Big Japan/Men's Club: 28th January 2009

I've started to ignore, for review purposes alone, Men's Club matches. That may be trickier with this show, which is entirely Men's Club. This may be quite brief. Only reason I'm writing it up is I'm looking forward to the Dick Togo match at the end. Let's give this a go.

Opener has six guys, of whom I know only KUDO from previous Men's Club matches, and I vaguely know Kotoge is from Osaka Pro. The latter is the only one in this who leaves any lasting impression on me, and that purely for how fast he was between the ropes. The rest is largely personality-less flying.

Next match is...distinctly uglier: Sekimoto and Ito vs. Kasai and Numazawa. I wish I knew what they were saying in the pre match interviews. If the last match lacked personality then this one doesn't. Kasai is phenomenally watchable. His stuff isn't always good, and he can be annoying, but in the right setting, he has remarkable presence. This is wrestled as a comedy match, meaning I don't mind Kasa and Numazawa's goofy stuff here - it's just in the middle of a proper deathmatch it seems incongruous. Sekimoto manages the most anguished sell of broom handle penetration, to the extent that it must of actually hurt, because Sekimoto isn't the guy to sell anything that much. Ito has some really weak kicks these days. Fun stuff: Kasai failing to get the aerosol to work, before realising a kick in the stomach was probably just as effective, and Sekimoto standing up as Kasai was on the top for Pearl Harbour, with Kasai signalling for a time-out.

Dick Togo could have plugged any pretty junior into his match with Yuki Sato. This was an impressive display - the range of attacks on Sato's midriff, the punches, the bumping for the short comebacks. They worked a nice little section with a leg-scissors, with Sato fighting out using his elbow in Togo's knee. Sato sold exactly enough to fufill his end of the bargain - he pops up a couple of times, but generally he seems to have kept the chest injuries in mind throughout, and I thought his forearms were weak looking on purpose. The final senton looked great, as did the slick magistral pin into a crossface. I would say this was a marked success.

And finally, a fourway tag match, featuring, unusally, some fairly regular team mates (Oishi and Asahi, Speed of Sounds, Madoka/Ibushi and MEN's/Shinobu). One thing I notice is that hardly any of these guys, for all their jumping around, have good dives. Shinobu has an OK quebrada, and Ibushi has a range of impressive acrobatics, but no-one has a dive that looks like a great weapon. That's the biggest difference to me between modern lucharesu and lucha - there's no bases to make dives look great (and keep them safe still) and no divers who'll throw their whole body into it like a lot of luchadores will, which is probably at least partially because of the first point.

Anyway, this was an enjoyable romp through some well-worn spots, with an great pace. Yet, it's the little elements of story I remember the most. I love how Ibushi continually forgets that in these matches Teioh is king and everyone humours him with the silly stuff (after Ibushi gets the win, Teioh himself comes in a points out the Men's Club logo on the mat, and the fact the he is Men's Teioh). I also love the relationship between Teioh and Shinobu - comedy requires a fall guy, and Shinobu plays the role earnestly. The bit where Teioh tried to pin Shinobu because everyone was doing it was very funny.

Nice little show. I even found enough worth writing about.