Matt D

That may be my fault. Sorry.

My favorite part of it was exploring past your level and getting items/experience/etc. that you shouldn't be getting yet, which was not easy. But then that wildly unbalanced the game. So I would suggest ultimately NOT doing that. It's fun and scratches an itch. I didn't fully finish it but I don't hold it against the game. I was just having late game drift. Apparently the overlap between characters is better in the second one.

Here’s my take on Willow/Mercedes (plus a quick take on Nigel versus Mox). https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2026/08/aew-five-fingers-of-death-and-friends_0570227305.html?m=1

I am 85% sure that it's actually a fantasy in Will's head that we get to see. I was generally okay with it until he walked past Aussie Open who were just standing there randomly in a tunnel and then Goblin Mox with the flag broke me. I actually think it works as a fantasy in Will's head though! I think that makes it work better.

Quick thoughts on Mox vs Nigel here. Hopefully longform on Willow vs Mercedes tomorrow. Favorite moment of the night (so far) was Garcia selling the slap from Marina. I think I would have preferred “Next Level” but I didn’t get a vote.

The "Things that were missing" are, in fact, on the Buy-In. I would have rather seen Athena and Aminata in the Sisters of Sin vs Stat/Harley tag as a six-women, but ah well. Very glad to see STP over there. It made sense to get Lio on the card and plays off some ROH stuff lately. Glad they added Persephone vs Maya too. Hopefully people have come in by then as I think Persephone will work a big stadium well.

5/24/90: Chono vs Sasaki: I know this is crazy but part of me thinks that NJPW saw what UWF was doing with Suzuki and Funaki and decided that they were going to reestablish/retake the classic (and 86-87) style of NJPW mat based matched. Because this was almost entirely on the mat. It was incredibly simple, incredibly straightforward, but it had the crowd. It felt very different than anything we've seen out of Sasaki yet. He was able to use his strength but Chono maybe had superior technique. I'd say that this was maybe the most impressive overall Chono match we've seen so far. It built to a clear Sasaki advantage that was countered by a back headbutt from Chono. He then hit an enziguiri, the shoulder block, got on the STF, but Sasaki somehow survived it, probably because things were really opening up for the first time in the match. He then managed a come back with the power slam and two-three more power moves with kickouts (including a power bomb and the rolling arm whip) but I bought the kickouts due to hierarchy as much as anything else. He finally hit, almost by accident a northern lights driver. He came off almost confused by it and that let Chono hit a small package out of nowhere for the win. 5/24/90: Choshu vs Muto: This was a very cool match. The Past and Present vs the Present and Future. Choshu was explosive at the start with a huge belly to back on the first lock up where Muto really went flying. Then Choshu hit a rare plancha and the suplex back in. Great way to start it. Took everyone by surprise. Muto came back with a spinning jump kick, a dropkick out, and his own huge dive. Then, back in the ring, he hit the handspring into the corner and power drive elbows. They were off to the races. They brought it up and down here with some grueling holds with great expressiveness from both wrestlers. First Muto focused on the leg, with the Muta-lock into a figure-four, working the ankle, and a figure four. Then Choshu got under him for a water wheel drop and used a headscissors. Muto tried to get the arm but Choshu went up and over into a headscissors (commentary noted he used to do that with Inoki a lot, but I haven't seen him do it in years). Muto went for a headlock but Choshu hit a shin buster. When he tried to follow up with another Saito suplex, Muto landed on him though. After that came a really clumsy looking (but still great) dive where Muto made contact with his head. I watch him here and I half think he made a whole career out of selling his leg. I guess we'll see. Back in the ring, Muto hit the moonsault for two (he was a bit too far away which is good cover) and then put on an Octopus. I'm not sure if he was pointing to Chono on the floor watching or Fujinami on commentary (I think) but they made a huge deal out of it until Choshu powered out. Choshu then got the Scorpion twice. Muto survived it but was staggerd for the lariats. Two put him away. Really good match which was sort of a heat check for where Muto was. Ships passing in the night. (One funny note is that the commentary was going on about how Muto had been a heel in the US against all the big names).

