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.