Ma Stump Puller

Idk if this'll fit in with everything else but I've basically watched a grand majority of her post-ARSION/A-Z to see just how great she was past her peak given that seems to be a pressing question that was never conclusively answered. The only things that aren't here are her 3-minute exhibitions she did near the end of her career because those weren't even in full last I checked and skipped some nothing comedy matches because....they were nothing comedy matches. Other than it was a very interesting watch. Bolded are recommended watches. 2004/2005 2006/2007 I'll probably finish off the rest later.

While popular sites state that Suzuki returned to wrestling in 2003, one might argue that he actually did so in 2002, or at least was gearing up to it anyway. This is a shoot-style tag match that one could definitely debate being legit or not, for me I'd say this is definitely worked all things considered given there's a couple of spots thrown in and everyone here was noticeably holding back a fair bit when it came to the grappling. It's noticeably also not on any major MMA sites (which says nothing given even clear works get on some fighters legit records, but still). This was a grappling-only match, so no strikes or the sort permitted. Anyway, the match. Quite cool. There's a lot of post-PRIDE tendencies here with lots of tentative guard-pulling and focus on defence, though the match itself still has a ton of really flush pushes for submissions and whatnot. Kosaka gets his fancy TK-Guard shit in on Shibuya as the two just seamlessly go from stance to stance with uber skilled mat-work. Kosaka here is the man, he's just bitching out these younger guys with seeming ease. Of course the main interest comes from seeing Suzuki in action, and yeah it's pretty fun to see him do this kind of stuff. He does tricky stuff like faking a handshake to try to grab a arm off Uno to a awesome spot later on where he rams Shibuya's headfirst into the turnbuckle while he's trying to pull guard with his whole body. Not quite his cartoonish persona yet and plays much more of a straight-laced scrapper who finds any opportunity to get some pain going, at one point just casually pulling out a can-opener purely just to make things uncomfortable. It's also quite interesting how they work in the tag gimmick in a actual shoot-style match with the older Suzuki and co shutting down the ring more to keep the action on their side for quick and easy tags while the more disjointed younger side prefer to just freestyle and tag out whenever things get too hot for them. First fall comes when Kosaka does a solid job hooking his leg on Shibuya's arm while in back mount, forcing him to wiggle and get caught in a full on cross armbreaker for the tap-out. The second comes when Shibuya is teasing getting a submission win back on the latter before he then quickly tags out to Suzuki who mangles the guy in a rear naked choke while he's exposed, finishing off the match then and there. All things considered this is DEFINITELY a grapplefuck, but if you are really into the more RINGS-style of working these then this is definitely very enjoyable. If you aren't then there's not a whole lot to really get into given this is all just high-end grapplers just wangling it out for a good 20 minutes or so with Rob Zombie (???) blaring most of the time. Weird oddity of a showing all things considered.

A REALLY good match, which is shocking given Clive Myers was 69 here! Dude was doing arm wrench rolls and leg takedowns like he'd never stopped despite the fact he'd not been wrestling since the 90's. Of course there's a lot of that classic WoS comedy as well, which might turn some off. Me personally, it was used effectively and never went over the top to the point of negating the stakes of the match. There's also some expected sloppiness given, well, both men are pretty old here, so the more speedy stuff can come off pretty rough and tumble. That being said, the work in general is well done despite their limitations, with Kidd getting in some pretty awesome bits of just technically dominating Myers but letting his guard down and playing the usual prat-faller otherwise. Myers obviously does fumble a bit given the old lad is almost 70 here but at the same time he really gets his role as a smart-working old man of the sport who can still pull off the tricky stuff when needed. He does this weird version of a Figure Four where he bends the other leg and steps on it while doing the move, like I've never seen that before and it still looks awesome. He also escapes a leg vice by placing his foot on Kidd's face before moving his whole body back and slapping the leg to make it look like he did it with the force of the sit-up; generally you would never see that in a match these days, but somehow it works here. Kidd keeps trying for the second fall after taking the first with a backslide, but gets desperate and tries leap-frogging the ref to ambush his opponent before getting countered with a good school boy roll-up to even things out between the pair. They go into a "sprint" (though you'd be hard pressed to consider it as such) but fair credit to the two for making it pretty tense, ultimately Myers finally gets the win with a great slap-kick to the stomach and a rolling bodyscissors. Myers gets a standing ovation after the fact, which is well deserved given his performance here: the guy while having some obvious issues with speed and timing is still a pretty good worker who can bump and move around, and he works his aspect of the match as a smart vet real well. It's a bit bonkers to see him seamlessly get back into the groove of things despite sme fumbles. Kidd also makes him look as good as possible while working a good foil; he's also technically talented but he puts that to the side mostly to make Myers the star of the show, which he doesn't need much to do with but still. Probably one of the best 60+ year old performances I've seen so far and generally a great footnote to end Myers' career with, quite solid.

