Rikidōzan Memorial Show 1996

Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan
Attendance 16,000

Hey you know that massive Tokyo Dome show featuring all the big Puro & Joshi companies of the era that’s still talked about to this day because everyone was trying to outwork everybody else? Yeah?

Ever wondered what that show would have looked like if no-one could be arsed?

Samurai Project Pro Wrestling

Ryuma Go & Takeshi Miyamoto vs. Fumio Akiyama & Samurai MAX

Samurai Project was Ryuma Go’s company that had only held three shows before this event which shows the desperate nature of the 1996 indie scene and how things have drastically changed in a year. Samurai MAX is the dependably dull Hiroaki Hatanaka.

Go only receives a respectable pop despite sometimes receiving crazy pops because he IS a crazy pop. Go takes him down and hams it up which is the best use of him when he’s not stealing women’s bags or getting his dick out. Indian Deathlock allows the crowd to make noise and for Go to pull faces. Takeshi Miyamoto and his lovely green trousers kick Fumio a lot and follow up with more kicks and then because it’s a big show, another kick. MAX tags in to mess Miyamoto up so bad he misses a kick and then turns around to tag in Go and pretend he’s fucked. Crowd murmur all over that one.

Go wraps this one up with a high-angled powerbomb and neckbreaker. Oh wait no the match continues. MAX comes back so the crowd amuse themselves by yelling “GO” whenever he’s taking offence. Akiyama kicks Go in the pecs repeatedly and the crowd laughs when he takes an enziguri. Miyamoto tags in for more kicks and to make Go look credible. Crowd only cares about laughing at Ryuma so thankfully he tags in to land flying clotheslines and to drag this match out even longer. Oy. Go absorbs another Figure Four leglock so he can take some more abuse and bloody hell this is going nowhere until finally Go locks in the Japanese Facelock at 14:35.

Rating: Way too long and rubbish. And long. And rubbish.

Because it went so long, fans were chanting for them to go to the finish

Understandable, I was yelling it at my screen.

IWA Kakutoshijuku

Goro Tsurumi vs. The Mummy

Oh I bet Rikidōzan would have loved this. IWA Kakutoshijuku is Goro’s company that somehow ran from 1993 up to Goro’s death in 2013. I have no idea how that happened because every photo you see of the company has the attendance levels of a paedophile’s funeral.

The Mummy is covered in talcum powder so whenever he does anything there’s coke everywhere. Crowd are mildly amused but after the drugs there’s nothing. They don’t work, they just make it worse. Crap clothesline on the outside gets two. Diving headbutt off the ropes from The Mummy generates laughter as The Mummy lays there afterwards so Goro gets up before the guy that delivered the move to apply an ankle lock to end an incredibly clipped 7:09.

Mummy suffered a legit broken rib as he did a clumsy attempt at a diving head-butt off the top rope. Fans heavily booed the finish;

Rating: We get footage of The Mummy being placed in an ambulance which is a perfect end to this disaster. Should have shoved him into a sarcophagus and left him there.

Meltzer noted that a lot of fans showed up thirty minutes after the show had started because they wanted to avoid some of the companies involved. Hard to argue after seeing what we’ve been given so far.

FMW

Hisakatsu Oya & The Gladiator Mike Awesome vs. Koji Nakagawa & Masato Tanaka

FMW is comfortably in the post-Onita workrate era but their ace Hayabusa isn’t here due to injury.

Oya’s hair is already on life support by 1996. His mat work is much improved since I saw him in SWS as he’s bothering to move around. Gladiator tags in to take it to Tanaka. Even with a heavily taped left knee he’s able to demonstrate his freakish speed and agility, even dropping a giant leg-drop for the fuck of it. Nakagawa tags in to land an avalanche but he makes the mistake of going for a second, causing Gladiator to launch him outside so he can bust out an insane tope WITH A BROKEN FREAKIN’ LEG.

Oya tags in to keep the pressure on Nakagawa with neckbreakers until Tanaka tries to cut him off. All it does is result in Nakagawa taking a beautiful DDT, selling like RVD by bouncing a foot off the ground with just his skull. Gladiator bounces him off the ropes with a front suplex before utterly dumping him with a double underhook. Nakagawa’s attempt at a comeback on Oya is so loose the crowd laughs at him so thankfully Tanaka tags in for hard lariats to shut them up. Massive swinging DDT on Oya sets up a Blue Thunder Bomb for two. Don’t recall Tanaka doing many of them. Oya completely splats Tanaka with a brutal backdrop suplex to a lovely pop. Gladiator gets jealous because only *he* is allowed to hurt Tanaka, so he drapes him over the top rope and plants him with a German Suplex for two. Oh that was nice. Gladiator’s top rope powerbomb gets converted into a superplex so Tanaka can tag in Nakagawa. He somehow manages a German Suplex on Gladiator but the crowd laugh at him again as he is casually dumped on the top rope like a child. Man even the Love Hotels would laugh at Nakagawa tonight.

