Ma Stump Puller

I'm going to shill for Osamu Nishimura more, because some of his best matches came out of tournament structures: he's also really good at building up stakes when the chips are down and he needs a definitive win or avoid a loss to remain a potential winner. He's also a great all-rounder that can make the big heavyweight seem even bigger with his bumps and selling (Kojima, Tenzan, Nagata, Takayama) or increase value (Kenzo Suzuki, Sanada). He's also one of the few guys who managed to smash it out of the park in BOTH the G1 and the Championship Carnival respectfully. He's a MVP at building value in all of his matches regardless of who is there or what he has to deal with, even way into his career where he has less stock. Vader is also great for something like this given his matches are generally rather short and explosive, which is always good in a tournament setting given the sheer amount of matches at points. Either as a domineering giant or a giant to be chopped down to size, his G1 work, his (underrated) late 90s AJPW stuff and even his (really underrated) NOAH stints could all arguably be career highlights by themselves, let alone all in successive order stacked on top of each other. He's not the longest or the one with the most versatility, but you don't always need to be to be a memorable wrestler in this format. One of the few who can have big main event outings sub-10 minutes long and still feel satisfying.

Other Deep Dive stuff Introduction Tiger Mask has a bit of a iffy reputation depending on who you ask or where: some places he's a sloppy overrated act that could never sell a lick of anything, in other places he's one of the big "events" of wrestling, someone who permanently changed the landscape forever and well beyond his time in a lot of ways. Which one is it? There's no obvious objective answer obviously, but given my interest in the guy I figured I would watch basically every single match possible of his that I could get my hands on, including a lot of random tags. My only big rule for this was that I would skip the Dynamite Kid matches.....because quite frankly I think virtually every single person has had a chance to talk about them, go over them in chronic detail and whatnot; for me I really just could not be humanly bothered to try to reinvent the wheel or try to go over that series without some of those decades of hype creep in, so I pretty much omitted them from this bar some of the tags they had together. Too much baggage, I suppose, but I also wanted to see how good his run is without these epically hyped up series contributing. Other than that, this is pretty much everything from the start of the Mask shtick all the way to the end, warts and all. Matches will of course be ranked in the same manner as the others I've done, so basically like this- I'll be ranking these matches on a grade of four standards: 1. Great (fantastic, must watch/MOTY) 2. Good (worth watching, solid) 3. Decent (alright, does the job) 4. Forgettable (bad/not worth watching) This is more of a formality so anyone who's skimming these can get a quick synopsis of what to watch and not to watch without having to read through paragraphs or try to guess how good a match is based on other ranking systems. As always these will come out in chunks, I'm thinking maybe 6 months each depending on how many there are lol. I'll also probably skip the matches where there's about 3 or 4 minutes intact, because at that point there's no real way you can figure out how good it is unless it's just non-stop action. =========== Vs. Black Cat (08.05.1981) Right after making his amazing debut for NJPW as Tiger Mask, Sayama has a tune-up match with well known undercard Jr Black Cat. Honestly? I thought this was pretty good...for the first few minutes, anyway. Cat is this grumpy bald-headed plain black trunk wearing lad who focuses on just running Mask over, while the latter focuses on getting his usual spots in while also having to contend with being knocked around the ring at points. Cat focuses on a pretty grounded approach with nasty European Uppercuts alongside some pretty fancy stuff to get the job done, but we all know he ain't winning anything here given Mask's presentation; but that doesn't mean he's not gonna throw some dirty old-school shit in to at least give it a good shot. Sayama is mostly good with his spots bar completely botching his usual "backdrop flip into dropkick" bit, falling right on his ass, which Cat immediately covers for by landing a sharp elbow drop afterwards. Sayama also messes up his usual turnbuckle Tiger Wally Flip as he falls once again but Cat covers by running in and eating a hip toss. I definitely think this was down to more or less one thing: his early mask is pretty dreadful and he spends a good part here fixing it, even having to eat a fall to the outside to adjust the thing, namely because it keeps slipping on his face which I imagine would cause some issues doing high-risk flips. It's a weird design that's closer to the manga series it was inspired from, but also rather cumbersome. Mask tries for a bodyscissors flip and Cat's just like "nah man" and dumps him lol. Sayama does land a nice back suplex but Cat can't keep his shoulders down so they awkwardly roll out. That definitely felt like the intended finish as Mask just quickly snaps on a normal abdominal stretch to get the win abruptly right afterwards. This starts fun but eventually it seems like Sayama gets a bit too sloppy on his end thanks to his dodgy mask diverting his attention, meaning he just can't get into a good grove here despite his obvious talent and the crowd wanting to cheer him. Cat looked solid for a Jr act at the time with some mean strikes and bombs. That said, purely here for management to test out Mask's capabilities against someone less talented than Kid, and the prognosis was....yes, but fix the mask! This wasn't particularly much worth checking out. RANK: Forgettable Vs Chris Adams (12.05.1981) Another tune-up match for Mask, this time against a very young Chris Adams. Adams was also the apparent inventor of bad Young Bucks thigh-slap super kicks, though his are a bit more subtle and he doesn't overplay them for 20+ minutes. Despite this match only taking place four days later, they've already modified Sayama's mask to be less bulky, looking closer to the design that people generally associate him with. As the two are well known WoS workers they go into more of that kind of pace here than a typical Jr heavyweight showcase, focusing on arm locks, holds, and fancy ways to escape them: Sayama even pulls from his Sammy Lee days with some of his impressive transitions here, including backflipping out of a key lock and effortlessly springing to his feet after a quick small package attempt by Adams. Of course we get the usual Tiger Mask spots for the time (the fancy kicks, the cross-chop, etc) and they are done very well, despite Adams' floaty selling at points. Adams gets to show off at bits as well, escaping a wheelbarrel position by crawling to the turnbuckle and climbing his body all the way to the top rope before then using the momentum to throw his opponent off; just that classic British Catch shit that looks goofy as anything, but you can appreciate the uniqueness of it here in comparison to everything else. Adams takes over with a throw to the outside, some more super kicks and a (very gentle) scoop slam to the floor. Eventually he tries for a comedic second rope diving headbutt by just leaning himself off the rope than jumping, which gets dodged, naturally. Adams gets knocked around a bit but uses his super kicks to keep distance; even with Sayama catching one, he reverses into a now-classic Enzuigiri counter with his other leg. The finish is somewhat abrupt as Adams eats a dropkick before Sayama flips over the guy during a back suplex to throw on a early version of his Tiger Suplex-leg clutch variation, which gets the win. This was a pretty fun matchup that had Adams take up a surprising amount with fairly decent work on his end; he's not amazing or anything but he's a very safe and reliable worker that takes some generous bumps here given his youth, so he has more to work with in terms of how much he can throw himself around. Sayama looks better than his last match with Cat and seems a lot more energised, especially with him not needing to fix his mask every two seconds. He gets to show off a bit more versatility as well, throwing in some of that early hold work that'll quickly become a handy tool in his matches and incorporating his ability to work well from underneath. RANK: Decent W/ Tatsumi Fujinami Vs. Chris Adams & Mike Masters (04.06.1981) This is clipped down to about 9 of the original 14 minute match, and mostly what is cut is interactions without Tiger Mask in the ring, so barely any Fujinami or Adams gets on tape: this is the case with both the official NJPW Tiger Mask collection and other variations. Masters by comparison is a very bland act that Sayama gets to play around, using some British Catch-lite arm spins and holds alongside the usual spots, including his sensational dropkick that gets ludicrous amounts of height from. We do get Fujinami for the end however as he tags in to beat down on Adams with a spinebuster set-up for Sayama to dive in with a top drop crossbody, kinda like a variation on a Hart Attack-style move with the set-up. But yeah, this was a pretty nothing match for what was shown, which was 90% just Tiger Mask being, well, Tiger Mask, only with someone who isn't that interesting a worker and so kinda just is a body to be outsmarted and thrown around. Great spots throughout and Masters plays well as the befuddled gaijin dragged in to battle against someone way out of his league. That said, lots of nothing beyond that and stunk of filler. RANK: Forgettable Vs Villano III (24.06.1981) Yeah, this ruled: I'm kinda gutted these two didn't face off more often (only here and then a quick match later on). Very strongly paced lucha-action and for once it seems like Tiger Mask actually has some competition as the two tend with a mix of holds and high-flying, but it's actually logical and makes sense to the pacing of the match as the two use it to either maintain or change positions as the defender or pusher, rather than merely to speed the match up. They actually built off spots as well: Sayama would get caught by a backwards headscissors early by Villano, for example, and when he'd try for it the next time it would get countered, like it's obviously pretty simple but they build off that simple work to more complex sequences down the line. We also do get more fast-paced stuff as the two seamlessly go from move to flip to move to flip again with ease, with some really innovative work for the time. Of course there's the slower bits but the two don't sit in holds too much and it's built around pacing to the more back-and-forth sequences eventually. Sayama was in peak condition here, just moving with unreal speed and accuracy in some points here that at some moments just makes his opponent look almost outdated by comparison. Villano very smartly works this into the match by getting progressively more annoyed that this kid is working circles around him, eventually having to work himself up bad to escape a simple arm wrench with a ton of aggressive flipping, which Sayama sarcastically claps afterwards. They get over this rather bravely with a extended Nishimura-style Surfboard spot, with the crowd eating it up when Sayama manages to overpower the guy and the two go into some fancy lucha pins before resetting. They then go into more submissions, namely a cool figure four that they milk with some good Villano selling; him also reversing the hold before then holding himself up with his arms for more leverage was a REALLY small but good spot that I haven't honestly seen done since in such a cool manner. Seeing the crowd pop for Sayama simply reversing a headlock just shows how well they paced this out given that fact; they aren't just quietly waiting for the next burst of action, this slower-paced, drawn out technique has them engaged as well, perhaps even more in places given the reactions. They go almost non-stop between reversals, arm drags, flips, and some big near falls that the crowd bit for immensely. Sayama gets his spots in, but they don't feel dominating or forced, especially given Villano is a actual threat here and can sneak back in with his own counters at any point. Crowd pop hard for a big apron springboard to the outside which is treated as a actual dangerous move as Villano can't get in afterwards, so Mask wins via count-out which was a expected finish for this time and will happen a lot in these matches. Absolutely check this out if you can; despite it slowing a bit with some holds it never loses that allure of these two just having good chemistry and a natural pace to the spots used as opposed to mindlessly spamming them out. This is a super rare look into Villano's prime and simply put, he became a instant favourite for me from how he worked this match and balanced getting his own shit with making Sayama look like the clear superior. Just so much fun and a shame this isn't more well-known because I'd say this is on bar with the Dynamite Kid stuff if not even more ambitious in places. RANK: Great Vs. Scorpio (02.08.1981) Scorpio is another enhancement talent mid-card lucha lad and isn't very good here outside of some cartoonish selling when his attempts to ground Mask fail. He has some moments where it's just him fumbling behind while the crowd awes at Sayama just wrecking his shit with the usual crazy spots and makes a fool out of him over and over. Of course Scorpio is to lose, but he makes sure to make his opponent look pretty great with his fumbling in the process despite his best attempts to keep Mask down on the mat and winded. This would be the first of many B-show "roadblock" matches paced like this. I did think Sayama going for a Indian Deathlock of all things was pretty weird but he made it work given the conditions and he'll make it a regular feature moving from here. Finish has Mask overshoot for a top rope sunset flip, forcing Scorpio to kinda flop after him a bit to get into position. It's a bit weird as Scorpio seemingly kicks out near the end (and he does to be fair, he gets the shoulders up) but it gets counted anyway. This was a pretty nothing match outside of just making Sayama look good, which, like.....he's already fairly great at already. Scorpio is a decent stooge and bumps well for the better man, but his stooging is a bit too good as there's no tension at all here as a result and you quickly lose interest. RANK: Forgettable Vs. Scorpio II (06.08.1981) Cut down to six minutes. Scorpio again! He's still not really that good, but his goofy antics keep him a entertaining foil to the young Tiger Mask, a Saturday morning cartoon villain that the hero just easily runs though despite some shortcomings. He's a good stooge, at least, bumping all over the place and pulling some dirty antics to try to stop the inevitable. We get a decent mat-exchange before a pretty cool bit where Scorpio's second rope backwards crossbody is countered into a mid-air dropkick by Sayama before he effortlessly snaps on a Tiger Suplex (one of the first, in fact) before effortlessly bending right back up when he gets the pin. Fine enough for a short outing, these two work pretty decent together and Scorpio bumps good for the lad, which is all you can ask from enhancement talent. This suffers from the same issues as the last match but if you want to see more of the two (for some reason) then this'll satisfy any cravings. RANK: Forgettable W/ El Solitaro vs. Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata (21.08.1981) This is almost cheating given it's only two minutes, and half of it is a Brazo Oro control-segment with the big highlight being a big backdrop on Solitaro. Plata comes in to add a powerslam, but then Solitaro just....walks off all of the damage quite literally, skipping towards the tag to Mask. Plata tries to keep him under control but a cross-chop and missed dropkick into Butterfly Suplex is enough to pin Plata rather easily. As stated, I'm not a fan of ranking things with so little, and this is a pure example of it, two minutes is nothing. RANK: ??? Vs. Brazo de Oro (28.08.1981) This is working off the Brazo feud that'll continue for a bit, with about 4 and a half minutes of this intact. Oro definitely fits that "roadblock" format that I discussed with Scoprio prior as Oro spends most of his control segment on the leg of Sayama and basically sitting on it. Of course this doesn't go anywhere and he makes sure to no-sell by landing a Savate kick right afterwards, but still, it's something. There's a entertaining bit of gaff as Oro celebrates Mask catching him out with a hug and raising his hand; of course this turns out to be a ambush as he goes right into a heavy German suplex that gets a 2-count but is then reversed into a headscissors. Oro actually has Mask slightly outpaced here with the usage of a cross-chop and dropkick to keep him unsteady, but his crossbody is countered into a gutbuster, and then into a really gnarly tilt-a-whirl inverse backbreaker from the German suplex position, looked rough in a good way. Even though there's lot of this out there, I still thought it was a entertaining romp that manages to show off what Oro could do when not with his brothers or in tags. Mask doesn't really change course from his usual routine outside of more nasty slams and whatnot in response to Oro's cheeky antics. RANK: Decent W/ Tatsumi Fujinami Vs. El Solitario & Pete Roberts (04.09.1981) This is actually intact compared to other showings at the time, which is a good thing considering who's involved. Solitario and Mask exchange some holds but it's mostly here to have some of the usual Mask spots and Solitario bumping around for the lad, not really to progress anything. Roberts also adds a lot of British flair to the occasion with a lot of oldie Catch work between them and Fujinami, which if you like then it definitely hits that mark given the two have some slick counters and now how to pace out their stuff well. We also get a good few just fast-paced Jr style sequences where we get move after move in very quick fashion, which despite seeming archaic in comparison to today still have a charm and level of struggle that is missing a lot from more workrate-centred matches. I also thought Roberts and Sayama especially had good chemistry as they go seamlessly between arm lock transitions, with Sayama showing off that signature showmanship as he outsmarts the vet at his own game; Roberts having some WoS-style pantomime selling as he slams the mat in frustration and gives small yells of surprise when caught out but never overtly goes over the top to make it all about him either. We get a speedy finish as Fuji and everyone else go at full tilt with move after move, with Roberts and co suffering a loss after Solitario's crossbody is taken by the latter instead by mistake, allowing Fuji to land a swift sunset flip for the win. This had some solid technical work (even if it doesn't go really anywhere, it's still good in isolation) alongside a surprisingly fast pace that would fit even in modern matches just fine. Fuji despite his obviously well-done work felt more or less like a afterthought here to Mask, who astonishes with some amazing spots and works well with both members of the other team who are fine enough in their respective roles and don't feel like afterthoughts. Really fun showing for what it's worth and a fascinating blend of styles. RANK: Decent W/ Fujinami Vs. Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata (09.09.1981) The Brazo brothers are entertaining foils for the more straight ace duo of Fujinami and Mask, and this was when they were in decent shape and not grossly over the hill physically like their more known 90's stuff. The match itself is pretty by the numbers; the Brazo brothers have some tricky holds to slap on but let's just face it, they weren't going to win this by a mile. It was interesting seeing Plata actually not be ridiculously overweight here and not be the butt of the joke a la Super Porky, instead being a competent lucha worker with some goofy bumps here and there, including a VERY rare slingshot spot that doesn't end with the guy hitting the ropes or turnbuckle. The start and some of the middle work mostly clean before we get a funny sequence where the Brazo brothers keep trying to double team Fujinami, only for him to dodge and they end up getting the other brother instead; it's a really early example of their slapstick shtick in full effect and glorious to witness, even if it's fairly common. After this the match structure goes into more of a conventional one as the Brazo lads use interference and skirt the rules to try to keep things grounded, raking at Sayama's mask or biting Fuji. Bar one or two top rope spots (that honestly, didn't look great) they mostly stick to that gameplan. Admittedly this part of the match is a bit dull as we go into a lot of mostly heatless working holds that don't really mean a whole as well as the occasional explosion of action by the natives. Now the heel work by the Brazo lads was actually pretty smart in places; feigning a snapmare to yank on the mask of Sayama or Oro using the excuse of a abdominal stretch to land some sneaky shots on the groin are good small spots, it's a shame the crowd don't really bite for any of it though and really aren't interested in these two whatsoever, even interested enough to boo. Sayama botches his turnbuckle flip again (noticeably damaging his hand to a unknown extent) but recovers eventually to land a surprisingly good looking Uranage. Finish seemed very abrupt as Mask quickly lands a German suplex right afterwards and everyone kinda awkwardly looks at each other like this wasn't the finish; maybe it was, but it seemed very much improvised given the lack of build and how sudden it felt. That said, this was a decent match, just that it doesn't have the best crowd for it: not even a prime Tiger Mask seems to get them going much, which is really saying something given the shit he'll have to deal with. Fuji is a fine enough hand and the Brazo bros throw in some decent color as foreign foils, with good heel work. Once again, the crowd is the main issue, as was the bad finish. RANK: Decent Vs. Brazo de Plata (17.09.1981) Yeah this match is a LOT better than the tag they had last week, thanks to a better crowd and more overt antics. The Brazo lads are great at the kind of silly wrestling pantomime that takes surprising amounts of skill to pull off successfully, and this was them way before their popularity prime in the 90's. At first they wrestle clean but Mask just completely dominates Plata though arm work or countering any attempts to take control with his usual sensational spots, giving zero leeway for Plata to even remotely get a sniff in beyond some occasional slow-down holds. I did notice however that he occasionally favoured his hand: the same hand that he had noticeably damaged last week during a botched turnbuckle