It clearly didn't accomplish what it set out to do. But I think Eddie did a lot right early. He ambushed, he leaned into the boos, he worked the mask, he went to the floor and used the stairs. Hechicero was really playing it up. But the crowd wouldn't come up for him on his comebacks because there were so many things working against it. There are a couple of clips going around of some execution issues late in the match, but the thing was dead in the water long before those clips, even when they were doing everything right. Different night, different arena, different match placement, different build, the exact same match would have worked a lot better. But it became a real target for everyone with grievances about AEW talent in CMLL, about the CMLL programming team, about Kingston's physique, about athleticism in general, etc.

I don't know. It's so much. I want to follow Tamura and see his entire career. I want to follow Fujiwara. ... I want to follow Anjo. We'll see what happens when I hit the schism. A lot of this was to get to know the guys who come in and invade NJPW later or follow the ones I'd already been watching. I've got the rest of my life so we'll see.

I've got this 40 minute Big John Studd vs Otto Wanz match (which is very good thank you very much) that's perfect for you.

I have finite time, finite patience, and a shit ton of 1990 UWF and FMW to get through. You only live once.

Ok, back to NJPW. Going to try to not let as much build up here. 5/24/90: Hashimoto/Saito/Kitao vs VADER/BIGELOW/WILLIAMS: This is the best NJPW American team imaginable basically. They're awesome. They come out, stand on a stage and hold hands up in the air and Vader's Mask goes off and holy hell is it ever great. The big thing we get here is Doc vs Hashimoto and that is a rare, rare match up and they're dynamic. They do some rope running early on and it's great. Later on there's a bit where Hash throws a shot and Doc just eats it and gives him a look and it's great. You also get a LONG heat on Kitao. I think they were trying to get him over with the crowd by being tough and taking stuff. It didn't go great. These are good opponents for him to give him a mountain to climb and that will make his stuff look PRETTY good. At the same time. What are you going to do when Doc is flexing and sticking his tongue out like a maniac. Eventually he fought out of a bearhug and did get a tag. Saito had a great moment of hulking up like crazy too. Just really over the top stuff. Crowd loved it. Crowd did not love Kitao but it wasn't as big of a disaster as his last match maybe. This went long and Kitao was really only in for that long heat stretch. Finish had Saito really fight to get Vader up and over for the Saito suplex (he had gotten it before on Bigelow but Vader had made a blind tag) but Bigelow and Doc charge in and take out the others. Then they took out him out and hit a diving headbutt and elbow drop and splash on him. There honestly were a lot of other good moments in this, like Vader ducking the spin wheel kick or Hashimoto kicking out of the Vader splash but I hit the broad strokes. What a heel team. (Oh and they said Doc had a doctorate in something or other, which was funny). 5/24/90: Honaga vs Hase: Some fun commentary as they're coming out. Honaga is the Blond Anarchist. Hase they likened to an exorcist using medicine to try to fight evil. Or something. We haven't seen a lot of solo Honaga and it went ok. He controlled early after an ambush but not with anything too compelling. Nerveholds and what not. Hase had a big comeback though with a belly to belly and a dropkick and a fireman's carry gutbuster and the giant swing. Afterwards he posed and screamed it was great. Honaga got back into it with a low blow and then had some more dynamic stuff including a flip senton and his neckbreaker drop. Hase had one last come back into a fun finishing stretch. He had saved the Northern Lights early so he could hit it when it mattered. Then he went up and got tossed off, but when Honaga went for a splash he was up with his knee so he ended with a gutbuster, which was a great visual. After that came the second Northern Lights, this time with a bridge. Good back half on this one.

During the Nick Wayne match, I was thinking how much I wanted to see Bandido versus Christian.

Shame that the cash in rule is now one week notice as that would be a great way to end the show.

I think there are elements of it that could be very good, but it'll get way, way too much time and won't have clear lines and instead of constraining things because of E&C, Copeland will try to flex and stretch and it won't go well. There's a world where you could put together a really interesting match with Christian acting like an ass and ruining the mood as much as possible and then the other three managing to overcome that, but that's not what they'll do. And @Pete one of the things missing is, you know, the rest of the women's roster, so if Thekla is now the special ref for Omega vs Ospreay, I'll change my mind and watch it. I think that would be a lot of fun.