Oya back suplexes Nakagawa while Gladiator splashes but Tanaka interrupts and crowd is revved up now, with Nakagawa somehow kicking out of an Awesome Bomb. Gladiator tries another but leaves himself vulnerable to a Tanaka dropkick, so Nakagawa attempts a crucifix…but is too short and ends up Samoan Dropping himself with a loud “aaaahhh” causing the crowd to laugh at him again. Jesus. Gladiator splashes him again for two so Oya takes out Tanaka allowing a Running Awesome Bomb to end it finally at 12:32.

Rating: Gladiator looked Awesome out there and proved he could have exciting matches without tables (as long as he had people willing to take his offence). It’s a shame Nakagawa let the side down with his inability to hit more than 30% of his offence but overall this was grand.

Because they had to stay in the ring and not use gimmicks, this was another poor match;

Oh shut up Dave, go fall asleep during your podcast.

IWA Japan

Takashi Okano vs. Tarzan Goto

Last year IWA Japan threatened to steal the show with an ungodly crazy eight man fuckfest. In 1996 they’re handcuffed with the inability to use weapons and a complete lack of stars, so the company is supplying past-his-prime Goto and…Okano??? I guess they needed whoever was young and healthy enough to make Goto look credible.

Goto wastes no time dumping Okano and playing him like a LP.

Okano comes back with hammerlocks until Goto starts clobbering and yelling.

We clip ahead to Goto ignoring the rules and breaking chairs over Okano’s body because it was his trademark and he’s got not much else. Crowd murmurs their disapproval like old biddies until Okano comes back with a German Suplex.

We clip ahead some more until Goto’s Divorce Court connects but the crowd is so dead you’d think it was IWA Japan four months from now. Goto takes this as a sign to hit Okano harder with the crowd sounding bored to the point of hostility, so when Goto spikes Okano with a Brainbuster and picks him up at two, there are some very annoyed heckles. Sit-out piledriver ends a thankfully clipped 16:11.

Rating: As a showcase for Goto this worked. As a showcase for IWA Japan, this failed and when the company restarted in 1997 they would do so without Goto.

BJPW

Kendo Nagasaki & Seiji Yamakawa vs. Shoji Nakamaki & Yuichi Taniguchi

Oh great, more hardcore guys not doing hardcore.

Kendo immediately brawls with Nakamaki on the outside before going into the ring to do absolutely nothing worth typing. Taniguchi & his mate are wearing ECW t-shirts so that’s something. Yamakawa would go onto become a great hardcore wrestler but he’s nobody here. Kendo falls over delivering a powerbomb on Taniguchi. You know how bands like Van Halen would describe bands like Autograph as “t-shirt bands” because when they’d support them, all the fans would go and buy shirts during their sets? Well NJPW must have sold a fuck-ton of shirts during this match. While Kendo is brawling with Nakamaki, Yamakawa German Suplexes Taniguchi at 12:58.

Rating: A complete waste of time.

LLPW

Michiko Omukai & Shinobu Kandori vs. Eagle Sawai & Michiko Nagashima

I’m out of my depth talking about Joshi so I’m calling in a favour.

Hey everyone! It’s me, Jabroniville! The Joshi Spotlight/Dream Matches guy! Women’s promotions on men’s shows is always an interesting thing- perhaps because they’re surrounded by bigger, beefier dudes doing the wrestling, they kinda get this prideful “let’s tear this fucking house DOWN!” mentality on some shows I’ve seen (like the Bridge of Dreams card where every promotion added something). JWP had the match of the night on a show that had a MISAWA match on it, for God’s sake!

* So LLPW is this really odd promotion in the joshi scene, being created when the original Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling split up into JWP and LLPW factions (mostly based off of who was friends with whom). It’s biggest star was Shinobu Kandori, a big-time legit badass judoka whose entire aura is that she’s a complete ass who thinks pro wrestling is beneath her. She specializes in lethal submission holds and taking her opponents lightly so it comes off really awesome when they rock her with something (like most “invincible”-type wrestlers, her most important skill is selling). She’s most famous for her legendary series of matches with Akira Hokuto, which some doofuses think was all Hokuto carrying her- I would liken them to “The match Triple H always thinks he’s having”- massive ***** brawls in the ultimate contest of wills and perseverance. Her outfits are always entertainingly hideous, like she just grabbed whatever’s closest- in this case, a purple & orange singlet. Omukai (in frilly white idol gear- you can tell a wrestler has the “Pretty Girl” push when their outfits are all frilly with skirts and such) had debuted in 1992 and was a low-ranked wrestler still- she would only get a push in ARSION in 1998, much of which failed. She’s super tall and very lanky.

Eagle Sawai (dressing up in a frilly red robe like a true superstar, revealing a black singlet with neon swirls on it) is #2-3 in the LLPW hierarchy and a “Monster Babyface/Heel” of a sorts- a big powerhouse of a woman. Nagashima (in white tiger-stripes)… I actually had to double-check who she was despite having written about joshi since 2019, haha. Oh wait! She was an Eagle goon in her heel “Guren-Tai” stable after this and actually got really good… right about when she retired in 1998. The Michikos are obviously here to eat pins- this ain’t no “Four Huge Stars” battle. Kandori gets by far the biggest reaction- the audience seems to at least be aware of her aura.

