Takeshi Ono Documentation Project #15

 Takeshi Ono vs. Katsumi Usuda, BattlARTS 5/31/1996 - GREAT

This was 5 minutes of seriously competitive shootstyle. Basically like another take on the grappling match these two had in 2001, but with strikes. Ono didn't have the gloves yet, but was a tenacious grappler. His hair as also amazing. Usuda battered himself early on with nasty kicks and knees but Ono made himself respected. Some pretty great stuff here, including Ono hitting a monster german suplex, or eating a backhand from Usuda only to pick him up and slam him. Great finish. These two always make the most out of every given second.

Takeshi Ono vs. Katsumi Usuda, BattlARTS 8/31/1996 - FUN

These two always wrestle a different match against each other. Ono has the gloves here, and both guys are barefoot. There are some brief moments where Ono tries to punch Usuda out but this was mostly grappling. Really really slick stuff. Only 4 minutes where shown and I would love to see the whole thing because it looked like another goodie. Absolutely worth checking out the grappling here, though.

Takeshi Ono vs. Daisuke Ikeda, BattlARTS 9/1/1996 - FUN

Only 4 minutes shown, but it was 4 minutes of that sweet BattlARTS action we all crave. You get some smooth matwork, Ikeda suplexing scrawny Ono around, and some brutal near KOs. Pretty much a short highlight reel of what these guys can do, and these are two of the best Japanese wrestlers ever so it was really cool. Especially dug Ono unloading the punches and a jumping knee, as well as Ikeda trying to make him throw up with a nasty spin kick to the stomach.

Takeshi Ono vs. Mr. Sakai, BattlARTS 8/12/2001 - FUN

Mr. Sakai is a sleazy indy lucharesu guy and I assume he owns the ring or something and that‘s why gets to go even with Ono. There was some actually really cool lucha vs. Shootstyle matwork here. Mr. Sakai looked more sloppy in the standing sections but Ono did what was needed and punched him hard in the face.

Takeshi Ono vs. Super Rider, BattlARTS 1/7/2001 - FUN

More fun junior/shootstyle hybrid wrestling. Ono mostly just brutalized Rider here, who came up up with some fun counters. Rider kind of blew 1 or 2 spots but Ono is so good both dishing out offense, as well as putting over and countering his opponents offense that it doesn‘t matter. And Rider had the guts to take more punches and kicks from Ono than his usual opponents.

TAKESHI ONO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT

Assorted DDT World

Super Uchu Power vs. DAISAKU (DDT 2/28/1999)

DAISAKU is a kickboxer dude who has worked CAPTURE, so can handle himself against a stiff monster. Doesn't matter though cause S.U. Power just crushes him. Daisaku puts on a good fight but is put to sleep in about 3 minutes. Very brief but very painful looking. Amazing promo after the match and Super Uchu Power struts away as the theme from Terminator 2 blasts from the speakers. All hail the Super Cosmic Force!

MIKAMI vs. Yuki Nishino (DDT 3/25/1998)

Younger years Mikami really was something. His combination of sudden athletic bursts, grappling and willingness to exchange manly assbeatings made for a quite compelling wrestler. Nishino is an SPWF guy with a crazy mullet who works kind of like a sleazy Finlay. He keeps it simple, and puts a major assbeating on Mikami, hitting some sick headbutts, chops and lariats, and Mikami cracks him back hard on the occasion, and sometimes he will hit a huge powerslam or suplex. In a different universe Nishino had Tomohiro Ishiis career. This was simple and to the point and a really fun undercard match built around two guys crushing each other until one stayed down.

 

MIKAMI vs. Takashi Sasaki, DDT 12/22/1999 

Cool, somewhat experimental junior style big match. This was Mikami as a slick junior before he started the Ladder thing, here he was just as prone to bust out slick armbar transitions aswell as fast springboard huracanranas. I really liked how they started out simple working headlocks and hammerlocks and slowly morphed into more tricked out stuff. Mikami looks damn good, technically sound and unpredictable on the mat, while pre-deathmatch kickpadded Sasaki is a perfectly good second rate Ikeda spin kicking him in the throat. The match turns into a style mix where they land stiff kicks and work flash armbars building towards AJPW style headdrops and Mikamis big flying moves. It's pretty much the ideal indy style match as they take from various styles and produce something that feels sound and fresh. The finishing run is great as they just kill eachother. Not only do they bust out the big moves, but there's also some thudding strike exchanges. When a springboard dropkick and lariat feel just as deadly as the big Emerald Frosion style finisher the execution is on point. Really cool to check this out, I would really like this type of indy wrestling to make a comeback. 

