[UNKNOWN]: This podcast is a member of the Voices of Wrestling Podcasting Network.
[UNKNOWN]: Visit Voicesof Wrestling.com to hear the rest of our great podcast as well as show reviews, columns, opinions, and updates across the world of wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: Welcome back to those days, a mission of who programed respect.
[UNKNOWN]: Episode 17, these days.
[UNKNOWN]: Those days is brought to you by Voices of Wrestling Podcasts Network as well as open the voice gate.
[UNKNOWN]: You can find us on the Voices of Wrestling Podcasts Network as well as the dedicated open the voice gate feed wherever you get your podcast.
[UNKNOWN]: You can follow open the voice gate on social media at open voice gate.
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[UNKNOWN]: I'm Love Your Hosts, it's your old pal Mike Spirish joined as always by our other host case, slow and case.
[UNKNOWN]: For the first time on those days we have a special guest with us here today for episode 17.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, normally I would tell you that, hey, I'm doing fine, life is good, whatever, whatever we'd exchange to pleasantries, not interested in doing that this time around Mike.
[UNKNOWN]: Forget I'm here for a minute, and please introduce our special guest.
[UNKNOWN]: Absolutely.
[UNKNOWN]: Joining us is a close personal friend of Bojavar, the host of Alan Forels, a progress paradise on pro wrestling towards VIP.
[UNKNOWN]: It's Alan Kunahan.
[UNKNOWN]: Alan, how are you doing today?
[UNKNOWN]: I'm good, I'm very nervous about constantly about watching these days and those days as because in the prep for this show in like exchanging messages with you guys, I don't know how many times I typed out one and then back space that and then wrote the other when I realized I was saying the wrong thing.
[UNKNOWN]: So I'm glad that I'm not the only one that's been played with that.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, even though I'm the one that named the show, it has been nothing but strife and by life for the last 18 months, I get it wrong all the time.
[UNKNOWN]: Yep.
[UNKNOWN]: Yep, yeah, me too.
[UNKNOWN]: Me too.
[UNKNOWN]: And you've a younger brain than me case so you have less of an excuse, I think.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, but spiritually I'm 95 years old at this point.
[UNKNOWN]: I've got a reason to be in the line.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think I've ever told you this guys, but I'm just gonna crackle it off this one right now.
[UNKNOWN]: I meant to tell you this a few times, like keep forgetting.
[UNKNOWN]: But when Mike said, when you refer to me as as your great friend, which I greatly appreciate, I am such a good friend of these guys.
[UNKNOWN]: in hospital following my liver transplant two years ago.
[UNKNOWN]: And I was on all the drugs.
[UNKNOWN]: And all the drugs I was on the steroids.
[UNKNOWN]: This was prayed during the like 48 hours where they were giving me extra steroids because I was rejecting the new liver.
[UNKNOWN]: So I was like, I was a real petri dish of things going on.
[UNKNOWN]: And as a result, there was no sleep happening, but there was a lot of hallucinations happening.
[UNKNOWN]: And I swear to God, I
[UNKNOWN]: Amongst the few hallucinations I remember one I went down the corridor and was telling the nurses that I was the president of the United States America that legit happened and Views with the president of the United States I think I'd have been doing a better job if they put being face at the top point And that's what I was about to say is could we do a trade here and another one is that myself and my friends Case and Mike
[UNKNOWN]: We ran to the children with our fourth friend, Masato Yoshino, to go and hunt for Naruki Doi, who had been kidnapped by Colombian drug lawyers.
[UNKNOWN]: I was in my hotel room, pace to the red, sweat pour and off me, move and things around.
[UNKNOWN]: And this was on, I remember it vividly now as like a thing that I went through and it was like, it occupied, it started getting 90 minutes of my night.
[UNKNOWN]: So which one of us was like the vehicle specialist, which one was on point, which one was explosives?
[UNKNOWN]: I don't I can't remember those quite specific details to that degree, Mike, but yeah, I just I remember I was needing to go get Yoshino so that we could begin the operation of saving
[UNKNOWN]: Alan, where does your wife fall into this?
[UNKNOWN]: Is she helping us out or was she present for any of this?
[UNKNOWN]: And now she has to, is that home?
[UNKNOWN]: Just sick of being in the hospital, I think.
[UNKNOWN]: For a silly start in the whole stage, you look, I'm going to leave you to this.
[UNKNOWN]: You work this out.
[UNKNOWN]: I need to go home and actually get some sleep myself.
[UNKNOWN]: So work away there.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh my goodness.
[UNKNOWN]: Alan, it is an absolute delight to have you here.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm trying to think of the last time that the three of us did a show together.
[UNKNOWN]: which was maybe when Masada Yoshino retired.
[UNKNOWN]: I think for a side from.
[UNKNOWN]: I wish.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, a quick show is what have been it.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, a quick show.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, why block those out of my mind immediately after they happen because Joe Gagney ricks them against base.
[UNKNOWN]: So I don't really consider those to be real.
[UNKNOWN]: But I think the last time that the three of us just chopped up wrestling the way we're going to do today was probably probably five years ago, we'll miss out to Yoshida retired.
[UNKNOWN]: We have a different topic this time around Alan, we are going to be talking about.
[UNKNOWN]: The most consequential show, at least the most infamous show in the history of Mitch Drucku Pro, which is these days, not those days, which is the name of this podcast.
[UNKNOWN]: But these days 10, 10, 10, 96, as well as some other footage we have from September of 1996
[UNKNOWN]: But Alan, we don't really have guests on this show, ever.
[UNKNOWN]: Normally, Mike and I just jump straight into the timeline.
[UNKNOWN]: And we talk about whatever is happening in the world of 1990s, Japanese wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: But Alan, you're here.
[UNKNOWN]: And I would like to hear about what your relationship to Mitch Noku Pro is, the beginning of you watching this footage, how it's evolved over time, where Mitch Noku Pro ranks in the Pantheon of promotions that you enjoy.
[UNKNOWN]: Any immediate straight to the dome thoughts you have on this promotion, I would like to hear.
[UNKNOWN]: I think the origin of me and anything to do with Mitch and Okupro would have to be raw in 1997 or actually would have been like a Canadian stampede in 1997 when Sasuke Russell talker when he did the WF matches and yeah Jim Ross gone the great Sasuki and all that and um
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that was like that was probably one of my like first bits of knowledge or interactions with Japanese wrestling in general, I would say.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, just like little fleeting things, I suppose previously kind of took how or more A in the Royal Rumble 96.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, like yeah, that was probably the first thing.
[UNKNOWN]: So it was a name.
[UNKNOWN]: And because like they
[UNKNOWN]: to be fair to Jim Ross, like he did get the name wrong, but he was putting great Sasuke over a quite a bit and talking about how he was a big star and this and that and the other.
[UNKNOWN]: So it led to him having a reverence in my mind.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, and I would have been 12 in 1997.
[UNKNOWN]: So, you know, formed of years and like, I, when I think Japanese wrestling, then for those next couple of years, like, great Sasuke is kind of one of the, the big legendary stars in my head.
[UNKNOWN]: It was probably like over the course of like 10 to 12 years after that that I finally was able to like reconcile the fact that,
[UNKNOWN]: Great Sasuke was like in his early 20s essentially at this point or mid-20s and like he wasn't like some like like basically like for me as a 12-year-old in 1997 it was like wooden mill mascarus would show up in a row of humble and great Sasuke is like there these two manifest the same careers and they've been they're just both that that status and and as we see on this show it's it's quite different but yeah so like that's kind of the initial
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, this is a thing.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know if the promotion, Mitch and Oku pro registered with me until I got the ECW barely legal videotape.
[UNKNOWN]: I'd probably seen there was probably some stuff in Paraslam magazine when I started getting out from like 98, 99.
[UNKNOWN]: I'd probably seen mentions of it.
[UNKNOWN]: I think there was like a supplement at some point in Paraslam and
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not sure if it was before after I got very legal, but it was probably like two thousand two thousand one they had.
[UNKNOWN]: They would do these like once a year sort of supplements for this little mini magazine attached to the outside of the larger magazine and you pull it off and it'll be its own little kind of a no six inch by six inch kind of magazine.
[UNKNOWN]: It's size of a DVD
[UNKNOWN]: then they had like one that was like the best junior heavy weights of all time, I think, won the greatest wrestling shows of all time and then won that was the sexiest women in wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: All of which were near to my heart, I would say 13, 14 year old boy.
[UNKNOWN]: Alexander York.
[UNKNOWN]: But I think these days might have been in the great issue.
[UNKNOWN]: I should have probably checked because I have all that old Paris Lamb stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, presses somewhere in the his soap, but it might take me a while to dig it out.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, it might have been in there.
[UNKNOWN]: But
[UNKNOWN]: barely legal.
[UNKNOWN]: I know I got that VHS in 2001 because that was when all the ECW tapes basically flooded Ireland like.
[UNKNOWN]: HMV, uh, different video retailers around the place, they just, all the, it was in the distribution to yield the ECW God.
[UNKNOWN]: I think you're a company called Delta.
[UNKNOWN]: I want to say in, in the UK and Ireland.
[UNKNOWN]: And those ECW releases, they were commercial releases, not like bootlegs.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, these were like the official, this was like all the official tapes the same.
[UNKNOWN]: I think like all the same covers and everything that would have been, oh, I'm not sure about that.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, it was like all the, all the paper views and then like the ones that were a specific kind of compilation, once like extreme warfare.
[UNKNOWN]: And I know those were ones that were like out in America previously.
[UNKNOWN]: Those were the ones they would hype on the, um, on the commercials of Pauli would voice over like a million times.
[UNKNOWN]: And I got a bunch of them.
[UNKNOWN]: And barely the year was obviously one of the ones I got.
[UNKNOWN]: And I saw the Mitchenoku pro match on that.
[UNKNOWN]: And Joey Styles was...
[UNKNOWN]: tanking a Dave Sharer of one wrestling.com and Dave Melter of the Wrestling Observer as he was spitting at all these facts.
[UNKNOWN]: And I was, yeah, that was me learning it about Mitch and Okopro in the same way.
[UNKNOWN]: I once did a show on like the idea of like a match, an unknown match coming in, representing something and like blow and crowds away and went through kind of a bunch of examples of that.
[UNKNOWN]: Like to me, that's the ultimate.
[UNKNOWN]: One of the ultimate initial examples of it like, uh,
[UNKNOWN]: don't hide her Bayesian Chicago and NXT.
[UNKNOWN]: I think it was just after that happened like that show.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, there's a bunch of matches like this and that's kind of a definitive one.
[UNKNOWN]: And in that case, I was, you know, the person just being blown away and not knowing what this was for the most part and seeing these guys and thinking it was amazing.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, and it was the Japanese blue world order.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think they were called Kiantai at any point on that show.
[UNKNOWN]: I could be wrong.
[UNKNOWN]: But Japanese BWO was absolutely what they're referring to as the most.
[UNKNOWN]: They were wearing the BWO t-shirts as well.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, that was a thing about it.
[UNKNOWN]: And then, oh yeah, of course.
[UNKNOWN]: So I'm probably skipping a key bit here.
[UNKNOWN]: Taka and the lads had a run in the WTF.
[UNKNOWN]: And initially as Colab Kamikaze, and I remember when they came out, and this would have been when I was watching Raw on scramble vision.
[UNKNOWN]: And so I couldn't see what was happening.
[UNKNOWN]: But I was like listening to it.
[UNKNOWN]: And a play in my little championship manager season with like Barcelona or whatever on the PC with listening to Raw on the background, wild Friday nights for me.
[UNKNOWN]: And the,
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, just I remember, I think the attack, I don't know if they attack the valvenus or was a talk a day attack the first time they arrived.
[UNKNOWN]: And like, I just thought it was the most dangerous thing just from like what they were at the way it was being described in contrast.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, oh my god, it's like these Japanese men have like hit the ring and they were all wearing like, uh, like,
[UNKNOWN]: sort of real just they were all wearing like I was like grunge attire kind of it wasn't a emotive they kind of stuck with um in the WF and for very long but like they were all kind of wearing yeah like just yet grunge kind of gear and like just like they just like I think the thing for me that represent the dangers they just come off the street like it seemed like they'd come true to crowd off the street and they were just like rum and roshan I was like wow this is
[UNKNOWN]: Dangerous proposition and a force that like Stone Cold Steve Austin was going to need to reckon with in the coming months and
[UNKNOWN]: I was in cracked.
[UNKNOWN]: That did it.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, look, I don't know what to do with the demo.
[UNKNOWN]: You're out.
[UNKNOWN]: But I don't believe that happened.
[UNKNOWN]: No, no, no, they did stuff with the oddities.
[UNKNOWN]: Very cool.
[UNKNOWN]: The choppy choppy pp and all that that we don't need to go into.
[UNKNOWN]: But, um, and WWE and playing like a no 15 year old girl to play.
[UNKNOWN]: history, how the Gucci's wife, um, but that's true.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Fantastic.
[UNKNOWN]: You don't exist on the detective work on that one case.
[UNKNOWN]: You don't cover the guy.
[UNKNOWN]: God bless David Dickson's bed.
[UNKNOWN]: Do it jobs that nobody else wants to do.
[UNKNOWN]: I will say, you know, we're not quite at the point, obviously, where Taka leaves and goes to WF and I don't
[UNKNOWN]: I don't plan on covering a ton of that stuff on this series.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, maybe some super astros footage I want to dive into.
[UNKNOWN]: But you got to do the handicapped match where it's like, I don't know exactly what the teams are.
[UNKNOWN]: But it was something along the lines of, uh, kind of die DX versus Bradshaw on Terry Funk and handicapped match.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think that was on shotgun Saturday night.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I remember that being a barrel of laughs.
[UNKNOWN]: I would, I would recommend that.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm unfamiliar with that cage bachelor's to go, we'll look into that.
[UNKNOWN]: I find it kind of fascinating, like Alan just to go back on one of the things you touched on.
[UNKNOWN]: We're at this point, at least chronologically, like 1996, we're about to get through that this year pretty quickly from here, but HMV and R equivalent would have been Sam Goodie's or Suncoast video.
[UNKNOWN]: I felt like for, I only knew what we're about the same age there, give or take a year or two.
[UNKNOWN]: I feel like for our generation of wrestling fans
[UNKNOWN]: being able to be exposed to different kinds of wrestling, especially from, I didn't era where I was just getting wild magazines, which had, you know, it was the Salacious After Mac that they put together on that.
[UNKNOWN]: But really for me, I felt like going to a same goodies in a Sanco's video when I was 11 or 12 or 13, like, in getting to see like the ECW tapes and even like, I'm trying to think like the other tapes that they would have had
[UNKNOWN]: It was far before Dave Meltzer doing the gold tapes with Cornette, but I felt like that there was this wave of exposure you would get in like the late or the 97, 98, 99 ends to 2000 just with the ability to see these tapes suddenly at your local CD retailer.
[UNKNOWN]: And I had like it was that like wave of that stuff being out there mesh with just
[UNKNOWN]: like speaking for me a huge appetite to just consume this of and like I was a completely content WWF kid like I had a WCW for like 18 months in when I was like eight and then that was gone then we didn't get that anymore so it was just WF only so
[UNKNOWN]: But this is where I like I cannot relate to how people are now with like the in curiosity and just the
[UNKNOWN]: resistance to anything that's not what they're used to because I was like fine with just having to breath but once I got to see oh I can have all this other stuff too and it wasn't like I was like oh well fucked up, I'm gonna be at ECW fan.
[UNKNOWN]: It was like I'd still watch and be excited for what was going on and on raw.
[UNKNOWN]: I still wanted to see what Stone Cold was getting up to with that Vince and whether or not Club Kamikaze were going to eventually track him down.
[UNKNOWN]: But I also was like, I want to see this RPG guy.
[UNKNOWN]: He seemed fucking cool.
[UNKNOWN]: And then it was just each year.
[UNKNOWN]: New thing would come in.
[UNKNOWN]: It was like, yes, give me more of that.
[UNKNOWN]: AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels in 2001 seeing them in WWA and hearing about them on a British radio show It was on every Saturday evening where they would talk about like the FWA and they had a big show coming up and they're how I've been out there or bring it in AJ Styles and he's incredible and I was like, whoa, he's that guy so on the way and then Start to breed reviews of oral H in power slam and I was like, and it was like give me more and then we get the wrestling channel obviously and it's like okay
[UNKNOWN]: It just became an end up with a test of how big my appetite was for all this other wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: The answer was pretty big.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, I then like that coincides with me kind of going to college and stuff in 040506.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, just kind of haven't time to just dig into this stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: And like, especially with Japanese wrestling, that's when it really took off for me.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's when like I started.
[UNKNOWN]: to go from knowing michnoku pro, which is just like base level bare bones knowledge and just familiarity from where I had seen their guys in WF and ECW to now learning about the promotion itself, learning about like the chronology of the promotion and it's mainly true Death Valley Driver board and the Dave Ditch website.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, just kind of and I remember specifically
[UNKNOWN]: I think it was June 2008, I want to say it was, and I remember going on, it was, I just finished my last set of college exams, I think in June 2008, and bunch of free time, no obligations for like weeks, and I was, I remember staying up super late, and this was, again, June.
[UNKNOWN]: So it was around the time of year where,
[UNKNOWN]: It gets bright very early, and I stayed up for the first time in my life to see the sunrise, and I didn't even realize, oh, holy shit, not seeing this happen before, as I was staying up onite watching Old Machinogu Pro and WEC, Eclake.
[UNKNOWN]: You're right, a favor fading,
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, the Showtime Kick broke my brain in MMA, like the same way that I feel like the Sasuke special broke everyone's brain in 1994
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't like, yeah, those.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't remember.
[UNKNOWN]: That was when I ran that time was like, oh, kind of the X are just like the best.
[UNKNOWN]: And I remember that was around when I downloaded a hunt to download the theme song, which we get to hear in all its glory on on this show.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, I am.
[UNKNOWN]: I
[UNKNOWN]: you know, that's just kind of with all the other Japanese wrestling that was kind of consuming and learning about Mitch and Okupro was at the forefront and I had huge respect for its history.
[UNKNOWN]: I very quickly kind of went into the, um,
[UNKNOWN]: Went from kind of these days as the big show and getting the DVD, which I showed you a picture of the DVD, which I still have in my tip of session, to go and and seeing the December 16th 1996 ten nine type, which
[UNKNOWN]: I think it is a much better version of what we're going to talk about today and going from having this reverence for these days to be like, well, actually, the better match is a 12, 16.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think that was, I think I got that true.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I think I might have been true.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, some Rob Nailer comp, I want to say, probably was.
[UNKNOWN]: So,
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I went through just kind of all the stuff that was out there and it was kind of whatever was on the ditch side and, you know, ran them, links were posted up, but I never, no, you know what, I did get it.
[UNKNOWN]: I did get like an IVP video set.
[UNKNOWN]: I can't remember when I got that and went true, but yeah, I got a, I got an IVP video set, but I was afraid like 2011 or 12 and I went back true and,
[UNKNOWN]: probably saw a lot of the stuff from like the second time and then there would have been matches I was what's seen for the first time so and then yeah, not until now following along with you guys of like kind of gone through it all again and I feel like watching it now like I'm watching a lot of of a with fresh eyes and so there is probably stuff I'm seeing for the first time like I know for sure I've never seen that men's tale, Jinsationzaki match which you guys did early in the series
[UNKNOWN]: I think it's still my favorite discovery of the whole series so far.
[UNKNOWN]: I did love that talk of hearing you, Matthew guys are hyping up last time, but for me, I'd notail versus Shinzaki, it has a close place in my heart.
[UNKNOWN]: The...
[UNKNOWN]: as a cool blue child.
[UNKNOWN]: I think the guys he did a podcast couple years ago.
[UNKNOWN]: I was just listening to it last summer.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think I put it up in the voice gay channel, but it was was really good.
[UNKNOWN]: He's he seems he comes from a wrestling family.
[UNKNOWN]: He's got all these great stories about like California wrestling and stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: I was pretty cool.
[UNKNOWN]: Sorry.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a side tangent there.
[UNKNOWN]: No, I don't remember seeing all linked to that.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm going to have to look that up.
[UNKNOWN]: It does.
[UNKNOWN]: Let me ask you this, Alan, because, you know, I think specifically the last few times that you and I have sat down to record a different podcast, whether it be some of the greatest wrestler ever stuff we did or the Eddie Guerrero retrospective show we did last November that I still, like I think about that show a lot of how happy I am with just all the things that we talked about on that show.
[UNKNOWN]: When you go through the Mitch Noku pro footage this time
[UNKNOWN]: Is there anything that you think modern wrestling could take away from Mitch Doku pro and implement almost immediately?
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, yes, I think wrestling would be better off if they had the polish with these bitch Doku pro guys do.
[UNKNOWN]: But is there anything when you see this footage you go, oh, that's specifically is missing from wrestling in 2026?
[UNKNOWN]: So a big.
[UNKNOWN]: thing that's been pumping into my head recently is the idea of hiding the seams.
[UNKNOWN]: A lot of wrestlers seem to struggle these days with hiding the seams.
[UNKNOWN]: And what I mean by that is kind of the obvious.
[UNKNOWN]: And like look, I've probably had a pretty keen eye for wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: I've seen a lot of matches.
[UNKNOWN]: I kind of know how for the most part, how the wrestlers do what they do.
