Into the Indies 12.01.09: 5 Things To Be Thankful For

Banner Courtesy of John Meehan

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Into the Indies, the only column on 411mania that celebrates holidays five days late.

As most if not all of you probably know, this past Thursday was Thanksgiving in the United States. This holiday is an opportunity for all us here in the good ole’ U.S. of A. to gather around a table with our friends, family, and a huge meal in order to celebrate those things for which we are most grateful. Obviously, in the grand scheme of things, professional wrestling shouldn’t be a huge focus on a holiday such as this. We should be much more concerned with being grateful for things like our health, our employment, and our loved ones. However, there’s nothing to say that we can’t have a little bit of fun with the “Thanksgiving” concept as it relates to professional wrestling, and that’s exactly what I have set out to do here.

I have compiled the following list of the five things that I am most thankful for when it comes to independent professional wrestling in Japan.

Number Five: Tajiri

I sometimes jokingly refer to Tajiri as the Patron Saint of Into the Indies. Though these days he has primarily been wrestling in HUSTLE and in the big leagues of New Japan Pro Wrestling, the former WWE star has seemingly been on more cards reviewed in this column than anybody else. Sometimes we’ll see him in his natural habitat, sometimes we’ll see him celebrating the anniversary of one of his former promotions, sometimes we’ll see him as part of a team, and sometimes we’ll even see him dressed up as a sixed-armed monster succumbing to an armbar. With a lot of wrestlers, I would begin to grow tired of their schtick if I saw them so frequently. However, Tajiri is different. Though some fans criticize him as being “lazy” because he has worked a more WWE-influenced style ever since he finished up with that company, the fact of the matter remains that, even if he does move a little bit more slowly than some of his contemporaries, he still has one of the best grasps on the fundamentals of wrestling on the Japanese indy circuit today. On top of that, he is perfect when it comes to doing the “little things” in the ring that get audiences emotionally invested in a match as opposed to simply allowing the crowd to watch a collection of athletic highspots. However, even though his style may have changed a bit since his extended stay in the United States, he can still bust out his older, faster paced, and higher impact flavor of wrestling when called upon to do so, as seen in the following match from Toryumon a few years ago.

Match Numero Uno: Tajiri vs. Hiromi Horiguchi (Toryumon, 4/23/2006)

Horiguchi gets a surprising bit of offense early, giving Tajiri an armdrag after the Japanese Buzzsaw applies a waistlock. Tajiri responds with an armdrag of his own, but Horiguchi is undeterred and begins working a headlock. Tajiri shoves him off only to be shoulderblocked down, after which the two men begin an impressive sequence in which they hit numerous roll-throughs, armdrags, and leg sweeps. Tajiri panders to Horiguchi by patting him on the top of the head like a small child, but Hiromi isn’t taking his shit and nails a pair of dropkicks which send the former WWE star out of the ring. Tajiri stalls there, catching a breather, and eventually Horiguchi invites him back in to the ring by holding open the ropes. When the action restarts, the wrestlers go in to a Greco-Roman knuckle lock, doing a series of roll-throughs, and monkey flips while in the hold that culminates in a double bridge spot. Tajiri eventually breaks the knuckle lock with one of his kicks, and, before you know it, Horiguchi is in the tarantula. The buzzsaw kick misses as Horiguchi rolls out of the ring, and he also manages to sidestep as Tajiri attempts a dive. Tajiri sees this and stops running, holding the ropes open for Horiguchi much as Hiromi had done before. Horiguchi refuses to take the gesture, though, instead reentering the squared circle from the other side of the ring.

He pays for it, as Tajiri strikes immediately with a high kick to the side of the head when his opponent tries to lock up with him. The move leads to a set of four nearfalls, after which Tajiri resorts to blatantly choking his opponent on the ropes. Then, in a particularly sinister bit of offense, Tajiri distracts the referee while he KICKS THE MIDDLE ROPE IN TO HORIGUCHI’S THROAT. Devilish. Yoshihiro then applies a chinlock, which sees Horiguchi looking for the ropes on several occasions, only to be pulled away at each one. Eventually he escapes the hold by elbowing his way out, but Tajiri pulls him down by the hair as he attempts to run the ropes and puts the boots to him. A brainbuster is next from the former Aquarius, but it only nets him a two count. Horiguchi blocks the second brainbuster attempt for a little while, but ultimately Tajiri is successful and gets two again. A pair of bodyslams produces the same result, and Horiguchi manages to reverse the hold . . . but he finds himself caught in a sleeper hold immediately thereafter.

