Kakuto Tanteidan: We Are Fighting Detectives 10/12/23

Hideki Suzuki vs. Yu Iizuka

PAS: Iizuka is young GLEAT UWFI guy whose nickname is Volk Kid, that is sort of like Harold Miner calling himself Baby Jordan or Gary Trent being nicknamed Shaq of the MAC, you are never going to live up to that and shouldn't make the comparison. Still Miner and Trent could both ball, and Iizuka can go a bit on the mat. Suzuki is a venerated veteran and after his ill-fated and truly bizarre NXT run (he is up there with Brazo de Plata and Meiko Satomura as some of the odder people to get a WWE run) has been one of the most dependable wrestlers in Japan. This really had the feel of some of the under the radar killer FU-TEN and Battlarts openers. Iizuka is more of an offensive wrestler, flashily spinning into cool submissions, including a great triangle choke. Meanwhile Suzuki is a grinder, he pressed his weight into Iizuka trying to make him feel force the entire match, until he maneuvered him into side control, flattened him out and just put him down with hammer and anvil elbows. Great example of exuberance of youth getting played by a old master. Suzuki doesn't have the charisma of Fujiwara but that felt like a very Fujiwarish performance.

TKG: This didn't really vibe with me. Suzuki starts with an insanely stiff dropkick. I don't know how many times I rewound the drop kick Suzuki works this match like a big bruiser: In theory this is guy with a ton of technique working a guy who outmatches him in strength. But it never really worked for me. They stayed in subs way to long and I never bought the idea that IIzuka dominating with his finesse, or that Suzuki was ever in danger. Suzuki did look like a hoss.


Hikaru Sato/Brother YASSHI vs. Ikuto Hidaka/Thanomsak Toba

TKG: I haven’t seen any of these guy’s in ages. Hidaka has aged facially into looking like Wings era Paul Mcartney but hasn’t slowed down a bit. In Memphis , you’d put him in a mask and push him as new challenger. Toba has aged into looking like not so much a boxer as a British Music Hall performer working as a boxer in Punch and Judy panto. Real Benny Hill vibes that I enjoyed, Brother Yasshi has gone from guy in dreads who listens to Vybez Kartel to a guy with dreads who listens to Buffet ( may his memory be a blessing). He unfortunately also works like a Parrothead. I don’t remember Sato being this level of goofy goon. Just goonish selling and work and really selling idea that he was overwhelmed and out of his element. Like Tully with Luger and when he was in this it was really fun.

PAS: Toba was a total beast in this, throwing not only straight punches, but hooks and uppercuts, the spot of the match was Toba dropping Sato with a check hook, or it might have been YASSHI throwing coconut headbutts and Toba responding with heavy punches. I liked the Sato vs. Hidaka sections too, fast tricky exchanges with enough violence to be appropriate, Hidaka's shots were more speed then force, but the speed looked good, and Sato maneuvering into the armbard was pretty sick. Battlarts would have this killer undercard tags, and this was in that spirit.


Super Tiger vs. Keita Yano

TKG:Super Tiger and Keita Yano are both guys who had worked actual Battlarts. Was a point where felt Super Tiger was only good there. Yano I didn’t much care for in Battlarts but has become a guy I like outside of it. This was Yano as guy who can absolutely control Tiger with wrestling for whole match while Super Tiger is guy who can hit a kick or sub to end it at any moment. I dug this more than the opener for guy controlling match but not able to close vs bigger stronger opponent. It’s weird to have 2 of those on the undercard so close. Super Tiger isn’t as charismatic or impressive as Suzuki, But I bought into this one, bought Yano’s ability to turn Tiger upside down and twist up…and loved the real taunting and fucking with Tiger. The reckless back scratch that made Super Tiger lose his composure and step up his aggression was neat point where you knew Super Tiger wanted to end it now.

PAS: I think I liked this a little less then Tom, I thought there was some good looking stuff, I loved the Yano roll into the LaBell lock, and some of his other arm control, but thought other stuff by both guys didn't look as good. Super Tiger is really hit or miss, some of his kicks looked good and others wiffed, and I really want a KO kick on a show with Daisuke Ikeda, Toba and that main event to look way nastier. 


Daisuke Ikeda/Minoru Fujita vs. Daisuke Sekimoto/Yuki Ishikawa

TKG: Is this the biggest hottest crowd Ishikawa and Ikeda have worked their match in. Fujita/Hidaka once was an exciting pairing and I think Sekimoto had adjusted to this style in the past. But this started Fujita and Sekimoto really working like they were the local indy guys in a Santo/N8 Mattison v Blue Panther/Conrad Kennedy III match in Flint; with Fujita and Sekimoto just working a match independently of what else going on-like they didn’t get it. I dug the early everyone simmering part of match and then Sekimoto/Fujita ran their spots and I wish someone could have picked Usuda and Ono up from the reteirement village. Ikeda and Sekimoto hit double headbut that knocked both to ground and where it looked like Sekimoto might have lost a tooth. It super picked from there and was amazing when it was cooking.

For your old guy brawlers to have a transcendent match; they have to either do Black Terry v Mr Condor Zona 23, or the 2018 Fugofugo Yumeji/Buki v. Ishikawa/Joeta. Either “two guys laying a hellacious beating where in end it changes neither of them and they will continue beating on each other forever cause this is what they do” or “two guys engage in such a helacious beating that you think they will be changed forever,,,will never fully recover”. This wasn’t either of those but there were so many moments that teased they were going to reach transcendence. The point where Ikeda is chopping the top of Ishikawa’s head and Ishikawa ansers with punches to eye and temple, there is what almost felt like an enziguri to knee that ends up being a trip into submission ,,,,and both of these guys are so great at selling that they could make me buy Scott Putski Jr axehandle as taking something out of them. And the finish felt totally credible. Clearly not criticizing a match for not being transcendent,,,I’m praising it for these mother fuckers are still able to tease that it could be.

MD:This worked for my sense of anticipation, at least. I wanted Ishikawa vs Ikeda in this setting in front of this crowd for this moment and they did a good job delaying it for most of the match until they paired up for the finishing stretch. That included heat, of sorts, on Sekimoto, with Ikeda more than happy to rush across the ring when he wasn't legal to pepper shots in on him or knock Ishikawa off the apron. Fujita and Sekimoto built to throws, cutoffs, and counters, before they decided to pay things off for the crowd with Ishikawa and Ikeda. Even then, things didn't really boil over though. More than that, it felt like watching two great old chess masters do their thing at a table in a city park. The stakes weren't there. Glory had passed them. But they were masters and familiar with one another. You just happened to be there for their weekly routine. In this case, the routine was two guys pushing each other to their physical, technical limit and punching one another in the face. But overall, same idea. Ishikawa had a clear advantage and it was just a case of Sekimoto German Suplexing an interfering Fujita enough times for him to really press it.

PAS: Really awesome Ishikawa performance, he has a bad back and can't even stand up straight, but can still throw brutal straight hands and grapple like a master. Every time he was in the ring he elevated the match, the Fujita and Sekimoto against each other parts didn't do a ton for me, but Ishikawa taking Fujita down to the mat to stretch him ruled. Ikeda is more limited at this point of his career, the recent Ikeda stuff will have moments, but he isn't going full force like he did even pre-pandemic in WXW, still you could see the glances, and his selling is still tremendous. This felt a little like late era Dundee and Lawler stuff, where it was mindblowing like it was in their prime, but you could still see the shades and shadows of brilliance. 

