Network of Wrestling – The Sensation #4 04/24/93
By Maffew Gregg on 15 October 2023
Network Of Wrestling
Kawasaki City Gym
Attendance: 3,050
What better place than here, what better time than NOW?
Also Jesus, sorry for how the new BOD design makes every image suddenly huge.
Ann Jae Hong vs. Kim Chung Hyeon
Yet another solid green vs. green match to start the show, only this time they’re South Korean! Ann lands a nifty tope so Kim lands his own tremendously crunchy quebrada before Ann lands a standing moonsault to a lovely response from the crowd to out-class everything from the previous show at 10:49
Good showing from two guys who (let’s see)…escaped the business a year after this and were never seen again.
Kishin Kawabata vs. Dusty Wolfe
Dusty looks like the guy who tells Steven Seagal “you don’t look so tough to me, sissy boy” before getting thrown through a window with his pants around his ankles. Nothing but armbars for five minutes as the wonderful cameraman captures the fans yawning. Contractually Obligated Crowd Brawl takes out many of the empty chairs at ringside as old businessmen can be seen laughing at the state of this. The picture quality on this recording is so good you can see sumo wrestlers in full gear watching on with amused looks on their faces. Against all odds, the crowd pops for Kishin’s kick-outs from such brutal moves as Standing Elbow and Foot Choke. Kishin drops an entire row of taped-together chairs onto Dusty’s mullet before dropping a back senton to a generous pop at 8:57.
Kishin did the bare minimum to outclass his opponents whose effort here could be described in two words: Mould Dust.
Apollo Sugawara vs. Chuck Williams
Who had a sadder ending, Apollo 1 or Rockin Rebel? Perfunctory mat wrestling sets up the Contractually Obligated Crowd Brawl with Rebel landing a surprisingly agile Cactus Elbow off the apron, before applauding himself back in the ring. Apollo attempts the WCW/nWo Revenge finish by Irish Whipping Rebel away from the ring and trying a count-out. Rebel is annoyed by this not working and decides to sit next to the sumo guys and asks them for help.
And even though the entertaining part of the match is over, it sadly drags on with Rebel executing himself one of the lowest leapfrogs I’ve ever seen. He’d have been lucky to get over Sky Low Low with that one. Despite four minutes of nothing, they did enough for a passing grade and the crowd applauds them after a backslide at 8:58. Well, everyone except the Sumos who look on in quiet awe.
Hiroshi Hatanaka vs. Alex Porteau
Oh you know what’ll get us up to the next gear? A Pug match! Daphne’s brother Simon from the later seasons of Frasier is more tolerable than this get. Rolling on the mat kills five minutes as I google Simon’s name because the gimmick was there were loads of brothers right? Hatanaka locks in an armbar. But only one of them was good and the rest were annoying. Pug turns a Fireman’s carry into an armbar. They were all supposed to be from Manchester but presumably it was from the same area of the North West Dick Van Dyke hailed from when he was in Mary Poppins. Contractually Obligated Crowd Brawl. I’m up to Season 8 and Daphne’s finally hooked up with Niles and you wonder where the show is going from here. Swinging Neck Breaker gets no reaction. It’s funny watching older shows where you’ve been told there’s a point where it starts sucking, so you anticipate that point while enjoying the show while it’s still good. Alex can’t get up for a scoop slam and fans can’t even bring themselves to laugh in disgust. I’m not expecting anything special from the new season because it seems dripping in nostalgia-bait given 3/4 of the cast aren’t there. Still going to watch it though. Top rope leg drop finishes at 14:39.
Rod Price vs. Hisakatsu Oya
I should put an ice cube out in the hot sun and see if Oya will do anything interesting by the time it melts. Match starts off with the exact same holding-and-inanimating on the mat we’ve already seen multiple times through the night because all these guys were trained by people who said stuff like “eyy this is how Thesz did it.” All those people are dead now. Rod’s response is a dozen chinlocks until Oya lands a 3/4 speed Backdrop Driver as I guess he’s realised the Yanks can’t take them as well as the proper wrestlers. Rod flies on top of a table with all the grace of Laura Palmer’s Dad landing on his daughter’s coffin in Twin Peaks. More pretend-graps as I wonder who trained the GFW guys to have this boring identical style of nothing. 1/2 speed Backdrop Driver causes Rod to ROD UP and lock in a Boston Crab at 16:32 to a mostly confused reaction from the crowd and sumos. My ice-cube was half-melted so ultimately we’re all losers.
