This article is a continuation of the review of a recent Tag Team match featuring TMDK — the winners of Tag Team of the Year in Japan.
To recap the match so far, Shane Haste is getting his ass kicked by their two opponents. (Shane usually plays Face-in-Peril for his team.) The Japanese wrestlers choke, body-slam, and Clothesline poor Shane. They trap him in their corner and press their boots in his face. Mikey Nicholls watches helplessly from the far corner (until Okabayashi runs over and knocks his ass to the floor too.)
This sustained beatdown of Shane Haste begins with a back-snapping Powerslam at 8:38 and continues all the way until he kicks his opponent in the head at 13:27 and finally reaches the tag. It is a nice 5 minutes of pro wrestling punishment.
Normally when the Rescuing Partner enters the fray, he dominates the opponents and quickly secures the victory. But that is not the case for Mikey Nicholls in this match. After failing to secure the pinfall, he too gets broken by a fucken deadly Okabayashi Clothesline and then finds out for himself how it feels to get strangled, ab stretched, and Headlocked by these two killers.
The Money Shot of the whole match occurs at 17:14 when Okabayashi hoists Mikey up into a Torture Rack, and then Ishikawa ties up Shane in an Octopus right after. Oh man, I think I’ve died and gone to Tag Team torture fetish heaven –both members of TMDK getting totally punished, side-by-side!
Tight, nasty submission holds by the cruel Japanese Heels, what a masterpiece! Big fat Okabayashi stomps around the ring to jar Mikey’s vertabrae, and sadistic Ishikawa drives his elbow into poor Shane’s ribcage.
Some other wrestling fan got off on the two-on-two brutality of this scene and creating this animation:
Finally the Japanese studs release their holds and toss Shane out of the ring so they can Double-Team Mikey. But Shane and Mikey become a well-oiled machine and unleash a devastating two-against-one offense, utterly demolishing big Okabayashi.
The message of this match — like most Tag Team matches — is the power of the male-male partnership. Neither man was effective on his own, suffering outrageous torture and humiliation for most of the match. But when they join forces and work in harmony for the last several minutes of the fight, they’re unbeatable.
Here is an animation of the Double Gorilla Press Slam that TMDK used to destroy their big opponent:
Great match by a fun Tag Team — it’s no wonder they won Tag Team of 2013! If you want to see more TMDK images, I reviewed one of their earlier Tag Team matches (which followed much the same script except for the ending) back in June — you can revisit Part 1 and Part 2 of that match.
One other nice thing about TMDK is their post-match ritual. They always sit together on the ring apron, spread their legs, and have a little discussion. They flirt with the fans (who are madly snapping photos of them) and tell us all about how dominant and awesome they are (as if we couldn’t tell.)
