wrestling / Columns

Into the Indies 12.22.09: Nutsville X-Mas

December 22, 2009 | Posted by Ryan Byers


Banner Courtesy of John Meehan

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Into the Indies, the only column on 411mania that can’t think of an opening gag for this week.

However, you should all forgive me for the above. Why? Because IT’S THE WEEK OF CHRISTMAS~! Yes, I type that in all capital letters and add in the obligatory tilde bang, but, quite frankly, my excitement is not all that genuine. I’m having a hard time getting into the holiday spirt in 2009. It is not because I will not be seeing my friends and family. It is not because I will not be getting some rocking gifts. It is not because I will not be eating enough to pop every bit of hardware off of the button fly jeans that I for some reason continue to wear many years after they have gone out of style.

The reason that I am not as excited for Christmas this year is that 2008 featured one of the greatest holiday-themed events in the history of yuletide, and, as far as I know, there will not be a repeat performance of that event three days from now. You see, at some point in ’08, somebody in the professional wrestling industry said to himself, “You know what would be the best way to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ? Let’s take one of the most insane hardcore professional wrestlers in the history man and give him all of the means that he needs in order to book his own show from top to bottom . . . and, oh yeah, let’s hold it on CHRISTMAS DAY.”

The result was “Crazy Monkey” Jun Kasai, the wrestler who has never met a razor wire board that he didn’t like, putting together a card on December 25, 2008 that he entitled “Nutsville X-Mas.” For those of you who do not regularly watch Japanese wrestling, it is not uncommon for a promotion to, from time to time, allow an individual wrestler who is not part of the booking committee to take over the book on a special occasion and put on his own show. However, Kasai took it to a whole different level. Usually these wrestler-produced shows will feature the hosting promotion’s roster with one or two guest stars who are friends with the booker. By and large, there is not all that much to distinguish them from the majority of the events put on by the company.

However, Kasai took things to another level. At the time of Nutsville X-Mas, he was wrestling regularly for both Big Japan Wrestling and Apache Army, and he booked the rosters of the two companies in almost equal proportions. On top of that, whereas the majority of BJW and Apache shows over the course of the past year have consisted of mostly straight bouts with one deathmatch on top, Kasai made sure that HIS show would be stacked top to bottom with HIS style of match, the crazy gimmick bout featuring plenty of sharp implements and plenty of blood.

So, call your children downstairs and gather them ’round the fireplace as we prepare to tell the tale of the Crazy Monkey’s Nutsville X-Mas, a tale where barbed wire replaces garland, steel chairs replace stockings, and steel spikes replace candy canes.


Match Numero Uno: Jaki Numazawa vs. Masashi Takeda in a Drawing Pin Deathmatch

A drawing pin, for those of you in the United States, is essentially the name that the rest of the world uses for a thumbtack. The tacks are placed in a bucket in the corner, and the wrestlers toss a few out to the crowd in the early going to prove that they’re legitimate. Rather than going immediately for the pointy objects, Takeda and Numazawa decide to start the match with mat wrestling and shoulderblocks, most of which appear to be in slow motion. It’s not long at all before the two wrestlers are out on the area floor and Jaki is sent in to some chairs. Takeda applies the dreaded CHINLOCK ON THE FLOOR, but Numazawa grabs a chair and bashes it over his head to break that up. Masashi is posted as well, which gives Numazawa time to reenter the ring, take off his pants, rub his crotch, and spill the bucket of tacks out on to the canvas. Well, that was an odd sequence of events. Takeda goes back on the offensive for a bit when he comes back into the ring, but he’s quickly back body dropped and then slammed on to the tacks. In both instances, he took the bump rather safely, mainly landing on his (clothed) buttocks and legs. Not nearly as safe is the next spot, in which Numazawa stomps his opponent’s head in to the pins and then stands on it for a while.

That results in several of the tacks sticking in the youngster’s head. Jaki’s next trick is a vertical suplex into the pile of tacks, but it only gets him a two count. Numazawa then scoop slams Takeda in the middle of the ring, pours some tacks on to his midsection, and gives him a senton. Masahi soon finds himself in the fireman’s carry position, with Numazawa setting up for a Finlay roll into the tacks. Takeda blocks it and gives his opponent a back body drop into the spiky pile, then stopping to insert individual tacks in to Numazawa’s forehead before dropkicking him in the face. Takeda slams the back of Jaki’s leg into the tacks a few times and then digs a few individual pins into the back of the calf before applying a stretch muffler. Masahi releases the hold and gets grabbed by his opponent, who places him on the top rope and gives him an Iconoclasm down in to the tacks.