We’re quickly clipped to some point of the match- people are selling on the apron while Kandori charges Eagle. Eagle no-sells a lariat, but her own is turned into Kandori trying to haul her down into a judo hold, but Eagle decides to counter judo with fist-fu and just decks Kandori right in the mouth. And thankfully Kandori shows what I just wrote above, collapsing to her knees and holding her face like that REALLY HURT and she’s stunned. Eagle lariats Kandori, who uses the momentum to spring off and hit her own, then levels her with a third one. See- Eagle isn’t the best but she knows the all-imporant skill- “sell the THIRD lariat”. It makes her look tough to absorb the first two, but then puts the move over even more when a third kills her! And the crowd ovation backs that up! Kandori tags in Omukai, who gets a decent reaction for throwing running kicks to batter the big Eagle around, but Eagle just gets sick of that and no-sells, dragging her by the hair to the other Michiko. Nagashima uses Jobber-Fu (most joshi matches between scrubs feature a LOT of running dropkicks), and Eagle hits a dropkick off Bret’s rope, wowing the crowd when her flat-backing body sounds like a piano falling onto a bowling alley. Jesus Christ, what is that ring MADE of? Omukai gets a pop for using what I call the “fuck YOUUUUU!” bridge-out (joshi wrestlers like to bridge out to cause peak drama and show fighting spirit). Clipped to Eagle rocket-launching Nagashima flat onto Omukai (oh my god OW) for another “fuck YOUUUUU!” bridge, then Nagashima grabs a shinai (kendo stick), but the ref ain’t having it. He’s clearly from the men’s promotions- fans of joshi puro know you can bring out sickles, chains, tasers (yes, really) and everything short of a hand grenade in women’s wrestling!

To prove my point, Nagashima gets a sloppy backdrop hold, then grabs a chain and slugs Omukai down with it when she gets fighty, the ref refusing to count. Nagashima seems to get lost in the ring (calling a spot and then awkwardly running so Kandori can swat her) and that gets Omukai a DDT, but Eagle cuts off the tag and the crowd kinda dies. Eagle hits a mother of a powerbomb to impress them (attagirl!) and the ref draws ANOTHER good reaction for refusing to count! Kandori clapping with glee like a smartass is why she rules. Nagashima gets a flying senton, and after the kickout we’re clipped to the hot tag and Kandori goes a-clobbering, but takes an assisted powerbomb when Eagle hits the ring. But when Eagle starts braying and cheering herself on, Omukai just flies in with a knee to the back of the head! This sets up the finish, as they meander around a bit but Kandori hits her amazing Swinging Sleeper on Nagashima- Eagle breaks it up, but Kandori lariats her into Omukai’s GERMAN SUPLEX, Omukai collapsing on the bridge but still getting a big reaction, and Kandori locks on a sleeper for the tap-out at (5:29 of 12:46 shown)- Kandori & Omukai win!

A pretty solid, if unspectacular match. They decided to “save” most of the Kandori/Eagle bits and thus focus on the lower-ranked wrestlers fighting, which isn’t EXACTLY putting your best foot forward, but Eagle’s not exactly Vader or Aja Kong in there either. Omukai tried, but her biggest issue has always been she’s kind of a weak seller- someone in the position of a “Ricky Morton” needs to have a lot of fightiness, pleading, and desperation to them, and she can only really sell the “ow” part of wrestling, even when she’d improved. So a lot of the stuff falls a bit flatter than it should unless she’s doing screaming bridge-outs of pins. Nagashima was mostly okay, but got lost a few times and there were quite a few notable “stall-outs” in a match- these are kind of crowd-killers because the shot of a wrestler not remembering what they were gonna do next is just so distinctive and sort of collapses the whole house of cards of the “work” that is wrestling.

Rating: **1/4 (about as good as you’re going to get when the best wrestler spends most of her time on the apron in what’s shown and we miss half of it)

The crowd, which was largely people who attend one show a year, didn’t know any of these women except Kandori, and were surprised at seeing the size of Sawai. Omukai’s flying got the first good reaction of the show and the fans were into Kandori’s submissions as well. A very good match;

GAEA vs. JWP

Chigusa Nagayo, Hikari Fukuoka & Hiromi Yagi vs. Bomber Hikari, Dynamite Kansai & Toshie Uematsu

