Into the Indies 8.14.09: Great Sasuke 20th Anniversary Show

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the debut edition of Into the Indies.

For those of you who may not know me, my name is Ryan Byers, and I have been writing on and off for 411mania for roughly four years now. Over the last eighteen months or so, I have been at best semi-active on the website, in part because my personal situation changed preventing me from writing the three columns that I used to write and in part because wrestling was just not that exciting anymore. I needed something different to reinvigorate my fandom. I looked for quite a while, and what I found was actually something that I was a fan of many years ago but had forgotten about.

You see, in the early and mid 1990’s, the internet was a very different place. Instead of sprawling websites like 411 and YouTube channels in which you could find every match you could ever hope to find, we had one or two newsgroups to congregate on and a handful of good tape traders who essentially controlled the entire community’s access to wrestling from outside the United States.

It was amid this version of the internet that I first stumbled across Michinoku Pro Wrestling. The small independent group from across the Pacific Ocean was receiving a good deal of critical acclaim at the time thanks to a rivalry between top heel stable Kaientai DX and a band of talented babyfaces including the Great Sasuke, Gran Hamada, Super Delfin, and Gran Naniwa. The promotion’s hybrid style of lucha libre and puroresu was breathtaking, and I, along with a handful of other wrestling fans in the United States, was hooked.

From M-Pro I branched out in to several other small, independent promotions in Japan . . . WAR, Osaka Pro, FMW . . . granted, some of their lower card matches were bit rough around the edges, but they all seemed to have a certain charm that the bigger promotions in both Japan and the United States lacked. The wrestlers weren’t as polished, but the small shows seemed to allow them a more direct forum in which to highlight their unique personalities and the twists that they would put on wrestling holds and spots that had become cliched in major companies.

Fast forward fifteen years, and I find myself, as stated above, looking for something that can rekindle my enjoyment of professional wrestling. Seemingly out of nowhere, I read that the Great Sasuke – the man who owned, operated, and largely main evented Michinoku Pro Wrestling when I first came to love it – was celebrating his twentieth anniversary in the pro wrestling business. Out of sheer curiosity, I hunted down the show and gave it a view. Some of the names were different, but the charm that Japanese indy wrestling had in my original run as a viewer was still there.

Finishing off the Sasuke anniversary show lead to a resurgence of my desire to watch more, similar cards. I have done exactly that, and a hobby that had fallen by the wayside is now once again picking up steam.

As a result, I have decided to share this experience with everybody out there in the 411 readership. I hope that this can be a column not just for hardened smart marks who already know the names of the majority of the grapplers involved but also for newer, younger wrestling fans who are looking to branch out . . . people who can perhaps see the same charm in these shows that compelled me to begin watching them over a decade ago. I hope that these people and many more join me as I head Into the Indies.

. . . and what better place would there be to start than on the Sasuke 20th Anniversary Show that rekindled my interest in these cards? The date is June 19, 2009, and we are live in Tokyo’s Korakuen Hall.

The show begins not with a match, but with a song. Kensen Numajiro, who used to wrestle in Michinoku as the out of control caveman Yone Genjin (giving Thag the Brute a run for his money) grabs the mic and performs a slow jam. He’s not half bad, to be honest. Afterwards, the entire locker room empties and wrestlers surround the ring before the suit-clad Great Sasuke and Jinsei Shinzaki enter the squared circle. They are carrying large, framed photographs of Mitushara Misawa and Ted Tanabe, a former M-Pro referee who passed away the same week as the NOAH founder. Both Sasuke and Shinzaki have an opportunity to speak at length about their fallen comrades, and then we hit the ten bell salute. This isn’t the kind of company that has the budget for a huge, over the top tribute, but with this kind of thing the genuine emotion is significantly more important than the number of bells and whistles that you can slap on to the segment. In that regard, it definitely worked.

