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

FUTEN 1/30/11

Hajime Moriyama vs. Takeshi Ono

PAS: Moriyama is a U-Style and E-Style guy, and this was actually his last listed match on Cagematch. It was a hell of match to go out on, as Ono brutalized him with big knees, kicks and punches. He totally dots this kids face up, and by the end of the match he has two swollen cheekbones and cuts around his eyes. This wasn't a totally one sided beating though, Moriyama lands two beautiful suplexes, a backdrop and a dragon suplex both of which landed Ono right on the back of his head and neck, he is also able to attack Ono with submissions. Ono was full on though, everything you want from him, he slips out of dragon screw and toe kicks Moriyama in the forehead, hits this two punch spinning backfist and hook combo which was just gorgeous, and lands some punishing bodyshots too. What a magnificent bastard he was.

ER: A big thing I like about Futen is that nobody really gets chumped out here. Even the most punishing fighter is going to take SOME damage, it won't be a fully one sided beatdown. This fight was obviously dominated by Ono, and Moriyama was going to be taking a lot of damage along the way for sure, but Moriyama also got some cool moments of fighting back and two really nasty suplexes that could have been flash wins for him. He absorbs way too many Ono punches to the face, but when Ono misses a punch and takes a backdrop driver right on his neck and shoulders, it's one of those great Futen "is this going to get a TEN COUNT??" moments, and the same thing happens later when Moriyama catches him with a dragon suplex. Moriyama even tries to go wild early with a kneebar, holding it as long as possible and even trying to lock it on over the rope while standing on the floor. It's like he knew he was going to eat dozens of punches so he had to scrape out damage where he could. And, yes, Ono punches him a lot. And kicks him in the face, including one kick where Moriyama is on the mat and Ono slides in with one leg straight to the face. As many of these Futen matches go, the final few minutes is a battle to see how many 10 counts Moriyama would stand up for, and there's always some excitement when a guy keeps getting up (against all better judgment). But I loved the actual finish of Moriyama continuing to fight to his feet, going for slowed and weakened single legs and high kicks, and Ono easily dodging a high kick and letting Moriyama spin himself right into a brutal octopus.

Fujita Jr. Hayato vs. NARITA 

PAS: Hayato fit in FUTEN perfectly, he totally embrace the ethos of unprotected, uncalled for kicks, stomps and knees directly to the face and throat. He unloads a pretty disgusting beating on NARITA, and two matches into this show we have icepack central, with bruises, cuts and swelling on NARITA. Hayato feels like Takeshi Ono's spiritual successor in this match, a skinny prick who has no regard for his opponents well being. At one point he soccer kicks NARITA in the neck and jaw, NARITA slumps into the corner and Hayato follows with a eye obliterating running knee, just gross stuff. NARITA has some moments, he hits a German suplex and some submission attempts, but he ended up mostly being a breathing heavy bag.

Katsumi Usuda vs. Ryuichi Sekine 

PAS: Really interesting defensive performance by Usuda. He wrestled this match like he was Bernard Hopkins, dodging attacks by Sekine, and punishing mistakes with submissions and counter strikes. There was a great moment where he taunts Sekine into a headbutt exchange only to dodge the headbutt and sink in a Fujiwara armbar. At one point he just dodges and evades 10 straight punches and kicks. If Sekine was a more interesting offensive wrestler this could have been an all-timer of a match, instead it was a cool little experiment and a fascinating Usuda performance.

ER: If this is defensive Usuda I would hate to see offensive! Usuda takes Sekine apart and Sekine doesn't ever really appear to have a chance. Usuda is such a confident standing striker, love how he'll just kick out the inner ankle of Sekine and there's nothing at all that can be done to stop it. He wears Sekine down with kicks and his submission on the work really came off like he was going to advance no matter what attempts at stopping him popped up. Sekine had his one big moment where he caught an overhand strike and kicked Usuda into the ropes, then got to the apron and drove his knee into Usuda's head. It wasn't a moment that felt very Futen (felt more like something you'd see as a big moment in a Adam Cole/Tommaso Ciampa NXT main event), but it was cool seeing Sekine get a big knee. The finishing sub from Usuda was fantastic, as he locks in a rolling kneebar that looks like the finish, and Sekine starts wildly kicking at him with his free leg…except Usuda catches that kicking leg and twists it into an inverted figure 4. Usuda is a guy who always looks like he has a plan B to back up his plan A, and this was a beautiful visual of that. 

Manabu Suruga vs. Mitsuya Nagai 

PAS: I really enjoyed this too, Nagai has had a pretty hit and miss career, but usually delivers in FUTEN. His main attribute is his crowbarism, and this is Crowbar Central. There was lots of leglock fighting throughout the match, giving the whole thing an early Pancrase feel, with nifty grabbing and scissoring of limbs and some pretty class stand up exchanges (including some liver mulching body kicks by Nagai). No one wheel kicks someone in the ribs like Shinya Hashimoto but Nagai is the closest. All the submission attempts in this match were great too, Nagai twist Suruga into a twizzler with a stretch plum and Suruga rolls into some nifty arm bars and knee bars.

