[SPEAKER_00]: This podcast is a member of the Voices of Wrestling Podcasting Network.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back to those days and Mitch and Oku Pro retrospective episode 16 world championship title series.
[SPEAKER_03]: Those days is a production of open the voice gate and as a part of the voices of wrestling podcasts.
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[SPEAKER_03]: I'm one of your hosts, it's a real pal, Mike Spears, joined alongside your other host case, low.
[SPEAKER_03]: In case, we ended this last episode with the Sky Diving J Cup, a Sky Diving J at Budacon Hall.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it was very clear,
[SPEAKER_03]: At least within the Japanese ecosystem, we were on a collision course to discover who the greatest junior heavyweight wrestler in Japan will be and it's the this has been a show that I think for most people who are
[SPEAKER_03]: even just mildly aware of Mitch and Oku Pro in the career of great Sasuke.
[SPEAKER_03]: This show has a match that you would have circled in double underline case.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's time to talk about the jacron.
[SPEAKER_03]: Cup finals, but there's a bunch of other stuff to get to around that.
[SPEAKER_03]: How are you doing, bud?
[SPEAKER_01]: I worry it's so funny you did that intro because I worry that maybe.
[SPEAKER_01]: were not going to shed enough light on the idea of Sasuke holding nine titles at one time and maybe what that meant for Mitch Doku pro.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there was a bunch of other stuff that we cover on this episode that quite frankly, I just think it's way more interesting than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not sure if that's just a result of being beaten over the head with the Ultimo Dragon
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of stuff that we're gonna cover here that I'm way more excited about than the J crown.
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe that makes me bad at my job.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know, I feel like that as the person on this project that came in with a lot less of a fluency and like a day-to-day, Mitch and Oak grew, who viewer and like studying, for me, the kind of, in a lot of ways that this project has really, like,
[SPEAKER_03]: illustrated like and then not just how much like the big beats are but everything that's happening all around it and really the story of this episode is what Michit Okupro does around the J.
[SPEAKER_03]: Crown tournament and what what wild idea that they kind of picked up from Liger and that is case we're going to talk about a whole lot of
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... wild vanity titles throughout this episode because that's what michinoku uh... was up to in july and august of nineteen ninety six while saskai was going in getting the eight belts because in and we're getting into it i found it a lot more interesting than the actual jacro final as well yeah i just think
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it this made me think about, you know, not to jump into the middle of the episode, but just the the place that ultimo dragon holds in all of this in the weirdness of ultimo dragon and
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know when I don't know if we could ever really get an honest answer out of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's odd because he ends up spending so much time in the 2000s and beyond with Sasuke with some of the Mitchenoku guys and as those 90s, junior to age, you know, they sort of all banded together at various points in time.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we're not going to talk about
[SPEAKER_01]: Altimov versus Shinjuro Tani, which happened the night before the Altimov versus great sauce came ash for the J crown, but you know, that's one of the better junior matches of the 90s.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Altimov Dragon is a man that it's not like he lacks truly great matches, but there is some sort of oddity.
[SPEAKER_01]: of him wrestling within the Mitch Joku Pro ecosystem and wrestling these Mitch Joku Pro guys where it doesn't feel like, for instance, when Jusin Thunder Liger steps into Mitch Joku Pro, or when he would later go into Osaka Pro, we're later going to pro wrestling Noah, there is to me, a palpable tension between Ultimo and anything with the Mitch Joku Pro logo wanted in the 90s that is just a very strange phenomenon.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and we kind of get that in a full course with the J crown final, and I'll save like my big like this was when we get into the J crown, that's one of the things as the
[SPEAKER_03]: Though the person who's gained a full emergence into Michinoku pro through this project, like I've seen the J Crown before, but I've never seen Sasuke across the Lucha Kingdom Comte, but I haven't seen the World Championship title series in 1996, and
[SPEAKER_03]: In a lot of ways, I feel like that the story of this episode will be what everyone else is kind of getting up to around Sasuke and a lot of that is because of what happens exactly in that J Crown Final, like not to give away everything about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: The this episode is kind of one of those hinge points of the great Sasuke's career.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we'll talk about how August 5th, 1996 can be seen as the end of the peak of the great Sasuke.
[SPEAKER_03]: And in a lot of ways it's all downhill from the this really
[SPEAKER_03]: in a lot of ways a train wreck of a title match that they have in August, but case that's not all we have to talk about today on those days.
[SPEAKER_03]: A lot of things are a foot in the summer of 1996 around Machinoco Pro in the greater Japanese ecosystem.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to start with the state of the Japanese wrestling media in 1996 because this does affect Mitch Dokupro both of the stories that we're going to talk about at the top of this episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Mike, as I was preparing for this today, I realized that it sort of transitioned seamlessly into great Sasuke and Tiger Mask hanging out in Mexico and the things that we liked about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a Japanese media intensive start to this episode, but we will open up the timeline.
[SPEAKER_01]: We will go to June 17th, 1996, and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter in which Dave Melcer writes, the Japanese wrestling world is about to change with the official announcement on 610 at a press conference of the debut of a 24-hour cable channel known as Fighting TV.
[SPEAKER_01]: The channel, which will start on 9-1, is a premium cable channel as compared to the U.S. cable in Japan is still in its infancy, probably a good 15 years behind the U.S. and this would be the equivalent of the starting point of ESPN.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll fill its programming with pro wrestling and martial arts events, appearing at the press conference, included Antonio Anoki, Akira Mayada, and Shinya Hashimoto.
[SPEAKER_01]: While an exhibition match was performed by Mitch Dokupro's great saucecavers' tire mask, as an example of the type of programming offered.
[SPEAKER_01]: With that much time to fill, it is expected that most most of the smaller groups in Japan, which have almost no television saved for the one hour of chant for which rotates covering the various smaller promotions, we'll get more of a television presence.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is true.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the launch of what we now know as Samurai TV.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we go forward, Mike, this drastically changes the amount of Mitch Doku pro footage that we get.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, like up to this point, and really, like this episode is kind of a love letter to the Mitchenoku pro comp tape between the Sasuke Kroslucha Kingdom and the World Championship title series two of my absolute favorite comp tapes that we've had so far with it, but it's
[SPEAKER_03]: Dave is very right about some things here, especially about premium channels in Japan, like the idea of cable as it really exists, like it's still to this day and even more, so it is a splinter of the overall
[SPEAKER_03]: viewing base that that they have more than like their license fee and it's even less now because the proliferation of streaming I mean what we're in twenty twenty six in case you know who right now is one of the biggest stars now in Japanese wrestling social media because of their appearance on streaming shows.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you might want to use a finalists on the Japanese version of the Bachelor rep right now.
[SPEAKER_03]: and that is on a streaming service and it is such a different kind of things now 30 years later like that's where like start a star power is happening and you could also kind of in a way look at a mechanical pro of 1996 and all Japan of 2026 and do a compare contrast there.
[SPEAKER_03]: But like the TV ecosystem in of itself does not drastically change over the next 30 years because cable still.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Gaura was JCTV before this and like that champ forum as a show with it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it was still a very small percentage of the
[SPEAKER_03]: overall marketplace.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, when we talk with Jay church on voice gate episodes, like the discussions about gaurah and it's fine angels and like basically what it's all hinge about, which is Japanese baseball, is like one of those kind of underlying points within Japanese wrestling of like the 20s of the 20s and probably into the 2030s in a lot of ways.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I think it's interesting for that point and then yeah, no, with Samurai TV, everyone gets a time slot and I don't know at this point like when the
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we're essentially going to be getting before the end of 96 episodes.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think of Samurai TV or is it 97 where they really start hitting for Mitch and Oakwood Pearl.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's definitely 97.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we get because I'm looking ahead now.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get the tag league in 1996 on Samurai TV.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's third day.
[SPEAKER_03]: Which is something we really up until the year previous.
[SPEAKER_03]: We did not get any of who had
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it's been a bummer because I think a lot of those matches that looked really good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we, we talked last year because that was, we covered that because that was when Kato Kung Lee came in and team with Sasuke and I really wish we got a better picture of what that tournament would have looked like.
[SPEAKER_01]: The November 96 mentioned Okupro Tag League is a belief Sasuke and Santo teaming together.
[SPEAKER_01]: If not, then it's Santo and Delphin teaming together, but
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad that we get that and we will cross that bridge shortly, and then as you get into, I mean, especially
[SPEAKER_01]: 1998, 1999, it's Mitch Doke who pro battle station far more than it is, Mitch Doke who pro on champ forum.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, that that comes with some good and some bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's probably some blocks of Mitch Doke who pro TV that will hit that we wish we didn't have so much of, but also, you know, there's there's going to be crazy max matches that we get early crazy max stuff as a result of Samurai TV existing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that was a positive then and that
[SPEAKER_03]: absolutely so and I think that that shows like really we're in 1996 our time frame case like essentially starts in 92 and we've seen like if you want to take it back to pioneers in she in 89 right you're talking about essentially no since she was 87.
[SPEAKER_03]: But a period of a decade where you go from no independent wrestling outside of the booking offices or people bringing in parts of New Japan and all Japan or the last parts of IWE at that time to now having such a demand for independent wrestling that in 1996 you have a essentially a television station that's we base all around it.
[SPEAKER_03]: and even though you do have a nookie might at an Hashimoto there, as we would grow to know, Samurai is the home of anyone who really has televised, pro wrestling, at least up until the up until the streaming era.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is the big deal coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also want to note really quickly before I hit the next thing in the timeline that we covered the formation of Giora and how that went from JC TV to Giora and the origin of chant form and what that was on one of the first episodes.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that wasn't episode one that that one or two.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, one or two.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought that stuff was really interesting because I had never really heard anybody talk about some of the stuff that we talked about there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if your jump began in the middle, again, I know a lot of people have jumped in because it's Mitch Joke of Pro 1996.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think I think we did some really interesting stuff on those first three or four episodes, just in terms of the the history of Japanese independent wrestling and how we got here and the culture surrounding it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I would recommend checking that out.
[SPEAKER_01]: We also have this note from the observer,
[SPEAKER_01]: When Dave Wright, this was a pretty extensive story that he covered throughout the summer of 1996, but we get the big update here in which he notes, in what is a landmark story when it comes to wrestling journalism, Tarzan Yamamoto, the editor of Weekly Pro Wrestling since his debut in 1984, resigned this past week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yamamoto had been embroiled in a feud with New Japan Pro Wrestling, the country's largest office, which along with the UWF-I and WAR had banned the magazine from covering its events
[SPEAKER_01]: When the bet with magazine sales declining 8% in the past month alone, while rival weekly Gong had seen a 16% increase in with selling its copies at the new stance at a record rate according to most reports, with Dave noting in parentheses, some reports are that Gong was selling 95% of its new stand mags, which is a figure totally unheard of in the magazine publishing business, where 30 to 40% is considered successful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dave goes on to continue since it was the only full color weekly to cover those three offices that being weekly gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yamamoto resigned.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is believed although not official at press time, the new Japan will will now allow weekly pro a subsidiary of baseball magazine Shaw to begin covering its events starting with the G1 climax in August with so many prior, I'm sorry, with so many major new Japan UWFI and WAR events in the summer and fall, the pressure on weekly pro to
[SPEAKER_01]: as important, the fact that its main competitor has become so hot has become enormous as of late.
