Matt D

5/5/90: Liger vs Koshinaka: This did feel like a fresh match up. First five minutes have them trading holds. Liger is more of the aggressor, a little meaner, but Koshinaka chains a few things together too. Once things pick up, Liger cuts him off with this killer kick out of nowhere followed by the palm strikes. He's being nastier than normal but Koshinaka can take it (especially because he likes to drop selling). Liger targets the leg with the figure four but on a second attempt, Koshinaka rolls him over and starts running, the jerk. He chains together a bunch of stuff on his comeback. (Dropkick, backbreaker, back drop, crab, camel clutch). Liger reverses another back drop but Koshinaka hits the butt butts and a plancha. They go into a hot finishing stretch. Koshinaka hits the power bomb with a bridge over (not sure I've seen that before chronologically) and a missle dropkick. But Liger gets his knees up on a knee drop and goes back to the figure four. Again this is the wrong guy to do this to. Koshinaka gets chants and to the ropes. Liger hits a killer flip dive on him after a baseball slide though. Then he hits the tombstone and diving headbutt, but of course Koshinaka kicks out. They do some roll ups and Liger goes for the back kick out of nowhere again. This time Koshinaka is ready for it and catches him for the dragon suplex and the win. I think this was non title. Koshinaka's trademark no selling aside, this was quite good. 5/5/90: Sasaki vs Takasugi: Both guys have bandages to start, which is funny. We come in mid stream with them trading leglocks. Eventually Takasugi loses the bandana and gets an advantage for a bit but Sasaki, just as the chants were start him, ends this by hitting a nice power slam into a grapevined sleeper. When Takasugi makes the ropes, he bullies him over with another powerslam and puts it back on for the win. Post match things devolve into chaos which probably led into the 5/6 show which we don't have. Big thing I'm missing on that one is a 2/3 falls 4x4 tag where they add Hamaguchi and Hase to the sides as Choshu fights the Outlaws. Ah well. UWF 5/4/90: Anjo vs Vrij: Very cool match. Vrij is just a bastard. Big dude, looks like a bad guy from an 80s movie with the haircut. But he's such a jerk. Sociopath really. Anjo is far smaller with reach issues. He loves hitting those close up knees but no way can he get close to Vrij. When he finally does get him down Vrij nails him in the groin with an elbow, completely on purpose. The crowd is pissed. They love to hate Anjo but on this night they're going to love to love him. Anjo comes back hot but what he going to do against him. He gets some shots in but Vrij uses his carelessness to take him over. Anjo fights on including landing kicks but Virj just eats them with his abs and laughs it off. Just a monster heel performance with enough dissonance since he still fights dirty to get the fans pissed and behind Anjo. Post fight, after he wins brutally, Vrij makes sure to raise Anjo's hand in the midst of his over the top celebration. It all feels gross. You badly want to see this guy get crushed by Maeda or Fujiwara or something. UWF 5/4/90: Maeda vs Funaki: Urgh. Just urgh. Funaki and Suzuki have broken UWF. Look I get that this is the great creation of Pancrase playing out in real time (but I don't care for MMA and I love pro wrestling and it feels zero-sum, so....) and it was all because Funaki and Suzuki are frustrating at their placement on the card. And this stuff is very good on some level. It is. They fight for every inch, every bit of positioning, but it's draining the cool pro wrestling stuff out of UWF and just leaving it as Gotch and grappling and whatever else. Which is insane since Funaki and Suzuki were the dynamic guys who could have led this to the next level with their high spots. They spend 15+ minutes on the mat jockeying for positioning. I really get the sense they went to Takada and Maeda and said, "Hey, do you think we can pull this style off together?" and it appealed to Maeda since he moved away from the pro wrestling stuff to begin with after seeing the bullshit in MSG years before. But it's neutering the style. This would have been so much more exciting a few months earlier. It's the first boring Maeda fight I've ever seen. They have a couple of strike flourishes that are interesting but then it all gets dragged down. The last minute or two is super exciting, no question there, and one could argue that without the stuff preceding it, it wouldn't stand out as much, but I think they could have taken the fans up and down a lot more and gotten to the same place. I still have Takada vs Suzuki ahead of me and I'm in no rush to get to it, even if the other two matches on the card look fun. Instead... FMW 5/12/90: Onita/Asako vs Kurisu/WILD BULL MAN: We have an alarming amount of FMW footage in May 1990 and it's going to be some work to get through it all and keep it organized, but I'll rush through best I can. Wild Bull Man is a Killer Brooks protege who comes out with a bit bull headdress/hide deal. Onita comes out to Wild Thing which may have happened previously but I don't know if I'd noticed it yet before now. Tough camera view on this with people in the way but it's the easiest thing in the world to recognize Kurisu beating the crap out of Asako with headbutts and the loudest chops you'll hear. Wild Bull Man had some punches and kicks and other things but this was mainly Kurisu. Onita wanted in bad and finally got it as Asako reversed a Bull Man whip. He came in hot with ddts, and they worked over Bull Man until Kurisu came back with a chair and everything became chaotic. Asako got swept under but came back against Bull Man with corner charges only to run into a boot. Then we sort of lose sight of what's going on but Will Bull Man somehow gets the win out of that. Perils of handheld footage but watching Kurisu dismantle Asako was something else as were some of those chair shots.

