Puroresu Show Reviews

Big Japan’s big year end Yokohama show. Kicks off with a video package highlighting the main event as Abdullah Kobayashi will challenge Ryuji Ito for the Big Japan Death Match Title.

Katsumasa Inoue & Hiroyuki Kondo VS Hyoma & MIYAWAKI
Pretty obvious that even though both Inoue & Kondo are being pushed as the future stars of the company, but Inoue is getting the bigger push and looks to be deserving it since he shows more skill and personality, knowing how to play to the crowd. Joined in progress but still looked pretty good if not a little one sided at times. I still think Hyoma deserves a bigger push rather than just being the resident job boy of the company despite his great look. There was a really cool double team spot where Inoue gave Hyoma a tiger suplex off the top off Kondo’s shoulders while Kondo gave MIYAWAKI a piledriver at the same time! Great opener for the show overall.
Match Rating: *

Team Apache Pro (Kintaro Kanemura, Tetsuhiro Kuroda, Bad Boy Hido & Subaro Inematsu) VS Team Baka Gaijin (Mad Man Pondo, MASADA, Jason Ray & Mad Dog)
Pondo showed a more fun side to himself as he came out as Mad Man Santa! And he actually distributed gifts like toys and teddy bears to the kids in the crowd!
There was a lot going on in this one to keep up with, but I thought it was a crime to not have Kuroda do next to anything in this one! It’s a travesty that they didn’t give Kuroda something to do in the match other than the Tenchan-Cutter but give some one like Hidoh and even a no name hack like Inematsu more to do. Heck, they build up Inematsu to be a unstoppable superman here as he got his head carved by Pondo’s knife, superbombed by the Baka-Gaijin team, smacked in the head with various weapons, and even had Pondo senton a chair on his head, but still managed to come back and win the match with next to no help! Seriously, I wouldn’t mind if it was Hido who did all that since at least he’s more regular in Big Japan and a bigger name even overall.
Match Rating: **

Scramble Bunk House Death Match: “Kokutenshi” Jaki Numazawa VS Takashi Sasaki
Premise of the Scramble Bunk House Death Match is that there is a shark cage in the ring full of weapons in one corner, with the key hanging on a pole in the other corner to open the cage. Both men start off on the entrance stage and scramble to get to the ring first after a 10 count.
Numazawa doesn’t wait for the 10 count, and immediately tries to take off Sasaki’s head with a CHAINSAW! The match itself was loads of fun as can be expected when you’ve got hardcore maniac Numazawa and the very Tajiri-like Sasaki involved. Sasaki got busted open when Numazawa carved his head with a HACKSAW! Heck, Numzawa even carved Sasaki’s head with a trophy and a seat cushion!
The match also featured two insane spots, one where Numazawa gave Sasaki a hurricanrana off the top of the shark cage onto a ladder (big time OUCH! moment!), and another where Sasaki gave Numzawa a superplex off the shark cage! Numazawa even brought out a HUGE light tube structure (complete with Christmas décor) that was eventually used against him.
Not really as ultra-violent as Numazawa/Kasai or Ito/Sasaki, but still a whole lotta fun to watch.
Match Rating: ***1/2

I guess the whole Inematsu push starts to make sense as he confronts Sasaki after the match, something to do with Sasaki not backing up the Apache Pro team or something. Hey, Saburo, if Sasaki was in that match, you probably wouldn’t be on the card at all, so be thankful you ungrateful SOB.

Shadow WX & Mammoth Sasaki VS MEN’S Teioh & Daisuke Sekimoto
It’s not as if he’s not over enough, but they still continue to shove Sekimoto down our throats every chance they get. In this case they took Teioh out early with a busted knee so Sekimoto had to carry most of the rest of it taking a beating from his super-heavyweight tandem of Shadow and Mammoth. Sekimoto still has one of the best German-suplexes I’ve ever seen, but he can get pretty boring at times as the only other move he has is a lariat.
Sasaki is good at playing the big power monster role, but despite being the business for 6 years now, he still looks rather green and needs to be carried either by his partner or his opponent.
I really would have preferred if they didn’t go with the “Teioh busts his knee, so Sekimoto carries most of the match” route as I really would like to see more of him when he doesn’t have to put his tag partners over. With a bad knee all he could do was cobra-twists and spinning elbow shots. There wasn’t much for Shadow to do either as it was mostly about trying to get Sasaki over.
Match Rating: *1/2

Post match, Sasaki issues a challenge to Sekimoto for his tag titles. Would make more sense if he actually won the match though.

BJW Death Match Title – Scaffold Death Match:
Ryuji Ito © VS Abdullah Kobayashi
You had to know that when your wrestling on a scaffold structure that’s only about 3 feet wide that you’ll be very limited to what you can do. So needless to say they managed to get off the structure rather quickly (by Ito tossing Kobayashi down to the ring!) and most of it thereafter was a bloody in ring war full of broken glass and spilled blood everywhere!
Of course the scaffold played a big factor for some big spots, like Ito doing an insane dive out of the ring to put Kobayashi through a table, Kobayashi giving Ito a dangerous Samoan drop off the scaffold to the ring far below, and a wild Dragon Splash by Ito off the scaffold.
There were also a lot of broken glass due to the excessive use of light tubes, and if you ever doubt the tubes are just gimmick tubes, Ito actually brought out a bundle of them that were actually plugged in and switched on before Kobayashi broke it over his head with a head butt!
Despite all the blood and carnage, they even managed to pull off a few wrestling moves, like a chain of suplexes from Kobayashi, and Ito even doing a northern lights suplex on the scaffold. Overall, I don’t think it was as good as Ito/Sasaki or Numazawa/Kasai from earlier in the year, but still really good and brutal what these guys are willing to put their bodies through.
Match Rating: ****

Overall: Big Japan end the year with a bang as pulled off a great show that sent the fans home really happy, they were even cheering the boss who was doing commentary, and the main event even moved him to tears! The only small complaint I think I would have is if they cut out the Taniguchi tag match with Benkei in it. Still, definately a show worth checking out.

Labels: BJW