wrestling / Columns

Into the Indies 04.05.11: Catching up with SMASH

April 5, 2011 | Posted by Ryan Byers

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Into the Indies, the column that is ready to move on from Wrestlemania.

This week, I decided that we needed to do a little bit of catching up with SMASH, the company that has almost become the unofficial cornerstone of this column. Though I have yet to do a formal count, I suspect that we’ve covered SMASH more in these pages than we have any other company, beginning with their first show, their third show with an international theme, a show in which joshi was given the spotlight, a show starring Scotty II Hotty, a show with a big title change, and a show featuring Bushwacker Luke of all people.

As I’ve stated many times throughout our coverage of the promotion, I’m attracted to SMASH not necessarily because it has the greatest pure wrestling in the world. You’re not going to get a company that features four star matches up and down the card. However, the shows are fun. They’re easy to watch. Every match clearly has a purpose and, nine times out of ten, it accomplishes that purpose, even if it’s not “workrate” intensive. There is an entertaining crop of young talent that makes up the core of the promotion, combined with some savvy veterans, and all mixed in with the most eclectic mix of outside talent that you’re going to see in any modern promotion.

This week, we will be taking a look at the first half of SMASH 11, which took place on December 11, 2010 before a crowd of 600 at Tokyo’s Shinjuku FACE event hall. The main draw of the card, which we will actually get to next week, was a “World Legend Revival” match – part of a series in which SMASH brings back older wrestlers for cameos – in which Tajiri was set to wrestle seventy-seven year old Gypsy Joe in a true freak show of a match. This week, however, we will be taking a look at the undercard, featuring many of SMASH’s hot young stars, including Lin Bairon, Shuri, and KUSHIDA, who recently left the promotion to sign a contract that makes him a full-time member of the New Japan Pro Wrestling roster.

Normally in these columns I don’t comment on pre-show intro videos. However, I have to bring up the video that preceded this show. Why? Because it inexplicably contained footage of a small dog humping Tajiri’s leg.

Weird.


Match Numero Uno: Yusuke Kodama vs. Takao Omori

For those of you who have not seen our prior SMASH-related columns, Kodama is the promotion’s one true rookie, a Tajiri protégé who wrestled his first match for the company and has since assumed a traditional “young lion” style role. On this show, he gets to face off against Omori, a seventeen year veteran with experience in both New Japan and All Japan.

In an unusual bit for a young wrestler, Kodama goes after Omori immediately when he makes his entrance, dropkicking him off of the ring apron and then following him down to the floor with a cross body. Omori starts to fire back with European uppercuts on the inside, and, though he does respond with some forearms, Yusuke is pretty clearly outmatched and gets run through with a shoulderblock. Surprisingly, he is able to get Omori off of his feet with a dropkick, but a bodyslam attempt fails miserably and the veteran reclaims control with more strikes to set up a vertical suplex. From there, it’s into the camel clutch, though after a while Omori takes mercy on his opponent and releases the hold. Yusuke gets a mini-comeback when Omori misses a corner attack and the youngster manages to score a leaping enzuguiri of sorts, but it’s not long before Kodama runs into a superkick and gets hit with a spinning heel kick for two. Kodama surprises his opponent by avoiding a lariat and connecting with a backdrop suplex, but it too only results in a nearfall. Omori rolls through another backdrop attempt into a bodypress and hits a tombstone variation. From there, it’s a big lariat that puts Kodama away.

Match Thoughts: Watching the steady progression of Yusuke Kodama has been one of the more entertaining parts of recent SMASH shows. Granted, every time he has stepped foot into the ring, it has been abundantly clear that he’s going to be beaten and beaten soundly, but that’s not unusual for a Japanese wrestler in his first year. What is nice is that he has been able to get in more offense which each appearance and his offense is more varied than a lot of other rookies at this stage of the game, which really gets the crowd behind him. Also, the fact that he is consistently wrestling against strong veterans like Omori and AKIRA is apparently teaching him a lot about pacing and showing fire in his matches. All in all, not a blow-away standing alone, but a solid step in the continued progression of Kodama. **



Match Numero Dos: Commando Bolshoi & Kaori Yoneyama vs. Shuri & Nagisa Nozaki

Shuri (alternatively transliterated as Syuri) has been SMASH’s golden girl up to this point in the promotion’s history, with the company bringing in several top joshi wrestlers to do battle against her. On the promotion’s last show, Shuri teamed with former rival Kana to take on Kaori Yoneyama and Ice Ribbon’s Emi Sakura. After the match, Yoneyama and Shuri showed a bit of respect for one another and expressed a desire to face one another again, this time in a match in which Yoneyama has brought in Commando Bolshoi as her partner. Bolshoi, a 4’11” twenty year veteran of professional wrestling, is the promoter of the JWP promotion that Yoneyama calls her home and is being portrayed as a very strong challenge for Shuri. Teaming with Shuri this time around is Nagisa Nozaki, a young wrestler who was produced by the promotion NEO but will now be jumping to a new group called Diana after NEO closed its doors in late 2010.

