wrestling / Columns

Into the Indies 09.01.09: The Nomads of Apache Army

September 1, 2009 | Posted by Ryan Byers

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Into the Indies, the only professional wrestling column on the internet to be named after a Stephen Sondheim musical.

This week, take quite the departure from the types of shows that have been reviewed thusfar in this column as we review the deathmatch-centric January 16, 2009 card from the Apache Army. What is the Apache Army, you ask?

To answer that question, we actually have to go back several years and talk about Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling. Founded in 1989 by Atushi Onita, FMW began as a promotion that actually did promote a worked “martial arts” style in its key matches, though things quickly changed and the matches evolved from featuring karate and judo to featuring landmines and barbed wire. Yes, FMW became the most successful promotion in Japanese history to feature deathmatches in its main events . . . though its success was not due to the hardcore style of wrestling as much as it was a style of booking that gave fans personal, dramatic storylines and cards that showcased a variety of different styles throughout the course of an evening, generally with a quality junior heavyweight match, tag team match, women’s match, straight singles match, and deathmatch on every show. Over the course of its first ten years, FMW quickly raised from the level of being an independent promotion to the point that it could almost be called a legitimate number three company in Japan behind NJPW and AJPW.

Unfortunately, though it took a while for FMW to ascend, it did not take long at all for everything to fall apart. Many people blame the beginning of the end of FMW on founder Atsushi Onita stepping aside, allowing veteran wrestler Kodo Fuyuki to take the book. Though dramatic storylines had always been a part of FMW’s success, Fuyuki took things to another level and transformed the gritty, reality-based promotion in to what he referred to as “entertainment wrestling,” which was in some ways similar to WWE’s sports entertainment style. As if that was not enough to turn off some of FMW’s more loyal fans, Fuyuki also remained an active wrestler while booking the company, and the long-time wrestling fans know how that goes. Kodo made himself the focal point of the promotion and also drastically overhauled the gimmick of Hayabusa, who had been the ace of the promotion during its glory days. Many smart fans of the company revolted, and attendance at the promotion’s live shows dropped off.

As if plummeting business wasn’t bad enough, things got far worse as four major tragedies occurred within a year of each other. The string started on October 22, 2001 in Korakuen Hall when, in a main event match, top star Hayabusa attempted a moonsault off of the second rope, under-rotated, landed on his head, and broke his neck. He was instantly paralyzed, and, though he is still alive, he has not regained the ability to walk to this day. Then, in February 2002, FMW president Shiochi Arai declared bankruptcy on behalf of the company. Plummeting attendance had lead to plummeting income, and Arai owed money to more people than could be counted . . . and, when some of those people allegedly have ties to the Japanese mafia, a simple bankruptcy becomes a life-threatening situation.

Rather than allowing his life to come to the end at the hands of his more malicious creditors, Arai ultimately decided that he was going to handle things himself. On May 16, 2002, Arai, wearing a full business suit, hung himself in the middle of Tokyo Park. One company was destroyed, one man was crippled, one man was dead, and the tragedy was not about to end.
Shortly after running the first show of his own promotion that was intended to be the successor to FMW, Kodo Fuyuki announced that he had severe cancer which would require him to undergo radiation treatment. The radiation treatment, in turn, would cause him to retire from the ring. Fuyuki, once reviled for his booking by many FMW fans in the company’s later days, immediately became a sympathetic character, particularly when he had his retirement match on April 14, 2002 on a card promoted by All Japan Pro Wrestling. Fuyuki got the fall in that final match of his career, and it appeared at first that his radiation treatment was just as successful, with the cancer apparently eliminated after the first round of treatments.

With Fuyuki seemingly having recovered, FMW founder Atsushi Onita still being active, and the majority of its wrestlers still being healthy enough to compete, many promotions attempted to fill the void that was left by FMW. Fuyuki tried his hand with a group known as World Entertainment Wrestling, while Onita endorsed a company headed by Hayabusa and his chief in-ring rival Mr. Gannosuke called Wrestling Marvelous Future. (WMF . . . FMW . . . get it?) Despite that endorsement of WMF, Onita would attempt to start projects of his own as well, including a group called USO and one known as Onita Pro. Both promotions ultimately failed, as did Wrestling Marvelous Future.

