Satoshi Kojima

[Grimmas]

Discuss here.

[El-P]

His Kobashi hommage with the shotgun chops is one of the most annoying spot in wrestling. Used to be very good at one time (still is in 2021, so there). I really didn't follow his career that much in All Japan, but he was involved in some pretty hot stuff I believe (so basically talking out of my ass, not having watched nearly enough). Still, he had some really annoying tendency. Choshu he ain't. Hell, he's not even Kensuke

[goodhelmet]

No shot even though I like some matches here and there.

[Timbo Slice]

The one thing I'll say is that I did like him vs. Ohtani, 6/6/01 vs. Kawada and I did like one of the Tenryu matches. Outside of that? Eh.

[W2BTD]

I am one of the biggest Kojima fans you will ever find. What hurts him is that his physical peak came during the worst possible time in puro history. What helps him is that he is 45 years old and has yet to appreciably decline, to the point he is arguably having better matches in his 40's than he did in his 30's.

 

He'd likely make the bottom quarter of my list, maybe a little higher if I rewatched some early stuff and it was better than I remember it being.

[GOTNW]

He was really good as the spunky upper midcarder trying to dethrone the established stars. He spent almost ten years in that role and never truly outgrew it. His formula is fine but he only had transcendental matches against all time greats and outside of that his resume isn't very impressive.

[Ma Stump Puller]

I think there's a case for Kojima given his longevity: even at 51 he's still having consistently good matches and hasn't shown any major signs of decline apart from not being as prone to big bumps and taking out some of the more agile moves out of his matches. Outside of that, he's still the same dude he was 20 years ago more or less, which can be a positive or a negative depending on how you look at it. It's just a shame that his Pro-Wres Love days are so unknown because Kojima was a supreme force when it came to keeping a crowd focused and loud, as well as being a really underrated carrier when the chips were down. Seriously, lots of great stuff once you start looking around. He's most definitely not superior to Nishimura or Fujita but that's another thing altogether.

 

 

[WingedEagle]

Surprisingly little chatter for someone with as many stops and main events as Cozy. He's putting together a pretty terrific run on the senior circuit with a triple crown challenge against Aoyagi and pulling a legitimately very good match out of Tom Lawlor, who I generally have little use for. One night hardly makes a GWE case but *that* G1 match against Okada remains one of the most memorable matches of the era. Where are folks on Kojima these days?

[Ma Stump Puller]

On 12/31/2023 at 12:46 AM, WingedEagle said:

Surprisingly little chatter for someone with as many stops and main events as Cozy. He's putting together a pretty terrific run on the senior circuit with a triple crown challenge against Aoyagi and pulling a legitimately very good match out of Tom Lawlor, who I generally have little use for. One night hardly makes a GWE case but *that* G1 match against Okada remains one of the most memorable matches of the era. Where are folks on Kojima these days?

I think it's a mix of a couple of things;

1. His main event push taking place during a dark spot of wrestling (around about 2002/2008 while in Muto's All Japan, pretty infamous for being underexplored as a whole) for a vast majority of individuals. It's hard to promote someone on here with not a lot of knowledge of their arguable peak material

2. His NJPW return and subsequent run coming before the company really became mainstream (in the eyes of Western fans, anyway). The Okada match as you mentioned does come around about then, mind you, but it's also in-between him being settled as a NJPW oldie who didn't really get a whole lot of work asides that and battling out for the occasional mid-card belt.

3. He's not the most memorable guy, to be fair. For most he has a cool lariat and likes bread, that's about the extent of Kojima discourse lol. I distinctly remember people being shocked that he even wrestled guys like Shibata outside of NJPW (through that leads to a whole different discussion)

But no Kojima absolutely deserves some major credit for putting together such a great resume of matches at his age. Between him and Nagata New Japan should rightfully be kicking themselves for wasting those guys in useless tags 99% of the time.