wrestling / Columns

Into the Indies 09.15.09: IWA Japan 15th Anniversary

September 15, 2009 | Posted by Ryan Byers


Banner Courtesy of John Meehan

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Into the Indies, the column that seemingly exists solely for the purpose of keeping you apprised of what’s going on in the life of Yoshihiro Tajiri.

This week, we are going to be taking a look at a wrestling promotion that most fans who have been on the internet for a fair period of time have seen footage from, even if they don’t realize it. In fact, many WWE fans from the late 1990’s have seen bits and pieces of this Japanese independent company’s most famous match, even if they don’t realize it. I am talking about IWA Japan, a promotion which marked its fifteenth anniversary on May 24, 2009.

In a few minutes, we will begin taking a look at the fifteenth anniversary show of the IWA, but, first, what do I mean when I saw that the majority of internet fans have seen some IWA action even if they may not realize it?

The answer is simple: If you were on the internet ten to fourteen years ago when Rob Feinstein’s biggest claim to fame was being a tape trader (read: bootlegger) as opposed to being the disgraced former owner of Ring of Honor, chances are good that you either bought or had somebody try to sell to you a copy of a show which became known in many English-speaking circles as “King of the Deathmatch,” featuring Cactus Jack and Terry Funk seemingly trying to end each other’s lives in a no-rope exploded barbed wire main event. Clips of the match traveled far and wide, winding up on the “Stranglemania” deathmatch compilation released by the Insane Clown Posse, being included in the pro wrestling documentary Beyond the Mat, and even being aired on WWE television as part of the company’s efforts to make Mick Foley in to a bona fide superstar. The show gained such a cult following that it even received a commercial DVD release in the United States from Big Vision Entertainment in 2007 in which it was simply referred to as “The Legendary Japanese Tournament.”

However, despite the fact that the footage from the “King of the Deathmatch” tournament has become so far flung, there are surprisingly few American fans who can tell you that the actual name of the show was “Kawasaki Dream” or that the promotion who hosted it was known as IWA Japan. IWA Japan was formed in 1994 by Puerto Rican wrestling promoter Victor Quinones and largely financed by a restauranteur named Tatsukuni Asano. The IWA was essentially the successor to the deathmatch promotion W*ING, in which Quinones and several of the IWA wrestlers had previously been involved. The popularity of garbage wrestling was at an all-time high in Japan at the time that W*ING folded and that IWA Japan formed, which allowed the Kawasaki Dream show to draw an absolutely incredible 28,000 person crowd to a major baseball stadium in the country.

Unfortunately, almost as quickly as the IWA’s popularity shot up, it immediately plummeted back down. This was in large part due to the departure of Quinones in 1996, to whom much of the key IWA talent was loyal. When he walked out on the promotion, many people followed, including Terry Funk, Cactus Jack, and native top star Tarzan Goto. The majority of the IWA wrestlers who departed wound up in FMW, which gave that company a decided advantage in appealing to fans of hardcore wrestling. The weakened roster combined with intense competition from FMW sent IWA Japan down from being a company that could fill a baseball stadium to being a company who could barely fill the Japanese equivalent of a VFW Hall.

However, the promotion never fully died off, largely due to the financial backing of Tatsukuni Asano, who retained ownership of the company name. The promotion’s shows ran sporadically, and, despite several attempts at relaunches (including putting its main singles title on a fifty year old “Hacksaw” Jim Duggan in 2004), they never became anywhere near as popular as they once were. Still, IWA Japan can be celebrated as a stopping point for young wrestlers honing their craft on the indy scene as well as a place for fans to come and hobnob with a handful of stars who aren’t involved in the big leagues anymore. Let us now take a look at how the promotion celebrated itself on May 24, 2009 during its fifteen anniversary show.

Match Numero Uno: Hidehiro Nishiyama vs. Toshihiro Sueyoshi

The show kicks off, appropriately enough, with Hidehiro Nishiayama, who is one of the few youngsters who can say that he’s been with IWA Japan since the beginning of his career, having trained and debuted there in 2004. His opponent, Sueyoshi, is a regular on the roster of a very tiny indy known as Pro Wrestling Alive.

