Jetlag

Gilbert vs. Finlay in Germany got reuploaded and its a tremendous match: This probably won't sway the consensus on Eddie Gilbert but it's kind of a What could have been? as it's just a really heated long match in a smoked out German hall. The best Germany matches are kind closer to Memphis main events. This does a tremendous job building. Finlay brings his European style stiffness and snug holds, and Gilberts southern funk in this setting is wonderful. Gilbert mostly sticks to forearms and elbows but unloads a Lawleresque punch combo at one point. Finlay is an all out hell here barraging Gilbert with cheap attacks and rough moves, but the crowd is still split which amuses me. Last round was just great. It's insane they ran this and Liger vs. Schuhmann the same night.

This guy lately uploaded a metric ton of European era Finlay. Some of it has seeped out on various German handheld channels, but this is everything in one place and it has some matches that I haven't seen online in forever, like the Scorpio match and him taking on Eddie Gilbert. https://www.youtube.com/user/signsquad123/videos

Great post! I had no idea that even happened. Did Dos Caras make TV in the 2000s here or there? He looked sharp.

Brief, all too brief Koichiro Kimura watchlist. Wish there was more early DDT footage. Koichiro Kimura & Hopper King vs. Black Hole & Fumio Akiyama A bunch of legit martial artists and strange masked gimmicks step up to work a more surrealist BattlARTS match. Lots of nasty potatoes and credible shootstyle exchanges. Black Hole was inspiring - a fat dude with a genuinely cool mask, clubbing Vader like blows and judo throws. Hopper King is Super Rider and doesn't hold back with the kicks. Most importantly this had the kind of chippy fighting that elevates pro wrestling. Loved how Kimura wouldn't accept Akiyama breaking up his submission attempts. Then Kimura tried tooling Black Hole only to get rocked by those swinging fists. Even the crowd brawling was fun and the finish absolutely nasty. This was everything. Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI & Super Uchu Power vs. Issei Fujisawa & Yuki Nishino & Takashi Sasaki (DDT 1/16/2001) - GREAT Man DDT used to be awesome, what the fuck happened to that company?! This was 6 dudes who have no problem cracking each other hard cracking eachother really hard for 11 minutes. Fujisawa is a Kensuke Sasaki lookalike doing a tribute gimmick, and while that would result in a lot of lame jokes nowadays here he plays his shtick completely straight. He makes for a really effective underdog and comes back throwing hard crowbar lariats. Super Uchu Power is so menacing and awesome in these matches, like Super Dragon without the humor, in a match where everyone is working stiff he cracks dudes extra hard, anytime he is in there with Fujisawa you expect him to kick that poor little dudes face in. MIKAMI also has no problem hitting stiff dropkicks and just crushing dudes with full bodyweight sentons and double stomps, how have I never heard anyone talk about how awesome that guy is?! Toba is of course the man punching everyone in the face. He had some particularily great exchanges with Takashi Sasaki (man I’m pissed about how that guy wasted the rest of his career) and busted out some fun out of nowhere rollups. The match was a grandstand Toba exchange in the finishing stretch away from reaching into EPIC territory and these guys were working an undercard match on a small show, why don’t we get pro wrestling this cool anymore?! Uchu Power X vs. Super Rider It’s alien shootstyle, baby. I think this is Koichiro Kimura under the Uchu Power mask. This was a completely straight grappling match. They didn’t even do any floor brawling like I’ve seen them do in West Japan and DDT, and there were only one or two vicious strikes from the alien. Other than that, this was all guys in poncho and freaky masks scrambling for chokes and heel hooks. Rider looked good tenaciously grappling with his bigger opponent. Cool match and I wish we had more alien shootstyle. Koichiro Kimura vs. Fumio Akiyama, West Japan 3/22/1995 This was quite good mostly due to some nasty stomps and kicks and dislocating submissions from Kimura. Also because this is West Japan they did a brawling section where somebody got bowled into chairs and then they did shootstyle strike exchanges on the floor. Akiyama had a whole lot of respect for Kimura but moved in for the kill when it counted. Finish came a little sudden but it looked really painful. Tanomusaku Toba & Koichiro Kimura vs. Sanshiro Takagi & Exciting Yoshida (DDT 7/6/2000) - EPIC This was from the early period when DDT wasn’t yet a full on entertainment company but rather a diverse style blend that reflected the sleaze indies of the 90s that preceded it. This was a great sprint. I would’ve liked it a bit more if it was more of a straight up destruction of Takagi & Yoshida at the hands of the Toba/Kimura crowbar team, but it still ended up