Obscure Japanese 90s Indies (Yume Factory, W*ING, KAGEKI, IWA Japan, Capture etc.)

[Edwin]

Not from the 90's, but there was a sleazy indy in the mid 2000's called STYLE-E. If I recall correctly, a lot of the guys were Kiyoshi Tamura trainees. They ran shows at a really small venue and a lot of the guys were U-STYLE workers who would face pro-wres indy guys.

 

Ken Ohka from DDT and Union was a big invading heel there along with Masa Takanashi and Takahiro Abe from DDT when he was just a rookie and Isami Kodaka when he was just isami from Union.

 

Kazuhiro Tamura was their ace for some time and that's where Masashi Takeda, who went on to become a death match worker, got his start from. Kyosuke Sasaki from U-STYLE was one of their open weight champs.

[Jetlag]

Not from the 90's, but there was a sleazy indy in the mid 2000's called STYLE-E. If I recall correctly, a lot of the guys were Kiyoshi Tamura trainees. They ran shows at a really small venue and a lot of the guys were U-STYLE workers who would face pro-wres indy guys.

 

 

 

How much STYLE-E is there available though? I think Lynch only has stuff from the later years, which is far less interesting than the early period which had dudes like Crafter M etc. Some of these cards look really interesting:

 

STYLE-E @ Chofu

15. Januar 2005 @ Nishi-Chofu Combat Arena in Chofu, Tokyo (Japan)

Kyosuke Sasaki © besiegte Hidehisa Matsuda (22:49 Minuten) [sTYLE-E Openweight Title]

[Edwin]

Not sure how much footage is available, but what we got to see mostly from that time period was from Occupation of the Indys on Samurai! TV and it was around 5 or so minutes of each event.

 

I know they had DVD releases back then, but I'm not sure if anyone overseas actually got a chance to purchase any.

[Jetlag]

IWA Japan Battle Station 4/8/98 SPRING BREEZE Tour '98 taped 3/13/98 Tokyo Korakuen Hall

 

Takeshi Sato & Turtuger vs. Cosmo * Soldier & The Great Takero

Masao Orihara & Hidetomo Egawa vs. Perseus & Akinori Tsukioka

Benkei Daikokubo & Katsumi Hirano vs. Nuruka & Shinigami

Sumie Sakai vs. Emi Motokawa

Keisuke Yamada & Keizo Matsuda & Shigeo Okumura vs. The Great Kabuki & Ryuma Go & Tarzan Goto

 

Well I'll be damned, because this was a damn cool little card where every match delivered something worthwhile. Well, except that tag with Benkei and Shinigami maybe - aaaahhh let's not talk about it! The opener was a cool little junior's match which they totally should not have clipped. Cosmo Soldier always adds a sense of unpredictability even to standard opening exchanges. He will hit a stiff dropkick and then start working mount and then hit an insane tope con hilo, all in the span of 2 minutes. Same for the 2nd match, which had some nice hate filled exchanges and sleaziness. Never seen Hidetomo Egawa before, but he was working a kickpadded quasi-BattlARTS style, so that's great, and Tsukioka is looking like one of the best undercard workers around. The semi main event was like the perfect 90s match to put on a VHS comp - just one nifty move after another. Also, impeccable fashion sense that both girls displayed! Color combinations like this will never come back. The main event was great too and I wrote up a full review in the match discussion archive. So,this show was a breeze to watch and every match left me wanting to seek out more of the guys involved. Wrestling in 1998 was a blast.

[Jetlag]

IWA Japan 7/20/1998

So IWA Japan continues to be the most watchable non-MUGA promotion in 1998. The awesomeness of IWA Japan is sorely underappreciated, so allow me to breakdown the ingredients that makes a fun indy card!

The „who are these guys“ improbable fun opener! Yuji Kito & Yoshiya Yamashita vs. Turtuger & Hiroki Achiiwa. It's 4 rookie nobodies beating the shit out of eachother! Even the turtle guy is laying it in, in between jokes! The ref hits a suicide dive! Brutal elbow drops and kneedrops that land with full weight and bad intentions! Nasty boston crab finish!

