Satanico vs. Shiro Koshinaka (7/30/84)

[Phil Schneider]

Satanico vs. Shiro Koshinaka (7/30/84)

[Graham Crackers]

The finish of the Herodes vs Tony Salazar match just got a lot better for me because in some ways it sets up this finish. In that match there is a low blow that the ref misses but the crowd lets him know and he calls for the DQ. In this one Satanico fakes a low blow and the ref totally buys it.The rest of the match is pretty awesome as well and it's probably the best match Koshinaka has ever been in, or at least the best singles match. Koshinaka may not be great when he has to work a back and forth title match but he sure knows how to bring it in a hate filled brawl. There are some really brutal strikes in this one, and I especially liked how they would hit each other with nasty kicks, knees, and stomps while grappling. My favorites were when Satanico threw some some nasty kicks to try and escape the cross arm breaker. This is yet another Satanico performance for the ages. His selling was great throughout the match but I was particularly fond of when he freaked out at the sight of his own blood and pounced on Koshinaka looking for vengeance.

 

EDIT: Okay, so I just read OJ's write up and he thought the low blow was blatant. Rewatching the finish, Koshinaka's arm does go between Satanico's legs but I'm not sure if it really looked like a strike. This match was awesome with or without that finish but now I'm curious if others think it was intentional.

[Curt McGirt]

Okay I waited until this one opened up. Satanico got up from a piledriver. In Mexico. I will round the wagons for the angry villagers. 

[Nomad]

I think the piledriver was banned because someone was paralyzed with one.  I'm guessing that came after this.  Its not the only piledriver on the set either.

[tim.]

Putting our priorities in order, let's deal with the nut shot first: Looked to me like when Satanico scooped up Koshinaka, Koshinaka struck the outside of Satanico's leg, then put his arm between Satanico's legs looking to grab a counter or something.  So that seems like a feign on Satanico's part to me, unless Koshinaka meant to hit the low blow but missed.

 

Anyway, this match didn't do much for me until Satanico started posting Koshinaka (though Satanico hitting those stiff kicks/knee strikes while grappling was really awesome), but then it gets pretty great.  I like how, like in the Atlantis match, Satanico uses the cradle he won the second fall with not as a flash pin or a technical roll up trapping pin or anything, but instead as just more like a stronger-than-usually pin attempt, with him having his opponent beaten down to the point where they can still kick out of a regular pin but not out of that cradle.  Third fall is real good with both guys bleeding and the fatigue setting in.  Like Graham said, Satanico seeing his own blood and going psycho on Koshinaka for it was definitely the spot of the match.  Third fall is real good but this doesn't feel like something that will finish too far into the top half of my ballot.

[Curt McGirt]

Watched this again. Satanico is always great but FIRED UP (TM Tommy Rich) Koshinaka is something to see. In the New Japan set he's mediocre (not as bad as Takada... woof) but here he's feeling it and plays to the crowd perfectly. The nut shot to me is clearly a fake-out on Satanico's part and quite the ingenious little finish in how he pulled it off. Fun fun match but I have no idea where it'll rank right now.

[Exposer]

This was a great, great match and I liked it more than the Satanico-Lizmark match. This does suffer from a poor finish. Koshinaka attacks Satanico before the bell and works on his arm the entire first fall. It’s nothing too great from his side but Satanico’s escapes and struggle is worthwhile. I liked how it ended with a back slide which sort of goes back to the arm work. The second fall has the match changing pace and moving towards the blood. Satanico has his leg worked on briefly which he sells for the rest of the match. He makes a comeback and bloodies Koshinaka. Satanico is really great at building fatigue and selling it as a match goes on. He’s pretty remarkable at it. Satanico gets Koshinaka with a cradle for the second fall. The third fall is tremendous with Koshinaka getting a payback spot and bloodying Satanico. Then we have both guys doing a really great job of selling the damage done. They throw everything at each other but the kitchen sink and it’s great, great action mixed in with top notch selling until the shitty foul finish. The post-match was fun too but damn if this match had a good finish it could have been even better. As it is, it’s a really great match.

Four and a half stars. It’s a solid A and close to an A+. Great, great, great match.  

[Log]

This one took a while to get rolling.  Once it did, it was really good.  I dug Koshinaka's stuff, but really thought Satanico held this together, mainly through his selling.

 

Some pretty good highs here, but there were some really slow spots.  That'll keep this from being too high for me.

[Matt D]

Ok, this was great. I've never seen Koshinaka but I know he wasn't received well previously. I thought he brought an awesome aggression here though, really dominating a lot of the first fall out of the gate. It was always a fight though, because Satanico is such a force. LIkewise, during the second fall, there's not really a sense of it being a typical revenge fall. Koshinaka is always in it, but in a totally believable way. The third fall was great. He sold the pile driver enough for me, especially since the kick out was followed almost immediately by the ground headbutt which bought both guys time and then, BOOM, he sees his own blood and just is unleashed. I really like that they teased the dive with the push three times, with Satanico hitting the slam and missing the senton the first time, hitting the slam and the elbow the second, and then the third time, Koshinaka's aggressive attempt to reverse what he knew was coming lead to the handball, basically. It played into the story of the match and was well built. Satanico's gloating after the match is the icing on the top of the cake.