World Entertainment Wrestling carried on under that name until March 19, 2003, when Kodo Fuyuki passed away, as his cancer returned and this time proved fatal. The company continued to run shows with new backers, renaming itself the Fuyuki Army as a tribute to its founder.

A core group of former FMW wrestlers bounced around between all of these promotions – WMF, WEW, Onita Pro, USO, and so on – and ultimately they banded together with a handful of others to form a stable known as the Apache Army. The Apache Army invaded numerous larger promotions in storyline, which was an interesting angle spanning numerous companies, almost like a major comic book crossover plot in which key events occur in many different titles. It was quite entertaining for the short while that it lasted, but, as with all good things, it had to come to an end. When it did, the Apache Army started to take on a new role. It began to promote its own shows under that name, essentially taking over the Fuyuki Army’s old spot but focusing on deathmatches as opposed to the balanced cards promoted by Onita or the entertainment wrestling promoted by Fuyuki.

As noted above, this week we taking a look at the Apache Army show form January 16, 2009. Originally, I had wanted to watch this show to see whether any of the old FMW spirt was still alive in Japan, as I was a fan of the few FMW shows that I saw several years ago. However, not long after I started to write this column, I got some interesting news. Apparently, in August of this year, it was announced that the Apache Army was coming to an end. Their last show took place just weeks ago, though it has already been announced that a promotion by the name of FREEDOMS is being formed and that it will play host to many of these former FMW wrestlers who have moved from promotion to promotion to promotion, almost as though they were the wrestling world’s equivalent of a nomadic tribe.

Will the nomads’ stop in Apache Army on January 16 produce entertaining matches? Let’s see.


Match Numero Uno: Shinobu vs. Kamui

Shinobu is a young professional wrestler who has already become quite the journeymen, competing on a semi-regular basis for many promotions such as 666, Big Japan, and, most notably Dragon Gate. Kamui is somebody that I’ve frankly not heard too much about, but my understanding is that he’s got a decent amateur wrestling background despite the fact that he’s doing a sort of “masked high flyer” gimmick as opposed to playing off of his amateur credentials in any way.

Kamui charges and takes his opponent down with a forearm at the opening bell, and he works a headlock for a while before Shinobu escapes it by pulling on the fringe on his mask. They do some quick rope-running spots culminating with a Kamui rana sending Shinobu to the floor. It looks like Kamui is going to go for an Asai moonsault, but Shinobu grabs his leg and pulls him down face-first on the apron. The wrestlers have a brawl on the floor which is uneventful aside from the fact that Shinobu is really laying in his kicks. When we return to the ring, Shinobu chops away and lands a running forearm smash in the corner. He hits a dropkick and a bodyslam before going in to the dreaded chinlock. Kamui gets a foot on the bottom rope to break the hold, but Shinobu stays on him with a snap suplex and various submission holds. Again, the ropes are made, albeit after an uncomfortably long period of time during which Kamui obviously could have reached them but was pretending that he could not.

Eventually the masked man does start a comeback with an enzuguri out of nowhere, followed by a forearm that again sends Shinobu to the floor. Kamui finally hits that Asai moonsault he was looking for five minutes ago, and then he tosses Shinobu on to the elevated entrance ramp that connects with the ring. From there, Kamui climbs up on to some bleachers that are adjacent to the ramp and hits a senton atomico off of those. Really, it wasn’t any more impressive than coming off of the top rope would have been. That gets him two when he finally tosses Shinobu back to the ring. After the nearfall, Kamui hits a Michinoku Driver variation for another two count, but, soon thereafter, Shinobu kicks him in the face and gives him a Falcon Arrow to reverse the momentum. Hayabusa’s old finisher only gets two for Shinobu, and his follow-up lariat attempts are blocked. Kamui turns one blocked lariat in to a blue thunder driver, but, once again, that’s only a two count. Also only getting two is the lariat that Shinobu manages to hit as Kamui runs the ropes. Ditto for Shinobu’s brainbuster. He heads to the top rope after that move and comes down with a shooting star press, which finally finishes the match.

