You Can't Hurt Daisuke Ikeda, Cause He's Banned in DC

Daisuke Ikeda/Tamon Honda v. Shiro Koshinaka/Yoshinari Ogawa NOAH 1/22/06-FUN

This isn't the hidden Ikeda NOAH gem I will be searching for. Pretty much a comedy match with some amusing spots, but very little of that Ikeda violence, probably the loosest worked Ikeda match I can remember seeing. They do some nifty stuff built around the hardness of Honda's giant waterbaby head, and Ogawa's eyepoke and roll up stuff is usually entertaining. Ikeda didn't do much, his big spot was tying up Shiro in a ball and punching him in the taint. Fine use of 12 minutes, but I am going to keep looking. 


Daisuke Ikeda/Katsumi Usuda/Super Tiger II v. Yuki Ishikawa/Alexander Otsuka/Munenori Sawa  BattlArts 7/26/08-EPIC

This isn’t just the best match of 2008, it is right up there with the best things ever done in this style. This is an elimination match which goes 40+ minutes and was even more brutal and awesome then it looked on paper. Everyone in this was on their games, Ikeda’s team was working heel, and they spent the early part of the match abusing and cheap shotting the faces, especially Sawa who was really great in the role of spunky young guy eating an asswhooping and showing stones. Because this was a tag, you had a lot of submissions being put on and saves being made, and man the saves were just horrific, stomps directly to the head, kicks square in the face, I mean you start cringing as soon as anyone comes into the ring. I hadn’t seen much Super Tiger II before, but he ruled here, really capturing the kind of awkward recklessness of Sayama’s UWF kicks. Your BattlArts big four were as great as they have ever been, Otsuka just brutalizing people with suplexes, and ripping out awesome mat counters, Usuda both taking and dishing out ungodly stiff shots, and Ishikawa and Ikeda being Ishikawa and Ikeda. Their interactions with each other are all you could possibly hope for, and there are parts near the end that almost feel like the last rounds of the Rumble in the Jungle with two guys punishing each other past the point of human tolerance. I don’t want to talk about any of the eliminations specifically, this is a match I don’t want to spoil, but when you have such brutality dished out during a match, you can fall into the trap of everything looking like a finish, and when everything looks like a finish, nothing looks like a finish. Here every elimination felt like exactly the point at which the guy should have been eliminated. This is a match I can’t imagine anyone who likes wrestling not loving, get your hands on it ASAP.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA