El Dorado: March 26th 2008

First time reviewing an El Dorado show on this site. El Dorado is a fun and easy promotion to follow. There's only about six televised shows each year, so I don't know if follow is the correct word, but regardless, being a lucharesu-based promotion (and we could argue about what that word means these days) the matches tend to be quick, often flashy, with the emphasis placed on entertainment over the more serious promotions in Japan. There is a stronger heel/face dynamic than in many puro promotions, which is good for a non-Japanese speaker who doesn't necessarily follow the intricacies of a particular matchup or feud. Good guys versus bad guys, I can easily understand.

To the show. Opener was Go Sato (Go) and Ken 45 (degrees), from heel stable Hell's Demons, against DDT's Antonio Honda and Shimizu. I thought this was fine as a simple tag formula match. Honda's schtick is entertaining, though he gets taken out of the ring and the heels eventually pin Shimizu. I guess this was designed to make Go and Ken 45 look good - I like Go, but have yet to care for Ken.

Next match was also a little bit of a squash - the larger TAKEMURA vs. the smaller Jumping Kid Okimoto. Oki got some stuff in, including a couple of suplexes, and some more lucha-y stuff, but finally was overcome by the power. He seems to have quite a lot of crowd support, despite a quite hideous costume.

The third match was a number one contender's tag title match between member's of the recently schismed Animal Planet's faction: Bear Fukoda and Hercules Senga on one side, and Touru Owashi and Takuya Sugawara. This was a nice little match - lots of energy, palpable dislike between the two teams, opponents charging across the ring to level the other team member before they could tag in. Senga has a really excellent match - he came out straight away with some flying, and a big somersault tope. Then, he took (and sold) quite a beating. The finish was less evenly balanced than it could have been to take - it was clear who the superior team are. That said, both Sugawara and Owashi would leave the promotion by August, so hopefully the other two, especially Senga, will move up the card a bit.

Semi-main is a six-man tag building up to next month's Kondo vs. Kishiwada match. Kondo is joined by "brother" YASSHI and Men's Club favourite Yuki Sato. Magnitude Kisiwada (which is my favourite name in all Japanese wrestling) is partnering co-leaders of Hell's Angels Brahmen Kei and Shu. This starts as a lucha-esque brawl, before the long heat section on Sato. At one point, Magnitude gives Sato a double-arm suplex that propels him from one corner to another. There is a lot of Magnitude beating up Sato, and a few comebacks, but not a huge amount else.

The main event is for the UWA world tag titles, between NOSAWA and MAZADA and challenger KAGETORA and Kota Iibushi. I don't generally like Gurentai matches, but I guess this is a good environment for them (for a bad environment, see any time they are in Big Japan). Here they are playing rudos to two popular crowd favourites, so it's the characters rather than the work that's important. This goes from opening matwork section to a long rudo beatdown on KAGETORA, who gets bloodied in the process. Iibushi comes in with his high-flying stuff, which is as visually impressive as ever. They have a finishing stretch of move and things, which, while fine and easy to watch, doesn't lend itself to much analysis (and I could give you thirty reasons why).

Nothing vital to watch on this show, but quite fun and action-packed. For people more familiar with US wrestling, this is a good promotion to watch - such fans will find the wrestling a lot more familiar than, say, NOAH (or even actual lucha).