The show is over seven hours
I’m not doing a full show review because that would take me all day so I’m just going to pick and choose a few of the wackiest matches on the card. Obviously the big thing coming out of this show was the horrific injury suffered by Shinjiro Otani. I just pray for him and his family, he really doesn’t deserve this at all. Otani’s been simply incredible since the early 90’s and to see him suffer this injury has been deeply upsetting. I hope there is a way we can donate money soon for Otani’s medical expenses because things don’t look great at the moment.
Watch the show HERE
BATTLE ROYAL – KUROGE WAGYUTA VS TETSUHIRO KURODA VS SUPER TIGER VS LINGERIE MUTOH/MUNENORI SAWA VS FUGO FUGO YUMEJI VS KAZUHIKO OGASAWARA VS KATSUNARI TOI VS ASUKA VS AKASHI TIGER VS AKIO KOBAYASHI VS ??? TIGER VS ASUKA
This was the first match on the show which had me delighted because we got the full team no respect dance on top of Fugo Fugo’s entrance so that was great. Katsunari Toi of 90’s indie sleaze fame showed up and did awesome for his sixty second cameo, he let loose a few stiff kicks and stomps before getting pinned by Fugo and The BEEF man himself Kuroge Wagyuta after Wagyutaka straight powerbombed Fugo on top of Toi. Mutoh/Sawa was easily the highlight of the match for me, Imagine if he kept wrestling full-time… He’s still so so good and better than majority of modern workers but he’s very happy being a personal trainer and Fuminori Abe’s go to guy so I’m just happy Sawa is happy and healthy. I wish I had a podcast in times like these so I could talk and talk about how cool it was seeing all these sleazy icons together in Sumo Hall.
Asuka/Veny was ‘X’ and she did very well, probably got the best reaction from the crowd if we’re not including Sawa. Super Tiger actually won this match which was fine, he pinned Sawa with a tombstone.
RATING – FUN
TARU & SHOGUN OKAMOTO VS NAOSHI SANO & HARTLEY JACKSON
Naoshi fucking Sano found himself on another Sumo Hall card, absolute blessed times.
Another one that isn’t going to get four stars from Meltz but for fans of the deep indies I guarantee you’ll get some enjoyment out of this little contest. Like I said it’s wild to see Naoshi Sano working a Sumo Hall show against TARU of all people, it’s just one of the craziest pro wrestling cards of the modern times. When’s the last time you could say Katsunari Toi, Yuji Nagata, Lingerie Mutoh, Naoshi Sano & Naomichi Marufuji were on the same card together?
TARU gave zero fucks as he constantly beat up the referee showing no regard for the rules but it was fine because the ref was too scared to DQ the Voodoo Murders team. Naoshi Sano played the babyface in peril and good lord it was so much fun, lil Sano doing suicide dives at Sumo Hall in the year 2022 is literally insane to me. Hartley has packed on a bit of weight so all of his moves now look even more impressive like his running senton could flatten a small country town. TARU stiffed the heck out of Sano multiple times with sick kicks that made TARU look like he was back in 1997. Genuinely better than it had any right to be, Sano had a great near-fall that the crowd sorta popped for so there’s that as well.
Okamoto pinned Sano…. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
RATING – BETTER THAN IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN
ALEXANDER OTSUKA, YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA & MASAKATSU FUNAKI VS LEONA, SHIRO KOSHINAKA & TATSUMI FUJINAMI
I’ve watched old man multi-man tags for as long as I’ve been watching puroresu and my god this was honestly one of the better ones I’ve seen… Like I’ve watched my fair share of shocking Dradition main events that were slowly paced and awkwardly executed but with a combined age of 9,074 these six guys went out there and gave it there all in the year of 2022!
Leona is the outlier but far out he has improved and he certainly helped make the match all the more enjoyable. It clocks in at under ten minutes so it’s a quick and easy watch to get your daily dose of Japanese legends. Alexander Otsuka looked as good as he’s looked in recent years, in particular his giant swing on Leona was very impressive. Fujiwara saw a lot of ring time as he dished out a shit load of headbutts and palm strikes.
Some of the palm strike exchanges between Koshinaka and Fujiwara were genuinely heated and the Sumo Hall audience lapped it up. Koshinaka is in his mid 60’s now but he is still very athletic and still manages to woo the audience with his impressive leaping ass attacks, the crowd loved it when he dove ass first off the apron onto Funaki.
Fujinami didn’t get much ring time but when he did it was good stuff, the dragon screw leg whip he used to knock down Funaki was superb as Funaki sold it like a champ. Fujinami got the win after Otsuka tapped to the Dragon Sleeper hold.
RATING – AWESOME
FUMINORI ABE VS ASTROMAN
Let’s speculate! Who on Earth is Astro?
He is the size of Jun Masaoka with the athleticism of Atsuki Aoyagi… It’s a very good possibility that this is a ZERO1 rookie but I honestly couldn’t tell you. Astro looked very polished in some parts but then he looked a bit out of his depth in others so just to reiterate this lad could be some longtime indie dude or just some very talented rookie that can do flips.
Another match that didn’t over stay it’s welcome and was out of the way relatively quickly. This had the best fluid wrestling out of any of the other matches I’ve reviewed from this show and I mean that’s to be expected when you’re dealing with a world class performer like Fuminori Abe. All of his signature spots are just so perfectly executed it makes watching him wrestle such a pleasure. Astroman nailed his big time spots which included a lionsault, tope con giro and a 450 splash that Abe managed to roll out of the way of.
Speaking of rolling… Astroman rolled up Fuminori Abe to win the ZERO1 Junior Heavyweight Title in his debut match! A very easy to digest match that just left me wondering who the heck the masked man is.
RATING – NOT BAD
DAICHI HASHIMOTO, YUJI OKABAYASHI & DAISUKE SEKIMOTO VS JUN KASAI, YUJI HINO & SATSUKI NAGAO
What an incredible hard fought freakin match this one turned out to be! I had no idea that things were going to get has hectic as they did but good lord by the end of the match I was jumping up and down! Star making performance from young Satsuki Nagao here helped make this match one of my favourites from the year so far.
Everyone performed at a very high level but whenever Yuji Hino was tagged in things were next level crazy. The strike exchanges he shared with Strong BJ were straight brutal and I loved every minute of it. The Japanese still can’t cheer but they couldn’t hold back there gasps on many occasions throughout this war of a match. You really have to watch it for yourself, easily the most enjoyable match on the card thus far.
The double German suplex spot that Okabayashi and Sekimoto use was stolen by Kasai and Hino which was my moment of the match by far. That spot will never not look cool, it also looks frightening to take as the landing looks disgusting every single time the move is used.
Satsuki and D-Hash squared off for like the final five minutes and it was superb all round, the headbutt by Nagao was banana’s. Hashimoto made Nagao submit following the S.T.F (Chono was viewing this match from ringside)
RATING – ***3/4
PURO IN THE ROUGH 