Sanshiro Takagi & Kazushige Nozawa vs. Super Uchu Power & Super Rider, DDT 3/25/1997

Out of the ruins of Pro Wrestling Crusader, a new creature emerges. Who would've thought Takagi and Nozawa would control Japanese wrestling 20 years later? And it all began with them absolutely getting their asses beat by a pair of space monsters. This was just a merciless beatdown. Takagi and Nozawa have some fire, but are outgunned. Rider has some crappy junior moves, but is good hen he is kicking the shit out of people. And Super Uchu Power was just a fearsome menace here. Always trying to pop peoples jaws with kicks and lariats or hammering them into the mat with big throws and slams. Not a pretty match, but it felt like a fight and got pretty visceral the more Takagi and Nozawa ate shit.

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation Project #12

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Yukio Sagakuchi (DDT 11/15/2019) - FUN

This was from a martial arts tournament which in style of modern DDT had a lot of silly buggers going on. Toba is an old man now and he moves a little slower. This was just a 2 minute match but there was still a really fun punch exchange and a cool finish with Toba sidestepping his higher ranked opponent and blasting him for the upset win so it’s pushed into FUN territory.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. HARASHIMA (DDT 11/15/2019) - FUN

This was the finals of the tournament. It was just a 6 minute match (probably a good think considering Toba has a gut now and looks alcoholic) with the first 3 minutes being slow anticipating moments, but the last 3 are fun enough with Toba uncorking another nasty load of potatoes in the corner and a cool finish where Harashima somehow springboard dives into a leglock which Toba frantically tries to fight out of so Harashima giant swings into a boston crab for the tap. That kind of struggle is always going to get a match on my good side.

 

Tanomusaku Toba & Takashi Sasaki & Nihao vs. Asian Cougar & Super Rider & Yuki Nishino, DDT 11/25/1999 - GREAT

Another very good early DDT tag. BattlARTS level stiffness mixed with crushing junior highspots. Plenty of brutal spinkicks. Nihao and Rider had some cool exchanges here. Both guys have lineage to Sayama with Rider being a Shooto guy and Nihao being trained by Kitahara who was Sayamas student. Nishino works like a pro wrestling crowbar and he had some really fun exchanges with Toba. He also hulked up during an attempted 3 on 1 section which was a rare macho moment in Japanese wrestling that actually meant something and was cool. Also, as usual, Cougars legdrops were just insane. The match needed more extended Toba sections to push into epic territory, but he was the Toba we all know and love.

 

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

PWC BORN AGAIN 5/9/1996

 Motherfucking Pro Wrestling Crusaders. Full show is here

Sanshiro Takagi vs. Hiroshi Watanabe

Unto all things… a beginning! Takagi would go on to conquer Japanese wrestling in the next 2 decades. Watanabe remained hidden in the underworld. They are both mere black trunks wearing rookies here, although they have a solid black trunks rookie match. Watanabe has kickpads and both guys crack each other hard with some shots and Watanabe hits a really nice dropkick. Single leg crab ends it because that is how these things go.

Super Judist vs. Raioh

I think Super Judist may be Black Hole. He is a tubby guy in a judo gi with a mask. What gives? Raioh has the cool “singlet and taped feet” look and sumo rushes the Judist at one point. This was a fun if inconsequential big boy tumbling match that lasted about 6 minutes. Raioh hits an Ace Crusher of all things but Judist completely no sells it. Judist was putting on cool submissions on Raioh the whole match and he wins with a really cool facelock and armlock move.

Kazushige Nozawa vs. Masakazu Nagase

A singlet wearing Nozawa completely steamrolls Nagase, choking him out within seconds. TAMA mastermind Kancho Nagase deserved better.

Uchu Power X vs. Super Rider

It’s alien shootstyle, baby. I think this is Koichiro Kimura under the Uchu Power mask. This was a completely straight grappling match. They didn’t even do any floor brawling like I’ve seen them do in West Japan and DDT, and there were only one or two vicious strikes from the alien. Other than that, this was all guys in poncho and freaky masks scrambling for chokes and heel hooks. Rider looked good tenaciously grappling with his bigger opponent. Cool match and I wish we had more alien shootstyle.

