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

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

Katsumi Usuda vs. Keita Yano

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

Toshie Uematsu vs. Carlos Amano

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

Kyosuke Sasaki vs. Yuta Yoshikawa

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

Fujita Hayato vs. Munenori Sawa

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

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

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

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA

FUJIWARA FAMILY

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

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

Katsumi Usuda vs. Kotaru Nasu

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

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


Ryuji Hijikata vs. Bison TAGAI

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

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


Kengo Mashimo vs. SEIKEN

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

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


Mitsuya Nagai vs. Takeshi Ono

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


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

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

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Wrestlemania Weekend Cherry Picking: WWNLive SuperShow - Mercury Rising 2018

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Munenori Sawa

PAS: Sabre actually worked a FUTEN show in 2015, and seems to be really excited to work a BattlArts guy. He keeps this mostly BattlArts style, with the matwork being pretty shooty, and really dialing down his flourishes (in fact any of the goofy stuff in the match was done by Sawa). There is some really nice grappling early. With Sawa working for leglocks, and Sabre attacking the arm. They exchange some nasty slaps to the ear which is the stiffest I can remember Sabre working, he really laid into Sawa and bloodied his mouth. Finish run was awesome, with Sabre yanking Sawa out of the air on a kick attempt and putting on a nasty STF variation. After Sawa gets to the ropes, they exchange some shots, and Sabre does another cool counter as he ducks the Ohtani punch and drags Sawa down into a sleeper which he quickly transitions into a banana split for the tap. I really liked this, it was one of my favorite Sabre performances, it wasn't his best match, but I thought he maximized the cool shit, and minimized the dumb shit in a really entertaining way.

ER: This was maybe the most savage I've ever seen Sabre work, and it's on the same card that will later see Riddle work like a total lunatic. I had thought of skipping this match as I thought they would bring out bad tendencies in each other, but I was wrong. The rolling is really fun and springy and you get the sense that Sabre can just grab a limb whenever he wants. Really I would have been cool with it staying there, but we forget that Sawa came back after 7 years to get his body and face attacked. Sabre brings his best ever smacks and uppercuts, and before long it looks like Sawa has a port wine stain on his neck and chest. Sabre can come off cocky even when facing guys way larger, so it's fun watching him be so smug and jerky to a guy smaller than him. He was really picking on Sawa, but I loved how he sold for Sawa's stuff, love how he crumpled on the Ohtani punch, loved Sawa yanking and twisting his leg and ankle on the apron. But Sabre was pretty relentless, really seeming like he could bully Sawa around and grab an octopus whenever he wanted, and the banana split finish was a real trip. Sawa looked like he was tied to two trucks driving in the opposite direction, and Sabre soaks up the adulation from fans afterwards. Great performance, a real smug cad, and a fun note to go out on for Sawa (unless this is him back in wrestling?). Killer match.

Dominic Garrini/Tracy Williams vs. Anthony Henry/James Drake vs. Parrow/Odinson

ER: Big old sloppy weapons brawl between teams that I'd rather just see in a straight match. This was fun, except for all of the moments that were dumb. Really the problems all could have been avoided by just having a straight tag match with any combination of the teams. The best moments of the match were always when one team was gone missing for several minutes. The End may have spent more of the match hiding in the entranceway - which is weird for the two hulking gladiators of the match to be doing - or selling injuries on the floor from moves meant to take them out of the match. But they were also the victims of cruelly rigid tables, absolutely refusing to cooperate. Parow gets powerbombed through a table, only to slide off as the unbroken table gets pushed away. Odinson gets double stomped through one, but just eats a double stomp with no breaking table. The dumbest parts were always setting up a 3 way spot, peaking with "stereo" top rope suplex/powerbomb spots that the crowd groaned through. I don't think anyone wants to see tower spots anymore. Tower spots are over. The risk of injury never feels worth the end result. The match did have a bunch of guys throwing hard. Williams was really pasting guys with elbows, so was Henry. And the chair/ladder shots were actually pretty great in a reckless Eddie Kingston way. Drake and Garrini throw ladders hard at Odinson, Parrow eats a couple chairshots to the chest, tough stuff. Garrini was part of a couple great moments, hitting a somersault dive off the top, getting his feet slammed in a ladder and hit with chairs, and getting pounced through a set-up-in-the-corners table by The End. Henry & Drake do a huge extended beatdown of the End before finishing the match, it actually made them come off totally badass. The End never even attempted a comeback, just Henry & Drake beating them with chairs and ladders and a big fat Drake moonsault. Between hiding in the entrance for the first several minutes, and getting a few minute beating to end the match, The End didn't exactly come off like contenders. A gif of this match would be really fun, but there really was a lot I liked about it.

