Thursday, September 14, 2023

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.

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