2025 Matchguide Week 48

 Yasu Urano vs Akito, 11/16
Two guys grappling in the dojo for 60 minutes and livestreaming it seemingly from a phone camera. That is pretty much the most reverseviperhold match that can happen in 2025, so I am obligated to love it, but there was a ton of great stuff going on here. Akito is a total grappling freak, the guy was in the junior olympics and he used to wrestle Yasushi Sato 3 times a month in his Sportiva days. He rarely gets to show off that kind of talent in DDT, so I am glad he got to let out his freak in this. Really a great showing as he mixed in a ton of sweet techniques, some great leg grapevine moves, unique pins, the guy has a knack for this kind of clinical mat wrestling match. Urano is such a deceptive technician, he doesn't have quite the flashy techniqe of Akito, but he can really get down and gritty, at times he would just snatch an arm and armdrag Akito down really aggressively. He is also really vocal and was constantly letting out these miserable death rattles, like this match was totally killing him, and Akito would really cinch in any headlock or sleeper so hard that you buy wheezing old Yasu Urano passing out in the moment. They do get in a ton of neat details and unique touches, really a study of how you can work each hold to the maximum. It is a bit slow here and there and they do lose steam a bit towards the end, though I appreciate they didn't even try to tack on a bunch of nearfalls, they just kept struggling and resisting down to the last minute and that rules. I get that this is a highly specific type of match that these two probably did because they would get a kick out of it more than everyone else. But fuck if you wanna see some slick leg grapevines and awesome inventive headscissor work and shoulder exploding armbar pins and more gritty struggling over takedowns and pins and leglocks than you can imagine this is the match for you. Definitely one of my favourite bouts of the year, old school and raw passion for pro wrestling at its purest.

 Leon & Makoto vs Moeka Haruhi & Misa Kagura, PURE-J 6/29

Super enjoyable joshi tag that doesn't waste much time and just delivers non-stop action the joshi way. Everything felt nice and aggressive here, these 4 all have offense that hits hard. Kagura, who is yet another girly girl in a frilly pink dress looks solid. Makoto is putting a lot of force into her kicks these days, she was really fun here kicking people out the way with her big boots. Leon is classy as always, I could watch her impale people with spears all day long, and her tilt a whirl slams are great. Haruhi may have been the best of the bunch, her offense is plenty violent, just crushing people with double stomps and knee drops, and she has some impressive wrestling skill with cool suplexes, making intelligent use of the straight jacket hold, and even catching Leon in a crafty pin. Finishing run had a lot of fun creative stuff and never loses your attention. It wasn't a super deep match or anything but there wasn't any egregious noselling or overkill either and sometimes you just wanna watch 4 cool wrestlers go full bore.

Ali Najima & Tomoki Hatano vs Takahiro Hirakimoto & Yu Shimizu, Sportiva 11/26
Najima vs Yu Shimizu feud continues, which makes this fun. Hatano is a bit of a downgrade compared to yuta Oya in the tag from the previous week to say the least. Hirakimoto is still in the black trunks rookie phase and only doing a body slam and suplex, but he's alright. As a result the match did not go as deep as the tag from the weak before but it's nice to see Najima and Shimizu continueing their animosities. The finish builds right on the tag from the week before and that's always a nice thing to see.


Senka Akatsuki & Seri Yamaoka vs Takumi Iroha & Sareee, Marvelous 10/24
Usual good stuff from this crew. Akatsuki and Yamaoka are facing two monsters, but they are still busy having contempt for each other. A bit predictable, but reliable rookie vs veterans stuff, and they do surprise you with some things they bust out. Senka has been good all year long, at this point it's just a matter of when she will do the next step. Iroha and Sareee did their thing pretty much, and Seri was fairly impressive here.

