Monday 30 August 2010

Michinoku Pro: 30th July 1994

This show is spread over two Champ Forums. There's a joshi match to start which I didn't get much from, and they show the end of a tag match with Terry Boy and Shiryu against Hanzo Nakajima and Masato Yakushiji which is really too short to have any feeling for. There is a Shiryu tope though, and that's always worthwhile.

OK, onto matches I care about. The six man tag (Kendo, SATO and Piloto vs. Super Boy, Delfin and Naniwa) was an absolute blast. The layout was pretty much comedy, comedy, comedy, highspots and finish. I was pleased to see more Kendo after enjoying a match of his from the previous year. Super Boy, once again, was tremendous.

This must be a WAR vs. M-Pro show. Jado vs. TAKA Michinoku was a fun match. It was built around TAKA being outmatched, but using big highspots to keep up. It's really made by the final run of big moves - they are well-paced and sold well - and the finish is really impressive, with Jado doing a super hurricanrana where he maintains contact and finishes in a pinning position. I don't think I've ever seen that before.

Main event was Great Sasuke and Ultimo Dragon vs. Jinsei Shinzaki & Gedo. A few things really stood out here. Firstly, it is really pleasing when you see a conventional wisdom shattered to pieces. In this case, many people's opinion of mid 90s Gedo was shaped by Scott Keith and his very negative opinion of him in reviews of the Super J Cups in 1994 and 1995. Anyone who still buys into that needs to see this match, because Gedo is really great in it. He's a completely dickish heel, faking injuries, stomping on heads and groins and riling the crowd up with a cocky swagger. He also takes a couple of big bumps, works some exciting nearfalls (particularly after a snap powerslam) and he does this nice thing where he gets dropkicked on the turnbuckle, bumps his head off the ring post (unprotected) and falls backwards.

Second thing is how different Sasuke and Dragon are. Sasuke is really good at selling the heels offence, while Dragon blows pretty much everything off in favour of more posing. Sasuke looks worn down going down the stretch, while Dragon just does his stuff. Sure, he has some high spots, but so does Sasuke, and they are far crazier (the quebradora over the turnbuckle to the outside would have been awesome, had Shinzaki caught him at all). And he blows stuff as well. The Segunda Caida WAR project is already doing its part to point out how overrated Ultimo Dragon is - I am completely on board with that. Anyway, the match is pretty good, Dragon aside. There's a couple of minor weaker moments - the above mentioned quebradora and one of the other Sasuke's dives has a weird catch which couldn't decide if it was successful or blocked - but a lot of it is a good time.

Thursday 26 August 2010

Michinoku Pro: 11th June 2010

Rasse vs. Daisuke Sasaki featured Sasaki brining some nice looking high spots and sequences and Rasse, bizarrely, bringing next to nothing. Sasaki could potentially be a fun flyer. The two Kowloon matches (Satos vs. Numajiro and Oyanagi, Minamino, Ooma and Ken45° vs. Yapper Man #1 & Yapper Man #2 and Kenbai) didn't do anything I hadn't seen before. The latter in particular was heavy on the rope running and light on structure.

The multi-promotional invitation match pitted El Samurai, Takashi Sasaki and Boso Boy Raito against Ryuji Ito, HIROKI and Daichi Sasaki. I believe this was Daichi Sasaki's debut - I don't know what his connection is to Sasuke, but the story of the match was all about him getting beaten up. Samurai was a lot of fun in this, especially the bit where I thought he'd actually broken Daichi's nose with a punch, and then he follows it up with a bunch of dickish submissions where he kept returning to the nose. Daichi, for his part, brought the weakest strikes of all time. I don't know if it was on purpose, but there's no escaping the fact that he did a lot of stroking of chests.

The semi-main was Ultimo Dragon, Minamino and Nohashi vs. Shinzaki, Kenou and Hiugaji. Unlike every other Kowloon trios match for the past two years, this one was packed with genuine heat, violence and palpable dislike between the two sides. Heel Ultimo Dragon is as watchable as face Ultimo Dragon is dull. He comes off like a true rudo captain, directing triple teams, taunting opponents, taking shortcuts, begging off and luring the faces into an ambush. Also, his new mask is awesome. It starts with Hayato attempting to fight through an injured leg, until Kenou kicks it to shreds. This leads to Minamino leaping in, sparking a huge brawl - not a time filling one like, but truly glorious chaos. Even Shinzaki was motivated, moving faster than I'd seen in a long time against Nohashi. The pairing on Minamino and Kenou produced the matches best moments: this gets so intense that Kenou seems to lose all interest in the match at the expense of kicking Minamino a bunch more times. There's a spot where Nohashi has him on his knees, and he still keeps on punching Minamino in the midriff despite him being far less of an immediate concern. He forgoes making a hot tag when he has the opportunity (more kicking), and even when he's the last man standing after an series of moves between all six, he prefers to take Minamino to the outside and post him some more, rather than seek a pinfall. It's kind of exhilirating, and the match is kind of one of my favourite things from Japan this year.

