Hello again, I am back with a review from Toryumon Japan. It is from Toryumon’s monthly show on GAORA TV called Vamonos Amigos. It highlights some of the big matches that occurred from the prior month. It is a mix of full matches and clipped matches. This episode was from November 2001. There were events from three shows highlighted this month. First, it was the November 8 Korakuen Hall show with CIMA’s return to the ring. Then, they go back to October 28 at Differ Ariake with a 3-way dance, SAITO’s retirement and UWA 6-man titles. Finally, they move forward to November 6 at the very tiny Chicken George in Kobe. It has Dragon Kid vs. Darkness Dragon in a singles match, a preview of the Gran Apache vs. Ricky Marvin match two days later and an M2K vs. Toryumon Japan tag match. The special guest in the studio with the hosts this month is the returning CIMA. The review starts now:

CIMA vs. Chocoflake K-ICHI

This was from November 8. It was CIMA's return to the ring after a knee injury on September 30, in which he kept his hair by escaping the cage, kept him out of action for a little over a month. He faces M2K's Chocoflake K-ICHI. Here is the play-by-play:

The bell rings and both men circle each other. Susumu Mochizuki distracts CIMA, and gives K-ICHI the change to sneak attack CIMA. A high kick knocks CIMA down. Chocoflake is feeling very confident. CIMA gets up and catches Chocoflake with a superkick. He lifts Chocoflake up, and debuts a new move called the Schwein. He drills Chocoflake with the move. CIMA covers: 1! 2! 3! CIMA has just won the match in 59 seconds. It should be noted that Chocoflake has never returned to in-ring action since this match. There is my authentic play-by-play for this review. I hope you enjoyed it.

We move to October 28 at Differ Ariake for the next 3 matches.

Ryo Saito vs. Genki Horiguchi vs. Big Fuji

This was match not promoted originally planned on this card. It came in an impromptu manner after some microphone work between Horiguchi and Ryo. There is a lengthy past between the three men. Despite being in different alliances, Ryo and Fuji have an on-again and off-again friendship. Genki and Ryo are long time friends, but Genki disapproves of Ryo’s friendship with Fuji. He has been giving Ryo the cold shoulder for quite some time. They had planned to settle their differences in this match.

This was an angle progression match more than anything. There was a good amount of comedy such as two guys double teaming someone, but one "accidentally" hits the other. All three men were on the floor when M2K ran to ringside to attack all three men. Darkness Dragon waited until the referee was close to finishing his count before throwing Genki back in the ring. Genki wins the match by double countout. M2K definitely lived up to their mottos of "Rudest of the Rude" and "Double Ringout Committee." It definitely seemed strange that they threw Genki back in the ring that allowed him a victory in a little over 6 minutes. Foreshadowing perhaps?

SAITO’s Retirement Match: SAITO vs. Shuji Kondo

This would be SAITO's retirement match. A mixture of injuries and constant losses made him decide that he was better off training wrestlers instead of wrestling himself. This decision came after SAITO was squashed by SUWA in under 3 minutes at the September 30 big show. In this match, he would face off against T2P’s Shuji Kondo. Kondo gets the chance to show Toryumon Japan fans the style of T2P before they have their debut show. The announcers mention how Kondo is a big fan of Bill Goldberg. He incorporated Goldberg’s look and moves.

They wrestled a good mat based match. SAITO would show off his trademark headstand while locking Kondo in a hold. Kondo would show off his mat skills, but it was not as fancy as one would have expected from a T2P student. Kondo get the victory when he nailed SAITO with his spear and finished him off with the Jackhammer. After the match, SAITO gave a farewell speech.

UWA World Six-Man Tag Titles: Magnum TOKYO, Dragon Kid & Ryo Saito © vs. Masaaki Mochizuki, Susumu Mochizuki & Darkness Dragon

This was a great match for the belts. They had crowd at Differ Ariake, whom is known to be very quite at times, really into the action. There was fast paced action with plenty of near falls. My one complaint was that there was horrible timing with the clipping. It was at the beginning when Magu had Masaaki isolated. He connected with the Viagra Driver. It looked like Magu was going to finish off Masaaki, but the clip happened. I don’t know if M2K helped Masaaki or that Masaaki was able to fight back from that situation.

