Pro Wrestling Crusaders – Stray Dog Legend 02/16/95
By Maffew Gregg on 10 March 2024
Tokyo, Japan
ON AIR EAST
Attendance: 350
Alright so last time we joined PWC they were doing Garbage wrestling as was the style at the time. That didn’t help attendance so by using Eric Bischoff’s ideology of “be better or different to your competition but don’t be worse” we present to you…something different.
KY Wakamatsu starts the show by introducing four losers who are going to fight in a mini-tournament and join his unpaid stable. Isn’t that just Chikara?
Blue Fire Kikuzo vs. Green Fire Okumura
So there’s rock music playing over the matches because it’s a concert venue. You’d think this would mean live music but it’s just pumping out over the speakers. You could do that in your garden. Some drunk lads starts chanting for Kikuzo, necessitating a “shut up!” from ol’ blue face. Basic wrestling starts as crowd wonders why they should care. Okumura lands an impressive Fallaway Pin but moves out of it to lock in an armbar. So he kicked out of his own pin to do something else, which doesn’t end it. Urgh. Kikuzo lands a lovely dive into the crowd to reveal there are actually people there. The crowd is loud because it’s such a small venue but they’ve still switched the lights off. A knees-first moonsault and German Suplex can’t put the meanie away, but he wins with an interesting suplex where he locks in the collar & elbow on the mat, which Okumura takes like a Fisherman’s Suplex while waggling his legs in the air like when ED-209 when he fell down the stairs. This was absolutely a wrestling match.
Blue Fire Kikuzo would go onto greater success as Kiktaro, and Okumura’s spent the last twenty years stuck in CMLL.
Sanshiro Takagi vs. Troubleshooter Kotsu
Kotsu throws some strikes in the same way Baba Booey threw a first pitch. His Frankensteiner is Godawful too, dropping vertically onto his own head before doing the rest of the move. This is the wrestler Sasha Banks haters thinks she is. Takagi takes over and is nearly as bad as he is, so let’s skip to him being submitted to a rolling ankle lock.
Sanshiro Takagi would go onto win a million titles in DDT. Troubleshooter Kotsu would be punished for this performance by having to wrestle for Riki Choshu’s WORLD JAPAN.
Blue Fire Kikuzo vs. Troubleshooter Kotsu
Kotsu works Kikuzo’s elbow badly before badly taking him down badly. No sense using any other synonyms, if he can’t be bothered then neither can I. They brawl outside but the camerawork and lighting is so bad. I’ve seen kids falling down stairs on old episodes of You’ve Been Framed that were shot better than this. Back inside, Kotsu is made to look somewhat presentable as Kikuzo stumbles into a piledriver before being put away with a Frankensteiner Pin.
Post match, KY and his Uchu Powers arrive to welcome Kikuzo into the team (before not knowing who won and attempting to congratulate Kotsu) and is given a bikini woman to hold as a welcome gift.
Shunji Takano shows up to a heroin’s welcome. KY sees the absolute state of him and challenges Takano to a Seven On One Handicap Match right now.
Blue Fire Kikuzo, Green Fire Okumura, KY Wakamatsu, Sanshiro Takagi, Troubleshooter Kotsu, Uchu Power X & Uchu Power XX vs. Shunji Takano
Shunji accepts by crossbodying everyone at once (in theory). Shunji declines to sell a double dropkick so four lads pound him like a drum so Shunji can do the RAAR I’M THE HULK level-up that Braun Strowman would in battle royals. I don’t know the technical term, I don’t watch Pancrase. Shunji stiffs everyone, having to hold the ropes to avoid falling over. This turns into MadTV’s Steven Seagal parodies with everyone having to run INTO Shunji’s foot as opposed to him kicking people. Takano chokes out Kikuzo and either he’s doing a really good job of selling or Takano legit just put him to sleep with a standing choke. I’d GIF it but I’m worried he actually did just shoot choke him and then this Blog would lose their sponsor (which I assume is ITR’s interview with Edge because it’s the only thing I see on here).
Shunji brawls outside and starts landing some brutal chops to anyone who’s nearby. KY drags him out of the venue so he can avoid losing his deposit if there’s a death in the hall. The lollipop guild are unable to stop Takano with a guard rail as Shunji powers out while staring ten thousand miles into the distance with his mouth agape.
Oh my God is he gone-gone.
They head back inside where a band has started playing live music…but KY drags Shunji back outside again. We’ve waited the whole tape for this and now we’re kicking out at two? KY has been sliced badly on the top of his head, presumably from the guard rail so he’ll require a tetanus shot. Takano makes a comeback with a traffic cone that weighs less than one of Jerry Lawler’s dates before heading back to the venue to rock out with the guitarist. Which is just as well as Shunji looks Pretty Vacant. I doubt he realises there was supposed to be an end to the match and he starts high fiving fans at ringside before encouraging everyone to come into the ring for a big old dance.
Takano says a few words and then sods off with his female prize because hippity hoppity women are property.
Tape wasn’t even an hour long. Crowd seemed to enjoy themselves but there wasn’t much here to enjoy even on a train wreck level because the production was so lousy.
Overall: I’ll just steal this review from Cagematch courtesy of Fountain of Misinformation (June 23, 2018):
If I ever If I want to live out my megalomania and my addiction to recognition, I’ll become a wrestling promoter.
