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