Hiromi makes sure that things work out to his advantage, though, as he charges forward and ducks down, forcing Tajiri’s head in to the turnbuckles. He then rams the more experienced wrestler’s head in to the turnbuckle bolt, sending him down the floor. Tajiri attempts to reenter the ring with a chair, but Horiguchi dropkicks it into his face as he stands on the apron, and the Japanese buzzsaw goes down to the pretty black mats once more. Horiguchi stomps away as soon as his man comes back through the ropes, and it looks like Tajiri’s face has been lacerated by that chairshot. Hiromi gives Tajiri a back splash in the corner for a two count and heads to the top rope, setting up a missile dropkick for two. Horiguchi argues with the referee about the cadence of his count, giving Tajiri the opportunity to sneak in with a schoolboy for two. A spinning heel kick also produces a nearfall for the Buzzsaw, but Horiguchi is able to block his springboard elbow with a dropkick. A bridging German gets two for Hiromi after that, and Tajiri struggles mightily to avoid the follow-up dragon suplex. Tajiri looks for a German of his own, but Horiguchi flips out and lands on his feet.
It looks like Horiguchi is going to nail Tajiri from behind and retake the advantage, but he runs in to a savate kick. As soon as Horiguchi gets back up to his knees, Tajiri lands the buzzsaw kick, but both men are too exhausted for a cover to be made. The referee begins counting them down, and it looks like everybody will get up at nine . . . but Hiromi stumbles at the last second and falls to the mat as Tajiri stands up, giving the WWE competitor a victory by knock out.

Match Thoughts: I was a little bit concerned about this match when I read about it on paper. Why? Because Dragon System matches are known for their breakneck pace, whereas, as alluded to earlier, ever since he has returned to Japan from WWE, Tajiri appears to have kept a very “WWE” style pace to his matches. That’s not to say that they’re bad by any stretch of the imagination, but they are a few steps slower than most things that you will see in Japan and LIGHT YEARS slower than anything that you will see in Dragon Gate or related matches. In this particular match, Horgiuchi came down to Tajiri’s pace, and the result was actually quite palatable. Yes, the Buzzsaw made sure that he had some down time built in with the stalling on the floor and the chinlock/sleeper hold spots, but they were all inserted in to the match in places that made sense, and, furthermore, the action in between them was more than enough to compensate. There was some relatively unique mat wrestling in the early going (the extended knuckle lock sequence is something that we rarely if ever see) and a few innovative spots throughout the body of the match (e.g. the kick of the ropes to the throat) combined with well-executed conventional offense to make this one of the more entertaining post-WWE Tajiri matches that I have seen. I’m sure that some people may dislike the KO finish, but it my opinion it made perfect sense here given that Horiguchi had been beaten on pretty heavily throughout the match and took two nasty looking kicks to the head within the closing seconds of the battle. ***1/2

Number Four: Ungodly Random Guest Stars

One of the things that I love more than anything else about professional wrestling is when two wrestlers with whom I have been familiar for several years who seem to have absolutely nothing in common lock it up in center ring. It is always interesting to see two wrestlers with completely different styles go head-to-head with one another. Sometimes it’s a flop, as the two don’t mesh due to the fact that they have two entirely different conceptions of what a professional wrestling match should be. Sometimes, however, two individuals who were trained by radically different trainers and who have had radically different types of matches throughout their careers can come together and put on a masterwork that nobody was expecting. We’ve seen this story play out several times previously in this column, whether it is Lance Cade fighting a sumo wrestler, a promoter fighting a man in a gorilla suit, or a pro wrestler taking on a karate master who once fought a bear. These fights involving significantly different styles of professional wrestling have been taking place literally for years on the Japanese indy circuit, and we will now take a look at another one of these matches, as 1980’s NWA star Ricky Morton is transplanted to the hardcore wars of Frontier Marital Arts Wrestling for a six man tag team match featuring significant amounts of barbed wire.

Match Numero Dos: Jinsei Shinzaki, Ricky Fuji, Ricky Morton vs. Leatherface, Mr. Gannosuke, & Mike Awesome in a barbed wire match (FMW, 8/25/1997)

Morton is looking pretty rough here. This match is twelve years old, and somehow he looks about a decade older than he does in 2009. We’ve got a five-man brawl as soon as the match gets underway, as Leatherface misses a good deal of the initial action because he’s preoccupied with making his entrance through the crowd. When the former Corporal Kirschner does hit the ring, the six men pair off and take turns punching one another and attempting to force each other’s foreheads into the barbed wire ropes.

The first real spot of consequence is Shinzaki (a.k.a. Hakushi of WWF fame) being whipped back-first into the bars by Gannosuke. Shortly thereafter, Awesome brings a table into the ring while Leatherface drops Morton for a nearfall. Another change of the camera angle reveals that Gannosuke has busted Shinzaki open and is currently wrapping his arm around the top strand of barbed wire. Awesome puts his table to good use by powerbombing Ricky Fuji through it, after which Gannosuke produces a stick and wails away on Ricky Morton. Poor Shinzaki takes even more abuse on the barbed wire, this time with Leatherface choking him on it. Another change in camera angle shows Morton Hulking up out of a Gannosuke chokehold in which he puts his stick to use, and, before long, it becomes clear that Morton is also wearing the crimson mask.

Shinzaki starts to mount a bit of a comeback by Irish whipping Awesome into a table propped up in the corner, after which he superkicks Gannosuke. Meanwhile, Morton has a wooden plank and is bashing Leatherface over the head with it. Then, in a spot that I didn’t expect to see, Shinzaki does his rope-walk maneuver on one of the barbed wire strands and leaps off, nailing Gannosuke. He follows up by giving Gannosuke a praying powerbomb, but Awesome breaks up the ensuing pinfall. After that, Morton and Fuji do an old Rock n’ Roll Express spot, as the heels try to whip them into one another but Fuji drops down while Morton leaps over him, giving each of their opponents dropkicks after crossing paths. Jinsei then attempts a praying powerbomb on Awesome, but it gets blocked. Awesome attempts a powerbomb of his own on Morton, but it’s turned into a rana. The Southern Ricky then goes after Gannosuke with a full nelson of all things in this barbed wire match, but he’s kicked low and covered by Leatherface for a two count.

Seconds later, Awesome is successful in hitting one of his powerbombs on Fuji, but it only gets two as Shinzaki saves. Unfortunately for him, he’s immediately cut off by Leatherface, who then assists Awesome in landing a combination powerbomb/neckbreaker. Shinzaki kicks out of the ensuing pin attempt at two, as a new camera angle shows us that Ricky Morton has been beaten so badly that he’s rolled out of the ring, leaving the face team at a man disadvantage. Then, in an odd bit, the heels get wire cutters and actually snip apart the strands of barbed wire encircling the ring, taking it and wrapping it around Shinzaki’s body as though it were garland on a Christmas tree. For good measure, Awesome halls off and hits Jinsei with the wire cutters, and Morton gets more of the same. Meanwhile, Leatherface hits Fuji with a tombstone piledriver, but it only gets a two count. The same occurs when Gannosuke gives him a Northern lights suplex. Eventually, with the heels mocking Shinzaki, who is still wrapped in barbed wire in the corner, Gannosuke gives Fuji his own version of a praying powerbomb and pins him.

Match Thoughts: As you might have been able to tell from the slightly disjointed nature of my play-by-play above, this match was ten solid minutes bell-to-bell action with absolutely no down time. The cameras were constantly cutting back and forth between various pairs of men, so something was ALWAYS happening. A lot of time in articles like this one, matches of that nature will be criticized for being “spotfests” or “lacking psychology,” but I actually think that such a match structure is perfectly acceptable when you have six or eight man tag team matches, because it’s more believable in those situations that somebody would always be “fresh” and capable of executing a big move as opposed to getting worn down and having natural ebbs and flows in one’s performance.

The other noteworthy thing about the match in my mind is that, though I wanted to watch it primarily to see how Ricky Morton’s talents could be put to use in an unusual scenario, it turns out that they actually weren’t utilized all that well. Obviously Morton is a master of tag team wrestling, but this wasn’t a standard tag team match as much as it was an outright brawl. Even when he is outside of the normal tag team environment, he is usually entertaining to watch because he is one of the best performers in professional wrestling history when it comes to selling a beating. Here, though, the way the match was shot, with lots of wide angles to get all six men in the shot at once and with constant cuts back and forth between various pairs of men, made it difficult to appreciate some of the subtleties of Morton’s selling. Regardless of whether Morton was the focus of the match, this wound up being a fairly entertaining brawl with solid, constant action. There are better deathmatches in the world, but, all things considered, this one was perfectly acceptable. **1/2

