CIMANIA
3/2000 Recapitulation Review
by
Alex Carnavale
A while back I picked up a tape of Toryumon 7/9/00 and CIMANIA 3/2000 and since Mr. Cobo already has the former reviewed, I will avoid it in its entirety except to say: that show is really good.
The most important thing about Toryumon besides its rampant accessibility is that it's a huge load of the fun that Mick Foley was talking about the WWF not having. It's like the WWF back when The Rock was cracking us up every week. Everything is firmly tongue in cheek-and for that, you love everything about Toryumon. And while it used to be Magnum Tokyo as the one truly excellent worker, the current class of graduates makes him look like Jim Duggan. Seriously.
When Toryumon develops a serious edge in dramatic singles matches like the NJ Juniors of '94-'96, they'll really come into their own. From what I've seen of this year's television, the M2K v. Crazy MAX angle gives the company a serious dimension it lacking earlier in its existence.
So it was either do the Toryumon 1/2/01 television or this show and I thought I'd move in sequential order. It's a special on Crazy MAX and more specifically on CIMA, one of the big three complete wrestlers in the Ultimo Dragon Gym, the other two being the slightly overrated Magnum Tokyo and the slightly overrated SUWA.
Now I advocate the hypothesis of this review, contained herein: CIMA is the best worker in Toryumon. In a way, the debate is similar to the Bret Hart v. Shawn Michaels debate that never really got as much play as it might have without the Montreal incident to color and dominate the discussion.
Who is a better worker, Bret or Shawn? Surely Shawn could work more styles. He had matches in the Memphis/southern style that were the best of that style. He redefined the brawl, he could hang technically with virtually anyone. Shawn was also lucky in the respect that he was not forced to carry workers and make them look good the way that Bret was.
But nobody could carry guys Flair-style the way that Bret Hart could. Like Flair, he hardly ever had a bad match. Look at his war with Isaac Yankem, a debuting Kane. He singlehandedly made a shitty Bob Backlund look like a credible mid 90s WWF superstar. He made Owen Hart, his kid brother, a legend.
So maybe SUWA is the Shawn Michaels of this equation, and CIMA is the Bret Hart of Toryumon. I guess that's what I'm trying to say. Well, Bret Hart is maybe my favorite wrestler of all time, and the Iron Man match wrestled in Bret's style (instead of the Shawn-esque brawl at Survivor Series '97) is my favorite match of all time, so there you go.
SUWA has this crazy psycho intensity that is serving him well, and he's among the largest of the Toryumon workers. What may be deceiving mine eyes is that he wrestles a markedly different style-more of a heavyweight thing in six-man tags that are built for juniors. CIMA just seems more comfortable in these matches.
Also, if it means anything, CIMA is probably, along with Magnum Tokyo, Toryumon's most over guy as far as I can tell.
The first three matches on the tape are from the Super J-Cup 2000.
1. CIMA v. Ricky Marvin (4.1.00). Marvin is from EMLL and he breaks out the sloppy high spots to start. CIMA basically settles him down and sells Ohtani style to make the moves credible. Marvin hits a nasty-looking Muscle Buster, but the best of his offense is mostly ranas that try to put CIMA away. CIMA pulls another Ohtani and whips out a dropkick to stop the onslaught. A nasty superkick follows for two. This sets up the Venus punch and Iconoclasm combo. I'm not so much a fan of the Iconoclasm. Mad Splash follows for the win. Match was clipped to all shit, but what we saw was about **1/2, if that gives you an idea.
More Super J-Cup madness follows, as CIMA would face Onryo in the next round. This guy's gimmick appears to be that of Undertaker-luchadore. He's scary, and is not afraid to nearly kill himself with all sorts of ultra-violent madness that you would expect from him.
