BattlARTS History #5 - January + February 1997

1/21/1997

Ikuto Hidaka vs Shoichi Funaki

Hidakas debut match! And it’s a fun 5 minute scrap. Hidaka is bald, bandaged head, wearing kickpads, he looks nothing like the guy he’d become later, but you could see he was brimming with talent. There’s some really nice amateur rides, and Funaki busts out a crafty set up for a Fujiwara armbar. Funaki realizes he’s on veteran duty here and starts smacking Hidaka around and kicking him in his bandaged head in dickish ways and it’s really fun. Hidakas few highspots (dropkick, flip senton into an armbar that really popped the crowd) were integrated really well.

Alexander Otsuka vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa

The first half is kinda eh. Hoshikawa can engage in some decent grappling exchanges, but then drags things down with his tendency to try and force in irish whips. Otsuka at least makes him work hard for that irish whip, but it takes one out of the match, and the general lack of intensity does not help. It picks up when they start fucking nuking each other with Hoshikawa hitting an insane kick combo and his awesome looking diving kick, and Otsuka nuking him with his suplex, including an insane struggle over a dragon suplex that lead to Otsuka headbutting him in the back of the head. Always love two BattlARTS guys trying to nuke each other.

Gran Naniwa & Gran Hamada & Great Sasuke & Masato Yakushiji vs. Dick Togo & TAKA Michinoku & Shiryu & MEN’s Teioh

The Michinoku Pro crew rolls in on a BattlARTS card and hits one of their greatest matches ever, does that rule or what? Yeah it’s not a BattlARTS match but this kind of stylistic diversity is what made the promotion great. This is less of a crowd-pleasing showcase, it’s more of an intense frantic battle. These guys have all gotten so good now they can just hit their stuff shooting from the hip and mix things up no problem, and Korakuen Hall is absolutely excited going nuts for every single dive and complicated headscissor that they nail. It’s a frantic fight from the get go though with Kai En Tai going for outside brawling. We get some awesome Fujiwara-ish reversals from Gran Hamada here, really stealing the show while being in with a bunch of guys half his age, and Yakushiji hitting some beautiful stuff. The centerpiece of the match though is Naniwa with everyone trying to bully him and the little crab fighting back with gritty WAR-ish lariats. Eventually they rip his mask off, chair him and bloody him and we get some of the greatest grizzliest bloodiest minutes in wrestling history as he fucking gushes a fountain of blood and in turn tears up Shiryu. Chaos during the last couple minutes was awesome, I especially love Togo going with a chair after Sasuke while Sasuke dove off with that asai moonsault, before Togo himself eating that same chair in brutal fashion later. It’s a blazing hot match that delivers all the spectacular action and insane dives this crew can deliver along with some grizzly hateful violence and the incomparable underdog aura of GRAN NANIWA~, not much more needs to be said here.

Minoru Tanaka vs. Original Tiger Mask

A match that exceeed my expectations. Probably the most competitive you’ll see Tiger Mask being in the 90s, as Tanaka forced him into an actual contest instead of just running through his spots (something that he liked to do a lot post-return). Tanaka, to his credit, brought the fight and sold Tiger as this legendary behemoth of the ring that could crush him in an instant if given the chance. That low kick being the perfect example of this. He also came across as less spotty than usual, with his flying armbar looking like he really wanted to tear Sayamas arm out. At 10 minutes it’s packed with pretty good action. Perhaps the best match for either guy in the 90s?! Eitherway it’s really good and surprisingly a standout. Good action, good struggle, cool moments and a sense of Tanaka trying to topple a legend rather than old Tiger just being brought out to hit his spots for a crowd pleaser.

Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda vs. Yuki Ishikawa & Takeshi Ono - 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.

 2/20

Shoichi Funaki vs. Ikuto Hidaka

Hidaka is still rocking the kickpads and shooter look. He barrages Funaki with some pretty hard kicks to begin. Funaki is not thought of as much of an asskicker, but he is pretty effective smacking Hidaka around and leaning back hard when he grabs a half crab. It even builds off of Hidakas debut match when Funaki scouts his dropkick and just tries to rip him in half with a camel clutch. It’s just a 3 minute match and Hidaka brings a lot of fun energy already.

Alexander Otsuka vs. Katsumi Usuda

Otsuka had grown his hair out a bit here which just looks weird on him. This was decent shootstyle action early on, kind of slow paced with not a ton to stand out. Things pick up when Otsuka bodies Usuda with an insane German suplex. They get a bit more aggressive from that point forward including a great mat sequence with Otsuka trying his mightiest to force a Fujiwara armbar and Usuda trying to roll into a legbar, until he’s able to succeed and crank it back for the tap. The early goings weren’t much but the second half is worth a look if you want to see Otsuka being a suplex freak.

Takeshi Ono vs. Minoru Tanaka - Skippable

Well this was a bit of a waste. They went over 10 minutes but didn’t really have the material for it, so they basically spent 5 minutes dicking around with ‘cautious’ standup, and things didn’t exactly get going after that either. They tried to have a contest with more suspense and such but it just didn’t really build any intensity. I liked the bit where Ono ambushed Tanaka as he went to do a kip up. Really not a lot to this otherwise.

Daisuke Ikeda vs. Carl Greco

For a 8 minute match this was pretty beastly. Ikeda knew he was up against a monster, so he brought his A-game. The result was a bunch of really good exchanges. Whenever Ikeda saw an opening he would just go for the kill with his strikes, including almost stomping Carls face in with a vicious stomp. Carl was a fiend as we know him, always scrambling for submissions and hitting some big throws. Loved that back trip that spiked Ikeda. This was a reminder of how good wrestling can be even as an undercard match when both guys care to be competitive.

Viktor Krueger vs. Yuki Ishikawa

Krüger was getting better. Everything he does is kind of overshadowed by his freakish size, but he was getting more adept at the grappling and he wasn’t afraid to engage in some sicko headbutt exchanges with Ishikawa. As such this was a pretty fun match. It was perhaps a bit long at 17 minutes but for the most part it was pretty compelling action. They told the david vs goliath story about as good as possible while Ishikawa still looked like the grappling master. There was one reversal to Kruegers powerbomb in here that was pretty awesome Fujiwara-esque, and later they even went for the Andre/Mighty Inoue powerbomb counter. They had the right idea too with Krueger constantly going for the deadly powerbomb and Ishikawa trying to lock in an octopus hold on the big man. In the end Ishikawa was able to survive the powerbomb but a big double axe handle from Krueger did him in which was a pretty cool finish.

2/28

Takeshi Ono vs. Ikuto Hidaka - FUN

This was when Hidaka had just debuted and he was introduced to the world of BattlARTS the hard way. Ono just destroys him here, punches, kicks with abadon, Hidaka is able to take him down and immediately Ono elbows him in the back of the head and tries twisting his leg off. Hidaka is able to score a single go behind, with Ono frantically selling the threat of a German suplex for a moment before Hidaka hits a scrappy Mysterious Rana in a super cool moment. Shortly after Ono puts his lights out though. For under 3 minute rookie squashes this was really cool.

Shoichi Funaki vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa

I was thinking they would just do a junior style match, and well they did pretty much just that. Although there was some slick matwork with Funaki looking pretty impressive. I thought he would do his thing where he goes for leg attacks on the more aggressive Hoshikawa but instead it was Hoshikawa who had to resort to stopping Funaki after he got dropped by a nasty fisherman buster. It wasn’t much of a BattlARTS style match but their shit looked good. Funaki took the win pretty easily with the Shawn Capture.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Alexander Otsuka

Well these two are BattlARTS gods and they can’t have a bad match. There was some great matwork here, really slick stuff with Otsuka always doing something more interesting than everyone else. That guy had such a way of rolling in and out of odd positions and into submissions, there’s no one else quite like him. There was also a surprising amount of animosity as they both hit each other with some evil god forsaken headbutts. Otsuka was also hellbent on killing Ishikawa to death with his suplexes as usual, there was one pretty unreal uranage where he lifted him from the ground. So while it was a 10 minute undercard match they pretty much went hard and had a great little wrestling match.

Minoru Tanaka vs. Gran Hamada

Gran Hamada working BattlARTS style huh? He isn’t much of a shooter, but he did his best I thought. Tanaka kind of ate him up early on the mat early and didn’t look bad while doing so. It gave the match a bit of a story and Hamada was smart enough to not try any rope running or anything like that, unlike a certain Naohiro Hoshikawa. Tanaka was pretty gentle besides one hard kick to the chest. This was kind of deliberate and not super explosive but it was a decent match, if you can get over the fact Hamada has such plot armor that Tanaka cannot beat him even in his own style.

Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda vs. Carl Greco & Viktor Krueger

A lot of good shit in this tag to close out this TV block. Anytime Carl is in it’s just great straight forward shootstyle action, and Usuda ain’t lazy either. These two are a great match up and always deliver. Krueger was continueing to get better, really finding his way into becoming a really fun monster. He was doing lots of actively cool stuff, he had a wrist takedown that came across really believable thanks to his bear paw hands, he also had this great twisting headlock into a guillotine choke. Ikeda was stepping up to the fight and it’s some compelling big vs. small action. Also because Ikeda is involved there’s always a chance you might just see the most evil kick you’ve ever seen any moment. At the end Krueger hurled Usuda to the side and dropped him with one of the most brutal powerbombs you’ll ever see and an unexpected and chaotic finish occurs. Really nice stuff and shows you how loaded 1997 BattlARTs was getting with action this good even on small shows.

Complete Takeshi Ono

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Ito Dojo - Kaoru Ito Debut 20th Anniversary 10/25/2009

     Ayumi Kurihara vs Ayako Sato

Really fun, scrappy joshi opening match. No choreographed sequences or waiting for the other person to get in position which is always refreshing to see, they both just went for dropkicks and armbars. There was also some matwork that actually felt like two people fighting rather than going through the motions. Sato was really straightforwardly solid with her quick dropkicks, while Kurihara was obviously set to be a big prospect in the joshi scene. There was one really fast sequence of pin attempts that they pull off insanely well. True to joshi form, the finish is Sato kicking out of one Uranage suplex, so Kurihara would hit her with 4 in a row and then force the pin like an olympic match. Miss these kinda joshi undercard matches.

Manami Toyota & Jaguar Yokota vs Aki Kambayashi & Shu Shibutani

Can you believe Jaguar Yokota was 48 years old and a 32 year vet here? She was still moving pretty smooth. Toyota is like in any other match of hers that you’ve seen, just hitting her spots. Front dropkick, armdrag from the ropes, rolling cradle, you know the deal. She could still fly around but it’s less impressive when she’s teaming with Yokota who moves better and can actually work while being much older. Shibutani got popped by an elbow in the mouth early on, causing her to bleed and it made her powering through the rest of the match a bit more interesting. Shu and Aki (who is Miss Mongol of all people) were outmatched early on but they had a few fun ways to get in some offense on the legends, and it made the match more interesting than had it been even steven. Aki looked energetic but then her big spot was a bronco buster. They actually end up losing to one of those double submissions and now that’s damning.

Etsuko Mita & Mima Shimoda vs ZAP-I & ZAP-T

The ZAPs feel rather bizarre looking back. My guess is they were an attempt of AJW to recapture the spark of Gokuaku Domei, but obviously that wasn’t going to work. They both seem like they could be folklore creatures, like urban monsters or something. Anyways this was pretty fun and kinda delivered more than you’d expect. Action was solid with lots of brawling and weapon shots but also enough in-ring stuff to not feel lazy. Shimoda still has her working boots on busting some cool axe kicks and a big flip dive that was pretty crazy from someone who was basically semi-retired at this point. I think one of the ZAPs is a Kaoru Ito because she hits a sick double stomp and the other one only hits Blue Thunder Drivers. 

Takako Inoue & Tomoko Mori & Yumiko Hotta vs. Cherry & Hanako Kobayashi & Noriyo Tateno

Craptastic match unfortunately. The previous match actually did well as a brawl, here they tried to have all action but nothing looked good or had gravitas. Mori and Kobayashi tried to have a section in the middle with Kobayashi bleeding but they looked painfully mediocre. Hotta looked pretty immobile and checked out as she tends to do in her late career matches. Not good, not good at all.

 

Aja Kong vs Kaoru Ito, Ito Dojo

Pretty insane, violent and gory match. Pretty much just two tough middle aged ladies out to destroy each other and it was glorious. Ito has such violent offense that fits perfectly in a kind of reckless brawl. Her double stomps – including double stomping Ajas arm – were downright insane. Her bladejob was also amazing as she looked like she got shot in the eye. Kong was freakin gold here – as we all know her. She looked great both beating on a bleeding Ito, shoving her elbow into the cut, hitting her with the point of umbrellas, as well as taking some downright insane punishment from Ito. Her selling was fantastic as she really looked like she was falling apart. It wasn’t exactly Baba vs Destroyer but there was a bit of strategy at play with Ito trying to take out the arm. Loved Aja desperation kneecapping Ito and locking in a submission to regenerate a little. This will probably mainly be appealing to fans of violent bloody matches but for that it was pretty A+.

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BattlARTS History #4 - November + December 1996

 Click

12/25

Tag Tournament Comm 

 11/27
Yuki Ishikawa & Alexander Otsuka vs. Minoru Tanaka & Naohiro Hoshikawa
This was pretty much just clips, which is a bit regrettable because it looked like good stuff. Even Tanaka and Hoshikawa were bringing it in some good looking shootstyle exchanges and the crowd was excited. Ishikawa did a thing where he stopped an attempted takedown, crossfaced Tanaka to bring him up and then just slapped him in the face. Always dig little evil things like that.

Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono vs. Carl Malenko & Viktor Krüger
Also just a clip pretty much from what seemed like a good matchup. Krüger seemed to have an idea of what to do i.e. just trying to be Vader and Carl was insanely slick on the mat as always.

11/28
Minoru Tanaka & Naohiro Hoshikawa vs. TAKA Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki
We only get like 40 seconds of this and what was shown wasn't really shootstyle, which is kinda to be expected from them. Tanaka and TAKA reprised the stuff they did in their singles matches all year so I guess there was nothing surprising here.

Yuki Ishikawa & Alexander Otsuka vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono
Regrettably there was also only about 3 minutes of this : ( Looked to be really good stuff in the same vein as their big match the previous month, with Ikeda and Ono beating the hell out of their opponents and Otsuka hitting some big suplexes.

11/30
TAKA Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki vs. Viktor Krüger & Carl Malenko
Krüger is acting invincible here, but Funaki and TAKA can figure out ways to hurt him, so it's fun. Besides that Krüger is hitting powermoves and clubbing people, thoug he's not quite hitting the Vader-in-UWFi-groove that he needs to be really good. But he's nice enough to even catch TAKAs spaceman dive, allowing Funaki to get a sneaky win with a nifty shootstyle figure 4.

Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono vs. Minoru Tanaka & Naohiro Hoshikawa
Another match I would've liked to see in full, simply because Team Taco are awesome. They were beating the shit out of Hoshikawa and Tanaka here and it kind of brought out their inner asskicker in turn. A comp tape with matches from a tournament clipping so much feels criminal.

12/3
Viktor Krüger & Carl Malenko vs. Minoru Tanaka & Naohiro Hoshikawa
More of invincible Krüger. We don't get much of this but Krüger absolutely destroys Hoshikawa with a sick ass powerbomb here. He sure wasn't holding back with those.

TAKA Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki vs. Yuki Ishikawa & Alexander Otsuka
We get pretty much the finish of this with Kai En Tai being ratboys and using double teams to their advantage to get a win over the superior shooters.

12/4
Viktor Krüger & Carl Malenko vs. Yuki Ishikawa & Alexander Otsuka
Thankfully, this also aired on Champ Forum so we get this in full. Krüger continues to be a fun clumsy shootstyle monster and Carl was just a machine here. Lots of matwork between Carl and Yuki and Alexander, as they tried to isolate him, and it was really good slick stuff. Ishikawa also decided to slap the shit out of Krüger which lead to some fun aggression although Krügers striking is not exactly refined. I can totally get behind Viktor and Carl as a team with Carl bringing the wrestling and Krüger just tagging in to powerbomb people to death.

Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono vs. TAKA Michinoku & Shoichi Funaki - Fun
Fun tag that had a chaotic beginning with Ono & Ikeda immediately going to their brawling and Funaki hitting a surprise dive before getting literally kicked off the stage. Kai En Tai pretty much stuck to submissions here, and while they knew how to do that stuff I thought that segment went a little long as they just kept slapping submissions on Ikeda. We do get some really fun matwork from Ono, and a great hot tag from where he would try to KO people with flying knees to the face. I would've liked to see Team Taco kick ass a bit more but it was a fun match.

Finals: Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono vs. Viktor Krüger & Carl Malenko - Fun
Krüger decided to try some shootstyle here, and your mileage may vary on how good exactly that was. It's clear he's very limited and the likes of Ono would literally grapple circles around him if only he wasn't such a big oaf. It's an amusing oddity but not exactly great wrestling (yet). Thankfully Carl was also in the match to salvage things with some awesome matwork. He was going all out with his barefooted grappling here and it was great to see Ikeda and Ono trying to avoid his signature submissions. The finish involved Krüger and while there was still some slight awkwardness he took some punishment and in turn laid in some clubbing blows of his own and that big powerbomb, proving he was at least there in spirit.


12/25
Kazumasa Fujimoto vs Michiya Chiba
No idea who these guys are. They both look like wrestlers - with one guy rocking a Bret Hart colour scheme and the worlds ugliest bowl cut + ponytail combo, and the other looking like Katsumi Usudas skinny younger brother. They grapple for a minute, one guy taps out to an armbar, and they were never seen again.

