Tokyo Pro Wrestling – The Big Fight Spring 02/05/96
By Maffew Gregg on 28 July 2024
Tokyo Pro Wrestling
Korakuen Hall
Attendance 2,200 (lol)
Eric Cantona returns to Selhurst Park for the first time since his karate kick, Babylon Zoo still have Spaceman at Number One and the first genetically modified food products go on sale in the UK.
Also occurring: this show!
It’s been a year since Tokyo Pro dared to record a show and expect people to buy it with real money and we’re in Korakuen Hall! And by “we” I mean “me” because there’s probably more people in the comment section than fans in the stands.
Apollo Sugawara vs. Makoto Corps No. 1
Makoto is Akira Shoji under a mask. He’d go onto greater fame as Akira Shoji. Apollo is rubbishly solid which is worse than being crap because it means there’s little to talk about. I’m trying to think of a modern day American equivalent. Jay Lethal? Aye that’ll do.
Makoto thinks he’s able to do a Handspring Elbow in the corner and the crowd’s laughter is music to my ears. Makoto messes up something in the middle of the ring so badly I can’t even tell what he was going for. Any guesses?
Best answer in the comments gets a year’s supply of condoms (which given this site means “one”).
He lands a moonsault to shut up the laughing fans. I’ll watch any rubbish company at Korakuen Hall because the Tokyo fans are always responsive to whatever rubbish is burning in front of them. Apollo lands a DDT, a Powerbomb and finally a lariat to end this at 13:07.
Crowd applauds as Apollo at least resembles a wrestler but he’s so dull that the crowd are going to remember Makoto’s badness long after they forget about him.
Hikaru Kawabata & Hiroshi Hatanaka vs. Akihiko Masuda & Shunme Matsuzaki
These guys wrestling each other is a dangerous mix of boring and dull. After some slams we clip ahead to a weak brawl in the aisle so Masuda can land a decent missile dropkick. Twisting body senton gets two as this is dangerously approaching decent. Hatanaka stops that with a big-ass lariat, leading to Kawabata piledriving Matsuzaki on the outside and a big-ass back senton ends a staggeringly trimmed 18:30.
Wow they really massacred that match to make it look good. Well it worked as this ended up being an exciting three minutes, but considering it was eighteen minutes that’s like turning a tree into a tooth-pick.
Toryu vs. Tenichibo Ikkei
Ikkei is in full monk gear and looks pretty cool. Toryu is wearing camo gear and a mask which enables him to deceptively land an Asai moonsault to start this one off hot. Both lads trade headbutts as Ikkei is bust open less than a minute in before landing a Tope of his own, before immediately falling into the crowd from the effort.
Suplex on the gym mats outside as these two apparently broke into the show’s work-rate storage unit and raided it’s delicious contents. Ikkei is thrown into more chairs and does his best to hit as many fans as possible. Good lad. Toryu lands a beautiful German on the big Monk before landing a moonsault as this crowd is giving them nothing. They’ll laugh at Apollo’s bollocks but give these chubby funsters silence? Toryu keeps throwing moves at Ikkei until the monk lands a low blow and a follow-up schoolboy roll-up. The ref declines to count the pin though cos he saw the low-blow, earning him a punch. Ha! Ikkei lands a Randy Orton style draping DDT onto a chair but the ref tries to tell him to stop being a bad Monk so he gets launched outside for the DQ at 12:48 to give me faith in this show.
These two large lads busted their wide arses off and I’m happy for both of them even if the crowd couldn’t have cared less. Cheers lads.
Gekko vs. Shigeo Okumura
Gekko is Masao Orihara in a clown mask, attacking his non-clown opponent while still dressed in mask and cape and landing a full-gear Asai Moonsault.
He poses in the ring to give us a look at the terrifying nature of that mask. Orihara had a reputable name at this point, I’ve no idea why he changed his name and attire for Tokyo Pro. He is mental though. Gekko runs up Okamura in the corner and keeps piling on the pressure with rolling standing swantons because Orihara can dog his opponents given half the chance. Okamura gets so annoyed with being abused he heads outside as we clip ahead to him returning. Obviously. I mean yeah they should have cut to him not there.
Okamura returns to deliver some basic moves before Gekko sandbags him on a Double Arm DDT and he lands on his clown head. Gekko proves he’s OK by applying a ball-claw and thrusting his opponent’s back. See, he’s creepy and horny. He’s like Max Caster on the mic. Okamura kicks him low to balance things but teases DQ by pushing the ref. Gekko backflips and moonsaults but he’s doing them with no frequency so crowd cheers more when he delivers another low blow. Okamura is getting mad and no-sells the ball shot to deliver a lariat. Second rope moonsault gets two and no pop because it’s been done to death now lads, come on now. Dragon Suplex only gets two as I realise Okamura has no body language. He’s supposed to be conveying how mad he is at this crotch-obsessed clown but he has the same face he had when he first stepped into the ring. He probably has the same face when he’s skipping work to buy the newest Dragon Quest. Gekko spams Tombstone Piledrivers so he can set up the dreaded SPIDER GERMAN SUPLEX to really pop the crowd before finishing with yet another moonsault at 10:36.
Interestingly awkward match here with Orihara doing everything he could to upstage his opponent, which wasn’t hard in fairness. Orihara absolutely ate his opponent up here with a selfish performance that didn’t necessarily make him look as good as he thinks he does because he’s Orihara and he is (as previously discussed) fucking mental.