We’re joined in progress as Nishyama gets a bodyslam for a two count and follows it up with a chinlock. He transitions in to a camel clutch, which Sueyoshi sells like the most painful submission hold this side of the stump puller. Eventually Toshihiro crawls his way to a rope break, but he’s slammed twice more quickly thereafter. However, Sueyoshi goes on the offensive after Nishiyama runs in to his boot, hitting a missile dropkick and following it up with a butt butt/bulldog combo. A Vader Bomb style elbowdrop gets ‘Yoshi his first two count of portion of the match that we’ve seen. A tactical error allows Nishiyama to regain the advantage, as he snaps off a quick rana and executes a pair of leg lariats. A Northern lights suplex then gets two for Nish. Sueyoshi elbows his way out of a the follow-up German attempt, and now we’ve got two men standing in the middle of the ring exchanging forearms. Never seen that one before. Sueyoshi wins the exchange by coming off of the ropes with a flying forearm, and, immediately thereafter, he hits a sit-out Angel’s Wings for the pinfall. This was really too short and clipped up to offer much in the way of commentary, but the two men looked OK for the most part, if unspectacular.

Match Numero Dos: Ultra Seven & Tiger Jeet Shinjuku vs. Kappa Boy & Hell Ant Machine #2

Just a bizarre lineup here, as Kappa is a turtle, Hell Ant is a pudgy guy in a mask, Shinjuku is the coverall-wearing bastard child of Tiger Jeet Singh and Tiger Mask, and Ultra Seven is the 5,000th Japanese wrestler to do a gimmick based on the old Ultraman television series. Oh, and the turtle/fat guy team is accompanied to the ring by what appears to be a giant baby in a tracksuit. Immediately after the introductions, Shinjuku unmasks to reveal some guy who I don’t recognize. I do recognize our special guest referee, though! It’s former FMW wrestler Chocoball Mukai, the only grappler I’m aware of whose ring name is inspired by his private parts! (I’m not kidding. That’s really where the name comes from.)

Once the intros are out of the way, we jump ahead several minutes in the match, with Tiger and Ultra taking the Ant off of his feet with a double team clothesline. Shinjuku stays in the ring as the legal man, and that was a mistake, as he’s immediately low blowed and choked in the corner. Hell Ant, who appears to be the size of all four members of CHIKARA’s Colony put together, applies a headlock and lays in some punches before the turtle tags in. The two masked men put the boots to Tiger, but he Red Rovers right through their attempt at a double clothesline and tags in Seven. The man in the silver mask drops a knee on Kappa and then gives him a flying shoulderblock and a splash for two. A butterfly suplex follows for another nearfall. This turtle is significantly better at getting off of his back than any other turtle I’ve ever seen. Ultra then hits one of the more unique moves of the evening, doubling Kappa over, leapfrogging him, and landing ass-first on his opponent’s head. I suppose we’ve got to use what we were given. Then, in an odd spot, Tiger and Ultra’s valet attempts to interfere, but Chocoball grabs and gropes her. Shinjuku is having none of it, and he separates the guest ref from his girl. Quickly thereafter, Ultra Seven takes over on Ant Machine, hitting him with a cross body from the top rope and a suplex. Then he gives him a bodypress to his back and shoulders in another unique bit of offense. Ultra slaps on an abdominal stretch, and that’s all she wrote, as the Ant taps. (If the hold is being applied to an Ant, is it actually a thoraxial stretch?) Once more, aside from the wacky gimmicks, there was really nothing of note to comment on here.

Match Numero Tres: Kyoko Ichiki vs. Emi Sakura

Joshi time! Ichiki and Sakura are not just veterans of the women’s wrestling world in Japan, they’re also veterans of the INDY women’s wrestling world in Japan. Both ladies got their start wrestling on IWA cards between 1994 and 1996, moving around to groups like FMW and periodically getting quick shots in the big leagues like All Japan Women. Though I’m not that familiar with what Ichiki is doing these days, Sakura is still active in wrestling, having an office role in a sometimes controversial promotion named Ice Ribbon which some people think trains young wrestlers who are far too young to be involved in this profession.