Keith Lee vs. Daisuke Sekimoto

PAS: Pretty much exactly what you want out of this match up, a pair of big corn fed dudes throwing chops and forearms at each others chests.  Sekimoto may make some goofy faces for no good reason, but he is a crowbar. He was throwing really nasty meaty forearms and big chops, and Lee was pounding him back. That double over hand chop spot by Lee is really something to see. I thought this fell off a bit when they started doing top rope moves, but that closing german suplex by Sekimoto was gorgeous.

Timothy Thatcher/WALTER vs. Chris Dickinson/Jaka

ER: A good tag match that felt like it should have been hitting me harder than it actually did hit me. I enjoyed all of it and obviously like both teams, but I kept getting weirdly distracted wondering why it wasn't totally connecting with me. I'm really like Jaka right now so I was into his beatdown building to a big tag out to Dickinson, liked his big kicks and German suplex to Thatcher before Dickinson came in and roughed him up more. Dickinson hot tags are some great pro wrestling, he always comes in fast and swinging. Jaka has a fun twist on Islander striking, and even goes for a Kona Crush head squeeze which...yes I just confirmed, Hawaii is an island. We get consecutive hot tags, as Jaka builds to tagging Dickinson, and they isolate Thatcher which builds to a big WALTER tag. WALTER, you may have noticed, has some great hot tags. WALTER comes in on a chop rampage, and I love when he goes for a double clothesline, only gets Jaka, rebounds off the other side and meets Dickison with a boot. The match peaks with my favorite moment, WALTER getting Dickinson in the Gojira Clutch only for Jaka to save him with a huge full force splash off the top. But I kept wondering why I was never fully hooked, and I think it was just because there weren't really defined face/heel roles, just four good wrestlers who are capable of working both (though I suppose when in doubt, just assume Dickinson is the least likable one), and while they built to tags there was still a lot of this that felt like a Texas Tornado. The work looked great, but it felt cluttered and compressed. I think it needed more of a peaks/valleys set up. At minimum it was four guys I like, working hard in a tag match, and that will have a lot of value.

Will Ospreay vs. Matt Riddle

PAS: Riddle continues his incredible Mania weekend with a wild sprint with Osprey. Osprey comes in with his neck taped from a gif worthy blown spot in New Japan, and Riddle just viciously attacks him. He really feels like he wants to knocks his blocky yellowed British teeth down his throat. Osprey gets his neck wrecked with Riddle just crawling all over him and landing sick elbows right to the KT tape on his neck. The spot where Osprey climbs to the top rope with Riddle on his back, only to get murder deathed off the top rope was truly nuts. I honestly would have been fine with the match ending there, it would have established Riddle as a vicious killer, and Osprey as a tough guy with a death wish. The post restart stuff was great though, the crowd gets totally behind Osprey and his comeback and it ends up being really frenzied and great. I wouldn't think these guys would work well together, as Riddle against flyers is often iffy, but this was a hell of war. Loved it.

