A Week of Death Valley Days: Karl Greco Malenko

It is real fever dream stuff for us to be able to bring Karl Greco Malenko out of retirement, BattlArts is such an important thing to all of us, and to Dean, and somehow we have excavated an all time great and brought him back to wrestling. 

Carl Greco/Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa/Katsumi Usuda BattlArts 4/14/96-EPIC

PAS:Bat-Bat tags are one of the best bets in pro-wrestling history, I can't remember ever seeing one I though was even mediocre, and they pretty much nearly always reach excellent, and of course this one ruled. Not as much Ikeda vs. Ishikawa as you might expect, this one was a lot of agro Greco going after his opponents, he really presses the pace whenever he is in the ring, making them survive the whirlwind. We also got a lot of really violent Ikeda and Usuda exchanges with Usuda out crowbarring Ikeda at points. Cool setting as the ring was surrounded by people at round tables eating dinner. Can you imagine dinner theatre BattlArts? The world really used to be better. 

MD: I've been spending a lot of time with Newborn UWF in 88 and 89 so even seeing a shootstyle tag is a bit jarring to the system. This had all of the stuff you'd want and expect, the technique, the scrappiness, the way that Greco or Usada would have to unlock holds with multiple strikes, the sheer violence when Ikeda and Ishikawa finally got in there against one another. Nothing was given, that sense of struggle was always there.

What stood out the most were the more traditional pro wrestling elements. It's true with every style: lucha, French Catch, WoS, shootstyle. At the end of the day, there are humans in there and the humans have emotions, wants, desire, and fears, and what makes pro wrestling interesting is how the clash of those things balances with the clash of size and skill. 

What made this as much as anything else was Ikeda being opportunistic and cagey (and Greco willing to come along for that ride). Ikeda dodged Ishikawa for the first third of the match, only coming in when he was staggered in the corner. He'd interfere freely, would roll to the corner so that Greco could save him, would facewash Ishikawa. A subtle heel if not an over the top one, and then Ishikawa would outwrestle him or get him in a position to kick the crap out of him. Ikeda would survive it and gain an advantage and they'd repeat the process. It all built until Ishikawa finally had Ikeda set up so he could invite Usada in for some real clear, clean shots that he wouldn't recover from. A morality play just like any other, no matter the sharp technique and brutal trappings. The heart of pro wrestling is universal.

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Fujiwara Family: FOLLOW ME, FUTENS GOTTA BE, THE BEST THING SINCE CLARK AND WALLABEES FUTEN 45 1/22/12

Ryuichi Sekine vs. Kotaru Nasu

PAS: FUTEN is the ultimate in all killer no filler wrestling. This was so good, and the kind of thing which would completely stand out if it happened today, and was a 9 minute opener, overshadowed by the shinier stuff to follow. Nasu is a Style-E guy and Sekine is a K-Dojo trainee, but they can do FUTEN, nasty kicks to the body and head, and slick takedowns and submissions. Nasu was a little smaller and a little slicker, and Sekine was throwing hotter heat. Sekine goes for a Finlay roll only for Nasu to sneak out with a choke, but is able to hit it later and it felt like a bomb. Lots of moments where I felt a finish was coming, but it gets switched up. Both of these guys are still wrestling and I wonder whether this is something they are still doing.

Satoshi Kajiwara vs. Braham Shu

PAS: This wasn't it. Shu had some nice kicks to the chest, but outside of that this wasn't particular FUTEN style. Kaikwara actually does a lionsault and then puts on a kimura, and Shu spends most of the match choking with his wrist tape before he finally gets DQed. Not what I get FUTEN for. 

Takuma Sano vs. Katsumi Usuda

PAS: Two all time shoot style greats. I wasn't aware these two had matched up before I got this show, and while it isn't an all time classic (Sano seemed to have slowed down a bit at this point) it had a lot of what I loved about both dudes. Usuda really dominated early picking apart Sano really cracking his arms and legs. Sano started slow but when he got rolling he took him out with this brutal run of offense  winning an elbow exchange with brutal multiple hard elbows to Usuda's head, a sick looking released german suplex, solebut to the gut and a head kick for the KO. Felt like Usuda let a fighter with KO power hang around too long and paid for it. 

Great Sasuke/Yuki Ishikawa vs. Fujita Hayato/Manabu Suruga

PAS: Two delicious slices of toasted bread with a piece of rotten baloney in the middle. In the early sections of this match Sasuke seemed to playing along, throwing kicks and grappling, scrambling for kimuras etc. We had a great Ishikawa vs. Hayato section, Hayato didn't work a ton of FUTEN but man he was perfect for this style, scrawny little shit who just threw reckless dickish head shots, like Takeshi Ono's even more assholish younger brother. The sections with Ishikawa had some Ishikawa vs. Ikeda vibes, with Hayato headhunting the old man, and Ishikawa fighting back. Then Sasuke has to get on his bullshit, he hits a suplex on Suruga and does this super long comedy spot where he keeps telling the crowd he is going to hit his Randy the Ram elbow, it literal takes him two minutes to go up for the elbow, which he misses and planks on his head so Hayato and Suruga can kick him in the but. The match recovers a bit at the end, as they have a nifty finish run, but man that was just such a bummer, I love Sasuke, but man fuck Sasuke. 

Hikaru Sato/Kengo Mashimo vs. Daisuke Ikeda/Takeshi Ono - EPIC

PAS: This was really excellent, not at the absolute peak of FUTEN tags (which are as good as anything in wrestling ever) but only a small step below. This is one of the matches of Takeshi Ono's career (according to Cagematch, it's Japan there are so many micro indies, that he could still be working weekly) and the last one we have on tape, and it is a hell of a capper. FUTEN tags have a certain formula, where they build and build to a big one on one match up at the end. Here we really get two of those, first Sato and Ikeda brutalize each other with punches to the face and sick headbutts, Sato is right there driving his forehead right into Ikeda and eating a huge clubbing lariat to the head and some gross kicks. At one point they are on their knees throwing straight rights. Just when you figure that is going to be the crescendo, Ono and Mashimo tag in and they go at it. Mashimo is a big guy and it is really a power versus speed striking battle, with Ono peppering him with sharp shots and Mashimo landing bigger thudding stuff. At one point Mashimo hits a leg sweep which looks like it sliced off Ono's legs at the knee. It doesn't get much better then when these matches ramp up, and I kept getting more and more hyped as they killed each other. Just the best.

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Fujiwara Family: BattlArts Action-B 4/19/98

ACTION B

Ryuji Hijikata vs. Mach Junji

PAS: This was pretty early in both guys careers when they had nothing but potential. I don't think either guy had the careers this match predicted, but this was a damn fun example of young guy Battlarts. Junji had some fun leg work including a nasty kneebar which drove Hijikata's knee to his chest. We had some hard kicks and punches by both guys and then a couple of 95% Otsuka level suplexes by Hijikata where he just collapsed Junji. 

ER: I thought this was raw as hell, can't remember a Junji performance I liked more. He had this wild eyed, all out there performance and attacked Hijikata's leg like a guy who had been locked in a cage all day. He works a kneebar and does not want to let go of that leg, and it's great. He also throws these nasty knee lifts in the corner and blasts Hijikata in the back of the head with a downward lariat. I'm so into wild rookie Junji! Hijikata pays him back by dropping Junji a couple times in freakshow Karelin ways, folding Junji's legs in ugly ways over his head. Then, decides to fold him just as bad to win with a single leg crab. These rookies are hungry!!

Kasumi Usuda vs. Hidetomo Egawa 

PAS: I thought this was a totally rad 7 minute match. No idea who Egawa was (according to Cagematch he worked some WAR undercards, and IWA Japan stuff in the late 90s), but he was pretty great here. He had two cool german suplexes and a nasty back suplex and had this way of whipping his head back when he was selling high kicks that made Usuda look like prime Mirko Cro Cop. Usuda is always worth watching, and he lands some big shots and slick counters, including nearly getting a tap with a straight armbar counter out of a german suplex. Total hidden gem of a match.

ER: Yeah this ruled. I am also an Egawa novice, but he took a fierce beating from Usuda. Usuda really looked like a hit man here. Usuda often looks like a hot man. He has these focused eyes and just goes Energizer Bunny on Egawa. Egawa rose to this challenge and got run through like a champ, not slowing down despite knowing his odds kept getting worse. He had a couple nice suplexes that landed hard, but Usuda sold them like a guy getting out of bed to pee and was totally unflappable. He throws kicks in such great order, never getting trapped in overly similar combos, just throwing legs out constantly. His submissions always look like he's trying to break a limb as quickly as possible, his armbars have probably left so many people with creaky elbows from being briefly hyperextended a couple dozen times by Usuda. This is 7 minutes, feels like 3, all killer. 

