May 1996

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This was a pleasant surprise, as I'd actually listed this match in a thread about videos you hope surface some day. It's nice when your hopes get answered but even better when what you hoped for more than lives up to your expectations for it. El Felino and Mascara Magica got over thirty minutes at Arena Coliseo to have a great match. That was it--no clipping, no rushing, and the promotion actually gave them a bit of controversy to help the match feel bigger. It was one of those title fights where they actually set out to hurt each other. The holds in the first fall were tough and hard fought, in addition to being technically very good, but it was afterwards that they turn…

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Probably the best match on an otherwise underwhelming show. Mikhail is wilding out with the kicks and airplane spins and single leg crabs and big open hand slaps, and the Russian crowd is loving every minute of it. He throws TK with a belly-to-belly into a neck crank and TK is trying to get something going, throwing knees, grabbing holds, but Mikhail blows right through them. At one point, he's clearly just showing off, trying to deadlift TK off the mat. Mikhail pummels TK with palm strikes for a knockdown but TK is quick to pop up and drops Mikhail with a pretty sick uranage. Good back-and-forth struggle toward the end, although Mikhail stays aggressive throughout with t…

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I was surprised to see how this match actually looked like, since I remembered it just as a couple of minutes of awesome striking. On a rewatch the almost five minutes were still awesome, but their content and what made it work quite different. It's true that there were strike exchanges-and they worked for the characters, Nakano is an undercard shoot wrestler overmatched by Tenryu, who uses sumo-style slapping shoves to corner Nakano time and time again. Nakano's only chances are in going for a submission and utilizing kicks-and even in such a short match they'll take their time in Tenryu recuperating from an Armbar and setting the pace for their next show-off instead of …

This was the feud that brought Sable into the WWF. Even here, it's clear that she's starting to outshine her husband. Mero has the corniest facials, but he can go in the ring, delivering crisp high flying offense. He hits a gorgeous no-handed rolling leg clutch during this match. Helmsley is working more like a ring general here, who bumps like HBK for Mero during his comeback. He works down Mero's arm and we even see Trips work an armbar on poor Mero. HHH must have been watching his RINGS. This has a slow, methodical yet rewarding build, with Mero's arm letting him down. One moment sees him attempting an backslide, only for him to abort the maneuver when his arm gives h…

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I did not know Nogami ever worked shoot style. Or this approximation of it, at least. They don't use the points system and there's a nearfall off a German suplex, so I guess it's a mishmash of shoot/pro. For five minutes I thought this was pretty tidy. Kanehara has big time strikes and tries to kick Nogami's leg in half and Nogami sells it like he has half a leg. Kanehara goes for a big KO shot, but Nogami ducks it and hits a German for a nearfall,which is about the most headway he'd been able to make up to that point. He then tried to follow up with another, because why wouldn't he, I guess? but Kanehara rolls through into a kneebar and Nogami has no choice but to tap. P…

How about this for a lumpy undercard dream match? This was like some parallel universe Dark Tower shit because both guys are basically each other if their career trajectories happened to be swapped. Nakano works SWS/WAR? He's Kitahara. Kitahara does shoot style and ends up in a Takada promotion? He's Nakano. To be fair, though, I actually didn't expect Kitahara to be as fun in this environment. I mean, it isn't really a shoot style match as opposed to a pro style match with shoot style trappings, but it was a neat enough amalgamation and I liked how Kitahara handled himself. The early mat exchange was nice and solid and once again Nakano ends up with a bloody nose. It mus…

Man this ruled. I don't know why, but these two do not like each other and we get an awesome start with Yamamoto charging in straight away flinging slaps and Sano pump kicking him in the face. This was more Battlartsy than a New Japan/UWFi mishmash. Naoki Sano was fucking awesome at the pro wrestling, man. He's always able to incorporate pro style moves into a shoot style setting in really cool and organic ways. In this he applied what was basically a scorpion deathlock, then transitioned into an STF/choke, then into a regular crossface. Yamamoto stood him up and planted Sano right on his neck with a backdrop, but then got ahead of himself in the stand up and Sano OBLITER…

I liked this while it lasted, but it had a bummer of a finish that I assume was unplanned. There was lots of Fujiwara playing defence in this and it was pretty great, which should be unsurprising because nobody has ever been better at playing defence than Fujiwara. Takada caught him with a leg kick early and I love how Fujiwara tried to nonchalantly walk it off, but he couldn't hide that dead leg limp and the crowd picked up on it. Takada tried to force the issue on the mat and there was one bit where he almost grabbed a triangle, and Fujiwara was wheezing and drooling trying to fight it. Fujiwara went down at the end like he'd punctured a lung, but this was just starting…

This started out great with Kakihara rifling off a big slap and Kosh dropping him with a brutal, side-of-the-head brainbuster. For the most part the match continued in that vein. One thing I've liked about this show is catching a glimpse of some shoot style guys working a bit of pro style. Sano's obviously always been awesome at it and I'd seen Anjoh work it plenty of times. Takayama had one of the best heavyweight runs of the 00s. But it was cool seeing Nakano do it, and it was cool seeing Kakihara do it too (though I suppose you could argue UWFi always had some pro style elements). He only had six minutes to work with (lot of 5-6 minute fights on this card), but he made…