Those Days: A Michinoku Pro Retrospective Ep. 7 - Thunderstruck

[SPEAKER_02]: This podcast is a member of the Voices of Wrestling Podcasting Network. [SPEAKER_02]: Visit Voices of Wrestling.com to hear the rest of our great podcast as well as show reviews, columns, opinions and updates across the world of wrestling. [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to those days, in Mitch and Oku Pro retrospective. [SPEAKER_00]: Episode seven, Thunderstruck. [SPEAKER_00]: Those days is brought to you by Open the Voice Gate and the Voices of Wrestling Podcast Network.

[SPEAKER_00]: You could find those days and open the voice gate on the voices of Wrestling Podcast Feet or on our own dedicated Open the Voice Gate feed wherever you get your podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: You can follow open the voice gate on social media at open voice gate and if you like to donate to the show, click the link in the show notes and I'll take you to our redcircle.com landing site.

[SPEAKER_00]: You click the red boxes to sponsor this podcast and it's about one time are recurring donation. [SPEAKER_00]: No obligation whatsoever, but we would like to thank [SPEAKER_00]: All of our previous donors. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm one of our hosts. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a real pal. [SPEAKER_00]: Mike Spirish joined alongside as always case low in case it's been.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're keeping up with those days as we are releasing, it's been a little bit of time since the last episode, but we're getting into this really fun period of Mitchenoku pro, but before we get into where we are right now, Mitchenoku pro, let's do a quick little recap on where we left things off at an episode six. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you a chance to take this and run with it if you want.

[SPEAKER_03]: We try to keep these episodes as ever grand as humanly possible because I do like the idea of somebody listening to this years from now. [SPEAKER_03]: But Mike, we are recording this on the day that Hulk Hogan passed away. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we are. [SPEAKER_03]: You lived in Florida for for a number of years. [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm sure Hulk Hogan was somewhat of a mentor towards you. [SPEAKER_03]: I know you've always said you weren't a fan of his in-ring work, but God love him.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you liked him as a person. [SPEAKER_03]: And he thought to have a whole different. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, of course, you got the before passing at the Fox Nation deal with the freestyle wrestling deal. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, he was working. [SPEAKER_03]: Did you see the tweet? [SPEAKER_03]: Jimmy Hart sent out last night. [SPEAKER_00]: Did you see Jimmy about him doing karaoke? [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: What is that?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, uh, Hogan was Jimmy Hart's last like money train like the ultimate money train like what has Jimmy Hart done since nineteen ninety three really, but you would hope and I guess I don't know. [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe I'm maybe this is a bad way to look at life, but you think about what Jimmy Hart has done. [SPEAKER_03]: and what he's been involved with and the legends and contracts that he would have signed at some point.

[SPEAKER_03]: You would hope that Jimmy Hart at this point in time, would just be able to sit on a lazy boy and go, great, I have enough money for the rest of my life. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't need to grift with Hulk Hogan anymore. [SPEAKER_00]: I just think like that's a Memphis hustler, like you're kind of built on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, because like you would think that you'd be hard, like, would be the kind of person that would have like the plush deal, and then whenever I don't know who does WWE music now, but I'll never Mikey Ruckus.

[SPEAKER_00]: What, wanted to do something a little special, maybe you bring in Uncle Jimmy, you know, like that's kind of where you would think he would be, but no, he's, uh, told the grave, uh, at that teeth of Hulk Ogan, you know, so I mean, it's just, [SPEAKER_00]: It's well, but also at the same time, you have him doing that. [SPEAKER_00]: And the one person who's been going Hulk Hogan was on his deathbed was Bubba the love sponge.

[SPEAKER_03]: Shout out, Bubba, look, I've always said shockbox. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I'm able journalist. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, someone who's very well inadated. [SPEAKER_00]: And as I, uh, becoming increasingly aware, you are a Lance Corporal and Bubba's Army. [SPEAKER_01]: You should. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I mean, this is like your, uh, your canine good luck.

[SPEAKER_00]: at era happening by my views by light my views by everything by the list of the only one I do for a living after bubble you might be under the guys of man call but don't get it was to pay slow is above the love sponge man [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like this is like the wild one where I feel like society has kind of already made their judgment on the guy and it's way, you know, because his last elevation and appearances boot out that be up building.

[SPEAKER_00]: He and even in whatever you want to call the culture of twenty twenty five he was like the one person that everyone's like now we're not going to let him back in with us so it's kind of wild that like that's the last moment that most people did when you look at the person who [SPEAKER_00]: with the exception of just like the people around Mount Rushmore's, the most important person in the history, the wrestling industry outside of another tarnished person in this man.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of ironic to two of them going out these kinds of ways, you know? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: I do love that his last public appearance was a complete failure. [SPEAKER_03]: I think that's very funny. [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's weird that [SPEAKER_03]: He's one of the most recognizable Americans to ever live. [SPEAKER_03]: I was thinking about that earlier today.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, easily look like I don't think it's outside of the realm of possibility that after you get past your Michael Jordan's and Michael Jackson's Hulk Hogan's probably up on that list. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, he's probably, he's probably tier two behind Elvis Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson. [SPEAKER_03]: I feel like people could pick Hulk Hogan out of a line up at the same way they could pick Tiger Woods out of a line up. [SPEAKER_03]: It's just very strange. [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, the one person, the one professional wrestler that you would get in New York Times to learn about. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: That's a good, that's a good way of looking at it. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of where I settle at with Hulk Ogan.

[SPEAKER_00]: He kind of is that like figure of your that just did not leave the public eye and that cheats you like the the big thing about pop culture and like that kind of thing of in generations past, that's a figure who would have drifted away a long time ago. [SPEAKER_03]: He's just so funny to me because I am the age that I am and so I have zero nostalgia for him, you know, the oh, I'm pretty similar. [SPEAKER_00]: Even at my age, I was a WWE F attitude kid.

[SPEAKER_00]: I had no exposure to Hulk again. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I'm sure I guess I never, I never thought about that, but that would also fit into your to your ballpark is the only thing. [SPEAKER_03]: Then I watched of him when I was a kid was I had the summer slam DVD that had him in Sean. [SPEAKER_03]: And that was always like the least interesting thing on the show to me. [SPEAKER_00]: So, which is the uniquely case low versus Mike Spear's mindset.

[SPEAKER_00]: because to me, his son selling for a whole co-organ is the most interesting thing on the show. [SPEAKER_03]: It rocks now, but there's like a sneaky good JBL but he's to match on that show. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a Matt Hardy Edge work shoot where Hardy gets busted open really, really bad. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that's right. [SPEAKER_00]: That's Angelic Diablo era. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Then there's I. [SPEAKER_03]: like a bin wall or a lando Jordan squash where bin wall winds back the US title in thirty seconds and that's really fun trying to think what else god i i know this is the midstock who pro retrospective podcast i do have to i apologize to everybody i do have to look at the summer slam two thousand five card real quick that because i i really want to see it

[SPEAKER_00]: For the record, no one on their those days being those card had the first, oh, cage match reference being summer slam, two thousand six. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, that's I knew rated something good on this show. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. [SPEAKER_03]: So it was it was binwa or lando Jordan, which would twenty six seconds. [SPEAKER_03]: It was Edge versus Mad Hardy, where Edge won the irrefrees decision on four minutes. [SPEAKER_03]: And then it was the custody of Dominic Latter match.

[SPEAKER_03]: with Ray. [SPEAKER_00]: That's right. [SPEAKER_03]: And then Kurt Engel versus Eugene, where apparently Eugene was seconded by Christy. [SPEAKER_03]: Himmhe, which I don't remember, Randy Warner versions of the other chamber. [SPEAKER_00]: Christy was like the girl that at least for like every time period if Eugene, like there was always like the the damsel that became attached to them, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And she was that for that time period. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's just how WWE book. [SPEAKER_00]: That's not me making any sort of gender comments. [SPEAKER_00]: That's literally how they how they did that back in those days. [SPEAKER_00]: I think also like Joy Giovanni was a part of the storyline at one point. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm sure that all ages really, really well. [SPEAKER_03]: And then there was an Orton Undertaker match. [SPEAKER_03]: I think this is where Bob Orton debuted.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because I, he, the finish was, I remember this. [SPEAKER_03]: And I hate that I know this because the Orton Undertaker Russell, maybe a match is actually really good for Orton and Undertaker. [SPEAKER_03]: But then the finish to this match is Bob Orton comes out [SPEAKER_03]: and face make up, so he's old, but he looks like an even older man who stumbles. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, that's right. [SPEAKER_00]: And then like he peels off it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, that's Bob Orn and no one knows who Bob Orn is. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: And you know, he bleeds his hepatitis blood on undertaker three months later, and that's the end of that. [SPEAKER_03]: And then there was. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my god, I'm the hepatitis thing. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, geez. [SPEAKER_00]: WWE, two thousand is six.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like we talk about like those peak years of drag and gait, but [SPEAKER_03]: two thousand and eighteen and two thousand six w e you know i mean they they kind of the in certain ways they had other the they the commissary to misery on the level there are seen a versus Jericho then Jericho left the next night and then Batista versus JBL and then Hogan versus Michaels but I'm not a product of the eighties and I really low the eighties nostalgia and

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't care about Hogan's ninety stuff outside of the cage match that he has with Flair and WCW that I think is a bizarrely great match and then it's not like I'm nostalgic about like the Hogan and Edge tag team in two thousand two or anything so he's just he's always been a caricature of my least favorite parts of progress like and so you know tomorrow I'm sure I'll have a number of discussions with people who know that I like rest like and they're gonna ask me my opinion he's about Hogan and I'm gonna go out and you know giant racist and also not any good, but you know what are you gonna do?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, it's it this is like one of those like things that I think if you're listening to this podcast, you probably encounter it in your life to that this is the kind of guy that all of your non wrestling people in your lives will be like, oh yeah, Hulk Ogre and then you're like, yeah, but it'll be the same thing with Vince dies or people are gonna go like, oh my god, aren't you sad?

[SPEAKER_03]: He created this thing that you love and I'm like, no, I actually think he made this thing worse. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and his dad basically set him up for it. [SPEAKER_00]: And they did it. [SPEAKER_00]: The hegeography is the thing that should be studied from him, not the anything about his business acumen. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, me speaking of business acumen. [SPEAKER_03]: Great. [SPEAKER_03]: So I say, Mitch, it took a pro.

[SPEAKER_03]: Ninety ninety four doing pretty well from themselves at this point.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, so, in our last episode, we were talking about the big UWA reunion in Sasuke being at a point where literally the tour is how about that great Sasuke and [SPEAKER_00]: Coming off a peak where New Japan is deeply basing their junior heavyweight division led by a Jewish and thunderleiger with a strong undercurrent of Mitch and Oku pro stars at this point and low and behold, you have a show that is the UWA reunion or ultimo dragon.

