Segunda Caida

Phil Schneider, Eric Ritz, Matt D, Sebastian, and other friends write about pro wrestling. Follow us @segundacaida

Thursday, September 24, 2020

Fujiwara Family: Ego's is Something the FUTEN Crush: FUTEN 1/30/11



Hajime Moriyama vs. Takeshi Ono

PAS: Moriyama is a U-Style and E-Style guy, and this was actually his last listed match on Cagematch. It was a hell of match to go out on, as Ono brutalized him with big knees, kicks and punches. He totally dots this kids face up, and by the end of the match he has two swollen cheekbones and cuts around his eyes. This wasn't a totally one sided beating though, Moriyama lands two beautiful suplexes, a backdrop and a dragon suplex both of which landed Ono right on the back of his head and neck, he is also able to attack Ono with submissions. Ono was full on though, everything you want from him, he slips out of dragon screw and toe kicks Moriyama in the forehead, hits this two punch spinning backfist and hook combo which was just gorgeous, and lands some punishing bodyshots too. What a magnificent bastard he was.

ER: A big thing I like about Futen is that nobody really gets chumped out here. Even the most punishing fighter is going to take SOME damage, it won't be a fully one sided beatdown. This fight was obviously dominated by Ono, and Moriyama was going to be taking a lot of damage along the way for sure, but Moriyama also got some cool moments of fighting back and two really nasty suplexes that could have been flash wins for him. He absorbs way too many Ono punches to the face, but when Ono misses a punch and takes a backdrop driver right on his neck and shoulders, it's one of those great Futen "is this going to get a TEN COUNT??" moments, and the same thing happens later when Moriyama catches him with a dragon suplex. Moriyama even tries to go wild early with a kneebar, holding it as long as possible and even trying to lock it on over the rope while standing on the floor. It's like he knew he was going to eat dozens of punches so he had to scrape out damage where he could. And, yes, Ono punches him a lot. And kicks him in the face, including one kick where Moriyama is on the mat and Ono slides in with one leg straight to the face. As many of these Futen matches go, the final few minutes is a battle to see how many 10 counts Moriyama would stand up for, and there's always some excitement when a guy keeps getting up (against all better judgment). But I loved the actual finish of Moriyama continuing to fight to his feet, going for slowed and weakened single legs and high kicks, and Ono easily dodging a high kick and letting Moriyama spin himself right into a brutal octopus.

Fujita Jr. Hayato vs. NARITA 

PAS: Hayato fit in FUTEN perfectly, he totally embrace the ethos of unprotected, uncalled for kicks, stomps and knees directly to the face and throat. He unloads a pretty disgusting beating on NARITA, and two matches into this show we have icepack central, with bruises, cuts and swelling on NARITA. Hayato feels like Takeshi Ono's spiritual successor in this match, a skinny prick who has no regard for his opponents well being. At one point he soccer kicks NARITA in the neck and jaw, NARITA slumps into the corner and Hayato follows with a eye obliterating running knee, just gross stuff. NARITA has some moments, he hits a German suplex and some submission attempts, but he ended up mostly being a breathing heavy bag.

Katsumi Usuda vs. Ryuichi Sekine 

PAS: Really interesting defensive performance by Usuda. He wrestled this match like he was Bernard Hopkins, dodging attacks by Sekine, and punishing mistakes with submissions and counter strikes. There was a great moment where he taunts Sekine into a headbutt exchange only to dodge the headbutt and sink in a Fujiwara armbar. At one point he just dodges and evades 10 straight punches and kicks. If Sekine was a more interesting offensive wrestler this could have been an all-timer of a match, instead it was a cool little experiment and a fascinating Usuda performance.

ER: If this is defensive Usuda I would hate to see offensive! Usuda takes Sekine apart and Sekine doesn't ever really appear to have a chance. Usuda is such a confident standing striker, love how he'll just kick out the inner ankle of Sekine and there's nothing at all that can be done to stop it. He wears Sekine down with kicks and his submission on the work really came off like he was going to advance no matter what attempts at stopping him popped up. Sekine had his one big moment where he caught an overhand strike and kicked Usuda into the ropes, then got to the apron and drove his knee into Usuda's head. It wasn't a moment that felt very Futen (felt more like something you'd see as a big moment in a Adam Cole/Tommaso Ciampa NXT main event), but it was cool seeing Sekine get a big knee. The finishing sub from Usuda was fantastic, as he locks in a rolling kneebar that looks like the finish, and Sekine starts wildly kicking at him with his free leg…except Usuda catches that kicking leg and twists it into an inverted figure 4. Usuda is a guy who always looks like he has a plan B to back up his plan A, and this was a beautiful visual of that. 

