Michinoku Pro on GAORA 11/00
by Digable James Cobo (ooh! footnotes!)

For such a miniscule promotion that rarely draws over 150 people to a typical show, Michinoku Pro sure has had a towering influence on the world of wrestling. Back in 1996 and '97, it was THE vanguard of wrestling worldwide, ripping down the traditional rules for light-heavyweight wrestling and codifying a new set, fusing lucha libre's idealized speed with the build-build-build/hot-finish mindset of junior wrestling. And for two years, it was GREAT. It's hard to do better than MPro in 1996 or 1997; they had the talent - Great Sasuke! TAKA Michinoku! Dick Togo! Super Delphin! Naohiro Hoshikawa! Shiryu! - and the leeway to break out **** matches at the sound of the word "go".

One of the forgotten triumphs of this golden period was the tag league of 1997, which saw Dick Togo and Super Boy team up to break out PHENOMENAL matches nightly in front of about 40 people with a wide variety of teams, most notably in the final against Delphin and Sasuke. In fact, it was arguably the swan song to MPro's revolutionary days; it was around this time that TAKA decided to shift his priorities full-time to the WWF in a move that probably proved financially buckwild, but artistically rebarbative (1) Not surprisingly, workrate started to taper off without TAKA, and the fed slowly slid into a big swampy morass of workrate; 1998 was pretty banal by MPro standards, and 1999 saw them lose a lot of the respect that they had among wrestling fans to the upstart Toryumon group.

2000, though, had all the omens of a corner being turned. The fed started working a lot of shows with the aforementioned Toryumon, resulting in a bunch of SPECTACULAR CIMA Nobunaga matches on MPro TV. 2000 also saw the emergence of Tiger Mask 4, who finally started living up to his pedigree (2) and consistently delivering quality matches. The feather in the cap, of course, was Michinoku Pro's hosting of the third J-Cup in April; the first two - especially the 1994 one - are held up as being candidates for "the greatest night in wrestling history". And with one hell of a lineup for the 2000 edition, featuring Sasuke, Jushin Liger, CIMA, Judo SUWA, Magnum Tokyo, Kaz Hayashi, Tiger Mask 4, Ricky Marvin, and a bunch of others, there seemed to be a good chance that it might match up well with its predecessors.

But then Magnum Tokyo went down with an injury, and the whole federation essentially fell apart.

Magnum Tokyo, for those of you who don't know, was arguably the Next Big Thing in the junior scene. He had it all - natural charisma, an innate connection with the crowd, and a REALLY good grasp of wrestling. It would have made a lot of sense to have him win the 2000 J-Cup, or at least go to the finals, participating in a whole boatload of ***+ matches along the way. His injury, of course, trashed all those plans, and instead of a new star being created, Liger - a well-decorated VETERAN - won the entire thing (3), beating CIMA in the finals.

From that mildly disappointing finish, MPro sort of collapsed. They basically went into stasis for the rest of the year, embarking on a remarkably disappointing tour with AAA and not doing much of anything of note.

And then, all of a sudden, things started to look up again in October. The fed started off the month with a SCORCHING show at Differ Ariake, featuring a good match between Sasuke and NOAH's Naomichi Marufuji and a STELLAR match between Tiger Mask 4 and SUWA, all on an overall solid card. All of a sudden, there was promise again. So MPro decided to run a tag tournament again, hoping that some team of super-workers would emerge, and everything could be like 1997 all over again.

THAT, companeros, is what aired on this GAORA show: the tag tourney. It's mostly clips, though, so the snowflakes will be relatively sparse. Was it any good? Let's take a look.

I'd be remiss to notice that your hosts are The Great Sasuke and TAKA Michinoku, who keeps trying to get up and leave, likely to sneak a peek at Sasuke's statue (4).