Marino Saihara & Sakura Mizushima vs Anri & Yukina Uehara (AWG 7/11)

Fast paced, quite hard hitting pro wrestling that doesn't waste your time. I have no idea why AWG athresses are taking wrestling more seriously than almost everyone else in the country but here it is, there were no jokes here, no cutesy stuff, they just wrestled a really convincing match. Anri is another AWG wrestler that looks deceptively harmless but is actually really intense. This was mostly about Saihara vs Anri, with Saihara playing the veteran that can't be knocked down and Anri being a really good underdog that keeps coming back. I really liked how they seemed to go for the traditional rookie beatdown at first, but then Anri was able to catch Mizushima with a surprise thrust kick to the throat and then lock in this really cool rolling strangle hold while Uehara kept Saihara at bay. Mizushima is also in the process of becoming a really respectable wrestler. The moment where she caught Ueharas kick and landed her painful looking leg breaker was great and example of great timing as Uehara seemed to be in control and about to gain momentum. I also dug how they protected the submissions. When Mizushima went for her signature bridging figure 4, it was broken up just as she went into the bridge. Later, Saihara was trying to lock in a chickenwing crossface with all her might, the tension building as she started to get her fingers together and then the submission being broken at the last second. It's basic stuff but you rarely see it done like this these days. Once it came down to Anri vs Saihara it was really intense stuff and just really good wrestling. The finish is Saihara landing a jumping knee strike to Anris face, hitting a judo throw and locking in a plain straight armbar and cranking it for the tap, which is a really FUTEN finish to happen in 2025. Am I saying this is a FUTEN match? Hell no, but the energy is a ton of fun. AWG has one hell of a back catalogue with even minor matches like this being really compelling.

2025 Matchguide
 

Battle and Arts Pro 2/8/2025

 

Yujiro Yamamoto vs Kazuki Teramae

Teramae is another Seichi Ikemoto guy. That is a bit shocking, because he looked pretty much incapable of putting up a fight against Yamamoto here. His kicks looked good, but other than that he looked about as talented as any other indy nobody as he just wanted to go to his spots instead of actually shootgrappling with Yamamoto like god intended. Yamamoto is pretty fun here, as he cuts off pretty much everything Teramae tries and smacks him really hard for his troubles. But mostly this was about Teramae learning the lesson that he will actually need to fight.

Hiromasa Koyama & Maori Kawashima vs Sho Mizuno & Tetsuya Goto

Pretty much the sleazy crossover of a BattlARTs match and your typical scuzzy divebar indy tag. Koyama and Mizuno scrapping at the beginning was pretty fun, they understood the assignment. Kawashima kind of sucks as he is like a crappier version of Onryo, and Goto didn’t really show how anything outstanding, so the match degraded to bog standard trained monkey show indy levels when they were involved. Koyama looked like the best guy in the match, simply because he was beating the shit out of everyone the most. He was putting some real piss and vinegar into everything he threw, even into stuff like his european uppercuts, and he had a crazy judo throw that spiked Mizuno on his head. Mizuno, the other shooter in the match, looked good early on but unfortunately didn’t do much more in the second half. This veered between having some fun moments and being forgettable. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Koyama going sicko mode on people like this, though.

Yujiro Yamamoto vs Tsuyoshi Michibata

This was better. Just two guys kicking the living hell out of each other in a bar, as god intended. Michibata seemed to not quite take the match seriously early, so Yamamoto started stomping the crap out of him in the ropes. Michibata got more serious after that. He started to work over Yamamotos arm with some really painful kicks to the shoulder. Lots of both guys kicking each other full force in this. The one downside was Yamamoto insisting on forcing some irish whips and his rope-assisted octopus hold into the match. I dunno why he always does that. Also, the match needed BattlARTS rules. Other than that, this delivered on straight punishment and gritty bar shootstyle action. Cool to see Michibata in this kind of match and I loved his finishing submission.

