Ryan's Dive into '95 - Part One (1/1 - 1/7)
Featuring the 1/4 Tokyo Dome show, Joshi, a WON award-winning contest, and...*sigh* Boots the Cat.
If you haven’t read it already, please check out my introductory article that explains what this series is all about. As a reminder, footage is sourced from the Goodhelmet 1995 Yearbook, unless otherwise stated.
Good day!
Alright, let’s jump into the first week of January 1995!
JANUARY 2nd
WWF Monday Night RAW - What better way to “kick” off this series than with a vignette introducing Kama, the SUPREME Fighting Machine. COMING SOON TO THE WWF!
Get it? “Kick” off the series? Because he kicks a lot.
Tough crowd.
He rides a motorcycle and does martial arts on people!
Unlike Veer, we didn't have to wait long for Kama to come, debuting just over a week later.
Honestly, though, compared to some of the hot garbo that we saw and would continue to see around this time, this was far from the worst. At least Kama looked cool (especially when he got rid of the white undershirt), and it was a step up over the occupation-related gimmicks that were gumming up the works at the time. It was also an improvement over his previous incarnation, Papa Shango. It took me longer than I care to admit to figure out that Kama and Papa Shango were the same guy.
Kama didn't exactly set the ring on fire, so we probably won't be seeing much bell-to-bell action from him during the course of this series. If nothing else, us senior citizens will remember him melting down fellow Bone Street Krew-er The Undertaker's urn and making this SICK gold chain:
JANUARY 3rd
ECW Hardcore TV - We mark our first foray into the Land of Extreme™ with a delightful music video for Mikey Whipwreck. Set to “Loser” by Beck, it's a compilation of poor Mikey being a tackling dummy for ECW alumni The Tazmaniac, 911, Mike Awesome, and Mr. Hughes, with his fluke title wins over Pitbull Gary Wolfe (for the ECW TV title) and with Cactus Jack over The Public Enemy for the tag belts closing things out.
WWWA Tag Team Championship, 2/3 Falls: Double Inoue (Kyoko Inoue & Takako Inoue) (c) vs. Manami Toyota & Sakie Hasegawa - (This was broadcast on 1/16/95, but taped on Korakuen Hall on either 1/3 or 1/4. Goodhelmet places it on 1/4, but other sources such as Cagematch place it on 1/3, so I’ll put it here.)
Well, this is certainly a hell of a way to kick off the in-ring portion of the review series. I will admit that, while I have watched and enjoyed some Joshi from around this time, I wouldn't call myself an expert, so I apologize if I miss some subtleties here and there. I’ve watched a lot of matches that came on various comps and collections, and the odd show here and there, but I never did any kind of deep dive into Joshi. That may need to change. I do know that Manami Toyota is very awesome and is on the run of a lifetime, and I quite enjoy Kyoko.
First fall - As with a lot of Joshi I've seen, this has a ridiculous pace and insane moves. You'll regularly see stuff that you haven't seen done before or since, which is one reason why these matches tend to hold up over time. Double Inoue controls the pace at the start, working over Hasegawa. Kyoko at one point has Sakie in a torture rack position, then yeets her across the ring. Awesome! The Inoues punish and humiliate Hasegawa with double-team submissions until Sakie finally makes the tag to Toyota, turning the tide of the match. The challengers even lock in their own double-team submissions to give Double Inoue a taste of their own medicine.
Double Inoue regain the upper hand, this time working over Toyota's leg, but this doesn't last long until the crazy pacing, big moves, and near-falls start to REALLY kick in. I try to avoid doing overly-detailed play-by-play, and that choice is really paying dividends here because there's absolutely no way I can do this stuff justice. All four fly around and throw each other around until Hasegawa secures the first fall with a tornado DDT on Kyoko. Holy shit, that first fall by itself would be an awesome match, but we have at least one more fall to go!
Second fall - Much like the first fall, Hasegawa starts off eating punishment, this time getting DDT'd into oblivion until Toyota comes to the rescue. The second fall ends fairly quickly after a diving knee from Takako puts Hasegawa down.
Third fall - It almost looks like Hasegawa was going to take punishment yet again to start the fall, but she smartly evades Kyoko and tags in Toyota. However, Double Inoue quickly regain the advantage and work over Hasegawa with submissions for a bit before Toyota comes back in. Things get crazier when Toyota attempts to moonsault and splash both opponents through tables in the crowd! Of course, the table doesn't break, because Japanese tables.