Satoshi Yoneyama vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa
We JIP right to them trying some irish whips and blowing things really awkwardly. They aren't very good yet, but Yoneyama has nice kicks, and Hoshikawa hits a cool oddball jumping DDT into a facelock. I'm a sucker for odd combinations like that you really only get in this kinda hybrid shootstyle settings or amateur-pro wrestling. The finish was kinda cool with Hoshikawa catching a rolling kick and just pulling back on the leg for the tap. But it's still probably for the better they only showed about 4 minutes of this.

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Minoru Tanaka
Minoru Tanaka brought the fight here. Made me think he could've had a pretty great career if he wasn't relegated to being the shootstyle highspot guy so much. He was a lot more aggressive than usual here, and not fooling around on the mat. In fairness, he was facing Yuki Ishikawa. There was some super gritty face punching and skull cracking headbutting going on. At one point Tanaka stopped an attempted takedown from Ishikawa with a stomp and felt not far off from an Ishikawa/Ikeda match. Tanaka was really cracking Ishikawa towards the end too with some big bombs, and he still looked slick the way he would lock in a leglock from a suplex etc. His ultra tight triangle choke was also a highlight. Ishikawa ended up winning with a surprise submission and I thought it could've used a bit more from him, though his desperation arm trap suplex was pretty great. Still pretty fucking gnarly action for a midcard match here.

Takeshi Ono & Katsumi Usuda vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Alexander Otsuka, BattlARTS 12/25/1996 - EPIC

 This was the good BattlARTS tag action that your brain craves. Ikeda and Ono fighting each other was pretty sick, as they really seemed out for blood. The other two were a bit tepid early, but started bringing it more as the match progressed. Especially liked Otsuka sneaking up on Usuda from behind as he was busy with Ikeda, and dumping him right on his head with a cheap suplex. The match would break out into a brawl a few times but mostly stay in the ring. There's a great Ikeda/Usuda exchange, and Ono was a real fucker trying to kick peoples skulls in. I would've liked Otsuka to maybe play a bigger role at the end but it suited the 'Anything can happen' vibe they were going for. 

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Complete Takeshi Ono 

BattlARTS History #3 - October 1996

 
Minoru Tanaka vs Katsumi Usuda, 10/2/1996
Not the most exciting shootstyle as neither guy seemed particularily inspired. Thy were rolling on the mat like they were warming up. There were a few good kick combos from Usuda, but it's a BattlARTS match. Tanaka added pretty much nothing.

Minoru Tanaka vs Shoichi Funaki, 10/4/1996
Tanaka hits a big dropkick and kick combo to start but is quickly cut off by a dropkick to the knee from Funaki. We then get a solid 5 or 6 minutes of Funaki working the leg which means he's just slapping on various basic leglocks and Tanaka slowly crawls to the ropes. Tanaka gets the win with a flash armbar at 7 and a half minutes. This is the kind of pro wrestling that really puts you to the test because it makes sense and is executed solid but feels like a complete waste still.


Takeshi Ono & Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa & Naohiro Hoshikawa, BattlARTS 10/2/1996 - GREAT

I think the earliest showing of Ikeda and Ono teaming, and they are already a unit. This wasn‘t an all out brawl like many of these matches, but the opening Ikeda/Ishikawa work was tough as nails. These guys locking in submissions look like they‘re trying to bend iron bars. Hoshikawa was solid, and got punched in the face for his troubles by Ono when he tried going for an Irish Whip. Ono and Ikeda eventually cracked up the violence attacking people two on one, Ono kicking people in the face hard and both guys landing some brutal saves. It ended a bit early as Ikeda bloodied Hoshikawas nose and dispatched him like a piece of trash so you didn‘t get a grandstand final, but the match delivered everything you want from Team Taco. 


Daisuke Ikeda & Takeshi Ono vs Katsumi Usuda & Yuki Ishikawa, BattlARTS 10/4/1996

This ones JIP. Not quite as great as you'd hope for given you have 4 of the 5 best guys in the company at this point in the match, but still pretty good BattlARTS style tag action. The shenanigans of Ikeda and Ono were in full effect once again. Mostly ground-based action and at this point their matwork was not yet super exciting, but enough crushing blows and big suplexes to make this a wortwhile quick. It seems Ishikawa had not quite the arsenal yet to really fire back and as such he got KO'd hard after a brief final stand off with Ikeda. Ono was a stiff bastard and relentless on the mat as usual, seemingly never quitting. Usuda was a bit non-descript but he put in the work as always. It seems Team Taco are unstoppable at this point which, sets up their faceoff with Ishikawa and Otsuka at the big Korakuen Hall show later that month nicely.


10/30/1996

 
Tetsuhiro Kuroda vs Satoshi Yoneyama
Two young guys mauling each other hard for 5 minutes and I can get all the way behind that. Yoneyama hits Kuroda with a hard kick barrage right at the go and Kuroda would hit back hard with some really hard elbows and kicks. Kuroda feels very much like a pro wrestler forced to shoot here with the way he locks in a pro wrestling style spinning toe hold and cinches it so hard that it believably forces a rope break and it's a lot of fun. 

Viktor Krüger vs Shoichi Funaki
Krüger was a big austrian guy, who had a background in American football somehow and WCW ambitions at some point. As a transplant to BattlARTS he was super weird and random but they worked their hardest to make it work. This was pretty much a pro wrestling match with Funaki working full on cat and mouse spots, slipping underneath, getting chased, running the ropes. Could've had almost the exact same match on Velocity, like it's hard to imagine Funaki vs Kane being much different. It's fun though as Funaki manages to not look like a chump and even almost submits Krüger a few times. Krüger looked somewhat inept but made it through the match without hiccups.

Carl Malenko vs Katsumi Usuda
Mostly grappling, and they sure do some slick grappling. It could've been a bit better considering how great both guys can be when they're on but that's just a minor complaint when you get 2 beast matworkers grappling it out for 10 minutes. Crowd was really into it too and it's always cool to hear a Korakuen Hall reacting to someone grabbing a heel hook. Their best match so far?!

TAKA Michinoku vs Minoru Tanaka
The conclusion to their year-long rivalry! Some really good fireworks at the end here with some great submission nearfalls, a few violent shotai rushes from Tanaka and both guys trying to crunch each others necks with snatched Michinoku Drivers and big suplexes. Still I thought shorter matches suit them better at this point, as it felt like not a ton happened in the first 10 minutes as it was just rather tentative unspectacular work. Still for 'epic' feeling this might be your match just for it's length and build, even though their earlier matches have been more compact. Still I love how the crowd flips out for even a basic toe hold counter, and there's s great finish here with a perfect execution of how to do a sleeper.

Takeshi Ono & Daisuke Ikeda vs. Yuki Ishikawa & Alexander Otsuka (BattlARTS 10/30/1996) - EPIC

Okay, everybody knows this match is amazing. In context, it's pretty much the quintessence of what BattlARTS had been doing that year, so it was a suitable main event to their first Korakuen Hall show. Ikeda and Ono were an amazing pair of absolute pricks here, really upping the heel tactics they've in part displayed before up to 11 and trying to stomp Ishikawa and Otsuka to a paste. Right at the start they double team Ishikawa pasting him with kicks and cutting off the ring to isolate him while he busts out cool mat counters to defend himself. Ishikawa and Otsuka in turn took insane beatings and retaliated with some insane suplexes and a few choice revenge spots. In between that they do lots of really gritty feeling matwork. It really felt on a different level to shootstyle tag-wrestling up to that point. There was one bit that resembled modern MMA where Ono kept stopping Otsukas takedown attempts and trying to scramble his brains with super violent kicks. I don't have to tell you that all the Ishikawa/Ikeda exchanges were just glorious brutality. Some of the hardest stuff they ever did, and their last exchange was just mental, full on punches do the face, Ikeda hitting these crazy back kick while upside down, it was hatred embodied. Ishikawa wasn't quite the full-on Inoki worshipper yet and he kept doing those Jimmy Snuka jumping headbutts. Otsuka has these really awesome moments of explosive hot tags where he just runs in and snatches and dumps somebody on their head right off the bat, he was a suplex monster in this. Just like Ishikawa/Ikeda had their dynamic he has this dynamic with Takeshi Ono, who spends most of the fight on the apron waiting to sneak in and kick somebody in the eye to break a submission. Otsuka pummeling Ono around was pretty great and when he hits that big giant swing it's just transcendental. When Ono actually was in the ring, we got to see either his slick skinny ratboy grappling or his reckless kicks. We also get to see what Ishikawa is really about as later in the match he gets his comeuppance hooking one nastier and nastier submission on Ikeda. What a quintessential piece of 90s wrestling greatness, up there with your high end AJPW tags or Michinoku Pro multimans or FMW explosion deathmatches, just a snapshot of a totally unique point in time with these dudes just going all out on the mat, this is what BattlARTS really was all about. And man their final showdown is just pure undistillated face punching goodness. Awesome matwork, big suplexes, intrigueing tag psychology, all-time brutality, just one of the sickest matches ever.