The healthiest relationship one can have with AEW or pro wrestling at all is to only watch the things you want to watch. It's a big tent promotion with a lot of styles and wrestlers. So here we have "Will I watch it or will I skip it?" for All In Ospreay vs Omega: No way in hell I'm watching this unless I lose a bet. Willow vs Mercedes: Will watch. Hoping for really mean work over Willow's hand now. E&C vs Young Bucks: Absolutely not. Casino Battle Royal: Watch. Yeah, these are always fun and there should be some fun debuts. I would have rather seen MJF vs Andrade in a singles match and the National title has really been neutered because of the build to this. Six-Man whatever: Watch on 2x speed. This will be dumb and spotty party stuff but I want to see the debut and hear the crowd react. Mox vs Nigel: Definite watch. What I'm looking forward to most on the card. Birds vs Dominion: I will watch. The thread on twitter about how most brits hate the Birds gimmick was funny. But yeah, I'll watch this. I really like Lena Kross' reactions in the moment, though I get the sense she's much more of a TV worker than a big arena worker. Knight vs Darby: Watch. I'd rather this be a coffin match, but what are you going to do? Probably the thing I'm looking forward the second most even if I sort of wish they had held back the singles match from a few weeks ago. International 3-way: Begrudgingly watch. 3-ways are terrible. I think it'll have good moments/clips of character stuff though. The fighting spirit will give me a headache mind you. Card seems to be missing a couple of things, including something with a lot of women. If they add Maya vs Persephone, I'm all for that though. If that add a Big AJ match then that probably becomes the thing I'm looking forward to the most by default.

Closing out the 5/4/90 UWF show. Yamazaki vs Nakano: I really enjoyed this. The premise was that Nakano got an early advantage but then he couldn't just bully Yamazaki around. Yamazaki was way too dangerous. Not just with the kicks but with everything. So even when Nakano would catch a Yamazaki kick, he'd just stand there and really, really think through what he'd do next. At one point he hit a dragon screw. At another he dropped down into a kneebar. But he was not moving lightly. In between those two moments, he was mounting him and just really trying to figure out how to move forward. It was a great manifestation of Nakano's strength and power vs even the very idea of Yamazaki. It was never boring because there was a mood to all of this. What was Nakano going to do. Would it work? Would he make a mistake. Eventually he got some big submissions and the place went nuts because they though maybe, just maybe he'd pull it off, even if he was getting winded, even if he was reaching the end of his rope despite his advantage through the fight. It wasn't meant to be. Eventually, Yamazaki reversed a hold and pried off a limb and that was it, but it wasn't for lack of trying by Nakano and that trying matters, even decades later. Takada vs Suzuki: This, I hated. I get that Suzuki and Funaki won, that history will show that they bet on themselves and forced a style change and created MMA (through Pancrase) out of this or whatever. But they were the hottest most exciting acts of 1989 and Suzuki for the start of 90 too and to get ahead they found a way to neuter themselves. I know they work out the balance later, but this was ten minutes of nothing. Mild positioning. It would have been interesting in small doses as part of a whole, building to the sort of "high spots" (emotional and sometimes literal) that UWF was known for, but no. Just conservative laying around on one another, worse than most proclaimed "rest holds" I've seen in my life. I love wrestling where they fight for every inch, but there were no inches. They never got anywhere! I think if someone sees this in a vacuum they might enjoy it for the gamesmanship and technique, but seeing it in context, on this card, in the context of Suzuki's previous year, it was dreadful and you could tell the people in the crowd were disappointed. They rightfully wanted and expected bombs (fought for, struggled for, built to, etc). and they got nothing to latch on to instead. Fujiwara vs Fred Hamaker: I don't know who Hamaker is. He had Jerry Lynn type hair though. Vrij seconded him so that probably tells us something. This was a lot of fun. Constant motion. Big character. Big stakes. They did a lot of riding one another for position, lots of jockeying. Fujiwara got the arm bar on early but it seemed like Hamaker had planned for it. At one point, Fujiwara nailed him with a headbutt and he was able to scoop Fujiwara for a gutwrench of sorts. Once Fujiwara smacked him, refusing to break clean and then grinned huge. Then Hamaker moved him to his own corner, did break clean but that let Fujiwara mouth off with Vrij which got the crowd going. Fujiwara got underneath him once for an exploder, which you almost never see him do. He was taking this seriously. When Hamaker got him in a hold, Fujiwara was so so good at playing chess with body parts until he forced both of them to end up in the ropes. Finish had Hamaker try for the leg but Fujiwara take him down and get an anklehold out of nowhere for the win. Fujiwara is always so elated after these and makes it seem like the biggest thing in the world. It's electric. This only had a few strikes but they really made them count and it was a good, fevered fight overall.

