Into the Indies 11.02.10: Before & After III

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Into the Indies, the column that commutes.

Last week here in I2I, we wrapped up an entire month dedicated to the Japanese independent promotion SMASH. This week, we bid farewell to that group and move back to our regular rotation, focusing on wrestlers and wrestling promotions on the independent level from across the world, though mostly from the Land of the Rising Sun. After focusing on one company for so long, I decided to bring things back this week with a format that would allow us to get a look at a variety of wrestlers and a variety of wrestling styles from not just different countries but also different eras. Yes, that’s right, I’m brushing the dust off of I2I BEFORE AND AFTER~!

For those of you who missed our prior two installments of I2I Before and After, the concept grew out of the fact that one of my favorite facets of international independent wrestling is that there are numerous matches from two distinct yet very fun-to-watch groups. On one hand, there are tons of wrestlers appearing for these independent groups who haven’t yet made it big and will later become stars. They’re the youngster who are hungry and trying to break out. On the other hand, there are also several men and women wrestling in these companies who are coming off of a run with a much larger promotion. They’re the veterans who still have plenty to offer even though they’re no longer with the big leagues. It’s an unusual blend of people before they’ve become stars and after they’ve hit their peak – hence “Before and After.”

The first edition of I2I Before and After brought us action from Bryan Danielson before he landed in either WWE or ROH as well as men like Bob Backlund and the Iron Sheik traveling to Japan well after their WWF World Title reigns. That column can be read here. The second edition of I2I Before and After picked up right where the first one left off, giving us rarely seen matches from a pre-ECW Sabu and an older Fuerza Guerrera before wrapping up with tag team partners Chris Jericho and Lance Storm doing battle in a match from Japan’s WAR promotion. You can check out that article here.

This week, we have what is perhaps my favorite lineup of Before & After matchups to date, featuring no fewer than three current WWE stars and two current TNA stars in addition to many men who are former top stars now headed Into the Indies.

Let’s take a look!

Match Numero Uno: TAKA Michinoku, Men’s Teioh, & Dick Togo vs. Kota Ibushi, Makoto Oishi, & Shiroi Asahi (Kaientai Dojo 11/14/2009)

As noted above, this match comes to us from Kaientai Dojo, which, as you might guess from the name, is one of the current projects of TAKA Michinoku. TAKA is a regular wrestler for the group, which mainly features men he has trained. Here, Michinoku teams up with Dick Togo and Men’s Teioh, two wrestlers who, fifteen years ago, were his partners in one of the hottest stables in all of professional wrestling, Kaientai DX. Of coures, KDX would go on to have a run in the World Wrestling Federation during the early days of the Attitude Era, with TAKA staying on until roughly 2001. Here the reuniting teammates are faced with an interesting trio. DDT wrestler Kota Ibushi, who many American readers will remember from his appearances with Ring of Honor and EVOLVE, is paired with Oishi and Asahi, both of whom are trainees of the K-Dojo. Let’s see what the teacher and his former running buddies can do against the students and their ace in the hole.

We are joined in progress with Asahi, Teioh, and Togo in the ring, and Men’s and Dick immediately hit him with the camel clutch/dropkick combination that Kaientai popularized. TAKA joins his partners afterwards and they bust out another great old KDX spot, as all three men hold Asahi in a denigrating position and pose victoriously. The young wrestler is then whipped into the corner for a series of attacks by his opponents and pulled off the turnbuckles by a big double overhead beal from Togo and Teioh. TAKA tags in at this point, and Asahi starts to come back on him with some forearms. Asahi blocks some eye pokes and hits THE COBRA~!, which leads to he and Oishi doing a dance around the ring based on the hold. Ibushi eventually joins them, but it’s not long before TAKA tires of this B.S. and goes back on the offensive. He is quickly cut off by Oishi, who remains in as the legal man for his team and applies a leglock. I should note that Oishi appears to have stolen his gear from Tatanka. He runs into a couple of boots from Michinoku in the corner, which gives us a tag to Big Dick. He runs wild on all of his opponents and tosses Ibushi from the ring before leveling Oishi with a spinebuster and pedigreeing Asahi on to his partner. In an even more embarrassing spot, Togo puts Oishi into the crossface while Asahi is still laying on Oishi’s back.

