As always you can get them directly from the source through itako18jp
Keita Yano vs. Ryoji Nagaya, Mutoha 2/26/2010 - EPIC
This was shortly before Yano transformed into the joker. Hell it may have been his first match in the Cerberus Dojo too, and you can really see him breathing the vibe in as he steps on the mat. He’s wearing this bright grappling suit that he didn’t wear often. He was like a Louis Wain painting, becoming more colourful and strange with his transformations over the years. This match was just classic Keita stuff, really clinical performance taking a guy apart. Opening minutes were quite great as Yano would basically lock in armlocks at will and yank Nagaya around like a demonstration of carny grappling. Really awesome Fuchi/Volk Hanisch performance from Yano displaying his skill and trying to bend Nagayas limbs in hellishly painful looking ways. Nagaya was this pudgy guy who briefly was Mutohas only trainee before he moved on to sleazier things. He was pretty much in for the fight of his life here, as Yano was all over him on the mat. He knew he had to bring the intensity and that he did. At one point they go into this scramble leading into a front headlock battle where they end up tumbling out the door of the venue. They get back into it as they step back on the mat. Nagaya finally gets an advantage when he gets Yano in an indian deathlock and he really tries his hardest to make the most out of that. Both guys end up trying to bend each other to the point of snapping and its awesome. As I said before Yano was just great here, always trying to grab Nagayas head and twist it off, or unscrew his wrist or ankle. Feels really like classic Fujiwara or El Dandy/Javier Llanes stuff as they would even work a basic lockup or wristlock with tremendous intensity. Nagaya is so outmatched on the mat that when he starts hitting Yano it really looks like he’s trying to maul him with his stomps and forearms. He had an awesome crowbarish spin kick and a big flip senton that was Mighty Inoue levels of crushing and completely unexpected. He hits his stuff with such conviction it looks like the realest shit ever. And Yano just kept trying to snap limbs. I also loved him retaliating with probably he hardest kick to someones kidney that I've ever seen. So yeah 20+ minutes of high intensity great matwork and some gritty Kurisu violence, this was a Cerebrus Dojo special and it was awesome.
Kikujiro Umezawa vs. Chojin Yusha G Valion, Mutoha 6/20/2010
Early Mutoha cards are just full of all kinds of obscure indy guys. How often do you see the likes of Chojin Yusha G Valion and Kikujiro Umezawa? So it’s really nice that we just get to see guys like that. This is a kind of awesome match. It’s not very stereotypically Mutoha – there Is not really any mat work or technical wrestling here. But it still feels very much in the vein of Mutoha. They simply did a very simple, straight forward big vs. small type match with total conviction that made it really compelling. Umezawa is a human bowling ball of a man, he has the vibe of an ex-sumo from the days of WAR or IWE. He exudes this sense of glee when he gets to beat on Valion with his open hand chops and headbutts. Neither guy has any offense that you haven’t seen before – Valion just as a really nice dropkick, and Umezawa totally owns every basic thing he does, every slam every shoulderblock just crushing the masked guy. Valion does have a pretty unique way to dropkick Umezawa at the top of his head, but that’s it pretty much. Umezawa hits a spear at one point that’s about the damndest spear you’ve ever seen, totally turning Valion inside out and leaving him a scrambled mess. But it’s such a perfectly well worked and executed match that it ends up being interesting all the way through with not a wasted moment. I think Valion doesn’t even dive off the top rope in this. The finish is just Valion hanging onto a sleeper for dear life and trying to get the tap. It totally fits with the theme of the match and what Mutoha was going for. Nothing flashy just raw pro wrestling executed extremely well.
Chon Shiryu vs. MASAKI, Mutoha 12/29/2013
A totally awesome little match. MASAKI is a sleazy karateka with tattoos who wrestles like a mini Akitoshi Saito, all really hard kicks and neck chops. Chon Shiryu is of course always awesome and they are fighting in Cerberus Dojo to boot. Shiryu is always doing something interesting, even when he’s working basic hold he manages to come across like a kung fu master punishing his opponent, and he makes sure to always add something even to things like resisting a boston crab. MASAKI has a bunch of awesome kick variations and he really lays hard into Shiryus skinny frame. He hit this one kind of floating spin kick that was straight out of Tekken. And we get a bit of kung fu vs karate strikes which is of course cool. The finish is awesome too as Shiryu trips MASAKI then just leaps to the ceiling and hits this sick ass stomp to the back of MASAKIs neck before finishing him off pretty fast. He hit it so out of nowhere it looked totally killer. I love watching Shiryu do his thing, and against an unseen cool wrestler like MASAKI it’s really a pretty sweet discovery.
Lumberjack Match: Iori Sugawara vs. Ho Death Minh, Mutoha 5/14/2022
A total sleazefest. This is a lumberjack match so you have all these crazy characters lurking around the ring. There’s Leatherface, Katsunari Toi, Diablo, freaking Ricky Fuji even… a big part of the fun of this match is just watching all these guys brawling. Most of the fans have their cameras out and this definitely seems like a photographers dream match. But there’s also a surprisingly great wrestling match in here. Sugawara is another sleazy karateka who is really sharp with his kicks. Death Minh is Poison Sawada doing a crazy facepainted evil Vietcong gimmick, for those who don’t know. They cut a great pace and never really slow down, keeping the intensity up working some tight submissions and toe to toe fighting in the ring and always trying to throw the opponent to the outside for the lumberjacks to cause chaos. There’s also some measured and painful looking use of foreign objects. Vasaru Ikeuchi ends up interfering a bit too liberally and it causes an even bigger brawl with everyone jumping each other. By the end it’s almost like a Memphis match with Sugawara unloading a punch combo in the corner on Sawada and destroying him with his kicks, with Sawada trying to work the leg headbutting away at the knee. It’s delightfully old school and really sound. Sawada took a ton of punishment (considering how old and frail he looks) and Sugawara looked badass. Really unique and just amazingly fun.
Takahiro Tababa vs Yuki Takasugi, Mutoha 2017/11/4
This was another unusual match for Mutoha because Tababa just goes after Takasugi with a vengeance and beats the hell out of him with shoot kicks and chairs. Tababas kicks are sick looking and Takasugi is pretty fun here hitting 70s style flip sentons with full bodyweight on Tababa to retaliate. Fun and violent, but pretty short. The finish is really cool though as Takasugi goes for an old school backbreaker hold but Tababa slips to the back and yanks him back for a choke that he locked in so deep Takasugis face turned blue. Cool.
