Speed of Sounds Produce 10/18/2009

Taro Nohashi vs Yuki Sato

This was a no-ring show in a cool disco-like environment. Not having a ring often brings the best out of talented wrestlers because they are forced to break out of their formula, and it makes things just feel a bit more reckless. And these two are pretty talented. They do a nice job working a basic indy undercard match with some good matwork, plausible no-ring lucharesu exchanges and Nohashi doing an 80s NWA studio match style working over Satos arm. Because there's only a tin mat even basic moves like a body slam or drop toe hold look devastating. Sato having to improvize in order to do high flying is a lot of fun and them clocking each other with stiffffff headbutts is what you sickos want out of a match like this. Nohashi at one point hit a jumping kick that was pretty amazing. This was exactly what you want your odd no ring indy show opening match to be.

Koryuki vs CHANGO vs Jumping Kid Okimoto

This was not what you want to see. Koryuki is some character who can't wrestle because of his super elaborate mask, then his elaborate mask gets partially removed but he still can't wrestle. The comedy was ass and the attempts at wrestling were lazy and uninspired. You want no second of this.

Gota Ihashi & HARASHIMA vs Masato Inaba & Toru Owashi

Standard light hearted DDT undercard tag that wasn't any good, really. For a no ring match to be good you need to bring some good matwork and/or striking and maybe a willingness to be insane and nobody here was delivering that. Gota Ihashi was the one guy who seemed to care a little and laid it, and he's supposed to be a joke.

Takuya Sugawara vs Kinya Oyanagi

 Kinya Oyanagi was a mighty decent wrestler and him being in a singles match is always a reason to check out a show. Sugawara was a pretty decent wrestler too, which along with guys like Nohashi and Minamino being there makes me wonder if the later Toryumon generations were actually better. This match was lots of groundwork, nice mix of basic stuff and the cool shit that Oyanagi does, so exactly what you want. Some swank counters and Sugawara while clearly less skillful had a few neat moves of his own, and stuck to a gameplan of attacking Oyanagis legs which lead to Oyanagi in counter attacking his arm and neat moments insure, such as Sugawara taking a painful looking kick to the shoulder while trying to lock in a figure 4. Aside from the matwork Oyanagi busted out this awesome jumping enzuigiri to a seated Sugawara. Smart match and a testament to how good wrestling can be without ropes and buckles.

Kota Ibushi & Hercules Senga & Tsutomu Oosugi vs Shu Sato & Kei Sato & Ken 45

Brahman Brothers are a really good pair of rudos in this environment. They will kick people in the face, act unhinged and stooge very well. That along with the Speed of Sounds smooth lucharesu stuff makes this a really fun match. Add in Ibushi and his tendency to lunatic stuff when placed in unusal environment and you get something good. Busting out a kendostick was unexpected and all the double team moves looked great and coupled with the brawling made the match feel more chaotic. And Ibushi bouncing around and doing crazy stuff was off the charts. This was the kinda shit you could put on a mixtape to showcase how cool pro wrestling can be, just a lot of cool shit per minute, very clear face and heel roles and with a unique twist to it. They really should have kept running shows in that disco.

The Library

GWE Watching: Koichiro Kimura

 

Koichiro Kimura vs. Brahman Shu & Brahman Kei, FUTEN 9/26/2010

A shootstyle handicap match which ends up being really compelling. Normally handicap matches would be unfair but Kimura is such a monster that it easily becomes believable. Kimura rip your arms and legs off and potatoe you really hard, plus his lethargic selling actually makes him look unstoppable. This had a lot of Brahmans getting stretched and mauled, until they were able to play the numbers game, spit some water and hit some cool double teams. Brahmans were kicking really damn hard too, almost like it’s FUTEN or something. I really liked how Kimura got water in his face but went straight back to mauling a Brahman. By the end he was getting swarmed and trying to get just one of these pesky Brahmans off long enough to put the other in a submission, until he succeeded with a Volk Han-ish leglock. Pretty unique stuff.

Koichiro Kimura vs. Makoto Hashi, FUTEN 7/25/2010

This was basically the two FUTEN monsters facing off so it was a compelling match up. You have to keep in mind that almost every FUTEN guy is some kind of indy wrestler doing shootstyle matches, so Koichiro Kimuras no frills RINGS grappler act feels different. As such the early goings of this was mostly grappling with Hashi not being able to do much against the superior grappler. This sets up the really intense second half of the match. Hashi moves in to go for headbutts so pissed off Kimura laid in some FUTEN level brutal stomps in the corner to him. After that it was Hashi as underdog vs. a tough shooter. Hashi grabbing a desperate Goriman suplex was really great. The second half had some really brutal hard hitting, Hashi using his brute force and some excellent submission counters from Kimura. 

