(Mostly) Complete & (Barely) Accurate Reiko "Carlos" Amano

[Ma Stump Puller]

Other Deep Dive stuff

 Introduction

Carlos Amano's pretty based, but I was really bothered a few months back because there just wasn't much if any comprehensive coverage on WHAT matches represented her coolness factor the best, especially to a more casual audience that didn't have the time to really discover these sort of things. This totally original thread that hasn't stolen a lick of creative value will attempt to document and list pretty much every major match (alongside some random selections) of her career....minus some showings that I either wasn't able to cover or wasn't bothered to do so, like the VKF tags (mostly boring) her Kamen matches (they suck) and a good few of her really early 1995/early 96 matches (pretty much all of them have nothing of value). Outside of that I hope that this is a valuable resource to anyone looking to get into this era of wrestling as it's immensely rewarding once you get a hang of what to try to find.

Matches will be sorted as what you definitely haven't seen elsewhere: EPIC, GREAT, FUN or SKIPPABLE. I will add in a DECENT for matches that aren't necessarily reaching the point of being "fun" nor truly skippable either. Kinda like a 6/10 rating if that makes any sense. 

I also do dates in the Euro style so it's day/month/year in case anyone is confused at first. Some matches have their own pages on here so I will just link to those when necessary. 

 

1995

Reiko Amano vs Tomoko Miyaguchi JWP (16/06/95): DECENT

Spoiler

The first Amano/Ran Ran singles and it's predictively their weakest given the relative inexperience of both involved. Ran's grappling was kinda sucky (tho better when she was in control) but Amano even at this point had a couple of cool submissions on her belt like a Achilles Tendon hold or whatnot, Ran also had some really nifty counters like escaping a headscissors by moving over and rolling over Amano's back to go into a clutch. There's a lot of screaming and shouting to presumably cover up their spot calling and general lack of impact which does get grating after a few minutes of it. Outside of that, this was fairly by the numbers but helped by the more messy structure in that it felt less "safe" and more experimental, like you aren't gonna have 2 minutes of intense surfboard struggles in any other serious match apart from something like this lol. It was impressive that they were able to slowly drag out responses from the very much dead crowd over the course of the match by double-downing on the intensity, especially honing in on slapping each other fairly hard in places for some big pops. They also got some legit cool sequences near the last third like Amano catching the ankle off a big boot attempt to go into an ankle lock alongside the pair running through some fast holds.

The roll-up finish was fairly lame but it fit what they were already doing to build up to said finish so I couldn't complain THAT much about it all things considered, though I would've definitely preferred a clean finish. This was fairly basic as per standards for two rookies, you could tell that these two more than a good few in the same year got "it" though. Ran even at this point was massively athletic and Amano was the more technically inclined of the two, showing off with some amateur-style pin attempts. Their natural styles clash (Ran's lucha vs Amano's grounded antics) is really the secret to why these two seem to always kill it together. This was just the beginning of that, sadly, so I'd say this got heated yet never quite got off the rookie stink that it very clearly had stuck onto it. 

Reiko Amano vs Bolshoi Kid JWP (10/31/95): FUN

 

1996

Reiko Amano vs Bolshoi Kid JWP (07/04/96): FUN

Reiko Amano & Tomoko Miyaguchi vs Command Bolshoi & Kanako Motoya JWP (21/04/96): DECENT 

Spoiler

This was a decent look-in at what the mix of future talent JWP had at the time; three of the four here will go on to be pretty damn good wrestlers. Even in this very early match you can tell there's a lot of that potential bubbling under the surface: Amano is already a very good bumper and seller while Bolshoi has a lot of her lucha shtick nailed in. This match itself is essentially a spin on what a lucha outing would look like with loads of fast-paced action and quick tags between everyone involved. Motoya is the least seasoned as anyone with decent eyes can notice and she does have by far the weakest moments here; lots of weird offence (at one point she just keeps awkwardly pushing her opponents over like this is a sumo match) and consistent screaming at seemingly very little. The match carries itself fine despite some botching here and there, getting strongest with Bolshoi/Amano as they tend to have the smoothest work with the best timing. That bit where Bolshoi tries running off for some random spot and Amano instantly snatches her up for a inverted kneebar was really cool and felt very close to something you'd see in a Battlarts undercard or something. The last few minutes consisted of Myaguchi trying to get a upset with roll-ups only to get wrecked by a Doomsday Device and Amano's sick headscissors/armbar combination hold to get the win. Messy but enjoyable young talent outing that had some bright moments for sure despite the general greenness on display.

 

Reiko Amano vs The Bloody Phoenix AJW (18/05/96): SKIPPABLE 

Spoiler

Based matchup (Bloody is absolutely one of those talents with so much on the table, it's just that most of it is, sadly, buried to the sands of time because she was mostly active during the Dark Age) between two strong talents. I'd dare say potentially great if it happened a few years later when these two were much more refined and experienced. This match is mostly played fairly by the books as Amano kept control of most of it with her submissions and hold work. Bloody is very dodgy (at one point stumbling over herself trying to do a Irish Whip and falling into the turnbuckle) and I'd say was a good while away from her better years as a wrestler. The match is very much aware of it as she does next to no actual spots of her own as Amano basically takes charge for most of the duration surprisingly well for her experience level. She does do some stuff...mostly stunk, included a awful dropkick attempt and rather reckless slaps, one of which she bizarrely does into a weird tackle for a pin attempt lol. The finish of this was real rough as Amano stuck on some inverted figure four and Bloody sold really well as she tapped out, only to then discover that she might've been actually hurt as she struggles to get up. She did already have a bandaged leg which might explain the issue there, Amano cuts a pretty sad post-match promo where she seems legitimately upset about the whole thing. No idea the true L O R E behind this one but regardless I just think this wasn't very good at all. Bloody looked to be in no condition to really be put out on such a big stage and Amano while very competent for a Ozaki trainee just didn't have the tools yet to really make this any less awkward bar a couple of really reckless bumps. Had this happened in, say, 1999/2000 I would've been 100% confident these two would have knocked it out of the park but that's life, I suppose.

Reiko Amano & Mayumi Ozaki vs Dynamite Kansai & Tomoko Miyaguchi JWP (16/06/96): GREAT

Spoiler

One of the better Oz/Amano tags all things considered despite this going a bit too long in the tooth for my liking. In regards to Amano's performance here it's still obviously limited (and rather behind the other Fab Four members in terms of fancy spots) but she knows how to bump and sell quite well and her desperation spots where she's able to use Ozaki's assistance to at times just frail on someone's leg or arm for dear life is uniquely chaotic and really gets over her weak position on the totem pole nicely. Dynamite is a big hoss here; one of those epic spots had her deadlift Ozaki with one arm and into a top rope dropkick by Ran/Miyaguchi, like that's just objectively cool regardless of who's doing it so I wasn't going to judge the realism of anything going on there lol. I thought this was actually one of Ozaki's weaker performances all things considered; she did flub a couple of bits and generally I'm not watching Ozaki sequences for their limb work (of which this was trying to be in places involving Dyna's bad leg being in play) because she's really not that kind of performer at the end of the day. She does much better at selling, especially pulling from Kawada as she acts dead after being given a nasty punt to the head by Dyna, doing so even when having alcohol spat at her by the latter. It seems like she was fine given they get back into action with a outside scuffle, but the fact that I can't tell 100% is absolutely testament to the performances here. Dynamite was definitely the MVP of the match though, just tons of complete malice when in control while also carefully balancing selling her bad leg as the match crept on. Not a very easy job but she makes it look seamless.

Even the small bits where she's helping out a rookie Ran by grabbing her hand to stick on the rope to escape an nasty submission or throwing her to the outside with a big dirty grin, even shrugging off attempted offence because it wouldn't make sense for her to take (like Amano trying to hit her off the ropes with a elbow, for instance, she just no sells that shit and hits her own) are great little things that really add to her overall work here. The lead-in for the finish was interesting as it had Oz and Dynamite land their big bombs early for near falls respectfully, but Amano's scrappy antics focused around targeting Dyna's leg lets Ozaki survive long enough to counter a top rope Splash Mountain into a nice top rope DDT for a dub spot. The finish actually came from the younger talent as they exchanged their own little bits of offence, including a pretty cool top rope Fujiwara armbar by Amano that just barely misses the mark by Ran hitting the ropes at the last second. Ran then ends up winning with a random roll up while Ozaki and co are too busy scrapping on the outside to prevent it happening; kinda sucks for all the buildup here to end on something like that but I do get why it's there as a way to protect pretty much everyone involved nor does it really matter given the whole focus is about Ozaki/Dynamite and not them. As a whole I still thought this was a great match as a whole with a ton of smaller elements balanced remarkably well, from the bigger stars going at it to letting the rookie talent actually be important rather than just pushovers, something that JWP especially around this time was probably the best at doing in comparison to NJPW (lol who) and AJPW (where they either get no TV time or treated like jobbers).

Reiko Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato GAEA (16/11/96): DECENT

Spoiler

Perfectly alright (albeit somewhat clipped alongside commentary from a very young Meiko) semi-main focused around showing off Oz alongside a pretty great list of prospective future big talent. The match layout basically had that front and centre with one sequence literally being all of them doing dives one after the other to get that over. There are some pretty cool spots though like some innovative chair bits between the two teams and Ozaki makes sure to hit all of the greatest hits throughout while also having some generous selling for the younger talent when it mattered. Very transparently set up as a movez match more so than anything else but definitely one that ticks that box fairly well. Some feel rougher than others (Amano especially just felt a tier below her GAEA contemporaries here, a bit stiff and lacking in high impact offence since it was something she just wasn't very versed in at the time) yet still was a blast to watch at the end of the day because you could tell everyone here was definitely aiming to show off a bit. Enjoyable burst of action all things considered. 

 

1997

Reiko Amano & Mayumi Ozaki vs Devil Masami & Hikari Fukuoka JWP (09.02.97): GREAT

Spoiler

Incredible action-packed tag that had some standout performances from the Ozaki duo and Devil. Fukuoka isn't bad here per-se, but she definitely felt like the Jannetty of the four compared to everyone else; she's good, everyone else here just had way more work in the tank compared to her. This was a really great rush of action that came and went like it was barely 5 minutes despite going nearly 20 as everyone just hits big impactful stuff alongside really well done spots built around the dynamics of the tag itself.

Amano for me stood out heavily in this match for her experience level; the bit right at the start where she gets pissed because Fukuoka and co are too busy staring daggers into Oz instead of paying attention to her and instantly goes into pitbull mode with headbutts and all sorts of scrappy shit was great aggression and really something many people with double her years couldn't really do authentically. Amano is a great emoter as well so she can flip on a dime and go into wounded rookie building a hot tag real easily despite all of the above still holding true. She takes some incredible bumps (especially one German suplex where she hurls herself so violently that she basically bangs off the middle rope in the process) and works her role as the weak link tremendously well, taking some absolutely disgusting bombs from the pair to get that over. Oz was the opposite: she could keep things under control and of course could throw out her usual crazy work when needed. She does noticeably hold back a bit both in-match and out to let Amano's terrific selling and struggle be extenuated more, only emerging to get hot tags or to stop a pin at the very last moment. Her apron work is stellar and she does a good job at getting convincingly close to outsmarting the opposing duo at points despite having to typically do so by herself.

Devil was REALLY the star of the show here though. She's so economic when it comes to condensing her work down to get the maximum amount of impact; typically only needing to loom over people and do her crazy face to get good reactions. She also gets some insanely awesome power spots where she just gets to throw people around all over the place (and I do mean all over, even some far away rows of Korakuen chairs aren't safe from bodies flying at them) really seeming like a unstoppable threat that can just turn the match at any point if she gets her hands on someone. She's got some solid understated "big deal" selling as well where she sparingly takes huge bumps and instead focuses on conveying a lot through little subtle moments instead where it's more about wearing her down more than anything else. It makes the batshit crazy finish all the better of which I won't spoil because it's just that nuts. Solid match that has a lot about it to enjoy; my only real issues were the dodgy selling at points that got a bit much near the end with some questionable moments. I won't hammer that issue down too much though because it wasn't that much of a tangible issue and they were self-aware enough to finish well before it got too much. Looking at Devil here and what she'll be in the next year or so is very sad. 

Rieko Amano & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Megumi Kudo & RIE JWP (08/04/97): FUN

Spoiler

I don't think I could say more than what near every other person has on this match. It's a fairly well-done build tag that completely forgets about the "build" part and becomes its own batshit crazy hardcore brawl. Amano and RIE are mostly here just to be annoying sidekicks that disrupt and cover up the Kudo/Ozaki moments with their own shit to make this as unpredictable as possible. The result is something that I don't think adds anything to Amano's case, but is definitely worth the watch regardless just for how messy it is. I'd say go find Evito's review if you want more detail on the positives and negatives of this because it pretty much says everything I could here.

 

Reiko Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Akira Hokuto & Maiko Matsumoto GAEA (21/04/97: DECENT

Spoiler

About as obvious a mismatch as you can get, this was still quite strong though. The two Oz rookies are essentially just little shits who want to double team and beat up Hokuto a lot for her antics in their own company...but of course they're rookies so it doesn't really end well. Matsumoto is also fairly newish so she tends to be the one that fails to keep up the domineering pace that Hokuto brings whenever she's able to do her usual business in-ring. It was also pretty cool to see Amano brutalise her in response to what Hokuto did earlier with some lucha-torture holds. Nagashima is fairly small (even by jr joshi standards) but she has loads of lucha rolls and transitions to make her presence a bit more believable. Matsumoto is probably the weakest out of everyone in the match; her offence is mostly flat (doing atomic drops like it's 80's Hogan-era all over again) and she tends to really only excel at selling and bumping. The brief bits between Hokuto and Amano are REALLY well put-together as the vet keeps getting caught out by her speed and technique which culminates in everyone getting their shots in when Amano refuses to let go of a kneebar even when they hit the ropes. Matsu's just spamming leg drops endlessly, stomps are galore, awesome shit right there. Eventually, of course, it ends with Nagashima getting wrecked with some stiff slaps and a nasty head-drop to finish things up. Good enough for what it was as a sub-10 showcase with some nice moments to boot. Kinda an shame that we never got a Hokuto/Amano singles because they looked quite sharp with each other here, rather missed opportunity ngl. 

Reiko Amano vs Tomoko Miyaguchi JWP (10/05/97): DECENT, BORDERING ON FUN

Spoiler

Yet another entry in the endless Amano/Ran series of matches, this one being a balance of their more mat-heavy showings of '01 and '98 and generic rookie work. We start off with some fairly solid grappling between the two as Amano uses hair-pulling to get a early advantage but then loses it when Ran gets to her senses and manages to slap on a guillotine to slow things down. I think the two in general wanted to show off their speed here, having a lot of bits where they do sharp counters and holds but also throwing in some smart moments (Ran using the ball of her elbow to stop Amano's attempted toe-hold, getting mileage out of working Amano's shoulders with butterfly locks and surfboards) that really catch your attention the first time you see them. It's not often you really see such a technically inclined match on a random JWP show lol. I wouldn't quite say it was ARSION-tier grappling it definitely felt a lot better than much of the shoot-style flirtations at the time. It helped that these two also had a good understanding of how to make the grappling actually feel heated unlike Funaki/Shamrock which often spilled into blatant cooperation, so they often would throw in hair-throw snapmares or general fun petty nonsense that you would only truly see from people who learned the craft from people like Ozaki and Devil.

The second half turned into more conventional action but it was still fairly good since the two know how to pace things well enough that a running knee is considered to be a big near fall here and not just filler. I did notice that the more go-go pace had the pair gassed up, especially seen by Amano noticeably botching a couple of spots that she otherwise usually nails with like her jumping cross armbreaker and generally dragging the pace down. This was highlighted greatly by probably their most adventurous spot (attempting a top rope armbreaker transition to the ground) having Ran instead giving herself a DDT lol. They kinda recover but then Ran goes for a snappy Jumbo Suplex that has Amano basically go head-first and everything gets uber sloppy again. Thankfully they go right to the finish with Ran winning off a top rope Samoan Drop instead of potentially getting worse so that's something. As a match the slower limb-based grappling of the first half is real good and methodical, with the pair matching in intensity and Ran having pretty good selling when she's on the backend here. The lack of experience does start to bite them in the ass due to them pushing the boat out a bit too much with the experimental offence, resulting in a bunch of just sloppy moments that ruined what was being built here. If they'd just kept the work from the first half going to the end I'd probably say this was close to being truly something great; thankfully I think their later matches will much improve what this was trying to do. 

Reiko Amano, Chikayo Nagashima, Mayumi Ozaki & Sugar Sato vs Chigusa Nagayo, Devil Masami, Meiko Satomura & Tomoko Miyaguchi JWP (08/06/97): FUN

Reiko Amano vs Kumiko Maekawa JWP (17/08/97): DECENT

Reiko Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Meiko Satomura & Toshie Uematsu GAEA (30/11/97): FUN

Spoiler

This tag is cut up slightly but it doesn't really matter that much. This was a ton of fun for a fairly nothing house show, especially by the Amano/Satomura work. Compared to their later stuff this was a lot more grounded in what was essentially them doing amateur wrestling for a good portion of it alongside some strikes here and there. Eventually Uematsu and Naga turn this into more of a heated affair to get the crowd more interested with loads of screaming and sharp bumping on all accounts. Amano especially has some good moments here where she's got a bit of the swagger that she'll be frequently showing off later on in her career and rookie Meiko is already pretty fantastic for her experience level, so this already had a solid base for it being good. Everyone else adds in some more experienced flavour into this as Nagashima and co worked on some entertaining enough lucha-lite sequences while also conveying the usual typical interpromotional heat that these sort of things naturally carry with them. The middle half has more Meiko/Amano grappling that while a bit messy in places definitely had that intensity that the two could always rely on: that spot where Meiko grabs for the world's angriest Fujiwara armbar and keeping it on despite getting consistently dropkicked in the fucking face was about as crazy as you can imagine it looking like, everything else afterwards wasn't exactly peaceful either lol. Uematsu does get some moments to shine but this was definitely one of those matches where Meiko just dominated in terms of presence and work despite her not being there for the last third bar working interference. Amano and Meiko are brawling with each other too much to stop Nagashima getting the fall with a smooth Frankensteiner to finish this up. All in all a pretty short but very enjoyable match for what it was with a ton of synergy between the four already. 

 

1998

Reiko Amano & Sugar Sato vs Command Bolshoi & Dynamite Kansai JWP (11/02/98): DECENT

Spoiler

Decent match that's built on the young pricks in Amano/Sato trying to overcome Dynamite's immense advantages over both of them. Dynamite hits like a truck and was very much still capable of hitting all of her best hits while Bolshoi handles the brunt of the working exchanges, using a lot of her lucha knowledge to keep things grounded. Most of the first half is taken up by Amano doing solid feeding/selling and really getting over her struggle to stay in the game despite being firmly outclassed. This match basically lives and dies by how much you like outside brawling because oh boy there's a decent chunk of it here. Lots of the typical hierarchy no-selling shtick, etc etc. Definitely feels like a Dynamite match all things considered. Pretty great spot where Sato keeps trying to knock Dynamite out of the SDL she's got on Amano with dropkicks to the head but keeps getting no sold. Dynamite takes all of them (and some of these look real nasty all things considered) before getting out of the hold herself and killing Sato with some awful stiff punts to the head, including one right to the back to finish off.

Dynamite eventually starts to take bumps when she gets double teamed and has a couple of times where cracks start to show in her usually pretty tough stature before she can just snap back into things with another big kick or something of that sort so the usual business there. Bolshoi's stuff by comparison isn't as good as she's mostly there to do some generic work and sell for the other two, namely with leg work. She does get some Ogawa-like moments where she gets to be the sneaky technical master she will eventually become but it's mostly her not really doing a whole lot interesting and: even worse: it's by design. Sato is a perfectly fine GAEA-style worker who would find her niche as a mean hoss a few years down the line, as of now she's just really just hanging around here for the most part. There are some moments where you see bits of her throwing some aggression but no awesome tackles or huge power spots = instantly forgettable for me ngl.