[SPEAKER_00]: makes an appearance in Mario, or, no, I'm sorry, Yahaba on July, thirtieth. [SPEAKER_00]: I believe that was where our big moments from it. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, Sasuke acted like he was going to retire. [SPEAKER_03]: It was going to retire. [SPEAKER_03]: Ultimate Dragon showed up. [SPEAKER_03]: Jinsation Zaki worked one, two, three kid on the WF Japan tour, which we went pretty in depth on last time, and it was made very clear that Jinsaki's days in Mitch Noku Pro were numbered.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we left off on July, thirty of nineteen, ninety four, about eighteen months into the existence of Mitch Noku Pro. [SPEAKER_03]: On this episode episode seven of those days, Thunderstruck, we will go [SPEAKER_03]: through the two Michitoku Pro TV shows in September of nineteen ninety four and the great Sasuke's appearance in the new Japan junior heavyweight tag League finals in October of nineteen ninety four. [SPEAKER_03]: The next episode will be a loaded one as we break down.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sasuke versus O'Nita and then the two TVs that we have from December of nineteen ninety four one of which features. [SPEAKER_03]: And the absolute personal favorite of mine, a Sasuke vs. Takamachinoku match that I really, really can't wait to rewatch. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know if I've seen it in ten years, but I remember watching that match for the first time and loving it.

[SPEAKER_03]: We'll talk about that more than because we have to jump into the timeline for, I guess, let me say this before we jump into the timeline. [SPEAKER_03]: Would you say off the bat, Mike, that if nineteen ninety three is a whole, [SPEAKER_03]: represents one era in Mitch Noku pro and really you can extend that through February of ninety four with the cork and holiday bill.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then you have a changing of the guard and a change in promotion and tone with soft skating doing the jacelp and the success that comes from that. [SPEAKER_03]: And as I mentioned last time around that July thirty of nineteen ninety four show. [SPEAKER_03]: It felt like we were seeing the foundation of what we recognize as peak-mitch-noku pro between the crowd and the wrestlers and the overall package and production.

[SPEAKER_03]: That felt like the Mitch-noku pro that people really love and remember, it feels like we're entering a new era given what we saw on these shows. [SPEAKER_03]: Is that a fair assessment? [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and we've gone thirteen minutes before kind of beating around the bush. [SPEAKER_00]: This ends up being this episode is the launch of the unit that uh, becomes anonymous, Mitch and Oakoo Pro.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like from here on in, we will have Kai and Tai in the promotion at least through its peak and we'll talk about the departures there of, but [SPEAKER_00]: We're absolutely in the new era, and I don't know how you would really carve out how the company was with like, ninety-nine-three with like, uh, O'Nita and that relationship, and then, and then quickly veering into the New Japan relationship that SuperJacups you laid it out here, but this is absolutely a sort of a new thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it starts really, uh, right on champ four, I'm immediately with the three guys who would form a chiantai. [SPEAKER_03]: Before we get there, we have to jump to the rustling observer news letter. [SPEAKER_03]: This comes from August, twenty second nineteen ninety four in which Dave writes that great Sasuke on August nineteen. [SPEAKER_03]: We'll become the first wrestler to appear on all night nip on a late night talk show equivalent to David Letterman in the US.

[SPEAKER_03]: He also noticed that Mitch Doku pro performed before it's largest crowd date on eight nine in the gata a six thousand five hundred person free outdoor festival show that was headline by Sasuke Sato and [SPEAKER_03]: I'm absolutely devastated. [SPEAKER_03]: We do not have that on tape.

[SPEAKER_03]: I will continue with this quick down to the timeline before you jump back in Mike on August twenty nine, nineteen ninety four of the observer as part of Napon TV's twenty four hour tell us on this past weekend. [SPEAKER_03]: Mitch Doku pro ran a free live show, which drew four thousand five hundred fans on eight twenty one. [SPEAKER_03]: Great Sasuke was all over the telethon and Sasuke and Super Delphin answered fans questions from the ring before they put on a three match card.

[SPEAKER_03]: So we see two separate occasions here where Sasuke is not even doing regionalized press and the same way that he would have done so in nineteen ninety three. [SPEAKER_03]: We've now entered this weird period where Sasuke is [SPEAKER_03]: a fringe Japanese celebrity, is that the fair way to assess this? [SPEAKER_00]: I would say that that's a maybe a little bit downgrading it, like to a level. [SPEAKER_00]: So all night, Nipon, the radio show.

[SPEAKER_00]: This is a really interesting link to previous episodes of those days. [SPEAKER_00]: This was the show that Beat Takeshi was on a part of Takeshi Puroso Gundam.

[SPEAKER_00]: So this is kind of heartening back to that that when they were doing like those radio shows and like this and there's the TV live component and I think that's what Dave's been is talking about him appearing and being the first wrestler in the TV component but Sasuke very quickly goes from being this figure and just the Japanese wrestling press and and I think it's

[SPEAKER_00]: Really, you could trace that all the way back to him and while you on the Gucci back in ninety two, trying to create this kind of mystique and like we're doing this in the way that they've always been media, guidelines, at least Sasuke, just given where he was in April, it makes complete natural sense that he would already be like a French celebrity and be appearing on telethons and stuff like this. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's very much within like the popular culture.

[SPEAKER_00]: of that time period to like this is right before uh cellular devices and internet really take over and divert uh entertainment in Japan like just because like the cellular networks pop up a lot sooner than they did in the states so he really is kind of getting in on this at like a like a key moment before it would go away pretty soon it and which I find kind of interesting [SPEAKER_03]: It's a shame we never got a Sasuke running on the Larry Sanders shell.

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god. [SPEAKER_03]: I feel like the chemistry. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god. [SPEAKER_03]: I was thinking shandling, but you're right. [SPEAKER_03]: I would even he and hang together. [SPEAKER_03]: That that feel do you remember. [SPEAKER_03]: Look, there's a little preface with it. [SPEAKER_03]: We have less footage to watch that we normally do. [SPEAKER_03]: So I'm going to go on a few dire crimes here. [SPEAKER_03]: Do you remember?

[SPEAKER_03]: because I feel like you might, because you, your brothers in the, in the comedy world, there is the website split cider and like twelve years. [SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_03]: Like twelve years ago, they published the sign-failed nine, eleven spec script and the guy that wrote that ended up getting hired on family guide. [SPEAKER_03]: Do you remember that story?

[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, because I was like, I'm trying to remember what the message board, that was a part of that community too, that was really connected to Jimmy Pardo at that time. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah, wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't remember what that was called, but I know what you're talking about is over those that don't know there's a website called Split Sider, which was a phenomenal phenomenal site that acted as [SPEAKER_03]: comedy journalism, but it had the tone of like the AV club, but it also could dive deep on stories if they needed to really, really valuable website that eventually got felt into Vulture and just to it was never the same after that.

[SPEAKER_03]: But a guy wrote a spec script for what a sign-failed post nine, eleven episode would have looked like. [SPEAKER_03]: It was absolutely hilarious. [SPEAKER_03]: It was so well done. [SPEAKER_03]: That got passed around the internet.

[SPEAKER_03]: That guy got [SPEAKER_03]: ended up a he ended up with a with a writing job for family guy and now all I can think of with the limited free time that I have is that I should be writing a Larry Sanders show spec script where one of the gasses the greats ask a special thing was the message board [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, wow, yeah, I haven't thought about that in a very long time. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, that's the message board that's died a decade ago, if you think about it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, but Sasuke is on the rise and I again, I think that's worth noting that now we're talking about, you know, not Northeastern, Japan. [SPEAKER_03]: regional stuff, but we're talking about him as a national star. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a lot more of that as we get throughout ninety four than in the ninety five.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's just some interesting notes as to where Sasuke falls in the pecking order of the Japanese wrestling hierarchy, you know, in a time with [SPEAKER_03]: a no-key in Hashimoto and Muto and Masawa and Kobashi. [SPEAKER_03]: You'll see Sasuke's name pop up there, which I think is really interesting. [SPEAKER_03]: We also have this note from the observer. [SPEAKER_03]: This is August, twenty-second nineteen ninety-four. [SPEAKER_03]: I just love this writing from Dave.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sasuke's rival Superdelfan now has a new nickname on all his merchandise. [SPEAKER_03]: Mr. Perfect. [SPEAKER_03]: What an original idea. [SPEAKER_03]: I can't imagine we were ever came up with that. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, Dave, first off, mean second off. [SPEAKER_00]: It's seen or perfecto, and that's completely different than Kurt Henig. [SPEAKER_03]: and senior perfecto sounds so unbelievably cool. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you see your perfecto.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like it makes perfect sense. [SPEAKER_00]: Like you could hear him getting called senior perfecto and raising his arms like Sasqueda or like dolphin does. [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely. [SPEAKER_03]: I love it so much. [SPEAKER_03]: Dave would continue. [SPEAKER_03]: This is from September fifth, nineteen ninety four and what you know to this is important because this match listing will change.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not once, but twice as we go through at this timeline, but on September fifth, nineteen ninety four of the observer, Dave notes that Mitch Noku pro has the biggest match in its history on September twenty ninth as Jewish and thunder, Liger comes in to wrestle, great, saskin. [SPEAKER_03]: I remember that because even before we get to the massive Liger portion of these notes, that match listing will change.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and this would be I really should be keeping track each episode, which time Dave says, Mitch, you know, GoPro is having now the biggest match in its history, because that's at least the fifth time he's called it that. [SPEAKER_03]: On September, nineteen nineteen ninety four in the observer, we go to the new Japan section as we continue to see a prosperous relationship between Mitch Doku pro and new Japan pro wrestling.

[SPEAKER_03]: New Japan announced two tag team tournaments during October from ten nine to ten eighteen with the finals in okama, they'll do the first ever super great tag league junior heavyweight division tournament.

[SPEAKER_03]: with juicent under ligor and black tiger, Shinjiro Otani and wild Pegasus, El Samurai and Tukul Scorpio, Tukumitsu Ishizawa and Dima Lenko, Grand Hamanahinorio Hanagawa, Superdelfan and Takamichinoku, Yuki Ishikawa and Sochi Funaki, and Masayo Shibotegi and Kamakaze from the social pro wrestling Federation, Mike on paper one of the more impressive tournament lineups you'll ever say.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and also the question of who is the number two guy and social per wrestling Federation, you know. [SPEAKER_03]: Hey, I'm also the person who is privately tracking what gay or has as sports licensing during ninety four so. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, you know, great one in here. [SPEAKER_03]: This actually works out nice because the next thing in our timeline is the September fifth, uh, September, fifth, tenth, any four TV during this TV that we're about to break down.