being really good. Takagi can be hit or miss with his WWF imitation shit, but the opening segment where he caught a Toba barrage and dropped him with a deadlift uranage followed by a People’s Elbow spot was kind of badass. Lots of violent exchanges throughout with Toba & Kimura throwing serious potatoes, there is an awesome floor brawling section between Takagi and Toba that looked like a street fight. Kimura was put over as a real monster at this point, whenever he would come in he would just crush dudes with kicks and bombs. He also did all those BattlARTS level violent saves that whenever someone put a submission on Toba he runs in to kick their head in. Exciting Yoshida is a guy who was doing an Animal Hamaguchi tribute act, and this is probably his finest performance ever. The cool thing about Toba is that he gets guys who are otherwise dull to throw potatoes and come up with realistic comebacks, and that was the case here. Him and Yoshida were just brutalizing each other, and the finishing run that saw Yoshida throwing brutal shoot headbutts and Otsuka level suplexes was totally awesome. Our boxing gloved hero just keeps delivering the good shit. Tanomusaku Toba & Tomohiko Hashimoto vs. Super Uchu Power & MIKAMI (DDT 7/19/2001) - GREAT So much fun to be had here, DDT missed the boat big time when they stopped doing hybrid shoot matches like this. Tomohiko Hashimoto is all judo throws at this point, and he and the pure striking based style of Toba make a fun team. MIKAMI for a junior can handle himself with the shooters, he hit an awesome flying armbar counter to one of Hashimotos throws, and generally sticks to offense that requires little cooperation, mostly just hitting cool sentons and open hand strikes. Super Uchu Power is totally awesome in this match, the shooter alien is such a great menacing monster crowbarring dudes with kicks like baseball bat shots, locking in shoulder popping shoot submissions and dropping ridiculous bombs. He also works some really nifty exchanges with Hashimoto, there is a cool moment where the alien goes for a gi choke and Hashimoto reverses into a Fujiwara armbar, and several great spots centered around Super Uchu Power trying to block Hashimotos STOs and other throws. Toba narrowly avoiding destruction and and catching the beast with some hard punches and backfists was great. The finish was between Toba and MIKAMI and while it wasn’t as epic as the best Toba faceoffs it was fun. [1999-02-28-DDT] Super Uchu Power vs DAISAKU DAISAKU is a kickboxer dude who has worked CAPTURE, so can handle himself against a stiff monster. Doesn't matter though cause S.U. Power just crushes him. Daisaku puts on a good fight but is put to sleep in about 3 minutes. Very brief but very painful looking. Amazing promo after the match and Super Uchu Power struts away as the theme from Terminator 2 blasts from the speakers. All hail the Super Cosmic Force! MIKAMI, Super Uchu Power, Tomohiko Hashimoto & Tanomusaku Toba vs Shoichi Ichinomiya, Tomohiro Ishii, GENTARO & YOSHIYA (DDT 10/30/01, Elimination Match) This was an Elimination match which kind of showcased the amount of WWF fandom that was going on in DDT. Toba was only in this for a short time, but he looked damn great potatoeing dudes as usual. He also took some big ragdoll bumps during his FIP section. Tomohiro Ishii was kind of working like a regular heel wrestler here, which was a bit underwhelming considering how awesome he was when he was a stiff psycho during this time period, but there was a great moment where Toba woke him up and he started throwing big damn potatoes. The non-Toba portions were good but never reached those early violent heights again. It builds to a WWF style finishing run with Shoichi Ichimiya doing heel run ins, Mikami overcoming a 2 on 1 scenario, all the heels attacking with Stone Cold Uchu Power running in to lay everyone out only for a sudden heel turn to happen. I liked GENTARO a lot in this, such a cool unique wrestler in his early days with his blend of athleticism and WWF New Generation era worship, and MIKAMIs athleticism is also really fun, but I thought it got a little silly down the stretch. Still, someone who’s really into WWF Elimination Matches will probably dig this a lot. Koichiro Kimura vs. Munenori Sawa, BattlARTS 6/1/2008 Koichiro Kimura vs. Akitoshi Saito, WING 10/25/1991 - Reupload needed! Koichiro Kimura vs. Mitsuya Nagai, RINGS 1/25/1992 Koichiro Kimura vs. Poison Sawada, DDT 10/11/2000 Super Uchu Power & Super Rider vs. Sanshiro Takagi & Kazushige Nozawa, DDT 3/25/1997 - the DDT debut show main event features quite the epic destruction of Takagi & Nozawa at the hands of two psychotic shooter aliens. Daisaku & Yusaku vs. Kengo Takai & Super Uchu Power Masashi Aoyagi & Mitsuya Nagai & Ryuma Go vs. Kendo Nagasaki & Koichiro Kimura & Masahiko Orihara I know Phil didn't like Kimura in Futen, but I'd like to revisit that stuff. His match against Fujita Hayato Jr. was plenty brutal and great.

