Into the Indies 10.19.10: SMASHtober! (Part 3)

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Into the Indies, the only column written by a hip hop hippo.

I2I is currently in the third week of SMASHtober~!, our third column in a month-long series taking a look at the independent group SMASH, booked by everybody’s favorite former William Regal tag team partner, Yoshihiro Tajiri.

Last week, we took a look at the promotion’s fifth show, and this week, we move on to the sixth. The two shows were actually taped on consecutive days, meaning that talent had plenty of opportunities to work both dates and continue storylines that were set up on SMASH.5. If that was important for anybody, it was important for Starbuck. Starbuck, a veteran professional wrestler born in Canada to Finnish parents, is the booker and top draw of Fight Club Finland, a promotion that SMASH has partnered with quite successfully for the provision of a few top heels. Way back on SMASH.3, Tajiri defeated FCF Champion Valentine in order to take the championship off of him and bring it to the Japanese promotion. Starbuck, after making very short work of one of Tajiri’s proteges, Hajime Ohara, and pinning him with a single finger, earned a shot at bringing the championship back to his own promotion. That is our SMASH.6 main event.

Starbuck was not the only person to catch an international flight in order to be a part of SMASH.6. Former WWE stars and Tajiri’s old running buddies, Scotty II Hotty and Eugene, came in for a big six man tag match on SMASH.5 that pitted them and TAKA Michinoku against the SMASH home unit of KUSHIDA, Tajiri, and Lin Bairon. Scotty was able to pin KUSHIDA in his first match on Japanese soil. Now the American contingent is back for one more match, this time with TAKA and Scotty taking on Eugene and Shuri, the female kickboxer-turned-wrestler who has been a focal point of the company’s early shows. The match should be a big one for Shuri, who SMASH has been feeding a lot of female Japanese wrestlers so that she can get more comfortable with the typical “joshi” style. This match will no doubt help her develop in another style of wrestling, as there’s a world of difference between having a match with Kana and a match with the guy who does the Worm.

The final big match and big guest star for SMASH.6 comes to us not from a foreign country but rather from the big leagues of Japan. You see, SMASH’s KUSHIDA has been a semi-regular competitor in New Japan Pro Wrestling, appearing for the company several times over the course of the past year and a half when their tour involves a junior heavyweight tournament or other special occasions. This relationship between the two promotions has also lead to NJPW sending a few of its own to SMASH, and there is perhaps no bigger acquisition than who they managed to book for this show. Tetsuya Naito, who American readers of this column might recognize from his run as one half of NO LIMIT in TNA has recently returned to his home country after an extended stay in North America and has become one of the country’s hottest, fastest rising stars. Now he comes to SMASH in order to face KUSHIDA in what has the potential to be an absolutely outstanding battle of the junior stars.

Let’s take a look at see what the cards have in store for SMASH.6.

Match Numero Uno: Yusuke Kodama vs. Gurvinder Sihra

We saw Gurvinder Sihra for the first time on the last show, coming in from Canadian indy ECCW. His opponent is SMASH’s resident rookie, Kodama. Sihra gets caught in the newbie’s headlock as soon as the bell rings, but he manages to power out. Koadama takes him down with a shoulderblock but gets monkey flipped, and now the Indian wrestler is busting out some armdrags. A headlock takedown is next for the outsider, but Yusuke regains a vertical base and elbows out of it. The SMASH trainee buries his knee into his opponent’s gut and connects with a basement dropkick to the face, but Sihra slips out of a suplex attempt and hits one of his own to shift the momentum. Gurvinder climbs to the top rope but is cut off, leading to the two wrestlers jockeying for position. It is Sihra who wins out, hitting a Randy Savage elbow from the top for a three count and his first SMASH victory.