He should. It’s honestly his best hope. I just don’t know how it would play with the tourists.

I think you should make your own thread for this. It’ll make it easier to follow and it’s a worthwhile project.

There are some invalid/ridiculous concerns about Eddie Kingston going for Hechicero's belt on Friday (if the match isn't called off due to Eddie not being cleared). But then there are some very real concerns as it pertains to the current CMLL tourist audience and what they want, expect, and what they'll respond to. Also, how Eddie's built the match with it not being a brawl or something heated but instead an honorable title match. If Eddie came in there and aura farmed like Dusty Rhodes, and he is capable of that, even more so than most wrestlers today, I think he'd have a pretty good chance. If he comes in with the King's Road tribute act, it's going to be a struggle. I am rooting for him though. There are plenty of people who are not.

Ok, we do not have 5/16, 5/17, or 5/18 (I double but did not triple check, so if I'm wrong, let me know). 16 had Mimi beat Toyoda, the Koreans beat the Shooters, Kurisu/Wizard beat Asako/Ueno, and Onita/Goto beat WBM/Fuji. 17 had WBM beat Ichihara and Miyake by himself, Mimi/Sato get the win over Toyoda/Kudo, Kurisu/Fuji beat Goto/Uena, and Onita/Asako beat the Koreans (shame we don't have that). 18 has Mimi beat Kudo, Lee Gak Soo beat the Shooter in a different styles fight, Goto beat Ueno, Onita beat Asako (that'd be interesting), and Kurisu/Fuji beat Wizard/WMB in a heel/heel match. Mascarita Sagrada always beats poor Espectrito. That brings us to the 19th at Korakuen (most of the previous ones were not in Tokyo) and it's a stacked card for FMW. It's funny. I looked at the card and started the (commercial tape) video and I knew that everything I watched in the lead up was going to make this better. You can just tell. We only get an hour of this. So we miss Ichihara beating Miyake, Lee Wang Pyo beating Shooter, Fuji beating Ueno, and (of course), Mascarita Sagrada beating Espectrito. First match is sub five minutes and the next three all went around six. We start with Mimi vs Toyoda (you'll see why the other women are later on the card). Mimi gets a promo saying she has the best body and will kick ass (though she doesn't say ass) and says Ichiban and she's no Sherri when it comes to promos. Mimi vs Toyoda was rough, even a little clipped. There were some really good moments. Mimi turned a full nelson into a spin out flying mare that was very nice. Later on, she escaped a bearhug with a cool back bridge which let her go through the legs. I'm not sure I've ever seen it before. At one point she caught some mean kicks and hit a snap Fisherman's Suplex, but didn't really hold the bridge. But she also clearly blew a bunch of stuff or seemed confused. There was a spin into a kick that really didn't need the spin and she got lifted up and just dropped once or twice. The fans laughed, but they were good sports and got back into things. She won it with a German Suplex which didn't really have the bridge you'd want. But the fans still popped for her when she put her hands up to celebrate. I don't think the act had legs unfortunately. Tape jumps to the hair match between Kudo/Amada and Sato/Morimatsu which makes me think I might lose another match here. I want to say Monster Ripper is the special ref which is cool but don't quote me on it. Kudo and Amada were very physically dominant here. There was a great moment where Morimatsu had enough and basically charged Amada through a set of chairs. This was a lot of tossing around Sato though. Even when she tried to come back, she basically bounced right off of Amada. Kudo did this great slingshot spinebuster type deal I've never seen before. Amada had the X-Factor face buster which is rare for 1990. Sato and Mormatsu had one last flourish but they fell to a pretty inevitable electric chair drop. There were times where the crowd got excited but I half think it was for a fight in the crowd or something. Post-match, Kudo seemed to not want to cut the hair and she got attacked by her partners. They probably needed to do something to create a babyface as Sato didn't have the credibility and Mimi wasn't going to cut it (though she'd be back for more). Ok, this means that we don't get Tokuda/Goto vs Wizard/Wild Bull Man (different style tag), which I find a shame. Ah well. that brings us to Kurisu vs Asako in a Street Fight Stretcher Death Match, which is honestly pretty nuts. Asako had a bandage on his head and took the fight right to Kurisu but it wasn't meant to be. He could do ten times the damage in one shot than Kurisu could do given the size difference, but Kurisu did ten times more. It was as simple as that. He brutalized him with a broomstick (or maybe a mop). He laid in so many chair shots. He choked him with a red bandana. He took of his boot and smashed him over and over with it. Asako bled. Kurisu found some other sort of object from his pocket and used that too. He was relentless. Asako threw his whole body at Kurisu once or twice but it wasn't nearly enough. It was a mauling. Eventually he hung him with the bandana and that was that. Crazy spectacle. Also a crazy spectacle was Atsushi Onita vs. Lee Gak Soo. Another different styles fights with rounds. Story here was that Lee Gak Soo would just kick the crap out of Onita. Onita would fly out of the ring and all around it and drop like a brick. But in each round, he'd get close enough to him towards the end to do something. In the first, it was to hit this great sweeping DDT. In the second, it was to get under him for a belly to back. And then in the third, after he had gotten knocked around, he hit a lariat out of nowhere. It was almost like a clothesline like hell. From there he managed to hit the over the shoulder power bomb and another, but Lee Gak Soo was saved by the bell. In the fourth, Lee Gak Soo got another couple of kicks up, but Onita, rising to beat the count charged at him crushing him with a corner clothesline. He'd repeat it with another power bomb and clothesline as Lee Gak Soo got up and then finally put him away with basically a Ganso bomb variation. Post match, he embraced Lee Gak Soo and they both rode on their seconds' shoulders and hugged. It felt like the end to the karate vs pro wrestling war. Onita was so theatrical and so able to do so much with so little (though there was nothing little about those power bombs).

