Takeshi Oiso vs Tetunosuke Daigo, IWE 10/29/69. JWA wasn't the only game in town when it came to rocking it old-school.

Andre the Giant, Ali Bey & Franz van Buyten vs Rusher Kimura, Teranishi & Thunder Sugiyama, IWE 5/2/72. Andre rules so much in this match.

Animal Hamaguchi vs Mighty Inoue, IWE 9/26/73. Way too fun. One might call this a 70's workrate match, but their personalities are just as important as their athletic ability.

Animal Hamaguchi & Mighty Inoue vs Akihisa Takachio & Samson Kutsuwada, 2/3 falls, IWA tag titles, IWE 11/30/77. Takachio is the to-be Great Kabuki. Kutsuwada is a big guy who is pretty much forgotten but was reasonably competent. This is part of IWE's ongoing cooperation with All Japan, so we get Joe Higuchi as the ref, Jumbo in the stands, and Onita as a ring attendant. The match drags in parts but they do mix it up, especially the Mighty vs Takachio matchup. And there's even three clean falls! One last thing to watch for: Ashura Hara is on commentary and is a TOTAL PIMP.

Animal Hamaguchi & Mighty Inoue vs Great Kojika & Okuma, 2/3 falls, IWA tag titles, IWE 1/2/78. Great atmosphere, with an in-house band at Korakuen Hall. Okuma's mutton chops are the stuff of legends. This is a bit more 'action' focused than the November '77 tag. Note a young, afro-sporting Kohei Wada at ringside. There's an unusual intrusion between falls that maybe was supposed to happen before or after.

Kotesu Yamamoto & Hoshino vs Animal Hamaguchi & Mighty Inoue, 2/3 falls, IWA tag titles, IWE 1/29/79. The "Yamaha Brothers" won the belts a few days earlier. They have a big reputation as workers from their time in the US, and this was their last big run since Yamamoto retired from competition a year later. Oh by the way, they're FRIGGING AWESOME. Ahead-of-their-time moves, swank matwork, quality brawling, and Yamamoto has some serious hopes. All that and three clean falls! Let's hope more Yamaha Bros. footage is uncovered. And more of Animal & Mighty while we're at it.

Kotesu Yamamoto & Hoshino vs Animal Hamaguchi & Mighty Inoue, 2/3 falls, IWA tag titles, IWE 2/23/79. Even though this has a bad finish, up to that point I think it's even better than the first match. Hoshino dishes out the most brutal suplex you'll see in an old-school match.

Animal Hamaguchi & Mighty Inoue vs Kengo Kimura & Eigen, IWA tag titles, IWE 3/31/80, JIP. Plenty of fire, and an unusual finish that's either legit or very well done by all involved. It certainly looks credible.

Tenryu vs George Takano, SWS 10/19/90. Takano pinned Tenryu with a German suplex in a tag the night before, and opens things up by EATING TENRYU ALIVE with superior speed. Short (by Japan main event standards) and sweet (by any standards). Note the bizarre production qualities like an ultra low-end clock in the corner of the screen and incredibly awkward shots of announcers. But don't let that distract you from the match!

Tenryu & Fuyuki vs Yatsu & Nakano, SWS 7/26/91. Chunky heavyweights who hate each other. So you can tell Tenryu is in charge. That's a good thing.

Tenryu vs Yatsu, SWS 10/29/91. In the Choshu vs All Japan feud, they hated each other. In the Jumbo vs Tenryu feud, they hated each other. And in a new promotion they hate each other. There's something to be said for consistency.

Tenryu & Hara vs T. Ishikawa & Fuyuki, SWS 1/6/92. Main event at a too-big venue; I bet that they heavily papered the arena to fill it up. That results in a really subdued crowd for a really hard-hitting match with a good underdog story. There's maybe too much beef seeing as they run out of gas in a couple spots, but the beef generally works in our favor as they hit each other as hard as they can.

Survival Tobita vs Ken the Box, Saitama Pro 8/23/99. A spectacle unlike any other. An event unlike any you've seen. A match... for all time. One man. One monster. One mat. One destiny.

Sapp vs Muta, Wrestle-One 11/17/02. More 'interesting' than anything else.

Danshoku Dino vs Invisible Mysterio, CROWN 5/25/03. Dino isn't doing his crotch-based gimmick at this point. Mysterio for some reason doesn't give him much offense, and it's really no wonder he never made it out of the D-level indies. Dino does what I can best describe as a flip screwdriver, it's a miracle Mysterio wasn't paralyzed.

Danshoku Dino & OK Revolution vs Kyosuke Sasaki & Dai Moriyama, DDT 9/28/03. And now for one of the more unique matches you'll ever see. It's shoot-style versus shoot-gay-style. 132 MB.

Kawada vs Foley, Triple Crown, HUSTLE 5/8/04. Kawada doesn't do hardcore and Foley doesn't do Kings Road. They meet in the middle: Kawada kicking Foley really hard in the head. 87 MB.

Kawada vs Foley, Triple Crown, HUSTLE 5/8/04. VQ upgrade.

Nakajima & Kimura vs Dino & Kenshin, DDT 7/1/04. Poor Nakajima...

Sasaki & 'Agira Hokuto' vs T. Hashimoto & Morohashi, DDT 7/1/04. This one's... unique.

Ironman title challenge, DDT 7/31/04. Shoichi Ichimiya takes on audience members.

Ito & Takagi vs T. Sasaki & GENTARO vs Dino & Spectre, DDT tag titles, DDT 7/31/04. The Gay Machine Guns are a sight to behold.

DDT 11/18/04. The highlight is a long-distance series of title matches for the 24/7 title, mostly involving members of the general public. 115 MB.

Danshoku Dino, Muscle Sakai & YOSHIHIKO vs Poison Sawada JULIE, Inokuma & Akiomi Nitta, DDT 2/25/05. This is roughly 900% DDT. Features confusing pre-match video and a post-match face turn. YOSHIHIKO is a peerless highspot machine and steals the show. Nitta is a legit kickboxer who beat Murahama in a shoot two days earlier, and is the winner of my unofficial Most Abs Humanly Possible Award. 245 MB.

Togo, Moribe & Hayate vs AKINO, Nagashima & Hamada, Chigusa Pro 3/25/05. A men vs women match that they pull off quite well considering that they didn't exactly pick joshi's biggest.

Aja Kong vs Danshoku Dino, Chigusa Pro 3/25/05. A match that you can't wrap your brain around coming in, and can't help but be curious about.

Fujiwara & Yoshida vs Ishikawa & Carlos Amano, Chigusa Pro 3/25/05. Intergender shoot-style goodness! Ishikawa is a pervert and he pays the price! Fujiwara > you!

Dino, Inokuma & Sakai vs JULIE, Shuji Ishikawa & Inotama, Captains Fall, DDT 5/4/05. Some clipping. Follow-up on the February match, as Inokuma tries to make good and everyone tries to take down the mind-controlling snake man.

The Magician vs Naoshi Sano, MUSCLE 5/5/05. The finish of this match makes the burning hammer look like a bodyslam.

Nakajima vs Namiguchi, Differ Cup 5/8/05. Ideally this would go 8-12 minutes and they'd be able to keep the pace up, but then if it was a huge sprint with a big finish they wouldn't have anything left for the rematches. They do pretty well considering that there's less than three years of experience between them. Nakajima, despite being a mere 17 years old, is the big favorite because of all the attention he's gotten. He controls most of the way, but Namiguchi's fighting spirit is roused for several intense minutes at the end. They're able to get heat at Differ Ariake for cryin' out loud! That's a frigging miracle for young lions.

May of 2005 was just not Naoshi Sano's month.

Akiyama vs Shibata, Wrestle-1 8/4/05. This promotion was an ill-fated attempt by K-1 to do wrestling. They blew a ton of money and closed down after the second show. Thankfully they managed to give us this scrappy, hate-filled match. 120 MB.

Antonio Honda's "Cuban Deathmatch" promo, DDT 8/28/05. Bad language makes for a great promo.

Meet Razor Ramon HG. FUUUUUUUU~

The Road to HUSTLEMANIA. Again... just trust me. 187 MB.

Naoya Ogawa, Ohtani & HG vs Kawada, Anjoh & Yinling, HUSTLEMANIA '05. HG... can wrestle? I'm impressed but Kawada isn't.

Tigers Mask, Shanao, PSYCHO & Kota vs Kagetora, Oishi, Asahi & Kishi, Indy Summit 12/9/05. Interesting to think of how Ibushi is the 'weakest' wrestler on his team because of his youth, but would go on to become a bigger star than the rest of the guys in this match combined. Shanao is one of the million forms of Takuya Sugi, and thus has both the coolest spots and biggest botches. Tigers Mask is just too much pre-match, don't skip it! I love how much of a nerd the one Samurai announcer is, referencing the Snuka double-leapfrog even though Snuka hadn't been a regular in Japan since the '80s. "It takes one to know one, Ditch!", you say? Well... yes. Yes it does. Coming in I figured Kishi was the obvious job guy, but he's NOT, and the finish is INSANE.

Kawada vs Ishikari, HUSTLE 12/25/05. Not a very merry Christmas for Ishikari.

Interpromotional chickenfight-style sumo tournament. This one's unique and very entertaining even if K-1 completely cheats by using masked musclemen. 86 MB.

Tenryu vs Sakata, HUSTLE 3/12/06. Sakata handles himself quite well in this chopfest.

HUSTLE 16 main event, JIP. This is a 'team elimination' series of singles matches. Featuring: Kawada! Ohtani! Tajiri! HG! Anjoh! Yinling! 222 MB.

Tajiri, fastest tongue in the east.

Minoru Suzuki vs Mecha Mummy, Ultimo Dragon Promotions 6/23/06. This is pretty much the best match.

Kawada & The Monster C vs Tajiri & Kanemura, Hustle House 17. A fun match thanks to crowd interaction. Also, allow me to relay the following from Steve Corino's livejournal:

Since I last wrote I was getting prepared to team with Toshiaki Kawada at Hustle. This for me was a thrill. For him it must have been an annoyance! As his music came on I told him "I am very honored to team with you. I am very happy." Kawada, being Kawada, just stared at me. Then I had to ask (because I had a feeling I knew the answer) "Are you excited?" and he just looks and says "NO". That's my buddy!

Nishimura vs Hiro Saito, MUGA 8/2/06. Saito is a low-end brawler who was generally placed early on cards, but for reasons nobody can quite explain he transforms into a great wrestler against Nishimura. Technically sound, enjoyable, it's everything MUGA aims at.

Fujinami vs Nishimura, 2/3 falls, MUGA 9/25/06. You might have noticed a lack of recent Fujinami. There's a reason: he didn't have much in the way of great matches after being injured in the early '90s. This, however, is great. Teacher and student go at it in a wondeful old-school technical battle. Best match of this kind in Japan in a very long time. 250 MB.

Minoru Suzuki vs Fuuka, "triple crown", NOSAWA Genome 11/8/06. Suzuki, as 2006 Puro MVP, was most reliably effective in comedy matches. Featuring special guest Kakimoto, who is Fuuka's brother. 92 MB.

American Balloon vs Antonio Honda, DDT 11/23/06. Behold the wonder and majesty of the American Balloon.

The Esperanza vs HG, Hustlemania '06. An epic battle for the ages. 105 MB.

Some set-up for the match.

Mochizuki & Ibushi vs Sawa & Hayato, Indy Summit 12/31/06. A bit on the kicky/stiffy side of things.

Chairmen battle royal, Indy Summit 12/31/06. The bookers of IWA Japan, DDT, Big Japan, MPro, Osaka Pro, DDT Tec (???), KDojo and El Dorado face off. Very unique, very indy. Again, TRUST DITCH. 168 MB.

HARASHIMA vs Kakimoto, KOD title, DDT 1/28/07. HARASHIMA is all about striking, Kakimoto is all about throws and slams. A nice contrast in styles, with one spot in particular standing out.

Kawada... singing?!

Kawada & Tenryu vs KUSHIDA & Chie, HUSTLE 3/15/07. Now that's a squash.

Toba & Ibushi vs Sawa & Yoshikawa, DDT 4/1/07. I found myself saying "ow" a lot during this one. I don't care how worked it is, I wouldn't want to take half those kicks for any amount of money.

10 minute Battle Royal for the DDT Ironman title, DDT 4/1/07. Incoming champion: El Hijo del Ladder. You want this, including the post-match.

Marufuji & Dino vs KUDO & Muscle Sakai, DDT 4/1/07. DDT's 'dream match' becomes a nightmare for Marufuji.

Kawada & Tenryu vs HG & RG, HUSTLE 4/21/07. Before getting famous, HG and RG were part of a 'university club', Japan's less-sketchy equivalent of backyard wrestling. Now they're getting to face icons. Icons who will beat the absolute crap out of them. 136 MB.

Kawada... um... I'm not sure how to describe this one.

Hardcore battle royal AND Nozawa vs Muscle Sakai in a Silent Match for the Extreme title, DDT 6/3/07. Double-shot of DDT magic. 166 MB.

Men's Teioh vs Danshoku Dino, DDT 6/3/07. Dino's gimmick was originally a riff on Teioh. Now they do battle.

Norton vs Sakata, HUSTLE 6/17/07. Chops galore, and Norton makes Sakata look great. 82 MB.

Muta & RG vs Tajiri & Yinling, HUSTLE 6/17/07. A mix of cool and bizarre, which is HUSTLE in a nutshell. 137 MB.

Tenryu vs HG, HUSTLE 6/17/07. Maybe HG should have stuck with variety shows. Unless, that is, he LIKES having his chest ripped apart. 123 MB.

Sato & Koinoki vs Vabo & Anjoh, HUSTLE 7/11/07. Vabo is Nagao, an ex-NJ young lion, who is exponentially more effective here as a fake Giant Baba than as himself.

Kawada, Norton & Morgan vs HG, Sakata & RG, HUSTLE 7/11/07. RG dies! Bonus post-match stuff!

Bruiser Minody & Takan Hansen vs Jumbo Kiku & Terry Sanshiro, NOSAWA Bom-Ba-Ye 11/8/07. It's all about Jumbo Kiku.

Sapp vs HG, Hustlemania '07. The match you've been waiting for!

Tenryu, Tajiri & RG vs Akebono, Yinling & Anjoh, Hustlemania '07. The other match you've been waiting for!

Esperanza vs Sakata, Hustlemania '07. The summation of all things HUSTLE. An epic for our time.

HARASHIMA vs MIKAMI, KOD title, DDT 11/27/07. Really fun, plenty of neat spots and good nearfalls and also a ladder.

Yoshie vs Shiozaki, MUGA 12/13/07. One already gets a sense of Muga's business struggles based on the sparse crowd opposite the main camera. As a result this never has a chance to build consistent heat. The highlight of the match is their striking, which should come as no surprise. In fact I'd say the match's main flaw is that it doesn't revolve around exchanges because of how long they go. Once they head for home this picks way up.

Ken Ohka vs Long River Hwang Ho, New Beijing 2/7/08. An easy MOTYC.

The Lee Sisters vs Lee Lanchieh, New Beijing 2/7/08. Get this for the post-match.

I'm... I just... I don't even know anymore.

Kawada & Ohtani vs HG & RG, HUSTLE 2/24/08. RG dies. A lot.

Tajiri & Sai vs Ohtani & Monster C, HUSTLE 4/13/08. Corino has been replaced by an unknown who goes all-out with the gimmick (though Tajiri helps).

HG vs Monster C, HUSTLE 4/16/08. HG gets kinda heelish here, but it works thanks to C being so gosh darn enjoyable.

Campsite Wrestling, DDT 9/7/08. Literal fireworks! Splashes that cause splashes! Endless Irish whips! Things that make no sense whatsoever! All inside.

PIZA Michinoku & Antonio Honda vs Dino & Yoshihiko, DDT 4/5/09. Yoshihiko is pretty clearly the comeback of the year. This match has the unbeatable winner for most devestating kneedrop ever.

Taue & Hirayanagi vs Sanshiro Takagi & Michael Nakazawa, DDT 4/5/09. Taue and Genba heel it up! Nakazawa introduces him to the unusual way things work in DDT!

Ibushi vs Dino, DDT 4/18/09. Yoshihiko's presence is felt in a big way. Featuring the backdrop driver of the decade, if not century.

Minoru Suzuki vs Mecha Mummy, MUSCLE 5/4/09, clipped (sorta). The explosive rematch with a shocking twist at the end.

Bret Kikuhart vs Shawn Antonio Honda Michaels, NOSAWA Bom-Ba-Ye 7/9/09. Honda makes this.

Beer Garden Digest, DDT 8/09. In recent years, DDT has had a week of small/short shows in August with cheap tickets and wrestler-cooked food. Good times. This is a 1 hour episode covering the 2009 shows, and it's some concentrated DDT. The cool, the funny, and the baffling. Oh the baffling.

HARASHIMA vs Ibushi, DDT title, DDT 8/23/09, JIP. Main event of DDT's biggest show ever delivers some big-time action!

Ibushi vs YOSHIHIKO, DDT title, DDT 10/25/09. This match totally happened.

Ibushi vs Shuji Ishikawa, DDT title, DDT 11/29/09. Shuji was the DDT champ previously (as 'Koo'), and he beat Ibushi in the shoot-style 'Hard Hit' offshoot promotion. His size gives Ibushi problems, especially since Ibushi's kickboxing background means he's used to beating opponents in strike exchanges. All that said, Ibushi isn't in the mood for letting the title slip away in just his second real defense. Some neat spots and a sense of struggle over control makes this a nifty match.

Shuji Ishikawa vs HARASHIMA, DDT title, DDT 12/27/09, JIP. Good in much the same way as Ishikawa vs Ibushi, with several quality strike exchanges and good build to the nearfalls.

Shuji Ishikawa vs Danshoku Dino, DDT title, DDT 2/11/10, JIP. Dino goes balls-out, literally and figuratively. But the champ is not unprepared...

Shuji Ishikawa vs Sekimoto, DDT title, Union 2/28/10, JIP. The reason why Sekimoto doesn't have a broken neck is because he doesn't have a neck to break.

Sekimoto vs Takanashi, DDT title, DDT 4/4/10. Sekimoto is Mr. Indy. Takanashi is scrawny and third-tier within DDT. It's the size AND rank mismatch that make this such a good underdog story. That and some big ole headbutts at the end.

Sekimoto vs Ibushi, DDT title, DDT 5/4/10, JIP. Sekimoto and Ibushi do that thing they do.

Kenny Omega vs YOSHIHIKO, DDT 5/5/10. In the same vein as YOSHIHIKO's match with Ibushi.

DDT 5/30/10. A full episode covering the one-day annual singles tournament, with the winner getting a title shot. Continuity! Storytelling! The hardway cut of the year! DDT just keeps on keepin' on.

The DDT crew tries to get HARASHIMA ready for Sekimoto. DDT, the fed that has rampaging homosexuals and blow-up dolls, does the best Pure Sports Build of 2010. BELIEVE IT.

Sekimoto vs HARASHIMA, DDT title, DDT 7/25/10, JIP. The rest of DDT's top names couldn't stop Sekimoto, so HARASHIMA is the last line of defense. Does he have enough in his arsenal to overcome the size difference, or will Sekimoto's big moves put him down before he gets the chance?

DDT 10/24/10. Featuring:
-Omega & Antonio Honda vs Keisuke Ishii & YOSHIHIKO, which is... a YOSHIHIKO match.
-Ibushi vs Hikaru Sato, which is the biggest match of Sato's career and a big breakout for him.
-HARASHIMA vs Dino for the DDT title, featuring some innovative body part work from the champ.

HARASHIMA vs Hikaru Sato, DDT Title, DDT 11/14/10. Lots of tricked-out junior/shoot-style counter wrestling. Sato showed what he can do against Ibushi, and he follows up with another fine performance here.

Hikaru Sato & T. Matsunaga vs Dick Togo & Yasu Urano, DDT 11/17/10, JIP. I didn't do the clipping! The Sato vs Togo parts are quite good and do a lot to set up their title match.

Hikaru Sato vs Dick Togo, DDT Title, DDT 11/28/10. Sato worked so hard to get the title, and he doesn't want to end up with just a 2 week reign out of it. But Togo has far more title match experience (especially in DDT), and he's got the skills necessary to counter Sato's hybrid MMA trickery.

Dick Togo vs Antonio Honda, DDT title, DDT 1/30/11. This was supposed to happen in December, but Togo got hurt. Honda won a match to become interim champion. The video package sets up how huge this match is for Honda, and they both leave it all out there. Honda gives a career performance and Togo is at his best. I won't go into all the positive aspects of why this is good, just trust me. No commentary.

Dick Togo vs HARASHIMA, DDT title, DDT 2/27/11. The King of DDT championship continues to produce the most reliably good matches in Japan. This one has plenty of neat spots/counters and they build to a hot hot finish. It helps if you know the background of HARASHIMA's title win and loss in 2010.

Togo vs Ibushi, KOD title, DDT 3/27/11, some clipping. Dick lets it all hang out. Um... maybe I should rephrase that. Ibushi has all the Dick he can handle? NO! Ummmm... they have a really big match with some really big spots and nearfalls? Yeah, that's it.

DDT episode with the first two rounds of the KOD tournament, 5/21 & 5/29/11. A couple exciting 'star vs underdog' matches, and the clipping is such that the episode goes by very quickly.

Dick Togo & HARASHIMA vs Dino & KUDO, DDT 6/4/11, JIP. Togo has freshened up whatever he's involved with this year, and that includes Dino's schtick. Dick bids farewell to Shin Kiba 1st Ring, and Dino bids farewell to Togo's dick.

Shuji Ishikawa vs KUDO, DDT title, DDT 7/24/11, JIP. First half was mostly body part work that doesn't much factor into the finish. I was skeptical when DDT booked this as the main event at Sumo Hall, but they deliver the kind of big event closing run one would hope for.

KUDO & HARASHIMA vs Sanshiro Takagi & Sawa vs Hikaru Sato & Michael Nakazawa vs Isami Kodaka & Ken Ohka, Campsite match, DDT 9/26/11. Another year, another hour of fun in the outdoors. Ibushi randomly runs in to lob fireworks at everyone and everything. There's a special indy sleaze guest star afterwards who brings a lot of heat. To say that a wrestling promotion wouldn't be able to do this in the US would be a wild understatement.