Mike Reviews Collision In Korea

Happy Colliding Friday Everyone!

WCW didn’t have a pay per view in April of 1995, but they did contribute some wrestlers to this show in Korea, which was one of the many examples of a dodgy government trying to use Pro Wrestling for the purposes of sports washing. Collision In Korea sees New Japan, WCW and All Japan Women wrestlers competing over two nights in giant stadium in North Korea, most of which was filled with “fans” who had been “gently persuaded” to be there.

You can get more info on this by checking out the Dark Side of the Ring episode that covers it, but it certainly didn’t sound like a fun time for the wrestlers that took part in it. Most of the Koreans didn’t want the wrestlers to be there, and the reception towards them ranged from hostility to indifference depending on what the wrestlers happened to be doing at the time. We’ll see a LOT of the latter when we actually get to reviewing the matches.

The Collision in Korea pay per view is a mash-up where they’ve taken a selection of matches from both nights and thrown them together for a two hour showing, complete with some nice juicy North Korean propaganda sprinkled in. You can view the full cards for both nights by clicking below;

Collison in Korea – Night One
Collison in Korea – Night Two

Featured Image comes from Wrestle Inn

Collison in Korea is emanating, on tape delay, from Pyongyang, North Korea. Night One took place on the 28th of April 1995 and Night Two took place on the 29th of April 1995. The pay per view version of the show was aired in the USA on the 4th of August 1995

Calling the action for the English broadcast are Eric Bischoff, Mike Tenay and Sonny Onoo

Too Cold Scorpio Vs Wild Pegasus

These two wrestled one another a lot in the 1990’s, with them famously tearing the house down at WCW SuperBrawl III. I’m not sure if we’re getting the real crowd reactions here or if they are just dubbing the sound in, but regardless of which one they’ve gone for, the Korean crowd doesn’t sound that enthused. The wrestling is fun to watch at least, as these two wrestled one another quite a lot so the counter grappling between the two is well executed and the bout is fought at a pleasing pace. Mike Tenay does an okay job calling the wrestling moves and giving background on the wrestlers (although he gets Super J Cup and Best of the Super Junior’s mixed up at one stage). Bischoff and Onoo are less good on commentary though, although I can understand why Sleazy E would want to do the play by play here seeing as he actually went on the trip and could talk about the Korean experience. The action goes back and forth, with Pegasus eventually coming off the top rope with a diving Headbutt for the three count.

WINNER: WILD PEGASUS
RATING: **1/2

Thoughts: The wrestling was decent here, and in front of an invested crowd who actually knew what was going on it might have got a higher rating. As it was, it was more an exhibition of what a decent wrestling match would be rather than being a heated contest of any kind

Tokimitsu Ishizawa Vs Yuji Nagata

Ishizawa would eventually go on to greater fame as masked wrestler Kendo Kashin. Nagata would move up to Heavyweight and ended up as one of the top stars of New Japan during the dark Inoki-ism days. You can’t really hear the ring announcer that well here. It also sounds like the WCW commentators have been dubbed over the Japanese commentary, which is remarkably sloppy even for WCW. Onoo’s thing on commentary is that the Japanese wrestlers are better than the WCW ones, with the idea being that they were trying to set up a New Japan Vs WCW feud at Starrcade in 1995. This one is your standard “Young Lion” match, in that it’s two younger wrestlers in generic black gear mostly just trading holds with one another. The standard of wrestling on display is solid, which you would expect with New Japan competitors as they make sure the younger trainees have a proper grasp of the basics before they allow them to start wrestling on shows. Nagata eventually catches Ishikawa in a modified facelock and that’s enough for the submission victory

WINNER: YUJI NAGATA
RATING: **

Thoughts: This was absolutely fine; although I can’t imagine that a western viewer who had never watched any New Japan before and didn’t know the wrestlers involved would have cared much about this. You had to be a hardcore fan who actually watched New Japan in order to really get anything out of this, and even then it would just be “those two are coming along nicely in their respective development cycles”

Ookami Gundan (Hiro Saito and Masahiro Chono) Vs El Samurai and Tadao Yasuda

Saito and Chono were allied for quite a while, especially once Chono started wearing black and kicking the fudge out of people. Samurai is masked Junior Heavyweight who could have amazing matches when he wanted to. Yasuda is a former Sumo who ended up getting a brief run with the IWGP Heavyweight Title during the dark days of Inoki-ism thanks to being able to win some MMA fights. Samurai seems kind of out of place here with three Heavyweights, but he’s a good enough wrestler that he should be able to hang with them so long as they are willing to treat him like an equal, which the Heavyweights didn’t always do with the Junior Heavyweights.