Yoneyama and Shuri begin it to play off of their last match, with the SMASH wrestler shooting for a double leg early but coming up short, allowing Kaori to have a bit of an advantage in the match-opening mat work. Of course, they eventually pop up and everybody applauds. After that, Bolshoi and Nozaki hit the ring and trade arm-wringers. Bolshoi gets the better of it at first and eventually catches her opponent in a torture rack variation after the wrestlers spend some time running the ropes. Yoneyama checks in at that point, dropping a senton across Nozaki’s back and staying on her with a bow and arrow submission. Shuri runs in to break it up, but Yoneyama quickly dispatches her into the turnbuckles and trades off to Bolshoi. The masked woman slaps on a version of the Tarantula, which you’d think would be legal in Tajiri’s promotion, but the referee quickly forces a break. The Commando misses a knee in the corner, though, allowing Nozaki to take out both of her opponents with big boots before tagging out to Shuri. Shuri also kicks away at the JWP contingent and applies a cross arm breaker on Bolshoi, though the clown reverses it into a half Boston crab. Nozaki saves her partner, and, in a really awkward spot, the JWP wrestlers get Nozaki and Shuri down on the mat and tie their legs together into some kind of convoluted double submission hold. Unfortunately, getting the legs “tied up” took forever, so it wound up looking really bad.

The official breaks that one up as well, and Shuri and Yoneyama are now the legal women. Kaori gets a high cross for two but is kicked down by Shuri so that the SMASH wrestler can score her own nearfall. It’s a forearm battle from there, which Shuri loses en route to Yoneyama hitting a SICK knee to the back of the head of a seated Shuri. I think the camera angle made that one. It’s not long before Shuri rallies and connects with a knee strike of her own, setting up a somewhat anti-climactic tag to Nozaki. She starts throwing her big boots again, allowing for a double team sequence on Yoneyama that culminates in a Shuri lungblower and another Nozaki kick. Nagisa applies a sleeper as Shuri holds off Bolshoi, but eventually the clown breaks free and breaks up the hold. That leads into Bolshoi hitting a version of the 619 on Nozaki and Yoneyama following it up with another big knee, but Shuri breaks up the three count. What she doesn’t break up is the cover after a top rope senton from Yoneyama, and Kaori gets the better of Nozaki to win the match.

Match Thoughts: This wasn’t the best joshi action that SMASH has featured, but it was still a fairly solid little match. Nozaki seemed to be dragging it down a bit, as, though she’s not horrible, she’s not quite in the same league as even Shuri from an experience standpoint. The only other thing that was really a negative was the awkward spot in the middle of the match described above. Otherwise, a really solid little tag team match featuring two women who are absolute pros (Yoneyama and Bolshoi), one who has ever tool to be a big player and is gradually working her way there (Shuri), and one who is still learning (Nagisa). ***1/4



Match Numero Tres: Golem Knight & Lin Bairon vs. Mentallo & KUSHIDA

Here’s the first match of the evening which features exclusively SMASH-created talent. Bairon and KUSHIDA have been a regular part of the company since day one as Tajiri’s protégés, while Mentallo has probably been their best foreign pickup, discovered on the Canadian independent circuit by god knows who. Golem is the newest addition to the roster of this group, having also come out of Canada, though he is of Israeli heritage and for some reason dresses like a cowboy. He and Lin have been a bit of a regular team, as they won a match together back on SMASH 8 and were scheduled to team up again on SMASH 10, though transportation issues kept Knight off the card.