[SPEAKER_01]: Weekly pro has gone to heavy coverage of all Japan, Michinoku, rings, pain crates, the Japanese garbage groups, women, and American wrestling, and in particular has pushed ECW to pick up the slack.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yellow Moto, who is credited with bringing mainstream coverage of
[SPEAKER_01]: almost to observe a level, except that his magazine has a circulation of 300,000 per week, making it far more influential.
[SPEAKER_01]: By all accounts, Yamamoto was one of the most powerful and influential people on wrestling with Japan.
[SPEAKER_01]: According to one book on pro wrestling written in Japan, Yamamoto was called the most influential person in the entire pro wrestling world.
[SPEAKER_01]: In particular, after successfully promoting a show in April of 1995, which sold out the Tokyo dome and had main event caliber matches from 13 different offices, the other publications and others in the business got even hotter at the power he was able to wield and that groups were supposedly afraid that if they didn't cooperate with his show, it would mean diminished coverage in the most important magazine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rival publications were so bitter at the power wheel and that for the most part, they boycotted
[SPEAKER_01]: ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were fears and rumors started throughout Japan, which turned out to be unfounded that Yamamoto, age 50, who also hosted his own late night weekly pro wrestling talk show for most of the last year, was going to use the dome show, which drew something like 5.5 million as a springboard to start his own promotion.
[SPEAKER_01]: Others had criticized him as a late for favoring promotions that he had a business dealings with, which weekly pro
[SPEAKER_01]: being heavily criticized by outsiders for its deal where it markets ECW tapes in Japan and exchange has given ECW tons of coverage in the magazine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yamamoto had bragged at WrestleMania in regards to the new Japan band that he had never lost a war yet.
[SPEAKER_01]: He had previous conflicts with all Japan, WAR, SWS, etc.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of which resulted in the promotions making immense with him because of the power his magazine healed it.
[SPEAKER_01]: With new Japan so hot and weekly pro banned from coverage, he was in a war that this time he did it when.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, those close to him say that this resignation in many ways is more than it seems a calculated wrestling angle, and that he's going to leave right a few books on pro wrestling and return to another venue as powerful as ever.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, there's a lot here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't even be with his sense of structure.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, more and oh my god.
[SPEAKER_03]: my seventh grade English teacher would have a field day diagram.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was just a diagram census or is that something that's gone by the generations that since diagramming is no longer a torture that's foisted upon middle schoolers.
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't sound familiar.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you're lucky.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're lucky, man.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, but let's parse through the Meltzeries.
[SPEAKER_03]: This has been one of the things that I've always kind of found interesting about this project was like in the 90s, the extent of the power of the Japanese wrestling magazine and going back to like how you were referring to our earlier episodes.
[SPEAKER_03]: While Yama Gucci, at one point,
[SPEAKER_03]: editor or one of the editors a weekly gong along with Mr. Lucha Sassumos's Shemazoo heavily involved with Mitch and Oku Pro and heavily involved and the first few years promoting it within the magazines and also his various dirt sheets that he would contribute to as well whereas Yamamoto and like
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the things about weekly pro and baseball magazine shot is when they bring up the tape business, case, have you noticed that who the comp tapes come from for Mitchenoku pro, if they're not a Mitchenoku pro, created the comp tape?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you notice what company is the one putting them out for people in the 90s?
[SPEAKER_03]: No, I have not.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's baseball magazine shot.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it is weekly probing involved.
[SPEAKER_03]: So Yamamoto's fingers were deep onto everything in a lot of different ways here.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I mean, to the point of the bridge of Dream Show, I never, other than this Dave quote here, never heard the idea of Tarzan Yamamoto wanting to make his a new promotion launch out of that April 1995 dome show.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm I'm I'm fastened by that because I don't know who his strong if from a talent standpoint I don't know who his strongest ally would have been and what's a jumping off flight would have been there right and the thing about like the battles in the war is like that it was noticeable SWS and weekly pro were never on the same page like him in tenryu were enemies for a long for like a real long time like up until after bridge a
[SPEAKER_03]: Bridget dreams when the war thing in it because war was the one company the one show that was uh company nonvolves with Bridget dreams back in 95 and they ran a competing uh show at Corkin Hall that day that weekly gong had like it's entire magazine.
[SPEAKER_03]: They saw them because they weren't going to cover this uh
[SPEAKER_03]: And this is where I kind of, I'm going to put my ignorance about yamamoto on display.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this it for Tarzan yamamoto and his career?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because I don't remember hearing of this guy into a point where I would have been at consuming wrestling stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: Low, low, like this seems like that this is it for this guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know either.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to try to look real quick, but
[SPEAKER_01]: I am unsure.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, people who would have been more of the moment and would have remembered like that, I would love to hear his guitars in, Yamamoto seems to be doing, might still be alive.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tarzan Yamamoto doing interviews as of last year with Tota Consaur, the Tota Consaur.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, so he's still around.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, there's a bigger,
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a bigger conversation we can possibly have about this, oh, I wish I wish I would have thought of this before we started recording because it looks like on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pro Wrestling only there's quite a bit written about Yamamoto, but it's too much to get through right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a bummer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I might I might come into the the discord and have more information at a later date.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll have to say we'll have to see what I cover here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am just discovering that Tarzan Yamamoto is affiliated with the totacon store, which is one of the biggest Japanese merchandise stores in all of Japan.
[SPEAKER_03]: So, silking around apparently at some, in some juncture.
[SPEAKER_01]: Still kicking around a deed, so we have that, you know, we've got the introduction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of Samurai TV, which, again, is going to be of great benefit to Mitch Dokupro.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have the magazine note because Mitch Dokupro was so aided by the magazines, especially towards the end of 1993, once they partner with O'Nita, and then from there, Sasuke has the J Cup and becomes somewhat of a media darling, and so Mitch Dokupro seemed to always have an ally and weekly pro.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is the update there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We now turn our attention to our favorite topic, which is the great Sasuke going to Mexico.
[SPEAKER_01]: And luckily this time, we do not have pontifications over when or where Sasuke is going.
[SPEAKER_01]: We actually have Sasuke on foot in Mexico.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mitch Dokupro, Lucia Paradise, July 1996, the commercial tape.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mike Spears, I love this so much.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is, and I think I said this a couple episodes ago about crisis and lucha paradise, across lucha kingdom might be my favorite comp tape that they have, just because of how much just extra flavor is on top.
[SPEAKER_03]: you essentially have two full matches and then clips of a tournament, but a lot of it is essentially Sasuke and Tiger Mask for hanging out in Mexico.
[SPEAKER_03]: First, you get the Metaire port, they head to Mexico, they get on a riverboat and Sasuke all the while.
[SPEAKER_03]: He has like a grimace on his face throughout
[SPEAKER_03]: as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then the unigangenian like comes out of nowhere at like a market place and people start calling him the chuko cobra because these random people Mexico don't know who this guy with face paint and wearing a singlet is.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just a great time and it goes right into a match from a plata de la Luce on from July 6th, 1997, Sasuke, Tiger Mass Four in Elantis.
[SPEAKER_03]: versus Negerocassus Santanico and Dr. Wagner Jr. and the good time just keeps on continuing when we get into the ring as well, case.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm really glad we got this specific match, because this was CMLL's like third tier Mexico City venue behind Irina Mexico and Irina Coliseo.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't, I don't get the impression that stuff from this venue may tape all that off, and I, I, so it doesn't have any more.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it closed up in 1997.
[SPEAKER_01]: probably the last bit of footage that exists from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it glows in the spring of 97.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we are in the summer of 96, but you know, we're at a point in, and I know this, because I've been going through so much this footage lately, but we're not getting full arena Mexico shows and we're not getting full arena Coliseus shows.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to get something from this venue is awesome, because it's a rarity, and I think the venue looks great on camera, and I think unfortunately,
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a comp tape that follows the great Sasuke around Mexico and not a comp tape that follows tiger mask for around Mexico because the joy of this match, like you said, Sasuke tiger mask in Atlantis versus Negro Cossus Dr. Ragnar Jr. and satanico.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tiger mask for and satanico should have been career-long rivals.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those two have, for satanico rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: a satinical rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I know it took me for a good on board with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I now understand the satinical rules.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's funny that we're that you said that because we were talking about talking much no earlier today.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went on his Lucha DB to remind myself, I was like, oh, okay, he starts working CMLL.
[SPEAKER_01]: in 1997.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a Taka satanico independent junior championship match that headlines a Coliseaux show in 1997 that either didn't make tape or it made tape, but we don't have the tape of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have the TV of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I started thinking like, God, is there a match that I want to see more right now than 1997 Taka against 1997 satanico.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because here in 1996, he's unbelievably
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and just satanico enough itself working with Sasuke and Tiger Mass for just a different kind of heal than what we have in Mitch and Okupro and it kind of had the thought in my mind like what would satanico really look like this kind of heal really be in Mitch and Okupro, but
[SPEAKER_03]: He tiger mass forests so solid throughout this and he really feels like oh wait, this is a guy who
[SPEAKER_03]: is really getting to expose the himself in like a new environment, but just as much of that, it's him getting to experience like Sasuke had been going to Mexico since what 90 at this point, like we made jokes again.
[SPEAKER_03]: 91, oh, we make jokes about him trying to get back into Mexico after a machinoku pro starts up, but like he had that kind of basis
[SPEAKER_03]: a student of Pomoda's Universal, that's that was his bread and butter like this is Tiger Mass 4's like first real exposure to that and I think that through this match it's just such a really kind of cool experience to see.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I thought he like worked also really well with Wagger and the few bits that we got with him.
[SPEAKER_03]: with those two together.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the thing that I really enjoy this match, the thing that is a little discipline is that this match really is building up the Sasuke and Kossas match coming up later.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's almost to the detriment of how much fun tiger mass force in this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes me a long time and we'll get there and I'll point it out when we get there.
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes me a long time to warm up to the Sasuke Kossus chemistry.
[SPEAKER_01]: Specifically, it takes me until the third fall on their singles match to really embrace it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you're right.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are in this six-man tag.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're probably the two least interesting guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because Atlantis and Dr. Reider Jr are excellent with one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've set our piece on Tiger Mask and
[SPEAKER_01]: satanico would just how much fun they are there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is, I mean, this is a match worth watching from the historically anecdote of it's the tiger mask for Mexico debut.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are an venue that hardly ever makes tape.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Sasuke's first time in Mexico and forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a bunch of all-time rate looter doors during a period in which they were wrestling like all-time grades.
[SPEAKER_01]: The match is cut up a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish we really got the full
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, from from what we have, I felt comfortable enough going three and three quarters on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I cannot, I cannot begrudge you for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So on the comp tape from there, we get the opening match.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we see Sasuke and Tiger mask.
[SPEAKER_01]: walking into what I assume was a place that maybe Sasuke lived while he was living in Mexico in the early 90s and we get these cool photos of Sasuke before Mitch Noku Pro during the earliest days of the Great Sasuke gimmick, Tiger Mask 4 is walking around and an incredible Mitch Noku Pro jacket that looks like a Mitch Noku Pro starter jacket.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what brand it was, but I want it.
[SPEAKER_01]: If anybody knows where I can get it, please let me know.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as I was watching
[SPEAKER_01]: which is two Japanese guys hanging out in Mexico speaking some Spanish and some Japanese but definitely no English.