Back in the ring, a Japanese Ocean Cyclone Suplex gets a VERY close two on Kyoko, thanks to a last-second save from Takako. Some double-team moves result in more believable near falls before Kyoko hits a top rope ankle scissors on Toyota for the pin to retain.
****3/4 - Sweet mother of God, that was a hell of a match to get us started. This was worked at a breakneck pace for nearly 30 minutes, with a couple of slower periods to make the speedier segments all that more impactful. There were crazy near-falls that got the blood pumping, but not too many where it becomes excessive or unbelievable. The only knocks I would have against the match is that the knee work at the beginning didn’t really lead to much, and the finish, while fairly neat, came off as slightly anti-climatic compared to what came beforehand, but these are only minor quibbles in the grand scheme of things. Toyota was the standout, but all four women put in an absolutely killer effort. Fantastic match, highly recommended. Watch it here!
JANUARY 4th
NJPW Battle 7 - It's January 4th, so of course we're getting that sweet, sweet Tokyo Dome action courtesy of The Nooj.
UWA World Welterweight Championship: Shinjiro Otani (c) vs. El Samurai - Well, there’s a title you don’t see much of anymore. The UWA World Welterweight Championship originated in Mexico in 1975 and was primarily contested for in Mexican and Japanese promotions until it was phased out in 2004.
I have always felt that El Samurai is one of the most slept-on NJPW juniors from that time. He was never the most “blow-your-balls-off“ worker, but dude was consistently rock-solid. Otani's young, with chip firmly on shoulder. All the best to him while he recovers from his spinal injury.
I gotta say, I'm digging the all-red variant of Samurai's attire. Some matwork starts us off, which is standard for a lot of NJPW juniors matches from around this time. They tend to start off slowly, then build to the more fast-paced or high-impact stuff. Otani has an aggression that more befits a pissed-off veteran than a 22-year old, yet he's still able to get the crowd behind him as a sympathetic babyface. That aggression also makes slower segments much interesting. I love it.
Samurai takes over, hitting a lot of big moves to work over the neck, including a piledriver, neckbreaker, brainbuster, and a tombstone, while Otani gets in some hope spots along the way.
Otani spends a good portion of the match fighting from underneath, getting the crowd very much on his side and fired up for his comebacks. I will never not love Otani's springboard dropkick or El Samurai's powerbomb, which he hits twice for a near-fall. Otani finishes things off by slipping out of a brainbuster and nailing a Dragon Suplex for the three.
***1/2 - this was a very solid way to open a Tokyo Dome card. This leaned more into the big moves and didn't go overly long (around 15 minutes), which is very smart for a stadium show opener. Otani did a terrific job as the underdog while Samurai was customarily dependable for a good show. Not a blow-away match, but doesn't need to be for its place on the card.
IWGP Tag Team Championship: Keiji Muto & Hiroshi Hase (c) vs. The Steiner Brothers (Rick & Scott Steiner) -
Well, hello!
Steiners in Japan is a textbook example of My Shit™. Well, the Steiners in general, really, but these guys really let it hang out when they're in the Land of the Rising Sun. Current Ishikawa Prefecture governor Hiroshi Hase is usually dependable for a great performance. He's also kind of a shithead. Muto, who fucking rules, is rocking the orange trunks. As of 2022, he is on his retirement tour. We'll see about THAT.
The teams trade holds for the first portion of the match, with both teams’ aptitude for grappling making it more interesting than it sounds. At one point, Hase rolls outside and gets a kiss from his wife who is sitting in the front row. Not to be outdone, Rick goes ringside and kisses another woman on the cheek, though she's looking at her friend going “the fuck is he doing?”.
Yeah, that was weird.
Muto taking the piss out of Rick's mannerisms and barking will never not pop me. Steiners take control after about 10 minutes, working over Hase with wear-down holds, submissions, and power moves. Hase manages to tag in Muto, who keeps Rick at bay with some dropkicks and his sweet backspring elbow. He goes for the “running down the ridiculously long Tokyo Dome ramp” clothesline (POP).
Somehow, against all odds, Rick and Scott had time to anticipate the move and Scott counters with his own clothesline. This allows the Steiners to take over the match again, this time working over Muto with suplexes and slams aplenty, only broken up when a four-man melee results in Scott and Muto hitting stereo Frankensteiners!
