Matt D

Whereas I think he’s too good for the place.

There's a picture of me and Eddy in the ring for a photo op from 2002 from Quincy, MA and I have no idea where it is or what happened to it. He was wrestling Timothy McNeany and Jimmy Jact Cash for WWA on a show with Quack and Slaughter and Dangerous Danny Davis. And it was amazing to see him up close doing his thing.

No idea how I ended up with so much to cover but here we are. 5/22/89: Jushin Liger vs Shiro Koshinaka: This would have been an awesome match to run six months later. It feels like the third or fourth match in a feud, save for the fact it didn't get a ton of time. Koshinaka is a fascinating, infuriating wrestler. In some ways, he just gets it as well as anyone in 80s New Japan, to Choshu levels, of doing things like hulking up and showing a defiant attitude and the early ambushes, etc. But he can just fill his matches with so, so much excess. And Liger is a guy who gets a lot of things too, really can present himself as a star even just as Yamada, but he's not going to say no to excesses when offered. So this was ridiculously over the top and had too many kickouts and big spots especially for the time they had and how early this is into Liger's run. Again, if they built to a match like this over a few months, totally different, but they just waste it all here for nothing. It's interesting commentary is still mentioning Yamada by name a lot even if they seem to do so in uncertain terms. Liger won this with a roll up or something, maybe? I was burnt out by that point. 5/24/89: Liger/Koshinaka vs Black Cat/H. Saito: We have most but not all of this handheld. I think we're missing Matsuda vs Hata and Morgan/Stallion vs Super Strong Machine/Saito (which sounds pretty good actually!) but I'm glad we have what we do here. Here, Koshinaka was much more measured actually. This starts great with an ambush. Saito took out Liger on the floor, tossing him into the rail repeatedly and they beat on Koshinaka for a while. Unfortunately, he got the tag a little too easy and the it was just about Liger wanting to get his hands on Saito. They'd repeat things a couple of times where Koshinaka got dragged under and Liger had to be the one to fire back. It's interesting how he was shifting his act slightly, with more of these dangling lucha style armdrags for instance, some stuff he wasn't doing as Yamada. In general Black Cat and Saito work well together since they're both bullying presences. This built to some heel miscommunication and then Liger vaulting over Black Cat off the ropes so that he could lock him in a roll-up into a surfboard. This was good in part because Koshinaka knew his job. 5/24/89: Sano/Takano/Goto vs Hase/Honaga/Kobayashi: This was pretty wild actually. What sticks with me the most was the Honaga vs Sano exchange early where they monkey flipped each other and landed on their feet a few times, but there was a ton going on here. Too much to really cover. They ambushed Goto early but he came back leading to that flipping exchange. There was a very funny bit where they put Honaga in shattered dreams position. The ref came to try to get Sano to stop and you got the idea that Sano wanted to show the ref the other team coming in, but he pushed him too hard and the ref went flying. Then the other team started checking on him but they were heel leaning so they basically shoved him the other way in the end as Honaga was taking shots. Funny stuff. Hase hit his suplex and had some mean stuff but he does seem diminished in these matches. I think I read that he was going to the Soviet Union to train so we'll see how that goes. Sano REALLY stands out on this roster right now. He's doing very spectacular stuff and smoothly in a way no one else does. I like Goto a ton because he hits like a brick with things like shoulder tackles or flying headbutts. Things built to Takano hitting his wheel kick on Honaga, that getting broken up and then him just brutally scoop slam tombstoning him and finishing him with his splash as everyone else brawled. Like I said, lots to see here.A lot of talent at play. 5/24/89: Akira Nogami vs. Vladimir Berkovich: Again, Nogami held his own more than I would have expected. Here he ambushed with a dropkick to start, but in the first even exchange got thrown across the ring. He actually managed a takedown and armbar out of the corner though. Again, once they got up, he got tossed about some more. He went back to the armbar but once they were back on their feet... front chancery suplex. He missed another dropkick and that was basically the end. One more cradle suplex and a pin to finish him off. Still he was scrappy and Berkovich helped him up after the match. 