The Kandori match was a disappointment, but Devil had a pretty decent run in JWP before the split: Devil Masami & Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Miss A & Harley Saito (8/12/1990) Rumi Kazama & Shinobu Kandori vs. Devil Masami & Itsuki Yamazaki (JWP 9/30/90) Devil Masami & Rumi Kazama vs. Miss A & Itsuki Yamazaki (JWP 4/26/1991)  Devil Masami & Hikari Fukuoka vs. Itsuki Yamazaki & Cuty Suzuki (JWP 5/25/1991) Harley Saito & Devil Masami vs. Dynamite Kansai & Madusa (JWP 12/7/1991) On the other hand, I was underwhelmed with most all of her singles match during that period. I've come around a bit on her post-prime work, since she is pretty effective in short matches as a bomb throwing monster. That said, people should watch all her stuff, and not just the hyped stuff, to assess her fairly.

He is undoubtedly a good worker and a nice breath of fresh air, as he is one of few guys nowadays who don't wrestle like a blatant ripoff. That said I've yet to see any match of his that blows me away and makes me think he's possibly one of the 100 greatest ever wrestlers. Him not having much to work with in the current landscape is probably a big part of the reason for that.

The last 5 years have been good to Franz in terms of new footage. We get a small stack of French TV appearances and some handhelds that I had never seen listed before. The highlights are obviously the chain matches, his match against Andre which is a real treasure, and an excellent performance against Robert Gastel (another name who probably should be nominated). New French material: JEAN FERRE VS FRANZ VAN BUYTEN (01/20/1968; 16:42) ANDRE BOLLET VS FRANZ VAN BUYTEN (01/01/1969; 38:42) FRANZ VAN BUYTEN VS JACQUES DE LASARTESSE (01/17/1972; 34:42) FRANZ VAN BUYTEN VS KARL SCHNEIDER (08/07/1977; 7:54) FRANZ VAN BUYTEN VS IVAN STROGOFF (08/08/1977; 25:51) IVAN STROGOFF & LE GRAND VLADIMIR VS FRANZ VAN BUYTEN & DANIEL VAN BUYTEN (08/14/1978; 48:15) FRANZ VAN BUYTEN VS BOB UFO (07/28/1984; 20:46) There is also another French 80s tag in that google drive. We got two chain matches, one against an ancient Lasartesse, and another against PCO of all people, both really good. My friend was also kind enough to upload nearly all the Hamburg handhelds. For someone with scarcely any footage available, Franz has a strong body of great matches to him.

