June 1994

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This was perfectly decent, with plenty of feisty strikes from Takayama, a couple of cool suplexes, and competitive, back-and-forth action with a little slop thrown in. I liked the finish from Billy, with the dragon screw into the single leg crab, and he got a big reaction from the fans.

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Fun little wrestler vs karateka match. Kobayashi didn't particularly impress here but Hirai looked amazing, really carried the match with his selling (which made Kobayashi's offence seem three times better than it did) and timing of comebacks and takedowns, as well as neat suplexes. ***

WHO IS JAMES MAGNUM?? Magnum looks like Randy the Ram and I love him and the bullseye he has on his butt. They totally missed out not showing Randy the Ram getting KO'd in a 90s primitive MMA fight in that movie. Magnum pussies into the corner, to start but blindsides Kitao with a huge forearm to the eye and looks in a quasi stretch plum. Kitao NUKES him with a Uranage, but Magnum says fuck YOU and headbutts him in the jaw! Magnum follows with some more awesome headbutts holding Kitao's pants, but eats a knee to the face before Kitao cripples him with a series of low kicks. Awesome squash match.

This was too bizarre for me not to love. Carson wrestles like a prototypical 1990s american heavyweight, doing worked kickstomps and shoulder blocks. There's a section where he just stands there and lets Kitahara kicks him for a while, and then kinda brushes it off. Finish sees Kitahara hit a brutal knee followed by a Reverse WAR Special which looks more like a forgotten nasty shoulder/neck lock from on old instructional than what you'd expect a Reverse WAR Special to look (a dumb double underhook), after which he swears at Carson and they both act as it had been a shoot. Magnificently weird. **3/4

YEAH~~! I cannot express how perfect Kurisu is on this card. Okamura is the next ultra-green reckless kicker from Kitao's Dojo and nowhere near as on-point as Mochizuki. This goes exactly how you imagine it to go from how it looks on paper: Okamura recklessly kicking Kurisu in the face a bunch of times, and Kurisu Kurisu'ing the fuck out Okamura. Because this fed is quasi-shootstyle, there's no brawling or chairs, so instead Kurisu mainly focusses on stomping and headbutting Okamura into a coma. Kurisu has about the most god awful stomps on film, as he puts the boots to Okamura's head, ears, and neck. To make things worse, Okamura even increases the trainwreck potential b…

AND – this was one of the best rookie vs. Rookie opening matches I've ever seen – and really the perfect opening match for this kind of fed: fast, short, brutal, to the point, and with purpose – as the audience was dying to see young Mochi make a dent and topple the slightly more experienced Yasuraoka. This match also shows how good Yasuraoka could be when he wasn't stuck in a spotfest with Lance fucking Storm, simply by not backing down from reckless kicker Mochizuki. Yasuraoka absorbing Mochi's opening barrage, creating an opening with a big headbutt and then downing Mochi with a huge slap was such a simple, but badass sequence. Both guys came across as aggressive, fast…

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Kind of a tale of two matches because the half of this match before the stoppage was really good. You have Han kicking Maeda in the face to start, dominating with submission holds and Maeda's great in-the-moment selling to rally the fans. Maeda's able to down him with a high kick but Han slides in for his signature standing single leg. Maeda pisses off Han with repeat leg kicks and when Han lays into him with strikes, he ends up poking Maeda's eye and they stop the match. When they restart, there is a lot more stalling, Maeda's more hesitant, his takedowns look really weak like he's scared of getting hit again. Some of the groundwork is cool like Maeda's controlling of th…

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