5/24/89: Osamu Kido vs. Victor Zangiev: Obviously these two match up well. Another headscissors and head spin out, of course. It's a joy to see them transition from one hold to another. Zangiev is a bit more of a theatrical aggressor than the other Soviets who would more wait for things to happen and react. He'd be chasing you right into the corner instead. They traded takedowns and holds for a few minutes until Zangiev got him with a waistlock suplex. Kido came back with kicks and a half crab (the Soviets don't have great defenses for leg kicks yet), but Zangiev hit an almost DDT-esque suplex and locked in an armbar for the quick tap. 5/24/89: Kengo Kimura vs. Salman Hashimikov: Kimura would get that drop toehold on these guys but not a ton else. They worked it fairly evenly on the mat to start. Then Kimura went for the strikes in the corners and got belly to belly suplexed for his trouble. He came back with that drop toehold and tried in the corner again but all it took was Hashimikov getting under him once to crush him. That's part of the appeal of these matches. They really can end at any moment. 5/24/89: Inoki vs Daryl Peterson: The clock is ticking and every Inoki match (even the 6 minute ones) is a joy. He went for the arm wringer here and Peterson punched him in the ribs which I thought was a nice counter. Peterson's moves (body slam, backbreaker, powerslam) were all kind of soft but his elbow drop was nice. Inoki got a takedown and inverted cross armbreaker out of nowhere for the win. 5/24/89: Big Van Vader & Crusher Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Riki Choshu & Tatsumi Fujinami: Ah, this one again. No ambushes this time. It started with Vader and Fujinami wrestling to start. Vader's champ here, defending the next day against Hashimikov so the dynamic is a little different. Vader actually outwrestles him early. But he gets a big hip toss while standing and Choshu comes in. That sets up Choshu vs Bigelow which is always very good. Again, they wrestle but it feels a little broader. Choshu finally breaks away and drops him with two lariats (a big sweeping bum[p but not the flip one). Vader cuts it off and tries to bully Fujinami who reverses a suplex to a big pop. But Vader overpowers him and crushes him in the corner. Bigelow then comes in and puts on that inverted cross armbreaker but Fujinami makes it to a tag and Choshu goes for the Scorpion, so lots of wrestling in this one. Vader breaks taht up and they beat down Choshu until he's able to get a lariat out of the corner and hot tag Fujinami. He hits a back brain kick on VAder and dropkicks Bigelow but that's not enough to put him down. Great finish follows; he's putting the dragon sleeper on Vader but Bigelow breaks it up and tosses him into the corner. Fujinami dodges the avalanche but runs right into a lariat and Vader pins him. This was a pretty good version of this match between the added wrestling and unique finish. 5/25/89: Fujinami/Choshu vs Zangiev/Berkovich: Handhelds are great, but it's nice to see Zangiev in good video quality. He's incredibly expressive both in selling and when he's got a hold on and is wrenching it in. All of these 5/25 matches will probably be hard for me to upload and watch because NJPW is wary on the big shows, so no auto translations for instance. There was a real novelty to seeing the Soviets in a tag match. All the 5x5s so far have been 1v1 at a time. It changed the dynamic a bit. Fujinami would wrestle these guys even and Choshu would just sort of get outwrestled (an thrown around) but then do big gutsy things and kick them in the face repeatedly. He matched up well with Zangiev as you'd expect. At one point he punched Berkovich in the corner leaving a mark and then Berkovich drove him to his corner and it was all pretty awesome. Later on, after a tag, he just hurled Choshu across the ring with a front facelock out of his own corner. But Choshu would get his range with a late match lariat setting up the finish. Fujinami came in with the diving knee, a sort of high struggle deadlift piel driver and the dragon sleeper. Pretty gripping stuff to be honest.