 

The tease! Cosmo Soldier vs. Hidetomo Egawa. This was 6 minutes clipped down to 2 and a half. The full match was probably an awkward botch ladden mess, and I wanted to see every second of it! Awkward attempts at shootstyle/lucharesu style experiments and cool suplexes!

 

The utterly bizarre! Freddy Krueger vs. Katsumi Hirano. Freddy Krueger and a blonde japanese guy in a black gi hit the mat! Krueger has a noisy sleazy glamourus valet! Krueger puts the Fujiwara armbar over like a champ, while everyone is eyeballing the whip carrying lady.

 

The spot-a-ton! Asian Cougar & Palomino vs. Akinori Tsukioka & Kyohei Mikami. Match contains half a dozen leg drop variants and half a dozen tope atomicos! They hit ALL the spots. Match is actually fairly competitive. Palomino, the masked Ikuto Hidaka, looks ultra polished working pseudo lucha exchanges. Tsukioka lands an Asai Moonsault into nowhere! Swank moves and dives are rolled out. An almost unrecognizable Mikami hits the neat-o Victory Roll into Kneebar because that was en vogue in 1998. Tsukioka does another insane thing which the camera misses completely! They go BROADWAY (but we will never get the full experience, because they clipped a few minutes from the bout.) This match was praised in an old DVDVR and is still fun today. Manly and whip ass etc.

 

The girl match! Emi Motokawa & Sumie Sakai (Jd') & Sachie Nishibori vs. Momoe Nakanishi & Nanae Takahashi & Miho Wakizawa. It's somewhat light hearted and also mayhem! They do all the moves. The AJW girls don't look good! Neither does Motokawa. Sakai tries a moonsault off the top to the outside and NOBODY catches her at all! The announcer calls it a „Flying Sausage“ everytime a chubby wrestler attempts a flying bodypress. Nishibori hits some nice flying headscissors, but probably isn't polished at anything else. They already had the foxy S&M valet earlier, why have this match be overly cute? Bring back Chiharu Nakano.

 

The sleazeball fest! Keizo Matsuda & The Great Takeru vs. Masao Orihara & Takeshi Ono. The Not So Great Takeru is in his goofy Power Rangers costume! Masao Orihara & Takeshi Ono are the Tonpachi Machine Guns, and they will kick you in the balls a LOT. Takeshi Ono actually works STIFF. Golly gee he is roughing up those IWA Japan dudes. The Machine Guns are slick and sloppy at the same time, if that makes sense. This was mostly an extended squash for the guns, which is a good thing, because Takeru ain't so great, and Matsuda with his wrestling school level leg drops is laughable. Takeru atleast lays in his spin kicks and hits a moonsault kneedrop. Orihara hits the stupidly gorgeous Orihara moonsault to the outside following a spider german suplex to make up for all the horrible moonsault awrygoings of the evening. Likely the classiest thing he's ever done.

 

The crusty main event! Great Kabuki & Kendo Nagasaki vs. Shigeo Okumura & Keisuke Yamada. Kabuki train 98 continues! Everyone in this match gets WALLOPED and it rules. Yamada & Okumura get all uppity and Nagasaki fucking wastes them both with chairs. Kabuki & Nagasaki turn into the worlds lumpiest Anderson brothers and procure some brutal armwork and stomps, with Nagasaki rocking the shoulder dislocating Armbars. It's improbable and strange and great. Kabuki hits his awesome fist drop and starts working the ARMPIT CLAW and it's fucking gross. Okumura & Yamada are not technically great but they are willing to smack the shit out of the crusty old bastards and in return get punched in the face, elbowed in the chin and kicked in the throat a LOT. Kabuki & Nagasaki actually have enough cardio to keep things moving for 15 minutes and we get a handful of great spots and thrust kicks. FEAR THE GREEN MIST! Also, SICK piledriver finish. I loved this.

[G. Badger]

Oh wow! This sounds really fun. Thanks for the review

[Jetlag]

More to come. IWA Japan in 1998 rules.

