Kazuyuki Fujita vs Go Shiozaki-NOAH 29.3.2020.

For so long NOAH just seemed to turn into a shadow of the shadow of its former self. For an actually thought provoking match which you could (and should) absolutely argue pushes pro wrestling as a medium to happen there is surprising in a good way, and interestingly enough, they didn’t need technological props to get post-modern. A long staredown was enough.

It’s really a testament to who and what Fujita is as a worker, because he absolutely carried this match. From his mannerisms, his shit talking, the straight up wacky stuff he did to the brutality (the pimp hand is still strong) you expect from him in a world title match. Fujita is such a personality that it doesn’t seem *that* silly to watch him try and push Go Shiozaki off the balcony or for him to call an elevator while beating Go up. I barely watch fake fighting these days and seeing rope pushing and shoulder blocks probably does more to remind me of the absurdity of what I’m watching. It speaks to the strength of Fujita’s character that he managed to do that because I can’t imagine, say, watching Minoru Suzuki brawl around the stands and doing the aforementioned without turning the video off and rewatching the finish of the Semmy Schilt fight instead.

Go was ok. He wasn’t tasked with much. Just had to get his ass kicked and portray a stereotypical choplariat wrestler. I wish he was skilled enough in groundfighting so that Fujita didn’t have to put himself into closed guard because Go had no idea what to do. Outside of that, he didn’t get in the way of Fujita’s performance much, and I vastly prefer the route they took in incorporating matwork where Fujita would just get on top and put on Wrestling/Judo Pins than say if they had compromised it so Go could get some stuff in.

I’m not putting a numerical value on it. It was definitely unique, memorable, and, quite frankly-great.

2018 MOTY LIST

1. Brock Lesnar vs Daniel Bryan-WWE Survivor Series 18.11.2018.

Brock Lesnar vs Daniel Bryan-WWE Survivor Series 18.11.2018.

This was a fun, exciting and smartly laid out match building on the tropes of both characters. Bryan’s selling and bumping carried the usually pedestrian Suplex control segment and really made me ponder whether he agreed to have his dream match just be a total squash. For this to be greater, however, I think he should have had some leg based attacks before Lesnar caught him, the game of cat and mouse isn’t that interesting when the cat just grabs the mouse on first attempt and rips it in half; and it’s a shame they went about it like that because that Vader Hammer looked fucking brutal and an extra two minutes of build up would have made it even better. The eventual swerve turned the match into what everyone wanted to see, Bryan just throwing himself at Lesnar was one of the only mechanisms for him to land significant damage, and it was just a matter of time before he caught him one too many times, and it was always on it back on my mind how many he’d get away with, and I think they exploited that well. You could say that this was maybe a bit too much on the side of flash vs substance, as for example there wasn’t *that much* legwork for Lesnar to collapse on an F5 attempt, but it’s so rare to see a WWE match with genuine flash that I’m more than happy to take what we got, and along with the aforementioned Hammer the dick kick>knee, Bryan stomping and Crossface Punching Lesnar were all great, memorable momemnts. ****

Shinjiro Ohtani vs Masahito Kakihara-UWFi 1.3.1996.

This match took place on a 1996 UWFi vs New Japan show, it was contested under New Japan rules and its contestants were a junior and a shooter who would become a junior mainstay in regular pro wrestling promotions soon after UWFi folded. You’d expect this to have some flash right? Well guess again cause this was a DOGFIGHT. These two always stayed close to each other-the matwork was simple but crisp, no unnecessary bullshit, just basic shoot holds executed with great velocity, and when something flashier did hpapen it was the “transitioning from a Scarf Hold Arm Triangle into an Armbar” kind of flash instead of, idk, some dumb flip flop. When regular prowres flash like spin kicks or Ohtani jumping on the corner to pound on Kaki Makabe-style, it would quickly backfire, and the matwork, which was cool as it was, got spiced up with various palm strikes, like thy were in the 50/50, guard position or when Kaki caught Ohtani’s leg in a Stepover Toe Hold, which was dope. What you will most remember from this match though are the knee strikes. Seriously, IDK what got into them, but they were just crushing each other’s chest/solar plexus/gut, going after each other hard. The finish featured really interesting shades of gray, as Ohtani continued to synch the sleeper in even after Kaki got the ropes, only to get reversed, pissing off Kakihara who hit a Lariat on Ohtani just to fuck with him and then flexed like a champ after he beat him. God, it must have felt great to have been a UWFi fan watching this. ****1/4

Kenta Kobashi vs Yoshinari Ogawa-NOAH 1.11.2003.