I was exhausted! The five I do are Athena, Darby, Dustin, Eddie, Rush. And he put three on dynamite. I did post this though.

Let’s see if they add a stip to Joe/Hangman II.

Had to cover three matches from Dynamite this week, basically focusing on how Athena accentuates Mercedes, following Kingston around like he's Billy from Family Circus (dated reference?) and trying to distill Darby vs Dany down to some guiding principles. http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/11/aew-five-fingers-of-death-113-119.html

Second key show in a row that was just a Hidden Gem after last week's omni show. Not the best pattern.

I doubt Leduc got in first try.

Have you seen the internet, my man?

The absolutely crazy thing is that if they had done the match, people on the internet would have been up in arms about it only being 3 minutes long, how much TK hates women's wrestling, etc. and so on, and they would have been far better off with far more wind in their sails despite deep disdain for Alize's instagram posts or whatever. Instead the entire fanbase has turned on them. It's not about being protective of their image so much as it's about not understanding the market and the fanbase and how to manipulate public opinion.

5/22/89 5x5 Challenge. Japan vs USSR Tatsumi Fujinami vs Timur Zalasov: Zalasov is an interesting wrestler, able to transfer one hold into the next really well. He started with a deadlift German out of nowhere. There was a real scrappy sense of competition here. Fujinami could hang or presented himself as such. Zalasov had a neat Anaconda Vice variation and would hit a shoot looking belly to belly down the stretch. Fujinami opened things up with low kicks which Zalasov sold extremely well (making me think they were fairly legit). Finish had Fujinami hit belly to backs that were so shoot-y that they almost became Belly to Bellys and then the dragon sleeper. Wahka Eveloev vs Kengo Kimura: Eveloev was excellent at putting on holds, really able to get an armbar or legbar out of anything that Kimura tried. Kimura did take him down early with a drop toehold and his advantages after that were based on his striking. Eveloev was repeatedly pissed off and confused about how the punches were part of the rules. Eventually he was able to get Kimura over with a flying armbar. Great shot of Fujinami coaching from the outside and trying to get Kimura to interlock his hands. At that point, he just went into one hold after the next and while Kimura did quick rope breaks, the writing was on the wall. He caught a desperate kick and drove him down for the submission win. Victor Zangiev vs Osamu Kido: I just think of the absolute travesty that we never got a Zangiev vs Fujiwara match. This is probably the closest we get. Kido now has a mustache. Very important to know. Some great wrestling here. Just the two of them in near constant contact with each other moving from one hold into the next. Zangiev was such a showman with his escapes. At one point he's in a headscissors and just rotates around and around to escape. Kido had a really great grounded submission at one point, something tricked out and entertaining. I do think we have at least one more match with them, so I'm glad to see that. This ended with a bunch of Zangiev belly to belly suplexes out of nowhere and a submission. Riki Choshu vs Vladimir Berkovich: Going to bury this here but these are almost a new sort of match for New Japan. They're these sprinty 6 minute shoot-style type wars which could end at any moment. Here Berkovich had the advantage with Choshu just able to sit out with him. Riki held his own but got taken over with a waistlock suplex. But ultimately, he was just able to survive long enough to get under him and hit the Saito Suplex/Lariat/Scorpion combo. This had energy but really didn't amount to much. Salman Hashimikov vs Masa Saito: Saito really got how to shine in almost any style. Amazing pro wrestler. Here it was just a matter of keeping this competitive and making it seem heated. Hash had size but Saito seemed to match him in it. Just two bulls in some ways. This is the biggest I've seen Saito work in a while. He just filled the gap between himself and Hashimikov. He was canny enough to really seem like he had his number at times too, whereas Hashimikov's best offense was just getting underneath Saito and hefting him up. Saito came back with a series of Saito suplexes but Hashimikov ended up under the ropes and he got underneath Saito again for the lifting, spinning drop into a pin. Post-match, Hashimikov and Zangiev held up the trophy and made a big deal out of it, but Vader came out to challenge Hashimikov to a match, so that probably had the crowd pretty exciting. These are honestly a great counter to what's been happening in UWF. The WONs were saying that Inoki wanted to tour the USSR and they were really setting the stage for that well.

Playing catch up: I wrote up Mox vs Kyle from last week: https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/10/aew-five-fingers-of-death-and-friends.html?m=1

