Ma Stump Puller

Fujinami's longevity definitely has to be commended: even after 2006 he has occasionally good matches with game opponents (Funaki in 2015/Tamura in 2021) he has goofy spectacle showings (Mascaras in 2011/endless vet matches) and generally will always give out a competent performance even at his most phoned in. Of course he was gonna be in the top 100 regardless of the above, it's just a nice feature to put on top of everything else. I'm a sucker for wrestlers who have great volume of work and he most definitely qualifies.

A potential dream match between two of the best Joshi grapplers of the time turns out to be not what it could've potentially been, but still nevertheless a fun watch. It was not a shocker than this was a banger by any extent of the imagination even with the clipping taking about 4 minutes off the runtime. Yagi is a similarly awesome grappler that was chronically overlooked because of her being rather undersized even by Joshi standards, which is a shame because she's real smooth here. Loads of snug grappling transitions and sequences that even the Michinoku crowd had to woo and ahh at points because these two are just that damn good at getting submission wrestling over without needing to grind the match to a dead halt like a Shamrock/Funaki tend to do. Any match that incorporates a Electric Chair lift into a cross armbreaker is pretty much instantly going to be something worth watching in my mind. Some awkward bits with the faster moments as Amano isn't the most seasoned at this point but none that break the flow of the match completely. Yagi takes from a Fujiwara finish as she takes a vicious German suplex in order to snap on a lightning-fast Fujiwara armbar only to then hit the ropes just as things seemingly start to get real hairy. Amano like a goof tries for one herself immediately after only for Yagi to hit a awesome side-backdrop pin into cross armbreaker to finish this off conclusively with a another cool moment. Fun small outing that really makes you wish Amano dipped her toe into ARSION at some point: the whole shoot vibe that had would've worked wonders for something like this, especially with more time and a crowd conditioned to enjoy the grappling more so than anything else. Further documentation here

Sonoko Kato was a GAEA trainee who's had her fair share of solid matches; more of a shooty kind of wrestler than anything flashy, injuries dragging down her potential sadly long before she could've done anything substantial bar winning tag gold with a young Meiko (good company there.) She got her incredible second wind in OZ and wrestles to this day if you can believe it. Anyway, this was really good: Amano at this point had mastered the art of the sub-15 TV match and knew how to get a lot of quality out of relatively small portions of time. The starting sequences were established around cool basic grappling and Amano aping random Osamu Nishimura spots for the fun of it. Kato gets pissed off with the goofy ahh nonsense and turns this into a brawl where we got some nice scrappy moments and cool spots with Amano doing a DDT on the outside and Kato hitting a apron senton. Outside of a awkward botch where Amano seemingly can't get in position for her diving second rope headbutt the in-ring stuff ruled. Loads of stiff shots from Kato as she can do all of these floaty senton attacks in the corner or turtle kicks while Amano mostly had to rely on technical counters and using her durable head to get leverage here with savage headbutts. Kato seems unstoppable as she throws out multiple big kicks and a meaty top rope leg drop, but can't get a proper good 3-count despite her best attempts. I thought the tension was well-put together here as Amano had to chain up stuff like the snap Tiger Suplex or fake out running headbutt to try to equal things out, really got the match going with the sheer speed of it at points. Goofy finish through: having Amano basically no sell Kato's big finish and multiple headkicks so she could then win with a random small package out of nowhere felt a bit politick by nature. Bar that through this was pretty good! A bit shaky in places as I think the two try to get a bit too cute with how speedy this could get, mostly this was just really well constructed wrestling bits that never got to a truly great level but were still extremely enjoyable, especially with how they'd work in the striking portions into everything else. Another solid late-Amano outing.

