Random Quickie - Chikara 8/17/07 International Invaders Weekend Night 1

- Rahim Ali vs Shane Storm
- Alex Payne vs Tim Donst
- USApe vs Moscow
- Shayne Hawke vs Jigsaw

Ape vs Moscow was kind of fun, helped that they kept it short, the other 3 were some mix between awful, boring & generic. All went short and you were glad of it too. Also random thought, in the monkey vs cow match, Moohamad the terrorist cow came out to distract Moscow and cause him to lose. Why's the terrorist cow have to be named Moohamad? Seems kind of racist if ya ask me. Why can't the terrorist cow be named Steve???

- Olsen Twins & Brodie Lee vs Fire Ant Soldier Ant & Worker Ant

First decent match of the show, Olsen's always rule and Brodie killed folks in a pleasing manner.

- Claudio Castagnoli vs Akira Raijin

Surprisingly good. They took it to the mat and had a real nice back and forth exchange of holds. Made me want to track down more Raijin stuff. One of the few matches on the show to get a decent amount of time and they made good use of it.

- Pac vs Ricochet

For something they were touting as a "dream match" even back then this was kinda disapointing. Not bad per se but they only got like 8 mins, enough to go back and forth with random flashy dives but not enough to build into anything special. Nice for what it was but could & should have been so much more.

- Eddie Kingston vs Brute Issei

Kinda fun in a big guy lumbering slug fest sorta way. Brute kinda struggled a little to keep up and seemed lost at times but Kingston brought it.

- Chris Hero, Larry Sweeney, Chuck Taylor & Mitch Ryder vs Las Chivas, Equinox & Lince Dorado

Wasn't exspecting anything going in but holy fuck this was an awesome match. Great mixing of styles, comedy & faux lucha to start, great old school FIP beat down section on Equinox in the middle and your typical indy style dive fest, 2.9 a thon to end things. Everyone was on, including Chivas & Equinox who I didn't have high hopes for but those 3 stole the show actually. Surpised this didn't make Chikara's best of 07 Smart Mark set.

- (Chikara Tag Titles - 2 out of 3 Falls) F.I.S.T. vs Los Ice Creams

This on the other hand kinda stunk. The action was OK but there was a little too much stupidity and screwiness wiith their own internal logic that it took away from everything. 2 people in the ring attacking 1 guy = not ok. 2 people pinning 1 guy at the same time = OK. No physical tags needed, just leave the ring & your partner can come in = fine, leaving the ring while the ref isn't looking = not fine. 30 second break in between falls unless 1 team decideds they don't want to at which point the ref says "ok then, ring the bell, go ahead". Dumb dumb dumb...

Random Quickie - Michinoku Pro 12/16/2010 Dick Togo vs Rui Hyugaji

Wrestling's awesome in how simple it can be. I'd never seen or even heard of Hyugaji before this match but they show a short 2 minute video package before this match and it does a great job of setting up the story. A month ago young goody goody Hyugai turned heel to join up with the evil gang Kowloon by attacking Togo and helping them win a match so now they're gonna fight. I'm sure things are more detailed then that but that's the basic jist of things and all you really need to know. Guess i'm a little late to the party on this one as I see it did quite well in the Purotopia best of list. But yeah, this match ruled. Reading over a few people's thoughts on this something that I don't think has been brought up nearly as much as it should is just how much this works as Togo fighting a younger version of himself. They're not similar in move set or skill wise of course but personality wise yeah. Togo's been in Kaientai, Far East Connection, Legion of Violence, the Itallian Horsemen and every other kinda bad ass heel group you can imagine all over the wrestling world. Now here he is in this match, almost 20 years into the business, a few months shy of retirement, bloodied up, in the fight of his life against a young upstart wanna be kid. A kid who's only 3 years into his career, a kid who was fuckin 3 years old when Dick Togo started wrestling, a kid trying to prove he's a man now, a man who's a bigger Dick then Dick. Stuff like this is why wrestling's great.