[UNKNOWN]: But I'll watch wrestling, old wrestling, even some new wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: And
[UNKNOWN]: I will not be distracted by seeing the scenes of what they're doing and then I'll watch a lot of stuff currently and I'm going to give a really unfair example.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm going to pick out a guy who is far from like the worst copeless, but for whatever reason he's a guy I really want to like.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think has a lot of potential, but every time I watch him wrestle, I just see the seams jumping off the screen to me and it's like, I'm just like, I'm begging him to just find a way to not make it so I know exactly what he's doing and what he's trying to do and what move he's about to take and what move he's about to do and that's drill him alone.
[UNKNOWN]: I would love if
[UNKNOWN]: If there was more guys who would work like, I suppose with Mitch Nokeu Pro, it's because like everyone would be like, okay, well, like, you could eat more easily hide the seams in like slower style, a more shoot style, whatever.
[UNKNOWN]: Mitch Nokeu Pro is like modern trend setting, trailblazing innovative, creative wrestling, fast paced for the most part, and yet it feels like
[UNKNOWN]: like I'm watching talk and hear you work and I don't know what's coming next.
[UNKNOWN]: They're not telegramming stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not, there's not like, yeah, it's, we're sure there's obviously some set sequences and some set moves and stuff like that, but it does a lot more sense of a, it's a lot more immersive.
[UNKNOWN]: You can lose yourself in a lot more
[UNKNOWN]: house style, essentially, because we do have such a global house style across wrestling there, which wasn't a thing in 1996, but what Mitch and Ocu Pro were doing was a blend of so many things that they had made their own.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, and I suppose that's the big thing for me is I would love if and like
[UNKNOWN]: this show that we're going to talk about.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not going to like rave of that this show as being an incredible show.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't what not expecting you guys will either, but there's so much things on this show that if I was a wrestler who was going to be wrestling on forbidden door tomorrow nice, I would be just watching, I'd be putting my phone away and I'd be glued to the screen watching this just to get inspiration from how these
[UNKNOWN]: what they're doing that works just to think about wrestling a bit differently and just to consume wrestling a bit differently from what they're seeing around them and what they've been doing themselves.
[UNKNOWN]: So like, yeah, like, I'm sure there are some wrestlers that are studying tape for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: Of course, they're always is and I think they probably benefit from it.
[UNKNOWN]: But I watch Drillam Maloney and while I know he's like a
[UNKNOWN]: big wrestling fan and the guy who loves pro wrestling, I don't get the impression he's like immersing himself in watching old, whether it's I'd know Hashimoto or whether it's all great Sasuke and like seeing things be like, okay, how can my work jump off the screen?
[UNKNOWN]: be more immersive like these guys are.
[UNKNOWN]: What am I not doing?
[UNKNOWN]: What can I do differently?
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, I just if I was resting on forbidden door tomorrow night, I'd just be a lot of my prep would just be going back and watching stuff like this show.
[UNKNOWN]: Because I would love to see something tomorrow on that paper viewed that kind of has that
[UNKNOWN]: unpredictable feel I'm I guess that a lot of Mitch and Okoprodos when I watch it it feels like you're watching something where you can't be sure what's going to happen next because the wrestlers as you're doing it don't know what's going to happen next because they're just kind of going with flow.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah that's I guess not a big revelation or anything specific
[UNKNOWN]: Mike's same question to you because we're about, you know, I think we're where we have our sites on this project and shows in car parks more of that shows in car parks.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so that's that I we all agree on there number one take away number number one take away.
[UNKNOWN]: It always was such a great backdrop for say tournament of death.
[UNKNOWN]: We really need to bring those back.
[UNKNOWN]: It definitely has the same charm in America that it doesn't Japan, but hey, I should mention it's very sweet.
[UNKNOWN]: The production stuff that Mike has mentioned before as well like the backstage interviews 100% I don't need to repeat all the point he's made on those people have heard them listen to this series But co-sign that all the way Well Mike you know for where we want to go with this project We're probably about halfway through all the footage And I know we want I you know there's a lot of stuff in 1997 we have to cover
[UNKNOWN]: I want to get through some of the crazy Mac stuff in 1989.
[UNKNOWN]: The goal is to go through super Jacob to the house.
[UNKNOWN]: This is the first time you're hearing this, but same question to you.
[UNKNOWN]: Is there anything that you've come across where you go?
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, there is, you know, there's, I think between the three of us, there's a million things we've changed about modern wrestling, but this specific thing the Mitch Doku pro was doing is absent from today.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think that, uh,
[UNKNOWN]: Directly, what you kind of see at least through these first 17 episodes, three years in change of Mitch and Ocoopro.
[UNKNOWN]: I think a big takeaway isn't necessarily towards wrestlers themselves, but towards promoters.
[UNKNOWN]: I think that what you basically get to see and what happens, and forgive me if I'm speaking too far out of turn here, essentially we are given a how-to book on how to do a local territory.
[UNKNOWN]: at least through the first three years of this promotion and I would argue that this is a much more stronger use case or case study than say how everyone goes on about Smokey Mountain Wrestling, that's happening at the same time here, just I mean essentially Smokey Mountain Wrestling was doing it on easy mode, and you consider it was none of
[UNKNOWN]: Cornette's money and all the stuff that was going on with like the WF relationship and the reality that like smoking mountaineer talking about at what at most four years, maybe five years of like that.
[UNKNOWN]: But what we see here at least through 1996 is how a local promotion one can operate in its region to Hoku and in such a way that now 30 years,
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, we're almost like exactly 30 years later at this point that the legacy is still exists in indoors in a lot of different ways.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think that a lot of at least as it relates to
[UNKNOWN]: indie bookers and indie promoters at least in the United States as we're like in this weird space of the post boom post COVID and kind of taking it back to its struts like how to do a local promotion I feel like is one of the big takeaways and then yeah as Alan mentioned like the production though i mean even
[UNKNOWN]: Even on those days, there's things that happen away from the Ten Man Tag that I think are things that you just do not really see.
[UNKNOWN]: Done really effectively and it's not even necessary like wrestling things like that.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, like the the great zebra showing up and having like a little bit there like and things like this that just.
[UNKNOWN]: make it a much richer production, I feel like.
[UNKNOWN]: And at least I've not been to an indie show in a couple years outside of Mania weekend.
[UNKNOWN]: There's no sense of that anymore.
[UNKNOWN]: And I don't know if it's just the way that it's Western sensibilities or not like this, but like consistently, in case whenever
[UNKNOWN]: we get to see like this incredibly varied just performance.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, yes, it still has like all the luchere stuff that like we kind of anticipate.
[UNKNOWN]: But I mean, you got the comedy in there that at least for the native audiences incredibly over, you have the backstage promos and just like the,
[UNKNOWN]: not to get ahead of our skis here, they do one of the coolest production things that I think that I've seen in wrestling after the ten, after the ten man tag on this show.
[UNKNOWN]: And when we get to it, I will throw my roses at it just because of how cool it was basically to do this one production trait.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, I really think like the idea of this being a thesis on how to run a territory promotion in the modern age is something that a lot of people, promoters, bookers, or like I think can learn a lot from just studying Mitch and Oku Pro that probably happened before.
[UNKNOWN]: I agree with everything you said with the caveat that you look at it from almost a regional or indie perspective whereas I think this is my primary problem with Japanese wrestling right now
[UNKNOWN]: I think it's a problem in American wrestling too, but it's really bothering me in Japan at just the lack of
[UNKNOWN]: vision, the lack of presentation, the fact that in 2026, a dragon gate show doesn't feel all that different from a new Japan show, which doesn't feel all that different from a Noah show, it all, like Mitch Nogupro had a clear vision and they had clear cultural influences and they had an idea of presenting their product that,
[UNKNOWN]: I would say up until the last few years was something that was ingrained in all of Japanese wrestling that, you know, everybody had, even if the house style was starting to blend more and more into this homogenous zone that were it now, these promotions had backgrounds and lineages and traditions that all made them feel different.
[UNKNOWN]: And I do feel like that has really been ripped away and it's so interesting to me watching some of this footage and seeing
[UNKNOWN]: you know what a parent's by super astro or the mascaras and those cars appearances and thinking about the way that Mitch no Kuhu
[UNKNOWN]: really leans on the history of Lucha Libre to present their product at times and how in a post ultimo dragon coming back to dragon gateway, it is seem like dragon is one to embrace their Mexican roots a little bit more, but they're only doing it halfway and there's nothing that you can tie to modern-day dragon gates that you can go back and even from a presentation standpoint, tie into
[UNKNOWN]: the history of luchelibrary as broad as that sounds, you know, these guys for working a regional indie come across like stars for the most part.
[UNKNOWN]: They have these very unique presentations, very unique entrances, it's very unique gear that all seems to work for them.
[UNKNOWN]: I think for a long time that was just a given, when we went to wrestling in this part of the world, and I feel like, especially post COVID that has gone away.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's been the thing that has bummed me out when I go from, oh, let's watch a bunch of bitch joku pro, too.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, I got to catch up on Dragon Gate Noah, God forbid, New Japan, whatever it is.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, this just, this has so much more life.
[UNKNOWN]: It doesn't feel as drab as it does in 2026.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think they're like focus of vision and the way that it's all tapped into things that their fan base either are super aware of or it has enough little thing that they go like, hey, you know what it's funny that George Tacano is showing up as giant zebra and that's the tiger mask character and they're doing comedy based off of that and there's a there's a commonality there that I feel like.
[UNKNOWN]: in a lot of ways, whenever there's attempts to do this in modern wrestling, it kind of falls flat whereas it just feels completely appropriate and Mitch no Kupro.
[UNKNOWN]: I would agree with that.
[UNKNOWN]: Before we jump into the timeline, Alan, do you have any any other broad Mitch no Kupro thoughts that maybe don't pertain to the footage that we've reviewed for this episode, but just things that you want to get out there before we get into specifics?
[UNKNOWN]: I think what we're starting to see in this period that you guys are in now, and I'll see very much on this show, is how client IDX are, I think in many ways, revolutionizing what a heel stable can look like and how they can work together in the fluidity that
[UNKNOWN]: preceded them like the for horsemen and would be obviously a big example and dangerous alliance and as great as those teams were, I don't feel like they ever, there's no combination of them that works as the singular cohesive unit, the kind ideaxed it may be some lucha
[UNKNOWN]: with a lot of luches, trios, wrestling, like we've all gone and back and watched early triple A stuff and UWA stuff and the Hamali UWA stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: And as fun as that stuff is, cohesive is probably not a word I would ever use to describe a lot of it.
[UNKNOWN]: It's disjointed in a fun way that luchia often is.
[UNKNOWN]: kinds of ideas they brought like a slickness to how they operated right down to just even their presentation, just how they all looked together.
[UNKNOWN]: I just thought it was a real smooth operation the kind of the ex group and it's honestly like it's a group that I feel could have gone on longer and done more and hadn't even bigger like a sea.
[UNKNOWN]: But I think
[UNKNOWN]: having only the short period where they were all together um kind of does make it more of a a legendary run in the same way that like say like the Hollywood blons are remembered um I have this big legacy even though they only really team together for like 10 months at most uh, pretty less yeah it's like the difference between
[UNKNOWN]: Kai and Tidex and Crazy Max is that the kind Tidex stuff is so focused to a short period of time that it's pretty easy to go.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, here's what made them great.
[UNKNOWN]: Here's the matches to watch.
[UNKNOWN]: But to explain Crazy Max to somebody who essentially go from 97, 98 to 2004 and have multiple incarnations or to the same banner is a much trickier thing to do.
[UNKNOWN]: Even if they're equally as great.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I love, sorry.
[UNKNOWN]: I'd love to see just
[UNKNOWN]: in modern dragon case, like the heel stables we've had, I think blood generation were were one which really I felt still looked in heavy worked like a client IDX and I I feel like what we have now.
[UNKNOWN]: is so far removed from that with a geysadokero and so many of the heel staples we've had over the years in Drangetten.
[UNKNOWN]: Some of them have had their positives for sure don't get me wrong and some have been actively good but I don't think since blood generation there's been any that kind of went about their business in the way that kind of ideax it.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, Alan, what if instead of a 32 minute, 10 man, lutress who tag match, we gave you a 12 minute lutress who tag match with referee interference and a low blow finish?
[UNKNOWN]: Would that do anything for you?
[UNKNOWN]: Do you think that was Celtic?
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh my god, it doesn't sound as appealing on the surface, but I'm willing to give it a shot case.
[UNKNOWN]: God knows it seems like a unique idea in modern wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: Not a lot of that referee interference that you're a distraction you speak of.
[UNKNOWN]: That's a, that is it some novel thinking.
[UNKNOWN]: No one seems to be doing anything.
[UNKNOWN]: That's looks like something like that would never happen in the king of sport.
[UNKNOWN]: So it might as well just be reserved for a wacky, lucharasu promotion like Drangay.
[UNKNOWN]: But hey, I'm sure it won't, in effect, you know, affect the match quality at all.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, it will still be roaring as we head into the biggest show of the year with no main event one month out.
[UNKNOWN]: And let's make sure that all of these he all units, they all like the color black.
[UNKNOWN]: They all like the color black.
[UNKNOWN]: What if our world champion exclusively wrestled matches with guys that he doesn't have chemistry with?
[UNKNOWN]: Uh, what if?
[UNKNOWN]: no one that was over was pushed and nobody that was pushed was over.
[UNKNOWN]: What if we did that?
[UNKNOWN]: What a marvelous job Reocitosed on this year.
[UNKNOWN]: Let's jump into the car.
[UNKNOWN]: We can go at the end of more fun tangents than that one selects.
[UNKNOWN]: Let's jump into the timeline here.
[UNKNOWN]: We'll just hit a few quick things mostly on the build to the 10 10 show But just to show where the coverage was out in the observer at this point on August 26th, 1996 And I guess for those that maybe I imagine we're gonna have a lot of first time listeners here the most recent episode We exclusively covered the world championship series
[UNKNOWN]: and the great Sasuke's trip to Mexico in July of 1996.
[UNKNOWN]: The beginning of that episode, we talked about Sasuke and Tiger Mask going to Mexico, wrestling in CMLL, there are some really fun footage that we found there, and then the rest of the episode was dedicated to the World Championship series, which eventually led to the J Crown, and we concluded with Juussian Thunder Liger finally, after years and years of anticipation, making his Michitoku pro debut.
[UNKNOWN]: So,
[UNKNOWN]: In the timeline now, we are at the end of August of 1996, and we have this note from the observer on the 26th of August, where Dave says that Mitch Dokupro will be holding a tournament from 912 to 923 to crown a new UWA Midaway Champion for Mexico.
[UNKNOWN]: The title had been vacant for a long time with Altima Dragon with Champ and he left the promotion.
[UNKNOWN]: That is not entirely true.
[UNKNOWN]: We talked about how on the last episode, Masio Shibotegi,
[UNKNOWN]: bought the title and became champion under the Russell Dream Factory banner and that was factored into the J Crown tournament, but that has since been vacated once again and we'll have a new UWA middleweight champion on this tour.
[UNKNOWN]: We also talked about how Sasuke, Russell,
[UNKNOWN]: had been out of action since then, Dave notes in the September 2nd Observer in 1996.
[UNKNOWN]: He says, nothing much new regarding great Sasuke, although all the magazines had photos this past week of him in a hospital bed, Jinsation Zaki on the other hand is expected to start back full time with Mitch Noku Pro Wrestling with the Sumo Hall show on 1010 as the top draw if Sasuke can't return.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll mention this here, and we can get into this more when we get into the 1010 show, but just a
[UNKNOWN]: There's a shot at the beginning of the tent show, where they show Sasuke in the hospital, and they don't show his face, but you can see the lower half of his body, and his mask is hanging off of some hospital equipment.
[UNKNOWN]: And it is perhaps the single greatest shot that a wrestling cameraman has ever captured on film.
[UNKNOWN]: That's, you know, done this great.
[UNKNOWN]: There was another shot in the same package that was I was gonna say like,
[UNKNOWN]: more or less the same thing apart.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, I say what it was.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, because now I'm dying and I'll.
[UNKNOWN]: So when and they showed this a couple of times during like the the pre-show and there is a bunch of stuff pre-show but um um they show Sasuke in a wheelchair getting brought to a no visit slash harassed Jinsationzaki in his like temple or wherever he was.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: he goes up to him and you see him kind of like in one I think they had a video clip and some stills and the video clip is like he's kind of pleading with him events and then they have this still which is just Shinzaki turning his back on Sasuke and walking away and Sasuke like leaning over the side of the wheel chair like
[UNKNOWN]: desperately reaching out for him.
[UNKNOWN]: It's incredible.
[UNKNOWN]: I told all of that.
[UNKNOWN]: It was like just the most.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm sure it appeared in the magazines.
[UNKNOWN]: That's still a job.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, I just thought that was amazing.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, a couple of great artistic moments there, which definitely goes back to what case was saying about like production and creativity on the the last show you guys did and and editing.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, we got some we got some really nice editing choices.
[UNKNOWN]: So for the
[UNKNOWN]: And I found it like interesting like Alan Week, we're able to get our hands on the Shenzaki autobiography that was mainly about his WWE F1994, but it ends essentially with 10, 10, 96.
[UNKNOWN]: And the way that it kind of lines up with what Shenzaki was talking about where he after the Muto match, he starts doing more of his
[UNKNOWN]: temple pilgrimages and he runs into at the last temple he was supposed to go to.
[UNKNOWN]: Who is there to wait them?
[UNKNOWN]: Sasuke and that played out like right when he was supposed to be like in character doing all of that and at least for me after like reading that it really provided a nice layer of spice to have that kind of aspect to it.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a really, really well-done package.
[UNKNOWN]: We'll talk a little bit more about it in just a second.
[UNKNOWN]: But we also have to note that on September 9th, 1996, this is from the observer that great saucecates now out of the hospital and doing office work, but no word on when he'll return to the ring.
[UNKNOWN]: And Dave also announces that Genesis Aki again will be returning to Mr. Doku pro shortly as the main draw with Sasuke out of action.
[UNKNOWN]: He notes that the UWA middleweight tournament will be between Tiger Mask, Mince Teo, Super Astero, Masati Akashiji,
[UNKNOWN]: and Shirio, which is the greatest combination of wrestlers you could possibly ask for.
[UNKNOWN]: And before we dive into our first bit of footage, we have this note from the 16th Observer where Dave says that great Sasuke made his first public appearance as his injury and his own show on September 1st, but he had to be helped around the arena in a wheelchair.
[UNKNOWN]: Michit Okupro is going to keep its 10-10 Sumo Hall booking even though it's top-draw camp here.
[UNKNOWN]: And the main event will be Hayabusa versus Jinsae Shinzaki.
[UNKNOWN]: And that takes us to go ahead.
[UNKNOWN]: do we think that like there was ever any doubt that they were going to lose this book and given the financial state of where Mitch and Oaku Pro would have been in 1996?
[UNKNOWN]: The fans for this show was so strong that there's no way they would have done.
[UNKNOWN]: I've got to note about that a little bit later.
[UNKNOWN]: We're a, I mean, this is an advanced sellout.
[UNKNOWN]: They, Sasuke or not, had moved a ton of tickets for this show.
[UNKNOWN]: So it was, it was going to happen one way or the other, I guess.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I guess I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean,
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think it did sell, right?
[UNKNOWN]: It was a claim to sell out.
[UNKNOWN]: Because I remember 70s, 1980.
[UNKNOWN]: I was trying to dig up the Sasuke quotes that I got for fighting spirit, like 13 years ago.
[UNKNOWN]: I think they're in Facebook messages, and I couldn't log in and get them, but I did find it see like a preview of some quotes, and it was one from Mr. Utagawa.
[UNKNOWN]: Has he come up in the show, but he was like one of the office guys,
[UNKNOWN]: 13 when when I was doing that article, but he he was a UWF guy and he was there in 96 the show and everything and he said that they were like they didn't hit their target of the sellers and but they were still really happy with us.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: No.
[UNKNOWN]: Dave has the advance on this show.
[UNKNOWN]: He says on 10, 7 in the observer that two weeks out, they had 9,000 tickets sold, which, you know, is obviously not accurate if they're claiming 7,900.
[UNKNOWN]: But it seemed like going into this show.
[UNKNOWN]: And this is something that we've talked about whenever Mitch Noku Pro would come to Tokyo, because it was so few and far between.
[UNKNOWN]: But
[UNKNOWN]: You know, it was an advanced sellout in Corquant Hall.
[UNKNOWN]: They always sold a ton of tickets before they got to owe to war.
[UNKNOWN]: There was no ton of walk-up for this show.
[UNKNOWN]: They seemed very confident going in, at least based on the observer notes that we have that, okay, it was going to be an okay house with a without sauce guy.
[UNKNOWN]: And I have to imagine that the deposit themselves, like, at least, like, from the stories that would be told 15 years later after 311, 2011, and Dragon Gate losing their sumo hall kind of thing there that like, a Rio Goku
[UNKNOWN]: Coco Gigan deposit because you're dealing with the Japanese Sumo Association made it completely unrealistic to expect them to pull out of that date regardless of Sasuke was there.
[UNKNOWN]: That was kind of my original point, but yet no having 8,000 tickets sold, there's no way in hell they were going to cancel that show.
[UNKNOWN]: No, so that takes us to our first bit of footage.
[UNKNOWN]: This is from a comp tape that we will actually break down and fall not the next episode, but two episodes from now as it spans from September of 1996, all the way through the end of the year.
