in a mixed sense, the poison mist ending. Sakurajima blocks Tajiri’s spray – it’s how the heels won in the six-man in March – but turns into Poison Rose’s spray instead. Now, actually, the obviousness of the mist should be an auto-DQ – why are their mouths so green?! But it’s at least a nicely executed spot. This should have been better. SHIHO & TAJIRI defeat Asosan & Naoki Sakurajima in 11:05. Shuji Ishikawa © vs Kodai Nozaki (Kyushu Pro Title match) Nozaki’s rematch after the 24/02 loss of the big title. I don’t think it’s quite as good as that, but it is good. Ishikawa is an older guy and Nozaki is a bigger guy and they work round this through selected static spots, a few brawling exchanges outside, and big exchanges of bombs and strikes. We can see Nozaki has begun to learn his lesson after the loss; there’s a story here, and he’s facing a truly fearsome opponent, a former Triple Crown champion. He got his Spear blocked last time and messed up going up to, but this time he’s a bit savvier at a few key moments. But what’s bold and clever is that this isn’t enough – he gets a massive Brainbuster on Ishikawa, he counters at key moments including remembering to actually smack Ishikawa around more before going up top for the second-rope Superplex (Midiplex?), and so forth. He’s learning, but in the end Ishikawa is too strong and just too experienced. Nozaki’s advantage is power with a bit of speed, and Ishikawa is just better at that, and though it takes two Running Knees, it’s a retention for the champ. Ishikawa does give Nozaki a respectful speech after, though. Hitamaru Sasaki comes out, encouraged by Batten Blabla – who politely refuses Ishikawa’s renewed offer of a challenge. Sasaki obviously wanted this at the 20/04 event, and here steps up. He also may want the tag belts, as mentioned before – not clear to me. He’s tiny compared to the giant Ishikawa, but on the other hand he can kick very hard. That’ll be fun if, I think, predictable. Nozaki needs to go away and learn before coming back to cement his position. I wonder if he’ll do some work in the tag division and go after TAJIRI and SHIHO now – but with who? Jet Wei would maybe be a good match – smaller, faster, flying, and also young. Good balance, and a good way to elevate both homegrown talents. Shuji Ishikawa defeats Kodai Nozaki in 22:19. Event Review This was a big show, and that was quite fun, and it had a few big highlights. It’s a mixed bag, it should be said; Mentai gets a historically resonant singles match which is solid but just playing the hits, the six-man is an adequate iteration but nothing special, Batten has another Batten Banger which a lot of people won’t like but they’re wrong, the tag title match is disappointing, and the main event is strong. Not all of this was inevitable: the tag title match should have run a better structure round the two better workers, even though it was always likely to be booked to a cheating heel win; the six-man runs long compared to other, stronger iterations. Nonetheless, albeit with a strong apportionment of guests (4) and part-timers (2), this manages to be a mid-length show with a real variety of stuff on display and two legitimately good matches of totally opposite style. We have some very short-term booking out of this – Mentai vs Genkai for the retirement match – but the mid-term scene is more interesting to consider. Sasaki isn’t the highest-ranked senior in the company – he doesn’t wrestle loads of singles and he’s clearly below Genkai and Asosan in terms of protection – but he’s liked by the crowd, he can work, and if he works two challenges in the near future that’s for the product’s good. Nozaki has a mountain to climb. He comes closer to beating Ishikawa this time, but there is obviously a journey here – guest spots elsewhere, maybe some interesting freelance hire-in for him to beat in-house. As I say, though, a tag run seems most obvious as the backbone of an ascent of the mountain, combined with, I suppose, beating Genkai and some other outsiders. Kyushu Pro Nakagawa City Athletics Association 50th Anniversary Project ~ Nakagawa Ba Genki Ni Suru Bai! 29/04/2025 This hasn’t been streamed. This was held at the Nakagawa City Gymnasium