* Two of the other promotions have a strange interpromotional bout, mixing and matching people from each company. Chigusa is the biggest women’s star in the history of the business, being a household name in 1980s Japan and the ultimate icon to the schoolgirls of the time- a reflection of themselves against the evil heels of Dump Matsumoto and her Gokuaku-Domei stable in All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling. She retired in 1989 but returned a few years later, forming GAEA Japan in 1995 (she had an… adversarial relationship with her original company), training a new generation (her biggest trainee is Meiko Satomura). Hikari was heavily inspired by Manami Toyota and is a high-flying idol/pretty girl wrestler who JWP has been pushing heavily and would soon be the Ace. Yagi is a legit judoka and a great athlete, typically in the midcard and soon to retire for a short bit. Dynamite Kansai is the current Ace of JWP and a tremendous kicky wrestler with great power moves- she’s one of my absolute faves and her whole aura is that she’s ridiculously O.P.- like someone put all the sliders for “giving concussions” to the max. Her gear is AMAZING- this ridiculous Doctor Octopus get-up with giant pipes sticking off of her ring jacket. Bomber is a weird wrestler- a minor-leaguer, she retired and was then re-discovered by Chigusa and brought into GAEA as a “secondary” wrestler- someone just above the rookies she’d just trained to fill out the ranks. She… really sucks. Like she’s awful. BUT! She was a handy “stepping stone/speed-bump” to put in front of GAEA’s rookies! A good thing to have on a roster that needed a backbone built around the first class of trainees. Sadly she retired right when it was time to start being climbed over. Toshie is a GAEA rookie and SUPER acrobatic by this poing (before her knees exploded). She’s also the inaugural WCW Women’s Cruiserweight Champion. Yes, I like to remind people that belt existed.

So the match here is… on paper, DECIDEDLY in favor of Chigusa’s team. It’s a Main Eventer, a Near-Main Eventer and a credible midcarder against a Main Eventer, a JTTS and a rookie jobber in her first year. Which isn’t to say it’ll be a smoke-out- if Kansai catches Yagi and her backups can hold off the vets, she can win. Kansai’s in neon yellow, Bomber’s in blue/white, Toshie’s in green, Chigusa’s in black/silver, Fukuoka’s in leopard-print & Yagi’s in black.

Yagi/Uematsu do a high-speed armdrag routine to start, being a bit clumsy in parts but fine. Clipped to Fukuoka missile-kicking Bomber a couple times for two, but trying her rana and getting powerbombed. Bomber misses a flying splash and Fukuoka climbs, but flies right into a turning powerslam (!) for two. Uematsu’s body press sets of stereo flying headbutts and Bomber gets a tiger suplex for two. Kansai hits a big kick into her Backdrop Driver, Hikari getting a good reaction for her “Fuck YOUUUUU!” bridge, and when Kansai does her dramatic taunt for her Splash Mountain finisher (a sit-out Razor’s Edge), Chigusa just wipes her out with a wheel kick from behind! Then points to her head to indicate intelligence! With a cheeky “hee- ain’t I a stinker?” look on her face. Chigusa & Kansai charge in with lariats, but just slap off each other, then do it again… and their seconds come in for Stereo Germans, then a THIRD double-lariat puts them both down. Chigusa makes the mistake of trying kicks with Kansai and gets booted in the brain for it, and Kansai aims for Splash Mountain, saved by Yagi. Chigusa immediately folds Kansai with a backdrop suplex, then hits a running soccer kick to the head where Kansai shows that she is THE BEST at selling strikes, just cracking her head to the side in shock and puffing her cheeks out to show she “got rocked”. Chigusa hits a Death Valley Driver (a move invented by a woman- Etsuko Mita- and had become part of the “Communal Main Eventer Offense” by this point), and a dogpile breaks that up, then Uematsu gets a pop for charging her trainer (Chigusa), then Hikari flies off… into an intercepting Kansai kick. Bomber’s Vader Bomb & Uematsu’s splash get two. Uematsu gets a 1950s-style headscissors but gets rolled up, gets her own, then charges into a powerslam for two. Yagi gets a frog splash & German on Uematsu for two-counts, but a brawl gets set off with everyone coming in, and Yagi is leapfrogged into a double-stomp on Uematsu for two. Kansai saves Uematsu from a powerslam, then Hikari’s Tiger Driver, but everyone hits the ring and Hikari pins Uematsu with her Moonsault at 7:16 (of 12:23 shown). Aw, she didn’t even use her elite offense! No Moonsault Stomp (yes, really) or her somersault missile dropkick (the Rider Kick).

This was mostly okay, but didn’t really get over. Chigusa’s aura seemed lost on the crowd (which probably didn’t have as many prime AJW fans) and everyone was in “House Show Mode” for the most part, with less drama and inconsistent selling periods (people just kinda “did stuff”). Like you know it’s bad when Kansai can’t hit Splash Mountain and Hikari wins it with her secondary finisher. It was alright, and even BOMBER looked good (there’s probably a reason she was only in it for like 30 seconds total, haha), but nothing outstanding.

Rating: ** (a filler “House Show”-y match- more properly wrestled than the first one but with less of a story to draw fans in)

All in all, these ladies all looked like they fought in a decidedly NON-show stealing fashion. Not exactly lazy, but very much “the big stars are saving themselves for a more important show” and without even going all-out or hitting their best moves.

Thanks Jabroniville!

AJPW sent Mitsuo Momota (Rikidōzan’s son) for a match that wasn’t featured on the VHS due to AJPW’s video contracts preventing their talent from appearing elsewhere and that’s their whole contribution.