 

 Koichiro Kimura vs. Kazuki Okubo, FUTEN 6/27/2010

Koichiro Kimura vs. Kazuki Okubo, FUTEN 10/24/2010

Two matches worth watching. The 10/24 is slightly better I thought, due to a more frantic Okubo performance but they didn't give each other much, the first match also had a cool surprise Okubo flying armbar and suplex. Both are pretty much the same layout, Kimura is an unstoppable monster who wastes his opponent with these brutal ground knees and stomps and some leg crushing cross heelhooks and legbars, and Okubo is really spunky laying it into him. I was surprised Kimura gave Okubo a lot of offense in these while maintaining his monster aura, and Okubo was so stiff that Kimura shrugging off the barrages of kicks was impressive. Not top tier FUTEN stuff but I found it to be a pretty enjoyable match up both times.

Takeshi Ono Documentation Project #23

 Takeshi Ono vs. Ryuji Hijikata, BattlARTS 4/17/2001 - FUN

Their shortest encounter as it‘s JIP so it‘s just 4 minutes. Hijikata took most of what was shown so we get to see Onos really good selling and bumping, he‘s really good taking hits and just barely keeping himself up while getting into position for the next move. Hijikatas kicks and hold were good and Ono beat him easily but decisively so it was a good win.

 

 

Takeshi Ono vs. Osamu Tachihikari, BattlARTS 11/26/2000 – GREAT

How great was Ono in 2000? Great enough to get a honest to god great match out of Tachihikari, who may be among the most useless guys in the history of Japanese wrestling. Think of what an achievement that is. But Ono is totally awesome here as he beats the shit out of that big sad goof and sets himself up for Tachihikaris offense in awesome ways. Working some great counters, challing him to a sumo faceoff only to slip right into an awesome Octopus Hold, hitting a slick dive, big damn punch combos, all while he was selling and eating the fuck out of Tachihikaris clumsy offense. Coming up glassy eyed after getting suplexed, turning into a noodle for Osamus clumsy lariat, the crowd go from laughing at Tachihikari to being on fire for the nearfalls that they were working. Tachihikari does one cool thing in this match and that is palming Ono in the face pretty hard. Still, if Ono could have a match this good with Tachihikari, there’s truely no limit to what the man could do.

 

Takeshi Ono & Ryuichi Sekine vs. Brahman Shu & Brahman Kei, FUTEN 6/27/2010 - GREAT

Great undercard action, this kind of thing made FUTEN so good. Everyone just goes hard, all killer no filler, each exchange had a cool touch. Brahmans were pretty great undercard wrestlers at this point, they had no problem doing cool matwork, hitting hard an busting out unpredictable things. Sekine stuck to his underdog role and kept things nice and basic, with a good sense of aggression. ONO was of course the king of this match. He just goes for the kill all of the time, like as soon as an opponent was slightly prone he would go for a headkick. He was at his best here whenever he tagged in to punch people in the face, knee them in the head or lock in slick Octopus Holds. Still the match was quite heavy on the Brahmans and Sekine, which is not a bad thing, it just stood slightly in the way of another truly epic Ono performance, although this was just a mid card match. But for that it was excellent and would pretty much rock MOTY lists now.

Takeshi Ono Master List

FUTEN undercard matches

 Shoichi Uchida vs. Mitsuya Nagai, FUTEN 4/24/2010

That moment you watch a random FUTEN undercard match and it’s better than pretty much anything you’ve watched from recent times. Hellish match where Nagai was trying to blast Uchida to smithereens with his kicks. Uchida was gutsy really gutsy here, I really liked how he kept shooting for desperate takedowns which Nagai kept stuffing, really nice example of big vs. little psychology in a shootstyle match. Nagais submissions were ultra nasty and Fuchi-ish. Uchidas one bit of offense was really cool, Nagai goes for another big kick but got his foot caught in the ropes allowing Uchida to hit a suplex and then immediately trying for a choke on Nagai. Nagai then proceeded to try to rip Uchida in half some more. And one points both guys traded absolutely sickening headbutts. Gnarly stuff, wish we still had this.

Manabu Hara vs. Brahman Kei, FUTEN 10/24/2010

 

Nifty undercard match. Kei can’t stand up to Hara but he uses some heel tactics to even things out. Basically anytime Hara was able to stand up and go on offense, he was crushing Kei with brutal kicks and lariats. Kei threw some hard kicks of his own and there were a couple neat transitions. His desperate armbar counter was really good and the finish was neat. Amazing how much you can do in a 6 minute match without coming across as forcing it.

Tamon Honda vs. Brahman Shu, FUTEN 10/24/2010

Really fun match built around Shu mostly kicking Honda in the leg really really hard. It’s odd that Honda is this well respected veteran but Shu really kicks the crap out of him, FUTEN factor I guess. Shu having to build up a simple suplex because Honda is such a beast was cool and his kicks and slaps were landing really hard. Honda had almost no offense in the match except his Dead End and Olympic Hell but he’s awesome regardless.