 

The Library 

2025 Matchguide Week 47

 Yu Shimizu & Yuta Oya vs Ali Najima & Hajime Enshu, Sportiva 11/19

Best Sportiva in a while, for 2 reasons: 1) we get some cool Najima/Oya matwork at the start and it's always awesome to see Oya grapple it out and b) an unusal level of disdain between Najima and Shimizu, and thankfully they settle out to deliver a hot finishing stretch between the two that is packed with everything you can ask for. Enshu very much exists in this match, apparently he's a 40-something year old guy who was briefly an AJPW rookie in 2010s and only came back to wrestling last year after a +10 year hiatus. Interesting backstory aside he is a not very impressive skinny old man wrestler, though he can lay it in here and there, and we do get to see Oya judo throwing his skinny ass, so that was cool, and then he doesn't get in the way anymore. Shimizu vs Najima is just great. Obviously these are two very straight forward hard hitting pro wrestlers and they do clock each other with their kicks and elbows good, but the really impressive finish is built around submissions. All year we've seen Shimizus rear naked choke and Najimas achilles hold built up as killing moves so seeing them scramble out of those here was a really sweet piece of long term wrestling storytelling, and the surrounding wrestling was impressive. Finish was actually great too. If Sportiva at some point ends up giving us a singles match between these two I'll be delighted but for now this was a really nice stand-in.

Tomoki Hatano vs Shota Marlon Miwa, HEAT-UP 5/25

This was unexpectedly good. I've only known Hatano as the less impressive, less scummy tag partner of Yu Shimizu. But in this match, he was breathing the spirit of the scum bastard as he basically made it a point to be as evil to his opponent as possible. Really uncooperative looking matwork where Hatana threw the skinnier Miwa around and scrambled for chokes, hard brain scrambling elbows, shrugging off his kicks and just being a total prick. Just the first half of this was like 20 times more interesting than the average indy match due to sheer uncooperativeness and a disdainful nature. Shota Marlon Miwa has the dubious fame of being the first German-Japanese pro wrestler, he is a kind of skinny lanky karateka, he sells his ass off and his kicks are really fun which is all you really want from a karateka. His axe kick and big jumping leg lariat are awesome, so when you have an awesome leg lariat you are an awesome wrestler in my book. Hatanos enzuigirs were also impressively hard kicking, catching Miwa right in his skinny neck. Really good uncooperative little match.

MARU & Ayano Irie vs Marino Saihara & Yukina Uehara, AWG 11/24

A lot of pretty badass wrestling here. MARU continues to look like a killer as she's constantly inflicting punishment, biting, pulling hair, waffling people with a chain and killing them with double stomps. The chain stuff is cheap but effective and the surprise chain attacks are fun, and I am even fine with the comical amount of ref distractions, and it always looks punishing. There was also some great stretch muffler work here. Initially Uehara scrambled right out of the hold, so later MARU goaded her into throwing kicks just to catch her leg and go for the move again. It's super simple stuff but it's a lot of fun and somehow very few wrestler are smart enough anymore to do things like that. Uehara and Saihara were also pretty great here dishing out punishment constantly barraging people with kicks. Uehara seems to be turning into a good wrestler now, even her somewhat goofy hip attack hit hard, and she's just a ton of fun, imagine Torrie Wilson blasting people with credible shoot kicks. One thing that stands out here was the smart use of transitions, it never felt like I was just watching people run through their offense. They settle into a Saihara vs Irie finishing run which is surprisingly white hot. Irie had some problems executing stuff early on, but she held up pretty well against Saiharas UWF style barraging her with big boots from every angle. Saihara is a super reliable wrestler too just constantly putting the heat on people with shoot kicks and submissions and her suplexes. It's simple, straight forward wrestling that hits hard. There were also some great dramatic saves including Uehara just running in and braining Nagai with a BattlARTS-worthy high kick. Just great action. The finish is Saihara nailing Irie with a jumping knee to the face and then throwing her with a huge deadlift German which is one hell of a finish in 2025. I have no explanation for the greatness of AWG, they draw small crowds, which mostly seem to be uncles that seem to be there to look at the pretty girls, yet they keep putting on these banger matches that are more straightforwardly enjoyable than almost anything else I'm seeing in 2025.  