 

IWA Japan 4/29/1998

Perseus & Hidetomo Egawa vs. The Great Takeru & Akinori Tsukioka (The spot-a-ton!)

Emi Motokawa vs. Chiharu Nakano (The girl match!)

The Great Kabuki & Arashi vs. Keisuke Yamada & Shigeo Okamura (The crusty main event!)

I'm an IWA Japan fan now, because every IWA Japan card is great in it's own unique way which can not be expressed in conventional measures of quality, this being an outdoor show in front of a picturesque setting just being the icing on the cake. This was a nice three-piece, as you had the junior opener, which was basically all these guys throwing a slew of big moves and occasional BattlARTSian intermission touches from Egawa including hitting some huge belly to bellys which you do not expect from a tiny insignificant guy like him. Perseus (a guy the internet knows nothing about), for a guy who is all about Dragon Suplexes and Triple Powerbombs and all that also hits a really great powerslam. It's all pretty senseless and really fun.

Motokawa/Nakano was a shockingly good match, everything you can hope for from sleaze indy undercard girl wrestling. Nakano is former GAEA and a kickpadded alternate universe Satomura. She almost KO's Motokawa with her opening barrage and from then on it's on. Everything she does is either a nasty kick or a cool shoot submission. She rules, and why have I never heard of her? Motokawa likes to indulge in silly spots but straightens herself out her after getting kicked in the face 3 or 4 times and starts dropping Nakano with suplexes that would do Otsuka proud. They don't indulge in too many nearfalls and I am left thinking the world needs more of this mysterious Chiharu Nakano.

The main event was a stupidly good sleazy WAR battle with Arashi basically walloping everyone with stiff lariats all the time and not bumping ever and crusty old Kabuki ruling it doing you know exactly what, hitting the worlds greatest punches and superkicks. Yamada basically gets the shit beaten out of him and eats the fuck out of every lariat and superkick he gets, just drilling himself into the mat with enthusiasm. Okamura is pretty blah but he and Yamada are EAGER and Kabuki is totally carrying this by bumping like a motherfucker and getting chairs chucked in his face and making me give a shit for his nerve hold AGAIN. He teases the fist drop and eats a flying lariat in a sequence that wasn't athletically impressive or anything but awesome in context of the match. I was totally a Kabuki fan before getting into IWA Japan, but seeing him crusty, old and broken down as an improbable but determined company ace who throws fists and gets spin kicked in the face is an enlightenment.

[Jetlag]

IWA Japan continues to deliver feat. special guest Tomohiro Ishii!

IWA Japan 5/18/1998

The Great Takeru vs. Perseus

Keisuke Yamada & Takeshi Sato vs. Shoichi Ichinomiya & Tomohiro Ishii

The Great Kabuki & Gran Hamada vs. Keizo Matsuda & Takashi Okamura

Not as good as the 4/29 card, but still really fun indy action. Takeru/Perseus was the same deal as usual, hit all your big spots for pops and be done with it, but they actually seem to be gaining a bit in polish. The Ishii match was a motherfucking Ishii match, as Tomohiro Ishii – dressed in improbable 90s colors – throws down chucking chairs and kicking the lowly IWA Japan punks in their faces. All the Ishii interactions were gold as he gets the boys to show some piss and vinegar, nasty headbutt exchanges and kicks to the spine ensue. Some gritty legwork is there aswell, with using the old Jumbo kneebreaker over a table/chair and it's all great. Ichinomiya is a future comedy character and you can tell he is not very good at the pro wrestling. Funny moment where Ishii tries the spot from his future Shibata matches where he puffs his chest after getting kicked by Sato and Sato just flattens him. Atta boy! Now I need more 1998 Ishii too, god dammit.

The main event was as fun as it sounds on paper, with Hamada working fun sequences and hitting big high spots, and Kabuki again in the sleaze Tenryu role. Matsuda & Okamura are quite suck ass and bland, but they do a decent job ripping up Kabuki's leg and isolating the vets hitting some double teams. Match went quite long and they kept it interesting and I would've liked to see the thing in full. Best moment of the match was easily Kabuki kicking Matsuda in the face and decking him with punches from let and right.

