Takeshi Ono Documentation #5

Takeshi Ono vs. Carl Greco, BattlARTS 11/5/1997 - GREAT

1997 was probably the period where you could take almost any random BattlARTS match and it would be the #1 best match to happen in 2020 for months. Carl Greco was a barefoot machine here, lord in heaven what a great grappler he was. This is all about Ono trying to out-slick the beast. Some absolutely fantastic grappling and holds here, and Ono throwing strikes feels like he's trying to equalize the situation in order to not get steamrolled. Great nearfalls here, including an absolutely awesome Octopus Stretch that Ono sunk in like he wanted the tap out more than anything else in his life. This was a second match on the card and went eleven minutes, you get the sense if they had gone for a slightly more grandiose finishing stretch with some big strike exchanges and near KO this would've moved into serious MOTYC territory, but for that type of second 11 minute match on the card this was damn great.

Takeshi Ono & Manabu Hara & White Moriyama vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Brahman Shu & Brahman Kei (FUTEN 4/24/2010) - EPIC

FUTEN baby. Ultra-stiff fast paced basically shootstyle brawl where everyone lays into each other with the stiffest punches, headbutts and lariats pro wrestling has ever seen. This is not even remembered as one of the greater matches from that brief but sweet run of FUTEN actually making tape in 2010, but it’s chock full of fantastic and violent exchanges. Just the opening exchange with Ikeda and Hara trying to pulverize each other was fantastic. I have seen some people object to the Brahmans in Futen before, but they are fine here, working stiff and their comedy spot was over quickly and didn’t derail the match. One of them also had this sick leaping headbutt. Hara looks great coming in for his hot tag crushing everyone, and Moriyama is really good in his fired up youngster role. Ono isn’t in the match a ton but he looks great lighting up dudes with punches and kicks and stretching them with nasty submissions. His exchange with Ikeda was insane and the highlight of the match by far. Ikeda was working this match like an injured but still super tough and dangerous beast. His chemistry with Ono is really no worse than his chemistry with Yuki Ishikawa, except Ono is in more of an aggressor role. The finish is between Ikeda and Moriyama and basically about Moriyama trying to slowly chop the boss down and getting met with brutal punts kicks and straight rights. Absolutely dope material, it’s too sad FUTEN only started regularily releasing DVDs in 2010.

 

Takeshi Ono & Junji.com vs. Azteca & Daiyu Kawauchi (BattlARTS 2/12/1999) - SKIPPABLE

I would’ve liked to see how the KAGEKI boys would mesh with the BattlARTS crew, but they only showed about 30 seconds of this. Seemed like a pro style match with the only Ono content being a nasty double stomp and him octopus stretching young nondescript Kawauchi for the finish.

 Takeshi Ono & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda, BattlARTS 1/21/1997 - 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.

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