Manabu Suruga vs. Mitsuya Nagai 

PAS: I really enjoyed this too, Nagai has had a pretty hit and miss career, but usually delivers in FUTEN. His main attribute is his crowbarism, and this is Crowbar Central. There was lots of leglock fighting throughout the match, giving the whole thing an early Pancrase feel, with nifty grabbing and scissoring of limbs and some pretty class stand up exchanges (including some liver mulching body kicks by Nagai). No one wheel kicks someone in the ribs like Shinya Hashimoto but Nagai is the closest. All the submission attempts in this match were great too, Nagai twist Suruga into a twizzler with a stretch plum and Suruga rolls into some nifty arm bars and knee bars.

ER: This is one of those Futen matches that really makes me wonder if these guys just feel constant pain in their knee and elbow joints. Haven't we all had tennis elbow, where we have to hold our arm a certain way for a couple days because "hey doc it hurts when I do (this)"? These guys must be in 24/7 "hurts when I do this" territory, because you cannot get your limbs bent around this much without residual damage. Sometimes I tweak my knee a little while out running, and so I don't run for a few days, occasionally ice it, and am careful when walking down stairs. I assume these guys just look at stairs with spite at this point. The submissions all looked really painful, and my favorite was Nagai using a bit of old school ingenuity and jamming his foot into Suruga's armpit, then bending Suruga's arm back over his foot. It looks like the kind of sub that would have won UFC 3. 

Daisuke Ikeda/Yuki Ishikawa vs. Kengo Mashimo/Makoto Hashi

PAS: What an awesome lineup. We don't have a lot of Ishikawa and Ikeda teaming together, and they are fun parejas team with some bickering early, and even Ikeda clotheslining Ishikawa when he was putting on an Indian deathlock (to give the move extra oomph). We get some good grappling from all four guys before it predictably devolves into a orgy of brutality. Hashi and Ikeda were the fulcrum of one of my favorite matches of all time, and we get to see them match up again, smashing their heads into each other in sickening ways. There is also some great Mashimo vs. Ishikawa matchups including maybe the best ground and pound I can remember seeing in a pro wrestling match. Ishikawa just unloads with punches square to the eye and jaw. This has more of a frantic style then some of the other FUTEN tags, and instead of ending in a long face off we have more near falls and tags in and out, including Hashi nearly getting a submission by touching Ishikawa's knee to the back of his head in a crazy submission, and Ikeda hitting an all impact superplex, before ending with Ishikawa trapping Hashi in a crazy leg stretch choke combo. You don't usually see Negro Navarro submissions mixed in with face kicking and punching and it was awesome here.

ER: Ishikawa and Ikeda teaming is a rare treat, something that's happened less than 10 times over the 25+ years these two have been running together. The most recent actually happened in the current cursed year of 2020, with them pairing off opposite Daniel Makabe & Chris Ridgeway (which is a great match that we reviewed and added to our 2020 MOTY List). This was the last time they tagged before that, and I like that they also treat it like a rare event. They act like a bickering Oscar and Felix, arguing over who is going to start the match, both putting one leg through the ropes to the apron while waving their hand at the other to get in there, culminating with Ikeda agreeing to start, shaking Ishikawa's hand, but then Irish whipping Ishikawa into the match only to see Ishikawa reverse his whip and send Ikeda into a Mashimo boot. It's a funny gag that you don't go into a Futen show expecting to see. This match also gives us (I believe) our only Ishikawa/Hashi pairing, and it's fitting that the match comes down to the two of them. A lot of this didn't feel super Futen to me, but not really in a bad way.