1. Sanshiro Takagi vs. Issei Fujiwara Takagi's from DDT, but he's not who I thought he was - the divine Takeshi Sasaki - which prompts me to bellow at my TV "WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE TO WATCH FUCKING TAKAGI INSTEAD OF MR. KICKASS SASAKI?" For you see, whereas Sasaki's all about great matwork and stiff-as-FUQ strikes, Takagi's all about playing to the crowd in a very Y2J-meets-The Viking sort of way. Fujiwara I have no clue about, but he certainly has that child-molester look to him. The match is JIP, with the two guys throwing easily audible chops that look REMARKABLY fancy-lad-esque. At one point, Fujiwara gains the upper hand and starts repeatedly flailing his forearms (5) and subsequently chop-blocking Takagi. And to demonstrate that we're watching a psychological master here, he follows up this leg work with a TORTURE RACK. Takagi, playing the role of 1998 Sting to Fujiwara's 1999 Luger, counters it with a headlock, then gets an Ace Crusher, then goes for a half-crab (because lord knows nothing works the back or the leg like an Ace Crusher)...and gets the win (<furious psychology mark noises>). Thank the lord this was clipped.

We now begin the tournament in earnest.

2. CIMA Nobunaga/Sumo "Dandy" Fuji vs. Pantera/Genki Horiguchi Joined in progress; Fuji's dropping Horiguchi with a powerslam. This match is rich in double-teams, notably the full-extension-double-gorrilla-press-into-CIMA-inverted-powerbomb and the HORRIFIC double fisherman buster that works fine in theory, but looks UGLY BAD if, say, CIMA drops back a split second before Fuji does. Horiguchi landed all kinds of horizontal on that one. Pantera, for his part, isn't doing a thing except making saves; Genki's eating HUGE MOVES (viz. CIMA's jumping piledriver) all the live long day. The end is pretty shitty too - CIMA gets the cross-arm Iconoclasm->Mad Splash combo, but we get a time limit draw, in the first instance of a running theme. Again, nothing to see here.

3. Electro Shock/Pentagon vs. Tiger Mask 4/El Gran Hamada JIP, again. Electro Shock is the only one of these four about which I knew nothing before this tournament. Now I know that he's like a skinny Kane, but about a million times shittier, believe it or not. Hamada's age is REALLY starting to come through in his wrestling - whereas before his gimmick was "wrestling old man", now it's just "old man". He's busting out weak headbutts and terrible ranas left, right, front, and center - that is, until Pentagon breaks out the silly-weak chairshots and goes for a sitout suplex - pin? Well, that was sure barely on there.

4. Massao Orihara/Sasuke the Great vs. The Great Sasuke/Magnum Tokyo JIP. As far as I know, this tourney marks Tokyo's return to the ring after his surgery, and he sure doesn't look worse the wear (viz. his sweet powerbomb). This match also sees the debut of ANOTHER running theme for the night - Magnum Tokyo's inability to hit the Viagra Driver (6), which gets countered here into a Sasuke the Great backslide attempt and mule kick in the junk. Sasuke the Great, of course, being an opportunist, seizes this moment to go get some sort of...dowel... and throw some weak-ass dowel shots at Tokyo. He finally hits a non-pole-related move - a Michinoku Driver - and gets the win, and after the match nails the faces with a bunch more dowel shots. Wow, 0 for 4.

5. CIMA/Fuji vs. Tsubo Genjin/Pero Ruso Ruso, about whom I know nothing, is best described as Bull Buchanan without being saddled with all that pesky talent or charisma. Genjin is a caveman who targets the nuts with about %90 of his attacks. This one's JIP, thank Jesus, CIMA's grabbing Ruso's man-boobs, for some indiscernable reason, and then he and Fuji start breaking out the Stupidest Double-Teams of All Time (7). We then CLIP again, and CIMA's running the ropes ad infinitum, so Genjin decides to join in; CIMA, of course, stops running, and rolls up Tsubo when he gets tired. Tsubo gets out, and gets CIMA in a full nelson, and CIMA SHOCKINGLY ducks, so Ruso nails Tsubo. Oh, the stinging backhand of Irony. CIMA, for his part, ambles over to go mockingly celebrate with Ruso while Fuji pins Genjin for the win. The post-match graphic says the match was something like four minutes long; I didn't think a match that short could be clipped, but I guess I was wrong.