After that point, the clipping looked to have stopped. M2K works over Ryo’s leg for an extended period of time. Ryo was able to fight back and tag in Dragon Kid. Kid locks in Darkness in the Christo for an extended period while his partners holding back Masaaki and Susumu. Masaaki breaks free and saves his partner. Later on, Genki has the M2K Blue Box of Doom. Ryo holds Masaaki so that Genki could hit him. Genki swings, Masaaki gets out of the way and nails Ryo with the Blue Box instead. Genki looks very sorry about that.

The match ends up M2K isolating Kid. When Masaaki and Susumu go to the floor to fight Magu and Ryo, Kid comes back with some offense. Masaaki runs up the ropes and nails Kid with the Triangle Enzugiri. Darkness plants Kid with the Darkness Buster and gets the pin to win the titles. After the match, Big Fuji runs out to the ring to save his friend Ryo. Also, Darkness Dragon manages to unmask Dragon Kid. Kid was able to hide his face so no one knew what he looked like. Some microphone work was done by both sides, and a match is made for the November 8 show with Ryo Saito & Big Fuji vs. Masaaki Mochizuki & a mystery partner.

Now, we move forward to the November 6 show at Kobe Chicken George.

Dragon Kid vs. Darkness Dragon

It was a good match. They gave enough action to satisfy a small show, but still left the crowd wanting more for when a higher stakes match would happen. Not happy with getting his masked taken off on the October 28, Kid goes for his rivals mask early. After an extended beating from Darkness, there was some really close near falls from both men. M2K constantly interfered to help out their buddy. Since this had a 15 minute time limit, both men were desperate for a victory a lot quicker than usual. Darkness was going for the Darkness Buster, but the bell ran and the match was declared a draw.

Genki Horiguchi & Gran Apache vs. Kenichiro Arai & Ricky Marvin

This was a small preview of the upcoming #1 contenders match for Magnum TOKYO’s British Commonwealth Jr. Heavyweight Title between Apache & Marvin. This was a good match between the two teams consisting of a Toryumon Japan wrestler and luchador. There looked to have been another ill-timed clip because Marvin & Apache were at the end of a fast paced exchange that really got the crowd going. There was a nice three dive sequence where it started with Apache ran off the ropes in the corner and springboards off the top rope with a plancha onto Arai. Genki dived onto Apache on the floor with a tope con giro. Marvin finished the dive in which it started out similar to Apache’s, but finished off more flasher move when he connected with the Tornillo. Apache got the psychological advantage when he pinned Marvin with the Black Tiger Bomb.

Magnum TOKYO & Ryo Saito vs. Masaaki Mochizuki & Susumu Mochizuki

This was a mix of satisfactory small show main event and angle progression. After an extended beat down on Ryo, the match started to kick in gear with both teams using their fast paced offense. A masked man in an M2K jacket interfered when he nailed Ryo with the Blue Box. The announcers hinted that this man was going to be Masaaki’s mystery partner on November 8. This interference was the difference maker. Ryo fought hard to not get defeated, but he could not make a comeback either. Masaaki scored the win when planted Ryo with his spinning brainbuster called the Twister. After the match, M2K continued their attack on Ryo and Big Fuji ran out to save his partner.

Final Thoughts: A really good episode of Vamonos Amigos here. It had a real good mix of quality wrestling and angle progression. I would say that after the 3-way match that the show really picked up in match quality with the UWA 6-Man Titles match standing out as a great match. There was progress this month with the Ryo-Fuji-Genki drama, CIMA returning to make Crazy MAX a force again, Darkness Dragon-Dragon Kid rivalry and the general chaos that M2K brings. My only complaint would be the bad timing of some clipping in the matches. There has always been clipping with these episodes, but the timing was not good. Outside of that, this was a real good episode that earns my recommendation.

Final Score: 7.0 [Good]

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