[SPEAKER_03]: Did you see that guy or a ran a commercial for pack ten basketball? [SPEAKER_00]: Not only did I did, I had to make sure friend of the show and everyone, Alan Forrell knew about it immediately because we've been talking about the World Cup ads. [SPEAKER_00]: And then on the nine, twenty nine show because I had the DVD of it, I have a whole bunch of gaurah NFL, nineteen, ninety four commercials with like Larry Woodson and Detroit, man, it's great.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so [SPEAKER_00]: That there was a Aussie rule rules football game commercial that was at the end of one and then that was played to rump shakers That because I haven't been able to get the preview and suddenly that that done I might just throw that up there as our preview for not for this episode just because it's so bewildering I know that in if you're somebody who [SPEAKER_03]: works, or work for Guyore in nineteen ninety four.

[SPEAKER_03]: You'd be like, well, this is just Mitch Noku pro wrestling. [SPEAKER_03]: There's no way that two white dudes thirty years from now. [SPEAKER_03]: We're going to be doing a radio show in which they break down all of this footage. [SPEAKER_03]: But by the same coin, I can't imagine working for Guyore in nineteen ninety four and being like, we have to acquire pack ten basketball rights. [SPEAKER_03]: Somebody has to see [SPEAKER_03]: the beginning of Mike Bibi's collegiate career.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean? [SPEAKER_03]: Like, it's not even like ACC or Bibi's basketball. [SPEAKER_03]: It's the exact end. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like I really have to. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a situation where like if you're the international like right sellers of these things, you're just trying to get any money whatsoever. [SPEAKER_03]: I feel like how does that conversation even begin? [SPEAKER_00]: Because [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, you need, you need a three hour block filled.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I have for you, Oregon ducks basketball. [SPEAKER_03]: I guess I feel like we could have got a more machinocupro footage instead of that. [SPEAKER_00]: But, but like Gauron, nineteen ninety four as like a sports fan, like objectively, they have the World Cup, they've packed ten basketball. [SPEAKER_00]: They have the NFL. [SPEAKER_00]: They have F one.

[SPEAKER_00]: Man, if I am living in and Tokyo in nineteen ninety four, I know that cable is kind of a luxury, but man, Gauara kind of had a little bit of everything at that point. [SPEAKER_00]: Mitch Noku pro too. [SPEAKER_03]: I look, I'm, I'm with you there. [SPEAKER_03]: I still think about the highly specialized cable channels of the two thousand's like fuel TV. [SPEAKER_03]: It was just like, oh, yeah, we're just going to do a bunch of skateboarding documentaries every day.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it was, it was a great channel. [SPEAKER_03]: I miss it tremendously. [SPEAKER_03]: Do this day. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, I was of the generation that tech TV then later G four was really formative. [SPEAKER_00]: So we just missed out on Drangate on G four. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, God, we were so close on that that could have been that could have been a thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, no, like the the footage we have on this episode, we could have gone through all the touring notes, but basically they are running as much as they really ever will during this time period and just because of how Gauro works, all we have is these over the time period. [SPEAKER_00]: The first part of the first champ forum that has nine, fifteen is still recapping stuff from the show that Ultimo did in Yajaba in the July.

[SPEAKER_00]: We only really have these three shows and when we talk about nine, twenty nine, there's a little bit of, oh, we had two hour blocks that we gave you. [SPEAKER_00]: We had to edit around the show. [SPEAKER_00]: So it looked like an hour of wrestling TV and not a wrestling show that was cut to two hours, based two hours shows. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes. [SPEAKER_03]: So as for the September, fifteenth nineteen ninety four show.

[SPEAKER_03]: We have an hour of new footage and I was saying this to you before we started recording. [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's worth reiterating here. [SPEAKER_03]: One of the most effective hours of TV. [SPEAKER_03]: that I can remember seeing and wrestling. [SPEAKER_03]: Whereas, you know, in the last episode, we praised the high level of wrestling from, say, the talk of versus Jato match or the Mitch Joku Pro versus New Japan, eight man tag from that show.

[SPEAKER_03]: We're even, you know, something like Shinzaki versus one, two, three kid that was a borderline great match. [SPEAKER_03]: This show does not have anything. [SPEAKER_03]: that I think would appeal to the notebook chasing michdoku per rewatch style, which if that's what you're doing more power to you because that's awesome and we should all be watching all of the great michdoku pro matches.

[SPEAKER_03]: I think nine fifteen ninety four is the first thing that we've really come across where it is [SPEAKER_03]: best consumed sitting down from start to finish and not just jumping to what's Dictogo doing or what Sasuke doing or what's Delphin doing or what Shizaki doing or whatever your guy may be on the roster. [SPEAKER_03]: This is just a phenomenal TV episode.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think that the thing that makes it really kind of rewarding, at least as of this hour, if you've been following along with the footage, you have seen all of the cards kind of be laid out for this all to happen and didn't capsulate and end with like the first time that Sato really gets one over on Delfin and leading him to the point that you have

[SPEAKER_00]: perhaps outside of like the Tarsangoto and Otani appearances, one of the most savage matches in the company's history. [SPEAKER_00]: And by the end of it, it's real interesting because my big takeaway from these two shows where I'm so excited for the first time to see the three of Kiantai, which we should probably say, at the time, Kiantai forms on September,

[SPEAKER_00]: On the TV show, they start the portion of the show with them introducing themselves as Kai and Tai and they're kind of playing a little bit to the camera a little bit as if as face and then you have a match with Terry boy versus Ginzae Sanzaki, which although Terry boy is putting up more of a fight, it is not like absolute destruction, but the tag match by then to that you go

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, by themselves, these are still kind of the three guys of where they are, but my God, whenever you see Sato team with Shiryu and that main event, and then on the next show, Sato with Terry Boy in the opener, it's a completely different animal that you, is now in Machinoku pro, and it, the company's completely now changed now that there is this three, this third group that is going right at Delphine Corps from the start.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think, [SPEAKER_03]: One of the benefits of doing a rewatch project versus say, you know, breaking down, dragging in real time as you and I do almost every week is that we, we now have the benefit of hindsight that we know what the next chapters are in this story.

[SPEAKER_03]: One of the things that is most interesting to me about the introduction of Kiantai is something happens between [SPEAKER_03]: May of nineteen ninety four and September of nineteen ninety four, which is a five one period.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a long time, but it becomes apparent that Shinzaki is not long for the world of machinoku pro and they are so proactive in [SPEAKER_03]: getting high and tie over and establishing them on this show, on the next show, on the October, thirtieth show with Sasuke. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, need to that we'll talk about next time. [SPEAKER_03]: It's been so on and so forth as we go along because the evolution of Kaliantai is great and it shapes the promotion.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the funny thing is, we know this down because it's been a different of hindsight. [SPEAKER_03]: And because I've done the notes on all these episodes. [SPEAKER_03]: When Kiantai is leaving, much-licing Zaki did years earlier, they are not proactive at all. [SPEAKER_03]: They actually are incredibly slow to adapt and react.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the story of Mitch Noku Pro is likely a far bleaker one, a [SPEAKER_03]: death possibly, if it isn't for the fact that Ultimo Dragon just happened to start a wrestling school in Mexico and needed to find work for his kids. [SPEAKER_03]: Because there's a period, post-cantai pre-crazy max, where those machinocupro cards are not exactly the most exciting things on the planet.

[SPEAKER_03]: The only way they're able to adapt post-cantai is just by plucking crazy max out of thin air and letting these God-given prodigies be prodigies in machinocupro. [SPEAKER_03]: It's very funny to me that that happened. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and then you see as soon as Toriumon is launched, everyone who's still left over and we're not necessarily giving up the ghost by saying this, they very quickly leave Sasuke right afterwards.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it basically just plugs the gap for nine months, essentially. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, exactly. [SPEAKER_03]: So this September, fifteenth, Ninety Four Show, we begin with Shanzaki versus Terry Boy. [SPEAKER_03]: And Mike, I regrett to inform you that these guys have done it again. [SPEAKER_03]: They had such a great match in July of Ninety Three. [SPEAKER_03]: And I have just completely fallen in love with our chemistry.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a completely different match they have here. [SPEAKER_00]: It's completely different match. [SPEAKER_03]: With the root of it still being that Terry Boy is getting his shit rocked, but it's done in a different way than it was a year prior. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're as at McLean, Terry Boy was immediately dumped to the outside and then went through hell for ten minutes. [SPEAKER_00]: He had a strategy that kept on going back to.

[SPEAKER_00]: He was kept on going for the arm bar and was able to step up and brawl with the Janzaki when they went to the outside. [SPEAKER_00]: But it's still was a little bit of a fake company. [SPEAKER_00]: You do have like this interesting aspect of Janzaki between this show and then also in Amori where

[SPEAKER_00]: He is like the invincibility I guess because we've never really like have had a term to describe like the idea that Shinzaki does not sell other than his pilgrim like he's religiously like and currently a tune so he's not gay he does not like sells much he sells a whole lot in both this and then the match will talk about later it can share you and it's like really kind of stark because outside of matches in F and W or the

[SPEAKER_00]: uh, auto ward, gymnasium match against great Sasuke, you don't get that with him at all. [SPEAKER_00]: So that is kind of a stark thing that happens in this match that is notable, especially comparison to the first half dozen episodes of those days. [SPEAKER_03]: The blood that comes from Terry Boy's head and really right above his uh, yeah, right above his eye is pretty startling in this match. [SPEAKER_03]: It feels like [SPEAKER_00]: It almost looks like his eye gets go.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it really, if you take out the the Anita stuff, this is the most violent Mitch Noku pro on Mitch Noku pro thing that we've seen so far and Shinzaki continues to be the guy who stock I'm most impressed with because [SPEAKER_03]: Terry boy is great at working underneath.

[SPEAKER_03]: I specifically like Terry's making a comeback in this match and he just keeps on doing these step up and securities on Shinzaki that that remind me that I mean, it's it's a quite a move is what he's doing. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, he's taking a page out of the quad a playbook and I really liked the way. [SPEAKER_03]: And then he deliver that offense in the way that Shinzaki very slowly sold in.