Chono tries to use his trademark charisma and posturing to get a rise out of the crowd, but it doesn’t seem to work. One thing I’ve always wondered about this show is that if the North Korean government was going to the trouble of bringing in wrestlers for a wrestling show, why didn’t they spend a couple of months putting wrestling on the television so that the audience had some kind of idea what to expect and how to react? Obviously they’d have to edit it and dub in their own commentary etc, but it had to be a better idea than just scooping up 150,000-200,000 people at random, plonking them in front of this and expecting them to know/care about a bunch of American and Japanese guys they’d never heard of before?

As expected, neither Chono or Saito seem to have much interest in really acknowledging Samurai’s existence, with Samurai mostly there to just get beaten up. Yasuda has a little bit more luck because he’s big, but they kind of shrug him aside for the most part too because he was still green at this stage. Yasuda gets to do some sumo slaps, but even those don’t generate much in the way of a reaction from the amassed Korean’s. Samurai is actually allowed to do one a move (a head butt off the top onto Chono) but Chono shrugs that off like it’s an arm drag and then comes off the top with a shoulder tackle for the three count.

WINNERS: OOKAMI GUNDAN
RATING: *

Thoughts: Any chance of the match being remotely interesting was killed off by the combination of the crowd not caring and the Heavyweight guys having no interest in actually letting Samurai do anything, even though Samurai was arguably the best worker in the match and the guy on his team who could actually do some exciting moves

We get some sports washing, as we see the wrestlers visiting parts of North Korea and pretending to enjoy themselves

Akira Hokuto and Bull Nakano Vs Manami Toyota and Mariko Yoshida

JOSHI BOYS ASSEMBLE!!!

Hokuto is known for inventing the Northern Lights Bomb, a move that Al Snow and Dom Travis would use in the West. She was also a huge star in the history of wrestling in Japan. Nakano had a run as WWF Women’s Champ as a dominating powerhouse before eventually retiring from wrestling to play professional golf. Toyota is widely regarded as one of the best wrestlers of all-time regardless of gender. Yoshida I don’t know as much about, but I’m sure Joshi Spotlight can help out there. Bischoff is doing the whole “Nakano and Hokuto are the bad looking team” gimmick on commentary, but I personally think all four of these lasses are attractive folk.

The gist of the story here is that Nakano is big and strong, Hokuto is violent and sadistic, whilst Toyota and Yoshida are quick and operate the role more of traditional babyfaces. That leads to both Toyota and Yoshida getting thrown around and stretched by Nakano and Hokuto respectively, whilst looking for avenues where they can use their speed and agility in order to fight back. The crowd of course doesn’t really care, but the match itself is fast paced and entertaining to watch. I struggle to watch a whole show made up of Joshi matches sometimes because it can get a bit samey to watch this style of match 6-9 times in a row.

However, when it’s a speciality match on a bigger more varied card like this, I find the Joshi style to be a really pleasant palate cleanser that provides fun action and interesting character work. I feel similar about lucha style in fact. Toyota and Yoshida do eventually get to so some sustained high flying in order to put the Heels on the backfoot, and it’s really well done. The Heels eventually fight back though, with Nakano coming off the top rope with the tailbone defying Leg Drop onto Yoshida for the three count.

WINNERS: HOKUTO & NAKANO
RATING: ***1/2

Scott “Flash” Norton Vs Shinya Hashimoto

Norton was arguably the biggest foreign star in New Japan at the time (I believe Riki Choshu was South Korean, although I think he was born in Japan and had Korean parents) whilst Hashimoto was regularly in Main Events and was a huge drawing card for the promotion. Hashimoto gets Dean Malenko’s WCW theme here, which does kind of suit him actually. It’s better than the generic Japanese pipe music they usually gave the international stars during this period. Norton is possibly at his most barrel-chested here, with his physique being thicker than too much beef mince in a metal tin.

