All the Japanese promotions I normally watch have officially been annihilated by the global pandemic so let’s wash our hands and watch some Big Japan Pro-Wrestling in a half-empty Korakuen Hall.
Ryuji Ito, Masaya Takahashi, Toshiyuki Sakuda & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Abdullah Kobayashi, Yuko Miyamoto, Kankuro Hoshino & Drew Parker – Fluorescent Lighttubes Death Match
About half of the match shown. Miyamoto firing up his teammates by smashing them in the ass with a baseball bat = inspiring. Hoshino middle kicking some light tubes was dope too.
Takuya Nomura, Orca Uto & Takuho Kato vs. Yuya Aoki, Yasufumi Nakanoue & Akira Hyodo
Orca Uto = GREAT NAME! Joined in progress, but enough was shown for me to tell you that Nomura and Aoki have amazing chemistry together. Burly baby Hyodo looked like a million bucks during the finish. Great pop-up Samoan drop into fatboy senton. ORCA also threw one hell of a lariat. Lotta talent in there.
Hideyoshi Kamitani vs. Quiet Storm – Strong Climb (Block C)
Solid meat and potatoes wrasslin’ match to set the tone for the Strong Climb tournament. I can only respect Kamitani for being this far into his career and sticking to the basics only. Gives him a real old school feel, which I dig. His crowd playing is also top notch – lots of quality IKUZO’s from this man. It was fun seeing Storm do something else than the Funky Powers shtick, but he didn’t exactly light the place on fire here. He had the right idea with the deep grunting and chop/shoulderblock-based onslaught, but the rest of his offense looked a bit clunky. **1/2
Ryuchi Kawakami vs. T-Hawk – Strong Climb (Block A)
T-Hawk working a G1-style tournament is something I’ve been wanting to see for a long time and my dudes, we are off to a great start. The Hawkster was babyfacing it hard, working from underneath after finally meeting his equal in the knife-edge chop department. Kawakami’s a guy I’ve been digging ever since his All Asia tag heel run last year and he kept impressing here, matching T-Hawk’s intensity and providing a bunch of well-timed cutoffs. Lots of nifty fighting spirit no-sell spots with T-Hawk powering through the pain and Corona-infested air to fire off the Cerberus from a multitude of wild angles. Every facet of his game is so ridiculously on point, I could watch the guy wrestle all day and I can’t wait to see more of this tournament run. ***1/2
Ryota Hama vs. Yuji Hino – Strong Climb (Block C)
Pretty much exactly what it needed to be, aka. Yuji Hino gets outsized for maybe the first time in his career and needs to rethink his entire approach. I actually thought Hino was overselling Hama’s flimsy punches early on but they quickly ramped up the danger by having Hama physically squash Hino like a bug, rapidly sending Korakuen in a panic. Hino has such great facial expressions: loved his ‘’What the fuck am I supposed to do now’’ reaction after realizing his chops had no effect on Hama. The finish was powerful in every way. ***
Kazumi Kikuta vs. Jake Lee – Strong Climb (Block D)
The Gentleman Warrior Jake Lee often struggles to find his Ace-level charisma when he’s across the ring from Kento Miyahara, but maaaaan did he come off as a star against karate mastermind Kikuta. Without overdoing it, Jake added a heelish invader streak to his usual ring work and it turned Kikuta into a god damned hometown hero. The semi-shock result kinda felt like All Japan dropped the ball when negotiating Jake’s tournament, but also I have a soft spot for Kikuta’s shitty Heisei Ishingun throwback vibe so maybe I’m okay with it? A fun wrestling match.***1/4
Daichi Hashimoto vs. Yoshiki Inamura – Strong Climb (Block A)
I think Inamura already surpassed Daichi as a worker and I’m not sure if this speaks to how prematurely good Big Yoshiki is or how terrible Shinya Jr. continues to be. Either away, this was a very structurally-sound match that struggled to keep my attention due to Daichi being such a black hole of charisma. Every bright spot in the match came from Inamura drawing in the crowd with his fighting spirit and larger than life hoss energy. He truly has a flawless grasp of the basics of pro-wrestling. Meanwhile, Daichi playing sempai with stiff forearms and kicks was a sound way to approach the match, but at some point I had trouble believing Inamura couldn’t just completely wipe out his lazy ass. I’m not gonna lie though, I did enjoy Daichi summoning all Three Musketeerz for the finish with the Shining Wizard/DDT/STF sequence. ***1/4
Daisuke Sekimoto & Kohei Sato © vs. Yuji Okabayashi & Shigehiro Irie – BJW Tag-Team Titles
Four proper virus-slayers beating the fuck out of each other to make sure the Big Japan faithful didn’t regret risking their lives to watch some dumb wrestling. Not much to write about in terms of deeply meaningful storytelling outside of a group of extremely-competent workers vigorously trying to win some gold. And really, do you need anything more than that? You can pretend Okabayashi banged Kohei’s girlfriend if you need any kind of reasoning behind those shoot headbutts.
Big Japan’s Strong aesthetic is so very pleasing to me. Timeless, quasi-retro Japanese wrestling with the intensity and stiffness dialed up to 11. What I’m trying to say is that seeing Sekimoto transition into the Argentine backbreaker from an old school Atomic drop satisfies me as much as all the chest-caving lariats. Irie fit in perfectly in that environment, as even his flashier offense tends to be fairly logical. His new double team death move with Okabayashi (possibly called the Hammerhead Shark?) already feels as destructive as the double stack German suplex.
Okabayashi failing to fend off both Sekimoto and Sato for the ending stretch was compelling as hell. Kohei is so well established as a striker that he only has to hop in once in a while and knee lift the shit out of someone in order to believably turn the tide. Loved the Piledriver into deadlift German suplex hold finish and loved this professional wrestling match. My immune system feels stronger already. ****