There was much criticism of All Japan for sending two prelim wrestlers rather than top names to this show, but they had a show of their own going on at the same time at Korakuen Hall which is about a 40 minute drive from this arena;

I just checked, not only was their show loaded (main was Kenta Kobashi & Mitsuharu Misawa vs. Gary Albright & Giant Baba) but Masanobu Fuchi defeated Yoshinari Ogawa for the AJPW World Junior Heavyweight title. They did a title change for good measure too? Eat shit Rikidōzan!

WAR vs. Kitao Dojo

Koji Kitao & Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Fuyuki-gun (Hiromichi Fuyuki & Jado)

Alright this is either going to be terrible or merely fairly bad. Either way, the crowd are really into Kitao because he still somehow has a cult following. Somehow Kitao wouldn’t be the worst cult Japan would have to worry about in the mid 90s

Fuyuki’s yelling offence instantly pops the crowd. Kitao tags in to sambo suplex Jado before we smartly clip ahead to Mochizuki tagging in.

Fuyuki-Gun start some double-teaming and double-yelling but Mochizuki still has a future so he tags in so Kitao can land his chubby kicks. You can tell the fans haven’t been paying attention to Kitao because they’re reacting strongly to his basic-but-big offence. Not even his I-left-my-PE-gear-at-home attire can quiet their impressed “ooo”s when Kitao manages to throw a kick without falling over.

Kitao delivers more suplexes while Fuyuki yells and manages a back suplex. Fuyuki-Gun sandwich Kitao with lariats but he’s fat and therefor resistant to moves associated with food so he retaliates with sidekicks. Mochizuki delivers a German Suplex and generally looks impressive until Jado mule kicks him in the groin. AWA Special & a Mexican Surfboard keep him in pain as Fuyuki-Gun are notably being slower and less vigorous than usual because they know who they’re dealing with. Mochizuki gets sandwiched cos he’s not fat and then Fuyuki locks in the WAR Special. Kitao tries to interrupt so Gedo distracts, allowing The Gooners to land a Superbomb for…two! Oh then Fuyuki lariats him for the pin immediately afterwards at 12:16.

Rating: Not bad because of Fuyuki-Gun’s effort. Not good either, but at least watchable thanks to Kitao’s crazy fans.

Not good at all. Fuyuki did a lot of comedy which somewhat saved it since Kitao is such a poor worker;

No Dave, that’s just Fuyuki’s style.

Shooto vs. Michinoku Pro

Tiger Mask I (Satoru Sayama) vs. Tiger Mask IV (Yoshihiro Yamazaki)

Sayama is representing Shooto, the company he’d leave because of stylistic differences. Tiger Mask IV is the Tiger Mask who has only ever been Tiger Mask.

Sayama wrist-locks Tiger who rolls out of it and turns it into a wristlock takedown in the same way as Sayama did, only with Sayama knowing it’s coming and front-flipping onto his feet for the loudest reaction of the night.

Tiger locks in a single crab which Sayama is unable to do anything with so has to grab a rope break. Tiger simply drags him to the middle of the ring and work over Sayama with his own twisting knee-based leg offence to set up a Figure Four. Sayama comes back by kipping up from a shoulder tackle to land a blind leapfrog before Tiger gets out the way of a backflip. Crowd are loving this and blow the roof off a second time when Sayama delivers the spinning ankle takedown with ease. Sayama keeps control on the mat with only his legs to show off he’s able to do a lot with a little.

Sayama lands a hard kick to the chest followed by his trademark diving DDT and Tombstone as the crowd gets louder and louder. Sayama sadly misses a diving headbutt off the top to disappointed noises, before Tiger blasts Sayama with a crazy high crosscheck that sends Tiger flying higher bouncing OFF Sayama than his original dive. Wow. Sayama continues to turn the clock back by sticking Tiger with his handspring into a crossbody and a tilt-a-whirl, enough so that when Tiger rolls outside the crowd expect a dive from Sayama because he’s been capable of everything else. Sadly we don’t get a dive but we do get the handstand headscissors takedown, which Tiger escapes out of with another kip-up.

Considering Sayama should have been walking around like one of Dad’s Army at this point, this is beautiful to watch. Sayama applies another Figure Four but this time he’s able to block Tiger’s attempt at turning it into an offensive manoeuvre and has to grab the ropes instead. Sayama lands his own flying cross body check and impressively high dropkick to set up Tiger in the corner with a hard Irish Whip as the crowd can be heard murmuring “he’s not winning, is he?”

Sure enough, Sayama backflips off Tiger to tremendous applause. Tiger does the same back at Sayama to set up a top rope diving headbutt which connects for a two count. Sayama gets sent outside, with Tiger landing a smooth through-the-ropes suicide dive to send Sayama into the guard rails. Tiger tries a crossbody off the top top to the outside with the production doing their best to not capture it as it sounds like he ate shit. Sayama tries to head into the ring but Tiger holds him back and the crowd knows what’s happening and as soon as the double count out at 12:19 is announced the crowd make their feelings heard with enormous boos.

