Puroresu Show Reviews
Reviews of puroresu shows in my collectionThursday, September 14, 2006
HUSTLE-AID 2006 ~ SAVE THE WORLD BY HUSTLING 6/17/2006
The big Hustle show that almost didn’t happen due to DSE losing it’s TV deal, but was able to go on as a PPV.
They actually kick off the show with a video promo for the next Hustle House Show, which will be a Shinya Hashimoto tribute show by the looks of it. Back live to the arena and they run down the card for tonight’s big show.
We than get a GREAT opening video of the show, showing the history of the promotion and all it’s ups and downs for both the Hustle and Monster armies, leading up to this big night.
RGM comes out and does his usual boring banter, saying something about the recent DSE scandal that was in the papers, than a Generalissimo Takada imposter comes out and says a few words before dropping the red Takada uniform to reveal a PRIDE FC shirt. He enters the ring and says a few things of the recent scandal. He than says something about the puroresu love, which brings out “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa, and the rest of the Hustle Army to welcome the crowd and kick off the show with a song and dance number much like the Hustle-Mania show last year. They sing the official Hustle-Aid song and throw some gift-balls out into the audience to officially kick off the show.
Next up we get a video montage of the rivalry between the Hustle Kamens and the Monster Kamens. This is the long awaited rematch between the two teams, as the Monster Kamens won the rather dominantly the first time out, and this is the Hustlers chance at revenge, with each team debuting a new member.
First Hustle: Monster Kamen Black, White, Purple & Brown VS Hustle Kamen Red, Blue, Yellow & Orange
The usual great fast paced spot fest we’ve come to expect from the Hustle Rangers. The Monster Kamens were dominant for most of the match, much like their last encounter, but fan favorite Hustle Yellow was able to turn the tide after getting the hot tag. Both teams pulled off some fun quadruple team moves, but there was some really bad camera work when the Hustle Rangers did a four man aerial assault out of the ring onto the Monsters, as they missed two of the dives. The Rangers are finally able to avenge their loss after Hustle Kamen Red pinned Monster Kamen Purple with a shooting star press, after Hustle Kamen Yellow hit a frog splash and after Orange & Blue gave him a doomsday missile dropkick! Great stuff to kick off the show.
Match Rating: **1/2
Back in team Hustle’s dressing room, and Ogawa & Ohtani are guarding their Hustle Egg and at the same time discussing if TAJIRI can get the job done. They get an intern to keep an eye on the egg while they go check on TAJIRI.
Video package next for the upcoming Hustle Super Tag Titles match, billed as a battle of the sexes instigated by Wataru Sakata with he pissed of Erica, to which she and Margaret reminded him and everyone else why exactly the two of them also happen to be the biggest and toughest women in joshi puroresu today when they attacked his bad leg (given to him by multiple attacks from the Takada Monster Army) at Hustle House Vol. 16.
Second Hustle – Hustle Super Tag Titles Match: Wataru Sakata & Ryouji Sai (C) VS Erica & Margaret
Rather funny start to this one as the Hustle ring announcer continued to casually do the ring introductions while Sakata attacked both tag challengers!
Once you get past the comedic antics, you’ll notice how both teams are really stiffing each other here! I’m not sure how bad Sakata’s knee is, but it looked like it was really giving him trouble here and affecting his mobility. But he could still throw chops like no one’s business, and once he got fired up enough, he even powerbombed Erica onto Margaret! Sai did a lot of the work for his team due to Sakata’s injury, and he’s definitely a trooper for taking a double stink-face from both of the large ladies!
I think it was only disappointing that we didn’t see more of Margaret in the match, as she mostly only did comedy spots. The main focus of the match was between Erica & Sakata, and just when Sakata thought he had things going his way, he gets tripped by Margaret and Erica pulls out a rolling leg-lock for the shocker submission win!
Sakata is more or less humbled after the loss, and gives the two ladies their props. And a bit of a funny scene after when they can’t wear the belts around their rather wide-waists!
Hate to say it, but a fun match like this is how you mix the sport with the entertainment!
Match Rating: ***
Video package of Carolyn “Caiya” Kawasaki and how she got involved in Hustle; apparently she was a huge WWE fan and was really interested to work Hustle after watching stage actor Motoya Izumi take part in the Hustle-Mania show last year. So that lead to her actually getting into Hustle and training with Naoya Ogawa to develop her finishers: The Caiya Bomber, The Caiya Clutch and the Space Tornado Caiya. But she has a tough task ahead of her as the Takada Monster Army decided to throw their biggest gun at her for her debut: Giant Silva!
Third Hustle: “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa & “Fighting Santa Maria” Caiya VS Giant Silva & Giant Vabo
They call her the “Fighting Santa Maria”, I’d call her the “Hustle MILF” (I’m not responsible for what might turn up should you search out it’s meaning on the internet!)!
To get under her skin, An Jo wheels out Caiya’s car to the arena, then Vabo & Silva promptly bust it up with a pair of sledge hammers! The tactic works as Caiya can’t wait to get her hands on Silva now!
Despite all the hype, Caiya really came off as ordinary and really couldn’t do anything to hurt either of the two giants! And I’d say that’s a good thing as it seems they can play her up as the rookie just getting her start in the business. She really didn’t get to do anything other than throw a few weak punches, and a dive off the top even resulted in her getting caught in mid-air by Silva to be saved by Ogawa hitting an STO to take down the giant with Caiya on top for a near fall! Most of the match was worked by Ogawa & Vabo, probably a good thing, but I enjoyed watching Silva playing the old-school giant role. And Silva ended up scoring the win for his team with the Giant Press on Caiya.
The match wasn’t anything special, but there was a ton of heat for Caiya as the crowd were really behind her.
Match Rating: *
After the intermission, Izumi Motoya comes out to cut a promo, something to do with training the crowd in how to do the Hustle pose in theater dramatic fashion. Waste of time since I had no idea what was going on. He takes a seat at the VIP ringside area after.
Back in the Hustle locker room and one of Takada’s right hand men sneaks in and tries to steal the Hustle Egg from the intern. The intern manages to trap him in a triangle choke, but he sprays him with something that puts him to sleep and manages to run off with the egg!
Next up we get a video package of Team 3D’s rampage through Hustle, and how they plan on continuing kicking ass and putting people through tables tonight.
Fourth Hustle: Team 3D (Bubba Ray, D-Von & Spike) VS Kintaro Kanemura, Masato Tanaka & Tomoaki Honma
Except for the one bit where they all brawled out into the arena and there was too many things to follow at once, this match was a TON of FUN! The match did seem a bit one sided, but I guess that really didn’t matter since the were SUPER OVER with the Japanese crowd!
You had all the usual garbage spots with chairs, ladders, tables and barb-wire bats, and Bubba Ray probably became the first person to take a cheese grater to the groin! Bubba was rather vocal throughtout the whole match actually. D-Von showed great mobility for his size and it was great seeing Spike in a position where he’s not the smallest guy getting tossed around all the time. The announcers even acknowledged Spike’s finisher as the Acid Drop!
The Japanese Hardcore Dream Team (Kanemura – W*ING, Honma – BJW & Tanaka – FMW) had a good showing too, despite some uneasiness between Tanaka & Honma not getting along. Kanemura bladed and bumped his ass off for the Americans, Tanaka looked like the only one that could go toe-to-toe with them, and Honma looked great in there as well, despite dropping the fall after taking 3D.
Just a whole lot of fun from start to finish and probably the best match of the night up to this point.
Match Rating: ***1/2
Post match, Team 3D do the ultimate bit of fan service when they brought in a kid from the crowd, gave him a Team 3D T-shirt, as well as a piece of table from the match and autographed it too! Everyone obviously had a whole lot of fun in this one.
Video package next of the arrival of New Yin Ling-sama, and how she took down HG at Hustle-16, leading to her unleashing Sodom & Gomorrah on HG for Hustle-Aid, and HG is without a tag partner since Ogawa teamed with Caiya earlier and Ohtani & TAJIRI already have a match later as well, so HG looked outside and brought in All Japan Triple Crown Champion Satoshi Kojima!
Fifth Hustle: Sodom & Gomorrah VS HG & Satoshi Kojima
You got to wonder why the heck when WWE had him, all they could do with Matt Morgan was give him a dumb stuttering gimmick and end up releasing him cause they didn’t have anything for him, where as he goes to Japan and Hustle gives a pair of leather pants and some face paint and he instantly becomes a monster?
Now the match itself was seriously a ton of fun from start to finish also, and HG has improved his ring work considerably since the last time I saw him. His movements and timing were all spot on this time around, and the crowd cheered for everything he did.
It was weird when the one missed spot of the match actually came from Kojima when he lost his footing and slipped off the top rope while going for his elbow drop! He managed to rebound from it though, and he also gave a great showing like the Triple Crown champion he is.
Fun finish of the match was HG hit a diving body press after Kojima dropped Gomorrah with the lariat to pick up the win. HG just needs to work on his stamina I think as Kojima worked most of the match and seemed to hardly break a sweat, whereas HG was rather run down for the short sprints he did. Short match, but a ton of fun.
Match Rating: ***
Quick video package looking back at the debut of New Yin-sama, followed by how TAJIRI has been getting under her skin in recent weeks, first by trying to hit on her only to spray the green mist in her face, and than making fun of her mask and promising to unmask her at Hustle-Aid tonight!
Back in the Takada Monster Army lair and Monster-K is warming up for his big match tonight when Yin Ling steps in and wishes him good luck. The Takada Monster Army lackey then runs in to inform them that Sodom & Gomorrah were defeated by HG & Kojima, he rushes off to inform New Yin-Sama, who screams something at him off camera and begins whipping him as Kawada & Yin Ling look on before Kawada goes to fetch New Yin-sama for their main event match, which is next!
Main Hustle: “Monster-K” Toshiaki Kawada & New Yin-sama VS “Hustle Achichi” Shinjiro Ohtani & TAJIRI
This match was rather fun, but the one thing I didn’t like about it was TAJIRI playing more of a comedy role, resulting in him getting beat up more Kawada cause he kept getting distracted by wanting to get at New Yin-sama. And when Yin-sama was in there, she didn’t look half as good as when she made her return against HG at Hustle-16, resorting back to using her whip and weak kicks and just lacking the fire and intensity she had.
There were some good exchanges between Ohtani & Kawada at least, and the finishing sequence was rather cool as both TAJIRI & New Yin-sama received hot tags, and Yin-sama ducked a high kick from TAJIRI followed by TAJIRI ducking a whip slash from Yin, followed by Yin ducking a green mist attack by TAJIRI and TAJIRI ducking another whip slash from Yin before connecting with a low kick, dropping Yin to her knees and giving TAJIRI the opportunity to unmask her, revealing a huge scar on her face! Yin-sama was in shock leaving herself open to TAJIRI to quickly roll her up for the pin! Yin-sama is still in shock at being unmasked that she runs off screaming, covering her face.
The match wasn’t quite as good as I expected, but was OK for what they did.
Match Rating: *1/2
Ogawa & HG join Ohtani & TAJIRI in the ring as TAJIRI jokes about unmasking New Yin-sama. Yin Ling shows up on the monitor and says she herself was coming out for revenge for Yin-sama, but is stopped by Generalissimo Takada, who assures her he’ll handle it. He addresses the Hustle Army and brings out the Hustle Egg they stole earlier and infuse his Monster energy into it.