ER: Man, do I like small occasional doses of Ospreay?? He's got an overly sleek athleticism that annoys me sometimes, but he also is like a super gymnast Chris Hamrick in his dedication to going through painful spots for the sake of a worked injury. That's a pretty big thing. His match with Liger got a little ignored compared to other matches on that card, but his injury in that was super convincing and hooked me in. And here he gets dumped on his neck early with an exploder and is squeezing and rubbing that neck out from there. And Riddle aims to just wreck Ospreay's neck in as many ways as he can think of. Riddle was pretty merciless, really hitting too damn hard with elbows and kicks, and punishing Ospreay's neck. The fans get way behind Ospreay as some of the damage starts to feel almost uncomfortable at a point, due to Riddle relentless attack and Ospreay's selling. Ospreay gets one big run that Riddle treats like a big deal, but before long Riddle is tossing him with rolling gutwrenches, wastes him with a powerbomb that gets followed up with a knee (that really bends Ospreay back over himself in painful fashion), and things peak with Riddle going for a sleeper and then the Bromission, throwing a bunch of elbows at Ospreay's head, and we get this crazy moment of Ospreay climbing the ropes with Riddle holding a sleeper....and Riddle does a Crucifix Driver off the top and several people clearly jump up as if they've just witnessed the death of Will Ospreay. The stoppage was nice as Riddle comes back and destroys Ospreay with knees, rips at his tape, hits a huge senton, plants him with a jumping tombstone, looking completely deranged. We do run a little crazy with all the kickouts down the stretch, but I did really love Ospreay's triangle couter to Riddle;s piledriver. Riddle was great at struggling to escape, rolling around, trying to stand, trying to strike at Ospreay, then gets just totally laid out by an Ospreay lariat and snapped in half by a sitout powerbomb. So the last couple minutes of this were insane, most definitely overkill, but the savagery in Riddle's face woke this crowd up HUGE. If all this came at the end of a 24 minute match, I'd be out, but here I liked how the insanity just kept ramping up. You got the actual sense that the match would continue until one guy was actually injured.


2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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Wrestlemania Weekend Cherry Picking: EVOLVE 103

Dominic Garrini vs. Timothy Thatcher

PAS: Really nifty grappling match, this wasn't slick like the stuff that Riddle and Sabre were doing the night before, this was gritty, lots of jockeying for position and advantage, rather then putting on of cool submissions. Felt more shootstyle, especially in the beginning, then anything on Bloodsport. Felt like this could have used a bit more time as, right when it got pushed into the next gear, including a bloody Thatcher nose, Thatcher basically finished it. Not normally a complaint I have about indy wrestling, but I needed a couple more near falls.

ER: This was fun, like if these two fought back in the day on Velocity, but it did feel like we were watching a clipped match. I liked everything in it (though Garrini can come up short on strikes, and Thatcher can sometimes freeze waiting for an opponent to act), but the end was pretty sudden. The ground work was fun and Garrini was getting all funky Sakuraba on him, loved him almost crossbodying into side control, and really I could have watched 5-10 more minutes of them on the mat. Thatcher gets a busted lip and we go to finish shortly after, but it didn't feel like that Regal/Storm moment where Storm busted Regal open with a dropkick so Regal wrecked him for 30 seconds, just felt like the actual finish. Fun, but needed more.

Chris Dickinson vs. Mark Haskins

ER: This was a very good sociopath vs. wounded babyface match, as Haskins gets some early flash, so Dickinson decides to take out his arm and his leg. Haskins sees it through, as by the time he's back on offense he's shaking out his arm and hopping all over on his leg, mixing up offense thanks to the damage done by Dickinson. Dickinson will dish some nasty kicks and was twisting Haskins' ankle in gross ways, but I thought Haskins built nicely to his comebacks. My favorite moments was him kicking at Dickinson repeatedly in the corner, pausing...and then punching Dickinson in the jaw with a left hand (his bum wing). Dickinson was like the emotionless Terminator at points, which not everyone can pull off, you just need to have his specific "dead eyes guy who stocked up on tiki torches" charisma. At one point Haskins has him in a dangerous sub and Dickinson panics at first, then collects himself, controls his breath, and calmly shifts his hips to get to the ropes. It looked like a home invasion serial killer who encountered someone fighting back more than usual, so he just calmly dealt with the predicament before murdering them. It probably went a bit too long (sheesh they run all these 5-8 minute matches and expect me to hang on through 16!?) but I linked Haskins dropkick to Dickinson as he was lying on the mat, and Dickinson rolling through a prawn hold into a nasty deathlock was a fine finish. Haskins has been around for a decade, this felt like a good match for him to make his Segunda Caida print debut.

PAS: I am glad to see Dickinson worked straight heel like this. Most of the time in EVOLVE he works as a workrate kicker, he is fine at that, but he has such a great sleazy hateable charisma (sort of a more muscular Christopher Cantwell) , which is muted in EVOLVE. He is really punking Haskins here, laying in nasty kicks, thick stomps, twisting joints. I really liked the finish with Dickinson really working over that deathlock. No reason for this to be so long though, if they had cut five minutes I could easily see it on a list.

