1/21/1997
Ikuto
Hidaka vs Shoichi Funaki
Hidakas
debut match! And it’s a fun 5 minute scrap. Hidaka is bald,
bandaged head, wearing kickpads, he looks nothing like the guy he’d
become later, but you could see he was brimming with talent. There’s
some really nice amateur rides, and Funaki busts out a crafty set up
for a Fujiwara armbar. Funaki realizes he’s on veteran duty here
and starts smacking Hidaka around and kicking him in his bandaged
head in dickish ways and it’s really fun. Hidakas few highspots
(dropkick, flip senton into an armbar that really popped the crowd)
were integrated really well.
Alexander
Otsuka vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa
The
first half is kinda eh. Hoshikawa can engage in some decent grappling
exchanges, but then drags things down with his tendency to try and
force in irish whips. Otsuka at least makes him work hard for that
irish whip, but it takes one out of the match, and the general lack
of intensity does not help. It picks up when they start fucking
nuking each other with Hoshikawa hitting an insane kick combo and his
awesome looking diving kick, and Otsuka nuking him with his suplex,
including an insane struggle over a dragon suplex that lead to Otsuka
headbutting him in the back of the head. Always love two BattlARTS
guys trying to nuke each other.
Gran
Naniwa & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke & Masato Yakushiji
vs. Dick Togo & TAKA Michinoku & Shiryu & MEN’s Teioh
The
Michinoku Pro crew rolls in on a BattlARTS card and hits one of their
greatest matches ever, does that rule or what? Yeah it’s not a
BattlARTS match but this kind of stylistic diversity is what made the
promotion great. This is less of a crowd-pleasing showcase, it’s
more of an intense frantic battle. These guys have all gotten so good
now they can just hit their stuff shooting from the hip and mix
things up no problem, and Korakuen Hall is absolutely excited going
nuts for every single dive and complicated headscissor that they
nail. It’s a frantic fight from the get go though with Kai En Tai
going for outside brawling. We get some awesome Fujiwara-ish
reversals from Gran Hamada here, really stealing the show while being
in with a bunch of guys half his age, and Yakushiji hitting some
beautiful stuff. The centerpiece of the match though is Naniwa with
everyone trying to bully him and the little crab fighting back with
gritty WAR-ish lariats. Eventually they rip his mask off, chair him
and bloody him and we get some of the greatest grizzliest bloodiest
minutes in wrestling history as he fucking gushes a fountain of blood
and in turn tears up Shiryu. Chaos during the last couple minutes was
awesome, I especially love Togo going with a chair after Sasuke while
Sasuke dove off with that asai moonsault, before Togo himself eating
that same chair in brutal fashion later. It’s a blazing hot match
that delivers all the spectacular action and insane dives this crew
can deliver along with some grizzly hateful violence and the
incomparable underdog aura of GRAN NANIWA~, not much more needs to be
said here.
Minoru
Tanaka vs. Original Tiger Mask
A
match that exceeed my expectations. Probably the most competitive
you’ll see Tiger Mask being in the 90s, as Tanaka forced him into
an actual contest instead of just running through his spots
(something that he liked to do a lot post-return). Tanaka, to his
credit, brought the fight and sold Tiger as this legendary behemoth
of the ring that could crush him in an instant if given the chance.
That low kick being the perfect example of this. He also came across
as less spotty than usual, with his flying armbar looking like he
really wanted to tear Sayamas arm out. At 10 minutes it’s packed
with pretty good action. Perhaps the best match for either guy in the
90s?! Eitherway it’s really good and surprisingly a standout. Good
action, good struggle, cool moments and a sense of Tanaka trying to
topple a legend rather than old Tiger just being brought out to hit
his spots for a crowd pleaser.
Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda vs. Yuki Ishikawa & Takeshi Ono - EPIC
This was some truely high end BattlARTS tag team action. The first thing
you notice is how on point all 4 guys on the mat were. The opening
exchanges felt slick like U-Style matwork and always highly competitive,
with the violence upgraded to BattlARTS standards. The brutality was of
the charts here. The "tag team partners running in to make the save
from a submission" where some of the must vicious I've seen and felt
like PRIDE ground stomping, Ikeda at one point started throwing mule
kicks on the ground, and Usuda and Ono threw some kicks that looked like
nobody would get up from them. Man I don't even care whether there was a
story or anything this match because the work was so frantic, hard
fought and believable and sold so, so well I was 100% engrossed the
entire time. The match also felt like it could end at anytime: at one
point, Ikeda got his leg worked over with a few kicks from Ono and nice
holds by Ishikawa (note the teamwork there), then Ono landed a series of
skull crushing kicks on him. Ikeda believably beat the count, but his
entire body language was such that you could see he was moments away
from being finished, so he did the only reasonable thing and quietly
slipped to his corner to tag out before collapsing like a broken man.
That may have been my favourite moment of the match and it made the
finish feel even sweeter where it feels like Ishikawa and Ono have the
match in the bag and Ikeda just comes in and turns Ono's lights out to
set up the finish. All 4 guys had career highlight performances, Ono did
some stuff on the mat only he could do, Usuda stepped up big time and
Ishikawa and Ikeda had some incredible exchanges together. Great, great
match and a really compelling fusion of top notch shootstyle matwork,
brawling and top level stiffness.
2/20
Shoichi
Funaki vs. Ikuto Hidaka
Hidaka
is still rocking the kickpads and shooter look. He barrages Funaki
with some pretty hard kicks to begin. Funaki is not thought of as
much of an asskicker, but he is pretty effective smacking Hidaka
around and leaning back hard when he grabs a half crab. It even
builds off of Hidakas debut match when Funaki scouts his dropkick and
just tries to rip him in half with a camel clutch. It’s just a 3
minute match and Hidaka brings a lot of fun energy already.
