2016 Ongoing MOTY List: Dick Togo Busts in your GUTS

56. Dick Togo/Masao Orihara/Ryan Upin vs. CHANGO/Guts Ishijima/Michio Kageyama GUTS World 11/15

PAS: Dick Togo is back doing what he does, rocking out a six man tag. This took a bit to get going but the last 10 minutes or so are pretty freaking great. Guts Ishijima (who I guess is the ace of GUTS? Fucking Japan is weird) is an amusing fat dude with a nice leg lariat, CHANGO had some nice energy, I enjoyed Upin as a scrawny creep who will rub the toe of his boot into your eyes. This was Togo running through his stuff, we had moments of great athleticism, nasty violence and a cool finish which had your heel team running wild. Orihara didn't do a ton, but had really great basic stuff including a nasty fistdrop, and also looks like such a dirtbag that he adds something big to the gimmick. I hope we get lots of GUTS title defenses for the new champs.

ER: I'm somewhat opposite of Phil as I really loved the earlier parts of the match. I also came away from this wanting to see everything that Masao Orihara has been up to the last couple years. We all loved him as a scrawny young punk doing absurdly reckless flying and wishing death upon himself in WAR, but now he's a violent thug button man and wrestles accordingly. His two great stretches in the above-linked video are 9:00-10:30 and 13:00-14:30, and he just comes in and beats the hell out of dudes. I definitely get the strong vintage SUWA vibes, but at minimum he comes off as the world's best Okumura. He oddly works like an effective WWE heel, simple strikes, but he doesn't bite off more than he can chew. He just comes in and is aggressive as hell, then fully wins me over with a perfect fistdrop. His biggest "high spot" was probably a double stomp off the buckles, and he hit and and kept walking past his opponents, almost in a dismissive Minoru Suzuki way. I now want a regular team of near-50 year old Togo/Orihara. Phil will call me a buffoon but I loved Orihara more than Togo in this, even though Togo wrestled just as well as we've become accustomed to Togo wrestling. His slingshot senton is maybe the most impressive spot in wrestling; the way he vaults over and then gets full extension WHILE pushing himself off ropes, it's quite the sight. Upin is a little twerp whose offense never hits hard, but succeeds in being an aggravator. Someone in the US needs to steal his rope running spot where he bounded back and forth, stepping on CHANGO's face each time. Guts Ishijima had some nice fat offense and a fun laid back personality, seems like a perfect candidate for my indy fat guy investigations. This whole thing is really fun. We get early crowd brawling where you wish you had a camera on each pairing, a table gets launched off someone's head, hierarchies and little stories emerge, and most get their moments. I do wish they had played off Togo flipping off Guts. Down the stretch Guts catches Togo on the top rope and I REALLY wanted him to shove him off to the floor, but instead he just kind of tosses him to the mat. But trios matches are basically impossible to screw up as nobody has to be exposed, and this one featured a stand out Orihara/Togo performance, so it's an easy win.

2016 MOTY MASTER LIST

***ER: Also I hate Phil's pun in the title***