2. CIMA v. Onryo (4.9.00). CIMA comes out to his elaborate Crazy Max entrance, but gets dropkicked in the back of the head. There's something so J-Cup-ish about a piece of storyline like that one. This is clipped as well. CIMA tries a sleeper but Onryo goes half dead and slips out. Clipped again to Onryo reversing the Iconoclasm into a backslide. CIMA tries a torture rack into a DDT for two, and Onryo STOPS the ref's hands from coming down. I need to get tapes of this guy. Onryo dropkicked the knee and gets a messed up looking lucha-esque la magistral variation for two. He then brutally drops CIMA on his head with a deadass motherfucking Tiger Driver, bordering on Tiger Driver '91 mind-fuck-a-tude. That's just not right. CIMA looks like he's about to die. He plays dead in the ring, and Onryo decides to go to the top. CIMA jumps up and hits the Iconoclasm Mad Splash combo for the win. Could have done without the gimmickry, but that was about as good as the last one. **3/4 Onryo's gimmick is ragingly wacky and just flat-out good. I could do nothing but love it and, in turn, this match.
3. CIMA v. Naoki Sano (4.9.00). JIP, they show us a lot of the matwork to start. Sano is somewhat ancient, notorious for having badass matches with Liger back in the day. He tosses CIMA on his head with a German suplex that is in no way germane. Really awkward-looking and headdroppish, if you get my drift here. He follows up with a dropkick and the clipping erupts in full force. He slaps on the Boston crab, and Crazy MAX is near tears at ringside. Sano almost kills Misawa...er, CIMA with an ugly, godforsaken powerbomb. This gets two. CIMA is sure kicking out of enough powerful moves in this tourney. Lot of finishers being killed tonight. CIMA hits a reverse Stunner and a Crazy MAX kick to the face to start the comeback. He goes for the Iconoclasm but Sano jumps on his shoulders. CIMA drops him back against the turnbuckle. CIMA hits the superkick in the corner, and tries the Venus-cross-arm Iconoclasm, which he hits. This sets up the Mad Splash and one three count later CIMA has advanced to the tourney final, near dead in the process. *** We're clipped here, but the full version is more than serviceable as Sano came to the show with old school NJ-spotty-stiffness and killed the youngster, who dug a bit deeper into his arsenal to come up with a pinfall. This match was pretty good, but would have been better if it wasn't so needlessly ugly. CIMA just beat one legend. Could he beat another in Jushin Liger? The answer is a big fat no.
I don't understand why everyone calls Liger "Jushin 'Thunder' Liger." No one calls him Thunder. He doesn't use any moves that involve a thunder in them. Maybe it's time we forget about the Thunder.
4. Jushin Liger v. CIMA, Super J-Cup Final (4.9.00). JIP, Liger and CIMA are in a lock-up. Liger is in black tonight, playing the heel through and through. Liger takes CIMA on a mat-wrestling clinic to start, including a camel clutch and the sitting abdominal stretch. This reminds me way too much of Liger-Ohtani matches for my own good. Liger even breaks out the surfboard headlock. Getting flashbacks to '96...oh god. CIMA gets in the headscissors to the turnbuckle spot early and goes for a German suplex. Reversal but CIMA hits the superkick for two. Crazy MAX running dropkick follows, and CIMA breaks out an absurdly beautiful plancha. Back in the ring, CIMA is running against the formula of his previous matches, which tells us that he ain't gonna win. Liger shotays him out of the corner, but CIMA comes up with a Venus punch and basically hits the Iconoclasm. No cover.
CIMA puts Liger up for another one, this time the cross-arm variation of the Iconoclasm, to set up the Mad Splash. Liger puts up his knees, and bestows further destruction. Ligerbomb for two. Brainbuster for two. Liger tries a shotay but eats the inverted DDT legsweep thing you may have seen CIMA use in the past to set up a quick Mad Splash for a heart-breaking near fall. Slugfest, and Liger busts CIMA open hardway with the shotay. Brainbuster from Liger, no cover. Another brainbuster. 1, 2, 3. ****1/4 I have seen this in its entirety and it is the best match of the tournament. I forgive CIMA's no-selling in large part because Liger was out there to make him look strong. This is basically the definition of putting a guy over. It's like the Meltz says: you can do a job and not get another guy over at all, or you can win and put your opponent over despite that.