If you're wondering why I'm not going into the psychology and such, it's because they're giving me NOTHING to work with.

6. Tiger Mask 4/Hamada vs. Pantera/Horiguchi JIP; we get a lucha rope-running sequence with TM4 and Pantera that's shockingly decent, so of course we CLIP to some fast, stiff kicks on Horiguchi. Hamada then tags in (BOOOOOO!), backdrop-drivers Horiguchi, gives him a top-rope armdrag, and...wins it? I give up.

7. Pentagon/Electro Shock vs. Sasuke/Tokyo Pentagon and E-S were, unbeknownst to me, using the Empire's theme as their entrance music in a vain attempt to curry favor with sci-fi dorks. This one starts off as a brawl in the lobby, and I'll give you three guesses as to how convincing a brawl it is (8). CLIP and we're in the ring; Sasuke's taking out Pentagon with a decent Tope Atomico (as compared to his previous loose one in his last match). We CLIP again, and Sasuke's eating a bearhug/Northern Lights Suplex combo from Electroshock, which is kind of cool. Pentagon then proceeds to blow the lucha portion of my mind when he (the illegal man) gives Magnum Tokyo (the other illegal man) a spinning piledriver (piledrivers being illegal in Mexico, which is where Pentagon's from and where Tokyo trained), and gets the ref to count...and Tokyo kicks out at two. GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Hate...this...so...much... (9) Tokyo somehow recovers, and attempts to give Pentagon a Viagra Driver, which gets blocked, and Pentagon gives Tokyo a Viagra Driver of his own for the win. GRR GRR GRR. If Pentagon and Electro Shock were going over anyway, why not just have the pinfall come off the tombstone?

8. Pantera/Horiguchi vs. Pentagon/Electro Shock JIP. Let's see if this can wash that awful taste out of my mouth. Horiguchi's a house of fire to start this one off (well, he busted out a nice headscissors, anyway), and everything's going smoothly - albeit basic and tentative - until Pentagon blocks Pantera's back-roll armdrag attempt. From there, it's Shit Wrestling City. On your left, you'll see Electro Shock selling a Dragon Screw legwhip in the worst possible fashion (10); on your right, you'll see a nasty, horrible, loose rope-run moonsault by Pentagon. Horiguchi gives it his best, doing some crisp work including a nice double-jump moonsault, and Pantera tries to keep up (11), doing his part in a COOL sequence - Pentagon rolls to the floor, Horiguchi charges for a dive, Pentagon runs to the opposite side, and Pantera charges down the apron and dives between two turnbuckles to nail Pentagon - but it's all for naught. For you see, this match not only has Penta Fucking Gon and Electro God Damn Shock, it's got a ref bump, sloppy work, and a DQ finish. Whoever thought this would be a good idea should be kicked in the nuts by me.

9. Tiger Mask 4/Hamada vs. CIMA/Fuji Well, this should be at least partially watchable - after all, TM4's one of the 15 or 20 best workers in the world, and CIMA's one of the top 35. It's JIP, and we get a brawl to start, and HEY HEY HEY was that TM4 blading conspicuously? (12) MPro again kicks me in the ass; the TM4/CIMA sections are relegated mostly to weak brawling (that sees TM4 take most of the punishment) and mask-ripping, while Fuji and Hamada are responsible for the actual wrestling. Hamada actually tries to interject psychology somewhere into this morass by locking Fuji's nodowa arm in a Fujiwara armbar. Alas, it's all for naught, as mere seconds later Hamada's giving the new gold-standard World's Worst Lariat Ever. I kid you not. It looked like Hamada was brushing a fly away from Fuji's man-cleavage with his knuckles. To be fair, he hits a nice tornado DDT, and does the always-popular-among-polled-DJCs DDT suplex counter. And then, the moment of the match: Hamada sets Fuji up on the top turnbuckle for a Hamadacanrana (i.e. top-turnbuckle rana), and CIMA catches him before he can do it by tagging him with a Venus to the frank'n'beans (13). TM4 and Hamada really, REALLY aren't getting much offense in here; it's pretty much all strikes and token moves by Crazy Max. And yet, all of a sudden, for no discernable reason, TM4 and Hamada find themselves in control of the match, with TM4 nailing a backbreaker and a Tiger Driver and such. The heels bail, a weak TM4 tope-into-chair spot occurs, and we're BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF THIS WHOLE FRIGGIN' THING. I mean, I'm as much a fan of referencing earlier work in a match for story purposes, but JESUS CHRIST. The end result of all this, of course, is a FUCKING DOUBLE COUNT OUT. GAAAAAAAAAAAH. 1/4*. I don't know what I did to Sasuke in a previous life, but I'm sorry.

