All Time MOTY Head to Head: Rey v. Ki VS. Yuki Ishikawa v. British Brawler

British Brawler v. Yuki Ishikawa BattleArts 4/11/15

PAS: This was the best of the Canadian Ishikawa matches we have seen. Brawler comes fully ready to wrestle Yuki Ishikawa and he comes in there throwing spuds. Big elbow smashes with his full weight behind it, nasty forearms into Yuki's ribs, jaw jacking slaps and some really crowbarish clotheslines. Meanwhile Ishikawa was mostly on defense and he is a great defensive wrestler, catching the overly aggressive Brawler with counter punches and armbar counters. The question is whether Brawler can KO Ishikawa before Ishikawa can catch him slipping. Finish is great with Yuki hitting a enzigiri right to the temple turning the Brawlers lights all the way out.

ER: Killer match, jealous of the fine citizens of Canada (for a few reasons right now). But I don't see Ishikawa as being "mostly on defense" in this at all. This felt like a very aggressive approach for him, especially down the last half of the match (which is usually when he's most defensive, as he's typically taken big damage by that point). But here he's hitting enziguiris, pulling Brawler's legs, getting mount and slamming him with sick body shots, even being the aggressor on standing strikes. Brawler is gamely along for the ride, and I'd love to see these two match up again with some learned behavior. Brawler doesn't hold back on strikes, including some of the best damn stiff arm standing lariats I've ever seen; I have to believe those things rearranged Ishikawa's spine. The stuff around dueling kneebars was great, with Ishikawa going after it, then Brawler grabbing his own while expertly sliding Ishikawa's grip with his free leg, cool sequence. Overall this felt like an easier than normal win for Ishikawa, but that may also be because I'm used to seeing him get the life beat out of him. Still, this was a wonderfully crafted match, probably Ishikawa's best Canadian match so far.

Rey v. Ki review

Verdict:

ER: A wonderful match, right among my favorites of 2015. But not as good as the absolute upper echelon stuff. It still lands really high on our 2015 MOTY List.

PAS: I loved this, nobody is really doing FUTEN style matches anymore, and while British Brawler isn't Daisuke Ikeda he was bringing it. Still Rey v. Ki is hard to beat.


2015 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2015 Ongoing Match of the Year List

Yuki Ishikawa v. Freedom Wallace BattleArts Academy 12/19

PAS: Wow, so Yuki Ishikawa is still who he is. This was by far the best of your Canuk Ishikawa, as Wallace was truly game to work a main event match. Match had the mix of beautiful grappling and harrowing violence you want in a Yuki Ishikawa main event. Opens up with rolling for submissions and Ishikawa is just breathtaking at grabbing limbs and necks and twisting them off, he is always looking to improve his position, and switch to something nasty. Wallace did a nice job not being completely overwhelmed and had some nice counters of his own. The match really hit another gear when it got chippy, Ishikawa gets top position and cracks Wallace in the ear with a slap and digs a hook into his ribs. Wallace gets an elevator, top position and cleans the plaque off of Yuki's teeth with a forearm, and that set the tone. There were parts of this match that got more pro wrestling, and even Wallace's stomps and dropkicks had some real steam on them. There was this great moment when Ishikawa loads up a nasty surfboard which Wallace breaks with an eye rake. When Ishikawa gets his bearings he unloads with hell and for a moment we reached Ikeda v. Ishikawa. Match just had me grinning all night.

ER: From here on out we will be referring to all Canadian Ishikawa as Youppi Ishikawa. And Youppi Ishikawa has not missed a damn beat since his Batt heyday. I love aggressive Ishikawa and here we get a bunch of that. We're used to on-the-ropes Ishikawa, where he's taking a lot of punishment and just trying to outlast his opponent, looking for his opening - and we do get some of that here - but for much of this he's on the prowl and stretching and smacking Freedom into the next section of match. Freedom ain't free, and Wallace paid for his in hyperextended elbows and punched ribs. I enjoyed the pro wrestling feel that Phil mentioned, as parts were almost WWE doing a worked shoot match, with real mat struggle combined with guys doing signature offense. Ishikawa leads Freedom through a few standing exchanges, but Freedom looks good on the ground. I especially liked him trying to grapevine Ishikawa's arm, Ishikawa shifting out of it, but Freedom suckering him right into a side triangle. I loved Ishikawa going full ham down the stretch with signature offense. Suddenly the match felt like a WorldWide match going home, with Youppi dropping him with a couple Saito suplexes, setting up the enziguiri, and locking on a nasty snug Octopus. It felt like me playing as Ishikawa in Virtual Pro Wrestling 2. I loved it.


