Tanomusaku Toba vs Hikaru Sato, Evolution 12/17/2023 - GREAT
I'm enjoying old man Toba. He is not as athletic or conditioned, but he will still brutally punch people in the face. And that is pretty much the selling point of this match. After some cautious exchanges early on where neither guy wanted to make a mistake, Sato made the mistake of trying to follow a regrouping Toba outside the ring and immediately ate some brutal street fight punches on the floor. A seemingly pissed off Sato was then bent on outstriking Toba, only for Toba to block, dodge and punch him in the face some more. Sato catching himself and figuring out to weather the storm was cool and the finish with Toba trying to kick and punch his way out of a submission was gnarly. Nice story and Satos willingness to get punched in the face hard is commendable.
Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs Sanshiro Takagi & GENTARO, DDT 8/26/2007 - GREAT
First half of this was solid but not blowaway stuff. Everybody here has good execution and is fun to watch, even doing basic stuff like hitting elbow drops or dropkicks. Takagi getting tagged by Tobas punches and having to try a little harder than usual is always entertaining. In the second half they started busting out the fireworks, and they were big dman fireworks. A ladder comes into play and they do a bunch of crazy highspots. It's kind of amazing that in a match like this Toba may have had the biggest highspots, he hit this sick double stomp off the ladder, as well as taking a stunner from Takagi off the ladder which was pretty insane. In between the spots you have Toba tagging people with punches which is pretty cool in a match against two WWF worshipping guys. Toba repeatedly blocking GENTAROS super kick attempts and wrecking him with punches was really cool. It made me think I would really enjoy an X-Division 4 way or a Young Bucks tag if Toba was involved.
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