Back to arena and a giant egg is lowered from the ceiling as the Hustle Army looks on stunned. The egg lands on the entrance ramp and opens up revealing a hooded figure who slowly walks to the ring. TAJIRI is left alone in the ring as the figure reaches the ropes, and unmasks to reveal The Esperanza (Being played by Takada himself!)! He steps into the ring and we got us an impromptu match!
TAJIRI VS the Esperanza
Well, it’s not really a match as it was worse than a squash match even with both of them moving slower than slow motion. I really didn’t need to see TAJIRI whimper like a little girl when his kicks didn’t work and Esperanza’s were totally decimating him. Even the Tarantula had no effect and Esperanza won the match with a sick sounding kick right into TAJIRI’s head for the KO win.
Match Rating: DUD
Esperanza turns to leave, but Ogawa confronts him only to be blown away by an energy blast than sends Ogawa, HG & Ohtani flying! Paranaza walks off as the Hustle Army looks on in shock!
Generalissimo Takada than appears on the big screen and says they just had their asses whooped by the Esperanza! And he bad mouths them some more before signing off, leaving the Hustle Army in the ring to rethink their strategy to beat the Monster Army. HG is actually still cheerful and even calls out Esperanza, leading to the big finally of HG leading the Hustle Army and the live crowd in attendance in doing the 3-2-1 Hustle! Hustle! Fooo! pose to close out the show.
Overall: OK, I’ll admit the much anticipated return of Takada to the ring was a real big disappointment, but the overall show was a lot of fun and definitely worth checking out. Everyone was bummed by the attendance of this show, so you could probably guess how much better it would have been if they had actually advertised the in-ring return of Takada.
They actually kick off the show with a video promo for the next Hustle House Show, which will be a Shinya Hashimoto tribute show by the looks of it. Back live to the arena and they run down the card for tonight’s big show.
We than get a GREAT opening video of the show, showing the history of the promotion and all it’s ups and downs for both the Hustle and Monster armies, leading up to this big night.
RGM comes out and does his usual boring banter, saying something about the recent DSE scandal that was in the papers, than a Generalissimo Takada imposter comes out and says a few words before dropping the red Takada uniform to reveal a PRIDE FC shirt. He enters the ring and says a few things of the recent scandal. He than says something about the puroresu love, which brings out “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa, and the rest of the Hustle Army to welcome the crowd and kick off the show with a song and dance number much like the Hustle-Mania show last year. They sing the official Hustle-Aid song and throw some gift-balls out into the audience to officially kick off the show.
Next up we get a video montage of the rivalry between the Hustle Kamens and the Monster Kamens. This is the long awaited rematch between the two teams, as the Monster Kamens won the rather dominantly the first time out, and this is the Hustlers chance at revenge, with each team debuting a new member.
First Hustle: Monster Kamen Black, White, Purple & Brown VS Hustle Kamen Red, Blue, Yellow & Orange
The usual great fast paced spot fest we’ve come to expect from the Hustle Rangers. The Monster Kamens were dominant for most of the match, much like their last encounter, but fan favorite Hustle Yellow was able to turn the tide after getting the hot tag. Both teams pulled off some fun quadruple team moves, but there was some really bad camera work when the Hustle Rangers did a four man aerial assault out of the ring onto the Monsters, as they missed two of the dives. The Rangers are finally able to avenge their loss after Hustle Kamen Red pinned Monster Kamen Purple with a shooting star press, after Hustle Kamen Yellow hit a frog splash and after Orange & Blue gave him a doomsday missile dropkick! Great stuff to kick off the show.
Match Rating: **1/2
Back in team Hustle’s dressing room, and Ogawa & Ohtani are guarding their Hustle Egg and at the same time discussing if TAJIRI can get the job done. They get an intern to keep an eye on the egg while they go check on TAJIRI.
Video package next for the upcoming Hustle Super Tag Titles match, billed as a battle of the sexes instigated by Wataru Sakata with he pissed of Erica, to which she and Margaret reminded him and everyone else why exactly the two of them also happen to be the biggest and toughest women in joshi puroresu today when they attacked his bad leg (given to him by multiple attacks from the Takada Monster Army) at Hustle House Vol. 16.
Second Hustle – Hustle Super Tag Titles Match: Wataru Sakata & Ryouji Sai (C) VS Erica & Margaret
Rather funny start to this one as the Hustle ring announcer continued to casually do the ring introductions while Sakata attacked both tag challengers!
Once you get past the comedic antics, you’ll notice how both teams are really stiffing each other here! I’m not sure how bad Sakata’s knee is, but it looked like it was really giving him trouble here and affecting his mobility. But he could still throw chops like no one’s business, and once he got fired up enough, he even powerbombed Erica onto Margaret! Sai did a lot of the work for his team due to Sakata’s injury, and he’s definitely a trooper for taking a double stink-face from both of the large ladies!
I think it was only disappointing that we didn’t see more of Margaret in the match, as she mostly only did comedy spots. The main focus of the match was between Erica & Sakata, and just when Sakata thought he had things going his way, he gets tripped by Margaret and Erica pulls out a rolling leg-lock for the shocker submission win!
Sakata is more or less humbled after the loss, and gives the two ladies their props. And a bit of a funny scene after when they can’t wear the belts around their rather wide-waists!
Hate to say it, but a fun match like this is how you mix the sport with the entertainment!
Match Rating: ***
Video package of Carolyn “Caiya” Kawasaki and how she got involved in Hustle; apparently she was a huge WWE fan and was really interested to work Hustle after watching stage actor Motoya Izumi take part in the Hustle-Mania show last year. So that lead to her actually getting into Hustle and training with Naoya Ogawa to develop her finishers: The Caiya Bomber, The Caiya Clutch and the Space Tornado Caiya. But she has a tough task ahead of her as the Takada Monster Army decided to throw their biggest gun at her for her debut: Giant Silva!
Third Hustle: “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa & “Fighting Santa Maria” Caiya VS Giant Silva & Giant Vabo
They call her the “Fighting Santa Maria”, I’d call her the “Hustle MILF” (I’m not responsible for what might turn up should you search out it’s meaning on the internet!)!
To get under her skin, An Jo wheels out Caiya’s car to the arena, then Vabo & Silva promptly bust it up with a pair of sledge hammers! The tactic works as Caiya can’t wait to get her hands on Silva now!
Despite all the hype, Caiya really came off as ordinary and really couldn’t do anything to hurt either of the two giants! And I’d say that’s a good thing as it seems they can play her up as the rookie just getting her start in the business. She really didn’t get to do anything other than throw a few weak punches, and a dive off the top even resulted in her getting caught in mid-air by Silva to be saved by Ogawa hitting an STO to take down the giant with Caiya on top for a near fall! Most of the match was worked by Ogawa & Vabo, probably a good thing, but I enjoyed watching Silva playing the old-school giant role. And Silva ended up scoring the win for his team with the Giant Press on Caiya.
The match wasn’t anything special, but there was a ton of heat for Caiya as the crowd were really behind her.
Match Rating: *
After the intermission, Izumi Motoya comes out to cut a promo, something to do with training the crowd in how to do the Hustle pose in theater dramatic fashion. Waste of time since I had no idea what was going on. He takes a seat at the VIP ringside area after.
Back in the Hustle locker room and one of Takada’s right hand men sneaks in and tries to steal the Hustle Egg from the intern. The intern manages to trap him in a triangle choke, but he sprays him with something that puts him to sleep and manages to run off with the egg!
Next up we get a video package of Team 3D’s rampage through Hustle, and how they plan on continuing kicking ass and putting people through tables tonight.
Fourth Hustle: Team 3D (Bubba Ray, D-Von & Spike) VS Kintaro Kanemura, Masato Tanaka & Tomoaki Honma
Except for the one bit where they all brawled out into the arena and there was too many things to follow at once, this match was a TON of FUN! The match did seem a bit one sided, but I guess that really didn’t matter since the were SUPER OVER with the Japanese crowd!
You had all the usual garbage spots with chairs, ladders, tables and barb-wire bats, and Bubba Ray probably became the first person to take a cheese grater to the groin! Bubba was rather vocal throughtout the whole match actually. D-Von showed great mobility for his size and it was great seeing Spike in a position where he’s not the smallest guy getting tossed around all the time. The announcers even acknowledged Spike’s finisher as the Acid Drop!
The Japanese Hardcore Dream Team (Kanemura – W*ING, Honma – BJW & Tanaka – FMW) had a good showing too, despite some uneasiness between Tanaka & Honma not getting along. Kanemura bladed and bumped his ass off for the Americans, Tanaka looked like the only one that could go toe-to-toe with them, and Honma looked great in there as well, despite dropping the fall after taking 3D.
Just a whole lot of fun from start to finish and probably the best match of the night up to this point.
Match Rating: ***1/2
Post match, Team 3D do the ultimate bit of fan service when they brought in a kid from the crowd, gave him a Team 3D T-shirt, as well as a piece of table from the match and autographed it too! Everyone obviously had a whole lot of fun in this one.
Video package next of the arrival of New Yin Ling-sama, and how she took down HG at Hustle-16, leading to her unleashing Sodom & Gomorrah on HG for Hustle-Aid, and HG is without a tag partner since Ogawa teamed with Caiya earlier and Ohtani & TAJIRI already have a match later as well, so HG looked outside and brought in All Japan Triple Crown Champion Satoshi Kojima!
Fifth Hustle: Sodom & Gomorrah VS HG & Satoshi Kojima
You got to wonder why the heck when WWE had him, all they could do with Matt Morgan was give him a dumb stuttering gimmick and end up releasing him cause they didn’t have anything for him, where as he goes to Japan and Hustle gives a pair of leather pants and some face paint and he instantly becomes a monster?
Now the match itself was seriously a ton of fun from start to finish also, and HG has improved his ring work considerably since the last time I saw him. His movements and timing were all spot on this time around, and the crowd cheered for everything he did.
It was weird when the one missed spot of the match actually came from Kojima when he lost his footing and slipped off the top rope while going for his elbow drop! He managed to rebound from it though, and he also gave a great showing like the Triple Crown champion he is.
Fun finish of the match was HG hit a diving body press after Kojima dropped Gomorrah with the lariat to pick up the win. HG just needs to work on his stamina I think as Kojima worked most of the match and seemed to hardly break a sweat, whereas HG was rather run down for the short sprints he did. Short match, but a ton of fun.
Match Rating: ***
Quick video package looking back at the debut of New Yin-sama, followed by how TAJIRI has been getting under her skin in recent weeks, first by trying to hit on her only to spray the green mist in her face, and than making fun of her mask and promising to unmask her at Hustle-Aid tonight!
Back in the Takada Monster Army lair and Monster-K is warming up for his big match tonight when Yin Ling steps in and wishes him good luck. The Takada Monster Army lackey then runs in to inform them that Sodom & Gomorrah were defeated by HG & Kojima, he rushes off to inform New Yin-Sama, who screams something at him off camera and begins whipping him as Kawada & Yin Ling look on before Kawada goes to fetch New Yin-sama for their main event match, which is next!
Main Hustle: “Monster-K” Toshiaki Kawada & New Yin-sama VS “Hustle Achichi” Shinjiro Ohtani & TAJIRI
This match was rather fun, but the one thing I didn’t like about it was TAJIRI playing more of a comedy role, resulting in him getting beat up more Kawada cause he kept getting distracted by wanting to get at New Yin-sama. And when Yin-sama was in there, she didn’t look half as good as when she made her return against HG at Hustle-16, resorting back to using her whip and weak kicks and just lacking the fire and intensity she had.
