This is my first time watching K-DOJO and for those who don't know the "K" is for Kaientai. This makes me wonder, since TAKA Michinoku also has a promotion called Michinoku Pro, why wrestlers throughout the years have had success in Japan and not WWE. If you think of Hideo Itami as being the "Japanese guy" in WWE right now then before him would be Yoshi Tatsu and we can go back beyond that to names such as Sho Funaki, Ultimo Dragon, Kenzo Suzuki, Tajiri, TAKA Michinoku, Jimmy Wang Yang (Akio) and so on and so forth. So why is it that when these wrestlers come into WWE they can never seem to break past the mid-card level? On the same side of the coin though, why is it that an American born wrestler can go to Japan and find success there? (Just look at NJPW) Is it simply a matter that someone like Doc Gallows or Davey Boy Smith Jr. can adapt to the Japanese style easier than, say, Yoshi Tatsu could adapt to the WWE style or is it simply just bad booking on WWE's part? If the biggest star in Japan right now was to be signed to WWE, would they push him to the moon? I guess in some ways we have Hideo Itami in NXT right now to figure that out though. Does anyone honestly believe Hideo Itami can make it to WWE Championship status one day and not just be cut off at the U.S. Title mark? I'm not saying anything about his talent, but just based on WWE's booking and their track record.
In any case, I watched this through and am going to write about what I remember from the matches now so it will be slightly different from my normal play by play reviews I've been doing.
The opening video package plays on the K-DOJO version of a Titantron while we stare at it through the ring. Really, this felt like something more for the live crowd and could have been better edited in later for us, the home viewer.
Match One: Bozz Rengo (Daigoro Kashiwa / Kotaru Nasu / Ryuichi Sekine / Saburo Inematsu) vs. Kotaro Yoshino / Ricky Fuji / Tiran Shisa / Yoshihiro Horaguchi
So of course, K-DOJO would add to my confusion by beginning with an 8 man tag. Ricky Fuji stands out because he has long blonde hair. I'm pretty sure Tiran Shisa is not related to Super Shisa, who I saw on the Dragon Gate show after watching this K-DOJO one. But it is worth noting that someone on the same side as him was masked and from what I can gather based on the K-DOJO website Tiran is masked as well. But it might just be a thing where all Shisa stars are masked and they're not the same guy. I did find a Wikipedia page for Super Shisa and it doesn't say he's ever performed as Tiran Shisa so there's also that. When the music hit though I immediately recognized the Bozz Rengo faction because their music kind of sounds like the "Bonanza" theme. Yes, Sekine and Inematsu were involved in the hardcore match from the BJW show I watched prior to this and they were the ones who had their chair broken and it made them sad. Hopefully I post these in the correct order now as well, since I'm cross referencing them. There was some quickness in this match but it mostly represented that Japanese strong style. Bozz won via submission and this a good match to open the show that left me feeling better about not knowing who everyone was when I was able to recognize Sekine and Inematsu.
Match Two: Kyogetsu (Kunio Toshima / Yuma) vs. Guts Ishijima / Tatsuhiko Yoshino
Guts Ishijima was easy enough for me to pick out because aside from being the smaller of the two in his tag team and wearing all white he also had the word "GUTS" on the back of his trunks. That always helps. Yuma has half of his face painted blue so it's easy enough to pick up on who he is and Toshima is wearing what I like to call black pajamas but is probably closer to a gi and also makes me think of Great Sasuke. Guts and Yoshino also have some sort of titles together. This match saw some high flying as well as brawling through the crowd. Guts hit a huge top rope drop kick where he stands up while doing it ala Paul London. Guts ended up turning a suplex into a pin and got the win on Toshima. A good match for what it was, but it really only kind of helped to make me a fan of Kyogetsu as they seem to have an appeal to them, though Guts Ishijima seems to also have star potential. I guess it was a good match then and it was just Yoshino who fell flat with me.
Match Three: Bambi / Koharu Hinata vs. Hatsuhinode Kamen / Kaori Yoneyama
This was a female tag team match. One of the two women not on Bambi's team was masked but I'm not sure which one. Whoever was the unmasked one on the team was pretty tough. This was also a fairly athletic match and just goes to show how women are taken just as seriously in the ring as the men in Japan. This could be the reason for intergender matches and they are kind of starting to grow on me. Also, the masked woman wasn't calling herself Sexy Star so I'm good with that too. Not a bad match for what it was, but it ended with Bambi's team winning I think. (Looking it up afterwards confirmed this)
Match Four: TAKA Michinoku vs. Ayumu Honda
This match was easy enough to enjoy as I immediately recognized TAKA and had thoughts running in my head of how he has so much more star power now and success than he seemingly ever had while in WWE. Strange, right, that the best days he'd have would come *after* the supposed biggest professional wrestling company in the world? This was a strong style match as well, though they did mix it up. I find it funny though that since TAKA is smaller compared to other wrestlers in WWE he was booked more as a high flyer (I always thought of him as being that in WWE) and yet here he isn't as much because, well, the whole WWE vs. Japan thing I wrote about at the start. The two traded submission holds throughout the match and eventually TAKA Michinoku picked up the win when Ayumu Honda tapped out. A good showing from TAKA Michinoku and something you should seek out to watch if you are only familiar with him from his WWE days.
The camera stared at the ring as people left so I'm assuming this was intermission. The video feed just kind of sat there and we watched as the crowd eventually came back in as well. This was very odd and as such I will never imply anything bad again about the way CZW has their intros with music that isn't high on my playlist. Yes, I would much rather listen to Limp Bizkit over a video graphic for the event than feel like some kind of voyeur. There was also a video shown on the Titantron and I believe it was spoken and subtitled in Japanese so I'm lost on two levels now.
Match Five: Atsushi Maruyama (Champion) vs. Hi69 *Independent Junior Heavyweight Title Match*
Back from intermission I was ready to get into things with this match because I did recognize Maruyama right away from the BJW show I watched before this. Do K-DOJO and BJW have some kind of working agreement or are these guys just all freelance, since I'm seeing them crossover. Hi69 has a long ponytail but he also has fringe. He's a cross between RVD and CIMA, in terms of looks. The two men trade blows in the middle of the ring at one point and at another time Hi69 hits what appears to be a Michinoku Driver from the top rope on Maruyama for a two count. Hi69 also pulled down his knee pad so he could hit the champ with a bare running knee but even that didn't finish him off. It took a big top rope splash to finally get the three count and, yes, the comparisons between Hi69 and RVD do not end there. So a new champion is crowned in a match that I went into knowing only one of the two men but now after seeing Hi69 I look forward to seeing more matches from him. It reminds me of when you get a split cassette and know only of the artists but after listening to it you become a fan of both.
Match Six: SFU (Kaji Tomato / Shiori Asahi) (Champions) vs. Kyogetsu (Tank Nagai / Yuki Sato) vs. Hiro Tonai / MIYAWAKI *STRONGEST-K Tag Team Title Three Way Match*
This was probably the most confusing match for me on the card because it featured three different tag teams so keeping track of who is who was definitely tested by my language barrier. I suppose I could just learn Japanese and, yes, I am seriously considering it for all the Japanese wrestling I've been watching. Thanks to his profile page on the official K-DOJO website I can conclude that Yuki Sato is the guy who came out with a kendo stick and as such he is the one who I continued to think of during this match as AJ Styles. He also has a title hanging out of his tights. So his partner is Tank Nagai, who comes out in a duster but reveals a singlet underneath it. Yuma also accompanies these two to the ring. The other challengers are made up of MIYAWAKI who is in black shorts and Hiro Tonai in red pants. As for the champs, they dance a lot. For whatever reason, Kaji Tomato reminds me of a kickboxer as he's in baggy shorts and sneakers. I'm not sure how I got to the kickboxing jump but it was how I thought of him during this match. He was also in red and white while his partner, Shiori Asahi wears black and white baggy pants. The match began with three men in the ring at once, which seemed to be legal and is an interesting take on the threeway tag team match because when you traditionally can only have two men in the ring at once it effectively leaves one team out of the fold and lessens their chances of winning. This, of course, leads to more than one spot where everyone has headlocks applied ala that infamous Terry Funk-Sabu-Shane Douglas match in ECW only they go one further the second time and have four men involved. They fight through the crowd and Sato uses some sort of K-DOJO flag to choke Tomato. Shiori Asahi uses the Cobra at one point which makes me wonder if Santino Marella stole it from him or vice versa (Though if Santino is retired it's not really stealing now) There are submission holds and the spot where three men hit suplexes on the other three as they're all connected. Some suicide dives and near falls. I like to think of this as non-stop action and perhaps K-DOJO should use that as their motto since I'm pretty sure no one else is. Tomato ends up getting the pin and win on Sato, which was odd because Tank does come in to break it up but both Sato and I are visibly upset and confused following the three count because we both thought it was only two. I've seen it before where it has been thought to be a three count so the time keeper rings the bell and music plays, which is what I thought was happening here but this apparently really was the end and I must agree with Sato as I didn't think it was three either. Of course this does lead to post match in ring talking.
Match Seven: Kengo Mashimo (Champion) vs. Yuji Hino *STRONGEST-K Title Match*
Kengo Mashimo is just a big, impressive guy who can move and move well. Yuji Hino of course was part of the tag match on the BJW show with Yuji Okabayashi who I nicknamed "Ok". The fact that I knew who Hino was going into this match made it more enjoyable for me because I didn't have to worry about remembering who was who, but at the same time it didn't kind of matter for me because I could have just distinguished them by champion and challenger. I'm not going to get too much into the details of this one but it was hard hitting and this is a perfect example of what it means for two wrestlers to just leave it all in the ring. After a little over a half an hour the match ended when neither man could answer the ten count and it was declared a draw. Of course there needs to be a rematch but I must urge you to seek out at least this single match if not this entire show because this was definitely worth watching.
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