I'm on the Trigger Plus I Got the FUTEN Sword: FUTEN 7/18/11

I am cataloging all of the BattlArts and FUTEN shows we have reviewed, and realized this was out there but somehow unreviewed.

Katsumi Usuda vs. Kotaru Nasu

PAS: Nasu was a Style-E guy and a perfectly solid unspectacular opponent for Usuda. Usuda provides most of the highlights here, unsurprisingly, popping Nasu right in the temple with a high kick, doing a great looking Fujiwara double leg twist counter into a kneebar and an incredible leg trip into a Fujiwara for the tap. Nasu did have a couple of nice near falls on knockdowns and a cross arm breaker, but this was a fun Usuda show. He is really a guy who can deliver against almost anyone.

ER: I thought Nasu was the perfect kind of opponent for Usuda, the kind of lower ranked guy that Usuda is great at almost losing to. For his end, Nasu kicked the hell out of Usuda and looked like he came real close to tapping him, and if a guy throws hard kicks and can lock in a sub that looks like it can get a tap, Usuda can take that guy to his career zenith. Usuda comes into the match with his expected bored expression, totally underestimating Nasu, and after a couple of minutes he appears correct in his underestimation. Usuda is really special, and I love how his selling in this match was based entirely on facials and not, you know, selling a limb. His face starts off in his classic resting sleepy expression, and within 7 minutes it's total panic. Nasu kept doing more damage with each set of kicks, and looks like he was a few newtons away from stinging Usuda on a kick to the spine. His subs keep coming closer and closer to tapping Usuda, and Usuda's grasps for the ropes start looking more and more desperate, and we get a great shot of his eyes darting to every single rope in the ring. When he makes an escape he didn't think he'd made, he realizes that the time for fucking around is over. He wastes Nasu with a kick as Nasu charged into the corner, and I love in fights when a guy *almost* getting a tap causes him to throw strategy out the window. He came so close to that win that he's now too focused on finishing and the blinders leave him wide open. The finish was so sick, Usuda sweeping Nasu's left leg from his back to trip him to the mat, expertly swinging his leg over to shift his weight and grab the arm, then wrenching that arm into the ugliest Fujiwara. It's one of those submission finishes where the guy who gets tapped knows he's in the quicksand the second he steps into it, knows his only option is lose quick or lose slightly less quick. Usuda!


Ryuji Hijikata vs. Bison TAGAI

PAS: This was Tagai representing BattlArts taking on Hijikata who was repping FUTEN, and he repped the hell out of FUTEN, landing a nasty cheap shot headbutt, and some sick punches to the ear. Tagai would fight back with some takedowns and grappling, but he was in over his head. Hijikata hit a couple of great looking sole butt kicks to the stomach, including turning his back after it landed like Steph Curry, before he made Tagai's knee touch his ear for the tap.

ER: Hijikata is a beast. He was taking harsh beatings in BattlArts when Bison was a teen. This guy was toughened up a decade before Bison got started, and even if I don't remember Hijikata winning matches in the late 90s Batt I loved, being a regular there in that area is a lasting badge of toughness. Early in this match there is a moment that would go on an all time best Futen video. Both men are reaching for a knucklelock and TAGAI punches Hijikata straight in the face. Hijikata is rattled and backed up, but quickly comes to and decides TAGAI needed to be taught a rest of match lesson. He backs TAGAI up, headbutts him right in the eye, then throws a right hook to his ear that sends TAGAI to the mat. From there it's just Hijikata stalking and beating TAGAI while TAGAI backs into him and has an I Fucked Up look on his face for much of the rest of the match. He fires back with some slaps but Hijikata is letting him do it, and he's walking through those strikes like all the old 90s BattlArts guys walk through strikes. Those mule kicks hit like two mules, and the finishing submission was disgusting. Hijikata hyperextend's TAGAI's knee up past his head and rides it like one of those guys on Furiosa's metronomes in Fury Road.


Kengo Mashimo vs. SEIKEN

PAS: These are a pair of big boys and stuff was landing hard. SEIKEN rushes Mashimo early and sends him to the floor. Oba is on the sideline and he gives him a talking to, and Mashimo comes in and bulldozes him with hard kicks and punches. Once Oba hyped him up he was a wrecking ball and took SEIKEN out.

ER: Akitoshi Saito feels like a guy who should have made at least a couple Futen appearances and never did. But Mashimo wrestles exactly the way a Futen Saito would wrestle, and it's great. SEIKEN is new to me and he rushes Mashimo to start, blowing him up with quick knees, kicks, and open hands. Once Mashimo gets his pep talk, it's a slow drowning for SEIKEN. Mashimo shows him how actually ineffective his kicks are, and awesomely blocks a spinning heel kick right out of the air with his forearms. Mashimo absorbs strikes, takes slaps as if his face was merely hit merely by a cool breeze, takes kicks to the chest like he's getting a massage, and we get a great moment where SEIKEN nails a spinning heel kick right to Mashimo's chin that sends Mashimo staggering around the ring. From there, Mashimo shows SEIKEN what a leg kick is supposed to look like, absolutely chopping down that tree, dumps him with some very hard back suplexes and Germans, and from there it's a race to see what head kick is going to be the one that makes SEIKEN stay down instead of stand up at 9. 


Mitsuya Nagai vs. Takeshi Ono

PAS: This is a cool scrap which was worked like a speed versus power boxing match. Every shot Nagai threw and every submission he put on had a ton of force. He cut Ono in half with kicks and nearly tore off his limbs. Ono would respond with activity, none of his shots thudded like the much bigger Nagai, but he peppered him with quick punches and kicks, and spun into fast submissions. He even ends up blooding Nagai's ear with fast right hands before falling to a nasty submission which saw Nagai twisting him into taffy. Really cool fight, Ono is an all-time great and any chance to see him is a treasure.


Daisuke Ikeda/Manabu Suruga vs. Yuki Ishikawa/Munenori Sawa

PAS: FUTEN tags are on a short list of the greatest things ever produced by wrestling. This wasn't a top tier FUTEN tag, but even mid-tier FUTEN tags are top tier in a list of all other things. The structure of a FUTEN tag is lots of back and forth violence with all four guys leading to a one on one battle between two wrestlers until one wrestler is demolished. The one on one battle at the end of this match was Sawa versus Suruga which is the least of the possible face offs, both those guys are fine, and the end run was cool, but you really don't want Ishikawa and Ikeda to be on the bench in the fourth quarter. The Ikeda versus Ishikawa stuff here was more of a teaser, but damn it was appropriate, Ishikawa threw a punch to Ikeda's head which sounded like a two by four hitting a pumpkin. Ikeda kicked him right between the top of the jaw and the end of the ear, it was as great and as lamentable as it always is. I always enjoy Sawa's handspeed and I liked how he tried to use that speed against the heavier hitting of Suruga and Ikeda. I wanted a nastier KO then I got, but I still just enjoyed the hell out of watching every second of this.