There were some good exchanges between Ohtani & Kawada at least, and the finishing sequence was rather cool as both TAJIRI & New Yin-sama received hot tags, and Yin-sama ducked a high kick from TAJIRI followed by TAJIRI ducking a whip slash from Yin, followed by Yin ducking a green mist attack by TAJIRI and TAJIRI ducking another whip slash from Yin before connecting with a low kick, dropping Yin to her knees and giving TAJIRI the opportunity to unmask her, revealing a huge scar on her face! Yin-sama was in shock leaving herself open to TAJIRI to quickly roll her up for the pin! Yin-sama is still in shock at being unmasked that she runs off screaming, covering her face.
The match wasn’t quite as good as I expected, but was OK for what they did.
Match Rating: *1/2
Ogawa & HG join Ohtani & TAJIRI in the ring as TAJIRI jokes about unmasking New Yin-sama. Yin Ling shows up on the monitor and says she herself was coming out for revenge for Yin-sama, but is stopped by Generalissimo Takada, who assures her he’ll handle it. He addresses the Hustle Army and brings out the Hustle Egg they stole earlier and infuse his Monster energy into it.
Back to arena and a giant egg is lowered from the ceiling as the Hustle Army looks on stunned. The egg lands on the entrance ramp and opens up revealing a hooded figure who slowly walks to the ring. TAJIRI is left alone in the ring as the figure reaches the ropes, and unmasks to reveal The Esperanza (Being played by Takada himself!)! He steps into the ring and we got us an impromptu match!
TAJIRI VS the Esperanza
Well, it’s not really a match as it was worse than a squash match even with both of them moving slower than slow motion. I really didn’t need to see TAJIRI whimper like a little girl when his kicks didn’t work and Esperanza’s were totally decimating him. Even the Tarantula had no effect and Esperanza won the match with a sick sounding kick right into TAJIRI’s head for the KO win.
Match Rating: DUD
Esperanza turns to leave, but Ogawa confronts him only to be blown away by an energy blast than sends Ogawa, HG & Ohtani flying! Paranaza walks off as the Hustle Army looks on in shock!
Generalissimo Takada than appears on the big screen and says they just had their asses whooped by the Esperanza! And he bad mouths them some more before signing off, leaving the Hustle Army in the ring to rethink their strategy to beat the Monster Army. HG is actually still cheerful and even calls out Esperanza, leading to the big finally of HG leading the Hustle Army and the live crowd in attendance in doing the 3-2-1 Hustle! Hustle! Fooo! pose to close out the show.
Overall: OK, I’ll admit the much anticipated return of Takada to the ring was a real big disappointment, but the overall show was a lot of fun and definitely worth checking out. Everyone was bummed by the attendance of this show, so you could probably guess how much better it would have been if they had actually advertised the in-ring return of Takada.
Labels: Hustle
Sunday, September 03, 2006
HUSTLE-16 4/20/2006
We kick off this edition of Fighting Opera Hustle with a look at the events leading up to tonight’s big 5 on 5 war, as well as the announcement of Hustle Aid.
Live in the arena now, and GM RG (or RGM) comes out to a chorus of boos. He comes out in Hanshin Tigers baseball team gear, but than goes for the cheap heat by revealing a Tokyo Giants uniform underneath as he bad mouths the local team. After a bit more bantering, the card for the show is shown.
Generalissimo Takada than appears on the screen and does a quick promo on the main event, mixed in with a bit of comedy.
First Hustle: Neo Devil Pierroth #1, Neo Devil Pierroth #2 & Kyo Itako VS Hustle Kamen Red, Hustle Kamen Blue & Hustle Kamen Yellow
Kyo Itako (aka Fear Psychic Medium) is the mystery partner for the Neo Devils. He looks like a masked monk in a straight jacket due to his posture. An odd pairing for sure, but anybody teaming with the two evil clowns would make for an odd team. The Hustle Kamens on the other hand have some new shiny uniforms on.
As weird as he looks, Itako actually ends up being the highlight of this match! He starts off acting really fragile and weak, but than he channels a spirit into his body and suddenly he’s the late Giant Baba! Throwing Baba’s signature overhead chops, as well as hitting the 16tn Kick and the side Russian leg-sweep before the spirit leaves his body and he’s back to being normal! The second time he channels a spirit, it turns out to be the late, great Jumbo Tsuruta! And the crowd goes absolutely NUTS as he hits the jumping knee attack and does Jumbo’s classic “OH!” pose! He than hits a big backdrop for a near fall as the other Kamens break the count. His final transformation is into Riki Choshu! But just as he’s about to hit the Riki-Lariat, he suddenly changes into some disco dancer and is ejected from the ring by Yellow, leading to Red hitting a big top rope 619 on one of the Devils followed by a West Coast Pop for the win.
Match Rating: ** (Simple, but REALLY funny and memorable!)
A quick look at how the feud developed between Kenzo Suzuki, who has been struggling to find his place in Hustle, and Wataru Sakata, the next generation star of the promotion. This mostly has to do with Hiroko Suzuki making fun of Yuko Aoki’s ample assets.
Second Hustle: Kenzo Suzuki with Hiroko VS Wataru Sakata with Yuko Aoki
Seriously now, they are trying to hide Suzuki’s lack of talent with comedy? Hiroko tried every trick in the book to cheat on her husband’s behalf, but Suzuki just looked really bad in there that the only given explanation would be to do the comedy spots he did, losing a really short match when he got dizzy giving Sakata an EIGHT rotation airplane spin, with Sakata slipping out into a sunset flip pin for the win.
Note to Sakata, we know Yuko is your woman, but how about letting her wear something other than a track suit? And why the heck wasn’t Kenzo wearing any underwear?!?
Match Rating: DUD
A quick look at how our next match came about. Hustle is known as the Fighting Opera due to the fact they are “sports entertainment, and as such, they have brought in actual celebrities in the past to take part in the shows, be it in or out of the ring. The Yoshimoto Kogyo are a comedy group, who seemed to have differences with each other after doing a wrestling sketch or something, which leads to our next match where they hope to settle the score in tag action.
Third Hustle - Yoshimoto Kogyo Special Match: Joji Shimaki & Yuki Rock VS Captain Bomber & Masumi Yagi
On one hand you could say that you need to know who these guys are, as well as know the Japanese sense of humor to understand the bizarre comedy antics of these guys, and on the other hand you could say this was a wrestlecrap worthy bad idea which mocks the business to the nth degree. Personally, I didn’t like it and really could have done without it, but hey, that’s Hustle for ya.
Match Rating: DUD
During the intermission, we are shown supermodel Carolyn “Kaiya” Kawasaki announcing her participation in the upcoming Hustle-Aid show, and a demonstration of her Kaiya-Bomber lariat finisher.
After the intermission, the rules for the main event are explained. Two persons start off, and the loser is out and is replaced by the next team mate. This keeps going until an entire team is eliminated.
We than go backstage to the Hustle Army locker room where “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa fires up his team. Erica, Margaret and Hustle Kamen Yellow are also in the room, and TAJIRI wonders who their mystery partner is. HG jokes that the “X” could be Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman! And just before Ogawa announces who the fifth member is, we go to the Takada Monster Army lair, where team representatives are warming up for the match, while the Yin-egg is glowing! Generalissimo Takada fires up his team, and it’s on to the main event of the show!
Main Hustle: Hustle Army VS Takada Monster Army – 5 VS 5 Survival Match:
Match #1: Giant Vabo VS “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa
Story of the match is Vabo continually attacking Ogawa’s left leg. Vabo hung Ogawa up in the Tree of Woe and hits a volleyball-like spike into Ogawa’s vital area and gets some big boos from the crowd for it. Vabo thinks he has things going his way, but the Hustle leader is able to rally back and hits an STO to eliminate Vabo.
Match Rating: *
Match #2: “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa VS Sodom
Sodom is the new 2m tall giant Takada promised to debut, and it’s actually Mark Jindrak in face paint and leather pants. He goes to work on Ogawa’s bad leg, but gets floored temporarily by an STO. Sodom comes back with a big double jump lariat out of the corner followed by a big splash on Ogawa’s bad knee to pin him and get the 3 count! This really shocks everyone as you could actually see the jaws of several spectators drop as the referee counts 3!
Match Rating: 1/2*
Match #4: Sodom VS Erica
So Erica turns out to be the mystery partner of the Hustle Army. Sodom can’t believe he actually has to fight a woman, and doesn’t want to. This then turns into sort of a comedy match as Sodom tries to get his hands on Erica, but tires himself out when he can’t catch her, leaving him open for Erica to hit the Uraken for a near fall. This enrages Sodom even more and he starts pounding on her and hits her with a hard lariat to a chorus of boos from the crowd. Sodom hits the Side Effect on Erica to eliminate her.
Match Rating: DUD
Match #5: Sodom VS “Hustle Achichi” Shinjiro Ohtani
Sodom attacks Ohtani as he enters the ring, but Ohtani fights him off and gives him multiple running corner kicks. Sodom battles back, but misses his springboard lariat moves and Ohtani capitalizes on his mistake by pinning him with a diving sunset flip off the top rope.
Match Rating: *
Match #6: “Hustle Achich” Shinjiro Ohtani VS “Monster-K” Toshiaki Kawada
It was short, but these two had a little great match here. Kawada counters Ohtani’s running corner kick with a kick of his own, and they trade strikes which Kawada wins and shows a mean streak as he slams Ohtani and drops knees on him. Kawada locks Ohtani in a single-leg crab followed by a painful looking bow & arrow lock. Back on their feet, Ohtani absorbs some strikes from Kawada only to come back with a big face kick of his own. Ohtani tries for the dragon suplex, but Kawada blocks it so he hits him with a backdrop instead for a near fall. Ohtani goes up top and misses a missile dropkick, leading to Kawada hitting a big powerbomb for a near fall before finally putting Ohtani down with a sick brainbuster.
Damn that was awesome!
Match Rating: ***
Match #7: “Monster-K” Toshiaki Kawada VS TAJIRI
TAJIRI tries to steal a win by sneaking in out of the audience and rolling up Kawada, but only gets a 2 count. TAJIRI starts working on Kawada’s leg, but Kawada rallies back and works on TAJIRI’s leg instead! TAJIRI survives a barrage of strikes and tries multiple attempts to cradle Kawada for a flash pin, but can’t get it. Kawada gets pissed and himself tries to cradle TAJIRI but only gets a 2 count. Kawada levels TAJIRI with a lariat for another near fall. Kawada tries for a powerbomb, but TAJIRI counters into a frankensteiner. Kawada charges TAJIRI in the corner, but TAJIRI tries for the Tarantula only to get shoved out of the ring. They brawl way out into the audience, and TAJIRI is able to stun Kawada enough to tie him to some scaffolding with duct tape! Unfortunately, TAJIRI takes too long to tie up Kawada and BOTH end up getting counted out and eliminated!
Match Rating: *1/2
Match #8: “Mr.300%” An Jo VS HG
I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised with HG’s in ring ability since he used to backyard wrestle with Hiroshi Tanahashi when he was a teen. He might not have a lot of moves, but everything he does gets a pop from the crowd, even if he did borrow a few of his gay moves from Dansyoku Dino, the original gay gimmick wrestler. And again HG shows he’s more than just a mascot character when he’s willing to bump and get stretched the way he does. Just when An Jo thinks things are going his way, HG gives him a superkick, followed by a rather sick looking 69 Driver for the win.