[SPEAKER_01]: It really dawned on me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think this is one of those larger media points that we can make and we can tie it back into wrestling.
[SPEAKER_01]: The magazine style show is something that I think is greatly missing from all media, but especially wrestling.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was thinking about it in regards to modern day CMLL.
[SPEAKER_01]: As we said here in May of 2026, I was thinking about it in regards to modern day Draingate.
[SPEAKER_01]: As we said here in May of 2026, and for instance, it's about a month ago
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we're going to give you the full Tuesday arena Mexico show live.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to give you the Tuesday, Guadalajaro show on tape delay.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to get the Friday arena Mexico show live.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to get the Saturday arena Calacayo show live.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you're going to get the Sunday arena Mexico show live and the Monday arena playable show live.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as somebody that, you know, love CMLL, even if I haven't been in love with it in 2026, because as as Cubs wrote and I thought this was such a brilliant line, he goes, there's been a lot of programming and not a lot of booking in 2026 CMLL, which I, I, I, I'm so jealous of that line, that's such a, a stupid point.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need all of this one.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish that I could consume CMLL.
[SPEAKER_01]: If I had my say, it would be live Friday, full show, live Saturday, full show, and then give me like a 90 minute broadcast of whatever the best thing from Sunday, the best thing from Monday, and the best thing from Tuesday are.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then give me a wacky feature on Shellwa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me a wacky feature on Mystico touring the globe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Give me it, Lance's Jr and Atlanta.
[SPEAKER_01]: See, you're hanging out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Give me this echo with the singer, uh, me Moera.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was a, or Mystico with BTS.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's, there's unexplored stuff here, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, is detrimental to media in general.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, if I could control the way that Dragon Gate stuff aired, I would want the full live core can show.
[SPEAKER_01]: But maybe the full Kobe or Osaka, but really what I want is I want the Vamanos Amigos format back where it's guys at a desk and we're we're cutting to the best stuff from all the house shows like I kind of think that is maybe the way that this stuff is best consumed.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a larger point where I think the magic of this editing style is lost because so many could various like come back and go, well, okay, well, Sasuke and Tiger Mask are essentially doing a travel vlog.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we have a more modernized version of this, but I think there's power in the idea of the cutting room floor and there's power in the idea of making things be a certain way and have a sort of look and a sort of zip to the cuts and
[SPEAKER_01]: even now when I look at the way like I'm thinking about the NBA draft coming up and I was watching the draft lottery and I was watching some of the packages they produced for that show and it almost has the tenor now in American sports they sort of have the WWE issue where people will say that raw is like a show about a show about wrestling and sometimes I'll watch these sports packages
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like through doing a video package about a video package about a basketball player.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have lost the art of editing in the way that weirdly the Sasuke goes to Mexico Comptape has perfected.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because like you also had like him going just getting these slices of life that I feel like imagine just going back to the dragon gate beat just for one second whenever someone is in Mexico or is in the UK and it is on excursion for like something like that or they were just in United States or WrestleMania weekend like having those kinds of little bit of interest things and there's things on the network that
[SPEAKER_03]: that do to public interest in more magaziney kind of thing but like the fact of like the TV programs and I think it's just essentially like tying back to samurai coming out and then gay or in the proliferation of just having the available TV time and basically being told like you have
[SPEAKER_03]: two hours or a 90-minute slot, choose what you want to get in there with it.
[SPEAKER_03]: You're forced to be creative with it, but we live in an air, and now that at least as a drag gate, but for nearly every single promotion case, we get the whole show.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we're really nothing, the promotions you don't get the whole show are A, W, and W, because you don't get the dark matches.
[SPEAKER_03]: like those are the times you don't get the whole show nowadays, but we're like so far past that I don't know how can anyone kind of go back there because it also similarly like the the loss of the like music video package as a thing on TV shows as well.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that I think that that's been another thing within professional wrestling that you said like the great promo packages that you don't see
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, uh, and look, this is all for not because ultimately, and I apologize for having such a defeat us attitude, I try not to have it, but ultimately our lives are going to be dictated by about 13 or 14 of the richest people on Earth, and we're going to be forced to be met with technology that we don't want with surveillance that we can't control, but
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel, and I say, this is a as a 27 year old that is noticing trends around me that there is, there is some sort of social movement happening right now to scale down the amount of tech on our lives and that's not to say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, don't phones.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was talking to somebody in the music industry recently about.
[SPEAKER_01]: iPods and how they've got a kid who's 18 and that kid really wants an old school iPod to be able to disconnect from the phone But still be able to have music and I think Apple's making a ginormous mistake by not selling iPods that are automatically subscribed to Apple music And I they're I it's crazy to say that Apple's missing the boat on something but Apple's completely missing the boat on not mass producing old iPod nanos and just having Apple music hooked up to them but
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a growing movement, I think, to rethink the way that tech is playing in our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, that's not to say the college students aren't using AI and that's not to say the college students aren't using Chad G.P.T., but I also think there's now becoming a more vocal crowd that is rejecting that sort of stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that group is now big enough to where they have to be acknowledged.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I say all of this,
[SPEAKER_01]: As now, a long time residing Japanese wrestling fan, somebody that has been through a few different areas of fandoms and seen a few different things come and go.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think for the industry a large,
[SPEAKER_01]: I think streaming has been really negative for Japanese wrestling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think these shows look ugly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of these shows were not meant to be seen in full, and they were better off that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think historically it's going to be a nightmare to try to rewatch some of this stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: When the only video files that exist are three hour Hokkaido Dragon Gate show files, where it's like, okay, all these that, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, hey, I really like mesh four on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, well, good luck finding that there's no timestamps, you know, it's a, not your self-out trying to go through the scrubber bar there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think the lack of production around Japanese wrestling,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's something that is really noticeable to be right now, and it's really ugly.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think we would talk about Mitch Joku Pro in the 90s in the same way we do.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we were getting some of these full shows down as we talk about every episode, there's how shows that we don't get footage of where I go, God, I would kill to see that match.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God, you know, there's so many delph and singles matches that we're not getting that I would really like to see.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I also think,
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, there's a ton of all Japan, no one in drink, each stuff that maybe I don't need to see in 2026.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe if this was a studio show in the Vamedos Amigos format, maybe we would all be better off, and maybe it would be more enjoyable to consume that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, which just, sorry, just to cut you off one second, but that just, I want to make sure that I make my point clearly, 10 years ago, it was unimaginable to say, I want less footage.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want less of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need this much, but I think we've hit this maximalist point in technology where now we can, we can look at the situation and this might be the only time in human history.
[SPEAKER_01]: that there's a growing movement to scale back that maybe we didn't need all of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe just some of it was fine.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's been great advancements made.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, again, I say this is somebody who when I started watching Japanese wrestling, it was pre-New Japan world still on you streams, the G1 Climax cost $150 to watch.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we also thought that was a great financial investment, like a great deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fact,
[SPEAKER_01]: that when I watch a drink, it show live.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are other people watching a Noah show or a New Japan show or a DDT show or an Ozpans show or a start-up show live.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at times, they're flipping back and forth between them.
[SPEAKER_01]: That will never not be amazing to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm glad that we live in that reality.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think streaming specifically, these streaming sites for Japanese wrestling have been really detrimental to what Japanese wrestling can be.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because the point I was going to make earlier, like, imagine, like, Mitchie world exists.
[SPEAKER_03]: And suddenly, every show is available.
[SPEAKER_03]: And every show has that 15 minute, Wellington welcomes Junior versus Yoda again to match.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, there are certain things that you don't necessarily need to see.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, and the greatest thing of things, would it be neat to see rookie Gamma in 1996 make tape and see what his deal is and what his bag isn't if he has anything or not?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it would be.
[SPEAKER_03]: But let's be completely honest, like, would you forsake any of that for the opportunity to have full, like a full Hamata match?
[SPEAKER_03]: or to have clips from various matches in order if you're giving up having Yoshihito Sugamoto, rookie matches is something that I feel like, what with time that we can easily say, you know what, we're good with what we have with the cocktails and then future champ forums and Samurai TV listings in with that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because the time till we get full Machinoku pro shows, I mean, we're now 16 episodes in,
[SPEAKER_03]: four full calendar years into it.
[SPEAKER_03]: When you get the full shows, like there are things that I think that that we both are at a point where we're like, okay, are we really watching this now here?
[SPEAKER_03]: And imagine having to have that every show available to you and you're sitting through all of that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just don't think that it would have a good intended effect to have all that available.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think yeah, I wish I wish wrestling companies in 2026 specifically Japanese wrestling companies, although I think CMLL is going to very quickly become guilty of this, I just wish they would rethink their distribution methods.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just not sure that it's the best way going forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think the greatest advancement in all of this is that we get to see
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these rookies in a way that we've never seen them before and for somebody with my sensibilities that's really exciting and I don't really want to get rid of that, but I also think maybe it would be better for again for modern day drag H standards if we saw all of quarkin.
[SPEAKER_01]: maybe all of Kobe, and then a 90 minute highlight show with, you know, each kawa and kai at the desk, you know, commentating over the last two, we're in the, you know, like again, you know, the mystical BTS thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know this is partially just a victim of the 24-hour new cycle and everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's old news as soon as it becomes new news.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, mystical was with the, maybe the biggest entertainment actor in the world that isn't Taylor Swift,
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't really feel like CMLL made the most of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that might be a CMLL specific problem, but that is a huge deal that I don't think that company capitalize on because it's just, hey, it's the live stream, we did the live stream, we turned it over.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like to see the magazine style, mystical and BTS backstage, high five, and get meeting each other, whatever it may be.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think in media,
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just really missing those personality pieces right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the same thing I went back on YouTube recently.
[SPEAKER_01]: Something popped up in the algorithm that was one of those old VH1 countdown shows, which it was, you know, the 100 best songs of the 90s or whatever, which are, you know, it's filler programming.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now to me as a child, that was the height of fame was being able to be a talking head on a VH1 show.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all I've ever wanted to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: But you wanted to hang out with house parks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, house parks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Chuck nice young John Maloney to me that was as a child that was what being famous was was that you get to go to VH1 and they go Do you have thoughts on Nirvana heart shaped box and you go yes, I do here right now to me was the pinnacle of fame and it's still kind of isn't by by I wanted to hang out with house parks to check guys, but if Mike if you go back and watch those broadcast
[SPEAKER_01]: The editing is so tight, those shows move in such an incredible way that even in the ten secondary that's generous, but the three second attention span world that we live in, I was so fully captivated by the editing and a show like that, and that is gone for modern media.
[SPEAKER_01]: That just does not exist anymore.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I think that at least when you like you think about those kind of like talking head kind of things it is something where Geez that that used to be a career.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just like like a well, like comedians would go and they would do those and to supplement like that like that that was the podcasting of the day was to do I love the 80s.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there was actual money involved, which isn't a thing on the entertainment industry anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's on a professional level.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where I always get a little defensive of radio.
[SPEAKER_01]: As if I start talking about the financial woes of the radio industry people go, wow, that's just what radio is.
