.:: Rainbow Promotions, 6th
February 2002 ::.
Review by Jay, 21st July 2002
Well,
here it is. The first of review of many to come here at Ruby Frosion
Reviews. Before we go any further, perhaps I should introduce the site and
myself. I’m Jay - although some of you may be familiar with me over at
Highspots.com moderating under the moniker gaijinTIGER - a wrestling fan for
pretty much my whole life and a puroresu enthusiast. I really have no online
writing credentials other than being a completely non-biased wrestling fan
who will be able to offer an impartial view on various shows and matters,
hopefully of some help to you! As for the website, Ruby Frosion Reviews was
the brainchild of myself and three fellow puroresu fans about 6 months ago,
but sadly, despite recruiting two more people to provide US/UK reviews, we
failed to actually get around to getting the site off the ground, thanks to
various other preoccupations. However, now we’re bored with too much time on
our hands, we have decided to try again, albeit with just four of the
original line-up (those being myself, Tom, Ben and Chris). And as a result,
here is the fruit of our work!
So, onto the review. For my first one I’ve chosen the debut Rainbow
Promotions show from 6th February this year, a variety show
backed by a rich corporation featuring talent from all over the Japanese
independent circuit. The main reason I chose this over some of the other
candidates for my first review (everything from the sublime T2P shows to
some classic M-Pro, with a bit of MMA in between) is that the show is
accessible to any puroresu fan, new or old. For newcomers to the sport, it’s
a great chance to see the big independent names and the many styles, whilst
for puroresu veterans it can be a real nostalgia trip. With than in mind,
I’m hoping this will be of some help most of you out there!
This would be a good time to explain our reviewing structure. Rather than
opting for a play-by-play style (to be honest, who can top Stuart’s PBP
reviews over at Wrestling Viewpoint?), the main focus of our reviews is the
thought process you go through after seeing the tape/matches; i.e. how
entertaining it was, how good the work-rate was, how fresh and innovative it
was, and was it worth the money!!! We’ll be commenting on each individual
match, discussing what was good and what was bad (maybe with examples of the
relevant sequences), before concluding with appropriate recommendations
based not just on work-rate but on entertainment too. In all fairness,
ultimately it comes down to how much you’ll enjoy the tape, and we hope to
offer an unbiased viewpoint on this. So, without further ado, we open with a JWP vs. ARSION match…
Azumi Hyuga & Tsubasa Kuragaki vs. Michiko Ohmukai &
Ai Fujita
Now this is exactly what I meant earlier about new puroresu fans being able
to get a taste of many of the different styles on offer in Japan. Straight
away we get to see the girls from ARSION and JWP, and it really is a wake-up
call seeing joshi (Japanese women’s pro wrestling) stars for the first time
if all you’ve been used to is WWF/E. For me, this was my first time seeing
JWP girls in action (I’m a huge ARSION mark, however), and as far as show
openers go, it isn’t bad at all! The match is joined in progress, but we run
through the trademarks of the ladies involved (Fujita space rolling elbow
and front dropkicks, Ohmukai’s Black Tiger Bomb and Shining Wizard, and I’m
guessing Kuragaki’s moonsault is one of her specialities) throughout, giving
a perfect introduction. The execution is very crisp and fairly balanced,
with one exception, which REALLY lets the match down, that being Billichiko
Ohmberg, who spends the entire match completely no selling everything and
being selfish. This includes getting straight up after a tiger suplex, and
silly little things like at one point where Ohmukai is trying a tiger suplex,
Hyuga slips out but is met with a kick to the back, yet when the same thing
happens but vice-versa, Ohmukai lands a stiff overhead kick. Her execution
also leaves lots of room for improvement here (which is a mere shadow of her
past, oh-so-awesome self), as she manages to lose Kuragaki on her BT Bomb,
and hit a horribly horrendous face crusher late on. This is all whilst
Fujita is hitting her high flying antics and rolling reverse figure four
absolutely perfectly, and the JWP girls are working almost machine like,
reminding me a lot of Benoit and Malenko for some reason. In the end, it
comes down to a (surprisingly good looking) shining wizard from Ohmukai
which seals it. As I said earlier, and entertaining match, if you can just
ignore the awful antics from Ohmukai. I really hope she picks it up soon, as
she was at one point a personal favourite of mine.