[SPEAKER_03]: You start to see as the match would all that Shinzaki was okay taking more and more offense, but it's just these guys have magical chemistry, which I was not expecting. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and they have perhaps the best crowd brawl to the company to this point when you take a between machinoku pro guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: I would say sorry, phrase that awfully, but the Shinzaki and Terry boy do this fight around Fukushima where apparently there is this table tennis section and they get right on top of [SPEAKER_00]: a ping pong table and Terry does a pile driver into the ping pong table where it collapses because it's one of the foldable ones. [SPEAKER_00]: And you just go like, wow, that looked really awesome.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then you had the moment where Shenzaki later, they fight up onto the balcony and he walks the balcony rail doing the prayer walk. [SPEAKER_00]: And it is the, and maybe it's also the fact that the cameras are a little better than last year since this is in a commercial date. [SPEAKER_00]: And I thought that this, like, the brawling in this match was some blind stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: It really, the best stuff that the company has had.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we've been kind of a face with all these young agents and versus Wellington Wilkins matches where they basically walk and brawl for fifteen minutes. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's just a breath of fresh air to have a really crisp, well-executed one that even at certain points does not become what the match is about. [SPEAKER_00]: It just becomes like a chapter of it. [SPEAKER_00]: I do have something in my notes case that I need. [SPEAKER_00]: Just get your gut reaction real quick.

[SPEAKER_00]: Terry boys already wearing the chi and tight gear at the time, at the time, where basically, uh, him and Sherry, you copy, uh, Sato's tights, but they all have their own emblem on the front of it. [SPEAKER_00]: And Terry, uh, had such up his hair, in case at the ask you, doesn't Terry boy look like modern Kazuma. [SPEAKER_03]: I did not put that together in real time, but I can certainly understand where you're coming from now that you say that.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: It's good cop. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the bleach hair in the tan with like those two. [SPEAKER_00]: It just looks very much on it, but I endured this. [SPEAKER_00]: Like this is a series of matches that I know it's a shame that we're not doing it this day by by for Shinzaki for a while, but I really hope we get more Terry boy versus Jens Azenzaki.

[SPEAKER_00]: Not as good as the mock land one, but [SPEAKER_00]: a had different element that I thought was really really cool. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I think the great thing you mentioned that ping pong table spot, I just have to clarify, you know, that that is not played for for laughs, which is really great.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's it's much like that other match where again, if you like what they did in July of ninety three, I think you have to go back and watch this just because [SPEAKER_03]: It's a nice evolution where you can see in one year that Terry Boy has been elevated to a higher degree than he was at a nineteen ninety three, but the violence and the chemistry is still there.

[SPEAKER_03]: And when they go throughout the arena, it really does have a certain zip and a certain amount of life to it, which is great to see. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not comedic crowd brawling. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not like what we talked about last time with with Wilkins Jr. [SPEAKER_03]: and some of these just endless crowd brawling spots with the Oday Gengen.

[SPEAKER_03]: This, this felt like a fight all around the arena, which really helps in continuing to figure out what kind of tie is at this point. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it, it very much felt like these, their brawls are like two blow concession sand brawls, whereas the other ones are like comedy matches. [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it.

[SPEAKER_00]: So Shenzaki wins this match he is now two and a up on Terry Boyf and it just really worth going out of your way if you like the match that they had at mockland. [SPEAKER_00]: We are next match case. [SPEAKER_00]: We get joined in progress. [SPEAKER_00]: This is for Sasuke's international junior heavyweight title versus Taroco. [SPEAKER_00]: He wins with the chicken face lock and this kind of was the Palo cleanser before the main event.

[SPEAKER_03]: yeah so uh... trocco is hysteria who was a triple a guy from nineteen ninety seven to two thousand nine not to be confused with super crazy who i believe also worked under that name for a little bit but uh... [SPEAKER_03]: You know, ended up being a Perestro Mall guy for a little bit, worked IWRG for a little bit. [SPEAKER_03]: But that is sort of what he's known for.

[SPEAKER_03]: And here, you know, for as much as you and I waxed poetically about Superboy and Pilecho, so Ascita and Kindow on the last episode and how we really feel like one of the unheralded aspects of Mitch Doke who pro around this time period is some of the loot stores that they used. [SPEAKER_03]: I would say this is, this is largely forgettable.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I didn't bother reading it like really the the one kind of notable kind of thing was that Sasuke was correct was much more crisp than this match than he is against like people like Liger and Ben Wall and like that is a thing that you kind of noticed throughout the issues and I was and especially more so I would say about that more issue.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think all that working in New Japan and in that kind of environment kind of refinance at least Sasuke a little bit at this point. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god, yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, it goes back to if you want to go back to episode one when he talked about how hard it was to improve because universal just wouldn't run any shows and he felt like he started to really improve as a wrestler when he went to Mexico and was working almost every day.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're now seeing in the same way that we see [SPEAKER_03]: with modern day, Drangate, just being on the road for eighteen months is going to make you better. [SPEAKER_03]: When you're on the road with Delphinshanzaki and then Liger and Otani, you get even better as a result of that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I felt like that was the only thing I really took away from this. [SPEAKER_00]: It just felt like given like what the show was and where it was on tour.

[SPEAKER_00]: It gives you kind of, I think it's smart booking having a match like this, especially given what happened in Shenzaki and leading up to it. [SPEAKER_00]: It just feels kind of stark there. [SPEAKER_03]: It's clipped. [SPEAKER_03]: It's whatever. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a fine match. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but the main event is the Delphin core of Takamachanoku and Super Delphin versus Kaiyantai Sato and Shiryu.

[SPEAKER_00]: This match goes to the DQ because the, they attack Ted Tanabe, that brings out Terry Boy, they absolutely lay out Takamachanoku, which brings out Sasuke chance, but the whole entire crowd kind of is starting to get behind Taka a little bit, but is more in shock. [SPEAKER_00]: Because in this match, Kyandai takeout super dolphin with a spike pile driver from the apron to the floor.

[SPEAKER_00]: And after that, this match turned into an absolute just beat down on Taka and I thoroughly enjoyed it. [SPEAKER_00]: I thought, [SPEAKER_00]: I'm already full on board on Kiantai as now the new heel unit after that, like that kind of match. [SPEAKER_00]: I think this match is really important because Super Delphin is in Delphin core still going to kind of exist, but you needed to on the first night kind of put the stamp on.

[SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_00]: These are now the big bads now. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, and especially as Taka slid into that role with Delphin and sort of bump Shinzaki out of that universe and it was own thing, we saw Delphin [SPEAKER_03]: really play up being a I guess for lack of a better term like a rick flare. [SPEAKER_03]: Typeel or on Mr. Perfect Typeel, you know, he's a there's a senior perfecto, but yes, yes, yes, exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you see with Kai and Ty just an immediate tonal change the way that these helium that's are presented. [SPEAKER_03]: That I think is absolutely necessary. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I think if, if Sato of Dictogo was just going to try to want up Delphine to the way that he was present, and I'm not sure this would have worked. [SPEAKER_03]: But you see with a spike pile driver in the way that they sell it with Delphine getting carried off, and then Delphine never coming back.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, Delphine just being gone. [SPEAKER_03]: It is very clear that Delphin is a cocky, swav heel, and cayenne tire killers. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think they do just a brilliant job of displaying that in this match. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely. [SPEAKER_00]: And Sherry debuts his new heel mask and the reaction from the crowd about his new mask was like a kind of cool after effect. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that's a real important thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like if we track the idea of that there's in a progress or a leacherous promotion, [SPEAKER_00]: the idea now that we have multiple factions and that really only one of them inhabits kind of a heel roll. [SPEAKER_00]: We're finally seeing like the first time of that kind of happening and seeing like Delphin, Delphin Corps has changed so drastically over the last real year from where it was this time in nineteen ninety three.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mr. Toyota has not been seen in nineteen ninety four have been waiting. [SPEAKER_00]: I've been kind of trying to see if there's something that a inner research about Wally Omiguchi may be having a falling out but he's no longer a part of it. [SPEAKER_00]: There's not as much like outright shenanigans with Delphum Core.

[SPEAKER_00]: Delphine is still a preening and being who he is, but it's become a little bit more of a grounded heel unit by the by this night and [SPEAKER_00]: It kind of by the by a sanding down those those thorny bits though those spiky bits on dolphin core it kind of like presents it a the perfect kind of scenario to have a new group just completely dismantle them and take the new big bad throw.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's a shame to my knowledge that we don't really have a definitive talk of versus dictogo match because [SPEAKER_03]: Their chemistry here is evident, and especially this young talk of the way that he flies around the ring, then the obvious counter to that of just Dictogo being a bowling ball and just swatting him out of the air on some of these plodges is a really fun dynamic that they have.

[SPEAKER_03]: So you made the comparison earlier that Shinzaki versus Terry Boy thought like one of those concession stand brawl and Memphis, [SPEAKER_03]: This is almost, I don't know what territory you would compare this to. [SPEAKER_03]: Is this the closest Mitch Noku pro ever got to like an episode of world class TV?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, if you want to like take it down to, all right, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, dasserly heels isolate take down the, uh, overwhelming baby face the crowd super kind of reacts to it. [SPEAKER_00]: And at least for like the weekly TV, the thing would be like you beat down. [SPEAKER_00]: carry or Kevin and at the end of that they cut the promos saying that they're going to get their brothers and their friends are going to kick those.

[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to kick their ass like in that kind of archetype it is, but it does kind of in a same way still kind of feel Memphis more so because I I always kind of felt like that that was [SPEAKER_00]: world class a little bit taking the studio aspect when they would do that on their TV shows they would take the studio aspect from like Memphis or Georgia to do that. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's that's that tracks that that that works for me.

[SPEAKER_03]: You would you would be the expert on that. [SPEAKER_03]: So I I will defer to you there and I like that. [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, again, I mean start to finish. [SPEAKER_03]: It, it helps that we don't have the host of Cowell Wilkins Jr. [SPEAKER_03]: match. [SPEAKER_03]: We don't get the nano on Nakajima match, but you get those three matches there. [SPEAKER_03]: One of which is is clipped incredibly heavily. [SPEAKER_03]: It's just a really enjoyable hour of progress line.

[SPEAKER_00]: And also, if you're watching all of the Mitch and Oku pro footage, you don't need to see another Wilkins match like that. [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you do not. [SPEAKER_00]: You do not. [SPEAKER_00]: And it really, I think for like this tour that they now like go on for the like this is just a stop of the tour.

[SPEAKER_00]: They had shows basically every day in August and then they basically pick it up and they [SPEAKER_00]: basically from this show until the other one, they run every day except the night teeth and the night teeth is the only day they have off between that. [SPEAKER_03]: That's incredible. [SPEAKER_03]: That is, that is. [SPEAKER_00]: I was going through the listing. [SPEAKER_00]: I was going, okay, this is on nine, fifteen. [SPEAKER_00]: Nothing on nine, nineteen.

[SPEAKER_00]: I keep on going down. [SPEAKER_00]: I go like nine, twenty six. [SPEAKER_00]: No, there's nine, twenty six. [SPEAKER_00]: Nine, twenty seven. [SPEAKER_00]: Yep, nine, twenty eight. [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, they wrestle for essentially, uh, thirteen day state or two weeks straight. [SPEAKER_03]: That's, that's not.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then you look at those shows and this ties into the observer note that I have here from September, twenty six nineteen ninety four in which Dave says the Mitch no Kupro shot an angle where she were you Sato and Terry boy from their own trio called high say high say cayenne tie turning on great Sasuke.

