Wouldn't suggest reading further until after you have finished watching. I can't stop you from doing that either way, but I do suggest you experience this compilation without knowing the contents within it.
Junkyard Dog vs. Great Kabuki (JCP World Wide Wrestling 4/7/1984) - FUN
Dude. JYD might be one of my favorites ever, huh? I like Great Kabuki a lot too, and wish he was more widely known as something other than "the guy that started the poison mist stuff" but he's no match for Dog here. No one ever is. At every cut-off and submission, JYD gives the crowd something to get behind and believe in. I think that a large part of pro wrestling is believing and living in the moment. He got it.
Abdullah Kobayashi & Mayumi Ozaki vs Kyoko Kimura & Yuko Miyamoto (BJW Katsura Special 2 6/4/2006) - GREAT
Insane, awesome match. Mayumi Ozaki doing deathmatch. You know what to expect out of the guys here, so I left this wishing Kyoko did even more hardcore shit like this. Of course, she did do a lot in her own right, but I feel like she could've easily been one of the greatest deathmatchers we've ever seen with this kind of stuff. Everyone just beats the crap out of each other. Don't even get me started on how sick as hell the Kobayashi/Kimura headbutts are.
Kept the post-match broadcast stuff in because they showed Kyoko comforting a really young Hana Kimura after the match, and that touched the heart yknow?
Hana Kimura vs Yako Fujigasaki [JWP Junior Title & Princess Of Pro Wrestling Title Tournament Final] (JWP Fly High In The 25th Anniversary Day 7 Evening Show 9/18/2016)
After that, I thought it'd be neat to include a Hana match. This was tourney final that had both the JWP Junior and Princess of Pro Wrestling championships on the line. The Princess one actually has a really interesting lineage if you're interested in checking out that kind of stuff. Of course the JWP one does too, but I hadn't heard of the other one previously.
This has some nice babyface work from Hana fighting upwards against the larger Fujigasaki. And I use that word "fighting" because she's able to truly make it feel that way. Hana wants to win and it feels like a competition. As far as I know, this was her first proper championship win, also why I included it.
I actually don't know much about her opponent here, but she seems gnarly herself.
Masao Orihara vs Great Sasuke [Tokuku Jr. Title Tournament] (Michinoku Pro 8/17/2002)
This is another clipped matchup from this tournament. This one actually followed the matchup I included in the first comp, Orihara/Naniwa. This seemed just as good, if not better than that. More evil dickhead Orihara, please.
Ricky Banderas vs Rastaman (IWA Puerto Rico 12/3/1999) - EPIC
Been on a bit of a Rastaman kick lately. He's awesome. Need to see more of his BattlArts stuff for sure.
This is almost as perfect of a wrestling match as you can get. Wow. It's like seven minutes, watch it ASAP.
Thank you for reading my thoughts on these matches/this comp today; I hope you enjoyed! If you didn't, that's alright too. Let me know if you have any thoughts, criticisms, ideas, or whatever in the comments or get in touch with me on my Twitter page.
Hey y'all! It's been a while, hasn't it? My bad, lost a lot of motivation to write for a bit. But now, I want to write again, so here.
Currently, the incredible Wrestling Playlists is in the middle of their "Season Of Giving." For the uninitiated, a bunch of great wrestling fans online (including Charles, the guy behind the project) curate these playlists and compilations to share with subscribers/readers. I wanted to do one this year, but couldn't get much done before the deadline due to my horrible time management. I felt a bit inspired though, seeing some of the cool concepts and ideas some folks had. Another thing that inspired me was seeing some of the comps produced recently by guidedbyrockets. They've all been great and something that I like about them is that you can tell what kind of fan they are based on what matches are selected. And if I remember correctly, that was part of the goal with the Season of Giving stuff: put something together that would show people what type of wrestling fan you are. Also in general, I just really like taking a peek at older wrestling comps like the DVDVR Yearbooks and such.
So without further ado, these things made me wanna do one of my own. Here it is:
In this post, I'm gonna talk a bit about the matches I included in this, maybe some info on why, and also just how I like these wrestling things. I would highly recommend going into the comp blind, not knowing the contents within it ahead of time, but I can't stop you from doing whatever.
LSD "Survival" Rongai vs. Ettsu (Japanese University Student Wrestling Match 4/11/2006) - GREAT
I could wax poetic about how amazing "student wrestling" can be. These two guys have seemingly no training and are in front of a handful of people and they put on a great wrestling match in spite of that, in an area that looks to be on their university's campus! Ettsu is a Misawa clone, and I'm not the biggest Misawa fan ever, but it's awesome seeing King's Road bumps brought to this kind of environment. LSD "Survival" Rongai. That's it. I don't even know where to start with this guy. He's insane. Well, both these of guys are, but he is definitely so. It feels like he takes the overwhelming majority of the nastiest moves in this. Even when he's when he's the one delivering them.