Tiger bows to Sayama who agrees to three more minutes. Both lads attempt strikes before hustling to the mat with neither gaining an advantage. Sayama spins around Tiger but spins too close to the ropes to gain an armbar. Tiger attempts to take Sayama down with a leg sweep but Sayama sees it and locks in a sleeper. Sayama quickly lands his DDT before going up top and missing a moonsault he wasn’t going to hit even if Tiger didn’t move. Tiger attempts a Figure Four as the timer is quickly expiring, with Sayama kicking out to end it for real-real. Crowd are respectful for the finish.

Rating: So far the only genuine reason to seek out this show. The fans were enthralled with the action and the heart-warming throwback spots with Tiger Mask I turning back the clock and making the salarymen feel like children again. Tiger Mask IV was able to hang with the legend and lost nothing via the draw so this was some good times.

PWFG vs. UWF-I

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Yoji Anjo

PWFG was officially dead by this point but Fujiwara has enough respect to raise the flag one last time. Meanwhile UWF-i only has a few more months left until that’s also dead because this period for Puro is as upbeat as Watership Down.

Anjo takes a shot to the face so he can start hamming it up from the get go. He tries for a clean break but Fuj hits him in the face anyway cos he’s a bastard. Anjo armbars him down, with Fuj able to escape with an ankle lock. Anjo threatens a DQ when he refuses to release his chinlock with Fuj having grabbed the rope with an angry Fuj applying an ugly collar & elbow tie-up in anger. Big-arse headbutts send Anjo down and Fuj barely listens to the ref and we have some real intensity here.

Fuj knees Anjo repeatedly while he’s in the ropes but Fuj doesn’t realize how strong Anjo’s balls are so he runs right into a kick to the face. Fuj pretends to be KO’d before jumping up at eight and blowing a kiss to the fans. Ha! OK this is going somewhere. Anjo uses the ropes to walk a hole in Fuj’s head. Anjo applies an ankle lock so Fuj grabs the ropes and while the ref is demanding Anjo release the hold, Fuj powers up and locks in the His Name Ambar. That was an amazing dick moment.

More headbutts follow with Anjo having such little respect by comparison that the crowd laugh when he tries some of his own. Fuj chinlocks Anjo but he rolls into the ropes, with the ref being unable to separate the two so Takayama pulls them both out the ring…with Fuj still having hold of Anjo on the ring mats so Takayama has to kick him off. Anjo chokes Fuj on the outside until the match is thrown out with both men counted out and a gigantic “OH FUCK YOU” reaction from the crowd.

Rating: Moments of coolness but the majority of the match felt like it was building to the fuck finish so it only ended up as average overall. Which is a damn shame as I usually love both men’s work and this was looking so promising at the start.

Both men have words afterwards with Fujiwara leaving and Anjo staying in the ring for five minutes. Nobuhiko Takada is shown on the big screen and nothing comes of it. OK then.

After the match, Fujiwara grabbed the house mic and quelled the crowd saying he was going to go backstage and bring in Akira Maeda to wrestle Anjoh. Anjoh sat down in the ring and Fujiwara didn’t come back for a long time and finally said that it was a joke;

Fuckin’ ‘ell.

NJPW

Junji Hirata & Shinya Hashimoto vs. Keiji Muto & Kensuke Sasaki

Oh here we go, finally some World Champion level talent. Junji is the un-masked Super Strong Machine. Weird that a Machine’s gimmick was that he REMOVED his mask.

Sasaki and Hirata bash each other around to the fan’s glee. Sasaki is wearing bright colours and sporting dreadlocks and looks about as 1996 as an athlete can get. Hash the current IWGP champion takes an armbar from the man who defeated him for the title years ago. Muto tries to catch Hash’s kicks but being unable to stop Beverley Hills Ninja’s offence causes some laughter from the crowd so Muto tries to land shots while he’s down. Neither land so Muto bravely tags in Kensuke. Crowd are subdued so Hash and Sasaki liven things up by absolutely clattering one another across the chest. Sasaki has to fight to suplex Hash so crowd applauds the effort. Muto blasts Hash with his little dancing elbow drop to only moderate reaction as this is definitely not a NJPW audience. I wonder what kind of audience it is? Maybe most of them went home after The Mummy died.

Hirata plants Muto through the mat with a German Suplex but the crowd still only start reacting when Hash viciously double stomps him from the top rope after telling the crowd “MAKE SOME NOISE, MUTO’S DYING OUT HERE.” Hirata back sentons Muto before taking a press slam into a stomach breaker and Muto is taking a wonderful beating here. Pity no-one cares. Sasaki bounces around with energy the front row could do with to bodyslam Hirata half way across the ring. Hash saves his mate with his giant, flared kicks but Kensuke is also giant and flared so he is able to slam Hash successfully. Muto tags in with the same amount of energy to bust out the Handspring Elbow in the corner. Hash tries to sweep Muto but he stays erect (steady now) so Hash plants him with his fast DDT and the crowd uhhh laughs? Oh wow. Hirata delivers a big, fat powerbomb onto Muto who has had enough of this and lands on his feet from a follow-up German to execute a Dragon Screw Leg Whip, which finally gets the crowd buzzing.

