Kaientai Dojo: The rest of 2009

I'm very far behind with all the Japanese promotions I like, but I've just acquired some DVDs and I'll be working through them at some form of a pace. Going to start with the three K-Dojo shows from the end of 2009. Last time I watched K-Dojo, Daigora Kashiwa was having the match of his career and legitimately one of the best matches in Japan in 2009, to the attention of no-one. Maybe more hidden gems will follow, and I will gain in popularity for my trailblazing.

Show one apparently packs twelve matches into 105 minutes, so this might be clippy. First half is from September 23rd. GENTARO and Oishi have a match for the Independent Jr title, joined near the end, but early enough to see a really pretty space flying tiger drop from GENTARO. This actually looked like it might have been decent, it comes down to GENTARO ripping up Oishi's arm and Oishi going for GENTARO's weak leg and I don't have an issue with how they told that story in the last four minutes, so who knows how the other fourteen might have been. GENTARO is sort of someone I casually lump in with a load of other Japanese sleaze workers because he shows up in all these promotions that are headlined by Big Japan undercarders, but his actual execution is good and his offence looks nice and he was doing a bunch of selling here. Makes me think about checking out that one hour draw against Sawa from the Gannosuke show to test this theory.

The rest of the September show section is a TAKA vs. Urano match. Urano's a DDT guy, I think. This match had a weak looking slap exchange and not much selling and a load of TAKA finishers at the end and a kickout at one and I didn't care for it. October 18th show opens with some clips, then Kaji Tomato vs. Boso Boy. Kaji Tomato is Kaji Yamato. Tomato, Yamato, you see. This was very flippy. Some of the flips were good (no hand somersault plancha), some of the flips were not (most of the others). Tomato's finish is, well, imagine if a Canadian Destroyer was done sideways so it was essentially a flying crucifix pin. It's that. I mean, for flip's sake.

Yuji Hino vs. Taishi Takizawa was for the STRONGEST-C title, some form of recognition for stiff chopping. The match, all fifteen minutes of it, is based around a chop exchange, in that it is entirely a chop exchange. They chop each other around the ring, to the back, up the stairs, behind the projector screen (leading to this cool visual of two shadows chopping each other), back to the ring, and finally into a chop finish. Kind of incredible that they kept it interesting. Hino starts to dominate near the end (multiple chops), with Takizawa running out of steam (weak chops), but manages to fight back (ducks chops), only to be conclusively spun inside out by a wicked lariat (full arm chops). Amusing, and not at all bad. It's like how Sting and Vader worked a good match around a limiting gimmick. It's not by any means a Sting-Vader level match, however, Hino is very watchable.

Let's ignore the monstrosity of that was the Dino/JOE vs. Oishi/Asahi tag (A match built around the notion that small undergarments and being attacked by the groin of a homosexual is still funny), and move to the TAKA vs. KAZMA title match. Really this just felt like a match to switch champions and establish KAZMA, Kashiwa and Mashimo as THE heel stable. There wasn't anything actively wrong with it - KAZMA does some power stuff, TAKA tries to find openings and works through his moveset. It just wasn't very exciting or dramatic, and I had to rewind through it to try to remind myself if anything of note happened (it didn't).

The November show has some matches on it. There was a three way tag match between Kengo Mashimo and Daigoro Kashiwa, Taishi Takizawa and Hiro Tonai and JOE & Randy Takuya. The problem with this match was that is struggled from having too many people doing too many things - nothing ever developed because people were always cutting each other off. There was also a tendency to focus more on cool spots where one person takes out two people in elaborate ways. The double camel clutch (as in, two people in the same submission) and double crucifix armbar thing that Mashimo does was kind of cool, I suppose. Anyway, I really spent most of the match just wanting the heels (Mashimo and Kashiwa) to run over everyone, but it was too broken up. It all leads to Tonai turning on his partner and joining Monster Plant, so that was a thing that happened.

The TAKA, Togo and MEN's Teioh vs. Kota Ibushi, Oishi and Asahi match was fun enough. It joins with two shortish heat sections on Asahi and TAKA respectively, then its pretty much a sprint - maybe closer to MEN's World matches than the Kaientai-DX trios of old, with everyone gets a few minutes of stuff, and pairings frequently changing. There's about a minute of typical great Dick Togo mowing down everything in his path - I do love him as a hot tag. He's also the guy in this conveying the idea that there are two teams competing for a win - diving in for desperate saves and blocking off guys. Ibushi was the guy bringing the high spots here - I don't think Ibushi brings anything substantive to a wrestling match, but he's still an impressive gymnast, and his quebrada was huge.

KAZMA vs. Yuji Hino was a main event. I really just don't get much out of KAZMA - he's really bland and hasn't got the personality for top heel, and Hino's playing babyface here which is completely not as fun. I was glorious dick Hino and his come-uppance, so I didn't really like this at all. I did enjoy Hino's suplexes because if you look like him, you should be able to throw people, even the size of KAZMA, around. Other than that, it all felt a bit like the build up to another match between the two stables they represent.

Not actually a huge amount to be positive here, which is a shame. The one saving grace is that I enjoy the K-Dojo style doesn't lead to the worst excesses of Japanese indie wrestling, which means that I end up mostly being uninspired by the matches, rather than aggravated. Let's hope things pick up as 2010, though.