In the two WWF TV main events, Steve Austin made Chris Benoit look good-you know, except for the not selling the Crippler Crossface thing. I let it slide because on Smackdown Austin took TEN german suplexes. I don't want to get off track here, but Steve Austin isn't masking any weaknesses as a wrestler. He's probably the third best worker in that company right now, and he cuts promos that the world hasn't seen since Ric Flair.
Liger v. CIMA wasn't HHH v. Jeff Hardy. It wasn't Kevin Nash v. Rey Mysterio Jr, and it wasn't Spike Dudley v. Bam Bam Bigelow. It was Misawa v. Kadawa, in a big way. For Liger-at one time the greatest wrestler in the world, bar none-to put CIMA over so early in his career would have been too much for CIMA to carry and it would have fucked a rematch to all shreds. I mean, Liger just beat Minoru Tanaka, you think he puts CIMA over a year previous to that? Not bloody likely.
CIMA gives heart-breaking interview with Crazy Max afterwards which is dead serious-in contrast to the tongue-in-cheek Toryumon-style he shows on GAORA TV. It's good to see he call get all New Japan-esque and what have you. This interview would be a lot more enjoyable if I understood Japanese. CIMA then takes pictures with Ultimo Dragon after the tournament in which he is literally crying. Is this work or shoot...? You decide. Nice storyline-Dragon's most promising student cannot defeat his longtime rival and is really depressed about it.
Japanese highlight packages on featured wrestlers almost always have a part in which the wrestler is featured training, or in the gym, and this tape in no exception whatsoever. In this one CIMA talks about the J-Cup after the fact. Again, this would be more notable if CIMA were speaking English, or French, or even Spanish. These are languages I can somewhat understand. Actually, after watching a lot of puroresu lately, I feel as if I can almost speak the language.
CIMA doesn't have a super-lot of singles matches in Toryumon, as the six man tag is the match of choice. So there's a brief highlight thing on SUWA to set up:
5. Magnum Tokyo, Genki Horiguchi, Masaaki Mochizuki v. CIMA, Sumo Fuji, Judo Suwa (3.18.00). Crazy Max breaks out awesome heel tag teams in the deserted gym, including Poetry in Venus and some nasty highspots. SUWA shows he's the brutal one by reverse powerbombing whoever, but taking the Genki Driver (reverse tombstone piledriver-as in the opponent is slung over Genki's back and his head drops down Novacaine style) for the pinfall. Too clipped to rate. The faces give a post-match locker room interview, proving once and for all their indyhood.
Here's the rematch, presumably, two days later at another spot show.
Magnum Tokyo, Genki Horiguchi, Masaaki Mochizuki v. CIMA, Sumo Fuji, Judo SUWA (3.20.00). Crazy Max brings the offense but Genki interrupts the Crazy Max pose and takes a swinging neckbreaker for his troubles. SUWA starts whipping out his varied offense, but takes a nasty rana from Genki for two. Goofy submissions almost break out, but CIMA sneaks in with a superkick. Tokyo comes out of the corner with his laborious tornado DDT for two. Brainbuster for two. He continues going after CIMA, but takes the headscissors to the turnbuckle spot and the Venus-Iconoclasm combo. CIMA goes for the Mad Splash, but gets stopped by Genki, who goes for his finisher but SUWA breaks it up into a sunset flip for two. Superb action, too fast to call. This thing is clipped to Sumo Fuji going for the Nodowa Otoshi on Genki. It gets two before Tokyo breaks it up. CIMA does his requisite tope, and Fuji goes for another chokeslam. Tokyo saves with a dropkick and Masaaki hits a springboard enziguiri to set up the GH Lock of funky-submissionness on Sumo Fuji. Tokyo dramatically holds CIMA back from breaking up the submission. Clipped a lot, but every Toryumon six-man tag is both extremely good and extremely similar, so ***ish for what we saw.
I'm excited to see a singles match, but my hopes were to be unfulfilled. I'm just the kind of person where I'd rather see a pretty great singles match than an amazing tag or six-man match. I like Misawa v. Kawada better than The Tag Match, just because of that-even though the action and the booking in The Tag Match is simply better.