4/17/89: Vader/Pillman vs Choshu/Fujinami: Don't get too excited. This isn't very good. Pillman is a total non-factor. He comes out with his sunglasses walking beside Vader and then gets tossed out of the ring right at the start and hangs out on the apron to the end. What that does, however, is make this a virtual handicap match. And it's interesting to see how well Choshu and Fujinami can do together against Vader. They hit a double suplex on him and then toss him into the guardrail. A real sense that the two together have his number. When Pillman does get in, he gets a slam on Fujinami, misses a top rope splash, and then eats the Dragon Backbreaker/Dragon Sleeper combo. Not much to this. 5/22/89: Inoki/Iizuka vs Vader/Stallion: I feel like I might have seen this but not covered it yet. This was a month later and Vader's champ now so he couldn't get swept under quite the same. Iizuka isn't Choshu or Fujinami either and Stallion is more able to assert himself than Flyin' Brian. He was funny coming down beside Vader, making himself as big as possible and storming this way or that. Iizuka got swept under early but actually was able to sweep Vader's leg himself and get a tag. A little moment like that goes a long way with these crowds. Some of the Inoki 88-89 stuff, like the pumphandle on Vader was getting a little old, but I'll miss him heavily when he's gone. Finish had Iizuka do some of his cool heel hook rolling takedowns on Stallion, but Vader break up both that an the enziguiri pins. When Inoki went after him, Stallion hit a belly to belly on Iizuka. Post-match, Inoki fought off both, getting his feet up as Vader charged and Stallion held him and then hitting a jumping mule kick on Stallion.

EDIT: I looked up Iizuka's career and it's a wild one. I always look forward to that because it'll take me as far as I want to explore and then some maybe. 4/17/89: Akira Nogami vs Kuniaki Kobayashi: Nogami got a good deal more than I was expecting here. That doesn't mean that Kobayashi didn't rush right in from the start and get under him and jam him down with this really cool lifting drop down to his knees breaker type move that I've never seen before. But Nogami was able to lock in a Fujiwara Arm Bar and at least stay in it. Nogami took liberties with a cheapshot off a break and then Kobayashi crushed him with kicks and a straight shot off the ropes. Nogami was able to stomp him out though. So it really was back and forth. Nogami controlled with a crab for a while and had control with a series of dropkicks (corner and missile especially) down the stretch (after dodging Kobayashi's spin kick), but then Kobayashi drove him down by dodging a flying body press and slapped on a rear naked choke with a body scissors for the win. It was fairly heated and a good showing for Nogami. 4/17/89: Hoshino vs Black Cat: This was pretty long and fairly dry. In some ways, it was one of the harder matches I've watched, just a tough one to get through even though the work itself was competent. The most interesting thing about it was that Cat had a bunch of fun cutoff bits, whether it was kicking the shin or getting a gut shot in or what. But then Hoshino would just takeback over and lock in a hold. This was scrappy overall but not super compelling. Hoshino won it with his neckbreaker drop. 4/17/89: Koshinaka/Goto vs Super Strong Machine/Takano: One of the stronger SSM/Takano tags. I put a lot of that on Goto actually. He started even with Takano but once SSM came in against Koshinaka they immediately tossed him (SSM) out and started working over him on the floor. SSM is sort of an unusual face-in-peril but there was a clear sense of strategy controlling him and working the leg. He would eventually get a tag but they couldn't control on Koshinaka/Takano for long since they were far fresher. Things eventually devolved to Koshinaka and Takano headbutting each other on the floor again, but it worked better than usual since it came much later in the match than usual. This had a hot finishing stretch with Goto hitting a gutsy German suplex on SSM where he could barely hang on to the bridge. Takano broke it up and crushed him on the second attempt with the spin wheel kick to the back of the head. That let SSM hit his single arm suplex with a bridge for the win. This was a good one. 4/17/89: Kido vs Steve Armstrong: I feel like I haven't seen Kido for a while. They stayed on the mat here for the most part, moving up to some rope running/high spots and then right back down but it was chippy and competitive and Armstrong felt like he belonged. When things picked up, he had a fairly clear advantage but Kido didn't seem like he was working dumb for him or anything. Finish had Steve wipe out on a flying body press as Kido hit the dirt, then a nice swinging neckbreaker and a crab. Good for what it was, but maybe it could have been something a bit more interesting if they played up the contrast more.

I am beloved by everyone in the household for buying them the new Katamari game. They are all at odds with one another to get a turn.

