Rick & Scott Steiner vs. Hiroshi Hase & Kensuke Sasaki (NJPW, 5/31/91)

This was a STEINER BROTHERS tag team match, with little finesse but lots of discomfort for the opposition. To open, they’ve got Kensuke Sasaki on the rocks, slamming and suplexing and clobbering away, slanging their meathooks in between fresh tags. When Kensuke’s finally able to turn it around, does he make the hot tag? Hell nah, dude, he puts Scott in the Scorpion Deathlock! And then he gets dropped with a tiger driver and one of Rick’s ugly slams. But when Hase does get that hot tag, oh baby, he runs straight into a tilt-a-whirl slam and a Samoan drop off the top rope.  He’s able to deliver a uranage and the Northern Lights suplex hold but Rick breaks it up and it’s all downhill from there, as Scotty hits a Doomsday DDT and botches a frankensteiner for the win.

Naomichi Marufuji vs. Kazunari Murakami (NOAH, 6/8/07)

Every Kazunari Murakami match has blood in it -- I mean, how else are you going to get him to lick it up? From a visual standpoint, it works. When you look at Murakami, with his wicked smile, you expect him to bust somebody open, possibly himself, and revel in it. Before Marufuji can even make his grand entrance, Marukami has already bloodied him. He takes him down to the ring and rams him headfirst into the ring post before showing off the carnage to the fans and licking the blood from Marufuji's forehead. What a nutjob. He tries choking Marufuji with a chair but once Marufuji gets a hold of it, he cracks it over Murakami's head a couple of times before getting him into the ring, where he starts paintbrushing him with slaps in the corner and choking him with his boot. He dumps him with a couple of German suplexes and they go back-and-forth with the slaps as the match momentum shifts into the next gear and Marufuji heats up on offense. He lands a couple of superkicks with the crowd behind him but...then Murakami hits back-to-back STOs and a lariat and it's over. Anti-climatic finish but a fun match while it lasted, with a post-match bonus beatdown from Murakami.

Kengo Mashimo vs. Seiken (Futen, 7/18/11)

This was a cute little slugger of a match, with the formally overrated Kengo Mashimo (currently underrated) and a guy I was unfamiliar with going into this match, Seiken, who only wrestled two or three matches for Fu-Ten before skipping dimensions. He's a pretty heavy striker, coming out of the gate strong and taking Mashimo down into a front mount before pounding away at his face with forearms and elbows. Mashimo has to take a minute on the outside to re-consider his current situation (to a bit of laughter) and when he returns, he's able to get a takedown, going from a double wristlock attempt into a front mount, where they both start smacking at each other. I loved Kengo's counter to Seiken's wheel kick attempt, swatting it down, then proceeding to stooge around with Seiken's kicks. But the next wheel kick catches Kengo square in the jaw and Seiken follows that up with a shotgun blast solebutt to the midsection. Something clicks in Mashimo at that point, and he goes on the final offensive, dropping Seiken with a few suplexes, buckling his knee with a brutal low kick, and then unloading with some nasty kicks to the head, KO'ing him with the buzzsaw. Really good sub-ten minute scrap. I'd like to see Seiken's other matches in Fu-Ten.

Naoki Sano vs. Wayne Shamrock (PWFG, 5/19/91)

When Wayne Kenneth Shamrock was wrestling in WWF as the “Most Dangerous Man”, I wasn’t watching. My only exposure to him prior to this was in Pancrase and UFC. That being said, this has to be one of Shamrock’s first matches wrestling the shoot-style and what I enjoy about Shamrock is how exciting he makes the groundwork look as he slides around the mat and snaps off takedowns. Shamrock, along with Minoru Suzuki, both here and in Pancrase, are really good at incorporating a strong quickness to overwhelm their opponents. Naoki, on the other hand, doesn’t do a whole lot on the ground – in fact, it’s more or less him grabbing an arm or a leg and holding it there. This is noticeably evident late in the match when he has control of Shamrock’s leg and doesn’t do shit with it.

After picking ankles and trying to roll through into armbars or kneebars, they take the fight to a vertical base and start swatting at each other with open hands. Sano spikes Shamrock with a shoot DDT and Shamrock pops those hips with a beautiful takedown on Sano. The struggle conveyed, whether they’re on their feet with heated open hand exchanges, or on the ground fighting for a hold, was really well done.  While some of the matwork wasn’t all that captivating, when it was on, it was on. I really liked Shamrock using the headscissors to try and get control of Sano’s arm. At times, his striking looks watered down, especially the knees and elbows, but he has some of the best takedowns here, including that awesome German suplex transition off the mat. The finish was brutal, with Shamrock catching him hard with a slap and a knee, and then Sano promptly destroying him with a dragon suplex to set-up the wakigatame submission.

