July 1998

The mastery of Volk Han is obvious from his very first takedown and Yamamoto is a good opponent for him, once again feisty with the strikes. But Han is able to weather the storm in order to school Yamamoto on the mat, which is perhaps a good lesson for Kenichi. At one point, Han tries for his patented hammerlock throw but Yamamoto is able to turn it into a jujigatame attempt and when Han tries to counter out, Yamamoto counters with a triangle choke to force the rope break. Yamamoto does a pretty good job of blocking a lot of Han’s attempts and turning the tables. In fact, he puts Han on the rocks, within a point of defeat. The final minute or so is exciting stuff as Yamam…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Remember when I talked about standing exchanges earlier? This starts out with another super neat one that feels like you're watching Misawa vs. Kawada or something. Then they get down on the mat with Tamada targeting Fukawa's bandaged shoulder and Fukawa returning the favor with a couple armbars of her own. They abandon the groundwork in favor of going for bigger moves and I don't mind it as they keep it building nicely and making the big moves feel important. Match starts getting a little wonky and I'm ready to write that these matches all start like a house of fire only to go completely of the rails in the second half, but instead a shock finish occurs and I will shut u…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Hey... this is another kind of match you don't see that much anymore. They nuke eachother with highspots nonstop, fuck all rhyme or reason, but the match stays short enough to not piss you off. The first 2 minutes of the match have 5 Michinoku Drivers – with TAKA eating 3 of them in a row and laughing about it a minute later. If you can get over that kind of idiocy, there was some fun to be had here. Cougar and Palomino bring the highspots, Cougar hits about half a dozen guillotine legdrop variations, and Palomino has nice height on a standing huracanrana and a great tope. TAKA and Orihara add some character work – meaning middle fingers and low blows. Taka also flops his…

Big badass brawl pitting Goto against Kaientai (who are all in WWF gear and have Yamaguchi-San with them), but mainly Goto against Togo. I loved the opening, which has Goto attacking Yamaguchi only to be hit by big Togo diving senton. Then chaos ensues and Togo is recklessly flying into chairs. Easily one of the better „opening brawling“ segments I can remember from a match in Korakuen Hall. Togo ends up busted open and has his cut worked over. Togo gives a really great performance here, and Goto and Aoyagi are great working the cut (Azteca is decent too).Goto uses foreign objects, while Aoyagi throws punches and kicks at Togo's face. Goto is so great here as a grotesque …

This was a really fun trios where guys mostly run in to do fun shit. Itakura likes to throw stiff kicks, but ends up taking a big beating and ends up suplexed into a bunch of chairs. Fujiwara was mostly slapping the taste out of people's mouths and Nakano, for a UWF guy, mostly focussed on bringing hurty looking strikes, at one point raining punches to the back of Itakura's head from back mount. Go was off the chain here and acted like a crazy motherfucker you wouldn't want to confront, ramming into people with headbutts like a madman. Yatsu and Okamura were decent enough but mostly this was a showcase for the fun stuff the Fujiwara/Nakano/Go dream team could do.

Talk about it here.

Even when he's failing physically and he's a mere six months from death, Baba is still over and it's a big deal when he enters the arena. The house lights fade and the crowd erupt as his music plays throughout the Budokan. I've always liked the idea of having your older guys work in lowercard comedy matches to see their careers out, but this was a chore to sit through. The comedy is scarce and the work rate was virtually non-existent. It's mostly guys in their late 40s and 50s awkwardly slapping each other around for over ten minutes. Kikuchi was easily the most impressive here, who has the best comedy skills by far. Baba doesn't get involved much and I was surprised to s…

If your only exposure to 90's AJPW is the big matches between The Four Pillars & Co, then there is a strong chance you've never seen anything from the forgettable midcarders that featured in this match. Johnny Ace is probably the most prolific and he spends the majority of this match being beaten down by the monster heels until he is able to score a tag to Wolf Hawkfield. Wolf, who has brilliant look, sadly has the gimmick of being a character from the Virtua Fighter series and he didn't impress me much during his brief time as the legal man. Johnny Smith is a generic decent wrestler who has obviously based his entire wrestling style on Dynamite Kid. He's nowhere near…

Talk about it here.

Inoue is not known for his physical skill set, instead solidifying himself during the 2000's as a dependable opener by using his comedy chops. Kakihara on the other hand, is physical shoot style beast equipped with some pin-point accurate kicks and deadly submission holds. Inoue gets a few lucky strikes in and wear his opponent by using some classic pro-wrestling techniques as raking the eyes, but it's not long before he's tapped out by the superior athlete. Inoue has his stoogey selling down and Kakihara's shoot stuff looked decent. ★★

This whole match is built around Kawada vs Hase and the Mossman and Omori are just here for the ride. Kawada is hesitant to go near Hase at the start, tagging out as soon as Hase becomes the legal man. This adds to the tension and it feels like a big deal when they finally go at it. Hase was great at being a smug asshole by having some great facial expressions. Mossman and Omori added very little to this, and are just here to break the action apart. Mossman looked very bad here. He was all over the place and even botch a small package, rolling his opponent up right into the ropes. This had a fun finishing stretch. Hase no-selling a spike German suplex came across as dumb,…

With his black tights and boots and having a similar brawling powerhouse style, Baby Morishima reminded me of Jumbo Tsuruta. Morishima works on snug headlock on Honda and doesn't let it go even after getting slammed. He's still no match for Honda, who is able to win after locking on a tight STF. This was a solid match to showcase Morishima against an established wrestler and for Honda to show of his mat skills. Morishima still needs to find his own gimmick and style, but has a lot more promise here than say, Kanemaru, Inoue and Shiga. ★★