wrestling / Columns
Into the Indies 03.29.11: Tribute to a Crab
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Into the Indies, the column that is all about recovery.
Before we get started with the column proper this week, I wanted to throw in a couple of housekeeping notes.
First of all, I wanted to follow up on one earthquake-related story from last week. According to the Wrestling Observer newsletter, Jinsei Shinzaki is no longer living in his car as originally reported. His ramen noodle restaurants are back up and running, and he is actually driving several hours every day between his supplier and the restaurants so that he can use his kitchens to make meals for displaced Japanese living in shelters. Kudos to Shinzaki for that one; providing a true humanitarian service. Also, from what I understand, plans are still on for him to appear in CHIKARA’s King of Trios tournament in April despite some initial uncertainty regarding whether he would be able to make the trip to the United States.
Of course, to continue assistance in the earthquake recovery efforts, send some money to the Red Cross and, to assist in finding victims of similar disasters in the future, make a donation to the Search Dog Foundation.
In our second, less somber note, I would like to announce that I’ve opened a Twitter account. I don’t know how long I will stick with it, but I’m going to experiment a bit. You can follow me here. For the time being, it is going to focus solely on pro wrestling and not the rest of my life.
With that said, let’s move forward . . .
This past fall, those of us who follow Japanese pro wrestling were all saddened to learn of the death of Gran Naniwa, a cult favorite who is primarily known for wrestling in Michinoku Pro Wrestling during the 1990’s. We ran two tribute columns to Naniwa after news of his passing broke. The first is archived here and the second is archived here.
Of course, we were not the only ones who wanted to pay tribute to the crab man. Many of the promotions for which Naniwa worked paid homage to him in the following month following his death, and perhaps the biggest of the memorial shows took place on Christmas Day, December 25, 2010, and was promoted by Kaientai Dojo. That is the show we will be taking a look at today.
Oddly enough, this is also the first full-length K-Dojo show that we have looked at in this column, so here is a bit of background on the company: After he left WWE in 2022, TAKA Michinoku returned to his home country of Japan, and, almost immediately, he founded the Kaientai Dojo, a half-wrestling promotion, half-training camp that he had initially established a year earlier in Puerto Rico. The company ran its first show in April of ’02, primarily featuring a crew of wrestlers that TAKA had trained himself. Though rough around the edges at first, the promotion has grown a fair amount and the wrestlers who got their starts there have become fairly polished, with the most notable alumni being Yasu Urano, a fixture in DDT, and Tomoka Nakagawa, a female trainee who initially competed for K-Dojo but later moved into mainstream joshi for IBUKI, now wrestles regularly in SHIMMER, and will shortly make her debut in Ring of Honor. Also regularly appearing in the promotion (though not trained by it) were TAKA himself, Big Japan-trained junior heavyweight Minoru Fujita, and American wrestler/early ROH star Quiet Storm.
Though far from a major promotion in Japan, the company has done well enough that it has been able to run consistently for almost nine years now, and Gran Naniwa, the subject of this show, competed there periodically for several of those years. Thus, on his passing, TAKA Michinoku, a contemporary of Naniwa’s from the glory days of M-Pro, organized this tribute.
K-Dojo was going to have a December 25 show even before news of Naniwa’s death broke, but that story resulted in some changes to the card. Interestingly enough, there were already several outside wrestlers with ties to Naniwa scheduled to appear because, due to the retirement of Dick Togo that will occur in 2011, K-Dojo was going to host a match that was part of the “Final Countdown” tour of Kaientai DX, the stable that Togo lead in the mid-1990’s. When Naniwa passed away, the match was made into a tribute match to him as well. However, that was not the only change that had to occur in the match, as, not long before the show, Togo fractured his tailbone and was taken out of action. As a result, the match changed one more time from a ten man tag to an eight man tag with the rest of KDX carrying on in Togo’s absence and the opposing team also dropping a man. In addition to this match and a second Naniwa tribute match that was added after his passing, K-Dojo regulars were also given prominent slots on the card, including a big title match in the main event.