Random Quickie - FMW 9/19/1992 Megumi Kudo & Combat Toyoda vs Bull Nakano & Akira Hokuto

And so it begins, the very 1st interpromotional match in joshi history. There's a complete fan cam of this floating around some whear out thear but the version I have only shows a little less then half the match. You still get a good feel for how this went and just based on what aired it's one of the best matches of the year. Kudo & Combat, the 2 AJW rejects who weren't considered good enough and got let go from the promotion fighting against 2 of the current top stars from that company. Kudo & Combat step up fully and more then prove they belong at that level and this ends up being pretty much everything you could want out of a match like this. Off the charts intensity, action, hatred, emotion, everything tha makes wretling great and a huge crowd going ape shit for all of it. In the end Kudo falls to a leg drop from Bull crushing team FMW's dreams. The Zenjo girls talk shit on the mic in celebration while Kudo & Combat walk away dejected with their heads down. FMW wouldn't be FMW if they weren't the underdogs though and things are just getting started here.

Random Quickie - Stardom Debut show 1/23/2011

Quick thoughts on Stardom's debut show

1. Nanae Takahashi & Iris vs Natsuki*Taiyo & Yuzuki Aikawa
2. Mika Nagano vs Eri Susa
3. Haruka vs Passion Nakki
4. Arisa Hoshiki vs Mayu Iwatani
5. Yoko Bito vs Yoshiko

Opener was pretty good, especially the final stretch once it got down to Nanae & Yuzu. I'll be blunt and just say I thought Iris stunk. Trying way too hard to do stuff beyond her level. Sometimes simple is best. Yuzu is def the real deal though, a lot of girls in joshi have made a career out of having 90% kick offense and being able to take a good beating so i'm fine with her going that route.

Nagano/Susa didn't much care for. Nagano looked awesome, wish she'd wrestle more often but Susa wasn't impressive at all.

Not a fan of the kids wrestling either. Got 10 secs into Haruka/Passion Nakki and hit the ff button. Cursious to see the Hirota matches if they make tape but otherwise i'll be doing the same for any future matches she's in.

Arisa vs Mayu was quite good for a rookies match. Unlike Iris they actually pulled off their flashy stuff well and Arisa has some nice looking kicks. Arisa seems like she could be a cool heel if they ever wanted to go that way.

Yoko/Yoshiko was just ok to me. Maybe it's because they showed a ton of footage of Yoshiko being a typical giggly, smiling teen, cracking jokes at dinner all happy with everyone else earlier in the show but I had a hard time getting into her "grrrr, now i'm an angry anti social bad girl" act, just came across really forced and un-natural. A lot of her wrestling was clunky too but eh, there's some potential thear. As yet another chick trying to work a kicker gimmick Bito really did come across like the least talented one at it. Not as hurty lookin as Yuzu's and not as pretty lookin as Arisa's. There were some nice moments in this too though.

So overall, 2 matches I really liked, 2 I didn't and 1 in the middle. Won't make me forget GAEA's debut or anything but for a 1st show featuring a roster that's like 75% rookies having their 1st or 2nd matches this wasn't too bad.
Taiyo

1 Shot Quickie :) - Haruyama vs Mita

1/27/2008 (Kayoko Haruyama 10th Anniversary Match) Haruyama vs Etsuko Mita

A few months before she was going to win the title, you kind of take for granted/exspect a good effort from Bari Bari girl and that's we got here. 2008 Mita on the other hand you don't exactly go in exspecting much of anything but holy shit she busted ass here. They smartly worked around her limitations, mainly not being super mobile though she did bust out a sweet running suicide dive and played up her remaining strengths, having great psychology, knowing how to build things well and still being able to bump like crazy and do some cool power stuff. This went from being good for a modern Mita match, to being a pretty good match period to by the end just a damn good match period. One of the better matches JWP's put up on their site in quite a while.