October 1993

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Two barrel chested bastards throwing tables at each others heads, bleeding and cracking each other hard with open palm blows and headbutts. If that premise for a match is not enough to get you to watch this, you came to the wrong board. Black Cat looked very good here, he threw a great punch and knew how to keep things moving. Initially he was the aggressor but after Fuyuki seemingly hardway'd him with a series of headbutts he turns into the babyface and even does a strap drop. Whenever the action spilt to the floor, Cat seemed out to seriously hurt his opponent. For example, Fuyuki would connect him with a foreign object, and it was one of those "worked" looking foreign …

This was fucking brilliant, built around Hokuto's "leg injury". Hokuto tried to hit when counters when she could, but Kong was a dominant force and worked the leg in her way. Some amazing spots like Hokuto countering a discus backfist with a spinning leg kick. Hokuto's selling was out of this world. Just beautiful pro wrestling. 9/10

This is a big battle between generations, Devil debuted in 1978 and Kyoko in 1988. Kyoko gives a sincere bow of respect at the start. Devil controls the majority of this, cutting a slower pace than you'd normally see in a Kyoko Inoue match and making it feel like Kyoko has to dig deeper than normal to keep herself in this. There's a good few moments where Kyoko attempts her usual offense but gets cut off by Devil's size, or needs to really struggle to pull it off. Her Giant Swing looked pretty precarious! I'm watching this thinking Devil has one of the best lariats in Joshi when Kyoko eventually fires back with one of her own and takes her down to a wooooooah from the cr…

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This is naturally disappointing if you compare it with both women's best matches, their name value, or even the tag matches they had against each other; but once you get over the fact it's imperfect, it's actually a match with a lot going for it. The early going is mostly bitchiness and trash talking with Toyota applying submissions that Ozaki will never give into and Oz looking to cut down the height advantage by keeping Toyota grounded. Sticklers might argue that Ozaki's arm work doesn't lead anywhere, but it's not meant to. As with most Joshi matwork, it's needle, not a serious attempt at ending the match. Ozaki is focused on attack, which she needs to be with the heig…

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A tight, no nonsense match from two venerable upper-midcard bruisers. I particularly liked Arn's comeback spot which was just a series of stomps to Regal's mid section. He worked the exact same way he did when he was a bag guy but got cheered for it. There was unbelievable sustained heat from the Center Stage crowd who threw the preverbial babies in the air when Arn hit the spinebuster. They came just a few seconds shy of a perfectly timed finish. After hitting the spinebuster, Arn had to lie still without making the cover to allow the seven seconds left on the clock to drain away. The referee danced about the two men in a frankly silly manner before counting two and…

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This is a fantastic hidden gem. Aja and Sakie seem like an odd team at first, Monster Heel/Ace and the loveable underdog midcarder, but they make it work as the story of their partnership is Aja trying to bring out a killer instinct out of Sakie so she can elevate herself. There's nice spots like Aja chopping Kyoko super hard in the corner when Sakie is being half-hearted about it, or get Sakie to hold someone in a camel clutch so Aja can boot her in the chest. Sakie looks a bit "omg I can't believe I did that" afterwards but then rolls with it. Kyoko and Toshiyo are very good as well, Kyoko especially murders Sakie with a lariat when it's her time to take control. *…

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