5/20/89: Riki Choshu vs Bam Bam Bigelow: This was part of a 5x5 US vs Japan. We miss the middle three matches. In between Kimura beat Morgan, Kido beat Stallion, and Doc beat Masa Saito. I wish we had that last one at least. All of those sound fun though. But I'm glad for what we do have. Choshu and Bigelow matched up so well, better than Choshu matches up with most Americans and Bigelow matches up with most Japanese. They just had that right extra bit of theatricality, and Bigelow took the lariat so well. This started with a few of those, with Bigelow flipping. He then retreated to his pals on the floor. They'd face off evenly a few times after that before Bigelow hefted Choshu up with an inverted atomic drop and controlled. At one point, Choshu ended up on the floor with the Americans and grabbed a chair but nothing came of it. Finish had Bigelow hit a low blow out of nowhere and then a falling headbutt to sneak out a win, infuriating the Japanese side and making it 1-0. 5/20/89: Tatsumi Fujinami vs Darryl Peterson: By this point it was 2 to 2 so this was the finale for the overall win. Not a ton to this really. Peterson had a significant size advantage and used it to bully Fujinami around. Fujinami would hit a dropkick or something else but would get dragged back down. Eventually, he was able to get him over on a suplex and won it with a Fujiwara arm bar giving his team the series. Shame we lost the middle matches here. And I missed a HH, so let's double back. 4/17/89: Sano vs Honaga: Red tights vs red tights. Far off. Rough VQ. This was a tough one. But they wrestled differently. Sano had a lot of lucha inspired flips in the corner. He did a quebradora backbreaker. Honaga had some nasty kicks and tended to grind him down more. Whenever Sano could get some distance he was able to use his speed to fight back. Honaga finally got an advantage and hit a neckbreaker drop but lost to a quick backslide out of nowhere. 4/17/89: Matsuda vs Iizuka: Black trunks vs red trunks here, which helped. This had a lot of gritty matwork. Iizuka was pretty good! He's not someone I'm at all familiar with. I have no idea what path his career takes but he looked good recently in higher profile settings and he looked good here on the undercard. Matsuda started in on the arm but Iizuka has a bunch of tricked out rolling takeovers into leglocks and he made full use of them. Dogged going back to it too. Matsuda fought out and used a lot of holds on his own and was able to survive the rolling kneebar at the end to set up a finishing bit of roll ups. He won it with a backbridge in the end. 4/17/89: Hiro Saito vs Hata: Hata's speed vs Saito being a cruiserweight bully. First half of the match had Hata trying a few things but getting shut down again and again. Saito would pull the hair to take him down, stomp away, beat him up in the corner. Then Saito propelled him over the top and made the mistake of going for a dive. Hata hit a somersault off the apron and took over for a bit. He wasn't able to put him away though, even after hitting a second dive. That meant that Saito was able to jam him out of the corner and hit a nasty senton for the win.

5/20/89: Hiroshi Hase vs Vakha Yevloyev: Finally we're getting to Japanese vs Soviets here. The underlying story in these matches will be "pro wrestling" vs "wrestling" basically. For instance, Hase, a skilled mat wrestler himself, starts this with an ambush dropkick. He's able to hang when it comes to scrapping and grappling but not have any advantage there and he needs to utilize pro wrestling tricks to get the offense back. Yevlovev gets a cross arm breaker on him and as he rolls out, he starts stomping him, etc. Yevloyev has a way of just being able to get under him and hefting him over. All of this has a quasi UWF feel because of it. Hase tries to stay on the leg, including kicking it and lifting it for a takedown and then a leg lock, but you get the sense he's really just trying to contain Yevloyev, and for good reason, as the latter locks in a triangle out of nowhere (one of the first we've seen in the footage) and that's that. Yevloyev does a fun little roll of celebration post match. 5/20/89: Shiro Koshinaka vs Salman Hashimikov: You'd think this would be a mauling but Shiro is savvy.. Hashimikov can just slip under Shiro and roll him over while holding on an arm and there's nothing Shiro can do. That's not to say Shiro isn't game and doesn't press advantages and get a few takeovers (and grounded shots) himself. But he's not going to win this with a chinlock. Hashimikov just hefts him up and tosses him down. Shiro even gets a figure four and a butt butt and really presses in on him in the corner, but again, Hashimikov is able to get up from under him and spin and drop him like a sack of potatoes to win. 5/20/89: Big Van Vader vs Vladimir Berkovich: This was clipped but you get the idea. Vader presses right up with Berkovich who puts on a headlock and eats a belly to back for his trouble. He actually gets Vader over off the rope with a chancery throw and tries to work the arm, but Vader, sick of it all, hits him with a low blow mule kick and then clotheslines and splashes him for the pin. 5/20/89: Inoki/Iizuka vs Super Strong Machine/H. Saito: We're almost done with Inoki so every match like this was a joy. Interesting it's not Takano here but that would screw with the finish. Iizuka and Saito match up well together to start before SSM comes into crush him. Iizuka gets a belly to back out of nowhere to turn the tide and Inoki comes in. Just great to see them match up until SSM works him into the corner and Saito gets to try with strikes and bullying and even using the ref as a stalking horse to get a takedown. Inoki quickly out wrestles him on the mat and Iizuka comes in to work him over. It looks like Saito's going to show him what for with a German but Iizuka does a great rolling leg pick out of it and maintains control. Right until SSM comes in and crushes him. But he makes it to Inoki who comes in hot. They go around for a finish with Saito hitting the senton on Iizuka and then iizuka coming back with a cross arm breaker. That gets broken up but it allows Inoki to come in to win it. Iizuka felt like he leveled up a bit here and always great to see Inoki against more unique opponents.

It’s not always misogyny and tribalism, but in this case is it.

In order for me to truly engage with this, I'd have to watch 2025 WWE, which I'm not going to do, but I mean... we've had multiple Ultimo Guerrero vs Blue Panther matches just this year. Hechicero is probably over 45 too and he had a great match with Panther. You've got Black Terry vs Mr. Condor. You've got Funk vs Bockwinkel from 83. Tenryu turned 45 in 1995.

Trying to keep track of a bunch of handhelds that have shown up in the last ten years. I'm not the first person to have gone through these ever (I'd even seen some already) but I do think I'm the first one to integrate them into the context of the rest of the footage we have as far as I know. 5/19/89: Fujinami vs Sano: Such a cool match. Sano comes in and dropkicks Fujinami from behind right at the start. He doesn't let up. Dropkicks. Strikes. Grounded moves. A hold. Just powering him over for a belly to belly. The thing is. Everyone knew he was on borrowed time. I think he knew he couldn't beat Fujinami but every second he was on top was a second he was making a name, making his mark, becoming someone just a little more. And he made the most of it. Fujinami, when he took over, didn't do it like Inoki. He did it like himself, grounding him, stopping the speedy attack. He was conservative and Sano was able to fire off once more, even hitting a German. But when Fujinami finally shut him down, he really shut him down. He hit the Robinson backbreaker and put him in the Dragon Sleeper. But then the little bastard had the audacity to make it to the ropes. Fujinami hefted him up and hit three more Robinson backbreakers, the last one out of a belly to belly position with a deep twist. Then he pinned him. Post match Koshinaka and others were celebratory for Sano though. 5/20/89: Sano vs Osamu Matsuda: It's wild to see this super undercard match after Sano was up against Fujinami the night before. Matsuda had black trunks, one of those guys. He was a meaner striker, a meaner stomper. Sano was flashier, hit bigger stuff, lots of suplexes actually and they all had cool heft, really working for them. Matsuda did kind of grind him down though. Finish had Sano doing his reverse enziguiri, the shotgun missile dropkick, a kip up, and a jumping pile driver. Pretty definitive even if he had to do a reversal to get there. 5/20/89: Liger vs Akira Nogami: I haven't seen much Nogami in this run yet. He's got the black trunks too. The fans were oohing for all of Liger's stuff early (kappo kick, etc) even though it wasn't super flashy or anything. He gave Nogami a lot, too much probably, even if it was just Nogami trying to drag him down with an armbar or crab. Liger could really go on the mat and would reverse both in time. Nogami got to do a dive through the top and second ropes and a corner dropkick, but Liger wiped him out with a reversal out of the corner and hit a dive of his own to set up a superplex for the win. He's still figuring it out.

There was a moment early on where Windsor clearly looked over at Sareee to time their synchronized kip ups and that really took me out of the match and they never quite got me back, even though the work was good. Taylor vs BEEF was one of my favorite five minute matches all year though. Without ROH I don't think either of these matches exist.

Nope. Not since Angelico came back from injury ages ago at least.

I don't know a ton about the Try Guys but I know enough that if they're going to use the one that cheated on his wife blowing the whole thing up, they should bring him in as a heel, not palling around with Angelico and Serpentico.