Mari & Act vs Haruka Ishikawa & Kyoka Iwai, AWG 1/24

Great tag, which was refreshingly different. Basically, Mari and Act are the top heel act in AWG and Ishikawa and Iwai are a pair of lesser evils. Haruka Ishikawa was going after Mari like an absolute pitbull here, just an absolute demon, and in turn Mari would maul her with some really violent kicks. Iwai likes to hit people with a gimmicked umbrella, so Mari shutting that down quickly and Act giving her a taste of her own medicine was good. Mari and Act toyed with their opponents for a bit before Ishikawa and Iwai gained control in a smart spot. After that it was just a relentless as they tried to take down Mari with Mari having great violent retaliations. Heck, there was a chair throw in this that felt like one of the most memorable things I've seen in a while. The one slight let down is the finish, since they were setting up the upcoming Mari/Ishikawa title match. But this is a great prelude to that, as convincing and intense as you can ask for any match to be mostly thanks to Haruka and Mari.

2025 Matchguide 

Of all things... a look at Tony Garea

 

2/3 Falls: Tony Garea & Steve Travis vs Johnny Rodz & Jose Estrada, WWF 9/18/1982

My foray into Tony Garea begins with this illustrious combination! And wow this is just a straight forward great match. Right at the bell they go into a criss cross running which I imagine is a hot workrate beginning in 1982 WWF. There is nearly nothing beyond the absolute most basic of wrestling moves here, but everything is executed so believable and with conviction. Everyone here throws good punches, and whenever the babyfaces one up the heels e.g. by kipping out of an armlock, they punctuate it with a punch to the face. Rodz takes an awesomely big back body drop, faces have great dropkick, and there’s lots of leapfrogging. Garea hits a really beautiful handstand kneedrop at one point. Heels stooge around the ring and beg off lots, selling punches like shotgun blasts, and they pretty much never get any offense except when they leap into eye rakes or distract the referee. US wrestling really lost a lot when they moved away from face punching and begging off. They do a pretty brief heat segment and then it’s back to the faces clowning and wasting the heels fast. I really appreciate the departure from a typical long heat segment and they really continue to deliver the action. Finish to the first fall is just a basic splash and it was followed up with some cool work to the mid section in the second fall. GREAT transition when a knocked unconscious Johnny Rodz is blind tagged as he knocked Garea down and fell to his corner, Jose Estrada then coming down off the top rope with an attack to the neck. Johnny Rodz also hit a pretty nice thrust kick at one point. By the end they just keep delivering with the heels putting heat on the babyfaces and being met constantly with great looking punch combos. The first hot tag is just Garea coming in and punching back and forth with Travis. They do seem to meander a bit in the 3^rd fall but I appreciate Johnny Rodz saving things with a little swaggering to give things a chance to get back on track. And get back on track they did as they really went all out. Even doing some quite hot nearfalls throughout all the falls. The announcer were talking about how this is an all action match and it really doesn’t feel like an exaggeration. I especially enjoyed the spot where Garea leaped over one heel, causing said heel to dive head first into the other. It’s such a fun simplistic creative approach to things in this era. To be fair, Garea and Travis were so competent but bland in this match they might as well have been interchangeable, but they still did a good job, and Rodz and Estrada were pretty great. I really appreciate how none of them were really big stars yet they went out and had a great match in the middle of the card here. That’s the spirit. This was pretty much everything that modern wrestling is not, and for that I enjoyed the heck out of this.

This was the only appearance of Tony Garea among the top ranked matches of the DVDVR 80s WWF set, so I guess the DVDVR folks did not like Garea very much.

Rick Martel & Tony Garea vs Masa Saito & Mr. Fuji, WWWF 10/13/1981

This was a great tag sprint. You would usually not associate early 80s WWF with sprints but this was pretty much just that. Martel is a house of fire right away. Saito and Fuji are just great in this, bumping all over the place and setting themselves up. Martel does a ridiculously high leapfrog where Mr. Fuji barely goes down. The heat segment was just masterful as Fuji and Saito were constantly in and out and dominated the action without things getting boring. Garea is very much just a guy in this doing everything right, though the crowd rallied behind him in a big way when he powered out of Fujis nerve hold, and the leapfrog spots are fun still. Martel hits a jumping headscissor in his hot tag and that is just delightfully old school highflying babyface stuff. Salt throw finish looked just amazing. I also really enjoyed young Masa Saito looking quite unfuckwithable as he always does. Super super enjoyable tag that could be shown as textbook example in wrestling schools.

