More Sportiva Twitcastings

 Fuminoru Abe & Nori da Funky Shibiresasu vs. Shinya Ishida & Yusaku Ito, Sportiva 11/30/2016

Nice match that had structure in place and all 4 guys doing a bunch of cool shit. Starts with some cool matwork, I was surprised that Yusaku Ito was a kickpadded shooter at this point, he and Abe do some nice slick shooty matwork and then we get some equally nifty traditional pro style chain wrestling between Nori and Shinya Ishida. The recent Ishida I’ve seen wasn’t good, but he was perfectly servicable here, he had a nice dive, acted like a scummy heel and was never loose or dragging the action. I once again dug Nori, he had an awesome big boot that turned Ishida inside out, and a big guy who boots peoples heads off hits different in an indy tag with a bunch of juniors. The ending is Abe vs. Ito and it’s cool sleaze shooter stuff with both guys blasting each other with cool kicks. I was amazed this match had absolutely no comedy, what happened to the indy scene, why did they all decide they wanted to be clowns at some point?

Fuminoru Abe & Yusaku Ito vs. Nori da Funky & Xevious, Sportiva 1/25/2017

Hell yeah, it’s XEVIOUS. Xevious is this fat looking dude in a mask who does all kinds of random things on offense, but it all looks hurty. He has a stiff solebutt, nasty kneedrop to the back of the head, really painful looking stretches etc. He’s really fun to watch. Not much happens in the first few minutes of his, but it turns into a good little match when Abe eats a DDT on the floor and Nori and Xev work over his neck. Neck work was really good, Ito makes a nice hot tag and has a cool exchange with Xevious leading to Ito hitting a big punch to the face. Abe vs. Nori finishing stretch was brief but pretty neat as Nori kept hitting violent offense to Abes neck. Nice little match, why is this stuff more energetic and serious than any undercard match now? This was in front of like 15 fans for crying out loud.

Yasu Kubota vs. Fuminori Abe, Sportiva 4/5/2017

This was a fun match where they do some unlikely fun matwork. Kubota is a sleazy looking guy who has been around for a really long time, and this is the best I’ve seen him look. Abe does some fun submissions and kicks targetting Kubotas arm, and Kubota comes back working Abes leg with cool stretches, ramming a bar stool into his knee etc. I also liked the weird standing stretch he busted out. All the Arn Anderson style body part targetting work was really good, and the second half where they busted out their bombs with Abe hitting spin kicks and Kubota hitting big dropkicks and drivers was a lot of fun. Limb selling wasn’t super consistant though both guys acknowledged that they were hurting and had to figure out how to transition from there. Kubota only being able to lock in his submission hold with one arm was a cool touch. It’s weird how guys like Kubota can have their best performances on the smallest shows like this.

Fuminori Abe & Kazuhiro Tamura vs. Yusaku Ito & Nori da Funky, Sportiva 5/31/2017

I’m amazed Abe was probably a more serious worker than he is now at this point. Seriously, these guys had all the reason to joke it up since they were wrestling in a sports bar, but instead they had a lengthy, serious no frills tag where everyone brought their A-game. I enjoyed Nori vs. Tamura, their grappling early on had a nice big vs little feel, and later on we get to see them really lay into each other. They have a fun dynamic going on with Noris traditional power offense and Tamuras jump kicks and flying moves. The heart and soul of this is Abe vs. Yusaku though. Both these guys were really scrappy, early on they had an exchange where Ito casually kicked Abe in the face, then later landed these really violent knee strikes to Abes head on the ground. Finishing run had both guys raining hell, hitting all their cool jumping face kicks. There were some cool moments such as Abe working a neat rolling arm scissor for a submission nearfall and Ito bumping big for a dropkick of all things. Itos punt kick was probably the highlight of the match for how out of nowhere it came and how violent it looked. Dare I say, these guys were really good at this stage.

Mutoha Customer Reviews #3

 

Yasushi Sato vs. Hideya Iso, Mutoha 5/21/2017

Another awesome Yasushi Sato singles, what are the odds? What rules about this is that it’s two grimy little guys with amateur backgrounds. It’s like Honda vs. Honda. They start with 10 minutes of grappling and it’s really good, I loved all the takedowns, and the teasing of the suplexes. Sato catches Iso in a nasty armlock stretching his fingers and wrist, and quickly starts decimating him with his cool suplexes and Russian Leg Sweeps. Iso counters a Sato attempted suplex with an amazing rolling leg lock and it’s on. Isos more traditional moveset makes for a nice contrast against Satos weird grapevine moves and rough tactics. I love how Sato uses the Russian Leg Sweep so much, it’s a really cool equalizer when he grapevines the leg and drops his opponent out of nowhere. There’s an awesome sequence built around Iso trying to counter the dreaded Russian, and the finish is great. Iso is a really cool character as he’s old and doesn’t look like much but can always catch you with a technical move, and it makes for a super fun match up against Sato. Great stuff, another gem.