[Jetlag]

BJW 1/ 2/98

Let's check out some old school BJW, shall we? Not a forgotten or obscure fed, but this period certainly is. I mean, look at this card! How many things can you say about any of these names?

Neftaly vs. Miho Kawasaki

Shunme Matsuzaki vs. Shadow VII

Yone Genjin vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa

Kendo Nagasaki & Gennosuke Kobayashi vs. Masayoshi Motegi & Makoto Saito

Katsumi Usuda & Ikuto Hidaka vs. Tomoaki Honma & Minoru Fujita

Gedo & Jado vs. Yoshihiro Tajiri & Yamakawa

Jason the Terrible & Shoji Nakamaki & Mitsuhiro Matsunaga vs. Great Pogo & Shadow WX & Shadow Winger

 

Aaaaand of course a 1998 indy show opens with a forgotten japanese girl wrestler and a luchadora working quasi lucha exchanges. This and the other first 3 matches are really clipped so it's mostly just to get a quick laugh, but what they showed of the ladies match wasn't bad. Neftly hits a nasty senton and wins with a nifty powerbomb variation. Matsuzaki is a sad case as he always looks ridiculously polished (for a guy in the second match of your typical sleaze card) and always gets saddled in some non match, in this case against a mexican Mini-Mr. Pogo (sorry Ricky Santana, you're better at lucha than garbage brawling). All these BJW undercard matches quickly devolve into crowd brawling shenanigans. I would've liked to see more of the BJW vs. WYF tag – because Motegi is GOOD and Saito is COOL and I am actually liking Nagasaki with his nice back elbow and quick bursts of wrestling and actually dangerous floor brawling. The unrecognizable rookie Kobayashi is yet another indy guy who doesn't know how to take Saito's springboard moves properly which almost feels like a rib at this point.

 

So they actually showed the BattlARTS vs. BJW dudes tag in full and it's AWESOME. I am not playing a trick on you here, if that match happened in BattlARTS it would have a good shot at being the tag MOTY. It's not a BattlARTS style match but it has enough cool shootstyle matwork and stiff shots throughout to keep you entertained, and the whole thing is just ridiculously tight, innovative stuff. Hidaka & Fujita are all skinny and young but they join the 98 GAEA crew by looking spunky, inventive and super talented. Pre-bumpfreak Honma is good as your kickpadded guy who sells really well, can work a kneebar or two and gets kicked in the head by Usuda. Usuda looked like a badass black belt tumbling with some purples trying their best to push him. He is a stoic shooter guy with some really spectacular counters and he always works really well with these indy juniors he can just rip apart and this was no exception. I also liked that because Hidaka and Fujita are scrawny 1 year rookies any basic move on them looks like a plausible finish. But the whole thing was just a bonkers match with breathtaking lucha meets shootstyle submissions and counters and nasty double teams and some brutal stand up exchanges (Usuda just dropping bombs) and yeah this is just the kinda gem you hope for when going through this old stuff. Also, great moment where Honma botches a springboard move so Hidaka just pounces on him and they beat the shit out of eachother. That's how you cover up a blown spot.

There was no way in hell that Jado/Gedo vs. Tajiri/Yamakawa could follow up the workrate of the previous tag and they wisely didn't try. They worked more of a US style tag with Gedo and Jado bringing the heel cutoffs and punches and rope stun guns and Figure 4s and what not. Pretty bread and butters stuff but it wasn't a bad match and I always enjoy checking out young Tajiri who is such an ultra sharp wrestler with the kicks and lucha flying moves and so forth.

The main event – well, you know what you're getting. Mostly wandering brawl with 2 guys occasional rolling into the ring to do stuff, then back out. In between that you get shots of Winger putting a headlock on Matsunaga backstage and strolling up the stairs. There were a few cool individual moments, such as the big Nakamaki dive to open the whole thing, Pogo hitting some Tenryu kicks on a bloody Matsunaga, Matsunaga hitting karate kicks and the Undertaker walk on the balcon, Pogo bringing out a barbed wire drill and Jason working Jason spots. This was falls count anywhere so there were also some cool spots where they had multiple referees and fans on the outside would count along when a nearfall happened. Finish is Jason working his „resurrection“ spot a bunch (yeah Shadow WX you loser you're not going over JASON) and winning with a god damn Northern Lights Bomb. Jason The Terrible is indestructable and it rules.

