Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #22

 

Tanomusaku Toba & Kota Ibushi vs. Manabu Hara & Katsumi Usuda, DDT 6/13/2007 - EPIC

Don’t know what was happening in DDT in 2007 that they were booking all these BattlARTS invasion matches but I am here for it. This was awesome and basically just pure asskicking all the way through. Pretty much perfectly digestable shootstyle stiff fest with minimal submission work and clear face/heel roles with Hara and Usuda being a pair of assholes and brutalizing Ibushi. Toba in DDT usually faces easy opposition and it was pretty awesome to see him here mixing it up with a pair of beasts and getting kicked in the face by Usuda. Ibushi cut out the bullshit and was just a gutsy fighter here, even his blown backflip kind of worked in the match. This was just a hair under 10 minutes and just incredibly stiff and exciting for the whole duration.

Tanomusaku Toba & Sanshiro Takagi vs. Manabu Hara & Katsumi Usuda, DDT 6/20/2007 - GREAT

I wasn’t sure how Takagi would do with the shooters, but he mostly does fine. Him dumping a table on Usuda and hitting a stiff dropkick was great, but his later stuff lacked the same intensity. Toba vs. BattlARTS guys was really great once again and his exchange with Usuda was must see. Usuda shoot headbutting Toba through a flurry of punches and kicks was awe inspiring.Toba would’ve had one hell of a career as a BattlARTS or FUTEN guy. I mean he still had one hell of a career but this stuff is where he shines most, and there’s so little of it. All the more reason to cherish random little matches like this more, I guess!

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Kota Ibushi & HARASHIMA, DDT 4/11/2007 – FUN

JIP, which is too bad because on paper this is a great match. What we get is pretty fun though as we get a couple great Toba exchanges vs. Ibushi and HARASHIMA. Toba annihilating Ibushi with body blows and brutal kicks was really great. HARASHIMA isn’t afraid to eat punishment, hit back and then dive right into a Toba punch other. Toba also almost got ripped in half by a nasty Shima leglock. Everything else was solid and the Toba sections were absolutely worth checking out.

 

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 MIKAMI vs. HARASHIMA, 11/27/2007

It’s the two top juniors in DDT in a big title match. If you know and like these two you will like this a lot, if you don’t know these you will be positively surprised. While the match was a bit spotty here and there, both guys can bust out unpredictable highspots. Like MIKAMI can always hit an odd 619 or springboard move from any angle, and HARASHIMA can just kick you in the head. Ladder stuff didn’t detract from the match and lead to a few big crazy bumps and moments. I was also surprised they didn’t go into finisher overkill, instead focussing on MIKAMI avoiding the Somato like death. Also got a kick out of HARASHIMA going ‘fuck you’ to the ladder.

HARASHIMA vs. Kota Ibushi, DDT 12/30/2007

This won a “match fans want to see the most” contest. With that kind of set up you can expect them to bring the goods, and they did. If you like 2010s HARASHIMA you will like 2000s HARASHIMA because he’s nearly the same wrestler. He was smart enough to work some basic exchanges with Ibushi early on, making the highspots they did look bigger. He also worked Ibushis arm, so even though Ibushi didn’t sell anything it wasn’t super exposed and Ibushi could still hit all his highspots. Both guys did some amazingly spectacular counters and sequences like you expect from an Ibushi match. The match had handsprings, reverse ranas and all that, it was like 2022 match except this was actually good because they had good pacing and structure. Also both guys weren’t afraid to hit each other hard. Recommended if you just want to see a cool MOVEZ match/spotfest and don’t expect a deep story.

 

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Shuji Ishikawa, DDT 2/24/2011

Shuji is way bigger and a damn old crowbar. Kikuchi was on the way out, but he could still take a murder asskicking. Goodness gracious. Ishikawa just brutalizes him with his big knees and headbutts and Kikuchi bleeds hardway and hits a really pretty suplex on the bigger guy and it’s just really gutsy and gritty. Wish they had aired the whole thing because those 6 minutes were pretty insane.

Shuji Ishikawa vs. Kengo Mashimo, DDT 10/3/2010

God I am MAD they only showed 5 minutes of this because this looked like an epic, FUTEN-esque battle. Both guys bleed hardway and they beat the shit out of each other. Brutal kicks and knees left and right. Check it out for some old-fashioned violence.