6. SUWA v. Genki Horiguchi (3.25.00). While the six-man tag format hides weaknesses as well as strengths extremely well, the singles contest is the true test of a wrestler's ability to work a match. This might be for the NWA Title, but don't quote me on it. They start off on the mat, but SUWA quickly bails. There is NOBODY in the gym for this match, mind you. SUWA works over his heel stuff but it doesn't really fly. Rope assistance seems so out of place here. Maybe I'm just sick of those gimmicks being used. I'd prefer them to remain in Memphis where they belong. Indy-shoulderblock spot is utilized, and then leapfrog-armdrag spot. That's called going through the motions, fellas. SUWA breaks out a slingshot to the turnbuckle and hits a lariat. These guys do not seem to be working well together at all. Crazy MAX even factors in an elaborate group ballshot to spice the proceedings up.
Scoop slam by SUWA and he comes in from the apron with the Devon Storm-elbow. 1, 2, no. Tilt-a-whirl backbreaker, and the second is reversed to an armdrag. Genki hits a headscissors, and follows that up with the thing where you run through the ropes to the outside and your opponent is hit and sells it and you run back in the ring. The generic action in this match is nearly putting me asleep. Crazy MAX makes it all worthwhile with some hilarious schtick at ringside, like spraying water on SUWA when he comes out for a break. Missile dropkick by Genki for two. Genki uses a submission hold, but it doesn't really fly. Springboard moonsault for two. Genki is knocked out the ring, and SUWA follows with a tope of insane proportions.
There's no reason to die before you hit thirty, buddy. Genki rolls SUWA up for two. Another roll-up for two. It's becoming abundantly clear that they are trying too hard here. Swinging neckbreaker by SUWA for two. Stomachdrop for two. Genki rana for two. Spot-spot-spot. GH Lock is applied, and Crazy Max springs into action, but SUWA finds the ropes. To the top, and Genki goes for the reverse tombstone thingy but SUWA fights out of the Genki Driver. Backslide is turned into a jumping pedigree by SUWA for the pinfall. Pretty much worthless as SUWA matches go. Huge style clash here. ** The lack of any discernible psychology or pacing hurt the match-it felt rushed. It just seemed like they were trying to put together a good match but didn't know how to make it memorable, so just traded moves and two-counts. Kind of boring, actually.
Some more Crazy MAX profiles come on the tape, and then we segway into-
7. Dragon Kid/Tiger Mask/Masaaki Mochizuki v. CIMA/Sumo Fuji/Judo Suwa (4.15.00). Another six man tag from a few days earlier. Tiger Mask is killing SUWA to start. but CIMA comes in and changes that up. Tiger Mask sidekick ensues, and Tiger Mask follows it up with a flip and then an elaborate sequence into a backbreaker. Awesome. Clipped to SUWA v. Dragon Kid. SUWA kills the Kid with a clothesline, and Kid hits a nice flying headscissors. He teases a tope and then hits the springboard moonsault from inside the ring to the outside. They try to de-mask Tiger Mask, but it ain't really happening. Clipped to Masaaki and Tiger Mask taking the heels to the outside. Big brawl with chairs erupts, including a DDT on the concrete. This is a little different than the usual.
CIMA takes an inverted powerbomb out the corner from Masaaki, but he takes the Iconoclasm and comes out worse for the wear. Two-count. Tiger Mask v. Sumo Fuji, and Sumo does the Kane-UT tombstone reversal into powerslam that they do every week on WWF Television. Actual powerslam by Sumo Fuji on Tiger Mask IV for two. Nodowa otoshi, but Tiger Mask counters into an armbar. There are beautiful, beautiful words to describe that, but I don't possess them. CIMA does a psychotic tope, and SUWA and Dragon Kid are in the ring. Dragon Kid reverses a powerbomb into a DDT and goes for the Dragon Rana. He hits it...1, 2, 3. Usual excellent action here. The clipping ruined it, but it seemed a bit better than the last six-man because of the workrate of the participants.