The show opens with a music video showing highlights of Gran Naniwa throughout his career, set to Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone.” Awesome stuff right there. From the video, we got to the ring for a ten bell salute, featuring TAKA at center ring holding a framed photo of his fallen comrade and with the remainder of the former Michinoku Pro wrestlers in attendance being positioned throughout the ring.
From there, it’s on to the first match . . .
Match Numero Uno: Saburo Inematsu, Randy Takuya & Yuki Sato vs. YOSHIYA, JOE & Boso Boy Raito
At first blush, this appears to be your standard opening six man tag, featuring two teams of men who are all K-Dojo regulars and many of whom have been there since the beginning of the promotion. We are joined in progress, as JOE lays out Yuki Sato with a big boot. (Yuki also plays the masked character of Kenbai in Michinoku Pro, who we’ve seen in prior reviews.) JOE tries to follow it up with a lariat, but Sato ducks under and turns it into a tornado DDT to set up a tag to Randy Takuya. On the other side of the ring, JOE manages to get a tag of his own to YOSHIYA, who catches Randy with a big boot. Clipping forward, Takuya catches Randy with a clothesline and brings in Inematsu. Saburo immediately falls victim to a chokeslam/side effect hybrid from YOSHIYA, after which team YOSHI all take turns hitting corner attacks on Inematsu, followed by a double atomic drop and a springboard dropkick by Boso Boy Raito. That gets two, but YOSHI and friends clear the ring one more time so that Raito can attempt a Stratusfaction-style bulldog. It gets reversed into a back suplex, after which Randy and Inematsu connect with a variation on the Hart Attack. It gets two as the opposing team saves.
Sato wipes out a couple of his opponents with a dive, as back on the inside, Inematsu gives Raito a Death Valley Driver and gets the three count.
Match Thoughts: There was some good, athletic work here near as I can tell and everybody was obviously very comfortable working with one another. However, there also wasn’t a heck of a lot that you can’t see in many similar matches on the independent circuit these days . . . so it’s a perfectly acceptable opener but, from the bit that did air, it didn’t look like anything that you need to go out of your way to see.
Match Numero Dos: Super Delfin, Jinsei Shinzaki, & Tsubo Genjin vs. Great Sasuke, Shiryu, & TAKA Michinoku
This is the first of two Gran Naniwa tribute matches for the evening. It features six men who were all cornerstones of Michinoku Pro Wrestling during the period that Naniwa was wrestling there as one of the company’s top babyfaces. Sasuke and TAKA are probably familiar to most reading this, and their partner Shiryu is better known as Kaz Hayashi, with Shriyu being his masked persona from the M-Pro days. Shinzaki, who was mentioned at the top of the column, is best known overseas as Hakushi in the WWF, while Delfin was one of Naniwa’s regular tag team partners and presently operates indy groups Osaka Pro Wrestling and Okinawa Pro Wrestling. Tsubo Genjin is perhaps the least notable member of the two teams, though he was popular for a time in M-Pro doing a comedy gimmick as a wild caveman from the mountains of northeastern Japan . . . think of him as the Asian, junior heavyweight version of the Missing Link and you’re probably not too far off the mark.
TAKA and Genjin begin for their respective teams, though Tsubo actually starts by going after the referee. Eventually he’s straightened out and does a bizarre war dance that mesmerizes TAKA and opens him up to be kicked in the gut and slammed. Genjin climbs the ropes and does his own version of Gran Naniwa’s famous crab walk before missing an elbow drop. Michinoku wipes him out with a dropkick and fakes a dive with his patented backflip off the ropes. At this point Shiryu and Delfin come into the match, with Delfin and Shinzaki inadvertently colliding several times to give the advantage to Shiryu. Appropriately enough, this is the kind of comedy that Delfin would do with Naniwa when they were tag partners. Genjin gets in on the act as well, and, before long, all three members of team Delfin are taking turns hitting one another as Hayashi avoids their strikes. This leads into another classic M-Pro bit where Shiryu repeatedly kips up and then falls back down to keep his opponents offguard, followed by everybody in the arena jumping up into the air on the last kip up.