spot. This wouldn't mean much usually but Sayama was not a particularly great long-term seller, which makes me think he had something still going on with it at the time. Plata mostly keeps to rest-holds and occasional faster moments if only to shut down his far faster opponent. the Brazo bros quickly resort to dirty antics; these were somewhat comedic, as Oro tries standing in for his brother despite being a good bit smaller and looking completely different with his golden mask and sleeve lol. Of course they try other petty things like a sneak attack off a "hey let's make up" hug, but of course he gets outsmarted again as Sayama is wise to their pretty predictable attempts at cheating and Plata is too stupid to realise Oro tried the same spot already. The second half is a long heat segment by Plata, and while the tension is noticeable from the audience this time Plata's work is a bit lacking, mostly going into working hold into working hold without much rhyme or reason but it builds good enough to a great comeback from Sayama all the way to the finish that it almost gets forgotten despite that fact, with just a lot of speed and hard-hitting agility all coming so fast that you can at times be overwhelmed. It's a good match in terms of that kind of showcase, but I did think there was a real lack of big offence from Plata, and like many of Sayama's opponents at the time, he doesn't feel like a tangible threat for the prodigy. Maybe that's literally him suffering from success given how wildly fantastic he is bar the selling, but either way you never really buy him in true danger, which does diminish the heat spots given that inevitable conclusion. RANK: Decent W/ Fuji vs. El Solitario & Solar (18.09.1981) Clipped to six minutes. This is mostly to get over the impending Solar/Mask encounter the week after this as he's the lucha villain of the week, so naturally we start with those two and it's just hold-exchanging, standard lucha stuff with not much urgency added. Solitario takes most of the offence while Mask and co are more 50/50. Solar gets rocked with some kicks and even a cool extended sequence where the two dodge and parry strikes and moves from the other, including Solar dodging a uppercut and escaping a Tiger Suplex, which was not common at that time. Sayama botches his turnbuckle corner Tiger Wall Flip bad, so instead he has to land some equally bad strikes to knock his opponent out of the ring. Everyone brawls, Solar misses a dive and hits his partner instead but it doesn't matter because everyone is too busy throwing bad punches to the chest to care. Nothing match outside of the Solar/Mask interactions, felt very low-effort by everyone involved and a definite product of what happens when you have a lot of talent that just can't be bothered getting the other to better things. RANK: Forgettable Vs. Solar (23.09.1981) This is the infamous "bad shoulder " match as Solar seemingly majorly hurt his shoulder during this match and like a big babyface, Sayama immediately works on it alongside everything else. The injury looks like it's caused when Sayama does his signature escape out of the arm wrench with his flips; he slips with the arm wrench pull at the end, and that slip causes Solar's shoulder to be put in a rather uncomfortable position; you can see him immediately shaking it and clearly having issues, but he's still able to move around fine and the two have a good chemistry going between them for a few more minutes until the shoulder seems to get worse as he takes some bumps off it. Some have tried to say that Solar put on this supposed shoulder injury to try to rationalise losing to Tiger Mask, but I don't see it given how this is still worked; it's not like the bad shoulder is especially worked on during the match, hell it doesn't get touched nearly at all until the very end. Either way, it does somewhat harm the match as Solar has to just outright not do sequences because his shoulder is so bad. You can definitely tell Sayama gets impatient as he prances around and is consistently either looking at the ref like "wtf do I do here?" or getting annoyed because Solar teases just leaving altogether at one point with a count-out tease, which felt weird and not at all planned, especially with all of the Young Lion guys at ringside trying to get him back in. Eventually he just goes "fuck this" and smacks him around with a long series of kicks, some clearly not as worked as others and some aimed right at the bad side. He tries pulling for the shoulder a few times, but Solar just yells and refuses to give him any of it due to the supposed pain. Sayama goes back to kicks, before trying for his usual German for the finish: Solar ain't taking that and immediately goes down to his knees, so instead he just gets stuck with a double wrist lock that Sayama stubbornly applies until Solar submits. This was starting to look good, but eventually went ugly after the supposed shoulder injury, even if we do get some nice comedy out of Tiger Mask going from this uber-babyface to grumpy guy kicking a one-armed masked lucha dude and attempting to snap his arm. That's probably worth the watch alone, but the two work good for the first 6 minutes before the injury gets really bad, even if it's nothing particularly mind-blowing. Fun for what it was, but a mess nonetheless. RANK: Decent Vs. Masked Hurricane (08.10.1981) Lol this is some classic carny shit here. "Masked Hurricane" is Bobby Lee, and this is a Mask vs Mask match.....only this is the only match that Lee ever wrestled with the aforementioned moniker up to this very point. Lee is the obvious heel here as he lands a early cheap shot during a handshake. Mask takes over the early halves with some really creative lucha-style submissions, including a half-botch where he does his Tiger Spin spot but Lee falls backwards instead of forwards, which while obviously wasn't planned actually made it look more painful despite it being a simple leg-vice. The two trade holds before Lee bites the hand to escape a Misawa-style head crank. The two go into some hard chest chops before Lee tries showing off with some successive kip-ups, but ends up eating a big dropkick for his troubles. Lee offers another handshake but it's legit this time. He tries taking Mask down to the mat but ends up caught in a creative heel hook instead. Lee gets bullied as Mask dominates with his usual spots, as well as a bit where he legitimately just spams out about six dropkicks over and over never-ending before catching the guy in a weird modified backbreaker, which Lee screams afterwards. This is also the finish, bizarrely, as he submits to this. Post-match has him unmask and him initially covering up his face before eventually relenting and shaking Sayama's hand after the fact. As a match this didn't have much tension because Lee literally had no buildup before this and you could tell from the real lack of reaction from the crowd outside of when the spots were being pulled out. I did think this was a alright showing of both men as they got to really wiggle around on the mat and show off a bit. Honestly Lee here felt kinda like the 80's version of Kendo Kashin here what with the handshake shtick, the hand biting, focus on holds and eye raking all being shit you'd expect from him. As a Mask showcase it does the job, and you can see the beginnings of his more mat-based technique here with his focus on leg holds and submissions: obviously none of it is particularly realistic to modern day, but you can see where that would lead him in the UWF and whatnot, and Sayama certainly isn't half-bad at it given his background. RANK: Decent Vs. El Texano (16.10.1981) Cut by just a minute. Texano is here for a filler lucha of the week foil for Tiger Mask and the two get some nice work done despite the short time. Texano focuses on some really innovative holds, including a sideways Surfboard and a remarkably early usage of what appears to be a STO: way before it was popularised as a wrestling move it seems. Texano slaps on the rough holds until Sayama quickly escapes with a arm wrench and snappy savate kick. What do I like is how the two interact here: yes it comes across as a Mask showcase in places with just how overbearingly innovative Tiger Mask was at this time, but Texano always makes sure to add in some things here and there to show he isn't just a passive idiot gawking at the guy; in a particularly good sequence Mask knocks Texano around with a fancy arm drag out of a backbreaker attempt before pulling for a fast Frankensteiner, but a third attempt at the same counter has Texano put a stop to that with a nasty powerbomb to shut him down. Sayama sells....for about 10 seconds anyway, before he's back to just doing bonkers high-spots. We do slow down a bit and even see a early UWF Super Tiger emerge as Sayama slaps on a cross armbreaker after Texano kicks out of a pin, albeit it's super lax as per the standards of the time. Texano takes over with a spinebuster, headbutts to the stomach and more mid-section work to prep for his second rope senton (it's actually hold work that builds to something!) but misses. Texano goes all shoot-style with a judo throw and double wrist lock attempt before landing a wicked tilt-a-whirl Tombstone perfectly, shit looked stiff as anything. That gets a near fall and the crowd react pretty well, showing that he's actually looking like a threat as opposed to a lot of other opponents. Sayama counters a backdrop into a perfect flip onto his feet, dropkicks, feints a dropkick attempt into a quick cartwheel before getting on his own tilt-a-whirl backbreaker (one of the first of its kind) for the win. This was actually pretty good despite only being 8 minutes, with a strong flavour of submissions and innovative sequences between the pair. Texano is pretty good and incorporates a surprising amount of pseudo-shoot style into the mix, making for a real interesting opposition to Sayama's crazy flips and masterful athleticism. Quite enjoyable romp and one that really showcases a wild mix between Sayama's bonkers atheticism and his more grounded side when facing off with someone talented enough to wrestle him down. RANK: Good W/ Gran Hamada vs El Signo & Negro Navarro (23.10.1981) This is cut down to about five minutes, but it's a decent burst of action out of the young Los Misioneros de la Muerte duo as they gang up on a baby-faced Hamada with a double team Snake Eyes onto the steel guardrail to Hamada. He's generally used as the scrappy underdog that gets beat up while Mask is the big boss who knocks around the rudo duo with some good spots outsmarting or outpacing them, with Signo having to use double-team antics to keep him under control. Hamada looks great when he has to dive up and over Tiger Mask during a submission to catch Navarro right on the nose with a crossbody, and his fiery dive to the outside looked good. Despite some resistance Navarro is quickly put down with a springboard corner crossbody and tilt-a-whirl backbreaker for the pin. Nothing special but for what was seen, this was a standard filler lucha tag that got over both sides fairly well despite not really having much time to actually establish any ring-work outside of spots. RANK: Decent W/ Kengo Kimura vs. El Signo & Negro Navarro (30.10.1981) This is drastically cut down on the official collection, but you can find the full match with some digging. Kimura is a bit awkward given his sheer height difference to everyone else here but he does fine with the task at hand with a lot of hold-wangling, albeit is mostly here to do the bumping and big selling for the heels. The Los Misioneros de la Muerte duo are decent enough foils, but don't particularly shine when paired up against someone as unique and dynamic as Mask himself, who steals a lot of their thunder with his routine and some big spots; this is of course by design but regardless is somewhat of a general issue when trying to find good foils for the lad. Naturally we get the usual lucha comedy routine where the rudos keep bashing into each other with moves alongside them just bumping all over the place for the guy, especially Navarro who takes a few beatings and stooges a fair bit. La Muerte take over in the middle half, namely bullying Kimura and slamming him into the guardrail. They do the same to Mask after ganging up on him as well: they pull out a few variations of Snake Eyes, namely on the guardrail itself and on the ropes in a repeat spot to their last match together. Crowd are really hot for him to make a comeback, and when he does they really get loud for the guy: it's only been about 6 months of showings but the Tiger Mask shtick is already well over, helped by the heels just grubbing it up with their dirty antics and some really great bursts of action from Sayama in particular when he's having to get around them. We also interestingly get the heels playing around with his mask a bit, which is a gimmick that won't get incredibly popular until two years later. The finish is abrupt as Kimura lands a piledriver on Signo and then ducks to allow Mask to land a big top rope sunset flip for the win. This was fairly by the numbers but there's some good lucha work from La Muerte as they get their brawling heel shtick over, contrasting well with the babyfaces with their smooth and measured ringwork. It's a bit of a shame that they couldn't work as consistent opponents for Tiger Mask given they have much better chemistry than some of his slower opponents. Regardless, I thought this was surprisingly strong for a outing, and really showed already how crazy over Sayama was with the crowd already. Kimura was a decent hand, but didn't really do a whole lot that was memorable outside of the occasional big move; his material in-between felt like classic salad dressing, nothing much to it. RANK: Decent Vs Gran Hamada (05.11.1981) Hamada is probably the first act since Villano III that can't just be ran over, especially given he's also a babyface. Unlike Mask's dazzling stuff, Hamada while capable of the same high spots is more inclined to sit on the mat and wear his opponent down with holds, albeit these aren't really sold or build to anything like modern watchers would be inclined to think, it's just general wear-down work. They do a good job of showing Hamada's danger early as he's able to match Mask with flips, but can also just outright power him out of his own when the chance comes around, including just slamming him down early when he tries for a arm wrench. I typically hate stuff like the double dropkick but it works here given Hamada's general abilities can keep pace with his opponent on virtually everything, even seemingly off the cuff moves. Now, I can definitely see why people might not be the biggest fans of this; there's a lot of just grabbing onto limbs like arms or legs, but nothing comes of it ultimately and it is a fair part of this....but for me, even though the stuff like the leg work is basically ignored, there's still a great sense of drama as they make the holds into a struggle in and of themselves, how they escape from them but also try to push for offence right afterwards. Like small stuff like Mask closing his legs during a sun-set to hurt Hamada and break the hold or doing a full arch to escape a headscissors and reverse into a bow and arrow by turning it inside out; that's the kind of work I like to see, just small elements that add to a bigger presentation. They also get meaner over time, starting with conventional holds and soon escalating to angry slaps and big strikes. Hamada is the better of the two when it comes to communicating aggression: you can tell when he starts to take shit seriously, how he goes from trying to outwork Mask to just landing big bombs without much care before trying to cool off and stick to the gameplan of mat-work, but he can't resist throwing some stiff ass chops sometimes. He bumps incredibly for his opponent as well, just making him look like a world-ender with some of the big bumps he'd take from a regular roundhouse or whatever. There's some bits where the two just kinda fumble a bit or don't look great, but those are few and far between and frankly don't really detract from the match itself given it's all about one-upmanship and a slow increasing of the moves until it reaches the peak. Hamada has his own range of tricks as does Mask to put the other way, but they manage to shake off everything the other has until Hamada has to fully go full-tilt with dives, one though the ropes and then a failed one from the top rope that Mask dodges, allowing him to get back in the ring before Hamada can for the win. Now I'll be honest: Hamada here as a wrestler has the better selling, and he has the better holds at this moment and time; he also gets over the kind of internal drive to show he can beat this big shot at his own game, and you almost believe that from how well he does throughout this, being able to take on Mask in every comparison that counts and then some. Even though Sayama isn't selling anything for a sustained amount of time, the drama presented here is more than enough to make up for that. "ahead of its time" is a overused phrase, but outside of the slower moments this really felt like a pure example of that, what with the big spot sequences paired with engaging storytelling though those spots. Arguably one of the few times I can honestly say Tiger Mask wasn't the bigger deal in a match! RANK: Great W/ Fuji Vs. El Canek & Super Maquina (01.12.1981) Shown in full. This is to hype up Canek for a upcoming singles match against Mask, so the focus is on them here. Super Maquina immediately sticks out with his big American Football outfit, kinda looking like WCW Norman Smiley lol. You get what he's going for here; he's a bigger and taller dude than Mask and co, so he can just pick up and hurl the guy into different holds and the like; Mask needs to flip and move around to get a good edge, to unsteady the guy. Canek and Fuji have about the same dynamic, with them working a more conventional format as they exchange working holds and some good counters. Fuji gets the chance to show off with big running headscissors takedowns and even a Dragon Screw to both lads when they charge in, which was a fairly cool spot. Canek gets in finally with Mask after Maquina gets dominated with Mask's flippy shit, and he has a funny bit where he's just miming a bouncing ball and kicking it, obviously in reference to Sayama and his flippy shit. Indeed he does manage to get this done somewhat by getting good height with a military press and squishing him with a running elbow, as well as literally swinging him around in a choke. Canek and co get into more heel antics with distractions, eye raking, etc, but it never gets over the top or overbearing like the Brazo bros or whatever. Canek gets in a great running neckbreaker alongside Fuji throwing out some good fundamentals and actually selling, with Mask getting in at the last few minutes to fight Canek again, but the lad runs away after getting caught up in another burst of crazy high-flying from Sayama. Maquina tries to clean up but gets beat up with kicks and a awesome double team spot where Fuji goes for a slingshot while Mask lands a top rope crossbody. Fuji lands a quick brainbuster to finish this up, post-match has Canek threaten the two to lead into the aforementioned singles. This was a good bit of fun despite the limitations at the time; selling and the concept of a hot tag don't really exist here, so some might be bugged out by that. I thought personally that this was pretty solid for a random undercard, with Canek and co having a unique powerhouse contrast to Fuji and co's flippy workrate. Quite well put together and Tiger Mask as always is a treat to watch around this time, with Fuji getting to show off more as well rather than stay in the sidelines with mostly set-up work or selling to build for a Mask hot-tag. RANK: Decent Vs. El Canek (08.12.1981) Mask comes in with Young Lions holding him up and getting flowers but Canek runs out and slams his head onto the turnbuckle when he tries to get in. Sayama shockingly actually sells the attack quite well, with Canek cocky while Mask is hunched over and clearly hurting, staying away from him for a bit when the match starts to recover. The next part is either genius or Sayama botching: he keeps trying for his hip toss counter where he lands on his feet and lands a arm drag, but he just can't do it despite trying a few times, which could have been his attempt to sell the bad arm. He does land his handspring splash and cross chop though, so maybe just a botch after-all. Canek uses strikes and wear-down holds, including a Cobra Clutch, which was pretty cool to see. You start to see more kick-based offence from Mask here as he throws a body shot before landing one from the apron. While this looked cool, it seemed to fuck his foot here as he starts hoppling around when he gets into the ring. He seems to eventually shake this off but it does mean more sitting in holds as a result. It got the crowd going though with chants, especially when he gets stuck in a Gory Special: so it did work ultimately. Mask eventually throws out more kicks and snaps out a figure-four. This follows into more leg work out of a Tiger Spin into a Indian Deathlock, but the lads botch a attempt at a bow and arrow. They do manage throw out a lovely Mexican Stretch though so fair play. They pick up the pace well in the last few minutes as Sayama starts throwing out the big bombs, including a nasty Butterfly and back suplex. An attempt at a cradle pin is countered by Canek smartly back into his Cobra Clutch, which wears down Mask long enough to throw out a impressive military press gutbuster for a near fall. He throws out a second with a elbow drop for the same result. A third? Countered, but Canek still gets a running neckbreaker for another near fall. Finish has Sayama dodge a big crossbody from Canek before going for his signature Tiger Feint, then quickly bounding off the top rope for a huge crossbody to the floor in a pretty epic spot. He tries for another, but Canek catches and slams him to the mat. He can't get back in due to the lad holding onto his foot, causing a double count out. This was expected: El Canek has a rep for politicking so he certainly wasn't losing or looking bad here at all. That said, this was a solid match where the holds made sense and you can see the gears of Sayama's Tiger Mask persona working as he throws out his soon to be infamous big kicks, as well as early versions of some future spots. He's great here, actually selling a fair bit and really bumping for Canek's big bombs. Canek obviously doesn't really sell a whole lot for the younger lad, but he's undeniably got his role down pat as a lucha powerhouse who can just muscle people around, even if his actual range is somewhat limited and more or less propped up by his opponent flying around for him. Finish sucked, but I enjoyed this nonetheless. RANK: Good =========== That's the end of the first part and also of 1981; next up is 1982, in which the Tiger quickly becomes one of the biggest acts in NJPW.....will he have the opponents to match, or more lucha filler?