[SPEAKER_03]: So they now have three feuding groups with Sasuke's group with with Sato and she were you leaving that moves Hanzo Nakajina Nakajima up to main event status as Sasuke's partner. [SPEAKER_03]: They have one of their biggest shows in their history. [SPEAKER_03]: on Dave Wright's, nine, thirty, but he means ten, thirty on ten, thirty in a latte with Sasuke versus at Suscio, Nita and an electrified dynamite match.

[SPEAKER_03]: So this is what's relevant here is that when you look at the rest of this tour, every show is headline by some combination or almost every show is headline by some combination of Sasuke and Hanzo Nakajima teaming together, which in nineteen ninety three felt completely impossible.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, just last episode, I was pointing out, oh, look at Hanzo and Nakajima, falling down the cards, but because of just the calculus and how small the promotion this is, that he kind of has to be that person, because you look at the, what exists of the baby face side of the, of the roster, it's Wilkinson, Hoshikawa, who are usually having their own matches, or Yakashiji, who is usually on this tour in openers, jobbing to people.

[SPEAKER_00]: So he really was like the last one up for him. [SPEAKER_03]: We get the notes that nobody wanted on October third, nineteen ninety four in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter in which Dave notes the Jewish and Thunderlegger who has been rated near or at the top of nearly everyone's list of the best restaurants in the world for the past seven years and considered by many as the greatest junior heavyweight pro wrestler of all time.

[SPEAKER_03]: suffered a badly broken left leg on nine, twenty four in Nagoya. [SPEAKER_03]: Liger was wrestling in a rare main event for him, teaming with Ricky Choshu against Kaiji Muto and Wild Pegasus before a sellout of eleven thousand fans at IHE gym. [SPEAKER_03]: It was a freak accident on a rather tame looking high spot.

[SPEAKER_03]: As Liger whipped Muto into the ropes and leapfrogged him, with Muto rolling under and coming back with a quick savaut kick, apparently Liger's leg gave out on the landing, and he couldn't get up after he rolled out of the ring from the kick. [SPEAKER_03]: After he laid there for a while, Hiroshi Hase and Takuya Zuka noticed something was wrong and came out with a stretcher to carry him from the ring.

[SPEAKER_03]: Photographers who went backstage noticed that his leg was all dark black, and he was immediately sent to the hospital [SPEAKER_03]: where the X-ray showed the badly broken left leg, and Dr. said it would be six months to one year before it could return. [SPEAKER_03]: The match itself continued as a singles match with Muto vs. Choshu, until finally Pegasus who had left the ring to make it an even match, returned to the ring.

[SPEAKER_03]: Today then came out in Choshu's corner one day, wanting a tag, but Choshu never tagged out, and eventually was penned by Muto's moon salt.

[SPEAKER_03]: The next day, New Japan announced on nine, twenty-seven in Osaka, Liger's IWGP Junior Heavyweight title would be put at stake in a six-man one-night tournament, with Grand Hamana Shinjuro Tani, Pegasus, El Samurai, Black Tiger, and Norio Hanagawa, and a major surprise, Hanagawa by far the least impressive wrestler of the six [SPEAKER_03]: Penn Hommada, who Dave notes was the pre-tournament favorite, Otani, and finally wild Pegasus in the finals to capture the tournament.

[SPEAKER_03]: They also announced the Ligerate have to cancel his appearances for Mitch Doku Pro where the small regional outfit had a dream tag match of Liger and Sasuke versus Samurai and Super Delphine this week and a Liger versus Sasuke singles match scheduled with Hommada expected to be the replacement on both nights. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to stop there briefly because [SPEAKER_03]: Dave Dave's writing confuses me.

[SPEAKER_03]: I never see an official listing of Liger being booked for two Mitch Noku pro shows. [SPEAKER_03]: I think originally he was booked for a singles met with Sasuke that then got turned into this tag match that then got turned into nothing, but I have not been able to find any record of Liger being booked twice for Mitch Noku pro just that one show.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and given where they are running and where it was, it doesn't necessarily track that he would have been used for two shows, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Because a Mori is a place that they do run, but sixteen hundred there tells me that this was like a planned like a big show for them. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, and you look at how they structure their touring. [SPEAKER_00]: This is after like that formal [SPEAKER_00]: tour that they were running for two straight weeks.

[SPEAKER_00]: And this is its own thing itself. [SPEAKER_00]: It's called the junior in the Buddha show festival. [SPEAKER_00]: It's not the Lucha. [SPEAKER_00]: Post some Eiji tour night thirteen or night one that was the case that we reviewed earlier. [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't see credence at least from the stuff that I've seen that makes me think that this was going to be two appearances.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was [SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was always going to be he went to Mitch and Oku Pro to make up and do one match against Sasuke there. [SPEAKER_00]: Like that was always kind of the impression and at least with how things were being presented up to this point to be one match, right? [SPEAKER_03]: That's my impression of it. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think this is just a matter of things getting lost in translation.

[SPEAKER_03]: I feel what happened is they had a singles match book. [SPEAKER_03]: But that singles match got turned out to a tag match. [SPEAKER_03]: And then Liger got hurt and he couldn't do the tag. [SPEAKER_03]: That's my read of it. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that definitely tracks. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think they actually this building that they run for the, this is the Emory pre-factual gem. [SPEAKER_00]: They don't run this building before.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that, I think that tells us that this was going to be set up as a big show. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so all day they end up selling it out at sixteen eighty one so it ended up doing quite well for them more in the observer but real quick before I get back to that it's interesting to note here that when we began this series we were looking at the crumbling of universal and I talked about how

[SPEAKER_03]: during the first few episodes of this podcast and also that just happened to align with with how modest passing, but you know, one of the tough things for how modest this point in time is that he's he's loyal to the UWA and Mexico, which is crumbling to the ground.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so he he loses out on being able to jump to either CMLL or AAA, if the universal and Japan is following a part and [SPEAKER_03]: In nineteen ninety three, it's looking like Hamata might just be done as a pro wrestler. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, we read that note. [SPEAKER_03]: I think it was two episodes ago where Dave has in the observer that Hamata is thinking about retiring.

[SPEAKER_03]: And we see despite him not being in the Jacob, which we were led to believe that it's because he did not want to lose in the first round that Hamata is brought in a new Japan in nineteen ninety four. [SPEAKER_03]: And by the end of nineteen four, [SPEAKER_03]: is right there with Liger and Otani and Benwan Eddie as a real push junior in New Japan, which seemed impossible at the start of this year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and especially when you think about, you talk about his loyalty, UWA, UWA, although they officially close in ninety five, they're basically already dead. [SPEAKER_00]: So he has, he's been already Spain the year string together, whatever work you can get in Mexico in the fallout of UWA failing and they're not being a third major promotion.

[SPEAKER_03]: And this next one of the observer ties into that because he ends up [SPEAKER_03]: Not working a ton of AAA, but it does become his spot in Mexico, which I believe, and please, if I'm wrong, somebody can correct me.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I think that comes through the New Japan partnership, because what happens is Dave Wright and this again is from the, uh, ten, three, ninety four wrestling observer newsletter that Liger would also be out of the super grade junior heavyweight tag tournament.

[SPEAKER_03]: which he was also the top draw in, and that he would be replaced by the great Sasuke, and then Dave continues, although nothing was officially announced, Liger will also be forced to miss another single junior heavyweight tournament that he was scheduled to face several new opponents for coinciding with the first Triple Age of Pan to our scheduled from November, fifteenth to November, twenty-fourth. [SPEAKER_03]: Sasuke ends up working a ton in that tour.

[SPEAKER_03]: We won't spend a ton of time on that. [SPEAKER_03]: But that is a historic tour, a great tour. [SPEAKER_03]: Sasuke works a lot there. [SPEAKER_03]: Liger is supposed to be a huge part of it. [SPEAKER_03]: Hamada is a huge part of that tour. [SPEAKER_03]: And instead, we get no Liger. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and talking about Hamada for a second, I wanted to look something up when you were talking about his situation in Mexico.

[SPEAKER_00]: Here's how, like, uniquely kind of difficult of a situation he is in. [SPEAKER_00]: Ayako isn't wrestling yet, but so chill is, and she's wrestling in CMLL. [SPEAKER_00]: So all this is, well, this is all happening. [SPEAKER_00]: His daughter is already wrestling in one of their promotions. [SPEAKER_00]: He's not able to get into it. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, that's interesting. [SPEAKER_03]: I did not realize that. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I, I ever got one Ayako started.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that's why I was looking and then I was like, oh wait, no, he had an older daughter, so chill. [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, no, so chill started in eighties six when it was working in CMLL. [SPEAKER_00]: And the nineties went in and left when the CMLL one was division kind of dried up and ended up in AAA. [SPEAKER_00]: But that was not at a time where her dad was ever really with AAA. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, there you go.

[SPEAKER_03]: And that takes us to, in the reason this episode is called Thunderstruck is of course, because you know, LIGER gets hurt for what was supposed to be either a dream singles match or a dream tag match, but that takes us to the September, twenty ninth, nineteen, ninety four, Mitch Noku pro wrestling show. [SPEAKER_03]: Like Mike said, this is from a mori, this to a sell out of sixteen hundred and eighty one fans.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I throw it to you, Mike, for your big picture thoughts on a historically significant Mitch Noku pro show. [SPEAKER_00]: So I think I like the show a little bit more than you did, but I think that is partially because I have grown enamored with Shinjuro Otani in this phase of his career, which I feel like most people do, I'm just hitting that phase pretty late in life of Otani worship. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, look, there's a period of Otani's career.

[SPEAKER_03]: It reminds me a little bit of [SPEAKER_03]: Pico Tonny is somewhere to peak Ibushi in the sense that I know that the two greatest wrestlers to ever live are not Kota Ibushi and Shinjiro Tonny, but when you look at those guys in their peak form doing their best work, [SPEAKER_03]: it's kind of like, oh, so that's what a professor should be like those guys that's exactly what I was going to say about a tani in ninety five, it's like, oh, no, this is a goddamn progress.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, Joe Lens is like what it should be. [SPEAKER_00]: Joe Lens has seen nineteen ninety five, Shinjaro a tani walk down the street and even him at like age like seventeen, go like, oh, that's a fucking progress.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's just [SPEAKER_03]: he's he's remarkable and you know he's a guy who unfortunately you know at the at the at the current time that we're recording this has has just been living a very sad life these past few years because of the instant that he had but autonies are fascinating wrestler because he's really good from the jump and he comes in [SPEAKER_03]: just at the right time.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think that's kind of the thing that I'm really recognizing is like this guy has come online at a time where New Japan has perhaps its best junior heavyweight division in like forty years. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, because if if he comes in, when does he, I got to look at when he debuts now. [SPEAKER_03]: This is interesting because I don't remember exactly what. [SPEAKER_03]: So he debuts in ninety [SPEAKER_03]: two, but yeah, okay, yeah, he works, but we were half ninety two.

