Misawa Week continues here on FightGameBlog.

Today we present an awesome match from June 9th, 1995 in Budokan Hall. This is a tag team match for the AJPW All Asian Tag Team Titles as Mitsuharu Misawa and Kenta Kobashi defend against Akira Taue and Toshiaki Kawada. What I loved about this AJPW booking was how things would twist around quickly, and it always made sense. Misawa and Kawada were tag partners for most of 94, feuding with the old regime. Kawada and Taue were feuding since Taue was Baba’s storyline trainee and Kawada and Misawa were school friends. Soon after Misawa got successful, Kawada wanted a piece. So he joined up with his enemy to face Misawa and Kobashi. It wasn’t like a typical WWE “turn” where one guy went from being a good guy to a bad guy and did dastardly things – he just wanted gold and to get out of Misawa’s shadow. Thus, this match happened. This was 40 minutes of orgasmic work.

Part 1:
Continue Reading »

In this unusual clip we find the cast of NOAH doing a parody of Super Sentai (Power Rangers in Japan). The Evil Ranger, played by Kenta Kobashi, is terrorizing people in the park. It’s up to Mitsuharu Misawa and his band of Pro Wrestling NOAH transforming heroes to save the day. Jun Akiyama, Akira Taue, KENTA, Tamon Honda, and Naomichi Marifuji also star. They are the NOAH Rangers. I don’t know the origin of this clip or why they did it, so don’t ask.

Yeah it’s weird, but it’s JAPAN! Did you expect anything less than pro wrestlers playing power rangers?

The Ultimate Fighter wasn’t the best season, but the US vs. UK did give it a bit of more intrigue. There were only a few fighters who really looked like they were going to be above average, so it was a bit predictable, but it was still a fun, albeit less than dramatic season.

James Wilks is facing Damarques Johnson and Ross Pearson is fighting Andre Winner.

But there are also two fights that should be really fun on this card as well. Joe Stevenson faces Nate Diaz while Clay Guida takes on Diego Sanchez in the main event.

1. Joe Stevenson vs. Nate Diaz

Both of these guys are former TUF winners.

Diaz no sold Stevenson’s attempt to touch gloves before the fight.

This was an absolutely awesome round if you enjoy grappling. Stevenson shot in and Diaz locked him a guillotine, which looked like what you’d expect the reverse of a rear naked choke to look like. Then Stevenson crucifixed Diaz’s upper body with his arm and legs and trapped him for a bit. Diaz got out of it and reversed the position, but fell right into Stevenson’s guillotine which was locked in tightly. It looked like Diaz was going out. But Diaz flipped over and got out of it. It was Stevenson’s round easily.

These guys have a counter to everything each does. But because they are such different fighters, all their counters are different as well. Diaz again tried for the guillotine, but Stevenson worked out of it and got on top. He put Nate up against the cage and was kneeing him in the thigh. Stevenson was on top of him and in control for nearly the entire round.

Diaz again didn’t want the hand tap to start the third. It was Nate’s best round as he had Stevenson on the run a bit late in the round. Stevenson stayed on his path, controlling Diaz for much of the round. They talked trash to each other while up against the cage. Diaz was telling Joe to work, while Joe was telling Nate to get off his knee. The reason Nate was on his knee was because Joe had him up against the cage and if he’s on his knee, Joe couldn’t knee to the head. This should be Joe’s decision.

Winner: Joe Stevenson by unanimous decision

2. Andre Winner vs. Ross Pearson Continue Reading »

This would normally be great news for west coast wrestling fans, but I’m not so sure considering the company in question.

TNA has announced that their biggest PPV of the year, Bound for Glory V, will be from the University Of California’s Bren Events Center in Irvine, CA on October 18th. We expect Sting to headline (lulz).

Speaking of which, there have been rumors flying that Sting may retire at this year’s Bound for Glory. Pro wrestling journalist Mike Johnson reported that Sting’s contract is up in January. The funny thing about this is that these same rumors seem to creep up every single year since Sting came back to wrestling. It’s no secret WWE wants to induct the Stinger in the Hall of Fame and put out a DVD about him, but as long as he is signed to TNA, it’s not going to happen.

Eh, when Dragon Gate runs in Cali – THEN I’ll get excited (if I lived there).

Today I thought I’d share some of the late Mitsuharu Misawa’s legendary moments in pro wrestling. I know that a lot of North American readers who read FGB might not be that familiar with Mitsuharu Misawa’s body of work, so this is a good chance to catch up on some of the legend’s great matches and moments. (My apologies to Alan for doing your gimmick lately.)

This first clip is from 1990 during a big tag team match on All Japan Pro Wrestling TV from Budokan Hall. Yoshiaki Yatsu and Samson Fuyuki battled Toshiaki Kawada and Tiger Mask II (aka Misawa). This was the infamous match where Misawa actually unmasked himself (something almost unheard of at the time) during the match. Normally when a masked wrestler unmasks, it is the beginning of the end of that worker (see Mexico). However in this case, this was the rebirth of a career, as unmasking himself was the first step in Misawa becoming the torchbearer for AJPW. After this match he challenged Jumbo Tsuruta to a match.

Yoshiaki Yatsu and Samson Fuyuki vs. Toshiaki Kawada and Tiger Mask II

On June 8th, 1990, Misawa battled Jumbo Tsuruta in Budokan Hall in what would be, to this day, the most legendary encounter of his career. Tsuruta found out mere moments before the opening bell that he would be dropping a fall to Misawa, something that didn’t quite happen very often. You see, in that era, the tippy-top guys never lost. You didn’t see the champions get jobbed out to punks like Randy Orton does on WWE PPVs. Tsuruta losing at Budokan was a big deal as he symbolically passed the torch to the man who would carry All Japan for the rest of the decade and turn the entire company around. Dave Meltzer gave this match 5 Stars and described the atmosphere as being like no other show he’d ever attended. Continue Reading »

I’m very happy to say that this show is in HD. The last show wasn’t, and this is a great step for Strikeforce. It just makes their challengers’ series seem more important to me.

1. Luke Rockhold vs. Cory Devela

Luke Rockhold

This is a middleweight fight.

Holy crap. Devela came out and landed a shot and as Rockhold was taking a step backwards, he caught Devela with a short, but wide right hand that put him in the ground. Rockhold just hammered him with about 20 shots and for a reason only the referee understands, it wasn’t stopped. Then Rockhold put on the rear naked choke to finish it. Devela was completely out of it.

Winner: Luke Rockhold by way of 1st round submission

2. Sarah Kaufman vs. Shayna Baszler

This fight is five minute rounds. I wonder if it’s going to affect the conditioning since the girls usually only go three minutes. Continue Reading »