Tony Garea vs Larry Sharpe, WWWF 12/31/1977

This was some workmanship. Garea really looks so bland with his everybodies darling look but just his prison tattoos make him interesting. Sharpe has the blonde bowlcut and a Buddy Rose esque figure. This starts as a scientific match. There’s actually some quiet swift work and Garea busts out a handstand into a wristlock takeover that we’d associate with the fancier European technicians. At one point Sharpe works the old hammerlock pin and Garea does some cool bridging and twisting, even bridging over to reverse the pin on Sharpe. Garea knocks Sharpe over with a shoulderblock and a woman in the audience goes “Woooo! Woo!” Interesting transition where Garea goes for another and Sharpe sidesteps and misdirects him into the turnbuckle where Garea hurts his shoulder. Mostly technical action, but the crowd quickly starts rallying behind Garea. Sharpe does a bit of cheating and a cool thing where he falls while holding onto the wrist of Garea to attack the arm. Garea gets out of the armlock with a nifty drop toe hold (basic but you never see anyone do that anymore). His hot comeback is mostly hammering away at Sharpe with headlock punches. They wind down a bit as Garea keeps hanging on to headlocks as they go to a somewhat lukewarm 10 minute draw. To my surprise, the referee awards the win to Garea, which causes Sharpe to flip out and beat on him further, but Garea comes back hitting some beautiful dropkicks that send Sharpe to the outside of the ring as the crowd absolutely erupts and old ladies jump out of their seat with joy. For a 70s WWF match this wasn’t boring at all and it was very much textbook stuff that just plain works as evidenced by the crowd reactions.

Tony Garea vs Adrian Adonis, WWF 4/24/1982

Another scientific match! Hugely enjoyable stuff, however, the problem here is that Adonis is clearly trying to draw heat with his swaggering persona, but then he ends up looking way better at wrestling than Garea. Nothing wrong with old Tony Garea here, but Adonis pretty much smokes him with a beautiful firemans carry, beautiful drop toe hold, even flipping out of an attempted monkey flip. That is hard flip to pull off and seeing a chunky man like Adonis making it look smooth as butter is magical. Adonis keeps running into Gareas armdrag takeovers though, and he takes these cool bumps for shoulder blocks where he is turned around on the spot by the force of Garea charging into him and flops to his belly. Eventually, Adonis grabs a handful of hair and hits this really cool knee lift. The crowd is way behind Garea though as he makes a cool escape from Adonis abdominal stretch. They spill to the outside, with some surprisingly hard moves on the floor being uncorked as they brawl to a draw. A pretty sweet TV match although Adonis stood out head and shoulders above Garea and it made me want to see what would go down further between them.

Tony Garea & Larry Zbyszko vs Baron Mikel Scicluna & Tony Russo, WWWF 1978/8/19

Boy Larry Z looks like the goofiest man you’ve ever seen here with his hair combed to the side and his whispy mustache. Talk about being born to be an obnoxious heel. 70S WWWF has a lot names that are lost to history, but whose solidness stands the test of time in a way. Garea definitely is one such guy, and the same goes for Scicluna and Russo. Sciclona works a forearm choke and some hair pulls and then they go pretty much right to heat with the heels being all over the faces constantly. Tony Russo, a man built like an angry apple (all body and no arms or legs), has this great kneedrop where he landed right on the mans throat. I think that was about the only fancy thing the heels did. They were all kicks and punches, but they were solid kicks and punches. There are actually multiple heat sections and multiple babyface comebacks, most of which are fun, until a double down signals to actually go to the finish. One notices that after getting a hot tag, Zbyszko and Garea would usually just go for another armlock so the heels could cheapshot again and go back to heat. Gareas hiptosses and dropkicks look as good as you need hiptosses and dropkicks to be. He does show some fire, and the double Sunset flip finish is fun. 70S WWF was faster paced wrestling than you might think.

