Stop the Matsunaga V1.0 - Death to Battlarts

10/5/98 (B-CUP '98 Tournament R1) Yuki Ishikawa vs Mitsuhiro Matsunaga

Good vs Evil, Them vs Us, 2 mother fuckers that don't like each other about to fight. Ishikawa, Battlarts Ace, representitive of clean pure skill based sportsman like grappling & striking contest. Matsunaga, Mr. Danger, dastardly invader, representitive of anything goes, weapon wielding hardcore matches. Matsunaga waste no time getting things started as he whips out a fuckin sword he smugled into the ring and goes after Ishikawa. He then uses every other dirty trick he can think of, he stabs him with a fork, he uses chairs, he chokes, he stomps, he bites him with his vampire fangs, just for the hell of it he goes back to his martial arts roots and tosses in a few karate kicks and a suplex too. Ishikawa fights back here and thear but keeps getting cut off and gets bloodied up. He does kind of wussy blade job on his head actually but all is forgiven when a few mins later he goes to the complete other end of the spectrum of balls out manliness and gets his arm legit carved up by Matsunaga's fork and starts driping blood all over. Finally he's able to catch Matsunaga with something and make his comeback to the delight of the crowd, and since this match is about pride as much as anything he never results to using Matsunaga's own weaposn against him. Instead he proves his style is better and finishes him with holds & suplexes, a quick sleeper puts Matsunaga out and Ishikawa mounts him and rains down punches as the ref calls for the bell and gives him the KO victory. Pro Wrestling can't get any more Pro Wrestling then this match here.

5/14/99 (Bed of Nails Death Match) Yuki Ishikawa vs Mitsuhiro Matsunaga

Bed of Nails is always an interesting gimmick, because of how legit dangerous it no one ever takes any real bumps into the thing and you've gotta come up with unique ways to work around the limitation. In this they flat out just don't touch the thing but they do do a hell of a job teasing it and milking a lot of drama out of almost getting sent into the nails. I dug Matsunaga tying his belt to the ropes to avoid getting pushed off the apron. Eventually Matsunaga bust out the spike and bloodies up Ishikawa again, he brings in a barb wire bat but the ref gets whacked accidently. In a repeat of the last match Ishikawa gets the advantage, takes Matsunaga down with punches and a sleeper but this time with no ref he can't get the win and when he lets go Matsunaga recovers enough to toss a fireball at him then lock in a choke of his own which causes Ishikawa's seconds to toss in the towel. Post match Otsuka runs in to get Matsunaga off and he eats a fireball of his own. Not quite but almost as great as their first match in 98. Matsunaga is so awesome in the old school role of your special guest assasin heel. Someone who'd get old after a while in this environment but if you bring him in once a year for a short run, have him destroy some mid carders, spilling blood and causing chaos along the way then get beat by the big hero in the end it's fucking gold every time. So yeah, highest recomendation for this.

Battlarts 11/9/99 Alexander Otsuka vs Mitsuhiro Matsunaga

Final part of the saga. As I mentioned in the 1st review, Matsunaga vs Ishikawa was very much good vs evil with Ishikawa refusing to stoop to Matsunaga's lvl and out to prove that his way is best. This match is the opposite, Matsunaga has been terrorising the Bat Bat crew on & off for over a year now and Otsuka goes into this match on some eye for an eye type shit. Otsuka has no issues getting down & dirty, attacking before the bell, taking the fight into the crowd, swinging chairs, busting Matsunaga open, riping off Matsunaga's belt and trying to choke him out with it. Overwhelmed, Matsunaga is finally reduced to begging for a clean fight and offering Otsuka the hand of friendship. Reluctantly, Otsuka agrees and we get a minute or two of nice gentlemanly combat. The biggest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist so i've heard. Coming out on the losing end of a fair fight as well, Matsunaga rewards Otsuka's kind trusting nature with a fireball to the face. Follows that up with a spike to the head and oh dear god but Otsuka bleeds...and bleeds...and BLEEDS...EVERYWHEAR. The mat gets soaked, the ref gets soaked and Otsuka is a crimson mess. Matsunaga continues the punishment, stabing him more and more and more, in the head, in the arm, in the hand. Valiantly Otsuka refuses to die and fights back, he's able to fire up enough offense to knock Matsunaga outside and in an awesome visual hits a great bloody tope con hilo to wipe him out. The rest of the match is them going back & forth for a bit. Otsuka finally gains the upper hand again after a series of head butts and the crowd goes ape shit when that allows him to gain controll of the spike and go for revenge. Matsunaga gets saved by the ref and makes one last desperate attempt to win by throwing a 2nd fireball but Otsuka foils him before he can even light up. Otsuka nails him with a few more strikes and a suplex then locks him in a modified scorpion death lock. Knowing he has nothing left Matsunaga instantly taps and as soon as the seconds drag Otsuka off, Matsunaga limps away as fast as he can, a bloodied & beaten man, swinging his sword and cursing the name Alexander. Best match of the 3. I love wrestling :)