[KrisZ]

Caballera contra Caballera: Satanico vs. Samurai Shiro Koshinaka (7/30/84)Satanico cuts a promo before the match surrounded by his fans vowing to defeat the evil Japanese and take his hair so Kosh attacks him as soon as he gets on the apron. Kosh works over Satanico's left arm hard early on before getting him with a backslide to take the first fall. Kosh continued to work over Satanico to start the next fall until Satanico threw him off the top rope forcing him to the floor where he would take control. Satanico posted him a few times before bringing him back to the ring where he would cradle him for the pin to even the falls. The third fall had some good brawling with both men juicing after some back and forth action where it looked like that any one of them could win. The finish was a little screwy though as after both men got close nearfalls, Shiro punched Satanico in the balls as he had him in the air for a bodyslam and was DQed. Kosh whined after the match and even attacked Satanico after the match but he still got shaved. This was very fun.

[KillerSpeed]

For Satanico carriyng a green guy to a great bloody match, I'm not sure if I liked this better than the one with Atlantis. It sure was a tremendous though. I didn't know what to make of Shiro at first but he ended up holding his own in this. He showed that he can bring the brutality with punches, headbutts and stomps, aswell as riling up the crowd, and that's really all you need. Another masterful showing from Satanico, the man can do no wrong. His selling was so great, I especially liked his aggressive-exhausted expression during the second fall, hunched over and head sunken low like a bull. This got unbelievably gritty and nasty towards the end, those knees that Satanico throws look like they leave you pissing blood in the morning.

[Yo-Yo's Roomie]

I might have been the only guy who came out of the NJ set as a big Koshinaka fan. I enjoyed him pretty much every time out on that set, so I was looking forward to seeing him here. I thought the match was qualty. I've been lukewarm on Satanico up to this point, but with this match he really won me over. Great brawling, some great nearfalls. What I loved about the nearfall attempts was that both guys sold them so well. The guy underneath really struggled to kick out, but the guy on top was also really straining to hold his opponent down, and that's something you usually only see when it's the finish. Made me buy the nearfalls that much more. Always weird to see a piledriver not be instant death in lucha, but I thought Satanico sold it really well anyway. As regards the finish, I thought it was an accidental nutshot if anything. Kosh's arm definitely slips between the legs, but it didn't look like a deliberate strike. This is going to be way high on my ballot.

[Robert]

The piledriver being a DQ was an Antonio Pena creation to get heat for feuds. When he was rotating weeks booking in 1990/1991 you'd have one week where his booked matches would have a DQ for a piledriver and the following week piledrivers would be perfectly acceptable when Fabuloso Blondy was doing them to Perro Aguayo.

 

This took a while to get going and was generally slow but it did pick up nicely at the end and ended up being quite intense. My dirty secret is I've never been a big fan of Satanico but he did his best here carrying the green guy to the point the crowd started to give a shit about what was going on. Finish was sudden and a very big letdown as most low blow finishers are which will knock it down a few notches on my final ballot.

[Lee B.]

I really enjoyed this match.  I liked the fiery start by Shiro.  I also loved the kicking Satanico used to escape Shiro's holds in the first fall.  That looked brutal.  The successive pin attempts toward the end of the third fall were very exciting.  I agreed that the both sold the exhaustion great by this point.  I thought this was one of the best Koshinaka matches I have seen.  The "low blow" was shenanigans on the part of Satanico, but he did it well, selling it as if he was making a case for that occurring, rather than actually being in severe pain.  Satanico showed some nice viciousness in the second and third falls with his stomps and cut-biting.   This should be a top-half match for me.

[soup23]

This match really confirms how great this set is overall. It was really good right on the cusp of great but still may not even be top half when all is said and done. I find Koshinaka to be ok generally but he is one of the more nuetral workers I know where I'm usally not overly bothered nor excited when he pops up on stuff I am watching. Satanico gave an inspired performance of course and stakes his claim as the best worker of 1984. The blood started flowing and really amped up to a fever pitch in the third fall.

 

I guess I will claim that I think Satanico took advantage of the placement of Koshinakas hands and decided to goad the ref into calling a foul. Clever fihish and a shameful way to lose your hair. (***3/4)

[goc]

I liked Koshinaka a lot in this, I thought he was really hateful and aggressive. I have no idea whether the finish was a legit low blow or a feint by Satanico so that actually helps it from being an overly disappointing end to such a hateful match. Don't think this is going to get to the top half when it's all over though I did enjoy it. The postmatch was definitely fun for Satanico's taunting and Koshinaka's (justified?) rage.