2015 ONGOING MOTY LIST

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Battle Arts Professional Wrestling Pilot

PAS: Nothing the Segunda Caida establishment loves more then BattlArts, and while this is Battle Arts the Canadian wrestling school run by Santino, they both have Yuki Ishikawa and I am interested to check out how Yuki's students are going, and any chance to see the legend in action is well worth it.

Mercenary Mike Dorosti v. Randy Reign

PAS: The commentary on this match was pretty bad, acentless Santino was fine but Freedom Wallace's fake Bobby Heenan was bad even in the subset of indy wrestling commentators doing fake Bobby Heenan. This is a TV pilot, you probably shouldn't have one of your announcers talking about how much both wrestlers suck and how bad the match is. The match itself wasn't great, both guys are pretty big,  but this had the feel of an ECWA heavyweight match from 2002, some power moves which looked okay, some questionable punches and clotheslines and a lot of epic match selling. This goes 20 minutes and neither guy had the wind for that, by the end it looked less like selling and more like Kimbo v. Dada 3000.  Dorosti had a local pizzaria owner or something working as a face manager and he kept checking his phone during the match. Nothing BatllArtsy about this, this was bog standard heavyweight indy wrestling.

The Compound (Buck Gunderson, Karou and Smiles) v. DJ/Dustin Quicksilver and Randy Bynoe

PAS: This was really an example of how a formula six man tag can hide limitations. This was an entertaining match, and it was clear that some of the guys were greener then Dorosti and Reign. I liked all of the heels, Gunderson has a gimmick of promising ice cream to the kids in the audience and not delivering which is some solid old school shit. He is a fun cheap shot artist, always running when he gets confronted, but being really nasty when he has the advantage. I like Karou as an indy Meng, he had a nice headbutt and good stomps, Smiles has a great name and look for a crazy guy, although he didn't wrestle particularly crazy. The heels cut off the ring on Quicksilver and beat him up a bunch till he got a hot tag and then everything broke loose, basic pro-wrestling done well. This wouldn't be a standout match on a Mid-South Coliseum show in 1985, but it would be well worth everyones time, and they would be excited for Jerry Lawler to get his hands on Buck Gunderson.

Yuki Ishikawa v. Freedom Wallace

PAS: Wow, so Yuki Ishikawa is still who he is. This was by far the best of your Canuk Ishikawa, as Wallace was truly game to work a main event match. Match had the mix of beautiful grappling and harrowing violence you want in a Yuki Ishikawa main event. Opens up with rolling for submissions and Ishikawa is just breathtaking at grabbing limbs and necks and twisting them off, he is always looking to improve his position, and switch to something nasty, Wallace did a nice job not being completely overwhelmed and had some nice counters of his own. The match really hit another gear when it got chippy, Ishikawa gets top position and cracks Wallace in the ear with a slap and digs a hook into his ribs. Wallace gets an elevator, top position and cleans the plaque off of Yuki's teeth with a forearm, and that set the tone. There were parts of this match that got more pro wrestling, and even Wallaces stomps and dropkicks had some real steam on them. There was this great moment when Ishikawa loads up a nasty surfboard which Wallace breaks with an eye rake. When Ishikawa gets his bearings he unloads with hell and for a moment we reached Ikeda v. Ishikawa. Match just had me grinning all night. The rest of this show was pretty forgettable, but man you give me an Ishikawa match a month I am deeply in.

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

21. Yuki Ishikawa v. George Terzis Battle Arts 6/14

PAS: So glad this showed up, any chance we get to see Ishikawa is a treat. Terzis is a apparently a long time Canadian indy guy who is a co-trainer at the BattlArts Academy. I had never heard of him before, but he was pretty good, and felt like he belonged in a Yuki Ishikawa match. This was kind of worked like a poor mans Ishikawa v. Greco match. Terzis isn't as fluid on the mat as Greco (who is really) but he was able to exchange hold with Ishikawa on the mat. I also really liked Terzis on his feet, he hit some very nasty high kicks, which Ishikawa sold like a champ, he also really laid in the high knees. Finish was a classic Ishikawa/Fujiwara finish as he is getting rocked with big shots and is some how able to lock in a flash submission for the win. So much fun