Loads of technically competent bits, strikes mostly bleh (Dynamite has to try to sell her weak ass backhand and it's rather depressing) just there for the most part. The match kinda just ends rather than building much. Amano lands a good few German suplexes for near falls before Dynamite marches in to control things again, Bolshoi and co go on the top rope and she hits a top rope Uranage to get the pin. No real tension built there apart from one or two near falls and there was no big burst of violence to really cement this as the turning point, just more or less a big spot into the end.

Not bad, just hamstrung by this being built around Dynamite (who is still great, mind) taking up a lot of the time doing her usual routine against two people who positively don't threaten her at all. Bolshoi has to wrestle a featureless style as to not get in the way of this so no fancy lucha work, just loads of holds and slams that grind the pace down. Sato was fine and Amano was a bit iffy in places but mostly felt really good going up against the pair, especially Dynamite whom probably would've been a solid match for her at this point. All in all not BAD per-se but lacking in a real epic aspect to get it beyond just "fine" tier bar a good performance off Dynamite doing her usual formula.

Reiko Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki JWP (06/03/98): EPIC

Spoiler

A really good rite of passage for Amano as she battles against her own mentor in a fight she has clearly little to no chance of winning. Ozaki neutral starting off with a handshake before Amano tries to go for a cheap flash pin with a German suplex while her back is turned so she immediately goes into full shit-heel mode with loads of gloating and taunting. There's a great sense of both student and master both knowing how to bend the rules and get ahead in their own respective ways and almost....respecting that, in a way? Like they know the other is going to be scrappy so it's a sense of "well get on with it then" rather than the usual indignation you would expect. Ozaki at times seems very proud of her student finding ways to endure her beatdowns and still manage to inflict pain despite the immense disadvantages Amano naturally has: she's nowhere near as good a brawler, has a rough time trying to push her weight here, and even on the technical front Oz is more than capable defending and blocking holds when she's aware. The only times Amano gets the advantage is when she's able to just outpace her mentor with raw speed and aggression more so than anything else, with some really good sequences displaying that in full view. Of course Ozaki can just walk back into this with a nasty dropkick or a stiff boot or slap to the face, but that isn't always the case. The match really kicks into high gear in terms of emotive value when Amano manages to bait Ozaki into committing to a early pinning powerbomb to trap her in a inverted armbreaker; despite getting to the ropes Oz's arm is completely busted in the process and she essentially sells it like it's been broken for the most part with surprising amounts of realism.

This definitely intensifies the drama given that fact and Ozaki's amazing sell-job to convey that unexpected weakness that she now has to somehow win with one good arm left. Amano in turn goes laser-focused for the shitty arm with boots and other submissions, really focusing in on what will be one of her best features in how she can do cool tricked out speedy submission work while keeping things frenetic and interesting. The moment where Ozaki tries for the half suplex and gets so pissed off at her opponent again exploiting her bad arm that she just fucking hammers in knees to her head until Amano dies before following up with equally stiff foot stomps and a powerbomb for a near fall was a great moment and really felt like things immediately went from a 7 to a 10 on the intensity scale. Amano gets blasted with a Uraken so badly that she starts bleeding from the nose just to hammer in that point that Oz is no longer messing around and wants to end this as soon as possible. That in turn opens her up to a bunch of signature Amano armbreaker transitions that do inch ever closer to a victory before Ozaki counters the third into this terrific one arm powerbomb to finish up shop in brutal fashion. The post-match of both of them tearing up and hugging was a emotional moment to cap this off and really bookended the mentor/student dynamic these two had going for Amano's early years. So yeah, great match obviously. Between Amano's scrappy moments and Ozaki's incredible all-rounded talent at this time you really couldn't go that wrong. Loads of mutual pettiness shared with a equal sense of respect for said pettiness makes for a uniquely fun type of violence that I'd say has a huge part in this being Amano's first match worthy of EPIC status.

Rieko Amano vs Tomoko Miyaguchi JWP (10/05/98): GREAT

Spoiler

A 30 minute draw that's NOT clipped to shit? Wow! Ran and Amano were two of the clear standout young talent at the time alongside the rest of the JWP Fab Four, so it makes sense that they'd be given the most room to stretch their legs and do work with the other. This was one of those matches where if you aren't a fan of grappling then this just isn't gonna be up your alley because oh boy there's a ton of it here with so much time to burn through. Amano typically isn't very high on the pecking order but here she's supremely confident as her forte is all about mat-work and scrambling for submissions, something that is radically apparent here. She consistently forces Ran to grab for rope escapes and consistently is able to get her on the defensive; even when she's able to escape one hold she has another up her sleeve almost always to answer. They do the usual ways to make stuff like this more interesting with them slowly devolving into dirty shit to try to get the advantage (including a random stomach claw at one point? ) and generally try to make things feel intense as the match goes forward and the two start to get tired of the other's antics. Around the 15 minute mark they start going into more expected work with signature spots and dives to the outside. It's not bad and the two certainly have good chemistry, but it does feel a bit sloppy in places despite the spirit going into this being a solid base. I'd say after they tease the count-out is where the match starts to get tangibly better as they focus more on differing the two by Ran going for bombs and strikes while Amano hones in on the holds to try to eek out a win that way. There's no long-term limb selling (which can bug some) other than that I really liked how this escalated from holds and counters to big huge moments before settling back into said holds. Amano is relentless with the cross armbreaker and finds a good few fun opportunities to incorporate some fun transitions whenever possible to get it over as the big kill-move to watch out for.

Ran defends it surprisingly competently and builds it up great early on by having her grip broken and the hold extended, leading to her doing this terrific sell-job with a huge screech before barely getting to the ropes before the arm broke from the hyperextension. With that established the rest of their exchanges mostly come down to if Ran can defend against the armbreaker or if this time will catch her short. They forgo that only near the end when the 30 minute mark is ticking down to go into a couple of near fall suplexes. Ran gets a couple of decent kneebars locked in before the bell sounds for the draw. As this is a single-elimination tournament however they simply can't have a draw here so they restart. I thought this quick rush at the end was pretty well done. They balanced out the fatigue-selling from the end of the match with more of a roughness to how they worked in moves, generally feeling more scrappy and unclean. Ran desperately tried to finish things quick with kneebars and bombs, but Amano rode out the storm and managed to get in a big final armbreaker that simply couldn't be escaped. This is a drastic change from the usual kind of matches that JWP were throwing out at the time, and it really benefits from standing out like that; clearly intended to showcase these two future acts in a good light. I'd say this DOES achieve that goal, but the match itself does definitely feel like a 30 minute match and also equally definitely is not able to hide the more glaring limitations. The more scrappy parts feel a bit disjointed and there are a few too many armbreaker holds that are broken, really devaluing a move that's supposed to be hyped as being insta-death by this point and time. The mat-work aside that is pretty sturdy despite Ran not being as complex/good on the mat as her opponent, though that's worked into the match itself bar near the end where she's able to wiggle out a few of her own. All in all still a quite strong outing, just a bit too constrained by the length. One of Amano and Ran's main strengths is their intensity, they simply can't carry that for something of this length despite their best attempts. 

Reiko Amano vs Kanako Motoya JWP (14/06/98): FUN

Spoiler

We get about 11 minutes of this intact out of the 30 minute draw that this originally was. I'm fine with that because Motoya doesn't seem to be a specifically impressive rookie bar her keenness to do reckless stuff alongside some lucha tricks. This was good in that there was a real sense of scrappiness to it as the two basically found any possible way to hurt the other from chairs to just kicking each other in places that hurt, like Amano gunning for Moto's shitty bandaged leg. There are some attempts at cool moments like Moto parroting a Kawada-sell by just stumping to the mat when forced to do a Irish Whip due to her bad knee and some tricked out submissions, but stuff never seems to properly connect in a structure that makes a whole lot of sense. Granted the individual parts are strong, but the match just seems a bit disjointed. I will say that the second half focusing on the two doing a lot of ARSION-style submission work was VERY good even if it was a bit messy in places: the kinds of transitions and holds that the two manage to intelligently string along felt mindblowing for the time when they managed to pull it off, which is funny because everything else in this match was kinda iffy before all of that lol. The match ends in the draw when Moto reverses a Amano inverted kneebar for a roll-up only for Amano to then spring back up and get the leverage applied until the bell rings. I would've been really interested to see what they were doing for the missing 20 minutes or so (slow starting work I would probably assume) but yeah for what remains you have some decent spots for the first part that focus around scrappy brawling and some stiff strikes followed by tremendous grappling. It's definitely a match that seems a bit confused on what it wants to truly be ultimately

Reiko Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Sonoko Kato & Toshie Uematsu OZ Academy (21/06/98): DECENT

Spoiler

This is cut a bit in places but it's still a decent watch; naturally built around the OZ mainstays and their GAEA counterparts getting the semi-main as a shine moment. This is one of the first matches that I've found where Amano is doing the headbutt shtick, or at least a early prototype version anyway; she ends up almost knocking herself out after a few. Barring that this mostly kept to what you'd imagine a typical mid-card tag would look like; some intensity, some goofy spots, generally settling for a more casual pace. The match runs with a basic structure revolving around isolating tag partners and the four generally getting their spots in during all of the ruffling going on. Uematsu had some cool Thesz-presses around the middle especially that looked very much like how Jumbo used to throw them out. Young Kato's got some decent submission stuff around the second half as well despite it mostly being just generic hold filler. The match never got too crazy despite some brawling on the outside, though it did pick up real well around the last third where they started doing big moves and dramatic counters with some occasional wild mat-work to boot. Kinda weird that they had to do a lot of what felt like essentially padding to get there but once they were things felt properly good.

 

1999

Reiko Amano vs Meiko Satomura GAEA (17/01/99): EPIC

Spoiler

This for a good while was only available as a chopped up match that removed the majority of the starting grappling exchanges, which for a match like this you'd kinda want to see out of these two lol. Thankfully the full version has now shown up and to the shock to zero people turned out very good. Mainly what works about this match (as well as any involving this two, really) is that they compliment each other well. Amano I've found does her best work when using her technical wizardry first and foremost, mainly in give-and-take formulas where she mostly has heelish tendencies during her control spots, attacking weak limbs like a injured shoulder or a bad leg as the main lead-in for everything else on the table. Meiko around this point excelled at emoting/selling, working from under a more confident opponent alongside throwing out crazy bombs to get the maximum amount of action. You can see how that pairing works before this even started. The first 5/10 minutes is mostly dedicated to grappling, mainly Amano using Meiko's bandaged arm to do some cool submission spots. The bit where she counters a toe-hold by forcing Meiko's head down to pop up her shoulder for a double-wrist lock in mount was really cool, not anything you'd see today at all or done that smoothly anyway. The grappling isn't insanely complex (Meiko was never particularly known for her mat-work to be fair) but is carried well by the pacing, with both getting the chance to slap on holds and sell pretty strongly, though Meiko stands out as the far greater of the two when it came to just communicating a mix of pain/frustration. It bubbles through when she's trying to use her bad shoulder for stuff and clearly hurting. Stuff like the Boston Crab for instance; typically only dangerous for rookies; is put over as much more dangerous than otherwise because Meiko can't use her arms to push herself up (which is the usual kayfabed way to deal with that kind of move) so she's forced instead to slowly crawl to the ropes. The middle portion diversifies by throwing in OZ Acad interfering and some outside brawling. This stuff is fairly fine yet not my cup of tea all things considered. I don't think it's done bad or anything though and the crowd are clearly very into it from the get-go so I can't moan too much lol. Meiko's improvised brawling with her throwing water bottles and buckets was funny though. They do pick up the intensity well as Meiko throws some convincingly solid strikes (including a shockingly sick ankle lock counter to a roundhouse while on the top rope! ) and really gets the crowd invested in her comebacks. In turn they amp up the interference to establish that while Amano is fairly good, she just doesn't have the edge in striking that her opponent does, forcing her to exploit the arm more. One bit they had here was like her doing a underhook suplex into butterfly lock which looked absolutely nasty, shocked no one tried to steal that.

Last third is mostly focused around the threat of Amano's many armbreaker transitions, which was a treat for someone like myself who had a good idea of what they were going to use (the one off the top rope, the standing one) with a couple of interesting changes and mix-ups that honestly I hadn't seen before. They build up the interference even more to the point of them basically just turning into a mob hurling chairs around. Satomura's mastery of doing these sort of chaotic finishing stretches where there are counters on counters into big moves is well documented but it definitely shines here, with her playing dead for submissions before somehow almost managing to hit the DVD anyway. It's the big death-move of the match and clearly the one she needs to hit yet every attempt just never seems to work properly, with loads of teases and cute transitions into it that ultimately never get enough time to breathe before the next counter. Alas there is one botch where they seem to fuck up the timing on the ending as the ref counts Meiko out during a arm triangle. The bell is even rung and then they awkwardly just continue anyway. It's bizarre and doesn't add anything to the match bar being confusing.

Other than that it was basically next to perfect as we get a couple of big roundhouses by Meiko into a huge underhook for the symbolic three count (interference again rip) before Amano eventually reverses out of one too many bombs and manages to win with a rolling armbreaker. As I said above this match works primarily because the two involved are great matches for the other; every one of their matches is good to great, this being their best naturally given the fantastic blend of tense grappling with a ton of drama to get the crowd from fairly cold to being all over this by the end. I wouldn't say in terms of Amano matches that this was as up there as Yoshida '04/Bolshoi '02/Hyuga '02 as all of those are just a bit more focused on the technical side of things, a bit cleaner, a bit more varied etc. Top 10? Yeah sure, definitely. You can't go wrong checking this out.

Carlos Amano & Aja Kong vs Meiko Satomura & Toshiyo Yamada OZ Academy (28/02/99): FUN

Spoiler

This is good yet there are some glaring issues about it that do drag it down a bit for me. The violence is done well (even if it does drag somewhat with the opening Aja-induced brawl) and it being a inter-promotional showing means that we do get some more big shots and stiff strikes between the two teams given that fact, and on paper that stuff is natural heat without even doing anything else with it. Like you've got Satomura/Aja here so stuff is obviously going to be mostly snug and tight, and that's what it was essentially. They do a good job of continuing their 90's feuding and the intensity is palpable as Sato tries (and fails) to cut down the giant. Amano is also a pretty solid sidekick to Aja's antics, typically grinding the match down into holds but occasionally also getting to shine with her offence. I think that the limitations of the match come down to a couple of pretty tangibly obvious factors; for one, the crowd here is not particularly good. For most of the match they are very much dead in terms of actual reactions bar the secondaries on the outside, which is bad when a good chunk of your pacing is dedicated to a drawn out Aja/Amano heat segment on Satomura.

They do get better and by the end they are very much behind the match (basically because it turns into lots of awesome bombs and strikes; it's kinda hard to not react positively to that stuff) so that's at least something. Another issue is Yamada; while she obviously was never going to be on the level of these three in terms of sheer violence she did feel like a significant downgrade, and the match was noticeably pretty aware of that given she doesn't do a whole lot here bar a couple of decent spots and jobbing to Aja at the end. Last third feels a bit contrived in places, and the finish was a wet fart: having Aja pretend to be KO'd, Yamada choosing not to pin her but instead celebrate before anything's actually happened and then Aja springing up and winning just felt....off, especially for a seemingly unstoppable monster like she's supposed to be. It's not BAD for sure though, lots of super awesome bits shattered all over here and once this got going it was pretty sturdy

 

Carlos Amano vs Azumi Hyuga JWP (23/09/99): GREAT

Spoiler

Not as good as the 2002 match (mostly due to it being focused around leg work while also having tons of big spots that basically just shit all over said leg work) but yeah this is pretty solid overall. In terms of the actual structure, it mostly appeared as the two working a sort of pseudo-ARSION match at points with lots of ground work and submissions. By 1999 this stuff was pretty archaic given we'd already had UWF Newborn/PWFG/RINGS long before this point; all of which had exhausted what shoot-style could really tangibly do before MMA would be a huge thing. At this point while it's done as you can imagine quite well, I did struggle with some transitions; they felt a bit too easy to throw on and with not a lot of actual working behind them, like they'd just do the move and/or counter without much energy applied to making these seem natural or spontaneous. Other than that, this followed a pretty simple structure around the champ attacking Amano's arm and head while the latter went for the legs, building their big spots around either being responses to this limb work or just isolated big moments to get the crowd more excited. There's some real neat bits all focused around counters as Hyuga used her speed to dart around Amano's aggression while Amano would more or less focus around her technical experience to get back into the game. It was all just mat stuff as they did a pretty good job incorporating outside brawling into the match as it was also focused around limb working, but also just having Hyuga doing a mega wacky Thesz Press off the guardrailing? Bit random but I'll take it. They get back in for some particularly awesome Amano bumping for German suplexes as she just ragdolls for them before doing a full flip out of one into a sweet rolling kneebar.

It was cool seeing Hyuga trying to do a Toyota and just shake it off to do spots only for Amano to literally drag her back into more limb work; at that specific point it became more of a feature of the match than a defect if that makes sense. The last third had Hyuga default to the head instead with even more German suplexes and strikes while Amano would just tear through her with epic counters and more focus on the leg. Hyuga's utterly terrified sell-job as she holds onto the ropes for dear life and goes nuts when she's able to catch Amano off guard and take her back for crazy slaps to the back of the head was definitely....unconventional, somewhat sloppy, however I'd say it worked for the stakes of the match all things considered. Despite the match occasionally going back to mat-work, it eventually defaults into admittedly cool bombs, finishing up with two Michinoku Drivers and a cross armbreaker for the win by Hyuga. Bit messier than their 2002 match and arguably not as refined, yet still quite good all things considered. They do a tremendous job of balancing the shooty stuff with the violence while also respecting the limb work enough that you don't feel insulted for watching through the struggles in regards to that

 

2001

Carlos Amano vs Hiromi Yagi Michinoku Pro (14/01/01): FUN

Spoiler

Not a shocker than this was a banger by any extent of the imagination, even with the clipping taking about 4 minutes off the runtime. Yagi is a similarly awesome grappler that was chronically overlooked because of her being rather undersized even by Joshi standards. Loads of snug grappling transitions and sequences that even the Michinoku crowd had to woo and ahh at points because these two are just that damn good. Electric Chair lifts into cross armbreakers are all good where I'm seeing them, which is here of course. Some awkward bits with the faster moments as Amano hasn't quite mastered pacing at this point, but none that break the easy-going flow of the match. Yagi takes from a Fujiwara finish as she eats a German suplex in order to snap on a lightning-fast Fujiwara armbar only to then hit the ropes. Amano like a goof tries for the same thing herself only for Yagi to hit a awesome backdrop pin into cross armbreaker to finish this off. Fun small outing that really makes you wish Amano dipped her toe into ARSION at some point given the chemistry these two had in some fairly nothing undercard, would've worked wonders for something like this. This'll do though.