AJW Dreamslam 4/2/1993 Quick Thoughts

Re-watched Dreamslam 1 for the first time in I don't know how many years. Show's been talked to death so i'll only post quick thoughts

Plum Mariko & Hikori Fukuoka vs Sakie Hasegawa & Kaoru Ito - Perfect opener, came away really wishing we'd have gotten a Sakie vs Plum singles match at some point as they were great together.

Shark Tsuchiya & Crusher Maedomari vs Terri Power & Saemi Numata - Somehow even more awful then i'd remembered

Kaoru & Ultima Tigrita vs Tomoko Watanabe & Mima Shimoda - Not really a good match but better then I recalled. My memory was that this was really awkward and sloppy but wasn't that bad and for the most part decent.

Rumi Kazama & Miki Hanada vs Suzuka Minami & Etsuko Mita - A lot better then I recalled. Maybe went 5 mins too long but otherwise damn good. Love how the AJW vs LLPW feud had more hatred to it then any of the other interpromotional pairings.

(3WA Martial Arts Title) Bat Yoshinaga © vs Susan Howard - I've got a lot more tolerance for these sorts of matches now and this had a few enjoyable moments but for the most part was boring, draged and is still not my cup of tea.

Devil Masami vs Chigusa Nagayo - Match I was most worried about not holding up but I still found this to be really amazing. I'm sure this exceded whatever exspectations ppl had at the time going in with Chigusa coming out of retirement at the ripe old age of 28 and proving she hadn't lost a step at all. Just two masters going at it in a classic old school style battle. I've seen about 6 or 7 singles matches between these 2 and this is prob my second fave. Best match on the show after Hokuto vs Kandori

Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue vs Cutie Suzuki & Mayumi Ozaki - Great match, first 1/2 is really good though not as much as I remembered, 2nd half puts this over the top.

Bull Nakano & Aja Kong vs Harley Saito & Eagle Sawai - Not quite as good as I remembered but still a really solid affair. LLPW team actually seemed game to do more but the Mega Monsters didn't seem up for it.

Dynamite Kansai vs Yumiko Hotta - Remembered this as being a real good match but nothing super special in the grand scheme of things. The only thing that stayed with me was how stiff the match was. Watching it now I have a lot more apreciation for the entirety of it and not just the "oh wow what a kick" moments. The action was just as hard hitting as ever but in between all that I noticed for the first time that there was some really great selling and they built the match in a way to really milk the drama out of everything. Hotta especially steped up and had a good performance in this. Match is pretty much everything you could want out of battle between these two. Great stuff

Akira Hokuto vs Shinobu Kandori - Contender for greatest match ever, nuff said.

Manami Toyoda & Toshiyo Yamada vs Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyota - Fuckin hell this did not age well. Memory of this was being slightly disapointing but decent enough overall. Nope, much much worse then that. First 2/3 of this are abysmall. Ugly, awkward, no chemistry, no heat & doesn't play to anyones strengths. Just 4 great wrestlers having a horribly off night. The last 1/3 is actually pretty good once they get to the give sequence and start busting out the bigger moves and they manage to actually get the crowd back into things but yeah, so not fun up until then. Makes me apreciate their aweome 5/5 rematch even more.