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

Ryuichi Sekine vs. Kotaru Nasu

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

Satoshi Kajiwara vs. Braham Shu

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

Takuma Sano vs. Katsumi Usuda

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

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

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

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

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

FUJIWARA FAMILY

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE IKEDA

Read more!

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.

Read more!

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.

Read more!

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.

Read more!

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.

Read more!