Taro Nohashi vs. Yoshinari Narita, FUTEN 12/19/2010

Quick FUTEN opening matches where two guys just blast each other may be among my favourite things in wrestling, and this one was totally awesome. Narita is a BattlARTS guy and he has gloves and kickpads and Nohashi has his hands an a really hard head and they lay hellish beatings on each other for 6 minutes. NARITA tagging Nohashi with fast punches and bloodying his mouth was great. Intially Nohashi tried to grapple with NARITA but by the end he tried to just knock him out with crazy headbutts to the head and face. You don’t see a monk vs. an MMA fighter everyday but this was tremendous.

Takeshi Ono Documentation #5

Takeshi Ono vs. Carl Greco, BattlARTS 11/5/1997 - GREAT

1997 was probably the period where you could take almost any random BattlARTS match and it would be the #1 best match to happen in 2020 for months. Carl Greco was a barefoot machine here, lord in heaven what a great grappler he was. This is all about Ono trying to out-slick the beast. Some absolutely fantastic grappling and holds here, and Ono throwing strikes feels like he's trying to equalize the situation in order to not get steamrolled. Great nearfalls here, including an absolutely awesome Octopus Stretch that Ono sunk in like he wanted the tap out more than anything else in his life. This was a second match on the card and went eleven minutes, you get the sense if they had gone for a slightly more grandiose finishing stretch with some big strike exchanges and near KO this would've moved into serious MOTYC territory, but for that type of second 11 minute match on the card this was damn great.

Takeshi Ono & Manabu Hara & White Moriyama vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Brahman Shu & Brahman Kei (FUTEN 4/24/2010) - EPIC

FUTEN baby. Ultra-stiff fast paced basically shootstyle brawl where everyone lays into each other with the stiffest punches, headbutts and lariats pro wrestling has ever seen. This is not even remembered as one of the greater matches from that brief but sweet run of FUTEN actually making tape in 2010, but it’s chock full of fantastic and violent exchanges. Just the opening exchange with Ikeda and Hara trying to pulverize each other was fantastic. I have seen some people object to the Brahmans in Futen before, but they are fine here, working stiff and their comedy spot was over quickly and didn’t derail the match. One of them also had this sick leaping headbutt. Hara looks great coming in for his hot tag crushing everyone, and Moriyama is really good in his fired up youngster role. Ono isn’t in the match a ton but he looks great lighting up dudes with punches and kicks and stretching them with nasty submissions. His exchange with Ikeda was insane and the highlight of the match by far. Ikeda was working this match like an injured but still super tough and dangerous beast. His chemistry with Ono is really no worse than his chemistry with Yuki Ishikawa, except Ono is in more of an aggressor role. The finish is between Ikeda and Moriyama and basically about Moriyama trying to slowly chop the boss down and getting met with brutal punts kicks and straight rights. Absolutely dope material, it’s too sad FUTEN only started regularily releasing DVDs in 2010.

 

Takeshi Ono & Junji.com vs. Azteca & Daiyu Kawauchi (BattlARTS 2/12/1999) - SKIPPABLE

I would’ve liked to see how the KAGEKI boys would mesh with the BattlARTS crew, but they only showed about 30 seconds of this. Seemed like a pro style match with the only Ono content being a nasty double stomp and him octopus stretching young nondescript Kawauchi for the finish.

 Takeshi Ono & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda, BattlARTS 1/21/1997 - EPIC

This was some truely high end BattlARTS tag team action. The first thing you notice is how on point all 4 guys on the mat were. The opening exchanges felt slick like U-Style matwork and always highly competitive, with the violence upgraded to BattlARTS standards. The brutality was of the charts here. The "tag team partners running in to make the save from a submission" where some of the must vicious I've seen and felt like PRIDE ground stomping, Ikeda at one point started throwing mule kicks on the ground, and Usuda and Ono threw some kicks that looked like nobody would get up from them. Man I don't even care whether there was a story or anything this match because the work was so frantic, hard fought and believable and sold so, so well I was 100% engrossed the entire time. The match also felt like it could end at anytime: at one point, Ikeda got his leg worked over with a few kicks from Ono and nice holds by Ishikawa (note the teamwork there), then Ono landed a series of skull crushing kicks on him. Ikeda believably beat the count, but his entire body language was such that you could see he was moments away from being finished, so he did the only reasonable thing and quietly slipped to his corner to tag out before collapsing like a broken man. That may have been my favourite moment of the match and it made the finish feel even sweeter where it feels like Ishikawa and Ono have the match in the bag and Ikeda just comes in and turns Ono's lights out to set up the finish. All 4 guys had career highlight performances, Ono did some stuff on the mat only he could do, Usuda stepped up big time and Ishikawa and Ikeda had some incredible exchanges together. Great, great match and a really compelling fusion of top notch shootstyle matwork, brawling and top level stiffness.

TAKESHI ONO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST