Continueing to go through Sportiva Twitcastings

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

More Sportiva Twitcastings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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