Wednesday, April 27, 2022

2022 MOTY Project Update #1

 Hitamaru Sasaki & Kodai Nozaki vs. Minoru Tanaka & Soma Watanabe, Kyushu Pro 4/23/2022


Once again, Kyushu Pro produces a really fun shootstyle match. This was all about my boy Kodai Nozaki who has the thickest legs in the world and is a machine here with his vader hammers and big throws. He really forces the GLEAT boys to get competitive, and he can grapple too. I love that his scarf hold is a credible nearfall simply because Nozaki is so massive. Sasaki did some slick grappling in the first half. This is all about the last 4 minutes or so, though. Watanabe showed good instinct going for Nozakis leg, but Nozai caught him and then proceeded to absolutely nuke him like it was a BattlARTS match. Awesome stuff. Tanaka is the blandest wrestler of all time doing the same stuff for the last 25 years, but he was okay here and got out of the way when Sasaki and Watanabe did a hot finish. Good shit and my man Nozaki deserves more.



I'll start by talking about the problems with this match. It was a bit silly, a bit too long, and there was some sloppiness mostly caused by them wrestling on this pillow mat where you probably don't have good footing. Aside from all that, it was a really good match and another case for Takanashi being the one good big match worker in Japan. Starts with some nice grappling, but they soon move to the meat of the match. Takanashis vicious matwork vs. Shiryus awesome Jackie Chan moves. Shiryu really knew how to bounce around that little room and those windows. The back roll handspring through the window was just awesome and so were all the diving kicks and stomps, and the bounce of the ceiling into a reckless headbutt has to be among the most insane things I've seen in a while. Takanashis style is a mix of sadistic Fuchi leg stretches and innovative stuff that works like using the stool on the leg. As I said there is some sloppiness and the match goes a bit long, but they both sold their butts off, built really well to some big spots and kept me enthralled in the match the whole way, there was never a moment where I said "fuck this" which is quite rare for 2022 wrestling.
 

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