10. Sasuke/Tokyo vs. SAITO/junji.com Y'know, for having such a great, weird, utterly irrelevant gimmick, junji.com sure isn't much of a wrestler. SAITO is pretty much there - he's crisp, but bland as uncooked pasta. The match is JIP, and we see Sasuke in control until he EATS a missed quebrada - no knees or nothin' - at which point Saito and junji.com start busting out every conceivable rollup known to man, and then start repeating them. The coolest of them all is a SAITO rope-run sunset flip. After having the Viagra Driver (14) blocked for a third time in this tournament, he tries for a different move, one coming off the top-rope, presumably his Shooting Star Press. It's never revealed, because he keeps going upstairs, but SAITO and junji.com keep blocking his attempts. So he goes for a NICE Black Tiger bomb instead, and eventually gets the win. If you like rollups, this is the match for you.

11. Battle Royal OH FUCKING SHIT HELP ME NOW. Judging by the rest of this show, this isn't going to be pretHEY! TAKA! TAKA MICHINOKU ES AQUI! He gets a HUUUUUUUUGE pop (relatively speaking) when he walks in, but the rest of the guys, undoubtedly fearing his awesome standing in the WWF all gang-beat him. We then, of course, get to the Best Double-Team of All Time (Sorta): TAKA gets caught in a camel clutch, and EVERYONE ELSE IN THE RING charges at him with a dropkick to his face. There must have been eight people charging at him. It was GREAT. TAKA rolls out to recover, and when he rolls back in, gets the first elimination with a Michinoku Driver about a minute in (15). This ain't Jakked, buddy. Meanwhile, Pantera's taking a WICKED Orihara kick in the nuts, but gets him back with a nice tilt-a-whirl armdrag. But then, just to drive the Spaceballs theory (16) home once and for all, he busts out a weak hands-free tope...which causes him to be eliminated (apparently it's a Rumble-style battle royal). TAKA, meanwhile, is STICKING SAITO in the face, and goes for a Michinoku Driver, but it gets countered, and there's a whole big pileup that ends up meaning TAKA and SAITO both get eliminated. Don't ask me, I just work here. This leaves Sasuke the Great, Genki Horiguchi, Perro Ruso, and Tsubo Genjin in the ring. Ruso actually does the one cool thing in his whole miserable life: Sasuke the Great and Horiguchi are trying to double suplex him, but he reverses it and SUPLEXES THEM BOTH AT ONCE. Of course, he capitalizes by channelling 1996 Luger, hitting the Much-Feared Chin-Locke on Horiguchi, at which point Tsubo Genjin comes in and sprays Horiguchi in the crotch with Ben-Gay (or whatever that spray stuff is that they use to revive people), then sprays Ruso in the eyes with it. The two of them go at it for a few seconds before Horiguchi, with a newly revitalized crotch, recovers and dumps them both for the win. He may be the winner, but I'M the loser who had to watch this whole thing. Actually, it wasn't long at all - you'll notice that there wasn't any clipping, and that it started from the beginning. But it certainly wasn't anything over 1/4*, thus tying it for Match of the Night honors thus far.