[SPEAKER_03]: So if he comes in five years earlier, there's just no juniors division worth anything for him to be a part of, you know, you're. [SPEAKER_00]: He said, it's not like, like, Hagano basically. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, because it's you're dealing with maybe the early days of Liger, but really more so Yamada than Liger, and then, you know, whatever comes of that, you know, Niyoki Sano, but if he comes in, [SPEAKER_03]: And let's say, ninety eight, then he's, you know, he's trapped.

[SPEAKER_03]: He's in a really bad era of New Japan, Pro Wrestling. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, his physical peak coincides with the best possible timeline. [SPEAKER_03]: for him as a wrestler. [SPEAKER_03]: And then when zero one comes about and he puts on a little bit more weight and one night he loses all of his hair and it just never comes back. [SPEAKER_03]: It's bizarre how that work.

[SPEAKER_03]: As you watch Otoni in this match with this thick black head of hair and you go, well, obviously, this guy has had hair like that forever wrong. [SPEAKER_03]: You would be it one day just went away completely, but [SPEAKER_00]: It happens to us sometimes. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a very sensitive subject.

[SPEAKER_03]: I understand, but when when he beefs up in zero one, it's the perfect time for that because now he can work with a bit of a beefier taco and a bit of a beefier Masato Tanaka and [SPEAKER_03]: obviously Hashimoto and Karino and guys like that. [SPEAKER_03]: So his two peaks are defined by him just being in the right place at the right time and having the right body for those scenarios as well.

[SPEAKER_03]: But if you've never done the deep dive on nineties, Otani, Junior Heavyweight, New Japan, Otani, oh my god. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, at his peak, he's one of the most enjoyable wrestlers I've ever seen. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think he talked about the time period wise with him. [SPEAKER_00]: I know that it's just basically taking the time and going through it with that.

[SPEAKER_00]: It will with him for me because I know that he has matches against Conamoto and Minoru Tonaka to my favorite super junior of all time. [SPEAKER_00]: So he does get the end of that. [SPEAKER_00]: He is able to catch that on his way out. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just one of those things that he having Otani in for a ligar really. [SPEAKER_00]: It changes kind of the whole complexion of the show now. [SPEAKER_00]: So the way that Gauara just decided to air this.

[SPEAKER_00]: It ends up as we've talked about how cable television is in the nineties. [SPEAKER_00]: It ends up that this is two one-hour blocks that they had to cut into two cut a wrestling show into two separate episodes of TV. [SPEAKER_00]: So the actual main event of the show was El Samurai versus Super Delphin. [SPEAKER_00]: But that's only the main event of the first hour of TV. [SPEAKER_00]: They put the Sasuke versus Otani matches the actual main event on the second hour TV.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's interesting. [SPEAKER_03]: I did not realize that. [SPEAKER_00]: It really threw me off. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm on rails right now, okay. [SPEAKER_00]: I tunnel vision. [SPEAKER_00]: So something is a little off for me. [SPEAKER_00]: I have to take a moment and go like, why is this this way? [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: I found myself asking this about this entire show.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why is this this way we go from a midst of a pro show an hour of TV that I really enjoyed to what I thought was was largely two hours of really boring wrestling. [SPEAKER_03]: Tell me tell me where I'm wrong here. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think that if you open up the show, and they open this up with Sato and Terry Boy versus Hondo and Nakajima and Hoshikawa and Nahiro Hoshikawa, and you get to see another kind of tie tag.

[SPEAKER_00]: And is it as good as the one that we get with Takah having to be valiantly fight for himself and eventually just kind of collapsing? [SPEAKER_00]: No, you don't get that, but it is kind of neat to see Hoshikawa kind of moved up into that position and taking a hell of a beat.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, it's one of the things that I've pointed out with specifically Naka Jima and Hoshikawa, where in my recollection and my viewing of Mitch Noku pro prior to doing this podcast, I don't feel like they were ever properly integrated into the core of Mitch Noku pro and always felt like they were kind of off in their own universe.

[SPEAKER_03]: And what's interesting here, and I did not realize this until [SPEAKER_03]: I put the notes together for this episode, is that at least for this tour, and you can say maybe they hit the eject button too earlier, maybe he just didn't live up to the expectation, but, but Naka Jima becomes Sasuke's partner. [SPEAKER_03]: In nineteen ninety four, you go back to the beginning of the episode, what are we talking about?

[SPEAKER_03]: Mainstream celebrity, great Sasuke, and now they've got Naka Jima along side him at the very least for this tour, and it doesn't [SPEAKER_03]: really seem to stick. [SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't seem to help. [SPEAKER_03]: It doesn't seem like it helps. [SPEAKER_03]: Now, Kajima, you know, here they are integrating him into the roster. [SPEAKER_03]: And this was a ten minute match where I was kind of blown away by the work that Kiantai did.

[SPEAKER_03]: And there was nothing on the baby face side between Nakajima or Hoshikawa that really grabbed me. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think that's entirely fair, and that's an issue with this promotion that it's such a small promotion that they're really, when you had just Delphan core, you could have everyone else versus Delphan core pretty easily. [SPEAKER_00]: And you can go like, oh, yeah, I know Hanzo and Taka with Sasuke against those three, against Nanawa Shinzaki and Delphan, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that was a pretty easy and tried and true main event for them. [SPEAKER_00]: Blentering it, we only have a roster of case. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to go through our notes and just quickly like breeze through them. [SPEAKER_00]: The native roster, if you include welcomes who in all intents of purposes is a native, is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve wrestlers.

[SPEAKER_00]: So when you splinter it in half you have six and six or really in practice kind of four and eight was what kind of what it ended up being but with just with the beats of the promotion. [SPEAKER_00]: Now when you have twelve the guys that you would never think about having to be in the main event or having to team with Sasuke you kind of have to and it's just a fact of this promotion being so small at this point at least with its coordinator roster.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well it goes back to the point you made about the touring schedule earlier and it's just it's amazing that anybody held up ever on this roster. [SPEAKER_03]: It's such a small roster. [SPEAKER_03]: It feels like there is so much margin for error.

[SPEAKER_03]: And so you find yourself in a position where you do really have to push forward and you do have to at least try some people out just to shake up the car and I think the problem with that is that when guys don't work out and we'll see a little bit of this in ninety four and ninety five is that [SPEAKER_03]: when you're lacking depth and the guys you're pushing to the forefront aren't delivered in the way that you'd hope it really does create a problem.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it's also a situation where Hoshikawa [SPEAKER_00]: is an odd fin this motion to begin with. [SPEAKER_00]: And Naka Jima, although he was able to be had a strong start as Leopardo Negro, very quickly showed that he was just a technician, a mechanic without any charisma attached to it. [SPEAKER_00]: So you're dealing with imperfect parts to begin with. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that also hampers it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Terry boy wearing the headband a week after or two weeks afterwards is a real testament. [SPEAKER_00]: I wonder how much that cut got opened up over those two weeks of wrestling. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a gnarly cut from from the shanzaki match on the opening match on the last show that we talked about. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it is it is right over his eye in a really ugly way. [SPEAKER_00]: I want to pull up a photo of modern Mince Tahoe and see if he, if you can still see the scar.

[SPEAKER_03]: You're pointing about getting open up on two or it's not like he had a data rest it, you know, it's in the ring every single day after that. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I have this photo of him in his DVT era that I just pulled up and there's a huge scar across that I really, okay.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so like that's maybe [SPEAKER_00]: twenty years after this like when was men's club a thing really like that feel eight thousand vaguely mid two thousand's yeah yeah so he really got himself good there with it up but yeah and then you have that this aspect of the show and then match that I ended up enjoying that case I can see how you are probably pretty that you are lower on it than I am they did there ends up being in

[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of a shame of what footage we get to kind of build to this. [SPEAKER_00]: There seems to be kind of a beef between Taka Machinoku and Grand Nanoa that they are kind of budding heads and dolphin core. [SPEAKER_00]: And they have a singles match that ends up being one by Taka with one of the most fucking brutal clotheslines of the back of the head I've ever seen.

[SPEAKER_00]: And everything seems to be fine afterwards, but apparently there was the sentient and dolphin core. [SPEAKER_03]: Decision and Delphine Corps, this would begin to stretch on this show with whether TV was laid out where we had a number of matches that were really long, jarring singles match length for Mitch Noku pro at this point in time. [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't feel like any of them were as good as they could have been in this match was slow.

[SPEAKER_03]: And repetitive and I don't think not a lover on it and it was one of the week or talk of our forums as we've seen and it's just it was it was a trend on this show where I thought everything was flat so I'll save some of my my verbiage for later because I don't want to repeat myself too much but I was not in love with this match.

[SPEAKER_00]: The thing there's two things on point on that we can move on with this because I think you're right about it that this was a dry kind of match the thing that stood out for me that ended up liking. [SPEAKER_00]: Talk is now starting to work with a level of snap that I think he picked up doing those new Japan tours. [SPEAKER_00]: that I feel like kind of a rear to tell. [SPEAKER_00]: And it's worth noting, I'm going to run down what this entire card is.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to get the results. [SPEAKER_00]: But just so everyone get a frame of reference on how different this show is in comparison to what we're used to with Mitch and Oku Pro. [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, you have Wellington Wilkins vs. Yakuzaigi to open. [SPEAKER_00]: You have a genesis in Zaki vs. Shiryu match after that that's in the second hour TV. [SPEAKER_00]: Then you have this tag team match that the Kintai tag team match.

[SPEAKER_00]: Then it's a singles talking, Nanoa, Sasuke vs. Otani. [SPEAKER_00]: Main event is Delphine vs. El Samurai. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think outside of Fuka min tournaments. [SPEAKER_00]: There will be many shows that will have over on a six match show five of the matches being singles.

[SPEAKER_00]: And lengthy singles matches at that too, which in Dave's defense on the point he was making earlier, this does kind of do make you think, okay, the card was shook and up and instead of doing five matches, which is what they normally had to do. [SPEAKER_00]: They ended up doing six, which maybe makes me think that they were gonna try to do Sasuke and Samurai versus Otani and Delfin as the main event. [SPEAKER_00]: They couldn't agree on a finish, so they decided to do two singles.