Number Three: Legends on Display

When people think of independent wrestling in the United States, most of them think about groups like Ring of Honor or Pro Wrestling Guerrilla, where younger wrestlers with not much name value compete and try to compensate for their lack of an established name by using a highly athletic style that in some cases borders on looking more like something a daredevil would engage in than something that Lou Thesz would engage in. However, what a lot of those people don’t realize is that, especially in the southern United States, there are several independent promotions which, though they don’t run as often or produce a product that is distributed widely on DVD, draw just as many if not more fans to their live events than ROH or PWG. The unique thing about these promotions is that they are not focused on young, hungry competitors but are almost solely based around nostalgia acts, e.g. guys like Dusty Rhodes, Tully Blanchard, Terry Funk, and Jerry Lawler, the same wrestlers who would have been drawing the biggest crowds in those territories twenty or even thirty years ago. In recent years, a similar enclave of independent promotions has developed in Japan, with groups like DRADITION and Real Japan Pro Wrestling building their cards around stars of years past and drawing respectable albeit not huge crowds for doing so. There is certainly a place for these groups both in the U.S. and abroad, as it is fun to see what some of your favorites are still capable of and to see them bust out the spots that they were most famous for when you first became fans of theirs. Those concepts are in full display in the following match from DRADITION featuring three bona fide legends of puroresu going up against three men who, though not quite legends, do have a comparable number of years of experience.

Match Numero Cuatro: Tiger Mask, Riki Choshu, & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Hiro Saito, Masashi Aoyagi, & Gran Hamada (Dradition, 5/14/2009)

Tiger starts the match off for his team against Hamada, laying in some BRUTAL kicks for an old man. We clip ahead to Choshu making his presence known against Aoyagi, taking him down with a shoulderblock and applying the chinlock. He gets backed in to the heel corner, though, prompted a tag to Saito. Saito tries to fire off some kicks but fails miserably, as Choshu grabs his leg and feeds it to Fujinami for a dragon screw and then a Boston crab. Fujinami lets Saito back to his feet for some reason, allowing the bad guy to plug away with fists before bringing Hamada back in to the ring. Ayako’s daddy stomps away and unleashes some of his trademark headbutts before tagging Aoyagi back in. He gives Fujinami a BAD snap mare and slaps on the chinlock, only to have Tatsumi force things in to a rope break. That sets up another tag to Choshu, who unloads with hip attacks and a vertical suplex. Now it’s Sayama’s turn to hit the ring, and he gives Aoyagi a flying forearm. Editing takes us ahhead in the match to Fujinami applying a sleeper hold to Saito, but, one more time, Fujinami is pulled back in to the heel corner. Aoyagi tags in and gives him a DDT for two (and two for DDT), but Fujinami slaps him and tags in Choshu. He applies the Scorpion hold but quickly drops it, instead opting to tag in Tiger Mask. We clip ahead to Tiger tombstoning Hamada for two with Saito making the save. That sets up everybody running in to the ring at the same time. Choshu and Fujinami look for double submissions on Aoyagi and Saito, while Sayama comes off the top with a headbutt for Hamada. It misses, leading in to more brawling between the six men. When the smoke clears, the good guys are on top, with Fujinami applying a dragon sleeper to Hamada and getting the tap out victory.

Match Thoughts: Calling most of the men in this match past their prime would be generous. I was well aware of that going in, and, as a result, there were some surprisingly good spots throughout the match. All three members of the babyface team hit as hard as they did in their primes, and perhaps even harder to compensate for the fact that they are no longer as athletic as they once were. Sayama in particular looked like he was murdering people with his strikes, though he still managed to fly decently when the situation called for it. My only regret here was that we did not have an opportunity to see more of Hamada, because he was one of my favorite guys to watch back in the 1990’s. He was old THEN but still had a knack for putting on great performances, and I was curious to see whether he still had that ability. All in all, I had no problem spending eight minutes of my life watching these six men go at it, though I am going to refrain from giving a rating due to the fact that this was edited pretty heavily and I can only imagine what the edits were hiding given the combined age of the wrestlers involved.