Fuminori Abe vs. Takuya Nomura

PAS: This promotion was a joint production by these two tag team partners and close friends, and they matched up in the main event in an attempt to do justice to what came before. Abe started the match with a bit of clowning, mugging and shit talking, biting Norma in the armpit to break a submission hold, using some hand feints to land a hard slap, and even giving Norma an oil check in the rear to counter a knee bar. Ikeda would do this sort of thing in the classic BattlArts days as a way to rile his opponent up. Nomura was much more serious and responded to the clowning with brutal kicks and slaps. Fun times ended pretty quickly after that as they exchanged cringy clunking headbutts. It was harrowing violence going forward, hard punches to the forehead, kicks to the spine and headbutts so nasty that they eventually split Abe open. Abe has these cool chopping overhand punches which look like Harley Race when he was trying to split someone’s eyebrow. Normura hit some really big suplexes near the end of the match as Abe was fading and it looked like he going to be counted out, until he caught a Nomura high kick and turned into a ankle lock, and then an ankle lock german suplex. He then put on an octopus stretch, which Normua countered into a single leg crab. Abe then faked grabbing a rope break and instead rolled it into a kneebar which he cranked for the tap. Very cool counter wrestling. This didn’t have the mat wrestling mastery of a high end BattlArts era Ishikawa or Carl Greco singles match, or the brain smashi`        ng suplexes of Otuska, and while it was sickly stiff, I am not sure if they got all the way to Ikeda. So this topped out at the level of a high end Katsumi Usuda match, which in 2023 still puts it right up there with the best stuff anywhere in the world. Let’s hope this is a semi-regular thing, because this style hasn’t really had a home since FU-TEN folded in 2015, and I just love this stuff.

TKG: I at this point peripherally follow US wrestling and stick with low end lucha gym show, so this is my first experience with these two. And dude, this is a great introduction. I’m assuming that Nomura is the
Jackie Fargo Incomparable Kid to Abe’s Wild Roughouse Fargo. Abe is super super charismatic as crazy
Roughouse never-say die hardheaded fighter. And I enjoy all the Dennis Condrey forgets not to hit
Burrhead Jones in the head spots…I don’t know anything about Japanese racial caste so I can claim
ignorance of the if there are any of the ugly implications of those spots, but great spots. I think my
favorite Abe section was the thing where he used a dragon screw to transition to offense, celebrates
the dragon screw with big arm flourish and then realizes that he can’t feel his mouth and eyes cross and
uncross as he drools all over himself over the beating he just ate. I’m so used to insane never say die guy
being matched up against a guy going “what is it going to take to put him away” or “ how have I become
so violent” that refreshing not to see that. Nomura is a guy on his own journey There are lots of neat
moments where Nomura is slow to answer Abe’s strikes; forces himself to eat a bunch of strikes before
he can throw out one answer, moments where he can’t muster any strength behind his strikes and so
just throws weak ones and keeps on measuring for the eventual big make or miss haymaker, He does a
bunch of Dustin style flying away for distance selling and one of my favorite things he does is all of his
walking around ring , recovering in corner during count outs and 10 counts. When I say a guy with his
own journey, I would actively enjoy “ A How To with John Wilson” edit of this match, where never get to
see the fighting parts..just Nomura’s walkabout as he contemplates life. Ending had a lot of nearfalls,
but I bought all of them and the actual finish felt 100 % like a finish.

MD: Abe's energy in this match was off the charts. I'm not going to say the guy was living his best life here because he ended up split open at the top of his head in a way that you figured his flesh might just fall off of him at any moment, just torn in two, but talk about a guy who can capture every moment. Nomura wrestled his best match, the perfect straight man who was going to drive forward at every point and give absolutely no quarter. The few times he popped up from a shot or a throw, you believed it. This guy was just a consumed engine of destruction, kicking and stomping and wrenching like he could somehow stamp the very notion of indignity itself out of the world through force alone.

Abe brought the color though, literally and figuratively, his expressiveness drawing the viewer in, at times making you want to see his comeuppance and increasingly down the stretch, making you root for him in spite of increasingly dire odds. You end up grinning along with him to start and then wincing along with him with every headbutt, elbow, knee, and kick. When it became apparent just how badly he was opened up, the camera caught his expression and it was a real "You'll never believe how I got into this one" look. From there, even as he threw strikes and struck out with increasingly unlikely throws, it felt like he was racing time, racing the rate of his own bloodloss and with an opponent like Nomura running the race with him, he was sure to lose. That's what made the last hold all the more gripping. Abe was hanging on for dear life; nothing less would have worked. It was an admirable performance by Nomura, but a timeless one from Abe.

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Matches from NOAH 1/30/20

Akitoshi Saito/Masao Inoue vs. Mohammed Yone/Quiet Storm

ER: Silly little tag match, made sillier by the hilarious presence of Quiet Storm. At this point he looks  like he's playing the Danzig role in the Misfats, except he is somehow even shorter than Glenn Danzig. And it took me the entire match to figure out that unlike Masao Inoue's comedy offense, Quiet Storm's offense was actually supposed to look good. NOAH has always had comedy guys filling out their cards, but their comedy guys used to do some actual interesting stuff. Quiet Storm just does a bunch of weird smoker's cough "Come on baby!" as if gaijin warming up a Japanese crowd hasn't evolved one second past Jericho working WAR 25 years ago. His shoulderblocks don't look like they would budge a guy like Saito, he does one of the absolute worst drop toeholds I've ever seen, and he has all of these stupid flatliner variations (with the worst being a sliding one he delivers to a kneeling Inoue). Yone was a Batt guy but hasn't worked as a stiff Batt guy for years. Saito had some nice moments, with my favorite him buckling QS with a savage leg kick, and I always get a kick out of Inoue's foot stomps and sad sack persona. It took Inoue 18 seconds to get out of his t-shirt before the bell, and he's one of the few guys who can pull off Super Porky "cry while being hit" comedy without it being derivative. QS hit one very nice lariat down the stretch, but there was a lot of lame offense in this one.

Daisuke Harada vs. Hajime Ohara

ER: This is our first semifinal of the Global Junior League (I am more excited for the other semifinal) is a juniors main event epic with several matches to go until the main event. Harada was already doing dramatic swoons and holding his back 5 minutes into this match. I am not excited to see him in the main event, jerking and throwing his head back in a howl while selling like he's Kate Bush's Hounds of Love dance partner. Ohara doesn't throw great strikes, but I loved the way he attacked Harada's back. You want backbreaker variations? Ohara will give you backbreaker variations, all of them good. He rolls Harada from a fireman's carry into one, hits a pumphandle one, tilt a whirl, reverses a headscissors into one, drops a couple classic style in (while holding and pressing down on Harada's chin!), all cool. The problem is that Harada sells the first one exactly the same as he sells the 5th one, exactly the same as he sells the 10th one. He's already in agony, Ooooooooooomy baccccccckkkkkkkkkk, as he goes on to be not slowed down for one second in his offensive comebacks. Any of his offense that would have been done with a hunky dory back got done here, only here we had to put up with him showing all of his teeth after every move. Oooooooooit hurts my back when I do moooooooooooves! But I MUST do MOOOOOOVES! His has a lot of fruity cute  offense, stupid indy offense that needs to die, like making Ohara bunny hop into a fake armdrag that is actually a kneelift. When Harada isn't trying out for Godspell, he had a hard lariat that wrecked Ohara, and his running double knees looked like it should have absolutely shattered Ohara's jaw. That kind of brutality instead of bad acting would have really put the match ahead, but I thought the Harada drama was really bad.