TL:DR Version: Watched this and I will second that it was really well done in terms of layout and sheer violence despite some greenness on the account of Amano, but also balances that with a really good sense of mutual disrespect that the two understand and appreciate as things move further. Good watch. Longer review below that I stuck up elsewhere: A really good rite of passage for Amano as she battles against her own mentor in a fight she has clearly little to no chance of winning. Ozaki neutral starting off before Amano tries to go for a cheap flash pin with a German suplex while her back is turned so she immediately goes into full shit-heel mode with loads of gloating and taunting. There's a great sense of both student and master both knowing how to bend the rules and get ahead in their own respective ways and almost....respecting that, in a way? Like they know the other is going to be scrappy so it's a sense of "well get on with it then" rather than the usual indignation you would expect. Ozaki at times seems very proud of her student finding ways to endure her beatdowns and still manage to inflict pain despite the immense disadvantages Amano naturally has: she's nowhere near as good a brawler, has a rough time trying to push her weight here, and even on the technical front Oz is more than capable defending and blocking holds when she's aware. The only times Amano gets the advantage is when she's able to just outpace her mentor with raw speed and aggression more so than anything else, with some really good sequences displaying that in full view. Of course Ozaki can just walk back into this with a nasty dropkick or a stiff boot or slap to the face, but that isn't always the case. The match really kicks into high-gear in terms of emotive value when Amano manages to bait Ozaki into committing to a early pinning powerbomb to trap her in a inverted armbreaker; despite getting to the ropes Oz's arm is completely busted in the process and she essentially sells it like it's been broken for the most part. This definitely intensifies the drama given that fact and Ozaki's amazing sell-job to convey that unexpected weakness that she now has to somehow win with one good arm left. Amano in turn goes laser-focused for the shitty arm with boots and other submissions, really focusing in on what will be one of her best features in how she can do cool tricked out speedy submission work while keeping things frenetic and interesting. The moment where Ozaki tries for the half suplex and gets so pissed off at her opponent again exploiting her bad arm that she just fucking hammers in knees to her head until Amano dies before following up with equally stiff foot stomps and a powerbomb for a near fall was a great moment and really felt like things immediately went from a 5 to a 10 on the intensity scale. Amano gets blasted with a Uraken so badly that she starts bleeding from the nose just to hammer in that point that Oz is no longer messing around and wants to end this as soon as possible. That in turn opens her up to a bunch of signature Amano armbreaker transitions that do inch ever closer to a victory before Ozaki counters the third into this terrific one arm powerbomb to finish up shop in brutal fashion. The post-match of both of them tearing up and hugging was a emotional moment to cap this off and really bookended the mentor/student dynamic these two had going. So yeah, great match obviously. Between Amano's scrappy moments and Ozaki's incredible all-rounded talent at this time you really couldn't go that wrong. Loads of mutual pettiness shared with a equal sense of respect for said pettiness makes for a uniquely fun type of violence that is hard to find much at all.

I'd agree if his greatest hits were ever any good to be worthy doing again

Good in WAR as this unseasoned pitdog that just hurls stiff karate strikes at everyone who tries tangling with him, NJPW stuff was similarly the same if a bit less explosive as he mixed into the usual cooking pot of styles around at the time. Had a pretty great post-prime career as a NOAH loyalist with definite unrealised potential as a low-key threat to the main players. Kinda got complicit after a while and lost his edge as time and age crept up despite having a really entertaining underdog dynamic with him and Inoue. A lot of his 2010's material in particular just wasn't much to talk about ngl. That sours any prospect of a top 100 run for me.

Fuchi the GOAT for being 70 and having a 20 minute match with one of All Japan's brightest and youngest stars. It was also really cool to see 90's prick Fuchi return; cool uncle Fuchi is nice and all, but that was his peak years in terms of entertainment and even here with all of the natural wear and tear he's brought with him you still get that occasional moment of greatness out of the guy that brings you back to those times. Anzai humours the vet with some basic lockup exchanges until Fuchi pokes the bear a bit too much with a cheeky slap to the face and a flash backdrop to try to end the match early for the upset, inviting a big beatdown from Anzai as he essentially runs over the guy with his Jumbo knee and other finishes. I do like how the match doesn't try to pretend that Fuchi is on any big equal footing with his opponent: he's consistently struck down and having to really sell through a ton of work just to get maybe a couple of shots in, and even those aren't really that effective. Consistent great camera shots of Fuchi's struggle as he has to claw himself back up from his beatdowns conveys a naturally very compelling narrative that the crowd took easy to with numerous chants and big heat whenever Fuchi did actually manage to get something out. Was also cool seeing him hit some throwbacks like the Fuchi dropkick and Baba chops/boot. I thought this also really did a great job with how minimalistic it was at times; getting convincingly solid sequences out of exchanging and struggling out of surfboards, getting huge reactions for them struggling over who can bodyslam who, etc. It was a breath of fresh air to see someone throw actual good punches for once as Fuchi gets to do his dirty antics for old times sake. The last third being a battle for survival as Fuchi battles his own ailing body more than Anzai himself, taking consistent running knees and barely able to do anything but kick out. The big finish being around imparting his signature facelock to the younger talent by tapping out to it was especially cool to see. Obviously this is going to be limited by your tolerance for a 70 year old wrestling but in terms of guys his age Fuchi is WAY better than a lot of wrestlers both his age and younger, you can tell he's at least kept himself in relatively good shape all this time given he could still hit the beats here and whatnot. It's less about the workrate anyway, it's all about milking crowd reactions with a beloved talent with relatively little action, and guess what? It worked very well in that regard. Anzai did a solid job carrying Fuchi physically to something beyond what he would do normally, but as a consequence of that he seemed a bit muted by contrast, more as the wall for Fuchi to bounce off and work off than his own standalone personality.