[UNKNOWN]: But we have footage in between,
[UNKNOWN]: 1010 and December that I want to dedicate the next episode to and then we will close out 1996 two episodes for now with a full breakdown of this comp tape as it features things like the 1216 96 mash that the three of us love so much.
[UNKNOWN]: But because Alan is on this show,
[UNKNOWN]: I want to make sure that we get a chance to talk about not necessarily the 914 Tiger Mask vs. Shereumash or the 915 Men's Tale vs. Shereumash.
[UNKNOWN]: But they really have notes.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh my god, Alan, they gave me the notes before we get to 923.
[UNKNOWN]: Give me the notes.
[UNKNOWN]: Years, years before El Generico blew my mind the first time I saw him do his tornado DDT through the ropes.
[UNKNOWN]: Did you guys cut, share you in these clips to an African through the ropes Topay Con Hello?
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes
[UNKNOWN]: Also, men say, oh, not quite as spectacularly, but got down to the pop me when he hit a bottom rope turned across body.
[UNKNOWN]: It was like the least ambitious life life life.
[UNKNOWN]: It was like something gone Fuji does like talking to you, but done in earnest.
[UNKNOWN]: He goes to do like a big springboard.
[UNKNOWN]: He just only kind of goes about a rope and then said like doing a flip, he just kind of
[UNKNOWN]: turns into a crossbody super muscular, but a good for him, but Were you gonna say to me?
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, I'm just saying to him.
[UNKNOWN]: It's the best I was enjoying like him doing that his rolling for arms in this one Like he does like no one does step through for arms anymore like where like yes, I know what you mean to step through form.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, 100% here.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, Teo was, he was great at that.
[UNKNOWN]: That was one of his big.
[UNKNOWN]: I suppose it's kind of like the Masato Tanaka and Masawa.
[UNKNOWN]: I guess they probably all kind of got that from Masawa really.
[UNKNOWN]: He was, Masawa was the OG step through forearm guy.
[UNKNOWN]: But um,
[UNKNOWN]: Teo does another thing he did in because I was catching up on the stuff he did for the last show before going into my homework for this show and in that match to get to cut off at the end of the last comp tape where he's wrestling it's tail versus tiger mask maybe.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he does a you know like a knee crusher where you like put the guys knee on your own so leg and you like slam it down
[UNKNOWN]: He does that from the top rope, like almost the way to Dean Melenko would give like Ray the top rope stomach breaker.
[UNKNOWN]: That looked phenomenal, but on this match or one of these matches, he does that to the floor, which looks insane and the floor is like.
[UNKNOWN]: made of mud.
[UNKNOWN]: I think.
[UNKNOWN]: I was wondering what the floor.
[UNKNOWN]: I could have it was carpeted or what it was.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, they came up with dirty, but then at one point I thought that wasn't actually dirty.
[UNKNOWN]: It was blood, but then I think it was a mix of both because tails, arm gets sliced open and you see him in a backstage promo.
[UNKNOWN]: You see him in a backstage promo and he's got this nasty gas running down his arm.
[UNKNOWN]: It looks horrible, but also they're covered in dirt.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, it was seemingly like in a field or something or like with with no grass.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, but yeah, I suppose that made it so that he could do that knee breaker thing because he probably wouldn't want to do that on to concrete or on to basketball floor.
[UNKNOWN]: You
[UNKNOWN]: like break your ankle.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, that looks pretty cool.
[UNKNOWN]: And I am going to store in the back your mind guys about that sliced arm with the tao tiger mask field there because we're going to come back to that in a while.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, that was those those were the things I had jotted
[UNKNOWN]: the sheer you die through the ring post that you're exactly right.
[UNKNOWN]: I love God, I love your frame of references because I felt
[UNKNOWN]: when you when you were talking about watching Mitch doco pro and WC until the sun comes up and go, God, this is why I've been friends with Alan for 15 years almost Alex finally somebody gets me, but being able to explain this area is doing the Elginarico tornado DDT through the ring post, but it's the homicide style toe pace to acita is exactly what it is I've glad somebody else had that.
[UNKNOWN]: I think he does have the talk a match too, but that's a new thing that he started doing in 1996 that
[UNKNOWN]: has blown me away because I mean, Janerco's kind of the only guy that does the through the ring post DDT and I've never seen anybody do that dive the other than cereal and which Janerco it's equal parts possible that he came up with that himself because he's creative or it's equal part possible that he also was such a tape not that he was watching
[UNKNOWN]: these matches from Shiryu back in like on comp tapes and like clip form and the talk of match which we didn't know but maybe El Genergo watched that 30 years ago and and that's where he came up with his move but yeah it's very very cool and yeah I just
[UNKNOWN]: Well, the reason we're talking about some stuff from September, normally I get, I would just save this to all kind of break it down in one comp tape and make it a little bit easier to follow, but we get, we get a match on 923 that when I thought, okay, I want to have a special guest on for 10, 10, 96.
[UNKNOWN]: Let me look at where we're at in the footage.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, let me think about who I want to have.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, I want to have Alan on.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, there's this nine twenty three match.
[UNKNOWN]: That is Dick Togo.
[UNKNOWN]: Sholichi Funaki, Danny Collins and Shirio versus Superdelfin, Grand Hamada, Super Astro and Alexander Otsuka.
[UNKNOWN]: I want my friend Alan talking about that match.
[UNKNOWN]: Alan had you seen this before and what are your thoughts on it with twenty twenty six eyes?
[UNKNOWN]: You want to talk about heighten the seams.
[UNKNOWN]: Danny Boy Collins and Alexander Otsuka.
[UNKNOWN]: That was some rational right there in the exchange those guys, but all the guys at this But it's like every combination of guys getting there.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, Oh, this is so good.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, completely fresh to me.
[UNKNOWN]: If I knew this happened, I certainly didn't remember it.
[UNKNOWN]: What a mix of guys.
[UNKNOWN]: What a mix of styles and interesting like pairings.
[UNKNOWN]: It's
[UNKNOWN]: It's so good.
[UNKNOWN]: You see, you see great technical resting.
[UNKNOWN]: You see great high flying.
[UNKNOWN]: You see great power moves.
[UNKNOWN]: You see dynamics.
[UNKNOWN]: If you see comedy stuff with like super Astro doing like the, um, the little kick.
[UNKNOWN]: I hadn't seen that in Machinocupro and a while, like that was very early Machinocupro piled stuff, like late Hamada, UWF stuff, so it had nice to see that rear-to-head.
[UNKNOWN]: And it was kind of like for how serious and like intimidating kind of the XRs, like a heel stable, which is kind of like new sort of thing to the promotion.
[UNKNOWN]: I think they were able to get away with partaking in that and not looking
[UNKNOWN]: not losing any of their edge.
[UNKNOWN]: It was I liked how bewildered they all were and so that it's sold that has been completely bewildered when it happened and that Dicogo spinning around then super Astro just gives them the funniest slap of all time and Togo sells that amazingly well
[UNKNOWN]: just that the comedic time in the pro wrestling timing, the performance time, they all have and flowing with each other.
[UNKNOWN]: It just enjoyed to behold, yeah, it's it's just so natural to them all.
[UNKNOWN]: And Danny Collins, like, yeah, he, he was phenomenal.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like, God, I wish we had more of him do and stuff like this on tape, because that was just great.
[UNKNOWN]: And, um,
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it was, you could say the same thing about super, super Astra.
[UNKNOWN]: I think super weird, or meant super Astra, but a super Astra, to have more of him in Mitch and Okopro would have been amazing, so yeah, I love that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, Danny Collins feels like the first like outside or I know super boy already joined a kind of dialects on a previous episode, but Danny Collins working with those three like he felt very much like a part of the group and he really appreciated himself.
[UNKNOWN]: I felt like into the team work that was already well established even though
[UNKNOWN]: Togo for knocking sheer you isn't necessarily a normal pairing that we have seen so far with KDX I thought that that that was fun and I mean super astro is such a good addition to this roster when he shows up so it
[UNKNOWN]: it's a good time match.
[UNKNOWN]: I was a little bugged with the audio syncing towards the end of it, but like, and whenever Alexander Outsca shows up, I feel like out of a lot of that style of wrestlers that we get to see with pro wrestling, Fujwar, Gumi, and Albalard is showing up here.
[UNKNOWN]: He always feels like the obvious highlight.
[UNKNOWN]: The diet butcher, and yeah, you want to talk about when I was getting into Japanese wrestling, your guy who picked up an affinity for Alex Andorovska,
[UNKNOWN]: I loved that guy.
[UNKNOWN]: He was so good and just such a criminally underrated Racer's issue.
[UNKNOWN]: Underutilized Racer, like, I don't know what his deal was.
[UNKNOWN]: I guess he would probably just sort of one foot and rest then one foot in an email, but I'm not not sure just because he obviously did some pride stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: but like he was like a heavyweight raster like he had size to him and he could go and like I don't know how or why he didn't get picked up by one of the major promotions or at least get a serious offer made to maybe he did maybe he just had no interest I don't know but like that's a guy whose talents like could have taken him to top of the cards and any of the promotions
[UNKNOWN]: He had runs in like place like zero one and stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: But he never was really, it never really stuck.
[UNKNOWN]: It was never like a big thing.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, he's a political casualty in the split between zero one and no all right at the beginning of zero one.
[UNKNOWN]: Cause he's in that tag with Hashimoto.
[UNKNOWN]: And I want to say November of 2001 on that Noah show, and that's, you know, the start and end of that relationship pretty much, but there's there's a universe where that that partnership sticks together for a little bit and right would no one starts to turn the the corner and those homegrown guys get a little bit older 020304 Oscar could have been right in the mix there and that feels like that would have been the perfect opportunity for him to really become a poor wrestling star.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's such a cool unique look as well.
[UNKNOWN]: The just, yeah, I thought he was awesome man and he had a unique charisma to him.
[UNKNOWN]: Like it was an understated charisma, but it was there.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it was it was still big.
[UNKNOWN]: It was still a big projecting charisma, but it wasn't, I don't know, flashes the right term, but he's not a guy that gets lost in the shuffle ever when you see him.
[UNKNOWN]: it's incredible entrance music.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't like I piece together this in my head, but it's like it's called like it's written a oh corner is like the name of the song and you know when they're introducing guys
[UNKNOWN]: in Japan.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know the colors for blue and red, but one of those corners when they ring an answer says it always sounds like, I'll corner and that that is what he's saying actually.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so the song is called, I'll corner, but A.O.
[UNKNOWN]: is also his initials, Alexander Asuka.
[UNKNOWN]: and then like this it's a big epic song and it's like it's like I don't know if it was like specifically written for more or what like maybe it was or if it's just some song that was just coincidentally had as an initials and as I don't know but it's just fucking awesome epic entrance music and god I used that as like I used that like going for runs anything I didn't time I needed a little bit of motivation holy shit that sounded to trick back on a
[UNKNOWN]: I love that.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, one of the, one of the things that I'm trying to piece together in my mind, and I've mentioned this probably every episode, but there's a few things that I'm specifically looking at when I go through this footage.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm looking for Micheal Capromatches that have been lost a time.
[UNKNOWN]: that have been forgotten about you know the Shinzaki versus Terry boy match from 1993 Sasuke versus the convict from 1995.
[UNKNOWN]: You know this match is on that level, but I like just the historical piece of this match.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm also looking for what we talk about these multi-man matches.
[UNKNOWN]: The differences between
[UNKNOWN]: Hamada's universal and their multi-man matches, Mitch Dokupro and their multi-man matches, and then Tori Maud and Drangate, and just how that style has evolved over time.
[UNKNOWN]: And then the other thing that I'm looking at is, you know, 10, 10, 96, at least from a commercial point of view, is sort of the peak of Mitch Dokupro.
[UNKNOWN]: We sort of hit this mark where this is as big as the promotion ever feels, and as big as the promotion ever looks, and
[UNKNOWN]: It's a pretty short run in the grand scheme of things and I'm trying to figure out all of the different pieces and this this will come with the notes that we do when just going over this chronologically as to like, okay, why did this promotion sort of fall part of the way that it did and I look at.
[UNKNOWN]: guys like Hoshikawa on this roster in particular and I go like okay so so what happens why don't they become stars in the way that that delf and does and that to go does you know what what happens in the booking or whatever and I think this match represents like
[UNKNOWN]: It's a bummer at least to off the top of my head just with what I've seen and what I know is coming.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think we get a ton of luch arrest, Alexander Otska.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not like we get a ton of Danny Collins going forward.
[UNKNOWN]: This is the only tour that's super astro ever works.
[UNKNOWN]: And,
[UNKNOWN]: the hit on something in this match that feels like it could have been the start of something new in a really new and exciting style that Takamachinoku was sort of doing on his own, this grappling intensive, but high-intense, high-intensity sort of in-ring style, that feels like it could have been morphed into a way that brought more of the battle arts guys into the machinoku style, but still let them do what they were doing.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's kind of just this match.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, we'll see if we come across more things in the future.
[UNKNOWN]: In 1971, you're envisioning, it's what you're envisioning almost like, similar to what we've described that early 2019.
[UNKNOWN]: Try and get stuff, try and get stuff, yeah, we're like, shouldn't and UT and all those guys.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I think this had a chance of, even being a heightened version of that, because UT has a shoe back round and Schoom can hold us on on the map,
[UNKNOWN]: I kind of want to see what six man tags with Otsuka on one side and Sasuke on the other side looks like.
[UNKNOWN]: And what would have happened if we really would have blended those styles in a way that I don't really feel like any promotion has ever fully been able to do.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think just given the landscape and the partnerships at the time, I think Mitch Noku was in the right place to do it.
[UNKNOWN]: And it did it necessarily get done.
[UNKNOWN]: And that is a bit of a bummer.
[UNKNOWN]: This match feels like a historical anomaly, rather than something that I think could have been the beginning of something new.
[UNKNOWN]: Elsewhere on the timeline, we go back to the Observer here, 923-96 Dave starts to lay out this 1010 card.
[UNKNOWN]: He says Mitch Doku pro announced his 1010 lineup from Tokyo Sumo Hall, which will be the biggest show in company history, the working ideas to headline doing a trio's match with the best flyers in Japan of the 70s, 80s and 90s together, Milmascaris, Tyramas, Siamah and Sasuke provided Sasuke in return on that show.
[UNKNOWN]: The opponents have a name, but one of them will be Dynamite Kid, so it'll be the first time that's Sayaman Kid who revolutionized lighter weight wrestling in the early 80s, have been in the ring against each other since their final singles match in 1983.
[UNKNOWN]: Dave also notes that Shinzaki versus Hayabusa will be happening.
[UNKNOWN]: And then Dave notes this, which I thought was interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: He says plus Tiger Mask and Grand Nanoa versus Takamitch Noku and Shouichi Funaki, as well as Grand Hamada, Super Delphine, and Masati Yakushiji versus Dictogo, Mince Teo, and Shirio with Hoshikawa versus Johnny St. and other prelim action.
[UNKNOWN]: Do we like this show better if we get a two on two tag with Taka and Funaki and then a trio's match with Hamada Delphin and Yaku Shiji versus Togo Teo and Cheerio instead of the big 10 man tag Michael go to you first because you love Taka and Funaki so much.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think that like the fact that dream chasers were kind of the house tag team at this point.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, they would have been teaming for about 18 months at this point and with that just like not to spoil the rest of the these
[UNKNOWN]: Potentially excellent to legendary matches and there is like the idea that you know that would provide a lot more to the show arguably than some of the undercard things split it up there.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know what the magic would have been a you also have like the aspect of you have the original kind of trio with that into it though I don't know like so much like.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't like having Nanoa away from Delphineau.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, Taka and Tiger Mask, yes, that is an always-on combination.
[UNKNOWN]: Is it Nanoa and Tiger, first-in-the-tag?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's Nanoa and Tiger instead of former Delphine Corps.
[UNKNOWN]: I think I take the switch.
[UNKNOWN]: I think you risk losing some of the legendary appeal of the Ten Man gave this, I think, just the...
[UNKNOWN]: Just the idea of it, right, that the Mitchenoku Pro 10 man tied this all started like I think that carries more way by I think it would have been a better more balanced show and if say like the 10 man's 32 minutes so say you go a 15 minute match in a 17 minute match you can have to like if you let those guys those two matches go all out
[UNKNOWN]: having the one big finishing starts that we did get, like, you know, it could be better.
[UNKNOWN]: But I think I'd probably switch up the teams.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think I like that.
[UNKNOWN]: I think maybe none it won and Delphin in the tag versus, and then you put Tiger Mask in the trio's match with
[UNKNOWN]: Hamada in the Trio's, because I think he can, for his greatest ground, Hamada was.
[UNKNOWN]: I think he probably is, he's going to be better in a Trio's match, I think, and then then a two on two, if he can go in there and just be dynamic in shorter bursts.
[UNKNOWN]: Yakashiji probably is similar, but in a different way in this, he was, yes, he probably has
[UNKNOWN]: You can go and go and go because he's young, but he probably wasn't as developed and didn't as much tools in his arsenal for a big card, big spotlight to on two type machining the six man suits him well and then Tiger mask is not as experiences the others.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, I think having him and any weaknesses that he might have hidden the six
[UNKNOWN]: presence together as a team, I think that alone can carry two or two.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think that's that makes sense to me.
[UNKNOWN]: If I was split into matches, those are the ways I'd split up.
[UNKNOWN]: But it's interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't know that was the thing before now.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I think I think that would have given this card.
[UNKNOWN]: maybe a little bit more of an authentic Mitch Knoku pro feel and I guess we can get into that the other the only other time I know that I have is from the 930 Observer in which Dave writes about FMW's major show of this tour was on 929 in Sapporo before 4850, which was Terry Fung's first match in Sapporo in many years with the group's world champion wing catamores still out of action with an injury, they had Oya versus Hayabusa with the winner getting a shot at
[UNKNOWN]: the title match, which all you want, but the reason we bring this up is that after that match, Jinsation Zaki hit the ring and started praying to Hayabusa, which is a small angle to set up their match at 10-10 at Tokyo Sumo Hall.
[UNKNOWN]: We talked about what Dave wrote about the advance ticket sales before this show.
[UNKNOWN]: And gentlemen, that leads us to 10-10-96.
[UNKNOWN]: To this day, I think even more so than the barely legal tag, this is the thing that defines this promotion, this is the reason Mitch Dokupro has the legacy that it does.
[UNKNOWN]: I will say up top, I had never seen this show start to finish.
[UNKNOWN]: I had watched the opening match before, host Calvars is St. and I had obviously seen the 10 man tag.
[UNKNOWN]: Everything else on this show was new.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm in so many ways.
[UNKNOWN]: surprised by what I saw.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll go to Alan on this first just because you're sort of the guy that I go to for stuff like this.
[UNKNOWN]: In terms of the English-speaking world of Japanese wrestling, I think especially
[UNKNOWN]: It's especially pre-New Japan boom.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, this has to be up there with the J-Cup and just I think the general idea of Masawa versus Kobashi as your automatic gateway entry point into Japanese wrestling, right?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, because like, with all Japan stuff, there's no specific show.
[UNKNOWN]: It's matches, and there was probably some comp tapes and stuff like that, but there is no, like, oh, this is the show, but these days,
[UNKNOWN]: Probably like, um, one of the all Japan women shows as well, I think, like, maybe like big a universe, I'm really bad with the 90s all Japan women history, um, but yeah, like those are like the kind of singular shows that were.
[UNKNOWN]: and known about to someone like me who was discovering Japanese wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: So, yeah, it absolutely was on one of my early purchases of Japanese wrestling DVDs from my outcast video.
[UNKNOWN]: As you guys saw last night, yeah, the photos.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, that was, I remember,
[UNKNOWN]: I remember watching it.
[UNKNOWN]: I remember giving it to my friend and then watching with him again.
[UNKNOWN]: So I like watch the twice in the space for a week.
[UNKNOWN]: I remember distinctly the opening of the commercial DVD, which might you can probably get into like the version we saw here and I maybe described that, but the version I had was like a commercial Ph.S.
[UNKNOWN]: I guess.
[UNKNOWN]: And it opens with
[UNKNOWN]: It feels just like it's field of long grass, just very non-descript field of long grass.
[UNKNOWN]: And all of a sudden you start here, it's like, trad music playing like, D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d
[UNKNOWN]: He just stands there and then all of a sudden the Mitch Noku pro music kicks in the the all great task game music, which I had as my ringtone for an embarrassingly song and time, do do do do do do do do do do I can't do but yeah the that kicks in and then they do whatever and cut they do and it goes to the arena then.
[UNKNOWN]: So I have no idea
[UNKNOWN]: why this opened with Sasuke in a field, but it did.
[UNKNOWN]: And then, yeah, as we as we would then see on this extended version that we have that we're watching today, there was more stuff that I can describe as I have no idea why this happened.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: everything from stakes to the X files music.
[UNKNOWN]: So everything.
[UNKNOWN]: This is like the old Stefan's weekend update sketch from Silent Out Life with Bill Hader.
[UNKNOWN]: It had everything.
[UNKNOWN]: It had snakes.
[UNKNOWN]: It had a milky personality.
[UNKNOWN]: It had the X files name.
[UNKNOWN]: It always there for us.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's so, it's so odd
[UNKNOWN]: But it's all the things of all the things that we know with the great Sasuke has an interest in mid-90s peak x files like Trash voice, yes, I mean this is the man who wants to rust on the moon like a place
[UNKNOWN]: Like that had to be like an immensely formative TV show for him.
[UNKNOWN]: Like can you imagine like him getting the tapes like shipped in and him watching?
