Into the Indies 09.29.09: Pro Wrestling IN A THEME PARK

Banner Courtesy of John Meehan

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Into the Indies, the column that takes the term “Mickey Mouse operation” to a whole new level.

This week, we’re taking a look at one of the more unique pro wrestling shows to take place in the last year. It comes to us from a promotion known as the Dramatic Dream Team – or DDT for short. DDT, founded over ten years ago, is the creation of a wrestler by the name of Sanshiro Takagi (no relation to Shingo), a grappler who ambitiously put the company together roughly two years after his in-ring debut. DDT handles things a little bit differently than the majority of Japanese promotions. Some puro companies, like New Japan or NOAH, present a style of straight ahead professional wrestling as though it were a legitimate sport. Some puro companies, like Osaka Pro or HUSTLE, are known for going over the top with sill characters and matches, with the entire card from top to bottom being played up for laughs.

DDT falls somewhere in the middle of the spectrum, which, in an odd way, makes it the Japanese promotion which has the most similarities to World Wrestling Entertainment in the United States. Though the wrestlers work a different style in the ring than WWE wrestlers, the companies are still similar in that, even though most of their wrestlers are completely competent workers (some of them outstanding workers), sometimes they are given outlandish characters which are allowed to overshadow their in-ring performances and sometimes they are put in dramatic storylines which overshadow their in-ring performances.

That’s not a complaint, though. The DDT dynamic works for the promotion when I watch it, and it certainly works for its Japanese fans, who have kept the company alive for over a decade. In fact, in August of this year, they drew almost 9,000 fans to Japan’s Sumo Hall, which, though it is not a number that DDT will be pulling in on a regular basis anytime soon, is significantly larger than any crowd that has ever gathered to watch TNA or ROH and even tops the attendance figures at many WWE house shows.

We are not taking a look at the Sumo Hall show this week, though you are kidding yourself if you think that I am not going to get there eventually. Instead of the promotion’s biggest show of the year, we are taking a look at a card which took place approximately two months earlier, namely on June 18, 2009. The Dramatic Dream Team had gathered at, of all places, a small Japanese theme park. The setup is similar to other shows that the company has done at campsites and in beer gardens, which lead yours truly to believe that some wacky things were going to start happening when the wrestlers began to work their environment in to their matches. As you will see, I was certainly not disappointed.

Match Numero Uno: MIKAMI & Chou-un Shiryu vs. Yasu Urano & Yukihiro Abe

Abe, Urano, and MIKAMI are all DDT regulars. MIKAMI is a junior heavyweight wrestler who you can tell has been heavily influenced by the Hardy Boys. He started his career with Michinoku Pro Wrestling but left to join up with DDT almost as soon as the promotion formed, and he has been with it ever since, which makes him the veteran of the match. Urano, who is a bit heavier wrestler and integrates more power-based offense in to his matches, has been actively wrestling since 2000 and is a product of TAKA Michinoku’s Kaientai Dojo. Abe is the youngest of the lot, being a fairly nondescript trainee of the DDT promotion who has been in the ring for only a couple of years. Finally, Shiryu is not even a member of the regular DDT roster. He wrestles for many different independent promotions but is here primarily because he is associated with a brand of DDT which runs two or so shows per year. The brand is known as “New Beijing Pro Wrestling,” which parodies both Chinese culture and New Japan Pro Wrestling.

MIKAMI and Abe kick it off, and armbars are the order of the day early on. After some token mat wrestling, Shiryu and Urano hit the ring. Shiryu tries to showboat with a somersault, but Urano kicks him in the back in mid-move. Shiryu also fails at taking his opponent down with shoulderblocks, after which Uranao hits an effective shoulder before Shiryu takes him off of his feet with a springboard kick. Urano runs his man face-first in to the turnbuckles to regain the advantage, and Abe tags in after that. He fires off a vertical suplex and immediately rolls in to a gordbuster, after which he applies a hammerlock using his leg and simultaneously bars Shiryu’s other arm. The ropes are made, after which Urano interjects himself in to the match for a double team drop toe hold, followed by a two man dropkick. Urano caps off that offensive sequence by dropping his knee across the back of the head of a doubled over Shiryu. Nasty. Urano misses a lariat, though, and that sets up the good guys’ comeback. MIKAMI clears house before Shiryu places Abe in a camel clutch right in front of the ropes. Then, in a cool spot, MIKAMI gives Abe a version of the 619 while he is in the hold. He gives Urano a codebreaker after that, which Shiryu follows up with a dropkick that sends the big man out of the ring. Shiryu gives Abe a Gory special bomb, after which MIKAMI hits a 450 for the pin. That was not a pretty version of the move, as MIKAMI’s knees went straight in to poor Abe’s gut.

