Keita Yano vs. Fugofugo Yumeji, EXIT 11/28/2010 - EPIC
This went 30 minutes, which makes it probably the most ambitious basement shootstyle match to happen on a paper tin mat (that we‘ve seen yet). First 15 or so minutes were all grappling and it was a mixture of shootstyle and more orthodox pro wrestling style holds. Yano already looked really good, the man was born to hit the mat hard even if it‘s a childrens play mat. Fugo is immovable but he had some impressive escapes and I loved whenever he would grab a headlock or facelock he would really wrench Yano. Yano reversing from below by putting a Hondaesque chokehold on Fugo, bridging over and then doing a bunch of 70s arm work was my favourite moment. When they stood up, the match was smarter than I expected. Fugo started mauling Yano as soon as he threw strikes, so Yano mostly avoided direct strike exchanges, instead trying to work Fugos back, hitting surprise dropkicks etc. They spend a good deal of time building to a Scorpion Deathlock which resulted in some nasty stretches. Yano almost knocking himself out when he tried to headbutt Fugo was fun. Fugos insanely stiff headbutt in the last few minutes also looked more violent than the headbutt that nearly killed Shibata. Yano looked done, bleeding and getting the taste slapped out of his mouth. Finish could have been more epic but it was good enough. This was some weird mix of a cerebral 70s match and shootstyle violence and it worked really well considering the length.
Keita Yano vs. Manabu Hara, BattlARTS 2/25/2007 - GREAT
Looks like its Yanos debut match!! No Yanoisms, this is just a gnarly shootstyle bout with both guys really cracking each other with hits. I expected Yano to get trashed, but he held up pretty well, taking chunks out of Hara and stuffing his takedowns. Well, until Hara started trashing him anyways. Hara was kicking Yano like a dog and stepping on his neck like the mean bastard he is. Ending run was pretty great with Yano surviving more punishment than you expect and taking some chunks out of Hara with some great looking European Uppercuts and his neat bridging choke. There aren't many better ways to debut.
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