Tracy Williams vs. WALTER

PAS: WALTER is one of those guys who is going to deliver a baseline entertaining match. You know he is going to chop unnecessarily hard, get popped back, throw a couple of deadlift german suplexes and put on some chokes. He pretty much comes with a package, and it is often up to the opponent to add some seasoning. Williams does some pretty cool stuff in this match, he is willing to let WALTER break a bunch of blood vessels, but he lands some pretty sharp neck chops, he also does some very cool spider monkeyish chokes, climbing all around WALTER and locking in either a crossface or a rear naked choke. Williams has a pretty high variance as a worker, but this was high end hot sauce.

ER: Phil makes some great points about WALTER. I've watched a lot of WALTER matches the last 6 months, and he is a guy who does not change up his style depending on opponent, and I've gone out of my way to watch WALTER matches, but always because I'm excited about his opponent. Now, this makes it sound like I hate WALTER, which is not true at all. I'd have him very high on a 2018 list, but it's just weird to me that it's what his opponent brings to the table that always interests me. It's never "I can't wait to see WALTER cave in this guy's lungs" it's always "I can't wait to see this guy get his lungs caved in by WALTER". It feels like an important difference, that I don't know what to do with. But anyway, I dug this match. I loved how Williams hung in there and almost tested himself by knowingly working WALTER's match, as if he wanted to see how long he could last. WALTER has the best chops in wrestling right now, and Williams took them and threw cool stiff arm standing lariats and cutting chops to the neck right back at him. He even tries to throw WALTER at one point which is just not going to end well for most guys. I love when guys climb on WALTER to try and catch him in a sub, reminds me of Bugs Bunny cartoons where he takes down a hulking brute with a series of fast scrambly attacks (tying shoelaces together into flower pot on head into tied to lampost with rope). The finish is some prime WALTER as he towers over a seated Sauce and starts yanking that arm up to start the Gojira Clutch, and Williams panics and tries to scramble free, so WALTER just starts raining down clubbing blows to the chest until Sauce can't defend, then  easily locks in the Clutch for a quick pass out. The Gojira Clutch is hands down the best sub in wrestling today (Phil will argue to Twist Ending which is its best contender), it's just so smothering, a dude choked out against his own arm. Cool stuff.

Jaka vs. Munenori Sawa

PAS: Showcase for Sawa's fast hands and potatoes. Jaka is a guy who is always going to slug back. I really enjoyed the section where they were on their knees and Sawa was just straight punching Jaka in the jaw, and some of those quiet the crowd headbutts remind you that Sawa is a Yuki Ishikawa trainee. Would have rather had almost any other BattlArts guy make a comeback US tour (how sick would WALTER vs. Alexander Otsuka be) but Sawa is definitely fun.

ER: I really really like Jaka. He's has a few fun Islander tropes like a concrete block head, but also has the coolest non-canon strikes in wrestling. He throws so many cool strikes that nobody else uses, a top-of-head headbutt to the chest or stomach, palm thrust to the forehead, double palm thrusts to the chest and back, thrust kicks (the superkick has pretty much replaced the thrust kick, which is a shame. There's a looping grace to a superkick tucking in perfectly to that space joining the chin and neck, but there's something about a thrust kick right to the sternum), big flat running knee to the face, hands together chops to the neck and chest, a few spinkick variations, just tons of cool and mean strikes done differently than everyone else. This match had some things that I would really dislike in other matches, but were okay with here. I don't love indy matches where a guy takes a lot of abuse and then just comes back by merely deciding it was his time to come back, no big turn of events that lead to it. And I don't usually like these "on our knees, take turns" strike exchanges. But this one went quick and had Sawa punch Jaka about as hard as possible in the forehead, and I liked the callback as earlier Jaka went into a long series of control after Sawa foolishly tried headbutting him. I like him still trying to find other ways to pierce that armor. The finish was really great and extremely well done, every single second of the octopus hold. There was this great slow struggle from Sawa to get the move locked in, really wrenching Jaka's arm back ever so slowly, then Jaka also slowly muscling his way out, trying to get Sawa's boot off his neck but Sawa subtly tightening his leg grip, before Jaka frantically taps. So I did not totally love the layout, but thought the work within was strong and finished on a major high.