I haven't seriously watched WWE since before the pandemic, I think. Actually, one great thing about the board is that we can figure this out for the most part. Let me do a search in the folder. I think the last time I was really engaged on a weekly level was 2018 and the big Becky Lynch push. But I'd still pop in now and again after that for a year or two. I will admit having just a bit of FOMO with the Zayn turn in Montreal a few years ago. I have no FOMO for any of this though. The clip of Gable's big moment leading to a root beer ad is the funniest thing. It's at the point where you couldn't even parody it. These are jokes we would have been making ten or fifteen years ago based on the state of affairs then.

Ok, three night Korakuen run from 5/4 - 5/6. We have bits and pieces including four HH matches from 5/4. No foreigners on this run but they brought in the Pioneer guys instead which is kind of neat. 5/4/90: Liger vs Hoshino: I loved their match in 89 so great to see them again. Of course Hoshino has a massive chip on his shoulder. He's a big punch kick guy but it really makes him stand out against the other juniors. He would have been ok in Memphis. Here, he does well ambushing Liger until he goes for the mask too early and Liger gets a kick up. Liger comes back including a baseball slide, but Hoshino takes back over on the floor and this time does start to work the mask. Lots of rapid fire headlock punches and what not. Liger eventually kicks up and does a double leg and just punches away. That leaves him open for Hoshino though who hammers on him some more. Liger comes back with the kappo kick and a tombstone, but hoshino gets his knees up and hits a sit out power bomb and flying body press. HE can't put Liger away though, even with a great nearfall as he turned a german attempt into a roll up. Liger gets his own roll up out of nowhere (which looks great) but the shoulders won't down. Maybe a botch as they do another sit out power bomb and a weight shift jackknife to reverse the pin and win it. Overall pretty good even if not to the level of the 89 match. Post-match Hoshino gets on the mic presumably wanting more. 5/4/90: Saito/Hashimoto vs Super Strong Machine/Goto: This is fun mostly to see Hashimoto and Saito up against SSM. Animal was out to start doing his posing and what not. It was striking and shocking I suppose. It added something to proceedings. This was pretty back and forth. Hashimoto would throw a ton of kicks here including bullying Goto around, who tried his best but couldn't stand to them. Saito would hulk up and what not but get swept under by the numbers game once or twice. SSM/Goto had the most luck using a chair on the outside. Hash and Saito would take over whenever they had the chance. Finish had Hash hit the DDT on Goto and then the spin wheel kick but Animal come off the top with an elbow drop (a sign he was going to compete again). Saito was able to get the suplex however after a bit of miscommunication from SSM and Goto and that was it. It was fun if a bit disjointed. 5/4/90: Hase/Koshinaka vs Muta/Chono: Crowd was excited to see Muto. Good feeling out stuff with Muto/Chono having the advantage until Muto hurt his leg on a pile driver to Koshinaka. Soem great legwork after that including Hase with a rolling takedown and kneebar. Muto was great selling it. Later on Chono did make it in (after some good hope spot/cutoffs like a Muto enziguiri that led to a Hase belly to belly and Hase finally getting cocky with the Mutalock) but he hurt his neck. he collapsed on a suplex attempt. Muto was even good selliing the leg when making saves. To be fair it was really hurting but come on. Muto finally came back in hot but got knocked off the top and counted out. I liked this one a lot. 5/4/90: Choshu/Sasaki vs Ryuma Go/Masahiko Takasugi: Takasugi was Ultra Seven. It's notable that Go, Takasugi, and Apollo Sugawara all got fired from AJPW in 86 (this is from