Dick Togo vs. Yoshinari Ogawa

ER: This felt like a hot 1st act that segued directly into a hot final act. Both acts are really awesome, but it felt like a section was trimmed out of the middle. There pace was fast as hell throughout, so it didn't look like either was hurt or had an empty gas tank. It started with a bunch of snug fast arm twisting go behinds spun into headlock takeovers. Both guys rolling up bodies to jump from limbs to heads and back. I could have watched them work 15 minutes of just that kind of expert mat scrambling, felt more like tight World of Sport than the floaty mat stuff that started off Harada/Ohara earlier in the night. Togo works a nice surfboard and Ogawa works a killer figure 4 variation. Togo's selling in the figure 4 is really strong, as is Ogawa's in applying it. Ogawa was tightening it, occasionally kicking at it with his free boot, and when Togo finally reversed it he turned it into a nasty modified calf crusher. This is where the 2nd act should have been, but they quickly go into an energetic finishing sequence, with Togo's perfect standing dropkick, a missed senton, several close nearfalls on sunset flips and majistrals, and a battle over Togo's painful crossface. I was thinking the crossface would make a cool finish for the match, Ogawa working roll up counters to it while Togo rolled back to center them, but I was surprised the finish came relatively quickly. Maybe I was just loving this unseen pairing too much, two favorites matching up in the best way, and I just wanted even more. It's probably that.

PAS: The matwork in this was really cool, you don't see this kind of lucha maestros stuff much in Japan. This really felt like a good Primera Caida of an awesome match, but we never really get the other two falls. Both guys are killer on the mat, loved all of the work around the Indian deathlock, love that hold, it has always been a weak sister to the figure four, but it looks awesome and has a bunch of stuff you can do around it. I also loved the rolling around with the crossface, again just a nasty move with a bunch of opportunities to adjust and twist in and out. Still this felt like a bit of a tease, I wanted this to be longer and hit a couple of different notes, great appetizer, but I am still hungry.

28. Hideki Suzuki/Kazuyuki Fujita/Takashi Sugiura vs. Go Shiozaki/Katsuhiko Nakajima/Shuhei Taniguchi

ER: Take a look at Sugiura-gun! What a collection of goons, doing all of their pre-match stretching as  AXIZ is making their way out. These guys mean business, and this match was all about dishing out that business. Fujita is nearly 50, hasn't been fully involved in pro wrestling for two decades, and I like the old spry shooter for hire vibe he brings. He's lumpy, he's got that famous cinderblock dome, and he still has surprising speed. He also has no problem welting up every member of AXIZ. There is a lot of stand and trade in this match, and while that style isn't really my favorite, it's hard not to like a lot of what we get. Fujita throws deadly elbow strikes, and if you think his right hand slap hits hard, just wait until you feel the left directly after it. Shiozaki winds up with big red marks on his neck, looked like his head had been surgically reattached at the jawline. He stands with Fujita, but Fujita is pretty monstrous and just comes back with more elbows, more slaps, and gutbusting kneelifts. Down the stretch Sugiura-gun separates Taniguchi from the pack and treats him like they're jumping him into (or out of) their gang. I think it's tough to make the "guy being pinballed between strikes" look good, but I got really into watching these goons take turns trying to be the one to knock Taniguchi down. Taniguchi gets a great showdown with Fujita, where he throws some killer headbutts right into Fujita's collarbones. Taniguchi wasn't trained by any of the NOAH headbutters, but he keeps a favorite part of NOAH alive. My favorite section of the match was Suzuki vs. Nakajima, as Nakajima was the stiffest member of AXIZ, and I dug how he actually punished Suzuki. Suzuki is tough as hell, but Nakajima looked like a total badass kicking away at him, standing on his neck in the corner, and I dug the story that Suzuki was a killer in stacked attacks but kept getting wasted when separated from his pack (is the Suzuki/Nakajima TL draw a couple weeks later worth watching?). I thought this match did a great job setting up future singles matches and tags, all of which I am now interested in seeing.

PAS: This was a bunch of fun, a solid approximation of a 90s WAR six man tag. Suzuki wrestles primarily in slow burn matches with lots of matwork, but he is also great in these kind of wild brawls. Suzuki wasting Taniguchi with a spinning neckbreaker on the floor was the biggest spot of the match, as much of this was nasty kicks and punches. Shiozaki takes a big beating here, Fujita really tries to murder him, but he really needed to land something nastier then B- chops. Nakajima gets his head nearly kicked off at the finish and I love that Fujita has fully embraced crowbarhood in his old age.


7. Dick Togo vs. Daisuke Harada

ER: A fitting junior league final, and thankfully worked in a bubble. I was kind of dreading seeing Harada drama queen sell his way through his prior match back injury, but thankfully he went in as if nothing had been done to his back all evening. They work a cool juniors style, and Harada guided by Togo is so much better than Harada left to his own. Togo works a completely different match than he worked against Ogawa, and Harada really dominates him early. I like the idea that Togo and Ogawa went really aggressively at each other, and Harada runs at Dick right at the bell, nailing him with a dropkick and a fine German suplex, then crushing him into the guardrail with a great tope. Togo's selling really made it look like he pulled something in his back, just the difficulty in being dragged back to his feet alone made me feel for him, and then Harada puts an exclamation point on it with a double stomp as Togo is getting to his feet.

Togo is on the ropes for the first several minutes, and that's when we get DICK out of mothballs, opportunistically hiptossing Harada over the top (and I love how it wasn't a clean spot. Togo wasn't overtly selling the back, but it wasn't a clean leap over the top, Togo almost not having enough strength to get him over), then wraps Harada's leg around a guardrail with a dragon screw, then continues to pick apart Harada's leg. Harada not putting full weight on a leg is much more palatable than Harada selling his back, and heel DICK really starts being mean with him, throwing punches (and I don't think a single punch was thrown in his match with Ogawa), then challenging Harada to hit him back, dodging, and kicking his leg out. He kicks his leg out at a couple of convenient spots, then uses submission work on the injured leg to set up strong attempts at the crossface. We get a fantastic DICK tope con hilo, and he starts splatting Harada with pedigrees on the floor and off the middle buckle.

Togo made me buy into Harada'a comeback, eats knees on a missed senton, and Harada gets to use a weapon that I like: his fakeout punch into a hard shoulder strike to the gut that takes Togo's wind. Harada builds to a couple of big German suplexes, not always able to bridge because of his leg (and impressively not being such a baby about his knee), and I loved the sequence of Togo flipping out of one, missing a lariat but getting run into the ropes chest first, and Harada using that momentum to absolutely toss DICK on his neck and shoulders. The nearfalls down the stretch were strong, and made this come off like a real torch passing match (even though Harada has somehow wrestled way more matches than Togo), and plays as a shining example of Dick Togo not having lost a single step into his 50s.

PAS: This was really good. Togo is obviously a master, but I thought Harada brought some cool stuff to the match. All of the Togo legwork was super nasty, reminded of the period right before Sasuke had knee surgery, where every match Kaientai would tear his leg apart. After Togo smashes him with the Shiryu flip dive (a nice shout out to his KDX homeboy) Dick takes over, and crushes him with a Pepsi plunge and a pedigree. I loved how Harada desperately clutched at Togo's ankle, delaying Dick enough for him to get his knees up on the Senton. A nice bit of strategy and selling. I also really dug how he kept countering those big windup Togo punches by forearming him in the ribs and guts, Harada's body shot forearms were way nastier then his forearms to the head and I loved how he kept going back to them to slow Togo down. Harada hits some pretty solid snap Germans and you can just see Togo's age catching up to him. Easily the best Togo I have seen since his return from retirement and up there with his great retirement tour stuff.


