Matches Reviewed
- Taka Michinoku vs Gamma ***1/2
- Kuishinbo Kamen vs Ebessan C***1/2
- 2005 Tenno-Zan Final: Super Dolphin vs Toru Ohwashi ***3/4
- Miracleman vs King Mandora
Digest
This one is a throwback edition focusing on Gaora's Osaka Pro Best Bout series.
Gamma's balls of steel proved a worthy opponent, but Taka pushed past for the victory in our first episode. They worked a borderline great junior match with a nice level of technicality here and it also served nicely as a time machine trip for fans of these two. A nice way to start things off.
Next, a comedy match with Kikutaro and Kuishinbo. Note, but I recently added a comedy star rating system to the site which explains the rating at the top of the post. This was good stuff and a nice display of the type of athleticism required to work such a match. It really takes a level of professionalism beneath the surface that I applaud.
Episode three featured the Tenno-Zan Tournament Finals from 2005 and saw Toru take on Super Dolphin. It was a battle of sizes and saw cheap heel shit and a brawl around the arena. I liked it a lot, even with the warts. It is the same reason I dig IWRG stuff. Super Dolphin leaned into the style and it helped his big spots, like that great tope, land even better. Toru is well versed in this type of match, even back in '05, so that helped, too.
Great, in my opinion, but likely to be polarizing.
I am going to throw an AEW question out here now, because chaos is fun.
Should Colt be aligned with Kenny, Matt, and Nick when they return next week?
Anyway, episode four gave us Monster King Mandora and Miracleman in singles action. Despite the attires, they worked this as more a legit match than a comedy one resulting in a true rating standard being applied. Either way, this wasn't really all that special. There were a few fun bits and it was honestly not bad by any metric, but I can't in any way recommend it as being truly worthwhile. Consider it a decent but forgettable match.
So, I made the fucked up choice of watching these randomly despite being super behind on current stuff. I don't regret it because it was entertaining and because life is short so why get upset about stupid shit...
Osaka Pro was recently revived which led to GAORA bringing us some gems from the past as a nice offering to build hype. I appreciate this series and I'm pretty sure I'll be back for more soon. It's literally just one match, half-hour episodes with a bit of build and shit and that's all I need. It feels a bit paradoxical in that it feels ahead of its time while simultaneously feeling like an energetic throwback.
Check it out if this seems interesting to you as I bet you'll find something that you like here.
Or you wont and will send me hate mail.
Either is fine.
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