Masao Orihara/Takeshi Ono vs. Mohammed Yone/Mamoru Okamoto 

ER: Orihara/Ono is such a badass tag team. You can picture them being a mid movie mini boss in a Jason Statham movie, Statham opening the door in a kingpin's office to find these two in black tights, black gloves, weird hair, swinging chains. And it's weird seeing Yone with a bowl cut, it's like seeing Sam Elliott without a mustache. Orihara is one of my favorite assholes in wrestling history. Here he swings hard on clotheslines, hits powerbombs and suplexes as unprofessionally as possible, shoves the ref when he gets in the way of Orihara hitting the ropes, headbutts Yone in the balls, all cool asshole things. Ono is focused on bending legs, and he really tries to pick on Okamoto, who has some nice moments (like surprising Ono with a dragon screw). I didn't love how Yone and Okamoto made their big comeback, felt a little like they skipped a couple steps. Yone took Orihara's nasty spider suplex, then Orihara hit a moonsault that I think was supposed to hit Yone's knees? But it looks mostly like a normal Orihara moonsault, and it looked dumb when Yone got right up and immediately went on his first big offense run of the match. His offense looked good (and Okamoto came in and hit a nice spin kick, also dropped Ono with a fast German), but I would have liked them coming up with a more interesting way of getting to their comeback. But the final run is a real winner, stacking up some crazy things on top of each other. Yone hits a big hang time crossbody off the top and basically bounces off a brick wall of Orihara, Ono dumps Okamoto with an insane tiger suplex, they hit a tandem vertical suplex on Yone with Orihara kicking him in the temple right after, a nice violent run to the finish line and an overall good match. Ono's octopus is the cruelest chiropractor in the ocean. 

Naohiro Hoshikawa vs. Ikuto Hidaka 

ER: This was more down-paced than anything we've had on this show so far, and it's kinda tough to follow a couple of hot 7 minute sprints when your match is those 7 minutes with 7 slower minutes of rope break knee bars before it. The pace felt like a deliberate cool down, and I thought they did a good job building from sparklers to cherry bombs. I liked Hoshikawa more a couple years later, when he was more of his own thing and less Minoru Tanaka-lite. Hidaka had a lot of the same arsenal but it wasn't as refined in '98 as it was a year later. He was doing the same kind of suplexes transitioned into kneebars and chained suplexes, but they had a lot more poise a year later. Still, they go for some nice and risky stuff, like Hidaka dropkicking Hoshikawa's knee from the top rope, and Hoshikawa hitting an awesome dropkick while Hidaka is perfectly upside down in an Asai moonsault. That latter spot came off especially nuts, and you gotta like guys trying to stand out like that. Weakest match on the show, but you still got to watch guys take hard kicks to the arms and body, see a couple suplexes. 

Minoru Tanaka vs. Tiger Mask IV 

ER: This started with a cool package showing Minoru Tanaka as the proud UWA World Heavyweight champ, a belt that I'm sure has a very long complicated history of different wrestlers or promotions controlling it, but I liked them highlighting Tanaka as a guy constantly defending the belt with his spinning armbar. They worked this like a serious title match, but I think that held it back from what it could have been, especially compared to the rest of the card. Most minutes of this card were filled with a real immediacy and guys really going for the kill, and it's tough to jump into cold water like this no matter how safe it is. They work some competent mat stuff but it never has the danger of any of the submissions from the first three matches. They take their time working holds and while I can like methodical wrestling, some of this felt like they were lying in holds a bit too long. And while the prior match started slower, I felt they turned the dial up nicely to build to the finish, and this match didn't get to that. Even the highlights of this match didn't feel like they lived up to the highlights of Tanaka's other UWA title defenses. This was sound stuff, but didn't have anywhere near the dynamite of the rest of the card. 

Yuki Ishikawa/Alexander Otsuka vs. Daisuke Ikeda/Carl Greco - EPIC

PAS: Man alive was this tremendous. These may be my top four BattlArts guys (Ono and Usuda are obviously contenders as well), and they just stretch it out for a big time main event BattlArts tag. Greco is incredible in this, what a monumental and underused talent. He hits this gator roll into a side choke here which is breathtaking in its speed and violence. He has killer grappling sections with both Otsuka and Ishikawa that are cool in very different ways. The Ishikawa sections are chess matches with both guys countering attacks, the Otsuka sections are speed chess, they put the fucking clock on and just attack and overwhelm. To add to all the mat wrestling, Greco is as cool on his feet, throwing super fast hands, using great head movement, and landing a fucking Jean-Claude Van Damme jumping side kick from across the ring. We also get Ikeda vs. Ishikawa aka The Greatest Match-up in Wrestling History, and it is what it always is. Otsuka throws a couple of big throws, and even hits a tope to cut Ikeda off during this finish. Matches like this are why I am doing this project, couldn't recommend it more.

ER: When you are in the mood to watch BattlArts, this is the kind of match you hope to get. This really captures the overall energy of this really great show, as you have three of the Batt Mount Rushmore (also agree with Phil that Greco/Usuda/Ono would be the ones vying for that 4th spot) going full blast for 18 minutes. When a match starts with Ishikawa/Ikeda doing the things those two do, you'd think it would be hard to maintain that energy over a full match, but that would also mean you wouldn't be giving enough credit to Otsuka or Greco, which is a mistake. Ishikawa and Ikeda are fired up at the bell, no build to their violence, just starting off with fast grappling and quickly getting to Ishikawa raining down punches and elbows into Ikeda's face and neck. Ikeda doesn't forget those, as he spends the rest of the match taking any chance he gets to land cheapshots, my favorite a running punt to Ishikawa's t-zone just to break up a submission (2nd place goes to him leveling Ishikawa with a lariat to the back of the neck after the match). Ishikawa has this great wedding singer hair that makes him look like a real madman trading punches, and you know he and Ikeda were trading punches. My favorite exchange between them might have been this sick 1-2 combo, where Ishikawa threw a right to Ikeda's jaw while Ikeda was already throwing a right to Ishikawa's body, leaving both of them momentarily stunned. 

But the Greco/Otsuka exchanges were a different kind of wild. Greco has such insane enthusiasm and Otsuka easily matches it. Their throws are so quick that I have to assume they have no idea what part of their body is going to hit the mat first. There was one exchange where Greco did a Karelin lift that flipped Otsuka over in a 360, and as he was landing Otsuka was already picking up Greco to do a similar more violent lift. Greco had a moment earlier in the match where he suplexed Ishikawa and landed with a freaky dragon sleeper, actually looking like he was going to separate Ishikawa's head from body. This whole match was a scrap, and scraps with actual technicians always produce some killer results. The whole match was hot, and the finishing stretch turns the heat up even more, with Otsuka sending Ikeda flying with a great tope and Ishikawa flattening out Greco with a grisly rear naked choke. You want BattlArts? This is peak BattlArts. 

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Fujiwara Family: PWFG 6/4/94

Shiochi Funaki vs. Minoru Tanaka

PAS: Both of these guys made their names doing other things, but at this point they were straight shootstyle guys, and pretty damn great at it. Funaki had a couple of totally awesome looking slips into tight rear naked chokes, and a really cool kneebar for the tap. Tanaka throws a couple of fast suplexes and a nasty headbutt while in the mount. This was way better then it would be a couple of years later, as they were PWFG young guys trying to prove they belonged. 

Katsumi Usuda vs. Joe DiFuria

PAS: This was great, DiFuria is a big jacked guy who spends much of this match chucking Usuda around the ring. He treats Usuda like a tackling dummy, dumping him with a couple of super nasty German suplexes and a deadlift throw, he was also super heavy on top, really leaning on Usuda with full weight and submissions which didn't look slickly applied, but a big jacked guy choking you is going to hurt even if it isn't perfectly applied. Usuda was able to wing some big kicks when he was able to get away from DiFuria, and the finish was an awesome Fujiwara special, DiFuria has Usuda locked into a rear naked choke, and it looked like curtains, but Usuda was able to grab an ankle and damn near twist it off forcing DiFuria to tap fast. Cool match, DiFuria had one match with Fujiwara which Tom and I didn't like 10 years ago when we watched it, but I kind of want to see his Vampire Warrior matches in Florida indies. 

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Bart Vale - FUN

PAS: This was a big kickboxing fight, and a rare match where Ikeda was in there with a guy with heavier feet. Vale really developed into a entertaining wrestler in the end days of PWFG, and he is thumping Ikeda with his big tree trunk legs. Vale isn't going to give a ton to Ikeda at this point in their career, Ikeda gets a couple of submission attempts, which Vale reverses, and throws some big kicks which mostly get blocked. This match was here for Vale to eat, and Ikeda was the meal, he would be at the big table plenty as his career moved on. 

Wellington Wilkins Jr./Yuki Ishikawa vs. Hanzo Nakajima/Naohiro Hoshikawa

PAS: Fuck this was badass. Wilkins and baby Ishikawa make a totally killer team. Wilkins is a square shaped guy who works like a total crowbar, he tosses some suplexes that have ab almost Taz on Pablo Marquez level of disregard for the well being of his opponents. He also throws some really sick headbutts including breaking a german suplex by just flinging the back of his head into the face of Hoshikawa, just gross. Ishikawa is also great, mixing a phenom level of matwork, with some real aggressive attacks. Nakajima is wearing a ninja mask and has a bad ass look, he looked perfectly comfortable on the mat with Ishikawa and mixed in some really graceful flying, he isn't a guy who had much of a career, having a cup of coffee with KDX in Mpro a couple of years later, but he looked great here. Hoshikawa is awesome in these kinds of hybrid matches, can hang on the mat, throw some kicks, and also hit a dope tope. Built to a pretty wild finish run, with Wilkins throwing this crazy top rope superplex, and locking on some sort of carny neck lock for the tap. The kind of match which would have led off a Schneider Comp back in the day.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Mark Ashford-Smith

PAS: This was a strange match which is worked entirely as a grappling contest, all on the mat with some long pauses and movement in and out of holds. It really felt in parts like Mario Yamazaki need to stand them up. Smith seemed comfortable on the mat, and this really felt like the might have been shooting at points, I can't imagine much was called before. Really a match for your Fujiwara completest, (or I suppose any Mark Starr superfans out there) I am a big enough Fujiwara head that I enjoyed watching him grapple and shift position, and the finish was pretty cool.  I liked this, still I imagine this will bore most folks.