Match Numero Uno: Ken45̊ vs. Kenbai

Ken45̊ is a name that I’ve heard a few times before, though I’ve not seen much of the guy’s work. My understanding is that he was part of a latter wave of graduates from Ultimo Dragon’s Toryumon training camp and that he initially began wrestling as one of Los Salseros, a stable of Japanese men doing a mariachi band gimmick. (No, I’m not making that up.) Ken, I believe, was Pineapple Hinai in that group . . . not to be confused with the similarly-awesomely-named members of the unit like Passion Hasegawa, Banana Senga, and Mango Fukuda.

I can honestly say that I know absolutely nothing about Kenbai’s background, though by looking at him it appears that his gimmick is that he’s some sort of samurai. Meanwhile, the present day version of Ken45̊ is rocking the greatest mohawk that I’ve ever seen on a Japanese man. A lockup starts us off, and Ken gives us a clean break when it goes in to the ropes. It’s to the mat after that, with a rather standard chain wrestling/one guy dominates/other guy dominates/both pop up/fans applaud spot. Ken gets our first unique spot of the match, as he rolls Kenbai on to his shoulders, doubles him over, and punches him below the belt. Neat spot, as it was set up in such a way that the referee missed it because he was checking Kenbai’s shoulders for a possible pinfall. A chinlock and a neckbreaker are next for the man with the ‘hawk, and he follows it up with a rolling prawn hold for two. The T2P alumnus’ next dirty tactic is choking the samurai with part of his own ornate costume. Kenbai attempts to come back with a dropkick, but he misses. Luckily for him, Mr. 45 also misses a Stinger Splash, allowing Kebai to land a top rope version of the dropkick. His next bit of offense is a bulldog out of a wheelbarrow position, and then it’s up top again for a flying . . . um . . . punch. That gives Kenbai his first nearfall. Ken reverses the momentum, breaking out of a waistlock by his opponent and hitting a blue thunder driver for a two count. Ken then lifts ‘Bai up over his shoulder and brings him down with a facebuster, though that also can’t finish off the masked man. Kenbai next finds himself roped in to a fireman’s carry position, but he reverses that in to a Misterio-esque huricanrana for two. Kenbai tries to keep his momentum alive by running the ropes, but 45 tosses him up in to the air and drops him crotch-first on to his boot for the lucha style FOUL~! For some reason, this is not a DQ. It sets up a Kryptonite Crunch variant (with Kenbai draped over 45’s front and not his back) to pick up the victory for the faux punk rocker.

Guess it’s seppuku time for Kenbai.

Match Thoughts: This came off like a mid-90’s New Japan junior heavyweight match that had about fifteen minutes cut out of it. It wasn’t a bad match, per se, but it was one of those bouts where you get the impression that the wrestlers are doing things because they feel like they’re “supposed” to be doing them as opposed to doing them because they’re unique or will get a particularly strong reaction from the crowd. I will say that their big offense looked impressive in terms of execution, and, a lot of times, all you’re going to want out of an opener is one or two pretty looking spots in order to get the crowd pumped for the later matches. **

Match Numero Dos: Ultimo Dragon, Yapper Man #1, & Yapper Man #2 vs. Kinya Oyanagi, Rui Hiugaji, & Satoshi Kajiwara

Yes, it’s THAT Ultimo Dragon, he of WWE/WCW fame in the United States. Oyanagi and Kajiwara, like Ken45̊ in the opener, are latter day graduates of the Toryumon training system that was founded by Ultimo. I have no earthly clue what a “Yapper Man” is, but they come out in brightly colored, Elvis-esque jumpsuits to what sounds like a children’s song. This makes them infinitely more entertaining than their opponents who are going for the generic “we’re just wrestlers wearing black, short trunks” look. Ultimo, meanwhile, has to be in his 40’s by this point, and, though he was never a guy with a blow-away physique, he looks just as good as he ever did.

It’s a six man brawl to start, though the Yappers quickly get tossed to leave Dragon at a three-on-one disadvantage. The black trunk squad takes him to task in the corner for a bit before the referee ejects two men, leaving Ultimo with Kajiwara for a bit. He brings in Hiugaji for a basement dropkick, and then Oyanagi briefly gets a turn with some shoulders in the corner before the Yappers run in for the save. They distract the bad guys, but that’s just about it, as one of them is isolated and triple teamed before Hiugaji decides to go one-on-one with him. Rui hits a BIG spear in the corner followed immediately by a brainbuster, but it can only get him a two count.