Commando Bolshoi and Asian Cougar vs. Ikuto Hidaka and
Ran YuYu
Once again, this features a great mix of indy talent. Cougar is from DDT and
hugely popular on the internet, infamous for his legdrops. Commando Bolshoi/PIKO
is an ex-JWP/ARSION josh wrestler who, standing at 4’11, has real face
appeal. Ikuto Hidaka is Minoru Fujita’s old tag partner from BattlArts, who
now wrestles with M-Pro, whilst Ran YuYu (or should that be YuYu Ran?) is
the former Tomoko Miyaguchi, AJW and JWP star. This match is really, really
entertaining. Instantly we see PIKA’s awesome face appeal as she gets the
crowd going with a reverse rope walk into a rana, along with a beautiful
sequence where Cougar hits a completely swinging bulldog (landing facing
Hidaka!), a slingshot-through-the-ropes dropkick and one of his great
slingshot legdrops to the outside. Ran YuYu also impresses greatly, hitting
a really beautiful shining enziguri and a picture-perfect triangle enziguri
as well, again winning me over in my first viewing of her. The only person I
wish would have got more offence early is Hidaka, who is more or less
limited to putting Bolshoi in a crab hold. This does change however, as
after seeing some more awe-inspiring spots (the Cougar Clutch, a
tilt-a-whirl wakigatame and Shining Wizard #2 of the day this time from Ran
YuYu), Hidaka eventually puts Cougar away, wearing him down with his
trademark Shawn Capture (rolling leg lock takedown) and a pretty funky small
package style submission, named the Solarina according to Stuart and M2J.
Really nothing more can be said except try and see this match if possible,
it is very entertaining and very, very fresh during these times of Yasuda
main eventing in NJPW and Mutoh getting lazier by the day. The only problem?
It’s clipped. Grrrr…
Super Shisa, Kenichiro Arai, and Ryo Saito vs. Genki
Horiguchi, Susumu Mochizuki, and Darkness Dragon
Whilst I should remain impartial, you know before seeing this that it will
rock. The six involved are all from Ultimo Dragon’s Toryumon, my personal
favourite promotion, and really (perhaps with the exception of the recently
lazy Araken/Ken Arai) none of them are below superb. Now if I was to discuss
every good point of this match, it really would take all day, so instead,
I’ll focus on two people – Super Shisa and Araken. First of all, why have I
picked to focus on Araken? In a rare moment these days (bar one occurrence
which I’ll discuss shortly), he was fantastic! He did a great job of getting
the crowd involved, especially during the spot where the heel M2K team force
him to powerbomb Ryo Saito, and his execution was really, really crisp. Plus
his headbutts weren’t used to the extent that there was overkill, and some
of them were so goofy that they looked great (diving headbutt to the
standing Genki’s stomach?!). Then there was Super Shisa, who is supposedly
SAITO under a mask. Maybe he has found new confidence in the fact that
no-one knows who he is in the crowd, but he has become 100 times as
entertaining since becoming masked. I’ve always been a fan of his, but he
was plain awesome in this match, hitting some beautiful moves such as his
now trademark headstand butterfly suplex hold, a very complex pinning
sequence with Dragon and a really bizarre backflip headscissors to the
outside. Everyone else was their usual great selves, all having their high
points (Dragon’s shining enziguri, Genki’s senton splash to a standing
opponent, Susumu being his usual God-heel self and Ryo doing his usual
whipping boy -> comeback king job), and everyone clicking as usual. There
was one real down point though, albeit fairly amusing. At one stage, they
attempt a quadruple dive spot and… well let’s say it isn’t pretty.
Everything starts ok with Dragon hitting a nice pescado, before Ryo Saito
completely misses him with a double spring body attack, landing in the front
row on his feet. Genki then hits his always great surfing tope con hilo,
only for Araken to top it off by slipping on a TAKA-esque 3rd
rope body attack. On first viewing, it looked horrible, but I actually
wonder if Araken did it purposely, to fit his classic drunken-man gimmick.
Oh well, it doesn’t hurt the match significantly enough for me not to say
another great outing from the Toryumon guys!