Jaki charges in an attempt to maintain his momentum, but he’s dropkicked in the knee and does a flip bump in to the tacks. Takeda stays on the limb by applying a leglock, and he even uses a free hand to insert more tacks in to Numazawa as he sits in the hold. That’s followed up with a Masahi DDT in to the small spines, but Jaki immediately responds with a tombstone piledriver and a rolling Samoan drop. At this point things are spread out so much that it’s getting difficult to do a move WITHOUT putting your opponent into the spikes. Jaki’s next trick is a senton atomico down on to Takeda, which he follows with an air raid crash. As if that were not enough, Numazawa goes for a shining wizard. Takeda avoids it, landing a German. It gets two and Takeda goes for the move a second time but is low blowed. He no sells that and gets a low blow of his own, but, seconds later, he runs in to a fisherman buster in the tacks that brings the match to a close.

Match Thoughts: This was not my favorite type of deathmatch. Generally, when a match involving weapons is all about using those weapons as frequently and as violently as possible, I will have a hard time getting into it because there’s no build, no flow, and no story. A match structure of this sort makes clear the fact that the match does not exist to accomplish the goals that a traditional wrestling match exists to accomplish. Instead, the match exists simply to satisfy the bloodlust of people who enjoy watching as much violence as possible as quickly as possible, which is a camp that I cannot call myself a part of. However, I will admit that this bout was not a complete waste of my time. In the prior Masashi Takeda match that I have reviewed in I2I, I noted that I was entertained by Takeda’s ability to combine some MMA or “technical wrestling” style holds with the elements of the deathmatch. He continued to showcase that ability here, with his insertion of tacks into the leg of Nakazawa as it was held in the kneebar being a particularly innovative spot. *1/2


Match Numero Dos: Ricky Fuji vs. The Winger in a Philadelphia Banana Deathmatch

Okay, here’s a screwy one. There are poles in two corners of the ring, and, on each pole, there is a bunch of bananas, playing off of Jun Kasai’s love of the tropical fruit. If I’m understanding this correctly, the first man to grab and eat three whole bananas is the winner. Well, that’s one way to promote healthy eating habits among the children who come to these deathmatch shows. Fuji immediately shoots up the ropes and grabs a ‘nanner, but Winger punches him to prevent it from being eaten. Ricky applies an abdominal stretch, but that actually helps both men since it leaves them with a free arm to eat. Winger alternating between biting and selling is fairly amusing. While the two are in the hold, things get tied up at one banana apiece.

Ricky lets go of the hold and tries to climb his pole for banana number two, but Winger cuts him off. Fuji is having none of that, though, as he takes Winger off of his feet and hits him with a cross body as soon as he comes back up. Ricky makes the cardinal mistake of going for a cover in a match in which there are no pinfalls, so the referee mocks him. He hits a dropkick and goes for more fruit, but Winger is there to stop him one more time. Fuji hits a side slam and applies a half crab, but the referee informs Ricky that there are no submissions either. Finally Fuji gets with the program and climbs the post but not until after he lands a bodyslam and a legdrop. Winger is quick to recover, though, and soon both men are exchanging fists while on the ropes. Ricky gets knocked off but regains the advantage when the wrestlers return to the ring proper, hitting a delayed vertical suplex and a Finlay roll. Again, he goes for the cover and is informed that it won’t work. Fuji hits a leg cradle DDT, which allows him to finally snag banana number two.

Ricky stands in the corner and nonchalantly munches away, stopping to feign exhaustion and/or heartburn. He begs the referee for water, but none is to be found. Fuji endures the pain of the dry fruit, and he barely finishes banana number two. By the time he does, Winger is fully recovered and lands some punches before climbing the ropes and grabbing his second phallic fruit. Ricky attacks him and knocks the banana out of his hands, then landing a series of punches in the corner and looking for a German suplex. The Winger low blows his opponent to escape and hits a blue thunder driver, then going back after his second banana, taking a bite, slamming Fuji, hitting a top rope senton, and scooting back over to finish eating. Banana number two is down for the Winger, and he immediately climbs to grab number three.