Match Thoughts: They stuck to the basics, they kept it to three minutes, and they didn’t screw anything up. That’s about as good as it gets in these opening matches. *

Match Numero Dos: Akira Shoji & Toshie Uematsu vs. AKIRA & Lin Bairon

Much as the Shuri match we discussed earlier appears to be a method through which to provide her with experience, this is essentially the same setup with the promotion’s other up-and-coming female, Lin Bairon. She’s got three big time veterans in the ring with her, with Shoji having bouncing around between many shoot-style promotions over the last fifteen years, AKIRA having been a top junior heavyweight for New Japan, and Uematsu being the other woman in the ring, a journeywoman who first really got going with GAEA in the late 1990’s and who was the only WCW Women’s Cruiserweight Champion to be recognized in the United States.

The male wrestlers start us off, with Shoji getting a quick takedown and cross armbreaker attempt. AKIRA is out quickly and the two wrestlers rapidly exchange holds, the end result of which is a Shoji armdrag and a series of successful shoulderblocks. The MMA virtuoso grabs a headlock but ultimately falls victim to AKIRA’s dropkick. Before the former NJPW star can gain any more momentum, Shoji surprises him off a charge with a judo-style throw, and now the women tag in. Bairon takes the more experienced wrestler down twice right out of the gate with armdrag variants, followed by a request for a test of strength. Uematsu goes to accept but gets kicked in the gut, though it ain’t no thang as Toshie is quickly back in control with a hammerlock. Lin’s facials in the hold are great as she repeatedly tries to escape but fails. Eventually she does gets out and starts cranking on a headlock, but Uematsu slips out and gets a series of rollups for two each. Toshie showboats for a bit after that run, but it gets her dropkicked in the knee. It’s not long before Uematsu recovers and hits a drop toe hold, patting the younger wrestler on the head afterwards in a condescending gesture that causes Lin to lose it.

Toshie tags out to Akira Shoji, and Lin Bairon remains in the ring for a bit. In a spot that I never thought I’d see from him, Shoji rides Bairon around the ring like a pony before tagging Uematsu back in. Now Bairon is good and pissed, so she immediately goes for the leg . . . though that doesn’t last too long. Toshie quickly takes her woman back down and tags in Shoji once more, with the former UWFi star applying an abdominal stretch that he uses to periodically spank Lin Bairon, including a sequence in which he does it in rhythm with the clapping of the fans. Just because he can, Shoji knocks AKIRA off the apron and looks to double team Lin with Uematsu, but Bairon uses her gymnastics background to avoid offense from her attackers and takes them both down with thrust shots to the throat en route to making the hot tag to AKIRA.

Akira blasts Shoji with a flying shoulderblock and puts him in the Regal Stretch, but Toshie breaks up the hold. She tries a cross body but is caught, with AKIRA putting her in the Tree of Joey Lawrence. Before he can follow up with any offense, Shoji intervenes and the two start trading forearms. AKIRA wins the sequence and unloads with dropkicks and a shining wizard variant thereafter, but the move only gets two. There’s a full body slam for AKIRA, and his trademark frog splash connects. However, as soon as it hits, Uematsu hits him RIGHT IN THE SIDE OF THE HEAD with a missile dropkick from the top rope as he’s going for the cover. It has surprisingly little effect, and AKIRA is a lariat war with Shoji seconds later. The women go at it as well, with Lin hitting a high cross and a handspring elbow on Toshie, though she misses her 619. Uematsu blocks the throat thrust and catches Lin in an Oklahoma roll, but Bairon kicks out and dropkicks the veteran joshi wrestler in the knee. A nice looking dragon screw and a figure four leglock follow. Shoji tries to break the hold up, but AKIRA dispatches him with a dropkick and a pescado.

In an unusual spot, while Toshie is still in the hold, she starts untying Lin’s boot. Eventually Uematsu makes the ropes, but Lin immediately pops up and starts stomping a mudhole in her opponent’s bad wheel. However, when she tries to fix her footwear, Toshie uses the distraction to grab a schoolboy and pick up the three count for her team.

