[2000-01-30-Toryumon] CIMA & MAKOTO & Sumo Fuji vs Magnum Tokyo & Masaaki Mochizuki & Tiger Mask

[soup23]

I kind of keep justifying myself from not calling these Toryumon multi man matches as great because I don’t want to be seen as just blindly loving everything they are throwing out there but it hasn’t happened yet. I was weary of the face side of things here with Tiger Mask and Magnum but they turned in some of the best respective performances of themselves I can recall seeing. Magnum had a lot of energy and didn’t botch much of anything of note. He was paired off with CIMA for the bulk of the match and held his own. The other big thread throughout this match centered around Mochizuki and Fujii and this was great stuff. Fujii is already showing that amazing charisma that he will carry throughout his career and he brings a different edge to the Crazy Max faction that allows for comedic relief while he also is menacing. Fujii ends up taking the loss here and is pissed off going on a bit of a fit post match as the faces cut a celebratory promo to close us out. Loving all of the Toryumon so far. ****

[InYourCase]

I was shocked at how good Magnum looked in this. Pretty sure I won't like him again until 2003 haha. CIMA is so good and it's scary because he's so young. This was pre-knee injury. Mochizuki really comes into his own in 2001 but my goodness he and Fujii tore it up. ***3/4

[Loss]

I thought this was a great match. All I could think watching this was how if WCW wanted to evolve its international approach, these are the guys that should have followed the AAA and New Japan imports, because they are working a very accessible style with plenty of familiar American tropes, but doing lots of impressive athletic things as well. I liked the Southern tag elements of this and I especially love how much CIMA's team is willing to cheat and do all the old school heel stuff. There are occasionally times when you can tell these guys are still inexperienced, but they are both rare and completely forgivable. Stuff like, "Oh, I wish they'd done one less nearfall there" or "Oh, I wish they hadn't done interference there". In spite of those tiny things, they are still wise and talented well beyond their years, delivering matches that would make anyone at any experience level pretty damn proud. ****

[ohtani's jacket]

My hope when I got around to the Toryumon stuff was that it would be the 00s version of '94-97 Michinoku Pro. Almost immediately, I realized I'm not as familiar with the Toryumon workers as I am the Michinoku crew and that it's going to take time to get acquainted with this fed. I think the last time I watched Toryumon was when it was en vogue in the DVDVR. So this was a starting point for me. There were parts I liked and parts I didn't, and no one exchange that I would call spectacular, but there was promise and where there's promise there's hope. I'll keep watching the Toryumon.

[ohtani's jacket]

I enjoyed this a lot more now that I'm more familiar with the Toryumon guys. The babyfaces here made a strong account of themselves. In fact, I thought it was probably the best term performance we've seen so far from the faces. Their performance was aided by a strong central narrative of Mochizuki being the one who's targeted throughout. He looked better than in any other match he's had thus far thanks in large part to Crazy Max who are excellent rudo workers. Sumo Fuji is one of the coolest guys in Japan during this period and CIMA is growing on me. I don't like that uppercut slap he does in the corner but he's pretty damn good at everything else. I did Makoto's glam rock vampire stylings too. Nice finish here and Crazy Max assaulting the cameraman afterward was great.

[Edwin]

These are the same guys as the pairings from the previous Toryumon multi man match, except Dragon Kid is being replaced by Tiger Mask IV. Sucks it's not Dragon Kid as he was fantastic in the previous multi man match, but it's still not a major issue as TMIV doesn't drag this down one bit.

 

TARU tossing Stalker Ichikawa into the fans during the brawling was great. The cheating during the abdominal stretch with MAKOTO guarding it was a nice touch. CRAZY MAX maybe the best early Toryumon faction. They're excellent heels and their seconds interferances are usually on point.

 

That blitz from CRAZY MAX on Magnum near the end was crazy. It could have finished there and I would've been fine with it. Luckily they only went for another minute - minute and a half to avoid it from going overboard.

 

Another great Toryumon match.

 

****

[tbrett]

Toryumon have these matches down, it seems like it is hard for these guys to have a bad match at this point, but I can see many of these blending together.

 

****