Daisuke Ikeda Anniversary Show 4/7/19

PAS: Very excited to see this show up!! Ikeda and Ishikawa back on their bullshit again, plus lots of other fun dudes.

Funimori Abe vs. Junji Tanaka

PAS: Junji Tanaka is old school BattlArts dude Junji.com, and is dressed in a Sumo pad for some reason. This is a solid BattlArts/Futen opener, where guys hit each other a little harder than is really neccesary. Junji is in his late 40s and takes a bunch of really gnarly kicks to the head which he sells like an old man falling down a flight of stairs. Abe was fine in his role of a guy kicking an old man.

SAKI vs. Hikari Shimizu

PAS: This was a bad Joshi match, which really felt out of place on this card. When BattlArts had Joshi matches they would usually try to work the style, this was just a lot of bad dropkicks and hair whips. Shimizu seemed to hurt herself at one point so the ending felt abrupt. I did like SAKI's furry pink Brody boots though.

Keisuke Okada/SUGI vs. Hiroshi Yamato/Taro Nohashi

PAS: Match had some really fun moments without really ever coming together entirely. Okada and Yamato had a fun shoot scramble to start, and SUGI and Nohashi followed it up with a fun lucha exchange. The middle dragged a bit, but built to a fun finish with SUGI unloading all of his big highspots. Taro Nohashi seems like a guy I need to dig into more. He was awesome as a crowbar in his FUTEN matches, and here he splats Okada with some sick headbutts and bases really well for all of SUGI's spots. I wonder if their are hidden MPRO gems I need to dig up.

Ikuto Hidaka vs. Takafumi Ito

PAS: This was really great, basic arm versus leg match, but both guys were super tricky on the mat and found awesome ways to fly into attacks, counters into counters. I loved Hidaka's dragon screw whip with Ito tied into the corner, really looked like it shredded all the tendons in his knee. Ito really grabbed at the arm in nasty ways too, including a victory roll into an armbar. Built nicely from simple grappling into more complex fun stuff, had enough wacky stuff that I wouldn't call it pure shootstyle, but shootstyle adjacent wrestling is having a good year.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Tatsuo Nakano vs. Super Tiger/Tomohiko Hashimoto

PAS: Apparently Nakano is still semi-active, I hadn't seen him in years, he still brings the heat when needed, and I really enjoyed team UWF. Fujiwara is ageless, and still will deliver two or three cool things a match, even as he enters his 8th decade on this planet. I loved how he broke a Tiger submission hold by twisting his ankle at a really nasty angle, and the counter of Hashimoto's slap into a Fujiwara armbar was smooth as expected. I didn't think the Tiger and Hashimoto team brought enough to really make this a list match, although I liked Hashimoto's energy.

Brahman Brothers vs. Masayuki Tokumitsu/Rocky Kawamura

PAS: This was a Brahman Brothers match. They are very much a thing, lots of comedy spots of spitting water and grinding things into faces. It serves a purpose I suppose, but It isn't really my thing. As a former amateur boxer I do appreciate the form on Rocky Kawamura's body shots, but this was mostly forgettable. This was a show of everyone showing up and doing their stuff, some of that stuff I love, this is stuff I don't.

Daisuke Ikeda/Alexander Otsuka vs. Mohammed Yone/Yuki Ishikawa

PAS: I am in a pretty great nostalgia K-Hole right now, I get to watch the Warriors go back to 2015 post KD injury, and I get to see my FUTEN and BattlArts friends take it back to 2010 and approximate a FUTEN tag. Ishikawa has shown up in 2019 and is making a strong Wrestler of the Year pitch, after basically being inactive for the last half a decade. The rest of the guys in this match have clearly slowed down a step or two, but Ishikawa looks like prime Yuki Ishikawa. We get great opening Ishikawa mat sections with both Ikeda and Otsuka, including Ishikawa doing an awesome gator roll. There was a long Ikeda vs. Yone section where the match dropped down a gear (although it did have an awesome spot where Otsuka deadlift germans both guys, and some great Ikeda straight punches to Yone's head), The focus of the match was Ikeda vs. Ishikawa of course and I was so glad to see them run that all time legendary matchup back. The structure was pretty interesting with Ikeda initially working as a guy who had lost a step and couldn't hang, in the early sections he kept going to the eyes and breaking submissions by biting. When we got the final stanza though, he stands up and brings the heat you would expect from Daisuke Ikeda, including nearly beheading Ishikawa with a spin kick to the jaw. There is some great intense scrambling on the ground, but Ishikawa finishes Ikeda off with a nasty Octopus. So happy this happened, and so happy it showed up on the internet. Can't believe that they are still doing this to each other, but god bless those two lunatics.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA

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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.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE DAISUKE IKEDA

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ONE WHO JUST REPRESENTS THE FUTEN CLICK, WITH THE GAME AND SOUL, OF AN OLD SCHOOL FLICK- Futen 4/22/10

A mysterious benefactor delivered the April show. It was a great fucking show too.

Mitsuya Nagai v. Shoichi Uchida

This is a competitive squash with Uchida showing some piss and vinegar, but he basically gets overwhelmed. Nagai does twist him in some impressively nasty submissions. There are parts of the match where Uchida looks like a Cirque De Solie contortionist.

