Still Going Through Sportiva

 

Yasushi Sato vs Akito, Sportiva 11/30/2011

This is the earliest Yasushi Sato I’ve found and also his only SPORTIVA appearance so far. Sato used to work for Sportiva a lot and they livestreamed weekly events for free on USTREAM but IBM deleted all the videos when they bought USTREAM, for which IBM are forever my mortal enemies. This seems to have been filmed by a fan using his iPhone, not noticing an offical stream was going on just a few feet to the right, god bless him. The match is pretty damn great too. Yasushi Sato is a spry 45 years young here and he is the Yasushi Sato we all know and love. This was all on the mat and it was so unique and cool, both guys have a clear freestyle wrestling background and it was like watching Tamon Honda vs Tamon Honda. Most pro wrestling matwork is predictable, you have a guy in a headlock and then going through counters that you’ve already seen before, that wasn’t the case here as both guys immediately start scrambling and working calf slicers and leg rides. Sato especially has such unique ways to stretch someone, including some shoulder popping arm stretches, really an expert in entangling his opponent in weird ways. Akito was really good too, he had an absolute killer counter hold to Satos signature leg grapevine, and also dropped the old man with a reckless suplex. Finish was fucking amazing too. Really hope we get more stuff like this somehow because I can’t imagine Sato being anything less than incredible even in his early days.

 

Nori da Funky vs Shinya Ishida, Sportiva 8/1/2018

This was a match where they went all out giving everything they’ve got and it ruled. I enjoy the hell out of NORI~, and Ishida ain’t a bad wrestler at this point. Ishida handled himself well during the 70s grappling exchanges with Nori, and he did a cool job working a sleeper hold, a segment that featured a neat spot where Ishida stood on his head and bounced back as Nori tried to shake him off. He also did a good job taunting Nori and making the match personal by mocking his style, and he bumped like an absolute maniac for Noris power offense, absolutely spiking himself for Noris big boots and slams. Noris was great as ever with his Bret Hart-like straight forward approach. I enjoyed the opening grappling a lot and it lead to cool transition where Nori hit a suplex while exchanging holds, then worked over Ishidas back. Ishida may have done a wee bit too many fancy pants junior moves, but what the hell, this match was about the contrast of Ishidas style to Noris, and Ishida did work some more elaborate exchange than Noris typical opponents would allow. Second half was about Ishida unloading his fancy junior offense with Nori making awesome come backs catching him. Finish was several shades more epic than a match in Sportiva Arena should logically be but what the hell. Ishidas never did anything nonsensical and everything he did looked hurty, and Nori was great as an overwhelmed monster striking back. Great match that reminded me of something like Taue/Marufuji.

Nori da Funky & Hiroaki Ura vs Hiroshi Yamato & Michio Kageyama, Sportiva 8/15/2018

I thought this would be about a big squareoff between Nori and Yamato, but no, instead the focus of the match is wee little rookie Hiroaki Ura! And they did a mighty fine job with this match! Nori mostly plays big brother saving his partner, and Yamato and Kageyama are a really good pair of pricks beating the bricks off of Ura. There ARE some good exchanges between Nori and Yamato, though Uras role takes center stage. Ura looked really good – just the way he had to work to set up something as basic as a body slam added a lot to the match, and you end up respecting him for lasting has long as he did. Kageyama is a pretty good wrestler when he gives a shit, he leathered Ura with some really hard kicks and slaps here, and Yamato understand when he has to lay it in, really blistering Ura with chops. They also decided not to do too much beatdown and stretching and gave us an exciting second half that actually had me rooting for Ura. Very simple but well done match for what they were aiming for.

Hiroaki Ura vs Kouki Iwasaki, Sportiva 9/12/2018

This was by far the best rookie vs. higher ranked guy I’ve seen in a long time. Ura only does very basic stuff, but he gets the absolute most out of it. Most importantly, he understand how to hit his stuff in unpredictable ways. Usually these matches are super formulaic and predictable, but that wasn’t the case here. I give a lot of credit to Iwasaki, who was super giving and also really cranking up the viciousness. Ura drops Iwasaki with a gnarly body slam on the floor right away, and it’s on from the get go. Ura tries working the back but gets shut down hard by a reckless backbreaker from Iwasaki. Iwasakis kicks and knees were on point, and Ura just kept coming back in interesting ways. They got the right combination of crafty and vicious. Really really good match that achieved so much in just 10 minutes.