Match Thoughts: Even this was not technically bad and was full of several well executed moves, it did nothing for me. It came off as one of those matches in which wrestlers are running through a choreographed, cliched script of what a match is supposed to be in order to get a reaction as opposed to two wrestlers actually interacting with the audience to get a reaction. They stole blow-by-blow the structure of ninety percent of the big league junior heavyweight matches of the mid-1990’s, adding only a bleacher dive. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t better than one hundred other attempts that I’ve seen to present the exact same match. **


Match Numero Dos: Saburo Inematsu vs. Masashi Takeda

This is an interpromotional match, and I wonder if it’s going wind up being a clash of styles. Inematsu comes to us from the KAIENTAI Dojo, which is TAKA Michinoku’s wrestling promotion/training camp. Most of the wrestlers who fight out of K-Dojo, not surprisingly, wind up with a lucharesu influenced style similar to TAKA’s. Takeda, meanwhile, has his home base in a tiny shoot-style promotion known as E-Style, though he has made the rounds on the indy circuit and competed in a few larger, non-shoot-style promotions as well. Will high flying or faux MMA reign supreme?!

Inematsu enters the ring with a barbed wire bat, where Takeda is waiting for him with a steel chair. The two men duel with their respective weapons, which features Takeda using the chair as a shield to fend off barbed wire bat shots. Eventually he gets the club out of Inematsu’s hands and knocks him off his feet with a lariat. The two men roll out of the ring, where Inematsu is whipped in to the chairs and hit over the head with some bottled water. Not a case of bottled water, mind you, but a single bottle. Inematsu, perhaps realizing how dumb that last move was, takes over on the offense with a kneelift and sends Takeda in to what appears to be a garage door built in to the wall of the venue. Inematsu then slams his opponent on the floor and begins looking under the ring for some PLUNDAH~! He finds more chairs, hitting Takeda with one and throwing a few more in to the ring for good measure. The two wrestlers return to the squared circle, where they somehow screw up a side Russian legsweep before Inematsu finally hits the move. Afterwards, he retrieves his barbed wire bat from earlier in the match and hits Takeda across the chest with it a couple of times, pausing briefly in between the two shots to dig the barbed wire in to his forehead. Inematsu follows that up with a backdrop suplex for two and then applies a chinlock, which is odd given that the bat is still RIGHT THERE for his use. A half crab is next from Inematsu, and it is while Takeda is in the hold that we realize that, for somebody who just took some barbed wire bat shots, he’s really not bleeding that badly. Perhaps that is why he is able to quickly make the ropes.

Inematsu drops the wrestling holds in favor of weapons and wears Takeda out with one of the chairs in the ring. However, Takeda blocks what appears to be the knockout blow, PALM STRIKES the chair in to Inematsus face, and then takes him off his feet with a spear. Inematsu slumps in to the corner, and Takeda CHARGES in to him while holding the barbed wire bat. Takeda follows up by placing a chair around his opponent’s neck and dropkicking it in to his chest. In more innovative weapon-related offense, Takeda goes back to the barbed wire bat and uses it in applying a cross arm breaker that simultaneously stretches Inematsu’s arm AND drives it in to the barbs.

Inematsu manages a brief comeback with an enzuguiri, but Takeda shifts the momentum quickly and gives the man an Olympic Slam, an exploder suplex, and a German in rapid succession. None of those moves put Inematsu away, so Takeda looks for a second Olympic Slam. Inematsu blocks it and goes back to the bat, placing it on the mat and giving Takeda a fireman’s carry slam down on to it for the pin.

Match Thoughts: As far as quick, undercard weapons matches go, this was fairly fun and certainly more entertaining than anything you would see in a free TV “hardcore” match from an American wrestling promotion in this day and age. It was peppered with fairly unique spots, including the bat-assisted cross arm breaker and the dropkick to the chair around Inematsu’s neck. This was helped by the fact that, when the two men weren’t in restholds or brawling around the ringside area, they moved at a wicked fast pace that you just don’t see in US wrestling these days. Of course, the match was not without its flaws. It did seem odd that the men would regularly trade off between weapons shots and relatively low-impact wrestling holds like the half crab, almost without rhyme or reason. That’s a problem which has plagued garbage wrestling from its inception, but, at least in this case, we avoided the worst version of the problem in which guys take 5,000 sick table bumps and chairshots only to finish the match with a simple DDT or side Russian leg sweep. Here, Takeda’s huge, suplex-laden offensive flurry preceding the decisive fall actually felt more brutal than anything that he had done with bats or chairs earlier in the bout. **1/2



