Found Footage Friday: EXIT~!

Fugo Fugo Yumeji/Sanshu Tsubakichi vs. Munenori Sawa/Keita Yano EXIT 08/24/08

https://youtu.be/dCkb-5mpA7E?feature=shared

MD: Honestly, a match that defies words for the most part. Sanshu and Keita are in this, absolutely, and they are important to create a sense of normalcy and a baseline for things to push up against, but their mastery on the mat is completely overshadowed. This is about Fugo and Sawa being Fugo and Sawa, right? They throw hands, and then they throw heads, and then they throw hands again, and then they throw feet, and then it's back to the heads. I say hands because said hands are open and smashing directly against the skull and face of one another. Those come, more often and not from the ground and the kicks from a standing position and the heads fly from any position imaginable. 

They feel here like a perfect match, like an aligned pair, like each is the only one in the world that can complete the other. Granted, it also feels like if they were to touch for too long, it would set off a chain reaction and the entire world would explode. That sort of match. Fugo was all but unstoppable here, even from Sawa. There were two moments where he escalated matters into a suplex. After one, he held an advantage over Sawa so strong that the latter barely knew where he was, even as he kept coming in for more and kept giving more. And yes, Fugo was unstoppable as he captured Keita in a hold (after yet another headbutt) and Sawa kicked and kicked and kicked at him, the damndest kicks you'd ever see, and Fugo just held on until he got the tap. It's one of those matches that can't really be analyzed, only experienced. 

PAS: Fugo is such a malevolent force in EXIT, a grinning violence troll. Sawa was never my favorite BattlArts guy, a bit too flourishy for my taste, but anyone trained by Yuki Ishikawa can hang in this dungeon, and he just unloads with everything here, even his silly little skip kicks were full force to Fugo's torso. Fugo unleashed those disgusting headbutts and a keylock so violent you could almost see Yano's muscle tear. Exactly what you want from some guys in some chains. 

Toshiya Kurenai/Aki Shizuku vs. Ai/Kikujiro Umezawa EXIT 09/25/11

https://youtu.be/qNybdbDJmU8?feature=shared

MD: This match had the biggest pitfight feel out of the lot of them with the criss-crossed chains to express the barrier, the intergender aspect, the gloves on Ai. This is a little simplistic but until the final Ai/Aki exchange, this felt a little like rock/paper/scissors to me in the best way. Ai and Kurenai were the scissors, throwing kicks and evenly matched against one another. Then when Ai realized she was making no headway she tagged in Kikujiro and he was the rock, just absolutely streamrolling Kurenai with some of the best deadlift offense you'll ever see, just getting in close, throwing headbutts, and hefting him off the ground like he was absolutely helpless to stop it, no matter how skilled a fighter he was. Then Aki came in, pure paper, using holds and finesse to cover Kikujiro's large frame, outtechniquing him and stretching him in ways that should have been implausible to watch but that came off as absolutely believable. The opening few minutes of this felt like some of the most beautiful "different style" wrestling I've ever seen in that way. The last few felt like an absolute war between Aki and Ai as they went all out for even the slightest edge. 

PAS: Awesome match where I wasn't really familiar with anyone in it, and came away wanting to see more of everyone. Loved both women wrestlers who were throwing pure heat at each other with speed and force, it was like watching Lioness Asuka and Toshiya Yamada sped up without losing any of the pop Kikujiro was awesome just a golem, huge unmoving and violent, throwing these great looking deadweight suplexes hard on the concrete floor and smushing people with headbutts. This looks like the basement of container ship where the sailors made people they were human trafficking fight to the death, which is about the coolest wrestling atmosphere ever.  

Jota vs Kazuhiko Ogasawara EXIT 02/14/10

MD: This is a jaunt outside my comfort zone but one I'm glad to take.. Ogasawara is the master in a gi, older, calm, confident, at peace. At times he is in danger here but he is almost entirely unflappable. Jota is young, bald, a striker's striker who is able to get the absolute utmost torque on his holds. I didn't think this would last a minute honestly, because when Ogasawara got him down for the first time, the only word I could think of to describe the strikes he was laying into the leg, the side, any open area on Jota's body was "ground beef." That's what those strikes were doing to Jota. It was downright grisly.

But Jota either was able to lace limbs and joints together for a hold or get back to his feet and throw kicks. All it would take was one for Ogasawara to crumble but it had to be the right one and then he'd have to follow up, something that proved difficult. Mid match, he did got in a hold that trapped Ogasawara's head like a butterfly (we couldn't fully see what was going on with the arms from our angle) but he was able to get a break. Once back to his feet, Ogasawara broke his stoicism for the only time in the match letting out a yell and driving Jota back (almost from the sharp and sudden yell alone), but he was able to recover. The whole match there was the sense that Jota was doing everything in his power to contain Ogasawara, that one false step and he'd get crushed, but that he could win with one daring strike as well. When Ogasawara finally felled him with a swift kick, the one that would herald the beginning of the end no matter how many times Jota just barely managed to get up, it felt like a moral victory of sorts: Ogasawara's belt fell off. Symbolic as that might have been, it was ultimately futile, though the effort itself from Jota remains worth noting.

PAS: Big time Ogasawara fan from his Zero One days, and he is just a beast here, just pulverising Jota with every punch and kick, the shots to the body especially felt like they were powdering bone and pulping internal organs. I loved the first big Jota comeback as he hits an upkick, with Ogasawara doing this killer delayed sell. All of a sudden the kid had hope!! And he hits the vet with everything he had, only for Ogasawara to keep walking him down, until he finally puts him in deep freeze with several knockdowns. So awesome, so glad this existed and someone taped it.

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

Hideki Suzuki vs. Yu Iizuka

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

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


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

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

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


Super Tiger vs. Keita Yano

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Fuminori Abe vs. Takuya Nomura

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

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

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

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

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New Footage Friday:VILLANOS! ULTIMO! AMERICAN DRAGON! YANO!

Villano IV/V/Sanguinario vs. Ultimo Dragon/Pantera/Tineblas Jr.  AAA 9/8/96

MD: Nice trios match that got some time. Pantera was the standout from the tecnico side, with a long, very good, opening exchange with Villano IV (I think it was IV; for someone who writes on this site, I'm terrible at telling Villanos apart). I was very much ready to joke that there was no point in having Tinieblas, Jr. there if you weren't going to have Alushe but Sanguinario worked well with him, and not just in the stalling and being cowed by his superior size. Dragon, despite getting the focus moment at the end of the match, after the dives, and comporting himself well there with a few slick spots, was barely in the match otherwise. He got a nice pop whenever he showed up and got to show off with the corner handstand. I liked the moment of comeback, most especially Pantera charging the rudo corner after hitting a lucky move so that they couldn't immediately cut him off, but the beatdown needed a little more viciousness, maybe. Good stuff all around though.

American Dragon/Metal Master vs. Liverpool Lads 3/08

MD: More lost 80s heel Brian Danielson, this time with Collyer getting in on the act. I'm pretty certain that having a bunch of British kids chanting "cheat" at him for working southern tag antics was Danielson living a pro wrestling dream. There's one moment where he hits a roundhouse kick in the corner and immediately remembers he should be doing more conventional stomps instead. Lots of commitment to the act with some fun heel miscommunication spots. They have some nice cutoffs towards the end but instead of building to a hot tag, they go the fed-up-partner route instead, which is almost never as satisfying. Still, everyone played their role well and this reinforced what we saw of Danielson's range last time. No Rick Rude hip swivels but he did taunt the crowd with a USA chant at least.

PAS: Fun to watch Collyer and Danielson work like the Rock and Roll RPMs. They are full foils in this match, but very fun foils. I am mark for the spot where one guy gets whipped into the turnbuckle, and is saved by his partner, only to have the heel try the same thing and get clowned. Brookside is a guy with a lot of skill, Danielson thinks his best match ever was against him, but this is more of pop the crowd kind of match, and it fulfilled its purpose. 

Keita Yano vs. Taro Yamada Wallabee 6/24/12

MD: Nice (and relatively surprising) accomplishment here as they fill a lot of time, in a dojo type setting, with a fairly measured sense of escalation. My complaint about Yano's comedy 'rope-running' isn't that it exists but that it's not funnier. If they were going to break in that direction anyway, they should have made that break worthwhile by having big comedic payoffs. As it was, it felt more like lip service towards the idea of it but they weren't imaginative enough there or they thought it might have devalued the rest of the work/atmosphere, maybe. If you're going to break suspension of disbelief in the first place, make it worth it! Anyway, the rest of the match was full of imagination and struggle, with them tying one another up and stretching the hell out of each other in a very tit-for-tat manner. There were times where you got the sense that Yano especially was just twisting limbs this way or that to see what would stick but whenever it seems like it might work, you tended to believe it would.

SR: Damn great match, I imagine if Yano had never stunk up BattlARTS and instead was only known for doing weird technical matches while wearing his joker makeup and clown singlet in a tiny gym we’d all be Yano superfans. Taro Yamada is the last guy in Japan still holding up the T2P style matwork and one of the most underrated grapplers on the independent scene. This was 25 minutes of matwork that was like a great IWRG style title match. It was a mix of Yamadas llave holds with Yano going along and some cool RINGs-like leglock work thrown in, with both guys doing a great job escaping and transitioning between holds. Whole match felt fresh and competitive and never was like a derivative or weird LARP, these guys were trying to pop each others shoulders and/or ankles the whole time. There were one or two geeky moments where Yano did some “rope running” although it was more like a comedy spot with Yano hooting like an owl, and both these moments lead to cool spots, one where Yamada actually trips Keita with a drop down and another where Yano tricks Yamada into his special hold. There wasn’t some kind of story if you are into that but there were a few great nearfalls and I deeply respect these two for just grappling it out for 25 minutes without slowing down, and never throwing a strike or even a body slam, it was all submissions and funky cradle pins (especially loved Yamadas weird Delfin Clutch variation), just really tightly worked stuff that wouldn’t look out of place in a WoS or lucha title match. I did love Yanos dickish knee slide across Yamadas face and the moment where Yano had enough of the llave holds and challenged Yamada to an amateur match was really cool. Finish was great as well. Best Yano match I’ve seen by far and actively a great match, which is a major shocker. Yamada played a huge part too but I’ll be damned if Yano wasn’t feeling it that night. Apparently there have been a few matches between these two and I look forward to checking them all out but as it stands this is the best I’ve seen from Yano by a mile.