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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Suzuki vs. Shiozaki

50. Hideki Suzuki vs. Go Shiozaki NOAH 7/27

ER: With less free time than ever these days, I watch 2019 Japanese wrestling maybe slightly more than I did in 1997, when I had never seen one second of Japanese wrestling. But there are still guys I like, and I typically check out matches that are recommended to me. If someone says a Hideki Suzuki match will make our list, that's something I'll watch. This ends up going to a 30 minute draw, which isn't something I love in wrestling, but I'll say that it definitely didn't feel like 30 minutes. I was surprised when the bell sounded, not only because they hadn't really built to a big finish, but because the work was still at an engaging enough level to leave me wanting more. I'm not a big Shiozaki guy, and so I liked how this was mostly structured as Shiozaki showing moments of hanging with Suzuki, but mostly Suzuki wearing him down while Go survived. Suzuki's facials and bully nature, worked in a deliberate and sadistic pace, were the stars of this one. Go shone bright during one of the best corner chop sequences I've seen in a long time, really the moment that felt like overcoming Suzuki was possible. But Suzuki was a real meathead jerk here, working over ever joint in Shiozaki's body: loosening a knee cap with twisting, wrecking an elbow and shoulder by yanking it behind his body and locking in a hyperextending armbar, throwing out a back with a bearhug, tossing Go around by a cravate, really wearing him down and working through limbs like a game of Hangman. When Suzuki wore him down enough he started throwing him with brutal suplexes, and going after that taped up arm even more. I dig these kind of matches where the hero comes up against some unstoppable force, and gets ground down and only saved by the bell, and after the match the unstoppable opponent looks calm and cold. Shiozaki seems like he won by default, and that's a really cool way to work the first singles match. It feels like the first chapter, and I'm already wondering how Shiozaki is going to strategize, and he has not been a wrestler I typically think about.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, Suzuki is a really throwback guy strong, slow and violent. He is like an old school post player in today's space and pace NBA. Shozaki is a little dry, but was great as an underdog getting violently picked apart. I also liked the Misawa elbows felt like a cool tribute and also something organic. You have to love a guy coming in with a taped shoulder and having the whole match be about ripping apart said shoulder. I actually liked the draw finish as it came off like Suzuki's deliberate pace coming back to haunt him. He probably has Go beaten if he pushes the gas pedal, but that isn't how he is built.


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Hideki Suzuki Worth Watching

Hideki Suzuki vs. Shuji Ishikawa BJW 4/19/16

This was Suzuki working his big Puro heavyweight main event. This isn't a style I like as much as quasi shootstyle or maniacal WAR tag, but this was a fine version of that match. They started with some solid, but unmemorable mat work. Match begins to pick up when Ishikawa sits on a chair in the audience and encourages Suzuki to come join him. The slam forearms into each other and Ishikawa dumps Suzuki awkwardly ribs first on the ring apron which was super nasty looking. Ishikawa in control was a little dull to me, his stuff is just a bit short of the kind of real violence that makes the Ishikawa family so compelling. Whole time I just wished he was Takeshi or Yuki. Shuji is really the Mike Von Erich of the Ishikawas. Finish run felt like a finish run, some nasty stuff, but very alternating. I really have no idea what they were trying for with that finish. Not terrible, but this isn't the kind of thing that would make me seek either guy out. Suzuki luckily had some goodwill to burn.

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Long Road Report to Hell 4/4/19, Show #2: Josh Barnett's Bloodsport

PAS: We really blew it by not pre-buying tickets early, Bloodsport sold out before we could buy some tickets and I assumed we were out of luck,  but the wrestling gods smiled on us and I was able to grab three seats on StubHub for half the face value.

ER: We got to go to lunch after Family Reunion and before Bloodsport, plenty of intriguing options within pleasant walking distance. We landed on a burger place that started playing Hootie upon us being seated, and Tom told a great story about an unearthed Pete Buttigieg "Dave Matthews Band in a Post 9/11 World" college op-ed that is either impossible to believe or a bit with real legs. On the walk back we pass Mr. Brickster on his way to the PATH and he's wearing a full Pac-Man screen suit with a LEGO bowtie, and our day of gushing about Brickster gains strength upon refueling. A line was already 25 deep for Bloodsport when we left, and we come back to a sardine packed White Eagle. Thank god for these assigned seats. It would have been a real shame if we had missed this. We'd never done a Mania week before (I went to some WWN shows when they played San Jose in 2015 but the week wasn't as crazy filled with events then), and had no idea some things sold out so much earlier. Phil casually mentioned as we were walking to breakfast that he had found 3 seats to Bloodsport, and from the second we were seated at our 2nd row seat I was so glad we were there live.

TKG: After Family Reunion we go get food and I see some tall guy on the opposite corner walking from PATH in pleather wrestling gear but without a roller bag, and loudly start with, “Look at that greasy haired fat faced wrestling fan, spent his money on his cosplay leather” or something like that. Eric goes “yeah that’s Davey Boy Smith Jr.”

 

Dominic Garrini vs. Phil Baroni

PAS: Baroni is pretty great at getting heat from the crowd, he was always a hatable sleaze as an MMA fighter and that translates really well to riling up an indy wrestling crowd. I liked this a bunch with Garrini having some nice sprawls to try to get Baroni on the mat, and a brutal finish with Baroni full force punching Garrini in the face. Dom was really going to prove his insanity later in the evening, but letting a MMA fighter with 11 KO wins, punch you full force in the jaw may even be nuttier then some of the bumps he took in the I Quit match.

TKG: Baroni poses and yells at audience “Yeah this is steroids” and neat as I expected Barnett’s vision to be RINGS but instead it was PRIDE. Was trying to explain Baroni to Eric, and couldn’t remember if he was a teen tanning or teen bodybuilding champion or both but the point is he is guy who totally embraces being a Long Island Teen Tanning n. Bodybuilding star, this match was all him doing the same “I’m better than this” shtick that he does in his actual MMA matches and potatoing Garinni. Garinni impressively built a match around that while eating potatoes. If Bloodsport can get some Tony Khan money Baroni/Malignaggi v Berto Bros in Tampa could be super amusing.

ER: I obviously knew Baroni from early PRIDE and UFC shows, and his name on the card excited me for the exact reasons we got here, and I didn't even know about the teenage tan 'n' bodybuilding stuff. He comes out, grinds on a woman, flexes, talks about his steroid bod, and then punches someone. Later, he came out as a second and yelled out tips while eating a PowerBar. Felt like we also could have used Matt Serra yelling tips to Pete Drago Sell. I like gi Garrini, it's a look he should pull more often. This was a quick taste but it delivered and set the tone for the show, really made me happy to be there live and so close to the action. I would have loved to see Garrini control more, threaten another tap (and he did get a cool armbar reversal), but the finish was the kind of fireworks people wanted: Baroni decked Garrini with a right hand for the near KO and then went for a mocking pinfall, then planted him with another to stop the match (after getting a nice dramatic 9 count as Garrini struggled to his feet). Baroni certainly didn't look like someone who was holding back on his KO punch, and agree with Phil that in retrospect taking to straight shots to the jaw may have been Garrini's craziest move of a day with several contenders.