Match Numero Tres: GENTARO & The Winger vs. Ricky Fuji & Koji Nakagawa

Now here’s a match with four indy wrestling veterans. Fuji and Nakagawa both had their most notable runs in FMW in the 1990’s, generally as lower card wrestlers with Nakagawa having one run towards the main event in the later days of the company when he threw on a mask and changed his name temporarily to GOEMON. Fuji is one of those guys who has seemingly been around forever, as he is a trainee of the Hart Dungeon in Calgary and currently looks like the Japanese version of Randy “The Ram”Robinson. Since fall of FMW, they’ve kicked around in numerous different groups, most recently settling down in Apache. GENTARO is originally a product of a company named Pro Wrestling KAGEKI, which is probably best known to US fans as the promotion that sent Dragon Yuki & Kagrra over to CHIKARA. He’s been wrestling for just about a decade now, and Apache is his home turf these days. The Winger is the only guy who I would say comes close to being an “outsider,” as he is a masked high flyer that primarily works for Big Japan Wrestling.

Fuji and Winger kick things off for their respective teams, and a few fans scream the Winger’s name as the opening bell rings. Fuji claps his hands, presumably so that the awkwardly screaming fans will pick up on the rhythm and turn it in to a chant, but nothing comes of that. We start with a Greco-Roman knuckle lock, which Fuji comes out on the winning end of before applying an armbar. Winger goes to the eyes to escape and works Fuji’s arm for a little bit in retaliation. Ricky takes him down and applies a legbar before tagging out to Nakagawa, who treats us to more of the same. Winger gets out of it by grabbing Koji’s head and applying a chinlock for a little while before bringing GENTARO in to the match. He continues the mat wrestling trend for a little while, and things build to a four-man headscissors chain.

Nakagawa comes out on top when that hold is broken, and he passes GENTARO off to Fuji. It looks like the older wrestler is going to take him to school, but GENTARO gets in a lucky shot and sends Fuji to the floor. Absolutely nothing happens out there aside from the two men doing the hair pull dance for a little while. Fuji is back in control when they return to the ring, and he does the old ten punches in the corner spot before dropping a knee and tagging Nakagawa back in. Koji uses the turnbuckles to his advantage and slingshot’s GENTARO’s throat in to the bottom rope before tagging Ricky back in for a sunset flip nearfall. GENTARO gets in a cool reversal by cartwheeling out of a headscissors, but he can’t quite make the tag to Winger while he and Fuji both lay on the mat. GENTARO continues to fire back a bit when the former GOEMAN tags in, ultimately ducking a punch and hitting a palm strike. With both of their partners disoriented, Fuji and Winger do the only sensible thing, both climbing up to the top rope and simultaneously hitting the other man’s partner with a cross body.

For seemingly no reason, Fuji stays in the ring, and heel miscommunication allows GENTARO to nail both of his opponents below the belt to finally get the hot tag. Winger gives Nakagawa a Blue Thunder Driver and puts on the figure four. Nakagawa tries to worm his way out of it, but things go from bad to worse as he rolls right in to a Winger STF. Fuji ultimately makes the save, as the fans continue to yell Winger’s name at random intervals. Obnoxious. Fuji takes over on Winger without making a tag, ultimately hitting a loooooooong delayed vertical suplex for two. After that, we’ve got a four man brawl again, and the Winger/GENTARO team gets whipped in to one another. Fuji and Nakagawa give them stereo Finlay rolls after that, and Fuji tries to pin Winger, only to get a two count. Seconds later, Fuji looks for a DDT on Winger, but GENTARO clotheslines him. The masked man tries to capitalize, but he runs in to a Ricky-rana. Fuji rolls through for the pin, but Winger rolls through THAT and catches Ricky in a sunset flip to get the three count.