To be fair that's always been the excuse used for him lol. I think the issue is less about him being a name-value (which let's be fair he IS a name-value hire that can at least work) and more about Ziggler being a horrible Shawn Michaels impersonator for the last 10 years

This was fine. Best Joshi of the 2000's? Absolutely not lol. This started off decently enough with a scrappy back and forth before slowing down with a long brawl on the outside. It had some cool bits (Amano enjoying a beer while Nishio was stuck in a chair, Nishio's running boot to Amano on a chair sitting on the apron) but it was mostly either weak chair shots or walking and/or the occasional strike or whatnot. Literally spend like 15 minutes on the outside just hitting each other with chairs over and over until Amano no-sold a chair to the head with a cool headbutt and took over with a sunset once on the inside. Both blade, Amano has a long entertaining control segment with head biting and dragging her around the place until Nishio bounces off after a move and no-sells. Now....we have to talk about the Tiger Suplex sequence here. Listen, I love big dumb movefests as much as the next person, but this was taking the piss. This was 3 WHOLE minutes of them exchanging Tiger Suplexes over and over and over, screaming after every near fall as the person taking them somehow had the energy to apply one back to the other right after. I get it, fighting spirit, blah blah. There's a limit to my suspension of disbelief when it comes to this kind of stuff. I can buy no-selling a big move to do one right after; you can explain it away as a mix of adrenaline and sheer will to continue. Multiple no-sells in a row is when you start losing me. Doing it for 3 minutes while some of the worst over dramatics and "ohhh I'm stumbling over" nonsense is going on? I've left the room lol. It definitely doesn't help that Amano just starts running the ropes at one point with absolutely no issues before going back to the fatigue selling after a simple kick to the chest. I will say, however, that the big conclusive push being Amano just goofily running into her opponent for a loud ass stiff headbutt was really cool and almost saved this entire bit if it wasn't for the one-count pinfall right after burying that and the last couple of minutes. The last third is basically all the usual "big match" isms of the last 20 years, lots of near falls, random no-selling and big bombs over and over on the other. Granted they were good bombs but still. This also has a really jank finish as Amano lands a epic second rope headbutt for another near fall, for some reason this is the killer notion that somehow prevents either woman from meeting the 10-count so it leads to a draw. Then we get a match reset and the two are immediately back on their feet and doing more moves, running the ropes, etc. It seemed like a completely different match given the two were near-death just a minute earlier yet now are hurling themselves for roll-ups and dives to the outside. It didn't really make much sense by the logic of the match (these two being so evenly matched that they simply just bash together until exhaustion) but fuck it we got some cool stuff out of it so I wasn't that bothered. This finish is significantly improved as Nishio lands a pop-up powerbomb before getting caught in a triangle choke that eventually managed to bring her down for the submission loss. What's great about this match is definitely the intensity; Amano is always fantastic when it comes to getting over these really high-stakes situations with plenty of screaming and big bumps when it matters. It doesn't feel contrived or put-on despite the extent of how much it happens here; you completely buy her both goofing off at the start with the brawling and her slowly realising, to her terror, that her opponent is much tougher than she thought going in. It's a good example of the snowball effect working here to get the intensity building despite the slowish start. Nishio I was significantly less sold on; her offence felt limited at points and she really felt like she was being dragged along by her opponent as opposed to pushing the pace herself. Given this whole match was a vehicle to get her over (the background being Amano essentially gatekeeping her opponent from the promotion because she felt they weren't good enough) it didn't sit well to basically see that be sorta realised. She's not bad by any means; just not at the point where I can imagine her no-selling minutes-worth of killer moves that have stumped and pinned Aja Kong, you know? That doesn't seem right lol. So yeah, I'd say this is definitely a polarising match for sure, there are elements that I just can't stand yet the actual core of the match (the wrestlers/general pace) is by itself sound and definitely worth checking out. If you can stomach some bad tendencies then this is definitely solid.

Mainly comes down to A. She's not that good (she's not TERRIBLE, but not really someone you wanna be doing a whole lot with) B. Her working more of a heavy-set Taue style wouldn't really befit the house style of the promotion (which is 90% just running through spots at a fast pace) so she functions as the pin-eater instead. Could she get better? Probably, but ehh I can imagine them not throwing so much behind someone who seemingly has a low ceiling given her showings

Mutoha's based YT account (ran by the same guy who praised yours truly for talking about how cool the promotion was) recently stuck this up FREE on Youtube if you really wanna see it. You should, because GENTARO grappling matches are always worth the watch. Makoto Kato was a nothing Pancrase guy who moved into super obscure indie pro-wrestling (alongside apparently being a Seikendo-style nerd? Seems cool to me tbh) he doesn't really look the part but he's a pretty good foil for his opponent here. The two have some nice back and forth grappling centred around relatively basic stuff like armbar transitions and Kato using key-locks to maintain control in that regard when he's threatened. There's some like really weird bits due to Kato's relative lack of pro-style experience (he struggles to take a Irish Whip at one point, for instance) but he as a whole has a really scrappy 90's Catch-amateur feel to him that's totally unique from the usual technical wrestler tropes you have today. He kinda feels like what a Mariko Yoshida trainee would wrestle like if they started in MMA and became wrestler rather than the other way around. GENTARO does his usual great disrespect and carries the general pace of the match, throwing in his usual grappling flair alongside occasional moments of brilliant spite like elbow dropping right on top of Kato's face and doing a nasty jobber-squash version of the running Bulldog like he's wrestling a grimy 80's South TV taping or something. Kato mostly focuses on getting off his fighting spirit slaps before always being shut down by his clearly superior opponent though does get the occasional cool comeback spot. Thought the finish was really simple and kept up the style of match that this was setting itself out to be in the first place; Kato being stubborn and battling to the very end against a much more experienced and competent foe even with the result and odds being heavily against him. Not a Mutoha must watch or anything but pretty robust for how short it was and a good look-in on GENTARO's ability to carry and direct a match on his end.