[SPEAKER_00]: That could very easily be it because like they're something about this show that as I'm not now looking at a case that you're absolutely right. [SPEAKER_00]: It's a weird machinoku show and with what happens with Liker I think that the the question has to be asked how much that Liker's injury really shake up what this card was supposed to be originally.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because you have the three dolphin core guys and singles matches instead of doing a match with other people on the roster. [SPEAKER_00]: You have kind of not as a trio when they were working as a trio a lot of the tours. [SPEAKER_00]: Screams me the card was shook enough. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I buy that lot of thinking. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: So after this, we got the L Samurai Backsites promo and a super dolphin backstage promo.

[SPEAKER_00]: We had L Samurai versus super dolphin, super dolphin finally gets a win with the dolphin clutch. [SPEAKER_00]: But that's not the story of the match as dolphin basically spends this match selling the attack that he had at the hands of Kai and Tai two weeks ago and L Samurai dominates other than a dolphin gets on offense does two DDT's does the dolphin clutch and we're out of here. [SPEAKER_03]: It is such a bummer that Samurai does not rise to the occasion.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I found the line of Dave, what he talked about, Liger's broken leg about how Liger at that point was already widely considered to be the greatest junior heavyweight in history. [SPEAKER_03]: When you see the way that ligor approach the misdoku pro relationship and I and I'll give Otani credit because I think the Saskia match here is okay, but Saskia I'm sorry, but Otani was so unbelievably great in that eight-man tag.

[SPEAKER_03]: You just see some of these guys rise to the occasion and then you see some of these guys sleep walk through these appearances and Samurai brought absolutely nothing to this match. [SPEAKER_00]: I've not been a fan of El Samurai, and Mitch and Oku Pro, or showing up in these matches, I feel like out of everyone, out of New Japan. [SPEAKER_00]: And with a guy who has a history with at least Sasuke working in Mexico at the same time, he seems as if the worst chemistry with everyone.

[SPEAKER_00]: And frankly, he does kind of feel like given how Otani was previously to the New Japan or to the Michinoku pro roster case, you would think that he would be the one kind of sleepwalking and not really being [SPEAKER_00]: with it in the match, but instead it was all Samurai. [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I thought that this easily was one of the weaker singles matches that super dolphin has.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's solely because of El Samurai and selling that injury in a way that just the finish happens. [SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, oh, great, super dolphin wins. [SPEAKER_00]: You send the crowd home happy, but you're just, you had to sit through ten minutes of El Samurai kind of just working him over to get to that point. [SPEAKER_00]: With no juice. [SPEAKER_00]: No juice whatsoever. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the end of hour one of the show.

[SPEAKER_00]: The second hour kicks off with sheery versus gin station Zaki. [SPEAKER_00]: And this one felt more like a gin station Zaki match than the match he had against Harry Boy. [SPEAKER_00]: Shin Zaki was back to basically being supernatural for me in this one. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is not not my favorite of his outings, but still I thought of very strong performance from him specifically. [SPEAKER_00]: Notably in this, sure you gets out of the first praying power bomb attempt.

[SPEAKER_00]: He kicks out of a headbutt and a really vicious looking side-rushing leg sweep, and it takes the second attempt of the praying power bomb. [SPEAKER_00]: to put them away. [SPEAKER_00]: And then the last match that we have from the junior and the Buddha festival from September twenty nineteen ninety four. [SPEAKER_00]: The main event at least for champ forum was Shinjaro Otani versus great Sasuke great Sasuke gets the win with the fire thunder power bomb.

[SPEAKER_03]: So this is a tale of two matches because let me look at the match listing here. [SPEAKER_03]: It goes twenty one forty six. [SPEAKER_03]: I think we get close to all of that on TV. [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's very lightly clipped. [SPEAKER_03]: The first eight or nine minutes, Otani looks completely lost in this environment.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I do think it's interesting watching Otani instead of ligar in this spot, injuring Otani, stick out like a sore thumb because he is black ties, black boots, black hair, Junio, he's a nokey, Cito almost. [SPEAKER_03]: And he really sticks out in Mitch Doku. [SPEAKER_03]: It looks very awkward. [SPEAKER_03]: It looks very odd. [SPEAKER_03]: I think this match starts dreadfully boring.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then by the end, you started to see Otani play the hits, you see Sasuke play the hits, and you have an okay match from there. [SPEAKER_03]: But this one took a long time to get going. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I felt like that Otani, I think I noticed like when he's out of kind of, when he's uncomfortable, he kind of evolves into shark tendencies. [SPEAKER_00]: And he ended up kind of like eating up Sasuke during like that seven minutes that I thought was kind of interesting.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, completely. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, but because like the one big thing about Sasuke on this episode, Sasuke decides to do a lot of Matt wrestling and one day maybe he becomes proficient at it, but it's it is kind of amusing to see Sasuke have to do like seven minutes of Matt reps wrestling with someone who just completely eats him up and the crowds there for it though. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's okay. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, he grabs therefore to them by the end.

[SPEAKER_03]: You start to see, I think, just through sheer willpower, Sasuke in nineteen ninety four, not accepting the idea of possibly having a bad match. [SPEAKER_03]: And so he brings Otani up a level. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think those two together have a great six or seven minutes. [SPEAKER_03]: I believe [SPEAKER_03]: that did choose to have this match on his website, but he had it joined in progress. [SPEAKER_03]: He cut out all the fat at the start.

[SPEAKER_03]: And when you watch the thing in full, like there's, there's, there's some matches that didch would edit that way. [SPEAKER_03]: There's specifically, there's a, there's a, there's a Draingate match. [SPEAKER_03]: There's two out of three false triangle gate match. [SPEAKER_03]: that ditch cuts out the first two falls and just puts the third one in. [SPEAKER_03]: But when you watch the thing unfold, you're like, what are you thinking? [SPEAKER_03]: This whole match is great.

[SPEAKER_03]: When you watch something like Sasuke versus Otani, you go, wow, I really like the way he cut up that match because the ending is so much better than the beginning. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and you get like little aspects of like talk is that ringside for this match in the closing moments. [SPEAKER_00]: You also get the idea of a Otani kind of losing it when he gets what when a Sasuke basically a last-gas kicks out of the Dragon Soup Lux.

[SPEAKER_00]: And those were like the moments of it that kind of got me more enamored with Otani. [SPEAKER_00]: Him just going like, I can't believe this is happening to me. [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's just like the idea of putting someone who is, as you put that, as you say, a nokey c-to and put them into like these act opposite of strong style. [SPEAKER_00]: And that amuses me in there, it pains me.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, just the whole, I mean, you think about the way that Otani presents himself and the way that Otani looks. [SPEAKER_03]: And then you go back to the last episode we did with Kendo and Superboy and Piletto, so we'll see it in Sasuke, big Sasuke. [SPEAKER_03]: And it's just that the dichotomy there is very funny. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like no wonder this guy really had a big issue when Terry Boy showed up, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I mean, like after this match, like Otani seems like he's bawling afterwards. [SPEAKER_00]: Like he, aplectically, shakes, socks guys hand. [SPEAKER_00]: He does a bunch of really pronounced deep bow and maybe he just kind of at that moment realized that pro wrestling is much more than anokia's in my guess. [SPEAKER_03]: That's a beautiful thing when you come to that realization. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, if only Antonio and Oki found that out, twenty years before.

[SPEAKER_03]: What have been, what have been a different world, but nevertheless, that is the Mitch Doku Pro show for September, twenty-nine, nineteen, ninety-four. [SPEAKER_03]: One that I would label a disappointing one at best. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, I would recommend Sasuke versus Otani for the novelty of it. [SPEAKER_03]: Is there anything that you think people should go out of the way to watch? [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's cool to see Kiantai, especially early Kiantai.

[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're watching the match with the idea of seeing them kind of eat up people, that's worth going out of your way for. [SPEAKER_00]: If you're a Diktogo fan wanting to see Diktogo finally start to work heal, absolutely, it's worth that. [SPEAKER_00]: But it's such a weird show that I don't think the weirdness really sunk in until we start talking about it. [SPEAKER_03]: Speaking of anokism, we will end with this.

[SPEAKER_03]: We'll go back to New Japan for some observer notes and then one match that I want to talk about here real quick before we get out of here. [SPEAKER_03]: We do have the October twenty fifth nineteen ninety four observer in which Davis talking about these super junior tag league and he writes that the round robin portion of that super junior tag tournament.

[SPEAKER_03]: ended on ten fifteen going into the final day great Sasuke and Black Tiger had finished up the competition with a five and two record while while Pegasus and Shinjuro Tani were foreign to as were Malenko and each isawa and Mitch Noku and Delphin Honega and Hamanah finished up four and three while two cold Scorpion El Samurai were three and three Motegi and Kamakaze were one and six with their only win coming via forfeit and food and there you go Kamakaze there you go

[SPEAKER_03]: uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh

[SPEAKER_03]: The entire week was interesting, this is David's writing, and that with the junior heavyweight's working with the on top of the card, it meant the usual main adventures went on early and Tetsuma Fujianami and Ricky Choshu even worked tag match openers. [SPEAKER_03]: The experiment worked again since every show this week sold out and interest in the junior league seems to be far more than the heavyweight tournament that starts on ten nineteen.

[SPEAKER_03]: I will pause here because I think it's worth noting [SPEAKER_03]: that Liger was the main draw for this tour, a lot of these tickets would have been sold before a Liger got injured, but you see it tournament being driven by Sasuke and Black Tiger on top with Mitch Noku and Delphin in the mix is a tournament that is undoubtedly being marked as a commercial success in New Japan, Pro Wrestling in nineteen ninety four at the same time

[SPEAKER_03]: As a Hashimoto, Fujanami, Choshu, Muto, led promotion, the juniors are equaling them with the box office and outdoing them in terms of interest in the tag tournament. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and I think when you really look at where New Japan's divisions were [SPEAKER_00]: It's a real credit to the booking of LIGER and his willingness to go outside of the sandbox when you can trust that with kind of the stuff that would happen in the heavyweight side.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that even though all these tickets were kind of sold by LIGER, it's really like you've set up a division to have [SPEAKER_00]: someone that is such a, and it's nothing to speak ill of the guy.

[SPEAKER_00]: But in the greater schemes of things, such a complete zero, like Norio Hanagawa, being the injury champion, and things are just completely too, are still completely off to the races without liger when you look at the kind of matches that they would have, and just the general state of that division.

[SPEAKER_00]: What division, what companies division, which you want to take more in nineteen ninety four, given what we've seen, [SPEAKER_00]: I think I would take New Japan and senior heavyweight division over anywhere else in the world at that time. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the only competition, I think, could be the AAA roster, or I mean, if you really love the high-end stuff from all Japan, but there's, there's a level of depth in that junior division that is, that is spectacular.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it's the, it's the kind of depth that was really only seen. [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe twenty years later that twenty fifteen to twenty seventeen new Japan juniors division when you would have. [SPEAKER_03]: The bucks and a rally on fish and then the emergence of Osprey and you know mascara Dorada Kushida guys like that but it's. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a very rare thing for a juniors division to be that to be that loaded.