Match Thoughts: After a series of SMASH shows where seemingly nothing outside of the top two matches got to run over seven minutes, it was a welcome change to the second change on the card getting slightly over ten. With that being said, it wasn’t exactly the best ten-plush minute match that I’ve seen in recent memory. It wasn’t bad in the sense that stuff was getting botched left and right or that the wrestlers’ timing was off . . . it just felt like everybody involved was trying to wrestle his or her own match as opposed to doing something cohesive. Part of that was because of differences in styles, and part of it was because they tried to insert several comedic spots into the match that didn’t quite fit because of where they landed. Even the finish came off as a bit of a joke when I have a feeling that it was supposed to be more Eddy Guerrero-esque cheating to win. **

Match Numero Tres: Valentine vs. Hajime Ohara

This is the latest in a series of matches for Ohara against the Finnish talent that has invaded SMASH, and, unfortunately for him, he has failed in every outing against the Fins. Meanwhile, Valentine is coming off an unconscionable victory over Akira Shoji on the last show. Even with the language barrier, it’s pretty clear from the pre-match video package that they’re trying to go with a storyline in which Ohara is losing confidence in himself due to the large number of losses that he has suffered since SMASH began, not just to the FCF contingent but to others as well.
For what it’s worth, the angle seems to be working, as the fans are chanting for him heavily as the match begins.

It’s a flurry of forearms from both wrestlers as the opening bell rings, with Valentine winning and then focusing on Ohara’s neck, which would have been injured in his last SMASH match after taking Starbuck’s piledriver. The Fin chokes away and hits a vertical suplex for two, though he runs into a tilt-a-whirl backbreaker when he hits the ropes. Hajime follows up with an axe bomber and a single leg dropkick for two. Valentine starts to come back with some more forearms and a running kneelift in the corner, followed immediately with a bulldog. That earns him a nearfall. Now we’ve got the falling inverted DDT (think Christian) from Valentine, but it also cannot put Ohara away. After he kicks out of that pin attempt, Hajime does catch his man with a Skayde-esque wacky cradle, but it can’t end the match for him. Valentine responds with a lungblower and sets up for the Tomikaze, but Ohara blocks it and reverses into a big Argentine backreaker. Ohara shows a good deal of babyface fire – smartly pausing in the middle of it to sell his neck – and applies Konnan’s old Tequila Sunrise submission hold to force Valentine to tap out. Thank god.

Match Thoughts: To say that Valentine is my least favorite wrestler that has regularly been a part of these SMASH shows would almost be an understatement. If there was a level below “least favorite,” he’d probably be there. He just strikes me as a guy who got into wrestling, learned some very limited basics, and otherwise decided that he was going to get by doing a bunch of big moves that he saw WWE wrestlers performing. Ohara, who I have seen in some great tag and singles matches over the years, was severely limited by his opponent’s capabilities, though at least he got the victory here instead of becoming the second SMASH wrestler in a row to get jobbed out to a guy who shouldn’t even be lacing their boots. 1/2*

Naito climbs up on to the top rope as he enters the ring but that’s a mistake, as KUSHIDA dropkicks him off and then follows him to the floor with a tope con hilo. The SMASH wrestler puts the boots to his opponent in between the ropes and grabs an armbar. KUSHIDA eventually transitions that hold into the Cattle Mutilation, but Naito won’t submit, so KUSHIDA goes back to the basic armbar. Once he does, Testsuya makes the ropes to force a break. Tajiri’s protege immediately goes back after Naito’s arm, but he misses a charge in the corner and Naito decides that he’s finally going to take off the t-shirt he wore to the ring, using it to choke KUSHIDA and to throw him out of the ring. Naito continues his brutal assault on the floor, wrapping a folding chair around KUSHIDA’s neck and using it to choke him further. The indy wrestler is also posted just before Naito rolls back into the ring to break the referee’s count. Back on the inside, Naito applies a chinlock and then a Full Nelson Mandela. (That’s a full nelson applied with the legs, a name I shamelessly stole from PWG’s Excalibur.)