Alexander
Otsuka vs. Katsumi Usuda
Otsuka
had grown his hair out a bit here which just looks weird on him. This
was decent shootstyle action early on, kind of slow paced with not a
ton to stand out. Things pick up when Otsuka bodies Usuda with an
insane German suplex. They get a bit more aggressive from that point
forward including a great mat sequence with Otsuka trying his
mightiest to force a Fujiwara armbar and Usuda trying to roll into a
legbar, until he’s able to succeed and crank it back for the tap.
The early goings weren’t much but the second half is worth a look
if you want to see Otsuka being a suplex freak.
Takeshi
Ono vs. Minoru Tanaka - Skippable
Well
this was a bit of a waste. They went over 10 minutes but didn’t
really have the material for it, so they basically spent 5 minutes
dicking around with ‘cautious’ standup, and things didn’t
exactly get going after that either. They tried to have a contest
with more suspense and such but it just didn’t really build any
intensity. I liked the bit where Ono ambushed Tanaka as he went to do
a kip up. Really not a lot to this otherwise.
Daisuke
Ikeda vs. Carl Greco
For
a 8 minute match this was pretty beastly. Ikeda knew he was up
against a monster, so he brought his A-game. The result was a bunch
of really good exchanges. Whenever Ikeda saw an opening he would just
go for the kill with his strikes, including almost stomping Carls
face in with a vicious stomp. Carl was a fiend as we know him, always
scrambling for submissions and hitting some big throws. Loved that
back trip that spiked Ikeda. This was a reminder of how good
wrestling can be even as an undercard match when both guys care to be
competitive.
Viktor
Krueger vs. Yuki Ishikawa
Krüger
was getting better. Everything he does is kind of overshadowed by his
freakish size, but he was getting more adept at the grappling and he
wasn’t afraid to engage in some sicko headbutt exchanges with
Ishikawa. As such this was a pretty fun match. It was perhaps a bit
long at 17 minutes but for the most part it was pretty compelling
action. They told the david vs goliath story about as good as
possible while Ishikawa still looked like the grappling master. There
was one reversal to Kruegers powerbomb in here that was pretty
awesome Fujiwara-esque, and later they even went for the Andre/Mighty
Inoue powerbomb counter. They had the right idea too with Krueger
constantly going for the deadly powerbomb and Ishikawa trying to lock
in an octopus hold on the big man. In the end Ishikawa was able to
survive the powerbomb but a big double axe handle from Krueger did
him in which was a pretty cool finish.
2/28
Takeshi
Ono vs. Ikuto Hidaka - FUN
This
was when Hidaka had just debuted and he was introduced to the world
of BattlARTS the hard way. Ono just destroys him here, punches, kicks
with abadon, Hidaka is able to take him down and immediately Ono
elbows him in the back of the head and tries twisting his leg off.
Hidaka is able to score a single go behind, with Ono frantically
selling the threat of a German suplex for a moment before Hidaka hits
a scrappy Mysterious Rana in a super cool moment. Shortly after Ono
puts his lights out though. For under 3 minute rookie squashes this
was really cool.
Shoichi
Funaki vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa
I
was thinking they would just do a junior style match, and well they
did pretty much just that. Although there was some slick matwork with
Funaki looking pretty impressive. I thought he would do his thing
where he goes for leg attacks on the more aggressive Hoshikawa but
instead it was Hoshikawa who had to resort to stopping Funaki after
he got dropped by a nasty fisherman buster. It wasn’t much of a
BattlARTS style match but their shit looked good. Funaki took the win
pretty easily with the Shawn Capture.
Yuki
Ishikawa vs. Alexander Otsuka
Well
these two are BattlARTS gods and they can’t have a bad match. There
was some great matwork here, really slick stuff with Otsuka always
doing something more interesting than everyone else. That guy had
such a way of rolling in and out of odd positions and into
submissions, there’s no one else quite like him. There was also a
surprising amount of animosity as they both hit each other with some
evil god forsaken headbutts. Otsuka was also hellbent on killing
Ishikawa to death with his suplexes as usual, there was one pretty
unreal uranage where he lifted him from the ground. So while it was a
10 minute undercard match they pretty much went hard and had a great
little wrestling match.
Minoru
Tanaka vs. Gran Hamada
Gran
Hamada working BattlARTS style huh? He isn’t much of a shooter, but
he did his best I thought. Tanaka kind of ate him up early on the mat
early and didn’t look bad while doing so. It gave the match a bit
of a story and Hamada was smart enough to not try any rope running or
anything like that, unlike a certain Naohiro Hoshikawa. Tanaka was pretty gentle besides one hard kick to
the chest. This was kind of deliberate and not super explosive but it
was a decent match, if you can get over the fact Hamada has such
plot armor that Tanaka cannot beat him even in his own style.
Daisuke
Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda vs. Carl Greco & Viktor Krueger
A
lot of good shit in this tag to close out this TV block. Anytime Carl
is in it’s just great straight forward shootstyle action, and Usuda
ain’t lazy either. These two are a great match up and always
deliver. Krueger was continueing to get better, really finding his
way into becoming a really fun monster. He was doing lots of actively
cool stuff, he had a wrist takedown that came across really
believable thanks to his bear paw hands, he also had this great
twisting headlock into a guillotine choke. Ikeda was stepping up to
the fight and it’s some compelling big vs. small action. Also
because Ikeda is involved there’s always a chance you might just
see the most evil kick you’ve ever seen any moment. At the end
Krueger hurled Usuda to the side and dropped him with one of the most
brutal powerbombs you’ll ever see and an unexpected and chaotic
finish occurs. Really nice stuff and shows you how loaded 1997
BattlARTs was getting with action this good even on small shows.
Complete Takeshi Ono
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