[SPEAKER_03]: Which is what Dave writes about in the October seventeen nineteen ninety four wrestling observer news letter. [SPEAKER_03]: He does a very in-depth look on the piracy in that large. [SPEAKER_03]: I would highly recommend going back and reading that if that sounds interesting to you.

[SPEAKER_03]: And in the New Japan section, he writes, New Japan shines in the junior heavyweight division with a crew that is led by the now injured Jewish and Thunder Liger [SPEAKER_03]: probably the best of all time of that division, the solid and underrated El Samurai, Future SuperSarsion Girootani, and some great foreign regulars led by Wild Pegasus Black Tiger and Dean Melenko. [SPEAKER_03]: In addition, the division is augmented by wrestlers from smaller groups.

[SPEAKER_03]: In particular, Mitch Knokupro's Super Delphine and Great Sasuke, the latter of whom has become something of a mainstream celebrity this year. [SPEAKER_03]: Its Jacob tournament on four or sixteen was probably the best wrestling show of the year, and its annual January fourth show at the Tokyo Dome, [SPEAKER_03]: with both its history and gate success ranks with WrestleMania as the biggest wrestling show on any given year.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's really when you like take a stop, we take a sock of it. [SPEAKER_00]: They've really like her. [SPEAKER_00]: If there was a way to go into the into Hall of Fame as a wrestler, and then also as a booker, I think ninety-fourths is argument for that, you know?

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, let me steal a phrase from a fellow podcaster when Bill Simmons, everyone wants to while talks about an actor's apex mountain, you know, the very peak of his career is ninety-four what we would mark as Liger's apex mountain. [SPEAKER_00]: I think he saw some stuff in ninety five that I still at that level. [SPEAKER_03]: But think about the power that he was able to be able to share where he he creates the Jacob. [SPEAKER_03]: He sells it out in advance.

[SPEAKER_03]: It becomes one of the greatest shows of all time. [SPEAKER_03]: He then is able to forge a relationship with Mitch Noku Pro, which would be like a record label signing an indie band with a ton of buzz. [SPEAKER_03]: He's able to form a working relationship there. [SPEAKER_03]: He's phenomenal in the ring, and he's phenomenal behind the scenes. [SPEAKER_03]: He might have great other years.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, look, two thousand, three Liger work in Noah is, I guess, two thousand, two Liger work in Noah is one of my favorite wrestlers to ever exist. [SPEAKER_03]: But in terms of him at the peak of his powers on an off screen, [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it might be nineteen ninety four. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, I think you sold me on it. [SPEAKER_00]: And that leads us to the last match that we have for this.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's the finals of the super junior, I'm sorry, the super grade junior heavyweight weight tagly finals between the the teams of Black Tiger two and the great Sasuke versus Wild Pegasist and Jiro Otani. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, this is not going to be a big shock. [SPEAKER_00]: This is easily the best match of the episode that we have.

[SPEAKER_00]: And honestly, when I was talking about really falling to Otani, this was the match where I was just like, God, that they made the guy in this match. [SPEAKER_00]: And he felt like an absolute killer coming out of it. [SPEAKER_03]: It Dave has this four and three quarters. [SPEAKER_03]: I would not have it that high, but I put it in here because I do think it is essential viewing because you're once again. [SPEAKER_00]: I had it four and a quarter.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so that's where I would have it as well. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's notable because again, you have the Otani performance, which is, which is notable because as we move along here in the nineteen ninety five, it's not like Pegasus and Tiger are gonna hang around New Japan all that much longer. [SPEAKER_03]: So they need to restock the pond, which is another credit to LIGER for sort of, I guess Pegasus is there. [SPEAKER_03]: I take that back.

[SPEAKER_03]: He works all of ninety five. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't realize he was a new Japan that long. [SPEAKER_00]: Wow. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_00]: I know. [SPEAKER_00]: Uh, I think he makes the dome in ninety six. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's it. [SPEAKER_03]: Wow. [SPEAKER_03]: I did not. [SPEAKER_03]: I thought he was out at the end of ninety four. [SPEAKER_03]: It's out of the end of ninety five.

[SPEAKER_03]: But anyways, it always it always helps to have another guy in the mix to get that guy with Otonny there. [SPEAKER_03]: And it's also Sasuke headlining a show. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, this is the Okiyama Prefectorial Gymnasium. [SPEAKER_03]: Four thousand people sold out ten eighteen ninety four. [SPEAKER_03]: And you see Sasuke in the ring with people that we consider to be historical all-time grades.

[SPEAKER_03]: You know, Eddie Guerrero, Crispin, Washington, Arizona, and Sasuke's right there doing the damn thing and doing it quite well. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, given his performances across the year, I know that he peaks much higher during Super J Cup, and that's just one of those things that there are certain nights that people are able to ascend to Godhood and pro wrestling, and that was the night that he ascended. [SPEAKER_00]: But this one felt like a lot smoother one.

[SPEAKER_00]: We always know that [SPEAKER_00]: that that Sasuke, there will be a crash and burn factor out of it, but I mean, you look at where he was basically six months after Super J Cup and where he was at Super J Cup and he's much more a refined major league pro wrestler at this point. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's the thing.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's actually [SPEAKER_03]: It's a really well-rounded Sasuke performance that given what we normally get from him is less exciting than normal because he rarely cheats death, which is just a strange occurrence for him.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no, no, no, it's just like, and it works in the match because when he goes for the k-brought of the crowd just loses it at that point like it in a lot of ways like we especially with a match with ligor like we saw the amount of crash and burn in the crowd dialing into it. [SPEAKER_00]: I think [SPEAKER_00]: you gave them the big taste.

[SPEAKER_00]: Now you make them pay for it and you make them sit through fifteen minutes before you get the Sasuke crash and burns and that shows a much more remarkably refined wrestler and I can't believe I'm actually saying that since about great Sasuke. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, look, it's less refined than some all-time grates, uh, whatever. [SPEAKER_03]: But there, there is something really to that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's, uh, this is a very good match to look at the evolution of Sasuke. [SPEAKER_03]: You think about what he's doing at the end of ninety three with Otani. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm sorry, with O'Nita compared to what he's doing now at the end of ninety four. [SPEAKER_03]: from a career perspective and the stature that he rose to and then also just from the way that he presented himself as a wrestler.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's it's why we're doing this series is to highlight things like that. [SPEAKER_03]: And Sasuke is nineteen ninety four is is his apex mountain. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, we'll we'll finish up nineteen ninety four in the next episode just to not jump ahead too quick, but [SPEAKER_03]: It's a very special year for Sasuke and I think that's why this match used to be in our match listing. [SPEAKER_03]: If you get the chance, Mike, because I don't think you did this.

[SPEAKER_03]: The semi final match is Tiger and Sasuke versus Hamada and Hanaga worth watching as well. [SPEAKER_00]: All right, I'll hunt that one down. [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, and you get a level of inventiveness in this match that I don't think you get to see a new Japan in nineteen ninety four two that is worth going and saying I mean there was a wild that this match was kind of built around doomsay moves and that the

[SPEAKER_00]: the reaction of the crowd first for like just doomsday dropkicks and then in the closing stretch they turn what might have been when the first like doomsday to hear us that that I have seen at least like thinking like nineteen ninety four and instead black tiger turns it into a power bomb for nearfall going into a stretch where Otani gets the one over tiger with the dragon suplex hold and for nineteen ninety four this is a

[SPEAKER_00]: In twenty twenty five eyes a remarkably modern kind of closing stretch for a junior heavyweight match. [SPEAKER_03]: I agree and there's there's a few of these spots. [SPEAKER_03]: These really high-risk spots that I don't know if they go the way that they were planning on. [SPEAKER_03]: There's some gnarly gnarly bumps in this match, but everybody makes it out alive and everybody makes it out and it is for them for them for them for them.

[SPEAKER_03]: So really a quite exciting match when you when you look at some of those big bumps, but we know the long-term ramifications not ideal. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, Saskia is still here. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah, he's a real normal well-adjusted guy. [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, when he's the one that you point to as the good one was like, I did not mean to go that dark there. [SPEAKER_03]: No, no, it was worth it. [SPEAKER_03]: It's the end of the episode. [SPEAKER_03]: Why not?

[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, no next week or next edition of those days, case, it's an episode that I've been waiting for. [SPEAKER_00]: And I think I was expecting to happen a lot sooner than this, guys. [SPEAKER_00]: Give the folks at home a preview. [SPEAKER_03]: So next time on those days, we will finally get into it, Sasuke versus Anita double hell death match. [SPEAKER_03]: We will break down that with excerpts from great Sasuke's book and his thoughts on that match.

[SPEAKER_03]: We will also go to all Japan women. [SPEAKER_03]: And breakdown the Mitch Noku pro six man tag there. [SPEAKER_03]: We will briefly talk about Hakuci's WWE TV debut. [SPEAKER_03]: And then we will close out nineteen ninety four with two episodes of Mitch Noku pro TV. [SPEAKER_03]: A lot of footage will be watched between now and we will record that episode and it is all stuff that I am very, very excited about.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just the preview stuff that I have seen that Sasuke has done to build up this matches incredible. [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I've been waiting to post the Sasuke helicopter clip for months now. [SPEAKER_00]: It's an all timer. [SPEAKER_00]: It's an all timer and that will be next time on those days. [SPEAKER_00]: If you would like to support open the voice gate, you can do that on social media. [SPEAKER_00]: We are on both Twitter and Blue Sky at Open Voice Gate.

[SPEAKER_00]: if you would like to donate to the show. [SPEAKER_00]: Did just being completely frank, the money that gets donated goes straight into things that we do for those days. [SPEAKER_00]: I have some stuff that we are that I was able to do that we will be bringing for future episodes of those days that was brought to you by the donations. [SPEAKER_00]: So thank y'all.

[SPEAKER_00]: For those, as well, if you want to join the conversation, the best place to do it is at the Voices of Wrestling Discord. [SPEAKER_00]: There is a Dragon Gate channel for Open the Voice Gate. [SPEAKER_00]: If you are listening to this far and don't know that we are normally a Dragon Gate podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: We have the Dragon Gate section there, but also the Open The Voice Gate channel.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's where, especially for those days episodes, we will have all of the match listings posted there with links and, as well, any other notes and discussions going on there. [SPEAKER_00]: But next time, we will be back to talk about Sasuke versus Anita Double Hell Death Match. [SPEAKER_00]: Take care, everyone.