PAS: I am a real Yano skeptic, but it is hard not to enjoy this. You rarely see two guys just hit the mat like this, and this was a weird mix of shoot mat work and llave  Both guys found really interesting ways to twist and turn body parts, and with no ropes to break, they had to find a way out of all of the holds. I also thought the rope running was stupid, but it was my only complaint in a 20 minute plus Yano match. I loved the partier stuff near the end, I love when wrestlers challenge their opponent to amateur restarts, and both guys to interesting attack and defenses from that position. Feels like I need to dig a bit more into no ropes clown makeup Yano

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Fujiwara Family: Battle and Arts Pro Wrestling 2/11/20

Yoshihiro Horaguchi vs. Sho Karasuno

PAS: Karasuno kind of wrestles like an indy scum version of Masao Inoue, which is style I dig. A ineffectual schmuck who can goof his way to an advantage. He gets beat on at the beginning of the math including Horaguchi pushing him face first into the corner and tenderizing his kidneys with forearms. Karasuno is a able to get a bit of an advantage by chop blocking Horaguchi and does some fun leg work before falling to a deep boston crab. Nothing really shoot style about this, but a fun opener. 

SR: Very basic opening match. I’ve seen Yujiro Yamamoto carry Sho Karasuno to a good match working another micro indy called RAW, which runs shows with no ring and just a bunch of judo mats instead. Karasuno continued his Masao Inoueish streak in this match, doing some finger manipulation stuff, but also rubbing me the wrong way when he did some geeky stunners and DDTs to Horaguchis leg. Horaguchi worked over Karasunos back with some stuff shots indicating he may be entertaining even when not partnered with Yuki Ishikawa.

The Blue Shark/Baisen TAGAI vs. Superhuman Hero G Valion/Super Macho Monkey 

SR: The last BAP card we saw was a bit all over the place, I like how for this show they adapted a matchcard formula similar to late 90s IWA Japan shows on Samurai TV which is kind of my favourite japanese indy wrestling, starting with a basic match and building up through a series of fun undercard matches to a main event. This match was in the Takeshi Sato & Tortuga vs. Cosmo’Soldier & Akinori Tsukioka spot of a semi-shootish juniors tag. It wasn’t quite on that level but I had fun. Tagai was more annoying than Tortuga, as he kept shoehorning his comedy into the match, he seemed to be making fun of Zack Sabre Jr. style wrestling, which is a weird thing to do on a show main evented by Keita Yano who does serious Zack Sabre Jr. ripoff wrestling. Chojin Yusha G Valion is another maniac who came up from the SPWF dojo and started his own wrestling cult, he has annoyed me on the few SPWF Dojo shows that I’ve seen but he looked decent here and didn’t derail the match like I thought he would. 

PAS: I wasn't into this, there was some nice shooty exchanges between Shark and Valion early, and a couple moments later in the match, but I thought Tagai was crap here. Just shoehorning in lame comedy spots with Monkey, felt like a midwest indy bathroom break match. The moments of good were really out weighted by the bad. 

Yuu Yamagata vs. Anzu Chamu 

PAS: Yamagata is apparently 44? She has been wrestling 20 years? I have never heard that name, and I wouldn't claim to be a Joshi expert, but man there are a lot of random wrestlers in Japan. I gave this a couple of minutes, which was mostly bad forearms by Yamagata and posing by Chamu, ARSION this was not.

ER: Phil's description of why he skipped this match kind of made me interested in seeing this match. I don't think it was a good match, but I found Anzu Chamu charming and possessing genuine underdog relatability. Her offense was as weak as can be, but she looks like a pop star and I assume has several hundred weird Twitter accounts dedicated specifically to her. She's enough of a weenie that she draws actual sympathy, and I think if Yamagata had laid in a beating at a quicker pace this could have been good. Chamu was sympathetic enough that I'd probably feel too bad seeing her get annihilated by a monster, not sure I could celebrate an Aja Kong or Chigusa Nagayo style mauling the same. Her ineffectiveness had charm.  

Macho Pump/Nobutaka Moribe vs. Shigeyuki Kawahara/Takumi Sakurai

PAS: I gave this a chance, too. Pump and Moribe came in masked and in Rey Bucanero shirts and beat around Kawahara and Sakurai a bit. It felt like it went on forever though, without much of a pace difference. The undercard of this show hasn't been doing it for me.

9. Yuki Ishikawa vs. Raito Shimizu

SR: Great, great match that may have been even better than the Horaguchi match from the last show. On the previous show, I said Raito Shimizu showed some promise for this upcoming singles match. I’d say this match way overdelivered on that promise. This was just fantastic and way better than just “Yuki Ishikawa carrying a rookie”. Obviously Ishikawa magic was at play here, the man can do no wrong at this point, but Shimizu held up his end. He really held up his end both hitting the mat and showing personality. At any rate there’s no reason why a guy like Shimizu should be stuck in Z-level indy undercard matches after this. Shimizu is a big boy and this was built around Shimizu trying to even the match by throwing and slamming Ishikawa hard. Of course Ishikawa is 50 years old and beaten up so that made all the crowbar throws look even harder. And Ishikawa is great at coming up with counters to prevent the throws. Really dug Shimizu's selling as he would clutch his arm or neck after escaping from a submission to put over how bad he was torqued. Damn fine performance, and I hope this isn’t the last time Raito Shimizu is booked into a match like this. 

PAS: Man Yuki Ishikawa was a king in this. I have seen Ishikawa carry young guys a lot (much of 2010s BattlArts was Ishikawa carrying guys on this show), and this was one of the better of those matches. Shimuzu brought a ton to the table. He is this rawboned country strong kid who just tosses Ishikawa with big throws. Ishikawa is in his 50s and has a bad back and takes a bunch of really hard slams, each one really made me cringe. Shimuzu wasn't completely lost on the mat either, he uses his strength to power out of some submissions and locks on a nasty gator roll. Ishikawa is master, he constantly uses his grappling to counter the suplex attempts, sometimes locking stuff in mid-air, and absorbs throws to lock in Shimuzu when they both land. It is just a matter of time, if you don't take Ishikawa out, he is going to take you out and eventually locks on a hammerlock into a straight armbar for the tap. Ishikawa is putting together an all timer of a post 50 year old run, and I came away from this wanting to see more Shimuzu.

ER: You get a real sense that old, bad back Yuki Ishikawa could work a captivating match against me, so when he has someone with a cool set of skills it's a given that he's going to work something great. Shimizu is a guy who none of us have ever seen, who is built like a smaller Big Japan guy and is intent on trying to throw Ishikawa onto his head or twist his head off with a series of gator rolls. Ishikawa is a master at using his weight and leverage to attempt to block those throws, tangling Shimizu's legs on Karelin lifts and often turning them to his advantage. Shimizu's determination is really fun to watch, and the crowd picks up on that too. It's infectious watching a guy who is almost certainly over his head and has to know he's going to get tapped but doesn't know how, and the it's great hearing the crowd get behind Shimizu's mad charge into potentially getting ligaments torn. And Ishikawa is someone who will put cruel strain on your ligaments. 30 seconds into the match he is already digging his knee into the meat of Shimizu's calf as he passes guard, locks in a hard guillotine off another Shimizu lift, and has some nasty focused attacks on Shimizu's ankles. You want to harness your deadlift strength? Good luck with that, let me know how that goes when Ishikawa twists your foot backwards. I loved how active both men were, while not entirely neutralizing the other. There was a lot of movement and it always went somewhere, not just movement for the sake of it, and Shimizu really looked like someone who belonged. 

Manabu Hara/Keita Yano vs. Yujiro Yamamoto/Katsuo

SR: Fun indy main event tag built around the main matchup of Hara vs. Yamamoto. Those two had some slick U-Style exchanges early which really made me long for a straight shootstyle match between them. They are both a lot more beaten up than in their primes from 10 years ago, but they still had no problem throwing some surprisingly dangerous suplexes and really smacking each other. Yano, to my surprise, did not ruin the match. He was mostly kept out of it and his one brief run of offense consisted of some stretches which worked. I also enjoyed Katsuo once again as a crowbar trying to crack skulls. The finishing run was a bit of an indy run with shootstyle touches, so I dug it. The next BAP in 2021 is announced to have a Yamamoto/Hara main event, so let’s see if we can unlock that too. 

PAS: I thought this was a blast. It ticked some of the same boxes as the great FUTEN tags, although not at that exalted level. Hara and Yamamoto are the best of that second generation of BattlArts guys and they go after each other here, flying into aggressive grappling and winging big shots and suplexes. Yano still isn't for me, but he mostly stayed out of the way and had some cool Sabre Jr. style stretching submissions which actually worked against Yamamoto. Katsuo is a heck of discovery. 2020 wrestling needed a Takashi Ishikawa and he delivers the step too far clotheslines, forearms and headbutts you want out of crowbar. I didn't love the crowd brawling, and the restart confused me, but this built to a big crescendo and had some pretty high end moments. 

ER: This didn't really work for me. For a 25+ minute tag, it felt really meandering, and much of it never gelled as a tag match. A lot of this felt like a series of singles matches with no kind of tag flow, and Hara/Yamamoto was the only good singles match, all those exchanges were really good. Hara is definitely my favorite of the late BattlArts guys, and veteran Hara is cool in ways he wasn't in 2010. He has this narrowed aggression and confidence and can still surprise with speed. I liked the scrambling a lot and I like how they built up to Yamamoto coming in down the stretch and throwing him with a sick uranage (sent the ref scrambling out of the way) and some suplexes. But those spirited moments of Yamamoto and Hara kept getting slowed down by Keita Yano doing unconvincing exhibition holds. They never made sense, as Yamamoto - who worked fast, engaging, cool exchanges with Hara - is now suddenly powerless to defend against any hold Yano slowly put him in. Yamamoto had to lie there barely moving, suddenly unable to counter any slow motion World of Sport hold. The singles match combinations that weren't Hara vs. Yamamoto also felt like they each went on a bit too long, without really advancing, sometimes repeating sequences as if they were stalling for time. The sudden finish, restart, and then apparent time limit draw really didn't help things. I liked how Yamamoto got his big moment roaring back at the restart bell, but the ending wasn't satisfying for me. I'm excited for the Hara/Yamamoto singles that may exist, but this tag kept losing me.  