We didn't get the insane level of violence we get from many Futen main event tags, and some strikes felt a little more held back than normal. Mashimo's kicks were more often grazing over the top of Ikeda's head, and Hashi's headbutts don't have the same hollow coconut thump that really lets me know that brains are getting scrambled. But I don't need all that to have a good time, and I thought we got a really fantastic Ishikawa performance. I loved his work with Mashimo and Hashi, and the mounted punches traded by he and Mashimo were my absolute favorite part of the match. Ishikawa works some cool deathlock variations on Mashimo to wear him down, and then throws the gnarliest mounted punches right to Mashimo's neck. These looked like they could have been immaculately worked punches, but it also wouldn't much surprise me if he was just punching Mashimo in the neck. Either way, Mashimo manages to turn it and immediately throws some receipts right to Ishikawa's jaw and temple. We get some real tight saves, and the final showdown with Ishikawa and Hashi is fun, and I thought for certain Hashi was getting the tap when he broke out a leg dislocating stump puller. Ishikawa's final sub looked like a finishing sub, locking his arm around Hashi's neck while trying to make Hashi's leg boot touch the back of his head, Ikeda desperately holding back Mashimo from making the save. Afterward the Ikeda/Ishikawa alliance melts pretty quickly, but ice sculptures aren't made to last, they're made to be enjoyed while they exist.


FUJIWARA FAMILY LIST

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Thursday, September 08, 2016

QUICK TO STICK MY FUTEN SWORD RIGHT IN YOUR NAVEL - FUTEN 4/24/05

PAS: Pretty cool to wake up and see some FUTEN show up on the internet. The main event I have seen before, but I don't remember seeing the undercard, and we get a Hiroyuki Ito sighting which is always exciting.

ER: ^^^ Phil wrote that a couple of years ago, before starting to review this FUTEN show. Up until that point all that existed of this show was the glorious main event. Then one day many years later the entire show popped up for our viewing pleasure. Phil started the review, and here we are finishing it.

Katsumi Usuda vs. Kota Ibushi

PAS: Really fun Usuda performance, who worked this like a poor man's Fujiwara. Working the young kid through some mat exchanges, milking drama off near KO's and slipping in a flash submission when it looked like all was lost. Usuda doesn't have Fujiwara's charisma (really who does) but he has that match structure down. Usuda is really great at pace changes, speeding up the match and slowing it down. There is a great part here where they are sort of sparring looking for openings and Usuda catches Ibushi with a solid shot to the chops, the match immediately kicks up a gear with Ibushi reeling and throwing shots desperately, while Usuda swarms to get the KO, when it doesn't come, the match slows down a bit again.

ER: I really liked Ibushi here. You know going in that Usuda is going to be money, but I don't know how decade+ old Ibushi was, and here he was really good. Was he good because he was standing opposite a man willing to take nasty kicks to painful areas? That was some of it, but this wasn't Usuda helping a blind man cross the street. Usuda clearly paced things but Ibushi was awesomely along for the ride. His kick flurries were manic and brutal, and the way he mixed up strikes to keep Usuda off balance was glorious. At one point he's lacing in with kicks to the body and chest, throwing slaps to the face, and Usuda is taking all sorts of punishment and the moment he starts to figure out some timing and advance, and Ibushi just surprises him with a front kick to the gut. I loved all of Usuda's flash subs (catching the arm into a Fujiwara was great) and I loved Ibushi sending Usuda on the run with kicks. One great moment where Usuda is on the ropes trying to shield himself and Ibushi just rushes for the attack. He gets paid back later with Usuda taking him out with nasty low leg kicks (watch how great Ibushi's sell is on his wobble legs). Awesome match.

Takeshi Ono vs. Hiroyuki Kotsubo

PAS: Big waste of an Ono match. He is such an incredible wrestler and shows up so rarely on video that it is a bummer to see him saddled with such a load in such a short match. Only about 4 minutes and some awful looking offense from Kotsubo, that was one of the worst clotheslines I have ever seen. Ono sells for a sec and then decides to just punch this clown out. His finishing flurry was cool, but only a taste of what he can do.

ER: This was weird but I think could have been good with some time. Ono is a good enough worker that he can drag a good match out of someone like Kotsubo if given enough time to tell some kind of story. This wasn't enough time to tell any kind of story, so what we were left with was just a short match and an awkward opponent. Kotsubo did have SOME skill, just limited. Ono is a guy who can work around limited skill. He didn't really get the chance to do that here. Kotsubo is clearly some kind of amateur wrestler, as his opening takedown and single leg floatover looked really good. But he tried to do more than that and that's when things looked uglier. For a wrestler he didn't have a very good suplex, so when he german'd Ono it was supposed to be one of those match turning point suplexes where Ono does a flip over bump and sells it as a potential KO blow, except the suplex basically looks like a rolling cradle and Ono sells it as the KO anyway. Yeesh. Then Ono gets up and kicks the shit out of him like we all wanted to begin with. Yep. We all realized "man if this was gonna only go 4 minutes, then this should have just been Ono giving this dude spinning backfists for 4 minutes."