[UNKNOWN]: Because like X files, there's no way X files was on like broadcast TV in Japan in 1976.
[UNKNOWN]: Like there's a level of fandom that he had to have had.
[UNKNOWN]: Like is he going on like the message boards like going on mailing list, talking about the X files.
[UNKNOWN]: He's Julian Anderson's stand up so I'm sorry about that.
[UNKNOWN]: He probably had his like Japanese Jeff Lynch, but he was like, no, no, no, I don't want ECW Hardcore TV.
[UNKNOWN]: Somebody who ex files when you're going to chance, please.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, put it on SLP.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, he gives me episodes on these safes as we can.
[UNKNOWN]: And I guess like this is kind of a point where we can kind of talk about this up.
[UNKNOWN]: The version that we have here, there are some interesting things that there is something that we'll talk about during the Legends match about this version, but this, I believe, and I don't know when exactly it went up this comes from Samurai TV, the version that we'll be making available for you.
[UNKNOWN]: for everyone and not to use like modern samurai TV or is this like I did it air on because I've tried to tell by the logo and it's like it wasn't soup.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think it's like the logo that they would have had at the time, but I also don't know.
[UNKNOWN]: It's current day.
[UNKNOWN]: So at the time,
[UNKNOWN]: It was gaming or filming in, so it's a game or not.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, you're right.
[UNKNOWN]: So what originally aired on TV was is you count one of those go versus a Kata and the future Mahabha Jode, the legends, six band tag, and then in full, the 10 man and the main event.
[UNKNOWN]: That is what Dave has under the 10 13, Michitoku Pro TV review, which he has in the November 11,
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, well, I, yeah, there is a guy who are a desk, but this is around the time that Samurai TD launches.
[UNKNOWN]: The point that I don't, I don't, Mike won't be able to explain this better than I am.
[UNKNOWN]: There's a commercial tape version of this that exists, which is the show in full, which is what the intro that Alan was describing with great Sasuke and the shipping up to Boston rip off.
[UNKNOWN]: The version that we watched for the most part was a remaster, beautifully HD.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's Samurai TV cut of this show.
[UNKNOWN]: Now there's for the Legends match, and I know for the the 10 man tax, I watched these on YouTube.
[UNKNOWN]: Those matches exist in full, but the Samurai TV version that we're going to link in the episode notes has some clipping throughout the show.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, on the on the 10 man because that was when 32 minutes went up on on the screen the end of a look while that was long and then I was like the most equipped and then I looked at the time that it started was pretty much 32 minutes on my on my time or so I was like, yeah, okay, not much clips in that.
[UNKNOWN]: So do we want to talk about the clips here because that's kind of one of my rabbit holes or do we want to hold off until the legend managed to talk about the clips and terms of what they added out of the matches or the clips that they show up the bitch doko profited during the intro.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I want to have more intros to first.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll hold off on that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but case I was saying, this is my suspicions and for those who don't know, I'm a former digital media preservationist working in archives.
[UNKNOWN]: I've not been in the profession for
[UNKNOWN]: the last four or five years, but I have a deep basis in digitizing and remastering footage, most specifically from tapes like this that this would have come from to be quite honest, given Japan's video production.
[UNKNOWN]: And, okay, I have to say, and I know Mitch and this too y'all, but
[UNKNOWN]: I don't think I have ever seen an HD transfer as nice as this one and what I mean from that is whatever version of a master that Samurai had when they did this because Alan, I think this is a later restoration because the fact that the Samurai logo is put where there's the letter boxing on like the normal generation.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's usually a tell of when this was read.
[UNKNOWN]: When this was digitized and remastered, I would guess that because of the file format and everything, this might have been something that happened during COVID, but I can't tell you that, but with the exception of the Dragon Gate Network version of absolute amente that you could actually see into the dugouts at Ariake Stadium.
[UNKNOWN]: This is the best HD transfer I've ever seen.
[UNKNOWN]: and nothing like really like compares to the quality of this.
[UNKNOWN]: When you look at this opening that they have on this show and just like the crystal crisp image of Sasuke in Oate training with a future gamma trying to get his sea legs back and all of the footage with him.
[UNKNOWN]: The train feels so cool.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll run through this open.
[UNKNOWN]: We get the J crown, open injury recap and saucekays.
[UNKNOWN]: And that is in the hospital.
[UNKNOWN]: We get that shot that case discussed earlier with the saucekay in his hospital bed with the mask.
[UNKNOWN]: hanging off of equipment.
[UNKNOWN]: We get his doctor who is going through the skull fractures with about no exaggeration.
[UNKNOWN]: 20 X-rays of saskas skull, which is really kind of interesting and fine-z.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's the kind of thing that Mitch Noku Pro does in 1996 that we don't really get nowadays.
[UNKNOWN]: And then he goes to Jens Aishensaki and Tokushima, interrupting his pilgrimage.
[UNKNOWN]: We get the press conference that Dave talks about in the observer where Sasuke is in his wheelchair.
[UNKNOWN]: They left his wheelchair up to a parapet, so he can do his, did do like his announcement that he will be back for 10-10.
[UNKNOWN]: He is jogging throughout to Hoku with Tiger Mask for he is training with her mama.
[UNKNOWN]: in their mask in their masks and wearing like the most early 90s workout gear ever.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I imagine just like I know like fixing your car on the side of the road and like that comes past you.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, given the story is about the way that Sasuke lives in a water into Hoku that have been told, I think that that might have been kind of an occurrence that people kind of expected to see the other guys.
[UNKNOWN]: I have to wait, I have to completely coastline at point, you guys were strongly making on the last show about how people need to just watch from beginning to end.
[UNKNOWN]: all the footage of Sasuke going around Mexico with a with tiger mask when they like by bananas and then they're bananas get stolen by a caveman guy whose name I always forget.
[UNKNOWN]: Super big engine.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you're an engine.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I did the same purpose.
[UNKNOWN]: They're like, too.
[UNKNOWN]: I do not know.
[UNKNOWN]: Genshin lore.
[UNKNOWN]: I know you guys have explained it on this show.
[UNKNOWN]: It's one of those things that goes in one year and I have the other anytime it's been explained to me.
[UNKNOWN]: Is there two of these guys and they
[UNKNOWN]: did that there's to them.
[UNKNOWN]: They're super gingen who came from pro pro wrestling food to our gumi and then Yona Gingen, who was a universal guy who became Yona Gingen like in 1993.
[UNKNOWN]: All right, so they're not related or anything.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, well, not to my knowledge.
[UNKNOWN]: One of them steals the bananas.
[UNKNOWN]: It's tremendous there.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, would they go and they join just like fitness class to them.
[UNKNOWN]: Kendo is giving in like just like a house and there's all these women all these like housewives like two in the afternoon going to do this workout class with kendo's luchador and they're all like training and then you see at the back of the classroom to jump in jacks with the women is like young again, and it's just tremendous.
[UNKNOWN]: Like segment they do showing these Mexican dudes like climbing this giant like cliff thing and diving into the water and these crowds would like watch and applaud because they were like.
[UNKNOWN]: doing like Olympic style dives like just the most incredible like pictures asked diving and Sasuke was watching and they were interspacing pictures of Sasuke, our video of Sasuke doing his dives like the Koebradas and I feel like maybe there's like the name Koebrada comes from something to do with this or
[UNKNOWN]: I feel like I heard that somewhere along the way, but seeing those clips are amazing.
[UNKNOWN]: Seeing those guys, these little Mexican lads in their speedos climbing the fucking cliffs, like it's like the most impressive thing I've seen in a long time.
[UNKNOWN]: It looked insanely dangerous and scary, but they were doing it like it was nothing.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that was cool.
[UNKNOWN]: That whole thing is amazing.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, Sasuke is out in the wild is always a tree.
[UNKNOWN]: Whether it's jogging, covering from an injury or going by in bananas.
[UNKNOWN]: It's so good.
[UNKNOWN]: In the this footage is like the best parts of it, uh, and, and, and, and, and, and, like, seeing Sasuke like get back into the ring and he's doing his bridging in the net bridges are the best thing all this entire shell.
[UNKNOWN]: And then I was so, uh,
[UNKNOWN]: And I don't, I don't want to come across like William Regal, who as I've discussed, I've watched literal murderers wrestle pro wrestling matches and they bother me less than watching William Regal does in 2026.
[UNKNOWN]: There's something about his personality that I just find to be completely disestable.
[UNKNOWN]: But Regal always talks about the importance of doing bridges in watching Sasuke who had fractured his skull.
[UNKNOWN]: probably six weeks before this footage was filmed, seeing him do these bridges and seeing how well he was doing them far away, the coolest thing on this entire show.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, absolutely so.
[UNKNOWN]: And you get more of Shenzaki and Sasuke, the full clip of Shenzaki at the FNW show in Sapporo praying for Hayabusa getting the match.
[UNKNOWN]: And then we get into Sumo Hall a whole lot of
[UNKNOWN]: Unquestion me for me is as many great things as there is the star of these clips is Chanzationsakis quaff of hair.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah, he looks real homeless.
[UNKNOWN]: That hair was spectacular.
[UNKNOWN]: It was just, yeah, so poofy.
[UNKNOWN]: And like he's showing up in the Canadian Tuxedo to Seporo.
[UNKNOWN]: He looks awesome.
[UNKNOWN]: He looks like that.
[UNKNOWN]: He should have been in members of the Cycles of the
[UNKNOWN]: a karate outfit, but like in where it's denim, and he was wearing like the sandals as well with it, it was pretty wild outfit.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but yeah, and I, okay, so I, um,
[UNKNOWN]: I watched all this previous stuff last night.
[UNKNOWN]: The last thing I did last night, and it was also good.
[UNKNOWN]: It got me so excited for watching the show.
[UNKNOWN]: So I woke up just morning and had to show the watch.
[UNKNOWN]: And it was all excited, because of the preview.
[UNKNOWN]: But I also wanted to do it, because I had to get my playstation out.
[UNKNOWN]: So I could check out that outcast video DVD.
[UNKNOWN]: Because it's the only thing I have to complete at the moment.
[UNKNOWN]: So I had the playstation out.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm going to bust out fire pro and I know I recently downloaded a high abusa.
[UNKNOWN]: Let me get a Jinsationzaki and I'm going to do a little high abusa versus Jinsationzaki before I want you to show.
[UNKNOWN]: And the Jinsationzaki, I downloaded.
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't even notice when I was doing it, but
[UNKNOWN]: He had four alternate attires and one of them is this Canadian Tuxedo with hair, a deal that he was wearing here, so very, very big credit to whoever put into time and effort to make that.
[UNKNOWN]: that's incredible.
[UNKNOWN]: That is that rules.
[UNKNOWN]: The pre-show stuff is we see the announcer desk and they're kind of running through the shows until we get lights going out.
[UNKNOWN]: The great Sasuke's favorite TV shows theme music starts playing the X-Files names.
[UNKNOWN]: And then we get the kind of traditional in-ring preview that you get on most major wrestling shows.
[UNKNOWN]: And that brings up Wellington Wilkins Jr. in Yona Gengen dressed up as a Japanese businessman, as a comedy bit.
[UNKNOWN]: They throw their t-shirts and that brings out a new person jingle bells plays and it's Santa Claus.
[UNKNOWN]: And what Santa Claus brings as a present for Wellington Wilkins Jr.
[UNKNOWN]: that freaks out, manager, yonic engine.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's how they kick off their biggest show in history is with Santa Claus and a giant snake.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, I have two things to note about Santa Claus here.
[UNKNOWN]: One.
[UNKNOWN]: As much credit as we're giving Mitch Noku pro a little sloppy here, else sloppy shop because they spoiled Santa Claus here in this production because after when they were willing to show like at the desk before how they were shown clips from before to show like I know people arriving and stuff like this, they were shown guys training in the ring and there's someone standing there.
[UNKNOWN]: In a Santa Claus, I'd fit in the corner.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, I would notice that here and then we go up there.
[UNKNOWN]: Somebody just can't see who it is.
[UNKNOWN]: But they're just standing there in a Santa Claus.
[UNKNOWN]: I'd fit as like guys are like doing rolls and stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: That's so cool.
[UNKNOWN]: And also, Mike, you went way too fast over to presentation of this gift from Santa Claus, because it's a big box.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a big wrapped up Christmas present box.
[UNKNOWN]: They unwrapper.
[UNKNOWN]: It is then underneath a box of specialty brandy.
[UNKNOWN]: the, uh, I got with someone's kind of a gift of some fine brandy here.
[UNKNOWN]: The box of brandy, and still has the shipping label on it.
[UNKNOWN]: So, and that is the side that they're pointing to the camera.
[UNKNOWN]: You're seeing this full shipping thing barcode and all.
[UNKNOWN]: That's like, come on guys, so it's ripped to shipping label.
[UNKNOWN]: But I think they literally just picked up a random box because it wasn't even brandy.
[UNKNOWN]: It was just a snake.
[UNKNOWN]: So, uh, yeah, I think they just picked up whatever random
[UNKNOWN]: It's a it's a show that I I mentioned this earlier.
[UNKNOWN]: It feels shockingly and authentic to the mistoku pro experience just going with all of this footage.
[UNKNOWN]: This show feels completely different with the exception of this opening segment and the gingen will can stuff which unfortunately is just embedded in the DNA of mistoku pro and this does feel like the promotion that we've now been watching years and years of footage of.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right about that.
[UNKNOWN]: And from there, we go into the first match of the show.
[UNKNOWN]: It is a European rules match with our main man, the person bringing strong style to Mitch Noku Pro and here, Hoshikawa again said, I think of this time that was announced retiring supposed English wrestling legend, Johnny Singh.
[UNKNOWN]: Here's a great trivia question that your next Joe Gagney, if you're listening or next person hosting a rest in trivia contest, maybe in Victoria's bar and grill or whatever place in Chicago, you got their cases.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, that I don't believe the square circle has been open for 10 years down, but I'll hit to see if you want to host a jolly saint trivia.
[UNKNOWN]: She should have called the Victoria's bar and grill it.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a spider-local Victoria, it's part of it, yes, yes.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, trivia question, Johnny St. wrestled on one match in his career in Tokyo.
[UNKNOWN]: Who was his coroner man?
[UNKNOWN]: And see, see who can get the answer to that and see how long it takes before someone says, oh, that would be Osaka 06 member Gamma.
[UNKNOWN]: Now, actually two men that have such a very similar approach.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I've never seen one listed.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so now they only think that this was listed as the first match on the show.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so yeah, he was busy back when he was cornered everyone.
[UNKNOWN]: Even even kind I'd be axed normally like if you're like the rookie cornering faces, you're not going to corner like the heels as well, but yeah, he was doing it all.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I don't think we've had a Yoshihita Sugamoto match make tape for us yet so far.
[UNKNOWN]: No, I don't I don't know if we get one because I think he defects in early 97.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he's not around.
[UNKNOWN]: Bitshoku pro that long, I don't think.
[UNKNOWN]: Where does he defect to before?
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, I think that's a good plan.
[UNKNOWN]: I doubt he needs me.
[UNKNOWN]: Really?
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, hold on, I might be wrong.
[UNKNOWN]: I thought for sure, he spent some time in Big Japan as I go to the old Gamma Cage match, a place that I've spent so many, so many hours over the years now, I'm completely wrong.
[UNKNOWN]: He's here in 97, 98.
[UNKNOWN]: But he only wrestles.
[UNKNOWN]: He's got eight matches on record in 97.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, he's got two that might air in early 97 and then 98, only one match and send eye.
[UNKNOWN]: And I highly doubt we get Cento versus Suga Moto in a 10 minute draw.
[UNKNOWN]: That just seems like something that would make TV.
[UNKNOWN]: So I might won't know real soon if we get any gamma because from the match as the cage match has listed, only two of them can possibly make tape and they would be in early 97.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it just seems like to me at least that he is someone that is now just like ever present on footage that we just never see in that kind of way, but it and it is interesting that they should have other trainees at this time, but it's always Sugamoto around with that.
[UNKNOWN]: I hate Johnny St.
[UNKNOWN]: I think that his style of I just want to get this out and then y'all could be fair to this match.
[UNKNOWN]: I think his style of Lancashire style is like the most like exhibitiony and it will what not not to bring up this guy once again.
[UNKNOWN]: What we're we're William Regal had to kind of say about Zack Saber Jr's wrestling rings at 12 or 18.
[UNKNOWN]: Hey, oh with the voice, can't look at where to come home.
[UNKNOWN]: It's funny about it, but it's not in that like that like exact phrase I'm going to text back in Texas for a little bit of this guy changes.
[UNKNOWN]: Let me tell you
[UNKNOWN]: does anything that Johnny St. does look like it does any sort of pain or like anything to put someone in like in a better position for like winning a match.
[UNKNOWN]: No, it's just him just flu-fing around.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm
[UNKNOWN]: There's a lot of people that are there that they'd say giving out a bit of people fluffing around and it's a battle back where it's price of Ireland I don't
[UNKNOWN]: Here's what I'll bail you out, all right, yeah, I'd like to keep, I'd like to keep doing the show with you.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, I will say, although we talked about in the last episode how this is the single most consequential match in the history of Mitch Joku Pro, as this match literally, you can draw dots between this match happening in Johnny St. becoming the GM of NXT UK.
[UNKNOWN]: Johnny St. is not a top to your world of sport worker.
[UNKNOWN]: I really like it's not a really like this style.
[UNKNOWN]: And I will say that I really like the Johnny St. Chikara stuff that we have, but when you go back and watch the footage from joint promotions, I'm immediately drawn to John Cortez Steve Gray, golden bowstick as a guy who I've pimped for years now, the Hungarian wrestler who I think is phenomenal.
[UNKNOWN]: Those guys are all.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't just want to be the best in these things stuff as when those guys are like beating the shit out of them.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: And so those guys are all leaps and bounds better than saint and then they only saint footage that I really like is when he's in the ring with Claudio and Daniel Santa and occasionally quack and blush.
[UNKNOWN]: So he is
[UNKNOWN]: God, I'm sure there's other examples of this throughout wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: I can't think of one right now, but it's funny.
[UNKNOWN]: You know what's the example of it?
[UNKNOWN]: I feel like, and I'm just going to get everyone mad at me.
[UNKNOWN]: I feel like that when negaranovara is my astro stuff was really pimped in 2018 to 2021, it was exactly this kind of stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: where it is exhibition and not wrestling to, you know, as a competitive sport, it's look at, well, we can do without actually, you know, doing wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, St. looks 20 years younger and moved at twice the speed that 2019 negative R did, which is really saying something, because St.
[UNKNOWN]: But you see my plan here, but I completely see your point here.
[UNKNOWN]: The point that I was going to make was, and I can't think of another example of this, but
[UNKNOWN]: You know, St. has become the poster child for the world of sports style, but he's not, he shouldn't be.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, he just happened to have this weird level of visibility that has granted him some level of credence to, to sort of speak for the style, but he's not one of the upper tier workers, and this is one of the upper tier matches.
[UNKNOWN]: This is a very pedestrian sort of undercar, I mean, it's an undercar match to Mitch Doco Pro, but it's an undercar style joint promotions match as well, whereas the high-end stuff,
[UNKNOWN]: And it's been years since I've revisited it.
[UNKNOWN]: I'd actually, I'd like to hear real soon.
[UNKNOWN]: But the high-end stuff from that time period and that promotion, I love, I'm a huge fan of, I really, really like it.
[UNKNOWN]: But I'm never going like, oh, yes.
[UNKNOWN]: World of sport, Johnny Saints promotion.
[UNKNOWN]: That's where Johnny Saints was really shining bright.
[UNKNOWN]: That's just never how I feel about it.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, like John Cortez, I feel like as the person wanted people to look to for that.
[UNKNOWN]: Not Johnny Sane.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, absolutely, but Hoshikawa was great in this.
[UNKNOWN]: I think that Hoshikawa getting able to kind of, and in some ways, be a bit of a meat boy throwing him around when he would get thrown around, actually added the interesting element to this match that Johnny Sane did, it does not offer to me.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, Hoshikawa does a good job of selling the confusion and being thrown off by Sane, which
[UNKNOWN]: kind of what he needs to do in his role here like he's not it's not a showcase match for him if he looks good it's kind of a bonus
[UNKNOWN]: I'm poor Johnny Saint, the one of the things that I had forgotten about this show, but as soon as this happens, I was like, oh, yeah, this is something I do remember from the show is Johnny Saint falling when he tries to jump into the ring.
[UNKNOWN]: Just shortly before it finished as well.
[UNKNOWN]: He just tried, he was on the outside on the apron and he just tried to do it like a little vault over the ropes and he falls in a really weird way
[UNKNOWN]: shakes it off and they recover and they go into the finishing sequence and yeah, um, ends on a, on a kind of not great nope, but he wasn't the most sad and pedic looking old man that we'd see on this show.
[UNKNOWN]: And not the last person that we'll have issues with vaulting into the ring.
[UNKNOWN]: That's for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I had forgotten that.
[UNKNOWN]: When I saw this, I was like, I remember that, but we get it again later and yeah, did not remember it happening again.
[UNKNOWN]: No, yeah, no, for sure, our only title mat on the show was next as pro wrestling America's heavyweight title was defended by Wellington welkins junior versus a younger Lenny Lane and was at Eddie Sharkey as the referee here like they brought in a someone flew in for Minnesota to be our referee there the finish in the first match was a suplex pen fall for saint in the fourth round for that one just to have that on record.
[UNKNOWN]: Guys, am I completely crazy here?