He brings Kajiwara in to the match for a standing spinebuster, followed up by a pendulum submission hold. I don’t know why, but that’s one of the moves that I’m guaranteed to mark out for. Oyanagi is in now, and he drops a knee from the second rope and holds the Yapper in place for Hiugaji to follow it up with a knee. We then get a unique submission hold from Oyangi, as he wraps the Yap around the ropes and applies a version of the abdominal stretch. Tajiri, eat your heart out. A bow and arrow hold Is next for Oyanagi, but the other Yapper has seen enough and again tries to make the save. Again, it fails, as the bad guys have now isolated the white-suited Yapper and begin beating the tar out of him.

The tar beating is handled by Hiujagi in the early going, though when he screws up and eats a dropkick, it’s time for his partners to come in for the save. They prove equally incompetent, though, as the pink Yapper takes out two men with one dropkick, setting up the Ultimo Dragon comeback. He runs wild with a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker and a dropkick, and now all six men are brawling on the floor. Pink Yapper returns to the ring with Hiugaji, and they do some pretty quick, good looking stuff off the ropes before botching a springboard something or other. Hiugaji is traded out for Okayaka, and the Yappers team up to give him a quicker, cleaner looking variant on the old Backseat Boyz “dream sequence.”

Those three clear out of the way, and now it’s Ultimo against Kajiwara. The younger man hits the Dragon with a dropkick, but he’s quickly caught in Asai’s headscissors from the mat and then lit up by his trademark combination of kicks. Kajiwara heads to the floor and Dragon loooks for his namesake moonsault, but the other two bad guys cut that off to pretty decent heat. That results in another six-man fight in the squared circle, with the bad guys dominating for a bit until the Yappers catch them on a miscue and lock two of them in the old “row the boat” leg hold. Ultimo tries to catch the third in a rollup rana in the middle of the hold but is off a bit and winds up just outside. That gets two, but the Yappers follow their opponents out of the ring with stereo planchas, leaving Ultimo alone in the ring with Oyanagi. The youngster is planted with an Asai DDT, and that’s all she wrote.

Match Thoughts: This wasn’t life changing, but, by and large, it was a fun, competently worked undercard trios match. Though I made fun of the heel unit for having generic looks, they turned out to be a perfectly acceptable team, doing a good job with cutting off the ring and timing of comebacks. The way that the final comeback by the good guys was built to was also a bit unique. We’re all used to seeing the situation in which one member of a face team is isolated and has to claw his way over to his corner for the tag. We didn’t get that here. Instead, we’d have a situation in which one face was isolated, and then the other two would try to run in for the save, only to be cut off. A new face would be isolated from his partners as a result, and, in a few minutes, there would be another run-in by the other two faces in order to make the save, with this attempt running somewhat longer but still ultimately failing. Then, the third time that the faces try to run in to save their battered third man, they pull it off and wind up winning the entire match. So, despite the fact that there were a couple of spots that weren’t quite as pretty as they were intended to look, I’m still going to have to give this one a hearty thumbs up for giving me a break from the run of the mill tag team format and providing something that made just as much sense. **

Match Numero Tres: MEN’s Teioh, TAKA Michinoku, & Kesen Numajiro vs. Rasse, Takeshi Minamino, & Maguro Ooma

TAKA and Teioh are two of the biggest stars from the glory days of Michinoku Pro Wrestling, as they teamed up in the company’s lead heel stable, Kaientai. Of course, they would go on to reform the group in the WWF, with TAKA getting a many, many year run with the gimmick whereas MEN’S only had a cup of tea. Since their respective departures from the company, Teioh has mainly been working with deathmatch promotion Big Japan Pro Wrestling (although not necessarily in deathmatches), and TAKA has formed his own promotion/wrestling school, the Kaientai Dojo, which he works it in addition to doing periodic runs in companies like All Japan and DDT. Their partner Numajiro, for those of you who may have forgotten, is our friend from the card-opening singalong.