Matt Riddle vs. Daisuke Sekimoto

PAS: I thought Sekimoto was pretty bad the night before, and have been a bit of a 2018 Matt Riddle skeptic, but this was a banger. There are a lot of stocky dudes working chopper gimmicks on these Wrestlemania shows, so you are going to have to bring something more then a stiff chop, and Sekimoto surprisingly does. Loved him challenging Riddle to a Sumo showdown, loved the battle over the deadlift German suplex, with Riddle fighting for an ankle pick to keep from getting thrown. All of the no rope break stuff in this match was great, with Riddle using a hanging triangle while in the ropes to get a nearfall, and Sekimoto needing ways to brute force his way out of submissions while in the ropes. Finish was a little wonky, I don't think Riddle's knee landed hard enough for the KO and while Sekimoto kept his horseshit in check, he was doing a goof face on the sell. Still this was damn good, and Riddle was dropping bangers in New Orleans like mid 2000s Lil' Wayne.

ER: I think the key to getting good Sekimoto must be in him wrestling without boots. He's inflated goof with them and suddenly he takes off his shoes and he's Masa Saito. This had some things that didn't work, a majorly whiffed Pele kick by Riddle that got sold, some very long standing exchanges (that I did like more than most stand and trade sections), but I really did get into this battle. I loved how sometimes Sekimoto would absorb strikes without even moving, just getting kicking in the chest or chopped in the neck like nothing was happening, and the whole thing really peaked for me with Riddle grabbing that triangle in the ropes. I loved the body as jungle gym moments and thought it was awesome when Sekimoto was trying to slam Riddle and he kept gripping Sekimoto's ankle to prevent it, and Sekimoto kept powering through. I thought the finish worked, but especially because Riddle added in the hammerfist strikes after landing that knee. Those hammerfists were nasty and Sekimoto wasn't even moving, just getting a fist whipped into his jaw. The ref stop was really well done. Somebody hide Sekimoto's boots from him!

ER: Fun, shorter than normal show with nothing all time great but a super high floor, really liked all the matches that I watched. The show probably took place at 5 AM so I gotta give credit for these guys working so hard all weekend. We thought Riddle/Sekimoto, WALTER/Hot Sauce, and Jaka/Sawa were cool enough to land on our 2018 Ongoing MOTY List. And I'm pretty sure Phil and I both separately made Charlottesville jokes about Chris Dickinson. And dammit, that still means something in this world.

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Wrestlemaina Weekend Thursday Cherry Picking: EVOLVE 102

We are going to try to cover much of WrestleMania weekend, but can't watch every second of everything. Here are some cherry picked matches from EVOLVE 102.

EVOLVE 102

Jaka/Chris Dickinson vs. Workhorseman vs. The End vs. Dominic Garrini/Tracy Williams

PAS: This was kind of clusterfuck, but it had some fun individual moments. At one point Dickinson and James Drake just started wailing on each other, and all of a sudden this was fight not just a demonstration of double teams. Some of the double teams were cool though, I like Doom Patrols top rope falcon arrow superfly splash combo, and the Ends powerbomb guys into their partners back. Still lots of this was messy, and this kind of match really works against Garrini's strengths, also since the champs needed to pinned to lose the belt, what is the point of trying to pin anyone else?

Darby Allin vs. Keith Lee

PAS: Really fun match, exactly what you want out of this matchup. Allin spinning and flipping and diving trying to stay out of Lee's hands, and Lee catching him and smashing him into little pieces. Lee is a really fun manhandler, he spins Allin around like a top during a lockup, catches him during a dive like he was catching a frisbee and yanks him into the ring by his jeans. He also catches Allin mid coffin drop with a pounce which I though might send Allin into the lobby. All of Allin's offense looked good too, he is super elusive and I loved how he set up the coffin drop on the small of Lee's back. Finish was fun with Lee bouncing Allin off the mat with a Spirit Bomb and Allin crawling his way up Lee only to get crushed again.

