[2000-04-19-DDT] Sanshiro Takagi vs Masao Orihara

[soup23]

Our first foray into DDT. This looks way different from the DDT I am used to now but Takagi is still in control here and him and Orihara have a good but basic match with tables mixed in on the outside. The lariat Takagi gives is executed well and this felt like a perfectly fine mid card match on a Japanese indy show. I am looking forward to keeping up with Takagi. Orihara ends up winning with some shady business involving the title. ***

[Loss]

Not really impressed with Takagi here, because Orihara is clearly a heel and he's clearly supposed to be the ace, and he's doing cheap things like sneaking in low blows, which doesn't make sense. He's also on the bland side. Everything I liked about this match was because of Orihara, who was awesomely charismatic and precise in his ringwork, and everything I didn't like was because of Takagi. I was down on this one.

[Moonsault Marvin]

I liked the early part of the match, such as the hammerlock sequence by Takagi. They lost momentum when they went outside the ring and never really regained it. The crowd was uncomfortably dead silent for most of the match. Orihara tried to engage them with his heel antics, but they just didn't respond very much. The low blow reversed into the cross armbreaker was nifty. I'm not sure I understood the end with the run in and Orihara repeating the moves that were done to him earlier. Average match.

[drew wardlaw]

At this point Ive seen a decent amount of early-mid 00s Takagi, although this is the earliest, and from what Ive seen he seems to be the straight man ace for his opponents to work off of. Hes always going to be bland and average and work in order to highlight the characters hes working with. This can be frustrating in the sense that he doesnt always hold up his end of the work but there is a purpose to it, at least thats what Ive seen.

[Edwin]

Masao Orihara is one of the true underrated heels of Japanese pro-wrestling. He never made it big, but he was around all of the major Japanese indys for years. He also worked in Mexico for some years. He's a natural heel.

 

Sanshiro Takagi was the founder of DDT. He was their first ace and is an obvious Stone Cold parody. He has the shattering glass at the beginning of his theme song, wears the black trunks with black boots, flips people off and has a large variety of stunners.

 

DDT is similar to 2000's WEW FMW as they tried to follow the WWE mold and guiding itself away from the more traditional Japanese style.

This match was pretty forgettable. A lot of DDT from this time period is really forgettable, unless we dive into the Jakai Tensho stuff with Poison Sawada JULIE turning people into snakes and such which is more so on the entertainment side.

 

Nothing really stood out here for me.