Sakura refuses a handshake before the bell and charges in immediately with a dropkick, hair beal, and another dropkick. Ichiki fires back with a clothesline and some short kicks to the face which lead in to boots in the corner. In a display of true bitchiness, Ichiki just stands on her opponent’s hands for an extended period of time. Unfortunately for her, it only serves to anger Emi, allowing her to put more force in to the tilt-a-whirl backbreaker that she hits when she gets out of the predicament. She follows that with some rapid fire chops and a cross body block, and there’s a double underhook backbreaker for a two count. I’m tempted to say “Shades of Roderick Strong,” but it’s probably more accurate to describe Strong’s version of the move as “Shades of Emi Sakura.” With Ichiki incapacitated, Emi kicks her in the face for the hell of it and shoots her in to the ropes.

Things don’t go well immediately after that. Kyoko goes for what I can only assume is a dragon rana, but, if that was her goal, she failed miserable and just caused both women to land in a heap. She does eventually gain the upper hand with a move that didn’t look nearly as bad, namely blocking Sakura’s attempt at a Vader Bomb with a boot right to the face. Ichiki follows that up with a double stomp from the top rope, and she goes up again . . . TOP ROPE KNEELIFT TO FACE! I love that spot, but it only gets two. A bridging vertical suplex gives us the same result. Emi goes back on the offensive by blocking an Irish whip and hitting a back suplex, and then she drags her opponent to the corner for a Vader Bomb-style double stomp, followed by a conventional V-Bomb. Emi misses a moonsault, though, and that leaves her open to a series of HYUGE knee strikes from Ichiki. Oddly enough, they don’t seem to have that much of an effect, as Sakura is almost immediately recovered and forcing Ichiki in to all manner of pinning combinations for a series of two counts. After those don’t get her anywhere, Emi ascends the ropes for a missile dropkick, and THAT is enough to give her the victory. After the bell, Emi finally gets her handshake.

Match Thoughts: This was our first matchup that did not appear to be clipped, and it was also our first matchup that contained some substance worth commenting on. That’s not too surprising given the fact that these two women are joshi veterans who have been around the horn and know how to handle one another. Though I wouldn’t class either of them as being anywhere near the level of the top names from the glory days of women’s wrestling in Japan, both appeared to be competent enough and delivered a fun midcard-style match that, with its screaming, dickish heel moves, and brutal looking strikes reminded me of some of the most entertaining aspects of the genre at its peak. Granted, there was one horrifically blown spot, but I’m willing to be a bit forgiving on that once since a) the move that was screwed up is ridiculously complicated and b) it appeared to be a very rare miscue from the two as opposed to a spot actually indicative of the quality of their work. Thumbs up to these two. **3/4

Match Numero Cuatro: Ishinriki, Tatuskuni Asano, & Jason the Terrible vs. Big Foot, Yeti, & Haru Miyako

If you thought the match involving the Turtle and the Ant was weird, things get even crazier prior to this match, as we’re treated to video footage of Miyaka, an attractive young Japanese woman in American football gear, training her partners Bigfoot and Yeti, who are essentially guys wearing fancy gorilla suits, by making them do Hindu squats.

One of their opponents is Ishinriki, who was a fairly talented sumo wrestling star thirty years ago that wound up turning to pro wrestling not long after his initial athletic endeavor fizzled out. He’s mainly been a journeyman in his puro career, working with companies like WAR and IWA Japan. I think I’ve heard of him having a couple of runs in Mexico as well. Asano is more of a businessman than a wrestler, as he is the company’s financial backer who I mentioned in this column’s opening. Jason the Terrible is a gimmick inspired by Friday the 13th that has been used in many different wrestling promotions by many different men throughout the years. I have no clue who is under the hood on this particular evening.

