May 1993

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Two highly skilled judokas work a Battlarts match and it rules. I’m not usually a fan of 90s joshi pacing, but a five minute sprint is much more digestible than a half an hour one, especially when it serves as a showcase of legit techniques and not missile dropkicks and half nelson chickenwing suplexes. Kazunina makes me a fan by doing a beautiful O-goshi five seconds into a match, and not that I wouldn’t have liked this if this were just a million hip throws-but they really do a fantastic job of structuring things in such a way that always keeps you guessing by also utilizing hand techniques, sacrifice throws, Kosen/BJJ-like sweeps, creating neat grappling sequences arou…

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Takayama gives zero shits about BN Allen. He knees him in the corner, German suplexes him, kicks him while's down. Allen does his usual thing -- a couple takedowns, a couple holds -- but Takayama is a lot more resilient than previous opponents. Still, not a very good match and Allen wins with the JUJI~GATAME!

It's another killer Albright squash but it's also Dennis Koslowski's best performance in UWFi thus far. Thankfully, he's back in the singlet, coming out to "Born to Run". Albright says fuck your Steve Rogers-ass handshake but Koslowski shows dominance early on, putting him in a single leg and dragging him back to the middle to make him fight for the ropes. Then Albright hits a backdrop suplex and a deadlfit German but Koslowski comes back, arm whip throwing him down and putting him a pretty dope neck crank. When Albright tries to suplex again, Koslowski counters with a great judo throw. They fight for the belly-to-belly (Albright wins) and then Dennis is KO'd with the dra…

This was an odd match-up. A little disjointed, maybe. I don't know if I would call it good match but it had some good moments. They both had some nice takedowns, especially Yamazaki's leg catch. Miyato slapping and kicking his way out of a hold, followed by a brief moment of heat. Yamazaki starts in with the kicks, hits the German, they fight over holds until Yamazaki gets pissy and tries choking him out of the guillotine. Big moment when Miyato gets to the ropes but then Yamazaki hits another German and taps him with the Fujiwara armbar. A decent match,

Easily big Gene's best showing since his debut. Heated opening between he and Kakihara to open, with plenty of suplexes thrown and holds fought over. Lydick's trying a little bit of everything, which is a lot of fun to watch. Burton and Anjoh have decent exchanges as well, with Anjoh obviously having fun at Burton's expense. Burton sucks but he's a perfect guy to get his ass kicked in there. His fakeout slaps to Anjoh were great. Also, Lydick chasing Anjoh almost out of the ring was awesome, Anjoh pretending like he's going to fight Lydick, then immediately tagging out to Kakihara. Finish was fucked as Anjoh breaks one of Burton's fingers with a kick and they call the m…

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Regrettably, Severn is out of the black trunks and rocking the USA singlet, which means serious business -- I mean, he elects not to shake Takada's hands. This was a pretty formulaic Takada match. Takada plays good defense early on, using leg kicks, knee strikes, blocking Severn’s takedown attempts. Takada tries to block the belly-to-belly but can't and Severn follows that up with a neat front suplex before the match stalls on the ground and turns into Takada's finishing stretch of leg kicks and an armbar. Severn not being in a dominant role hurt this match (and the obvious lack of black trunks).

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Barry Windham defends the prestigious NWA World Heavyweight title....in a high school gym...before about 300 people... Big Van Vader was the WCW World Heavyweight Champion at this time. Dustin Rhodes is the US Champ, but only Windham's belt is on the line. Dustin gets the advantage during the initial lockup, punching Barry in the corner and gets a high backdrop, Windham rolls out of the ring. Windham takes Dustin down with a side headlock, but Dustin quickly escapes. Barry chops and elbows Dustin in the corner, Dustin nails some big punches from the bottom, and takes Windham down again. Dustin hits a suplex and gets a two count. These guys like t…