Match Rating: *
Match #9: HG VS the Yin-Egg
TAJIRI quickly grabs the Yin-Egg from the entrance ramp and brings it to the ring. HG gives it an atomic drop and tries to pin it, but the egg has no shoulders for the referee to count down! Generalissimo Takada than appears on the big screen and calls HG an idiot for trying to wrestle an egg! And the truth is that that’s not the real egg and brings out the actual egg which is HUGE! The egg hatches, and out comes HG’s actual opponent: NEW YIN LING-SAMA!
Match #9: HG VS New Yin Ling-sama
The new Yin Ling is more evil looking, wearing all black with half a mask and horns on her head. She charges to the ring and whips a shocked Ogawa before entering the ring to face off with HG. HG tries to fool around, but New Yin gives him a pair of middle kicks and drops him with a back elbow off the ropes! She kicks him twice while he’s down, than starts shouting “Kill!” before whipping him a few times and driving the butt of her whip handle into his gut. She then chokes him with the whip before tossing the whip out of the ring and actually wrestling HG by taking him down with a pair of armdrags into an armlock! She definitely moves so much better now that she isn’t wearing high-heels in the ring. She puts HG in a stepover armlock, shades of Antonio Inoki. HG gets to the ropes to break the hold, and Yin Ling continues her assault with several middle kicks and a high kick to the head. She does the Masochist Lock pin for a 2 count! HG blocks a slap and puts her in a chin lock, but she slips out and turns it into an armlock! HG reaches the ropes to break the hold, and TAJIRI distracts Yin Ling long enough for HG to recover and hit the 69 Driver! He makes the cover, but only gets a 2 count! Everyone can’t believe it! Yin Ling recovers and charges at HG with a cross body, but he catches her in mid-air and tries to swing her around, but she uses the momentum to turn it into a Fujiwara armbar and she changes that into a La Majistral cradle to score the 3 count and give the win to the Takada Monster Army! The whole Hustle Army is shocked at this turn of events!
Match Rating: ** (Entertaining just to see Yin Ling actually try to wrestle)
Show ends with the usual back and forth banter between the Hustle Army and the Takada Monster Army, but there seems to be some trouble in the Monster camp as Kawada isn’t too happy to see Yin Ling back and Takada refuses to let him speak either.
Overall: For me, the most memorable thing about this show was definitely the opening match, mostly due to all the impressions that were done by the masked Kyo Itako. The 5-on-5 elimination match wasn’t bad either, with a lot of entertaining matches, especially the Ohtani/Kawada match. I still haven’t seen any good TAJIRI/Kawada encounters yet though. Imagine how awesome it would be if Kawada & TAJIRI had a match where the size and seniority level (and ego) didn’t really matter.
Live in the arena now, and GM RG (or RGM) comes out to a chorus of boos. He comes out in Hanshin Tigers baseball team gear, but than goes for the cheap heat by revealing a Tokyo Giants uniform underneath as he bad mouths the local team. After a bit more bantering, the card for the show is shown.
Generalissimo Takada than appears on the screen and does a quick promo on the main event, mixed in with a bit of comedy.
First Hustle: Neo Devil Pierroth #1, Neo Devil Pierroth #2 & Kyo Itako VS Hustle Kamen Red, Hustle Kamen Blue & Hustle Kamen Yellow
Kyo Itako (aka Fear Psychic Medium) is the mystery partner for the Neo Devils. He looks like a masked monk in a straight jacket due to his posture. An odd pairing for sure, but anybody teaming with the two evil clowns would make for an odd team. The Hustle Kamens on the other hand have some new shiny uniforms on.
As weird as he looks, Itako actually ends up being the highlight of this match! He starts off acting really fragile and weak, but than he channels a spirit into his body and suddenly he’s the late Giant Baba! Throwing Baba’s signature overhead chops, as well as hitting the 16tn Kick and the side Russian leg-sweep before the spirit leaves his body and he’s back to being normal! The second time he channels a spirit, it turns out to be the late, great Jumbo Tsuruta! And the crowd goes absolutely NUTS as he hits the jumping knee attack and does Jumbo’s classic “OH!” pose! He than hits a big backdrop for a near fall as the other Kamens break the count. His final transformation is into Riki Choshu! But just as he’s about to hit the Riki-Lariat, he suddenly changes into some disco dancer and is ejected from the ring by Yellow, leading to Red hitting a big top rope 619 on one of the Devils followed by a West Coast Pop for the win.
Match Rating: ** (Simple, but REALLY funny and memorable!)
A quick look at how the feud developed between Kenzo Suzuki, who has been struggling to find his place in Hustle, and Wataru Sakata, the next generation star of the promotion. This mostly has to do with Hiroko Suzuki making fun of Yuko Aoki’s ample assets.
Second Hustle: Kenzo Suzuki with Hiroko VS Wataru Sakata with Yuko Aoki
Seriously now, they are trying to hide Suzuki’s lack of talent with comedy? Hiroko tried every trick in the book to cheat on her husband’s behalf, but Suzuki just looked really bad in there that the only given explanation would be to do the comedy spots he did, losing a really short match when he got dizzy giving Sakata an EIGHT rotation airplane spin, with Sakata slipping out into a sunset flip pin for the win.
Note to Sakata, we know Yuko is your woman, but how about letting her wear something other than a track suit? And why the heck wasn’t Kenzo wearing any underwear?!?
Match Rating: DUD
A quick look at how our next match came about. Hustle is known as the Fighting Opera due to the fact they are “sports entertainment, and as such, they have brought in actual celebrities in the past to take part in the shows, be it in or out of the ring. The Yoshimoto Kogyo are a comedy group, who seemed to have differences with each other after doing a wrestling sketch or something, which leads to our next match where they hope to settle the score in tag action.
Third Hustle - Yoshimoto Kogyo Special Match: Joji Shimaki & Yuki Rock VS Captain Bomber & Masumi Yagi
On one hand you could say that you need to know who these guys are, as well as know the Japanese sense of humor to understand the bizarre comedy antics of these guys, and on the other hand you could say this was a wrestlecrap worthy bad idea which mocks the business to the nth degree. Personally, I didn’t like it and really could have done without it, but hey, that’s Hustle for ya.
Match Rating: DUD
During the intermission, we are shown supermodel Carolyn “Kaiya” Kawasaki announcing her participation in the upcoming Hustle-Aid show, and a demonstration of her Kaiya-Bomber lariat finisher.
After the intermission, the rules for the main event are explained. Two persons start off, and the loser is out and is replaced by the next team mate. This keeps going until an entire team is eliminated.
We than go backstage to the Hustle Army locker room where “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa fires up his team. Erica, Margaret and Hustle Kamen Yellow are also in the room, and TAJIRI wonders who their mystery partner is. HG jokes that the “X” could be Hollywood actor Morgan Freeman! And just before Ogawa announces who the fifth member is, we go to the Takada Monster Army lair, where team representatives are warming up for the match, while the Yin-egg is glowing! Generalissimo Takada fires up his team, and it’s on to the main event of the show!
Main Hustle: Hustle Army VS Takada Monster Army – 5 VS 5 Survival Match:
Match #1: Giant Vabo VS “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa
Story of the match is Vabo continually attacking Ogawa’s left leg. Vabo hung Ogawa up in the Tree of Woe and hits a volleyball-like spike into Ogawa’s vital area and gets some big boos from the crowd for it. Vabo thinks he has things going his way, but the Hustle leader is able to rally back and hits an STO to eliminate Vabo.
Match Rating: *
Match #2: “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa VS Sodom
Sodom is the new 2m tall giant Takada promised to debut, and it’s actually Mark Jindrak in face paint and leather pants. He goes to work on Ogawa’s bad leg, but gets floored temporarily by an STO. Sodom comes back with a big double jump lariat out of the corner followed by a big splash on Ogawa’s bad knee to pin him and get the 3 count! This really shocks everyone as you could actually see the jaws of several spectators drop as the referee counts 3!
Match Rating: 1/2*
Match #4: Sodom VS Erica
So Erica turns out to be the mystery partner of the Hustle Army. Sodom can’t believe he actually has to fight a woman, and doesn’t want to. This then turns into sort of a comedy match as Sodom tries to get his hands on Erica, but tires himself out when he can’t catch her, leaving him open for Erica to hit the Uraken for a near fall. This enrages Sodom even more and he starts pounding on her and hits her with a hard lariat to a chorus of boos from the crowd. Sodom hits the Side Effect on Erica to eliminate her.
Match Rating: DUD
Match #5: Sodom VS “Hustle Achichi” Shinjiro Ohtani
Sodom attacks Ohtani as he enters the ring, but Ohtani fights him off and gives him multiple running corner kicks. Sodom battles back, but misses his springboard lariat moves and Ohtani capitalizes on his mistake by pinning him with a diving sunset flip off the top rope.
Match Rating: *
Match #6: “Hustle Achich” Shinjiro Ohtani VS “Monster-K” Toshiaki Kawada
It was short, but these two had a little great match here. Kawada counters Ohtani’s running corner kick with a kick of his own, and they trade strikes which Kawada wins and shows a mean streak as he slams Ohtani and drops knees on him. Kawada locks Ohtani in a single-leg crab followed by a painful looking bow & arrow lock. Back on their feet, Ohtani absorbs some strikes from Kawada only to come back with a big face kick of his own. Ohtani tries for the dragon suplex, but Kawada blocks it so he hits him with a backdrop instead for a near fall. Ohtani goes up top and misses a missile dropkick, leading to Kawada hitting a big powerbomb for a near fall before finally putting Ohtani down with a sick brainbuster.
Damn that was awesome!
Match Rating: ***
Match #7: “Monster-K” Toshiaki Kawada VS TAJIRI
TAJIRI tries to steal a win by sneaking in out of the audience and rolling up Kawada, but only gets a 2 count. TAJIRI starts working on Kawada’s leg, but Kawada rallies back and works on TAJIRI’s leg instead! TAJIRI survives a barrage of strikes and tries multiple attempts to cradle Kawada for a flash pin, but can’t get it. Kawada gets pissed and himself tries to cradle TAJIRI but only gets a 2 count. Kawada levels TAJIRI with a lariat for another near fall. Kawada tries for a powerbomb, but TAJIRI counters into a frankensteiner. Kawada charges TAJIRI in the corner, but TAJIRI tries for the Tarantula only to get shoved out of the ring. They brawl way out into the audience, and TAJIRI is able to stun Kawada enough to tie him to some scaffolding with duct tape! Unfortunately, TAJIRI takes too long to tie up Kawada and BOTH end up getting counted out and eliminated!
Match Rating: *1/2
Match #8: “Mr.300%” An Jo VS HG
I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised with HG’s in ring ability since he used to backyard wrestle with Hiroshi Tanahashi when he was a teen. He might not have a lot of moves, but everything he does gets a pop from the crowd, even if he did borrow a few of his gay moves from Dansyoku Dino, the original gay gimmick wrestler. And again HG shows he’s more than just a mascot character when he’s willing to bump and get stretched the way he does. Just when An Jo thinks things are going his way, HG gives him a superkick, followed by a rather sick looking 69 Driver for the win.
Match Rating: *
Match #9: HG VS the Yin-Egg
TAJIRI quickly grabs the Yin-Egg from the entrance ramp and brings it to the ring. HG gives it an atomic drop and tries to pin it, but the egg has no shoulders for the referee to count down! Generalissimo Takada than appears on the big screen and calls HG an idiot for trying to wrestle an egg! And the truth is that that’s not the real egg and brings out the actual egg which is HUGE! The egg hatches, and out comes HG’s actual opponent: NEW YIN LING-SAMA!