Interesting clash of teams here that I was actually pretty shocked to find did interact with each other, albeit very briefly and not exactly on any major platform. The Hardy gang are still pretty new to the whole "wrestling" gig and had spent most of their first few years as jobbers; this is no different but they are starting to have more competitive matches despite said jobbing and are slowly crawling up the card. This match also randomly captures one of the very last instances of the Can-Am Express in action before they went to ECW and spilt (to my knowledge they only show up on TV maybe once or twice later but I haven't seen any proof of that so take it with a big pinch of salt) so lots of important stuff happens here despite this being a nothing D-show. They give the Hardy duo a decent amount of time here to get their spots over (including a horrific springboard moonsault botch which has Jeff flop to the floor in a painful bump) which the crowd seem receptive to in general, helped by Can-Am's general cocky heel antics grinding Jeff for most of it and shutting down the ring. The two look sharp for their offence as per standard, including a gorgeous dropkick by Furnas and Jeff fucking destroying his back when taking a double backdrop with a huge bump to the mat. Interestingly we get a symbolic three count when Jeff goes for a small package, but the ref is distracted by some outside stuff so he can't count. Matt mostly does nothing, which I'm fine with because Jeff is obviously the far better worker here and is a good underdog babyface working underneath the two, dude bumps big and his comebacks are fairly nifty, working off the fact he can't overpower the two so using a lot of snappy agility instead. Matt's inevitable hot tag is fairly decent, mind you; just nothing that great, outside of a random springboard moonsault. We get a slightly botched brainbuster/inverse springboard splash by the two for a near fall before Furnas just shoves Jeff super up and over to the outside (again, it's a real nasty bump given Jeff goes high as anything) allowing the Cam-Am to land a nifty superkick/lariat/DDT combo for the win over Matt. This is good enough despite the limitations of SSN, but I wouldn't be lying if the novelty of the matchup is fascinating: it helps that the Hardy lads outside of some botching already have their tag routine down-pat basically, and it is refreshing to see them work a more spotty 90's style Jr-heavyweight style as opposed to their hardcore stuff, which would oversaturate their showings for a lot of their career. Cam-Am looked solid, though Furnas seemed a bit more into this than LaFon/Kroffat. Shame we couldn't get the two working even a year later, because this was surprisingly well-done for a SSN sprint.

