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

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

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

Katsumi Usuda vs. Kota Ibushi

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

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

Takeshi Ono vs. Hiroyuki Kotsubo

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

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

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

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

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

Hiroyuki Ito vs. Manabu Hara

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

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

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda

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

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

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

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


ONGOING ALL TIME MOTY LIST

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA

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Dick Togo's Heating Up Like They Wrapped Him In Flannel, Selling Kilos From Your IPOD Nano

Sato/Great Sasuke/Shiryu vs. Super Delfin/Gran Naniwa/Jinsei Shinzaki MPRO 2/4/94 - EPIC 

PAS: Pretty much a perfectly executed MPRO formula six man. It has everything you expect, the intricate lucha armdrags and ranas, the signature comedy spots, the crazy dive train. When these guys get on this kind of roll, it really is something special. Man 1994 Sato (Togo) is one of the most athletic impressive wrestlers in history, the speed and agility he executes his stuff is incredible. He and Delfin match up to start the match, and their exchanges are at Gods Must Be Crazy speed. Sato also wins the dive train which is pretty impressive considering the company he keeps. We get Shiryu and Naniwa next, and they have a more mat based match up, with Shiryu ripping off some really quick amateur rides. It had been a long time since I have seen the Naniwa/Delfin MX arm wringer spot, but man do those guys execute it perfectly. Delfin is great as a cocky douche really getting into working over the arm, and Naniwa is also great as a guy sad and angry at always being a schlemiel. Outside of one awkward Shinzaki spot (and honestly he didn't bring a ton to this) this was textbook stuff, and exactly the kind of thing I fell in love with when I first saw it. 

Dick Togo/Great Sasuke/Nobutaka Moribe vs. Ikuto Hidaka/Minoru Fujita/Macho Pump MPRO 8/22/04 - GREAT 

PAS: Elimination cage match which was relatively uneventful except for a couple of huge moments. Your non FEC team was pretty vanilla and dull, Macho Pump especially is a guy who has never contributed positively to any wrestling match I have seen him in. Most of the action in the match was punch and kick stuff, and not done particularly well. The huge moments were pretty huge though. Fujita hits a nice looking Superfly splash off the cage, Sasuke is battling with Fujita on the top of the cage and basically takes a Shawn Micheals style HIC bump backwards off the cage, and Togo ends the match with a top of the cage senton which is a top five in wrestling history cage dive. Just amazing looking. Feels like what was memorable was memorable enough to recommend the match relatively highly. Dick Togo/Ikuto Hidaka v. Gedo/Jado Riki Pro 1/17/10-FUN 2010 Gedo and Jado both have weirdly oiled up muscled bodies and dark tans, they should find Chapparita Asari, have her grow a poof and work Jersey Shore gimmicks. Good stuff in this, both Gedo and Togo looked great. Togo did a couple of really tremendous moves, I love how he floats mid air with his in ring somersault senton. Gedo does all of the small things really well, punches, bumping and superkicks. Hidaka and Jado didn't bring much at all though, outside of a minute or so of solid Hidaka matwork. Crowd was completely dead, and parts of this fell flat, had a real undercard house show feel, like they were going through the motions. Worth watching for Togo and Gedo, but falls short of a strong recommendation. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DICK TOGO

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