Dradition 2016 First ~ Battle Invitation 3/29/2016

 

Nobuyuki Kurashima vs. Sanshu Tsubakichi

I’m a Kurashima fan. He has a few things he does very well, and he sticks to that. He will always do some cool matwork, engage in scrappy hard hitting, and occasionally throw a hefty suplex or drop his opponent on their head. This match didn’t have a suplex for some reason but it Kurashima adding some cool touches to the matwork such as pushing his foot into Tsubakichis face, grinding his knee into the shoulder while working an armlock etc. The scrappy hard hitting was fun too, with Tsubakichi eating a nasty headbutt early on, throwing some cool punches to the body and hitting some kicks that left Kurashimas head bouncing. Very gritty and simplistic opener so it was just the right thing.

Kazuhiro Tamura vs. CHANGO

Decent undercard action that needed a bit more matwork. It’s DRADITION, you gotta hit the mat. Tamura was coasting, but Changos scuzzy technical heel act is cool enough to carry the match. His cradles were awesome and also extremely well timed. Tamura really needed to do some matwork in this.

Seiya Sanada vs. LEONA

Surprisingly a very good match. Crowd was invested in this and they worked a bunch of basic exchanges at a nice pace building to some cool nearfalls over basic moves like a double arm suplex. LEONA did some pretty cool wrestling, I really liked the way he set up a dragon screw into a Figure 4 which felt meaningful, and his pins and cradles were really good. Sanada mostly served as an overdog to LEONA, he had some nice european uppercuts and one really slick sequence into a springboard move. I also really liked the cheekiness of him going for Dragon Sleepers on Fujinamis kid. Very worthwhile undercard match.

Kengo Mashimo & Daisuke Sekimoto vs. Mitsuya Nagai & Super Tiger II

Pretty fun match where every part was good and everybody was working really stiff and exciting. Mashimo had a good showing, really pelting people with his kicks and knees, his segment against STII was pretty good and had some really really good leg attack stuff. I liked Sekimoto fine and Nagai was fired up kicking people hard and even going after Sekimoto with a chair at one point which generated good head and buzz.

Taka Kunou vs. Masakazu Funaki

Kunou low key rules, he has that grubby tough old grappler charisma similar to someone like Osamu Kido. Funaki can’t be arsed to do more than the bare minimum but he brings some presence and something for Kunou to overcome, plus almost anything is a plausible finish. Very defensive and cagey bout early on with neither guy giving an inch as they worked some simple matwork. It builds to a really good explosion in the last few minutes mostly due to Kunou, who hits an awesome headbutt and the most awesome suplex while surviving more from Funaki than you expect. Dope shit, very far from a workrate classic but very intense and satisfying pro wrestling that feels real.

 

Tatsumi Fujinami & Hiro Saito vs. Jun Akiyama & Yuma Aoyagi

Solid if slightly short main event to close out a good card. Fujinami/Akiyama exchanges were built around both guys resisting the others signature moves in cool ways and I would've liked to see more of that. Nice to see even fossilized Hiro Saito can still hit a gnarly senton.  Aoyagi was just a rookie here and soon dutifully ate the fall.

 

The Library

Matches from IGF 8/9/2007 worth watching

Watch

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Atsushi Sawada

As usual Ishikawa has the best match on the show against a young Sawada in his first match ever. Tough match where Ishikawa mostly beats the shit out of Sawada with brutal kicks and stomach punches, one absolutely disgusting headbutt included. Sawada is big and burly, he swings hard and he has one or two great looking at-will suplexes on Ishikawa. There was less matork than in other Ishikawa matches, but he twisted Sawada into ridiculous ground octopus stretch at one point. Finish was ridiculous as Ishikawa was caving Sawadas face in. It looked like Sawada would power out of the following sleeper but then just went out on his face. Gritty rookie punishment stuff and another night where Ishikawa ruled.

Tom Howard vs. Alexander Otsuka

Tom Howard is kind of a quirky great wrestler. In this match he has a boxing glove on one hand which adds to his goofiness. But the stuff he does looks cool and he's unpredictable. He hits a great trust kick then locks on a random forearm choke that you totally buy might put Otsuka to sleep because IGF undercard matches are weird and it fits Howards character. I also really liked his trip to  counter Otsukas giant swing. Otsuka had a great triangle rana over the fucking rope and hit his big suplex on the big foreigner. I think this went 6 minutes and was a great bizarro world WCWSN match.

WAKASHOYO vs. Erik Paulson

It's MMA and grappling pioneer Erik Paulson against a sumo. LOVE INOKIS BOOKING! Wakashoyo is fun here, pummeling Paulson around and not holding back with his palm strikes. He also hit this huge slam that was really cool. Paulson looks like he would do well in a shootstyle fed, his grappling is very neat and he got some fun takedowns on the big fat guy. Cool finish. I think this lasted 2 and a half minutes.

Kazuhiro Hamanaka vs. Taka Kunou

Wrestling vs. Judo grappling match done almost like a spotfest. Hamanaka has really nice throws and Kunou has a really great flying armbar and STO, and they match up very well and Kunou produces a cool finish. This lasted slightly longer than 3 minutes.

Michiyoshi Ohara vs. Kevin Randleman

It's the MMA legend Randleman against Tatsutoshi Goto underling Michiyoshi Ohara. Ohara gives his all here and they have a scrappy match fighting clinches and beating on each other. Ohara spits on Randleman and Randleman has ridiculously fast shots and damn near kills Ohara with a gigantic suplex. Then Ohara wins it with his awesome running headbutts! This went close to 4 minutes.