Match #9: HG VS New Yin Ling-sama
The new Yin Ling is more evil looking, wearing all black with half a mask and horns on her head. She charges to the ring and whips a shocked Ogawa before entering the ring to face off with HG. HG tries to fool around, but New Yin gives him a pair of middle kicks and drops him with a back elbow off the ropes! She kicks him twice while he’s down, than starts shouting “Kill!” before whipping him a few times and driving the butt of her whip handle into his gut. She then chokes him with the whip before tossing the whip out of the ring and actually wrestling HG by taking him down with a pair of armdrags into an armlock! She definitely moves so much better now that she isn’t wearing high-heels in the ring. She puts HG in a stepover armlock, shades of Antonio Inoki. HG gets to the ropes to break the hold, and Yin Ling continues her assault with several middle kicks and a high kick to the head. She does the Masochist Lock pin for a 2 count! HG blocks a slap and puts her in a chin lock, but she slips out and turns it into an armlock! HG reaches the ropes to break the hold, and TAJIRI distracts Yin Ling long enough for HG to recover and hit the 69 Driver! He makes the cover, but only gets a 2 count! Everyone can’t believe it! Yin Ling recovers and charges at HG with a cross body, but he catches her in mid-air and tries to swing her around, but she uses the momentum to turn it into a Fujiwara armbar and she changes that into a La Majistral cradle to score the 3 count and give the win to the Takada Monster Army! The whole Hustle Army is shocked at this turn of events!
Match Rating: ** (Entertaining just to see Yin Ling actually try to wrestle)
Show ends with the usual back and forth banter between the Hustle Army and the Takada Monster Army, but there seems to be some trouble in the Monster camp as Kawada isn’t too happy to see Yin Ling back and Takada refuses to let him speak either.
Overall: For me, the most memorable thing about this show was definitely the opening match, mostly due to all the impressions that were done by the masked Kyo Itako. The 5-on-5 elimination match wasn’t bad either, with a lot of entertaining matches, especially the Ohtani/Kawada match. I still haven’t seen any good TAJIRI/Kawada encounters yet though. Imagine how awesome it would be if Kawada & TAJIRI had a match where the size and seniority level (and ego) didn’t really matter.
Labels: Hustle
Sunday, April 30, 2006
HUSTLE-15 3/12/2006
We kick off this edition of Fighting Opera Hustle with an annoying guy by the name of Michael (I think he might be DDT rookie Michael Nakazawa?), complete with an annoying theme song, pushing Hustle merchandise like shirts and DVDs. He reads a letter from the Takada Monster Army than starts dancing like a fool as he gives props to the sponsors of the event.
We then officially kick off the show with a recap video of recent events, specifically Kenzo & Hiroko Suzuki’s arrival in Hustle, Hiroko taking over the role of Hustle GM, Kenzo trying to get into the Takada Monster Army, and the events leading up to tonight’s main event.
We start off in the ring with GM Hiroko welcoming us to the show. God I wish she’d drop the geisha gimmick as it just makes her look a lot older than she really is. She introduces to new co-GM of Hustle, RG! So now he’s known as RGM! The fans boo him though, as he’s a really bad rip-off of HG and seems to get winded from just walking down to the ring and doing his intro! After some bantering which gets zero reaction from the crowd other than some boos, they run a highlight video of tonight’s card which was booked by RGM. It then turns out he booked every match as Hustle Army VS Takada Monster Army matches, but neglected to mention who would be representing each side! Hiroko interrupts the video and after more banter with RG (which again gets zero crowd response), they show the actual card as booked by Hiroko.
It’s than back to the ring where RGM tries to hype the crowd for the show, only to again be met by silence and a few jeers.
NOW the show kicks off.
Recap video of the Hustle Kamens and how they always overcome all the bizzaro enemies the Takada Monster Army can come up with. But they seem to have finally met their match with the Monster Kamens, who seem equal to the Hustle team. Can good overcome bad?
We go backstage to where we see Hustle Kamen Red & Blue warming up for their match. One of the agents meets them and asks if they are ready, to which they are. He then asks where Yellow is and we see him in the back chowing down a plate of curry rice, hinting that it’s his secret weapon or something.
We then jump to the Takada Monster Army lair, where An-Jo and his assistant wonder if the Monster Kamens will get the job done tonight. We than see Generalissimo Takada, sporting jogging shorts below his usual uniform, talking something about a women’s marathon. It finally ends with Takada summoning the Monster Kamens and we finally get to the first match of the night after a half hour of talk.
First Hustle: Hustle Kamen Red, Blue & Yellow VS Monster Kamen White, Black & Purple
The match all the kids in the audience probably came to see. The difference in styles here is that the Hustle Kamens are speedy (even the big Hustle Kamen Yellow) and the Monster Kamens are more power based, and they dominated most of the match thanks to that advantage. The crowd were hot for Yellow though, and he was the only guy that could match size and power with the Monsters. A fun match with a lot of great spots and great crowd heat, but the ending seemed to come out of nowhere and was a bit shocking to everyone when it happened. But I guess it’s believable since the Monster Kamens gave Yellow a big tandem powerbomb-neckbreaker for the win.
The Monster Kamens rip off the Hustle Kamen’s masks as An-Jo taunts them after the match.
Match Rating: **
Shamoji Yuji approaches Erica & Margaret about the next match where he will team with them. Margaret starts laughing at Fuji and Erica seems worried.
Second Hustle: Erica, Margaret & X VS “Monster-K’” Kohei Sato, the Monster-C and Dokron-Z
Just so there’s no confusion with Kawada’s Monster-K name, it should be noted that Kohei Sato is Monster K’, pronounced K-Dash get it? And Dokron-Z is Ayako Hamada’s new more gothic and evil looking gimmick. But she’s still hot in my book.
The match was short, but still entertaining mostly thanks to the high-flying skills of Dokron-Z and the comedic antics of Hustle team. I also loved the way the crowd chanted “C!” for Monster-C’s punches and kicks, and the way he played with the crowd with it too. But I’d easily give the MVP of this match to Dokron-Z who did a whole lot with the short time the match went, using her speed to outdo the bigger women on the other team.
Shamoji Fuji seems to be going the route of Gorgeous Matsuno in DDT: Serious looking worker that can’t do anything right in the ring.
Erica cuts a promo after the match where she’s disappointed at the loss, but still keeps her head up high.
Match Rating: **
A quick video of all the bizarre monsters Takada has brought into brought into Hustle, and they all usually fall short on expectations in the ring. But Takada now has a pair of “G-1 Class” monsters to unleash. But that’s G-1 as in HORSE RACING! That’s right, Miyakinen and Arimekinen are based on two champion race horses!
We than go backstage to the Takada Monster Lair, and Tadao Yasuda requests to be the mystery partner for the two race horses. His wish is granted by An-Jo.
Third Hustle: Masato Tanaka, Kintaro Kanemura & Tetsuhiro Kuroda VS Miyakinen, Arimekinen & Tadao Yasuda
Kanemura comes out with a kendo stick, Tanaka has a guitar, and Kuroda brings a bicycle! They do the TNR dance with a pair of hot Vegas showgirls.
The races horses come out next with Yasuda, who’s wearing a rider’s cap, has a rider’s whip and his newspaper! This could be fun.
And fun it was as they mixed up the bizarre styles of the race horses with the hardcore style of the Hustle team, and Tanaka & Kanemura even hit a pair of stereo balcony dives on the horses! You even gotta give Yasuda credit for actually working a bit in the match, hitting a big double chokeslam on Kanemura & Tanaka, and those horses were just plain weird to watch, but a fun enjoyable brawl overall.
Match Rating: **
After the intermission, we see a video of how ex-NJPW wrestler Hiroshi Nagao joined Hustle, using a volleyball player gimmick thanks to his height. He joined the Takada Monster Army and Generalissimo Takada christens him the name Giant Vabo.
Back to the Monster Army lair andAn-Jo and Vabo are doing squats, and they are up to 58,000+ of ‘em! Vabo finally collapses and An-Jo psyches him up with a picture of Ohtani, showing him the face of his enemy. Vabo spikes a volleyball through Ohtani’s face and An-Jo says they are now ready.
We than see Ohtani doing squats as well and he stops to wonder where his partner is. Ishikari sticks his head through the doorway to tell Ohtani he has a secret weapon, which turns out to be him wearing a swan ballet outfit with the swan’s head protruding where his groin is! Ohtani is disgusted and gives him a good kick in the head.
Fourth Hustle: “Hustle Achichi” Shinjiro Ohtani & Taichi Ishikari VS Giant Vabo & An-Jo
Luckily for us Ishikari doesn’t wear the swan suit to the ring. And Voba really is huge looking compared to everyone else. I also wonder if there was a slipup at the tailor since his name is Giant Vabo, but it says Voba on his volleyball uniform?
Anyways, I wonder if he would have been given the push of a monster big man if he had stayed in NJPW like what he was given here. He used his size and power to dominate early on and only the veteran experience of Ohtani was able to subdue him for a while with multiple running corner kicks which set the crowd on fire. The whole purpose of this match was to get Vabo over as a big monster, and they more or less did the job here as he beat Ishikari with a killer chokeslam.
Match Rating: **
Video package of Wataru Sakata & Ryouji Sai winning the Hustle tag titles off Tenryu & Yasuda from Hustle-14, and Tenryu calling out Sakata afterwards.
We than go backstage to where Sakata and his manager/girlfriend Yuko Aoki (a model known for her well sized “assets”) are watching it on a monitor. Sakata’s partner Ryouji Sai enters and they chatter a bit and it looks like Sakata is leaving Aoki behind as he heads out for his match.
Semi-Hustle: Wataru Sakata VS Genichiro Tenryu
Yuko ends up coming out with Sakata anyway, and she joins the announce team for the match.
The match was your basic “grumpy old veteran VS up-and-comer” type match, with Sakata taking a ton of chops from Tenryu throughout the match, which he gladly replied with chops of his own as well as kicks and punches. Sakata may have lost the match, but he survived 3 brainbusters, a lariat and a powerbomb before a fourth brainbuster finally put him out. Tenryu put him over after the match by telling him to keep up his growth. Sakata than thanks the fans, Ryouji and Yuko for their support. Ryouji than says something which prompts Sakata to hit him over the head with the microphone before they leave the ring.
This was a great match overall with an almost main event feel to it.
Match Rating: ***1/2
Build up video for the main event is shown. We than go to the Takada Monster lair where Kenzo is psyched for the match. Generalissimo Takada shows up and they banter on a bit before Takada zaps Kenzo with a power up.
Main Hustle: TAJIRI & HG VS “Monster-K” Toshiaki Kawada & Kenzo Suzuki
I’m not really surprised TAJIRI comes out to his WWE theme, and he’s announced as a former WWE superstar too.
This started off as a really solid tag match, and I was really glad they gave Kawada & TAJIRI some good time to work together. They had a good strike exchange, and Kawada even did a headstand kip-up to get out of a headscissors! It was good the way Kawada put TAJIRI despite the size difference. Even HG was passable with his limited move set, and he deserves credit for taking his bumps like everyone else.