Their opponents are yet another trio of Dragon Gym graduates. Fortunately, they have much more distinctive looks than the last Toryumon threesome who competed on this card. Rasse in particular is well traveled, as he works in other promotions under the name Jumping Kid Okimoto and in HUSTLE as a part of their masked opening match unit of “Kamen Rangers.”

Jesus, Teioh has AGED since the last time I’ve seen him. Facially, he looks no younger than 65. He’s also significantly less bulky than he was when he worked in the WWF. Funny how that one works. Ooma kicks things off with the old (looking) man, and he’s quickly taken down to the mat, where he is outclassed. Teioh does get caught in an armbar eventually, and he screws up a spot in which I assume that he was supposed to use the ropes in order to flip out of it. A similar spot in which he leaps over the ropes to escape an armbar, then applying one of his own version of the move around the cables, is a bit more successful. After that, we switch to TAKA and Minamino, with the two men trading forearms, chops, and elbows before Michinoku finishes the sequence with a Three Stooges eye poke. That sends Minamino to the floor, which means that we now get to see Rasse and Numajiro wrestle. The former Yone Genjin controls early with a shoulderblock, and then the two men go in to a pretty rope-running sequence that is capped off with a Rasse rana.

Our initial pairings having come to an end, the masked Rasse tags out to Minamino, who pairs up with Ooma to knock their opponents off of the apron before hitting a series of corner attackes on Numajiro. Numa fights back but is cut off with a back elbow, and now Ooma comes in legally. He hits a leg lariat in the corner and slaps on a chinlock to set up a big kick to the face from Minamino. Mina is back in as the legal man shortly thereafter, and he claws at the former Yone Genjin’s face before dropping the knee. Numajiro fires back with open hand chops but eats a leaping enzuguiri for his trouble, setting up another heel triple team. Ooma lands a piledriver for two somewhere in there as Minamino holds TAKA and Teioh at bay. Not long after the nearfall, Rasse reintroduces himself in to the match, but Numajiro hits him with a butt butt for the hot tag to TAKA. The former WWF Lightheavyweight Champion lights up Rasse with chops in the corner and follows it with a big kneelift/basement dropkick combo.

Now we’ve got Teioh back in the ring, and some heel miscommunication allows him to hit a big powerslam on Rasse and a back body drop on Minamino before planting Ooma with a standing spinebuster. With the other two heels out of the picture, he refocuses his efforts on Rasse, who eats a delayed brianbuster that had to last about a minute. Instead of going for the cover, MEN’S tags Numajiro, who warms up his ass for another butt butt on Rasse. Minamino eats the same and then gets the flying butt plyers from the top rope, but that is only a two count. A standing spinebuster followed by a guillotine legdrop gets the same result.

Mina blocks a muscle buster and ducks a spinning heel kick to give the younger trio the advantage, and a single-legged dropkick gives him a nearfall. An airplane spin in to a DVD is the next order of the day from Minamino, and TAKA and Teioh are forced to make the save. They’re quickly dispatched, though, as Rasse knocks them to the floor and then lands on them with a tope suicida. Back on the inside, Ooma and Minamino double team Numajiro, hitting him with a botched something-or-other for a two count. With that failing, Ooma sets Numa up for a Rasse 450, but TAKA makes the save at two. All six men are in now, and the former Kaientai DX members run wild for a little bit before TAKA and Rasse pair off. We get a neat sequence in which the two men trade jumping kicks and enzuguiris, with TAKA victorious at the end. Ooma saves Rasse, and then Teioh saves TAKA. It’s a matter of seconds before MEN’S has his Miracle Ecstacy (a great name for a hold) locked on Minamino and TAKA hits the Michinoku Driver II on Rasse for the pin.