Kinch; apparently there was a rumor that Sugawara had words for Baba but he denied that), with Go and Takasugi doing spots in 87. But it made sense for them to all come back into Pioneer, sort of like how the class if AJW 86 women who had stopped wrestling all came back to FMW at this time. This didn't quite have the same energy as other invasions. Choshu/Sasaki took the first half with a little blip where Sasaki got swept under. Some big stuff from them including Sasaki's power slam. He had puppy dog energy to some degree. Fans were into him pretty immediately. Midway through the Pioneer guys took over and then things got nasty. They cut off the ring well and hit one thing after the next including some interesting tandem offense. Lots of scrambling to keep Sasaki in place. Fans chanted for him. He did come back and they moved into some finishing back and forth before Sasaki got rolled up out of nowhere. Post-match more fighting took place. This was less of the start of a war and more of a heated intermural I guess. 5/5/90: Super Strong Machine/H. Saito vs Sugawara/Hase: Interesting to see Sugawara just in the mix here. Hamaguchi out to start like usual. Ambush on Hase like usual. First five minutes or so was a beatdown. But he came back with a kick and giant swing and a giant pose with a scream which was great. Sugawara had a dropkick and Samoan drop (weird to see anyone but Chono do that) but then lost the offense and SSM/Saito ground him down until he fought his way into the corner. Honestly, he worked quite well with Hase with double teams and what not. Hase did a gut buster then dropped Saito from a fireman's carry onto Sugawara's knee. Sugawara made the mistake of kicking him into his own corner though and SSM took back over. Things went back and forth until a fairly hot finishing stretch where Saito hit the slam/senton on Hase and then called Hamaguchi in to do a top rope elbow drop for the DQ. Post match he called for a 4x4 match with Choshu. 5/5/90: Choshu/Saito vs Chono/Hashimoto: This was Children's Day apparently and was supposed to be Chono and Muta defending against Choshu/Saito but Muto's knee was all messed up (he claimed due to Hashimoto but he came in hurt), so Hashimoto took his place, which really elevated this, despite Muto being fun and fresh and all. This was a NEW vs NOW sort of match with Hashimoto and Chono having come even farther in the previous few months. Just big guys doing big things here. Hash up against either Saito (who is so over the top in 90) and Choshu feels like a clash of the titans. Obviously it's cool having Choshu/Saito back together again and Saito had just been tag champs with Hash, so there's a lot going on here. Eventually things opened up and they got control on Chono. For some reason, Choshu was using the dragon sleeper on him (Fujinami who had been a non presence was on commentary). Saito wanted Hash and got him and they crashed into each other unto Saito got a Fujiwara arm bar and brought Choshu in. Hash fired back with huge kicks and throwing his arms around though. That let Chono get a bunch of offense (diving shoulder block, neckbreaker). Choshu did a cool thing where they tried a double shoulder block but he just took it from Hash by moving to the side, which let Saito get the tag and come in hot. Hash and Chono did take over on him until he hit the Saito Suplex on Hash. But Hash came back with the DDT to keep the pressure on Saito. Saito was able to reverse a second diving shoulder tackle and make the hot tag to Saito who killed Chonod ead with the lariat. Hash tried to intefere but Saito snuck in as Hash and Chsohu were brawling and got the suplex. that was a great near fall but Chono came back witht he STF on Choshu. Saito broke it up. When Chono tried for the Samoan drop on Choshu, Saito dropkicked him and caused both to go sailing. That did let Choshu tag though and Saito was able to get the suplex again for the win. Pretty iconic match.

