New Footage Friday:VILLANOS! ULTIMO! AMERICAN DRAGON! YANO!

Villano IV/V/Sanguinario vs. Ultimo Dragon/Pantera/Tineblas Jr.  AAA 9/8/96

MD: Nice trios match that got some time. Pantera was the standout from the tecnico side, with a long, very good, opening exchange with Villano IV (I think it was IV; for someone who writes on this site, I'm terrible at telling Villanos apart). I was very much ready to joke that there was no point in having Tinieblas, Jr. there if you weren't going to have Alushe but Sanguinario worked well with him, and not just in the stalling and being cowed by his superior size. Dragon, despite getting the focus moment at the end of the match, after the dives, and comporting himself well there with a few slick spots, was barely in the match otherwise. He got a nice pop whenever he showed up and got to show off with the corner handstand. I liked the moment of comeback, most especially Pantera charging the rudo corner after hitting a lucky move so that they couldn't immediately cut him off, but the beatdown needed a little more viciousness, maybe. Good stuff all around though.

American Dragon/Metal Master vs. Liverpool Lads 3/08

MD: More lost 80s heel Brian Danielson, this time with Collyer getting in on the act. I'm pretty certain that having a bunch of British kids chanting "cheat" at him for working southern tag antics was Danielson living a pro wrestling dream. There's one moment where he hits a roundhouse kick in the corner and immediately remembers he should be doing more conventional stomps instead. Lots of commitment to the act with some fun heel miscommunication spots. They have some nice cutoffs towards the end but instead of building to a hot tag, they go the fed-up-partner route instead, which is almost never as satisfying. Still, everyone played their role well and this reinforced what we saw of Danielson's range last time. No Rick Rude hip swivels but he did taunt the crowd with a USA chant at least.

PAS: Fun to watch Collyer and Danielson work like the Rock and Roll RPMs. They are full foils in this match, but very fun foils. I am mark for the spot where one guy gets whipped into the turnbuckle, and is saved by his partner, only to have the heel try the same thing and get clowned. Brookside is a guy with a lot of skill, Danielson thinks his best match ever was against him, but this is more of pop the crowd kind of match, and it fulfilled its purpose. 

Keita Yano vs. Taro Yamada Wallabee 6/24/12

MD: Nice (and relatively surprising) accomplishment here as they fill a lot of time, in a dojo type setting, with a fairly measured sense of escalation. My complaint about Yano's comedy 'rope-running' isn't that it exists but that it's not funnier. If they were going to break in that direction anyway, they should have made that break worthwhile by having big comedic payoffs. As it was, it felt more like lip service towards the idea of it but they weren't imaginative enough there or they thought it might have devalued the rest of the work/atmosphere, maybe. If you're going to break suspension of disbelief in the first place, make it worth it! Anyway, the rest of the match was full of imagination and struggle, with them tying one another up and stretching the hell out of each other in a very tit-for-tat manner. There were times where you got the sense that Yano especially was just twisting limbs this way or that to see what would stick but whenever it seems like it might work, you tended to believe it would.

SR: Damn great match, I imagine if Yano had never stunk up BattlARTS and instead was only known for doing weird technical matches while wearing his joker makeup and clown singlet in a tiny gym we’d all be Yano superfans. Taro Yamada is the last guy in Japan still holding up the T2P style matwork and one of the most underrated grapplers on the independent scene. This was 25 minutes of matwork that was like a great IWRG style title match. It was a mix of Yamadas llave holds with Yano going along and some cool RINGs-like leglock work thrown in, with both guys doing a great job escaping and transitioning between holds. Whole match felt fresh and competitive and never was like a derivative or weird LARP, these guys were trying to pop each others shoulders and/or ankles the whole time. There were one or two geeky moments where Yano did some “rope running” although it was more like a comedy spot with Yano hooting like an owl, and both these moments lead to cool spots, one where Yamada actually trips Keita with a drop down and another where Yano tricks Yamada into his special hold. There wasn’t some kind of story if you are into that but there were a few great nearfalls and I deeply respect these two for just grappling it out for 25 minutes without slowing down, and never throwing a strike or even a body slam, it was all submissions and funky cradle pins (especially loved Yamadas weird Delfin Clutch variation), just really tightly worked stuff that wouldn’t look out of place in a WoS or lucha title match. I did love Yanos dickish knee slide across Yamadas face and the moment where Yano had enough of the llave holds and challenged Yamada to an amateur match was really cool. Finish was great as well. Best Yano match I’ve seen by far and actively a great match, which is a major shocker. Yamada played a huge part too but I’ll be damned if Yano wasn’t feeling it that night. Apparently there have been a few matches between these two and I look forward to checking them all out but as it stands this is the best I’ve seen from Yano by a mile.

PAS: I am a real Yano skeptic, but it is hard not to enjoy this. You rarely see two guys just hit the mat like this, and this was a weird mix of shoot mat work and llave  Both guys found really interesting ways to twist and turn body parts, and with no ropes to break, they had to find a way out of all of the holds. I also thought the rope running was stupid, but it was my only complaint in a 20 minute plus Yano match. I loved the partier stuff near the end, I love when wrestlers challenge their opponent to amateur restarts, and both guys to interesting attack and defenses from that position. Feels like I need to dig a bit more into no ropes clown makeup Yano