Number Two: Giving Youngsters a Shot

Every wrestler has to start their career somewhere. Some of them are fortunate enough to have the opportunity to kick it off in the training facility of a major promotion, whether it is NJPW’s dojo, the frigid Minnesota farm that Vern Gagne used to turn out wrestlers, Stu Hart’s Dungeon, or WWE’s Florida Championship Wrestling. However, just as many stars in the wrestling industry have gotten their initial training and had their first few breakthrough matches in more obscure settings. That’s one of the things that Japanese independent promotions are great for. Many of them, such as TAKA Michinoku’s Kaientai Dojo or Ice Ribbon are tied to their own training schools and, as such, are literally creating their own stars. Other, usually larger independent promotions, have the honor of helping wrestlers from those dojos slowly build their way up towards the big leagues or allowing for a promising young wrestler from another country to have his first experience working in front of a Japanese crowd. The latter situation is what we have in the following match, as young Puerto Rican wrestler Orlando Colon was brought into Japanese independent ZERO1 by Steve Corino, who has long had a major hand in booking the company’s foreign talent. Colon, who is the nephew of the legendary Carols Colon and therefore the cousin of current WWE stars Primo and Carlito Colon, was put into some fairly high profile situations given his experience level, including this ZERO1 World Heavyweight Title match against veteran Shinjiro Ohtani.

Match Numero Dos: Shinjiro Ohtani (c) vs. Orlando Colon for the ZERO1 World Heavyweight Title (ZERO1, 3/15/2009)

Ohtani dominates on the mat almost immediately after the bell, controlling the challenger with a headscissors and an armbar before coming out on the winning end of a test of strength and applying a chinlock and ultimately going back to the headscissors. Colon rolls out of that position and applies a toehold/armbar combo, eventually turning it into his own version of the STF. Of course, Ohtani crawls on his belly to reach the ropes, and, once the break is forced, he clamps on a headlock. Colon manages to knock his opponent down with a shoulderblock out of that move, after which the champ finds his head rammed into the turnbuckle pads repeatedly before his eyes are raked across the top rope. Colon goes for the eyes of his opponent repeatedly with both his fists and his fingernails, but Ohtnai will have no more of it after a while and reels off several chops. Colon blocks a Yakuza kick and goes right back to the eye, though. Shinjiro rolls to the outside and Orlando follows, being handed a pencil by his cornerman Steve Corino. That finds its way in to Ohtani’s eye while the referee is distracted, and eventually Ohtani gets rolled back into the ring. Colon whips him into the corner for a weak axe bomber and gives him one more for good measure to set up the Complete Shot. It gets two, so Colon goes back to the eyes.

The crowd is chanting loudly for Ohtani now as he gets whipped into the corner one more time. Orlando runs right into a boot and eats a spinning heel kick as well, which puts the youngster in perfect position for Ohtani’s facewash. That hits not once but twice, after which the crotchety Japanese veteran hits another Yakuza kick before we get a Steve Corino run-in behind the referee’s back. Corino hits a high knee and a lariat, allowing Orlando to follow up immediately with a codebreaker and a reverse neckbreaker for a nearfall. Orlando’s next trick is heading up to the top rope, but Ohtani cuts him off and brings him down with a superplex. Shinjiro goes up himself and gets a missile dropkick, which is followed immediately with a German for two. Corino does another un-in at this point, but Masato Tanaka makes the save and clotheslines him out of the ring. Even with Mr. Old School dispatched, Colon still manages to hit a lariat and a very safe version of the air raid crash for a nearfall. Once again, though, he runs in to a kick and then in to an Ohtani judo chop. Ohtani continues to chop away, leading into a pair of dragon suplexes for a two count of all things. It’s a doctor bomb stacked on top of the two supelxes that actually brings the match to a close.

Match Thoughts: This was a very different match than what I’m used to watching for this column, and it was COMPLETELY different than the match that I watched immediately before it. If you’ve watched Japanese wrestling for any length of time, you almost take for granted the fact that it will move at a faster pace than most major league American wrestling and that it will involve a harder hitting style. This match wasn’t just slower and less impactful than most Japanese matches . . . it was also lower and less impactful than most modern matches from the United States. Colon was very much working a pace and style of match that his uncle Carlos would have been comfortable in thirty years ago, plodding along and placing his fingers over his opponent’s eyes to constitute ninety percent of his “offense.” Don’t get me wrong, this style of match can work when you put in front of the proper audience and do it with wrestlers who are charismatic enough to rally the crowd, but this was not the right audience and Orlando is not yet a good enough performer to get under fans’ skin like more famous members of his family can do. Meanwhile, Ohtani was stuck selling the majority of the time, and, though he’s great at that, there’s only so much of the “Ow, my eye!” routine that one can take before it starts to get a little bit on the dull side. I’ll give it * star for the finishing sequence that picked up the pace a bit, but I can’t go any higher.