[SPEAKER_01]: I go, talk to anybody in TV, talk to TV news people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I count my blessings every day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I make a very nice living for what I do.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not as much as it would have been 20 years ago, which I'm a cutely aware of.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's, there's no money in anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I always think about the, the Pat and Oswald story where he's like, you know, I did one guest spot on Seinfeld, and I was pretty much able to pay my rent for the next year because of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that Avenue just doesn't exist anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: And doing the VH1 talking head spot, that might pay your rent for that month.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you're not going to get that just by doing another podcast.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's something that I think about a lot the how the creator economy has completely cratered all kinds of media just because it's and then the like the new station things look I know that what I was going into school before 20 like 20 years ago in the broadcast
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's so completely like dialed down to do an extent that I mean, I don't know if they're actual, I know that there are some editors still with like major market TV stations, but when you get like down to like pass your top 100 like are you shooting filming editing and basically doing everything as a broadcaster versus how that they're used to be like full on TV studios with like,
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I know a few news reporters here and they're either a one or two person crew and that things that they're tasked with doing for at some, you know, sometimes alarmingly little money is unbelievable.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, it's absolutely wild.
[SPEAKER_03]: that after the Sasuke Atria's match, we got the Toneo Grand Prix Jr. from 1996 and Clips Drive from Marina, Mexico, the entire, we got stuff of the clips of all the Mitchenoku Pro guys kind of involved with it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tiger Masfor was
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... facing alfallino in laws uh... bestiest savahai defeats yona gingen and then saske goes on around he beats a young ray buccanero in the first round then he uh... he uh... he takes care of yona gengeans uh... failed bit on bestiest savahai to be him and then fully know so basically there was a mitgenoku pro
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... region of uh... of this tournament and then everything else so he but he beats everyone who beats uh... michinoku pro guys and that allows him to have a final with uh... he'll dole santo and we get clips of that as well santo defeating uh... sosuke to win the nineteen ninety six uh... uh... junior grand prix or ternayo grand prix junior uh...
[SPEAKER_03]: But which is like something also like like we get essentially as much as we really need out of the like that tournament is what we get on the take and I think that was like a gave us right the amount of flavor we needed before we get to the meat of the the the tape and the thing that everything was kind of build up for Sasuke and Negerocosus and Coliseaux.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, super fun concept on the Grand Prix.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was thinking about how I wish AW would still this as a concept and do a dynamite that is one two-hour gauntlet match.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that would get over by the end of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that would be really, really fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, somebody that you W take notes, I think that would be a great concept.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Bucanero Sasuke Porsen,
[SPEAKER_01]: rocked.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now Ray Booneiro, I mean, that's a guy who did Hamada's universal tours.
[SPEAKER_01]: He probably was not.
[SPEAKER_03]: He did.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, he was back then.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was around in either 92 or 93.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure he wrestled Sasuke at some point in Japan.
[SPEAKER_01]: And man, he jumped off the screen of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think just because of all the ultimate Guerrero footage I've been watching and then seeing him here, it was sort of
[SPEAKER_01]: historically speaking, because in 2026, he doesn't really have much left, but we might have to put more respect on Ray Boocaneros name than we do.
[SPEAKER_03]: He was absolutely, absolutely, especially considering like the period of the 2000s where Boocanero and Ultimo Guerrero was the best tag team in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want to go back now that I've watched so much Ultima Guerrero stuff recently.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to go back and watch the Torimon tour from late 2002, because it's never just, I've never had any emotional attachment to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's stuff that I've seen and moved on from, but I think they wrestle
[SPEAKER_01]: Ultimo and he wasa on a T2 PSho and then I think there's a tag words, maybe Ultimo and Dragon kid against those two.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to revisit that because I would like to watch that with 20, 26 eyes and not like 2018.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really care about Ultimo Guerrero Eyes.
[SPEAKER_03]: Nah, man.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had a big soft spot for Ultimo and Boocanero as a tag team.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, they were really, really good stuff there.
[SPEAKER_03]: Awesome stuff there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the Grand Prix.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do want to note before we get into the Arena Coliseaux match.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's two other things that happened at the Comptape that, again, just good.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah, I've almost mentioned that we had a good front pop eye.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so they just do a shot of Sasuke and Tiger mask walking around Mexico and like maybe an apartment complex And then somebody opens the door and it's kind of as if they're just they just run in the kind of the kind of hanging out with them and it's just like oh my god, I wish I was there with them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to hang out with kind of with Sasuke and Tiger as they look like they're having so much fun.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Kendall was just like, he seemed to later to come talk to his boys out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't been able to find out it's verbatim.
[SPEAKER_01]: They run into the fucking LAD kind of in Mexico.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that perfectly describes what they do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fuck, Kendall is here.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: like I love the fact that like dating back to like the UK trip just idea that tiger masks for in Sasuke are just traveling buddies and maybe like like that there was their own version of like the trip like the the Rob Cougan.
[SPEAKER_03]: The Rob Brighton, Steve Cougan movie.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well like though two of them and it's like oh yeah we go found our friend the absolute lad Kendo while we were hanging around in Mexico City before the match in Coliseal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was that was such a joyous occasion that we go to call us say, when we really only get a second of Tiger Mask, Vampiro and Liz Mark again, satanico, violencia, and black warrior.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only reason I mentioned this is so black warrior does a tour of Mitsoku Pro in 1999 and that is sort of 99 and 2,000 is where a cage match gets really sparse with their Mitsoku pro results.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know
[SPEAKER_01]: how much black warrior will get on tape when he eventually gets there?
[SPEAKER_01]: But that is a wrestler who I have fallen in love with.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think he would have been such a perfect fit for.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the same way that we wish we would have got in more super astro and Mitch Tokupro.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think black warriors, the other guy, where it's like, oh, man, if we could have just had him a 96, 97, 98 here on a semi full-time basis, I think his legacy would be completely different.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we get him a 99.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just don't know how much.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, but it's also, uh, it seemed like then that clip that Vampiro was very pleased to see how much taller he was than tiger mask.
[SPEAKER_01]: It reminded me of when we were, I forget what show we got now is going to drive me nuts.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were doing a some show for rewind and rewatch, it must it must have been the
[SPEAKER_01]: the T2P debut.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe we were talking about a toyman on Mexico show that Vampiro showed up late to and then he just happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: to show up to the arena to arena knock upon as the substitute main of enter got injured and got taken away and then vampiro came in and did a shoot run in, but his shoot run and involved him signing autographs for fans in the entryway.
[SPEAKER_01]: He just got really fucked up with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, I can't that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it had to have been 2001.
[SPEAKER_01]: So whatever show we were doing that that had to have in the T2P show we did.
[SPEAKER_01]: But
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, Vampiro always at the light would he gets in the ring with Lucha Resu guys because he's Vampiro and he's awful, but then we have from July 7th, 1996 for Marina Colseo, the
[SPEAKER_03]: Cossas takes two or three to win the last fall.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was the La Casita to get the win here.
[SPEAKER_03]: And really kind of a super slow Primeris Aguinda, and it took until that last tracerat for I think the two of them to come together as you were saying earlier.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the first two falls are really nothing spectacular.
[SPEAKER_01]: The second fall is pretty drawn out with a lot of
[SPEAKER_01]: Negro crosses antics some of which hit some of which don't it's literally like a spot by spot basis on if I'm entertained by the guy or not, but by the time we get to the third fall.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you saw it actually after the trio's match, Sasuke lifts up his pant leg and he has the most absurd, large knee brace on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I just did that podcast with Alan Forrell.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were talking about Stone Cold Steve Austin's knee braces.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Sasuke has somehow an even bigger one on his knee in the summer of 1996.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's when Kasus really hones it on the knee.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it becomes a really entertaining third fall where you get to see the greatness of cost us in a way that I don't really think was represented in the trio's mansion.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't really think was represented in the first fall.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you like Degro causes, you get sort of a vintage performance by him in that third fall.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you get Sasuke, you know, killing himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he does
[SPEAKER_01]: that dive over the post, that one-legged kick he likes to do the floor, and he does the hip eraser.
[SPEAKER_01]: The hip eraser.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he doesn't in Coliseal where that entryway is so small and then the floor is so hard and he just eats shit doing it, but he does it and it looks awesome.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: There were certain things about Sasuke throughout this episode of him throwing his body around that is just, it's a wonder that everything, like, it took until the J.
[SPEAKER_03]: Crown Final for things to actually like actively like start falling apart because that was one of the like,
[SPEAKER_03]: I felt it in my hip, him jumping in like the way that he does the kick and landing each time it is gnarly and, and that's after what, what, one of the moves that I love, I loved in this match that Negro Cossus says and it's on, it, it's a move for the list of moves that people really don't do anymore is the rope slung a splash mountain to take out the knee.
[SPEAKER_03]: and the way that cost does it is just vicious and he throws his whole weight behind it and Sasuke of course sells it like he's got his knee ripped off and it it really finally started to get that going in that third fall because like that is what he does immediately to start the third fall and then from there it's kind of off to the races.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is indeed.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a really fun, comp tape all things considered Mike, I don't know if you looked at Sasuke's match listing for his time in Mexico.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know before we move on, the other match that he worked for CMLL on this tour that we got zero footage of?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, uh, what building is it in?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an arena play, blah, July, I love arena play.
[SPEAKER_01]: I do, I do too, I do too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the real soft spot in my heart, July 8th, 1996, Sasuke, Tiger Mask, and Subasa against Black Warrior, Ray Bucanero, and Scorpio Junior, and we don't see a second of that badge.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's a boss that's doing there.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is when Subasa is just living and training in Mexico.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's one of those guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, he is one of those guys.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it just, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just always identify him with ending up in Osaka Pro so quickly.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that is, that is, I think, by way of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he's pretty fascinating to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love to know more about Subasa.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, 1996 Black War and Ray Buchanero and the same match is Sasuke and Tiger Mask and Subasa.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't feel that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm bummed we don't have more Black Warrior.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm bummed we don't have more Subas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I've always really liked Subas' work.
[SPEAKER_03]: Hey, hey, hey.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wonder if Kuga was knocking around back then down there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they probably just missed out on Super Shisa getting involved.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because she said, I mean, he's there in 94 with Hayabusa.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I don't know what he's doing
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, he could just be fooling around and in Mexico hanging out with Yonik and Jenin Zimbasa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think he's, he was tight with Zimbasa.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, he was probably around the circle, but I don't, I don't believe he ever worked for CMLL.
[SPEAKER_01]: If he did it was under a mask and we don't, we don't know that it's him.
[SPEAKER_01]: But,
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, well, there are times that, like, he, there are issues with, like, sometimes in 97, 98 when he's around, where CITO, he sees all caps CITO, and there are sometimes that they think it's written that he's listed as Rio CITO, too.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, no, that is right.
[SPEAKER_03]: So he has, he has, like, name issues that, like, he might slip through, is my point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, Black Warrior, Ray Book and Aeroscopy of Junior versus Sasuke Tiger Mask and Supasa and Arena Playbla and we don't see a second of it, which is a bummer.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do have this dough from the July 29th Observer, in which Dave writes that the Japanese magazine had extensive coverage of the Cossus versus Sasuke in WA Welterweight title match on 7700 Arena Coliseo, reporting the crowd at 4,500 from the photos that figure may not have been in the exaggeration as the place looked pretty packed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cossus won the match to give him the final position in the Junior Heavyweight tournament of champions in Japan next month.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Japanese mags gave Sasuke the current IWGP Junior champion.
[SPEAKER_01]: The excuse for losing saying he was only at 75% because he wasn't acclimated to either the altitude or the
[SPEAKER_01]: Dave would continue in this same observer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Apparently tickets for the UWFI baseball stadium show on 870 with onjo versus nobody who go to Kata as the main event are going slow.