Now it is time for the longtime friends and business partners to lock up, as Shinzaki and Sasuke face off. Jinsei cartwheels out of the way of a clothesline to hit a superkick, after which he grabs an arm to set up his own classic rope walk move, though, instead of praying during the tightrope walk as he normally does, he gives a crab salute instead. After that, he throws Sasuke into Genjin’s boot, with Tsubo then tagging in and connecting with a hip attack before teaming with Delfin to hit a version of the Hart Attack. A three-man submission is applied on Sasuke afterwards, and, after it gets the pop it was designed to get, Shinzaki places Sasuke in the tree of woe so that Delfin can stand on his scrotum. We then get an adaptation of another classic Delfin/Naniwa comedy spot, as Delfin stands on the apron and faces out to the crowd as his opponents are fed to him so that he can slam their arms down on his shoulder. However, after a while, the opposing team gets the advantage and Delfin unknowingly attacks his own partner in the same manner.
Things get serious after that with a Delfin/Sasuke face-off that the crowd pops for, though Shinzaki interferes before they can make contact, which pisses some folks off. This turns into a five-way submission spot involving everybody in the match except for Genjin, who does the crab walk around the pile of men in another homage to M-Pro’s glory days. Want more nostalgia? Four men do the old “row the boat” submission spot while Shiryu gives Genjin a rana in the middle of the circle. Now things open up and get a little bit crazy, seemingly out of nowhere. Shiryu hits a tope con hilo. Sasuke connects with an Asai moonsault. TAKA sets up for a dive of his own, but Delfin catches him from behind with a shotei and hits a tornado DDT, going into his Delfin Clutch. It gets a three count for the Delfin/Shinzaki/Genjin team.
Match Thoughts: It probably wouldn’t mean much to somebody who hasn’t spent time watching Michinoku Pro, but this was a ridiculously fun little match for those of us who have. It was essentially like watching a “best of” reel of the comedy spots that would from time to time crop up during the promotion’s six and eight man tag team matches. It was a great way to pay tribute to Naniwa who, as noted above, often participated in many of those same spots. Did they look a little hokey? At points. Were they business exposing? Yeah, probably. However, this was a match that was about something much greater than maintaining the long-dead illusion that professional wrestling is a real sport. ***
Match Numero Tres: Aja Kong & Yuu Yamagata vs. Bambi & Makoto
In addition to celebrating Gran Naniwa’s life, there are also some anniversaries being celebrated on this show. Specifically, this match was put together as a way of showcasing Yuu Yamagata, who is recognizing the beginning of her tenth year as a professional wrestler. Yuu is currently considered a K-Dojo regular, though she was not trained by the promotion and actually started out in the regular joshi circuit. She is teaming with verified legend Aja Kong, with their opponents being Bambi, a Kaientai Dojo product, and Makoto, a very young wrestler who is one of the big focal points of the Ice Ribbon promotion.
We are joined in progress, as Bambi has Kong off balance with a series of kicks and eventually connects with a high boot that takes the big woman down for two. Makoto runs in to assist with a double suplex, but Aja blocks and turns it into a double DDT before taking both of her opponents down with clotheslines. That sets up a missile dropkick from Yuu on Bambi which gets two for Yuu. Bambi rocks Yuu with one of her high kicks and a shining wizard, earning another nearfall. Bambi’s next trick is a gordbuster to set up a GREAT double team, as Bambi hits another shining wizard on Yuu which Makoto simultaneously dropkicks her in the back. It gets a close two count as Kong saves. Kong also paintbrushes Bambi with an open hand strike, leading into a Yamagata brainbsuter for a nearfall. Yuu tries to follow up with more offense, but Bambi gets her off balance with some rollups and another big kick. Kong saves her partner one more time, clotheslining Bambi to lead into an air raid crash. The crash allows Yuu to win her tenth anniversary match.
Match Thoughts: This seemed to be clipped down pretty heavily, though it makes sense given that the Naniwa tribute matches and the main event title match were the priorities on the card. As far as what was shown is concerned, I have to give it a thumbs up. If anybody impressed me coming out of the bout, it was Makoto. In light of their track records, expect the other three women to put on solid performances, though I had yet to see anything which indicated that Makoto could go outside of the realm of Ice Ribbon where she was competing almost exclusively against wrestlers who she regularly trains with, making the task of putting on a good match significantly easier. She was out of her comfort zone here, though, and the results were surprisingly good. She absolutely looked like she belonged.