Curious how playable Sunshine will be with the normal Switch controllers. I never had it.

She was way more interesting than Spivey.

PAM

It’s all the wonderfully bitchy character traits and controlled pacing without the main event style bloat.

Bayley as the uber babyface appealing to kids was such a lost opportunity for WWE, much like AEW doesn’t lean hard enough into Willow. I’d be fascinated by a program between the two however.

This whole Mox build is weird and extraneous then.

I'm pretty sure what I'd do at this point in order to give this Ospreay/Mox story some resolution would be the following 1. Someone beats Mox at All In. My choice would be MJF having him come in frustrated that Mox got to get the fans behind him without earning it or doing much of anything different or paying real comeuppance. I have written a decent amount about this. Max has a history of doing this sort of thing with Hangman and it fits his character to be frustrated. 2. In this case MJF then goes to attack Mox with the diamond ring post match. 3. Since he lost the title, none of the Death Riders go to save Mox. Emperor has no clothes. They're vultures ready to pick the bones. Illusion broken. 4. Therefore, only Ospreay is willing to make the save. He does. 5. Mox embraces him but realizing he has to make a show of strength and like any bully turn attention away from him and towards someone else, he attacks Ospreay and the Death Riders, understanding what just happened and its significance, run in to assault Ospreay. Omega makes the save. 6. This goes right into main event of Omega vs Ospreay with Ospreay left bloodied to start and having to fight his way back. 7. Alternatively, this can be done earlier in the night which preserves the entrances for the main event to at least some degree. Ospreay should still come out a bandaged, bloody mess. It's less emotional this way but it's more "spectacle/arena show/etc." I know what I'd prefer. Let me put it this way. I can't think of any scenario I'd like more than this. But I can't imagine they'll do it this way. I have every reason to believe that Mox mostly just does shit he wants to do. He didn't get turned on post losing the title (and being vulnerable against Darby/KOR) because it was predictable. That's why we're left without him having any comeuppance but being a de facto babyface half the time.