[SPEAKER_01]: They asked great Sasuke to work the show, which says something for a group that builds itself as shoot style to bring in a luchely-brake specialist.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sasuke was asked to work against say touristy yama, but turned them down, thinking that if say yama was willing to do the match against him, Sasuke would rather book it on one of his own big cards.
[SPEAKER_01]: and to note there, Sasuke does not work that show so that ends up being a viewpoint, but I thought that was a really funny note of Sasuke going all like, well, I just I'll do that on a joke approach, if I want to do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we'll play it in a car park in your hop-o draw 3500.
[SPEAKER_03]: It'll be great.
[SPEAKER_01]: have a big great.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that takes us from Mexico back to Japan and we are now entering the world championship title series.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is now essentially going forward by the outside of the exception of one new Japan mash that we'll talk about here momentarily.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is all represented on the same
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep, let's do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: So this comp tape is from the last two weeks of July into late August of 1996.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the World Series title series.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's the World Championship title series case.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we start the step off talking about all the titles we're going to be seeing across this tape.
[SPEAKER_03]: And before we get into this case, we do kind of need to take a moment to discuss.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is Sasuke spinning all this money on making title belts?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because there's a lot of title belts on the shows that exists and only really exists in Mitch and Oku Pro or they're being defended like the British Empire title and there's no example of it on the internet.
[SPEAKER_03]: I went searching for nearly every single of the odd titles on this show and let me tell you case the most the most
[SPEAKER_03]: coming into the show is our first match here as it is the the former joint promotions in all star promotions British world light heavyweight champion Johnny St. versus Masato Yakisigi in a rounds match were joined in progress St.
[SPEAKER_03]: Lens and round four here you barely see any of it and the that is probably the of all the vanity belts the most legitimate one that we'll be talking about on this
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your relationship like I mean, I've done podcasts with you for 10 years now and I guess I don't really know the answer to this question.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your relationship with world of sport?
[SPEAKER_03]: Geez, I have a not a deep knowledge of but a enough of I have watched enough of the world of sport, especially like Johnny St. Katwisol and like that's I think that the world is of
[SPEAKER_03]: the world of sports style comedy match, like your less pellets and stuff like that that we're working technical comedy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think we're really far ahead of their time in the 70s and 80s of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the world of sports style, especially wrestled by people like Johnny St. that style of world of sport, I have no time for it to be quite honest.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think Johnny St. is one of the most overrated wrestlers of all time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I will not have guessed that.
[SPEAKER_03]: I sat through too much bad Johnny St. as an as a Chikara fan in the moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I even liked the Johnny St. Chikara stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just, I think that he's all exhibition in no actual grit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, it has been.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's been five years since I've watched any world of sport because I was doing a little bit of that footage when you and Alan I were doing greatest wrestler over five years ago, but I really
[SPEAKER_01]: I really haven't revisited a role of sports as I became a full-on angle of file, which I would say that I currently am in my life, but it's a style that I really enjoy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know that you are holding out hope for what you had works.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like, I guess that surprises a lot of people when I say it, but, you know, Jim Brakes, John Cortez, Steve Graes, Olton Bosaic, you know, there's, there's a problem.
[SPEAKER_03]: I like Cortez a good deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, you know, it's a style of wrestling that I really enjoy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Johnny Sain is sort of on the lower tier of the world of sports guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, yeah, I think it's Chacara output, you know, with Daniels and Claudio might might be the best thing he was ever a part of, I'm fascinated to know why he ended up on this tour.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he does the retirement at 10, 10, 6, but I can't figure out why he was booked in July, also.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and like this whole thing that like this sewer in 10, 10, 96 is why Johnny saying had any sort of purchase in the 2000s when he went back or I'm by my crack and bush to yeah, if this is this is what happens would Mike crack and bush buys Japanese wrestling tapes is that this is the direct influences.
[SPEAKER_01]: We now have I mean, Johnny say was the NXT UK general manager because Mike crack and bush bought this tape.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: And why was he over here in the first place and said of Cortez, I know Rola Paul, Rocco.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's, if you're talking about British wrestlers, I really enjoy.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have enjoyed when I would go back and watch Rocco before he was, and around when he was Black Tiger one.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think Rola, Rocco is one of the greatest.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I need to go back and revisit his art of wrestling episode because I remember as a teenager listening to Rollerball Rocco on the art of wrestling with Kolkabana and I found him to be really arrogant and it really put me off from Rollerball Rocco but I don't I have I mean it was 10 years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have no idea if I would feel of 10 years ago because of 15 I have no idea if I would feel that way about it now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm also now really interested in his career because whenever I watch his era of Black Tiger stuff, I really like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I need to revisit that episode at some point.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like I'm surprised you never got into them.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought that like, especially given like 80, like 70s, 80s, you know, heavyweight heels.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I love Ms. Black Tiger, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, you know, some of the stuff that we have of him and Food's Nomad together is pretty awesome.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I wish we had more of this Johnny St. Yuckershiji badge because I find they're chemistry to be fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we don't really get enough of it for me to make up my mind one way or the other.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, we really don't.
[SPEAKER_03]: The next day we have the, what is called by tape traders, the South American middleweight title, but it's actually the Central American middleweight title held by Kendo.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no evidence of this belt really existing outside of Kendo having it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if you had this belt before this tour.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would not be surprised given some of the other belts here that this belt was made for this tour, but he defends the,
[SPEAKER_03]: uh... that the uh... as the central american middleweight title against grand annual joint in progress and nanua uh... is caught in a uh... a whole to get the loss here will have a lot more of these central american title as we go forward yes not enough here for me to have any real substantial thoughts on
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and we've been going back stage after each one of these, and then on his back stage a little bit sad.
[SPEAKER_03]: It seems like he's always sad back stage, but we get a match and full necks that's from July 21st, 1996.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is the great Sasuke defending his IWGP junior heavyweight title against Cheerio.
[SPEAKER_01]: IWGP junior heavyweight title big and defended image-doku pro, which feels, I don't know, historically significant, would you say?
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely so.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I would say that also given what will go on in this tape, the first strong match out of a series of them on Cheerio from Cheerio, who I think is the MVP of this content.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh god, you're speaking my language.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is really I mean, I know you were cold on him at 93 94, but he doesn't this is the sheer you tape.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is the first of three singles matches we get from him.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the weakest of the three and I still have it at three and a half stars and that is mostly off the back of the sheer use doing in this match outside of once again, Sasuke does the one leg at kick off the top rope and he goes hip first into the wood.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is disgusting.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, uh, at this point, I would like to double underline guys, it's July 21st, 1996.
[SPEAKER_03]: Uh, he is looking really rough.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sasuke, after us, like, and he has the skull intact at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, his goal is intact at this point unless it didn't finish re-healing from DOS CARES.
[SPEAKER_03]: He retains the IWGP junior heavyweight title of the second rope.
[SPEAKER_03]: Fishman Buster just really serious in a tank top.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's going hard and he's online here.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the weakest of his match of those three and a half as well here, Sasuke back side.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, go, sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: Go ahead.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, I'm sorry to cut you off.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has the energy of one of those, like one of those Daniel Center, Samoa Joe, Ring of Honor, World Title Defenses, where you know the challengers not going to win, it's more of a statement match for the challenger to get himself on that level.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that this is a leap for Shirio.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is his best singles performance thus far.
[SPEAKER_01]: And by the end of this match, he looks like a legitimately credible challenger,
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and across the series and across really like this four week stretch, we'll see how much of a credible opponent he is we move to walk a Matsu on the 26 for the WWE junior lightweight title, how mod is held this belt essentially like you talked about this on the last episode case that this is kind of become how mod is built he defense it against men say hello here though.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is, uh, I have a my nose that we get Memphis, Taio versus Grand Hama, the problem for me here is that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like we got one third of a trio's match.
[SPEAKER_01]: They did all the brawling to the floor that you would get for a trio's match.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't feel like they ever followed through on the payoff to all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It starts, I like some of the brawling.
[SPEAKER_01]: It starts off hot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I found that this match sort of petered out the longer that it went.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the crowd brawl rule though, the crowd brawl is so good like just two guys just step punching and headbudding each other like just the how modest step punches one of my favorite things and I I feel like it if every Mitch and Ogu pro had
[SPEAKER_03]: show had this as the crowd brawl match and said of welkins versus yona again, and that's when I want to have every single Mitch and Okupro show on the network.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's when I'm not okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's when I'm not okay with comp tapes and magazines.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is if we were able to get like that, I really enjoyed this.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought that they are more from Hummada and Teo trying to fight it off as all really strong here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was three and three quarters on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just I just have to admit that I'm a
[SPEAKER_03]: at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm a sucker for whenever I know that he's brawling with someone who he who can brawl with him, I kind of get shades of mock land with him, and Shenzaki, and it takes me to a good place.
[SPEAKER_01]: I enjoy Teo.
[SPEAKER_01]: I enjoy Hamada.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will enjoy more of Teo and Hamada later, but not necessarily for me in this match.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's fair.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have the WWE Miloweight title match.
[SPEAKER_03]: Pieloto Suicita versus the great Sasuke joined in progress, Clipped in Sasuke wins with the Thunderfire power bomb, getting him another belt as he looks on before the J Crown tournament.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Sasuke really killed him with that power bomb, didn't they?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, it was brutal.
[SPEAKER_03]: As I see, Polita did see Polilo back, though.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was really, I would like more of him in crazy boy.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've been, they've been noticeably absent.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: We get basically the end of another central American middleweight title match between Kendo and Granán, while from the 31st.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a reversal of a back body drop gets Nana while the title here in case we have our first edition of Mitchie News on the tape as they are interviewing Johnny Stain.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he lets us all know that he really likes Masato Yakashiji.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, join the club brother.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, hell yeah, the one thing that me and Johnny St. King grew on like I disagree with friendships of Mike Quack and Bush by a gray with that in the side of Yakuji Jesus, a good guy to watch Russell.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't stop thinking about how Mike Quack and Bush buying 10, 10, 96 on tape legitimately led to Johnny St. becoming the NXT UK General Manager.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like I've never really thought about that before, but that that's what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's how we got here.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, that is exactly how we got here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, one of the many, many sense of my quack and bush.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, do you want to rank his sense?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to get into this now?
[SPEAKER_03]: We, we don't have a time for this show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number one, lying himself to Mitch Doku pro.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, that Ian Rodden thinks, because I ended that into B.A.
[SPEAKER_03]: relationship for like the eighth time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
[SPEAKER_03]: we move into August case with another central american middleweight title match this time it's grand nano all versus shirio in case this match rules i did rule shirio four star match right here with grand nano all just fantastic work from the two of them just
[SPEAKER_03]: Going for it, nonstop, two guys having just heavy Franken signers and share you already picking up on Talkamachino who's step through four arms and adding it into the situation and nano walk, you know, uh,
[SPEAKER_03]: where if you think about a period of a year, nanowall losing every single match and the Fukuman masquerade after a hot start and where he is now like the crowd up for all of this here, this was the best thing I think we had so far in this episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll reserve my thoughts on Shiryu for the moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanna focus on Grand Nautilaw for a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: 1996, it really, it's kind of, you know, the finals of the master league through now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a year, we have a year's worth of Nanoa, where he has really up to his game.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we went through the footage in, you know, 94 and early 95,
[SPEAKER_01]: I was largely very unimpressed with him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a fall post to heal you and then you just he wasn't doing a ton that he could sink his teeth into.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he also he wasn't doing anything that made me think that he could perform at a higher level.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he is a guy as we go through this 96 footage between his performance in the match with Zebra earlier in the year and he's a focal point.