Barely a week into the project and this is already a strong contender for my favourite exchange in the entire discourse

Yujiro Yamamoto has had a nice little ressurgence in recent times working good to great matches in his own promotion and other tiny places: Yujiro Yamamoto vs. KATSUO, Dounan Pro Wrestling(?) 3/31/2019 These two had a very good main event in Yamamotos BATTLE And ARTS promotion, so I was delighted to find another match between the two! The BAP match was a match built around Katsuo being a monster and demolishing Yamamoto. This was about Yamamoto picking apart Katsuo with shoot strikes and nasty arm stretches and Katsuo being a tough guy absorbing punishment and firing back with KO worthy potatoe lariats and headbutts of his own. One thing was constant: these two potatoed the daylights out of each other. Yamamoto is quite the offensive tank combining cool arm submissions with a variety of kicks, knees, elbows and open hand strikes. He even mixes in a cool Kido Clutch at one point. And Katsuo is really solid in his role. Fun fun match. Manabu Hara/Keita Yano vs. Yujiro Yamamoto/Katsuo, BAP 2/11/2020 SR: Fun indy main event tag built around the main matchup of Hara vs. Yamamoto. Those two had some slick U-Style exchanges early which really made me long for a straight shootstyle match between them. They are both a lot more beaten up than in their primes from 10 years ago, but they still had no problem throwing some surprisingly dangerous suplexes and really smacking each other. Yano, to my surprise, did not ruin the match. He was mostly kept out of it and his one brief run of offense consisted of some stretches which worked. I also enjoyed Katsuo once again as a crowbar trying to crack skulls. The finishing run was a bit of an indy run with shootstyle touches, so I dug it. The next BAP in 2021 is announced to have a Yamamoto/Hara main event, so let’s see if we can unlock that too. Yujiro Yamamoto vs. Katsuo, BAP 10/22/2019 SR: Katsuo is a Dragon System guy who used to be Cyber Kongcito. I assume he is Yamamoto's friend or owns the ring or something and that’s why he gets to be in the main event. Well, apparently he also works pretty high up the card at Hokuto Pro Wrestling (another indy that Hisakatsu Oya runs). He was this stocky guy in a singlet and a weird hairdo, kind of like a parallel universe Fugofugo Yumeji. And just like Fugofugo he was game to have a nasty slugfest. This was Katsuo laying a brutal WAR sized beating on Yamamoto, big chops, crowbar lariats, jaw loosening elbows and open hand strikes, skull cracking headbutts, the whole deal. By the end of it Yamamatos chest was a nasty shade of red and his bell seemed seriously rung. This had some back and forth strike exchanges, which can get tiresome, but I thought the purpose was to showcase Katsuo as a tough monster as he kept shrugging off Yamamotos attacks, so I bought into them. Yamamoto was working this not really like a shootstylist and more like an indy wrestler with a shootstyle gimmick, which I don’t like as much, but he timed his comebacks well and cut Katsuo down with some precise strikes of his own. Very suitable main event and I would like to see more of this Katsuo now. Yujiro Yamamoto vs. Sho Karasuno, RAW 1/2/2020(?) Yamamoto gets a shockingly good no ring match out of a local Masao Inoueish guy. Yamamoto looks insanely sharp here. Yuki Ishikawa vs. Yujiro Yamamoto 10/28/18 A nice reminescence to their great matches 10 or so years earlier.

He has had some good matches over the last couple years that stand out over the usual output, but man watching infinitely more violent 1950s French wrestling and WAR handhelds has killed my interest in guys like him.

KAORU vs. Aja Kong, GAEA 2/13/2000 w Maiko Matsumoto vs. Chigusa Nagayo & Akira Hokuto, GAEA 2/16/1997 vs. Mariko Yoshida, AJW 8/28/1994 The more KAORU I watch, the more she rises in my estimation as one of the top wrestlers of her era. Obviously one of the workers in the GAEA promotion. Really athletic wrestler, who has a knack for neat moments and well laid out wrestling matches. Looks great both standing up to established stars as well as working with the younger crew. Her match against Aja is a joshi Match of the Decade contender and makes me want to dig more into her 2000s work. I have to revisit her GAEA stuff too and dive deeper into her AJW work. Apparently, she's still wrestling, so that's also something to consider!?

Yoshidas AJW work is worth digging through. Even though she was not yet the spider lady, she was in some quite epic matches that were pretty different from the usual AJW material. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-poooLaCsxo

Probably the most regrettable thing I wrote in the last project, but it was before my ARSION megawatch if I recall Yoshida is a lock and probably Top 20 Japanese wrestlers of all time. She had a few good matches in places like AJW and IBUKI too. I want to go around and fill in the gaps and find some gems. The one regret is how hard ARSION buried her after 2000 or so.

