Osamu Kido vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 15:00
Daisuke Ikeda vs. Katsumi Usuda 5:03
Tomohiro Ishii vs. Hiroyuki Ito 10:34. A fun throwback to the 2nd UWF. It was a little more pro wrestling oriented, but aside from running a few times it was pretty credible. They mostly exchanged on their feet, but it was pretty intense & Ito just kept coming & coming, outputting at a high volume until Ishii would temporarily slow him down with a brutal shot. Ito had a big reach advantage & used his kicks on the outside then came in with clinch knees. That would put Ishii in range though, allowing him to come back once he withstood the initial blitz. Ishii was getting beat up early, but finally leveled Ito with a single short range palm blow. Later when Ito came in, Ishii responded with a takedown. I loved Ito's armbar, he literally stood on Ishii's chin while setting it up then dropped down to apply the lock. There wasn't really a satisfactory reason for a suddenly bloody Ishii to just outright take over the match, at some point he just had a big run & Ito would no sell once in a while, but generally was just getting run over down the stretch until he submitted to a Boston crab. The structuring needs some work, & Ishii wasn't nearly as charismatic here as in later years, but pretty much any Ishii match that's a lot of striking and also a strong effort from the opponent is going to be worthwhile. ***
Buck Quartermain & Steve Madison vs. Riki Choshu & Takashi Uwano 10:05
Enson Inoue vs. Gerard Gordeau 2:56
Yuki Ishikawa vs. Alexander Otsuka 12:06
Kazunari Murakami vs. Katsuyori Shibata 9:44. A fantastic performance by Shibata carrying Murakami to probably the best match of his career. I absolutely loved how hard these two went at it from start to finish. I don't even mean in terms of effort or stiffness, which was certainly there in abundance, but you rarely see wrestlers throwing with this sort of speed & energy. There was a genuine sense of urgency, & that's the key to making a shoot match work. They were throwing full effort blows that would really have done some damage if they didn't miss or connect on the spots they intended, but in the end, the specifics didn't even matter, it was the feel & atmosphere they created that dragged the audience right in & kept them lost in the moment. That they tossed in a few moves that "don't belong" such as Shibata's series of running dropkicks with Murakami down in the corner was irrelevant because you were focused on how hard Shibata was taking it to a prone Murakami rather than thinking a soccer ball kick would be the killer move here. Shibata fought with such zeal, really elevating Murakami by keeping him in fight for his life reacting mode so he didn't have time to get into his usual shtict. This wasn't the stalking around, cheating, & fighting with the ref Murakami that undermines his shooter gimmick by adding all the corny nonsense you don't get in MMA back into the pro wrestling version while still trying to tell us we're seeing something other than the usual hokem. Shibata was shot out of a cannon & just had Murakami reacting to his blitz, thrusting Murakami back into his Extreme Fighting days when he was forced to bring the best he could come up with so Bart Vale couldn't be bragging about beating him for the rest of his life rather than make some silly faces working up to getting DQ'd. To his credit, Murakami took the match seriously & was able to raise his level several notches to hang with Shibata. Murakami wasn't suddenly great, I still don't like the way he executes some of his offense & his general demeanor tends to accomplish the oppositite of what it's supposed to because it feels forced & fake, but again Murakami really didn't have time to be pro wrestling Murakami here. The finish was still rather unsatisfactory, but having a real finish in a Murakami match, even if it feels as though it came a little quickly, is an accomplishment. ****
Osamu Kido vs. Don Arakawa 4:31
Manabu Hara vs. Munenori Sawa 12:17
Katsumi Usuda vs. Masanobu Kurisu 6:23
KAZMA & Kengo Mashimo vs. Hiroyuki Ito & Yuki Ishikawa 13:34
Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Akitoshi Saito 10:05
AJ Styles vs. Petey Williams 17:44
Kazunari Murakami vs. Enson Inoue 9:58
Satoshi Kojima vs. Katsuyori Shibata 17:27
Osamu Kido & Manabu Hara vs Don Arakawa & Munenori Sawa
Hiroyuki Ito vs Katsumi Usuda
Tatsuo Nakano vs Masanobu Kurisu
Jinsei Shinzaki & Yoshitsune vs Alexander Otsuka & Rasse
Yuji Nagata & Takashi Iizuka vs Kazunari Murakami & Enson Inoue
Katsuyori Shibata vs Alan Karaev
Osamu Kido vs Masanobu Kurisu
Yoshitsune vs Rasse
Yuki Ishikawa & Muneki Sawa vs Manabu Hara & Katsumi Usuda
Minoru Suzuki vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara
Kensuke Sasaki vs Kazunari Murakami
Katsuyori Shibata vs Hidetaka Monma
Exhibition Match: Osamu Kido vs. Ultimo Dragon
Yuki Ishikawa vs. Hiroyuki Ito
Don Arakawa vs. Muneki Sawa
Alan Karaev vs. Katsumi Usuda
Ensen Inoue vs. Manabu Hara
Kazunari Murakami & Kensuke Sasaki vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Minoru Suzuki
Katsuyori Shibata vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima
Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Great Kabukicito (Taro Nohashi) 7:28
Don Arakawa vs. Riki Sensyu 7:43
AKIRA vs. Yoshitsune 17:03
Enson Inoue & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Mad Dogs (Mad Dog Goto & Mad Dog Ohara)
Katsuhiko Nakajima vs. Munenori Sawa 7:18
Katsumi Usuda & Kazunari Murakami & Manabu Hara vs. Voodoo Murders (Shuji Kondo & TARU & "brother" YASSHI) 15:41
Kensuke Sasaki vs. Katsuyori Shibata 16:20
BIG MOUTH REALLUSION 2/26/06 Tokushima Shiritsu Taiikukan
Hiroyuki Ito vs. Katsumi Usuda 10:20
Enson Inoue & Kazunari Murakami vs. Takashi Iizuka & Yuji Nagata 12:17
Katsuyori Shibata vs. Alan Karaev 3:52
BIG MOUTH ILLUSION 3 3/22/06 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Munenori Sawa & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Katsumi Usuda & Manabu Hara 17:55
Minoru Suzuki vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara 11:43
Kensuke Sasaki vs. Kazunari Murakami 3:38 + 0:34
Katsuyori Shibata vs. Hidetaka Monma 12:30
BIG MOUTH ILLUSION 4 4/19/06 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Alan Karaev vs. Katsumi Usuda
Ensen Inoue vs. Manabu Hara
Kazunari Murakami & Kensuke Sasaki vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Minoru Suzuki
Katsuyori Shibata vs. Katsuhiko Nakajima
BIG MOUTH ILLUSION 5 6/18/06 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Mad Dogs (Mad Dog Goto & Mad Dog Ohara) vs. Hiroyuki Ito & Yuki Ishikawa 11:13
Naomichi Marufuji & Takeshi Morishima vs. Katsuyori Shibata & Kota Ibushi 16:00. There was a lot of potential here, but they didn't think things through, so it wound up amounting to little. Marufuji & Shibata did a strong chain wrestling opening that should have established the style of the match. Whereas they weren't doing their style, they were doing a particular style - European technical wrestling - Morishima just did his usual aggressive powerhouse brawler stuff. I could live with that because Morishima isn't exactly a wrestler of many modes, but where they went wrong is they put all the heat on Morishima vs. Shibata. Morishima just ran through Ibushi, taking a cheap shot at Shibata in the midst to incite him, but then just tossed Ibushi over to his corner & tagged Marufuji as soon as Shibata tagged in. Shibata likely would otherwise have begun improving upon the technical wrestling he'd already initiated with Marufuji, but was distracted, & soon took a cheap shot at Morishima & followed him to the floor where the two brawled while Marufuji stood around in the middle of the ring twiddling his thumbs. Morishima immediately rendering Ibushi a joke also took him out of the match in any meaningful way, as his "role", when they even noticed he was there, was just to kill time while everyone anticipated Shibata/Morishima confrontations. Ibushi never seemed into it to begin with, playing with his pants enough to get the attention of Rafael Nadal fans, & generally seeming to be elsewhere. In the end, we never got any real payoff. We didn't get an escalation of what Marufuji & Shibata were doing, and we didn't get big Morishima vs. Shibata confrontations, we got Morishima dispatching of Ibushi, which was already established from the first 30 seconds they worked together. The wrestling itself was fine, a lot of it was good in and of itself, but, for the most part, the action wasn't truly compelling after the opening sequence. **
Great Yuta (Yutaka Yoshie) & Kazunari Murakami vs. Minoru Suzuki & Yoshiaki Fujiwara 23:35
BIG MOUTH ILLUSION 6 taped 7/2/06 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Kensuke Sasaki vs. Katsuyori Shibata 16:20
Katsumi Usuda & Kazunari Murakami & Manabu Hara vs. Voodoo Murders (Shuji Kondo & TARU & "brother" YASSHI) 15:41
BIG MOUTH ILLUSION 7 8/20/06 Tokyo Korakuen Hall
Hiroyuki Ito & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Mad Dogs (Mad Dog Goto & Mad Dog Ohara) 3:13
Ikuto Hidaka & Minoru Fujita vs. Katsumi Usuda & Manabu Hara 20:04
Katsuyori Shibata vs. TARU 9:21
Minoru Suzuki & Yoshihiro Takayama vs. Kazunari Murakami & Yuji Nagata 18:55