[SPEAKER_01]: of the 315-96 Trio's match, and he's got the tags with Delphine and June as he and Delphine are turning face and Kyentai is forming.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he also has the singles match with Delphine at one point.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, this is a guy that if we were going to do the SFM 50 for 1996, I mean, you've got your your high-end workers, you know, all the all Japan guys, it's great year for Hashimoto, it's great year for Santo, great year for Casa, it's great year for Ray Junior, great year for psychosis.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you're filling out the the back half of that ballot,
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel pretty comfortable saying, hey, great, Nanna was probably one of the 50 best wrestlers in the world in 1996.
[SPEAKER_01]: The stuff we have of him on tape is consistently awesome that she are.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, he is just operating at a new level.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it keep on going back to the fact that he's still, I think, a literal teenager.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, we talked about that in the last episode where I didn't realize he was as young as he was, but I think at this point, he's maybe 20.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, which is just wild to see like this happening in.
[SPEAKER_03]: He really feels like a grown-up pro wrestler at this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we we've seen this guy really kind of gain his stripes with us.
[SPEAKER_03]: And in a match where like...
[SPEAKER_03]: Share you does what it does for like the first time I've ever seen it, he runs across the apron through the turn buckle to the top A con holo and nails it clean and heavy and it just looks as vicious as it get and it's wild to see these two guys that four years previous could not have a match like this that are just sealing the tape by everything they're doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's a lot to like here.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I like the series where Nanoa is controlling on the mat.
[SPEAKER_01]: He hits a Tiger Suplex, Shirio kicks out of the pen, but Nanoa maintains control and that Tiger Suplex position and continues his offense from there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really, really like that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a spot where they're both on the apron and Shirio ends up on the middle term buckle and he does sort of a cool drop kick
[SPEAKER_01]: on to the apron, it's since Dan out of the floor, and then Shiru has that very signature, very unique flipping toe pace who has seen it that he does, and he does that through the turn buckle, almost in the way that generico used to do the tornado DDT is sort of that same spot, but he just does the flipping toe pace who has seen a, which looks incredible.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he dumps
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep, I was for a flat on that and just real grown up performance from both the guys and it's really just fantastic to see and grown up as exactly the right word.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is your you nailed that this is not a mass that either of these guys would have been able to have it 94 right I think even in 95 this is this is a fully foreign product of both men wrestling as often as they did throughout the course of 93 94 95 and growing into this role.
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just like a wild match to end that half of the cop tape because case, it's now August 5th, 1996.
[SPEAKER_03]: One of the more famous days in all of Japanese, if not world junior heavyweight wrestling case, is time for the J.
[SPEAKER_03]: Crown Finals happening at Sumo Hall during the G1 climax tournament from 8.5.96.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so for the sake of this podcast and just for the sake of timing, we are going to blow over the initial stages of this tournament.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are not going to talk about Sasuke versus Motegi from eight to Sasuke versus Samurai from eight for or the accompanying Ultimo Dragon matches.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a short Ultimo versus Liger match on eight to eight for again, Ultimo versus Shenzhiro Tony.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've never seen it before, it is one of the better matches.
[SPEAKER_01]: all of the 1990s period, certainly one of the better junior matches of the 1990s.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is sort of the thing that, you know, if you're listening to this, especially if you're maybe a newer Japanese wrestling fan and
[SPEAKER_01]: you don't know Otani because he was already injured by the time that you started following or you sort of only know old man Otani, which is a completely different wrestler than 1996 and 0 Otani was.
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, it's one of the great Otani showcases in history.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's this, there's the Liger match from early 1997.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the, the 625 2000 tag match that has him
[SPEAKER_01]: against Connie Motu when I believe menor Tanaka that I have as a five star match, there's I mean look I can go on and on about Otani.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are not going to talk about any of those, but we are going to talk about the finals of the J Crown Tournament, the August 5th 1996 match between Altsamo and Sasuke.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really like the writing that Dave does when he did, I mean Dave is on fire in the summer of 1996.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you, if you respect Dave and I would hope that if you're listening to this podcast that you do, he is doing such great work, doing some long-form stuff in the observer during this time period.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I want to read what he wrote about this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is from the August 14th, 1996 Observer in which he writes,
[SPEAKER_01]: The biggest match in the history of Junior Heavyweight wrestling, at least on the surface, took place on eight, five, both Altma, Dragon and Grace Husky came out with four models of peace each holding a title belt over their heads.
[SPEAKER_01]: The two themselves were an amazing story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yoshinario's side was a part of the New Japan Dojo, but couldn't make the grade largely because of his size, but he wanted to be a wrestler so bad that similar to Kaichi Yamato a few years earlier, he flew to Mexico and in a foreign country knowing nothing except that it was the land of
[SPEAKER_01]: Matsunori Morakawa, who came from a more upper class background, would literally follow wrestling tours around the country as a teenager.
[SPEAKER_01]: He turned pro with a couple of his friends as an undercard green wrestler at the Luchistao promotion run by Shinvassan, where a sigh had become the top draw.
[SPEAKER_01]: Morakawa first went under the name Masa Machinoku, which means Masa on the way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Current wrestler Takuma Machinoku is not his brother but a kid who grew up wanting to be the next
[SPEAKER_01]: A sigh became Murakom's teacher and as often happens within a few years, the student surpassed the teacher, doing Daredevil moves that were beyond anything seen to that point in Japan.
[SPEAKER_01]: The great Sasuke started to develop a following.
[SPEAKER_01]: Murakom started his own lucre promotion in Japan, doing the bookkeeping of self in the morning and became the Japanese version.
[SPEAKER_01]: of smokey mountain wrestling, going into teeny villages at the local high school wrecks and a running shows in which they were on such a tight budget that they didn't bother to even bring in chairs.
[SPEAKER_01]: The fans would sit on the floor and watch the matches from close range.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they're more successful sitting on the floor and watching which Knoku Pro has become a cult thing and the northeastern section of Japan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody that goes to those shows wants to sit in chairs.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was the biggest match of their careers, but like everything else in wrestling, things don't always go as they seem.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then Dave would note that Sasuke won and 1356 with the match having a great atmosphere and between all the belts with the student versus teacher storyline.
[SPEAKER_01]: He also noticed I thought this was very funny that the president of TV asahi came into the ring to present Sasuke with an award.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somehow Dave writes, I don't think the president of NBC would do that after the main event at WrestleMania.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sasuke left amidst a celebration carrying six belts around his arms and wearing two around his waist.
[SPEAKER_01]: The show itself was one of the best of the tournament, but the post match had a bad note.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sasuke had to be taken to the hospital.
[SPEAKER_01]: He cracked his head into places, landing the flip-dive, or kicking off the ring post.
[SPEAKER_01]: He needed five stitches to close one of the cuts, but fractured his skull apparently similar to his injury against Dost Carrus.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was then allowed to leave the hospital on Tokyo the next morning, but had to check into the hospital
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the J crown changes, uh, ultimose career, uh, and not necessarily ultimose career, but uh, Sasuke's career.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't think we see Sasuke ever reach to the same level of ability as he had going into this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, I've been trying to figure out
[SPEAKER_01]: when exactly the change comes for Sasuke from a physical standpoint, and I would have assumed silly may that it would have been the first skull fracture against Dos Carras, that is the thing that really changed the trajectory of his career.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, it did not, Sasuke is kind of incredible on the beginning part of 1996.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's really good in Mexico and he's good all the way through here, you know, he doesn't wrestle from this match on 85, 96 until the 10, 10, these days show at Sumo Hall.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that month that he doesn't wrestle in September of 1996.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to play the cage match game of looking at how many matches he wrestled a month,
[SPEAKER_01]: sense, February of 1993 that he does not have at least one recorded match.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you think about, you know, how sparse the misdoku proschedulers in the early part of the year, but also how many injuries this man suffered from the course of 1993 until now, that's completely insane.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, again, he fractures his skull against dose carous in August of 95.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he doesn't he doesn't
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, in 1995, he wrestles 24 matches in August of that year.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wrestles 14 in September, 15 in October, 14 in November.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is somebody who, again, to reiterate, fractures his skull on August 25, 1995, but then works another 14 matches the next month.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then doesn't slow down in October, it doesn't slow down in November.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's working at such an unhealthy pace.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think this is the injury.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oddly enough not the knee injury, but it's the head that I think fully officially catches up to him here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and he goes into this match.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would say like we talked about the, the knee brace, he's not in good shape.
[SPEAKER_03]: And he's able to really like tough it out and he talks out this entire match.
[SPEAKER_03]: Ultimo blows out his knee on a side moves all to the outside.
[SPEAKER_03]: He looks like he blows out his knee actually earlier a tweaks that are earlier on a double kick that they do.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the, the, the, the,
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, we've dealt with the fact that Ultimo does not, as soon as a Mitch and Oku pro name is attached to it, he, his game drops and this time, I have to say the match, the reason that it drops is not necessarily because of him is because the two of the guy, the two of them are essentially falling apart during and throughout this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's, it's just, it goes to the out of these of ultimate against these bitch-doku pro guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just lacks the potless that he would have even the night before, and so Tony, it would lack the polish of what Sasuke would do with guys like LIGER.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's an odd fit for whatever reason.
[SPEAKER_01]: All to never really seem to embrace these bitch-doku pro guys in the way that you would hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this feels, this feels like a match that.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost great by default because the stakes are so high, but it should have been so much better.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one of those weird disappointing three and a half star matches.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I have exactly on it.
[SPEAKER_03]: The thing that gets me about the match in like the pump that would have that would happen in 1996.
[SPEAKER_03]: The fact that you had eight bikini babes each coming out with a belt and doing poses and they basically
[SPEAKER_03]: uh stick around saske the entire rest of post imagine it's like his interview and just like his giant trophy that he gets from the tv si president and it felt like even though like their bodies were falling apart out of it like the pop of it like it did it feel the same as uh the jake up first stage in 94 no.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, it doesn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: But does it feel like, okay, we go from 1994 where it was Sasuke's introduction to that stage to his feud with Liger in the now in 1996.
[SPEAKER_03]: He is not only just the IWGP champion he is now.
[SPEAKER_03]: As of August 5th, 1996, the unquestioned top junior heavyweight at least in the Japanese wrestling world.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it feels like that coming out of this match, even though it all goes to Hell, Sasuke.
[SPEAKER_03]: The a step...
[SPEAKER_03]: the step flip bump looks he does not get any spring off it probably because his knees going bad and it looks a lot more like ultimo cannot even catch him ultimo basically falls down with them making it look like he's power bombed right to the cement floor of sumo hole.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is one of those things that if you watch this match after you listen to us talk about it when Sasuke goes to that flip dive to the floor that he hits his head on
[SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you don't have a podcast in the background.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't have music playing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Have the volume up for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are going to hear Sasuke's head radiate off of Sumo Hall.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's it is unmistakable what that sound is when it happens.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's really, really kind of chilling in a way.