Match Numero Cuatro: Makoto Oishi & Shiori Asahi vs. Daigoro Kashiwa & Hiro Tonai vs. Kaji Tomato & Marines Mask II vs. Kengo Mashimo & Ryuichi Sekine
Here’s another match that, like the opener, appears to have been booked primarily to get a lot of the Kaientai Dojo regulars onto the card with many of the main slots being gobbled up by outsiders.
Oishi and Asahi are double teaming Tomato as we are joined in progress, connecting with a great sequence in which one man catapults Kaji into a seated position on the top rope and then the other leaps up to pull him off with a facebuster into the other man’s feet. Their success is short-lived, as Oishi is quickly cut off and double teamed by Mashimo and Sekine. They hit corner attacks on the man, as do Marines Mask and Tomato. Asahi eventually runs in to block his partner from taking any further damage, but even he has to give up and get out of the way when Mashimo wants to try to charge in. Several different men attempt to pin Oishi but it is consistently broken up.
Miscommunication leads to an Oishi comeback, as he suckers Mashimo into kicking several different men and then tags Asahi. Asahi gets a unique move in on two of his opponents, essentially placing them both in an abdominal stretch at the same time. Oishi quickly does the same to two other wrestlers, so we’ve essentially got a stereo double submission. Try to wrap your head around that one. Tomato and Mashimo break it up, and the ensuing brawl results in everybody but Oishi and Asahi being on the floor, so they hit stereo planchas. Many more dives follow, including a triple tope at one point. After the train wreck, Asahi is thrown into the ring to do battle with Marines and Tomato, with the masked man hitting a flipping stunner and the veggie hitting a body block from the top rope. Mashimo gets in on the fun by hitting a short DDT on Marines, but it’s not long before he’s kicked in the back of the head. Oishi and Marines then team up for a version of Total Elimination on Mashimo, which Oishi follows by hitting the Daff-Knees. He misses a moonsault, though, followed by Marines missing a frog splash and Sekine missing a diving headbutt.
Marines and Tomato then catch a good bit of luck, taking out one man with a double dropkick and another with a double enzuguiri. This builds to a double suplex on Oishi, though it only gets two. Marines and Tomato find themselves on the defensive, as they both get kicked in the face. If you haven’t noticed, bodies are everywhere in this one and it’s insanely hard to keep track of. Eventually Oishi and Asahi get back on track, setting up for what looks like an overly complicated double team code red. It gets broken up and there is more brawling all over the place, with the upshot being that Oishi tries for his code red again and gets cut off again. When he is finally able to hit it, it wins the match for his team.
Match Thoughts: As I’ve noted several times before in this column, there’s a hard balance to strike in these insane, multi-man junior heavyweight matches as wrestlers try to keep things eye-popping and exciting without the event turning into a total clusterfuck. They didn’t strike the balance perfectly here, and, unfortunately, it got just a little bit clusterfucky. The biggest problem here – which is one that I’ve honestly never seen in a match like this one before – is that there were a lot of spots which involved not just double teaming but TRIPLE teaming, usually with one team joining forces with one half of another team. This made it fairly difficult to keep track of who was on who’s side and who was a babyface and who was a heel. There was some flashy stuff in there which took my breath away for a short period, but it would’ve been a better match in highlight reel form than it was in full. **
Match Numero Cinco: Yasu Urano vs. HIROKI
Yuu Yamagata isn’t the only wrestler celebrating a tenth anniversary on this show. Both men in this singles match are also marking their first decade in the business. HIROKI, who used to compete under the name Hi69, was the most heavily pushed of TAKA’s trainees when Kaientai Dojo first got off the ground, though I’ve found him to be a bit inconsistent as a performer. Urano, meanwhile, is one of the few K-Dojo guys who has broken out and made a name for himself in other promotions, specifically Sanshiro Takagi’s group DDT.