Mentallo kicks it off with Lin Bairon, and they trade armdrags with the masked man getting the upper hand. Some basic mat wrestling follows, with Lin getting outdone at every turn. Despite this, Mentallo asks for a handshake, and he effectuates the subtle heel turn when he turns the ‘shake into another armbar. They do a convoluted spot in which Bairon catches her man with a lucha-esque armdrag, prompting a tag to KUSHIDA. Lin takes him down and out of the ring with a satellite headscissors before Golem Knight makes his first appearance in the match. He tosses Mentallo from the ring and stands on the second rope and bends over, making his back into a platform from which Lin leaps off with a HIGH CROSS to the floor on both KUSHIDA and Mentallo. Back on the inside, there’s an attempt at double teaming by the Israeli-Chinese team, but KUSHIDA breaks it up. He suffers the wrath of the Knight as a result, getting pounded on and hit with a brainbuster for two. Lin tags in and follows up with a flipping senton before placing KUSHIDA into a camel clutch. He tries to crawl to the ropes, but Bairon, ever the dirty fighter, grabs an arm and starts biting it. Before long, the young lady is chopping away on her opponent in the corner, though KUSHIDA reverses an Irish whip and superkicks her RIGHT IN THE FACE for a nearfall.

Bairon is placed in a half Boston crab by Tajiri’s prize pupil, but she refuses to tap out and grabs the bottom rope. From there, Mentallo returns to the match and gives Bairon a version of the airplane spin, which he follows with an inverted atomic drop and a short-arm clothesline. What decade is this, again? There’s a quick tag to KUSHIDA, who hits an armdrag and covers to get two. KUSHIDA grabs an armbar for a bit and sends Bairon into the turnbuckles when she rolls out of it. However, another attempt to send her into the buckles fails and gives the lady the opening she needs to forearm and chop away at both KUSHIDA and Mentallo . . . though ‘SHIDA cuts off her momentum with a cartwheel into a basement dropkick. Like the superkick earlier, that caught her right in the kisser. Mentallo tags in for the double team, and the two try for a version of poetry in motion. Before Mentallo can spring off of KUSHIDA’s back, though, Bairon runs out of the corner and uses the platform for her own purposes, hitting a huricanrana.

That gives us our hot tag to Golem Knight. The Israeli runs wild with basic big man offense and a spinebuster that takes out Mentallo. KUSHIDA leaps right into Knight’s arms to set up a Death Valley Driver, after which Golem looks for an avalanche on Mentallo. The masked man tries to counter it with a tornado DDT, but he’s thrown off and slammed at the last minute. The joke is on Knight, though, as seconds later Mentallo DOES connect with a tornado DDT when Knight tries to whip him into the ropes. Bairon breaks up a pin attempt, giving KUSHIDA and Mentallo a chance to hit a great double team in which KUSHIDA’s springboard dropkick carries Knight over into Mentallo’s German suplex. Knight quickly rallies with a double clothesline on both of his opponents, after which Bairon takes KUSHIDA down with a rana and Golem lariats him for two. The big man looks for a powerbomb, but Mentallo saves and hits a double superkick with KUSHIDA. In an impressive visual, Mentallo actually manages to get the bigger man up and over for a Finlay roll, which leads immediately into a second rope guillotine legdrop which connects at the same time as a standing moonsault from KUSHIDA.

KUSHIDA goes for a cover but only gets two as Bairon pulls Mentallo out of the ring. After that, she catches KUSHIDA off guard with a sleeper and chops him in the throat. Golem Knight tries to follow it up with a thunder fire bomb, but KUSHIDA rolls through with a flash rana to get the three count for his team.

Match Thoughts: This was another fairly solid, albeit unspectacular tag team match. Also, for the second match in a row, it was a bout in which it was clear that one of the four competitors was not in the league with the others, and, though he was not actively bad, you probably could’ve had an awesome bout if somebody one the same level was in the ring. The weak link here was Golem Knight who, despite being a perfectly acceptable wrestler for his level of experience, needs some more polish before he can really hang with a guy like KUSHIDA. He could also use a couple of lessons on how to wrestle like a big man, as he seems like he could be built into the mold of a Terry Gordy or a Bruiser Brody type but is currently bumping around and selling too much for smaller wrestlers to really fit into that mold. **1/2

Overall

Of course, we haven’t gone through the full show, so it’s impossible to give “overall” thoughts, but I will say that this is a very solid foundation and will wind up being one of the better SMASH shows I’ve seen thusfar from a pure in-ring perspective if the top three matches deliver. Granted, one of those is Tajiri vs. Gypsy Joe, which you can’t expect a ton of snowflakes out of, but there is also a Minoru Suzuki vs. Akira Shoji match that I’m expecting a fair bit out of and a bout between Hajime Ohara and the debuting Michael Kovac which Hajime probably has the ability to make good if Kovac is even halfway competent. Come back in seven days and we’ll see how the rest of the show unfolds!


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