[UNKNOWN]: Am I out to lunch?
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, we're amongst friends.
[UNKNOWN]: Tell me if I'm just completely off the reservation.
[UNKNOWN]: But was it any lane actually good here?
[UNKNOWN]: Boy, that's a tough question, I answer.
[UNKNOWN]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
[UNKNOWN]: What happened to Alan?
[UNKNOWN]: He died of the pile driver reversal that they did where they like flipped back like that was done.
[UNKNOWN]: I've seen that go horribly wrong many a time.
[UNKNOWN]: It went so good here with these two.
[UNKNOWN]: The superpacks.
[UNKNOWN]: Let me let him take the superplex and I don't know if I can focus.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know if I can focus.
[UNKNOWN]: Just fantastic.
[UNKNOWN]: But he still owes Chris Jericho that lover boy tape so I can never fully forgive him until he pays back that death.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, it's just nice to have a Wilkins match that isn't against Yona Gingen.
[UNKNOWN]: So, sure.
[UNKNOWN]: In that sense, it's better than what I'm used to from Wilkins.
[UNKNOWN]: I will admit as I as I crawled onto my couch to watch those days, or I'm sorry, these days, this is the show those days.
[UNKNOWN]: I did it against out of a bitch.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, I was I watching this match.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, was I engrossed in the movements of Liny Lane, the same way that you were,
[UNKNOWN]: I cannot say I was, but that might be a me thing more than it is a you thing.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, look, people, they've heard me talk about a lot of things that I'll talk about in the show and make points that I've probably made before.
[UNKNOWN]: Nobody has ever heard me discuss in detail the work of Lenny Lane.
[UNKNOWN]: So it's just going to be the show that I do.
[UNKNOWN]: I put everything there.
[UNKNOWN]: I had phone away, laptop away.
[UNKNOWN]: I had pen and no pattern.
[UNKNOWN]: You think I just pulled up all those moves off top of my head?
[UNKNOWN]: No, they're written down in cursive handwriting on a note that.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, I was I was locked into the clips we had of Lenny Lane versus welling to look at.
[UNKNOWN]: I think I want the full version now.
[UNKNOWN]: I need to go bust out my podcast video DVD and see if I get more of it.
[UNKNOWN]: The full version.
[UNKNOWN]: But I'm
[UNKNOWN]: Did you guys know the referee here?
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, flew in a ref from the L.P.W.A.
[UNKNOWN]: some Minnesota guy probably.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's why I was wondering if it was Eddie Sharky or something.
[UNKNOWN]: The ref who had full on WEC instructions before the bell, like make sure that doing my favorite thing, which is the hand it to the fist, like no close fist, you know, with all of that.
[UNKNOWN]: For me, I thought this was just like a bunch of punching kick to be honest.
[UNKNOWN]: It welcomes, he is like, I feel about Wellington with all
[UNKNOWN]: I think Alan wants a different match.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: You could fusing this with a 10-man later on to the show.
[UNKNOWN]: I've lost.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm telling you, you're going to see, like, a plus super-plex.
[UNKNOWN]: You're going to see a couple of nice pile of drivers, and you're going to see some mehe lariets.
[UNKNOWN]: This is how I describe Taco Machinoke, while the show, I think you watched it out of order, baby.
[UNKNOWN]: Good lord, so yeah, Alan, I know that like we have since the year in cases Eddie Guerrero episode, we've been in a pursuit of fundamentals, but I think we need to pull you back from the ledge a little bit.
[UNKNOWN]: Fair fair.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, I will cancel the Lennie Lane Compton.
[UNKNOWN]: I've asked someone to lay me home.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not that hungry.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a good helmet.
[UNKNOWN]: It's okay.
[UNKNOWN]: No need.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, good.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, not that Tom Greens can be so disappointed.
[UNKNOWN]: No, it's talking about Lennie Lane here.
[UNKNOWN]: Casey brought up that we didn't really have Yona Gingen in this match.
[UNKNOWN]: That wasn't the case in the post match.
[UNKNOWN]: He was allegedly Liny Lane's manager at Ringside throughout this.
[UNKNOWN]: And then he does the thing with the belt ceremony where he once put the belt on Wilkins and said he kicks him and he starts attacking him with an old school briefcase and doing something like the real like just right over the head.
[UNKNOWN]: Like this briefcase, they,
[UNKNOWN]: I want to find out this model of briefcase because Gingen was not being soft, or this he was decking him with briefcase shots until Wilkins shrugged them all off and stuck him with a power bomb.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, I don't need to see these two interact ever again.
[UNKNOWN]: And I know we're going to see a lot more of these two interacting.
[UNKNOWN]: So I guess to complete the Mitchell Gupro experience, I'm glad they were on this show, but I don't, I don't need more of this.
[UNKNOWN]: I know I said it.
[UNKNOWN]: Sorry, go ahead, Mike.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, no, no, no, buddy, you go.
[UNKNOWN]: I know I said earlier that I didn't want to go down to Dragon Gate as bad now, tangent.
[UNKNOWN]: But can I pitch a storyline that might turn Dragon Gate around?
[UNKNOWN]: And, you know, if we were to do a quickly, we might even get a big Kobe world house out of of us.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: That's for this promotion to turn around.
[UNKNOWN]: So please go ahead.
[UNKNOWN]: Can I offer you a greater power store line, a higher power story line in the Jiro Shimbashi corporation and that turns out to be Yone Gengen and his suit gimmick with his briefcase.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, hit the head of the whole deal there with the jungle Keona and all the others who have stopped taking.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I think that could work.
[UNKNOWN]: Brilliant.
[UNKNOWN]: We're pitching Giro Shambashi angles to turn this company around.
[UNKNOWN]: Then we might be done with open the voice gate here pretty soon.
[UNKNOWN]: we might be full-time as that's not what I wanted to hear I was hoping a name like Yamato Jackie Cobbe was going to cover the bigs but okay all right baby baby I'd be they can't be worse than they already are so I'm open-minded I guess as well as the Wilkins Jr's still alive we could bring him back into the belief he is still alive he is still alive he hasn't wrestled in 23 years Yona Genshin hasn't wrestled since before COVID
[UNKNOWN]: We don't get Kukuta retains to treat gate again, and it's a well-acted look.
[UNKNOWN]: Continuous marches down and sizes them up just to chest.
[UNKNOWN]: But has to be Wilkins in like his gear from 1996, the pants over his waist and the do rack.
[UNKNOWN]: It has to be that one summer adventure tagly just on a well-of-that's a look for too.
[UNKNOWN]: Wait, it makes sense because they refused to book Kukuta against a lightweight.
[UNKNOWN]: So of course you're skimming over heavyweight stiff.
[UNKNOWN]: We don't have chemistry.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, this is right in line with what they've been doing.
[UNKNOWN]: how many tickets with this sell for the replacement of dangerous gate, that's right, Tokyo Infinity Hecto Pascal, 2020-6.
[UNKNOWN]: Ah, another half-full building for Dringy, can't wait.
[UNKNOWN]: Ah, geez, man.
[UNKNOWN]: Remember how good Dringy was in January of this year?
[UNKNOWN]: We're like, this year's going to be like, Shimizu's back, this year's going to be incredible.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's, I mean, it fell apart so violently and so quickly.
[UNKNOWN]: And now it's yours because like, there was a show in Osaka today.
[UNKNOWN]: that I j posted nothing on blue sky.
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't hear from the person that I normally hear from during an Osaka show.
[UNKNOWN]: There's nothing in the discord on the Dragon Age channel about it.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like the show didn't happen and it was Shun's last show in Osaka.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm seeing a single report from Osaka today.
[UNKNOWN]: Have a see the second thing about it.
[UNKNOWN]: I've seen more about Jackie Kame making it to you, the UK.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, I, I, I, that'll be a good match, but it would be a good match if it was like wrestling from the crowd that wasn't British wrestling fans, but yeah, Jackie Camay versus Jackie Camay versus Robbie X is like, got to, to, to, just, just functionally like most impressive wrestlers in the world at the moment.
[UNKNOWN]: So that would be in a better scenario that would be really good.
[UNKNOWN]: But um, the, uh,
[UNKNOWN]: Oh yeah, you guys could always go back to January.
[UNKNOWN]: But like December was what a month they had in December.
[UNKNOWN]: The finals of King of Gays, the Kukuta, Valetta, Quark and Matcha, which was really good and played the last great, great thing.
[UNKNOWN]: Kukuta was involved in and the end of the year, stuff they did was triangle gays.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, it was triangle gays matches the end of the year.
[UNKNOWN]: And back on back to back shows,
[UNKNOWN]: God, I was so fired up a bit, like, to wrestling in general, those dragging matches and, like, me or her versus Anzai ended to 2025.
[UNKNOWN]: I was so excited about it.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, oh, here we go.
[UNKNOWN]: Pro wrestling, this rocks and yeah, now we've got, like,
[UNKNOWN]: Triangle gate scene is, yeah, they're drinking buddies that are retiring, and yeah, anyway.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I've got, I've got a 2026 Noah match queueed up for after the show that I'm kind of excited about, and that's the first time I've said that about Noah since maybe February or March.
[UNKNOWN]: So we are, we are in dark times.
[UNKNOWN]: I think it did because I think people talked about it being really good.
[UNKNOWN]: It was on my list of things that I wanted to watch, but is I have the tune?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he just wanted at his hometown show for his 15th anniversary.
[UNKNOWN]: He's defending against Hayata, I think.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah, she's a squad.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's not you.
[UNKNOWN]: Restors, it turned me off more.
[UNKNOWN]: Hey, and just the first thing I see those all caps on, oh, yeah, no, okay, it's just a further frustrate you, the main event made a hall, which I'm seeing a photo of, and it looks free jam packed actually, how Mari gets pinned by, really, it's inaka.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, you know what's funny.
[UNKNOWN]: As we're talking about this, I just got a massive DM from the guy that I know that goes to the Osaka show is with a huge right up.
[UNKNOWN]: So I, he wrote, he got he wrote so much that I can't, I can't read it on the air.
[UNKNOWN]: But, um, yeah, the H a show would have hit wrestling universe.
[UNKNOWN]: That was the 620 show.
[UNKNOWN]: The match that I'm going to watch because I heard good things about it is from the 615 core can show Chris Brooks Luis Montay and Zach Saber Jr. versus Archie Cole Kaito Kimi and Titus Alexander.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that was the main magic, right?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Also on that show, Daisuke 2nd Motovers of Shoji Ishikawa at a GHC Hardcore opened like title maps.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I'm going to have to watch that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that boy.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, I think that was a five star match that they had in 2015.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm going to have to circle back to that one too.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, Jesus.
[UNKNOWN]: And they put a global hardcore title.
[UNKNOWN]: They might like do a splash off a ladder.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, for the, the, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, the wrestling universe, uh, might be worth having a sub then because, uh, they've got um, uh, when versus Shinyaoki tomorrow morning in Korkin Hall, which feels like this hype a match, which, uh,
[UNKNOWN]: kind of has a really high ceiling that like you could totally see it go on the way where it just clicks the crowd get into it and it's one of those matches where it gets a match of your buzz from like the fans of those guys and DDD fans and like I know like as it could get picked up on like the Segunda kite radar and it's like the modern like Dicto go versus Antonio Hanna it probably won't be now but I'm just fascinated by it because I've seen those guys do great work with each other in the
[UNKNOWN]: And Oki works well with the DDT pretty boys and just like be proud of it.
[UNKNOWN]: I thought Aoki versus T Hawke last year was like one of the most unheralded great matches of the year.
[UNKNOWN]: Like he can do it if the right person in it, it's own unique special thing.
[UNKNOWN]: Like I'm kind of into him and you I know, but more into I know than I think a lot of people are.
[UNKNOWN]: Do you guys ever see Aoki versus Chihiro Hashimoto from Quark and DDT like two years go maybe.
[UNKNOWN]: That's an instant intergener match I've ever seen.
[UNKNOWN]: I believe that the whole reason why intergender usually sucks is because like it's tough to suspend your disbelief okay Alan getting canceled now about a half hour after Mike did know come on Of course of course of course of five foot one woman could beat Eddie Kingston's ass how could you not suspend your disbelief for that
[UNKNOWN]: But Chihiro Hashimoto moving her hand like Brock Lesnar as she does.
[UNKNOWN]: What her legit background, I'm having like a significant size advantage over little skinny Sshinyayoki, who also, in spite of being a little skinny guy, also like you know he can murder anyone that's dropped the half.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a great time
[UNKNOWN]: had a hell of a match together.
[UNKNOWN]: I know people who watched it love that one.
[UNKNOWN]: So that's one from, I know no one likes to go back and watch wrestling from like two years ago, but it is one worth going and tracking that and if people have never seen it.
[UNKNOWN]: Good.
[UNKNOWN]: That wasn't on my radar at all.
[UNKNOWN]: So that's good to know.
[UNKNOWN]: All right.
[UNKNOWN]: There's our modern day wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: Can't be everywhere.
[UNKNOWN]: Let's.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Let's see.
[UNKNOWN]: No one's bad.
[UNKNOWN]: Drangy.
[UNKNOWN]: It's bad.
[UNKNOWN]: DDT hasn't
[UNKNOWN]: Well, something that might put us into a good mood from the show.
[UNKNOWN]: At least, put me kind of into a good mood on this show.
[UNKNOWN]: Is the Battle Arts offer tag match?
[UNKNOWN]: Alexander Oatska versus Yuki Shikawa and Dice.
[UNKNOWN]: Alexander Oatska, teaming with Yuki is Shikawa versus Dice Gay, Kata, and Satoshi Yone Yama, who people nowadays better know as Muhammad Yone.
[UNKNOWN]: What a delightful surprise.
[UNKNOWN]: That was to click on his gauge match and not knowing who that was and to see that it was Mahabha Jona that they didn't know I just didn't They wasn't clicking with their like got that guy looks kind of familiar.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, it's Mahabha Jona.
[UNKNOWN]: That's why okay That was I'm surprised you cutty look familiar because like I meet knowing who it was was like how is this the same person
[UNKNOWN]: He's got, he's got a very distinct face.
[UNKNOWN]: I was able, I was like, got it, but he had yellow gear on it.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, I know that's not Kakahara, who is that?
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, my God, it's Bahabukyana, okay.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yone was, he wasn't like one of, he was still young, he was one of the rest of the rising guys, but like he wasn't one of the best bad lyrics guys, but he hung his own, and he was like, Ishikawa's protege, I guess, so that's probably why he was chosen for this match, but
[UNKNOWN]: I completely forgot this match was on the show until the cut to it, jazzo is watching it, and I was like, oh, okay.
[UNKNOWN]: But I was also once I saw it, I was like, I don't remember this being particularly great, because I it alongside or in around the same period as I was watching all the Mitchell Cooper pro for the first time.
[UNKNOWN]: I was also love and battle arts.
[UNKNOWN]: I got the bad
[UNKNOWN]: I think Badlarts works better in a smaller room, the Badlarts style, so I think it kind of loses some of its excitement in like Sumahal, so like if you want me to like recommend Badlarts matches to people, it'd be recommending a lot more stuff before I'd get to this.
[UNKNOWN]: Otskivers just dies gay, okay,
[UNKNOWN]: That said, like the work in this was, and some of it's cut, but it's very good, very solid.
[UNKNOWN]: There's a couple of real good urgent sequences of guys, like looking for finishes and people breaking them off, and that plays into the actual finish where Ishikawa locks in a choke, and a cada, I think goes to break it up, and Otsuka just bullrocious them,
[UNKNOWN]: forces and back into the corner, really cool finish to us.
[UNKNOWN]: And the crowd, like the crowd, were very quiet for most of this match, but they pumped for the finish, which was good.
[UNKNOWN]: And the other thing I really liked about it was how Ishikawa sold the match at the end.
[UNKNOWN]: It really like celebrated, like it was like a meaningful way, and like it was so happy to have gotten the submission.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it
[UNKNOWN]: more of them always, always for restrooms, putting over whatever the situation is, whether it's like the fees or victory or whatever it might be just yet to put it over and make it seem like it's important to you.
[UNKNOWN]: I appreciate that because if you treat it as important, then I'll treat it as important to issue a cow a treat, to get in this wind and sumahaw, like it was a big deal.
[UNKNOWN]: So fair play to them for that.
[UNKNOWN]: Did I have another thing?
[UNKNOWN]: I,
[UNKNOWN]: I like the dynamics of it, we're as clear that they were going after Yona, he's the weakest guy in this match and I thought, you know, as I enjoy this style, I think maybe more than people realize, but I'm not always, I'm not always the highest on UK, Chicago compared to the way that some other people think of him, but I thought, ishichawa specifically was really great in this match, which was nice to see.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, the dynamic between the four.
[UNKNOWN]: I think really made this kind of special up.
[UNKNOWN]: I like that, like the first aspect of the match was that Ikeda and Yone were focusing on Otsuka, focusing on Otsuka and Ishikawa was trying to get himself in and trying to help his teammate in that manner.
[UNKNOWN]: as soon as you shakawa kind of is getting more into the match the baby face side or at least the soon baby face side is able to kind of put away the young guy and it just is a foot for working this kind of style on this kind of show.
[UNKNOWN]: I felt like having like this level of spice was kind of needed and I feel like it's more in the fabric of what Mitch and Oaku Pro was for
[UNKNOWN]: it's like first three years because of the relationships they had with PWFG and battle arts that and I mean the fact that Funaki came over from those groups that like there is like in the way that there is that thread there between these two groups and it kind of made sense and was appreciated to have this kind of match on this show more so than the other kind of additional non-mitchinoco pro-feeling matches.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah very much so.
[UNKNOWN]: And then we get to the legend's trio's match on one side.
[UNKNOWN]: It's Mil, Mascara's the original tiger, Massachusetts, Yama, and the great Sasuke versus Dost carous dynamite kid Tomis Billington and Kuniyaki Kobayashi and guys before we get into the match, the itself that Tomis Billington, did he join the York Foundation?
[UNKNOWN]: I, I, I was just going off of memory, you know, it just going through all the days and that kind of way when I already did Tiger Massatory, so y'all, I felt only right for me to do that.
[UNKNOWN]: Alexandra York liked her meant to sort of present in a certain way, you know, very clean cause it wasn't exactly him.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll tell him he was a present and care on this show and not the case here.
[UNKNOWN]: And here is a time I'm going to take you all on a little tangent ourselves.
[UNKNOWN]: We talked about as we started this show, the Samurai version that would be made available for you all in contrasting that with the version that you had originally
[UNKNOWN]: Allen from your tape trader and how that one was from a different kind of commercial tape.
[UNKNOWN]: And this one seems like that is either adapted from a different source or is from a master that that commercial taste came off of.
[UNKNOWN]: There is one big difference that I've noticed that I was asking your help a little bit for in this match.
[UNKNOWN]: But before we get into that, I would like to
[UNKNOWN]: Did y'all notice any Kuniaki Kobayashi in this match?
[UNKNOWN]: He does a cool dive at one point.
[UNKNOWN]: I know you say it.
[UNKNOWN]: I remember seeing him on the ring apron at one point and aside from that, like, yeah, no, he did.
[UNKNOWN]: I forgot he was in.
[UNKNOWN]: I remember forgetting that he was in the match, and then he had to think nothing of us until you said no.
[UNKNOWN]: So, this was a leading question, Alan.
[UNKNOWN]: There is on the version that we'll be supplying a burnt-in caption saying that due to agreements Kuniyaki Kobayashi will not be shown in this match.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think Ricky Choshutam.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, they Ricky Choshutam at least on the Samurai version and Alan and case I spent most of the last 24 hours trying to figure out this kind of mystery and the most that like
[UNKNOWN]: But that we've been able to really kind of tell or I've been able to kind of figure out and some of this was help with Alan looking on his his bootleg that he had is that samurai for whatever reason whenever they made this version.
[UNKNOWN]: They did not have agreement from Kuniaki Kobayashi.
[UNKNOWN]: This was probably before he passed away in 2024 when this got released.
[UNKNOWN]: And if you notice in the open's, in the entrances, he has no entrance.
[UNKNOWN]: He is basically on the apron, the entire time, at least as of the footage that you see, and you only get to see a glimpse of him in the dive train.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's just like an interesting kind of thing
[UNKNOWN]: whatever reason in the way that these kinds of things operate out and she said it he did not give clearance or his family did not give clearance for him to appear on this version that samurai TV did.
[UNKNOWN]: That's wild but like, is there?
[UNKNOWN]: mask clearance for you right on the show.
[UNKNOWN]: We have the right like, do they have to go like den the list of like everyone will take on the show.
[UNKNOWN]: But like, hey, are you okay with this or is it something where he has a certain copy right over his likeness that like other people don't have that he is able to say like, hey, Sam right TV just blanketing and never show me on anything.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's really, really interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: I know they owe you a gawa.
[UNKNOWN]: There's something like that with him, oh boy.
[UNKNOWN]: All his stuff was on New Japan World for like the first day or two New Japan World launch.
[UNKNOWN]: And then it all got taken down.
[UNKNOWN]: The show she won is, I talked about it on my last show of people.
[UNKNOWN]: I've, I didn't hear it.
[UNKNOWN]: I did a show all of it in 1987 with Charles from pro wrestling, only in wrestling playlists.
[UNKNOWN]: And the whole thing with
[UNKNOWN]: All Japan to New Japan, he was still contractually tied to all Japan, and Baba was basically putting a block on him appearing on New Japan's TV, and they had this one really big elimination match that they built to, where I forget the exact teams, but in no key was on one side and Choshu was on the other.