There’s some quick stuff off the ropes to start, which HIROKI caps with a leg lariat that sends Urano to the floor. When he returns to the ring, Yasu eats an armdrag for an early nearfall, after which HIROKI goes to a grounded double chicken wing. (A favorite hold of Gran Naniwa’s, oddly enough.) Urano makes the ropes and manages to apply a headlock thereafter. He holds onto it for a good long time until HIROKI reverses into a back suplex. Even then Urano reapplies quickly until the former Hi69 gets out of it again, this time with a knee crusher followed by a kick to the head. A lionsault gets two for TAKA’s trainee, and he also hits an iconoclasm for a second nearfall. A HIROKI jawbreaker sets up a trip to the ropes, but Urano blocks any offense and hits an inverted atomic drop as well as an enzuguiri. Yasu looks for a tombstone but has it reversed, which he reverses himself. The end result of all the reversals is HIROKI catching a cradle for two. Urano ducks a kick and tries for his own cradle, but HIROKI blocks it and hits a knee smash, followed by a piledriver variation. It gets two. At this point HIROKI takes off one of his knee pads and goes for the same knee strike, but, in a SLICK spot, Urano turns it into a dragon screw at the last minute. Yasu follows up with a dropkick to the side of his opponent’s head and a tombstone, though HIROKI still manages to get his shoulder up. From there, Urano grabs a headlock, HIROKI sells like death due to the prior work done on his neck. Eventually it gets turned into the stretch plum, and HIROKI taps out.
Match Thoughts: I have to admit that I’ve not been that impressed with the majority of the HIROKI matches that I’ve seen. Though he’s got some big moves that look nice from time to time, it seems like there’s always at least one thing that gets screwed up royally. However, this bout was the exception to the rule, as the former Hi69 kept things a lot more grounded than his typical approach and the result was a match that didn’t feature anything too ugly. It wasn’t an epic matchup because of the relatively limited amount of time that it received, but it was a perfectly acceptable match helped a bit by some strong psychology and selling in the home stretch once the neck injury came in to play. **1/2
Match Numero Seis: Kaz Hayashi, MEN’s Teioh, TAKA Michinoku, & FUNAKI vs. Great Sasuke, Minoru Fujita, Kesen Numajiro & Kazuya Yuasa
And here we go with Gran Naniwa tribute match number two, featuring another set of wrestlers with whom he would have worked during the prime of his career. As previously noted, on one side of the ring it is the classic lineup of Kaientai, minus the injured Dick Togo. On the other side of the ring are Great Sasuke (owner of M-Pro during KDX’s run through today), Minoru Fujita (a veteran junior heavyweight trained by Big Japan who did several tours of M-Pro), Kesen Numajiro (the original Tsubo Genjin), and Kazuya Yuasa (an M-Pro heavyweight trainee better known as GAINA in Osaka Pro and Shisaou in Okinawa Pro).
Kaientai DX ambush the good guys at the bell, with Sasuke being isolated and hit with a series of elbow drops before everybody flexes. When action returns to the ring, it’s Funaki and Yuasa, with the big guy hitting a short-arm lariat before the action trades off to Teiho and Numajiro. Teioh applies his abdominal stretch but Numajiro goes to the eyes to escape. Kesen hits a butt-butt and brings in Sasuke, who is met by TAKA and Hayashi. They both hit big strikes in the corner on the masked man, after which Hayashi comes off the top to double stomp Sasuke’s arm, leading into a double suplex attempt. Fujita cuts it off and nails Michinoku with an enzuguiri that causes him to collide with Hayashi, sending the latter out of the ring. Sasuke and Fujita try for a wacky move that sees Sasuke sitting on his partner’s shoulders, but that fails when Hayashi returns to the ring and simply drop toe holds, Hayashi, sending both men crashing down to the mat.
Kaz flies solo against Sasuke, taking him down so that Teioh can apply a camel clutch. There’s only one thing that leads to in a KDX match, and it’s a dropkick to the face from Hayashi. Sasuke is also kicked by TAKA and Funaki, who then double team him for a little bit. FUANKI connects with a snap suplex and brings in Teioh, who gives his man a lengthy delayed brainbuster for two. Afterwards, Sasuke finds himself placed in a prone position on the top rope so that Teioh can pose on him. He is moved into the tree of woe – though facing outward – leading to Hayashi running up on the floor and dropkicking him, which sends Sasuke’s back into the post.