BJW 1/9/2005

 

They decided to run a cool one night tournament with some interesting participiants for this show.

First Round: Manabu Hara vs. HERO!

HERO! is of course HARASHIMA in his kind of bland masked gimmick. They mesh very nice on the mat, ‘shima has no problem doing smooth shootstyle matwork and Hara mostly dominates the action dominating on the ground and hitting a big suplex, as well as totally stonewalling Harashimas attempts to do anything pro style. I imagine a 10 minute match between them would’ve been pretty good, at 5 minutes this was still a neat bit.

First Round: Kyosuke Sasaki vs. Naoki Numazawa

I’m not sure if Numazawa was a full time death match guy at this point. He was really schlubby in his ill fitting boots, shirt and tights. Sasaki kicks him a bit and Numazawa kills time with solid but boring offense. Sasaki wins with ease. Nothing match but it made Sasaki look strong going into the second round.

First Round: Mineo Fujita vs. Masanori Ishikura

Yes, Ishikura! They got a lot of kickpadded shooters for this tournament. This was 6 minutes and for two indy juniors doing a vacuum junior match it wasn’t bad. Fujita has really pretty execution on all his stuff and Ishikura hits a big jumping knee in his face. Transform this to a WCW b-show and it would have made a great addition to any b-side comp tape.

First Round: Daisuke Sekimoto vs Kunio Toshima

The longest match in the first round even though it had the most basic workers. It was still a pretty good match with Toshima working like Otani. No kidding, he was doing big boots, face washes, springboard dropkicks, working over Sekimotos arm something fierce. Toshimas single minded determination on attacking Sekimotos arm, gnarly big boots and Sekimotos affinity for single-minded matches made this a pretty good encounter. Also, Sekimoto actually sold all that armwork and Toshimas stubborn arm attacks made an armbar finish plausible.

Semi-Finals: HERO! vs. Kyosuke Sasaki

This went 12 minutes and it was the DDT vs. U-Style encounter you never knew you craved. The do a bunch of really nice slick matwork. Sasaki looks really good here kicking the crap out of ‘shima and working a nasty neck crank. HERO! stuck to junior offense but they had a fun dynamic going. They also reference the finish of the first round HERO match so that was a nice touch.

Semi-Finals: Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Mineo Fujita

Fujita tries rushing Sekimoto at the start and hits some offense. Then Sekimoto comes back and hits some offense, pretty much gobbling Fujita up. I liked Fujitas tricky pin attempt but this was extremely forgettable.

Finals: Daisuke Sekimoto vs. HERO!

Opening WoS-like hold exchanges were kind of cool. Sekimoto is so bulky it looks really cool when busts out a smooth takedown, and HERO has a really pretty Santo headscissor. After a big HERO dive, Sekimoto did some nice work on his mid section. Unfortunately they kind of stopped being on the same page for a minute and the rest of the match ended up being listless randomness. Sekimotos lack of intensity was really jarring, like he looked like he was about to check his watch the whole time.

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Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #21

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Poison Sawada & HARASHIMA, DDT King of DDT 2008 - FUN

 

HARASHIMA was in snakeman facepaint and doing charms here. Sawada and Shima won’t blow you away here but they are a charismatic heel unit  and there are some fun charming spots including MIKAMI getting hypnotized while standing on top of the ladder. SUICIDE BOYZ were about as good as you ever see them here, MIKAMI can make any random move like a springboard back elbow look totally awesome and Toba was kicking and punching people as hard as ever. TOBA even broke out of the snake charms twice and hit one of his stiffest backfists I’ve ever seen. I also appreciate that Sawada looks old and like he doesn’t train anymore but still takes a full force Toba kick to his head. This needed another Toba tag in to push into GREAT territory but for what it is it is an immensely fun little match.

 

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Cho-un Shiryu & KUDO, DDT 4/1/2009 - GREAT

This was from a weird theme show where they had all the wrestlers dress up as different nationalities. So Toba and MIKAMI represent Thailand with MIKAMI dressed like a thaiboxer and KUDO doing his New Beijing Pro Wrestling Dragon Achoooo gimmick. So this is thai boxing vs. hong kong movie kung fu match we all were looking for all of our lifes and it’s totally awesome. It works because Shiryu and KUDO are really slick and there are still a ton of stiff strikes in the match. I think the joke was that MIKAMI isn’t skilled enough to be a thaiboxer because he was mostly doing body shots early on, but he hit a pretty brutal jumping knee later. Of course Toba rules coming in and punching and kicking people really hard. Also, nice showcase match for Choun Shiryu, who is also awesome. This was only a slightly bigger finish away from an EPIC rating.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. MIKAMI, DDT 12/29/2006 - GREAT

This was for the Extreme Title and had a rounds ruleset where one round be pro wrestling rules, the next round would be martial arts rule and so on. Pretty smart match that was also brutally stiff. Even during the pro wrestling sections MIKAMI was absolutely leathering Toba with his clotheslines and kicks, for a skinny short guy he can really hit like Tenryu. MIKAMI was really trying to finish the match during the Pro Wrestling Rules section going for flash pins. MIKAMI was more cautious during the Kakutogi sections, trying to contain Toba with takedowns and groundwork. Eventually MIKAMI eats a knee to the face when shooting for a takedown and after that it’s time for Toba to kick his ass. The sections where Toba was blasting MIKAMI with his kicks and fists really felt like a fight to the death as MIKAMI barely survived. There was this great moment where MIKAMI went for a desperate schoolboy but Toba landed on top and rained punches on him from mount, you could just see MIKAMIS body going limp as Toba punched the soul out of him, if it had been martial arts rules it would have been a KO but because it was pro wres rules Toba had to go for a pin. Other neat moments include MIKAMI going for a 619 and getting punched in the face, as well as Toba countering a codebreaker attempt with a nasty elbow. Finish was great too as MIKAMI hit this really uncooperative shoulder dislocating armbreaker move before locking in an Octopus Hold, Mikami knows no martial artist can resist an Octopus Hold. Great match that had top notch selling from Mikami, brutal stiffness and a really well told story.

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Project

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Project #15

 

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Shinya Aoki, DDT 1/3/2019 - GREAT

This was a boxing gloves match where Aoki would use some grappling and ground and pound. This was kind of like Rocky, Toba is broken down and slower, can he contain the new hotness? You don‘t really need to put over what a monster Aoki is, but I‘m happy they gave him a serious match like this. Toba was confident early on, but Aoki gained confidence and finally just blew him away. Few great spots, such as Toba diving for a punch on the ground only for Aoki to lock in a submission at lightning speed. Aokis ground and pound looked just brutal and I was surprised to see Toba get up from that (although barely). Close to a squash but genuinely dramatic.

Tanomusaku Toba & Hayato Sakurai & HARASHIMA vs. Masa Takanashi & Yukio Naya & Mizuki Watase, DDT 2/5/2020 - FUN

Sakurai is one hell of a team mate. And Toba wore this cool gi get up. Charming match due to those factors. Naya is this big kickpadded crowbar and had the most interesting exchanges out of everyone on his team. Toba wasn‘t involved in the match much sadly, only throwing some strikes early on before eating a beating and tagging out, but Sakurai did lots of fun shit like locking in cool flying legbars and hitting judo throws. Watase was non descript but didn‘t drag things down. Fun for the novelty of seeing Sakurai and Toba in his gi.

Tanomusaku Toba & Hikaru Sato & Rion Mizuki vs. Tsunehito Naito & Akito & Kazuki Hirata, DDT 3/27/2011 - GREAT

Tsunehito Naito~! In 2011 I had no idea who Naito was so I probably would have skipped this match, but now I know what‘s up, and got excited seeing Naito in this. Naito was 40 here and hadn‘t had a match in 10 years, but he was still bringing it. Bullying Mizuki and having quality exchanges with Toba and Sato. I know this is the Toba documentaiton, but grumpy old Naito stole the show in this grappling and throwing the shit out of everyone. The uncooperative bit where he refused to let Sato throw him out the ring ruled. I also loved him locking in the Dragon Sleeper on the floor. Toba got to have a nice finish turning Hiratas lights out. Everything else was fine. They really should bring back Naito in 2021.

