wrestling / Columns

Into the Indies 07.26.11: Most Unusual Matches III

July 26, 2011 | Posted by Ryan Byers

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Into the Indies. Anybody heard any good jokes lately?

This week, we’re revisiting a concept that we’ve not hit for a while in I2I. Last year, I wrote two columns that were compilations of the most unusual international independent matches that I could find. Volume I contained a man wrestling an octopus, Necro Butcher vs. an MMA fighter, and perhaps history’s only exploding barbed wire match featuring mini wrestlers. Volume II contained Takeshi Morishima doing lucha, a soccer game breaking out in a wrestling match, and Chris Masters fighting a kick boxer.

Now it’s time for five more unusual matches to be profiled, featuring competitors from Japan, the United States, Germany, France . . . and Syria? While the past installments of our Most Unusual Matches series have included some oddball gimmick matches, Volume III focuses more on unique pairings of wrestlers in straight singles matches, no gimmicks necessary.

With that said, let’s see what came out of my archive this time around.

Atsushi Onita vs. The Sheik in a barbed wire deathmatch (FMW, 05/02/1992)

Atsushi Onita in an FMW barbed wire deathmatch isn’t unusual. In fact, I’d call it common. What makes this match unusual is Onita’s opponent, the legendary, original Sheik. Sheik was known during his heyday in the 1960’s and the 1970’s for participating in brawls that were violent for the era, but he wouldn’t have been involved in anything quite as brutal as Japanese deathmatches would have been in the 1990’s. Adding a layer of intrigue is the fact that Sheik was SIXTY-SIX years old at the time of this battle. Granted, I2I has already taken a look at a seventy-six year old man in a singles main event, but that’s still nothing compared to a barbed wire match.

We start with some hyjinx as Sheik makes his entrance, with his nephew Sabu (acting as Sheik’s corner man) throwing his uncle’s trademark prayer rug into the ring and Onita immediately throwing it back out. Sheik tries to slip a table into the ring under the bottom strand of barbed wire, but Onita hercs it up over his head and throws it back out. We clip ahead, and everything we see seems to indicate that the match is focused on the wrestlers taking turns hitting one another with the Sheik’s infamous spike. Both guys are a bloody mess, especially Sheik, whose forehead looked so tender when he was making is entrance that a strong wind probably could have caused it to bust open. Eventually the Sheik goes on the offensive and spikes the referee, allowing Sabu an opportunity to get involved. He starts ripping down barbed wire from the side of the ring, and he and Sheik – along with an intervening HORCE HOGAN – wrap Onita up in the stuff. It looks like they’re going to do some bad things to the FMW founder given the barbs that he’s covered in, but the plan backfires as Onita starts to use his barbed wire covered body as a battering ram, knocking down Sabu and Horace. He then places Sheik into a half Boston crab hold (while still wrapped in barbed wire), and the old man taps out. Sabu and Hogan try to resume their assault after the bell, but Onita runs them off with the barbed wire battering ram tactic again.

Match Thoughts: There was a lot of editing in the version of the match that I wound up with, so it’s hard to say whether it was any good . . . though I’m guessing it wasn’t given the limitations of the match type and of the Sheik. However, it was interesting bout to watch just because of the generational clash between Onita and the Sheik. From what we could see, it appeared that the wrestlers, with a little bit of help from Sabu on the outside, were able to give the audience what they wanted. They compensated for what could have been with a lousy match with a memorable post-show angle, as the visual of Onita being covered from head to toe in a web of barbed wire and using his entire body as a weapon is an unforgettable one that will never be forgotten by those who have seen it.

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Keizo Matsuda (IWA Japan, 10/15/2004)

This match caught my attention because of the disparity in star power. Most people reading this know Toshiaki Kawada, one of the biggest stars in professional wrestling history and an absolute legend in All Japan rings. By the end of 2004, though, his run as a full-time member of the AJPW roster was coming to an end and he was taking a variety of bookings with other companies. Thus, we get this match, with Keizo Matsuda. Who is Keizo Matsuda, you ask? Matsuda was essentially the ace of IWA Japan, a company that was a major player for a year or so in the 1990’s but, ever since, has primarily just been a vanity promotion funded by a wealthy restaurateur who is a huge wrestling fan. Basically, it’s one of the lowest tier indies you can find. So, here you have Toshiaki Kawada, one of the biggest names of all time, being convinced to work for IWA Japan against its “top guy,” the ultimate big fish in a small pond, as if the two were equals. Now that’s wacky.