8. CIMA/Sumo Fuji/Judo Suwa/Yoshikazu Taru/Makoto v. Dragon Kid/Tiger Mask/Genki Horiguchi/Yoshiyuki Saito/Ryo Saito (4.18.00). I don't know how they do a show with most of their talent in this match. Huge brawl starts this one off, with everyone going in the crowd. These guys haven't really mastered the art of the brawl yet, I won't lie to you. CIMA cuts a mid-match promo for whatever reason. Crazy Max is busting balls for the opening to this thing. The pier-sixer erupts soon after, with SUWA being stopped from coming to ringside but taking out everyone with a two-by-four. Finally the match gets around to starting for real and its SAITO v. Sumo Fuji. Not who I would have started the match with, but whatever. Handstand deathlock by Saito, and Sumo almost tries a plancha but reconsiders. Next we have CIMA v. Dragon Kid and it's way too brief. KDX-style double teams start erupting. This is getting the real feel of a MPro 8-Man. All the heels beat on Dragon Kid in a funny bit. It's hard to know what they are going for, comedy or brutality, which isn't as much a problem in the MPro spot-fu.
CIMA achieves that little bit of both and takes the fire to other Saito, who sells mainly like D-Von Dudley. We even get the obligatory dropkick in the tree of woe spot, and then the series of splashes in the corner. Okay, there's a fine line between homage and plagiarism when it comes to MPro. Huge, huge highspot train erupts, with the official Ultimo Dragon gym springboard action. There's not a lot of German suplexes in this company, it would seem. TARU brings the neat-o kicks to this one, and his sub-Albert goozle bomb. Dragon Kid ranas Makoto to all fucking hell, but an enziguiri stops that business. Backslide from Saito on CIMA almost gets the pinfall. Fisherman's suplex for two. CIMA tries a powerbomb but takes a German suplex for two. Looks like I spoke too soon. CIMA unleashes the superkick as the heels destroy Dragon Kid and Tiger Mask. CIMA tries to put away Saito with the Iconoclasm and does. One Mad Splash later...1, 2, 3. Cipped but, it loked like *** or so. What we saw was intensely CIMA-focused. This seemed like an MPro-variant match, and not really what I wanted to see, but okay besides that. CIMA looked on top of his game in that one.
Some bush-league ECW-style interview with CIMA as he walks down the street (I got to think somewhere in Japan). CIMA next eats some spicy food. I don't think this is interesting even in Japanese.
Next they show footage of Crazy Max tying the faces up in the ring ropes. Now there's an idea that Vince Russo could steal.
Clips of CIMA's involvement in a match-hard to tell who the participants were, but it looked like a straight tag. It's weird to see CIMA playing an out-and-out heel because he wrestles so easily as a spunky face in the Super J-Cup, which is the first I saw of him.
There's a brief TARU profile. TARU is the cemented badass of Crazy Max, but he's also quite hilarious. He kills you with devastating kicks and is a great worker, but more importantly he has charisma that reminds me of Masa Chono.
Clips of Crazy MAX as they have what appears to be a bizarre version of the DX public workout before WM XIV in Boston.
8. CIMA, Sumo Fuji, Yoshikazu Taru v. Dragon Kid, Genki Horiguchi, Stalker Ichikawa (4.25.00). Frankly, it's good to see Taru involved in this one, instead of gesturing at ringside in that suit. Typical small crowd but they are a little livelier and Stalker's schtick is top-notch. Stalker tells his teammates he wants to go in first, while Crazy MAX plays rocks, paper, scissors, to determine it. Sumo Fuji starts for the heels. Comedy match erupts, and Stalker immediately tags Dragon Kid in. Funny stuff. Chopfest erupts, and they run the ropes. They trade leglocks, and Sumo shows that he can go, if only on a basic level. Slow armdrag spot and Sumo complains Dragon Kid was yanking his hair.
