mikeawesomemike & tetrab0mb Wrestling Comp

Hey y'all! Little bit of a different comp today, because this one's a collaboration with my friend, Tetra. Check out @tetrabot9000 on X and @tetrab0mb on Instagram if you like good photography and sometimes the occasional writing thing. Here's the comp:

As this is a collaborative effort, this blog post is also gonna be a bit different. Tetra wrote a bit about the stuff they wanted to be included in this comp, so I'll specify who's from what in this.

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.

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Nick Gage promo hyping up NGI2

"SHLAK. One minute, this guy's hanging from meat hooks, drinking a beer. Two hours later, I walk by his van... and he's smoking, CRACK. Now I know why this guy don't feel no fuckin' pain!"

"Markus Crane, this guy, he lands on pigeon spikes: punctures a lung! What the fuck is wrong with this guy?"

Matt Tremont vs SHLAK [GCW World Title/Nick Gage Invitational 2 First Round] - GCW Nick Gage Invitational 2 (9/16/17)

Tetra: The second Nick Gage Invitational is one of my favorite tournaments. It is truly near and dear to my heart. I'll expand more upon this when we get to my last match, but Matt Tremont, the veteran, enters this tournament against a rookie in SHLAK who is willing to take as much punishment as dearly possible. 

Matt Tremont is dedicated to putting down SHLAK, a man who, in the lead up to this tournament, had described him as a crack smoker. Off the jump, Tremont greets him with a light tube bundle and bursts it in one of the most aggressive ways anyone has burst a bundle in a death match, much to the commentary's chagrin.

SHLAK takes some gnarly stuff, getting whipped with barbed wire, vicious headbutts from Tremont, but SHLAK delivers his own as well! He sends Tremont through the barbed wire ropes, and even suffocates Tremont with a plastic bag before going back to light tube offense. I can't think of a better way to start off my portion of this. This just rules.

Rastaman vs Carl Malenko - BATTLARTS (11/26/00) - FUN

Mike: I'm telling you, I really like this Rastaman guy from everything I've seen. This is clipped, but it's still more than enough shown to get a good feeling about the match. Carl Malenko is also the best Malenko and just a crazy good wrestler that I wish got a chance to do more beyond BattlArts. This match is a bit unlike a lot of the famed Bati-Bati stuff you'll see people recommending.

Nick Gage vs John Wayne Murdoch [King Of The Death Matches 2015 Finals] - IWA-MS (6/27/15)

This is a minute-long clip from the match.

Tetra: This whole match is great, but for the most part, in order for brevity, you just need to see Gage and Murdoch fighting it out in the crowd in a bar-fight. This IWA Mid-South crowd is hungry for violence, and they're eating up everything these two are doing. Especially since Gage had just been put on parole at that point. This is one of my favorite old generation vs. next generation matches, and, both men refuse to pull any punches.

Yuki Ishikawa vs Ryuji Hijikata - AJPW (7/22/04)

Tetra: I've spoken about this match at length with my friends, but there is one key proponent of this match. You don't necessarily need to win a match to end up the ultimate winner, sometimes, you just need to survive. Hijikata is aspirational in the way that he walks away tough as nails, and demands more, whilst Ishikawa smiles at his petty little beating. Sometimes, this is what I want to see.

Masahito Kakihara vs Tatsuo Nakano - UWFI (9/21/92) - REALLY GOOD

Mike: There's tons a blood in the matches Tetra picked, and lots of guys getting beaten the hell out of, so I wanted to keep things in theme with this classic. Nakano and Kakihara, well, they beat the hell out of each other for less than five minutes. Nakano puts up the fight of his life to outmatch the quicker Kakihara.

? vs. ? (Raff-Sanz Promotions ?/?/97)

Mike: This is a quick clip from a Dominican wrestling show in the 90s. There's music playing, commentary sounds like they're speed-talking, and the wrestlers just do a lot in the span they have. I think it's neat.

Masked Holiday vs Great ZAKO (Unemployment Pro Wrestling 11/21/18)

Tetra: This is one of my favorite matches, mainly due to how avant-garde it is. For the most part, wrestling has always been a very interesting performance art to me, and this encapsulates it. Professional wrestling can happen anywhere, even in the weirdest little spaces. Whether in a parking lot, or in a tiny little apartment where walls become weapons. Both Keita and Zako showcase their knowledge of their surroundings by taking everything to their advantage, even as the match transforms between an astounding technical showcase with the little space they have, to a messier brawl. Too small to be a bar fight, too large to be just an exhibition, but just big enough to prove that anything can be done if you are aware of your space.

Matt Tremont vs Nick Gage [GCW World Title Nick Gage Invitational 2 Final] (GCW Nick Gage Invitational 2 9/16/17)

Tetra: This is one of my favorite death matches to ever occur on American soil. This is a cinder block canvas death match, for Tremont's GCW World Championship. Tremont had defended this whole tournament, and the finals were obviously going to be Gage vs. Tremont, but at the same time, this match for the most part was a dream. Gage had just been released from his parole violation, had fully served his time for the bank robbery, and had fully come out a different man. He was always hardcore, but he came out this shredded monster who was dedicated to put any challenger who stepped in his way in the ground. Nick Gage had a mission statement, and it was to conquer the world of American death match wrestling once more.

Matt Tremont had announced beforehand that this would be his last death match tournament, and would start to wind down as well, (lol) and everything crescendoes into this spectacle of this being Tremont's last shot at winning a death match tournament, and Gage proving himself once more to the hardcore fans who had embraced him just like before, if not even more. In a way, this feels like the biggest death match that could occur on American soil. Especially once they bring out an incredibly nasty stipulation that, to my knowledge, hadn't been brought out on American soil. At least, not to this extent.

Every match, every competitor, featured something that proved how bad they wanted to win this tournament. Markus Crane had torn some of his flesh off trying to get to the second round, getting cut in a distressing way from a Spanish Fly onto a light tube bundle. Matt Tremont had been attacked with a gusset plate board from Miedo Extremo, a weapon that is now so common-place today, but is still shocking to see. Gage and Ciclope in the first round went hard at it, fish hooking Ciclope with a rod, and reeling him off of the top rope, and even doing his signature face wash with a razor board.

It only makes sense that Tremont and Gage would kill each other. They needed to kill each other. Especially since Gage is stepping into a different world. Really, it's how you become a made man.

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Wow, Tetra wrote A LOT. Now I feel a bit bad for just leaving my little comments on the matches I included lol. Truly thank you though for all of that, yknow I appreciate it.

Thank you for reading both my and Tetra's 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.

Matches I Watched #6 (involving a Fujiwara-Gumi search)

Hey again y'all! Finally getting back into the swing of things with writing and there's been a lot more wrestling stuff interesting me lately, so here I am! 

I'm not really sure what the thought process was behind picking these specific matches, but they just so happened to be what I watched today so let's get to it, shall we?

Beastman & Mad Dog Connelly vs. Bam Sullivan & Matt Tremont (JCW 6/12/2025) - GOOD

I was at the show where these teams had their original matchup last month (at JCW May Flowers 5/11/2025) and loved every second of it. It was an awesome, brutal brawl that riled up a crowd that wasn't going too crazy before that. There, they had the co-main event spot and that was for the worst as it's pretty difficult to follow that up. This time, they got the main event spot and it was even better.

In comparison to their previous match, this one is upgraded in basically every way. More chaos, more violence, and more mayhem. While I loved being there for that first one, I was a bit soured by the no contest finish after a brawl like that. It just didn't make much sense given everything else that happened in the match. Here, the "Mayhem in the Mecca" stipulation definitely allowed for more leniency in that regard and I loved the touch of the music playing throughout the match. Made it feel like it was actually different.

The brawling was great here, even if somewhat simple. Sometimes, simpler is better and that's the case for most of this one. Something in particular that stood out to me was Mad Dog's punching. He's such a good puncher, man.

I understand the point of these tags has been to build up a Mad Dog/Tremont singles, but the matches 100% can stand on their own pretty well. With that being said though, I think that finish does a great job at pushing that rivalry further.