With KUSHIDA worn down, Naito measures him and hits a FAT rolling senton off of the ropes and a Rude Awakening for two. KUSHIDA slaps the mat to rally his fans as Naito goes to a rear chinlock. KUSHIDA starts the stereotypical babyface comeback but gets cut off by a series of forearms to the back from Naito. Tetsuya looks for more offense, but KUSHIDA, out of nowhere, manages to ram his head into the turnbuckles to set up a second rope missile dropkick. A series of forearms follows, but Naito blocks the last in the set and goes to the eyes. He charges in for more, but KUSHIDA blocks and hits a slingshot tomahawk chop (no foolin’) to set up a standing moonsault press for a nearfall. Now KUSHIDA unloads with the US-style ten punches in the corner and a double knee strike against the opposite buckles, all leading to a trip to the top rope. A high cross from KUSHIDA gets him two once more, and here we go with more forearms. KUSHIDA takes the unusual tactic of alternating forearms from his left and his right before capping things off with a roaring elbow. Then, in another unusual spot for the company, a KUSHIDA axe bomber inadvertently wipes out the referee. With the official down, KUSHIDA hits a floatover DDT that SPIKES Naito down headfirst into almost a headstand position, followed by his moonsault press finisher. Of course, when he goes for the cover, there is nobody to count.

KUSHIDA tries to revive the referee and goes for another cover, but he takes too long and Naito manages to kick out. The ref is still down, so Tetsuya tries to take advantage by kicking KUSHIDA south of the border and going for a cradle. However, the SMASH wrestler manages to get out of that pin attempt before the three count can be logged. All three men in the ring are down now, and all three return to a vertical base at roughly the same time. Though it originally appears that Naito is in the best shape KUSHIDA hits him with a couple of thigh kicks and sets up for another rolling elbow, though Naito avoids it and grabs a cradle for two. KUSHDIA responds with two close rollup attempts of his own but gets hit with a forearm and a German from the New Japan Wrestler. KUSHIDA is out of that at two as well, both to my surprise and the surprise of Tetsuya Naito. A full body slam sets up a trip to the top for the NO LIMIT member, and, seconds later, he comes off with a corkscrew moonsault that does earn him the three count.

Match Thoughts: Now this is the sort of KUSHIDA match that I’ve missed on the last couple of SMASH shows, when he’s either been taking a backseat in tag team matches or trying to wrestle a style that isn’t entirely becoming of him in deathmatches. This was solid, straight up junior heavyweight puroresu. Though it wouldn’t rank up there with the best matches of the Super J Cup or the Best of the Super Juniors, it was a highly entertaining bout which did a great job of showcasing why Naito is one of the guys that NJPW will probably be building around within five years and why KUSHIDA, though he’s not quite at the same level, will probably be considered a top notch independent wrestler within the same time period. The two complemented each other perfectly, and, though I probably could have done without the ref bump and related tomfoolery, the fact of the matter is that it happens so rarely in Japan that I can accept it much better here than I could in the United States, where the same trick has become much more of a crutch. Two big thumbs up to both wrestlers involved. ***1/4

Match Numero Cinco: Scotty II Hottie & TAKA Michinoku vs. Eugene & Shuri

There’s a video package before the match focusing on Shuri, and, though it contains highlights from her first match against Kana in which she was victorious, it doesn’t at all refer to the second match in the series between the two where Kana utterly destroyed her. Go figure. Anyway, we eventually join the match, and Eugene asks Shuri for a kiss at the start, but she politely refuses. What she doesn’t refuse is starting the match for her team, going up against TAKA Michinoku. TAKA grabs an armbar and takes her down with a headlock, but Shuri does the old standard headscissors reversal and Michinoku pops out. Shuri stays on him with a single leg takedown and a toehold, though TAKA uses his free leg to roll through and into a side headlock. Some clunky counter wrestling leads into a TAKA snap mare, though Shuri evades any further offense and kicks her man in the back. Eugene gets a blind tag as Shuri runs the ropes, and there is some comedy as both Eugene and TAKA do drop downs for the female wrestler to jump over, culminating in a spot in which Michinoku catches Shuri with a drop toehold that sends her head slamming down into her prone partner’s crotch.