JR Kratos vs. Simon Grimm

PAS: Kratos is a Nor-Cal guy who worked a couple of matches in this style in the late lamented PREMIER fed, but I wasn't expecting this to be as good as it was. It was basically Grimm using his technique to try to minimize Kratos power advantage, there were some especially nasty elbows to the back of the head and ear, and some big slaps. The final mat scramble was pretty great with Grimm lifting up in Kratos's guard and raining down elbows, and Kratos transitioning into a head and arm choke. Loved the finish with Grimm using a schoolboy to grab an armbar, Kratos doing a Hughes lift for a powerbomb and wasting him with a brutal jumping forearm smash. I think this was better then any of the matches on last years show and it was only the second match.

TKG: This came out of nowhere and fuck that finish was beautiful. Kratos does the thing you want in pro/shoot hybrid match where he makes the pro-wrestling spots look as nasty as the legit spots.

ER: Kratos is primarily a Bay Area guy and is pretty popular around here, so no matter what kind of match we got I knew Phil would be touting him as my boy. Technically I was there for some *really* early Psycho Seth stuff, too, possibly even his debut way back in 2002, so this was a Bay Area represent match. Once Tom realizes both are APW guys he excitedly wonders if we might have gotten a triple threat with Moondog Moretti at one point. Seth could have crossed paths with Moretti but I think Kratos started too late. And this is weirdly seeming like Kratos' best wrestling style, as I loved his stuff in Premier and his performance in this match more than any pro style match I've ever seen from him. I thought this was great. It was a match that on paper was maybe the least match on the card, and it wound up being my 2nd favorite match of the show. I thought all the working parts were cool, dug how Grimm controlled the stand up striking (at one point he hits an open handed chop to the neck that made me scoot my chair back) with Kratos controlling more of the ground striking. Kratos had some cool takedowns including a couple where he yanked Grimm's arm through his legs and flipped him. Kratos did a good job minimizing Grimm's ground striking, maneuvering to spots where Grimm had no power, and both had some slick armbar attempts. I particularly liked Kratos pushing at Grimm's locked hands with his free boot. The jumping forearm finish was arguably the nastiest finish we saw all day, in a day filled with some nasty finishes. I've seen Kratos matches that were supposed to end in a KO stoppage that didn't really work. This worked so well it looked like Grimm would need to be helped out, and Kratos lifting up Grimm's lifeless body in case another move was needed for a stoppage was a sick touch.

Davey Boy Smith Jr. vs. Killer Kross

PAS: Another pretty great match which I didn't have big expectations for. They opened up with some kick boxing with Smith throwing some pretty heavy leg kicks. Kross would throw heat and did a nice job of scrambling into positions, much more competent at this then I would expect from TNA fake Batista. This is right in Davey's wheelhouse and he had some really slick takedowns and his final deadlift suplex looked great. Heck of a big boy punch out, and this show just delivered up and down the card.

TKG: DBS comes out in the shorts he wore underneath the tear away pleather pants. I remember DBS in some twitter thread agreeing with Kim Duk about an older credible style that NJ doesn’t do anymore. And thinking “hmm I wish DBS actually worked that style”. And here he is doing it and it is so much more impressive than anything else ever seen of him. This really felt like what he should be doing.

ER: Amazing that we saw DBS in the wild wearing a completely different set of ring gear while out and about. You see a guy walking the streets and taking the train wearing giant baggy pristine white vinyl pants with dog bones all over them, you assume that he's just wearing his gear and didn't feel like taking a roller bag. Then he comes out in trunks and you realize he just has custom walking around dog bone vinyls. But damn would I be so much more excited for DBS matches if he just wrestled like this guy every show. Tom turned to me right after the finish and asks "What other Davey Boy do I need to seek out?" And I responded with a non-word like "Ehhhhhhhhhhh". DBS looked like an absolutely fantastic roller and grappler for the duration of this, and the way he muscled Kross around the mat was really impressive. He really looked like he was moving a human sack of concrete at times, both guys really working the struggle. DBS even tried locking on a shoot Sharpshooter out of a scramble which was a great moment. Both guys threw nice leg kicks, Kross had a couple great Saito suplexes and DBS set up the finish with a bomb hardway backdrop suplex, drags Kross' body to the center and got the tap on a crossface. I thought some of the standing slap exchanges went too long, even though they all paid off nicely, and the throws and rolling totally overdelivered.

Masashi Takeda vs. Jonathan Gresham

PAS: Takeda is a guy who started out in Style E, BattlArts, FUTEN and U-Style before he decided to grotesquely scar himself in death matches, so he was very comfortable doing worked shoots. This was a middleweight fight and worked at a much faster pace then the rest of the show. Gresham is really skilled on the mat, and he kept moving to improve his position, while Takeda would have these almost acrobatic leaps into submission attempts. The match changes dramatically when they both spill to the floor, which opens up Takeda (honestly a sneeze might open up Takeda at this point), we get some very aggressive stand up with Gresham aiming hammer fists and slaps to the open wound and Takeda moving forward, finish was great with Takeda landing a flash knee KO. Really energetic stuff and a nice contrast with the previous match.

TKG: I've watched enough Fedor to know if a guy is made of scar tissue you should try to open that up immediately to get the stoppage. They tease a fall to floor once or twice before actually doing it and not sure how I felt about it. I liked the first match having a DQ for touching ref, Promotion establishing its own unique rules....maintain them. But once got back in the ring it got right back.

ER: I actually didn't remember Takeda as a Tamura guy. He's been a grimy death guy for so long. Is Jun Kasai an Anjo trainee? Takeda comes out and Tom asks "So this guy is a death match guy?" Takeda takes off his shirt. "Yep, that's a death match guy." Gresham's performance in this match really highlighted what a colossal disappointment that Orange Cassidy match that started our day was. There was Gresham generously letting a guy take 100% of a match with his shtick, totally thankless work, here he gets to work several cool can openers and throws down with Takeda and looks like a total badass. They made really good use of rolling to the floor (guys had been broken up while getting to the edge of the ring before this, but nobody had rolled out mid-move) and they really hit the ground hard when both took a tumble. Gresham looked really talented on the mat and I'd love to see that pop up more in his matches, and at one point he was throwing trapped hammer fists to the side of Takeda's head that were among the nastier shots of the show. The finish is the real nasty business with Takeda stunning with a strike, then rushing in with a brutal knee for the instant stoppage. That knee, man. Show was absolutely bananas at this point. We were literally sitting in our seats giggling.

Chris Dickinson vs. Andy Williams

PAS: Williams looks like a Peaky Blinders extra, and Dickinson comes right out into him and they wildly throw for a minute which really fired the crowd up. Williams gasses right after that and they move pretty quickly to the finish with Dickinson getting a choke. Short match, but the first minute was really electric.

TKG: Two guys volume punching with no defense till they couldn’t volume punch anymore is always going to be a winning formula. Two heavyweights doing it always is going to get a crowd riled up.

ER: I flew out here from California, but it's pretty cool they flew Williams in from Branson. And I somehow only found out after this weekend that Williams has been a guitarist in Every Time I Die for over 20 years, which is information that would have been much cooler to me in the early 2000s. And I think Phil and Tom are underselling this one as I thought the coolest stuff in the match came after the big throwdown opening. The throwdown is obviously cool and something we hadn't seen yet, but then you got Williams muscling up Dickinson for a powerbomb, and later a sic gutwrench that looked like it was going to be a ganso bomb, plus Dickinson throwing disgusting shots to Williams' ear and back of his head, and the finish was another classic: Dickinson works his way into a backpack choke with Williams gamely gets to his feet with Dickinson locking in the choke further. Williams knows it's locked in and does a forward roll as a desperation escape, but it doesn't work and just opens him up the rest of the way for Dickinson to lock in the choke. The final choke was a great visual as Williams spits out his mouthguard a bit before tapping, felt like the guy in Casino whose eye starts to pop out when his head is put in a vice.