Oishi recovers surprisingly quickly and forearms away on Togo before tagging out again to Asahi. Teioh checks in for KDX and takes everyone out with backdrops and a standing spinebuster on Oishi. He looks for his nodawa bomb finisher on Asahi but the younger wrestler blocks it and gets numerous cradles and backslides for two counts. This whole thing is moving insanely quickly as Teioh gets his own backslide and then a blue thunder bomb. Asahi responds with an enzuguiri and a tag to Ibushi who runs all around the ring to confuse Teioh before hitting a high cross onto the other KDX members and finally taking out Men’s with a missile dropkick. Teioh is out of the subsequent pin attempt at two, setting up a forearm/kick battle between the two and ultimately a tag to TAKA. He looks for the crossface on Ibushi, but Kota avoids it. TAKA dodges a standing moonsault and now gets the crossface. The other four wrestlers run into the ring, setting up a spot where Kaientai trips their opponents in STEREO TRIPLE SUBMISSIONS~!

When those break up, Teioh manages to hit the nodawa bomb on Asahi, and Togo goes up to the top rope, presumably trying to finish with his big senton. Ibushi prevents that from happening, though, leaping through the air and hitting a Pele kick on Dick as he stands on the second rope. Kota goes after TAKA as well, this time hitting the standing moonsault for a two count. A German for the DDT representative also gets a two count, and here come Asahi and Oishi. They hit a SWEET lionsault/double stomp combination, but there are too many Kaientai members in the ring for that to end the match. Ibushi takes Togo and Teioh out of the ring with a DOUBLE PELE KICK and then wipes them out with a top rope Asai moonsault. That leaves Oishi and TAKA alone in the ring, and the student gets two on the teacher with a standing spinebuster. Asahi and Oishi team up for a combination Code Green/monkey flip on their trainer, but Dick Togo runs in for the save. Kaientai DX hits the ring at full force to soften up the Kaientai Dojo members, and that leads into the Michinoku Driver #2 on Asahi, which picks up the three count for TAKA.

Match Thoughts: I have to say that I really enjoyed this one. Speaking objectively, if there were wrestlers other than Kaientai in the ring, I would probably criticize it for there being a few too many highspots stacked one right on top of the other with no time really being allotted for selling and with little build in terms of simpler spots leading to the more and more complex spots. However, the spots that we did see were all executed flawlessly, and, perhaps more important to my enjoyment of the match, there was a nice healthy dose of nostalgia. A reunion of these men isn’t something that we get every day, so it was great to see them working as a well-oiled unit once more, and their three opponents were more than adequate bases for them to play off of, with Ibushi and his eye-popping offense in particular being a great way to put a modern twist on the KDX matches of old. ***

Match Numero Dos: Samoa Joe vs. TAKA Michinoku (ZERO1, 07/30/2002)

Speaking of TAKA, here he is again! In this match for Pro Wrestling Zero-1, he is roughly a year after his WWE tenure, and he’s going up against none another than SAMOA JOE~! At this point in time, most of Joe’s notoriety came from his participation in Rick Bassman’s Ultimate Pro Wrestling group out of Southern California, as both TNA and Ring of Honor, the two promotions with which he is most closely associated these days, were only months old and had not yet shown any interest in him.