TAKA and Funaki take over again, but this time Sasuke is able to avoid a clothesline and hit his dropkick suicida on Funaki, leading into Yuasa tagging in and running wild. He meets up with Hayashi, and the two engage each other in a strike battle, which the big guy wins to set up a second rope elbow. It gets a close two, after which Hayashi catches his man off guard with a handspring into an enzuguiri. Yuasa responds with a massive lariat that sends both men out of the ring. Teioh and Fujita pair off at this point, with the fish out of water spot ensuing. Eventually Teioh hits the Uncle Slam and stretches his opponent, but Numajiro runs in to break it up. He also gets a second rope leg drop and a diving butt-butt on TAKA, both of which get two. Numajiro slams his man and slingshots in with another legdrop, but it also isn’t enough to put Michinoku away. TAKA finds himself placed on the top rope as Numajiro looks for a muscle buster, but TAKA grabs the cables to escape. He looks for his knee strike in the corner, which Numajiro avoids.
He doesn’t avoid the crossface of TAKA, though it is broken up quickly. This leads into a chain of virtually everybody involved in the match hitting a big move on each other, culminating in Teioh getting MIRACLE ECSTACY on Numajiro. TAKA follows it up with a superkick and a Michinoku Driver, and, not surprisingly, Kaientai Dojo wins their big match.
Match Thoughts: There was almost no way that this couldn’t be very good. The eight men in the ring have oodles of experience working exactly this type of match against one another, and, though they don’t pair up in the bouts as often as they used to, getting back to them is apparently like riding a bike. Granted, they’re all now several years older than they were in their athletic primes, so they didn’t go quite as long and things were slowed down a little bit from the glory period. However, despite the missing five to ten minutes and despite the fact that things didn’t go as balls out insane as they used to, they brought a level of polish and savvy to the match that they couldn’t bring when they were younger. All in all, though it was not as great as some of the bouts from the glory days, it was still very good and absolutely what it needed to be in order to be a stop on the road to the end of Kaientai and a fitting tribute to Naniwa. ****
Match Numero Siete: Yuji Hino (c) vs. Taishi Takizawa for the Champion of the Strongest K Title
And now it’s main event time, with the most prominent championship in all of Kaientai Dojo on the line. Hino has been one of the top guys in the promotion and one of its most talented trainees since almost the beginning. He is one of the few wrestlers that I’ve seen in Kaientai Dojo who I could see successfully translating to the junior heavyweight division of a top company. Takizawa is another trainee of the company and comes in with just about four years of experience. If you want an idea of what he’s known for, you need to look no further than the shirt that he’s wearing in his pre-match promo, which simply reads “No Chop, No Life.”
We’ve got several lockups to start, and Takizawa tries to hit a chop coming out of each one, but he consistently misses. Shoulderblocks are exchanged, though Hino misses one and runs right into a chop. He responds with a chop of his own, and, well, you know what that sets up in Japan. Takizawa actually takes a bump up and over the top rope on Hino’s last chop of the battle, and, once we’re on the floor, Yuji sits his opponent down in a chair and chops him off of it. More chopping amongst the fans follows. Eventually Takizawa starts firing back, including one big chop to Hino’s shoulderblades that causes him to do a face-first bump down a set of bleachers. Ouch. After that we go back to the ring. Chops are traded. You’re surprised. Even when Hino gets his man down on his back, the move he chooses to follow up with is a chop to the chest a la the culmination of the Worm. Yuji places his man into a chinlock and chops him while he’s in the chinlock. Takizawa manages to get a rope break, at which point he fires back with, you guessed it, chops. Hino no-sells the majority of them but gets bodyslammed when he attempts to run the ropes. The slam sets up a series of chops on the mat from Takizawa. More chopping leads to Hino running the ropes, off of which Takizawa armdrags him over the top and down on to the apron.
