FUTEN undercard matches

 Shoichi Uchida vs. Mitsuya Nagai, FUTEN 4/24/2010

That moment you watch a random FUTEN undercard match and it’s better than pretty much anything you’ve watched from recent times. Hellish match where Nagai was trying to blast Uchida to smithereens with his kicks. Uchida was gutsy really gutsy here, I really liked how he kept shooting for desperate takedowns which Nagai kept stuffing, really nice example of big vs. little psychology in a shootstyle match. Nagais submissions were ultra nasty and Fuchi-ish. Uchidas one bit of offense was really cool, Nagai goes for another big kick but got his foot caught in the ropes allowing Uchida to hit a suplex and then immediately trying for a choke on Nagai. Nagai then proceeded to try to rip Uchida in half some more. And one points both guys traded absolutely sickening headbutts. Gnarly stuff, wish we still had this.

Manabu Hara vs. Brahman Kei, FUTEN 10/24/2010

 

Nifty undercard match. Kei can’t stand up to Hara but he uses some heel tactics to even things out. Basically anytime Hara was able to stand up and go on offense, he was crushing Kei with brutal kicks and lariats. Kei threw some hard kicks of his own and there were a couple neat transitions. His desperate armbar counter was really good and the finish was neat. Amazing how much you can do in a 6 minute match without coming across as forcing it.

Tamon Honda vs. Brahman Shu, FUTEN 10/24/2010

Really fun match built around Shu mostly kicking Honda in the leg really really hard. It’s odd that Honda is this well respected veteran but Shu really kicks the crap out of him, FUTEN factor I guess. Shu having to build up a simple suplex because Honda is such a beast was cool and his kicks and slaps were landing really hard. Honda had almost no offense in the match except his Dead End and Olympic Hell but he’s awesome regardless.

Taro Nohashi vs. Yoshinari Narita, FUTEN 12/19/2010

Quick FUTEN opening matches where two guys just blast each other may be among my favourite things in wrestling, and this one was totally awesome. Narita is a BattlARTS guy and he has gloves and kickpads and Nohashi has his hands an a really hard head and they lay hellish beatings on each other for 6 minutes. NARITA tagging Nohashi with fast punches and bloodying his mouth was great. Intially Nohashi tried to grapple with NARITA but by the end he tried to just knock him out with crazy headbutts to the head and face. You don’t see a monk vs. an MMA fighter everyday but this was tremendous.