[SPEAKER_01]: It really is.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Sasuke's out into October.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tiger mask is also out injured at this point.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we really lose the the backbone of Mitch Joku Pro's second gun at this time.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a note before we bounce back to these Mitch Joku Pro matches from the Observer on August 19th in which Dave notes that with both Sasuke and Tiger mask out of action with injuries, Sasuke has got in St. Torres, Seyama to wrestle two small shows for his promotion this week and allow Seyama to work before small crowds to test himself out and work into some condition before his stadium show.
[SPEAKER_01]: on August 17th against Grant Hamada which we will not be covering on this show but that match does happen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep and we go back to the World Championship title series tape for an interesting independent junior heavyweight title match talking with you no good defense against Cheerio.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a rare clienti deluxe versus kind tie deluxe match and it is works completely different than any
[SPEAKER_01]: As we sit here, I was thinking today we're probably, we're probably halfway through this project right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we're making great pace.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think by this time next year, there's a chance that we're putting the bow on this project, which is both daunting and exciting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Throw all the footage we've watched so far.
[SPEAKER_01]: This match, Talk Much Nooku and Cheerio, August 16th, 1996.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the best singles match in the history of Mr. Kupro up to this point.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is just a tremendous piece of work here.
[SPEAKER_03]: Completely different from your cytos versus super-dolphin's, different from Jinsationzaki versus Mensejo.
[SPEAKER_03]: Completely different from Mascara, Contra, Mascara, Granano, Overs, is Golgotha cross.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a physical bout where
[SPEAKER_03]: no high jinx, no shenanigans, no high spots, really until 15 minutes into the match.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like a top, the first dive happens at 15, but what you have instead is just two guys really testing each other and in a lot of ways trying to, this is what I imagine what
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I kind of imagine this would kind of be because they go for it, it is stiff, it is hard, it is not like, throw, head dropy until like that, it's not like any sort of like suplexes or or any sort of like bumping reality for like that, like,
[SPEAKER_03]: first 11 minutes and then it ramps up and it goes crazy back to the 15 minute mark you have talk a much no good doing one of the best dies I've ever seen his twisting moon salt
[SPEAKER_03]: This is something that he doesn't this match case.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wonder if you picked up on this.
[SPEAKER_03]: There is a Rana cradle that sure you goes for in the last parts of the match, where instead of the typical Rana cradle where you grab the guys' legs or and you sit down with it, the way that he does is he goes completely flat with all of his weight on their shoulders, ignoring the legs whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_03]: I've never seen someone treat a ronohold like that before and that is something that if you're someone who's listening to this who is a wrestler and does things like this, it's a different way to think about it.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you watch him do this, you go like, you know what?
[SPEAKER_03]: That makes more sense than doing the lead cradle because all of your body's weight is on the shoulders and it looks more like physically impressive.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's such an artful match, you know, we've become the broken record, talking about how great talk and which Noko is, but you get to see the full spectrum of taco where in 1996.
[SPEAKER_01]: This guy is obviously working full-time for Mitch Dokupro.
[SPEAKER_01]: At this point, he's working full-time for FMW defending this independent junior championship.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's also a battle arts guy at this point, and you get to see all of these different styles come through.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think specifically in this match, in a way that is just such a unique sort of one of one performance where
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know in the the landscape of Japanese junior heavyweight wrestling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, maybe in 2003, there's more guys that can have a match like this, but in 1996, this is sort of exclusive to Taka.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think he brings out the best in Shirio.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Shirio brings out the best in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not know the result of this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to purposefully not say the result of this match, because the 20 count, the teas they do where they get, they both get in the ring at 19, that got me.
[SPEAKER_01]: because these are stable days.
[SPEAKER_01]: I figured they might just go to a double count on here.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was one of the more effective 20 counties I've ever seen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it felt earned and it felt every moment you're like, oh, God, is it going to happen?
[SPEAKER_03]: And then when they made it work, it was the most effective 20 count of could be.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was outstanding.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really, I thought both guys killed it here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm at four and a half stars on this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have it slightly above Nana Lovers is cross from the mass league to this point better than Sasuke versus Delphin better than Delphin versus Togo.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the best singles match in Mitchell Capro history and it's crazy because
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a match, it's not a match that Ditch hosted, you know, he has from this tour.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has Nanoa versus Shirio and then the the Liger tag that we'll get to in just a second, but it's it's not something that was readily made available by Ditch.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not a match that I've seen floating out there just in like a single
[SPEAKER_01]: YouTube upload, it's a match that seemingly, seemingly doesn't have a lot of lore, history, or gravitas to it, but this is the thing that is impressed me most.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this is, I think a clear step in the evolution of this style from 1993, where they're still doing this Hamada's Universal Style, which is influenced by UW-A-Mexico, into now this thing that feels completely detached from that, not in the good or a bad way, but it's just very different.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it is the kind of thing that after you watch this match and go like, okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now you have a sense of, all right, if we ever have another kind of the locks for the kind of the locks match, now there is such a high level that we're expecting from it that it's going to be really hard for even like for someone like Dictogo who we've been so high on throughout the series, it's going to be near impossible to kind of talk that just because of how unique this match was and how impossible it kind of is to replicate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: absolutely now really well done by both guys completely worth the time pause this and give this match a watch if you have not seen it before.
[SPEAKER_03]: And match, you can fast forward, and to be honest, it just doesn't really take much time.
[SPEAKER_03]: You don't really have to.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is for the British Empire Light Heavyweight title, Battlecat versus Masato Yakuciji, I couldn't find anything about this belt case.
[SPEAKER_03]: And beyond, I couldn't find anything about Battlecat, but the guy had a wild mask and energy, and he got one with a Jackknife after a Mr. X-Tak.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was, it was a mast that existed and then we had El Pantera versus the hero Hoshikawa.
[SPEAKER_03]: This was super-clipped.
[SPEAKER_03]: This was a level of yank from Hoshikawa that you get to see him just kind of throw panter around a little bit, but panter gets the one with an inside cradle after a headbutt.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would have liked to have seen what the full version of this match would have looked like.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, I, the more I see in a hero, Hoshikawa and more that he's kind of set up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that's the one thing about game the full shows would be getting more Hoshikawa and in spots because he does kind of feel like a guy that gets kind of lost and with how the tapes go sometimes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting because I feel like he's around a lot in 95 and he's not around a ton of 96.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, I am with you with that.
[SPEAKER_03]: After that, speaking of El Pantera, the UWF Super Walterweight title, El Pantera versus Super Delfin.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is a super quick match.
[SPEAKER_03]: After a DDT that Ed Delphin puts on a goes hard, a Cobra clutch, and El Pantera immediately taps out.
[SPEAKER_03]: He clearly, as we've discovered in days reporting, broke his nose on that DDT.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but they were working this out like a super fast pace before that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, well, they'll have a chance within two minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It kind of goes back to the thing that we talked about the last time these two guys had a singles match is Delphan and Pantera are positioned as career rivals.
[SPEAKER_01]: They just don't have a career defining match.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this in theory, in the way that these guys have been booked, should have felt like a much bigger deal and it doesn't.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we get the last full match on the tape.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a trio's match.
[SPEAKER_03]: From a mory, this is Liger coming in.
[SPEAKER_03]: Teaming with Grand Hamada and Grand Ananoa, versus the kind-tide deluxe team of Dictogo, making his first appearance of the episode, and the dream chasers of Taka Machinoku and Shotaichi Funaki, making his first appearance as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, sort of an iconic match.
[SPEAKER_03]: just fantastic stuff.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just kind of dialogues before the match, especially the Dreamchaser's just wanting to get at like, or like, or baiting them.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just, well, I hate the phrase like, or a farming, but like, in the pre-match thing, like you felt like that these three young guys were there to tear apart like, and that's what they proceed to do throughout a lot of this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's amazing, you know, talking about,
[SPEAKER_01]: the ultimostough and just how he never really worked with the Mitchell Cooper pro guys and then you see just the life not that this company that not that this promotion in 1996 needed an injection of charisma or personality or life into it, but you just see what ligor can add and this is at a point in ligor's career where
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... in Dave covers this pretty extensively in the observer but you know it like or had a had a tumor he was getting it removed five days after this show he had just only before this show got in the good news that the the tumor was it can't so is because he almost had to pull out of this show after being injured and breaking his ankle in nineteen ninety four right before he was supposed to work a rich doco pro show then so this was years and years in the making
[SPEAKER_01]: And it does especially in the pre-match.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say maybe more so a little bit than the actual match itself.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in the pre-match, it has the atmosphere of a match that people have now been waiting for at this point for years and years and years.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and then outside of just like or being like the presence and having him here for this like you go back to stuff like talka and not a wall like the two of them like the the former bottom end of dolphin core that that are still kind of.
[SPEAKER_03]: still feeling out like we're talking still two months, three months, and the Delph and Core disintegrated and Kintai Deluxe became the five-man compliment.
[SPEAKER_03]: So a lot of heat there between the two of them, and it's just really fun work, like, or brings it for it at a certain way.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the fact that like,
[SPEAKER_03]: Liger, and it just feels so professional with him in this, like it as much as Unito was the seal of approval in the first few years, having Liger kind of do this match, and yes, it's without Sasuke and Tiger Mask 4, it feels like the seal of Mitch and Oku Pro, if it was not already at this point, you know, credentialed as a major player in
[SPEAKER_03]: Japanese wrestling and in showing like the forefront of independent wrestling, like or doing this show and this match happening is that seal of Machinoku pro deserves to be taken seriously.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what's amazing though, is that he did that so many times for so many different people and promotions throughout his career because
[SPEAKER_01]: the J-Cup itself is sort of the seal of approval of Junior Heavyweight wrestling in Japan in a way that it needed.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, and I don't think it made, I would have to look.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know enough about Osaka Pro to say definitively one way or the other, but even if him going to Osaka Pro in 2001 and having just that incredible match where it's Delphine and Marahama again Samurai
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, even just that is a seal of approval for Osaka Pro and the same way that he does this for Michioku Pro and then he goes to Noah and he puts the junior tag division on the map in a real way and I'm working on something right now that.
[SPEAKER_01]: for for voice arresting.com that won't be done for a few months, so I don't want to talk about it, but I'm very committed to working on this throughout the year, and part of that involves going back and watching a lot of green ring Masawa era, per wrestling Noah, and oh my god, I mean, the the Liger run in 2002 in 2003, you know, if you haven't revisited Kentafuji versus
[SPEAKER_01]: car out 25 minutes.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not you're not going to spend a better 25 minutes throughout the day.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he does that there, which completely reinvigorates, you know, are not reinvigorates, but it completely injects life into this Noah Jr. tag division.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he does it twice in a ring of honor.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got the the weekend of thunder, which I think was maybe even
[SPEAKER_01]: more important than mootah coming in at final battle 2003, but Liger coming in in 2004 and wrestling Daniel said, and having that tag match with Joe and Loki and Daniel's in the next night, you know, that does a lot to legitimize ring of honor, and then when the new Japan partnership reforms a decade later, it can't be overstated, you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: That is now we're talking about Ocada and Tanaashi and Nakamura.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that era of New Japan, but they put Adam Cole against Jusin Thunder Liger for the RRH World title on that Hammerstein show.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now you could debate.