This show top to bottom was not as good as the IWA Japan stuff but it had an absolute killer obscure gem in Usuda/Hidaka vs. Fujita/Honma (I totally expect one of you granddads to tell me how eveerrrryone put that one on their VHS comps back then and talked it up as a **** 3/4 match on random obscure DVDVR offshoot boards). Everything else delivered as you'd expect and I always enjoy checking out a random card like this.

[leo]

just coming in here to chime in on the WDF praise, they put on solid shows (if a little bizarre at times, though keeping with the general 90s sleaze theme) and I will watch pretty much any Masashi Aoyagi footage on principle.

 

Really enjoyed this one in particular, with the match being in front of no more than 50 people making it that much more fun to watch. 

[leo]

while I am at it, I compiled all the Victor Quiñones promos from the W*ING best-of boxsets, figured this might be a good place to share.

 

 

[SPS]

1 hour ago, leo said:

while I am at it, I compiled all the Victor Quiñones promos from the W*ING best-of boxsets, figured this might be a good place to share.

 

 

These were yours? Nice work, I really enjoyed these when I watched them a while back.

[G. Badger]

Hahaha! Very nice. Yes, this is a perfect little home for these gems Thanks for sharing!

[El-P]

"Crypt the Keeper !!!" That's legendary stuff (I know, this was in IWA, not WIN*G as far as I know)

And really, I take any of these quick goofy pro-wrestling promos over the modern WWE format of endless badly acted charmless monologues and dull back and forth neverending exchanges.

[Jetlag]

Not an obscure fed, but some really interesting early material from DDT (of which there is far too little):

DDT Ichika Bachika THE BATTLE OF THE MILLENIUM Commercial Tape 12/22/99

Issei Fujisawa vs. Nise Onita

Daisaku & Yusaku vs. Kengo Takai & Super Uchu Power

Three On Two Handicap Street Fight: Naoshi Sano & Poison Sawada BLACK vs. Misae-chan & Mitsunobu Kikuzawa & Shigeo Kato

Kamen Shooter Super Rider & Neo Winger & Tanomusaku Toba vs. Exciting Yoshida & Phantom Funakoshi & Yuki Nishino

Takashi Sasaki vs. Kyohei Mikami

Masashi Aoyagi & Mitsuya Nagai & Ryuma Go vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Koichiro Kimura & Masahiko Orihara

Sanshiro Takagi vs.s Masao Orihara

I gotta say, this early version of DDT is a lot cooler than what we have now. It's kind of like every DDT side brand rolled into one: you had the bizarre stuff (Fake Onita in the opener, Misae Genki stiffing the hell out of the men in a confusing bloody street fight and Poison Sawada with his rare BLACK look), the fun stiff undertag with DAISAKU and YUSAKU with Daisaku especially looking like he should have been a star (tall, good looking and had brutal kicks) and Super Uchu Power kicking people in the face, and a more experimental shootstyle influenced tag which had Super Rider in a Gi, a bunch of IWE tribute dudes and Tanomusaku Toba kicking and punching everyone in the face, also included MUGA vs. quasi-shootstyle matwork between Rider and Funakoshi aswell as plenty stiffness.

Takashi Sasaki vs. Mikami was a pretty great and maybe the ultimate japanese indy epic of the late 90s.

The semi main event with the sleaze gods was as fun as it looks on paper. Everyone potatoed eachother, and Kimura had a good night, stomping the shit out of Go and locking in nasty submissions. The one detriment was that Go was there to bring the charisma and the crowd didn't seem to know how to react to him which is weird for a DDT crowd.

The main event was a full swing Attitude Era tribute match with copious outside intererence from Oriharas stooges (including a Santa Clause distraction spot), blood, chairshots, low blows and a few devastating moves. Takagi was already using the Stone Cold music but not the Stunner.