Finally, the main event: Great Sasuke and Dick Togo vs. FUNAKI and TAKA Michinoku, for Sasuke's 20th anniversary. Sasuke comes out the some heavy metal, fist-pumping and faking playing the guitar in the crowd. He also has a little beard. Obviously, it was goofy as hell. This is a match of two very different teams. First question - how is it that FUNAKI looks like the oldest, most tired person in this match. He's spent the last decade doing backstage interviews and two minute matches. Anyway, he and TAKA really don't do anything of interest in the whole match - their heat section on Sasuke was plodding and dull and not exactly classic Kaientai DX. Sasuke and Togo, on the other hand, worked really hard. Togo is the support player here, but all of his bits were really fun, his offence is still crisp and violent where other 90s juniors have become slack. His somersault tope was pretty spectacular, almost threatening to outdo all of Sasuke's crazy dives. He's also really great at getting the crowd going, and setting up Sasuke to take centre stage. Sasuke, for his part, was his usual self once he got there, a combination of big risky moves and the weariness of an ageing body. Spot of the match was Sasuke missing a somersault senton, watching TAKA roll out of the ring, and dragging himself up the turnbuckle to have another go. Fun, but perhaps not as good as I was hoping.

Tuesday 17 August 2010

A Bunch of: 2010 Japan Indie Title Matches (part one)

What with Shuji Ishikawa and Daisuke Sekimoto's KO-D title runs and several other big title matches and switches over the year so far, I thought work through them in addition to all the Big Japan, Michinoku Pro, Battlarts and K-Dojo shows I'll be reviewing in full. That way, I actually might have seen enough stuff to justify submitting a 2010 Japanese ballot at DVDVR.

Shuji Ishikawa vs. Yoshihito Sasaki, Union Pro, 24th January 2010

First half of this was about Ishikawa taking away Sasaki's lariat and chopping arm and Sasaki taking away Ishikawa's knee strikes and kicking leg. The second half of this was about both guys unloading their heavy weaponry, which included Sasaki's lariat and chops and Ishikawa's knee strikes. So, you can see, this match is problematic. Hard-hitting, perhaps even well-paced, but problematic. Yoshihito Sasaki is also not a guy averse to taking dangerous head drops, nor to completely no-selling them, which given I was already feeling ill-disposed towards the match already really did no it no favours.

Dick Togo vs. Billy Ken Kid, Osaka Pro, 11th February 2010

Tremendous Togo performance. Last year, I thought some of his face-in-peril work was the best in Japan, this year it's a rudo performance that impresses. The match is divided into a series of heat sections with brief comebacks, and Togo finds new and interesting things to do each time, whilst letting BKK to bring a few highspots. The mask theft stuff was great: not a DQ in Japan, but completely disabling as he tries to obscure his face. My biggest problem is that BKK's final comeback - the one where he got his mask back - was disappointing and lacklustre. It really should have been "OK, I've taken 30 minutes of this crap, ENOUGH", but amounted to some weak strikes and the feeling like he almost didn't know what to do next, leaving Togo to take the offence back right where it should have built to the satisfying payoff. Frustrating finish to a great solo performance.


Shuji Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Sekimoto, Union Pro 28th February 2010

I liked this much more that the Sasaki match, and the odd thing about saying that is that, as a match, its much less ambitious. The leg vs. arm story in the Sasaki match is much more interesting, but the execution is weak, which is really such a widespread thing in Japanese wrestling it gets a little depressing. Here, it's very much a case of keeping things simple, leading to a fun power match. Sekimoto is much more worthwhile when against a bigger guy. His power stuff becomes impressive and he doesn't go into finisher overdrive. He's someone I have learned to enjoy in his own way (like in these sort of matches and in tags) - can't expect anything particularly smart, but in certain circumstances his angry-faces and running-around and sort-of-topes have a familiar charm.

Kaientai Dojo 9th August 2009

I watched the openers at some point in the past, and had no desire to rewatch a battle royale or PSYCHO vs. Quiet Storm again. I have no memories of either being any good.