I mean… I almost hate to tell you. You’re happier not knowing. Let’s just say that his current wife and Jericho’s would probably get along really well.

Had some 5/15/90 FMW comments down but I lost them. We come in a few matches in so we lose Akihito Ichihara vs. Jun Ouchi and Yoshika Maedomari vs. Kumiko Matsuda and I can live with that honestly. We come in then with Megumi Kudo vs. Yuki Morimatsu. It's heated to start, with Kudo finally getting an advantage with a few neckbreaker drops. Things spill to the outside and are a little anticlimactic after that. She hits the tilt-a-whirl reversal body press (which is really a purely an offensive move but completely defies physics) which I've only ever seen Jaguar Yokota hit. Wild move though it didn't look as good as Jaguar's. She wins it with a neckbreaker drop off the turnbuckles. I liked this Mascarita Sagrada vs Espectrito better than the last one I saw. Some very fun stuff as they ran at each other and either MS dodged or Espectrito pushed him off. Espectrito was a good bully at times, with a couple of press slams, including one into the corner post. MS had a GREAT moonsault into an armdrag and then won it with a somersault senton/whisper in the wind deal. Next up was Yukihide Ueno vs. Ryo Miyake. Miyake was Shooter #2 which I didn't even care to look up until now. For shame, me. This was good though, very spirited, high workrate sort of deal. When they got rope running they did a bunch of missed spin wheel kicks, and one great spinning back elbow where Ueno bumped off the ropes and then bounced back tripping over Miyake in a way I've almost never seen. After that Ueno was able to string a few moves together (killer missile dropkick, a dive off the apron, a snap suplex with an amazing bridge, making it look almost like a Nothern Lights) before winning with two Germans. Very snappy stuff even if raw. That brings us to Lee Wang Pyo vs The Shooter #1. Not much to say there. Shooter seems on his way out as he got steamrolled. Pyo had some holds like a spinning/standing toehold and ultimately hit that jumping crane kick type deal that floored Shooter. Made short work of him. Mimi/Sato vs Toyoda/Amada. Heels ambushed and controlled on Sato with a ton of hair pulls. Mean stuff. Mimi was upset but didn't try to get in. She should have because it meant the heels had to draw the ref on their own. There was one hot tag which should have been a tag but Mimi didn't come in even though the ref saw it and that killed the crowd. She did get in hot and hit a bunch of good stuff including an airplane spin/toss, but after that Sato got swept back under and ultimately fell to Toyoda's cool double underhook pancake tosses (though they didn't look as good as the other show). Then we have the main events first a Different Style Fight between Ricky Fuji and Lee Gak Soo. According to Bahu's history site, Fuji had interest from WWF but they didn't know what to do with him and now that they were bringing in some more cash, they could bring him in too. This went pretty much how you'd expect. Lee Gak Soo kicked and palm striked the crap out of Fuji. Fuji got some takedowns when he could and did better than most really, but he went down a lot and it looked brutal every time. At one point Lee ran up the corner and flew off with a kick but he didn't get him. Start of the third round, Fuji ran right in with a headlock takeover and even got a bit of a count but it was inevitable. Post match, Fuji was frustrated because he almost made the count and he attacked which sent another wave of chaos through everything. Sambo Asako vs THE WIZARD isn't quite semi-main event material but it's what we've got. Asako came out to Separate Ways so that was cool. In a fair fight, Asako ..well, just isn't fair. He's so big and he can just fall on a limb and hang onto it. He did that a lot in ways that seemed technically sound and dangerous. How do you fight that? In a tag, the partner breaks it up, but here? No hope. Wizard got a front facelock or a throat shot here or there but mostly he was fighting for the ropes the whole way through, and then, finally, he went for a slam and Asako got a small (giant really) package for the win. They shook after the match so that was nice. Still no idea who that guy is. The main event built from the last show and it's Onita/Goto vs Kurisu/Wild Bull Man in a street fight. WBM comes out to Cult of Personality again with the miscreant fans chanting Kurisu over it which is the coolest pro wrestling application of it ever. Look, it's pure chaos. I'm not even sure what to say about it. They're in street clothes. This starts with Kurisu ending up on the floor and having to use a chair to block a chair that literally flies in from off the screen. A big chunk of the match is Kurisu killing people with his boot. When Goto isolates Wild Bull Man and gets something to put on his knuckles it goes good for him and bad for WBM. Bodies fly in and out of things. It's just wild crazy violence and eventually the bell rings and everyone crash off to the back. Presumably somewhere in there Goto beat WBM but the camera doesn't really catch it, focusing instead on Kurisu, and who can blame them.