5/17/89: 5x5: Bam Bam Bigelow/Darryl Peterson/Steve Williams/Rip Morgan/Italian Stallion vs Salman Hashimikov/Victor Zangiev/Vladimir Berkovich/Wahka Evloev/Timur Zalasov MD: So believe it or not, this was kind of my initial destination with the NJPW side of the project. Obviously it's changed a bit because I've come to love certain aspects of the company (some of which I'm about to lose in Fujiawara and Inoki) and because it just feels like such forbidden lore that no one else gets to learn about. But some of these matches were uncovered a few years ago and no one really went through them, and certainly no one's gone through them with the week to week context like I have. So here we go. These were 5 singles matches but with a lot of fun camaraderie, big hype up moments from the "American" team where they all put hands in. Bunch of hooligans and ne'er-do-wells so it's funny to see. They did the anthems beforehand too. Italian Stallion vs Timur Zalasov: thankfully, this was listed in reverse order because I'm not familiar with Evloev (we don't have his match vs Saito from April) or Zalasov. I am familiar with Stallion and he's hilarious here. He decides to work this as a total stooging heel up against a foreigner who was barely smartened up. That meant he kept complaining about hair pulls and tightspulls and then, of course, did them himself. Meanwhile, Zalasov just wanted to shake his hand. It was all pretty endearing. We've seen Stallion assert himself in NJPW matches so he could go and he did a little bit here, but it all ended with a German and him complaining to high heaven about the count too. Very fun stuff and it hit with the crowd even if it wasn't what they were expecting. Rip Morgan vs Wahka Evloev: We'd see this in a couple of these matchups. Remember, Morgan had just been the third guy in all of those main events and was presenting himself a bit like Brody. He ended up taking a lot of this grinding down Evloev. Clubbering, stomping, using a cross toehold. I'm not sure it was compelling, but it was effective. And it made things all the more shocking when Evleov hit him with a flying cross armbreaker takedown and submission out of nowhere. So it's 2-0 for the Russians at this point. Steve Williams vs Vladimir Berkovich: Doc was so cool in this setting. Very evenly matched and they'd just go hard with one another. Doc took over with some pro wrestling shenanigans kicking on a handshake and then hitting a very labored press slam. He'd also throw in a shot when Berkovich was just trying to wrestle with him. All of that gave the slight impression that Berkovich was maybe a better pure wrestler (especially given some of the throws/suplexes he got) but Doc was a better total package. Along those lines, he finally trapped Berkovich in the corner and laid in a bunch of knees before hitting the Stampede for the win. This had a different energy than the rest. After the pin they did shake hands for real though. Darryl Peterson vs Victor Zangiev: We haven't seen much Peterson in 89. Not sure what he's been up to on the undercards. He's still a very big guy though and he had been training long enough that he could hang with the theatrical Zangiev a good deal. They got right up in each other's faces to start which helped matters. Lots of riding around on the mat, but it was all energetic and exciting. Peterson hit a slam and a few other things but he missed a splash and Zangiev was able to take him over with a front chancery suplex for the win. Bam Bam Bigelow vs Salman Hashimikov: While some of the others were very good having more "shooty" matches with these guys, Bigelow could have the most complete pro style matches with them. This did stay on the mat a lot but it started with Bigelow rolling and moved to him tossing Hashimikov out for instance. At one point Bigelow suplexed him but then went flying out of the ring himself on the kickout which really put over Hashimikov's strength. The couple of throws Hashimikov did looked very impressive including a double arm suplex he really fought for. He also had this great rolling legpick. The idea was that Bigelow really made him work for it but that he could do the work. Finish had him heft up Bigelow and was about to really plant him but the Americans distracted the ref and Doc grabbed the leg to let Bigelow steal the win. They celebrated big even though they lost the series (it was inevitable at this point). And it was all a pretty effective scene. But I'm sure the crowd was desperate to see the Russians up against the Japanese stars.

I've hit the very end of Act 2 and actually mowed through 2-3 bosses I hadn't beaten yet (and one very difficult gauntlet) with very little issue (which means a few tries instead of 15 or whatever). But everything I've read shows that Act 3 is ridiculously hard. I've hit a part of the game which, like every great Metroidvania, has you soaring through all the areas that gave you trouble early on. And I don't know if I want to leave that feeling to delve into even more ridiculously hard stuff for what people generally feel is like a DLC level Act.