There’s a handshake before the bell, after which Matsuda tries to rally the crowd in his favor. We get a shoulderblock sequence early, with Matsuda taking Kawada down off his third block after absorbing a big kick from Toshiaki. Then we move on to forearm and chop exchanges, where Kawada gets the upper hand to the surprise of nobody. Matsuda’s attempts at forearms seemingly have no effect, whereas Kawada knocks his opponent down twice with the fairly basic strikes. Kawada gets him down again off of a series of kicks to the chest, followed by a few to the face and head as Matsuda lays on the mat. An armbar and a back kick quickly take Matsuda down again, and now the wrestlers head out to brawl amongst the audience. Keizo eats another big kick there, and he’s kicked across the back of the head as he stands on the apron trying to reenter the ring. From there, Kawada blasts him with a big boot that sends him flying off the apron and into the first row. Matsuda tries to get back into the ring again, so Kawada knocks him off again with the exact same spot.

Eventually Matsuda does succeed in reentering the squared circle, but he still can’t get the upper hand on the former Triple Crown champ, as Kawada cuts off a flurry of Matsuda chops with a leg sweep. Kawada goes into the sequence in which he holds his opponent’s arm and continually pulls him off the mat only to chop him down again, which ultimately gets a two count. Matsuda goes right back to forearms when he returns to a vertical base. Dude, give it up. A running Yakuza kick in the corner appears to murder Matsuda, and Kawada looks for a brainbuster. Matsuda surprisingly manages to block it, and he also manages to block another big boot attempt. Keizo sees his opponent and dropkicks Kawada’s knee, following it up with his own brainbuster. There’s a lariat from Matsuda, but it only gets two. His offensive run is briefly interrupted when he runs into Kawada’s boot a couple of times, but Keizo keeps his wits about him and comes back with a lariat, followed by another brainbuster. Kawada then finds himself in a German suplex, but it only gets two. He tries a second, but Kawada breaks free and lands an enzuguiri. Kawada sets up for the Burning Hammer, but Matsuda turns it into a cradle for two. Kawada is not pleased, so he levels Matsuda with a lariat and powerbombs him, thought Matsuda gets out of it at two. He doesn’t get out of the pin attempt that follows Kawada’s next enzuguiri, though.

Match Thoughts: As I noted in the intro, there was a disparity in star power here. Given the disparity in star power, the way that the match was structured was just weird. You probably weren’t going to get Kawada to agree to do a match where he was booked dead even with a guy like Matsuda, and, even if you could, the fans probably wouldn’t have bought it. As such, the thing to do probably would have been to have a match where Matsuda is wrestling from underneath as an underdog and keeps kicking out and coming back, only to eventually be caught by Kawada and pinned. In some ways, it appeared that they tried to do that match, but Matsuda went too long in the early going without getting any offense, and his limited comebacks in the later stages of the match lacked fire and didn’t quite go on for long enough. It wasn’t a bad match in that a lot of stuff was botched or that the offense was boring, but it got dull as it was just a one-sided beating for too long. **

Great Sasuke vs. Akebono (Michinoku Pro, 09/11/2007)

And here’s another interesting mismatch, though it’s a mismatch for a completely different reason. Great Sasuke grew his name and his reputation on having some of the most memorable junior heavyweight matches of the 1990’s. Here, instead of wrestling another junior heavyweight, he’s wrestling a SUPER heavyweight, the 400+ pound former sumo Akebono.

Sasuke’s initial strategy is trying to kick the legs out from underneath the massive Akebono, but that doesn’t get him anywhere as the big guy grabs Sasuke’s leg off of one of the kicks and drops an elbow across it. The masked man immediately rolls out of the ring and to the floor, selling the injury big. Eventually Sasuke rolls underneath the ring and pops out on the other side, catching ‘Bono off guard and dropkicking him in the back a couple of times. This sends Akebono to the floor, and Sasuke follows, striking away at him with forearms and kicks out amongst the fans. Eventually one big open hand strike by Akebono puts him back in control, and he Irish whips Sasuke into the ring post. However, ‘Bono makes a rookie mistake when he blindly charges at Sasuke, who moves and causes the former sumo to strike the pole. With Akebono rocked on the floor, Sasuke goes back into the ring and ascends the ropes, coming off with a HUGE missile dropkick to the floor, splatting down on to his back. Akebono sells it but doesn’t leave his feet, which is pretty damn impressive even for a “worked” kick.