What spoiled this match was the bad sports entertainment ending, with Kenzo & Kawada not getting along, till they eventually exploded and went at each other. Hiroko, who was really annoying on guest commentary, than gets in the ring and throws powder in Kawada’s eyes, taking him out. Kenzo isn’t pleased for some reason and slaps Hiroko, and lifts up her kimono as he chokes her on the ropes so her ass is out for all to see. Even the commentary team called it domestic abuse! HG than hits a sunset flip and pulls down Kenzo’s pants, revealing that he’s wearing women’s underwear! TAJIRI sprays the green mist at Kenzo and HG completes the role-up to score the win!
Match Rating: ***
Generalissimo Takada and his army then come out for their obligatory closing spot of the show. An-Jo opts to kick Kenzo out of the army, but it soon ends up as Takada & HG mouthing off at each other. They make the challenge for the next Hustle show, bringing out the Yin-egg, and “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa and the rest of the Hustle Army come out to accept the challenge. They do the obligatory 3-2-1 Hustle! spot to close out the show.
Overall: An enjoyable show overall once you get use to the bizarreness of Hustle. Nothing really outstanding, but nothing really bad either.
We then officially kick off the show with a recap video of recent events, specifically Kenzo & Hiroko Suzuki’s arrival in Hustle, Hiroko taking over the role of Hustle GM, Kenzo trying to get into the Takada Monster Army, and the events leading up to tonight’s main event.
We start off in the ring with GM Hiroko welcoming us to the show. God I wish she’d drop the geisha gimmick as it just makes her look a lot older than she really is. She introduces to new co-GM of Hustle, RG! So now he’s known as RGM! The fans boo him though, as he’s a really bad rip-off of HG and seems to get winded from just walking down to the ring and doing his intro! After some bantering which gets zero reaction from the crowd other than some boos, they run a highlight video of tonight’s card which was booked by RGM. It then turns out he booked every match as Hustle Army VS Takada Monster Army matches, but neglected to mention who would be representing each side! Hiroko interrupts the video and after more banter with RG (which again gets zero crowd response), they show the actual card as booked by Hiroko.
It’s than back to the ring where RGM tries to hype the crowd for the show, only to again be met by silence and a few jeers.
NOW the show kicks off.
Recap video of the Hustle Kamens and how they always overcome all the bizzaro enemies the Takada Monster Army can come up with. But they seem to have finally met their match with the Monster Kamens, who seem equal to the Hustle team. Can good overcome bad?
We go backstage to where we see Hustle Kamen Red & Blue warming up for their match. One of the agents meets them and asks if they are ready, to which they are. He then asks where Yellow is and we see him in the back chowing down a plate of curry rice, hinting that it’s his secret weapon or something.
We then jump to the Takada Monster Army lair, where An-Jo and his assistant wonder if the Monster Kamens will get the job done tonight. We than see Generalissimo Takada, sporting jogging shorts below his usual uniform, talking something about a women’s marathon. It finally ends with Takada summoning the Monster Kamens and we finally get to the first match of the night after a half hour of talk.
First Hustle: Hustle Kamen Red, Blue & Yellow VS Monster Kamen White, Black & Purple
The match all the kids in the audience probably came to see. The difference in styles here is that the Hustle Kamens are speedy (even the big Hustle Kamen Yellow) and the Monster Kamens are more power based, and they dominated most of the match thanks to that advantage. The crowd were hot for Yellow though, and he was the only guy that could match size and power with the Monsters. A fun match with a lot of great spots and great crowd heat, but the ending seemed to come out of nowhere and was a bit shocking to everyone when it happened. But I guess it’s believable since the Monster Kamens gave Yellow a big tandem powerbomb-neckbreaker for the win.
The Monster Kamens rip off the Hustle Kamen’s masks as An-Jo taunts them after the match.
Match Rating: **
Shamoji Yuji approaches Erica & Margaret about the next match where he will team with them. Margaret starts laughing at Fuji and Erica seems worried.
Second Hustle: Erica, Margaret & X VS “Monster-K’” Kohei Sato, the Monster-C and Dokron-Z
Just so there’s no confusion with Kawada’s Monster-K name, it should be noted that Kohei Sato is Monster K’, pronounced K-Dash get it? And Dokron-Z is Ayako Hamada’s new more gothic and evil looking gimmick. But she’s still hot in my book.
The match was short, but still entertaining mostly thanks to the high-flying skills of Dokron-Z and the comedic antics of Hustle team. I also loved the way the crowd chanted “C!” for Monster-C’s punches and kicks, and the way he played with the crowd with it too. But I’d easily give the MVP of this match to Dokron-Z who did a whole lot with the short time the match went, using her speed to outdo the bigger women on the other team.
Shamoji Fuji seems to be going the route of Gorgeous Matsuno in DDT: Serious looking worker that can’t do anything right in the ring.
Erica cuts a promo after the match where she’s disappointed at the loss, but still keeps her head up high.
Match Rating: **
A quick video of all the bizarre monsters Takada has brought into brought into Hustle, and they all usually fall short on expectations in the ring. But Takada now has a pair of “G-1 Class” monsters to unleash. But that’s G-1 as in HORSE RACING! That’s right, Miyakinen and Arimekinen are based on two champion race horses!
We than go backstage to the Takada Monster Lair, and Tadao Yasuda requests to be the mystery partner for the two race horses. His wish is granted by An-Jo.
Third Hustle: Masato Tanaka, Kintaro Kanemura & Tetsuhiro Kuroda VS Miyakinen, Arimekinen & Tadao Yasuda
Kanemura comes out with a kendo stick, Tanaka has a guitar, and Kuroda brings a bicycle! They do the TNR dance with a pair of hot Vegas showgirls.
The races horses come out next with Yasuda, who’s wearing a rider’s cap, has a rider’s whip and his newspaper! This could be fun.
And fun it was as they mixed up the bizarre styles of the race horses with the hardcore style of the Hustle team, and Tanaka & Kanemura even hit a pair of stereo balcony dives on the horses! You even gotta give Yasuda credit for actually working a bit in the match, hitting a big double chokeslam on Kanemura & Tanaka, and those horses were just plain weird to watch, but a fun enjoyable brawl overall.
Match Rating: **
After the intermission, we see a video of how ex-NJPW wrestler Hiroshi Nagao joined Hustle, using a volleyball player gimmick thanks to his height. He joined the Takada Monster Army and Generalissimo Takada christens him the name Giant Vabo.
Back to the Monster Army lair andAn-Jo and Vabo are doing squats, and they are up to 58,000+ of ‘em! Vabo finally collapses and An-Jo psyches him up with a picture of Ohtani, showing him the face of his enemy. Vabo spikes a volleyball through Ohtani’s face and An-Jo says they are now ready.
We than see Ohtani doing squats as well and he stops to wonder where his partner is. Ishikari sticks his head through the doorway to tell Ohtani he has a secret weapon, which turns out to be him wearing a swan ballet outfit with the swan’s head protruding where his groin is! Ohtani is disgusted and gives him a good kick in the head.
Fourth Hustle: “Hustle Achichi” Shinjiro Ohtani & Taichi Ishikari VS Giant Vabo & An-Jo
Luckily for us Ishikari doesn’t wear the swan suit to the ring. And Voba really is huge looking compared to everyone else. I also wonder if there was a slipup at the tailor since his name is Giant Vabo, but it says Voba on his volleyball uniform?
Anyways, I wonder if he would have been given the push of a monster big man if he had stayed in NJPW like what he was given here. He used his size and power to dominate early on and only the veteran experience of Ohtani was able to subdue him for a while with multiple running corner kicks which set the crowd on fire. The whole purpose of this match was to get Vabo over as a big monster, and they more or less did the job here as he beat Ishikari with a killer chokeslam.
Match Rating: **
Video package of Wataru Sakata & Ryouji Sai winning the Hustle tag titles off Tenryu & Yasuda from Hustle-14, and Tenryu calling out Sakata afterwards.
We than go backstage to where Sakata and his manager/girlfriend Yuko Aoki (a model known for her well sized “assets”) are watching it on a monitor. Sakata’s partner Ryouji Sai enters and they chatter a bit and it looks like Sakata is leaving Aoki behind as he heads out for his match.
Semi-Hustle: Wataru Sakata VS Genichiro Tenryu
Yuko ends up coming out with Sakata anyway, and she joins the announce team for the match.
The match was your basic “grumpy old veteran VS up-and-comer” type match, with Sakata taking a ton of chops from Tenryu throughout the match, which he gladly replied with chops of his own as well as kicks and punches. Sakata may have lost the match, but he survived 3 brainbusters, a lariat and a powerbomb before a fourth brainbuster finally put him out. Tenryu put him over after the match by telling him to keep up his growth. Sakata than thanks the fans, Ryouji and Yuko for their support. Ryouji than says something which prompts Sakata to hit him over the head with the microphone before they leave the ring.
This was a great match overall with an almost main event feel to it.
Match Rating: ***1/2
Build up video for the main event is shown. We than go to the Takada Monster lair where Kenzo is psyched for the match. Generalissimo Takada shows up and they banter on a bit before Takada zaps Kenzo with a power up.
Main Hustle: TAJIRI & HG VS “Monster-K” Toshiaki Kawada & Kenzo Suzuki
I’m not really surprised TAJIRI comes out to his WWE theme, and he’s announced as a former WWE superstar too.
This started off as a really solid tag match, and I was really glad they gave Kawada & TAJIRI some good time to work together. They had a good strike exchange, and Kawada even did a headstand kip-up to get out of a headscissors! It was good the way Kawada put TAJIRI despite the size difference. Even HG was passable with his limited move set, and he deserves credit for taking his bumps like everyone else.
What spoiled this match was the bad sports entertainment ending, with Kenzo & Kawada not getting along, till they eventually exploded and went at each other. Hiroko, who was really annoying on guest commentary, than gets in the ring and throws powder in Kawada’s eyes, taking him out. Kenzo isn’t pleased for some reason and slaps Hiroko, and lifts up her kimono as he chokes her on the ropes so her ass is out for all to see. Even the commentary team called it domestic abuse! HG than hits a sunset flip and pulls down Kenzo’s pants, revealing that he’s wearing women’s underwear! TAJIRI sprays the green mist at Kenzo and HG completes the role-up to score the win!
Match Rating: ***
Generalissimo Takada and his army then come out for their obligatory closing spot of the show. An-Jo opts to kick Kenzo out of the army, but it soon ends up as Takada & HG mouthing off at each other. They make the challenge for the next Hustle show, bringing out the Yin-egg, and “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa and the rest of the Hustle Army come out to accept the challenge. They do the obligatory 3-2-1 Hustle! spot to close out the show.
Overall: An enjoyable show overall once you get use to the bizarreness of Hustle. Nothing really outstanding, but nothing really bad either.
Labels: Hustle
Monday, April 03, 2006
HUSTLE-MANIA 11/03/2005
Show starts with a really good intro video, which chronicled the history of the promotion leading up to this event.
We than get a rather funny start to the show as after some dramatic music, the lights were supposed to centre on Hustle GM Kusama in the centre of the ring, but they kept missing their mark and they had to restart 3 times! When they finally get it right, GM Kusama welcomes us to the show and thanks the crowd for their support, all to a chorus of “Hage” (baldy) chants. We than get a video rundown of the card for tonight’s big show, followed by “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa leading the Hustle Army to the ring to do a song & dance number! It wasn’t the best choreography ever, but you could tell everyone from Masato Tanaka to the buxom beauties in the ring were all genuinely enjoying themselves.