Match Thoughts: This was probably the most boring match that I’ve watched for this column to date. I’m not a wrestling fan who has to have all highspots all the time, but almost literally nothing happened here. Yes, every now and then there would be some move of note, but more than 95% of this ten minute match consisted of either men just standing there or men exchanging rather weak looking punches. That would be fine if I were watching a Madison Square Garden main event from the 1970’s, but I’m watching a puroresu match from the twenty-first century, and I expect wrestling to have evolved just a bit in the intervening thirty (almost forty, really) years. Watching this match, you would be hard pressed to see that progression. I used to really enjoy Ricky Fuji’s matches in the mid-90’s, but, at least based on this outing, he has seen better days. *



Match Numero Cuatro: Mammoth Sasaki & Yoshihito Sasaki vs. Tetsuhiro Kuroda & Gosaku

Now here’s a match that puts on full display the historical ties between FMW and the Apache Army. Mammoth and Yoshihito were actually trained by that company, with the former man coming from a sumo background and the latter man training with FMW and only being able to debut as a wrestler after the company folded. Of course, the most infamous moment of Mammoth’s career was one of the moments that several people peg as the beginning of the end for FMW, as he was the man in the ring with Hayabusa when the Falcon suffered the broken neck that leaves him paralyzed to this day. While the Sasakis were younger, up and coming wrestlers during the days of FMW, Kuroda and Gosaku were its veterans. Both men debuted in 1993, and Kuroda for quite some time was a top singles heel for the promotion. Gosaku never achieved quite as much success as Kuroda, but he spent a fair amount of time in the promotion’s deathmatches and before becoming the bizarre Biomonster DNA, a character that was memorable for its look but didn’t really get him anywhere.

All four wrestlers begin brawling before the young boys can even pull the streamers out of the ring, and I’m amazed that Yoshihito & Kuroda don’t trip over them as they attempt to do spots. Kuroda even tries to choke his opponent with them at one point, but eventually he realizes that it looks goofy and stops. Meanwhile, Gosaku and Mammoth are brawling in the bleachers. Before we know it, Yoshihito and Kuroda have come from nowhere and joined them. The two pairs of men literally fight all over the arena, and, quite frankly, it’s impossible to keep track of most of it. Eventually things make there way back to the ring, where Gosaku is bleeding heavily. The Sasakis add insult to injury by hitting him with some sort of small, handheld weapon that I cannot identify at all due to the camera angle. Just when I think this is going to settle down in to a standard wrestling match, all four guys leave the ring and start brawling on the floor and in the bleachers once more. I can’t make out much, but I can make out Gosaku at one point pulling out an f-ing knife and using it to carve up his opponents. That goes on for entirely too long.

Fortunately, we get Kuroda and Yoshihito back in the ring, with Yoshi bleeding due to the knife and Kuroda rubbing his wounded forehead across the top rope. I do not approve of the knife being used, but wrestlers need to do that rope spot more often when their opponents have head wounds. Gosaku tags back in and simply chokes Yoshihito for a while. I’m beginning to think that this fellow might not be too talented. When Kuroda returns to the ring, he brings his ladder with him, and he uses a chairshot to drill it in to Yoshihito’s crotch, not once, not twice, but thrice. Gosaku comes in with more of his thrilling Mr. Pogo-esque offense, which poor Yoshihito is forced to sell. Yoshi fares a little bit better when Kuroda reenters the fray, as the man misses a charge in to the ladder. Yoshi capitalizes by whipping Gosaku in to his own partner and in to the ladder, ultimately butt-butting his two opponents to send them in to the rungs one more time.

Mammoth tags in at this point, and he immediately takes down the much larger Gosaku with a spear. He looks for an Olympic slam-type move but is cut off by Kuroda . . . though he quickly rebounds and lands a double spear on his opponents. He drops the Macho Man elbow on Gosaku seconds later, but it only gets two. He applies the torture rack and ‘Saku escapes by going to the eyes before tagging out. Kuroda briefly rallies and pulls Mammoth up on to the top rope with him, dropping Sasaki’s neck over the strand. He then blatantly FOULS~! Mammoth, but Sasaki reverses a suplex in to one of his own and tags in Yoshi. Yoshihito performs the old Terry Funk whirlybird routine with the ladder and takes Kuroda down with a lariat for two. He tries for a piledriver, but Kuroda blocks it. Tetsu can’t take Yoshihito off of his feet, though, and in the process of attempting to do so, he runs in to a spine bomb. Mammoth tags in but immediately fails, as he runs in to the turnbuckles and gets caught with a Kuroda German. That sets up Gosaku tagging in so that the bad guys can hit Total Elimination. Gosaku follows with a chokeslam for two, and he also can’t finish Mammoth off with some kind of goofy looking over-the-shoulder-slam that started with Sasaki sitting on the top rope. A bulldog is next from Gosaku, and that’s followed by some kind of kneeling figure four.

Yoshihito makes the save on that one, and Mammoth hits a clothesline to set up a tag. The Sasakis team up for a series of corner attacks on Sasaki before knocking Kuroda off of the apron. Yoshihito gets a little cocky, though, as he tries to chokeslam Gosaku but gets caught in the move himself. Seconds later, Gosaku and Yoshihito involve themselves in a clothesline war, and Yoshi cheats to win by bowing out of it prematurely and hitting a German suplex. He goes for a cover, but Kuroda saves. Yoshi winds up with two chairs over Gosaku’s face, and he legdrops the furniture. That only gets two. Seconds later, he is able to get the three count by wrapping a chair around Gosaku’s neck and hitting it with a second chair.

Match Thoughts: Well, I have to say that this was a fair deal better than the prior tag team match, because at least in this one SOMETHING HAPPENED. Granted, they may have gone a little bit overboard with the hardcore at points, but, between the Sasakis and Kuroda, it seemed like we were dealing with three wrestlers who largely knew what they were doing and knew how to get a response from the crowd. (Kuroda in particular got a level of heel heat and jeers from the crowd that nobody else on the show had.) Gosaku was clearly the weak link in the match, as he busted out a few decent-looking moves towards the end but largely wrestled like a genre of deathmatch wrestler that I like to refer to as the “immobile slugs,” which generally only encompasses older guys who are so broken down and fat that all they can do is stand around and let smaller guys bump off of them before they bust out some sharp implement and start stabbing. (The modern day versions of Mr. Pogo and Abdullah the Butcher are perfect examples.) Of course, I could just be biased against Gosaku because he pulled a knife during the match, and I largely HATE knives in wrestling. **1/4


Match Numero Cinco: Takashi Sasaki vs. Jun Kasai

Aaaaaand it’s main event time, ladies and gentlemen. This is actually a match which is essentially on loan from another promotion, as both Sasaki and Kasai are members of the Big Japan Wrestling roster, with both of them being rather proficient in deathmatches. Oh, and I’d be remiss if I did not mention that Jun Kasai has one of the greatest nicknames in wrestling, as he has dubbed himself the “Crazy Monkey.”

We’ve got a barbed wire board in the ring at the outset, so you know that this one is going to be “fun.” Both of these men have more scar tissue on their bodies than could be found in the entire state of Rhode Island. They circle each other to start and lock up, taking turns trying to push each other in to the barbed wire board, which is propped up in the corner. With the lockup failing, they exchange go behinds for a bit and tease putting each other in to the wire face first. That fails as well, so Sasaki sees if a headlock will allow him to put Kasai in to the barbs. It doesn’t, and Jun reverses in to an Irish whip, with Sasaki dropping to a knee and baseball sliding to avoid getting the spines put in to his back. Eventually this breaks down in to a chop battle, culminating in Kasai narrowly avoiding the barbed wire after a Sasaki Irish whip. Perhaps tiring of all these teases, Kasai stops trying to put Sasaki in to the barbed wire and instead puts the barbed wire in to Sasaki, picking up the board and throwing it in to his opponent’s face. Payback is quite the bitch, though, as seconds later Kasai finds himself Irish whipped and taking a cannonball bump through the board, breaking it in two.

Now we’ve got some brawling on the floor, with Sasaki quickly finding a set of chairs and piling them up in the ring. He does not use them immediately, instead opting to put the boots to Kasai, though Jun is no selling those. He’s put back in to his place with a spinning kick, and now Sasaki decides that it’s time to get the furniture. He gives Kasai a big unprotected chairshot over the top of the head and follows it up with a slam on to the remnants of the barbed wire board. This gets two. Kasai starts to Hulk up again and spits in Sasaki’s face, though he quickly falls to a knee due to the beating that he’s taken. Sasaki attempts a vertical suplex on to the mass of barbed wire, but Kasai blocks it and gives Sasaki a gordbuster down in to the spines. Jun rolls to the floor and gets himself a barbed wire bat after that one, and it quickly finds itself slammed in to Sasaki’s chest a few times.

