Wrestling Dream Battles

How are all of you guys doing? Ready for more Yoshihiro Tajiri? Yeah, me too! Let's take a look at some good stuff! Dan Severn vs. Yoshihiro Tajiri (NWA 06/24/1995) - Quick but cool UWFi style match in the middle of a baseball or football field while Tarzan Goto (Dan's next challenger) looks on. Definitely recommend checking this out if you've got a few minutes free.  Tajiri & Shinjiro Otani vs Jushin Liger & El Samurai (BJW 06/07/97) - These are 4 guys to do a hate filled Junior battle. Liger and Tajiri kicked off the animosity & it never let up. Damn, Otani brought the stiffness. Samurai and Liger responded in kind. Of course there were great high spots and power moves too. Although, Tajiri was a Big Japan talent you never would have known as his skill has always been top notch. Tajiri vs Jerry Lynn (ECW - Famcam - 04/22/99) - These two are wrestling like they're in Philly! Tajiri pops JL in the nose with a kick. It's bleeding bad by the midway poin...

OK we're back in New Japan proper this time! That last batch of matches were outstanding though. Check that post out if you haven't done so. December Keiji Muto vs. Hiroyoshi Tenzan (12/10) - And that's how you do it!! Finally doing legwork just right! This was a badass bout. Muto's had Tenzan bugging him all year. He starts quickly and tries to eliminate the big headed baddie. Tenzan doesn't get beaten so easily and really takes it to Muto. It's a 10 minute bout and it's great! No overwrought drama or bullshit where they have to kill time. Great stuff!  From the 12/11 show : Dean Malenko & Wild Pegasus vs. Hiro Saito & Sabu - Haha! Yes Sabu & Big boy Hiro Saito are a great team! Malenko & Benoit have their hands full with them. If Saito isn't raking the eyes or hitting someone in the nuts, Sabu is flying at them like a riderless dirt bike at an outlaw motocross race. I loved this match. Benoit and Dean have no sense of humor and try to...

Greetings and salutations! We're back to New Japan and we're beyond the G1 Climax. A big focus at this time is the NJPW vs UWFi feud. I've watched a good sample of UWFi and the matches below aren't necessarily representative of their shoot style. That said, they company does start to incorporate the style seen in these feud matches. I digress. If you're interested check out my other blog at The Further Adventures of Puro + More where I'm covering shoot style like UWFi. September through November From the 09/23 show: Lord Steven Regal vs. Wild Pegasus - Oh wow! This was tremendous. The first part was Regal's style. This was flawless and could have been done in 1975-80. Eventually Benoit found and opening and it became his high octane style. Neither man was completely out of his element. Eventually Regal was bleeding from his ear. This elevated the perception of true violence. The finish seemed imperfect at first but then made sense to me and was fitting give...

Hi wrestling fans! This time we're taking a brief look at the  1995 G1 Climax ! While I don't have the 1995 G1 Climax tournament in full, I do have some footage from a commercial set which should give me a sense of the matches and the best stuff in digest/joined in progress form. Something is better than nothing! I did find a few of the better reviewed matches available with some digging so I'll do full reviews of those and will mention if they're complete. Otherwise, assume they are digest form. From 08/11: Shinya Hashimoto vs Scott Norton - Fun stuff with Norton man handling Hash and Hash lighting Norton up with kicks. Keiji Muto vs. Shiro Koshinaka - I actually started the full version of it but Muto started doing his legwork routine. Koshinaka was going along so I switched to the digest version. I enjoyed that version better with one really killer move! From 08/12: Keiji Muto vs. Masahiro Chono - Oh boy, I think this is a great match! Nice story internally and bi...

Hi folks! I'm back with the second installment of the 1995 New Japan Yearbook. There's a good mix of Junior and Heavyweight action this time. The Junior matches are ones that haven't gotten much positive attention in the past. I thought they were worth another look. There's a bunch of quality NJPW wrestling this time. Take a look! April through June Gran Hamada & Koji Kanemoto vs. Shinjiro Otani & Wild Pegasus (04/13) Haha we're off to a brilliant start. Koji steps to Otani during introductions. Otani responds by slapping Koji. This was a heck of a tag match. A nice mix of lucha & puro along with a bit of nastiness too. Pegasus/Benoit & Hamada were more neutral but the animus between Koji & Otani was ever present. It had the right tone exemplified by the hard chops everyone was throwing. I thought this was a near classic junior tag match. With its flawless execution, move complexity and story, it could be on TV or PPV today...the closest style it...

Hi folks! I thought that 1990's New Japan wrestling was only about the Junior wrestlers - Jushin Liger, Pegasus Kid, Black Tiger II (Eddie Guerrero), Koji Kanemoto et al. I've come to understand that the heavyweight wrestlers had a lot to offer too. The reason for this misunderstanding was due to how highly rated the Juniors matches were rated by Dave Meltzer and folks in the internet wrestling community. These matches and shows seemed to be the equivalent of AJPW's amazing heavyweight bouts. Battles between Ultimo Dragon and Shinjiro Otani were getting as many stars & accolades as Misawa vs Kawada. Therefore, I (and many others) wanted to watch that! And I'm really glad that I did. I also think WCW's cruiserweight division contributed to this viewing bias. A person can easily find that Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, Ultimo Dragon all had significant matches over in NJPW. On top of that, they can find that their matches were against Liger Kanemoto, Otani, and others...