You can try contacting European Catch/Wrestling Museum on Facebook. He is one of the best historians on European I know and he can probably tell you a few things about Italian wrestling. He will also likely be extremely grateful if you can send him some copies of your newspaper articles. You can also try contacting Loss (the admin of this board) to get access to all the French TV we have obtained which features many Italian wrestlers.

Carlos Amano Obscenely underrated worker who is like an almagation of all my favourite wrestling tropes. Hard headded, lithe agile grappler with innovative offense and a knack for cool moments. She has some impressive singles matches in many different promotions and I'm down to do a deeper dive into her work. vs. Mariko Yoshida, GAEA 4/30/2004 vs. Azumi Hyuga, JWP 9/23/1999 vs. Aja Kong, OZ 1/13/2008

I recall a match against Kumiko Maekawa in AJW a that you might particularily enjoy. She was pretty much a journeywoman popping up here and there.

Le Petit Prince If there is one French worker that absolutely everyone should check out, it's the Little Prince. An absolutely mindblowing athletic worker, who did stuff in his matches nobody in the world now could pull off half as cleanly. Makes the most agile luchadores look flat footed. What's more important is that he was also a tremendous babyface who always sells and works hard to have competitive matches. Looks great from the 1960s up to the 80s. Apparently he also had some TV matches in Britain that I'd love to see pop up in the next 5 years. La Petit Prince vs. Michel Saulnier 9/30/67 La Petit Prince vs. Michel Saulnier 10/4/69 Le Petit Prince/Francis Louis vs. Daniel Noced/Jacky Richard 2/22/71 Le Petit Prince vs. Albert Sanniez 10/15/77

Honestly? Shiozaki is among the wrestlers who killed my interest in Japanese wrestling. And in recent years he's looked way worse than as a young guy. At least the Fake Kobashi act had some charm.

I gave a pretty vague comment 5 years ago. I was mostly referring to the Mistico matches, and his various big matches he was having in from the mid 2000s onwards where it's always the same formula. Quick first two falls, then the same robotic finishing stretch built around 2.999999s with no build. I didn't even like the Atlantis match much. Having watched some of his earlier work, I gotta say he was actually a pretty decent worker from around 1998 to the early 2000s. I could see him being a legend if he had more matches in the classic lucha style.

One of the best women workers of the last two decades, although she suffered a hard dropoff with the decline of ARSION. From 1998-2002 she looked incredible. I still look forward to checking out more of her work in the "dark period". She actually reminds me of 2 Cold Scorpio a bit. Athletic worker with extremely sharp offense who can do it all.

He looks absolutely phenomenal in the Inoki match. Everything else I've seen him in has been solid to good, although I was hoping to find more like that performance. I know a weird guy who insists his match vs. Abby is the best thing AJPW did in the 70s. Apparently he was a big star in South Korea and I have a feint hope to see some of that stuff be unearthed sometime.

Great worker when it comes to killing the joshi scene and getting away with it. She's carryable when in the ring with a good worker, and can be pretty dreadful otherwise. I don't think she would make my Top 100 female wrestlers.

She looks good here and there, but she also often looks like every other piece of trash spot blowing no selling Toyota clone. The Maekawa match series is telling of this as some of these matches are good to great and some of them are abominations. Not really someone I consider among the best from an era that was struggling hard to begin with, but I am willing to be swayed with some recommendations.

She looks damn great in GAEA. Which is insane, because she was like a 17-18 year old girl at the time. Her intensity matches anyone in pro wrestling history. In some ways it's more intrigueing than her "prime" work, because her prime is mostly just her carrying lesser wrestlers, and in at that period she had settled less into a "routine". I've not really seen much talk about it and it's a crying shame. I can't remember where I had her last time but Meiko is cruising comfortably into my #1 spot for women wrestlers if I keep finding gems.

I wouldn't put Munenori Sawa anywhere near my list and I'm definitely not gonna put a Munenori Sawa imitator near it. There are so many cooler BattlARTS workers you could rip off, where's my Carl Greco imitator?