After some consecutive crazy spots happen on the outside, the match ends via double count-out. I really liked this finish because Ettsu delivers a disgusting suplex from the apron to the outside floor to prevent Rongai from getting in at the last second. It's all he had left in that moment, so he ends up losing too, but it made it feel all the more like he actually wanted to win the match.
That actually doesn't end up being the true finish though, because Ettsu grabs a microphone and begs for the match to be restarted, as this will be the final time him and Rongai would be able to face off. I don't think a reason is outright given as to why that is, but I assume one (or both) of them was about to graduate and therefore would no longer be at the university. Rongai agrees for the match to be restarted with a three minute time-limit. Honestly, I thought it was a cool moment. It was real, yknow? Can't make that kind of stuff up in "professional" wrestling.
Nothing much happens in the added minutes that's anything crazier than the earlier match, but they still treat it like a sprint and they both are rushing to win. Inevitably, none of them can get that before the time expires. Amaresu rules, watch this.
Masao Orihara vs. Gran Naniwa [Tohuku Jr. Title Tournament] (Michinoku Pro 8/16/2002)
This is just a clip of the finish to this match. I like both of these guys a lot, but it's especially awesome seeing Orihara as this weird little freak that chokes people considering my introduction to him was his stuff during the WAR/NJPW feud. I mean, he was somewhat like that back then too, but this is looks and feels like a completely different guy.
Kana vs. Kagetsu [Best Two Out Of Three Falls] (OSAKA Joshi-Pro DAIJO 1st Anniversary 3/21/2011) - FUN
This is a bit clipped but still watchable enough that I feel I can review this.
One of the few Kagetsu/Kana singles matches and if I remember correctly, this one was on YouTube for a bit before being taken down and disappearing for some years. I bought a "Best of DAIJO" DVD and got this with it, mainly because I wanted to see this match. Very glad I did, because this was neat.
Seeing either of these two work a 2/3 falls is really interesting, and they don't do a bad job structuring it either! Kagetsu's still pretty early into his career by this point and we don't see anything that's reminiscent of the Oedo Tai era of his work that would define said career, but he was a damn good wrestler still at this point. Instead, Kana's more of the heel here and of course, she's excellent in that role. You're getting Kana, an Ishikawa trainee near her peak against Kagetsu, a Meiko Satomura trainee who's young at this point and is fighting with a lot of fire in his heart. Like I said, neat for what it is.
Ricky Marvin vs. Virus [Mexican National Lightweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match] (CMLL 12/12/2000) - FUN
Ricky Marvin is one of my favorite wrestlers of all-time and so is Virus. Virus is still very good to this day, and this was a pretty big deal for Marvin at the time. Another two-out-of-three falls match, but this is lucha libre. Even for these two smaller guys, they make the match feel like a big deal and you can tell how important it is to them.
This was one of the first matches I looked for when I was introduced to Ricky Marvin, and so it has a special place in my heart.
Kazunari Murakami vs. Lee Young Gun [No Rules Match] (UFO TAKE OFF 10/24/1998) - GOOD
As far as I know, this is Murakami's pro wrestling debut. The story seems to be that he was training at Lee's gym, before things got out of hand after Lee started throwing live rounds at him. Somehow, Lee's the one that's mad at this and he says he's gonna kill Murakami.
Lee throws some sick kicks, like the ones he threw at the gym. It seems like he's got Murakami in trouble for a second. The Heisei Terrorist does what he does though, and within a moment's notice he's able to flip a switch and DESTROY Lee. Huge slam, followed by a disgusting judo throw, ended off with an armbar. In the five seconds he pulls all of that off, we see the Murakami we all know. This guy was always going to be great, huh?
The bell-to-bell for this is like a minute and a half at most, watch this.
Ryuki Ueyama vs. Ryuji Hijikata (AJPW 4/12/2003)
This is a clip of the finish to this match. A while back I did a bit of a deep dive on Ueyama and watched 90% of the matches he did (there were less than 30 of them). I left thinking that he was someone who could've been a bit of a gem but just barely missed the mark a lot of the times with his match output, even if that wasn't always his fault. I do wonder how his career would've panned if he fully committed to pro wrestling early on.
And then Ryuji Hijikata's one of the sickest fuckers ever, love that guy.
Junkyard Dog vs. Kamala (WCCW 10/21/1983) - GOOD
JYD really did ooze of charisma. In fact, he didn't just have charisma, he WAS charisma. I have such a fun time watching him whenever a match of his comes up. I don't mean any disrespect to Kamala either but man, there's never anyone that would come close to moving the crowd the way Junkyard Dog did and it's so clear when you see how they react to him compared to his opponents. He just got it like no other.