Blue Panther & Fuerza Guerrera vs. Hijo del Santo & El Sharak

El Sharak was a guy in a ninja costume. I am guessing he was a Japanese guy that PWC was going to push, because he was the focus of this match, although he looked a bit amateurish here and there and blew some spots. The other guys could have a good match in their sleep though and all their stuff was super on point. No matwork sadly but they were there to pop the crowd, and that they did.

Hiroshi Shimada vs. Shogun KY Wakamatsu

Weird match. Wakamatsu is the guy with the hat who managed the Strong Machines in NJPW and various monsters on the indy scene. He was an IWE guy who came back to pro wrestling in SWS and then just kind of stuck around in these sleaze indies. He would hit lots of eccentric offense, chokes, throat jabs etc. He controlled basically the entire match and it really wasn’t very good. There was also some chaos around Uchu Power X being Wakamatsus second at ringside and more random guys interferring. I guess it upholds the sleaze factor but I I thought Shimada, who apparently was the PWC World Champion at this point (raising even more questions about PWC than I had before) deserved better.

Shunji Takano & BATMAN (Great Sasuke) vs. Great Zebra & Gran Naniwa

I have no idea who this Great Zebra guy is. Maybe George Takano? This was a pretty fun match where everyone had their working boots on. We start with a cool 5 minute stretch of matwork which was neat. Sasuke and Naniwa worked hard for their paychecks here. Sasuke in the 90s is such a guy where even when he is kind of mailing it in he looks like a high end pro wrestler. Takano didn’t brutalize anyone, but he showed he could go. You can say a lot about the whackiness of sleaze companies like PWC, but there was lots of good serious pro wrestling on this card.

THE LIBRARY

West Japan Pro Wrestling 6/21/1995

 West Japan Pro Wrestling was a promotion founded inspired by the success of Michinoku Pro, bringing in some unique masked gimmicks while utilizing the tried and true cast of 90s Japan sleaze characters. They also had a shootstyle division. The promotion was struggling since they had no main draws and the outsider workers they hired (ranging from Shunji Takano to Poison Sawada) kept leaving. Not much of this promotion is around, so the little that is there is worth analysis. And this commercial tape gave us one of my all time favourite indy sleaze matches

Masahiko Kochi vs. Kenichi Kawasaki

Kochi is a thick, kickpadded SPWF boy. Kawasaki is also very thick, mulleted and kickpadded. They work a quasi-shootstyle match which is sadly clipped down to them kicking each other hard before a flash finish occurs.

Guerrero Diablo vs. Toyonari Fujita

Guerrero Diablo went on to become the even less originally named DIABLO, Aztecas longtime arch enemy in the KAGEKI promotion. I think he was trained in Mexico and he was rocking a very cool 90s lock here with a sleazy mask, black T-shirt and shorts. Toyonari Fujita is of course, the man of a thousand masks mostly known as Magnitude Kishiwada. This was also clipped and I really would've liked the whole thing. Fujita gives Diablo the business with chairs, both guys have ridiculous distance on their flying moves, and Fujita hit these cool bridging suplex before the time limit ran out. Yeah, they went broadway~! I love me a sleaze indy broadway. Still hoping out for a handheld of this to appear.

Dokugas Mask vs. Crusher Takahashi

Dokugas Mask is Survival Tobita in a gas mask. He does this awesome entrance where he storms through the crowd with a blowtorch. Eat your heart out, Leatherface! We got about 1 minute of the match but it was 1 minute of Takahashi throwing nice punches and Mask hitting some cool headbutts. Crusher Takahashis Terry Funk worship act is really cool.

Koichiro Kimura & Hopper King vs. Black Hole & Fumio Akiyama

A bunch of legit martial artists and strange masked gimmicks step up to work a more surrealist BattlARTS match. Lots of nasty potatoes and credible shootstyle exchanges. Black Hole was  inspiring - a fat dude with a genuinely cool mask, clubbing Vader like blows and judo throws. Hopper King is Super Rider and doesn't hold back with the kicks. Most importantly this had the kind of chippy fighting that elevates pro wrestling. Loved how Kimura wouldn't accept Akiyama breaking up his submission attempts. Then Kimura tried tooling Black Hole only to get rocked by those swinging fists. Even the crowd brawling was fun and the finish absolutely nasty. This was everything. 