FMW 5/12/90. Surprise, we have the whole show. Look, these FMW shows are going to drag me down if I'm not careful. We have a bunch in May. I have to burn through them quickly. I'll try to point out anything interesting. First two matches are Maedomari vs Morimatsu and Ichihara vs Ouchi. Spirited but not smooth. Got to keep moving. Sagrada vs Espectrito is a match they ran on every show basically and it's fun here with Mascarita making a fool out of Espectrito and moving out of his way so he could hit things. Next up was Lee Wang Pyo vs Shooter #1. They didn't protect Shooter here nearly as much as I was used to. Pyo doesn't seem quite as good as Lee Gak Soo/Kim Sung Ho. He didn't stand out much at all (but he did have a mustache). Ricky Fuji looked pretty great against Shooter 2 (who was somehow more protected). Solid holds here even if it didn't go long. Once it opened up Fuji hit the tombstone and chicken wing to win it. Fuji fits right in. Magnificent Mimi vs Megumi Kudo way overachieved. WON thought Mimi would get over big just on her looks but she brought it. I thought she'd be Moolah-esque with her offense but they worked holds. Lots of monkey flips. It felt credible enough to hang on this card and it wasn't just on Kudo. Mimi had a cool German Suplex where she grabbed a leg first. And she won it with a killer missile front dropkick. Took me by surprise. Toyoda/Amada vs Matsuda/Sato. We get the tag to follow up from the ambush in March. They'd run this a few times. Amada and Toyoda controlled. We lost a comeback on the floor (I think) with the handheld. Finish had Toyoda hitting this gnarly walking tossing double underhook pancake deal. Dominant performance. Ueno vs Lee Gak Soo (Different Styles) was a lot of fun. Lee would kick the crap out of him. Ueno, who was being elevated just by being here, had one hope, to charge in. Sometimes it worked and he got a throw or takedown and could lock in a hold. Just as often he ran into a kick and got floored. Good on him to get up enough to maybe make it to Round Three but this was inevitable and brutal. Lee Gak Soo is the coolest guy that I had never heard of before starting these. Goto vs the Wizard. I don't know who the Wizard is. He has size and a mask. Goto does some great stuff with a hammerlock here, hanging on through mares and what not in a way you wouldn't quite expect out of him. Wizard catches him on the top and he takes a nasty spill. Wizard follows up with brutal slaps but Goto shuts him down and hits the pancake to win. Espectrito vs Sagrada is always good, but I'd say it's worth seeing the Mimi match, the Different Styles Fight, and maybe Goto do his thing, plus the main of course, if only to see Kurisu beat the crap out of Asako. @BAHU if you ever see this, tell me who the Wizard is (sorry for the abrupt review but I have to keep moving!). I don't think we have 5/13/90. Wizard got an undercard win. Kudo teamed with her ladies and Mimi teamed with their opponents (but Kudo's team won again), Lee Gak Soo beat Shooter #1, this time in a different styles fight, and I bet that was good. Both Lee Wang Pyo and Ueno got elevated to the second match from top teaming with Wild Bull Man and Asako respectively (Pyo and WBM won), and Onita/Goto beat Kurisu/Fuji. Only 7 minutes but I bet it was good. On to 5/14/90. We miss the first five matches, so Ichihara vs Ouchi, Kudo