2026 Matchguide #4

 
Rico Fukunaga vs Chii Aoba, AWG 6/13

Athress Shootstyle! It's so weird but cool that AWG is one of a handful of promotions in the world now that does shootstyle rules matches. This was probably my favourite attempt at shootstyle of theirs so far. They still need a bit of refinement but for the most part it was a believable contest with a few cool moments. Inoki would be proud of these girls. Fukunaga looked surely and was hitting hard and Aoba was a cool underdog as always. Fukunaga was kicking hard and had the upper hand, hitting a Yamazaki-ish kick combo in the corner, until Aoba was able to hit a dragon screw and lock in a cool leg submission. Also dug Aobas believable shootstyle bodyslam and her backdrop. Would really like to see what these two can do in a pro-style setting after this. (Alas, it won't happen since Fukunaga has retired. Bummer.)

 

Shota vs. Shin Suzuki, Shota Produce ?/2026

This is from a 1 match show in a dojo that you can find through Shotas blog. A match like that is always gonna be of interest to me, and Shin Suzuki being in it made it must watch. Really dug that guy from his work as Chon Shiryus tag team partner that I've seen, and he had himself a nice little showcase here. Of course, the match was a love letter to the craftsmanship of pro wrestling.  Not just both guys doing cool stuff (they did cool stuff) but really building anticipation with each move. Suzuki was really cool here, his armdrags were amazing and he just looked really slick and cool here. Almost outshining Shota who only really left a huge impression with a cool reversal into a magistral and some neat cow catcher work. But both guys were working like they were applying for a match in Mutoha here and it was a really cool match. 

 

Chon Shiryu vs. Tokiko Kirihara, Choco Pro 3/30

 I thought Kirihara would be another of Emi Sakuras generic young trainees, but... actually she's 51 years old and a former kickboxer and MMA fighter?! This alone makes her really interesting to me. Early minutes are pretty fun as it's Shiryu doing some serious pro wrestling dealing with someone who can actually do kicks and submissions. We get some sleazy heel Chon Shiryu as he works some pressure point holds and such. Pretty much dentist office no ring version of a nifty 7 minute Velocity match. There are some cool judo throws, bumps into the wall, Kirihara busts out a cool ninja choke over the window sill and head kick, there's a really cool struggle over of a series of abdominal stretches. Shiryu takes the win with a Honda-ish firemans carry into a cross legged turk pin. 

 

Anri & Erisa Nagai vs. Chii Aoba & Yuri Yamane, AWG 7/25

Pretty fun undercard tag. Yamane is like in her 4th match ever here, she's thickly built and likes to kick hard so while she's still a bit awkward I'm sure she'll be a really fun wrestler in no time. Aoba was in her UWF gear which means she would bust out cool submissions. Anri was also pretty good as usual lighting up people with kicks and occasionally thrust kicking them in the face. Some slightly goofy stuff has crept into Nagais offense but overall I didn't mind her. Aobas surprise powerslam was a really cool moment like something out of a 1992 WCW tag, and because of Yamanes rookie status something like a body slam is a plausible nearfall on her. Everybody was bringing some cool stuff and I'll take this unorthodox AWG style match layout over a more generic tag at this point. It sure was a hell of a lot more interesting than your 2nd match on a card usually is. 

Hiroyuki Kondo vs. Hiroshi Watanabe, FOTR 3/8/2026

I saw that this match happened this year on Cagematch, thinking 'that probably ruled'. And by some miracle, we actually get this match with a nice closeup ref camera view! It's been a while since I've seen either of these two wrestlers since they are so elusive, but they both still looked good. Every Hiroshi Watanabe match is like a love letter written to old school wrestling and Kondo was totally matching him. They did lots of tight hold for hold work, and worked in cool old school moments such as Watanabe hitting a flying headlock takeover, and later Kondo reversing that into an Atomic Drop and then working the small of Watanabes back. Just lovely stuff. Kondo also had some nifty arm attacks to build up to his cool Scorpion Armlock finisher, he also busted out the arm piledriver and Watanabe had some cool reversals into Abdominal Stretches. The finish was Kondo hitting a hard lariat but getting caught by a Thesz Press when he went for another and that's just delightfully old school. So this wasn't anything grand but it was definitely a pleasing affair if you are a fan of these two wrestlers, doing their thing. 