[UNKNOWN]: And big, big match, Sumo Hall, and people, I guess, were probably unsure how
[UNKNOWN]: Joe who couldn't appear on TV, but this is going to be his first big match.
[UNKNOWN]: And what they did is it was so cool, they have this in nokey team, which is like a nokey in his pals, like Sakaguchi, Masasaito, I think, and a little, um, I always forget his name.
[UNKNOWN]: And the fellow who was the leader of the Makai club, um, the really short guy to, how she, you know, control she, you know.
[UNKNOWN]: So,
[UNKNOWN]: A nokey at the start of the match sends Hoshino back and there's like kind of shoes them off and said something to him and Dick Murdoch throws out from backstage and the cried pops and a nokey's like, yeah, no, we're making a swap.
[UNKNOWN]: Murdoch in Hoshino and all the Choshy team are furious.
[UNKNOWN]: What the fuck can't do this?
[UNKNOWN]: And Choshy was particularly aggrieved and they cut to commercial and they come back from commercial
[UNKNOWN]: Choshu and Murdoch are brawling and getting pulled away, and don't see to make physical contact, but they're getting pulled away on the floor, and the count is started.
[UNKNOWN]: The bell is wrong, but nothing has happened, because these are two guys.
[UNKNOWN]: They were deemed legal men, but they're both outside, and they both get counted out, and Choshu never actually
[UNKNOWN]: like competes on the TV, but it all worked within the story of like the match and the overall story they were telling genius stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I love that.
[UNKNOWN]: Like that's a that's such a smart way of working around that kind of limitation here.
[UNKNOWN]: My, and I have searched the Japanese fan blogs.
[UNKNOWN]: I searched just in general to kind of find this out.
[UNKNOWN]: And I wonder, and this is just my own just using therapy words.
[UNKNOWN]: I feel like maybe this could have been something given.
[UNKNOWN]: Kobayashi's health issues and cancer that maybe I thought he looked pretty okay at least from the shots that we saw love but maybe it could have been a thing where you know I mean his prime was 13 years before that and as the tiger hunted and maybe like after like the before like he got cancer with that and maybe it could have been a little bit of a pride thing that would have said no I don't want my footage to be shown in this because I'm
[UNKNOWN]: at this point, I assume this is really okay, okay, that's right, he did, yeah, because I think I remember reading about it, I think he actually had a lot of the same shit that I did, so yeah, that's wild.
[UNKNOWN]: He put, yeah, like with dynamite kid, I have there, like, I know he didn't do bad by comparison, right?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And let's go.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: No, you're absolutely right.
[UNKNOWN]: Between, like, mascara slipping on his entrance and, uh,
[UNKNOWN]: Dynamite, I mean, not being in any sort of shape to really have been wrestling on that show.
[UNKNOWN]: I know later turns out that he got a seizure happening after this match as he was traveling back to the UK.
[UNKNOWN]: It's Dynamite.
[UNKNOWN]: Did he?
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, geez.
[UNKNOWN]: I never knew that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, so like this is a real kind of disastrous match and it is very edited at least on I know that that many versions of this match are completely kind of edited to kind of hell with it It's just like other at least for me.
[UNKNOWN]: I guess I'll give my thoughts and turn it over to y'all
[UNKNOWN]: Seeing the brothers of Doscaras and Milmascaras face off for the first time is kind of the one saving grace of this match and that's only for like 10 seconds for me.
[UNKNOWN]: I think this match succeeded in one thing and one thing only and that was being a great Sasuke fantasy camp because that man was living the dream getting to work with all his childhood heroes I'm guessing in this match.
[UNKNOWN]: He was taken moves from everyone and mostly taking moves from
[UNKNOWN]: What was very interesting me was in the closing video packages a very short closing slow Mo highlights at the end of the show.
[UNKNOWN]: There's two clips from this match and both of them are great Tansuke on offense against legends.
[UNKNOWN]: So he yeah, yeah, he I think got what he wanted out of this that bit of b-roll and to get to
[UNKNOWN]: interact with his heroes and get a big entrance where he comes out with load of women holding his belts.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, the match was what it was.
[UNKNOWN]: The pageantry of like the entrances in everything were were probably such a masquerade slipping when he tried to get into ring.
[UNKNOWN]: The pageantry with something I was very impressed with just like
[UNKNOWN]: the music of sky high for for masqueras obviously a real cool deal whenever you hear that the outfits that I've run had like, uh, like Sasuke coming out with that like mask thing that he have on a shoulder which was really cool um it all just looked kind of
[UNKNOWN]: quite grand.
[UNKNOWN]: The massacris taking off one of his mass and having another underneath and thrown into the crowd getting a big pop and then thrown his subrero to the crowd and just imagine if you call that subrero, what an incredible item to have in your possession, the subrero of mill massacris from these days.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, God, if you ever caught that, like if they are still alive,
[UNKNOWN]: they better have like pride in place in their home for that piece of of wrestling history, but yeah, but then Dynamite Kid, the like opposite of pageantry, comes out and it's just like, it's distracting how like undynamite Kid he looks and like this is for me as someone who when I
[UNKNOWN]: more or less in the time period of me learning of like dynamite kid as, you know, this great historic worker considered one of the best is legend, but I'm learning about him at the same time of knowing the end result and then seeing this match and seeing how he looked in this as a reminder of the end results.
[UNKNOWN]: And I was I never got to just appreciate and live true dynamite kid
[UNKNOWN]: without knowing the sad ending, you know, so it's a, yeah, it's, it's not a, it's not a happy deal seeing them here.
[UNKNOWN]: There's nothing about this.
[UNKNOWN]: There's no like, oh, it's cool seeing him and tiger mask recipe.
[UNKNOWN]: No, it's, it might have been cool for great times, okay?
[UNKNOWN]: that's about it.
[UNKNOWN]: There's nothing pleasurable about watching dynamo kid in this much.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you know, I watched the Samurai version of this and then I went to YouTube and I watched the other version of this, which if there's any clips in that then it's very minimal.
[UNKNOWN]: It seems like it's the full match and
[UNKNOWN]: It's actually not, it's not the train wreck that I was expecting when you watched the full version of it except for when dynamites in the ring.
[UNKNOWN]: And then it noticeably is so much worse, but it's another one of those matches and this is the type of thing where
[UNKNOWN]: You know, one of the, one of the conclusions I've come to through watching all of this footage is like, Sasuke has the reputation that he does, it's the rightful reputation of this guy's insane.
[UNKNOWN]: This guy's a daredevil.
[UNKNOWN]: This guy will put his body through anything, but when you watch it in chronological order and you watch it with the notes in the observer of Sasuke's leg is messed up.
[UNKNOWN]: Sasuke injured his shoulder, Sasuke fractured his skull.
[UNKNOWN]: And then you see him take more and more punishment, you know, this is Sasuke fantasy camp, but it's Sasuke trying to will a great match with five other guys that don't have the capacity to have a great match anymore.
[UNKNOWN]: And the punishment that he takes is utterly remarkable.
[UNKNOWN]: And the effort that he puts in is utterly remarkable.
[UNKNOWN]: So when you factor that in with some fun mask
[UNKNOWN]: it's not essential viewing, it's not a very good match, but it is not entirely the train wreck that I thought it was going to be.
[UNKNOWN]: I think if I had to choose between rewatching this or rewatching the main event, I would choose this because there's enough good here that I at least found it to be like, okay, for what it was, I was okay with this.
[UNKNOWN]: Have I derived you guys watch much like
[UNKNOWN]: Not me neither anything I have watched I haven't really like it's gone in one year at the other so to speak it's it's never really registered with me this watching him here made me think if this guy stayed in shape and stayed committed to like being a pro wrestler who's
[UNKNOWN]: the things he did with UWF and the science learning with the people he associated with and becoming really, really large for his frame.
[UNKNOWN]: It is like to me one of the what ifs of wrestling history is this guy who had the level of skill that he had, which he exhibited in
[UNKNOWN]: The coordination the skill it was all still there like the reflexes were all still there.
[UNKNOWN]: He was just, you know, he probably wasn't going to be able to work like, you know, a 22 minute singles match or anything like I doubt he had the gas tank.
[UNKNOWN]: he hadn't lost those things and that if he just stayed intent on keeping himself in shape and kept his head on straight and you know like worked with people instead of against people, I'm sure he was like I'm sure he will write in some of like the decisions he made and it was probably very wrong in some of the decisions he made.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know a lot of crazy politics.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm sure everyone was at blame and 80s and 90s
[UNKNOWN]: to steal a phrase like a case like to use a lot is I think if we saw like a hundred versions of his career play out I think we saw one of the worst versions.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah, um, so because yeah, in this match, it's it's almost like that Mick Jagger thing we're like you know if you wash contemporary rolling stones footage, like okay, that's that's an old man on stage and then he'll do something you're like oh my god, that's Mick Jagger and there's the moments with Seattle we were like,
[UNKNOWN]: God damn, that's the Torah saying, I'm like, look at him move in this match with a bunch of other stiffs around and look at what he can do.
[UNKNOWN]: So he, I mean, the Tiger Mask era of his career, I was just talking to somebody about this, the Tiger Mask era of his career is still a really big blind spot for me.
[UNKNOWN]: I've seen very little original Tiger Mask.
[UNKNOWN]: And so the late stage say, I'm a stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: If I haven't come across it in Mr. Kupro, I haven't seen it, but he remains a huge historical curiosity for me.
[UNKNOWN]: And at some point, I need to rifle through all of that.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I'm pretty much at the same point with case.
[UNKNOWN]: I thought that Siamah outside of Sasuke was the
[UNKNOWN]: It did not seem like comparatively to the rest that he was, you know, degenerating at a rate that, yeah, and I mean, he had so many things side quests and things that he kind of got then into that I think the tiger mask boom was just so big and he became such like a presence of that.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think we're going to see it in later years with Sasuke that
[UNKNOWN]: then the amount of popularity that gets to your head at a certain point of time, I think we seen this time and time again in pro wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: It allows you to indulge some of your more.
[UNKNOWN]: How do I put this?
[UNKNOWN]: Is it some of your more, I don't want to use self-indulgent, but some of your more just like self-centered kind of things.
[UNKNOWN]: And I feel like a lot of my takeaway for Siamah, especially after the Tiger Mask era, was that it was an incredibly self-indulgent time period.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, he's so running stuff like the real, the real pro wrestling stuff, like I mean, he's still kind of indulging in that.
[UNKNOWN]: And it still has the audience to do.
[UNKNOWN]: it kind of changes who you are as a wrestler in a way and it I would like to see the history that he does that that someone's like no you're going to be tiger mask and you're going to stay tiger mask like ligor you know essentially and what happens if he gets more of that kind of treatment.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I remember in 1957.
[UNKNOWN]: So he was 39 here, which is actually older than I would have expected, because normally when you do this, he looked up a guy.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, oh, he's he's only 32.
[UNKNOWN]: But yes, he was already, he probably wasn't going to be in a league, even if you get the best version of him tread the 90s.
[UNKNOWN]: He's probably not going to be like one of the top guys in the mid 2000s,
[UNKNOWN]: Um, kind of arc, but um, yeah, but I think his 90s could have looked, uh, well, his 80s could have looked at a lot.
[UNKNOWN]: I know he has a couple of really well regarded matches in like the UWF and all, but like, guide.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, just there was there was a period there.
[UNKNOWN]: He could have we could have got so much more out of him.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's like very similar to Sasuke, I mean, how much of a, how big of a star he was in his early 20s, you know, like, say that he said for all tomorrow, it's that he's resting.
[UNKNOWN]: It's just that that tree of junior heavy weights where that peak is so short.
[UNKNOWN]: And they've the, they exist so largely in their post prime rather than their prime that it really colors the way we think of them often for the worse.
[UNKNOWN]: And that's why a guy like she may will do so well on our like greatest restaurant list because we saw the this was a guy who for
[UNKNOWN]: Obviously, certain decisions and stuff in his career that we might want to unwind, but as a whole, like that guy, he packed a lot into his time, you know?
[UNKNOWN]: It's 98 to 2018.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a 20 year run where he's as consistent as you could ever ask for a style of that wrestler to be in the high points or the high points.
[UNKNOWN]: And he's he's utterly incredible.
[UNKNOWN]: And the ultimate run is four or five years.
[UNKNOWN]: The Sasuke runs four or five years.
[UNKNOWN]: The Seyama run is spread out, but I don't think anybody looks at Seyama as some guy of great longevity, but
[UNKNOWN]: Shema and Mochi and Tsosumo, those are the reasons that we pimped those guys the way that they do, because it's 20 years or 25 years or, you know, we'll be talking about 30 years for, for Tsosumo here pretty soon.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, they just do not get the credit they deserve for, for being able to do that.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, it's, um, it's a shame because yet,
[UNKNOWN]: all of those legends like salmon and people like that and they weren't able to do it for one before I would ever to reasons where health, bad decisions, ego, they weren't able to have that run.
[UNKNOWN]: So, you know, I think I value it a lot.
[UNKNOWN]: I value being able to stick around and just keep that output so high.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, very, very impressive.
[UNKNOWN]: Absolutely.
[UNKNOWN]: No, let's talk about the
[UNKNOWN]: yeah uh so the finish of the the legends match dynamite out of nowhere pile drive Sasuke then does carousdes a power bomb to get the pen Sasuke calls for does carousdes match mask this is where we got the uh comedy and nokey figure showing up and cases man man the great zebra you know cutting a promo in there but then all Sasuke's ladies
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, all that we've seen of the great zebra whenever he shows up, there was one thing we know is that he's incredibly wise and the ladies love him.
[UNKNOWN]: So I thought he was when he, I thought it was the convict when I saw him run the night there with two ladies under his arms.
[UNKNOWN]: He's stealing, he's like, put this man in jail.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, the funny thing about the zebra character not to get too much into a tiger mask thing in the tiger mask like original cartoon it was supposed to be very obviously giant Baba as this mask character.
[UNKNOWN]: So that's just an aside for
[UNKNOWN]: Folks, but let's get into the thing that this show is made.
[UNKNOWN]: It is known for the 10-man tag you have.
[UNKNOWN]: The full compliment of Kiantai Deluxe, Dictogo, Shiryu, Menseo, Taka-Michonoku, and Shouichi Fanaki, versus Michonoku Pro-Saki-Gun of Gran Hamada, Gran Nanoa, Masato-Yakashiji, Super Delphin, and Tiger Mask for in 32 minutes of magic.
[UNKNOWN]: Alan, will go to you?
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, um, obviously this is this is great.
[UNKNOWN]: This is historic.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, there's a couple of ways to approach this much if you're just talking about it as Bell's Bell match and I know given the star rating or putting it in the list of best matches.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, I talk earlier about how I think I'm a match that happens two months later.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, I don't want to say the laps that but
[UNKNOWN]: Honestly, when I watched this today, it's reinforced, and I really enjoyed it from minute one to minute 32, I really enjoyed everything I was watching.
[UNKNOWN]: But the opinion I've held for just under 20 years of this match being like the famous match, but not as good.
[UNKNOWN]: I didn't see anything that made me
[UNKNOWN]: I think twice about that opinion and nothing challenged that opinion from you.
[UNKNOWN]: It was what I thought it was.
[UNKNOWN]: Basically, they put on a great showcase of what they are.
[UNKNOWN]: This is an incredible advertisement of what they are and it worked because you know, this led to people.
[UNKNOWN]: wanting to see these guys, wanting to learn more about these guys, check out other things.
[UNKNOWN]: The reason it got passed around and recommended was such a famous tape trader match.
[UNKNOWN]: But in terms of the match itself, it is, I think, notice a big slower.
[UNKNOWN]: been some of the other things that these guys have done and do again with each other.
[UNKNOWN]: I think it's definitely less heated.
[UNKNOWN]: I thought this crowd was and this was in terms of heat, this match was the peak like they were they were into a lot of and reacted well to a lot of stuff in this match, but this was a dead crowd for pretty much this whole show and really in the
[UNKNOWN]: This was a dead crowd that if this was like a Noah show in 2026, we'd be like, oh, that was a pretty dead crowd.
[UNKNOWN]: But for 90s Japanese wrestling,
[UNKNOWN]: this was a really dead crowd.
[UNKNOWN]: But think about what they had seen up to this point, a weird Johnny St. match, a battle arts match, and what many would call a disaster of a trio is match.
[UNKNOWN]: It's why it's, you know, again, having never seen the show from start to finish, it's why I think this show would have been so much better served to have an undercard tag match in the straight trio's match, and knowing what we know now it's impossible to go back and live in that alternate universe,
[UNKNOWN]: it doesn't feel like this is the first Mitch no Kupro match you get it's the only Mitch no Kupro match you get everything else as either a Jason or interpromotional and I'm surprised that the crowd wasn't hotter for this but also between the they had to stay on the ground catchup on the like it followed like they were they were working in the negative
[UNKNOWN]: to start this match and eight to four is like a golfer going from pulling the round back from way over par to getting to par.
[UNKNOWN]: Because you not only have, you know, the three matches, but the pre show stuff, the post batch angles, that's a lot of sitting around with stuff that isn't all that entertaining just to get to this point.
[UNKNOWN]: And while it gets there or the end, it's also a pretty slow start to this match.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, it is, which I actually, I actually liked.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, I liked the, I, like, there was a lot of, like, just good, not wrestling and stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: And guys, like, and I loved this felt like a cyber nettico at the start.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes.
[UNKNOWN]: It's just guys, like, pairs going in, like one in one out of four, you don't see one single wrestler stay in the ring too long, or in no pair stays in the ring too long.
[UNKNOWN]: It's just constant substitutions on both sides.
[UNKNOWN]: Yakuji, which is I think the perfect way to start it and they have a great sequence, but you know 20 seconds later there they're either there and the next guys are coming in and you'd say you got almost that cyber medical batting order going on there and then it does settle down to
[UNKNOWN]: I forgot what your order goes, but they beat up pretty much everyone except super delth and I think for a while, and then super delth and makes a big comeback, which is probably the way to do it.
[UNKNOWN]: So it's an interesting structure, but you know, compared to, say, December 16th in Hakata Star Lanes, which is like mold to the hot crowd, like one of the hottest wrestling crowds, and it's almost like
[UNKNOWN]: that the crowd is giving them adrenaline as if they've all snorted about eight lines of coke and then they just wrestle accordingly.
[UNKNOWN]: It is lightning pace.
[UNKNOWN]: And not that there isn't like pacey parts that is match because there is for sure there's some fast sequences, really good stuff, really well executed stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: But
[UNKNOWN]: it doesn't have that frantic energy, the 12-16, and other Mitchen Okupro tags too, and it doesn't have the frantic heat, that the cork in match on the badlar show has in January, 97, but it does have kind of the element of these are our guys, look at them all, everyone kind
[UNKNOWN]: really good display and showcase of all these guys, from even before the my starts, all the individual entrances for the baby faces.
[UNKNOWN]: And then the kind type guys come out again, that amazing team song, and they all marched in order.
[UNKNOWN]: And as they were wanting to ring, I was like, I remember instantly what it looked like.
[UNKNOWN]: And I could before each guy appeared, I saw Taka.
[UNKNOWN]: And then I was like, I kind of,
[UNKNOWN]: Before the next guy came in, I knew what they were going to look like.
[UNKNOWN]: It was like, it all, like I was like, oh, here comes Dictogo in his skull mask and it's like, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And just, yeah, that entrance is so visually powerful.
[UNKNOWN]: And just marching down in single file that by talk it's with the music playing.
[UNKNOWN]: It's so cool.
[UNKNOWN]: They all look a little bit different, but they're all in sync, which is a great thing for a stable that, you know, you have them tied together, but they're not all.
[UNKNOWN]: you know, they're not all generic guys that look the same.
[UNKNOWN]: They all have an individual personality or distinct look to them.
[UNKNOWN]: Um, so that ruled and then the individual introductions, that's a lost art and pro wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: That's something that like you'd never get like an an AWS paper view because, you know, they're squeezing in so much, but just giving the time to have the five guys on each side of the ring and the ring and answer in the middle.
[UNKNOWN]: call them out named by name, they eat step up to the plate and pump their fist or give a middle finger or shoot some trash talk over at the guy on the opposite side that they dislike and spend the two minutes doing that.
[UNKNOWN]: I so worth it, it adds so much.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think doing that was probably a big thing to help the crowd kind of get back into, you know, hey, we're
[UNKNOWN]: we want to see some good progress and and they do like it's saying it's not like the crowd heat of 12 16 is like you know comparing it's it's an impossible comparison but it's a natural comparison here because it's essentially the same match with the same guy is more or less.
[UNKNOWN]: Well you know I thought about it in the context of Drangate of
[UNKNOWN]: We think about there's two really, really great trios matches, one that I is a straight trios match and one is a three way trios match in May and June of 2007 and Cork and then there's a new hazard muscle outlaws match at Kobe World 2007.
[UNKNOWN]: I think the three of us would immediately point our fingers.
[UNKNOWN]: And if we had to rewatch one of those, we'd go, oh, we'd pick one of the two cork and matches.
[UNKNOWN]: Because those crowds are so much hotter, it's in a smaller room.
[UNKNOWN]: The style of wrestling is it's, you know, I love it.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not an insult by any means, but it's it's small room wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: And that Kobe match, if that match happens move for moving cork and we look at it as maybe the greatest triangle game match of all time.