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Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Project #12

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Yukio Sagakuchi (DDT 11/15/2019) - FUN

This was from a martial arts tournament which in style of modern DDT had a lot of silly buggers going on. Toba is an old man now and he moves a little slower. This was just a 2 minute match but there was still a really fun punch exchange and a cool finish with Toba sidestepping his higher ranked opponent and blasting him for the upset win so it’s pushed into FUN territory.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. HARASHIMA (DDT 11/15/2019) - FUN

This was the finals of the tournament. It was just a 6 minute match (probably a good think considering Toba has a gut now and looks alcoholic) with the first 3 minutes being slow anticipating moments, but the last 3 are fun enough with Toba uncorking another nasty load of potatoes in the corner and a cool finish where Harashima somehow springboard dives into a leglock which Toba frantically tries to fight out of so Harashima giant swings into a boston crab for the tap. That kind of struggle is always going to get a match on my good side.

 

Tanomusaku Toba & Takashi Sasaki & Nihao vs. Asian Cougar & Super Rider & Yuki Nishino, DDT 11/25/1999 - GREAT

Another very good early DDT tag. BattlARTS level stiffness mixed with crushing junior highspots. Plenty of brutal spinkicks. Nihao and Rider had some cool exchanges here. Both guys have lineage to Sayama with Rider being a Shooto guy and Nihao being trained by Kitahara who was Sayamas student. Nishino works like a pro wrestling crowbar and he had some really fun exchanges with Toba. He also hulked up during an attempted 3 on 1 section which was a rare macho moment in Japanese wrestling that actually meant something and was cool. Also, as usual, Cougars legdrops were just insane. The match needed more extended Toba sections to push into epic territory, but he was the Toba we all know and love.

 

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Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #6

 

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Takashi Sasaki (DDT 11/19/2000) - GREAT

Not as good as their match earlier in the year, but there was still plenty of badass violent pro wrestling going on here. Loved the opening with both guys beating the shit out of each other in the corner and Toba throwing some nice combos. There a few more spots here, such as Toba hitting his awesome apron kick and even a frankensteiner, but less Rocky-style exchanges in the finish. Takashi Sasaki once again looks really good, throwing a nice variety of kicks and these two have such excellent timing on their exchanges.

 

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Kota Ibushi, DDT 2/3/2008 - FUN

Sort of a kickboxing approximation to a Japanese big match. Ibushi was pretty goofy here and there too many back and forth strike exchanges. Even though the match was wrestled in Tobas style, it seemed to be all about Ibushi, which I didn’t like. There was a moment where Ibushi moonsaulted right into Tobas fist which looked really stupid. It still holds up better than your typical Japanese big match full of pointless elbow throwing and restholds, though. Lots of nasty strikes, including a great moment where Toba destroyed Ibushi in the corner. Finish was downright disgusting. Overall, his could’ve been way better.

Tanomusaku Toba & HARASHIMA vs. Takashi Sasaki & Masashi Takeda (HARD HIT 1/25/2009) - EPIC

Great great match. DDT guys have done matches with shootstyle elements in the past, but they went full on BattlARTS style here. It was nice to see the deathmatch boys go back to their roots. Harashima/Takeda grappling throughout was pretty great. It was slick U-Style matwork and a joy to watch. Takeda is actually a Tamura guy and it was nice to see he could still do that. Harashima looked really slick too. Of course, the main attraction was Toba and Sasaki going back to the kind of stuff they were doing a decade earlier. You could tell they were excited to get kill each other again. All their exchanges throughout were pretty great and pretty violent. I like how Sasaki blew a gasket for a moment, throwing Toba outside and prompting another streetfighting section, which earned him a yellow card. The finish was between Toba and Takeda and really good also. Toba was anticipating Takedas attacks (something I’ve noticed is one of his go-to tricks) and destroying him with superior strikes. Tobas spinning back elbow to Takedas throat was sick and probably the highlight of the match. Toba going into desperation mode whenever Takeda went for a suplex or submission also was fantastic. Great stuff, wish they had done this kind of thing more often.

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Hikaru Sato & Akito, DDT 9/29/2013 - GREAT

This was all about Toba vs. Sato. I’ve been pretty critical of Sato, but he was great in this match. Great opening section between him and Toba where he worked over Toba with some disgusting leg kicks. Of course, Toba came back punching his jaw out. I also loved Satos reversal to MIKAMIs 619. This is the first time I’ve seen Akito, and he stinks. However, he never got to drag the match down because Toba and Sato were constantly coming in to crush someone with brutal strikes. The finish was between MIKAMI and Akito and it was short and well executed. Apparently this was the only time Toba and Sato really interacted. Travesty.

 

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