Japanese Hardcore Wrestling VIII Review

Posted in In My Head by Jack at 20:51, Sep 08 2005

By Startibardfast

I shot my mouth off about how great though this PPV
would be so I figured I should review it....

This show left me with one though: Yes it?s hardcore,
but is it wrestling?

The show is hosted by Buck Woodward of PWinsider.com
and Eric Gargiulo of Prowrestlingradio.com. Our hosts
introduce themselves and then got right to the action,
so I will do the same.

Match 1: Women?s tag team weapons match
Contestants: Ozaki & Takako VS Dump Matsumoto & Shark
Tsuchiya
Promotion: ???

This is the first time I?ve seen a women?s hardcore
match aired on this series. In the past, the women?s
matches shown were very good traditional technical
matches, but this time they give the women a ring full
of weapons and turn them lose.

This match is filled with Kendo stick strikes, steel
chains, chair shots and even a little stun gun action.
There was very little in the way of wrestling in this
match up. The participants just seemed to move from
one weapon strike to the next, which prevented the
match from having a fluid flow or constant pace.
Unless your really want to see a 200+ Asian woman with
an orange Mohawk there?s not much to see in this one.


Match 2: Men?s single Glassboard, Fire, and Barbed
Wire Death Match
Contestants: Matsunaga VS Mr. Pogo

This death match takes place outside, and does so by
necessity. The ring ropes have been replaced with
barbed wire, and have about a quarter of their length
are wrapped in towels soaked with a flammable material
and set ablaze. Now while this may seem like a great
idea, it creates to major hindrances to a match. One:
the smoke from the flames gets so thick that the
wrestlers are forced to leave the ring, depending on
the wind, and two: with the flames ragging, the
wrestlers are very limited on how much ring space they
have to work with, (in this case the entire match was
confined to the very center of the ring). Again not
much wrestling took place here, instead we get a lot
of cutting with various objects, a ?flaming sickle?
shot, and a ?flaming clothes line?. This match held
my attention but was not worth the price of admission.


Match 3: Men?s tag team match
Contestants: Hero & Kudo VS Morohashi & Toba
Promotion: Dynamic Dream Team Pro Wrestling

We take a break from the hardcore style for this
match. There?s not a table, ladder or chair in site,
(although there are some boxing gloves and a wrench).
This contest was fairly entertaining, there was some
high-flying, and kickboxing, (although all the
striking in this one was pretty weak). Not a bad
match but nothing special either.


Match 4: Men?s single 100 Florescent Light Bulbs
Death Match
Contestants: Daisuke Sekimoto VS Mad Man Pondo
Promotion Big Japan Pro Wrestling

As you would expect from the name of this match, there
were broken glass light tubes everywhere. If your
into guys bleeding, this is the match for you as the
two long sides of the ring are covered with light
tubes for easy access. Although a hard core match,
these guys managed to blend the weapon strikes into a
wrestling match. I found the cringe factor on this
one to be pretty high, although I must say this was a
good death match, in fact it was the best hardcore
match of the night. There is also an educational facet
to this match as you?ll also learn to say ?stupid
foreigner? in Japanese.
If you like the Japanese hard core style, this match
may make getting the show worth while.

Match 5: Woman?s singles match
Contestants: Haruyama VS Akino
Promotion: Japan Womens Pro Wrestling

This turned out to be the best non death match contest
on the card. (This is not surprising because this
series has consistently put on excellent women?s
matches.) This one was not as good as the ones in the
past, but it was still very good. It was your basic
technical style of match, a ton on submission holds,
reversals, and fancy transition moves. If watching
WWE has made you forget there women can actually
wrestle, this match will remind you. Not worth
getting the PPV for, but still very good.

Match 6: Men?s 8 Man Super Hardcore Death Match
Contestants: Ito, Abdullah the Kobayashi, Numasawa &
Gosaku VS
Kanemura, Yamakawa, Shadow WX, & Bad Boy
Hido
Promotion: Big Japan Pro Wrestling All Stars

Ok, so the last mach on the card was the death match
to end all death matches. They used two rings, one a
standard ring, one with a scaffold over it, and the
floor covered with a ?spider web? of barb wire
attached to the second rope and suspended about a foot
above the ring to act as a ?safety net? if someone
fell off of the scaffold. This one was pretty much a
bloody spot fest. Barb wire covered tables, kendo
sticks, and chair shots made up most of the action.
Again so much attention was applied to getting the big
spots in, that the match lacked a flow, or continuity.
If you want to see people in pain this match will
give you what your looking for. Personally I would
have rather seen another of the women?s singles
matches.

So there you have it, a rundown of Japanese hardcore
Wrestling VIII. This was not the best show they have
done, and I really only enjoyed two of the matches, (4
and 5). If you?re a big hardcore fan you may find it
more entertaining than I did, however if you?re a
collar and elbow lock up, into a waist lock, into a
drop toe hold, into a head lock kind of wrestling fan,
you?ll want skip this one.