Muto makes the tag and Hiroshi is a Hase afire…
Uranage and Giant Swing get a sizeable pop from the Tokyo crowd. Things break down from there, with both teams throwing bombs out there until Hase pins Rick with a Northern Lights Suplex!
**** - This was quite the blend of Rock ‘n Roll Express extended formula and heavyweight slugfest. Both teams suplexing the shit out of each other is always a good time. Things got a bit dicey at the end (at one point, Hase seemed to forget to kick out of a pin attempt, so the ref stopped counting), and it ran a bit longer than it needed to at nearly half an hour, but this was still a great watch regardless. Fans of Big Move wrestling should check this out.
IWGP Heavyweight Championship: Shinya Hashimoto (c) vs. Kensuke Sasaki -
Hash is in the middle of what would become a year-long reign as IWGP Heavyweight Champion. Sasaki is young and delightfully mulleted.
I came in expecting both guys to slap, kick, lariat, and power-move the turd out of each other, and I am not disappointed. Sasaki surprisingly gets the upper hand after a strike exchange before things are taken to the mat, with Sasaki keeping Hash grounded. He makes the mistake of slapping Hash repeatedly, awakening an angry, sideburned grizzly bear.
Sasaki hurts his arm when Hash counters a lariat, leading to a segment where Hash works over the arm. Hash hits a missile dropkick (yeah!), but Sasaki stops a second top rope move attempt with an avalanche powerslam! Holy shit! Sasaki nails a powerbomb and Hash's got hardaway color!
Sasaki continues to throw impressive power moves at Hash and tried to secure the title with the strangle hold, but Hash returns fire with brutal strikes and DDTs before putting Sasaki down with a fisherman's buster to retain.
****1/4 - Another beefy, hard-hitting match from this show. Hash EARNED that victory as a young Sasaki brought the fight. This got very exciting towards the end, and both guys put in the work. A very sturdy main-event here.
Now, before we move onto the next scheduled segment, there is a rather (in)famous match from this show that was not included on the original Goodhelmet comp. Because I'm feeling generous/sadistic, I'm going to include it as a “bonus”. Will I do more bonus matches in future parts? Who knows. But for now, enjoy…
"The Final Countdown BVD" tournament semi final: Sting vs Tony Palmore - Yes, it's the award-winning “match” between Sting (the wrestler, not the musician) and American kickboxer Tony Palmore (in his first, and only, foray into wrestling). That award was, of course, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter's Worst Worked Match of the Year for 1995. This must be especially putrid considering it held onto that distinction for nearly a year against some stiff competition.
The tournament is named after NJPW sponsor BVD, a brand of men's underpants. I love Inoki, I really do, but his unique vision of wrestling can produce some truly wild stuff. Poor Tony has to pull his punches and kicks, resulting in strikes that are super-soft, like a birthday party in Letterkenny. Dude's kickboxing glory days are a couple of decades behind him as well, which just adds to the geekshow appeal. There's also the novelty of Sting, the most American-style wrestler to Americanly wrestle, having to work shoot-style.
To his credit, Palmore does get in a couple of nice axe kicks. However, Sting catches a kick, goes “fuck it”, and slaps on the Scorpion Deathlock. In a worked shoot. For the submission.
DUD - Dazzling, Utterly Dazzling. Yeah, this was quite awful, but I can't go lower than DUD because it was mercifully short, and it's just too bizarre to truly hate. It was just a weird clash between a legit fighter ill-suited for a worked match and a pro wrestler ill-suited for shoot-style. Did it deserve the Worst Match award? Probably not. There's much worse from 1995, which may come up during this review series. Definitely worth a watch if you’re up for a cheap laugh.
Now, back to the Yearbook proper.
JANUARY 7th
We head back to ‘Murica for some southern-flavored segments from January 7th to close out the first part of the review series.
USWA Championship Wrestling - First, we stop by the WMC-TV 5 studio in Memphis for some USWA. The late Scott Bowden, playing the rich kid manager/worked nephew of Florida State coach Bobby Bowden, comes out with his charges (Tommy Rich and Doug Gilbert) to run down PG-13, calling them “white trash” among other things.