GENTARO vs. Yasushi Sato, Mutoha 3/19/2022

20 minutes of insanely fun, inventive technical matwork between two guys who are close to maestros. Tons of freaky pin attempts, and there was one short arm scissor battle that was amazing. It says a lot about how good these two are that they can do something fresh and cool with such an ancient hold. Both guys getting frustrated and entangling each other in the ropes was really fun, too. I was expecting some russian leg sweeps from Sato, but he just stuck to being a master of the cradle here. It seems GENTARO injured his leg for real about 20 minutes in so they just did a quick finish, but it was a good finish. As technical and eccentric as the rest of the match.

Aggressive Pro 3/25/2010

 Konaka vs. Naoshi Sano

This was a 1 match show that drew a whopping attendance of 0 fans. Ricky Fuji is there! This want a bit over 20 minutes and aside from the general bizareness of it, it was a serious match. Easily the most serious wrestling I've seen Sano do, and he looked good. Why doesn't Sano do more serious wrestling? He drops Konaka with some gnarly backdrops and stretches him with a nasty abdominal hold like Sano is Jumbo now. Sano hits lots of nice punches to the mid section. Konaka mostly takes a beating. At one point he hits a nice Terry Funk style punch combo, at another he goes for a diving chop and breaks his hand on Sanos hard head. Baffling. No yoga spots for some reason. Pretty cool to watch, although it's more of a "What the hell" type of match than actively great. They make a big deal out of Sano winning this belt with Ricky Fuji giving his blessings, although I'm not sure he ever even defended that belt again. A truely remarkable moment in history.

The Library

More Assorted Japanese Indy Wrestling

 

Diablo vs. Hideaki Sumi, Riki Office 9/26/2010

This was really fucking cool, a karateka vs. a vicious brawler in a chain match. Sumis kicks and punches were great and Diablo was kicking ass here, bloodying his opponent, throwing punches, using chairs and the chain etc. I would have liked to see Sumi kick a bit more ass but for a kind of fast, brief asskicking resulting in blood and mist this was really cool.

 

 

Mentai Kid & Billy Ken Kid vs. Genkai & Ryuta Chikuzen (Kyushu Pro 4/16/2018)

Pretty great match which oddly enough was largely built around the two highflyers doing lots of nasty bodypart work and stiff blows to the grizzled heavyweights. Opening sections were very nice, they kept things simple but worked a scale higher than basic. Match gets really great once BKK hits a double stomp to Chikuzen. They follow up with both Kids unleashing some brutal work on Chikuzens mid section. The whole section was really great and full of nasty stomps, spin kicks, punch combos and excellent cut offs. It’s weird to see a guy like Billy Ken Kid work really stiff and just tag people hard and drop hefty looking bombs but here we are. GENKAI was pretty great in the match too, he largely cut out the WWE spots and was just kicking dudes really hard and hurling them around with hard suplexes. Chikuzen had a Taue-ish vibe, gangly lumbering dude with odd athleticism who will hurl himself at you. GENKAI ended up working overtime to carry his damaged partner through the match and did an amazing job. I dug all the build to the big moves, and that they largely avoided overkill since basic moves like a fallaway slam or hip drop were hitting in brutal fashion. Awesome big match with tremendous heat.

 

Hiroaki Taniguchi vs. Katsumi Oribe, Move-On Pro Wrestling 7/13/2022

 Very cool match which felt a bit like a modern day WAR heavyweight clash. It was a bit slower and not quite as gritty but both guys made full use of the empty arena here leathering the hell out of each other with grimy strikes and slams. Oribe is great, he's a karateka and he throws really beautiful kicks just trying to cave his opponents chest in. Taniguchi is a bit of a slow bloated guy but his slams and lariats were really violent, he also had this really great big splash targetting Oribes back. Some more tricked out sequences than you'd expect, I liked how they didn't just go braindead with endless shoulderblocks and no selling like Japanese heavyweight wrestling often does. I normally dislike the superkick to kneeling opponent but Oribe was hitting them more like thrust kicks and almost taking Taniguchis head off. Good shit.