He has it in hand when Fuji low blows him and starts chopping. The two potassium-filled wrestlers exchange punches in mid-ring, and Fuji busts out the dick move of all dick moves as he grabs Winger’s banana and throws it into the audience. The masked man has to run out among the crowd to retrieve it, and, as he does so, Fuji is able to get an advantage in chomping down on his own fruit. Winger reenters the ring with his banana, but Fuji stomps him, takes a bite, stomps him, takes a bite, and repeats the process until he has downed banana number three and thereby won the match.

Match Thoughts: This was an interesting one. On one hand, it was pretty obviously intended to be the card’s comic relief. On the other hand, it was not like several comedy matches in Japan in which all traditional notions of what a professional wrestling match is supposed to be are abandoned in order to generate the largest number of laughs. Rather than going out of their way to be absurd, Winger and Fuji worked the entire match as though it was a legitimate contest with the rules set forth above. Instead of the humor being derived from their over the top antics, it was derived from the fact that they were playing things straight in a match in which the stipulations were completely ridiculous. The great thing is that it it WORKED as well, as I laughed more while watching this one than I have in a while during a comedy match featuring competitors not named Santino Marella. **1/2


Match Numero Tres: Mr. Gannosuke vs. Yoshihito Sasaki in a Scramble Bunkhouse Deathmatch

The two wrestlers start on the outside of the ring, and there’s a barbed wire bat on the middle of the canvas. The referee does a countdown, and, as soon as she reaches zero, the wrestlers reach forward, each one trying to claim the weapon. Gannosuke does, and he gives Sasaki a shot to the chest that causes him to bail out to the floor. The veteran follows and gets hit with a forearm, though he quickly responds with the bat and posts Sasaki before taking him deep in to the crowd and throwing him into the wall of the venue. Gannosuke digs the barbed bat into Yoshihito’s head for good measure, and we head back to the ringside area. Gannosuke looks to whip Sasaki through a row of chairs, but the move is actually reversed and the older wrestler gets the worst of it. Unfortunately for Sasaki, Gannosuke finds an aluminum can while he is on the ground, and that gets used as a weapon a few times before the beaten man is rolled back into the squared circle. The barbed wire is rubbed across Sasaki’s head for a few more minutes, and then we get a chop battle. Gannosuke puts that to an end by going to the eyes, and then he applies a HEADSCISSORS of all things. Yes, a headscissors in the middle of this bunkhouse match. Gannosuke breaks the hold when Sasaki tangles his legs up in the bottom rope, and there’s another shot with the barbed wire bat. Sasaki blocks a vertical suplex, though, and he reverses the move into one of his own. He grabs the bat at this point, but Gannosuke catches him with a drop toe hold and reclaims the weapon. A shot with it only gets a one count.

Gannosuke’s falcon arrow does slightly better and gets two, and then Sasaki reverses a piledriver attempt into a back body drop and takes his opponent down with a spear. A pair of lariats connect from Sasaki as well, and he puts Gannosuke in to the torture rack. That’s reversed into a chinlock and then a northern lights suplex, but Sasaki kicks out at two. He does the same when Gannosuke powerbombs him. The two men then exchange lariats with neither going down for a while, though Sasaki eventually scores the decisive blow and gets a nearfall. Gannosuke also kicks out of a burning hammer and catches Sasaki in a cradle off of the ropes for another nearfall. Gannosuke’s lariat and k-driller also fail to put Sasaki away, so he goes to the camel clutch of all things. The crowd chants “Don’t give up!” in perfect English, but Sasaki doesn’t listen to them and submits.

Match Thoughts: I have to admit that, as I was watching the first half of this match, I was getting ready to bury it fifteen feet beneath the ground. During that portion of the bout, Gannosuke was absolutely DESTROYING Sasaki, and he was doing it with offense that looked about as impressive as what we see out of the Great Khali on a weakly basis. The ironic thing about that is that the very first Mr. Gannosuke match that I ever saw was a deathmatch from his younger days in he received the exact same treatment with the exact same lousy offense from Tiger Jeet Singh. The difference between this match and the Singh-Gannosuke match was that here the younger wrestler being pummeled forever and a day actually served a purpose, because it caused the crowd to rally behind him and respond when he started making his comeback. That comeback looked great on both ends, as, even though both men were still dishing out fairly basic offense, they were dishing it out with an explosiveness and an intensity that is often lacking from the matches of younger wrestlers these days. They actually got the crowd (and even yours truly) to buy in to many of the nearfalls, and, with each of those nearfalls, everybody watching became more intent upon seeing Sasaki defy the odds by pulling out a victory after being pummeled for so long in the match’s early going. It started slow, but, by the finish, this was a highly entertaining contest. ***