Masashi Aoyagi vs. Rikio Ito
Ito looks like Sgt. Buddy Lee Parker if he’d been born normal. Aoyagi starts the contest by spin-kicking an entering Ito in the face. Ito isn’t happy with that and escorts Aoyagi to one end of the hall.
We clip back to the ring (fast travel like in Fallout) to Ito press slamming Aoyagi to the outside to continue the Karate abuse. Aoyagi sucks it up and flies so hard into the corner with a comeback kick that he sends himself out the ring. Aoyagi lands more kicks to Ito’s chiselled mid-section but goes for too many so Ito’s AI kicks in and responds by capturing the leg to keep Aoyagi wide open. But then a mate of Aoyagi’s throws in a chair so he can use it for a DDT and a big kick to end this flatly at 9:34. Huh.
Some matches look exciting early on and then they make the mistake of carrying on.
Daikokubo Benkei & The Great Kabuki vs. Bloody Blues A & Bloody Blues B
OH NO NOT BENKEI. Benkei previously wrestled as Arashi and looked legitimately looked untrained while doing so and I don’t think WAR were very upset when he left. In fact when they heard the news, they renamed their company PEACE.
The Bloody Bruises are apparently Yuki Ishikawa & Daisuke Ikeda which is bloody hilarious if true. They’re in full body blue and gold gear and look rubbish. Even more rubbish than Kabuki’s laughable lariats. Yuki (I’m guessing) converts one of them into an armbar before landing a Northern Lights Suplex which is more than what Kabuki is prepared to do so Benkei tags in. AND WE IMMEDIATELY CLIP AHEAD BECAUSE BENKEI IS AWFUL.
Sadly when we come back he’s still in the ring, smothering Yuki with a bearhug. Oh God imagine if they clipped to when he tagged out as soon as he tagged in. That’s my dream. Yuki attempts a headbutt but Benkei’s head is also awful so it doesn’t work. Ikeda puts Kabuki in an armbar after an attempted suplex because it’s the only move the old bastard can take. Ikeda manages a lovely rolling armbar but then Kabuki’s ringside help distracts so Benkei can deliver a splash to save his meal ticket. The technical lads both lock armbars on Benkei which results in Kabuki having to make the save as slowly as possible. Benkei sticks to headbutts and the Bruisers stick to armbars and I should have stuck to sniffing glue. Yuki misses a top rope splash so Benkei squishes him with a walking splash at 11:43.
Breath-taking in it’s basicness considering how far up the card it was. No wonder these respected wrestlers would show up in full body gimmicks to work with rubbish wrestlers like this, I want to deny watching this show never mind competing in it.
Russian Roulette Handkerchief Death Match
Mr. Pogo vs. Takashi Ishikawa
Ishikawa is painted up like Pogo and is so pretty he’s able to PEARL HARBOUR FROM THE FRONT. Pogo tries to keep the action to the outside because he’s a brawler but Ishikawa instantly runs back inside the ring. Pogo keeps trying but Ishikawa is like a cat when confronted with a bath. Crowd gets the psychology and pops whenever Ishikawa wrestles smarter not harder.
We clip ahead because traditionally a main event requires some action at some point. Pogo eventually uses his boot to bust open Ishikawa before accidentally sending it into the stands, so Ishikawa is able to get the advantage while Pogo hops away looking for it. Sure why not. A table gets propped up outside and Pogo bounces off it but the production can’t be bothered to switch camera angles so we barely see it from the hard cam position. The handkerchief shows up as Ishikawa tries to somehow use it as a weapon but Pogo kicks it away. Yeah that gimmick name reads better on a match graphic than it does in practice but in fairness, I’m not expecting anyone to shoot themselves either.
Someone tries to run in so Ishikawa of course heads outside to batter him. Oh it’s Aoyagi. The production is absolutely not helping here. Aoyagi kicks him a few times so Ishikawa gets sent into Pogo’s Big Stabby Things.
Ishikawa’s shirt is covered in claret as he’s turned into Halal meat by the blades so the ref checks his pulse to make sure he’s still here. Ishikawa gets the saw and Pogo panics, but he throws them away to take Pogo on like a REAL MAN. Crowd doesn’t like that because they want their hero to get stabbed. Pogo declines to fight properly and instead chokes Ishikawa with the chain to set up Ishikawa being choked even more before Ishikawa finally succumbs to not breathing by passing out at 21:14, but not before panicking and removing the chain quickly as I think he put himself in a genuinely vulnerable position and didn’t realise it’d take the ref that long to call it. Yikes.
This was similar to Sid vs. Diesel in the sense that these guys are capable of having exciting matches but only against the right opponents, which wasn’t themselves. All this did was make you realise how good guys like Onita and Matsunaga were when it came to wrestling Pogo and being willing to take anything he was willing to shove into them. If you don’t have a guy like that then you get matches like this: two Doms in need of a Sub. Shite main event.
Overall: Well at least it was more interesting than the last tape. “Interesting” meaning “crap” half the time but I mean Orihara as a sexually assaulting clown and Ishikawa struggling to do death matches is definitely more note-worthy than anything that happened last time around but still not worth a watch unless you’re a complete goon.