Kasai places the bat over Sasaki’s crotch, running the ropes and landing a flip senton which no doubt hurt Jun’s back but probably hurt Sasaki’s most delicate region a lot more. Sasaki is batted again in the corner, but Kasai misses a running bat shot. Sasaki tries to grab him from behind for a German, but Kasai sees it coming and swings the bat over his shoulder to hit Sasaki in the back. Sasaki responds by throwing a chair in to Kasai’s face and slamming him on the bat. He then brings the barbed wire board back in to play, giving his opponent a tornado DDT down on to the mass o’ wire. A superkick follows, but Kasai kicks out at two.

Sasaki then grabs a bucket of, um, something and pours it out in the corner. I literally have no clue what these things are, but they appear to be small metal discs with spikes sticking out of them. I cannot imagine what practical application these items have aside from deathmatch wrestling. The two men jockey for position in front of the wicked looking pile for a little while, with Sasaki winning the war and giving Kasai a powerbomb on to the objects. Not to be outdone, Jun gives his opponent a German on to the very same stack and bridges to really rub them in. That only gets two. Kasai follows by going up to the top rope and landing a Superfly splash for another nearfall.

Hey, we haven’t seen a table yet! Kasai brings one of those in to the ring just so we don’t feel disappointed, and he sets Sasaki up on the top rope. It looks like Sasaki is getting superplexed for the longest time, but, as the two men fight over the move, it becomes more convenient for Kasai to PILEDRIVE his opponent down on to the table, which DOES NOT BREAK. Vicious. Kasai then gives him a German suplex on to the table. IT STILL DOESN’T BREAK. Just when you thought that all of the big guns were broken out, Kasai takes things a step further by lighting his barbed wire bat ON FIRE. Sasaki gets that in the chest, and then Kasai sets the flaming bat on top of the table. I don’t like where this is going. Sasaki reverses a few holds by Kasai, and he winds up slamming Jun on to the flaming bat. That gets TWO. After that, the wrestlers go to town on one another with lariats, and Sasaki finds a bundle of light tubes. HE KICKS IT IN TO KASAI’S HEAD. TWO COUNT. Finally, an over-the-shoulder piledriver on to a second light tube bundle finishes the match.

Match Thoughts: Generally, I’m not a big deathmatch guy. However, when deathmatch wrestlers are having a good enough match against one another, I sometimes get caught up in the moment and completely forget that these guys are using weapons that they probably shouldn’t be using and taking unnecessary risks when they could get the same reaction with a much smaller threat of disfigurement. Though it may not have been the best deathmatch that I’ve ever seen, Kasai and Sasaki did get to that rare level where they kept things exciting enough that I didn’t get completely disgusted by their more grizzly spots. Also, in an odd way, everything “built” in a manner similar to what you would see in a traditional match with the weapons and the things that the wrestlers were doing with those weapons getting more and more extreme as the match progressed and the wrestlers getting more and more desperate to put one another away. The finishing sequence with the table spots and the flaming bat was one of the more intense things that I’ve seen in wrestling in the last little while, and it was sold very well by both men, to the extent that you actually have “selling” in a deathmatch. ***1/2

Overall

Generally, I am not a fan of “hardcore” or “ultraviolent” wrestling and skip shows like those produced by CZW or XPW. In fact, even when I would watch FMW in the promotion’s heyday, I would usually love the undercards – which usually featured straight one-on-one matches – and detest the deathmatch main events. However, this Apache Army show was a bit of a departure from my normal tastes. On this card, it seemed like the deathmatches were the most entertaining points of the evening whereas the matches that eschewed hardcore elements were flat out boring. I think that goes to show that, even if we all have our own preferences when it comes to wrestling styles, there are certain elements of a good wrestling match which translate from style to style to style, perhaps even to the pont of being universal. As I said during my thoughts on the main event, even though that match featured several spots would annoy me in many deathmatches, here I was forced to ignore their ultraviolent nature because the wrestlers were telling such an entertaining story and pacing things so well that I did not have an opportunity to become annoyed. This was a wakeup call to the reality that, no matter what Briscoe brother fans may want to tell you, professional wrestling is not about the specific maneuvers that are performed as much as it is about the manner in which those maneuvers are put together in the body of a match. So, even though it may not have contained any individual blowaway matches that are worth making a great effort to watch, I would suggest viewing this card anyway to see what talented wrestlers are able to do with a style that you may otherwise not enjoy.


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See you all next week!

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Ryan Byers

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