We’ve a new series here on BackBodyDrop, as we take a look at the singles matches from another long-running feud of the current era – Hiromu Takahashi vs. Dragon/Ryu Lee.
At time of writing, they’ve had 19 singles matches, stretching from CMLL (when Hiromu was there on excursion), to Ring of Honor, and of course, New Japan. Add in undercard tags and trios matches, and that number’s pushing 100, aided by them spending almost all of 2015 on the opposite side of the ring of each other in Mexico. We’ve been able to track down the lion’s share of these matches, so why not get going…
October 17, 2014 – CMLL on FOX Sports – Dragon Lee vs. Kamaitachi
A lot of these early-day matches in this feud are taking place under “lightning” rules. Rather than go by the usual best-of-three falls format that CMLL sticks to, this is a single fall match with a ten minute time limit. Like the early days of Impact.
As you can tell from when I watch Fantasticamania, lucha isn’t exactly my wheelhouse… and with this being barely four years since Hiromu debuted, this really should be a million miles away from what we’re used to seeing. This wasn’t Hiromu’s debut in CMLL – that came at the start of 2014 following a wacky European tour that included a stop off in wXw against Bad Bones, and a match against Mark Haskins on a Rev Pro show that over five years later still hasn’t seen the light of day. Anyway, this match relámpago starts a minute in, with Dragon Lee and Kamaitachi scrambling on the mat, before tombstone reversals gave way to armdrags. A low dropkick from Kamaitachi has Dragon Lee down, but he’s back with a knee to the gut and a low dropkick of his own, getting a two-count from that.
Chops follow in the ropes, before Kamaitachi went onto the raised walkway and caught Dragon Lee with a superkick from the ramp. Cue a run-up as he hit a sweet shotgun dropkick going over the top rope, into Dragon Lee, sending him outside for another dropkick off the apron. Back inside, Kamaitachi headed up top and landed a scrappy version of Yoshinobu Kanemaru’s Deep Impact DDT, getting a near-fall out of it. From there, Kamaitachi goes for Dragon Lee’s mask, which is standard bad guy stuff in lucha, before an attempted shoulder charge in the corner sent him outside… with Dragon Lee quickly following out with a shotgun-like dropkick of his own from the ring to the floor. Good to see they were both mad men even in the early days…
We’re almost at the halfway mark, and we’re still going as Kamaitachi’s met with a rebound German suplex off the ropes, before he’s taken up top for a Del Rio stomp out of the corner. Kamaitachi tries to chop back, but he’s caught with a Phoenixplex… and that’s all folks! Coming in at a shade over six minutes, this was a fun little TV match that had some moments of insanity when it came to dives. It’d only escalate from here… ***¼