[UNKNOWN]: But I know people who, I know people who that Kobe worlds their first time seeing a lot of those guys and they were like blown away, but oh my god these guys are and like I had to be like, oh, come back and watch these matches they had a cork and go back a month ago, yeah, yeah, so, but like they did like the prestige of the big building and like look.
[UNKNOWN]: Every person finds different, you know, and it's not just me, like some people would rather see this incredible, incredibly well produced, big arena, big production deal, rather than a grainy, a grainy video file of a match in a bowling alley in Fukuoka, you know,
[UNKNOWN]: And, and I get that.
[UNKNOWN]: So this match might be for for some people.
[UNKNOWN]: This might be more their cup of tea.
[UNKNOWN]: And, you know, it, I think it's
[UNKNOWN]: I think the December match and the Badler's match in January, I think that might be for more someone who is like us and there's super into it and knows the guy's already and it's like you want to see like okay what's the next level of this but this serves as a grace hey you want to see what Michino Kupro is all about here you go and God some of the work throughout the match is just phenomenal like some of these like we'd
[UNKNOWN]: kind of short changes just to the rock about like, oh, they were in there, then you get the next pair.
[UNKNOWN]: Some of these like sequences with the guys would just be so, so good.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, it's, um, my other points to make, but I feel I should shut up now and let one of you guys.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's not good.
[UNKNOWN]: Step in.
[UNKNOWN]: But for me, I think that I think of this match a little bit closer to 12, 16, 96 than YouTube do, only because I think that the way that they kind of base this match, like you were dead on and calling it almost like a cyber-netico, the fact that the first 10 minutes is essentially a feeling out process that the baby face sucky gun are getting
[UNKNOWN]: If you've been watching the promotion, you're like, okay, when is kind of tied to locks going to take the heat?
[UNKNOWN]: When are they we going to start to see then like beating double teams?
[UNKNOWN]: The double teams don't really see.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, exactly.
[UNKNOWN]: And then it really first happens on the perfect person when they first start doing it.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not Messiah, Yakuji, they start on Nanna Wall.
[UNKNOWN]: And I guess it was it was nine and a while yet.
[UNKNOWN]: You're right.
[UNKNOWN]: And I thought it was so brilliant that they went on Nanoa because during the introductions, during all that pre-ematch that Alan so eloquently described, the one thing person who drew my eye the entire time was Grand Nanoa trying to get his hands on Takahama Chanoa going to show it to you for Naki.
[UNKNOWN]: That's how furious he was, how committed he was, and he never really gets a full one-on-one with Takahama.
[UNKNOWN]: and that opening going.
[UNKNOWN]: But then it is the dream chasers that are the ones that start that start opening up the chiantite deluxe offense and the chiantite deluxe real control real control period.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think that comparing that to 121696, which I would say,
[UNKNOWN]: is a lot more of the prototypical match as you laid it out.
[UNKNOWN]: It is so interesting to see that they went for that style of match.
[UNKNOWN]: And I feel like that it was really effective doing that style of match, but it's absolutely not the match that if you're looking for the epitome of where luch arrest was in 1996.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not that.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think
[UNKNOWN]: Alan Erays, a real valid point about like the fact that's in Rio Goku and the fact that it's like the big lights on it that helps and I mean the fact that I mean now with 30 years of hindsight I mean this is the match against a lot of the at least for the kind of deluxe guys this gets them on the way to get their WWE of contracts or WCW contracts and share use case like this is kind of the start of that and it is.
[UNKNOWN]: Just for me, I thought that that match format was so kind of fascinating to kind of sit down, sit with it for an hour, oh, four, a half an hour and see how it kind of develops from there.
[UNKNOWN]: And also like we have to acknowledge, this is such a enormous spot for Masada Yakuciji.
[UNKNOWN]: given where he was in his career.
[UNKNOWN]: In the fact that like he as a member of second gun and really was not a part of any of the kiantite deluxe things, but he kind of gets played into this kind of situation when they rebook the card.
[UNKNOWN]: And in a lot of ways, he I feel like that he takes command of the moment as well as anyone else other than men stay who does like the sudden with DDT that obsessed with it during the heat section.
[UNKNOWN]: That was just
[UNKNOWN]: tremendous stuff and I can't believe you just stole my tonder.
[UNKNOWN]: I was going to call that men's to have the MVP at the match.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh my god, that's what I was going to ask was who do you guys think was the MVP of the match?
[UNKNOWN]: Men's to have a scale.
[UNKNOWN]: It was for me.
[UNKNOWN]: He was fucking awesome.
[UNKNOWN]: I know how to I told you guys to bank something earlier in the show.
[UNKNOWN]: Men's to have as they're like swapping in and I have
[UNKNOWN]: one of the pairings that comes in Men's Tale, other guy Tiger Mask, immediately Men's Tale, points right at him and then points at his arm, which is all covered up.
[UNKNOWN]: Come on, get in the slides to open in that fucking show in the mud.
[UNKNOWN]: They did a couple of weeks earlier.
[UNKNOWN]: And then he did the, he did like the, I'm gonna break your arm motion with his foot.
[UNKNOWN]: That's so, so good Men's Tale, what a hero.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm going to make a big call guys, men's tail in this match hits, and I've seen them all, both Sawyer Rick Steiner Randy Orton, you want to say him.
[UNKNOWN]: Men's tail hits the best whipping power slimes.
[UNKNOWN]: I have it on my notes.
[UNKNOWN]: I have it on the side of Yokechigi.
[UNKNOWN]: I jumped off my couch, I reacted, I said when you guys called me to, she's like, because there's a way, so I was like, oh, God, I haven't actually talked to anyone in like a long time, like 20 years.
[UNKNOWN]: So I think the only time I opened my mouth,
[UNKNOWN]: was in the last 20 hours was to yell fuck or some kind of noise when Man's Tale hit that Paris lamp.
[UNKNOWN]: It was amazing.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, Man's Tale is my MVP at a match.
[UNKNOWN]: He was full of all us.
[UNKNOWN]: for guys he was teaching at an awesome offense.
[UNKNOWN]: He hit his a miracle ecstasy bomb that the Chauksland Parabom deal which is so cool.
[UNKNOWN]: He even did the little taunt before it which became like a meme thing and like his later career.
[UNKNOWN]: This guy is in the like men's club, big Japan matchers guys with March ran the ring doing that little taunt thing that he would do before that move.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, he was he was herkily in this one but plenty other good
[UNKNOWN]: Teo's outstanding.
[UNKNOWN]: I think Hamada is really, really good whenever he's in the ring.
[UNKNOWN]: It's Haka, you know, he's just other world in this match.
[UNKNOWN]: The best thing that Haka does here is Nannawag goes for his elbow drop off the middle rope where he kind of slides over from the corner and then, you know, does his little friend motion.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, subscribe.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, and talk a drop kicks him off the middle rope, and it's it looks so violent is the type of thing that talk was doing every single time he wrestled a 1996 and it's why it was a receipt for it was a receipt for like a minute earlier, Nana, what took talk is head off with a close line talk was giving someone that like a Jericho torture crab and a deal and he was completely exposed and Naniwa took his head off with a larious.
[UNKNOWN]: I love the, and this is the type of thing that could so easily be stolen by somebody and I don't know, I don't know, you know, pick your heel you to the wrestling now.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know who it would be, but the thing that kind of does where they just do the little.
[UNKNOWN]: double stomp train off the top rope or they all they they don't make a big deal out of it it's not a super flashy move, but they all just sort of leap off the top and basically fall on to their opponent.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's a good idea to do it.
[UNKNOWN]: They either do a double stomp or a needy.
[UNKNOWN]: I said, I think in this match, they all did double stomp to this walkie.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a knockie, for knockie did the knee drop.
[UNKNOWN]: It's that kind of little.
[UNKNOWN]: It's kind of an extinct move, that little um, uh, knee drop that I always think.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't know how guys do that, but I like break in their ankle or killies or something.
[UNKNOWN]: It looks like something you can't physically do, but people have done this.
[UNKNOWN]: But...
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that that feels like something the death writer should be doing.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, they're doing the low scarrows, huddle, they're doing the dragon gate train spots in the corner.
[UNKNOWN]: I feel like they should probably take a kind of IDX move.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, because we're just real collaboration.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, yeah, go ahead.
[UNKNOWN]: No, I, okay, say that points.
[UNKNOWN]: I want to hear whatever you're about say, I'm very intrigued by that.
[UNKNOWN]: But you know, I think, and we all, you know, we all love Alex Shelley and Chris Saban on their show, but I think,
[UNKNOWN]: The philosophy has changed of what partnership looks like in wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: We're now what's kind of become this motor city machine guns thing where partnership and chemistry looks like nine back to back to back to back moves that are all that all lead to something.
[UNKNOWN]: But I don't really see the cohesion and it's just two guys that happen to be on the same page doing a bunch of stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: Whereas I think the little stop train, especially if we're in a multi-man match, that's like, okay, that's a team right there.
[UNKNOWN]: They're working together.
[UNKNOWN]: They're all getting involved.
[UNKNOWN]: I like the way that looks way more.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, um, early, you're funny.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm just not like Shelley right after what I was going to say.
[UNKNOWN]: Early generation next, um, did a, uh, did a bunch of those Mitchelco Pro moves and, um,
[UNKNOWN]: Uh, obnoxious 19 year old.
[UNKNOWN]: Not obnoxious.
[UNKNOWN]: That's not the word.
[UNKNOWN]: Uh, annoying 19 year old.
[UNKNOWN]: Island 4L on the MSN Instant Messenger ALL in semester I kind of which was, um, annoying poor Alex Shelley username X free soccer X. Oh, oh.
[UNKNOWN]: and telling them that I thought they were doing a lot of client IDX stuff and him responding good eye and that's just making my day.
[UNKNOWN]: I think like part of this really is people aren't as cool as kind that the Lux are.
[UNKNOWN]: It's incredible, they're absolutely incredible.
[UNKNOWN]: There's a reason they have the legacy that they do.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, it obviously helps that they have the shine they had in North America.
[UNKNOWN]: And so even if that's what people know, talk a much noku from like tacos, undeniably incredibly cool.
[UNKNOWN]: And Dick Togo is there's a reason I think that for us, I mean, you and the three of us don't really watch modern newspan hardly at all anymore.
[UNKNOWN]: Dictogo is current generation sucks.
[UNKNOWN]: He's awful.
[UNKNOWN]: But I don't want to utter a new Japan.
[UNKNOWN]: I don't want modern Dictogo.
[UNKNOWN]: That kind of is a shit, and it's a fair torture.
[UNKNOWN]: But if it was anybody else doing that, I think I would have gone on many monologues about how this guy's the worst thing to ever happen or else like, and I like that, it's Dictogo, like, I don't know if he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets it, he gets
[UNKNOWN]: Mitch, no, I'm not a hell, I promise you, I promise you, I did not see Dicto and Sonata do anything.
[UNKNOWN]: I promise you, they worked, CML last week.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm 27, not a draw for me, not over in this house, I just saw this one clip, they did the, and it was on Dynamite as well.
[UNKNOWN]: The last week's Dynamite main event, they did it to MJF.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, like the super delth and water pump on the arm spot.
[UNKNOWN]: So Sanada and Dictogo apparently they could be weren't allowed in CMFL.
[UNKNOWN]: Do well, like the house torture run-in stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: Like that was like, I guess you, and if you think about it, like you don't see a lot of that kind of run-in stuff in CMFL.
[UNKNOWN]: So that was like,
[UNKNOWN]: not allowed.
[UNKNOWN]: So instead they just kind of did a lot of like lucha heel, stick spots like the, the things like yes and that it was pumping away on Dictogo's arm and then turned around slowly and realized it was like, oh, no, I'm sorry, and Dictogo pointing at them and then they got to talk by the baby faces.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, they did more of that.
[UNKNOWN]: I'd probably watch them more, but that's what Dictogo's late career should be.
[UNKNOWN]: He shouldn't be
[UNKNOWN]: Plotty is it's very disheartening, but he could be doing anything else, and it would be better, but do you remember early 2020 right before the pandemic when it was working to go like strong harsh shows.
[UNKNOWN]: I know who's that he was at him on Harada.
[UNKNOWN]: I think him and Harada, I think him and Oh, Gala have a match.
[UNKNOWN]: I want you to have a really good match.
[UNKNOWN]: I think they might have a shocking as that sounds.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a 20 to 15 year awards.
[UNKNOWN]: And then like literally like five months later, he shows up in New Japan.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's like the worst of early pandemic.
[UNKNOWN]: And I'm like, oh my god, it was like he gave me life.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, Dick Togo is in New Japan, holy shit.
[UNKNOWN]: This is great.
[UNKNOWN]: And, yeah, hasn't really pounded out of the way.
[UNKNOWN]: It took over versus Diasque Harada from the January 30th, 2020, Noah Kork and Hall show.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm shocked.
[UNKNOWN]: It's only a 7.7 9 on cage match.
[UNKNOWN]: I think I had that at 4.5.
[UNKNOWN]: If for some reason, people haven't seen that match, it's right before the pandemic.
[UNKNOWN]: So it's a normal Japanese crowd.
[UNKNOWN]: Everybody has to go see that match.
[UNKNOWN]: That that's why we are as kind of
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, of all the things that got foxed by the pandemic that were well well known like Sheema's plans early day w jamoxy tile rain like all these things is very well known had the pandemic scream them up
[UNKNOWN]: None of the people I think talk about, and probably in Noah got off to a sneaky awesome start in 2020, and they did actually manage to keep their head above water and produce some decent stuff, like Nakedeema and Kenno and stuff in the Klopgrad era, but I wonder what, first and in Noah, we
[UNKNOWN]: would have ended up with if there is no pandemic.
[UNKNOWN]: That's an interesting thing to think about.
[UNKNOWN]: All Japan, too, all Japan was on fire.
[UNKNOWN]: 2020, the first week at Japanese wrestling in 2020, wrestling in the week, fucking incredible.
[UNKNOWN]: I always bring it up.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, Drangy business was really good in 2020 before.
[UNKNOWN]: Dolly, dolly is titled.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, who did dolly wrestling?
[UNKNOWN]: Sassumo.
[UNKNOWN]: He wrestled Kizuma.
[UNKNOWN]: February here, Russell.
[UNKNOWN]: Sassumo is the last show before COVID.
[UNKNOWN]: Yep.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Dragon game was on five.
[UNKNOWN]: Everyone was like on fire.
[UNKNOWN]: Go in into the past.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not going to make sense because I mean, it's we were all like in 20.
[UNKNOWN]: We left 2019 going like, you know what's awesome.
[UNKNOWN]: Japanese wrestling and then it COVID changed everything.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I was going to say like, didn't we like also like you brought a parada?
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, hurada, I for some reason I thought he retired in COVID and not after COVID, because I was going to say like I feel that that was one of those things that hurada, especially like ending the decade where he was and how things kind of paned out for him was it was always such a big bummer.
[UNKNOWN]: I was always a big dice gay hurada fan.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh my god, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: No, I mean, it's clean of a wrestler as there has ever been a speaking of dice.
[UNKNOWN]: Okay, Harada, a case didn't get your reference on the last open to voice game mic, but I really appreciate your gourdy shed out.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
[UNKNOWN]: No, it's okay.
[UNKNOWN]: That guy was a, he was a gem.
[UNKNOWN]: What a nice guy.
[UNKNOWN]: I exchange messages with that guy a bunch.
[UNKNOWN]: He tells me a story is about going to a soccer pro.
[UNKNOWN]: They don't be a drinking all the fans of the wrestlers.
[UNKNOWN]: It sounded like they must.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, similar to the most incredible communal family kind of atmosphere of going to like small time wrestling and just yeah, um, good.
[UNKNOWN]: That guy was a sweetheart.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah, he'd always have the photos where this is this guy case he was like this probably.
[UNKNOWN]: late 40s, early 50s.
[UNKNOWN]: I'd say.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Stone Cold Steve Austin looking white guy with big guns.
[UNKNOWN]: You just see, you knew he just go to the gym and just do curls.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, take all these photos of himself, but like Zeus and they were flexing together for nomin.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, him and bodyguard and Zeus just always outlifting together like and then him going out drinking with kuga and back and black buffalo and friends.
[UNKNOWN]: It was it still like I have a sense of longing that I feel like boy, that would have been a fun life to lead, you know, like that with that I I hope that Gordi is still with us and doing well at least.
[UNKNOWN]: Yes, for sure.
[UNKNOWN]: I feel like I should know this guy, but I don't.
[UNKNOWN]: Hey, he probably just was a couple of years a year or two before you started going on to the message boards and stuff, I'd say.
[UNKNOWN]: Wow, interesting.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, now he was, he was a great one.
[UNKNOWN]: Any other like big thoughts about the match.
[UNKNOWN]: The finish, Delphin is able to get the isolation.
[UNKNOWN]: He goes for the Dolphin clutch.
[UNKNOWN]: Togo just punches him, just clocks breaking up the Dolphin clutch.
[UNKNOWN]: He had no time for that bullshit move.
[UNKNOWN]: which is something I always love about the chemistry between the two of them that they just like the hatred with that and that leads to him being able to distract a referee Matsui a little bit through a muilkick power bomb top ropes and taunt.
[UNKNOWN]: Great tie for.
[UNKNOWN]: Right before that, um, um, tail, uh, super dolphin hit the Osaka special, the German into the second German.
[UNKNOWN]: Right.
[UNKNOWN]: I think one German into the like bridge to roll through bridge.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: The dolphin special.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, it was one of the best ones he's ever hit.
[UNKNOWN]: It looked incredible to speed.
[UNKNOWN]: Because like, Togo comes for like a close line.
[UNKNOWN]: and he is going with such a speed and delving dogs and then whiplashes togo back what he German and yeah that was that was incredible it almost was enough to make up for the fact that
[UNKNOWN]: I think one of my biggest problems with this match is there wasn't enough of a closing stretch.
[UNKNOWN]: And I mean, that's one of the big, and it makes, it sounds weird, say that a 32 minute match.
[UNKNOWN]: You could argue that like, I'd know the last 12 or 13 minutes of what was all closing stretch.
[UNKNOWN]: But I feel like,
[UNKNOWN]: other matches and particularly I'm thinking 12, 16 has a much more defined, okay, these last five minutes are what we have escalated to and now with it is just all better off, it's insane, you're going to see action coming out of you from left right and center, crazy nearer falls,
[UNKNOWN]: I think for me, in addition to the point I made earlier with like, maybe not as much ease, maybe a little bit slower.
[UNKNOWN]: I think one of the biggest things this match is lacking is that it doesn't have the near falls that I would want to consider it.
[UNKNOWN]: and epic.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, it seems like they're trying to do an epic delphin closing stretch.
[UNKNOWN]: And it delphin does not bring the charisma or the intensity to it.
[UNKNOWN]: He's the most subdued guide of the guy of the 10 guys in this match.
[UNKNOWN]: And I think I think their goal is that you know, when you think about the history of this promotion in 93, 94, 95, all of the togo versus delphin stuff, they're trying to close that match out
[UNKNOWN]: And I don't think Delfin brings enough to the table, I think that's why it falls flat.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, as he hits that one great move I talked about, but it'll ignite your right here is he's kind of passive.
[UNKNOWN]: And that was, yeah, that was one thing I definitely had circled that I wanted to mention.
[UNKNOWN]: But the scent on his fantastic kind of little food knocky sliding in and doing the count of all the good.
[UNKNOWN]: So good.
[UNKNOWN]: What a moment that is.
[UNKNOWN]: That is just great thinking on your feed, pro wrestling and fair play to finocking for that.
[UNKNOWN]: That was a great great moment.
[UNKNOWN]: And the,
[UNKNOWN]: Other things that I just had in my notes, the only other thing on this match, but it goes right back to the start.
[UNKNOWN]: And when I talk about kind of lost things, I love the sense of team that you have, and death writers are good for this.
[UNKNOWN]: Specifically, they act on the talk about, but both teams in Huddles perform match.
[UNKNOWN]: And yeah, like I just, I like that, the idea that, okay, you've got these two teams under discuss and strategy, and they're talking about, okay,
[UNKNOWN]: That's who's going to start then.
[UNKNOWN]: So I'm like, OK, everyone go ahead and just that kind of thing.
[UNKNOWN]: Just give that sense of being authentic and realistic.
[UNKNOWN]: That yeah, I love that that was a nice touch to the match in addition to all the other good stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: But in the pre match that we talked about already.
[UNKNOWN]: Let me read because I know we're going along here, but I'd rather spend more time on this than on the on the main event.
[UNKNOWN]: Let me read what Dave writes in the November 11th.
[UNKNOWN]: 1996 observer when talking about this match, he gives the result and then he says, and off the charts flying in high spots exhibition, this match shouldn't have the intensity or psychology that you'd expect from an all-japan men's or women's match of the year.
[UNKNOWN]: That said, it's a must-see-neurly flawless match with one great move after another, nonstop, and it says good as a match for the Michigan Oakwood style, as probably as humanly possible, for sure when you take Sasuke at 100%, this is a classic Dave sentence, for sure when you
[UNKNOWN]: Machinoku and Funaki, who work for various indies as a tag team were really impressive doing simultaneous moves.
[UNKNOWN]: If they get more exposure and team together for another year, they have the potential to be one of the all-time great tag teams.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, Shiji is small, but his timing and moves are excellent.
[UNKNOWN]: Nanoa, who is only 19, is probably destined to become one of the great workers of the next generation.
[UNKNOWN]: Barring, injury, Machinoku is almost a lock for that category, even throwing in the fact that
[UNKNOWN]: God, I know I'll comment this side.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's so devastating.
[UNKNOWN]: And it's funny.
[UNKNOWN]: So if you, the Mitch Noku and Fonaki thing, Dave writes that where they have the potential as Dave does to become one of the all-time great tag teams.
[UNKNOWN]: And then if you read the DVD VR review from Phil Schneider or not Phil Schneider, a dean from DVD VR 16, a lot of his review is he's now going to search out and find every Taka and Fonaki tag match that makes tape to try to review them.
[UNKNOWN]: When we look at the booking with the benefit of hindsight of vicinoco, not running with them as a tag team more is probably a mistaken hindsight because they very clearly had some groundswell of momentum as a tag team that people were noticing and picking up on, but five stars from Dave Meltzer in 1996.
[UNKNOWN]: They would go into their legacy as a tag team being in one of the WWE games for the N64.
[UNKNOWN]: They don't even get individual characters.
[UNKNOWN]: You have to change the outfit.
[UNKNOWN]: If you whether you want to select soccer or for now.
[UNKNOWN]: They didn't want to use them to gain slots for those guys.
[UNKNOWN]: It was them and it was them.
[UNKNOWN]: Like the cotton Deborah, I think.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, a natural, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, our cotton Harriet, I think it was actually, but yeah, brutal.
[UNKNOWN]: But you know, we don't need to do because we all lived through a time where the Meltzer star ratings really, really mattered and held influence beyond, you know, if you came into this in 2018 or later, post the first Okato mega match, it's really hard to explain the influence that these stars had.
[UNKNOWN]: But,
[UNKNOWN]: five stars from Dave Meltzer in 1996, it's not an accident from there that they end up in ECW.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not an accident from there that they end up with the WF.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not an accident as we'll talk about we get to 1997 that they were heavily courted by WCW.
[UNKNOWN]: You know, this is this is the reason that despite this show being what it is, which is not a very good wrestling show, and despite the fact that this match, I mean, I'd be curious to know what you guys, I have it at four and a half stars, but
[UNKNOWN]: I know we're going to come across many more multi-man matches that are better than this.
[UNKNOWN]: This is the reason I think even more so than being in the big room to this match has the reputation that it does.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a match where more than most where I can't separate the idea that I would have a different rating with 20, 26 eyes and all the rest of it I've watched versus if I put myself in,
[UNKNOWN]: 1996 and was watching this.
[UNKNOWN]: Or even if I put myself in my actual life in like as like late teen early twenties in like the 2000s, watching this, I think I would have given it a significantly higher rating.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a match where it just doesn't hold up, but yeah, it's just I would say with 20, 26
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, I think I could see being a Dave Meltzer in 1996 and given it five stars.
[UNKNOWN]: I can totally see that knowing Dave, knowing what wrestling he had seen up to that point and fans of his ilk and of his mindset that yeah, I can completely see the five star rating.
[UNKNOWN]: I do think he's a
[UNKNOWN]: I've got to pull them up on one thing, but I'd say it doesn't have the psychology of like an all-japan main event or an all-japan women's matcha-de-year.
[UNKNOWN]: But that's such an amazing line for 1996.
[UNKNOWN]: It is, but I thought, like, I don't know, what great psychology am I missing from like the classic all-japan women?
[UNKNOWN]: Because I find them to be the ultimate kind of go-go, somewhat lacking in psychology.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that like very similar in style to this match.
[UNKNOWN]: And I love a lot of that stuff don't get me wrong, but yeah, like yeah, I get like yeah, you've got serious psychology and like June, 1995, tag match in all Japan and plenty of other great matches as well, but outside of a couple of Yoshi matches, I'd know a lot of the, I'm not sure I've ever seen a manami Toyota match that I would consider having excellent psychology and so yeah,
[UNKNOWN]: I think Dave Meltzer would disagree with you.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm at four and a half.
[UNKNOWN]: I do think that this is like a lot of the matches that you can reassess that Alan is you're saying in twenty twenty six eyes it's just you.
[UNKNOWN]: I find it a lot more interesting because the seaburn echo element and if we're talking about like the thesis of what is like
[UNKNOWN]: the cutting edge of Lucheraus, we would see two months later what the actual cutting edge was.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm a little bit like I feel that it, the the match format really kind of says it in some ways, that if it was, if they weren't going to do it in the matchup base and then finally doing heat, I don't know how you could have gone
[UNKNOWN]: really with it.
[UNKNOWN]: I mean, boy, it doesn't over stay at welcome at all.
[UNKNOWN]: No point to my like come on guys get a move on here.
[UNKNOWN]: And I was as I said earlier, I was really surprised when I saw 32.
[UNKNOWN]: I assumed I the 10 minutes have been clipped off, but it hadn't been.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, know that the format, if you like, because I know they're not everyone's cup of tea, but if you like sort of CML's cybernetic omages, this is probably better than any of them I've ever seen.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, and I wonder if that's kind of the way to look at this match versus what how we will look at future matches that will be a little bit more better at it I do think it's not it's not like a dragon gate six
[UNKNOWN]: It's a different kind of mold, and it's great for what it is, and yeah, it absolutely, it absolutely succeeded.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you can't say it's not, for any of the critique I have of it, it's nothing if not a huge success.
[UNKNOWN]: The main event, I would say not a huge success.
[UNKNOWN]: No, so it's Hayabusa versus Jensation's Oki, it is, I mean, let's kind of get into it, it is some of the most, when I think of Hayabusa, these aren't usually a kind of performances.
[UNKNOWN]: I, as someone who's not high on high abusive as a lot of others that it kind of is what would I expect out of them?
[UNKNOWN]: And just does not work with Jinsation Zaki essentially doing a power wrestler version of Jinsation Zaki set up in spot basically.
[UNKNOWN]: What's that phrase that terrible wrestling podcasters use to describe matches that kind of suck, but are featuring wrestlers that they think are cool.
[UNKNOWN]: I believe it's...
[UNKNOWN]: or a farming, is that what these guys were doing here?
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
[UNKNOWN]: Jinsey took some of those Northeastern Japan to Hoku farming skills and brought them to Tokyo and he farmed some around this night and with type of stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: It was, yeah, I did a whole lot of nothing and just kind of looked cool and I was like, I can't criticize this, I abuse that and Jinsey shizaki, it's how I imagine like
[UNKNOWN]: The refunds feel a bit like J.U.S.
[UNKNOWN]: over the Roman reigns.
[UNKNOWN]: So that's like whenever whenever I hear it, I know like the flagship review of the ratio and they just like bury it and make a sound like just the worst thing on earth.
[UNKNOWN]: But I kind of think that if I watch it, I'd probably feel the same way, given my taste.
[UNKNOWN]: And then I'll like hear something else.
[UNKNOWN]: And like someone will be like, I don't
[UNKNOWN]: treating the match with much like kinder gloves and or even actively like talking about it being good.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll do like, okay, that's what this is.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, that's the same feeling.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, like, look, they did kind of nothing.
[UNKNOWN]: It was strange though, because how your music goes back stage and it looks like he had been to a war.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like, but I suppose he did kind of get tossed around
[UNKNOWN]: Now, Shinjaki, Shinjaki just did a bunch of moves with like big long gaps of nothing in between them, and then the finish was a series of
[UNKNOWN]: really crappy looking diving headbutts, which he just me under to ran spring slowly doing.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, what are you going for here, man?
[UNKNOWN]: This is, this is not the dynamic.
[UNKNOWN]: This is, this is the jid station's ackey that case was expecting going into this project.
[UNKNOWN]: 100% yes.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm not the fellow we saw just murdering Men's Tale in a car park in 1993.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah,
[UNKNOWN]: era of what I was describing and getting into Japanese wrestling.
[UNKNOWN]: Like, Jinsationzaki Injapan was this match and the Muda match, and I such held a certain opinion of the man for the longest time.
[UNKNOWN]: And I would see some stuff later, or he does stuff like Fujita Hayada and Sasuke himself, which kind of won him back into my good graces.
[UNKNOWN]: And I always have a self-spot for his WF work,
[UNKNOWN]: during my peak childhood fandom.
[UNKNOWN]: So I did have a soft spot on my heart firm, but yes, seeing some of his pre-WF stuff in Machinoco Pro, which I'd reading never seen before, as part of this, that changed my opinion on them, but now seeing this here.
[UNKNOWN]: I was like, yeah, that's what he was.
[UNKNOWN]: He does have to be fair.
[UNKNOWN]: He does have the really cool tag stuff for high boost in all Japan, particularly the holy demon army match, which is one of my favorite matches of all time.
[UNKNOWN]: You want to talk with guys farming some already the entrance of that match, oh shit, but yeah, this was just a really grab way to end the show, but I
[UNKNOWN]: I did like everyone coming out at the end and Sasuke doing a speech.
[UNKNOWN]: I loved the way the camera, they did this in the 10 man as well.
[UNKNOWN]: The camera follows, there's a camera like on the aisle, like waiting for the guys to walk back and follow the backstage and one shot.
[UNKNOWN]: So you kind of just see them go over, there's no caution.
[UNKNOWN]: You just see them go right backstage.
[UNKNOWN]: It's like you're going back there with the wrestlers and it's very, yeah, I really enjoyed that.
[UNKNOWN]: I thought that was good and they get some good interview footage at the end.
[UNKNOWN]: which is, I suppose, a big staple of this whole project in Mitch and Okoproza at his point that the backstage interviews, so that would have been a shame if we didn't have good versions of those.
[UNKNOWN]: So, good thing we do.
[UNKNOWN]: And then, yeah, then, I mentioned what I said earlier about Sasuke and the slowmo package at the end, with the clips, so, yeah, that was, that's everything I had a job, oh, sorry, no.
[UNKNOWN]: One other thing, when,
[UNKNOWN]: When they wear it going backstage and you're seeing just people standing around, you see Gran Hammada standing around.
[UNKNOWN]: He's he's showered.
[UNKNOWN]: He's gotten changed.
[UNKNOWN]: He's in his slacks.
[UNKNOWN]: He's got the belt on.
[UNKNOWN]: He's got the nice shoes on.
[UNKNOWN]: But because he's a pro wrestler, he is still shirtless.
[UNKNOWN]: Cool as hell as always.
[UNKNOWN]: Classic roster behavior.
[UNKNOWN]: So, Ellen, I'm glad you brought the camera work because that was the point that I forgot to make on the Ten Man Tag.
[UNKNOWN]: I love the fact that they, and that as Kiantai Deluxe were marching in the back, they kept the camera on them as they were basically chatting shit to each other on the way back, like big uping each other.
[UNKNOWN]: as the baby face army is trying to go like, what are we to do with this force?
[UNKNOWN]: And you just have like the five of them at just being smug and just the camera work of them coming through the sumo haul tunnel was just the exact sumo tunnel really well.
[UNKNOWN]: There's a great shot during Tiger masks, new Tiger masks, entrance where they're behind them in the tunnel.
[UNKNOWN]: He's what you seem just emerged into sumo haul and you see at the same time you see
[UNKNOWN]: The top of Sumo Hall entered a shot and the bottom of Tiger Mask's cape.
[UNKNOWN]: So you just see at the bottom of your screen and the bottom of his cape he's just got just joined letters tiger mask.
[UNKNOWN]: And then you see just the top of Sumo Hall this beautiful building and you just see this all in the frame at the same time.
[UNKNOWN]: Really really great shot just during his entrance.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, it's really just incredible stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: So in the post match, yeah, it is the baby face army all in the ring.
[UNKNOWN]: This is after Sasuke, or this is after Jensei, wins with three diving headbutts.
[UNKNOWN]: A, A, A, and then a praying last last right power bomb in this Sasuke.
[UNKNOWN]: Finally,
[UNKNOWN]: asks Jens Asynzaki, once again, had joined Seki Gun and joined the fight against Kai-Entai Deluxe and Shenzaki shakes his hand and we have a new member of the baby face army.
[UNKNOWN]: Somehow, almost all of Delphin Corps ends up now being baby faces, and they're now after the loss in Rio Goku, trying to refocus and get momentum back on their side against the war against Kai-Entai Deluxe.
[UNKNOWN]: Just,
[UNKNOWN]: incredible just basically just promo work after that to just have you already ramped up because now you're going will hell.
[UNKNOWN]: I wonder what Jensation's Oki and Masato Yakuji look as a tag team and now they're on the same side so we might get that.
[UNKNOWN]: very much so and that concludes these days.
[UNKNOWN]: I think a very odd show in the history of Japanese wrestling won that I understand why it has the legacy that it does but at the same time I think it's a little bizarre that it has the legacy that it does but it is one of those essential viewings if you've never seen it before I cannot say that I recommend this show from start to finish but if you've never seen that 10-man tag of course make some time.
[UNKNOWN]: Carve that out give that a watch.
[UNKNOWN]: Alan before we go because we have a going for three hours.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm going to send it straight to you for the plugs.
[UNKNOWN]: Anything that you need the people to know.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm well, you know, it's timely because I saw this that.
[UNKNOWN]: I made a note to myself that I need to include it in the plugs because Peter with Torch has been very good to me, Wade Keller has been very good to me and it's a place I am proud to rest my husband and I come to my podcasting and I guess they sent around for any late game.
[UNKNOWN]: a lab subscribers as these websites tended to do to kind of say, hey, come back and I think there's, I didn't see myself, but I guess there's some kind of an offer if you're coming back, but I did see this SNIP from it, which made me a little bit happy to see.
[UNKNOWN]: It's a big progress in weekend of paper views of PLE for me, WWNXTT, and I'm inviting you to return as VIP member and check out our coverage this weekend and beyond.
[UNKNOWN]: We pride ourselves on bringing you thoughtful analysis and independent non-corporate own non-AI and non-SEO driven coverage of this fascinating industry with a diversity of voices on our team.
[UNKNOWN]: And I was like, yeah, fist pump weight, good on yet because there's not enough people with that mindset out there and obviously voice arrestling where this podcast is
[UNKNOWN]: has just one of those and I'm proud of always to have the association on the layout have with all you guys here, Unvoiced Wrestling, and yeah, if you are a lapsed fan, there's so much great stuff to go, or a lapsed scribe around people who are just so much great stuff to go back and rejoin and check out, and if you've never subscribed, if you've never heard my podcast and you've made a tree tree hours of me here, and you don't think I'm full of shit then.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, you might want to check out more of my shows and I have got eight years worth of them on the torch now, which is crazy to think about.
[UNKNOWN]: I feel like I just joined there last week, but it was eight years ago and there's a lot of great stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: So much great stuff over the years.
[UNKNOWN]: And a budget greatest rest of our ever shows with the three of us in 2021.
[UNKNOWN]: Some greatest rest of our shows without an eye from April of this year.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, yeah.
[UNKNOWN]: And then, yeah, I think I'll have one more show going up for this month, which I will be recording tomorrow, which I'm excited for.
[UNKNOWN]: I do a monthly series once on the Tele where we just kind of pick two episodes of myself in a guest, different guest every month.
[UNKNOWN]: We pick an episode of each of recent television from that month in history.
[UNKNOWN]: And we just,
[UNKNOWN]: Chop, chop it up a bit and have fun doing so and sometimes the shows always go bad as long as this one did.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, you guess you get a solid like I don't know eight hours of audio from me every month over on the torch and there's plenty of other great stuff earlier.
[UNKNOWN]: I was listening to her as well and pretty
[UNKNOWN]: That's right, plenty of other great stuff from the archives from the past.
[UNKNOWN]: I was listening to something earlier and always a treat We need to listen to weights old radio shows and you get callers calling in like Mike from Minnesota today, who I listened to He called in on June the June 6 1993 episode to talk about the house show he was at and he said Wait, are that Luna for Sean
[UNKNOWN]: She sure is in shape, isn't she?
[UNKNOWN]: Wait, respond to that.
[UNKNOWN]: She's very good wrestler, too.
[UNKNOWN]: Wait, wait, wait, having the back there of Luna, and yeah, then another lady Kathy was, she was after our hearts for all of us because she was, she called in and talked about it just that WF wasn't even wrestling anymore.
[UNKNOWN]: It's bullshit.
[UNKNOWN]: She's going to go to real wrestling like the PWA and Minnesota.
[UNKNOWN]: I shared it so well.
[UNKNOWN]: It's welcome.
[UNKNOWN]: So, let me lengthen it into the show, put
[UNKNOWN]: Great, great colors, great banter, weight, and this colors, that's a lot of like, that's just like one show in the archives and there's just so much great stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: There's, and great other, guess I do regular shows with Sean Radiken talking.
[UNKNOWN]: You Japan stuff, he'll pull me on to discuss some modern, you Japan stuff.
[UNKNOWN]: And when I have some vitriol to spit a bit of that promotion or if I want to rave about something like a chingo and kind of newman.
[UNKNOWN]: I'll be on there doing that with him.
[UNKNOWN]: But yeah, loads there on the towards.
[UNKNOWN]: So that's my big, long day.
[UNKNOWN]: when the plug.
[UNKNOWN]: So people do check that I pwtorch the IP.
[UNKNOWN]: Well, before I said until Mike to close things out, I do want to know that.
[UNKNOWN]: First of all, thank you, Alex, for joining us, the second of all, a full archive of those days is on the open the voice gate podcast feed.
[UNKNOWN]: You can go back to Mitch Dokupro from the very beginning.
[UNKNOWN]: And listen to the work that Mike and I have done over the last year and a half almost covering Mitch Dokupro.
[UNKNOWN]: As for episode 18, the next time you hear from us, which I'm already telling people now and Mike knows this will be sometime in August.
[UNKNOWN]: You're not getting a July episode.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not Mike and I have looked at the
[UNKNOWN]: We back for episode 18, which will feature another 4A into WAR, a 4A into JWP as they work with Mitch Dokupro, and the 1996 Mitch Dokupro tag league, which features the emergence of L. He held Del Santo as a Mitch Dokupro wrestler.
[UNKNOWN]: So you have that to look forward to on the next episode of those days.
[UNKNOWN]: Oh, right.
[UNKNOWN]: It's almost time for a trip for two tournament for this year.
[UNKNOWN]: It's it.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm hoping that after we got to see a good bit of it from last year where it was called a trip for two.
[UNKNOWN]: It translates out to a trip for two.
[UNKNOWN]: That's fantastic.
[UNKNOWN]: Loved up.
[UNKNOWN]: Hey, the tape that we watch to start this thing, a luchinocuany translates into in the world, in the lane of luchin 1996 heartbreak.
[UNKNOWN]: They are on fire with names in Machinocupro with further soft.
[UNKNOWN]: better than Dragongave, AI Petro Pascal, whatever.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, that's going to do it for this episode of those days.
[UNKNOWN]: We'll be back with you in August.
[UNKNOWN]: You could find us on social media at Open Voice Gate, both on Twitter and on Blue Sky.
[UNKNOWN]: Allen's on Blue Sky at Allen 4L, that's social that.
[UNKNOWN]: Blue Sky, both case and I are on Twitter, cases that underscore in your case.
[UNKNOWN]: I'm at Fuji Hale of two eyes for Don.
[UNKNOWN]: I even showed up there recently to wreck William Regal, or at least the person who will if he goes paying to run over the camera.
[UNKNOWN]: But you can find us there on social media.
[UNKNOWN]: There's also the voices of wrestling discord.
[UNKNOWN]: There's the dry and gait channel for the dry and gait content that we do.
[UNKNOWN]: But more importantly to this, the open-the-voice gait channel, that's where we do show postings and match listings.
[UNKNOWN]: So to close out, we have noticed that there has been a bunch of
[UNKNOWN]: footage that has gone missing from when it has been uploaded.
[UNKNOWN]: I am personally doing kind of a background project to get everything at least from now on onto the internet archive so those can people can download that without any worry of it being stricken and you're able to cast it using your own devices for that and there will be a big a spreadsheet in that channel
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, I mean, I'm surprised that gay or out of nowhere is starting to care about this stuff, but it's 32 years old essentially Dead media.
[UNKNOWN]: It's not like that gay or a post stuff like this on their YouTube channel begin with, but they are the copy of it if they if they offered a
[UNKNOWN]: I'll leave them say $20.
[UNKNOWN]: I would pay $20.
[UNKNOWN]: If they said for $20 a month, we are going to give you a streaming archive with all the Dragon Gate footage full of it.
[UNKNOWN]: It's just literally if it was taped on a camera, it's going to be available there.
[UNKNOWN]: In full, all the Dragon Gate, all the Mitch no Kupro, all the fucking Azacademy, all the everything we have.
[UNKNOWN]: The world of Japan that they had.
[UNKNOWN]: So yeah, 20, 20 books a month.
[UNKNOWN]: Mike, I would come after you myself to get you to take down your pirated bullshit on behalf of gay or unprotect their business, but they're not going to do that.
[UNKNOWN]: So they should fuck off and just leave that stuff out there.
[UNKNOWN]: But anyway.
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah, but it will be posted.
[UNKNOWN]: The updates for this will be posted on the discord.
[UNKNOWN]: Anyhow, no.
[UNKNOWN]: Wish we weren't the ones I had to do this for it, but that's the hand that we have.
[UNKNOWN]: It dealt by the
[UNKNOWN]: that's going to do it for this addition for those days.
[UNKNOWN]: We'll be back with you in August with the next addition for that and back on this feed next week with Open the Voice Gate.
[UNKNOWN]: So, for a case and I'm Mike, thanks for listening.
[UNKNOWN]: Take care, everyone.