2016 Ongoing MOTY List: BWO v. Rocky/Sato

57. Dick Togo/Shiryu vs. Hikaru Sato/Rocky Kawamura Tokyo Gurentai 11/28

PAS: Togo and Shiryu come out in their BWO gear, which is a bizarre 90s gimmick to have remained relevant. Sato is a quasi shoot guy who hung around end of the road BattlArts and had a great match with Togo on his retirement tour, Rocky Kawamura is a bald guy doing a Rocky 3 gimmick, USA flag trunks and boxing gloves, it obviously limits what he can do in the ring, but he had some nice combos. The initial Shiryu v. Sato matwork was really slick, and KDX had a nice double flip dive, but most of the fun meat in this match was Togo v. Rocky. Being a wrestling genius Togo has a bunch of funs spots to work around a guy with boxing gloves, Dick starts out with a Inoki v. Ali sprawl, as he doesn't stand with Rocky, just lies on the mat kicking his thighs, fun callback to puro history. There final showdown though was awesome, with Dick throwing good looking pro-wrestling punches and Rocky landing big boxing combos. As an ex-golden gloves guy, I feel confident in critiquing Rocky's stance, way too flat footed, but I did like his lead right hook. Not a high end MOTY kind of thing, but I sure did enjoy it.

ER: A lot to unpack with this one. Have Shiryu/Togo literally just kept their BWO midriff tops for 20 years? Those are not new shirts. I know when I tried to get one 15+ years ago in college the prices were already ridiculous. It's not like you can just hop online and get a 20 yr old BWO shirt whenever you want to work some tiny indy on your comeback tour. Those have to be the same damn shirts. And while I'm thinking about a wrestler keeping a midriff top accessible for 20 years and feel my heart fill with joy, then I'm reminded of just how amazing Togo's old Sato mask is. That's a gorgeous, top 10 all time mask right there. Togo just does nothing wrong. And he continues that in his wrestling as he turns in another classic comeback performance. Shiryu looked especially great on the mat, loved the shots of him standing on Rocky's wrist and stomping his arm in gross ways. Sato is also fun although his partner Rocky is problematic. He's working a gimmick that would fit right into "classic" Chikara, and Tokyo Gurentai has a guy whose name is "Chikara" so indy bullshit has truly come full circle! And for a guy working his Rocky 3 gimmick and wearing large gloves, he sure does throw a lot of bad punches. His short rights were nice but all his KO blows were lame. His wind up punches and huge uppercuts all landed short or off their mark. You have Togo throwing picture perfect punches and here's a boxer landing a KO uppercut to the right boob. But he's a pliable broomstick and doesn't slow down the action at all, Dick can still be Dick. Togo hits a boss somersault senton dive, drops his mean fist drop, works some shockingly great sequences with a guy like Rocky, and this whole thing was very easy to smile all throughout.

2016 MOTY MASTER LIST