The big furry monsters attack right at the bell, and Yeti hits the floor with Yishinriki as Bigfoot dropkicks Jason out of the ring. Asano tries to go after Miyako with the ring cleared out, but ‘Riki convinces him to go back to the apron and goes one on one with the Yeti. Yeti does surprisingly well in some mat work for a guy wearing such a ridiculous outfit . . . but that’s really not the focus of the match. As he’s brawling in the crowd, the original Jason vanishes and is replaced by a significantly larger, significantly more neckbearded man who destroys Bigfoot with some wicked chairshots. He tags in to the match and takes Yeti down with a shoulderblock before lariating Bigfoot out of his size 23’s. Miyako tries to save for her team and does nothing aside from inadvertently tearing off Jason’s mask in the fray, and it’s revealed that he is TARZAN GOTO~! Goto, for the uninitiated, is a former All Japan wrestler who became one of the biggest names in the world of “hardcore” Japanese indies in the 1990’s. He was probably the man most closely associated with IWA Japan’s version of the world heavyweight title at the promotion’s peak.

Rather than fighting the woman, Goto tags in Asano who suplexes Bigfoot and teams up with Ishinriki for an STO/lariat combo hold. They try to set up the same move on Miyako, but, for some reason, Goto is having none of it and stops his partners. ‘Riki and Asano try to double team Goto, but he overcomes them both and takes out Asano with a headbutt. So mighty was that move that ninety pound Haru Miyako is able to place one foot on Asano’s chest for the three count.

Match Thoughts: Well, there wasn’t much of an actual match here. It was really just a way to work Goto on to the card as a a surprise and a means to continue some sort of comedy angle with Asano and Miyako. My inability to speak Japanese prevented me from fully understanding what was going on there, but it’s hardly fair for me to complain about that on a Japanese show. I actually thought that Ishinriki looked pretty good in the very limited work that he did, so perhaps I will have to track down more footage of him. No rating, as this was not even an attempt to do a conventional match.



Match Numero Cinco: Jaguar Yakota & Keita Yano vs. Miss Mongol & Kamui

American fans see mixed tag team matches all of the time, but this mixed tag team match is rare in that it’s the women who are significantly more experienced, and, quite frankly, probably better wrestlers than their male counterparts. In fact, Yakota was one of the biggest stars of All Japan Women, the most successful joshi promotion in the history of wrestling with a career dating back to the late 1970’s. Miss Mongol, though not quite as big a star in her heyday, has still been around for quite a while and got her biggest exposure as a part of the women’s division in FMW during that promotion’s peak. Keita Yano, meanwhile, is a young wrestler who has been fighting out of the shoot-style BattlArts promotion, and Kamui is an amateur wrestler turned masked high flyer who we first saw in I2I two weeks ago as part of my Apache Army review.

We’re joined in progress as Kamui has Yakota in an airplane spin and drops her in to a Michinoku Driver from that position. She comes back with a crucifix but Mongol tags in to assist her partner with a double suplex. That fails, as Jaguar reverses it in to a double DDT and looks to run the ropes. Kamui cuts her off with a trip and slams her in to the ringpost, allowing Mongol to take over with a Samoan drop for two. Yano makes the save, tossing Kamui out of the ring quickly thereafter. The girls keep going in the ring, as Mongol hits a bad, bad spinebuster and Yano again makes the save. A sloppy STO from Mongol sets up a Lionsault from Kamui which is followed up immediately by a Mongol senton. Jaguar manages to kick out at two, so Mongol slams her and heads to the second rope. Yano cuts her off from behind and then German suplexes Kamui to get him out of the way. That allows Yakota to land a superplex on her opponent, which she follows immediately with a piledriver. It gets two, as Kamui saves with a basement dropkick to Jaguar’s noggin. He then grabs her in a full nelson and sets Mongol up to charge in, but Jaguar deflects her with a kick and then rams the two heels in to one another to set up an Octopus hold to Mongol for the submission.

Less than five minutes of action was shown here, so there’s not much to comment on . . . aside from the fact that, in that five minutes, Mongol managed to land two moves that looked fairly sloppy. Given that, perhaps it’s a good thing that more of this one didn’t air.


Match Numero Seis: The Great Takeru (c) vs. Asian Cooger for the IWA Japan Junior Heavyweight Championship

We’ve seen many IWA veterans on this reunion show, and the Takeru vs. Cooger match of which we’re about to partake continues the trend. Both of these masked high flyers have been around since the mid-1990’s and were featured on IWA Japan shows during that time. Takeru has never moved far beyond this promotion, as, even though he’s worked other shows, IWA is still probably the company that he is most closely associated with. Cooger, meanwhile, bounced around from indy to indy without having much of a home for many years until he finally settled down in Osaka Pro in 2006, where he has remained ever since.

The crowd is in to Takeru, as they chant his name, which I don’t see too often on a Japanese indy card. It’s definitely the first time that it has happened on this show. He controls early with a lucha-style armdrag from the second rope and a dropkick that sends Cooger out of the ring. Takeru fakes a dive while AC takes a breather amidst the fans. When we return to the ring, the two masked men trade chops until the champion gets the upper hand by switching to palm strikes to the face and finally straight right hands. Cooger reverses an Irish whip, then taking Takeru off of his feet with a drop toe hold and dropkicking him (quite literally in the ass) to send him to the floor. Takeru tries to climb back in to the ring, but, in a neat spot, Cooger baseball slides out of the ring and grabs Takeru’s ankle in the process, sending him face first in to the apron. The two men take turns sending each other in to the ring post, and Takeru is the second one to hit the move, so he manages to ascend the ropes and come off with a big tope on to his opponent. Cooger eats a snap suplex on the floor after that, and Takeru also dropkicks him for good measure.

Upon returning to the ring, Takeru tries to do a front flip to show off to the crowd, but he actually screws it up. What he does not fail at is hitting Cooger with a big kick as he attempts to enter the ring, which is followed by a flying back elbow and a kneedrop for the two count. Then, so we can take a bit of a breather, the champion applies the camel clutch and gets a little bit of extra leverage by pulling on AC’s mask. Eventually he switches off in to a toehold, which the crowd quite likes until Cooger makes the ropes and slips out of the ring and on to the apron. Takeru follows him out and lands some punches there before attempting a superkick. Cooger blocks it . . . AND HE GIVES TAKERU A MONKEY FLIP OFF THE APRON AND TO THE FLOOR! First time I’ve seen that one. Cooger then pulls Takeru in to the crowd and covers him with folding chairs, eventually leaping off of an elevated portion of the ringside area with a senton atomico on to the furniture-covered Takeru. Cooger rolls back in to the ring and appears to want to take the win by count out, but Takeru easily makes it back to the ring. Perhaps he should have just stayed there, because, as soon as he does return, Cooger plants him face first with a Stratusfaction-style bulldog.

Cooger underhooks the arms to set up for a Tiger Driver or something similar, but Takeru blocks the move and fires back with a springboard body attack. Cooger again falls out of the ring to the floor, and Cooger is again hit with an inside-out plancha by his opponent. For some reason, a young Japanese man who is next to this scene is wearing a Chris Hero t-shirt. When the two wrestlers return to the ring, Takeru climbs the ropes for god knows what, but Cooger cuts him off and brings him down to the mat hard with a belly-to-belly superplex. Takeru winds up on AC’s shoulders, but he slips off and cradles his opponent for a nearfall before returning to the apron and catapulting himself in to the ring with a springboard spinning heel kick. A German suplex immediately follows and gets two for Takeru. He runs the ropes, and it appears that Cooger was supposed to cut him off with an enzuguri, only to fire off the move too early. He kicked in front of Takeru’s face, barely made contact, and it looked a bit goofy.

Anyway, the two guys just keep wrestling, with Cooger again double underhooking the arms and this time hitting a variation of the Angel’s Wings. He applies an armbar submission after that, and Takeru taps out.

