5/5/99 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Masaru Seno vs. Yoshihito Sugamoto. Solid but unspectacular match. **1/4
Super Demekin & Kuishinbo Kamen vs. Police Me~n & Virus. Good work. Pretty much straight Lucha except it was fairly stiff. Kamen does a really nice sky twister press. Virus is the best of the 4. **3/4
Ultra Ace vs. Zacharius. Short nothing match. *
5/4/99 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Super Delfin & Masato Yakushiji & Masaru Seno vs. Dick Togo & Black Buffalo & Violencia. A very good match that was held back by some blown spots. The match started off spectacular, broke into a long sequence where the heals destroyed Seno causing him to bleed, but lacked the hot finish you'd expect from these guys. ***
5/5/99
Dick Togo vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa. Hoshikawa fought hard, but Togo was just too tough for him. The highlight was Togo putting Hoshikawa on two tables outside the ring then doing his patented diving senton off the top rope to the floor. ***1/2
This tape is highlights of matches from 4/29, 5/1, 5/2, 5/3, 5/4 & 5/5/99 to music. They don't really waste any time and aren't afraid to show 5 minutes of a match if it's a main event type of match.
This first hour of this tape is highlights of matches from 6/24, 6/26, 6/27, 7/2, 7/3 & 7/4/99 to music. The final half hour is a good Super Delfin vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa match.
Highlights of previous Osaka Puroresu shows including Delfin putting Hoshikawa through a table with a diving senton to the floor.
Super Demekin vs. Kaiju (monster) Tortoise. Tortoise kind of reminds me of Super Boy. He has that kind of build, yet he has no problem doing moonsaults. Also, he does more than his share of clowning around. He's not nearly as good of a worker, but he seems to have good potential. Demekin just did some dropkicks, so there isn't much to say about him.
Ebessan vs. Monkey Magic. Ebessan carried the match, and was a good base for Monkey's flying. The action was good, but the match just ended. Now, too many matches have finishes that come out of nowhere, but this was different. It was like they were happy they did a good Lucha style beginning, so they decided to just leave it at that. This could turn into something when they get more experience and build up the later stages of the match. *1/2
Alcanheru vs. Kuishinbo Kamen (mask). The action was alright, but the match didn't build. Alcanheru got annoying because he was like Fabi in the early days, playing to the crowd between seemingly every move. *1/2
Naohiro Hoshikawa & Yoshihito Sugamoto vs. Tsubasa & Oriental. I was disappointed in this match. Hoshikawa has gotten so good. The problem is that most of the match was Sugamoto getting worked over, and none of the other wrestlers are close to Hoshikawa's level. Tsubasa still has potential, but he should have stuck with Dragon because it seems like most of his students have passed Tsubasa by even though Tsubasa is a better athlete than almost all of them. **1/4
Super Delfin & Masato Yakushiji & Masaru Seno vs. Dick Togo & Black Buffalo & Policeme~n. Pretty much a low rent version of the classic Sekigun vs. KDX matches. Clearly a very good match, though those spoiled by mid 90's Michinoku will certainly notice each side is one man short. Policeman is pretty good, but vanilla Seno was way out of his depth. Togo vs. Yakushiji made up for them with great work from the get go, wrestling about three gears above the others. Togo is a great wrestler who is driven to carry the match, and Buffalo is a very solid teammate who more than holds his own, working well with any opponent as his deliberately simplistic offense doesn't require much from them. What makes Buffalo good is his moves are well timed, and he does such a good job of utilizing mannerisms and gestures to build anticipation we forget how ordinary the actual holds are. The rudos dominated the match, and unlike too many Lucha matches in Mexico, their heel tactics improved the match. The storyline of LOV destroying Yakushiji & Seno allowed Delfin to pull a Misawa; he was barely involved until making the hot tag at 12:00. The finishing sequence was typically excellent, including Policeme~n doing an impressive super quebrada, although not nearly as hot as in the vintage Michinoku Pro stuff. The post match rates a 10 on the bizarro scale with an executioner coming out to Omen wannabe music and holding a knife to Seno's head, putting a satanic hex on him or something. ***1/2
Highlights of matches from 7/24/99-8/20/99. The best angle is an 8 man tag match where the mysterious masked executioner who has been chokeslamming all of Justice (Delfin's army) then performing satanic looking rituals to them finally wrestles. They think they are all big and bad because the kick the crap out of him, but when they pull his mask off, it turns out it's their buddy Sugamoto, who had been put under some sort of spell that made him into L.O.V's slave, with his arms tied up and his mouth taped. Then the real executioner comes out, unmasks as Daio QUALLT, and chokeslam's all the faces.
Highlights of matches from 9/4/99-9/25/99. Features Demekin Theater and New Young Powers Tsubasa & Sugamoto Stop The L.O.V (Legend Of Violence), which highlights all those matches in order and has some of the pre and post match angles.
Highlights of matches from10/2-10/17/99.
10/17 Osaka Komyo AM Hall : 16 Man Secret Game. This Royal Rumble was hardly a great match, but no where near as bad as the fake punching and rope grabbing that passes an hour in the WWF.
10/24 Osaka Komyo AM Hall
Kuishinbo Kamen & Monkey Magic & Super Demekin vs. Dick Togo & Black Buffalo & Police Me~n. Kind of like early Michinoku with a more lighthearted start, but picking up with lots of big moves and flying. Heels did a good job of carrying this match, in particular Togo was making Monkey Magic look like a star. ***
Super Delfin vs. Daio QUALLT. QUALLT had pinned everyone in Delfin's army in singles and Delfin in tag against no losses, so this was a big match. They had a bunch of wrestlers at ringside to make it seem more important and dramatic. QUALLT has good potential because he's athletic for a "big" guy and already does some nice moves like the frog splash, but right now he's very inexperienced and pretty limited. Structuring was pretty decent considering QUALLT's limitations, and Delfin did a pretty good job, but it was dull in points because when QUALLT isn't jumping off the top rope his offense is pretty reminiscent of the plodding tall Americans. **
This tape follows Shiratori on her quest to win the newly created title. It highlights the five match series with La Diabolica that set her up to challenge for the title, showing the complete deciding match. It also highlights the five match series against Lady Apache for the new title, showing the complete final match. In between it shows her during private time, training, with her family (she has a sister, but she's not nearly as divine), etc.
Highlights of matches from 11/6-11/28/99, including the QUALLT "face turn" and Black Buffalo winning the welterweight title from Delfin.
11/28/99 Osaka Umeda AM Hall WWA Super Welterweight Title: Black Buffalo vs. Super Delfin. The execution was much better than I expected. Not that these guys have problems or anything like that, but they aren't usually this stiff and crisp. Buffalo is a really good worker that lacks offense, but Delfin did some hot moves and pretty everything they did looked good simply because they did it the way it "should be" done. The main negative was there wasn't much to the finishing sequence. Once Delfin warded off QUALLT's run in, he did a few moves and pinned Buffalo to win his title back the first time he tried. ***1/2