Ikuto Hidaka & Minoru Fujita vs. Kyosuke Sasaki & Hajime Moriyama

ER: Team BattlArts/Zero-1 vs. Team U-Style! Those names all mean something to puro kids these days, right? I haven't seen much of Team U-Style, but they seemed perfectly fine here. Bland at times, kick party fun the next. Once they started kicking the veterans things got fun, and Hidaka and Fujita suddenly getting desperate against the young turks was a nice moment. We get some nice spirited moments, like Fujita and Sasaki breaking into a spontaneous slap war, Hidaka breaking out a trippy grapevine leg sub that would make Negro Navarro drool, and an awesome finishing sub where he rolls a snug double leg into an almost Texas cloverlead/dual ankle lock with several points of painful leverage. I had no idea what I was looking at, but I loved it. Match as a whole was more like several separate vignettes. It didn't totally build to a finish, but instead was a kind of series of restarts. Which is fine, and this style sometimes lends itself to that, but taken in it's segmented form it was overall fine.

PAS: I really enjoyed this. Always liked the Fujita/Hidaka tag team they were one of my favorite parts of mid 90's Japanese indy wrestling. Cool to see them pop up ten years later and still as slick. The U-Style dudes are all beasts on the mat and I loved how fast and slick all of their rolling with Hidaka and Fujita was. Lots of grabbing and twisting of limbs in nasty ways. Hidaka especially was on one, just breaking out crazy nutso limb locks one after the other, the U-Style guys were throwing the kind of thumping shots appropriate on the undercard of Ikeda v. Ishikawa. Very cool stuff.

Hiroyuki Ito vs. Manabu Hara

ER: This never totally got going for me. Similar to the previous match it felt like there were too many momentum breaks. A lot of kick, down, count, back up. Sub, rope break, separation, back up. There were moments where it threatens to get really good, where the violence almost broke out from the pack. That can be tough on shows like this, with several tough guys, all trying to out-tough the other to be more memorable. At one point Ito rushed in with a bunch of fast and nasty right kicks to the chest and body and it got really exciting, like Ito snapped and got tired of screwing around and Hara was going to respond with brutal kicks of his own. And he kinda does. But soon they're back to breaks and separations. At the end of the match it felt like they went out to do a Ikeda/Ishikawa match, except nowhere near as good, and right before an actual Ikeda/Ishikawa match. Just not enough substance here.

PAS: I really liked this. Ito is a weird wrestling genius who showed up in shoot feds in the early 2000s had awesome matches from the beginning and then disappeared again. He was one of my favorite U-Style guys and had a great short Big Mouth Loud run. This wasn't a high end Ito match, but it had a lot of the trappings which made him such a compelling wrestler. I loved how he brought the match up and down in intensity, and how he would respond to Hara's fast kicks with one or two thumping ones. There were a lot of rope breaks, but I enjoyed how the worked in and out of them, Ito was great at throwing quick kicks off of breaks.This was more U-Style then FUTEN as it was more of a chess match then a harrowing war. The kind of match which isn't done anymore, and I really enjoyed watching it.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda

ER: This is a legendarily violent match between two of the biggest badasses in wrestling. I think this is actually the most violent match these two have ever had, and my lord think of the ground that covers. This match is so violent that I'm not actually sure how neither of them ended up KO'd at some point. Are they this good at close-up magic? You know it's going to be a barnburner as both men start the match with their hair at 0.7 on the Big Ern Scale, with Ishikawa's dyed that fashionable blonde/platinum/gray/purple that ladies are into, beating the trend by a decade!  It's possible that he was sporting mermaid hair in whatever FUTEN hasn't shown up by now. And after the hair is checked and being fluffed by the AC, these two men destroy each other for 14 minutes, to the point where some parts of the match get difficult to watch.