Match Thoughts: This was a quick match, but, as far as quick matches are concerned, it was entertaining. They did enough stuff that the battle was more memorable than most sub-five minute fights, though they didn’t do so much that the match felt overloaded with highspots. It was just the perfect amount of MOVES~! for the minutes allotted, and they all looked good aside from the slight misstep at the finish. That’s good enough in my book for **.

Match Numero Dos: Danshoku Dino vs. Keisuke Ishii

Oh, Dino. If you’ve heard of one DDT guy other than Kota Ibushi, it’s probably him. He has been gaining attention with his outrageous antics for many years now, and, if you’re not familiar with what those antics are, I will let you discover them through the play by play. Ishii, meanwhile, is a much more . . . um . . . conventional wrestler, having been trained by DDT and debuting with them during the summer of 2008.

Dino lays down at the bell and challenges Ishii to climb in to the guard, but he refuses. He also won’t accept starting the match with Dino in the amateur wrestling “down position.” Go figure. Danshoku goes for what is either a collar and elbow lockup or a kiss depending on your perspective, but Ishii blocks it. He doesn’t block an armbar from Dino, which is particularly humiliating because Ishii’s hand is forced in to Dino’s crotch while the move is applied. Dino then takes his opponent down to the mat and essentially molests him. No exaggeration there whatsoever. Dino attempts to apply a claw hold to his opponent’s crotch, but Ishii deflects it and forces Dino’s hand to the referee’s family jewels instead. While his opponent is occupied with the official, Ishii manages to hit a dropkick that sends the man out of the ring. They brawl among the crowd and whip each other in to buildings after that, with Dino ultimately dragging Ishii in to a photo booth and begging for money from the fans so that he can have some pictures taken. Of course, Dino makes sure that Ishii’s pants are pulled down before the camera goes off. Eventually, he pulls a fans in to the booth as well and adds them to the shots. The two men appear to have completely forgotten that they are having a match against one another at this point . . . at least until Dino hits Ishii with a knee while they are waiting for the pictures to develop. They begin brawling in the crowd again and take turns attempting to Irish whip each other through the door of some building that I cannot identify. Dino ultimately takes the whip in and returns disgusted . . . must have been the women’s locker room.

Next their brawl takes them to a building that has a pig prominently displayed on its roof, prompting the appearance of a man who has his nose taped up in to a swine-ish position. I believe but am not certain that it is DDT wrestler Yuske Inokuma. Dino gets whipped head-first in to the pig-man’s crotch, setting off a brawl between the two of them. Piggy does Hulk Hogan’s comeback on Dino, though he finishes it with a pump splash instead of a leg drop. That allows Ishii to get a two count, as does a spinning heel kick. Ishii accidentally hits the pig with a headbutt to the stomach, so he turns on Ishii and clubs him from behind. That sets up a kiss from Dino and the Danshoku Driver (a piledriver with Ishii’s head stuffed in to Dino’s tights) for the three count.

Match Thoughts: Danshoku Dino’s schtick is a hard one to describe. Some might say that he’s doing a gay gimmick, but he’s also doing several nonconsensual things that non real gay man would actually do. It’s almost as though he’s doing a gay rapist gimmick. At some points, it’s amusing. At some points, it’s flat out disturbing. Aside from a couple of small athletic spots, this bout was all Dino’s character and beginning to work the wrestlers’ surroundings in to matches. From a purely technical standpoint, I’m going to have to call it a DUD, but there was enough between the photo booth wackiness and the less disturbing portions of Danshoku’s wackiness that I managed to remain entertained throughout the duration of the segment.

Match Numero Tres: Hoshitango & Masa Takanashi vs. HARASHIMA & KUDO

Here is a match featuring a group of men who are essentially DDT guys through and through. The least “pure” of the group in that regard is probably Takanashi, who is one of the many Dragon Gym graduates who is currently strewn throughout the indy scene. However, despite the fact that he trained in the Dragon System and had some exposure in El Dorado, he was not allowed to break through and compete regularly until he made his way to DDT. His partner is Hoshitango, who has quite the interesting backstory. ‘Tango is actually an Argentinian who somehow decided that he was going to become a sumo wrestler, traveling to Japan and becoming a naturalized citizen in order to do so. In 2006, his sumo career came to an end, and he started wrestling pro style for DDT. Across the ring from those two are HARASHIMA and KUDO, both of whom were essentially trained by DDT from the group up. HARASHIMA has served as the promotion’s top heel in recent months, acting as the foil for ultra-popular babyface Kota Ibushi in a number of matches. I hope that didn’t telegraph the finish.