Carlos Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Meiko Satomura & Sumie Sakai OZ Academy (18/02/01): FUN

Spoiler

Amano/Satomura matches are always cash money, even these relatively inconsequential ones. The start of this is GOAT-tier as scrub Sakai tries for a handshake before being rejected and trying for a dropkick, obviously then misses after they sidestep her and proceed to bully antics for the first half. Sakai has a couple of sloppy but interesting spots of her own to pull out in response.....that's about it. The Amano/Satomura exchanges are amazing to the point that even the commentators are marking out over these two doing really cool fundamentals between each other. Meiko seemed like a monster with her huge arm drags and snappy submissions and all Amano could really do was take them until she could get a flash ankle lock applied; she even bites the ankle to boot! What a heel. The middle half is more conventional with everyone getting their moments to work stuff in. Basically it comes down to Sakai needing her partner to drag out any advantages made and loads of pins getting broken up as things get more and more scrappy. Meiko gets broken down with a bad arm due to the OZ pair working on it and so there's that added tension of if she'll be able to actually win even if she doesn't tap out, the usual business. There was some good drama built from Nagashima trying to find the one perfect move to finish off Satomura right then and there; typically with a lot of cool lucha work. The finish especially was pretty damn strong as Sato powers out of Naga's flying armbar to go up and over into a DVD for the pin. Pretty good burst of undercard interpromotional action that never got especially great, but teased it on occasions. If you like loads of just sheer pettiness being communicated in a wrestling ring then this is worth the search.

Carlos Amano & Hiromi Yagi vs Chaparita ASARI & Yuka Shiina NEO (04/05/01): FUN

Spoiler

Really good grappling from all four involved here. While I would've wished that we had gotten more Amano/Yagi against each other if only because their first encounter together was so good. Yagi controlled most of the early stuff with ASARI with really aggressive and crisp arm work that mostly had her opponent hitting the ropes or having to concede control a lot of the time. Shiina/Amano get in so the latter can do all of her lucha work first and foremost before they go into the same grappling as shown before. Kinda a shame that Amano doesn't really get to flex her technique here as she's mostly delegated to doing her one cool kneebar transition and a Boston Crab for the most part. Yagi gets in and I feel like she did a better job incorporating the faster pace of the match in general with the submission background not to mention having way cooler submission work in general. The second half of this mostly followed the same trend of finding different ways to do cool spots that ended in submissions, never a bad thing in my book. Amano does a solid job with the emoting and selling part as her arm gets targeted by ASARI and Shiina also sneaks in here to try to choke her out when she's down and out. We get some nifty dives to the outside before the work to the finish has everyone brawl and break up pins, ending up with Yagi doing a awesome Matrix dodge out of a crossbody pin to roll into a cross armbreaker for the tap-out on Shiina. Really fun stuff out of everyone involved and a much-needed change of pace from what the dire scene around this time was doing.

Carlos Amano vs Ran YuYu JWP (10/09/01): GREAT

Spoiler

This is apart of the fancam recordings of Neo-JWP during the time when Bolshoi was basically their booker. As a result this is by far and large one of the better Ran/Amano showings if only because the smaller venue and more comfy setting lets them focus on grappling rather than the more proactive lucha-ish style the two tended to throw out in GAEA matchups. Some bits did remind me of their earlier 98 30 minute affair (like the focus on being uber petty with slaps and swipes when they'd hit a impass when on the ground, or the focus on the cross armbreaker as a killer move) but for the most part I think they did a good job at least trying to make this its own distinct thing. Amano as you'd expect was taking most of the lead here, focusing on cool leverage-based armbars and cross armbreakers, eventually being able to crack Ran's defence and go for a long extended armbreaker before a rope break, damaging it for the remainder of the match. Much like her more focused affairs she tends to branch out from just doing limb work to have a secondary goal be portrayed (working Ran's leg in order to get to her arms easier for submissions, for instance, since she's not able to defend as easily) which helps to mix things up from just having the two scrap it out. Ran's selling is real effective to boot, not overacting but always incorporating it into her work, needing to throw out kicks or do certain moves with her one good arm instead. Really sick step-up Enzuigiri spots by her as well including a kneeling one that looked like complete death. We also didn't need to see the two do some really fast-paced leg submission exchanges either but I'm glad we did because it made this match really that much better knowing that was on the table here. The last third does reduce in quality only because the limb work doesn't really go anywhere or contribute to the finish any (especially with so much of it done, you'd hope they would try to throw it in for at least some sort of bit) but on the other hand the two do exchange some really stiff looking forearms and elbows so I wasn't that down on it all things considered since it's trading one cool thing for another. Speaking of the finish it did kinda suck with Ran winning with a screwy 3.1. roll-up when Amano tried for her standing armbreaker: not a fan of matches that establish themselves as methodical but then not deliver on a clean finish since it undervalues what happened before. Bar those (admittedly small) complaints this was a super solid watch and is probably the #2 best Amano/Ran singles I've watched. The grappling is extremely tight and immensely creative in places (with even Ran showing off a bit) while balancing out some good immediate selling and real stiff strikes as the cherry on top. Thought Amano looked great throughout even despite this being pre-headbutt shtick with a few tricks that you'd seldom see anywhere else. 

Carlos Amano & Meiko Satomura vs Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada GAEA (24/09/01): FUN

Spoiler

A very nice sub-10 sprint of a match. Kansai/Yamada control most of this with their hard kicks, forcing Amano and Satomura to work around this with some real nifty grappling and raw speed to get around the striking. This makes for a obviously solid dynamic, especially when you have these four hanging around; sure Dynamite is a bit out of her better years but her shtick still functions well in a tag setting where her workrate is limited in the first place to only a couple of explosive moments. Meiko had her usual insane energy, though this was mostly built around the pair doing awesome double team moves so there wasn't a huge focus on any sort of emotive factor here. Dynamite gets lobbed with a flying kick from Yamada which ends up taking her out of the match despite landing a big lariat a minute or so after, having Amano do a huge dive to the outside to ensure that. Satomura ends up getting the pin off two big DVD's for the finish. Easy to digest but a TON of enjoyable watching this given everyone involved putting in some effort to get this moving as soon as the bell rang. Never got truly epic, but trust me this is absolutely worth the watch for how short it was given the level of stiff this got in places. They balanced it out nicely with some variety via the smaller team as well throwing out some cool dangerous moments that really warranted the level of tension this was operating at and ended it just as it was peaking rather than dragging it out with worse moments. If all post-90's Dynamite matches were like this idk if she'd get as much issues for her work as she does now.

Carlos Amano & Chigusa Nagayo vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Toshiyo Yamada GAEA (28/10/01): FUN

Spoiler

This was a fun sprint and one of Nagayo's better post-GAEA showings. She was still doing the usual rigid structure of every match of hers being super short because she just didn't have the cardio anymore to do the exhaustive high-impact high-emotion style that made her a legend in the 80's, but in small bursts she can communicate the intensity of her old glory enough to satisfy; her psychology hasn't left her either at this point so she knows how to work the more constrained vet role. Couple of flubbed spots here (the botched assisted Sunset Flip from Amano, for instance, that was painful to see) but given who was here this was mostly very clean and very fun to watch through, especially with Amano pushing the pace with slick bumps and her usual cross armbreaker transitions. This feels like a match built around her being showcased as the workhorse as she does most of the heavy lifting, including a long middle half where it's just her facing off against the pair and vibing fairly well with both of them, especially given they're both in the same wheelhouse of being more agile/crafty workers that can turn up the pace here nicely. Even the usually stern Chig had to relent in order to give Amano her personal applause after a particularly cool delayed Honda-style German suplex spot. Was shocked to see Yamada get put over hard by kicking out of a Running Three clean alongside Nagashima basically ragdolling Chigusa all over the place with Frankensteiners or German suplexes.

Of course she still needs to get over by barely selling and going into her dodgy shoot-ish style armbreaker attempts but hey it's something. Last third with Amano/Nagashima exchanging some big spots was fun enough as they built up the danger of the submissions and shockingly paid off when Amano got her jumping rolling armbreaker locked on and managed to get the tapout victory. Not a super high-quality match; definitely one where the JWP talent really got their working boots on and enhanced the hell out of this match with their relentless pacing where they basically just hurled out moves at insane speeds while also keeping the match structured enough that it didn't turn into a mess. Yamada tries to keep up but doesn't quite hit the mark despite some cool moments out of her as she tends to fall by the wayside. Chigusa was generally her usual self wherein most of her work feels a noticeable step behind everyone else because she just doesn't have the explosiveness nor the agility to really involve herself in the more interesting instances of this match, instead having to play a plodding heavyweight. It's not AWFUL though so that's...something?

Carlos Amano vs. Toshie Uematsu GAEA (15/12/01): DECENT

Spoiler

Toshie doing her goofy ahh tryhard heel offence isn't great but the rest of this was fairly solid, I'd say. Amano bumps and sells around for a while as she simply can't get enough time to herself to catch her barings, allowing her opponent to just keep on throwing boots and vicious work on the face and head. Amano got by with a couple of good submission counters before Toshie went back to more entertaining cheating with choking and punches to the face. There's some occasional cool moments from the pair yet it mostly goes down to Amano having to sell more shtick for the vast majority. The last third got REALLY solid when the pair were on equal terms, starting with Toshie's heel antics backfiring on her after she pushes the rules too much and the ref has to separate them. With that critical distraction Amano can now push back with some really fired up babyface fire that really started to get this going with both me and the audience. Crowd pipe up for Amano backflipping out of a German suplex and a couple of near falls with roll-ups are able to tease out a eventual win for Amano after she's able to get leverage for one long enough for a pin. Pretty slow starting off but I did appreciate how stiff this got in places despite the long heel control segments grinding a bit in places. Pretty solid undercard that got the crowd fairly hyped up. 

 

2002

Carlos Amano & Aja Kong vs Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada GAEA (13/01/02): SKIPPABLE

Spoiler

Very much a usual house show match for the time. Crowd for this sucked ass, that's the first thing I'll note. They seemed dead for most of it bar some of the comedic moments. Kong/Amano makes for a really unique tag team duo, them being paired with two bruisers could potentially be quite good. Dynamite isn't the most dynamic with her tendency to sit around in holds (especially working the back, plenty of excuse to just hang around in them long holds) but Amano is a solid seller so it isn't THAT slow and plodding thankfully. Match otherwise goes about as much as you'd expect with everyone running on B-show mode. Kong and Dynamite do some entertaining yet samey enough back and forth hoss stuff, Amano and Yamada dictating the faster points etc etc. Some sloppiness drags this down and the match ends as soon as it starts to get good with Dynamite/Amano going back and forth but of course ending with Dynamite going over with a Splash Mountain. Average stuff all in all that didn't really go that hard despite the pairings. 

Carlos Amano vs Aya Sakurai GAEA (13/01/02): DECENT

Spoiler

Amano's always pretty good at getting the best out of rookies and she done that here all things considered despite having already worked a tag match on the same day as this. Sakurai is lanky but quite the high-flyer, throwing out a ton of dropkicks and general rookie work; she's a bit shaky as you can expect with a ton of hesitation as she thinks of the next move, but Amano is keen to feed and give her some 50/50 back and forth exchanges. Was kinda bonkers to see them do the Tiger Mask/Dynamite Tombstone counters (and so flush as well!) only for Saku to roll into a Victory Roll instead; given her experience level it was rather shocking to see. Some decent high energy work from the middle as we got some submission exchanges and roll-ups with Saku managing to amazingly stay in control with some big top rope moves and even a chokeslam out of a Fujiwara armbar, if you can believe it. The road to the finish goes about as you'd expect as Amano manages to wiggle back with her signature work and we get a neat finish where she counters out of a chokeslam into a cross armbreaker to finish things up. Very much a shame that Aya Sakurai didn't keep on working because while she was obviously carried here all things considered she had good atheticism and kept up well with the pace here despite seeming like she was going to gas out in places completely. Amano steered the ship and made her look pretty strong as she bumped a ton and even got herself in some near fall situations despite the obvious outcome. It made things feel a bit more unpredictable and the match itself follows that with a couple of cool momentum-switching moments. Definitely much better than it had any right to be.

Carlos Amano, Chikayo Nagashima & Mayumi Ozaki vs Chigusa Nagayo, Dynamite Kansai & Toshiyo Yamada GAEA (14/01/02): DECENT

Spoiler

Typical half-effort triple-tag with not a ton interesting about it. Yamada looked like a killer with her Brock Lock giant swing and there's generally a effort to showcase her over some of the older talent also in the match (with even Nagayo doing loads of feeding for Nagashima in particular). Speaking of Nagayo while she wasn't exactly in the best of conditioning at present (this is kinda her version of 90's Brando here, still has some raw talent but very much subdued from what made her truly great in the 80/90's and trying overtly to move away from that to more wacky shit because she just wasn't interested in that kind of style anymore) she still moves well enough and can throw out some killer power moves when inclined. Amano takes some vicious spots here yet gets put over hard by kicking out of all of them and still getting work done afterwards with the rest of team OZ. Loads of wacky (but fun) double/triple team moves thrown in here alongside mostly everyone walking in and doing their signature spots until the finish. Ozaki was thankfully not doing hardcore bollocks at this point and worked this completely normally with a ton of huge flips and bumps whenever, real refreshing seeing her actually do spots instead of dragging around a chain for 30 minutes. Her and Dynamite have a finishing exchange that ALMOST got tiresome with Ozaki no-selling a Dynamite backdrop to hit more backfists before no-selling TWO Splash Mountains (ffs seriously I know she's going to get a big push shortly, this was beyond reasonable lol) as she popped up like Hogan for a comeback! Thankfully Dynamite hit a stiff elbow and finished off with a third Splash powerbomb to finish things up. Fun cluster of nonsense that never really was going for anything more or less; it's GAEA after all, they love their messy matches more than many.

Carlos Amano vs Azumi Hyuga JWP (23/02/02): EPIC

Spoiler

It's a shame that so little of early 2000's JWP is publically available (I mean shit I had to sneak this out by asking Jetlag for a link if you can believe it) because Bolshoi's eye for talent and giving said talent time to cook is VERY well documented. This included, obviously. Their 1998 match is good in its own part but I think this is the one that cracks the formula they were refining then; it has the same tempo of mat-work mixed in with Amano killing Hyuga's leg, but much more laser focused on the grappling as a whole. Doesn't mean they don't still add in some horrifically stiff stuff (the opening with the headbutt exchanges and Hyuga just hoofing Amano in the face and back with boots was great! ) but it mostly comes down to that critical factor. Amano has a truly great performance as the aggressor here with tons of big time energy and offence; you can tell here that she invoked a lot from Ozaki in how she just mows down the opposition with reckless abandon and is so confidently cocky about her chances that she actively toys around with her opponent. Using the ropes to escape a basic ass headlock before going for a pin after a clothesline purely to get Hyuga annoyed so she'd expose her taped up bad leg is peak wrestling in my mind, nothing else comes close lol. Hyuga came across as generally the better when it came down to throwing bombs and controlling the match, giving extra pressure for Amano to really focus down on the leg as much as possible. When that wasn't the case she was getting wrecked as Hyuga could just hone in on the head with her high-pressure boots and knees alongside cool counters involving her finding more ways of doing damage to it.

The work is a lot more refined compared to the 1998 match and skips out the fairly long outside brawling padding section in favour of the two instead involving more creative counters which for me made this a lot more interesting quality-wise. Amano to balance out the longer time smartly decides to focus on the arm instead of the bad leg when Hyuga keeps blocking the kneebar (which started off with uber-slick transition from that to a cross armbreaker) allowing her to damage the arm to the point where Hyuga didn't have as much strength to then resist/block the impending leg work when it came up later; just smart little interactions like that make all the difference in how I view a match. Last third built to this great cat & mouse dynamic all about the two feeling inches away from the match slipping from their fingers as every big play made a huge difference to how they acted; no big finisher fest or near fall spam, just a couple of big moments and everything was over just like that. Really refreshing to see this from a era where things were still very much the bomb-fest they were in the 90's. Amano typically is the crowd favourite all about getting him fired up as the upstart babyface, so seeing her as a more heelish figure all about mangling her opponent with clever tricks was a awesome change of pace and really worked for what this was. Hyuga has some terrific leg selling where she actually does faux-botches to get it over and you buy her big comebacks when she's able to push through and land another big shot to balance the books. Amazing hidden gem that honestly should be so much more than that.

Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Chigusa Nagayo & Sakura Hirota GAEA (17/03/02): FUN

Spoiler

The usual Hirota/Nagayo comedy match but I will admit that some of the gags did get me; Hirota in these sort of condensed tag settings is a lot more fresh than her trying to carry a entire match by her lonesome because they have to really make the comedy spots count as opposed to having 10/15 minutes to kill with dumb filler or repetitive stuff which is the death-knell of comedy wrestlers. They balanced it out with some legitimately good exchanges between Dynamite and Nagayo who predictively just resort to stiff shots and Amano is as sturdy as always with some cool arm work, throwing in stuff like flying cross armbreakers and Fujiwara armbars alongside her really great delayed German suplexes that she was so fond of doing around this time. Around the end they legitimately just drop the comedy for a good majority of it and have Amano/Hirota have a compelling underdog dynamic where Hirota's getting her ass beat with shit like an Doomsday Device and all she can do in response is the occasional sick roll-up. Chigusa's hot tag left a bit to be desired as she just didn't have the gas tank to really move around fast AND be impactful so there really wasn't anything to chew on. Hirota ends up saving the day from a potential top rope Splash Mountain finish by extending her tag rope to get in while Dyna is doing the move on Chig, letting her run in for a cheap roll up to get the upset victory. Actually a pretty good undercard match that did throw a ton of comedy bits but most of them at least made sense to the logic of the match as opposed to things that are just done "for the bit" and completely distract from it. Dynamite and Amano do good jobs being the straight women here and as convincingly dangerous threats during the beatdown of the middle half. Kinda shocking how well this was put together for what could've ostensibly been 99% ass jokes and WWF references.

 

Carlos Amano & Toshiyo Yamada vs. Devil Masami & Toshie Uematsu GAEA (07/04/02): SKIPPABLE

Spoiler

I guess they're hyping up Devil again (despite the fact that she's pretty....bleh at this point) as a huge threat, so she gets to beat up these two relatively fresh faces. They get the drop on her a couple of times in some fairly energetic bits, it's just that Devil herself is rather not....that, and as such she seems just out of it for a good portion of the match. It is cool seeing her do stuff like a RNC out of nowhere and her facials were just as tremendously great as usual, so I can at least provide this match with a bit of praise in that regard. Some rather bad sequencing as well (having Yamada do wiffed elbows to Devil and no selling superplexes? ) make Devil seem less of a threat and more of someone who can just eat a lot of damage without getting pinned. The finish coming off a ok double leg drop by her and Uematsu seemed a bit weak as well. The match also had a lot of the usual GAEA-isms in terms of random weapon spots, high action/low rest and generally a lack of respect for how tag matches work; everyone is just flying around here with little real ramifications or respect to any sort of at least basic fundamental tag wrestling. That might seem like a good time on paper (and sure, it definitely is when you have the right pieces in place) but it just felt cluttered in regards to what this was trying to do. 

Carlos Amano vs Aja Kong OZ Academy (11/05/02): FUN

Spoiler

Kinda a semi-squash given the two's stature at this point and time however this was definitely still very good for what it was. We seen ARISON Kong in full effect here as she had to handle with Amano's grappling; at times being able to bully her into position, others not so much. I really liked how they played the dynamic as well of Amano being able to wrangle submissions, Kong having so much crazy strength that she barely needed to apply any technique to escape, making for a much more interesting look at the match rather than it just simply being about struggling for holds and sitting around for transitions. Kong of course also kicks you in the fucking head so that tends to solve any situation to boot. This was very close to essentially what Mariko Yoshida and Kong were doing in the 90's with their matches, but I'd argue that Amano is a bit more proactive in Yoshida's role given she doesn't have the crazy Iiave submission chains that she has, forcing a more frantic fast-pace when she inevitably has to eat nasty bombs in response to whatever she's doing. By the last few minutes this turns into the usual Kong formula of her playing with her food and paying for it with a couple of nice counters, with Amano throwing in more lucha-flavour near the end with some roll-ups and a neat moonsault. It resorts to her just throwing punches to the face and whatever she can measure up, and of course that ends badly when Kong finally catches her in a mean Torture Rack before hitting a single Uraken to win with.