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Complete Takeshi Ono 

Kakuto Tanteidan IV ~ Straight Ahead 10/23/2025

 Ali Najima vs Kosuke Sato, KT 10/23

Najima is my boy, and I'm so glad they brought him in on this show, because clearly he is great in this kind of quasi-shootstyle environment. And Sato has also been quite reliable as an aggressive pitbull  that will slap and dropkick the shit out of your face in these short violent shootstyle matches. This was a great mix of slick wrestling and two aggressive guys trying to maul each other and one or two very well timed moments. I can't say much more than that, it was that simple  and straight forward. Just sick elbows and slaps and headbutts galore. Quite possibly the most enjoyable under 10 minute match of the year. Really hope Najima becomes a mainstay on these shows. I also liked the old lady in the front row that was really into the action.

brother YASSHI & Yuko Miyamoto vs Tanomusaku Toba & Kengo Mashimo - GREAT

A lot of fun to be had here. Miyamoto kind of felt like a joke, and he is an odd addition, but I thought for what he was going for he totally worked in this match, and he did some cool stuff like busting out his moonsault knee drop in plausible fashion, and a cool rolling cradle into a calf slicer. We also get to see brother YASSHI unleashing his inner grappler which is always cool, and Mashimo being a dick, especially to Miyamoto. I have no idea what Yasshi was thinking with that cartwheel comeback he tried though. TOBA~ brought the face punches as always. He does not swing as much as he did in his younger years but when he hits he will hit pretty hard. Thought the violent working over he gave YASSHI was easily the highlight of the early goings of the match. I thought they would have a Mashimo vs Miyamoto finish and it would settle for being a decent watch but instead TOBA and Yasshi tagged in and delievered an awesome brief but violent finish with Yasshi redeeming himself with a sick running headbutt and deadlift suplex that left Toba cold. Can't ask for much more from an old man comedy tag that is the 2nd on the card.

Keita Yano vs Manabu Hara - EPIC

It's been a while since their 2013. Keita has gone through many transformations, but at the core he is still the same old demon. This was Yano torturing Hara with carny tactics and dodgy Zbyszko stalling, and getting kicked in the face for his troubles. Even things like the old face scrape were made to look exceedingly violent and painful. I loved how Keita took off his elbow pad for seemingly no reason only to shove the point of said elbow into the Haras elbow nerve in a painful way moments later. Acts of cruelty always become more disturbing when they are premediated. Hara really looked like he just wanted to end the match. He was fighting a right demon after all. Builds to an approbiatly grotesque and violent finale. The most Keita match to happen in 2025, as somehow even his unconventional antics don't feel predictable here, and we are all here for it. One of the best bouts of the year, and Keita retains his title as the definitive anti-pro wrestler.

Yuki Ishikawa & Mohammed Yone vs Daisuke Ikeda & Ikuto Hidaka

Pretty much full on old man comedy tag stuff. I was expecting Ikeda to do an Eigen spit spot. Ishikawa still does provide some interesting matwork when he matches up with Hidaka, and he and Ikeda also had a nice grappling exchange later that lead to Ikeda biting Ishikawas wrist of course. Their one standing exchange felt to be at 5% of the usual intensity, which is understandable, though they do punch each other in the face later in the match. Yone looked spry and Hidaka can still be a bit energetic, he also had to shoe in the I'll be back. Not much shootstyle here, felt very much like a NOAH undercard tag. All these guys have more than proven their salt in their long careers so I don't really mind them retiring to this kind of thing.

Fuminori Abe vs Hikaru Sato

The early goings were pretty solid slow paced shootstyle action. Unfortunately, they had the really bad idea to have this be 30 minutes long. I wouldn't have minded if they had just continued dicking around on the mat for 15 minutes and then had a hot second half or something, but instead they padded the time with some pointless crowd brawling and some of that 'sitting down and letting the other guy kick you' macho stuff, which is probably the worst trope in all of wrestlig for me. You certainly never saw Yuki Ishikawa lying down allowing Daisuke Ikeda to hit him back in the day. They do hit each other quite brutally hard and the match has a few good moments, but just buried in an overly long match that didn't feel particularily inspired. Turning this kind of BattlARTS style match into a joke is certainly Fuminori Abes worst sin.

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2025 Matchguide 

BattlARTS History #1: January - April 1996

 1/13/1996

(actually, this was NOT the offical BattlARTS debut. It was a produce show run by a booking agency, they just decided to let the BattlARTS guys center stage, technically speaking. But for all intents and purposes it's the BattlARTS debut show. 

Minoru Tanaka vs. Satoshi Yoneyama (BattlARTS 1/13/1996)

BattlARTS begins. And the world would never be the same! Unfortunately, the Champ Forum broadcast does not show us the amazing sounding Pequeno Guerrero vs Takashi Okamura opening match. Yone has a shaven head and is wearing some funky looking martial arts pants Basically Yoneyama is useless on the mat so Tanaka uses him as a punching bag and dumps him with impressive suplexes. Normally I dread watching Tanaka but he he looked like a prick here and really roughed up Yoneyama with brutal knees and shotais, so that was refreshing. Even spiking him on his head with a nasty half-hooked Package Piledriver. Yoneyama gets pretty fired up flurry hitting his abisegiri which is always cool but is soon put to pasture. Short, violent, kind of out of nowhere, a fitting beginning to the promotion.


 Takeshi Ono vs. Alexander Otsuka, BattlARTS 1/13

I already watched this for my Takeshi Ono project and let me tell you, it holds up all the way as a fucking awesome 8 minute undercard shootstyle war. Ono is relentless trying to tap out Otsuka and occasionally trying to kick his brains in, and the both absolutely nuke each other with some suplexes. Just go watch this if you haven't, and even if you have seen it watch it again. Should point out that Onos heel hook reversal after almost getting killed by a suplex was ridiculously sick and like something out of an epic MMA fight.


Hisakatsu Oya & Ricky Fuji vs Koji Nakagawa & Tetsuhiro Kuroda, 1/13

This sleazebag FMW tag is a bit of an odd addition to a BattlARTS card, but that's part of the BattlARTS charm, you always get some odd extras. This actually looks like it would've been worth seeing in full because there was some violence, Nakagawa was bleeding, Kuroda ate a tiger driver on the floor and Oya is always killing people with his insane backdrop suplex. You know it was a wild era when Shawn Michaels worshipper Ricky Fuji was uncorking really hard offense, like crowning Nakagawa with a massive brainbuster. Nakagawas Bret Hart worshipping babyface act seemed on point. Alas they only showed 3 minutes of this but it's 3 minutes worth seeing. There was also a Michinoku Pro tag on this card and that's just annoying that we don't have that.

Yuki Ishikawa & Shoichi Funaki vs Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda, BattlARTS 1/13/1996

The first BattlARTS event concludes with a big tag. BattlARTS tags are one of the greatest inventions of wrestling as you basically always get just 4 guys in a fight to the death, and they already had all the ingredients down here. Ishikawa and Ikeda went out of their way here to establish their rivalry, just absolutely cracking each other with every shot. Kicks to the ribs, stomps drawing hardway blood, bare knuckle punches, there's no comparing these two. Usuda wasn't far behind as he was trying to kick peoples heads off. Besides the violence there was a ton of great matwork and suplexes here. Really great competitive shootstyle with lots of ankle spraining leg locks. Dug Funaki as a guy with limited options just trying to twist peoples legs off. Usuda looked like a killer, and he is also really great at putting submissions over as dangerous. Ikeda and Ishikawa also did some great wrestling against each other, though by the end you had a pissed off Ishikawa trying to stump a mudhole in Ikeda and drawing hardway blood, and Ikeda trying to pulverize people with spin kicks. The insertion of Funakis pro-style moves worked and made for a unique touch that would become the defining characteristic of BattlARTS that set it apart from other wrestling. Not much more needs to be said, just really raw pro wrestling that rules and made you want to see more.

4/6/1996

Takeshi Ono vs. Yuki Ishikawa, BattlARTS 4/6/1996 - FUN

This is from that weird psychedelic background studio TV show they ran. This was these guys going at each other for 5 minutes, and these two are going to give you something good when given 5 minutes. Mostly Ono being pesky, trying to outgrapple Ishikawa and absorbing his size advantage. Though Ono does connect with a brutal face kick at one point because he is Ono. Sick finish where Ishikawa reverses an Ono leg lock and just tries to rip his foot off. Good stuff but gee, 2 or 3 minutes more of this couldn‘t have hurt. 