I LOVE this match. One can shit on the Openweight Hardcore Belt all you like: it didn't produce very good matches and was too gimmicky for audiences to invest in: but it works perfectly here. Marufuji is one of the top stars on the rise in NOAH, big act, trained by Misawa, all that stuff. Just this same year is when he would drastically start to pick up steam as him and KENTA were quickly getting a bunch of attention from audiences and would be pushed perhaps too quickly into main event stardom. Eigen, on the other hand, hasn't won a title in literal decades and has spent most of his career at this point being in comedy matches: he's also 60 years old by this point. Everything is against him here. Maru tries to catch Eigen out on the mat and takes him lightly but he's surprisingly fast, even catching him out on a double rope run. There's a great spot where Maru gets caught in a arm wrench and does all of these super athletic flips to reverse the hold as per standard for him at the time while Eigen just walks over to the ropes in the same situation. In another, he baits Maru into taking a back bump after faking a big boot on the ropes, giving him enough time to charge him. These are funny on the surface, sure, but it really shows the wisdom against youth theme that both men showcase very nicely here: though Maru is obviously insanely above Eigen on the totem pole, his need to go crazy with spots or flips hurts him here badly as Eigen can outsmart him and even get some offence of his own in, including a diving forearm from the old lad. Maru spends most of the match trying to end Eigen quickly with big spots (including a tease of a apron Shiranui). This consistent underestimation of his opponent means that Eigen keeps finding ways to get out of them and capitalise. He even gets in some nice technical work with a extended Indian Deathlock spot before he transitions into a nasty neck crank: where was this technical beast version of Eigen before? Either way, looked awesome. Eigen gets some near falls with a surprise Spucken and a Giant Swing but Maru is able to shake them off and use his kicks to gain the advantage, namely with a nasty superkick off the Swing for a shock near fall. They even play off the comedy Baba family 90's six-man tags by having Maru kick Eigen in the chest too hard, causing him to do his dumb spit spot in his face and hit a small package for a very close 3 count. He even teases doing his own Shiranui but obviously that wasn't happening lol. Ultimately Maru recovers and nails a Shiranui for the easy three, with both men giving respect afterwards. While it is quite obvious that Eigen is super limited (namely in the fact that he barely bumps, albeit he can still roll and move well) he's still reasonably good for a 60 year old and really gets to show off here with some surprisingly good wrestling. Maru carries him through some of the harder sections granted with his speed distracting from said limitations but still, Eigen holds his own here and he very much is able to convince the crowd that he could get a huge upset, even with all of the odds against him; the small package spot especially gets the crowd uber loud. This is a great, Rocky-style match that has Eigen get one last moment in the sun before retiring next year and shows off how well he could actually wrestle when given the time and place.