Not having taken the big guy down, Sasuke goes back to the top rope as quickly as he can, this time flinging himself off with an attempt at a swanton on to a standing Akebono. Unfortunately for Sasuke, he launches himself a bit too far, and his upper back sort of grazes ‘Bono’s shoulder before Sasuke lands in a heap on the arena floor again. Did I mention there are no mats around the ring here? Akebono and Sasuke both get back into the ring after that spot, with Sasuke returning to big strikes. Akebono no-sells them all and easily shoves Sasuke away when he attempts a body slam. Sasuke stupidly attempts a German suplex. It fails as well, but the M-Pro boss is able to dropkick ‘Bono in the knee quickly after that. Sasuke goes to the top rope again, but Akebono cuts him off and follows him to the second rope. SECOND ROPE SAMOAN DROP BY AKEBONO. ‘Bono pulls down the strap on his singlet, splashes Sasuke, and that’s all she wrote.

Match Thoughts: Now this was an underdog match that actually worked pretty well, unlike the prior bout. Sasuke was the underdog visually but was actually on the offensive for the majority of the match, largely based on his experience and employing a high risk, hit-and-run strategy which realistically came off as something that could have allowed a guy like Sasuke to win a fight against a guy like ‘Bono. It made him credible and it made him look like a legitimate tough guy even if he was going to wind up losing. The match didn’t go horribly long (more should it have, really) and Akebono didn’t do a lot, so I can’t go too high on the rating, but it was very entertaining for what we got. ***

Naoya Ogawa vs. Goldberg (HUSTLE, 01/04/2004)

We used to review HUSTLE fairly often in the early going of this column, but we’ve never really gone back to the company’s early days. Well, here we are with the first ever HUSTLE main event. At the time, the company was trying to peg itself as a serious (although somewhat Americanized) professional wrestling company in Japan as opposed to the wacky, over the top “Fighting Opera” that it would later become. To that end, here they decided to book Bill Goldberg in a key position. Oddly enough, Goldberg was in the middle of his WWE run here, with the match being booked because, prior to signing with WWE, he had worked out a deal with HUSTLE’s parent company, Dream Stage Entertainment. His opponent, Ogawa, was for a brief time one of the biggest stars in all of Japanese sports, winning a silver medal in judo in the 1992 Olympics before becoming a top MMA star in the PRIDE organization. Basically, we’ve got Japan’s real MMA star against America’s fake MMA star.

Thanks to the entrance ramp being level with the ring, the two wrestlers have a stare down before Goldberg even sets foot in the squared circle. When they go face-to-face in the ring, they start trading short headbutts. As soon as the bell sounds, Ogawa takes Goldberg back into the corner with some knees and slaps him across the face before giving a break. Goldberg takes his man down with a short clothesline after that and grabs him by the throat to set up a military press, dropped into an over-the-shoulder slam. Ogawa looks like he landed badly on his leg off of that one. The Japanese wrestler rolls to the outside for a breather, and Goldberg gives him the time he wants to cool off. On Ogawa returning to the ring, the wrestlers lock up for the first time in the match, with Goldberg getting in some knees and going to his rolling kneebar. Ogawa manages to counter and applies a leg submission of his own, though Goldberg’s arms are free, so he’s able to drag himself across the ring and earn a break by draping the back of his head over the bottom rope.

Ogawa goes in to some US-style heel antics at this point, standing on Goldberg’s chest as he leans up against the ropes. Going back to clean tactics, Ogawa lands a couple of judo throws and looks for an opening to apply some sort of choke or submission, ultimately settling on a cross arm breaker attempt. Goldberg prevents the hold from ever being applied but focuses so much on the armbar attempt that Ogawa is eventually able to grab one of his legs and go back to the knee bar. The two wrestlers begin slapping each other in the face while the former WCW Champion is in the hold, and eventually one particularly strong Goldberg shot loosens Ogawa’s grip to the point that Goldberg is able to reverse the leg hold and turn it into a half Boston crab. Ogawa military crawls his way into a rope break and, as soon as the wrestlers return to a vertical base, he gets two big kicks to the chest. Goldberg is not phased, though, shoving his opponent away. Ogawa goes right back to him, connecting with, of all wrestling moves, A MONKEY FLIP. I’m not even kidding. Goldberg responds with what was probably supposed to be a big slam but looks more like a glorified hiptoss.

