[1993-09-28-Michinoku Pro] Great Sasuke & Atsushi Onita vs Jinsei Shinzaki & Mr Pogo

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

One of those early Michinoku Pro brawls before they had completely shaken their death match roots. Shinzaki and Sasuke spend a lot of time hugging in the crowd and fighting with barbed wire and Pogo spends a lot of time stabbing Onita with a pointed stick. There is some good action with Sasuke and Shinzaki. You can call the sequences a mile away, but they were new at the time. The highlight of the match is the ever-awesome Super Delphin's run-in, catching Sasuke with a forearm out of nowhere and working with the heels to put the boots to both guys. 10 minutes of chaos.

[Kevin Ridge]

A bit too chaotic to the point as hadn't read match listing beforehand so I thought Delphin was actually officially in this match! Not enough Onita for me if you are going to be doing a brawl. Michinoku moving away from these type of brawls was for the better.

[PeteF3]

Sasuke acquits himself quite well in this garbage-brawl setting. He's already about 50 times the worker Ultimo Dragon is, since he's capable of things like sympathy and emotion and psychology and knowing what a heel and a babyface are. Super Delfin runs in and he and "Mr. Toyota" (Wally Yamaguchi) beat down Sasuke with a staff and a glove of barbed wire that Shinzaki used liberally throughout the match. The referee is okay with all this despite being abused himself, then calls for the bell after somebody gets put through a table. Nothing like consistent rules enforcement. Pogo was his usual bag of dicks here and Onita was completely wasted, filling a role that could have been filled by literally anyone. Yamaguchi's over-the-top act would be perfect for ECW at this time (which is not a compliment).

 

In a highly amusing footnote, it sounds like Pogo and the heels break into the booth after the match and assault the announcers. Okay, that was cool.

[soup23]

A fun cast of characters but not a whole lot to this match. Onita and Pogo do there thing and the mixing in with Sasuke worked out well. Delfin is interfering throughout the match and there is a chaotic feel but too chaotic to really make anything have meaning. **3/4

[garretta]

I had a post ready to send that was eaten by the server, and I'm not going to bother recreating it; this match isn't worth the trouble. Horrible camerawork, two completely mismatched styles (high-flyers Sasuke and Shinzaki; hardcores Onita and Pogo) and a finish that no one bothered to try to film add up to a completely wasted sixteen minutes.

 

As someone who's enjoyed what little I've seen of Michinoku Pro, I'm glad that they moved away from matches like this. They should be left to the workers and promotions who know how to do them best (or worst, depending on your perspective). In the meantime, I'm looking forward to more M-Pro matches with the likes of Sasuke and Delphin.