Muto follows this with a Moonsault at 14:51.

Rating: I think the wrestlers were getting a bit annoyed out there near the end because even though they weren’t going 100%, the 50% they showed up with easily lapped the majority of the show but they were getting nothing from the fans. Perfectly fine match with third-gear Muta and stiff Sasaki standing out the most.

WAR vs. NJPW

Genichiro Tenryu & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Koki Kitahara & Riki Choshu

WAR was at it’s best when beefing with different companies so even though Koki might as well be wearing a shirt that says “GUESS WHO’S GETTING PINNED?” on the front and “ME LOL” on the back, this should be grand.

Tenryu and Choshu start off with both bringing intensity off the bat with hard lock ups and miserable expressions. Riki tags out but stays in the ring to stare at Tenryu until Koki starts twatting his boss. Tenryu retaliates with HARD chops that echo through the hall but takes his eyes off the prize to stare at Riki some more, leading to Koki taking the boss down with strikes. Which lasts for about five seconds until Fujinami tags and he demands Riki. He regrets it as Riki’s not in a giving mood (when is he ever?) and takes Fujinami down easily with the Sharpshooter.

Koki tags back in so Fuj can actually get some offence in with the crowd enjoying the appearance of a Dragon Screw Leg Whip. Tenryu tags in but Koki throws everything he’s got at him, resulting in Riki joining in until the ref stops him. Tenryu gets annoyed with Riki’s strikes and enziguris him after a miserable stare. Fuj lands a flying knee off the top rope but Koki is able to tag in just as he applies a sleeper hold. Nice moment that gives Koki the confidence to try and take down Fujinami and when that goes as well as expected, he tags in Riki who lariats The Fuj. However Fujinami lands another Dragon Screw before locking in a Figure Four, setting up Tenryu tagging in to begin abusing Riki. You know they’re friends in real life because there’s no way you’d hit someone that hard on a regular basis.

Sadly it’s not helping with the crowd who are only popping for the trademark spots. It’s like watching fucking King Of The Ring 1999. Riki lands a lariat to wake them up before Koki delivers a Liger Bomb and a legit punch to the face to nearly KO Tenryu. Jesus mate. Tenryu retaliates with a justified punch of his own to get the crowd buzzing.

Koki no-sells a German to walk directly into several chops and a brutal lariat. Tenryu then powerbombs Koki to…win. Just like that. Tenryu does not look happy as the ref holds his hand up.

Rating: A bunch of healthy legends hitting each other very, very hard is always good even if these lads seemed content to do enough to overshadow the rest of the card and nothing more. The finish was startlingly abrupt but getting punched in the face will do that to you.

To end the show, Inoki joins the rest of the roster to say nice things about his trainer but I’ve no idea what he’s saying so here’s Rikidōzan’s amazing entrance from Giant Gram 2000: All Japan Pro Wrestling 3.

Aftermath

The quality of the wrestlers on the show was so bad it caused NJPW to publicly comment on it:

There is a war of words going on in the press between New Japan and several of the smaller promotions, most noticeably Shinya Kojika and Kendo Nagasaki’s Big Japan group. This could be an angle, since New Japan is known for angles like this, but for some reason I think this is just a war of words in the press. It started in the aftermath of the Rikidozan show on 6/30.

After the show, Riki Choshu, Shinya Hashimoto and Muto were mad about the card and mad about appearing on the same stage as some of the indie promotions since by all accounts, the undercard matches on this show were awful. They pretty much said that if such as show was proposed again next year that they wouldn’t be a part of it unless the poor groups weren’t involved. If you understand just how hard the New Japan wrestlers had to train to become pro wrestlers and the quality of their workers compared to the indies in Japan, you can understand their basic problem, which actually dates back years but came across publicly because they appeared on the same show with a lot of bad matches, regarding all the magazine publicity the smaller group wrestlers get with the belief those wrestlers hadn’t paid their dues and aren’t of the quality of real pro wrestlers.

None of the indie promotions until this past week commented when Kojika challenged the New Japan wrestlers to interpromotional matches, which may be him simply looking for pub or the beginning of an angle.

This is one of those situations where Riki and others probably meant every word of what they said but BJPW were eager to capitalize on it for the publicity regardless.

So BJPW would start a brief interpromotional feud with NJPW who were likely hoping for some of the success of the WAR feud from years earlier. Yoshihiro Tajiri got to shine for the first time on a big stage but Shoji Nakamaki had the pleasure of wrestling Chono.

edit: I went and watched the Nakamaki match! He walks down the long Dome ramp with a barbed wire board on his back so Chono attacks him mid-entrance and throws him off it. Chono goes to the top rope and orders his opponent to give him a Superplex, which he does…

…only for Chono to pop up and yell at him to land a lariat. He does, Chono no-sells it and delivers a Yakuza Kick for the pin at 1:07 as the crowd cheers in approval. Then Saito wanders in to land a few deep back sentons before Chono no-sells a few lariats so he can Irish whip Nakamaki into his own barbed wire board.

