The Last of Nori da Funky Shibiresasu

 

Nori da Funky vs Kengo Takai, Sportiva 10/10/2018

Matches like this represent the classic dilemma of Japanese wrestling: there’s a lot of really good shit, but also lots of questionable shit. Opening chain wrestling was really well done. After that Takai does a really long comedy spot giving a super long speech on the floor and the briefly wrestle on the floor. Then they transition right back to epic heavyweight wrestling. There is some no selling and at one point the camera freezes for a minute or so , but holy fuck these guys are dropping mad bombs on each other and did a great job keeping things interesting. Stiffness was there as both guys were hitting blistering chops and jaw loosening elbows. The finish was absolutely brutal with Takai scrambling Noris brain with some knees to the head and then hitting an absolutely disgusting lariat to the back of the head that turned Noris lights out. Not a flawless match but worth checking out.

Nori da Funky vs Fuminori Abe, Sportiva 10/17/2018

Noris last match in the SPORTIVA Arena. Abe acts disrespectful early on, so Nori punishes him with an ultra tight headlock. Pretty fun shooter vs. traditional pro wrestler contrast here, Abe was constantly punishing Nori with nasty kicks and knuckle punches, and Nori responded by chopping the shit out of him and trying to boot his head off. Abes work on Funkys leg was really good as he used a variety of holds and transitioned from one to another in smart fashion. Leg work wasn’t super important in the 2^nd half but also wasn’t blatantly no sold. Second half was really good big match stuff with an injured Nori struggling to hit his signature offense, both guys battling it out in stiff strike battles and some cool counters. Most importantly, Noris backdrops, boots and chops came across as annihilating Abe, and both guys absorbed some stiff punishment. Nori retired 2 days later and I wish he kept going. He certainly was one of the most interesting acts going and his consistency in big matches like this was fantastic.

Still Going Through Sportiva

 

Yasushi Sato vs Akito, Sportiva 11/30/2011

This is the earliest Yasushi Sato I’ve found and also his only SPORTIVA appearance so far. Sato used to work for Sportiva a lot and they livestreamed weekly events for free on USTREAM but IBM deleted all the videos when they bought USTREAM, for which IBM are forever my mortal enemies. This seems to have been filmed by a fan using his iPhone, not noticing an offical stream was going on just a few feet to the right, god bless him. The match is pretty damn great too. Yasushi Sato is a spry 45 years young here and he is the Yasushi Sato we all know and love. This was all on the mat and it was so unique and cool, both guys have a clear freestyle wrestling background and it was like watching Tamon Honda vs Tamon Honda. Most pro wrestling matwork is predictable, you have a guy in a headlock and then going through counters that you’ve already seen before, that wasn’t the case here as both guys immediately start scrambling and working calf slicers and leg rides. Sato especially has such unique ways to stretch someone, including some shoulder popping arm stretches, really an expert in entangling his opponent in weird ways. Akito was really good too, he had an absolute killer counter hold to Satos signature leg grapevine, and also dropped the old man with a reckless suplex. Finish was fucking amazing too. Really hope we get more stuff like this somehow because I can’t imagine Sato being anything less than incredible even in his early days.

 

Nori da Funky vs Shinya Ishida, Sportiva 8/1/2018

This was a match where they went all out giving everything they’ve got and it ruled. I enjoy the hell out of NORI~, and Ishida ain’t a bad wrestler at this point. Ishida handled himself well during the 70s grappling exchanges with Nori, and he did a cool job working a sleeper hold, a segment that featured a neat spot where Ishida stood on his head and bounced back as Nori tried to shake him off. He also did a good job taunting Nori and making the match personal by mocking his style, and he bumped like an absolute maniac for Noris power offense, absolutely spiking himself for Noris big boots and slams. Noris was great as ever with his Bret Hart-like straight forward approach. I enjoyed the opening grappling a lot and it lead to cool transition where Nori hit a suplex while exchanging holds, then worked over Ishidas back. Ishida may have done a wee bit too many fancy pants junior moves, but what the hell, this match was about the contrast of Ishidas style to Noris, and Ishida did work some more elaborate exchange than Noris typical opponents would allow. Second half was about Ishida unloading his fancy junior offense with Nori making awesome come backs catching him. Finish was several shades more epic than a match in Sportiva Arena should logically be but what the hell. Ishidas never did anything nonsensical and everything he did looked hurty, and Nori was great as an overwhelmed monster striking back. Great match that reminded me of something like Taue/Marufuji.

Nori da Funky & Hiroaki Ura vs Hiroshi Yamato & Michio Kageyama, Sportiva 8/15/2018

I thought this would be about a big squareoff between Nori and Yamato, but no, instead the focus of the match is wee little rookie Hiroaki Ura! And they did a mighty fine job with this match! Nori mostly plays big brother saving his partner, and Yamato and Kageyama are a really good pair of pricks beating the bricks off of Ura. There ARE some good exchanges between Nori and Yamato, though Uras role takes center stage. Ura looked really good – just the way he had to work to set up something as basic as a body slam added a lot to the match, and you end up respecting him for lasting has long as he did. Kageyama is a pretty good wrestler when he gives a shit, he leathered Ura with some really hard kicks and slaps here, and Yamato understand when he has to lay it in, really blistering Ura with chops. They also decided not to do too much beatdown and stretching and gave us an exciting second half that actually had me rooting for Ura. Very simple but well done match for what they were aiming for.

