December 1998

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Norton was getting some bad reviews from smarks in 1998, but then so did Fujiwara and Tarzan Goto. This was of course an IWGP title match that was worked like a WCWSN semi squash, but still thought Norton looked really good. He did a great job selling for Nakanishi, including bumping big over the top rope and selling accumulated damage. He also absolutely blistered him with chops, so he was kind of your 1998 Walter type. That they got the somewhat quiet crowd to go bonkers for Nakanishi over the course of 7 minutes was great too. Wouldn't mind checking out more Norton.

Really fun all star tag which delivers more of that Hash/Tenryu goodness. This time with the added dynamic of having Koshinaka ready to cheapshot Hash when needed. Not an epic showdown and not as heated as this would be in 1993, but a really well worked match with everyone playing their role. It's always so much fun to watch Hash and Tenryu slugging it out and Fujinami is also really cool here, knocking the taste of Tenryus mouth with a huge slap and working in nifty counters in this fast paced match. He is a great contrast to the heavyweight sluggers.

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We move straight to the finals. And also the first appearance of Hiromi Yagi! Apparently in ARSION she was mostly used in tags in 1998, which is a bit of shame because she was pure gold here. She was a feisty harpy cladded in leopard fur and did all these brilliant swank moves, including a chickenwing style suplex and chokehold that really need to be stolen. Watching this match, I was wondering if Arsion with it's reintroduction of lucha into the joshi style was merely a return to those early 80s Jaguar Yokota tags which are heavy on lucha. Because they do all this flying around and ranas and you have Hamada doing headbutts like her Papa, and between that they go into all…

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Another decent grappling match, altough they ran out of ideas. Match should've gone 8 or 7 minutes and would've been good, at 11 minutes it felt slightly bloated. I was surprised that Kotsubo didn't stink it up, he kept things moving, had a really nice stiff punch combo and won the match with a olympic leg screw into ankle hold that was pretty boss.

BattlARTS young guns square off! For some reason, junji.com works more shootstyle in MUGA than I've ever seen from him in BattlARTS. This was super fun, two flyweights who can hit the mat doing some really nice grappling, and then doing a mighty fine job working some pro style spots and nearfalls. The awesome thing about watching two obscure low ranked guys in an undercard match is that you have no idea who is going to win and what their finishers are. So I bit on all the nearfalls here. Really liked the well timed dropkick, the ultra-slick submission counter from Hidaka, junji landing his goofy elbow combination into a submission nearfall, etc. Rocking little match.