BJW Death Match Heavyweight Championship –  Lemon, Salt & Mustard Death Match
Tomoaki Honma vs. Zandig
July 2, 2000
BJW BJ Hardcore Series II 2000

I’m starting this match with some level of trepidation, as I’m not a big death match fan at all. I came to love Honma’s later stuff in New Japan before his neck completely fell apart, but I know Zandig only from his screaming JAYZZZZZZZZZZZZUSSSSSSSSS. This will be the first match of his that I’ve watched (all apologies to The Wrestling 101’s inclusion of the Fire Road tag team match, which I’ve yet to get to).

Honma does a sick backflip off of a barbed wire board to set up a German suplexing Zandig into the board, and then piledrives Zandig into a bucket of lemons.

At one point, Zandig sold his ass after hitting a falcon arrow to distract the referee so his second could do a frog splash for a Zandig near fall.

Much later in the match Honma does a diving headbutt from the top rope to the floor. This was followed up with Zandig press slamming Honma off a wobbly table set up on top of a corner all the way to the floor. Zandig tried following this up by doing a Superfly Splash off two tables laying on top of the corner, but the top one buckles, causing him to fall short. Zandig wins shortly after with a spinning power bomb on the barbed wire board. There’s a short post-match beatdown on Honma with a bucket of mustard (maybe wasabi) being dumped on his head.

I don’t really know what to say about this. Zandig isn’t bad but Honma absolutely outshines him in-ring and in charisma. There were several really impressive spots in this, but I could do without the extraneous stuff with the salt.

All in all, this was a pretty fun Honma showcase. ***1/2