We’ve got a four-man brawl at the start. Hoshi and HARASHIMA are in the ring, with the fat guy forcing HARA to hit the bricks due to his power-based offense. KUDO and Takanashi replace them in the squared circle until KUDO fires off a kick that sends his man fleeing to the floor. All four guys duke it out on the outside for an extended period of time, and eventually it is KUDO and Takanashi who bring things back to the ring. The two do a chop exchange which KUDO wins, allowing him to tag in HARASHIMA. He gives Takanashi the dreaded chinlock for a while before KUDO tags back in kicks away. Not to be outdone by his tag team partner, KUDO applies a resthold of his own, which Takanashi tries to reverse. He fails, but KUDO is nice enough to release the hold voluntarily. Well, maybe it’s not so nice, because, as soon as he does it, he drills his man with another brutal kick. That sets up another tag to HARASHIMA, who drops the leg several times and brings KUDO back in for an Irish whip. Takanashi blocks it and goes to the eyes, allowing him to tag in the big man. Hoshitango plows through both of his opponents with a double clothesline and then gives them both a Stinger splash. They block a double chokeslam and give him a two man bulldog, though, setting up an attempt at a double vertical suplex. ‘Tango reverses it in to one of his own and tags in Takanashi, though he is immediately hit with a KUDO enzugiri and a slingshot kneedrop for a two count. KUDO hands things off to HARASHIMA, who lands a missile droppkick and looks for a superplex. Takanashi tries to cuts it off but fails, and he winds up eating the move for a two count. A Falcon Arrow is next for HARISHAMA. ‘Tango tries to make the save but fails, splashing his own partner by mistake. That allows TEAM CAPS LOCK to hit a kneedrop and a top rope splash, but Takanashi is still out at two. He catches HARASHIMA with some cradles after KUDO dispatches ‘Tango with a pescado, but none of those do the trick. Seconds later, HARASHIMA lands a double knee gutbuster and a running double knee strike to Takanashi’s face to pick up the victory.

Match Thoughts: Until the fast-paced, hard hitting offense that made up the finish, this was a surprisingly American-style match for a small Japanese card in terms of the speed and the structure. Hoshitango in particular wrestled the match like a big man would in the United States, not doing anything that you wouldn’t see a slightly more mobile version of Mark Henry doing. Some may construe that as a negative, but in a Japanese indy scene that sometimes focuses too much on flips and spots, he was a bit of a nice change of pace. Granted, if there were 100 Hoshitangos wrestling in the indies, I wouldn’t be watching the shows, but one guy doing that gimmick and that style is perfectly acceptable. Also perfectly acceptable were the antics of KUDO and HARASHIMA, as they were great heels in terms of knowing when and how to cut off the good guys’ comebacks. Plus, in an independent wrestling world in which knee-based offense is starting to become a little bit of a cliche, HARASHIMA’s moves in the final seconds of the match still managed to come off as fresh and looked brutal, even though they were probably perfectly safe in execution. Everybody involved here deserves a hearty thumbs up. **3/4

Match Numero Cuatro: Michael Nakazawa vs. Poison Sawada JULIE vs. Kota Ibushi vs. Sanshiro Takagi

And, as the main event should, this features four of the biggest names in DDT going head to head to head to head. Takagi, as mentioned in the opening, is the promoter of the company. In the ring, he essentially does a “Stone Cold” Steve Austin gimmick. Some claim that it is a parody, but, if so, it is one of those “parodies” that exists solely so that somebody can rip off a more popular act while insincerely claiming to be making fun of it. Ibushi, of course, is the DDT wrestler who will be familiar to most American fans reading this column, as he has had a significant amount of exposure on the US indy scene through Ring of Honor and CHIKARA. Also having appeared in CHIKARA (and in ROH dark matches) is Michael Nakazawa, a younger comedy wrestler who has recently been promoting some of his own DDT shows. Completing the lineup is Poison Sawada JULIE, who was the company’s top heel ten years ago. He is still hanging around and doing roughly the same character that he was then, but he tends to stay just outside of the absolute top echelon of DDT wrestlers these days.

The action starts hot and heavy from the opening bell, with chops and fists being exchanged between all for men. The gag early on is that Nakazawa keeps challenging the other wrestlers, only to be attacked from behind every time that he’s ready to go one-on-one with somebody. Eventually he does manage to isolate Ibushi but gets dropkicked out of the ring. Everybody spills out to the floor after that one, and we’ve got two different pairs of men being followed by two different cameras, so this is probably going to be difficult to follow. For the record, Takagi has Nakazawa and JULIE has Ibushi.