2025 Matchguide Week 46

 
Yuji Nagata vs Shinya Aoki, DDT 10/14

A 30 MINUTE Yuji Nagata match in 2025?! I am too prone to morbid curiosity to not watch. The first 10 minutes of this was great as it was all matwork. It's probably been forever since Nagata grappled with anyone for longer than 5 minutes in a match. 2003 Nagata would've put up a good fight, but Aoki was mostly toying with him here. Aokis single-minded focus to put Nagatas shoulders to them was fascinating to watch and there was some really compelling grappling going on. I was ready for them to go completely sicko and just grapple for the whole duration, but alas, after 10 or 12 minutes they start to do some blatantly pointless 'brawling' on the floor. Aoki is great on the mat, but he is pretty bad at regular wrestling things like irish whipping someone or even looking like he is in a fight when Nagata is doing stuff to him on the floor. A lot of the time he just stands there and looks like he's just waiting for his opponent to do something. Back in the ring I get some hope back in the match as Aoki hits a really choice counter from Nagatas exploder into a sweet rolling chokehold. There are some more somewhat compelling moments of struggle down the stretch, but mostly they kill the rest of the 15 minutes with overly drawn out submissions - including a 5 minute figure four leg lock, and lots of Nagatas signature weak elbow exchanges. The worst was probably that Nagata just absorbed basically everything Aoki did, never really doing anything particularily interesting to get back at him. It was probably Nagatas best match in years still since he was forced to actually wrestle and not just coast with elbows and funny faces. But even for all the good stuff this brought I thought it could've been a heck of a lot better. And most importantly I want to see Aoki face someone who can match him on the mat.

Minoru Suzuki vs Yuki Ueno, DDT 11/3

A 34 MINUTE Minoru Suzuki match in 2025?! We are really going beyond the limits this week. In fairness, this is a really respectable performance from Suzuki and he's pretty much the reason why this is an entirely watchable match. From the very get go you could tell Suzuki was putting in the effort and trying to make this compelling all the way through. He was really fun here stretching Ueno like Fuchi, beating the snot out of him, and hitting cool Fujiwaraish counters. Ueno is... athletic and well that's about all that I can say about him. The match had a ton of legwork, and while Ueno was selling it almost all his offense involves jumping or leaping and running and all that. It seems everytime he makes a comeback it's just him popping up and hitting a move. What he does he hits well, but he puts in zero extra. He just hits his moves and that is maybe the worst sin a wrestler can commit in 2025 in my eyes. Especially when facing a freakshow like Suzuki. And the goofy finish just kinda underlines that. This was really well worked and had  good layout, but holy shit why are they making all these 60 year old wrestlers have 30 minute matches. This felt slower than something from the 1950s. I think there was like a 5 minute achilles hold or something. It's a bit of a shame because there's a genuinely great Minoru Suzuki performance here and it's wasted in a type of match that just feels like a chore to watch at this point. I loved everything Minoru Suzuki did here, the counters, the leg kicks, the viciousness in going for the sleeper. It's an A+ performance in a type of match that is just grating my nerves now.

Rico Fukunaga vs Chii Aoba, AWG 6/28
Their little feud has produced some good stuff, and this was more of that. The most important thing here is that this is an atypical match. Nothing here came across as cookie cutter, and that alone is really refereshing. Just give me two wrestlers with credible offense who look like they are trying their hardest to win. That was the case here. Right at the go, Aoba took Fukunaga down and latched really hard onto a leglock that forced Fukunaga to the ropes. Fukunaga in turn tried to go for an armbar that Aoba desperately resisted. Seconds later, Aoba avoided Fukunagas kicks and surprised Fukunaga with a really elegant judo throw. While their execution wasn't exactly UWF-level, just the fact they did something other than the stereotypical side headlocks and wristlocks that seem to begin every match now made me enjoy watching. Aoba is really small and skinny and she comes across as trying to prove herself as a wrestler and it's really respectable. Her holds are cool, she has the bridging full nelson which is awesome (and they really made that full nelson look like a struggle) and she also did this cool series of chancery takeovers, her basic powerslam was also perfectly timed. I've no idea how to quite classify her but she's cool. Fukunaga caught her with some pretty hard, credible kicks too. This was a good match that stood precisely because of what  I mentioned: not cookie cutter, both treating the match as really important, credible offense from both, clear story/hierarchy etc. It's not mindblowing greatness or anything but somehow it's way better than what other feds are putting out. Give me something like this over another trite 30 minute DDT main event slog every day.