TAKA asks for a test of strength early, which isn’t quite as ridiculous as it might sound on paper because Joe is significantly smaller here than he would be for even his Ring of Honor debut a year later. Michinoku bails from the ring and stalls when Joe kicks his hand away, and he asks for a handshake when he returns to the squared circle. TAKA flips Joe off before he can accept and chops away, though they have no effect on the Samoan. Of course, Michinoku takes a bump off of one chop from Joe, though TAKA isn’t completely lost and catches his man off guard with a throat thrust and a kick to the face. TAKA hits the ropes and runs straight into an overhead belly-to-belly, and now the Japanese wrestler is brutalized with chops in the corner and a big kneedrop. That one gets us a two count. A basement dropkick to TAKA’s back sets up the STF from Joe, but it’s applied very close to the ropes so an escape is easy. Joe goes into the full nelson of all moves after that which TAKA elbows his way out of en route to hitting an enzuguiri and applying the crossface. Joe stands up out of the hold easily and absolutely FLINGS Michinoku across the ring with a release German for two. Now Joe applies a crossface of his own, but TAKA again makes the ropes. Joe goes to the full nelson once more, this time turning it into an attempt at a German after a while. TAKA avoids the move and lands on his feet, then reversing a Joe powerbomb into a cradle for the surprise three count! Joe is pissed and goes after TAKA after the bell, choking him out.

Match Thoughts: This was a relatively short match and there were a few decent spots, but, on the whole, I wasn’t all that impressed. The big glitch in my mind was that they were trying to put across a storyline in which Joe was this absolute monster and TAKA was fighting underneath in order to beat him, but, with the exception of the German suplex spot where Michinoku was nearly thrown straight out of his boots, they weren’t able to make me buy it. A lot of that has to do with the fact that TAKA was much larger here than he has been at a lot of other points during his career and Joe was much smaller here than he has been at a lot of other points in his career. Granted, they’re both world class performers, so nothing they do against one another is going to be godawful, but there was something lacking in terms of the in-match storyline. **

Match Numero Tres: Sabu vs. Kintaro Kanemura vs. The One Man Gang (FMW, 11/20/1998)

Now this is an unusual little matchup. It comes to his from Frontier Martial Arts Wrestling, the Atsushi Onita-founded promotion which rose from lowly independent to a group that, by the late 1990’s, was arguably the third most popular wrestling promotion in all of Japan. Sabu was an FMW regular before he broke out in the United States, and he had an opportunity to continue to appear for the promotion after he debuted with ECW, as ECW and FMW had a healthy working relationship for some time. (This makes good deal of sense, because many people claim that it is FMW’s hardcore wrestling and more “adult” format which inspired many of the creative decisions that Heyman made for ECW.) Kanemura, who bounced around between many different “hardcore” promotions in the late 1990’s, was also an FMW fixture by this point. What really makes this match interesting is the third man in the ring, none other than the One Man Gang. Gang, after being a top heel in the 1980’s for Bill Watts’ Mid-South organization and later transitioning into the World Wrestling Federation, also had a run in 1995 and 1996 with the Hulk Hogan-controlled WCW. He didn’t have that many high profile wrestling appearances thereafter, with this being one of his last.

All three men are brawling in the crowd at the start of the match, with Sabu eventually breaking away from the Gang and Kanemura and springboarding off of the top rope with a plancha onto both of his opponents. When we clip ahead a little bit, Kanemura and Sabu hit a double dropkick on OMG as he is seated in the very same chair, and, before long, Gang is choking Kanemura with a chain. He also gets the other end of the weapon around Sabu’s throat for a bit. Sabu looks to respond with Air Sabu in the corner, but he misses and hits Kanemura. He follows up with a springboard moonsault on Kintaro, but it can only get a two count. OMG rushes in and tries a variety of pinning combinations on his two opponents none of which are successful. More clipping sees Sabu and Kanemura kick a chair into the Gang’s face before they dogpile on him with a sunset flip in order to get the three count. It’s an elimination match, so Kanemura and Sabu continue. We fast forward a bit more, and now the two wrestlers are fighting on the apron with a table set up at ringside. Kanemura is the one who winds up taking the big bump, eating a Flair beal off of the apron and through the wood. Another clip sees us back in the ring where Sabu is wacking a bloody Kanemura over the head with the table’s remnants. W*ING responds with a whirlybird slam and goes to the top rope to hit a big senton splash for a nearfall.