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Fujiwara Family: BattlArts Final Fight in X-Mas 12/25/96

12/25/96

Kazumasa Fujimoto vs. Michiya Chiba 

PAS: Not sure who either of these guys are, and this was 2 minutes of rolling until Chiba gets an ankle pick for the tap in 2 minutes. Nothing to see here, keep it moving. 

Naohiro Hoshikawa vs. Satoshi Yoneyama 

PAS: This was a fun little match up with a pre NOI Mohammed Yone.  I enjoyed how much these guys were bending each other on knee bars and boston crabs, I tweaked my back earlier this week and I clearly need Yone to stretch me out. Hoshikawa was fun in this environment, nice snap kicks, cool submissions willingness to push the pace. Yone had a a couple of cool looking flip kicks, hitting a couple before getting one caught and bent into a one leg crab for the tap. 

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Minoru Tanaka 

PAS: Isikawa's trainer really mastered this kind of wiley technician versus pretty boy kicker match, and it is fun to watch Ishikawa do his riff on Fujiwara vs. Takada or Funaki. Tanaka tries to overwhelm Ishikawa with speed and athleticism, only to see Ishikawa use skill to find places to attack. Ishikawa had some of the nastiest pro-wrestling ground and pound in this match, cracking Tanaka with hard knuckle out punches to the side of the head and ribs. Tanaka hit a wild flurry of shots, for two downs near the end of the match, really hard and super fast. He hits two big suplexes on Ishikawa for close near falls, only to let Yuki get hold of his arm for a nasty hammerlock submission. 

ER: I think before watching this match I had only seen one other Ishikawa/Tanaka singles match. This isn't a typical pairing I think of in BattlArts, even though they were there at the same time for many years. I thought this was fantastic though, as Tanaka was using his quickness to escape holds and had really fast application that kept Ishikawa scrambling. This really is a Fujiwara vs. striker match, the kind where Fujiwara takes maybe 20% of the match and then finally pulls off the thing he's been thinking about the whole match. Tanaka was super speedy and hit hard, and the way he and Ishikawa got tangled was always cool. I loved them fighting over a heel hook, and once Tanaka got the better grip Ishikawa just punched him right in the bandaged elbow. Tanaka even gives him a little "seriously!?" kind of look before wrenching in the hold. Ishikawa is mean when he gets the chance to be, like when he got in mount and threw a couple filthy punches down into Tanaka's jaw, but I thought for sure that Tanaka was going to tap him once he got him into a snug triangle. You could really see Ishikawa quickly running out of options before he just desperately rolled his body toward the ropes for the break. After I saw Ishikawa punch that bandaged elbow in the heel hook, I know it was on his mind, and I saw him reach for it again while trying to break a subsequent hold. So once he hit that awesome trap arm double underhook suplex to stun Tanaka I was not surprised in the least that he went straight to that hammerlock sub on that bandaged elbow. Awesome sub 10 minute match from a BattlArts singles match pairing I never think about.  

Daisuke Ikeda/Alexander Otsuka vs. Katsumi Usuda/Takeshi Ono - EPIC

PAS: BattlArts style main event tags are about the surest best in wrestling history, and this was another barnburner. Ikeda and Ono are an incredible tag team, but also amazing opponents, they throw shots with such reckless abandon at each other, and turn every exchange into a high wire act where someone is moments away from going to sleep. Otsuka is a magician as well, his level switches and throws are so much fun to watch and he brings a different spice to match with three big kickers. I thought the finish run was some wild stuff, and Ono sleeping Otsuka with a big knee felt like a huge moment for him. Ono is a monster talent, but he seemed slotted a bit below the rest of the BattlArts big four (the other three in this match and Ishikawa) so it was great that he got to show the thunder in his hands and feet to win this one.

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Fujiwara Family: BattlArts Yuki Ishikawa 15th Anniversary Show 7/21/07

This show is available, along with a ton of late 00s BattlArts on IWTV

Katsumi Usuda vs. Keita Yano

PAS: Looking back on my early 2010's reviews Tom and I hated Yano as he just got completely up his own ass and started trying to jack ROH moves from tapes. I have heard from people I semi-trust that recent Yano is weird and cool, in 2007 he was hueing more closely to the style and he was a fine basic opponent for Usuda. I liked Yano starting the match with a sneak high kick to try to catch the veteran sleeping. Usuda is never not worth watching, and he throws some big hard kicks like he want to do. I also liked him adjusting his kneebar to really torque the leg for the finish. Replacement level Usuda match, but that is a nice level. 

Toshie Uematsu vs. Carlos Amano

PAS: This was solid joshi wrestling with a bunch of nifty mat counters. I especially loved Uematsu putting Amano in a kneebar, catching Amano's leg when she tried to kick out of it and putting in a figure four. Amano also had some nifty work both in the guard and trying to clear Uematsu's guard. I wish the strikes landed with some more thump, weakness there kept this from being a real standout, but it was worth watching nonetheless. 

Kyosuke Sasaki vs. Yuta Yoshikawa

PAS: This didn't do much for me. It was pretty much all striking, and Sasaki landed a great solebutt to the stomach, punt to the face combo, but outside of that there was nothing memorable. Lots of strike, make a face, other guy throws a strike exchanges, and the final KO needed to be a lot more brutal on a show with Ikeda in the main event. 

Fujita Hayato vs. Munenori Sawa

PAS: This was a way better version of the stand and trade type of match. I liked the story of Sawa having the faster hands and feet, but Hayato landing the big shots. Hayato always fit in the Fujiwara Family feds great whenever he showed up, his default is crowbar and he lands some big thumping shots. Sawa had a little more horseshit then I prefer, his Mutoh aping never looks good, and I don't know about a figure four as a finishing submission in a shoot style fight. I did like how Hayato kept slapping the shit out him to try to break the hold, by the time Hayato tapped Sawa's nose and mouth were bloody. 

Alexander Otsuka/Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda/Manabu Hara - EPIC

PAS: These fucking guys. What absolute legends. Most people celebrate big milestones like Anniversaries by inviting some friends to dinner, maybe spending a weekend in Vegas. Ishikawa spends it by inviting his buddies over to kick the ever loving shit out of each other. Hara isn't my first choice for the fourth in this tag, but he is on eleven here, from opening up the match by dropping Ishikawa with a high kick to his killer final stanza against Otsuka, career performance for him. Of course the other three are incredible too, Ikeda spends much of the match sniping, anytime Otsuka or Ishikawa puts a submission on Hara, Ikeda is coming in hot, with full force kicks to the head. Ishikawa and Ikeda also have a couple of their legendary back and forths, as nasty and grotesque and you would expect from those two. Otsuka maybe the star of the match though. He mostly faces off against Hara and eats big shots again and again trying to get close enough to unleash hell with suplexes. At one point he counters a Hara kneebar attempt by grabbing him and chucking him with a German suplex. He and Ishikawa also hit an awesome enzigiri/German combo and finishes Hara with a dragon suplex on his head. These matches are made on their final showdowns and this one had a great one.

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Fujiwara Family: Pro-Wrestling Fujiwara-Gumi 8/12/95

TAKA Michinoku vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa

PAS: This was a bit of a mix of MPRO and PWFG, we had some early fun grappling, and a cool short tope by Hoshikawa. This was pretty clipped up, but we did get a nasty TAKA kneebar finish, where he really grabbed the hold high on the knee, looked like it put tremendous pressure on the kneecap.

Carl Greco vs. Katsumi Usuda

PAS: I think this was also really clipped but what we got was awesome. Greco is rocking an Eminem blond dye job and is just as killer on the mat early in his career as he was later. Usuda comes out swinging and it is pretty much can Greco tap Usuda before Usuda puts him to sleep. The half crab/rear naked choke he uses to put him down was gorgeous looking.

Takeshi Ono vs. Shigeo Okamura 

PAS This was short but really cool. Ono was awesome from damn near day one. Okamura is a guy who had most of his success as a CMLL Japanese rudo who would team with whatever Japanese guys would come over to Mexico, here he is working as a Gi wearing kicker. Okamura starts dominating with big kicks to the midsection and head, dropping Ono, including a cool spin head kick feint into a low sweep. Ono starts getting some success on the ground, bringing Okamura down and locking in submissions, and finally hitting him with a huge leverage judo throw and locking on an armbar for the tap. Fun to see Ono be the kicking bag instead of the kicker, but damn he was great early.

Minoru Tanaka vs. Oishi

PAS: This is a mixed match against a gloved kickboxer who's full name is lost to history. Mostly Tanaka avoiding punches and kicks until he got caught in the second round. Didn't have the frenetic insanity the best of these matches have, it was pretty subdued.