NJPW (AJPW/WWF/NJPW Summit): 4/17/90: Liger vs Nogami: This didn't make TV because of the station and we're lucky to have a HH. They spend the first half of this on the mat and it's good. Nogami chains a few holds together, then Liger takes over with the tapitia, camel clutch, and rowboat. When things pick up, Nogami gets the first advantage, including some dropkicks and a huge dive to the floor. Liger comes back with an anti air dropkick and gets his own big dive (a flip senton to the top to the floor where Nogami was laying). They finish up with some rope running. Nogami ducks a spin wheel kick but eats a power slam and Liger wins with a moonsault to a standing Nogami. Liger really did have a ton of ways to put someone away which was part of his charm. NJPW (AJPW/WWF/NJPW Summit): 4/17/90: Hashimoto/Saito vs Choshu/Chono: Fun and iconic match right in the middle of all the WWF vs AJPW nonsense. Hash and Saito were the champs and this has them against matched opponents. We have this HH too and it's a big buzz from the crowd as Hash and Choshu matched off to start. Chono got him in a chinlock and Hash just stood up and walked him to the corner to tag Saito. Eventually Hash wanted Choshu again and tossed Chono into the corner. You really get to know this style well and generally, they'd cycle here with Choshu taking over on Hash and Saito his partner losing the offense, but they couldn't do that here without having Chono look too weak given how the match had gone so far, so they cycled through a bit more and he survived a Saito come back before Hash finally beat him down. Eventually he fought back to the corner and Choshu made it in. Things built to Choshu and Saito exploding and it was very theatrical and worked for the back row. Chono came in and hit all of his big offense on Saito only for Hash to come in and hit the spin wheel kick and Choshu to come in for the lariat and Saito to come in for his suplex. Choshu broke that up but then Saito hit another one for the win. Very iconic match even a a handheld given the setting. 4/27/90: Chono/Muto vs Hashimoto/Saito: Huge buzz here to start. Muto was a returning hero, but more than that, you had Muto, Chono, and Hashimoto in the ring together. They had teamed a year before but that was a weird match that almost didn't seem like it counted, Muto just dropping in and looking weird and Chono not really there yet. This was different. This felt like the start of a new chapter, like a turning point, with Saito there as continuity, as something timeless and mythic. It had only been three years before that he was battling Inoki in a ring that had been torn apart. This felt like a turning point on the journey, something I'd been working towards. Muto looked pretty good to start, hitting the ropes in his unique way, rolling past Hashimoto and hitting a jumping back kick. Things went back and forth with both teams fairly even until they got an advantage on Chono and Hashimoto tossed him into the corner because he wanted Muto. That led to them beating up on Muto including Saito hitting a dropkick and getting super fired up. Muto finally hit a great reverse enzuigiri after he stood up on a Hash leglock and Chono came in hot. They worked over Hash and when Muto cycled back in, he got both the Mutalock and a cattle mutilation. Has made the tag but Chono stayed on Saito. Saito got the tag and Hash came in hot including a huge running power slam. They were going very back and forth here, but it worked given the characters and setting and stakes. Muto made everything feel fresh. Hash go the DDT on Chono but he was able to get a lucky shot in and tag Muto who flew in with a forearm and then punched away on Saito. He had more of Inoki style knuckle arrows than everyone else and it was over big. Finishing stretch had Saito try to hold Muto for the spin wheel kick and Muto duck away causing friendly fire. From there. Muto got the rib breaker > Moonsault on Saito as Chono held Hash in the STF and we have new champs. A big to-do and a huge moment. I'm not saying the era of the musketeers has begun because I'm not sure as of yet, but if you told me this was it, I'd believe it. 4/27/90: Super Strong Machine vs Koshinaka: With Takano (who will never be Cobra again for this feud) gone, here's Samurai Shiro back from injury to fill his spot on the card. This was fun at times and had good spots but Takano, SSM, and Koshinaka are three of the worst guys to structure matches. Here they made a huge deal out of Shiro hurting his foot and SSM targeted it beautifully, some gnarly offense of stepping and wrenching, and Shiro just came back with a missile dropkick like it was nothing. Doofus. He held his own before that and on his comeback but SSM cut him off with a great combo of a corner clothesline, a bulldog off the top as he was staggering out and the diving headbutt, except for he missed the headbutt leading to one last fired up comeback and the butt butt. When he went for a second one, SSM took out the leg instead and got a nice cradle for the win. 4/27/90: Liger/Sasaki vs H. Saito/Goto: Sasaki is an interesting case. He really had no run in Japan. He might have been in that juniors 5x5 from a few years before but that's basically it. Just an under under card guy otherwise. Never on TV. His excursions had been in Canada and Germany. Not much to see in his footage from there. Karate stuff. But here he had the mullet and the tiger stripes (he didn't have the latter in Germany) and he got a bit of a hero's welcome here. This isn't like Hase debuting where he was an Olympian. But he was over to start. He had filled out, probably more so than Chono even if he wasn't as tall. Natural partner in some ways to Liger with the thunder theme. He was a Choshu guy though and maybe that's why he debuted so well. Outlaws ambushed at first and then worked over Sasaki. Interesting way to debut him but it gave him something to work from underneath against. Toughness matters of course. He got a chant right to start. They choked him with a cord. He tried to turn things around on the outside but the numbers game got him. But he finally got Saito with a reverse whip into a lariat and tagged in Liger (big slap of the hand). Then things got dumb. He was supposed to hold Saito for a missile dropkick but instead went to press slam him and it was pretty awkward when Liger came down. Liger did not seem happy. He then hit a great handspring headbutt on Saito though and after a headscissors takeover, a huge flip dive. Things went a little back and forth form there with Liger and Sasaki getting onto the same page. Finish had Saito walk right into the ipponzei shoulder roll. Big pop for that. 4/27/90: Choshu/Kitao vs Bigelow/Vader: This started out well with Choshu fighting his way out of the corner and Vader doing Bigelow's flip bump for a lariat but it got dire, very dire, once Kitao got in. Up until this point, the fans had been curious, maybe supportive, maybe a little bemused, but as Bigelow was leaning on him, the fans started to chant big for Bigelow. When Vader came in, they popped huge. It was bleak. It felt like the biggest in ring moment of disaster since the Sumo Hall riot on Vader's debut and the Inoki vs Choshu bait and switch. Kitao was the great hope. In some ways, like Wajima before him, he was going to get a lot of outside interest, and it just was not going to work out. Whether it was the Hogan colors or the legdrop he used or the crappy kicks in a world of great kicks, the fans were having none of it. Choshu had another good comeback or two in here (and good bumps from his opponents), but when Vader and Bigelow splashed Kitao at the same time, it felt like a mercy killing.