12. Tournament Semifinals: Sasuke/Tokyo vs. CIMA/Fuji Well, maybe this won't suck TOO much. It's probably got a better chance of being good than, say, a Perro Ruso vs. Electro Shock three-day iron man match. It certainly starts off decently - the first portion of the match is a outside-the-ring brawl, slyly referencing the plethora of DCORs we've seen thus far. But Tokyo, bless his friggin' heart, gets back in the ring with about a second to go. To be fair, the brawling's tolerable - not good, mind you, but tolerable. Fuji UNLOADS a slap on Tokyo. But it's back in the ring where it starts to get interesting. I'm surprised to see Magnum Tokyo bust out a PLAYERISTIC standing corkscrew elbowdrop; it was a mite impressive. He also lays in to CIMA when they're working together, which is pretty decent. He's just working very crisply all-around. And Sasuke's doing his part; he's working Fuji's nodowa arm. But then, OF COURSE, we get a runin from BOTH Orihara and Sasuke the Great. And just to make the match EVEN BETTER, we get Sasuke the Great rolling Great Sasuke under the ring. Raise your hands if you know what's coming. Now raise your hands if you like it. Notice how my hands are down on the floor. Tokyo manages to make it back in the ring - again barely beating the count - and gets pummeled by Crazy Max (CIMA did throw some NICE bows, and probably busted out the best slingshot senton atomico of his life, and we DID get the buck wild AWESOME Giant Swing/Dropkick combo). Eventually, he's able to tag to "Sasuke", and gets SHOCKINGLY double-crossed. BECAUSE, YOU SEE, IT WAS SASUKE THE GREAT INSTEAD OF THE GREAT SASUKE! Jesus CHRIST, all we need is Vince McMahon in a purple robe and fifteen midget Doinks and we'll have collected the whole set. Did the bookers actually think that the old Fake Doink trick was a GOOD idea? I can't believe that somewhere, around some table, someone said "Hey! Let's do the fake Doink thing!" and other people actually AGREED. And just to make me even happier, the REA Great Sasuke, fresh from being pummeled under the ring, pops up and does his big moves. THANK JESUS for Magnum Tokyo, who attempts to let the sun shine a little on this fetid match; he busts out the bump-n-grind-canrana and a WICKED WICKED OUCHIE-POO Black Tiger bomb. But then, he goes for the Viagra Driver again (17), and it SHOCKINGLY gets blocked, and we SHOCKINGLY roll out of the ring to brawl again, and it's a SHOCKING double countout. GAWD FUCKIN DAMN YOU ALL. 1/2*, mostly for Tokyo's exercises in futility.

13. Tournament Finals: Tiger Mask 4/Hamada vs. Electro Shock/Pentagon JIP, thank the Creator. Because lord knows that instead of seeing a match with four good wrestlers in it, I'd like to see Hamada, Electro Fucking Shock, and Penta God Damn Gon. When we start the match, TM4's taking a lot of Electro Shock's offense, a trend which would continue. Y'know, TM4's strengths lie in his stiff-ass kicks and ability to invent suplexes on the fly, but here he's selling some weak, weak, weak, WEAK offense. You know, I'm sure that Electro Shock realizes that he's not athletic enough to pull off the moves he's trying - moves like a dropkick or a jumping elbow drop. I hate him because he keeps trying, and only succeeds in stinking up the ring. Pentagon, in the meantime, is gouging Hamada with a length of pipe. I have here in my notes "What is this, FMW?", and I'm still not sure that it's not. It's a really puss-ass bladejob, too; it looks like Hamada nicked himself shaving his forehead. Really, this match is just a bunch of random, weak-looking sequences, with the only thing keeping it above a DUD being Tiger Mask 4. It's a credit to TM4 that he's willing to eat a Pentagon Viagra Driver SO brutal that it actually almost compensates for things like Hamada's TERRRRRRRRRRRIBLE swinging DDT. There's also a few good nearfalls, which one can credit almost entirely to the faces' sense of timing. They're trying - well, TM4's trying - to establish SOMETHING resembling flow, although the rudos are doing their DAMNDEST to keep it from happening (18). TM4 even tries to break out the lucha moveset (meaning rope running, Santo Clutch, freaky rollups, etc) to try to meet the Shitey Bastards halfway, but NO DICE. The finish MERCIFULLY comes quickly - Hamada hits the Hamadacanrana, which you'd THINK would finish it, but NOPE, up pops Pentagon. So instead, Hamada hits a WEEEEEEEEEEAK looking diving neckbreaker...for the pin. My reaction:

(19)

I did not like that finish no siree. 1/4* Now let us never speak of it again.

