W*ING The Name Of W*ING ~ Take Off Again (04/22/01)

 

The fourth reincarnation of Wrestling International New Generations, or simply W*ING, took place under charge of Micky Ibaragi in 2001 right in Pro Wrestling NOAH's home turf at the Differ Ariake. This was one of the last shows of the "original" W*ING promotion, although Pogo created an off-shoot promotion with World W*ING Spirit in 2000 and long time boss Micky Ibaragi tried it yet another time with Shin W*ING in 2009, this has to be considered as "original" W*ING.

THE UNDERCARD
The show started with three heavily clipped matches of some greenhorns, thank you Samurai TV! To name them we witnessed Mongol Man, Jet Jaguar, Hiroyoshi Kotsubo, Hirofumi Miura, Hiroshi Shimada and Viking Taniguchi. And yes I 'm aware that some of them aren't young boys but still there aren't that good to be honest. A round of applause for Mongol Man who came out with the song Dschingis Khan, a famous song of a popular german band of the late 1970's to 1980's, a man of culture.

RYO MIYAKE DEF. MITSUNOBU KIKUZAWA (11:14)
We started the "main portion" with a Barbed Wire Baseball Bat fight between Ryo Miyake and Mitsunobu Kikuzawa, better known today as Kikutaro. Kikuzawa worked under his hardcore moniker for several promotions before including Onita Pro, IWA Japan, Big Japan and several others. Kikuzawa was the one who reached first to the Bat but he wasn't able to convert it into an advantage, because Miyake grabbed a chair and they swung the weapons across each other. And yea they literally broke the bat like one minute into the match and waited over five minutes to get a new one. ** 1/2

ICHIRO YAGUCHI, KATSUMI HIRANO & KAZUHIKO MATSUZAKI DEF. FUKUMEN TARO, MASARU TOI & MASAYOSHI MOTEGI (15:59)
This was a Captain's Fall Six Man Tag Team Match where Motegi is the captain of one team and Kazuhiko Matsuzaki of the other team. And yea although most of the participants sounds like they're made for a nice little fight, it was quite boring though. Nothing really stood out besides Motegi's early phase of the match where he tried to kill everyone with a dive through the ropes. **

HIDEKI HOSAKA & KOICHIRO KIMURA DEF. BOOGIE MAN & LEATHERFACE (11:47)
The chainsaw hits, let's have some real W*ING feeling. The match started right away when Hosaka and Kimura attacked the movie monsters and brought the fight to the very outside of the inner space of Differ Ariake. It seemed like it'll be a weapons battle but back inside the squared circle Leatherface tried to hang with Kimura, who did a couple of MMA fights, in a battle of strikes. The monsters  had the control for some time, bursting Kimura from left to right. When the hot tag to Hideki Hosaka was made, the W*ING army came back to life and won the match with a powerbomb by Hosaka on Boogie Man. Apart from Boogie Man's typical "I can't die spot" where he sits up after being dropped on the head this was a nothing match. **

SHOJI NAKAMAKI & WING KANEMURA DEF. GEDO & JADO (13:15)
Just two months later Jado and Gedo signed with New Japan Pro-Wrestling and became a synonym for the huge success of modern New Japan action. While Shoji Nakamaki, a former sport journalist before his career, wasn't nowhere near a success in either FMW or W*ING he was famous for participating in a Scramble Fire Death Match which got a good response back in 1993. So W*ING tried to recreate that very match here with the same men as seven years ago and surprise, suprise, that wasn't the case.

Don't get me wrong this match was fun but not like the 1993 edition. Pretty early in the match the action saw each competitor walking around the ring, trying to find a weapon or smashing the head of their respective opponents onto the canvas, guardrail or tables. Speaking of tables, Kanemura set one up and teased a powerbomb through it but instead he was thrown through the wooden furniture by Jado and Gedo. The latter tried to kill them, Kanemura as well as Nakamaki bled like hell and got absolutely manhandled. To the delight of the fans Kanemura escaped from Gedo and rescued Nakamaki at the right time, a Conchairto went wrong and Nakamaki made the hot tag to Kanemura. But from that moment the match was decorated with several broken pin attempts on both sides, while Kanemura finally won the fight pretty unspectacular with a bridge. ***

FREDDIE KRUEGER, MITSUNOBU KIKUZAWA, MR. POGO & WING KANEMURA DEF. HIDEKI HOSAKA, MITSUHIRO MATSUNAGA, RYO MIYAKE & THE WINGER (16:45)
Matsunaga appeared with his barbed wire Jesus crown of thorns and was entirely wrapped up in barbed wire, maniac. And speaking of maniac Kanemura was back just minutes after his grueling match. According to cagematch.net this was a Scramble Bunkhouse Light Out Moonlight Darkness Match, in the further course of the match the light will go out. The chaos erupted right from the start when all combattants fought all over the place, men are bleeding just seconds into the fight and bodies are everywhere. Welcome to a typical W*ING hardcore match!

The crowd at Differ Ariake and myself included were popping when "Mr. Danger" Matsunaga came to Mr. Pogo in the ring, the two enemies stared at each other just to get interupted from members of both teams. Freddie choked Matsunaga with his own barbed wire which looked great though. Mr. Pogo used a round handsaw and other spikey and sharp objects to cut several wounds into Ryo Miyake. The lights went out and you could barely see anything from the footage I used, what I saw was that someone even went outside of the whole building to fight. When the lights were turned back on again, Hideki Hosaka fought off Pogo and Kanemura. The camera looked for more action and found the open side entrance where Matsunaga drove a white car from outside to the every entrance, went up a scaffold and... was pulled off the scaffold. That would have been amazing people jeez, you took us two cool Matsunaga moments in the match.

There were some more disgusting weapon spots, above all Pogo put Miyake twice into that round handsaw and won the match for his team with the Pogo Driver onto the saw. This was a real W*ING experience! *** 1/4