Frank Mir vs. Dan Severn

PAS: Short exhibition, with Mir grabbing an arm pretty quickly for a the tap. Mir didn't show much in his pro wrestling debut, would like to see if he could provide a bit more spark with an opponent not in his sixties. Severn still looks awesome though, someone should sign him as a troubleshooting ref or something.

TKG: Not at all sure what happened here. This was weakest match on show where never made it to the next gear. Post match Mir says he’s getting into wrestling to take out Lesnar and turn Lesnar into the first pro-wrestling in ring death.

ER: I really liked what we got here, but wanted at least a couple more minutes. The finish felt a little sudden, but the work within was good. Severn is 60 and looks the same as he's looked for the last decade plus, body still looks exactly the same, and it looked cool when he dragged Mir down into a north south choke and gator rolled him. I really liked the maneuvering from both guys while Mir is trying to lock on an armbar or triangle, Mir trying to shift his hips and Severn trying to power up with his legs and advance. The heel hook finish looked really good and the application felt natural, I just wanted more stuff before we got there. At minimum, I thought it was awesome being this close to Severn.

Hideki Suzuki vs. Timothy Thatcher

PAS: This was much closer to a MUGA match then a shootstyle match, which works perfectly to both guys strengths. Suzuki is so great at switching speeds, he will deliberately shift into position, only to snap a limb or flip into a submission.  Just everything in this match was applied so tight and twisty and every shot was thudding, Suzuki stomped Thatcher in the head and it looked like he was smashing a grape to make wine. The backbreaker/double underhook suplex finish by Suzuki was just super impactful. Between this and the Ishikawa match, Thatcher is having a monster 2019.

TKG: This wasn’t shoot style at all, this was just super tight mat wrestling and was my favorite match on the show. There was a couple enziguiri, a spinning toe hold, a bow and arrow, a desnucadora, etc...but all of them were sold meaningful. Thatcher's sell of the early toe hold and just his selling throughout left a real impression. We get so used to reversal of reversal wrestling that we forget how exciting changes of momentum can be in match where both guys are actually fighting for control, fighting to apply moves. Just lots of dramatic changes in momentum that crowd almost treated like finishes and two guys who looked completely committed to what they were doing.

ER: On paper this was the match I was most excited for this weekend, and it totally delivered everything I could have wanted it to. It would have been cool just seeing Suzuki's first and only match in the states, but having it actually live up to being the banger we all wanted was extra special. This was the most airtight match of the show, and one of the meanest MUGA matches we've seen. The headlocks and grappling alone would have made for a great match, seriously Suzuki's headlocks look like something that would pop a head right off a pair of shoulders, and it was fascinating being up close and seeing him work exchanges. Phil mentioned how Suzuki will deliberately shift into a position or move a limb to set up something different, and there are a bunch of cool examples of that here, like Suzuki trapped in a sub but moving Thatcher's calf higher up on his own thigh, which then provides him space to turn, which shifts pressure. We get moments where he digs in an elbow before passing, or applies pressure with his palm to Thatcher's knee, or smacks Thatcher in the shin. By the time Suzuki threw a stomp to the back of Thatcher's head, kicked him in the jaw, and hit a Rockette kick to the chest, they could do no wrong. Thatcher gets a nice gutwrench (love how Suzuki sold it with his arms out, like he was getting nerve pain shooting down his fingers), and when Thatcher locked in a side headlock to hit a Saito suplex I said "Uh Ohhhhh" aloud. Sure enough, Suzuki hammers down with his elbow and drops Thatcher with a backbreaker. Suzuki has done more for legitimizing the backbreaker than any wrestler I've seen. His looks like a genuine finisher and the move is actually treated as seriously as the name sounds. Great match, whole card would have been completely worth it if this were the only watchable thing we got. Instead the match had to set itself apart from a totally great show, and it easily did.

Josh Barnett vs. Minoru Suzuki

PAS: This was a match that felt like a main event. Barnett is such a hard man, and everything he did had some real force to it. First fifteen or so of this were pretty perfect as Barnett brought Suzuki back to PWFG as they were really twisting and pulling at limbs and landing big time knees, forearms and slaps. There is a little nonsense with a ref and a chair on the outside, which really felt like Suzuki taking unnecessary match short cuts. I really liked the finish of the match before the restart, and I thought it built nicely to the five more minutes, but you really need to do a finish if you are going to do a five more minutes. Going to another draw really took some steam out the match. Excellent main event for an all time great US Indy show, but I dug other stuff a bit more.

TKG: Barnett’s current look is ridiculously cool. He looks like Kurt Russell’s bad ass cousin and this match felt like main event wrestling. Everything the two did together was as good as you wanted and all the shoot near fallsish stuff, teased submission, teased going to close to the edge etc were as dramatic as anything you were going to see in wrestling. And the eventual escapes had folks on the edge.The show was excellent top to bottom but the semi and the main were the matches that really got you caught up in the drama of false finishes and changes in momentum, the pop of “is this gonna end it?”….being able to feel that drama again. Years of the goofy cliché 2.9, “one, two, nooooo” followed by three minutes of bug eyed Shawn Michaels faces "How did that not do it?, what will it take to put him away? Where in my reserves will I find what it takes?" almost killed the idea that false finish can have any emotional value. At this point I just treat it as a stock lazzo bit to fill time. Was great to experience drama of false finishes again. They work to a 20 minute draw and the crowd was excited as ending with two guys just swinging for fences while crowd counted down. I watched UWF and PWFG and have no problem with a draw finish. They did the five more minutes and it all fell apart, as they went into octopus and fighting spirit shtick. Either do the draw or do the Fujiwara guy taking a hellacious beating slips in a sub for the win. But going into horseshity overtime, hurt the match. Still this was an amazing show top to bottom and left me on a real high.

ER: This one had a real special atmosphere, with Barnett looking like the flat out coolest version of Jaime Lannister, and Suzuki bringing an impossible amount of charisma to a small room. Barnett looked leaner, more intense, and in better shape than any year during his long MMA run, and it was awesome seeing Suzuki immediately snap back into limb twisting savage. Barnett is even wearing his Inoki Genome pads, so we got a decades in the making interpromotional shootstyle war here! And there's not an easy move made in the match, everything is a fight, and by the end they both looked to have lost about 5 lb. of sweat. This was all ankle snapping heel hooks, sunk in headscissors, elbows yanked up to ears, knees driven into chests, twisted bodies trying to scramble out of chokes, and rained down palm strikes and elbows. At one point Suzuki had one of Barnett's legs grapevined, was controlling his wrist, and was shoving Barnett's free leg up towards his shoulder. Suzuki looked like he was a one man drawn & quartered machine, and it made me literally jump out of my chair and look around to make sure everybody else was seeing what I was seeing (which is in full view of the camera, my expression looking like a rube shocked by a magic trick). Honestly the match could have ended on that sub and it probably would have been stronger for it. Obviously we go past that, and get rewarded with more nasty shots and yanked limbs, but also lose some of the steam and magic that had been created. When we went to a bomb throwing countdown, I was fine with them ending on a draw (even though I was hoping Suzuki would feint his way out of the throwdown and get a last second tap with a heel hook). And the draw did lead to an undeniably great moment, as the crowd is chanting for 5 more minutes, and Suzuki looks like he's having none of it, rolling his eyes he quiets the crowd...and then calls for 5 more minutes. It was a great moment. But not really as great if we knew that it was just going to lead to another draw. The New Japan-ness of the restart didn't help, but it also didn't negate the genuinely great majority of the match. Flat finish or no, this was a tremendous live experience. It flashed in my head at one point that Suzuki might take the night off a bit, but this was among the hardest worked matches I've seen from him all decade.

