#1: Yuki Ishikawa

by Eric

Number One!!! We did it!! We beat this thing almost into next year, kicking and screaming every bit of the way, and in honor of beating this thing, comes our #1 favorite wrestler of 2008.

Yuki Ishikawa takes worse beatings than anybody else in wrestling, period. Like, beatings so bad that he must sincerely enjoy taking them. That's the only reason I can think of to explain what he goes through in any given match.

Ishikawa has a real knack for making bad offense look good and making great offense look deadly. Every Ishikawa match seems to feature a couple different moments of him taking a beating in a more painful way than anybody else. He'll get punched in the eye, or kicked in the mouth with the point of a boot, or punted in the liver. And then he'll fight back, and I LOVE Ishikawa comebacks. They usually start with some sort of bloody tooth grin, and then he'll rush the guy, sometimes successfully, sometimes only to fail worse. He'll throw a enziguiri that misses and then get caught again, or successfully beat the guy in the face.

He can go on the mat like few, and almost all of his matches are geared towards him being able to take tremendous beatings, but due to his mat skillz he is almost *that* close to getting a flash submission. I don't know how his body can keep taking these beatings, but I'm glad he forces himself to get back in there. Eight matches in one year from a guy like Ishikawa in a post-BattlArts world is tantamount to getting weekly syndicated TV matches from him. Let's hope just as more keep cropping up in 2009.

Recommended 2008 Matches:

~vs. Carl Greco (BattlArts, 6/9/08)
~vs. Alexander Otsuka (RJPW, 6/18/08)
~w/ Alexander Otsuka/Munenori Sawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda/Katsumi Usuda/Super Tiger II (BattlArts, 7/26/08)
~w/ Yuta Yoshikawa vs. Ikudo Hidaka/Munenori Sawa (BattlArts, 8/31/08)
~w/ Mitsuya Nagai vs. Yoshihiro Takayama/Alexander Otsuka (RJPW, 9/18/08)
~w/ Yuto Yoshikawa vs. Alexander Otsuka/Super Tiger II (BattlArts, 9/21/08)
~vs. Super Tiger II (BattlArts, 10/25/08)
~w/ Munenori Sawa vs. Super Tiger II/Manabu Hara (BattlArts, 11/26/08)

Recommended Career Matches:

~vs. Carl Greco (BattlArts, 2/20/97)
~vs. Alexander Otsuka (BattlArts, 2/28/97)
~vs. Daisuke Ikeda (BattlArt, 5/26/98)
~vs. Daisuke Ikeda (BattlArts, 8/29/99)
~w/ Carl Greco vs. Kazunari Murakami/Mitsuya Nagai (BattlArts, 10/1/00)
~vs. Kazunari Murakami (BattlArts, 11/26/00)
~w/ Mohammed Yone vs. Gedo/Masato Tanaka (BattlArt, 6/2/01)
~vs. Hiroyuki Ito (U-Style, 10/9/04)
~w/ Carlos Amano vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Mariko Yoshida (Chigusa Pro, 3/25/05)

2009 Outlook:

I don't think he'll get back up to #1 this year, as the competition is really stiff this year. I don't see him dropping too far, though.