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa - EPIC

PAS: This is a very early look at this all time great rivalry. This already had a ton of spice, as the tumble out of the ring at the bell and Ikeda hits a great spin kick to Ishikawa's stomach sending him into the chairs. It is a great start to a match which delivers on what it promises. Ikeda spends a lot of this match trying to destroy Ishikawa's internal organs, he hits him with brutal spinkicks, straight body kicks and Chavezian body shots. Ishikawa puts on some great looking holds, squeezing Ikeda's head like a zit, twisting his ankles into odd and painful directions, and throwing some big shots of his own including a big knee lift which glassed up Ikeda's eyes. Finish was great, each guy gets a big knockdown and the come up and both guys are just unload their arsenals, not exchanging elbows to show their toughness, but franticly throwing everything they have at each other. Ikeda catches Ishikawa with a slap to the ear which drops him, he pops back up, but it is the third knockdown and he loses by TKO. Ishikawa wants to keep fighting and they have to be separated. It is interesting to watch this legendary rivalry in it's incubatory form, while there later matches were often brutal wars of attrition, this was more of a frantic pedal to the medal fight, the kind of thing you might see from two MMA fighters trying to get on a UFC main card, fun to watch them expend that kind of energy.

MD: Definitely another gem. These two are the perfect cross section of unmitigated violence and astonishingly slick grappling. When you've seen enough wrestling, not much can surprise you, but the more I see this pairing (and I haven't seen them quite as much as Phil and Eric so I'm still allowed to be in awe), the more I remain blown away by just how they manage it. They're pure struggle with nothing given and the consistent illusion that if one makes the tiniest misstep, allows for an opening, drops a guard, leaves the smallest hole in his defense, he will pay dearly. This could be with vicious stomps to cement a hold or with a spin kick out of nowhere or with leverage gained for a devastating belly-to-belly. The selling feels just as abrupt. It becomes more about momentum shifts and advantage than a long-running narrative, but you end up left wondering, two thirds through the match how a comeback might even be possible. The level of skill involved in all of this consistently blows me away.

ER: How cool is it to see two guys who have matched up probably over 100 times in their career, in what might be their earliest singles match? I know I have a BattlArts singles match between them from a year later, not sure there's another one this young. I love the charm and violence of their more experienced matches, with Ishikawa playing more of a Fujiwara "hang back, minimize the beating, look for your opening" with Ikeda as the always advancing bully. Here they're both punks in their 20s and Ishikawa is super aggressive with offense and kicks. Ishikawa didn't use a ton of kicks even by '98, so it's a trip seeing kickpads Ishikawa fly at Ikeda with high kicks and knees. Ikeda is still a bully, still comes off more ice water veins than Ishikawa, kinda letting Ishikawa tire himself out on flurries before pouncing, or backpedaling until Ishikawa slips and then diving into him viciously. Aggression is really the cause of many of the momentum shifts here, and I loved seeing these two tumble to the floor a couple of times because they were too busy kicking each other's asses to pay much attention to their ring placement. We get a lot of nastiness shining through, look at them grabbing at each other's hair while Ikeda works for mount. Kick-y Ishikawa is fun, but Ikeda always has those lethal feet, and his mule kicks to Ishikawa's gut look absolutely match ending. He drops him fairly early with one and either Ishikawa is among the great salesmen in the history of this great sport (which, he is), or that's a man who had the wind kicked out of him through his stomach. All the twisting looked really great throughout, and the knockdown drama at the end was really exciting. I've watched enough Ishikawa to know that he can't be counted out, and I loved the ending of him popping up right after getting TKO, showing that he wasn't down and that Ikeda only won because of a fucking rulebook. These two guys. 

Koji Kitao vs. Mark Ashford-Smith

PAS: Kitao isn't a guy with a great reputation among fans of Japanese wrestling, but I am not going to hate on a big fat sumo guy who is kind of a crowbar, that is in my wheel house. Smith had a nice short elbow smash, and tried some submissions, but this was mostly Kitao ragdolling him around the ring including a big side slam before finishing him off. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Shoichi Funaki vs. Hisakatsu Oya/Ricky Fuji - GREAT

PAS: This was for the FMW tag titles and was much more of an FMW match then any sort of shootstyle match, although a pretty nifty FMW match. We start with Oya and Fujiwara grappling which was easily the most PWFG part of the match. Oya always seemed like he was playing on the wrong team in the 90s, and it was cool to get a glimpse of what BattlArts Oya would have looked like. FMW team ends up isolation Funaki and busting him open with a chair, and the match builds up to a Fujiwara hot tag, and a bunch of Mark Ashford-Smith pro PWFG interference. Could have used a more dynamic ending to push it up into EPIC territory, but I can't hate on a match where a bloody Funaki tags in a house of fire Fujiwara

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Fujiwara Family: BattlArts Project B Master Plan 1/21/97

Project B Master Plan

Shoichi Funaki vs. Ikuto Hidaka 

PAS: This was Hidaka's debut match and he comes in wearing already wearinf pressure bandage which tell something about the training at the BattlArts dojo. As you might expect this was mostly a squash, although Hidaka gets a big dropkick and super fast flip before being dispatched. Funaki is not the optimal guy you want to see beat on a rookie (I imagine Hidaka was happy he didn't draw Ikeda for his debut) but this was fun.

Naohiro Hoshikawa  vs. Alexander Otsuka

PAS: This was a styles clash with Hoshikawa representing MPRO against Otsuka's BattlArts style, and they really meshed those styles well I liked Otsuka refusing to run the ropes early, only for Hoshikawa to force him and crack him with a jump kick. There was also a fun spot where Hoshikawa throws these theatrical kicks which don't hit clean only to finish the combo with a soccer kick to Otsuka's face, that was a style I was taught in boxing, throw the first couple with speed and land the last couple with force (I was much better with the force then the speed). You come to an Otsuka match primarily for the suplexes and there were some corkers, we get his great hanging German, a blindingly fast high angle capture suplex and a dragon to finish it off which looked incredible, fast forceful and violent, one the greatest dragon suplexes I have seen, Otsuka was a marvel. 

The Great Sasuke/Gran Hamada/Gran Naniwa/Masato Yakushiji vs. Kaientai DX (TAKA Michinoku/ MEN's Teioh/Dick Togo/Shiryu) - EPIC

PAS: This is one of the all time great combinations of guys in wrestling history, just true magic anytime you get a KDX team against a group of MPRO babyfaces. This starts a little diffThis ierent then the traditional matchup with KDX jumping Sasuke's team before the bell and taking them on a destructive arena tour, tossing them into walls, Sasuke gets launched back first into chairs, Yakushiji gets bodyslammed on a table, after that KDX struts back into the ring triumphant. When the babyfaces appear we get some of the fast forward speed action that you would expect from these teams, everybody hitting everything with such grace and force, with just impeccable timing. Much of 2020 wrestling aspires for this level of grace, athleticsim and beauty but no one does it like these guys did it. Awesome Yakushiji performance, he really was Rey Jr., La Petit Prince level fast and agile, and had a perfect group of rudos to work with, He hits a whip kick in this match where he looked like he had super speed. Out of nowhere this match takes a turn, Naniwa get's his mask ripped and gets sliced by Togo and all of a sudden a waterfall of gore just streams out of his forehead (Shiryu looks like he got slammed into barbedwire with the blood on his back, which was all from Naniwa's head). It takes a real turn, with Naniwa getting his head wrapped and coming back triumphant, with no mask to get the win. It's crazy that these guys can still add that kind of wrinkle to their amazing formula.  

ER: What a match. My friend Charlie was over at my house to record a podcast episode, and when we were done he just wanted to hang out for awhile and decompress. He is as casual a wrestling fan as you can get, would never watch wrestling on his own, but always enjoys and immediately gets into it whenever I put it on. And are there really many better styles of wrestling at reaching across that aisle of casual fandom, than a vintage all cylinders MPro multiman? He took to it immediately, and how could anyone not? This is not really even a heralded Mpro multiman, but it's on the level of the greatest ones I have seen, and it is a match I seek out and love. At its heart it has a tremendous bloody fighting babyface Naniwa performance, and it had a tremendous dickhead heel performance from Taka. Everybody else added nothing but positive segments, we built to a fever pitch where guys were flying in and out like a chaotic fight in Enter the Dragon. 

There really isn't a misstep in the whole thing, a real tight 20 minutes that - like the best of this style - felt like a bottomless bag of tricks to pull from. The crowd brawl was a fun diversion and really set the KDX tone, camera cutting all over Korakuen to see them inflicting violence, as Sasuke gets thrown through chairs and has chairs thrown onto him, and Taka instructs everyone to learn from him as he bounces a chair off the side of Naniwa's head. Taka takes that attitude back into the ring as we settle down into pairings, and Taka is the guy out there kicking people in the head and really separating himself from the pack. As Charlie observed while watching, "Some of these guys are hitting a lot harder than the others." Taka especially targets Naniwa, not just smacking him down and landing everything harder than necessary, but every time Naniwa is down Taka just mockingly kicks at his head, just shoving Naniwa's head around with the bottom of his boot. And it leads to a tremendous moment where Naniwa stands up and just wastes Taka with a falling clothesline. Naniwa hits a couple of big clotheslines in this match, but telling Taka he wasn't going to take his shit anymore is one of those immaculate pure babyface moments. Naniwa gets his masked ripped right off his head and bleeds a gusher, all building to him spiking Shiryu with some great sitout gutwrench powerbombs (each one landing higher and higher on Shiryu's shoulders) for the win. Everyone had great moments in this, that shouldn't be a shock. Sasuke had big bumps into chairs and a couple of wild Sasuke dives; Yakushiji reminded me of how damn quick he was and how bananas his headscissor and armdrag variations were, the kind where as he's spinning you don't have any idea what direction either he or his opponent will fly. Everyone looked good, but adding in a huge gusher and triumphant Naniwa return (with big head bandage!) made this one of the greatest MPro multimans ever. It just happened in BattlArts. 

First Tiger Mask vs. Minoru Tanaka 

PAS: It was pretty crazy that the most pure shootstyle match on this card was an old fat guy in a puffy silver mask. This was excellent stuff, old tubby Sayama is my favorite of all Sayama's and he was a machine in this match, constantly coming forward, working the guard, trying to take Tanaka's back and using his hips and foot movement to stay away from Tanaka's kicks. I loved all of the fight for the chicken wing, Sayama really yanked on the neck and arm and kept adjusting to tighten the grip, and then whipped off a beautiful snap german suplex which landed Tanaka directly on the back of his neck, before finally sinking it in. Really cool stuff, one of my favorite Tanaka matches ever, and better then anything Sayama did in his first New Japan run.

 Daisuke Ikeda/Katsumi Usuda vs. Yuki Ishikawa/Takeshi Ono - EPIC

PAS: My god is this match something. The utter reckless disregard for their opponents, the speed and athleticism of the attacks, the clever ways to mix in moments of true horror with moments of beauty.s. This was a battle of four all time greats at their absolute athletic peaks. All of these guys remained great wrestlers well into the 2000s, but their style slowed down a bit as they moved into their 40s and 50s. Here they are all in their mid 20s and the exchanges are so much faster and explosive without surrendering any of the chilling violence. The opening of this match is a great example of the brilliance of this style, Usuda and Ono have this lighting quick intricate exchange of kneebar counters, with Ono getting the advantage, which was quickly snuffed out by Ikeda running in and kicking Ono's head into the fourth row. A Sunday of skill and speed with a cherry of brutality on top. The match continues on that vein, with great exchanges by all of the participants, with all four looking great. Ikeda throws some of his classic crowbar lariats along with nasty kicks and some really good desperate leg selling, selling which was instigated by Ono throwing some of the nastiest leg kicks I have seen in either wrestling or MMA, you could see Ikeda's kneecap shift with each shot. Every move in this match was remarkable, just the force Usuda used to yank in a choke, or the wild reckless punch exchange between Ikeda and Ishikawa which looked like something out a Necro Butcher brawl, to Ono working Usuda's body like a heavy bag. Just perfection.  If this match happened in the 2010s it would be match of the decade material, and it was just another day in the office for the BattlArts boys.

ER: This was tremendous, exactly what I wanted from everyone involved. The MPro showcase earlier, followed by an excellent Tiger Mask/Minoru Tanaka match, felt like a difficult set to follow. But this delivered in an entirely different way, and I'm sure there haven't been many better straight hours of pro wrestling than these three matches. This match has no problem following those matches, as everyone here is in a mood to throw kicks and eat kicks. Takeshi Ono was not nearly as heralded as his contemporaries when these matches were actually happening. Ikeda, Ishikawa, Tanaka, Hidaka, Malenko, and Otsuka were the acclaimed BattlArts guys which didn't leave a lot of room for Ono at the time. Catching up and getting more shootstyle opinions into the wrestling web allows us to reevaluate and find new high value and joy in guys like Ono. Ono is a fantastic shootstyle wrestler, and one of the most compelling juniors wrestlers of the last 25 years. His wrestling instincts are great, he knows when to dramatically go in for the kill, knows how to milk drama out of rope breaks and knock down selling. Having he and Ikeda on opposite sides means you have guys on each side who specialize in kicking people in the face while breaking up pinfalls, and I think everyone in this match takes at least three kicks somewhere directly behind their ears. Ikeda gets his leg attacked and bent in painful ways, Ikeda and Ishikawa dragged things down into the gutter with a nose busting punch exchange, four absolute legends of shootstyle all working at top gear. 

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Fujiwara Family: Bad Boy's BattlArts 10/2+10/4/96

 Bad Boy's Battlarts

10/2/96

Katsumi Usuda vs. Minoru Tanaka

PAS: This was a chance to see both of these guys very young in their careers, and both already had a lot of what made them great (and Tanaka hadn't really developed his bad habits yet). Tanaka has very fast hands and feet and while he didn't land with the force of Usuda, he was often able to land two to Usuda's one. Usuda meanwhile got his feet moving and landed some huge whip kicks including one which caught Tanaka right on the temple, Tanaka did a great semi-concussed sell of that kick (or just got his bell rung, it is always a bit hard to tell in BattlArts), but Usuda got a bit overzealous to finish him off and got spun into a kneebar. Crazy how talented these kids were.

Yuki Ishikawa/Naohiro Hoshikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda/Takeshi Ono - EPIC

PAS: This is one of the earliest Ikeda and Ono tags and man did these guys mesh early. This match had Hoshikawa trying to prove he could hang with the BattlArts elite. He had his moments, but eventual just get beaten into an unconscious pulpy mess. I liked how they used his MPRO style in the appropriate moments but made it look Battlartsy, Ishikawa bull rushes Ikeda into the corner so Hoshikawa can crush him with a dropkick. There was also a cool double rolling kneebar. Of course putting a submission on a Takeshi Ono tag partner is one of the great mistakes in wrestling history, he is just an incredible dickhead, and he will wing a snap kick right to your eye, as of course will Ikeda. We get some nice Ikeda nad Ishikawa mat rolling, all of which ended with a sick punch or headbutt. Hoshikawa eats a bunch of really nasty kicks and ends up staring at the lights with blood pooling in his mouth.

10/4/96

Shoichi Funaki vs. Minoru Tanaka

PAS: This was a match with a tremendous singular focus. Funaki was going after the leg, and hit it with dropkicks and kneebars, and elbow drops. Tanaka sells the leg the whole match until he hits a spinning cross armbreaker for the flash submission. Technically solid work although nothing particularly compelling. 

Yuki Ishikawa/Katsumi Usuda vs. Daisuke Ikeda/Takeshi Ono - EPIC

PAS: This is JIP about 3 minutes in, but we obviously get the lion's share of the brutality. This was the uncut raw, no baking soda in this match, four of the nastiest violentist guys in wrestling history flinging full force punches and kicks until someone can't stand. We join the match on some matwork, but quickly move into Usuda decimating Ikeda in the corner with body and head kicks, much of the early part of this footage was Usuda beating and being beat upon, Ishikawa doesn't tag in for a while, of course when he does, he contributes straight punches and headbutts. This match seemed especially hard on the ribs and kidney's, the body kicks were as nasty as anything you are going to see outside of Shinya Hashimoto. There is a great moment near the end of the match where Usuda and Ono are strafing each other in the ring and and out of the corner of your eye you catch Ikeda and Ishikawa pummeling each other on the floor. The final Ikeda kick to Ishikawa bent Yuki's neck at a really scary angle. The fact that this was just their regular weekly tag match is ungodly, how are any of these guys still alive 25 years later?

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Fujiwara Family: BattlArts 3/25/00

BattlArts 3/25/00

Mohammed Yone vs. Ryuji Yamakawa

PAS: This was a Yamakawa match rather then an Yone match, and does a nice job of showing the variety that was on an average BattlArts card, everything wasn't Ikeda kicks to the eye. This was a fine hardcore brawl, Yone takes a suplex to the floor through a couple of tables, Yamakawa bleeds just to bleed and finishes the match with a nasty clothesline. Nothing that would go on either guys resume tape, but fun nonetheless.

Minoru Tanaka vs. Ikuto Hidaka

PAS: This was a 2000s juniors match with the only really BattlArts flavor being some knee bars and head kicks, but it was a heck of 2000s juniors match. Hidaka is really great at flying into things, diving knee bars, flying chokes, spring board dropkicks on knees. Tanaka has some cool rolling attacks too, and just hurls Hidaka on top of his head and kicks him in the face. There was a Tanaka dragon suplex which was as cool as that move has ever been thrown. Tanaka gets his knee taken apart, but sells it sporadically, which is a problem, but kind of par for the course. 19 minute Juniors matches are very much not my thing, but this was as good as that is going to get.

Shinobu Kandori/Mach Junji vs. COW COW/Takeshi Ono - FUN

PAS: Shinobu Kandori and Takeshi Ono are two of the coolest wrestlers of all time, so of course this tag match turns into a Mach Junji vs. COW COW showdown. Ono and Kandori are stuck mostly breaking up pins as COW COW and Junji face off. Not sure who COW COW was, but his execution on stuff was pretty good, nice german suplex and a stiff clothesline, so I didn't mind the match, but this was about the most uninteresting way it could have been worked.

Alexander Otsuka/Kazunari Murakami vs. Naoki Sano/Yuki Ishikawa

PAS: Look at this lineup, just four of the most badass wrestlers ever working a long BattlArts tag. We know what a great matchup Ishikawa vs. Murakami is, and it is awesome in this match too. Murakami is frenzied as usual and he and Ishikawa go after each other early with Ishikawa dumping him with a side suplex and Murakami using these amazing Judo throws. Most people think of Murakami as a guy who would just throw crazy punches and kicks and mean mug, but he had maybe the best Judo throws in wrestling history, he would just hurl the guy he was wrestling with incredible speed and tremendous force. We also got a bunch of Otsuka matching up with Sano, which is something that happened a couple of other times in tags, but was just incredible stuff. They had super fast takedowns and grappling exchanges, constantly moving and looking for the smallest advantages. These are also a pair of guys who will stretch the boundaries of BattlArts style and we also got a great tope by Sano and a pescado by Otsuka. The match breaks down first into an Ishikawa vs. Murakami final run, which included Otsuka breaking up a save by destroying Sano with a Everest German, and then a Sano vs. Murakami section with some nasty exchanged kicks and submission scrambles. It goes to a thirty minute draw which deprives us of a finish but does give us 30 minutes of these guys, so a good trade off.

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Katsumi Usuda - EPIC

PAS: Usuda is sort of the Akira Taue of the Battlarts big four, a little less flashy, a little less regarded, but equally able to deliver the goods when needed. He comes out wilding here, super aggressive and total pushing the pace to Ikeda, winging hard kicks to his head and body. You don't usually see Ikeda having to work off the back foot, it was a really cool different look for him. Even when Ikeda lands a side suplex, Usuda is able to grab an arm and work a keylock. Ikeda is able to land some big kicks of his own and one of his lead pipe clotheslines right on the ropes, I have no idea how Ikeda didn't break his forearm or Usuda's jaw or both. Finish is really great, with Usuda being a little reckless trying for a guillotine choke allowing Ikeda to slip first into a Fujiwara and then into a nasty choke sleeper which whitens Usuda's eyes. Really felt like Usuda had his number, but Ikeda was able to use his aggression against him. Maybe the most Fujiwarish Ikeda performance I can remember seeing. 

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

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

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA

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I'm on the Trigger Plus I Got the FUTEN Sword: FUTEN 7/18/11

I am cataloging all of the BattlArts and FUTEN shows we have reviewed, and realized this was out there but somehow unreviewed.

Katsumi Usuda vs. Kotaru Nasu

PAS: Nasu was a Style-E guy and a perfectly solid unspectacular opponent for Usuda. Usuda provides most of the highlights here, unsurprisingly, popping Nasu right in the temple with a high kick, doing a great looking Fujiwara double leg twist counter into a kneebar and an incredible leg trip into a Fujiwara for the tap. Nasu did have a couple of nice near falls on knockdowns and a cross arm breaker, but this was a fun Usuda show. He is really a guy who can deliver against almost anyone.

ER: I thought Nasu was the perfect kind of opponent for Usuda, the kind of lower ranked guy that Usuda is great at almost losing to. For his end, Nasu kicked the hell out of Usuda and looked like he came real close to tapping him, and if a guy throws hard kicks and can lock in a sub that looks like it can get a tap, Usuda can take that guy to his career zenith. Usuda comes into the match with his expected bored expression, totally underestimating Nasu, and after a couple of minutes he appears correct in his underestimation. Usuda is really special, and I love how his selling in this match was based entirely on facials and not, you know, selling a limb. His face starts off in his classic resting sleepy expression, and within 7 minutes it's total panic. Nasu kept doing more damage with each set of kicks, and looks like he was a few newtons away from stinging Usuda on a kick to the spine. His subs keep coming closer and closer to tapping Usuda, and Usuda's grasps for the ropes start looking more and more desperate, and we get a great shot of his eyes darting to every single rope in the ring. When he makes an escape he didn't think he'd made, he realizes that the time for fucking around is over. He wastes Nasu with a kick as Nasu charged into the corner, and I love in fights when a guy *almost* getting a tap causes him to throw strategy out the window. He came so close to that win that he's now too focused on finishing and the blinders leave him wide open. The finish was so sick, Usuda sweeping Nasu's left leg from his back to trip him to the mat, expertly swinging his leg over to shift his weight and grab the arm, then wrenching that arm into the ugliest Fujiwara. It's one of those submission finishes where the guy who gets tapped knows he's in the quicksand the second he steps into it, knows his only option is lose quick or lose slightly less quick. Usuda!


Ryuji Hijikata vs. Bison TAGAI

PAS: This was Tagai representing BattlArts taking on Hijikata who was repping FUTEN, and he repped the hell out of FUTEN, landing a nasty cheap shot headbutt, and some sick punches to the ear. Tagai would fight back with some takedowns and grappling, but he was in over his head. Hijikata hit a couple of great looking sole butt kicks to the stomach, including turning his back after it landed like Steph Curry, before he made Tagai's knee touch his ear for the tap.

ER: Hijikata is a beast. He was taking harsh beatings in BattlArts when Bison was a teen. This guy was toughened up a decade before Bison got started, and even if I don't remember Hijikata winning matches in the late 90s Batt I loved, being a regular there in that area is a lasting badge of toughness. Early in this match there is a moment that would go on an all time best Futen video. Both men are reaching for a knucklelock and TAGAI punches Hijikata straight in the face. Hijikata is rattled and backed up, but quickly comes to and decides TAGAI needed to be taught a rest of match lesson. He backs TAGAI up, headbutts him right in the eye, then throws a right hook to his ear that sends TAGAI to the mat. From there it's just Hijikata stalking and beating TAGAI while TAGAI backs into him and has an I Fucked Up look on his face for much of the rest of the match. He fires back with some slaps but Hijikata is letting him do it, and he's walking through those strikes like all the old 90s BattlArts guys walk through strikes. Those mule kicks hit like two mules, and the finishing submission was disgusting. Hijikata hyperextend's TAGAI's knee up past his head and rides it like one of those guys on Furiosa's metronomes in Fury Road.


Kengo Mashimo vs. SEIKEN

PAS: These are a pair of big boys and stuff was landing hard. SEIKEN rushes Mashimo early and sends him to the floor. Oba is on the sideline and he gives him a talking to, and Mashimo comes in and bulldozes him with hard kicks and punches. Once Oba hyped him up he was a wrecking ball and took SEIKEN out.

ER: Akitoshi Saito feels like a guy who should have made at least a couple Futen appearances and never did. But Mashimo wrestles exactly the way a Futen Saito would wrestle, and it's great. SEIKEN is new to me and he rushes Mashimo to start, blowing him up with quick knees, kicks, and open hands. Once Mashimo gets his pep talk, it's a slow drowning for SEIKEN. Mashimo shows him how actually ineffective his kicks are, and awesomely blocks a spinning heel kick right out of the air with his forearms. Mashimo absorbs strikes, takes slaps as if his face was merely hit merely by a cool breeze, takes kicks to the chest like he's getting a massage, and we get a great moment where SEIKEN nails a spinning heel kick right to Mashimo's chin that sends Mashimo staggering around the ring. From there, Mashimo shows SEIKEN what a leg kick is supposed to look like, absolutely chopping down that tree, dumps him with some very hard back suplexes and Germans, and from there it's a race to see what head kick is going to be the one that makes SEIKEN stay down instead of stand up at 9. 


Mitsuya Nagai vs. Takeshi Ono

PAS: This is a cool scrap which was worked like a speed versus power boxing match. Every shot Nagai threw and every submission he put on had a ton of force. He cut Ono in half with kicks and nearly tore off his limbs. Ono would respond with activity, none of his shots thudded like the much bigger Nagai, but he peppered him with quick punches and kicks, and spun into fast submissions. He even ends up blooding Nagai's ear with fast right hands before falling to a nasty submission which saw Nagai twisting him into taffy. Really cool fight, Ono is an all-time great and any chance to see him is a treasure.


Daisuke Ikeda/Manabu Suruga vs. Yuki Ishikawa/Munenori Sawa

PAS: FUTEN tags are on a short list of the greatest things ever produced by wrestling. This wasn't a top tier FUTEN tag, but even mid-tier FUTEN tags are top tier in a list of all other things. The structure of a FUTEN tag is lots of back and forth violence with all four guys leading to a one on one battle between two wrestlers until one wrestler is demolished. The one on one battle at the end of this match was Sawa versus Suruga which is the least of the possible face offs, both those guys are fine, and the end run was cool, but you really don't want Ishikawa and Ikeda to be on the bench in the fourth quarter. The Ikeda versus Ishikawa stuff here was more of a teaser, but damn it was appropriate, Ishikawa threw a punch to Ikeda's head which sounded like a two by four hitting a pumpkin. Ikeda kicked him right between the top of the jaw and the end of the ear, it was as great and as lamentable as it always is. I always enjoy Sawa's handspeed and I liked how he tried to use that speed against the heavier hitting of Suruga and Ikeda. I wanted a nastier KO then I got, but I still just enjoyed the hell out of watching every second of this.

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BattlArts Action-B 4/24/98 + 5/10/98

4/24/98

Masao Orihara/Takeshi Ono vs. Mamoru Okamoto/Masaru Seno

The Orihara and Ono weren't really BattlArtsy, but they were a total blast to watch. Seno starts off with a nice forearm, but then gets totally blizted, face kicked, dumped on his head with a Michinoku Driver and carried out of the ring. Orihara then taunts Hijikata at ringside, until he gets in the ring. He and Okamoto have a moment or two, including a german suplex, but they get worked over too and Okamoto gets powerbombed and pinned, post match they beat both guys up some more including a spiked piledriver. Fun squash which establishes Orihara and Ono as total dicks.