vs Matsuda, Sagrada vs Espectrito (again), Toyoda/Amada vs Sato/MAedomari, and Mimi vs Morimatsu. So it goes. Ueno vs Fuji was fun. Fuji has bigger, more sweeping, last row offense. Ueno honestly feels a bit more Calgary style with the abrupt, sharp offense. More dogged. Fuji hit the tombstone and followed it up with a flying body press for the win. Then they had something I'd never seen before (or at least never seen billed this way), a Different Styles tag match between Shooter #2/Wizard and Lee Gak Soo/Lee Wang Pyo. This was a much better showcase for Lee Wang Pyo. He'd hit a big kick now and again, strong and thudding, but he was much more of a grappler here with takedowns and holds. Looked quite good, honestly. Lankier with reach, compared to Lee Gak Soo. Of course, whenever Lee Gak Soo was in, it was awesome. He wrestled like you would expect a Bruce Lee wrestler to wrestle, lots of noises, killer kicks, lightning fast. It'd be ridiculous parody if the shots weren't so brutal and incessant. They just keep coming. Shooter got a takedown or two but really this was inevitable. Next up was Kurisu/Shooter #1 vs Asako/Goto. I don't necessarily like the Shooters just working with the other heels like it's nothing but on a small card, what are you going to do? It would just have made more sense to tag them and tag Kurisu/Wizard, no? Shooter had a deal where he'd throw rapid fire shots. They'd almost always get eaten by Asako or stuffed by Goto and they'd take him down brutally. Then when Asako had him in a hold, Kurisu would come in and smash him. Goto would then come in and pound on Shooter, while still in the hold. At one point they both did this with chairs. Kurisu scrapped a little with Goto but mostly he beat the crap out of Asako. Goto got to beat the crap out of Shooter. Good times. Finish had Goto fed up at Shooter's hypershots and he just shut him down and hit a German. Then Asako got on a submission he should not have been agile enough to do and Goto played crowd control with Kurisu. Post-match, Kurisu kept throwing chairs in and Goto just set them up in the ring. Funny stuff. Brass Knuckles Title Match: Onita vs Wild Bull Man: Wild Bull Man came out Brody-ish really making people run for the hills...but he came out to Cult of Personality! This was a chain main actually. It had a minute of WBM tossing Onita around. When Onita tried to regroup, Kurisu came out of nowhere with a chair and smashed him. But Onita came back with a chair of his own and hit a flurry of offense (DDT, enziguiri, lariat, another DDT). Kurisu tried to run in and Goto stopped him. That let Onita put on the Scorpion. He really came off as some schlub with the shirt and pants. Just some guy in a way you really didn't see at all in 80s Japan. But it gave him an everyman quality when he didn't quit. Post match obviously things got chaotic. Everything does have an engrossing, chaotic feel though. Kurisu is the guy who really makes it all come together if you ask me. I need to keep on this. I still have 5/15 and 5/19 if I'm not mistaken.

As I've been watching Newborn UWF, I always sort of see the wrestlers like this: So Yamazaki would be super high on kicks, Nakano in strength, and Miyato in Stamina. With Takada as the perfect all-rounder. To me that often made him relatively boring and he therefore became more of a foil for his opponent.