ER: This was really fun, I like how these two match up (and how could you not love a guy with a death wish getting crushed by a monster!?), although this felt like more of a squash than I've seen from them. Darby has some fascinating landings, dude is like a little cat, and I like how his movements seem reckless and controlled (controlled frenzy of Darby Allin!!). He's really clever about coming up with odd ways to set up offense, loved his Coffin Drop to a hunched over Lee, and right after he bounced backwards off the ropes to land on Lee's back for a sunset flip, really outside the box stuff. But you knew this would mostly be about Lee seeing how far he could chuck Allin, and boy did he. He did a beal that was like a Last Ride powerbomb, just launching him with one arm and at Darby's apex Lee actually lifts him higher before letting go. before that he just picks Allin up by the waistband of his shorts, like a mama cat carrying her kitten around by the neck scruff, and just throws him (an announcer compares it to tossing a bale of hay, and that's accurate). His Darby throws in an extra theatrical bounce on a sitout powerbomb, flipping over onto his stomach. I've never seen that and it looked pretty nuts. But overall this felt a little too squashy, felt like another nearfall from Allin would have elevated this, especially if it came off a huge Lee crash and burn (like early in the match when Lee went for a short spear and fell through the ropes). Lee crushing Allin goes on a bit too long, and starts to feel a bit like a geek show. There aren't guys who take a more innovative beating than Allin, but I want a little give and take.

Daisuke Sekimoto/Munenori Sawa vs. WALTER/Timothy Thatcher

PAS: Nifty match which was mainly a showcase for the puro teams offense. Commentary mentions that Thatcher was hugely inspired by BattlArts and Yuki Ishikawa and I am grumbling about how Ishikawa is just hanging out in Canada waiting to be booked. Thatcher vs Sawa sections are really fun, although a little sidelined. Sawa still moves really fast and smooth for a guy who has been retired for 7 years. Main focus on the match was WALTER and Sekimoto chopping the nipples off of each other and WALTER looks like he going to set some sort of record for busting blood vessels over this weekend of shows. Fun finish run too, with some big shots by all of the guys. More of a fun exhibition then a great match, but I enjoyed it

ER: I didn't love this, but thought it was a pretty great Ringkampf performance. Sekimoto is just so hokey, and is so gassed that he just moves sluggishly compared to the other guys in the match. A lot of his bumps were wooden and disconnected from the move he was bumping, just an awkward performance. Sawa would have had more of an excuse, and while I didn't love his slap exchanges, I liked a lot of his stuff, rolling with Thatcher, the appropriately renamed Ohtani Punches (though I thought it would have been cool if he used those earlier, and then down the stretch when things got more desperate just punched Thatcher with no gimmicky wind-up), but really this match was all about Ringkampf. They knew that the fans there wanted to see Sekimoto and Sawa do their thing, and RK was able to take the big moves and still look dominant. WALTER had a killer match, really killing guys with running kicks, and I kept waiting for his chops to pop one of Sekimoto's inflated tits. WALTER really launched guys on Germans, showed Sekimoto how to do a shoulderblock, and I love when he overhand chops a Sekimoto lariat attempt out of the air. Thatcher had some great selling, some great wobble legs, and maybe my favorite moment of the match when he snags a Sawa lariat and violently whips it into a Fujiwara and a crossface. Some of this felt way too silly, like Sawa's double dragon screw, and the double German suplex was really stupid. Sekimoto tosses Sawa who tosses Thatcher, with Sawa getting dumped on his head, and Sekimoto does this horrible Red Shoes back row acting when he "realizes what he's done". I'm not sure what he thought would happen when he dumped his partner on his head. I wanted to like this more, and I loved Ringkampf, but Sekimoto just rarely does it for me.

Zack Sabre Jr. vs. Matt Riddle

PAS: Great match and fitting swan song for Sabre's EVOLVE title reign (and his run in EVOLVE overall). Match was set up as Riddle's strikes and throws against Sabre's submissions and we got great versions of both. I loved Sabre torturing Riddle's feet and he was just twisting him up in some really inventive pretzels, Riddle's body is taking a beating this weekend, I can't imagine his knee felt good the way Sabre was twisting it. Sabre also took some pretty big shots to the jaw, Riddle's go to sleeps felt especially reckless. Loved the finish with Riddle attempting a twister, Sabre countering it into some sort of calf slicer, and Riddle able to re counter back into an arm trap twister for the tap. So much of the matwork was dominated by Riddle, it was nice to see the Ju Jitsu brown belt break out some tricks.