El Desperado wasn't good until he was 37. I doubt it's a huge reach to suggest he'll make a good case later on

Clearly quite physically talented with tons of charisma; my only gripe is that a lot of his matches tend to melt into each other once you've seen a lot of him in action. That's mostly down to NJPW categorically refusing to do anything interesting with him bar "I win the Jr heavyweight belt again" and whatnot. I'm not the biggest fan of his longer stuff but it's not unbearable. Like what Tetsujin said above, however, he's very much a "conversation in the future" kind of prospect, not one that I think has a major case at this very moment.

Super solid main event, yet another example of Sato having a super great title run but it being slept on because he's not in NJPW and thus might as well not exist lol. We got a great juxtaposition between Sato's shooty-work and Iwasaki just going full pro-style with a furry of strikes and bombs early to try to just run Sato over and end this as soon as possible. Sato's usual technical work did not have much of a strong effect, with his submissions regularly countered or his strikes turned into more slams. This more faster-paced focus worked masterfully: we see that as the two get the crowd amped up for, of all things, a Orton-tier side headlock. It was impressive how much of a lead he had over Sato, regularly dominating with sharp kicks or just breaking the champ down with whatever he could muster. Eventually Sato has to rely on him overshooting on a attempted apron big boot to hit him with a stiff ass headbutt and a really cool rope-hung Octopus Stretch to finally make a breakthrough. We get some typical work as Sato adds the pressure with multiple flush jumping kicks, being able to finally focus on the arm with shots to the shoulder alongside slowing things down with submission wangling. They did a great job with the last few minutes via communicating urgency; both men were massively fatigued so any big submission or strike could've convincingly been the finish despite the two braving it out as much as possible. We got the typical stiff forearm strike exchanges, only these were actually good because they hit each other hard/progressed well into Iwasaki's boots being the big factor into him winning out when they hit a impasse on them. Sato countering a running corner knee strike to go into a stiff ass powerbomb was a awesome bit. They did a good job getting Iwasaki over as he basically bombed Sato to near death regardless of all of the arm damage before once again fumbling near the finish line (in this case pausing due to his shitty arm) which in turn gives Sato enough breathing room to counter a pin off a German suplex into a deep double wrist lock for the tap-out. Great title defence here: they balanced a more frantic pace with enough nuance to still keep you interested outside of the action. It helps that this skips the big match filler bullshit tropes and immediately goes into impactful mat-work paired with some great strikes and counters to balance the books. Another top notch match by Tenryu Project, who knew?

