2021 Ongoing MOTY List: White Moriyama vs. Izuchi

White Moriyama vs. Tetsuya Izuchi HEAT-UP 2/28

SR: Man, White Moriyama's return to pro wrestling completely flew under my radar. He was never the 5th best guy in FUTEN or U-Style, but by 2021 standards he's basically Tamura. This was a really fun, unpredictable 10 minute match with a surprising amount of hate. Izuchi is a kick padded kid who acts all cocky towards veteran Moriyama. Moriyama puts him in his place with some slick, fast grappling, so Izuchi retaliates with an awesome stomp to Moriyama's face. Izuchi kicks hard and his spinning choke is a fun false finish, so I am completely fine. Finishing run was really cool with Moriyama giving Izuchi the business with his kicks, including throwing these cool Tamura style leaping kicks, and some slick U-Style grappling. You can tell Moriyama's grappling is a class above what most guys can do these days the way he would move in and out of submissions, dug all of his slick leg locks.

PAS: This was pretty good stuff, it would definitely be the 3rd or 4th best match on a FUTEN show but that gets you pretty far in 2021. Izuchi is too pretty for me to really like him much. I like my shootstyle guys grizzled, not all handsome like Takada. But he did throw a pretty nasty stomp, and his gator roll head and arm choke was nasty shit. Moriyama is clearly a class grappler, and I loved how he would kick and stomp the arm and knee as a set up for the armbar and leglock, and how he kept switching positions on the ground to lock it in tighter. 

ER: I think the pretty boy cheapshotting punk is a great character in wrestling, especially in shootstyle. Of course grizzled shootstyle guys are cooler, but a pretty boy pissing off a grizzled vet to his own detriment is one of the most fun things in shootstyle. Izuchi has boy band hair and glittery kickpads, fast hands, and you know it's just a matter of time before Moriyama schools him. Moriyama approaches him with veteran resignation, allows him to rifle off a couple of slaps that he ignores, before schooling him on the mat. Izuchi figures might not be able to beat Moriyama, so instead moves to annoy him, and this is the best decision for all of us. Izuchi stomps Moriyama right in the face and Moriyama sells it like someone who is angry that his face got stomped on. But the best moment comes a little later, when Izuchi stomps on Moriyama's face again, in the exact same way, and this time instead of holding his face, Moriyama shoots to his feet seeing red. All poise is now out the window, and he laces into Izuchi with leaping kicks, targeting his arm and body, not really seeking to take a limb rather than seeking to punish. The 10 minute time limit draw is pretty stupid, just let Moriyama punish an ankle for like 35 seconds. Matches that just end in a draw without building any kind of momentum toward that draw is a real dry hump. All heat-up, no release. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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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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FUTEN- 4/9/09

PAS: MOTHERFUCKING FUTEN

TAKA Michinoku vs Shoichi Uchida

TKG: Hey it’s a TAKA match with no superkicks. This is our first taste of Futen. Stylisitically it is worked as a basic undercard indy juniors match with no rope running and a bit more matwork. While there was no rope running, there still was lots of running offense. I don’t think I’ve seen Uchida before, and TAKA does a yeoman’s job of selling for his power offense and lots of really loose crossfaces. I can’t imagine wanting to watch Uchida v a guy who can’t sell as well as TAKA.

PAS: Yeah I didn’t get much of a sense of Uchida, but he didn’t do a ton for me. Most of the match was worked around Uchida’s crossface and TAKA’s facelock. I guess you don’t need a really tight crossface to buy it as a finish in 2009, but it had the look of a Helmsely crossface.

Kengo Mashimo vs Shinjitsu Nohashi

TKG: I was kind of expecting more Mashimo stiffness. Surprisingly, Nohashi was the guy who brought more stiffness to the table for the body of the match. Nohashi had some nasty face stomps and running headbutts. Got the sense that these guys have a touring match worked out and instead of doing something different here, just tried to force it in.

PAS: You don’t expect the midget Shinzaki to be the guy laying it in, but his stomps were by far the highlight of the match. I do prefer these kind of modified Indy juniors matches to whatever Keita Yano is supposed to be doing in BattlArts undercards, but it isn’t anything special.

Mitsuya Nagai & White Moriyama vs Shu Sato & Kei Sato

TKG: Nagai hasn’t had a good match in ages and he looked like complete crap running in for his hot tag fired up offense. Thankfully he wasn’t in this match much. I kind of liked White Moriyama here as his offense was good looking and he was good at working the face in peril role. The Satos are odd in that their stuff can either look super super gentle or absolutely nasty with no middle ground.

PAS: Moriyama comes in with a bandage on his face, and by the first couple of minutes it gets kicked off, and you see a nasty gash on his cheek. It nicely adds to the violence of the Sato’s kicks. I really liked the early Moriyama mat work, he had really fast amateur rides. The Sato’s were pretty good at bringing their indy shtick and working it in this environment, they landed a really stiff top rope dropkick for example.


Koichiro Kimura vs Hayato Jr Fujita

TKG: This was mostly Fujita bringing it to Kimura with Kimura occasionally catching and twisting the fuck out of Fujita. I don’t remember Kimura working like this before. He sold Fujita’s stuff well and when he put him in a sub they were some of the most twisting dislocating subs you’ll see in pro wrestling. I especially liked the half crab he put n for a near fall in the middle of match.

PAS: Fujita is a guy who I have really enjoyed in the past, but he seemed to be pulling his kicks a bit. Kind of weird thing to be doing in Futen of all places. The violence of Kimura’s submission made up for the lack of violence in the strikes though.


Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono vs Manabu Suruga & Takahiro Oba

TKG: So the thing with Hara is he’s always been a guy who doesn’t sell on the level of the top level BattlArts guys. But here he is really spectacular in role of underdog babyface. I mean this is the best I can ever remember Hara looking. I don’t know what really to make of Oba. He’s really charismatic and has lots of awkward ogreish offense. Not sure if he’s over in a legit Rufus R Jones way or in a more ironic Hack Myers way. But his stuff amused me. But for lots of this it didn’t feel like it mattered who the faces were. As this was just a spectacular Ikeda/Ono as MX performance where they whipped out all their shit allowing both faces to work long in peril section. Ono for a guy who I haven’t seen in forever was as nasty and disdainful as I remember him.

PAS: Just a totally spectacular match. Ono and Ikeda are an amazing heel tag team, like a super violent Anderson brothers as they spend much of the match isolating each guy and murdering them. Ikeda is so great at stopping people from making saves, when Ono is torturing Oba, Ikeda and Suruga(Hara) have this mini Greco pummeling brawl while Hara tries desperately for a save. The finish run with Ikeda and Suruga is as great as any Ikeda v. Ishikawa struggle. They have this spectacular finishing punch section, which combines a violent BattlArts punch exchange with a almost Lawler v. Mantel fatigue war. I don’t remember seeing Oba before, and he had some super goofy shit, but in some way it worked well. He kind of kept throwing himself at the heels in weird way, including smashing Ikeda in the face with his taint. And don’t forget about fuckin Ono who was as huge a cunt as he was ten years ago. He may have been the best guy in the match, stomping, kicking and twisting guys in pretzels. I am going to want to watch it again, but it feels on first watch like the 2009 MOTY.

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