2020 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Fujiwara Family: Battle and Art Professional Wresting 10/22/19

PAS: The dream is still alive! We found a couple of Battle and Art Pro-wrestling shows which appears to be a Yujiro Yammamoto fed which uses the remnants of BattlArts guys still active.

SR: Battle And Arts Pro Wrestling, baby. BAP is not quite the Fighting Detective Team that was the original BattlARTs, but it is closer to the original than the Canadian Battle Arts offshoot in that this is indy wrestling with some shootstyle elements + Yuki Ishikawa singles matches. 

Manabu Hara/Takumi Sakurai vs. Raito Shimizu/Super Macho Monkey

SR:This was an opening match that was generally good when Manabu Hara was in the ring and I guess acceptable when Sakurai was tagged in. Sakurai works this like your typical indy worker who just does one thing after another in hopes of eliciting “yeah, that was a cool move” reactions, which is not really my thing at this point in my wrestling fandom. I liked the weird leg submission he busted out. Super Macho Monkey is a guy who sells supplements and while he has a good body and looks decent rolling on the mat with Hara, when he was doing standup sections he definitely felt like a hobbyist. Raito Shimizu is a stocky rookie who works low level indies like A-Team and Heat-Up, and he did show a bit more personality doing some power spots which gave me hope for his Yuki Ishikawa singles match on the next show.

PAS This was decent, Hara is still good and clearly a step above everyone else in this match, although I though the coolest thing in this match was Sakurai's rolling leg submission. Shimizu has a weird strong guy body, big chest but smallish arm, he had a couple of nice power spots including a move where he just powers his opponent from a powerslam position into a fireman's carry position. Inoffensive under card stuff which fulfilled it's role. 

Shuichiro Katsumura/Shiyo Karasawa/Toshiya Kawarai/Maori Kawashima vs. The Blue Shark/Koichi Takemura/Tatsuhiko Nakagawa/Josh O'Brien

SR:Promising 8 man tag looking at the guys involved. Takemura and Nakagawa are a couple middle aged guys in karate gis who don’t seem to have an extensive background in wrestling. There must have been dozens of middle aged karate guys like these who just decided to get in the ring working these Japanese scum indy shows and I always enjoy when I get to check them out. Blue Shark is Tiger Shark (lost the license to being a Tiger I guess) and Josh O’Brien is a US guy whom Cagematch lists as being trained by Tajiri and who has worked CAPTURE. On the other side you had a bunch of sleazy looking goons. Karatekas + Sayama trained guy + scum indy shooter vs. a bunch of Oriharaites would’ve been an awesome 90s Wrestle Yume Factory or Shin FMW semi main event but in 2020 as a second match on the card it suffered a bit from lack of energy and weird structure. There were some chinlocks early on that were definitely not necessary and they decided to have one of the scummy heels as a face in peril which was pretty weird. Katsumura is a case of a guy who looks good doing shootstyle matwork (he has a nice brief section with Blue Tiger here) but then he decides to work like a lowest of the low indy heels and he just becomes completely uninteresting. That said this was a lot of fun when guys were just kicking and punching each other, the eventual hot tag was surprisingly decently executed and I loved all the segments involving middle aged karatekas, Blue Tiger and O’Brien looked good filling time and I loved the fist drop finish.

PAS: I really dug this, semi-untrained guys in Gi's is right in my wrestling sweet spot (Complete and Accurate Kazuhiko Ogasawara coming in 2023!). I thought Blue Shark looked solid and one of the really fit looking guys on the other team (bear with me here) had really stiff kicks and a nasty double stomp. O'Brien is a guy I have never heard of, but had some fun power spots, and seems like a guy who should at least be getting spots at whatever Indy runs wherever he is from. Top rope fist drop finish ruled, what ever Gi guy threw it really landed it with no give at all, just punched the guy right between the eyes. 

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Yoshihiro Horaguchi

SR: This is what we bought this DVD for, and it did not disappoint. Yuki Ishikawa is the GOAT and draws the house everytime, but in fairness to Yoshihiro Horaguchi, who is some livelong indy undercarder, he did well for himself here. This was stupidly great and may have been better than any instance I’ve seen of Yuki Ishikawa trying to carry Keita Yano or even Munenori Sawa. Horaguchi just rushes in and pounces on the old man, he knows he has no chance outskilling Ishikawa so he goes for the punch-out landing big elbows on the ground  and thudding kicks and stomps. Meanwhile Ishikawa is mostly locking in great counters from his back here. It’s a kind of match Yuki Ishikawa has always been brilliant at, but this post-Canadian excursion and trained in BJJ Ishikawa is even better at it. Just one great sweep and submission counter after another. This felt less like shootstyle and more like to guys trying to kill each other in a phone booth, they were almost never letting up and when they weren’t grappling, they were trying to crack each others jaws and sometimes kidneys. Even though Horaguchis grappling was rudimentary, it all felt really intense thanks to the super close up camera work and he had no problem getting punched in the face by Yuki Ishikawa. Finish was this downright ridiculous sequence of attempted submission reversals strung into further submissions, it felt like something Negro Navarro would do.

PAS: This was fucking awesome, and exactly the kind of thing you organize funding drives to buy random scum indy Japanese shows for. I thought Horaguchi understood exactly who he was in with and what he needed to do. He comes forward with really stiffness and force, he can't out skill the master, but he might be able to overwhelm him. Ishikawa was like watching Demien Maya, he sits in the cut absorbing Horaguchi's big shots, and waiting for him to slip up. I loved the triangle that Horaguchi put on, and all of the different ways that Ishikawa moved to counter and reverse his way out of it. Finish was completely awesome with Ishikawa running through a gambit of different submission attacks with each Horaguchi counter ensnaring him deeper in the web before Ishikawa finishes him off with a hammerlock rear naked choke which was totally awesome looking. 

Mister Cacao/CHANGO vs. Nobutaka Moribe/Keita Yano 

SR:Mr. Cacao is a guy who is mostly notable for making masks, gear and sometimes uploading cool unseen CMLL Japan matches to his YouTube account. CHANGO is an Ultimo Dragon trainee who got lost in the shuffle. Moribe is an ex-Michinoku Pro guy. And Keita Yano has to be among the most deranged looking individuals in wrestling at this point. Union jack trunks, furrie boots, joker makeup, white button shirt, a towel around his neck and his face looking creepy and emaciated like a drug addict, I would be more comfortable with my daughter marrying any toothless redneck working US deathmatch shows over this dude. This was a lucharesu style match and while it was never gonna be as spectacular as the best matches in that style, it was surprisingly decent. Mr. Cacao must have tagged with legendary luchadores 500 times so he can do this kind of formulaic match, Chango was working hard and doing some cool shit, and Yano seems to have gotten somewhat decent at doing matwork since working with Negro Navarro. Yano still had to shoehorn some tape nerd spots into the match but it irritates me less when it happens in this kind of match than when he does it in a BattlARTS match. Still, they should’ve switched this to the 2nd match on the card and moved the tag with the karatekas up to semi-main event status.

PAS: I haven't really seen Yano since he was irritating me on BattlArts shows in 2009, but man he has really fallen on rough times, what a creeper. This was solid stuff without ever really advancing past that. Cacao is a pro and I am always going to have some fondness for him for money marking cool CMLL Japan shows. I liked CHANGO in this he had a couple of fun roll ups and moved with some pace. I felt like this was always about to hit a gear it never did, but it on the plus side of the ledger anyway.

Yujiro Yamamoto vs. Katsuo

SR: Katsuo is a Dragon System guy who used to be Cyber Kongcito. I assume he is Yamamoto's friend or owns the ring or something and that’s why he gets to be in the main event. Well, apparently he also works pretty high up the card at Hokuto Pro Wrestling (another indy that Hisakatsu Oya runs).  He was this stocky guy in a singlet and a weird hairdo, kind of like a parallel universe Fugofugo Yumeji. And just like Fugofugo he was game to have a nasty slugfest. This was Katsuo laying a brutal WAR sized beating on Yamamoto, big chops, crowbar lariats, jaw loosening elbows and open hand strikes, skull cracking headbutts, the whole deal. By the end of it Yamamatos chest was a nasty shade of red and his bell seemed seriously rung. This had some back and forth strike exchanges, which can get tiresome, but I thought the purpose was to showcase Katsuo as a tough monster as he kept shrugging off Yamamotos attacks, so I bought into them. Yamamoto was working this not really like a shootstylist and more like an indy wrestler with a shootstyle gimmick, which I don’t like as much, but he timed his comebacks well and cut Katsuo down with some precise strikes of his own. Very suitable main event and I would like to see more of this Katsuo now.

PAS: This owned. It wasn't a BattlArts throwback as much as it was a Zero One/WAR throwback. Katsuo is 9/10ths Kurisu in this match, laying a unhealthy beating on Yamamoto, eggplanting his chest with chops and drilling him with echoing headbutts and sick clotheslines to the meaty part of Yamamoto's neck. At one point he just traps Yujiro's arms and brain damages him with a clonking headbut. Yamamoto fired back with some shots of his own, but was mostly absorbing a big time ass whipping. I liked his final run, where he just lays out Katsuo with a whip kick to the jaw which felt like a payback for all of the spuds thrown his way. This is the kind of sick shit I really enjoy watching, wholly recommend. 

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BattlArts 1/17/10

Takeshi Takeshima v. Sanchu Tsubakichi

TKG: This is super short with Takeshima working amateur rolls and Tsubakichi fighting from below for subs. Fine mat exchanges but nothing that will make you forget RPW.