Karl Malenko vs. Low Ki, ACTION/PRODUCE DEAN~!!! 9/13/26

Just two ripped old guys grappling it out and occasionally hitting each other in evil ways. I have not much to say here, I thought the matwork was pretty masterful. I am not sure Low Ki has done much shootstyle matwork since his 2002 match series with Danielson (the peak of US indy wrestling pretty much) but damn he looked like he missed his calling as a BattlARTS guy. I think this would have been a pretty awesome match up in 2002 but they both feel wiser now. Carl looked as great as ever bending the fuck out of Ki. There were a few great escapes and narrowly fighting out of submissions here as it felt like guys were on the verge of having their arm or legs snapped. Loved the shots to the body, especially when Carl punched away at Kis sternum while having his arms tied up. The 'accidental' rope break was a good way to kick up the intensity as Carl got more aggressive. Agree about the greatness of Low Kis shootstyle Ki Crusher. Towards the end, it was fascinating to watch Carl with no rope breaks left fighting out of attempted submissions. Great finish. Carl sure is on a roll right now. 

2026 MOTY List 

A few matches from the Mutoha back catalogue

As always you can get them directly from the source through itako18jp     

Keita Yano vs. Ryoji Nagaya, Mutoha 2/26/2010 - EPIC

This was shortly before Yano transformed into the joker. Hell it may have been his first match in the Cerberus Dojo too, and you can really see him breathing the vibe in as he steps on the mat. He’s wearing this bright grappling suit that he didn’t wear often. He was like a Louis Wain painting, becoming more colourful and strange with his transformations over the years. This match was just classic Keita stuff, really clinical performance taking a guy apart. Opening minutes were quite great as Yano would basically lock in armlocks at will and yank Nagaya around like a demonstration of carny grappling. Really awesome Fuchi/Volk Hanisch performance from Yano displaying his skill and trying to bend Nagayas limbs in hellishly painful looking ways. Nagaya was this pudgy guy who briefly was Mutohas only trainee before he moved on to sleazier things. He was pretty much in for the fight of his life here, as Yano was all over him on the mat. He knew he had to bring the intensity and that he did. At one point they go into this scramble leading into a front headlock battle where they end up tumbling out the door of the venue. They get back into it as they step back on the mat. Nagaya finally gets an advantage when he gets Yano in an indian deathlock and he really tries his hardest to make the most out of that. Both guys end up trying to bend each other to the point of snapping and its awesome. As I said before Yano was just great here, always trying to grab Nagayas head and twist it off, or unscrew his wrist or ankle. Feels really like classic Fujiwara or El Dandy/Javier Llanes stuff as they would even work a basic lockup or wristlock with tremendous intensity. Nagaya is so outmatched on the mat that when he starts hitting Yano it really looks like he’s trying to maul him with his stomps and forearms. He had an awesome crowbarish spin kick and a big flip senton that was Mighty Inoue levels of crushing and completely unexpected. He hits his stuff with such conviction it looks like the realest shit ever. And Yano just kept trying to snap limbs. I also loved him retaliating with probably he hardest kick to someones kidney that I've ever seen. So yeah 20+ minutes of high intensity great matwork and some gritty Kurisu violence, this was a Cerebrus Dojo special and it was awesome.