Wow what an insanely one-sided squash. I’m sure BJPW were thrilled at NJPW calling them shit and then having this occur on the biggest show of the year.

Nakamaki is among the worst workers in the business (but has a cult following for his willingness to take incredible abuse) so I guess this was just get in and get it over with.

I love a show that is so bad it continues to ruin other companies months later like the Hate Plague from Transformers.

And if that wasn’t enough, the Rikidōzan event coincided with Tarzan Yamamoto (the driving force behind the Bridge Of Dreams show) resigning from Weekly Pro Wrestling.

In what is a landmark story when it comes to wrestling journalism, but Tarzan Yamamoto, the editor of Weekly Pro Wrestling since its debut in 1984, resigned this past week. Yamamoto had been embroiled in a feud with New Japan Pro Wrestling, the country’s largest office, which, along with UWFI and WAR, had banned the magazine from covering its events for the past few months.

With magazine sales declining, eight percent in the past month alone, while rival Weekly Gong has seen a 16 percent increase and was selling its copies at the newsstands at a record rate according to most reports (some reports are that Gong was selling 95% of its newsstand mags, which is a figure totally unheard of in the magazine publishing business where 30 to 40% is considered successful) since it was the only full-color weekly to cover those three offices, Yamamoto resigned. It is believed, although not official at press time, that New Japan will now allow Weekly Pro, a subsidiary of Baseball Magazine Sha, to begin coverage of its events starting with the G-1 Climax in August. With so many major New Japan, UWFI and WAR events in the summer and fall, the pressure on Weekly Pro to end this war amidst declining sales and as important, the fact its main competitor has become so hot, has been enormous of late. Weekly Pro has gone to heavy coverage of All Japan, Michinoku, Rings, Pancrase, the Japanese garbage groups, Women and American wrestling, and in particular has pushed ECW to the moon, to pick up the slack. Yamamoto, who is credited with bringing mainstream coverage of pro wrestling in Japan from the Apter-mag level almost to Observer level, except that his magazine had a circulation of 300,000 per week making it far more influential. By all accounts Yamamoto was one of the most powerful and influential people in wrestling in Japan. According to one book on pro wrestling written in Japan, Yamamoto was called the most influential person in the entire pro wrestling world. Because of basically inventing, at least in Japan, a critical approach to covering wrestling matches and angles and behind-the-scenes news, Yamamoto was often criticized for revealing too much in his magazines. Traditionalists felt they hurt the business, despite the fact the Japanese business went through a major upswing during most of that period. His strong coverage of shooting style groups and shoot sports, and pointing out they were shoot groups (not saying the others weren’t but the allusion was there) along with being critical of groups with the attitude of “if you don’t like us, don’t come” made him numerous enemies throughout the years, both from rival magazines and from several different offices.

In particular, after successfully promoting a show in April of 1995 which sold out the Tokyo Dome and had main event calibre matches from 13 different offices, the other publications and others in the business got even hotter at the power he was able to wield in that groups were supposedly afraid that if they didn’t cooperate with his show, it would mean diminished coverage in the most important magazine. Rival publications were so bitter at the power wielded that for the most part they boycotted coverage of in some ways the biggest pro wrestling event ever in the country. There were fears and rumors started throughout Japan, which turned out to be unfounded, that Yamamoto, 50, who also hosted his own late-night weekly pro wrestling talk show for most of last year, was going to use the Dome show, which drew something like $5.5 million, as a springboard to start his own promotion. Others had criticized him of late for favoring promotions that he had business dealings with, with Weekly Pro being heavily criticized by outsiders for its deal where it markets ECW tapes in Japan and in exchange has given ECW tons of coverage in its magazine.

Yamamoto had bragged at Wrestlemania in regard to the New Japan ban that he had never lost a war yet (he had previous conflicts with All Japan, WAR, SWS, etc. all of which resulted in the promotions making amends with him because of the power his magazine yielded). With New Japan so hot, and Weekly Pro banned from coverage, he was in a war that this time, he didn’t win. However, those close to him say that this resignation in many ways is more than it seems–a calculated wrestling angle–and that he’s going to leave, write a few books on pro wrestling, and return in another venue as powerful as ever

This isn’t relevant to the rubbish quality of the show I just thought the timing was fascinating. The Bridge Of Dreams show really was the peak of the wave for Puro as it was all downhill after that.

Overall: Ooof yeah well let’s see. Tiger Mask vs. Tiger Mask was a lovely walk down memory lane, and the NJPW matches were perfectly decent if unremarkable. No AJW, RINGS, Pancrase and only minimal contributions from AJPW as well as many of the promotions being on their death-bed (IWA Japan, UWF-i, PWFG) will lead you to walk away from this show thinking “wow, Puro sucked in 1996.”

Next week: Well things are so grim in Puro that I’m retreating to everyone’s favourite Philly indie that died owing lots of people money: Tri-State Wrestling!

I’ve been Maffew and he’s been Jabroniville.