Kanemura goes back to the floor once more, and before long, the wrestlers are both throwing chairs into the ring. Clipping head, Sabu gives Kanemura a top rope rana onto a pile of seats before landing his triple jump moonsault. It only gets a two count. Back on the outside, Sabu throws a table at Kanemura’s head and then lays him out on it. The table breaks before Sabu can actually do anything, but Sabu goes back to the ring and legdrops him through it anyway. Eh, why not? Back in the ring Sabu gets a two count. Both men grab chairs and begin dueling with them. Kanemura appears to be the winner at first as he knocks away Sabu’s chair first, but Sabu catches him in a drop toe hold that sends W*ING crashing down onto the furniture. From there Sabu goes up to the top with a piece of table, hitting a variation on the Arabian facebuster to pick up the victory.

Match Thoughts: This wasn’t any good. Granted, they got him out of there early, but the Gang did not look to be in very good shape. He was always a large man, but, for the first five or so years of his career, he was remarkably agile, and even in his last national run in WCW he was a good, solid hand. Here, thanks in part to his lack of real gear and thanks in part to his shape, he looked more like a fan than a guy who should’ve been in the ring with Sabu in the late 1990’s. As far as Kanemura and Sabu’s interaction was concerned, it was fairly cut up and therefore harder to really evaluate, but, based on what was seen, it appeared to be every match that the two have ever had against one another with a bunch of spots that every upper card FMW wrestler was doing around this time. No rating due to the editing, but it’s not worth your time.

Match Numero Cuatro: Drew Galloway vs. Sheamus O’ Shaunessy in a No DQ Match (Real Quality Wrestling, 06/16/2007)

Now here’s an interesting matchup for current WWE fans. Drew Galloway, as you might expect, is the current Drew McIntyre, and Sheamus O’ Shaunessy is, of course, former WWE Champion Sheamus. These two wrestlers both had several years of experience wrestling for independent groups all across Europe before signing their WWE developmental contracts, which might explain why they were so comfortable being part of the big leagues as soon as they made their television debuts, whereas other wrestlers who have been trained from the ground up by WWE developmental have faltered. The promotion that the match comes to us from, Real Quality Wrestling, was based out of the UK and only existed for a brief period of time, though I recall it being heavily praised while it existed, primarily due to its stronger-than-average production values for an indy group and its television spot on the now-defunct Wrestling Channel.

Sheamus comes to the ring with AN AXE of all things, and he immediately takes some swings with it when the bell rings. Drew avoids them and starts running around ringside, but Sheamus takes him down with a series of lariats when McIntyre is lured back into the squared circle. Drew is bealed out of the corner and hit with a back body drop en route to Sheamus setting up a Polish hammer. McIntyre bails again, this time for more of a breather, but Sheamus runs up on him from behind and blasts him with a forearm. The Scot responds with one of his own, and the wrestlers begin ambling about ringside periodically hitting one another with forearms and chops. Eventually Sheamus posts his opponent and chokes him with a steel chair. Things go back to the ring, where Drew hits a knee to the gut and a stun gun before gesturing to his crotch. A swinging neckbreaker from McIntyre connects for two, and Sheamus starts firing back with shots to the gut. However, it’s not long before McIntyre gets the better of him the corner and hits a cool spot in which he uses a variation on the Rude Awakening to drop the back of Sheamus’ neck across the top rope. He follows up with a hangman’s legdrop as the Irishman’s head lays on the ring apron.

Sheamus responds in perhaps the only way he can, with a shot to his opponent’s crotch. Though McIntyre sells it, he maintains the advantage by working the neck over some more by hitting a forearm and stretching Sheamus out over the top rope. O’ Shaunessy does work his way back and hits ten punches in the corner, though McIntyre is back with another neckbreaker and a legdrop for a two count. After what appears to have been a commercial break in the original broadcast, Sheamus hits a series of headbutts and a clothesline to the back of his opponent’s head, followed up by a powerslam for a nearfall. Sheamus drops an elbow for another two count and afterwards clotheslines his man from the ring. Drew catches him offguard, though, once again snapping the future WWE Champion’s neck over the top rope. McIntyre follows up with a nice dropkick and grabs the axe from Sheamus’ entrance. Maintaining wrestling tradition when it comes to sharp objects, McIntyre hits Sheamus with the handle and not the blade, but Sheamus does still block a piledriver attempt and turns it into a back body drop. A vertical suplex from O’ Shaunessy gets two after that.

