Kintaro Oki

[Grimmas]

GOTNW said:

"I'm reserving judgement on what caliber of a worker he was in a comparative and historical sense, but I can say he is an absolute lock for my list. If you like workers in the Choshu tradition (like Kensuke Sasaki, Ishii or the BJW strong guys), Tenryu and the W.A.R. style, Fit Finlay, or even older workers Johnny Valentine and Wahoo McDaniel, I think you absolutely owe it to yourself to check out his work and give him a shot. His tight style and brawling attract immediate attention, but he is a skilled matworker too. Plus, how can you dislike a wrestler who worked a gimmick based on how hard his head was?"

[Jetlag]

He looks absolutely phenomenal in the Inoki match. Everything else I've seen him in has been solid to good, although I was hoping to find more like that performance. I know a weird guy who insists his match vs. Abby is the best thing AJPW did in the 70s. Apparently he was a big star in South Korea and I have a feint hope to see some of that stuff be unearthed sometime.

[ohtani's jacket]

That Inoki match is so good. There's gotta be something else. He can't just be a one match wonder. 

[Reel]

He takes a hell of a beating in the Valentine/Krofatt JWA tag.

[elliott]

I watched the matches against Inoki, Baba & Abdullah and I liked all of them so much. The Inoki one is the  best but they're all worth your time. Definitely interested in looking at more of his stuff. I dunno if he's a candidate yet, but I really like this style of wrestling.

[strobogo]

On 4/15/2021 at 7:30 AM, ohtani's jacket said:

That Inoki match is so good. There's gotta be something else. He can't just be a one match wonder. 

There's an excellent Baba/Jumbo vs Oki/Kim Duk from 10/28/76 that is just a super hateful tag you'd much more associate with the Choshu or Jumbo vs Misawa eras that is definitely a must see. They have a rematch on 12/9/76 that is around the same level.

[KinchStalker]

Yeah, those tags are great. I actually think it was you proselytizing about them on a different message board a while back that made me check them out. 

There's also a 1977 Jumbo singles match from his Trial Series that popped up on YouTube at literally the very end of 2020 (in my timezone, at least). It's not major but it's worth seeing.

[strobogo]

I have a singles match with Baba on the rec list but can't remember anything about it. There were a lot of Baba/Jumbo vs Oki/Duk tags and the two from 1976 were the only ones that stood out at all, but they were awesome. Otherwise I have this: 

 

7/6/79

Giant Baba-Rocky Hata vs. Kintaro Oki-Moose Morowski

Recommended

 

and that seems really hard to believe to my eyes now. I must have been in a good mood that day or something.

[ohtani's jacket]

2 hours ago, strobogo said:

There's an excellent Baba/Jumbo vs Oki/Kim Duk from 10/28/76 that is just a super hateful tag you'd much more associate with the Choshu or Jumbo vs Misawa eras that is definitely a must see. They have a rematch on 12/9/76 that is around the same level.

The 10/76 match is awesome. Kind of surreal watching Jumbo and Baba go after Kim Duk's nose like that, and Jumbo was downright rude to Joe. Those kids mugging for the camera at the end were hilarious, especially when one of them falls on the commentator. 

[elliott]

^ Well hot damn I know what I'm watching next! Thanks you all rock! 

[Childs]

I don't think I had ever watched that tag before, and it was great fun. It was more of a showcase for pissed off young Jumbo and even for Kim Duk than it was for Oki, but you sure get the sense that he understood how to be at the the heart of some mayhem. 

[ohtani's jacket]

The rematch isn't as good, but you get a lot more Oki vs. Baba, and Oki is definitely my kind of wrestler. Kim Duk isn't half bad either. I was under the impression that he wasn't very good. Not sure where I got that idea from. 

[strobogo]

If I had to guess, probably from his WWF run as basically everyone coming in from Japan had looked not good in the WWF basically up to Asuka, or at least Tajiri.

[ohtani's jacket]

Fujinami, Inoki, Dump, Bull, Chigusa, Lioness, Jumping Bomb Angels, Aja & the AJW crew, Hakushi, and early Taka and Sasuke looked okay. 

[strobogo]

Did they look anywhere near as good as they looked in Japan, though? 

[ohtani's jacket]

I don't think they looked bad. The JBA were the only ones that had a proper run, though, I guess. 

Man, the Abdullah vs. Oki matches are everything you'd want them to be. I'm watching the second one right now and Oki attacking Abby's ribs with headbutts is incredible. I have to believe Yoshiaki Fujiwara saw these matches and thought they were the greatest thing ever. 

I also watched a crappy Animal Hamaguchi match. Animal Hamaguchi sucks. He's the kind of guy you assume must be good because of his name. Did he ever have a good match aside from the one against Jumbo?

[strobogo]

6 hours ago, ohtani's jacket said:

I don't think they looked bad. The JBA were the only ones that had a proper run, though, I guess. 

Man, the Abdullah vs. Oki matches are everything you'd want them to be. I'm watching the second one right now and Oki attacking Abby's ribs with headbutts is incredible. I have to believe Yoshiaki Fujiwara saw these matches and thought they were the greatest thing ever. 

I also watched a crappy Animal Hamaguchi match. Animal Hamaguchi sucks. He's the kind of guy you assume must be good because of his name. Did he ever have a good match aside from the one against Jumbo?