Hiroaki Ura vs Kouki Iwasaki, Sportiva 9/12/2018

This was by far the best rookie vs. higher ranked guy I’ve seen in a long time. Ura only does very basic stuff, but he gets the absolute most out of it. Most importantly, he understand how to hit his stuff in unpredictable ways. Usually these matches are super formulaic and predictable, but that wasn’t the case here. I give a lot of credit to Iwasaki, who was super giving and also really cranking up the viciousness. Ura drops Iwasaki with a gnarly body slam on the floor right away, and it’s on from the get go. Ura tries working the back but gets shut down hard by a reckless backbreaker from Iwasaki. Iwasakis kicks and knees were on point, and Ura just kept coming back in interesting ways. They got the right combination of crafty and vicious. Really really good match that achieved so much in just 10 minutes.

Continueing to go through Sportiva Twitcastings

 

Kazuhiro Tamura & Daisuke Kanehira vs Nori da Funky & Fuminori Abe, Sportiva 10/25/2017

Excellent long match that delivers in spades. I like that Sportiva often start with cool extended matwork and this case we get a very nice Kanehira vs. Nori section which was very deliberate, logical and cool to watch, and then a slick U-Style matwork section between Abe and Tamura. Tamura was showing off some cool shit, he did a really cool Honda-esque arm throw, and later a neat arm stretch reversal to get out of a sleeper. The cool thing about this match is we get extended segments between Kanehira and Nori and Abe and Tamura, it was like a mash up of two really cool singles matches with occasional tag team dynamic coming into play. This was maybe the best I’ve seen Kanehira look, for some reason he throws a ton of great looking knees in this, and he matches up super well with the more deliberate style of Nori da Funky. It’s weird that a hip hop guy would wrestler like a 70s/80s guy but it’s really cool. Abe and Tamura cranking up the stiffness and busting out some spectacular counters was pretty great. It was probably genuinely some of the greatest stuff I’ve seen either guy do as there was no comedy, no absurd kickouts and no overly long strike exchanges, I guess this environment really makes guys work smarter. Because there weren’t a ton of big moves, Nori running in to obliterate a guy with a big backdrop suplex looked devastating. This match overdelivered in spades considering the tiny stage they were working, excellent stuff.

Xevious vs. Shinya Ishida, Sportiva 11/22/2017

First Xevious singles match that I’ve found and it’s a banger. This was exactly what it needed to be, Ishida doing flying, and Xevious doing whacky submissions, pin combos and hitting Ishida with some really painful looking offense, giving this the feel of Black Terry or Negro Navarro carrying an indy luchadore match, which is high praise. I am pretty okay with Shinya Ishida at this point, he is decently athletic, doesn’t do anything too cute and he makes fine comebacks. He also hits a suicide dive into nothing which is a pretty insane thing to do in this tiny bar. Xevious was great, his weird submissions and pin combos were really good, and he had all this offense targetting Ishidas back, hitting really hurty looking sentons, splashes and double stomps etc, his kicks and knees are also on point. He stooges really well for Ishidas ranas and armdrags too. Cracking match, Xevious may very well be our lord and saviour.

Nori da Funky vs 801 Kenichi, Sportiva 4/25/2018

Kenichi is super limited, but Nori does the impossible here crafting a good match around him. Seriously impressive considering how dull Kenichi looked. Nori does a Bret Hart-like job working over Kenichis leg, and Kenichi to his credit puts some effort into selling that shit. I really liked how Nori after some legwork progressed to working over Kenichis neck to set up his backdrop finisher, but went back to cutting him off at the leg when Kenichi started coming back. Finishing stretch had a few nifty moments thanks to Nori and one admittedly impressive suplex from Kenichi. Nori needs to come back to wrestling, the guy could do no wrong.

More Sportiva Twitcastings

 Fuminoru Abe & Nori da Funky Shibiresasu vs. Shinya Ishida & Yusaku Ito, Sportiva 11/30/2016

Nice match that had structure in place and all 4 guys doing a bunch of cool shit. Starts with some cool matwork, I was surprised that Yusaku Ito was a kickpadded shooter at this point, he and Abe do some nice slick shooty matwork and then we get some equally nifty traditional pro style chain wrestling between Nori and Shinya Ishida. The recent Ishida I’ve seen wasn’t good, but he was perfectly servicable here, he had a nice dive, acted like a scummy heel and was never loose or dragging the action. I once again dug Nori, he had an awesome big boot that turned Ishida inside out, and a big guy who boots peoples heads off hits different in an indy tag with a bunch of juniors. The ending is Abe vs. Ito and it’s cool sleaze shooter stuff with both guys blasting each other with cool kicks. I was amazed this match had absolutely no comedy, what happened to the indy scene, why did they all decide they wanted to be clowns at some point?