ER: Loved this. Riddle is doing some pretty unparalleled workrate this weekend, just a gas tank I can not comprehend. His creativity is inspired as well, and that’s a big plus. The higher profile he’s gotten the more tendencies he’s picked up that I don’t like, and those have been almost totally absent this weekend. Sabre has been a great Evolve champ, and it was going to take a great opponent to grab the belt from him, and Riddle was that guy. Riddle played the long game and took a ton of abuse from Sabre, and then just spammed him with big shots down the stretch. Sabre was in full spider monkey mode, tangling Riddle up like a squid drowning a scuba diver. Sabre bent Riddle’s ankle and toes, locked on a nasty octopus hold, fluidly moved through subs, several in a row, to really disorient Riddle. Riddle slowly started anticipating ZSJ’s offense the longer we went, catching a low kick into one of his best Pele kicks (with a great shaky leg drop down sell from Sabre), and really started cranking in shots. People still weirdly complain about Sabre having weak arm strikes, while ignoring that when he breaks down and starts exchanging strikes that usually spells his downfall in a match. Here he slaps Riddle and gets a kind of “oh shit” look on his face, and that leads to him getting elbowed a ton. There were a couple cracks, the Riddle senton into an armbar was telegraphed a mile away; Riddle is always super accurate with his landings and here he leaps 5 feet to the right so he can land for the spot. This is the first time that spot came off overplanned. But that’s really my only complaint about the finish. The stretch really was smoking, with both men emptying their offense closets and trading who had the advantage without it devolving into move trading. Big shot of the home stretch was Riddle hitting a Rainmaker knee strike that was finisher worthy. The finish was sad in a way. We’ve watched Sabre confidently tie so many guys in knots, that look of confidence when he knows he’s got the win in the bag, and here he was finally on the other end of that. He was fighting Riddle all the way but you could see Riddle slowly moving Sabre’s limbs into the Bromission, Sabre able to slow the inevitable but not stop it. Great match.

2018 MOTY MASTER LIST

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You Can't Hurt Daisuke Ikeda, Cause He's Banned in DC

Daisuke Ikeda/Tamon Honda v. Shiro Koshinaka/Yoshinari Ogawa NOAH 1/22/06-FUN

This isn't the hidden Ikeda NOAH gem I will be searching for. Pretty much a comedy match with some amusing spots, but very little of that Ikeda violence, probably the loosest worked Ikeda match I can remember seeing. They do some nifty stuff built around the hardness of Honda's giant waterbaby head, and Ogawa's eyepoke and roll up stuff is usually entertaining. Ikeda didn't do much, his big spot was tying up Shiro in a ball and punching him in the taint. Fine use of 12 minutes, but I am going to keep looking. 


Daisuke Ikeda/Katsumi Usuda/Super Tiger II v. Yuki Ishikawa/Alexander Otsuka/Munenori Sawa  BattlArts 7/26/08-EPIC

This isn’t just the best match of 2008, it is right up there with the best things ever done in this style. This is an elimination match which goes 40+ minutes and was even more brutal and awesome then it looked on paper. Everyone in this was on their games, Ikeda’s team was working heel, and they spent the early part of the match abusing and cheap shotting the faces, especially Sawa who was really great in the role of spunky young guy eating an asswhooping and showing stones. Because this was a tag, you had a lot of submissions being put on and saves being made, and man the saves were just horrific, stomps directly to the head, kicks square in the face, I mean you start cringing as soon as anyone comes into the ring. I hadn’t seen much Super Tiger II before, but he ruled here, really capturing the kind of awkward recklessness of Sayama’s UWF kicks. Your BattlArts big four were as great as they have ever been, Otsuka just brutalizing people with suplexes, and ripping out awesome mat counters, Usuda both taking and dishing out ungodly stiff shots, and Ishikawa and Ikeda being Ishikawa and Ikeda. Their interactions with each other are all you could possibly hope for, and there are parts near the end that almost feel like the last rounds of the Rumble in the Jungle with two guys punishing each other past the point of human tolerance. I don’t want to talk about any of the eliminations specifically, this is a match I don’t want to spoil, but when you have such brutality dished out during a match, you can fall into the trap of everything looking like a finish, and when everything looks like a finish, nothing looks like a finish. Here every elimination felt like exactly the point at which the guy should have been eliminated. This is a match I can’t imagine anyone who likes wrestling not loving, get your hands on it ASAP.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA

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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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