Match Numero Cuatro: Mammoth Sasaki, Tetsuhiro Kuroda, & Koji Nakagawa vs. Takashi Sasaki, GENTARO, & Kamui in a Street Fight Barbed Wire Board Deathmatch

There are six men in the ring along with two barbed wire boards propped up in the corners during introductions, and we’ve got a brawl as soon as the bell rings. I should probably note that the lighting is not very good for this show, so between that, the involvement of six men in this match, and the constant camera cuts needed to catch everything, my play-by-play will probably suffer. In fact, literally the first four minutes of this match consists of nothing more than dudes brawling in and around the audience with nothing of note happening.

Eventually the two Sasakis head back in to the ring, and they do spots involving shoulderblocks and narrowly avoiding trips in to the barbed wire boards. Takashi knocks Mammoth down with a lariat and attempts to force his head into the barbed wire, ultimately succeeding and drawing blood. That leads to GENTARO tagging in with a barbed wire bat, using the weapon to strike Mammoth in the chest before hitting him with a swinging neckbreaker for a one count. The barbs of the bat then find themselves dug into Mammoth’s head, but Kuroda misses an elbow drop and as a result snags his arm on the bat. That causes him to tag out to Kamui, who has his offense shrugged off by Mammoth. Sasaki gives the masked man a MASSIVE chokeslam and tags in Kuroda, who again takes the fight to the floor. All of the other match’s participants follow suit, and Kuroda grabs a ladder, tossing both it and Kamui back in to the ring. Kamui tries to take Kuroda down with some forearms, but he’s hit with a barbed wire bat and whipped into the ladder for his trouble. Kuroda then climbs to the top rope and rides the ladder down into a splash on the masked wrestler, earning him a two count.

Nakagawa tags in to the match for the first time at this point, and he chokes Kamui over the bottom rope before snapping his neck over the top. Koji then connects with a fistdrop of all things for a two count and tags Mammoth back in to the match. Again, the large man has no time to sell for Kamui and busts out the barbed wire bat on him for a lax two count. He then begins CHOKING Kamui with the barbed wire bat in a fairly brutal display. For reasons that are beyond me, using a barbed wire bat is not illegal, but Sasaki still must break the hold when Kamui reaches the ropes. Kuroda tags back in, hitting Kamui low with the ladder and then driving it further in to his crotch with bat shots. He actually completely missed with his first swing and legitimately started cracking up. Kamui hits some more chops and barely misses being whipped into the barbed wire. Eventually he hits Kuroda with a version of the Pele kick, allowing the masked wrestler to SPEAR his opponent through the board. Not a bad move for your first major piece of offense in a match.

That sets up the hot tag to Takashi, who runs wild with German suplexes and a split-legged dropkick. After that he gives Kuroda an inverted atomic drop and a lariat for two. A back elbow in the corner follows, and that sets up a tornado DDT. Sasaki superkicks his opponent in the chest for a two count and tags in GENTARO, who lays the unbroken barbed wire board down on the mat and tries to slam Kuroda on it. He fails and whips his opponent into ropes instead, softening him up with a backdrop suplex. Kuroda slips away from him though, and, before you know it, GENTARO’s leg is being slammed into the ring post. He remedies that problem by kicking Kuroda with his free leg, and he looks to ascend the ropes. Nakagawa prevents that from happening, giving Kuroda an opportunity to snap GENTARO’s neck across the top strand before landing a lariat for a nearfall. Soon thereafter, Nakagawa interjects himself into the match legally, giving GENTARO a backbreaker and putting him in the camel clutch. No way that move is getting two submissions in the same show. Takashi runs in to break up the hold, and now all six men are back in the action. GENTARO’s three opponents take turns on him with corner attacks, and then the fallen man is fed to Mammoth for a second rope powerbomb. It only gets two, and GENTARO didn’t even have to be saved. Eventually he winds up in the ring alone with Nakagawa, and he gives the man a version of the complete shot to set up a second hot tag.

This time the recipient is Kamui, and he FINALLY gets to take Mammoth down with a dropkick and a running knee to the face that even gets him a two count. Sasaki gets back to his feet, and Kamui attempts to chop him down with forearms off the ropes. He fails miserably and finds himself hit with a lariat. Mammoth’s next trick sees him attempt a powerbomb, but Kamui reverses that into a rana that sends Sasaki to the floor. With that having happened, Kamui seizes the opportunity to land an Asai moonsault that flattens everybody in the match before reentering the ring with both Mammoth and a ladder. Sasaki takes a few shots to the gut with the steel and gets put through barbed wire board number two with a Van Daminator. Kamui stays on him, taking the remnants of the board and charging into Mammoth at high speed with them. Kamui’s partners set up a ladder for him and place the upside-down barbed wire board on to Mammoth’s prone body, allowing Kamui to give him a SENTON ATOMICO from the top of the ladder. It gets two as Mammoth’s teammates save. Kamui stays on his man with a 450, but Sasaki COMPLETELY no-sells it, standing right up and giving Kamui a spinning brainbuster. He immediately places the barbed wire board on the fallen masked man, splashes it, and picks up the three count.

Match Thoughts: Until the finish, this was chugging along to be a fairly decent albeit not spectacular six man brawl with a few hardcore spots mixed in. Again, though I was afraid that the generic brawling at the beginning would permeate all twenty minutes of the bout, but they got it out of the way in the first four minutes and never went back, instead settling into a perfectly acceptable standard tag team bout until the finish, when things got a bit more weapons-laced. However, as alluded to above, I was not a fan of the finish at all. I’m not a huge fan of this Kamui fellow – in fact, in the matches that I have seen from him, I’ve considered him mediocre at best – but he was treated like a complete and utter joke here. First of all, he was repeatedly destroyed and shrugged off by Mammoth Sasaki during the heat sequence of the match, which is fine if you pay it off with the underdog winning in the end, as we saw in the Gannosuke match earlier. Even if you wind up with the underdog getting a pretty good run but getting pinned in a competitive sequence in the end, you can wind up doing wonders for his career. However, in this instance, they did perhaps the absolute worst finish that they could have done, with Kamui hitting numerous big moves one right after the other on Mammoth, only for Mammoth to COMPLETELY shrug off everything as though it had no effect on him whatsoever, getting the pin seconds later. It made Kamui look like a complete joke because he busted out some of the biggest maneuvers possible and they were completely ineffective in the end. The sad thing is that they still probably could have come back and had Mammoth win in the end without making Kamui look like as big of a lower as they did here. In any event, the action leading up to that point was perfectly acceptable tag team wrestling, but the finish left a bad taste in my mouth like no other. **


Match Numero Cinco: Jun Kasai vs. MASADA in a Razor Cross Board Deathmatch

This time around, the ring contains two wooden crucifixes, the vertical portion of each being covered with razor blades. The two wrestlers immediately begin teasing a shove into the blades, and the crowd erupts in to dueling chants for each of them. With the shots at the razors not working, the two men go into mat wrestling for a bit, with Kasai even scoring a two count off of a schoolboy that could have ended the match before the hardcore elements were even involved. A shoulderblock series is the next order of the day, and it goes nowhere until Jun tries to ascend the top rope. Masada prevents him from getting any offense from that position, though, cribbing Kurt Angle’s run-up belly-to-belly superplex spot. Masada then reaches into the cargo pocket of his shorts and grabs several long needles, which he sticks straight in to the top of Kasai’s head. Jun looks like a porcupine by the time the whole thing is said and done, but he still has the good sense to baseball slide out of the ring when Masada tries to whip him into the razors. When he returns to the squared circle, the Crazy Monkey tries to send his opponent into the blades with a series of dropkicks, but each one fails. What does not fail is an Irish whip seconds later, which plants Masada’s left shoulder directly in to the sharp portion of the cross. Kasai sends him into it a second time using a hammerlock as the setup, and the referee looks like she is ready to vomit. Kasai hits a running shoulder in the corner and a snap suplex before heading up to the top rope, coming off with a diving headbutt. That only gets him a two count, so he decides to bring a couple of chairs in to the ring. Kasai places Masada’s shoulder back in the razor blades and then slams the opposite shoulder with the chair. Jun tries the same move again, but the TWA graduate blocks the chairshot and punches the furniture so hard that the seat flies straight off of it. Kasai gets nailed in the process and is taken out of commission. It looks like Masada is going to nail Jun with the chair, but he actually turns at the last second and begins using it to DESTROY the razor cross that he was slammed in to several times. Awesome. He picks a razor blade out of the rubble and runs it across Kasai’s forehead, which gets a big reaction from the crowd. That’s a bit funny given that it’s common knowledge that wrestlers do the exact same thing to themselves on a regular basis.