in Fukuoka Prefecture for 668 attendees. It’s a “small to mid”-sized show, with ten workers on the night. It looks in most respects like a normal tour date – size of show, location, event title – but it’s also an anniversary show for the City’s Athletics Association, which may have been a funder here. Hitamaru Sasaki vs Jet Wei A chance for Sasaki and Jet to work some singles, and for Sasaki to build his singles standing in the company for his planned challenges. Not a surprising result, and a shame it wasn’t streamed – this was probably good. Hitamaru Sasaki defeats Jet Wei in 13:55. Asosan vs Batten Blabla I was worried about a triple threat with these two and Shima, but actually this one probably worked better, despite it looking a bit long given Asosan’s cardio. Basically, Batten can work a lot of time on his own, and he’s the perfect foil for a big slow guy. Asosan defeats Batten Blabla in 8:40. Genkai & Georges Khoukaz & TAJIRI vs Kodai Nozaki & Mentai Kid & Naoki Sakurajima An interesting matchup with five guys who can still work to decent degrees, plus TAJIRI who works well in six-mans. Nozaki will want blood, and this is a chance for smashing face with Genkai and Khoukaz. Sakurajima and TAJIRI have unfinished business. Mentai is on the retirement tour. I don’t know who got the pin here, but surely Khoukaz ate it, and probably in favour of Mentai (but maybe Nozaki). Kodai Nozaki & Mentai Kid & Naoki Sakurajima defeat Genkai & Georges Khoukaz & TAJIRI in 15:01. Mentai Kid at Dontaku 2025! So I only saw rather late in the day, via Kyushu Pro’s social media, that six Kyushu Pro wrestlers were “invading” NJPW’s Dontaku 2025, Day 2 (May 4th, 2025). Dontaku is an massive NJ event held annually in Fukuoka, but until now they hadn’t partnered with KPW as far as I can see. Batten Blabla, Ryota Chikuzen, Jet Wei, Hitamaru Sasaki, TAJIRI, and Mentai starred across two tags and a ten-man. Batten and Mentai teamed up in what I think was the first commentated match of Day 2. It’s interesting how the English commentators (Thingummy who sounds like Todd Kalas and Chris Charlton in this case) handle them. They get that Batten is a comedy gimmick but go and back and forth on being audibly puzzled against trying to get over his gimmick. The crowd love it, naturally. Mentai is “the local hero”, they mention his retirement – and plug his retirement match a couple of times – and they frame him as a Junior but not, uh, going to appear in BOSJ this year. (Due to retiring.) They’re under instructions to get across the collab with the local charity promotion, but it did seem to me that this wasn’t really something they were here to see, respectful as they were of Mentai. Batten Blabla & Mentai Kid vs Gedo & Taiji Ishimori This is short and sweet, and a strong warmup act. Batten is obviously wrestling comedy here, and the crowd love it, and I love it. He’s doing his pathetic judo chops/slaps to keep Gedo down for his fist drop, he fingerlocks Gedo into his patented “NO!” sign, and the rest. It’s glorious, and he’s doing it in front of 5,500 people on a show headlined by the title Inoki invented. Mentai gets to run two segments where he looks great in this, his first and only New Japan match. Imagine turning up at 47 with a week til retirement and hitting a Jumping Double Back Elbow on the War Dogs? 619ing a guy in front of the biggest crowd of your life? (…after Batten stinkfingers him lol) It’s a deserved honour, and though he’s not the seniormost KPW guy on the night – Chikuzen and TAJIRI are further up the card and get to win – he’s the star for six minutes. Of course the regulars get the win with Ishimori getting a Clutch pin on Batten, but that’s not the story here. Gedo & Taiji Ishimori defeat Batten Blabla & Mentai Kid in 6:01. Full matchguide and links at Undercard Wonders

(1) fantastic thread overall, love this and love Johnny (2) I liked this one. DK is actually bumping late into the match, and looks better than his tours to AJ in '89 and early '90. Maybe he's more pilled up. He's limited - he doesn't do anything massive or crazy - and other limitations mean it's not actually as good as, say, the Bulldogs/Malenkoes in '89, but he's actually better here than there.