Fuminoru Abe & Yusaku Ito vs. Nori da Funky & Xevious, Sportiva 1/25/2017

Hell yeah, it’s XEVIOUS. Xevious is this fat looking dude in a mask who does all kinds of random things on offense, but it all looks hurty. He has a stiff solebutt, nasty kneedrop to the back of the head, really painful looking stretches etc. He’s really fun to watch. Not much happens in the first few minutes of his, but it turns into a good little match when Abe eats a DDT on the floor and Nori and Xev work over his neck. Neck work was really good, Ito makes a nice hot tag and has a cool exchange with Xevious leading to Ito hitting a big punch to the face. Abe vs. Nori finishing stretch was brief but pretty neat as Nori kept hitting violent offense to Abes neck. Nice little match, why is this stuff more energetic and serious than any undercard match now? This was in front of like 15 fans for crying out loud.

Yasu Kubota vs. Fuminori Abe, Sportiva 4/5/2017

This was a fun match where they do some unlikely fun matwork. Kubota is a sleazy looking guy who has been around for a really long time, and this is the best I’ve seen him look. Abe does some fun submissions and kicks targetting Kubotas arm, and Kubota comes back working Abes leg with cool stretches, ramming a bar stool into his knee etc. I also liked the weird standing stretch he busted out. All the Arn Anderson style body part targetting work was really good, and the second half where they busted out their bombs with Abe hitting spin kicks and Kubota hitting big dropkicks and drivers was a lot of fun. Limb selling wasn’t super consistant though both guys acknowledged that they were hurting and had to figure out how to transition from there. Kubota only being able to lock in his submission hold with one arm was a cool touch. It’s weird how guys like Kubota can have their best performances on the smallest shows like this.

Fuminori Abe & Kazuhiro Tamura vs. Yusaku Ito & Nori da Funky, Sportiva 5/31/2017

I’m amazed Abe was probably a more serious worker than he is now at this point. Seriously, these guys had all the reason to joke it up since they were wrestling in a sports bar, but instead they had a lengthy, serious no frills tag where everyone brought their A-game. I enjoyed Nori vs. Tamura, their grappling early on had a nice big vs little feel, and later on we get to see them really lay into each other. They have a fun dynamic going on with Noris traditional power offense and Tamuras jump kicks and flying moves. The heart and soul of this is Abe vs. Yusaku though. Both these guys were really scrappy, early on they had an exchange where Ito casually kicked Abe in the face, then later landed these really violent knee strikes to Abes head on the ground. Finishing run had both guys raining hell, hitting all their cool jumping face kicks. There were some cool moments such as Abe working a neat rolling arm scissor for a submission nearfall and Ito bumping big for a dropkick of all things. Itos punt kick was probably the highlight of the match for how out of nowhere it came and how violent it looked. Dare I say, these guys were really good at this stage.

I discovered a boatload of old SPORTIVA streams and my first instinct is to go watch the Konaka matches

 So I recently discovered the old Twitcasting page of Sportiva where they livestreamed their weekly shows from 2016-2019 ca. I'd give my left nut to get an archive of all the shows they streamed on Ustream.tv from 2010 to 2016, but this is still quite the boatload of interesting footage. Naturally my first instinct was to go look up all the matches with Konaka in them because lord knows we all need more of that yoga demon in our life

Konaka vs. Nori da Funky Shibiresasu, Sportiva 10/3/2018

Really really nice match, exactly what you want from a Konaka big match against a game opponent. Konaka does all kinds of fun grappling and neat transitions here. His early mat control segment was so cool, the guy really knows how to get in and out of holds in interesting fashions. The whole match was peppered with Konaka mixing in cool little transitions, counters and reversals, doing a really nice job controlling with a sleeper etc. Nori da Funky Shibiresasu is part of the hip hop group that did the Naruto opening theme amongst others, he had one hell of a career working a couple hundred matches in the Sportiva arena and I am happy to finally see him. He was a pretty cool powerhouse here, hitting stiff chops and all kinds of cool tall lanky guy offense, big backdrop suplexes, a big boot that damn near scraped Konakas face off, stiff chops, a big neckbreaker drop. Boy am I glad these Twitcasting streams are still around even if they are potatoe quality filmed with an Android.

Konaka vs. Tetsuya Izuchi, Sportiva 8/21/2019

You give Konaka a game opponent and 10 minutes and you’re pretty much guaranteed to get something nifty. Izuchi is game, he moves slick on the mat and kicks hard, and has some nice exchanges with Konaka early on. Konaka rules here, he hits this really cool 619 to Izuchis leg and then works him over with Indian Deathlock variations because he’s a yoga demon. There’s a completely awesome spinning Figure 4 leglock set up and a really nice Figure 4 battle. Izuchi acknowledges that his leg has been worked over, but he won’t really blow you away aside from throwing Konaka with a really nasty German Suplex. Still, Konaka is so cool to watch.