Now it’s McIntyre’s turn to hit a low blow, and that leads into a piledriver. Sheamus kicks out of the subsequent pin attempt at two despite the fact that the announcers try to put the move over as a career-ender. McIntyre goes after the referee giving Sheamus time to recover and hit a chokeslam for a two count. He looks for the same move once more, but Drew blocks it and hits a facebuster variation for a nearfall of his own. Drew gets the axe one more time and climbs up to the top rope with it, though Sheamus cuts him off and pulls the axe from his hands. Sheamus blasts his man with the handle a couple of times as he’s seated on the top rope, but McIntyre catches him off guard with a rollup and gets the three count with his feet on the ropes.

Match Thoughts: This was a very old school no disqualification match. Bouts with that stipulation in 2010 tend to run at a mile a minute with big bumps and/or weapon shots all over the place. This match, however, was out of a different era. It was essentially a regular professional wrestling match, with the exception of the fact that smaller rules regarding rope breaks and low blows were disregarded. Instead of weapons and big bumps being all over the place, the bout was built around two or three instances of each. Some younger fans who haven’t seen that much might regard such a match as boring, but I personally thought it was an interesting trip back in time which provided that these guys knew what they were doing in the ring as opposed to having to rely on gimmicks to do a longer match. Of course, they were younger and still a little bit rough around the edges, so this match probably would have been better in the current WWE environment. They definitely did well with what they were given and their talent levels at this stage, though. **1/2

Match Numero Cinco: Psicosis, Sabu, & Damien 666 vs. Rey Misterio, Jr., Halloween, & Solar (Unknown SoCal Indy, 09/30/1995)

And we close out Before and After III with some lucha libre action! As you might expect, there have been independent groups throughout southern California which have run lucha shows for many years. This match is from one of those shows, with five out of the six wrestlers involved later going on to appear for ECW, WCW, and/or WWE and the sixth wrestler, Solar, being a good hand who never made that same transition for whatever reason.

It’s a three-on-three brawl as soon as the bell rings, with the rudos (that’s Team Sabu) getting the early advantage. Sabu hits the first real highspot of the match by landing his slingshot legdrop on Misterio, who is then thrown out of the ring by Damien. Eventually Rey Rey is isolated by all three of the bad guys and beaten down, with Sabu giving him a slingshot kick to the face and a lionsault for a nearfall. Rey starts a comeback with a satellite rana and a dropkick that sends Sabu to the floor, leaving him open for a pescado from the future WWE Champion. Now Halloween and Damien hit the ring, with Halloween catching his future tag team partner with a second rope bulldog and a big kick to the mush. Solar and Sabu tag in at this point, with Sabu getting a few right hands in before hitting a moonsault that is assisted by Damien. The Human Highlight Reel cranks on a chinlock for a bit, but Solar rolls out of it and works an armbar. Sabu reverses into one of his own but Solar pops out and grabs a headscissors before going back to the armbar. Eventually the wrestlers get off the mat, with Sabu taking his opponent down with a clothesline and tagging out to Damien.

Damien also hits a clothesline on Solar but can’t maintain the momentum as the technico gets a back body drop and brings Halloween into the ring. Psicosis is in for the bad guys and Irish whips him into the buckle. He misses a spinning heel kick, though, giving Halloween time to lock on a submission while Rey gets a rana on Psicosis and Solar pins Damien with a powerbomb. For those of you who are not familiar with traditional lucha libre rules, the standard match is two out of three falls, so that means the bout will continue with a 1-0 advantage for the babyfaces.