PAS: Yeah I liked this fine, but it was only about four minutes and had nothing that stood out

Bison TAGAI v. Akifumi Saito

TKG: WOW! This was super fun. Saito is turning out to be really good and does these real U-style like submissions right up against the ropes making the forced breaks and sub feel like a bigger deal. This also had a shockingly lot of cool things from TAGAI. He kept on going for headlocks into attempted throws (and never pulls it off till the throw that leads to finish), and he does a real neat turtle in par tier avoiding a lift thing earlier.

PAS: This was tremendous, it really felt like a fun first round of a WEC bantamweight match between two good Ju Jitsu guys, lots of counters and escapes done really fast. The rolling guillotine finish was Negro Navarro level awesome.

Yujiro Yamamoto v. Yoshinori Narita

TKG:I don't think I've seen Narita before but Yamamoto is a guy who is super at scrambling and Narita did an impressive job moving and avoiding that scramble. He gets a couple of takedowns and a bunch of neat attempts to get the back and some really nasty subs from the back. And they do an awesome spot where Narita is doing really cool butt scooting to avoid Yamamoto's attempts to grab hold of an extremity.

PAS:Another really fun match. Narita was especially impressive at moving between holds on the mat. He does this beautiful transition from a triangle to almost a crossface. Yamamoto is of course off the chain. The finish was tremendous with Narita on his back upkicking to avoid Yamamoto, Yamamoto does a spin, catches an ankle, locks up the other leg and twists Narita's foot off.

Keita Yano v Sanchu Tsubakichi

TKG: Keita Yano starts with a choke in the ropes and I was really worried hat we were going to get another Keita Yano "Ultimate Opportunist /Master of the B Rules Rules" match. And I have no desire to try to figure that stuff out. Instead they do about 6 minutes of mat work with a couple of rope breaks at start. Nothing bad, you always got the sense that the two were trying for finishes (not just time killing) and the actual finish was neat.

PAS: Yeah this is two perfectly acceptable Keita Yano matches in a row. This didn't have the highs of the previous two matches, but didn't have any Keita Yano lows either. I am enjoying this tourney a lot more this year, as they haven't been focused on the stupid rules.

Bison TAGAI v. Yujiro Yamamoto

TKG: This was a TAGAI power v Yamamoto scramble type matchup. Tagai has some cool bowling a guy into a takedown stuff and some cool power stuff including a giant swing into a leg lock, and Yamamoto is always good at working from below. This was probably the longest of the matches thus far and it felt like they were really building up to something. Again another neat finish.

PAS: This is the matchup I wanted to see coming out of the first round, and it didn't disappoint. The finish was really good, I liked how Yamamoto was able to use his leverage to negate some Tagai's power and sink in the triangle.

Yuki Ishikawa/Alexander Otsuka v. Tiger Shark/Super Tiger II

PAS: Not really the match I wanted to see, but a really good match nonetheless. Ishikawa and Otsuka are kind of the BattlArts Megapowers, but the work most of the match selling a beating from the Tigers. Both Ishikawa and Otsuka are really great at selling beatings, timing comebacks, throwing in little shots, evoking sympathy. Still this is BattlArts and if these guys are going to sell a big beating, the beating better be bigger. The Tigers need to bring it, and for the most part they didn't. Still they built to hot tag really well, and we had a pretty hot finish, with Otsuka dumping Tiger Shark on his neck.

TKG: Phil pretty much covers this. I kind of want to see Ishikawa and Otsuka working from above but they are guys who are awesome working from below. For old vets vs younger athletic opponents. I would like some of that athleticism to look like it hurts. Still if you close one eye and just watch the vet's selling this is pretty awesome. Both Otsuka and Ishikawa are really awesome at throwing in hope spots when working from below that ar just absolutely nasty. At one pint Tiger Shark is in the mount throwing hands and Ishikawa just jets a punch upward that made you go "Holy shit". I kind of expected it to be followed up with a rolling tag.

Keita Yano v. Yujiro Yamamoto

TKG: This does have a weird B rules finish but could be enjoyed without any understanding of the rules. Yano continues to be unobjectionable and Yamamoto is able to deliver the fire to keep you interested. And they pretty much keep this moving. No real stoppages, just both guys countering and moving around the ring till they get to a finish.

PAS: Yeah the workrate in this match was impressive, a mat sprint with a pair of athletic guys moving a million miles an hour, constantly trying to grab arms, legs and necks. I wasn't paying attention to the rope breaks, so I didn't understand why the rope break didn't count, it was still a cool finish. Really enjoyable show, for something I wasn't looking forward too.

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BattlArts 12/6/09

Katsumi Usuda v. Akifumi Saito

TKG: Appaently Usuda’s entrance music is T Rex’s “20th Century Boy” and well there was nothing glam about this match. Just two guys really kicking the shit out of each other. Usuda kicks the shit out of Saito’s arm, and Saito goes to kick the shit out of Usuda’s arm. They do submissions to close to the ropes and Usuda wins with a absolutely nasy submission in the center of the ring. Move like a cat. Talk like a rat. Sting like a bee, baby I wanna be your man.

PAS: This is the second time we have seen Saito this year in BattlArts and he has been really impressive both times. Usuda can be such a wrecking ball that it takes a lot to look credible in a slug fest with him. This had everything you want from a BattlArts undercard match, cool tight matwork and reversals, nasty kicks and punches and multiple moments where you audible curse because of the violence.

Keita Yano v. Takeshi Takeshimi

TKG: What bizzaro world am I living in where I watch a god Nova match and a good Yano match in the same night. This is Keita Yano vs. a rookie which is something I was dreading but really there was nothing at all objectionable here. Takeshimi has some cauliflowred ears and I assume he has a wrestling background as he rolls and turns on the mat really well. He throws some nice elbows and semi-European uppercut like strikes. And Yano does nothing at all objectionable and actively contributes lots of good to this match. He ends the match with Danielson style elbows to the face into a really cool chickenwing. We see the elbows to the face from the back so we don’t get a real sense of the impact. But normally when Yano does Danielson spot it feels like a spot “Hey I’m doing a spot for pops”, here everything he did felt like it worked into telling the story of the match.

PAS: I would have never expected Yano to be able to carry anyone, but not only did he look tolerable here, he was clearly leading this dance. I kept waiting for him to do something stupid, he never did. I kept waiting for him to jack a PWG move, he never did. I kept waiting for him to throw sissy strikes, and not only did he never do that but he actually jaw jacked Takeshimi a couple of times. I really liked all of Takeshimi’s simple wrestling mat work, but Yano was leading here to, doing a bunch of nifty elbow and arm twists, leading to the really nasty finishing arm lock. Shockingly good match.

Munenori Sawa/Bison Tagai v. Ryuji Walter/Yoshinori Narita

TKG: This is a pretty fun undercard Battlarts tag. Ryuji Walter and Bison Tagai have some surprisingly fun two thick guys heavyweight matwork and Ryuji Walters absolutely wastes Sawa with punches and lariats. I don’t know Yoshinori Narita is but he’s mostly doing kickboxing gimmick with simple sub attempts and most of his kickboxing was guy swinging wildly. But Sawa just murders him. They do a section where Sawa bobs and weaves ducking all of Narita’s strikes and then tagging Narita at will. And at another point Sawa just grabs Narita’s head and cocobutts him full force.

PAS: You rarely see WALTER out crowbarred in a match, but man was Sawa laying a nasty beating on Narita. His mouth was busted, that coco butt looked like it crosseyed him, just a nasty unnecessary asskicking. Walter did his part though, as he cracked Sawa and Tagai with some big punches and lariats. Not great execution, but all of the sweet violence you want from a BattlArts match.

Yujiro Yamamoto v. Sanchu Tsubakichi

TKG: I don’t think we’ve had good things to say about Tsubakichi in the past. But Yamamoto is a guy who will make epic matches. This starts with a lot of Tsubakichi beating on Yamamoto. And Yamamoto is great as guy coming back from below: great as guy selling fighting to stay on his feet and great as a guy hunched over (after a beating) grabbing a leg. He can just destroy a leg in a minute. Tsubakichi does a neat job briefly selling that he was struggling to support himself on his knee. You do that and Yamamoto will go in for a kill. Tsubakichi does get a hold of Yamamoto’s arm and they a couple of really nice U style rope break near falls before Yamamoto can escape and come back from below again.

PAS: Yammamoto is the absolute truth, Tsubakichi is not only a guy who has never shown any spark before, but also a guy coming back from an injury, and Yamamoto carries him to one of the best BattlArts matches of the year. Lots of dramatic stops and starts, it starts with Tsubakichi jumping him at the bell, but evens out until he absolutlely spikes Yamamoto with a uranage, it slows again just to build to another dramatic moment. Just great pacing.

Super Tiger II/Tiger Shark v. Yuki Ishikawa/Yuta Yoshikawa

TKG: This was super disappointing. Ishikawa was great in his little sections working the mat against either of the Tigers, had nice standing technical exchanges and was cool as tag guy coming in to save partner. But this really felt like a collection of moments and not really a tag match. There are points where the Tigers are double teaming on Yoshikawa and you get the sense that he is supposed to be junior partner working in peril. But the Tigers really aren’t beating him hard. I mean he may have taken one of the least beatings of anyone on the show and Yoshikawa was kind of selling it like that was the case. I can’t get amped up for Ishikwa making a save when it feels like that save was unnecessary.

PAS: Ishikawa is coming back from an injury due to Super Tiger II, but he never really felt like a guy who wanted revenge. There is brutality, intensity and fire up and down this card, but I didn’t feel it here at all. Nothing engaging about this in the least. Worst match on the show, which is a shocking thing to say about a Yuji Ishikawa match.

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BattlArts 9/6/09

This is the finals of the B1 tourney which was kind of mixed bag overall

Yuki Ishikawa v. Keita Yano

PAS: Match had it's moments of the sublime and the ridiculous. Ishikawa is pretty great as we know, and he lays in the punches and does some really nasty stretching of Yano. Yano does some cool stuff here, I liked his neck crank where he links his hands behind his back, and he hit some nice knees, but fuck when he is bad he is bad. At one point he does a horrible looking Bryan Danielson MMA elbows tribute and follows it with a double springboard Chris Sabin thigh slap dropkick. Ishikawa should ban US Indy torrents from the BattlArts dojo ASAP.