ER: This should go down as a top show of the year contender, an absolutely thrilling 2 hours of pro wrestling. We put FIVE of the matches on our 2019 Ongoing Match of the Year list, and that seems like a near impossible mark to beat.

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2019 Ongoing MOTY List: Team Suzuki vs. Team Okabayashi Trios

1. Hideki Suzuki/Takuya Nomura/Yoshihisa Uto vs. Kazumi Kikuta/Ryuichi Kawakami/Yuji Okabayashi  BJW 1/2

PAS: Really fun trios match which felt like the kind of chaotic brawl which was the kind of thing that Japanese wrestling really used to excel at, this wasn't elite WAR level, but it felt like a fun Zero One brawl. We get some wild brawling around the outside which included Okabayshi smacking the crap out of a random trainee at ringside.  I enjoyed Kikuta who was working kind of like one of the old Z1 Karate dudes, I am excited for anyone trying to be 21st century Ogasawara.  Finish was a blast with Okabayashi Gotch lifting Nomura out of an armbar and slapping on a Camel Clutch which looked like it snapped his back like a Kit Kat.

ER: This was fantastic and just about the best advertisement for modern Big Japan. After those 12 minutes I wanted to devour every damn thing the fed had to offer. This felt like a real throwback and had the violence of an old interpromotional multiman. Yuji Okabayashi came off like a real megastar, and like more of a badass than I've ever seen Ishii come off. Once they all brawled to the floor I was hooked in, with Okabayashi thundering chops right past the heads of fans, Nomura kicking him in the head while Yuji echoes bombs off his chest. How kickass would it be to be sitting like 3 feet away from that!? This might be my first time seeing Kikuta, and I want more! He felt like a mid 90s sleaze fed kicker, and that's always going to be a good thing. He rocks Suzuki with a few palm strikes to the chest that will change the minds of 100% of the people who don't view a heart punch as a viable finisher. Both times Suzuki gets punched in the chest he responds by kicking Kikuta right in the balls. It's cheap, but damn those shots probably just reflexively cause that. I like everyone here, and we had no shortage of guys taking hard shots or getting clonked by a chair, but Okabayashi was the star here and man did he shine. He beat men around the arena, he did the most impossibly quick snatch and grab vertical suplexes on every opponent, he chopped some trainee in the throat, and somehow came off like a huge babyface hero even though he was constantly caving in bodies. 2019 Big Japan, here we come!


2019 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Suzuki vs. Sekimoto

31. Hideki Suzuki vs. Daisuke Sekimoto BJW 11/11

ER: Mostly minimalist big boys battle, nice and tidy at 15 minutes with the first 10 minutes all snug holds. They do a lot of little things I like, holding onto headlocks when one guy tries to push off, or holding onto a cravate while the other tries to snapmare out, or Sekimoto holding onto a hammerlock while Suzuki tries snapmaring out. They take their time on hold application and escapes, so when you see Suzuki slowly straightening and bending Sekimoto's arm out behind him you're sitting there thinking a muscle tear is more likely than Sekimoto keeping that arm. Sekimoto not having a neck makes some things look cool, like seeing him work through escaping a headscissors, and I love how they didn't even go for any kind of highspot until 2/3 of the way through, with Suzuki dropping Sekimoto hard with a backbreaker into a cradled pin. We got this awesome moment where Suzuki locks in an octopus hold and Sekimoto crab walks a super long way, slowly, to the ropes to break, all while Suzuki is just putting heavy weight into the hold. The rest of this hits hard, with a nasty lariat collision, heavy dropkick under the chin by Suzuki, a couple jaw shuddering elbows by Suzuki, tough Saito suplex by Sekimoto, a beastly punt right to Sekimoto's chest, and a great short finishing run: Suzuki hits a hard elbow, Sekimoto clonks him with a big headbutt, traps his arms and headbutts his chest, then fights his way over for a German suplex. Non-overkill heavyweight wrestling plays so well.

PAS: I really like Suzuki holding it down for all the MUGA fans out there. Sekimoto has been a guy we have been low voters on for a while, he tends to get really into no-selling and spamming moves, it is clear that his destiny is a guy who holds on to a headlock. His big mutant baby body is perfect visually for holding on to a headlock and he looks like he is going to pop Suzuki's head like an overripe melon. Suzuki works at his own pace, everyone else in wrestling is ready to move on the next thing, he is going to let everything marinate. I loved all of the little adjustments both guys make and how painful even the smallest move looks. When they crank it up, they don't all of a sudden forget what they did before, everything is still deliberate and super painful looking. Suzuki can make a backbreaker look like he broke your back. I loved that finish run too, totally bought the headbutt/german combo being brutal enough to put Suzuki down. Excellent match, on par with the Jumbo vs. Robinson match I watched for NFF but in half the time, and it is a real credit to say that they are working at the level of Jumbo and Robinson.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2018 Ongoing MOTY List: Suzuki vs. Nomura

15. Hideki Suzuki vs. Takuya Nomura BJW 6/20

PAS: This is pure uncut shootstyle, no baby laxative here. No rope running, just hard BattlArts style asskicking. Suzuki is really great and grounding a guy with strong amateur wrestling, while Nomura has more of a martial arts base. There was also a cool hierarchy thing going on, with Nomura trying to take down the more experienced grappler. This was really technically solid, but had plenty of flash. The spot where Nomura goes to the eyes so he can put on a crossarmbreaker was some Yoji Anjo/ Takeshi Ono shootstyle dick god stuff. I also really dug Suzuki on top, as he was loosening Nomura up with slaps, and then threw one huge illegal punch that looked like it might have smashed Nomura's eye socket.  Loved the finish too, with Suzuki basically trying to Jason Elam Nomura's head, I loved how on the second kick, the ref didn't even stop the fight, everyone just ran in.