Goldie tries to follow it up with a backdrop suplex, but Ogawa fights out and flattens Goldberg with a backdrop of his own. Ogawa follows up by shooting Goldberg off of the ropes and placing him in a sleeper hold, but Goldberg has the presence of mind to charge backwards and run him into the turnbuckles. With the men in the corner, the referee tries to break the hold, but he gets too close to the action and is knocked out. With the ref down, Goldberg eventually throws Ogawa off of his back and connects with his spear, but there’s nobody to count when the American covers. After attempting to revive the ref, Goldberg sets up for a second spear, but Ogawa rolls out of the way and hits the SPACE . . . TORNADO . . . OGAWA! He’s in such bad shape that he can’t go for the cover at all. Both wrestlers get back to their feet at roughly the same time, and a second STO connects. The official is still down. Ogawa tries to revive him, and, when he realizes it will be fruitless, picks up Goldberg for more offense.

Goldberg collapses in a heap. Ogawa picks him up again, but Goldberg collapses again, this time into a kneeling position. Ogawa gets ready to run the ropes but is tripped by an unseen figure from the outside. The cameras pan over to alert us that the attacker is GIANT SILVA. Yes, from the Parade of Human Oddities. Silva paint brushes Ogawa, and, when he returns to his feet, Ogawa falls victim to another spear and the jackhammer. The referee is still out at first when Goldberg covers, so Bill pulls him over and prompts him to count. The ref obliges, and Bill Goldberg gets his pinfall.

Match Thoughts: This wasn’t that great. Goldberg had a couple of good longer matches during his career, but, by and large, he was lost when something had to go beyond the five minute mark. Ogawa, though very charismatic in his own right and a huge star, also didn’t have a lot of professional wrestling experience at this point and certainly wasn’t in a position to be carrying Goldberg. The result was a pretty clunky match that couldn’t really decide whether it was going to be an American style pro wrestling match, a worked MMA fight, or something completely different. This is in no way worth making an extraordinary effort to see. *

Otto Wanz vs. Andre the Giant (CWA, 1986)

Otto Wanz is a name that I’ve heard a lot as a wrestling fan, though I don’t think that I’ve ever seen him compete prior to watching this match. He’s best known as being the promoter of the CWA in Germany and Austria, which was the biggest promotion in mainland Europe for quite some time. Of course, he booked himself as its top star, including this 1986 match against Andre the Giant, shortly before Andre would have turned heel in the WWF and worked the biggest match of his career against Hulk Hogan.

As is the case with most CWA matches, this is being contested under the round system, with rounds lasting roughly five minutes each from what I can tell. The wrestlers enter into a collar-and-elbow tie up to start the match, and Andre manages to shove Wanz back into the ropes for a break. Lockup number two sees Andre going behind for a version of the Million Dollar Dream, and Otto tries to power out of it but just can’t get the job done, ultimately having to grab the top rope with his free hand in order to escape the hold. Andre goes into an armbar after that, and he keeps the hold on for literally MINUTES until the first round of the match ends. Andre tries to go back to the arm when the match resumes, but Wanz pops him with his good arm and follows up with several strikes. Andre responds in kind, and the German wrestler winds up taking a bump off of one of the Giant’s headbutts. Otto is not deterred, though, and he goes right back at Andre with a couple of more shots before he succeeds in shoving – yes shoving – Andre out of the ring and down to the arena floor. For some reason, while he’s there, the Giant has a tantrum which involves him ripping off part of the ring apron. There’s a lot of stalling before Andre finally does get back into the ring, largely based on Wanz indicating that he will deck Andre before he has a chance to get all of the way through the ropes. When Andre finally does get all of the way through the ropes, he catches Otto in the corner and hits him with the famous butt-butt. However, it doesn’t have that much of an effect on Wanz, who quickly maneuvers Andre over to the ropes and traps the Giant’s arms between the first and second strands. While there, Wanz gets in a couple of shots, but the referee is largely successful in keeping the wrestlers separate as he tries to free Andre. He is finally freed as round two comes to an end.

