Commissions return again, this one coming from Ko-fi contributor RB. You can be like them and pay me to write about all types of stuff. People tend to choose wrestling matches, but very little is entirely off the table, so long as I haven’t written about it before (and please, come prepared with a date or show name or something if it isn’t obvious). You can commission a piece of writing of your choosing by heading on over to www.ko-fi.com/elhijodelsimon. The current rate is $5/thing or $10/hour for anything over an hour, and if you have some aim that cannot be figured out through simple multiplication, feel free to hit the DMs on Twitter or Ko-fi.
I initially began reviewing this show in individual matches rather than at large, both because I thought it would be more interesting for me, given the point of the commission system is to get as wide a spread of eras, styles, and places as possible, but also because I thought it would simply do better, in terms of numbers. The fans of the style would obviously be into most of it and click on a UWF show and go in blind-ish, but main events of Fujiwara/Maeda and Takada/Yamazaki also have some individual appeal, I think. That is to say nothing about what I thought a more casual fan might do when presented with “Norman Smiley vs. Minoru Suzuki”, which the numbers have proven, relatively speaking anyways.
This is where the flaw in that all comes in.
Yoji Anjoh vs. Tatsuo Nakano is fine.
It is a totally alright shoot-style ten minutes. It is, objectively speaking, pretty good. The mechanics are great. There’s something of a nice story with Nakano not being at his best throwing strikes and trying to ground Anjoh, before giving in and trying to counter the striking with throws and losing for it, but it doesn’t feel quite explored enough. Likewise, while there are some neat transitions and a few of Nakano’s holds on the leg near the end look real nasty, before Anjoh wins with a quick double wristlock out of a Nakano German Suplex.
That’s just kind of where it stops.
Not long enough to become something bigger, and not complex or ultra-interesting enough in terms of the time it has to make up for it either.
Perfectly good shoot-style from one of my favorites, and another guy who sure was around a whole lot. I likely never would have written a word about it were the entire show not commissioned and I also cannot recommend it given how much other great wrestling there is out there for you to discover or watch for the first time. Still good, but in between the two fun undercard matches and the two promising looking main events, likely the only non-great match of the bunch.
HANDWERK 