The worst NOAH main event match since probably Misawa/Marufuji II. Heck that's a masterpiece compared to this. Christ Ibushi looked horrible here. I know he's basically crippled at this point given all of the injuries he just categorically refuses to have surgery on (including coming into this with a broken ankle he somehow obtained????) but he especially looked sloppy and unfocused here. The first half was mostly classic NJPW-isms with timewasting grappling at half-speed. Do you watch Ibushi matches to see him do week 1 headlock takeovers? Of course not; let's just ignore that section as much as they did. There was also a lot of awkward stalling that was played off by commentary as "mind games" but it felt supercilious: it never amounted to any actual story beat later on in the match and just made the two seem like they were trying to just cover for time while they thought something out. Maru focuses on Ibushi's arm with the most low-energy offence I've seen out of him while the crowd watches in complete silence. Ibushi fights back with some really lame forearms and outright botches as he seemingly has zero of the amazing atheticism he once had. Seeing him be incapable of even going over the top rope and instead flopping down when Maru snapped his arm was depressing. Maru controls more with arm holds and chops while Ibushi continues to land limp forearms that his opponent has to oversell for because Ibushi has to somehow look good here. They sit in a head triangle for another 2 minutes as time moves oh so slowly. Ibushi's control segment is almost all slow slaps to the back or the occasional kick, noticeably nothing involving his infamously bad shoulders. Maru takes over to do more chops in riveting fashion. They have a sequence where they move in slow motion and Ibushi almost murders Maru after he barely gets a powerslam done properly. Ibushi then bounces to do probably the worst moonsault he's ever done as he basically flops off the second rope with no speed. They hold onto each other's back until Maru catches Ibushi with a sloppy dropkick. The two fight on the apron in abject silence until Maru takes a back bump off it: again, the crowd are silent for everything here. Ibushi tries for his hanging apron German suplex (it's clear that he just can't do shit like that anymore so there's no real tension behind it) so instead we get him hugging Maru for a long while until we get a slow transition into Maru landing a Emerald Flowsion on the apron; cool spot? Absolutely! It's a shame I had to watch 20 minutes of sheer flavourless garbage to get there though. Maru misses his springboard dropkick and Ibushi follows up with a terribly slow outside moonsault that I'm pretty sure he breaks his other ankle on given how he landed and how he limps from now to the end. The two dance around with choreographed kicks and Matrix dodges done at the speed of a turtle before another dub spot. More strike exchanges. Maru looks bored. Ibushi no sells more. Murder Ibushi shows up here and it's just as sad as he throws the fakest punches I've also ever seen lol. Fans boo at this being shit. Cool ref spot as Maru bounces off him to land a knee strike, doesn't save the setup being so obvious though. Ibushi counters the Shiranui with this bizarre super high-angle backdrop? It felt like he just didn't have the strength to actually do the move so he just had to balance himself and fall over. Maru no-sells that to do a spot and Ibushi almost dies taking the Shiranui for a near fall. More sloppy botches as they fall over trying to set up a superplex. The two land the lightest strikes while on the top until Ibushi lands a horrendous Kamigoye to knock Maru over. Big powerbomb afterwards for another near fall. Maru counters a second Kami for the two to spend a eternity going into a sunset flip; seriously, they had to have spent 10 seconds too long sitting and waiting for the counter to pop off. He follows up with random key locks that don't do anything but grind this out more. The finish, I think, was one of the most pathetic I'd seen; Ibushi flopping on Maru with two weak knees to the head for the pin felt like the icing on a extremely shoddy cake. Easily Ibushi's worst match since returning (and I think ever, quite frankly). Whatever allure he had in Japan prior is all but gone with how this turned out; it was a sad scene seeing him try to do everything that typically comes easy and failing at it all before he just trucks on despite the match tanking after a couple of these moments. Even with Marufuji covering his ass as much as humanly possible with big bumps and very generous structuring (making Ibushi look much stronger with a bunch of kickouts, no-selling and spots) he just couldn't make this wreck of a match any good. In GIF form if you condensed this down to the one or two moments where it looked at least enjoyable this would be good, but in reality everything around those was so weak that I simply cannot recommend watching this, even for the "trainwreck watching" crowd. This felt just sad. Like watching post-Spinks Ali sad, you know? Just a complete nightmare from start to finish.

I just watched his NOAH match and Christ it was depressing. Ibushi dragging himself along while being out of shape and incapable of doing any of his usual bits for 30+ minutes was a sad experience; even the crowd couldn't believe what they were seeing. What's sadder is that he'd probably be fine if he just had surgery right after the G1 stuff. He just refused to do so for whatever reasons he had, and, well.....

I think it's a mix of a couple of things; 1. His main event push taking place during a dark spot of wrestling (around about 2002/2008 while in Muto's All Japan, pretty infamous for being underexplored as a whole) for a vast majority of individuals. It's hard to promote someone on here with not a lot of knowledge of their arguable peak material 2. His NJPW return and subsequent run coming before the company really became mainstream (in the eyes of Western fans, anyway). The Okada match as you mentioned does come around about then, mind you, but it's also in-between him being settled as a NJPW oldie who didn't really get a whole lot of work asides that and battling out for the occasional mid-card belt. 3. He's not the most memorable guy, to be fair. For most he has a cool lariat and likes bread, that's about the extent of Kojima discourse lol. I distinctly remember people being shocked that he even wrestled guys like Shibata outside of NJPW (through that leads to a whole different discussion) But no Kojima absolutely deserves some major credit for putting together such a great resume of matches at his age. Between him and Nagata New Japan should rightfully be kicking themselves for wasting those guys in useless tags 99% of the time.