TKG: This was a fine match despite Yano's stuff. Normally when you have a good mach with Yano, it is about opponent keeping Yano's stuff to minimum. Here Yano just gets to do one egregiously bad looking thing after another. Yet Ishikawa has enough stuff to fill a match around it that you leave satisfied. On some level I guess I don't mind a match with a lot of stupid bad looking shit when the story is "here is a guy beating someone who does a lot of stupid bad looking shit".

Bison TAGAI v Muenenori Sawa

TKG: I actively enjoyed the body of this as they do a nice job of working a "guy with speed vs. guy with bulk" story despite Sawa not being a guy who I think of as being particularly quick and TAGAI's not a guy I think of as being particularly bulky, And then it falls apart in the last two minutes of the thirteen minute match. The whole end run is built around Sawa's more goofy stuff, none of which are executed well here. I do mind it when the stupid bad looking stuff wins the match.

PAS: Sawa is a guy who's basic stuff looks pretty good, and he can be carried to a very good match if you keep his poor instincts in check. TAGAI is a guy who can't do anything complicated, but is perfectly fine doing basic stuff. When this was basic it was pretty good, but Sawa needed to get his stuff in, and his stuff kind of sucks.

Yuta Yoshikawa v. Ryuji WALTERS

TKG: This was pretty fun. WALTERS is a guy who actually is bulky and early on WALTERS just stampedes Yoshikawa out of the ring. Both do some fine mat work with long side headlockish control stuff. They move into an almost "your turn my turn" run that is saved by how much I actively enjoyed the reversals and it ends with just a spectacular step over toe hold. Yoshikawa is a guy who I think of as hit and miss and WALTERS is a guy who is always fun as a crowbar but not completely sold on him, and the two have the best wrestling match on the show thus far.

PAS: This was really good stuff. I think WALTERS has really become a solid all around wrestler. He wasn't just potatoing Yoshikawa he also sold really well and worked the mat solidly. WALTERS final run of offense was really brutal, Pain Game into a released vertical suplex and the cranking and pulling on the step over toe hold was great.

There was a worked San Sho match which lasted about two minutes. The winner gives a long speech after, and I am without context

Katsumi Usuda/Kysouke Sasaki v. Satoshi Kajiwara/Yujiro Yamamoto

TKG: I've liked the Usuda/Sasaki team before. Sasaki can be kind of dickish with a couple amusing bucking moves and it compliments Usuda well. Sasaki is an ex U-Style guy, and Kajiwara is a Toyumon guy and the two match up weirdly well with a bunch of neat exchanges including a nasty high knee catch of spear. Sasaki and Yammamoto also have pretty good mat exchanges although there are moments where Sasaki looks a step off. This never hit high end Battlarts tag territory but everyone matched up well and these are teams I would like to see more of.

PAS: This was pretty solid stuff, Yammamoto is by far the best of the young guys and has really good chemistry with Usuda. I also though Kajiwara fit in really well with everyone, the finish run with Usuda was great as Kajiwara busts out all of his offense with a ton of intensity only to see Usuda counter a kneebar with a nasty looking crotch stretch for the submission. It really felt Fujiwaraish how he came out of nowhere to steal the win.

Yuki Ishikawa v. Super Tiger II

TKG: Super Tiger appears to bust Ishikawa's eye in about the first 45 seconds of this. They work some cool mat stuff, I especially liked the Ishikawa chops to SuperTiger's kidneys to escape a hold. This had a real Fujiwara feel to it for long chunks as Ishikawa is blind guy absorbing punishment hoping for an opening to exploit. But he becomes blind 45 seconds in, so it never really felt like their was a build to Fujiwara end run it was just that end run as 7 minute match.

PAS: I thought this was a couple of pretty good performances which didn't add up to great match. Tiger was really vicious laying into Ishikawa with Ishikawa being really defensive and back peddling. Ishikawa is so great as gutsy guy who is willing to die on his sword, and Tiger throws some nasty kicks. Still he is definitely hampered by the orbital bone break. If Tiger broke his face 8 minutes in, instead of 90 seconds in this might have been a MOTYC.

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BattlArts 8/03/09 - Show 2

Alexander Otsuka/Bison Tagai vs. Ryuji Walter/Satoshi Kajiwara

TKG: Ryuji Walter is a guy who I enjoy doing standup, but for the most part he was doing matwork here. Really undynamic matworker. There were a couple moments where Kajiwara looked like he was anticipating spots too early but for the most part I dug his sections with Tagai. This match was kind of just there and never kicked in to a second gear.

PAS: I thought as usual Otsuka was the highlight, pretty by the numbers performance by him, but he is a top five guy in the world, so his numbers are pretty high. There was an especially cool moment where he backs Kajiwara into the corner and forearms him in the kidneys, and his delayed german suplex is one of the best moves in wrestling.

Tiger Shark v. Keita Yano

TKG: In the morning show Keita Yano was able to pull off a decent inoffensive work the arm strategy. Here he tries to work the back and it is painfully ugly. Ole could work a match around working an arm or work a match around working the back. Yano really can only pull off the arm stuff, not as multifaceted as Ole. I mean everything Yano did looked crappy and awkward. And this was a match built around him controlling. Yucky.

PAS: Yeah this was all of the worst aspects of Yano, I could imagine this match worked hold for hold on the undercard of an EVOLVE show and getting good reviews by indy wrestling fans, but this was a pile of shit. It did have an awesome finish, with Shark hitting a nasty kick from his back, KO Yano right into a omaplata. Still the first 9 minutes of this 9:12 match sucked.

Yujiro Yamamoto v. Super Tiger

PAS: Spectacular match, add this to his match earlier in the day, and Yammamoto pretty much cements himself as one of the greatest wrestlers in the world. Whole match is built around Tiger being this nasty brusier punishing Yammamoto with kicks and punches, and really using his strength to control parts of the matwork. Meanwhile Yammamoto is using his speed and technique to pull off some amazing looking reversals and counters.

TKG: Yeah holy fuck this was amazing. Yamamoto is awesome at selling a beating just splaying and fighting back weakened. There is a point where he sells a kick to the chest while Super Tiger II does a bunch of weak looking spots, and he really gets over the idea that the wind from the kick made al the other stuff worse. He sells a Super Tiger awkward elbow drop as though his neck is really fucked…which makes the follow up tease of a german super tense. He is also a guy with tons of really intricate ways to get in reversals and change momentum. There is an awesome reverse kick at one point and a ton of heel hooks that are just really dramatic.

Yuki Ishikawa v. Yuta Yoshikawa

TKG: Yuki Ishikawa aged 15 years since his morning match. He looked like current Great Kabuki. This was really great Ishikawa performance. This was less Ishikawa standup and more him as superstar on the mat.Yoshikawa is doing a move and hit deal where he’s trying to avoid getting caught on the mat for any length. Ishikawa suddenly looking geriatric kind of makes Yoshikawa’s strikes seem more vicious.

PAS: Ishikawa did look awesome here. Yoshikawa really needed to bring the pain more for the amount of selling Ishikawa did. It was really awesome selling though. Finish was sweet with Ishikawa eating knees to the head, and grabbing a really great armbar for the desperation submission. Don’t really understand why he needed a desperation submission, but it was a cool moment.

Katsumi Usuda v. Munenori Sawa

PAS: Pretty disappointing. Usuda has had a monster year, but he couldn’t do anything here. Individually cool stuff, but Sawa was indulging his worst impulses. There was a moment in the corner where he unleashed this totally corny punch combo, totally took me out of the violence. Really nasty leglock finish, but the worst Usuda match of the year.

TKG: Apparently Sawa and Usuda are on the same tier or at least they are working this as though the two are really even. I almost expected a two count roll up exchange. This wasn’t good.

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BattlArts 8/03/09 - Show 1

PAS: This is the first of two shows they ran that day in the B1 Climax

Alexander Otsuka/Bison Tagai v. Satoshi Kajiwara/ Yuki Ishikawa

PAS: Kajiwara is a Toryuman Mexico guy I have seen work Negro Navarro before, I am not the biggest fan of Ultimo Trainees, but if you can semi hang with Negro Navarro doing lucha exchanges and semi hang with Yuki Ishikawa doing shoot matwork you might have some promise. Tagai can look flat out awful at points, but here he mostly looked fine, and the Tagai v. Kajiwara section, which you would expect to stink, kind of didn’t. Otsuka and Ishikawa were Otsuka and Ishikawa, there was an especially awesome exchange which ended with Ishikawa landing a nasty sliding enzigiri. One of the better BattlArts tags of the year.

TKG: TAGAI is super hit and miss. Here he was hit for the most part, as even when he was grabbing for nonsensical stuff he did it with purpose. There were a couple of weak moments in the Tagai v Kajiwara sections but for the most part those were fun. Ishikawa was a real blast here and came off really charismatic. I especially liked one of his rope breaks when he forced opponent to give up hold and then immediately latched on to him. Otsuka was doing more Mafia kicks than I remember him ever doing before. Lots of straight forward kicks, not really nasty stiff kicks but more like hard shoves.

Tiger Shark v. Ryuji Walter

TKG: I had no idea what to expect going into this match. I kind of like both guys but am unsold on either being able to really put something good together by themselves. This was kind of fine, sometimes the Tigershark highspots felt like they weren’t paced well and this fell out of Battlarts and into being a real standard indy match for big chunks. This wouldn’t have looked out of place on a Futen undercard and is as good as the best stuff on the Futen undercard we saw. But I wantd a Battlarts match.

PAS: Right before this match I made the comment “Ryuji WALTER may not be a great wrestler, but you always want to see him, because you know he will punch someone brutally in the face.” I must have jinxed the match, as they have a perfectly fine under ten minute match which does not feature any violent face punching. I liked this okay, but it is not what I wanted to see.

Super Tiger II v. Katsumi Usuda

TKG: This was made by Usuda’s sell of the finish run. The fatigue sell of locking in and holding onto that near fall ankle lock after Tiger gets the break really makes the next couple of minutes. As exciting an end run as you’re going to get.