When all is done, it’s time for our first match…err, First Hustle!
Opening Hustle: Kota Iifushi & Taiji Ishimori VS Kaz Hayashi & Jimmy Yang
This was a great match which was all action from start to finish and all 4 men worked really well together here. I haven’t seen Jimmy Yang in a long time, but he looked great here in this mini-Jung Dragons reunion, and he even stole of a page from Eddie Guerrero’s Lie, Cheat & Steal book when he faked getting hurt after flipping out of a German suplex from Iifushi. Yang definitely hasn’t lost a step as he moved very smoothly here with Ishimori & Iifushi, who I don’t think he’s worked against before.
Kaz & Ishimori continued their rivalry here and worked most of the match for their teams. Kaz played the grumpy veteran, but still sold enough for Ishimori & Iifushi. Ishimori blew one spot in the match, but that’s expected I guess when you work a speedy style like his.
A fun match to start off the show overall, only it was a little short.
Match Rating: **1/2
Backstage, some guy tries to get an interview with Kenzo & Hiroko Suzuki. The dressing room door is wide open, but when he steps in he gets chased out by one of Suzuki’s agents or something, who slams the door on them.
Next up is a recap video of the joshi feud going on in Hustle between Erica’s army and the Takada Army Amazoness group. We then see Erica & Margaret in their dressing room anticipating their match next, but Mrs. Devil is a bit worried as she found out that Arizin Z & Blanca X’s tag partner tonight is Jaguar Y
First Hustle: Margaret, Erica & Mrs. Devil VS Blanca X, Jaguar Y & Arizin Z
Jaguar Y is none other than joshi legend Jaguar Yokota, and the 3 Amazoness’ do a cool XYZ (get it?) pose on the ramp-way for their entrance!
Once you look past the wacky comedic gimmicks these six ladies have, they actually put on a really solid match here! I’ve been a fan of Devil Masami for a while now, and I love her gimmick here as the “Godmother of Puroresu”, and the comedy spots where she barks at her opponents to be quiet silent is hilarious! This match also pushed her old rivalry with Jaguar Yokota, and Yokota played up her cat gimmick excellently, scratching away with those really sharp claws/nails of hers and even adding the cutesy “nyan” to the end of her sentences!
I think the MVP of this match is a toss up either to Ayako Hamada or Aja Kong, as Arizin Z played an awesome heel here and showed her ability, and the same goes to Erica who switched between being a loud mouthed comedy wrestler to the stiff bitch we all know and love.
You gotta give Blanca-X her props as well for bumping her ass off for the bigger face team, but she also was given fair offense, including a great German-suplex on Erica in addition to her high-flying speedy offense. Margaret seemed to sit out most of the match, but what she did was cool as well, including the funny spot where she tried to give Jaguar a flower!
Like I said at the beginning, look past the comedy bits, and this was a really solid joshi match, and they gave it enough time even for everything to come together nicely.
Match Rating: ****
Guy backstage tries to get an interview with Izumi Motoya, Kenzo Suzuki’s opponent tonight. Instead he runs into the old lay that will be accompanying Motoya to the ring tonight. She does a promo and gives him a cookie.
Highlight video of the Wataru Sakata/Riki Choshu feud where Sakata has been calling out Choshu, and tonight Choshu has a mystery partner.
Second Hustle: Wataru Sakata & Mark Coleman VS Riki Choshu & Yoshiaki Fujiwara
Leave it to Choshu to no sell everything Sakata threw at him like the stiff grumpy veteran that he is. You gotta give props to Fujiwara though, being able to work the mat like he does at his age. He even got to show off that hard-head of his when he no sold getting rammed into the corner post twice, the second one even busting him open!
I liked that Sakata showed his heel side rather well, coming off as a more interesting Minoru Suzuki here, with an almost matching haircut. Coleman looked ok for what he got in, including powering out of a Fujiwara-armbar attempt by lifting him up into a sidewalk slam!
Unfortunately just when it looked like this one was getting good, the ended surprisingly quick with Coleman giving Fujiwara a knock-out punch for the surprise pinfall. So Sakata & Coleman kind of get elevated, but Choshu gets off without having to sell anything and keep himself over and untouched.
Match Rating: *1/2
Video highlighting theater actor Motoya Izumi making the jump into puroresu to face Kenzo Suzuki. Motoya is being trained by fellow stage actor and former NJPW wrestler AKIRA.
Kenzo & Hiroko make their way to the ring, and when it’s time for Izumi to come out, instead we have a large group lead by Izumi’s colleague, Sachie Onigawa, along with a masked man & AKIRA. They jabbed on mic for a bit, and the old lady announces Suzuki must first take on masked man Mr. Onigawa & AKIRA first.
They disrobe and hit the ring, but Suzuki quickly makes short work of them with his iron-claw/legsweep finisher. Kenzo than moons the old lady as the lights go out and Motoya makes his grand entrance, made to look like he’s being lowered from a helicopter!
Third Hustle: Kenzo Suzuki with Hiroko VS Motoya Izumi
Man, where do I begin with this one?
First we got Izumi in full theater garb going at it with a guy that’s almost twice his size. Of course Kenzo no-sells his slaps and elbow strikes, and begins to have his way with the actor. Give the kid credit for taking Suzuki’s big slaps and a big back breaker.
All Hell than breaks loose as Mr. Onigawa & AKIRA get involved to help Izumi and are rather effective, and gives Izumi an opening to hit a big sliding dropkick which flips Kenzo in mid-air, and also hit a big knee drop. Hiroko gets involved and throws powder in AKIRA’s eyes and gives Mr. Onigawa a low kick. She tries to throw powder at Izumi, but he ducks and Kenzo takes the powder to the eyes! Blinded, Kenzo accidentally spears Hiroko, and Izumi takes advantage to give Kenzo his finisher, the Kuchu Motoya Chop, where he jumps on Kenzo like he’s gonna do a frankensteiner, but instead delivers chops to Kenzo’s head. Kenzo buckles and Izumi falls on him and gets the pinfall!
If your gonna look at this match at a work rate stand point, it’s a complete dud. But it did have some entertainment value since the live crowd were heavily behind Motoya here.
Match Rating: DUD
Hustle intermission time. When we come back, we go backstage where Naoya Ogawa & Shinjiro Ohtani are training backstage pulling each other back and forth with a short rope. Camera pans to the left and we see Taichi Ishikari helping HG train, also by pulling on a rope, but HG’s side is tied around his waist and he’s doing hip thrusts to pull his side!
Video recap of how Generalissimo Takada hypnotized the Just Raizers to fight for the Takada Monster Army, and how now the Justraizers have to team with the Hustle Rangers against him to bring him back tot eh side of good. This is one of the reasons why we got a ton of kids in the audience to night, and why the match is so high up the card.
Fourth Hustle: The Neo Devil Pieroths #1, #2 & Just Raizer Great VS Hustle Kamen Red, Hustle Kamen Blue & Leo Sazer
First of all let me say that no matter how corny it might seem, I think it’s actually quite a stroke of genius to put Power Rangers into pro-wrestling matches. You have a good gimmick to bring the kids to the shows, and you can put any junior heavyweight under the costumes and have them put on a display much like what the kids see on TV, just minus the super powers.
This was another highflying match, and they got some pretty good workers to work the Sazer/Raizer gimmicks, though it was the Hustle Kamens and Neo Devils that did most of the work. I just think they could have done more with the Sazer/Raizer characters than what they did here as the match did come off rather flat since the crowd were rather quiet till the end.
Match Rating: **
We go to the Takada Monster Army lair backstage where Generalissimo Takada, along with Monster-K and An-Jo, gives Yin Ling a new whip. She demonstrates it’s power by whipping a post. An-Jo comments in a comedic manner that it didn’t work. Yin Ling does her M-pose, and the post splits in 2. Monster-K gives a thumbs up for it.
Quick rundown of the mini-tournament where Masato Tanaka & Kintaro Kanemura qualified over Monster-C & Giant Silva, and now have to face Tadao Yasuda & Genichiro Tenryu in the finals. They show Tenryu making his Hustle debut at a recent Hustle House show under his rarely used Hayabusa gimmick.
Semi Hustle – Hustle Super Tag Titles Decision Match: Masato Tanaka & Kintaro Kanemura VS Tadao Yasuda & Genichiro Tenryu
Tanaka & Kanemura come out accompanied by Neko Hiroshi, I think he’s some kind of celebrity in Japan as he gets a big pop from the crowd and they improvise the TNR dance for him too.
Hate to say it, but you gotta give Yasuda a lot of credit for bumping his ass off like he did here, taking all the hardcore punishment Tanaka & Kanemura had to to dish out, including table shots, chair shots, and getting a table hammered into his groin! You also gotta give Tenryu credit for taking the table bump like he did when Tanaka splashed him through a table.
I think the only downside was the rather quick ending to what would probably have developed into a solid match. Tenryu had to go into grumpy no selling bastard mode and totally decimate Kanemura with just a lariat and a 53-Years Old for the win. I was really hoping to see some good Tenryu/Tanaka elbow/chop exchanges, but we didn’t get any.
Match Rating: **1/2
Video recap of HG coming to Hustle and causing all kinds of chaos with his hyper hip thrusting ability. Even the Takada Monster Army can’t seem to keep a straight face the first time he came out thrusting his hips like jackhammer. Even Kawada, Ogawa & Ohtani couldn’t keep a straight face either. His debut match tonight should be interesting since they showed HG in training, learning his new signature moves like the 69 Driver.
Main Hustle: “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa, “Hustle Achichi” Shinjiro Ohtani & HG VS Yin Ling-sama, “Monster-K” Toshiaki Kawada & “Mr. 300%” An-Jo
Wow. HG got the pop of the night when he came out, and he actually earned his wrestling stripes here as the crowd popped for everything he did, and even I was impressed since he worked rather well in the ring and didn’t blow any spots. They protected him rather well by having him come in, do his thing, and getting out quickly before he got winded. I think it’s also needless to say the crowd went insane for everything HG did, and you also have to give him credit for taking a few bumps from the likes of Kawada here.
Honestly, I think Yin Ling would also make a good wrestler if she didn’t wear the high heels all the time. She had two innovative submission moves, utilizing her M-pose as part of an Indian Death Lock and an arm-lock.
The main focus of the match was of course on HG, but the other four guys in the match all worked hard too. I really find it hard to believe HG received bigger pops for what he did compared to Ogawa & Kawada’s exchanges in the match, but that’s Hustle for you I guess.
Match Rating: ***
Kawada carries Yin Ling up the rampway and Generalissimo Takada comes out, does a promo, and Kawada lays Yin Ling on a platform, which lowers her under the stage. Kinda like a lowering a casket.
They gab some more, than the Monster Army leaves, leaving the Hustle Army to do the obligatory 3-2-1 Hustle! with the crowd to close out the show.
Overall: Okie, my first Hustle experience, and it was rather fun. The company has come a long way since their debut, as they’ve actually added work rate to the bizarre gimmicks. Granted, not everything was top of the line quality, and this probably wasn’t the best card you could put together as the first HustleMania show, but it was all really entertaining once you get past all the wacky gimmicks in the company.
We than get a rather funny start to the show as after some dramatic music, the lights were supposed to centre on Hustle GM Kusama in the centre of the ring, but they kept missing their mark and they had to restart 3 times! When they finally get it right, GM Kusama welcomes us to the show and thanks the crowd for their support, all to a chorus of “Hage” (baldy) chants. We than get a video rundown of the card for tonight’s big show, followed by “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa leading the Hustle Army to the ring to do a song & dance number! It wasn’t the best choreography ever, but you could tell everyone from Masato Tanaka to the buxom beauties in the ring were all genuinely enjoying themselves.