This was perfectly decent as a match with some occasional really great bits when it got going. Mostly involving Amano and Kong who have naturally great chemistry from their series of matches with each other. We get a lot of structure built around dragging this out artificially with stuff like a vintage Korakuen messy brawl and a lot of interaction with the younger talent here as they either got in their shit or bumped for the more established acts. Devil was thankfully only in for very limited sections, but was still really game to bump around and her signature big bombs like the Jumbo Suplex are still as good as they've been for a while. It really felt like she put her working boots on here for her final outing as opposed to a lot of her 2000's material, was a good change all things considered. Ran and Toshie were very energised and obviously out to impress given the conditions, but I wasn't really all that into what they were doing here; lots of wiffed offence and a general unconvincing style of wrestling out of the pair as they ran around a lot without really doing a whole lot impactful to justify such a thing. Dynamite mostly just stuck to her usual assortment of stiff kicks and whatnot, though she does land a lovely Splash Mountain on Aja near the end. The lead for the finish being Devil surviving a onslaught of moves and near falls to claw back into the match with big beefy lariats and other old moves was fun through: a real solid throwback to her JWP stuff where she was throwing weight around with ease. The finish is relatively anticlimactic as Devil beats everyone up for a bit before getting pinned out of nowhere off a Uematsu Dragon Suplex that gets sold as more of a random fluke than Devil actually getting properly beat given her lack of selling afterwards. The bump itself was really smooth, it just made no real sense how someone who was getting their ass beat just a minute earlier is now magically not just up and running but winning off relatively little by comparison. I get they wanted the shock upset to get that big pop here but said pop wasn't even THAT big so idk, it just felt a bit goofy. This was about as good as a match as Devil was going to have in 2008 through so one cannot complain that much; she was used well and kept sparingly to either big bumps to get over the younger talent or her going back to her old ways on occasion, even if it's nowhere near anything she remotely touched in the 80's. The small little bits between her and Kong definitely showed that probably could've had a barnburner Everyone else filled their roles fine, Kong/Amano in particular just stealing the show with some epic back and forth work, watch for that mostly I'd say if you're looking for good quality stuff that aren't just inferior rehashes pulled from better matches.

"Incredible technical masterclass as expected from these four. Nishimura has made it his mission to bring Joe Malenko back into the promotion that arguably made him and his brother the acts they would become, and Funaki/Suzuki need no introduction. Even Suzuki, a chronic underachiever who phones aplenty was bringing his A-game here. Joe Malenko also looked really sturdy despite his age (45!) and his lack of experience, what with this being his first match back since 2000. Loads of "little things" moments shattered throughout as the four mix in a lovely blend of Catch/shoot-style with occasional splatters of cool pro-style moments like Nishimura/Funaki stiffing the shit out of each other with elbow smashes. There's a great spilt here between the more old-school styles of the first pairing and how that style interacts with the more contemporary proto-MMA shtick that Funaki and co throw out. You have Nishimura getting his ass beat by Funaki's striking advantages, having no real way to defend himself against such a blitz of furious kicks/submissions alongside having to Fujiwara his way out of the beatings by just taking them until a opening crops up. You got Joe Malenko doing all these epic Gotch-transitions and throws while Suzuki's got the knowledge to find ways out of them and into his own signature work and vice versa. The bit where Malenko counters his sleeper with a Cravat is just lovely, something you'd never see even these days. It truly felt like a subtle Dory moment of brilliance ripped right from the 70's to today. Fatigue also played a huge part in how the match was formed as we get tons of struggles over holds. Never felt like it was "easy" or "loose" when it came to simply sticking on stuff, there was always a undercurrent of struggle to everything and the feeling that any sort of advantage could easily be lost if someone managed to get a breakthrough. This also translated into the general structure of the match as Nishimura sold amazingly for a extended beating by Funaki, mostly with his razor sharp kicks to the stomach and chest. Watching him drag himself around to escape Funaki's tricked out leg submissions and almost pathetically having to hurl his whole dangling upper body just for a wiff of the ropes felt rough as anything, making his brief moments of hope where he'd snap on a signature flashy roll-up much more impactful than what they would be if this wasn't a factor. Suzuki's work wasn't as convincing, simply because he just doesn't have any real striking work to make me think much of him: going from Funaki's killer kicks to worked forearms and little stubby knees is most assuredly a downgrade and I'm not going to hear otherwise. Some good fake-outs here and there: the match ending on this never-say-die struggle with Malenko getting a toe-hold out of the RNC and never letting go of it even when Suzuki kept putting more pressure on the choke felt awesome. As a welcome back for Joe Malenko I don't think you could've done much better; he looked pretty solid despite some relative slowness (given his age that's warranted) and it felt like he never left to be honest. Nishimura doesn't have a lot of epic technical moments as this is more of a defensive/sell-heavy instance for him, getting to show off his compelling struggle to keep the team together despite his general disadvantages compared to his opponents. Suzuki is a bit more ehh (especially near the end) but he does put tangibly more effort into this as a whole so I can't complain too much, solid bully. Funaki was amazing; it's such a shame we don't have more of this version of him after AJPW because dude was a beast here. Incredibly nasty strikes and very fancy grappling moments galore, absolutely a highlight of this when he's able to just let loose with capable hands who can translate his relatively blank showmanship into something tangible for the match I.E. Nishimura making it all about him taking the blunt of it and still carrying himself forward despite the pain with as much stoic energy as possible until the very end where he's just screaming a ton. Good stuff, further proof that the Pro-Wres era of AJPW was assuredly much better than people act it out to be.