Akira Maeda vs. Dick Leon-Vrij (RINGS, 5/11/91)

Dick Leon-Vrij has one of the best villainous appearances in shoot-style, looking like he was pulled straight from the cast of Cyborg. Not only does he look like he a heel, he acts the part too, which is interesting for a shoot-style promotion to have such an obvious heel. He’s an absolute dick to Akira Maeda (heh) with his shitty face slaps, blatant chokes, and snarling provocations. He tries to intimidate Maeda with his big action movie roundhouses but he’s also nippy with his kicks and his reaction time is on par with the legendary Jack Burton.  He’s able to snatch a foot mid-kick and get a quick takedown. On the mat, however, Maeda’s more skilled and he supplements his groundwork with a couple suplex throws, including what looks like a capture buster. In the end, he catches one of Dick’s kicks, taking him down with a calf hold before transitioning into a single leg crab for the submission victory.

Vader vs. Jun Akiyama (AJPW, 1/23/00)

I dug this a lot. Loved Akiyama’s opening rush, blowing off the ref and hyping up the crowd as he takes it  Vader. Vader tries putting him in the corner and peppering him with these nasty little forearm shots but Jun fights for a German, with Vader hanging onto the ropes until Jun chops the arms out and delivers the big ole suplex. Both these guys were big bumping around, in and out of the ring. Vader chokeslams Akiyama onto the timekeeper’s table and then follows up with a powerbomb onto the floor. The midsection of the match is Vader-dominant, with splashes and clobbering blows and even a dang Fujiwara armbar. Akiyama tries going after the knee, zeroing in with a top rope dropkick, but Vader, more or less, blows it off. But he’s slower climbing up top, so Akiyama’s able to powerbomb him down and hits an Exploder for two. I liked Akiyama countering the cover off the chokeslam with the desperation armbar but it doesn’t do much and Vader launches him into the sky with a German suplex and then chokeslams him again, this time, pressing all that choice Vader beef onto his legs and shoulders to keep him pinned.

Hiroshi Hase vs. Mitsuharu Misawa; Jun Akiyama vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW, 1/9/00)

Hiroshi  Hase vs. Mitsuharu Misawa (AJPW, 1/9/00)

There is a lot to love from Hiroshi Hase in this match, from his awareness to his determination. Clearly, Misawa is not as slick as Hase on the mat so he has to rely on his primary form of offense, the elbow. Knowing this, Hase takes the obvious route and proceeds to annihilate said elbow in the form of extensive armwork. He takes him down, tangles him up, and rolls all over the canvas with Misawa in tow, working the arm like a full-time job. Misawa doesn’t do much in terms of escaping or countering – he mostly lays there and takes the punishment, though at times, he seems desperate to get away. Then again, he’ll often say “fuck your armwork, Hase” and throw a couple of elbows but Hase brushes them off and takes him back down to his realm of holds. I love that Hase immediately brings the focus back to the arm following much of Misawa’s offense, first with the overshot diving body press and then off the German suplex hold. “Ask him, come on, give up!” says Hase before he dumps him with a big ole uranage and follows up with a cross armbreaker. 

Misawa’s selling of the arm, or lack thereof, didn’t necessarily bother me -- I mean, I love Misawa's stubborness to keep using the elbow, knowing he can't take Hase on the mat and coming to realize that Hase has an answer for most of his other offense. The elbows obviously don't have the same impact on Hase so he has to keep on battering him, switching to the other elbow at the end to get some good shots in, before finally downing him with the running elbow.. Sure, he could’ve done more to sell it but it’s Misawa, he’s the ace, so Hase staying in the driver’s seat for so long is more than most get. 

As Hase continues snagging the arm off of Misawa’s signature offense (tiger driver, frog splash, etc.), you finally see him start to crack with desperation. There’s a great visual of Hase almost hugging the arm, a look of real frustration on his face as he’s trying to get him to submit. But no matter what he does, Misawa’s throwing those dang elbows. So Hase himself says “fuck this armwork” and drops Misawa with a dragon suplex, back-to-back uranages and a Northern Lights suplex hold. When that doesn’t do the trick, he tries for a second Northern Lights and Misawa knees out of the attempt, throwing elbows from both sides before finally laying him out for good with the running elbow. I wasn’t a big fan of Hase’s relatively quick demise following all that dedicated work on top but again, it’s Misawa. You take what you get, and what I got was a lot of cool shit from Hase.

Jun Akiyama vs. Yoshihiro Takayama (AJPW, 1/9/00)

Really good stuff and an easy watch, with Yoshihiro Takayama firing heavy early on with his big boots, knees, and kicks. But Jun is too slick for that shit and dropkicks Takayama’s knee out from under him to set-up the limbwork portion of the match. I love Akiyama when he’s working the hell out of a body part and here, he snares Takayama on the guardrail and delivers a killer dropkick from the apron. He goes through the gamut of leg holds, from the Scorpion Deathlock to the STF to the figure-four leglock, but Takayama finds an opening to exploit Akiyama’s weakness in the taped left elbow. He ragdolls Jun with a couple of suplexes and pulls out a beautiful double arm suplex hold before going into a facelock, transitioning into the over-and-the-shoulder hold to further damage the elbow. Okay selling from Takayama, better from Akiyama, whose able to dropkick the knee again to turn the tide. I liked that he targeted the bad knee to block Takayama’s German suplex attempt and then rolled him up on the second attempt.