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 

Battle and Arts 1/24/2021

 

Yujiro Yamamoto vs. Maori Kawashima

Quite the hate filled 3 minute match. Yamamoto was clearly there to put some punishment on Kawashima, who gave as much as he could. Kawashima had a pretty cool Shining Spin Wheel Kick and good energy, though he gets smacked and beaten by Yamamoto pretty fast.

Shin Suzuki vs. Takahiro Tababa

Pretty neat undercard match. Never seen or heard of Shin Suzuki but he looked like a good wrestler. Suzuki did a bunch of tight, no-nonsense pro style grappling against Tababas shootstyle and he had some impressive holds. He also gave Tababa opportunities to do nifty counters. Not a ton of Tababa hard hitting but he does lay in some nasty kicks. The finish was really cool as Suzuki slips beneath to try for a neat Gory Special variation but Tababa breaks out and chokes him out cool, just saying ‚fuck you‘ to that llave bullshit.

Masayuki Kono vs. Yoshihiro Horaguchi

I don‘t think I‘ve ever seen anyone praise Masayuki Kono. He is not horrible, but there‘s also nothing remarkable about him except that he is tall, I guess. As such and with him being the higher ranked wrestler having spent an eternity doing nothing in AJPW and W-1, this match ended up being forgettable.

 

Manabu Hara vs. Yujiro Yamamoto

First 7 minutes were pretty great. Both guys engage in some really nice slick U-Style matwork, and Hara was really vicious when the opportunity presented itself. Yamamoto is so great on the mat, and their match up felt like a worthy heir to the Ishikawa/Ikeda stuff. Insertion of pro-style moves like irish whips was a bit jarring as I wanted them to go full BattlARTS epic. They get back on track though and deliver a good finish with both guys busting out the cool suplexes and submissions you expect and blast each other with some really stiff blows and headbutts. Not quite the classic that I feel they have in them, but a very good match all in all.

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