Kazuhiro Tamura & Daisuke Kanehira vs Nori da Funky & Fuminori Abe, Sportiva 10/25/2017
Excellent long match that delivers in spades. I like that Sportiva often start with cool extended matwork and this case we get a very nice Kanehira vs. Nori section which was very deliberate, logical and cool to watch, and then a slick U-Style matwork section between Abe and Tamura. Tamura was showing off some cool shit, he did a really cool Honda-esque arm throw, and later a neat arm stretch reversal to get out of a sleeper. The cool thing about this match is we get extended segments between Kanehira and Nori and Abe and Tamura, it was like a mash up of two really cool singles matches with occasional tag team dynamic coming into play. This was maybe the best I’ve seen Kanehira look, for some reason he throws a ton of great looking knees in this, and he matches up super well with the more deliberate style of Nori da Funky. It’s weird that a hip hop guy would wrestler like a 70s/80s guy but it’s really cool. Abe and Tamura cranking up the stiffness and busting out some spectacular counters was pretty great. It was probably genuinely some of the greatest stuff I’ve seen either guy do as there was no comedy, no absurd kickouts and no overly long strike exchanges, I guess this environment really makes guys work smarter. Because there weren’t a ton of big moves, Nori running in to obliterate a guy with a big backdrop suplex looked devastating. This match overdelivered in spades considering the tiny stage they were working, excellent stuff.
Xevious vs. Shinya Ishida, Sportiva 11/22/2017
First Xevious singles match that I’ve found and it’s a banger. This was exactly what it needed to be, Ishida doing flying, and Xevious doing whacky submissions, pin combos and hitting Ishida with some really painful looking offense, giving this the feel of Black Terry or Negro Navarro carrying an indy luchadore match, which is high praise. I am pretty okay with Shinya Ishida at this point, he is decently athletic, doesn’t do anything too cute and he makes fine comebacks. He also hits a suicide dive into nothing which is a pretty insane thing to do in this tiny bar. Xevious was great, his weird submissions and pin combos were really good, and he had all this offense targetting Ishidas back, hitting really hurty looking sentons, splashes and double stomps etc, his kicks and knees are also on point. He stooges really well for Ishidas ranas and armdrags too. Cracking match, Xevious may very well be our lord and saviour.
Nori da Funky vs 801 Kenichi, Sportiva 4/25/2018
Kenichi is super limited, but Nori does the impossible here crafting a good match around him. Seriously impressive considering how dull Kenichi looked. Nori does a Bret Hart-like job working over Kenichis leg, and Kenichi to his credit puts some effort into selling that shit. I really liked how Nori after some legwork progressed to working over Kenichis neck to set up his backdrop finisher, but went back to cutting him off at the leg when Kenichi started coming back. Finishing stretch had a few nifty moments thanks to Nori and one admittedly impressive suplex from Kenichi. Nori needs to come back to wrestling, the guy could do no wrong.
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