This is a pretty simple match, but it does those simple measures pretty well. Amano isn't quite as realised as she'll be in later matches and hasn't quite embraced her awesome headbutt shtick yet so we don't quite have that finished product to really measure up to Kong proper. You can kinda feel that vibe here: despite all of her cool submissions you feel like she does lack a certain x-factor to really make this uncertain. The submissions as well, while solid, don't really mean anything to the match itself. Amano works on Kong's legs for the majority and it doesn't equate to anything substantial; Kong sells them barely outside of the submissions themselves and she reacts the same when her arms get stuck in holds to boot. There's no real end-goal to any of it which makes them feel a bit weak. Other than those factors this is definitely a solid watch and keeps up the hard-hitting pace all the way to the end. 

Carlos Amano vs Sugar Sato GAEA (18/05/02): DECENT

Spoiler

Sugar Sato at this point was a very hit or miss hoss worker who could be really mediocre without the right person leading. I feel like here wasn't one of those times; Amano was really coming into her own as a wrestler (though it would still be a few years before she would fully crack her signature striking shtick with the awesome headbutt combos, though she still does pull them out here sparingly) and brought some energy to this that otherwise could've not been present, always working from below to try to crack the much physically stronger individual. I feel like Sato is a bit of a unfinished product. She has some cool stuff here and there but for someone who has a imposing look and knows how to do mean stuff, she really doesn't have much of a interesting moveset that really matches what you see otherwise. There's occasionally a moment where it all seemingly comes together but she just doesn't have the sheer impact that someone of her stature should really have when doing moves or communicating intensity. Amano helps with that because she throws herself around and eventually wins the crowd over with a nice dive to the outside and some really hard-hitting suplexes/strikes to balance things out. She has a lot more of a tangible focus on giving bad intentions when she's actually working, if that makes any sense.

The last third focused on Sato trying to finish things with huge power moves while Amano tried to counter with arm submissions to basically stop that from happening alongside clever technical moments where she'd go for roll-ups or suplexes. Found the finish lame; Sato just runs into Amano for a Vader-lite body attack and that's enough to get the pin by itself. I get the reasoning behind it as a flash-pin, especially with Amano complaining to the ref afterwards about the count, it just didn't look impactful enough to really be taken seriously as something that could have ended this so abruptly. That leads to the above issues with Sato, she just doesn't have that real mean spirit for me to buy what she was doing here. This was still fairly good though all things considered, especially in terms of keeping the whole match interesting with consistent solid spots and smart cut-offs that allowed the two to flex their stuff a bit more than usual. Structure-wise this never got particularly great though and the somewhat infrequent crowd reactions did dampen this a good bit, so I'd say this was still okish enough as a whole but could've been a lot better. 

Carlos Amano vs Chikayo Nagashima GAEA (26/05/02): FUN

Spoiler

Real fun opener between two obviously talented wrestlers, albeit nowhere near as good as their 2003 singles. This starts hot with a lucha sequence before the two slow things down with some tolerable comedy and some slick grappling spots. They mostly ran the idea that Nagashima was the lesser of the two but was more agile, so she focused more on her speed and high-flying background to get in offence and escape from potentially dangerous holds. The match really flew by when watching it as they didn't really have any downtime and plenty of varied stuff despite the relatively tame no-stake conditions. Last few minutes were especially strong as they exchanged some solid near-falls and had Amano almost get the win multiple times with a ankle lock/German suplex, ultimately losing out to a spinning Victory Roll out of nowhere that stole Nagashima the pinfall in the end. Not much else to say; pretty good opener-style match that never threatened being anything beyond entertaining for what it was. Ultimately mindless fun but still, you know, fun!

Carlos Amano vs Ayako Hamada GAEA (02/06/02): GREAT

Spoiler

Really good match that has Amano be a huge prick by refusing the handshake by Hamada and subsequently has to be grinded down to the dirt as a result. The first 3 minutes of this were all them just exchanging and countering headlocks before going into some fun lucha hybrid sequences, mostly ending up with Hamada as the quicker aggressor while Amano had some crafty technical submissions and had to generally rely on Hamada getting too reckless to get back on top. It's hard to say just how incredible Hamada was at this point, just insane atheticism with a real mean streak that carries into everything she does. Definitely feels so much more refreshing than the modern day high-flyer who's more focused on the flying than actually making it work into the match. Amano is a worthy peer who can move around and bump well to boot, giving this a terrific pace that never seemed to really stop completely without some other big slice of action cake getting thrown on the table. The last third in particular where Hamada gets overzealous with a apron moonsault attempt and gets thrown off the ropes mid-attempt by Amano which in turn damages her foot and lets Amano sneak in with some fun out-there limb work was quite fun. They eventually default to just bomb throwing as Hamada seems to be in proper trouble with her opponent honing in on the German suplex as the main big thing and probably one of Amano's best running spinning elbows I've seen ever for a huge near fall. They even do some proto Marufuji/KENTA-lite spots with Hamada consistently trying to score her signature back kick and how they play around Amano scouting for it by dodging and/or ducking, eventually building to a very cool bit where Hamada does a fake-out version of the move in order to score one at last to turn back the match momentum, scoring the win off a AP Cross. Solid 10 minute sprint that has a couple of overambitious moments but generally does a VERY good job of showcasing two of the rising stars at the time in a heated bout with zero filler on the table.

Carlos Amano & Chikayo Nagashima vs Ayako Hamada & Chigusa Nagayo GAEA (30/06/02): FUN

Spoiler

This was based around the younger duo being shits with their relentless double team antics and limb work. This also gives us the chance to see Nagayo/Amano go at it on the mat for a couple of sequences that were surprisingly indepth despite being obvious padding given this match was never going down that kind of direction. Still, was cool to see the two battle it out with opposing aims (Amano working the arms while her opponent had some nifty toe-hold variations) even if it was fairly short. Pretty much all of the first half is a heat segment as Hamada is helpless against the two showing off and using their numbers game to consistently keep the pressure and corner off the ring. Hamada gets in and they do a creative twist by having her comeback get cut off early and damaging her arm in the process, meaning she's similarly damaged goods. Nagayo having to bump and sell a fair bit means that we inevitably get some sloppy botches, most of these involving Nagashima trying to do lucha work that's simply way too much for this version of her to reliably move around for. They eventually get the hang of it because Nagayo just takes full control and does some fun power moves involving backbreaker variations. We get some pure kino sequencing as she goes for the Inoki crab kicks when her leg is attacked, only for Amano to catch the second kick to go into a really nifty ankle lock that had her biting the foot again (!!!) which I did mark out a bit at lol. The last third was fairly solid as they balanced the limb work alongside Hamada and co doing cool spots in response.

Amano is isolated out as the legal wrestler for all of it so we inevitably get some solid bumping alongside her resorting to epic Honda-lite delayed suplexes to try to get the win. Ultimately she ends up getting pinned with Hamada's AP Cross after some fun double team spots between the four. I thought this was a solid tag that understood what it was trying to do in regards to being mostly self-contained to doing cool stuff while logically progressing from the limb work thrown out here despite it not being taken too seriously. Nagashima/Amano are pretty much smooth as anything with their respective styles and Hamada gets to show off some strong lucha spots to boot. Nagayo always seems a clear level behind everyone else here but I'd give her credit in that she was aware (well mostly, anyway...) about those limitations and kept to her own lane. 

Carlos Amano vs Command Bolshoi JWP (15/09/02): GREAT

Spoiler

What do you get when you pair up two super technically talented wrestlers stuck with a unique stipulation on a random house show? Really great work, that's what. Basically the match can end on a 2-count (this was similarly done by NJPW a while back as well, so there) which brings in itself elevated sense of tension from the usual holds and submissions because any of them, realistically, could get a quick pinfall; that aforementioned tension is cheap and easy here given this makes the match super unpredictable. Bolshoi walks into this with some sensationally awesome Rey-style innovative roll-ups alongside lucha transitions while occasionally getting to show off her mat-work when it comes down to it. Amano plays more of the fumbling shooter here as she's consistently trying to get in submissions and/or openings for them but either keeps forgetting the rules or they get exploited in turn to try for more cheap flash pins. There's some brilliant comedy around Amano struggling to escape holds without sticking her shoulders down and the struggle that in turn causes between the two when they're throwing themselves all over the place. Despite the potential for this to be a really nothing match with a couple of interesting moments (which this did threaten at points with some of the stalling going on here and there) it turned out to be WAY better than expected; for a 10 minute sprint this is borderline geat in terms of a early showcase of a high-speed/grappling showcase with a lot of different influences from lucha, catch, shoot-style, etc. This finishes up with some hard-hitting shots and bombs between the two (which is funny if only because you get the two kicking out from big suplexes at 1, lol) before Bolshoi goes over with a top rope Uranage. Not their best outing but absolutely worth the watch if you've got 10 minutes to witness some really flush wrestling. Can't go wrong with good cooks cooking ngl. 

Carlos Amano vs Command Bolshoi JWP (23/09/02): EPIC

Spoiler

Only Bolshoi could go from a great gimmick match to the complete opposite in that this was mostly just fantastic grappling done in the style of a lucha maestros match, only instead of 60 year olds it's two of the best to ever grapple in peak condition. Jetlag said pretty much everything I'd want to say about this and more but PLEASE give this a watch if you can because it's one of those matches that really opened people's eyes on how truly great these two were.

Carlos Amano vs Ran YuYu GAEA (20/10/02): FUN

Spoiler

My version of this was the TWC version with the British bloke talking over it, yeah no thanks. The action here was really cool though, like a weird blend of lucha/shoot-style; very based, lot of aggression and speed blended well here. Amano doesn't have her hard head gimmick sorted just yet so she's more on the grappling side and as such definitely tends to grind the match down more into hold-trading than Ran who just wants to hit sick knee variations and go from there. Much like a lot of the early 2000's material there's a lot of experimental work; some sticks, some doesn't; that tends to leak in here. More of a focus on building to big moves while occasionally throwing in stuff out of the blue that looks a lot better, etc etc. It was cool to see a early version of the Amano headbutt as she just viciously bonks Ran with it while on the top rope and gets that back later on when Ran gets to hurl a nasty forearm to the head that makes a big "THUNK" noise. Really cool roll-ups and violence builds to Amano doing Kendo Kashin armbreaker transitions (VERY cool thanks) while her opponent goes for conventional bombs and knee shots. They do solid in actually committing to convincing near-falls as this works into the finish, which I'd say is the weakest part of this match. Ran hits a huge elbow for a near fall before Amano springs to life and then just....wakes up and tips her over for a weird fluky pin that didn't really seem convincing. Other than that this was a great opener that really kept things simple and energised. Some occasional slip-ups (and the random no-selling I just can never get on board with) can't stop this being a worthy watch.

 

2003

Carlos Amano vs Chikayo Nagashima GAEA (06/04/03): FUN

Spoiler

Good enough opener between two people who could do good matches with their eyes blindfolded at this point. Liked how they incorporated the elevated ramp into things with some unique spots like teasing a German suplex off it a-la Kobsahi/Misawa a month earlier or having Amano throw on submissions and running headbutts while there. Amano controls the match with her signature slick armbreaker transitions until Nagashima starts to get scrappy, trying to beat her opponent in a gross stiff headbutt contest. Obviously she loses yet still gets in a big boot right after that Amano just flings herself for so it wasn't all bad. Thought the second half was fantastic; a great blend of flash pins/bombs and some awesome submission counters, finishing up with Nagashima getting the win with her Frankensteiner. Didn't need to go crazy long and thankfully it didn't, keeping instead to a bunch of solid sequences that led well into each other, with Naga going from flips to strikes to roll-ups as she was getting dismantled with every one thrown out. Amano is very much happy to work at a more go-go pace and as such you get a real breeze of a match that doesn't go overboard but still heavily entertains.

Carlos Amano & Mima Shimoda vs Aja Kong & Lioness Asuka OZ Academy (31/08/03): DECENT

Spoiler

Throwaway in terms of results (like it's bloody obvious that Kong/Asuka ain't taking no jobs to these two) but still relatively straight-forward as a match. Everyone's just running through spots at a pretty fast pace, no time to stop and/or really do a whole lot else. Basically Amano and Shimoda work this as the upstarts, running around the place and generally either getting rekt by the experienced vets or occasionally getting some good shine moments with lots of running around. Amano was lovely here; loads of epic headbutts, really sneaky submissions (the one where she counters Asuka's running punt to the back into a ankle lock was about as smooth as you could really get) and she conveyed her desperation perfectly, especially near the end when things were getting pretty dramatic. Shimoda was....fine, not particularly great bar a couple of little moments, felt a bit stunted working with the slower pace here. The weapon shtick here drags this down aplenty in the second half because there's a fair bit of contrivance (including a bad botch involving a table) there's completely unnecessary blading for drama to boot; this had a bad stink of early 2000's quite frankly.

Doesn't mean there wasn't some fun drama around Asuka having to claw her way back into this (even getting some ye oldie 80's chants when she was getting double teamed) even if Asuka by this point was essentially a bunch of nostalgia glued together with hardcore shtick barely keeping everything together. Kong bit at the end where Shimoda was just throwing everything alongside Amano bumping like crazy was solid stuff and ended realistically with Kong simply connecting with a single stiff Uraken to clear up shop. This had some great elements about it and totally got the crowd very much into the match by the first few minutes simply by how sprinty it was, for sure. Will say that Amano's bits hit harder for me anyway; Shimoda isn't bad or anything, just that I was a lot more interested in when this was a hard-hitting back and forth than a so-so plunder fest. There was a tangible spilt there between the two that I think wasn't balanced very well. Fine for a late-Asuka match if you know what you're getting into.

 

2004

Carlos Amano vs Mariko Yoshida GAEA (30/04/04): EPIC

Spoiler

Pretty great! This was worked like a uber-urgent shoot style bout where the two basically just wrestled though a bunch of awesome sequences of mat-wangling. The start focused on defence (or lack of it) as Amano got sloppy at the start and almost died to a Spider Twist while Yoshida was too comfortable afterwards and got thrown into a standing armbreaker submission. After that the two were a bit more tentative, with Yoshida winning out due to her superior wrestling. Carlos has a harder head though so she went into throwing sick headbutts and doing Samoan spots like Yoshida hurting her hand off trying to punch the hard part of said hard head. Everything felt like it could've logically ended the match and the pair really got that over with their big bombs and submission counters being treated as uber deadly, with struggles convincingly drawn from escaping these potential moves. Yoshida's best material comes from more simplistic and focused narratives like this where she's just trying to hit a specific move (or struggling against one done to her) and yeah it was no shock that these parts were tense and strong.

One less wise might be wondering "you can't build a match off submissions and headbutts only? " you actually can when you're as good as these two. The finish is a bit weak as Yoshida basically eats a ton of offence before hitting a wiffed boot in response to a running headbutt before hitting another one + Air Raid for the win. I guess it fit the frantic nature of the match but for me it seemed a tad disrespectful to Amano to be basically eaten up so easily. Post match is funny with Carlos trying to Fujiwara out of a handshake offer before Yoshida rolls out, boots her again then Carlos offers a second handshake, this one being legit. It was a good spot if only because of how Carlos sold it afterwards as more of a moment of legit frustration rather than anything truly malicious. Anyway, this was very solid, probably one of the better shoot-style experimentations post-PRIDE all things considered, especially with how they jointly considered the importance of submissions + the relentless pacing making this one of the shortest matches on the card. Truly one of those matches that I think you could show anyone and they'd come away thinking better of wrestling as a whole from it. 

 

Carlos Amano vs Amazing Kong OZ Academy (08/08/04): FUN

Spoiler

Really short match (only like what, 4 minutes?) yet was super enjoyable. Kong around this time while fundamentally green understood the fundamentals of how to be a imposing monster while also moving really well for the shine spots when it came time to bump. Amano comes into this as a trooper, throwing chairs and tables into the mix alongside just smashing her head into Kong repeatedly until something gives. This is a match that could only truly be 4 minutes and the finish especially matched that as Kong just got overwhelmed and pinned in epic fashion before she could recover. Disregarding the novelty factor of "Kong before TNA!!!" this is already very much worth your 4 minutes just for how much they fit in that amount of time.

Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (08/08/04): DECENT

Spoiler

The first time these two have met in a singles match since 1998 and....it's ok. The Awesome Kong match might be better than this ngl, and that was 4 minutes earlier on in the same event. This whole match from the get-go felt like it was skipping immediately into the finishing stretch and it never stopped really. All of it was just bit into bit into bit into bit regardless of the impact or for the sake of pacing. Of course it's a Ozaki match as well so after a couple of minutes of her spamming fairly lame backfists she starts throwing around weapons and having Amano blade for the big heat that never really comes here, so everything feels like overkill at x2 speeds. Amano occasionally gets in some decent enough work then we get some new nonsense thrown on top of the pile; Police showing up for interfere, other people trying to counter-interfere on Amano's behalf, like it's just a lot. It's not even like a extended heat segment or anything given Amano tends to always be one move away from hitting a comeback and turning the tables. I can certainly see people liking it if they're used to how late-Ozaki matches turn out, but this was just a blur of moves for a fairly weak payoff. Amano does provide a solid enough performance with her fun headbutt variations despite this however so this wasn't all for nothing. I'd suggest their 2007 match over this if you want a more realised version of what this was trying to do. 

Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota GAEA (16/10/04): DECENT

Spoiler

This had a few small cuts in it (probably 2 minutes or so total? ) but was otherwise fairly intact for a original GAORA TV release. This was one of those bad Toyota hierarchy-based matches where she faces someone lower than her in the pecking order and basically fucks around for half of the match while refusing to sell anything properly and basically just making a joke of things in the process. It's the kind of match that she just really isn't giving anything to her opponent so you have this really jarring experience where Amano will work on the arm or do a move and will get totally no sold and made to look profoundly stupid. And listen I love hierarchy lopsided stuff (especially in places like 90's AJPW where it was mostly respected) but the way that Toyota thinks they have to work is ass backwards and one of her major flaws as a performer in that it takes all of the shine away from the talent working from below and all on her. Despite the awful structure this was still, regardless, fairly solid, mostly because these two still are able to throw bombs and Amano is fantastic at throwing and bumping said bombs as I'd hope was clear by now. There was potential in the juxtaposition between Amano's arm work against Toyota's big suplexes alongside a couple of sequences where it looked that was realised, the main issue being that Toyota will obviously not sell limb work as per usual and the massive amount of no selling between the two.

Even when Toyota would sorta sell it was the kind of hollow selling where she just screams in the hold while crawling to the ropes before defaulting to her normal spotty self. The match chugs along and never quite gets into the next level because Amano at some point just seems to forgo selling to get up instantly from nearly everything, creating no tension to anything going on here. This is reflected by the fairly crappy finishing sequences which had some comedy in Toyota running around the ring to not get caught or her stomping Amano's bandaged foot with a couple of teased finishes before Amano manages to get the upset with the running headbutt feint into Small Package out of nowhere. This does have some good parts in that the two do eventually get to a point where I think the premise of the match is overrided by their performances enough to not matter with lots of entertaining moments to go around, it just doesn't fix the shoddy work by Toyota in the end because what she's trying to go for here simply doesn't work. Instead of Amano's big victory seeming triumphant against a impossibly imposing threat it instead feels fluky, making her out to look like a Barry Horowitz-lite jobber who just happened to get lucky; the subdued audience reaction reflecting that. This could've worked if Toyota knew how to structure matches like this more competently. She doesn't, sadly, so this is what we get. 

Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Ayako Hamada & Dynamite Kansai GAEA (17/10/04): DECENT

Spoiler

Clipped by around about 2/3 minutes for the GAORA TV cut. With this taking place in front of about 300 people and the individuals involved this almost looked like a typical OZ Academy main event lol. Thought Hamada/Amano section sadly didn't live up to the talent that these two had at the time as Hamada seemed content to just work at a lax pace despite the occasional crazy lucha spot, something that I've been increasingly weary of as I've seen more of her post ARISON stuff. There's a Platonic ideal of what you'd think a Ayako Hamada match should look like and it just tends to be more absent in practise than I'd hope. Toyota is Toyota here so you get what you get out of her in a tag match (read: lots of action, little substance) and Dynamite Kansai is basically her usual self bar her absolutely god-awful camo attire that makes her look like a early 2000's Dudley Boyz fan ugh lol.

Not to say that this was bad or anything but it was definitely one of those spot-matches where there isn't really any depth to anything apart from everyone just wanting to get their shit in, amplified by Toyota's presence needing to get in all of her bits pacing be damned. Is this bad, however? Not at all. The spots are still quite strong and Amano's David/Goliath dynamic with Dynamite with her speedy strikes and crafty rollups against huge bombs is eternally really engaging despite Dyna being far beyond her better days as a wrestler. They know how to milk the drama with a good few near falls thrown here and there until Amano finally gets put down with a sharp kick to the head mid-headbutt and Splash Mountain for the pinfall. Definitely a very two-dimensional match but still full of big moments worth really getting your teeth into alongside some strong individual performances from mostly the JWP talent; Toyota's work at this point just doesn't interest me and Hamada was very detached to this bar the few big spots she clearly thought of before going into the match. 

 

2005

Carlos Amano & Chigusa Nagayo vs AKINO & Mariko Yoshida GAEA (16/01/05): FUN

Spoiler

Chigusa was doing the Rocky gimmick this time for the walkout, was funny. It was fitting for this match because it was definitely more of a Yoshida-style/ARSION affair than what you'd usually see out of this company. There was some appeal from seeing Yoshida interact with Nagayo tbh they really didn't do a whole lot interesting. 2005 Chig is a lot different from what she was even in the 90's and I felt like she just didn't have the heart in it anymore to really get some of that old glory back. She was more content to basically coast on what was already on the table as she got controlled by Yoshida for the most part here, getting caught in multiple submissions and half-heartily waiting for her turn to reverse and stick on less cool stuff like a SDD attempt into a toe-hold or a slow double wrist lock threat while in mount. JWP Chigusa would've at least thrown in some stiff head kicks to shake things up, but as I said I think she mostly just didn't really have passion for wrestling at this point and time, which would further reflect on what else happened in 2005. The rest of the match is more energetic with Amano predictively being the bump and feed person here as she gets isolated out and beaten up by the other pair. AKINO was pretty cool here as she balanced some good strikes with creative submissions, solid blend all things considered. Amano mostly is in the background but does near the last third get to unleash her crazy reckless headbutts so all was fine there. Yoshida was as expected great here, working a solid disrespectful style as the outsider out of the four while also incorporating her signature spots (Fujiwara tease into Spider Twist, boots, etc) into things. Nothing crazy but the usual solid quality of work you'd expect from a top quality worker.

You could tell that this had Yoshida's fingerprints on it in terms of match structure because the last third is focused around her leg getting messed up by a low dropkick and Amano pouncing on that weakness to get in limb work; something incredibly similar to many of her self-produced IBUKI showings. Loved the bit where she ended up using the leg for a boot out of instinct to bash a running Amano and fell over afterwards in a cool little Kawada tribute. Was a shame that the Amano/Yoshida sequences were so one-sided anyway (like Amano gets in maybe two kneebar attempts before getting a one-sided beatdown for the rest, seemed a waste). Instead her and AKINO just spammed submission counters at each other before relenting to strikes, then roll-ups, ultimately Amano getting one held long enough for the win. Pretty good in places (and about the best we could've seen out of a Nagayo/Yoshida encounter in these conditions) with tons of fairly high-paced antics that managed to blend in the grappling as to not make it too obnoxious for the more conventionally-minded crowd watching. The 22 minute length did feel like it in places however they did do a relatively decent job at working around it as opposed to overtly padding this out longer than it needed to be. The people involved knew what this needed to be and didn't flop at it. 

Carlos Amano & AKINO vs Ran YuYu & Toshie Uematsu GAEA (11/02/05): FUN

Spoiler

Cut down by 3 minutes for the GAORA cut. A bit sloppy in places but otherwise a fairly inconsequential spot match where everyone here just ran through a ton of work with each other with a small goofy outside brawl thrown in just to mix things up. Ran and Toshie are super go-go mode and despite not being known for such Amano and co are game to meet in the middle with some equally wacky moments on their side to boot. Generally this didn't go outrageously crazy with the big moments (though we get some really creative double team work by Ran's team that you'd only really see in this mid-2000's era when there was a lot more experimentation with spot work) even if this match had next to no respect for tag psychology and everyone basically just went in and out of the match as they pleased. They built this up nicely around some close falls as Amano took some bombs before using her hard head in a couple of fun moments to eek out a victory. As I said this isn't really anything super special as a match by its lonesome but for a 7 minute rush of action it does the job and then some in that regard, so I can't complain too much about that. 

Carlos Amano vs Aja Kong (10/04/05): GREAT

Spoiler

"I don't think this perhaps equates to their later work as well however for a short burst of action this definitely hit the spot. Amano and Kong have a great chemistry in the ring because Amano will bump and throw herself around all over the place for explosive offence and Kong is one of the greats when it comes to delivering that kind of explosiveness, but then they can easily turn the tables around and have Amano throw stiff shit and Kong to bump generously to boot. The match does slow in places; there's a lull with a particularly long sleeper spot that no one really bites into as a proper finish and Aja's crowd brawling felt more like she was walking Amano around the arena than actually trying to beat up her opponent; but otherwise this was paced really well. Amano is essentially the Wolverine to Aja's Hulk, just consistently throwing shit at her at high speed to try to break her down while Aja can just swat her away with one or two shots and get right back into control until Amano inevitably recovers and gets right back into scrapping. What makes this clearly better from their 2002 match together is that Amano has the headbutt shtick, making her work a lot more varied and explosive (as opposed to the more grapple heavy version from a couple years ago) which makes for much stronger visuals than just them wiggling around on the mat. It also helps that we have a really great crowd here that Amano can just bounce off with incredible levels of heat, especially in the closing moments where it feels like she's actively getting her strength from them alone. Finish was perfect, no bullshit extended kickouts or anything, just Kong getting in a good punt to the head and top rope back elbow. I'd say watch their 2007 match for a more longer/realised version of what this match essentially was. This, however, felt more organic and had a far stronger pace to it bar the lulls in the earlier parts of this match.

Carlos Amano & Mayumi Ozaki vs. Chikayo Nagashima & Sugar Sato OZ Academy (26/06/05): FUN

Spoiler

This is Sugar Sato's last match (well ok it wasn't, she'd show up once more two years later in typical wrestling fashion). She was never anywhere close to being one of the more technically complex or charismatic of the GAEA rookies but still reasonably competent enough as a midcard feature with some great matches under her belt. This match showcases her doing what she does best; big power moves and aggressive shit, this has both literally as soon as the match starts as Amano/Ozaki run in with tons of streamers in the ring before Ozaki does a batshit springboard twisting senton off the apron. Nagashima is here mostly as the cool lucha-ish worker who can do most of the intensive workrate/bumping. Ozaki and Amano both get their moments with Sato: mostly to beat the dogshit out of each other with either big backfists or stiff ass headbutts. I don't quite think Sato gets close to reaching the levels of those two (then again at this point who really could? ) so she mostly settles for a mix of comedy bits and cool power moves. The middle part turns into a long outside walk and brawl that is only really worth watching for Nagashima doing a double foot-stomp off one of the Korakuen entrance arches, crazy stuff. She does a 450 foot stomp in-ring later on to Amano that looks like compete and utter death.

The crowd wasn't enamoured with Naga/Sato controlling the match when they did do so but got more into it with the usage of multiple near falls and more spots. I wasn't particularly wowed (especially given there are a good few of these that are completely unorganic and feel rather contrived) but hey it worked and said spots were cool by themselves so I can't complain too much. Last few minutes were at least a bit more interesting with Ozaki/Sato taking up the majority of the action to smack each other with Uraken shots. The finish was goofy ahh nonsense with Ozaki going over Sato with a half-Nelson suplex before Sato no-sells right after the pin to get a symbolic one...but only after she powerbombs Naga onto them. No idea why they went for that in retrospect given it didn't do anything bar deflate the crowd. Match as a whole isn't tremendously deep and mostly consists of everyone just doing cool stuff, so that's your kind of match then this is definitely amazing quality. Otherwise there's not a lot else to it bar a really good spot-show by Nagashima and Sato doing her best to try to end on a high note. 

 

2006

Carlos Amano vs Kaoru Ito OZ Academy (22/01/06): FUN

Spoiler

Pretty solid affair that had a bit more detail to it than you'd think. Ito's the stronger of the two when it comes to big bombs and whatnot, forcing Amano to go for her trademark arm submissions and faster pace in order to try to edge out a win. Ito's not exactly the most complex wrestler out there but she really doesn't need to be in order to be impressive given Amano does more or less most of the huge bumps and selling while she can work on top and do her usual nasty power spots. I did like how they played around with that David/Goliath formula there as we had Ito still doing her big bombs and shit with the creative flair that after the arm work she'd always end up pausing or they wouldn't be as effective as usual, allowing for her opponent to snap back with cool headbutt variations or equally hard hitting bombs. It did get a bit slapdash by the end as Ito didn't exactly have the greatest gas tank to keep up with the frantic pace this was set at. This wasn't a particularly major problem through and the match was still pretty enjoyable as a basic movez fest with some good structure behind said moves to make it a enjoyable experience. Amano at this point was REALLY coming into her own as a wrestler and we'd be close to her peak around these years.

Carlos Amano vs Mika Nishio OZ Academy (03/23/06): FUN

 

Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (30/04/06): SKIPPABLE

Spoiler

Dull Ozaki-style slog that lacked the heat needed to make her antics really that tolerable. She's a good wrestler as well despite her age (still sells great when she wants to do so) I have no idea why she keeps wanting to hide that with so much shtick. They brawl on the outside and it's pretty weak, they don't really do anything to warrant it bar some really bad slap exchanges and wonky chair shots. Ozaki controls some portions with her usual chain and weapon shtick before Amano unleashes some fun arm work, including at one point just hammering it with elbows. She tries doing some drinking gimmick with the old spit in the face stuff with a beer, but Ozaki blocks it and wacks her right on the head with a chair lol. Some occasional good spots (Ozaki's top rope armbar into brainbuster, Amano's crazy headbutt combos etc etc) don't make up for the general apathy that me and the crowd have to this relatively by the numbers match.

There's not really anything about this that makes it any better than their 2004 match bar maybe being a bit tighter structure-wise. Last third is just Ozaki spamming the shit out of Uraken shots and Shining Wizards (definitely not aged well given just how overused these two moves were during the 2000's lol) while Amano kicks out of everything before hitting a nice ref-assisted leaping headbutt then Ozaki answered with her own ref-assisted Wizard after she no-sold the entire thing in less than 10 seconds? It was more brutal than expected because Ozaki flubbed the fall and ended up dropping right on top of the ref afterwards in a fairly nasty landing. This was significant enough that they had to extend the armbar battle spot longer than usual so that they could get back up and recover. Ozaki wins with a long ass armbar spot to finish things off. Utter mess of a match with some terrible no selling and a general lack of creativity as to how this is put together; everything I've seen here has been done better in other matches involving the two. I'd say avoid this unless you like messy matches with a abundance of lazy match tropes.

Carlos Amano vs Yurie Kaneko Sendai Girls (11/11/06): DECENT

Spoiler

This was a nice little rookie/vet exchange that never broke the bank creatively but still was amusing enough. Amano is always quite good at these sort of matches because she's a lot more generous than many of her standing and will give a fair bit to rookies like Kaneko to do their thing when it matters. They still have her dominate the vast majority, but the shine moments are more interesting than "oh you hit me slightly harder than usual so I have to slightly sell you for a couple of seconds" as it can be the case sometimes, she actually gets to do moves and whatnot. Granted they weren't that good but hey it's something, right? Anyway this went on for a bit, it was kinda funny seeing Amano have a near fall to kick out of a basic ass neckbreaker then win almost instantly after with a armbreaker/arm triangle combo for the tap-out. Perfectly fine work with a good crowd behind it...yeah that's that basically. 

Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (30/12/06): GREAT

Spoiler

The sprinty version of a Ozaki/Amano match (this alongside other matches were given a length of 10 minutes only) and shocker it's much better than a lot of their other encounters. Generally because it isn't clogged up by endless Ozaki heat spots and cut-offs and therefore has to cut to the real beef worth tasting. We got a hot start with Ozaki landing some good bitchy slaps before Amano took over with a headbutt to the back of the head, forcing Police interference and a long outside brawl where the two scrap it out around the place. Fun goofy stuff as Amano does her hard head shtick and immediately gets punished by Oz just bashing her brains in with multiple chair shots to the head. Eventually Dynamite is fed up with this double teaming shit and runs in for a double lariat on Oz/Police to even the odds. The second part of this match is basically a extended beatdown as Amano hits a bunch of cool stiff headbutts and other bombs, Oz only barely getting any control even after bashing around with the chain or doing endless Shining Wizards. Though she'd get a couple of near falls you never really bought that she was on top of things at all, especially when Amano is persistently getting right back up (or in one case holding on to Oz's leg for dear life, forcing her to basically slap her to death to even move around lol) and fighting back. This leads to some fairly strong arm work as Amano grabs on a couple of submissions to try to get a quick win rather than go for bombs.

This is where Ozaki is, frankly, fucked, as she simply doesn't have the technique to really escape these and prior matches (98' especially) have established limb work as a real weakness of hers. They milk the tension well with lots of rolling around and sheer desperation selling by Ozaki as she threw herself around in panic trying to survive just long enough for the 10-minute time to pass but ultimately had to tap out just seconds before so in a really great bit of drama from two great wrestling emoters. This was real solid as a match and built well for what it was trying to do. Ozaki did seem to have a couple of issues with the more faster pacing but other than that did fairly well keeping up and being a solid heel on top of that. Helps that the crowd were actually alive for this one compared to some of the other matches here so having Amano do her usual shtick got a decent reception and as such fed into the dramatics a lot more than it could have if instead we just got polite clapping. It's a testament of the intensity these two generate and the more snappy pacing forced by the time stipulation here. All in all, shockingly good.

Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Ran YuYu & Yuki Miyazaki OZ Academy (30/12/06): DECENT

Spoiler

Rather slow one that never got that much faster. Ran and Amano do some Muto-style wrestling to start off that while cool doesn't really go anywhere. It definitely feels like everyone is wrestling on "opening match" mode as they drag this out a fair bit with fairly ho-hum work. Yuki Miyazaki is a fun addition to the usual tag team formula with her solid bumping skills and wacky lucha spots. Though Amano and Ran still do quite well together chemistry-wise this was one of those occasions where cribbed a lot from their earlier matches so things weren't as dynamic here as they were there given that fact. It also really doesn't help that the crowd for this was fairly dead; lots of begging for claps during big moments, lots of just dead air to boot. Amano tries to get the hype back with a bunch of intensity via huge dumb German suplex bumps or showing off with some cool technical counters but they just weren't biting here. Even Ran doing super nasty running Kitchen Sink knees didn't invite a whole lot of reaction.

Kinda a shame as well given how much they were throwing on the table especially at the last third where they had some nice Dynamite near falls including a nasty double foot stomp. Match went on for a bit until quickly finishing up with Dynamite getting the fall over Miyazaki with Splash Mountain. Not BAD per-se however the combination of this having a fairly slow pace to it alongside the near complete lack of reaction definitely turned me off this after the fun starting sequences. It's a match that just hits a cap and never gets past that, peaking around about the end of the middle and dragging its feet a bit when Dynamite started hitting all of her bombs in succession for really obvious near falls. 

 

2007

Carlos Amano vs Chikayo Nagashima OZ Academy (28/01/07): FUN

Spoiler

A perfectly good match that shows that two good wrestlers can have a....good match, shocker. This was noticeably a bit more of a lower-workrate affair, focusing more on brawling on the outside and a goofy ahh Duel of the Fates on some elevated tables that had the two awkwardly throw strikes while struggling to not fall down. This also had a lot of no-selling from Nagashima where she'd just pop up Road Warrior style after a slam or strike which while cute did get annoying after the second time she pulled this out. It devalued the impact of the strikes as well; given many of them were pretty rough that equally doesn't help things. The match as a whole was fairly good though as they mostly stuck to the same theme of Nagashima being faster with her lucha rolls and counters vs Amano's more strike-heavy approach. There are some occasional really cool sequences that, while having a third of the atheticism you might see these days still felt a lot more coherent in how they worked in certain moments and spots to fit the pacing rather than a mindset of "more is more" if that makes any sense. Everything they threw out here felt reasonable. Even the no-selling by Amano near the end made sense given her shtick of having a hard head letting her stay in the game long enough to hit a stiff headbutt before tumbling back down again.

The match is harmed somewhat by the rather dead crowd who bar some of the bigger spots here mostly stay pretty silent for the whole thing, which kills the tension that these two were trying to build as things intensified. Last third was by far their best work as the two basically just devolved into hitting each other really hard with forearms and clunking headbutts. Nagashima noticeably gives up on this to spam some clever rollups alongside Amano hitting a great counter to a flying headsissors by going into a triangle choke. Ultimately that fails and Nagashima eventually gets the win once again using her lucha skills. This had a better last half than the 2003 match but as a whole wasn't as solid action-wise with the weird no selling and lots of tit for tat work between the two making it feel a bit less important than it should've been

Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Eagle Sawai & Takako Inoue OZ Academy (28/01/07): FUN

Spoiler

Amano does double-duty in this event with a Openweight title match right after this btw, pretty crazy. As a match this is fairly unique for having Takako Inoue and Eagle show up as a duo; given they barely show up in OZ this was a welcome sight. How did the match go? Well I thought the LLPW crew actually did fairly well despite their age and limitations. I mean Inoue was 48 here and still could do her bitchy heel routine relatively well despite not being able to obviously go at that super high workrate that she could in the 90's despite still being able to bounce off the top rope just fine. The match mostly thrived by the four involved just being petty as hell with each other and embracing it with tons of occasional no-selling and rough and tumble moments. The weakest here was obviously Eagle as she really didn't have much in the tank yet they nevertheless played around that by having her just being a really big tank that could go toe to toe with even Dynamite here and get away with it, them having a test of strength (in 2007, of all places) getting a big reaction by the crowd and ending by Eagle openly conceding it to instead stomp on Kansai's feet and sock her in the face lol. They got a bit stiff in places but mostly reined it in to keep the structure of this intact. Amano worked real well with the pair be it getting around Inoue's face boots or playing up Eagle as this immobile tank who sparingly took big bumps. She definitely does her usual job of elevating everyone around here while not making herself look overtly work or anything like that.

Thought that the spin on the usual Amano/Dynamite formula by having Dyna be the main one in danger for a fairly extended control segment was novel enough as a concept to carry this beyond just being hard-hitting. It also helps that Dynamite can sell for ages and then hit a punt to the head and a double foot stomp and just walk back into control like nothing happened. Not many can really do that without being accused of being uber lazy but her legitimacy lends itself real well there. Last bit was especially fun as Eagle just got wrecked by the two before going up and down for a huge top rope-assisted Splash Mountain for the pin. Pretty strong tag that doesn't really attempt any dramatics, it's just mostly these four going through a fairly tame match with occasional explosions of great violence. Eagle/Dynamite especially just knock lumps out of each other in what can only be described as a hoss fight that occasionally gets mildly uncooperative. Amano is also good and Inoue for her credit does put in some decent work, hitting all her usual big spots with occasional sloppiness. She's still good don't get me wrong, just the worst out of the three in terms of memorability. 