Ishinriki vs. Bob Orton Jr.
OH HELL YEAH, enough attempts at making the dull sound less-dull, this has to be good. Ishinriki holds the ropes open for Bob until he reaches them and Ishin lets go. YES BE A DICK. Orton demonstrates the simple ability to take someone down by just holding their wrist and it’s easily more interesting than the paid naps we’ve seen tonight. Bob gets the Contractually Obligated Crowd Brawl out the way by lawn-darting Ishinriki into the ring post. Superplex spurs Ishinriki into landing his Sumo charge lariat but Orton resists them so Ishinriki has to spam it to send the Cowboy down and eventually he does and he’s not able to beat the count at 9:27. Oh. Felt like it was just getting going. Still fun though.
Kendo Nagasaki & Umanosuke Ueda vs. Goro Tsurumi & Masanobu Kurisu
As a reminder, the evil knife-wielding crazy brawler Ueda is now a fan favourite due to a lack of anything else that’s over. The baddies instantly choke the goodies with ropes as the crowd squeals in horror. Even more Contractually Obligated Crowd Brawling but the crowd react like they haven’t seen it in every single match tonight. Goro chokes Ueda some more and the ref has to threaten Goro with a DQ if he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t, so Kurisu dumps a whole table on top of him and Jesus, look at the size of the bastard. It’s closer to a Church pew, the ones where you can fit four (maybe even five) old women into. Kendo has to tag in and this match has become a problem as you need someone young to do all the work for the oldies, but everyone here is an oldie. Well Goro’s supposed to be the young un but he’s so rubbish, Kurisu might as well be tagging with a Grandfather Clock. I mean it’s not like I don’t appreciate the slow-mo brawling between legends and the crowd is going nuts for even the basic chair shots being thrown. OH WAIT FUCK NO FUCK NO NO NO never mind all those compliments, here comes the man whose very name spreads fear into the hearts of 90s tape traders the world over: Tiger Jeet Singh and his idiot son. They attack Ueda by using the hilt of their swords over and over AND OVER AND OVER and the match is called off at 13:24 because no-one can bare to watch it.
I know Tiger was a big star back in Krakatoa but if you’ve never seen any of his 90s matches you can save yourself the trouble and watch this GIF for ten minutes:
The Tigers brawl with Ueda all the way through the empty chairs as Goro weakly tries to stop it (by waving his hands and doing nothing). Crowd cheers, look confused then gather their coats and leave.
Wait, I thought Tiger was signed to FMW?
Tiger Jeet Singh Jr. & Sr. were definitely fired since they kept changing finishes and changing the make-up of angles the office wanted to run. Singh supposedly changed the entire angle where Sheik turned by trying to steal center stage, then brought Umanosuke Ueda of NOW backstage and a guy who is unknown wearing a Mil Mascaras mask and shot photos with them for the press which FMW didn’t know about.
As it turned out, Singh showed up on the NOW show on 4/24 in Kawasaki. In the main event of a heel vs. heel match, Kendo Nagasaki & Ueda vs. Goro Tsurumi & Masanobu Kurisu, Singh did a run-in and surprisingly attacked Ueda, who is actually over huge as a cult babyface now. Ueda, who is in his mid-50s and can’t do a thing in the ring anymore (and even when he was younger he was no great shakes), has been a heel for more than 20 years on-and-off with Singh as his partner.
Originally NOW and FMW were working together since Onita worked a NOW show in Tokyo and Goto was going to have a barbed wire match at Kawasaki Stadium against Nagasaki but it all fell through.
Ah so that’s why Tiger left FMW. Well he was dead weight once Onita got the win over him so now he’s NOW’s problem to deal with.
Coincidentally, this is the last fan cam of the year and the penultimate one ever as Tiger’s introduction appears to have caused all interest to evaporate in the company until it’s demise in October 1994. There’s next to no mention of anything occurring in the Observer as there’s suddenly less interest in the company than a good loan.
At least the sumo wrestlers enjoyed themselves.
Next Week: PWC and their dogs bite back.
