As a wee lad getting into Japanese wrestling (also known as the Pure-O-Resew by amateur linguists and wrestling experts alike), Ultimo Dragon’s Toryumon was my favorite thing going. It had the flash of the 90’s NJPW juniors mixed with the lucha speed of Michinoku Pro and introduced a whole new cast of fun characters to the wrasslin’ world.
Going back to their debut show for the first time in many years, it’s striking how everyone is already packaged with efficient, easy-to-grasp gimmicks. There’s the sexy male stripper ace, the masked high flyer babyface, the evil young punks, the guy who does headbutts, the guy who does elbowdrops and Stalker Ishikawa. My 14 year old self drank that sweet Dragon Koolaid for a long time before my interests started shifting towards heavyweight wrestling, but I’ve been meaning to revisit this era for a while so let’s log into the award-winning Dragon Gate Network and see if this shit still holds up.
Genki Horiguchi vs. Yasushi Kanda
First thing to note about this match is it’s referee’d by legendary NJPW bald man Kotetsu Yamamoto!? I assume him and Ultimo were budz dating back to the New Japan dojo days. As for the match itself, Horiguchi (still with a full head of hair at this point) and Kanda were already super polished considering their experience level. What with all the crowd-popping headscissors and picture perfect dropkicks. For an Elbowdrop Master, Kanda never had the greatest flying elbowdrop, but to this day I’m still enamored with the idea of a wrestling gimmick based on doing lots of elbowdrop variants. Pretty decent introduction to the Toryumon style: fast-paced Lucha-vibe with sound Japanese fundamentals. **1/4
Kennichiro Arai vs. Susumu Mochizuki
Araken was a pretty weird proposition for Toryumon at the time. A grumpy drunkard specialized in headbutts might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you’re thinking of an upstart lucha-flavored promotion. Understandably, the crowd here were not sure what to make of him and laughed off some of his offense, but by the end of the match they went wild for his no-look diving headbutt finish. Susumu also had a completely different vibe back then, going for a shooter-ish approach with lots of kicks and cross armbraker combos. Much closer to the style of his Brother From Another Mother Masaaki Mochizuki than his current power fighting/technical style blend. Match was efficient if a bit flat, both guys showed strong basics but not much in the way of personality yet. **1/4
Stalker Ichikawa vs. TARU
First TV outing for this LEGENDARY RIVALRY. Stalker’s the most over guy on this show so far. His shtick is a huge hit with the crowd and a lot of his classic spots are already there: the weird crotch chopping, the tiger feint sequence, the ineffective striking. Ultimo was audibly cracking up for his cartoony sell-job of TARU’s big Brainbuster. Fun times. **
Masaaki Mochizuki & TARU vs. Takashi Okamura & Keiichi Kono
Weird time jump here, as we leave Korakuen Hall and head later into the King of Dragon tour, where TARU (who has already joined Crazy MAX at this point in time), is somehow still teaming with Mochi to take on his former Buko Dojo colleagues…? Kono is of course the future testicular gourmet Chocoball KOBE, while Okamura would ascend to a prominent backstage position in both Toryumon and Dragon Gate. Anyway, the match is more of a clusterfuck angle than anything. Magnum and Dragon Kid end up breaking up a big Crazy MAX beatdown and Koji Kitao’s boys end up vowing revenge against the now-evil Yoshikazu Taru. Aaand back to Korakuen Hall we go.
Magnum TOKYO, Dragon Kid & SAITO vs. Shiima Nobunaga, Sumo Fuji & Judo Suwa – Elimination Match
This was THE tape-trading buzz match back in the day. A deeply flawed but undeniably ambitious car crash of a 6-man tag that put the Toryumon style on the map and made stars out of everyone involved. The Magnum TOKYO entrance blew my mind as a teenager and still blows my mind today as a quarantined adult. Korakuen absolutely losing their shit, ladies frantically stuffing money down his pants, the Alex Wright dance routine: this dude was a motherfucking star.
The personalities are what still holds up about this match upon rewatch. Crazy MAX come off as fully-formed, fully hateable assholes and yet there were already hints of Shiima (not yet CIMA) transcending the traditional heel role – Korakuen rallying behind him after he got his face caved in by a Firebird splash gone wrong. Wrestling-wise, there’s a bunch of spots that still look great to this day, but the in-between stuff wasn’t quite there yet.
Beside all the obvious botches, the biggest knock against this match is the supremely-haphazard layout. Everyone was still super green and hadn’t quite mastered the rhythm of the soon-to-be-classic Toryumon sprint forula. Thus, the heel beatdown comes in weirdly late, the babyface comebacks aren’t milked enough and there’s a shitload of aimless punchin’ and kickin’ to fill time before transitions. While we’re talking negatives, 1999 Suwa also had the very unfortunate look of an IWA Mid-South jobber, terrible baggy pants and all. But he already had the powerful desire to near-paralyze himself on every ‘rana bump, thus all is forgiven.
Magnum kinda whiffing the AV Starpress for the finish and then celebrating the victory in tears with the rest of Sekigun is the perfect encapsulation of this match. The execution couldn’t yet match the high-end wrestling concept Ultimo Dragon was trying to sell but the characters and emotions were strong enough to make it work and keep the people coming back for more. ***1/4