Really didn't need to be a almost 30 minute match but hell this is probably Shinzaki's last proper singles match (unless he pulls a Muto and starts winning titles at 60) so you might as well. The guy is in great shape and unlike Great Sasuke he hasn't broken himself down nearly as much to the degree where this would've been painful to watch. As you would think, this did slog on a fair bit at the beginning; lots of slow holds, trading hammerlocks, etc. It made sense to the logic of what they were trying to showcase here, however: MSUASHI is Michinoku Pro, or at least their last truly loyal trainee that hasn't bounced like Kenoh or the like. He's trying to establish that he's the guy now while Shinzaki is having to pull every trick possible to convince otherwise, so the feeling out at least has something to it before just that. When it got going though this was pretty amazing. Shinzaki is 56 years old and he's doing transitions and sequences that you'd be hard-pressed to see from someone half his age, moving with some incredible speed and slickness. Sure, there's definitely points where things really slow in favour of rest holds, however like I said these at least have a narrative purpose so it wasn't as offensive as it could have been. Both guys take nasty bumps on the hard floor outside but MUS comes though with a cool Frankensteiner counter to the powerbomb. We also get a good continuation of that theme as MUS goes for a top rope version before getting countered back into a powerbomb in response. Shinzaki tries for a proper one while on the mat but gets consistently countered, even taking a big bump off onto the apron. MUS lands a good senton over the ropes to capitalise and we get a pretty long dub spot as they tease a double count-out 70s style. Shinzaki gets his ass beat for the last few minutes as he's simply outclassed by his younger opponent, though he's still able to get occasional pockets of resistance. MUS looked good as he pushed for some smooth offence while getting over the urgency to finish things as soon as possible as to not give his opponent a chance. Gassed Shinzaki still throwing himself around barely was a great visual, as was MUS going full fighting spirit and kicking out of a good few powerbombs. Shin nailing a Spanish Fly from the top rope for the finish was CRAZY stuff, again this guy is 56 years old and doing stuff like this just off the cuff. Him winning over the younger guy might give some bad vibes but I digged it, MUS kicked out of basically everything so Shinzaki had to go crazy-mode to put him down proper. It's definitely not perfect, for a celebration of one of Michinoku Pro's founding fathers it did the job for what it was supposed to be and showcased his incredible longevity as a performer. Well done action for what it was supposed to be going for.

Really solid undercard that I enjoyed also because they mixed things up a bit instead of the usual "everyone gets their shit in, brawl, leave" standard six-man stuff. Ogawa backdrops Genba Hirayanagi on the outside early because he tries interfering on behalf of his staple mates and Ogawa's just trying to enjoy the match, so he has insta-heat with both his tag partners from the get go as that's Kanemaru's boy and he also slaps the shit out of Suzuki when he complains about it. Match itself gets a little bit cute in places (like Suzuki and Aoki do this really contrived starting sequence where they are just going from bit to bit with next to no struggle, that's always lame) but the premise of Ogawa having to contend with his own tag partners trying to fuck him over throughout is definitely unique for something like this and lends itself well to add actual heat instead of just being a series of bland interactions. Ogawa adds to the fire by clapping when Danielson gets the better of Suzuki in a strike exchange which Suzuki calls back to in a few minutes when he full on kicks Ogawa when he's trying to come off the ropes. Ogawa and Williams also get to nerd-out with tons of British Catch spots alongside counters to traditional stuff they pulled off in the past. Kanemaru goes nuts in the middle with a huge jumping head guillotine kick from the guardrail onto Aoki, which Ogawa has no part of because he's a nice guy...this time. Who impressed me the least here? Shockingly, Bryan Danielson. He didn't really look that good here and his stuff was mostly either iffy strikes or spamming his running elbow like a million times with absolutely no urgency or fire. Even a young Aoki was more energised, maybe it's just a off day for him but you definitely didn't get the vibe of a GOAT tier contender here. He does do a springboard knee at one point so that's something at least. Last few minutes were just a burst of spots, but thrown in with solid Ogawa heat as he kept getting beaten up. That threatened a loss in places, however Aoki still ate the job to Suzuki's Blue Destiny for the finish. Williams and Ogawa do a awesome Chaos Theory/backdrop combo post-match on Suzuki when they try for a beatdown. Solid undercard outing with some drama added in to make it a lot fresher than it could have been. Ogawa is probably the backbone as to why, what with his little motions to get the dynamic over alongside enjoyable work with Williams as always, guys like Suzuki, Aoki and Kanemaru add in a really fast pace that kicks ass throughout. Smartly worked but also just as enjoyable as some of the more crazy Jr tags of the time.

