Michinoku Pro: 19th June 1993

As part of my ongoing Sasuke watching project, I plan to go through as much 90s Michinoku Pro as possible. I ordered a bunch of DVDs from the heroic WrestlingDVD.net, and I'll be reviewing them here.

The opener is a brief squash Jinsei Shinzaki squash, followed by him being attacked by Shiryu leading into a second match, which was also distinctly squashish in nature, although the opening minute or so featuring Shiryu's tope was pretty impressive looking. It's a constant irritation to me that current junior wrestlers, however much they bring impressive highspots, have such awful topes, where the diver comes through the ropes and then kind of grabs the person they are diving onto and pushes them down. A great tope is a no-hands head-first dive. If you don't look like you are risking some neck damage, I don't want to know. It's going to be interesting as this project continues to get a feel for Shinzaki. He's obviously the only real heavyweight in a promotion of lightweights, which gives him a certain role and pretty favourable booking. However, I've no sense going in if he's actually any good. Terry Boy comes out at the end, setting up a match between the two at the next show.

Super Delfin is another guy I have no real sense of, as I don't really watch Osaka Pro, and in terms of New Japan juniors, he was always more on an also-ran. However, his match with TAKA Michinoku showed a deeply villanous heel persona I was previously unaware of. The match was pretty fun, starting off with TAKA matching up well against Delfin, a TAKA dive, before Delfin takes over leading to a pretty conclusive finishing section. The Delfin Clutch finisher is one I also considered pretty dumb in, say, the 1994 Super J Cup, but as a heel move (complete with evil laugh), it makes a lot more sense. Post match brawl sets up Sasuke vs. Delfin on the next show.

The main event was Sasuke and Kendo against Villanos IV and V. This was a really enjoyable match. They opening pairings have some nice mat exchanges, and everything starts off respectful and competitive, but as Sasuke and Kendo increasingly come out on top of the exchanges, the Villanos drop right into rudo mode. It was hard to say whether Sasuke or Kendo were the more impressive here - both have their share of really graceful flying. Sasuke has one really beautiful sequence of takedowns leading to a headscissors. I really like a well-executed headscissors where it doesn't look like the opponent is just flipping themselves over contrary to actual physics of the move. As far as I'm concerned, Santo does the best headscissor takedowns in the world, but Sasuke's here was really good. I loved the sequence where Kendo got knocked down, kips up only to be blasted in the chest again, leading to this glorious Whack-a-Mole spot where he kips up and down so quickly that he baffles Villano, and spins away with a flourish.

This all leads to a section with both Villanos just beating on their opponents. The Villanos are large, powerful-looking luchadores, and they do a convincing beatdown. Then, just as Sasuke's comeback starts the match ends, I guess running out of TV time. This was a shame because I think as a complete match this would have been really good. Did Kendo become someone else afterwards? He's not on much on my pile of DVDs, but I was really impressed with his performance here.