MARU vs Kyoka Iwai, AWG 11/15

A hard as fuck brawl with both of them beating the hell out of each other with chairs, chains, a ladder and basically everything they could get their hands on. There were some creative spots without getting too cute, and even something a bit silly like the hits with the plastic bucket felt pretty mean and evil. It felt straight out of early 2000s JD and that is a very good thing to me. Execution was a bit slow here and there especially from Iwai but that aside this was a ton of fun. I really liked how whenever one of them turned her head too long the other would come and ambush her from behind. That is exactly what should happen in a crazy brawl. And there were some damn big bumps to top it off too. It could've just been the brawling/hardcore stuff and it would've been a really fun match, but then they really did this dramatic finishing run with MARU trying to smash Iwais legs to dust and Iwai doing some great desperation selling. Iwai needs a bit of work before she'll be a great wrestler but she brought it here, and MARU is quietly one of the best wrestlers on earth.

2025 Matchguide 

 

 

More No Ring Dragon Gate

 

Dragon Kid & Shingo Takagi vs BxB Hulk & Naoki Tanizaki, Dragon Gate 8/9/2008

I loved the tag with Arai, so I decided to watch the rest of that no-ring Dragon Gate. This was definitely a Dragon Gate match – very spotty, little selling and everything is thrown out seemingly too fast – but the no ring factor makes it pretty fun and enjoyble mostly for the curiosity of them pulling off their shit, notably Dragon Kids whacky satelitte headscissor moves. And whether or not Shingo will hit his headspiking moves on that thin mat – and yes, he does. Shingos punches were fun and BxB Hulk took a great looking back body drop at one point, probably the biggest and most painful looking moves on the match. But this was definitely a match for the ‘the more moves per minute you hit the better’ crowd. But, they went really hard. You never see wrestlers going this hard in undercard matches anymore. Maybe for the wiser, but it’s also fun to watch something relentless like this once in a while.

Cyber Kong & Yamato vs Masato Yoshino & Naruki Doi, Dragon Gate 8/9/2008

This was better. It had an understandable story with Kong and Yamato being more of a heel team, they let everything breath a little more, and they made good use of the non-ring. There were some insane sprinting dropkicks that looked fantastic among other things, and some fun chaos with brawling and chairs and a table coming into play. Mostly the match wasn’t super predictable. Cyber Kong is a really fun powerhouse here and he did a great job both basing for people and killing the little dudes with hoss offense. Once again, the no ring bumps looked just brutal with Yoshino getting spiked on his neck by lariats. Yoshino also looked pretty good with his vicious dropkicks and fast movements and the other guys were solid. The clipping probably helped – as they cut it down from 19 minutes to about half that length – but it’s a super enjoyable watch regardless. Dragon Gate really should’ve kept going without a ring.

2025 Matchguide Week 45

 Shinya Ishida & Ali Najima & Masanori Watanabe vs Yu Shimizu & Yuta Oya & Ryutaro Ohno, Sportiva 11/12

Sportiva with an all star 6 man tag! And yeah this resembled one of those 90s AJPW 6 mans just in a sportsbar. A bit less grand in scope if you will, but everyone here got to do some fun wrestling and it ended up being a very well put together super enjoyable match. Starts out nice and basic. Shimizu always looks great in these tags, in this case by kicking things off booting people off the apron and putting effort into working an abdominal stretch. We do get touches of everyone doing what they do best and giving an impression of what has made Sportiva such a good promotion this year. We get a great Najima/Oya exchange, which made me think we're due for another singles match between them. Their progression continues as they keep going toe to toe, and the same goes for Najima standing up to higher ranked guys like Ishida in a bigger way now. Ohno is still in his rookie role, but we know he can be fun doing his thing. This was a lot of fun and a reminder that this crew is one of the best things going in 2025 altough I am thirsting after some singles matches between any two of these guys.

