Early Mutoha

Get these from @itako18jp on Twitter! 

 

Hiroshi Watanabe vs Kazuhiro Tamura, Mutoha 6/20/2010

Upon watching this the first time I thought this might be one of the 10 greatest wresting matches I’ve ever seen. Maybe even top 5. I may be overrating it slightly, but it’s a really damn great match.

Obviously, there was a big hype around last years GENTARO/Arai match. I think this bout here gives that match a run for it’s money. Don’t get me wrong, GENTARO/Arai is a completely unique beast. In that match, they did things in a completely different way and succeeded. This bout between Watanabe and Tamura here is much more conventional and energetic with lots of high-impact offense throughout, but aiming for similar grand scale. It probably has much more mainstream appeal than the more esoteric Arai/GENTARO. As such, I would like as many wrestling fans as possible to check this out.

The main reason why the match works so well is the contrast of Kazuhiro Tamura to Hiroshi Watanabe. Kazuhiro Tamura is shooter-type wrestler, with punishing kicks and a style of matwork that means he will go for the kill right from the get go. Hiroshi Watanabe with his shaven head, black trunks and boots and deceptive physique is as close to the picture of a classic no frills technician as you can get. Stylistically the match they go for is reminiscent of an 80s New Japan vs UWF wrestler vs shooter match. And because of the 2/3 falls match format, as well as the unrelenting nature of both wrestlers, this becomes an epic struggle.

The second reason why the match works is that they do not hold back. Often in a long match, especially a 2/3 falls match that is going to be strategic, wrestlers will noticably hold back and resort to obvious time killing. That is not the case here, as right away Tamura is kicking away at Watanabe and going for dangerous submissions like straight armbars on the ground that can believably decide a fall even after just 5 minutes. In contrast Watanabe is very much an old school type catch wrestler here, not afraid to snatch a kimura lock, and coming up with lots of neat counters. Watanabe sticking to his guns and focussing on trying to catch this modern day shooter with this 50s/60s style holds and flying kneedrops was really great. With Tamuras explosiveness it makes a really great aggressor vs counter-wrestler matchup. And because of the 2/3 falls rule, a finish can plausibly occur at any time, which makes this edge of your seat stuff throughout.

There are some moments where they kind of take breathers – Tamura tries locking Watanabe out of the arena for a countout victory, but Watanabe re-enters through the other side in a fun graceful moment that kind of caps off the first ark of the match. There are great moments strewn throughout the match. Tamuras punishing kicks and relentless submission attempts keep the intensity high. There is a moment where he keeps kicking away at Watanabes leg that looked absolutely painful, and another kick to Watanabes sternum outside the ring that looked and sounded so bad I’m sure it would go viral if it happened in a 2024 AEW ring. Later Watanabe fires back with no hands headbutts and an absolutely nasty enzuigiri. He also hit pretty much the greatest flying neckbreaker drop ever at one point. The biggest moment of the match though is the kick that Watanabe gets blasted with in the jaw towards the end. It looked to have knocked his soul out of him, and then Tamura blasted him with another and fell him in one of the most epic near KO’s that Ive ever seen in a wrestling match. The fact this went down in a small martial arts gym in front of roughly 50 people is nothing short of mindblowing.

Tamuras explosiveness is great. When Watanabe finally gets a fall over him, Tamuras reaction is to just run it him and go for another big dropkick. His energy looked to be boundless, and it was meeting Watanabes boundless tenacity. They go incredible hard in the last 10 minutes, without coming across as trying too hard, mixing up some amazing submission and pin attempts and counters aswell as callbacks to previous falls. It was a very good crescendo for match with this kind of grand scope. While most of the match is energetic, they don’t throw out too much too early, so even smaller moves like Tamuras 2^nd rope headbutt or Watanabes Cobra Twist felt epic when they happened so close to the time limit.

After the match, Watanabe is in the ring, and he can hold a speech without using a microphone because the arena is so small. I hope Watanabe got some credit for this match. The bout was truly magnificient and fascinating. It felt like an epic struggle, and it was interesting throughout. At no point did it feel self indulgent or forced. By the end I was kind of rooting for both guys. It almost makes me wish there were more matches that go 60 minutes, as so many interesting facets of their game developed throughout the fight, but then again most wrestler are nowhere near as good as these two.

An outstanding achievement.

 

Hiroshi Watanabe & Kousei Maeda vs. Hideya Iso & Shigeo Kato (Mumejuku 12/20/2009)

Another genuine gem. This went 60 minutes and was more MUGA than MUGA. Watching this, I didn’t know it would be a draw, and I couldn’t tell that it was going to be a draw. They were using a lot of basic holds, but doing them in a way that they could plausibly set up a finish. I kept thinking “yeah, this is gonna lead to the finish… no wait”. That, to me, is how a draw should feel. Watanabe once again looked pretty great throughout this. Really dug the section where Kato twisted up his legs while he kept coming up with counters. I also really liked how Kato at one point refused to enter the ring, as if he was disappointed with Hideya Isos performance, so Iso went back to twist up his opponents with some cool amateur moves. Another great moment was an almost completely spent looking Iso locking in a Romero Special out of nowhere to a nice ovation from the crowd. I haven’t seen this Maeda before, but he looked solid, and he produced another highlight when he took offense to Kato slapping him and kicked the shit out of Kato. Kato after eating headbutts on the ground doing a Flair flop was another neat moment. The match was full of cool moments like throughout that made little things feel more meaningful and kept me engaged in the match. Figure 4 work in the last 10 or so minutes was epic and felt like a Destroyer match. Parts of this were slightly long and I will admit that this probably could’ve been clipped down to a better 45 or 30 minute match, but still. The fact they did this for an audience of like 40 people and it came out so well is insane.