ER: Okay, so when I started watching this I admittedly was disappointed. When I read the name George Terzis I was hoping it was some big lumpy Czech or Greek guy in a gi, with a horseshoe haircut and dad mustache, the kind of guy who would show up in RINGS or in a random Fujiwara PWFG match. I pictured his training being 15 minutes of grappling followed by 15 minutes of cigarette break, just grapple, cigarettes, repeat. I imagined the jogging suits that you knew he had to own, like a 70s gym teacher. I imagined his look of seething hatred and drugged sleepiness, the way all those galoots looked in the pre match intros of a Volk Han match. And then Terzis turned out to be a stocky kickpads guy. He kinda looks like early career Ken Shamrock, and he kinda works like early career Ken Shamrock, which is a great opponent for Ishikawa! Ishikawa moving to Canada and not getting his brains turned to pancake batter by regular face kicking has done wonders for him. He moves around better than the last few years of Japan matches that popped up, and physically he appears to be in the best shape of his wrestling career. And not one of those phony "best shape of my life" platitudes that tons of athletes toss out before their respective sport's season. He's clear eyed, looks lean, has more muscle tone than I've ever seen on him, just moves around great. This match is a great example of how wonderful Ishikawa is at putting over holds, as sometimes a hold can actually be very painful while looking not painful. Ishikawa is maybe the best at putting over levels of pain while in a hold. He's really great at going from "not a concern, I can still look for an opening" to "more of a concern, better try and reverse instead of looking to advance" to "Okay better find a way out FAST" to "OH LORD my leg!" It's a two way street and he's also great at showing when he's really going for the kill and wrenching in one of his own subs. They do a lot of nasty legbars in this and lesser wrestlers can make this stuff look like two partgoers getting tangled in a painless game of Twister. Think of Kurt Angle applying the ankle lock, and how it always looked like he was just holding a man by the leg. Here we get real struggle, we get great blocked reversals like when Ishikawa tries to roll out of something, finds continuing to roll that way would mean a snapped leg, so acts fast to find another way out. Add on to that some big head kicks from Terzis, a nice out of nowhere left hand that puts Terzis down, and some big knees, and this would rank favorably with BattlArts stuff. Good work Phil for tracking this down.


2014 MASTER LIST

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

48. Yuki Ishikawa v. Sansyu -BattleArts Academy 11/14

PAS: This is our first look at Yuki Ishikawa since he moved to Canada to teach at Santino's wrestling school. This is clearly one of his students, and he is pretty giving. Ishikawa is one of the great sellers in wrestling history and he does a bang up job putting over this kids kicks, which won't remind anyone of Ikeda anytime soon. The highlights of the match are definitely when Ishikawa starts really working Sanysu over, dropping knees on his temple and elbows on his throat. The finishing scramble on the mat was a thing of beauty as well. Rest of this match was Ishikawa eating a lot of questionable stuff, which kept it from being high end, still so happy to see Yuki show up again, now someone needs to book him against the Gulak/Thatcher/Busick/Sabre Jr. group.

ER: Well this was a pleasant little surprise. Luckily Phil obsessively searches for Yuki Ishikawa stuff on youtube a few times a week so we get to see it ridiculously soon after it happens. The couple Ishikawa matches that show up every year are always awesome, but I think here is the best he's looked in years. Who knows, maybe Canadian living has healed him up a bit? Have some delicious ketchup chips and a Coffee Crisp, not get head butted into incontinence. He seemed spry, more in shape than I've seen him in ages, showed more speed than he's shown in ages, all his sprawls and everything looked so quick and agile. Being broken has kind of been a part of his character in FUTEN and other stuff and he made broken crafty vet work better than all but maybe Fujiwara. But here he was lithe and aggressive. Sansyu was fine, I didn't think he was bad, although yes his kicks were not up to normal Batt/FUTEN standards, but they still looked fine and Ishikawa always makes that stuff look great anyway, bouncing back into the ropes and crumbling at the right times. Ishikawa made them look good and Sansyu also brought a nice twisty legbar to the match. But damn Ishikawa was just great. At one point he hits this great three elbow combination that I've never seen him use before. He drops Sansyu with a brutal 12 to 6, plants a nasty quick elbowdrop, and then gets back up and drops a Bret Hart style double elbow on him. All his arm stuff looks really great, yanking that arm and knowing right where Sansyu is gonna twist to escape, Ishikawa one step ahead of him. The keylock he locks on before the end is just too good. I enjoy Yuki Ishikawa wrestling.


2014 MASTER LIST

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