Before long the two men are brawling on the floor, where Kasai sets up a table. He places Masada there and climbs to the top rope, but the Texan won’t stay down. He meets Jun on the second strand, and they brawl there for a bit. Masada gets knocked down to the apron, but he still manages to crotch Jun on the top rope, then setting up a second table on the apron running parallel to the table that is on the floor. Masada and Kasai climb on to the table that is on the apron and exchange shots, with Masada picking up Kasai and giving him a DEATH VALLEY DRIVER OFF THE TABLE ON THE APRON AND THROUGH THE TABLE ON THE FLOOR. YIKES~! Masada recovers surprisingly quickly and rolls Jun back into the ring, where he gets a two count. He rips the horizontal plank off of the second wooden cross (sacrelige?) and digs the splintered end in to Kasai’s neck before wacking him over the head with it. He places the vertical, razor bladed portion of the cross flat on the mat, and the two men fight over who will slam the other on to it. Kasai looks to have the advantage with a low blow, but he runs right in to a Masada POWERSLAM ON TO THE RAZORS. Masada gives him a pair of regular scoop slams on to the blades for good measure before just slamming Jun’s head into the sharp edges. All of that only gets him a count of two on the subsequent pin attempt. Masada looks to finish with a tombstone on to the razors, but Kasai blocks it and reverses into a pancake on the blades. He can’t put Masada away with that, so he gets a chair and wacks his opponent across the back. He then places the razor board across Masada’s back and wacks THAT with a chair. An angels wings on to the chair gets another nearfall for Kasai, after which he places the upside down razor board on Masada again. Kasai flies from the top rope with a splash, but Masada both gets his knees up AND flips the board over, lacerating Kasai’s midsection. Masada is holding his leg after the spot, and I have no clue whether he’s selling or whether he was actually hurt there. Real or kayfabe, he guts through the pain and gives Jun a snap backdrop suplex. Out of nowhere, Masada grabs a bag full of what appears to be broken glass and powerbombs Kasai on to that pile before just dragging him on his back across the glass-covered mat. A Boston crab on the pile of glass is next, but Kasai walks on his hands across the ring to force a rope break.

Masada applies a camel clutch (the third of the night) for a little bit, but he lets it go to grab the razor board. He places it across Kasai’s body and punches the blades in to his opponent, but Jun surpries him with a dropkick and then repeates the glass dragging/Boston crab sequence. A German gets two for Jun quickly thereafter, as does a second angels wings. Kasai gets the razor board again and places it on the prone Masada, going to the top once more. This time his splash connects, but Masada still kicks out at two. The Crazy Monkey then applies a Boston crab with Masada laying on the razor board, forcing him to tap out.

Match Thoughts: As I mentioned the last time that I reviewed a Kasai match, there are essentially two kinds of deathmatches in my mind: those in which guys are so good with their timing and structuring of the match that they get me to forget how disgusting some of the things that they are doing happen to be and those which aren’t as great and completely turn me off because I do not get into the bout and am disturbed by the level of violence. I consider Kasai to be one of the best deathmatch wrestlers that I’ve ever seen, because he is the man more than any other who is able to distract me from the fact that his matches are so disgusting. Even other masters like Mick Foley and Atsushi Onita have failed in that regard in the past, but Kasai rarely does. I would not say that this match was one of his rare failures in that regard, but it was closer than the norm. The needles and the razor board were both used a little bit too early in my opinion, and it took me out of the match for a bit. However, despite the missteps early, they managed to turn things around towards the end of the bout, with every spot in the last half of the match being bigger than the next and building to the climax at the end, which looked absolutely brutal. I would need to see more Masada to know whether is actually as good as he looked here or whether Jun was carrying him, but, if he is legitimately as good as he looked here, I’m surprised that he has not broken out more in the United States. ****

Overall

This wasn’t an all-time classic wrestling show that you have to watch because it was loaded down with four star-plus matches from top to bottom. However, it was the kind of show that I would suggest that everybody watch if they’ve got a spare couple of hours, because, even if the matches weren’t necessarily the best in the world, they were all FUN from the bottom all the way up to the top. The Kasai-Masada match was a great capper to the whole thing, as it was one of the best deathmatches that I have seen in may years and a real breakout performance for the American wrestler. Combine that with a unique comedy match and a couple of undercard bouts that were unlike most things that you see in professional wrestling these days, and Nutsville gave us a great Christmas present in 2008.

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Ryan Byers

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