When all is done, it’s time for our first match…err, First Hustle!
Opening Hustle: Kota Iifushi & Taiji Ishimori VS Kaz Hayashi & Jimmy Yang
This was a great match which was all action from start to finish and all 4 men worked really well together here. I haven’t seen Jimmy Yang in a long time, but he looked great here in this mini-Jung Dragons reunion, and he even stole of a page from Eddie Guerrero’s Lie, Cheat & Steal book when he faked getting hurt after flipping out of a German suplex from Iifushi. Yang definitely hasn’t lost a step as he moved very smoothly here with Ishimori & Iifushi, who I don’t think he’s worked against before.
Kaz & Ishimori continued their rivalry here and worked most of the match for their teams. Kaz played the grumpy veteran, but still sold enough for Ishimori & Iifushi. Ishimori blew one spot in the match, but that’s expected I guess when you work a speedy style like his.
A fun match to start off the show overall, only it was a little short.
Match Rating: **1/2
Backstage, some guy tries to get an interview with Kenzo & Hiroko Suzuki. The dressing room door is wide open, but when he steps in he gets chased out by one of Suzuki’s agents or something, who slams the door on them.
Next up is a recap video of the joshi feud going on in Hustle between Erica’s army and the Takada Army Amazoness group. We then see Erica & Margaret in their dressing room anticipating their match next, but Mrs. Devil is a bit worried as she found out that Arizin Z & Blanca X’s tag partner tonight is Jaguar Y
First Hustle: Margaret, Erica & Mrs. Devil VS Blanca X, Jaguar Y & Arizin Z
Jaguar Y is none other than joshi legend Jaguar Yokota, and the 3 Amazoness’ do a cool XYZ (get it?) pose on the ramp-way for their entrance!
Once you look past the wacky comedic gimmicks these six ladies have, they actually put on a really solid match here! I’ve been a fan of Devil Masami for a while now, and I love her gimmick here as the “Godmother of Puroresu”, and the comedy spots where she barks at her opponents to be quiet silent is hilarious! This match also pushed her old rivalry with Jaguar Yokota, and Yokota played up her cat gimmick excellently, scratching away with those really sharp claws/nails of hers and even adding the cutesy “nyan” to the end of her sentences!
I think the MVP of this match is a toss up either to Ayako Hamada or Aja Kong, as Arizin Z played an awesome heel here and showed her ability, and the same goes to Erica who switched between being a loud mouthed comedy wrestler to the stiff bitch we all know and love.
You gotta give Blanca-X her props as well for bumping her ass off for the bigger face team, but she also was given fair offense, including a great German-suplex on Erica in addition to her high-flying speedy offense. Margaret seemed to sit out most of the match, but what she did was cool as well, including the funny spot where she tried to give Jaguar a flower!
Like I said at the beginning, look past the comedy bits, and this was a really solid joshi match, and they gave it enough time even for everything to come together nicely.
Match Rating: ****
Guy backstage tries to get an interview with Izumi Motoya, Kenzo Suzuki’s opponent tonight. Instead he runs into the old lay that will be accompanying Motoya to the ring tonight. She does a promo and gives him a cookie.
Highlight video of the Wataru Sakata/Riki Choshu feud where Sakata has been calling out Choshu, and tonight Choshu has a mystery partner.
Second Hustle: Wataru Sakata & Mark Coleman VS Riki Choshu & Yoshiaki Fujiwara
Leave it to Choshu to no sell everything Sakata threw at him like the stiff grumpy veteran that he is. You gotta give props to Fujiwara though, being able to work the mat like he does at his age. He even got to show off that hard-head of his when he no sold getting rammed into the corner post twice, the second one even busting him open!
I liked that Sakata showed his heel side rather well, coming off as a more interesting Minoru Suzuki here, with an almost matching haircut. Coleman looked ok for what he got in, including powering out of a Fujiwara-armbar attempt by lifting him up into a sidewalk slam!
Unfortunately just when it looked like this one was getting good, the ended surprisingly quick with Coleman giving Fujiwara a knock-out punch for the surprise pinfall. So Sakata & Coleman kind of get elevated, but Choshu gets off without having to sell anything and keep himself over and untouched.
Match Rating: *1/2
Video highlighting theater actor Motoya Izumi making the jump into puroresu to face Kenzo Suzuki. Motoya is being trained by fellow stage actor and former NJPW wrestler AKIRA.
Kenzo & Hiroko make their way to the ring, and when it’s time for Izumi to come out, instead we have a large group lead by Izumi’s colleague, Sachie Onigawa, along with a masked man & AKIRA. They jabbed on mic for a bit, and the old lady announces Suzuki must first take on masked man Mr. Onigawa & AKIRA first.
They disrobe and hit the ring, but Suzuki quickly makes short work of them with his iron-claw/legsweep finisher. Kenzo than moons the old lady as the lights go out and Motoya makes his grand entrance, made to look like he’s being lowered from a helicopter!
Third Hustle: Kenzo Suzuki with Hiroko VS Motoya Izumi
Man, where do I begin with this one?
First we got Izumi in full theater garb going at it with a guy that’s almost twice his size. Of course Kenzo no-sells his slaps and elbow strikes, and begins to have his way with the actor. Give the kid credit for taking Suzuki’s big slaps and a big back breaker.
All Hell than breaks loose as Mr. Onigawa & AKIRA get involved to help Izumi and are rather effective, and gives Izumi an opening to hit a big sliding dropkick which flips Kenzo in mid-air, and also hit a big knee drop. Hiroko gets involved and throws powder in AKIRA’s eyes and gives Mr. Onigawa a low kick. She tries to throw powder at Izumi, but he ducks and Kenzo takes the powder to the eyes! Blinded, Kenzo accidentally spears Hiroko, and Izumi takes advantage to give Kenzo his finisher, the Kuchu Motoya Chop, where he jumps on Kenzo like he’s gonna do a frankensteiner, but instead delivers chops to Kenzo’s head. Kenzo buckles and Izumi falls on him and gets the pinfall!
If your gonna look at this match at a work rate stand point, it’s a complete dud. But it did have some entertainment value since the live crowd were heavily behind Motoya here.
Match Rating: DUD
Hustle intermission time. When we come back, we go backstage where Naoya Ogawa & Shinjiro Ohtani are training backstage pulling each other back and forth with a short rope. Camera pans to the left and we see Taichi Ishikari helping HG train, also by pulling on a rope, but HG’s side is tied around his waist and he’s doing hip thrusts to pull his side!
Video recap of how Generalissimo Takada hypnotized the Just Raizers to fight for the Takada Monster Army, and how now the Justraizers have to team with the Hustle Rangers against him to bring him back tot eh side of good. This is one of the reasons why we got a ton of kids in the audience to night, and why the match is so high up the card.
Fourth Hustle: The Neo Devil Pieroths #1, #2 & Just Raizer Great VS Hustle Kamen Red, Hustle Kamen Blue & Leo Sazer
First of all let me say that no matter how corny it might seem, I think it’s actually quite a stroke of genius to put Power Rangers into pro-wrestling matches. You have a good gimmick to bring the kids to the shows, and you can put any junior heavyweight under the costumes and have them put on a display much like what the kids see on TV, just minus the super powers.
This was another highflying match, and they got some pretty good workers to work the Sazer/Raizer gimmicks, though it was the Hustle Kamens and Neo Devils that did most of the work. I just think they could have done more with the Sazer/Raizer characters than what they did here as the match did come off rather flat since the crowd were rather quiet till the end.
Match Rating: **
We go to the Takada Monster Army lair backstage where Generalissimo Takada, along with Monster-K and An-Jo, gives Yin Ling a new whip. She demonstrates it’s power by whipping a post. An-Jo comments in a comedic manner that it didn’t work. Yin Ling does her M-pose, and the post splits in 2. Monster-K gives a thumbs up for it.
Quick rundown of the mini-tournament where Masato Tanaka & Kintaro Kanemura qualified over Monster-C & Giant Silva, and now have to face Tadao Yasuda & Genichiro Tenryu in the finals. They show Tenryu making his Hustle debut at a recent Hustle House show under his rarely used Hayabusa gimmick.
Semi Hustle – Hustle Super Tag Titles Decision Match: Masato Tanaka & Kintaro Kanemura VS Tadao Yasuda & Genichiro Tenryu
Tanaka & Kanemura come out accompanied by Neko Hiroshi, I think he’s some kind of celebrity in Japan as he gets a big pop from the crowd and they improvise the TNR dance for him too.
Hate to say it, but you gotta give Yasuda a lot of credit for bumping his ass off like he did here, taking all the hardcore punishment Tanaka & Kanemura had to to dish out, including table shots, chair shots, and getting a table hammered into his groin! You also gotta give Tenryu credit for taking the table bump like he did when Tanaka splashed him through a table.
I think the only downside was the rather quick ending to what would probably have developed into a solid match. Tenryu had to go into grumpy no selling bastard mode and totally decimate Kanemura with just a lariat and a 53-Years Old for the win. I was really hoping to see some good Tenryu/Tanaka elbow/chop exchanges, but we didn’t get any.
Match Rating: **1/2
Video recap of HG coming to Hustle and causing all kinds of chaos with his hyper hip thrusting ability. Even the Takada Monster Army can’t seem to keep a straight face the first time he came out thrusting his hips like jackhammer. Even Kawada, Ogawa & Ohtani couldn’t keep a straight face either. His debut match tonight should be interesting since they showed HG in training, learning his new signature moves like the 69 Driver.
Main Hustle: “Captain Hustle” Naoya Ogawa, “Hustle Achichi” Shinjiro Ohtani & HG VS Yin Ling-sama, “Monster-K” Toshiaki Kawada & “Mr. 300%” An-Jo
Wow. HG got the pop of the night when he came out, and he actually earned his wrestling stripes here as the crowd popped for everything he did, and even I was impressed since he worked rather well in the ring and didn’t blow any spots. They protected him rather well by having him come in, do his thing, and getting out quickly before he got winded. I think it’s also needless to say the crowd went insane for everything HG did, and you also have to give him credit for taking a few bumps from the likes of Kawada here.
Honestly, I think Yin Ling would also make a good wrestler if she didn’t wear the high heels all the time. She had two innovative submission moves, utilizing her M-pose as part of an Indian Death Lock and an arm-lock.
The main focus of the match was of course on HG, but the other four guys in the match all worked hard too. I really find it hard to believe HG received bigger pops for what he did compared to Ogawa & Kawada’s exchanges in the match, but that’s Hustle for you I guess.
Match Rating: ***
Kawada carries Yin Ling up the rampway and Generalissimo Takada comes out, does a promo, and Kawada lays Yin Ling on a platform, which lowers her under the stage. Kinda like a lowering a casket.
They gab some more, than the Monster Army leaves, leaving the Hustle Army to do the obligatory 3-2-1 Hustle! with the crowd to close out the show.
Overall: Okie, my first Hustle experience, and it was rather fun. The company has come a long way since their debut, as they’ve actually added work rate to the bizarre gimmicks. Granted, not everything was top of the line quality, and this probably wasn’t the best card you could put together as the first HustleMania show, but it was all really entertaining once you get past all the wacky gimmicks in the company.
Labels: Hustle
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