Michinoku Pro: March 4th 1994

The opening match was Great Sasuke, Shiryu and Terry Boy vs. Jinsei Shinzaki, Yone Genjin and Gran Naniwa. The first two-thirds of this was a little unstructured and underwhelming. There's some not-the-worst comedy stuff with Genjin, some well-tested sequences between Sasuke and Shinzaki and some other entertaining stuff, but it doesn't really come together all that well. However, after the sort-of hot tag, the last ten minutes really kicks off as it breaks out in a brawl in the crowd. The camera struggles to keep up as there is much flying around (including one point where Sasuke throws a guy into the chairs who I'm fairly sure was not Shinzaki, Genjin and Naniwa) and guys choking other guys and chairs thrown around and it's the sort of chaotic scene I really like. Then, the final stretch of high spots was really exciting, flowing into and out of the ring with very little let-up. I liked the resumption of Terry vs. Shinzaki, leading to some of the best falls. Sasuke and Shiryu finish with stereo somersault topes, after the more familiar dives spot. A pleasing conclusion to an otherwise passable (and pretty long) six-man.

The main event (or match number two or whatever) was Super Delfin vs. SATO in a mask versus hair match. The odd thing about this match is how in control SATO was throughout. It kind of had the slight feel of the 1997 Santo vs. Casas hair versus mask match, because whilst Delfin was nominal rudo, he had significant crowd support, like maybe the fans didn't want to see Delfin lose his mask despite everything else. They shouldn't have been concerned, because a small box featuring a very masked Delfin kept on appearing in the bottom corner of the screen to offer thoughts (maybe on the outcome).

There wasn't as much crazely impressively athletic matwork as in other SATO matches I've seen. Instead, there were quite a long string of nearfalls and Delfin kickouts and submission escapes, which pushed my patience slightly (three powerslams in a row was the peak of this). That said, I thought there was a clever little story here, with Delfin seemingly working the match fairly and being outwrestled, only for him to low blow SATO mid hurricanrana for a cheap victory and a screw-you to the fans he was gaining babyface sympathy from. SATO gets a hair cut as I start to suspect that both this match and the previous mask match were just part of an elaborate makeover program where 1993 masked, long-haired SATO said 'I really want to look like 1996 Dick Togo'.