Battlarts 2.0 did have some questionable elements about it, but including talents like these certainly wasn't one of them; this was pretty incredible for a undercard match. This started off with some grappling and then they pushed up the pace rather early with a pair of dropkicks before settling back down to more mat-work. As I've said about Kimura before she's not exactly one to really be the person pushing for holds here; she's more around just to essentially carry the pacing behind someone more competent like Amano rather than doing her own thing, so this meant that she was basically just jousting around rather than making any actual aim to working any real mechanisms of shoot-style. The real appeal comes from these two hitting each other ridiculously hard (especially early on with those stiff forearms that were making loud "THUD" noises with every shot) and that's what they did as Amano went for her gross headbutts while Kimura goes for her equally strong boots, both getting some good damage on the other in the process. Amano does a crazy Fatu-lite spinning bump for the first big boot which was especially awesome. There's some focus on the legs by Amano, this is swiftly dropped purely so the two could stiff each other up more. Later on we get some nice scrambles by Kimura as she reverses bombs into arm-work (including a lovely reversal of a German suplex attempt with a Sakuraba transition double wrist lock) and Amano milks the hold with some screams and prolonged wiggling for the ropes as the crowd gets into this more. Really simple stuff to the finish as Kimura goes for her typical mean big bombs and really cranks up a single-leg Boston Crab as a potential world-ender here. Amano certainly sold like it, anyway. She ended up winning with her signature cross armbreaker transitions and we got a sweet finish where Kimura tried powerbombing out of the triangle choke, did it, then got her arm exposed for a armbar instead and ended up losing. I'd say this is REALLY great; it's mostly just the appeal of seeing two legit hard strikers (some of the stiffest of this specific generation of talent, anyway) hitting each other legit hard. There's not much depth to it outside of that (and some weird bits like Kimura not really selling the limb-work and even throwing on her own in response from said bad limb without much of a base to really suggest it mattered a whole lot) it really didn't need to be much else through. Scrappy Bati-Bati is a great cure for insomnia, I'd say: it's kinda impossible to not pay attention to every earth-shattering shot thrown here. I suppose there could've been room for a potentially more complex match (especially since Kimura around this time was a REALLY good talent who was having great matches with nearly everyone) but for what it is? I'm more than fine with it.

Hanako Nakamori (JWP/Pure-J mainstay) much in the same vein as Bolshoi has started uploading matches from mostly around about the 2010's of JWP; especially handy given the rarity of footage from the era.

When doing these sort of random watches from around about this time it's inevitable that you will eventually come across a match with Kaori Yoneyama (better known as Fukigen Death by more contemporary fans) given she's been literally everywhere and done all you can imagine and then some. This focused around Yone clearly not being in the same league as Amano; she's a crafty Jr heavyweight who lacks the height/weight/experience/skill to properly defeat her opponent in a straight-forward match. She instead decides to basically turn the pace up to 11 and make this into a High Speed outing where she can blindside and possibly win off sheer agility alone. Now with a lot of the heavyweights this would be a bit janky (the weird stop/start nature due to the differences in speed between the two, the general apathy for the heavyweight to really put over the other all that much at all) but Amano can not only bump like a saint for all of Yone's incredible lucha sequences, she can also occasionally land some pretty fast-paced stuff of her own. This combined that with some pretty heated outside brawling as the pair got pissed and started slamming each other's heads all over the place. Amano doing Jun Izumida spots as she no-sells chairs to the head and hits stiff shit will never not get old, especially when she has someone who is more than fine to bump and throw themselves around. I'd say the two were pretty giving here despite all of the violence. Another issue with hierarchy-based matches is that they tend to get a bit too cutesy with themselves and drag immensely with near falls and consistent never-ending will they/won't they hope spots. This kept itself really tight in terms of pacing, barely hitting 10 minutes and having only a couple of truly big momentum shifts between the two. They made sense; Yone using her speed to get reversals or simply just to hit a move quicker than her opponent, but inevitably getting caught out when she would try for her bigger bombs eating some mean shots in response. The triple O'Connor Roll/Chaos Theory spot that ended with Amano deadlifting her out of the pin and into a headbutt to the back of the head was just plain vicious stuff, we get another later that looks even more nasty when it gets attempted again. Solid finishing stretch as we get Yone just spamming German suplexes, Amano milking big heat with her strikes and submissions getting good reactions etc etc. Right near the end Yone just starts resorting to Tenryu punts to the skull and super sick tricky pins; seriously, this was some amazing stuff. She ends up losing eventually to a couple of mean running clunks to the head and that's the match basically. Tremendously good for a sprint, Amano wasn't afraid to actually make her smaller opponent actually look threatening (unlike some certain talents) but always tied everything back together into her being in control and needing to be outpaced to lose that. Yone's pretty great as well as a more fleshed out talent of the time that relies less on big GIF-worthy spots and more on having just really good fundamentals and the speed to use them competently...though she still has the cool moments anyway because they're cool, obviously. Very much a must-watch, good cooking ngl