It doesn’t take long for the wackiness to begin, as Takagi takes control of some kind of Panda-shaped bumper car and drives it at a ridiculously slow speed in to Nakazawa, who takes a ridiculous bump off of the impact. Sanshiro then drags his man over to some kind of water ride featuring cars that are shaped like swans, and Ibushi and JULIE follow not far after him. All three of the wrestlers take a ride on the swans, which appears to be designed to give the fans a photo op more than anything else. Then, in a beautiful moment, as each wrestler passes by him on their swan, they take turns clotheslining Nakazawa, who was left standing on the shore. Takagi pins him after that, um, highspot, but he only gets a two count. Nakazawa gains a bit of revenge by throwing Takagi in between the swans and in to the water. Ibushi then makes things even crazier, as he does a tight rope walk across a metal beam that is attaching the swan boats to a hub. He then DOES AN ASAI MOONSAULT OFF THE HUB AND ON TO TAKAGI IN THE WATER. Beautiful. After some quick editing, the wrestlers find themselves fighting in front of one of those rides that takes its passengers up to a very high height before dropping them down at a ridiculous speed. Ibushi attacks JULIE and locks him in to one of the seats. He does the same to Takagi. He goes after Nakazawa and tries to give him the same treatment. Michael sells being afraid of the ride and attempts to run away, but Ibushi catches him with a kick and throws him in to the seat anyway. Kota climbs in to the ride voluntarily, and he smiles like a small child when the ride goes off while the other wrestlers sell it like it is the most miserable experience of their lives. The crowd assembled to watch the match actually chants for them to take the ride one more time, so the Japanese carnies operating it oblige. Somewhere, Rikidozan is spinning in his grave . . . and I’m fine with that.

We clip ahead the wrestlers being let out of the ride, and everybody but Ibushi immediately collapses. He goes for a quick pin on Nakazawa, but it only gets a two count. When the camera next gives us a discernable image, Takagi is shown loading fans on to a tilt-a-whirl of some sort. He climbs on himself not long after. None of the other wrestlers are anywhere in sight, so presumably he has just given up on winning the match and is just here to have fun. We get to watch about two solid minutes of Takagi on the ride . . . and, once it stops, we see that Ibushi was apparently on it too. He was apparently affected by the spinning much more than Takagi as, when the ride is done, Sanshiro is able to easily grab him and carry him back to the ring. He hits a sloppy powerbomb for two, but Nakazawa dives in for the save. Takagi takes over on Michael, giving him an FU before climbing to the top rope. Ibushi cuts off the top rope offense with a Pele kick of all things, but Nakazawa attacks Ibushi before he can get in any more offense. A flurry of kicks from Ibushi takes Nakazawa down, and a standing moonsault gets two for the high flyer. Nakazawa gets his own nearfall after a low blow, and he follows it up with a Yakuza kick and an Olympic slam. Takagi saves on that pin attempt and goes for a stunner on Nakazawa but gets speared. Michael stays on Ibushi, but he gets kicked in the face and German suplexed for a two count. Another flurry of kicks culminates in a Pele, which sets up a Phoenix splash from Ibushi which ends the match.

Match Thoughts: There are no doubt some wrestling purists out there who will read this and be thoroughly disgusted. For those people, I have a simple message: Get a sense of humor. Pro wrestling and comedy can mix from time to time, and this was perhaps one of the most inventive ways that I have ever seen it done. Yes, there was a lot of down time in terms of action as the various ride-related spots were set up, but long build-ups can be worth it so long as the payoff is something special. In this case, the payoffs absolutely were special, as the wrestlers selling their time on the rides, the swan clotheslines on Nakazawa, and especially Kota Ibushi doing his Asai moonsault off of a carnival structure and in to a lake are all things that I will not be forgetting at any point in the near future. This was an undeniably amusing thirty minutes, and its something any wrestling fan who doesn’t take things too seriously should make sure that he or she sees sooner rather than later. (No rating.)

Overall

GET. THIS. SHOW. The majority of the undercard was competently worked but nothing spectacular. Fast forward through it if you want to, watch it if you want to, I really don’t care. There’s nothing there that you probably won’t see on fifty other DDT shows. However, the main event was one of the most unique and entertaining “falls count anywhere” matches that I have seen in an entire lifetime of watching professional wrestling, ranking right up there with the Rock vs. Mankind Empty Arena Match or Crash Holly’s antics with the WWF Hardcore Title. As spectacular of a wrestler as he may be when he’s in the ring in straight matches against guys like El Generico or Davey Richards, Kota Ibushi entertained me more here than he has in any of his “serious” matches, and that is saying something. I cannot heap enough praise on the match. Find it now, because if you are somebody whose tastes in pro wrestling are anywhere near mine, chances are good that you will wind up legitimately laughing out loud at least once during the course of the contest . . . and how often does professional wrestling allow us to do that in 2009?

Looking forward to the next instalment of Into the Indies? Keep an eye on 411’s Twitter accounts, and you just might see it pop up!

http://www.twitter.com/411mania
http://www.twitter.com/411wrestling
http://www.twitter.com/411moviestv
http://www.twitter.com/411music
http://www.twitter.com/411games
http://www.twitter.com/411mma

See you all next week!