PAS: This is another tremendous Usuda performance, I am unsure how we are going to rank the Super Tiger II and Tiger Shark on the SC 500, as they have both been in very good matches where they were clearly carried by great wrestlers. We will have to see how this tourney shakes out. This was a match made by Usuda’s selling, he does an amazing job putting over Tigers kicks, finish run was about as good a last two minutes as anything I have seen this year. Tiger is killing with big kicks, and Usuda is able to catch the kick for an awesome near fall ankle lock, before finally getting knocked all the way out of the ring where he can’t answer a 10 count.

Keita Yano v. Yuta Yoshikawa

TKG: Did Yano get a hold of a PWG tape with a Disco Machine v Hook Bombery main event? I was actively dreading this match up and for the most part they avoided living down to my expectations. Worked a pretty simple Yano works the arm, Yoshikawa fires back with kicks storyline. Nothing too complex. Yoshikawa hits really hard kicks and does a really great job with the arm selling. Yano doesn’t fuck much up as the arm work keeps him from getting too elaborate. You keep on waiting for the match to derail but the simple story keeps it from falling apart. Then they do a neat nearfall play off the last match and then all bets are off and they try for an extra six minutes of rope running exchanges or something. It just falls off. I was shocked that they had a solid 11 minutes in them, but they should have ended at 11.

PAS: Yeah if this match had ended right after Yano gets knocked to the floor it would have been close to a miracle match, but man does it go to shit soon after. They had a good 9 minute match and then went another 9, this was less Hook Bombery v. Disco Machine, then a current PWG big main event (has Davey Richards wrestled Chuck Taylor?) in that it had no sense of timing, it just kept going and going, finishes weren't finishes, near falls were the same for weak shit and cool shit. They do lots of simple cool arm work and then Yano says fuck it and starts doing shitty top rope dropkicks on the elbow, a terrible looking rebound lariat and jacks a Danielson finish. While there was plenty of blame to go around for their first match, I thought Yoshikawa was pretty good here. I am dropping this at Yano’s doorstep.

Munenori Sawa v. Yujiro Yamamoto

TK: Holy fuck is Yujiro Yamamoto amazing. I mean Sawa didn’t do a ton in the early sections where he was working from below, and his offense here was limited to his signature dragon screws, superman punches, an octopus and a shinning wizard. These are spots that I’ve seen look really mediocre. But Yamamoto made all that work. He eats the fuck out of the dragon screws and makes you buy them as really game changers. And when Yamamoto is working from above he is just destroying Sawa.

PAS: I really liked the way this was paced, they built nicely from the opening matwork, which was pretty slick, to some totally badass standing exchanges. They were just popping each other in the mouth with rude slaps. There was also tons of shitalking, both guys yelling at each other as they went at it. Really ended up a total fight. This was a damn good card with pretty much everything except the last 10 minutes of the Yano match being good.

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BattlArts 7/26/09

BISON TAGAI v. Super Tiger II

PAS: Tagai is pretty terrible, and Tiger is very hit and miss. There is two or three kind of cool things in this match. I liked how TAGAI tauntingly went for a Tiger suplex and got met with a nasty mule kick, but still this was four minutes and it didn’t feel like he had four minutes in him.

TKG: TAGAI just kicks the shit out of Tiger’s shin early in the match, and Tiger hits a nice mule kick but lots of this was just sloppy. Huge parts were entertaining stiff trainwreck sloppy. Unfortunately those parts were broken up with really dull standing sloppy punch exchanges. And then there were Super Tiger’s embarrassing senton-leg drops. This was the worst Super Tiger II has looked,

Keita Yano v. Ryuji Walter

TKG: I didn’t expect Walters to sell this much. But Yano exposes Walters’ ankle and Walters spends whole match struggling with it. Walters beats the fuck out of Yano and I think as a result Yano is forced to throw better than usual uppercuts. Either Yano does a spectacular job selling guy knocked the fuck out or Walters legit knocked him into laying fetal and instinctively cupping what was left of his own manhood.

PAS: This match may have redeemed Yano a bit for me. I was just hoping for Walters to beat him hideously, and we certainly got that, but there was more to the match. Yano cut down on his fake PWG offense and focused on working over Walters leg, including some pretty good looking submissions. When it was Walters turn to fire back, he fucking fired back throwing some jaw jackers, Yano looked like Jermain Taylor at the finish.

Katsumi Usuda v. Yujiro Yamamoto

PAS: Really great match. Really had sort of unique feel. Both guys fought kind of tentatively, with neither guy wanting to make a mistake. There was also a chippyness with both guys kind of throwing shots on the break and waiting a beat to release submissions. They were also both kind of throwing these Nick Diaz style punches, a couple of range finder weak shots and then a hard shot. It felt like it was building to a more epic finish then it had, but I really enjoyed it.

TKG: I’m used to seeing Yammamoto work underdog v veteran. Here instead when they weren’t working even they seemed to be working sections of Yammamoto as athletic youngster v cagey less athletic veteran. Usuda went for a bunch of short cut chokes , hair pulls etc. and worked lots of guy overwhelmed by opponents athleticism stuff. Usuda as guy outgunned working to slip something in was neat and I’m not a guy who needs a 2.9 finisher run but like Phil said this felt to me like it needed a couple more minutes.

Yuki Ishikawa v. Tiger Shark

PAS: This was a Fujiwara student and a Sayama student doing a really great version of Fujiwara vs. Sayama. Much like those matches you have the crafty veteran maestro trying to catch and stretch the freak athlete kickboxer. It was a great match in 1985 and it is pretty great 25 years later. Ishikawa is awesome here, he carries the match, leaning into Sharks kick, throwing lots of little cheap shots and smirks. The armlock he finishes him with is awesome, you can see him shift, set it up, twist and crank. Beautiful stuff and my working BattlArts match of the year.

TKG: BattlArts match of year? It didn’t have the epic feel to it that parts of Ryuji Walters v Ishikawa achieved. And I don’t know if I ever fully bought the danger of the freak athlete kickboxer. I mean I dug Tiger Shark a bunch here and he is clearly the better of the Sayama trained Tigers. But I never bought him as being so nasty and dangerous that Ishikawa needed his cunning to defeat him. It wasn’t Fujiwara v Sayama. Still this was really good and this is two really high end matches in a row with one pretty fun match before those---and this has become the best BattArts show of 2009.

PAS: I agree that Shark doesn’t deliver the kind of horrific beating Sayama laid in (or Watlers did in the Ishikawa v. Walter match), but he certainly dominated the stand up, knocking Ishikawa down multiple times with some cool looking kicks. Outside of some tricky shots, Ishikawa really has no answer on his feet. This really is one of the most Fujiwaraish Ishikawa performances ever, which may be why I dug it so much. There is moment where Ishikawa gets smacked with a spin kick, which he sells like death, he gets up at seven, and does this really great waving off of the ref, like he was saying “Fuck it I can take this punk”

TKG: Yes I probably was underselling this match to combat Phil overselling it. And this is a pretty great Ishikawa performance as he does sell the fuck out of Tiger Shark's stuff and there are a bunch of neat exchanges and spots. Still I think this match felt more like the story of a great dramatic Sirus v Adam challenge then a Fujiwara v Sayama matchup.

Kyosuke Sasaki/Alexander Otsuka v. Yuta Yoshikawa/Muenori Sawa

TKG: This was odd. Kind of really middling match. I remember liking the Sasaki/Usuda ass kicking tag team. Sasaki/Otsuka work very differently together. They kind of work like Hamada/ Shinsaki v Kaeintai. As Otsuka works guy being disrespected and kicked in the balls a bunch while Sasaki works charismatic guy with over spots. Their was lots of comedy spots and the fast elaborate hand speed exchanges between Sasaki and Sawa might have been more entertaining on a regular indy show but felt really weak and b.s. in the context of this show.

PAS: Yeah this felt like a DDT tag rather then a BattlArts tag. Otsuka has been kind of AWOL in 2009 and I was really looking forward to seeing him, but he doesn’t do much. No real violence, some lame comedy spots. Not what I want to see.

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BattlArts 7/5/09

Katsumi Usuda & Kyosuke Sasaki vs. Keita Yano & Satoshi Kajiwara

TKG: Sasaki is a guy who was getting a big push in U style and haven’t seen for years. He looked fine here in this more pro style environment. It’s hard to really gauge as he didn’t do a ton of matwork and tagged with Usuda he’s going to look secondary. Kajiwara may have some potential and Yano is still awful. Yano is a guy who clearly watches a bunch of US indy tapes and poorly imitates it.

PAS: US Indy wrestling used to be dudes poorly imitating Japanese puroresu, and now we have puro guys poorly imitating ROH guys, the World is truly Flat. I don’t know what was worse Yano’s Nigel rebound lariat or his Danieslon MMA elbows, but Yano is the single shittiest wrestler showing up on tape. This is the real problem with current BattlArts v. 90’s BattlArts, pretty much everyone in the 90’s was at least carryable, current BattlArts still has awesome guys, but some of the younger guys can just drag a match into the toilet. Usuda looked good in his sections, but he got this completely ridiculous tan, it looked like he was working a Khmer Rouge gimmick.

B-1 Climax - Block B: Yujiro Yamamoto vs. Baisen TAGAI

TKG: Yamamoto is pretty awesome, does a really awesome job selling for TAGAI’s shitty offense. Sells arm well early on, eats an awful corner lariat and makes it work, etc. He’s also got really frantic nice comeback offense where even when stuff missed it came off reckless. Unfortunately he works the match from below and TAGAI is a guy who needs to stick to tags.

PAS: Yamamoto is great, and it is a pleasure to watch him work anyone, but TAGAI really is a load. I haven’t minded him in some of the tag matches I have seen him in, but he looked pretty untrained here. I like that they are using Sasaki, but they need to grab so more ex U-Style guys to fill out these undercards.

B-1 Climax - Block A: Yuta Yoshikawa vs. Tiger Shark

PAS: This was perfectly okay although I didn’t really get much of a BattlArts feel from it. Felt like the third best match on a DDT show. Both guys did some okay kick exchanges, but this isn’t a trained monkey show, lay it in.

TKG: This was an indy match. Tiger Shark hits a really nice diving headbutt. And all the mat work and strikes in this felt like the kind of indy matwork and strikes that is used as filler to build up to dive train. Are Johnny Storm and Jody Fleish still showing up in So Cal indies once a year? They could steal this match as filler before dive train and people would dig it. But this was indy match filler.