Why was this so good and WHY was Momota carrying so hard? This is a pretty awesome match with some wild pairings we don't normally see, which helps a lot. Hase and Akiyama are the obvious stand-out quality workers here and make sure to throw in a lot of smooth, just great to watch wrestling, including just all-out amateur sprawling between the two for a good few minutes. That said, I think Eigen and Momota do add some top quality to this with their antics: Eigen being cheeky with tons of cheap shots and Momota just outright running into the flames with strike exchanges against Akiyama...and winning, somehow? Sure, the lads are limited and can't really do a whole lot beyond comedy and basic wrestling, but they know how to play to a crowd and get in some rightfully good reactions, especially when Momota (after Hase beats down Akiyama with a superplex and a Uranage in a similarly solid sequence between the two) goes nuts and pulls out a big dive to the outside, which got the pop of the whole night by far. Dude nails it as well right on the nose, insane pop. The weak links are probably Izumida and Honda, namely because these two were delegated to the rest spot guys who just hit a lot of strikes that don't require much cardio whatsoever, which is a shame because I love Izumida and Honda has shown he can work strong matches when he's motivated to do so, but the two just kinda fall to the wayside as decent hands but really don't try to add anything super interesting when they are in the driver's seat, so it's a lot of punch/kick and sitting in holds for their stuff. Akiyama practically concedes to Momota's vast power by the end by having to resort to a quick roll-up after failing to land his Exploder on the vet, which gets the win. This isn't a incredible match, but one based around giving the fans some great interactions: Akiyama against Momota as the main feud of the match doesn't SOUND good but it actually kicks ass; I think in terms of emotional reactions Momota really drags Akiyama to one of his more pronounced showings: not just a Kobashi-lite bit where he's the sidekick of a far bigger face getting beat down but his own unique character, his arrogance against Momota and how that just motivates the typically easy-going goofy uncle into a rage that turns him from a joke into a stubborn threat are all done so well despite the low-stakes on display. He's most definitely the star of this match given what he throws himself under, and it's definitely a highlight of his career as the crowd tries to will him to a victory somehow despite the odds. There's some downtime where the match definitely drags away from that but when it gets to the great pairings it's just on a whole other level. Not as good as Momota/Liger or Momota/SAWA but definitely worth a watch.

This doesn't have the complete build from the very start but from what's shown, there's some really solid sequences between the pair here; however this is mainly to show off Mossman's offence front and centre given he'd be moving up the rankings to the heavyweight division soon enough. Asako is able to take advantage with some quick transitions, like catching him with a inverted cradle for a near fall and then grabbing on to the leg after the kick out for a quick snappy submission, or catching his leg mid-strike weird inverted spin kick to his shins. It's not all amazingly performed but Asako's offence is quite innovative and definitely catches the crowd off guard at points when trying to work over Mossman's legs to weaken his main weapon in form of his kicks. He's definitely not the super worker he perhaps was showing signs of being at the start of the decade (like his stuff with Bobby Fulton or his Can-Am showings) but there was definitely potential still to be tapped into. The last few minutes are just these two throwing out some big bombs and moves to outperform the other: Asako goes for more agility based moves while Mossman uses more power based stuff, but each guy gets in their fair share and it never really feels imbalanced, which is good for a title match like this. Mossman finally gets the win after countering a Frankensteiner into a powerbomb that's then countered by Asako into a quick last dish rolling pin, but Mossman kicks out and finally nails his jumping DDT (which is super good by the way, never really seen someone do it quite as well as he has since) for the conclusive finishing spot. Really strong pace kept between the two: in some ways this was actually better than their rematch for the title a year later as it didn't need to stall things out with rest holds and just went into quick action right away: I'm not against rest holds but that in particular was shockingly bad stalling, literally minutes of just endless Asako sitting in a headlock. Here? No such thing, both men just go into Jr style sequences right away but also sell the effects of them later on. This is probably the best you were going to get in terms of Jr representation at this point and time in terms of importance and quality, as sadly Kings Road era AJPW was pretty poor at actually televising and giving importance to the Jr division. Definitely not the smoothest but I really liked this as a strong showcase of what both could do when given the time and space, really showing Mossman in a good light despite his carry-job by Ogawa a month prior.

You just know a match is gonna be good when it starts with Kobashi getting his plancha attempt to the outside countered into a nasty powerslam by Dr Death lol. Williams works his back over more by slamming him into the ring post, as well as slapping on a few working holds on top. Kikuchi tries to help out but Doc's more annoyed than actually threatened by the poor guy. Ace tries to continue the trend with some corner shots but Kobashi counters his second one into a big backdrop, which was a well timed spot and quite unexpected. This gives enough room for his partner to take charge, but eventually Kikuchi goes back to his natural role as the whipping boy of the Super Gen. Ace also does that unique bit where he has the guy in the Tree of Woe position, but then goes outside to choke him. It's nothing special, but I like the visual of it and Williams stomping the poor lad while this is happening just looks mean; it doesn't actually help their chances any, they just do it for the sake of bullying the guy. Ace isn't as perhaps explosive as his counterpart but his nasty stiff boots and kicks do get a lot of sympathy for Kikuchi's struggle as well. Eventually Kikuchi counters a suplex but gets grabbed for a Ace Crusher. Kobashi gets in the way, managing to stun him good enough for Kikuchi to land a flush calf kick out of it. Kobashi gets tagged in and has a awesome spot with Ace where he's trying to get his Machine Gun Chops started, but Ace keeps interrupting with his own, even doing a parody of them at one point to set the guy off. Kobashi later takes over with a loose lariat and a weird Dominator-lite move where he gets him in position for the move, but then just runs and then abruptly drops him on his back while there, basically like a Jackknife but instead of a powerbomb position it's a backbreaker instead. It's feels like a botch yet gets a big near fall, which makes me think this was Kobashi trying something new like his infamous "Diamond Head" attempt. Lead to finish has Williams and Kobashi go at it with chop exchanges and a brutal German by the former. He tries for a Oklahoma but Kikuchi dropkicks him mid-attempt. Kikuchi tries virtually everything to save the team, including taking Williams surprisingly close to his limits as well as getting near falls on Ace with a superplex and a big German, but both are kicked out of. He tries for a top rope move but gets reversed into a big Ace Crusher, which only just gets saved by Kobashi! Great timing on that sequence, it got the crowd really going. Kobashi's luck runs out as Kikuchi is pinned with a Doctor Bomb from Ace, being too slow to stop the pin on the outside. All in all, a solid outing and better than the Misawa 6-man. This has some great tension, Kikuchi gets a nice moment in the sun after a drop-off in recent years, being a great underdog and playing up his more agile style perfectly: this is probably his best match for....honestly a good few years, barring his singles with Kobashi or his mythical "lost" match he had with Ogawa in 2000; he doesn't get much big stages to shine after this. Kobashi and co put on expected performances all in all: as much as you'd expect from them at this point but for a beginning of year show there's a lot of just good old-fashioned intensity. Ace carries his share of the match well and steps up to the occasion, which was cool to see given he's a pretty good wrestler when not being insanely overshadowed most of the time.

Full version is here bar a minute (don't ask how I found this, I genuinely don't remember outside of I think a random AJPW compilation tape on YT) so given this was essentially a sprint, which was pretty interesting given who was involved. Takayama has to run around Vader (which is a funny sight to see) and throws out some great strikes and slams in the process with a ton of urgency. Vader bumps his ass off for the 33 year old as he lands a ton of offence including even a sensational Taue-lite top rope big boot, which looked pretty well done given Taka's size and whatnot. There's some shoot-style stuff as Taka goes for a few leg and arm submissions, all of which Vader has to reach for the ropes for given his lack of experience in that regard. Eventually he gets swatted like a fly with a big body check before Vader lands two hard splashes for a near fall. Taka does his best Kobashi impression with a silly face afterwards as he tries to push though: Vader has no time for dramatics as he quickly lands a Vader Bomb for another near fall before just splashing the guy again regularly for the conclusive finish. This could've easily been a dream match had Taka been older and Vader younger, but this'll do for a fun little change of pace. Lots of moves done with virtually no downtime and despite Vader's inconsistent and rather shaky workrate at this point he delivers with the bombs and stiff shit you'd expect, with a younger and leaner Taka really embracing his role as the agile underdog with some tricks up his sleeve. Their 2001 match is a lot better in terms of conventional workrate that's expected out of the two, but there's a quality to this that I do find charming given how fast Taka was when he was leaner; it's like seeing early WCW Giant do stuff like dropkicks and the like, bit bonkers.

