Michinoku Pro: 29th September 1994

Right, here we go again.

This show was spread over two Champ Forums, and is a pretty stacked card, with two NJPW juniors dropping in and four singles matches on it. This is a bit unusual, and also presents a little bit of a problem for reviewing. I have liked Michinoku Pro singles matches, but like lots of juniors wrestling they tend to follow a certain predictable path, apart from on rare occasions. As a result, they don't always present a huge amount to write about. That said, watching the show was sort of instructive about when singles matches work well, and when they are missing something.

Before that, the show opens with Terry Boy and SATO vs. Hanzo Nakajima and Naohiro Hoshikawa. This was a fun TV-show tag match, mostly serving as an opportunity for the newly-formed Kai En Tai team to show off theit cool double teams. From the stuff I watched before, it was obvious how much personality Terry Boy had, and how much he could connect with the crowd. Here, it's channelled into rudoism, and it works just as well as when he was the plucky underdog crowd-favourite brawling with Shinzaki. SATO is such a bruiser here - he keeps more grounded than in his pre-KDX days, but all of his stuff looks great. They finish with an assisted powerbomb that looks absolutely brutal. The other team has their brief comeback and does some dives and it all serves its purpose very nicely.

The TAKA vs. Gran Naniwa match was really interesting. Both guys were fired up at the beginning - the sort of pre-match activities that usually go before a grudge match - and the first few exchanges in and around the ring were really heated. The match itself then had a lot of submission matwork, often with one guy copying the other or trying to top the previous move. All good so far. Where I think the match starting lacking was in the finish stretch, which, despite the impact going up, was just less intense than when they were just slapping each other. The high-risk stuff was good, but felt a little bit like it was included because it MUST BE INCLUDED. TAKA even misses his first no hand plancha, but then does it successfully about 60 seconds later in a spot that is not as impressive to watch second time around.

Super Delfin vs. El Samurai was fine, but gave little to write about. Although not ground-breaking or anything, I liked the early lucha exchanges. Delfin (and in particular his head and neck) was on the receiving end of most of the offence until the right at the end, where he stage a comeback - a couple of big DDTs and the Delfin Clutch. I have no problem with this - I think my opinion on overly long finishing stretches is pretty clear, and I also have no problem with the finish (it's wrestling, stop worrying about things looking absurd). The match just didn't have much else to say about it. One thing that is obvious: Delfin as crowd-favourite is nowhere near as fun as Delfin as a rudo. Shiryu vs. Jinsei Shinzaki is a mismatch, but it was cleverly put together. Shiryu has some really great looking offence that was credible against his much larger opponent. The in-ring tope landed with head unprotected squarely into Shinzaki's chest.

I really liked the Great Sasuke vs. Shinjiro Otani main event. In terms of 1994 junior matches (and this sticks very much to the New Japan juniors style) I'd place it below the second Liger vs. Sasuke match, but above the Super J Cup matches (from memory, I'm due to rewatch them). In 1994, Otani is basically the most expressive human being on the planet. There's a moment after the bell when Otani jumps Sasuke from behind and takes control for a minute or so where Sasuke has the opportunity to land a spinning kick. His face, as he falls outside of the ring and stands back up, is one of bafflement and shock. They spend most of the first two thirds of the match on the mat, with Otani targetting Sasuke's arm. Sasuke is a similarly expressive wrestler, although he does so in body-language, so these mat exchanges come across as really competitive struggles, with Sasuke grappling to avoid armbars and Otani finding different ways to return back to it. Then they hit the highspots and the finishing stretch, which was roughly the right length and finishes with the usual collection of german suplexes and powerbombs that we've all seen before (in a good way, though - the textbook is a the textbook for a reason).

Epilogue: Having a bit of a break causes me to re-evaluate some of my more strident assumptions about good and bad examples of wrestling. What is different between this sort of juniors match and a stereotypical Dragon Gate match, which similarly has limbwork that doesn't factor into the finish? Firstly, I conclude, the matwork is better. It stands alone as part of the story of the contest, rather than the way you fill up the first fifteen minutes of your forty minutes super epic. The second difference is the balance - with these high-end 90s junior matches, the length of the finish stretch indicates that the matwork was really just time-wasting, whereas a twenty minute match with twelve minutes grounded, you can reasonably consider it to be where both guys try and wear down their opponent before turning to their match winning moves. Thirdly, there is definitely a difference in the portrayal of long-term effects. Current juniors go from one extreme to another - from limping horribly to jumping around in five seconds. Here there are times where Sasuke favours the arm, and times where he uses the same arm, but there aren't the wild inconsistencies. There isn't the cliched "look at me battle through the pain" moments that people mistake for intensity. By the end, both guys seem exhausted, and their is a sense of cumulative damage throughout the match. That is what I think selling is really all about.