1/3/85

Riki Choshu-Animal Hamaguchi vs. Genichiro Tenryu-Motoshi Okuma

Bloody

Highly Recommended

 

 

4/21/85

Genichiro Tenryu-Takashi Ishikawa vs. Animal Hamaguchi-Riki Choshu

Highly Recommended

 

6/2/85

Animal Hamaguchi-Riki Choshu-Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Genichiro Tenryu-Jumbo Tsuruta-Motoshi Okuma

Highly Recommended

6/4/85

Genichiro Tenryu-Takashi Ishikawa vs. Animal Hamaguchi-Riki Choshu

Joined in progress, bloody

Highly Recommended

6/21/85

Animal Hamaguchi-Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. Jumbo Tsuruta-Takashi Ishikawa

Highly Recommended

 

I have a number of other tags around the same time as recommended. Singles wise, the Jumbo match in the AJPW vs JPW series is the only singles match even in the Archive since 

9/26/73

Animal Hamaguchi vs. Mighty Inoue

Recommended

 

So it's hard to judge him as a singles guy  but he ends up doing much of the work inIshin Gundan tags

 

[Matt D]

Riki Choshu, Shinya Hashimoto, & Ricky Steamboat vs. Big Van Vader, Bam Bam Bigelow, & Animal Hamaguchi (10/11/90)

I remember liking that, especially post match stuff with him

[ohtani's jacket]

The 1967 Kosak match shows Oki could wrestle too. That adds another wrinkle to his case. Great use of the headbutts too. They have this cool wrestling match and then Kosak is gold at the end. You've got to see what happens when he tries to punch Oki. 

[elliott]

^ Looking forward to this match.

Gotta say, I've really enjoyed every single Kintaro Oki match I've watched thus far. I wasn't expecting him to be the first "unknown" (to me) guy I really explored but I've just sort of stumbled into it and keep seeing matches I like. Thanks to everyone for these recs. 

[NintendoLogic]

On 4/21/2021 at 10:32 PM, ohtani's jacket said:

I also watched a crappy Animal Hamaguchi match. Animal Hamaguchi sucks. He's the kind of guy you assume must be good because of his name. Did he ever have a good match aside from the one against Jumbo?

He's part of the amazing 6/26/90 ten-man, but New Japan multi-mans are basically a cheat code.

[ohtani's jacket]

The Bockwinkel/Oki match is a bit disappointing. That may be because it's clipped, but IWE Oki hasn't been very good so far. 

[El McKell]

On 4/15/2021 at 7:41 AM, Jetlag said:

 I know a weird guy who insists his match vs. Abby is the best thing AJPW did in the 70s. 

There's two of those matches, do you know which one they were talking about?

[KinchStalker]

Probably the 1975 one at the Rikidozan Memorial show. It's absolutely effective at what it is.

It's not the one that I have a pin-up of, though. Mulling over putting this up. 

[GOTNW]

I've done a 360 on Oki. At first I was like "this guy is out of this world great why wasn't everyone talking about him before". Then I was like "yeah he looks great in some stuff but then there's actually a lot of matches where he almost feels like a non-presence so it almost makes sense he'd get overlooked". But now I am firmly in the camp which assesses Kintaro Oki was the driving force behind some of the greatest wrestling of all time and was an absolute beast of a wrestler; even if he might not set the world on fire if you autoplay a random tag match, but who cares? Well, maybe you do, but I don't. I'm here for the good stuff, give me enough of it and I'll be forgiving. Terry Funk was doing stupid stuff in Puerto Rico in 1986, are you really gonna look down on the wrestler who had the Lawler and Hansen matches because of that? Anyway. Back to Rikidozan's 3rd and unjustly forgotten student.

Do you like minimalism in pro-wrestling? If the answer is no, I don't think Oki is gonna be your guy. You need to really be into it. Even if you claim you love minimalism in pro wrestling, Oki is a test for you. He really might be the most minimalist wrestler of all time. Once you start watching him, try to name one move he regularly does other than the Headbutt. What, you can't? That's what I thought. Who needs moves when you can just stare at someone intensively. Building suspense and tension, almost annoying the crowd before an explosion lets loose and it all turns into a frenzy. This is what Kintaro Oki is all bout. Sometimes it's not about suspense, he'll go out there and just Headbutt someone a million times. But the emoting, the selling, the body language, it's all top notch. Oki just get it, he knows how to project himself like few others do.

 

Right now I'd say his best matches are:

vs Antonio Inoki (1974/10/10)

vs Seiji Sakaguchi (1975/5/16)

vs Giant Baba (1975/10/30)

vs Abdullah The Butcher (12/11/1975)

w/Kim Duk vs Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta (10/28/1976)

w/Kim Duk vs Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta (12/9/1976)

vs Giant Baba (10/29/1977)

w/Kim Duk vs Rusher Kimura & Great Kusatsu (1977/12/14)

vs Giant Baba (4/1/1978)

 

The JWA stuff has faded from memory a bit, but if I were to go back at it I'd probably include something from there. There has to be more from his team with Kim Duk too. Still, I feel comfortable saying I'm at a point where I've seen enough Oki I'll be watching more not because I need additional information to judge exactly what level of worker he was, but out of sheer hedonism. Right now he's safely in my top 30 and one of the million wrestlers I'm considering for the top 10/15 tier.