This is not a drill. Kingdom are doing the heel AI York Foundation gimmick which is pretty much the thing I've wanted the most out of 2026 pro wrestling. Hopefully they lean hard into it.

FMW 3/30/90 Kumiko Matsuda vs Sweet Georgia Brown: This is the pre-show. SGB is Jacqueline and she asserts herself pretty well and hits hard. Matsuda comes back with kicks and has some good ones (especially a spin kick to the face). This is a little clumsy at times but the rough around the edges feel does help. It spills out and into the chairs at one point. Finish had SGB turning a belly to back attempt into a hammerlock and a roll up. Joe the Kid vs Little Roy: Also pre-show. Little Roy was the heel here and had overalls. This is a midget match, and it feels very weird in this setting. They do a bunch of the ref spots. My favorite was Roy getting frustrated that the ref wasn't fast counting for him, teaching the ref to do so, and then immediately almost getting pinned by Joe because of it. I'm not sure the comedy hit quite like I would have liked overall but some of the bits were tried and true and the ref was a good sport. Megumi Kudo vs Miwa Sato: So the deal with the last show was that Kudo from last show is that she, Reibun Amada and Noriyo Toyoda were all class of AJW 1986 who had stopped working and came back for this. They were called the Outbreakers when they invaded. And this is Sato's attempt to get revenge on her for the invasion attack. She came right at her to start, but after that this was pretty much all Kudo. Kicks, stomps, holds. Sato came back with a monkey flip or body block but Kudo would come back with a neckbreaker drop or her own body block. Finish had her really bend Sato in half over the shoulder with a cradled neckbreaker submission and then a half crab. Kudo certainly made an impact and Sato had to be helped back. Kim Sung Ho vs Yukihide Ueno: This wasn't really a Different Styles fight but a same style. Ueno was a karate guy too, and this was fine. Kim made the sort of noise you'd hear in the Kung Fu NES game whenever he kicked, which was a lot. This didn't have the same bizarre sort of wildness you'd expect from the last show with Kim but he did have an advantage for a lot of it and then just kept on kicking and kicking until Ueno couldn't meet the count. Felt like a mercy. My favorite part was when the ref was counting one, Kim got up to the top so the second Ueno did make it up, he ate a flying kick off the top to the face. That didn't put him down but a killer axe kick shortly thereafter did. Lee Gak Soo vs Shooter #1: Lee did some impressive stuff with nunchucks before the match. This was more like it. Lee really was tremendous. I'm not sure if it made for compelling matches, but he was a buzzsaw and you couldn't look away. He just kicked through people and from multiple angles. Early on Shooter had a chance, because he'd hold out until Lee made a mistake, like a missed dropkick in the corner and a missed roundhouse. That let him get a suplex in or a double wristlock, but as the rounds went on, it felt like Shooter was running up a hill towards a machine gun. Lee just cut him down again and again and again. He beat the count until he didn't. You could almost see his health meter going down. Between rounds he was holding his head and you could sympathize with the poor guy. Tarzan Goto vs Mitsuteru Tokuda: Not much to say here. Tokuda was in a gi, maybe with his head bandaged? We lose the hh for a while as the guy doing it is tired or distracted or accosted. Lots of gritty matwork to start. Goto controlled. Tokuda comes back with some dropkicks down the stretch but Goto cut him off and hit his pancake from a pile driver position. We lose out on Jimmy Backlund vs Beast and Onita/Asako vs Dragon Master/Kurisu as they weren't taped which is a shame. 4/5/90 (Pioneer): Ryuma Go vs Aoyagi: This is NUTS. Nuts I say. Everyone should watch it at least once. It's on YouTube so just google it. Lots of kicks from Aoyagi. Lots of suplexes Go. But they head outside a few times for brawling on the floor and both guys end up opened up from the posts. Aoyagi's gi ends up pretty damn red. They try to stop it once or twice but at one point Animal Hamaguchi comes out and makes them restart it and it's just a wild scene. If FMW was the sideshow, Pioneer felt like underground Mortal Kombat or something.

