Found Footage Friday: BATTLARTS B-RULE TOURNAMENT~!

Full Show 5/24/01 Part 1

Full Show 5/24/01 Part 2

ER: 45 minutes of 2001 BattlArts filmed on Super 8 at perverted voyeuristic angles showed up. I think it's a guy filming the BattlArts he's watching on his TV. You can hear him nose breathing. It makes some of the matwork look like a tape Nicolas Cage is watching in a dark room in 8MM. 


Mohammed Yone vs. Kamen Shooter Super Rider

ER: I wasn't expecting Super Rider to tap Yone with an armbar in about a minute, but that's what happened. Not really any matwork, just some light standing grappling that never got to grappling, a fireman's carry, and some light scramble before a quick tap. 

MD: Look, I've been spending a LOT of time watching 1989-1990 Newborn UWF and not a lot of time watching 2001 BattlArts so I'm a little disoriented but this felt a lot like tournament lucha to me. Short, not entirely satisfying, all a set up for later payoff. It's a testament to how insane pro wrestling can be that you just have Kamen Shooter Super Rider with his antennae out there grappling and even winning like this, and he's just accepted as an entity that should be beating Yone and heading into round two. These are the truths of this world. Clearly, it didn't bother anyone there, not that we could really hear all that much past the breathing.

Ikuto Hidaka vs. junji.com

ER: This also goes a minute, but with a more satisfying finish. They feel each other out and lightly jockey for standing position, Junji going for legsweep takedowns but Hidaka holding his base, until Junji gets this nice sweep...that Hidaka basically suckered him into. As Hidaka is falling from the takedown he's already rolling up Junji's leg with a kneebar, which gets the tap. Junji did not make any attempt at a rope break even though they were practically under the ropes. Either I don't understand the rules or Junji.com's bubble burst. 

MD: That inner trip was really nice and you like to see it rewarded with the almost immediate tap that followed, sure. You can't say they weren't getting over the idea that a fight could end at any moment, especially with one bit shift of advantage. These aren't entirely satisfying though. 

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Katsumi Usuda 

ER: 10 perfect minutes of BattlArts without a single strike, just mat struggle and two guys who had to be shooting. A gentleman's game that felt like an honest honor battle from the 20s. Ishikawa and Usuda having a good old scrap with no tricks, with its own natural twists emerging from the grappling and submission attempts. The match is elevated by it being filmed by a guy filming his screen. It makes the match feel more dangerous, something happening behind closed doors. It's 10 minutes of wrestling someone taped onto the middle of a video store rental and eventually someone else rented that tape and had no idea what world they discovered. 

Ishikawa, in his tiny shiny tight black shorts and bright red pair Matflex, is the fucking hottest Ishikawa we have on tape. Ishikawa's ass in these shorts give his grounded headscissors new life. Fuck I forgot about goatee Ishikawa, was he hot or was he more of an IT guy who does BJJ? Doesn't matter, because this Ishikawa is hot and gets to show off more of his wrestling skill than he typically uses against a devil like Ikeda. I love how he forced Usuda to work hard for a triangle knowing he was going to use one of his rope breaks the second Usuda got there, using his 1-0 advantage to tire the boy out. It's so cool getting a look at these two shooting, to see Ishikawa crossing his calves while blocking a rear mount, filling in those tight shorts, ever thankful that our cameraman filming his film of a film zooms in on that ass. The 10 minute draw is disappointing, sure, but the fact Ishikawa was clearly strategizing this as a way to advance makes it so much cooler than your typical draws. This man knew he was in a tournament. 

MD: It's fine that the earlier matches went short because that meant this was allowed to have time, right? Ishikawa's a joy to watch, the way he controls distance, how he drops down to a knee to create a shock and try to force an opening, the way he all but rolls Usuda over to make him eat a rope break and how casually he snatches for the rope to get out of a hold without a worry in the world. He is a man completely in control of the situation, something made somehow all the more impressive by how Usuda was scrapping and scrambling at him. When he lets things go to time (both of them in shared leglocks) you get the sense it was almost strategic. He knew that he had the first escape point and would win and in a tournament setting a win was a win no matter how you got it.

Takeshi Ono vs. Alexander Otsuka

MD: Otsuka, less overtly but more sublimely than Super Rider, does give that air of the unusual, infinitely credible but wearing his gear that cuts out a piece of the back to make a superhero-like A. Ono is able to snatch a hold early to force a rope break, reminding people how things could end just like that if they had forgotten after the Ishikawa match. But then he didn't get much else. Otsuka was all over him. Ono would drive forward and Otsuka would just ride his momentum over and down. Ono would shoot low and Otsuka would withdraw for a second and then get on top of him. Ono was able to get a rope break there but shortly thereafter, it was all over. 

ER: It's weird watching an Otsuka match, waiting for the disgusting way he's going to inevitably suplex Ono, while knowing that this show isn't about suplexes and you were just getting heavy mat bully Otsuka. Ono didn't get to throw kicks and Otsuka didn't get to bounce Ono off his shoulder with precision, so it's a lot of Otsuka bullying Ono into holds. The finish is Otsuka laying his weight into Ono to force him to give up his back and go in for a choke, It never felt like Otsuka broke a sweat and Ono couldn't match size, but it benefitted from having the feel of Ono scrappily working up to someone in an afternoon spar.  

Kamen Shooter Super Rider vs. Ikuto Hidaka

MD: Well you can't say these two weren't fresh for this one. Hidaka got another nice rolling kneebar early and that seemed to be a wake-up call for Rider. He spent most of the rest of the fight as the aggressor maintain control but not being able to do much with it, lots of ball control, not a lot of shots on net, basically. But he kept the pressure on and eventually that led Hidaka to go for another one of those rolling kneebars. Rider was ready and caught him in a cross armbreaker and moving on to the finals (far deeper into this one than I would have expected). Unfortunately for him, the other side of the bracket was Otsuka vs Ishikawa.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Alexander Otsuka

MD: I noticed the camera not being my friend here more than in the other matches. I think there were more photographers at ringside for this one which made it problematic. Also, the cameraman was probably overeager. Sometimes that gave things a nice chaotic feel as limbs were flailing about on the mat, but for the most part, it hindered.

Ishikawa came into this one so much differently than the last, much more conservative, much more focused on just containing Otsuka for as long as he could. Eventually that paid off as he got an ankle lock in the ropes and forced a break. Otsuka came out of that more aggressive, but things were even for a bit. After a reset, both men were grinning and smiling, having quite frankly the time of their lives with one another. Otsuka was able to ride that aggression to a rope break on a rear choke soon after, but Ishikawa went 2-1 with another ankle lock.

That set up the finish where, back in the middle, Ishikawa forced Otsuka to roll out of one position, only to trap him in an armbar the moment he did. As I was watching this go on and looking at the video time tick down, I definitely was getting worried for poor doomed Super Rider.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Kamen Shooter Super Rider

MD: By the time the bell rang, there was less than two and a half minutes left on the video. Super Rider came in hot, as he more or less had to, and he had a nominal advantage early, or at least didn't have a disadvantage, but Ishikawa deftly turned a cross armbreaker attempt against him and pried away a hand, getting it between his legs and locking in an armbar for the decisive win.