A match totally made by the characters. Ogawa was only ever a heel to 2000s US puro fans and you can see that here too. Kobashi totally overwhelms him in every way so he’s forced to attack him before the bell, spit water at him and all that jazz. It makes for a really fun opening with Ogawa using his speed and simple holds to counter Kobashi’s power. They tie this into Ogawa playing possum after which he takes a cheapshot at Kobashi’s knee. But he’s still not booed here. One of my favourite things about this match is that there were essentially two control segments, and both vey similar. The first one had Ogawa working over Kobashi’s knee-and there were far more important things to that segment working than Kobashi’s selling. Due to how much bigger Kobashi is there was a sense he could reverse Ogawa and get back on top at literally any point in the match and that made the segment so much more engaging. Ogawa grabs a hold, Kobashi tries to power out, Ogawa hits him in the knee. Kobashi then grabs Ogawa’s right arm to prevent him from hitting his knee but Ogawa jabs him with the left arm. And Ogawa then moves onto his next trick. Kobashi’s Half Boston Crab escape of simply pushing himself backwards was a thing of beauty and fit into the narrative really well. The sense of urgency Ogawa worked with was crucial in this match-Kobashi’s knee provided him an easy target any time he was in peril but the way he escaped Kobashi’s Machine Gun Chops in a logical way is something that I’ve never seen anyone else do and it felt very natural for him to come up with a counter like that on the fly as Kobashi is about to cave his chests in. Kobashi gets some hope spots, never drops the selling, but Ogawa doesn’t lose control. The point at which the crowd gets clued in is when Ogawa senses he is in so much danger the only way out is to push Kobashi onto the ref. That’s when the booing starts. It’s not that the crowd wasn’t sympathetic towards Kobashi before that-but that’s supposed to be the real start of the heat section. And Ogawa does well, hitting Kobashi’s knee with the ringbell and such. But there we also encounter the biggest problem of this match. Ogawa’s REAL heat section didn’t last long enough. They didn’t get the crowd into it the way they should’ve, which was a crucial mistake for this type of match. Kobashi gets back into control with some of by god the sickest ringpost shots you’ll ever see. Smashing someone’s head into the ringpost is often used as a cheap way to get to the blaed job but here they look so good Ogawa HAS to bleed to no expose every other time someone has bladed on that spot in the history of pro wrestling as nonsense. Kobashi’s comeback is really good-mostly consisting of great looking punches. Sometimes he loses focus and does *wrestling moves* not really fitting for the occasion like a Powerbomb with a Jacknife pin, but mostly he is on point. And Ogawa’s hope spots are worked the way you’d expect them to-with him taking cheapshots and bending the rules. He manages to get several convincing nearfalls out of them. But the beatdown on Ogawa wasn’t proportional to the heat he’d earned. If Ogawa’s heat segment was 2/3 minutes longer and Kobashi’s comeback that much shorter this could be a legitimate all time classic. Alas, that was not to be. ****

Genichiro Tenryu vs Umanosuke Ueda-AJPW 22.7.1982.

Almost an FMW match, every other move was a chairshot. Tenryu may not have had the intensity he would later display but you do see signs of his later greatness with THE FIRE~! he portrays which, as Hashimoto told once Samoa Joe, is the most important part of being a pro wrestler. It’s a 1982 All Japan finish so you can take an educated guess on how it finished, Tenryu did a pretty insane blade job and this brief (~5 min) match is worth watching for that alone. **3/4

Jumbo Tsuruta & The Destroyer vs Billy Robinson & Wild Angus-AJPW 5.12.1978.

One of the strengths of the traditional All Japan style is that irish whip maneuvers have a good success rate which makes transitions done via irish whips feel more special. Case in point-Jumbo’s High Knee here. Combined with his impressive leap and Robinson’s perfect sell it made for a wonderful moment. Wild Angus continues to look ~fine I guess~. Match is mostly about the struggle for holds and building to the transitions. Nothing here feels redundant-Robinson gets his knee worked over for a bit and the next time he’s in the ring and he hits a Backbreaker he sells the impact of his own which I vastly prefer to someone questionably falling down from “exhaustion” on his their own move to move onto the next sequence. Robinson-Destroyer bits were fun but weren’t transcendent like one might hope from the two. ***1/4

Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs Billy Robinson & Wild Angus-AJPW 1.12.1978.

This is a weird to match to rate because of Wild Angus. He looked…..somewhat servicable. Hit some solid clubbing blows but was pretty bad at tying his offence together and selling. He wasn’t of much use. However-this was pure magic whenever Billy Robinson was in the ring. Completely enchanting performance by him. It’s not just that he himself looked great, everyone looks better than they usually are when they are matched against him. He brings a certain intensity and legitimacy that instantly transform his matches into something special. Jumbo aggressively shoved him aside when Robinson was going for a hold and hooked his leg to pick him up for a Piledriver which I really liked. I like how wrestlers go for the rope break instantly when they are near the ropes here and dive to break up pins and make actual contact when doing so. I love how Robinson sold Baba’s big chop like he ran him over. I love how he counters moves mid sequence in ways other wrestlers don’t that totally make sense and are incredibly aeshetically pleasing. ***1/4-***1/2

The Destroyer vs Horst Hoffman-AJPW 17.12.1975.

Total dream match for me right here. A lot of time you’ll get “traditional build” as an excuse for long segments of boring headlock and whatnot, these two guys are constantly working and always looking to improve their position. I’m sure not watching 70s puro for quite some time has a lot to do with it but regardless so many of the sequences felt fresh. There was a cool spot here where Destroyer tried to escape Hoffman’s Headscissors and Hoffman used his hands to pull himself back, it looked really cool and I don’t remember ever seeing it before and the match was filled with stuff like that. I love the gags Destroyer pulled during the match, and while this was mat heavy both of these guys can strike, I loved Hoffman’s right hook counter to the Figure 4 and he busted out some nasty kneedrops. ***3/4

Giant Baba vs Horst Hoffmann-AJPW 18.12.1975.

More Horst Hoffman fun! I don’t buy into the idea Baba was ever a superworker, but he could certainly hang his own on the mat-which you’re going to get plenty of in 70s All Japan. Hoffman’s kicks to the back as a means of countering an armbar are great. This also had quite a lot of striking, Hoffman blasted Baba with vicious forearms, knees etc. and while Baba gets a bad rep for weak strikes his strikes here looked really good, his big chop was awesome as were his knee strikes. Hoffman looks like a really great seller, I loved how he sold Baba’s chop and he put over his Russian Legsweep and Neckbreaker so well you’d totally buy him being KO’d, I also love it when wrestlers sell Bodyslamming someone bigger than them like he did here. ***1/4