Not NJPW-related but he has a pretty good match with Tiger Mask/Super Tiger in UWF 1.0. if that's your thing. One of the only things that was televised for his NJPW tours was also, interestingly enough, a match with Tiger Mask, albeit he seems to wrestle in the traditional "foreign heel" shtick so he's mostly doing a Black Tiger impression with lots of punching, some knees, lots of dirty work, not a lot of actual technical wrestling and there's a lot of miscommunication between the pair. I almost believe they couldn't get Black Tiger in for a date and just slotted Jones directly into the match instead, it's that identical bar one spot or two, even having him do a Black Tiger style piledriver bit for bit identical.

Between all of the Gaora Sports YT matches getting dumped out in the last few months and the Gaora Museum rebroadcasting a ton of full 2001-2003 shows (most of which you could find online but usually low-quality rips) it really feels great to be a fan of this particular era of AJPW. The fact nearly all of these can be searched out with simple links as opposed to digging around is a big step forward. Good stuff!

This was a really amusing match despite only going about 4 and a half minutes. They get the ongoing Tiger Mask/Kuniaki Kobayashi feud over by having him attack mid-entrance, and the two have a scrappy back and forth with Kobayashi getting the lead with some nasty kicks. That's the story going into this; Sayama is hurt, Les is not, albeit the latter sells it more like a head blow than general fatigue, so he's not really any slower or less capable, just hurting. These two had a match last year and it was....decent, but nothing special: the two don't really work that well together despite being fairly well respected wrestlers in their own right. They start off with Mask hurling out kicks and whatnot like normal, but can't overpower Thornton just hurling him down to the mat. Boston Crab gets countered into a throw out of the ring and a Tiger Feint, business as usual. Some leg work between the two as Thornton counters with some clubs to the back and a backbreaker that gets oversold by Sayama like he got shot or something. Some knees to the head before Thornton has to hold hands with his opponent so they can do the fancy monkey flip off the floor spot, which fair play to both men, it looked great. Thornton hooks the arm for a key lock but Mask goes into a standing headscissors, which Thornton just powers out into a armbar instead. Eventually he gets out of it by doing a full on backflip into a hip toss and some knee drops. Moment of truth as we get a Tombstone out of Mask which almost is botched, but they manage to bounce off the ropes to get some extra time to get the leverage right and it goes off without a problem. Now this was going smoothly.....but things fall off for the finish lol. Sayama primes the Diving Headbutt for a near fall, Thornton just stands up abruptly for no reason other than for him to land the German suplex for the pin, but he sandbags the shit out of him for it and immediately no sells by springing right up with no issues as soon as the pin is counted. Sayama plays ball for a bit as he sells afterwards, but when he notices that Thornton is right up when talking to the ref, this dude gets MAD. Like I've seen the trainee footage, I've seen him kick Maeda's head like a football so hard he fell over, but he was especially violent here as he walks up to Thornton and kicks him hard as anything in the back of the head, and once in the stomach. Thornton isn't badly hurt, but he quickly gets out when Sayama squares up. That's probably the most entertaining part of this match, but for a sprint-form of their (IIRC much slower and worse last year match) I thought it worked, even though Thornton was essentially getting jobbed out here with how quick the entire thing was. Reasonably fun for what it was, and the violence post-match was daft but definitely fascinating.

A ton of fun. This was during the time where Tenryu was just running through all of the AJPW rookies and beating the crap out of them generally. Kono is different, however: he's a pretty big dude so Tenryu immediately has issues as he can't just bully Kono with ease with his usual strikes and whatnot, being forced to eat multiple chops and getting out-wrestled. Of course Tenryu still lands some gross stiff stuff, but he's noticeably rattled and immediately goes to his signature stuff to try to establish some order. Even a really early second rope back elbow doesn't seal the deal, which gets a slight grin from the guy afterwards. Kono responds with a big dropkick and a boot to the face; this ends up causing a gash on Tenryu's face unintentionally, which starts unnoticeable but gets worse as time goes on, which added a fair bit of urgency to the match as Tenryu goes from being a rookie killer to being more weary. Kono also goes for a Big Swing, which was fairly shitty but given he only had three months of matches at this point I'm not going to be too harsh. Awesome spot as Kono teases a dive, Tenryu dodges and then just hurls a random table on his back lol. Tenryu takes over with some nasty chops and elbows for near falls alongside a especially hard lariat. Despite hitting a even worse one afterwards, Kono just won't stay down and the audience get more and more frantic with every move done, even if he's incapable of doing anything but holding on. Even with Tenryu's brainbuster and him randomly bleeding he still can't get the definitive win. That said, Kono has so much baggage that he can't do anything else but wait for the next big bomb and Tenryu ends things with a second brainbuster. Not amazing but a really good showcase in how minimalistic workrate in a match can lead to really engaging narratives. How so? Kono doesn't get a ton of stuff in; his list of moves performed go to about a dozen in total if even that. What matters is how damn stubborn he is despite his lack of tangible talent to square up with the vet, how he eventually earns the respect of Tenryu despite his grumpy nature. For Tenryu, it's a absolutely great showcase in how he can control a match almost completely by himself just by how he emotes and conveys what's going on to the audience, which is always been something he's solid at but especially here with the lack of workrate. How he gets cocky after every big bomb like "this is the one, show is over" but keeps getting fumbled especially just gets the crowd, and he noticeably goes from amused to annoyed to then ultimately accepting how tough Kono was and respecting that fact by bombing him to death, as opposed to the other matches where he's using basic submissions to try to break the rookie in front of him. More matches should be brave enough to have squashes like these: it's fine now and then for someone to keeping powering through stuff but never get the second wind, to never actually get a big generic comeback. But yeah, another solid Tenryu showing, no shocker.

There are MANY shoot-style matches that are counted as legit on MMA records for some bizarre reason. Some examples include: Yoshihito Takayama vs Hikaru Sato from 2013, listed as official on wikipedia AND Sherdog despite them not even really trying to make it look legit Fujiwara vs Maeda from 1996 Speaking of which pretty much all of Akira Maeda's "official" RINGS MMA/mixed fight matches, especially his Karelin match which is the fakest shit I've ever seen Rule of thumb for me is that if it starred someone who did semi-scripted fights and it isn't in PRIDE or anywhere that wasn't shoot-style, you can be about 80% sure that it was worked, much like this one. It's done really well, mind you, but they start going for the cheesy slaps and big flying knees and that's when it's pretty much spelt out.

My opinion stays....mostly in line with Loss but I'm more negative about this match, especially when watching it as a whole as apart of the NJPW Tiger Mask deep-dive. Not to say the match was was bad, but it certainly wasn't "title contender" levels either. Bret works a very generic foreign heel style that's not very fitting of him at all, though he does do it as mechanically good as you would imagine a Bret heel performance to look like. I did like Sayama getting some attitude in response with some skirting of the rules; some delayed rope breaks, some more snappy offence etc. The main issue is that the crowd never truly bites into the match, never truly sees Bret as a genuine contender who could steal the title away from Mask; sure, you get occasional crowd chants for him, but there's never a big burst of heat anywhere here to justify the slow pace, so you just have the two slapping on a lot of holds for a weak payoff. Bret has always been a good seller and he in turn really gets over Mask's usual limb work great, it's just that his arsenal of moves here are rather bad for a supposed top Jr contender: I get he's a heel, but we've already had numerous lucha wrestlers (Villano, Brazo de Plata, Canek, Texano) work the same heel dynamic far better despite having a bigger set of moves to fall back on, as well as obviously Dynamite Kid just outright doing Bret's job better. The match for me felt listless, never really kicking off proper and always playing it safe with a stop/start pace to it: whenever there was some drama it never really got going, it just grinded to a halt for more strikes. It gets better around about 20 minutes in (which is really saying something about a Bret/Mask match lol) as Sayama hurls out more risky dives to get the momentum in his favour, including a great bit where he hops from the apron to the top rope in a instant to land a dropkick when Bret tries running off the ropes to knock him off. The finish has him just land a Butterfly Suplex afterwards for the win, which did feel abrupt despite the big spot before it. But yeah, Bret isn't a bad worker but he is NOWHERE near a position where he can hold his side of a match on this calibre: had we gotten 90's Bret here this could've been a bonafide classic but sadly what we get is a lower-tier version of Sayama's formulaic "roadblock" B-show matches, which he does very good with still despite the conditions, but never really goes into full gear. Middling stuff.

I've really enjoyed his NOAH run for what it's worth: his grumpy antics alongside his pretty engaging wrestling is a great match for the house-style of the company and he's gotten some real fun outings despite being a fairly new act for the company. I'm really shocked that they pushed him as hard as they did with a tag title run AND a GHC shot in the last two months or so, but he's totally deserving of it given how consistently strong he comes off in his matches. Definitely seek out that stuff if you're interested in what he's been doing post-WWE. I don't think it's enough to swing tons of votes but it's more evidence of how well put-together of a act he is.

I think that's definitely a aspect of his overall package that gets somewhat neglected beyond the bloody violence; you get a good sense of continuity with him when interacting with wrestlers he's feuded against and whatnot. Like his 2021 tag with Marufuji, he plays off the fact that he beat the shit out of him 15 years ago by specifically having it in for him even after all that time, and they have by far the best interactions in terms of sheer nasty antics. Otani is another good example: his whole return to ZERO-ONE in 2006 is factored around him terrorising and cheap-shotting the same guy who he last fought in 2001, yet acts like it was just yesterday. There's a sense of pettiness in his rivalries that's missing a fair bit these days, how he never really forgets past feuds. Alongside the suggestions already made, I would heavily suggest watching his 2006/2007 run in the aforementioned company as it's a lot of fun seeing him scum it out with MMA rejects and weird deathmatch lads. It's pretty great all the way up to his last Otani match (I.E. the best one) that ends up costing him three years of wrestling as a result.