Ishikawa is at his most violent here, punching Ikeda in the throat - regularly - punching him in the ribs, hyperextending his arm in an awful armbar after already damaging it with a hammerlock. Watching Ikeda rub his inner elbow while trying to flex after breaking that armbar is either next level selling, or the look of a man whose elbow is now going to be cranky every time it rains in Tokyo. And for this lifetime of elbow pain, he decides to kick Ishikawa square in the forehead. A lot. He kicks him in the neck with his left leg, and then kicks him in the ear with his right leg to catch him on the way down. He punts him right in the head and face several times. I actually looked away at one point. Every time either man got to his feet looked like a legitimate struggle, and sometimes I rooted for them to stay down. Yet once I begged for Ishikawa to stay down, he would rally, and nail Ikeda with elbows and more punches. Ishikawa locks on a choke at one point and we hear Ikeda gurgling. Mouths get bloodied. Elbows get thrown to the back of heads. Ikeda clotheslines Ishikawa in the side of the neck. Ishikawa enziguiris Ikeda in the mouth. I don't know what kind of relationship these two men have outside of a wrestling ring, but their professional wrestling relationship certainly blossomed into a strange thing that would be impossible to explain to any of your co-workers. This match is a horrific masterpiece. I think it's the best singles between the two men, making it the best singles match of one of my favorite match ups in wrestling history. These two perfected a style that few could handle, and few would want to try.

PAS: I am not sure where this match stands it the pantheon of Ikeda v. Ishikawa matches. This is the most violent, but also the most simplistic. You want simplistic and violent from Ikeda v. Ishikawa and the fact that these are two guys who have lost some of their athleticism is part of the appeal. It feels more like a hellacious battle from two guys who have already taken large pieces out of each other over the years. They had some nice wrestling scrambles, but every scramble was a set up for a violent attack. Ishikawa's punches were pretty unbelievable, they hit so hard that it actually sounded sweetened. Meanwhile Ikeda is sprinting across the ring and trying to Janakowski Ishikawa's head through the uprights. There is a section near the end where a glassey eyed Ishikawa blood dripping out of his mouth like he had a root canal, is just dropping Ikeda on his head,  can't help but think "what the hell am I watching?"  A lot of the stiff Puro wrestling today is loaded with guys trying to prove how tough they are by not selling, in this match they unloaded holy hellfire on each other, but every move took a toll, they weren't ignoring the pain to prove they were tough, the felt every bit of the agony and kept moving forward.

ER: Ikeda/Ishikawa is a true epic, and after talking it over Phil and I decided to add it as the 2005 rep on our All Time MOTY List. What 2005 matches could challenge it?!


ONGOING ALL TIME MOTY LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA


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Sunday, January 23, 2011

MAKE WAY FOR THE MERGE OF TRAFFIC, FUTEN COMING THROUGH WITH FULL METAL JACKET-Futen 6/27/10

You can pick this up from

damian1488@hotmail.com

Daisuke Ikeda vs Hajime Moriyama

This might be or only chance to see 2010 Futen Ikeda and he is who we thought he was. Ikeda comes in with a tightly wrapped forearm which Moriyama's saw as his one chance to get past the boss. Ikeda shows his dominance early by taking Moriyama to the mat and applying the single nastiest overhand wristlock I have ever seen. It looks early like a blowout until Moriyama starts whipping kicks to the arm. The match continues on that path, with Ikeda unloading with his stuff, while Moriyama kept working over his injury, which lead Ikeda to drop his hands and created other openings. It could have used a little more dramatic final act, but a fun match.

Koichiro Kimura vs Kazuki Okubo

This was structurally similar to the previous match, with Kimura in the role of the grizzled veteran. Okubo was aggressive and the match was stiff, but Kimura seemed not to give a fuck. Even when he was getting hit, he looked like he was about to check his watch. It kind of reminded of the dull Inoki v. random gajin matches I watched while picking stuff for the 80's NJ set. The couple of moments where Kimura actually sold and cared were pretty good, but those were few and far between.

Brahman Shu/Brahman Kei vs Takeshi Ono/Ryuichi Sekine

I enjoyed the Brahmans in this match a lot more then in the previous show (or really ever before.) They were playing the role of nasty veterans working over a rookie and they nastily worked over said rookie. The kicks and punches were flying and landing, and they bust up Sekine's mouth and spit on him while kicking his ass. We get pissed off Ono getting his revenge and he looks great doing it, there is still too much Takeshi on the apron for my tastes. Still the match had some nice drama and Sekine showed some grit, and I no longer dread the Brahman's dragging down a card.

Makoto Hashi vs Manabu Suruga

I enjoyed this although it was the least of three big singles matches on the show. They do some nice grappling early, but everything is pretty much a preface to the end run which has two minutes of both guys just smashing their heads into each other ram style. It is pretty nasty stuff with Hashi splitting himself open. The final KO headbutt felt like a KO headbutt, weird finish, violent, but not the kind of back and forth story some of the other matches told.

