2025 Matchguide Week 42

 Masanori Watanabe vs Yusaku Ito, Sportiva 10/29


This was a short undercard match but it was cool. Watanabe is still being put through the paces, but he is already really really good. He did a lot of cool stuff during the opening grappling, and his straight forward approach of attacking the arm to set up a rolling kimura just straight up works. Ito is good as always relishing in his scummy ways. He has the seedy vibe of a delinquent hired to do some dirty work and he was putting the hurt on Watanabe with closed fist punches, boots and nasty headbutts. I also really liked the ultra tight sleeper he did, and then the knee to the face he did was really cool. Solid and worth watching.

Masamune vs Shinji Kamakura, KOBE Meriken 10/17

Masamune stretching someone in a sportsbar. This was not the amateur wrestler Masamune, he was kind of working like William Regal here, and it's pretty fun. Kamakura kind of gave me the vibe of a Japanese David Burkhead, fun pudgy guy who clashes violently into his opponent. I enjoy watching Masamune do his thing and he needs to show up on tape way more often because he's low key really good.

Keita Yano vs Koji Iwamoto, Tenryu Project 10/25 - GREAT

October 2025 was ripe with big matches for Keita Yano. I'm just getting to them, but this is a strong start. Long, drawn out technical match. Of course our lord and savior Keita really shines at that stuff, and he is doing so much cool stuff here that it carried the match no problem. His transition into a stump puller was awe inspiring. A lot of chaining, mostly based on World of Sport style but veering into Karl Gotch shootstyle territory here and there, and all done incredibly smooth and inventive. He's really become a master at this stuff no doubt about it. Iwamoto is very much the 1977 Jumbo Tsuruta to Keitas 1977 Billy Robinson, he's capable but doesn't stand out in a huge way when grappling with Keita. He does have those awesome judo throws and he hits them and that's all you really wanna see him do. Very good match all in all.

GENTARO vs Shuichiro Katsumura, FREEDOMS/Ganbare Pro 10/16

GENTARO is such a great wrestler. With him, everything feels like it master, and his old school technical moves rule of course. Who knew that building a match around struggle and nifty counters would work well? Katsumura has always struck me as good but never quite reaching 'great' level. This was probably the best matwork I've seen him to, and a lot of credit for that can go to GENTARO. At times this resembled an old UWF vs NJPW match but with better pacing and more cool moments. Really need more GENTARO singles matches like this, oh and bring back Mutoha too for that matter.

Marino Saihara vs Yui Tensho, AWG 10/1

Another quality match from AWG. This was built around Saihara with her kicks and submissions putting the heat on Tensho. Tensho would try to pounce on any kind of advantage but kept getting shut down in cool ways. The apron spot was especially good as Saihara took out Tensho with a leg kick and then just blasted her with a dropkick. Eventually Tensho found what she was looking for when she got Saihara in her reverse gory special hold, and there was some nice struggle leading up to that. They both have believable offense, there was a story, good selling and intensity... Saihara ended up beating Tensho rather easily, which I thought was fine and a bit of a cool change from the usual nearfall fest as Tensho had been desperate to put the champ away but just came short. The one not-so-good part of the match was their forearm trading, and even that lead to a cool moment with confident champion Saihara hitting a hurty looking leg kick and Tensho deciding she had enough of that.

2025 Matchguide

Keita Yano Documentation