 Masaru Toi & Hiroshi Hatanaka & Mitsunobu Kikuzawa vs. Shigeo Okumura & Kenshiro Yukimura & Hiroshi Shimada

We get about 5 minutes of a 21 minute match :( What was shown looked like a fun SWS tag with lumpy guys potatoeing each other, hitting cool power moves and being generally brawl-happy. Really liked Kikuzawas big wipe-out dive aswell as the gorilla press from tiny Kenshiro Yukimura. Hatanaka is the SWS veteran and he was stiffing everyone in this path. The finish is a crossbody from the top and that rules.

Flag Death Match: Mitsuteru Tokuda vs. Poison Sawada

Flag match means they just had to drape their opponents flag over them to pin them. Poison Sawada was doing his evil facepainted Vietnamese Ho Death (or Des) Minh gimmick here. I've been unsatisfied with much of what I've seen from Sawada in this era but this match hid his problems well. It was just a straight up brawl where Tokuda was juicing immediately and they went to town on each other with chairs and tables. Tokuda had one or two cool martial arts moves which is enough for me to like him. But you can tell their intention was to impress the audience with those table bumps. Ho Death Minh was super over and drawing chants, even though he was playing an evil foreigner gimmick. I guess cool facepainted guy wins over martial arts guy in black pants #48. This was under the 10 minutes but they showed the whole thing and it was a fun way to cap off the show.

THE LIBRARY

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #4

Tanomusaku Toba & Super Rider & Neo Winger vs. Phantom Funakoshi & Exciting Yoshida & Yuki Nishino (DDT 12/22/1999) - GREAT

Wonderful matchup, the kind that exemplifies the charm of 90s indy sleaze. Everyone here is a unique character with their own style, and they mesh really well. Rider was in his goofy Seikendo suit and working a mix between highflyer and submission wrestler while almost knocking himself out on dives, Funakoshi a mysterious MUGAesque technician, Exciting Yoshida a goofy IWE tribute heel, and of course our boxing gloved hero Toba. Toba really is the MVP in this match potatoeing everybody and always getting the best out of everyone, when you are facing Toba you are guaranteed to get punched in the face, so everyone fires back with unusual piss and vinegar. I especially loved Nishino crushing him with sick running headbutts. Phantom Funakoshi always looks like a real worker in these matches, working fun MUGA vs. Seikendo exchanges against Super Rider and channeling Fujiwara when he was facing Toba, I’d love to see more of him. Exciting Yoshida was a bit weird, he kept trying to no-sell Toba and getting punched and spin kicked in the face, and also did a bunch of banana peel heel spots, then again he also worked a sick headbutt exchange at one point so I can’t hate the guy. There’s also more shootstyle floor brawling involving Toba and a crafty finish between Super Rider and Funakoshi. Neo Winger blew, but wasn’t in the match much. Really everything you can ask for from a match up full of random indy dudes from forgotten sleaze feds (how often do you get Nihei Gumi, Seikendo, DDT and SPWF representatives in one match?).

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI & Kengo Takai vs. Masahiko Orihara & Neo Iceman & Onryo (DDT 1/30/2000) - FUN

This had some shady guys typical of DDT at the time. Masahiko Orihara is a Masao Orihara clone in a goofy mask, and kind of wrestles like a poor mans Masao Orihara, while Neo Iceman looks like a guy who forgot his wrestling gear so he enters the ring in street clothes and a random mask they had lying around. Both guys were okay though, aside from one funny moment where Orihara went for an RVD move and fell on his head. Takai was in the rookie underdog role and kind of rough, he blew his clothesline and dropkick, how the hell can you not hit your clothesline and dropkick when you’re a japanese rookie? That said Toba had an awesome moment where he came in and worked over Neo Iceman with stiff blows, and I continue to leave young MIKAMI, he gets good exchanges out of everyone and when he’s throwing out highspots he’s just crushing dudes. Onryo was good but these two carried the show. Kind of an undercard tag with some rough and some nice moments, but I had fun.

Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. GENTARO & YOSHIYA (DDT 11/30/2001) - EPIC

Great great match, a true hidden hidden gem. Even knowing that Toba can be really great, MIKAMI being pretty good around this time and GENTARO very talented, this far exceeded expectations. Mostly because the psychology in the match was super, and everyone played their role to perfection. MIKAMI comes into this with a cast on his wrist, and he does a really great almost Misawa-ish wounded ace performance here. He really sold that shit to absolute perfection, being wary of it the entire match, being unable to follow up his own moves etc. Toba is great here throwing wild strikes, and then GENTARO & YOSHIYA swoop in with a fantastic Anderson Brothersesque performance isolating Toba. These guys were really zoning in on Tobas leg, and while the legwork wasn’t sold in a major way (the main story was Mikamis wrist) it was really good and Toba got ragdolled hard, he is so tiny that even something like a Shinbreaker can be made to look brutal. Thought Gentaro looked just amazing here, and Yoshiya was fun as a Taue-ish big dude booting peoples heads off and acting like a dick. Toba punching Yoshiyas lights out was really fun, and then we get to the awesome finish. Really tremendous stuff, it’s insane how things like this fell under the rug when this kind of smart+brutal pro wrestling is a direction Japanese wrestling should’ve kept going in.

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Shinjuku Shark (Apache Pro 12/30/2007) - GREAT

Shinjuku Shark is a boxer who has been working sleaze indy shows since forever. With his shaggy hair and lanky frame, he looks kinda like Tobas dad. But he never had a big run in any promotion, mostly doing sleazy shit in promotions like FMW, while Toba at least has a series of DDT main events to his name, not to mention that Shark can’t use his feet. Shark is essentially the underdog here and Toba dominates him early until Shark is able to down with him with a big surprise punch. After that it’s like the last 5 minutes of an epic FUTEN match with both guys trading big combos and Shark mostly coming back using his toughness and puncher’s chance. You don’t really expect much from a match involving two boxing gloved guys but I actually ended up wanting this to go longer.

TANOMUSAKU TOBA DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Tanomusaku Toba Documentation #1

Tanomusaku Toba & Takashi Sasaki vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Super Rider, DDT 4/19/2000 - EPIC

Here's your 2000 indy MOTY. No kidding, this was just awesome and shockingly better put together than you'd expect. Really makes me wish there was more footage of the DDT crew doing BattlARTS style matches. I liked the opening matwork between Sasaki and Rider a lot. It felt very raw and unrehearsed, but they still whip out some cool transitions. Watching Sasaki here made me extra sour he spent the rest of his career as a go-through-the-motions bleeder because his stuff was inspired and he hit everything with a lot of snap. He looked like a rich mans Yuji Nagata here, a slick pro style wrestler who can hang doing stiff shootstyle. Ishii was in CAPTURE mode here - basically trying to crush his opponents with every single move he did. He opens this with one of the nastiest lariats I've ever seen against skinny thaiboxer Toba and basically doesn't let up after that. Even his basic "throw guy into corner to set up a tag" looked really violent. Toba is the DDT guy who works as basically a boxer which works very well in this kind of sleaze shootstyle match. He does exactly what you want, by punching guys in the face hard a lot and getting ragdolled around. I was also really impressed with Super Rider here - he made some brief Sasaki legwork that could easily have been filler compelling by selling vulnerability. He would then shoot for takedowns and submissions to protect himself, and also maul opponents on the ground. I also loved his Volk Han like ragdoll throw on poor Toba. The Ishii/Sasaki pro style section was probably the weakest point in the match but still had enough neck compression and potatoe shots to keep you entertained, with Sasaki doing some cool things that he would later drop - presumably because his athleticism declined. I liked how Ishii, when reversing a basic suplex, immediately went for the kill by dropping Sasaki on his head. The finish is between Super Rider and Takashi Sasaki, which is a match up only the most hardcore tape nerds (i.e. me) would anticipate and it totally delivers with Rider whipping out some genuinely awesome reversals.

So there you have it, great ultra stiff quasi-shootstyle action that was actually well put together while retaining some of that sleazy underbelly of pro wrestling rawness. Maybe a low end nomination when it comes to all-timer discussion, but golly I loved checking this out. The whole thing is on the DDT Universe streaming service. 