Match Thoughts: Well, the previous six man broke the mold of tag team wrestling just a bit, but this match fit right back in to it. It came off as nothing more than a formula match designed for the established wrestlers (TAKA, Teioh, Numajiro) to hit their trademark spots for the crowd and to get out without having to do too horribly much. Everybody worked solidly enough outside of the opening goof up by MEN’S, but you could just tell that the match wasn’t designed to be anything too particularly special. It didn’t even seem like Ooma and Minamino were working too hard to get noticed in his one, as, again, they were competent but didn’t go out of their way to do anything too impressive. If anybody stood out it was Rasse, whose kick exchange with TAKA was a neat little spot that would have played much better in a more heated match. He topped that off with a textbook 450 and a suicide dive that wasn’t too shabby, and those moments were more than enough to make him the MVP of the bout. *1/2

Match Numero Cuatro: Shinjitsu Nohashi, Shu Sato, & Kei Sato vs. Jinsei Shinzaki, Tiger Mask IV, & Dick Togo

As was the case in the last match, this one pits some of the men who were stars ten years ago in Michinoku Pro against some of the men who are current movers and shakers on the company’s roster. Shinzaki, in addition to being a Japanese indy mainstay and part of the M-Pro office, is probably best remembered by American fans as Hakushi in the WWF and as part of a team in ECW with Hayabusa that took on Rob Van Dam and Sabu in tag team action. Tiger Mask IV is obviously the fourth man to play Tiger Mask, and he got his start in this company before moving up to the “big leagues” of New Japan Pro Wrestling, where he is a fixture in their junior heavyweight division. Togo was part of Kaientai DX, the premier heel faction of M-Pro’s heyday. Across the ring we have three more Toryumon trainees. Nohashi does a gimmick in which he is essentially the miniature version of Shinzaki, and the Satos, a pair of identical twins, are the non-Dragon Gate Toryumon students who I have heard the most hype about prior to watching this show.

Nohashi and Shinzaki start us off, and the two similarly-attired men stare each other down for quite a while before locking up. Shinzaki uses his strength advantage to power the smaller man back in to the ropes, where he gives a clean break. Lockup number two sees Nohashi make a similar move, but he does NOT give the clean break and instead slaps the former Hakushi right across the face. Bad move for Nohashi there, as it prompts Jinsei to bull rush him across the ring and over the top rope.

That is all we need for a six man WAR to break out on the floor. Cameras are cutting back and forth rather quickly as men kick each other hard, throw each other in to rows of chairs, and generally create mayhem. The focus quickly goes back to Nohashi, who tries to wear down Shinzaki with a series of forearms against the ring apron but absolutely fails as the more experienced wrestler no-sells them and throws his opponent back in to the ring.

Once there, Jinsei tags out to TMIV, who unloads on Nohashi in the corner with a series of kicks and a nice snap suplex. A crossface chickenwing is next from the feline fighter, but Shinjitsu gets the ropes.

A tag to Dick is next, and he immediately makes his presence felt with a SWANK slingshot senton on to Nohashi. I have never seen that move get so much hang time. He stays on Nohashi with relatively simplistic offense and rather quickly brings Shinzaki back in to the ring for a scoop slam and a Vader Bomb-style double stomp to the gut. Ouchies. The punishment continues for Shinjitsu as Tiger Mask returns and knocks him off of his feet with a palm thrust. The follow up to that? A double knee moonsault right to the gut! Oh, and here’s Dick Togo for a double stomp to the gut. Jesus, whose daughter did Nohashi get fresh with?

The beating slows down for a little while as Togo slaps on a chinlock, though Nohashi actually gets to power out of it. From there he whips the former Kaientai member in to the ropes, where the Sato twins cheapshot him and spit some sort of fluid in to his eyes. With the tables turned, a Sato takes in and works the Dick for a bit. The brothers trade off, and Sato #2 lands some high kicks on Togo to get two. Blatant heel choking follows from the Sato, though there appears to be some dissension with Nohashi as Sato tags him in by slapping the mini-Hakushi across the face. Shinzaki’s second run in the ring doesn’t last long, as the brothers tag themselves back in and get a series of moves capped off by a Sato neckbreaker and a Nohashi diving splash for a nearfall.