Bumped for new match!!!! W/ Tigers Mask v Gran Hamada & Ryuji Hijikata (AJPW New Year Giant Series 18.01.2004) Clipped by around about 7 minutes. It's Tiger Mask! Tigers Mask! Hamada! I shamelessly stole this off SayamaFan's (much thanks) IG; I mean it's mid 2000's AJPW, I'll take what I'll get given there's so little of it around and even less of it is easy to find. Tigers is kitted out in baseball gear and is as predictively goofy as a Osaka Pro trainee would be. Hamada still looks great, Hijikata less so, which is sad to see given how well he looked in his Battlarts/early AJPW days. He tries for a Tiger DDT but it looks pretty rubbish given there's no real bounce to it, so he just kinda flops though the move. His armbreaker transition post pin was fairly cool though. Mask/Sayama doesn't look great here; it's telling that the clipping basically cuts out all of his involvement bar the finish despite his obvious star power. He's wearing a shirt as well, which is fairly uncharactistic for him. All he does is jump in to stomp people in the face when they have submissions on basically lol. The match moves at a fairly dull pace, with Tigers' big comeback being...a dropkick before he tags out. Tiger Mask's comeback is fine, he is a bit wonky when taking moves, otherwise seemed competent enough doing his greatest hits routine. Hamada stomps in to do some moves and even a flush Tornado DDT; of course gets basically ignored as he gets hit with a spinning kick just a few moments later and a awkwardly long Tombstone piledriver spot. Sayama misses the diving headbutt and snaps on a terrible botched backslide where he hooks one arm only and awkwardly yanks him down for the pin. Post-match he's just laying there ashamed of himself while the ref and co argue about it, great stuff. Anyway, this wasn't amazing, but for the time this was about as good a match you were getting out of the him until his RJPW First Tiger Mask days, which is sad to say all things considered. With more of this coming out I respect more and more the shape he worked himself into for his later material. In a way it feels like how Undertaker was outright terrible in the early 2000's until he also rebounded. RANK: Decent

This is by far the most cursed matchup, Brody Yano vs Ichiro "my best friend is Onita PLEASE book me on your show now" Yaguchi in a 15 minute draw in the middle of nowhere. Yaguchi was dressed like the missing Godwin half-brother and Yano was, well, the usual mess he typically is. The match was not good! Yaguchi can do nothing in these conditions as he's way too immobile to actually wrestle or anything (as I sadly recounted from his terrible showings during the Onita/RJPW feud) so all we get are clubs to the back and/or very limp strikes in general. Yano tries to work around this by playing up the size and mass difference between the two, however outside of Yano doing some cool transitions he can't make this that interesting. It didn't help that Yaguchi at points was just pathetically sitting on the mat for minutes on the mat while the ref counts obnoxiously slow. At a point Keita just socked the dude in the face with a punch almost in frustration of how shit this was looking and then it turned into a weird real shoot-ish fight as the two tried throwing stiff shots and going for the eyes. One would think that this added tension would be interesting, maybe we get a repeat of the Maeda/Sayama potato throwing back in the UWF days however it just ends up with Yaguchi getting caught in a neck-crank for a few seconds before spending yet another eternity laying on the mat. There's nothing more surreal in wrestling than seeing a fairly overweight trashy indie guy getting dragged to his feet by Survival Tobita while another guy in purple with Joker makeup cuts a promo with maybe 3 people at best getting a chant going. It doesn't go to plan and Yaguchi spends the next five minutes just gagging on the mat endlessly. He finally gets up and very very slowly starts to throw strikes, but these strikes are ass and even worse than before. Keita looks depressed. Grapple more. Yaguchi falls after getting caught in a front face lock. Yano grabs a arm and tries for something, Yaguchi doesn't give a inch and the time limit draw sounds. I'm honestly not even sure what this was going to be in the first place; the first half at least seemed somewhat planned, but then Yaguchi just dies after a couple of fairly tame knee strikes and he's never the same until the end due to whatever happens to him. Elaborate art-piece, or crappy wrestling match due to nonsense? You be the judge. Even three months on I still don't get what this was trying to be and that scares me a little bit.

Nothing is better than a Keita Yano match with loud overbearing club music blaring in the background. Dove Pro DO NOT care about your auditory experience of the actual match, just pure beats. Yes the music does not stop, the whole match is them working out the match while it just keeps on going. I imagine it's a bit easier because you don't have to worry as much about calling spots because the music is as loud as it was, so unless you are Cena levels of shouting stuff out it doesn't really matter. The match itself was super basic with Yano controlling most of it with his tricked out grappling. HUB would get occasional moments where he'd do some crazy convoluted sequences in response, that was cool. This didn't really have much depth to it though, it was just the two doing some good stuff with the other with hints of something more but never getting to that level, just a really solid lucha technical wrestling sprint between Keita's wacky antics and HUB doing cool lucha work with it mostly disappearing near the second half in favour of more conventional spots, dives to the outside etc. Occasionally Keita just does something silly like steal WoS spots or do chest rakes, otherwise it's just a fun sprint, HUB going for a crazy lariat near the end that Keita did a complete Rikishi flip for ruled for a finish. It might honestly be better than the 2022 Tenryu Project match if only because it's a lot shorter and cuts the fat out for a comfort food-tier outing. We really do need more matches that aren't pretending to be these secret lore-heavy outings that you need a study guide to get everything involved when we can instead just have well-wrestled matches by their lonesome.

