Puroresu Show Reviews

At the time, this was Osaka Pro’s biggest show to date at the Namihaya Dome. Looks impressive from the outside, but once we get inside it turns into a bit of a very indy looking place. No wonder I hadn’t heard of any other promotion running shows there. And it just screams indy show when all the floor seats are just that, FLOOR SEATS! No chairs for the fans at ringside! And I noticed a lot of open space they could easily have used to fill in with more fans. Weird it is, but this show should be judged on the quality of the matches and not the venue, so here we go:

World’s No.1 Title
Ebessan VS Kuishinbo Kamen
They played a FIFTEEN MINUTE build-up video showing how this feud all got started, and needless to say it was pretty funny. Unfortunately, the match itself was a bit of a disappointment. Maybe they were trying to be more serious due to the storyline involved, but this could be considered a disappointment when compared to the fun stunts they would pull off later down the line.
Match Rating: **
Entertainment Rating: OK

Dynamite Kansai VS Chikako Shiratori
Shiratori’s CMLL Japan women’s title wasn’t on the line here, which was lucky because she totally got squashed by the bigger and more powerful veteran Kansai. I haven’t seen a good joshi match in awhile, and this wasn’t it.
Match Rating: *

Kaiju Zeta Mandora & Monster King Mandora VS Ultra Ace & Ultra Monkey
I’m guessing this was suppose to be some kind of comedy match as they also had a pretty good buildup video before the match started. But the match itself was really hard for me to watch, probably due to all the over the top gimmicks in the match.
Match Rating: *1/2

Black Buffalo, Daio QUALLT & Police~man VS Yoshihito Sugimoto, Tsubusa & Super Demekin
Finally! A good match! Dick Togo’s heel faction, Legion of Violence (L.O.V) take on Super Delphin’s JUSTICE group. This match seemed to push Super Demekin to the moon as he carried most of the match for his team. Still, this was pretty enjoyable to watch.
Match Rating: ***

Different Style Match
Naohiro Hoshikawa VS Takehiro Murahama
Hoshikawa’s shooter style against Murahama’s kickboxing style, set for five three minute rounds with a three knockdown/takedown rule. I still wonder if this was a legit shoot as Hoshikawa actually hit a beautiful German suplex when Murahama had his back turned. Was OK overall though.
Match Rating: **

Osaka Pro Championship Title Match
Dick Togo VS Super Delphin
The only other good match on the show. Togo is fresh off his return from the WWF and has an annoying manager here. This match was to decide the first OPro world champion, so you can pretty much predict who was gonna win. Still, a solid match to end a mostly drab show.
Match Rating: ***

Overall: This would be the first Osaka Pro show that I could probably rate as just OK, with nothing really outstanding. It runs three hours long, but about an hour of it was for all the buildup videos they used and let’s not forget the ring entrances. Thankfully, Osaka Pro would get much better than this down the road.

Labels: Osaka Pro