So there you have it all, you get the more traditional wrestling, some Attitude Era style brawling, stiff quasi-shootstyle stuff, plus a bonafide epic in Sasaki/Mikami. And they showed EVERY match in full!!

 

[Edwin]

@Jetlagdo you have a link for that DDT comm.?

Not that it matters, but I don't recall Takagi using the Stunner as a straight up finisher in his matches, he used the TKO instead and the Sanshiro Dust which is similar to the corner rotating Stunner Shark Boy does. He also has the Sanshiro Stunner and the Sanshiro Stunner 2000 which are a DDT and a double underhook DDT. His big match finisher is the HIRAWAMI BOMB which is a Powerbomb variation.

I was a massive DDT fan back from the early 2000's to the late 2000's before I lost interest in wrestling. I remember the Dick Togo and Antonio Honda feud breaking out after they dissolved the Metal Vampire faction.

[Jetlag]

2 hours ago, Edwin said:

@Jetlagdo you have a link for that DDT comm.?

 

I bought the tape.

Takagi was using the spike DDT as a finisher in that match.

DDT has a ton of interesting matchups. Unfortunately there only seem to be 3 shows available from 1998-1999.

[Jetlag]

Monthly Sleaze Indy Review: This time we got Kendo Nagasakis NOW.

NOW 8/9/1992

1. Goro Tsurumi vs. Unidentified Rookie

2. Don Arakwa vs. Kishin Kawabata

3. Apollo Sugawara vs. Hiroshi Hatanaka

4. Goro Tsurumi vs. Fumihiro Niikura (Boxing)

5. George & Shunji Takano vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Kenichi (Hisakatsu) Oya

 

NOW was one of 3 or 4 companies that SWS split into. And well this sure does look like an SWS card without the big stars or foreigners doesn't it? There is some fun stuff to be seen here though. The opener is a 3 minute exhibition with Tsurumi looking the best I've ever seen him as this match was nothing but amateur style grappling. SoTsurumi is not required to do any pro wrestling or match struture and instead is just there credibly putting a nondescript black trunks guy in his place by tapping him repeatedly with nasty crossfaces and toeholds in entertaining fashion.

Arakawa/Kawabata was also unexpectedly great as it was that classic japanese material of two tubby guys trading big fucking beatings. Arakawa is known as a comedy worker and while there are some laughs and exaggerated body language this is competitive. Starts great with Kawabata slapping him and Arakawa dumping him with a huge german suplex. Lots of hurty looking slaps and Arakawa punches ensue. We also get some fun Arakawa matwork aswell as a dive tease. This was the most inspired I've seen Kawabata look as he would really lay into Arakawa with kicks and palms and ram him like a bull. What does it say about Kawabata that his most inspired performance is some fancam undercard match against a comedy wrestler from some long forgotten offshoot company?

Sugawara/Hatanaka was a long, basic match. Both guys could lay in a stiff shot once in a while and had some nice offense (Hatanaka in particular), but I'd be lying if I said if they weren't slightly over their heads going 15+ minutes when these two belong in tags at this point. Tsurumi/Niikura was a boxing gloves match and much less exciting than Tsurumis grappling in the opener. Niikura always throws boxing punch combos in in pro style matches and that is much cooler than fake boxing.

The main event had little story to it but was a string of cool moments. You had Shunji Takano working as sleazy Jumbo Tsuruta walloping everyone with huge kicks and knees, George Takano & Oya having a great moment trading shotais and Nagasaki in his working boots hitting the mat and dishing out big kicks. Oyas execution was sharper than later in FMW but he didn't seem to have a clue on how to add direction to the match. Just when things started to get heated when Nagasaki said Fuck This and went to blast Shunji Takano with the chairs as Kendo Nagasaki does an Umanosuke Ueda run in happens and the match just ends. Kind of a bullshit thing to end your main event of a Korakuen Hall show like this but I actually want to see more NOW now.

 

[Edwin]

When NOW folded, Big Japan was founded.

[Jetlag]

BOYS!! It's my favourite time of the year - that time when I spend my hard earned money to buy indy sleaze tapes, and then tell YOU about it.

NOW 2/14/1993

 

1. Kishin Kawabata vs. An Che Honn

2. The Equalizer vs. Kim Chon Hyon

3. Buddy Landell vs. Rod Price

4. Hisakatsu Oya vs. Alex Porteau

5. Manny Fernandez vs. Apollo Sugawara

6. Ishinriki vs. Hiroshi Hatanaka

7. Atsushi Onita & Kendo Nagasaki vs. Goro Tsurumi & Umanosuke Ueda

 

I watched the last NOW card and wanted to see more, so I got more. And well, this was another really fun card! We start with 2 singles matches starring obscure korean workers. Korean pro wrestling seems to have a similiar history to japanese pro wrestling only that it kind of died off over the years, but it's such a great unknown on the english speaking internet. In a different universe we are all raving about korean pro wrestling while nobody knows who Rikidozan is. I've only seen glimpses of korean wrestlers and all of them were from japanese promotions pitting them against japanese workers, which I assume is kind of a barrier, assuming there is a language barriere there and these workers come from different backgrounds and styles. Plus, with 1992 undercard indy matches, you mostly check them out for curiousity, especially when such illustrious names as Kishin Kawabata and The Equalizer are in them. And these undercard matches delivered all you can ask for. Kawabata vs. An Che Honn was pretty much a showcase of fun offense – with Kawabata hitting big headbutts, kicks to the spine, biiiiig jumping elbow drops and sentons – and An Che Honn hitting some pretty agile junior offense. The korean was doing standing moonsaults, backflips, flip sentons where he landed with his hip first in really hurty fashion. Dare I say, was this guy an unknown innovator from 25 years ago? Or was he just imitating what he saw on Peruvian wrestling tapes from 20 years prior? Then he hits this cool punch/kick combo and I'm all on board for the Korean Pro Wrestling train. Eitherway, that match didn't have real structure as basically Kawabata went back to offense immediately after An Che had hit his spots, but it was a fun showcase. Kawabata wins with a big leaping elbow drop and that rules. The next match had slightly better structure – I've never seen The Equalizer before and he looks like a fake Kevin Sullivan – google tells me he was a Kevin Sullivan gimmick brother – apparently he was in WCW. If you are a Fake Sullivan superfan you probably need to see this match, because it's like a really fun WCW TV match for a minute. Equalizer works „I'm bigger and you can't knock me over“, and Korakuen Hall pops when the obscure korean finally bodyslams him! Fake Sullivan hits a BIG second rope legdrop! Kim Chon Hyon hits all kinds of fun out of nowhere kicks! Equalizer brawls his way to the countout finish, and because the camera guy filming this is kind of slow you don't really get what's happening. After the match Tsurumi comes out and looks pissed at the koreans!

 

Landell vs. Price – this is what US Indy workers working japanese promotions used to look like!! Tubby blonde white guys who don't care about impressing anybody and instead just work a psychologically sound match! And well I'll be a son of a bitch, because these two go out of their way to work a Southern BattlARTS match! They hit snug elbows, thundering chops and hurty looking punches and toe kicks, and also work fun drop toe holds and fireman carries into leg rides on the ground. It was a slow paced, deliberate match, mind you, but damn! I wanna see more wrestling like this!! You are probably thinking to yourself „Oh you lying german bastard. You spent 4$ on this tape and now you are imagining things to trick yourself into thinking this was good.“ Well bugger off, because this low key ruled. Price absolutely clocks Landell with a stiff clothesline out of nowhere. Landell works snug wristlocks and toeholds (inbetween Wooo!s for the crowd) only for Price to come up and punch him in the cheek. Price blocks a surfboard so Landell goes for a single leg crab instead and kicks Price in the ribs while holding that. Price fights out of an armbar and locks in a UWF leglock which Landell sells like a Figure 4 with his shouders down for the pinfall. Landell comes up limping and Price immediately follows up with more snug lowkicks. What the hell is happening?? Landell dares Price to take him down, who promptly does just that. Landell fights off the Price takedowns – including one by doing an awesome Fujiwara sprawl and now the crowd is really digging all this was we move closer to the 20 minute mark in a match with a 20 minute time limit. They really go broadway here and work nearfalls for sleeper holds and Figure 4s. Prices last move before the draw is a 10 Punch in the corner for a close 2 count. This was such a weird broadway but they really did a pro job working a sound match that won everyone over.