Kengo Mashimo vs Takahiro Oba

Really good singles match, Mashimo continues to impress me. He is really great as a violent bully, and while Oba does some goofy things he has great charisma and for some reason his goofy shit doesn't bother me the way Sawa's shtick does. We had some solid grappling early with Mashimo really wrenching in some holds. Oba then tries his running windmill punches, and I like how Mashimo just steps to the side and blasts him with kicks, knocks him down, and then does this great asshole stroll around the ring. They also nicely work around Oba's airplane spin, as it gets countered early and then when he hits it, there is an actual dramatic double KO near fall off an airplane spin of all things. Finish was great with both guys throwing bombs and Oba earning Mashimo's respect before getting caught and finished.

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Saturday, January 22, 2011

FUTEN KILLER BEES, WE ON A SWARM - Futen 5/30/10

Max Lanicault got in 3 COUNT THEM 3 Futen shows and I got them all, bizarrely we only get one Ikeda match in the batch, but there is plenty other good looking stuff. Max is cheap so email him at

damian1488@hotmail.com

if you want it, and you want it.

Shoichi Uchida vs Kazuki Okubo

Pretty basic undercard singles match except with the stiffness dialed up to 11 Futen style. So slaps and kicks, with all the slaps and kicks landing with bad intentions. These shows are filmed in almost a Black Terry Jr. super close up handheld style which really accentuates the violence. Finish was really great with Uchida hitting almost an Oklahoma Stampede Northern Lights bomb, top rope dropkick to the next and then a crossface choke. Okubo fights to the ropes almost gets the break, before Uchida torques back on the neck for the tap. I really liked the way they teased a near fall, but ended up just ending the match.

Makoto Hashi vs. Rui Hiugaji

I have never seen Hiugaji before (and he doesn't show up again) but he is a guy who knows he is in Futen. Just a disgusting violent match, they have some breathtakingly stiff and fast exchanges in this match. At one point Hiugaji rears back and lands an overhand right full force into Hashi's throat, another time Hashi hits a spinning back fist to the back of Hiugaji's head. Hashi was doing a lot of countering and absorbing, as Hiugaji would go on these flurries and Hashi would kick back in the pocket, block, dodge and counter. It was a really great Fujiwaraish/Bernard Hopkinish performance by Hashi. Hiugaji is so aggressive he ends up punching himself out and Hashi ends up sinking in the choke. Great match

Brahman Shu/Brahman Kei vs. Tamon Honda/Hajime Moriyama

The Brahmans are ex-Toryuman and don't really feel like they belong in this fed, working a kind of generic juniors tag style. There was some nice scrambling between a Brahman and Moriyama early, but that was the only thing either Brahman did which impressed me. Honda is always great although there really wasn't enough of him. He works like kind of a monster as he dominates the action when we get to see him. The Brahman's win with a KO kick on Moriyama which was preposterously weak compared to most of the kicks in this fed. This is Futen son, if you are going to win with a kick, you had better win with a kick.

Mitsuya Nagai vs. Taro Nohashi

A squash with Nagai working as Big John Studd. Nohashi tries to bodyslam him and fails, ect. Nothing to see here.

Takahiro Oba/Takeshi Ono vs. Kengo Mashimo/Manabu Suruga

Tremendous match which may even be better then the great 2009 Futen tag. Right up there with PARK v. Mesias and the best IWRG matches from 2010. Mashimo and Surgura are bad asses in this laying in big time beatings on Oba and Ono who are both great at selling nasty shots, and are super charismatic fighting back. Ono is really well known for being a smirking douchebag, and it is shocking how great he is as a guy on an apron ralling his partner, or a guy taking a big beting. I really enjoyed Mashimo in this as he would exchange and then get sick of it, and just grab his opponent and hurl them to the side, he also laid in with some really thudding kicks. Some of the coolest selling of the year from Ono and Oba there are multiple moments of facial selling which I actually verbally marked out for. There is a great moment where Ono takes a German suplex into the turnbuckle and his eyes rolls up in his head and he slightly shakes, while trying to punch his legs to get feeling in them. Finish run is just Ono and Suruga in your traditional Ikeda v. Ishikawa role, where their partners clear out and they just go after each other, 15th round in Manila style. Ono lands some of the best uppercuts I have ever seen in wrestling, and the finish is a fucking finish.

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