 Tanomusaku Toba & MIKAMI vs. Takashi Sasaki & Sanshiro Takagi, DDT 4/20/2000 - EPIC

Another wonderful slice of DDT pro wrestling with touches of BattlARTSian greatness. This wasn't quasi-shootstyle like the tag from the night before, altough it's still quite the stiff-fest. No idea what went into Takagi here, because he has an unusually mean edge and decides to work a rough no nonsense style, even approximating a poor mans Otsuka in his sections against Toba. Speaking of Toba, I think he is a guy mostly everyone with a little japan wrestling knowledge knows as the fun boxing guy from DDT, but is it crazy to say he might actually be an underappreciated indy great? All the involving him where once again manly as fuck and he mixed in some cool unique spots aswell as taking punishment and setting himself up as a foil to make Sasaki & Takagi look badass. Loved his crazy flying apron kick. Mikami was the weak link but still pretty good. He threw some poor punches which especially stick out in a match with Toba in it, but he also had some insane bumps and dives and hit some 2000 sleaze indy level brutal looking high spots, such as a rib crunching twisting senton. All the reckless looking headdrops – which basically saw Takagi muscling Mikami up and driving him headfirst into the mat were pretty nasty too. Sasaki once again handles himself in this kind of stiff main event. Brilliant finish. Crazy to see the DDT crew at one point did a stiff heavyweight potatoefest as good as anyone else. 

Tanomusaku Toba vs. Takashi Sasaki, DDT 1/30/2000 - EPIC

Awesome CAPTURE-esque spectacle. All the strikes were just brutal and the shootstyle floor brawling a suitably crazy moment. I wasn't sure how Toba would work in this kind of main event singles match but the whole thing comes out fine. He certainly knows how to throw that spinning backfist as an exclamation point. Sasaki muscling Toba around to drop him on his head was suitably gritty. The series of violent strike exchanges and Sasaki throwing jaw loosening lariats was close to any Ishikawa/Ikeda raining hell end run I've seen, not just due to the stiffness but also due to the excellent sense of timing and Tobas sympathetic selling. Stiff as fuck brawl, DDT should go back to this stuff.

Takeshi Ono Documentation #2

 Takeshi Ono vs. Wataru Sakata (RINGS 12/24/1994) - FUN

This is Takeshi Onos earliest match on tape and supposedly his 2^nd match ever (probably not true). Wataru Sakata was only 3 fights into his career at this point. 7 or so years later this would’ve been a great battle of dickhead shooters, in december of 1994 it was a fun undercard grappling match between two rookies in spaced out neon trunks and kickpads. The match was worked like a size mismatch with Sakata dominating through his size while Ono had to stick to slipping underneath. Some nice mat scrambles, and I really dug all of Onos throw attempts which he chained into rolling legbars, he has no chance of throwing Sakata but he can use them to hopefully set up a nasty leg submission. Wataru Sakata wasn’t as much of a dickhead as later in U-Style and ZERO1, but he did get a warning for kicking Ono on the ground also did some nasty face grinding. He also had a really fun finish where he just yanked into an armbar. You kind of have to be a grappler yourself to appreciate this kind of match and I definitely felt that forearm to the jaw choke attempt and that heavy north south position before the finish.

Takeshi Ono vs. Tanomusaku Toba (BattlARTS 10/14/2001) - FUN

The sorry motherfuckers at Samurai TV only showed us about 30 seconds of this dream matchup. Still, we get to watch them trade awesome punches and a cool finish where Ono does a Gannosuke Clutch into an armbar which is enough for me to list this was FUN.

Takeshi Ono & Hiroyoshi Kotsubo vs. Carl Greco & Super Rider (BattlARTS 8/25/2001) - EPIC

We get about 10 minutes of an undercard which was thankfully centered around the Takeshi Ono vs. Carl Greco exchanges. That is a million dollar matchup and they were absolutely awesome here. Holy fucking hell I’ve said it before, but to reiterate: Carl Greco was a bloody wrestling machine. He always fights like a devil, never a lazy moment, and his technique is something else. His exchanges with Ono were awesome as he would try to grapple and Ono would just target him with brutal strikes including some insane sliding leg kicks and sprint across the ring knee in the face. Ono is an assault machine even in these undercard tags, he never throws a strike that doesn’t connect with a nasty thud. Rider & Kotsubo manage to not suck as they tag in and the finish is up to Greco and Ono and it is short but sweet, with both guys busting out super fast slick counters and just blasting each other with near KO strikes. Awesome stuff, love Ono, love Carl Greco, love BattlARTs.

Takeshi Ono vs. Daisuke Ikeda (FUTEN 9/26/2010) - EPIC

4 MINUTES 27 SECONDS! I must've have watched this match a dozen times, and it never stops being awesome. They just THROW DOWN and the world explodes. Awesome savage punch exchanges, general recklessness, Ikeda going for any weird move he can think of, while still keeping a general sense of defensiveness/evading. The counterwork is just stellar. The selling is sublime, and kind of different - guys would get hit, and sell he trauma of getting hit, but straighten themselves out and stop themselves from buckling "DAMN he got me good... but I'm not going down now, fuck you", like you would when the adrenaline is rushing, and then swing back and try to crush the other guy. Most matches are lucky to have 1 or 2 great moments. I counted 4 great moments in the first 35 seconds of this.

 

TAKESHI ONO DOCUMENTATION PROJECT MASTER LIST

Takeshi Ono Documentation #1

   Takeshi Ono vs. Katsumi Usuda, BattlARTS 4/13/1997 - GREAT

This was right before Takeshi Ono joined Masao Orihara to form the sleazy superduo of the Tonpachi Machine Guns. Ono and Usuda had a damn great match in 2010 (review to come), and this was also a damn great match and a more grandiose finishing stretch away from being on the level of the 2010 match. Basically straight shootstyle full of intense mat scrambles and Ono attacking as a dangerous striker with kicks and knees on the ground. Usuda kind of took a backseat in this match and let Ono dictate the bout, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Some really brutal leglocks in this that seemed to be broken short of popping someones knee. There was an especially violent moment near the end where Usuda went for another break and Ono tried to kick his leg out of his leg in frustration. It builds to a series of near finishes with Ono continueing to force breaks and being super close to scoring the upset until Usuda is able to score a nifty counter and put him away with a quick flurry of devastating strikes.

 
Takeshi Ono vs. Super Rider, BattlARTS 6/2/2001 - GREAT

Super fun 7 minute undercard match full of slick mat scrambles and stiff blows. Super Rider sucks when he's doing pro style, but he looks really good doing straight shootstyle exchanges. His submissions are a bit different to what the BattlARTS crew usually does and it makes for a fun contrast. All of his submission counters were great. Ono was of course fantastic demolishing him with slick strikes. He also did some crazy sharp, brief work on the leg. It makes me sad though that a wrestler as good as Ono was jobbing like this to a no name outsider in 2001.

Takeshi Ono & Yuki Ishikawa vs. Daisuke Ikeda & Katsumi Usuda, FUTEN 12/19/2010 - EPIC

Uhm... it's these guys fighting eachother for 25 minutes in 2010 FUTEN. We get lot of really good exchanges throughout and an incredibly violent finishing run. The broken down version of Ishikawa/Ikeda is a pretty great matchup in itself, as all their exchanges have this continually exhausted Lawler/Mantell feel. Ishikawa was the far superior grappler by this point and would catch in Ikeda in all kinds of neat submissions, while Ikeda would come through with something incredibly stiff once in a while. It's a testament to Ikedas selling ability that even knowing he can take absolutely insane punishment he can make you believe he was seeing stars after a simple sleeper hold. Ikeda would also keep the grappling violent by just fishhooking Ishikawa repeatedly. Ono was incredible here and may have been the best guy in the match (and the world) at this point. He came across as this super dangerous striker early on (even in a match that has Daisuke Ikeda in it), pounding dudes really violently, flying stomps on the ground. The finishing run is between him and Usuda and it's just this amazing dangerous striker vs. Counter specialist matchup. The cool thing is Ono was avoiding all of Usudas signature spots but Usuda would still catch him, all while fighting for his life. Ono would go for a full force stomp that would likely cave Usudas face in only for Usuda to slip and lock in a submission. Increasingly violent saves were pretty gnarly with Usuda and Ono taking some sick headbutts and kicks while entangled in leglocks. Also, Onos lightning fast submissions were amazing.

 

TAKESHI ONO DOCUMENTATION MASTER LIST