 

After that we get two more matches featuring US guys. IT'S HISAKATSU OYA vs. THE PUG!!! And they hit the mat!! Damn, is NOW scientific wrestling central of the 90s japanese indy scene?! Oya looks better here than he did in both BattlARTS and MUGA. He really wrenches Porteaus t shoulder and arm with some snug holds. Porteau is on the very, very bland side here. He has a nice headlock punch though. But before The Pug can bore you to sleep Oya absolutely KILLS him with the backdrop suplex! Golly!! Nasty Oya submissions and that insane bump are totally enough for me to give this the Full Japan Indy Point. Next up is Thee Manny Fernandez vs. Apollo Sugawara. And that was a fun short match too. Fernandez has the Finlay mullet and his charisma and mannerisms shine through even on a handheld. Match was fun in that short WCW TV match way. Sugawara still has really nice dropkicks and Fernandez takes a really nice backdrop bump for him. Fernandez also hits some really nice slug clotheslines. He also wins with a nasty shootstyle toe hold which is unexpected and rules, like pretty much everthing on this card so far.

 

Ishinriki vs. Hiroshi Hatanaka was, unlike pretty much everything else on this card, something you could've shown to your average juniors loving 90s smark and he would've agree that it was a cool match. Two pudgy juniors go 20 minutes and there are some big nearfalls down the stretch. I really enjoyed the match as they did a good job filling the time, these two guys have really good looking basics, really fast explosive shoulderblocks and armdrags etc. Hatanaka looked especially good, hitting lariats with a ton of snap, big kneedrops and leg drops, really nice powerslam etc. His Fujiwara armbar counter may have been the highlight of the match. He also hit at one point a huge legdrop that looked like it would shoot KO someone and Ishinriki was either legit knocked loopy or Ishinriki is really good at selling „I just had a 200 pound japanese dude drop his weight on my jaw and I don't know where the fuck I am“. It's this kind of match that gets you really over with japanese crowds and they both came out looking like they should've been kings of the indies but instead they just completely fell off the map in the mid 90s. I thought the match could've been really great with a little more stiffness and hatred – they tease flaring tempers in the first minute and never really follow up – or maybe some kind of more pronounced story, but they achived what they were going for without hiccups and this was just a really cool match to see.

 

The main event was all about the superstar charisma of Onita as the crowd is absolutely white hot for him. Unfortunately once again some kind of sports entertainment crept into it as Ueda refused to cooperate with Tsurumi. To be fair, Tsurumi looked good here, and the guys potatoeing eachother sections were fun. Tsurumi was doing the backfists before the were cool and hitting nice punches, also Nagasaki has ridculously great kicks here, just trying to boot dudes heads off, plus Manny Fernandez was at ringside with a kendo stick. But once again the match ended early. The coolest thing to come out of this was a brief Manny Fernandez/Tarzan Goto face off which is the greatest match of the 90s that never happened.

 

So there you have it. Two really good matches, fun undercard, lots of coolness throughout, Tarzan Goto in a funny 90s getup... I'm all on board for the NOW hype train by now.

[King of Debt]

Has this been a widely-known thing or is this new? An old IWA Kokusai tape, I know the 14/5 has been around for a minute but I didn't know about this one.

Also turns out there's a channel with a bunch of PRO-WRESTLING NIGHTMARE (NMC). Granted, that's still not 90s but it's the successor promotion to Yume Factory, it's still sleazy as hell and there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of this outside of the one tape Lynch has, so it seems to fit this thread better than anywhere else.

[Jetlag]

WOW!! Thank you for bringing that NMC channel up! Totally flew under my radar.