As we start round three, Andre applies a headlock. Wanz reverses it into a hammerlock of sorts, and the Giant is eventually forced down to one knee and finally down to his belly after yet more pressure is applied. Wanz struggles with the armbar to use it as a means to roll Andre over to his back for a pinning combination. However, the Giant expends significant effort in preventing that from happening. Wanz never succeeds, and, in fact, the Giant rolls through and tries to get his own pinning combination. It fails as well. With Wanz down, Andre tries to drop a headbutt on the CWA booker, but Otto rolls out of the way at the last second and the Giant’s head collides with the mat. From there, Wanz applies a hold of some kind that I can’t really identify due to bad camera work. It appears that both he and Andre are in the ropes, and the referee gives them far more time than a five count with which to have the hold broken. After that, it’s not too much longer before the bell rings to close round three. In a display of poor sportsmanship, Wanz attacks Andre before the break between rounds is even over, catching him off guard and pummeling him with forearms before choking him over the top rope. The downed Giant is resourceful, though, managing to pick Wanz’s ankle out from underneath him and move into a leg scissors. Wanz tries to escape the hold by pulling Andre’s hair of all things. It doesn’t quite work, but it does distract Andre enough that Wanz is able to catch him in an armbar. Andre still has the leg scissors on but apparently isn’t applying that much pressure, though he goes right back to applying that pressure when he escapes the armbar. From the leg scissors, Andre moves into what I guess I can best describe as a proto-ankle lock, which is only broken by time running out in round four.

Here comes round five. Wanz scores with forearms early but Andre cuts his offense off with a single big chop to the chest, sending the German crashing down to the mat. Andre’s headbutts do the same after Wanz returns to his feet. From there, the Giant applies the always exciting trapezius pinch. Wanz slips out of it with relative ease and shoves Andre up against the ropes, which for some reason doesn’t really bother the referee this time around. Otto eventually breaks, which he probably shouldn’t have done, because as soon as he does Andre drops him with another big forearm and sits on him as hard as he can. Otto is selling it big time and rolls out to the arena floor for a breather. When the action resumes, Andre gets a bearhug for a little bit, but Wanz is quick to slip out of it and apply a front facelock. Otto goes to an armbar, but time expires in round five. I thought there would only be five rounds, but, apparently, we go to a sixth. Andre knocks Wanz down again with a massive chop and shoots him into the ropes for an attempt at a big boot. However, Otto hooks the ropes to avoid the kick and comes in with a huge forearm shiver. At that point, Wanz SLAMS ANDRE THE GIANT. He follows with a rolling senton but can’t get a three count. Wanz comes off the ropes for another attempt at offense (perhaps a splash), but the Giant puts his leg up and Otto eats it right in the mush. Seconds later, Andre has splashed Wanz, and that’s enough to earn a three count for the Eighth Wonder of the World.

Match Thoughts: This was bad. Just bad. Part of it was probably the fact that I’ve not seen that many matches contested under the round system and that, as a result, I’ve never really been able to get into them. However, another, bigger part of it is that most of it just consisted of the two guys, neither of whom were athletic dynamos at this point, putting simple, loose holds on one another and laying there for extended periods of time. There were occasional highspots with the wrestlers going out of the ring, chops, or the big slam at the end, but none of them were exciting enough that they made up for the dull stuff in between. They also seemed to be positioned oddly, inserted at random points in the match as opposed to there being any real up and down. If you’re somebody who wants to document all of the times that Andre was slammed before Hulk Hogan did it and claimed to be the first person ever to accomplish the feat, watch the last two minutes of this match. Anybody else can skip the whole damn thing. DUD

Cheap Plug!size=4>

Do you like joshi puroresu? Do you like SHIMMER? If you’re reading this column, chances are that you answered “yes” to at least one of those questions. If you answered “yes” to at least one of those questions, chances are probably also good that you’d be interested in some merchandise related to Hiroyo Matsumoto, one of the brightest young stars in joshi and a former SHIMMER Tag Team Champion.

Well, you’re in luck! Artist and joshi enthusiast shupercousin has obtain from Matsumoto and her booking office S-Ovation the rights to produce and market a Hiroyo Matsumoto t-shirt to the English speaking world, with all proceeds going back to Hiroyo. It looks a little something like this: