August 19th 1993
Michinoku Pro
Summer Vacation Series Part 2 Night 12
City Central Sports Hall Kuroishi, Amoroi, Japan
We're in the early stages of this blog, and I really did not mean to have a match with Super Delfin pop up so early. The only reason I mention that is because a different guy who writes about wrestling has an excellent series on Delfin, and when compared to that... well, let's just say he's really good at what he does.
Here we have a decent six-man match with some of the promotion's top players. At first glance, you might mistake this match for a more celebrated MPRO match that occurred the following February. Sasuke and Delfin were just coming off a UWA World Welterweight Championship Title vs. Mask match at the end of July at Lucha Fiesta '93 (by the way, it was written about in the previously mentioned Delfin series). A month later, they were headed towards a rematch (no mask stipulation) in Tokyo, where Super Delfin would come out with the victory.
This was definitely a "take it easy" house show main event that still had some entertaining segments and a few specialty moves busted out to send the fans home happy.
We start out with SATO (Dick Togo) and Gran Naniwa mixing it up. An arm drag here, a legbar there, just a little bit of the feeling-out process. Great Sasuke and Jinsei Shinzaki enter. The only thing of note is how Shinzaki stomps around, and it's a pretty satisfying sound. Some guys just make the ring sound different. At some point, Shinzaki tumbles out to the floor and cowers behind some fans, and this is the first of a couple of points where the footage blacks out and cuts to something else.
The footage comes back to TAKA Michinoku and Shinzaki in the ring. Shinzaki takes a powder and then comes back to do a rope-walking spot with TAKA, ending with a diving jab to TAKA's throat. This is where Delfin and Naniwa join Shinzaki in ganging up on TAKA. It eventually leads to Delfin wrenching TAKA's arm over the top rope and imploring the crowd to chant along with each yank on the arm. Meanwhile, Sasuke and SATO attempt to intervene but get held back by the referee. When they eventually do get past the ref, they each receive the same arm torment from Delfin. A distracted and very pleased with himself Super Delfin doesn't realize that Gran Naniwa's arm is now in his clutches and does the same wrenching with his arm as well! Naniwa, now upset with his partner, decides to leave the match but ends up joining Sasuke's team. This switch only lasts moments though, as Naniwa finally accepts Delfin's apology.
After some failed dive attempts by Delfin and Sasuke and another TAKA and Shinzaki interaction, the camera cuts out and back to Shinzaki and Delfin rolling up TAKA in a submission. Sasuke and SATO join in to create a three-on-two submission. Naniwa lays on all three members of the other team for a pin attempt, but the whole thing is broken up with a kick out. Another wacky two-on-two submission attempt with Sasuke giving Naniwa a rana into a pin attempt where the kick out breaks everything up.
Now for what some of these folks in attendance possibly paid for, as each of the teams takes turns diving onto one another out on the floor. There's really nothing like watching these guys dive into someone and having thirty different chairs fly in different directions from the crash. Right at the end, Naniwa makes his way back into the ring and gets out of the way just when Sasuke is diving off the top rope towards him. Sasuke keeps the momentum going and hits a springboard moonsault for the pin on Naniwa!
Again, just an entertaining main event that felt as if it was put together only a few hours before it occurred, and everyone nailed it.
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