Yeah Greco's the best of the Malenko brothers when it comes to just technical brilliance, and the fact he didn't work a lot means there's a lot more consistency to be had, and said consistency was of a pretty high mark. Guy can make short or long matches go like a breeze and he's easily one of the best at crafting these really creative WTF worthy moments when he's just got some submission you've never seen before snapped on out of the blue. Very creative. If you want to see a weirder side of Greco then I'd suggest tracking down his AJPW appearances: dude has some really interesting and experimental Jr heavyweight matches with some big names, and with more and more of AJPW being rebroadcast it's definitely worth the search. Dude has a surprisingly intense sub 10 sprint with Kendo Kashin of all people.

It's a bit baffling but I can see as a inter-promotional deal with NJPW STRONG or whatever given he's still training people there. I'm baffled by Shibata's first big AEW match being against Cassidy of all people but if it gets his foot in the door and allows him to work a more off the cuff pace that accommodates for his natural rustiness in the ring, I'm fine with it. I know there's been some controversy about his in-ring return (there was the whole "grappling rules" match he was supposed to have with Narita before he just instantly flipped the script and went for strikes) so idk, maybe there's something there.

I know he apparently promised to be around for Tana's retirement (which I imagine will be sooner than later these days) but other than that......yeah got nothing. It was well known that he had major back problems way back in NJPW as per his own admission and couldn't really go a whole lot anymore, the style was just too much. Honestly should be a fairly good match despite Muta being half cyborg at this point lol

Yeah Fenix is a amazing spot-guy where he just blows your mind with really astonishing dives and flips, but his on/off selling and immensely inconsistent....well, everything else makes him a tricky case that wouldn't have a spot in my 100. Doesn't help he keeps getting slotted in with guys who aren't really interested in dragging that out of him.

Murakami's first Fire Festival match for this year....and also his last, because this is the match that gave him legitimate brain damage, wish I was kidding. This goes exactly how you would imagine: immediate Korakuen Hall brawling by the pair, Mura doing Mura things with crazy stiff shots and the occasional throw into chairs. Otani tries to brave it out but he isn't really in control at all here. Mura throws shots and Otani eats them up Fujiwara-style until he's ready to jump on the guy with a stiff headbutt and running slap. We get a horrific spot as Otani brings out a chair and whacks Mura with it: the first shot is relatively safe despite it being a head-shot, Otani noticeably pulls back a bit. The second is when shit just goes wrong as the chair is busted on his head with the second shot, immediately slicing the side of Mura's head open: it's pretty nasty. Otani buys for time with the facewash spot but it's clear that Mura is hurting given his vacant stare when the ref checks on him. Otani shows his support by placing the chair on his face while he's out of it and then punting the thing lol. Otani buys for more time with vicious shots to the back and you almost feel sorry for Mura as he's just pissing blood all over the place and stumbling around....until of course he ambushes Otani by spitting in his face and landing just ridiculous amounts of punches in the corner. Otani responds with another really hard chop to the face to at least give himself some breathing room. Mura dodges a punt and goes into a Nishimura-style backslide for a near fall before Otani sells awesomely for a punch after his kick is caught, which gives Otani a nosebleed. The two exchange strikes but Mura is done and can't keep up, so Otani hits a big German that his opponent can barely get up to no sell into a PK. Mura's face after Otani's Dragon Suplex is truly terrifying, he's basically half-conscious at this point but his old habits keep him working out of essentially raw instinct. Dub spot, Mura rakes the eyes and dumps Otani outside. The two exchange some shots but are too tired to get in, meaning this ends in a double count out (not sure if this was improvised because Mura at this point literally couldn't stand, but I'm inclined to say so) Mura has to be physically carried to the back (literally on someone's back in this case) and he'll spend the next three years recovering. Which is a shame, because this match is fantastic for what it is: a brutal brawl between two guys who have done this dance before, only Otani is much more prepared. The shots are wild, the suplexes are stiff, the tension is tremendous: Mura has some great selling where he's still in character despite having literal brain damage, and he incorporates the fact that he's almost the babyface here with some last-ditch attempts to take back control before Otani recovers and dumps him on his head again, it's a complete role-reversal. It's a brutal watch and certainly a experience.....but I don't want to see this style EVER get popular again for the same exact reason. That said, by far one of the best matches these two ever had.

This had much potential going into it, especially with the crowd reactions between them for the tag match they used to build this up a week earlier. Sadly Misawa is in one of his moods where he sells nothing, sits in holds while awkwardly trying to work some weird shoot-style that he's clearly not comfortable with, and generally just goes though the motions. I do kinda get the story about how Mura is trying to make Misawa crack and he just isn't quite hitting the mark, but it's done in such a dull manner where Misawa just directly no sells punches to the face and makes Mura look like shit so there's no tension to be really found. There's no real "oh shit the match starts NOW" or Misawa cracked, it just felt like he was here to do the work and go home so the match is consistently on the backend with nothing much happening. Perhaps that's a side-effect of his ailing body at this point, maybe it's just disinterest. Either way, Mura gets in some great stuff on his part and tried to make this interesting, but it just wasn't happening and the deflating finish of Misawa just hitting a few running elbows to essentially job the lad out didn't help things much. You can really tell who was actually interested here.

Thanks Dan! It really seemed like Nishimura was starting to break out around that time with how popular he was getting with audiences, and his cancer sadly takes the gas off that hype (as well as robbing us of potential matches with Hashimoto and the like, which were sadly only hinted at) but he quickly makes that up with his 2000 G1 showings despite having only been back for a month or so, which is wild in and of itself.

