This was the biggest show of the year for the now unfortunately bankrupt Iwate-based Michinoku Pro Wrestling promotion. There was not a tremendous amount of interest in this card in Japan, as Michinoku Pro, which was showing growth in late 1996 and early 1997, has lost all the steam they built up. This lineup wasn't very deep, Shiryu was sorely missed, and there was no match that was guaranteed to be great. Still, every Michinoku fan knows they deliver the goods even if there's 400 people in the crowd, so you knew at least 1 match on the major show would turn out to be great. Unfortunately, on this particular show, there was nothing much beyond the one ****+ star match. Based on what aired here, this show doesn't compare favorably any of the bigger Michinoku shows from 10/96-4/97. The show drew 6,000, which is good for a regional promotion, but a bad crowd for 10,500 seat Sumo Hall. They only got 3/4 of last year's 7,980 to return this year.

Everyone who has any sense of history will find an entertainer (or entertainers) that predate your interest in the medium, but, both defined their era and set the precedent for the medium's future. For me, in wrestling that would be Satoru Sayama and Jaguar Yokota, as they were of the charts performers who were WAY ahead of their time and had the most influence on shaping the style of today's wrestling that I like the best. That said, it pains me to watch Sayama today because he's disgracing his legend. This match was not supposed to be good though, as it was a nostalgia match. As with just about every contemporary New Japan wrestler, the promotion sent Sayama off to foreign lands before bringing him back to Japan as a star. Before Sayama became Tiger Mask in 1981, one of the main places he worked was Mexico, working for EMLL from 1978-1980. Before Sayama left EMLL, on 3/28/80 in Mexico City, he dropped the N.W.A. Middleweight title to Satanico and the two have not met since.

The blow by blow of this match would be much better on paper then it was in actuality because the execution was so hit and miss. Furthermore, the high spots weren't very graceful, which is typical of today's Sayama matches. Both men are out of shape, and Sayama looked like he was verging on blowing up a few minutes into the match. Sayama controlled most of the match, doing far more Super Tiger spots then Tiger Mask spots. The submissions were pretty good at least, but that was about it.

The finish was similar to the finish of the Kyoko/Hotta match from 8/20, but it was much better than that debacle. Satanico did his patented sidewalk slam and leaned over to choke Sayama, but Sayama udehishikigyakujujigatame'd him for the flash submission. It was interesting that during the match, Satanico did the rudo ploy where he offers a hand shake only to try to kick his opponent, but after the match Sayama offered a handshake and they shook hands, showing good will and apparently ending their longstanding rivalry.

6:08 (4:00 aired)

Rating:

Hakushi vs. Undertaker

This was the first part of the main event, billed as a Michi Pro vs. WWF match. This was the most boring match that has aired on Gaora all year. Snails move faster than these two were moving. It was incredible just how much dead time these two could squeeze into a match that was just over 12 minutes long. When you add the long ring entrances in, they made a night out of doing nothing. Then again, Calloway has made a career out of doing nothing and some fools think he belongs in the hall of fame, I guess because enough people payed to see him do nothing.

There were a few good high spots, but the match had no flow, and was in a way reminiscent of Shinzaki's match on last year's Sumo Hall show against Hayabusa because the setup was nonexistent. To make things worse, the spots were so contrived. Hakushi was dominated and he lost, so it's actually surprising he gave as "good" an effort as he did. The announcers were talking about the tremendously overrated Hakushi vs. Great Muta Tokyo Dome match from last year, which for once made me glad that I still can't understand much Japanese.

There was one excellent spot in this pile of poop. Hakushi countered Undertaker's nodowa otoshi with a backflip, which was the same counter Mitsuharu Misawa invented in his 7/25/97 Triple Crown defense against Akira Taue, except this was in the ring, while Misawa's was off the apron. Undertaker got a near fall with his nodowa otoshi before winning with his vaunted tombstone. After the match, Hakushi was put in Undertaker's coffin, apparently signifying the death of that gimmick (certainly no great loss as when he's Shinzaki he can be good on the rare occassion he bothers to show up), but that was edited off tv for some reason. These two just suck. Period.

12:18

Rating:

Super Delfin & Naohiro Hoshikawa & Masato Yakushiji vs. Dick Togo & MEN'S Teio & Shoichi Funaki

This Sekigun vs. DX 6-man tag match was the 2nd part of the triple main event. This match told a better story than, I believe, any of the other great tag Michinoku matches and the timing was excellent. However, the work wasn't quite as good due to the absence of TAKA, Shiryu, Naniwa, Sasuke, and Hamada.

