SHIIBA vs. SHINOBI

[4.0] "8:48, of which we have 0:33. Semi-opener between two of the Kyushu boys. We have about as much or more of SHIIBA doing a comedy bit playing a big drum before the match as we do of the match itself. It's a perfectly enjoyable comedy bit! The clip we have is SHIIBA rather untidily finishing up, with the pin off a Wristlock German Bridge. The more interesting thing here is that SHIIBA is actually Ryota Chikuzen, trainee of Ultimo Dragon and founder of Kyushu Pro, one of the most fun things going on in modern puro. Anyway, fluff in the form we have it. 2/5"

"Clipped to about 2 or so minutes. I'm gonna be honest I have no fucking idea what tf was going on here, it's just a cut into SHIIBA doing a big drum routine while SHINOBI looks at him and kicks the drum over like a uber heel. It felt like a weird DDT skit where you just have to go with it because it's all meta-jokes that you'd only know if you were Japanese, it's silly. Cut to SHI doing a weird leaping headbutt off the top rope and things seem interesting...but then the two just have really sloppy exchanges that pull you right out again. Things finish quick with a snappy SHI modified German suplex, pin-fall and we're done. This would be SHINOBI's last proper match as this German suplex was seemingly botched/he got injured earlier, suffering from what appears to be a shoulder injury which pretty much ended his career bar a final Battle Royal he'd do next year before vanishing. I'm not going to pretend like he was any good, but no one likes to see that in a wrestling ring. Pretty sad and weird end to All Japan's original experimentation with lucharesu (though Ryota Chikuzen will do a 2001 tour of the company with this gimmick it's the last we'll see of it). Can't really rate this knowing what was going on here."