Yukito vs Bomber Okuno, HEAT-UP 9/13

I quite like Yukito. In a world full of guys with a shootstyle moveset, an actual Kiyoshi Tamura trainee is always a welcome change of pace. Even more interesting is the fact that he's a 47 year old rookie, although you don't really notice his age. This is not shootstyle or anything, but just the way Yukito would aggressively hook his boody into Okuno and take him down loos just legit enough for it to get my attention. The match soon becomes about Okunos toughness. Okuno is more of a Jun Izumida type guy: hard head, slow moving, doesn't do many things. He's often trite, but in this match Yukito gets just on his grill enough that everything becomes a bit more contemptful, making this match interesting. Okuno would keep shrugging of Yukitos kicks, laying back into him with really hard elbows and headbutts, and rattle him with cool outdated offense like Coconut Crushers or falling headbutts. It's compelling precisely because it's not your typical even steven match up. Okuno would absorb Yukitos kicks and then just grab him and slam him really hard again. It becomes about Yukito trying to crack a tough, stubborn opponent. When he finally starts gaining momentum and starts to get ahold of Okunos arm, it really feels like he was going for the kill rather than getting in some cute reversals. Some really nice desperation down the stretch here with those submissions, and you do get those kicks vs hard head spots and Bomber cracking Yukito really hard. Super simple but highly enjoyable match.

Mari & Haruka Ishikawa vs Yui Tensho & Sakura Mizushima, AWG 2/24

'nother good match from AWG. Aside from a few light hearted moments, this delivered plenty of good action. Yui Tensho was in goofball mode early, trying to hit the AXE BOMBA~, which lead to Mari and Haruka doing an Anderson Bros style job working over her arm. We got see some good armwork from both of them. When Mizushima tagged in, I thought she would be one of these idol types - you know, very skinny, hits flimsy dropkicks and rollups, but she tried to take out Maris leg with some pretty brutal double stomps. Her dropkicks aren't amazing but I thought she was pretty effective as she always knew what to do. Loved Mari putting her in her place with some hard kicks and then almost ripping her in half with a crazy submission. Second half was about Tensho vs Haruka Ishikawa. Tensho cut back the goofiness and I thought Ishikawa was quite efffective pouncing on Tensho with sentons over and over, she looked like a pitbull. They just build to the axe bomber and it's good stuff. I like that Tensho getting a win over Maris team was made to feel like a big deal.

Mari vs Sakura Mizushima, AWG 3/16

Their exchanges in the February tag hinted at a good match, and this pretty much delivered just that! This was pretty great overdog vs underdog stuff. Mari outclassed Mizushima initially, and the match quickly turned into a nasty trashing with Maris kicks and sadism. Mizushima took one of the hardest throws into a row of chairs I've ever seen (and think of the ground that covers in joshi). Mizushima was able to catch one of Maris kicks and hit this nasty move where she dropped her entire body weight on Maris leg. She then proceeded to drop some more nasty double stomps on Maris leg. That legwork is very brief and doesn't slow Mari down too hard, probably since they wanted to keep Mari being the overdog, but it gives Mizushima some breathing space to mount a comeback. Thought the match was pretty much perfectly laid out with Mizushima getting just the right amount of desperate and urgent hopespots and Maris cutoffs being hard and mean. Mind you, Sakura could be a bit better when it comes to footwork and the force of her execution, but for what her role is she does pretty well. Also loved Maris quick use of the Gory Special. Very good stuff and Mari continues to deliver. 

2025 Wrestling Roundup