UWF 4/15/90: Anjo vs Takada: Anjo rushes in, throws his knees, is a jerk. Takada absorbs it, gets under him or catches a foot, and throws him. They do this a lot in this one. Occasionally Anjo's flurry does work. Occasionally, Takada catches a foot and hits a kick instead. Once, Takada is able to side step him into the ropes and then hit him with a suplex. After that, the crowd gets behind Anjo. Finish has him taking Takada down but being noncommital, shifting from the arm to the leg, not getting what he needed, and Takada turning it into a double wristlock for the win. This was good and was very much a clash of two characters, though, as always, Takada is a bit of a cipher for someone else to press up against. UWF 4/15/90: Fujiwara vs Yamazaki: This was very good. Yamazaki would be the aggressor, posing a question for Fujiwara. Fujiwara would have an answer, of course, as he his the best defensive wrestler ever, but then Yamazaki would be ready for that answer for once, and it would be on Fujiwara to give answer to answer to answer. Which he did, again and again. Best example: Yamazaki tried to put Fujiwara in a crab. Terrible idea of course. He did his trademark headstand counter, but Yamazaki was ready for it and was able to hang on to a leg to continue a hold, but Fujiwara slowly worked around on him so that it was Yamazaki who had to reach for the ropes for the break. Later on, Yamazaki survived the Fujiwara arm bar with a rope break and started laying kicks in, but Fujiwara just walked up, grabbed the leg and dropped him for a reverse crab. He tried to grab the leg again and Yamazaki tried to take him down only for Fujiwara to get the better of it but Yamazaki to somehow turn it into a half crab. It's so easy to compare/contrast this match with the Suzuki/Funaki match and this seems to have so much more to offer. It's far broader and more theatrical while still feeling so plausible. There was so much more the vine with this style as they leaned into gamesmanship. Finish was Yamazaki going on the attack in the corner, but Fujiwara obviously turning it around, only for Yamazaki to get a German out of nowhere and follow up with a KO kick that Fujiwara just couldn't beat the count on. After the match they embraced and the fans chanted for Yamazaki like it was a huge deal (and it was). FMW 3/10/90: Took a while to get my hands on this one, but I really wanted to see the taekwondo guys as they're great. Kumiko Matsuda vs. Crusher Maedomari: Crusher isn't Crusher yet. This was pre-show and you could tell they were working things out, but they had good aggression, Matsuda with strikes and Maedomari with throws and holds. Lots of shoot pin escapes. Matsuda finally got a dropkick in the corner which let her hit a big move. The jackknife pin was what let her win it though. Miwa Sato vs. Drake Morimatsu: I had hoped to get this to Gordi because he'd been at a party with Morimatsu but it's a non match. Two people come out to attack both women before the bell. Apparently one is Megumi Kudo. Another is possibly Reibun Amada, a Chinese wrestler. This is what Gordi tells me. Some sense of spirit as they do want to wrestle, but there's no chance and they move on to the next match. There is a clear sense of chaos to all of this though and it helps the overall feel compared to what else is happening in Japan at the time. Yukihide Ueno vs. Shooter #1: Shooter 1 is sort of credible, I guess. This is all over the place at times, but he's able to press his advantage and has the kicks. He's constantly fixing his mask which is not something that usually bugs me, so that gives you a sense of how often he does it. He hits big stuff but can't always follow up because it's all a bit too clumsy. Ueno has the crowd (who are primarily happy to be there I think). He gets one big comeback with a gutshot, a