Yoji Anjoh vs. Tatsuo Nakano, UWF Mind (7/20/1990)

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.

Norman Smiley vs. Minoru Suzuki, UWF Mind (7/20/1990)

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/match or $5/started half hour of a thing (example: an 89 minute movie is $15, a 92 minute one is $20), 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. 

(The actual commission was for the entire show, but frankly, I think these would do better as individual pieces, as it isn’t like there is some show-long angle or larger whole here, as that would essentially go against the entire concept.)

One of my favorite things guys in wrestling from the 1980s or earlier used to go into on shoot interviews was the idea of a card structure.

Not only in terms of obvious stuff, like not reusing the same finish or shortcuts (blood, table thing, etc.) at all if you can but for sure never two or three matches in a row, or trying to change up the styles or formats (if you have two matches like each other, be it brawls or grappling matches or tag matches, why run them back to back and make them feel less unique?), but in terms of the purpose of the matches in an older school sense. I forget who (gut says Cornette, but I don’t want to give him too much credit, so probably others too), but there was someone who explained in one of these that the first few matches weren’t only to warm people up, but to educate them about the style. Not necessarily boring matches, but simple ones where tropes weren’t broken, nothing too crazy happened, something closer to a purer science establishing a baseline, so that when things inevitably did get wild, it would land with a greater impact. 

Anyways, this feels like the UWF version of that.

Do a young Minoru Suzuki, hair and all, and Norman Smiley have a lot to offer here?

Yes, absolutely.

Every hold is tight, the few strikes thrown land well, and the match is full of cool transitions and cool simple ideas. It’s not a major part of this, but there’s a great repeat bit where Suzuki keeps throwing these little kicks to the knee to try and get something, leading to Norm popping his head up after mostly avoiding one, only to get grabbed into something else as a long set up. Norman is also hardly the most pure American style worker in the world, but there’s a moment near the end where he gives up a winning front choke to try something higher impact as a statement, and it clearly costs him the match, because he can never get back to the same position of strength again.

Mostly though, this is about establishing a baseline, and incredibly successful at that.

There’s a fear established of certain holds, a show of how hard it can be to do many of these things successfully, more strikes are dodged than hit flush, and nothing too wild breaks loose. It’s a look at how this usually works, major and minor mistakes are punished, and it serves a real function at the start of the show to display that this is the sort of wrestling show and promotion where these things matter and so you ought to maybe pay a little closer attention.

Suzuki has a butterfly lock fought off, but he lands the suplex out of it, before going into a front choke of his own from a top mount, with his legs real uniquely wrapped around Norman’s calves, spreading his legs apart to not only stop him from standing out, but also from rolling over, and he gets the submission.

Nothing fancy here, and certainly not a match I would recommend to the sort of fan who really only wants your Funaki/Nakano style crossover hits, but for fans of the genre, a real easy one to enjoy.

An ideal shoot style opener.

three boy