Whaddya mean I have to wrap it up? Aw, fuck.

Gene Siskel, back when people used to tell him that he had the greatest job in the world (20), would reply that a bad movie takes away two hours of your life that nobody will ever get back for you. THAT, companeros, is what this tape is like; it's like the worst movie in the known world. I cannot conceive of there being a worse MPro tape on the planet, and I'd wager dollars to donuts that it holds up mighty well against crap cards from BJPW or CZW or the WWF or any of the worst cards in history. THE PEAK FUCKING MATCH IS A HALF-STAR. That's friggin' DEPRESSING. Hell, this show was so bad that I wasn't even able to review it without resorting to footnotes and the review style of near-PBP with juvenile jokes. THAT'S a bad show.

I have suffered greatly for YOU, the reader; I have sat through this card, with its multitude of Electro Shock/Pentagon matches and its spotty, spotty nature. Never let it be said that I didn't do anything for you :)

Now let's never, ever speak of it again.

Digably Yours,
Digable James Cobo
Discuss this on the Message Board!

Footnotes

1. But, I mean, it's not like MPro didn't get anything for giving up the most influential junior since Sasuke (tm Doron Diamond): They got the Undertaker for one show, and he had one of the worst matches of all time.

2. The first three being (chronologically) Satoryu Sayama, Mitsuharu Misawa, and Koji Kanemoto. Seriously.

3. Tokyo's next-big-thing status was eventually transferred to CIMA Nobunaga, a man who, while a whole lot of fun to watch, didn't have women fans shoving yen notes down his tights. Make no mistake about it - CIMA's spot should have been Tokyo's.

4. Sasuke, you see, is/was a great wrestler, but he's as crooked as a congressman. The famous story about him, as related by Doron, is how he one time took the profits from a show the fed ran and, instead of PAYING THE WRESTLERS, he bought a statue of himself, which is possibly the funniest wrestling story in history. Unless you're TAKA.

5. Like a little retarded T-Rex

6. Sitout gutwrench powerslam, for those of you who didn't know

7. I kid you not; there was a double Iron Claw in there.

8. The answer: not very. Lots of whips into things.

9. "Yes, Mr. Sherman; everything stinks."

10. Which would be letting Pantera do the move, then standing there for a second before remembering that he's supposed to fall down. I H8 THIS GUY.

11. You'd think MPro would know better than to hire people who have to keep up with Genki Horiguchi, but Sasuke's had a lot of skull fractures. Next thing you know, we'll be getting The Big Show squashing TM4 in under a minute.

12. Yes.

13. It's straight out of The Court Jester: "The Venus to the penis blocks the rana from Hamada". And give yourself props if you have any idea what I'm talking about.

14. You have no idea how much I want to abbreviate "Viagra Driver" to "VD", but I'm sure that my constant mentioning of Tokyo trying to give his opponents VD would confuse some readers.

15. Apparently TAKA Michinoku is on the WWF booking committe.

16. "Good will never triumph over evil...because good... is dumb."

17. "Oh, silly Magnum Tokyo; won't you ever learn?"

18. Another reason to hate Electro Shock: he's a fucking bitch. At one point, it would have been totally credible (and logical) for him to eat a top-rope Tiger Suplex from TM4, but instead he just shoves TM4 off the top rope. Why? Because he doesn't wanna take the move. FUCK YOU, BUDDY.

19. If there were a sound to be played concurrently, it'd be "GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR." But there isn't, so use your imagination.

20. This was also during the time when he was alive.