Both of these wrestlers are big lads, with Norton being more of a power wrestler whilst Hashimoto leans more towards strikes and submission wrestling. That leads to the action being fought at a rather deliberate pace in traditional Heavyweight style, but it all builds realistically and feels like the kind of battle that two wrestlers like this would have. Bischoff is clearly pro Norton on commentary because he remembers Norton from his AWA days. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Norton eventually got brought into WCW during the Nitro era.

There’s lots of snug strikes, with Norton focusing on clotheslines and chops, whilst Hashimoto sticks to kicks and slaps. One thing the match could benefit from would be a sustained finishing stretch where they just trade bombs for 5 minutes, but we never really get that and the action is a bit stop-start. Both of the wrestlers start getting tired near the end as well, which leads to some sloppiness with the power moves, but the strikes continue to work at least. Eventually the clock runs out and we have a 20 minute draw, which probably just confused the Koreans if nothing else. It looked like Norton was doing the better of the two before the clock ran out though.

TIME LIMIT DRAW
RATING: *3/4

Thoughts: With an invested crowd this one could have benefited a bit from the slow pace, as it would have allowed the two wrestlers to tell a story and gradually build up to a crescendo. Sadly the cold crowd ended up making the deliberate action feel dull, and the match dragged a bit as a result. I don’t dislike Norton’s work as much as others do, but he certainly wasn’t the most exciting big foreigner in Japanese wrestling, and Hashimoto is a bit of an acquired tasted just because of his dumpy physique and his hyper-realistic style, so you really needed a crowd that cared in order to get the best out of a battle between the two, and we didn’t have that here. As far as two big lads slowly slugging one another though, it was about in the ballpark of what you’d expect

We get more footage of the big show that North Korea put on before the event. I have to say, it does all look very impressive, especially when they’re using timed changes of cards to make tifos switch colour in the stands. That may as well be some kind of witchcraft as far as I’m concerned

Road Warrior Hawk Vs Tadao Yasuda

The Road Warriors were huge stars in Japan in the 1980’s, and remained over in the company for years afterwards thanks to that initial big run in All Japan. Road Warrior Animal was supposed to be tagging with Hawk here apparently, but Animal’s previous back injury flared up, so Hawk is working solo instead. This is the usual Road Warrior squash, except it’s just one Warrior doing the squashing instead of two. Hawk does take a few bumps from Yasuda, but he just no sells it all and then comes off the top rope with a clothesline for three.

WINNER: HAWK
RATING:SQUASH

Thoughts: That was sure worth flying Hawk all the way over to North Korea for. On the brightside; it was better than if Hawk and Yasuda had tried to wrestle a proper match for ten minutes, so I’ll give it that

The Steiner Brothers (Rick and Scott) Vs Hiroshi Hase and Kensuke Sasaki

These two teams had a famous match at the Tokyo Dome in 1991 that tore the house down, so now they’re going at it again in front of a crowd who probably won’t care anywhere near as much. The Steiner’s are fired up for this one at least, as they fling the Japanese contingent around to start, with even some of the seconds at ringside taking bumps from it as well. Hase, a former amateur wrestler who entered the Pro world in the 1980’s, is as smooth as ever in there, both in delivering moves and taking them. Sasaki had been tagging with Hawk for quite a while prior to this, but he had tagged with Hase previously, and it doesn’t take long for them to get back into the flow of things as partners.

The Steiner’s are even more grumpy than usual at points in this one, especially when Hase tries chopping away at Rick at one stage, which leads to an annoyed Rick shrugging it off and clattering poor Hase. Hase is a good sport about it all and allows himself to be destroyed without much in the way of resistance, whilst Sasaki is a bit more bullish and wants to be able to fight back more when the opportunity arises. The Korean crowd still doesn’t seem to get that into this, even though Hase has spent the majority of the match getting utterly wrecked and selling it all fantastically. You’d think the Korean’s would be capable of basic empathy at the sight of a smaller man getting ravaged by two gigantic chicken eating brutes?

Sasaki eventually gets a tag and runs wild for all of 5 seconds with some dropkicks, which at least allows Hase to regroup on the apron for a bit. However, Hase is soon back in getting killed again, as this match has almost been a one man show in that regard. It’s not like The Steiner’s haven’t been working hard, they just haven’t had to sell anything for the most part. Eventually Rick and Sasaki start scrapping on the floor, which allows Scott to spike Hase with The Steiner Screwdriver for three (although the camera cut away so we didn’t get to see the big head drop spot properly, thus defeating the purpose of doing the move in the first place and meaning that Hase took the bump for nothing).