Koichi Kimura v. Rui Hiugaji

This is pretty much a squash too, with Kimura taking about 80% of the match and winning. Kimura is a guy who will nastily squash someone, but he did some pretty disinterested selling, and Hiugaji didn't do any of the things which made him compelling in the May match against Hashi. His little drips of offense here were pretty underwhelming, including an Edgeish spear.

Tamon Honda v. Takahiro Oba

Great, great match. Really intense grappling early with Oba looking like he belonged on the mat with the Olympian. There is a great moment where we see every step of Honda setting up an Olympic Hell, from the standing wrist control, the use of that control to take him down, shifting his weight, keylocking the arm, clasping his arms and then the wrench. Sometimes fast is awesome, but slow can be great too. Oba has a great rear naked choke as well, where he really looks like he is going to pop Honda's head off his shoulders. One of my favorite near falls in recent memory with Oba winding up for a big lariat which Honda checks, catches and spins into Hell, just beautiful counter wrestling. Right up there with the best of 2010, and the best of Futen.

Makoto Hashi v. Taro Nohashi

One of the better under five minutes matches I can remember. Nohashi jumps him before the bell and they pretty much go balls to the wall the entire match. Hashi is a guy who throws rotten cantaloupe sounding headbutts as a regular spot, but man alive was there some nasty hollow echoes going on here from both guys. Finish was sick as they both place their hands behind their back and just smash their heads into each other over and over, with Hashi just streaming blood. Nohashi buckles and Hashi chokes him out. Really short, really fun.

Brahman Shu/Brahman Kei/Daisuke Ikeda v. Takeshi Ono/Manabu Suruga/White Moriyama

Hell of a main event. Here is the Daisuke Ikeda we know and love. Brahmans continue to grow on me as they were delivering an appropriate level of violence. There were really kicking the shit out of Moriyama in really unsafe places, back of the neck, the throat, the temple, and their water bottle spot looked less like a comedy spot and more like a waterboarding.I loved Surgura coming in and wasting everyone with lariats. Of course the highlight of this match was Ono v. Ikeda and it delivered what you wanted it to. Ono was unloading, multiple punch combinations, rights, lefts, bodyshots, leaving it all out there, and Ikeda does some very cool selling, and rolling with the punches and when he fires back he does it with impact. The finishing run with Moriyama v. Ikeda was awesome too, with Moriyama also throwing the kitchen sink at Ikeda desperately trying to slay the dragon, but he falls to that thudding right hand. Great match to end a great card. Futen is the best.

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ON GUARD I'LL LET YOU TRY MY FUTEN STYLE - Futen 7/25/10

You can pick this up from

damian1488@hotmail.com

This is the best overall of the three shows, even with missing Ikeda

Manabu Suruga vs Kazuki Okubo

Fun match with Okubo in his traditional role of fired up youngster. Suruga was great in the veteran role, he dominates early establishing his role, and when Okubo does get a run of offense, he sells his ass off and you really buy into the possibility of a big upset. The cross armbreaker he wins with really feels like a desperation hold, like Suruga thought to himself "fuck I am in real trouble I had better take this kid out."

Taro Nohashi vs Peace Man

Peace man is one of those weird Japanese comedy gimmicks which I am not culturally able to understand. Match itself had some nice moments, there is a baseline with Futen matches. The work is usually going to be stiff enough and make enough sense, that it won't fall below a certain point.

Koichiro Kimura vs Makoto Hashi

Another good Hashi match, as he seems to beat Kimura into giving a shit. Hashi plays underdog here as well as he played overdog in his Hiugaji match. Kimura is really violent here, laying in some vicious stomps in the corner and unleashing a zit poppingly tight neck crank. Short match but intense and fun.

Takahiro Oba/Brahman Shu/Brahman Kei vs Tamon Honda/Kengo Mashimo/Ryuichi Sekine

My favorite of the Brahman matches and they are starting to grow on me. It is pretty cool how Oba's shtick works just as well as dickish heel stuff as it works as babyface spots. He and Mashimo work a lot of the same spots they worked in their singles matches, with the face/heel switched and it still was good shit. Sekine takes the beating again and the heels are great at kicking his ass, and he gets his ass kicked. Honda is great when he is in, but isn't in enough, I did love the duel German suplexes with Mashimo. Fun finish run and this is a match I could see non-shoot fans digging a bunch too.

Takeshi Ono vs Mitsuya Nagai

Great singles match, and another amazing performance by Ono, who really cemented himself in my eyes as one of the best wrestlers in the world. Nagai is a flawed wrestler, but he is a great crowbar and he is brutal here, just beating the hell out of the smaller guy. Ono has brought a knife to a gunfight and just great taking a beating and selling absolute desperation. He starts out trying to go toe to toe with Nagai but gets overwhelmed, and by the end all he is left with is desperately diving for submissions, only to see Nagai shrug them off and lay in a bigger beating. Some of the elbows from the top Nagai was landing looked as violent as Wanderlei Silva elbows, nothing is pulled in Futen. Ono somehow grabbing the octopus felt like watching a real amazing sports comeback. I think this is a little behind the May tag, but is another killer Futen drop. Man someone has to get their back catalogue, I need to see ever match they have ever run.

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