Things are looking bleak for Togo. He gets a glimmer of hope when he sidesteps a Sato corner attack, but the other twin is right there to grab him by the head and snap his neck over the top rope. Things fall apart when the twins try more double teaming, though, as Togo anticipates their Hardy-esque poetry in motion and dropkicks one twin by leaping off the back of the other.

That gives us the hot tag to Tiger Mask, who cleans house on everybody . . . including Ken45̊, who decides to run in on behalf of the bad guys. A Tiger Driver can’t put away a Sato, and then TMIV misses the diving headbutt to set up a SWANK series of stereo kicks from the twins. Togo makes the save and locks it up with Nohashi again, only to be blasted with an eznuguiri. Dick avoids a corner attack by runs in to a rana and a single-legged dropkick. LARIAT follows for Togo, and he rolls from the pinning combination in the crossface. A Sato saves but is promptly pummeled by Shinzaki and caught in what looks like it will be a chokeslam. The Sato has it well-scouted, though, as he holds on and rolls through in to a cross arm breaker and then a triangle choke.

Shinzaki stays in the hold without tapping far longer than an MMA fighter would, but he eventually does the spot in which he stands and then hercs the Sato up and tosses him in tthe corner. The second Sato tries to cut off the babyface momentum but is kicked by Dick, and now all three heels are piled up in the corner. COAST TO COAST MISSILE DROPKICK BY SHINZAKI CONNECTS. A Sato is then Pedigreed by Dick, kicked by Tiger, and powerbombed by Shinzaki, though it only gets two due to a save. Immediately thereafter, all three good guys lock in submissions, and at least one member of team Sato-Nohashi gives it up.

Match Thoughts: Now THAT was a fun little contest that started to remind me why I liked Michinoku Pro so much fifteen years ago. The first third or so of the match caught me off guard, as it was nothing more than an utter brutalizing of Nohashi by his opponents. It seemed a bit unusual given that the Togo/Tiger/Shinzaki team appeared to be the faces based on crowd reaction and their relative status in the pro wrestling world. However, I’m assuming that there some storyline reason behind why we saw a heel picked apart for so long, perhaps because he and Shinzaki were engaged in a significant rivalry and the folks putting together the match thought it would be best for the good guys to get some comeuppance early. As far as utter destruction of a wrestler goes, it was an entertaining utter destruction of a wrestler. From there we went to the heat on Togo, which was perfectly acceptable but seemed blase when compared to the mauling of Nohashi that immediately preceded it. As with many tag matches, it was after the hot tag that things really hit their peak. We had the standard rapid fire exchange of finishers, pinfall saves, and tags that highlight these sorts of bouts . . . but this one had some unique twists on it for yours truly. I first must say that the Sato twins were a breath of fresh air. It seems like a lot of young wrestlers can’t figure out how to perform in this type of sequence without completely falling on their faces, but, at least in this one regard, the brothers came off like two guys who would have fit right in to M-Pro main events in their heyday. That was enough to bring a smile to my face right there. ***1/4

Match Numero Cinco: Fujita “Junior” Hayato (c) vs. The Great Sasuke for the Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Championship

And here we go with the main event. As discussed previously, this whole show is based around the twentieth anniversary of the Great Sasuke becoming a professional wrestler. He founded Michinoku Pro some sixteen years ago and acted as its top star during its most popular years. I hate to sound like a broken record, but Hayato is yet another Toryumon product. He is the current holder of the Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Championship, which was created to act as the top singles title in Michinoku Pro in the early part of the twenty-first century. If you’re wondering why they don’t have a heavyweight title as their top championship, then you’ve obviously never watched any of this promotion.

Before the match, we are treated to an AWESOME visual, as virtually everybody who was on the card earlier in the evening comes out to ringside with one of the two competitors. As the two pose with the championship belt, the older wrestlers (TAKA, Togo, Ultimo, etc.) line up with Sasuke and the younger wrestlers (all of the Toryumon guys) line up with Hayato. One generation winds up on one side of the ring and another generation winds up on the other side of the ring, and the camera pans across, giving us a great view of the future and the past bleeding together to form the present.