Kikujiro Umezawa vs. Chojin Yusha G Valion, Mutoha 6/20/2010

Early Mutoha cards are just full of all kinds of obscure indy guys. How often do you see the likes of Chojin Yusha G Valion and Kikujiro Umezawa? So it’s really nice that we just get to see guys like that. This is a kind of awesome match. It’s not very stereotypically Mutoha – there Is not really any mat work or technical wrestling here. But it still feels very much in the vein of Mutoha. They simply did a very simple, straight forward big vs. small type match with total conviction that made it really compelling. Umezawa is a human bowling ball of a man, he has the vibe of an ex-sumo from the days of WAR or IWE. He exudes this sense of glee when he gets to beat on Valion with his open hand chops and headbutts. Neither guy has any offense that you haven’t seen before – Valion just as a really nice dropkick, and Umezawa totally owns every basic thing he does, every slam every shoulderblock just crushing the masked guy. Valion does have a pretty unique way to dropkick Umezawa at the top of his head, but that’s it pretty much. Umezawa hits a spear at one point that’s about the damndest spear you’ve ever seen, totally turning Valion inside out and leaving him a scrambled mess. But it’s such a perfectly well worked and executed match that it ends up being interesting all the way through with not a wasted moment. I think Valion doesn’t even dive off the top rope in this. The finish is just Valion hanging onto a sleeper for dear life and trying to get the tap. It totally fits with the theme of the match and what Mutoha was going for. Nothing flashy just raw pro wrestling executed extremely well.

Chon Shiryu vs. MASAKI, Mutoha 12/29/2013

A totally awesome little match. MASAKI is a sleazy karateka with tattoos who wrestles like a mini Akitoshi Saito, all really hard kicks and neck chops. Chon Shiryu is of course always awesome and they are fighting in Cerberus Dojo to boot. Shiryu is always doing something interesting, even when he’s working basic hold he manages to come across like a kung fu master punishing his opponent, and he makes sure to always add something even to things like resisting a boston crab. MASAKI has a bunch of awesome kick variations and he really lays hard into Shiryus skinny frame. He hit this one kind of floating spin kick that was straight out of Tekken. And we get a bit of kung fu vs karate strikes which is of course cool. The finish is awesome too as Shiryu trips MASAKI then just leaps to the ceiling and hits this sick ass stomp to the back of MASAKIs neck before finishing him off pretty fast. He hit it so out of nowhere it looked totally killer. I love watching Shiryu do his thing, and against an unseen cool wrestler like MASAKI it’s really a pretty sweet discovery.

Lumberjack Match: Iori Sugawara vs. Ho Death Minh, Mutoha 5/14/2022

A total sleazefest. This is a lumberjack match so you have all these crazy characters lurking around the ring. There’s Leatherface, Katsunari Toi, Diablo, freaking Ricky Fuji even… a big part of the fun of this match is just watching all these guys brawling. Most of the fans have their cameras out and this definitely seems like a photographers dream match. But there’s also a surprisingly great wrestling match in here. Sugawara is another sleazy karateka who is really sharp with his kicks. Death Minh is Poison Sawada doing a crazy facepainted evil Vietcong gimmick, for those who don’t know. They cut a great pace and never really slow down, keeping the intensity up working some tight submissions and toe to toe fighting in the ring and always trying to throw the opponent to the outside for the lumberjacks to cause chaos. There’s also some measured and painful looking use of foreign objects. Vasaru Ikeuchi ends up interfering a bit too liberally and it causes an even bigger brawl with everyone jumping each other. By the end it’s almost like a Memphis match with Sugawara unloading a punch combo in the corner on Sawada and destroying him with his kicks, with Sawada trying to work the leg headbutting away at the knee. It’s delightfully old school and really sound. Sawada took a ton of punishment (considering how old and frail he looks) and Sugawara looked badass. Really unique and just amazingly fun.

Takahiro Tababa vs Yuki Takasugi, Mutoha 2017/11/4

This was another unusual match for Mutoha because Tababa just goes after Takasugi with a vengeance and beats the hell out of him with shoot kicks and chairs. Tababas kicks are sick looking and Takasugi is pretty fun here hitting 70s style flip sentons with full bodyweight on Tababa to retaliate. Fun and violent, but pretty short. The finish is really cool though as Takasugi goes for an old school backbreaker hold but Tababa slips to the back and yanks him back for a choke that he locked in so deep Takasugis face turned blue. Cool.

Keita Yano Documentation