If I had one complaint about the match, it felt like it went a few minutes too long, but I also enjoyed everything in the match so maybe not? What do I know?

This match is awesome, go watch it now.

Keita Yano vs. Tsuyoshi Okada (Dove Pro Still Dove 2/9/2025) - FUN

Was very excited to see Dove Pro release this a few weeks ago as I continue my journey in watching all the Keita Yano matches in 2025 that make tape. I haven't seen much Tsuyoshi Okada before, I believe this is my first time watching him in singles action. Keita, as usual, will be impossible for me to root against.

This is a "KOK Rules" match, meaning that there are 3 rounds, 5 minutes each. With Keita's grappling and Okada's MMA gloves, I can imagine the logic behind this being the basis of this matchup.

I really love the character that Keita Yano portrays, even if it's not always a character per se. He's a scrawny little fella that is almost always physically lesser than his opponents, yet he can sometimes find a way to get past them. In this match, he looks like he's genuinely overwhelmed whenever Tsuyoshi Okada is able to outpower him, both on the ground and on the feet. I think the finish does a great job at showing how this affects his decision-making and aggressiveness.

Nice match, I liked it. God bless Keita Yano.

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa (PWFG 8/12/1995) - GREAT

So I got a kind of interesting story about this one.

First of all, huge thank you/shoutout to Jom and his greatest, most ambitious project yet, Insect's Soul. He put in an incredible effort to shine a light on so much different amazing independent wrestling and I've learned about so many promotions and wrestlers as a result.

This was a notable inclusion on the list for multiple reasons. One, it's an Ikeda/Ishikawa match. Not just any Ikeda/Ishikawa match, but their 2nd ever. Two, it's PWFG and I was kind of shocked to see a promotion like this on the list. I get it wasn't like the biggest organization, but it's probably one of the most well-known, compared to the rest of the companies listed. And three, I could not find this match for the life of me.

You can very easily find almost all of the PWFG broadcasts on VK or Internet Archive, yet this show is weird. It doesn't seem to have been traditionally broadcast/released like the rest of the shows, and nobody had it anywhere I could find online. But, I knew it had to have been taped because Jom's listing for it had included a gif of the match that very much was from a broadcast camera, and also this was a Korakuen Hall show, I'd be shocked if it wasn't recorded anywhere.

Many hours spent searching later, I couldn't even find the show or the match on any of the pages of the tape traders I was aware of either. Losing a bit of hope of finding this (at least, finding it anytime soon), a friend had asked around about the footage in the GWE discord. A few people answered that it probably wasn't taped and that it had been on a lot of people's footage wishlists for a while. Damn.

And then, after like a day or two, somebody just sent a google drive link of the full show. Well then. That story ends there I guess.

Onto the match now.

Jom described this as Ikeda and Ishikawa's "most 'shoot-style' matchup to date" and I could see where he's coming from. Bati-Bati is fascinating because it's not shoot-style, but it's also not not shoot-style, y'know? In a way, a lot of the portrayal of struggle that shoot-style is praised for is demonstrated in a more aggressive, attacking way in Bati-Bati. I don't really understand any of this wrestling stuff much but I think there's a beauty to how that struggle is able to resonate with those who watch. Huh.

The stylistic difference between this and their other matchups make a lot more sense when you also factor in that this is taking place in Fujiwara's promotion. This feels a lot more grapple-heavy than their other encounters and the struggle is best shown through the "escape". When they roll out of the ring (multiple times), when Ikeda needs to push himself as close to the ropes as he can to get out of a submission, when Ishikawa has to counter Ikeda's counters. It's all meaningful and inspiring?

You do get some of the Ikeda/Ishikawa experience, like when they start slapping each other while Ikeda mounts Ishikawa or when Ishikawa roundhouses Ikeda for a knockdown, but even then it's different still.

Yes, this is an interesting watch for the novelty alone. It's the 2nd ever Ikeda and Ishikawa singles match and it's in PWFG. But you also get a really good wrestling match that displays another side of what these two can do to each other.

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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.