Command Bolshoi Treasure Trove #8

 

Command Bolshoi vs Ran Yu Yu (JWP 11/11/2012)

This was right before Rans retirement. While she had slowed down a little, she could still bring the badass knee lifts and elbows. And Bolshoi had pretty much turned into a monster wrestler around this time period. Just such a well rounded wrestler who’s always doing something cool. Both these two have great offense, anytime YuYu hits a knee or elbow to stop Bolshoi it feels big, and everytime Bolshoi does something it feels like a cool trick to deal with her beastly opponent. Especially dug her 619s, the 619 is such a tired spot that few wrestlers pull off well but hers were great here, mostly because they came out of unexpected positions. Match also had some good matwork and well worked transitions. A nice late career highlight for Ran, and another entry in Bolshois resume of great matches around this time period.

Command Bolshoi vs Konami, GPS 12/19/2018

These two had already faced in 2017, now Bolshoi was just a year from retirement and Konami had advanced a little. As a result this is longer, and more stubborn. Loved how Bolshoi resisted the armbar over the ropes spot. At first it’s largely Bolshoi tearing Konami apart with her cool submissions and its really fun. Bolshoi makes even something like a basic stomp to the kneecap look outstanding which you have to love. Konami, however remains stubborn fighting back with her hard kicks and flash armbars. Bolshoi is up for a challenge against a shooter, but after some more hard fighting Konami is able to get Bolshoi in a great modified calf slicer. Bolshoi comes up limping, and what follows are some of the better minutes of pro wrestling I’ve seen in a while. A limping Bolshoi with her kneecap exposed desperately trying to avoid the killing blow and shutting down Konami with palm strikes, punching her in the face and sinking in a choke was pretty epic and exactly the kind of ‘wounding the veteran’ moment Konami needed. Finishing run had Bolshoi tying up Konami with more crazy submissions and palm strike maulings as well as more cool kicks and counter work. Really good stuff, Konami looked good engaging in this kind of stubborn submission-centric match and its just another great Bolshoi performance raising it to the next level with some great selling and character.

Command Bolshoi vs Ran Yu Yu, JWP 3/30/2006

Tremendous match, great in the same way as their 2012 encounter, but faster, scrappier, more tricked out, and bigger. This was really about Bolshoi evading Rans dangerous strikes and in the process busting out a ton of cool stuff. It really works because Ran is established that even a basic elbow or knee from her will fuck you up. Bolshoi was performing at peak level, hitting cool out of nowhere shotais and 619s, scrambling into triangle chokes, rolling her opponent up with ridiculous lucha pins or doing awesome submission counters into tying Ran up, and doing lots of cool blocking, dodging and evading with Ran eventually catching her. Ran has a bunch of awesome moments of her own, at this point she was a total a queen at these lengthy matches built around a few strikes, I mean I think you can count the ‘moves’ she hit in this on like 1 hand but she was incredibly compelling. So, smart match with a lot of great shit in it, no downtime, plenty unique and choice counters… yeah this pretty much ruled. One of the best of 2006.

Bati-Bati Remnants

 Yuki Ishikawa & Hiromitsu Kanehara vs Daisuke Ikeda & Kotaro Nasu, Kana Pro 9/15/2015

Ah yeah, Ikeda and Ishikawa opposite each other, on a Kana Produce show?! You get exactly what you think you are getting here, so it’s at minimum a good-great match, but in a way the real story of the match are Kanehara and Nasu. Nasu is kind of a guy born too, late he was only in BattlARTS and FuTen for a minute before they both shut down (or in case of Futen stopped releasing DVDs), even though he feels like a guy tailor made for stiff quasi-shootstyle battles. And Kanehara was always among the most brutal of the UWFi crew and feels like a guy who also would’ve done great stuff with the BattlARTS guys. And they both bring a lot to the table here, brutal kicks and palm strikes, Kanehara still has much in the tank as ever and Nasu totally holds up his end. You DO get Ishikawa and Ikeda trying to crack each others brains in this and that is as great as ever, but the end run is between Kanehara and Nasu and totally delivers the goods. Oh and there was one safe that was absurdly violent to really put it in the tradition of BattlARTS tags. Really cool 10 minute burst of shootstyle action here, not super deep just 4 guys throwing bombs at each other and delivering fun exchanges.

Yuki Ishikawa & Takafumi Ito vs Daisuke Ikeda & Hiromitsu Kanehara, GPS 9/26/2018

More like the above, with Nasu switched out for the also quite talented Takafumi Ito, and this time it goes longer! The match being 16 minutes instead of 10 means we get a lot more grinding work which is really fun. Kanehara looks like such an old master in this. Still a great grappler, and still hits like a tank with his kicks. The brief exchange with Yuki Ishikawa is really cool and a glimpse at what a banger match they would’ve had in like 1997. There’s also some great Pancrase style slick leglocks between Ito and Kanehara. Ikeda is mostly out of his depth when grappling here and has to resort to clawing, biting and oil checks. The section where he and Ito whail on each other is cool because it’s always cool to see Ikeda going toe to toe with someone who isn’t Yuki Ishikawa. Then he goes for a 619 and falls on his head like the stupid old bat that he is. And him and Ishikawa cracking each other delivers as usual. What’s cool about Ikeda vs Ishikawa is that while there are recurring elements it never feels like they are going through their spots, it’s all nice and spontanous and Ishikawa is not afraid to do things like grinding on Ikedas elbow with his knee and then having a stubborn little battle over a basic side headlock. This mostly everyone grinding out and the finish is rather brief, which is a kind of match that I like because it’s interesting to watch, just 4 guys who can do a lot of awesome stuff doing their thing, and we get a nice mix of the different matchups.

Daisuke Ikeda vs Takafumi Ito, Vaccine Fight 9/13/2012

Ahh, shootstyle guys having random matches on Produce shows, my beloved. For those curious I think Vaccine Fight was run by someone in the medical industry who also liked wrestling. Ikeda shows up in the camo pants, so it’s not full blown shootstyle, and there is quite a bit of fun shootstyle grappling, and Ikeda punting Ito all over the place a bunch. The older, claw- and oilcheck-happy Ikeda is fun but this is the straight forward serious Ikeda who crushes people and it’s great. Ito is such an interesting guy, if only for his gangly body and the way he moves even when he’s doing things like going for a rope break. He looks great when he’s locking in slick submissions on Ikeda, and I am forever sad we have none of his Fu-Ten appearances because I imagine him vs Takeshi Ono would be a completely sick match up. Meanwhile we have this and Ikeda cracking Ito really hard to this befuddled Shin Kiba audience. Fun times and the finish is totally nasty.