Carl Malenko vs Satoshi Yoneyama, 4/6

Yoneyama continues to have a hard time. He's tall but he doesn't have much grappling, so Carl is very much like an anaconda playing with its food here, twirling him around and locking in carny full nelson holds and what not. Yoneyama does get a sleeper that forces Carl to the ropes and immediately goes for his koppu kick rushing, but Carl is not impressed and after some more scrambling Yoneyama is toast. I always enjoy watching Carl tear people apart and the finish was great with Carl locking in a full nelson STF and then just choking him out.

Katsumi Usuda vs Alexander Otsuka, 4/6

Good solid shootstyle grappling here as you expect. Otsuka is always great to watch as he will grapple the fuck out of someone and bust out crazy suplexes. That was the case here too as Otsuka hit Usuda with a super iconic deadlift German with a great camera angle. Usuda fired back with some sick kicks and choking out Otsuka in nasty fashion. These two would have bigger matches later in their career but this was a good appetizer and you can tell everyone in this company was showcasing their own unique style.

Daisuke Ikeda vs Shoichi Funaki, 4/6

Funaki is outgunned here, but he does one hell of a job trying to get a submission. This may have been among Funakis best performances as he looked great doing slick shootstyle matwork, busting out nifty counters and trying to twist Ikedas legs off. Ikeda found himself frustrated and then already going to his vicious prick ways trying to scrub Funakis face off the bone with vicious grinding forearms etc. Great finish as Funaki goes for the leg attack to often and Ikedas came down on him like the hammer of destiny and then Fight for Your Right to Party blares. 

4/13+4/14/1996

Yuki Ishikawa vs Carl Greco, 4/13

This was apparently from the first 'official' BattlARTS show as everything before was considered 'pre-debut'. A bit regretful that this is the only match we get from that card because everything else also looked good. Regardless of that this is good stuff. These two have been consistent rivals beginning in PWFG and now continueing that through BattlARTS up until their 2008 masterpiece. They pretty much never disappoint and this is another banger match that delivers. Carl always works in pushing people through the limit and producing some killer matwork. He was also quite aggressive really rattling Yuki with face kicks. Maybe Yuki could've gone a bit more all out in this one but in the end he was overwhelmed. Intense shootstyle main event with a sick finish.

TAKA Michinoku vs Minoru Tanaka, 4/14

These two also fought each other many maaany times. It's always a good match up but from my memory it has never produced something blowaway great, maybe that'll change with this grand rewatch. This is quite good stuff, there is lots of slick competitive feeling matwork with both guys fighting hard for armbars and leglocks. Maybe it lacks variety a bit but their fighting was definitely convincing. No junior stuff here, Tanaka just unloads on TAKA with nasty kicks, suplexes and a big piledriver. TAKA annoys me a bit by trying to do some hockey no selling though it's quickly shut down. He gets on my good side catching a kick from Tanaka and turning it into a nifty shootstyle Michinoku Driver II. He goes for another but Tanaka reverses it into a leglock for a nifty finish. Pretty good, Tanaka was putting more violence in his kicks than I remember from other matches, and it  does not overstay it's welcome at 10 minutes length.

Yuki Ishikawa & Katsumi Usuda vs Carl Malenko & Daisuke Ikeda, 4/14

Big fan of this tag which is full of banger matchups. Ikeda and Ishikawa avoided each other early on, so we get more focussed shootstyle action which was quite great, especially when Carl was involved as he's such a relentless grappler. Also a big fan of Usuda who's really good as someone constantly trying to finish opponents either with his kicks or straightforward submissions. Ikeda started to turn up the violence later by being a vicious prick and we get a pretty intense explosion between him and Ishikawa. Highlight was probably Ishikawa stomping the crap out of Ikeda, Steve Austin style, or his northern lights suplex into some pretty brutal ground and pound. Ishikawa eyeing Ikeda only to get blasted by same brutal kicks from Carl to his face may be quintessential BattlARTS. Finish was pretty intense as guys were going for the kill, and while it was not as fireworks-ladden as other BattlARTS ending runs Usudas relentless barrage that KO'd Ikeda was as memorable as any finish. This was just straight forward good shit, hardly ever a let down when you put 4 of these guys in a tag.

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JWA Tokai Origins of Pro Wrestling 4/20/2025

 Shigeru Takagi vs Yuki Toyoura

This show was described as 'pro wrestling without show elements' and 'going back to the origins of pro wrestling'. And also, all matches were held under greco roman rules. Yeah, so only grappling, and no grappling below the belt! There are still submissions, and there are no rounds and seemingly no points or passivity warnings. Now this is an interesting set up. And this was - well, it was very much greco roman wrestling. Takagi is bald with no eyebrows, in a singlet, and barrel chested. Toyoura I've seen before and he also looks quite strong. This was two powerful men trying to hook an arm or neck and mostly averting and kind of attempts at offense through sheer struggle. There were no moves, no big throws, no fancy holds. Toyoura tries to go for a reverse gutwrench lift but doesn't make it despite struggling his hardest. After around 8 minutes Takagi is able to grab a side headlock - the first 'move' of the match  and turns Toyoura on his back, but instead of pinning him he cranks way back forcing the tap out. Quite antithetical to the pro wrestling landscape in 2025 but I enjoyed the sheer struggle these two displayed.

Yuina vs Mana Yokoi

Yuina is something of a veteran of the Nagoya scene, while Yokoi had only made her debut in 2025. That is almost more information than I can write about this match, as it's mostly Yokoi being in turtle position and Yuina unable to do much of anything. Yokoi reverses out of the position once, but the second time she tries it Yuina reverses her and pins her for the 3. Talk about hammering the point home.

Yasushi Sato vs Super Taira

The two previous matches were more like a set up for this main match. This was amazing to watch. Mind you, it was 15 minutes of greco roman pro wrestling, so it's a very aquired taste, but I thought for that they went above and beyond. Both guys here displayed an intricate knowledge of greco roman techniques, but also great struggle, anticipation and timing. Yasushi Sato just keeps cementing himself as a grappling master in my eyes and Taira is a great match for him. The pin attempts they did here were amazing, but so were the escapes from the pin attempts. Also, since they previous two matches established that a match can end with any move, there was a great deal of tension, end even something like a side headlock could spell the end. Loved the struggle over the attempted suplexes as well as Sato wheezing when Taira went for the sleeper. Finish was amazing not just because the actual move that ended it was great (it was a great move) but because of the struggle and build that had preceded it. A super unique piece of pro wrestling that most wrestlers could not even attempt yet these two pretty much nailed it when they stepped on that mat. I definitely do not regret checking it out, one of my favourite bouts of the year.

 

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2025 Matchguide 

HARD HIT Ryo Kawamuras Retirement ~ Complete Disposal 11/29/2025

 Kenta Hattori vs Ryutaro Watanabe
 

Pretty much what could be considered a light sparring session. Both these guys certainly looked like they could grapple, but there weren't a ton of highlights to what they were doing or anything. Hattori had this really cool sleeper hold into a Russian Leg Sweep. I thought that was cool. Solidly executed but forgettable stuff otherwise.

Yukito vs Takuma Uchiyama

Serious shootstyle, where they didn't hold back when it came to kicking and slapping each other hard. The grappling is decent and I liked the increase of aggression whenever either guy dropped a point. Nothing super great or anything but it's decent shootstyle wrestling. Uchiyama, I think is an MMA guy and based and this he would make good if he just continued to do shootstyle. I continue to enjoy Yukito, he does well for a 50 year old guy and I hope to see him more outside HEAT-UP.

Takahiro Tababa vs Koki Fujimoto

Kobe Merikens shooter boy Fujimoto shows up in his karate gi. This was a bit conservative when they were grappling as basically Tababa used Fujimotos gi to his advantage and Fujimoto couldn't do much, but it was really fun whenever they started beating the shit out of each other. We all know Tababa is a pitbull, but Fujimoto was standing up to him. Even knocking him down twice in succession, and on the 3rd the bell actually rang but referee Nikkan Lee had the decision reversed. Maybe Tababa was KOd legit as he seemed to struggle to get his senses, but then he threw Fujimoto with an incredible hard German Suplex and finished him with a nasty gi choke. I'm really gonna need a rematch between them in Kobe Merikena after Koki was robbed like this, regardless I am really happy to see guys like Fujimoto emerging in the Japan indy scene and branching out.

Hideki Sekine vs KURO-OBI

Pretty much a grappling match, and it was some nice slick grappling. KURO-OBI clearly has some BJJ skill as he transitions really nice and smooth from all kinds of esoteric leglocks and positions. Hideki Sekine is a real monster of a man. In the times of Giant Baba and Strong Kobayashi he probably would have been considered exceptionally handsome and he'd rock an afro or something and have epic battles with those guys and the tabloids would write about his affairs but the times have changed and now they call him Shrek. His grappling felt a bit like he was being overly nice, like if he really tried he could rip any mortal man in half but he was playing nice. But the one time he went for that old school wrestling leg split that harkened back to Giant Baba and it's the one thing in the match that really made the crowd wake up. Really good grappling otherwise and there was a cool finish, but I kinda wanted to see Sekine fight Gilbet Leduc and work a match around a bearhug or a canadian backbreaker or something like that. Talk about being out of time.