Basically just 14 minutes of very clean, very good catch-wrestling. Both of these guys are already quite solid at that so not that shocking. As per most Keita matches he really doesn't give much of a inch anywhere, dominating most of the early sections with slick matwork, aiming for the legs and feet mostly with the occasional extra bit here and there. We get the good old "rolling off the apron in a leg-lock" spot to mix things up, as well as Keita fucking around by trying to Irish Whip in a UWF match and Tamura just absolutely not playing with that at all, but then Tamura plays along by going for it himself before the two do some goofy lucha bits. Keita gets a bit too cocky after a Albright-lite deadlift gutwrench suplex as he gets caught with a reverse kneebar setup and kicks, getting rocked with a big knee when he tries to rush in for a single-leg to take back control. Yano throws out a couple more funky tricks in his bag like a desperation Fujiwara armbar out of a suplex and a lariat, but his mistake is going to the well one too many times with strikes and lariats, allowing Tamura to time and counter with a cool knee block, jumping kick, and then rolling into a slick cross armbreaker into modified Fujiwara when Yano tries to roll out to make the guy tap out. Not as good as the 2008 match but still pretty solid, even if the strikes are a bit lacking here. There's never a sense of the match going into super full gear either despite the two's best attempts by amping up the impact of their shots; the pacing kept at a decent if unexciting rate, always building to something that never comes. It's a good outing, just not the best these two could do. Hardly a insult though, this still was really cool.

The German Kendo Kashin matches are amazing I'll give them at least that, dude worked twice as hard there than what he did in Japan for the last 10 years lol

Fun and quick outing. Sumi is a scum-indie karate guy (who apparently did some MMA? The records aren't clear on that) and of course Keita Yano like the big nerd he is wants to turn this into a conventional early 90's FMW Onita/Aoyagi situation where they basically just hit each other really hard on mats in the middle of a gymnasium. You know a match is going to be fun when the first two things that happen are Sumi landing a stiff leg kick and Yano feigning a injury to then catch the guy off guard for a spinning back kick in response. Yano takes control early with low kicks, as well as a tremendously goofy running headbutt to send the guy crashing to the hard floor. Sumi takes over for his own brawling bits, throwing Yano around and beating the dogshit out of him with stiff kicks to the back and to his own legs. Yano bumps great, Sumi looks like a maniac (and unlike Minoru Suzuki actually can hit hard while being interesting) all is good. Yano stumbles around like Terry Funk as his one good leg barely carries him around, with him throwing some wiffed slaps that Sumi can just dance around and act like a cocky shit with. Yano eventually gets rocked with a roundhouse and realise he can't really get anywhere with his shitty leg, so we get a duration of him pulling a Inoki and sticking to the floor with crab kicks. They work this bit quite well, and actually incorporate Sumi getting pissed off enough with this for Yano to catch him off-guard with a cool roll-up after dodging a reckless kick. Last few minutes involve some pretty hard shots by both men, but also a nifty sequence all about Yano slapping on Cobra Twist holds and holding onto them for dear life. Sumi throws as much as he can but his angry roundhouse is dodged and he's thrown into a nifty rolling cradle for the snappy win. Really fun and easy to get into striker/grappler match: despite the natural weirdness of Wallabee conditions making them....hard to get into, to say the least, this turned out to be a pretty sturdy outing where Yano got to show off more of his underdog selling in comparison to Sumi's hard shots and general chaotic shit he throws out here and there. Easily one of the far superior versions of these throwback pre-PRIDE wrestler/martial arts showings. Inoki would (probably) be proud