I discovered a boatload of old SPORTIVA streams and my first instinct is to go watch the Konaka matches

 So I recently discovered the old Twitcasting page of Sportiva where they livestreamed their weekly shows from 2016-2019 ca. I'd give my left nut to get an archive of all the shows they streamed on Ustream.tv from 2010 to 2016, but this is still quite the boatload of interesting footage. Naturally my first instinct was to go look up all the matches with Konaka in them because lord knows we all need more of that yoga demon in our life

Konaka vs. Nori da Funky Shibiresasu, Sportiva 10/3/2018

Really really nice match, exactly what you want from a Konaka big match against a game opponent. Konaka does all kinds of fun grappling and neat transitions here. His early mat control segment was so cool, the guy really knows how to get in and out of holds in interesting fashions. The whole match was peppered with Konaka mixing in cool little transitions, counters and reversals, doing a really nice job controlling with a sleeper etc. Nori da Funky Shibiresasu is part of the hip hop group that did the Naruto opening theme amongst others, he had one hell of a career working a couple hundred matches in the Sportiva arena and I am happy to finally see him. He was a pretty cool powerhouse here, hitting stiff chops and all kinds of cool tall lanky guy offense, big backdrop suplexes, a big boot that damn near scraped Konakas face off, stiff chops, a big neckbreaker drop. Boy am I glad these Twitcasting streams are still around even if they are potatoe quality filmed with an Android.

Konaka vs. Tetsuya Izuchi, Sportiva 8/21/2019

You give Konaka a game opponent and 10 minutes and you’re pretty much guaranteed to get something nifty. Izuchi is game, he moves slick on the mat and kicks hard, and has some nice exchanges with Konaka early on. Konaka rules here, he hits this really cool 619 to Izuchis leg and then works him over with Indian Deathlock variations because he’s a yoga demon. There’s a completely awesome spinning Figure 4 leglock set up and a really nice Figure 4 battle. Izuchi acknowledges that his leg has been worked over, but he won’t really blow you away aside from throwing Konaka with a really nasty German Suplex. Still, Konaka is so cool to watch.

Assorted Monterrey

 

Pirata Morgan/Hombre Bala/Verdugo vs. Apolo Estrada/Tony Reyna/Rudy Reyna (1989)

I dug Apolo Estrada here, as he was willing to bleed like crazy, get his ass kicked and throw great punches in retaliation. That’s about all I need from a great babyface. The Pirates immediately started kicking ass and Estrada was a bloody mess within like 2 minutes. We get a great comeback from Estrada throwing a flurry of punches and then stalking Pirata Morgan, as they would fight through the chairs and punch each other for several minutes in an intense streetfight. It was the kind of moment where they were hard to separate and they just kept fighting as neither wanted to turn his back and it was really grimy and cool. Rest of the match was largely built around Estrada and Pirata Morgan having epic face offs. The Reynas were alright, did their job and didn’t try to take the spotlight from Morgan/Estrada. I liked Rudy who is an exotico, cutting out the bullshit and just throwing punches in the third fall. All the Pirata/Estrada faceoffs were great and we get an awesome dive from Estrada plus absolutely nasty low blow finish. This is definitely a feud I would like to see more of. 

 

 Negro Navarro vs. Apolo Estrada, Monterrey ?/1989

I'd say this was easily one of the most violent lucha matches I've ever seen. Negro Navarro was an absolutely amazing asskicker here. There is some brief wrestling at the start, with some cool trips and takedowns and Negro Navarro locking in a really graceful armbar, but they soon start brawling. Navarro delivers an absolutely sick all time level beatdown on Estrada, knees to the face, amazing punch combos and headbutts. Estrada is soon covered in blood as Navarro is bashing his head into the mat like trying to crack a coconut. The referee stopping the fall as Navarro kept kneeing a bloody Estrada in the face felt like something out of a gruesome early UFC fight. I was pleased to see that the 2nd fall was quite competitive, with Estrada making a big punch comeback but not easily winning. Navarro continously complaining about getting fouled added to the match as it seemed Estrada was close to getting disqualified. Third fall had some more epic punch exchanges, gritty submission holds and scrappy fighting, such as Navarro eating a nasty lariat to the face and then lunging to headbutt Estrada in the kidney. Navarro showed some shades of his later maestro status by executing a really graceful freestyle pin or doing a primitive version of his later finisher. Estrada did not look as good as Navarro, though he also he had nice punches and looked convincingly slaughtered, bleeding like crazy, looking punch drunk and crazy gritting his teeth. Pretty epic much and based on this and the Mando match I'd say Navarro easily looks like an all time level brawler as he had so many different ways to fuck up his opponent and the match never got boring when he was laying in a beatdown.