Eugene sells the low blow and Shuri begs for forgiveness as Scotty tags in. Despite being sorry for the crotch shot, Shuri will still not given Eugene the requested kiss. Scotty looks like he has absolutely no clue to make of what is going on in front of him. They do the bit in which Scotty asks for a test of strength but keeps switching hands on poor Eugene, leaving him frazzled and frustrated. The spot gets a surprising level of applause once it concludes. Rather than doing more comedy, Eugene decides to just kick his opponent in the gut and starts unloading with tomahawk chops. Mr. II Hotty responds with right hands but has his Irish whip reversed. He catches the ropes to prevent any offense by Eugene and starts stomping on the feet of the special people’s champion. That sets up a tag to TAKA, who goes for a full body slam but can’t quite get his larger opponent up.

Eugene gets some strikes in because of TAKA’s poor choice and makes a tag to Shuri. She hits a corner kneestrike on the Kaientai Dojo boss and struggles to get him up for a vertical suplex. TAKA blocks it for some time and punches her in the ribs, though she blocks his suplex attempt and reverses into her own version of the move. Here comes Eugene again, and he covers for two before applying the abdominal stretch. He tags in Shuri while applying the hold and shows her where she should punch TAKA. She does so, but Michinoku goes to the woman’s eyes in a bit that gets a big round of heat from the crowd. Shuri is quick to receive her comeuppance with a series of kicks that take TAKA down, followed by a big jumping knee that gets her two. There’s another tag to Eugene, but he runs into TAKA’s boot and gets hit with a leg lariat to set up a tag to Scotty II Hotty. The former Too Cool member cleans Eugene’s clock with some short clotheslines and a DDT, but Shuri makes the save when he goes for the cover. TAKA runs in to cut her off, and Michinoku and Scotty fail when they go for a battering ram spot, with their opponents shoving them off and into each other.

However, Eugene and Shuri also fail miserably at double teaming, resulting in Shuri clocking her partner for the second time in the match. Scotty takes advantage and throws Shuri into Eugene’s midsection like a dart, then setting up for the Worm. Before he can even start dancing, Shuri runs in and begs for him to stop, at first playing the defenseless damsel role but then catching the American wrestler offguard with the same high kick to the head that she used to beat Kana. From there, Eugene cradles Scotty in order to get the three count for his team. After the bell, Eugene still won’t leave Shuri alone about kissing him, so she kicks him in the side of the head as well, giving Scotty an opening to hit the Worm and give the crowd what they came to see out of him.

Match Thoughts: Though there were some decently athletic spots peppered in from bell-to-bell, this was essentially a very long comedy match. However, all four individuals involved are so talented that it was a GOOD comedy match, the sort of thing that you wouldn’t feel at all offended by if you plunked down your hard-earned forty bucks and then saw it high on the card at a WWE live event. In particular I enjoyed the fact that the more experienced wrestlers took Shuri and worked her into the match as a key component instead of simply leaving her on the sidelines and treating her as somebody who was there because she was forced upon them. The young woman more than held her own in the role as well, looking good as a serious werestler when that was what she was called upon to do and also playing her role well in the not-so-serious hijynx. A fun match, if not one that was a technical masterpiece. **1/2

Match Numero Seis: Tajiri (c) vs. Starbuck for the FCF Heavyweight Championship

The pre-match hype video seems to indicate that Tajiri is headed into the match with at least one if not two bad knees, so we’ll see if that winds up playing into the match at all. Also prior to the match, we have the playing of both the Japanese and Finnish national anthems, which I always like in international matches, as it adds somewhat the atmosphere. For the record, as an impartial American, I have to give the victory to Japan in the “better song” contest.