This was expected quality: Chono and Yasuda were not fully out of their depth here workrate wise, but neither are particularly well adjusted for a huge workrate-style sprint. To disguise this....and in usual ZERO1 inter-promotional fashion this quickly turns into a outside brawl. Chono and co quickly realise that their opponents are somewhat beyond their capabilities, so they use a lot of dirty antics to become de-facto heels here. Yasuda in particular was really great, shouting at the ref, crude low blows, having chop contests with Omori, just solid shtick on display. The middle section has the babyfaces get their big comeback with Yasuda mostly throwing himself all over the place for the both of them with some great big man bumps before getting back into things with running shoulder tackles. They continue their control segment by working over Otani's bandaged shoulder, with classic Chono trash talk and Yasuda scummy antics, egging him on to throw strikes with said shitty shoulder before knocking him back down. Good spot with Otani clinging onto the ropes to try to stay alive as Chono cranks his arm to punish the guy for it. Huge Otani chants, we get some teases at a comeback but nothing. Chono lands a decent top rope shoulder charge at his age which was majorly surprising. Omori is just about able to stop a STF after getting past Yasuda but nothing else, he's stuck on the apron. Big range of finisher spam to finish up, Chono does a Shining Kenka Kick only for Omori to hit his Axe Bomber. Yasuda eats a signature Otani top rope dropkick to the back of the head for a near fall before a spinning kick/Axe Bomber x2 with a Dragon Suplex seals the deal. This was a fairly by the numbers inter-promotional match, but both Chono and Yasuda are smart vets that know how to milk such a interaction for everything that it's worth, I would also say that Chono was surprisingly game on his end to work with his buddies and we really see that here given how much he was tangibly doing, even in his prime you'd see Chono do way less than this when he wasn't bothered lol. Otani and Omori don't really do much outside of the norm, however said norm is solid enough alongside a game crowd to really enhance the experience. Yasuda being a stooging giant continues to be one of the more entertaining parts of these kind of heat-focused matches, dude is solid despite his limited moveset. Probably one of the better late-career Chono performances.

Damon Scythe just off a basic YT search has like a dozen+ matches (including having Brett Sawyer's last match in the middle of god knows where?? Not even Cagematch can be arsed making that official) he might not count for this tbh, even if these barely count

Despy's going to be one of those peak/consistency debates because his last few years have been great, he's spent a long time wrestling terrible shtick-heavy matches before then and you'd only ever see him turn on the gas against very few opponents. Had a horrid NOAH stint on top of that. He also kinda suffers from NJPW-isms where he's wrestling either overextended matches which expose the hollowness of some of his formulas like his usual leg work and co, especially when it typically leads nowhere. Tentative on if he'll get on or not but if he keeps up his rate of decent to solid Jr outings (no interest in his hardcore stuff) I think he'll definitely get a spot.

Looked fun in the few matches I seen out of him but he didn't make a splash to the degree where he'd be on a top 100 personally. If he'd worked a few more years more in U-Style or Fu-Ten then I'd consider the guy, just not enough out there though.

Kimura's nowhere near Yoshida in technical ability (I mean who is can be counted on one hand at best) but I thought she really got herself over here as a quite competent mat-worker. Of course this has the typical Yoshida-Isms thrown in as Kimura is mostly the brash upstart trying to dethrone a established vet and it starts off strong with the two hitting explosive offence on the other. Kimura is doing fairly well until she gets her leg stuck on the ropes and Yoshida cranks it with a ankle lock, basically cutting her short right then and there. Yoshida's control stuff is fantastic, it's a mix of shoot-style with the crazy submissions, it's rudo shit with the disrespect dished out with boots to the head, all good. Yoshida works on the leg and even tries for a super early Air Raid, the first is reversed for a near fall. Rather than stare in disbelief like a dumbass Yoshida just grabs her out of the hold for a successful second for her own near fall. Rolling inverted figure-four gets the first fall with a tap-out right after. I do like how there's no real padding here, it's just Yoshida just hunting down the crappy leg all throughout the match; as soon as the second round comes up she's right back with either working the leg or trying for a big bomb when the leg's worn out. She dominates the middle half with great bombs or submissions until Kimura plays dead long enough to snatch on a flash pin into a armbreaker. Messy Frankensteiner attempt aside (which gets the fall, of all things, ehh could've been better lol) her stuff here was flush and felt really frantic. Yoshida after this flash pin got noticeably even more grumpy, stomping on Kimura's back. This especially comes though during a dual Achilles Tendon struggle where Kimura's just stomping her face in while Yoshida's giving her headbutts, just vile nasty aggression on there, absolutely rules. Kimura slaps on a rear naked choke at one point and Yoshida's face is just "shit I'm gonna die here" like it's just masterclass selling to get over a choke as realistic as possible beyond the usual flailing of the arms or instant faint (read: every Minoru Suzuki match of the last 15 years). The double KO strike spots were a bit lame and Kimura does slop up on a few moves, otherwise the finishing stretch is epic, full of reckless strikes and even Yoshida being desperate enough to go back to her old moveset with a couple of lucha roll-ups. Kimura winning with a stiff ass big boot that Yoshida dies for is just the candle on a very well done cake all things considered. Really good outing that actually felt urgent and unpredictable; early on you knew that any submission or strike could end things from what they established and it pretty much carries that weight all the way to the end. Nothing felt certain and the amount of pop-up counters worked given how these two were just spending all of their energy purely to finish this quick rather than sit in heatless holds. Great, great stuff. If we'd got this from Yoshida the last 5ish years rather than a lot of her bumping and getting rookies over she'd be one of the GOAT's very easily.