The match is ON as soon as the bell rings, with Sasuke going for a dropkick and missing, allowing Hayato to put some intense boots to him. The men roll for a bit before hitting the floor, where the veteran gets the advantage and goes back in to the ring, only to come out one more time with a MASSIVE suicide dive-style dropkick through the ropes. He pulls Junior back in to the ring quickly thereafter and applies an armbar, and, before you know it, the two men are trading reversals on the mat like nobody’s business.

Ultimately, they split up after a Sasuke rope break, and the offense opens back up with a high armrdrag and brutal looking capture suplex from the Great one. Hayato immediately rolls the the floor and Sasuke tries to follow him with an Asai moonsault of some sort, but grabs his leg and pulls him off of the apron. The champion then gets hold of the challenger’s mask and whips him in to a somersault through a row of empty folding chairs. A chair also gets slammed in to Sasuke’s knee, and then the two men once more get in to the squared circle. Junior immediately begins stomping on the knee and then clamps down on it with a series of holds, which Sasuke also gets out of with the help of the ropes.

The crowd begins to chant for the Michinoku Pro founder now, and it’s enough to get him to trade a few strikes with Hayato before crumpling to the mat and finding himself in a chinlock. In a unique strategy, he drops Sasuke in to a pinning combination after an extended period of time in the hold. We quickly learn one reason why that strategy is unique to Hayato, as Sasuke easily kicks out at two. Junior tries to stay on his man by whipping him in to the corner, but he misses a Stinger splash-esque move and finds himself quickly seated on the top turnbuckle by the veteran wrestler. The two men jockey for position for quite a while, but Sasuke makes it clear that he’s in charge with an ezuguiri to Hayato. Fujita gets bealed to the floor, and it looks like Sasuke is primed to follow him there with a dive, but the champion manages to avoid the move, causing his opponent to land shoulder-first on the ring apron.

Sasuke is even more battered as the two reenter the ring, and Hayato takes advantage by hitting high kicks to the chest of the standing Sasuke, followed up by a gut wrench suplex and yet more kicking. A gordbuster gets two for the champion, and he immediately goes in to a guillotine after the nearfall. For the third time in the match, Sasuke is saved by the ropes. Hayto goes back to his kicks but again can only manage a two count. One misses, and it looks like Sasuke is going to hit a big haymaker, but he misses and Hayato loosely applies the guillotine one more time. However, it’s a bit TOO loose, allowing the Japanese assemblyman to jockey out and toss Hayato across the ring. One kick to the back of the head later and Sasuke is headed up to the top rope, but he misses the senton atomico and rolls out of the ring for a breather. Fujita gives chase and lands some more kicks, but Sasuke grabs his leg and throws it in to the ringpost. Kickpads aren’t going to save you there, brother. Now Sasuke ascends the ropes . . . SENTON ATOMICO TO THE FLOOR WIPES OUT ALL OF THE YOUNG GUYS! Sasuke reenters the ring and heads to the top again, this time coming off with a MISSILE DROPKICK TO THE FLOOR~! Somebody needs to remind this guy that he’s supposed to be past his prime.

A crossface chickenwing is applied by Sasuke when the two men return to the ring, but there’s no immediate submission since this is not the WWF in 1994. (Sasuke also does not stare at his hands for ten minutes after applying the hold.) This time it is Hayato who is saved by the ropes, though they don’t save him from Sasuke’s second senton atomico attempt, which connects . . . though it only gets a two count. Perhaps sensing that the end is near if he does not do otherwise, the champion again goes to the floor. Sasuke is glad to join him there, looking under the ring and pulling out a series of spare folding chairs. He stacks up the furniture and gives his young opponent a suplex in to the pile, which isn’t quite as awesome as it sounds. However, what happens next is just as awesome as it sounds on paper.