Delfin was wrestling his first match since he disgracefully submitted to Dick Togo by crawling though his legs on 6/22, though he was in the best shape of his life, and the main point of this match was for him to win his fans back. Michinoku Pro does tag matches better than any promotion in the world, and this was just another in a long line of great ones. It had great heat, particularly when Delfin was involved. There was a shift in psychology here due to the presence of Delfin. When Delfin was gone, the DX dominated all the Sekigun members. However, in this match, Hoshikawa & Yakushiji were still initially dominated, but Delfin controlled any and all the DX members from the outset. The match was built around a test of Delfin's courage, and the rest of the match, and the storyline future of the promotion, was riding on how he reacted to the test.

Delfin started the match, quickly gaining control and tagging Hoshikawa. Hoshikawa was kind of reminiscent of Samson early on, as his strength seemed to have left him when he got his hair cut. Teio was just no-selling his strikes and Hoshikawa's gimmick is that he's a "shooter". Yakushiji came in and was dominated by Togo, but he did do an arm drag that was as intricate as any I can remember.

Delfin tagged back in at about the 5-minute mark and he did a UFC punches from the mount sequence with Togo until the rest of the DX stomped on him. Delfin wouldn't be slowed down though, it was like he was on a mission (thankfully not the same one as Mo, Oscar, & Mable), and he hit his lariat on Funaki.

Yakushiji came in, but offered little resistance to the DX onslaught. Togo put Yakushiji in the STF and the DX held the Sekigun at bay, but Yakushiji made it to the ropes. Togo tossed Hoshikawa around like a rag doll with released Northern Lights suplexes. Togo & Teio took Hoshikawa then Yakushiji out with their consecutive released German suplexes spot. This left Delfin to face all three DX. The point in this was that they were playing off Delfin leaving the promotion because he was afraid to compete in Michinoku rings. A coward would have run away at this point because 3-1 odds aren't good, but Delfin attacked the DX. His attack lasted about 2 seconds, before the DX took control, but the point was that Delfin proved his courage to the legion of fans he had disappointed for the past 3 ½ months.

Funaki, who now has braided hair with beads in it and was wearing an odd white mask that looked like one of The Joker's rejects, gave Delfin an Ace crusher. Funaki then got on the house mic and told Delfin to submit by crawling through Togo's legs like he did in Namia. This was Delfin's big test and it was probably the single most important spot of the year in Michinoku Pro. Teio was prodding Delfin closer to Togo's spread legs and the crowd was wondering if their hero would fall again, but Delfin didn't this time. Instead, he popped up and took all three DX out.

One of the great things about this match was that the requisite super 5-minute segment started just after this. Yakushiji & Hoshikawa were rejuvenated by their captain's courage, and they fought on an even plane with the DX the rest of the way. Funaki took all kinds of suplexes from the Sekigun youngsters before Teio came in and broke it up.

Just before the 16-minute mark, Yakushiji gave Teio a flying huracanrana and Hoshikawa followed with a jumping DDT, but Funaki made the save. Funaki & Teio did the double Ace crusher on Hoshikawa, but Delfin made the save. Togo gave Delfin an incredibly fast powerslam for a near fall. Togo did his high angle powerbomb and was ready to go to the top for his diving senton, but Hoshikawa was on the apron so he took a shot at him instead. While Togo was dealing with Hoshikawa, Delfin rolled him up for a hot near fall. This got the crowd into it and they were reacting to everything the rest of the way. Togo tried a press slam, but Delfin turned it into a DDT and followed with two swinging DDT's and his Delfin clutch, but Togo kicked out. Yakushiji missile kicked Togo then Hoshikawa German suplexed him. Hoshikawa & Yakushiji whipped Togo, so Delfin could deliver a version of the palm strike called an upper blow. Delfin then used his Delfin clutch for the upset pin on the DX leader Togo. A show saver.