The few times we ever saw Command Bolshoi against someone better at grappling at her....and it's a random tournament, 7 minutes long and the only time these two will meet in a singles contest. And it's cut to 4 minutes because ARSION's editors were dicks who couldn't be arsed. That said, this had signs of being solid at the start. Yoshida doesn't take Bolshoi seriously at first given the getup and everything else but after a couple of flash submissions she starts to realise she's in way deeper than she taught. Crowd are dead until Yoshida does her classic "pretend to play dead for a submission" bit for a side triangle choke before she gets a rope break to barely escape. They work this like a sprint, which is fine, however there are a good few moments of sloppiness because of that fact which is quite annoying, some material isn't the most well thought-out and seems a bit all over the place at points. The crowd are never convinced that Bolshoi's a threat at any point (not helped by the way this is structured) and the match basically just ends as soon as it starts due to Yoshida escaping a abdominal stretch to hit a flash Air Raid as the finish. If these two were only given actual tangible time to work stuff I think they'd knock it out of the park, however due to the size and height difference alongside Yoshida's status, there was zero tension and you never ever believed Bolshoi was winning despite Yoshida trying to sell good for her holds and putting her over about as much as reasonably possible. All this needed was time and we don't get it, so it's really just depressing as a watch. It's telling of the state ARSION was in that they couldn't just let the talent cook. They'd get the chance four years later though....

When the 2026 list comes out I feel like she's going to be one of the biggest shifts on the list all things considered, the footage out there for her is pretty immense at this point as opposed to when the last one was made. You can definitely get hit and miss material as Jetlag said but even then you've still got one of the sickest Navarro-acts going for the stuff that matters, there's no question she's on that list somewhere solid, especially when we've probably not even hit close to the end of her iceberg in terms of obscure indie dates she did. Crazy stuff.

Unaired, but a fancam exists of the full thing. Now this is definitely a curiosity: these two will become legitimate tag champs and best bros in the future, for now Misawa is one of the hottest acts in the company and Ogawa is a 7-year (yes, seven year) undercarder who was only now really getting any buzz as a underlining in Tsuruta-gun, though he's mostly just there to bump and eat pins. The two don't do anything radically crazy, but you can tell they already had some solid chemistry with each other and Misawa thought highly of the guy, because this was not only a fairly evenly spread out match, but instead Ogawa actually controls things for a decent portion of it via working the arm in holds. This is definitely a bit slow in places given that fact, the crowd are nevertheless pretty invested. It's cool seeing Misawa actually not be in control here as Ogawa keeps outpacing him with faster stuff and quick snappy counters, using his speed to blindside him over and over. His mistake is then trying to out-strike Misawa, because, you know, elbow. Misawa adopts a more power-based style with the far lighter Ogawa, throwing him up for backbreakers or belly to belly suplexes, pulling from more of a Jumbo-style of power moves than his usual flashy stuff. Ogawa pulls out his usual cheap tricks and the classic punches as Misawa has him completely scouted, escaping his swinging neckbreaker to land a few stiff elbows into his patented facelock for the quick and easy tap-out. Nothing great for this super squash however these two had a great pace going out here and really got over the other despite said squash: Ogawa tries his hardest but he just can't get the job done against someone *this* good yet, at least not without all of the roll-ups in the world at least. Good outing for what it was, Ogawa even this early seemed extremely confident as a act.

For all the hype Shibata gets, you do forget sometimes that him pre-BIG MOUTH could be very hit and miss. Tana is in his weird punk-phase of his life as he sports a bizarre half-Mohawk/half-mullet with red and yellow dye just thrown in around to boot. Shibata's always looked the same pretty much. You'd think a match between the two even this early would be at least decent, but I don't think they clicked well at all. They do the "rolling out of the ring while in a submission" spot with dual Achilles Tendon holds applied to crickets, it's the least hype I've ever seen for that. Shibata's dickish heel antics are enjoyable, at least, but Tana is trying to be something he isn't: a mat-wizard. He's never been amazing at that, even if he has a couple of neat takedowns. He really just doesn't find a grove as he no-sells big boots...to just hold onto Shibata's leg a little longer. When he does the sensible thing and just rolls into a kneebar Tana immediately goes for the ropes because he doesn't want to engage with that. We drop the leg work to instead do chin locks instead while Shibata plays dead. The best spot was probably Tana doing his dumb elbow drop he used to do where he just recklessly throws himself up for it, Shibata no sells and socks him in the face with a punch instead lol. We get a brawl outside as Shibata throws more stiff shots as Tana looks a bit miffed and mostly awkwardly no-sells or moves away to stop getting hit. The pair exchange slaps to go into full on catfight as the two throw wild haymakers in a blatant rip from Takayama/Frye, only this looked mostly sloppy. Shibata catches with a right hook and Tana falls to his knees for a roundhouse to the back of the head. Tana no sells a backdrop near fall to go for a roll-up, and that's Shibata's cue to randomly spam STO's for the next minute or so. Shibata landing a cool Pele Kick to counter a potential German suplex was cool, Tana doing a weird wiffed kick to counter a rolling wheel kick was definitely not. Tana then lands a normal Inoki flying kick and tries for a German before Shibata runs to and then hits the ropes to try to escape, only to get caught with a O'Connor Roll with arch for the finish. This struggled for a theme or, well, anything, really. Shibata is the heel and he does some heel stuff, but other than that it was a awkward showcase of Tana not clicking with someone who basically embodied the style he detested; stiff striking, shoot-style grappling, both things he's not good at and never wanted to be. The crowd was mostly dead for this as they did moves yet failed to really work them into the match, it's just lots of stuff that doesn't really go or add anything to this. The only cohesion is them building up the suplexes with lots of counters, even then I feel like I'm cheating doing that though because then nearly every half-decent match would have something like that added in. Rough stuff.

This was a fairly solid match focused around showmanship, with the Super Rookie trying to prove he can work on Nishimura's ballgame of tricked-out technical work. I especially loved how extra Nishimura is here: while Nakamura at times will be showy Nishimura will almost intentionally throw out some brilliant counters to relatively simple moves, flying around at points to show off his funky WoS-lite technique. It's not necessary; Nakamura establishes by simply strolling to the ropes instead prior when in a similar situation; but Nishimura almost refuses to do so out of principle, he's not letting this kid outshine him. At the same time I think he gives a ton of room for Naka to stand his ground and get over with the audience as they go head to head, generally having Nishimura be on the backend when having to go strike to strike. This plays into the middle half with Nakamura's knees proving particularly painful for his opponent, who sells hard for them. Nishimura has to pull out some wacky stuff with a headscissors on the apron and a big knee drop to the head afterwards to change things up. He keeps his opponent on the outside with big dropkicks, as well as dropping his knee on the guardrail in a particularly nasty bit. The leg work inside and outside of the ring as the slower heat spot is fairly decent, despite Nakamura kinda botching his big comeback with the Shining Triangle with a sloppy transition. He makes up for that with a nice bomb in the form of a German Suplex alongside a gnarly kneeling Torture Rack. The finish has a second Shining Triangle get countered into a Spinning Toe Hold/figure four for the tap-out win. Nishimura sticking a towel on the guy afterwards was a cool spot, if a bit ruined by Nakamura not selling the leg work and getting right back up afterwards like nothing happened lol. That's a general issue here: his sustained selling is pretty shoddy, with him not really bothering to showcase the effects of Nishimura's leg work whatsoever, even just slight pauses. His pacing is also a bit iffy and seems stiff, there's not really a feeling anything he's doing feels spontaneous or off the cuff, which was needed given Nakamura's comebacks were the big moments of the match. That said, this was a fun technical showing designed to get him over which was half-successful judging by the crowd's positive reactions, even if he felt far from ready for a main event outing. Nishimura once again really shows his stuff as the calculating Catch-act who works this masterfully as the overbearing vet intent on dragging this down to the mat. It's a easy gameplan to understand and he pretty much follows it to the letter.

The only real thing I can suggest is to check out as much of his AJPW stuff as possible because that's basically where most of his best pro-style matches come from, namely due to a mix of motivation and great opponents. Otherwise it's just a rough gamble.