ER: This is one of those Futen matches that really makes me wonder if these guys just feel constant pain in their knee and elbow joints. Haven't we all had tennis elbow, where we have to hold our arm a certain way for a couple days because "hey doc it hurts when I do (this)"? These guys must be in 24/7 "hurts when I do this" territory, because you cannot get your limbs bent around this much without residual damage. Sometimes I tweak my knee a little while out running, and so I don't run for a few days, occasionally ice it, and am careful when walking down stairs. I assume these guys just look at stairs with spite at this point. The submissions all looked really painful, and my favorite was Nagai using a bit of old school ingenuity and jamming his foot into Suruga's armpit, then bending Suruga's arm back over his foot. It looks like the kind of sub that would have won UFC 3. 

Daisuke Ikeda/Yuki Ishikawa vs. Kengo Mashimo/Makoto Hashi

PAS: What an awesome lineup. We don't have a lot of Ishikawa and Ikeda teaming together, and they are fun parejas team with some bickering early, and even Ikeda clotheslining Ishikawa when he was putting on an Indian deathlock (to give the move extra oomph). We get some good grappling from all four guys before it predictably devolves into a orgy of brutality. Hashi and Ikeda were the fulcrum of one of my favorite matches of all time, and we get to see them match up again, smashing their heads into each other in sickening ways. There is also some great Mashimo vs. Ishikawa matchups including maybe the best ground and pound I can remember seeing in a pro wrestling match. Ishikawa just unloads with punches square to the eye and jaw. This has more of a frantic style then some of the other FUTEN tags, and instead of ending in a long face off we have more near falls and tags in and out, including Hashi nearly getting a submission by touching Ishikawa's knee to the back of his head in a crazy submission, and Ikeda hitting an all impact superplex, before ending with Ishikawa trapping Hashi in a crazy leg stretch choke combo. You don't usually see Negro Navarro submissions mixed in with face kicking and punching and it was awesome here.

ER: Ishikawa and Ikeda teaming is a rare treat, something that's happened less than 10 times over the 25+ years these two have been running together. The most recent actually happened in the current cursed year of 2020, with them pairing off opposite Daniel Makabe & Chris Ridgeway (which is a great match that we reviewed and added to our 2020 MOTY List). This was the last time they tagged before that, and I like that they also treat it like a rare event. They act like a bickering Oscar and Felix, arguing over who is going to start the match, both putting one leg through the ropes to the apron while waving their hand at the other to get in there, culminating with Ikeda agreeing to start, shaking Ishikawa's hand, but then Irish whipping Ishikawa into the match only to see Ishikawa reverse his whip and send Ikeda into a Mashimo boot. It's a funny gag that you don't go into a Futen show expecting to see. This match also gives us (I believe) our only Ishikawa/Hashi pairing, and it's fitting that the match comes down to the two of them. A lot of this didn't feel super Futen to me, but not really in a bad way.

We didn't get the insane level of violence we get from many Futen main event tags, and some strikes felt a little more held back than normal. Mashimo's kicks were more often grazing over the top of Ikeda's head, and Hashi's headbutts don't have the same hollow coconut thump that really lets me know that brains are getting scrambled. But I don't need all that to have a good time, and I thought we got a really fantastic Ishikawa performance. I loved his work with Mashimo and Hashi, and the mounted punches traded by he and Mashimo were my absolute favorite part of the match. Ishikawa works some cool deathlock variations on Mashimo to wear him down, and then throws the gnarliest mounted punches right to Mashimo's neck. These looked like they could have been immaculately worked punches, but it also wouldn't much surprise me if he was just punching Mashimo in the neck. Either way, Mashimo manages to turn it and immediately throws some receipts right to Ishikawa's jaw and temple. We get some real tight saves, and the final showdown with Ishikawa and Hashi is fun, and I thought for certain Hashi was getting the tap when he broke out a leg dislocating stump puller. Ishikawa's final sub looked like a finishing sub, locking his arm around Hashi's neck while trying to make Hashi's leg boot touch the back of his head, Ikeda desperately holding back Mashimo from making the save. Afterward the Ikeda/Ishikawa alliance melts pretty quickly, but ice sculptures aren't made to last, they're made to be enjoyed while they exist.


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

Futen 12/19/10

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

Taro Nohashi vs. NARITA

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

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

Mitsuya Nagai vs. Kazuki Okubo

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

Kengo Mashimo vs. Rui Hiugaji

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

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

Manabu Suruga vs. Makoto Hashi

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

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

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

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

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


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