First real match of interest was Minoru Suzuki vs. Kengo Mashimo. Most of this was perfectly decent - two guys knocking seven bells out of each other is hard to get wrong. Mashimo gets smart first and targets Suzuki's arm with loads of kicks and a couple of armbars. The fight against the submissions is too long - drama builds for a while, but it soon becomes apparent there isn't going to be a submission, which means it peters out. The long-term selling is a bit suspect - Mashimo blows off Suzuki's early attacks to launch a comeback, whilst Suzuki isn't too emphasise his damaged arm. That aside, I liked the strike exchange at the finish, with Suzuki ducking and diving, and the chance opportunity to lock in the rear naked choke felt in keeping with a match where Suzuki was higher ranked but was mostly coming from behind.

Next up, TAKA vs. Kashiwa for the title. I gave this two watches, because the first one left me completely surprised. Basically, it boils down to this: given the opportunity, Daigora Kashiwa might be one of the best wrestlers in Japan that nobody talks about. Nobody. He's like Tamon Honda in that he completely doesn't look like what popular Japanese wrestlers look like in 2010, and his style isn't particularly pretty, but it is very effective and like basically nothing within the current indie scene. He has two basic weapons: his headbutts, which he uses like chops or kicks as his go-to offence, and a camel clutch which he regularly looks to get TAKA in position to lock in. The headbutts come from all angles and are targetted against all limbs - TAKA occassionaly looks completely surprised by this, as another headbutt strikes him in the midriff or the hip or the arm. Near the end, he combines the two, headbutting TAKA in the back of the skull whilst fighting to keep him in the hold.

TAKA is mostly along for the ride here, but to his credit he keeps in simple and responds to the camel clutch attempts with his own submission hold (whatever he calls that). My favourite part of the match was where Kashiwa fights out of this with headbutts to the arm to weaken the hold. This is a match with plenty of scrambling for position and fighting for holds, which I really liked. Add to this a fun opening where Kashiwa surprises TAKA mid-streamer shower and a really great finish where TAKA can't hold onto the headlock submission so shifts to this leg-scissor version that Kashiwa can't escape from. Had I seen this earlier, it would have made my Japanese top 10 at least, and probably higher.

The main event, Oishi and Asahi vs. YOSHIYA and GENTARO, was predictably mindless. Loads of back and forth with no real structure or anything more long-term than the present second and occassionally the one after that, all capped off with a rubbish looking finish - whatever there awful assisted Canadian Destoyer is called, GENTARO jumped right out of it. However, let me reinterate: everyone, track down the title match. It's really good.

Sunday 15 August 2010

Michinoku Pro: 5th October 2009 (part two)

Kinya Oyanagi vs. Kenbai and Takeshi Minamino vs. Rasse were both quick openers. The latter was a three minute mismatch, which was a shame because bigger guy vs. Rey Mysterio lookalike has potential to be fun at least (see bigger guy vs. Rey Mysterio matches from past decade).

Next, Shinjitsu Nohashi and Rui Hiugaji vs. Yapper Man #1 and Yapper Man #2. I have no idea where they clipped this: it was either in the middle, or just showed the last four minutes. This seemed kind of low-impact, even in the high spots (planchas with little force, dropkicks placed on the chest), so it wasn't even that good a sprint.

I never really enjoy either Ken 45 vs. Ultimo Dragon purely as wrestlers, but they deserve credit for the performing aspect here: Ultimo is good at rallying babyface support from the seated masses, whilst Ken 45 is fine as an expressive rudo. The booking in this was very WWE-ish, with a lone babyface taking on a heel stable single-handedly, and coming unstuck due to a mix-up. The story works though, and distracts away from both guys limited in-ring work, which is smart.

Sasuke and Shinzaki and Numajiro vs. Shu and Kei Sato and Maguro Ooma was your Standard Kowloon Match - plenty of action and exchanges, but little in the way of structure. Not quite comedy, not quite serious, too much Numajiro (who seemed to be the focus of the match, especially the finish, so maybe it's was an anniversary match). Sasuke's involvement is limited, more's the pity, a few comedy spots (his overly-delayed Randy the Ram forearm is always amusing, but spots involving trolleys have been overplayed now) was about it. There are brief moments I liked here - some of the Kowloon teams bumping from weak Numajiro offence, and their slick triple team offence - but most is largely forgettable.

The main event was my favourite match from Japan in 2009 - reviewed elsewhere - and, quite frankly, it is the only thing worth watching on this show. But then, they give the match and the build-up over an hour of TV time, so you get the impression the promotion knows that too.