Carlos Amano vs GAMI OZ Academy (04/05/07): SKIPPABLE 

Spoiler

Probably one of the quicker Two Out of Three Falls matches I've ever seen as this clocks in at only 9 minutes, and it wasn't even one technically lol. GAMI while being certainly talented at one point during the late 90's as a cool ARISON worker definitely is one of those washed talents that just didn't really bother much anymore. She comes out with a shirt on and tangibly stalling to react to goofy audience members shouting, kinda has trouble doing headlock takeovers, etc etc. This was very much one of those matches that you could tell just wasn't going to be that interesting from the start, and I was right in that regard because the "match" quickly ends when GAMI tries doing some silly trickery and gets O'Connor Rolled into a three-count. I'd like to think this was planned because otherwise it just makes GAMI out to be a bit of a idiot all things considered. Match restarts into a second fall after GAMI asks for one on the mic. This fall does into a draw because the two brawl awkwardly on the outside and walk around until the time limit is reached. More mic time, another reset.

They actually bothered to wrestle for this last fall and shockingly it was decent in a couple of places because GAMI decided to do some of her old submissions alongside the silly comedy spots which made it much more palpable. Despite the awful scuffed Old School spot where it moved slow as hell it did go into a cool rope-hung armbreaker so I couldn't complain THAT much about it despite it completely breaking any immersion you could possibly have. The last third had a bunch of creative roll-ups alongside Amano being pretty awesome with her huge headbutt bombs and just tanking a ton of offence until GAMI abruptly won with one last big modified suplex. Very much a bizarre match here that starts awful, continues to be awful until around about the last 7 minutes where the two clearly finally started to give a shit about the match as a whole. GAMI still isn't good with a lot of sloppiness and clearly gassing out despite the breaks in-between but she has her spots and they (mostly) look presentable. Amano mostly carries this forward with most of the big emoting and heat that you'd imagine a match of hers having in the first place. Structure sucking aside I'd say this is a decent little outing if you skip the boring outside brawl and just include the first and third fall matches as their own thing. As it stands? Really dull with everything included and went overkill near the end with a million near falls with someone who frankly just didn't deserve it here. If I have to say that a match is mostly awful + only gets worth even bothering with right near the end then it's probably not worth the attention in the first place.

Carlos Amano vs Kyoko Kimura Battlarts (13/05/07): EPIC

Spoiler

Battlarts 2.0 did have some questionable elements about it, but including talents like these certainly wasn't one of them. This started off with some grappling and then they pushed up the pace rather early with a pair of dropkicks before settling back down to more mat-work. As I've said about Kimura before she's not exactly one to really be the person pushing for holds here; she's more around just to essentially carry the pacing behind someone more competent like Amano rather than doing her own thing, so this meant that she was basically just jousting around rather than making any actual aim to working any shoot-style. The real appeal comes from these two hitting each other ridiculously hard (especially early on with those stiff forearms that were making a loud "THUD" with every shot) and that's what they did as Amano went for her infamous headbutts while Kimura goes for her infamous big boots, both getting some good damage on the other in the process. Amano does a crazy Fatu-lite spinning bump for the first big boot which was especially awesome. There's some focus on the legs by Amano; this is swiftly dropped purely so the two could stiff each other up more.

Later on we get some nice scrambles by Kimura as she reverses bombs into arm-work (including a lovely reversal of a German suplex attempt with a Sakuraba double wrist lock) and Amano milks the hold to death with some screams and prolonged wiggling for the ropes. Really simple work to the finish as Kimura goes for big bombs and really cranks up a single-leg Boston Crab as a potential world-ender. Amano certainly sold like it, anyway. She ended up winning with her signature cross armbreaker transitions and we got a sweet finish where Kimura tried powerbombing out of the triangle choke, did it, but then got her arm exposed for a armbar instead and ended up losing due to Amano smartly adjusting. I'd say this is REALLY great; it's mostly just the appeal of seeing two legit hard strikers hit each other legit hard with no bullshit. There's not much depth to it outside of that (and some weird bits like Kimura not really selling the limb-work and even throwing on her own in response from said bad limb) it didn't need much depth to it though. Scrappy Bati-Bati is a great cure for insomnia, I'd say: it's kinda impossible to not pay attention to every earth-shattering shot thrown here. I suppose there could've been room for a potentially more complex match (especially since Kimura around this time was a REALLY good talent who was having great matches with nearly everyone) but for what it is? I'm more than fine with it.

Carlos Amano vs AKINO OZ Academy (10/06/07): DECENT

Spoiler

Cut by 4 minutes for the GAORA TV version. I was kinda expecting more from this tbh. These two were really on their A-game around this time but the match we get with the pair of them only feels a lot more like listening to just the drum fill isolated from a song rather than the full thing itself; definitely good by its lonesome more often than not yet lacking that main piece to really make it seem like it completes. The fill is supposed to, well, fill in what's already there, it's just that you really get the feeling like there just isn't anything to fill here in the first place. The two work a fairly slow match with a couple of decent cut-off spots involving Amano consistently working one step ahead of her opponent. It SOUNDS cool, I should be impressed, it's just that the way they work it makes the match flavourless. There's lots of hair pulling, lulls and the two doing hit or miss comedy that mostly missed for me. Occasionally we get a glimpse of a better match via some fast roll-up sequences or Amano using some good counters to hunt for arm submissions but those are short and ultimately don't go anywhere so they feel disjointed and lacking any substance.

It just all feels like nothing work to go into the last third being a generic albeit decent bombfest that does peak at AKINO having to hit endless cool kicks to the face or big throws for near falls to a sudden finish where Amano gets in two brutal running headbutts on a downed opponent for the quick three. On a match with actual good pacing this COULD have been something real fun and worthy to add to Amano's already strong mid 2000's stuff. Sadly I just don't think the two clicked at all in terms of getting structure here, instead opting for a lot of just heatless antics that really felt like padding more than anything else. Definitely needed some sort of interesting hook to get past simply being "decent" and I just never found that here.

Carlos Amano vs Kaori Yoneyama OZ Academy (21/10/07): GREAT

Spoiler

When doing these sort of random watches from around about this time it's inevitable that you will eventually come across a match with Kaori Yoneyama (better known as Fukigen Death by more contemporary fans) given she's been literally everywhere and done all you can imagine and then some. Now most people know her as the goofy comedy wrestler with the silly undercard belt but a decade or so ago she was one of the best Jr's to ever do it; no hyperbole. This focused around Yone clearly not being in the same league as Amano; she's a crafty Jr heavyweight who lacks the height/weight/experience/skill to properly defeat her opponent in a straightforward match. She instead decides to basically turn the pace up to 11 and make this into a High Speed outing where she can blindside and possibly win off sheer agility alone. Now with a lot of the heavyweights this would be a bit janky (the weird stop/start nature due to the differences in speed between the two, the general apathy for the heavyweight to really put over the other all that much at all) but Amano can not only bump like a saint for all of Yone's incredible lucha sequences, she can also occasionally land some pretty fast-paced stuff of her own. This combined that with some pretty heated outside brawling as the pair got pissed and started slamming each other's heads all over the place. Amano doing Jun Izumida spots as she no-sells chairs to the head and hits stiff shit will never not get old, especially when she has someone who is more than fine to bump and throw themselves around. I'd say the two were pretty giving here despite all of the violence.

Another issue with hierarchy-based matches is that they tend to get a bit too cutesy with themselves and drag immensely with near falls and consistent never-ending will they/won't they hope spots. This kept itself really tight in terms of pacing, barely hitting 10 minutes and having only a couple of truly big momentum shifts between the two. They made sense; Yone using her speed to get reversals or simply just to hit a move quicker than her opponent, but inevitably getting caught out when she would try for her bigger bombs eating some mean shots in response. The triple O'Connor Roll/Chaos Theory spot that ended with Amano deadlifting her out of the pin and into a headbutt to the back of the head was just plain godly vicious stuff, we get another later that looks even more nasty when it gets attempted again. Solid finishing stretch as we get Yone just spamming German suplexes, Amano milking big heat with her strikes and submissions getting good reactions etc etc. Right near the end Yone just starts resorting to Tenryu punts to the skull and super sick tricky pins; seriously, this was some outstanding stuff. She ends up losing eventually to a couple of mean running headbutt clunks to the head and that's the match basically.

Tremendously good for a sprint, Amano wasn't afraid to actually make her smaller opponent actually look threatening (unlike some certain talents) but always tied everything back together into her being in control and needing to be outpaced to lose that. Yone's pretty great as well as a more fleshed out talent of the time that relies less on big GIF-worthy spots and more on having just really good fundamentals and the speed to use them competently...though she still has the cool moments anyway because they're cool, obviously. Very much a must-watch from the pair.

 

2008

Carlos Amano vs Aja Kong OZ Academy (13/01/08): EPIC

Spoiler

This was for the Openweight title that Kong held at this point and time.

Historically Amano has always taken L's to Kong. Didn't matter the promotion or the stakes, she always got her ass kicked. She's gotten her ass...less kicked mind you (especially between their 2002/2005 matches where her stature as a rival to Kong becomes closer) as the years have went by but she's always lost anyway. To ratify this we have her meet Fujiwara for presumably more submission training. 

Amano's "training" with Fujiwara (seemed more like it was just getting her ass kicked over and over, but I guess that's how they did it back in the day) basically spells out that she's going to work on Aja's limbs to neutralise her strength advantage and maybe survive a potential Uraken. Of course the match is still her getting beat up for a good stint as per Aja matches go with some fairly brutal kicks to the head early on though she does get the advantage briefly with a nice dive to the outside, before course Aja quickly taking it back with a brainbuster and a safe (but brutal looking) sit-out elevated piledriver. I guess one issue with this is that the selling is a bit dodgy; it makes sense for the early match but there's a lot of doing moves right after the other person just finished. It makes sense for Aja given her monster status, Amano less so. She covers for that by mostly trying to grapple or throwing epic headbutt combos as said moves so it at least feels more palpable as a immediate comeback as opposed to doing fancy spots. Eventually she catches her opponent out with a cool rolling Fujiwara armbar modification and this opens Aja up for more punishment as she struggles to pick up steam with only one proper good arm as she either gets countered trying to do stuff or can't hit nearly as well due to said arm. It's fairly basic work on the surface, Aja's just mastered it to the point where it feels a lot more natural than many give it credit for. She never feels like she's "acting" hurt with theatricals or Hogan-level facials, it's more like her battling with her own pain and very sparingly showing it as a result. 

Amano did a good job of still making this feel really desperate despite that fact with solid frantic selling and consistently trying to rip the arm off in holds, snapping on roll-ups or just ramming-speed headbutts that looked like murder; there was no real sophisticated stuff here, just loads of things that felt like they were trying to be killshots. The finishing stretch had some good drama around Aja finding her own counters to Amano's wacky headbutts, but struggling to finish due to her usually dominant Uraken arm being, well, crappy. It's the classic Aja Kong monster in peril structure and credit due, it's pretty solid, even if I think Amano surpasses her here in sheer intensity. The bit where she jumps on Kong's back to stomp her in sheer animalistic frustration after she got a rope break off a armbreaker just spelled out how desperate things seemed for her as her chances for success kept slipping away with every chance she missed to finish this as soon as possible. It gets better after watching their 2002 match where Amano tried the same arm-attack plan and got wrecked trying, so seeing her succeed but just stop right next to the finish line was understandably tense.

Kong does slow near the end due to her smashing the back of her head (off a O'Connor Roll, if you can believe it) still pulls through for the numerous wacky Amano headbutt spots that ends with her going over clean. This only falls somewhat short by the finish isn't really as tense or exciting (perhaps because it was overcooked with too much beforehand, I'd say) the match as a whole is still a real solid sprint (only clocking in at 13 minutes!) that never really had any downtime and kept pushing the action all the way to the end. Generally Amano matches tend to be better the shorter they are and this, I'd say, is a good indicator of that being factual. These two just always seem to deliver.

Carlos Amano vs Ryo Mizunami Sendai Girls (24/02/08): GREAT

Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (12/04/08): FUN

Spoiler

There's definitely some good ambition with this being paced as a two out of three falls hair match, but the trappings of a late-Ozaki performance does rear its head in that while she was certainly talented at doing clusterfuck hardcore matches, it doesn't make them enjoyable by themselves. The match itself is basically that from the get-go and purely based around blood visuals and the performance of the two wrestlers in terms of emoting. Don't get me wrong, there are some good spots here and there but at the same time there's also a lot of stupid stuff and no-selling that tends to nullify the tension more than most. Ozaki does like a million powerbombs/chairs to the head and Amano takes them all until a boot to the face gets a pin and vice versa. At one point Amano is hitting her with a bat a ton of times and sticking her in cool chain-assisted submissions and then Ozaki would just be fine a spot after and take the lead with shitty head stomps. It kinda forces the offence of the match to be essentially "more is more" as a philosophy rather than focusing more around fundamentals and then building to weapons. This just built from weapons up, forcing the match to get more and more drastic in the lengths it was going to do.....and it didn't always even do that, so you felt like it just meandered along in places. This was still pretty solid, however, because these two are just so good at getting intensity over while making sure the match runs pretty much perfectly smooth in terms of how they went about doing this and making it feel truly authentic. Match kinda meanders forward by the third half as the two do long drawn out crowd work with the dogchain and a bunch of near falls, the stuff in-between those was actually solid and the finish with the giant light tube into half-Nelson suplex was brutal.  I guess if you like the kind of overkill matches Ozaki was having at the time then this is definitely effective. Amano still looked super solid with a wide variety of bombs and submissions so that's something, I suppose. 

Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Aja Kong & Manami Toyota (07/06/08): FUN

Spoiler

Basically the match you'd expect from these four at this stage of their careers but still pretty fun. Was especially cool to see Kong/Amano get some good work out of a extended test of strength alongside Amano having to bump and sell for pretty much all of the first half here as the vet pair dismantle her to build Dynamite's impending big tag. Her stuff is....decent, the usual flurry of kicks and lack of bumps that you'd figure would be the case. Toyota is her usual spot-happy self but actually did do the graft fairly well here with some huge bumps and mobility that you wouldn't really expect all things considered. They kept the match fairly constrained to the usual stuff and didn't stray too far from that formula, so there was more of a focus on spots already seen than any sort of innovation; not necessarily a bad thing considering the quality of these four, just something to note. Was funny to see Amano basically stuck doing all of the bumping here given Dynamite's sequences basically have her never take a single proper big bump given her wear and tear, so you had these obvious bits where it was clear Amano was just being thrown in as the person capable of moving around lol.

It built fairly well to Amano having to really take a ton of offence and use a mix of her amazing headbutt combos alongside some Dynamite assistance to get out of the hole. Her and Toyota work fairly well together as we get a good balance of Toyota's insane suplexes alongside Amano's big jumps and sell-jobs to really get over the dangers involved here. The finish, however, is very lame. The ref gets knocked down by Kong and co in order for Toyota to get the symbolic 3-count with her scoop brainbuster, but then Ozaki and her crew come in to beat up Amano, then get shooed away, then Amano kicks out of a second brainbuster, then the ref gets up and DQ's Toyota and co because a secondary got involved getting them out and didn't leave in time? It was as convoluted as me saying it as it happened there and really stunk of goofy politics more than anything else. Bar that this was pretty solid. There's a couple of sloppy bits and it's obvious that everyone here bar Amano just aren't where they were 10 years ago. That said, still real fun with a ton of cool impactful moments to go around

Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Chikayo Nagashima & Sonoko Kato OZ Academy (13/07/08): FUN

Spoiler

Quite solid. This started off hot as Nagashima and co went right for Dynamite with a bunch of double-team moves. Despite Dynamite barely being able to bump for a Dragon Screw she's great here as the tank, just stands around, no sells and takes people's heads off. It's great! Fairly rigidly structured, mind, still good enough to run through for the first half of the match. Amano sneaks back in after 8 minutes and immediately does the GOAT tier spot where she counters a Kato kick to the back with a ankle lock and gets out of a German suplex attempt by just hoofing Kato in the face like a million times with back elbows, was sick. Kato and co basically just did braindead wrestling where they no-sold stuff a ton and hit each other hard. Was real solid despite the questionable psychology though. Nagashima was more about doing agile top rope stuff which Amano immediately just shat on by doing her top rope clothesline spot and booting her in the face until she had to get up and exchange stiff slaps/headbutts, culminating in a nasty head bump Exploder suplex. Goofy bit where Amano does a dive to the outside and gets randomly ambushed by Police and co who all throws chairs at her head out of the blue. This turns into a Ozaki match as they take their sweet time doing a extended beatdown with numerous chairs to the head (not aged particularly well....) until everyone else chases them out and this goes back to normal. It's a weird transition; I suppose it adds some drama to things and relates back to the hair match, it's just fairly awkward though and kinda put a damper on what was at this point a fairly solid big tag showing. You could cut that whole bit out and you'd miss nothing.

Though Dynamite is a bit rough here and there she gets the big tank style of just hoofing people in the head and no-selling lol. It's not amazing in places (especially when she needs to move fast) but with someone who can create the illusion of movement like Nagashima then it's a pretty great formula. Last third has a bunch of solid near falls that do get excessive near the end (there's like one every 10/20 seconds at one point? ) that almost undercut the tension otherwise they steered the boat fairly well into a big bombfest that ends with Dynamite winning off a Splash Mountain. Ignoring the awkward run-in that messed with the momentum this had going this was otherwise a solid bout with a ton of action. I can definitely say that Kato/Nagashima felt more like the babyfaces here given their underdog dynamic against Dynamite by how the crowd reacted but they didn't really take much advantage of it aside from a couple of mean moments. Idk, as good as this was I felt like there was a better match hiding in the structure that just never got to show up. Definitely one of the better late-Dynamite showings though in terms of how much she bothered to do (with some cool kicks to boot) alongside pretty standout work from Amano and Kato who were the best workers together by far. 

Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs. KAORU & Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (10/08/08): FUN

Spoiler

Ozaki lost to Amano (and her hair, mind you) like a few months ago so now she needs to get her heat back at once because she's the owner of the promotion in a hair/tag belt stipulation, 2 out of 3 falls. This was a typical late-Ozaki mess of a match full of interference and weapon shtick with a couple of cool moments to balance this out here and there. They did a good job pacing this out as Dynamite basically sat out the first 10 minutes to sit on the apron then got all of her good power-shtick spots in a heated comeback before Ozaki-Gun wear her out with a long Korakuen brawl that involves blood and plenty of chain shit to boot. Dynamite can't bump super well obviously so her working from under stuff is mostly laying down and taking moves until she can get in a strike or two to fight back. Amano is also the more mobile one so she can bounce around and get the crowd hyped up when she manages to lay in some stiff shots here and there, which is always very entertaining. The middle half is a complete destruction of Dynamite as she gets hit with crazy KAORU moonsaults onto tables and from ladders followed by some messy exchanges as Dynamite gets pissed and starts hurling and punching away weapons. My only real issue with this is that there was WAY too many fucking near falls, like we had about 5+ from a couple of minutes worth of action; way too much and very soon devalued much of the real tension from them.