It's really depressing watching 2000's Joshi because there are so many talented workers who should and could be absolutely be on the same level of reverence as the 90's generation prior, it's just that there was so little actually floating around that many of them (Ray/Bloody/Nagashima/Kimura/Bolshoi/Hamada/Kurihara, the list is endless) were lost to the sands of random tape traders and the occasional random Youtube listing that never got took down. Amano absolutely qualifies despite her being one of the luckier ones that got a lot more taped time. As Jetlag says above she's a terrific mix of insanely cool grappler and deliverer of epic headbutts in ways I've never really seen one try to do a headbutt before, which is already a winning combination in my eyes. Not only is her peak showings pretty great (from what I've seen, anyway) her consistency in regards to floor is stellar. She stays great all the way to the very end of her performing career (starting about 1999 and ending in 2014) and even at the very end she's still having a blast working really good TV-style sub 15 minute matches; impressive given she spent most of her years doing wacky headbutts and not exactly going easy on them. I'm not qualified enough yet to say how truly good she'd be on a potential 100 list, but she definitely has earned a spot for me just by what I've watched and reviewed so far. Real crime how little attention she gets despite having so many high-quality stuff looming in the distance.

This was pretty great and a good example of Amano making a relatively basic rookie/vet squash look tangibly fun with her cocky attitude and beatdowns before inevitably paying for it with some heated counters back at her. Mizunami isn't the most seasoned (shown very easily by the pair struggling to set up a superplex, of all things) but she gets the standard fiery upstart formula pretty easily helped by Amano directing the action with awesome grappling and some stiff shots being thrown out; knees to the head, headbutts to the back of the head, mean suplexes, all that and some more. The offence here is generally convincingly stiff enough despite being relatively low-risk. The crowd heat is palpable in this one and gets better as they work through the match and keep building up to Mizunami's big breaks when they come. Her stuff is incredibly basic: scoop slams, leg drops, all that stuff, but her energy while doing them is frantic enough that you do buy her offence a lot more than you really should in a situation like this. She goes at about 100 miles per hour doing almost everything. It helps that she does on occasion do something unexpectedly sick like a shoulderbreaker transition into a head/arm choke that catches you properly off-guard when stuff like that happens. With the added background of Team OZ having won all of the other matches on this event by running through the rest of the native talent and the fact that Amano wasn't exactly the most protected out of the four (especially compared to someone like Ozaki or Kong) it does provide just that extra layer of suspense to the outcome despite it being rather obvious: there's that small part of doubt as to if Amano really will actually just win this or if there'll be a last second upset. Miz near the end even gets *really* close to a 3-count (especially for the stakes of such a match like this) but her need to try to beat Amano in headbutts opens her wide open for a really nasty running one to the face. The last sequence where Mizunami is throwing all of these super slick rollups to avoid the equally sick huge nail-in-the-coffin bombs was the icing on a really good barnburner that cooked even better when they were doing submission counters instead. Miz gets the crowd incredibly loud with a cross armbreaker/triangle armbar transition bit, Amano responds with a sliding Fujiwara that she then kicks Miz in the face after she manages to escape. The finish is also really simple; Amano going for this really unique rope-hung transition into her cross armbreaker where she basically slingshots off it after grabbing her opponent's shoulder. The kicker comes from how they tease it almost being broken by the leverage being peeled away....before Amano springs back into the full thing and that conclusively ends it. It's kinda weird how great Mizunami was as a youngster compared to her later years when she's been nowhere near as energetic/mat-focused like she was here. Maybe that's just due to her wanting to slow down or focusing more on longevity with her shtick, it's just a real shame we don't see this version of her going forward because you really got the notion that she was one of the next big things from how she worked here. Super energised throughout, bumped and sold super well, robust fundamentals and mat-work, etc etc. She had essentially most of it figured out for someone who was still relatively inexperienced. Amano is the guiding force of the match and is as great as always: big bombs, lots of little character bits to get the most of the crowd heat with her outrageous taunting, using some bait and switching to get their expectations flipped around, etc. She also really gave a lot given how relatively low on the totem pole her opponent was by comparison. She could've easily big-leagued and made this into a pure squash match, thankfully that wasn't the case though.

I'm glad you're liking it! Was a ton of fun going through all of them and seeing cool little gems from members of the roster who otherwise would've never showed up in their usual TV slot. I would also like to add in some additional resources for anyone reading: RedLeaf Retrocast Tons of rare Dark Age (2000-2015) Joshi puro here. Very helpful given the general problems trying to find good sources for these kind of matches. I may be cheating with the next two because they aren't from YT/Dailymotion but that's life, I suppose. King Kaz Hayashi AJPW Collection 9 HOURS of Kaz Hayashi matches. If you're a madly dedicated person and you really want to see one of the most unsung Jr heavyweights of all time do his thing for longer than multiple feature-length movies combined then this is absolutely for you. Especially good given 2000's AJPW is very rare. Puromall Solid comps