ER: I really liked their 2016 series, which was very early in Nomura's career, and the early matches were basically a big bully steamrolling a young boy in entertaining fashion. Now the young boy has a couple years under his belt, he's filled out a bit, and has some nice confidence. It was exciting seeing Nomura overwhelm Suzuki a couple times and really make him back up and cower. Nomura was really pitbull intense on the mat, but even when his arm is getting bent at terrible angles he still looks disturbingly calm. At one point Nomura gets a full extension armbar, and Suzuki panics a bit and tries to unwrap Nomura's legs, can't, so starts shifting and rolling and winds up in a pretty nasty crossface with his arm still extended, but eventually gets out. Suzuki is a huge beefy guy and it's impressive to see Nomura hold his own, trying to finesse while Suzuki tries to just power his way through. I loved Nomura getting a tight keylock and Suzuki just starting slight maneuvering without use of his left arm; he's resigned to the fact that that arm ain't useful at the moment, so he is just shifting weight and working to escape. Nomura is tenacious and we all knew this was building to him getting popped, and boy does he. Nomura lands a great German suplex and has Suzuki on the ropes, but eventually Suzuki lands in top position and hits a gross punch right to the hinge of the jaw, a total dead eyed dick move. Suzuki opts for the finish of Kurisu/Jado, hitting a high kick and then letting tension mount as Nomura is on all fours, essentially waiting to be decapitated. Suzuki lands two nasty punts, no more match is needed.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2017 Ongoing MOTY List: Suzuki v. Okabayashi

14. Hideki Suzuki v. Yuji Okabayashi BJW 5/5

ER: A big stubborn meathead versus a big calculating meathead, yes please. I appreciate the patience in this one, as it's a Japanese heavyweight singles match that doesn't really see it's first elbow smash until 14 minutes in. This was all about Suzuki crushing and bending Okabayashi's arm in terrible ways, and Okabayashi being a big lug with tunnel vision. Both went in with game plans, both stick to those game plans, one game plan was smarter. The opening knucklelocks were really great, adding some new twists to the match start test of strength, two beefy dudes just locking hands and trying to muscle each other around, looking like they were genuinely putting everything into it. Suzuki goes after the arm from there and it's all nasty, all of it. Okabayashi does not look like a very pliable dude, and Suzuki works armbars and hammerlocks and Okabayashi just wants to use that damn arm. We get a killer camel clutch with Okabayashi bending Suzuki's jaw back with his right arm, while Suzuki rips at his left arm. Okabayashi sold all the arm work great, like a wounded animal who still needed to use his arm and had to work through it to survive. The arm factored into a lot of the match, and by the time Suzuki started throwing blows Oka was at a disadvantage, almost as if Suzuki was purposely keeping Okabayashi's mind off of this turning into a bombfest (Oka threw a couple of his mammoth chops earlier, two blocked by Suzuki, one landed, which is probably when Suzuki thought "I'm gonna have to take that arm, son"). I thought the fighting spirit spot was stupid, but could be convinced that it was Oka's last gasp, using the bad arm for a nasty lariat but it not being enough, and Suzuki - surviving it - really smells blood. Him maneuvering into the match ending octopus hold was awesome, and the elbows to soften Oka up were gross (especially the diving one to a seated Oka). Every moment of this match felt like a struggle, selling put over the rewarding work, just a super satisfying modern Japanese heavyweight match.

PAS: This was really fun, I am not a fan of the Strong BJ guys, but this was a good Okabayashi performance mixed with a great Suzuki performance. Suzuki is one of the only guys still working the MUGA style, and this was a like a classic Osamu Nishimura match. I loved the simplicity and the violence of Suzuki's arm work, lots of bending the elbow awkwardly, pressing his thumbs into soft joints and muscles, just grinding violent stuff. The camel clutch spot was awesome. Suzuki is countering the clutch by mangling the bad arm, but Okaybayashi refuses to let go and tries to rip off Suzuki's jaw with one arm. I really hated the "suplexes don't hurt me" section by Okaybayashi, and after avoiding it the whole match, the had to succumb to the stupid "make faces and hit each other" strike section. Still the actually finish was great, and I loved how Suzuki worked that Octupus until Okabayashi had to quit.


2017 MOTY MASTER LIST

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2016 Hideki Suzuki Deep Dive

After reading some reviews on PWO I decided to check out some Hideki Suzuki. He was always a guy I dug fighting MMA guys on occasional IGF shows and have really dug checking out what he is doing now. With all of the BattlArts dudes AWOL, and New Japan pretty much being pin up models doing near falls,  Suzuki matches might be the closest thing to my kind of Puro out there.

Hideki Suzuki/Yoshihisa Uto v. Yasufumi Nakanoue/Yuji Okabayashi BJW 5/30

PAS: Not sure why Nakanoue and Suzuki want to murder each other, but they sure as shit do and this was totally awesome. They start potatoing each other in the aisle and can't be pulled apart with the ref throwing the whole match out 50 seconds in. They scream at each other on the microphone and they restart the match and they go back to beating on each other with concussion causing headbutts and leaping headstomps, eventually Suzuki beats up his partner because he was trying to keep him from slaughtering Nakanoue. I love this kind of stuff, felt like a classic WAR v. NJ match or a Kazunari Murakami fight.

ER: I couldn't begin to explain to you what exactly the hell is happening here, other than Suzuki looks like such a nice man in still photos - what with his parted hair and a little goatee like you'd typically see on that guy who wheeled the TV/VCR cart into your classroom - but he clearly has a major problem with possibly every man, and wants to elbow them hard in the face and then kick them  in the face like a real snot. Nakanoue, Okabayashi, his own partner Uto, random ring boys, his elbows want nothing more than to feel their faces. Okabayashi is a big dude and I loved him ripping apart Uto to end the match, almost taunting Suzuki (who was on the floor kicking face) and locking on one of the nastier camel clutches you've seen. This kind of match doesn't happen a lot so we should all soak it in when it does.

Hideki Suzuki v. Takuya Nomura BJW 6/29

PAS: Really fun kicker v. grappler match, Nomura has fast hands and nice kicks and Suzuki responds by just beasting him with wrestling. He has these great looking takedowns and amateur wrestling small packages, where he folds Nomura like a blanket he is putting in a hamper. Nomura had his moments, but this was all about Suzuki as an old school MUGA asskicker, headlock takeovers, Boston crabs and a backbreaker which looked literal rather then figurative, a little one sided, but cool shit. I am going to have to go on a Suzuki binge.

ER: Fun WorldWide match worked nothing like you ever saw on WorldWide. I like Suzuki putting a somewhat angry twist on young lion style. His elbows really rattle, his Boston crab made my back hurt (seriously if he had slipped and lost his footing it looked like he would have snapped Nomura right in half), and as Phil mentioned all the simple stuff like small packages just look so snug and more painful. He's like Osamu Nishimura crossed with Yuki Ishikawa, which made me kind of drool just by typing that.

Hideki Suzuki v. Takuya Nomura BJW 7/9

PAS: Ok I am in on this little mini feud. Nomura is a rookie and this is a nice progression for him after their match in June. Suzuki is still chucking this kid around, but he has a little harder time keeping a grip on him. Nomura lands some nice kicks, and there is a very cool counter where he slips an uppercut and gets a great backslide which Suzuki rolls through right into a Nomura kick. Nomura even survives the backbreaker which put him down. I am in the bag for Suzuki, and think this Nomura kid might get pretty good.

ER: Really fun rematch with Nomura coming back more aggressive, and the crowd picking up on his aggression and encouraging him. Suzuki is a bully to him without ever coming across overtly dickish, just holding him down with his weight advantage but not taking cheap shots. Felt like those old Pancrase matches where a guy could go for the kill but would rather have an exciting fight, and then almost ends up getting caught. Nomura having Suzuki scrambling for the ropes to break a sub was a great moment, a thing that took me from watching a match to see Suzuki administer a beating, to seeing a rookie pull off an upset. But Suzuki is too tough and you can see him kinda casually turn it into overdrive, laying back on that Boston crab and half crab, slamming that backbreaker, and then deciding things should just be over with a crazy swift and violent butterfly slam. I think I may be watching more Big Japan this year...


ER: Well, Phil went on a deep dive and he dragged me under the water with him. Suzuki really does scratch an itch. Evolve needs to start bringing him in, in a move that will surely sell few extra tickets. Anyway, the awesome and wild tag match landed on our 2016 ONGOING MOTY LIST. But if you got a spare 20 minutes, you'll be able to watch every match in this review.

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