Doug Gilbert says stuff, but not much of note. Not really terrible or anything, but definitely nowhere near as engaging a promo as his brother Eddie. Rich fares much better, cutting a fired-up promo about how JC Ice is riding his father's coattails, Ice's father being “Superstar” Bill Dundee, and ripping on Wolfie D's family in general.
PG-13, who were doing a “white dudes from the hood” gimmick similar to ECW's The Public Enemy, have HAD ENOUGH, and we get a good-ol’ Memphis brawl, just in time for a WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS!
We come back to PG-13 at the interview desk for their retort. Wolfie and JC cut some good, firey babyface promos on Rich and Gilbert. One thing you'll find in Memphis is that a lot of these guys can TALK. We may not see much in the way of banger matches from these southern studio shows, but you definitely get some fire angles and promos.
Smoky Mountain Wrestling - The first appearance from Jerry “The King” Lawler in our series is surprisingly not from the USWA or the WWF, but from Smoky Mountain Wrestling. The King’s here to build up to a match with SMW's top babyface and heavyweight champion, Dirty White Boy (can't see THAT name getting much traction nowadays). Lawler talks to a dude under a pile of laundry, pretending it's DWB.
Lawler plays up Knoxville vs. Memphis during this promo. DON'T MISS SUPER SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER!
Later that episode, we revisit the Cactus Jack and Tracy Smothers vs. Chris Candido and Boo Bradley falls count anywhere match from Christmas Chaos (which took place on Christmas Day 1994). We clip to the ending where Bradley (the future Balls Mahoney playing a ‘simpleton’ character who has been horribly mistreated by Candido and Tammy Fytch) splashes Candido by mistake, resulting in Cactus and Smothers taking the dub.
Afterwards, Bradley and Candido have it out in the ring, resulting in Boo turning on Candido to a big pop. Candido ousts Bradley from the ring and Tammy and Candido stuff Boots (Bradley's cat) into a bag.
Oh, fuck me, I know where THIS is going.
We clip to a bit later on where Bradley and Candido resume hostilities until Fytch blinds Boo with hairspray. Oh, Jesus, Candido drops a fucking leg onto Boots! He kills the fucking cat! On Christmas night!
Understandably, Boo goes apeshit and takes out his rage on referee Mark Curtis and…a Power Ranger.
Cactus Jack comes out to comfort Boo and they make nice.
We then cut to Candido and Fytch cutting a promo. Fytch is suspended from Smoky Mountain, but Candido is not per the request of Cactus and Boo.
We then cut to Cactus and Boo at Boots’ gravesite.
God bless Mick for trying get this shit over, but…
We close out January 7th (how in the hell are you still reading?) with some highlights of The Gangstas vs. The Rock ‘n Roll Express from the aforementioned Christmas Chaos show.
For some reason, the old white announcers saying “Gangstas” and “Posse” is funny as hell to me. It's like listening to your dad complain about rap. These two teams have been feuding over the SMW tag belts for months at this point. We're joined in progress where Ricky Morton hot-tags Robert Gibson, who ends up pinning New Jack for the tag titles after Morton whacks him with Jim Cornette's tennis racket. You see, for this match, Jim Cornette proposed that he be in the RnR's corner to level the playing field against the Gangstas, as he wants to be the one to run the Rock N’ Roll out of wrestling due to their antagonistic history. Everyone is expecting Jimbo to fuck them over, though.
After the match, the Gangstas beat down the babyfaces until Corny comes into the ring, gesturing as if he was going to attack the Express, but this was a RUSE! He actually smacks both Gangstas with the tennis racket…at least until the Ganstas beat the shit out of all three, even drawing blood from Cornette! A much younger, larger D'Lo Brown joins in on the beatings.
This doesn't last much longer until Cactus Jack and Dirty White Boy clear the ring.
We then cut to Jim Cornette cutting a promo from home. He explains that he was going to leave Morton and Gibson to get torn apart by the Gangstas, but he heard the fans pleading with him to save poor Ricky and Robert, so ego took over. He then lets us know that he called on the Heavenly Bodies to help him gain retribution against the Gangstas.
Whew, that was an eventful first week. You get bangers like the Joshi match and the top Tokyo Dome matches, and some absolute crap like the Palmore “fight” and the Boots saga.
NEXT TIME: A barbed-wire death match! A weapons cage match! William Shatner! WCW shows up! And MUCH MORE!
See you again soon!