Alexander Otsuka/Mohammed Yone vs. Daisuke Ikeda/Katsumi Usuda-GREAT

The best BattlArts tags are this alcheminical mix of shootstyle and pro-style. This match strayed a bit too much into prostyle and missed that high level. Usuda kept throwing big demonstrative headbutts, Yone came off the tope rope, Ikeda was more rope running and less full on murder bot then I prefer him. There was of course still a lot to love in this match. Otsuka was absolutely slaughtering people with suplexes, including a head and neck throw into a choke for this finish. Any combo of these guys in a tag is going to be great, but this missed that absolute peak.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Carl Greco

This was an absolute classic, as good as their more well known 1998 match. Greco was basically BattlArts version of Ken Shamrock, and he may have even been slicker on the mat. These are the two most skilled grapplers in BattlArts and they are rolling, grabbing necks, ankles and knees and twisting. Greco has one of the best tendon locks I have seen, he grabs it super fast and really looks like he is shredding tendons. There is some great stuff with Greco taking Ishikawa's back and squeezing a body lock and Ishikawa countering with foot lock. There is some really nasty striking too, some nasty body shots and ground and pound by Ishikawa and an awesome spin kick by Greco. We all know how great Ishikawa is, but the more I watch Greco I think he is a hidden all-timer too.

5/10/98

Masao Orihara/Takeshi Ono vs. Mamoru Okamoto/Ryuji Hijikata

Another fun Orihara and Ono tag as they beat on some lower card guys. Again there wasn't much BattlArts flavor to this, outside of Ono trying to take everyones heads off with kicks. There was some looseness to what Okamoto and Hijikata were throwing, and you can tell why they were slotted where they were. I did like them double stomping Ono, that guy is so skinny that you almost expect their boots to go through his body.  I am excited to check out Ono and Orihara against guys higher up the ladder.

Alexander Otsuka vs. Katsushi Takemura

Takemura is a NJ young guy and gets taken to the woodshed by Otsuka. Otsuka is a great guy to take apart a rookie, and he dumps him on his head with some nasty suplexes, including turning a trapped guillotine choke into a no protection DDT, and high angle piledrive. Takemura gets a nice German of his own, but this was mostly an opportunity to watch Otsuka unload.

Daisuke Ikeda/Gran Naniwa/Yone Genjin vs. Carl Greco/Ikuto Hidaka/Yuki Ishikawa

This was an elimination trios match with some pretty crazy teams. On paper you would think this would come down to a big Ishikawa vs. Ikeda showdown, but Ishikawa is weirdly the first guy eliminated, getting dumped over the top rope. We do get some really great Ishikawa moments first, including him dumping Naniwa square on his head a couple of times, blasting Yone in the ear with a slap and having a cool section versus Ikeda with all you would expect from a taste of that match up. With Ishikawa out early we get to see a lot of the other guys match up with Ikeda and it is pretty great stuff, Hidaka tries a bunch of flipping submission attempts only to homicided by an Ikeda clothesline, landing directly on the top of his head. We get a great Greco vs. Yone and Ikeda section, with Greco being an absolute marvel, whipping off incredibly slick submission counters on Yone. Unfortunately, there is nothing worse then executing a beautiful submission hold when Ikeda is waiting on the apron, as Ikeda tries to drive his foot and knee through Greco's skull every time he has an opening. Totally fun to watch Greco fight against the odds, an oddball set up for a match which totally works.

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BattlArts Battle Rock 97 3/13/97-3/14/97

3/13/97

Minoru Tanaka vs. Katsumi Usuda

PAS: Minoru Tanaka was an evolution of the pretty boy shootstyist, Takada, Funaki and Tanaka. Those guys are never my favorites, I want my shootstyle guy to have the fury of a ugly dude. No one would every confuse Usuda with a boy band member, and he brings the heat here. Tanaka eventually went fully into juniors wrestling, but he was a Battlartist here and had a lot of skill. Match starts with a lot of leg fighting and feeling out. Usuda steps it up with a snap german suplex and a punt to the face for a near fall. After that it ramps up and gets violent, with both guys throwing and racking limbs. Loved the finish, with Tanaka passing guard super fast and getting a nasty kneebar for the tap.

Takeshi Ono vs. Alexander Otsuka

PAS: This was great, although a little minor key. I just love both of these guys, and it is really cool to see how there divergent styles work in concert. Much of the match is Ono throwing kicks and punches, and Otsuka trying to use head movement to slip in and grab Ono and hurl him violently. Otsuka is any discussion of greatest suplexers in wrestling history, and Ono is spindly enough that he can really manhandle him, there are a couple of Taz on Pablo Marquez level suplexes in this match but Ono will fire back with some real face punts and hard punches. Liked the finish, which was not how I was expecting this to go at all.

Yuki Ishikawa/Naohiro Hoshikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda/Shoichi Funaki - EPIC

PAS: This was a match of different styles which meshed pretty well. Hoshikawa vs. Funaki was much more a MPRO match then a BattlArts match, when they first tag in they exchange rapid fire chest slaps, which is very much not BattlArts, still their exchanges were exciting stuff, and Ikeda vs. Ishikawa was as great as that match up normally is, young Ikeda gave as few a fucks as older Ikeda but with really fast twitch athleticism. This also had some of my favorite stuff in these tags, where someone would put on a submission or pin attempt leaving them open for a hellacious break up. Ikeda especially just gets such joy walking in the ring and teeing off on a prone opponent. Hoshikawa threw similar heat when he got a chance.  Finish was cool with Funaki making the mistake of trying to grapple with Ishikawa and getting totally worked and Fujiwara'ed for the tap.

3/14/97

Minoru Tanaka vs. Ikuto Hidaka

PAS: This is rookie Hidaka, and is a very short scramble, where they roll for a minute or so, until Tanaka grabs a kimura and taps him. Too short to mean much, but it had good energy.

Katsumi Usuda vs. Shoichi Funaki

PAS: Funaki was always a bit of a wonky fit for BattlArts, he had some takedowns and submissions, but was always more comfortable with a figure four or a pratfall from a kick. He is a skilled guy, and it feels like he found his right role as a long time WWF undercarder. Usuda is going to do what he does, come forward firing hard shots and throwing in some slick submissions, in many ways he is hybrid of both Ikeda and Ishikawa, he doesn't do either of their strengths at their A+ level and he doesn't have either guys charisma, but is a solid A- at both striking and matwork and is pretty much always going to be well worth watching. He shellacks Funaki here at the end, which is what I wanted to see.

Tatsuo Nakano vs. Alexander Otsuka

PAS: This was a cool match with lots of real examples of skill, which didn't live up to it's on paper promise. Nakano sandbagged Otsuka a bit, not really letting him rip off any suplexes, or take much of an advantage on the mat. It was cool to watch Nakano, counter attacks, and reverse out of things and his one big stomp was the kind of nasty asshole thing that makes me love him, but letting Otsuka shine a bit could have made this incredible.

Daisuke Ikeda/Takeshi Ono vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa/Yuki Ishikawa - EPIC

PAS: Ikeda and Ono are one of the greatest tag teams of all time. Ono as a beanpole ass kicker and Ikeda as his thicker someone even nastier partner are just magic every time they are in the ring. I don't remember the period where BWO shirted Funaki was their running buddy, but he is on the outside shit stirring, and even brawls a bit with Ishikawa. I enjoyed Hoshikawa in this match, he is best known for his MPRO 10 man appearances and Zero One work, but he is fun here as a flashier BattlArts guy. He really cracks Ikeda with a top rope leg kick, and has some really nice throws. Ono is tremendous as always too, he really mixes it up with Hoshikawa, and I love how he responded to getting ragdolled bu front kicking him right in the chin.  Of course as always Ishikawa vs. Ikeda is the highlight. We have the expected level of violence, including a couple of sections where it breaks down and they start clawing at eyes. Finish has Ikeda wasting Ishikawa with an absolutely hellacious lariat, which even stands out in the category of Ikeda lariats to Ishikawa, think of what that entails.  They were doing this stuff multiple times a month, fucking nuts. The baseline for BattlArts tags is so high, this isn't the absolute tippy top, but even below that level is incredible stuff.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA

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Daisuke Ikeda Doesn't Want to Hear It He Knows You're Full of Shit

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Katsumi Usuda BML 9/11/05 - FUN

ER: This is just 5 minutes, a condensed version of these men doing what they do. Usuda gains almost all of his advantage by jumping Ikeda with a knee before the bell, then kicking him around the ring, into the crowd, and back into the ring for awhile, until Ikeda gets sick of it and punches him in the face a couple of times, and then throws the hardest lariat he possibly can. Usuda's comeback rear naked choke is great. He really drags Ikeda down to the mat with it, but Ikeda tries to reshape Usuda's leg with a half crab. There's a shot of Usuda finally reaching the bottom rope after being stuck in that nasty half crab, and as he drapes his arm over the bottom rope his face reads like a man who has made poor decisions. Ikeda manages to hit an even bigger lariat than before, smashing Usuda into the ropes so hard that it probably felt like being run into a wall. The brainbuster is as finisher worthy as a brainbuster should be.

PAS: A WCW Pro version of this match is always going to be worth watching. Although it doesn't have nearly the meat of better versions of this match. I absolutely loved Ikeda's straight right hand, about as nasty a version of that as you are ever going to see in a worked fight. I did think however this had a bit too much no-selling and fighting spirt stuff. I supposed if you can legitimately stand up after some of the shots that vicious, it isn't really no-selling, but the better BattlArts and FUTEN matches don't need those kind of shortcuts to be great.


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Quick Fast We Reflect Like the Sky Be Blue True, FUTEN Saga Continues

Futen 12/19/10

PAS: This is a FUTEN show which sort of slipped through the cracks when I was reviewing all of it back in the day. It isn't new exactly, but it is new to Segunda Caida.

Taro Nohashi vs. NARITA

PAS: Man if you don't watch FUTEN for a while, it can be pretty jarring to get back into this world. Nohashi is a MPRO guy who worked as a mini-Shinzaki, but that isn't what he is doing here, here he is taking his head and smashing it violently into another persons head. NARITA works like a kickboxer, throwing punches and kicks and they look pretty great, more fast then really powerful. They are however powerful enough to bust up Nohashi mouth so it looks like he is brushing his teeth with ketchup. There are some real moments of brutal greatness, including Nohashi thrusting the back of his head into NARITA's face to break a german suplex attempt, and a cool punches vs. headbutts finish run, with Nohashi's head being the victor.

ER: Killer opener, just give these Futen lunatics 6 minutes to open a card and they got nuts. I'd never seen NARITA before, but early on he's throwing evil hammer fist blows to the top and back of Nohashi's head, and essentially he had me at hello. NARITA was punching the way I hoped Suruga would have punched later in the card, really teeing off on Nohashi's face. Loved all the stuff Phil mentioned with Nohashi using his head - literally - to even things out, thought NARITA threw some really great low angle rolling German suplexes, and the matching ending half crab that Nohashi locked on was disgusting (I kept clenched jaw waiting for one of NARITA's bones to snap out of his ever bending leg). Setting the tone for a Futen card can't be easy on the body, but these two did it.

Mitsuya Nagai vs. Kazuki Okubo

PAS: This was basically two guys exchanging thick kicks and working leg locks. Nagai is a crowbar from way back but it is really hard to stand out throwing hard kicks in FUTEN.  Okuba was fun in U-Style, but never that dynamic. These were hard, but we got Ikeda on deck. Solid stuff, but nothing which passes the high bar FUTEN sets.

Kengo Mashimo vs. Rui Hiugaji

ER: I thought this was pretty great until we hit a sort of amusing rough patch down the finishing stretch, but even that was redeemed by how both men handled it. Mashimo is a total legend in Futen and throws some deadly kicks and knees, really feels like this is headed towards being a Futen squash. Then Hiugaji catches a leg and drops into a kneebar, and suddenly we have an opening. Mashimo does a real nice job of selling his leg, and we get a couple cool moments where he's in the middle of a kick flurry only to have his knee buckle under him, allowing Hiugaji to pounce again. Both guys really try to take a couple years off the other with nasty brainbusters, Mashimo hits a killer Saito suplex, and Hiugaji pays him back later by absolutely launching Mashimo with a German suplex that flips him over and lands him right on his forehead!! My god!!! The awkwardness comes with Hiugaji takes an eternity to lock in a figure 4 (after seemingly getting confused by how to lock one in), and ends up locking in one of the weakest submissions ever seen in Futen. Mashimo redeems it by repeatedly pointing out his lousy application and laughing about how terrible Hiugaji's figure 4 is. The criticism was certainly warranted, and Mashimo took a potentially ugly situation and made it work. I liked Hiugaji's fighting spirit during the finish run, as Mashimo kept putting him down with high kicks and then standing by as Hiugaji fought slowly back to his feet. I wish Mashimo would have really put some extra mustard on the final couple kicks, but I liked the finish overall and dug what they did with the layout.

PAS: Mashimo was really great at throwing those thudding Hashimoto baseball bat wheel kicks to the stomach, and he hit a couple of nasty ones to the temple. I also dug his hooks to the ribs, I imagine Hiugaji had some really troubling urinations for the next week after this match. Hiugaji seemed a bit out of his element, I liked the german suplex, but that figure four was pretty embarrassing and he never delivered the heat he needed to, you got to hit a guy back if he is strafing you like that. It picked up at the ending, and got pretty fun, I agree with Eric if you are going to do a KO finish in FUTEN, you had really better come close to actually knocking your opponent unconscious, it's like doing a blood stoppage in lucha, that guy better need a transplant after the match.

Manabu Suruga vs. Makoto Hashi

ER: This was kind of a Futen version of a modern indy moves match, with more strikes trading than moves trading (but still some moves trading). Makoto Hashi is one of the weirder guys to come up through the AJPW system. He's a big lumpy boy with his waterbed body and hot dog lips and 1 minute haircut and hatred of foreheads, and he was always somehow the 4th man on the totem pole who also happened to headbutt people. Futen really gave him the chance to open up and unleash violence, and he really comes off like a total sadist. Here's a match where he busts his own head open by swinging it as hard as he can at Suruga's forehead, repeatedly. They abandon the matwork fairly early in the match, and things take an entirely different turn when Hashi dumps Suruga brutally with a Ki Krusher type driver. The long home stretch is these two smacking each other, and Suruga really throws some of the sharpest and fastest kicks, blasting Hashi in the chest and legs, really swinging. He also weirdly overworked his punches, like he was some Lance Storm type who was going to verbally take pride in throwing punches that don't crack an egg, and it's weird because he's doing it to a man who broke open his own head smashing it against things. Fucking PUNCH that dude in the face!! I liked a lot of the strike breakdown here, and loved Hashi's backfists, these hard awful fists pounding right into Suruga's neck. This all felt like a more interesting version of the current New Japan bomb fests.

PAS: Hashi in FUTEN was such a shooting star, he had 16 matches there, and we only have seen five (and there are some killer stuff we haven't seen, Hashi vs. Ikeda, vs. Mashimo teamed with Mashimo vs. Ikeda/Ishikawa, looking at FUTEN results is a form of masochism). He arrived in FUTEN after years of NOAH undercard stuff where he was only sporadically featured, and made himself right at home, driving his lumpen head violently into the faces of fellow wrestlers. Hashi headbutts are more violent looking then the headbutts that put Shibata into a coma, it is really hard to watch in the best way. Suruga is very competent and is a great B-Side for a Hashi geek show. He really whips kicks into the knee and it does a great job of slowing the match down and injecting some real danger into the match. Great stuff, the kind of thing FUTEN did regularly but would dominate 2019 MOTY posts if it happened today.

Daisuke Ikeda/Katsumi Usuda vs. Yuki Ishikawa/Takeshi Ono

ER: It's crazy that this tag (and this show) has been just sitting out there not being reviewed on this site. This is another classic battle of violence, divided into 3 Acts: Ikeda and Ishikawa torturing each other, Ono and Usuda torturing each other, and the super amusing Act 3 that is just Ikeda and Ishikawa breaking up nasty submissions. Ikeda and Ishikawa have the weirdest friendship in wrestling. I mean, I assume they are friends. Is it more weird if we find out they hate each other, or if they're best friends for life? I love their dynamic (strong opinion there), love how Ikeda looks absolutely unbeatable for long stretches, and how Ishikawa is the ultimate punching bag who can turn things on an instant. Ikeda and Ishikawa is never not a fun mess, and I love our later period match-ups between them; both have this beleaguered, tired intensity, doing the dance again, Ishikawa eating leg kicks and doing his insane strategy of eating two kicks to the chest only to catch the third, Ikeda getting his joints bent horribly by kneebars. But I was really excited for the Ono/Usuda portions of this, loved the cold Terminator precision from Ono. Ono locks on submissions quicker than maybe any man in wrestling history. The way he quickly sweeps Usuda's legs and a split second later had both of Usuda's arms wrapped tightly behind his back was a thing of beauty, and I don't think I've ever witnessed a faster or more efficient octopus hold applied by anybody. Usuda lingers for a second and suddenly Ono just has every single limb tied up and being stretched in a different direction. Both guys keep getting locked into nasty holds, Usuda tying up a few awesome figure 4 leglocks, the most shootstyle figure 4s you've seen, and our home stretch is an absolute blast of comedy and violence. Ono and Usuda are locked in eternal kneebar struggle, and Ishikawa keeps trying to knock Usuda loose while Ikeda is knocking Ono loose. Neither man wants to break, but the older guys force them to, except for the times that these savages just keep holding on and refusing to break. Ishikawa is dropping knees on Usuda's head, Ikeda is headbutting Ono, neither one wants to break, and it's great. We get moments of Ishikawa and Ikeda looking at each other while their wards are giving each other knee injuries for life, like "what more can we do here? We raised monsters!" It was the kind of tilt we don't usually get in these wars, and I thought it worked great.

PAS: This felt like a parejas match with normal partners Ikeda and Ono and Ishikawa and Usuda which was an interesting twist on this matchup. The main dance partners were still Ikeda vs. Ishikawa and Usuda vs. Ono and they were all some great dances. FUTEN tag matches usually build to these long one on one battles of attrition, surprisingly Ikeda vs. Ishikawa was used at the set up battle to the final stretch of Ono vs. Usuda. The Ikeda vs. Ishikawa sections were unsurprisingly stellar, with both guys hurling horrid abuse at the other. The final Usuda vs. Ono waltz was great too, a great mix of slick submissions and big KO shots. I loved their first exchange with Usuda trying for the Fujiwara Boston crab counter, and Ono just stomping him right in the head. Usuda was able to find openings to slip in and crank submissions, while Ono would throw them on with blistering speed. Ikeda and Ishikawa would just wander in and break submissions in the nastiest way possible, at one point Ikeda headbutts Ono right in the back of his head to break up a submission, Ishikawa is dropping shin bone to the nose kneedrops. It has to totally suck to lock on a submission in a FUTEN tag. Every one of these matches is a treasure.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA

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