[SPEAKER_01]: if there were more exciting matches they could have done, but they felt even in 2014 that Liger was sort of the legitimizing factor of this relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I kind of think that was the right move.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a very simplistic match against Adam Cole, but it's a very effective match against Adam Cole.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really something that
[SPEAKER_03]: As we have been doing this project, the thing other than like, okay, like Sasuke like looking at Sasuke's peak and how that how to make sense of it like that has I feel like for both of us that has been one of our big full points throughout this but one of the unintentional things is now here it is so clear and it is so just
[SPEAKER_03]: obvious now, just like how much I still think people under a value.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Jewish and thunder, like I agree, but it kind of goes back to my forgot.
[SPEAKER_01]: We had this conversation and I don't even remember what got us on this conversation, but somebody in the discord over this past week,
[SPEAKER_01]: which because of the Jay episode and the open the voice gate channel and because of Drain Gates abysmal existence in 2026 and the Drain Gates channel has been so lively and it's been so enjoyable to to read over these last few weeks but so many brought up that we were talking about the 90s New Japan heavyweights and one of the episodes where we cover 1995 and I don't remember why we got in the topic but I'm sure I made the point of like
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, New Japan is just throwing their own legacy because people can't share New Japan clips.
[SPEAKER_01]: And LIGAR, I would say maybe other than Fujinami and Hashimoto, was the biggest victim of that where he has such a lengthy career, there are so many different areas of his career.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the New Japan stuff, you can't really talk about because it's so hard to share.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and for like, like, or especially the amount of stuff from like 91 through 97 and like talking about the peak of Japanese junior heavyweight wrestling, like it's just it's piecing together these comp tapes and then it's also, you know, hoping that things are available else or because you just know that that new Japan and how the way they operate is not available and you can't really share it and it's it's a real bummer.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will say for this match, it is much shorter than I remember, and it is not quite as good as I remember it being.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think going into this, I sort of assumed this would be in the upper echelon of matches that we watched, and it's very good, but I would have it at three and three quarters.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would not call it great.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's 13 minutes, the atmosphere, whatever, ligars in the rig is incredible, but it's weirdly not the match I remember it being, if that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: No, no.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was three and three quarters on it, it only like we look at where things are with where we rate things and how that four and a half stars for, talk at sheer you.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the first four and a half stars match for me in the promotion in a year.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's still a really top level match for this promotion at this time and it does feel essential in its way, but it's not necessarily
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not the end all be all that we kind of thought it was.
[SPEAKER_03]: The finish, uh, not a well blocks a top rope draw kick from Mitch Noku.
[SPEAKER_03]: Then he hits a Mitch Noku driver the nano up on to get the win there.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's kind of the answer to the thing is that you look at this match and you go like, oh yeah, like you're just going to come in in here and you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: It'll be a Liger bomb 1, 2, 3, or maybe, maybe Fishman Buster, but, you know, he's not going to go crazy with this, but no, it's not a while to gain the big finisher and I thought that that was kind of a pleasant surprise coming out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, whole thing was a delight.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you're absolutely right.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a central Mitchell Cooper reviewing this is Mitchell Cooper 101.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you care at Mitchell Cooper, you have to watch this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just not quite as good as I remember it being.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then backstage, Liger is happy.
[SPEAKER_03]: We have some more Mitchie Bro news case.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we have to cover the fact that Kiantai Deluxe now has a sixth member as Superboy turns on Peloto, see a Cita to join Kiantai Deluxe.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what I'm talking about, baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is what I'm talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am all about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, god, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
[SPEAKER_03]: It just felt like, okay, this feels right.
[SPEAKER_03]: You should be so the men say how should be hanging out with a super boy on the outside.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that should definitely be happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it should be happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me read this note from these over really quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we can talk about the remaining footage on this comp tape and how we're gonna have to hunt down some of this footage.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I wanna get this in here and then we'll go out talking about the footage.
[SPEAKER_01]: But
[SPEAKER_01]: Dave Wright, after all of this, this is from the H-2696 observer.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, the situation of solving the great Sasuke, it's clouded in secrecy with a lot of concern because reporters have been banned from seeing him, although inside or say his condition is pretty bad, stemming from a fractured skull suffered while landing on his head on a dive during the eight, five match of Tokyo Getsault mode dragon, which in storyline fashion was the biggest one of his career.
[SPEAKER_01]: Apparently, although this is not confirmed, Sasuke may need some sort of brain surgery and could be out of action for a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: From a storyline standpoint, at the time of being hospitalized after the DragonMash, Sasuke held nine different lighter weight title belts.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of them, the WWE Mid-Aweight title, was already vacated when Sasuke missed a scheduled title defense on 817.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dave Wright, that pantera of AAA, won the title, beating Hoshikawa.
[SPEAKER_01]: The other eight belts are next schedule for title defenses on 923 at Yokohama Arena, against Shinjiro Tani, in 1011 and Osaka, against Altsmo Dragon.
[SPEAKER_01]: The original plan was for Dragon to win all eight belts on that show.
[SPEAKER_01]: In addition, Sasuke's company, Mitch Dokupar wrestling has scheduled the biggest card in its history on 10, 10 at Tokyo Sumo Hall, with Sasuke scheduled a headline against Dynamite Kid.
[SPEAKER_01]: At this point, his appearing at all of those dates is questionable.
[SPEAKER_01]: Juussian Thunder Liger did wrestle for Mitch Joku Pro on 8-18, before his operation to remove a brain tumor scheduled on 8-23.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've had it confirmed that the biopsy of the tumor was benign, and the tumor was relatively small, so there's a chance to return from surgery to the ring as early as the new Japan September 2, where
[SPEAKER_01]: WAR announced this past week, the main event of its 10-11 Otsaka show will be the first ever singles match between Janituro Teneru in Kaju, Muda, who will do the great Muda gimmick for that show.
[SPEAKER_01]: The card is also Teneru of the scheduled to have the great saucecavers, Zaltzmo dragon for all eight belts, and Rey Mysterio Jr. versus Psychosis.
[SPEAKER_01]: So a few things to note here, and we'll cover more of this two episodes from now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, Sasuke versus Otani does not happen on that 923 show.
[SPEAKER_01]: That ends up being a real lame duck show for Otani.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gets stuck in the opener where to Dean Malenco and Otani against Black Tiger and El Samurai, which I'm sure was great, but it is not exactly a J Crown title challenge.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sasuke, as we've talked about, does not wrestle from 85 until 1010,
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: The fact that it was like brain surgery at the brain surgery line, maybe go to it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know it's a dark joke going.
[SPEAKER_03]: I wonder how things would have worked this after Sasuke gets brain surgery.
[SPEAKER_03]: What happened next three years would have played out like?
[SPEAKER_03]: Sasuke gets brain surgery and Mitch and Okupro might still be kicking it wild and it might be the number three promotion in the company who knows.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think if anybody could have possibly had their brain removed during brain surgery, it would be great Sasuke.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's not Shabbada.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, that's true.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would believe that if they said that they left South Gays, Breed, on the operating table for a while.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, no, no, no, that would make total sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: So the last parts that we get to see on this tape are from the outdoor show in Sendai 3500 is the announced attendance on that show.
[SPEAKER_03]: A match that we get to see parts of is for the pro wrestling America title, Wellington Wilkins Junior beats the heister for the belt.
[SPEAKER_03]: We got to see more than we needed to ever
[SPEAKER_03]: did not know who the heister is try to look him up couldn't find him.
[SPEAKER_03]: But he's sucked.
[SPEAKER_03]: He's sucked this.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have no argument for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, but the tape ends with Tiger mask for versus Terry boy and that we have a little bit of homework to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's about this match.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, we do.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the footage that we are making available to you for this episode cuts off in the middle of Tiger Mask versus Cheerio.
[SPEAKER_01]: Obviously that on the surface is huge issue because I think both Mike and I speak for everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would like to watch Tiger Mask versus Cheerio.
[SPEAKER_03]: It cheer you in and out.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a, why didn't have it down as Terry boy in this, but yeah,
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tiger, I'm sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: My bad men's tail and tiger mask, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why we're not going to let you down to stride the wrong path there, but it's men's tail versus tiger mask.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's an outdoor match with men's sajo.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we want to have all of those because yes, super energy when he fights outdoors.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it turns out that not only do the footage we have, that match cuts off halfway through, we are also entirely missing a Dictogo versus Super Delfin match, which in all of my years of existing, I have never seen footage of a 1996 Dictogo versus Super Delfin match.
[SPEAKER_01]: So on the next episode of those days, hard to believe that we're at this point, but we will be covering.
[SPEAKER_01]: almost exclusively 10, 10, 96 and the legacy of that show.
[SPEAKER_01]: We will have a special guest.
[SPEAKER_01]: Somebody who has been on open the voice gate before, but it's been a long time since they've been on open the voice gate.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we are going to attempt to hunt down those two matches in full so that our special guest can talk about those matches and 10, 10, 90, six with us.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and I really can't wait for that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I really hope that we're able to hunt these now, especially considering like,
[SPEAKER_03]: They kept Delphin and Togo a part after for like three months basically and like it to me this match feels like it's it's a major match that's not on the state.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I would completely agree with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, I did not realize they had a singles match in 1996 until I was looking at the comp tape listing for this and I went, hey, we didn't get that and I would like to see that.
[SPEAKER_03]: the opener of the show, Masada, Yaka Shichi, and Granjamaata defeat battle cat and Yoshimodo Sukamoto.
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_03]: We really have, we're going so far into Gamma's career and we have yet to see a make-to-ave. That is a bummer, but most of this footage was not.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really enjoyed this era of this promotion.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really enjoyed the world title series and I really really enjoyed Takamachinoku vs Shirio.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, make sure you go out of your way for that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And really, if you have the time to sit down and watch both of these comp tapes through, they are some of the most fun that I feel like you will find in your wrestling week.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just, in a way, this project has been a door into the past, but like the,
[SPEAKER_03]: The more I've thought about it, and I was thinking about it, as I was watching, in the case, after us, like talking about the magazine kind of showed, treat yourself and watch a Sasuke tiger mask, Mexico, watch it all the way through, don't fast forward through the non wrestling parts.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is just,
[SPEAKER_03]: it's something special and I feel like that both of these tapes on the show were super special but case as you laid it out next time on episode 17 it's time it's finally time for these days on those days and we'll be back with you on that anything you wanted to touch on before we got out of your butt.
[SPEAKER_03]: No sir.
[SPEAKER_03]: Alright, you can follow us on social media, open the voice gates on both Twitter and Blues Guy at Open Voice Gate, cases on Twitter at underscore in your case.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm also on Twitter at Fuji Hayo with two eyes like Don Fuji.
[SPEAKER_03]: Also, there's the voices of wrestling discord as we mentioned.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's been a dragon system adjacent side of it has been popping off as of late both in the Dragon Gate channel and in the Open The Voice Gate channel.
[SPEAKER_03]: Just echo what K said a little bit before thanks for everyone for all your kind words and remarks after the J episode it was A long time coming to have an episode with J and I feel like that it was one of our stronger ones But the open-the-voice gate channel also has whenever we do one of these episodes of those days and any of our historical or evergreen shows We make sure to have all the content there whenever there's programming notes and really
[SPEAKER_03]: anything for open the voice gate the best place to go to for the information is in the voices of wrestling discord in that channel so check it out and we will be back with you next time on those days to talk about the biggest show in the career and the existence of