18:44

Rating:

The Great Sasuke vs. TAKA Michinoku

TKA was billed as WWF even though he hadn't signed with them yet. Before the match, they showed all the angles leading up to this match. They included TAKA jumping Sasuke while Sasuke was being driven around, TAKA jumping Sasuke after Sasuke's match on 9/17, Victor Quinones so eloquently saying, "Here's your fucking contract Sasuke," then shoving the contract for this match in Sasuke's mouth, and TAKA spray painting WWF on a poster for this show that had Sasuke's picture on it.This was the main event, so they had Sunny do the ring announcement and Pancrase co-founder Masakatsu Funaki come out and present Sasuke with flowers and shake TAKA's hand before the match. TAKA and Victor Quinones flipped Sasuke the bird when they were introduced.

This match was really long, which should be a good thing when two of the best in the world wrestle each other. However, this match lacked direction and had a lot of dead time. They put a ton of elements into the match, from shoot style to wannabe AJ like selling to TAKA representing WWF by using well-known WWF spots. I thought it was just too much because it took the match too far away from what these two are really good at. The shocking thing was that this match never reached any level of greatness or excellence. Simply put, this was a very good 18-minute match dragged out into a near 30-minute match.

Sasuke came out and did high kicks at the bell followed by his beautiful tope con hilo. Sasuke sold his bad knee while they were lying on the floor, foreshadowing a point that would become key later on. TAKA wasted a lot of time early on, which may have been part of the WWF psychology. They did a long "shoot" sequence that looked like it was out of a very mediocre Battlarts undercard match, with very worked looking spots and Sasuke clearly being out of his element. Maybe they were trying to impress Masakatsu Funaki, but I doubt a camel clutch thrown into a shoot scene will have him banging down Sasuke's door to give Pancrase a try.

They finally developed a storyline 12 minutes in when TAKA caught one of Sasuke's many kicks and Dragon screwed him. If TAKA had been working on Sasuke's leg during the shoot sequence, the match would have flowed a lot better and made more sense. TAKA then worked over Sasuke's bad knee with submission holds. TAKA imitated Bret Hart, ramming Sasuke's knee into the ringpost, putting him in a figure 4 on the floor, then applying a sharpshooter when he reentered the ring. They tried to do a lot of selling, but it was so out of place considering all the high spots that are done in a typical Michinoku Pro match and how few had been done in this match.

At the 18-minute mark, Sasuke dropkicked TAKA off the top to the floor and tried his quebrada, but TAKA pulled him off the apron and Sasuke crashed into a ringside table and sold his knee. Back in the ring, Sasuke tried a German suplex, but TAKA landed on his feet like Shiryu and did a Frankensteiner for a near fall. TAKA missed a moonsault, but got up in time to stop Sasuke from quebrada'ing him. Sasuke back body dropped TAKA to the floor and tried his Sasuke special, but TAKA got up in time to stop it with an elbow. Sasuke finally hit a quebrada out of the ring and they sold it pretty big. Sasuke followed with his rider kick, which they sold even better despite the fact that he didn't hit it very well. The rider kick is about the last move Sasuke should be doing when he has a bad knee, but Sasuke seems to feel he "has to" do it if there's a big crowd, which is silly. He needs to show the crowd that he can have just as great a match without killing himself, and the crowd will accept the change.

TAKA slipped out of Sasuke's thunder fire powerbomb and did a Stone Cold stunner. TAKA then hit his awesome super quebrada. They went to the big spots and near falls at the 24-minute mark, including TAKA turning a German suplex into a Brian Christopher facecrusher and Sasuke getting a near fall with both his in ring quebrada and his thunder fire powerbomb. Sasuke went for his swandive huracanrana finisher, which I don't think he's used in a long time, but TAKA caught him in midair and powerbombed him. TAKA used his Michinoku driver II for a near fall. Sasuke came back and did a thunder fire powerbomb for a near fall. Sasuke missed a phoenix splash and TAKA immediately la magistralled him for a great near fall. Both men stopped their opponent's main finisher, then Sasuke hit a couple of kicks that weren't very good, but TAKA sold them really well, and a German suplex for the win. The idea of winning with the German suplex may have been that TAKA was blocking all Sasuke's regular finishers because he knew them, so it took a "surprise" finisher to put him away.

If they tightened this up and compressed it into a 18-minute match, which is about the length of their typical singles match, this would have clearly have been better. Even though Sasuke was working with a knee that needs surgery, these two should still be able to do a lot better. Sasuke gave a speech after the match, basically saying that although the promotion would be shut down after the January tour, this wasn't the end of the line and that they would be back.

28:21

Rating:

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