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.

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Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #9

 

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Naomi Yoshimura & Yuki Ueno (DDT 8/15/2020) - GREAT

2020 pro wrestling always feels like a soulless husk of what it used to be. But there will always be Toba, punching people in the face. Toba was working this like a broken down old fighter. Well, he was probably for real, considering he has been doing hard hitting matches for 20+ years now. It added some character to his, sections though. When he came in to work over Yoshimura with punches it felt like a great moment. I dug MIKAMI a lot in this, he doesn’t have the crazy dives and athletic high flying anymore, but he was busting out cool transitions and flash submissions left and right. Yoshimura was also a fun guy, who felt like a poor mans Rikiya Fudo, throwing vader hammers and jaw cracking lariats. Ueno is some Ibushi clone and while he offers nothing in terms of personality, he doesn’t do anything stupid either. The ending section is between him and Toba and really made by Toba punching him in the face and taking some way bigger bumps than you’d expect from a broken down aging guy. This def. felt slow in parts and was lacking in snap compared to how Japanese wrestling used to be, but I was happy to see the Suicide Boyz still riding high in 2020 and having a good match.

 

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Takashi Sasaki & Yuki Nishino (DDT 12/14/2000) - GREAT

12 minute sprint where everyone of these guys arguably in their primes hits all the cool shit. I would’ve liked a bit more depth, preferably an in-peril section or something, but all these guys were so fun to watch at this point. Naturally I liked all of Tobas sections the most as all he does is throw hands hard and fast. Sasaki may have been his best opponent, Sasakis asskicking ability really increases tenfold when he faces Toba. Their exchanges weren’t as violent as their singles match earlier in the year, but still pretty damn stiff and make basically all current (2020) pro wrestling outside of Ishikawa/Ikeda matches look like a trained monkey show. They also took to the floor in another nasty street brawling section. MIKAMI did a lengthy nearfall section and I was expecting the finish to involve him, but thankfully Toba tagged in again and we got two more great sections between him and Sasaki/Nishino. Nishino looks good here again throwing these running headbutts. Aside from 1-2 botched spots, this delivered in spades.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Takashi Sasaki (DDT 9/30/2004) - FUN

These two had some great matches earlier in the decade. This wasn’t as great, but it was still these two beating each other to a pulp. This was Takashi Sasakis farewell match so it had the kind of emotional feeling those matches have. Neither guy was willing to go down and they were daring each other to hit each other harder and harder for the last time. I usually dislike the exhibitiony feeling Japanese stiff fests have sometimes but at least it made sense here. Also, they clipped this down to 5 minutes, which feels like a massive dick move.

Tanomusaku Toba & Seiya Morohashi vs. HERO! & KUDO (DDT 11/2/2004) - SKIPPABLE

Pretty missable match. This was a title change but felt like an undercard match. HERO! Had some cool highspots, but definitely looked green between the highspots. And KUDO felt a bit like a spotmonkey with a martial artist gimmick here. Worst of all, there was no Toba asskicking section. He did this weird Final Cut style move that looked weak. I’m glad he stopped that. It wasn’t a terrible match, but it just felt sloppy.

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Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #3

 

  Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI & Takashi Sasaki vs. Great Takeru & Phantom Funakoshi & Asian Cougar (5/25/1998) - GREAT

Good times with the DDT crew. You see, these guys can do some basic matwork and exchanges, put a match with a solid structure together and have no problem crushing each other with big highspots and stiff blows, which is absolutely enough for me to have a good time. I continue to be impressed with Phantom Funakoshi, his arm popping submissions are awesome, and he basically holds his team together, as Asian Cougar is just a highspot freak and the Great Takeru is just pure mediocrity. Funakoshi and Toba have a particularily great exchange where both guys keeping baiting eachother until Funakoshi grabs a series of armbars, Toba gets pissed off and demolishes Funakoshis shoulder with a series of nasty strikes. This was really early into Tobas career but he looks awesome, his punches were a bit less showy than later, he did lots of ducking and stance movements, but he still had such a cool variety of strikes and was willing to get crushed by his opponents spots, he also busts out the springboard wheel kick which is an awesome reckless spot from a guy not wearing shoes. Speaking highspots, Asian Cougar is an absolute psycho in this rolling out dive after dive and crushing dudes faces with the gnarliest leg drops you’ve ever seen. Really you can watch a ton of old japan indy wrestling and always come out with refreshed appreciation for the crazy ways of Asian Cougar. Mikami and Sasaki are in their infancy stage but they do well here and Mikami is over as the DDT homeboy to have an exciting finish with even Takeru. Such cool stuff, checking out Tobas career is an awesome journey.

Tanomusaku Toba & Tomohiko Hashimoto vs. Super Uchu Power & MIKAMI (DDT 7/19/2001) - GREAT

So much fun to be had here, DDT missed the boat big time when they stopped doing hybrid shoot matches like this. Tomohiko Hashimoto is all judo throws at this point, and he and the pure striking based style of Toba make a fun team. MIKAMI for a junior can handle himself with the shooters, he hit an awesome flying armbar counter to one of Hashimotos throws, and generally sticks to offense that requires little cooperation, mostly just hitting cool sentons and open hand strikes. Super Uchu Power is totally awesome in this match, the shooter alien is such a great menacing monster crowbarring dudes with kicks like baseball bat shots, locking in shoulder popping shoot submissions and dropping ridiculous bombs. He also works some really nifty exchanges with Hashimoto, there is a cool moment where the alien goes for a gi choke and Hashimoto reverses into a Fujiwara armbar, and several great spots centered around Super Uchu Power trying to block Hashimotos STOs and other throws. Toba narrowly avoiding destruction and and catching the beast with some hard punches and backfists was great. The finish was between Toba and MIKAMI and while it wasn’t as epic as the best Toba faceoffs it was fun.

Tanomusaku Toba & Ranbo Yoshida Okuntun vs. Kota Ibushi & KUDO (DDT 8/8/2007) - EPIC

This was from a Shin FMW style show where Kota Ibushi was in every match. It was also kickboxing style tag where everyone had gloves and there were rounds. It easily could’ve been bad, but it ended up pretty awesome. We get some slow opening sparring between Toba and KUDO before Ranbo Yoshida (who I assume is a legit kickboxing outsider) tags in and rules the show the with awesome Eddy Gordo style handspring kicks. The 2^nd round begins, Ibushi & KUDO start brawling and now we get kickboxers fighting up the entrance way in their gloves. For some reason floor brawling in Japan with dudes who wear gloves always is way better. The 3^rd round is just an awesome Rocky style frenzy where everyone is throwing down and blocking punches with their face. I thought Toba/Ibushi was gonna be the obvious final pair, but instead Ranbo tagged in, decided to stiff up Ibushi with some hard knees to the gut and we got more chaotic fighting. I can’t believe Japanese wrestling just collectively decided to stop having these kind of crazy spectacles and instead just quietly replace them with slogs of soulless elbow exchanges.

 

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