Time for a middle of 2023 update! Rising: Kawada: Rewatching AJPW in 2000, Kawada is the MVP both before and after the Exodus. You really get the feeling that he's just inching to actually work, and when he gets the chance to be the Ace he's always wanted to be his motivation and work goes right though the roof. Tenryu series? Fantastic. Random Sasaki crossover the DAY after going nearly 30 minutes with Steve Williams and Tenryu? Easy. Getting actual good matches out of a dire roster/ one of the worst RWTL's ever? Done and done. Fuchi as well, but Kawada was just dominating with all of this newfound freedom on his hands. Keita Yano: Still on his amazing run in Tenryu Project, in this case showing that he can work a more regular pace of matches with a wild assortment of characters. Dude was always great but this run has really hammered down just how strong his technical work can be outside of his crazy wheelhouse. I still think his greatest hits were in Wallabee Pro, that's far from a insult though. He'd honestly already have a GWE case without these last few years, at this point I think it's undeniable. Hikaru Sato: His Jr Heavyweight run has been all killer and no filler, every defence has been remarkable in one way or another. His AJPW stuff less so but that's par for the course for that company. You can click on nearly every match he's done in the last few years and find something worth mentioning with his performances, he's that good at what he does. Beastly on the mat and his strikes are still full of murderous intent. Command Bolshoi: it's such a shame she got into her prime during the major decline of Joshi because she was pretty stellar in nearly everything I've found of her. Comedy Bolshoi is hit and miss, Navarro-fan Bolshoi is one of the slickest lucha-mat wizards I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. Hoping as more time goes forward we get more and more of her 2000's work because she's super enjoyable when her matches aren't being clipped to shit. Akebono: Akebono's got a little bit of a resurgence in recent times as people have went back and actually looked at his wealth of work and hey, even I've been impressed....slightly. His matches generally are one-note but he's one of those guys who's basically had matches with every major Japanese talent of the last 20 years so there's a lot of entertaining matches out there to enjoy. I'm still not convinced he's great though. Down: I don't really like being negative on these bits and to be honest, there's not any that have massively fallen down on my viewing because I'm not really hunting for bad matches. Emi Sakura: by proxy because every match involving a trainee of hers I've seen in the last two months have had them be tangibly the worst element in them. It's weird because this was even when she was actually quite good, for some reason it just never rubbed off on anyone she tried training up. One wonders if her deal is the same as Dory Funk..... Masakatsu Funaki: mostly due to his later work where he's just taking paychecks, especially his W-1 stuff which is just garbage mostly. Watched him recently on a RJPW show and man he's just dull as anything. They gave him Bobby Roode, Takayama and Otani, all of these are stinkers. The worst part is that he can still go quite well. Johnny Smith: I expected him to really step up for my AJPW 2000 viewing and.....yeah he just didn't do a whole lot. Bar the Fujiwara match (it's a crime that's cut as badly as it is) nothing really stands out and despite tagging with Kea he just seems like a complete afterthought that didn't seem that keen on going out of his comfort zone in matches, sticking to the same song and dance like he'd done for the whole of the 90's.

Kea was supposed to be one of *the* big AJPW guys but it was obvious that was never happening lol. There's a interview out there where he credits Tenryu as his greatest ever opponent (alongside saying him and Muto taught him the most about wrestling) and I can't really disagree, he got more out of the guy than Muto and everyone else combined pretty much. He got a traumatic leg injury around about the end of 2002 and as you said he vanished for all of 2003 bar showing up as a RO&D goon with baggy long trousers to hide the injury. Dude always seemed to be plagued with injury trouble whenever they wanted him to run at the top, which is always a shame. He got great near the end of the 2000's though in a pretty stellar run of matches if that helps

I was thinking on what on earth a "Different Style Fight" between these two would tangibly look like. Josh was still pretty green and Norton isn't exactly known for his shoot-style antics. So what do you do? You cheat, of course; this is barely a shoot-style match. Barnett rocks Norton early with kicks and he in turn gets the guy in the corner for gut punches that Barnett DOES NOT sell for in the slightest, so they look like shit. Norton bullrushes Barnett with all of his power moves, including a super early powerbomb! That gets a near 10 count from the ref before he gets up. Norton stupidly trots in and tries for a chokeslam to finish things off, that goes about as well as you'd think as Barnett slips out and into a cross armbreaker in a good spot. He impressively carries Norton up and over for a spinebuster before snapping on the leg for a submission. He throws a few leg kicks before trying for a Capture Suplex...granted it's botched slightly due to Norton being obviously way too big to bump clean alongside Barnett being too close to the ropes when trying to do it, but hey, it's impressive as a attempt at least. Barnett slips on a tight ankle lock, Norton struggles for the ropes again. He makes the mistake of getting cocky: when he tries for a running rolling wheel kick Norton just wrecks him with a stiff lariat in turn. The pair try for bombs; Norton his powerbomb, Barnett the German suplex; but both manage to hold out long enough to escape. Barnett lands his wheel kick the second time fairly well and makes Norton bump for a meaty gutwrench. The dude is gassed after this bump and just hides outside, forcing Barnett to come after him after taking one glove off. Barnett has to manhandle him into the ring by going for a rope-hung DDT which almost went real bad, Norton is a pro and escapes death via his huge shoulders though. The finish is real cool as Barnett logically tries for a Guillotine, then decides he's got to throw Norton AGAIN so he goes for a one-arm suplex while still in the hold, which magically gets the tap-out win! This was all about pushing Barnett hard and hey, it went as well as I think this could've went. Norton bumps all over the place for sick dangerous suplexes, he gets in some of his own classic hoss shit in turn. It feels like a 90's Vader UWF-I match where his bombs can end things in a instant, but he's clueless about anything else that matters in these sort of matches so things are balanced out. Barnett is a bit awkward in places, you get why they wanted to push him though. He's got a great look, naturally quite athletic, and he loves his MMA, he's basically built for this era of NJPW. Surprisingly quite solid.