B-1 Climax - Block A: Yuki Ishikawa vs. Ryuji Walter

TKG: Ryuji Walter is an entertaining crowbar. As powerhouse guy opposite Ishikawa he sells more than Sekimoto. But I see a guy who is going to punch Ishikawa in the face I want to see Ishikawa punch back. I love toe to toe Ishikawa. Ishikawa as underdog valiantly and smartly fighting back against powerhouse is fun but isn’t as awesome as toe to toe Ishikawa. Still Walter is nasty as fuck and Ishikawa looks tough eating and fighting off his stuff. Feels like a match I’ll dig a lot more on rewatch.

PAS: Ishikawa is a guy who grew up idolizing Inoki and this is the most Inokish performance I have ever seen out of him. Walter was in the Hansen/Brody/Vader mode of dominating monster, and Ishikawa was the veteran legend who was going to take a beating, but was going to use his guile and toughness to pull out the victory. I still don't have much of a sense of Walter as a wrestler, but fuck is he stiff, during the first flurry out of the ring he slams Ishikawa with a straight right hand which landed right on the upper part of the jaw. By the way Ishikawa's mouth was swelling it wouldn't shock me if he broke his cheekbone. There was also an in ring right hand for a near fall which had both of us yelling "Holy fuck." Still I loved how Ishikawa weathered the storm and had Walter on the ropes, with a bell saving him from tapping.

B-1 Climax - Block B: Super Tiger II vs. Munenori Sawa

PAS: This was shockingly good, I think it might have been better then previous match, which is never something I would have guessed before hand. This is by far the best STII has looked, he had been carried to some good stuff previously, but it looked like he had it figured it out here. The matwork at the beginning was solid stuff, but it really got good when they stood up. Lots of really nice exchanges, there was one section where both guys stood in front of each other exchanging sick body shots, it is a drill I used to do in boxing and it brought back some painful memories. Finish was awesome with Tiger landing some really pretty athletic kicks and Sawa doing an awesome half KO sell.

TKG: These guys have signature crowd popping spots and they really didn’t do them here. Instead they just went at each other. Really impressive performance by guys who I didn’t think had this in them. In the past Super Tiger II has been a guy who when his stuff looks polished it doesn’t work as well as his stuff that looks sloppy. Here he came across as a polished wrestler in control of his stuff and it all looked good. The match also built from sections to sections really well. I didn’t really think either guy was capable of that. In this kind of match often times the finishing KO will feel really arbitrary, like the wrestlers realized how long the match had gone on and decided “well I guess this will be the strike that ends it”. Here the selling and the set up for the final kO made it clear that it was the finish.

PAS: First part of this show was a bit rough, but the last two matches got me pretty excited for the rest of this tournament.

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BattlArts 4/12/09

Ryuji Walter -vs- Sanchu Tsubakichi

TKG: Hey it’s Ryuji Walter. Haven’t seen him in a while. He’s kind of a pro-style heavyweight who crowbars folks. I wouldn’t mind them using him instead of Sekimoto. He will beat a guy up and all his stuff looks absolutely nasty. Tsubachiki is along for the ride.

PAS: Ryuji Walter is a guy who will always entertain you. Haven’t really seen him in a ton of competitive matches, but in these kind of opening match squashes, he will hit someone really hard in the side of the neck. His matches may not be good, but they will be memorable.

Chihiro Oikawa -vs- Esui.

TKG: And the first came forward red like a hairy garment so they named her Esui? She kind of looked like the kind of flat chested lanky girl who would have hairy forearms but try as I might I can’t figure out how to do a Biblical telling of this match. Pretty basic submissions v kicker story. Esui doesn’t do any strikes but has some neat submissions including a really nasty choke with her thick forearm. Chihiro’s kicks have gotten really vicious and you really buy them as finishers.

PAS: I am starting to really enjoy these Oikawa matches, she seems to have graduated from the stupid B-Rules matches into normal wrestling matches. Her kicks really look better then her matwork and she does beat the crap out of Esui.

Munenori Sawa/Fujita Jr Hayato -vs- Tiger Shark/Akifumi Saito.

TKG:I dug the Real Japan team of Shark and Saito a bunch here. Saito feels like a guy with a nice upside. Tiger Shark feels more polished than Super Tiger. His kicks feel more pro style and less reckless. That may not always serve him well, but it was fine here.

PAS: This was a really good match, right up there with the best of the new generation of BattlArts matches. It was really worked at a nice pace with everyone showing a ton of intensity. I especially dug how Saito and Sawa would constantly take cheap shots at each other, I don't know if that is currently an indy Japan feud, but I bought into it and wanted to see a singles match between the two. Hayato continues to impress me to, and he may be getting on my list of guys where I watch all that they do.

Yuta Yoshikawa -vs- Keita Yano

TKG: So Yano has had a series of ok matches recently but those may have been all smoke and mirrors. Really these two guys are not at all ready to have a singles match with each other. This was unwatchably bad. For some reason they scream more than the joshi match earlier on the show and well none of the mat exchanges or strikes looked as good. The whole pacing didn’t work and this went on forever. Not only was Yano awful but I have never seen Yoshikawa look this bad either.

PAS: Tom is underselling the awfulness of this match. I have been watching BattlArts since 1995 or so, and have probably seen 95% of the shows that exist on tape, and I have never seen a BattlArts match this bad. Yoshikawa was on the bad side of mediocre here, but Yano was just atrocious. There is a section where he is throwing his gingerly uppercuts that I actually screamed at the TV “YOU ARE IN BATTLARTS, FOR FUCK SAKE.” Near the end of the match he has a comeback where he actually throws Lisa Simpson style windmill punches. Honestly out of all the effeminate Japanese juniors who closeted UK Figure Four board posters mark out for, he may be the shittiest. This is a match which is clearly booked to be the two young guns giving us a glance at the future, and man was it a dystopian glance, I felt like I was reading The Road.

Yuki Ishikawa/Katsumi Usuda -vs- Super Tiger II/Yujiro Yamamoto

TKG: While the earlier tag was worked more all out, this started slow and built up. The earlier building parts were really neat and I get the sense that Ishikawa and Yamamoto have a really great singles match in them. Super Tiger has added a bunch of new kicks to his offense and he really looks like he’s figured out how to control his old ones. Usuda who has been spectacular of late, is surprisingly underwhelming in this. Still his sections with Yamamoto were really cool and he ate SuperTiger’s kicks well but you almost don’t notice him in those exchanges.

PAS: I am still waiting for the blow away 2009 BattlArts tag, this had some really nice parts to it, but I didn’t get the dopamine rush that really awesome BattlArts will give you. Yammamoto continues to look like the real deal, I loved every time he squared off with Ishikawa, as he came after him like a puppy after a piece of chicken skin. Those two are going to have a great singles match sometime soon. Still this was the most understated Usuda I have seen, and while it had lots of cool stuff, it never got into that intense violent mode that your truly great BattlArts tags achieve.

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BattlArts 2/15/09

( So we watched this show before the 1/10 show, thus our mutual befuddlement at the B-Rules, I get the finish of the Oikawa match now, although it is no less stupid.)


Manabu Hara & Sanchu Tsubakichi vs Fujita "Jr." Hayato & Baisen TAGAI

TKG: Either Baisen TAGAI has gotten better or everyone else is mailing it in here. Tsubakichi looked like the worst guy in this. Baisen TAGAI is a guy with lots of loose body fat, you need to kick him hard enough to get it to shake.Tsubakichi pulled his kicks. The Tsubachiki v Hayato sections were worse than the TAGAI v Tsubachiki sections. And the Hara v Hayato sections were uninspired. A good chunk of this was built around TAGAI and I enjoyed all that. Weird.

PAS: TAGAI was really entertaining, he has almost an American Balloon physique where it looks like he lost 150 pounds just has loose skin, but he did a bunch of cool shit, I especially was into his victory roll legbar. The finish of this was odd as Hayato seemed to refuse to tag TAGAI so he gets beat by Hara, There doesn't appear to be any dissension before that, or any post match angle.

B-Rules: Chihiro Oikawa vs Kana

TKG: I was really enjoying this as all the mat work was crisp and purposeful. I don't get the finish at all. Kana had three rope breaks, Oikawa had two and Kana puts Oikawa in a submission in the ropes to get the submission. I mean if Oikawa had thee breaks I could understand this tribute to ROH pure title finish but as it is I don't get it.

PAS: I wasn't paying a ton of attention to the dots, so maybe the scoreboard operator screwed up, but I really don't understand the booking of this show. Is Ed Ferrerra one of those white guys who gets yellow fever and moves to Japan? Is he teaching English to Ishikawa and mentioned he used to book wrestling?

Alexander Otsuka vs Yujiro Yamamoto

TKG: This was awesome. Yamamoto is becoming one of my favorite wrestlers to watch, he sells really well and does lots of neat scrambling for moves. And well Osuka is Otsuka; a guy who among other things has lots of neat suplexes and throws. They match up really well here with lots of Otsuka beating and tossing Yamamoto around and Yamamoto doing lots of underdog selling and scrambling for hope spots. The finish with with Yamamoto beaten down but trying last leg bar only to be lifted and dropped was just perfect.

PAS: For an undercard match this is about as good as it could get. Otsuka is so great, he may be the most innovative wrestler in the world, and what makes his innovation so great is that it fits the tight constructs of the style he works. There is a point where he tries for his giant swing which Yamamoto counters into a choke, which Otsuka counters into a hellacious brainbuster, just awesome stuff. Yamamoto is also spectacular here, he is just relentless, like a bulldog, he reminds me a little of Uriah Faber, a tiny little guy who is going to overwhelm you with his pace and strength. I am really excited to see what he does this year, he could be truly great.

Katsumi Usuda vs Yuta Yoshikawa

TKG: This is worked surprisingly even. Having seen Usuda v Yano, it took me a while to get comfortable with how even this match was worked. But once I got past that this was a really good even match. Usuda sells the fuck out of his leg and really makes it look like he's in a giant hole as result from leg work. So whenever he has an answer its really exciting. The big choke with bodyscissors that gets reversed into a leg submission by Yoshikawa is especially hot sequence.

PAS: I have not been a huge Yoshikawa fan in the past, and like Tom I initially had a problem with him dominating the early part of the match, I still am not sure how good Yoshikawa is, but I have no question about the greatness of Katsumi Usuda. Just a tremendous performance, as he did an incredible job selling every submission that he got put in, there are multiple frantic scrambles where he appears moments away from a heartbreaking loss. Even when he comes back so viciously (busting Yoshikawa open legit) it still feels like almost a heartwarming tale of overcoming adversity. This really felt like a masterful Fujiwara level performance, which as much as I have liked Usuda in the past, isn't something I would really use to describe him before.

Yuki Ishikawa & Super Tiger II vs Munenori Sawa & Keita Yano

TKG: I have no idea if Yano or Super Tiger II have gotten a lot better or if they're just working each other a bunch on random indies. Are they running this as touring match on Goro Tsurumi fed undercards? Are they training together? I mean these two guys work each other ridiculously well in this. It's completely inexplicable. Not a match with a ton of Ishikawa ( he has a really great infighting section with Sawa at one point and an ok section with Yano). Instead a match with a lot of Yano v. Tiger II and a good match. Who knew?

PAS: This was good, but not as good as the previous pair of matches. You had your two underdog young guys getting worked over by your veteran asskickers. It is a good story, but Yano and Sawa are only okay at the spunky underdog role and we had a bunch more Super Tiger II beatings then Ishikawa beatings, which is fine but not what you would want to see in a perfect world. I hope we get to see a bigger Ishikawa showcase later in the year.

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BattlArts 1/10/09

PAS: This is a B-Rules tourney, which means it is worked with RINGS rules, rope breaks and no striking. These are some guys who can work that style, although it does take the violence out of the Battlarts, which is a big part of the fun.

TKG: Pre-show they all draw slips of paper out of a hat. I don't know if that's how they determine tourney brackets or if they're running a date the wrestler raffle or what's going on.

Alexander Otsuka v. Munenori Sawa

PAS: Otsuka may be the best non old Mexican mat wrestler in the world so he is the guy you are going to want to see in a tourney like this. He didn't really do any holy fuck submissions here, but he is ridiculously smooth, and the finish looked like one of those jujitsu holds that you can believe is a real move. Something that looked real, because it looked fake.

TKG: Sawa didn't look bad at all here either. The stuff where he forced Otsuka to the ropes felt like stuff that would force a guy into the ropes.I think they blew the dot coloring but you still had his neat dynamic where Otsuka was dominating (controlling and driving the action) but Sawa would still find stuff quickly to get Otsuka at a numbers disadvantage.

Yuki Ishikawa v. Manabu Hara

TKG:Good chunks of this had Ishikawa working like Dr Tom Pritchard( always aiming at working wind and head) where even arm work was done to expose the head so Ishikawa would have easier time moving in for the choke. While Ishikawa was going for the head, Hara was always aiming for extremities. In the end Ishikawa changes plans and wins with nasty arm submission.

PAS: I didn't feel like this match had much of an overarching story, lots of cool little parts, but it felt slightly disjointed. I loved how Ishikawa dominated the positioning early with Hara catching him. Ishikawa often works these matches like a guy trained as a pro-wrestler, who will dominate you with wrestling, but is weak on Jujitsu. Even the armbar he caught Hara with at the end had him working over the arm with his elbow to weaken it, which was very pro-wrestling.

Yujiro Yamamoto v. Super Tiger II

TKG: Yujiro Yamamoto works really fast on the mat with everything he does leading to him advancing further up II. He's also the first guy on the show where you get the sense that he's a guy who grew up watching MMA. All the other matches have guys who are trying to control through wrestling. Yamamoto is the guy whose matwork feels most modern, with him trying to get the mount , trying to defend in a guard etc.II is working as the stronger guy and is really slow and plodding. Still Yamamoto is the man and this was my favorite match thus far.

PAS: I liked this a lot too, although this was way more of a one man show then either of the two previous matches. Yamamoto was completely awesome, reminded me a bunch of Ryuki Ueyama, but Super Tiger was kind of a load. This actually felt like a RINGS match with Tamura trying to carry a shitty Dutch Kickboxer. Spectacular one man show, really impressive for a young guy, but I don't know how good of an actual match it was.

Alexander Otsuka v. Yuki Ishikawa

TKG: This is back to actual wrestling based guys, doing wrestling based holds and wrestling based selling. But both these guys are really great at those things. Ishikawa goes for an Indian death lock then leans back to go for choke only to have Otsuka go after Ishikawa's hand. Ishikawa is forced to release and they go for clinch where Ishikawa gets caught in a leg lock because he's defending against the German. This is really short. The constant Ishikawa worry and defense set it apart from what we have seen thus far.

PAS: It is sort of frustrating that these guys keep working 7 minute Velocity matches. Last year we saw their awesome stiff fest 7 minute match, this year we get their awesome mat based 7 minute match. If someone edited those two matches together we would have a match of the decade contender. Don't get me wrong, on it's own this is awesome, their previous matches, were maestros carrying young guys, the shootstyle equivalent of the Black Terry v. Traumas or Negro Navarro v. Cerebero match ups. That is always good, but you want Maestro v. Maestro and this delivered.

Super Tiger II v. Keita Yano

TKG: What the fuck?? So B style is a goofy misunderstanding of ROH Pure Title Rules (in the same way that ROH Pure Title Rules was a weird misunderstanding of U-Style and RINGS). So this is essentially a long squash match with Yano getting nothing in and having to go for rope breaks five times. But I don't know if I get the actual rules here. As instead of it being guy who has to go for rope breaks three out of five times looses, it looks like the two participants have a total of five rope breaks allowed. Not like basketball where each guy gets five time outs, but instead imagine if both teams had a total of ten time outs allowed (one team could go for 7 leaving the other three,or just take all ten etc.)Once all the rope breaks are used up you can go for a finish in the ropes. So Yano uses up all the rope breaks and then wins this with a rope assisted sub. R!O!H! R! O!H! WTF? This really feels like Turkish R&B from the 70s or 90s North Korean Country and Western. Entertaining but a real misunderstanding somewhere along the line.

PAS: This match is a Game Theory problem, the rope breaks are the Tragedy of the Commons, neither actor has any incentive to preserve the rope breaks, so Yano selfishly uses up all of the rope breaks and then wins the match. The problem with this match is that it is a semi-final, Yano has exposed this huge flaw, the main event kind of has to be worked with both guys scrambling to use up the rope breaks now, or it makes no sense. He has kind of killed this match. It is like a Battle Royal, the sensible thing to do, would be to grab the bottom rope the entire match, but if someone did that, you could never run another Battle Royal. It seems like this match ended B-Style.

Yuki Ishikawa v. Chichiro Okiawa

PAS: I was pretty surprised with this match, normally Yuki Ishikawa mixed matches are sleazy pervert fest. For example Yuki putting himself in Yoshida's triangle choke so he can smell her stank. This was worked much closer to an Ian Rotten v. Mickie Knuckles match. Those matches all have this weird Southern Indian specific vibe,with Ian as your survivalist father who always wanted a son, but instead his wife died in childbirth leaving him alone with a daughter. Still the Jews and Mexicans are coming to enslave the white race so he has to be sure she is toughened up. I don't know what the equivalent fear in Japan would be (Koreans maybe) but Ishikawa is surprising great as Ian Rotten . Pretty tremendous performance as his selling is just off the charts, as he makes you actually buy kicks and punches from a tiny girl. I also loved how he slowly started taking the match more seriously, as by the end he was in a fight. Really put over Okiawa as a threat, which I figured would be kind of impossible.

TKG: I like Phil’s analogy as there was a real Sarah Connor training John Connor familial feel to this whole thing. There was a real look of pride in Ishikawa every time Okiawa kicked like a mule and bit like a crocodile. Oikawa has never come across as being particularly tough or vicious before. But fuck does she come across violent and scrappy here. Some of this is Ishikawa selling as really no one can make a kick look better than Ishikawa. But there were lots of moments of just viciousness out of Okiawa that I’ve never seen before, her mounted repeated punches to Ishikawa’s ear were especially violent. I also really liked the finish where she put Ishikawa of all people into an octopus and he went with the finishing counter. Okiawa has never looked tougher or more dangerous. Post match you have the same problem that you have after Knuckles v Rotten matches. Not only did Oikawa come off as a threat but she came off as enough of a threat where you go “Well now I don’t buy any girl being competitive let alone beating this violent bitch”.

Keita Yano v. Alexander Otsuka

PAS: Weird match. Lots of cool individual shit, Yano is really flexible, and Otsuka is really innovative in twisting a guy up into pretzels, but the Russoishness of the B-Rules lost me here. While Yano got the advantage in the previous match by using up the rope breaks and Pure titling his way to a win, here he wins by forcing Otsuka to use 3 rope breaks to his 2 rope breaks, and then winning by decision after a 10 minute draw. So he wins both of his matches by manipulating the rules in different ways. I guess it is an interesting concept, but the execution was bad. Yano basically gets squashed by Super Tiger in his opener, really winning in almost a Scott Hall puts over Hector Garzaish way. Here however he is at least Otsuka's equal on the mat, even getting more advantages. So I am left thinking, if Super Tiger steamrolls this chump, why is Otsuka having so many problems? Then after the rope breaks are all used up, you never get a sense of urgency from Otsuka. Theoretically he knows he is behind on the scorecards, but at the end it is Yano who is desperately scrambling for a submission. I got the sense Otsuka was as confused about the rules as I was.

TKG: The idea of Yano being booked as shootstyle ”Ultimate Opportunist” Edge is amusing to me. Although really if that’s the goal he should have gotten on his bicycle and ran out the time or something. I don’t know if Otsuka got hit with a nut shot somewhere in the early minutes but he was really selling wind like he was trying to recover from being nutted for good part of the match. I don’t understand Japanese micwork, so it’s possible that Otsuka’s prematch mic work was all about how the Yano-Heads had attacked him pre match with repeated lowblows but against doctors orders he was going to come and tough this match out anyway.

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