WINNERS: THE STEINER BROTHERS
RATING: ***3/4

Thoughts: A little bit too one-sided for my liking, with the majority of the match being poor Hase getting monstered by the big American’s whilst Sasaki occasionally was allowed to come in and hit a move or two. Hase was excellent in his role of designated punching bag of course, with him taking some lovely bumps and selling magnificently throughout the contest. It was nice to see that The Steiner’s didn’t have it in neutral either, as they were doing their darndest in order to get the crowd to care, it was just that translated to them slaughtering poor Hase in the hopes it would draw sympathy heat. Sadly that didn’t work though, as the hardened Korean audience barely uttered a whimper as the handsome moustachioed Japanese man was destroyed in front of them. Maybe they were thinking that getting mauled by The Steiner’s was still better than the back breaking industrial/agricultural labour they had to go through every day before getting rounded up at gunpoint and forced to watch a Pro Wrestling show when they’d rather be at home with their families? The actual wrestling here was great, as were the effort levels from the four grapplers despite the fact they were in the ultimate no-win situation with the un-interested crowd, so I’ve gone with a high rating even though I had a few issues with the match structure overall

“The Nature Boy” Ric Flair Vs Antonio Inoki

This was originally supposed to be Hulk Hogan wrestling Inoki, but losing to Inoki in Korea didn’t work for him brother, so Ric Flair has been drafted in instead, because he’s happy to do a job if it means he gets to work in front of nearly 200,000 people and have a good match in the process. Inoki was a student of Rikidozan, who was Korean wrestler who became arguably the most important figure in the history of Japanese wrestling. Thus the Korean crowd decides to treat Inoki as almost a surrogate for their national hero, meaning that this match actually has decent crowd reactions.

Both wrestlers know exactly what role to play here, with Flair not exactly being a cowardly Heel, but he does make sure to grumble and complain a lot about everything, being just the right side of underhanded whilst still kind of wrestling it straight as well. Inoki by comparison is fired up and more willing to engage in battle, which designates him as the babyface here, which was always going to be the case considering that Inoki is the only wrestler that the Korean’s actually seem to care about. Flair eventually manages to gain control in the bout by taking the fight to the floor and throwing Inoki into the ring post, which is again an underhanded tactic but not an extreme example of cheating, which keeps Flair in the Heel designation without over-egging the pudding at the same time.

With Inoki cut off the match settles into the usual formula that Inoki was using at the time, wherein Inoki spends the majority of the bout getting worked over and selling until it’s time for the fired up comeback. Flair’s work all looks good and Inoki’s selling is on point, so it all works well and the crowd remains invested because they like Inoki. Inoki does eventually fight back with punches, with Flair selling it all well and Inoki doing an excellent job of being a fired up babyface who is making a comeback. Each wrestler has a chance to win it, with Flair’s best near fall coming from a simple back suplex. Inoki rallies though, and comes off the top with a Knee Drop before following up with an Enziguri for the three count after a fun battle.

WINNER: ANTONIO INOKI
RATING: ***1/4

Thoughts: Good stuff here, with both Flair and Inoki knowing exactly how to work a match like this and the result being a solid close to the show. Flair can bump around like a mofo in order to make a babyface look good and Inoki knows how to fire up and time a comeback, so these two were a match made in heaven when it came to the structure of the contest

Flair shows respect to Inoki following that so that we can all go home happy. Well, the North Korean’s have to stay in North Korea, but you know what I mean.

In Conclusion

I wouldn’t call Collison in Korea a good show as such, but it does have some good wrestling, even though the amassed crowd doesn’t really care about that good wrestling until the Main Event comes along. Honestly, if you didn’t know that the show was taking place in front of so many people you’d probably not be able to tell, as the camera view mostly just showed the folks at ring/pitch-side and that didn’t really give you a good grasp of just how many people were in the venue. You certainly couldn’t tell by sound due to how muted the Korean audience was. So even though there is some good wrestling on Collision in Korea, there really isn’t much point in watching it because you can find just as good wrestling elsewhere in 1995, and it will likely be in front of an audience that actually wants to watch it. Seek out WWF SummerSlam 1995 or WCW Fall Brawl 1995 instead and you’ll likely have a much better time.

Not a recommended show