Number One: Flat-Out Awesome Matches

This one seems obvious, but it’s true . . . who would keep coming back to independent promotions like these if there just weren’t great in-ring action? I’m certainly not saying that the major leagues don’t produce their own share of awesome matches. In fact, due to their significantly more experienced rosters and greater number of shows, they usually have a higher volume of great matches than any one indy group would. However, if you monitor the indies, you will still see your fair share of awesome bouts, just like this little gem . . .

Yuki Ishikawa, Alexander Otsuka, & Munenori Sawa vs. Super Tiger II, Daisuke Ikeda, & Katsumi Usuda in an elimination tag team match (BattlArts 7/26/2008)

Sawa starts the match with Ikeda and throws a kick, but Ikeda catches the leg. Sawa succeeds in pulling it away before anything can happen, and then two go into a clench, where Ikeda kicks his man in the leg. More leg kicks are exchanged during an extended feeling out process, and eventually Ikeda is able to elevate his man for a judo-like throw. Ikeda then traps Sawa’s leg again off of a kick and takes him down, looking for some sort of leg-based submission and ultimately securing a figure four. Usuda and Tiger interfere, giving Sawa double stomps to the chest while he attempts to battle out of the hold, after which Usuda tags in and applies a chinlock. Sawa slips out of it and brings Ishikawa into the match.

Ishikawa and Usuda begin a feeling out process of their own, with Usuda ultimately picking Ishikawa’s ankle and applying a headlock, only for Yuki to roll out of the hold and immediately into a leglock. Usuda responds by grabbing an arm and barring it, and the two continue to trade holds at a rapid pace until Usuda gets the deadly cross arm breaker. Fortunately for Ishikawa, he was right next to the ropes and gets an immediate break. That leads to a tag to Super Tiger, who immediately goes to work on Ishikawa with knees and kicks before taking him down and slapping on a toehold of sorts. Ishikawa rolls around and works to lock in a triangle choke on his opponent, but he never quite gets it and gives Tiger the opportunity to apply a keylock. Yuki rolls through to the ropes, grabbing Tiger’s ankle and dragging him to the corner so that he can tag in Otsuka.

Otsuka’s first trick is an attempt at a triangle choke, but, when that doesn’t work, he opts for a version of the Texas cloverleaf. Usuda runs in to attempt to break up the hold with a kick, but, in an awesome spot, Otsuka continues to hold onto the cloverleaf on Tiger with his legs while grabbing Usuda’s leg in his arms and applying a standing ankle lock. Usuda eventually slips out of the hold, and his natural reaction is to run back to his corner with his tail in between his legs as opposed to attempting to do any further damage to Otsuka. Eventually Tiger does maneuver his way out of Otsuka’s grasp and forces him back into the corner, where Usuda tags in and unloads with a barrage of high kicks before applying a front facelock to wear down his man. Otsuka reverses and looks for a cross arm breaker, and, as Usuda tries to escape the hold, all six of the wrestlers involved in the match run in for a small brawl. Otsuka winds up on the losing end of things, so he tags out to Sawa at the first opportunity. The fresh, young Sawa gets some forearms in on Usuda, but he’s distracted by Usuda’s partners and pulled out of the ring and to the floor. This results in all of the wrestlers having a brawl on and around the apron, but that’s difficult because, in this particular venue, there appears to be approximately two feet in between the ring and the wall.

We clip past some of the brawl for whatever reason, and, when we go back to the action, Usuda and Sawa are still going at it, this time in center ring. Sawa looks for a big headbutt but fails and gets taken down into a Fujiwara armbar, which once again sets up the men’s teammates running in to fight each other off. Somewhere in the middle of the chaos, Sawa and Usuda start to fight over leglocks, a battle which Sawa ultimately wins. Ishikawa helps out, laying in some kicks to Usuda’s back while he is in the hold for good measure. Eventually Usuda is able to reverse into a half Boston crab, but Munenori makes the ropes. Usuda tries to go immediately back to the hold, but Sawa kicks him while he attempts to apply it and connects with a flurry of palm strikes followed by a big spinning heel kick. Usuda is then worn out with more big boots to his back and chest, after which Sawa gets a cross arm breaker on at center ring. Super Tiger runs in to break it up, but Sawa is endowed with so much FIGHTING SPIRIT that the Tiger literally has to drop about five elbows before he will finally relinquish the hold. When he finally does, Usuda staggers back into the corner. Sawa tries to charge in after him with some kind of corner attack, but he FAILS as Usuda blocks it with a huge kick and then snaps off more boots to the youngster’s trunk.