German, and a kick out of the ring but Shooter takes back over with a great press slam where he takes him off the top but slams him out of the ring instead of into it. It meanders a bit to the finish and there are a few times where the thing probably had an offramp to end. Masanobu Kurisu vs. Shooter #2: Shooter tries for an ambush but obviously that's a terrible idea. There are no good ideas against Kurisu. Kurisu headbutts him out of the corner and doesn't really look back. He headbutts him again, stomps and kicks him, hits him with a chair on the outside, and it's all top 5% ever pro wrestling brutality. Shooter gets a miracle clothesline and tries to get a hold out of it. Kurisu reverses the hold and kicks and headbutts and slams and clotheslines and chicken wings this poor jerk. He doesn't quit (he should). Instead he gets a cop and a belly to belly but Kurisu just rolls him over and gets the double wristlock for the win. Almost a mercy. Tarzan Goto vs. Toshi Imaizumi: Not sure why Goto had back to back gimmick matches but here we go. This was more of a judo gi deal. There's not a lot to it, a bunch of tossing each other around before Goto gets the submission. Tarzan Goto vs. Beast the Barbarian: This is far more interesting. I always joke that Beast could be a time travelling Mad Dog Connelly, by looks and gimmick but he didn't have the intensity or presence. He was set up to succeed with this match gimmick though and this is a perfectly acceptable dog collar match. He's able to use the chain as a weapon and clubber Goto down. Goto comes back and there are a few transitions with one or the other getting a little tangled up. Goto bleeds. Beast does assert himself pretty well. And cleverly enough, after each man does a sufficient amount of punishment, Goto wins with a backslide of all things. Beast doesn't think he's was actually pinned for 3 and throws a fit. Atsushi Onita & Sambo Asako vs. Kim Sung Ho & Lee Gak Soo: Really, the story of this one was that Asako or Onita would get one of the taekwondo guys down and in a hold and again and again and again, the other would come in to break it up. That lasted until Onita finally hit a power bomb. Even that wasn't good enough but then Asako got the message and cut off the ring for the second. Honestly, Lee Gak Soo is one of the most dynamic pro wrestling kickers I've ever seen. He does it from every angle, sometimes flying around with them, and obviously Asako is a great canvas, but Onita would get knocked out of the ring like it was nothing too. Kim had some fun charging ones too. Basically Onita would charge at people with lariats or trips and Asako had all these cool throws if people got close enough to him but then the subsequent holds would get broken up and Kim and Lee would just take right over with the meanest stomps and kicks. Right until Asako dragged Lee over and the power bombs happened. Crazy, enjoyable stuff. Battle Royal: This was all about the taekwondo guys just throwing flying kicks everywhere in the middle of a battle royal. Very fun stuff accordingly. What you need to know is that Onita and Kurisu were working together but Onita accidentally chopped Kurisu which went about as well as you'd expect. Onita eliminated him but Lee and Asako immediately eliminated Onita afterwards. I imagine he and Kurisu are still fighting to the back today. This is one of those battle royals were people get pinned by everyone in the ring piling on them. I think that was Imaizumi's fate. It ended up Asako, Shooter, and Lee and then was an entertaining mess of guys kicking and then immediately falling over. Asako shoved Lee into the ropes and he came right off on him for the pin. Then he followed up with a kick off the top on Shooter. Stupid amounts of fun.

This guy has the six man and Cassidy vs Yuta up. Catch it while you can.