Katsumi Usuda vs.
Takahiro Oba
In my ignorance, I skipped this first time I watched the tape (I was eager
to see Honma vs. Tanaka!). Silly me. It is in fact a pretty good rookie
match, with young Oba facing the usually-awesome Usada, both members of the
defunct-but-now-rejuvenated BattlArts. Really, there’s not a great deal to
say here. It’s your typical rookie discipline match, Usada bending Oba’s
body all sorts of ridiculous was in the usual BattlArts faux-shoot style,
with Oba holding out with all his defiance until he finally taps out to a
step over seated armbar. Definitely not a match you’d watch more than once,
but nonetheless fairly interesting for the most part, although it does drag
in places (maybe if 3 minutes had been shaved off it would have been
better?).
Tomoaki Honma vs.
Masato Tanaka
Originally, this was the reason I bought the tape. Tomoaki Honma, the Big
Japan deathmatch god from 1999/2000, against Masato Tanaka, long-time god of
street fights from FMW (although at the time this happened Honma is now with
AJPW and Tanaka on his way to signing a ZERO-ONE contract whilst working a
few AJPW shows). This is one match which I’ve seen real mixed reviews for,
with some people saying it should have been better, some saying it was
over-hyped and others saying it was fantastic. So what’s my view? Firstly,
if you’re a fan of these two, you NEED to bare in mind that it isn’t the
1990’s anymore. When this match happened, Tanaka was above Honma on AJPW
cards, mainly due to Honma having joined the obscure IWA-Japan in 2001. So
if you’re expecting a deathmatch classic, you’ll be disappointed. Both have
moved on from the style to some extent (although Honma did fight a gauntlet
deathmatch on Rainbow’s next show), and also with Tanaka’s newfound
elevation, this is more one sided than most would expect. However, it is
still fantastic in it’s own way. Tanaka is RELENTLESS with his chair shots
throughout the match, his actions really relaying the ‘disciplining’ story
of the match. Honma bleeds like he’s back facing Shadow WX, Ryuji Yamakawa
and, erm, Mike Samples, pulling off one of his Flair-scale blade jobs. We
see all the requisite spots that we’d expect early, including Tanaka’s
tornado DDT (here off a chair onto a pile of chairs… nice), Honma’s tope con
hilo into the front row and a bit of crowd brawling (kept entertaining by
Honma’s craziness). Where I was really satisfied however, was later on, when
Honma actually managed to fire back and get some offence in. We get to see
his wonderfully stiff Fire Thunder Driver not once but twice (!!!), one of
the times Tanaka’s head scarily bouncing off some chairs, and a really nice
rope charge elbow. There’s also a great chair duel spot where Honma actually
overcomes the chair-master, but the look of fear on his face when he sees
Tanaka stood there with a chair wrapped around his head is fantastic,
telling a real story. In the end Honma manages to kick out of Tanaka’s AJPW
finisher, the Diamond Dust, resulting in him bringing out the Complete Dust
(I think… I’ve heard this name also used for his suplex ace crusher), a
super stiff sit down Dominator of sorts. So, is the match a disappointment?
If you’re looking for a ***** classic, you’ll be horrified, don’t even
bother watching it! But if you want to be entertained with probably the best
post FMW street fight, you’ll love it. And if you’re new to Honma and
Tanaka, get this ASAP! It’s a great introduction to two hardcore legends.
Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Mitsuhiro Matsunaga (Dangerous
Road Deathmatch)
Sadly, I really wanted to see this. Don’t ask why. It sees deathmatch legend
and innovator, Mr Danger, against Fujiwara, famous for his armbar (guess
which one…). The rules? Fujiwara must wear regular trunks, whilst Mr Danger
can wear anything. Yes, it is very bizarre. Really, whatever I say here
won’t do it justice, it is one of those matches that it so strange (yet so,
so terrible) that you WILL watch it over and over again. Matsanuga’s choice
of clothing is barbed wire, which results in him taking some amusing
(deliberately) soft falls onto it, drawing laughter from the crowd. We then
see him eat a scorpion, pour out and roll around in his own thumbtacks
(which Fujiawara then orders Usada and co. to clear from the ring) and get
poked with a fencing sword. Really, it is crazy stuff. Eventually, after
being choked for a bit with a barbed wire bat, Fujiwara puts him away with
an old man headbutt flurry (meaning a very slow, drawn out one!). I wish I
could write more about this, but it is just too crazy, surreal, goofy…
whatever word is used doesn’t do it justice. Try and see it for its
weirdness, but just don’t expect ANY workrate. Worth mentioning though is a
great after match angle where Mr Pogo and his W*ING crew attack Fujiwara and
his BattlArts boys (setting up the next show) and Matsanuga sides with the
W*ING army, the one time rivals shaking hands. Meanwhile, we are all left
with tears of joy… *sniff*
Hido, Masayoshi Motegi, and Shoji Nakamaki vs. The
Great Sasuke, Hideki Hosaka, and Atsushi Onita (Royal Rumble Scramble
Bunkhouse Street Fight Death Match)
This is a real retro match which features some of the biggest cult puroresu
icons around. On one side we have three former W*ING stars, Hido, Motegi and
Nakamaki. Hido now resides in BJPW where he really has re-found himself,
whilst Nakamaki (another deathmatch king!) and Motegi seem to float around,
turning up on shows like this. And for the record, I don’t find Motegi as
bad as most! Sue me. On the other side we have one of the innovators of
lucharesu (Japanese lucha-libre style wrestling), The Great Sasuke, one of
the men who popularised deathmatches and street fights (and who without
there would be no ECW, CZW, WWF/E hardcore division etc.), Atsushi Onita,
and one of Onita’s FMW mainstays, Hideki ‘Johnny Vegas’ Hosaka (the Brits
will know what I mean). Now I’ve decided to write this review in two parts,
firstly discussing the nostalgia and entertainment of the match, and the
second part discussing workrate.
(1) For nostalgia purposes, this is incredible. The presence of three real
legends in their relative organisations (Sasuke, Onita, Nakamaki) and three
workers familiar to all W*ING/BJPW/FMW fans if so unbelievably cool to see
in this day and age if you’re a long time puro fan or (like myself) someone
who got into puro in the last 2-3 years but is fascinated by the older stuff
which helped create the legends. Add Mr Pogo at ringside, and it really is a
spectacle. It is also, as a result, a pretty entertaining match, mainly
thanks to some Sasuke and Motegi craziness, which I will discuss in the next
section. However, if you’re not familiar with the guys involved’s past work,
then don’t expect to be impressed, because…
(2) The workrate. It’s, erm… NON EXISTENT! Well, not 100% true, as Hido and
Hosaka have a fairly decent exchange mid-match, and then there’s the
obligatory Sasuke craziness. This includes numerous Senton Atomicos (swanton
bombs, for those unfamiliar with Sasuke) onto ladders (including one tope
con hilo style), and possibly his stupidest moment ever, taking a German
suplex with a ladder wrapped Terry Funk style around his head. But beyond
that, it’s exactly what you’d expect from the modern day Nakamaki and Onita
– punching, kicking, and a couple of powerbombs. Sadly it’s the best that
two men whose bodies are ravaged from years of work can do, but if you’re
any sort of Nakamaki ,or more importantly Onita, fan, you’ll eat it up. As I
did. It’s not something you’re likely to watch more than once (maybe twice)
though, other than for Sasuke’s ladder craziness.
CONCLUSION:
This will probably be the easiest recommendation to make ever. Buy it! If
you’re already a puro fan, you’ll love every match, either for its
quirkiness or for being decent. If you’re a newcomer to Japanese wrestling,
the choice is maybe a bit harder. You probably won’t be able to appreciate
the main event without some prior knowledge, but the rest of the tape will
be interesting, especially if you’ve never seen anything outside WWF/E.
Eventually, however, this should be in every puroresu fan’s collection. It
simply sums up the Japanese independent circuit spirit in one awesome show!
ENTERTAINMENT – 9 – Enjoyable from start to finish, if not because of it’s
silliness in places
WORKRATE – 6 – Varies from top notch in the first 5 matches (bar Michiko
Ohmukai, grrr) to non-existent in the final two
.:: FINAL RECOMMENADTION – Must have! ::.
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