Takuya Wada vs Tyson Maeguchi

Two not very exciting wrestlers in a mediocre match. They tried to do the routine with Maeguchi being the dangerous striker, but he really doesn't hit any impressive strikes. Wada just kind of keeps him at bay with some forgettable grappling for the most part. And worst of all they just kind of went to a 10 minute draw without either guy really pressing for a win at point. Yeah, you don't need to know more about this than the first sentence I wrote.

Minoru Suzuki & Takafumi Ito vs Yoshiki Takahashi & Mitsuhisa Sunabe

Takahashi comes out rocking the Yasushi Sato tough old man with greying hair, wrestling shoes and baggy trunks look, AND a badass Pirata Morgan eyepatch on top of all that. So that alone makes this worth checking out. Takahashi had some slick takedowns here, I would've liked to see him more in the match. Ito and Sunabe did some really slick grappling that was great to watch and easily the best shootstyle grappling I've seen in a while. I'm puzzled by the career trajectory of Mitsuhisa Sunabe, who has been around a long time and popping up once or twice on OZ Academy cards. What's up with this connection to Oz Academy of all places? Regardless, Suzuki just has to shoehorn in a bunch of comedy stuff. The finishing sequence between him and Sunabe was cool, but otherwise, Suzuki was really bleh here. It's an old man grappling match, wtf are you doing shoehorning your old comedy spots in? You really need to settle down sometimes, Minoru Suzuki.

Ryo Kawamura vs Hikaru Sato

The final match of Ryo Kawamuras career, and a somewhat bittersweet reminder that this man could've been a lot more as a wrestler. After a somewhat tentative beginning where Kawamura easily lost a point, this turns into a pretty great shootstyle encounter. Both guys really palm striked the hell out of each other, and there were some choice submission counters. More importantly the story of the match was Kawamuras absolute determination to edge out one last triumph and really popping Sato with his shots. Great, super intense stuff, really some of the best work of the year here even when it feels like a short match, both guys displayed a ton of passion here and it was just really enthralling. 

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Battle and Arts Pro 2/8/2025

 

Yujiro Yamamoto vs Kazuki Teramae

Teramae is another Seichi Ikemoto guy. That is a bit shocking, because he looked pretty much incapable of putting up a fight against Yamamoto here. His kicks looked good, but other than that he looked about as talented as any other indy nobody as he just wanted to go to his spots instead of actually shootgrappling with Yamamoto like god intended. Yamamoto is pretty fun here, as he cuts off pretty much everything Teramae tries and smacks him really hard for his troubles. But mostly this was about Teramae learning the lesson that he will actually need to fight.

Hiromasa Koyama & Maori Kawashima vs Sho Mizuno & Tetsuya Goto

Pretty much the sleazy crossover of a BattlARTs match and your typical scuzzy divebar indy tag. Koyama and Mizuno scrapping at the beginning was pretty fun, they understood the assignment. Kawashima kind of sucks as he is like a crappier version of Onryo, and Goto didn’t really show how anything outstanding, so the match degraded to bog standard trained monkey show indy levels when they were involved. Koyama looked like the best guy in the match, simply because he was beating the shit out of everyone the most. He was putting some real piss and vinegar into everything he threw, even into stuff like his european uppercuts, and he had a crazy judo throw that spiked Mizuno on his head. Mizuno, the other shooter in the match, looked good early on but unfortunately didn’t do much more in the second half. This veered between having some fun moments and being forgettable. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of Koyama going sicko mode on people like this, though.

Yujiro Yamamoto vs Tsuyoshi Michibata

This was better. Just two guys kicking the living hell out of each other in a bar, as god intended. Michibata seemed to not quite take the match seriously early, so Yamamoto started stomping the crap out of him in the ropes. Michibata got more serious after that. He started to work over Yamamotos arm with some really painful kicks to the shoulder. Lots of both guys kicking each other full force in this. The one downside was Yamamoto insisting on forcing some irish whips and his rope-assisted octopus hold into the match. I dunno why he always does that. Also, the match needed BattlARTS rules. Other than that, this delivered on straight punishment and gritty bar shootstyle action. Cool to see Michibata in this kind of match and I loved his finishing submission.

 

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Avanzar 9/1/2018

 

Dyna-Mido vs Crazy J, AVANZAR 9/1/2018

AVANZAR baby. The set up for this show was just a flimsy little mat in a small community center. They have two ladders on the opposite corners to allow for some flying moves and shenanigans, like the old JWA Tokai or JWA Kansai. And this was serious pro wrestling, and I love all serious pro wrestling that has no ring. This was mostly straight forward pro wrestling with Mido punishing Crazy J with his stiff elbows and headbutts. Mido looks tough as nails and at one point he goes for a splash off the ladder with J moving and Mido just splatting on that tin mat, it’s crazy. Crazy J is mostly about fun jumping one legged dropkicks that are kinda cool, and he also brings both the ladders in to deal punishment so that’s a nice unpredictability factor. He also had a nice STO. Simple match built around elbows and headbutts and lariats that all look hard and I enjoyed it.

Hideki Shioda vs. Kaito Sero

Hey look its Hideki Shioda. I mostly know him from FU*CK. This was probably the best I’ve ever seen Hideki Shioda look as it was a shockingly good match. Shioda was punishing his opponent here with slaps and kicks that looked genuinely vicious, and dominating him on the ground. Sero was able to look in a really cool modified spinning figure 4, but Shioda is able to reverse another leglock because he’s the veteran (I think). The one truly Shioda-ish moment was when he attempted some kind of leg scissor take down that came out warped. He does muck about a bit much with the leglocks but the finish is pretty fun. I actually wanted to see more of Shioda coming out of this, and his opponent also looked pretty cool.

Koji Sudo vs Great Salaryman

Koji Sudo is another guy I know from FU*CK. And well I guess this is more like that because the Great Salaryman is a full on middle aged Japanese businessman complete with suit and tie. The Salaryman actually fights with dropkicks and suplexes and such. He has Great Salarywoman with him, who keeps hitting Sudo with a paddle and a briefcase. For some reason Great Salarywoman was hitting him insanely hard. This was mostly Sudo taking comical amounts of abuse including the old bowling ball to the crotch. At one point Sudo bridges out of a pin like a joshi wrestler. Sudo wins it with an insanely sick double stomp off the ladder. This was one of those surreal spectacles that you can watch when you’re in the mood for that kind of bullshit, I would rate it as above average just for seeing Great Salarywoman beating on Sudo like that, and the finish.

Super Guapo MEX vs A-Z

 

A serious main event! Very straightforward action here with this guy Super Guapo MEX being all about llaves and tying up his opponent, and A-Z kicking him really hard. Both guys display solid skills, with MEXs llaves and rollups being cool and A-Zs kicks looking actually vicious. There are a few fun moments such as A-Zs big enzuigiri or the crazy cut-throat complete shot that Super Guapo did. Ladder ends up coming into play and we get a bunch of deadlift suplexes that just look brutal on that mat. This kind of stuff really makes you think the best pro wrestling happens on a flimsy mat in a small community center room in front of 30 people. Totally a blast to watch, and I do wish a more serious mat pro wrestling group was around right now that delivered more stuff like this on a regular basis because the potential is endless.

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Sportiva Wednesday Curry Pro Wrestling 8/13/2025

 Watch

 Mikiya Sasaki vs Yacchae Seven, Sportiva 8/13

 A fun opening match between two fun wrestlers. It had some jokes, but enough serious wrestling for me to like it, and it made for a pretty entertaining mix. Yacchae Seven is this energetic masked wrestler, his springboard flip senton was pretty impressive, but a lot of this was him leaping into Sasakis atomic drops and getting rolled up in comical ways. Mikiya Sasaki is another guy who worships the Funk brothers. He won't make you forget Crusher Takahashi, but he is pretty solid at what he does, and he brings some fun character touches like how he loves the old school suplex over the ropes. His dropkick to the face was genuinely impressive and this was probably the most solid I've seen him look so far. At 7 minutes they move through it pretty fast. An enjoyable match that is worth a look if you want to have some fun.
 
 Super Taira & Yasu Kubota vs Masanori Kanu Watanabe & Yu Shimizu, Sportiva 8/13
 
 Pretty much 4 cool wrestlers having a cool match. I always look forward to seeing Super Taira, and he once again proved himself to be one of the best technicians around when he grappled with Shimizu. It wasn't showing off, it was Taira being pesky and dominating his opponent, and it was cool to watch. Kubota in the past has looked a little lazy but he was surprisingly on point, despite looking gray like your uncle. He was hitting really hard elbows, and while what he did was simple it never felt like there was a wasted moment when he was in the ring. Everyone who reads my blog should know by now that I really like Watanabe and Shimizu. Shimizu once again proved his salt hitting some of the hardest elbows and having a great exchange with Kubota. Watanabe continues to get better, he blasted Taira with some devastating knees and I really liked that russian legsweep into a heel hook thing he did. Pretty much a match where everyone looked good and was doing something interesting all the time, that didn't go to long but will probably surprise you with how hard they fought. I would look forward to seeing singles matches between any of them coming out of this.
 