Match Thoughts: Honestly, this was a match that I had a hard time getting in to. Nothing that they did aside from the mistimed enzuguiri was all that bad, but the barrage of junior heavyweight spots interspersed with crowd brawling made this feel like a type of match that would have been revolutionary fifteen years ago but is a bit played out after everybody has seen Rob Van Dam, Sabu, and fifty percent of the Ring of Honor roster do it several thousand times. However, like I said, the style would have been revolutionary roughly a decade ago and we ARE talking about a fifteen year anniversary show, so chances are good that this was everything fans of these two men in the prime of IWA Japan wanted to see. Of course, I wasn’t watching these two men in those “glory days” if that is what they can be called, so nostalgia wasn’t helping me along here at all. As a result, for me this was a match that featured some athletically impressive spots but not much more to connect to on a more emotional level. ***

It’s special guest appearance time, as “Dr. Death” Steve Williams joins us in the ring! He’s speaking with an electronic voicebox after his battle with throat cancer, and he announces that he is here to return the IWA Championship belt to the company. He also announces that he will be on the company’s July show, where he will bring a representative to wrestle for the title against a representative chosen by the winner of tonight’s main event.



Match Numero Siete: TAJIRI, Keizo Matsuda, & Takuma Obe vs. Black Buffalo, Shadow WX, & Ryo Miyake

If you look at everywhere that they have been over the course of their careers, this is quite the eclectic lineup of men, though they do all have ties to the IWA. Everybody reading this knows who Tajiri is, but what you may not know is the fact that, before he came to North America, he was a masked wrestler in Japan under the name Aquarius. It was that persona that saw him compete in several IWA Japan matches. His partners are two men who would still consider IWA their home promotion, as Keizo Matsuda is referred to as “Mr. IWA” several times throughout the commentary, which makes sense as he appears to be the one man who has remained with the company from its inception (when he was a very young wrestler) to present day. However, his loyalty to IWA has not prevented him from appearing occasionally in other promotions, including HUSTLE, where he plays the role of “Fake HG.” Obe, who barely had two years worth of in-ring experience at the time that this match was held, is Matsuda’s young protege.

Across the ring from that trio is Black Buffalo. Buffalo, who is most strongly associated with Osaka Pro Wrestling, actually got his earliest run in IWA Japan under his real name of Keisuke Yamada. Buffalo’s first partner is Shadow WX, a deathmatch wrestler most often seen throughout his career in Big Japan Wrestling. Rounding out the group is Ryo Miyake, who I believe was at his most popular when competing in W*ING, though he may also have had a run of matches in the early days of IWA Japan when many former W*ING stars were dominating the company’s cards. I have no clue what Miyake is doing for himself now.

Buffalo and Matsuda start it off for their respective teams, with the two men offering each other clean breaks when they power one another in to the ropes off of our match-opening lockups. Both men hit headlock takedowns that are immediately reversed in to headscissors, both guys pop up, everybody claps. Textbook stuff, right there. Tajiri tags in and immediately takes Buffalo down with a dropkick, prompting a tag to Miyake. This man is WIDE. We’re talking Scott Norton wide, though he’s not quite as muscular. Tajiri’s chops across his broad chest have no effect, and the former WWE star is bulled down by a Miyake shoulderblock before responding with a dropkick and his trademark handspring elbow. That leaves us with only one pair of wrestlers left to enter the ring, so Obe and Shadow WX squre off. They run in to each other for a while, with Obe being the one to win the battle. He gets cut off by Buffalo, though, and things break down in to a six-man brawl on the outside. Not much of note seems to be happening out there, and the problem is compounded by the fact that the cameras cut back and forth between the various pairs of men so frequently.

When the match makes its way back in to the ring, it’s Shadow WX and Obe going at it, with the younger, smaller man getting smacked around a bit before Black Buffalo tags in for a suplex and a legdrop before bringing Miyake in. The big man does a bit of a bully routine, no-selling Obe’s offense and peppering him with chops and kicks at his leisure for quite a while before allowing WX back in to the ring. He gives Obe a chair to the back while the referee is distracted, and then Buffalo assists him in a double clothesline before a WX crossface is applied. Tajiri makes the save on that one and Buffalo comes in, though he makes the fatal mistake of running straight in to Obe’s forearm.