A series of chops cause Hino to bump on the apron and then roll down to the floor. Takizawa looks for some sort of dive off of the apron and down to the floor, but Hino catches him with a chop as he flies and takes him out among the audience members. While there, he chops him. Apparently Yuji gets tired of dishing out the punishment and decides instead to take it, as he places his hands behind his back and dares Takizawa to chop him. You don’t have to ask Takizawa twice, and he complies. Eventually he backs up about ten yards and comes at Hino with a big running chop, after which, in a rarity for this promotion, the match spills into the backstage area and out on to a balcony. Chopping abounds on the balcony, with the tease being that one man may chop the other off of it. New Jack would be proud. More stairs get involved, this time with a chop by Hino sending Takizawa falling back first down a flight. The stairs apparently lead to a merchandise area where Takizawa grabs a young fan and apparently uses him as a human shield for laughs. Fortunately, some clipping takes us back to the ring, and Hino appears to have gotten there with a comfortable lead over his opponent. The referee starts to count Takizawa out, which makes a lot of sense given that both wrestlers have spent about fifteen minutes brawling outside of the ring now.
Regardless, Takizawa does make the count, and, once he’s back in between the ropes, he is chopped. A lot. Hino heads up to the top rope but gets cut off, with Takizawa then teasing a superplex. Hino chops him to escape, but Takizawa chops him in response and finally does hit the superplex. It sets up a double KO spot, with the men reaching their knees at a count of eight. From that position, they chop one another. They continue with the same offense when they both get back up to their feet, with Takizawa getting the advantage when he blocks a Hino running chop and hits a double chop that takes the champion off of his feet. A second version of the move has the same result and gets a nearfall for Takizawa. The challenger sets up for a tiger driver, but Hino reverses it into a backdrop and hits a lariat that causes Takizawa to take a flip bump. It gets two. Then, seconds later, what does Hino pin Takizawa with? You guessed it, a chop.
Match Thoughts: Count the number of times that I wrote the word “chop” during the play-by-play. Now consider the fact that I probably didn’t write the word that each time one was thrown. Now consider the fact that this bout went on for OVER THIRTY MINUTES. That’s a whole hell of a lot of chopping going on. I have to give them credit for trying something different. There are a lot of independent matches from this level of promotion which I’ve seen that all blend together and are completely forgotten in about a week. However, I have a feeling that I will recall “the match with all of the chops” for some time to come. Was it any good beyond the novelty? Somewhat. I found the crowd brawling to be a bit dull, as it’s been done to death in Japanese matches. However, when the two finally got into the ring, they did very well with one another and had a great sense of timing and got the most out of a match that was obviously going to be limited in terms of the moves available to them. This only reaffirmed my opinion that Hino needs to be given an opportunity to step up somewhere and show his goods on a larger stage. ***1/2
Overall
Top to bottom, this was a pretty damn solid little independent card regardless of the context. The matches that were shown in full were for the most part above average (in one case significantly so) and the matches that were heavily clipped up were entertaining enough in highlight form that they didn’t drag the quality of the show down any. Of course, the big draws were the tribute matches to Naniwa, and they absolutely delivered. Originally I was somewhat skeptical about having two separate tribute matches instead of pairing things down in to one ten man tag, but, in execution, I liked the concept a lot better. It allowed one match to focus on the more comedic aspects of the Michinoku style and one match to be completely serious, which works a lot better because there were so many comedic tribute spots that needed to be done that any match which tried to integrate both the comedy and the athletic aspects of the style would have run way long and been about 50/50 in terms of comedy vs. serious. That would not have worked out at all. If you’re a former M-Pro fan like yours truly, this is a must-see nostalgia card. Even if you’re somebody who has not seen the peak of the promotion, this a fun way to kill ninety minutes with no bad wrestling at all and plenty of bright spots. All in all, an easy thumbs up for Kaientai Dojo’s December 25, 2010 offering.
Looking forward to the next installment of Into the Indies? Keep an eye on 411’s Twitter accounts, and you just might see it pop up!
http://www.twitter.com/411mania
http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411mma
See you all next week!