Sawa grabs Usuda’s leg on one of the kicks, though, taking him down to the mat. Usuda responds by applying an armbar, but the ropes are right there to save Sawa. The two men, obviously worn down at this point, begin jockeying for position once more, with Sawa eventually getting an abdominal stretch. Again, Super Tiger breaks up the hold with kicks, but Sawa stays in control after it is released. He goes for a version of the Shining Wizard, but, in another EXCELLENT reversal, Usuda catches him WHILE IN MIDAIR and applies a leg hold. All four of the other wrestlers fly into the ring to try to break up the fall, but they get tangled up in one another and as a result cannot actually pull Usuda and Sawa apart from one another. That allows Usuda to turn his garden variety leg hold into an ankle lock, which, as we all know, is ten times more deadly in a professional wrestling setting than a leg hold which has never been used as a finish by Kurt Angle. Sawa valiantly holds on for as long as he can in the hold but ultimately succumbs and taps out for the first elimination at roughly sixteen minutes into the match.

Ishikawa isn’t going to let the action slow down for a second, however. Even though Sawa has already tapped, he sneaks up behind Usuda and BLASTS him with an enzuguiri before Usuda has an opportunity to relinquish the hold. The next two men in the ring after the elimination are Otsuka and Tiger, with the masked competitor applying a headlock and then an armbar. Otsuka does an impressive bridging reversal of the hold into an armbar of his own, after which he rolls through and tries to cinch something in on the big cat’s legs. Tiger is in the ropes, though, so Otsuka settles for kicking him and then hits a NASTY DDT/swinging neckbreaker looking thing out of a front facelock. Tiger is not deterred, though, as he immediately fires off a suplex and then gives Otsuka double stomps in the corner while Ikeda holds him in place. That sets up a figure four from Tiger, which is a weird because he puts it on completely wrong, placing Otsuka’s bent leg UNDER his straight leg as opposed to vice versa. Fortunately, Otsuka’s partners save very quickly so that we don’t have to look for too long at the ugly hold. Once the “figure four” is broken, Tiger gives his man some kicks that send him falling out of the ring and down to the floor.

Instead of going to the outside after Otsuka, Tiger takes the opportunity to make a tag to Ikeda, who stays on top of Otsuka with some boots as soon as he rolls back into the ring. A cross arm breaker is applied, but it’s of virtually no value since the wrestlers still haven’t moved away from the ropes. Ikeda pulls Otsuka to center ring and gets a rear naked choke, but Alexander is able to break it easily, after which he applies pressure to Ikeda’s arms. They struggle back and forth between the armbars and the rear naked chokes for a bit, with Ishikawa eventually making the save for Otsuka and kick Ikeda in the back as the choke is on. Palm strikes are next from Ikeda, but Otsuka responds with a version of an exploder and tags in Ishikawa. He gives Ikeda a vertical suplex and applies a key lock, but Ikeda’s teammates quickly run in. Ishikawa fights them off single-handled and goes for a Fujiwara armbar, but Ikeda’s partners again save. This time Ikeda is able to capitalize and fire back, as he reels off more big kicks, though those are largely no-sold by Ishikawa and strikes are exchanged between the two wrestlers.

The encounter between the two men is essentially a stalemate, but Otsuka is able to dominate as soon as he tags in, dropping Ikeda on his head and applying a cross arm breaker. Ikeda manages to slip out and tag in Usuda, who single legs Otsuka and tries to slip his arm into some kind of hold. Alexander is successful in blocking it and maneuvers Usuda into a leglock, which he has all manner of difficulty reversing. Otsuka switches back and forth between working the leg and applying a rear naked choke, eventually going for a version of the triangle to block an Usuda attempt to reverse out of the leglock. Ikeda and Tiger make the save on that hold. Tiger tries to save again when Otsuka locks in another rear naked choke, but he gets suplexed a couple of times for his trouble. However, the distraction apparently gave Usuda some time to recover, as he surprises Otsuka with a high knee and series of shotei. Alexander ain’t having it, though, as he dumps Usuda on his head with three consecutive suplexes, including a tiger suplex to finish the sequence. The referee checks Usuda, and, finding him unconscious, calls for the bell to signal his elimination. Ikeda runs in to replace his fallen partner, but he’s immediately rolled into a Boston crab by Otsuka. Tiger breaks that hold up, so Otsuka looks for a German suplex on his opponent. Tiger prevents that from happening as well, giving Ikeda an opportunity to land a high kick and a brainbuster on Otsuka. A punt to the side of Alexander’s head also connects, and now it is Otsuka who is KO’ed for an elimination.