Matsuda gets the hot tag and slams everything that moves before being cut off by a Buffalo kick to the kidneys. However, he avoids a double clothesline attempt by the heels and takes both Buffalo and WX down before slamming Miyake and attempting to hit him with a top rope knee drop. Buffalo cuts off the move from the outside, and now Matsuda is isolated in the ring and caught in Shadow WX’s crossface. The other four men involved in the match engage in a bit of a brawl, with Buffalo landing a pescado on one of his opponents before dropping a leg across the back of Matsuda’s head as soon as he escapes the crossface. Buffalo then comes in to the ring legally for a nice Saito suplex, followed immediately by a Matsuda brainbuster. Again, Tajiri makes the save.

All three heels land corner clotheslines on Matsuda, and then Buffalo and WX feed him to Miyake for a second rope powerbomb . . . only to have Matsuda reverse it in to a rana! He tries for the hot tag off of that, but the bad guys cut him off with a chair. Miyake holds Matsuda so that Buffalo can take his head off with the weapon, but there’s a MALFUNCTION AT THE JUNCTION and Buff hits his own partner. That sets off another brawl with all six men on the floor, and eventually Matsuda isolates Miyake in the ring. Miyake’s barrel chest is covered in blood because of the chair shot and Matsuda gives him a brainbuster, but Miyake kicks out at one. The heels try to run in on Matsuda again, but Tajiri dispatches them all with kicks. Miyake takes Matsuda off of his feet with a lariat, but, before he can follow up, he’s misted by Tajiri and given a DVD by Obe. Matsuda follows that up with a vertical suplex, but it only gets two. Miyake staggers to his feet, with the combination of blood and mist leaving his mug an odd shade of purple. As soon as he turns toward Matsuda, he is knocked right back down with a lariat for the three count.

Match Thoughts: Pretty standard tag team match, right there. The match was obviously built around Matsuda, which makes sense given that he is billed as “Mr. IWA” and was going to be the person coming out of the bout with a shot at the company’s top championship. He looked solid in his role, though he was definitely a bit more old school in his approach than the majority of the wrestlers in the match. Obe did a decent enough job as the babyface in peril, though I’ve seen better folks in that position. Tajiri, meanwhile, seemed to be there just to lend his name and a couple of keys spots to the match, and he managed to do that just fine. As far as the heel team is concerned, I can’t say that Shadow added much to the bout, nor did I really expect him to do so given the fact that he’s largely a “deathmatch” guy who has never shown all that much promise outside of that arena. Miyake and Buffalo both did great jobs for themselves, though. Black Buffalo, not being all that big of a name in the grand scheme of things, had to step up and act as the focal point of his team given Shadow’s limitations and the fact that Miyake is not as well known. He really seemed to be the glue that held the match together. Miyake, meanwhile, is a beast of a man who played that role well and came up with a great bladejob when called upon to do so. All in all, the match itself wasn’t overwhelmingly good, but I learned that all six men involved were at least competent wrestlers and guys who I would like to watch a bit more of. ***1/2

Overall

I will say that this show had its rough patches. A few of the undercard bouts were of questionable quality, even though I can understand why they were booked given the history that the wrestlers involved have with this promotion. Also, even though you could tell that the promotion was attempting to present a balanced card with a variety of different types of matches represented, even when those matches were good it was still obvious that the types of matches presented could be found in better quality in other promotions. IWA was trying to use wacky gimmicks here with its turtles, sasquatches, and hell ants, but, really, there are promotions out there who do those matches better. IWA was trying to do joshi, but, really, there are promotions out there which produce more entertaining women’s matches. IWA was trying to do a junior heavyweight showstealer, but, really, there are many junior heavyweight matches from many different promotions which are more spectacular. As a viewer who is not a longstanding fan of the promotion but rather just a fellow who enjoys quality professional wrestling, there wasn’t any nostalgia value present to help me get past the fact that many of the matches, though not outright bad, were at best mediocre and certainly not outstanding. If you are a fan of the IWA from several years ago, chances are good that you will find some reasons to enjoy this show. However, if you did not watch the old school IWA, I would suggest that you skip the undercard completely and watch only the top two matches, which are fine contests . . . but, even then, if you watch a fair amount of wrestling in any given week they will probably not be the most entertaining bouts that you see.


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Ryan Byers

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