Like Dynamite gets hit with all of this crazy weapon shtick alongside super risky spots....but she gets pinned off a 3.1 Frankensteiner of all things? I get it's down more to politics than anything else however this was just lame. Generally that's a big issue with these kind of matches, there's so much insane moments that the finishes of these can never truly satisfy everyone involved without feeling like a downgrade. That being said, this was still quite enjoyable just for the sheer craziness of it as a match and how everyone involved got their chance to land awesome stuff. Even Dynamite for a bit felt like the worldbeater of old with that incredible diving foot stomp onto the table. There's a good burst of action until Ozaki manages to smoothly escape a Splash Mountain to roll into a small package to make this 0-2 for her and thus gaining the belts in the process. Messy affair, this being a tag match kinda makes the consistent interference and general messy structure a bit more palpable as things feel more balanced between the two teams (rather than, say, a 1 v 5 lol). Everyone here was on their A-game at least (with even Ozaki doing a lot more wrestling as opposed to heel chicanery) especially the Amano/Dynamite duo just cooking a ton with plenty of big nasty violence and brawling. Definitely not for everyone for sure, but I really did like it

Carlos Amano & Azumi Hyuga vs Chikayo Nagashima & Meiko Satomura JWP (28/12/08): DECENT

Spoiler

Mostly a name-value rush of moves and sequences as per you'd expect for something like this, still solid though. Probably the best bits came from Amano/Satomura doing some fairly basic but engaging mat-work with each other as they struggled for leverage; real shame we don't have a proper look-in on these two post-GAEA given the two had evolved massively from their 90's styles respectfully. They did have some singles matches in Sendai Girls that weren't taped (???) so we'll never know just how good we could have got it. Seeing the two also throw some meaty shots at the other was fun as hell to boot. Hyuga had some nice power-moves and generally was fairly competent here despite not really standing out much. Nagashima had some entertaining lucha spots to pull out despite being the least interesting here. Last third was messy and basically focused around Hyuga using big top rope dropkick/knee stomps to Meiko's head to get the successful win over her. Other than some cool moments this mostly just fades into a competent tag. No real heated moments despite the illusion of urgency near the end. 

Carlos Amano, Devil Masami & Dynamite Kansai vs Aja Kong, Ran YuYu & Toshie Uematsu Marvelous Night V (30/12/08): FUN

Spoiler

This was perfectly decent as a match with some occasional really great bits when it got going. Mostly involving Amano and Kong who have naturally great chemistry from their series of matches with each other. We get a lot of structure built around dragging this out artificially with stuff like a vintage Korakuen messy brawl and a lot of interaction with the younger talent here as they either got in their shit or bumped for the more established acts. Devil was thankfully only in for very limited sections, was still really game to bump around and her signature big bombs like the Jumbo Suplex are still as good as they've been for a while. It really felt like she put her working boots on here for her final outing as opposed to a lot of her 2000's material; was a good change all things considered. Ran and Toshie were very energised and obviously out to impress given the conditions....I wasn't really all that into what they were doing here. Lots of wiffed offence and a general unconvincing style of wrestling out of the pair as they ran around a lot without really doing a whole lot impactful to justify such a thing. Dynamite mostly just stuck to her usual assortment of stiff kicks and whatnot, though she does land a lovely Splash Mountain on Aja near the end. The lead for the finish being Devil surviving a onslaught of moves and near falls to claw back into the match with big beefy lariats and other old moves was fun through: a real solid throwback to her JWP stuff where she was throwing weight around with ease. 

The finish is relatively anticlimactic as Devil beats everyone up for a bit before getting pinned out of nowhere off a Uematsu Dragon Suplex that gets sold as more of a random fluke than Devil actually getting properly beat given her lack of selling afterwards. The bump itself was really smooth, it just made no real sense how someone who was getting their ass beat just a minute earlier is now magically not just up and running but winning off relatively little by comparison. I get they wanted the shock upset to get that big pop here but said pop wasn't even THAT big so idk, it just felt a bit goofy. This was about as good as a match as Devil was going to have in 2008 through so you can't complain that much; she was used well and kept sparingly to either big bumps to get over the younger talent or her going back to her old ways on occasion, even if it's nowhere near anything she remotely touched in the 80's. The small little bits between her and Kong definitely showed that probably could've had a barnburner  Everyone else filled their roles fine, Kong/Amano in particular just stealing the show with some epic back and forth work, watch for that mostly I'd say if you're looking for good quality stuff that aren't just inferior rehashes pulled from better matches. 

 

2009

Carlos Amano & Tomoka Nakagawa vs AKINO & Ayumi Kurihara OZ Academy (22/09/09): DECENT

Spoiler

Quick go-go luchaish sprint with four talented workers that simmers down into more of a conventional affair by the middle. My main issue with this was that it was simply too long: 20 minutes, which was longer than the tag title match on the same card and absolutely ridiculous, really didn't need to stuff this that full. Nakagawa has a good showcase performance here as the undersized but incredibly scrappy fighter of the four, pulling off some cool sequences and really busting her ass with lots of pinball-style bumping and tons of workrate. AKINO/Amano work in some predictably great work balancing around hitting each other particularly hard alongside some tricky grappling. Some of their shit was a bit too ambitious and looked bad (especially that wiffed spin kick by AKINO into a wacky kick to the arm, awful stuff) for the most part it was as solid as you'd expect for something like this. Most of the focus was on the younger wrestlers though so it comes more as a isolated aspect rather than anything important, if you know what I mean. Ayumi Kurihara didn't really match the hype that people seemingly throw on her, but she seemed clean enough with her weird blend of lucha/submissions with loads of dropkicks, definitely the kind that you could immediately pick out as a Mariko Yoshida trainee with what she was doing here. I thought she did perfectly fine squaring up against Amano despite her relative lack of intensity by comparison, and she got put over well with a couple of solid near falls before she finally went down for the running rebound headbutt. All in all a fairly decent showing that just went a bit too long for my liking. It dragged in the middle, though I don't think it truly got boring given everyone here was putting some good enough effort in. 

Carlos Amano, Azumi Hyuga & Command Bolshoi vs Harley Saito, Mayumi Ozaki & Shinobu Kandori OZ Academy (16/08/09): DECENT

Spoiler

Cool celebration honouring the memory of Plum Mariko (who had died 12 years to the day of this event) with a big tag match that mostly was about getting name-value people in to do stuff and having fun with it. Ozaki goes through the motions (laughing after a sell and getting her chain after like a minute of actually wrestling) but we get to have Bolshoi show up with flashy speed and some very nifty submissions, including a lucha-style triple stereo one done to Saito and co. Everyone ganging up on Kandori and her in turn doing these epic judo throws and stiffing people here and there will, obviously, never get old. It's also cool to see Harley Saito given she barely makes tape after the 90's: she looked good here with some big bumps and pretty solid spots like a superplex and Tombstone respectfully. The match kinda slogs along near the end as Ozaki takes up pretty much all of it with some cheating, taken up mostly by her spamming Shining Wizards and backhands for the 1000th time. Hyuga and Bolshoi aren't gonna job given they are some of the last big names of JWP so Amano has to step up and basically work the entire last third by bumping for Saito & Ozaki while also landing some good headbutts as per standard before getting unceremoniously smacked with a Uraken mid-move and pinned in rather annoying fashion. This was perfectly alright for where it was on the card: even if the match itself didn't really feel all that impressive. Bolshoi/Hyuga are only really in this for a couple of spots and that's a real shame given they're some of the better workers here. Match never really kicked off any despite having some talent and good bits here and there. This is the closest we'd get to a Kandori/Amano match and I'm still sad that it never happened to this day lol.

 

2010

Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (10/01/10): ???

Spoiler

This is clipped to a few minutes and mostly used as a starting point to these two having numerous matches over the last couple of tapings. For a late-Toyota sprint it's about as interesting as you'd imagine as she mostly outpaces Amano but struggles to handle her hard head and spots involving around it. Eventually she's able to snap up her for a top rope Northern Lights and that quickly ends things. Not enough to properly rank, action that was seen wasn't awful though.

Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (07/02/10): ???

Spoiler

Toyota keeps goofing off by asking for a hug pre-match so Amano shakes it off. She does accept a handshake....before attacking with a half-Nelson suplex when her back is turned, kicking off the match. This like the others is clipped, but it's also a pretty good clipped match given these two. There's a uber complex bit of Amano going for a cross armbreaker, Toyota lifting her mid-move to try to snap on her Cyclone Suplex, that turning into a reverse Frankensteiner before Toyota catches her arms to turn it into a nifty lucha pin instead. It looked a bit wonky in terms of the execution, I'd still say they managed to pull it off more or less. Amano seemingly has the advantage until Toyota counters a surprise running headbutt into a small package to steal the win. Another match that can't properly be ranked, I'd still say it's solid enough overall with the Amano/Toyota build thus far. 

Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (21/02/10): DECENT

Spoiler

Still clipped, but as this is a 15-minute draw they do throw in a lot more footage than the first two, so ranking it properly should be a option I'd imagine. They play off the second match by Toyota holding on tight to the handshake this time to prevent any sucker-punches (or suplexes? Lol) as well as her trying to snap on a small package on Amano as per that second match, this time it's just a one-count though. Toyota has some goofy selling, thankfully most of this had her just bumping instead for Amano's awesome offence, including a dive to the outside that got good speed behind it. Toyota kicks Amano in.....the special place for a spot and the crowd loves it, go figure. Some more comedy evens things out alongside Toyota just no-selling headbutts to the face before Amano manages to land a top rope Cyclone Suplex just as the bell rings for the draw time limit reached. As far as short matches go and DEFINITELY as far as clipped short matches go this is above average on that standard, even if Toyota's selling and general pacing is a little clunky here and there. Amano kinda rocks at doing these short TV-length bursts of action, who knew? I mean I did but, you know, erm, yeah good match 

Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (14/03/10): DECENT

Spoiler

Amano's birthday comes two days after this event, so Toyota sings a little tune and even has a tiny little cake for the occasion, which Amano doesn't accept. A bigger one she does end up accepting through so that's something. Was nice to see her trying to sneakily wipe some tears away afterwards. In terms of Manami performances this is easily the best one as she just goes full tilt into big top rope moves that Amano would then no sell and make fun of her afterwards lol. Amano goes for more of a heelish style here with some hair pulling, but it's understandable given her losing streak at this point, making her super fired up to finally turn things around. Toyota pulls out the old goofy Rolling Cradle for a good minute or so yet even this can't get the job done. They play around with Amano's running headbutts and how Toyota has dodged them in the past few matches as Amano adapts and keeps finding ways to still get the move in without getting caught in anything tricky. Eventually this pays off and she finally gets a pinfall on Toyota after three matches of struggle. Like the others this is clipped however it's still fairly intact and enjoyable for what this was as the two really got the sprinty pace over fast and kept that exact footing all the way to the finish.

Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (04/04/10): FUN

Spoiler

The final Amano/Toyota match, and it's still a really fun watch despite the conditions. Toyota has used her 200+ IQ to find a foolproof way to counter Amano's devastating headbutts: wrestle the match with a hardhat on? Yes, the whole match is her trying to wrestle with a big goofy builder hat, all completely straight-faced. The great thing is that she uses it for heat as well! She goes for her own headbutts and manages to actually win out on them because of the fact she's just overtly cheating like this lol. This adds a strong bit of wacky color to their usual exchanges as Amano has to really dig deep to get around this very unique handicap and that of course rules to boot. Eventually the hat comes off and Amano uses it herself to land a nasty stiff running headbutt to a kneeling opponent before finishing off with her regular version of the move to win the match. Pretty fun for what was a heavily clipped match and was a nice feather in the cap for this mini-series of matches. Would recommend

Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Aja Kong & Kaoru Ito OZ Academy (13/06/10): FUN

Spoiler

The Amano/Toyota tag team belt run ends conclusively here; not so much as a spoiler given they're facing two monsters. Was cool to see Kong/Amano in action again given their tremendous chemistry together. Kong basically just lays on Amano like a tired grizzly bear and just keeps trying to choke her out with her forearm or going into a mean chinlock when her opponent attempts to roll onto their back before then going back to choking her when the ref doesn't notice lol. Basically all of the first half of this is two units just working over Amano's back with bombs and holds; nothing flashy but solid enough for what this was, and Amano is a solid enough seller that you get into the tempo right away. Toyota's work is the usual spot-filled antics (with a goofy botch from Amano as she almost falls out of the ring when coming off for a low dropkick) enjoyable enough if you're into that sort of thing. Ito and Amano hit stiff stuff on the other (including a real nasty lariat by Ito that didn't look good to take) before Kong bashes her with her signature metal basket to even things out and allow Ito to continue hitting sick hoss work. What works about this as well is the fun twist on the usual Toyota sequences as almost all of her big moments that you'd typically see (the outside dive, the rope-hung dropkick etc) are all foiled. She gets in a couple of niche stuff anyway but it's short-lived and doesn't give much space between them and their much stronger opponents. Fun goofy spot as Amano tries to get the tag from Toyota by breaking up a big pin only for Kong to jump off Toyota's back for a knee to the head.

Amano similarly keeps getting swatted away whenever she tries to assist until she's able to hit Kong with a couple of headbutts while she's setting up the top rope back elbow to set up a neat if a bit clunky Ocean Cyclone Suplex by Toyota for the near fall. Kong was generous enough to bump for a couple of German suplexes to boot. The hot tag by Amano was entertaining enough with a couple of fun moments (the double moonsault/jumping headbutt) and the last few minutes were especially good with a lot of near falls and bombs between both teams. Eventually Kong and co are just too strong to handle and Ito finishes up with a stiff top rope stomp to get the pin. Obviously everyone (bar Amano) here is way past their best years, but that really doesn't matter a whole lot when this was mostly just about basic tag dynamics and hitting the greatest hits well. Toyota's obviously well past it by this point and is mostly kept to doing what she typically does in regards to spots and the like which she's still fairly good at doing despite grinding the match to a halt whenever she needs to do something big. The pacing as a result does feel a bit stop/start in places, and I wouldn't be lying if I said that Kong felt a bit underused here. Despite those issues I felt like this was regardless a solid outing that did provide some cool moments between the four.

Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Aja Kong & Yoshiko Tamura OZ Academy (22/08/10): DECENT

Spoiler

Mostly a name-value match but with these four even a B-show outing still feels pretty good in places. Amano/Kong repeat mostly what they've done conclusively better in prior longer matches but it's still very cool to watch; Amano is prepared to bump like Rock off a Stunner for basically every big move Kong throws out while being able to deliver back in vicious ways like headbutts to the back of the head and submission wangling, never will get old seeing the two (literally) bounce off each other. Tamura also gets her chance to do work with Amano and it's still quite good if a bit too focused on no-selling and hitting big moves; there's one point where Tamura has to hit three Downward Spirals to get a conclusive fall, for example, which was rather excessive. By comparison Amano only needed one stiff headbutt to the noggin to get the same effect for a far bigger reaction? Maybe there's something to that. Toyota's spots here are mostly just her not really selling a whole lot and doing a lot of top rope dives. Wasn't too thrilled about that and generally her and Tamura have a weird floaty effect to how they performed here where stuff would look weird or there'd not really be any give to the either of them. Aja like a dummy thinks superplexing her own partner is a good idea to try to hit Toyota and, of course, misses, because that's a stupidly contrived spot if I've ever seen one lol. Everyone goes through their signature work until Aja ends up winning with a particularly stiff Uraken to clean up shop. Pretty all-rounder when it comes to quality, nothing quite got crazy good but not terrible either. Kinda the usual Aja/Toyota structure you've likely seen a thousand times or so and as a result this could only get so good before it just hit a middling baseline. 

 

2011

Carlos Amano & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Kana & Yoshiaki Fujiwara Kana Pro (10/01/11): GREAT

Spoiler

Wow, a Ishikawa intergender match that DOESN'T end up being a creepy perv-fest for most of the duration? Truly shocked. To be fair those past matches weren't terrible, but *those* spots alongside the general focus around those fucking awful moments for the most part made potentially great matchups into affairs you'd rather not waste time with. This is thankfully not the case, and it features some terrific grappling from everyone involved. Amano/Kana have the more refined and modernised flashy stuff that people generally tend to gravitate to more when wanting grappling affairs (think like RINGS/U-Style maybe? ) while Ishikawa/Fujiwara are all about minimalistic Gotch-style wangling, essentially UWF Original or the few dozen who've watched it. Fuji is the master at that kind of style even in his advanced age and so he really gets to just torment people here when he's able to stick on a hold and laugh away at the suffering he's caused. The intergender wrestling I felt was respected a ton: generally I'm not much of a fan of the concept because it leads to either creepy or borderline fetishistic match structures and spots, or completely bizarre affairs that don't really feel particularly necessary at all. This had a good balance of showing that they could go at that level while also being realistic as to how much damage they could do to guys who were far bigger and stronger, forcing moments where they'd need to catch them off-guard or with limb damage. Ishikawa getting his arm mangled by Fuji to then be blasted with stiff Kana kicks makes sense given he only had one good arm to defend himself with, but then he was able to climb back into control by riding out the attempted Fujiwara armbar again and going into his own work right afterwards. Ishikawa does lean a bit into his creepish side but it's for heel heat and actually has a good payoff when he gets his ass kicked so that's very much excusable.

This was almost all mat-work but man, it was real solid. Everyone here had a good to great foundation of the kind of work they wanted to do; a lot of felt real claustrophobic, focused around nasty attempts to simply hurt the other at points with ankle and arm attacks paired off with heel hooks and rear naked chokes. It's a dream for fans of the style for sure and doesn't disappoint at all in that regard. It was cool to see Amano switch back into the more grapple-heavy incarnation that she had during her early years; didn't miss a beat in that regard and even added in her really sick stiff headbutts in a couple of fun ways here. The finish made sense as Kana kept pushing with kicks and strikes until Ishikawa could get a German suplex out and mangle on the mat for a nasty-looking Crossface Chickenwing for the submission victory. Pretty much a must-watch for fans of anyone here or even just shoot-style in general because this was a real fun outing. It does waver in the second half due to some more shticky sequences and being Kana-focused (not a terribly bad thing but I felt like she was the least proficient on the mat here out of the four from what I've seen, more of a striker) aside from that this is pretty close to perfect in terms of structure

Carlos Amano, Manami Toyota & Nao Komatsu vs. Hiren, Io Shirai & Mio Shirai OZ Academy (10/04/11): DECENT

Spoiler

Decent if a bit forgettable. The Shirai sisters are already quite something despite this being relatively early in their careers; they do a good job being antsy yobs bullying the clearly well inexperienced Komatsu while also doing a good job when they have to eventually eat her fairly eh offence and comeback spots. We get a small glance at what a Amano/Io match could've looked like; really great, basically Amano doing her usual shtick while Io pulls out some sick agile stunts to get around the size and striking advantage that do amaze even to this day. Toyota is also here....but she doesn't really do a whole lot bar the finish, so no point really going over more than that. Most of the match is dedicated to the Shirai sisters doing crazy spots until the vets rally and manage to take back control. Once that happens Toyota demands she goes over...and does so with a Queen Bee and really cool assisted top-rope headbutt + Ocean Cyclone Suplex to finish things up for a pinfall on Mio. Mostly a feature-showing for the newcomers given it's their first time showing up and as expected it's quite good at being that despite being relatively featureless outside of that fact given they inevitably must job to the real stars. Komatsu is really bleh and Hiren is just here to pad the numbers

Carlos Amano, GAMI & Manami Toyota vs Chikayo Nagashima, Hiren & Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (03/11/11): SKIPPABLE

Spoiler

Typical really exhaustive Ozaki-style brawl that lasts for WAY too long (25 minutes this did not need to be, especially with such a lack of depth to it). A lot of it came down to Manami Toyota getting isolated by Ozaki's goons and herself for a good portion. GAMI is pretty mid here (thankfully doesn't do a whole lot either beyond some shtick and a very slow rope walk that then gets interrupted anyway) and much of Amano's involvement is just basically doing her usual routine. Toyota has her moments but at this point in her career she couldn't really perform at the levels needed for this to work; we get some botches and a pace mostly suited for more showy stuff than an actual heated brawl. The last 10 minutes were just really bad lucha where everyone stands around and waits for shit to happen before actually doing their own stuff, resulting in a rather stilted pace that feels more like a goofy exhibition than anything else. Amano seemingly hurts her knee badly when she comes off the top rope for her usual clothesline (to the point where she is incapable of getting up and they have to awkwardly cut to TV-edit replays to hide the fact she leaves the match to get tended to at ringside). She was back wrestling a couple of weeks later so I guess it wasn't anything super serious. That, however, does kinda kill the crowd for the reminder of this. They try to distract with a big outside brawl before skipping to the finish where Toyota does her usual spots to go over once again. Not great, another match they could've happily cut down by half and I would've thought much higher of it. At this point I just don't think they could've pulled off a match as long as this, especially with this kind of talent. 

Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs. Hiroyo Matsumoto & Yumi Ohka OZ Academy (18/12/11): DECENT

Spoiler

This is Amano's first match back after her minor knee injury: very noticeable by her inclusion of knee pads, something not seen in prior outings. They work around that seeming limitation by having Ohka and the rest of the Ozaki lads work on it with weapons and cheating, of course. The work isn't actually that bad and they have a couple of neat little interactions around trying to bend and destroy what's left of it. I thought Amano did a good job of working as the wounded lion in this instance; able to snap back at the obviously lesser lower-level goons, but always having her momentum cut-off by a unfair numbers advantage and her own knee making her a lot less able to move around the place. It's a simple match and not really anything complex, just fairly well done for the angle provided here. Young Yumi Ohka was *still* a really good talent with a equally good big boot to, well, boot, so her being in control sequences was the best thing for this match. Some sloppy moments drag it down near the end the finish of Toyota getting isolated away and Amano being taken out with a belt to the face + School Boy into muffler was effective enough to be a convincing upset given the background of the match. All in all pretty in the middle despite some heavy clipping.

 

2012

Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Aja Kong & Sonoko Kato OZ Academy (15/01/12): DECENT

Spoiler

Basically the usual antics you'd see out of Kong/Amano/Toyota at this point though Kato adds in some good variety to the mix with her shotgun kicks rattling the pair, especially Amano with her dodgy bandaged knees. We get some really nice strikes between the four as you'd imagine, with even Toyota at this point having some fun reckless kicks in her to substitute her usual wacky spots. For the most part though this is a rather formulaic match because Toyota needs to get all of her usual shit in at half-speed sadly. It's definitely not one of those matches where they build to much, just a lot of work being thrown at the wall until someone stops selling to get their own work in; there's no real tag psychology or any sort of tangible theme to this apart from movez. Don't get me wrong it is definitely a fun moves match, but still. Toyota seems to get fucked up by a stiff Kong Uraken in the middle half and never seems to get fully back into things, seeming sloppy and a bit glazed over in places when taking or doing moves. The standout highlight was Kato here who hit a metric fuckton of crazy stiff kicks and cool stuff working well with about everyone here while also having some good energy. It doesn't really help that she's having to work with a concussed Toyota though and the finishing stretch REALLY suffers because of it as there's just not that urgency needed to make this that interesting. Felt like a B-show performance all in all just slow as anything. There's a decent effort to make this entertaining at least but the mobility needed just isn't there which is a shame because Kong and co work the usual formula just fine all things considered. You could've just had Amano here against the two and this would've been at least coherent, that's how bad it was there.

Carlos Amano vs Tomoka Nakagawa OZ Academy (26/02/12): SKIPPABLE

Spoiler

Pretty ropey comedy match as we get the usual shit like Amano's bare feet being stomped and shtick all around. Nakagawa has a couple of neat bits but she's definitely not at the level needed to make this really anything worth talking about. It happened, the finish was especially flat (you expect something interesting and...it isn't, it's just Amano kinda ignoring her opponent after they parry a headbutt to do a Tiger Suplex instead). Completely mid, the kind of garbage Amano couldn't save.

Carlos Amano vs Shuu Shibutani WAVE (10/10/12): DECENT

Spoiler

Solid semi-sprint. Shibutani was never really that impressive at any one specific thing and her techinque isn't exactly much to talk about, but she does know how to get the aggression going in with some reckless dives and running through some rudimentary mat-work alongside some good lucha-rolls. Carlos looked like a killer with headbutts and mangling suplexes/submissions. They do some fun comedy stuff around Amano's hard head as Shibu ends up knocking herself out trying to beat them at her own game with her own attempts at smashing her head into someone else for fun. Shibu's jumping small package to counter the Amano running headbutt was great (if ripped off from earlier matches) and she carries herself well to the finish where she tries for a bunch of desperation roll-ups before being finished with a running headbutt. Nice and compact, surprisingly well-paced despite Amano being stuck in OZ-undercard hell at present.

Carlos Amano & Ran YuYu vs Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki OZ Academy (09/12/12): FUN

Spoiler

Dynamite has the biggest balls in wrestling history for wrestling this match WHILE HAVING LUNG CANCER. Crazy commitment to honouring the retirement of a fellow peer, and what's more crazy is that she barely told anyone going into this about said cancer. Granted she's barely in this, but she still goes off the ropes, still bumps and still hits like a truck so she's forever one of the supreme chads in my mind. Ran did great workrate wise given she'd just had a match before this and really carried the emotive struggle of finally defeating Ozaki and her terrible crew on the last occasion she'd be able to do so. Amano is mostly here to play the hits in the background though she does get a good bit out with her bumping and usual wacky antics. Dynamite ran through all of her usual signature spots on Ran while she screamed her heart out and had to throw everything into kicking out and staying in the fight. The dramatics are real with Ozaki doing dirty shit to the point that even Dynamite doesn't want to associate with that and the match essentially turns into a 3 v 1 on her as everyone gets their shots in lol. Ran gets her pin and a feel-good ending to her career. Not a great match by its lonesome but enjoyable enough for what it was. Ran's still pretty damn good even at the end of her career and everyone else plays their respective roles quite well. Dynamite especially given the context

Carlos Amano vs Mayumi Ozaki Sendai Girls (15/12/12): SKIPPABLE

Spoiler

Pretty average all things considered. Ozaki without her interference gimmicks is really not all that interesting and tends to spam out the same few moves she can do competently. Amano plays along and bumps solidly, but I don't think this ever got beyond just shapes and sound for me personally ngl. The finish being Ozaki winning with her wiffy backhand out of nowhere is equally uninteresting. All in all, I'd say avoid this and just watch their earlier matches together. 

 

2013

Carlos Amano vs Tsubasa Kuragaki OZ Academy (10/02/13): SKIPPABLE? 

Spoiler

This was 30 minutes.

Gaora cut it to....6 minutes.

Sigh.

I mean this was a interesting match on paper, but the shitty clipping once again makes it real hard for me to really judge this properly. Amano works the arm for most of it while Kuragaki has to contend with occasional bombs however seems to not have the cardio to carry a match of this calibre as she's consistently having to let Amano do most of the work (in actual work or bumping) or doing really limp offence when she's having to actually do something since she just can't get anything good going. They seemed to have messed up the timing as well because Kura is up on the second rope to presumably do something to Amano to then go into probably a double dub-spot for the time limit draw, but the bell rings before she can get anything done and as such it just feels weird more than anything else. This didn't seem that good, maybe the 20+ minutes missing were mindblowing? I doubt it though.

Carlos Amano & Meiko Satomura vs Aja Kong & Hikaru Shida OZ Academy (10/03/13): DECENT

Spoiler

This felt like a house show version of what Amano/Kong matches are like, but I'm not complaining given even that is entertaining enough despite Kong's limitations. Satomura was great; even with Shida (and a rather unseasoned Shida at that) she gets over so much with just basic transitions and moves. Her headlock takeovers and cravats basically spell out that she thinks Shida is absolutely not worth the effort of actually wrestling, so she sticks to just pinning her down with basic rookie-killer shit and trying to take a cheap pin that way, it's fantastic. Amano is different because she'll just go right into throwing people around and getting the crowd amped up before they get back to grinding down the weak link, but it works either way for getting the match over. Shida does a good job bumping and throwing herself around until Kong helps out with a big four-woman suplex (that almost kills Amano due to landing short next to her head). Kong beating down the pair with some cool throwbacks to their respective feuds was a lot of fun as was her just throwing weight around with big backdrops and shit.

They try to have Meiko lift up Kong for the DVD again but sadly time rears its ugly head as we get a rough botch as Meiko fails both times to lift Kong up, the second having her essentially fall on her in the attempt. That sadly means Shida has to be on offence so we get some weak knees and forearms, but they recover after a minute or so to get back into the action. Was entertaining at least to have Kong and Shida do goofy ahh teamup spots like them bashing Amano with their respective weapons at least alongside a double brainbuster, so that was something. Of course Amano works to eventually get over the odds with some neat headbutt spots and eventually Aja accidently wacking Shida with a lariat leads to her getting pinned off a stiff running headbutt. Perfectly fine as it is and was a decent enough showcase of Shida as she got some smooth moves thrown in here while bumping big. Kong and co are the real attraction through and even if their work is relatively short, it's still enjoyable enough for me to say this was a good watch overall, pacing felt real tight here compared to some longer outings.

Carlos Amano vs Aya Mizunami WAVE (27/03/13): FUN

Spoiler

Was dreading this a bit given Mizunami tends to goof-off more than actually wrestle, thankfully they kept that to a minimum and instead stuck to just trying to wreck each other with big power-moves and general good quality offence. The match also actually made a fair bit of sense; Mizunami gets the advantage with foot-stomping and using a wide spectrum of bombs to get the lead, including a top rope powerslam, Amano has to instead work on the arm and grind the match down in order to survive but also actually make a tangible lead here when given the opportunity Solid spot where Amano tries to drag down the shoulder for a potential Fujiwara armbar, but Miz resists enough to grab into a really cool looking Uranage out of that position. The last third of the match was just the usual generic bombs into no selling into more bombs shtick, done competently mind you, I just think this style feels really artificial when you've actually watched it for the millionth time play out like this. This was otherwise pretty good for a short sprinty match and very entertaining. It's cool to see Mizunami when she was a bit more focused and actually trying to measure up well-constructed matches. 

Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs AKINO & Hiroyo Matsumoto OZ Academy (12/05/13): DECENT

Spoiler

Enjoyable low-key main event. Like sure, Dynamite's not been properly good since her health battles past the 90's, sure there's no stakes to this at all, but all in all this was perfectly solid for what it was. Amano carries the workload with awesome stiff exchanges (including some pretty good work with AKINO as they go back and forth between kicks and headbutts) alongside some occasional decent sequences. Dynamite does what she's been doing since GAEA and basically just stomps around while the more mobile opponents bump and bounce around to essentially create the illusion of movement lol. AKINO and Amano also experiment a bit as they go into some cool submission exchanges and AKINO just randomly does a picture perfect springboard crossbody for the hell of it. Dynamite shockingly loses after a sluggish series of big bombs concludes with AKINO managing to sneak out a pin on a roll-up. Decent little outing that never really got incredible or anything, just all-rounded in terms of it being a enjoyable but not particularly extravagant affair.

Carlos Amano, Hailey Hatred, Hiroyo Matsumoto & Mio Shirai vs. DASH Chisako, Kagetsu, Meiko Satomura & Sendai Sachiko Michinoku Pro (30/06/13): DECENT

Spoiler

An enjoyable Michinoku-Pro style 8-man. This wasn't gonna be more than a showcase with some good moments scattered around and....yeah it wasn't more than that when I actually watched the whole thing. The premise of this being all of Satomura's students against a strong heel-ish team was enjoyable enough, with even the weaker links doing their part here with some ragdoll antics. Hailey Hatred also seems like the kind of worker that modern Stardom fans would love given she's super tall and can do cool power moves. She basically just rips her entire style off Takayama with the knee shots, the big fuck-off suplex spot, and the delayed German suplex. Not complaining through because Takayama is awesome and more wrestlers should be ripping him off. Seeing young Kagetsu is equally a treat given they already had a pretty great sense of how to get the maximum amount of mileage out of some good swagger and moves. The finish being centred around Amano/Satomura is obviously going to be quite solid and it was, obviously. Ultimately Satomura's crew hit a couple of big bombs to lead into their big mentor getting the win with a DVD. Good scrum and a well-paced feature of everyone here.

Carlos Amano & Dynamite Kansai vs Aja Kong & Ayako Hamada OZ Academy (14/07/13): DECENT

Spoiler

Cut ever so slightly by 2 minutes. This was another "decent match with good workers" kind of deal given everyone involved. Well ok, Dynamite's lost her lustre since like 20 years ago, there's that. This also felt more like a B-show filler match than anything else as we get some occasional cool moments yet this mostly went into really dull and samey encounters being done at half-speed as everyone was aware this had no real stakes involved. Kong/Amano especially end up repeating a lot of the same spots from prior matches with each other sadly. Hamada apart from doing a crazy moonsault to the outside near the end just spammed the same lazy spinning kick a couple of times and did a suplex/her finish, cool thanks for coming. Amano had some good bumping here and her scrappy moments were enjoyable as always, this just never really got that interesting for me no lie

Carlos Amano vs Manami Toyota OZ Academy (11/08/13): ???

Spoiler

This was annoyingly cut to a couple of minutes. What we got was pretty decent as the two went for more of a classical vibe with lots of more high-paced exchanges. Was kinda cool seeing Toyota work a more heavy-set style with sick kicks and bombs. She hits the usual Ocean Cyclone Suplex and has a good sell-job of when Amano is somehow able to kick out and has to act utterly confused as to how that's possible. Amano hits a really nasty running headbutt that looked like it hurt both of them bad for a near fall, we get probably the weirdest counter to a Toyota move ever as Amano goes over her head and does this like, jawbreaker/headbutt to her back while kneeling? Looked like shit, no lie. Finish had Amano win with a roll-up for the upset. Not much to say, there's little footage to talk about and in my view definitely not enough to really give this a fair shake bar a default ranking

Carlos Amano vs Kana OZ Academy (15/09/13): GREAT

Spoiler

Even when mercilessly cut (to 5 minutes, no less) this was pretty cool as a epilogue to their incredible 2011 tag match. Amano had to contend with getting kicked in the head a lot by a relentless Kana who ultimately felt more confident standing up than grappling, so she used that as a clutch to basically try to balance things out by turning this into a grapplefest whenever she could. It definitely feels like a Bati-Bati match by nature as most of this came down to just who could stand to throw the sickest strikes to counter the other with the suplexes being used as a big punctuation mark whenever a breakthrough was made and one of them wanted to try to settle things quick. There's no polite lame forearm exchanges or patient waiting for the next moment to strike, it's just these two basically finding different ways to mangle the other while not trying to die themselves in the process.

Of course in the end this is fruitless as the two simply are too violent with each other and are incapable of meeting the count of 10 after a particularly nasty headbutt/kick exchange between the two leaves them incapable of standing, thus making this a draw. Annoying finish, yes, but given we've seen what a long match between the two essentially looks like I'm not complaining that much. Really awesome burst of nastiness that cut deep and quick for how little of this was left on the table. Fast-food violence I'd say describes this well.

Carlos Amano vs Sonoko Kato OZ Academy (10/11/13): FUN

Spoiler

Sonoko Kato was a GAEA trainee who's had her fair share of solid matches; more of a shooty kind of wrestler than anything flashy, injuries dragging down her potential sadly long before she could've done anything substantial bar winning tag gold with a young Meiko (good company there) She got her incredible second wind in OZ and wrestles to this day if you can believe it. Anyway, this was really good: Amano at this point had mastered the art of the sub-15 "don't make it too long or they'll never air it" TV match and knew how to get a lot of quality out of relatively small portions of time. The starting sequences were established around cool basic grappling and Amano aping random Osamu Nishimura spots for the fun of it. Kato gets pissed off with the goofy ahh nonsense and turns this into a brawl where we got some nice scrappy moments and cool spots with Amano doing a DDT on the outside and Kato hitting a apron senton.

Outside of a awkward botch where Amano seemingly can't get in position for her diving second rope headbutt the in-ring stuff ruled. Loads of stiff shots from Kato as she can do all of these floaty senton attacks in the corner or turtle kicks while Amano mostly had to rely on technical counters and using her durable head to get leverage here with savage headbutts. Kato seems unstoppable as she throws out multiple big kicks and a meaty top rope leg drop, but can't get a proper good 3-count despite her best attempts. I thought the tension was well-put together here as Amano had to chain up stuff like the snap Tiger Suplex or fake out running headbutt to try to equal things out, really got the match going with the sheer speed of it at points. Goofy finish through: having Amano basically no sell Kato's big finish and multiple headkicks so she could then win with a random small package out of nowhere felt a bit politick by nature as to not have a proper clean finish. Bar that through this was pretty good! A bit shaky in places as I think the two try to get a bit too cute with how speedy this could get, mostly this was just really well constructed wrestling bits that never got to a truly great level but were still extremely enjoyable, especially with how they'd work in the striking portions into everything else. Another solid late-Amano outing. 

 

2014

Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Hikaru Shida & Kagetsu OZ Academy (02/03/14): FUN

Spoiler

Entrapped by the limitations of late-Toyota matches, but still pretty good. Shida/Kagetsu make a decent unit with their respective shtick and the vets do a good job conveying that all things considered. Toyota of course NEEDS to get all of her shit in so we have just a big chunk of her doing all of her usual wacky flips, once you get past that and you have Kage/Amano just beating the piss out of each other then this starts to pick up real well especially with that one spot where Kage tries doing Aja's escape out of a German suplex by falling down and throwing a kick only for Amano to hit a headbutt right when she flops down lol. There's some goofy comedy as Toyota tries to send Amano flying into Kage with a top rope dropkick but that naturally just causes her to flop over and get almost pinned instead, leading to the younger pair getting in a small bit of control until the lead for the finish. That consisted mostly of Amano doing sick submission transitions while Kage sold well and milked the drama of her struggle well all things considered. The finish being a combo of Toyota's heel kick + Amano pulling off some Bolshoi-tier tricked out reverse Fujiwara armbar to get the tap-out was especially nifty and played well on teamwork being a big factor here as a whole with both of their styles showing up there. All in all, surprisingly strong burst of action that played to everyone's strengths. 

Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs Hiroyo Matsumoto & Kaori Yoneyama OZ Academy (16/04/14): SKIPPABLE

Spoiler

Really ho-hum stuff. Yoneyama is incredibly talented but she's relegated to mostly shtick here, which I'm afraid to say was not that good. Matsu less so but this was still a lot of dodgy house show antics. Amano spends a lot of this working up to a Toyota hot tag with good bumping and selling until we build to Toyota taking control with a big double top rope dropkick. Second half was MUCH better because they actually did work to some decent moments between the four here alongside occasional moments of comedy that mostly didn't feel forced into this or anything. Finish was cool with Toyota hitting both of her finishes to beat Yone after a back and forth. Not BAD or anything, just a match that came and went without much feeling. There's some funny moments if that's your kick, for the most part though I'd say this was just perfectly fine filler. 

Carlos Amano & Manami Toyota vs. Dynamite Kansai & Kaori Yoneyama OZ Academy (11/05/14): DECENT

Spoiler

The last match Carlos Amano would wrestle as a full-time wrestler: not intentionally, mind, but right after this she'd go in for a routine checkup and would be essentially forced to retire after they found damage to her brainstem (most likely from the heavy headbutts and general high-impact style she'd done for at least 10+ years by that point) so there. As a match this was mostly nothing; a opening constructed of mostly comedy as Toyota and Amano get goofy and struggle to put down Dynamite being a big hoss here while bullying her partner. Amano and Dynamite have some pretty good work as they can rely on their stiff strikes and shooty antics to set everything up & Amano being a natural underdog relying on signature arm work to try to balance things out never fails to be at least entertaining. Yoneyama is more or less reduced to comedy fodder for the first half before she starts to actually do work in the second, so naturally things got a lot better there than then. She shockingly gets the fall after Dyna lands the Splash Mountain on Amano so that she can follow up with a top rope senton. All in all a perfectly decent match that never got much anywhere than, well, decent. Definitely a flat end to a well decorated career but that's wrestling for you!

 

Conclusion

seems to be good wrestler idk