More threads like these Introduction Osamu Nishimura is one of my favourite wrestlers, but his coverage outside of his greatest hits is immensely lacking. I really wanted to get this made as a way to show off the vast versatility of the guy, while also being able to showcase his strengths and weaknesses in a pretty accurate manner. For the sake of changing things up I also wanted to cover him using a Gordy List, because why not? I'm going to go though essentially all of the questions to really discuss how he rules, as well as throw out some match suggestions. "1. What kind of candidate is this wrestler (Peak vs Longevity,Peak+ Longevity, Big Match Wrestler, Week to Week Performer etc) and what range would you consider ranking them?" I think Nishimura fits a good few of these and isn't easily squished into any single one of them. He can do BIG match wrestling with the best of his time, his longevity is insane (basically the same quality of matches from 1998 to now) and his consistency week to week is high-standard. Nishimura is someone who could easily work with anything on the table and make the best out of it, even if it's complete rubbish. "2. What is your elevator pitch for this wrestler to be a Top 100 Wrestler? (Sum up their case in a short paragraph)." Osamu Nishimura can get a extended surfboard spot over in big workrate main event showings. He is capable of getting a audience to max capacity volume with roll-ups and basic holds/submissions, knowing how to get the very most out of the basic fundamentals. He's one of the greatest carriers of all time in terms of workrate and has a insane backlog of wrestlers that have had some of their best showings against him in less than stellar conditions. Simply put, he's a master workhorse that doesn't even need to work that hard ultimately to get anything over because he's just that good at pacing simple work brilliantly, but if he has to make you look good then he's more than capable of doing so. "3. Were they ever the best wrestler in the world? Were they ever the best wrestler in their country? Were they ever the best wrestler in their promotion? Who were some of their competitors for the best wrestler in the world, country, and promotion?" I would say no: even in his peak years (early to mid 2000's) Nishimura WAS one of the best workers in NJPW, but he wasn't the best as a whole. Worldwide he'd be probably top 10 at his peak, which isn't a bad thing obviously but still. Guys like Nagata itch him out quality-wise, guys like Takayama, Tenryu and Muto also had better peak years at the time. I don't think Nishimura ever was on their level but he got pretty damn close, especially in 2002 where he was having multiple amazing showcases: Iizuka, Shiga, Bas, Nagata, Takayama, Akiyama, Tenzan, Nakanishi.....like this is all from the same year, and it's just the best matches from there, at times back to back in gruelling G1 showings. He isn't the peak best at any point in my opinion, but his consistency for those years is unmatched. "4. How many years were they a top worker (top worker being a candidate for top 10 wrestler in the world)? Nishimura can be easily considered a top 10 wrestler up until the late 2000's. Every year you have him having good reliable showings that easily stick him alongside the best of the best. He only truly starts to fall off here when he leaves AJPW to go do Muga bookings, and that's ONLY because so little of that got onto tape (the Fujinami/Saito/Kawada showings are all respectfully quite damn solid to be fair) when he got back he pretty much went right back to having bangers. He falls off completely when AJPW keep sticking him in shitty vet 6-man showings with guys like Great Kabuki or Dory Funk Jr, who obviously can't really give much on their end or he's forced to tag with people like Kenzo Suzuki who needless to say isn't very good. His part-time status due to his political campaigning also harms his placing given he wasn't wrestling much at all during those times. "5. Were they a great worker before their prime? Were they a great worker after their prime? How great were they (were they a best in the world, country, promotion candidate while before their prime/after their prime)" This is the sticker for ranking the guy: Nishimura's earlier days were.....ehhh. He's a pretty weird Young Lion in that his fundamentals are fine, but he is kinda forced to be a Jr heavyweight as he's so small and lacking in mass so they have him do these terrible moonsaults and other flippy stuff that he just isn't suited for. He has a strange ECW run where he gets some decent showings with guys like Benoit and a surprisingly strong technical match with AI Snow, but he also has bad performances with Sabu and Shane Douglas. Up until 1998 (which is his breakout year easily) he's positioned as a generic undercard tag worker, forced to take beatings and spam dropkicks so that his bigger-name partners look good for the hot tag. He does have some decent 1997 German Catch work alongside everything else where you can see him put the pieces together for his reinvention when he returns but pre-prime Nishimura was a shaky performer depending on who he was with. "6. Did they have the opportunities to produce a large body of excellent matches? IF YES 6a Do they have a large body of excellent matches? Absolutely. Starting from 1998 Nishimura every year from there has a HUGE body of incredible showings, easily able to work with virtually anyone given the conditions. There's not one year from then where you can't find at least a few standout performances out of him. 6b Do they have a large body of excellent matches against a variety of opponents? Once again, yes: Nishimura has a fantastic history of getting guys like Tenzan, Suwama, Yasuda, Bob Sapp, Nakanishi, Hama and other smashmouth power wrestlers to some of their most protracted yet great showings, sometimes even multiple times year by years as shown by his history of carrying Tenzan in G1 performances (someone who historically had a bad gastank for longer matches). He can make older performers like Fujinami, Roy St Clair, Dory Funk Jr, Hiro Saito, Kengo Kimura and co look good for their advanced age, managing to patiently work at their pace while not exposing their limitations and allowing for their best qualities to come forward. He can take complete nobodies to decent showings: just check out his long history of carrying random ass Dory-trainees who frequently only had a couple of weeks at best of wrestling training on Youtube. There's very little he can't not work well with, so much so that actually bad matches tangibly stand out massively as a result, as opposed to other top 100 contenders who have entire years full of stinkers to pick out. 6c Do they have a large body of excellent matches in a variety of settings? (for example singles, tags, gimmicks, no gimmicks, brawls, technical, short matches, long matches etc) Nishimura has worked all of these styles basically to perfection in his long history. He's not much of a gimmick guy but he works surprisingly well with comedy given his HUSTLE stint as essentially a eccentric Zen Monk-type and some of the more silly stuff he did in Muto-era AJPW. Nishimura isn't also mega focused on brawls.....but with guys like Suzuki or Suwama, he's more than happy to scrap it out with them and get a lot more aggressive. Tag matches he fits in like a glove, including a standout performance holding his own reaction-wise with Tenzan and Nagata in a 06.03.2004 tag where he's mostly having to share the ring with big lumps like Norton, but he works his aspect of the match so well up into the finish that it gets pretty damn big reactions as this badass giant killer. Nishimura can work 30+ minute showings basically just off the cuff, he has probably one of the best gas tanks I've seen in terms of how long he can work without looking sloppy or gassed. You will never see him flub a spot late into a match or look distracted. 6d How much of those excellent matches were a direct result of their performance?" Obviously Nishimura doesn't carry all of the workload, but with many of the guys I mentioned above, he's easily carrying them to better performances than standard. Suwama is infamous for being rather poor in long matches, but Nishimura is one of the few to not be effected by this, instead getting some of his best early showings, even being trusted to be his first ever Triple Crown opponent by Muto to truly get over the future ace. Same with Tenzan, same with Sapp (who somehow manages to look good in a technical sequence with him??) etc etc. Many of his matches are paced in such a way where you know it's all on his side (a lot of focus on nifty Catch sequences) so there's no subtlety in that regard. "7. Do they have a large body of excellent performances in a variety of roles (heel/face, undercard/midcard/main event, champion/challenger, underdog/favorite, younger/older etc)" This is slightly tricky because Nishimura doesn't really wrestle "heel" per-se. He's not someone who's rubbing their hands together and doing evil laughs if that's what you consider being a good heel as. He'll definitely work a Bret-style subtle heel against bigger babyfaces or rookie talent, dominating longer than usual and using smart cut-offs to get sympathy for them, but a outright heel performance? Doesn't really exist. Nishimura wrestles nearly all of his early career as a undercard underdog made to get the hot tags over, a task that he does pretty well from the footage available. He is able to wrestle competent matches wherever on the card, either in nothing 6-man vet tags, comedy openers, random indie matchups, etc. He's a fantastic challenger, getting bigger reactions than Triple Crown Kawada and stealing the thunder from NJPW Champ-era Nagata and Sasaki respectfully, not including everything else on the table. Nishimura really doesn't change much as he gets older: he gets less opportunities to show off with better workers (not helped by horrendous AJPW booking) but when he gets the spotlight, he's the same as he was 20 years ago, just slower and less high paced. He really has not aged much in-ring at all probably helped by his low-impact style and next to perfect consistency in the ring never botching or looking sloppy. "8. Do they work in a way that is consistent with the way they're booked & presented?" Again, tricky question. Nishimura as a Young Lion worked as a generic Jr heavyweight; pretty bad all things considered, not his fault given the cards he was dealt. Fortunes change in 1998 when he starts to get featured more in extended feuds as a no-nonsense old-school grappler under the teachings of MUGA-era Fujinami and he carries that rep all the way throughout his career. He's someone who is defined by his technical excellence, which needless to say, he backs up aplenty. "9. What are their standout traits? (For example, selling, psychology, offense, character work etc)" Nishimura's best features come from how he presents himself uniquely from his peers at the time. He's in a world of Strong Style/puro bombs, something that he simply put isn't GOOD at whatsoever. He can't finish matches with strikes alone, he usually gets overpowered in extended brawls, he can't land big bombs at all by contrast and doesn't have the size or strength to run people over. Nishimura shows off those negatives so that audiences sympathise with him massively but also allows him to throw in his counter-heavy style, which is immensely dynamic and utterly unpredictable most of the time. He has to grind guys down with holds and smart work to get around all of his clear disadvantages. His character work in that aspect is sensational and the fact that he can turn on a dime when he's in his element (like, say, Muga showings, more technical showcases) to a more confident and vicious opponent shows that it is definitely deliberate on his part and not just a quirk that happens to exist when he's facing against these bigger wrestlers. For me, Nishimura's strengths come from his nuance when working. He isn't someone who will wow you with spots, but little things, like selling the leg by hopping over for his Cobra Twist on his good leg or having to hit his strikes with said good leg for leverage so he doesn't fall over are things that award you for watching the wrestling carefully. His psychology is fantastic; he knows what to do at all times and how it makes sense according to the logic above. Barring maybe his weird 1998 Sasaki showing where he turns into a weird spot/brawler guy for one night only, he's internally very consistent. 10. Did they make the people and workers around them better? Again, absolutely so. Nishimura is kinda infamous for his ability to carry virtually anyone to a good showing, even if he's not putting in a lot of effort. he's good with decent to ok workers, he's great with good to solid workers, and he can be unbelievably solid with the right wrestler alongside him. His internal consistency allows for Young Lions and the like to shine when having to handle him in the ring pretty easily. It might be what actually harms him later on as he keeps getting used as someone who can work very well with rookies and older acts rather than actually wrestling good wrestlers. He's in many respects the Japanese Arn Anderson in this aspect, but I'd argue with a much higher ceiling. 11. Is there any reason to believe that this wrestler was better or worse than they appeared? This is also tricky. Some people kinda just insist he's a Dory Funk Jr tribute act when in reality, he's someone who combines a ton of different wrestling styles (German/British Catch, Fujinami stuff, Dory Funk spots, Inoki-lite bits etc) alongside his own unique blend of counter-heavy roll-up technique into something truly unique in the wrestling scene. No one truly wrestles like Nishimura, and I don't think we'll ever see someone like him again. 12. If you had to pick 5-10 matches (Or more) to sell someone on this wrestler what would they be? (Not necessarily the best matches but ones that are best representative of the wrestlers’ GWE case) Ok so the best to sell to someone who knows nothing about Nishimura and wants to get what the fuss is: Masakazu Fukuda (15.05.1998) & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Shinichi Nakano & Tatsumi Fujinami (03.03.1998) Yuji Nagata (08.08.2002) Shinsuke Nakamura (28.08.2002) Yoshihiro Takayama (10.08.2002) Suwama (28.06.2008) also watch their equally as good 15 minute Champion Carnival showing (08.04.2008) Tatsumi Fujinami (25.09.2006, Fuji's last truly great showing) Tajiri Series (23.09.2007/08.08.2013) Takashi Iizuka (06.10.2002) Toshiaki Kawada (03.09.2004) Jun Akiyama (11.08.2003) Watch all of these and you'll get only about a quarter of his truly great showings. It's a good foundation though, wide versatility. 13. Feel free to recommend more matches here if you like! Koji Kanemoto (08.08.2004) Yoon Kang Chul (27.09.2018) Kentaro Shiga (29.08.2002) Kengo Kimura Retirement (18.04.2003) Basically all of his early 2000's G1 showings W/ Manabu Nakanishi vs. Bob Sapp & Shinsuke Nakamura (03.11.2003) W/ Tenzan vs Ryusuke Taguchi & Shinsuke Nakamura (19.07.2004) W/ Muto vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi & Shinsuke Nakamura (09.10.2004) W/ Nakanishi vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan & Masahiro Chono (05.06.2002) Minoru Suzuki (04.08.2005) vs Suwama (AJPW Pro-Wrestling Love In Taiwan/11.20.2009) w/ Joe Malenko vs Masakatsu Funaki & Minoru Suzuki (Real World Tag League/11.20.2010) 14. Any final thoughts you’d like to share? Nishimura only has a few people that he truly doesn't work really that great with: in this case, the only two that properly come to mind are Keiji Muto and Chono. Muto for some reason just doesn't click with Nishimura's more subdued work: they try on two separate occasions (2001 and 2004 respectfully) to get a dynamic going and it just never comes, idk if it's down to Muto just not really vibing with another person who's very ground-heavy but it's very much a big factor. Chono is less extreme but Nishimura seems to bring out the worst in him in terms of his tendency to drag out holds, sit in them for years before doing the bare minimum, much less of the great brawler that he was much more comfortable being at this point. In both of these cases it's not really Nishimura's fault, he's still as motivated as ever however just can't drag amazing quality like he typically can. I think it's also crazy that we also don't have access to a lot of Nishimura's potentially great showings: a lot of the Gaora Sports era of AJPW is still very poorly circulated, including a entire 2009 Champion Carnival stint involving a rematch with Takayama and a 30 minute draw with Kaz Hayashi just missing that I would imagine could be excellent This is also not including the fact that a vast majority of the Fujinami MUGA stuff from 2006/2007 when he was working as THE ace of the promotion also just doesn't exist, which is a shame given how extensively it featured him in a leading role. Despite this he's still got a ton of fantastic showings, and I hope that this has at least been educational as to what those are. For fun, here's a quick top five worst Nishimura showings 1. Dory Funk Jr. (28.11.2018: just a sad performance really, I don't like watching this) 2. Rikiya Fudo (11.06.2017: Nishimura does his best Hogan impression) 3. vs "brother" YASSHI (09.12.2007: just a bad comedy match) 4. W/ Jinsei Shinzaki vs Makai #1 (Super Strong Machine) & Tadao Yasuda (23.09.2003: everyone is waiting for Onita/Sasuke, NO one gives a shit about this) 5. Vs Sabu (03.03.1995: Botches galore, never gets going) Thank you for reading!

For specifics, I think I remember seeing Briscoe and co show up for the Baba Birthday Special show when rewatching all of the stuff from that year (23.01.1998) and being curious why they of all people were there. I guess I know now, lol