I know this was a bit different than usual, but thank you for reading my thoughts on these matches/this comp today; I hope you enjoyed! If you didn't, that's alright too. Let me know if you have any thoughts, criticisms, ideas, or whatever in the comments or get in touch with me on my Twitter page.
Hey again y'all! Been really enjoying the wrestling I have been watching as of late and it's felt like I've been spending a lot more time watching and less time writing, so let's fix that by talking about some of the stuff I've seen recently.
Before we get to that though, I really wanted to give a major thank you to everyone who was involved with anything relating to the Thanomsak Toba interview I posted earlier this month. Loads of people read it, reposted, had very nice things to say, and some friends even helped me put a number of those questions together. I think that whole process was one of the coolest things I've been a part of in regards to anything I've put out there for wrestling, so I am eternally grateful for how much people seemed to like that.
This was my first time watching a Heddi Karaoui match, after it popped up in my recommended feed and I saw it was against Judas el Traidor (who is one of my favorite independent wrestlers in the world right now). I've heard many things about Karaoi and his grappling ability so I was excited to see how this matchup would go because Judas can do it all: Great grappler, brawler, can strike, knows how to work against all levels of experience.
Arena Coliseo Coacalco is basically Judas's domain and you can tell. The crowd is really behind him and generally I thought this crowd was nice, as this usually tends to be one of my go-to favorite venues for dream matches with a llave focus. Karaoui was good at playing into the dynamic by resorting to rolling outside and more power-based holds as opposed to stuff that's more technically sound and visually appealing.
I didn't understand why there was the strike-off near the end, even if the striking itself wasn't bad. Either way, this match is 16 minutes of mostly llave that I'd imagine fans of any of these wrestlers would enjoy. I wonder what this match would look like had Judas went for some brawling and Heddi would have to try adapting or relying even more on keeping his opponent neutralized by the holds.
This tournament final match was for the vacant/new CWP Middleweight Title.
I can't say with 100% certainty that these two are student/amateur/hobbyist wrestlers but I'd like to think so, considering they both combine for less than 100 matches total despite the pooled 12ish years of experience between the two (and also the fact that they have primarily wrestled for CWP).
To be honest though, you could've told me that Sasaki Complete Jr. was a Sportiva rookie or Big Japan young boy and I would've believed it, and I mean that as a compliment to the highest regard. His kicks are what I can describe only as "sharp", if that makes sense. That's not to say Watanabe is not any good either, he's got some promise too. He does a good job working from under in this, which is pretty important given the type of match they're working here.
I felt that Sasaki was great at being that boss for Watanabe to overcome and was very compelling when he was dominating. It also seemed like this was best for Watanabe as I was moved much more by his "passive" selling than his offense in the later portions.
I'd recommend this match if you're into more amaresu stuff.
This was a Mid-South Louisiana Title match that aired on the 6/19/1982 episode of television.
It's a short one but a goodie still. I don't like giving play-by-play on these (for various reasons), but I think the finish is the best display of what this match is about: The Grappler's laying on the outside and while Junkyard Dog is waiting for him to come back inside, The Assassin attacks JYD. JYD hits what is seemingly a metal plate in Assassin's forehead (he's wearing a mask so I don't know), realizes this, and then attacks the back of his head instead. More interferences happen and the match has to get thrown out, but the crowd goes wild as Ted DiBiase makes the save and he stands triumphant alongside Junkyard Dog in the ring.
Simple (I know that explanation may have seemed complicated but I promise it's an easy watch), rewarding pro wrestling.
This was from a 2005 NJPW tour in Italy and seemed to be lost for 15 years, until a fancam of the match was uploaded onto YouTube in 2019. Apparently the full tour is out there, but I couldn't find anything other than this match anywhere.
This is also "European Rounds", meaning there's five 3-minute rounds and also the ref can give yellow and red cards up to his discretion. I actually like how creative they get with the stipulation compared to how they usually would be wrestling each other. I feel they do a good job of working within the stipulation, but I do have some gripes with the match.
As opposed to something like the CWP or Mid-South matches, I really struggled with getting myself invested in the match. There wasn't enough struggle and little-to-no urgency from both sides. In his own review of this match on the Handwerk blog, Simon wrote, "Nagata gets more technical than usual, and Nishimura gets madder than usual". Unfortunately, that's all this match really was to me: Nagata and Nishimura wrestling each other's match and just that.
I'm going to say that no one should take the "SKIPPABLE" at face value though. I do appreciate Nishimura's selling performance and this match is generally a neat novelty. I'm sure others would enjoy this match more than me.
Thank you for reading my thoughts on these matches today; I hope you enjoyed! If you didn't, that's alright too. Let me know if you have any thoughts, criticisms, ideas, or whatever in the comments or get in touch with me on my Twitter page.
