Kitao Dojo – Start Up 01/21/94
By Maffew Gregg on 10 December 2023
Kitao Dojo
Tokyo, Japan
Korakuen Hall
Attendance: 2,100
Kitao teased his own Dojo a few years ago but nothing came of it after he teased being “done” as a wrestler. WAR eventually came around to the idea of giving him his own Dojo/brand. It’s smart to prepare for the future post-NJPW mega-feud and Kitao has enough cult of personality to sell out Korakuen Hall but on the other hand…it’s Kitao.
We get clips of Kitao working out and throwing strikes because he’s a fighter. We know that, we asked Tenta.
Wellington Wilkins, Jr. vs. Rico Frederico
Yeah it’s that guy.
If you don’t want to hear Cornette, here’s Adam Nedeff’s summary:
-And now, the thrilling conclusion of the Wee Willie Wilkins saga. For those who missed part 1, Wee Willie is a jobber who felt he deserved a big push on account of being friends with some bodybuilders, and made such a fuss about being a lowly jobber that just to punish him, Dusty sent him out there with the Wee Willie name instead of letting him use the name that he wanted to go by, Blue Thunder. And so we come to this match…
-Bobby Eaton is ALREADY giving Willie the stink-eye before the match even starts. That’s probably just in character but I’d like to think not. Dennis Condrey starts with Phil Brown. He takes Brown down and rubs his face in the mat as Jim Cornette is already laughing when he arrives on commentary and says that Wilkins is “the world’s tallest midget” and makes fun of how pitiful Brown looks.
-Kneedrop from the top by Eaton, and Condrey drags Brown over to the ropes to let Cornette yell at him for being Phil Brown. He drags Brown over to the corner and lets him tag in Wee Willie, who has a triple-mohawk thing that somehow looks too big for his head. Wilkins wants to lock up, and Condrey actually kneels down and offers to lock up in a kneeling position. He finally locks up with a hand on Wilkins’ face as Cornette says “Look at his tights! He ought to call himself Blue Thunder!”
-Eaton plants Wilkins on the top rope, with Wilkins cinching on a side headlock the entire time that Eaton is putting him in position. Back suplex by Eaton. Condrey tags in and gives him a hard knee to the face. Brown tags back in (with a fan giving a hilarious “UH-OH!” when Brown steps back in) and Eaton connects with an axehandle.
-Wilkins tags back in immediately and totally no-sells the ass-kicking he’s already taken, slingshotting himself over the top and putting his dukes up. Eaton immediately gets on his knees and begs for mercy. Eaton gives him some chops and punches while holding him very snugly. Wilkins tries a comeback, with Eaton resisting the offense at first, but finally giving in, like, “Fine, do your shit, Willie.” He throws Willie outside and Willie takes a shitty bump from that, slumping through the ropes, landing on the apron, and gradually making his way to the floor feet-first.
-Express gangs up on Willie on the floor. Eaton gives him a neckbreaker on the concrete and heads over to the commentary table to high-five everybody. They head back in and Willie tags Phillie back in. Condrey chokes out Brown while Cornette fires off puns about the Indians and the Road Warriors. Midnights do their “Catch the jobber and miss” spot on the floor, and after a brief consultation with Cornette, Eaton does just one suplex.
-Willie tags back in, and AGAIN, he slingshots and sells nothing he’s already taken. Condrey gives him a snap suplex and shoves him out to the floor with his feet. Eaton puts the boots to him…and Willie NO-SELLS IT and slingshots back in like nothing happened. Midnights immediately end this thing with the Rocket Launcher for the three-count, even though Willie kicks out at two to save face.
-So we cut to commercial IMMEDIATELY without an instant replay or another wrestler coming out to cut a promo. It’s just three-count, boom, commercial. According to Cornette, Willie, not satisfied that kicking out at two was enough to protect his tough-guy image, begins throwing kicks from a lying position. Eaton gives him a worked stomp to try to “finish him off,” but then Willie really starts putting up a fight, and finally the Midnights have had enough and they truly, genuinely kick the shit out of this guy in front of the TBS studio audience. Willie crawls backstage afterward and runs into Dusty Rhodes, who basically drags Willie to the exit and Uncle Phils him through the door, daring him to come back in and start more shit, and Willie & his bodybuilder buddies are never seen in Georgia again.
Rico wrestled for Herb and ECW as the very very Greek Spiros Gekko. He’s sculpted compared to Willie’s soft cream body & barely-there haircut which makes him look 70 years old. Instead of ring bells, they’re using a single drum hit to signal the start of the matches.
Rico gets a quick German suplex but Willie recovers enough to stand up and walk into a Northern Lights Suplex and an armbar. Willie tries to control with a belly-to-belly but Rico is like “you’re not Shane Douglas” so they jostle on the mat until Willie kicks him away. Willie lands a Fisherman’s Suplex that Rico tries to escape out of making it look rough, which is a plus in this environment. Both men apply ankle locks at the same time which the crowd loves. This gets rougher and rougher with neither man able to properly connect with anything until Willie headbutts Rico in the back of the head (rabbit headbutt?) and lands a Dragon Suplex, allowing him to slap in a Fujiwara Armbar for the tap-out at 5:53. Well, that’s the idea anyway. Referee is apparently not used to tap-outs, so the poor guy has to tap harder as the crowd yell at the ref to stop the match already.