After the bell rings, there’s a decently long staredown from across the ring, ,with the wrestlers eventually meeting in the middle and entering into a feeling out process. It’s a collar-and-elbow tie up to kick us off and Starbuck succeeds in maneuvering Tajiri up against the ropes. He offers a clean break. Lockup number two produces the same result. Starbuck grabs a headlock off of lockup number three and works it on the mat for a bit. Tajiri manages to regain a vertical base, but Starbuck takes him down with a single leg. In an interesting spot, the challenger at first acts as though he is going to put on a leglock but relents at the last minute and allows Tajiri to get back up to his feet, perhaps not wanting to go after the Buzzsaw’s bad wheel so that there are no excuses for Tajiri if the championship changes hands. Starbuck does stay on his man with a snap mare takedown and a surfboard style submission, but Tajiri gets up to his feet and backs Starbuck back into the corner to force a break. This break is not the clean one that we saw earlier in the match out of Starbuck, though. Instead, Tajiri takes one step out of the corner but then rears back and catches his opponent in the face with an elbow smash, setting up a barrage of strikes from the bookerman.

From there, he whips Starbuck into the ropes and lowers his head for a back body drop, but the Fin sees it coming and drops an elbow across the back of Tajiri’s head. The Perfect neck snap and a cravate follow for the challenger. The cravate turns into a rear chinlock, which Tajiri ultimately elbows his way out of. The men begin running the ropes with drop downs and leapfrogs, and, on one drop down, Tajiri grabs his opponent’s leg and takes him down into a pinning combination for two. A second cradle gets him the same result, but Starbuck blocks his attempt at a suplex and hits a slingshot suplex a la Tully Blanchard. Tajiri sells it as though the collision with the ropes halfway through the move resulted in some impact on his bad knee. Starbuck follows up with an interesting diving bulldog and a fistdrop before signalling for the piledriver. Tajiri is able to block it this time around and picks his opponent’s ankle to put him in an Oklahoma roll for two. Tajiri hits the ropes now and hits a big kick, but he misses the Buzzsaw and gets dropkicked in the face by Starbuck. The Fight Club Finland rep signals for the piledriver once more, and this time he hits it. He goes for the same one finger pin that he used to put away Hajime Ohara on the last show, and, in a bit of a surprise, Tajiri does not kick out of the minimal cover. Starbuck is, for the fourth time, the FCF Champion.

While Starbuck celebrates with his new championship belt, Hajime Ohara appears and begins to help Tajiri to his feet. However the SMASH wrestler immediately takes Tajiri right back down with a big forearm. The rest of the SMASH regulars surround the ring, presumably to come after Ohara, but Starbuck stands in front of him and they think twice.

Match Thoughts: This was definitely not your traditional, Japanese-style main event title match. On the last show, we saw that SMASH intends to buildup Starbuck as a nigh-unstoppable monster of a man, and that run continued here. Because of the character that they are attempting to give him, even if Starbuck were a world class professional wrestler on Tajiri’s level, he wouldn’t exactly have the opportunity to showcase it. Instead, he’s a bit restrained in doing your standard “monster” spots and keeping his selling to a bare minimum. With that being said, even though that character limits the match somewhat, I will say that Starbuck is very good at getting it across and still has a hugely intense aura about him as he comes down to the ring and wrestles. At the end of the day, though, this still felt like the continuation of a storyline and not a main event level title change that should’ve felt like something more. *3/4

Overall

On this card, SMASH regained a little bit of the charm that I felt was missing from the last couple of shows. Though the star ratings reveal that this wasn’t exactly an all time classic wrestling card, the fact remains that the wrestlers involved on the show all know how to have a good time and get that across to the audience even when they are not necessarily trying to bust their humps in the toughest matches possible from an athletic standpoint. It is that atmosphere of “fun” combined with wrestlers that I am not going to see anywhere else and unique matchups that has kept me coming back to SMASH and will keep me coming back for a while to come. With the exception of the debut, this was probably the most enjoyable of the SMASH shows to date and one that you should check out if you are at all interested in the promotion.

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