Konaka vs Chon Shiryu, Sportiva 8/13
 
Two gods of the indy scene meeting in a match... and an SRS rules match no less! SRS means they have to fight on the wooden floor of the bar and entering the ring leads to a countout. Oh, and you can touch an audience member for a rope break. These are two all timers when it comes to fun creative wrestling, and the wrestling on the floor adds a nice dose of insanity. We get the usual cool kung fu kicks and flying around from Shiryu, and the high pitched yelling chops from Konaka, and then they start climbing on the ceiling and using the barstools and doing some crazy flying to the floor... apparently this was a rematch from 11 years prior. I had no idea how they got the idea to deliver this rematch now but it was a spectacle and really delivers everthing you wish. Painful bumps, both guys hanging upside down from the ceiling, Shiryu hitting a kung fu flying kick over a bar stool... I think these two even in a regular match against each other would be dynamite, but this was crazy and fun in the best way.
 
Ali Najima & Yuta Oya vs Michio Kageyama & Shinya Ishida, Sportiva 8/13

Ali Najima and Yuta Oya continue to be the best story on the Japanese scene this year. This was an incredibly compelling match, with Najima and Oya throwing everything they have trying to beat their more established opponents. After an explosive beginning the veterans were able to slow the pace down, only for things to get heated again when Najima and Oya got the upper hand again. Both Najima and Oya were great here as always. Najima looked like a killer when he was circling around Kageyama kicking him in his bad arm like a shark in the water smelling blood, and he did great job showing the pain in his leg after Kageyama caught him. Oya is such a unique wrestler, he is a powerhouse but also vulnerable, it feels extra mean when he gets blasted with a kick to the face or walks into a sneaky rollup. This was a really ambitious match with multiple layers, but they all stuck to what they do well. And Oya and Najima are making things like a firemans carry or hip throw look cool. I also liked Ishida a lot here, he got blitzed early on but after getting himself together he got pretty evil stomping the hell out of people and even mocking Najimas limp. The week to week progression of the rookies is so satisfying to watch as they keep adding new touches to their game, and the willingness of Najima and Oya to win this match was palpable like in a classic match from the 90s. It really felt like getting a pin on Ishida or Kageyama meant the world to them. It absolutely feels like the best thing going right now and they are just about a year into their career, if they keep progressing like this the next 1-2 years will be insane.

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2025 Matchguide 

XGF Backyard Brawl 7 5/10/2025

 Dekai Ichimotsu vs The Insect #2

I've noticed that my reviews have been getting a bit awfully normal lately, so let's change that with some XGF. This takes place in an amazingly creepy looking industrial hall with all kinds of trash laying around in the outskirts of god knows where, Japan. Insect #2 is a masked creep doing constant weird breathing noises and scuttling about. Naturally, Dekai chucks him to the mat and works some nelson hold variations to prove his wrestling superiority over the bug. Some surprisingly reckless strikes are thrown and Insect briefly gets the advantage when he suddenly connects with a foreign object, but doesn't seem to know what to do as he is a brainless bug after all. He does find his luck eventually biting Ichimotsus neck which is disgusting enough. We then get some attempted strangulation and Insect #2 going for the dreaded CROTCH BITE~! I wish Dean were alive to see this. The attempted hanging was gritty as fuck and Ichimotsu seemed to start bleeding from his mouth. When Ichimotsu falls to the floor, he comes up all dirty and dusty, adding to the grittiness. The Insect does fine mostly for someone who is probably not a good wrestler at all, as evidenced by his lousy punches whereas everything Dekai does looks great. Dekai does punch the insect in the face, hit a sick headbutt and then a piledriver on a pickup truck which is a finish to match. Very gritty and surreal, felt like a deranged version of a Survival Tobita fight, a great little match to set the tone for this Backyard Brawl.

Great Zako vs MAD APE

MAD APE!! Perhaps a relative of Virgon? His low grunt is convincing, but otherwise he feels very much just like a dude in a mask, making this feel a bit less like a surreal monsterfight than the previous match. Other than that there is some good gritty brawling going on with both guys trashing things on each others heads. When they venture outside, there is this really nice shot following them before the lush green bushes and trees. Zako ends up going face first into a pile of rubble and ends up lying bleeding on the ground which makes this feel like a snuff film. Both of them go for rusty, dirty pieces of metal that are lying around, poking them in each others face, its concentrated tetanus horror when Zako starts bleeding. At some point they venture downstairs, continueing to beat on each other while the camera unsuccesfully tries to get a look. Eventually Ape is able to hit a chokeslam into a pile of sand or cement and bury Zako with a shovel for the win. It's Backyard Brawl, what do you expect?

Paul Ishida vs taku

Now we are talking. Paul Ishida has a creepy ponytail, lots of jewelry, tabi poots, is built like a troll. He seems like he crawled out of the deepest darkest hole. taku, who belongs to the mysterious group called Ignite, wears regular pants and a wifebeater, but also has MMA gloves and likes to punch and kick. He is a bit hesitant at first, and Paul Ishida punishes that hesitancy quickly with some hard punches and bulldogging taku into a car tire because that's how thigs go in this XGF. taku does wake up when Ishida starts stapling stuff to his arm, and it's on. There are reckless punches and kicks, some great fistfighting, gritty submission fighting on the dirty floor next to oil puddles, guys get thrown into a car and half decayed debries etc. Ishida summons some Mr. Pogo weapons and both guys bleed big. At one point Ishida kicks out of a move on the floor and a pile of dirty weed gets stuck to his hair as he gets up. Really awesome gritty mix of face punches, blood, ghoulish vibe and some big bumps.

Minoru Kido vs Ryunosuke Takeda

This was pretty gory too. I gather Minoru Kido is some kind of cult hero among people, and this is my first time seeing him. Based on his demeanor and freakish look I can see the appeal. This was a bit milque toast deathmatch stuff, which is a bit weird for an XGF match. It had the standard opening chain wrestling, chair duel, and then guys taking turns doing repulsive things to each other. There was a bit of a malaise here, an absence of the passion, recklessness and absurdity that the previous matches had. That can be pretty sick too, and all those deathmatch spots feel a lot sicker when they are happening on a grimy sheet laid over a mat in the middle of some warehouse. Still there is plenty of violence and gore to be enjoyed here, and the folks in attendance for this event noticably moved back a bit to be safe from what these two lunatics were doing.

 

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Ice Ribbon Club Ice Ribbon Match Vol. 2 3/30/2022

 Adversity Nine: Tsukasa Fujimoto vs Kaho Matsushita vs Saran vs Nao Ishikawa vs Yuuki Mashiro vs Asahi vs Ibuki Hoshi vs Totoro Satsuki vs Tsukushi

Adversity 9 baby. I really really enjoyed the 2011 version of this crazy concept, so I was really curious what the 2022 Ice Ribbon roster would do with the concept. To remind: This is a double gauntlet match, everybody fights each other, twice, in about 72 consecutive singles matches each with a 1 minute time limit. And for the most part, yeah this is really good! Basically 8 rounds of grueling hell sprints that got incredibly intense in parts. The thing with the 2011 match was that the weakest wrestlers would get moved to the back, here it was the other way around with everyone facing the weaker opponents first and at the end having to survive against Tsukushi and then Tsukasa Fujimoto. That made the dynamic a bit different, but still really interesting. The format is great because it makes any basic pinfall, roll up or boston crab into credible nearfalls. And you get these intense, unique moments like the almost amateur-like forcing of a pinfall, or having to survive a boston crab. So anything can finish, and everyone is in out of the match quickly enough to not get exposed, and when they have to face the gauntlet each individual character shines.

So like with most modern joshi I am hardly familiar with the kind of wrestlers that Ice Ribbon had in 2022. I vaguely know Tsukasa and Tsukushi. Tsukasa is a good ace figure with some hard kicks and works well as a tough final test for everyone, she was also hellbent on hitting people with the Japanese Ocean Suplex, but I was surprised by the kind of violence Tsukushi brought. She’s under 5 feet tall but was really brutalizing people, crushing faces with sick low dropkicks, trying to drill through people with double stomps. Her double stomp to poor Nao Ishikawas spine was especially evil as Ishikawa had just spent a minute surviving a boston crab. I’m pretty sure she also kneed someone in the throat at some point.

Of all the wrestlers I didn’t know I think I liked Satsuki the most. She’s just a big old tank and having her in there to crush people with splashes and slams is a nice different vibe to break up the dropkicks-and-rollups generic joshi stuff that many others in the match were doing. Thought her segment was really impressive as she worked some great stuff with everyone, I also got a kick out of when she submitted someone by simply squishing them when they attempted to backslide her, really unique and made perfect sense. Ibuki Hoshi is a fun chopping machine and Asahi had some cool submissions. The others were a lot more basic and generic, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and had some moments but didn’t stand out in a major way. The one negative standout was Mashiro who really took out the intensity with her silly bullshit a few times, unnecessary in a match where everyone else was working hard to keep the intensity high for like 70 minutes, even when she tried to wrestle seriously she wasn’t much good, she hit some dropkicks where even the commentator was yelling that she’s not hitting her target at all. Also Saran is like 13 and the others weren’t going easy on her at all which made her gauntlet part quite insane, though she did get a kind of epic rush at the end, pretty unique and one of those ‘pro wrestling is real as fuck’ moments that you only really get in Japan. In total this wasn’t as good as the 2011 match but definitely still really good. The wrestling didn’t reach the same heights as you didn’t really have any Emi Sakura-Hikaru Shida-Chii Tomiya type in the match to elevate things to that level but the intensity was great and there lots of great moments.

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Kakuto Tanteidan 4/8/2025

 Satsuki Nagao vs Shuji Ishikawa

It’s nice to see Ishikawa return to his Fu-Ten roots of just potatoeing the fuck out of people in quasi-shootstyle matches. This didn’t feel quite like a BattlARTS or Fu-Ten match, it had bit much of those back and forth elbow exchanges, but once in a while they would try to nuke each others brains with a sick headbott or knee and it was a spectacle. I’ve never seen or heard of Nagao, looking him up on Cagematch tells me he might be… sorta… a big deal on the small scales of Japanese indies? He’s with Tochigi Pro, challenged Akitoshi Saito for a title in NOAH last year, what ever that means nowadays. Having my first look at him in this match I thought he was a black trunks rookie, there to get mauled by the bigger Ishikawa, and it does feel a bit like that with Nagao eating a big beating and unable to get Ishikawa off his feet etc, but Nagao ends up surviving much longer than expected and getting bigger and bigger hits in on Ishikawa including just straight headbutting him in the face, maybe even to the point where I thought it was a little too much as he survived a sick dragon suplex and then the actual finish looked a little weak. Anyways I am nitpicking this match too much, they potatoed the fuck out of each other and it was a really fun opening match, end of story.

Masashi Takeda vs Kosuke Sato

Hey its Kosuke Sato. I enjoyed him when he was in CAPTURE for a hot minute. And look Takeda gets to do shootstyle! This starts with Takeda bullying Sato because Takeda iis a Tamura trainee even 12 years after Style-E so clearly the superior shooter. Sato comes back biting Takedas wrist because despite his chiselled body and boyish looks, he is a filthy BJW boy after all. Takeda ends up bleeding from his ear after grappling. I imagine sudden bleeding has to be a big problem for death match wrestlers in their daily lives. In this case it’s not even just a little smear of blood, its a full on gushing wound that keeps spilling blood. Sato manages to get some comebacks and when he does he hits these cool big leaping dropkicks where he makes sure to kick Takeda right in the head. He hits a lovable messily executed shootstyle bodyslam that is full of struggle and goes to choke Takeda out, with Takedas blood all over his body and even getting in his mouth. Sometimes you just gotta watch some filthy blood drenched gruesome pro wrestling like this. Started out just solid like a BJW or DDT undercard match with shoostyle elements but once they got to the bleeding and gritty fighting it got really great. Takeda is perfectly good as a shooter with cool submissions and sick suplexes, its a pity he gets to do this kind of match only once in a while.

Yuki Ishikawa & Tyson Maeguchi vs Super Tiger II & Tanomusaku Toba - FUN

A fun BattlARTS style midcard tag with some kickboxing mixed in. Ishikawa can still roll out and have cool exchanges with STII just like he did in from 2008-2011 all the time. I thought it was just gonna be a friendly grappling exchange with Ishikawa schooling his opponent and pulling out cool reversals, but then STII dropped a fucking Killer Kowalski level knee on Ishikawas face, making things more intense. Maeguchi basically was all kickboxing, and he does throw some fun combos, him sparring a little with the Tiger was fun, and Toba did his “I am too old for this shit but I can still dodge you and punch you in the face at any time” thing which entertains. The real money match up here is Ishikawa vs Toba which is a real sleazeball shootstyle dream match, unfortunately their exchange lasted only about 30 seconds but it was still nice we got to see that.

Brother Yasshi vs Dan Tamura

First few minutes had some very good amateur-style matwork with Yasshi once again busting out a cool Honda-ish arm takedown and Tamura throwing his opponent around, including hitting a pretty nutso German suplex. Unfortunately the match kind of turned into a mediocre indy match which looks really awkward on a show like this.

Fuminori Abe & Takuya Nomura vs Manabu Hara & Hikaru Sato

I’ll be honest, I thought this was hurt by being overly long, some goofy ropework and I dislike how Abe seems to turn everything into a joke. But fuck that, they decided to beat the fuck out of each other from the get go and the spirit was absolutely there. Lots of fun chaos and hard hitting. Sato coming in and looking like a badass was surprising and great. Hara also always looks great when it’s time kick ass. We get lots of fun chaos and plenty of violent exchanges with some great extended segments towards the end only slightly marred by the weird decision to include some rope running. Sato may have been the best guy in the match, he really comes into his own in this style, really feels like a late blooming for him. Thought the match needed a bit more Nomura and less Abe, Nomuras out of nowhere grittiness is great. This match was a blast, not mindblowingly great, but definitely a blast.

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LLPW Kageki Survival 9/25/1995

 Check it out

Jenn Yukari vs. Keiko Aono

Aono would become an interesting kickpadded worker later on, but she was just a generic rookie here. Yukari is generous giving Aono some credible offense where Aono is able to doge Yukaris attacks and get in some moves before Yukari goes back to squashing her. Though Yukari also almost kills Aono dropping her on her head with suplexes, and spin kicking her in the chin really hard. Apparently the whole thing lasted 11 minutes and Aono probably wished it had been shorter while we only get 4 minutes.

Michiko Omukai vs. Michiko Nagashima

LLPW baby. Insanely gritty and bloody match. Ohmukai, in her fancy dress, goes right after Nagashima banging on her with a chair and they take to the outside. The tide turns quickly though as soon Nagashima is bashing Omukais face. Nagashima spends like a good 5 minutes dropping Omukais face into chairs, banging on her face with what looks like a metal bolt, hitting her in the face with a chain etc. Omukai is soon bleeding like mad and spitting blood. They work the rest of the match like a lucha bloodbath with narrow turns of events, Omukai trying to slip behind Nagashima and catch a roll up, big epic missed diving moves etc. There’s also some high end joshi moves such as Omukais knees to the back of the head, the suplexes etc. Nagashima was really good when in control, never letting things get stale, kicking ass like a Villano, and I loved the psychotic decisiveness of the finish. This felt like the pro wrestling version of some violent teen drama, really had the vibe of a quiet grungy girl having enough and deciding to stab the prom queen.

Eagle Sawai & Rumi Kazama vs. Shinobu Kandori & Mizuki Endo

 

Short match but they gave their all to make it memorable. Kazama kicks Kandori in the face really hard right at the bell and from that point they are in survival mode. Sawai was like a freight train going after people here. Underdog Endo was great, she was bumping like crazy for Sawai who hits like a truck, and she might actually drop the fall quickly in a sprint like this so whenever she was eating moves it felt like they could actually be the finish. Kandori had her share of trademark badass Kandori moments. I liked Kazama kicking Kandori in the head before trying a flash pin. Finish was great. Really nice stuff.

Super Irregular Handicap Match: Mikiko Futagami vs. Noriyo Tateno & Harley Saito

Uhm… it’s Futagami in an unwinnable handicap match. Futagami got maybe 30 seconds of offense in total, though she actually makes the crowd believe towards the end that should could score a megaupset. Mostly they just kick GAMIs ass though. Tateno was unusually pissed off here, even hitting a nasty knee to the back of the head, she rarely showed that kind of intensity in bigger matches. They continue the beatdown post match laying an unusually violent beating on poor GAMI. More of a test of spirit than anything.

Kurenai Yasha vs. Carol Midori

I like Kurenai a lot and Carol has been fine but this wasn’t a match that holds up super well. It was mostly just your typical joshi stuff, one girl does some moves then the other does some, with a story or epic momentum shifts never really occurring. Yasha would do some moves and control a little and then Midori would come back usually with a single reversal and then do some moves of her own without much hardship. Midori had the more technical/high flying moves while Yasha was the more rough edged one though the match never became an all out brawl. It had some hints of chippiness here and there but nothing to push it to the next level. The finishing run was exciting with both of them busting out some bigger flashier moves though nothing that will blow you away if you are familiar with them both. I imagine this would’ve looked cool on a random 90s joshi comp if you’ve never seen them, but the Kurenai superfan in me wanted her to just bust Carol in the head with her staff.

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