This was alright. Felt like two guys copying what they’d seen others do rather than naturally being able to do it, but it improved near the end.
J.R. Carson vs. Ryushiro Suzuki
AWA jobber J.R. Carson shows up with a biker jacket like it’s UFC 2 and he’s about to disgrace the good name of “Bar Room Brawling.” Crowd are cheering him because they think he’s J. T. Southern. Suzuki kicks him in the leg to take him down in seconds. Suzuki throws some punches so J.R. holds him and lands one strike to send him down and the crowd loves this. Suzuki takes him to the mat in an attempted ankle lock so J.R. twats away. More strikes send Suzuki down and I can’t get over how excited the crowd is for this as J.R. single crabs Suzuki for the win, even with Suzuki getting the ropes at 3:22.
More fun than it should have been. Suzuki has no cagematch and J.R. wouldn’t return to Japan so thanks for coming lads.
Ishinriki vs. Al Snow
“My name is Al Snow. I’ve been wrestling for twelve years. This is an opportunity I have been waiting for for a long time. I am not going to let it pass me by.”
Yeah why break a habit of a lifetime. And twelve years? Wait let me check and…Jesus, Al started in 1982??
Al starts slapping Ishinriki by standing in front of him so the former Sumo charges with ease. Al lands knees and a release Northern Lights so he can lock the armbar to stay controlled on the mat, leading to Ishinriki having to fight out of it which gives us the story of the match. Until the ref releases it for some reason with Al German Suplexing Ishinriki only for him to suck it up and make it back up, with Ishinirki getting stuck in the armbar again. Ishinriki escapes so Al starts slapping the shitting shit out of him until Ishin absorbs them to land a Backdrop Suplex and a sumo charge, before making sure to stretch the hell out of Al with an armbar for the tap-out win at 4:54 with Willie needing to enter the ring to get him off.
Really well worked match here with Al making the crowd *want* Ishinriki to fight and win, so maybe he does talk some sense on Netflix. I’ll assume so, I’m not watching that crap. Not when I could be watching…
Pete Tazello vs. Masaaki Mochizuki
IT’S TAZ.
Not only is THE TAZ making a random appearance in Japan but it’s also Masaaki Mochizuki’s pro debut, just to make this show as weird as possible. Taz had previously wrestled for W*ING and would make future appearances for NJPW but this weirdly enough is his only match this month. No tour, just flying out to Japan for this one match then leaving. Huh. He tells us before the match he’s not worried about taking shots to the body because he’s strong, he’s just worried about his face.
Maz throws some slow kicks which Taz is able to dodge until some much better ones connect to send The Taz to The Floor. That’s not far for Taz to travel in fairness. Taz nullifies the kicks with a wonderful belly-to-back overhead, following that up with a T-Bone Tazelloplex. Maz can’t stop the fury as he takes a half-and-half right onto his head before *just* making the count and then landing a running kick to Taz’s head which sends both men down but only Taz is able to stand up at 3:03.
I had no idea Taz was playing with the ‘Suplex Shooter’ gimmick as early as 1994. A demo reel for his future greatness, I wouldn’t have minded seeing more of this style of Taz. Maybe with a manager. And a whistle.
James Magnum vs. Akio Kobayashi
James is another Minnesota guy who resembles Von Wagner. The crowd is again excited because he wears a leather jacket to the ring because Cobra (1986) did a number on this country. Kobayashi was allegedly trained by Kitao which probably explains his short career.
They start off and Magnum’s idea of trying to fire off shots resembles rubbing a cat’s tummy. Gi-wearing Akio isn’t affected by these nub-nubs and he proceeds to blast James with kicks to the leg. James’ punches and knees get zero reaction and thankfully James takes a head-kick to wake them up. However, James gets what I guess is supposed to be a Crossface Chicken Wing to end it at 3:50.
Crowd isn’t thrilled but applauds politely anyway. Magnum fired nothing but duds.
Koji Kitao vs. Koki Kitihara
Crowd are loud and proud for Koji. Koki throws some leg kicks at Kitao but he’s a former sumo wearing a Gi so like a Ricochet push, it goes nowhere. Kitao’s kicks are much slower than usual because Koki has to make him look like a threat but he also can’t take *too* harsh a shot. Thankfully Koki manages a huge German Suplex to stun the bigger man.
Fujiwara Armbar is blocked by Kitao on the mat with Kitao swatting Koki away like a bear before landing a Uranage. Some more woeful strikes follow before Kitao locks in a sleeper. Koki struggles for ages but eventually passes out for a really flat finish at 3:58.
Of course Kitao sets up a Dojo to become a karate guy when he can’t do karate very well. Koki did what he could and Koji took a lovely German but….that was it. He’s not a strike guy, his grappling was non-existent and his sleeper was a bad end to an interesting night.
And none of this matters because there’s such a fascination with Kitao that they managed to sell out Korakuen Hall, something that’s getting harder and harder for small companies to do in 1994 so well done dick head. This means we’ve got to give the people what they want, which is MORE KITAO DOJO.*
*seven shows over three years, only four of which were recorded.
Overall: Should you watch this show? I mean if “Al Snow and Taz do shoot style” doesn’t do something for you then I don’t know what will.
