I am admittedly pretty hard on wrestling in the year of our lord 2020. There is more of it than ever, and it all sucks harder than ever, not to mention the virus delivering a near-death blow to an already struggling industry as promoters and wrestlers failed to come up with experimental solutions to the given problem and instead gave us some pro wrestling that feels even dumber, even more forced and more Jackass-like than ever before. However, there have been some bright spots, and I am going to highlight some of them in this post.
Junichi Hanawa vs. Takahiro Tababa, H-Production ?/?/2020
Meth lab BattlARTS style match taking place in a small bar without a
ring. Hanawa is dumpy and balding. I've never seen him before, but the
way I know Japanese sleaze indies he probably has been running his own
micro-shootstyle shows since 1993. This was really entertaining thanks
to some unexpected psycho stiffness and Hanawas tough old man charisma.
Tababa was doing some subtle heel tactics in between crowbarring his
opponent. The brawling portion where they ventured into the street was a
bit of a letdown, but there was a funny spill down a ramp and a
kneedrop off of a railing. The finish was very good with both guys
throwings some brutal strikes and the German suplex on the floor has to
be the spot of the year.
Junichi Hanawa vs. ZIMA Yoshida ?/?/2020
This seems to be taking place in Hanawas backyard garden in the pouring
making it essential pandemy era viewing material. Another fun
unexpectedly stiff little match that had some pretty nasty low kicks and
shotais and some neat matwork. ZIMA describes himself as the
self-declared Volk Han of Adachi but with the hair and condition of
Andrej Kopylov.
Takanori Ito vs. Yutaka Yoshie (GLEAT ?/2020)
GLEAT is uploading random exhibition matches to their YouTube. I didn’t really like the first GLEAT show, but if they are to continue giving Yutaka Yoshie things to do they are getting on my good side. Takanori Ito is one of the GLEAT boys with a shooter gimmick. He isn’t very impressive, especially not if you compare him to Pioneer Senshi rookies, but he has a decent enough variety of strikes, and he didn’t do any stupid shit like 99% of modern pro wrestlers too. So this ended up being a good no frills match. Yoshie doesn’t really enage in shootstyle, but he is really fun here potatoeing the young guy, working simple pro-style holds in a very snug and no-nonsense way, and absorbing Itos strikes with his blubber. Nasty nasty finish.
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