Sasuke goes back in to the ring and tries a senton atomico from the RING TO THE FLOOR on to Hayato, who is still in the midst of the pile of chairs. Junior moves out of the way, though, and Sasuke is once again in bad shape and once again holding the knee that was bothering him at the beginning of the match. The two men return to the ring, and Hayato hits two MAJOR knee strikes, including one particularly brutal shot which took place when Sasuke was seated against the ropes and had nowhere to go when it connected. Junior follows up with a series of palm strikes, but Sasuke is able to grab and lock his arms to set up an overhead belly-to-belly-type suplex. It gets two, as Hayato goes to the ropes for the second time.

Yet another trip to the top rope is the next move in Sasuke’s playbook, and he drops a forearm across Hayato’s chest. I think I heard one of the announcers use the phrase “Ram Jam.” No, I am not kidding. Sasuke’s patented Thunder Fire Bomb follows, but Hayato kicks out at two and nine tenths. A missile dropkick to Hayato (who, oddly, was still laying down) produces the same result. Sasuke goes to that metaphorical well on the top rope one more time, but it backfires, as he is knocked to the floor. Hayato runs across the apron as Sasuke stands below and nails him in the chest with a kick from that position, following it up with a top rope dive of his own. Hayato hits a German and two more high kicks on the inside . . . but Sasuke is once more out at the count of two! Unfortunately for fans of the original Michinoku Pro, a second big kick and a huge knee to the jaw are too much for Sasuke to bear, as they give Hayato the three count just seconds later.

Match Thoughts: I have to admit, I’m not that familiar with Hayato or his status in Michinoku Pro. Obviously he has managed to gain a certain degree of traction given the championship that he holds and the fact that he was chosen to be the Great Sasuke’s opponent in his twentieth anniversary match. Even though he may have already been considered a legitimate upper card threat, as a relative outsider to the product, this match for me played like one that instantly changed an unknown in to a major force to be reckoned with. In a kayfabe sense, Junior was portrayed as going move-for-move with his more seasoned opponent, absorbing everything that was dished out and seemingly remaining in control for a greater portion of the match before ultimately walking away with the victory. Sasuke, meanwhile, despite the fact that he is now more a politician than a wrestler and was celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of his career, wrestled a style as close to that of his prime as we probably could have hoped for. He threw caution to the wind at several points throughout the encounter and took one heck of a beating in addition to performing moves that weren’t necessary to his remaining over with the crowd. Though I’ve seen better versions of it, this was exactly the type of match that first got me in to Japanese junior heavyweight matches in the 1990’s, and I was very glad to see that a) guys like Sasuke who first hooked me on the style are still capable of doing it and b) young guys like Hayato who are capable of keeping the style alive are in the business and being allowed to move up the ranks. All in all, this match is exactly what I needed to see on this show, as it simultaneously filled me with feelings of nostalgia and introduced me to a new wrestler who I am interested in following in the future. ****1/4

Overall Thoughts

After the first few matches on the card, I was seriously beginning to wonder whether the Michinoku Pro that I loved during the glory days of the product had died an gone to heaven. In a way it has, because, no matter how good it may be, the modern day product is always going to be missing a thing or two that the company had in the past. However, once we got in to the last two matches of this card, I was absolutely convinced that the Japanese indy scene is worth my while. The great names from the last time I followed the indies – Sasuke, TAKA, Togo, Shinzaki, etc. – all seem to be able to go still, and, perhaps better yet, there is a whole new wave of wrestlers – including the Satos and Junior Fujita – who may not quite be at the level the legendary indy grapplers were at in their primes but who are damn close and hopefully getting better with every match that they wrestle. Of course, this was not an absolutely stacked card. In fact, matches two and three seemingly just existed so that the audience could pop for the stars who were involved in them before moving on to something better. The main event and the semi-main, though, are absolutely worth going out of you way to see and probably better than the vast majority of American pay per view bouts that have crossed my desk in the year 2009.

Independent pro wrestling is alive and well in Japan, and I am glad to be viewing it once more.

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