Fall number two starts off with Sabu taking Solar off his feet with a clothesline and then out of the ring with a headscissors. The ECW wrestler looks for a moonsault to the floor as well. It misses, but he appears to have landed on his feet. Meanwhile, back on the inside, Damien has grabbed a chair, and he buries it into Solar’s gut before setting up Air Sabu on him in the corner. Psicosis hits his own corner attack off of the chair as well, but Damien’s attempt misses and the good guys take control for a bit. Halloween slams Damien but is almost immediately taken out by a spinning kick from Psicosis. Rey runs in and gives Psicosis a rana, leading to the two of them brawling on the ring apron. That builds to an INSANE spot where Misterio basically gives Psicosis a version of a monkey flip that sends him flying up off the apron and down onto the ring post. Ouch. Rey sets his sites on Damien and gives him a rana as well, followed by one for Sabu. All of the rudos are on the floor now, as Rey tags out to Solar. Solar, proving to not be too effective of a partner, is immediately dropkicked by Psicosis so that the rudos can take over on him. Damien’s chair is reintroduced into the match, and Solar eats a rocker dropper onto the weapon before submitting to Sabu’s camel clutch. The teams are now tied at two falls apiece.

The bad guys beat down all three good guys as fall three begins and then celebrate. When things calm down, Psicosis slams Solar in the corner and hits a Vader bomb. Damien follows up with a slingshot senton and Sabu helps out with his own version of the same move for a two count. A split-legged moonsault from Sabu also connects, again for two. With athleticism not working, the bad guys just start choking and stomping away at Solar en route to Psicosis hitting a dropkick. He got too close to the good guys’ side of the ring, though, as Rey is able to pull Solar out and get a little bit of offense in on Psicosis. The horned wrestler is introduced to several of the turnbuckles as well as a spinning kick by Misterio, while Halloween also checks in and slams Damien. A cactus clothesline from the holiday-inspired wrestler connects, and now we’ve got Sabu and Rey Misterio Jr. in the ring. Sabu shoots for a leg and takes his opponent down before putting the boots to him. A split-legged moonsault misses and Rey responds with a lionsault for two. Unfortunately for the little bugger, Sabu moves out of the way when he tries for a Stinger splash and tags out to Psicosis. He looks for a powerbomb, but Rey reverses it into a rana for two and trades off to Halloween.

Halloween rallies the crowd and goes after Damien who begs off at first but suddenly hits a low blow out of nowhere. Halloween recovers quickly and hits a dropkick, but he fails to avoid a rana from Sabu and gets dumped on the floor as a result. Amid more brawling on the floor, Sabu and Psicosis pull a table to ringside and lay Halloween out on it, setting up a legdrop through the table by the Arabian madman. Back on the inside, Psicosis misses a charge in the corner directed at Rey, so Misterio tosses him out of the ring and hits a BIG tope con hilo. However, immediately afterwards in a very weird spot, Damien botches a moonsault onto Solar. Ninety percent of Damien’s body hit the mat before any part of him touched Solar, and even then it was only his shins. However, presumably because that was the planned finish, Damien still gets the three count and the match comes to an end. Sabu and Psicosis start flipping out and throwing chairs around, and I’m not sure whether they were pissed off by the bad looking finish or whether they intended to do that regardless.

Match Thoughts: That was a baaaaad finish. Sometimes when you see a conclusion which is that off, it’s hard to remember anything else about the match positive or negative, and that’s exactly what happened to me here. If I go out of my way to try to recall things, they come to me, but by far the dominant memory of the match was that ending. As far as the rest of the match is concerned, it was fairly standard lucha libre fare for the evening. There were some spots which took a ton of acrobatic skill to pull off, but this particular style was still evolving, so they weren’t quite as fluid or linked together as well as they would later become. You can’t really fault the wrestlers for that, but you can fault at least one of them for THAT finish . . . which I still can’t get out of my head no matter how hard I try. *

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