CIMA v. Genki now, and they rolls around on the mat for a bit, with CIMA working on Horiguchi's arm. CIMA also complains around his hair being grabbed after an armdrag spot, and TARU gets the tag. TARU v. Stalker now, and Stalker works a comedic headlock. Stalker does a bit where he starts to run the ropes and elude TARU, but eventually TARU just steps out of the way and he's STILL running the ropes. Stalker takes the advantage the next go-round but headscissoring TARU to the outside and following it up with a swanton from inside the ring on TARU who is on the floor outside the ring. Wow. He's certainly improving as a wrestler-if the highspots are any indication. TARU comes in and kicks him in the back. Let the Crazy MAX double-teams begin! Everyone clobbers Stalker in the corner, but he falls down before TARU can get to him. Venus punch knocks Stalker off the turnbuckle to the floor. It's Genki v. TARU now, and Genki tries to break out another rash of bullshit submission holds. God, I hate that guy.
Dragon Kid is in with CIMA and it starts getting real good, real quick as CIMA hits the Eddy Guerrero slingshot senton and they go into a nice counter sequence with Dragon Kid breaking out the rana-armdrags and everything. Stalker v. Sumo Fuji now, and they square off with Stalker trying to push Fuji down with his arm slaps only to be retaliated against in kind. Stalker then goes for the UT-walk-the-ropes bit. Sumo slaps him and does the walk-the-ropes bit himself. Stalker crotches him and follows with an intentionally-blown (I assume) asai moonsault. Genki v. CIMA gets the crowd back into the match, which CIMA ties together admirably. Dropkick by CIMA-1, 2, no. Then TARU starts choking Genki with a belt as Crazy MAX abuse him. They even involve members of the crowd in the triple team through a complicated sequence of hand-holding for leverage. Sumo covers for two. Can you say face-in-peril? Dragon Kid comes in to take some punishment, including the triple-dropkick in the tree-of-woe spot that there's really no avoiding now. CIMA tries to take off Dragon Kid's mask, and nearly does.
Crazy MAX puts Stalker on his head and kicks him in the balls. Toryumon-home of the most elaborate ballshots this side of fucking Dudleyville. CIMA military presses Stalker and does push-ups Steiner-style. I wonder if this guys watch WWF television at all. Sumo Fuji tries a military press of his own, and TARU completes the beating by setting up yet another ornate ballshot. Get this one-TARU holds Stalker in piledriver position in the corner and Sumo Fuji hotshots CIMA into the balls. Finally the faces come in to do the requisite Ultimo Dragon Gym highspots. Dragon hits Mysterio-stunner-instead-of-bulldog out of a reverse powerbomb position and a slingshot rana roll-up.
CIMA catches him for the Iconoclasm, but Genki stops the Mad Splash and tries for the Genki Driver. SUMO...uh, Sumo Fuji interrupts and a lariat gets two. Nodowa otoshi gets two. Genki slaps on the GH Lock but Taru kicks him out of it. CIMA superkick on Dragon Kid takes him out of the equation, and TARU kicks Genki out of the ring. He hits the Michinoku Driver on Stalker to end the match in 21:53. Long, fun, match, but nothing that particularly impressed me. It was a comedy match that was held together by the more talented participants. **3/4 Not great in terms of wrestling value, but as entertainment it was sweet. They do the Crazy Max salute afterwards.
If you want to see what made Crazy MAX so cool as heels, look no further. The formation of M2K would give them a tweener status in more current times. Now Stalker is teaming with them as faces v. the outright heels M2K. Unlike, say, The Rock's heel turn, it made Crazy MAX more over and more cool than ever.
And by the way, the Toryumon Dragon's Gate Television has Stalker doing a dead on parody of Liger v. Ultimo Dragon, with Stalker playing Liger. Hilarity ensues, believe me. He also fights Alexander Otsuka, which is not for the weak of heart, as they say.
So if you're alienated at all by the WWF, I recommend Toryumon. As puroresu goes, it's among the most accessible. The action ranges from charmingly indyish to amazingly highbrow storylines and lowbrow comedy. You'll enjoy it more than any New Japan or Zero-One, trust me.
If you're new, start here. If you're not, it's still the shit.
Alex
Carnavale
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