That leaves Ishikawa all alone against Super Tiger and Daisuke Ikeda. Tiger tags into the match and gives Ishikawa some body blows, but he’s immediately rolled into a leglock by the cagey Yuji. An STF follows from Ishikawa, but Usuda is there to end it prematurely. Tiger attempts to capitalize with a dragon sleeper, but he can’t quite cinch on the hold due to Ishikawa fighting back. Yuji then fights with his man over a choke, and Tiger nails him with a forearm in order to put that struggle to an end. The two jockey for position on the mat for an extended period of time, and it ends with Ishikawa applying a version of the Indian deathlock. Usuda runs in and kicks Ishikawa in the chest to end that hold, after which more foot and knee strikes from Tiger connect. Ishikawa is also unsuccessful in locking on an octopus hold thanks to Usuda’s efforts, and it again leads to more kicking by the feline fighter. Ishikawa catches him, though, grabbing Tiger out of midair when he attempts a spinning heel kick and placing him into an ankle lock. Super Tiger taps almost immediately, so we are left with Yuji Ishikawa and Daisuke Ikeda as our final two wrestlers in the ring.

The competitors meet in the center of the squared circle and PASTE each other with some snug chops and forearms, after which Ishikawa hits a leaping enzuguiri. Both men are down after that move, and then begin to rise at roughly the same time. Ishikawa double legs his opponent into the ropes, and that really leads nowhere. Before long, the two are kicking and forearming away at one another at mid-ring once more, and, again, it’s Ikeda who goes down. Then, to make matters worse for Daisuke, he misses an attempt at a lariat and gets hit with a backdrop suplex and a second and third leaping enzuguiri. He somehow remains in the match and also stays conscious after a knee to the head. Ishikawa then starts to bring the forearms, but he’s hit with a high kick out of nowhere and given a lariat to the back of the head. The referee checks Yuji, and, as he is doing so, Ikeda swoops in with a big kick to the ribs. Ishikawa barely manages to stand, at which point Ikeda tries to charge in again with a boot, only to be caught in Yuji’s ankle lock just as Super Tiger was prior to his elimination. Ikeda struggles for and ultimately makes the ropes, but Ishikawa merely pulls him back to center ring and goes for the leg again after the mandatory break of the hold. Ishikawa eventually changes things up to a version of the Fujiawara armbar, but Ikeda manages to break the hold by using a free leg to kick Ishikawa in the face. The two men again bust out a flurry of kicks, but, out of nowhere, the bell rings.

The forty-five minute time limit for the match has expired, meaning that it ends in a draw.

Match Thoughts: People who have read my work on this website for several years may remember that I’m a huge mark for elimination tag team matches. I’m not entirely certain what it is about them . . . but they tend to captivate me far more than your regular tag team match and oftentimes more than singles matches. This particular match was an interesting twist on my old favorite, at it took the standard elimination match format and many of its conventions and combined them with the regular style of BattlArts, which, for those of you who don’t know and who weren’t able to pick up on it from the play-by-play, is heavily influenced by shoot fighting. On paper, that’s a unique hybrid which could have either wound up working very well or working very poorly . . . and, if I do say so myself, it was the former and not the latter. In short, this match RULED. There were points at which it started to feel a little bit repetitive due to the numerous instances of submission holds being applied and then broken up by the victim’s partners, but, aside from that, this was some spot-on professional wrestling that I would love to see more of. Everybody involved in the bout, regardless of their level of experience, did a great job of chain wrestling in a believable manner and peppering traditional professional wrestling holds in between the MMA-esque offense so that they would still have their maximum impact without looking so “phony” that they took away from the flow of the bout. Given the length of the match, detailed analysis of all of its subtleties would take far too long for this column, but, needless to say, I wholeheartedly enjoyed it and it’s one of the few matches that I’ve reviewed for this column to date that I would suggest that everybody reading goes out of their way to see. ****

And that will do it for this week, folks. Hopefully you’ve all enjoyed this week’s look at the five things that I am thankful for this year on the Japanese independent scene. We’ll be back in seven days with a look at a full show.

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